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Bitcoin-Long-Term-Trend-and-Price-Prediction-Dataset

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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 2021-10-06] BTC Price: 55361.45, BTC RSI: 70.74 Gold Price: 1760.50, Gold RSI: 47.16 Oil Price: 77.43, Oil RSI: 66.31 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Why Vivos Therapeutics Shares Are Soaring Today: Vivos Therapeutics(NASDAQ:VVOS) is surging higher today after the company announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted 510(k) market clearance to its mmRNA device for treating mild to moderate OSA, sleep-disordered breathing and snoring in adults. The FDA clearance paves the way for expanded insurance reimbursement coverage for the mmRNA device. “The FDA’s market clearance of Vivos’ newest device, the mmRNA appliance, represents a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to provide the best possible treatment for people who continue to suffer needlessly from OSA, a debilitating condition that causes or contributes to a wide range of chronic health issues,” saidKirk Huntsman, chairman and CEO of Vivos Therapeutics. Vivos Therapeutics is a medical technology company focused on developing and commercializing innovative diagnostic and treatment modalities for patients suffering from sleep-disordered breathing. Price Action:Vivos Therapeutics has traded as high as $14.41 and as low as $2.61 over a 52-week period. At last check Monday, the stock was up 64.80% at $6.33. See more from Benzinga • Click here for options trades from Benzinga • Why This Investor Says 'Wild Price Action To The Upside' Is Coming For Bitcoin • Why Uber And Lyft Shares Are Trading Lower Today © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Why Is Square (SQ) Down 0.2% Since Last Earnings Report?: It has been about a month since the last earnings report for Square (SQ). Shares have lost about 0.2% in that time frame, underperforming the S&P 500. Will the recent negative trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Square due for a breakout? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let's take a quick look at its most recent earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important catalysts. Square Reports Q2 Earnings Square reported second-quarter 2021 adjusted earnings of 66 cents per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 106.3%. Further, the figure rose 266.7% year over year and 60.9% sequentially. Net revenues of $4.68 billion improved 143% from the prior-year quarter. However, the figure declined 7.4% from the previous quarter and missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $5.02 billion. Year-over-year revenue growth was driven by strong momentum across the Cash App ecosystem, which contributed $3.33 billion to net revenues in the reported quarter, up 177% year over year. Solid momentum across bitcoin was the key catalyst. Without bitcoin revenues, net revenues would amount to $1.96 billion, up 87% year over year. Strong growth in transaction, subscription and hardware revenues contributed well to the results. Square witnessed solid traction across the seller ecosystem, which generated $1.31 billion of revenues, up 81% year over year. Accelerating gross payment volume (GPV) drove the results. However, uncertainties related to the pandemic remain concerning. Nevertheless, the company’s strengthening momentum across online channels, sellers and the Cash App is expected to act as tailwinds in the days ahead. Gross Payment Volume GPV in the second quarter amounted to $42.8 billion, up 88% from the year-ago quarter. This was driven by strength across the seller ecosystem. Notably, seller GPV accounted for 90% of the total GPV in the second quarter. Seller GPV was up 86% year over year. The robust performance of the Cash App, which accounted for $4.1 billion of the overall GPV (10%), remained a positive. The figure increased 107% year over year. The card-not-present GPV witnessed year-over-year growth of 41% in the second quarter. Robust online channels, including Square Online, Invoices, Virtual Terminal and eCommerce API, contributed to the upside. Square experienced a strong recovery in its card-present volumes in the reported quarter, owing to rising consumer spending and regional reopenings. Card-present GPV was up 128% from the year-ago quarter. Story continues Top-Line Details Transaction (26.3% of net revenues): The company generated transaction revenues of $1.23 billion, up 80% year over year. Strong seller ecosystem accounted for $1.12 billion of transaction revenues, up 78% year over year. The robust performance of the Cash App contributed $111 million to transaction revenues, up 107% year over year, owing to the rising number of transactions as well as business accounts. Subscription and services (14.6% of revenues): The company generated $685.2 million in revenues from the category, surging 98% from the year-ago quarter. The improvement can be attributed to a strong performance by the Cash App, which contributed $495 million to the category’s top line. The figure was up 83% from the year-ago quarter. Seller ecosystem contributed $151 million to subscription and services revenues, up 101% year over year. Positive contributions from the TIDAL acquisition benefited the top line forthis category. Hardware (0.9% of revenues): Square generated revenues of $43.7 million from thebusiness, up 126% year over year. This was driven by strong unit sales of hardware devices like SquareRegister and Square Terminal. Bitcoin (58.2% of revenues): The company generated revenues of $2.72 billion from thecategory, up significantly from $211.2 million. Square continued to benefit from the bitcoin space, driven by the increasing adoption of the Cash App. Rising bitcoin prices alongwith solid customer demand and increasing bitcoin actives were major positives. Operating Details Per management, gross profit grew 91% from the year-ago quarter to $1.14 billion. However, gross margin contracted 662 basis points (bps) year over year to 24.4%. Adjusted EBITDA was $360 million in the reported quarter, up 268% year over year. Operating expenses were$1.02 billion, jumping 64% from the prior-year quarter. Product development expenses were $327 million, up 57% year over year primarily due to rising headcount and personnel costs in engineering, data science and design teams. General and administrative expenses were $221 million, up 62% from the prior-year quarter. This was primarily caused by finance, legal, compliance and support personnel costs. Sales and marketing costs were $375 million, up 58% year over year due to an increase in Cash App marketing expenses and a hike in advertising, personnel and other costs. Balance Sheet As of Jun 30, 2021, the cash and cash equivalent balance was $4.6 billion, up from $3.02 billion as of Mar 31, 2021. Short-term investments were $1.01 billion in the reported quarter, up from $644.4million in the previous quarter. Long-term debt was $4.8 billion, increasing from $2.9 billion in the previous quarter. How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then? It turns out, estimates review have trended upward during the past month. VGM Scores Currently, Square has a subpar Growth Score of D, however its Momentum Score is doing a lot better with an A. However, the stock was allocated a grade of D on the value side, putting it in the bottom 40% for this investment strategy. Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of D. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in. Outlook Estimates have been trending upward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions looks promising. Notably, Square has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We expect an in-line return from the stock in the next few months. 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 Square, Inc. (SQ) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || e-Money Announces Integration with Elastos Blockchain: European stablecoins eEUR, eCHF, eSEK, eNOK & eDKK issued by e-Money will circulate on the Elastos mainnet! DENMARK / ACCESSWIRE / August 25, 2021 /In Q4, 2021, e-Money is excited to announce that they will be integrating with the Elastos ecosystem. Acceptance of cryptocurrency payments and blockchain technology has exploded in popularity across online platforms and physical assets in recent months, highlighting the need for more stablecoins in other currencies. With their European stablecoins, e-Money has successfully filled that gap. The European stablecoins eEUR, eCHF, eSEK, eNOK & eDKK issued by e-Money will be available on the Elastos open-source network, encouraging more users within the region to join the network and facilitate transactions using their native currencies. This feature will encourage more adoption in the European region as users will feel more confident trading with a currency they are familiar with. Elastos is the world's leading provider of open source solutions, employing blockchain technology and a peer-to-peer network for communication, decentralized data storage services, and a decentralized ID system for all users and digital assets. "We're really excited to work with the Elastos platform to expand the reach of e- Money's European digital currencies. We feel that having European stablecoins will help Elastos in the European region,"said Martin Dyring-Andersen, e-Money CEO, and Founder. "e-Money is a leader in the European blockchain industry and we're looking forward to having e-Money's stablecoins available on the Elastos ecosystem, encouraging a wider range of access to our users throughout all of our solutions",Jochem Herber, co-founder of Elastos Orchard. The inclusion of e-European Money's stablecoins to Elastos' solutions will be a significant improvement, as it will allow for faster integrations with European partners looking for native currency options for the regions they operate in. About e-Money The e-Money protocol is built for the issuance of a range of interest-bearing currency-backed stablecoins reflecting various world currencies. Each token is backed by a reserve of assets denominated in its underlying currency. e-Money currently supports the Euro (EUR), Swiss Franc (CHF), Swedish Krona (SEK), Norwegian Krone (NOK), and the Danish Krone (DKK) with a host of additional currencies pegged for release throughout the year. The project is dedicated to total transparency with quarterly reserve audits performed byErnst & Young. Unlike most existing stablecoins which aim to maintain a static 1:1 peg with their underlying assets, the value of e-Money's currency-backed tokens continually shifts in line with the interest accrued on the reserve assets. This means that holders benefit from the interest accrued on their assets while they sit securely in your wallet. The e-Money blockchain supports instant payments at scale and includes a DEX for easy conversion between currencies. e-Money has already integrated with Ethereum and expects to integrate with Binance Smart Chain, Cosmos Hub, Avalanche, Polygon, and Elrond in 2021. TelegramITwitterILinkedInIGitHub Press Contact: Shalini Wood, email:sw@e-money.com About Elastos Founded in 2017, Elastos is a decentralized community building the blockchain industry's most comprehensive and interoperable open source Web3 platform. Using a hybrid consensus that combines the secure hashpower of Bitcoin and the democratic ideals of Delegated-Proof-of-Stake, the SmartWeb ecosystem of Elastos comprises a suite of software for an entirely decentralized internet. Elastos employs not only blockchain technology, but a peer-to-peer network for communication, decentralized data storage services, a decentralized ID (DID) system for all digital assets and the ability to create smart contracts and unlimited sidechains. Elastos is not only the foundation for securing truly decentralized applications that can scale; it is the foundation for true data ownership. elastOS, the flagship product of the Elastos Smartweb, brings the entire decentralized ecosystem into a single App, currently available for Android and iOS and in development for desktop. Website|Twitter|Telegram SOURCE:e-Money View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/661284/e-Money-Announces-Integration-with-Elastos-Blockchain || Bitcoin Price Prediction – Bulls Struggle to Recapture $48,500 as the Bears Eye sub-$46,000: After a bearish Thursday for Bitcoin and the broader market, it’s been a mixed morning. At the time of writing, Bitcoin , BTC to USD, was down by 1.06% to $47,277.0. A choppy start to the day saw Bitcoin rise to a mid-morning high $48,183.0 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $48,521, Bitcoin slid to a late morning intraday low $47,275.0. In spite of the pullback, Bitcoin steered clear of the first major support level at $47,052. The Rest of the Pack It has been a mixed morning for the broader crypto market. Through the morning, Crypto.com Coin bucked the trend, rising by 0.37%. For the rest of the majors, it’s been a bearish morning. Chainlink was down by 5.38% to lead the way down. Binance Coin (-3.94%), Ethereum (+3.47%), and Polkadot (-4.72%) also saw deep red. Bitcoin Cash SV (-0.21%), Cardano’s ADA (-2.23%), Litecoin (-2.51%) and Ripple’s XRP (-2.86%) also joined Bitcoin in the red, however. Through the early hours, the crypto total market cap rose to an early morning high $2,188bn before falling to a low $2,117bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $2,121bn. Bitcoin’s dominance fell to an early morning low 41.34% before rising to a late morning high 42.04%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 41.96%. For the Afternoon Ahead Bitcoin would need to move back through the $47,791 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $48,521 back into play. Support from the broader market will be needed, however, for Bitcoin to breakout from the morning high $48,183.0. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and resistance at $49,000 would likely pin Bitcoin back. In the event of an extended rally through the afternoon, Bitcoin could test resistance at the 23.6% FIB of $50,473 before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $49,260. Failure to move back through the $47,791 pivot would bring the first major support level at $47,052 into play. Story continues Barring an extended sell-off through the afternoon, however, Bitcoin should avoid sub-$46,000. The second major support level at $46,322 should limit the downside. Looking beyond the support and resistance levels, we saw the 50 EMA narrow on the 100 and 200 EMAs through the late morning. We saw the 100 EMA widen from the 200 EMA, however, providing support. Through the 2 nd half of the day, a widening of the 50 EMA from the 100 and 200 EMAs would bring $50,000 levels. Key through the late morning and early afternoon would be to move back through the day’s $47,791 pivot and revisit $48,500 levels. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: GBP/USD Weekly Price Forecast – British Pound Gives Up Early Gains for The Week Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Continues to Show Buyers on Dips AUD/USD Weekly Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Drifts Lower for the Week Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Continue Bullish Pressure Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Showing Signs of a Top GBP/JPY Weekly Price Forecast – British Pound Has Choppy Week || SAFERmoon is ready to (literally) launch you into space: PHILADELPHIA, PA / ACCESSWIRE / August 12, 2021 /The cryptocurrency sector is on fire. As Bitcoin breaks $46K and Ethereum pushes past $3,000, interest in the industry has never been higher. While there are a multitude of opportunities for those willing to dabble in the altcoin market, one project in particular is making progress that may be able to provide some rocket fuel for the journey. From the folks atSAFERmoon- the project that aims to make the crypto world safer by ridding it of the dreaded 'rug pull' - comes an exciting development update and an end-of-summer spectacular that is sure to get even the most bearish of crypto bears to pay attention. How are they planning to pull this off? By rolling out a bevy of rewards for staking the SAFERmoon token. SAFERmoon launched what they callSAFERsummeron August 10th. This is a giveaway for holders staking SAFERmoon token which has some amazing prizes never before seen in the crypto world - you just need tohead to the #SAFERsummer pageto see what they are! Participating is easy: simply visit theSafermoonGiveaway Landing Page, where you will be directed to stake some SAFERmoon tokens. Theofficial entry requirement tweet herehas more details. To help make this event happen, the team has begun integratingChainlink's VRF(Verifiable Random Function) technology, providing verifiable randomness. Chainlink has far-reaching partnerships with companies likeGoogleand other household-name tech giants. This provides the much-needed legitimacy for such a large giveaway. Each winner will be selected by the provably random system and permanently encoded on the blockchain for all to see. Not only will this help in the immediate future, but using this new technology helps pave the way for future SAFERmoon improvements. In addition to the Chainlink utilization, the development team has created a new staking system specifically for the SAFERmoon token. Combined with their new launchpad system, this creates a level playing field that allows developers of any experience level to launch a rug-free token with 'drag-and-drop' simplicity. For comparison, this functionality is like Squarespace but for cryptocurrency programming. SAFERmoon is not just another token with big promises, hopes, and dreams. It's delivering real solutions for some of the long-standing problems in the cryptocurrency space. Helping users safely navigate an ecosystem where nobody has to fear a 'rug-pull' is clearly separating SAFERmoon from the pack. USEFUL LINKS: Website:https://SaferMoon.netTwitter:https://twitter.com/safermoonrealTelegram:https://t.me/safermoonofficialMedium:https://safermoon.medium.comYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBdSQG8muJj5L9aX6cmHicg For inquiries, contact Teresa McFerson at 646-844-1295 orsafermoonproject@protonmail.com SOURCE:SAFERmoon View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/659450/SAFERmoon-is-ready-to-literally-launch-you-into-space || Powerbridge Technologies Agrees to Buy 5,600 Bitcoin, Ethereum Mining Machines: Powerbridge Technologies has arranged the purchase of 5,600bitcoinandethermining machines for an undisclosed amount. • The Zhuhai, China-based company entered into a purchase agreement with Cryptodigital Holdings for the acquisition of the miners, which include Antminer S19 Pro and Antminer S19 models, PowerbridgeannouncedWednesday. • Delivery is scheduled to commence in October for the 2,000 BTC mining machines and 3,600 ETH miners, representing expected hash rates of 200 PH/s and 1,700 GH/s respectively. • The agreement follows Powerbridge’sannouncementearlier this month that it’s expanding into crypto mining from its core business providing software-as-a-service products and blockchain applications. • Powerbridge plans to build a global network for clean-energy-based bitcoin and ether mining. • KuCoin Launches Proof-of-Work Mining Pool • Chinese Miner The9 Signs Joint Venture for Crypto Mining Plant in Kazakhstan • Argo Blockchain Files for Nasdaq Share Listing • Hive Blockchain Appoints Fortress Blockchain Founder as Chief Operations Officer || Crypto vs. Forex Trading: What You Need to Know: concept art of forex and cryptocurrency Getty Images New ways of managing, transacting and investing our money continue to emerge as the financial world around us evolves. One major change seen in the last decade has come from the rise of cryptocurrencies (or "crypto," if you prefer brevity) – digital currencies that lack centralized control but enable frictionless transacting and serve as a unit of account in a democratized financial system. This compares to the traditional fiat financial system, which relies on central banks and governments to issue and regulate the money supply while also facilitating transactions through an orderly payments system, among other responsibilities. Most countries have their own fiat currency or one pegged to an international reserve currency like the U.S. dollar or euro. When you exchange the fiat currency of one country for that of another on decentralized, over-the-counter markets, you call this a foreign exchange (or "forex"). SEE MORE 8 Biggest Cryptocurrencies to Watch Right Now There are clear differences and similarities as it pertains to using these currencies for buying and selling goods and services. The same goes for investing: forex trading shares some of the same traits as crypto trading, but there's also plenty that makes each unique. This article walks through the market structures and exchanges used in forex versus those used in crypto, as well as the differences in regulatory treatment and other aspects of trading. The Nature of Crypto vs. Forex First, it's vital to understand the nature of these assets. Both rely on laws of supply and demand to determine their price. But both have different risk profiles due to how they derive value. "Fiat currencies have a measurable value, [while] cryptocurrencies are purely speculative," opines Justin Grossbard, founder of CompareForexBrokers.com . A currency has broad-based acceptance as legal tender and use as a common medium. Further, it comes with the backing of a government able to control its supply. Story continues A cryptocurrency doesn't provide these same functions in that, with precious few exceptions, it fails to qualify as legal tender, doesn't come with backing from a government, nor comes with control of supply by a central bank. Cryptocurrencies rely solely on shared belief in their value between two parties. Market Participants But the nature of these assets isn't the only difference between cryptocurrency and forex. Who participates in these markets varies as well. SEE MORE Should You Invest in Crypto? Not only do individual investors engage in trading activity in forex markets, but so too do major governmental and institutional participants: Governments play a role, as they need to ensure markets have the right liquidity to achieve their economic goals. Conversely, at present, governments represent minor players in the crypto market, though interest has risen for state-controlled cryptocurrencies . Banks and credit suppliers provide much of the liquidity to the market. Grossbard says these participants often play the role of liquidity providers in forex markets because of the need to exchange money on behalf of clients traveling or doing business overseas or individuals investing in foreign securities markets. Investment funds can use their excess funds or leverage to speculate or invest in forex. Corporations who operate in multiple geographic markets can use forex to hedge against currency fluctuations to protect profits from expected changes in forex valuations. Crypto markets tend to have smaller players and less institutional or governmental presence. According to data from Bitcoin Treasuries , a much smaller share of the bitcoin market has holders from governments, banks, investment funds and corporations than forex markets. While bitcoin isn't perfectly representative of the entire cryptocurrency asset class, by looking at the breakout between market participants who hold bitcoin – the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization – and those who don't, we can at least get an idea of how little institutional or governmental organizations are involved compared to forex. It's a small number. Less than 8% of all mined bitcoin is held by these investors. To be fair, this only reflects bitcoin held on balance sheets of publicly traded companies, private firms, institutional investors, banks and governments. More could be held in inaccessible bitcoin, or bitcoin that's been lost or trapped in inaccessible cryptowallets. But while this indicates a higher percentage of bitcoins possibly held by other non-retail investors, the data still shows an overwhelming skew toward individual investors. Market Size Forex markets experience the highest volume of any market in the world. According to the Bank of International Settlements' most recent triennial central bank survey, as of 2019, well more than $6 trillion traded each day in these over-the-counter markets. Cryptocurrency markets have exploded in popularity over the past few years, but at the moment, they still enjoy far less volume and activity than forex markets. Total combined daily crypto market volume was $1.3 trillion as of September 2021. Hours of Operation Forex markets see daily trading 24 hours per day, 5 days per week. Crypto markets not only see the same type of nonstop weekday activity – that action extends to weekends as well. Crypto markets remain open 24/7/365; they never close. SEE MORE Stock Market Holidays in 2021 Both compare favorably to stock market exchanges, which have predefined hours on weekdays and close on weekends and national holidays. Market Structure Where crypto vs. forex trading converges is on how these assets trade: over-the-counter, directly between parties, through a broker or exchange. This means traders negotiate pricing based on supply and demand without governing oversight. Stocks, on the other hand, trade on organized exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq or other national bourses, and carry stricter issuance and disclosure rules and guidelines. Accessibility of Assets Because these assets all reside in different markets, you might need different brokerage accounts and systems to access them. Some services provide access to one, two or all three. For example, Coinbase is limited to crypto offerings, while TradeStation and Interactive Brokers allow you to invest in cryptocurrencies, forex and stocks. If you decide to use an investing app to trade crypto, you might not have the ability to withdraw your cryptocurrencies to cryptowallets, or a secure place to store your private keys tied to your unique coins. If you wish to withdraw your virtual currency to a cryptowallet, dedicated cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase allow you to do this. Further still, you can withdraw your virtual currency and load them onto anonymous prepaid debit cards to withdraw funds from ATMs. Funding and withdrawing money from forex accounts has a more familiar flow: Traders can make ACH transfers from their bank account, make wire transfers, use online checks, or even use credit cards in many instances. Trading Pairs Yet another difference between forex vs. crypto trading is the use of "trading pairs." SEE MORE How Is Cryptocurrency Taxed? Here's What You Need to Know When you trade one currency for another – say, U.S. dollars for euros – the exchange will show the value of one currency relative to another. Specifically, you'll be shown how much it would cost to purchase the second currency (called the quote currency) with a single unit of the first (base currency). When trading forex on a currency pair, you buy the base currency and sell the quote currency. For example, when looking to trade USD for EUR, you might see a quoted price of $1.20 USD to buy one euro. This means for every euro you buy, it costs you $1.20 USD. In forex, trading pairs that involve the USD are called "currency pairs." When pairings don't involve the USD, these are called "currency crosses." In crypto trading, technically the same logic applies. Crypto trading pairs, or cryptocurrency pairs, involve trading one crypto for another, such as Ethereum/Bitcoin Cash (ETH/BCH). (Note: Not every crypto can be traded for another currency, fiat or virtual.) Trading pairs in crypto matter because some cryptocurrencies can only be bought with other cryptocurrencies, making knowledge of these pairs necessary to expand your crypto holdings. This gives investors a chance to arbitrage between trading pairs as well as compare the relative worth of coins. How Do Regulators View Crypto vs. Forex Trading? Depending on how an asset is classified, it falls subject to rules and regulations of certain regulatory bodies within the United States and other countries. The U.S. does not currently provide for comprehensive oversight of cryptocurrencies; instead, it relies on a hodgepodge of regulatory supervision. Regulators and investors have traditionally seen cryptocurrencies a bit like a bystander witnessing Superman, asking "Is it a bird? Is it a plane?" says Greg King, founder and CEO of Osprey Funds , which offers multiple cryptocurrency funds. While this asset class has grown at breakneck speed, regulations around it have lagged. But here are some important cryptocurrency regulatory facts: In 2014, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) classified virtual currencies as a commodity. This decision makes cryptocurrencies subject to regulation by the CFTC when used in the context of a derivatives contract or if evidence of fraud or manipulation occurs in interstate commerce. The CFTC regulates cryptocurrencies through the Commodity Exchange Act (ECA). The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) treats taxes on crypto much the way they do other capital assets by levying capital gains and losses taxes. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) currently remains focused on taking actions against unregistered initial coin offerings (ICOs). The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) recently issued a request for information on digital assets but doesn't currently insure cryptocurrency deposits for member banks. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) doesn't protect cryptocurrencies held in investors' accounts in stock trading brokerages because it doesn't classify as a "security" under the Securities Investor Protection Act, section 78lll(14). Forex or traditional currencies, on the other hand, meet a higher regulatory definition by classifying not only as commodities, but also as securities, Grossbard says. SEE MORE 5 Things You Should Know About Cryptocurrency Before Investing "Currencies can function as commodities in the sense that traders buy and sell them to profit from exchange rate fluctuations," he says. "However, they are a security because they are released by a central authority." As a result, currencies are subject to several higher levels of regulatory scrutiny, as well as investor protections through FDIC and SIPC insurance. Historically, for an asset to qualify as a security, it must meet the requirements established by the Howey Test, King says. This test came from a Supreme Court case which sought to determine whether a transaction qualified as an "investment contract." Under the 1946 Supreme Court ruling, any transactions that constitute an investment contract are a security and are subject to disclosure and registration requirements. As of now, the SEC states that crypto fails to meet this definition. However, this might change in the future as the Biden administration investigates matters further. Trading Crypto vs. Forex: Neither Is for the Faint of Heart Ten years ago, talk of cryptocurrencies remained relegated largely to internet forums and chatrooms as a possible solution to a host of issues that describe our current fiat currency systems: privacy concerns, centralized command and control, theft and fraud and more. But while these new cryptocurrencies address many of these items, they still serve primarily as an alternative to fiat currencies in our day-to-day lives. What we will see unfold in the coming years might change how crypto is regulated, issued and traded. Depending on how governments treat the virtual currency class, we could see fewer differences between forex vs. crypto trading – and perhaps more resemblance. In either case, neither forex nor crypto trading is for the faint of heart as both carry risks related to trading, volatility and complexity. For now, seasoned traders are the best candidates for trading in these markets, as they can employ more risk mitigation techniques and hedge their trades appropriately. You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions 9 Things You’ll Regret Keeping in a Safe Deposit Box 5 Beaten-Down Stocks to Buy on the Dip || Bitcoin fever reaches Honduras with first cryptocurrency ATM: By Diego Oré (Reuters) - The first cryptocurrency ATM in Honduras opened this week as bitcoin backers sought to spur demand for virtual assets after neighboring El Salvador became the first country to establish bitcoin as legal tender. The machine, locally dubbed "la bitcoinera," allows users to acquire bitcoin and ethereum using the local lempira currency and was installed in an office tower in the capital of Tegucigalpa by Honduran firm TGU Consulting Group. Juan Mayen, 28, chief executive of TGU, led the effort to bring the ATM to Honduras in hopes of educating people about virtual assets through first-hand experience. Until now, there was no automated way to buy crypto-currencies, he said. "You had to do it peer-to-peer, look for someone who ... was willing to do it, meet in person and carry X amount of cash, which is very inconvenient and dangerous given the environment in Honduras," he said. On Friday, one ethereum was trading at $3,237, and bitcoin; $48,140. If the service is popular, Mayen said he hoped to install more units. To make a purchase, users have to scan official identification and input personal data such as a phone number. Many software developers in Honduras are already paid in cryptocurrencies, Mayen said, adding that it will also be a cheaper option to send remittances. In 2020, Hondurans living abroad - mainly the United States - sent $5.7 billion, about 20% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), in remittances. The Congress of El Salvador approved in June https://www.reuters.com/technology/bitcoin-become-legal-tender-el-salvador-sept-7-2021-06-25 a proposal by President Nayib Bukele to make the country the first in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Elsewhere in the region, lawmakers presented draft bills in Panama that regulate the use of bitcoin and its status as a legal tender. (Reporting by Diego Ore, Additional reporting by Elida Moreno in Panama City; Editing by David Gregorio) || Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Spiked for the Week: Natural gas marketshave spiked higher to kick off the week, reaching all the way towards the $6.50 level. By reaching that area, we got a little bit overextended, and then pulled back quite significantly to reach down towards the $5.50 level towards the end of the Friday session. All things been equal, this is a bit of a shooting star, but at this point I still think we are a long way away from forming a new downtrend. Quite frankly, it is very likely that we would see buyers on dips, and that is exactly how I plan on playing this market. I believe that the $5.00 level should continue to offer a significant amount of support, at least from a psychological standpoint, if not a structural one. There is still a significant amount of demand for natural gas in the European Union, and as long as that is going to be the case, I think it is difficult to short this market. The market is significantly bullish, and therefore it is going to take a significant amount of a fundamental shift in order to make this market fall apart. That being the case, I would be short and probably aggressively so, but until demand suddenly falls apart, there is no way to do that. As to where we end up to the upside, it is almost impossible to tell, but it should be noted that the momentum is still there, so I think that we will continue to see plenty of value hunters looking to pick up natural gas. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Continue to March Higher • S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Markets Hanging On By a Thread • USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Canadian Dollar Moves Higher Ahead Of The Weekend • Bitcoin Bulls Gear Up for Fourth Quarter Showdown • Netflix Tips Its Hand to Gaming Strategy • Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Spiked for the Week || Ethereum Settles Over $6 Trillion In Transactions In Last 12 Months: Over $6 trillion in transactions were settled on theEthereum(CRYPTO:ETH) blockchain over the last year. What Happened:According to areportfrom crypto research platform Messari, Ethereum has settled $6.2 trillion in transactions over the last 12 months. “This figure is up 369% compared to 2020, and was powered by a strong Q3 where Ethereum settled $1.5 trillion,” commented Messari analyst Ryan Sean Watkins. Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap and the smart contract platform that facilitates most NFT and decentralized finance (DeFi) activity today. More than half the value of the network’s settled transactions, worth $3.3 billion, can be attributed to the growth of stablecoins on Ethereum. During the same period last year, there were $888 million in stablecoins on the network. “This is the kind of 4.7x that I really want to see. Prices are one thing, protocol adoption is another,” commented crypto YouTuberCoin Bureau. ETH Price Action:Ethereum was trading at $3,426 Tuesday morning. The cryptocurrency has rallied by 16% over the last week and gained 43% over the last three months. Image byZoltan Tasion Unsplash. See more from Benzinga • Click here for options trades from Benzinga • Bitcoin, Ethereum Miner Hive Blockchain Reports 466% Year-Over-Year Revenue Surge • Bank Of America Bullish On Bitcoin, Says Crypto Market Too Large To Ignore © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18
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)] Cathie Wood Thinks Bitcoin And Other Cryptocurrencies Could Soon Become Part Of Typical Investor Portfolios: Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood believes that cryptocurrencies could soon become a part of recommended portfolios for everyday investors. What Happened:In her most recent interview with CNBC, Wood even went on to say that the currently volatile cryptocurrencies could soon stabilize and behave as bonds do. “We think as it becomes a better accepted new asset class ... We do think it will behave, actually, I would say more like the fixed income markets, believe it or not,” Wood said on CNBC’sClosing Bell. The Ark CEO notes that a typical investor portfolio consists of a 60% allocation to stocks and a 40% allocation to bonds. “This idea of a 60-40 balanced portfolio is a bit problematic”, she notes, explaining that bond prices are especially high relative to history. See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC) “We’ve been through a 40-year bull market in bonds. We would not be surprised to see this new asset class become a part of those percentages. Maybe 60% in equity, 20% in bonds, and 20 –– in crypto,” Wood said. Why It Matters:Retail investors have often been skeptical about allocating a percentage of their portfolio towards cryptocurrencies due to their perceived risk. However, more recently, some large retail investors have begun making somewhat sizeable allocations towards cryptocurrencies – one of them being billionaire investor Kevin O’Leary who recently disclosed a 3% portfolio allocation towards cryptocurrency. Analysts fromJPMorgan Chase & Co.(NYSE:JPM) also recentlyrecommendeda 1% portfolio allocation towards cryptocurrencies to its clients. Wood’s recommended 20% crypto allocation, however, far exceeds what typical fund managers and investment banks have previously suggested. Image:Cytonn Photographyvia Pexels See more from Benzinga • Click here for options trades from Benzinga • Major Crypto Exchange Coinbase Closes In On Going Public With Pre-IPO Valuation Of 0B • JPMorgan Adds 56 Blockchain-Related Jobs With Renewed Focus On JPM Coin © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || DOGE Fans to Celebrate ‘DOGE Day’ as Price Hits the Roof: Dogecoin’s (DOGE) rally has generated a frenzy amongst hodlers. They want to make April 20 the “DOGE day.” DOGE has soared to reach its all time high of $0.41 on April 19. The coin, which was created as a joke, has nowgained428.2% in seven days. The current state of the cryptocurrency markets has generated mixed feelings in different camps. Bitcoin (BTC) and major altcoinsplummeted over the weekend. Many felt it was long overdue as the markets had risen massively. In fact, the total cryptocurrency market cap momentarilycrossed the $2 trillionmark. It experienced asharp declineafter the bloodbath. Bitcoin nose-dived and quickly settled around the $55,000 mark. There has, however, been a celebration in the DOGE camp amidst the bloodbath. The meme-inspired coin hascontinued to exceed expectations, gaining 25% in the last 24-hours. On the seven-day chart, dogecoin is up by over 400%. Its market cap is now north of $55 billion. In the wake of the recent surge, DOGE aficionados haveset aside April 20 to commemorate the coin. They call it “DOGE day.” Many hodlers have expressed enthusiasm for the coin, and celebrations have already begun on social media. Inspired by the rally, Mark Cuban said that Mavericks would not sell dogecoin gained from sales. Early this year, the Dallas-based NBA team startedaccepting dogecoinpayments on its online store. Cuban is thrilled by the surge in sales and the dogecoin price, and he’s apparently in for a long ride. Additionally, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk is one of the high-profile advocates of DOGE. He has made several tweets that sent the coin’s price soaring. His most recent tweet sent thecoin’s price to a new all-time high. || Venmo built crypto trading into its payments app: With Bitcoincharginginto themainstream, an increasing number of established payment providers are embracing cryptocurrency. Today, PayPal-ownedVenmois opening crypto trading by offering members the ability to buy, hold and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. Venmo users can purchase a digital asset starting from $1 using funds from their balance or a linked bank account or debit card. Members will also be able to track prices and access in-app guides and videos to learn about virtual money. The move sees Venmo following in the footsteps of Square's Cash App, which introducedBitcoin tradingin 2017, amid a spike in demand for cryptocurrency. Venmo says that 30 percent of its customers have already started purchasing crypto or equites, 20 percent of which began during the pandemic. But, with Venmo itself lacking a trading option until now, those users would have inevitably been forced to make those investments elsewhere. Cash App, for instance, recentlynotedthat 3 million people bought Bitcoin through its service in 2020 and 1 millon who were new to the digital currency did so in January alone. Venmo's parent has also made its own inroads into crypto. Afteropening tradingto US customers last November, PayPal began allowing users topay with cryptocurrencyin March. Crypto on Venmo is rolling out today and will be available to customers in the app over the next few weeks. || What is NEM – The Full Guide: NEM NEM is a blockchain written in Java, the double-layer blockchain supports multiple ledgers on its cryptocurrency layers. NEM’s ecosystem is built in such a way that seamlessly connects and transfers any type of digital assets between private and public blockchains. A collective growth mindset, made NEM to abdicate the POS consensus and introduce the POI. NEM is the world’s first practitioner of POI (Proof-of-Importance) consensus. Although it is similar to Proof-of-Stake which requires locking of certain amounts of coins in the ecosystem, there are several major differences. The key difference between the POS and POI consensus is that in the POS consensus the amount of coins staked does matter, whereas a staker allocating 10% of the staked amount will be able to mine only 10% of blocks in the network. The POI consensus is used to determine network participants which are eligible enough to add blocks to the blockchain, in NEM’s ecosystem adding blocks to the blockchain is called “harvesting”. In POS the more coins one stakes, the higher the reward and the reputation, however in POI mechanism, there are three key factors which build the reputation of the node: vesting (holding of 10000 XEM in the wallet), transaction partners, number of transactions within 30 days. Symbol Symbol is NEM’s project mainly focused on Enterprise. Symbol is a hybrid blockchain, which means that the blockchain is not fully accessible by anyone although it still bears features of a blockchain such as transparency, security and solidness. The hybrid blockchain is fully customizable and blockchain nodes can decide which transactions should be verifiable, who can participate in the blockchain and which transactions can be public. The interoperability of public and private chains from what it seems like allow a cost-efficient, seamless data transfer between these two chains, avoiding third party bridges, which are used in interconnection of public and private chain protocols. Just like other blockchains built nowadays, Symbol is interoperable, which means no intermediaries needed for data transfer and token swaps between any blockchain and Symbol. Source: Symbol Platform official website As NEM commented, the launch of the mainnet of Symbol is scheduled on March 15, after a long 4 years of developments. On March 12, the project will pre-launch Opt-in and snapshot phase at a block height of 3,105,500. The Opt-in means that any NEM’s proprietary token – XEM holders can receive Symbol’s proprietary token – XYM upon the mainnet launch. Basically what that means is that during the block height of 3,105,500 the system will read all wallets that have participated in the Opt-in and will allocate XYM to the Symbol account created during the Opt-in, which is exactly the same as the balance of one’s XEM wallet. In other words, hold your XEM in your NEM wallet (note: the wallet must be updated to the latest one), apply for Opt-in, create a Symbol account, for each 1 XEM in your balance you will receive 1 XYM, the XEM balance will remain intact, according to the announcement on NEM’s official website. Story continues How is it going to impact XEM? The Symbol is a promising project, it already made partners with some big names in the industry. The XYM token is already listed in Poloniex, Bitpanda, Gateio and others, and listing of the XYM is already on the task list of giants such as Binance, Huobi, Kucoin and 17 other exchanges. Some exchanges will support the snapshot of wallets for XYM allocation, among such are Binance, Kucoin, and recently announced Coinex. While the excitement in this airdrop is heavy, XEM price seems to be silent and waiting for an alert to trigger. While the cryptocurrency market is in an uptrend today with Bitcoin gaining almost 4% today only according to the data of the cryptocurrency trading platform Overbit , XEM/USD lies low like a leopard before a jump. Source: TradingView Based on the technical chart analysis, XEM/USD is currently in a corrective 5-wave ABCDE formation, which formed a symmetrical triangle. Based on the technical analysis, the chart pattern and the MACD indicator, XEM/USD will probably break the upper edge of the triangle and move upwards. The resistances to watch here are $0.7530 and $0.8000. Closing below the lower edge might lead to a drop to $0.6100 and $0.6000. One should bear in mind that in most cases listings of new coins and airdrops led to massive sell-offs among the token investors. In case of NEM and Symbol such might not be the case or the so-called “dump” might not be as heavy as during the boom of ICO’s. The first reason is that in the emerging ecosystem of NEM, many might consider becoming network participants, the overall crypto market sentiment still remains bullish and tokens of cross-chain networks such as Polkadot are among the top investment appealing, enterprises are going blockchain and are integrating blockchain into their existing network another example of a project which allowed enterprises to connect their external data to blockchain is Chainlink, whose token LINK is along-side Polkadot’s DOT is an outperforming coin and still is appreciated by long-term investors. As the crypto-adoption is growing, more stores are tend to accept cryptocurrencies as payment, projects like Symbol will assist in bringing the crypto and blockchain to the IoT we got used to. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Form Bullish Candlestick E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Needs to Hold 31776 to Sustain Momentum GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British Pound Continues to Skyrocket AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Reaches Towards 50 Day EMA USD/JPY Price Forecast – US Dollar Finding Gravity an Issue E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Ready to Challenge 12767.75 to 12900.00 View comments || India’s Internet and Mobile Association Calls for Crypto Regulation, Not Ban: The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) appealed to the Indian government Wednesday not to ban cryptocurrencies. The IAMAI is proposing the government introduce “robust mechanisms” to regulate the cryptocurrency sector because the country could see considerable benefits from digital assets such as job creation, according to a report from The Hindu Business Line. “Given the scale and diversity, the good governance and regulation of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in India is critical and will give impetus to the government of India’s Digital India vision,” said the IAMAI. Related: Grayscale Halts New Investments In GBTC After Trading at 15% Below Bitcoin Read more: India’s Central Bank Sees Pros and Cons With National Digital Currency The Indian government is planning to introduce a bill into the parliament’s ongoing budget session that would ban “private cryptocurrencies” but the scope of the bill is unclear. However, India’s Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur, said Friday the government needs to study national security risks posed by virtual currencies before making any decision on their legality. The IAMAI previously helped the successful challenge of the central bank’s ban on banking services for crypto firms that was overturned last March. Related Stories India’s Internet and Mobile Association Calls for Crypto Regulation, Not Ban India’s Internet and Mobile Association Calls for Crypto Regulation, Not Ban India’s Internet and Mobile Association Calls for Crypto Regulation, Not Ban || Young UK investors choose cryptocurrencies over stocks: survey: By Julien Ponthus LONDON (Reuters) - Young British investors are twice as likely to buy cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin as they are to buy stocks, a survey by U.S. financial group Charles Schwab indicated on Thursday. In the survey, 51% of investors aged between 18 and 37 traded or owned cryptocurrencies, double the number of those - 25% - buying or holding equities. Exposing the gap in generations when it comes to investing, a mere 8% of investors aged over 55 aged trade cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, hit a record of almost $65,000 last week but has pulled back more than 16% since. Despite the recent pullback, bitcoin has gained nearly 90% this year as large investors, banks from Goldman Sachs to Morgan Stanley and household name companies such as Tesla Inc warm to the emerging asset. The spike in interest in cryptocurrencies has come amid a surge in online trading by retail investors, many of them younger people stuck at home with extra cash because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The same trend has spurred a boom in usage of online trading apps such as Robinhood, and also fuelled the social-media driven rally in GameStop Corp stock that pitted retail investors against hedge funds earlier this year. "As more young people purchase speculative products, there is a fear that these investors are not diversifying their portfolios enough to mitigate risks in case cryptocurrency markets decline," read the Charles Schwab press release presenting the survey. Its finding showed seven out of 10 young investors were uncertain as to how to build protections against losses in the current financial environment. The survey was conducted between February and March 2021 among 1,000 UK investors aged over 18 and holding at least one type of investment. (Reporting by Julien Ponthus and Tom Wilson; Editing by Alex Richardson) || Dollar rises from lows; oil drop hits crude-linked currencies: (Revises throughout, updates prices, adds action in Canadian dollar, emerging markets) By David Henry NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar rose on Tuesday as interest rates in the United States moved in a tight range and a drop in oil prices hit crude-linked currencies. After touching its lowest level in nearly seven weeks, the dollar index against major currencies rose 0.2% to 91.204 in the afternoon in New York. The euro was flat at $1.2033 after rising nearly 0.4% on the outlook for increasing vaccinations. The British pound fell 0.4% to $1.3937 after it backed off from touching $1.40 and gaining 1% on Monday. The dollar has fallen in April as U.S. bond yields retreated from the 14-month highs of 1.776% reached last month. The currency and yield declines have come as evidence mounted that the Federal Reserve would be slower about tightening monetary policy than it had appeared to the market, analysts said. The 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 1.57% after trading in a narrow range around 1.60%. The currency and interest rate markets could be relatively calm for another few weeks as the Fed and the European Central Bank each take their time about adjusting their rate policies, said Mazen Issa, senior currency strategist at TD Securities. "There really isn't a strong catalyst in either direction this month to really break us out of ranges," Issa said. Some encouragement for the euro came from the announcement that the European Union has secured an additional 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by BioNTech and Pfizer. The vaccination news suggests that the pace of Europe's recovery from the pandemic will begin to catch up with the United States and its story of faster growth, Issa said. "The FX market is moving away from this idea of full-on U.S. exceptionalism to being in a little bit more in limbo now," he said. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar edged up to 108.09 after having broken below 108 for the first time since March 5. Story continues Oil-linked currencies took a hit when crude prices fell 1% on fears that surging coronavirus infections in India will bring restrictions and reduce demand for oil. The Canadian dollar, which had been steady ahead of a Wednesday meeting of the Bank of Canada, then weakened the most in nearly two months to 1.2620 against the dollar, or 79.24 U.S. cents. The Norwegian crown retreated from its strongest levels against the dollar since 2018. Mexico's peso also weakened with oil after hovering around three-month highs on the strength of carry trades in high-yield emerging market currencies bolstered by recent low volatility. Bitcoin rose 1% to $56,211 on Tuesday afternoon. (Reporting by David Henry in New York. Additional reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft, Hideyuki Sano and Kevin Buckland; Editing by Larry King, Steve Orlofsky, Alex Richardson and Dan Grebler) || Florida teen pleads guilty to hacking Twitter accounts of Biden, celebrities: (Reuters) - The Florida teenager accused of being behind the hack of celebrity Twitter accounts last year has pleaded guilty in the state's 13th Judicial Circuit Court in Tampa and agreed to serve three years in juvenile prison. Those whose accounts were hacked included U.S. President Joe Biden, who was then a presidential candidate; former president Barack Obama; billionaires Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk; singer Kanye West; and reality TV star Kim Kardashian. Graham Ivan Clark, 18, faced fraud charges after a hack in an alleged scam that stole more than $118,000 in Bitcoin. Fraudulent tweets soliciting investments in the digital currency were posted in mid-July from over 40 verified Twitter accounts. Florida had charged the Tampa resident as an adult with 30 felonies. In August, Clark pled not guilty. As a child, Clark found ways to trick players of the video game Minecraft, people who knew him at the time told The New York Times. He moved on to selling and swapping rare social media user names on the forum OGUsers, where he connected with other hackers who said they participated in the Twitter breach, according to the newspaper. A report released in October by New York's Department of Financial Services said that Twitter suffered from cybersecurity shortfalls that enabled the "simple" hack attributed to the Florida teenager to take over the accounts of some of the world's most famous people. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Kim Coghill) || Bitcoin Grows Up: Bitcoin has gone from JV to Varsity, and now has a valuation as high as some of the world’s top companies. Turning 12 years old, the digital cryptocurrency is growing up, figuratively and literally right in front of our eyes, explainsJustin Carbonneau, investing strategist and partner atValidea. The price of Bitcoin has seen nothing short of a meteoric rise recently and over time. In March of last year, it traded as low as $3900 per Bitcoin. As of this writing, the price of Bitcoin is around $50,000. This isn’t the first time in Bitcoin’s history we’ve seen a massive increase. For example, from roughly December 2016 to December 2017, the price of Bitcoin went from roughly $700 to over $19,000. More from Justin Carbonneau:"Nothing Is Free" and Other Lessons From GameStop But Bitcoin is still an adolescent asset, exhibiting some growing pains. Like turning 13 or getting your fist real job, there are important maturity events taking place superficially and beneath the surface. 1. Bitcoin price:$50,000 per coin 2. Bitcoin market cap:$1 Trillion Big round numbers and price levels are mostly meaningless, until they are not. Bitcoin crossed $50,000 a Bitcoin recently. This is not really meaningful, just like Dow 30,000 isn’t meaningful, but it creates an anchor in people’s minds as the figures gets broadcasted from the rooftops of business news networks, social media platforms, around the dinner table and in institutional circles. Bitcoin reaching $1 trillion in market cap is more meaningful, however, as it allows us to gauge the current market value of Bitcoin relative to the value of other assets. In the U.S. stock market only a handful of the most valuable companies are worth more than $1 trillion, and the rise of Bitcoin continues to make it a larger percentage of the addressable gold market (around $11 trillion). Bitcoin Adoption While most of the Bitcoin owned is by individuals, there are some important developments worth paying attention to in the institutional space. The first is that a handful of companies, includingTesla(TSLA), have decided to hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets instead of U.S. Treasuries. While a very small number of companies have allocated to Bitcoin, progressive companies likeSquare(SQ), Tesla andMicroStrategy(MSTR) are early supporters of holding Bitcoin as an asset on the balance sheet. Also, according to this article on Coindesk, major university endowments like Harvard, Yale and the University of Michigan are also eyeing Bitcoin and starting to make purchases. Add on top of this that the 169-year-old insurance concern, Mass Mutual, recently purchased $100 million worth of Bitcoin and that BNY Mellon, the country’s oldest bank, plans to hold, transfer and issue bitcoin as a custodian for asset and fund managers. In a newly released 100-page report from Citi, one of the world’s largest banks, the authors provide historical prospective and argue the crypto asset is now at an inflection point where massive adoption could accelerate. And Goldman Sachs re-started its cryptocurrency trading desk and will begin dealing bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forward contracts. Another key development happened just recently north of our border with the approval of a Bitcoin ETF. Canadian securities regulators approved the Purpose Bitcoin ETF, which is the first ETF in North America that will invest directly in physically settled Bitcoin (the recently ETF already has $560 million in assets under management). The SEC may follow Canada’s lead as they consider applications for a Bitcoin ETF that trades on a U.S. exchange. Hedge funds are getting in on the action as well — in a Clubhouse room called Bitcoin Café, I listened to a former hedge fund trader who left the business just a few months ago and has received calls from major hedge funds looking to build out their crypto currency trading desks. So, no matter how you slice it, the stage seems to be set for interest in and adoption of Bitcoin from established, institutional players. Momentum and Possibly Less Crashes I would categorize Bitcoin as a momentum driven asset with big price spikes and big declines. At least in the past five years one could say this about the price of Bitcoin. Consistent with momentum investing in equities, you get an initial move up, which gets investors’ attention and attracts investment flows, which then gets more investors’ attention, which attracts more flows and the cycle continues. Eventually, however, the momentum stops, for one reason or another, and assets exhibiting momentum are susceptible to crashes. This is certainly the history Bitcoin has had in the past, but as the asset matures and if more long-term holders establish positions along with additional individual investors and institutions, there is a chance the asset may have less downside volatility than it’s had in the past. Two Maturity Tests There will be two other important maturity tests for Bitcoin. One will be the performance during the next downturn in the markets. See also:Boston Omaha: A Berkshire-like Buy If Bitcoin manages to act as a hedge against a market decline, this could be a very important moment as it would show, at least in that specific environment at that moment in time, that Bitcoin actually offers diversification vs. other risk assets like stocks, and that allocating to Bitcoin can improve performance during down markets. The other is the performance of the digital asset during the next bout of inflation. Expectations for higher inflation appear to be on the rise, and if we get a sustained period of inflation and Bitcoin continues to increase in value, this would support the belief that Bitcoin protects against the decline in the purchasing power of the dollar (a key feature of Bitcoin is there will only be 21 million coins mined in total). Is Anyone Doing the Math? Over the last five years (from 02/23/2016 to 02/23/2021), Bitcoin has produced an annualized return of 258% per year. I’ve heard some proponents of Bitcoin reference 200%+ annualized returns and talk as though these are the returns investors are likely to see in the future. At a $1 trillion market cap, a 200% return would make Bitcoin worth $3 trillion next year, and in year 2 it would be $9 trillion. Year 3 it would $27 trillion, and years 4 and 5, it’d be worth $81 trillion and $243 trillion, respectively. In 2019, the global GDP was approximately $88 trillion to put those numbers in some context. Those investors advocating for future returns in Bitcoin like we’ve seen over the past five years haven’t done the math or don’t understand the power of compounding at such a massive percentage increase. Maturing & Learning This is not an article in support of or against Bitcoin, but instead I wanted to focus on the things I am seeing that indicate this young digital asset built on a distributed and decentralized technology is maturing. As we mature, we change, and I think we can say that process is happening with Bitcoin today — Bitcoin is growing up and getting more popular. Investors should take the time to educate themselves on this relatively young and disruptive technology that is emerging as an asset. More From MoneyShow.com: • BLOK: An ETF to Bet on Blockchain • Sprott: An Alternative for Physical Silver • A New Look at Old Names: 3M, DuPont and J&J • Do ARK's Tech ETFs Fit in your Portfolio? || Cardano Foundation Launches Central Registry for On-Chain Identifiers: After launching smart contracts and fully embracing decentralization, Cardano Foundation has set up its Cardano Registry. The registry will house important token details. Cardano’s (ADA) plan to become fully decentralized has gradually materialized after a series of upgrades. TheMary protocol upgradewent live on March 1, 2021. It was a major step towards the development of the Goguen upgrade. The latter was tipped tointroduce smart contractsand many other features. By introducing smart contracts, anyone can mint tokens on the Cardano blockchain. Community members have taken the plunge to mint 1,500 tokens and 600 tokens on the testnet and mainnet respectively. Cardano is now set tointroduce the Cardano Registryin order to effectively keep records of minted tokens. The registry will keep record of the details of tokens minted on the Cardano network in a centralized manner. Cardano Foundation describes the registry as “a trusted and curated collection of on-chain identifiers for tokens written and deployed on Cardano.” These on-chain identifiers include public keys, hashes, token addresses, minting policies, among other things. Itmandates developers and token creators to inputtheir token details on the Cardano Registry. Cardano listed three advantages of registering tokens on the registry, which are authenticity, ease of verification, and enablement of meta discovery. Token registration proves a token’s authenticity and shows that developers minted them under the platform’s guidelines. Tokens registered can also be easily verified. Also today, the crypto IRA platform announced that it would beintroducing ADA to its list of available assets. ADA can be accessed for investors’ IRA and 401k accounts. It will join the likes of BTC, XRP, and ETH, as well as LTC, DOT, EOS, and LINK. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 54021.75, 55033.12, 54824.70, 53555.11, 57750.18, 57828.05, 56631.08, 57200.29, 53333.54, 57424.01
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)] Bitcoin for payments a distant dream as usage dries up: By Tom Wilson LONDON (Reuters) - The use of bitcoin for commercial payments has dropped dramatically this year, even as the original digital coin starts to fulfill one of the basic features of any payment currency: stability. The value of bitcoins handled by major payment processors shriveled nearly 80 percent in the year to September, data from blockchain researcher Chainalysis shows. That suggests the cryptocurrency is struggling to mature from speculative asset to a serious alternative to state-issued money. Months of relative calm in bitcoin prices after the wild swings of last winter had fueled hopes it would become widely used for payments, its intended purpose. But its collapse in use as a payment currency has instead left big finance and crypto insiders eyeing better technological infrastructure to help bitcoin take off as a way to pay. "There would have to be a stability requirement if it is to become another form of money," said Joni Teves, a strategist at UBS in London. "But one thing that would take bitcoin into the mainstream is scalability -- is it able to process the value or volume of transactions that money tends to do?" The blockchain technology, where all bitcoin activity is recorded and validated, can only process a fraction of the transactions per second that major credit card companies can. That renders its mass use impractical. Bitcoin still endures torrid swings in price, as this week's 30 percent plunge shows. For a spell last month, though, the cryptocurrency was more stable than U.S. stocks. Graphic: Bitcoin volatility falls from February - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PA9yVj Despite that growing stability, the value of bitcoin payments collapsed to $96 million in September from a December high of $427 million, the data from Chainalysis shows. The firm surveyed 17 bitcoin payments processors, including Atlanta-based BitPay, one of the biggest. Most merchants that accept bitcoin do not do so directly, instead using intermediaries like BitPay to covert bitcoin to fiat currencies. Comprehensive data on bitcoin used for payments is patchy, as trades with other currencies tend to be included along with its use for commercial payments. That said, separate figures for individual payments processors reflect the downward trend. At Vancouver-based Coinpayments, for example, incoming and outgoing transactions slumped by more than half between January and October, according to blockchain analysis site OXT. Coinpayments did not respond to requests for comment. "Bitcoin payments processing is seeing a slow but consistent decline," said Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech strategy at research firm Autonomous Next, of the data on Coinpayments. FIRST DECADE Through its first decade, Bitcoin has attracted a mix of investors, some convinced that it can reshape global finance by displacing traditional means of payments and others attracted by rapid gains that pushed it close to $20,000 in December. It has since lost three-quarters of its value, falling below $4,500 on Tuesday, burning businesses along the way that had hoped to profit from growing investor interest. Chip designer Nvidia Corp , for example, saw its shares fall sharply last week after it blamed disappointing results on unsold chips piling up after the cryptocurrency mining boom evaporated. Bitcoin's relative stability this year has nevertheless raised expectations that its payments use by both individuals and companies will spread. "The lack of volatility is a good step in the right direction that starts to make it viable for some of the non-retail use cases," said Zeeshan Feroz, UK CEO of Coinbase, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges. But both mainstream financial firms and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs say stability is not enough. To gain traction, bitcoin needs to be faster and cheaper, they say. Clearer rules on an asset that has vexed financial regulators across the world would also help to give users a sense of legitimacy, UBS's Teves said. LIGHTNING NETWORK While coordinated regulation remains far off, some developments designed to address the so-called "scalability" problem -- how many transactions per second the bitcoin network can handle -- are underway. Though in its infancy, the lightning network -- code that can be added to the bitcoin blockchain designed to make payments faster and cheaper -- is growing in use and capacity. The network this week reached a record 4,101 "nodes" or computers that run its software, according to data aggregator 1ML, a rise of more than a quarter since August. Lightning is popular, users say, because it allows users to send money to one another instead of having to complete time-consuming transactions on the blockchain. "Lightning solves some of bitcoin's scaling issue," said Ed Cooper, who oversees cryptocurrencies at fintech startup Revolut. "It's getting payments into the wild, into the bitcoin network. (Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Catherine Evans) || 5 Highlights from Bitcoin-Bashing NYU Economist’s Senate Testimony: nouriel roubini bitcoin nouriel roubini bitcoin This morning, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is holding a hearing on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, featuring testimony from New York University economist Nouriel Roubini. Roubini, as CCN reported , has been bashing bitcoin since before most of the mainstream public had become familiar with the terms “cryptocurrency” and “blockchain,” and — true to form — his Senate testimony contained some real gems. Here are some highlights: 1. ‘Sh*tcoin’ Entered the Congressional Lexicon By the time this article is published, Roubini will have likely become the first person to use the word “sh*tcoin” in congressional testimony, with the word — a term of derision that bitcoin maximalists frequently use when discussing altcoins — appearing four times in his written testimony. His testimony read: “And a 70% capital loss was a “good” deal compared to thousands of alt-coins (otherwise better known as shitcoins) that have lost on average 95% of their value since the peak. Actually calling this useless vaporware garbage a ‘shitcoin’ is a grave insult to manure that is a most useful, precious and productive good as a fertilizer in agriculture.” To his credit, Roubini did apologize for his use of the scatological term, adding in a footnote, “My apologies to the members of the Senate Banking Committee for using the scatological term ‘shitcoin’ but the term is standard in the crypto jargon and there are more than 500000 references to it in a Google search of this technical term.” He also included a link to that Google search. 2. Roubini’s Crypto Dictionary “Sh*tcoin” isn’t the only word that Roubini felt obligated to define for the committee members, most of whom are likely not familiar with the colloquialisms of Crypto Twitter. Indeed, he provided a veritable pocket-size dictionary of crypto terms, though his definitions are somewhat different than you might find in the official CT lexicon. Story continues Here are some standouts: Crypto-land : “an eco-system of con artists, self-serving peddlers, scammers, carnival barkers, charlatans, and outright criminals.” HODLers : “suckers who have hold on their collapsing cryptocurrencies even after they lost 90% of their value” Lambos : “the crypto obsession with stealing investors’ money to buy luxury energy hogging cars” Whales : “large early crypto billionaires who are stuck with their fake wealth after the suckers of retails investors – who bought into the FOMO of the peak 2017 bubbles – lost 90% of their investments; those suckers are also called BagHolders” 3. ICOs are a Return to the ‘Stone Age’ Flintstones This wouldn’t be a true Roubini post without a few classic crypto-takedowns, and with the eyes of the nation’s legislators upon him, the NYU professor did not disappoint. In one section, Roubini alleged that, rather than representing the future of crowdfunding, initial coin offerings (ICOs) are actually a return to the stone age with its lack of a common currency. These tokens, he said, will create an economy worse than that seen in The Flintstones. “That is precisely where the ICO charlatans would effectively take us – not to the futuristic world of ‘The Jetsons,’ but to the modern Stone Age world – that is worse than ‘The Flintstones’ – who at least used clam shells as their money and understood the importance of a single numeraire – where all transactions occur through the barter of different tokens or goods. It is time to recognize their utopian rhetoric for what it is: self-serving nonsense meant to separate credulous investors from their hard-earned savings” 4. Bitcoin a ‘Dinosaur,’ Worse than an Excel Spreadsheet Continuing his assault, Roubini fired shots across the bow at bitcoin, hearkening back to criticism he has made in the past through Twitter and other means. In addition to arguing that bitcoin is more centralized the North Korea , he argued that it was, more or less, a worse version of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. “It is high time to end the hype. Bitcoin is a slow, energy-inefficient dinosaur that will never be able to process transactions as quickly or inexpensively as an Excel spreadsheet.” 5. Stablecoins are the ‘Biggest Scam of All’ While Roubini spent more than 35 pages excoriating the cryptocurrency ecosystem from top to bottom, he took particular aim at “ stablecoins ,” cryptocurrency tokens whose values are in some way pegged to a fiat currency (i.e., the U.S. dollar). Roubini said that stablecoins are the “biggest scam of all,” noting that tether (USDT), currently the largest stablecoin, has never undergone a full audit to prove that its tokens are fully-backed by USD. “And the biggest scam of all is the case of ‘stable coins’ – starting with Tether – that claimed to be pegged one to one to the US dollar but are not fully collateralized by an equal backing of true US dollars. Bitfinex – behind the scammy Tether – has persistently refused to be properly audited and its creation of fiat Tether has been systematically used to prop up manipulate upward the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies according to a recent academic paper.” As CCN reported , non-profit cryptocurrency research and advocacy group Coin Center will also testify before the Senate hearing. The organization’s testimony, one can be sure, will present a marked contrast to that of Roubini. Images from Shutterstock The post 5 Highlights from Bitcoin-Bashing NYU Economist’s Senate Testimony appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin News Crypto Currency Daily Roundup November 27: Bitcoin News The rundown: Bitcoin and all major currencies were down in the morning; Ohio becomes the first state in America to accept payment for taxes via cryptocurrency; NASDAQ plans to list Bitcoin futures by the first quarter of 2019; Malaysia warns businesses against launching cryptocurrencies before issuance of legal guidance by the central bank; Al Hilal Bank becomes the world’s first Islamic bank to conduct a bond transaction on blockchain; and more. Here is what is happening in the cryptocurrency market on Tuesday. SEE:Malaysia Directs All Crypto Projects To Seek Central Bank Approval Before Launching SEE:Another Crypto Company Gets Cease And Desist Order From North Dakotan Authoritie In the News Ohiohas become the first state in America and one of the first governments in the world to accepttaxes via cryptocurrency. The Office of the Ohio Treasurer has launchedOhioCrypto.comto enable businesses pay taxes with cryptocurrency. The Treasurer’s office has selectedBitPayas a third party cryptocurrency global payment processor. YGGDRASHhas partnered withREMIIT, a blockchain powered open market remittance platform. YGGDRASH is developing a blockchain platform to enable the blockchain experience in everyday life, while REMIIT’s blockchain-based remittance platform uses smart contracts to reduce network complexity. Ledger, a crypto assets provider, has expanded its U.S. presence to New York City and appointed Demetrios Skalkotos to lead global business unit operations for Ledger Vault, an enterprise security solution for financial institutions. WORBLI, an EOS-based financial services network for enterprises and individuals looking to unlock the potential of blockchain technology, has teamed up with identity verification providerOnfido. The partnership will allow for the fast onboarding of people and services to the WORBLI network with full KYC and AML verification, according to a press statement. TheNASDAQ Stock Marketis planning to list Bitcoin futures by the first quarter of 2019,Bloombergreported, citing two people familiar with the matter. According to the report, NASDAQ has been at work to address the concerns of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission before launching the contracts. Businesses wanting to introducecryptocurrencies in Malaysiamust wait for legal guidance from Bank Negara Malaysia, said Malaysia finance ministerLim Guan Eng. Addressing parliament on Monday, Guan Eng advised “all parties wishing to introduce bitcoin (style) cryptocurrency to refer first to Bank Negara Malaysia as it is the authority that will issue the decision on financial mechanism,” reports theNew Straits Times. Abu Dhabi-basedAl Hilal Bankhas become the first Islamic bank in the world to conduct the resale and settlement of a $500-million bond on blockchain. The bank aims to transform the Sukuk market by using blockchain and integrating it into their infrastructure, paving the way for innovative digitized Islamic Sukuks, dubbed Smart Sukuks, according to a press statement. TheBahrain Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF)has launched its Blockchain Academy to offer the kingdom’s first Blockchain Professional Qualification Program. With the professional qualification program launching on January 6, 2019, the BIBF in collaboration with the Dubai-based training providermyLearning Keywill offer a five-day training program to prepare participants to earn the international qualification of Certified Blockchain Professional. Cryptocurrency Prices Today (As of 9:37 AM EST) Bitcoin (BTC)is down 1.57% over the past 24 hours, trading at $ 3,754.75. Ethereum (ETH)is trading at $105.77 in the morning, down 4.38% over a 24-hour period. Bitcoin Cash (BCH)is trading at $174, down 3.46% over the past 24 hours. Ripple (XRP)is trading at $0.3526, down 2.27% over a 24-hour period. Litecoin (LTC)is trading at $29.83, up 1.32% over a 24-hour period. To view more information, clickhere. The postBitcoin News Crypto Currency Daily Roundup November 27appeared first onMarket Exclusive. || Newsflash: Bitcoin Price Plummets to $3,755 to Set another Yearly Low: The bitcoin price on Saturday dove below the $4,000 mark for the first time in 2018, forcing the flagship cryptocurrency to a new yearly low. Technical analysts hadpredictedthat further losses awaited bitcoin over the weekend, and those bearish forecasts were proven correct. After extending as high as $4,370 in the early morning hours, thebitcoin pricespent the majority of the remainder of the day on a gradual decline. A gradual decline, that is, until around 21:10 UTC, when a surge in sell volume plunged bitcoin back toward $4,000, a mark it had successfully defended earlier in the week. Today, however, support faltered, and BTC/USD crashed through both $3,900 and $3,800 before reaching a new yearly low at $3,755 as of the time of writing. Now that the market has proven unable to sustain the $4,000 level, many analysts have fingered $3,000 as BTC/USD’s next crucial support level. Genesis Capital CEO Michael Moro, for instance, had previouslypredictedthat the bitcoin price would find a bottom near $3,000 before ultimately beginning the long grind back into bull territory. Clickherefor a real-time bitcoin price chart. Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts fromTradingView. The postNewsflash: Bitcoin Price Plummets to $3,755 to Set another Yearly Lowappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin market cap falls below $100 billion for first time since October 2017: • As of Thursday afternoon in Asia, the market cap of Bitcoin was at $98,194,458,586. • The entire cryptocurrency market capitalization dropped by $15 billion over 24 hours Wednesday, according to CoinMarketCap.com. Amid a sell-off in the cryptocurrency markets that began Wednesday, Bitcoin's market capitalization fell below the $100 billion mark on Thursday — a level not seen since October 2017. As of 3:26 p.m. HK/SIN (2:26 a.m. ET Thursday), the market cap of Bitcoin stood at $98,194,458,586, according to Coinmarketcap.com. That move came after a major sell-off in the cryptocurrency markets on Wednesday, which continued into Thursday in Asia. BKCM founder and CEO Brian Kelly told CNBC's "Fast Money" on Wednesday that the sharp downturn had to do with bitcoin cash , which splintered off in August 2017 from regular bitcoin with the goal of being able to process more transactions. Bitcoin cash is doing a "hard fork" or "effectively a software upgrade," the cryptocurrency fund manager said . "When you do a software upgrade, everybody usually agrees. But in this particular case, everybody is not agreeing." As of 3:29 p.m. HK/SIN (2:29 a.m. ET Thursday), Bitcoin stood at $5,564.70, according to Coindesk. Bitcoin had been trading comfortably around the $6,400 range for the majority of the fall, in stark contrast to the volatility it experienced the rest of the year. Battle for second spot Meanwhile, the market capitalizations of Ripple's XRP and Ether jostled as the second-biggest among digital currencies. It is likely only the second time the two cryptocurrencies have traded near the same level, although it is difficult to state with precision the historical market capitalizations of most digital coins. As of 3:30 p.m. HK/SIN Thursday (2:30 a.m. ET), XRP's market cap was at $18,722,821,459, compared with Ether's $18,560,372,901, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com. Data from Coindesk also showed XRP having a higher market cap of $18.44 billion, versus Ether's $18.26 billion. One possible reason behind the recent move was due to the perception that Ripple, the company behind XRP, has "made a lot of progress," Zennon Kapron, director at financial technology consultancy Kapronasia, told CNBC over the phone. To illustrate his point, Kapron pointed to the recent announcement of Ripple's partnership with Malaysia-based CIMB Group CIMB-MY . As Ripple has generally gotten more traction and "a lot of people are very bullish on XRP," Kapron said. However, he added the caveat that not all of Ripple's products are XRP-based. The aggregate cryptocurrency market capitalization dropped by $15 billion over 24 hours Wednesday, according to CoinMarketCap.com. As of 3:46 p.m. HK/SIN (2:46 a.m. ET Thursday), the total cryptocurrency market capitalization was at $186,275,052,509, according to Coinmarketcap.com — down more than 76 percent from its highs earlier in 2018. — CNBC's Arjun Kharpal, Kate Rooney and Tyler Clifford contributed to this report. More From CNBC • Top News and Analysis • Latest News Video • Personal Finance || Bitcoin Opinion: Why Context is Important When Talking about the ‘Crypto Bubble’: The fact that thebitcoin pricehas been crashing for the past month has led some people to have some hilarious reactions. From rage-quitting crypto-trading and investing to astonishing doomsday predictions, it’s really fun to sit back and watch all madness. However, I feel like it’s also my duty to step in and calm things down for a second. Honestly, this “crypto-bubble” you’re tired of hearing about hasn’t popped. It hasn’t even begun to form. If you don’t believe me, you’re in for a treat, for today we’ll discuss how perspective and the ability to see things abstractly is an asset when properly used and why so many people lack the vision to see things clearly. I’m not saying I’m an all-knowing guru. That’s not the point. The thing is that people get excited and really want to work for those likes and shares. That’s all fine; it’s the world we live in today, not here to judge. But, c’mon; at least have the decency to put things into perspective. Do you know how big thedotcom bubblegrew before bursting? Do you have any idea? When the dotcom bubble exploded, close to 20 years ago, the total market value was around $6.7 trillion. In today’s money, the value of each USD is about 40 percent lower. This simply means, if you were to compare to 2000’s prices to 2018’s prices, this bubble would have reachedmore than $9 trillion. See where we are now? We’re about 1.5 percent into the bubble. How frightening. Right now, the current mindset is that cryptocurrencies are in some sort ofdownward spiral, with no hope ahead. According to some news sources, that is. Obviously, when we look at the bigger picture, we can clearly see that is not the case. With the most recent developments inLightning Networktechnology, a Bitcoin peer-to-peer scaling solution, we’re now starting to see considerable more adoption, as more nodes join the network and the number of active connections and transactions increases. As CCNreported: “Even as the price of bitcoin continued to slide, the effective throughput of its more than 11,000 nodes had surpassed $2 million when we first began researching this article. Volatility being what it is, the actual throughput at time of writing stands somewhere over $1.97M, or 432.7 BTC.” The entirecryptocurrency market caphas devalued more than 70 percent since its peaks highs close to $1 trillion, during early January this year, which has led some people to believe we’re finally out of luck, and there is little hope crypto will recover any time soon. Of course, it’s always at the most desperate moments, when hope is all but gone, that we’re given another chance. I don’t think we’ll see prices for such low prices for much longer. Soon, there will be an upwards correction. If you need more fundamentals, besides Bitcoin’s hash rate maintaining a steady uptrend and more people actually using bitcoin in countries like Venezuela (which kind of proves its point), we could use, perhaps, an alternative argument. Is bitcoin over-priced? I would ultimately argue its price should at leastbe a little bit higher than McDonald’s. Financial freedom > burgers But hey, that’s just me. Visa handles far more at about $30 billion a day, or $11 trillion a year according to their self-disclosedstats. That’s with a capacity of 65,000 transactions a second. Bitcoin can handle only about 7 tx/s on chain, or about 0.01 percent of Visa’s. Yet bitcoin transfers about 25 percent of Visa’s amount of value processing. In their recent quarterlyreport, Mastercard said they processed $4.4 trillion in the year to date, while bitcoin would be at about $3 trillion on a yearly basis if we extrapolate from the daily $8 billion — a level that is fairly common for BTC. Do you guys know what this means? Bitcoin is close to overtaking Mastercard by the amount of value transferred daily. This really makes me wonder: What is the big deal of using bitcoin mostly as a store of value? Even if it’s slow and boring, it’s much, much safer than any centralized third-party settlements layer. There is also a lot of action currently behind the scenes asinstitutions preparecustody solutions to allow institutional money from endowments, hedge funds, state pension funds, etc., to join us brave privateers that beat them to this New World of cryptocurrency and blockchain. Bakkt evenannouncedtheir first contracts for BTC would be aone to one ratio. All this is bullish. But way more exciting is what comes next. Have you wondered why the last time there was direct Chinese participation, the total market capitalization went up 881 percent in 6 months? Currently, the Chinese yuan accounts for only 0.79 percent of bitcoin’s daily trading volume (give or take). When was the last time the Chinese public had straightforward access from yuan to bitcoin anyway? December 2013. Almost 5 years ago. China stopped mainstream financial institutions on the mainland from dealing with bitcoin in December 2013, when the overall market cap for all cryptocurrencies was only $15.7 billion. It drives me nuts just thinking about what’s to come when most countries open their doors to cryptocurrencies — one way or another. Yes, even through centralized digital currencies, backed by governments, which will happen sooner or later. Just by looking atDapp Radar, a website focused on showing statistics about decentralized applications, we clearly see there isn’t much adoption yet. That means that it seems a tiny bit too soon to jump into any sort of conclusions, about future use-cases. That is, most dApps have been released either in 2017 or 2018, so there hasn’t really been enough time to properly implement token-models which leverage tokens in the most amazing ways possible – which to me will be ahuge catalyst for user adoption. Some takeaways froman amazing data scientist, on the topic of dApps and adoption rates, are: 1. “We are orders of magnitudes away from consumer adoption of dApps. No killer app (outside of tokens and trading) have been created yet. Any seemingly “large” dApp (ex. IDEX, CryptoKitties, etc) has low usage overall. 2. “All of the top dApps are still very much about speculation of value. Decentralized exchanges, casino games, pyramid schemes, and even the current collectible games (I would argue) are all around speculation. 3. “What applications (aside from value transfer and speculation) really take advantage of the true unique properties of a blockchain (censorship resistance, immutability of data, etc) and unlock real adoption? 4. “For new protocol developers, instead of trying to convince existing dApp developers to build on your new platform — think hard about what dApps actually make sense on your protocol and how to help them have a chance at real adoption. 5. “We as an ecosystem need to build better tools and infrastructure for more widespread adoption of dApps.Metamaskis an awesome tool, but it is still a difficult onboarding step for most normal users.Toshi,Status, andCipherare all steps in the right direction and I’m really looking forward to the creation of other tools to simplify the user onboarding experience and improve general UI/UX for normal users.” Plus, I do believe there is an actual use-case for a great deal of cryptocurrencies out there. Otherwise: • WithoutLitecoinwe wouldn’t have a live testnet for bitcoin improvements. • Or withoutBCashwe wouldn’t have a blockchain with 32mb blocks. • What aboutEthereum?Thanks to this protocol, have an easy framework to deploy cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. • WithoutSteemitwe wouldn’t have a decentralized, incentive-based, social network. • Without theBasic Attention Tokenwe wouldn’t haveBrave,a decentralized browser that pays content creators. • Do you like privacy? Well, withoutZcash, we wouldn’t have ZKsnarks, providing anonymity and privacy in the blockchain technology. • Or withoutStellar,we wouldn’t have institutions looking at public blockchain solutions. • Finally, withoutAuruswe wouldn’t have a stablecoin based ontokenized gold assets(much safer than tether and its“peg”to the USD). There’s clearly much work left to be done. What’s the best thing to do now? Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m surely going to take advantage of these continuous Black Friday bitcoin prices and increase my holdings. At the end of the day, bitcoin’s still one of the most (if not the most?) best-performing assets since its inception, close to 10 years ago. Just think about the dozens of times we’ve seen bitcoin crashing. The conclusion is rather quite simple, and I guess we’ll always end-up in circles around the same stuff: Since bitcoin plunged from an all-time high of nearly $20,000 to its current price around $4,000, crypto naysayers such asWarren Buffett,Jamie Dimon, andNouriel Roubinireiterated their position that the crypto markets will end poorly, while crypto bulls point to bitcoin’s previous crashes and multiple comebacks. One interesting thought is that on each crash, the average percent decrease from highs to lows has been smaller on each bear market. That’s definitely a very good sign! The reason why we need to take a break from time to time and look at the bigger picture is to put things into perspective. Bitcoin is still in its early days, and I’m quite confident, due to past history from multiple markets, we’ll still be able to see huge bears and bulls. If you’re patient enough, of course. Don’t forget,buy whenthere’s blood in the streets! Disclaimer: this article shouldn’t be taken as financial advisement; it represents my personal opinion andshould not be attributed to CCN. I have savings invested in cryptocurrency so take whatever I write with a grain of salt. Do not invest what you cannot afford to lose and always read as much as possible about a project before investing. Featured Image from Shutterstock The postBitcoin Opinion: Why Context is Important When Talking about the ‘Crypto Bubble’appeared first onCCN. || A More Docile Approach to Junk Bonds: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com. High-yield corporate bonds are often among the most volatile parts of the fixed income market. Some exchange traded funds can reduce the volatility associated with high-yield credit, including theXtrackers Low Beta High Yield Bond ETF (HYDW) . HYDW holds about 400 junk-rated bonds and follows the Solactive USD High Yield Corporates Total Market Low Beta Index. That benchmark includes junk-rated debt that exhibits lower overall beta to the broader high-yield bond market. Consequently, the portfolio is comprised of lower-yielding junk bonds that show a lower beta. “In the past few weeks, high-yield bonds—those deemed the riskiest debt and that offer commensurately higher coupons, as a result—have suffered amid concerns the investment vehicles are vulnerable to lower crude values. That is because energy bonds make up a sizable, 15%, of benchmark indices focusing on so-called junk debt,”according to MarketWatch. Energy issuers are the second-largest group in HYDW, but a scant percentage of the fund's components reside in the highly speculativeCCC rating category. More HYDW ETF Details Assets deemed as low volatility usually offer better risk-adjusted returns over the long-term. Investors are embracing HYDW’s strategy. The ETF debuted last January and has $137.51 million in assets under management, making it one of the more successful fixed income ETFs that debuted this year. While investors have been departing traditional junk bond ETFs in the current quarter, HYDW has actually seen modest inflows. Specifically, high-yield bonds, like their names suggest, provide opportunities for enhanced yields. Since 1994, the high yield bond market has exhibited an average spread of 509 basis points above Treasuries. In a rising rate environment, with the Federal Reserve eyeing a tighter monetary policy and interest rate normalization, high-yield bonds may outperform. High-yield bonds have historically exhibited a lower sensitivity to interest rate changes. During periods of rising rates, high-yield assets have returned a mean 4.23%, compared to the -1.22% decline in investment-grade debt and -2.46% drawdown for U.S. Treasuries. HYDW has a modified duration to worst of 2.94 years. For more on bond funds and strategies, please visit ourFixed Income Channel. POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM • SPY ETF Quote • VOO ETF Quote • QQQ ETF Quote • Top 34 Gold ETFs • Top 34 Oil ETFs • Kevin O’Leary: Resist the Urge to Overspend on an Engagement Ring • An Emerging Market ETF That Capitalizes on the Growing Middle-Class Consumer • Consider Bitcoin Cash When Crypto Carnage Stops • Apple Acquires AI Startup Silk Labs • Holiday Shopping Could Top $1 Trillion This Year READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || 10 Stocks to Sell That Are Melting Down Right Now: U.S. equities were crushed lower on Tuesday ahead of the market closure in honor of President George H. W. Bush. Trade tensions were again to blame, with President Donald Trump warning that more tariffs would be coming unless the Chinese agreed to his terms. The result was a severe, near-800 point decline in theDow Jones Industrial Averagethat took the average back below its 200-day moving average. People were seeing stocks to sell everywhere. More ominous was the setting of a pattern of lower highs since peaking in early October. A violation of the critical lows near 24,250 would set up a test of the 23,500 support set earlier this year. A breakdown from here could well result in a reversal of much of the 2017 Trump election rally. If not something even worse. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips • 7 Dividend Aristocrats to Buy for 2019 Evidence of late-cycle dynamics abound, from falling earnings growth projections to an ultra-tight labor market to tightening monetary policy. This isn’t an environment friendly to stock prices. And indeed, a growing list of large-caps are suffering to the downside. Here are 10 stocks to sell that are melting down: Shares ofApple(NASDAQ:AAPL) stock are in rough shape as the bloom comes off of its iPhone business. How bad is it? Management no longer wants to talk about unit volumes but sector sales instead, an admittance it’s trying to boost prices to offset faltering sales. The problem? It isn’t working, with the company touting higher trade-in allowances on older models as it’s forced to adopt a promotional strategy. The company will next report results on Jan. 29 after the close. Analysts are looking for earnings of $4.72 per share on revenues of $91.8 billion. When the company last reported on Nov. 1 earnings of $2.91 per share beat estimates by 13 cents on a 19.6% rise in revenues. Shares ofAlphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) stock, parent of Google, are moving lower after bonking into overhead resistance from its 200-day moving average. The company has suffered a roughly 17% decline in its share price amid increasing downside momentum for the “FAANGs” that seemed oh-so-bulletproof just a few months ago. • 10 Defensive Stocks to Protect Your Portfolio in 2019 The company will next report results on Jan. 31 after the close. Analysts expect earnings of $10.86 on $39 billion in revenue. When the company last reported on Oct. 25, earnings of $13.06 beat estimates by $2.65 per share on a 21.5% rise in revenues. Facebook(NASDAQ:FB) shares have been among the worst hurt of the FAANGs, down some 37% from their July high as shareholders flee tepid user growth, ongoing privacy concerns, and now indications of possible division and acrimony at the highest level of management. The result is a return to early 2017 lows. The company will next report results on Jan. 30 after the close. Analysts are looking for earnings of $2.19 cents per share on revenues of $16.4 billion. When the company last reported on Oct. 30, earnings of $1.76 beat estimates by 29 cents per share on 32.9% rise in revenues. Already down more than 30% from the double-top high set over the summer, the shares ofNetflix(NASDAQ:NFLX) have fallen back below their 50-week moving average for the first teams since 2016 as investors wonder aloud whether the company’s cash burn rate and rising production costs are sustainable. Especially with new competition coming from the likes ofAppleandDisney(NYSE:DIS), Netflix could be a stock to sell. • 10 Stocks to Buy With The Trade War on Pause The company will next report results on Jan. 22 after the close. Analysts are looking for earnings of 24 cents per share on revenues of $4.2 billion. When the company last reported on  Oct. 16 earnings of 89 cents per share beat estimates by 21 cents on a 34% rise in revenues. Despite announcing it would split the company into three separate entities,United Technologies(NYSE:UTX) management has been unable to stem the share price decline with the stock threatening to fall below critical three-month support near the $120-a-share level to return to its May lows — which would be worth a loss of more than 4% from here. It could make this a prime stock to sell. The company will next report results on Jan. 22 before the bell. Analysts are looking for earnings of $1.52 per share on revenues of $16.8 billion. When the company last reported on Oct. 23, earnings of $1.93 beat estimates by 11 cents on a 9.6%. Nvidia(NASDAQ:NVDA) shareholders enjoyed a wild rise for years, fueled by a combination of cryptocurrency mania (its GPUs are used in mining rigs), connections to trends like AI and autonomous driving, and intense price momentum. But they’re learning now that momentum works in reverse as well, with shares falling roughly 50% from the high set in late October. Bitcoin is imploding and demand for its GPUs is slowing. • 10 Goldman Sachs Top Stock Picks for 2019 The company will next report results on Feb. 7 after the close. Analysts are looking for earnings of $1.40 per share on revenues of $2.7 billion. When the company last reported on Nov. 15, earnings of $1.84 beat missed estimates by 13 cents on a 20.7% rise in revenues. Transportation stocks likeUPS(NYSE:UPS) are on the front lines of the economy and are vulnerable to a pullback in economic activity, which is being widely penciled in for 2019. Analysts at Morgan Stanley recently issued cautious commentary on the company given increasing competition fromAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) and its Amazon Air division. They are looking for a Street-low price target of just $87. The company will next report results on Jan. 31 before the bell. Analysts are looking for earnings of $1.93 per share on revenues of $20.1 billion. When the company last reported on Oct. 24, earnings of $1.82 matched estimates on a 7.9% rise in revenues. Shares ofSchlumberger(NYSE:SLB)  have been crushed along with the rest of the energy sector, down a whopping 40% from the highs set in May. This returns prices to lows not seen since 2010 and caps a decline of nearly 60% from the energy heydays of 2014. Not even an ill-timed upgrade from HSBC Securities analysts in late November has been enough to turn things around for the stock. • 10 Stocks to Buy for a Rate Hike Slowdown The company will next report results on Jan. 18 before the bell. Analysts are looking for earnings of 42 cents per share on revenues of $8.4 billion. When the company last reported on  Oct. 19, earnings of 46 cents per share beat estimates by a penny on a 7.6% rise in revenues. Shares ofTJX Companies(NYSE:TJX) have fallen back below their 200-day moving average and are threatening to move below critical support from the trading range seen during the summer. Watch for a fall all the way back to the springtime trading range which would mark a 15% decline from here. Analysts at Telsey Advisory Group recently downgraded their forecasts on headwinds from new lease accounting rules, suggesting this is a stock to sell. The company will next report results on Feb. 27 before the bell. Analysts are looking for earnings of 68 cents per share on revenues of $10.9 billion. When the company last reported on Nov. 20, earnings of 61 cents per share met estimates on a 12.1% rise in revenues. The pain isn’t yet over forGeneral Electric(NYSE:GE) shares, which are falling out of their two-month trading range to return to levels not seen since early 2009 — capping a loss of more than 76% from the high set in the summer of 2016. Investors continue to lose what little faith they had left in management’s ongoing turnaround plans. Headwinds will be made worse by any further breakdown in U.S.-China trade relations. • 10 High-Yield Monthly Dividend Stocks The company will next report results on Jan. 24 before the bell. Analysts are looking for earnings of 22 cents per share on revenues of $32.1 billion. When the company last reported on Oct. 30, earnings of 14 cents per share missed estimates by six cents on a 3.6% decline in revenues. As of this writing, William Roth did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. • 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid • 10 Stocks to Buy When the Yield Curve Inverts • 10 Defensive Stocks to Protect Your Portfolio in 2019 • 10 Stocks to Buy With The Trade War on Pause Compare Brokers The post10 Stocks to Sell That Are Melting Down Right Nowappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Alleged Bitcoin Launderer Vinnik Announces Hunger Strike to ‘Get a Fair Trial’: The lawyer for Alexander Vinnik, the alleged former operator of defunct cryptocurrency exchangeBTC-e, said his defendant will go on a hunger strike this Monday, Russian state-owned news outlet TASSreportedNov. 23. According to Timofey Musatov, the head of the lawyers representing Vinnik, the reason given for the hunger strike is that “he [Vinnik] was stripped of the right for defense in France and, consequently, in Greece.” The lawyer also noted that “it became clear that the [French-issued] European arrest warrant expired.” In 2017, Greece’s supreme courtruledto extradite Vinnik to the U.S., where he faces charges of money laundering and fraud. In June, a Greek courtruledto extradite Vinnik to France. The Greek Supreme Court discussed Vinnik’s extradition toFranceon Nov. 19, but postponed the ruling to Nov. 29, as TASS reports. According to TASS, Musatov also accuses the judge of the Greek Supreme Court of ignoring him and his team: “The Greek Supreme Court's judge completely ignores the work of lawyers who cannot even file a petition. She does not give them an opportunity to speak or do it.” The lawyer stated that “[i]f there is no fair trial, he will inevitably be deported to the United States through France, where he will get something close to a life sentence, which equals death.” He then further clarified Vinnik’s reasoning stating that “after observing this situation, Alexander realized that he would either get a fair trial or die.” The head of the team of lawyers also explained that his defendant “understood that he does not have any other options and decided to go on a hunger strike on Monday in protest against this situation.” According to Musatov, Vinnik came to this conclusion when his Greek lawyer, Zoe Konstantopoulou, “openly” said during the Nov. 19 court session that “the court would not treat any citizen of anE.U.member country or Greece as it treats Alexander just because he is a Russian national.” As Cointelegraph reported this week, Konstantopoulou is alsoaccusingthe Greek Supreme Court of violating her defendant’s rights by failing to provide translations of court documents at his request. • Greek Supreme Court is Violating Alleged Bitcoin Launderer’s Rights, Lawyer Argues • Bitcoin Briefly Breaks Over $4,000, Bitcoin Cash Sees Gains Near 20 Percent on the Day • Taiwan is Tightening Regulations on Crypto Exchanges, Possible Pressure From China? • France: Central Bank Does Not Endorse Plans for Tobacco Shops to Sell Bitcoin || Bitcoin drops to one-year low as slump persists; ethereum down sharply: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Tom Wilson NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin fell to a more than one-year low on Wednesday, breaching a key support level of $6,000 and causing a wave of selling in the digital currency and other crypto assets in what has been a prolonged market slump that began early this year. Bitcoin fell to as low as $5,533.09 on the Bitstamp platform. It was down 9 percent at $5,690.47. "For the last few days you could see the consolidation happening and the price was moving on the downside," said Naeem Aslam, analyst at ThinkMarkets, a multi-asset online brokerage. "The break of $6,200 yesterday gave a fair indication that there are no buyers on the sidelines at this point," he added. Bitcoin's weakness spread to other cryptocurrencies, with ethereum, the second-largest, dropping to a two-month low. Ethereum was last down 10 percent at $182.41 . Wednesday's sell-off in cryptocurrencies pushed the sector's market capitalization to under $200 billion for the first time since around mid-September, according to data from industry data tracker coinmarketcap.com. "What you are seeing... is a breakout on the downside. Sometimes when things happen, it takes a while for the true reason to become clear - an exchange trade or regulatory action," said Charlie Hayter, founder of industry website Cryptocompare in London. Other market participants suggested that Thursday's impending "hard fork," or split of bitcoin cash - another cryptocurrency that emerged out of bitcoin - into two separate currencies, has caused some volatility as well. Twice a year, bitcoin cash undergoes scheduled protocol upgrades, which include splitting its network. "For our trading activities, the hard fork recently has generated tremendous interest and trading volume, above 4 billion daily, among traders," said Ricky Li, co-founder of crypto trading and advisory firm Altonomy. Overall, analysts said the outlook for bitcoin remains unclear, with longer-term forecasts dependent on the virtual currency becoming a reliable store of value or a viable payment mechanism. However, there are growing signs of greater institutional participation in bitcoin, such as increased demand for a bitcoin exchange traded fund and rising bitcoin futures volume, analysts said. But they noted that actual participation remains low among both institutional and retail investors. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Tom Wilson in London; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] LAST TRADE: BUY 0.01000000BTC@3793.7EUR SELL WALL: 155.21BTC@4298.0EUR BUY WALL: 77.627BTC@3100.0EUR SUM SHORTS: 2029528EUR SUM LONGS: 1717302EUR DIFFERENCE SHORTS vs LONGS: 312225 EUR FIRST SELL WALL: 12.8BTC@3793.4 FIRST BUY WALL: 11.6BTC@3783.9 #btc #bitcoin || $598.00 BITMAIN Antminer Z9 Mini * IN HAND SHIP ASAP * Batch 1 * ~15k/sol #Bitcoin #Mining #Cryptocurrency http://bit.ly/2OpZUnf pic.twitter.com/srCzSypJRS || ビットコイン！様子見です。シンプソンはじまるかな今までの失敗から、FXはレバ2〜5倍で最低1週間のスイングで行きます。 #btc #ビットコイン #btcfx || Donde están los canallas que han estado promocionando el bitcoin? El descalabro de las criptomonedas aún no toca fondo: Precio del bitcoin cayó bajo los 4 mil dólares https://www.publimetro.cl/cl/noticias/2018/11/26/descalabro-la-moneda-virtual-aun-no-toca-fondo-valor-del-bitcoin-cayo-los-4-mil-dolares.html … || Bitcoin shit version? Isn't even close to #BTC || Many think cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are the new gold, but they're so much more. Be the first to know the most important news in crypto & blockchain with the @ForbesCrypto newsletter delivered to your inbox every Friday: http://on.forbes.com/6012D0UL8 pic.twitter.com/gDEvsJLYJV || Yes, #PoW is efficient. Great post by @danheld explaining myths about #bitcoin and its energy consumption. #PoW is indeed becoming more efficient over time and is driving humanity to become a Type I energy civilization much faster https://t.co/JyM0TrDsYU || Don't worry though, most people get that it's part of a wider religion based on being contrarian because some people think that makes them intelligent. Nobody is trying to make btc nuts give that up. || うん、それがいい！ 確かに友達には聞けないかもw ホントこの界隈金持ちばかりで怖い怖い、あー怖い... || 24H 2018/12/09 11:00 (2018/12/08 11:00) LONG : 27050.95 BTC (-1215.16 BTC) SHORT : 38335.37 BTC (-4273.86 BTC) LS比 : 41% vs 58% (39% vs 60%)
Trend: up || Prices: 3502.66, 3424.59, 3486.95, 3313.68, 3242.48, 3236.76, 3252.84, 3545.86, 3696.06, 3745.95
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)] Is IBM Developing a Bitcoin Featured Payment System? - Analyst Blog: Reportedly,IBM CorporationIBM is going to adopt blockchain — the technology behind Bitcoin — to create its own digital cash and payment system for major currencies. However, Bitcoin, currently available only in the U.S., has been heavily criticized for its cryptocurrency feature. However, the IBM move failed to impress investors and its shares closed 2.34% ($3.70) lower at $154.28 on Friday. Although not popular among the masses, cryptocurrency is likely to be the next revolutionary change in the digital payment system. Cryptocurrency, pioneered by Bitcoin to be used in the commercial space, does not require any central regulating authority and the transactions take place between the involved parties only. It uses military-grade cryptography to protect users against fraud. Payments can be made via smartphone apps or their desktop versions. This is generally used for transferring funds electronically and does not require a credit card or PIN. While most of the companies such as Microsoft Corp. MSFT, eBay Inc. EBAY and Expedia EXPE have accepted the Bitcoin platform, IBM plans to expand the use of blockchain technology beyond Bitcoin. If rumors are to be believed, IBM is working with the Federal Reserve to explore this new technology to aid cross-border cash payments. If central banksback IBM’splans, then it should be able to build the secure and scalable infrastructure for the project. However, security, one of the reasons behind the creation of this digital platform, remains a major concern in adopting cryptocurrency and deters further development in this field. In March last year, exchange market Flexcoin blacklisted Bitcoin following the theft of 896 Bitcoins, then worth $625,000. Bloomberg also stated that Bitcoin was the worst performing currency in 2014. IBM’s project is at the nascent stages and it is yet to be seen how the company addresses issues about money-laundering and criminal activities. Though the company has not revealed much on its plans, it is expected that this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company would work with the central banks to secure its platform. According to reports, the coins issued over the IBM platform will form part of the money supply. Instead of real money, these coins would be linked to a user’s bank account and used as token. The account will probably be integrated with the proposed digital currency ledger through the wallet software. We believe that such innovations by tech giants like IBM would address issues related to digital currency payment systems and provide a better alternative that can fully replace federally issued money. 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 reportINTL BUS MACH (IBM): Free Stock Analysis ReportEXPEDIA INC (EXPE): Free Stock Analysis ReportMICROSOFT CORP (MSFT): Free Stock Analysis ReportEBAY INC (EBAY): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || PRESS DIGEST- New York Times business news - March 6: March 6 (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. * Multinational companies accused of human rights abuses abroad are on the counterattack, seeking to bring down the lawyers who target them. Drummond Co Inc, a coal producer based in Birmingham, Alabama, recently asked a federal judge to hold in contempt Terrence Collingsworth, a lawyer who has accused companies of mistreating workers, as part of a libel suit it is pressing against him.( http://nyti.ms/1aPfUXS ) * What is really under examination in Ellen Pao's lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the firm in which she was junior partner, is the question of why there are so few women in leadership positions in Silicon Valley. At stake is any hope that the tech world can claim to be a progressive place, or even a fair one.( http://nyti.ms/1aPgchp ) * The United States Postal Service has announced it will replace its fleet of Grumman mail trucks with what it calls its next-generation delivery vehicle. The goal is to harness new technologies, increase fuel efficiency and help the Postal Service better compete on package deliveries with the likes of FedEx and United Parcel Service.( http://nyti.ms/1aPjgtI ) * The nation's largest banks appear to have the financial strength to survive a nightmarish world where unemployment soars, house prices plummet and Wall Street crashes, the Federal Reserve said on Thursday.( http://nyti.ms/1aPh6u6 ) * The Islamic State, the violent millitant group that espouses a return to a seventh-century caliphate, has been astonishingly successful at spreading its message using 21st-century social media, according to a study released Thursday.( http://nyti.ms/1aPhGZ3 ) * The United States Marshals Service said on Thursday that 14 registered bidders took part in an auction for 50,000 Bitcoins, worth about $14 million, that were seized in connection with the online bazaar Silk Road.( http://nyti.ms/1aPhN6N ) (Compiled by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru) || Bitcoin Shop, Inc. Deploys Transaction Verification Servers in New Facility Resulting in 30% Cost Reduction Over Previous Operations: ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Mar 25, 2015) - Bitcoin Shop, Inc. (OTCQB:BTCS) ("BTCS" or the "Company"), which is undertaking the build-out of a universal digital currency ecosystem, announced today that the Company has successfully deployed its transaction verification services servers in its new facility which will result in a 30% reduction in operating costs going forward when compared to the Company's previous operations. BTCS has also acquired additional servers, which represent a 10% increase over its previously announced hashing power. The Company is now running transaction verification servers with hashing power of over 900 Th/s and should have an additional 80 Th/s online in a few days. Pictures of the new facility can be seen on the Company's Facebook page here:http://on.fb.me/18TpbN5 Charles Allen, CEO of BTCS, commented, "Following our well timed entry into the transaction verification services segment we have now completed the transition to our new facility. We plan to expand this segment of our business and believe it will be the revenue driver for our business as we continue to develop our universal digital currency ecosystem." The Company's transaction verification services business, or digital currency mining, entails running specialized servers which solve a set of prescribed calculations to add a block of verified information to the blockchain and thereby confirm bitcoin transactions. When BTCS is successful in adding a block to the blockchain, it is issued new bitcoins. About BTCS:BTCS plans to build a universal digital currency platform with the goal of enabling users to engage in the digital currency ecosystem through one point of access. The Company currently 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. Customers can access competitive pricing options from 256 retailers through BTCS's "Intelligent Shopping Engine." All ecommerce customer orders are fulfilled by third party vendors. The Company plans to use its ecommerce platform as a customer on-ramp for a broader digital currency platform. BTCS actively partners with strategic digital currency companies who have technologies, services or products that are complementary to its business strategy by making investments in them and integrating with them. 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. || Bitcoin alternative in 'pyramid scheme' storm: The founders of a new digital currency, known as LEOCoin, have hit back at reports published over the weekend linking them with a suspected pyramid scheme back in 2012. Last week, U.K.-based Learning Enterprises Organisation (LEO) unveiled a trading platform in Hong Kong for its cryptocurrency called LEOCoin, which the company is promoting as an alternative to more popular digital currencies like bitcoin(: BTC=). At a London launch the previous week, LEO boasted that it had already promoted the product to its current client base, claiming it meant over 100,000 entrepreneurs were already actively using the cryptocurrency in anticipation of its official trading debut, with around 30,000 merchants already signed up. It also claimed this made it the "second largest digital currency" in the world, second to bitcoin, but has been slammed by reports on industry websites in the last week. Joel Dalais, a virtual currency entrepreneur and the director of bitcoin exchange IBWT, said oncryptocoinsnews.comthat LEOCoin was a "good example of what a pump and dump coin looks like." He also dismissed its claims of its sizeable usage as "bulls*t." Read MoreBitcoin gets a rival-how will it fare? An article by another industry website, calledCoinDesk, delved into the history of project founders Dan Anderson and Atif Kamran and said that both were caught up in a controversy surrounding a suspected pyramid scheme, called UNAICO Pakistan, that was warned by the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan in 2012. Published online, the report by the Pakistani SEC said it had received various complaints from the public claiming that UNAICO was a pyramid scheme. The letter, dated April 2012, concludes that the company's activities did "broadly fall" within the definition of "fraudulent activities" and gave a recommendation to shut down the firm. LEO's Dan Anderson is named as being the CEO of UNAICO at the time and Atif Kamran was also linked to the company through Sitetalk, a social community platform that is described as a "sister concern" by the Pakistani commission. A pyramid scheme is usually described as a program whereby participants try to make money by recruiting new members to the scheme before the program collapses and some members lose money. The CoinDesk article quotes an expert witness in the prosecution of pyramid schemes, William Keep, as saying that some of LEO's business model does raise questions, in particular highlighting that it provides incentives for users to recruit others. LEO, meanwhile, has strongly refuted these claims telling CNBC via email that they were "completely untrue." "Dan Anderson and Atif Kamran have never been involved in any sort of scam and the comments about them have misunderstood the facts entirely," a spokesperson for LEO said in the emailed statement. Both resigned from UNAICO and Sitetalk after disagreeing about the direction the business was taking, according to the statement, which said that they had also ensured reimbursements for those that lost money. They have been officially discharged of all liabilities and cooperated fully with authorities in all of these matters, the spokesperson added. The company also aimed to cool talk that it was artificially inflating its user base. At the event in London in March, LEO conceded that the cryptocurrency was targeted more at small and medium-sized businesses - especially in emerging economies - rather than the large conglomerates that have started to accept bitcoin. A few examples of merchants revealed to CNBC that used LEOCoin were a Pakistani company called Capital Motors, a financial services firm in Slovenia called Profitus Skupina and a German-based energy efficiency services firm called Transformer. A U.K.-based equine sports massage company called Happy Horse World is also on its roster as well as Strel Swimming, a U.K. based online company that organizes swimming tours around Europe. Borut Strel, a director at Strel, told CNBC via telephone that the company had only seen between 10 and 15 transactions made using the cryptocurrency, but predicted the sector as a whole was on the verge of a "new era." The more popular bitcoin is a "virtual" currency that allows users to exchange online credits for goods and services. While there is no central bank that issues them, bitcoins can be created online by using a computer to complete difficult tasks, a process known as mining. A plethora of so-called "altcoins," or alternative coins, have sprung up alongside bitcoin. Dogecoin, which was initially started as a joke in 2013 and is based on an internet meme, is still the sixth largest digital currency in terms of market capitalization, according to coinmarketcap.com. More From CNBC • CNBC.com News Page • CNBC.com Blogs Page • CNBC.com Earnings Central || Chinese yuan dominates 80% of Bitcoin trades: China's craze for bitcoins has been well-documented over the past year, but a new report highlights just how dominant of a player the country is. About 80 percent of bitcoin volume is now driven by the Chinese yuan (Exchange:CNY=) , according to data from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS - News ) . The U.S. dollar is the second most used currency for transactions, followed by the euro, the bank said in a new report. The bank's findings correlat e with data from Bitcoinity, a popular website used to track market data. A look at trading volume over the past six months reveals China's yuan accounted for 77 percent of total market share, compared with 19 percent for the greenback (New York Board of Trade (Futures): =USD) and just 1 percent for the euro (Unknown:EURBA=) . China's high trading activity comes despite recent moves by the People's Bank of China (PBoC) to clamp down on the crypto-currency. The central bank banned financial institutions from bitcoin trading in December after warning that the currency was essentially a vehicle for speculation. Earlier in 2014, the PBoC also took measures to prevent bitcoin companies from gaining access to payment processors. However, Goldman Sachs believes the mood is gradually improving: "However, in light of a somewhat stabilizing Bitcoin economy in China, a few payment processors have reemerged, such as BTC China's JustPay." Bitcoin's future in China is expected to keep expanding as the country becomes a major mining hub, according to a U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report last year. Read More Feds auction $13.5M worth of Silk Road bitcoins The mainland boasts an enormous online gaming community, where games like World of Warcraft allow players to trade virtual credits earned in the game for cash or real goods and services. The practice is called "gold farming" and can be seen as a precursor to bitcoin mining, the report said. "One prominent figure in Beijing's Bitcoin circles estimated that China's miners, composed mainly of hardware engineers and IT aficionados, number in the tens of thousands." Story continues Goldman Sachs expects global bitcoin acceptance to continue growing thanks to the currency's potential for transforming the remittance market. "Bitcoin and other crypto currencies enable the potential for faster transactions with lower transaction fees. The Bitcoin network can charge as little as zero for processing transactions if there is no time constraint for confirmation." Moreover, concerns over fluctuations in bitcoin prices won't apply to money transfers due to the speed of the transactions and the fact that customers are given rates in advance, Goldman added. More From CNBC Bitcoin is done with its 'tumultuous teen' years Bitcoin finds a place among the world's elite Bitcoin gets first regulated US exchange || SeanieMac International, Ltd. Signs JV Agreement to Issue a Real Time BitCoin Debit Card with a Major International Credit Card: HUNTINGTON, NY / ACCESSWIRE / March 10, 2014 /SeanieMac announced today that it had signed an joint venture to issue a branded debit card under a major international credit card brand. We will be updating shareholders as we get closer to issuing debit cards and sign additional agreements on the Joint Venture. The agreement targets the development of BitCoin debit card that would allow the user to convert their Bitcoin in real time to multiple fiat currencies. Currently the debit card allows users to convert into fiat currencies at the end of the day pricing but the JV provides capital for the development of real time conversions. Shane O' Driscoll CEO, "While there is obvious benefits to marketing the debit card to Bitcoin holders as part of JV agreement with Overseas BC Marketing, Inc. the fact is the market for a real time debit card is much larger than just gaming. We believe the ability for Bitcoin users to keep their bitcoins deposited with a internationally trusted credit card brand and have the ability to convert it and use it internationally wherever debit cards are accepted in multiple fiat currencies will be attractive to many of those users. The market for debit card users could become a very large business for us in its own right independent of our gaming platform. We are extremely excited about this opportunity. As of today there were 13,922,025 bitcoins in circulation with a market capitalization of $3.9 billion dollars." With a database of over 3,000,000 bitcoin users, we and our JV partners (well-established in the bitcoin marketplace) are confident our venture can significantly attract a great number of new users and revenue like never before . New and existing SeanieMac customers will be offered free bet and other promotions as a sign up bonus as well. Currently doing $14 million in turnover on 20,000 registrations to date, new affiliates signing on at a unanticipated rate and this new JV venture we are looking forward to increasing shareholder value in the very near term. SeanieMac International, Ltd. an Irish gaming company, owns and operateswww.SeanieMac.com, an online sports and casino wagering platform. Besides offering casino wagering, SeanieMac is prepared to capture the Irish Sports market focusing on the Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA) or Gaelic Games as well as Irish horse racing and soccer. The Company continues to provide a market-leading, user-friendly website for online gambling, including sports betting and casino gaming (traditional casino, live casino, poker, bingo and interactive skilled games). The Irish gambling industry generated approximately $23.7 billion in revenue in 2014, with $2.3 billion of that amount generated online. The Irish online gambling sector is projected to reach $4 billion in 2016. As its national pastime, the Gaelic Games have long been popular in Ireland but they are gaining worldwide appeal, especially in areas with large communities of Irish heritage and their descendants, such as the U.S., Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, where many communities have their own teams and clubs participating in the Gaelic Leagues locally and internationally. To learn more about the GAA, seewww.gaa.ie. Safe Harbor Statement This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of SeanieMac International, Ltd. and its consolidated subsidiaries could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements regarding our expectations regarding amounts staked and gross profits and our marketing initiatives. Such risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the uncertainty regarding consumer preferences, a decline in the popularity of our website and competition in the online gambling industry. SeanieMac assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. A further description of risks and uncertainties can be found in SeanieMac International, Ltd.'s annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013, its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and its current reports on Form 8-K, each as filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investor Relations Chuck Arnold(310) 344-7073invrelsvc@gmail.com At the Company Barry BrooksteinChief Executive Officer(516) 369-7104 (BETS) SOURCE:SeanieMac International Ltd. || Bitcoin And Tax Season: What You Should Know: Though bitcoin has had a volatile year, the cryptocurrency’s popularity is still growing quickly as more and more users create digital wallets to buy and sell the currency. However with tax season on the horizon, questions regarding the Internal Revenue Services’ treatment of bitcoin are beginning to arise. A Complicated Affair Instead of recognizing bitcoin as a foreign currency, tax rules separate bitcoins which have been mined from those that have been bought as different assets. For investors who bought their bitcoins, the cryptocurrency is considered property and taxed as such. Mined bitcoins are taxed based on the gains or losses the miner realizes when the currency is sold. So miners holding on to their bitcoins wouldn’t have to pay any taxes until they sold their currency. Paper Trail The IRS regulations are increasingly more complicated because they require bitcoin holders to have a record of their transactions . Since bitcoins are treated as property under current tax law, owners will need details as to where and when the currency was purchased in order to state its value. Additionally, if a person then uses those bitcoins to make a purchase, they will need to track the value at the time of sale. Related Link: Bitcoin Integration Gets Easier The Beginning Of A New Era While this year’s tax laws may seem confusing, many expect to see things get even trickier in the years to come. Since bitcoin has only just emerged as a viable currency, it will take time for the government to catch up with tax rules. If the currency becomes widely popular in the coming years, the IRS will probably streamline its tax rules to make it easier for bitcoin users to declare their earnings, but that day is likely a long way off. See more from Benzinga Lawmakers Push For Federal Law To Align With States' Marijuana Legalization Uber Makes The Best Of A Ban In Spain When It Comes To Oil, Markets Are Asking, 'Are We There Yet?' © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Makes Its Way To The Polls: The technology that powers bitcoin, blockchain, has been hailed by many as one of the greatest technological advances of the decade. Although bitcoin is still struggling to take hold as a mainstream currency, uses for the ledger-like technology of blockchain are already being explored for everything from creating contracts to holding online auctions. The Bitcoin Foundation is hoping to draw even more attention to blockchain capabilities by partnering with Swarm, a crowdfunding firm, touse blockchain technology to votein two new board members. An Experiment The process will be the first time a vote has taken place using blockchain technology, and Bitcoin Foundation Executive Director Patrick Murck warned that there will likely be a few hiccups along the way. Voters will be provided with "yes" and "no" coins which they can send to each candidate's wallet to express their choice. Critics Say System Is Flawed Since the voting began, there has been aheated discussionas to whether or not blockchain is effective when it comes to voting. Many worry that miners will be able to manipulate the system by filtering out coins from one candidate or another, while others complained that about the system being difficult to use. Related Link:Is Bitcoin The Next Internet? An Important Venture Despite criticism, the Bitcoin Foundation is pressing ahead and is set to close the voting platform on February 28 and release results on March 1. Murck defended the foundation's decision to press on with blockchain voting, saying that the complaints about the system were important if developers want to continue pushing blockchain into new industries. Although the first blockchain-based vote may not be a success, Murck says it is an important step for the technology's forward momentum. See more from Benzinga • Will 3D Printing Be A Part Of The Future? • Retailers Quickly Find Use For Influx Of Consumer Cash • Internet Regulation Vote Unlikely To End Net Neutrality Fight © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Morgan Spurlock Takes On Bitcoin: “Super Size Me” director Morgan Spurlock is using his own experience to explain the growing popularity ofbitcoinon aCNNdocumentary called "Inside Man." The show is set to air February 19 at 21:00 ET and will showcase Spurlock’s difficulty using the cryptocurrency in everyday life. Profiling Bitcoin The episode will include Spurlock’s experience at mining firm CoinMiner, as well as his futile attempts to purchase everyday items using bitcoin. In addition to his own experiences, the show will also include a detailed explanation of what bitcoin is and how the currency is mined, something many believe could help in expanding its adoption. Daily Use Is Currently Futile However, the program also underscores the lack of practical uses for bitcoin. Spurlock attempts to survive using only bitcoin and finds every day tasks, like buying a coffee, difficult. While run-of-the-mill purchases are arduous, the episode points out that illegal and illicit activities are relatively simple using the dark web. Related Link: Crytocurrencies May Be Down, But Blockchain Technology Is Still Hot Challenges And Possibilities Spurlock’s experience using bitcoin is expected to mirror the currency’s actual challenges— that mainstream use is hampered by mistrust, security concerns and volatility. Despite that, an inside look at the currency’s driving technology is likely to help pique the interest of the masses. Blockchain, the ledger that bitcoin functions on, has been hailed by many as one of the most important inventions of the decade and although bitcoin may not succeed, blockchain is likely to continue growing and expanding. See more from Benzinga • How Long Can The Federal Government Ignore Marijuana Policy? • The Mobile Payments Race Is On • U.S. Military Drones Up For Sale © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || BitcoinForMiles.com Readies for Take Off: ANN ARBOR, MI / ACCESSWIRE / February 26, 2015 / Bitcoin Brands Inc ( CEHC ) today announced that it has entered into the travel industry with its new service called Bitcoinformiles.com . Holders of various miles and rewards can now trade their holdings for bitcoin. Bitcoinformiles.com is a marketplace that matches buyers and sellers of frequent flier miles, reward points, and award vouchers. Consumers fill out a form on the site and receive a response often in a few hours with an offer. The site , just out of beta, is making offers for millions of airline miles and credit card points. "Travel may be one of the key drivers of bitcoin adoption. We are pleased with the number of people who have already asked to trade their rewards for bitcoin and anticipate many more in the months ahead," said Peter Klamka CEO. The company is targeting customers with high balances who have an interest digital currency. Bitcoin Brands expects to be able to offer travel services exclusively in btc to its customer base in the future. "In time, we will understand the travel needs of our customers both individuals and companies and can offer them travel services using bitcoin which may be much cheaper and more efficient," added Klamka. Bitcoin Brands Inc. also operates bitcoin ATMs. Contact Information contact@bitcoinbrandsinc.com 844-VEND-BTC Forward Looking Statements This news release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these statements are made to convey Company progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent management's opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the Company at this time, actual results may differ materially and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ include without limitation: dependence on key personnel and suppliers; changing regulations, ability to fund operations; market conditions, ability to close any transactions including those in this release, competition; economic conditions; and consumer demand. Story continues Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed with the SEC and other filings. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon these forward-looking statements; historical information is not an indicator of future performance. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements SOURCE: Bitcoin Brands Inc [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] 1 #bitcoin 579.14 TL, 230.826 $, 205 €, 154.18077 GBP, 14371.00 RUR, 28325 ¥, 1422.99 CNH, 282 CAD #btc || $236.48 at 02:30 UTC [24h Range: $231.00 - $242.60 Volume: 11610 BTC] || $277.47 at 00:15 UTC [24h Range: $270.00 - $279.48 Volume: 5714 BTC] || $257.50 at 02:15 UTC [24h Range: $245.00 - $260.25 Volume: 9879 BTC] || LIVE: Profit = $785.85 (21.34 %). BUY B14.92 @ $246.48 (#Bitfinex). SELL @ $255.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 17741.00 INR Sell : 17140.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || LIVE: Profit = $712.63 (19.03 %). BUY B14.89 @ $250.50 (#BTCe). SELL @ $255.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 15419.00 INR Sell : 14931.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || Current price: 260.34$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-03-02 02:00:03 EST || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000008 Bittrex: 0.00000007 Average $1.8E-5 per #reddcoin 20:45:00
Trend: no change || Prices: 236.15, 224.59, 219.16, 223.83, 228.57, 222.88, 223.36, 222.60, 224.63, 235.27
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 2019-08-02] BTC Price: 10518.17, BTC RSI: 52.90 Gold Price: 1445.60, Gold RSI: 69.02 Oil Price: 55.66, Oil RSI: 45.68 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin Escrow Firm Bilked Investors for $7 Million, DOJ Says: U.S. prosecutors have charged the head of a bitcoin escrow company with defrauding investors for $7 million. The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York, part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), brought two counts each of commodity and wire fraud against Jon Barry Thompson, principal of Volatnis Escrow Platform LLC. In a complaint unsealed Thursday, he is accused of making misleading statements about investment risks and false representations of his custody and control of digital assets. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in a statement : Related: Korea’s Biggest Bank Is Preparing to Custody Digital Assets “As his clients soon realized, however, Thompson’s representations were false, and these cryptocurrency investors ultimately lost all of the money they had entrusted with him because of his lies.” Thompson “preyed” on his clients’ lack of information regarding the emerging asset class, prosecutors said. In promotional materials and communication with clients, he allegedly presented himself as a competent investor, custodian, or financier. The two companies Thompson allegedly defrauded sent him multi-million-dollar wires hoping to receive bitcoin in exchange. Prosecutors alleged that Thompson told one client, “cash is with me, coin is with me,” though he had sent their $3 million to a third-party exchange, skimming thousands off the top for personal use, without first obtaining any bitcoin. The DOJ did not identify either alleged victim. According to a Forbes article published in January, Volantis negotiated a deal to transfer 6,600 bitcoin to Symphony, a crypto investments firm, but “ the transaction never closed .” Related: The FBI Is Looking for QuadrigaCX Victims Thompson, who was arrested Thursday in Pennsylvania, faces a maximum sentence of 40 years. DOJ image via Shutterstock Related Stories Ledger and Nomura’s Crypto Custody Launch May Be Delayed to 2020 Hold-It-Yourself Crypto Exchange LGO to Roll Out Hardware Wallet in Q2 || A Bitcoin Prosecutor-Turned-Crypto VC on Facebook's Libra: The Broadsheet: Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Hope Hicks testifies without saying much,Googleemployees show up at Alphabet’s shareholder meeting, and a prosecutor-turned-VC MP considers Facebook’s new currency. Have a terrific Thursday. 1. EVERYONE’S TALKING•Considering a new cryptocurrency.When Kathryn Haun, the Justice Department’s one-time go-to prosecutor for Bitcoin related-felonies, joined VC firm Andreessen Horowitz to lead its cryptocurrency fund,Fortune‘s Robert Hackett deemed the move a “watershed moment,” with Haun’s legal chops lending legitimacy to the nascent space.AtFortune‘s inauguralBrainstorm Financesummit in Montauk, N.Y.—featuring established Wall Street giants and up-and-coming fintech, blockchain, and venture finance firms—Haun weighed in on another milestone for the crypto industry: Facebook’s new digital currency called Libra, which was formally announced on Tuesday.If thewildly ambitiousproject progresses as intended, users will be able to shop with the currency and send it on apps in the Facebook ecosystem, and use it with other merchants like Uber, Spotify, and MasterCard. While the Librais being cheered in some corners, it isnot without its skeptics,including regulators and lawmakers who have pounced on the project.On Wednesday, Haun addressed some of those concerns in explaining why Andreessen joined Facebook’s Libra Association, a consortium of 28 members—including the likes of PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard—that will decide how the currency is governed.“One of they key factors in our decision to join was that we would in fact have—and all members would have—an equal vote,” she said.She compared cooperation between NGOs, financial organizations, and Facebook itself on the project to a sort of “constitutional convention.”“You have all these different states coming in trying to form this union,” she said.She said all the Association’s members haven’t met yet, so substantive details about its governance are scarce. But she’s convinced “very important conversations” will take place. “There will be debates because there are very different points of view,” she said.Clearly, there are plenty of outstanding questions about Libra and future of finance more broadly, many of which will be addressed on Day 2 of Brainstorm Finance. It will feature Ellevest’s Sallie Krawcheck, Edward Jones’s Penny Pennington, Coinbase’s Alesia Haas, and Ananya Chadha, a 17-year-old blockchain engineer. Check out the full agenda andlivestream here.FortuneClaire Zillman@clairezillmanclaire.zillman@fortune.com 2. ALSO IN THE HEADLINES•Looking at Libra.AtFortune‘s Brainstorm Finance, Tala CEO Shivani Siroya also weighed in on Libra. Tala offers small loans to unbanked and underbanked populations, and Siroya says Libra could help the company reach more consumers faster.Fortune•Google gets grilled.At Alphabet’s shareholder meeting, 14 items meant to increase the company’s accountability, equality, and transparency were rejected. Google co-founders control a majority of voting power; one shareholder proposal on pay equity even had official backingfrom Time’s Up. Employees confronted management at the meeting over the company’s handling of sexual harassment allegations and work on a censored search engine for China (all covered in Beth Kowitt’srecentFortunestory).Fortune•No questions please.Hope Hicks testified to Congress behind closed doors Tuesday, but declined to answer any questions about her time in the White House. (She did discuss the 2016 Trump campaign.) Democrats plan to go to court in an attempt to compel Hicks to answer.CNN•Purpose = results.Ruder Finn CEO Kathy Bloomgarden writes forFortuneabout the future of CEO activism—and how companies need to develop a purpose. A purpose-driven approach strengthens employee loyalty, crystallizes a holistic view of the business, social, and environmental landscape, and helps to predict challenges, she says.FortuneMOVERS AND SHAKERS:Tesla vice president of HR and head of diversityFelicia Mayoleft the company.Ann Marie Buerkle, acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, withdrew her nomination to run the agency permanentlyafter a crisis over its handling of the dangers found to infants in the Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play Sleeper. Former Salesforce EVPLeyla Sekajoins the board of Girls Who Code. Axiom hiresSidra Bermanas CMO and EVP. United Way Worldwide namedSuzanne McCormickthe incoming U.S. president of the organization. 3. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT•A notable Netflix deal.Like Ava DuVernay and Shonda Rhimes, Janet Mock signed a sweeping overall deal at Netflix—hers is described as a “three-year multimillion-dollar pact.” Mock’s agreement makes history for another reason; she’ll be “the first out transgender woman empowered to call the creative shots at a major content company.”Variety•Imagine that.Remember the Japanese medical school that rigged entrance exams to favor men? After it stopped doing that, overall exam scores went up! Women outperformed the male applicants in the first year since the school stopped the practice.Guardian•Loud and proud.In a series for Pride Month, several members of the LGBTQ community reflect on gender and sexuality for theNew York Times. Read through for contributions from actor Asia Kate Dillon, performance artist Kate Bornstein, author and activist Barbara Smith, and Transgender Equity Consulting founder Cecilia Gentili.New York TimesToday’s Broadsheet was produced byEmma Hinchliffe.Share itwith a friend.Looking for previous Broadsheets?Click here. 4. ON MY RADARBlack superstars pitch Adidas shoes. Its black workers say they’re sidelinedNew York TimesThe end of the age of paternity secretsThe AtlanticFive NY1 anchorwomen sue cable channel for age and gender discriminationNew York Times 5. QUOTEWe changed the landscape.Natural hair YouTube star Francheska Medina in a 'Wired' story on how YouTubers revolutionized the natural hair community || What is a DAO and how does it work?: This Monday, Digitex Futures announced its plans to become a DAO. If that leaves you with a couple of questions, let’s delve a little deeper. To start with, what is a DAO exactly and how does it work? And who is Digitex Futures? What is a DAO? A DAO is a decentralised autonomous organisation. But you could have just looked that up on Google. The very essence of a DAO is to remove the hierarchy and individual ownership from an organisation. So, instead of having a pyramid style of leadership, you can think of a decentralised company as being circular. Every participant in the organisation votes on matters concerning the company through digitally programmed mechanisms coded into smart contracts. It might seem like a strange concept at first, but a DAO gives participants voting and ownership rights and makes the system much fairer. It’s also a way of improving efficiencies in that many routine tasks can be automated. Think about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ether cutting out the need for a middleman in a financial transaction. What a DAO does for a company is cut out the need for additional parties where repetitive functions abound. For example, smart contracts can be programmed to pay out employee salaries when they meet certain conditions, such as completing the agreed-upon work by a certain date. Suppliers and providers can also be paid automatically. Although Dash occasionally comes under fire for not being 100% decentralised, its model of governance is a DAO. Anyone can submit proposals to DAO participants to vote on, from hiring a new legal team to implementing a charity project in Venezuela. The DAO members vote on whether to approve or reject the proposal. The concept of a DAO is still very new and there are few companies that can claim to have achieved a truly decentralised circular business model. However, the idea is gaining traction. Even behemoth financial corporations such as JP Morgan are experimenting with smart contracts in their businesses to preprogram multiple back-office tasks. Story continues The DAO hack that split Ethereum in two If you’ve heard the acronym before, it’s probably because of Ethereum’s disastrous attempt at becoming a DAO in 2016. Simply called The DAO, the decentralised organisation was working well for the first few months until an opportune hacker spotted a loophole in a smart contract and was able to drain around $60 million worth of Ether. Back then, Ethereum was hardly a year old. This amount of Ether lost was a catastrophe for the blockchain project, and it had to take the contentious decision of creating a hard fork to effectively erase the damage. This split Ethereum into two camps and saw the birth of Ethereum Classic , who continued on the original code, and Ethereum as we know it today. With precedents such as this still fairly fresh in the cryptocurrency community’s mind, is it too early for other companies to think about becoming a DAO? After all, a smart contract is only as good as the person who coded it. What’s to stop another loophole from harpooning the organisation? Well to be fair, three years in the cryptocurrency space is a long time. Technology has come a long way since then. This time last year, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon was calling Bitcoin “stupid” – now the company has created its own cryptocurrency and is implementing smart contracts. Moreover, smart contracts are now audited instantly before being deployed on the blockchain to check the code. Still though, it’s a pretty bold step for any company to take. The Digitex DAO, otherwise known as DigiDAO Anyone familiar with the Digitex Futures project will know it isn’t your average company. With its huge community, colourful CEO, and development ups and downs, it’s made a lot of noise – some good and some bad. But with its latest development team backed by Ethereum and specialists in security and smart contract auditing, CEO Adam Todd feels that the company couldn’t be better positioned to take this step. In a recent video , he explained that the process won’t happen overnight. In fact, ownership of Digitex will be transferred to its community members over the next five years. As sole owner and CEO, Adam will be rescinding 80% of his ownership in Digitex so that the company can introduce a system of decentralised governance by blockchain. Digitex will be creating new tokens called DigiDAO (DGDAO) tokens. These will be given away daily to DGTX token holders (the native token of the commission-free exchange) in proportion to the amount of DGTX that people hold on the exchange. The DGDAO tokens will essentially transform DGTX into a pure utility token as it will be used for all operations on the exchange. All voting and equity ownership rights will be transferred to holders of DGDAO tokens. How has the community responded to the news? So far, the reaction has been rather mixed. As you may imagine, the news has caused a lot of questions. Adam Todd held a live AMA on Wednesday that seemed to clear up most people’s doubts, although the company is still collecting feedback. The majority of the community appeared to like the idea of gaining equity ownership of the exchange simply for holding DGTX. The token price jumped by around 20% just after Adam’s initial video on June 17. However, the DGTX token is currently trading some 10% down on June 19. This could be a sign that token holders still have more questions or that Digitex will have to work harder to regain credibility. After two very public delays, all most people want to know now is when the exchange will launch, no matter how many innovative plans the company has. Whatever the outcome of the ambitious venture, it will be interesting to see how the DigiDAO plays out. The post What is a DAO and how does it work? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Donald Trump blasts Bitcoin, Facebook’s Libra in Twitter tirade: President Donald Trump is angry. And he’s taken to Twitter to let the world know how he feels, for a change. This time, cryptocurrency has got his goat—specifically, Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra . “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” Trump wrote. “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.” “Similarly,” the president said, “Facebook Libra’s ‘virtual currency’ will have little standing or dependability. If Facebook and other companies want to become a bank, they must seek a new Banking Charter and become subject to all Banking Regulations, just like other Banks, both National and International.” And, so there could be no confusion about which currency dominates the good ol’ U-S-of-A, Trump added: “We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable. It is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the World, and it will always stay that way. It is called the United States Dollar!” The president of the United States was then immediately roasted on Crypto Twitter. (Yes, that sentence now exists in this reality.) I mean… our FEDERAL Regulator FinCEN considers Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency money. And Bitcoin has inherent value, not based out of thin air But no worries, facts have never been your strong suit @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/mOAGHgtDbx — Hailey Lennon (@HaileyLennonBTC) July 12, 2019 “At least he didn’t call it Bitcon,” wrote Multicoin Capital partner Kyle Samani. Story continues One brave Crypto Twitter soul, however, extended the president an olive branch. “Hey. I’m basically the only guy in the crypto industry who voted for you (or admits it),” Preston Byrne, a partner at Byrne & Storm, P.C., and crypto lawyer extraordinaire wrote on Twitter. “Can I convince you otherwise?” The president had not responded as of press time. Trump’s comments on Bitcoin and Libra, however, come at interesting time. Just yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before the House Financial Services Committee and answered several questions about Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans . “Libra raises many serious concerns regarding privacy, money laundering, consumer protection, and financial stability,” Powell said, adding later that Facebook’s plans “cannot go forward” if those concerns aren’t addressed. While the Fed chairman had previously stated he was not “ too concerned ” about any potential threat that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin might pose to U.S. monetary policy, Powell said yesterday that Libra is a different story, given the size of Facebook’s network and the possibility of “broad adoption” of the company’s digital currency. That threat is evidently serious enough that the Fed has formed a “working group” in coordination with federal regulators in the U.S. and “central banks and governments around the world to look into” Facebook’s Libra. Meanwhile, Twitter and the rest of the world awaits the president’s savage nickname for Mark Zuckerberg. || Apple Officially Enters Self-Driving Vehicle Space With Latest Acquisition: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com. Apple has officially entered the nascent, but soon-to-be competitive space of autonomous vehicles with the purchase of startup Drive.ai. The Silicon Valley startup raised $77 million in venture funding at a $200 million valuation, according to Pitchbook data. Apple was already in the exploratory stages of entering the self-driving vehicle space with an initiative known as Project Titan, but in January, Apple cut over 200 employees from this project. In turn, Apple hired a number of Drive.ai engineers and purchased its vehicles. Prior to the purchase, Apple doubled the number of self-driving test cars in the streets of California. In March of this year, Apple had 45 autonomous test vehicles registered with the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, which is up from 27 near the end of January. Per a report by Axios, the "purchase price was not disclosed. Apple was expected to pay less than the $77 million Drive.ai raised in venture capital, to say nothing of the $200 million it was valued at two years ago, after its Series B round,Axios' Dan Primack reported recently." Drive Towards Gains with this ETF The disruptive exchange-traded fund (ETF) space continues to grow and investors can now take advantage of self-driving, electric vehicle technology via theiShares Self-Driving EV and Tech ETF (IDRV) . Per theiShares website, the fund will provide prospective investors with: • Access to companies at the forefront of self-driving and electric vehicle (EV) innovation • Exposure to global stocks along the full value chain of self-driving and EV industries, across sectors and geographies • Seek long-term growth with access to companies that can shape the global economic future IDRV seeks to track the investment results of an index composed of developed and emerging market companies that may benefit from growth and innovation in and around electric vehicles, battery technologies and autonomous driving technologies. Specifically, it tracks the NYSE FactSet Global Autonomous Driving and Electric Vehicle Index (the “Underlying Index”), which measures the performance of equity securities issued by companies that produce autonomous driving vehicles, electric vehicles, batteries for electric vehicles, or technologies related to such products. With an expense ratio of 0.47 percent, IDRV will invest in domestic and international markets per its prospectus, which states that, "the Underlying Index is composed of equity securities of companies listed in one of 43 developed or emerging market countries that derive a certain specified percentage of their revenue from selected autonomous or electric vehicle-related industries, as defined by IDI." Though the technology itself might still be years away, investors can still capitalize on this nascent space that is already seeing major deals taking place. For example, remote driving startup Phantom Auto raised $13.5 million in seed capital, which will be used to expand a logistics business that will utilize sidewalks, warehouses and cargo yards where autonomy and teleoperation are already used. The ETF launch comes as the move to disruptive technology is making its way into a number of ETF offerings that are looking to capitalize on the next wave of technology. Disruptive technology is not relegated to certain sectors as it will permeate into all industries in some form or fashion. For example, augmented reality is technology comprised of digital images superimposed over the real world, and its use is primed to drive industry growth–industries like real estate and manufacturing are already putting the technology to use in a variety of ways. For more market trends, visitETF 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 • As Bitcoin Surges Past $13K, Calls to Embrace Crypto Grow • GLDM Marks One Year Anniversary Today, Leads Gold-Backed ETF Flows • ROBO Global Healthcare Technology ETF Debuts on NYSE • Gold And Silver Rally On Unusual Options Activity • Save On Starbucks And Invest It In Starbucks READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Trump versus Iran, the FED and the Greenback: As the U.S celebrated Independence Day, the U.S President will have enjoyed the military show of force that has not been laid out in our generation at least. While some may have balked at the spectacle, there is a reality to Trump’s presidency. Since taking office, Trump has been quite successfully crossing off his campaign pledges. As far as U.S voters are concerned and voters in any election around the world, it’s an almost rarity that so many promises are kept. Going into office, many had said that Trump would only be able to push his agenda within the 1sthundred days, yet he keeps going. One of the U.S President’s pet peeves was certainly the 2015 nuclear agreement. As promised, the U.S withdrew from the agreement last year and quickly reintroduced sanctions to cripple the Iranian economy. Having brought down ISIS and delivered some stability within the Middle East, Iran remains the red flag for the U.S, the Saudis, and Israel. The introduction of sanctions has hit Iran hard and perhaps as intended, has led to increased tension between the 2 nations. Trump recently came close to taking military action in response to the downing of a drone. The latest talk is of Iranian breaching its uranium limits. The limits wouldn’t be in breach of any agreements with the U.S, but with the remaining 6 nations. If Iran had played this a little smarter, they would have attempted to keep on the right side of the remaining 6. A breach would ultimately give the likes of the EU an easy get out from a difficult situation. Whether there will be any military action remains to be seen. Trump has enough military might in the region to respond to any material threats. And, with the lack of a relationship with the Iranian government, there’s unlikely to be much, except other Western leaders, to hold him back. Crude oil prices and the Dollar would benefit, however, and that would certainly rile a president desperate for cheap oil and a weak Greenback. Going onto the Greenback, the U.S President may also get his wish on the monetary policy front. Nonfarm payroll figures due out later today could set the tone for the end of the month FOMC meeting. For now, the markets have priced in a rate hike, but the numbers will need to support it. If the FED does cut rates, however, it’s not because of Trump’s demands and threats of removing FED Chair Powell. The FED would almost certainly cite the U.S – China trade war as the cause. As the presidential campaigns kick off, there does appear to be very little competition for Trump. The tables could turn, however, if there is a longer lasting slowdown in the U.S economy. The FED’s focus on the jobs market will be aligned with that of the U.S administration. After all, if voters are working there’s unlikely to be too much of a backlash to a fledgling economy. It will be interesting to see how much progress is made on trade talks through to the year-end. While the U.S administration claims to be close, the on and off negotiations do suggest that there are some stumbling blocks. One, in particular, is Huawei. It’s unlikely that Beijing will get to the finish line without the U.S changing stance. Allowing Huawei to continue purchasing from U.S companies just isn’t going to cut it… There’s been plenty of chatter on whether the Dollar can materially weaken. While Trump has once again called China and the EU currency manipulators, the very uncertainty over the global economy and rising geopolitical risk would support demand for the Greenback. With the U.S trade deficit, Trump’s push to bring down the mighty Dollar has some logic to it. If foreign goods become too expensive, U.S manufactured goods should become more price competitive. The Dollar would need to really tank, however, for U.S goods to be able to compete, tariffs or not. At the time of writing, the Greenback was down 0.04% to $96.718. Trump will be hoping of a big slide later today. Better than expected numbers would not only give the Dollar a boost but would also see his beloved equity markets take a hammering. There’s always Iran and China and the currency manipulators, however, to provide a distraction. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Trade Through 26727 Confirms Bearish Closing Price Reversal Top • Natural Gas Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Main Trend Up, but Layers of Resistance to Overcome • AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Looking for Test of .6940 to .6914 • Earnings Season Once Again – Will it Be a Scary One? • Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 06/07/19 • The Crypto Week – Bitcoin Leads the Way in a Mixed Week for the Majors || Iran’s Energy Minister Wants Crypto Miners Charged Real Electricity Prices: The deputy energy minister ofIranhas said that electricity bills for digital currency miners should be calculated in accordance to real prices, Iranian economic daily newspaper Financial Tribunereportedon June 9. Iran’s deputy energy minister, Homayoun Haeri, has stated that electricity bills forcryptocurrencyminingactivities should be priced according to the same rates established for power exports. Thegovernmentreportedly pays nearly $1 billion in subsidies annually to bridge the gap in real electricity costs and what consumers are billed, Financial Tribune writes. As reported last December, Iranians wereprofitingfrom digital currency mining despite the crash in the cryptomarketsand fluctuations in the national rial currency caused by reinforcedUnited Statessanctions. Iran had demonstrated a positive stance towards crypto mining last September, when major government authorities — including the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, the central bank, the Ministry of Energy, and others —acceptedcrypto mining as an industry. At the time, the Secretary of Iran's Supreme Cyberspace Council stated that the Iranian National Cyberspace Center was developing a platform for cryptocurrency mining regulation, while the relevant authorities considered the development of crypto mining-related regulatory framework. In an attempt to gain economic stability in the country, the Iranian government has also beenconsideringthe launch of its own state-backed cryptocurrency. In August of last year, Iran’s National Cyberspace Centerrevealedthat the draft of the government-backed crypto project was ready, following instructions from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. A recent Cointelegraphanalysislooked at the changing attitudes of the government towards cryptocurrencies, as well as how it affects Iranian crypto users. • Russian Parliament Considers Imposing Fines on Crypto Mining by End of June • Chinese Authorities to Investigate Illegal Mining Farms at ‘Global Mining Capital’ Sichuan • Study: Over 74% of Bitcoin Mining is Powered by Renewable Energy • Indian Lawmakers Propose Adoption of 10-Year Jail Term for Crypto Dealings || Tax havens: A macro outlook at Bitcoin and how it could facilitate offshore banking services: Bitcoin. The word means many different things to many different people. As the world’s first and foremost decentralized digital currency, Bitcoin attempts to throw a wrench into the traditional monetary system. Here we will discuss the possibility that parallels exist between traditional tax havens used by the wealthy and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Estimates on the high side claim that the amount of money held offshore is anywhere from $20-30 trillion, and that up to 10% of the world’s GDP is parked offshore. It can be said that the most wealthy individuals have already had access to this form of secrecy and privacy for years. Join Genesis now and continue reading, Tax havens: A macro outlook at Bitcoin and how it could facilitate offshore banking services ! || Security Tokens Will Be the 'Killer App' of Cryptocurrency, Overstock CEO Says: Bitcoin has been around for more than a decade, yet the question still persists: “What’s the purpose of cryptocurrency?” Even though people have bought and sold billions of dollars of the stuff, it has yet to find a role in everyday life. Now, this search for the cryptocurrency world’s “killer app”—the equivalent of a transformative application like Gmail or Uber—may be over. According to Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock and a longtime booster of digital money, the breakthrough is coming in the form of security tokens. These are units of cryptocurrency that are tied to some real world asset such as real estate, precious metal or fiat currency. Byrne, who was speaking atFortune’sBrainstorm Financeevent on Thursday in Montauk, N.Y., hinted that he would soon be making a major announcement related to security tokens but couldn’t immediately provide details due to regulatory reasons. If Overstock, which was among the first major retailers to let customers pay in Bitcoin, does announce a security token offering, it wouldn’t be the first company to try this. In late 2018, a company called Harbordesigned tokensrepresenting stakes in a student residence, while a luxury hotel in Colorado has attempted to do the same. The Harbor project, however, abruptly fell through this spring amid a dispute with a mortgage lender, and it’s unclear if any similar real estate deals are in the works. Despite such setbacks, the promise of security tokens received a boost this week from the announcement ofFacebook’s Project Libra, which will see a consortium backing the project issue such tokens to accredited investors. All of this comes as the vast majority of activity surrounding cryptocurrency remains highly speculative. According to Alesia Haas, the CFO of Coinbase, over 95% of people buying crypto are doing so purely for speculative reasons. She also spoke, however, of a major change that’s been underway in the last 18 months. Haas said “the utility phase has taken off during this time,” and that there is a new push to make digital tokens—including security tokens—part of traditional financial operations and other aspects of day-to-day commerce. For many ordinary consumers, though, the arrival of crypto’s “killer app” may feel as far away as ever. —Brainstorm Finance 2019: Watch the livestreamof the inaugural conference —Andreessen Horowitz: HowFacebook’s Libra cryptocurrencywill be governed —Welcome to the next generation ofcorporate phishing scams —Western Union and Zelle dishon the competition and talk mobile payments —Millennials arenot basement-dwelling potheads, says Wealthfront CEO Sign up forThe Ledger, a weekly newsletter on the intersection of technology and finance. || Casa and BlockFi enter into a new partnership; promotes access to crypto financial services with custody solutions: Custody startup Casa won’t provide financial products, but it’s now incentivizing those interested in crypto-backed loans and interest products to work with BlockFi. The custody service provider is partnering to offer membership benefits to customers, but keeping a wall between them and the lender. Those who are Casa members and utilize BlockFi can claim an additional ~60 basis points worth of BlockFi's current annualized interest (10% more interest) on BTC deposited into a BlockFi account, as well as up to 50 basis points (0.50%) worth of reduced rates on BTC backed loans. The partnership is essentially the same refer a friend program that BlockFi uses with other partners, with Casa just rebating the referral bonus back to its clients rather than pocketing it. There is also no data shared between the two companies, only the information that one is both a customer of Casa and BlockFi. Jeremy Welch, founder of Casa, said some customers expressed an interest in lending bitcoin, and because Casa heavily markets its security and privacy, the company sought to make a recommendation in-line with those values. Welch said Casa vetted BlockFi’s team and products extensively to ensure the partnership would align with what Welch called Casa’s stringent privacy policy. “There’s a very clear privacy wall between us,” he said. Despite the incentive to utilize BlockFi, Jeremy Welch, founder of Casa, said this would not open the door for the custody service to deal in financial products. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing & Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || NetCurrencyIndex Airdrop is now Live🚀💰🏆 Click on below link to participate into this amazing Airdrop🎁 https://t.co/vqj45g4rtF 💰 Earn 125 NCI + 50 NCI per referral 💰 #airdrops #airdrop #cryptocurrency #Bitcoin #Blockchain #ETH || Bitcoin Hash Rate Hits New All-Time-High https://t.co/LAAVPYHx6y https://t.co/GG1vxY6LKY || If you are checking out my page then you have some sense of cryptoworld. Why wouldn't you check out this ICO? It seems to be notable to be invested in. #Shato || 🆂🅷🅾🆄🆃🅾🆄🆃 to all who retweet!!!! FOLLOW everyone who Likes & RT this. TRADE CRYPTOCURRENCIES & EARN ON REFERRALS. Register now: https://t.co/ntaephl0vD. Crypto is the future. #crypto #airdrop #BTC #eth #binance #fintech #blockchain || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing & Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || @udiWertheimer @pierre_rochard @girevik_ That’s like saying i’m not giving my address to cashout. If you intend to use a bitcoin service in the first place, a fresh xpub is the only/best tradeoff/mechanism to be able to use that service and still stay in full custody of your bitcoin. What am i missing? || Lo schema ponzi del giornalismo italiano su Bitcoin è sempre più dilagante. Oggi di articoli Bitcoin=Lord Voldemort ne ho trovati 2. @giacomozucco , mi dicono che negli USA ai "giornalai" non rispondono più. Hanno ragione. C'è di meglio da fare. https://t.co/rMS49G8AnS || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing & Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing & Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket
Trend: up || Prices: 10821.73, 10970.18, 11805.65, 11478.17, 11941.97, 11966.41, 11862.94, 11354.02, 11523.58, 11382.62
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 Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs: Bitcoin (BTC) has risen above $13,000 in less than 24 hours afterbreaking the $12,000 levelon newsPayPal will support cryptocurrencies on its platform. • Prices of BTC rose to $13,005.51 at 22:22 UTC (6:22 p.m. ET) by press time, representing a 8.7% gain in the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI). • The 24-hour price range: $11,898.03 – $13,030.86. • The oldest cryptocurrency has continued its price rally after payment giant PayPalannouncedit will allow its users to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies. • The new service initially will support bitcoin, bitcoin cash (BCH), ether (ETH) and litecoin (LTC). • Prices for bitcoin cash, ether and litecoin also rallied on the news, up between 7% and 13%in the past 24 hours. • Bitcoin Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs • Bitcoin Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs • Bitcoin Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs • Bitcoin Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Slips to $11,300; Ether Locked in DeFi Is Flat: Bitcoin’s price is slipping while the amount ether parked in DeFi is in neutral. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $11,397 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 1.3% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $11,313-$11,730 BTC below its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bearish signal for market technicians. Bitcoin’s price was able to crack $11,700 in the past 24 hours, going as high as $11,730 on spot exchanges such as Bitstamp. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization then trended downward, dipping to as low as $11,313 before settling at $11,397 as of press time. Read More: Bitcoiners Have Trillions and Trillions of Reasons to Ignore US Election Related: Brainwallets: The Bitcoin Wallet You Probably Shouldn’t Use (Unless You Have To) Despite bitcoin’s downward move Tuesday, Cindy Leow, portfolio manager for multi-strategy trading firm 256 Capital Partners, said its overall upward price trend since Oct. 8 has created a new bullish price floor. Leow’s analysis shows bitcoin above $11,000 signals a longer-term bull trend. However, if bitcoin’s price goes below that “support” level, she maintains, a long-term bear market could develop. “Since its break upwards at the end of last week, bitcoin’s support now squarely rests on the average price paid for BTC since the early September peak at $12,000. This new support is at $11,000,” Leow told CoinDesk. The declining influence of Seychelles-based derivatives venue BitMEX, which is mired in a myriad of regulatory and legal issues , appears to have had a positive impact on the market, Leow noted. “With BitMEX and its aggressive liquidation engine slowly becoming less relevant, bitcoin’s sudden $1,000 wicks are growing more infrequent, another healthy sign for BTC,” she added. Wicks are the vertical lines that appear at the top and bottoms of candles in technical charts that indicate the total price range during a specific trading period. Story continues Related: First Mover: Privacy Is Litecoin's Ace in the Hole as JPMorgan Touts Bitcoin Indeed, bitcoin’s implied volatility, which forecasts price gyrations and is used often by options traders to analyze trading strategies, is at a low not seen since July. Alessandro Andreotti, an over-the-counter trader based in Italy, notes that bitcoin has been operating in tandem with the stock market. Increasing correlation with the S&P 500 based on data from the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index seems to back this up. Andreotti predicts bitcoin’s price could hit fresh 2020 highs should stocks also continue to rise. “If the S&P 500 can break into all-time highs, bitcoin could move up to $13,000.” Ether locked in DeFi stalls The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was down in Tuesday trading at around $378 and slipping 2.3% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: COTI Launches Decentralized ‘Fear Index’ for DeFi Markets Since Sept. 18, the amount of ether “locked” in decentralized finance, or DeFi, has remained relatively flat, averaging around $8.26 billion. Ether holders park the cryptocurrency in various smart-contract based protocols on the Ethereum network and receive a “yield” in return. By contrast, the amount of bitcoin locked in DeFi has for the most part steadily increased, and is now closing in on 150,000 BTC. Brian Mosoff, chief executive officer of investment firm Ether Capital, said bitcoin holders may be seeing a powerful DeFi use case for the world’s oldest cryptocurrency that didn’t exist until recently. “Until recently, bitcoin was isolated from the power and flexibility of Ethereum,” Mosoff said. “Now, bitcoin holders can wrap their BTC and interact with a decentralized exchange, or borrow against a stablecoin. The Ethereum community has been able to natively do these things since day one.” Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mixed Tuesday, mostly in the red. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): bitcoin cash (BCH) + 3.8% 0x (ZRX) + 2.5% Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): chainlink (LINK) – 7.1% zcash (ZEC) – 6% monero (XMR) – 4.2% Read More: IMF, World Bank, G20 to Create Central Bank Digital Currency Rules Equities: Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day in the green 0.18%, led higher on gains from robotics manufacturer Fanuc, climbing 4.2% . Europe’s FTSE 100 fell 0.53% as negative sentiment surrounding increasing coronavirus cases and Brexit negotiations weighed on the index . In the United States the S&P 500 slipped 0.30% as the news that drugmaker Eli Lilly's coronavirus vaccine trial was paused by U.S. regulators fueled negative sentiment. Commodities: Oil was up 1.7%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.19. Gold was in the red 1.5% and at $1,893 as of press time. Treasurys: U.S. Treasury bond yields all fell Tuesday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the on the two-year, dipping to 0.143 and in the red 7.6%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Slips to $11,300; Ether Locked in DeFi Is Flat Market Wrap: Bitcoin Slips to $11,300; Ether Locked in DeFi Is Flat || Where Does Bitcoin Fit in the Global Reserve Currency Game?: On this “Speaking of Bitcoin” episode, join hosts Adam B. Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Stephanie Murphy and Jonathan Mohan for a look at the past, present and future of global reserve currencies For more episodes and free early access before our regular releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com , Nexo.io and Elliptic Related: First Mover: 'Blue Wave' in US Senate Could Mean Flood of Stimulus for Bitcoin In the beginning there was the global reserve currency (U.S. dollars), national currencies like the Japanese yen, alternative currencies like Ithaca hours and just one cryptocurrency, bitcoin . But what a difference a decade can make. Today there are thousands of cryptocurrencies, many created by enthusiasts who have ideas on how to make something even better than bitcoin, but also currencies that use some of the technology that makes bitcoin so powerful, but which pairs it with the authority of a national government like the digital yuan in China, the digital euro out of Brussels, or even a globe-spanning corporation with billions of customers like the libra, backed by Facebook. In this emerging picture, is bitcoin still interesting? First attempts, which bitcoin very much is, are often not the successful attempts. And, importantly, as the world changes and we get closer to something other than the dollar standard, where does bitcoin fit? See also: Getting Internet Identity Right, 30 Years On Related Stories Where Does Bitcoin Fit in the Global Reserve Currency Game? Where Does Bitcoin Fit in the Global Reserve Currency Game? Where Does Bitcoin Fit in the Global Reserve Currency Game? || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Slips to $12.8K; Ether Options Traders Prefer Calls: Major markets are in the red today, including bitcoin. Ether options traders have favored calls over the past month. • Bitcointrading around $13,184 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 3.6% over the previous 24 hours. • Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $12,894-$13,831 • BTC below its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bearish signal for market technicians. The price of bitcoin slipped Wednesday, going as low as $12,894 around 14:00 UTC (10 a.m. ET), according to CoinDesk 20 data. Prices have picked up a bit since then, at $13,184 as of press time. Read More:Bitcoin Price Slips Below $13K as Stocks Slide Related:Bitcoin Transaction Fees Rise to 28-Month High as Hashrate Drops Amid Price Rally Katie Stockton, a technical analyst for research firm Fairlead Strategies, said Wednesday was a “risk-off” day where investors were shedding what they consider higher-risk assets, including cryptocurrencies.“Bitcoin is seeing a retracement of its strong up move as risk assets trade off sharply,” Stockton told CoinDesk. Risk assets, which include global equities, slipped Wednesday. • The Nikkei 225 in Asia closed in the red 0.30% assurging coronavirus infections and uncertainty surrounding the U.S. presidential election weighed on the index. • The FTSE 100 ended the day down 2.5% asnew lockdown restrictions in Europe caused investors to punch the sell button. • In the United States the S&P 500 fell 2.9% asincreasing coronavirus cases around the world caused concerns about the global economy’s overall health. Bitcoin’s strong move up Tuesday approached2019’s highbefore losing steam. Stockton said that despite Wednesday’s respite, bitcoin still has a strong chance to pass 2019’s price zenith. “The recent breakout above the August high lends a bullish intermediate-term bias,” she added. “Uncertainty is taking its toll on the markets, but we think it will be short-lived.” Neil Van Huis, director of institutional trading at liquidity provider Blockfills, noted bitcoin’s mining hashrate has dropped to levels not seen since June. Older, inefficient machines are being turned off, which he sees as a huge opportunity to invest in newer mining rigs at these price levels. “This is good for mining companies,” Van Huis said. “It also comes at a time when prices are rising. With that comes more investment into the space like JPMorgan and PayPal. That should, in my opinion, keep prices bullish, especially now that we cleared that $12,000-$12,500 hurdle for a bit.” Related:The Global Macro Case for FA Allocations to Bitcoin With Kevin Kelly Read More:JPMorgan’s ‘JPM Coin’ Is Live, Execs Say In the futures market, Denis Vinokourov, head of research at digital asset prime broker Bequant, noted the rise of institutional interest on CME, which surpassed $800 million in open interest Tuesday. “Futures contracts trading at a premium to spot prices even as the October CME expiry is fast approaching this Friday,” he said. Guy Hirsch, U.S. managing director at multi-asset brokerage eToro, said unpredictable global market fundamentals are actually a good thing for bitcoin. “The election outcome might produce a shift from a pro-business administration into an administration that is much more skeptical about free markets” just as COVID-19 cases hit record levels, he added. “[W]e could be in for a long winter that may see bitcoin potentially challenge its previous record high set back in 2017,” Hirsch told CoinDesk. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up in Wednesday trading around $384 and slipping 5.6% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). The ether options market has been more favorable towards calls than puts recently. Derivatives exchange Deribit, which is by far the largest ether options venue, has seen 55% calls versus 44% puts the past month, according to data aggregator Genesis Volatility. Calls are bullish bets in the direction of the underlying assets (in this case, ether) while puts are bearish bets. Greg Magadini, Genesis Volatility’s CEO, doesn’t see this data as necessarily providing clear direction on ether’s price, but does indicate where liquidity is pooling. “Seeing more activity on the call side indicates that the call legs have the most liquidity and active participation,” Magadini said. “This is useful for traders to know when structuring less liquid multi-legged trades.” Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly red Wednesday. One notable winner as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): • bitcoin cash(BCH) + 2.6% Notable losers: • 0x– 8.3% • chainlink– 5.9% • orchid– 5.7% Read More:Hxro, FTX Target Retail Crypto Traders With Simplified Options Product Commodities: • Oil was down 4.3%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $37.26. • Gold was in the red 1.6% and at $1,877 as of press time. Treasurys: • U.S. Treasury bond yields were mixed, almost flat on Wednesday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the 10-year bond, jumping to 0.773 and climbing 0.44%. • Market Wrap: Bitcoin Slips to $12.8K; Ether Options Traders Prefer Calls • Market Wrap: Bitcoin Slips to $12.8K; Ether Options Traders Prefer Calls || LGO becomes regulated institutional Bitcoin exchange in France: Institutional-focused Bitcoin spot exchange, LGO, has been registered as a Virtual Asset Provider (VASP) in France by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), France’s securities regulator. The VASP registration will allow LGO to offer both digital custody and fiat-to-crypto brokerage, with a focus on institutional investors. Similar to the FCA’s guidance in the UK, registration to become a VASP will become mandatory for any company offering these services as of January 2021 and LGO is one of just three companies to be registered in France. Following its launch in April 2019, LGO has served more than 60 institutions across 20 different countries while offering a market microstructure based on order batching in order to guarantee fair price discovery. On August 27th 2020, we will launch the $LGO liquidity rewards program and will distribute 2m $LGOs to liquidity providers on the LGO/ETH Uniswap v2 pool over the course of a month. Read all about it here: https://t.co/gjJu0DgCRf — LGO (@LGOGroup_) August 24, 2020 France introduced the VASP guidelines in January after the Action Plan for Business Growth and Transformation (PACTE) was passed. “We are thrilled to be registered as a Virtual Asset Service Provider in France, my native country,” said Hugo Renaudin, CEO and Co-Founder of LGO. “We want to be able to provide our services to as many people in France as possible, and this way, both institutional and retail clients will be able to custody and trade their capital more securely on our spot exchange and with the confidence that it will be regulated properly.” For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . View comments || How a Hacker Launched a Decentralized Network to Track Internet Censorship: The Takeaway Political and social upheaval around the world can lead to internet censorship and interference by powerful actors. The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is allowing people around the world to monitor internet censorship and interference in their countries in a decentralized manner for free. It has created the world’s largest open dataset on internet censorship, with millions of measurements collected from more than 200 countries since 2012. Belarus residents are fighting back against the alleged illegitimate re-election of leader Alexander Lukashenko, otherwise known as the “last dictator of Europe,” since the election occurred Aug. 9. Lukashenko’s contested victory has led to widespread protests and violence against protestors by the military, and caused Lukashenko’s opponent to flee the country. Amid the protests, which have been ongoing, various parts of the internet were also shut down across the country including social networks and message sites such as Telegram and Facebook, as well as some news outlets. Lukashenko has denied shutting down the internet, blaming foreign interference, but further reporting suggests the government is, in fact, responsible. Related: Paxful, Citing Regulations and Its Own 'Risk Tolerance,' Exits Venezuela's P2P Bitcoin Market In a new report shared exclusively with CoinDesk, the decentralized internet censorship testing network Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), found 86 websites were blocked in Belarus in August, including 19 communications platforms such as Telegram and encrypted email services. “These include news media, political opposition, pro-democracy, and election related websites, as well as communication and circumvention tool sites,” the report found. The origins of OONI OONI has been working as a global community to document internet censorship and interference since 2012. Using a free and open source software it developed called OONI Probe , the organization has built a “decentralized, citizen-led, Internet censorship observatory.” It publishes measurements in order to develop a public archive on network interference and increase transparency about censorship. The data for the Belarus report, for example, was gathered from OONI probe users on the ground in the country. Story continues With rising authoritarianism around the world , information crackdowns due to COVID-19 and states constantly developing more advanced methods of suppressing information and engaging in censorship, the work OONI and the network using its software are doing has a renewed sense of urgency. Related: Belarus Nonprofit Helps Protestors With Bitcoin Grants Read more: Social Media Bans ‘Highlight the Profound Censorship on Web 2.0’ “A lot of our principles and ideas come from being cypherpunks basically,” said Arturo Filastò, a Rome-based hacker who founded and leads OONI.  “The concept is that we can build tools and technology that empower people to take actions and bring about change. A core concept of that is decentralization and the fact that everybody should be able to use our tool.” Filastò was a hacker from his teen years. In a recent call with CoinDesk over Signal, he made it clear he espoused the ideas of, and aligned himself with, the cypherpunk mentality. The original idea for OONI, which Filastò now describes as more a manifesto than an academic paper , was written while he was still at the Tor Project, which maintains the Tor browser. Filastò said OONI definitely doesn’t want to be a central authority declaring how bad internet censorship is around the world. Rather, they want to empower people to document internet abuse wherever they see it. “We want to build tools that empower anybody who wants to go out and say, ‘Okay, in my country there’s something wrong with respect to how the internet is being filtered and how it’s being interfered with,’” said Filastò. A hard-data approach The OONI probes focus not on anecdotal evidence but rather on hard, quantitative data. This approach prevents governments from claiming ignorance when they do, in fact, block something. As a result, OONI has become the world’s largest open dataset on internet censorship with millions of measurements collected from more than 200 countries since 2012. There are tens of thousands of volunteers using it on the ground in authoritarian states such as Iran, Venezuela and Malaysia, according to Filastò. Read more: Activists Document Police Misconduct Using Decentralized Protocol “We intend to apply the scientific method to the realm of network surveillance and filtering detection,” read that initial paper. “In order to ensure reproducibility, all experiments conducted shall be properly documented and all data collected made available to the public in a timely manner. The same observations should be possible to reproduce independently, in line with standard full disclosure practice.” How OONI’s tech works The OONI probe runs a number of preprogrammed tests on the network. A user can decide which ones to run and how extensive they can be. Sometimes a single test can take hours, but tests can also be broken down among a network of users in a country to be run faster. Alternatively multiple devices could be set up to run them. The OONI probe can test a wide array of factors. Read more: ‘Radical Indifference’: How Surveillance Capitalism Conquered Our Lives In Belarus, blocking by internet service providers appeared to be implemented during the TLS handshake , which OONI attributes to either Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), an advanced method of tracking and managing traffic on a network, or that all traffic was going through a “proxy that blocks undesired connections,” according to the report. The Server Name Indication (SNI) is seemingly being used to decide whether to block or let connections go through, according to OONI. The SNI is the method through which you’re able to make sure you end up on the proper domain by allowing you to specify it during the TLS handshake, or when a client (your device) and a server acknowledge and verify each other before establishing a connection. It’s not just things like political or media sites that are blocked. Connections to things like virtual privacy networks (VPN) or encrypted email are also often disrupted, as these are the very tools that can be used to circumvent government censorship. Numerous proxies for the encrypted messaging app Telegram served as an organization and communication platform amid the ongoing protests in Belarus, particularly as other parts of the web were shut down. A number of privacy-preserving email providers were also blocked. A global effort OONI has a global testing website list, and country-specific lists in collaboration with Citizen Lab , a research group from the University of Toronto that studies the intersection of information and communication technologies, human rights, and global security, as well as other projects to develop metric measurements. The tests are run on the users network and the control to check it is run on an OONI server in a location known not to be facing censorship. Users can also choose what websites, or categories of websites they don’t want to test if they so choose. Filastò said OONI is dedicated to informed consent, and lets users really shape tests how they see fit. Read more: Decentralization and What Section 230 Really Means for Freedom of Speech At a high level, Filastò said when it comes to websites, users test DNS resolution and compare for consistency. A DNS (Domain Name Server) resolution is the system by which an IP address is translated to domain names. “This is a huge rabbit hole; it’s not so trivial as just matching IP addresses because of geolocation, timing, load balancing and a lot of other things,” said Filastò. “I won’t go into details, but the basic tactic is a DNS resolution and then check for consistency.” This helps determine whether they’re consistently reachable or unreachable because tests also want to eliminate the cases in which there are false positives due to the website being down for reasons other than interference or manipulation. Censorship on the ground in Malaysia Khairil Yusof is the coordinator for the Sinar Project in Malaysia, which started out as a volunteer effort with a few tech activists who were at the Bersih 2.0 pro-democracy rally in 2011. The group’s focus was on open government and civic tech, but under an increasingly authoritarian government they also needed to pay attention to the possibility of online censorship. They started seeing instances of censorship prior to Malaysia’s 2013 general election, and since then it’s only continued. As part of their efforts, Yusof said, they tried to build a monitoring site backed by data and tests. “We ran into problems, and that’s when we discovered that OONI was also working on the same idea and at a global scale,” said Yusof. “It was an open project [that] had done much more research into this, and we were like, ‘Great, let’s work with them and then shift our efforts to working with OONI and the OONI community.’” Read more: Privacy Startup Nym Will Pay You in Bitcoin to Run Its Mixnet Many censorship reports in the media are anecdotal, said Yusof. These anecdotal reports are then used to generate various “Internet Freedom” indices. The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it’s easy to brush off or dismiss by saying, for example, a person’s internet was slow or the site was probably down. The purpose of the Sinar Project is to verify and support anecdotal claims with hard evidence that cannot be refuted. The project focuses both on long-term data collection to track trends as well as on real-time data collection during key events like general elections. “Our testing efforts, for example, allowed us to prove that election results sites were being blocked, and which was later used by journalists to track down the official [government] request to ISPs leading to the resignation of a few people at the Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC),” said Yusof. Yusof noted he hasn’t seen any rise in censorship since the onset of the global pandemic but says sometimes, when the technical challenges of censorship are too high, Malaysia is resorting to more “analog” methods of silencing people, such as throwing them into prison. “Mostly when the technical and economic costs of online censorship are too high, what we’ve seen in Southeast Asia is that offline actions such as arrests and jailing of activists or media for comments or reporting online has far more chilling effects on self-censorship than technical measures,” said Yusof. Phishing in Venezuela When Juan Guaido formed an interim legislative administration in Venezuela, he and his party were challenged by incumbent president Nicolás Maduro and labeled the “opposition party.” (Guaido is recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate leader by more than 50 countries.) Health care is a state-run industry in Venezuela. The “Héroes de la Salud” platform was created in 2020 by Guaido’s disputed interim administration so that members of the public health-care system could share their information on its website and receive monthly financial assistance at a time of difficult working conditions and low wages. However, visitors to the site were being inadvertently redirected by a state-run ISP to a different one: a phishing site cloned from the original ““Héroes de la Salud” by malicious actors opposed to Guaido, according to a late April report from Venezuela Inteligente, an organization that tracks network interference and censorship on the internet in Venezuela. Read more: As Pandemic Decimates Startups, Privacy Industry Holds Strong The users were rerouted through a domain name system (DNS) redirect, which is an attack that shows a web page to a user that is different from the one requested. The phishing site was gathering personal information (including the Venezuelan equivalent of U.S. Social Security numbers) of public health workers, who could then face backlash if they were known to have asked for financial assistance from the “opposition.” “These were public health workers redirected to a website designed with the sole purpose of tricking them and collecting their data,” said head of Venezuela Inteligente Andres E. Azpurua. “I don’t have any specifics on what has happened to some of those people. But we do know that that data was collected and published online. So there’s a list of highly sensitive information that’s just out there.” Using OONI’s software, Azpurua was able to help document the discovery in a standardized and open fashion. Going forward, OONI is hoping to continue to expand its network and build on the progress it has seen since 2012. “Our real goal is empowering decentralized efforts of uncovering network interference around the world,” said Filastò. “That’s really what we strive for at the end of the day.” Related Stories How a Hacker Launched a Decentralized Network to Track Internet Censorship How a Hacker Launched a Decentralized Network to Track Internet Censorship || Crypto Long & Short: Coinbase’s ‘Apolitical’ Stance Isn’t Nearly as Simple as It Sounds: As if the ructions of the year aren’t giving us enough cause to re-examine things we thought we understood, now we find ourselves questioning what a company is for, and what role it should occupy in society and in employees’ lives. Earlier this week, Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong published a post in which he stressed the company’s focus on the mission of creating “an open financial system for the world,” and asked that political issues be left out of workplace discourse. The questions this raises are huge, and the timing fits right into tectonic shifts already underway in the role of capitalism in our evolving society. Related: BitMEX Ether Futures Trading Contracts Fall by Half in Wake of US Charges Let’s look at some of the questions, to which there are no clear answers. Armstrong says Coinbase has “an apolitical culture.” What does that even mean, in these times of growing polarization on practically everything? Even being apolitical can be taken as a political stance. What’s more, when a company whose mission is to bring “economic freedom to people all over the world” requests that activism and politics be left at the door, you get a glimpse of how institutionalized the crypto ethos is becoming. What is an employment contract? Some will answer that it is monetary compensation for certain output. Others will argue that you give up your time in exchange for payment. If the latter, can the organization paying you dictate what you do in that time? Does a company have the right to define its own mission? The answer might seem like an obvious yes, but an extension of that is, does a company have the right to ignore topics its employees care about? Here the issue gets more divisive. Related to the previous point, is a company’s responsibility to its shareholders or its employees? Armstrong believes that focus is core to achieving the mission, and that is what shareholders have a right to expect. But the success of intelligence-based businesses largely rests on the employees. We’re not talking about widget-producing factory floors here. This is an environment in which specialized talents and inspiration matter, and those are supplied by motivated people. So, some could argue that Armstrong’s responsibility is to his employees, because that will make the company more profitable and the shareholders happy. Story continues There are many more, but I’m aware of pixel constraints. As if to drive home the point, this week IBM released the results of its annual executive survey. Here’s an excerpt from the press release (my emphasis): “Ongoing IBV [IBM’s Institute for Business Value] consumer research has shown that the expectations employees have of their employers have shifted amidst the pandemic – employees now expect that their employers will take an active role in supporting their physical and emotional health as well as the skills they need to work in new ways.” Related: Blockchain Bites: Ethereum's Economy, Estonia's CBDC Research, Coinbase's Severances This is at odds with a focus on the “mission,” whatever that mission may be. And it highlights the crucial role that employees play in a firm’s success. Also from the PR: “Participating businesses are seeing more clearly the critical role people play in driving their ongoing transformation.” This doesn’t come from some new-wave, millennial-driven, holistic social advocate. It comes from IBM, a standard bearer for legacy enterprise, and represents how much the concept of efficient management has changed. Whether you agree or disagree with Armstrong’s position, you have to admit he was brave to wade into this, especially given the rumors of a planned public listing later this year. Armstrong’s blog post is so much more than a corporate policy statement. It is likely to spark uncomfortable questions as employees seek clarification from companies struggling to navigate through issue-driven minefields. It could lead to a re-evaluation of the concept of a “social contract” between employer and employee, and whether the implicit understanding needs codifying. It could even end up being a trigger for a battle for the soul of corporations, and the meaning of value. These are difficult times, in more ways than we can possibly realize. And the coming change in mores and expectations will be deeper than most anticipate. BitMEX had a really bad day The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and federal prosecutors have started the quarter off with a bang, charging crypto trading platform BitMEX with facilitating unregistered trading and other violations, and arresting co-founder Samuel Reed. This is a big deal, as BitMEX is one of the industry’s largest trading platforms. In 2016, it introduced a derivative known as perpetual swaps (futures that don’t expire) to the market, with up to 100x leverage, and for many years was the market leader in terms of derivative volume and open interest. This is an example of how market infrastructure can affect prices in a young asset class. In 2014, Mt. Gox – then the largest bitcoin (BTC) exchange with approximately 70% of market share – collapsed, revealed a gaping hole where custodied bitcoin should have been. The bitcoin price dropped by almost 50%, recovered a bit and then fell even further over the next few months. It took over two years to recover from the confidence blow. As recently as a couple of years ago, BitMEX was the largest derivatives exchange, and this week’s news could have had a similar effect given the relatively high leverage in its contracts. Yet, the BTC price initially fell almost 4% on the news, which is not insignificant, but nowhere near the systemic jolt many expected. It then recovered 1.5% before being blindsided by other market-shaking non-crypto-related news. In other words, BitMEX’s run-in with the law will have an impact, but it is unlikely to be material. In recent months, BitMEX lost its dominant position to OKEx, Huobi and Binance, and now ranks fourth in terms of daily volume and second in terms of open interest. Even if BitMEX ends up closing, the market repercussions will be felt, but will not be systemically damaging, as there are alternative trading venues. What’s more, while the domain name could be seized and withdrawals impeded (the exchange requires three of the four authorized signatories to approve withdrawals, and so far one has been arrested), BitMEX is unlikely to close – at time of writing, withdrawals were proceeding without hitch, and were significant but not catastrophic for the exchange. Even more important, this news does not change the fundamentals of bitcoin. It may affect trading volumes as positions are closed and reopened elsewhere. But the underlying technology and the potential use case remain intact. And, rather than weaken confidence in crypto market infrastructure, this news is likely to enhance it. One of the reasons cited by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its rejection of all bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposals so far is the lack of surveillance on significant offshore exchanges. This action by the CFTC feels like part of a “bring out the broom” initiative that will improve the rigor and oversight of market players, which should boost institutional confidence and product range. It could even be a tentative step towards a bitcoin ETF approval. 3 things from Q3 As we are now into the final stretch of what has been a spectacularly tumultuous year, it’s time to look back at a few of the recent developments in crypto asset markets that I find particularly interesting. There are so many to choose from, as the speed of progress has been astonishing. Our CoinDesk Quarterly Review 2020 Q3, which dives into some of the main market drivers, is out on Monday – keep an eye out for it in our Research Hub. 1)    Stablecoins were the breakout protagonist in terms of market activity, and not just in terms of market cap growth. Earlier in Q3 the on-chain transfer value of fiat-backed stablecoins passed that of bitcoin for the first time. While there are many factors at play here, this does indicate a growing reliance on stablecoins as the industry’s settlement token. 2)    The value that has flowed into decentralized finance (DeFi) applications has astounded even those of us who work in the industry. I don’t talk much about DeFi in this newsletter, since it has so far been very niche and, well, untested. But it’s starting to affect the markets I do focus on. While volumes have exploded (not literally, obviously, and it says a lot about the mood this year that I even have to clarify that), they are still small in terms of comparative market size. What is telling is the interest that centralized platforms such as crypto exchanges are starting to pay this area. And not just centralized platforms: At an event earlier this week, Brian Brooks, acting head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), said he believes traditional financial institutions will have embraced DeFi technology and principles within 10 years. I agree, and given the increasingly frequent signs this process is starting you’ll probably start to hear more about DeFi in these columns. Perhaps you have already been following the DeFi space, because you are interested in unusual yield opportunities, or because you enjoy the wacky packaging some of these applications come in (many of which are named after food, don’t ask). If not, and you’d like to start to get ahead of the curve, here’s a good introduction. 3)    Bitcoin’s dominance of the crypto asset market has continued its decline. Five years ago, bitcoin was virtually all of the crypto asset market. Then came the 2017 initial coin offering boom with a flood of new tokens surging in value, and bitcoin’s dominance fell to a low of 36%. As the bubble burst, most of the new tokens fell in value, eventually restoring bitcoin’s dominance to around 70%. The dominance (as measured by TradingView’s BTC Dominance Index ) has been steadily falling since around May of this year, largely due to the surge in the market cap of stablecoins and to the growth in DeFi tokens, not all of which were spurious memes. Note that the index is trending downwards in spite of the upward trend in prices, which speaks to the level of growth elsewhere in crypto markets. In other words, this is less to do with weakness in bitcoin and more to do with the expansion of the industry overall. That, in turn, is positive for bitcoin which, for many, will be the gateway crypto asset, the one that investors try out first. Anyone know what’s going on yet? Bitcoin yet again exhibited its split personality this week. I had a chart all ready to share with you that showed that its correlation to gold had been heading up for most of the quarter – and then Trump’s positive COVID-19 test results sent gold higher while bitcoin headed lower. True, bitcoin had already had a shock earlier that day from the BitMEX indictment, and the slump could well have been continuing jitters from that. But it’s not unreasonable to expect market-shaking news like the President of the United States possibly being seriously ill (as far as we know, he only has light symptoms so far) to spark a rush to safety. It seems that the market is not yet convinced that bitcoin is a “safe haven” like its analog comparison. Trump’s COVID-19 test result seemed to have more of an impact on markets than Tuesday night’s debate, which says a lot about the debate’s inefficacy in moving the needle on divided allegiances. Zooming out, this is bewildering considering what its viciousness said about American democracy, and the importance of the election outcome. Unless, of course, the outcome of the election isn’t important at all? Like I said, bewildering. Bitcoin had a weak September (-8.4%) and has not exactly started off on a good foot in October. It did, however, achieve a positive record: it has closed above the $10,000 mark for its longest streak of 66 days and counting. This is significant inasmuch as this long a stretch above that psychological barrier hints that $10,000 has become the new price floor. Of course, floors have been broken before … CHAIN LINKS Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has started trading perpetual contracts that track two European equity market indices and settle in the stablecoin tether. TAKEAWAY: You’ve often heard me talk about how I believe crypto assets will have a profound impact on traditional capital markets. Here is an example of how it will happen: We have a crypto exchange offering a derivative developed for the crypto markets to bet on movements in traditional indices . And to top it all off, it settles, not in fiat but in a fiat-backed stablecoin. Another notable aspect is the leverage – 100x is insanely risky, and is a feature largely limited to crypto exchanges. Few traders avail themselves of that much risk, however, as experienced market professionals know that it’s not wise. The spread between the six-month implied volatility (IV) for ether (ETH) and bitcoin, a measure of expected relative volatility between the two, fell to a 2.5-month low of 4% over the weekend, according to data source Skew. TAKEAWAY: This could mean that traders expect ETH to act more like BTC going forward. The ETH futures market is still immature, however, and the signals are not yet that reliable. Arjun Balaji of Paradigm wrote an excellent overview of crypto asset market progress over the past two years, with a look at what needs to happen next: principally, major improvements in capital efficiency (which is gearing up with the emergence of institutional-grade prime brokerage and crypto-native repo, among other features), and the convergence of decentralized and centralized financial functions. TAKEAWAY: I totally agree, and hats off to Arjun for putting it all so succinctly. I have two needed developments to add: greater regulatory clarity on what is and isn’t a security, to encourage innovation in investment and saving opportunities for a broader range of people; and new rules to smooth the way for the new types of securities to list and trade in a compliant manner (the INX token is a start, but it’s just scratching the surface). On a similar theme, Jill Carlson wrote an op-ed for CoinDesk that talks about how recent focus has been on innovation in crypto asset infrastructure, and how the pendulum may soon swing back to emphasize innovation in assets. TAKEAWAY: Robust infrastructure is essential for a thriving market that can attract significant levels of investor interest. But investors don’t enter our industry for the infrastructure, they do so for the assets. The pendulum that Jill refers to seems to have already begun its swing – we can see this not so much in the meme-infused DeFi assets, but more in the SEC-registered INX token that gives holders trading advantages and a share in net cash flow, and in SEC Chairman Clayton confirming that the U.S. regulator would consider authorizing a tokenized ETF (one presumably not based on crypto assets, for now). An amended filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week showed that Bitwise’s Bitcoin Fund has raised just under $8.9 million, more than double the amount it had raised last year. TAKEAWAY: According to Bitwise’s head of research, Matthew Hougan, this is largely because of growing concern over runaway inflation. Given the new Federal Reserve policy of allowing inflation to overshoot targets (the European Central Bank this week hinted it will follow suit), these concerns are likely to intensify. The Atari Group, the company behind such classic video games as Pac-Man and Pong, will begin publicly selling its Atari Token (ATRI) cryptocurrency in early November. TAKEAWAY: This ERC-20 token will be used in crypto casinos, blockchain-based games and the company’s video game distribution platform. I’m not clear on the economics behind the token, but the combination of Atari, games and tokens does sound a bit like a door to a mainstream use case. But I’m not a gamer, so I might be wrong. (Speaking of which, anyone see the Netflix documentary series “High Score” ? Excellent.) Nasdaq-listed mining equipment manufacturer Ebang reported a revenue slump in 2020 H1 of over 50% from the same period in 2019. According to the company, this was largely due to pandemic-related supply chain disruptions. TAKEAWAY: Supply disruptions are no doubt part of it, but as my colleague Matt Yamamoto pointed out in this report, Ebang’s product mix was inferior to that of its competitors anyway. You can’t blame COVID-19 for everything. CoinDesk Research has a new report out, authored by my colleague Matt Yamamoto, on Silvergate Bank, which looks at its financials and its business strategy in the light of growing competition. Podcast episodes worth listening to: 10 Popular Investing Beliefs We Should Be Questioning – Nathaniel Whittemore, The Breakdown How the EU is Revolutionizing Stablecoin (and Crypto) Oversight, With the EC’s Peter Kerstens – Chris Brummer, Fintech Podcast Bitcoin: A Novel Economic Institution with Yassine Elmandjra – Peter McCormack, What Bitcoin Did Congressman Davidson, Caitlin Long, and Adam Traidman on Stablecoins – Anthony Pompliano, The Pomp Podcast Volatility Suppression Turned The Entire Economy Into One Big Carry Trade – Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal, Odd Lots And a reminder carried over from last week that CoinDesk has not one but three new podcast series that are definitely worth checking out and subscribing to: Money Reimagined, with Michael Casey and Sheila Warren of the WEF – for the first episode, they talk to multimedia artist Nicky Enright and University of Virginia Media Studies Professor Lana Swartz Borderless, with Nik De, Anna Baydakova and Danny Nelson, which covers trends impacting crypto adoption around the world Opinionated, with Ben Schiller – for the first episode, he interviews Nic Carter, CoinDesk columnist and partner of Castle Island Ventures Related Stories Crypto Long & Short: Coinbase’s ‘Apolitical’ Stance Isn’t Nearly as Simple as It Sounds Crypto Long & Short: Coinbase’s ‘Apolitical’ Stance Isn’t Nearly as Simple as It Sounds || First Mover: Monero Leads Privacy-Coin Rally as Bitcoin Trips on Path to $12K: Bitcoin (BTC) was gaining for a fourth straight day, approaching the $12,000 price threshold the cryptocurrency failed to hold in August when it last rallied past that level. “The market has started to move again,” the Norwegian cryptocurrency-analysis firmArcane Researchwrote Tuesday in a report. Intraditional markets, U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open as investors bet U.S. lawmakers could reach agreement on a new stimulus bill. Related:UK-Listed Firm Mode Putting up to 10% of Cash Reserves Into Bitcoin Privacy coins like monero (XMR) and zcash (ZEC) are suddenly in vogue – despite regulators’ efforts to crack down on them. These digital tokens, which come with features allowing users to obfuscate their identities and hide the amounts transferred, have surged in value this year. Monero’s price has nearly tripled in 2020, and zcash has doubled. According to the data firm Messari, a group of 21 digital assets with anonymity-enhancing features has gained 142% this year, compared with bitcoin’s 60% gain. The bullish market tone comes even as U.S. Internal Revenue Servicerecently hiredblockchain analytics firms Chainalysis and Integra FEC to develop transaction tracing tools for monero and other protocols used to obscure identities. And the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this month published anextensive reporton its enforcement framework for digital assets, citing the use of anonymity-enhancing cryptocurrencies as a risk to anti-money-laundering programs and efforts to combat terrorism finance. Some cryptocurrency analysts say the jump in prices for privacy tokens might just be coincidental, a function of speculation on the part of traders keying off price-chart patterns or algorithms. But it might be that traders think privacy tokens will occupy a key spot in fast-developing, international digital-asset markets and payment systems – precisely because so many users don’t want to transact business under the glare of monitoring by governments, banks or exchanges. Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Tests $12K; Ethereum Fees Fall to 3-Month Low “Cryptographers and researchers are always going to be one step ahead on privacy,” Riccardo “Fluffypony” Spagni, one of the Monero network’s maintainers, told CoinDesk in an interview. In other words, the regulatory inquiries could turn out to be net positives for monero. “It gets visibility in the market,” David Jevans, CEO of blockchain forensics firm CipherTrace, told CoinDesk in a telephone interview. “People should be able to pay for day-to-day expenses without having to fear hitting regulators’ radar and provide identity proofs.” – Omkar Godbole Read More:Cryptographers Are Always Going to Be ‘One Step Ahead’ of Regulators: Monero’s Spagni The path of least resistance for bitcoin is to the higher side. The cryptocurrency jumped more than 2% Monday, confirming a descending triangle breakout. The pattern indicates the rally from the Oct. 8 lows near $10.,500 has resumed. Open interest in bitcoin futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which is considered synonymous with institutional interest, jumped over 20% to a seven-week high of $624 million Monday, validating the bullish breakout on technical charts. Further, macro factors look to be aligned in favor of the bulls. The likes of the European Central Bank and the Reserve Bank of Australia are expected to ramp up monetary stimulus over the next two months – a long-term positive development for the perceived store of value assets like bitcoin and gold. Traditional markets are pricing additional inflation-boosting U.S. fiscal stimulus. But a number of big sell orders appear positioned around $12,000, which could make it harder for bulls to engineer a quick move past that mark. As such, the focus has shifted to resistance located at $12,476 (August high). On the downside, the Oct. 16 low of $11,200 is the level to target for the bears. – Omkar Godbole Read More:Bitcoin Closes on $12K But a Wall of Sell Orders Awaits: Analyst Filecoin (FIL):Decentralized file-storage protocolreleases token rewards in advanceafter crypto miners rebel against “unfair” economic model. Binance (BNB):World’s largest cryptocurrencyburns 1.1% of supply of its BNB exchange tokens, fourth-highest ever. Uniswap (UNI):Vote to reduce quorumfails to garner quorum. Curve DAO (CRV):Decentralized stablecoin-swapping platform’s tokens hitfresh all-time lows. Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone says bitcoin “has a history of adding zeroes,” seestether’smarket capitalization eclipsingether’snext year. (Bloomberg Intelligence) Corporation-focused R3’s Corda Network gets new “regulation-friendly” digital currency, XDC, calling it a “next-generation bitcoin orXRP.” (CoinDesk) Federal Reserve Chair Powell says it’s more important to get digital dollar right than to be first. (CoinDesk) A Puerto Rico-based bank founded by gold bug and long-time bitcoin skeptic Peter Schiff is under investigation over suspicions it facilitated tax evasion for “high-risk” clients. (CoinDesk) European investors rattled as number of new daily coronavirus reaches record high. (CNBC) International money managers bet on Biden victory in U.S. presidential election to spur gains on non-U.S. assets, weaken dollar. (Reuters) U.S. investment bank behemoth Goldman Sachs reaches deal with U.S. Department of Justice to pay more than $2B for role in Malaysia 1MDB scandal. (Bloomberg) Investing legend Bill Miller calls Federal Reserve’s inflation-averaging policy the “most significant” change in U.S. monetary policy in 40 years. (CNBC) • First Mover: Monero Leads Privacy-Coin Rally as Bitcoin Trips on Path to $12K • First Mover: Monero Leads Privacy-Coin Rally as Bitcoin Trips on Path to $12K || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – September 23rd, 2020: Bitcoin, BTC to USD, rose by 1.09% on Tuesday. Partially reversing a 4.57% slide from Monday, Bitcoin ended the day at $10,549.0. It was a mixed start to the day. Bitcoin fell to an early morning intraday low $10,377.0 before making a move. Steering clear of the first major support level at $10,171, Bitcoin rose to a late intraday high $10,597.0. Falling well short of the first major resistance level at $10,850, Bitcoin eased back to wrap up the day at sub-$10,550 levels. The near-term bullish trend remained intact, supported by the latest pullback. 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 bullish day on Tuesday. Binance Coin and Bitcoin Cash SV rallied by 4.02% and by 5.84% respectively to lead the way. Bitcoin Cash ABC (+2.05%), Cardano’s ADA (+1.90%), Ethereum (+1.15%), and Litecoin (+3.15%) also made solid gains. Chainlink (+0.26%), Crypto.com Coin (+0.26%), and Ripple’s XRP (+0.86%) trailed the front runners, however. At the start of the week, the crypto total market rose to a Monday high $334.04bn before sliding to a Monday low $306.69bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $316.17bn. Bitcoin’s dominance fell to a Monday low 60.89% before rising to a high 62.04%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 61.55%. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.02% to $10,549.6. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning low $10,540.0 before rising to a high $10,555.0. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Ethereum (-0.27%) and Ripple’s XRP (-0.03%) struggled early on. It was a bullish start for the rest of the majors, however. At the time of writing, Cardano’s ADA was up by 1.01% to lead the way. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to avoid a fall through the $10,508 pivot level to support a run at the first major resistance level at $10,638. Story continues Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from Tuesday’s high $10,597. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Tuesday’s high would likely cap any upside. In the event of a crypto breakout, Bitcoin could test resistance at $10,700 before any pullback. Bitcoin would likely come up short of the second major resistance level at $10,728, however. Failure to avoid a fall through the $10,508 pivot would bring the first major support level at $10,418 into play. Barring an extended crypto sell-off, however, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$10,300 levels and the second major support level at $10,288. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Aussie Weakens as RBA Considers Various Policy Options AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – RBNZ May Be Preparing to Move on Negative OCR Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Show Signs of Stability USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Hawkish Comments From Fed’s Evans Spook Dollar Bears E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Traders Respecting 26714 – 26162 Economic Data, the FED Chair, COVID-19, and Brexit in Focus || Bitcoin Is Good for PayPal, but Is PayPal Good for Bitcoin?: Numbers go up! You only live once. That’s two crypto memes to describe how the crypto industry celebratedPayPal’s announcement that, from 2021 onwards, it will enable its 345 million customers worldwide to buy and sellbitcoinand other currencies from their accounts. Ajit Tripathi, a CoinDesk columnist, is the crypto co-host of the Breaking Banks Europe podcast. Previously, he served as a Fintech Partner at ConsenSys and was a co-founder of PwC’s U.K. Blockchain Practice. Related:Why Crypto Is the Next Big Trend in Financial Planning Shortly thereafter, crypto euphoria hit new heights when Southeast Asia’s largest bank, DBS,announced plansto launch a full-fledged crypto exchange. The announcement was later removed by the bank, but the crypto community had found enough reasons already to take bitcoin from $10,000 to $14,000 in two weeks. DBS’ announcement was certainly more surprising for everyone because it referred to the service as a crypto exchange. Unlike Revolut’s crypto trading app that allows Revolut to trade principal for their customers and offset the risk on crypto exchanges making a margin in the process, DBS’ announcement referred to an exchange rather than an app or a feature. Since I witnessed firsthand a different high street banks’ unwillingness to give Coinbase a bank account in 2017, the news (albeit retracted) was as emotional as it gets in a professional sense. Commentators on both the pro-coin and no-coin side were skeptical of PayPal’s baby steps. Believers are disappointed that PayPal’s customers can move crypto only inside PayPal’s network (you can’t withdraw or deposit your bitcoin). Skeptics are unsure if PayPal’s crypto integration gave anything truly new to the customers’ payments experience. Some acknowledged that a giant like PayPal could only ever take baby steps and allowing crypto withdrawals from the PayPal network was always going to be too risky from an AML standpoint. Two fintech commentators, however, got to the crux of the matter, noting that Bitcoin is good for PayPal. First the FT’sSimon Taylorpointed out how bitcoin had increased customer engagement for Square’s Cash App, and then Ron Shevlin,writing in Forbes, highlighted that the need to compete with Cash App likely pushed PayPal to adopt bitcoin. Related:4 Charts Showing Why Financial Advisers Should Care About Bitcoin See also: Noelle Acheson –Why the PayPal Rally Isn’t What It Seems I celebrated the PayPal announcement. too, although for a different reason. The real value of the PayPal announcement isn’t that people will be able to buy and sell crypto. People can buy and sell crypto already on peer-to-peer platforms like Paxful and the numerous global and local crypto exchanges around the world. It’s that a small percentage of PayPal’s 345 million customers will be motivated to learn about crypto, and a large percentage of PayPal’s competitors will be motivated to see the industry in a wholly different light. In combination, these two factors will bring in tens of billions of dollars in retail assets into crypto over the next two years, turning minnows into tunas and tunas into whales. Now that we know what’s coming, shouldn’t we all quit our COVID-era jobs and retire? No, and here’s why. Where banks go, regulation follows. Outside the U.S., regulators have had a relativelylaissez-faireapproach to the crypto industry. China and India, which have banned bitcoin or virtual currencies at different points in time, have not enforced such bans in practice. Even the U.S. has been flexible in the interpretation of what are securities and in consumer protection regulation. This is for two reasons. First, most regulators have seen crypto as a fringe pursuit of the nerds. Second, regulators felt comfortable the fiat banking system is not exposed to risks arising from the crypto ecosystem. Until 2018, regulators discouraged banks from working with crypto businesses. Crypto exchanges adopted stablecoins liketetherin 2016-2017 and then broke through the regulatory “fiat-crypto barrier” in 2019 by partnering with small or medium-sized payments companies lacking banking licenses. Today, major exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, Blockchain.com and Binance have three or four banking partners in major jurisdictions with new fiat-to-crypto payment channels coming online every week. Indeed, banks serve payments that serve crypto but rarely serve crypto directly. This is why the DBS announcement is much more significant than the PayPal announcement. We don’t know from the announcement that DBS will hold crypto on its balance sheet. But if the bank is operating an exchange, this is likely to be the case. Unlike PayPal, which offers mainly payments and small consumer loans, DBS is a bank that takes insured deposits from customers and makes large loans to both individuals and institutional customers. While both are systemically important in different ways, after the 2009 debacle of Lehman Brothers deposit taking and institutional lending activities require compliance with a far more stringent set of prudential rules. Where banks go, regulators follow and bring the entire mountain of compliance and risk management requirements with them. In plain English, this is no longer about anti-money laundering compliance or token-friendly interpretations of securities laws alone. It is about a vast array of risk management requirements and controls that crypto firms do not have to deal with currently. For example, banks have to hold capital and implement a wide array of technology-, cyber- and data-related controls that cost money, personal hours, audits and processes, which mean lower profits and slower changes. Swiss crypto banks, which were the first to hold crypto on their balance sheets, are required to do everything that banks do and crypto firms just don’t. Let’s make this simple again. Where banks go, regulators follow and bring the entire mountain of compliance and risk management requirements with them. So when banks start offering crypto services, not only will banks be asked to apply all of the banking regulations to crypto, crypto firms will also increasingly be asked to apply banking regulations. Seasoned bankers like Caitlin Long understand this dynamic and have worked very hard to both influence regulators and bring banks to crypto firms like Kraken. Two of the large crypto firms for which I have consulted have sought to acquire banks and have been held off only by the sheer cost and effort of complying with banking regulations. Now that cat has left the bag and there’s only one way this story ends. Over the next five years, most crypto firms will become banks and banks will become crypto firms. There is not going to be a fiat industry and a crypto industry. There will be only one banking, payments and capital markets industry that serves both fiat and crypto. Four things: First, for consumers it means less risk and better standards of asset protection and consumer protection. When KuCoin got hacked, there was no major regulatory response. But if KuCoin was a U.K. bank and had got hacked, we’d have had an army of auditors looking at every paper inside the bank and announcing a major fine and a new set of controls. Second, it means much lower profitability in crypto and fewer, higher-quality assets. Today, a developer can launch a borrowing and lending service with no know-your-customer compliance, no capital, no risk management and no personal liability. Such a token gets listed promptly on exchanges and, if it goes to zero in two weeks and customers areREKT, there’s no action from the regulators. Once banking rules apply, such an enterprise will be promptly shut down. Essentially the cost of launching new services, i.e. innovation, will go up by 100x slower. More expensive innovation is what we pay as a society for consumer protection and lower systemic risk. See also:PayPal archives Third, the overnight returns and venture cycles in crypto will get aligned with the long eight-year venture cycle in the rest of fintech. Harvest Finance, which was recently manipulated out of $24 million in customer funds, was quite fond of describing how its deposits grew much faster thanMonzo. What the Harvest Finance team clearly doesn’t understand is the cost of simply launching Monzo is approximately $50 million to $100 million, whereas the cost of launching Harvest Finance is two guys living on ramen noodles in a garage. Further, Monzo is not allowed to lose $24 million in customer deposits and get away with a mere apology on Twitter. In the U.K., Monzo executives can actually be sanctioned and penalized for that sort of failure under the U.K. “senior manager” regime. Fourth, if everyone is a bank and there are far fewer assets to trade at much higher cost, everyone except bank execs will make a lot less money, and those who lose today will lose a lot less. There will be far fewer exchange hacks, rug pulls, cottage industry scams and other such reminders of the pre-1934 Wall Street. No, in fact it’s just about to get much bigger but less entertaining. Banks won. Crypto believers might feel they have occupied Wall Street, and we might indeed have for some time, but the converse is now becoming true. Banks will increasingly occupy Crypto Street instead. If the announcement by the Securities & Futures Commission of Hong Kong on Tuesday is any indication, the era of crypto firms operating without licenses, registrations and the full weight of compliance and risk controls ends in a few years. Crypto firms like Coinbase, Kraken and Binance, which seem to be taking active steps to get ahead of this convergence and obtain payments and banking licenses, will win big and those that don’t will find it rather difficult to survive as independent businesses beyond 2025. You live only once! Become a bank. • Bitcoin Is Good for PayPal, but Is PayPal Good for Bitcoin? • Bitcoin Is Good for PayPal, but Is PayPal Good for Bitcoin? [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 15479.57, 15332.32, 15290.90, 15701.34, 16276.34, 16317.81, 16068.14, 15955.59, 16716.11, 17645.41
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 2021-12-10] BTC Price: 47243.30, BTC RSI: 29.78 Gold Price: 1782.90, Gold RSI: 45.65 Oil Price: 71.67, Oil RSI: 44.52 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] El Salvador ‘Buys the Dip,’ Acquires 420 Additional Bitcoin: The government of El Salvador bought 420 more bitcoin ($25.6 million), President Bukeletweetedon Wednesday. • Bukele said in a series of tweets, “It was a long wait, but worth it. We just bought the dip!” He added that “We’re already making a profit of the bitcoin we just bought.” • Bitcoin is currently trading at $60,965 and dipped down to around $58,179 on Wednesday. • Bitcoinofficiallybecame legal tender in El Salvador in September, three months after the country’s legislature passed the Bitcoin Law. • El Salvador’s treasury now holds an estimated 1,120 bitcoin, according to a Reutersreport. • “We have a trust fund accounted in USD, but the trust is funded by both USD and BTC. When the BTC part revalues in comparison to the accounting currency (USD), we are able to withdraw some USD and leave the trust with the same total,” President Bukele said in a tweet. • In September, Bukele said that the country is taking its first steps to harness massive natural power sources to mine bitcoin. Heposteda short video of workers installing a shipping container full of cryptocurrency mining rigs at a geothermal power plant. Read more:El Salvador’s Bitcoin Wallet Is Used by More Than Half a Million People, President Says || India Has No Plans to Recognize Bitcoin as Currency; RBI Working on CBDC Rollout: Reports: The Indian government does not plan to recognize bitcoin as a currency, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday. During a question and answer session in the parliament, Sitharaman also said the government does not collect data on bitcoin transactions, according to a report from local news site Mint. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is also working on the phased implementation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), the ministry of finance said, according to a report from the Economic Times (ET) on Monday. The central bank was reportedly planning to pilot test a CBDC in 2022. The RBI has already proposed an amendment a 1934 act to include digital currencies in the definition of bank notes, according to ET. The Indian parliament will discuss a highly anticipated bill for cryptocurrencies proposed by the government during its winter session, which started on Monday. The bill will ban all private cryptocurrencies, only allowing some to promote the underlying technology, but will also look to set up a framework for a RBI-backed digital currency, according to a Nov. 23 parliament bulletin. Read more: Indian Government Submits Bill to Ban Most Cryptocurrencies, Dashing Hopes for Friendlier Measure View comments || Crypto Crackdown In China Put Bitcoin On A Roller Coaster: Crypto assets, including bitcoin, fell sharply on Tuesday after reaching near-record highs. Early Tuesday morning, London time, price levels for the pioneer Crypto dropped toward $60,000. After recovering some of these losses, Bitcoin was trading around $60.5k a few hours later, down nearly 8% for the day. After a price bounce on Monday following its Taproot upgrade, Bitcoin is consolidating around the $60k price levels. Charts for bitcoin show signs of upside exhaustion, suggesting further downside is likely, albeit limited toward the $57k-$60k support area. In the four-hour chart, the relative strength index registered an oversold signal on Nov. 12, although buyers quickly seized opportunities around $66k According to the current relative strength index, this week could see some consolidation. In a press conference Tuesday, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said it would continue to clean up the mining of Crypto assets there. An exodus of miners resulted from the Chinese crackdown on bitcoin mining earlier this year. In crypto, mining is the energy-intensive process of creating new coins and keeping a log of all transactions carried out with existing digital tokens. It is important to regulate cryptocurrency mining activities in order to optimize our industrial structure, save energy and cut emissions, and achieve carbon emission and neutrality goals. President Xi Jinping stated last year that China aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. It said it would target state-owned companies that mine crypto assets. In addition, the company says it is considering imposing “punitive electricity prices” on those who participate in cryptocurrency mining but pay residential electricity rates. Since earlier this year, Chinese authorities have been focusing on eradicating bitcoin mining. Even if the comments aren’t entirely new, negative crypto-related comments from Chinese authorities have historically led to a sell-off in the crypto market Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Central Bank Digital Currency Gains Traction In Nigeria Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Line in Sand at $1874.00 Separates New Bulls from Lingering Bears AVAX Dips by More Than 9% as Broader Market Retraces AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – RBA, Lowe Reaffirm Rate Hike Will Not Be Needed until 2024 EUR/USD Daily Forecast – Euro Tries To Rebound After Strong Sell-Off Tron’s TRX Touched $0.12 Before Market Correction || Mastercard expands cryptocurrency services with wallets, loyalty rewards: (Reuters) - Mastercard Inc said on Monday it would allow partners on its network to enable their consumers to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrency using a digital wallet, as well as reward them with digital currencies under loyalty programs. The credit card giant said it would offer these services in partnership with Bakkt Holdings Inc, the digital assets platform founded by NYSE-owner Intercontinental Exchange. Founded in 2018, Bakkt went public earlier this year through a $2.1 billion merger with a blank-check company. Shares of the company were up 77% at $16.19 on Monday. Mastercard said its partners can also allow customers earn and spend rewards in cryptocurrency instead of loyalty points. The company had said in February https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currency-mastercard-idUSKBN2AA2WF it would begin offering support for some cryptocurrencies on its network this year. Last year, rival Visa Inc had partnered https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blockfi-crypto-currency-visa-idUSKBN28B603 with cryptocurrency startup BlockFi to offer a credit card that lets users earn bitcoin on purchases. Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, touched a record high of $67,016 last week after the debut of the first U.S. bitcoin futures-based exchange traded fund. It has more than doubled in value this year. (Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.) || FTSE 100 Live: US inflation hits 40-year high of 6.8%, UK GDP disappoints: (ESI) FTSE 100 Live Friday UK GDP misses expectations US inflation hits 40-year high Steady end to week for FTSE 100 LV scraps Bain deal FTSE closes lower 17:09 , Oscar Williams-Grut Despite spending most of the day flat as a pancake, the FTSE 100 has ended the day down 30 points, or 0.4%, at 7291. It’s not altogether clear what prompted the sell-off. It could have been a warning from the UK’s Health Security Agency that Britain could face 1 million Omicron cases by the end of the month . That may have prompted investors to take some risk off the table heading into the weekend, given the fast moving nature of the situation. Away from the stock market, the big story today was the failure of LV=’s sale to Bain . The mutual couldn’t get enough support for the controversial deal from its members and has now scrapped the deal. It leaves the businesses future in doubt. That’s all from us on the blog today. Have a good weekend and join us again on Monday. LV abandons sale to Bain after vote fails 15:57 , Oscar Williams-Grut Life insurer LV= has abandoned its controversial sale to private equity group Bain Capital after not enough of its members voted in favour of the deal . 69% of members who voted backed the deal, LV said on Friday afternoon. It had said it required 75% to see the deal through. 174,240 people voted, representing 15% of LV’s 1.16 million members As a result, LV said the sale to Bain for £530 million will “no longer proceed”, LV said. Royal London, which had bid against Bain, quickly said it would come to the table to restart deal talks with LV. Read the full story. Deutsche Bank: Plan B restrictions will shrink the economy 15:41 , Oscar Williams-Grut The UK economy is set to shrink in the months ahead as a result of new Plan B restrictions , according to a leading City economist. Sanjay Raja, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank , said in a note circulated to the bank’s clients on Friday that restrictions “should see both December and January GDP growth dip modestly into negative territory ”. On a quarterly basis, Raja believes restrictions will leave 0.4% lower than initially forecast. “The new Omicron variant has cast an undeniable shadow on the near-term economic outlook,” he wrote. Read the full story. Wall Street opens higher 15:03 , Oscar Williams-Grut Stock markets have opened in the green in New York. The S&P 500 is up 0.4% at typing time and the Nasdaq is up 0.2%. Over on this side of the pond, the FTSE is still not up to much: it’s down 2 points. Here’s a sample of how the market is reacting to that huge US inflation print. Story continues Dan Boardman-Weston, CIO at BRI Wealth Management: “This is likely to add further pressure to the Fed to quicken the withdrawal of quantitative easing and raise interest rates sooner than expected. There could be hesitancy from the Fed due to the potential impact that Omicron may have on the economy in the coming months but it’s unlikely this will significantly alter the growth trajectory of the economy. “The US economy is in rude health and doesn’t require crisis levels of quantitative easing or interest rates and so it remains our view that policy will become tighter. It is important to note that whilst inflation is high and getting higher, the supply chain issues, the high levels of demand and base effects are likely to prove transitory and we continue to believe inflation will move lower over the coming year.” Caleb Thibodeau, Validus Risk Management: “As CPI continues to see broad-based gains, we might expect the Fed to stay the course on the advanced tapering schedule implicated since retiring the word ‘transitory’. This means winding down net asset purchases to 0 by as early as March 2022 – a move that is already having unintended consequences in Treasury market liquidity, complicating the process.” Hinesh Patel, portfolio manager at Quilter Investors: “The inflation number in the US is in-line with the consensus and, for markets, thankfully no worse given the elevated levels we are seeing currently. The fact it is still in line with consensus means the belief it is simply transitory is still in play. However, the data is sailing close to the wind and this month’s figure can definitely be put down as “got away with it”. “We cannot read too much into one data point but the headline figure may begin to roll over from here and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this being art or near the peak. Should inflation go beyond 7% then the Fed will need to taper sooner, with the balancing act being the communication to markets needed not to upset the precious S&P500 green arrow.” “It was also interesting to see real average hourly earnings fall nearly 2%. This will likely to hit consumer confidence going forward, but whether or not this is too late to stop inflation breaching 7% remains to be seen.” US inflation soars to 6.8% 13:48 , Oscar Williams-Grut Official data just out in the US shows inflation keeps climbing higher. Prices rose by 6.8% on an annual basis in November, up from 6.2% the month prior. That was the largest monthly increase since 1982. Month-to-month growth eased slightly to 0.8%. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics said the rise was driven by “broad increases in most component indexes, similar to last month.” “The indexes for gasoline, shelter, food, used cars and trucks, and new vehicles were among the larger contributors,” the agency said. Earlier in the day we heard from Deutsche Bank that inflation is currently the biggest concern for investors around the world. Many fear spiralling prices could stick around in 2022, rather than subside as many central bankers argue. The FTSE 100 hasn’t budged much on the data. It’s down 7 points at the moment, roughly the same as it was prior to the data. Wall Street looks set to open higher despite the sky-high inflation. Futures are spiking on the data, which was broadly in-line with forecasts. Trading starts in New York in about 45 minutes. FTSE flat at lunchtime 12:41 , Oscar Williams-Grut The FTSE 100 is more or less flat this lunchtime: the top flight index is down four points at 7317. Darktrace is at the foot of the index, down 2.3%. Boss Poppy Gustafsson has been lamenting that the market has “misunderstood” her business . It seems they still do. At the other end of the index is British American Tobacco, up 2.3%, closely followed by Berkeley, up 1.5% as it continues to benefit from a positive update earlier in the week. Bank of America sees Bank of England keeping rates on hold 11:54 , Oscar Williams-Grut Bank of America thinks Threadneedle Street will leave interest rates at 0.1% next week. Economists at the bank say in a note out today: “It’s a close call but we expect the BoE to leave interest rates unchanged next week, due to Omicron effects/uncertainty. We look for the BoE to hike 15bp in February and 25bp in May. Beyond that we see the BoE hiking slower than the market does.” Our city comment piece today looks at the tough decision faving the Monetary Policy Committee next week: Who’d be a rate setter in this economy ? Data out today underlines the almost impossible decision facing the Monetary Policy Committee next week. Members must decide what they are worried about more: growth or inflation ? Both are in bad shape. Britain’s Covid recovery has hit the buffers and is at risk of going into reverse as Omicron restrictions bite and cloud the outlook. That would usually prompt the Bank to keep rates low to stimulate the economy with cheap cash. But at the same time, prices are spiralling. Deputy government Ben Broadbent said this week that inflation would be “comfortably” above 5% by next Spring . That would usually prompt higher rates to take some of the fuel out of and cool price rises. You can read the full article here. Investors’ biggest fear for 2022 is inflation 11:27 , Oscar Williams-Grut Deutsche Bank has just released a survey of 750 finance professionals from around the world asking them what 2022 might hold. Here’s a snippet: “The biggest risk remains higher than expected inflation. Commensurate with that, an aggressive Fed tightening cycle came in at number two. Vaccine-escaping variants were close behind, bringing Covid risks back into the top three after a one-survey absence.” The latest US inflation data is out at 1.30pm today and will underline why people are so worried: the data is expected to show prices rising at an annual rate of 6.8% in November, up from 6.2%. That would be the highest reading in 40 years. Elsewhere, Deutsche Bank’s survey turns up an interesting generational divide when it comes to crypto: “Bitcoin is more likely to halve than double, unless you are under 35 where the opposite is true.” Tougher year for Baillie Gifford fund 10:29 , Graeme Evans High-profile stakes in Tesla, Upwork and Oxford Nanopore today failed to prevent one of Baillie Gifford's flagship funds from reporting its first year of underperformance since 2016. The FTSE 250-listed Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust grew net asset value by 18.3%, against 35.9% for the comparative S&P Global Small Cap Index in the year to October 31. Despite the recent performance in today’s annual results, the £1.4 billion fund remains way ahead of the market since focusing in 2014 on smaller, entrepreneurial and unlisted growth opportunities. With electric car maker Tesla and recruitment services platform Upwork still a big part of the portfolio, Edinburgh Worldwide has grown its net asset value by 280% over the past seven years to make it a popular pick among retail investors. Other long-term holdings include grocery warehouse technology business Ocado, while more recently the fund has added clean fuel business ITM Power to its portfolio. It said one factor behind the recent performance has been the indirect impact of China's regulatory crackdown on sectors such as lending, education and gaming. Edinburgh Worldwide shares today fell 2% or 6.5p to 306.5p in a difficult session for Baillie Gifford after its tech-focused Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust declined 22.5p to 1400p in the FTSE 100 index. Other fallers in London's top flight included heavyweight stock AstraZeneca after a decline of 2% or 144p to 8218p. Overall, the FTSE 100 stood 9.16 points lower at 7312.04, leaving it broadly where it was prior to the Omicron-led sell-off two Fridays ago. Stronger mining stocks propped up the index, while housebuilder Berkeley rose another 91p to 4829p after its better-than-expected update earlier in the week. The FTSE 250 index declined 74.68 points to 23,073.36, despite a recovery of 3% for bootmaker Dr Martens following its interim results yesterday. On AIM, Nexus Infrastructure attracted interest after its electric vehicle charging business saw “exceptional growth, profitability for the first time and a burgeoning order book”. Nexus, which also owns civil engineer Tamdown, is now looking at the possibility of a separate listing or outside investment to optimise the growth of eSmart Networks. Shares rose half a penny to 232.5p after today's full-year results. Dunelm secures new sustainability-linked bank facility 10:15 , Joanna Bourke Dunelm sells homeware products (Dunelm) D unelm has secured a £185 million sustainability -linked loan facility, an agreement that could help the homewares retailer slash how much plastic packaging it uses. The FTSE 250 firm’s unsecured revolving credit facility is from Barclays, Lloyds, National Westminster Bank, Banco Santander, and Credit Industriel et Commercial. The agreement comes at a time when many businesses and investors are increasingly looking at their environmental, social and governance ( ESG ) credentials. Read more HERE . Octopus Energy raises another $300 million 10:11 , Oscar Williams-Grut Octopus Energy continues to defy the energy crisis that has seen many rivals collapse, raising $300 million (£227 million) just months after another major investment . Octopus, which supplies 3.1 million customers in the UK, has raised funds from Canada Pension Plan Investments (CPPI), one of the largest pension funds in the world. Five-year-old Octopus was valued at around $5 billion (£3.7 billion) in the deal . The fundraising comes just months after Octopus raised $600 million (£437 million) from Al Gore’s climate fund Generation Investment Management . The energy business was valued at $4.6 billion (£3.3 billion) in the September deal, which made it worth as much as British Gas owner Centrica at the time. (Changes in Centrica’s share price since then mean the company is now worth around £200 million more than Octopus at current levels.) Read the full story. Hilton Food Group buying spree continues with smoked salmon producer 10:03 , Naomi Ackerman Meat packer Hilton Food Group today revealed it is to snap up smoked salmon giant Dutch Seafood Company (Foppen) for for €90 million (£76.9 million) in a move that will see the FTSE 250 firm enter the US for the first time. Hilton, which processes and packages meat for supermarkets including Tesco, said it plans to raise £75 million via equity placing to part-fund the acquisition. It is the latest in a string of buy-ups for Hilton, which reported £2.8 billion in revenues and £67 million in adjusted profits last year. Shares fell 0.1%, or 1.4p, to 1195p, this morning. Read the full story here FTSE and sterling under pressure 08:35 , Graeme Evans The FTSE 100 index has fallen 14.4 points to 7306.86, with tech-focused Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Auto Trader among stocks in retreat. Primark-to-Twinings owner Associated British Foods rose 6.5p to 1940.5p after its AGM trading update pointed to operating profit progress in the year ahead. Sterling remained at 1.32 versus the US dollar after the GDP figure for October came in lower than expected. The domestic-focused FTSE 250 index fell 82.86 points to 23,065.18. Patrick Drahi’s ‘no bid’ period at BT ends 08:03 , Oscar Williams-Grut French telecom billionaire Patrick Drahi’s lock-up period at BT comes to an end today. Drahi, the creator of Altice, bought a 12.5% stake in the UK business in June, triggering a six month ‘no bid’ clause. That ends today and he is free to do what he pleases. What exactly will he do? A full-on swoop at BT would be difficult to get past regulators, though, especially amid current strong opposition to foreign takeovers. The National Security and Investment Act, meant to protect British infrastructure, comes into force next year. Still, the telecom firm’s shares have more than halved since 2016 and BT is on high alert. It has hired Robey Warshaw - the firm George Osborne joined earlier this year - to help defend itself from any approaches. Read our full profile of Drahi , which explores in detail what he might get up to at BT. UK GDP slows sharply 07:59 , Graeme Evans The steam appears to be coming out of the UK’s economic recovery after figures showed the country expanded by just 0.1% in October. That compares with 0.4% expected in the City and the 0.6% growth recorded by the Office for National Statistics a month earlier. Supply chain issues, worker shortages and surging inflation are likely to have put the dampeners on growth in October. Read more here Unusual times for investors 07:52 , Graeme Evans Deutsche Bank is looking for today's headline CPI figure to reach 6.9%, with core inflation at 5.1% for its highest reading since 1990. Its markets commentator Jim Reid said that inflation near to 7% would normally have led to sleepless nights for investors about how to position their portfolios. Instead, guidance from the Federal Reserve about the pressures being transitory has soothed their nerves. Reid said: “The reality is that as inflation has risen, the market has managed to go through denial, transitory, elongated transitory, and now the retirement of transitory, all without much fuss. “I’ve said this before but I doubt there is anyone in the world that predicted we’d end the year at near 7% whilst at the same time having 10yr US Treasury yields still at around 1.5%.” Inflation jitters set to slow FTSE 100 07:36 , Graeme Evans Inflation jitters will mean a risk-averse session for markets today amid expectations that the latest reading of the US consumer prices index (CPI) will be near to 7% later today. October's figure came in at a 31-year record of 6.2%, with November's likely to be even higher at 6.9% for the highest level since 1982. Some economists have suggested that CPI could hit 7%, which would add to pressure on the US Federal Reserve to accelerate the tapering of their bond-buying stimulus programme. The Fed meets next week, but chairman Jerome Powell has already indicated that inflation concerns may push policymakers to go harder than the current reduction of $10 billion in treasuries and $5 bilion a month in mortgage-backed securities. Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets, said “Currently markets are pricing in the prospect of a doubling of the taper next week, and any number that hints at a bigger amount next week could prompt some choppiness for markets.” A faster pace of tapering will fuel expectations for interest rates to rise sooner than expected, adding to upward pressure on the US dollar. Sterling, in contrast, has been depressed by the tightening of Covid-19 restrictions and the possibility that their impact will delay a rise in UK interest rates until February. The pound hit a low for the year on Wednesday and was only marginally better off this morning after trading at 1.321 versus the dollar. The inflation fears and continued Omicron uncertainty led to a weak session for Wall Street and Asian markets, with Europe set to follow suit. CMC is forecasting that the FTSE 100 index will open 30 points lower at 7291. View comments || Bitcoin Refreshes Monthly Highs Above $65K, Ether (ETH) Hits New ATH: The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization broke the rangebound it has been trapped since October 28. Now, Bitcoin (BTC) is consolidating once again above $65,000, and it’s on the way to refreshing its all-time highs above $66,000 while buying interest increases across the board. As of press time, bulls strengthened in the last three hours, as BTC managed to crack above the resistance area of $64,000, opening the doors for the crypto to reach the $66,999 level (ATH – Coinbase’s data feed). Whales had been active from anon-chainperspective, given that buyers had increased their bets around $60,000. That said, and from a technical perspective, Bitcoin picked up steam around the $62,000 zone, which acted as a pivotal level in the midst of the current bull-run that took the crypto to reach new monthly highs. Now, bulls are eager to retest the all-time highs to take BTC into a discovery zone. Also, the 200-period simple moving average at the H4 chart keeps providing dynamic support and guidance for the buyers from a broad perspective. When looking at the price action at the current timeframe, the stagnation kept untouched the 200 SMA and thus bolstered the demand in favor of the bulls. However, if Bitcoin plummets below $60,000, the bearish case would appear on the scene again, and eventually, the lows from October 14 around $54,000 could be the next line in the sand. Another cryptocurrency enjoying the optimistic mood across the sphere is Ether (ETH), which is refreshing its all-time highs, trading above $4,700. The price gathered momentum after rebounding successfully above the 50-period simple moving average last week. With the bullish scenario in place, ETH is eyeing the $5,000 handle in a first degree as the next tough nut to crack for the buyers, which is also the latest milestone ahead of the discovery mode. In this area, the price is treading new waters from a price action’s perspective. To invalidate the bullish outlook in the short term, Ether should break below $4,400 and then extend the leg lower towards $4,200. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Fed Speeches, US Inflation Data Set the Tone This Week • Bitcoin and Ethereum – Weekly Technical Analysis – November 8th, 2021 • AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Counter-Trend Buyers Defending .7363-.7317 Retracement Zone • Bitcoin Surpasses $65k as Total Crypto Market Cap Approaches $3 Trillion • Gold Bugs Ignite, Subdued Treasury Yields In Play • A Quiet Economic Calendar Leaves Central Bank Chatter in Focus || AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Sitting on 50 Day EMA: The Australian dollar has initially tried to rally during the trading session on Tuesday but then pulled back from the 200 day EMA again. That being said, the market also found support at the 50 day EMA again, so it looks very much like a market that is currently squeezing. Both of these moving averages of course will attract a lot of attention, so I do think that the market will continue to be very noisy. The hammer that formed during the Friday session of last week continues to support the market, so I do think that it is probably only a matter of time before the buyers come in and pick this market back up. AUD/USD Video 10.11.21 All things been equal, if we can break above the 200 day EMA, I believe that the Australian dollar will continue to try to go looking towards the 0.75 level above. That being said, the market will more than likely continue to see a lot of choppiness. On the other hand, if we were to break down below the bottom of the hammer, then it is likely that we could go looking towards the 0.73 handle. Keep in mind that the Australian dollar is highly correlated to the commodities markets, so of course you need to pay close attention to what is going on with hard commodities around the world, and of course you also need to pay close attention to the US Dollar Index. With all that being said, I think the market is going to continue to see a lot of noisy behavior, but it does look like it is trying to pick up a certain amount of momentum. 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: Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Pressuring Resistance Is Tim Cook’s Investment In Cryptos Positive For Bitcoin And Ether? Ethereum Classic Eyes $65 After Surpassing the $60 Resistance Level Gold Price Prediction – Prices Edge Higher Following U.S. PPI Report E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Downside Momentum Targeting 4627.75 The Trade Desk Sees Huge Money || Bitcoin and ethereum fall as crypto slide continues: Major cryptocurrencies were down on Friday morning as broader markets remain subdued, partly because concerns on what impact the new Omicron COVID-19 variant will have on economies. Bitcoin (BTC-USD) was down almost 2%. After a price crash last weekend, bitcoin’s price had managed to rise above $50,000 (£37,875), a key level, earlier this week. However, at the time of writing it was trading at $48,344. It’s about 30% down from its all-time high of $69,000. Ethereum (ETH-USD), the second largest crypto by market cap, plunged 5% to trade at $4,100. “Since the 20% flash crash last weekend – which was triggered by a wider risk-off sentiment that also impacted many areas of global stock markets – bitcoin had been making small gains over the last few days," said Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group. “But it has failed to hold on to this momentum after not being able to hold above $50,000. This is an important threshold and the failure to secure it will likely spook some traders.” Green, who had earlier forecast that bitcoin could hit $100,000 by year end, added that he is using the lower prices of bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies to top-up his portfolio "because like many major corporations, financial institutions, governments, prestigious universities, and household-name investing legends, I’m confident that digital currencies are the inevitable future of money". “In our increasingly tech-driven, globalised world, it makes sense to hold digital, borderless, decentralised currencies. In addition, adoption and demand are increasing all the time, whilst at the same time, supply is decreasing." Read more:Live crypto prices Meanwhile Kunal Sawhney, CEO at equities research firm Kalkine Group, told Yahoo Finance UK. cryptocurrencies have remained volatile with investors shifting focus to conventional assets, mostly safe havens and equity components with resilient outlooks. He said Omicron-led fears have heightened anxiousness, with pessimism around crypto-assets snowballing. He believes the "crypto-ecosystem is poised to witness the heat of any major disruption due to the pandemic", unlike early last year when the pandemic had actually "steered massive buying into the crypto space." Read more:European stock markets subdued after lower-than-expected UK growth However, he said with the approaching festivities of Christmas, higher consumption and spending could reinstate lost confidence amidst the investors, catalysing gains for crypto-assets. Either way, interest in crypto is far from waning. One example of this is that Visa (V) is starting a crypto advisory practice. Its main agenda will be helping companies and financial institutions to capture and retain consumers who are interested in crypto services and non-fungible tokens, and aiding central banks to explore digital currencies for their nations. Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade, said "this is a good initiative because, according to a survey, 18% of participants will likely shift their main bank to one that offers crypto-related services in the next 12 months". "To retain these consumers, consultants at Visa will help their clients gauge potential opportunities aligned to their needs and plan effective execution of products like crypto reward programmes and digital wallets." Watch: What is bitcoin? || Trade Data Delivers Little EUR Support. Economic Sentiment and ECB President Lagarde Up Next: After a quiet start to the week, German trade data was in focus early in the European session. In September, Germany’s trade surplus widened from €13.0bn to €13.2bn versus a forecasted €13.6bn. According toDestatis, • Exports fell by a further 0.7%, month-on-month, after having declined by 0.8% in August. Year-on-year, exports were up 7.1%. • Imports rose by a modest 0.1% after having increased by 2.1% in August. Compared with the same month a year earlier imports were up 12.9%. Trade with EU countries • Compared with Sept-2020, exports to EU countries rose by 9.2%, while imports increased by 9.4%. Trade with euro area countries • German exports to euro area countries increased by 9.2% when compared with Sept-2020. • Imports from euro area countries rose by 11.9%. Trade with EU countries outside of the euro area • Exports to EU countries outside of the euro area increased by 9.4% when compared with Sept-2020. • Imports from EU countries out of the euro area rose by 4.5%. Trade with non-EU countries • Exports to third countries increased by 4.7%, when compared with Sept-2020. • Imports from third countries jumped by 17.1%. Ahead of today’s trade data and economic sentiment figures, the EUR had fallen to a pre-stat and current day low $1.15773 before rising to a pre-stat and current day high $1.16066. In response today’s trade data, the EUR rose to a post-stat high $1.16033 before falling back to sub-$1.159 levels. At the time of writing, theEURwas up by 0.02% to $1.15884. ZEW Economic Sentiment figures for Germany and the Eurozone. On the monetary policy front, ECB President Lagarde is also scheduled to speak ahead of the U.S open. Both the ZEW numbers and the ECB President will draw plenty of interest. From the U.S, October wholesale inflation figures and FED Chair Powell will be in focus later in the European session. Expect plenty of interest in the wholesale inflation figures and any comments vis-à-vis the economic outlook and the FED Chair’s view on inflation. Any shift from last week’s script will move the dial… Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Ethereum Stays Strong While Bitcoin Tests Resistance Near $68,000 • Bitcoin to Test $70k After Setting a New All-Time High Above $68k • With Network Upgrades, Ethereum Pitch Close To $5K • Daily Gold News: Tuesday, Nov. 9 – Gold’s Short-Term Consolidation, Still Above $1,800 • Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Capped by Concerns Biden Could Authorize Sale from Strategic Reserve • Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Fed Speakers Say Just Enough to Sustain Rally || Jack Dorsey says Square is ‘considering’ building a Bitcoin mining system: Jack Dorsey says that Square is “considering” building its own Bitcoin mining system using custom silicon and open source software. “Square is considering building a Bitcoin mining system based on custom silicon and open source for individuals and businesses worldwide,” Dorsey wrote ina Twitter threadFriday. He added that such a project would follow a similar approach as the bitcoinhardware walletSquare began working on earlier this summer. But building a mining system would be considerably more complicated for the payments company than simply building a wallet. Creating custom chips is, as Dorsey points out, “very expensive,” and would be new territory for the payments company, which has been a major supporter of Bitcoin. “Mining needs to be more efficient,” Dorsey wrote. “Driving towards clean and efficient energy use is great for Bitcoin’s economics, impact, and scalability. Energy is a system-level problem that requires innovation in silicon, software, and integration.” As with his earlier tweets about plans for the hardware wallet, Dorsey didn’t share many details about how the mining system would actually work. But he said the goal would be to make mining more efficient and accessible to more people, which could address two of the most important issues related to cryptocurrency mining. Bitcoin-related power usage has reachedrecord highsin recent years, raisingmajor concernsabout the cryptocurrency’s impact on climate change. Mining has also driven up the prices and scarcityof GPUs, which has made it increasingly difficult for the average crypto enthusiast to mine on their own. "Bitcoin mining should be as easy as plugging a rig into a power source,” Dorsey said. Whether or not Square will be able to accomplish that, is less clear. He said that the company “will start the deep technical investigation required to take on this project,” and is hoping to hear feedback on the idea in the meantime. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 49362.51, 50098.34, 46737.48, 46612.63, 48896.72, 47665.43, 46202.14, 46848.78, 46707.02, 46880.28
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 2021-10-01] BTC Price: 48116.94, BTC RSI: 58.02 Gold Price: 1757.00, Gold RSI: 45.87 Oil Price: 75.88, Oil RSI: 67.11 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Keynote FZE and Binary Fintech Group Executes Landmark Deal to Acquire Iconic North American Bitcoin Conference - Miami and Global Events Branding: In a landmark deal, a group of investors in the blockchain space acquire the world's leading blockchain and emerging technology events company, Keynote FZE. The acquisition of this ‘first of its kind' organization was executed via blockchain technology with $FTM on Fantom Opera Blockchain for an undisclosed sum. ABU DHABI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2021 /The world's first, and most iconic, cryptocurrency events company, Keynote FZE (UAE) announces their acquisition by a group of investors in the Cryptocurrency Space led by Binary Fintech Group (UAE) and Quantum Fintech Group. Keynote FZE, the parent company responsible for The North American Bitcoin Conference (Miami), and the World Blockchain Forum, has been responsible for hosting top innovators, entrepreneurs, and digital pioneers at their global events for nearly a decade. This sale marks the next stage of this pioneering events company, who defied expectations and focused on providing a platform for emerging technologies like Bitcoin and blockchain to showcase their groundbreaking, often controversial, ideas. "It's impossible to change the world without a way to get your message out," says Moe Levin, founder of Keynote FZE. "I started Keynote to create a platform for visionary ideas. Keynote was an opportunity to amplify and extend the reach of those ideas across the globe." Keynote achieved that vision ten-fold. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market-cap was launched at Keynote's "The North American Bitcoin Conference" in 2014. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of crypto equity and investment have flowed through Keynote events since 2012. Speakers at Keynote events include more than 70% of the leading voices in the crypto community, including the founders of Fantom, Tether, Cardano, Polkadot, Litecoin, Monero, Binance, and many others. Binary Fintech Group is one of the oldest OTC Trading desks for cryptocurrency, and are long-time innovators and investors in the blockchain space. Binary and Keynote have been partners since 2014, making the acquisition a natural extension of that partnership. "Keynote and Binary have had an aligned mission from the beginning. The long-term prospects for Keynote are best realized through this sale; we're thrilled to support and drive the growth of the crypto and blockchain ecosystems through leading the acquisition of Keynote," says Harry Yeh. "Keynote will continue to operate as an independent entity and we are excited to see the next level of events produced by Keynote." Quantum Fintech Group is a Cayman based digital asset focused fund targeting outsized returns. Nabeel Qadri, Managing Director, who has been personally investing in crypto since 2014, considers the Keynote acquisition to be a natural progression for building a global, curated network of intellectual capital in crypto that will pioneer the next phase of value creation in digital assets. "Keynote has been the nexus point of investment in crypto unicorns since the earliest innings of the decentralized revolution. Binary and Quantum's acquisition of Keynote is a commitment to curating the best minds globally to build and invest in the next iterations of distributed ledger technology. We are activist investors and consider Keynote an extension of Quantum's core team that will facilitate our vision of building with top tier investors and projects alike." Future enquiries for Keynote FZE events can be directed to the website:www.keynote.aeFor press enquiries please contact: Pauline CalinaPress Relationspauline@keynote.ae SOURCE:Keynote FZE View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/662168/Keynote-FZE-and-Binary-Fintech-Group-Executes-Landmark-Deal-to-Acquire-Iconic-North-American-Bitcoin-Conference--Miami-and-Global-Events-Branding || Cardano (ADA) Investment Products Lead Weekly Crypto Inflows With $1.3M As Bitcoin, Ethereum Lose $23M: What Happened:Institutions appear to have favoredCardano(CRYPTO: ADA) this week as the altcoin recorded $1.3 million in inflows, even asBitcoin(CRYPTO: BTC) andEthereum(CRYPTO: ETH) focused funds saw major outflows. According todata from CoinShares, digital asset investment products saw a sixth consecutive week of outflows which cumulatively amounted to $115 million. Bitcoin recorded $22 million in weekly outflows, while Ethereum lost $1.1 million over the week. Meanwhile, institutions increased their exposure to Cardano. The Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain’s native token boasted the highest inflows over the past week, recording $1.3 million in weekly flows. Polkadot(CRYPTO: DOT) andStellar(CRYPTO: XLM) also recorded minor inflows of $400,000 each. Why It Matters:ADA rallied as much as 35% over the past seven days, briefly reaching a high of $2.25 on Monday. This week’s rally was the first time the altcoin broke the $2 mark since May when it hit an all-time high of $2.46. The positive price action comes in anticipation of Cardano’s new series of upgrades which will bring smart contract functionality to the network. The Alonzo Hard Fork is set to be completed on Sept. 12 and will go live on the testnet as early as Sept. 1. “Started to fill bids from 2.05 - 1.93 on $ADA,” commented popular crypto trader Pentoshi. “Alonzo HF confirmed in 3 weeks, smart contracts going live, allegedly a lot of projects launching. FA is there.” Read also:What is Cardano? Based on his technical analysis, Pentoshi claims that ADA has been one of the strongest projects to date and new all-time highs are around the corner. See more from Benzinga • Click here for options trades from Benzinga • Cardano (ADA) Reclaims For The First Time Since May Crash As Crypto Market Cap Nears Trillion © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || How To File Taxes for a Deceased Relative: Upon a death in the family, there will likely be a number of unpleasant tasks to perform, including filing taxes for deceased loved ones. Because death and taxes are inevitable, there’s a good chance you’ll have to file a decedent’s final federal — and state, if applicable — income tax return in the future. Find Out:Can You Afford To Die in Your State?Take Action:27 Genius Things Retirees Should Do With Their Money Right Now When you’re the surviving relative of a deceased person, learn the basics of filing taxes for a deceased taxpayer. The IRS requires someone to file taxes for the relative who has passed. “A final return can be submitted by the surviving spouse or a personal representative,” said Andrew Oswalt, CPA and tax analyst for TaxAct, a tax preparation software company. “A personal representative of an estate is an executor of estate, executor of will, administrator or anyone who is in charge of the decedent’s will to administer the estate and distribute properties,” he continued. “An administrator is usually appointed by the probate court if no will exists, if no executor was named in the will or if the named executor cannot or will not serve.” Additionally, when filing taxes for deceased with no estate, an administrator also has to be appointed. The personal representative can also serve as theexecutor of the decedent’s will. When a personal representative prepares a decedent’s tax return, they must write the word “deceased,” the decedent’s name and the date of death across the top of the return — and sign it. When the decedent did not appoint a personal representative, the surviving spouse must sign the return and write “filing as surviving spouse” on it. Sign your name along with your late spouse’s if you’re filing or e-filing income tax using a joint return. When a deceased taxpayer refund check is due, you might need to fileForm 1310— Statement of a Person Claiming Refund Due a Deceased Taxpayer. Form 1310 isn’t required if a surviving spouse is filing a joint return with the decedent. See:What Happens to Your Bitcoin When You Die? Filing income tax for a deceased parent is different from filing regular tax returns. You must keep in mind that a decedent’s income is generally counted from the beginning of the year to the day they died. One exception to this is medical bills — to claim those as deductible expenses, the estate must pay them within a year of the decedent’s date of death. These medical expenses cannot be included onForm 706U.S. Estate Tax Return. Find Out:Medical Expenses You Can Deduct From Your Taxes When you inherit property or money from a deceased person, you might wonder if it will be considered taxable income. Currently, only six states charge an inheritance tax, and inheritance tax exemptions also exist. But uponselling inherited property, you might have to pay taxes on the profits you receive, depending on the basis of inherited property. When you inherit a traditional IRA from someone other than your spouse, you can’t treat the inherited IRA as your own. You must make a trustee-to-trustee transfer to an IRA in the name of the decedent. Different taxation rules apply to distributions from inherited IRAs if you were married to the decedent. As a late individual’s spouse, you have three options when you inherit an IRA: 1. Designate yourself as the account owner. 2. Designate yourself as the beneficiary of the IRA. 3. Roll it over into a traditional IRA or another qualified plan. In the event that the decedent invested in a Roth IRA, there are specific rules about distributions, too. Because inheriting an IRA can be tricky tax-wise, consider getting a tax professional’s advice regarding your best option. Take a Look:Tax Mistakes Everyone Makes — and How To Avoid Them Normally, you mustfile an estate tax returnfor a decedent, but that varies based on the type of estate. According to the IRS, if the decedent had “relatively simple estates” such as publicly traded securities, small amounts of other easily valued assets, and no special deductions or elections, or jointly held property, you do not need to file an estate tax return. But in the event that the decedent had an estate that is subject to a tax, there areways to reduce their estate tax. Criminals often try to steal a decedent’s identity. “The risks are real — deceased persons’ identities are stolen every year,” Oswalt said. “Many death records are public, and many thieves use that information to their advantage.” To prevent theft of a decedent’s identity, take the following steps outlined by the IRS: • Omit personal information — such as birth date, address, mother’s maiden name — from the decedent’s obituary. • Give the IRS death notification by sending it a copy of the death certificate immediately. • Send copies of the death certificate to the three credit reporting bureaus and instruct them to put a “deceased alert” on the decedent’s credit report. • Review the deceased’s credit report for any questionable activity. Related:7 Signs You’re the Victim of a Tax Scam Filing taxes for deceased relatives and handling other wills and probate obligations can be confusing, time-consuming and unpleasant. Consider enlisting the aid of an accountant or other tax professional to assist you during this stressful time. More From GOBankingRates • Take Our Poll: Are You Actually Spending Your Child Tax Credit Payment? • 5 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About Social Security • Here’s How Much You Need To Earn To Be ‘Rich’ in Every State • The Hidden Costs of Education at Every Level Cynthia MeasomandTaylor Bellcontributed to the reporting for this article. Last updated: Aug. 20, 2021 This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:How To File Taxes for a Deceased Relative || Crypto Asset Manager Valkyrie Files for Bitcoin Futures ETF: The crypto trading firm Valkyrie Investments fileda proposalwith the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday for abitcoinfutures exchange traded fund (ETF). • The “Fund will not directly invest in bitcoin,” according to the proposal, but “will seek to purchase a number of bitcoin futures contracts so that the total value of the bitcoin underlying the futures contracts” in it is as close as possible “to 100%” of the fund’s net assets. • Valkyrie’s filing follows less than a week afterremarksat the Aspen Security Forum by SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who noted that he would favor ETFs based on bitcoin futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). • Atlanta-based asset manager Invesco has already applied for an ETF that would include exposure to futures, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Canadian bitcoin ETFs. (Grayscale is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, CoinDesk’s parent company.) • Valkyrie raised$10 millionin a Series A capital round to drive its ETF ambitions. It filed a bitcoin ETF prospectus this year and has been awaiting an SEC decision on its application along with other companies that have filed ETF proposals. • Gensler Tells Elizabeth Warren SEC Needs More Authority to Regulate Crypto • FTX Market Share in Bitcoin Futures Nearly Doubled Since June • Gary Gensler’s Insane Crypto Policy • Money Reimagined: Gensler’s SEC Is the Same Old SEC || Adam O’Brien Acquires Shares of Bitcoin Well Inc. Pursuant to Conversion of Convertible Note: EDMONTON, Alberta, Sept. 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Adam O’Brien (“ Mr. O’Brien ”), a director and chief executive officer of Bitcoin Well Inc. (formerly Red River Capital Corp.) (the “ Company ”) today announced that on August 27, 2021 he acquired an aggregate of 6,250,000 common shares (“ Common Shares ”) of the Company pursuant to the conversion (the “ Conversion ”) of a non-interest bearing convertible note (the “ Note ”) in the principal sum of $750,000, which was issued to Mr. O’Brien on August 1, 2020. Pursuant to the terms of the Note, the Common Shares issued in connection with the Conversion were issued at a deemed price of $0.12 per Common Share. Prior to the Conversion, Mr. O’Brien had ownership and direction or control over an aggregate of 73,242,815 Common Shares, representing approximately 44.92% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares on a non-diluted basis. As a result of the Conversion, Mr. O’Brien has ownership and direction or control over an aggregate of 79,492,815 Common Shares, representing 46.95% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares on a non-diluted basis. The securities of the Company were acquired for investment purposes. Mr. O’Brien may, from time to time, increase or decrease his beneficial ownership or control in the Company as circumstances and market conditions warrant. This news release is issued pursuant to National Instrument 62-103 – The Early Warning System . A copy of the related early warning report can be obtained from the Company at (780) 423-7215 or on the Company’s SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com . The Company’s head office address is located at 10142 -82 Avenue NW, Edmonton, Alberta T6E 1Z4. About Bitcoin Well Bitcoin Well offers convenient, secure and reliable ways to buy and sell bitcoin through a trusted Bitcoin ATM network and suite of web-based transaction services. The Company generates revenue and based on management’s assessment of publicly-available data, is the first publicly traded Bitcoin ATM company in the world, with an enterprising consolidation strategy to deliver accretive and cost-effective expansion in North America and globally. As leaders of the longest-running, founder-led Bitcoin ATM company in Canada, management of Bitcoin Well brings deep operational capabilities that span the entire value chain along with access to proprietary, cutting-edge software development that supports further expansion. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date with our business. Contact Information For investor information, please contact: Story continues Bitcoin Well 10142 82 Avenue NW Edmonton, AB T6E 1Z4 bitcoinwell.com investors@bitcoinwell.com Adam O’Brien , President & CEO or Dave Bradley , Chief Revenue Officer Tel: 1 888 711 3866 ir@bitcoinwell.com For media queries and further information, please contact: Karen Smola , Director of Marketing Tel: 587-735-1570 k.smola@bitcoinwell.com View comments || For Crypto Derivatives Trading — Bybit Packs a Trifecta of Core Perks: The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Photo byPierre BorthiryonUnsplash For any current crypto trader or anyone looking to get into it, many hurdles can be snags or dealbreakers. Let’s say you’re sitting at a coffee shop and are trading a bucket of Bitcoin — are you secure using their Wi-Fi? Even though cryptocurrencies themselves are secured on a blockchain, this does not necessarily mean that the actual account infrastructure is as lock-tight. A significant number of investors and traders take overall safety as a significant concern. Combining this with the high speed and stakes of derivatives trading, especially in the volatile cryptocurrency market, downtime and latencies are not an option. One company that attempts to tackle these issues head-on is trading companyBybit. Bybit describes itself as "the biggest crypto company you haven’t heard of," partly due to its focus on derivatives trading, which is performed by a smaller number of traders than simple cryptocurrency market trading (it also runs alearning centerfor those who want to learn more about crypto and derivatives). To facilitate an optimal environment for crypto derivatives traders, Bybit focuses its platform to be able to meet the specialized needs of such a clientele. Its core mission is ultimately to provide three main areas of value for its users. Top-Notch Liquidity - Bybit focuses on having “one of the best open interest in the world for BTC and ETH futures contracts, as well as the smallest spread to minimize price slippage.” For most traders, liquidity is crucial for reliable, smooth and efficient trading. In the crypto markets, where liquidity can be harder to come by than large-cap stocks (especially before innovations such as liquidity pools), Bybit offers a standout focus on this important aspect of trading. Industry-Leading Reliability - Bybit “always executes, treats your trade fairly and makes sure you will never be left hanging, especially when you most need assistance.” Since cryptocurrencies do not operate on any canonical or physical exchange, the market is always open. For traders, this means that platform reliability can be a must at all times of the day and week. World-Class Security - Bybit states that, “the extent of security investment reflects the overall security commitment and capabilities of a company. Bybit leads the industry in security investment, with 25% of its budget to this area.” For any trader, security is crucial, especially when operating within so-called “hot” storage of crypto assets, which are constantly linked to the internet. While Bybit’s platform is not yet available in the United States, for crypto traders elsewhere who are interested in the platform, signing up is accessibleright here. The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice. © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || First ETF combining bitcoin and ethereum launches in Canada: Investors who want to buy a cryptocurrency ETF don't have to choose between bitcoin (BTC) or ethereum (ETH)and its tokens called ether, because a new fund that holds both started trading today. The new ETF from Evolve ETFs trades under the ticker ETC on the TSX and is Canada's first multicurrency ETF. It will hold the world's two largest cryptocurrencies weighted by their market capitalization, which is around 67 per cent bitcoin and 33 per cent ethereum. For now, Evolve will do this by holding its bitcoin ETF (EBIT) and Ether ETF (ETHR) and rebalanced monthly. Bitcoin and ethereum make up around 65 per cent of the cryptocurrency market. "Bitcoin has established itself as a store of value and is often referred to as digital gold," said Raj Lala, president and CEO, Evolve ETFs in a release. "Ether is often referred to as digital oil and has become an essential building block for digital finance including NFTs and other DeFi applications." Combining the two can also help provide diversification. Though they often move in similar directions, performance has varied between bitcoin and ether. Evolve says in 2020, ether outperformed bitcoin by over 150 per cent. But ether was negative in 2019 while bitcoin was up 90 per cent. ETC is TFSA and RRSP-eligible and has no fee but the underlying funds charge 0.75 per cent annually plus applicable taxes. Price movements will be based on the U.S. dollar prices of bitcoin and ether. Evolve says it doesn't plan for ETC to pay regular distributions. Canada has been ahead of the game compared to the U.S. when it comes to cryptocurrency ETFs.Bitcoin ETFs from Purpose Investments(BTCC.B. andBTCC.U) andEvolve ETFswere the first out of the gate in February. The SEC in the U.S. stillhasn't given any cryptocurrency ETF the greenlight. Jessy Bains is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter@jessysbains. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available forAppleandAndroid. || Bitcoin rises above $50,000, Cardano continues to outperform: By Samuel Indyk Investing.com – Bitcoin traded above $50,000 for the first time since 15th May on Monday as the recent rally in cryptocurrencies showed no signs of slowing down. Having traded below $30,000 as recently as 21st July, Bitcoin has now jumped around 70% in a little over a month to trade above $50,000. There was no obvious immediate catalyst for the jump higher, but some have pointed to the news that PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) will allow UK customers to buy and sell some cryptocurrencies on the platform as a reason for the jump. This is the first time that service will be available to PayPal customers outside of the US. “We are committed to continue working closely with regulators in the UK, and around the world, to offer our support—and meaningfully contribute to shaping the role digital currencies will play in the future of global finance and commerce,” said PayPal Vice President and General Manager, Blockchain, Crypto and Digital Currencies Jose Fernandez da Ponte. There has also been a rebound in the hash rate – the computing power of the Bitcoin network – which dropped by more than 50% between May and July as China clamped down on Bitcoin mining. The hash rate of the Bitcoin network has now increased over 45% from its July low, signalling that computing power is coming back online as miners move their operations from China. The cryptocurrency Cardano continues to outperform its peers and is now firmly positioned as the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap, behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. The recent surge in the price of Cardano comes ahead of the Alonzo Purple network upgrade, which is scheduled to take place on 12th September. The upgrade will allow smart contracts and decentralised finance applications on the Cardano network. Cardano has risen around 165% since the low on 20th July on hopes that the network will rival Ethereum and match the network’s capabilities. The recent rally has taken the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies back above $2 trillion to its current size of $2.16 trillion, up from around $1.2 trillion in late July. However, there is still a way to go before the total cryptocurrency market cap hits its all-time high above $2.5 trillion, which was reached at the beginning of May. Related Articles Bitcoin rises above $50,000, Cardano continues to outperform US Congress Put Forward 18 Bills on Crypto Assets in 2021 $50K BTC price vs. the Fed — 5 things to watch in Bitcoin this week || Elon Musk says dogecoin fees have to fall for it to become a viable form of payment, after AMC suggests it might accept the token for movie tickets: • Elon Musk says dogecoin fees would have to fall for it to become a viable payment option. • His tweet came after AMC's CEO said the movie-chain operator may accept dogecoin for movie ticket payments. • Musk's latest tweet suggests he isn't sure about adopting dogecoin for Tesla yet. • Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell. Teslaboss Elon Musk said Wednesdaydogecoinfees would have to drop for it to become a feasible payment option, after movie-chan operatorAMC'sCEO hinted he might add it as a method to pay for tickets. "Super important for Doge fees to drop to make things like buying movie tix viable," Musksaid in a tweet. The billionaire CEO was responding to dogecoin creator Billy Markus, who is no longer developing the digital asset. "Robinhood announcing wallets, AMC CEO not only talking about accepting dogecoin but saying it was the single most interacted with tweet he has ever made, the crypto market finally seeing some green," Markus hadtweeted. Cryptocurrencies had aweak start to the weekwith the total value of the market falling below $2 trillion, as the fallout from Evergrande's debt crisis delivered a huge blow to risk appetite, sending roughly every asset class lower.Bitcointumbled 8% to around $43,000 on Monday, while dogecoin fell 13% to 22 cents. Most digital coins made some gains Wednesday, after Robinhood announced it wouldlaunch a crypto wallet by next yearand AMC CEO Adam Aron responded to theTwitter poll he put outthat sought input on accepting dogecoin in theaters. "It's clear that you think AMC should accept dogecoin,"Aron said. "Now we need to figure out how to do that." Aron also appeared thrilled that Musk had liked his poll, and called him the"epitome of innovation." Musk has been relatively quiet about cryptocurrencies ever since announcingTesla would suspend vehicle purchases using bitcoindue to its impact on the environment. He previously hinted atadopting dogecoin for the EV-makerinstead, but his latest suggestion about lower fees seems like he still isn't sure. Dogecoin fees are made for the effort used in processing transactions on the blockchain. These fees can fluctuate, depending on how busy the network is. The dogecoin development team last monthannounced an update to the network, which claimed to enable upcoming fee reductions. Musk hadreacted positively, calling it "good progress." Dogecoin was last trading at 22 cents on Thursday. It's up more than 4,500% so far this year, according to data fromCoinDesk. Read More:Ahead of bitcoin's $3 billion options expiry this Friday, 5 experts told us how much the crypto and other leading altcoins can surge or fall from here: 'if markets bleed, they will bleed as a group.' Read the original article onBusiness Insider || Bitcoin Price Update – Could China’s Crypto Crackdown Trigger a Flash Crash?: • China’s central bank announced all transactions ofcrypto-currenciesillegal, effectively banning digital tokens such as Bitcoin. • “Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities,” the People’s Bank of China said, warning it “seriously endangers the safety of people’s assets.” • With the heightened default risk surrounding Evergrade, I see the potential for a widespread contagion and rapid deleveraging that could trigger a flash crash in crypto. BITCOIN FUTURES DAILY:Bitcoin is down on today’s news. Breaking below $40,000 would imply a secondary top at $53,125 and promote more sideways consolidation. Ultimately, a breakdown below $28,000 is needed to confirm a crypto bear market. Until then, prices are merely consolidating. Note: To signal a flash crash, bitcoin would have to drop below $28,000. Deleveraging:TheChinese economyis highly leveraged. Many of its citizens have their wealth wrapped up in real estate. The situation with Evergrande is horrible and could lead to massive losses. If a deleveraging begins, the government may have to step in to cover losses and maintain order. If they fail to respond appropriately, we could see a sharp selloff in most assets, especially in overleveraged crypto. Potential Flash Crash:One scenario I’m considering is a potential liquidity shock and flash crash in crypto exchanges. Let me explain; if we see a panic deleveraging (now or later), liquidity could dry up along with buy orders. If buy orders dry up while investors are still rushing to the exits – crypto prices could plummet, temporarily. How low could they go? I have no idea, but theoretically, some could drop to the lowest buy order on the books. A flash crash would likely last just a few seconds before exchanges shutter. The flash crash described above is unlikely but certainly possible given today’s fast-moving markets. If a flash crash occurs, it’s most likely to happen over the weekend (when traditional banks and funding sources are closed). Think about it: low weekend trading volume combined with a deleveraging event could trigger margin calls at a time when traders that are leveraged to the max can’t assess additional funds. That could result in forced selling. Final thoughts, if crypto transactions are illegal in China, and there is a rush to liquidity – investors may switch back to gold to protect purchasing power. If that occurs, precious metals could see a nice boost. AG Thorson is a registered CMT and expert in technical analysis. He believes we are in the final stages of a global debt super-cycle. For regular updates, please visithere. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • The Weekly Wrap – Economic Data, Monetary Policy, and Evergrande Delivered a Choppy Week • European Equities: A Week in Review – 24/09/21 • Gold Weekly Price Forecast – Gold Markets Give Up Early Gains for the Week • Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Continue to Rally • Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver Markets Give Up Early Gains for the Week • Silver Price Prediction – Prices Form Doji Day which is a Sign of Indecision [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 47711.49, 48199.95, 49112.90, 51514.81, 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79
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 2021-10-26] BTC Price: 60363.79, BTC RSI: 57.09 Gold Price: 1792.70, Gold RSI: 55.88 Oil Price: 84.65, Oil RSI: 75.35 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Market Wrap: Bitcoin All-Time High Expected, but Not Before a Pullback: Bullish sentiment continues to grow after bitcoin’s price broke above $57,000 on Monday. BTC is up about 3% over the past 24 hours, extending its outperformance compared to alternative cryptocurrencies. Analysts see continued upside, with some calling for a return to the all-time high near $63,000 this quarter. “The crypto rally is impressive since it occurred in the face of a broader risk-off environment in both equities and bonds, with crypto markets seemingly decoupling from the equities markets,”Coinbasewrote in a newsletter last week to institutional clients. “We are seeing BTC clearly lead this market up as evidenced by bitcoin dominance (BTC market cap relative to the total crypto market cap) reaching multi-month highs.” The initial BTC spike last week could be the result of traders takinglarge positionsahead ofa rumored approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissionof a futures-based bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to CoinDesk’s Lawrence Lewitinn. For now, technicals suggest the current rally is due for a pullback. The recent uptrend appears to be exhausted, according to Katie Stockton, managing director ofFairlead Strategies. Stockton expects about two weeks of price consolidation toward $47,000-$48,000, which is where the September sell-off stabilized. • Bitcoin (BTC): $57,542, +3.9% • Ether (ETH): $3,527, +0.0% • S&P 500: -0.6% • Gold: $1,755, -0.1% • 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.612% The options market is placing a 20% probability on bitcoin ending the month at a new all-time high above $65,000, according to data provided by Skew. BTC is currently about 10% below the all-time high of $64,863 reached on April 14. Analysts expect further upside due to the resurgence of buying activity and seasonal strength in the fourth quarter. “Today’s leg higher, after a dull weekend session, keeps the bullish technical pattern of higher lows and higher highs in place, pushing BTC toward thedouble toparound $59,580 made in May,”Nick Cawley, strategist at DailyFX, wrote in an email to CoinDesk. A break above $59,000 could place bitcoin closer to the all-time high, so long as the downside remains limited around $53,000, according to Cawley. Crypto-focused funds took in more than double the amount of new money last week than they did the prior week as bullish sentiment returned to the bitcoin market, reported CoinDesk’s Lyllah Ledesma. The jump was largely driven by bitcoin-focused funds, where inflows rose to $225 million, the highest in five months, according to a report Monday from digital asset manager CoinShares. However, Ethereum-focused funds, which had gained in recent months as bitcoin funds were mostly flat to down, saw minor outflows last week, totaling $14 million. Funds focused on alternative blockchains Litecoin, Ripple and Polkadot also saw outflows last week. • FTX.USlaunches collectibles arm in boost to Solana-based NFTs:The U.S. wing of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire said its new marketplace, FTX NFTs, will allow users to trade, mint, auction and authenticate Solana-based non-fungible tokens (NFT),reported CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson. The exchange’s prioritization of Solana highlights two realities: Bankman-Fried is heavily invested in the Solana ecosystem; and that ecosystem, while host to a handful of so-called “blue-chip” projects, doesn’t yet have a juggernaut marketplace for NFT trading.FTX.USsays its new platform will charge 2%. • Celo appoints former Facebook, Bank of America execs to board:Blockchain payments startup Celo appointed former Facebook executive Morgan Beller to its board alongside Jai Ramaswamy, who has previously worked at Bank of America,reported CoinDesk’s Jamie Crawley. Beller is the former head of strategy at Calibra, the Facebook subsidiary set up to develop the wallet for the social media giant’s cryptocurrency project Libra (later Diem). Ramaswamy is the chief risk and compliance officer of cLabs, the company behind the building of the Celo blockchain. • DeFi perpetuals exchange Futureswap launches new version:Futureswap raised $12 million in venture funding from Framework Ventures, Ribbit Capital andPlaceholder.vcto launch an updated version of its Ethereum-based exchange,reported CoinDesk’s Helene Braun. The protocol, which taps into version 3 (v3) of leading automated market maker (AMM) Uniswap, enables leverage of up to 30 times on any liquidity pool. “We’re super-excited to add this layer as a new primitive,” CEO and co-founder Derek Alia told CoinDesk in an interview. “The amount of possibilities now are very, very cool.” • Coinbase Co-Founder’s Venture Firm Raising $1.5B Fund, Document Shows • Private Office of UAE Sheikh Launches $100M Blockchain Investment Fund • Airdrop Ethics: VC Firm Draws Ire Following $2.5M Ribbon Finance Exploit • Dying for a Bitcoin Futures ETF? Watch Out for ‘Contango Bleed’ Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day lower. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): • Bitcoin (BTC), +3.9% • Filecoin (FIL), +0.3% Notable losers: • Algorand (ALGO), -6.4% • Polkadot (DOT), -5.6% || Bitcoin ETF could arrive as soon as October: Bitcoin ETFs could arrive by the end of October, a senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence says. Speaking to Daniela Cambone from Stansberry Research, Mike McGlone suggested that it had become much more likely that a BTC futures ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) would be established before the end of the year. He noted there had been more than 30 applications to establish BTC ETFs, and that the pressure for the United States Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC) to approve an ETF was increasing due to the huge volume of trade that Canadian BTC ETFs created. The increased pressure for regulators has become more apparent after Ark Invest chose to apply for a BTC ETF in Canada due to the SEC’s slow uptake. The creation of a futures ETF can work as an interim stage to a full ETF. Gary Gensler, chairman of the SEC, recently hinted that he would consider a BTC futures ETF . It was a dramatic shift in position from even halfway through the year when the chances of an ETF looked slim . Canadian Ethereum (ETH) ETFs have helped drive up value throughout the year. McGlone added that if BTC caught up with ETH by creating ETFs, its value could approach $100,000 by the end of the year. This value increase would be driven by the extra inflow from traditional investment sources who have been kept out by technical complexity and the legitimacy that an ETF would bring. It remains to be seen whether the SEC will approve a BTC ETF. || El Salvadorans Protest Against Bitcoin Adoption: BeInCrypto – Citizens of El Salvador took to the streets last week to protest the country’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender. Hundreds of demonstrators marched through the capital San Salvador on Friday. Protesters featured signs saying “Bukele we don’t want bitcoin” and “No to corrupt money laundering”. They marched primarily to voice their concern over their potential dependence on something as capricious in value as cryptocurrencies. They are especially concerned that their pensions and welfare could eventually depend exclusively on Bitcoin instead of the US dollar. The crypto law would put Bitcoin on a level pegging with the U.S. dollar, against the advice of the IMF. “We know this coin fluctuates drastically, said a member of the Supreme Court of Justice’s workers union. “Its value changes from one second to another and we will have no control over it.” 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 || Bitcoin heads towards $60,000 with ETF approval on the horizon: By Samuel Indyk Investing.com – The price of Bitcoin resumed its path higher on Thursday with markets still hopeful that a Bitcoin ETF, most likely based on Bitcoin Futures, will be approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) within the next week or two. There are a number of filings for Bitcoin ETFs currently under review. It is more likely that futures ETFs registered under the Investments Company Act of 1940 will see approval first. The SEC Chair Gary Gensler has previously signalled his favourability for a Bitcoin futures ETF, rather than one based on the underlying asset. Speaking last month, Gensler said the ’40 Act “provides significant investor protections” for mutual funds and ETFs, adding that he was looking forward to staff’s review of such filings. Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg’s senior ETF Analyst, highlighted that Valkyrie has recently updated their Bitcoin futures ETF prospectus, adding the ticker BTF. Balchunas signalled that this typically only happens when the fund is “ready to launch”. “Can't say this is done deal type evidence but a good sign IMO,” Balchunas said on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR). undefined Another positive development in the world of Bitcoin ETFs came yesterday when Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest filed for a Bitcoin futures ETF under the ‘40 Act. ARK had previously filed for a physical Bitcoin ETF but this is the first time the asset management firm has filed for a futures only ETF. In the filing, ARK said that it will only invest in Bitcoin futures and will not invest in BTCC or GBTC options. “The fund does not invest directly in Bitcoin or other digital assets”, the filing said. At 10:11BST, Bitcoin is trading around $57,370, off the highs above $58,000 hit earlier in the trading day but still up over 5% in the last 24 hours. Related Articles Bitcoin heads towards $60,000 with ETF approval on the horizon Early Blockchain Inventors Celebrate 30 Years Since Inception OctaDahlia, a Multichain Protocol Geared on Wealth and Power Equity, Launched as the Second UpOnly Token || Mobile Phone Is Not Enough. Qualcomm Is Expanding Its Chips Game Into The Vehicle Sector: Qualcomm is known as one of the leading chips manufacturers for mobile phones, but the company is now expanding into the vehicle sector and is set to supply another set of automobile chips. Chip manufacturerQualcommrevealed earlier today that it would be supplying a crucial computing chip in a new Renault SA electric vehicle. The companyannouncedthis earlier today, adding that the computing chip is for the digital dashboard in the electric vehicle. Qualcommhas made a name for itself as the biggest smartphone chip manufacturer in the world. However, the company has been expanding into manufacturing chips for electric vehicles and has landed another client. The chip manufacturer stated that Renault’s Mégane E-TECH Electric would use Qualcomm’s chips. The chips will power the electric vehicle’s infotainment system using software designed by Google. This latest development means thatQualcommhas landed another client in the electric vehicle sector. Qualcomm announced a deal with General Motors earlier this year. The deal would see General Motors use Qualcomm’s chips on its vehicles. The Mégane E-TECH Electric is expected to go on sale by next year. However, it will be unveiled at September’s IAA Mobility 2021 automotive trade show in Munich. Qualcomm’s move into the automobile sector is important considering the fact that it is set to lose a chunk of its business in the mobile phone industry. Apple is already developing chips for its mobile devices, and Google is also working on developing chips for its mobile phones. With phone manufacturers already developing their own chips for their mobile devices, chip manufacturers such asQualcomm, Nvidia, and Intel will have to be innovative and explore new markets. The shares of Qualcomm are down by 0.32% over the past 24 hours.QCOMis trading at $144.65 per share at the moment. Year-to-date, QCOM has underperformed. QCOM started 2021 trading at $150 per share, but it is now trading at $144. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • S&P 500 Looks Ready To Move Higher As Traders Stay Bullish • Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Pull Back From Major Resistance Barrier • Bitcoin Bulls in Control Ahead of El Salvador’s Crypto Debut • Mobile Phone Is Not Enough. Qualcomm Is Expanding Its Chips Game Into The Vehicle Sector • Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Show Exhaustion • S&P 500 Price Forecast – Underlying Markets Closed for Labor Day || Bitcoin (BTC) Continues Hovering Above Support Zone: BeInCrypto – Bitcoin (BTC) is still hovering above the $43,900 support area, which pushed the price back up after a dip on Sept 7. While there are short-term bullish signals in place, the ongoing bounce looks corrective. Therefore, it’s unlikely to be a bullish trend reversal. BTC bounces BTC decreased considerably on Sept 7, falling to a low of $42,483. However, it bounced afterward and created a long lower wick. This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || A shocking number of US nurses are quitting, but a majority would stay for more money: A nurse performs treatment on a hospital patient The US is losing nurses when it needs them most . The nurse shortage that began prior to Covid-19 was exacerbated by the pandemic burnout and is already compromising some hospitals’ ability to provide care. A recent estimate by Mercer , a healthcare consulting firm, estimates more than a million nurses will leave the workforce by 2026, while demand will keep rising, leaving providers in most states in dire straits. California and New York are both expected to face a shortage of more than 500,000 nurses. The Chappelle controversy is a test of what kind of workplace Netflix wants to be Last week, US president Joe Biden’s administration announced a plan to invest $100 million to support states in training, recruiting, and retaining healthcare workers, particularly for rural areas. While a step in the right direction, the program will take time to make any significant dent, and hardly help with the one intervention likely to keep nurses in their jobs: higher salaries. It isn’t all about higher pay—but it helps A survey by ShiftMed, a healthcare staffing agency used by 60,000 nurses, found that 49% of its nurses are somewhat likely to quit the field in the next two years. India’s second wave of Covid-19 may have protected it from a devastating third wave Overall, 76% of nurses said they felt the desire to help others wasn’t enough to keep them in the job, and they are looking at other benefits to remain in a profession where, according to the survey, they feel unsafe, at risk of burnout, and mistreated. Relatively simple professional adjustments would help retain nurses, the survey found, including more paid time off, flexible schedules, a more cooperative environment, and better shifts. But the two incentives most commonly cited as motivators to stay wouldn’t be quite so easy for hospitals and other facilities to provide: more staffing, and better pay. Nearly 60% of nurses said they would not leave their jobs if they had higher salaries, and nearly as many (54%) said they would stay if their workplace had a larger staff, which would allow for better shifts and higher quality of care for patients. Story continues Increased staffing isn’t easy goal to provide in the current shortage, nor is higher pay. This is especially true for independent hospitals in rural areas, which often lack the financial resources to hire more staff, or keep up with climbing salaries. How much does a nurse make? Nurse wages vary dramatically depending on their roles, ranging from a national average of about $31,000 for assistant nurses to $181,000 for nurse anesthesiologists. But salaries are very different according to the state, too. In Mississippi, a registered nurse made on average just under $60,000 a year in 2019; in California, the average pay was more than $113,000. As shortages become more critical, however, an increasing number of nurses are leaving full-time jobs that pay regular wages to join staffing agencies such as ShiftMed . The agency brokers shifts with 1,000 hospitals around the country, connecting nurses—either freelance or those interested in extra shifts—with hospitals with staffing shortages. Through a service such as ShiftMed, hospitals compete with one another to attract talent to fill the increasing staffing gaps, and to do so they have to offer competitive arrangements—starting with wages. A hospital trying to attract a nurse from out of town can spend as much as $9,000 a week . “For the first time ever, nurses have the power to choose,” says Todd Walrath, the CEO of ShiftMed, noting that the current shortage of at least a million nurses gives the ones who are staying in the profession the upper hand. Platforms like his give nurses a chance to compare shifts and perks, selecting the jobs and shifts that most closely align with their professional and life ambitions. Offering this kind of flexibility—or better benefits overall—can improve the quality of life of nurses and stop them from leaving the workforce. But it doesn’t really help reduce the shortage, since it just shifts the limited number of nurses from one hospital to another. It also drives up the costs of administering healthcare in a way that isn’t sustainable for many providers. Not only are rural hospitals struggling to compete with wealthier competitors to attract new nurses, but they risk losing their own staff to those offering better wages. This kind of dynamic is likely to continue, if not worsen, for as long as the shortage persists. “I don’t know if there is a solution for a standalone rural hospital that can’t afford to pay higher rates,” says Walrath. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the world’s most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: Bitcoin closed in on a record high after a US bitcoin ETF started trading Xi Jinping’s vision for China does not involve workers “lying flat” || Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Continue Move to The Upside: WTI Crude Oil The West Texas B to Crude Oil market has rallied a bit during the course of the trading session to break above the $72.50 level but looks as if it is ready to continue going even higher. We may get a short-term pullback, but at this point in time any short-term pullback will be thought of as value. The neutral candlestick from the trading session on Tuesday could offer a little bit of a floor, and it is obvious that we have broken out significantly to the upside. Furthermore, the market has the added benefit of larger demand for heating as well, as natural gas markets have gone off the rails. Crude Oil Video 16.09.21 Brent Brent markets have also broken out during the trading session on Wednesday, as it looks like we ready to continue going much higher. The $75 level has been an area of interest previously, and now that we have broken above there think it is only a matter of time before the Brent market takes off even further. I would look for some type of short-term pullback in order to find value though, as the 50 day EMA is starting to curl higher after offering significant support. If we were to turn around a break down through the previous trendline, then it is likely that the market would collapse at that point. Having said that, we have broken out significantly and have been in an uptrend for quite a while. As things look right now, I would not be surprised at all to see this market reach the recent highs again. 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: Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Rally on Storm Activity Silver Price Daily Forecast – Another Test Of Resistance At $23.80 Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Pullback From 200 Day EMA EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for September 15, 2021 Fidelity Nudges Securities Regulator on Bitcoin ETF GBP/USD Price Forecast – British Pound Hanging Around 50 Day EMA || Walmart Is Entering The Crypto World 200 Bitcoin ATMs With Plans To Add More: The cryptocurrency space has welcomed numerous leading companies over the past few months, and Walmart has now joined the list. Walmart, the leading retailer in the United States, has partnered with coin-cashing machine company Coinstar and crypto-cash exchange CoinMe as it enters the cryptocurrency space. The retailer has installed 200BitcoinATMs at its various locations across the United States. According to aBloomberg report, the installation of the Bitcoin ATMs at Walmart stores will allow its customers to buybitcoinsat its various locations across the United States. Walmart intends to install at over 8,000 locations in the United States over the coming months. In an interview with Bloomberg, the Chief strategy officer and head of research at BitOoda, Sam Doctor, said althoughBitcoinATMs are already popular in the United States, Walmart wants to make them available to more people. He said,“Walmart expands Bitcoin access to more people, though, and gives it further legitimacy among skeptics, should they roll it out beyond an initial pilot.”Data obtained from Coin ATM Radar showed that there are currently more than 25,000BitcoinATMs at service stations and grocery stores across the United States. Coinstar currently operates more than 4,400 kiosks that support Bitcoin purchases in 33 states of the country. Bitcoin reached anew all-time highabove $67,000 on Tuesday. The cryptocurrency has been rallying since the start of the month and topped the $67k level 48 hours ago. However,BTChas since cooled down following the rally. At the time of writing,BTCis down by 2.1% over the past 24 hours and is trading just above the $63,300 level. The coin is correcting following its recent rally but could resume its upward movement if the bulls regain control of the market. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Test Of Resistance At 1.2380 • Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver Markets Rally Significantly • AUD/USD Weekly Price Forecast – The Australian Dollar Continues to Press Resistance • Solana Stays Close To All-Time Highs • Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Give Up Early Gains • GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British Pound Pulling Back Against Yen || Epazz's CryObo Technology to Digitalize Harvests for Ireland Farmers Using Blockchain and Drone Technology: Tokenization of real estate assets and raw materials enables farmers to potentially access new funding sources Chicago, Illinois--(Newsfile Corp. - October 19, 2021) - Epazz Inc. (OTC Pink: EPAZ), a mission-critical provider of blockchain cryptocurrency mobile apps and cloud-based business software solutions, today announced a presentation by its CryObo client, Greenheart, at the White Label conference in Frankfurt, Germany, circular economy and how Greenheart plans to help Ireland's farmers to additional funding sources using blockchain and drone technology . Epazz's CEO, Shaun Passley, attended the conference in support of Greenheart. To see a video clip of the presentation, click below. https://youtu.be/xB-qh_J_sX8 CryObo technology will focus on the real estate market, which includes farmland. The tokens will be backed by real estate and farmland. Real estate developers will appraise for current value; however, the future of real estate will be evaluated. The goal is for real estate developers to assess the future value of properties once land is developed and buildings are constructed. This technology would allow real estate developers to raise capital at better terms and allow the token holder to raise appraisals of the tokens and earned income. Passley said, "Paul Walsh gave a great speech how Greenheart will change farming." About CryObo Inc. CryObo Inc. will enhance its software to give early-access companies backed by real assets an easy way to access the token markets. The company's platform will change how people transact real estate, digital assets, crops and raw materials by allowing companies to access the future value of their assets. The growth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is bringing new regulations for large financial service companies, which will require a smart solution to manage their growing portfolios. About Epazz Inc. ( www.epazz.com ) Epazz Inc. is a leading cloud-based software company that specializes in providing customized cloud applications to the corporate world, higher-education institutions and the public sector. Epazz BoxesOS v3.0 is the complete business web-based software package for small to midsize businesses, Fortune 500 enterprises, government agencies and higher-education institutions. BoxesOS provides a combination of many of the web-based applications that an organization would otherwise need to purchase separately. Epazz's other products are DeskFlex ( room scheduling software ) and Provitrac ( applicant-tracking system ). Story continues SAFE HARBOR The "Safe Harbor" statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Certain statements contained in this press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking language, such as "may"; "expect"; "intend"; "estimate"; "anticipate"; "believe"; "continue"; the negative thereof or similar terminology. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from future results or those implied by such forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Epazz Inc. assumes no obligation and has no intention of updating forward-looking statements. It has no obligation to update or correct information prepared by third parties that are not paid for by Epazz Inc. Investors are encouraged to review Epazz Inc.'s public filings on SEC.gov and otcmarkets.com , including its unaudited and audited financial statements and its OTC Markets filings, which contain general business information about the company's operations, results of its operations and risks associated with the company and its operations. Contact For more information, please contact Investor Relations investors@epazz.net 312-955-8161 www.epazz.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/100117 [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 58482.39, 60622.14, 62227.96, 61888.83, 61318.96, 61004.41, 63226.40, 62970.05, 61452.23, 61125.68
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 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) || 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. Story continues 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) || Indian bitcoin company raises $1.5 million from U.S., Indian investors: NEW YORK, Sept 29 (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) || 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) || 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. || 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) || 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 || 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. www.ericsson.comwww.ericsson.com/newswww.twitter.com/ericssonpresswww.facebook.com/ericssonwww.youtube.com/ericsson FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT 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 || Yahoo Says Hacker Stole Data on At Least 500 Million Users: Yahoo on Thursday confirmed a massive data breach, in which it said a “state-sponsored” hacker broke into the internet company’s systems and stole personal information on at least 500 million users — the biggest such theft of user data from a single entity to date. The user-account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and in some cases encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers, according to Yahoo. The data was stolen from the company’s network in late 2014, Yahoo said, which did not provide an explanation for why it has taken two years to report the incident. It didn’t identify the country it believes was behind the attack. What the disclosure means for Verizon’s pending $4.8 billion deal to acquire the core web businesses of Yahoo is not immediately clear, but according to Verizon it was not apprised of the severity of the breach until this week. Verizon, in a statement, said it was notified of Yahoo’s security breach in the last two days. “We understand that Yahoo is conducting an active investigation of this matter, but we otherwise have limited information and understanding of the impact,” the telco said. “We will evaluate as the investigation continues through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders and related communities. Until then, we are not in position to further comment.” The Yahoo announcement came after Vice’s Motherboard reported in August that a hacker known as “Peace,” who is believed to be a Russian cybercriminal, was advertising the sale of 200 million Yahoo user accounts in a black-market online forum for about $1,860 worth of Bitcoin. At the time, Yahoo said it was investigating the claims. Recode reported early Thursday that Yahoo was expected to confirm the data breach this week. Regardless of how it affects the outcome of Verizon’s planned acquisition, the enormous security breach will stand as a disastrous bookend to the tenure of CEO Marissa Mayer. Story continues Mayer, a former top Google exec hired four years ago to much fanfare, failed to turn around Yahoo’s core search and advertising business . Mayer and Yahoo’s board eventually bowed to investor pressure to sell its operating businesses (excluding its stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan), and initiated an auction process earlier this year. Verizon emerged as the winning bidder in July and the telco has outlined plans to merge Yahoo’s web operations with AOL , which it acquired last year for $4.4 billion. In announcing the breach, Yahoo said it was working with law-enforcement officials on investigating the incident. According to the company, based on what it has learned so far, none of the stolen information included unprotected passwords, payment-card data, or bank-account information. “Yahoo is notifying potentially affected users and has taken steps to secure their accounts,” the company said. “These steps include invalidating unencrypted security questions and answers so that they cannot be used to access an account and asking potentially affected users to change their passwords. Yahoo is also recommending that users who haven’t changed their passwords since 2014 do so.” Security and legal experts said Yahoo’s costs associated with the attack could run into the tens of millions of dollars. The incident is likely to prompt class-action lawsuits and could even scuttle the Verizon acquisition. Given that the breach occurred in 2014 and Yahoo did not properly communicate or manage it, Verizon may seek to nullify or renegotiate the deal, said Corey Williams, senior director of products and marketing at security vendor Centrify. “This is less of a story about 500 million user accounts being stolen and more about how lax security and poor handling of incidents can impact the very existence of a company,” he said. Yahoo, which reaches some 1 billion users around the world, has posted a frequently asked questions document on its website about the breach. The company also is encouraging users to use Account Key , an authentication tool for its email app that associates a Yahoo account with a specific device to eliminate the need for a password. As part of responding to the incident, Yahoo has enlisted New York-based communications firm Joel Frank, which specializes in crisis PR. Related stories Verizon in Talks to Acquire Video Startup Vessel (Report) Snapchat Adds Verizon-Hearst's Complex to Discover Lineup Yahoo to Disclose Data Breach Affecting 200 Million or More Users (Report) Get more from Variety and Variety411 : Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Newsletter || Costco is reaping the benefits of the transition from American Express to Citigroup and Visa: (BII)This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, pleaseclick here. In its recent earnings report, Costconotedthat its payment card acceptance transition is progressing strongly. The retailer’s portfolio, which was previously cobranded with American Express, was sold to Citigroup and Visa in June. And though there were some hiccups involved with the transition, Costco noted it’s “past that” and reported strong numbers. The new card is “beating initial expectations” regarding conversion, new sign-ups, and overall use. • Most cardholders have transferred their accounts.Of the approximately 11.4 million Amex Costco cards and 7.5 million accounts, nearly 85% of the accounts transferred over have been activated with Costco. That’s about the same amount that were active prior to the transition, which indicates that existing cardholders are receptive to the new card program. • And the new card continues to grow, which could be a result of the strong rewards program.Since the shift in June, Costco said that 1.1 million members have applied for the new card and 730,000 accounts have been activated. For context, Citi noted that three-and-a-half weeks in, the new card had added 337,000 new accounts, so the Costco numbers mark somewhat slowing, but still strong, growth. This is a strong interest indicator for the new card specifically, especially because Costco now accepts any Visa-branded card, and it’s likely the majority of Costco customers already have one in their wallet. The card’s strong rewards offerings, which include better cash-back options for Costco purchases and have improved by 40-50% overall, could be driving customers to the product. • It’s likely that spending is high.Costco didn’t provide specific spending numbers, only noting that its gross margin year-over-year (YoY) increased. But in Citi’s earnings call, held three weeks into the card transition, the product saw $5.7 billion in purchases made on Citi Costco cards, slightly beating the estimated $5.4 billion spend that would have been seen on the Amex card. Assuming that trend has continued, it’s likely the product is performing strongly. The strong performance reported by Costco could be a needed boost for Citigroup. The strong performance is good news for Costco, because the retailer’s somewhat slowing sales could have been exacerbated if transition process frustration drove customers away from the retailer. But ongoing usage and volume growth will be most beneficial to Citi, which has already seen modest gains in its North American “credit cards” segment as a result of the acquisition of the Costco portfolio, which accounted for $80 billion in 2015. If Costco continues to be a steady customer acquisition channel and volume source, Citi could further establish separation as the third largest US card issuer in 2016. Costco's growth in this area is just one piece of the larger payments ecosystem, which includes card issuers, merchants, gateways, vendors, and more. Evan Bakker and John Heggestuen, analysts atBI Intelligence, 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 2. 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 PAYMENTS INDUSTRY EXPLAINED: The Trends Creating New Winners And Losers In The Card-Processing Ecosystem • THE CONNECTED DEVICE PAYMENTS REPORT: Market opportunities, top stakeholders, and new use cases for the next frontier in payments • The top 5 fintech predictions for 2016 [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] LIVE: Profit = $355.77 (0.46 %). BUY B127.14 @ $610.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $613.95 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || 1 KOBO = 0.00000408 BTC = 0.0026 USD = 0.7911 NGN = 0.0371 ZAR = 0.2633 KES #Kobocoin 2016-10-14 06:00 pic.twitter.com/PZ2Nc160Ts || #bitcoin #blockchain Bitfinex to Hacker: Can We Have Our Bitcoin Back?: Bitfinex is n... http://bit.ly/2dw4WaE  http://bit.ly/1LHJzB9  || One Bitcoin now worth $603.51@bitstamp. High $605.99. Low $602.00. Market Cap $9.597 Billion #bitcoin || God will soon....punishment....all this realerx. The only tin I get from them is like for like....blow for... http://fb.me/4YHXMy5iy  || 1 BTC Price: BTC-e 600.001 USD Bitstamp 597.00 USD Coinbase 598.50 USD #btc #bitcoin 2016-09-23 06:30 pic.twitter.com/CesVBWHt7L || #ChainCoin #CHC $0.000079 (-0.35%) 0.00000013 BTC (0.00%) || #Triangles #TRI $0.259255 (0.51%) 0.00039463 BTC (0.00%) || $613.99 at 17:15 UTC [24h Range: $611.00 - $616.99 Volume: 1379 BTC] || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $614.34/$615.00 #Bitstamp $613.00/$613.54 #BTCe ⇢$-2.00/$-0.80 $614.86/$621.10 #Coinbase ⇢$-0.14/$6.76
Trend: up || Prices: 700.97, 729.79, 740.83, 688.70, 703.23, 703.42, 711.52, 703.13, 709.85, 723.27
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 2018-04-06] BTC Price: 6636.32, BTC RSI: 32.62 Gold Price: 1331.90, Gold RSI: 51.42 Oil Price: 62.06, Oil RSI: 44.82 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] European markets under pressure after Trump ousts Tillerson; Iliad shares fall 9%: The pan-European STOXX 600 extended losses, dropping some 0.7 percent during afternoon deals, with almost all sectors in negative territory. E.ON surged towards the top of the European benchmark after the company said it would submit a 5.2 billion euro ($6.4 billion) voluntary takeover offer for minority shareholders in Innogy in the second quarter of 2018. European equities fell into the red on Tuesday, as investors reacted to news that President Donald Trump had sacked U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson . The pan-European STOXX 600 extended losses, dropping some 0.7 percent during afternoon deals, with almost all sectors in negative territory. In markets, all major bourses posted solid losses, with both the U.K.'s FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX slipping more than 0.7 percent each. Iliad slips over 9% Insurance stocks fell into the red amid earnings news. Hannover Rueck led the losses in the sector after it posted detailed full-year results shortly before the opening bell. Shares of the German reinsurer were down 3.5 percent. Telecoms, household goods and chemicals were the worst performers, all falling 1 percent or more as a sector. Europe's utility companies however held onto gains amid takeover news. E.ON jumped toward the top of the European benchmark after the company said it would submit a 5.2 billion euro ($6.4 billion) voluntary takeover offer for minority shareholders in Innogy . Shares of E.ON were up some 4.6 percent. Earlier this week, the German-listed firm and RWE announced a far-reaching deal to effectively break-up RWE's energy networks and retail arm, Innogy, and divide its assets between them. Basic resources also held strong, as metal prices rose during afternoon trade. The same could not be said for oil prices, which fell in afternoon trade. Both Brent and U.S. crude were off more than 1 percent each. Looking at individual stocks, France's Iliad slumped to the bottom of the index after the company reported higher annual sales and profits during 2017. The telecoms group also said the firm was in the final phase of preparing its Italy launch before the summer, Reuters reported. Its shares were down more than 9 percent. Economic data Stateside, markets were on edge in afternoon trade, following news that Tillerson had been ousted as secretary of state Tuesday, marking the end to a tumultuous tenure as America's top diplomat . Trump plans to appoint CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace the former Exxon Mobil chief executive, with Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel poised to run the spy agency. Meanwhile, a closely-tracked measure of U.S. consumer price inflation rose in line with expectations in February. The core consumer price index (CPI) showed prices were 1.8 percent higher last month when compared to the same period last year. The data is seen as likely to reaffirm the Federal Reserve's case for three interest rate hikes in 2018. On Wall Street , markets were relatively mixed. Story continues Back in Europe, the U.K.'s Office for Budget Responsibility published its spring economic and fiscal outlook on Tuesday. Meantime, Finance Minister Philip Hammond stated that the U.K. economy would grow slightly more quickly than previously expected during the course of 2018. Growth forecasts for 2019 and 2020 meantime were kept unchanged at 1.3 percent More From CNBC Bitcoin can’t provide the answer to a cashless society, top bankers say Gold rises after Tillerson's exit: 'Gold loves any turbulence' Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: AVGO, DKS, TMUS, KORS, DSW, ATUS & more View comments || Why Token Curated Registries Could Become the Lists of the Future: People have a fetish for lists: frequent versus infrequent; business versus personal. There are grocery lists, to-do lists, bucket lists, Oscar nomination lists, top charts, top movies and top restaurants. By utilizing blockchain technology, token-curated registries (TCRs), that is, decentralized lists created with underlying economic incentives, have the potential to increase the accuracy and governance of any online list. In 2018, most public online lists are curated by a centralized company or individual. Public online lists include: Spotify’s “Rap Caviar Playlist,” Lonely Planet’s “Top Locations in Budapest, Hungary,” or Opentable’s “Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain.” Consumers trust centralized companies to create these lists honestly. As a result, these companies hold all the power and exert an enormous amount of influence. They can easily remove an item from a list with few repercussions or manipulate a list by including advertisers who pay a price to be included or be listed higher than competitors. Imagine a hypothetical situation where Spotify decides to cut ties with Katy Perry for her outspoken views and no longer recommends her music in curated pop playlists. Because Spotify owns the pop playlist lists, it can theoretically exercise this sort of complete control and remove popular (or up-and-coming) artists without the Spotify community’s approval. Spotify could also, for example, list other artists who are willing and able to pay a premium price for advertising above those who do not, putting rising talent at a disadvantage. Lists created by individuals include YouTube playlists, iTunes playlists, polls that create a list based on individuals’ votes and other parameters, and more. These lists are created for a variety of reasons: for organization, clarity, self expression or ranking, or to share content with friends, family and the community at large. Shared online lists created by individuals are beneficial to the community because they can help people find what they are looking for or validate information they have already encountered. These lists are often ranked and filtered based on likes or some form of human feedback. But they can be manipulated and spammed by online bots. Unlike traditional lists, TCRs are inherently decentralized, community-dependent and driven by underlying economic incentives. Co-invented by Mike Goldin, James Young, and Ameen Soleimani, TCRs use intrinsic tokens to “assign curation rights proportional to the relative weight of entities holding the token.” In simpler terms, TCRs allow people to stake tokens for or against an item that is proposed to be added to a decentralized list. In this way, these lists are maintained through economic incentives and the Wisdom of the Crowds principle — the idea that large groups of people are collectively smarter than individuals. At a high level, each TCR (list) is completely decentralized, meaning it isn’t owned by a single entity. Each requires three kinds of participants: consumers, candidates, and the list’s token holders. For example, imagine a list called “Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain.” Consumers in Spain search for this list when looking for the best places to go out for dinner. Candidates (in this case, restaurants in Madrid that think they are “the best”) want to be part of this list. The list’s token holders (those who own tokens in “Best Restaurants in Madrid”) want their tokens to increase in value. If a hypothetical restaurant candidate — let’s call it Pablo’s Tapas — wants to be listed on the “Best Restaurants in Madrid” TCR, it needs to apply to the TCR by making a deposit denominated in the TCR’s intrinsic token. If the majority of the TCR’s token-holding community votes to accept Pablo’s Tapas as a “best” restaurant in Madrid, then the restaurant will appear on the list, get to keep the tokens it deposited, and be able withdraw the tokens anytime they want to leave the TCR and de-list. If the TCR’s token-holding community doesn’t think that Pablo’s Tapas should belist on the “best” restaurants list, they can challenge the restaurant’s application. If the majority of the community votes to deny Pablo’s Tapas, it gets rejected from listing and must forfeit its deposit to the TCR. The deposit is then divided as a reward among token holders who participated in the challenge. Candidates and token holders continue this process, until all candidates either receive a spot on the list or are rejected. In this idealized scenario, consumers searching for “best restaurants in Madrid” can now enjoy a Wisdom-of-the-Crowds driven, economically-incentivized final product that isn’t owned (and therefore isn’t manipulated) by any single party. Theoretically, a TCR should be more accurate than a traditional list because people are willing to stake economic value for an entry they strongly believe belongs on the list. Although TCRs promise an economically-driven way to crowdsource lists, they are far from ready for the average consumer. For starters, TCRs are currently limited to binary lists—either the item is listed or it is not. In the future, TCRs could evolve to support ranking. For example, a concert-goer could stake a larger amount of tokens on the artist’s setlist TCR so that the artist plays the concert-goer’s favorite song and not another song. Furthermore, it’s uncertain if economically-curated lists that pay other list-members for their actions could be considered gambling under U.S. law. There has never been any legal action regarding TCRs, so no precedent has been set. Other unanswered questions include: Will TCRs lead to polarized lists, in which groups of like-minded people will continue to only pay attention to lists they are contributors to? Will TCRs create echo-chambers? Could non-blockchain companies implement the TCR concept using traditional software and micropayments in fiat currency? What kind of attacks are TCRs susceptible to, and how will they protect themselves? Nevertheless, TCRs are a fascinating, practical application of blockchain technology that have the potential to create next-generation platforms for online list curation. This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Millennials Are Making a Big Financial Mistake. Are You, Too?: There's a lot we don't know about our futures, which can make it hard to plan for them. We don't know, for example, how long we'll live, or how well the stock market will be doing as we approach retirement, or how much money we'll need for retirement. In many cases, the best we can do is guess -- and then plan somewhat conservatively, leaving room for error. A survey several years ago revealed that millennials are assuming that they'll spend much less in retirement than they're likely to spend. That's potentially catastrophic, as it could lead to running out of money in retirement. It's also a mistake not limited to millennials. You might be making it, too. Image source: Getty Images. So what's the problem, exactly? Well, the 2015 "Will Millennials Ever Be Able to Retire?" report and the 2017 "Millennials and Retirement" report issued by the Insured Retirement Institute offer some troubling findings regarding millennials. For starters, about 70% assumed that they'd spend less than $36,000 annually in retirement. How wrong is that? Well, check out the following table, offering data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on annual spending for a range of age cohorts: [{"Generation": "Millennial", "Birth Year Range": "1981 and later", "Age Range": "37 and younger", "Median Annual Spending": "$47,113"}, {"Generation": "Generation X", "Birth Year Range": "1965 to 1980", "Age Range": "37 to 53", "Median Annual Spending": "$66,981"}, {"Generation": "Baby boom", "Birth Year Range": "1946 to 1964", "Age Range": "53 to 72", "Median Annual Spending": "$59,646"}, {"Generation": "Silent", "Birth Year Range": "1929 to 1945", "Age Range": "72 to 89", "Median Annual Spending": "$42,348"}, {"Generation": "GI", "Birth Year Range": "1928 and earlier", "Age Range": "89 and older", "Median Annual Spending": "$29,041"}] Data source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015. Considering that the average American retires in his or her early 60s, the millennials' guess is clearly off the mark -- significantly lower than those in the silent generation spend and way below baby boomer spending. Another worrisome detail is that when it comes to saving and investing for retirement, millennials are very averse to risk, with 36% citing a low appetite for risk. That's problematic, because the younger you are, the more able you are to take on certain kinds of risks, such as investing in the stock market. Yes, the market swoons, sometimes heavily, now and then -- but if you're planning to stay invested in it for many years, you can weather the storms and remain invested for the recoveries and upswings. Indeed, the longer your money is left to grow, the greater your nest egg can become. This table makes that clear: [{"Growing at 8% For:": "10 years", "$5,000 Invested Annually": "$78,227", "$10,000 Invested Annually": "$156,455", "$15,000 Invested Annually": "$234,682"}, {"Growing at 8% For:": "20 years", "$5,000 Invested Annually": "$247,115", "$10,000 Invested Annually": "$494,229", "$15,000 Invested Annually": "$741,344"}, {"Growing at 8% For:": "25 years", "$5,000 Invested Annually": "$394,772", "$10,000 Invested Annually": "$789,544", "$15,000 Invested Annually": "$1.2 million"}, {"Growing at 8% For:": "30 years", "$5,000 Invested Annually": "$611,729", "$10,000 Invested Annually": "$1.2 million", "$15,000 Invested Annually": "$1.8 million"}, {"Growing at 8% For:": "35 years", "$5,000 Invested Annually": "$930,511", "$10,000 Invested Annually": "$1.9 million", "$15,000 Invested Annually": "$2.8 million"}, {"Growing at 8% For:": "40 years", "$5,000 Invested Annually": "$1.4 million", "$10,000 Invested Annually": "$2.8 million", "$15,000 Invested Annually": "$4.2 million"}] Data source: author calculations. If you're, say, 25 years old, you might amass almost a million dollars just by socking away $5,000 annually -- if you can let that money grow for 35 years! Even those who are already in their 50s may be able to accumulate a significant sum over just a decade, especially if they're aggressive about it. Image source: Getty Images. Here's how you might go about estimatinghow much money you'll need in retirement: Make a detailed list of your expected monthly, annual, and occasional expenses, and throw in some more, for the unexpected. Be thorough, including housing expenses, insurance, taxes, food, transportation, healthcare, entertainment, travel, and so on. Add up what you think you'll be spending on each category annually in your first years of retirement -- and know that many people spend less on many categories as they age in retirement, while spending more on healthcare. Know, too, that Social Security is not likely to provide enough. On average, Social Security benefits are designed to only replace about 40% of your income -- with the percentage higher if you had lower-than-average earnings and vice versa. So the average retiree will need to generate a significant amount of additional income. For context, the average monthly retirement benefit was recently $1,407, which amounts to nearly $17,000 per year. If your earnings have been above average, though, you'll collect more than that -- up to the recent maximum monthly Social Security benefit for those retiring at their full retirement age, which was recently $2,687. (That's about $32,000 for the whole year.) The "4% rule" is a handy tool that can help you estimate your needs. It has you withdrawing 4% of your nest egg in your first year of retirement and then adjusting future withdrawals for inflation. This withdrawal strategy assumes a portfolio 60% in stocks and 40% in bonds, and it's designed to make your money last through 30 years of retirement. As an example, imagine that you've saved $400,000 bythe time you retire. In your first year of retirement, you would withdraw 4%, or $16,000. In the following years, you'd adjust your withdrawals for inflation. Flip the 4% rule around and you'll see how much you'll have to accumulate in the first place. Imagine, for example, that you'd like to start retirement with total annual income of $60,000 and you expect to collect $25,000 from Social Security. That leaves $35,000 in income that you'll need to generate on your own. If you assume that $35,000 is 4% of your nest egg, then you can multiply $35,000 by 25 to arrive at how large your nest egg will need to be: $875,000. (Why 25? Because one divided by 0.04 is 25.) Millennials aren't the only ones operating under dangerous misconceptions when it comes to retirement. There's a good chance that no matter how old you are, you're under some illusions. Spend a little timereading up on the topicand put a plan into action -- and your retirement may bemuchmore comfortable. 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 adisclosure policy. || Why General Motors Could Be Leaving Korea for Good: In recent years, General Motors (NYSE: GM) has posted consistently strong profits in its two largest markets: North America and China. However it has struggled in the rest of the world. As a result, management has moved aggressively since 2015 to exit markets where there was no clear path to sustainable profitability. These moves helped lift the General to a record profit in 2017. That said, one long-standing problem remains: GM Korea. The company has signaled that fixing its Korean business is a top priority for 2018. It's seeming increasingly likely that GM will ultimately have to end its manufacturing operations there to achieve this goal. General Motors begins the downsizing process Management first publicly raised the need for restructuring at GM Korea during General Motors' fourth-quarter earnings call earlier this month. The company didn't wait long to get started. Last week, it announced that it will close its manufacturing complex in Gunsan by the end of May. An aerial view of GM's manufacturing complex in Gunsan, South Korea GM Korea will close its Gunsan plant in South Korea. Image source: GM Korea. The Gunsan plant has been running at about 20% of capacity for the past three years, which is a recipe for big losses. This underutilization came about mainly from GM's late-2013 decision to stop selling Korean-built Chevrolets in Europe in the face of heavy losses. To make matters worse, domestic sales in South Korea plunged 27% last year. In conjunction with closing the Gunsan facility, General Motors expects to record a one-time asset impairment charge of approximately $475 million. It will also incur cash charges of up to $375 million for severance pay and other labor-related expenses. This is just the start GM has signaled that it is just beginning its restructuring effort in South Korea. The company operates three additional assembly plants in the country, and it will make decisions about their future in the coming weeks. Closing all of them is not out of the question. Story continues Indeed, GM Korea's problems go far deeper than underutilization of its factory capacity. Labor costs have increased by more than 50% since 2010, according to GM President Dan Ammann. Meanwhile, worker productivity is dreadful. It takes almost three hours longer to build a car in GM's Korean factories than at its U.S. facilities. Periodic strikes have further crippled profitability in the country. Nevertheless, General Motors has presented a plan to preserve thousands of jobs and maintain a significant manufacturing presence in South Korea. This would entail allocating new products to the country and making significant investments to retool the remaining production facilities. There are big strings attached to this offer, though. GM seems to want some combination of tax breaks, a capital infusion from the Korea Development Bank (already a minority shareholder in GM Korea), and pay concessions by the labor union. It will take a miracle to save this sinking ship General Motors has stated that it needs to make critical product allocation decisions in early March, so there isn't much time to reach a consensus among all of the interested parties in South Korea. This makes it rather unlikely that GM will be able to salvage its Korean unit. Predictably, the labor union has come out swinging, blaming GM Korea's problems on bad management and opposing any layoffs or pay cuts. It's hard to see the union completely reversing course in the next few weeks -- and as long as the union refuses to compromise, it would be irresponsible of GM's management to throw good money after bad by making further investments in South Korea. If General Motors does decide to wind down manufacturing in South Korea, a lot of GM Korea's production could be reallocated to Mexico (and perhaps also China and India). Mexico's broad network of trade deals and relatively low operating costs make it an ideal export hub. The additional volume could also help keep GM's Mexican factories busy if the company is forced to move some production from Mexico to the U.S. to appease the Trump administration. Most of the big decisions about the future of GM Korea will be made within the next month. As of now, the likelihood of a successful restructuring seems quite small. 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 General Motors. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || CACI Centralizes Operations in Oklahoma to Boost Performance: Information technology services provider,CACI International Inc.CACI recently unveiled its plans to establish a Shared Services Center or SSC in Oklahoma City, OK, to centralize operations and boost its presence in the region. The strategic decision will also enable it to improve productivity and efficiency levels by collating resources from a single pool.CACI International expects the new SSC to be functional by July this year. The company already has a significant presence in the city and further aims to capitalize on the low-cost advantage and high-quality talent of the region to improve its return on investments. The new facility will deploy standardization and automation of fully integrated business systems and processes to increase its efficacy. At the same time, the decision will have an economic impact by generating more employment opportunities and ancillary business for the region.CACI International intends to drive operational excellence by intensively focusing on a holistic growth model and strengthening its existing customer relationships while building newer ones. The company anticipates benefiting significantly from its cost-reduction program. It is also focused on its strategy to grow in larger markets, drive operational excellence and leverage mergers and acquisitions to increase market share and create long-term value for its shareholders. With diligent execution of operational plans, CACI International has outperformed the industry in the last three months with an average return of 16.4% compared with a 6% gain for the latter. In addition, CACI International has a large pipeline of new projects and continues to win more deals at regular intervals. These back-to-back contract wins are the key catalysts to the company’s success. Furthermore, having the government as a big client lends stability to the business and moderates fluctuations in revenues. Although the government’s approval process is usually lengthy, the project continues to earn money even years after it has been approved.Moreover, these contracts improve the visibility of future revenue streams. We believe the company is comfortably positioned, given its favored relationship with the Department of Defense. Cyber attacks are also creating increased awareness, leading to a heightened demand for cyber solutions.We remain encouraged by this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock’s relatively healthy growth dynamics. Other stocks in the industry worth considering include Ebix, Inc. EBIX, OBIC CO LTD OBIIF and CGI Group Inc. GIB, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2. You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.Ebix has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 10%. It has beaten earnings estimates in each of the trailing four quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 8.2%.OBIC CO has healthy long-term earnings growth expectation of 10%.CGI Group has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 9%.Don’t Even Think About Buying Bitcoin Until You Read ThisThe most popular cryptocurrency skyrocketed last year, giving some investors the chance to bank 20X returns or even more. Those gains, however, came with serious volatility and risk. Bitcoin sank 25% or more 3 times in 2017.Zacks has just released a new Special Report to help readers capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly.See 4 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 reportEbix, Inc. (EBIX) : Free Stock Analysis ReportCGI Group, Inc. (GIB) : Free Stock Analysis ReportCACI International, Inc. (CACI) : Free Stock Analysis ReportOBIC CO LTD (OBIIF) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || This Is Really Happening: Microsoft Is Developing Blockchain ID Within Its Authenticator App: In case you've been living under a rock, cryptocurrencies have pretty much been the talk of Wall Street and the investment community for more than a year now. Last year, the combined market value of all digital currencies added together rose by more than 3,300%, marking perhaps the single-greatest year for an asset class in history. Though things have cooled off a bit so far in 2018, the intrigue that virtual currencies offer hasn't waned. While there are numerous factors that investors and businesses are excited about, arguably none stands taller than the introduction of blockchain technology . A businessman touching an encrypted block on a digital screen that's part of a larger blockchain. Image source: Getty Images. The buzz about blockchain For those of you who are unfamiliar with blockchain, it merely describes the digital, distributed, and decentralized ledger that's tethered to a cryptocurrency and is responsible for recording all transactions without the need for a financial intermediary. In other words, it's a transparent logbook of all transactions that's unchangeable and doesn't allow banks to act as middlemen during a transaction. Blockchain's entrance on the center stage, which essentially occurred when bitcoin debuted in 2009, is a result of perceived flaws with the current payment platform in place at financial institutions. In particular, blockchain was seen as a way to lower transaction fees by ditching banks as the third party during transactions and to significantly speed up processing and settling times, since blockchain-based payments are proofed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In fact, some blockchains offer the ability to process transactions almost instantly -- even cross-border transactions. To summarize, blockchain offers the potential for quicker transactions , lower fees, and perhaps stepped-up security as a result of its decentralization, which ensures that no single entity (including hackers) can ever gain control over a network or cryptocurrency. Though financial institutions are the most logical beneficiaries of blockchain, there are countless applications beyond the realm of currencies. Blockchain can be used to make supply chains more transparent, and they can be a perfect solution for immutable medical records. But for tech-giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) , blockchain is being viewed as the perfect solution for digital identities. A person holding a golden lock amid a connected digital structure. Image source: Getty Images. No joke: Microsoft is developing a blockchain-based ID Microsoft has been dabbling with the idea of blockchain-based IDs for more than a year. In fact, it teamed up with Accenture (NYSE: ACN) in June 2017 to create the ID2020 blockchain solution , which is designed to solve the identity challenges faced by more than 1 billion people worldwide. This project combines Accenture's knowledge of blockchain and biometrics with Microsoft's cloud platform Azure to give people who've previously been shut out of owning a business, traveling, or keeping their identity safe, a means to do so. Story continues However, a recent Microsoft blog post suggests that "Ole Softy" is diving headfirst into the idea of decentralized IDs built within its Authenticator app, which is currently used by millions of people. For those wondering, an authenticator is an extra layer of protection beyond just a password that uses a token or code, as an example, to identify a returning device or user. Microsoft's cloud community and developers believe that blockchain represents the perfect way for users to control their digital identities, while also giving users control over who accesses that data. For the past year, the company participated in the Decentralized Identity Foundation with individuals and organizations, leading to the idea of a blockchain ID that'll have four key components: Decentralized identifiers (DIDs). An Identity Hub, which is where encrypted identities will be stored. A Universal DID Resolver, which is a server that resolves DIDs across blockchains. Verifiable credentials. In simpler terms, as described by ZDNet , whereas today's identity systems require authentication and access management by numerous apps, a decentralized blockchain ID system with DIDs and identity hubs could allow developers to customize apps and services that rely on attestations -- claims about parts of an individual's identity that other entities endorse -- requiring less of a user's personal information to be processed. Binary code and blockchain nodes with the digital outline of the continents in the background. Image source: Getty Images. There are going to be some major challenges Of course, we all know that no game-changing idea comes easy, and developing DIDs within the construct of the Authenticator app is going to create a lot of challenges. Tops on the list is scaling it all to work for millions of people without a degradation in performance. Ankur Patel, from Microsoft's Identity Division, said in the blog post: Some public blockchains (Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum, Litecoin, to name a select few) provide a solid foundation for rooting DIDs, recording DPKI [decentralized public key infrastructure] operations, and anchoring attestations. While some blockchain communities have increased on-chain transaction capacity (e.g. blocksize increases), this approach generally degrades the decentralized state of the network and cannot reach the millions of transactions per second the system would generate at world-scale. To overcome these technical barriers, we are collaborating on decentralized Layer 2 protocols that run atop these public blockchains to achieve global scale, while preserving the attributes of a world class DID system. Here are some things to note about this statement. First, there are performance scaling issues for some of the most successful blockchain projects. Secondly, solutions aren't at the ready. Microsoft is merely at the point of collaborating on how to fix these scalability issues so performance doesn't suffer. How long is it going to take to develop these protocols and prove that they work when scaled? No one knows for sure, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Just as importantly, how long will it take for developers to tailor apps to properly recognize and rely on attestations? Microsoft can do what it can on its end to push the development of a scalable decentralized ID, but it won't get very far if developers and businesses don't embrace it. This remains perhaps the biggest Catch-22 of blockchain : No businesses will dive in until scalability has been proven, yet scalability can't be proven until businesses give the technology a chance. Personally, I applaud Microsoft's initiative, but I doubt it becomes a viable global project anytime soon because of these challenges. 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 Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Sean Williams has no position in any of the stocks or cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Accenture, but has position in any of the cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . View comments || Disney World's Greedy Move Is Brilliant: It's going to cost a bit more to stay in the heart of the action atDisney's(NYSE: DIS)Florida resort starting next week. Disney World will start charging overnight guests with cars parking fees for bookings on or after March 21. The amounts may not seem like much, proportionally speaking. The nightly rates -- $13 for the resort's value-priced properties, $19 for the moderate ones, and $24 for the high-end deluxe hotels -- will be a small piece of the far more expensive on-site Disney World vacation. However, as you can probably imagine, social media is ablaze with park fans arguing that the theme park giant has finally gone too far. Regulars naturally hate whenever Mickey Mouse digs deeper into their pockets, but shareholders may see things differently. Image source: Disney. The argument here is that charging guests for overnight resort parking is a sign of the times. Disney World's nearest rival -- Universal Orlando -- has been demanding parking fees for years. There are plenty of budget lodging options around town with free paved lots, but most of the area's better establishments have historically charged guests for their parked vehicles. Disney stood out because of its free parking as well as its complimentary Disney Magical Express motorcoach transportation to and from Orlando International Airport. It feels that now is the right time to introduce a new line item to guest bills, and there could be more to this move than simply increasing its revenue per available room. There's momentum in Disney's theme parks business. Domestic theme park attendance rose 6% in Disney's latest quarter with per-capita spending up another 7%. This is the only Disney segmentgrowing these days, and the near-term outlook is just as impressive. Disney revealed during last month's earnings call that reservation bookings were running 3% higher than at the same pace last year with guests paying 13% more in the process. There may never be a right time to introduce a new fee, but if you're going to do so, you may as well do it when things are going well. The neat thing about this move is that it may encourage more guests to leave their cars at home or to not bother renting vehicles at the airport. Disney Magical Express is a free benefit, complete with free luggage delivery and resort-side check-in on the way out. There's a method to the madness if that's the case, as families with their own cars will likely venture outside of the resort to find cheaper meals elsewhere, buy groceries off-site, and -- more importantly -- hit up rival attractions. Charging guests to park is essentially a car tax, and that's one more way to keep its overnight guests close. Many hotel guests will turn to Uber or Lyft to venture outside of Disney World's clutches, but the vast majority of visitors will settle for letting the resort's growing transportation options shuttle them from place to place within Disney World. One way or another, Disney will find a way to milk more money out of its park guests, and while2018 may be a hard sellin terms of new attractions, this is just one more masterful chess move for the media giant to claim checkmate next year when Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge comes online. 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 Rick Munarrizowns shares of Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Bitcoin rallies on Tuesday, reaching towards $7400: BTC/USD Bitcoin traders rallied a bit during the day on Tuesday, reaching towards the $7400 level. That’s an area that had previously been support, so it could be a bit of resistance. If we break down below the $7200 level, the market could then go down to the $7000 level, perhaps down to the $6600 level, an area that was supportive in the past as well. I think that the market will continue to be volatile, but I still believe that selling the rallies will be the best way to trade this market. I think that the Bitcoin markets will continue to be volatile to say the least. Get Into Bitcoin Trading Today BTC/JPY the Bitcoin markets also rallied against the Japanese yen, breaking above the ¥775,000 level, an area of minor resistance. However, I think that when we rally, it’s going to be reason to start selling again. The ¥1 million level above is massive resistance, extending to the ¥1.1 million level. I believe that we will eventually find some type of exhaustion that we concert selling, as Bitcoin markets continue to suffer longer-term downward pressure. The ¥675,000 level has recently offered a bit of support, and a breakdown below there could send the market to the ¥650,000 level. The market will probably break down to ¥500,000 level after that. At this point, I don’t think that the Bitcoin markets will pick up any type of momentum, at least nothing that can be sustained. It’s only a matter of time before the sellers get involved from what I see, so patience might be needed to take advantage of the overall downtrend. BTC/USD Video 04.04.18 Buy & Sell Bitcoin Instantly This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Sees Red as the Bears Fight Back Gold Prices Continue to be Buoyant USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Pressured by Rising Trade Tensions NEO Technical Analysis – Tests Support Early – 04/04/18 Daily Market Forecast – Crude Oil under Pressure, Yen Stays in Range Has Amazon Found Its Competitor? || There Are Nearly 50 Million Smart Speaker Users in the U.S.: The smart speaker market is booming, and this year will be aparticularly momentous oneas adoption accelerates. Tech giants continue to jump into the market and expand existing offerings while fine-tuning their voice-controlled virtual assistants. That has important implications beyond just the device manufacturers themselves, as smart speakers are turning into veritable computing platforms. Third-party services will have an opportunity thrive on those platforms, innovating entirely new revenue models. There are now nearly 50 million smart speaker users in the U.S. Image source: Amazon. Voicebot has partnered with PullString and RAIN Agency to release a new report on the growing smart speaker market and related audience, detailing findings based on a national survey of 1,057 U.S. adult consumers. The report points out that smart speakers were the "number one gift during the 2017 holiday season," with 16% of respondents saying they either gave or received one as a present. Approximately 20% of U.S. adults now have access to a smart speaker, which translates into 47.3 million U.S. users. Note that there's a distinction between smart speaker owners and users. Unlike mobile devices, smart speakers are stationary and can be accessed and used by anyone in the household, so some of the users the study refers to may be users that are not the primary owner. On average, households contain 1.8 smart speakers, as consumers are increasingly starting to place smart speakers throughout the home in different rooms. About two-thirds of households only have a single smart speaker, 85% of households have one or two, and 15% of households have three or more. A little over 2% of households have five to 10 devices, and 1.7% of households just can't get enough and have more than 10 devices. That's good news for manufacturers, as there is plenty of upside. Not only is there lots of room for growth in terms of first-time adopters, but also within the majority of households that only have one device. This is why it's becoming increasingly important to offer adiverse range of smart speakers that span various price points. Of course, any discussion of smart speakers would be remiss if we don't talk about market leaderAmazon.com(NASDAQ: AMZN). WhileAlphabet(NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL)subsidiary Google is making a noticeable dent in the market, Amazon had a dominating 72% share of the installed base in 2017. [{"Manufacturer": "Amazon", "Smart Speaker Market Share Installed Base 2017": "71.9%"}, {"Manufacturer": "Google", "Smart Speaker Market Share Installed Base 2017": "18.4%"}, {"Manufacturer": "Other", "Smart Speaker Market Share Installed Base 2017": "9.7%"}] Data source: Voicebot. Within "Other," Sonos was the leader, thanks in part to integrating Alexa in its products like the new Sonos One. That means Alexa's overall position is even stronger than just looking at Amazon-branded devices. Better late than never,Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL)just officially jumped into the market last month with its (delayed) launch of the $350 HomePod. Rumors suggest that the Mac maker is working on a "HomePod Mini" that would be priced at a relatively more affordable $150 to $200. Apple will likely stay out of the low-end part of the market, despite unit growth being concentrated there. Amazon's Echo Dot and Google's Home Mini, both aggressively priced around $50, are enjoying brisk sales and grabbed a combined 41% of the market last year, according to the report. Sales of Home Mini overtook the regular Google Home in just three months. It's hard to imagine Apple venturing that far down into the market. 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.Evan Niu, CFAowns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, and 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 adisclosure policy. || Avalon Life - Explores the Use of Blockchain for Asset Protection: SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA / ACCESSWIRE / February 15, 2018 /The blockchain is well known for its role in the ascent of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Not only does this technology underpin the success of Bitcoin, whose value rose 1,400% in 2017, it is also an emerging option for asset protection, according toAvalon Life.Research firmshave forecast that the business value from blockchain technology will exceed $176 billion by 2025. The distributed digital ledger has many applications to asset management. Its ability to protect data records from alteration, resilience against cyberattacks, and high process integrity provide considerable value to those industries who operate with complex supply chains. Notably, blockchain's two-key system used to conduct transactions is an important feature in protection. To transfer an asset requires a public and private key, the latter which is known only to the owner. It can also be held by a trustee or manager for safekeeping. Access could involve multiple keys for a portion, or all, of the asset to prevent any one person from acting unilaterally. Large multinational corporations are already exploring the utility of the blockchain to protect their assets, saysAvalon Life.Reutersreported that diamond producer De Beers is preparing to launch an industry-wide blockchain this year which will authenticate diamonds, ensuring that the gems do not originate in conflict zones. In 2017,Fortunereported that a consortium of pharmaceutical firms, including Genentech and Pfizer, had started the MediLedger Project. The initiative uses blockchain technology to prevent stolen or counterfeit drugs from entering the industry supply chain. Under this system, every drug shipment will be accompanied by a secure record of transaction. The development of the blockchain as an asset protection tool is subject to several risks as it begins to play a greater role in the physical economy. ConsultancyE&Yasserts that regulatory uncertainty remains a challenge for firms implementing the technology and that the significant upfront investment required could be a potential deterrent. Nonetheless, the distributed ledger is quickly becoming a viable alternative to traditional methods that guarantee protection of assets, such as centralized contracts and records, which are increasingly costly and time consuming in a globalized, digitized economy. Adoption of blockchain opportunities will allow businesses to position their products and services for growth in the age of technology. In a 2017 survey byJuniper Research, 6 out of 10 large corporations were considering blockchain deployment. Of those firms that have established its feasibility for business application, two-thirds expect to integrate blockchain into internal systems by the end of 2018. Avalon Lifeis an active crypto community with over 168,000 members, headquartered in Costa Rica. The company enables its partners to participate in blockchain and cryptocurrency markets, while also serving as educators to the wider public about these technologies.Avalon Lifeoffers a full range of products and services for the blockchain. It was an early provider of mining packages with the X11 algorithm and is the exclusive distribution partner of Bitsurge. As a product developer, the company focuses on using technology to strengthen environmental sustainability and social responsibility. Avalon Life - Blockchain Technology Solutions & Global Education Programs:http://avalonlifenews.comAvalon Life - on the Significance of Top US Exchanges Launching Bitcoin Futures:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/avalon-life-significance-top-us-194700246.htmlAvalon Life - Discusses the Business Benefits of Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/avalon-life-discusses-business-benefits-034000164.html Contact Information: AvalonLifeNews.comhttp://avalonlifenews.comcontact@avalonlifenews.com SOURCE:Avalon Life [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] It's easy to capture packets with Wireshark, the world's most popu http://bit.ly/1Rj5JJT  #Cybersecurity #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/sG6TOr1iKd || The fact that they are actually bitcoin. || GOLDMAN SACHS: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tend to be locked together — and that’s a big problem https://ino.to/-Gzj1Za  || People think it's okay to have some of your money in Bitcoin so is it okay to have some of your money and short VIX? How much. || 23/03/2018 - 01:00 ========================= • 0.28 #Bitcoin: ₺34,049.18 • 0.62 #Ethereum: ₺2,097.09 • -0.11 #Ripple: ₺2.56 • 0.24 #BitcoinCash: ₺3,946.72 ========================= ➜ Anlık fiyatlar için takip edin! #BitcoinTürkiye || Z zastoji odvračamo ljudi od vožnje z avti? Kaj pa javni prevoz, železnica npr spet ljudje sami http://prevozi.org . Pri nas se nič ne posodi kaj sele da bi se avto neki tuji osebi. Uber bo politika ustavila, samo vozeči bo pa vozil po BTC da se bo nek pripel mudaljo na prsa || Bitcoin doesn't https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/960960064621223936 … || "Bitcoin will trade at 6k and 60k" - @AriDavidPaulpic.twitter.com/UiH5NzEwGB || Antminer Ethereum Miner E3 Confirmed Hashrate And Price via /r/btc https://ift.tt/2EhrusU  || Major blockchain group says Europe should exempt Bitcoin from new data privacy rule https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/5/17199210/blockchain-group-europe-bitcoin-data-privacy?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter …pic.twitter.com/Knc8D7wnAJ
Trend: up || Prices: 6911.09, 7023.52, 6770.73, 6834.76, 6968.32, 7889.25, 7895.96, 7986.24, 8329.11, 8058.67
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Ripple Labs Joins W3C Web Payment Interest Group to Help Set Standards for the Value Web: SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 12, 2015) - Just as the information web requires open, neutral and transparent standards (like HTTP), so does the emerging value web. Ripple Labs today announced it has joined the W3C Web Payment Interest Group to help lay the foundation for this Internet for value exchange. The Group's purpose is to increase the adoption and use of web payments by improving conditions such as the interoperability of systems. "The lack of universal standards within today's financial system has led to increased systemic costs and hindered economic progress," said Ripple Labs CTO Stefan Thomas. "Much like the information web, we believe that open, neutral standards will create a more competitive environment resulting in improved efficiency and greater access in financial systems." Ripple Labs' mission is to enable the world to move money as easily as information moves on the web today. The company is the developer of Ripple , an Internet protocol that interconnects financial systems to securely transfer funds in any currency in real time. Ripple and its ability to power real-time settlement is only one of the many key components that will make the value web possible. "Critically, we believe that there will be multiple protocols and ledgers that make up the value web," continued Thomas. "However, they will all benefit from standardized interfaces and greater interoperability. We are excited about the work of W3C as a global standards-setting organization and look forward to helping build the framework for the future of web payments." As part of the Web Payments Interest Group, Ripple Labs will promote the need for web settlement standards and encourage the exploration of ways in which these standards could enable clearing and settlement across currently disparate payment networks. Banks, money transmitters and clearinghouses can use Ripple as a settlement technology and alternative to correspondent banking to facilitate straight through processing with no reserve funding required. Earthport , the largest open network for global bank payments, and three banks in the United States and Germany recently announced deployments of Ripple. For more information about Ripple Labs, please visit http://www.ripplelabs.com . For more information about Ripple, please visit http://www.ripple.com . About Ripple Labs Ripple Labs developed the Ripple protocol, an Internet for money that enables the free and instant exchange of anything of value. The San Francisco-based startup is funded by Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, IDG Capital Partners, Core Innovation Capital, FF Angel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bitcoin Opportunity Corp. and Vast Ventures. Story continues Named one of 2014's 50 Smartest Companies by MIT Technology Review, Ripple Labs' team of 80 is comprised of deeply experienced cryptographers, security experts, distributed network developers, Silicon Valley and Wall Street veterans. They contribute code to the open-source software, as well as develop tools for and recruit financial institutions and payment networks to use Ripple. The team shepherds a movement to evolve finance so that payment systems are open, secure, constructive and globally inclusive. About Ripple Ripple is an Internet protocol that interconnects all the world's disparate financial systems to enable the secure transfer of funds in any currency in real time -- consider it an Internet for money. As settlement infrastructure, Ripple transforms and enhances today's financial systems. Ripple unlocks assets and provides access to payment systems for everyone, empowering the world to move value like information moves today. For more information about Ripple, please visit http://www.ripple.com . View comments || Texas Bitcoin Conference Hackathon and Rivetz Boost Developers to Augment Android's Blockchain Capabilities: AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwired - Mar 26, 2015) - Texas Bitcoin Conference --Rivetz(http://rivetz.com/) today announced its partnership with the Texas Bitcoin Conference's hackathon (http://texasbitcoinconference.com/) to provide Rivetz-enabled Android smartphones and technical expertise to the participating teams. The Rivetz SDK provides developers with the tools to leverage the embedded security capabilities in Android phones for any of the proposed projects. Rivetz also has agreed to contribute a provisioned Galaxy Note 4 and $10,000 in Rivetz services to the winning team. The global focus on cyber security and identity creates great opportunities for many startup ideas and features. Blockchain technology is able to provide trusted execution on devices for identity management, providing a strong, secure foundation for innovation. "We are pleased to have the Rivetz team participating in the hackathon and look forward to the great innovation and sleepless nights," said Paul Snow, the conference's president and organizer. With Rivetz technological backing, hackathon developers will be able to rest easy knowing that the conference's security cannot be compromised. "So often, security is an afterthought. We are pleased to participate in the hackathon to show how security can be built in," said Steven Sprague, CEO of Rivetz. "The market is ready for innovative solutions which leverage the advanced security capabilities of modern hardware." The Texas Bitcoin Conference will take place in Austin, Texas, at the Moody Theater, home ofAustin City Limits Live. The hackathon will take place from March 27 to 29, 2015. About RivetzRivetz Corp. is focused on solving problems associated with consumers' relationships with financial and other online services. Rivetz provides a safer and easier-to-use model for all users to protect their digital assets and online transactions using hardware-based device identity. The device plays a critical role in automating security and enabling the controls that users need to benefit from modern services. Rivetz leverages state-of-the-art cybersecurity tools to develop a modern model for users and their devices to interact with services on the Internet. For more information, visitwww.Rivetz.com. All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. || Entrepreneurs Look With 'Hungry Eyes' At The Marijuana Startup Scene: The growing business of legal marijuana in the United States has opened up an entirely new industry for entrepreneurs hoping to get a slice of the pie. Theaverage cannabis consumerspends almost $2,000 per year on marijuana related products, a relatively large spend that has spawned a new startup culture outside Silicon Valley. Canada Home To Many Pot Startups While cities like Boston and New York have started to give Silicon Valley a run for its money in terms of attracting the best and the brightest, the California city remains the number one destination for startups hoping to raise money and gain traction. When it comes to the business of weed though,Canadais the home of choice for up and coming pot-firms. Since Canadian laws already allow medicinal marijuana at a federal level, new businesses are able to engage with banks and operate without fear of being closed down. Some startups are braving the ever changing U.S. political landscape to base their businesses on American soil; but most of those companies are unable to secure bank loans or even open accounts, leaving them with large sums of cash and hefty security fees. Pot-Tech The technology space is one of the most inviting sectors for entrepreneurs looking to start a marijuana-based business. The scalability of tech products means that the companies in this arena can grow and change rapidly, an important factor as the marijuana trade is still in its infancy. Related Link:As 2016 Election Approaches, Marijuana Could Be A Hot Topic Companies likeMassRoots, a weed-based social media site, andEaze, a pot-delivery service are springing up everywhere as developers race to fill the gap between technology and the new marijuana industry. Though there has been a positive reception for such companies among pot supporters, many of them have struggled with differing marijuana policies from state to state. Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL) refused to allow customers to download weed-related apps for months until developers implemented controls keeping users whose states had not legalized weed from using their services. A Need For Quality Weed Growers likeVida CannabisandCann Trustare also gaining traction as the demand for quality products rises in the states. Growing companies face more barriers to entry than some other startups as they are required to invest in the equipment necessary for producing marijuana plants as well as hiring educated staff that can care for and harvest the plants correctly. Investors Take Notice The boom in pot-startups has not been lost on big name investors. Calvin Broads, Jr, also known as Snoop Dogg, said earlier this year that he wasplanningto raise $25 million in order to invest in cannabis companies. The famous rapper has already poured money into non-pot startups likeRobinhoodandReddit, but says his next venture will be weed-based. Earlier this year, Peter Thiel's venture capital firm,Founders Fund, poured money into Privateer Holdings, a company that invests in several marijuana startups. See more from Benzinga • Nasdaq Backs Up Bitcoin-Based Exchange • Is The Euro Moving Higher Or Lower? And What Should You Do About It? • Cybersecurity Firms Are Ready To Fight For Government Contracts © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Alternet Systems Advances Strategic Initiative to Become a Leading Global Digital Currency Exchange Through OneMarket: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Feb 12, 2015) -Alternet Systems, Inc.(OTCQB:ALYI) (the "Company"), a business to business facilitator for digital currency and mobile commerce services in the digital asset and virtual currency ecosystem, today announced that the Company continues to make progress on their strategic initiative to become a leading global digital currency exchange through its wholly-owned subsidiary OneMarket (www.onemarket.net). The Company continues to aggressively pursue the highly anticipated New York State BitLicense, which will further facilitate a global exchange roll-up strategy. In July of 2014, the New York Department of Financial Services revealed its regulatory framework, stating that businesses that receive, transmit, store, exchange, issue or convert virtual currency for customers will need to be licensed. New York State's top financial regulator, Benjamin Lawsky, the superintendent of the state's Department of Financial Services recently stated that he hoped to approve the first companies early this year according to the New York Times. Coinbase, a leading industry wallet service, recently announced a $75 million funding which included the New York Stock Exchange and became the first licensed U.S. based Bitcoin exchange approved to operate as an exchange in 24 states. The Company believes that this was an important industry milestone and has positive commercial implications for other companies such as Alternet Systems going forward. Alternet Systems, through OneMarket, is setting the agreements, plans and procedures in place to become a global digital currency exchange. In doing so, OneMarket will buy/sell digital currency, foreign currencies and commodities. Additionally, OneMarket will offer an entire suite of financial and payment consumer products designed for digital and fiat currencies such as a debit and credit card. Henryk Dabrowski, CEO of Alternet Systems, stated, "Coinbase's recent funding and launch of the first licensed Bitcoin exchange was an important signal to investors of the commercial opportunities in the growing market for digital assets. Alternet continues our aggressive pursuit of a license in New York State, working closely with their regulators, as we are also evaluating several global opportunities to utilize our public company platform and strong industry relationships to possibly consummate strategic acquisitions of currency exchanges. It is our intent to continue pursuing a strategy of cooperation with regulators so that when we are granted permission we have put all the necessary building blocks in place to take the maximum advantage of our ability to monetize." About Alternet Systems, Inc.:Alternet Systems, Inc. is an enterprise accelerator company focused on the complementary, high-growth markets of Digital Currency and Mobile and Internet Commerce products and services. Through its subsidiaries, Alternet captures and converts extraordinary growth opportunities surrounding the explosion of newly adapted Internet technologies and platforms. More information about Alternet and its subsidiaries can be found atwww.alternetsystems.comand by following the company on Twitterwww.twitter.com/alternetsystems. Safe Harbor Statement:Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the Company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. || Hong Kong warns over digital currencies amid alleged bitcoin fraud: By Michelle Price HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong's central bank has warned people against investing in virtual currencies amid local media reports that a bitcoin exchange may have run off with $387 million in client funds - making it potentially the biggest bitcoin scandal after last year's bankruptcy at Tokyo-based Mt.Gox. The South China Morning Post reported on Monday that clients of Hong Kong-based MyCoin had approached a local lawmaker alleging the company absconded with their money. An assistant for Legislative Council member Leung Yiu-chung told Reuters that Leung had received more than 15 complaints from MyCoin clients regarding the alleged fraud, and these would be passed on to the police on Wednesday. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said in a statement late on Monday that the case "may involve fraud or pyramid schemes," adding: "Given the highly speculative nature of Bitcoin, we have all along urged the public to exercise extra caution when considering making transactions or investments with Bitcoin." Calls to MyCoin in Hong Kong could not be connected. Calls to the company's China customer service line were not answered. Bitcoins are created through a 'mining' process where a computer's resources are used to perform millions of calculations. Advocates say the virtual currency is revolutionary as it's not controlled by a central bank and has potential as an alternative means of online payment. But the rise of bitcoin, which is unregulated in many countries including Hong Kong, has stoked concerns it can be used as a vehicle to launder money and finance extremist groups. Mt.Gox, once the world's largest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy a year ago after it claimed to have lost around $500 million worth of customer bitcoins in a hacking attack. On its website, MyCoin claims to be a "leading global Bitcoin trading platform and application service provider," with a China-based research and development team. Story continues MyCoin promised clients a HK$1 million ($128,976) return over a 4-month period based on a HK$400,000 investment that would produce 90 bitcoins on maturity, the South China Morning Post reported, adding MyCoin claimed to have 3,000 customers each investing an average of HK$1 million. The price of a bitcoin has slumped from a late-2013 high of above $1,000 to around $220, according to CoinDesk's price index. ($1 = 7.7534 Hong Kong dollars) (Additional reporting by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Ian Geoghegan) || Obama Pushes Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership Forward: On Saturday, U.S. President Barack Obama began working to push his plans for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement through congress despite dissension coming from his own party. During his weekly address, the President urged lawmakers to consider the benefits of lowering barriers to trade with Asia and expressed his support for passing “fast track” legislation that will quickly move the trade agreement through Congress and allow the U.S. to finalize the details of the deal with foreign lawmakers. Political Presence Supporters of the trade deal say it is important for the U.S. to become more involved in Asian trade, where China has become a dominant exporter. Not only will the deal allow the U.S. to facilitate trade between itself and Asian nations easily, but it gives the US a bit more political power in the region. During his address, Obama commented that without U.S. involvement, China will be free to “write the rules of trade in the 21st century.” Support Exports Additionally, the Obama Administration has said the deal would lower trade barriers and give U.S. exports a must-needed boost. In the past, the U.S. has seen exports to countries with which it maintains free-trade agreements rise; a good indication that the TPP would boost exports to Asia. Related Link: Federal Reserve To Proceed With Caution TPP Has Many Critics However lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are wary of a trade agreement with Asia, citing concerns about currency manipulation and the failure of past agreements to live up to expectations. Some worry that increased trade with Asia will lower wages and decrease job growth as more and more Americans will begin to buy foreign products due to the rising strength of the dollar. Automakers have been particularly vocal about this issue, calling for currency manipulation rules to be written into a trade agreement with Asian nations. See more from Benzinga Bitcoin And Tax Season: What You Should Know Lawmakers Push For Federal Law To Align With States' Marijuana Legalization Uber Makes The Best Of A Ban In Spain © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Coin Outlet Acquires LibertyX Bitcoin ATM Network: BURLINGTON, NC--(Marketwired - Mar 2, 2015) - Coin Outlet Inc is taking another step towards being the biggest Bitcoin ATM network by acquiring LibertyX's (formerly Liberty Teller's) ATM network. The four LibertyX machines will be rebranded as Coin Outlet ATMs but will still remain in their existing locations. LibertyX gained fame for launching the very first Bitcoin ATM in the United States at Boston's South Station, only a year ago. LibertyX Co-Founder Chris Yim said the decision to sell the ATM arm of their company to Coin Outlet was "a natural evolution of their business and allows them to scale quickly and focus on adding partners and services to their existing 2,500 cash-to-bitcoin store locations." Coin Outlet is also pleased to announce a newly developed backend network ecosystem that the Lamassu machines hook into. This system will allow any existing Bitcoin ATM machine or existing traditional ATM machine to exist on the Coin Outlet platform, regardless of the hardware platform of that machine. With this development, Coin Outlet will have the capital-raising ability to acquire existing viable ATM markets with proven revenue streams, and grow rapidly. Eric Grill, Coin Outlet's CEO, explains, "Integrating other hardware solutions into our backend network is part of our expansion strategy as it opens the door for more acquisitions and further scaling of the Coin Outlet network." Coin Outlet, INC:Coin Outlet, INC. is a rapidly growing startup that manufactures and operates AML/KYC-compliant Bitcoin ATMs with two-way transaction functionality. It provides a convenient means for the general public to safely buy and sell bitcoins with cash. Coin Outlet is proudly supported by its lead investor Bitcoin Shop, Inc. (OTCQB:BTCS) which is building a universal digital currency platform under the BTCS ("Blockchain Technology Consumer Solutions") brand. More information about Coin Outlet can be found atwww.coinoutletatm.comand investor information is atangel.co/coinoutlet-2 || Morgan Spurlock Takes On Bitcoin: “Super Size Me” director Morgan Spurlock is using his own experience to explain the growing popularity ofbitcoinon aCNNdocumentary called "Inside Man." The show is set to air February 19 at 21:00 ET and will showcase Spurlock’s difficulty using the cryptocurrency in everyday life. Profiling Bitcoin The episode will include Spurlock’s experience at mining firm CoinMiner, as well as his futile attempts to purchase everyday items using bitcoin. In addition to his own experiences, the show will also include a detailed explanation of what bitcoin is and how the currency is mined, something many believe could help in expanding its adoption. Daily Use Is Currently Futile However, the program also underscores the lack of practical uses for bitcoin. Spurlock attempts to survive using only bitcoin and finds every day tasks, like buying a coffee, difficult. While run-of-the-mill purchases are arduous, the episode points out that illegal and illicit activities are relatively simple using the dark web. Related Link: Crytocurrencies May Be Down, But Blockchain Technology Is Still Hot Challenges And Possibilities Spurlock’s experience using bitcoin is expected to mirror the currency’s actual challenges— that mainstream use is hampered by mistrust, security concerns and volatility. Despite that, an inside look at the currency’s driving technology is likely to help pique the interest of the masses. Blockchain, the ledger that bitcoin functions on, has been hailed by many as one of the most important inventions of the decade and although bitcoin may not succeed, blockchain is likely to continue growing and expanding. See more from Benzinga • How Long Can The Federal Government Ignore Marijuana Policy? • The Mobile Payments Race Is On • U.S. Military Drones Up For Sale © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Police risk losing tech arms race with criminals: Europol: AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Austerity and funding cuts threaten to place police at a technological disadvantage against increasingly innovative and high-tech criminal organizations, Europe's policing agency warned on Monday. Europol said criminal gangs had a new array of technological tools at their disposal, ranging from hard-to-trace virtual currencies like Bitcoin to communications systems that allowed organizations to become looser and more decentralized. "Sustained austerity threatens to leave law enforcement behind the curve and unable to close the gap to criminal actors, who continuously innovate and invest," the Hague-based organization said in a report. Scattered crime groups would increasingly do deals in a "virtual criminal underground," carrying out transactions using virtual currencies and leaving little organizational footprint for police to target, Europol said. Europol's warning echoes concern in national intelligence agencies. Last year, the Netherlands said Islamist radicals in Europe were increasingly organizing themselves online, becoming an elusive and decentralized "swarm". Cracking such networks would need skills few police forces currently had, Europol said, adding that if budgets did not rise, victims of cybercrime might have to step up themselves, "crowdsourcing" the funding to investigate incidents. The agency said that the shifting balance of the global economy would also bring about changes in the nature of the crimes faced by police in Europe. As the continent's relative prosperity declined, the streams of economic migrants trying to enter the continent via the Mediterranean and the Balkans would slow or change direction. "Europe ... may not necessarily remain in the top tier of desired destination regions" for economic migrants, it said. In the longer term, criminal gangs could begin offering their services to European economic migrants hoping to gain illegal entry to the Asian or South American labor markets. (Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Crispian Balmer) || Your first trade for Monday: The " Fast Money " traders revealed their final trades of the day. Tim Seymour was a buyer of the TUR (NYSE Arca: TUR) . Steve Grasso was a buyer of MTW ( MTW ) . Brian Kelly was a buyer of the GLD (NYSE Arca: GLD) . Guy Adami was a buyer of FB ( FB ) . Trader disclosure: On March 20, 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 T, BAC, C, DIS, XOM, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, TUR, EWZ, SUNE, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, KO, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX. Brian Kelly is long BTC=, US Dollar, GLD, EEM, CTRL calls, GSG, HYG puts, BBRY, TLT, he is short Yuan, today he bought EEM. Steve Grasso is long BA, CLVS, EVGN, FB, GDX, GOOGL, IMMR, KBH, KDUS, MHY, MJNA, PFE, POT, SO, T, TMUS, TWTR, his firm is long AMZN, NE, NEM, OXY, RIG, VALE, AVP, KO, MCD, USO his kids are long EFG, EFA, EWJ, IJR, SPY. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC CNBC.com News Page CNBC.com Blogs Page CNBC.com Earnings Central [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Current price of #Bitcoin is $295.00 via Chain || BTCTurk 569.2 TL Koinim 595.99 TL CampBx 246.00 $ BTCe 233.523 $ BitStamp 236.74 $ CEXIO 236 $ #Bitcoin #btc http://bitcoindunyasi.com  || Current price: 225.77€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-03-24 23:00:04 CET || $247.55 at 18:30 UTC [24h Range: $245.00 - $254.56 Volume: 4706 BTC] || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000009 Bittrex: 0.00000008 Average $2.3E-5 per #reddcoin 06:00:01 || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 21 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $279.21 #bitcoin #btc || BTCe Prices LAST: $214.00 BID: $213.63 ASK: $214.00 VOL: 8690.53 BTC http://bit.ly/Cryptoticks  || Current price: 153.93£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-02-24 17:00:07 GMT || Current price: 277.88€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-03-17 10:00:04 CET || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 16291.00 INR Sell : 15772.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin
Trend: down || Prices: 247.53, 244.22, 247.27, 253.01, 254.32, 253.70, 260.60, 255.49, 253.18, 245.02
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)] NY regulator approves Winklevoss bid to trade digital currency ether: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state has approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade digital currency ether on its bitcoin exchange, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday. Ether, an alternative currency that differs from bitcoin, is a token or digital asset of the Ethereum platform, a blockchain, or public ledger of all ether transactions. The platform uses ether to execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically without the need for intermediaries. The currency is often used by software developers. "With robust regulatory oversight, we are maintaining our status at the forefront of this technological revolution and ensuring that users have a safe and secure experience," Cuomo said in a statement. The approval by the New York State Department of Financial Services marks the state's first consent for a digital currency-related service beyond bitcoin. Trading on ether will begin on Monday, May 9, said Cameron Winklevoss, Gemini's co-founder and president, in an interview with Reuters. Customers will be able to store their ether from Thursday until it starts trading on the exchange on Monday. Winklevoss also said the brothers' investment firm Winklevoss Capital is a "significant" holder of ether. "We started buying ether at the beginning of the year," Winklevoss said. "Ethereum Foundation has a set number of ether that they have set aside over a period of time..(and) the proceeds from that go to the funding of the foundation and the developers to further the protocol." The Winklevoss twins chose ether to trade on their exchange because of its "unique capabilities" that are different from bitcoin. "There is a place for ether on our platform. It does what bitcoin doesn't do," Winklevoss said. "So that is the sort of criteria: that it is different enough from bitcoin and the proposition is great enough that this makes sense for us to include it in our platform." According to coinmarketcap.com, ether is trading at $9.97 on late Thursday, with a market capitalization of about $795 million, the second largest behind bitcoin. Bitcoin currently has a market cap of $6.9 billion. Daily volume for ether is around $20 million. Ether trades on other exchanges as well, but Winklevoss said those exchanges are unregulated or unlicensed. "It's pretty clear that in the U.S. if you're an exchange, you are required at the minimum a money transmission license in each state," Winklevoss said. "Anybody who's operating an ether exchange doesn't have a license and is on borrowed time." Demand for ether has steadily increased since its launch last year. "Most of the people who work on ether right now are (software) developers developing applications for smart contracts on Ethereum and you need ether to do that," Winklevoss said. Aside from developers, British pop artist Imogen Heap has put her music on the Ethereum platform. "She (Heap) created smart contracts on Ethereum whereby if you send enough ether to the address on the contracts, you can download her songs," Winklevoss said. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by David Gregorio and Andrew Hay) || IFAN Financial, Inc., Netclearance Systems Begin Commercial Deployment Of Smart Beacon Technology: SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 14, 2016 /IFAN Financial, Inc. - (OTC PINK: IFAN), ("IFAN" or "the Company"), a designer, developer, and distributor of software to enable mobile payments, announced that it has begun commercial deployment of the mBeaconPay and mBeacon2 ("M2") payments technology in collaboration with its strategic partner Netclearance Systems ("Netclearance"). This deployment follows the successful completion of beta testing for these systems. mBeaconPayis the first mobile OS agnostic cash-based payment terminal for retail, transit, gas and hospitality. The mBeaconPay supports all wireless proximity technologies such as BLE, NFC, QR and Wi-Fi in a single unit and integrates seamlessly with all point of sale system. mBeaconPay was recently nominated for Best Cash Innovation Award by PYMNTS.com, one of the leading publications in the payments and commerce industry. ThemBeacon2is a dual transmitter beacon that engages Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE devices in proximity. mBeacon2 is ideal for engagement applications and also can be deployed in presence applications. The mBeacon2 transmits a Wi-Fi and BLE signal simultaneously that can trigger events and engage mobile clients regardless of smartphone operating system J. Christopher Mizer, President and CEO of IFAN Financial commented, "Our mBeaconPay and M2 represent one of the most versatile technologies in our industry. This technology is suitable for small to large scale retail operations, basically any business-to-consumer entity where the company take payments from the customer using any global currency, including Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. It integrates seamlessly with our PayX platform, offering flexible form factors, including white label and flexible power options, and is plug and play with point-of-sale terminals, while supporting multiple enterprise applications. "mBeaconPay and M2 provide loud connectivity via Wi-Fi, Ethernet or Mesh, and have configurable power transmission and receive sensitivity. We have engineered extended battery-life into our battery powered models, lasting over 5 years without a charge, and all enjoy integrated enterprise security (AES, SHA, ECC)." Mizer added, "The future is cashless, and we already see this in several of the smaller economies in Europe. There are over 35,000 beacon deployments in Denmark and Norway, with $28 billion in transactions processed. Combined the GDP of both nations is $847 billion, about half of which is consumer spending. This means that beacons are already handling about 5% of consumer spending there already. We look forward to demonstrating the versatility of our platform as we announce further commercial contracts that will utilize the mBeaconPay and M2 technology." About IFAN Financial, Inc. along with its wholly owned subsidiaries and joint ventures, design, develop, and distribute technology to enable and enhance mobile and traditional payments. The IFAN Platform consists of proximity based beacons, merchant processing, a mobile wallet, and prepaid card and debit card options. IFAN's consumer facing entity, PayX, includes a portfolio of payment solutions through the mobile optimized platform capable of facilitating on-demand payments, auto-payments, split-funded payments, proximity marketing, and spending of platform funds through a linked card. IFAN and PayX provide businesses with the world's first white label, mobile optimized platform that connects to any point of sale system and enables the next generation of marketing and payments with the capability to remit internationally. For more information, visitwww.ifanfinancial.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press 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 Exchange Act of 1934. Although 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, including but not limited to our ability to maintain our website and associated computer systems, our ability to generate sufficient market acceptance for our products and services, our ability to generate sufficient operating cash flow, and general economic conditions. Readers are urged to carefully review and consider the various disclosures made by us in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time which attempt to advise interested parties of the risks and factors that may affect our business, financial condition, results of operation and cash flows. If one of 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: IFAN Financial, Inc.Steve SchollChief Financial Officer3517 Camino del Rio SouthSuite 407San Diego, CA 92108Direct: 858-277-9868FAX: 619-923-2907sscholl@ifanfinancial.comwww.ifanfinancial.com SOURCE:IFAN Financial, Inc. || It doesn't really matter to bitcoin who created bitcoin: Have you heard? We may at last know the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of the digital currency bitcoin and its underying blockchain technology. Satoshi is the 46-year-old Australian cybersecurity expert Dr. Craig Steven Wright... according to Dr. Craig Steven Wright. Of course, we've heard this story before. In 2011, the New Yorker suggested Satoshi was Michael Clear, a graduate student at Trinity College Dublin . Fast Company, the same year, listed three other Satoshi possibilities : Charles Bry, Neal King, or Vladimir Oksman, three inventors . In 2014, Newsweek announced it had unmasked Satoshi and splashed the big scoop on the cover of its print issue, reporting that it was a California man named Dorian Nakamoto. He denied it, and the story fell apart . A book by New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper, "Digital Gold," suggested Satoshi was an American man named Nick Szabo . Szabo denied. Last year, both Wired and Gizmodo reported that Satoshi was two people: Wright and his friend Dave Kleiman, now deceased. The difference now is that the supposed Satoshi is outing himself, rather than denying it: In a blog post on Monday, Wright claims that he created bitcoin in 2009 with help from someone named Hal Finney. " I cannot summon the words to express the depth of my gratitude to those that have supported the bitcoin project from its inception," he writes. "Be assured, just as you have worked, I have not been idle during these many years. Since those early days, after distancing myself from the public persona that was Satoshi, I have poured every measure of myself into research." Wright also provided records to select media outlets of transactions made with the same digital signature as some of the very first blocks (bundles of bitcoin transactions) ever recorded on the bitcoin blockchain—blocks mined by Satoshi, who is believed to own more than $400 million worth of the coin at its current USD market price. Story continues It doesn't matter: Many prominent people in the bitcoin community still don't believe Satoshi is Craig Wright. Security expert Dan Kaminsky, in an extensive post, did serious homework and appeared to cast doubt on Wright's supposed proof . " Yes, this is a scam," he concluded. "Not maybe. Not possibly. Wright is pretending he has Satoshi’s signature." Meanwhile, on a panel at Consensus, a major bitcoin conference in New York that happened to kick off the same morning, three of four bitcoin startup executives said firmly that they don't believe it is Wright. Is Craig Wright the real Satoshi? @ErikVoorhees : no. @ryaneshea : no. @starkness : no. @brianchoffman : "sure seems like it." #Consensus2016 — Daniel Roberts (@readDanwrite) May 2, 2016 But here's why it really doesn't matter: The identity of bitcoin's creator is no longer of much relevance to bitcoin, apart from the appeal of a mystery and the amount of coin he or she still holds. Bitcoin is an open-source project. That means that anyone can suggest edits to the source code, and over the years since its launch in 2009, many have. The project has 366 people currently contributing to it, and they've made nearly 11,000 different modifications to the code. (You can view the bitcoin source code at Github —no login or expertise required.) By most estimates, less than 20% of the current bitcoin source code is the code Satoshi wrote, which means the technology has truly become the product of a community, not of one creator. It is godless. Even Wright himself says in his blog post, "Satoshi is dead." (Of course, if Wright is Satoshi, then he is very much alive, but the point is well taken: The concept of Satoshi is dead and irrelevant.) In two separate informal Twitter polls, 65% of readers said they still don't believe Wright is Satoshi , and 70% said that Satoshi's identity doesn't matter anyway . (More than 200 people voted in each poll.) In an interview with Yahoo Finance on Monday, Sean Neville, co-founder of prominent bitcoin payment app Circle, offered his opinion. "It doesn't really matter who did create the system," he said. "But it is fascinating news." At 3:45 EST on Monday morning, shortly after the news broke of Craig Wright's claim, the price of bitcoin dropped steeply, from above $450 down to a low of $437. The price drop is another sign that the bitcoin community doesn't want to see Satoshi unmasked—many feel he is better as an anonymous symbol. Craig Wright may come forward with more evidence that proves his claim, or he may stay mum, fueling the doubters. But whether it's him, or someone else living or dead, doesn't matter anymore. Reports about Satoshi's identity have merely become candy for the media and bitcoin devotees. The developers working on bitcoin-related innovations have moved on. To understand more about how the bitcoin blockchain works, check out this video. -- 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 Here’s 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 || Benton Capital Acquires Lithium and Graphite Projects and Changes Name of Company: THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Apr 20, 2016) - Benton Capital Corp. (TSX VENTURE:BTC) ("Benton" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that the Board of Directors have unanimously agreed to refocus the Company's efforts toward a 100% green-energy exploration and development company. The main focus will be the acquisition and development of high quality Lithium and Graphite projects which the Company considers to be the necessary metals of the future as demand and growth continues worldwide driven by green technology. This includes lithium ion batteries used in electric cars, smart phones, tablets, and home and industrial power storage along with many other applications. Companies such as Tesla launched their home storage lithium-based Powerwall battery system which sold out in August 2015 and Tesla has said it will aim to source raw materials locally in North America where responsible mining laws are in effect which will reduce the environmental footprint. Pursuant to this new direction and subject to regulatory approval, Benton will subsequently change its name to Alset Energy Corp. and in is the process of applying for a new trading symbol. Given the Company's new focus it would also like to announce that it has acquired by staking a 100% interest in the Wisa Lake Lithium deposit located 80km east of Fort Frances, Ontario. The property is connected to Highway 11 (Trans Canada) located 65 kilometres north via an all weather paved road that crosses the centre of the project. The property is comprised of 2 claims totaling 30 units and covers the Wisa Lake deposit that is host to a historical resource of 330,000 tonnes grading 1.15% Li2O (Lexindin Gold Mines Ltd., Manager's Report, 1958; Ontario Geological Survey, Open File Report 6285, Report of Activities 2012). In 1956 Lexindin completed a total of 20 drill holes (packsack and AQ-sized core) over a strike length of 335m and to a depth of approximately 65m to outline the Wisa Lake lithium mineralization. The diamond drill log of the most easterly hole intersected 6.4m containing 20% of the lithium-bearing mineral spodumene suggesting the mineralization is open at depth and to the east. It should be noted that the historical resource estimate for the deposit was calculated prior to CIM National Instrument 43-101 guidelines and as such should only be considered from a historical point of view and not relied upon. A qualified person has not completed sufficient work to classify the historical estimates as current mineral resources. Further diamond drill programs are required to bring the mineralization into a proper NI 43-101 compliant category. The Company has also agreed to acquire a 100% interest in the Champion Graphite project from Benton Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:BEX) (a company related by common directorships) for a payment of 1 million shares to Benton Resources Inc. and subject to a 2% NSR. Benton Capital will have the option to buy back 1% of the NSR for $500,000. The Champion Graphite project represents a non-core asset of Benton Resources Inc. and the related party directors of each of the respective companies abstained from voting to approve the acquisition. The retained NSR provides Benton Resources Inc. with the opportunity to participate in any future success of the project. The Champion Graphite project is located north of Kenora, Ontario and consists of 29 units in 2 claims. The ground covers a large concentration of airborne electromagnetic anomalies hosted in metasediments. The airborne survey was conducted by Dighem Surveys & Processing Inc in 1989 on behalf of Champion Bear Resources Ltd. Dighem describes the anomalous area as consisting of numerous sub-parallel bedrock conductors of variable strength associated with a highly complex magnetic unit (MNDM assessment files). A year prior to the airborne geophysical survey, historical trenching was conducted by Bellwether Resources Ltd. in 1988. The trenching uncovered graphite occurrences where channel samples returned weighted average grades of up to 1.76% carbon over 25.0m (MNDM assessment files). Stephen Stares, Company President and CEO stated "we are excited to embark on this new strategic course aimed at providing shareholder value and growth. The importance of exploration and development of metals used in green technology cannot be understated and Benton looks forward to acquiring and developing quality assets in this space". All of the above transactions are subject to TSX.V and regulatory approvals. Benton Capital is well funded with approximately $1 million in cash. Clinton Barr (P.Geo.), V.P. Exploration for Benton Capital Corp., is the qualified person responsible for this release and has reviewed and approved all scientific and technical data and disclosures in this release. On behalf of the Board of Directors of Benton Capital Corp, Stephen Stares, President THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. The information contained herein contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements relate to information that is based on assumptions of management, forecasts of future results, and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. Any statements that express predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: risks related to failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms; risks related to the outcome of legal proceedings; political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration; risks related to the maintenance of stock exchange listings; risks related to environmental regulation and liability; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities or the completion of feasibility studies; the uncertainty of profitability; risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; risks related to the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses; results of prefeasibility and feasibility studies, and the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations; risks related to gold price and other commodity price fluctuations; and other risks and uncertainties related to the Company's prospects, properties and business detailed elsewhere in the Company's disclosure record. Should one or more of these risks and uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. These forward looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company's expectations or projections. || Barclays-Circle Partnership to Facilitate App Launch in UK: After obtaining an electronic money license from U.K.’s top financial regulator, Financial Conduct Authority, the social payment app Circle is all set to foray into the nation on Wednesday. The move will be further facilitated by the Boston-based start-up’s tie-up with London-basedBarclays PLCBCS, which is the first global bank to join hands with a Bitcoin company.The license granted by the U.K., another first for a virtual currency firm, indicates the government’s efforts to attract virtual currency start-ups and make London a hub for the development of financial technology or fintech."Circle's decision to launch in the UK, and the firm's new partnership with Barclays are major milestones," said Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury Harriett Baldwin in an email. "They prove our decision to introduce the most progressive, forward-looking regulatory regime is paying off and cements our status as the world's FinTech capital," he added.Founded in 2013, Circle uses Bitcoin, the virtual currency, to allow users to make payments to other customers using a mobile app. The process is termed as “social payments” by the company and its investors list includes The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS and IDG Capital Partners.Circle users can hold dollars and also pay any merchant that accepts Bitcoin anywhere in the world. Circle will instantly convert the dollars into Bitcoin at the time of payment and its users can accept Bitcoin payments, which will be immediately converted into dollars.The British license will enable Circle users in the U.K. to do the same. Consumers will be able to instantly transfer money between dollars and British pounds, thus facilitating domestic and international payments.“For the first time any consumer in the U.S. and the U.K. will be able to beam sterling and dollars back and forth, instantly for free,” said Jeremy Allaire, the co-founder of Circle. “That’s just never been possible.”Apart from money transfers, Circle users can also send emojis and animated "GIF" videos, along with written messages, at no charge, similar to China's WeChat Pay and AliPay.Moreover, Circle is expected to allow transfers in and out of euros soon, when it launches in the rest of Europe later this year.The affiliation with Barclays will provide Circle with the required infrastructure to enable transfers from any U.K. bank account. Further, Barclays Corporate Banking will provide the account needed by Circle to store sterling for consumers.While Bitcoin remains in a negative light owing to its standing as a black-market currency, the failure of a massive Bitcoin exchange and extreme price fluctuations, partnership with a global bank like Barclays will prove to be an accomplishment for Circle, which uses Bitcoin to transfer central bank currencies.Also, banks like Goldman, JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM and Credit Suisse Group AG CS have been increasingly showing interest in Blockchain, the “digital ledger” or the underlying technology behind Bitcoin, given its significant potential to revamp the extensive and complex network of bank payments as well as settlements.Currently, Barclays holds a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).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 reportJPMORGAN CHASE (JPM): Free Stock Analysis ReportCREDIT SUISSE (CS): Free Stock Analysis ReportBARCLAY PLC-ADR (BCS): Free Stock Analysis ReportGOLDMAN SACHS (GS): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || 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) || 'I'm sorry': Craig Wright on lack of evidence he created bitcoin: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright, who earlier this week said he would provide "extraordinary proof" that he was the creator of digital currency bitcoin, will not provide any further evidence, according to a post on his blog on Thursday. Although Wright did not renege on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto - the name, assumed to be pseudonymous, of the person or group who created the web-based currency in 2008 - the U-turn was taken by many bitcoin experts as confirmation of their suspicions that the claims were false. "I believed that I could do this. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me," Wright wrote. "But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot." 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. Various attempts have been made to identify its elusive creator, but Wright's claims stood out due to the high-profile endorsements they received. Lead bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen and bitcoin consultant Jon Matonis both wrote blogs on Monday endorsing Wright's claims, saying they had been shown proof by Wright that he was Nakamoto. Wright said on Thursday that Andresen and Matonis had not been deceived, but "that the world will never believe that now". "I think he's significantly less likely to be Satoshi than any other person that's been suggested," another lead bitcoin developer, Peter Todd, told Reuters, referring to others who have been suspected of being bitcoin's creator. "PLAIN FISHY" After coming under pressure to provide more credible evidence that he was bitcoin's creator, Wright had blogged on Monday that he would provide "independently verifiable documents and evidence" that would back up his claims. The post could no longer be found on his blog site. Story continues "The possibility that Wright is Satoshi will always exist, but given the amount of evidence calling that into doubt, I think one would be foolish to give that possibility much weight," said Jerry Brito, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based digital currency advocacy group Coin Center. "He's provided no cryptographic evidence verifiable by the public, and many of his answers sound plain fishy... Today's statement on his blog only further tarnishes his credibility." Wright's representatives declined to give any comments on his decision to back away from providing further evidence, but said he was still their client. They believed he was still in London, where he has been living for the past few months. Interviews with some who had done business with Wright in Australia in December, when reports by Wired and Gizmodo that he could be Nakamoto first emerged, and an inspection of documents published by the two tech news websites, painted a complex picture of Wright. They pointed to a smart but sometimes abrasive figure facing growing legal and financial problems at least in part caused by his involvement with bitcoin. Each bitcoin is currently worth around $447 (BTC=ITBT) , making the 15 million or so in circulation worth a total of around $7 billion. Wright said his failure to produce better evidence would cause "great damage to those that had supported" him, in particular Matonis and Andresen. "I can only say I'm sorry. And goodbye," Wright wrote. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Toby Chopra) || 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, 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 || The Market In 5 Minutes: Better Late Than Never: Below is a tool used by the Benzinga News Desk each trading day -- it's a look at everything happening in the market, in five minutes. Apply for daily AM access by clicking here or email minutes@benzinga.com. Macros Focus Oil prices also ticked higher Tuesday morning as Brent crude futures gained $0.75 to trade at $44.38 per barrel and U.S. crude futures gained $0.45 to trade at $43.89 a barrel. Asian stocks were mostly higher on Tuesday, led by a 2.15 percent gain in Japan's Nikkei index. Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso said the government is prepared to intervene in the currency market if the nation's currency begins to hurt the economy. President Barack Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima , as well as Japan after the conclusion of the G-7 Summit later this month. Turnover on Chinese commodity exchanges surged by $183 billion. As Bloomberg reports , traders are starting to withdraw as government deters speculation. MarketWatch posted a pretty interesting look at two centuries of U.S. immigration in "one mesmerizing graphic." BZ News Desk Some of last night's and this morning's notable earnings report: SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY ) Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $(2.56) vs $(2.31) Est. Q1 Sales $122.57M vs $108M Est. Rackspace (NYSE: RAX ) Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $0.34 vs $0.22 Est., Sales $518.1M vs $519M Est. WWE (NYSE: WWE ) Reports Q1 EPS $0.18 vs $0.10 Est., Sales $171M vs $170.6M Est.; Sees Q2 Average Paid Subs ~1.5M, Adj. OIBDA $5M-$9M SodaStream (NASDAQ: SODA ) Reports Q1 EPS $0.29 vs. Est. $0.11, Rev. $100.9M vs. Est. $89M After today's closing bell, Disney (NYSE: DIS ) is the one to keep an eye on. CNBC pundits recently discussed if investors are overreacting to the company's ESPN segmentation loss. Find out what's going on in today's market and bring any questions you have to Benzinga's PreMarket Prep. Sell-Side Themes The Street was buzzing about SolarCity's and LendingClub's 20+ percent drops. Check Benzinga throughout the day for more analysis. Story continues Sell-Side's Most Noteworthy Calls SunTrust downgrades St. Jude (NYSE: STJ ) to Neutral. Topeka downgrades Gap (NYSE: GPS ) to Hold. Piper Jaffray cut Hasbro (NASDAQ: HAS ) to Neutral. Jefferies started JC Penney (NYSE: JCP ) at Hold. Piper Jaffray initiates coverage on Kroger (NYSE: KR ) at Underweight. Bank of America upgrades Dover (NYSE: DOV ) to Buy. Deal Talk Recode scoop: The second round of bidders in the sale of Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO ) have begun holding all-day meetings with Yahoo's top management, including CEO Marissa Mayer, who has been taking front and center stage of the proceedings, according to sources. Long meetings have taken place over the last two weeks and continue this week. Medivation (NASDAQ: MDVN ) will actively seek to sell itself after the U.S. cancer drug maker rejected a $9.3 billion takeover offer from France's Sanofi (NYSE: SNY ), people familiar with the situation told Reuters. The San Francisco-based company has agreed to open its books to both Pfizer (NYSE: PFE ) and Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN ), those people said. In The News "Hillary Clinton might be on the way to the Democratic presidential nomination but she enters territory that could be considered more favorable to Bernie Sanders on Tuesday with the West Virginia primary," CNN says. "And for the first time on the Republican side, there's only one candidate in the race -- but that doesn't mean there's consensus. Republicans in West Virginia and Nebraska will offer the first glimpse at whether the GOP can rally behind Donald Trump in a general election." Migrants are trying to make a living on the Greek side of the Macedonian border, where about 10,000 people have set up Europe's biggest refugee camp and are showing signs of settling in for the long term. They are turning to business to survive. A better prostate cancer test? Wall Street Journal dives into several new prostate cancer tests that aim to reduce needless biopsies and unnecessary treatments by sorting out harmless from aggressive tumors. Blogosphere Bitcoin isn't the answer to Central Bank woes. Leonid Bershidsky says, "This imaginary world of effectively socialized money is being seriously discussed by researchers and central bankers alike." "You have built a business that works really well for you and for Google, but it doesn’t work well for artists," legendary manager Irving Azoff wrote in an open letter to Google's (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) YouTube. Redditors are debating Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA ) cash flow. One user says, "If you look at a short term and long term liquidity analysis it's all red flags. Imminent bankruptcy." Trending SCTY AGN BBRY LL OMER KNDI GPS DIS SEDG WWAV SODA CROX NLNK VNET DF [StockTwits] It was reported that Steph Curry will win the NBA's Most Valuable Player award for the second straight season. In true MVP fashion, the shooting star returned to the Golden State Warriors lineup last night, scoring 40 points off the bench and leading the team to an overtime victory in the second round of the NBA playoffs. See more from Benzinga The Market In 5 Minutes: Monday, May 9, 2016 The Market In 5 Minutes: The Most Exciting Two Minutes In Sports Synergy Pharma Seen 'Weighing' Options, Sell-Side Forecasts Upside Regardless Of M&A Rumors © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 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 (IBM.N). "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 (GS.N), 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 (BTC=BTSP) is equivalent to $444.75 late on Monday and trade on various exchanges around the world. Story continues 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. "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. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] $BTC Current price of Bitcoin is $417.00 #bitcoin || $423.77 at 09:30 UTC [24h Range: $418.00 - $425.47 Volume: 5310 BTC] || #Bitcoin last trade @bitfinex $451.49 @btcecom $450.00 Set #crypto #price #alerts at http://AlertCo.in  || #FLOZ 0.00001350 BTC(50.00 %) | Market Cap 58 BTC | Volume(24h) 13 BTC | Available Supply 4,322,629 FLOZ || 0.11250000 #BTC on 'No' - GOOGL will close at or above USD 800.00 on July 22nd 2016 - http://bitbet.us/bet/1262/googl-will-cl/#b5 … || 1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000050 BTC YoBit 0.00000048 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000046 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-03-22 21:00 pic.twitter.com/1jGhoNnizu || Buy Bitcoins With Credit Card or Cash in Minutes! https://www.CoinMama.com/?ref=virtualdn  Code 949FI496 5% Off! #btc #bitcoin 00 pic.twitter.com/EA3HaxDese || U.K. Exploring Blockchain Tech to Improve How Government Works http://sh.st/I8X7S  #fintech #bitcoin || Hitbtc: ETH/BTC Vol.:$ 7,106(46.98 %) Price:$ 8.62 | XDN/BTC Vol.:$ 4,069(26.90 %) Price:$ 0.000086 | DOGE/BTC Vol.:$ 1,966(13.00 %) ... || LIVE: Profit = $141.70 (7.63 %). BUY B4.81 @ $410.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $415.90 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org 
Trend: down || Prices: 454.16, 453.78, 454.62, 438.71, 442.68, 443.19, 439.32, 444.15, 445.98, 449.60
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 2021-10-11] BTC Price: 57484.79, BTC RSI: 71.40 Gold Price: 1754.60, Gold RSI: 45.16 Oil Price: 80.52, Oil RSI: 73.15 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin Struggles at Resistance; Support Near $48K: Bitcoin (BTC) sellers returned at the $50,000 resistance level on Monday and remained active during Asian trading hours. The cryptocurrency was trading around $49,300 at press time and is up about 11% over the past week. Initial support is seen around $48,000, which could stabilize the pullback. • Bitcoin is currently testing the 100-period moving average on the hourly chart, although the relative strength index (RSI) is not yet oversold. • Selling pressure could subside at lower support levels between $45,000 and $48,000. • The Aug. 6 breakout above $42,000 is encouraging, especially given the return of upside momentum. • Buyers will need to defend support to yield the next upside target towards $55,000. • Bearish Bitcoin Bets Might Signal Return of This Popular Trade • Bitcoin Trading Volume Stays Subdued as Price Recovers • Citigroup Gearing Up to Trade CME Bitcoin Futures: Sources • Should You Invest in Bitcoin for Retirement? || Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – September 2nd, 2021: Ethereumsurged by 11.64% on Wednesday. Following a 6.23% rally on Tuesday, Ethereum ended the day at $3,829.39. A mixed start to the day saw Ethereum fall to an early morning intraday low $3,384.24 before making a move. Steering clear of the 23.6% FIB of $3,369 and the first major support level at $3,252, Ethereum rallied to a late intraday high $3,843.12. Ethereum broke through the first major resistance level at $3,548 and the second major resistance level at $3,665 to end the day at $3,800 levels. At the time of writing, Ethereum was up by 0.97% to $3,792.42. A mixed start to the day saw Ethereum rise to an early morning high $3,838.28 before falling to a low $3,782.18. Ethereum left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Ethereum would need to avoid the $3,686 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $3,987 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Ethereum to break through to $3,900 levels. Barring another extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and resistance at $4,000 would likely cap any upside. In the event of a broad-based crypto rally, Ethereum could test the second major resistance level at $4,145. A fall through the $3,686 pivot would bring the first major support level at $3,528 into play. Barring another extended sell-off, however, Ethereum should steer well clear of the second major support level at $3,227. The 23.6% FIB of 3,369 should limit the downside. First Major Support Level: $3,528 Pivot Level: $3,686 First Major Resistance Level: $3,987 23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $3,369 38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $2,740 62% FIB Retracement Level: $1,725 Litecoinrallied by 5.40% on Wednesday. Following a 2.50% gain on Tuesday, Litecoin ended the day at $180.86. A bearish start to the day saw Litecoin fall to an early morning intraday low $168.57 before making a move. Steering clear of the first major support level at $166, Litecoin rallied to a late intraday high $182.78. Litecoin broke through the first major resistance level at $176 and the second major resistance level at $181 before easing back. More significantly, Litecoin broke through the 23.6% FIB at $178 to end the day at $180 levels. At the time of writing, Litecoin was down by 0.34% to $180.24. A mixed start to the day saw Litecoin fall to an early morning low $179.66 before rising to a high $181.54. Litecoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on Litecoin would need to avoid the 23.6% FIB of $178 and the $177 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $186 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Litecoin to break back out from Wednesday’s high $182.78. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level would likely cap any upside. In the event of an extended breakout, Litecoin could test resistance at $200 before any pullback. The second major resistance level at sits $192. A fall through the 23.6% FIB of $178 and the $177 pivot would bring the first major support level at $172 into play. Barring another extended sell-off, however, Litecoin should steer clear of sub-$170 levels. The second major support level sits at $163. First Major Support Level: $172 Pivot Level: $177 First Major Resistance Level: $186 23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $178 38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $223 62% FIB Retracement Level: $296 Ripple’s XRProse by 4.33% on Wednesday. Following a 7.82% rally on Tuesday, Ripple’s XRP ended the day at $1.2377. Tracking the broader market, Ripple’s XRP fell to an early morning intraday low $1.15995 before making a move. Steering clear of the first major support level at $1.1046, Ripple’s XRP rallied to a late intraday high $1.23600. In spite of the breakout, however, Ripple’s XRP fell short of the first major resistance level at $1.2556. At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down by 0.97% to $1.22565. A mixed start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP rise to an early morning high $1.23941 before falling to a low $1.22296. Ripple’s XRP left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Ripple’s XRP will need to avoid the $1.2112 pivot to bring first major resistance level at $1.2625 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Ripple’s XRP to break out from $1.25 levels. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level would likely cap any upside. In the event of another breakout, Ripple’s XRP could test resistance at $1.30 before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $1.2873. A fall through the $1.2112 pivot would bring the first major support level at $1.1864 into play. Barring another extended sell-off, however, Ripple’s XRP should steer clear of sub-$1.10 levels. The second major support level at $1.1352 should limit the downside. First Major Support Level: $1.1864 Pivot Level: $1.2112 First Major resistance Level: $1.2625 23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $0.8533 38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $1.0659 62% FIB Retracement Level: $1.4096 Please let us know what you think in the comments below. Thanks, Bob Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Posts Three Straight Reversal Tops • U.S. Dollar Index (DX) Futures Technical Analysis – 92.535 – 92.765 Retracement Zone Controlling Direction • E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Short-Term Target Moves Up to 15477.00 to 15424.75 • Bitcoin 2 Scenarios For The Low Volume Environment • European Equities: A Quiet Calendar Leaves U.S Jobless Claims in Focus • E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Sellers Could Be Targeting 4502.25 – 4492.75 || Bitcoin slides below $45,000 in a broad crypto sell-off driven by worries about the spillover from Evergrande's debt default: • Bitcoin fell below $45,000 on Monday as Evergrande's debt crisis caused turmoil in markets. • Evergrande fears are taking a toll on crypto and other asset classes, OANDA's Jeffrey Halley said. • El Salvador bought the dip, adding another 150 bitcoins to its holdings. • Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell. Bitcoinfell below $45,000 in a broad sell-off of cryptocurrencies on Monday, sparked by concerns that the effect of Chinese property giant Evergrande's debt crunch would spill over into other asset classes. After a moderately bullish weekend, the crypto market took a sharp turn downwards as bitcoin dropped by almost $2,000 and dragged the crypto market's capitalization back below $2 trillion. Bitcoin was last trading 8% lower at $43,332 as of 9:00 a.m ET,etherwas down 9% at $3,012,adafell 11% to $2.07, Ripple'sXRPfell 14% to $0.91, anddogecoinfell 13% to 22 cents, according to data fromCoinDesk. Solana was down 14% at $135, according to CoinMarketCap. Some analysts attributed the sudden dip to embattled developer Evergrande, which is snowed under by debt worth a crushing $300 billion. Fears of its failure have caused turmoil in traditional markets, sendingDow futures tumbling more than 300 pointson Monday. Global stocks broadly declined, knocked by the property developer's market fallout. "There has been a general risk-off mood sweeping markets today," Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA, told Insider. Concerns about the potential collapse of Evergrande have spilled over into crypto and other markets, he added. The week ahead is expected to be choppy, with a potential pullback for bitcoin to as low as $41,000, although a key support remains at $44,000, said Jonas Luethy, sales trader at UK-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock. El Salvador took advantage of the dip byadding a further 150 bitcoinsto its holdings, nowamounting to 700 bitcoinor $31 million. "They can never beat you if you buy the dips," President Nayib Bukelesaid in a tweet. Read More:4 altcoins to buy: A 12-year banking veteran says the biggest generational wealth transfer that's about to take place will trigger a 'parabolic' bull run in crypto. He explains how he's maximizing gains on the cryptos he's holding. Read the original article onBusiness Insider || Crypto Funds Suffer 6th Week of Outflows Despite Bitcoin Rally: Investors redeemed a net $22.1 million from cryptocurrency funds last week, the sixth consecutive week of outflows, even asbitcoinand many other digital assets rallied, a new report shows. It’s the longest streak of outflows since January 2018, according to thereportMonday by the digital-asset manager CoinShares. Investors have seen an outflow of $22 million from bitcoin, despite that the largest cryptocurrency has recently traded up to $48,200 from a low of $29,608 last month. Bitcoin was changing hands at $46,074 as of press time, little changed over the past 24 hours. Related:Bitcoin Showing Signs of ‘Short-Term Fatigue’ Near $50K Ahead of Possible Continuation CoinShares noted that the fund outflows come “at a time of low investor participation likely due to seasonal effects as seen in other asset classes.” Trading volumes in the investment products are running at $3.1 billion per week, down from $7 billion in May. Total assets under management in the digital-asset investment products rose 10% week-to-week to $55 billion, mostly because of price appreciation. Last week, investment products focused onethereumnetted outflows of $1.1 million, while funds related to Binance coin saw $900,000 of outflows and investors redeemed $300,000 from multi-asset funds. Funds focused onpolkadot,cardanoandstellarsaw weekly inflows of $0.4 million, $1.3 million and $0.4 million, respectively. • Market Wrap: Bitcoin Rally Expected to Pause • Bitcoin Holds Support; Approaching $50K Resistance • Cryptocurrency Market Tops $2T for First Time Since May || Investview (“INVU”) Reports $3.1 Million Month in Bitcoin Mining Gross Revenue & Announces Operations Updates for August 2021: Eatontown, NJ, Sept. 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Investview, Inc. (OTCQB: INVU), a diversified financial technology company that through its subsidiaries and global distribution network provides financial technology, education tools, content, research, and management of digital asset technologies with a focus on Bitcoin mining and the new generation of digital assets, announces its production and operational updates, including its unaudited Bitcoin (“BTC“) production for August 2021. August2021BTCProduction andDigital Asset Holdings • Gross Revenue of $3.1 million, up 238% Year-Over-Year August • Gross Profit of $2.5 million, up 561% Year-Over-Year August • Gross Profit Margin of 80% • Bitcoin Mined over 16 months period ending August 2021, 1,072.43 Bitcoin • As of August 31, 2021, Investview holds over 146.38 BTC • As of August 31, 2021, Investview holds over 73,990.62 NDAU Operations Update:Hash Rate Growth PlanUpdate In August 2021, SAFETek increased its fleet of Bitcoin miners as part of its ongoing plans to expand hashrate and Bitcoin production. This recent increase will expand SAFETek’s existing fleet of Bitcoin miners to nearly 10,000 miners. As a result, SAFETek’s hashrate capacity is estimated to grow by 22% or 70 petahash per second (PH/s) to a total hashrate of nearly 400 PH/s. Note: The numbers included in this release are initial expected results and are un-audited and may differ from numbers reported in our SEC filings due to compliance with US GAAP and are subject to final review by the Company’s independent auditors. Final audited financial statements can be found in our annual SEC Form 10-K filings. About Investview, Inc. Investview, Inc. is a diversified financial technology and global distributor organization that operates through its subsidiaries to provide financial education tools, content, research, and management of digital asset technology that mines cryptocurrencies, with a focus on Bitcoin mining and the next generation of digital assets. Investview – driving decentralization of education and finance through a commitment to blockchain technology. For more information on Investview and its family of wholly owned subsidiaries, please visit:www.investview.com. Forward-Looking Statements All statements in this release that are not based on historical fact are "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. Forward-looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and describe our future plans, strategies, and expectations, can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terms such as "believe," "expect," "may,” “should," "could," "seek," "intend," "plan," "goal," "estimate," "anticipate" or other comparable terms. These forward-looking statements are based on Investview’s current beliefs and assumptions and information currently available to Investview and involve 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 these forward-looking statements. More information on potential factors that could affect Investview’s financial results is included from time to time in Investview’s public reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and Current Reports on Form 8-K. The forward-looking statements made in this release speak only as of the date of this release, and Investview, Inc. (“INVU”) assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements to reflect actual results or changes in expectations, except as otherwise required by law. Investor RelationsContact: Arthur RomePhone Number: 732.889.4308Email:pr@investview.com || How to start producing music on a budget: Advertiser Disclosure: At Slickdeals, we work hard to find the best deals. Some products in our articles are from partners who may provide us with compensation, but this doesn’t change our opinions. So far, the one thing you know for sure is that you have music inside of you that needs to be expressed. No matter how excited you are, you don’t want to run off, spend a ton of money and get lost inside of an expensive and confusing program. A deal-conscious producer is patient, well-researched and attuned to the needs and limitations of their space and budget. Before you start shopping, ask yourself a few key questions: What kind of music are you trying to make? This consideration will help you decide which studio components are necessary and which ones can wait a while. What is your experience level? It’s tempting to drop hundreds of dollars on state-of-the-art gear when you’re just starting out, but you’re wasting money if you don’t know how to use the tool to its full potential. Conversely, an experienced synth connoisseur will probably feel limited by a tiny two-channel interface. What space are you working in? You won’t get an accurate reproduction of your music if you’re listening to your mix out loud in a room with poor acoustics. The answer to this question will determine if you should start out with headphones or monitors. Alternatively, maybe you could treat the space with acoustic panels before buying anything else. How much are you planning on spending? This might change over time, but it’s worth thinking about every time you add a new device to your home studio collection. Setting a hard limit on your shopping budget might mean waiting longer to get what you’re looking for, but money saved is money earned towards new gadgets. Buying Home Studio Essentials There’s no all-purpose home studio setup built to accommodate every musician’s creative style, but producing is much easier when you have these standard studio components. Story continues 1. Computer Credit: Apple, Dell Before you worry about purchasing anything else, the one thing you absolutely need to have is a computer (or a tablet capable of running music production software). You can run production software and connect devices to any computer, but digital audio workstations are notoriously demanding programs that require a lot of processing power. If you plan on plugging in tons of devices and going wild with CPU-hungry plugins, it’s worth investing in a machine with high specs and speedy processors. If you are a Windows user, you can’t go wrong with one of our favorite laptops — the Dell XPS 13. Straight out of the box, this gorgeous powerhouse of a machine provides ample processing power for music production, allowing you to slap ten reverb plugins on your project without a second thought. Dell XPS 13 OLED — Sale Price: $1,019.99 | Reg. Price: $1,069.99 Windows has given Apple a run for its money in recent years, but Apple computers were long considered the industry standard for digital music production. The 2020 model MacBook Pro showcases the M1 chip, Apple’s exciting new creation that rolls CPU, GPU and memory into one power-saving chip. Apple MacBook Pro M1 13 — Sale Price: $1,199 | Reg. Price: $1,299 Our favorite Dell Laptops of 2021 2. Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) Credit: Apple Before you worry about fancy equipment and plug-ins, the first thing you need is a digital audio workstation — the place where you’ll record, arrange and mix your musical creations. While some DAWs have more built-in features and instruments than others, don’t underestimate the creative potential of a free DAW like GarageBand or Audacity . That said, there’s a reason why most professional producers and studios use paid DAWs such as Ableton Live , Logic Pro , Pro Tools , FL Studio and Cubase . Not sure which DAW is right for you? You don’t need to shell out hundreds of dollars sight unseen — most of the aforementioned premium DAWs offer free trials. Some free trials like Ableton and Logic Pro offer all of the same features as the paid version of the program (but impose a strict 90-day time limit), while other DAWs such as FL Studio and Pro Tools provide unlimited access to a pared-down trial version. 3. Headphones and Studio Monitors Credit: Sony Now that you’ve gotten your music- making essentials squared away, the next step is figuring out how you plan on listening to your project and monitoring the mix. The ideal studio setup should have both headphones as well as studio monitors, but you can get away with just using one or the other for as long as you need — plenty of producers do! Headphones can be used at every step of your production process, or you can switch out your monitors for headphones to make sure that your mix sounds just as good. No matter what you plan on doing with them, a solid pair of reference-ready cans will run you a fraction of the average cost of decent studio monitors. Headphones are the ideal starting point for cash-strapped beginners, those who live in shared spaces and anyone who produces in rooms with boomy/echoing acoustics. Here are a few tried-and-true budget-friendly studio headphones: Sennheiser HD 206 Over-Ear Headphones — Sale Price: $29.90 | Reg. Price: $39.95 Sony MDR7506 Large Diaphragm Headphones — Reg. Price: $99.99 Audio-Technica ATH-M50X Professional Studio Monitor Headphones — Reg. Price: $149 Studio monitors aren’t a prerequisite for musical talent and killer production, but they are an invaluable tool for referencing your mix and figuring out exactly which track is making that dreadful sound. Even the best headphones can subtly compress and color your sound, whereas studio monitors reproduce your sound and stereo image accurately. On top of these practical perks, there’s something to be said for the sheer joy of filling the room with your own creations and feeling the sound waves for yourself. You might not get your money’s worth if you settle for no-name cheap monitors. Avoid that disappointment and annoying return process and check out these popular low-cost studio monitors instead: PreSonus Eris Near Field Studio Monitor (Pair) — Reg. Price: $99.95 IK Multimedia iLoud Micro Monitors — Reg. Price: $299.99 M-Audio BX5 D3 Active Studio Monitor — Reg. Price: $149 4. Microphone Credit: Shure The importance of a microphone is variable. Some producers will rarely if ever need them, while others use their own recordings on every track. The difference primarily boils down to genre and style preference, but you never know when you might want to record your own effects and percussive elements. Not all microphones are created equally. Brightened condenser microphones with a wide dynamic range and bass roll-off are must-haves for vocalists, while producers who record and utilize field recordings might want a microphone that retains a “true” sound with minimal processing. If you have no idea what any of this means and you just want a serviceable anytime microphone, you can’t go wrong with a simple cardioid pattern dynamic mic. Our top picks: Shure SM-58 Cardioid Dynamic Vocal Microphone (Open Box) — Reg. Price: $89 Shure SM7B Vocal Microphone — Sale Price: $399 | Reg. Price: $499 Rode M5-MP Matched Pair Cardioid Condenser Microphones — Sale Price: $197.30 | Reg. Price: $217.90 5. Audio Interface Credit: IK Multimedia Unless you are planning on strictly using samples and digital instruments like soft synths, you’re going to need an audio interface sooner or later. An audio interface is a tool that allows you to record and control sounds from external sources inside of your DAW, which is crucial for any instrumentalist or vocalist. If you’re a novice producer who doesn’t plan on routing a ton of instruments through the interface, you have a hearty selection of reputable two-channel interfaces to choose from. Focusrite Scarlett Solo (3rd Gen) — Sale Price: $119.99 | Reg. Price: $149.99 IK Multimedia iRig 2 — Reg. Price: $99.99 Those looking for interfaces with more inputs and higher sample rate and max resolution specs may need to spend a little more money. There are plenty of solid options to choose from at the sub $200 price range, so your decision mostly hinges on what exactly you’re looking for. PreSonus Studio 24c — Reg. Price: $169.95 Mackie Onyx Audio Interface — Reg. Price: $125 Tips for Finding Home Studio Equipment Deals You know what your home studio needs and how much you’re willing to spend on it — now it’s time to start hunting for audio equipment deals. Music production is not exactly known for its low cost of entry, so getting the best prices on studio equipment requires a bit of patience and research skills. Luckily, you have plenty of money-saving resources at your disposal. Next time you shop for new gear, remember these savings tips and best practices: 1. Browse used equipment on legitimate resale marketplace sites. Marketplace sites like Reverb and Sweetwater’s Used Gear Marketplace are jam-packed with heavily discounted used instruments, controllers and other studio staples. It’s not a bad idea to buy equipment on eBay and Facebook Marketplace , but there is significantly less quality control and oversight – you might spot some incredible deals, but remember to use your best judgment when a listing looks slightly too good to be true. 2. Buy the previous generation. Unless you’re already producing on a professional level, you probably don’t need a brand new 36 channel interface or the shiniest, newest analog synthesizer. Unlike fast-paced tech categories like smartphones and laptops, it’s still pretty easy to buy new versions of last-generation studio equipment (and even easier to buy used ones). 3. Get creative. By nature, music is all about creativity! If you can’t afford a MIDI controller, most DAWs allow you to customize your own keyboard commands, so you can use your computer keyboard to play instruments and control parameters. No microphone? If these professional musicians can record and compose entire albums on an iPhone , you can too. Studio equipment exists to make your production process easier, but you are the sole arbiter of your creative output. 4. Use Slickdeals to compare past deals. Home studio components might not be the most popular category on Slickdeals, but our users post unbeatable MIDI controllers and audio interface deals all the time. You can use the search function to research past deals and get a better sense of what a good deal looks like. If you’re waiting for a certain product to go on sale, you can always set a Deal Alert — we’ll let you know when a deal pops up. More to consider: BlockFi Promo: New Crypto Customers Earn a $250 Bitcoin Bonus in August Stop Overpaying for Shows and Get on These Streaming Bundles ‘Free’ Sam’s Club Annual Membership Deal Is Back and Even Better Our editors strive to ensure that the information in this article is accurate as of the date published, but please keep in mind that offers can change. We encourage you to verify all terms and conditions of any product before you apply. || $12M worth of Bitcoin stolen in pNetwork hack: Cross-chain DeFi platform pNetwork has been hacked on Binance Smart Chain to the tune of approximately $12.7 million worth of Bitcoin. The company says 277 pBTC was drained from the exchange. 1/N We're sorry to inform the community that an attacker was able to leverage a bug in our codebase and attack pBTC on BSC, stealing 277 BTC (most of its collateral). The other bridges were not affected. All other funds in the pNetwork are safe. — pNetwork 🦜 (@pNetworkDeFi) September 19, 2021 The company believe the attack exploited a bug in its codebase. However, it added that it was working to fix the damage. “The bridges will run with extra security measures in place for the first few days,” it said. “This means slower transactions processing in exchange for higher security.” pNetwork also offered to allow the hacker to keep 11.5% of the stolen Bitcoin, if they return the funds. “To the black hat hacker. Although this is a long shot, we’re offering a clean $1,500,000 bounty if funds are returned,” it pleaded. “Finding vulnerabilities is part of the game, unfortunately, but we all want DeFi ecosystem to continue growing, returning funds is a step in that direction.” pNetwork enables the transfer of assets into more than 10 supported blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and many more. Following the appeal, the price of pNetwork’s governance PNT token went south and has dropped around 17% in the last 24 hours. Not the first to be hacked However, this isn’t the first cross-chain platform that has been hacked. In July, decentralised exchange THORChain went through a $7.6 million lost and, just a few weeks later, it was hacked again for approximately $8 million. The hacker later promised to return the funds for a 10% bounty. Binance Smart Chain has had a significant number of hack cases this year, including PancakeBunny, Cream Finance, Bogged Finance, Uranium Finance, Meerkat Finance, SafeMoon, Spartan Protocol, BurgerSwap, Belt Finance, and pNetwork. Story continues One of the last was a record-breaking Poly Network hack in early August which saw more than $600 million stolen in total. Luckily, the hacker returned the whole amount. Novak Svrkota, a crypto consultant from the international company Crypto Broker, told Coin Rivet that hacks which are using bugs in DeFi protocols are nothing new but that this thing is one of the main ‘diseases’ of the protocol. “There is too little attention that creators of the protocol are giving to the security of the whole system and, every day, the systems are becoming more and more complicated,” he said. “The award in hundreds of millions of dollars is too tempting for the so-called bug-hunters.” He also added he wasn’t optimistic and that he cannot see a quick solution to the problem except the centralisation of the whole blockchain on which DeFi is built. “For example, we have Tether blockchain completely pegged to the US dollar and it is much easier for it to return the lost money,” he added. “As for the Binance Chain, if it doesn’t become centralised, I don’t see the quick solution.” || Bitcoin Profits Introduces The Global Solution For Traders: London, UK, Sept. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitcoin Profit is proud to introduce its latest software. As going in depth and searching for the quality bitcoin trading platforms nowadays is considered a traditional way. Cryptocurrencies have undoubtedly established themselves as pure digital gold with an intimidating market size projected to reach $4.94 billion by 2030 according to a Bloomberg report. But just like any other financial instrument, getting a piece of the action might prove difficult especially for new investors and ordinary everyday people who require some coaching and guidance. Thankfully, Bitcoin Profit has solved this problem by introducing its software application which is best described as a comprehensive approach to smart crypto trading. The application itself is not a trading platform but rather connects users with the best bitcoin trading platform in their countries. Bypass to the hectic searching Bitcoin Profit works as a bypass to the tedious task of searching online reviews of various crypto trading platforms which are mostly inaccurate and laden with unreliable information. The company's specialized team simply matches interested traders and investors with reliable top licensed brokers in each GEO location, offering expert guidance and in-built fund management options for growing a steady long-term investment. The Bitcoin Profit app also sports impressive features such as professional-grade tools for automating bitcoin trades, unlimited deposits, powerful 256-bit AES encryption protocols to ensure uncompromised security, and professional trade signals with up to 87% accuracy for smarter cryptocurrency investment decisions. To register and get access to the best bitcoin trading platform, users simply need to fill the signup form on the company's website and also endeavor to provide a valid and active mobile number, enabling a Bitcoin Profit financial expert to call and discuss trading strategies as well as specific financial investment goals. Story continues The comprehensive line for traders For graphic designer Alexia, the live training, suggestions, and strategies she has gotten from the platform have proven to be immensely useful assets in her crypto trading decision-making. While Sam, who is an Engineer also appears to have taken full advantage of the platform as he quoted: “Bitcoin profit app connected me with the best broker in Kuwait. I started with minimum amount but was able to generate it to significant figures.” Bitcoin Profit offers a comprehensive service that makes cryptocurrency trading easier, faster, and simpler. And with dedicated servers that guarantee 100% uptime, traders are never restricted from taking advantage of the market. Add that to instant notifications on key market moves offered by the real-time results feature, with seamless service that ensures comfort for all. Media contact Company: Bitcoin Profit Contact Name: Herald Jones E-mail: service@bitcoinprofit.app Location: 12 Aldermans Hill, Palmers Green, London N13 4PJ, United Kingdom Website: https://www.bitcoinprofit.app/ || USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Test Of Support At 1.2550: U.S. Dollar Is Under Pressure Against Canadian Dollar USD/CAD is currently trying to get below the support at 1.2550 while the U.S. dollar is gaining ground against a broad basket of currencies. The U.S. Dollar Index has recently made an attempt to settle above the 94 level but failed to develop sufficient upside momentum. As a result, the U.S. Dollar Index remains in the 93.75 – 94 range. In case the U.S. Dollar Index manages to settle below the support at 93.75, it will move towards the 20 EMA near 93.40 which will be bearish for USD/CAD. Today, foreign exchange market traders had a chance to take a look at the final reading of U.S. Services PMI report for September. The report indicated that Services PMI declined from 55.1 in August to 54.9 in September compared to analyst consensus of 54.4. The yield of 10-year Treasuries managed to get above 1.50% and is currently trying to settle above 1.53%, which is bullish for the American currency. However, USD/CAD failed to gain upside momentum and found itself under pressure as strong oil provided support to the Canadian dollar. Currently, WTI oil is trying to settle above the $79 level. In case this attempt is successful, it will move towards the $80 level which will be bullish for commodity-related currencies, including Canadian dollar. Technical Analysis USD to CAD managed to settle below the support level at 1.2590 and is trying to settle below the next support at 1.2550. In case this attempt is successful, it will move towards the support at 1.2525. A move below 1.2525 will open the way to the test of the support at 1.2500. If USD to CAD declines below this level, it will move towards the next support level at 1.2475. On the upside, the previous support at 1.2590 will serve as the first resistance level for USD to CAD. A move above this level will push USD to CAD towards the resistance which is located near the 50 EMA at 1.2625. In case USD to CAD manages to settle above the 50 EMA, it will get to the test of the next resistance at 1.2650. Story continues 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: USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Test Of Support At 1.2550 E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Nearest Upside Breakout Price is 14883.50 USD/JPY Price Forecast – US Dollar Tries to Regain Momentum Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Get Hit JPMorgan’s Dimon Calls Bitcoin ‘Fool’s Gold’ Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Continue Extension to The Upside || Why CleanSpark (CLSK) Stock Got Crushed Today: Shares ofCleanSpark CLSK, an energy-technology and cryptocurrency-mining company, dropped significantly in Tuesday’s trading session after it reported Q3 earnings. After falling as much as 22% earlier in the day, CLSK closed down 15.2%. Revenue of $11.9 million missed analyst expectations despite increasing 250% year-over-year. Most of this growth came from CleanSpark’s Bitcoin mining business. The company mined a record 191 tokens during the period, which brings its total to 301.4 Bitcoin on its balance sheet. But investors were shocked at the size of CLSK’s net loss: $16.7 million, or -$0.49 per share. Wall Street was anticipating a profit instead. Management still raised its full-year guidance, and now projects revenue in the range of $49 million to $62 million. However, much of this new outlook is reliant on the price of Bitcoin shooting higher to the $47,000 level. CLSK is now down more than 61% year-to-date. 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 reportCleanspark, Inc. (CLSK) : 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.
Trend: up || Prices: 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95, 60892.18, 61553.62, 62026.08, 64261.99, 65992.84, 62210.17
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)] August’s Bitcoin Rally Led to Record Crypto Derivatives Volumes: Report: Trading volumes for crypto derivatives rebounded to record levels as bitcoin’s rally to $12,000 spurred on speculation, according to a newly released report. CryptoCompare said crypto derivative volumes rose 54% to more than $710 billion in August in its monthly Exchange Review. That’s a new all-time high, with August’s figures now far exceeding the $602 billion monthly volumes reported in May. Spot markets also experienced a surge in activity, with August trading volumes coming to $820 billion – nearly $400 billion up from July’s numbers. Constantine Tsavliris, CryptoCompare’s head of research, told CoinDesk that the surge in crypto derivative volumes was likely a result of last month's rally , which brought bitcoin from $9,200 to near $12,400 at its peak. Spot price movement and volatility were higher in August than July, said Tsavliris. As a rule, this generally leads to greater trading activity for cryptocurrencies and their derivatives. Derivative volumes soared to then-record highs in May due to speculation surrounding the bitcoin halving event. Volumes in March were also high, primarily as a result of the pandemic and the ensuing global sell-off in both crypto and traditional markets. Derivative volumes in June and July were lower, at $445 billion and $393 billion respectively, when volatility was stuck in the doldrums . See also: Crypto Exchanges See Big Drop in Volumes as Bitcoin Volatility Approaches 2020 Low Related Stories August’s Bitcoin Rally Led to Record Crypto Derivatives Volumes: Report August’s Bitcoin Rally Led to Record Crypto Derivatives Volumes: Report August’s Bitcoin Rally Led to Record Crypto Derivatives Volumes: Report August’s Bitcoin Rally Led to Record Crypto Derivatives Volumes: Report || Is Asteroid Mining Really Our Best Argument for Bitcoin Over Gold?: After a Winklevoss encounter highlights Elon Musk’s space mining dreams, maybe we should remind ourselves of the right-here-at-home benefits bitcoin brings. 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:What’s Actually Happening With Inflation Right Now Earlier this week, the Winklevoss brothers introduced Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy tobitcoin. See also:Preston Pysh on Why We’ve Entered a Fundamentally New Era of Bitcoin Accumulation One of the notable parts of the recap video was a discussion of how Elon Musk was set to destroy the value of gold on Earth by mining gold from asteroids. While much meme fun was had, on this week’s Long Reads Sunday NLW has chosen a selection that looks at how fiat beat out gold and how gold beat out silver to provide some – ahem – more immediately relevant lessons on how to explain the benefits of bitcoin. Related:Bitcoin Surges Past $12,000 to New 2020 High Read:Projection and ThrownessPart III — Bitcoin’s 10x Advantage Over Gold Might Not Lie Where You ThinkBy David Lawant 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. • Is Asteroid Mining Really Our Best Argument for Bitcoin Over Gold? • Is Asteroid Mining Really Our Best Argument for Bitcoin Over Gold? || Why It’s Time to Pay Attention to Mexico’s Booming Crypto Market: Luis Sosa, 39, the creative director at astartupin Mexico City, watched with skepticism as his friends invested inbitcoina decade ago. Even after they made good on their investments, Sosa kept his distance. Now, his attitude toward crypto is changing, but not for the reasons you’d think. “With the increasingly onerous banking requirements in Mexico, I am very tempted to use crypto, especially to buy things online,” Sosa said. Related:Nigerians Are Using Bitcoin to Bypass Trade Hurdles With China Sosa is not alone. In a trend that is largely unnoticed outside of the country, Mexico is embracing cryptocurrency at a breakneck speed. In the eight months between September 2019 and May 2020, the trading volume of Mexico’s leading crypto exchange,Bitso, grew by 342%, according to the exchange. Earlier this year, Bitso announced it had surpassed 1 million users on its platform, of which 92% are Mexican. For comparison, there are35 traditional brokeragesin the country with under 400,000 active trading accounts in total, according to Mexico’s financial authority,CNBV. “It is truly shocking because we are seeing how only one cryptocurrency exchange has demonstrated greater potential than 35 dedicated investment management entities,” said Eloisa Cadenas, CEO of consulting firmCryptoFinTechand professor at theMexican Stock Exchange Group. Related:Bitcoin Entering 'New Adoption Cycle,' Coin Metrics Exec Says Sosa is drawn to crypto in part for its potential to transfer money more easily. In Mexico, that is becoming increasingly hard to do. In its effort to crack down on criminal activity, Mexico may have made simple transactions difficult for ordinary citizens as well. The country has longstruggledwith tax evasion and money laundering. But two years ago, Mexico decided to put substantial prevention methods in place. In August 2019, right before Bitso’s trade volume began its dramatic climb, the government began implementingnew fintech lawsthat sought to govern financial service providers in the banking and private capital sectors, from entrepreneurs to crowdfunding institutions. According to the new laws, tech firms that hold deposits for users had to register as a financial institution within the country. But compliance was expensive, with applications running over $35,000 and the law requiring businesses – even startups – to have a minimum annual profit of $100,000. National mediareportedat the time that of the 500 listed startups in the country, 201 had to be approved by regulators to continue operations. Once the new laws rolled in,only 85ended up applying for accreditation. Bitso was among the firms approved to continue operations in Mexico. Read More:Experts Say Mexico’s Regulations Raise the Bar ‘Too High’ for Crypto Entrepreneurs In order to comply with the new banking laws in Mexico, PayPalannouncedit will no longer be holding deposits on customer accounts. Now, it only processes payments as an intermediary, which means Sosacan no longermaintain a balance on his account. When Sosa’s mother, based in New York, wants to send him money, she can use PayPal or Western Union if she pays atransaction fee. Instead, she sends funds from her Apple Pay account to Sosa’s, where the funds remain inaccessible until he travels to the U.S. With the increasingly onerous banking requirements in Mexico, I am very tempted to use crypto, especially to buy things online Crypto trading platforms can facilitate faster money transfers at a lower cost than banks. According to Cadenas, who is also pursuing a PhD in financial engineering, the combination of Mexico’s stringent new banking laws, expensive financial services and large unbanked population is driving public interest in cryptocurrencies. Like other countries, crypto is used primarily for speculation and trading in Mexico, Cadenas said. But the multibillion-dollar flow ofremittancesinto the country, particularly from the U.S., and the difficulties involved in money transfers, have created a unique business opportunity for crypto platforms that promise to make transactions easier and cheaper. “Internally, we can say that the use of cryptocurrencies is becoming more attractive compared to what other financial institutions offer,” Cadenas said. In 2014, BitsolaunchedMexico’s first bitcoin exchange. According to Bitso co-founder and CEO Daniel Vogel, in 2016 Bitso grew thanks to young adult gamers in Mexicopayingfor video gameswith bitcoin on the digital media platform Steam. But all that went away the following year, when bitcoin’s value soared from $900 to $20,000 in a matter of months. By the end of the year, bitcoin transaction fees alsospiked, accounting for up to 40% of a single transaction. The young gamers simply couldn’t afford it anymore. “Transaction fees went through the roof, from costing a fraction of a penny to $20 or $30 on their Steam accounts, and that use case just disappeared,” Vogel said. The year of speculation was 2017, with crypto market capitalization reaching$600 billion, and U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase becoming the#1 app on iTunes. “But this is Mexico. You don’t have as muchdisposable incomeas places like the U.S. or Europe or Asia. And so even though trading revenue did go up, we didn’t grow as much as some of the international players,” Vogel said. But there was a massive untapped market just begging for new players: remittances. Bitso had alreadypartnered withpayment platform Ripple to enable the quick transfer between dollars and pesos via liquidXRP, and the firm began processing remittance transactions. Read More:The New US-Mexico-Canada Trade Pact Holds Opportunity for Distributed Tech “We transacted, I think on a weekly basis, almost 10% of the remittances from the U.S. to Mexico and on a monthly basis over 7% of remittances. And that was super exciting,” Vogel said. Today, with the COVID-19 pandemic spreading through the region, Mexico’s central bank reported that in June 2020, Mexican workers in the U.S.sent homea whopping $3.56 billion in remittances,up 11%from the previous year. Almost all of those transactions were electronic transfers, through bank accounts,Western Union, PayPal’sXoomand crypto trading platforms like Bitso. But there are charges involved. Last year, Mexico President Andrés Manuel López ObradorblastedWestern Union and Xoom for charging high fees on remittance transfers. For instance, Xoomcharges up to4% in transaction fees, and earns profits on the exchange rate each time money is sent to Mexico. Internally, we can say that the use of cryptocurrencies is becoming more attractive compared to what other financial institutions offer Comparatively, depending on which exchange you use, the transfer cost of that money via cryptocurrency can be as low as 0.1%, Cadenas said. According to Bitso’swebsite, a number of withdrawal methods, including bank transfers, are free for users receiving funds through the exchange. According to Cadenas, Bitso processed 3.5% of incoming remittances in January this year, which increased to 5.3% in a matter of weeks. But there’s another problem: A 2018global databaseon financial inclusion published by the World Bank revealed 63.1% of Mexican adults (ages 15 and above) didn’t have a bank account. According to Jonathan Terluk, senior economic and public policy analyst atEMPRA, an emerging markets consulting firm that focuses on Mexico, the country’s large unbanked population and cash-driven informal sector is made up of workers or businesses that are not registered with the government. Between 55% and 60% of the total employed population in the country belong to this informal sector and are paid in cash, he added. Mexican citizens without bank accounts use digital payment systems provided by the likes ofOxxo, a chain of grocery stores akin to America’s 7-Eleven franchise, that accepts cash payments for everything from groceries to phone bills and electric bills. The system also processes payments for online purchases, and allows users to deposit money into debit cards or bank accounts. Since it has partnered with Xoom and Western Union, remittances can be sent to your nearest Oxxo for cash pickup. “We’ve had to come up with all these workarounds, because people don’t trust credit cards or banks that much and a lot of people just use cash,” Sosa said. One reason for the general distrust in banks, Cadenas said, is that Mexico’s traditional financial services are expensive. The averageannual interest ratefor a credit card can be around 27.4% in Colombia, while theweighted annual interest rateof a classic credit card at Mexico’s Citibanamex is 56.3%. According to Cadenas, the annual interest on a personal line of credit is around 21% in Colombia, approximately 45.34% in Peru and67.2% or higher in Mexico. “To give an example, if today I request a [line of] credit of approximately $10,000, in five years, I will end up paying $30,000, it’s crazy,” Cadenas said, after calculating the amount on the government’scredit simulator. By contrast, anyone can create an account and wallet on crypto exchanges to start trading. Setting up an account is usually free, and exchanges may charge a trading fee (Bitsochargesbetween 0.05% and 0.5%). Bitso’stransfer platformworks like peer-to-peer lending app Venmo, where you can store, send and receive money free of charge. To serve the large population without bank accounts, crypto platforms usually offermultiple withdrawal methodsthat include transferring funds directly to your mobile phone, or a digital coupon to avoid bank deposit fees. Another reason why crypto might be an appealing option to a population that feels exploited by traditional financial services is that even though crypto platforms are regulated in the country, there isno comprehensive frameworkon how it’s taxed. In accordance with anti money-laundering requirements, crypto firms must report transactions  (one-time or over a period of six months) exceeding roughly $2,500 to the financial authority as a “vulnerable transaction,” Diego Ramos Castillo, crypto litigator and founding partner of a commerciallaw firmin Mexico told CoinDesk. Beyond that, there are no specific rules for crypto: Mexico is still trying to figure out exactly how to tax it, and right now, there is room for a bit of interpretation. Read More:Central Banks, Stablecoins and the Looming War of Currencies For instance, according to Ramos, there are certain tax perks to storing your wealth in crypto: If you want to open and maintain an account that holds any type of foreign currency, you are required to declare any gains or losses you have made during a period of time, even if those are just price fluctuations of the currency you’re holding. But you can hold your funds in stablecoins – cryptocurrencies backed by fiat assets in order to reduce volatility – more easily, Ramos said. Stablecoins are not considered a foreign currency so “you can have an account holding stablecoins, that would be the same as having a U.S. dollar account but you have the tax benefit of not having to report or declare the gains or losses until you sell the stablecoins,” Ramos said. The fintech regulations enacted last year included a whole chapter on virtual assets. As a consequence of the bill, exchanges were no longer allowed to hold or custody fiat currencies without a license. But applying for compliance was expensive andthreatenedto put crypto startups and entrepreneurs out of business. A provision in the bill also required Mexico’scentral bankto issue specificsecondary ruleson how virtual assets would be regulated. According to Ramos, the lawbannedfinancial institutions from issuing or transferring the “risk of cryptocurrency” to the customer in any way. But institutions were still allowed to use crypto for internal operations, Ramos said. Read More:Mexico is Getting Eight New Cryptocurrency Exchanges But the regulations issued by the central bank sounded worse than they actually were, Ramos said, because the government did not ban crypto or call it illegal, and that was good enough. “The central bank recognized that crypto activities were permitted in Mexico. They were not illegal. What they were saying with thissecondary provisionwas that financial institutions should take care and if possible avoid participating actively in the crypto industry,” Ramos said. So operating a crypto business in Mexico is expensive, thanks to the new fintech licensing requirements, but well within the law. It will take some time for crypto firms to become the leading processors of remittances, or the go-to digital payment system in Mexico. Across the country, cash is still thepreferred methodof payment and cryptocurrencies are not widely accepted. The industry has its own shortcomings, starting with the fact that not many people understandhow crypto works, and it seems daunting compared to a short walk to the nearest Oxxo. Sosa, for instance, will still need a bit more convincing before he actually opens a bitcoin wallet. “For the average consumer, I still find it’s just way too onerous. And, you know, I’m not gonna ask my mom to create a crypto wallet because that means that I’m going to spend six days walking her through it,” Sosa said. Nevertheless, startups are continuing to enter the Mexican crypto space. For instance, while Bitso is looking to expand outward, having already established itself in not only Mexico but also in Argentina, startups like crypto exchangeMexoare uniquely targeting local users. Mexo co-founder and partner Bo Zhou told CoinDesk that everything about the platform, starting with its Spanish-language website, is designed to attract users in Mexico to conduct local transactions.AirTM, headquartered in Mexico, provides blockchain-powered dollar accounts to users worldwide. Last year, the startupdistributed$300,000 in donations to Venezuelans in need. Read More:Crypto Exchange AirTM Targets Troubled Markets With $7 Million Raise It appears Mexico not only has a large population open to exploring alternatives to traditional financial services, but a number of factors have aligned almost perfectly to facilitate mass adoption. It can also play a role in advancing financial inclusion, Cadenas said. “Cryptocurrencies in Mexico are a reality for those who not only seek to invest, but for individuals and companies that have the enthusiasm to improve their living conditions with more accessible financial products,” Cadenas said. • Why It’s Time to Pay Attention to Mexico’s Booming Crypto Market • Why It’s Time to Pay Attention to Mexico’s Booming Crypto Market || Blockchain platform Kelta to host SLOBLOCO crypto congress in Slovakia: Blockchain platform Kelta to host SLOBLOCO crypto congress in Slovakia Blockchain platform Kelta to host SLOBLOCO crypto congress in Slovakia Blockchain platform Kelta to host SLOBLOCO crypto congress in Slovakia BRATISLAVA, Slovak Republic, Sept. 28, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the crypto event industry slowly starts to recover, Slovakia leads the way with SLOBLOCO, a blockchain congress organized by the mining platform Kelta, to be held near Bratislava in November 2020. Slovakia is one of the European countries with the lowest incidences of COVID-19: around 6,000 cases and only 3 9 deaths have been registered as of September 17. So it's only fitting that Slovakia's capital, Bratislava, will welcome one of the first post-lockdown crypto congresses: SLOBLOCO , scheduled for November 16-18, 2020. The event will be brought to the public by the blockchain investment platform Kelta Cube. The live-streamed event will bring together up to 50,000 online and offline participants from across the globe. SLOBLOCO will be held at the X-BIONIC® Sphere Resort, a welcoming and luxurious congress space just 30 minutes from Bratislava. A focus on practical applications The key theme of the congress is the use of blockchain in everyday life and business, especially in the food and pharmaceutical industries. The speakers and guests will discuss aspects ranging from taxation, security, and legal issues in blockchain to trading, wallets, and crypto ATMs. Here are just a few of SLOBLOCO's partners: - Covidax - a biotech firm developing the first independent COVID-19 vaccine - Lyra - a premium chocolate brand that uses blockchain to monitor its production process - Marble C ards - a platform for creating and trading unique collectible ERC20 tokens based on real URLs - Crypto Heads - a fast-paced feature film about crypto trading - Lamassu Bitcoin Ventures - the manufacturer of the most affordable Bitcoin ATM on the market Apart from presentations by speakers, including a former Slovakian minister of finance, the event's program features an opening movie night with a showing of Crypto Heads, team-building activities and competitions with valuable prizes, and workshops where guests can meet with speakers in small groups and learn more about their products and services. Story continues Keynote speakers SLOBLOCO will feature some of the leading Central European experts on blockchain, finance, and business: 1) Ivan Miklos - former Slovakian deputy prime minister and minister of finance, one of the major figures in the economic transformation of Slovakia between 1992 and 2002. In 2004, he was named “Best Minister of Finance of the Year” by Euromoney and “Top Business Reformer” by the World Bank. Miklos served as the chief economic advisor to the prime minister of Ukraine and founded two think tanks: MESA10 and the Centre for Economic Strategy. At SLOBLOCO, he will talk about the challenges and opportunities offered by the COVID-19 pandemic. 2) George Mac - founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency mining platform Kelta Cube and a well-known Slovak entrepreneur. Mac has over 20 years of experience as a founder and executive of industrial, metallurgical, and telecom companies. 3) Ina Beckova - an expert on the taxation of cryptocurrency trading and mining income. 4) George Salapa - a digital securitization advisor and founder of the Swiss consulting firm bardicredit GmbH. His writing has been featured in Forbes, CCN, VentureBeats, and other leading financial media. At SLOBLOCO, George will speak on the first independent COVID-19 vaccine, crowdfunded using blockchain. About the organizer: Kelta Kelta is the first multi-cryptocurrency mining platform on the market. It allows users to lease hash power from the company's data centers to mine up to four cryptocurrencies simultaneously, generating a stable passive income of up to 135%. This system offers all the benefits of crypto mining without the maintenance costs. Kelta currently boasts over 6,500 users, who have collectively mined over 100,000 ETH since 2017. Both offline and online passes for SLOBLOCO are available, with offline tickets featuring a two-night accommodation at X-BIONIC® Sphere Resort. To purchase a pass or learn more about the event program, visit https://slobloco.com/ . Media contacts Company: SLOBLOCO Contact: George Mac E-mail: support@slobloco.com Website: https://slobloco.com/ Telephone number: +421917222699 || European crypto exchange ETERBASE hacked, lost more than $5 million from its ‘hot’ wallets: Little-known European crypto exchange ETERBASE suffered a hack Monday night and lost several cryptocurrencies from its “hot” wallets. Announcing the news on Tuesday, ETERBASE said six of its addresses, tied to bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH)/ ERC-20 tokens, XRP, Tron (TRX), Tezos (XTZ), and Algorand (ALGO), have been compromised. The exchange did not reveal the amount lost during the hack, but it is more than $5 million, according to The Block Research. Source: ETERBASE, The Block Research The ETH/ ERC-20 tokens address lost the most funds, around $3.9 million, followed by the XTZ address, losing about $471,000. ETERBASE said it has contacted “all centralized exchanges that might be receiving these illicit funds.” In the meantime, the exchange is in maintenance mode. After the publication of this story, ETERBASE told The Block that it has reported the hack to law enforcement . "We want to assure our clients that we are taking all necessary steps to ensure that the amount of their deposit does not suffer any damage as a result of a hacker attack." © 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. || Aspire Technology to Host First Telegram AMA with Co-Founders Jim Blasko and Michael Terpin: Learn how Aspire makes it easy to create your own digital assets during an AMA on Thursday, September 24, at 11 am pdt / 2 pm edt LAS VEGAS, Sept. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ( via Blockchain Wire ) - Aspire Technology , developer of digital asset creation technologies, today announced its first Telegram AMA with project founders Jim Blasko and Michael Terpin. The Aspire Telegram AMA will take place Thursday, September 24 at 11 AM PST / 2 pm EST / 6 pm GMT on the Aspire Community Telegram Channel . Participants will learn how Aspire makes it easy to create your own digital assets, and have all their questions answered about the platform and its breakthrough underlying technology. Aspire Technology recently launched the mainnet of its first-of-a-kind digital asset creation technology, “Aspire” ( www.aspirewallet.com ). Aspire was designed and built by remodeling legacy Counterparty software and replacing Bitcoin's blockchain with their own Proof Of Work blockchain known as “gAsp”. This was done to allow for greater security and to be able to run on the lowest possible transaction fees. Aspire’s platform and it’s open-source code, utilize integrated automated checkpoints to prevent 51 percent attacks that have caused many other blockchains to lose funds. Aspire is the most cost-effective platform in the world to build digital assets on, as users are able to perform over 300k transactions of their assets with just 1 GASP coin. Digital assets have been a key part of the growth of the blockchain, including the rapid growth of digital collectibles. “Aspire delivers the first easy solution for non-technical and technical users alike to create digital assets on a secure blockchain,” said Jim Blasko, CEO and Co-Founder and CEO of Aspire Technology and core developer of the Aspire platform. “Since the launch of our mainnet, we’ve seen growing interest in Aspire, and a Telegram AMA is a great opportunity to bring everyone together for an insightful discussion.” “Aspire is poised to be a leading platform for the easy, reliable creation of new digital assets, including NFTs, solving the problems found on other blockchain platforms like excessive fees and slow throughput,” said Michael Terpin, Co-Founder and Chairman of Aspire Technology. “We look forward to sharing our roadmap of how personal, celebrity and corporate digital assets will become to the 2020s what corporate websites, personal blogs and social media influencers were to their respective eras.” All are welcome to join the Aspire Telegram AMA. To participate, simply join the Aspire Community Telegram Channel and come ready with your questions on Thursday, September 24, 2020 at 11 am PST / 2 pm EST / 6 pm GMT. Story continues About Aspire Technology and the Aspire platform Aspire Technology is a leading developer of digital asset creation technologies. It was incubated from the bCommerce Labs accelerator fund and other angel investors. The Aspire platform, which consists of the Aspire (ASP) digital asset creation platform and Aspire Gas (GASP) blockchain, is the first digital asset creation platform to resist both mining exploits and 51 percent attacks that are common to proof-of-work blockchains. For more information, contact info@aspirecrypto.com. CONTACT: Agency Contact: Transform Group, aspire@transformgroup.com View comments || Judge rules thousands of ICE documents in COVID case to remain confidential — for now: More than 30,000 immigration documents regarding thousands of migrants detained in three South Florida detention centers during the COVID-19 pandemic will be classified as confidential, a Miami judge ruled Wednesday. During a court hearing held by phone, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman granted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s request to keep about 30,000 documents — or nearly 100,000 pages’ worth of emails, letters and documents that ICE had marked as confidential — unavailable to the public, at least for now. “If we had the luxury of time and we had many months ... I would say that it seems like [ICE] made too broad of a use of the confidential designation and I would go back and ask [ICE] to review all those designations and then come up with a revised production, eliminating those confidential designations which [they] incorrectly used. But we don’t have that luxury of time,” Goodman said. “But under the present scenario, I’m not going to require it,” he said. “But things change. ... This is subject to be revisited.” He noted that depositions in the ongoing class-action lawsuit — which seeks the release of thousands of immigration detainees who are held, or have been held, at the Krome Processing Center in West Miami-Dade, the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach and the Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic — will begin next week. Though the documents marked confidential by ICE won’t be visible in the public docket, attorneys representing the detainees will have access to them, but will be prohibited from discussing them with anyone outside their legal teams. The six national immigration law firms representing the detainees — the University of Miami’s immigration law clinic, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Rapid Defense Network in New York, Americans for Immigrant Justice, the Legal Aid Service of Broward County, and Washington, D.C.-based law firm King & Spalding — told the judge that the decision to keep the documents confidential “complicates” their ability to use them as the case moves toward the upcoming trial, which is scheduled for January 2021. Story continues During Wednesday’s hearing — which was interrupted by the sounds of untraceable and random disco music — ICE also requested permission to redact about 7,000 of the 30,000 documents, specifically emails, group chats and internal memos that would reveal decision-making conversations about internal protocols and people held in detention. Goodman denied that request, but ruled that the agency could redact content that would disclose law enforcement techniques that could compromise public safety. He emphasized that ICE would have to let him know by Thursday exactly what officials plan on redacting and to avoid “nitpicking irrelevant minutiae.” Details on the contents of documents were not discussed. In July, U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Cooke appointed an independent fact-finder to investigate possible “inhumane conditions, deliberate indifference and cruel and unusual punishment” at Krome, BTC and Glades. The designation of a “special master” was in response to a motion filed by immigration lawyers accusing ICE of violating the courts’ April 2020 order. The accusations included: co-mingling COVID-positive detainees with individuals who have not been confirmed as having the disease, failing to provide cleaning supplies and masks to detainees and not educating detainees about the pandemic. The detainees and their attorneys also accuse the agency of not promoting or enforcing social distancing within the detention centers. As of Wednesday, ICE data shows that 182 have tested positive for COVID-19 at Krome, 132 tested positive at Broward and 164 at Glades. Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke’s first name. || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 25, 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, 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, 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/607899/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || As DeFi Deflates, Ethereum Users Get Reprieve From Soaring Fees, Congestion: A slowdown in cryptocurrency trading on so-called decentralized exchanges has helped to alleviate congestion on the Ethereum blockchain, at least temporarily mitigating concerns that the network was becoming overloaded. The trading lull comes as prices tumble for many of the hottest tokens from the fast-growing arena of decentralized finance , or DeFi. SushiSwap’s SUSHI token , one of this year’s splashiest debuts , has fallen by 77% in the past 30 days, while the DeFi lender Compound’s COMP tokens have lost 37%. On Uniswap, the biggest decentralized exchange, or DEX, daily trading volumes have crashed to $224 million, versus a record high of $954 million on Sept. 1. Related: Ethereum Is the Frontier of Financial Innovation “Low volatility in the crypto market as a whole has contributed to lower transaction volume and costs,” said Connor Abendschein, a crypto research analyst at Digital Assets Data. Read More: What Is Yield Farming? The Rocket Fuel of DeFi, Explained DeFi, a subsector of the cryptocurrency industry where entrepreneurs are developing semi-automated trading and lending platforms atop blockchain networks, had surged in popularity in recent months among investors and traders alike. But the resulting congestion had raised concerns that elevated fees for sending transactions over the blockchain might stymie some users, or push application developers to consider alternative networks . Total collateral locked into DeFi platforms jumped to a record $11.2 trillion in September, from below $2 billion at the end of June, according to the data website DeFi Pulse. The amount has since subsided to about $10 billion. Related: First Mover: Bitcoin 'Comatose' Under $16K for Rest of 2020, While Ether Traffic Eases The pullback has contributed to a drop in Ethereum’s daily transaction count to 1.3 million from about 980,000 over the past 2.5 weeks. And with less traffic on the second-largest blockchain network, congestion has dropped, helping to reduce fee rates that had jumped as users paid up for priority transaction processing. The average cost of executing a transaction on Ethereum’s blockchain has dropped to just above $2, from a record $14.58 on Sept. 2, according to the data firm Glassnode . The rate is still well above the 8-cent level that prevailed around the start of this year. “Transaction fees on Ethereum are slowly returning to normal as the DeFi hype that gripped the market for most of 2020 is subsiding,” Nicholas Pelecanos, head of trading at NEM Group, told CoinDesk in a LinkedIn chat. Story continues According to Digital Asset Data’s Abendschein, the relief could prove only temporary for Ethereum users, since fees could quickly shoot back up if a new DeFi protocol emerges or prices rally for ether, the blockchain network’s native token. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market value is currently trading at $340, well off of its two-year high of $480 on Sept. 1. Related Stories As DeFi Deflates, Ethereum Users Get Reprieve From Soaring Fees, Congestion As DeFi Deflates, Ethereum Users Get Reprieve From Soaring Fees, Congestion View comments || Oil Traders Under Pressure, as Seasonal Effect on Crude Oil Markets Come to Play: Traders have been struggling of late to keep Brent crude prices above the $43.50 price support level, after touching one month low, as Brent crude prices breached the crucial support area around the $45 price level. Sell-offs also intensified on increased profit taking by traders. It should be noted that Crude prices of late have been experiencing low volatility in the markets overall. However, the recent U.S Job reports recently released is expected to keep the price of crude above the $40 level price level (Brent Crude) in the near term and probably trigger more trading activity in the fragile energy market. Also the recent surge in the US dollar ahead of the European Central Bank (ECB) rate decision is posing a most massive threat to the short-term view of crude oil prices. Crude oil traders are aware, on the recent rebound on the US dollar Index, as squeezed out momentarily the steady bullish run on the energy derivative, as the greenback’s gain is relatively negative effect on the commodity. Also, there is a seasonality effect on the black liquid derivative, including the U.S refinery maintenance period and end of the driving season that will both be weighing on oil demand in September, perhaps spooking the markets, even more, are reports that Iraq was getting complacent on its commitments under the OPEC+ agreement. While the USD move and Iraq news may have led to some profit-taking, underlying supply/demand dynamics and the just recent impressive economic data from the world’s largest economy continue to suggest a tightening market and a move towards the $45 per barrel in the case for Brent oil. Crude oil prices now seem to be in a price consolidation phase after a positive melt-up over the past eight weeks. 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: Bitcoin Down Almost 10% Today, You’ll Be Surprised to Hear What’s Next AUD/USD Weekly Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Pulls Back After Trying to Rally USD/JPY Weekly Price Forecast – US Dollar Rallies Into Resistance E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Technical Bounce Could Lead to Test of 11803.75 Oil Tries To Settle Below The $40 Level Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver Gives Back Early Gains for the Week [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 11555.36, 11425.90, 11429.51, 11495.35, 11322.12, 11358.10, 11483.36, 11742.04, 11916.33, 12823.69
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 2016-07-06] BTC Price: 677.33, BTC RSI: 54.33 Gold Price: 1364.90, Gold RSI: 74.57 Oil Price: 47.43, Oil RSI: 47.77 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin exchange Coinbase to add ether currency to trading platform: NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase said late Thursday it will add digital currency ether on its trading platform next Tuesday. With the launch of ether trading next week, Coinbase is also changing the name of its platform to GDAX (Global Digital Asset Exchange), said Adam White, vice president of business development and head of GDAX. Coinbase, widely believed to be the largest bitcoin-focused company in terms of investment, will offer ether/dollar and ether/bitcoin currency pairs. Ether is the digital currency for the Ethereum platform, a blockchain, or public ledger that can create decentralized applications. Ethereum uses ether to execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically without the need for intermediaries. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Bernard Orr) || Bitcoin exchange Coinbase to add ether currency to trading platform: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase said on Thursday it will add digital currency ether on its trading platform next Tuesday. The addition of ether comes given the surge in interest in the digital asset among major financial institutions such as Barclays [BARCR.UL] and UBS [UBSAG.UL] as well as other enterprises worldwide like IBM, which are trying to explore the Ethereum network. Ether is the digital currency for the Ethereum platform, a blockchain, or public ledger that can create decentralized applications. Ethereum, which uses ether to execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically without the need for intermediaries, was co-founded and invented by 22-year old Russian Canadian programer Vitalik Buterin. "We're very excited about Ethereum. There has been a ton of progress made in the last six to nine months," said Adam White, vice president of business development at Coinbase in an interview with Reuters. "We have seen hundreds of emerging decentralized apps (applications) launched on Ethereum." He added that bitcoin cannot mirror Ethereum's "scripting language," so both bitcoin and ether can co-exist and will not necessarily compete with each other. Coinbase also plans to change the name of its platform to GDAX (Global Digital Asset Exchange), said White. The name Coinbase, however, will be retained for its retail service such as exchanging dollars for bitcoin or ether, he added. Coinbase, widely believed to be the largest bitcoin-focused company in terms of investment, will offer ether/dollar and ether/bitcoin currency pairs on GDAX. The name change was made because the company will add more digital assets for trading on its exchange, White said. According to coinmarketcap.com, ether is trading at $14.28 late on Thursday, with a market capitalization of about $1.1 billion, the second largest behind bitcoin. Bitcoin currently has a market cap of $6.9 billion. Daily volume for ether is around $48 million, while average daily volume for bitcoin is $87.2 million. Story continues At the beginning of the year, ether traded at just $1 per token and it is the fastest-rising digital currency. White said ether will be available on GDAX in most states except New York because Coinbase is still in the process of applying for a license in the state. Coinbase's move to add ether trading to its currency exchange platform came after New York approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade ether on its exchange. "What's powerful about ethereum is that I can write self-executing contracts and I can run them on Ethereum and it's not on any central server or computer," said White. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Bernard Orr) || INVESTMENT FOCUS-Index-eligible or not, China's allure dimmed by yuan fears: (Repeats from Friday without changes) By Sujata Rao LONDON, June 17 (Reuters) - Just as China's $10 trillion bond and equity markets appear to be on the cusp of joining global indexes, investors who long sought free access to these assets have started to worry that any returns would be hit by a weakening yuan. Many were disappointed by MSCI's decision this week to keep China's mainland listed A-shares off its emerging market indexes on the grounds that Beijing needed to make its markets more easily accessible to foreign investors. But market watchers said the decision, made after months of consultations with investors, at least partly reflected fund managers' unease about allocating more to yuan-denominated assets. Currently, MSCI indexes include only Chinese stocks listed offshore which are freely traded. China's mainland stocks will almost certainly be added to equity indexes in the coming years, if not months, as will the country's $7 trillion government bond market, the world's third-biggest. That should bring more capital inflows, especially as foreign holdings of local shares and bonds currently amount to just $180 billion, JPMorgan calculates. But the timing is tricky. An economy growing at its slowest pace in 25 years, falling exports and potential U.S. interest rate rises are seen portending yuan weakness. Memories are still fresh of last August's devaluation, when the yuan fell 2.7 percent against the dollar in one week. "There is pent-up demand for exposure to China, but we are probably in a period when the world is happy not to hold too much of it," said Kieran Curtis, a bond fund manager at Standard Life Investments. "You get a pretty decent (bond) yield but people will be reluctant to pile in because of expectations of currency depreciation." Recent yuan moves give credence to such fears. Authorities have recently been fixing the official exchange rate at steadily weaker levels, pushing it to five-year lows. That weakness and a surge in outbound investment could also fuel a resumption of last year's huge capital outflows. Story continues The yuan has fallen 8 percent against the dollar since the end of 2013, ceding a quarter of its appreciation since 2005. But against its trading partners' currencies it has fallen 4.3 percent this year, suffering more trade-weighted depreciation than any emerging currency other than the Mexican peso. INDEX INCLUSION Keen to boost the international profile of its markets and currency, Beijing has rushed to make the changes that index providers require, relaxing quota-based investment programmes and clamping down on arbitrary share suspensions. Bond investors were told last month they would be able to remit money more freely, a move seen as potentially enabling entry to major debt indexes and bringing in at least $155 billion, according to JPMorgan estimates. JPMorgan has already put China on a watchlist for its GBI-EM emerging bond index. China's government pays 3 percent on its 10-year bonds, far higher than any other country whose currency is in the International Monetary Fund's SDR basket. But while this is high in the global context, it may seem paltry to emerging debt specialists who earn more than 6 percent on the GBI-EM index on average. "At this juncture I don't think China will attract material interest...it will be the lowest yielding market in the (GBI-EM) index. Plus the tail risk that they could devalue," said Naveen Kunam, portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors. Indeed, non-deliverable forwards (NDFs), derivatives used by investors to lock in future exchange rates, price the yuan at 6.8 per dollar in a year's time versus the spot rate of 6.6. This is down from January peaks close to 7 but investors planning to buy Chinese assets should use the pullback to add yuan hedges, analysts at Goldman Sachs advise. Hedging erodes returns: Someone holding a six-month NDF, for example, would pay away roughly 1.2 percent of the yield earned. WAIT Many therefore say they will wait. "FX risk is something to take into account because with the yield differential being quite low with the U.S., the FX effect becomes more influential in your investment decision," said PineBridge Investments' portfolio manager Anders Faergeman. Another 5-10 percent yuan depreciation versus the dollar would get him interested in Chinese bonds, Faergeman added. Of course not everyone believes yuan weakening is inevitable. China's exports are competitive enough without a devaluation, analysts at asset manager Matthews Asia say. Sentiment, however, is powerful. Reuters reported this month that investors inside and outside China were employing various strategies to profit from yuan weakness, including buying Bitcoin and shorting Hong Kong stocks correlated to the exchange rate. Shanghai shares have fallen almost 20 percent this year and China funds tracked by EPFR Global have seen around $2.5 billion in outflows. That's part of a broader picture of capital flight from Chinese firms and individuals, with May alone seeing $27 billion flee. Patrick Mange, head of EM strategy at BNP Paribas Investment Partners says big yuan devaluation risks are actually small as China can easily tighten capital controls if needed. "This risk is in the mind of people, it is a longer-term risk which would impact this market." (Additional reporting by Karin Strohecker and Nicola Saminather in Singapore, graphics by Vincent Flasseur and Nigel Stephenson; Editing by Hugh Lawson) || Bitcoin hits two-year high as yuan worries drive Chinese demand: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - The price of the web-based digital currency bitcoin soared to its highest in almost two years on Tuesday, rising to more than $500 per unit, as worries about a further weakening of the yuan drove increased demand from China. Trading volumes on the Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCC surged to three to five times their daily average since Friday, according to CEO Bobby Lee, as Chinese savers have moved to protect their money against a further devaluation of the yuan. Bitcoin is a web-based "cryptocurrency" that can move money across the globe quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority. That makes it attractive to those wanting to get around capital controls, such as China's. Around 95 percent of all bitcoin trading is done via Chinese exchanges, according to industry website Coindesk, so any increase in demand from the Asian super-power tends to have a particularly significant impact. The yuan weakened to a 4 1/2-month low on Tuesday and recorded its second-biggest monthly fall on record in May. Investors reckon it will weaken further, given growing expectations for an increase in U.S. interest rates and signs that China's credit-fuelled economy is slowing again. "People are worrying about the PBOC (People's Bank of China) devaluing the yuan," BTCC's Bobby Lee said from Hong Kong. "If you're in China and you're holding onto that yuan, that's a huge risk, so they're buying into hard assets ... Bitcoin is something that is very easily traded into, so that's what's happening." Despite being championed by some as the digital money of the future, bitcoin is often dismissed as too volatile to invest in. After rocketing above $1,100 in 2013, it then fell to around $150 in early 2015. But it has since recovered, and was the best-performing currency in 2015. Bitcoin hit $548.50 on the Bitstamp exchange on Tuesday, its strongest since August 2014, leaving it up over 20 percent in the past week. Story continues With around 15.5 million bitcoins now in circulation, that puts the currency's total value, or its "market cap", at around $8.5 billion -- about the same size as Anglo American, a global FTSE 100 mining company. Lee added that on his Chinese exchange, the price of bitcoin had at one point rallied above 4,000 yuan, or over $600. That was a sign investors sensed that the yuan was being artificially supported by the PBOC, he said. NEW SUPPLY HALVING Another reason given by bitcoin experts for the currency's latest surge is that in 40 days' time, the number of new bitcoins that are added to the system every day will be halved. By the principles of supply and demand, that slower growth in supply should raise the value of the currency. Instead of being controlled by a central bank, 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 thereby clear the transactions is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, worth around $13,500. But when it was invented in 2008 by the mysterious "Satoshi Nakamoto", the code was designed so that the reward would be halved roughly every four years, in order to keep a lid on inflation. The next time that is due to happen is July 10. "Bitcoin is days away from a reduction in its block reward, which will halve the daily supply coming onto the market," said Charles Hayter, CEO of London-based digital currency analysis website CryptoCompare. Hayter added that after months of struggles over how to upgrade the software run by the computers that process bitcoin transactions, dubbed the "bitcoin civil war, developers appeared to be reaching a consensus, which was also helping support the currency. "Bitcoin is emerging battle-hardened after a period of divisive governance issues and politics," he said. "Although not fully laid to rest, calmer waters look to be on the horizon as consensus on how to scale the network is appearing." (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Additional reporting by Sujata Rao; Editing by Larry King) || Winklevoss brothers choose BATS over Nasdaq for bitcoin ETF listing: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Wednesday filed to switch the listing of their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund to BATS Global Markets from Nasdaq, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a listing three years ago. The proposed ETF, the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, will list 1 million shares at $65 each, according to the filing. That is up from a list price of $20.09 per share given in the first filing. The filing did not say why there was a change in trading venues, but over the last year BATS has emerged as one of the fastest-rising trading venues for ETFs. BATS is the second largest U.S. equities market operator. If approved by the SEC, the Winklevoss ETF would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Gemini Trust Company, the Winklevoss brothers' trust company, which runs a bitcoin trading venue, has been designated the custodian of the ETF. There was no designated custodian in the previous filings. Gemini operates a trading platform for bitcoin and for another digital currency, ether. The ETF's bitcoin will be valued using the Gemini's spot price as of 4 p.m. Eastern time each business day, according to the SEC filing. 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. It has since recovered, hitting a more than two-year high of nearly $780 last week in the run-up to the British referendum whether the country should leave the European Union. As of late Wednesday, one bitcoin was worth $634.24 <BTC=BTSP> on the Bitstamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Leslie Adler) View comments || 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 || Winklevoss brothers choose BATS over Nasdaq for bitcoin ETF listing: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Wednesday filed to switch the listing of their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund to BATS Global Markets from Nasdaq, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a listing three years ago. The proposed ETF, the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, will list 1 million shares at $65 each, according to the filing. That is up from a list price of $20.09 per share given in the first filing. The filing did not say why there was a change in trading venues, but over the last year BATS has emerged as one of the fastest-rising trading venues for ETFs. BATS is the second largest U.S. equities market operator. If approved by the SEC, the Winklevoss ETF would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Gemini Trust Company, the Winklevoss brothers' trust company, which runs a bitcoin trading venue, has been designated the custodian of the ETF. There was no designated custodian in the previous filings. Gemini operates a trading platform for bitcoin and for another digital currency, ether. The ETF's bitcoin will be valued using the Gemini's spot price as of 4 p.m. Eastern time each business day, according to the SEC filing. 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. It has since recovered, hitting a more than two-year high of nearly $780 last week in the run-up to the British referendum whether the country should leave the European Union. As of late Wednesday, one bitcoin was worth $634.24 <BTC=BTSP> on the Bitstamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Leslie Adler) || Your first trade for Thursday, May 26: The "Fast Money" traders shared which moves they'd make at the U.S. market open. Tim Seymour was a buyer of Schlumberger(NYSE: SLB). Steve Grasso was a buyer of the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF(NYSE Arca: GDX). Brian Kelly was a buyer of the iShares Silver Trust.(NYSE Arca: SLV) Guy Adami was a buyer of Starbucks(NASDAQ: SBUX). Trader disclosure: On May 25, 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. Steve Grasso is long BA, CC, DD, DIS, EVGN, KBH, MJNA, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX firm long AAPL, CVX, OXY, RIG Steve's kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, US Dollar; he is short Australian Dollar, Euro, EWA, EWH, FRC, Hong Kong Dollar, IWM, Yuan Short: SPY and S&P 500 Futures. Tim Seymour is long AAPL, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, EDC, EWZ, F, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GRMN, GE, GLNCY, INTC, LQD, M, MCD, MPEL, NKE, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, UA, VALE, VZ, XOM. 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, WYNN, XRT More From CNBC • Top News and Analysis • Latest News Video • Personal Finance || 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, itplunged 25 percentsince 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 oneamong several factorsthat 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 || How to Hedge Market Turns with Inverse ETFs: With the equities market exhibiting greater bouts of volatility, exchange traded fund investors can utilize inverse or bearish strategies to help protect against the turns and limit the negative effects of any further drawdowns. On a recent webcast, Managing Market Pullbacks with Inverse ETFs , Sylvia Jablonski, Managing Director and Head of the Capital Markets & Institutional Strategy Team at Direxion, explained that inverse ETFs typically replicate the inverse returns of a benchmark on a daily basis, allowing investors to easily gain short or bearish exposure to various areas of the market. Jablonski pointed out that traders have typically used inverse ETFs to maintain momentum strategies, capitalize on short-term opportunities or hedge against unforeseen risks. “Inverse ETFs can provide an easy means of short-term hedging for long-term investors,” Jablonski said. However, potential investors should be aware of the risks associated with these inverse products. Specifically, Jablonski reminded advisors that these ETFs rebalance on a daily basis, so the inverse funds may not perfectly reflect their intended strategies over long periods due to compounding issues as a result of the daily rebalancing. In Trending markets that move consistently in a single direction, compounding may benefit inverse ETFs. However, in more volatile markets when securities experience greater oscillations, an inverse ETF may underperform its intended -1x, -2x or -3x multiples compared to a benchmark.. Related: VIX, Bearish S&P 500 ETFs to Hedge Uncertainty Jablonski also pointed to a number inverse ETF strategies that could help traders hedge against potential market risks ahead. For instance, the he Direxion Daily CSI 300 China A Share Bear 1x Shares ( CHAD ) , Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bear 1X Shares ( LABS ) , Direxion Daily Financial Bear 1x Shares ( FAZZ ) , Direxion Daily Energy Bear 1x Shares ( ERYY ) , Direxion Dialy Technology Bear 1x Shares ( TECZ ) and Direxion Daily S&P 500 Bear 1x Shares ETF ( SPDN ) provide inverse or -100% exposure to some of the more volatile areas this year. Story continues On a survey of financial advisors who attended the webcast, 26.9% of respondents pointed to oil & gas as the area that could offer the most tactical opportunities in the next 6 months, followed by 16.4% pointing to Europe, 15.8% looking to gold related and 14.0% watching financials. Trending on ETF Trends 11 Surging Silver ETFs as Two-Year High Looms A Gold Boon for these Glistening ETFs As Bank of England Mulls Rate Cuts, More Pound Punishment Likely As Q3 Begins, Gold Miner ETFs Keep Shining Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF Will Trade on BATS Tom Dorsey, Co-Founder of Dorsey, Wright & Associates, pointed to the relative strength technical indicator to help financial advisor and investors to gauge a securities’ momentum in the market. “This reading is plotted on a point and figure chart, which then tells us whether we can expect that stock or ETF to outperform or outperform the base index,” Dorsey said. Relative strength is a type of momentum investment technique that compares the performance of a security to that of the overall market. The indicator calculates which investments are the strongest performers compared to the overall market and suggests further investments for purchase. Related: Navigating Risks of Leveraged, Inverse ETF Play Along with the momentum indicator, investors can also utilize other trend following techniques. Jablonski pointed to a simple trend following strategy around the 200-day moving average indicator. For example, if the S&P 500 is trading above its 200-day, go long the S&P 500. On the other hand, if the index dips below its 200-day, go short or inverse S&P 500. Financial advisors who are interested in learning more about hedging strategies for a volatile market ahead can watch the webcast here on demand . [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $453.21/$453.50 #Bitstamp $453.50/$454.49 #BTCe ⇢$0.00/$1.28 $456.02/$456.09 #Coinbase ⇢$2.52/$2.88 || Current price of #Bitcoin is $670.00! Provided by #GenerationBlockchain http://ift.tt/1Vb4miB  || http://cubeminers.com  SHA: 0.00 KH Scrypt: 13.90 MH x11: 4.07 MH #DigiCube #bitcoin #altcoinpic.twitter.com/y94kzOvtGi || 1 KOBO = 0.00001038 BTC = 0.0047 USD = 0.9352 NGN = 0.0736 ZAR = 0.4742 KES #Kobocoin 2016-05-26 06:00 pic.twitter.com/cXKXU5Yc4V || 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/wZnyO8RXsw || LIVE: Profit = $786.21 (10.02 %). BUY B18.96 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $455.71 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || Bitstamp: $677.21/BTC - last trade of USD/BTC at https://www.bitstamp.net/  (high: 692.10, low: 655.00) #bitcoin #BTC http://bitcoinautotrade.com  || $653.26 #bitfinex; $653.00 #bitstamp; $634.00 #btce; Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse  #bitcoin #btc || 1 $MOIN Price: C-Cex 0.00000555 #BTC #MOIN #MoneyEvolved 2016-06-23 18:00 https://c-cex.com/?p=moin-btc pic.twitter.com/GwYiJ7ylKh || #UFOCoin #UFO $ 0.000027 (-0.85 %) 0.00000004 BTC (-0.00 %)
Trend: up || Prices: 640.56, 666.52, 650.96, 649.36, 647.66, 664.55, 654.47, 658.08, 663.26, 660.77
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 2018-08-10] BTC Price: 6184.71, BTC RSI: 32.56 Gold Price: 1211.10, Gold RSI: 33.17 Oil Price: 67.63, Oil RSI: 44.83 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] 3 Bond ETFs to Position for Higher Interest Rates: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. With rising interest rates widely expected to continue this year, some fixed income strategies and exchange traded funds merit additional consideration. While the Federal Reserve has raised rates multiple times over the past several years, the central bank's pace of rate hikes has been slow. In fact it “represent(s) one of the flattest Fed hiking trajectories in their monetary tightening history. It has taken the Fed 910 days to raise the benchmark rate 1.75%, far longer than the 559 days, on average, that it took them to move the Fed Funds rate 1.75% in the previous four rate hike cycles,” said State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) in a recent note . The SPDR Portfolio Short Term Treasury ETF ( SPTS ) offers investors one way of dealing with the Fed's rate hike trajectory. The $480.76 million SPTS tracks the Bloomberg Barclays 1-3 Year U.S. Treasury Index and has an option adjusted duration of just 1.91 years. SPTS can be paired with funds such as the SPDR Portfolio Long Term Treasury ETF ( SPTL ) to deal with the Fed's efforts at avoiding an inverted yield curve. “Given that the Fed is expected to hike rates at least once more in 2018, that issues constricting long-term yields are not likely to be solved quickly and that aging investors are allocating more capital to bonds, the trajectory of the yield curve is likely to only be flatter, not higher,” said SSgA. Senior Loans, Too Senior loan funds, including the SPDR Blackstone/GSO Senior Loan ETF ( SRLN ) , can help investors thrive during the current interest rate climate. Related: ETF Trends Fixed Income Channel Due to their floating rate component, bank loans are seen as an attractive alternative to traditional high-yield corporate bonds in a rising rate environment. Bank loan securities allow their interest rate to shift, or float, along with the rest of the market, whereas a fixed interest rate stays constant until maturity. Story continues “Float on the short end of the curve to pick up rising yields with minimal duration (0.11 years), while taking on some credit risk to boost yields on the long end but with less duration than long-term Treasuries (13.6 vs. 17.2 years),” said SSgA. A floating rates corporates strategy offers investors a higher yield spread over Treasuries with a lower duration than various Treasury only strategies. For more information on the fixed-income market, visit our bond ETFs category . POPULAR ARTICLES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM Warren Buffett Raises $80 Million in Israel Bonds How to Bet on Upside for Hot Tech ETFs Tom Lydon Featured on Capital Allocators With Ted Seides Podcast Bitcoin: More Speculators, Fewer Investors 5 Ways to Improve Your Financial Decisions READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || U.S. regulator stands by decision to block Winklevoss bitcoin ETF: By Trevor Hunnicutt and Michelle Price NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday stood by a decision blocking an exchange-traded fund that would have tracked bitcoin, citing concerns about market manipulation. The securities regulator found "unpersuasive" arguments that the bitcoin ETF proposed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twin brothers who founded crypto exchange Gemini Trust Co LLC, would be sufficiently protected from manipulation, it said in a 92-page analysis https://bit.ly/2K3GoWG posted on its website. "Regulated bitcoin-related markets are in the early stages of their development," the SEC said, saying that it "cannot...conclude that bitcoin markets are uniquely resistant to manipulation." But the agency did not completely shut the door to such products coming to market once the bitcoin market has matured, offering some hope for at least five other bitcoin ETF proposals that are still pending before the regulator. Bitcoin <BTC=BTSP> turned negative after the SEC's ruling, and last traded down 2.9 percent. The virtual currency 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. A fund holding the currency could attract more investors and push its price higher. The SEC said there was not enough evidence that efforts to thwart manipulation of the ETF's price or that of the underlying bitcoin market would be successful. The SEC had blocked the Winklevoss ETF from coming to market in March 2017, but then faced an appeal from CBOE Holdings Inc's <CBOE.O> Bats exchange, which applied to list the ETF. The parties can appeal the SEC's decision in federal court. CBOE and Gemini did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 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." Story continues The SEC's decision to block the ETF was voted for 3-1 by its sitting commissioners, with Republican commissioner Hester Peirce voting against. In a statement, Peirce said she believed the product met the legal standard. "More institutional participation would ameliorate many of the Commission's concerns with the bitcoin market that underlie its disapproval order," she said, adding that the ruling "sends a strong signal that innovation is unwelcome in our markets." (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in New York and Michelle Price in Washington; additional reporting by Anna Irrera in New York; editing by Phil Berlowitz and Leslie Adler) || There Are Now More Than 3,500 Bitcoin ATMs Worldwide: While not as widely used as those made for fiat currency, cryptocurrency ATMs remain a popular medium for buying and selling cryptocurrency such as bitcoin. Today marks a milestone, as there are now over 3,500 bitcoin ATMs installed and operational around the world. The latest data fromCoinatmradar— a leading authority that tracks bitcoin ATM locations — shows the slump in bitcoin prices hasn’t had much impact in the rate at which crypto ATMs are being installed and used across the world. The data shows there are currently 3,503 bitcoin ATMs across the globe, as of press time. Out of these installed ATMs, 1,846 (about 52.7 percent) support altcoins with 49 percent and 32.1 percent of these ATMs supporting litecoin and ether, respectively. This new milestone comes 17 months after the total number of bitcoin ATMs surpassed the 1,000 installation mark in early 2017. The data fromCoinatmradarreports that North America has the largest concentration of ATMs globally, with a whopping 2,594 bitcoin ATMs installed, which translates to 74.05% of the total spread of ATMs installed across the world. Following North America, albeit still far away, isEurope— where the United Kingdom andAustria, dominate, followed closely by Russia and theCzech Republic. The price of bitcoin has been hit the most this year especially the first quarter of the year where it dropped by almost 50 percent in February falling below $7,000. Despite the price slump, manufacturers have continued to install new crypto ATMs. The report shows the accelerating pace at which ATM operators are installing the machines across the world. Earlier inMay, when there were about 3,052 cryptocurrency ATMs installed and functioning globally, the installation rate was a little above 5.88 bitcoin ATMs/day, which has increased by 66% to the current 8.91 installation speed per day. For manufacturers, two companies dominate the pack: American firmGenesis Coin(33.69 percent) and Europe-basedGeneral Bytes(26.89 percent). From the new report, we can assume a few things such as an increase in demand for buying and selling cryptocurrencies through ATMs and that the business model also seem to be profitable for the manufacturers despite the slump in prices. Manufacturers are also offering increasing options for consumers through the two-way machines. Two-way ATMs allow consumers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, while one-way machines are for buying cryptos only. The market share for two-way machines also jumped from 35.32% to 37.03%, as manufacturers invest in improved hardware to earn fees on both sides of the trade. The data shows bitcoin is still the dominant cryptocurrency in the world. About 99.9 percent of all the machines installed around the globe support bitcoin, while 52.7 percent support altcoins, withlitecoinbeing the most popular. With the monthly increase in the number ofbitcoin ATMsinstalled around the world and the pessimism towards cryptos, the future looks good for the industry. The real question is how the landscape will evolve, as ATMs provide an excellent medium that could ramp up the adoption of cryptocurrencies, though riddled with high fees. For now, the price of convenience and ease of use seems too good of a deal for consumers to turn them down — transaction fees not withstanding. Featured Image from Shutterstock The postThere Are Now More Than 3,500 Bitcoin ATMs Worldwideappeared first onCCN. || Will AMC Stubs A-List Be a MoviePass or AMC Killer?: There's plenty of buzz for today's launch ofAMC Entertainment's(NYSE: AMC)monthly subscription plan. AMC Stubs A-List will be taking onHelios and Matheson Analytics'(NASDAQ: HMNY)MoviePass, but that also means taking on some of the industry demons that have weighed on multiplex operators in recent years. AMC Stubs A-List seems amazingon the surface, and since the exhibitor's website was down for a spell earlier today, it's fair to say that film buffs slamming the site to sign up for the plan feel the same way, too. Members pay $19.95 a month to watch as many as three movies a week. It's going to be an easy sell, especially for active movie goers. The ability to watch a dozen movies a month is a pretty sweet deal, especially since folks were spending more than that by the time they hit the local multiplex for the second time in any given month. The subscription service will be a hit, but it may also come at a cost. MoviePass disrupted the value proposition of a night at the movies, and now AMC will be doing the same thing. Image source: AMC Entertainment. Helios and Matheson argues that it's not worried about AMC. MoviePass has gone from 20,000 to more than 3 million members since slashing its price to $9.95 a month last summer. MoviePass offers access to as many as a movie per day, as long as you don't see the same film twice. MoviePass is also venue-agnostic. It will work at most movie houses. It also has a great name. No offense, AMC, but AMC Stubs A-List is a bit of a mouthful. However, there are a lot of advantages that AMC Stubs A-List has over MoviePass. AMC's offering will work on Dolby Cinema,IMAX(NYSE: IMAX), RealD 3D, and other premium screenings. MoviePass is limited to standard showings. AMC will also let members purchase advance tickets online. MoviePass is limited to purchases made for screenings scheduled later that day, and outside of a handful of small chains that offer e-ticketing, folks need to check-in near the actual theater and then physically buy the tickets at the venue within 30 minutes. Another thing going for AMC is that it won't make members feel like second-class citizens. It is the venue operator, so it knows transactions are legit. MoviePass makes members jump through several hoops to safeguard against misuse of the program, including having most of its users submit photos of ticket stubs to verify that they used the pre-loaded debit cards for the checked-in screenings. There are a lot of things that MoviePass members put up with in exchange for a well-priced buffet of movies, and now AMC is raising the bar -- even if it's also raising the price of the experience -- in terms of convenience. One final thing working in AMC's favor is that it's profitable. Helios and Matheson isburning through cash, and that finds it doing a lot of things that aren't popular with users. Next month it will introduce surge pricing for screenings of high-demand movies. It also plans to let users watch premium screenings if they pay a couple of more bucks per film, but demand-based pricing and the option for a paid upgrade for a premium setup will start pushing prices closer to AMC's cost. AMC Stubs A-List is great, but now let's go over why it may hurt AMC and actually help MoviePass. For starters, it will champion MoviePass' crusade that a movie-going experience is worth less than current retail prices. A big win for Helios and Matheson is that folks may decide to sign up for both plans -- I know I will -- and it will reduce the monthly burden of ticket prices on MoviePass. The move also naturally validates the MoviePass model, and bargain seekers wooed by AMC Stubs A-List for $19.95 may be even more smitten by MoviePass at half that price. AMC is going to learn a few lessons the hard way here. It's going to realize that folks tend to go for pricier tickets when it's on someone else's dime, something that it probably already knows since it collected $2.24 per movie more from MoviePass than it did from its average movie goer in its latest quarter. The difference will be even higher here, as AMC Stubs A-List members will be encouraged to go for premium shows. AMC Entertainment has naturally thought this through, but the plan could be too good for its own good. 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 Rick Munarrizowns shares of Helios and Matheson Analytics. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends IMAX. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || What's the Most Important Thing at a Start-Up?: When you run a start-up , it's easy to focus on things that seem important rather than the one thing that actually is important. Arguing about website design, nitpicking logo options, and playing ping pong in your oh-so-hip office space may feel like a full day at the office, but if you're not working on generating sales, then nothing you did actually matters. A company's success or failure has never been determined by the exact right shade of green as part of a company's logo or a clever welcome video. Ultimately, success comes down to whether a company can generate revenue. Keeping customers or clients happy enough that they continue to give you money is the only way to buy time to get everything else right. A road says start with an arrow pointing forward. If you don't start with the right focus, you'll fail. Image source: Getty Images. Eyes on the prize My background includes working at one start-up that successfully reached an initial public offering and another that sold for $32 million (although that amount was never fully collected) after spending about $1 million. More recently, I spent two years focusing part of my efforts on a web development company that worked largely with startups that had already raised between $500,000 and $1 million in funding. When I worked in the latter position, my business partner saw the same mistakes over and over again. Company founders/upper management worried too much about being ready for the market and having everything just right instead of focusing on revenue. Whether you sell a product or a service, it's important to generate revenue -- or at least pre-sales. It's kind of a "fake it until you make it" philosophy. Even if your product has not been manufactured, you can take orders and collect deposits. If your company provides a service, it's best to book some sales, even if you're not quite ready. Why does this matter? Whether you're bootstrapping it or have raised money from outside investors, your company's ongoing value is determined by revenue, not how clever your idea is. If you need to raise or borrow money, your ability to do that and your valuation or loan terms will be based on you showing an ability to bring in money. That's why on nearly every episode of Shark Tank , the sharks ask the people pitching for their sales numbers. If those numbers are impressive, it sometimes creates interest in a company that otherwise seemed silly. If the numbers are bad -- or worse, nonexistent -- then it's very rare that a deal gets made. Work it from day one A significant portion of company resources should go into drumming up interest in your product or services pretty much from day one. That doesn't mean you should avoid the other things it takes to build your company, but sales and revenue generation should be something that gets focused on every day. Story continues You should know what your cash burn rate is and exactly how much money is needed to buy you each extra week of being in business. If you have investors or are planning on raising venture capital money, you should do your homework to know what their revenue expectations are before they offer further investment. Don't let the little things distract you. Your letterhead and mission statement don't need to be perfect from day one, and making sure your office has those awesome walls painted as whiteboards can wait. Focus on sales. Work on acquiring customers and putting your company in a position where it generates revenue. Even if the clients or customers you lure in early are not the ones you hope to serve down the road, the revenue they generate -- as long as they pay their bills -- will keep your start-up afloat. 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 . View comments || Bitcoin Price Hits 2018-Low at $5,825, Where Will it Bottom Out?: The bitcoin price has dipped below the $5,900 mark, after initially dipping below the $6,000 mark on June 23. Subsequent to four consecutive sell-offs as shown in the 1-hour bitcoin price chart below, BTC officially fell to a yearly low. On February, the bitcoin price recorded a major drop from around $8,000 to the lower end of $6,000, bottoming out at around $6,050. However, on June 24, the drop of BTC continued to the higher end of the $5,000 region, entering $5,000 for the first time since early November. The price trend of BTC has been nearly identical to the fall of BTC in 2014, when it experienced a 80 percent correction from its all-time high. Conceptually, the fall of BTC in 2014 and 2018 poses no difference, given that both corrections were triggered by the eruption of a retail investor bubble. From May 29 to June 10, bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency market seemed to be recovering, recording 12 days of stability and consecutive minor gains. But, a massive sell-off on June 11 that led the price of BTC to fall abruptly from $7,700 to $6,670 initiated the start of yet another short-term correction, leading BTC to plunge to the $5,000 region. The price trend of BTC has played almost identically to the scenario provided by cryptocurrency researcher and investor Willy Woo in late May. Woo stated that due to the extreme volatility in the market and the low daily trading volume of BTC, it is likely that BTC will experience a slow bleed out to $5,500. As of current, many traders see a BTC bottom at around $5,000, some below the $5,000 region. But, unless the market fails to rebound at all and show no signs of mid-term recovery, it is difficult to see BTC dropping below $5,000. Moreover, a drop from $20,000, the all-time high price of BTC, to $5,000 would result in a 75 percent drop since its all-time high, and a drop below that mark would lead BTC to experience a correction that is worse than its correction in 2014. Given the difference in the level of interest, hype, and demand around the cryptocurrency market specifically amongst investors in the public market, it is highly unlikely that BTC drops below $5,000 and likely that BTC settles in the lower region of $5,000. Investors in the public market, especially Wall Street, often develop strong interest in an asset or a commodity that drops 70 to 80 percent in value in the short-term because it represents a viable buy opportunity. Mid to long-term traders and investors are not momentum traders; they aim for investment opportunities that could generate strong gains in the next 12 to 24 months. Bitcoin has seen this exact movement in 2010 and 2014, and minor corrections in between 2014 and 2018. Every correction has led BTC rebounding past its previous all-time highs and establishing a new high at a region that is 100 to 300 percent higher than the previous region. Featured image from Shutterstock. The postBitcoin Price Hits 2018-Low at $5,825, Where Will it Bottom Out?appeared first onCCN. || Ripple exec Cory Johnson: 'XRP is crypto 2.0': The digital asset XRP rose in value by more than 32,000% in 2017 . Since then, it has fallen by 75% in 2018. Through it all, fascination around the asset remains remarkably high: cryptocurrency lovers tend to feel strongly positive or negative about XRP and about Ripple, the company behind it. Fans of Ripple or XRP celebrate when Ripple executives appear in the media; they re-post their interviews immediately , bootleg-style, on YouTube; they make tribute GIFs . Skeptics call into question why the XRP token has soared in value, driven by speculators with no actual understanding of the token’s purpose; they also argue that XRP is not truly decentralized, since Ripple, the company, owns 60% of the XRP supply. “XRP and Ripple are separate things” “It is endlessly frustrating to me that people are unable to distinguish the fact that XRP and Ripple are separate things,” said Ripple chief market strategist Cory Johnson at Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit: Crypto last week. “I mean, no one calls Exxon Mobil oil. Exxon Mobil has a vested interest in seeing that oil is successful, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same thing.” Indeed, the XRP token is used as a vehicle for moving cross-border funds in one of Ripple’s software products, xRapid. But it is not used in its main product, xCurrent, which more than 100 clients are currently pilot-testing. Most of the people trading more than $1 billion worth of XRP each day are likely unaware of the nuances of how XRP is used—a fact Johnson acknowledges. “We had the best first quarter the company’s ever had, we signed more deals, got more companies into production, deals coming every six days instead of every six weeks like a year ago,” he said. “Yet XRP had the worst quarter it’s ever had. So I would argue that they’re very much separated.” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has courted controversy further by responding directly to reporters who question Ripple’s business claims ; he also told Yahoo Finance in February that he doesn’t like to call XRP “cryptocurrency,” despite the fact that it is the No. 3 biggest cryptocurrency by market cap. Story continues So the confusion and the passion around XRP linger. And Johnson, Ripple’s newest executive, has a theory about why that is. Ripple chief market strategist Cory Johnson (R) speaks to Yahoo Finance’s Daniel Roberts at All Markets Summit: Crypto in San Francisco on June 14, 2018. (Photo: Jeremy Waldorph/Oath) “People have money at stake” “I think that XRP in some ways is crypto 2.0,” Johnson said. Bitcoin, he argued, “opened our eyes to what’s possible, but the failings of the technology also became apparent.” But it isn’t just the XRP technology that excites XRP fans—especially since so many holders of XRP don’t care to understand the technology anyway. “Why is there sort of a religious-like fervor around XRP? I don’t think it’s just because the technology is better,” Johnson said. “I think it’s because people have money at stake. You know, when the internet was developed, the bottom layers of the technology were free… There was no value assigned to the most basic layer of the technology. Across all of crypto, the most fundamental layer has a dollar price assigned to it. When your money’s at stake, you start to pay a little more attention to things. I also think that’s one of the reasons there is such FUD [fear, uncertainty, and doubt]. People who understand it and have made a bet somewhere, want to see the other things fail. I think there are bitcoin maximalists who hate XRP because it’s not bitcoin. I think there are ether holders who hate XRP because they hold ether.” Watch video of Cory Johnson’s full interview here. Earlier in the day at the same Yahoo Finance summit, SEC official William Hinman announced that the SEC does not view ether as a security . Johnson, in response, said, “It’s really clear to us that XRP is not a security.” He also defended recent reports that banks have been slow to warm to Ripple’s technology . “It’s a new technology,” Johnson said. “They’re starting to adopt it. We’ve already got 100 customers using it. That says to me there’s something there, and banks and financial institutions see some value in it. From the start, we’ve said for a very long time, the most obvious use cases for our xRapid product, which uses XRP, are remittance companies, not banks. And I think that’s still true.” Watch Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit: Crypto from June 14 here . — Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @ readDanwrite . Read more: Ripple CEO: ‘There’s a lot of FUD about XRP’ Ripple CEO: ‘Don’t call it cryptocurrency’ Ripple chief market strategist: Crypto regulation will ‘separate the wheat from the chaff’ Coinbase exec: ‘Adding more assets is a very big priority for us’ Warren Buffett on buying bitcoin: ‘That is not investing’ Lightning Labs CEO: We are back to a ‘bitcoin, not blockchain’ world The 11 biggest names in crypto right now || Starbucks Is Looking a Bit Bruised After Last Week: Starbucks(NASDAQ: SBUX)is one of those love-it-or-hate-it companies -- you don't find a lot of people ambivalent about its coffee. There have always been more than enough fans of its brew, though, to keep it profitable and growing. However, as host Chris Hill and senior Motley Fool analysts Jason Moser, David Kretzmann, and Ron Gross note in this segment from theMotley Fool Moneypodcast, even the bean king can hit a slump. So, yes, it's closing a few more underperforming stores than it usually does, but did the market punish it excessively? Is this a buying opportunity, and what are its best moves from here? A full transcript follows the video. 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 This video was recorded on June 22, 2018. Chris Hill:Starbucks' management left shareholders with a bitter taste this week. Starbucks lowered sales guidance, announced it would be slowing the number of store openings, and that they'll be closing 150 company-owned stores next week. Jason, that is three times the number of stores that they typically close in a year. This is a bad week. Jason Moser:Yeah, but Howard Schultz just got out in front of us and said, "Hey, listen, the stock is undervalued. It's a buying opportunity." Now, he knows one or two things about the business. Hill:It's certainly 10% cheaper than it was at the beginning of the week. Moser:[laughs] It is. It was interesting, I asked a bit of a rhetorical question on Twitter the other day in regard to their loyalty program. I'm just befuddled by the fact that they only have 15 million active U.S. rewards card members. To me, that seems very low. Panera, over a year ago, before they went private, had around 25 million. I mean, listen, I'm one of those donks that opens my app, goes in to buy the coffee, and I realize every once in a while that I get a free one. I don't give it a lot of thought. Ron Gross:A befuddled donk. [laughs] Moser:But it was interesting to see the responses I got on Twitter. There are a lot of people out there that had a lot of feedback in regard to the rewards program. My point was, if I'm Kevin Johnson, I'm looking at that as very low-hanging fruit, and I'm figuring out a way to double that number, from 15 million to 30 million, over the coming year. Based on all of the feedback I got from the good folks on Twitter, there are a lot of opportunities, I think, they have to make that program better. That is an instant traffic driver. China's always going to be there. Let's not use slowing comps for a quarter as a real reason to sound the alarms. I really do feel like the rewards program could use some fixing, and that would be an easy one. Hill:I'm not saying that they shouldn't be slowing the store growth, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be closing underperforming stores. But, taken altogether, David, this is a bad week. David Kretzmann:Yeah, not ideal. Still, 150 stores compared to, what, how many stores? Close to 25,000-30,000 now? Gross:1 billion stores, they have. Kretzmann:Just about. They'll have a store for every person in the world at this rate. In the grand scheme of things, it's actually not a huge deal. But, obviously, for this week, it's painful. But, I agree with Jason. I think the mobile app and that whole digital payment experience, that's low-hanging fruit. When I look at Starbucks today, there are so many different levers the company can pull. You have iced beverages, food, the premium Roastery and Reserve brands. Taken all in all, you have a stock now trading for a forward P/E of about 20X. You also have a dividend yield close to 2.5%. I look at this as a buying opportunity. I agree with Howard Schultz. Gross:I just want to go on record and say, about ten years ago, I told my wife that there were too many Starbucks, and they would need to close some. I just wanted to go on record as saying I was right. Moser:You really went out on a limb there, didn't you, Ron? Gross:[laughs] Yeah. Chris Hillowns shares of Starbucks.David Kretzmannowns shares of Starbucks and Twitter.Jason Moserowns shares of Starbucks and Twitter.Ron Grosshas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Starbucks and Twitter. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || IBM partners Stronghold for new digital stable coin: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp is backing a new cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar, in a partnership with U.S.-based financial services provider Stronghold that adds stability to a sector known for its volatility, the companies said. The so-called stable coin, Stronghold USD, launched on Tuesday on the Stellar blockchain platform. Buyers of the coin will deposit greenbacks with the company's partner bank, Nevada-based Prime Trust for Stronghold to issue the tokens based on a 1-to-1 ratio. Stable coins, pegged to an asset like gold, or major currencies such the euro, pound and U.S. dollar, have emerged as issuers seek to expand uses for digital currencies, which are unregulated and volatile. Bitcoin, the most well-known token, has fallen around 55 percent so far in 2018 against the dollar, after surging more than 1,300 percent last year. Cryptocurrencies are powered by blockchain, a shared database maintained by a network of computers connected to the internet. Stronghold USDs are designed for use among businesses, such as financial institutions, multinational corporations, and asset managers, the company said. The tokens may be made available to retail customers in the coming months. "The engineering work has been done on this token and we have seen a little bit of the early release of it," Jesse Lund, IBM's vice president of global blockchain, said in an interview. "IBM will explore use cases with business networks that we have developed, as a user of the token. We see this as a way of bringing financial settlement into the transactional business network that we have been building." As applications that use blockchain and stable coins become more mainstream, Lund said, merchants, consumers and global suppliers will get cheaper, faster and safer alternatives to cash, credit cards, debit cards and wire transfers. "The token allows folks to do payments, foreign exchange between companies in a very seamless and frictionless and more secure way," Stronghold founder and Chief Executive Tammy Camp said in an interview. "It enables people to be able to trade that token with other assets and other tokens as well," she added. IBM also announced on Tuesday a partnership with Columbia University to open the Columbia-IBM Center for Blockchain and Transparency. It will offer students access to IBM internships and joint research. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Richard Chang) || Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Supply Situation Indicates Little Room for Error: U.S West Texas Intermediateand international-benchmarkBrent crude oilfutures are trading higher this week, showing a limited response to President Trump’s tweet last Saturday, stating that Saudi Arabia had agreed to boost output by 2,000,000 barrels per day (bpd). I don’t think anyone believed the figure in the first place, but it did bring attention to increasing Saudi production. Saudi Arabia later acknowledged a call had taken place between Trump and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, but did not mention any production targets. Most of the talk this week has been about supply with a few smatterings of comments on demand. This week’s price action indicates the market appears to have absorbed the recent announcement that an OPEC-led group and Russia will raise output by about 1 million bpd. Most of the rally has been fueled by supply disruptions in Canada, Venezuela and Libya as well as the looming sanctions against Iran. Earlier in the week, Reuters reported that OPEC pumped 32.32 million bpd in June, up 320,000 bpd from May. The June total is the highest since January 2018. King Salman said Saudi Arabia is ready to deploy the nation’s spare capacity to add more oil to the market. And the UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) said on Tuesday it could increase production by several hundred thousand barrels per day if needed. The size of the OPEC production increase and the verbal commitments from Saudi Arabia and the UAE is further evidence that hitting a 2M bpd increase will be a challenge. It may be a longer-term factor, but short-term, crude oil bulls are more interested in the supply disruptions. The debate at this time is how to compensate for disruptions in Libya, Venezuela and Iran. Some argue that Saudi Arabia, Russia and the UAE, along with surging U.S. exports will cover the shortage. Others believe, the market may be undersupplied by 600,000 bpd over the next six months. Some are saying that the United States’ recent declaration of zero tolerance for Iranian exports has caused bullish investors to reassess the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s exports, believing that shipments may fall by 1.1 million bpd by year end. Previously, the market had priced in a loss of about 700,000 bpd through 2019. How much oil is supplied or taken off the market will determine whether WTI crude oil surges to $80 per barrel, or plunges to $62 – $63 per barrel. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Bitcoin for Beginners: Three Things to Know Before You Buy • Gold Prices Shoot Higher • USDJPY with a Hot Bearish Setup. Gold Tries a Bullish Correction • Forex Daily Outlook – July 4, 2018 • Sterling Steady as UK’s services PMI Beats Expectations • USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – PBOC Statement Encourages Profit-Taking [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] @satoshi_BTC || @BTC_INFOCHAIN || @btc_0 || @btc_update || $DSHUSD exiting oversold zone on interval 60m #cryptocurrency #trading #bitcoin #crypto #technicalanalysis || beyond_bitcoin proudly presents the Whaleshares Sharedrop SNAPSHOT Announcement https://beta.whaleshares.net/whaleshares/@officialfuzzy/whaleshares-sharedrop-snapshot-announcement … #blockchain#whaleshares #bitshares #bitcoin#steem #sharedrop #cryptocurrency#beyondbitcoinhttps://twitter.com/Beyond_Bitcoin/status/1025027430308884480?s=20pic.twitter.com/8u4p6PnZ9O || @eztechwin || @btc_fan || @eztechwin || @btc_fan
Trend: no change || Prices: 6295.73, 6322.69, 6297.57, 6199.71, 6308.52, 6334.73, 6580.63, 6423.76, 6506.07, 6308.53
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)] Up 13%: XRP Jumps By Double Digits for Second Time This Week: XRP's price is boasting double-digit percentage growth today for thesecond timethis week as the broader market picks up the bid. At press time, the world's third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is trading across exchanges at an average price of $0.37 – a six-week high and 13.60 percent gain from today's opening price of $0.33, according to CoinDesk's XRP Price Index (XPI). XRP's standout 24-hour appreciation makes it the best performer out of the world's 50 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, data from CoinMarketCap reveals. Just a Cycle? Big Bitcoin Miners Stay Positive in Face of Market Slump The bullish price development for XRP follows multiple positivenews eventsregarding distributed ledger startup Ripple, the founders of which created XRP. Most recently, US banking giant PNCbecame the latestto adopt Ripple's xCurrent product to handle cross-border payments, though xCurrent itself doesn't utilize XRP. XRP is still a far cry from its all-time high, currently reflecting an 89 percent depreciation from the $3.48 price point set back in January (XPI). That said, the recent price action has surpassed multipletechnical hurdleswhich has potentially opened the door for more growth ahead. The broader market is also flashing green today with all of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization reporting positive price developments. Notably, Cardano (ADA) and EOS (EOS) are both up more than 4 percent on a 24-hour basis. Bitcoin Price Sees High-Volume Recovery From Five-Week Lows Further, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies is currently printing a value north of $203 billion, up $10 billion from its low point yesterday. Disclosure:The author holds BTC, AST, REQ, OMG, FUEL, 1st and AMP at the time of writing. XRPImage via Shutterstock • Bitcoin's Price Swings to Nearly $6,500 in Volatile Trading Hour • Bitcoin Price Lacks Direction After Defense of $6,200 || Not a Done Deal: U.S. SEC “Will Review” Most Recent ETF Decisions: The United States Securities and Exchange Commission will reevaluate its recent round of bitcoin ETF rejections. This Wednesday, August 22, 2018, the SEC denied9 ETF proposalsfrom ProShares, GraniteShares and Direxion in three separate orders. But consistent with a rule that allows the SEC’s Chairman and Commissioners to review decisions delegated to its staff, these disapproval orders are up for reviewal. A letter written by SEC secretary Brent J. Fields to Eugene Schlanger of the New York Stock Exchange details the technicalities of this process: “On August 22, 20 18, the Division of Trading and Markets took action, pursuant to delegated authority, 17 CFR 200.30-3(a)( l2), disapproving the proposed rule change by NYSE Arca, Inc. to list and trade the shares of the above-referenced exchange-traded products under NYSE Arca Rule 8.200-E, Commentary .02, Order Disapproving a Proposed Rule Change Relating to Listing and Trading of the Direxion Daily Bitcoin Bear IX Shares, Direxion Daily Bitcoin l. 25X Bull Shares. Direxion Daily Bitcoin 1.5X Bull Shares, Direxion Daily Bitcoin 2X Bull Shares,and Direxion Daily Bitcoin 2X Bear Shares Under NYSE Arca Rule 8.200-E, Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Release No. 839 12 (August 22, 2018). This letter is to notify you that, pursuant to Rule 43 1 of the Commission's Rules of Practice, 17 CFR 201.431, the Commission will review the delegated action. “In accordance with Rule 43 1 (e), the August 22 order is stayed until the Commission orders otherwise. The Office of the Secretary will notify you of any pertinent action taken by the Commission,” the letter concludes. At this time, it is unclear when the Commission’s order will be released to the public. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce,whose outspoken criticismof the SEC’s treatment of bitcoin ETF filings hasmade her a darlingof the industry’s followers, tweeted the developments earlier today. In her tweet, she explains that “the Commission (Chairman and Commissioners) delegates some tasks to its staff. When the staff acts in such cases, it acts on behalf of the Commission. The Commission may review the staff's action, as will now happen here.” This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 28/07/18: Bitcoin Cash gained 2.15% on Friday, partially reversing Thursday’s 3.54% tumble, to end the day at $820.09, a rise of 4.72% for the current week. A bad start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash slide through to an early afternoon intraday low $780.8, before a broad based afternoon rally kicked in, with Bitcoin Cash managing to hold above the first major support level at $775.07 The early afternoon rally saw Bitcoin Cash move through to an intraday high $830.8 before easing back to $820 levels late in the day, the day’s high falling short of the first major resistance level at $846.07. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash was down 0.29% to $818, a late Friday recovery continuing into the early hours of this morning, leading Bitcoin Cash to an early morning high $824.7 before pulling back to a morning low $813.1, the moves through the early hours leaving support and resistance levels untested. For the day ahead, a move back through to and break out from $824 would support a run at the first major resistance level at $840.87, though sentiment across the broader market will need to improve in the late morning to support a break out from the start of the day high $824.7 to bring the major resistance level into play. Failure to break back through the morning high could see Bitcoin Cash go into reverse in the early afternoon, a pullback through the morning low $813.1 likely to see Bitcoin call on support at the day’s first major support level at $790.87, with sentiment across the broader market to dictate whether Bitcoin Cash pulls back through Friday’s $780.8 low before any recovery. Get Into Bitcoin Cash Trading Today Litecoin rose by 1.27% on Friday, partially reversing Thursday’s 3.43% tumble, to end the day at $84.52. For the current week, Litecoin was up 2.8% through to the end of Thursday, with 2 consecutive days of more than 3% losses pinning Litecoin back. Tracking the broader market trend, Litecoin pulled back through to morning to an early afternoon intraday low $81.6 before the afternoon rally saw Litecoin bounce back to an intraday high $85.15, the day’s moves leaving the major support and resistance levels untested. At the time of writing, Litecoin was down 0.64% to $83.98, with Friday’s late in the day pullback continuing into the early hours of this morning, Litecoin falling from an opening $84.52 to a morning low $83.76. For the day ahead, a break back through to $84 levels and the day’s opening $84.52 would support a run at $85 levels to bring the day’s first major resistance level at $85.91 into play, though a weekend rally is going to need to kick in for Litecoin to break out from the first major resistance level to avoid a continued decline in Litecoin’s highs and lows in the second half of the week. Failure to break back through $84.52 to take a run at $85 levels could see Litecoin pullback through the morning’ $83.76 low to bring the first major support level at $82.36 into play, while Litecoin will likely continue to hold on to $80 levels, with the second major support level at $80.21 there to hold off a more material reversal. Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly Ripple’s XRP gained 1.48% on Friday, following Thursday’s 2.38% fall, to end the day at $0.45504, with a weekly rise of 1.61% lagging well behind the pack. A choppy start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP slide to an early afternoon intraday low $0.4391 to call on support at the first major support level at $0.4387 before bouncing back to an intraday high $0.46289 in the late afternoon, the day’s high coming up short of the first major resistance level at $0.4658, before easing back to $0.45 levels by the day’s end. At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down 0.3% to $0.45339, Friday’s late in the day reversal spilling over the start of the day, taking Ripple’s XRP down to a morning low $0.45055 before partially recovering, the day’s major support and resistance levels left untested early on. For the day ahead, a move through to $0.458 levels would support a move through to $0.46 levels to bring the first major resistance level at $0.4656 into play, with sentiment across the broader market to dictate whether Ripple’s XRP can break back through to $0.47 levels. Failure to break through to $0.46 levels could see Ripple’s XRP pullback through the morning’s $0.45055 low to bring the day’s first major support level at $0.4418 into play, which could see Ripple’s XRP visit Friday’s $0.4391 low before any recovery, though we would expect Ripple’s XRP to avoid sub-$0.44 levels on the day. Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Gold Price Forecast – Gold markets extraordinarily volatile on Friday • GBP/USD Weekly Price Forecast – British pound continues to tread water • S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast – S&P 500 rallies for the week • Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver markets testing the major support • Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – crude oil recovers slightly during the week • Technical Checks For AUD/USD, AUD/JPY & AUD/NZD: 27.07.2018 || Fear and loathing in cryptocurrencies: The cryptocurrency market is seeing angry shades of red this week. On Tuesday, the 20 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap all fell by 4% to 10%, with ether, token of the smart contracts platform Ethereum , taking the biggest hit, down to about $250, its lowest price of 2018. Ether was above $1,200 in January. By Wednesday morning, coins were rallying slightly . But volume remained low, a possible sign that coins have still not seen the worst of this correction. The losses have some crypto believers in serious emotional distress. On Tuesday, one of the top posts on the popular bitcoin forum of Reddit was information for suicide prevention hotlines. Yahoo Finance’s cryptocurrency heatmap on Aug. 14, 2018. This has happened before: In January, Reddit users shared the same kind of posts after bitcoin plummeted from its December 2017 high of above $19,000 down to the $13,000 range, on its way to under $10,000. Bitcoin is down 57% in 2018 so far, ether is down 67%, bitcoin cash ( BCH ) is down 80%, stellar lumens ( XLM ) is down 60%, and ripple ( XRP ) is down an eye-popping 87%. The overall coin market has lost more than $600 billion in value in the last 8 months. So futures expire in one day, alts just capitulated 20%, hodlers are on suicide watch, bitcoin shorts are stacked to the ceiling and someone just sent 100m$ to Bitmex. Interesting. — CryptoSpaced (@cryptospaced) August 14, 2018 Tom Lee, an analyst with Fundstrat, offers a daily “bitcoin misery index” rating for the biggest cryptocurrencies, on a scale of 0 to 100, with the high end being positive. On Tuesday, Lee’s index had bitcoin at 42 — bad, but it has been worse — and ether at 21, not much better than its lowest-ever rating on the index of 14 in September 2017. The index had stellar lumens at 7 out of 100. Fundsrat’s bitcoin misery index on Aug. 14, 2018. What’s causing the crypto rout in 2018 The current crash began at the end of July when the SEC rejected a bitcoin ETF (exchange-traded fund) from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss for the second time . In August, the SEC also delayed its decision on a bitcoin ETF from Van Eck , stoking concerns that regulators might never allow a bitcoin ETF, which is seen as crucial to its mainstream investment success. Story continues In addition, startups that held ICOs ( initial coin offerings ), in which they create their own token and sell it in exchange for ether, are believed to be selling off that ether now into bitcoin or fiat currency, which explains why ether has taken the biggest hit of all the cryptocurrencies, and why bitcoin has not seen quite the same damage as the rest in the last week. Add to all of this continued concerns around tether, a “stablecoin” pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar and believed by many to be the driving force behind bitcoin price manipulation. If you or someone you know is in crisis, the U.S. suicide prevention line is free and open 24 hours per day: call 800-273-8255. — Daniel Roberts covers cryptocurrency and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @ readDanwrite . Read more: Exclusive: Former FBI director Louis Freeh talks Tether investigation Crypto scammers on Twitter target @realDonaldTrump Exclusive: Major League Baseball is going crypto Beware: An ICO is not like an IPO Coinlist wants to make investing in ICOs less risky The 11 biggest names in crypto right now || 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 to www.firstbitcoin.io and 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 at www.OTCMarkets.com . Story continues Contact us via: info@firstbitcoin.io or visit http://www.firstbitcoin.io SOURCE: First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || $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 . || China Stats Disappoint with Focus Shifting to the FED and the USD: Earlier in the Day: Economic data released through the Asian session included July manufacturing sector data out of Australia and China, with 2 nd quarter employment figures out of New Zealand. For the Aussie Dollar , the AIG Manufacturing Index slid from June’s 57.4 to 52.0 in July. Of the 7 sub-indexes, 3 expanded, 3 were stable and 1 contracted in July, the sales sub-index falling by 15.7 points to 45.5, its lowest level since early 2016. The new orders sub-index fell by 6.5 points to 51.1, with the employment sub-index falling by 7.8 points to 50.3. The exports sub-index slipped by 3 points to 49.9. On inflation, the input price sub-index eased by 2.2 points to 68.1, with input prices on the higher side as a result of high energy costs and a continued rise in cost of raw materials. The average wages sub-index rose by 1.8 points to 60.6, the rise attributed to the introduction of a 3.5% rise in minimum wage, effective 1 st The Aussie Dollar moved from $0.74528 to $0.74275 upon release of the figures, the markets showing little response to the numbers ahead of the manufacturing data out of China. For the Kiwi Dollar , the unemployment rate stood at 4.5% in the 2 nd quarter, rising above a 1 st quarter and forecasted 4.4%. The underutilisation rate rose from 11.9% to 12.0%, while employment increased by 0.5% in the quarter, rising above a forecasted 0.4%, whilst easing from a 1 st quarter 0.6% rise. The labour force participation rate rose by 0.1 percentage points to 70.9%. On the wage front, the Labour Cost Index increased by 0.6%, quarter-on-quarter, which was in line with forecasts, whilst picking up from a 1 st quarter 0.3% rise, the increase attributed to the minimum wage increase of NZ$0.75 to NZ$16.5 made effective on 1 st April 2018. The Kiwi Dollar moved from $0.68193 to $0.68039 upon release of the figures, before rising to $0.6805 at the time of writing, down 0.19% for the morning For the Japanese Yen , while there were no material stats released through the morning, the finalized July manufacturing PMI came in at 52.3, which was ahead of a prelim and forecasted 51.6, while down from June’s 53.0. Story continues The Japanese Yen moved from ¥111.827 to ¥111.835 against the Dollar, before rising to ¥111.75 at the time of writing, down 0.10% for the session. Out of China, the July Caixin China General Manufacturing PMI came in at 50.8, falling short of a forecasted 50.9 and June 51.0. New export orders fell at the steepest pace in 25-months, with companies continuing to reduce staffing levels, the reduced capacity leading to an increase in backlogs. The rate of input cost inflation eased, while output charges saw a slight pickup. Optimism towards the year ahead remained tentative, with concerns over market conditions, strict environmental policies and the potential effects of the U.S – China trade war weighing. The softer figure gives further justification of a need for the Chinese government to deliver on fiscal policies and for the PBoC to ease back, with the ongoing trade war contributing to the downside in economic activity. The Aussie Dollar moved from $0.74138 to $0.74185 upon release of the figures, before rising to $0.7419 at the time of writing, down 0.07% for the session. In the equity markets, it was a mixed start to the day, the ASX200 down 0.13%, while the Hang Seng, CSI300 and Nikkei made were on the rise, in spite of some weaker manufacturing sector numbers, the Nikkei finding support from a pullback in the Yen following the BoJ’s policy stance on Tuesday, with the trio also getting support from the overnight gains in the U.S. The Day Ahead: For the EUR , economic data out of the Eurozone is limited to July manufacturing PMI numbers out of Spain and Italy and finalized manufacturing PMI figures for France, Germany and the Eurozone. Forecasts for Spain and Italy are pointing to slower manufacturing activity going into the 3 rd quarter, though we will expect the markets to focus on the numbers out of Germany, with any revisions likely to be of greater significance. At the time of writing, the EUR was down 0.01% at $1.1690, with today’s stats to provide direction, though the numbers will need to be upbeat to shake off the disappointing 2 nd quarter GDP numbers released on Tuesday. For the Pound , it’s the day before Super Thursday, with July’s manufacturing PMI scheduled for release, forecasts pointing to slightly slower growth in the sector, though not by any margin that could throw the BoE off course from its heavily anticipated rate hike. While focus will be on the PMI figure, July house price figures are also forecasted to be released in the early part of the morning. At the time of writing, the Pound was down 0.05% to $1.3118, with pressure likely to build further should the PMI numbers disappoint. Across the Pond , it’s another busy day for the Dollar, with July’s ADP nonfarm employment change figures, the market’s preferred ISM manufacturing PMI and the finalized July Markit manufacturing PMI scheduled for release ahead of the FOMC interest rate decision and release of the all-important rate statement. While we can expect the nonfarm and ISM manufacturing PMI to provide some direction, Dollar sensitivity to any weak stats amidst the ongoing trade war heightened, focus will be on the rate statement. Softer than expected June core inflation figures on Tuesday, which followed the softer 2 nd quarter numbers released on Friday, may have eased the need to be particularly hawkish and commit to a further 2 rate hikes for the year. It will ultimately boil down to whether there’s a green light for a September move, economic conditions favouring a move, with the FED likely to be eager to build an interest rate buffer ahead of any economic slowdown. At the time of writing, the Dollar Spot Index was up 0.01% to 94.56, with today’s stats and sentiment towards the FED’s tone later today to provide direction. For the Loonie , there are no material stats scheduled for release following the better than expected May GDP numbers released on Tuesday, leaving NAFTA chatter and market risk appetite to provide direction through the day. At the time of writing, the Loonie was down 0.02% to C$1.3009 against the U.S Dollar. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Gold Price Forecast – Gold markets forming a base USD/JPY Price Forecast – US dollar rallies against yen after Bank of Japan meeting GBP/USD Daily Price Forecast – GBP/USD Erased Gains Made in Previous Session Ahead of US FOMC Update AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian dollar grinding higher Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 01/08/18 GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British pound pummels Japanese yen for Tuesday session || Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Invests in Blockchain Data Storage Startup: Chinese bitcoin mining equipment manufacturer Bitmain has invested an undisclosed amount in blockchain data storage startup Lambda, the latter announced last Friday. The new investment will see to Lambda further developits “secure” blockchain-based infrastructure and decentralized applications, commonly known asdApps. The Singaporean startup has already conducted a tokenized private sale round that attracted investments from FunCity Capital, BlockVC, BlueHill, Zhen Fund, and other well-known institutions. It is now gearing up for an initial coin offering (ICO) round with an aim to raise $5 million. “Bitmain has demonstrated its commitment to expanding strong, Dapp blockchain companies such as Lambda,” said Xiaoyang He, CEO of Lambda. “This investment from a global industry leader is a significant endorsement and recognition of Lambda’s longstanding dedication in creating a world-class blockchain-based storage solution.” Lambda projects itself as a “high-speed, secure and scalable blockchain infrastructure” which offers a variety of modules including trusted and secure data storage, public data access and transaction, privacy data protection, infinitely-scalable dApp and blockchain support, as well as IoT, storage, and artificial intelligence data. As to how Lambda achieves infinite scalability is the main topic of interest. The startup claims that it “[logically] decouples and separate implementation of Lambda Chain and Lambda DB” to achieve the said goal. Bitmain, the global leader in the production of integrated circuits and hardware for cryptocurrency mining, believes storage in the context of blockchain is an exciting area to explore. The company expressed its satisfaction with Lambda’s development and business plan, mentioning their technology vision, practical roadmap, and progress-to-date as the key factors behind its investment. “We look forward to working with Lambda,” Bitmain stated. This is the latest in a long line of projects backed by the Beijing-based firm this year. Bitmain has already committed$500 millionto build data and mining facility in Texas. Only this month, the company invested $3 million in TribeOS, a blockchain-based ad fraud prevention startup, and it has also invested in major firms Circle, Block.one, and Opera. Amidst making headlines with its large investments in crypto-startups, Bitmain could also launch its$3 billion public offeringon Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) in September, if reports are to be believed. It would further enable the company to expand its territory in the line of its plan to invest in as many as thirty blockchain startups. Featured Image from Shutterstock The postBitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Invests in Blockchain Data Storage Startupappeared first onCCN. || U.S. SEC halts trading in two cryptocurrency products, citing market confusion: By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Sunday it was immediately suspending trading in two investment products that track cryptocurrencies, citing confusion in the markets over whether the products are exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The SEC said in a statement that trading in Bitcoin Tracker One and Ether Tracker One would be halted in the United States until at least Sept. 20. The products promise to track the price of the cryptocurrencies, less fees. They are both listed on a Nasdaq Inc exchange in Stockholm, but trade "over the counter" in transactions that occur off exchanges within the United States. "It appears ... that there is a lack of current, consistent and accurate information," the SEC said in a notice posted on its website. "Application materials submitted to enable the offer and sale of these financial products in the United States, as well as certain trading websites, characterize them as 'Exchange Traded Funds.'" The issuer of Bitcoin Tracker One and Ether Tracker One, XBT Provider AB and its parent company, did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment. Nasdaq declined to comment. The SEC has taken a strict stance against letting ETFs tracking bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies come to market. But investment firms have been pushing other types of investments that attempt to make it as easy to trade cryptocurrencies as a regular stock. Those products are sometimes called ETFs, but that term generally refers to a different and often more stringently regulated product. Some industry experts, including the largest ETF provider BlackRock Inc, have called for regulators to standardize the terms used to describe ETFs and other kinds of investment products. Virtual currency, including bitcoin and ether, 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. A fund holding the currency could attract more investors and push its price higher. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Peter Cooney and Will Dunham) || Stop ‘Overreacting’, Crypto Hedge Fund Vet Tells Bitcoin Investors: As the founder of the first U.S. cryptocurrency hedge fund, Dan Morehead has seen his share of bitcoin bear markets. Speaking withCNBCon Wednesday, the Pantera Capital CEO said that he has a simple message for bitcoin investors selling into a market that has already experienced a 67 percent decline from its all-time high: stop overreacting. “The main thing to remember is that bitcoin is very early-stage venture, but has real-time price feed — and that’s a unique thing. People get excited about the price and overreact,” said Morehead, whose investment firm has recorded a lifetime return of about 10,000 percent. As CCN reported, the bitcoin price has endured a precipitous decline over the past several weeks, with analysts primarily attributing the movements to the growing realization among retail investors that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) isunlikely to approve a bitcoin ETFthis year. Last month, the SEC denied the Winklevoss twins’ latest bid to create such a financial instrument, and the agency has delayed ruling on nearly a dozen other bitcoin funds. Morehead said that this hesitancy on the part of the SEC to approve abitcoin ETFshould not have come as a surprise and that investors should prepare to wait “quite a long time” if they hope to see one of these products trading on a regulated stock exchange. “I still think it will be quite a long time until an ETF is approved. The last asset class to be approved for ETF certification was copper, and copper has been on earth for 10,000 years,” he said. “The ETF rejection is the same story we’ve had for five years,” he added. “The SEC has been very cautious with an ETF.” While investors are busy wallowing about the SEC’s reluctance to approve a bitcoin ETF, a move that many believe would help concretize cryptocurrency as a mainstream asset class, Morehead said that they are ignoring an announcement that could prove to be just as important: the world’s largest stock exchange operator is launching a crypto-focused subsidiary. Created by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the operator of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Bakkt has already inked partnerships with Microsoft and Starbucks to develop ways to take cryptoassets mainstream. Additionally, the firm will offer institutional investors aphysically-settled bitcoin futures product, providing them with access to a regulated cryptocurrency custodian. “That’s huge news,” Morehead concluded. “That is going to be a very profound impact over the next five or 10 years for the markets, and, to my mind, that’s what people should be focused on.” Featured Image from TechCrunch/Flickr The postStop ‘Overreacting’, Crypto Hedge Fund Vet Tells Bitcoin Investorsappeared first onCCN. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] @eztechwin || #仮想通貨 #AID Bittrex高騰/暴落 速報(5分前価格と比較) [ETH-AID]5.09%0.000290220 || @India_Bitcoin || @btc_update || @btc_0 || @Bitcoin_price_8 || Total Market Cap: $205,894,601,054 1 BTC: $6,362.73 BTC Dominance: 53.16% Update Time: 16-08-2018 - 17:00:19 (GMT+3) || @btc_current || @btc_current || @satoshi_BTC
Trend: down || Prices: 6710.63, 6595.41, 6446.47, 6495.00, 6676.75, 6644.13, 6601.96, 6625.56, 6589.62, 6556.10
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 2021-04-22] BTC Price: 51762.27, BTC RSI: 34.63 Gold Price: 1781.20, Gold RSI: 58.54 Oil Price: 61.43, Oil RSI: 50.57 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Thai Central Bank Warns Against ‘Illegal’ Use of Baht-Denominated Stablecoin: The Bank of Thailand (BOT) has issued a warning against the use of Thai baht-denominated stablecoins, labeling them a threat to the stability of the national currency system. In a press release on Wednesday, the central bank took specific aim against the baht stablecoin THT created on the South Korean stablecoin platform Terra. “[THT] could cause fragmentation to the Thai currency system should THT or other similar stablecoins come to replace, substitute or compete with baht issued by the BOT,” the release reads. Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for March 18, 2021 The central bank now deems any activity involving THT “illegal,” on the basis the creation, issuance and usage or circulation of any material or token for money violates Section 9 of the country’s Currency Act (1958). Any person is able to issue a proposal on Terra’s algorithmically governed platform in order to mint new cryptocurrency that is later voted on by stakers holding the platform’s native luna token. Do Kwon, head of Terraform Labs, told CoinDesk in a Twitter direct message Terra does not initiate proposals, nor does it ever vote on them. “I think it’s a very interesting development and quite amused we were able to catch the attention of a central bank,” said Kwon. “Great free public relations, right?” Asked by a user on Twitter whether he believed the central bank could “hurt” the THT ecosystem within Terra, Kwon responded, “ lol no ,” on Thursday. Related: Tally Raises $1.5M to Boost On-Chain Governance in Compound’s DeFi Ecosystem BOT said the general public needs to exercise caution and refrain from participating in any activity involving THT alleging users could be at risk of cybertheft and money laundering without the necessary legal protections. Stablecoins linked to national currencies have been received with great trepidation by governments and regulators around the world. Story continues See also: Thai SEC Backtracks on Unpopular Proposal for New Crypto Investor Qualifications Most notably, the announcement of the diem (formerly libra) Facebook-backed stablecoin caused a wave of pushback, with the U.S. , France , Germany and other nations saying it posed a threat to financial stability and even fiscal sovereignty and should be heavily regulated, if allowed to launch at all. Diem has since been reduced in scope for a reported plan for launch this year. In China, the central bank proposed a change of the banking law last October, pushing to outlaw any yuan-pegged stablecoin except for its own digital currency. Bank of Thailand did not immediately respond to a request for comment by CoinDesk. Related Stories Thai Central Bank Warns Against ‘Illegal’ Use of Baht-Denominated Stablecoin Thai Central Bank Warns Against ‘Illegal’ Use of Baht-Denominated Stablecoin || Apifiny Exchange Network Will Mine Bitcoin to Improve Liquidity Channels: Cryptocurrency exchange networkApifinyis breaking into Bitcoin mining. The San Francisco firm has purchased 2,550 ASICs from Bitdeer to minebitcoinin a bid to increase its options for sourcing trading liquidity, the team told CoinDesk. “Bitcoin mining machines are a strategic investment and growth acceleration tool for us,” CEO Haohan Xu said. “There is high synergy between ongoing Bitcoin inflow from our mining operations and our market making and trading platform that provide cost advantages and additional liquidity sources. It will allow us to offer our customers more efficient and diversified trading alternatives.” Related:Nasdaq Is Disclosing Coinbase’s Reference Price This Afternoon. Here’s What That Means Apifiny is an exchange network that provides a unified order book for its exchange partners to source liquidity, servicing exchanges like Huobi Global, Crypto.com, OKEx and other crypto exchanges. According to the team, the exchange network’s combined order book has processed some $1.4 billion in average monthly volume since the beginning of 2021. As evidenced by Apifiny’s move into the industry,Bitcoin’s mining market has been red hotsince the cryptocurrency began its run-up last fall. Miners continue to purchase machines at a rapid clip, and a shortage of new hardware has led to a boom in thesecondarymarket. • Apifiny Exchange Network Will Mine Bitcoin to Improve Liquidity Channels • Apifiny Exchange Network Will Mine Bitcoin to Improve Liquidity Channels • Apifiny Exchange Network Will Mine Bitcoin to Improve Liquidity Channels || Bitcoin plummets as doubts grow over sky-high valuation: By Tom Wilson and Tom Westbrook LONDON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Bitcoin plummeted as much as 17% on Tuesday as investors grew nervous at sky-high valuations, triggering the liquidation of leveraged bets and sparking a sell-off across cryptocurrency markets. The world's biggest cryptocurrency was facing its biggest daily drop in a month, falling to as low as $45,000. In choppy trading, it was last down 15.6%. The drop took its losses to over a fifth from a record high of $58,354 hit on Sunday and underscored the volatility of the emerging asset - though it is still up around 60% this year. "The kinds of rallies we've been seeing aren't sustainable and just invite pullbacks like this," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA. "It was an extremely overbought market." Ether, the world's second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation that often moves in tandem with bitcoin, also dropped more than 20% to $1,410, down over 30% from last week's record peak. Cryptocurrency markets have been running hot this year as big money managers and companies begin to take the emerging asset class seriously, piling money into the sector and driving confidence among small-time speculators. A $1.5 billion investment by electric carmaker Tesla this month has helped vault bitcoin above $50,000 but may now lead to pressure on the company's stock price as it has become sensitive to movements in bitcoin. LEVERAGED LOSSES Rising government bond yields over recent days have hit riskier assets in traditional markets, with the caution spilling over into highly leveraged bitcoin markets, said Richard Galvin of crypto fund Digital Asset Capital Management. Exchanges popular with cryptocurrency investors in Asia, including Binance and Huobi, accounted for about 70% of liquidations of leveraged bets over the last 24 hours, according to crypto data site Bybt. Bitcoin's losses were "compounded by the amount of liquidation that has happened in the last 24 hours", said Lan Gu of Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm. Story continues The cryptocurrency's rapid gains in recent months have led to calls from governments and financial regulators for tighter regulation. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday that bitcoin was extremely inefficient at conducting transactions and was a highly speculative asset. Bitcoin's high volatility, critics say, is among reasons that it has so far failed to gain widespread traction as a means of payment - an expectation that has in part fuelled its rally. Analysts said that, with few fundamental factors by which to judge bitcoin's value, key price levels would play a large part in determining the direction of crypto markets. "It's the big figures that have proved to be support and resistance points," said Michael McCarthy, chief strategist at brokerage CMC Markets in Sydney. "$50,000, $40,000 and $30,000 are the key chart levels at the moment." (Reporting by Tom Wilson in London and Tom Westbrook in Singapore; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Nick Macfie) || Visa will allow some transactions to be settled with cryptocurrency: Visais continuing to embrace cryptocurrency. It'srunning a pilotin which transactions on the network can be settled with USD Coin (USDC). The company is working with cryptocurrency and payment platform Crypto.com on the project, which it plans to expand to more partners later in the year. USDC is astablecointhat's pegged to the value of the US dollar. That means it doesn't have nearly the kinds of wild swings in value that many other cryptocurrencies have, making it a viable option for settling payments. This move should streamline the payment process when you want to, say,pay for pizzawith a sliver of Bitcoin. Until now, buying an item with a Crypto.com Visa card would require cryptocurrency to be converted into fiat currency. A crypto wallet sends that traditional money to a bank account and those funds are transferred to Visa at the end of the day to settle the transaction. That process increases the cost and complexity of facilitating crypto payments, asReutersnotes. Settling transactions with USDC over the ethereum blockchain removes the need to convert funds into a traditional currency. Other major financial firms accept cryptocurrency, including Mastercard andPaypal. Many merchants allow direct crypto payments as well. Since last week, US consumers have been able tobuy a Tesla EVusing Bitcoin. || Norway-Listed Aker to Put 100% Bitcoin in Treasury Reserves of New Investment Unit: Oslo stock exchange-listed Aker ASA has set up a new company dedicated to investing inbitcoinprojects and companies. • In anannouncementMonday, the holding company focused on energy, construction and fishing said its new entity, Seetee AS, will keep all its liquid investable assets in bitcoin and will also enter the bitcoin mining industry. • “First, we will use bitcoin as our treasury asset and join the community. In Bitcoin-speak, we will be hodlers,” Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Roekke, chairman and majority owner of Aker, said in a letter to shareholders. • Seetee is launching with 500 million Norwegian Krone ($58.3 million) in capital. • The new firm has already partnered with Canada’s Blockstream for work on bitcoin mining andsidechain projects. • “Bit­coin may still go to zero. But it can also be­come the core of a new mon­e­tary ar­chi­tec­ture. If so, one bit­coin may be worth mil­lions of dollars,” said Roekke. Read more:Arcane Crypto Lists on Nasdaq First North After Reverse Takeover • Norway-Listed Aker to Put 100% Bitcoin in Treasury Reserves of New Investment Unit • Norway-Listed Aker to Put 100% Bitcoin in Treasury Reserves of New Investment Unit • Norway-Listed Aker to Put 100% Bitcoin in Treasury Reserves of New Investment Unit • Norway-Listed Aker to Put 100% Bitcoin in Treasury Reserves of New Investment Unit || GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks post sharp weekly gains; Treasury yields, dollar rise: * U.S. 10-yr yield hits 13-month high * Gold little changed, bitcoin dips * Crude slips after two strong weekly gains (New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments to after U.S. stock market close) By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK, March 12 (Reuters) - An index of stocks across the world dipped on Friday but still posted its strongest weekly gain in five, while benchmark U.S. Treasury yields climbed to 13-month highs, partly on optimism after a $1.9 trillion recovery package was signed into law. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 drifted higher to end up 0.1% on the day and 2.6% for the week, its strongest weekly showing since early February. The Nasdaq underperformed as the rotation from growth to value continued. The Dow Industrials hit an intraday record high every day this week. The Friday spike in Treasury yields supported the dollar, which closed the week down 0.3% against a basket of currency peers, the biggest drop in four weeks. With U.S. stimulus coming and vaccine rollouts reopening economies against a backdrop of super-loose monetary policy, some analysts expect inflation to pick up. "We are back to the idea that more growth is more inflation and investors are a little nervous about current yield levels which is affecting tech stocks," said Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments in Houston. "It's all about the pace in which yields grow and the market seems to be comfortable with another 10-20 basis points jump in the benchmark yield if backed up by strong data that shows economic recovery." The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 293.05 points, or 0.9%, to 32,778.64, the S&P 500 gained 4 points, or 0.10%, to 3,943.34 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 78.81 points, or 0.59%, to 13,319.87. The Dow had its biggest week so far this year with a 4.1% advance and the Nasdaq posted its first positive week in four, up 3.1%. The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.26% on Friday and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.06%. Emerging market stocks lost 0.69%. Overnight, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.64% lower, while Japan's Nikkei rose 1.73%. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields rose above 1.6% and posted their seventh consecutive weekly rise. "The bias in rates is still higher barring an unforeseen setback on the vaccines or explicit Fed action," said Gregory Faranello, head of U.S. rates at AmeriVet Securities in New York. U.S. data showed producer prices posted in February their largest annual gain in nearly 2-1/2 years, but the currently high unemployment rate could make it harder for businesses to pass on the higher costs to consumers. Story continues Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 28/32 in price to yield 1.6247%, from 1.527% late on Thursday. The recent, sharp, market moves give even more importance to next week's meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve for clues to its views on rising yields and the threat of inflation. In currency markets, the dollar index rose 0.243%, with the euro down 0.27% to $1.1952. The Japanese yen weakened 0.49% versus the greenback at 109.04 per dollar, while Sterling was last trading at $1.3924, down 0.47% on the day. Markets are likely to remain volatile in the second quarter, particularly for the dollar, which was much stronger than expected at the start of the year, said Cliff Zhao, chief strategist at China Construction Bank International. "The strong U.S. dollar may weigh on some liquidity conditions in the emerging markets," he said. The Institute of International Finance on Thursday urged the Fed to give guidance on its managing of higher yields to avoid even more outflows from emerging markets. Oil prices fell, with both Brent and WTI down slightly for the week after rising more than 10% over the past two. On Friday, U.S. crude fell 0.67% to $65.58 per barrel and Brent was at $69.20, down 0.62% on the day. Spot gold added 0.1% to $1,723.75 an ounce. Silver fell 0.82% to $25.86. Bitcoin last fell 1.92% to $56,661.44. (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; additional reporting by Shashank Nayar and Medha Singh in Bengaluru, John McCrank and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, and Shadia Nasralla in London Editing by Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio) View comments || Markets Drop on Cap Gains Tax Talk; Q1 for INTC, MAT, SNAP: Market indexes started the day sluggish following a big bounceback mid-week, but fell off the table on a news report from Bloomberg (since validated elsewhere) that the Biden administration is considering doubling the capital gains tax on wealthy individuals to pay for his planned infrastructure program. The Dow, which never made it to the green today, fell 0.95% by the closing bell. The Nasdaq was -0.94% and the S&P 500 -0.92%. The small-cap Russell 2000 only dropped 0.31% on the day. That this idea would be in the works by this White House should come as a surprise to no one; candidate Joe Biden had often talked up a cap-gains tax hike for those investing more than $1 million. The particulars would take this from the current 20% rate to 39.4%. Adding the existing 3.8% tax on investment income, this would bring the top yearly cap gains rate as high as 43.4%. This move would be expected to raise $1.5 trillion, which would offset most of the planned infrastructure costs. As a result, the Dow has suffered its worst trading day since March 23rd, and the worst single session in the month of April across the three major indexes. For both the Dow and S&P, they currently are on pace for their worst trading week in two months; for the Nasdaq, it is shaping up to be the lowest trading week-long period since March 4th. Keep in mind no announcement on this cap gains hike proposal has yet been made. Also remember the Congress is very narrowly divided, which may make passage more difficult. Intel INTC kept its long streak of earnings beats intact after Thursday’s close, reporting $1.39 per share versus $1.15 expected, though still down a tad year over year. Revenues also beat expectations: $18.57 billion versus $18.01 billion in the Zacks consensus. Net increases in North America rose 67%, +30% on the International side, with Adjusted Gross Margins up an impressive 47%. But lower-than-expected guidance of $1.05 per share next quarter ($1.09 expected) brings the specter of higher prices into the story. Mattel MAT , a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock going into its Q1 report this afternoon, where -10 cents on its bottom line was a much stronger result than the -34 cents expected and the -56 cents reported in the year-ago quarter. Revenues grew 47% year over year to $874 million, hurtling past the $686 million estimate. Guidance for next quarter and full-year 2021 will be forthcoming in the conference call. Shares are up 7.5% on the news in late trading. Snap Inc. SNAP also outperformed expectations in its Q1 release, posting $0.00 per share from the -6 cents in the Zacks consensus, and up even higher from the -8 cents in the year-ago quarter. Revenues of $770 million in the quarter accounted for a 66% gain year over year, easily surpassing the expected $740 million.Daily Active Users grew 22% in the quarter to 280 million; over 125 million members currently use its Spotlight feature. SNAP shares are up close to 4% in late trading. Questions or comments about this article and/or its author? Click here>> Story continues 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 Mattel, Inc. (MAT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Intel Corporation (INTC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Snap Inc. (SNAP) : Free Stock Analysis Report 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 || Chamath Palihapitiya And His Rise As A 'FinTwit' Influencer: The influx of retail traders into the markets has coincided with a rise in certain influencers with big followings on Finance Twitter, a trading-oriented section of the popular social media platform. Benzinga is pointing out some of the biggest names, in a series on these "FinTwit" influencers. This time, it's "SPAC King" Chamath Palihapitiya. Man Of The People : Like Tesla Inc 's (NASDAQ: TSLA ) Elon Musk, Palihapitiya uses Twitter to talk about stocks. His 1.4 million followers are regularly updated on his stock market moves and investment plans. His advice is sought after for good reason. With a resume that boasts former high-level positions at Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB ) and Slack Technologies Inc (NYSE: WORK ), Palihapitiya is a CEO, venture capitalist, special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) sponsor and engineer. Most famously known as the “King of SPACs,” Palihapitiya has brought six companies public under his Social Capital Hedosophia umbrella, including Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc (NYSE: SPCE ), Opendoor Technologies Inc (NASDAQ: OPEN ) and most recently Clover Health Investments Corp (NASDAQ: CLOV ). Related story: Elon Musk And His Rise As A 'FinTwit' Influencer Swaying The Crowd: Palihapitiya's tweets bring him both adoration and criticism. Like Musk, he has earned fans with his populist approach and championing of everyday traders. Palihapitiya undoubtedly helped r/WallStreetBets and an army of retail traders fight hedge funds during the GameStop Corporation (NYSE: GME ) mania. “Lots of $GME talk soooooo.... We bought Feb $115 calls on $GME this morning. Let’s gooooooo!!!!!!!!,” he tweeted Jan. 26. He followed that tweet up with “ride or die.” Palihapitiya is also a big supporter of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), viewed by some as a tool for digital freedom and social justice because it isn’t controlled by government. “When $BTC gets to $150k, I will buy The Hamptons and convert it to sleepaway camps for kids, working farms and low-cost housing,” he wrote on Twitter on Dec. 30, taking a jab at the exclusive seaside home to some of the wealthiest Americans. Story continues On Mar. 6, when Palihapitiya confirmed on Twitter he’d sold off his personal stake of 6.2 million shares of Virgin Galactic for $21 million in profits, the share price of the company fell 36%. His followers were angry and worried he’d lost faith in the company, but Palihapitiya took to Twitter to calm their nerves. “I freed up some capital by selling some shares in $SPCE so I can keep investing at scale without impacting my pace and strategic view,” he tweeted . Palihapitiya is reportedly using the funds for a climate change venture in Britain. Retail investors will be watching closely to see if what's he working on becomes the next biggest thing to invest in. Navigating Through Headwinds : He also calmed nerves in early February when short seller firm Hindenburg Research released a report criticizing Palihapitiya’s IPOC-Clover Health merger. “For those following $CLOV, trust the process and the facts,” he wrote the following day. The Financial Times took notice. “He’s managed, with poise, to straddle a line between televised rants on Wall Street while also shilling risky reverse-mergers to retail investors on an almost bimonthly basis,” the paper wrote at the time. Photo by JD Lasica/Flickr. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Facebook Teases Technology That Allows Your Brain To Control A Computer Facebook To Launch New Platform For Entrepreneurial Journalists: Report © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin rises 6.6% to $61,074: (Reuters) - Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, rose 6.64% to $61,073.71 on Saturday, adding $3,802.67 to its previous close. Bitcoin is up 120.2% from the year's low of $27,734 on Jan. 4. (Reporting by Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang) || More Institutional Investors Jumping Into Bitcoin Leaves Less to Go Around, Data Shows: Four million. That’s roughly how much bitcoin is circulating freely right now, blockchain data show. The number has been getting a little smaller with each passing month over the last year. It’s the assessment of Glassnode, an analysis firm that tracks blockchain data. The pattern suggests that the ever-decreasing supply of bitcoin available to buy and sell might lead to a price surge as more institutional investors embrace the largest cryptocurrency as an investment. Bitcoin’s “liquid supply change” – the amount by which the number of coins in circulation has changed over the prior 30 days – has been negative for most of the past year, according to Glassnode: Related:Enjin to Tackle Soaring Gas Fees, Scaling With New Blockchain Products That’s a longer period in negative than seen historically, potentially providing more support to bitcoin’s price strength in the long term despite short-term corrections like last week’s 21% retreat. As of Monday, there were only about 4 million BTC in constant circulation and available for buying, trading and selling, according to Glassnode. The 30-day net change of BTC supply held by liquid and highly liquid entities has been in the negative territory since last April, except for a short stint between July and August and again briefly in December. “This has never happened before for such an extended period of time, and could lead to a massive supply squeeze soon,” Glassnode wrote on Feb. 26 in itsweekly newsletter. The Bitcoin blockchain’sthird halvinglast May cut the pace of mining rewards to 6.25 BTC for every data block (roughly every 10 minutes) from 12.5 BTC. At the same time, big Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and BlackRock are now dabbling in cryptocurrencies, while the payment giantsPayPalandSquare’s Cash Apphave allowed their users to buy and sell the digital assets. Related:ETH: Technology Play or Store of Value? A CoinDesk Research Report On Monday, Daniel Loeb, CEO and founder of the hedge fund Third Point, wrote in a series of tweets that he was taking a “deep dive into crypto.” Alessandro Andreotti, an over-the-counter bitcoin broker, told CoinDesk that “institutions are buying up more bitcoin per month than the ones that are being mined, and there just isn’t enough for everybody.” “This is the biggest factor that has been driving bitcoin’s price up lately,” he added. The supply dynamic could prove crucial to restoring a bullish tone to the bitcoin market, after last week’s price correction shook some retail investors’ confidence. The sell-off took bitcoin to near $43,000, down 26% from an all-time high price above $58,000 on Feb 21. Compared with bitcoin’s last big market correction in early January, fewer long-term bitcoin holders appeared to be reducing their positions or taking profits last week, according to Glassnode. This can be seen in the chart below, where the shaded red area – indicating a position reduction by long-term holders – has been moving back toward a neutral footing. Data from another blockchain-analysis firm, CryptoQuant, show that more than 12,000 BTC, worth roughly $600 million, was moved out of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Pro Tuesday – seenas a likely withdrawal to cold storage for long-term holdingby one or more institutional investors. It might be a sign the investors took advantage of the price dip to accumulate bitcoin at a discounted price. Exchanges like Coinbase Pro are among the few preferred platforms by institutions to buy and sell bitcoin, according to John Willock, chief executive at digital-asset exchange Blocktane. It means that bitcoin’s already finite supply is only more scarce to these large bitcoin buyers. “Coinbase will only touch coins through their exchange, liquidity providers and network of other partners that are brought to their liquidity pool by parties which are able to be fully vetted for the source of legitimate funds,” Willock said. “The bitcoin available on that platform can be considered ‘clean’ and not having recently been the proceeds of a hack, theft, ransomware or darknet markets.” Fewer bitcoins are becoming available to institutions “because they have higher standards than the general market, “ Willock said. “So, as a result, these sorts of institutions can be forced to start bidding up coins on these ‘clean’ exchanges, and that drives up the price overall.” Read More:Bitcoin Outflows From Coinbase Suggest Institutions Are Buying the Dip • More Institutional Investors Jumping Into Bitcoin Leaves Less to Go Around, Data Shows • More Institutional Investors Jumping Into Bitcoin Leaves Less to Go Around, Data Shows [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 51093.65, 50050.87, 49004.25, 54021.75, 55033.12, 54824.70, 53555.11, 57750.18, 57828.05, 56631.08
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 2018-12-12] BTC Price: 3486.95, BTC RSI: 30.90 Gold Price: 1244.40, Gold RSI: 61.44 Oil Price: 51.15, Oil RSI: 34.94 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Coinbase Faces Fresh Bitcoin Cash Insider Trading Lawsuit Following Initial Rejection: Users who filed a class action lawsuit against U.S. cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider Coinbase will now go to court Jan. 31, 2019, new court documents filed Nov. 20 confirm. The lawsuit, which Jeffery Berk filed earlier this year to address alleged insider trading of Bitcoin Cash ( BCH ) among Coinbase officials in 2017, failed to make it to trial in October. As Cointelegraph reported, District Judge Vince Chhabria threw out Berk’s claims due to the failure to “describe the scope or content of Coinbase’s duty.” Now, an amended version of the lawsuit focuses on the exchange purportedly falling foul of its own listing rules. “The sudden launch (of BCH) was effectively part of an attack by Coinbase and (CEO Brian Armstrong ) to depress the price of BTC and to inflate the price of BCH, to encourage more transactions and greater profitability for Coinbase,” the new filing reads. Coinbase must respond by Dec. 20 prior to the initial hearing in January. In September, Chhabria claimed Coinbase had “bungled” the BCH rollout but was already considering throwing out Berk’s lawsuit with leave to amend. The company had conducted an internal investigation into insider trading, concluding in July that no such activity had taken place. The latest accusations add to the stack of negative publicity BCH is also facing after its contentious hard fork Nov. 15 sparked major market volatility and a chain split. The impact of the altcoin’s divergence into two competing cryptocurrencies continues, with one, Bitcoin Cash SV, falling in value to as little as $32 Nov. 21 after a blockchain reorganization. Related Articles: 21-Year Old American Purported SIM Swapper Arrested for Alleged Theft of $1 Mln in Crypto Liquidity Provider Sues Crypto Exchange for $13.7 Mln in Singapore’s First BTC Court Case ‘Instant Money Transfers With Low Fees’: New Platform is Challenging Better-Known Rivals Judge Rules in Favor of Canadian Bank in Dispute With Crypto Exchange || Why ServiceSource International Is Imploding Today: What happened Shares of ServiceSource (NASDAQ: SREV) , a provider of outsourced inside sales and customer service solutions, are being obliterated today. The stock is down 46% as of 11:07 a.m. EDT on Friday after the company shared preliminary third-quarter results and revised its full-year guidance. So what Here's an overview of the updated guidance: Third-quarter revenue is expected to be about $57 million. That's below its prior outlook for revenue of $60 million to $61 million. It's also below Wall Street's projection of $60.5 million. Full-year revenue is expected to land between $238 million and $240 million. For context, market watchers were expecting $248 million in revenue. Man with head against wall in conference room. Image source: Getty Images. Here's the explanation that CEO Christopher Carrington shared with investors on the disappointing numbers: While our forecasts for new logo ramps and install base growth were generally in line across our portfolio, as we closed the quarter we experienced unexpected churn and softer end-user demand at several clients. The impact of these factors offsets the positive progression we experienced across the remainder of our business and alters our view for the balance of the year. In a separate release, ServiceSource also stated that it has hired Richard Walker, a member of the company's board, to take over the role of CFO starting in November. Traders are responding to the weakness by taking the share price to the woodshed. Now what CEO Carrington did his best to tell the markets that the company is taking action to address its weaknesses: We are implementing specific actions in response to these challenges and other catalysts give us reason for sustained optimism. In recent months we have attracted three new executive leaders to further advance the Company, we have signed 12 new logos year-to-date, client net promoter scores continue to improve, and we have a strong balance sheet and liquidity profile. Management also stated that the company will provide additional details on its turnaround plan during its earnings call on Nov. 7. Bulls and bears alike will want to tune in to learn what's next for this beaten-down business . 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 Brian Feroldi 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 . || The pound steadies as the City predicts a softer Brexit: The pound was slightly higher against the dollar and euro on Wednesday as trouble for UK prime minister Theresa May’s government was upping the possibility of a soft Brexit. The pound dropped sharply on Tuesday after ministers werefound in “contempt of parliament” for withholding full Brexit legal advice.Sterling briefly touched April 2017 lows against the dollar. However, the pound has recovered on Wednesday morning and is trading up 0.1% against the euro (GBPEUR=X) and 0.2% against the dollar (GBPUSD=X). “I think that the success of Dominic Grieve’s amendment in parliament yesterday ups the chances of avoiding a no-deal Brexit, because if Theresa May’s plan gets voted down, MPs now have more of a say in the aftermath,” Connor Campbell, a financial analyst at SpreadEx, told Yahoo Finance UK when asked about the pound’s performance. Pro-Europe Conservative MP Grieve got an amendment passed last night that gives parliament more say on the Brexit deal if it is rejected by parliament. The vote on the deal is scheduled to take place next Tuesday. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said: “The prospect of no-deal is further away than ever given recent events which means that it’s probably May’s deal or some form of soft Brexit or remain.” JPMorgan said in a note on Wednesday thatthe probability of the UK remaining in the EU has now risen to 40%, up from 20% previously. It comes after a top EU lawyer on Tuesday said the UK could unilaterally revoke Article 50, essentially reversing the Brexit process. Michael van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, told Yahoo Finance UK that the increasing probability of a softer Brexit — or even no Brexit — was supporting sterling as it is seen as good for the UK economy. “The chance of a softer or maybe even no Brexit means less economic harm than May’s deal and especially a no deal,” van Dulken said. “I’d anticipate a bit of a rally that will fizzle,” Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said. “If the government falls – which I’m sure it will – then the pound could go back to 1.23 and even 1.20. “Of course, what’s fascinating is that a government fall, I believe, opens up the case for a second referendum. You’ll see huge push for that should the government fall. That would be bullish for sterling.” ———— Oscar Williams-Grut covers banking, fintech, and finance for Yahoo Finance UK. Follow him on Twitter at@OscarWGrut. READ MORE: The most devastating chart from the UK government’s Brexit analysis Meanwhile… • Thomas Cook fears grow as the stock tanks and debt insurance spikes • No-deal Brexit ‘could jeopardise financial stability’ as stats show finance pays £75bn in tax • An Australian startup that works with Uber and Amazon is expanding in the UK — despite Brexit • Bitcoin approaching its worst ever slump — here’s what’s driving it • Skype’s cofounder is trying to raise a $750m tech fund || Coinbase Faces Fresh Bitcoin Cash Insider Trading Lawsuit Following Initial Rejection: Users who filed a class action lawsuit againstU.S.cryptocurrency exchangeandwalletproviderCoinbasewill now go to court Jan. 31, 2019, newcourt documentsfiled Nov. 20 confirm. The lawsuit, which Jeffery Berkfiledearlier this year to address alleged insider trading of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) among Coinbase officials in 2017,failedto make it to trial in October. As Cointelegraph reported, District Judge Vince Chhabria threw out Berk’s claims due to the failure to “describe the scope or content of Coinbase’s duty.” Now, an amended version of the lawsuit focuses on the exchange purportedly falling foul of its own listing rules. “The sudden launch (of BCH) was effectively part of an attack by Coinbase and (CEOBrian Armstrong) to depress the price of BTC and to inflate the price of BCH, to encourage more transactions and greater profitability for Coinbase,” the new filing reads. Coinbase must respond by Dec. 20 prior to the initial hearing in January. In September, ChhabriaclaimedCoinbase had “bungled” the BCH rollout but was already considering throwing out Berk’s lawsuit with leave to amend. The company had conducted aninternal investigationinto insider trading, concluding in July that no such activity had taken place. The latest accusations add to the stack of negative publicity BCH is also facing after its contentioushard forkNov. 15 sparked major market volatility and a chain split. The impact of the altcoin’s divergence into two competing cryptocurrencies continues, with one, Bitcoin Cash SV,falling in valueto as little as $32 Nov. 21 after ablockchainreorganization. • 21-Year Old American Purported SIM Swapper Arrested for Alleged Theft of $1 Mln in Crypto • Liquidity Provider Sues Crypto Exchange for $13.7 Mln in Singapore’s First BTC Court Case • ‘Instant Money Transfers With Low Fees’: New Platform is Challenging Better-Known Rivals • Judge Rules in Favor of Canadian Bank in Dispute With Crypto Exchange || Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, EOS, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON: Price Analysis, December 1: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision. The market data is provided by the HitBTC exchange. After the first signs of recovery, the opinion is divided on the current pullback in the market. Some say that it is only a dead cat bounce, while others believe that it is the start of a base building process that will result in a new uptrend. Michael Bucella of the crypto-focused investment firm BlockTower Capital said to CNBC that the smartest money has started investing. Nonetheless, Paul Donovan, Global Chief Economist at UBS, has said the digital currencies can never be currencies and are “fatally flawed.” After the recent fall, many are questioning the longevity of cryptocurrencies. The past rallies and sharp plunges show that the nascent asset class swings between periods of extreme optimism and pessimism. For the non-believers, this is not the space to be in. However, for the investors who believe in the long-term story of cryptocurrencies, Ric Edelman, founder and executive chairman of Edelman Financial Services, believes that it is a good time to start buying Bitcoin. Will we or anyone pick the exact bottom? No! A bottom can only be identified in the hindsight. Therefore, the traders can scale in the position, gradually building a portfolio. Let’s see which virtual currencies are showing buy setups. BTC/USD Contrary to our opinion, the pullback in Bitcoin did not even reach the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement level of $4,712.89. It turned down from $4,471.1 on November 29. This shows that the bears are unwilling to wait for higher levels to sell. BTC/USD There is a minor support at the small uptrend line, below which a retest of the lows at $3,620.26 is possible. A breakdown of the year-to-date lows is likely to attract further selling, dragging the BTC/USD pair to $3,000 levels. This is an important level that should hold: a break of this can result in a plunge to $2,410. Story continues However, we expect the $3,500-$3,000 zone to hold. Hence, traders who went long on our recommendation can hold their positions. We shall close the position if we find that the bears are sustaining below $3,500. If the price bounces from the current levels, it can move up to $4,712.89 and $5,050.4. We can add more positions as the virtual currency rises northwards. XRP/USD Ripple triggered our suggested buy level on Nov. 28, but it could not rise above $0.4. Currently, the price has turned down and might retest the intraday lows of Nov. 25. XRP/USD The down trending 20-day EMA and the RSI below 40 levels will continue to attract sellers. A break below the support line of the descending channel can result in a drop to $0.24508. However, if the support holds, we anticipate a move back to the top of the range. Traders who have bought positions on our recommendation can hold with a stop loss of $0.3. The positions can be closed if the XRP/USD pair sustains below $0.3. ETH/USD The rebound in Ethereum fizzled out at $127.87. It continues to be in a downtrend but for the past seven days it has been trading inside the range $130.5-$102.2. ETH/USD A breakout of the range might face a minor resistance at the 20-day EMA, but we expect it to be crossed. The ETH/USD pair will face a stiff resistance at $167.32 and if this level is crossed, it will be at the 50-day SMA. We suggest traders wait for a trend reversal to be signaled before attempting long positions in it. BCH/USD Bitcoin Cash has extended its stay in the tight range of $204.76-$148.27. The longer the price remains in the range, the stronger the eventual breakout or breakdown will be. BCH/USD Both the moving averages are trending down and the RSI is in the oversold zone, which shows that the bears are in command. We had anticipated a breakout to the upside as the selling had been sharp and the BCH/USD pair was looking oversold. But a lack of buying and selling by the bears is threatening a breakdown of the range. If the price sustains below $148.27, the slide can extend to the next support of $100. On the other hand, if the bulls hold the bottom of the range and breakout of $204.76, we expect a rally to $242.9 and $272.14. Aggressive traders can ride this move up but as this is a counter-trend trade, please keep the position size small. XLM/USD When a support breaks down, it becomes the new resistance. The stronger the support, the stronger the resistance will be. Stellar has turned down from close to the overhead resistance of $0.184. XLM/USD The bears will try to breakdown the recent lows of $0.13427050 and plunge the XLM/USD pair to $0.08 levels. On the contrary, the bulls will try to defend the zone between $0.13427050 and $0.1547188. We shall turn positive on the virtual currency if the price sustains above $0.184. EOS/USD EOS is in a strong downtrend. After a day’s pullback, the fall has resumed and the price has made a new year-to-date low. The next support on the downside is at $2.4. EOS/USD The failure of the EOS/USD pair to breakout of the downtrend line shows that the bears are in command. The traders should wait for the digital currency to put in a bottom and show signs of stabilizing before going long. LTC/USD Litecoin remains in a downtrend, with both the moving averages trending down and the RSI in the negative territory. The pullback stalled just above the $36 levels, which shows a lack of buying at higher levels. LTC/USD The bears will attempt to make a new year-to-date low, while the bulls will try to defend the current lows. If the bears succeed, the LTC/USD pair can correct to $20 levels. However, if the bulls use the current fall to buy and form a higher low, it will indicate strength. The digital currency will show first signs of a trend change, if it sustains above the downtrend line. Until then, it remains vulnerable to a bear attack. ADA/USD The sellers did not even wait for the recovery to reach the 20-day EMA before offloading their positions. Cardano can retest the recent lows of $0.033065 within the next few days. If the bears break the support and make a new year-to-date low, the drop can extend to $0.025954 levels. ADA/USD On the other hand, if the bulls manage to hold the support, the ADA/USD pair might start a bottoming process. A trend change will be indicated when the price makes a series of higher highs and higher lows. Until then, the bears are likely to pounce on any pullback. XMR/USD The pullback in Monero was short-lived. Failure of the bulls to reach the first overhead resistance of $71 indicates lack of buying interest. The trend remains firmly down with both the moving averages sloping down and the RSI close to the oversold levels. XMR/USD A break below the $53 levels will resume the downtrend and can plunge the XMR/USD pair to the next support at $40. If the bulls defend the psychological support of $50, it will indicate buying at lower levels and will increase the probability of a bottom formation. Traders should wait for a new buy setup to form before initiating any new positions. TRX/USD The sharp pullback in TRON ended just above the 20-day EMA. Currently, the bears are attempting to push prices towards the recent lows. TRX/USD The trend remains down and the bears have successfully defended the first resistance level, which shows that the sellers are in command. If the TRX/USD pair sinks below $0.01089965, the next target on the downside is $0.00844479. On the other hand, if the bulls manage to hold prices above the Nov. 25 intraday low, the digital currency might enter a consolidation. There are no signs of a trend reversal yet. The market data is provided by the HitBTC exchange. The charts for the analysis are provided by TradingView . Related Articles: Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, EOS, Litecoin: Price Analysis, Nov. 28 Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, EOS, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON: Price Analysis, Nov. 26 Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Stellar, EOS, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON, Dash: Price Analysis, Nov. 23 Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Stellar, EOS, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON, Dash: Price Analysis, Nov. 21 || NEO Super: Next-Generation Blockchain or Crypto Scam?: NEO Super crypto scam Several reports from the NEO underground have been grumbling about a fork of NEO calling itself “ NEO Super .” The venture launched, seemingly apropos of nothing at all, and boasts only one real project, a wallet service that some community members fear could very likely be an effort to scam NEO users out of their private keys. On further investigation, this reporter finds that the NEO Super project is, in fact, an effort to “snapshot” the NEO blockchain and utilize it on the Ethereum network, complete with “mining opportunities” and more. It wants to take the “most successful” elements of NEO and utilize them in the form of a standard ERC-20 token contract. Although it’s not hard to write such things, it also isn’t impossible to launch such a project. It’s not hard to see why people perceive it to be a scam or potential scam. In NEO, the reader may not be aware, one must use his private key quite often to unlock the wallet, at least with the easier-to-use wallets. A solid way of capturing a mass of private keys would be to create a fake wallet service that actually did interact with the NEO blockchain and simply utilize said keys to pilfer a ton of funds. “NEO Super” has only 39 Twitter followers, and an apparently associated Twitter account was banned. The project’s GitHub repository has made no notable changes or commits to the NEO codebase. And, easiest to spot of all, as one reporter noted: “Because with a closer look at their LinkedIn pages you can easily tell that they are each fake.” Indeed, CEO and lead developer John D. Martin” has only three connections on LinkedIn , despite an alleged seven-year development career. What the project does have is a fully-written whitepaper, a nice looking website, a functioning clone of other NEO wallet services (minus the important — in NEO — function of printing the paper wallet) and an interesting idea that this reporter, likely among others, would surely like to be real. Eliminate one attack vector in NEO and create a new system of smart contracts and scalability on Ethereum with the added bonus of free tokens to NEO holders? Sign us up! But let’s keep in mind that most scams are simply “too good to be true.” According to the NEOX whitepaper , a fork as is done in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, or the upcoming fork of Bitcoin Cash is not possible in NEO. “A lot of misunderstanding and incorrect representations surround the question of NEO forks. To put it simply, NEO cannot be forked in the same way as Bitcoin or Ethereum — that is, there is no way to split the chain and create a new coin based on NEO.” Story continues Which, of course, raises the question as to why they have built a wallet service that can capture NEO private keys. In any case, the fork is set to happen on November 10, and the immediate effect for traditional NEO holders will be a 1:2 issuance on the NEOX chain. It’s unclear how users are to redeem their coins if this is to be an Ethereum token and smart contract, but users are certainly advised to not enter their NEO private key onto any service created by such an unknown and non-reputable provider as this upstart “NEO Super” team. If every NEO in existence at the time of the snapshot is to be duplicated and doubled in the new system, then there should be some way that users will be able to access it without affecting their existing holdings. In short, the project is too confusing to declare it a scam outright, but it is also too unknown and, again, confusing, to necessarily recommend , though there’s no harm in experimentation and NEO is an open source protocol and project. neo price crypto If the developers are serious about launching an alternative to NEO, they’re picking a bad time to do so, with the token being in a depressed and declining state for quite some time now as regards its market. This indicates an overall loss of interest toward NEO, which means the potential success of this project is limited — assuming the whole effort is legitimate. And if the primary effort is to improve fault tolerance and prevent duplicate block publishing, then perhaps they should dedicate efforts to NEO development instead of starting a whole new project which brings the NEO blockchain as a whole into the Ethereum fold. Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, CCN. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post NEO Super: Next-Generation Blockchain or Crypto Scam? appeared first on CCN . View comments || Alleged Bitcoin Launderer Vinnik Announces Hunger Strike to ‘Get a Fair Trial’: The lawyer for Alexander Vinnik, the alleged former operator of defunct cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e , said his defendant will go on a hunger strike this Monday, Russian state-owned news outlet TASS reported Nov. 23. According to Timofey Musatov, the head of the lawyers representing Vinnik, the reason given for the hunger strike is that “he [Vinnik] was stripped of the right for defense in France and, consequently, in Greece.” The lawyer also noted that “it became clear that the [French-issued] European arrest warrant expired.” In 2017, Greece’s supreme court ruled to extradite Vinnik to the U.S., where he faces charges of money laundering and fraud. In June, a Greek court ruled to extradite Vinnik to France. The Greek Supreme Court discussed Vinnik’s extradition to France on Nov. 19, but postponed the ruling to Nov. 29, as TASS reports. According to TASS, Musatov also accuses the judge of the Greek Supreme Court of ignoring him and his team: “The Greek Supreme Court's judge completely ignores the work of lawyers who cannot even file a petition. She does not give them an opportunity to speak or do it.” The lawyer stated that “[i]f there is no fair trial, he will inevitably be deported to the United States through France, where he will get something close to a life sentence, which equals death.” He then further clarified Vinnik’s reasoning stating that “after observing this situation, Alexander realized that he would either get a fair trial or die.” The head of the team of lawyers also explained that his defendant “understood that he does not have any other options and decided to go on a hunger strike on Monday in protest against this situation.” According to Musatov, Vinnik came to this conclusion when his Greek lawyer, Zoe Konstantopoulou, “openly” said during the Nov. 19 court session that “the court would not treat any citizen of an E.U. member country or Greece as it treats Alexander just because he is a Russian national.” Story continues As Cointelegraph reported this week, Konstantopoulou is also accusing the Greek Supreme Court of violating her defendant’s rights by failing to provide translations of court documents at his request. Related Articles: Greek Supreme Court is Violating Alleged Bitcoin Launderer’s Rights, Lawyer Argues Bitcoin Briefly Breaks Over $4,000, Bitcoin Cash Sees Gains Near 20 Percent on the Day Taiwan is Tightening Regulations on Crypto Exchanges, Possible Pressure From China? France: Central Bank Does Not Endorse Plans for Tobacco Shops to Sell Bitcoin || Why Shares of Overstock.com Are Slumping Today: What happened Shares of online retailer and blockchain company Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) tumbled on Monday as the market continued to digest CEO Patrick Byrne's plan to sell the retail business next year and focus solely on blockchain. The stock surged on Friday after Byrne's interview with the Wall Street Journal was published, but much of that rally has now been undone. Shares of Overstock were down about 14.8% at 11 a.m. EST Monday. So what Overstock is a minor player in the e-commerce market. The company has generated $1.8 billion of revenue over the past 12 months, with a net loss topping $250 million. Overstock has been marginally profitable over the past decade, with operating margins hovering around 1% in its best years. E-commerce giant Amazon and smaller players like Wayfair have left Overstock in the dust. A coin with a bitcoin symbol on the face. Image source: Getty Images. In addition to e-commerce, Overstock has been investing in various blockchain-based businesses via its wholly owned Medici Ventures subsidiary. These initiatives include tZero, a blockchain-based trading platform that has yet to launch commercially and is currently hemorrhaging cash. Byrne put tZero's monthly losses at about $2 million. But Byrne sees massive potential for blockchain. "We think we've got cold fusion on the blockchain side," Byrne told the WSJ . Speaking of Medici Ventures, he said, "We have maybe several multibillion-dollar properties in there." Now what Overstock's plan to dump the e-commerce business and focus solely on blockchain comes as cryptocurrency prices are crashing. Bitcoin has lost more than 80% of its value since peaking late last year. The digital currency has tumbled more than 40% in the past month alone. Blockchain has potential applications beyond cryptocurrency, and Overstock is betting that going all in on the technology will pay off in the long run. But there's a real risk that blockchain could turn out to be more hype than anything else. Overstock's move to sell the e-commerce business is a gamble, and a risky one at that. Story continues More From The Motley Fool 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today 3 Stocks That Are Absurdly Cheap Right Now 5 Warren Buffett Principles to Remember in a Volatile Stock Market The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss The Must-Read Trump Quote on Social Security 10 Reasons Why I'm Selling All of My Apple Stock John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Timothy Green has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Wayfair. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || ‘Bitcoin’s No Longer Boring,’ Price Heading Towards $1.5K, Say Bloomberg Analysts: Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence predict that Bitcoin (BTC) “has further to fall,” BloombergreportedNov. 16. “Bitcoin’s no longer boring” declares Bloomberg, before stating that analysts predict the price could fall as low as the $1,500 point, a further 70 percent drop in the coin’s price. Bloomberg cites hedge fund founder Travis Kling saying that he “didn’t sleep well” because of the potential turmoil in wider crypto markets due to the recentBitcoin Cash hard fork: “There’s a small chance that, it’s difficult to estimate, that something really bad could happen related to Bitcoin Cash that could then impact the entire crypto market.” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone continued the argument, saying the recentmarket crash“was sparked by the pump for the Bitcoin Cash hard fork.” As Bloomberg reports, he explains that the “pump that began a few weeks ago, got the market a bit too offsides with speculative longs playing for the good-old days. But this is an enduring bear market.” Thebear marketin the cryptocurrency industry has evidently affected more than just prices. Major U.S.-based GPU manufacturerNvidiarecentlyreporteda notable decrease in sales in the current quarter, citing fewer GPU sales specifically used for cryptocurrency mining. In a recent note to clients, Fundstrat Global Advisors analyst Rob Sluymerpredictedthat it will take “weeks, if not months” for Bitcoin to rebound from the “technical damage” caused by the recent price collapse. In a separate note this week, Fundstrat co-founder and Head of Research Tom Leetoldclients that he was lowering his previous end-year target for Bitcoin’s price from $25,000 to $15,000. • Ripple Continues to Rebound, While Most Major Cryptocurrencies See Mild Wave of Red • Bitcoin’s Breakdown Will Take ‘Weeks, If Not Months’ to Rebound, Says Fundstrat Analyst • Markets See Massive Sell-Off, Bitcoin Dips Below $5,600 for the First Time in 2018 • How Crypto Market Fall Influences Mining Hardware Sales and Producers’ Revenues || Bitcoin birthday predictions: 10th anniversary of world's first cryptocurrency prompts forecasts for its future: Bitcoin's 10th birthday comes at an uncertain time for the cryptocurrency: Rock Star Pastries/ Composite On 31 October, 2008, in the midst of one of the worst financial crises the world had ever seen, a person – or group – by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper that claimed to offer an alternative to the traditional banking system. The paper, titled 'Bitcoin: A Peer-toPeer Electronic Cash System', was posted to an obscure mailing list viewed by a handful of so-called 'cypherpunks' who believed cryptography and computer science could provide a meaningful route to social, economic and political change. Just over two months later, on 3 January, 2009, the first ever cryptocurrency was officially launched in the form of the bitcoin network. Within a few years, it would be worth more than $10 billion and would eventually peak above $300 billion – surpassing the market cap of the payments giant Visa. Yet despite this success, bitcoin and the thousands of cryptocurrencies that have since appeared are still largely a fringe technology, unable to truly break into the mainstream. On its 10th anniversary, The Independent spoke to a number of crypto experts who explain why this is and suggest how this might be about to change. "While bitcoin has taken off and is seen as the leader of the cryptocurrency market , it’s been adopted by the few not the many," said Chakib Bouda, chief technology officer at US-based payments firm Rambus. "Confusion amongst users has played a part, but arguably the biggest failings for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies over the past years lies with security, in the first six months of 2018 alone over $761 million bitcoin was stolen, with experts predicting that the amount stolen from exchanges will top $1.5 billion by the end of the year." The key to overcoming this issues, Bouda suggested, is keeping the private keys needed to access and use cryptocurrency funds both secure and easy-to-use. One way of doing this would be adopting technology used within the traditional financial sector to bring cryptocurrencies up to the levels of security and usability that people expect of a modern currency. Story continues "Once this secure ecosystem is in place, it’s going to transform how many sceptics view bitcoin transactions," Bouda said. "So whilst cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have been described as the ‘Wild West’ by the UK treasury, we expect in 10 years’ time, bitcoin will become mainstream and have a remarkably different reputation." If bitcoin is able to transform its reputation in this way, bitcoin could find its way into everyone's pockets through mobile wallets –achieving mainstream adoption in time for bitcoin's next birthday . It's a view shared by Iqbal Gandham, the UK managing director of the online trading platform eToro. "The next decade could see bitcoin being accepted as the norm when it comes to money transfer and payments," he said. "As with any startup idea, early days are always risky, but I feel these are now few and far between." Alternatively, if another cryptocurrency is able to become a safe and convenient payment method before bitcoin developers implement the necessary technology, bitcoin's place as the world's most popular cryptocurrency could be usurped. This is the view of Nigel Green, founder and CEO of the deVere Group, a financial consultancy firm based in London. Mr Green suggested that bitcoin's influence will "drastically reduce" in the cryptocurrency sector, however the overall crypto market will expand by "at least" 5,000 per cent. “Bitcoin is what kickstarted the crypto revolution and it has changed the way the world handles money, makes transactions, does business, and manages assets, amongst other things, forever. It all began with bitcoin," Mr Green said. “However, whilst I don’t wish to rain on anyone’s parade, I believe that bitcoin’s influence and dominance of the cryptocurrency sector will drastically reduce in its second decade. This is because as mass adoption of cryptocurrency grows, more and more digital assets will be launched – by organisations in both the private and the public sectors. This will increase competition for bitcoin and dent its market share." Hal Finney had realized since 2009-2010 that Bitcoin couldn't scale on the base layer (as well as all blockchains) and that a layer 2 was needed. 2019 is almost here and there are still people thinkng onchain scaling is the way forward. That's called retardation. Just saying — Homer (@btchomero) 25 October 2018 He continued: “In addition, it is likely that bitcoin will be hit by the superior technology, features, and problem-solutions, offered by existing and yet-to-be-released cryptocurrencies.” If the deVere CEO's forecast is correct, the boost from major institutional and retail investors will see the cryptocurrency market rocket towards the $20 trillion mark by 2028. "Financial institutions and regulators, amongst others, understand that cryptocurrencies are the future of money ," he concluded. “As such, the market will have grown beyond recognition when bitcoin celebrates its 20th anniversary.” [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #Bitcoin $4,003.05 v #BitcoinCash $285.42 (BTC/BCH 14.0), Avg Transaction fee for #Bitcoin ~$0.52 v #BitcoinCash ~$0.00 - 2018/11/26 15:00JST || every programme that get updates often will fail someday ...this happened to all prog like chrome,ccleaner ..ect, the problem with bitcoin node if its get 1 single malicious or bad update & someone took advantage of it will be catastrophic for btc $ & reput.. remember btc ∞ sup? || 1hr Report : 09:00:53 UTC Top 10 Mentions $BTC, $ETH, $XRP, $XLM, $LTC, $NEO, $BCH, $NANO, $EOS, $ADApic.twitter.com/uBVAXNgu9A || MEXのLB勢87.5%もロングだったのｗ || #BitcoinMatin : Ce matin à 07:00, cours moyen du BTC : ↓5574.6 EUR et ↑6390.95 USD. http://bit.ly/2xWhGCU  || There is no "propagate" in an essentially 1-hop network. Bitcoin isn't a loose mesh. The incentives - especially at larger blocksizes - are to form a complete graph. With world-class connections. Pushing TB in <<10 min is no problem. || 21/ Bitcoin acts as humanity’s immune system  against greed — helping to fight off cancerous governments, rent seeking businesses, central bank seigniorage, and debasement of the monetary supply. https://t.co/Ch6samYjKs || : 1 BTC @ 04:00 CET: 3,668.08€ (-28.84) / $4,171.52 (-32.14) || 最もBTC/JPYの取引量が多いのは？(2018-11-22 03:00:02 現在) Liquid 85310.271318 bitFlyer 23928.788590 coincheck 5872.417288 bitbank 5848.387100 BITPoint 2072.582815 Zaif 1505.623000 || #ADA Buy at #Paribu and sell at #Binance. Ratio: 2.87% Buy at #Paribu and sell at #Kraken. Ratio: 1.35% Buy at #Paribu and sell at #Gate.io. Ratio: 2.54% #bitcoin #arbitrage #arbitraj #arbingtool http://arbing.info 
Trend: up || Prices: 3313.68, 3242.48, 3236.76, 3252.84, 3545.86, 3696.06, 3745.95, 4134.44, 3896.54, 4014.18
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 2018-09-25] BTC Price: 6446.47, BTC RSI: 44.65 Gold Price: 1200.00, Gold RSI: 49.08 Oil Price: 72.28, Oil RSI: 64.88 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Tether Has No Real Impact on Bitcoin price: University Researcher: Contrary to thesomewhat-popular ideathat tether (USDT) issuance is used to manipulate crypto markets by boosting the price of bitcoin, a new academic study by researcher Wang Chun Wei of the University of Queensland Business School shows that the most widely-used stablecoin in fact has a negligible effect. Titled “The Impact of Tether Grants on Bitcoin,” thereportexamines the tether-bitcoin price manipulation theory using a Value-at-Risk (VAR) model to establish conclusively that while there is a positive correlation between USDT grants and bitcoin’s trading volume, this does not lead to any significant bitcoin price movement. In July, CCNreportedthat researchers from the University of Texas claimed that market manipulators used Tether’sUSDTtoken to artificially inflate the bitcoin price during its prolonged 2017 bull run. In the66-page report, Professors John Griffin and Amin Shams argued that tether has been repeatedly used to provide price support for bitcoin during market downturns. Using the VAR model however, the new study debunks these claims, stating that no empirical evidence could be found to support claims of a positive correlation between USDT grants and the 2017 bitcoin price rally. An excerpt from the report reads: “We find no empirical evidence supporting the notion that Tether grants cause subsequent Bitcoin returns to rise on a daily basis. In fact, when we examine the Bitcoin return equation of our VAR model, none of the lagged variables, impacts Bitcoin returns. This suggest Bitcoin returns are showing greater signs of market efficiency than previously studied on older datasets.” The report does, however, find evidence of a positive correlation between issuance of USDT tokens and increased cryptocurrency trading the following day. The study’s estimates show that in the aftermath of a tether grant, both bitcoin and tether experience increased trading volumes. The researchers are quick to point out that trading volume spikes do not directly lead to bitcoin price increases; moreover, the effect on trading volumes is temporary, and volume generally returns to normal within five days. This would seem to indicate that, after Tether issues new tokens, investors could be purchasing bitcoin and other coins with USDT, but in terms of net effect, the size of the grants is not large enough to create any kind of significant price manipulation effect in the bitcoin market. The study also found that tether grants are autocorrelated, indicating that Tether deliberately breaks large grants into smaller blocks for issuance over several days, so as to minimise price impact on crypto exchanges. Even more significantly, the study found evidence to suggest that USDT trading volumes increase following downward bitcoin price movements, which could be a result of investors keeping their holdings in stablecoins during bearish periods. The spike in USDT issuances around this period could thus be a result of Tether responding to increased demand by launching new grants rather than an attempt to shore up bitcoin’s support levels by purchasing it with newly-minted USDT. Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts fromTradingView. The postTether Has No Real Impact on Bitcoin price: University Researcherappeared first onCCN. || Stellar Lumens Falls 10.39% In Rout: Investing.com - Stellar Lumens was trading at $0.22068 by 20:57 (00:57 GMT) on the Investing.com Index on Sunday, down 10.39% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage loss since August 8. The move downwards pushed Stellar Lumens's market cap down to $4.19B, or 1.98% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, Stellar Lumens's market cap was $12.12B. Stellar Lumens had traded in a range of $0.22027 to $0.22309 in the previous twenty-four hours. Over the past seven days, Stellar Lumens has seen a stagnation in value, as it only moved 0.57%. The volume of Stellar Lumens traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $68.81M or 0.52% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $0.19586 to $0.24744 in the past 7 days. At its current price, Stellar Lumens is still down 76.01% from its all-time high of $0.92 set on January 3. Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading Bitcoin was last at $6,354.9 on the Investing.com Index, down 3.96% on the day. Ethereum was trading at $292.21 on the Investing.com Index, a loss of 9.07%. Bitcoin's market cap was last at $110.28B or 52.08% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while Ethereum's market cap totaled $29.80B or 14.07% of the total cryptocurrency market value. Related Articles EOS Falls 10.62% In Selloff Cardano Falls 10.37% In Bearish Trade Bitcoin Needs Centralization to Scale, Says Northwestern University || Bitcoin – $6,000 Avoided for Now as the Bulls Step in: Bitcoin gained 1.13% on Sunday, partially reversing Saturday’s 3.32% fall, to end the day at $6,255, the day’s gain bringing to an end 5 consecutive days of losses to leave Bitcoin down 14.3% for the week. A particularly choppy day saw Bitcoin fall back to an early intraday low $6,140.5, before finding support from a broad based cryptomarket rally, the morning low steering clear of the day’s first major support level at $6,044.43 and more importantly, sub-$6,000 levels. With a late morning rally kicking in, Bitcoin broke through the day’s first major resistance level at $6,400.43 to an intraday high $6,458.9 before succumbing to profit taking late in the day that saw Bitcoin slide back to an evening low $6,211.6. A partial recovery in the final hour provided Bitcoin with some relatively minor gains for the day, the late in the day sell-off reflective of investor jitters ahead of this week’s EU finance minister gathering and further possible updates from the SEC and the G20 on Bitcoin ETFs and the heavily anticipated set of unified rules and regulations for G20 members. On the news front, news of the SEC suspending exchange traded Bitcoin and Ether investment products likely contributed to the late in the day reversal, with the suspension another reminder of how influential both regulators and governments can be on the direction of Bitcoin and the broader crypto market. Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up 1.05% to $6,305.7, with Bitcoin managing to reverse Sunday’s late in the day sell-off in the early hours, Bitcoin rising from a start of a day morning low $6,239.9 to a morning high $6,373.7 before easing back. In spite of a bullish start to the day, Bitcoin fell short of the day’s first major resistance level at $6,429.1, whilst also steering clear of the day’s first major support level at $6,110.7. For the day ahead, holding above $6,285 through the morning would support another run at the morning’s $6,373.7 high to bring $6,400 levels and the day’s first major resistance level at $6,429.1 into play, though we can expect investors to be quick to lock in profits as regulators continue to leave a dark cloud over the broader market. Story continues Failure to hold above $6,285 through the morning will likely see Bitcoin hit reverse later in the day, a pullback through the morning low $6,239.9 likely to bring sub-$6,200 levels and the day’s first major support level at $6,110.7 into play. While Bitcoin managed to avoid sub-$6,000 levels over the weekend, an anticipated shift in the regulatory landscape is likely to be Bitcoin and the broader market’s ball and chain near-term, investors all too aware of the view regulators in key jurisdictions have on Bitcoin and the market in general. Elsewhere Lisk was the only crypto with a notable decline in the early hours, down 2.32% at the time of writing, while the majority of the majors enjoyed solid gains at the start of the week, {alt} This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Weekly Chart Strengthens Over $1222.70, Weakens Under $1194.30 USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Safe-Haven Demand Primary Price Driver This Week NEO Technical Analysis – Finds Support For Now – 10/09/18 E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Strengthens Over 7432.00, Weakens Under 7369.25 Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Supported by Tight Supply Concerns, but Gains Likely Limited by Demand Worries AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Short-Sellers Targeting Feb 2016 Low at .6973 || JD.com Launches a Blockchain Platform -- But It’s Not for Bitcoin: JD.com(NASDAQ: JD), the second largest e-commerce player in China, recently launched the JD Blockchain Open Platform, a blockchain-as-a-service platform that helps companies develop their own blockchain-based applications.A blockchain is a decentralized ledger of data that is spread out across various locations. That data is secured in encrypted blocks, which are accessed through peer-to-peer networks. The first blockchain was a distributed ledger for bitcoin transactions, but the technology can alsosignificantly improvesupply chain and financial records with easily tracked, tamper-proof transactions. China Pacific Insurance, one of China's biggest publicly traded insurers, is JD's first partner to use its new platform. The insurer will use JD's blockchain infrastructure to "deploy a traceable system for e-invoices" by "applying unique blockchain IDs to each document." JD states that the app will help the insurer improve its overall efficiency by "streamlining the accounting process." Image source: Getty Images. This isn't JD's first blockchain initiative. Last year, it launched a blockchain tracing platform that helps customers track the origins of food products. JD subsequently implemented blockchain tracing for over 400 brands and 11,000 SKUs (stock keeping units) across its own marketplace. This March, an Australian beef producer used JD's blockchain tracing to track its beef imports, and in June, JD's fintech affiliate JD Finance announced that it would issue asset-backed securities on a blockchain network through partnerships with Xingye Bank and Huatai Securities. By launching a blockchain-as-a-service platform, JD could generate a fresh stream of cloud-based revenues by letting companies create their own blockchain-powered applications. Further, it could increase the stickiness of JD's e-commerce ecosystem as customers become more dependent on JD's service offerings. That growth could add diversify to JD's revenues outside of its core online marketplace business, which faces intense competition fromAlibaba's(NYSE: BABA)Tmall. Last year,Walmartfood safety chief Frank Yiannas demonstrated that the condition and origin of any food product across the retailer's network could be tracked in two seconds via blockchain -- a process which would have taken nearly a week with older tracking methods. That's why it's smart for JD to use blockchain tracing on food sold on its marketplace. China has been plagued with food safety issues, and the implementation of blockchain-tracked food gives customers a higher level of assurance, which complements JD's corporate mantra of "authentic products, delivered today." Image source: Getty Images. Meanwhile, corporate invoices (known as "fapiao" in Chinese) are tightly regulated in China, where they're issued for all financial transactions to discourage tax fraud. Keeping track of all corporate invoices can be a time-consuming and error-prone process, so digitizing all those invoices on a blockchain network where transactions can be quickly tracked could save companies like China Pacific Insurance lots of time and money. JD's blockchain platform sounds revolutionary, but plenty of other companies have already entered the blockchain-as-a-service market. Tech giants likeIBM,Microsoft, andAmazonall offerblockchain-as-a-servicesolutions as extensions of their cloud businesses. In China,Baidulaunched ablockchain-as-a-serviceplatform in January.Alibabaalready uses blockchain to track purchases, and its fintech affiliate Ant Financial uses blockchain to let Alipay users track charitable donations. Alibaba and Ant Financial also hold the highest number of blockchain-related patents in the entire world. Tencentlaunched a blockchain-as-a-service platform last year, applied that technology to its fintech transactions and logistics, and even used it to help consumers track medical prescriptions. JD could struggle to grow its blockchain platform against these rivals because it lacks a major cloud infrastructure platform. It could eventually expand the service, but that could be a costly effort for a company that is already struggling with high expenses. JD's tech and content expenses surged 80% annually last quarter, and contributed heavily toits net loss. Blockchain-related news attracts plenty of attention these days, but few of these projects will actually move the needle for their companies. JD's investments in blockchain should improve quality control standards in its own marketplace -- which could boost customer loyalty and widen its moat against Alibaba. However, the blockchain platform probably won't become a meaningful source of revenue because there are simply too many competitors in the market, and unlike JD, those competitors can bundle their blockchain solutions with other cloud services. More From The Motley Fool • 16 Cryptocurrency Facts You Should Know • Experts Warned – The Crypto ‘Bloodbath’ Is Here • How to Buy Bitcoin 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, Baidu, JD.com, and Tencent Holdings. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon, Baidu, JD.com, and Tencent Holdings. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Massive Hacks, Price Targets and a Bitcoin ETF: This Week in Crypto: Make sure you check out our previous editionhere, now let’s go over what happened in crypto this week. Also, make sure you subscribe for this week’s edition ofThe CCN PodcastoniTunes,TuneIn,Stitcher,Google Play Music,Spotify,Soundcloud,YouTubeorwhereveryou get your podcasts. • Bitcoin is up 2.69%this week to $6,700 surpassing$6,500 latelast weekafter oscillating between$6,300 and $6,400before flirting with the$6,600 leveland the$6,200 levelwithin days of each other. This week was remarkably similar but ended higher with this week starting off at the $6,500 level and managing to hold itcoming into this weekuntil Monday when theprice hit $6,274before coming back to the$6,500 level on Tuesdayas some alts likeRipple surged. The next day was not quite as fruitful with prices falling back to the $6,200 level and oscillating between$6,200 and $6,400. Later in the week, the price managed to regain the$6,500 levelshowing several bullish indicators in CCN’s ownYashu Gola‘s analysis. The price finally ended at $6,700 as alts likeXLMandRipplecontinued to rally. The last time we were atthis levelwas in the face of the9 ETFs that were rejected. • Ethereum is up 10% this weekto $240 after a gain of16% last week. The gains are a recent phenomenon with preceding week having a drop of31% last week, 5% the week before and drops of11%and24%in the preceding weeks with single and double-digit drops going back months. The recent drops have continued to be blamed onICO sell offsand the recent price gains are seen by analysts as evidence that the price is coming back. It wasn’t until last Thursday that,despite negative statements by Vitalik, the price increased9%and analysts said we’d finallyhit ‘a’ bottom. This week wasn’t all gains with the price briefly dropping below$200 on Monday. • The entire coin market cap is up 8%as Ethereum,RippleandStellarrecorded strong gains. Bitcoins comparatively small gains held the market back as it sought to regain the $225 billion level. • Targets:Tim Draper Stands By Bullish $250,000 Bitcoin–Tech billionaire Tim Draper stands by his bitcoin price target of $250,000 for 2022. Despite the recent slump, Draper remains undeterred in his enthusiastic outlook for the largest virtual currency by market cap.Novogratz Sets $10,000 Price Target for 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. • U.S. Rep. Emmer Introduces 3 Blockchain Bills–On Friday, CongraaaessmanTom Emmer (R-MN)announced that he will introduce three new billsaimed at supporting the development of blockchain technologies, as well as the use of cryptocurrency, within the United States. The first bill is a ahouse resolutionto express support for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. The second bill, theBlockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, states that certain entities such as cryptocurrency miners and multi-signature providers, who never fully take control of consumer funds, will not need to be registered as money transmitters. The third bill, theSafe Harbor for Taxpayers with Forked Assets Act of 2018, aims to address confusion surrounding how to report gains made as a result of cryptocurrency forks to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). • SEC Begins Reviewing Physically-Backed Bitcoin ETF–The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)announcedon Thursday that has begun a formal review process for the physically-backed bitcoin ETF proposed by VanEck and SolidX. The timing of the order comes as somewhat of a surprise. CBOE firstfiledto list shares of the VanEck Solidx Bitcoin Trust in June, and in August the SECpostponedruling on the application, setting a new deadline of Sept. 30. Many analysts, including Canadian investment firm Canaccord,speculatedthat the SEC would likely delay ruling on the fund at least once (and probably twice) more, until March 2019.Read the Full Order:VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust OrderbyCCNonScribd • Report: India’s Crypto Regulations Causing Exodus–According to a recent News 18report, a substantial number of developers, service providers and other organisations within India’s cryptocurrency and blockchain sphere have already fled, or are in the process of fleeing from India to jurisdictions with friendlier regulatory dispositions such as Thailand, Estonia and Switzerland. The reports comes in the wake of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) filing anaffidavitin the Supreme Court stating that under the provisions of the Coinage Act and the RBI Act,bitcoin is not recognized a valid payment systemunder the Indian constitution because there is no backing legal framework for it andIndia’s bank banon crypto purchases. • Canada to Study Cannabis Cryptomarkets– The Department of Public Safety Canada is looking to commission a study that will shed light on the cryptomarkets – online drug marketplaces that rely on the TOR browser and cryptocurrencies – with regards to the North American country and its citizens. According to atender noticepublished online, the study will focus on both buyers and sellers of cannabis on the cryptomarkets. The move comes in the wake of soaring prices ofpublicly-listed cannabis stocks. • U.S. Navy Explores Blockchain to Enhance Tracking of Aviation Parts–The U.S. Navy Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) iscurrently exploringthe blockchain technology for tracking aviation parts throughout its lifecycle. The Navy has partnered with Indiana Technology and Manufacturing Companies (ITAMCO) under the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, NAVAIR hopes to get “access to cutting-edge chain code” as well as innovative protocols that can “recall large data sets” swiftly and securely. • 5 Members of Congress ‘Strongly Urge’ IRS to Update Bitcoin Tax Guidelines-In aletterdated Sept. 19 and published on the House Ways and Means Committee website, five representatives —Kevin Brady(R-TX),David Schweikert(R-AZ),Lynn Jenkins(R-KS),Darin LaHood(R-IL), andBrad Wenstrup(R-OH) — “strongly urged” theIRSto issue comprehensive, updated guidance on federal tax obligations associated with disposing cryptocurrency assets, either through trading or other means. The letter follows a lettersent last Mayexpressing concern over the agency’s decision toramp up enforcementof cryptocurrency-related violations without also adopting a “comprehensive virtual currency strategy” to help taxpayers more successfully navigate the murky regulatory code. • Ex-FDIC Chair Sheila Bair: We Need A Federal Framework To Regulate Cryptocurrencies– Sheila Bair, the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), says the time has come for a formal federal regulatory framework to be established to regulate cryptocurrencies. • Kraken vs New York Attorney General–In thecontinuing feudbetween New York’s Attorney General and Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, another round of shots has been fired. New York released it’s report“Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative”. Powellcriticized other exchangesfor answering the questionnaire and proceeded to thank taxpayers for funding the research and providing information about his competitors. The report specifically targeted Kraken among other exchanges that did not participate includingHuobi,Gate.ioandBinance. Powell went on to accuse the Attorney General ofmanipulating bitcoin futures. In the same series of Tweets, it appears a Bloomberg reporter who hadused term“red flags” in reference to Kraken was mocked. • Japan Cryptocurrency Theft Cases Tripled in H1 2018, $530 Million Stolen: Police– In the wake ofthe news that Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Zaif had beenhackedand slightly less than US$60 million stolen, the National Police Agency (NPA) of Japan hasreleaseda report highlighting the vulnerability of Japan’s crypto space. • Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange Zaif Hacked, $59 Million in Losses– Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Zaif was the victim of a major hack last week, local media sources have reported and the company has nowconfirmed. The hack, which occurred on Sept. 14 but was not discovered until Sept. 17, saw the hacker steal various amounts of bitcoin, bitcoin cash, and monacoin from the exchange’s hot wallet, collectively worth 6.7 billion yen (just under $60 million). • Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Unveils ‘Next-Generation’ 7nm Chip–China-based Bitmain’s CEOJihan Wuannouncedon Fridaythat it had developed a new 7nm application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining chip for the SHA256 algorithm used by bitcoin, bitcoin cash, and many other cryptocurrencies. The s announcement came just two days after competitorBitfuryunveiled a new SHA256 ASIC chip. The announcement also comes ahead of Bitmain’s rumored initial public offering (IPO), which will reportedly take place “very soon.” • UK’s Biggest Port Operator to Explore Blockchain Solution–The privately run UK port operator, Associated British Ports (ABP), has inked a Memorandum of Understanding with freight forwarder Marine Transport International to explore a blockchain technology application aimed at improving connectivity at the21 ports it runs. • Coinsquare Lists Blockchain ETF On Toronto Stock Exchange–Coincapital, which is registered with the Ontario Securities Commission, has become Canada’s newest ETF provider following the introduction of the LDGR and the STOXX B.R.AI.N. Index Fund (THNK), the company’s first ETFs. The ETF’s selections are based primarily on blockchain intellectual property patent filings, which enables the fund to identify blockchain adopters and innovators. The selections also make use of the iSTOXX Yewno Developed Markets Blockchain Index. • AntPool to Sponsor NBA’s Houston Rockets– A partnership agreement signed by AntPool and the Houston Rockets for the 2018-2019 professional season and will stand out as one of the significant moves by the China-based company towards achieving its expansion goals into the Houston area. At the same time, this joins in the increasing number of similar awareness and publicity programs being experienced by cryptocurrency in recent times, especially in associating with the sporting industry. • IBM: Blockchain for Drone Fleet Security– Computing giant and prolific blockchain researcher IBM has applied topatenta system that would use distributed ledger technology (DLT) to address privacy and security concerns associated with the increasing usage of drones in both commercial and recreational applications. The patent is similar to a apatent applicationfrom Walmart that sought to use blockchain technology to secure packages throughout a supply chain made up of robots and autonomous vehicles. • Darkwallet Dev Cody Wilson Arrested on Sexual Assault Charges–Cody Wilson, 3D-printed firearm pioneer andDarkWalletdeveloper andanti-Bitcoin Foundation campaigner, has beenarrestedin Taiwan in connection with charges that he sexually assaulted a minor in Texas. Taiwan does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S., but local police have nevertheless cooperated with authorities in the U.S. to arrest Wilson, and —according to translated reports from Taiwanese media— potentially deport him to his home country. Noteworthy: These are a few pieces that were particularly popular this week. • Decentralized Crypto Exchange is Solution to Hacks, Will They be Ready? –Analysis of the development of decentralized exchanges in the wake of the successful hacking attempts on crypto exchangesBithumbandCoincheckand most recentlyZaif. Featured image from Shutterstock. The postMassive Hacks, Price Targets and a Bitcoin ETF: This Week in Cryptoappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin – Gripped by Bear Fever: It was another dark day for the Bitcoin bulls, with Bitcoin falling by 5.77% to more than reverse Thursday’s 4.2% gain and end the day at $6,156.5, its lowest end of day since late June. The bearish moves through the week left Bitcoin down 12.4% through to the end of Friday, the losses mild relative to its peers. An early afternoon recovery from a morning low $6,301 to an intraday high $6,537 left the day’s major support and resistance levels untested, whilst giving hope of a second consecutive day of gains. Tracking the broader market through the afternoon, a pullback to $6,300 levels led to a slide through the first major support level at $6,275.73 to an intraday low $6,010, to test the day’s second major support level at $6,006.87 before recovering to $6,100 levels. For the Bitcoin bulls, sub-$6,000 levels were averted, though until there is some good news hitting the wires, the bears are likely to remain in control, with Bitcoin in dire need of a weekend rally to shake off the market reaction to the SEC’s delays in approving Bitcoin ETFs. Through the day, there was no materially negative news to trigger the late in the day sell-off, Bitcoin’s failure to make a move from the mid-day intraday high leading investors to pull out late in the day in fear of more negative news hitting the wires. With both the SEC’s delayed decisions on the Bitcoin ETFs and the G20’s planned roll out of unified rules and regulations to come, there’s plenty of uncertainty ahead. Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down 0.37% to $6,120.6, with Bitcoin pulling back from a start of a day $6,175.7 high to a morning low $6,069.9 before recovering to $6,100 levels. Moves through the early part of the day saw Bitcoin steer clear of the day’s first major support level at $5,919.73 and first major resistance level at $6,483.53, with $6,000 a line in the sand for Bitcoin, holding on to $6,000 levels key over the weekend. For the day ahead, a move through the start of the day high $6,175.7 to $6,200 levels would signal the beginnings of a much needed weekend rally, with the day’s first major resistance level at $6,483.53 in play. Market sentiment will need to significantly improve however, for Bitcoin to be eyeing $6,400 levels, a break back through to $6,300 levels likely to be as good as it gets in the event of a weekend rally. Failure to break through to $6,200 levels through the early afternoon could see Bitcoin take a hit later in the day, with a pullback through the morning low $6,069.9 bringing sub-$6,000 levels and the first major support level at $5,919.73 into play. With the bears firmly in control, a sell-off may well gather momentum should the bulls give up $6,000 levels, which could lead to talks of Bitcoin at sub-$5,000. For those who missed out on the December rally, a steadying of the ship will likely, not only bring back side lined investors, but see new money pour in, though the SEC and G20 are going to need to look favourably to really give Bitcoin and the broader market a chance. Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Crude Oil Price Forecast – crude oil breaks out to the upside • GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British pound falls again on Friday • Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast – natural gas gains again • Gold Price Forecast – Gold markets very choppy on Friday session • USD/JPY Weekly Price Forecast – pair very choppy for the week and going nowhere • U.S Mortgages Ease Back for Now || Binance Reveals Plan to Launch Crypto Exchanges on Almost Every Continent: Binance CEO and founder Zhao Changpeng announced an ambitious plan to build 5-10 fiat-to-crypto exchanges in the next year. One of the world's largest crypto exchanges by trading volume wants to set up fiat-to-crypto trading platforms on almost every continent. Binance founder and CEO Zhao Changpeng closed out the first day of CoinDesk's Consensus Singapore event with a fireside chat, where he discussed a range of topics, including how he grew Binance from a startup with a $15 million initial coin offering to one of the world's largest crypto exchanges and his future vision for the platform. During the conversation with CoinDesk's Pete Rizzo, Zhao indicated that by this time next year, he wants the company to launch five to 10 fiat-to-crypto exchanges, with ideally two per continent. Don't Blame Bitcoin Futures for Bear Market, CME Exec Says These plans falls in line with Binance's current efforts to roll out an exchange in Singapore that supports local fiat-to-crypto trading services. Having conducted closed testing on Tuesday, CZ said he hopes the platform could be up and running within months, though he added that working with banks and regulators is much harder than just with cryptocurrencies. Noting that this move appears to be a reversal to what Binance has been known for, which is its crypto-to-crypto trading, Zhao admitted that the crypto market capitalization is still significantly lower than traditional financial instruments. "Fiat is still where all the money is in. ... And we've got to open that gate," he said. Trading Legend Don Wilson: Asian Demand High for Bitcoin Futures Zhao added that in order to so, Binance plans to continue working with relatively smaller countries, citing recent partnerships with nations like Malta. The main reason, he explained, is that these countries tend to respond in a much more efficient way. "You can access to the top-level government officials and they respond to your questions more directly and efficiently. ... And they do appreciate the investment you are bringing into the local economy," he said. Story continues That said, Zhao brands this move as more of finding a sweet spot rather than an entire pivot, stating that in the long term, the goal is still to build a decentralized exchange when the technology matures. The fiat-to-crypto plan also comes as Binance has recorded healthy businesses incomes over the past year despite the overall cryptocurrency market downturn. During the fireside chat, Zhao confirmed that in the first quarter this year, Binance made $200 million in profits, although the assets are all in cryptos. He added that the profits in Q2 declined due to a market drop, with $150 million. Commenting on Binance's rapid growth, Zhao said luck played some role in the company's success so far as it was established with the "right thing at the right time." After quitting from OKCoin in 2015, Zhao said he spent the next two years with a team building a cloud-based system that offers crypto exchanges the infrastructure to form their own platforms, a technology he said laid the foundation of the creation of Binance. And two years later, the exchange went online at a time when the Chinese government was stepping up its scrutiny over crypto trading and eventually issued the ban on domestic initial coin offerings and fiat-to-crypto trading. "Sometimes negative things could turn out to be positive in the long term if you leverage it right," he said. Asked if he was concerned about whether market volatility would significantly affect Binance's business, Zhao responded that he sold his house in 2014 to buy bitcoin, after which its price dropped from $600 to $200. Despite the fall, he he didn't sell, adding: "After that, I'm just not that worried." Zhao Changpeng image via CoinDesk Related Stories Singapore Central Banker: No Crypto Tokens We've Seen Are Securities New York AG Report Faults Crypto Exchanges for Manipulation Risks || Bitcoin Exchange CoinJar Launches Australia’s First Cryptocurrency Index Fund: Australian bitcoin exchange CoinJar has launched the country’s first cryptocurrency index fund available to wholesale investors. Announced on Thursday, theCoinJar Digital Currency Fundprovides a convenient way for wealthy Australian investors to obtain exposure to cryptocurrencies while offloading the custodial responsibility to another entity. The Digital Currency Fund has two classes. The first, Bitcoin Class, exclusively provides investors with exposure to bitcoin (BTC). The second, Mixed Class, tracks the market cap-weighted price movements of four of the six largest cryptocurrencies: bitcoin, ethereum (ETH), ripple (XRP), and litecoin (LTC). “Investing in cryptocurrency carries certain risks and can be an unnecessarily complex process. Traditionally, an individual investor in cryptocurrency has also been exposed to potential loss through cybercrime. We are launching the CoinJar Digital Currency Fund to handle the custody risks, simplify the investment process and provide industry best practice in security for wholesale investors,” said Jordan Michaelides, head of institutional at CoinJar. The fund is currently restricted to wholesale investors, that is, high net worth investors who have obtained an accountant’s certification that they have net assets of at least AUD$2.5 million or a gross income of AUD$250,000 for each of the last two years. This classification is roughly equivalent to the accredited investor certification that U.S. buyers must attain before they can invest in cryptocurrency funds and many initial coin offerings (ICOs). First-time investors must contribute a minimum of $50,000 to the fund, while current investors can make subsequent investments in increments of at least $10,000. The fund carries an annual management fee of 1.3 percent of Bitcoin Class and 1.8 percent for Mixed Class. Though the first cryptocurrency fund available to Australian investors, the CoinJar Digital Currency fund joins a growing list of investment products that present cryptoassets in wrappers familiar — and perhaps more palatable — to sophisticated investors. The New York-based Grayscale was the leader in this space, launching theBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC: GBTC) in 2013 and a variety of other investment funds since. Two of these, GBTC and the Ethereum Classic Investment Trust (OTC: ETCG) can now bepurchased by retail investorson the secondary market. The industry has also developed aburgeoning cryptocurrency derivatives market, with products such as futures, options, and swaps available on both established stock exchanges (CME and CBOE) and upstart trading platforms (LedgerX, Crypto Facilities, among others). Earlier this month, two institutional investors completed thefirst exchange for physical(EFP) involving BTC when they swapped a position in a bitcoin futures contract for an equivalent amount of the physical asset itself. Images from Shutterstock The postBitcoin Exchange CoinJar Launches Australia’s First Cryptocurrency Index Fundappeared first onCCN. || Satoshi’s Vision: Craig Wright to Launch BCH Node to ‘Restore Original Bitcoin Protocol’: An intramural debate among Bitcoin Cash developers about the future of the BCH protocol is heating up, with a development group backed by nChain andCraig Wrightvowing to create a new full node client that does not include the so-called “unnecessary changes” being added to Bitcoin ABC, the most popular full node BCH client. DubbedBitcoin SV— a not-so-subtle acronym for “Satoshi Vision” — the software, in nChain’s words, is designed “to provide a clear BCH implementation choice for miners who support Bitcoin’s original vision, over implementations that seek to make unnecessary changes to the original Bitcoin protocol.” The company says that Bitcoin SV will double down even further on Bitcoin Cash’s commitment to on-chain scaling (as opposed to second-layer scaling through technologies such as Plasma and the Lightning Network) by raising the block size limit to 128MB from thecurrent 32MB limit. For reference, the vast majority of recent BCH blocks mined over the past several days have been smaller than 100KB, or less than one-third-of-one percent of the current limit. Additionally, the first release of Bitcoin SV will restore four “Satoshi opcodes” — scripting operations that had originally been included in Bitcoin but weredisabledin later software updates. These opcodes are: OP_MUL, OP_LSHIFT, OP_RSHIFT, and OP_INVERT. Additionally, Bitcoin SV will remove the limit of 201 opcodes per individual script. Jimmy Nguyen, CEO ofnChain, said: “Answering the call of miners, nChain is happy to provide technical capabilities needed to support Bitcoin SV. Once the Bitcoin protocol is fully restored and maintained, global businesses and developers can reliably build robust applications, projects and ventures upon it – just as they reliably build upon the long-stable Internet protocols. The future of Bitcoin is big blocks, big business, and big growth. Bitcoin SV is an important step toward that big future by advancing the professionalization of Bitcoin.” CoinGeek, a Bitcoin Cash mining pool founded by billionaire entrepreneurCalvin Ayre, has already announced publicly that it will mine with Bitcoin SV following the software’s release ahead of the scheduled Bitcoin Cash hard fork in November and has said that it will “continue to support only consensus changes that restore the original Bitcoin protocol, and those that may be demonstrated as absolutely necessary to meeting the goal of massive on-chain scaling to terabyte+ blocks.” At present, CoinGeek’s mining pool accounts for approximately 22 percent of the BCH hashrate. “Because miners should drive the roadmap in the Bitcoin space, CoinGeek and other miners asked nChain to create a professionally-driven implementation of the Bitcoin full node software (for use on BCH) that restores the original Bitcoin protocol,” Ayre said. “CoinGeek is sponsoring the project and intends to mine with Bitcoin SV. We invite other BCH miners to join us in using Bitcoin SV to voice their support for the Satoshi Vision.” The decision of nChain, with CoinGeek’s backing, to launch Bitcoin SV is the culmination of heated debates within the Bitcoin Cash technical community over the future of the BCH protocol. Bitcoin ABC, the full node implementation developed by Amaury Séchet and currently used by most miners, has announced plans to activate, among other changes, two new opcodes during the protocol’s November hard fork — OP_CHECKDATASIG and OP_CHECKDATASIGVERIFY — as well as implementcanonical transaction ordering. These proposals have been met with strong resistance by Wright and Ayre, who have argued that, among other things, these opcodes could lead to “unlicensed gambling” since they can be used to implement “oracle” services such as those that make decentralized prediction markets possible. Ayre, incidentally, made his fortune through an online gambling empire, though it is Wright in particular who has used this as an argument against these opcodes. According to nChain, Bitcoin SV will be based off BItcoin ABC v0.17.2, and its development will be led by BitcoinJ-Cash developer Daniel Connolly. The firm plans to have the SV codebase ready for a full security audit in mid-October. Featured Image from Shutterstock The postSatoshi’s Vision: Craig Wright to Launch BCH Node to ‘Restore Original Bitcoin Protocol’appeared first onCCN. || A Sophisticated Approach to Senior Loans: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. The SPDR Blackstone/GSO Senior Loan ETF ( SRLN ) brings active management to senior loans, a corner of the fixed income market that can benefit investors are interest rates increase. The Federal Reserve has already raised rates twice this year and many bond market observers expect the Fed do so again at its September and December meetings. Due to their floating rate component, bank loans are seen as an attractive alternative to traditional high-yield corporate bonds in a rising rate environment. Bank loan securities allow their interest rate to shift, or float, along with the rest of the market, whereas a fixed interest rate stays constant until maturity. “Senior loans have a comparable yield and spread to high yield, but a much lower duration. Senior loans’ floating-rate structure, lower equity sensitivity and seniority in the capital structure have resulted in improved drawdowns over the last 18 months,” said State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) in a note out Friday . Floating rate senior secured loans SRLN holds over 300 bonds with an average days to reset of 22 days, a metric that is inline with some of the competing passively managed funds in this category . Over the past three years, SRLN has been less volatile than the largest, passively managed senior loan ETF. Related: ‘HYIH’ Bond ETF Built for Interest Rate Risk Over the past three years, SRLN has been less volatile than the largest passively managed senior loan ETF as well as the largest, traditional junk bond ETF. “Floating rate senior secured loans have outperformed most traditional fixed income categories year-to-date. Coupons on the S&P/LSTA Leveraged Loan Index are at a post-financial-crisis high of 5.47% and are likely to go higher with the Federal Reserve on course to raise rates twice more in 2018,” according to SSgA. SRLN's current three-month LIBOR is 2.34%. The ETF's 30-day SEC yield is 4.69%. For more information on the fixed-income space, visit our bond ETFs category . Story continues POPULAR ARTICLES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM How to Best Use an HSA to Your Benefit Does the Money Management Industry Need Consolidation? Tesla Board to Meet Next Week About Going Private Bitcoin Suffers from ‘Week of Pain,’ Bounce Ahead? Investors Flocked to Healthcare ETFs in July READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] @Bitcoin_price_8 || @btc_current || @Bitcoin_Stats || @bitcoin_reddit || @genesiscoin Great service, I am In South Africa and we are about to launch 26 Bitcoin ATMs Country wide || @btc_current || @bitcoin_reddit || Pump Alert! ICN/BTC increased by 6.93% in an hour on binance $ICN $btc #bitcoin #altcoin #currency #trading #money #CryptoCurrency #blockchain #Crypto || #LIZA #LAMBO price 09-21 15:00(GMT) $LIZA BTC :0.00000 ETH :0.00003 USD :0.0 RUR :0.4 JPY(btc) :0.7 JPY(eth) :0.7 $LAMBO BTC :0.018 ETH :0.650 USD :120.0 RUR :9600.0 JPY(btc) :12935.0 JPY(eth) :17046.2 || @bitcoin_reddit
Trend: up || Prices: 6495.00, 6676.75, 6644.13, 6601.96, 6625.56, 6589.62, 6556.10, 6502.59, 6576.69, 6622.48
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 2015-10-23] BTC Price: 276.50, BTC RSI: 72.95 Gold Price: 1163.30, Gold RSI: 55.14 Oil Price: 44.60, Oil RSI: 43.53 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] ACKMAN: The US government is perpetrating 'the most illegal act of scale' with Fannie and Freddie: (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 illegalact 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, thegovernment-sponsored enterprisesmake billions in profits, all of which goes directly to the Treasury. Ackman, the largestshareholder of Fannie and Freddie, and other investors aresuing the US governmentfor takingproperty 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." (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." Ackman said Fannie and Freddie were set up to make middle-class housing more accessible. Together, they have enabledwidespread 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 withthe right reformsthey could be worth a lot more. He has given the GSEs a price targetranging 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 || Colorado Prepares For Green Wednesday: On Wednesday, September 16, Colorado's marijuana enthusiasts will enjoy a one-day tax holiday in which the state's 10 percent tax on cannabis products will be repealed. The prospect of buying tax-free pot has the state's drug users gearing up for a shopping spree and has prompted dispensaries to offer deep discounts reminiscent of traditional retailer's Black Friday deals. With the holiday just under a week away, Colorado's pot scene is already preparing. Tax Glitch Green Wednesday is the result of a loophole in the Colorado tax law which requires the state to refund some taxes if revenue exceeds estimates. Recreational pot is taxed at 10 percent in Colorado, but on September 16, that tax will be waived and shoppers will pay only the 2.9 percent sales tax that is applied to all goods bought within the state. Shoppers will have to pay any taxes applied by the local jurisdiction in which the retail marijuana is sold. Colorado also has a 15 percent state excise tax, which is applied to sales or transfers from a retail marijuana cultivaton. A discount on this tax will not be applied to shoppers. Related Link: Marijuana Posts A Major Win On The Campaign Trail The holiday will make an ounce of marijuana about $20 cheaper than normal and is expected to cause Colorado's government to lose out on $3 to $4 million worth of revenue. Huge Turnout Anticipated Dispensaries and pot-related businesses are expecting a huge turnout on Wednesday as consumers bulk up their supply or marijuana while the drug is cheap. To lure the crowds into their businesses, many are offering additional price cuts to celebrate the tax holiday. Colorado's oldest and largest dispensary, The Grass Station, will give customers who enter the store before 9:16 a.m. ET a 50 percent discount on their entire purchase and will offer a 10 percent discount for the remainder of the day. See more from Benzinga Wall Street Joins The Bitcoin Movement Investors Look To China For Bargain Buys Phone Carriers Hoping To Profit From New iPhone © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoins In This ETF Not What It Seems: Yesterday’s surprise news that theARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW | D-30)willstart includingbitcoins is a bit of a headscratcher to me. There are issues on a few levels that I have with this announcement. Let’s take them in order: Why Now? Marketing Success I get the allure of Ark trying to make some noise in its flagship fund. Launched in October of last year, ARKW has struggled to find a footing, and has just $12 million in assets at the moment. It’s also really suffered from on-screen liquidity problems, with less than a few thousand shares trading hands every day. But the thing is, I can’t help but root for it. It’s not crazy that it’s failed to find traction—it’s actively managed. And like most actively managed funds, it needs time to develop a track record before core ETF buyers, like financial advisors, will be willing to take the leap of faith. It’s about to come up on its one-year anniversary, and the truth is, it’s actually done very well versus broader-based tech funds. Consider the ~5 percent gap it’s opened up on the more broadly diversifiediShares US Technology ETF (IYW | A-96)in just under a year: Heck, the fund has even outperformed the biggest ETF launch of the year, thePureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF (HACK | C- 31). So, as much as I think the fund probably deserves more attention than it’s received so far from investors, I can’t help but think the timing of the bitcoin announcement is slightly set to mark the one-year anniversary and crow-able performance. It’s Not Really Bitcoins The timing might make sense. I’m a bit more skeptical about the way in which it’s tackling bitcoins. When I read the press release, my first thought was that someone was stealing the march on the Winklevoss brothers’ upcomingWinklevoss Bitcoin Trust ETF (COIN)ETF—an actual ETF in registration that would solely invest in bitcoins. That ETF has been hung up at the SEC since filing, and there’s no word on when it may come out. But Ark isn’t—instead, it’s investing in a company listed on the OTC pink sheets—the Bitcoin Investment Trust, which you can find on OTC under the ticker GTBC. GTBC is a strange beast. On the surface, it looks like a closed-end fund—accredited investors can petition authorized participants to create or redeem shares in 100-share baskets in a process clearly based on the fundamental precepts of how ETFs work. But let me be perfectly clear: It may look like a duck, and quack like a duck, but GTBC ain’t no duck. It’s essentially entirely unregulated by the SEC. In fact, the whole reason Ark can get away with this quasi-ETF-like structure is precisely because the SEC hasn’t even decided what bitcoins are yet. GTBC’s owndisclosure documentsinclude this little sword of Damocles: “To the extent that bitcoins are deemed to fall within the definition of a security for SEC purposes, the Trust and the Sponsor may be required to register and comply with additional regulation under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Moreover, the Sponsor may be required to register as an investment adviser under the Investment Adviser Act of 1940 and register the Trust as an investment company. Such additional registrations may result in extraordinary, recurring and/or non-recurring expenses of the Trust, thereby materially and adversely impacting the Shares.” To translate that into Human: As soon as the SEC decides what bitcoins actually are, GTBC may get slammed with expenses or have to close. Even if you love Internet stocks, there’s an enormous difference between investing in a small-cap startup company and investing in an essentially unregulated entity that may have to close precisely when bitcoins themselves graduate into the big leagues at some point in the future. If that weren’t bad enough, the connection between the underlying net asset value of the bitcoins in GTBC and the trading price is tenuous at best. This chart comes right from GTBC’s own website—since GTBC started trading on the pink sheets, the actual traded price has born little resemblance to the performance of bitcoins themselves (the blue NAV line itself), at times swinging wildly up or down seemingly in no relation. From ARKW’s perspective, this may not matter in the long run, as I imagine it will be able to create and redeem through the AP process set up by GTBC. But day-to-day, I don’t see how the value of that investment—and thus your exposure as an investor—won’t be tied to the somewhat-capricious price of GTBC on the bulletin board. And Then There’s Bitcoin I admit it, I’m a full-on nerd. I play board games. I love my iPhone and my running gadgets and my voice-activated radio in the kitchen. So I love the idea of bitcoin. I love the idea of an unregulated currency that actually functions a little like gold-backed currencies were supposed to. But the problem with bitcoin remains one of chicken-and-egg. Until I can get paid in it, and pay my mortgage with it, and buy my groceries with it, it just remains a speculative bet on an intermediate value store. Fundamentally, it’s no different than gold—it has value because lots of people think it should have value and want to use it to store value. And that’s why you end up with charts like this one: That’s the value of a single bitcoin as reported by coindesk.com. And just like charts of gold, bitcoin has had its crazy hazy days (2014), and it’s had its rapid declines (2014). But here in the fall of 2015, I remain skeptical. For every announcement about anew vendoraccepting bitcoin, there’s one about some startupthat’s lost its way. Toe In The Water? In the end, I suspect the actual positions inside ARKW will be relatively small at first. I also suspect that when and if COIN comes to market, it will be the vastly preferred vehicle for such exposure, as the pink-sheet, unregulated nature of GTBC gives me genuine pause. As ARKW is actively managed, the decision to add bitcoin now has to be seen as a tactical one, and as such, in a year, we’ll be able to look back and consider it a brilliant move, or a terrible one. I’d say “grab the popcorn,” but I’m not sure the popcorn guy takes bitcoin yet. At the time of writing, the author held no positions in the securities mentioned. You can reach Dave Nadig atdnadig@factset.com, or on Twitter @DaveNadig. Recommended stories • Bitcoins Officially Deemed A Commodity • Bitcoins In This ETF Not What It Seems • Bitcoins Now Available In ETF Wrapper • Options For Both Sides Of China Fund FXI • 5 Views On China’s Currency Intervention Permalink| © Copyright 2015ETF.com.All rights reserved || 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. || 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 || 5 technology stocks to buy at a discount: After a day of relief from China -fueled concerns, some CNBC "Fast Money" traders looked to a Chinese company for upside. Major U.S. averages jumped sharply Wednesday in their best day since 2011, as investors shrugged off fears about the world's second-largest economy. U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) , though, closed barely higher and are down 33 percent this year. "Alibaba is always a play on the Chinese consumer," said trader Brian Kelly, saying it "is the buy here" for the long term. Trader Tim Seymour-who owns the stock-said he would stick with it. Alibaba makes an appealing play on its current valuation and projected growth, he added. Read More Apple stock flashes a warning signal Big U.S. tech stocks, meanwhile, helped drive the rally. Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) -which climbed 8 percent on the day-looks like a buy after a stark drop earlier this month, said trader Guy Adami. "The market's changed. Netflix hasn't," he said. Meanwhile, Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) jumped 8 and 5 percent, respectively, on Wednesday. Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN) also climbed 4 percent. Read More The morning tech rally scares Mark Cuban Trader Steve Grasso contended that all of those stocks look appealing, even after their surges. 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. Steve Grasso 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 DVN, BP, COP, CVX, FCX, NE, NEM, OXY, RIG, VALE Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; TWTR call spread, U.S. Dollar; he is short 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 || Your first look for Friday: The " Fast Money " traders revealed what's on their watch list. Dan Nathan was watching the Nikkei 225 (Nihon Kenzai Shinbun: .N225) . Steve Grasso had theiShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF ( IBB ) on his radar. Brian Kelly was looking at the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE Arca: TLT) . Guy Adami had his eye on the CBOE Crude Volatility Index ( ^OVX ) . Trader disclosure: On September 10, 2015 , the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Dan Nathan is long QQQ Oct put spread, XBI sept put spread, TWTR, PG. Steve Grass is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, STRP, T, TWTR, GDX, firm is long BP, COP, CVX, FCX, NE, NEM, OXY, RIG, WYNN, AMZN His kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, TWTR calls, Bitcoin, U.S. Dollar; he is short British Pound, Euro, Yen, Yuan, US Treasuries. 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 || Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders: The tech sector has reached into a new industry over the past year, as more firms rush tomake loansto small businesses. Despite the U.S.'s recovery since the financial crisis, banks have been cautious about doling out small business loans. In 2008, banks held $711 in small business loans; that figure has decreased significantly to just $599 billion as of the second quarter of 2015. For that reason, there has been a gap in the marketplace as entrepreneurs look for ways to fund their growing companies. Lending To Well Known Firms While small business owners might be required to make a pitch to a bank or private investor in order to secure funding, some companies are using their existing relationships with entrepreneurs in order to make loans. Intuit Inc.(NASDAQ:INTU) together withOn Deck Capital Inc(NYSE:ONDK) havelaunched a financing productthat allows users of the firm's QuickBooks to secure small loans. Related Link:Intuit And OnDeck To Launch 0M Small Business Lending Fund The firm is able to use existing data from the user to determine how risky the loan would be, making it easier to deliver lower-rate loans for businesses with strong financials. Knowledge Is Power Other firms have created similar programs that use data gathered from customers in order to determine whether a loan is worthwhile. Online lender Kabbage Inc. has partnered withUnited Parcel Service, Inc.(NYSE:UPS) to make loans using the firm's shipping history as a gauge of how many orders they're fulfilling.PayPal Holdings Inc(NASDAQ:PYPL) similarly uses vendors' transaction history to determine whether a loan would be high-risk. High Interest Rates However, such loans can be difficult for small business owners to repay. As online lenders become plentiful, many are jockeying for clients by offering more money at higher rates. The ease of borrowing money online has also given rise to a slew of cash advance firms that are able to approve huge sums of money quickly, but charge annual percentage rates of more than 100 percent. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga • Logistics Firms Prepare For 3D Printing's Future • The Biggest Losers From Monday's Market Meltdown • Louis C.K. Embraces Bitcoin © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is Snoop Dogg's Marijuana Platform Good For The Industry?: Snoop Dogg's persona has long been synonymous with marijuana as the 43-year-old has always been open about his drug use, even before the drug became legal. However, with the marijuana industry growing rapidly and many trying to spread awareness of the drug's medical benefits, some wonder if icons like Snoop Dogg are good for the industry. Merry Jane On Monday, Snoop Dogg announced plans to create a pot-lifestyle platform called Merry Jane. The site will include news and information about marijuana and is intended to give marijuana enthusiasts a dedicated place to share and read about their hobby. When describing the website, Snoop Dogg said he intends to include cooking tutorials, celebrity appearances and even business advice for gangaprenuers. Related Link: Marijuana Posts A Major Win On The Campaign Trail A Good Move? While Snoop's website will likely appeal to a large number of the nation's pot users, some worry that it sends the wrong message at a time when marijuana needs to be taken seriously. With the 2016 elections coming up, many in the marijuana industry are worried about how a change to the administration could affect their business. Some of the candidates have pledged to reverse decisions regarding pot laws, while others have said they are uncertain about relaxing cannabis laws at a federal level. In order for the marijuana industry to continue growing, federal laws labeling marijuana as a dangerous, criminal substance need to change. One argument for marijuana has been widespread acceptance as more and more people come out in support of the drug. That acceptance has changed the portrait of an average pot smoker from a teenage burnout to an elderly pain patient or a working professional. Such shifts in perception are necessary, some say, in order to convince policy-makers in Washington to take the drug seriously. See more from Benzinga 21 Inc's Bitcoin Computer Seeks To Redefine The Internet Apple Moves Forward On Auto Plans Forget The 2016 Election Candidates, CEOs Are Driving Change © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 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 around7 percentof 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. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $238.56/$238.90 #Bitstamp $237.00/$237.18 #BTCe ⇢$-1.90/$-1.38 $240.02/$240.09 #Coinbase ⇢$1.12/$1.53 || BTCTurk 709.05 TL BTCe 239.51 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 241.23 $ Cavirtex 316.00 $ CEXIO 244.76 $ Bitcoin.de 215.13 € #Bitcoin #btc || CLTV, the new bitcoin feature, doesn't just add a script operand to the protocol, it adds a time-dimension, guaranteed by the network. || BTCTurk 685.04 TL BTCe 228.399 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 230.00 $ Cavirtex 307.24 $ CEXIO 233.21 $ Bitcoin.de 205.70 € #Bitcoin #btc || Current price: 145.23£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-02 07:00:02 BST || 1 #bitcoin = $4675.00 MXN | $283.49 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 16.49MXN http://www.bitapeso.com  || Current price: 145.89£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-29 19:00:01 BST || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000004 Bittrex: 0.00000005 Average $1.0E-5 per #reddcoin 17:00:01 || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000004 Bittrex: 0.00000005 Average $1.0E-5 per #reddcoin 00:15:01 || Current price: 146.97£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-26 14:00:02 BST
Trend: up || Prices: 281.65, 283.68, 285.30, 293.79, 304.62, 313.86, 328.02, 314.17, 325.43, 361.19
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 2016-09-02] BTC Price: 575.54, BTC RSI: 43.14 Gold Price: 1322.10, Gold RSI: 46.49 Oil Price: 44.44, Oil RSI: 46.35 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] LexisNexis Risk Solutions and start-up join to curb bitcoin money-laundering: (This August 2 story has been corrected to amend company name to LexisNexis Risk Solutions from LexisNexis) By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - A company that provides banks with anti-money-laundering controls has teamed up with a bitcoin security firm to try to curb nefarious uses of the digital currency, such as drug trafficking and terrorism financing. LexisNexis Risk Solutions said the new service it has created with London-based startup Elliptic would bring bank-grade AML controls to bitcoin transactions, making the virtual currency more attractive to those who might want to use it for legitimate transactions LexisNexis Risk Solutions, part of multinational analytics firm RELX Group (REL.L), helps banks comply with AML regulation, using a database of 2.7 million global entities that could be involved in illicit transactions, such as those on sanctions and other watch-lists. It has shared that database with Elliptic, which monitors bitcoin transactions and can alert its clients - ranging from bitcoin exchanges to U.S. and European intelligence agencies - when money moves from bitcoin addresses that have been identified as bad actors. "This is a step toward making it (bitcoin) more mainstream and more acceptable," said Thomas Brown, of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Bitcoin is a web-based digital currency that relies on complex algorithms to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. That has made it attractive to a variety of users, including those who want to get around capital controls and those who support a currency that is free from government control for ideological reasons. But it has also attracted criminals, such as drug dealers and arms traffickers. "Today, if you see bitcoins transacting, you almost assume they're from someone who wants to be off the grid, or they're proceeds from illicit transactions," said Brown. Last month Elliptic said it was working with the Internet Watch Foundation to clamp down on the use of bitcoin for online child pornography. Story continues "The single biggest thing keeping mainstream financial services out of the (bitcoin) ecosystem is the inability to do bank-grade anti-money laundering controls," said Elliptic's head of business development, Kevin Beardsley. "The hope is that this will unlock a whole wave of companies being able to enter financial services with bitcoin." (Editing by Robin Pomeroy) || '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 (55.7 million pounds) 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 specialises 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 licences 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) || Blockchain could be 'revolutionary' to this $2 trillion problem: HSBC: Blockchain could be "revolutionary" to international trade and commerce, HSBC (London Stock Exchange: HSBA-GB) has told CNBC, after the bank unveiled a partnership with Bank of America Merrill Lynch (NYSE: BAC) to trial the technology. Blockchain was developed alongside the digital cryptocurrency bitcoin . It works like a huge, decentralized ledger which records every transaction and stores this information on a global network to prevent tampering. Bitcoin, itself, is a virtual currency that allows users to exchange online credits for goods and service But several organizations have looked into alternative applications for the blockchain, away from the digital currency. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC published a proof of concept last week showing how blockchain could be used to efficiently complete a trade deal. "Over $2 trillion of trade today depends on the physical exchange of documents," Vivek Ramachandran, global head of product and propositions for global trade and receivables finance at HSBC, told CNBC Tuesday. "What we've shown is blockchain has the potential to take away paper, which could be completely revolutionary if commercialised." According to Ramachandran, blockchain technology could serve as a trustworthy intermediary to share information between buyers and sellers. This would make international trading quicker and cheaper. "(Blockchain) makes the system much more efficient," he explained. "It's expensive to adopt it, but the upside is huge." Companies are making a big bet on blockchain technology. A study by Juniper Research published this week found that $290 million of venture capital has been invested in blockchain tech in the first half of 2016, with more than 30 blockchain start-ups receiving funding. However, the report urges investors and businesses to be cautious in regards to blockchain. "While blockchain technology offers the potential for increased speed, transparency and security across an array of verticals, there has to be rigorous and robust roadtesting in each unique use case before any decision is taken," research author Windsor Holden said in a press release on Tuesday. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook . || WRIT Media Group Announces Beta Availability of CrypStock Crypto Currency Exchange: LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 5, 2016) - WRIT Media Group, Inc. ( OTCQB : WRIT ) today introduces beta availability for its CrypStock crypto currency exchange at the following website: www.CrypStock.com . CrypStock is a crypto-currency exchange, striving to combine the crypto-currency uniqueness with the benefits of a user-friendly but sophisticated exchange system. The platform aims to give a great user experience matched with fast support, and will add new digital currencies based on popularity and requests by account holders. The Company plans to introduce a number of proprietary trading modules, including: Binary options on the Bitcoin/USD pair - the simplest type of derivative financial instruments, allowing traders to make potential profit from trend forecasting. Futures on the Bitcoin/USD pair - the most popular financial instrument in the world, providing an ability to trade with big leverage and volume. Algorithm trading subsystem - traders will benefit from a friendly visual wizard for automatic trading creation, back-testing and real-time execution. "Although the addition of another crypto-currency exchange may seem trivial, the development creates a potential shift in the cryptocurrency landscape, allowing more users direct access to the Company's Pelecoin currency," states Eric Mitchell, President of WRIT Media Group. "Pelecoin will trade against Bitcoin and other digital currencies, effectively creating a direct path between a non-Bitcoin asset and Bitcoin funding." WRIT Media Group plans to integrate a full system into the platform to run a digital currency exchange, including a solution for automatic market-making on exchange using third party exchanges. When launched, it will work with Pelecoin, Bitcoin and other digital currency exchanges around the world. "Having the opportunity to test and plan, with early access by real clients, has been very helpful while preparing for the planned 2017 CrypStock launch," adds Mr. Mitchell. Story continues Opening a CrypStock Account New users can sign up online for free and secure their own CrypStock trading account by completing a New Account Application Form at www.crypstock.com . Once registered, users can navigate the beta version of the trading platform to monitor trading prices for various digital currencies, execute sample trades in various currencies, and provide feedback to WRIT Media Group's active development and support team. Upon its completion of external user acceptance testing, the exchange intends to register as a Money Service Business with the United States Department of Treasury and other necessary regulatory agencies in the US and abroad. Once registered, Pelecoin may be traded in several states in the US as a digital currency. Pelecoin is also finalizing the technical and regulatory ability to trade in Asia and other continents. Qualifying account holders will then be able to trade Pelecoin, other digital currencies, and derivatives on the Company's proprietary CrypStock trading platform. About WRIT Media Group WRIT Media Group, Inc. ( OTCQB : WRIT ) is a diversified media and software company whose operations include content production and distribution; video game distribution via mobile platforms; and digital currency software development, including trading platforms and Blockchain solutions. The Company's portfolio of wholly owned businesses includes: Front Row Networks, a content creation company which produces, acquires and distributes live event programming for worldwide digital broadcast into digitally enabled movie theaters and online streaming; Amiga Games, a software company resurrecting the Amiga brand by publishing retro video games on smartphones, tablets and consoles; Retro Infinity, Inc., a video game distribution portal which publishes video games from Amiga, Atari and other "retro" brands on today's smartphones, tablets and consoles; and Pandora Venture Capital, a software developer with a focus on digital currency technologies, including; a cryptocurrency trading platform, a new generation of cryptocurrency, and Blockchain technology solutions. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted by such forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those discussed in WRIT Media Group's latest 10-Q filed December 31, 2015. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Pandora Venture Capital Corp., Pelecoin, CrypStock.com and its related trademarks and names are the property of WRIT Media Group, Inc. and are registered and/or used in the U.S. and countries around the world. All rights reserved. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners. || Bitcoin Services Inc. Launches bitcoin-basics.com: GRANDVILLE, MI / ACCESSWIRE / July 6, 2016 / Bitcoin Services Inc.(OTC Pink: BTSC) announced today that it launchedbitcoin-basics.com. The website explains the basics of Bitcoin to new users. It will make money from ads and affiliate offers. Bitcoin is a digital asset and a payment system. The system is peer-to-peer and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary. These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a publicly distributed ledger called the blockchain, which uses bitcoin as its unit of account. Since the system works without a central repository or single administrator, the U.S. Treasury categorizes bitcoin as a decentralized virtual currency. Bitcoin is often called the first cryptocurrency. About Bitcoin Services Inc.:Our business operations are 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, providing 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. || 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. 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) || FOREX-Dollar struggles near 6-week lows, labour market data eyed: * Unconvincing data dims U.S. rate hike prospects, hurts dollar * ADP labour market data eyed * Dollar/yen seen heading towards break of 100 yen threshold * Bitcoin slides after Hong Kong exchange hack By Jemima Kelly LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The dollar struggled to break away from six-week lows against a basket of currencies on Wednesday, kept under pressure by the view that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates later rather than sooner. The greenback had been on its best run of weekly gains in 1-1/2 years until last week, when expectations that the Fed would clearly signal a near-term rate hike were disappointed, and U.S. growth data came in much weaker than expected. The dollar index inched up 0.2 percent on Wednesday but at 95.284 remained close to Tuesday's low of 95.003 and was down 2 percent compared with a week ago, before the Fed's policy statement. U.S. labour market data from ADP due at 1215 GMT will be watched by currency traders ahead of the all-important non-farm payrolls report on Friday. "The ADP report today should indicate continued labour market strength, and ease concerns over the health of the U.S. economy," said Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UJF macro strategist Derek Halpenny, in London. UBS Wealth Management currency strategist Geoffrey Yu said the dollar had been boosted by a risk-off mood in U.S. trading on Tuesday, when indexes suffered their worst day in a month on lower oil prices and lacklustre inflation data. But he said any gains on risk-aversion would be capped. "We're caught in this kind of trap where every time we get nervous about something, the dollar rallies, but then the next thing to think about is: is the Fed going to react to that by pushing out their rate views?" Yu said. "And then you can't afford to be long dollars that aggressively any more. So that's why we have these turns, quite rapidly." The dollar was up 0.2 percent at 101.08 yen. It slid 1.5 percent the previous day when it fell to a three-week trough of 100.680, amid some disappointment that a meeting between Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda did not result in steps to weaken the yen. Story continues Junichi Ishikawa, currency analyst at IG Securities in Tokyo, said it was a matter of time before the dollar breaks below 100 yen. The dollar briefly slipped below the watershed level in the stormy markets that followed Britain's vote to leave the European Union in June, but it has managed to stay above ever since. "The break below 100 yen after Brexit was an irregular move. But this time, the yen is gaining steadily on fundamental factors like Japan's improving current account balance and the fading impact of BOJ's multi-dimensional easing," Ishikawa said. The Japanese central bank eased monetary policy on Friday by upping the amount of its exchange-traded fund purchases, but underwhelmed the markets by holding off from increasing the amount of government bonds its buys every month. Bitcoin steadied at around $545 after sliding by as much as 25 percent in early trading on Wednesday after a Hong Kong digital currency exchange said it had suspended trading on its exchange after almost 120,000 bitcoin - worth almost $65 million at the current rate - was stolen. For Reuters new Live Markets blog on European and UK stock markets see reuters://realtime/verb=Open/url= http://emea1.apps.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/cms/?pageId=livemarkets (Additional reporting by Shinichi Saoshiro in Tokyo; Editing by Janet Lawrence) || How the Tech Behind Bitcoin Could Revolutionize Wall Street: From its mysterious origin story to its ties to black market dealings , Bitcoin has been closely watched since its emergence in 2009. But the digital currency hasn’t captured attention for controversial reasons alone. Many believe the underlying technology that powers bitcoin transactions, a system known as blockchain, has the potential to upend how Wall Street does business. At its most basic level, a blockchain is a new means of structuring and distributing data. It allows financial companies and other institutions to create a digital ledger guarded by cryptography that can be shared among participants in a transaction. This makes it so that authorized participants can alter the ledger without awaiting approval from a central authority, often resulting in faster and more secure transactions that can save financial institutions time and money. Bitcoin itself is in the throes of a tumultuous year, as the community is divided by deep philosophical differences. But some observers say blockchain will thrive regardless of bitcoin’s fate. More than 100 executives from major Wall Street firms like Citigroup , Visa , and Fidelity recently gathered at Nasdaq’s New York offices to experiment with blockchain. The event was hosted by Chain , a startup that specializes in developing blockchain systems for assets like corporate securities and loyalty points. TIME recently spoke with Chain CEO and co-founder Adam Ludwin to learn more about blockchain and the potential it holds for Wall Street and beyond. Below is a transcript of our conversation. It has been edited for length and clarity. TIME: The blockchain system was discovered and popularized through bitcoin. How will Wall Street use blockchain technology differently than the bitcoin system does? Ludwin: This whole idea for a blockchain was invented to solve this double spending problem that had been challenging computer scientists for a long time. And in the bitcoin whitepaper , all of these concepts were put together in a very elegant way that launched a new Internet-based network that was open and decentralized. Story continues The problem is, we have to adopt a new currency with bitcoin should we want to use it. So I can send bitcoin to Vietnam and that’s wonderful and very powerful, however that means I have to get bitcoin and my receiver needs to be willing to accept it. And then beyond that, the senders and receivers have to be willing to essentially adopt the governance, scalability, and transparency features of bitcoin. And by the way, I don’t think bitcoin is a failure. I think bitcoin, despite all the controversy, is alive and well today. The reason that we’re doing something else is that we’re not interested in moving bitcoin. Bitcoin has already solved that. We’re interested in building new networks that move dollars, stocks, bonds, loyalty points, gift cards, you name it, in the same manner with the same speed and directness that bitcoin moves. There has been a lot of buzz about how blockchain technology could make financial transactions faster, cheaper, and more secure. Can you go into more detail about how exactly it will do that, and where we’ll see the most impact? [One example] is in the realm of international payments. If you look at how an international wire transfer today occurs, what we have is a messaging system called SWIFT, which is essentially a fancy financial email between banks. So messages get sent, and those messages trigger the movement of money from bank to to bank on several hops, depending on where the receiver is and where the sender is. And that whole process can take several days and can eat up several percentage points of the payment amount. If we can put currency into a native digital format, instead of sending an electronic message, we can send the assets themselves electronically. The difference is what these cryptographic databases known as blockchains bring to the world. If we can do that, if we can send the assets themselves as opposed to just sending messages, then I can pay a supplier in Vietnam as fast as I can send an email to Vietnam. The second example is in the capital markets. In the United States, on one hand we have high frequency trading, but once those trades are filled, we have extremely low frequency clearing and settlement systems. In other words, we can match an order in nanoseconds, but it still takes three days for the securities and cash to eventually swap between the counter-parties. Just like in the international payments arena, we have a messaging system for sending trade information between institutions, and then we have a separate system for how we hold on to and move the assets themselves. And the difference between those messages and the actual asset movement are all of the steps, like authorization, clearing, settlement, error handling and so on, which are essentially the agreement of the middle and back office of Wall Street. When people say blockchain technology will change clearing and settlement, what that really means is that blockchain technology will make clearing and settlement redundant. It’s as if I gave you a 10 dollar bill, and then asked you how do we clear and settle that payment. You would look at me funny, because it doesn’t make sense. There’s also been some talk about how blockchain systems could be applied to other industries. A note from Goldman Sachs , for example, outlined how blockchain databases could be used to manage the identities of Airbnb hosts. What are your thoughts on that? We view a blockchain functionally as a next generation database for financial assets. We think for most non-financial use cases, traditional database technology is suitable. And the reason for that comes down to what the fundamental purpose of using a blockchain architecture is. The purpose is: when you need to stretch your database over an entire market, so that when you move your assets from point A to point B, it does not leave a copy at point A. In other words, where we can make a recorded electronic asset function like cash, where I just hand you cash and we’re done. But take, for example, a use case that gets thrown around a lot, which is health records. If I send my health records to my doctor, I also want a copy of my health records. Or if my general practitioner sends a copy of my health records to a specialist, do I want them to disappear from the general practitioner’s office? No, I don’t. Wall Street is starting to experiment with blockchain technology. What are the biggest challenges these firms are facing so far with blockchain adoption, and do you think our financial system will ever run entirely on digital assets alone? We’re definitely moving toward this model. There’s no doubt in my mind, based on the projects we’re working on and what we’re seeing. The main challenge right now is that institutions by and large are still asking the wrong questions with respect to blockchain technology. They’re asking, how can we use blockchain to streamline our middle and back office? How can we use blockchain technology to make our operation more efficient? The question you need to ask as an executive is, what role do we want to play in that new network model? This is not just about change within one organization, but is about change across the market, and who’s going to be leading that charge. Think about the music industry. If I say music industry, what pops into your head is probably companies like Apple and Spotify, and probably not record labels or live music. And even though at every stage it’s just music, as the medium has changed, the fundamental nature of that music distribution has changed. The winners and losers who bring that music to the masses have also changed. It will take time, but it will be faster than people realize. || Europe's first regulated bitcoin product launches in Gibraltar: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's first regulated bitcoin product - an asset-backed exchange-traded instrument that will invest exclusively in the digital currency - begins trading this week on the Gibraltar Stock Exchange and Germany's Deutsche Boerse. The Web-based currency can be used to send money instantly around the world, free of charge and with no need for third-party checks. It is accepted by several major online retailers and is used in more than 200,000 daily transactions. Its value has been highly volatile, peaking at more than$1,200 in late 2013 before crashing after the collapse of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange. It has since stabilised somewhat, trading at around $655 on Monday, up more than 50 percent this year. BitcoinETI will be available through regulated brokerages across Europe, and settlement will be handled through Clearstream and Euroclear, the Gibraltar Stock Exchange said, rather than via bitcoin's shared ledger system - the blockchain. In the United States, where regulation of bitcoin and financial technology more broadly tends to be more onerous, twins Cameron and Tyles Winklevoss - entrepreneurs who famously sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their idea - have been waiting for approval for a proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund for three years. Their proposed Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust would be the first ETF issued by a U.S. entity that invests solely in bitcoin. Another ETF issued by New York-based ARK Investment Management last year became the first ETF to invest in bitcoin, but it also invests in other fintech companies. The new European ETI, issued by Gibraltar-based iStructure PCC and sponsored by one of its subsidies, Revoltura, comes as a result of talks between stakeholders, including the Financial Services Commission - Gibraltar's regulator - and the British Overseas Territory's government. "By listing the ETI on the Gibraltar Stock Exchange, which is an EU-regulated market, we are able to bring a high level of transparency and liquidity to investors," said Revoltura CEO Ransu Salovaara. (Editing by Hugh Lawson) || SolidX Reveals Plan to Launch a Bitcoin ETF: Earlier this week, blockchain technology provider SolidX revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that is looking to launch an exchange traded fund based on the digital currency bitcoin. “According to the S-1 filing, the trust will issue shares that represent units of ownership in the trust, with SolidX Management LLC acting as the custodian of bitcoin held by the trust. Bank of New York Mellon, in turn, will act as the administrator of the trust and custodian for its cash holdings,” reports Pete Rizzo for CoinDesk. Related: Winkdex Bitcoin Index Debuts The filing from SolidX was revealed just days after it was reported that the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, the highly anticipated exchange traded fund sponsored by twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, when it comes to market, will trade on the Bats ETF Marketplace. It was previously expected that the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust would trade on the Nasdaq. Trending on ETF Trends Grab Some Palladium Power With These ETFs A Bright Precious Metals ETF Outlook Investors: Don’t Overreact to Bearish Oil Calls Some Analysts See a New Oil Bull Market Cotton ETN Grows on Tightening Inventories Bitcoin is a type of decentralized digital currency based on a peer-to-peer network and can be exchanged through computers internationally without a financial intermediary. The system was first introduced by developer Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. The SolidX bitcoin offering, assuming it comes to market, will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker XBTC and will provide bitcoin pricing via the TradeBlock XBX Index. “As noted by industry advocacy group Coin Center, a notable difference between the SolidX Bitcoin Trust and the competing Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust is that the former has secured insurance that would cover the loss or theft of bitcoins in the trust,” reports CoinDesk. Related: Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF Will List on BATS In February 2014, Winklevoss Capital launched the Winkdex, a bitcoin index that will eventually be used for a planned bitcoin ETF, “COIN,” which was first proposed in 2013 but is still waiting on regulatory approval. Click here to read the full story on ETF Trends. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] $ 0.003416 (-0.95 %) 0.00000599 BTC (0.00 %) #WHIPPED #FETISH #BDSM || #UFOCoin #UFO $ 0.000011 (-0.47 %) 0.00000002 BTC (-0.00 %) || 1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000061 BTC YoBit 0.00000049 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000055 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-07-05 00:00 pic.twitter.com/5R4yLUyGgH || 1 KOBO = 0.00000762 BTC = 0.0050 USD = 1.4125 NGN = 0.0712 ZAR = 0.5065 KES #Kobocoin 2016-07-14 22:00 pic.twitter.com/PkJTrBDySW || 1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC = 0.0000 USD = 0.0000 NGN = 0.0000 ZAR = 0.0000 KES #Kobocoin 2016-08-14 16:00 pic.twitter.com/1P9dLrsanJ || #bitcoin #miner PSU Adapter: Antminer S3 S5 S7 SP20 Gridseed Spondoolies KNCMiner $20.00 http://ift.tt/29vip2T pic.twitter.com/UgWVMif8Nm || #WorldCoin #WDC $ 0.010645 (2.18 %) 0.00001629 BTC (4.00 %) || #HamRadioCoin #HAM $ 0.000957 (-0.85 %) 0.00000142 BTC (-1.00 %) || 7am UTC report. close: $654.00 trend: -0.365% hr. vol: 205 BTC zmi: 80/750 BEAR 24hr. trend: +0.609% #btc #gdax || One Bitcoin now worth $673.00@bitstamp. High $682.00. Low $666.12. Market Cap $10.611 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/3hdtYjxePV
Trend: up || Prices: 598.21, 608.63, 606.59, 610.44, 614.54, 626.32, 622.86, 623.51, 606.72, 608.24
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 2016-08-02] BTC Price: 547.47, BTC RSI: 23.81 Gold Price: 1364.40, Gold RSI: 67.15 Oil Price: 39.51, Oil RSI: 29.15 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] New York approves Ripple Lab's application for bitcoin license: By Patrick Rucker and Suzanne Barlyn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New York state's financial regulator on Monday approved a license for bitcoin company Ripple Labs Inc, allowing it to offer digital currency services in the state. The New York State Department of Financial Services said the company had cleared a review of anti-money laundering, capitalization, consumer protection, and cyber-security standards. "DFS is pleased to continue to foster the growth of the New York virtual currency marketplace," Acting Department of Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo said in a statement. Bitcoin is a Web-based "cryptocurrency" that enables users to move money around 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. Ripple's service and currency, known as XRP, is for financial institutions and companies, such as banks, that provide liquidity for foreign exchanges. 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." Ripple filed for the license under its corporate name, XRP II LLC, a venture backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures and IDG Capital Partners. (Reporting By Patrick Rucker and Suzanne Barlyn; Editing by Alan Crosby) || Exclusive: LexisNexis and start-up join to curb bitcoin money-laundering: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - A company that provides banks with anti-money-laundering controls has teamed up with a bitcoin security firm to try to curb nefarious uses of the digital currency, such as drug trafficking and terrorism financing. LexisNexis said the new service it has created with London-based startup Elliptic would bring bank-grade AML controls to bitcoin transactions, making the virtual currency more attractive to those who might want to use it for legitimate transactions LexisNexis, part of multinational analytics firm RELX Group (REL.L), helps banks comply with AML regulation, using a database of 2.7 million global entities that could be involved in illicit transactions, such as those on sanctions and other watch-lists. It has shared that database with Elliptic, which monitors bitcoin transactions and can alert its clients - ranging from bitcoin exchanges to U.S. and European intelligence agencies - when money moves from bitcoin addresses that have been identified as bad actors. "This is a step towards making it (bitcoin) more mainstream and more acceptable," said Thomas Brown, of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Bitcoin is a web-based digital currency that relies on complex algorithms to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. That has made it attractive to a variety of users, including those who want to get around capital controls and those who support a currency that is free from government control for ideological reasons. But it has also attracted criminals, such as drug dealers and arms traffickers. "Today, if you see bitcoins transacting, you almost assume they're from someone who wants to be off the grid, or they're proceeds from illicit transactions," said Brown. Last month Elliptic said it was working with the Internet Watch Foundation to clamp down on the use of bitcoin for online child pornography. "The single biggest thing keeping mainstream financial services out of the (bitcoin) ecosystem is the inability to do bank-grade anti-money laundering controls," said Elliptic's head of business development, Kevin Beardsley. "The hope is that this will unlock a whole wave of companies being able to enter financial services with bitcoin." (Editing by Robin Pomeroy) || Former U.S. Secret Service agent suspected in additional Bitcoin thefts: By Joseph Menn SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Secret Service agent who stole money seized by the government in the investigation of underground drug bazaar Silk Road is now suspected of stealing money in at least two other cases, according to court filings unsealed on Thursday. In the larger of those cases, he is thought to have been behind the theft of about $700,000 worth of Bitcoin from a Secret Service account three months after the agency was urged to block his access, the documents say. Former agent Shaun Bridges pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced in December to nearly six years in prison for stealing more than $800,000 of the crypto currency Bitcoin during the Silk Road investigation. According to an affidavit unsealed Thursday, the Justice Department learned in April 2015 that Bridges might have kept a private cryptographic key giving him access to a Bitcoin wallet with the $700,000 in currency that the Silk Road task force had seized in 2014. The department urged the agency to move the funds elsewhere. “Unfortunately, the U.S. Secret Service did not do so and the funds were thereafter stolen, something the U.S, Secret Service only discovered once it was ordered by a court to pay a portion of the seizure back to affected claimants,” a team of prosecutors wrote in an accompanying motion. The Bitcoin in question was moved in July 2015 but only discovered missing in December, the affidavit said. The Secret Service and Bridges' attorney Steven Levin declined to comment. In the previous case, Bridges admitted he stole money from Silk Road accounts and framed someone else for it, leading Silk Road chief Ross Ulbricht to plan a murder. Ulbricht is now serving a life sentence. (Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) || Bitcoin is the new safe-haven asset: Analyst: Bitcoin is becoming as safe a haven as gold, one investment analyst told CNBC. The price of the cryptocurrency(: BTC=)has been rapidly rising in recent weeks. It traded above $730 per bitcoin at the end of last week, levels not since February 2014. According to Chris Burniske, a blockchain analyst and products lead at investment manager ARK Invest, the cryptocurrency could be referred to as digital gold, as it shares many of the characteristics that makes the precious metal a great store of value. "Bitcoin shares those same characteristics," Burniske told CNBC in a phone interview. "[Both have an] extremely limited supply and a relatively inert state. Bitcoin and gold can both be used: for example, gold is used in electronic circuits and bitcoin is used as payment. While gold(Exchange: XAU=)has performed well in recent months, rising 20 percent year to date, Burniske suggested investors should also consider diversifying into bitcoin. "When you look at the global markets, there's lots of fear, uncertainty and doubts. You've got people worrying about the equity markets [and] you've got people fleeing into bonds," he said. "While gold has had a bit of a run in 2016, over the last five year period it's been a terrible performing asset." "So you've got people starting to wonder where there are safe havens to store their assets. I think you have lot of people saying 'Hey we want to diversify a little bit' making allocations to bitcoin'." Some disagree that bitcoin should be considered a safe-haven asset. Vijay Michalik, research analyst at consultancy Frost & Sullivan, pointed out that bitcoin is still very volatile. "Bitcoin is still such a new innovation that the economics of its value aren't fully understood, and the price looks likely to remain moderately volatile in the medium term," he told CNBC in an email. "Volatility and the long-term unknowns involved in bitcoin's development stop it from being considered a safe-haven asset like gold. However, because bitcoin is unlinked to any one national currency or macroeconomic factor, it could be a good choice for portfolio diversification." The recent rise in value of the digital currency is mainly due to anupcoming change which will see bitcoin miners make less moneyfor each block that they extract. This is likely to tighten the supply of bitcoins as fewer new coins enter the system. "In early July, the annual rate of supply inflation will be cut from 8 percent to 4 percent. In basic economics, you cut the supply in half but demand continues to increase, which we're seeing with bitcoin," said Burniske. But Burniske did highlight some risks facing the cryptocurrency in the near future. "There's the risk of the developer community not being able to come to consensus on how they want to scale bitcoin. This has been talked about for the better part of the last year," he said. "They have made a lot of progress; they are going to implement something called Segregated Witness and I think the network will scale." Segregated Witness will reduce the size of each bitcoin transaction, thereby increasing the number of transactions that can be processed at any given time. Another risk is to the security of the bitcoin's network. "Part of the concern around the upcoming block award change is that if those miners make less money, then they are less incentivised to throw machinery at the network to secure it." Meanwhile, gold remains a popular choice for investors looking for safety. Adrian Ash, head of research at investment gold service BullionVault, explained what advantages the precious metal has over other assets. "Throughout civilisation gold has been viewed as a well-established safe haven used to store value by all cultures in all ages across the word and has never gone to zero in recorded history," he told CNBC in an email. "As a physical asset gold cannot default or go bust and is protected by a strong property law which is simple, proven and universally understood." Follow CNBC International onTwitterandFacebook. More From CNBC • Top News and Analysis • Latest News Video • Personal Finance || Coinbase gets $10.5 million investment from Bank of Tokyo, two others: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase said on Thursday it received a $10.5 million investment from Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), the bank's Mitsubishi UFJ Capital unit and Sozo Ventures as part of a strategic partnership involving its long-term expansion. Coinbase, which is the world's largest bitcoin company and currently operates in 32 countries, does not operate in Japan just yet, though it runs an exchange in Singapore. The company said Japan is a big part of its international expansion. "BTMU will be a strong partner for us both in Asia and globally," Sam Rosenblum, international expansion and banking lead at Coinbase, said in a phone interview with Reuters. "Japan will certainly be an important market for us and one that is pretty critical for the development of digital currencies." Bitcoin is a digital currency that enables users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification. Rosenblum said San Francisco-based Coinbase has been working with BTMU for about a year on various projects and those collaborations have culminated in a strategic investment. Sozo Ventures, which has dual headquarters in Silicon Valley and Tokyo, early on has been instrumental in bringing Twitter to Japan. In order for Coinbase to do business in Japan, it would need regulatory approval from the country's Financial Services Agency. Rosenblum said there is no timetable as to when Coinbase would launch operations in Japan. Coinbase last year raised $75 million from a slew of investors. The BTMU investment is an individual transaction and not part of any funding round, Rosenblum said. Coinbase currently has two trading platforms, one for retail investors and one for institutions. Over the last four weeks, trading volume for the two platforms totaled around $400 million, according to Adam White, Coinbase's vice president for business development. Since bitcoin's inception in 2009, it has grown in popularity and price. Late on Thursday, bitcoin traded at $621.74 on the Bitstamp platform. So far this year, the digital currency is up 44.2 percent. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Leslie Adler) || Nadex And Exchange Traded Binary Options Growth Brings Both Mainstream: The fever-pitch popularity of Exchange-Traded Binary Options (ETBOs) has maintained growth in record levels at Nadex-The North American Derivatives Exchange. Comparing second quarter 2016 to second quarter 2015, overall trading volume and total number of trades grew by almost 40 percent. This is a direct reflection of day trader’s awareness of, and enthusiasm, for ETBOs and spreads, taking them mainstream. Throughout this record growth cycle, Nadex increased the number of markets to trade and added different contract times, including 20-minute indices and 5-minute forex binary options. The number of daily contracts offered doubled from 5000 in 2013 to over 10,000 in 2016. Nadex spread trading volume accounted for approximately nine percent of the second quarter year over year growth and continues to grow in popularity as well. In response to the record growth, Nadex has added yet another new market maker. The result is deeper FX binary options markets with enhanced liquidity and more markets expected in the near future. "In addition to a clear increase in awareness of our products and services among our target market, we've seen a surge in searches for "binary options" and "Nadex" over the last year," said Dan Cook, Nadex's Director of Business Development. The growth should not be a surprise. There has long been a need and demand for new methods of trading that have capped or guaranteed limited risk. Nadex provides an alternative to the usual trading of FX and futures through a brokerage. Trading on Nadex means traders get that limited risk with binary option and spread trading on a regulated exchange. The second quarter saw the following markets most heavily traded: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, AUD/USD, and GBP/USD forex pairs, the U.S. 500 based on the underlying E-Mini S&P 500 futures market, along with other U.S. and international indices. The greatest increase in commodity markets was in crude oil and gold futures. More Powerful Full Featured Mobile Apps Traders have the convenience of trading on Nadex away from their computers and on their mobile devices. Nadex saw the advantages of this flexibility for traders and made major upgrades to the apps for iPhone and Android. Nadex mobile apps allow traders to send orders directly to the exchange, manage them, receive live exchange data, fund an account, chart, browse contracts from various markets, as well as do analysis, all from their mobile devices. "Our growth comes from multiple factors," said Tim McDermott, CEO of Nadex. "More markets and more contracts within each day mean more opportunities. Powerful and full-featured mobile apps mean a new way to access those opportunities wherever you are. And increased awareness of Exchange-Traded Binary Options means that more people are coming to us to take advantage of those opportunities." Being the first CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) regulated online exchange, Nadex is also the largest in the U.S., providing binary options and spreads for traders looking for security and limited risk while trading. Traders can trade short-term price movements in markets, Bitcoin and economic news events with Nadex’s limited risk binary options and spreads with hourly, daily, and weekly contracts. Free trading education on how to trade Nadex binary options and spreads is available atApex Investing. See more from Benzinga • Monthly Release Of Retail Sales and CPI Offers Iron Condor Trading • Early Morning News Moving The Market? Trade The Night Before • News Provides Volatility For Trading Opportunity © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin 'miners' face fight for survival as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly KEFLAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Marco Streng is a miner, though he does not carry a pick around his base in south-western Iceland. Instead, he keeps tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. In the world of the web-based digital currency, it is not central banks that add new money to the system, but rather computers like Streng's which are awarded fresh bitcoins in return for processing blocks of the latest bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers. The work Streng's computers and others do serves two purposes: they record and verify the roughly 225,000 daily bitcoin transactions and - because they earn new bitcoins for the work they do - steadily increase the currency in circulation, currently worth around $10 billion. The process has come to be known as "mining" because it is slow and intensive, reaping a gradual reward in the same way that minerals such as gold are mined from the ground. But on Saturday, the reward for miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate, there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie." Story continues SOLVING PUZZLES The currency was founded eight years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has not been established. It was set up to operate independently of any single authority, instead relying on a decentralised global network. Because the bitcoin miners operate autonomously, it is hard to track their numbers and size. But in terms of computing capacity it was estimated earlier this year that the network is 43,000 times more powerful than the world's top 500 supercomputers combined. Computers like Streng's solve complex, automatically generated mathematical puzzles to help secure each block of transactions and keep the bitcoin network safe from hacking or manipulation. For bitcoin users, that security is one of the currency's main attractions. After the first miner secures a block of transactions, its work is verified by the other miners in the network, and that block is added to the "blockchain" - a shared record of all the transaction data - which is virtually impossible to tamper with. The mining, therefore, keeps the whole system going. Bitcoin is now accepted by major organisations including U.S. online retailer Overstock.com and travel company Expedia. The speed and anonymity of bitcoin transactions, and lack of a central authority overseeing the currency, has drawn in many users, including those who want to get around capital controls. It has also attracted investors who see it as a potentially lucrative commodity in itself. KEEPING COOL Bitcoin mining started out as a hobby for tech geeks using their home computers in the early years of the virtual currency, but has become more specialised as bitcoin usage expands. As the bitcoin price has risen, as transaction numbers have grown and as the computers have become so specialised that they can only perform the function of bitcoin mining, a whole industry has emerged. It can be profitable if firms are able to keep their expenses low. But the costs of running these machines, which cost around $1,800 each, and keeping them cool are fiendishly high. Streng reckons that, on average, it costs about $200 in electricity, including cooling power, to mine one bitcoin. Equipment, rent, wages and business running costs are on top. On Saturday, all else being equal, the halving of the reward will double that cost, to $400, leaving a small margin for profit at the current exchange rate of around $640 per bitcoin. In the same remote region of Iceland as the Genesis mining farm, on a former Cold War U.S. military base lies a bitcoin mining facility belonging to U.S. firm Bitfury. A nearby sub-station means electricity transmission costs are minimal. In the farm's two vast buildings, tens of thousands of mining machines whir away, producing a huge amount of heat, so the buildings are open to the cold Icelandic air at either side, save for particle filters to trap dust. Fans in the ceiling allow hot air to escape, but spin so fast that no rain or snow can enter during the winter. The noise produced by computers and fans is deafening. It is no coincidence that so many mining companies have chosen to build farms in Iceland - Chinese giant Bitmain also has a huge farm there. The volcanic island's cheap, bountiful, renewable energy supply, good internet connectivity, and cool temperatures make it an ideal location. The Icelandic authorities welcome the boost to the economy that the bitcoin miners have brought -- Bitmain opened its farm after an approach by the Icelandic embassy in Beijing. Genesis's Streng says he is such a valued client that the Icelandic energy companies fly him around in helicopters. Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov, who estimates electricity makes up between 90 and 95 percent of bitcoin mining costs, says one way his firm stays competitive is by making its own hardware. He also says the company, founded in 2011, is prepared for the mining reward cut. "We're prepared - we already went through one halving event in 2012," he said. "You can forecast this...so you have time to prepare, and if you're prepared you can live quite easily." Vavilov, and other miners, say the prospect of new supply halving has already helped drive bitcoin up over 50 percent this year, which should help ease the pain. COMPETITION FROM CHINA Despite the fact that the halving was expected, and that the price has risen, it has already claimed one casualty: Sweden's KnCMiner filed for bankruptcy at the end of May, citing the hit to its profits that the reward cut would bring. Daniel Masters, who runs a Jersey-based bitcoin hedge fund and who bought a part of KnC's business, said the Swedish firm, like everybody else, had faced competition from miners in China, which are estimated to make up more than two-thirds of the bitcoin network's computing power, or "hashpower". "It turned out that the Chinese, who really stormed into the mining market in the last couple of years, could just do this whole thing cheaper," Masters said. Some Chinese miners get hydroelectric power from disused dams, while others use cheap coal-powered electricity. Bitfury and Genesis, though, say their lean operations allow them to fight off the competition. Genesis, for example, keeps cost down by remotely monitoring conditions in its mining farms and adjusting its fans and cooling accordingly. And the next time the mining reward is halved, in 2020, they hope the number of bitcoin transactions will have grown sufficiently to mean that the small fees paid by users will make up enough of their income to smooth out the profit cut. "By 2020 we will definitely have had the tipping point," said Bitfury's Vavilov. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Dominic Evans) || Bitcoin Services Inc. Launches bitcoin-basics.com: GRANDVILLE, MI / ACCESSWIRE / July 6, 2016 / Bitcoin Services Inc. (OTC Pink: BTSC) announced today that it launched bitcoin-basics.com . The website explains the basics of Bitcoin to new users. It will make money from ads and affiliate offers. Bitcoin is a digital asset and a payment system. The system is peer-to-peer and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary. These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a publicly distributed ledger called the blockchain, which uses bitcoin as its unit of account. Since the system works without a central repository or single administrator, the U.S. Treasury categorizes bitcoin as a decentralized virtual currency. Bitcoin is often called the first cryptocurrency. About Bitcoin Services Inc.: Our business operations are 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, providing 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. View comments || 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 More From CNBC • Top News and Analysis • Latest News Video • Personal Finance || Winklevoss digital currency exchange expands to UK: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK, June 21 (Reuters) - Gemini Trust Co, the U.S.-based bitcoin exchange founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, on Tuesday opened trading in the UK, the second leg of an international expansion program. In an interview last Thursday, Gemini Chief Executive Officer Tyler Winklevoss said that for now, UK citizens would only be able to trade online currencies bitcoin and ether on the exchange. Ether is a token or digital asset of the Ethereum platform, a public blockchain. Trading bitcoin and ether against fiat currencies such as the dollar and sterling will start in a few weeks, Winklevoss said, adding that no regulatory approval was needed to operate in the UK for the services the company provides. "The UK FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) has made it clear that they're not regulating digital assets at the moment," said Winklevoss. "That said, the second that there's clarity that we have to file something, we will be the first company to file our paperwork." Two weeks ago, Gemini kicked off its international expansion by opening trading in Canada, where no regulatory approval was needed. Digital currencies have grown in popularity as investors view them as a separate asset class. Major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc and global technology companies such as International Business Machines Corp try to unlock the potential uses and applications of these assets' underlying technology, the blockchain. The blockchain is a database that enables a network of computers to validate, clear, settle, track, and record the ownership of assets as they are traded. Volume on Gemini, or the notional value of both bitcoin and ether traded on the platform, for the month of May was approximately $40 million, said Winklevoss. By the end of June, he sees volume further rising to between $50 million and $60 million. Bitcoin on Tuesday traded at $677.18 on the Bitstamp platform, with a market capitalization of $10.6 billion, according to crypto-currency data website coinmarketcap.com. Ether, the second-largest digital currency behind bitcoin, last changed hands at $12.27 and has a market capitalization of nearly $1 billion. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Phil Berlowitz) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #SativaCoin #STV $ 0.004150 (0.05 %) 0.00000623 BTC (0.00 %) || One Bitcoin now worth $674.00@bitstamp. High $692.10. Low $655.00. Market Cap $10.555 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/96U9LKXC4U || $574.96 #bitfinex; $574.89 #bitstamp; $562.00 #btce; Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse  #bitcoin #btc || $649.41 #bitfinex; $648.70 #bitstamp; $633.00 #btce; Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse  #bitcoin #btc || #BTA Price: Bittrex 0.00000900 BTC YoBit 0.00001000 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000850 BTC #BTAprice 2016-06-24 12:00 pic.twitter.com/PFRuOyu5HQ || 1 #bitcoin = $11924.00 MXN | $630.34 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 18.92MXN http://www.bitapeso.com  || 1 KOBO = 0.00001400 BTC = 0.0092 USD = 2.8382 NGN = 0.1321 ZAR = 0.9315 KES #Kobocoin 2016-07-26 03:00 pic.twitter.com/AVguA9Un9I || #DOPE 0.00000034 BTC(6.25 %) | Market Cap 48 BTC | Volume(24h) 0.00 BTC | Available Supply 141,157,233 DOPE || #BTA Price: Bittrex 0.00001044 BTC YoBit 0.00000806 BTC Bleutrade 0.00001000 BTC #BTAprice 2016-06-11 23:00 pic.twitter.com/ln3NuolTL8 || 1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000034 BTC YoBit 0.00000050 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000034 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-07-24 06:00 pic.twitter.com/c6LOKJTkL0
Trend: up || Prices: 566.35, 578.29, 575.04, 587.78, 592.69, 591.05, 587.80, 592.10, 589.12, 587.56
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 2020-12-02] BTC Price: 19201.09, BTC RSI: 64.92 Gold Price: 1825.70, Gold RSI: 43.60 Oil Price: 45.28, Oil RSI: 65.38 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin Transaction Fees Rise to 28-Month High as Hashrate Drops Amid Price Rally: The cost of doing transactions on bitcoin is surging while the network suffers its worst congestion in nearly three years. As of Wednesday, the mean fee per transaction, or the average transaction cost, was 0.00086764BTC, the highest since June 2018, according to data sourceGlassnode. In dollar terms, the average transaction fee was $11.66. Average fees in bitcoin terms have increased by 573% in the past 12 days alongside the cryptocurrency’s price rally from $11,200 to $13,800. Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Heads for 24% October Gain as US Election Countdown Begins “Bitcoin mempool [memory pool] is back in focus in the wake of rising transaction volumes, causing congestion in the network and consequently driving fees higher,” Denis Vinokourov, head of research at the London-based prime brokerage Bequant, told CoinDesk. Mempool is the collection of unconfirmed transactions. When bitcoin transactions are executed, they are first sent to the mempool, where they wait for approval by miners. Bitcoin miners can process only 1 megabyte (MB) worth of transactions per block mined roughly every 10 minutes. When the blockchain experiences a rise in traffic, it causes delays and a backlog of transactions. As demand outstrips supply, miners increase their revenue by prioritizing transactions with higher fees. That, in turn, forces other users to offer higher fees to avoid long waiting times. Network congestion is usually seen during price rallies. As noted earlier, bitcoin has chalked out a significant rise over the past 12 days. During that time frame, network congestion, as measured by the total number of unconfirmed transactions in the mempool, worsened by 1,800%. Related:Bitcoin Traders Can Now Bet on $40K Price With New Deribit Options As of Tuesday, there were 121,340 unconfirmed transactions in the mempool with a totalblock sizeof 66.8 MB. According to data source blockchain.com, that’s the highest level since the bull market frenzy of December 2018. The recent slide in bitcoin’s hashrate looks to have played a big role in causing network congestion along with a general price-driven pickup in activity. In other words, the mining power dedicated to approving transactions and mining blocks has gone down amid the price rally, boosting waiting times and network congestion. The seven-day moving average of bitcoin’s hashrate has declined from 146 exahashes per second (EH/s) to 120 EH/s. In other words, the mining power available to approving transactions and mining blocks has gone down amid the price rally, boosting waiting times and network congestion. With the end of the rainy season in China’s Sichuan province, a mining hub, some minersmay be shiftingto other areas with cheap hydroelectricity sources, causing a drop in the hashrate. • Bitcoin Transaction Fees Rise to 28-Month High as Hashrate Drops Amid Price Rally • Bitcoin Transaction Fees Rise to 28-Month High as Hashrate Drops Amid Price Rally || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 17, 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/610916/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || Bitcoin Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs: Bitcoin (BTC) has risen above $13,000 in less than 24 hours afterbreaking the $12,000 levelon newsPayPal will support cryptocurrencies on its platform. • Prices of BTC rose to $13,005.51 at 22:22 UTC (6:22 p.m. ET) by press time, representing a 8.7% gain in the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI). • The 24-hour price range: $11,898.03 – $13,030.86. • The oldest cryptocurrency has continued its price rally after payment giant PayPalannouncedit will allow its users to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies. • The new service initially will support bitcoin, bitcoin cash (BCH), ether (ETH) and litecoin (LTC). • Prices for bitcoin cash, ether and litecoin also rallied on the news, up between 7% and 13%in the past 24 hours. • Bitcoin Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs • Bitcoin Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs • Bitcoin Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs • Bitcoin Rallies Above $13K Less Than 24 Hours After Breaking 2020 Highs || Fidelity Report Says Bitcoin’s Market Cap is ‘Drop in the Bucket’ of Potential: CORRECTION (Oct. 14, 2020, 04:25 UTC): This article originally said Fidelity recommended that portfolios consider a 5% allocation in bitcoin. The language used was a hypothetical. CoinDesk regrets the error. Fidelity Digital Assets said bitcoin’s market cap has plenty of room to grow in a Tuesday report on the benchmark cryptocurrency’s uncorrelated nature. Director of Research Ria Bhutoria wrote that the crypto’s current market capitalization “is a drop in the bucket compared with markets bitcoin could disrupt.” Bhutoria argued that while institutional inflows may damp bitcoin’s uncorrelated performance, the crypto is “fundamentally less exposed” to the “economic headwinds” that other assets will likely face. Bitcoin is therefore a “potentially useful” asset for uncorrelated return-seeking investors. “In a world where benchmark interest rates globally are near, at, or below zero, the opportunity cost of not allocating to bitcoin is higher,” the report said. Related Stories Fidelity Report Says Bitcoin’s Market Cap is ‘Drop in the Bucket’ of Potential Fidelity Report Says Bitcoin’s Market Cap is ‘Drop in the Bucket’ of Potential Fidelity Report Says Bitcoin’s Market Cap is ‘Drop in the Bucket’ of Potential Fidelity Report Says Bitcoin’s Market Cap is ‘Drop in the Bucket’ of Potential || Bitcoin Breaks $15K as Investor Numbers Peak: Bitcoin’s rally is still going as investors continue to accumulate the cryptocurrency, ignoring overbought signals on technical indicators. • Bitcoinrose to $15,017.05 at 10:50 a.m. ET (15:50 UTC) on Thursday, its highest level since January 2018. • The price gains happened as global equities rally. European stock indexes are up around 1% on the day and U.S. stock indexes such as the S&P 500 are up over 2%. • The cryptocurrency is now up 7.8% over the past 24 hours and over 108% on a year-to-date basis, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index. • Amid the price rally, the number of “accumulation addresses” has risen to a record high of 519,228, according to data source Glassnode. • The metric has risen by 3% in the past four weeks alongside bitcoin’s rally from $10,500 to $15,000. “It shows retail flow … investors accumulating amid the price rally,” Denis Vinokourov, head of research at the London-based prime brokerage Bequant told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat. • Also, accumulation addresses are up over 9% in 2020, meaning investors have been accumulating coins throughout the year, possibly creating upward pressure on prices. • Notably, the number of bitcoins locked in accumulation addresses has gone up 20% to 2,818,447 BTC this year. • Accumulation addresses are those that have at least two incoming “non-dust” transfers (representing minuscule amounts of bitcoin) and have never spent funds. The metric does not include addresses belonging to miners and exchanges and excludes addresses active more than seven years ago to adjust for lost coins. • In a sign of confidence in the cryptocurrency’s long-term prospects, investors accumulated coins during the March crash and alsoduring the price drop in September. On both occasions, the price dip was short-lived. • The recent rise in both accumulation addresses and prices indicates the market participants are not worried about a chart-driven sell-off and foresee a continued rise in prices. • Bitcoin’s 14-day relative strength index (RSI) has been indicating overbought conditions since Oct. 20, when bitcoin was trading near $11,700. So far, the technical pullback has remained elusive. Also read:First Mover: Just Another Day for Bitcoin as US Election Slides Into Discord, Division • Bitcoin Breaks $15K as Investor Numbers Peak • Bitcoin Breaks $15K as Investor Numbers Peak • Bitcoin Breaks $15K as Investor Numbers Peak • Bitcoin Breaks $15K as Investor Numbers Peak || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Tests $13.6K as DeFi Total Value Locked Dips Below $11B: Bitcoin capped the week weaker while DeFi crypto locked dipped. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $13,354 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.14% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $13,191-$13,663 BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians. The price of bitcoin was able to muster a rise to as high as $13,663 Friday, according to CoinDesk 20 data. However, the world’s oldest cryptocurrency subsequently lost some steam and settled to $13,354 as of press time. Read More: Deribit Sees Record Bitcoin Options Volume as Activity in $36K Calls Surge Related: Bitcoin Revisits $13.5K After Posting Best Month Since April Michaeal Gord, chief executive officer for trading firm Global Digital Assets, said he expects the bitcoin market to cool ahead of uncertain fundamentals next week. “I think we’ll probably stay sideways until the [Nov. 3 U.S. presidential] election, with most investors taking a wait-and-see approach,” he said. However, Gord said he anticipates things will pick up amid coronavirus concerns on the global economy. “As more countries enter a second lockdown, governments will need to print more fiat currency to keep their economies afloat, which I expect to result in an increasing demand for alternative assets over the next few weeks,” he said. Volumes on major USD/BTC spot exchanges are shaping up to be higher than average the past month Friday. Daily average volume has been $494,925.493 the past 30 days, while Friday was at $700,217,632 as of press time. Related: By the Numbers: More Bitcoin Bulls Than Ever Before While higher than average volumes might indicate a potential price move upward, it’s possible equities will be taking the front seat in how bitcoin performs in the near term. “For most of the pandemic, BTC remained correlated with equities,” noted Andrew Ballinger, an investment analyst at crypto-focused firm Wave Financial. Indeed, correlations between bitcoin and the S&P 500 seem to be rising as stock sell-offs or tepid days had an impact on the cryptocurrency market . Story continues “I wouldn’t be fully honest if I said I didn’t believe a major downturn in equities would have no effect on the still-nascent digital asset economy,” Ballinger added. Major stocks indices are in the red on Friday. The Nikkei 225 in Asia slipped 1.5% as coronavirus concerns outweighed the release of positive Japanese industrial output numbers for September . The FTSE 100 in Europe ended the day flat, in the red 0.08% as investors signaled uncertainty amid lockdowns and eurozone GDP beating forecasts . In the United States the S&P 500 fell 2.1% as increasing concerns about the pandemic combined with stalled talks in Congress on a stimulus package led investors to sell . Despite the possibly negative influence of stocks on crypto, Ballinger has a bullish forecast. “Short of a significant and swift hit to the equity markets, I still stand by my prediction of bitcoin hitting $14,000 before year end,” Ballinger said. “With continued uncertainty surrounding the economic recovery, investors may turn to digital currencies over equities, and test the ‘digital gold’ thesis of bitcoin further.” DeFi value locked drops The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was down Friday trading around $383 and slipping 1.9% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: Ethereum Developers Pencil In January for Eth 1.x ‘Berlin’ Hard Fork The amount of cryptocurrency “locked” in decentralized finance (DeFi), known as total value locked, or TVL, is trending downward. On Friday, the amount of crypto TVL dipped below $11 billion. The last time TVL was at this level was back on Oct. 8. Over-the-counter crypto trader Alessandro Andreotti said the DeFi TVL decline is only temporary because of bitcoin’s price closing in on 2020 highs. “I think it’s only a momentary downtrend since bitcoin is on the spotlight for now. We’re gonna see new highs for DeFi and crypto in general after the U.S. election,” he said. Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mixed, mostly red Friday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): dash (DASH) + 4.9% zcash (ZEC) + 3.8% Notable losers: orchid (OXT) – 6.3% eos (EOS) – 4.2% tron (TRX) – 4.1% Read More: Uniswap’s $40M Governance Has Some UNI Holders Fear for Price Commodities: Oil was down 1.4%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $38.58. Gold was in the green 0.57% and at $1,878 as of press time. Treasurys: U.S. Treasury bond yields all climbed Friday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year bond, jumping to 0.156 and in the green 6.6%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Tests $13.6K as DeFi Total Value Locked Dips Below $11B Market Wrap: Bitcoin Tests $13.6K as DeFi Total Value Locked Dips Below $11B || First Mover: Near Record Highs, Bitcoin May Have a Volatile Week: Bitcoin is trading above $18,500, having charted a minor pullback to $17,800 over the weekend. The cryptocurrency’s one-month implied volatility metric has jumped to four-month highs, suggesting increased expectations for price turbulence over the next four weeks. “It’s likely the week ahead is filled with volatility with the possibility of a trading range between $19,000 and $17,000 the likely outcome. However, if the bulls take charge, then we could be discussing new all-time highs for BTC,” noted crypto exchange EQUOS in its dailybitcoinanalysis email. In traditional markets, safe havens such as the U.S. dollar and gold are trading heavily alongside stock market gains. Risk appetite has been boosted by more positive news on the coronavirus vaccine front, this time fromAstraZenecaand Moncef Slaoui, head of the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed. “Vaccinations against COVID-19 will ‘hopefully’ start in less than three weeks,”Slaoui saidon Sunday. Related:Cypherpunk, Crypto Anarchy and How Bitcoin Lost the Narrative Hindsight is 20/20. That said, when it comes to bitcoin this year, some of the biggest names in global finance were WRONG and LOSERS, as (lame duck?) U.S. President Donald Trump might put it. JPMorgan CEOJamie Dimon, Berkshire Hathaway CEOWarren Buffett, Bridgewater Associates CEORay Dalio,Goldman Sachs. All of these Wall Street titans steered investors away from the largest cryptocurrency this year as its price soared more than 150%. They were on the wrong side of the market while just-as-big traditional-finance names includingFidelity Investments,Paul Tudor Jones II,Stanley Druckenmiller,Bloomberg Intelligenceandnow the $7 trillion money manager BlackRocktouted bitcoin’s potential as thefuture of money, ahedge against inflation, a peer-to-payment system, analternative to the U.S. dollaror merely aspeculative investment. Related:Gazprombank Switzerland Executes First Bitcoin Trades, Announces Payments Initiative Even if bitcoin’s price once again plunged 39%,as it did in Marchwhen the deep economic toll of the coronavirus became clear to global investors (before theFederal Reserve bailed out financial markets), the price would still be roughly $11,370, up some 59% from the Dec. 31, 2019, price of $7,168. For comparison, the Standard & Poor’s 500 is up 11% this year and gold has gained 24%. Few of the biggest banks and brokerage firms even had bitcoin on their radar at the start of this calamitous year. Some investors came around to the conceptsooner than others. In just 11 years, bitcoin has gone from nothing to anawe-inspiring creator of wealth. At this point, whether prices go to the moon or stagnate or correct, the cryptocurrency is becomingimpossible to ignorein anincreasingly dysfunctional global financial and monetary system. – Bradley Keoun There seems to be no stopping the bitcoin freight train. The cryptocurrency jumped over 15% in the seven days leading up to Nov. 22 to register its biggest weekly gain since October 2019. That was also the seventh straight weekly rise. What’s more, prices ended last week (Sunday, UTC) above $18,400 – the second-highest weekly close on record. Bitcoin is now just 6.5% short of challenging the record high of $19,783 reached in December 2017. A move to record highs could easily happen in a matter of a few hours, given the recent strong momentum. That said, a metric from bitcoin’s perpetual futures market now suggests the market is getting excessively skewed to the bullish side and could experience a rise in volatility. The average level of the “funding rate” across major exchanges has risen sharply from 0.023% to a five-month high of 0.087% in the past 48 hours, according to data sourceGlassnode. “Rising funding rates have in the past been associated with a larger portion of the market utilizing leverage via perpetuals,” Matthew Dibb, CEO of Stack Funds, told CoinDesk. “The high funding rate can cause somewhat of a ‘shakeout’ due to increasing margin liquidations.” So far, pullbacks have been shallow and restricted near the ascending 10-day simple moving average (SMA), currently at $17,640. As such, the SMA line is a key support to watch out for in the short-term. Bitcoin has immediate resistance at $19,000, followed by the record high of $19,783. – Omkar Godbole • Crypto Long & Short: 4 Metrics That Show How the Current Bitcoin Rally Is Different From 2017  (CoinDesk) • John Lennon’s Son Says Bitcoin ‘Empowers’ People Like Never Before (CoinDesk) • China to Hold Second Lottery Trial of the Digital Yuan (CoinDesk) • CipherTrace Says Homeland Security Work Gave Rise to Monero-Tracking Patent Filings (CoinDesk) • Bitcoin Is the Biggest Big Short (CoinDesk) • China Construction Bank Pulls Planned Listing of Bitcoin-Tradable Bond (CoinDesk) • Vaccine developments keep dollar down; Kiwi hits two-year high(Reuters)Risk appetite in currency markets was boosted by progress towards a COVID-19 vaccine rollout even as PMI data showed a sharp contraction in euro zone business activity as a result of lockdown restrictions. • Five crypto bulls predict what’s next for bitcoin as it closes in on an all-time high(CNBC)As bitcoin gets closer to its record high of almost $20,000, CNBC asked five crypto experts for their take on the rally. • ‘Big War’ in Bonds Escalates as Treasury Rift Puts Fed in Play(Bloomberg)Expectation for Fed action “is keeping bonds from selling off.” • The Stocks the Pros Own Usually Beat the Market. Here’s a List of Their 10 Most Popular Bets.(Barron’s)“Quarterly baskets of the 10 (plus) most owned stocks by mutual funds and hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 six and 12 months later,” Citigroup equity strategists said. • Bank Stocks Already Had a Wild 2020. Then November Got Even Crazier.(WSJ)The day after the election was one of the worst ever for bank stocks; three trading sessions later, they had one of their best days. • First Mover: Near Record Highs, Bitcoin May Have a Volatile Week • First Mover: Near Record Highs, Bitcoin May Have a Volatile Week || Riot Buys 2,500 More Bitmain Miners in Latest Fleet Expansion: Bitcoin mining company Riot Blockchain has bought another 2,500 S19 Pro Antminer rigs from BitmainTech PTE as the publicly traded firm races to quadruple its mining power, denominated by hashrate, by mid-2021. • Riotsaid Tuesdayit paid $6.1 million for the rigs; delivery and deployment are slated for December. • The new purchase, plus the thousands of not-yet-delivered Bitmain rigs Riot expects to begin arriving this month, will drastically increase Riot’shashratefrom its current levels – around 500 PH/s – to an estimated 2.3 EH/s by June. • Riot’s latest purchase and lofty hash rate goal are further evidence of the massive infrastructural demands thatbitcoinminers face to stay competitive as bitcoin’s price and mining difficulty both rise. Read more:Riot Blockchain Mined 227 Bitcoin in Q2 • Riot Buys 2,500 More Bitmain Miners in Latest Fleet Expansion • Riot Buys 2,500 More Bitmain Miners in Latest Fleet Expansion • Riot Buys 2,500 More Bitmain Miners in Latest Fleet Expansion • Riot Buys 2,500 More Bitmain Miners in Latest Fleet Expansion || Alien Worlds NFTs sell out in first ETH-WAX Dutch auction: ZUG, Switzerland, Oct. 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via CryptoCurrencyWire -- Alien Worlds (alienworlds.io), the NFT DeFi metaverse created by the team that pioneered the decentralized autonomous community (DAC) and tokenized block producer eosDAC, has sold out its inaugural NFT sale in the first-ever Dutch auction on the WAX Blockchain. Alien Worlds is the only NFT DeFi project cross-denominated on both Ethereum and WAX. Gamers farm the metaversal ERC-20 token, Trilium, using NFT land and tools. NFT cards confer gameplay advantages in mining and fighting, and power is expressed by participants staking the ERC-20 Trilium token to planets, each of which is a DAC with dedicated elected leadership. The Alien Worlds inaugural Dutch NFT auction concluded on Oct. 10, 2020, and allowed gamers to secure Launch Packs at a range of prices. Launch Packs sold out well in advance of the conclusion of the auction, which was scheduled to run for 24 hours. Buyers opined on purchasing strategies in the active Alien Worlds Telegram channel during the lively auction and are keenly awaiting the four additional Alien Worlds NFT pack sales that will occur this autumn. Buyers paid the opening Dutch auction prices to secure “first mints,” which are popular among NFT collectors due to their ultra-rarity. As prices moved down through the price range, auction participants were determined to secure Alien Worlds NFT cards with better stats, which make mining and fighting more lucrative within the metaverse and which can later be “shined” for even greater gameplay efficiency. The upcoming NFT auction schedule will be: Oct. 23: Rare Pack Sale – 4,000 packs with greater probabilities of receiving Rare-type cards and some special cards reserved for this sale. Nov. 6: Legendary Pack Sale – 3,000 packs with greater probabilities of receiving Legendary-type cards. Nov. 20: eosDAC Pack Sale – Sale for eosDAC tokens with bonus probabilities. Dec. 4: Special Land Pack Sale – The only chance to obtain Land NFTs. Story continues The auctions take place on the Alien Worlds Sales website and offer parallel supply on Ethereum and WAX. NFT holders from Ethereum communities like Decentraland, Gods Unchained, Sandbox, RARI and Axie, as well as the growing WAX-based NFT communities, participate in tandem. Alien Worlds NFTs are available in the upcoming auction series, but the fungible Trilium token can only be obtained in-game through play. Alien Worlds co-founder and blockchain lead Michael Yeates has innovated the first cross-chain Ethereum-WAX methodology, which allows the fungible Trilium token to be recorded and transacted simultaneously across both blockchains. “The success of Alien Worlds’ first auction tells me our community understands how NFTs complement DeFi so synergistically,” said Alien Worlds co-founder Rob Allen. “People love NFTs because they are digital items you can use in gameplay and collect. People love DeFi because it’s an emerging application of blockchain through which we find sources of potential earnings and arrange those directly with peers. Within Alien Worlds there’s a home for both, because our project relies on both NFTs and the decentralized autonomous community or DAC structure, which allows users to decide how earnings are apportioned.” Since Ethereum is the home of DeFi and WAX is “the King of NFTs,” Alien Worlds sits at the crossroads of these advances in blockchain by being the first and only cross-denominated project. To strengthen this conjunction, Alien Worlds is reaching out to highly invested Ethereum NFT enthusiasts. The project has dropped Promo Packs of NFTs onto the top 6,400 NFT holders in Decentraland, RARI, Gods Unchained, Sandbox and Axie. Users can check if they made the cut and claim their Promo Packs via alienworlds.io. Alien Worlds is also seeking ETH Ambassadors to help spread the word. “We’re excited to see how the community evolves this project, particularly in terms of ‘planets,’” said co-founder Sarojini McKenna. “Users choose where to stake their Trilium, and a planet with more Trilium staked to it will receive more rewards, which that planet can decide how to use – including paying its backers. The fact that each planet is its own DAC makes this truly decentralized, which we know from experience leads to an abundance of energy and creativity; wonderful things you never could have foreseen start happening.” Alien Worlds is set in a future in which some of Earth’s inhabitants have discovered a way to escape the raging pandemics on Earth through a wormhole revealed to them by an advanced alien race, which sent messages through Bitcoin mining algorithms. To build a fairer economy, everything in the Alien Worlds metaverse was tokenized. Now, the Alien Worlds “Star Route” or roadmap, published on the project’s website, includes the launch of the beta Unity user interface, the opening of the “shining” functionality in which NFTs can be combined to create rarer items, and the commencement of battling using NFT weapons and minions in the Thunder Dome. Further developments in the metaversal narrative arc, sometimes precipitated by guidance from an Ancient Alien AI, will be ongoing. About Alien Worlds (alienworlds.io): Alien Worlds is a smart-contract decentralized metaverse combining DeFi farming with NFT card-based strategy play. Alien Worlds has partnered with a game engineering studio to create the metaversal UI, which will call blockchain commands seamlessly so anyone can explore, earn, battle and stake in Alien Worlds. For more information, join our Telegram or Discord or refer to our Blockchain Technical Blueprint . About Dacoco (dacoco.io): Alien Worlds creators Dacoco GmbH are based in Zug’s Crypto Valley and have a strong EOSIO pedigree. The team were instrumental in the EOS chain launch as key members of “Ghostbusters,” the tech group that successfully garnered sufficient tokenholder backing to launch the EOS blockchain. Dacoco founders were also crucial to the highly successful 2018 eosDAC airdrop and are active workers within eosDAC, the only DAC block producer on EOS, WAX and other chains. Dacoco GmbH is a member of the Blockchain Game Alliance. Wire Service Contact CryptoCurrencyWire (CCW) New York, New York www.CryptoCurrencyWire.com 212.994.9818 Office Editor@CryptoCurrencyWire.com || First Mover: Near Record Highs, Bitcoin May Have a Volatile Week: Bitcoin is trading above $18,500, having charted a minor pullback to $17,800 over the weekend. The cryptocurrency’s one-month implied volatility metric has jumped to four-month highs, suggesting increased expectations for price turbulence over the next four weeks. “It’s likely the week ahead is filled with volatility with the possibility of a trading range between $19,000 and $17,000 the likely outcome. However, if the bulls take charge, then we could be discussing new all-time highs for BTC,” noted crypto exchange EQUOS in its daily bitcoin analysis email. In traditional markets, safe havens such as the U.S. dollar and gold are trading heavily alongside stock market gains. Risk appetite has been boosted by more positive news on the coronavirus vaccine front, this time from AstraZeneca and Moncef Slaoui, head of the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed. “Vaccinations against COVID-19 will ‘hopefully’ start in less than three weeks,” Slaoui said on Sunday. Market moves Related: Cypherpunk, Crypto Anarchy and How Bitcoin Lost the Narrative Hindsight is 20/20. That said, when it comes to bitcoin this year, some of the biggest names in global finance were WRONG and LOSERS, as ( lame duck? ) U.S. President Donald Trump might put it. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon , Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett , Bridgewater Associates CEO Ray Dalio , Goldman Sachs . All of these Wall Street titans steered investors away from the largest cryptocurrency this year as its price soared more than 150%. They were on the wrong side of the market while just-as-big traditional-finance names including Fidelity Investments , Paul Tudor Jones II , Stanley Druckenmiller , Bloomberg Intelligence and now the $7 trillion money manager BlackRock touted bitcoin’s potential as the future of money , a hedge against inflation , a peer-to-payment system, an alternative to the U.S. dollar or merely a speculative investment . Story continues Related: Gazprombank Switzerland Executes First Bitcoin Trades, Announces Payments Initiative Even if bitcoin’s price once again plunged 39%, as it did in March when the deep economic toll of the coronavirus became clear to global investors (before the Federal Reserve bailed out financial markets ), the price would still be roughly $11,370, up some 59% from the Dec. 31, 2019, price of $7,168. For comparison, the Standard & Poor’s 500 is up 11% this year and gold has gained 24%. Few of the biggest banks and brokerage firms even had bitcoin on their radar at the start of this calamitous year. Some investors came around to the concept sooner than others . In just 11 years, bitcoin has gone from nothing to an awe-inspiring creator of wealth . At this point, whether prices go to the moon or stagnate or correct, the cryptocurrency is becoming impossible to ignore in an increasingly dysfunctional global financial and monetary system . – Bradley Keoun Bitcoin watch There seems to be no stopping the bitcoin freight train. The cryptocurrency jumped over 15% in the seven days leading up to Nov. 22 to register its biggest weekly gain since October 2019. That was also the seventh straight weekly rise. What’s more, prices ended last week (Sunday, UTC) above $18,400 – the second-highest weekly close on record. Bitcoin is now just 6.5% short of challenging the record high of $19,783 reached in December 2017. A move to record highs could easily happen in a matter of a few hours, given the recent strong momentum. That said, a metric from bitcoin’s perpetual futures market now suggests the market is getting excessively skewed to the bullish side and could experience a rise in volatility. The average level of the “funding rate” across major exchanges has risen sharply from 0.023% to a five-month high of 0.087% in the past 48 hours, according to data source Glassnode . “Rising funding rates have in the past been associated with a larger portion of the market utilizing leverage via perpetuals,” Matthew Dibb, CEO of Stack Funds, told CoinDesk. “The high funding rate can cause somewhat of a ‘shakeout’ due to increasing margin liquidations.” So far, pullbacks have been shallow and restricted near the ascending 10-day simple moving average (SMA), currently at $17,640. As such, the SMA line is a key support to watch out for in the short-term. Bitcoin has immediate resistance at $19,000, followed by the record high of $19,783. – Omkar Godbole What’s hot Crypto Long & Short: 4 Metrics That Show How the Current Bitcoin Rally Is Different From 2017  ( CoinDesk ) John Lennon’s Son Says Bitcoin ‘Empowers’ People Like Never Before ( CoinDesk ) China to Hold Second Lottery Trial of the Digital Yuan ( CoinDesk ) CipherTrace Says Homeland Security Work Gave Rise to Monero-Tracking Patent Filings ( CoinDesk ) Bitcoin Is the Biggest Big Short ( CoinDesk ) China Construction Bank Pulls Planned Listing of Bitcoin-Tradable Bond ( CoinDesk ) Analogs The latest on the economy and traditional finance Vaccine developments keep dollar down; Kiwi hits two-year high ( Reuters ) Risk appetite in currency markets was boosted by progress towards a COVID-19 vaccine rollout even as PMI data showed a sharp contraction in euro zone business activity as a result of lockdown restrictions. Five crypto bulls predict what’s next for bitcoin as it closes in on an all-time high ( CNBC ) As bitcoin gets closer to its record high of almost $20,000, CNBC asked five crypto experts for their take on the rally. ‘Big War’ in Bonds Escalates as Treasury Rift Puts Fed in Play ( Bloomberg ) Expectation for Fed action “is keeping bonds from selling off.” The Stocks the Pros Own Usually Beat the Market. Here’s a List of Their 10 Most Popular Bets. ( Barron’s ) “Quarterly baskets of the 10 (plus) most owned stocks by mutual funds and hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 six and 12 months later,” Citigroup equity strategists said. Bank Stocks Already Had a Wild 2020. Then November Got Even Crazier. ( WSJ ) The day after the election was one of the worst ever for bank stocks; three trading sessions later, they had one of their best days. Tweet of the day Related Stories First Mover: Near Record Highs, Bitcoin May Have a Volatile Week First Mover: Near Record Highs, Bitcoin May Have a Volatile Week [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 19445.40, 18699.77, 19154.23, 19345.12, 19191.63, 18321.14, 18553.92, 18264.99, 18058.90, 18803.66
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin is slipping after a study found signs its 2017 bull run was driven by market manipulation: Markets Insider • Bitcoin fell 2% on Wednesday after a new academic paper concluded that bitcoin's price run to December may have been driven by manipulation. • The University of Texas at Austin paper says the exchange Bitfinex may have used Tether, a cryptocurrency it is closely linked to, to support the price. • Bitfinex's CEO told Business Insider: "Bitfinex nor Tether is, or has ever, engaged in any sort of market or price manipulation. Tether issuances cannot be used to prop up the price of bitcoin or any other coin/token on Bitfinex." The price of bitcoin fell against the dollar on Wednesday after an academic paper found signs the cryptocurrency's 2017 bull run was caused by market manipulation at a major exchange — allegations denied by the CEO. Academics at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesdaypublished a paper analyzing whether the cryptocurrency Tether "influences Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the recent boom." The academics concluded that the price patterns were "most consistent with the supply-based hypothesis where Tether is used to provide price support and manipulate cryptocurrency prices." Tether is a cryptocurrency supposedly backed by the US dollar one-for-one, offering the stability of the currency but the flexibility and functionality of cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency was created by many of the same people behind the leading cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. (You can read a full explanation of Tether here.) Bitfinex CEO JL van der Velde said in an emailed statement: "Bitfinex nor Tether is, or has ever, engaged in any sort of market or price manipulation. Tether issuances cannot be used to prop up the price of Bitcoin or any other coin/token on Bitfinex." Bitcoin rallied over 1,000% against the dollar last year, peaking at over $20,000 in December. It has since collapsed to below $7,000. The University of Texas paper looked at the relationship between Tether and the price of bitcoin from March 2016 to March of this year, but it focused specifically on the year to March 2018. The academics concluded "Tether seems to be used both to stabilize and manipulate Bitcoin prices," with new Tether coins seemingly created and used to buy up bitcoin at times of low demand. The prominent skeptic Bitfinex'd, an anonymous Twitter user, haslong argued that Tether has been used to manipulate the price of bitcoinby propping up demand. Bitfinex has denied this. The New York Times first reported the paperand said the study was a strong indication of possible manipulation and would require further investigation. Bitcoin fell 2% against the dollarshortly after the New York Times piece was published. The price has rallied slightly since then, and bitcoin was down 1.5% against the dollar as of 11:25 a.m. BST (6:25 a.m. ET). The US Commodities and Futures Trading Commissionissued subpoenas to Bitfinex and Tether last December, according to Bloomberg. Last month the US Justice Departmentreportedly began investigating bitcoin price manipulation, focusing specifically on spoofing — the practice of placing fake orders to drive up or down a price — and wash trading — the practice of trading with yourself to simulate volume in a market. The professor John Griffin and his graduate student Amin Shams concluded in their paper: "Our findings suggest that market surveillance within a proper regulatory framework may be needed for cryptocurrency markets to be legitimate stores of value and a reliable medium for fair financial transactions. Additional research is necessary to further understand these markets." NOW WATCH:THE KRISTIN LEMKAU INTERVIEW: JPMorgan Chase's CMO explains how she deals with disruption on two fronts at once, why she's moving some ad dollars back to TV, and why it matters what your credit card feels like See Also: • A crypto mining company is listing on the London stock market • A small startup is developing a tool to make money from 'insane' cryptocurrency spreads — and hedge funds are interested • A crypto trader setting up a hedge fund apologised for making so much money SEE ALSO:Everything you need to know about Tether, the cryptocurrency that people worry could crash bitcoin and that regulators are investigating DON'T MISS:The Justice Department is investigating crypto market manipulation — here's why it's such a big problem || 3 Dividend Stocks That Pay You Better Than ExxonMobil Does: Rising oil prices have steadily helped improve the picture for oil behemoth ExxonMobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) in recent months. And while the stock price has gained about 14% over the past couple of months and pushed the dividend yield back below 4%, its current yield of 3.77% is close to the highest it has been since the mid-1990s. But though the company should have little trouble maintaining the payout and will probably continue to grow it modestly in the years ahead, there are other dividend stocks with higher yields that investors should consider. Here, three Motley Fool investors write about midstream oil and gas giant Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE: ETP) , resurgent packaged foods company Campbell Soup Company (NYSE: CPB) , and retail property owner Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. (NASDAQ: ROIC) as stocks with better dividends than ExxonMobil that deserve a closer look from investors. But it's not a cut-and-dried "just buy 'em" story. There are different risks to each that you need to consider, as well as tax consequences for at least one, depending on whether you're looking to buy in a retirement account or not. So before you just put them on your "buy" list, keep reading for deeper insight that can help you make the right choice to get the best profits. Two hands, with one holding a yellow dollar sign and the other a red percent sign. Image source: Getty Images. A massive yield (but more risk) John Bromels (Energy Transfer Partners): Sure, ExxonMobil's yield of 3.77% seems pretty high. That is, until you compare it to master limited partnership (MLP) Energy Transfer Partners, whose yield is nearly three times as high, at an incredible 11.6%. Hang on, though. Before you start scooping up shares, there are a couple of things you should know. The first is that MLPs are a bit different than ordinary stocks. Because they receive special tax treatment from the government in exchange for paying out all their earnings as distributions to their unitholders, MLP ownership can cause you some headaches at tax time in the form of having to jump through some extra hoops -- mostly, filling out extra forms -- for the IRS. Story continues Beyond the MLP tax issues, Energy Transfer Partners is also a riskier company than the massive, well-established ExxonMobil. Even though it operates more than 71,000 miles of pipelines across the U.S. and has a well-established yield plus a history of increasing it regularly, Energy Transfer Partners has a highly leveraged balance sheet compared to Exxon. While that's not unusual for an MLP, it could cause the company problems down the road. However, in Q4 2017, it took some concrete steps to clean up its balance sheet a bit, using cash from asset sales to pay down some of its most expensive debt. In its most recent quarter, Q1 2018, it used some additional sales to knock its leverage ratio down to 4.5 times EBITDA. That may be much higher than ExxonMobil's one times EBITDA, but considering Energy Transfer Partners' leverage ratio was above six times EBITDA through most of 2016, the company has made real progress in this area. Energy Transfer Partners' massive yield, excellent recent performance, and progress on its debt repayment make it a buy. More than a soup company Daniel Miller (Campbell Soup): It's been a rough 12 months for Campbell Soup investors, who have witnessed the stock price spiral 42% lower thanks to rising input costs, declining margins, and the recent surprise exit of now-former CEO Denise Morrison. However, Campbell Soup could be on the path to redemption and offers investors a 4.2% dividend yield in the meantime. Most consumers recognize Campbell Soup for its namesake soup products, and it owns nearly 60% of the soup aisle, which is great as it strengthens the company's relationship as a valuable partner for grocery chains across America. However, it must show investors growth, which it has failed to do recently. That's where its recent acquisition comes into play. In December 2017, Campbell Soup announced it would acquire Snyder's-Lance for $50.00 per share in an all-cash transaction. The move will provide cost synergies between the two companies and, more importantly, it will accelerate Campbell's move into faster-growing segments such as snacking and health and well-being. Prior to the acquisition, baked snacks generated 31% of Campbell's sales during full-year 2017, but with Snyder's-Lance results baked in, its snacks segment would generate 46% of net sales. Snacking products will be key to delivering growth to its investors. The U.S. snack market is an $89 billion market and growing faster than other grocery categories, according to the company's December 18, 2017, acquisition presentation. As Campbell continues to focus on faster-growing segments, it could provide the sales growth it needs to bring investors back to the stock and reverse its decline -- and until then, it's offering investors a bigger dividend than even ExxonMobil. A great way to profit from the truth about retail Jason Hall (Retail Opportunity Investments Corp.): In recent years, the idea of a dying brick-and-mortar retail industry has become pervasive. And while there's some truth to it -- many large retailers are still struggling while others have failed -- the bigger picture is very different: Traditional retail is actually growing , even as e-commerce becomes a bigger part of how we shop and buy. But the perception of a dying industry, along with rising interest rates, has created an opportunity for investors to buy Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. -- or ROIC as it is called -- for a solid value. At recent prices, its yield is over 4.2%, while it trades for 17 times trailing-12-month funds from operations . This isn't the bargain-basement valuation it traded for at the low point a few weeks back, but the stock price is still down 11% from the 52-week high. With one of the best executive teams in the industry making capital allocation decisions and a sharp focus on outdoor shopping centers with strong grocery and pharmacy anchor tenants, ROIC is not only a higher-yield stock than ExxonMobil, but I think it's also a better business to own for long-term dividend growth. 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 Daniel Miller has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Jason Hall owns shares of Retail Opportunity Investments. John Bromels has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Retail Opportunity Investments. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 4 Situations Where It Pays to Extend Your Career: You've worked hard all of your life and are starting to dread your daily commute and job-related pressures. Throw in the fact that you don't have the energy level you did when you were younger, and retirement might seem like a welcome prospect. But even if you feel you're ready for retirement, there are certain scenarios where it actually pays to hold off and work longer. Here are a few such instances. Because Social Security alonewon't be enoughto sustain you in retirement, you'll need to go in with a healthy amount of savings. So if your nest egg isn't up to snuff, the best way to increase it is to extend your career and bank as much additional money as you can. Currently, workers 50 and over can contribute up to $24,500 per year to a 401(k) and $6,500 to an IRA. If you max out the former for three additional years, you'll boost your nest egg by $76,000, even with modest investment growth during that time. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. If you're not sure how well your nest egg will hold up in retirement, your best bet is to see whatwithdrawing 4% annuallywill look like, as that's long been the standard to help ensure that you don't deplete your savings prematurely. Imagine you're itching to retire and have $300,000 socked away. At 4% a year, that's just $1,000 a month of income to work with, which isn't a whole lot. Therefore, if you're able to work a bit longer, you'll not only get a chance to pad your nest egg, but also avoid dipping into your savings earlier than necessary. Social Securitycalculates your benefits based on your top 35 years of earnings on record. So if you don't have a 35-year work history -- say, you took time off to travel, raise kids, or care for a family member -- your benefits won't be as substantial. That's why it pays to extend your career if your benefits could use a boost. Replacing even a couple of years of zero earnings with an actual salary could increase what may come to be your single largest monthly income stream. Millions of seniors depend on Medicare to cover their health-related needs, and once you turn 65, you're eligible to sign up. In fact, your initial Medicare enrollment window begins three months before the month you turn 65 and ends three months after the month of your 65thbirthday, and if you don't sign up during that seven-month period, you'll face a 10% Part B premium hike for every 12 months you go without coverage. There's an exception, however, for those who arestill employed at 65and are covered under a group plan at work. In fact, having that group health insurance is a good reason to consider extending your career. If your employer subsidizes all or most of your plan, you may come to find that it's cheaper than your out-of-pocket costs under Medicare. This especially holds true if your employer gives you dental and vision coverage, since those are two services Medicare doesn't provide. Since healthcare could easily end up being yoursingle greatest expensein retirement, it pays to keep your costs down for as long as possible, even if that means staying on the job another year or two. There's a reason retirees are 40% more likely to fall victim to depression than workers: Having too much free time can make for a restless, unfulfilling existence. If you're eager to retire but have no clue as to how you'll fill your days, then it pays to keep working until you're able to figure out what to do with yourself. Maybe you'll start a business or volunteer for a local organization. Or maybe you'll develop some new hobbies to fill your days. It doesn't really matter what you do with your time as long as you go in with a plan, so if you're still figuring things out, you might as well keep working in the interim. It's natural to want to retire as early as possible, especially if you're no longer satisfied with your job. But consider the upside of working longer before you close out your career. You may find that a year or two more in the workforce spells the difference between financial flexibility in retirement and a cash-strapped existence later in life. 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 adisclosure policy. || E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – Strengthens Over 25347, Weakens Under 24923: E-mini Dow futures eked out a small gain last week after posting a two-sided on light pre-holiday volume. The market was supported by the dovish Fed minutes that indicated the Fed would be willing to let inflation run above its 2 percent mandate. This essentially means the Fed won’t be as aggressive with rate hikes in 2018 as previously expected. June E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Averagefutures settled the week at 24730, up 9 or +0.04%. Keeping a lid on the market were renewed geopolitical concerns over U.S.-China trade relations and North Korea after President Trump surprisingly canceled a meeting with Kim Jong-un. The main trend is up according to the weekly swing chart. Despite the steep sell-off in late January/early February, the trend never turned down. Momentum, however, shifted to the downside. It has been trending sideways to lower for 15 weeks. The main range is 21150 to 26723. Its retracement zone at 23937 to 23279 is the major support. It is also controlling the longer-term direction of the market. The intermediate range is 26723 to 23122. Its retracement zone at 24923 to 25347 is acting like resistance. Momentum will shift to the upside on a sustained move over this area. The short-term range is 23467 to 25080. Its retracement zone at 24274 to 24083 is the primary downside target. Since the main trend is up, buyers are likely to come in on a test of this zone. E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – Strengthens Over 25347, Weakens Under 24923 A sustained move under 24923 will indicate the presence of sellers. If this move generates enough downside momentum then look for a break into its short-term retracement zone at 24274 to 24083. Since the main trend is up, buyers are likely to come in on a test of this area. The trigger point for a possible acceleration into 23279 is the main 50% level at 23937. Overtaking and sustaining a move over 24923 will indicate the presence of buyers. Taking out 25080 will indicate the buying is getting stronger. This could trigger a further move into 25347. The trigger point for an acceleration to the upside is the Fibonacci level at 25347. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – No Change in the Story, Market Testing Key Technical Retracement Zones • Commodities Daily Forecast – May 29, 2018 • Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Traders Waiting for Updated Weather Forecasts • Markets in Turmoil: Global Stocks Fall, Euro Sinks, Oil Hits Six Weeks Low • Bitcoin Short Term Struggles, while Blockchain finds Friends • EUR/USD, AUD/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY Daily Outlook – May 29, 2018 || Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Forecast – BTC Prices Under Pressure: The BTC prices are under a lot of pressure over the last 24 hours and it appears as though the bears are gaining more and more control over the market during this period. The bulls have been forced to give way and the prices are now trading in the $6500 region which is the last region of strong support for the prices. If this gives way in a strong manner, then we are likely to see a stronger wave of selling in due course of time which should lead the prices below the $6000 region and then it would be a long way back for the bulls. Suggested Articles Why Bitcoin Cash is Better than Bitcoin? How to Buy Bitcoin Cash? How to Short Bitcoin? BTC Prices Losing Support We had mentioned something similar yesterday in our forecast where we had said that if the prices break through the last region of support, then it would only mean more weakness and with several of the traders having been locked out at higher prices, it is going to make it very difficult for them to get out. The limited supply of BTC should help in the medium term for the demand to kick in and push the prices up but that is going to take some time and those weak holders would only be looking to sell off as the prices move lower and they come under pressure. Bitcoin 4H The ETH prices have also fallen below the $500 region and now trade near the $480 support and like the BTC market, it is under a lot of pressure and it looks as though the $480 region might come under pressure pretty soon and a break of that could lead to the prices moving much lower. Forecast Looking ahead to the rest of the day, as mentioned above, both the BTC and the ETH prices are at their regions of last support and we have to watch the price action very closely. Unless there is a rebound pretty quickly, we are likely to see more weakness on the way. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Increased Production Offsetting Weather Concerns GBP/USD Price Forecast – Sterling Fails to Gain Momentum despite Hawkish Macro Data Commodities Daily Forecast – June 13, 2018 Ahead of the FOMC, Dollar gives us a buy signal Forex Daily Outlook – June 13, 2018 Bitcoin $5,000 – It’s More Likely than $10,000 || Bitcoin Futures Could Spur Bank Ratings Downgrades: Rating agencies may downgrade banks that clear bitcoin futures if these financial products continue to see increasing volumes over the coming months. Financial publicationRisk.netreports that each of the three large rating agencies — Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch — have expressed concern over increasing volume inbitcoin futuresmarkets, which are currently available on regulated US exchanges CME and CBOE. As CCNreported, volume in these markets has grown steadily since their December launch, and combined bitcoin futures trading volume has exceeded $670 million during a single trading session. This increasing volume has helped lend legitimacy to this nascent asset class, but it has rating agencies worried that banks are taking on unnecessary credit risk. While still too low to be a major concern, rating agencies said that, due to the volatility of thebitcoin price, they may downgrade the creditworthiness of banks who clear bitcoin futures for their clients. “[The impact on ratings] is something that we think is perhaps not fully appreciated by the market and something that warrants monitoring going forward,” said. Nathan Flanders, global head of non-bank financial institutions at Fitch Ratings. “If the notional materiality increases, that is going to increase our dialogue with the banks.” He added: “For banks, even though they are saying they are not directly engaging in the trading of cryptocurrencies as clearing members, they have some indirect exposure to it, whether they like it or not.” Rating agencies assign credit ratings — often letter grades — to banks to gauge the risk that they will default on their debts. Banks whose ratings are downgraded may have a more difficult time obtaining access to funding and may also face higher collateral requirements, limiting the amount of credit they can extend to their clients. This hostile view toward bitcoin futures is not isolated to Fitch. Ana Arsov, managing director at Moody’s, said that it will consider a bitcoin futures clearing operation a “credit negative” when deciding on a bank’s rating, though this risk is not currently large enough to have a material impact. “If a bank were to establish a very large business clearing cryptocurrencies, that would be credit negative. As with any asset class, if there is a new concentration of risk that we think is inappropriate, that can create downward ratings pressure. However, we don’t see that risk as imminent.” Thierry Grunspan, director of global financial institutions ratings at Standard & Poor’s, concurred with those assessments, though he stressed that the risk was “very remote for now.” “For the clearing members that do trade cryptocurrencies, there is clearly a direct effect,” he said. “If volumes explode, it means some of their hedge fund clients are trading heavily, so it is putting some extra risk on their shoulders. The link is direct.” But though remote for now, those risks could become more pertinent as more firms release cryptocurrency derivatives products. CBOE has not been shy about its desire to create more cryptocurrency products, and CME has taken what many believe are the first steps toward launching anethereum futuresmarket. The Nasdaq, meanwhile, isreportedlydeveloping its own bitcoin futures product and has expressed openness to launching a cryptocurrency exchange. Moreover, a number of fund providers hope to soon be able to list the firstbitcoin ETF, a development that would provide a greater number of retail buyers with exposure to bitcoin futures. Images from Shutterstock The postBitcoin Futures Could Spur Bank Ratings Downgradesappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Price Falls to 35-Day Low Below $8K: Bitcoin's price has slipped below $8,000 to hit a 35-day low. Just an hour after the May 23 trading session began, data from CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index shows the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency started to fall, dropping to its lowest point since April 18. After steadily climbing up to nearly $10,000 on May 6, bitcoin's price has been on a gradual decline since then towards a current low at $7,876, reflecting a 20 percent drop over the past two weeks. Going Up? Bitcoin Price Sets Sights on New Resistance The price has bounced back slightly to $7,910 as of press time. That said, the current price still shows a 30 percent premium over bitcoin's lowest point this year at $5,947 seen on Feb. 5. Meanwhile, bitcoin's price drop also coincides with a wider market sell-off. According todatafrom CoinMarketCap, the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies is also at its one-month low with $352 billion changing hands. EOS Cryptocurrency Lacks Price Direction Ahead of Launch In fact, nearly all of the top 100 assets by market cap are showing 10 to 20 percent declines at press time. According to CoinMarketCap, among the world's largest five cryptocurrencies, both XRP and bitcoin cash are trading at a one-month low at $0.63 and $1,120 respectively. Image via CoinDesk archive • Korea Seizes Bitcoin Worth $1.4 Million Following Supreme Court Ruling • Bitcoin Fights Back, But Too Early to Call Bull Reversal || 2 High-Yield Energy Stocks That are Dirt Cheap: Oil prices have rebounded well off of their 2016 lows, and now appear to have stabilized in the $60-plus per barrel range. However, while some energy stocks have similarly recovered, others remain deeply out of favor with the market -- which presents an opportunity for investors. In addition to a value price,ExxonMobil Corp.(NYSE: XOM)andBuckeye Partners, L.P.(NYSE: BPL)also bring high dividend yields to the table. They are both worth a deep dive today. ExxonMobil is one of the world's largest integrated energy giants. It produces oil and natural gas on the upstream side of its business and chemicals and refined products on the downstream side. This helps to even out its performance when energy prices are volatile -- a fairly common condition. This balanced model also speaks to the highly conservative culture of the energy giant, which is further highlighted by its impressive 36-year streak of annual dividend increases and its low debt level. (Long-term debt is just 10% of the capital structure.) Image source: Getty Images That conservatism, however, can leave it flat-footed when markets are moving quickly. That's exactly what's happening right now. ExxonMobil started pulling back on capital spending during the deep oil downturn that started in mid-2014, and has been late to hit the accelerator now that crude prices have recovered. For example, first-quarter earnings were up roughly 15% year over year, but many of its integrated peers have been doing better. For example,Royal Dutch Shell, which made a huge acquisition during the downturn, saw Q1 earnings advance nearly 63%. Another key problem is that ExxonMobil's production has been weak: It fell slightly in each of the last two years, and did so again, year over year, in Q1. Recently, theMotley Fool's Tyler Crowe described Exxon as "testing" its investors-- and that situation isn't likely to end for a couple of years, as the company's large growth projects aren't expectedto add materially to its revenues or profits until 2020. In the meantime, investors get to watch capital spending rise with little return on that investment. XOM Price to Tangible Book Valuedata byYCharts It's no wonder, then, that ExxonMobil's dividend yield is on the high side of its historical range at around 4%. And the company's tangible book value is lower than it has been since the late 1980s. Don't expect a quick turnaround, either, as large projects in Guyana, Brazil, and Mozambique, among other locations, will take time to develop. But once they are up and running -- they'll account for roughly half of the energy giant's upstream earnings by 2025 -- investors will likely reward ExxonMobil stock with a higher valuation. It is also working on large new downstream projects that will help to boost results, but they too are a few years from completion. While these long-term plans play out, however, patient investors can collect large yields backed by a growing dividend at a conservative energy company. That's a worthwhile trade-off in my opinion. Buckeye Partners is a relatively small midstream energylimited partnership, and a more aggressive play for investors. The partnership's core assets are pipelines and storage. It differentiates itself from many of its peers because it has a truly international presence, with storage assets located in the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The problem is that Buckeye's distribution coverage ratio has been notably weak, falling to just 1 in 2017. Investors are worried that the partnership's current round of capital spending will compel it to cut the distribution. That's not an unreasonable expectation. However,management has steadfastly continued to assertthat it will support the dividend. As recently as June 5, they stated: "Given our current outlook, we have no intentions of cutting Buckeye's distribution." And a cut would likely be a last-resort move, given that the partnership has increased its distribution annually for 22 consecutive years. Moreover, management has taken the long view before, letting the coverage ratio fall below 1 in 2013 and 2014 while it waited for investments to bear fruit. BPL Financial Debt to EBITDA (TTM)data byYCharts The partnership is also fairly conservative financially, with a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of around 4.9, which isn't particularly out of line with its midstream peers or its own history. However, the fear of a distribution cut is a big headwind in an asset class that's specifically designed to push income through to unit holders, which is why Buckeye's distribution yield is a massive 14% today. The partnership doesn't expect to issue any new units through the end of 2019, which would make it even harder to cover distributions. Although the recent use of hybrid debt and issuance of a new class of units that have a payment in kind distribution (which temporarily allows the partnership to avoid cash distributions on the units) suggests Buckeye is getting aggressive in order to raise non-dilutive cash, management believes that it still has plenty of financing options available should it need additional funds. Buckeye is openly calling 2018 a transition year, with major projects, like expansions in Texas, Chicago, and Michigan/Ohio, not expected to add materially to the top or bottom lines until 2019 or 2020. If you can take the long view along with management, Buckeye's huge yield is worth the risk for investors who can handle a little uncertainty. When coverage picks back up, the market is likely to push the unit price higher. Exxon and Buckeye have very different investment profiles: One's a large and conservative company, and the other's relatively small, but willing to take some short-term risks to grow its business. Exxon, with its roughly 4% yield, is a good option for investors looking for a safe investment that's out of favor. Buckeye is appropriate for more aggressive types willing to handle the uncertainty of weak distribution coverage today in exchange for a huge 14% yield, and plans that should fix the company's issues starting in 2019. 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 Reuben Gregg Brewerowns shares of ExxonMobil. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Andreessen Horowitz has a new crypto fund -- and its first female general partner is running it with Chris Dixon: Silicon Valley powerhouseAndreessen Horowitz(a16z) has some big, and bigger, news today. First, it closed a dedicated crypto fund late last week from a subset of its limited partners, who've provided the firm with $300 million in capital commitments. The fund had become the worst-kept secret in the venture industry, largely because so many other venture firms are trying to figure out their own related strategies and have been watching closely a16z's slow but growing number of investments in crypto-related startups over the past five years. Nine-year-old Andreessen Horowitz has also, at long last, brought aboard its first female general partner: Katie Haun, whose star has quietly been rising in the Bay Area over for the past couple of years. Haun -- who is leading Andreessen's crypto fund with general partner and renowned crypto enthusiastChris Dixon-- is kind of a big deal, so it's no surprise that a16z nabbed her. Among her other many accomplishments, Haun spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, where she focused on fraud, cybercrime, and corporate compliance no-no's alongside the SEC, FBI, and Treasury. According to Haun's bio, she was also the DOJ’s first-ever coordinator for digital assets, and she led investigations into the Mt. Gox hack and the task force that investigated and ultimately took down the online drug marketplace Silk Road. Haun is also a lecturer at Stanford Business School and she's a director on the board of the digital exchangeCoinbase, which was backed early on by a16z and is where Haun got to know Dixon, who is also on the board. (Both are keeping their seats.) We talked with Dixon earlier today to learn more about the fund, including how he and Haun are thinking about "exits" in the cryptocurrency world when there haven't been a whole bunch. Our conversation has been edited lightly for length. TC: You've raised $300 million from some of the same investors who fund Andreessen Horowitz's flagship funds. Will this fund in any way impact the next flagship fund? Does the firm intend to spend more time on crypto and less on other, more traditional investments? CD: No, we're still full-speed ahead on all traditional areas. The fund is a way for us to double down on crypto and not in any way reduce our commitment to enterprise, consumer, or bio investing. TC: Can this new fund invest in other investors' crypto funds, as Union Square Ventures has beenactively doing? CD: It could, but we don’t plan to. We invested inPolychainand a few others about one-and-a-half years ago when we were figuring out our new crypto strategy. Now, with the full fund and investing in both early-stage and later-stage in crypto projects, the mandate is to be investing directly, though [we] never say never to anything. TC: How many crypto investments has the firm made over the years, and will any of them be tucked into this new fund? CD: We’ve made about 20 crypto investments over the last five years. [Bitcoin competitor]Ripplewas my first investment in January 2013 and Coinbase later in 2013, then we did 21.co, which becameEarn[andsoldearlier this year to Coinbase]. We did a few others --OpenBazaarandMediachain-- then the space got a lot more interesting with the rise of Ethereum and talented entrepreneurs entering the space. Those [investments] will remain in the funds where we put them in. TC: Have you made investments from this new fund? CD: We're in process with a few, but nothing that’s been finalized. TC: How have you been structuring these investments? CD: Some are equity investments, but with token provisions [meaning if the teams create a token, investors get access to them]. SAFTs are another thing we’ve done. We've also done direct, over-the-counter purchases of Bitcoin and Ethereum. But we were running into limits with what we could do out of the main fund. Now we'll be able to do all sorts of things, as long as [we're talking with] great entrepreneurs who are working on big and important projects with economic terms that make sense. TC: What's an exit going to look like with these deals? CD: It's a good question. To date, we've never sold any of our crypto assets. A lot of people in the market are day trading but we very much see this as investing. We’d expect any investment to have a five- to ten-year holding period. Some of these projects could have tokens that are freely tradable, so there's the potential to have an exit that way. The most likely outcome is we invest in an early-stage project and we receive coins or tokens in exchange for [our commitment] and if the project becomes successful, those digital assets appreciate when that thesis is played out. But if we invest in some project that will be used by hundreds of millions of people, we wouldn’t want to exit until that’s realized. TC: Presumably, you will not be paying your investors back in tokens? CD: No. We have LPs who prefer fiat money. TC: How do you think about ownership stakes in these companies? CD: The traditional venture model of owning 10 to 20 percent of a company isn't realistic in this world. We do think that if a project is very early stage, the valuation should reflect that. But we're thinking more in terms of value: can this investment be big enough that it returns the fund on its own? So we don’t think in terms of percentages but value. We think this next wave of companies could be 10 times as big [as their predecessors]. TC: How are you thinking about ICOs? Are you investing in companies that will later sell shares to non-accredited investors? CD: If done the right way, we think democratizing access is a great concept. We're fans of the idea that more people can participate. But we don't think [ICOs as they're widely considered today] are regulatory compliant and we’ve never gotten involved in one of those. We participated inFilecoin, for example, but [its offering] was made only to accredited investors. TC: What about conflicts? It's very early days, so I wonder if the rules around backing similar companies are different. In traditional VC, obviously, it's pretty much verboten. CD: The norm in the crypto world is different than the traditional venture world. Typically in VC, you won’t invest in a direct competitor. But with crypto, there's a different ethos. It's more cooperative. People would rather grow the pie together rather than fight over the size of the pie. We always make sure that projects are okay with any investments that we're considering that might be overlapping. But in emerging spaces, it's hard to think about categories as it's kind of fluid. I'd say standards are evolving, but I'd also say it's okay to [back more than one currency, for example]. TC: How about so-called stable coins, specifically? Youbacked Basis, a company that's building a price-stable currency, which the world very much needs in order for cryptocurrencies to come into wider use. Do you think there's room for more than one stable coin? TC: We've backed both Basis andMaker, though the mechanics are pretty different and we think can be complementary. We also spoke with both when we made our investments. We do think it's a really important idea, to have a coin pegged to something like the U.S. dollar in order to make the experience more mainstream and accessible, [versus a world rife with] these volatile coins. We think it's such an important piece of infrastructure that there could be multiple winners. || Jack Ma Launches Blockchain Money Remittance to Philippines, Bashes Bitcoin [Again]: Jack Ma Alibaba Group’s affiliate, Ant Financial Services, is on the way to cutting the cost of remitting money to close to zero using blockchain technology. This is according to the online retail giant’s co-founder, Jack Ma, who said this during the launch of a blockchain-based money transfer service between Hong Kong and the Philippines. The remittance service will be operated by AlipayHK, a Hong Kong-based joint venture of Ant Financial as well as CK Hutchison Holdings, and GCash, a service of the Filipino telecommunication services firm, Globe Telecom Inc. Standard Chartered will be the settlement bank for the service. According to Ma , it has been his long-cherished dream to cut remittance costs. “This comes from a promise I made a long time ago when Alipay was just launched. I have friends who are Filipino and they asked me when they could use Alipay to send money home because it was too expensive through banks, which charge too much,” South China Morning Post quoted Ma saying. Pioneering money remittance solution According to Ant Financial, the blockchain-based money remittance service is the first of its kind worldwide. The Philippines is the third-biggest remittance market in the world which last year recorded inflows of approximately US$33 billion. Filipinos in Hong Kong are one of the largest foreign communities in the city-state according to the Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong. It is estimated that about US$561 million was remitted by Filipinos in 2016. With the blockchain-based remittance service of Alipay, sending money will be done at competitive exchange rates, lower transaction fees and in real time. The initial remittance during the launch was reportedly completed in under three seconds. Under the witness of Jack Ma, Ant Financial announced the launch of their first blockchain-based electronic wallet cross border remittance service, and completed the first remittance (AlipayHK in HK <-> GCash in Philippines ) within 3 seconds Source (CN): https://t.co/jK3PenQGuN pic.twitter.com/jRYY8EUbY6 — cnLedger [Not giving away ETH] (@cnLedger) June 25, 2018 While Ma said blockchain technology held revolutionary potential he reserved contrasting sentiment for Bitcoin, according to Bloomberg. Story continues “Blockchain technology could change our world more than people imagine. Bitcoin however could be a bubble,” Ma told journalists at the event. Uses the b-word, again This was not the first time Ma was bashing Bitcoin . Towards the end of last year, he admitted to having little understanding of the flagship cryptocurrency though he restrained from calling it a bubble. Last month though he used the b-word during the World Smart Conference which was being held in Tianjin, China. Ma, however, holds the opposite view with regards to blockchain technology which he has hailed as offering a solution to security, privacy and data issues . Currently, Alibaba is one of the biggest holders of blockchain patents with some of its blockchain-related intellectual properties focusing on ensuring food safety and traceability in the supply chain as well as improving healthcare. Alibaba is also expected to invest heavily in blockchain solutions. Following a Series C funding round, Ant Financial , disclosed earlier this month that some of the $14 billion raised will be invested in blockchain development. The money remittance service is one of the first instances the technology is being used in traditional finance by Ant Financial. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Jack Ma Launches Blockchain Money Remittance to Philippines, Bashes Bitcoin [Again] appeared first on CCN . [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #FlipNpik : #Crypto #Blockchain #FNP #Stellar #Bitcoin #Cryptocurrency #BTC #XLM #GoLocal #BuyLocal #FlipNpikICO https://flipnpik.io/ https://twitter.com/FlipNpik/status/1002999711475871744 … || Current value of DOGE in BTC: Vircurex: 0.0000004 -- Volume: Today's trend: up at 06/10/18 00:55 || https://www.zerocarbonproject.com  ,#Crypto #Blockchain #ENERGIS #bitcoin https://twitter.com/ZeroCarbonPrjct/status/1001738783086268416 … || News!https://insidebitcoins.com/news/unlocking-the-ocean-of-data-around-facebook-and-google/138347 … || Último: R$ 25.601,99 ▲ Alta: R$ 25.680,00 ▼ Baixa: R$ 25.000,00 ▼ Volume: 76.85477647 BTC ▼ Taxa 30min: 6 sat/byte (~R$ 0,39) ▼ #bitcoin #blockchain #cryptocurrency || ven btc - #VENBTC charthttp://www.tradingview.com/chart/VENBTC/gdzRSHgp-ven-btc/ … || Scotland has a rehab clinic for people who are addicted to trading bitcoin /cool-tech/bitcoin-addicts-rehab/ || $NEO is now worth $56.15 (-0.58%) and 0.0072974 BTC (-0.55%) #NEO || #Cryptocurrency #Bigdata Tweets 4h till 15:00: #bitcoin 10217 #ethereum 6119 #btc 4722 #tron 3706 #eth 3513 #trx 3153 #xrp 1215 #ripple 930 #litecoin 780 #ltc 591 #eos 555 #sumo 396 #bch 324 #iota 311 #neo 303 #nem 302 #ada 300 #smartcash 272 #bitcoincash 269pic.twitter.com/S8e8FVrL3j || #ICO, #Bitcoin ,#EThereum, #Stellarhttps://twitter.com/GlitzkoinToken/status/1001735181496127489 …
Trend: up || Prices: 6741.75, 7321.04, 7370.78, 7466.86, 7354.13, 7419.29, 7418.49, 7711.11, 8424.27, 8181.39
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 2018-04-12] BTC Price: 7889.25, BTC RSI: 52.88 Gold Price: 1338.40, Gold RSI: 52.44 Oil Price: 67.07, Oil RSI: 63.59 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Stocks plunge as trade war fears multiply: Stocks (^DJI,^GSPC,^IXIC) slide lower as trade war fears flare. The utilities (XLU) sector is most in the green, and the financials (XLF) sector is most in the red.Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikrejoins us live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to talk markets.To discuss the other big stories of the day,Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smithis joined byDion RabouinandEthan Wolff-Mann.Seana also talks toBill Barhydt, Founder & CEO of Abra,about Bitcoin’s recent drops. || Bitcoin recovers after dropping below $8,000: Markets Insider • Cryptocurrencies are falling on Thursday morning. • Bitcoin fell below $8,000 to a 5-week low but has since recovered. • Investors are spooked by Google's advertising bans, as well as ongoing regulation fears. • The crypto market has now lost over $130 billion since the start of March. LONDON — Cryptocurrencies are stuttering on Thursday morning amid continued bearish sentiment in the market. Bitcoin dropped below $8,000 to a five-week low in early trade but has since recovered to trade almost flat. Here's the scoreboard at 10.30 a.m. GMT (6.30 a.m. ET): • Bitcoin is down 0.15% against the dollar to $8,194.86 • Ethereum is down 0.46% to $609.35 • Ripple is up 0.15% to $0.68 • Bitcoin Cash is down 1.4% to $932.03 • Litecoin is up 1.9% to $163.79 You can find other live cryptocurrency prices on Markets Insider. Cryptocurrencies have been hit by a sell-off in the crypto market that began at the start of the month. Investor confidence was last weekshaken by fears of regulation, big sellers liquidating holdings in the market, and rumours of another exchange hack. The latest blow to already shaky investor sentiment isGoogle's decision on Wednesday to ban all cryptocurrency advertisingon its platforms, whichpushed cryptos into the red. Trey Ditto, the CEO of crypto-specialist PR firm Ditto, said in an email on Wednesday evening: "Today’s decision to ban ads on Google feels like they’re throwing the baby out with the bath water. "We use Facebook and Google to educate potential investors and users about a range of topics and opportunities. I worry this punishes the good actors in this fast-growing space and will thus hurt the consumers and investors who are looking for information to make smart crypto investment decisions." Chris Keshian, CEO of Apex Token Fund, took a more optimistic view, saying in a statement: "Banning is simply a 'pause' button as organisations tease out better ways to regulate an asset class that they are in the process of understanding. "This won’t be the last ban but, in time, we expect to see some of these restrictions lifted, as more meaningful regulations come into force." Still, the combination of all the negative factors means that the size of entire cryptocurrency market has now declined by over $130 billion since the start of March,according to market data provider CoinMarketCap.com. NOW WATCH:We asked Jamie Dimon why JPMorgan is forming a new healthcare company with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway — here's what he said See Also: • Cryptocurrencies are falling after Google's advertising ban • Google is banning all bitcoin, ICO, and cryptocurrency ads starting in June • Bitcoin is slumping and analysts say there are 3 big reasons for the 'fear and panic' SEE ALSO:Bitcoin is slumping and analysts say there are 3 big reasons for the 'fear and panic' DON'T MISS:Google is banning all bitcoin, ICO, and cryptocurrency ads starting in June || How Safe Is AbbVie, Inc.'s Dividend Now?: AbbVie Inc. 's (NYSE: ABBV) treated shareholders to some hefty dividend bumps since its inception five years ago, but a 35% raise announced in February was the biggest yet. Not long after announcing the payout boost and another $10 billion stock repurchase program, a high-profile clinical trial failure knocked AbbVie's stock down a few pegs. At recent prices, AbbVie shares offer a nice 4% yield. That's more than twice as much as you'll get from the average dividend-paying stock in the benchmark S&P 500 index. If you're a cautious investor worried about a dividend that looks too good to be true , here's what you need to know about the pillars supporting AbbVie's rapidly rising payouts. The word dividends on a piece of paper on top of a $100 bill and the word income on another piece of paper next to that bill Image source: Getty Images. On the way down Humira is the world's best-selling drug at the moment, but it's just a matter of time before biosimilar competition begins chipping away at its share of the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) market. Enough patents have expired to allow the Food and Drug Administration to approve two copycat versions, but additional patent litigation has kept them off the U.S. market. Amgen 's (NASDAQ: AMGN) already agreed to delay Amjevita's U.S. launch until 2023, but Boehringer Ingelheim hasn't backed down with Cyltezo yet. I'd be surprised if Cyltezo gets any further than Amjevita, but we can't rule out the possibility. Biosimilars aren't the only competitive threat that could make it hard for AbbVie to keep raising its dividend. Baricitinib from partners Incyte (NASDAQ: INCY) and Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) is already marketed in the European Union as Olumiant, but the FDA sent back the first baricitinib application Lilly submitted for more data. During clinical trials, adding Lilly's pills to standard care improved RA symptoms at a rate that bested Humira, and an eventual approval is widely expected. We'll know more about the Olumiant threat on April 23, when an independent advisory committee meets to discuss its risk-to-benefit profile in detail. In the meantime, AbbVie investors will want to keep an eye on how popular the oral therapy is among would-be Humira patients throughout Europe. A man looking down at charts and graphs with his right hand on the side of his face. Image source: Getty Images. Shot missed AbbVie spent a stunning $5.8 billion for Rova-T in hopes it could earn a speedy approval to treat certain lung cancer patients. The assumption turned out wrong , but it probably won't ruin AbbVie's chances to keep raising the dividend in the years ahead. Humira and other products already on the market helped the company generate $9.4 billion in free cash flow last year, which was a lot more than the company needed to make dividend payments that totaled $4.1 billion in 2017. Over the years, AbbVie's funneled Humira profits into a stable of experimental new drugs with potential blockbuster written all over them. Investors will be glad to know that Rova-T didn't even make my top three list . Story continues Earlier this year, AbbVie predicted sales of drugs excluding Humira would rise from $9.8 billion in 2017 to $35 billion in 2025. The Rova-T letdown will knock several billion off that ambitious target, but there's a good chance the company's bottom line, and its dividend can continue expanding over the next decade. Kid wearing aviator goggles and a strapped camera around his neck riding a rocket going up into the clouds. Image source: Getty Images. Going up Dividend investments that depend entirely on potential drug launches are a terrible idea. Luckily, AbbVie's more recently launched offerings are already moving in the right direction. Leading the charge is a blood cancer tablet with sales that keep growing by leaps and bounds ever since it became the first chemo-free option for people recently diagnosed with the most common form of leukemia. AbbVie's share of Imbruvica's haul rose 41% last year to $2.5 billion, and AbbVie thinks it could go twice as high. AbbVie and Roche (NASDAQOTH: RHHBY) launched Venetoclax as a treatment for a very small, genetically defined group of leukemia patients in 2016. So far, sales haven't been worth mentioning, but results from a combination trial designed to expand Venetoclax to a larger population suggest it can still generate several billion annually for AbbVie. The rate of survival without disease progression at 24 months was 85% among patients given a combination of Rituxan plus Venetoclax, versus just 36% in the group given Rituxan plus a standard chemotherapy. Getting leukemia patients who've already relapsed to show initial responses to subsequent treatments is relatively easy, but the duration of those responses is generally poor. To see long-term eradication from these patients is just incredible, and a big reason AbbVie thinks Venclexta can become a $6 billion-per-year drug. MRK Dividend Chart MRK dividend . Data by YCharts . Know what to expect With a slightly diminished late-stage pipeline still ready to deliver the goods, and blood cancer products on the rise now, AbbVie has a good chance of avoiding the sort of long-term earnings contractions that have held back Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck 's distributions. Thanks to patent cliffs for former lead earners, their earnings per share (EPS) are lower today than they were 20 years ago and both companies have struggled to keep payouts rising at a snail's pace. On a 10-year time frame, the same can be said for Eli Lilly . As a biologic drug , Humira's eventual demise will be far less dramatic than the patent cliffs that have hobbled dividend growth for America's biggest pharmaceutical companies. That doesn't mean a steadily rising payout for the next two decades is guaranteed, but at 4% or better, you won't find a safer dividend in healthcare. 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 Cory Renauer 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 || Why MuleSoft Inc. Stock Jumped Friday: Shares of information technology companyMuleSoft(NYSE: MULE)climbed as much as 16.7% on Friday. The stock's gain follows MuleSoft's fourth-quarter earnings release. Mulesoft shares are up 15.2% at the time of this writing. Optimism toward the stock on Friday likely reflects the company's higher-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue, as well management's promising outlook for 2018. "Robust market demand and strong sales execution enabled us to deliver fourth quarter and fiscal 2017 revenue well ahead of expectations," said MuleSoft CEO Greg Schott about the results. Image source: Getty Images. Fourth-quarter revenue was $88.7 million, up 60% year over year. This was driven primarily by a 57% year-over-year jump in subscription and support revenue to $70.6 million. And revenue from its "professional services and other" segment was up 75% year over year to $18.1 million. The results compare to a consensus analyst estimate for revenue of about $83 million. MuleSoft's net loss per share for the quarter was $0.19, narrower than a loss per share of $0.52 in the year-ago quarter. The company's non-GAAP loss per share was $0.12, worse than an adjusted loss per share of $0.10 in the year-ago quarter and in line with the consensus analyst estimate for the quarter. Looking ahead, MuleSoft expects its strong growth to continue. Management guided for 2018 revenue to be between $405 and $415 million, up 38% year over year when using the midpoint of this guidance range. On average, analysts were expecting 2018 revenue of about $396 million. In 2021, Schott said the company expects to reach $1 billion in annual revenue. "Our disruptive platform is addressing one of the largest areas of enterprise IT spend," Schott explained, "and we're confident in our long-term strategy to become the de facto application network platform for our customers to become more agile and to transform their businesses." 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 Daniel Sparkshas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends MuleSoft. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Apple and Shopify Partner to Bring Augmented Reality to E-Commerce: Shopify Inc.(NYSE: SHOP)has beenenormously successfuldeveloping an e-commerce platform that helps small- and medium-sized businesses set up and manage an online store. The company simplified the process by creating a one-stop shop that was easy to navigate and put e-commerce within reach for companies of all sizes. Shopify has taken a number of steps to empower its online sellers, including by offering templates and apps that allow merchants to customize the shopping experience for their customers. The company also integrated payments and shipping solutions into its lineup. Now Shopify is infusing augmented reality into its offerings, which has attracted the attention of none other thanApple Inc.(NASDAQ: AAPL)CEO Tim Cook, one of the biggest proponents of the technology. Augmented reality could provide a richer e-commerce experience. Image source: Getty Images. Late last year, Shopify revealed that it had created an in-app augmented reality feature in conjunction with Chip and Joanna Gains, from HGTV's programFixer Upper, for their home and lifestyle brand Magnolia. The AR app allowed customers to see how specific housewares would look in their homes by placing virtual objects into the space using the camera on their phone. The ability for online shoppers to see how a potential purchase would actually look against the backdrop of their home could be a groundbreaking technology in the realm of e-commerce. These AR innovations caught the attention of Cook, who made a surprise visit to Shopify's Toronto headquarters. Cook was treated to numerous demonstrations that incorporated an iPad and apps built on the ARKit platform that Apple debuted last year. Shopify CEO Tobias Lutke said that the company will use the technology to "become the largest AR-enabled e-commerce platform." Cook said he's a "big fan" of Shopify. "I love the fact that their focus is on democratizing technology for entrepreneurs that are largely artisans and bringing their products to market so that these merchants can focus on what they are great at," Cook told theFinancial Post. With the debut of iOS 11 and ARKit last year, Apple put the world on notice that the company has big plans for AR-infused apps. Building the technology into its operating system was what Cook called the "first step" in making AR a mainstream experience. Apple also designed the iPhone 8 and X models with AR in mind, and debuted several cutting edge AR applications with the release of its most recent iPhones. The release of ARKit was a game-changer according to Shopify, because it created more realistic AR where the virtual objects that were created were "almost indistinguishable from the reality they're dropped in," according to Braveen Kumar, a content creator for Shopify. Tim Cook has made no secret about his enthusiasm for AR. In an interview last year when asked about the nascent technology, he said, "I think it is profound. I am so excited about it, I just want to yell out and scream... It's time to put the seat belt on and go. When people begin to see what's possible, it's going to get them very excited -- like we are, like we've been." Augmented reality is just getting started, but with the potential market for the technology it could be huge, exceeding $50 billion by 2024, according to estimates by Global Market Insights. This would represent a compound annual growth rate of 75% between 2017 and 2024. Both companies have a lot to gain by being among the earliest adopters of AR. The iPhone 8 and X featured innovative uses of AR that will betough for the competition to replicatedue to patents and exclusive deals with suppliers. For its part, Shopify is creating a competitive edge that gives its merchants even more reasons to love its platform. This may not be the last we hear of this partnership. 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 Venaowns shares of Apple and Shopify. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple and Shopify. 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 adisclosure policy. || Washington Post Adds Support for Brave Browser, Basic Attention Token: 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 original posts on Reddit, the Washington Post recently integrated with Brave to accept contributions in BAT on its website. As such, the Post ’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, the Washington Post is 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 include Vice and the Guardian (U.K.) . The Washington Post , Vice and the Guardian are all impressive bedfellows, but the Brave browser gets around with more than just media outlets. Popular YouTube channels, such as PewDiePie , Casey Neistat and Philip DeFranco started accepting BAT back in November of 2017, and, this February, the project announced that it has enabled streamers on the popular streaming service Twitch.tv to receive user donations via Brave Payments . Founded by Mozilla Firefox creator Brendan Eich, Brave offers a cryptocurrency 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 on Bitcoin Magazine . || Here's Why Uber Conceding Defeat in Southeast Asia Matters: Uber just sold off another international segment -- this time, in Southeast Asia to regional ride-hailing service Grab.Uber's strugglesduring the last couple of years are well-documented, and while ceding operations to a rival isn't necessarily a death knell, it does underline the fact that the ride-hailing industry needs to undergo change if it's to be viable long term. Uber's ride-hailing and food-delivery business in Southeast Asia will be taken over by Singapore-based competitor Grab. In handing over the keys to its assets, Uber gets a 27.5% investment stake in Grab, which was valued at over $6 billion during its last funding round in 2017. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will also get a seat on Grab's board of directors. A typical city street in Southeast Asia, this one in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Image source: author. The eight countries Uber is exiting -- including Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam -- have fast-developing economies and are home to over 600 million people. It may appear that a valuable future market is being given up, but the company still gets to participate in those economies through its new holding in Grab. Plus, Uber and Grab are bothpartially ownedby Japan'sSoftbank(NASDAQOTH: SFTBY)and Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing. It makes sense that neither wants their two investments working against each other. This isn't the first time Uber has made a move like this. Its operations in China were sold toDidi Chuxingback in 2016 in exchange for an equity stake. In 2017, its operations in Russia and other former Soviet countries weremerged into a joint venturewith Russia'sYandexride-hailing services. Uber owns just over a third of that business. Khosrowshahi reportedly said in an email to Uber employees that the Grab deal is not indicative of looming consolidation. That note was likely to assuage fears that layoffs are coming as thelosses at Ubercontinue to mount. There will apparently be no dismissals due to this deal, although some Uber staff will transfer over to Grab. Consolidation for the ride-hailing industry may be inevitable, though. One of the ways Uber has become so big, so fast is by undercharging customers for rides. Its success has spawned myriad competitors that do the same thing. As a result, Uber and the industry as a whole struggle with profitability. Self-driving vehicles have long been touted as a panacea for the problem (not having to pay drivers is one way to keep operating costs down). But self-driving technology is likely a ways away from mainstream adoption, especially in light of Uber's tragic accident in Arizona recently. And if self-driving tech is on the verge of hitting it big, Uber isn't alone in making a push for it.Alphabet's Waymo is just one of many businesses developing advanced self-driving systems -- and it also happens to be part of a highly profitable company because of Google. Full disclosure: My bets are on Alphabet to achieve success first self-driving and ride-hailing. For investors who have been eagerly awaiting an Uber initial public offering (IPO), this last move with Grab is a reminder that the ride-hailing industry's issues may outweigh reasons for optimism. 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 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors.Nicholas Rossolilloand his clients own shares of Alphabet (A shares) and Alphabet (C shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares) and Alphabet (C shares). The Motley Fool recommends YNDX. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || These 2 Tech Stocks Have Strong Dividend Growth Potential: The technology sector isn't the ideal place for income investing because companies in this sector often carry very low yields. Tech companies usually reinvest earnings into their businesses to stay ahead of the curve, so the sector's average yield is just 1.26%. The low payout of tech stocks will discourage income investors, especially considering the volatile nature of the sector. But there are a few hidden gems that could become lucrative dividend plays in the long run, including chipmakersNVIDIA(NASDAQ: NVDA)andSkyworks Solutions(NASDAQ: SWKS). Here's why income investors should take a closer look at these two tech stocks: Image Source: Getty Images. Graphics specialist NVIDIA is known for attacking fast-growing markets such as self-driving cars, data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), and video gaming. These have helped the chipmakerrecord blistering growthof late, but when it comes to paying a dividend, NVIDIA has been miserly. The stock's dividend yield is currently just 0.25%, way below the tech sector's average. NVIDIA rivalsIntel(NASDAQ: INTC)andQualcommcarry more respectable yields of 2.6% and 3.5%, respectively. You could argue that NVIDIA is trying to play conservative because it is targeting highly competitive markets where rivals are always trying to step up their game, therefore they need capital available to invest in research and development to stay ahead of the curve. But a closer look at the company's balance sheet and recent financial performance indicates that it can easily raise its dividend to more-respectable levels. NVIDIA currently holds $7.1 billion in cash, enough to cover its total debt of $2 billion. This strong balance sheet is complemented by NVIDIA's robust free-cash-flow profile. In fiscal 2018, the company generated $2.9 billion infree cash flowand paid out just $341 million in dividends. This was almost double the free cash flow generated by the company in fiscal 2017. But it paid out only 11.7% of its free cash flow in the form of dividends. NVIDIA's dividend payout accounted for just 11% of its annual net income in fiscal 2018. By comparison, rival Intel generated $10.3 billion in free cash flow last year and paid out almost half of it ($5.1 billion) as dividends. Not surprisingly, Intel has a stronger dividend payout ratio than NVIDIA, paying out around 54% of its free cash flow. This means that NVIDIA could easily quadruple its dividend if it scales up its payout to Intel's levels. During fiscal 2018, NVIDIA's revenue shot up 41% year over year, and net income increased 83% on aGAAPbasis. Such rampant growth has boosted the graphics specialist's free cash flow by a big margin, while rival Intel struggles on this front because of a sluggish PC market. NVDA Free Cash Flow (TTM)data byYCharts. The company seems to be doing the right thing by saving money to reinvest in its business and thus counter any potential disruption in its rapid growth fromemerging threats. Still, when NVIDIA feels that it has established its domination in emerging tech trends such as AI, it could decide to return more capital to shareholders and raise its dividend substantially. Skyworks Solutions isn't as tight-fisted as NVIDIA with its dividend, but it definitely has the potential to increase the payout like its industry peer. Skyworks currently sports a dividend yield of 1.21%, which is in line with the tech sector's average. But the chipmaker paid out just 21% of its earnings in the form of dividends last fiscal year. Meanwhile, its payout as a percentage of free cash flow generated last fiscal year stood at just over 18%. Skyworks' balance sheet and recent growth clearly indicate that the company is in a great position to boost its dividend. It is debt free and is sitting on almost $1.7 billion in cash. Additionally, it delivered impressive financial growth last quarter. Skyworks' revenue increased 15% year over year in the recently reported first quarter, boosting its non-GAAP net income by 23%. Looking ahead, Skyworks can sustain this impressive momentum thanks tocatalysts such asthe Internet of Things (IoT) and smartphones. These factors could help Skyworks increase its earnings at a compound annual growth rate of 15%, according to Yahoo! Finance. A stronger earnings performance should also enhance Skyworks' free cash flow generation, which has been rising at an impressive pace. SWKS Free Cash Flow (TTM)data byYCharts. However, just like NVIDIA, Skyworks is probably holding back because of the rampant competition for IoT and smartphone chips. Rivals such asQorvoandBroadcomhave been consistently trying to cornermore of the end-market opportunitythrough their product development moves. This is why Skyworks needs to bring its A-game in these fast-growing markets. For instance, the IoT chip market is expected to clock an annual growth of 16% for the next five years, and Skyworks will definitely not want to miss out. But Skyworks' pristine balance sheet, improving cash flow profile, and strong financial growth should ensure that its dividend keeps growing. In fact, the company declared a 14% increase in its dividend in July last year, doubling NVIDIA's 7% hike in November 2017. If Skyworks keeps increasing its dividend at this impressive pace, it could turn out to be an attractive bet for income investors in the long run. So, investors looking for dividend plays in the tech sector should definitely follow NVIDIA and Skyworks Solutions even though they have been conservative with payouts. Both generate strong free cash flow and are reporting impressive revenue and earnings growth -- ideal conditions for dividend growth. 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 Harsh Chauhanhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia and Skyworks Solutions. The Motley Fool owns shares of Qualcomm. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom Ltd and Intel. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || $270,000: Brazil’s Largest Bitcoin Exchange Foxbit Down for 72 Hours, 30 BTC missing: Foxbit, Brazil’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has been down for over 72 hours, reportedly because of a bug that allowed its users to withdraw their bitcoin balances twice. The problem saw the company lose a total of 30 Bitcoins, at press time worth roughly $270,000. Through a livestream on YouTube , the company’s CEO João Canhada and COO Luís Augusto Schiavon, revealed the bug saw its users take advantage of the exchange’s withdrawal system to duplicate 130 withdrawals. After realizing what was going on, Foxbit immediately launched an emergency maintenance mode to halt withdrawals. The maintenance mode reportedly corrupted some of its service providers’ data. Per the company’s executives, data is now being restored, and Foxbit should be back up by March 14. Through a blog post , the cryptocurrency exchange informed its users that it wasn’t hacked, and linked back to two cold wallet s to show their funds were safe. In an attempt to calm its users down, Canhada and Schiavon stated (roughly translated): “All funds are protected, both in reais and in bitcoins. Several clients have already returned duplicate values and we are in touch with everyone. We have a specific fund to cover possible losses and the funds in reais are safe in our bank accounts. The platform was neither hacked nor stolen. “ While Foxbit’s CEO and COO claim some users have already returned their ill-gotten funds, it isn’t clear how much was returned. Nevertheless, Foxbit assured that the money that went missing doesn’t harm its operation, as it represents a small percentage of what it currently has. The wallets shown in its blog post have over 7,500 BTC in total. To further protect users during its downtime, the platform is set to cancel several orders so users don’t lose their balances while unable to manage their accounts. Nevertheless users watching the livestream asked whether the exchange would make it up to them, by creating a zero-fee trading period, for example. Story continues The company’s CEO and COO merely stated they were paying close attention to what was going on but didn’t go any further. Notably bitcoin is growing big in Brazil. According to CryptoCompare data, the Brazilian Real makes up 0.02% of the cryptocurrency’s daily trading volume , and the country’s police even took down a ‘digital currency’ pyramid scheme last year. As covered by CCN, Brazilian central bank president Ilan Goldfajn took a dismissive stance against bitcoin, and claimed it was a “typical bubble or pyramid [scheme].” Featured image from Shutterstock. The post $270,000: Brazil’s Largest Bitcoin Exchange Foxbit Down for 72 Hours, 30 BTC missing appeared first on CCN . || 3 Stocks That Could Put Amazon's Future Returns to Shame: Few stocks have delivered better performance over the last two decades thanAmazon. And with the internet giant's cloud segment thriving, lots of room for growth in e-commerce, and the company constantly evaluating and pursuing new opportunities to expand its global reach, Jeff Bezos' business still has plenty of promise ahead. That said, there are stocks on the market today that will go on to post even better returns. We asked three top Motley Fool investors to spotlight companies they think have the potential to trounce Amazon's future stock performance. Read on to see why they believeVertex Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ: VRTX),Proofpoint(NASDAQ: PFPT), andBaozun(NASDAQ: BZUN)have what it takes to be big winners. Keith Speights(Vertex Pharmaceuticals): As huge as Amazon is, it doesn't have anything close to a monopoly in any of its businesses. Customers can go elsewhere for any type of product or service sold by the internet giant. Contrast that with a company that's less than one-tenth its size that not only has a monopoly in its niche market for now, but is also poised to grow much faster: Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Until recently, there were only two FDA-approved cystic fibrosis (CF) treatments -- Kalydeco (ivacaftor) and Orkambi (a lumacaftor/ivacaftor combo) -- and both belonged to Vertex. That count just increased to three, and the third is also owned by Vertex. The FDA announced its approval for Symdeko, a combination of tezecaftor and ivacaftor, on Monday. Right now, around 34,000 CF patients have the gene mutations that make them responsive to Kalydeco and Orkambi. With approval of the tez/iva combo in the U.S. and Europe, and label expansions for Orkambi, Vertex should be able to increase its addressable market to 44,000. Ultimately, though, the biotech plans to be able to treat all 75,000 CF patients worldwide through triple-drug combos in development and the use of gene-editing therapies. A few other companies have CF candidates in their pipelines, but Vertex has a big head start over all of its rivals. The biotech is also expanding its focus into other rare diseases. I pointed to Vertex as one of thebest biotech stocks to buy in January, and continue to think this fast-growing company is a great pick for investors. Leo Sun(Proofpoint):Proofpoint provides a cloud-based security platform that blocks threats in emails, mobile apps, and social media accounts. It serves more than half of the Fortune 100, as well as 14 of the top 15 research universities in the world. Its services scan over 600 million emails, more than 7 million mobile apps, and hundreds of thousands of social media accounts daily. Proofpoint's market will continue expanding as the usage of emails, apps, and social media accounts rises. That's why its revenue rose 37% to $515.3 million last quarter, and analysts anticipate another 30% growth in 2018. Deferred revenue, a key indicator of future growth, jumped 47% to $381.9 million in 2017. Those figures were boosted by its acquisitions of Cloudmark (messaging security) Weblife (web browsing security) in late 2017. On the bottom line, Proofpoint's non-GAAP net income surged 149% to $42.1 million. Analysts expect that figure to rise another 39% this year. CEO Gary Steele attributed his company's strength in 2017 to its "robust add-on and renewal activity," along with an "increased penetration of the Fortune 1000". Proofpoint's stock has rallied more than 600% over the past five years, and it isn't cheap at more than 90 times forward earnings. However, the cybersecurity market today bears similarities to thee-commerce marketAmazon occupied in the late 1990s -- it's growing, but highly fragmented. Therefore, I believe that Proofpoint, with a market cap of just over $4 billion, could emerge as a major market leader over the next few years. Keith Noonan(Baozun):Like Amazon, Baozun stands to benefit from having a highly scalable business model that operates at the intersection of a variety of favorable industry and economic trends. The company's core business is providing an online retail platform for its partner brands, and it looks poised to benefit as rapid economic development expands China's middle class and paves the way for more growth in that country's red-hot e-commerce space. McKinsey & Company estimates that average household discretionary spending in the China's urban areas will have increased from $4,000 in 2010 to $8,000 in 2020, a trend that bodes well for consumer brands. The number of people living in those urban areas is expected to continue growing as well. Roughly 56% of the country's population lived in cities as of April 2017, and its government expects this figure to reach 60% in 2020. These developments will only add to the momentum behind online retail. Last quarter, the total sales volume on the company's platform increased roughly 71% year over year, and its number of brand partners grew from 127 to 146. Those are encouraging statistics, but they also leave a long runway for sales growth, and profitability is on track to improve as the company shifts away from physical order distribution in favor of simply connecting vendors with consumers. Baozun also has apartnershipwithAlibaba, China's largest e-commerce platform -- a dynamic that allows it to tap into the larger company's customer base and insulates it somewhat against competitive threats. Trading at roughly 32 times forward earnings estimates, Boazun stands out as an appealing growth stock. Its roughly $2 billion market cap means it will have an easier time delivering explosive capital appreciation than Amazon, and a confluence of macroeconomic and industry-specific growth catalysts suggest that the stock has a promising chance of making good on that potential. 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.Keith Noonanhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned.Keith Speightshas no position in any of the stocks mentioned.Leo Sunowns shares of Amazon. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool recommends Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Bitcoin? The Dollar is the Real Bubble No One Talks About http://crwd.fr/2milCcj  || $2,500.00 *ON HAND* Bitmain Antminer L3+ 504 Mh/s *Brand New* SHIPS NOW!!! #Bitcoin #Mining #Cryptocurrency http://bit.ly/2CmhUnU pic.twitter.com/2dtdrYcRNB || Check it out! Vectorize your logo or image within 6 hours https://www.fiverr.com/s2/718fce7bbd#FridayFeeling … #FlashbackFriday #Palestinians #Trump #Hamas #Iran #bitcoin #Jewdas #جمعه_الكوشوك #MakeATVShowOld #TrustAFilm #Pettis #ENGWAL #EDIvULS #C2E2 #NationalStudentAthleteDay #LogoDesign #TShirt #designer || Just a reminder... @officialmcafee https://creds.money/CreditsCryptoCurrency … #ICO #Cryptocurrency #Crowdsale #Tokens #Coins #XRP #MONERO #VERGE #Zcash #ETH #BTC @creditsenergy @devnulliuspic.twitter.com/xs4KBFxerR || Signal 38 at 2018-04-06 15:03:53 UTC #CHAT at #BINANCE Buy: 0.00001029 - 0.00001049 Current ask: 0.00001039 Target 1: 0.00001090 Target 2: 0.00001150 Target 3: 0.00001190 Type: SHORT/MID TERM #Blockchain #Bitcoin #Cryptocurrencies #Trading || Because Bcash doesn't sound like bitcoin and the entire con was built on the lie that it's actually bitcoin. || Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Calls Craig Wright a “Fraud” in Person http://tribetica.com/index.php/2018/04/03/ethereum-founder-vitalik-buterin-calls-craig-wright-a-fraud-in-person/ … #newsoftheweek #Bitcoin #blockchain #crypto #cryptocurrency #newspic.twitter.com/2J29vj5hjU || @repeople is selling his account for #Bitcoin if y'all want an acct with 17k fake followers. pic.twitter.com/JOAhlkEzeN || $2,195.00 BITMAIN Antminer S9 13.5TH/s ASIC Miner In Stock w/ free shipping BTC / BCH #Bitcoin #Mining ... http://bit.ly/2GI4Vnv pic.twitter.com/tyr4M8PWBb || #BTC: $7085.0 (-4.03%) #ETH: $386.657 (-4.01%) #XRP: $0.510743 (-5.19%) #BCH: $666.041 (-4.0%) #LTC: $121.106 (-2.53%) #EOS: $5.71769 (-4.18%) #ADA: $0.160903 (-1.38%) #XLM: $0.216169 (-6.7%) #NEO: $48.9396 (-5.77%) #MIOTA: $1.01642 (-5.51%) #blockchain #crypto
Trend: up || Prices: 7895.96, 7986.24, 8329.11, 8058.67, 7902.09, 8163.42, 8294.31, 8845.83, 8895.58, 8802.46
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)] Malware study shows people still falling for old tricks, but there’s hope: We’re still getting suckered by malware. Too many of us still fall for the old “click this attachment” email trick, and get our computers infected with malware or viruses. The result: our data is increasingly being taken hostage by ransomware creators. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Malwarebytes’ new “State of Malware Report 2017” brings that and more bad news about security to light. But a chat with one of the people behind the study offered a few reasons to be optimistic, as well. Specifically, that a lot of today’s software, if properly updated, can help protect itself. Ransomware rising Ransomware, or apps that encrypt your data and then demand you pay a ransom (usually in Bitcoin) for a decryption key, have become a big business. In fact, the malware has afflicted everything from hospital computer systems to the occasional “smart” TV to the more than 100 surveillance cameras in Washington hacked days before President Trump’s inauguration. Malwarebytes’ r eport which is largely based on data from the company’s Windows and Android anti-malware apps, helps provide some context as to how bad the ransomware problem has become. According to the report, in January 2016, ransomware constituted 18% of all malware delivered by email or through exploits of existing software. By November 2016, it had climbed to 66%, which the report labels “an unprecedented domination of the threat landscape.” The U.S. is the top target, while Russia, the home of many ransomware developers, is one of the least popular targets. Ransomware will hold your computer hostage unless you pay up. In a phone interview, Malwarebytes director of malware intelligence Adam Kujawa noted the pickiness exhibited by the two major families of ransomware, Cerber and Locky: “Both avoid any systems that appear to be coming from Russia or the surrounding countries.” Old cons come back But that’s not the depressing part of this report if you’ve been following the virus business for a while. That comes when you learn that Malwarebytes still sees a lot of malware getting on computers via in email attachments, many of which are Microsoft (MSFT) Office attachments with embedded macros whose code will attack your computer . Those techniques date back to the days of dial-up internet, when Office was much more lenient about running macros in random documents and defending against them was harder . And yet here they are again. As Kujawa put it: “Where are we, 2005?” Today’s malware spam often comes personalized for particular users and tries to fool them into thinking that clicking a button in a Word document or Excel spreadsheet will unlock it for viewing, when in reality it will start a download of malicious code that can then take over their computers. Story continues (You can read a detailed breakdown of one such attack in this December post from Sophos researcher Paul Ducklin .) Other opponents The Malwarebytes report also calls out a few other growing hazards online. One “ad fraud” malware, which can generate a decent amount of income for cybercriminals, proved nearly as popular as ransomware. Ad fraud malware commanders a victim’s computer to visit sites and click on ads placed by the authors of the malware attack or their business partners. The report further nods to the rise in “botnet” software taking over computers — including “Internet of Things” devices like connected security cameras — and using them as part of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Unlike ransomware, however, the U.S. isn’t seeing the worst of this form of malware. According to Malwarebytes, 61.2% of all botnets are found in Asia, while about 15% are found in Europe. Even your connected refrigerator can be turned against you. Interestingly, the U.S. was the leading venue for Android malware, with 12.74% of all detections happening here. But if you stick to Google’s ( GOOG ) Play Store for downloading apps — the default in the U.S. — your odds of being the victim of an attack are exceedingly low. Kujawa noted that Google does a good job of quickly yanking the occasional malware app that sneaks into its app market. He further added that Apple’s ( AAPL ) iOS, which can’t connect to alternative app sources, is even safer. Not all software is created equal While Malwarebytes’ report leaves it to the reader to figure out how to avoid being a victim of malware, Kujawa pointed out that many of these attacks can be thwarted by using current software. “A lot of these exploit kits, the vulnerabilities they target, they’ve been patched for a long time,” he said. For example, he noted one common way criminals attack people’s computers is through an Adobe ( ADBE ) Flash flaw from 2012 — but his advice for that fast-fading media plug-in remains to “disable it entirely.” (Follow Adobe’s instructions to uninstall Flash .) The operating system you run matters, too. You may feel comfortable with Windows 7 , but Kujawa called Windows 10 “a more secure operating system at the base level,” and other security researchers have come to the same conclusion . The Mac remains relatively more secure, even after incidents like last year’s brief ransomware outbreak . Said Kujawa: “Every year, we say… this is the year when Mac malware is going to be huge, and it has yet to come to fruition.” But more secure software doesn’t mean that malware authors will give up and get real jobs. They’ll just switch their attention to attacking our brains instead of our apps, trying various forms of social engineering to get us to pause our skepticism and click the wrong link just this one time, because it’s really important. More from Rob: Comcast now lets you watch cable on your Roku Study finds most people are scarred of being hacked, but don’t do much about it Why you can’t stream this year’s Oscar nominees on Netflix President Trump’s tech policy is a mystery How carriers will keep D.C. online during the inauguration What you should really know about every major hacking story Outgoing FCC chair: Don’t go backward on net neutrality Selfie drones and more fly into CES 2017 Faraday Future’s FF91: Electric speed at a vaporous price Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro . View comments || 7 ETF Areas to Hog the Limelight in 2017: As 2016 comes to a close, Brexit, Donald Trump’s win as the U.S. president and the OPEC output cut deal are clearly the highlights of the year. However, there are plenty of other events that haven’t been able to leave a mark but could prove to be game-changers next year. In view of this, we intend to highlight a few areas (and their impact on the ETF world) that are likely to draw investors’ attention in 2017. Oil The global investing world is expected to be busy analyzing the progress of the OPEC output cut deal since the start of 2017. On November 30, OPEC decided to slash production by about 1.2 million barrels a day from January for six months. Plus, on December 10, OPEC also cut their first deal with non-OPEC since 2001 to reduce output next year. The pact will likely result in “an aggregate supply cut of 1.7 million barrels a day.” Some analysts like Goldman now believe that oil can scale higher to about $60 early next year from the current $50 plus level. However, there are people who expect the deal to be not as effective as it seems now. Even if OPEC manages to be true to the deal, U.S. shale oil production will likely gain traction, bringing back oversupply into the market and weighing on oil prices. All these should keep oil ETFs like United States Oil USO, Brent crude ETF United States Brent Oil BNO and energy ETFs like Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF XLE on investors radar (read: How Effective is the OPEC Deal for an Oil ETF Rally?) Trump vs Fed Trump has raised hopes of fiscal reflation and taken stocks to a new height. If he keeps all his promises after taking presidential office and inflationary expectations continue to surge, the Fed might be able to implement the three forecasted rate hikes in 2017 (read: Sole Fed Hike of 2016 Put These ETFs in Focus). And if the Fed opts for faster rate hikes next year, bond ETFs like iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond TLT and dividend ETFs like SPDR S&P Dividend ETF SDY may face pressure. Meanwhile, ProShares High Yield—Interest Rate Hedged ETF HYHG or inverse bond ETFs like Barclays Inverse US Treasury Aggregate ETN TAPR are poised to benefit (read: Hedged & Inverse Bond ETFs to the Rescue if Rates Rise). Story continues Global Inflation Inflationary outlook is finally shoring up in developed economies, albeit slowly. Prolonged easy money policies by global central banks, the OPEC move and the Trump effect made it happen. Expectations of a spurt in global inflation are now at the highest level in over 12 years. Global TIPS ETF – PIMCO Global Advantage Inflation-Linked Bond Active ETF ILB – w ill thus be on the watch list of investors (read: Will 2017 Be a Year of Global Reflation & TIPS ETFs?). Commodity Now that’s tricky! If the greenback retains its strength, commodity investing should take a backseat as these are priced in the U.S. dollar. However, several industrial metals should do well on better demand-supply dynamics. This is especially possible given the recovery in the global manufacturing activities including the all-important China, which consumes a major portion of the global industrial metals. So, ETFs like iPath Pure Beta Aluminum ETN FOIL, iPath Pure Beta Copper ETN CUPM and iPath Bloomberg Tin SubTR ETN JJT will likely grab the spotlight. Cyber Security Cyber security breaches are on the rise of late. This has compelled companies to invest billions of dollars annually to counter such attacks. Most recently, the hack on Yahoo which revealed data from over 1 billion accounts once again stressed on the need for cybersecurity and has put First Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF CIBR and PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF HACK in focus. India India’s pro-growth political changes in 2014 had shaped it into a hot investing zone. Most economic episodes also went in favor of Asia’s third-largest economy, including a drastic fall in inflation arising from the oil price crash and an improvement in current account deficit. Moreover, due to cooling inflation, the Indian central bank (RBI) resorted to rate cuts several times in the last one and a half years. However, most recently, in order to put a check on tax evasion and counterfeit notes, high-denomination bank notes were withdrawn in India. This resulted in cash crunch and growth forecast cuts by some analysts. Fitch rating reduced India’s GDP forecast to 6.9% from the prior estimate of 7.4% for the current financial year. But then, Moody's indicated that Indian companies will likely witness “the strongest profit growth over 18 months.” Now it would be interesting to see if India ETFs like WisdomTree India Earnings ETF EPI can survive the threats from demonetization in 2017 (read: What Lies Ahead for India ETFs?). Bitcoin 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 has beaten the $800 mark for the first time since February 2014. 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. 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 ISHARS-20+YTB (TLT): ETF Research Reports US-OIL FUND LP (USO): ETF Research Reports PURFDS-ISE CYBR (HACK): ETF Research Reports US BRENT OIL FD (BNO): ETF Research Reports SPDR-EGY SELS (XLE): ETF Research Reports PIMCO-GA ILBETF (ILB): ETF Research Reports IPATH-PB ALUMNM (FOIL): ETF Research Reports SPDR-SP DIV ETF (SDY): ETF Research Reports IPATH-BB TIN (JJT): ETF Research Reports FT-NDQ CYBERSEC (CIBR): ETF Research Reports BARCLY-INV USTC (TAPR): ETF Research Reports WISDMTR-IN EARN (EPI): ETF Research Reports IPATH-PB COPPER (CUPM): ETF Research Reports PRO-HI YLD IRH (HYHG): 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 || Bitcoin dropped sharply and suddenly on more news out of China: Bitcoin tumbled by more than 4% in a matter of 15 minutes on Wednesday afterBloomberg reportedthat the People's Bank of China was meeting with several local bitcoin exchanges to discuss money-laundering concerns. Bitcoin has had a wild start to 2017 after gaining 120% in 2016 to become thetop-performing currencyfor the second year in a row. The cryptocurrency raced to a gain of 20% in the opening days of the year as speculators,mainly from China, poured in. Bitcoin then crashed 35%, however, on fears thatChina would crack downon trading, bottoming near $750 a coin. Then the cryptocurrency managed to grind higher despite news that China's three largest exchanges said they would implement a flat fee of 0.2% on all transactions. Bitcoin is now trading down 1.5% at $1,036 a coin. It's up almost 9% for 2017. (Investing.com) NOW WATCH:Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin More From Business Insider • Bitcoin is rallying for an 8th straight day • Bitcoin is back above $1,000 • Bitcoin is busting out || Here's Why Bitcoin Crashed More Than 20% Today: Bitcoin (BTC), a popular digital cryptocurrency, is on track to have one of its worst days in years after prices suddenly fell more than 20% in morning trading Thursday. While some investors think today’s action is just an adjustment after a months-long rally, others are blaming the expiration of loans from several Chinese BTC platforms for the sell-off. Today’s "Crash" Bitcoin opened the day at $1.129.87 and shortly hit an intraday high of $1,153.02 in morning trading. However, the cryptocurrency quickly dropped as low as $887.47, a plunge of more than 21%. BTC was able to rally again in the early afternoon, and prices returned above the $980 level by 1 P.M. EST. According to some Bitcoin traders on a popular Reddit forum, today’s crash could be the result of a free loan period offered by several Chinese BTC platforms coming to an end. One user pointed out that many Chinese BTC holders would have to sell their bitcoins to pay back loans that end on January 7 Beijing time. Of course, today’s sell-off could also be a value-based adjustment as BTC approached all-time highs. The currency has been on an insane run over the past several months, gaining more than 80% since October 2016. Indeed, Bitcoin traders are no strangers to volatility, and the nature of the currency lends itself to swings that we wouldn’t expect from traditional currencies. What is Bitcoin? As mentioned before, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, meaning that it is an encrypted digital currency that only exists virtually and operates independently of a central bank. Launched in January 2009, Bitcoin has grown quickly and has become a widely-accepted form of payment online (Also read: Explaining Bitcoin and Crypto Currency). Bitcoin is considered an anonymous currency because it is possible to send and receive payments without revealing any personal information. Transactions are tied to a bitcoin address, a series of numbers and letters. All transactions are stored in the so-called blockchain, which records and verifies transactions. Story continues This blockchain is operated by a network of “miners” that monitor and validate transactions. In return, miners receive newly issued bitcoins. Bottom Line Trading bitcoins can be a test of one’s patience and determination. One of the most fascinating things about the currency is its legion of loyal long-term holders, and these folks are likely to overlook one-day crashes. Nevertheless, today’s sell-off underscores the volatility that keeps a lot of investors away from BTC. Long-Term Buys You Won't See in the News The stocks you see in today's headlines may not be in the news tomorrow or next week. If you're looking for profitable long-term investments, you may be interested to see what Zacks Research is recommending to our private members. These moves have double and triple-digit profit potential. Starting now, you can look inside our stocks under $10, home run and value stock portfolios, plus more. Want a peek at this exclusive information? Click here>> 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 || Bitcoin is having trouble getting through $900: Bitcoin holds little changed near $891 a coin as of 7:02 a.m. ET. The cryptocurrency is contending with resistance in the $900 area for the third straight session. Bitcoin raced to more than $916 on Tuesday but was unable to break out above the early-January resistance level. Bitcoin has gotten off to a wild start in 2017. Buying in the opening days of the year lifted its price more than 20% and above $1,000 for the first time since November 2013. However, rumblings about a crackdown on trading in China have caused jitters as of late. Beijing announced it had begun investigating bitcoin exchanges in Beijing and Shanghai on suspicion of market manipulation, money laundering, unauthorized financing, and other issues. The price crashed 35% to nearly $750 before finding support and working its way back up to resistance in the $900 area. Thursday's action has to alleviate some concerns regarding the trading environment in China as Beijing announced it was tightening capital controls even further . While the rules were aimed at outbound investments by centrally-controlled state firms, it is still notable that bitcoin has so far been spared. In a note to clients on Wednesday, Deutsche Bank's Torsten Sløk showed how China dominates the global bitcoin market , accounting for nearly 100% of the trading. Bitcoin (Investing.com) NOW WATCH: Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin More From Business Insider Bitcoin is soaring Bitcoin is making a comeback Bitcoin is charging higher || 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) || '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 sectorreported earningsThursday. Intel reported earningsof 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 earningsestimates 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 || Endurance Specialty Unveils New Cyber Extortion Coverage: Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. ENH recently launched a new service that will help policyholders to better respond to cases of cyber ransom and extortion. The newly introduced service as it will be substantially value additive to the insurer’s innovative products and services portfolio. The property and casualty (P&C) insurer is optimistic about the service, which should boost its cyber response capabilities. Notably, Mullen Coughlin LLC, a leading incident response services provider and also the Endurance Specialty’s Breach Assist Counsel, has been helping the insurer’s clients in dealing with cyber breach or other data security incident. This apart, computer forensic company Kivu Consulting, which has already been offering computer forensic investigation services, will now provide extortion response services. Both these companies have efficient and expert teams and specialize in providing guidance to ransomware victims to help them better respond to malicious attacks, including arranging for payment in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency. Moreover, the teams analyze and test decryption keys to ensure security of the clients’ network. Shares of Endurance Specialty gained 38.43% in the last six months, significantly outperforming the Property and Casualty  industry’s growth of 9.19%. The new service will help policyholders to avoid disruption in their business operations and cement shareholders' confidence on the stock, leading to further share price movement. We note that strategic initiatives like these have improved the Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) P&C insurer’s organic portfolio as well as accelerated growth. Stocks to Consider Some better-ranked stocks from the same space include Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited AHL, Cincinnati Financial Corporation CINF and Mercury General Corporation MCY. Each of these stocks sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here . Story continues Aspen Insurance Holdings deals in insurance and reinsurance businesses worldwide. The company delivered positive surprise in one of the last four quarters, but with an average miss of 15.48%. Cincinnati Financial engages in the P&C insurance business in the United States. The company delivered positive surprises in all of the last four quarters with an average beat of 11.82%. Mercury General deals in writing personal automobile insurance in the United States. The company delivered positive surprises in two of the last four quarters, but with an average miss of 21.04%. Zacks' Top 10 Stocks for 2017 In addition to the stocks discussed above, would you like to know about our 10 finest buy-and-hold tickers for the entirety of 2017? Who wouldn't? As of early December, the 2016 Top 10 produced 5 double-digit winners including oil and natural gas giant Pioneer Natural Resources which racked up a stellar +50% gain. The new list is painstakingly hand-picked from 4,400 companies covered by the Zacks Rank. Be among the very first to see it>> 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 Cincinnati Financial Corp. (CINF): Free Stock Analysis Report Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. (ENH): Free Stock Analysis Report Mercury General Corp. (MCY): Free Stock Analysis Report Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. (AHL): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. || STOCKS GO NOWHERE: Here's what you need to know: (Scott Olson/Getty Images) Stocks did virtually nothing as skeleton crews returned after the Christmas holiday. All of the major indices managed to scrape into the green, but still finished little changed. The Nasdaq closed at an all-time high. And now, for the scoreboard: • Dow:19,945.04, +11.23, (0.06%) • S&P 500:2,268.88, +5.09, (0.22%) • Nasdaq:5,487.44, +24.75, (0.45%) • US 10-year yield:+2.4 basis points at 2.561% 1.Bitcoin soars. The cryptocurrency rallied 4% to $935, its best level in three years. Bitcoin has gained about 30% since the US election. 2.Consumer confidence jumps to its best level since August 2001. Monthly data released by the Conference Board showed the Consumer Confidence Index hit 113.7 in December, its highest level since July 2007. Increasing expectations for the future were the sole reason for the move. 3.US home prices hit a post-financial crisis high. Home prices gained 5.6% annually in October, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. The biggest gains were seen in Seattle, Denver, and Portland. ADDITIONALLY: The most important driver of the stock market will change in 2017 Bailing out the world's oldest bank is getting more expensive Vietnam could be 'sowing the seeds of the next crisis 'The market will correctly judge his administration on policy, not 3 a.m. tweets' The Fed has given Trump cover to unwind a key Wall Street rule NOW WATCH:Watch Yellen explain why the Federal Reserve decides to raise rates More From Business Insider • 'Star Wars' actress Carrie Fisher is dead at 60 • The death of Queen Elizabeth will be the most disruptive event in Britain in the last 70 years • STOCKS DO NOTHING: Here's what you need to know || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Skating on a river (People skate on the frozen Doubs river at the Swiss - French border in Les Brenets, Switzerland.Reuters/Denis Balibouse) Here is what you need to know. Stock markets all over the world are opening 2017 with a bang . China's Shanghai Composite (+1%) paced the gains in Asia and Italy's MIB (+1.7%) leads the advance in Europe. Here in the US, the Dow is on track to open higher by 0.9% near 19,932. The dollar is flying. The US dollar index is higher by 0.6% at 103.39, and on track to close at its best level since the end of 2002. The greenback is higher against all of its major peers with its biggest gains coming against the euro (+0.8%). Bonds are getting crushed. Heavy selling has yields across the Treasury curve up about 6 basis points apiece with the 10-year reaching 2.51%. Selling isn't limited to just the US, as yields are also screaming higher across Europe, where the UK 10-year is up 9 bps at 1.33%. Crude oil soars to an 18-month high . West Texas Intermediate crude oil trades up 2.3% at $54.93 per barrel following confirmation both Kuwait and Oman have lived up to their promises to cut production, Bloomberg reports. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, is higher by 2.2% at $58.08 per barrel. Bitcoin is above $1,000 . The cryptocurrency trades up 0.8% at $1,020 per coin after crossing the $1,000 mark for the first time since 2013 on Monday. China is tightening control of capital . Beijing announced new rules aimed at slowing the flow of capital out of China. The measures include requiring citizens taking money out of the country to pledge it won't be used to buy property overseas and calling on banks to report any overseas transactions valued at $10,000 or more, Reuters says. State-run media organization Xinhua has denied the measures are capital controls. UK manufacturing is booming . Markit UK Manufacturing PMI hit 56.1 in December, making for the best print in 30 months. "The UK manufacturing sector starts 2017 on a strong footing. The headline PMI hit a two-and-ahalf year high in December, with rates of expansion in output and new orders among the fastest seen during the survey’s 25-year history," wrote Rob Dobson, senior economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey. The British pound is little changed near 1.2275 versus the dollar. Story continues 2017 could be a busy year for tech IPOs . Blue Apron, Dropbox, Snap, and Spotify are among the tech startups that are candidates to go public this year. Cantor Fitzgerald hires Anshu Jain . Cantor has named Jain president about one and a half years after he resigned as co-CEO of Deutsche Bank following a series of regulatory troubles. Twitter's China boss is out . Kathy Chen has quit after eight months on the job, Reuters reports. In a tweet announcing her departure, Chen wrote, " Now that the Twitter APAC team is working directly with Chinese advertisers, this is the right time for me to leave the company." US economic data flows. Markit manufacturing PMI will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET before both ISM Manufacturing and construction spending cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET. More From Business Insider A surprising factor in the extinction of the dinosaurs may have been how long their eggs took to hatch I've owned an Amazon Echo for over a year now — here are my 19 favorite features Finland just launched an experiment giving 2,000 people free money until 2019 [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #Bitcoin Ultima: R$ 2893.12 Alta: R$ 2913.00 Baixa: R$ 2805.00 Fonte: Foxbit || Emerging market debt investing and related advisory services. bitcoin double multiply . http://ow.ly/SxG43092Zoz  || Airbnb Hire of ChangeTip Staff Sparks New Interest in Bitcoin and Blockchain for IoT - http://www.bitcoinsahoy.com/airbnb-hire-of-changetip-staff-sparks-new-interest-in-bitcoin-and-blockchain-for-iot/ … || １．CoinCheckでBitCoin(ビットコイン)を購入 ２．Right Riseで運用して毎日1-3%配当金 ブログはこちら http://g-blog.hatenablog.jp/entry/2017/01/20/172042 … || Why Bigger Might Not Be Better For Bitcoin Scaling http://dlvr.it/NP4XC9 pic.twitter.com/ucwrFTxcM5 || put high interest rates for our customers. bitcoin double multiply . http://ow.ly/pXpS3092WIr  || Yes! You can #Bet with #Bitcoin - Start #BitcoinBetting Now http://btf.st/Cloudbet pic.twitter.com/d5034gkToe || $961.11 #bitfinex; $958.84 #bitstamp; $949.44 #GDAX; $929.00 #btce; $957.64 #gemini; $959.12 #itBit; #bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse  || Coin.mx Bitcoin Exchange Trial Begins in New York http://ift.tt/2lWAjzR pic.twitter.com/vW95N2lQHi || The average price of Bitcoin across all exchanges is 1034.85 USD
Trend: up || Prices: 1047.87, 1079.98, 1115.30, 1117.44, 1166.72, 1173.68, 1143.84, 1165.20, 1179.97, 1179.97
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)] STOCKS HIT ALL-TIME HIGHS: Here's what you need to know: (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Stocks touched all-time highs on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said he would release his plan to reform the tax system in the next few weeks. Although they back-tracked on some of their gains near the end of the trading day, all three major indices still finished in the green. First up, the scoreboard: • Dow:20,172.40, +118.06, (+0.59%) • S&P 500:2,307.87, +13.20, (+0.58%) • Nasdaq:5,715.18, +32.73, (0.58%) • US 10-year yield:2.397%, +0.057 • WTI Crude:$53.09 per barrel, +0.75, +1.34% 1.US President Donald Trump said that in the new few weeks he will release his plan to reform the US tax system. "We're going to be announcing something over the next, I would say, two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax," Trump said at a meeting with airline executives on Thursday. He added that he is "lowering the overall tax burden on American businesses, big league." 2.The Bank of Mexico hiked rates by 50 basis points to 6.25% in its latest interest-rate decision. In the accompanying statement, the bank noted that emerging markets were facing greater uncertainty regarding fiscal, commercial, and migration policies under consideration by the new US administration. 3.Airline stocks rallied after Trump promised to fix the "out of whack" air traffic control system. American Airlines was up by over 3%, Southwest was up by 2.7%, JetBlue was up by 3.6%, United Continental was up by 1.7%, and Delta was up by 2.9%. 4.Twitter's stock tanked after the company warned its revenue growth would continue to "lag" its recent spike in users. Its stock was down by 10.6% in premarket trading on Thursday. 5.Bitcoin tanked after Chinese exchanges announced they were blocking customers from withdrawing their bitcoins. The cryptocurrency was down by 9.6% around 9:30 a.m. ET.Thursday's announcements are notable becausenearly 100% of all bitcoin transactionstake place on Chinese exchanges. 6.New York City landlords have never been this aggressive about filling up vacant apartments.In January, concessions like a month of free rent and brand-new appliances rose to a record high in both Manhattan and Brooklyn, according to the real-estate appraiserDouglas Elliman. Concessions hit new highs for a fourth straight month, and the share of new leases with such giveaways was above 30% for the first time. 7.Yum Brands whiffed on sales as fewer people eat at Pizza Hut.Yum Brands Inc, the owner of KFC and Taco Bell, reported a lower-than-expected rise in quarterly sales at established restaurants worldwide as fewer diners ate at its Pizza Hut chain. 8.Initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell.Claims,which provide a weekly count of the number of people who applied for unemployment insurance for the first time, fell to 234,000.Moreover, the four-week moving average came in at 244,250, which is the lowest level since November 3, 1973 when it was 244,000. Additionally: One chart shows just how devastating healthcare costs are for American families. Here's one name Trump will hear when he looks to replace Janet Yellen as Fed chair. Trump's plan to make Wall Street unregulated again won't go unchallenged. This is how you know something desperate is going on in China's economy. Top Bridgewater exec explains how its intense, unique culture helped the world's largest hedge fund make $50 billion. Be very afraid of the stock market, argues Business Insider's Linette Lopez. Here's how many people in every state don't have health insurance. NOW WATCH:Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin More From Business Insider • 20 must-have tech accessories under $20 • Kellyanne Conway encourages Americans to 'go buy Ivanka's stuff,' potentially violating ethics rules • These 13 online classes will help you learn something new in 2017 — and they’re all $10 || Bitcoin is trying to make a comeback: (Markets Insider) Bitcoin is off the lowest levels of its plunge on Thursday, which was the worst in two years. The cryptocurrency was down 13% to about $985.68 per coin as of 11:10 a.m. ET on Thursday. It earlier fell by about 20%. Earlier this week, on its first trading day of the new year, bitcoin crossed above the $1,000 mark for the first time since 2013, but it has now tumbled below that level. From the end of September through Wednesday — just before the plunge — bitcoin gained nearly 100%. It was supported by renewed interest from China, where money rushed out of the country as its currency, the yuan, continued to weaken. But on Thursday the yuan witnessed its biggest two-day rise since record keeping began in 2010. This happened amid the government's efforts to stop outflows from the country and after overnight borrowing costs in Hong Kong surged to a record as high as 100%. That squeezed investors who had bet that the currency would fall. The yuan's rise is also pressuring the US dollar, which fell against other major currencies. NOW WATCH:Watch Yellen explain why the Federal Reserve decides to raise rates More From Business Insider • Bitcoin is going bananas • A former investment banker has condensed an entire MBA into one online course • China is behind the latest bitcoin craze || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (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 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. [nL8N1G85HI] 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) || 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 || Traders reexamine Nvidia after analyst downgrade: One "Fast Money" trader said he has not lost faith in Nvidia's ( NVDA ) stock, d espite a downgrade from Nomura analysts and a 9 percent tumble on Thursday. Trader Guy Adami said he likes the graphics chipmaker, because the company is pivoting from gaming to autonomous cars and will become a leader in the space. Trader Pete Najarian said he prefers Intel ( INTC ) , which he says is a competitor in the artificial intelligence and data center arenas that Nvidia is trying to grow into. He said he would buy Nvidia at $90, a level slightly below the stock's Thursday close of $100.49. Shares of Nvidia have skyrocketed 218 percent in the last 12 months. Disclosures: Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV Pete Najarian owns calls: AAL, AMJ, AKS, BVN, BZH, C, CCL, CSCO, CHK, CLF COP, CRM, ETP, GE, GDX, GLD, GILD, IBN, INTC, JBLU, HUM, HMY, KORS, KMB, MT, MTW, ORCL, P, PAA, POT, RIO, SVU, SV, UAL, UNP, WFT, WLL, WY, WLC, GLD, UUP, ZIOP LONG: AAPL, BAC, BLL, DLTR, DIS, EBAY, GILD, GM, HAIN, HD, HUM, IBM, INTC, JWN, K, KMI.A, KO, KORS, LUX, MOS, MSFT, MRK, MRVL, RW, RHT. Puts: PJC Dan Nathan is long XLV March put spread, SPY May put spread, VIX march call spread || STOCKS HIT ALL-TIME HIGHS: Here's what you need to know: opera singer (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Stocks touched all-time highs on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said he would release his plan to reform the tax system in the next few weeks. Although they back-tracked on some of their gains near the end of the trading day, all three major indices still finished in the green. First up, the scoreboard: Dow: 20,172.40, +118.06, (+0.59%) S&P 500: 2,307.87, +13.20, (+0.58%) Nasdaq: 5,715.18, +32.73, (0.58%) US 10-year yield: 2.397%, +0.057 WTI Crude: $53.09 per barrel, +0.75, +1.34% 1. US President Donald Trump said that in the new few weeks he will release his plan to reform the US tax system . "We're going to be announcing something over the next, I would say, two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax," Trump said at a meeting with airline executives on Thursday. He added that he is "lowering the overall tax burden on American businesses, big league." 2. The Bank of Mexico hiked rates by 50 basis points to 6.25% in its latest interest-rate decision . In the accompanying statement, the bank noted that emerging markets were facing greater uncertainty regarding fiscal, commercial, and migration policies under consideration by the new US administration. 3. Airline stocks rallied after Trump promised to fix the "out of whack" air traffic control system . American Airlines was up by over 3%, Southwest was up by 2.7%, JetBlue was up by 3.6%, United Continental was up by 1.7%, and Delta was up by 2.9%. 4. Twitter's stock tanked after the company warned its revenue growth would continue to "lag" its recent spike in users . Its stock was down by 10.6% in premarket trading on Thursday. 5. Bitcoin tanked after Chinese exchanges announced they were blocking customers from withdrawing their bitcoins . The cryptocurrency was down by 9.6% around 9:30 a.m. ET. Thursday's announcements are notable because nearly 100% of all bitcoin transactions take place on Chinese exchanges. 6. New York City landlords have never been this aggressive about filling up vacant apartments . In January, concessions like a month of free rent and brand-new appliances rose to a record high in both Manhattan and Brooklyn, according to the real-estate appraiser Douglas Elliman . Concessions hit new highs for a fourth straight month, and the share of new leases with such giveaways was above 30% for the first time. Story continues 7. Yum Brands whiffed on sales as fewer people eat at Pizza Hut . Yum Brands Inc, the owner of KFC and Taco Bell, reported a lower-than-expected rise in quarterly sales at established restaurants worldwide as fewer diners ate at its Pizza Hut chain. 8. Initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell . Claims, which provide a weekly count of the number of people who applied for unemployment insurance for the first time, fell to 234,000. Moreover, the four-week moving average came in at 244,250, which is the lowest level since November 3, 1973 when it was 244,000. Additionally: One chart shows just how devastating healthcare costs are for American families . Here's one name Trump will hear when he looks to replace Janet Yellen as Fed chair . Trump's plan to make Wall Street unregulated again won't go unchallenged . This is how you know something desperate is going on in China's economy . Top Bridgewater exec explains how its intense, unique culture helped the world's largest hedge fund make $50 billion . Be very afraid of the stock market, argues Business Insider's Linette Lopez . Here's how many people in every state don't have health insurance . NOW WATCH: Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin More From Business Insider 20 must-have tech accessories under $20 Kellyanne Conway encourages Americans to 'go buy Ivanka's stuff,' potentially violating ethics rules These 13 online classes will help you learn something new in 2017 — and they’re all $10 || Bitcoin dropped sharply and suddenly on more news out of China: Bitcoin tumbled by more than 4% in a matter of 15 minutes on Wednesday after Bloomberg reported that the People's Bank of China was meeting with several local bitcoin exchanges to discuss money-laundering concerns. Bitcoin has had a wild start to 2017 after gaining 120% in 2016 to become the top-performing currency for the second year in a row. The cryptocurrency raced to a gain of 20% in the opening days of the year as speculators, mainly from China , poured in. Bitcoin then crashed 35%, however, on fears that China would crack down on trading, bottoming near $750 a coin. Then the cryptocurrency managed to grind higher despite news that China's three largest exchanges said they would implement a flat fee of 0.2% on all transactions. Bitcoin is now trading down 1.5% at $1,036 a coin. It's up almost 9% for 2017. Bitcoin (Investing.com) NOW WATCH: Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin More From Business Insider Bitcoin is rallying for an 8th straight day Bitcoin is back above $1,000 Bitcoin is busting out || A startup somehow bundled 3 of the buzziest areas of finance into a single hedge fund: (LendingRobot CEO Emmanuel MarotLending Robot) What would happen if you put three of the buzziest areas of finance—roboadvising, blockchain, and peer-to-peer lending—together? LendingRobot Series, that's what. The new robo-hedge fund, which combines cloud-based automation with machine learning technology, was launched on January 26 by LendingRobot, an alternative lending roboadviser based in Seattle, Washington. It's an extension of LendingRobot Classic, which automates management of existing peer-to-peer accounts, and has $120 million in assets. Instead of putting money into typical assets such as stocks, bonds, and commodities, LendingRobot Series provides "accredited investors" a platform to invest in business, consumer, and real-estate loans across various peer-to-peer origination platforms, includingLending Club,Prosper, andFunding Circle. These investments can yield 8% to 10% returns, according to LendingRobot. Investors on LendingRobot pick from one of four investment preferences or "Series," based on their appetite for risk: Short Term Aggressive, Long Term Aggressive, Short Term Conservative, and Long Term Conservative. The firm manages all of its clients' investments using algorithms, rather than human money managers. This allows them to charge much lower fees compared to human-run funds. LendingRobot Series doesn't take a cut for performance. The fund charges a management fee of 1% and caps fund expenses at 0.59%. And the firm usesblockchain, the technology behind the bitcoin currency, to allow investors to view their investments every week. (LendingRobot Series uses blockchain technology to ensure transparency and trust.BTC Keychain) "Unlike traditional hedge funds, they can see everything,"LendingRobot CEO Emmanuel Marot told Business Insider. "We're not just asking them to trust us blindly," he said. The public ledger allows the firm's clients to see all the notes in which the Series has invested, the current value of those notes, and the amount of money that has been paid back on those notes. The ledger is published under a hash code, which prohibits LendingRobot Series from changing anything. "We can't fudge the numbers to give investors a different impression of what's going on, because it would change the entire hashcode in the blockchain, which would invalidate it," said Marot. When asked if he foresees traditional hedge funds implementing some of the capabilities LendingRobot Series is utilizing to stay competitiveamid a number of industry pressures, Marot told Business Insider that there was no question. "They have to change in order to adapt," he said. "If they don't, then they could potentially face the same fate as travel agencies, for instance, when companies like Expedia entered the market." "No one fifteen years ago would have thought travel agencies were going anywhere, and now look where they are today," he added. NOW WATCH:A $2.5 trillion asset manager just put a statue of a defiant girl in front of the Wall Street bull More From Business Insider • A London startup building a contactless bitcoin card has raised £2.5 million • Vivienne Westwood's renewable energy crowdfunding site is shutting down • Some of the UK's hottest fintech startups went down on Sunday — here's why || Bitcoin is becoming the new gold: Bitcoin, the digital asset that many skeptics still dismiss as a scam, was the best-performing currency of 2016. It began the year just above $400 and rose more than 80% to close the year near $1,000. In the same time, the Brazilian real rose 25%, the Russian ruble rose 21%, and gold rose just 9%. [UPDATE, Mar. 2, 2017: And now the price of one bitcoin has matched the price of one troy ounce of gold for the first time.] The digital coin continued its surge in the first few days of 2017, clearing $1,000 and then, on Jan. 4, clearing its all-time peak price of $1,137, hit in November 2013. Bitcoin’s market cap reached an all-time high of $18.4 billion. Jan. 3 marked exactly eight years since the first bitcoin block, the “genesis block,” was mined. On Jan. 5, following a stunning surge, bitcoin sank back down to the mid $900s, a reminder of its volatility. (As a user on theReddit bitcoin forumwrote, “With bitcoin, you kind of have to get used to these types of situations.”) Discounting that mini-crash for a moment, here are some more staggering numbers from the recent peak: Bitcoin is up 50% in the past month, 165% in the past 12 months, and 743% since the start of 2013. If you had bought one bitcoin just two years ago, at $280, and let it sit, you would have made almost $900 now. So: Why did bitcoin soar at the end of 2016, and, looking forward, can it keep flying in 2017? When the bitcoin price rises, people like to point to a few different reasons: China (a falling yuan, leading to bitcoin buying); tightened capital controls in foreign countries; uncertainty in mainstream global markets; or, lately, bitcoin scarcity. There’s healthy debate over which was the biggest factor in 2016. And of course, another argument is that the election of Donald Trump helped, and is continuing to help. The yuan fell 6% against the US dollar in the past year, hitting its lowest point since 2008. China’s foreign exchange reserves are expected to keep shrinking in 2017. It’s clear that as a result, many Chinese investors have turned to bitcoin: trading activity of bitcoin in the yuan is up more than 60% in the past 30 days, according tobitcoinity charts. More than 90% of all bitcoin activity globally, in fact, is coming from China. Meanwhile, thePeople’s Bank of China cracked downwith stricter capital controls in 2016,as have Venezuela(wherethe bolivar is plummeting) and India (where there werefears last month of a run on the banks). The prevailing wisdom is that investors seek safe haven in bitcoin when their own governments crack down or simply when there is general uncertainty, because it is uncorrelated to the global market—its success is not tied to mainstream equities. (Bitcoin saw a rise in activityin Greece during its bank shutdown in 2015andin Europe after the Brexit vote last year.) And bitcoin is up 40% since the US election, leading many to cite the uncertainty of the incoming Trump administration as a boon to bitcoin. Bitcoin does thrive during times of uncertainty, but not only at those times—it can also thrive when the market is good. And while there is definite uncertainty about Trump’s policies, Wall Street isn’t acting very uncertain: US markets have flourished since the election. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is rushing toward 20,000 points. Bitcoin can fly along with it, and has. In July,the reward that bitcoin miners receive for recording bitcoin transactions on the bitcoin blockchain was halvedfor the second time in bitcoin’s history. In a nutshell: all bitcoin transactions are recorded onthe bitcoin blockchain, a decentralized, permissionless, tamper-proof ledger; miners record the transactions in bundles called “blocks” and receive a small reward (in bitcoin, of course) for mining. This process also creates new bitcoins. Miners used to earn 25 bitcoins per block mined, but since July, they only get 12.5, and that brought the annual creation of new bitcoins down from 9% to about 4%. Because there are fewer new bitcoins being created, it’s possible that speculative investment has heated up in response. On the other hand, the bitcoin price didn’t move much in the few days after the halving, so it’s hard to think supply is a major factor in the current ride. Nick Tomaino, who spent three years in business development at leading bitcoin wallet company Coinbase and now works at venture firm Runa Capital, thinks bitcoin’s ride in 2016 is a lot simpler than all that. He points to Lindy’s Law, which suggests that the total life expectancy of a fledgling technology is lengthened for every year that it continues to survive. Translation: the longer bitcoin is around, the more likely it is to stay, and the more investors take it seriously. “The rest is noise,” Tomaino says of the other popular explanations for the price hike. “We just had the 8-year anniversary of Bitcoin, and in my opinion it’s stronger than ever.” Bitcoin believers like to talk about the increasing acceptance of bitcoin for payment (you can now pay in bitcoin at places like Overstock.com and Expedia) but it has been greatly exaggerated. The average person still has no real incentive to pay for something in bitcoin. Instead, as Tomainowrites in a blog post, “The primary use case for bitcoin remains the store of value/speculative asset use case.” That sounds a lot like the traditional appeal of gold: a store of value, with some scarcity to it. Bitcoin has long been called a gold for the digital age (New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper titled his bitcoin book “Digital Gold“), and while many peoplelike to dismissthe idea, bitcoin is beginning to deserve the comparison. At its price peak on Wednesday,bitcoin came within $30 of the average spot price of gold. More and more investors (and not just those on some kind of perceived fringe) are seeing the appeal of bitcoin as a speculative investment—even if they don’t understand it or theblockchain technologythat underlies it. For some, it may even be more appealing than gold, thanks to the ability to send it instantly and with very low fee. And the longer it survives, despite volatility,occasional hacks of bitcoin exchanges, andcontinued hype about blockchains for banking, the more likely it is to keep rising. — Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite. Read more: Expect more blockchain hype in 2017 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 || Why bitcoin will surge to $25,000: ByYves 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. 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. 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. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] There's a certain thrill involved in facing your fears and onc... More for Aries http://bit.ly/zzEL3G  || X-Binary 開設から45日目 投資額　$102.18(複利運用中） ROI: 80% 総回収額　$82.34 最終引き出し日 2/13($3.00) 日利２％　100日間平日のみ　合計200% ドメイン有効期限：2021/9/20　国：ブラジル #hyip #bitcoin || Oleg Andreev: "Bitcoin scales pretty well." http://dlvr.it/NPGHp5  #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YOzQgG6VDC || 2017-01-21 00:00 1 BTC son: 5.179.665Gs. #btc #gs #pyg #bitcoin #paraguay #guaranies || #bitcoin #miner 2 Cointerra Terraminer Bitcoin Miner ASIC Machine - Pick Up only $199.00 http://ift.tt/2kIgn7B pic.twitter.com/IMbNWEfj9e || RT: Forget about Bitcoin. Invest in gold to stay financially secure https://www.techinasia.com/hello-gold-trading-app-marketplace …pic.twitter.com/GDES1O0Zmb || O volume de transação do #Bitcoin em 2017 explodiu para US$ 260 milhões por dia - ou US$… http://guiadobitcoin.com.br/os-volumes-de-transacoes-de-bitcoin-batem-recordes-e-crescem-55-em-2017/ …pic.twitter.com/TRE5Jy8apf || #Bitcoin price right now: USD$887.00 || ¿Cómo funciona #Bitcoin? -- http://bitcoingrrss.blogspot.com/2017/01/como-f … #InfoBitcoinpic.twitter.com/4inlXUHBgb || $929.00 #bitfinex; $955.00 #bitstamp; $979.96 #GDAX; $947.83 #btce; $940.84 #itBit; $940.00 #kraken; #bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse 
Trend: down || Prices: 1272.83, 1223.54, 1150.00, 1188.49, 1116.72, 1175.83, 1221.38, 1231.92, 1240.00, 1249.61
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)] Life Clips Subsidiary BelfricsBT And KPR Info Solution Sign MoU With Chennai City Football Club To Launch Groundbreaking Hybrid Blockchain Solution For NFTs And Club Tokens: NFT on the Blockchain to disrupt India’s $796 million sports industry, as well as the global sports ecosystem AVENTURA, Fla. and CHENNAI, India, Dec. 23, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Life Clips, Inc. (OTC Pink: LCLP) (the “Company”), announced today that BelfricsBT, one of the fastest growing blockchain platforms of India, has signed an MoU with Chennai City Football Club and KPR Info Solution to develop a first-of-its-kind hybrid blockchain solution for athletes and club management. BelfricsBT will work closely with Chennai City Football Club pairing its knowledge of the technology with the Club’s vision to shape a unique NFT product. Chennai City Football Club will be the first adopter of the solution. The solution will allow Clubs to control the creation of NFTs based upon their branding and players and own the revenue stream they generate. BelfricsBT plans to work closely with KPR Info Solution, the technology development entity of KPR Group, as a non-exclusive technology partner for the development of this innovative blockchain solution. This hybrid blockchain based solution for sports utilizes NFTs and Club tokens to bring all the stake holders of the game on to a single decentralized platform. Speaking on this unique initiative, Praveen Kumar, Founder & CEO Belfrics Group, said, “The disruption in the sports industry with the help of blockchain solutions is opening up multiple revenue streams for Sports Clubs across the world. This solution will allow sports and club management to create and control digital assets, improving the player effectiveness and club's operations and revenue. Sports clubs have seen a tremendous rise in India over the past 5 years with billion-dollar leagues in Football, Cricket, and Kabaddi. The global sports ecosystem open for blockchain adoption is valued at $22 Billion as of 2021 of which India has a market share that is worth $796 Million. We are looking at disrupting this sector with the help of our innovative blockchain solution.” Mr. Kumar continued, “This would be our first blockchain project with our partners KPR Solutions. Going forward, we intend to work with them and develop multiple such projects across all sports categories.” Gowrish Subramanian, CEO of KPR Info Solution said, “KPR Info Solution is happy to partner with BelfricsBT in developing blockchain projects, especially in the sports industry, which has numerous opportunities. We aim to be an integral technology compeer in the future for BelfricsBT.” Rohit Ramesh, CEO and Owner of the Chennai City Football Club said, “We are delighted to be associated with Belfrics and KPR for this unique opportunity. As a club, the influence of NFTs and fan tokens provides us a wider spectrum to look beyond and to create a better valuation for our players in various categories, as well as the Chennai City Football Club.” Story continues Robert Grinberg, CEO and President of Life Clips, Inc. said, "Over the next several years, the emerging digital ecosystem that is the metaverse is going to become more and more commonplace in daily life. According to a recent article in Forbes, if Ether, Bitcoin and other cryptos are the money of the metaverse, then NFTs represent the stuff that fills up the metaverse. The trading volume of NFTs is estimated to surpass $24 billion, up from only $0.1 billion last year." Mr. Grinberg continued, "This Hybrid blockchain solution of NFTs and Club tokens by BelfricsBT and KPR Info Solution is truly a landmark transaction. As of today, I am officially a big fan of the Chennai City Football Club." About Us Life Clips is the parent company of Belfrics Global and Cognitive Apps Software Solutions Inc. Belfrics Global is a Malaysian based blockchain provider and cryptocurrency exchange and platform that is licensed and regulated by Labuan Financial Services Authority (LFSA), Malaysia. With 10 operational offices in 8 countries, Belfrics’ multi-feature trading platform offers digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and crypto derivative contracts to its clients. Belfrics blockchain has been recognized by Gartner as being a top 10 blockchain in terms of real-world projects and has received a patent for its Belrium KYC verification System (BKVS) by the Nigerian patent authority. Cognitive Apps is disrupting the space of mental health with its speech-based, AI-powered mental health analytics platform that empowers businesses to measure, understand, and improve the mental well-being of their employees, patients, and customers. Aiki delivers CBT and IPT therapies using a chatbot which and includes the Yuru voice analysis solution that takes in other health data from Apple and Google HealthKit to make a more accurate analysis of one’s mental health. Aiki was developed to capitalize on the trend towards artificial intelligence platforms utilized by employers to raise awareness of employees’ mental health. Cognitive Apps’ Yuru is a 3-in-1 tool developed by a team of licensed psychotherapists that makes use of vocal biomarkers to screen for early signs of mental health conditions, such as stress and depression. Yuru is available on Apple‘s App Store. For more information on Life Clips visit www.lifeclips.com For more information on Belfrics Global visit www.belfricsgroup.com For more information on Cognitive Apps Software Solutions visit https://cogapps.com Forward-Looking Statement Disclaimer This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements may be preceded by the words “intends,” “may,” “will,” “plans,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “projects,” “predicts,” “estimates,” “aims,” “believes,” “hopes,” “potential” or similar words. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's control, and cannot be predicted or quantified and consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements: (i) the initiation, timing, progress and results of the Company’s research, manufacturing and other development efforts; (ii) the Company’s ability to advance its products to successfully complete development and commercialization; (iii) the manufacturing, development, commercialization, and market acceptance of the Company’s products; (iv) the lack of sufficient funding to finance the product development and business operations; (v) competitive companies and technologies within the Company’s industry and introduction of competing products; (vi) the Company’s ability to establish and maintain corporate collaborations; (vii) loss of key management personnel; (viii) the scope of protection the Company is able to establish and maintain for intellectual property rights covering its products and its ability to operate its business without infringing the intellectual property rights of others; (ix) potential failure to comply with applicable health information privacy and security laws and other state and federal privacy and security laws; and (x) the difficulty of predicting actions of the government and its regulations. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release. The Company assumes no obligation to update any written or oral forward-looking statement unless required by law. For Media and Investor Relations, please contact: David L. Kugelman (866) 692-6847 Toll Free - U.S. & Canada (404) 281-8556 Mobile and WhatsApp dk@atlcp.com Skype: kugsusa https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkugelman/ View comments || Former first lady Melania Trump wishes bitcoin a happy 13th birthday with image of the genesis block: Melania Trump on September 14, 2020 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong/Getty Images Former first lady Melania Trump took to Twitter to pay tribute to bitcoin's 13th anniversary. The tweet came after she released her first NFT in December. Many were surprised with her embrace of digital assets, especially considering husband Donald Trump's anti-crypto stance. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell Melania Trump took to Twitter Monday to pay tribute to bitcoin's birthday as the former first lady dives deeper into the world of digital assets. "Today marks the 13th anniversary of the Bitcoin Genesis Block," she told her nearly 2 million followers. "Happy Anniversary, #SatoshiNakamoto #MelaniaNFT." Accompanying her tweet is a photo of bitcoin's genesis block , the first block on bitcoin's blockchain. Unlike other blocks, this one is the only one without a block preceding it. This is why it is also generally described as "block 0." Bitcoin's genesis block holds significant meaning to devotees since many view this as the key to potentially identifying Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of bitcoin. And while Nakamoto released bitcoin's white paper on October 28, 2008, many crypto enthusiasts recognize the day the genesis block was minted, January 3, 2009, as the cryptocurrency's birth. In Trump's tweet, she also promotes her non-fungible tokens, which she launched in December. Marking her first foray into the digital asset space, the former first lady released a digital artwork titled " Melania's Vision ," a watercolor art representing her "cobalt blue eyes." The NFT, designed by Marc-Antoine Coulon, was sold for 1 solana or roughly $150. True to her December announcement of promising she will regularly release NFTs, Trump unveiled her " Head of State " collection Tuesday, which included another NFT designed by Coulon. Judging by the replies to her Twitter post, many were surprised with her digital asset ventures, especially considering husband Donald Trump's anti-crypto stance. Story continues Last month, the former US president said he is not a fan of cryptocurrencies and expects a crash in the future. In June , he called bitcoin a "scam" and blasted the asset for "competing" with the US dollar. And in 2019, he said bitcoin was "highly volatile and based on thin air." Still, Donald Trump congratulated his wife's new venture on December 17 saying it epitomizes the "American spirit of ingenuity, creativity, and entrepreneurship." Read the original article on Business Insider || Who Sets the Rules of Bitcoin as Nation-States and Corps Roll In: “Little by little, and then all at once.” That’s how people go bankrupt, of course. But it’s also a fair description of bitcoin’s ascendance from radical experiment to widely used technology. Recall, if you dare, that in March 2020 BTC was trading at about $5,000 per token and had been in the doldrums for years. Then COVID-19 lockdowns juiced boredom-driven day trading and increased interest in crypto, ultimately unleashing a string of transformational moments for Bitcoin. Those included the big BTC buy by Tesla, integration into Twitter, high-profile legislative debates in the U.S., a record-setting stadium name deal and national adoption in El Salvador. This article is part ofFuture of Money Week, a series exploring the varied (and sometimes weird) ways value will move in the future. The arrival of nation-states and tech corporations in Bitcoinland is a huge, positive milestone. Twitter and El Salvador are directly exposing new mass audiences to crypto usage instead of just speculation. Because bitcoin is more useful as more people use it (the “network effect”), these moves also increase the appeal of future integrations. Major corporate buys, meanwhile, open the door for more institutional investment and legitimize bitcoin’s inflation-hedge thesis. But those new players also bring new risks – arguably risks of a sort the world has never before seen. An array of centrally run, sometimes very powerful entities now have vested interests in the design and growth of a system they all share. History suggests their interests will, sooner or later, diverge, and that some will try and change bitcoin to their liking. They will find the system used to propose and execute changes to bitcoin is barely a “system” at all. Unlike a company or a national government, the Bitcoin blockchain doesn’t have a formal leadership structure (with one debatable exception). Instead, as developer Gavin Andresen put it in 2015, Bitcoin’s design and evolution “really comes down to, what code are people running, and how influential are the people who are running the code?” In other words, Bitcoin upgrades are largely a matter of persuasion. So what if Twitter or Tesla or Germany decide that they want Bitcoin to be something else? With enough money, with courtrooms and jails, with an army division or two, could they force their vision on the most powerful stateless entity on the planet? We got a preview of such a conflict in the so-called “Blocksize War” of 2015-2017, recently chronicled in anexcellent book by Jonathan Bier. In very broad strokes, the conflict was between entities, including companies like BitPay and Coinbase, that advocated for larger “blocks” of transactions to increase the network’s speed. They were opposed by “small blockers,” who warned that increasing the block size would make it more expensive and difficult to run a Bitcoin node, threatening the system’s decentralization and, ultimately, its resilience. The Blocksize War is an important episode when considering the future of Bitcoin, because it illustrates both the motives and methods that we might see replayed on a still larger scale. In this case, the motives for big blockers were largely commercial. Businesses like BitPay needed more throughput to turn bitcoin into a coffee-cup currency. The other side of the debate, at least in Bier’s telling, was made up of people prioritizing long-term stability and what we’d now call the “store of value” model, even if it meant bitcoin transactions stayed fairly slow. As bitcoin becomes a more important component of the world’s financial infrastructure, it’s not hard to think of other motives for changing the way it works. Perhaps a surveillance-obsessed Western government will push for a change that threatens pseudonymity. Miners might aim to increase their fees as block rewards decline. A coalition of authoritarian regimes might seek to add native geofencing. Or, if you want to get really crazy, imagine a populist uprising circa 2050 agitating to remove Bitcoin’s 21 million coin-supply cap. Some of these scenarios are more realistic than others. But their mere possibility is probably news to many bitcoin holders and users. “It’s safe to assume that 95% of people have no clue how [Bitcoin] upgrades work,” says Jackson Wood, a financial adviser who works with crypto. “They’re 100% taking it for granted that it just exists and will always be the way it is. But if consensus rules on Bitcoin, literally anything can change.” Various kinds of decision-making mechanisms hold sway over different aspects of bitcoin. On a day-to-day basis, the combination of proof-of-work mining and blockchain database sequencing determines which transactions are valid and which aren’t. There are at least two well-known forms of technical attack that could interfere with these “on-chain” rules, but they have limited potential. Though it’s financially impractical at this point, an entity willing to spend many millions of dollars to rent bitcoin mining rigs could theoreticallyconduct a 51% attackon bitcoin, giving them the ability to manipulate a small subset of transactions. The other purely technical attack would be a “hard fork,” or software change, in which an alternate version of Bitcoin is released and promoted to miners. But previous Bitcoin forks show how difficult it is to gain adoption for a divergent Bitcoin: Dozens if not hundreds have faded into obscurity. Even a relatively successful fork like Bitcoin Cash, which emerged from the Blocksize War with a large, built-in constituency, has fallen far behind Bitcoin. “Governance” of a blockchain system, though, more often refers to how these consensus rules themselves can be changed. Very broadly, Bitcoin takes its fundamental development and administrative structure from theopen-source modelthrough which unaffiliated developers collaborate on software like Linux. Bitcoin’s source code liveson Githubjust like that of many other open-source projects. Literally anyone can debate Bitcoin’s future, and even propose specific changes – though actually getting traction for your proposal is a much bigger challenge. The most direct approach for an entity hoping to reshape Bitcoin, then, would be “putting in pull requests on Github and suggesting code changes that go in that direction,” says Pierre Rochard, a longtime Bitcoiner on the product team at Kraken. But in practice, if the changes went against broader community sentiment, this would be basically impossible. Read more:The Future of Money: 20 Predictions “What they would run into is that Core has a tremendous amount of peer review,” says Rochard. “Even small changes require two or three reviewers who have experience and somewhat of a reputation to get merged [into the reference client]. And then big changes that would affect consensus rules, those receive just a tremendous amount of scrutiny – both from developers and from interested laypeople. And it’s not based on votes, it’s somewhat based on reputation.” In practice, this nebulous, reputation-based approach boils down to a web of protracted debates at conferences and online, across message boards like r/bitcoin, Telegram and Twitter. This swarm approach means changes are slow. “It took forever to get [recent Bitcoin upgrade] Taproot approved,” observes Wood. “It was months and months and years of debate.” In an abstract sense, you can compare that interminable and open-access debate to the “proof of work” in Bitcoin’s on-chain transaction rules. Just as a block of transactions can’t be approved on-chain if a miner hasn’t taken an economic risk in certifying it, a Bitcoin upgrade that arrives without a paper trail of months and months of rhetorical free-for-all would be instantly flagged as suspicious. Rochard believes that this crowdsourced scrutiny will grow along with the rising stakes of Bitcoin design. “Even though we’re at a different scale than 2017, I see Bitcoin’s governance pattern as a bit of a fractal. Even as the scale increases, we’ll see the same patterns play out.” Bitcoin also has one key difference from Linux or Open Office that makes any non-consensus change difficult: Bitcoin does not have an automated upgrade system, or even an automated notification of an available upgrade. Miners instead have to manually install new versions of the client. So even if someone successfully meddled with the Core Github, they would have to publicize the new version to get nodes to upgrade – at which point the non-consensus change would be exposed. It would then, most likely, be reversed, thanks to one of the last lines of defense against malicious Bitcoin code: a rollback. Read more:The World Bitcoin Will Build–Cory Klippsten “Even if the consensus is wrong, if all the core developers start acting crazy – there’s nothing saying a group of people couldn’t jump up and say, ‘Let’s go back to how it was before,’” says Wood. It wouldn’t necessarily be an easy or smooth process, but in the face of an existential threat to Bitcoin, such a rollback would be an invaluable lifeline. Not everything in Bitcoin is so decentralized, though. Only a handful of individuals scattered around the world have what’s known as “commit access,” or the ability to merge proposed changes into the Bitcoin Core reference implementation. This group of maintainers was created by Gavin Andresen, who was essentially handed the reins to Bitcoin when pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto stepped away in 2011. As described by Andresen in 2015, he picked two trusted collaborators and, with them, picked two more. Other maintainers have since left or beenadded, largely based on demonstrated commitment and contributions to the project. This group has sometimes been regarded with suspicion because of its perceived power. But the job is far less glamorous or influential than it appears. “In Bitcoin, maintainers are very much janitors,” says Rochard, tasked, for instance, with removing spam from the repository. “They understand the backlash that would happen if they were to make a decision, so they’re very loath to do that. They only merge things when there’s a rough consensus among frequent contributors, rather than themselves making a controversial call.” This was cemented as far back as 2014 with the handover of the lead maintenance role from Andresen to Wladimir Van Der Laan. Andresen has said that he was more willing to be something of a benevolent dictator in the early days of Bitcoin, but Van Der Laan explicitly renounced any actual decision-making power. Van Der Laan himself stepped back from responsibilities earlier this year, and signaled that he wantedeven more decentralizationof the maintenance role. The upshot is that even if a powerful organization used bribery, blackmail, or other means to subvert one or more maintainers with commit access, they would make little headway in actually changing Bitcoin without the backing of broader consensus. “There would be alarm bells,” says Rochard. “How did this get merged in?” Rochard says there has been at least one instance of a maintainer accidentally merging code that hadn’t been vetted. It was swiftly caught and undone. The strange, emergent, arguably chaotic status quo of Bitcoin’s decentralized governance appears, for now, to make it highly resistant to hostile takeover. Amazingly, governments and other potential meddlers seem to have gotten the message. “If you had some sort of Washington-corporate alliance that wanted to make Bitcoin a transparent chain, guess what? They would have fought Taproot,” says Alex Gladstein at the Human Rights Foundation, who advocates for Bitcoin as a tool against authoritarian governments. “But there was no organized resistance to Taproot. We’re just not seeing it, which is good.” But not everyone is sure that the open-source scrum will be enough to keep things running smoothly forever. “As much as we say this is decentralized, there are humans behind it,” says Merav Ozair, a blockchain-focused finance professor at Rutgers. “Someone has to write the software. It shouldn’t be at the hand of one developer, or a small group. We should have a long-term, bigger audit.” To that end, the nonprofit International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA), where Ozair is an adviser, is developing a proposal for a European Union committee to monitor Bitcoin code and interface with governments. Such a committee would have no formal role in Bitcoin governance, but, over time, could build up legitimacy and community influence. Ultimately, that sort of transparent bid for influence seems to be the only plausible way to “attack” Bitcoin: joining in the debate about its design, and building up a reputation for sound thinking. You might say that the best way to successfully infiltrate Bitcoin governance – maybe the only way – is to actually do the work of making the system better. || Bitcoin Mining Operations in Kazakhstan Restore 90% of Production but Hashrate Still Lagging: BeInCrypto – Major bitcoin mining firms in Kazakhstan have restored between 80% to 90% of production after days of rioting, according to Alan Dordjiev, head of the Kazakh National Association of Blockchain and Data Center Industry. 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 || U.S Mortgage Rates Surge in Response to U.S Inflation Figures for December: Mortgage rates were on the rise once more in the second week of 2022. In the week ending 13thJanuary, 30-year fixed rates surged by 23 basis points to 3.45%. 30-year fixed rates had risen by 11 basis points in the week prior. As a result, 30-year fixed rates held above the 3% mark for an 9thconsecutive week. Compared to this time last year, 30-year fixed rates were up by 80 basis points. 30-year fixed rates were still down by 149 basis points, however, since November 2018’s last peak of 4.94%. It was a relatively quiet first half of the week on the U.S economic calendar. Key stats included December inflation figures on Wednesday. In December, the U.S annual rate of inflation accelerated from 6.8% to 7.0%, the highest since 1982. The core annual rate of inflation picked up from 4.9% to 5.5%. On the monetary policy front, FED Chair Powell had given testimony on Tuesday, delivering some market relief. The FED Chair talked of the U.S economy’s ability to withstand rate hikes while also holding back from suggesting the need for more than 3 hikes in the year. The inflation figures ultimately drove yields northwards, however. The weekly average rates for new mortgages as of 13thJanuary were quoted byFreddie Macto be: • 30-year fixed rates jumped by 23 basis points to 3.45% in the week. This time last year, rates had stood at 2.65%. The average fee remained unchanged at 0.7 points. • 15-year fixed rose by 19 basis points to 2.62% in the week. Rates were up by 46 basis points from 2.16% a year ago. The average fee rose from 0.6 points to 0.7 points. • 5-year fixed rates increased by 16 basis points to 2.57%. Rates were down by 18 basis points from 2.75% a year ago. The average fee fell from 0.5 points to 0.3 points. According to Freddie Mac, • All mortgage types saw rates rise, driven by the prospect of a faster than expected tightening of monetary policy. • The shift in sentiment was driven by a continued pickup in inflation exacerbated by uncertainty in labor and supply chains. • In spite of the rise in mortgage rates this year, purchase demand has yet to reflect the jump in rates. • Given the fast pace of home price growth, however, it will likely dampen demand in the near future. For the week ending 7thJanuary, therateswere: • Average interest rates for 30-year fixed with conforming loan balances rose from 3.33% to 3.52%. Points decreased from 0.48 to 0.45 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. • Average 30-year fixed mortgage rates backed by FHA increased from 3.40% to 3.50%. Points increased from 0.42 to 0.45 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. • Average 30-year rates for jumbo loan balances increased from 3.31% to 3.42%. Points fell from 0.38 to 0.36 (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, increased by 1.4% from a week earlier. The Index had fallen by 2.7% from 2-weeks earlier. The Refinance Index slipped by 0.1% in the week ending 7thJanuary and was 50 basis points lower than the same week a year ago. The index had declined by 2% from 2-weeks ago. The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased from 65.4% to 64.1% in the week ending 7thJanuary. The share had risen from 63.9% to 65.4% in the 2-weeks prior. According to the MBA, • Mortgage rates increased significantly as the FED signaled tighter policy ahead, pushing yields higher. • 30-year fixed hit 3.52%, its highest level since March 2020. • Rates at these levels are quickly closing the door on refinance opportunities for many borrowers. • Applications remained at their lowest level in over a month. • The housing market started 2022 on a strong note. However, the strength in growth will be dependent upon a more rapid growth in housing inventory to meet demand. It’s a particularly quiet start to the week for the U.S markets. Economic data is limited to NY Empire State Manufacturing numbers that should have a muted impact on yields. From elsewhere, 4thquarter GDP numbers from China will also draw interest on Monday, however. Away from the economic calendar, expect COVID-19 news updates to remain a key area of focus. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Crypto – U.S Market Correlation Continued on Friday, Delivering Bitcoin (BTC) Support • The Week Ahead – Earnings, Central Bank Chatter and a Busy Economic Calendar in Focus • Crude Oil Markets Exploded to the Upside for the Week • Oil Buyers Unfazed by China’s Plan to Release Oil Reserves • Gold Rally Stalls Amid Rising Yields, Firmer US Dollar • U.S Mortgage Rates Surge in Response to U.S Inflation Figures for December || Bitcoin Takes a Hit as Crypto Market Records $193 Million in Liquidations: More than 70,000 traders were hit with liquidations over the past 24 hours as the broader cryptocurrency market sustained losses. The Crypto Market Loses 2.4% of its Value in 24 Hours The recent data obtained from Coinglass has revealed that more than $193 million worth of liquidations was recorded in the cryptocurrency market over the past 24 hours. Over the last one hour, more than $7 million worth of liquidations took place in the market. The liquidations have resulted in the total cryptocurrency market cap dropping below the $2 trillion mark a few hours ago. Bitcoin accounted for most of the losses, with $11.47 million worth of BTC liquidated over the past 24 hours. Ethereum , Cardano , Fantom , and Cosmos complete the top five cryptocurrencies with the highest liquidation. Bitcoin has struggled below the $45k resistance level over the past few weeks. At press time, BTC is trading at $41,788, up by less than 1% over the past 24 hours. Fed Rate Hike the Likely Catalyst Behind Market Liquidation The United States Federal Reserve is expected to announce more significant rate hikes over the coming months. This has resulted in a stronger dollar over the past few days, ultimately affecting the performance of the cryptocurrency market. According to Coinglass, Binance accounted for most of the liquidations. The cryptocurrency exchange recorded more than $80 million worth of liquidations over the past 24 hours. It is followed by OKEx, with $49 million in liquidations during that period. Coinglass added that more than 70,000 traders were liquidated over the last 24 hours. The largest single liquidation order happened on Okex, BTC-USDT-SWAP (a total of $3.81M). If the cryptocurrency market continues to underperform, Bitcoin could lose the $40k support level over the coming hours or days. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: BOTLabs Trusted Entity Launches its SocialKYC Service Why Procter & Gamble Stock Is Up by 4% Today USD/CAD Remains Stuck Near 1.2500 Euro Trying to Build Support Base at 1.1335 – 1.1300 Silver Markets Reach 200 Day EMA Morgan Stanley Shares Jump Over 4% as Q4 Profit Tops Estimates || CORRECTION: December 2021 Operational Update: The following amendments have been made to the December 2021 Operational Update announcement released by Argo Blockchain Plc on 7 January 2022 at 07:00. The figure for "Gross (loss)" for "Month ended 30 November 2021" of "USD $1,108,192" has been replaced by "USD $1,496,606". The figure for "Mining profit" for "Month ended 31 December 2021" of "USD $8,743,625" has been replaced by "USD $8,743,265". All other details remain unchanged. LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / January 7, 2022 /Argo Blockchain plc, a global leader in cryptocurrency mining (LSE:ARB)(NASDAQ:ARBK), is pleased to provide the following operational update for December 2021. During the month of December, Argo mined 214 Bitcoin or Bitcoin Equivalent (together, BTC) compared to 185 BTC in November. This brings the total amount of BTC mined in 2021 to 2,045 BTC. Based on daily foreign exchange rates and cryptocurrency prices during the month, mining revenue in December amounted to £7.82 million [$10.55 million*] (November 2021: £8.29 million [$11.20 million*]). Argo generated this income at a Bitcoin and Bitcoin Equivalent Mining Margin of approximately 83% for the month of December (November 2021: 86%). At the end of December, the Company owned 2,595 Bitcoin or Bitcoin Equivalent. Helios Mining Facility Update The Company is also pleased to provide the following update on the construction of its 200MW flagship cryptocurrency mining facility, Helios, in Dickens County, Texas. The construction of Argo's facility remains on time and the main structure, outside facade, and roof have now been completed. The next phase of construction and build out of essential infrastructure are ongoing, with aprojected completion date in the first half of 2022. Peter Wall, Chief Executive of Argo and interim Chairman, said: "2021 has been a transformational year for both Argo and the cryptocurrency sector. We began development on our mining facility in Texas and we took Argo to NASDAQ. Our efforts allowed us to expand our global presence and we look forward to the year ahead and the opening of our mining facility in Dickens County, Texas". Non-IFRS Measures Bitcoin and Bitcoin Equivalent Mining Margin is a financial measure not defined by IFRS. We believe Bitcoin and Bitcoin Equivalent Mining Margin have limitations as an analytical tool. In particular, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Equivalent Mining Margin excludes the depreciation of mining equipment and so does not reflect the full cost of our mining operations, and it also excludes the effects of fluctuations in the value of digital currencies and realized losses on the sale of digital assets, which affect our IFRS gross profit. This measure should not be considered as an alternative to gross margin determined in accordance with IFRS, or other IFRS measures. This measure is not necessarily comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies. As a result, you should not consider this measure in isolation from, or as a substitute analysis for, our gross margin as determined in accordance with IFRS. The following table shows a reconciliation of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Equivalent Mining Margin to gross margin, the most directly comparable IFRS measure, for the months of November and December 2021. [["", "\u00a3", "$", "\u00a3", "$"], ["Gross (loss)", "(1,108,192)", "(1,496,606)", "(12,593,995)", "(17,008,110)"], ["Gross Margin\u00b9", "(13%)", "(13%)", "(161%)", "(161%)"], ["Depreciation of mining equipment", "1,203,238", "1,624,965", "1,444,614", "1,950,942"], ["Charge in fair value of digital currencies", "7,371,093", "9,954,614", "18,271,429", "24,675,448"], ["Realised loss on sale of digital currencies", "8,364", "11,296", "740,713", "1,000,328"], ["Crypto-currency management fees\u00b2", "(340,561)", "(459,925)", "(1,388,635)", "(1,875,343)"], ["", "", "", "", ""], ["Mining Profit", "7,133,942", "9,634,344", "6,474,126", "8,743,265"], ["Bitcoin and Bitcoin Equivalent Mining Margin", "86%", "86%", "83%", "83%"], ["", "", "", "", "", ""]] (1) Due to unfavourable changes in fair value of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Equivalents in November and December 2021 there was a significant loss on change in fair value of digital currencies. (2) The cryptocurrency management fees include the settlement amount with Celsius and as such are higher than normal in December 2021. * Dollar values translated from pound sterling into U.S. dollars using the noon buying rate of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as at the applicable dates. Forward-Looking Information This announcement contains inside information and forward-looking include forward-looking statements which reflect the Company's or, as appropriate, the Directors' current views, interpretations, beliefs or expectations with respect to the Company's financial performance, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations. These statements include forward-looking statements both with respect to the Company and the sector and industry in which the Company proposes to operate. Statements which include the words "expects", "intends", "plans", "believes", "projects", "anticipates", "will", "targets", "aims", "may", "would", "could", "continue", "estimate", "future", "opportunity", "potential" or, in each case, their negatives, and similar statements of a future or forward-looking nature identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements address matters that involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events that may or may not occur in the future. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Accordingly, there are or will be important factors that could cause the Company's actual results, prospects and performance to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. In addition, even if the Company's actual results, prospects and performance are consistent with the forward-looking statements contained in this document, those results may not be indicative of results in subsequent periods. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this announcement. Subject to any obligations under the Prospectus Regulation Rules, the Market Abuse Regulation, the Listing Rules and the Disclosure and Transparency Rules and except as required by the FCA, the London Stock Exchange, the City Code or applicable law and regulations, the Company undertakes no obligation publicly to update or review any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. For a more complete discussion of factors that could cause our actual results to differ from those described in this announcement, please refer to the filings that Company makes from time to time with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority, including the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Registration Statement on Form F-1. For further information please contact: [{"Argo Blockchain": "Peter WallChief Executive", "": "via Tancredi +44 203 434 2334"}, {"Argo Blockchain": "finnCap Ltd", "": ""}, {"Argo Blockchain": "Corporate FinanceJonny Franklin-AdamsTim HarperJoint Corporate BrokerSunila de Silva", "": "+44 207 220 0500"}, {"Argo Blockchain": "Tennyson Securities", "": ""}, {"Argo Blockchain": "Joint Corporate BrokerPeter Krens", "": "+44 207 186 9030"}, {"Argo Blockchain": "OTC Markets", "": ""}, {"Argo Blockchain": "Jonathan Dicksonjonathan@otcmarkets.com", "": "+44 204 526 4581+44 7731 815 896"}, {"Argo Blockchain": "Tancredi Intelligent CommunicationUK & Europe Media Relations", "": ""}, {"Argo Blockchain": "Emma ValgimigliEmma HodgesSalamander DavoudiFabio Galloni-Roversi Monacoargoblock@tancredigroup.com", "": "+44 7727 180 873+44 7861 995 628+44 7957 549 906+44 7888 672 701"}] About Argo: Argo Blockchain plc is a global leader in cryptocurrency mining with one of the largest and most efficient operations powered by clean energy. The Company is headquartered in London, UK and its shares are listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange under the ticker: ARB and on the Nasdaq Global Select Market in the United States under the ticker: ARBK. This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contactrns@lseg.comor visitwww.rns.com. SOURCE:Argo Blockchain PLC View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/681484/CORRECTION-December-2021-Operational-Update || Crypto.com, Which Took Naming Rights On Staples Center, Loses $30M In Hack Attack: It’s not been a good year for the Los Angeles Lakers or L.A. Clippers on their home court. Now, Crypto.com , which took over the naming rights to the former Staples Center, has suffered a bigger blow than losing a basketball game. They were hacked for a reported $30 million in bitcoin and ether . Crypto.com said Thursday that it had a breach in its security systems earlier in the week. It estimates massive losses on the two leading cryptocurrencies and some other digital funds. More from Deadline Jennifer Esposito Makes Directorial Debut With 'Fresh Kills'; The First Film Financed And Traded By Global Fan Base AMC Entertainment Will Accept Bitcoin For U.S. Tickets, Concessions By Year End - CEO Adam Aron Bitcoin Pioneer Charlie Shrem Explores Expanding Into Film In A Big Way The company is known for its viral commercial starring Matt Damon, but really came to prominence when it ponied up $700 million to rename the Staples Center in Los Angeles as Crypto.com Arena. The missing funds were withdrawn from 483 customer accounts, according to a statement the Singapore-based crypto exchange posted Thursday on its corporate blog . “Unauthorized withdrawals totaled 4,836.26 ETH, 443.93 BTC and approximately US$66,200 in other currencies,” the company said in the post. All customers have been “fully reimbursed” for any lost funds as a result of the hack, Crypto.com said. The break-in happened Monday, the blog reported. CoinDesk, a newsletter that covers the blockchain and crypto industries, reported that about 4,600 ether was “currently being laundered via Tornado Cash — an Etherium Mixer.” Kris Marszalek, the CEO of Crypto.com, acknowledged in an interview that approximately 400 customer accounts were hacked. “Given the scale of the business, these numbers are not particularly material and customer funds were not at risk,” the CEO told Bloomberg. However, some disgruntled customers claimed on social media they were not yet reimbursed, and wondered out loud how the two-factor authentication required by the site was bypassed. Story continues Shares of Crypto.com have fallen more than 6% on the hacking news, closing Thursday at 46 cents a share. Best of Deadline Cancellations/Renewals Scorecard: TV Shows Ended Or Continuing In 2021-22 Season New On Prime Video For January 2022: Daily Listings For Streaming TV, Movies & More Winter Premiere Dates For New & Returning Series On Broadcast, Cable & Streaming Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter . For the latest news, follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram . || UK law enforcement has reportedly seized $435 million worth of crypto in criminal investigations in the last 5 years: Electronic components on PCB textured chain parts. Blockchain and crypto currency concept. Getty Images stock photo Getty Images stock photo The New Scientist found UK law enforcement seized $435 million in crypto in the last five years. The London Metropolitan Police discovered most of the illicit bitcoin, the report found. Cryptocurrencies have become an increasingly popular medium to commit financial crimes. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell . UK law enforcement has seized nearly half a billion dollars worth of bitcoin in the last five years, according to a report from the New Scientist . A quarter of the UK's 48 police forces have found cryptocurrencies -- almost all of which was bitcoin -- amounting to £322 million, or $435 million, according to the New Scientist, which submitted Freedom of Information requests to the departments to obtain the data. London Metropolitan Police discovered most of the illicit bitcoin, seizing £294 million, or $398 million, of that total, while the Greater Manchester Police seized £25 million, or $34 million. In one high profile case in June, the London Metropolitan Police seized a record £114 million, or $154, worth of cryptocurrencies. Just a month later, the same department set another new record when it retrieved a whopping £180 million, or $249 million, according to a CNBC report at the time. While bitcoin made up 99.9% of the digital assets seized in the UK, law enforcement also discovered ethereum, monero, dash, and zcash, the New Scientist said. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been popular tool among criminals due to difficulties tracing accounts and holders of the assets. In the US the Justice Department seized $56 million worth of cryptocurrency in November related to the massive BitConnect crypto scam in which its promoters swindled thousands of people out of $2 billion worth of bitcoin in 2017. In December, US and Japanese law enforcement seized 3,879 bitcoins , now worth about $167 million, after a worker at Sony Life Insurance Company in Tokyo embezzled funds from her employer. A new report from Chainalysis found crypto crimes -- especially "rug pulls" in which developers abandon their cryptocurrency projects and disappear with users' funds -- surged 81% to nearly $8 billion in 2021. Read the original article on Business Insider View comments || S&P Global Sees no DeFi Threat to Traditional Finance: Standard & Poor’s (S&P) is as a leading index provider and global credit rating agency. The S&P500 is one of the world’s most recognized indices, with S&P’s highly sought-after AAA rating accredited to companies such asMicrosoft. As a highly respected independent research company, S&P releases an annual Global Credit Outlook report. This year, theGlobal Credit Outlook 2022: Aftershocks, Future Shocks, And Transitionsalso focuses on Decentralized Finance. Earlier this month, the Bank of England’sFinancial Stability Reporthad included a section dedicated to cryptocurrencies. The release of S&P’s report coincides with increased government scrutiny over cryptocurrencies. This week,news hit the wiresof the 117thCongress introducing 35 bills related to cryptos.This follows the chatter from the Bank of England last week over the need for a global framework. In the U.S, the report comes at a tenuous time for digital assets and Ripple’sXRPin particular. Awell-publicized SEC lawsuit against Ripple Labhas placed a spotlight on cryptos and alternatives to traditional banking platforms. Ripple’s remittance platform is considered a viable alternative to such platforms. ‘Crypto assets and tokenization will increasingly disrupt financial markets. Central bank digital currencies may act as a trusted bridge between traditional and virtual worlds.’ S&P believes that the adoption of cryptocurrencies will continue to gather pace. The report highlights that around 45 corporates have taken positions on cryptocurrencies (BTCandETH), totaling around $24bn. Three companies – Block.one,MicroStrategy, andTesla– hold almost 84% of corporate investments in BTC. Growing institutional investor interest points to an accelerated expansion for cryptocurrencies as investment vehicles. Looking beyond corporate entities, senior elected officials in New York and Miami have expressed a desire to receive their salaries in cryptocurrencies. In spite of this, S&P does not see cryptocurrencies becoming a viable global means of payment until technology enhancements allow for greater efficiency. The report highlights consensus mechanisms as one area in need of technological enhancement. On the regulatory front, S&P sees regulators and policymakers slowly catching up. S&P identifies several hurdles in the industry. These include the need for a regulatory framework that recognizes the rights of token holders and smart contract protocols. The key challenge, however, is seen to be the lack of a bridge of trust between the traditional and the virtual worlds. Another concern, aligned with the Bank of England’s view on financial stability, is the possible negative impact crypto assets could have on the financial markets. The report offers a number of situations including: • Volatility in liquidity flows between digital and traditional markets. • Vulnerability in sometimes largely untested technologies – including cyber risk. • Increasing opacity in financial transactions. • A more fragmented monetary system that could reduce the ability of central banks to respond to emerging crises through monetary policy. • Increased risks for retail and institutional investors given price volatility and the lack of regulatory oversight. In consideration of the increased chatter from regulators and S&P’s report, progress towards a global regulatory framework may well gather pace in the year ahead. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Coinbase’s Stock Price Dips as Bitcoin and Others Underperform Again • USD/CAD Daily Forecast – U.S. Dollar Rebounds After Recent Pullback • USD/CAD Exchange Rate Prediction – The Dollar Rebounds on Higher Yields • Crypto Hacks Now Serve as North Korea’s Long-Term Investment • Invesco FTSE RAFI Emerging Markets ETF is Underperforming Ahead of New Year • Richest Man in Crypto Outlines Biggest Challenges for Industry [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 36276.80, 36654.33, 36954.00, 36852.12, 37138.23, 37784.33, 38138.18, 37917.60, 38483.12, 38743.27
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 2015-04-28] BTC Price: 225.85, BTC RSI: 43.09 Gold Price: 1214.00, Gold RSI: 56.29 Oil Price: 57.06, Oil RSI: 62.77 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin regulation is coming to New York: (REUTERS/Peter Nicholls)A bitcoin sticker is seen in the window of the 'Vape Lab' cafe, where it is possible to both use and purchase the bitcoin currency, in London March 24, 2015. There's a new regulator in town. Daniel Robertsat Fortunereports that Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, is putting the finishing touches on BitLicense, a policy that "will require digital currency companies to obtain a license in order to transmit money on behalf of customers." This means that the cryptocurrency is getting slightly more legit, though the Bitcoin community is unsurprisingly somewhat unhappy about that. While some people think that regulation is a way to wider acceptance, Bitcoin is by and large a community full of people with serious philosophical opposition to the mainstream system. That's why they created bitcoin. From Fortune: While some welcome [regulation] (such as those rolling outinsured exchanges) because it can bring the currency and the technology mainstream, many are more philosophically motivated, and were attracted to the space precisely because of its lack of regulation. The latter camp includes people like Roger Ver, nicknamed “Bitcoin Jesus,” who recently toldFortune,“Bernie Madoff… was regulated up and down and every which way, and it didn’t do any good, he ran away with everyone’s money… Without all the regulations, we could do so much more already.” These bitcoiners should get together withJP Morgan's Jamie Dimon. NOW WATCH:How to supercharge your iPhone in only 5 minutes More From Business Insider • Users of now-defunct Mt. Gox can now file a claim to get some of their bitcoin money back • One big reason Bitcoin is going nowhere • This guy has gamed the airline industry so he never has to pay for a flight again || CTB-Locker virus: How to protect your systems, and what to do if infected: ctb-lockervirushero.jpg Security is ever evolving -- the moment a threat is borne, security researchers jump in to dissect the malware and derive a signature-based detection rule to pick up and hopefully thwart an infection. This tried-and-true method has existed since the first publicly documented release of antivirus (AV) programs from several competitors in 1987. While most viruses were limited in scope as to payload (or damage), a lot has changed in the last several years -- particularly with the increasing reliance on "always-on" systems for data communications. Malware creators have embraced this always-on theory and exploited it to usher in a form of dynamism to their viruses, allowing them to not only be lightweight and stealthy, but also easier to modify (creating variants to avoid detection) and, in some cases, updatable like regular software to add features-rich payloads for future targeted attacks. What is CTB-Locker? As the CryptoWall (and its previous iteration CryptoLocker ) malware has shown, the bar for exploits and potentially damaging payloads continues to rise. CTB-Locker (PDF) -- the next in a growing trend of data-encrypting ransomware that is currently making the rounds around the web -- is infecting enterprise and consumer stations. The virus, upon infection, scans the computer and encrypts data based on file-types, targeting many types of files used in the enterprise, such as .PDF, .XLS, and .PPT to name a few. Upon encrypting the files, the virus will create a .TXT and .HTML file with instructions on how to obtain the decryption key, which will be available after paying the ransom stated (up to 3BTC). The decryption key will only be valid for up to 96 hours; after that time, the server will delete the decryption key, and the files will remain encrypted. Where does it come from? Its origin is currently unknown. However, perhaps a better question is: Where is it going? CTB-Locker has been in the wild for sometime; infections were contained to particular parts of the world, yet slowly, more and more infections are popping up in France and Spain, which indicate the malware is proliferating worldwide. Story continues How does it infect a computer? Infection has been traced primarily back to spam containing the malware as an attachment in a .ZIP file. When this attachment is opened, it creates a copy of itself in the %Temp% folder. Upon launching, it injects malicious code to the svchost.exe process of a Windows computer which, in turn, creates a scheduled task to the file located in the %Temp% folder to run on startup. A mutex (i.e., a program thread that allows shared resources to run, but not simultaneously) is created to ensure that only one instance of the malware will run at any given time. This injected code in the svchost.exe is the same process that will encrypt the data on the computer based on file-types. Will I know if my computer is infected? As with CryptoWall , there are signs that indicate if CTB-Locker has infected your system's data. When attempting to open certain files, such as .xls or .pdf, the files are launched with the correct program, but data may be garbled or not properly displayed. Additionally, an error message may be accompanied when trying to open infected files. In some instances of CTB-Locker infection where the files have been encrypted, the filename will include a suffix with a randomly generated set of characters; for instance, filename.pdf will be renamed filename.pdf.siudfh. The most common indication will be the appearance of two files at the root of the My Documents directory that contain files that were encrypted by CTB-Locker. The filename is randomly generated, just as in the suffix appended to all encrypted files above. RANDOM_FILENAME.txt RANDOM_FILENAME.html Additionally, a ransom screen will appear just after successfully authenticating that will display a warning indicating that the computer has been compromised by CTB-Locker, and that the countdown of 96 hours has begun in order to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key to decrypt the data. Following the steps included in the .HTML file, the instructions will require the end-user to install Tor in order to communicate with the virus writer's server and show proof of payment (made in Bitcoin ). Once the payment has been verified, the decryption key will be made available to the end-user to decrypt the encrypted files. Also, the CTB-Locker warning screen allows the end-user to decrypt five files for free to prove the decryption key is valid and upon payment, the end-user will be allowed to regain the use of his/her data. What options are available if a computer is infected with CTB-Locker? Confirm that the infection is CTB-Locker by testing it with any of the encrypted files using the upload mechanism built-in to the Tor URL provided. If the file is not decrypted, another virus may have infected the computer, or the time limit has expired on retrieving the files. In either scenario, please read the following section. If the file is successfully decrypted and you have agreed to pay the ransom, take a few things into consideration (I wrote the following about CryptoWall , but my advice holds true for CTB-Locker as well): "Paying the ransom is an exercise in and of itself. Unfortunately, the ransom amount must be paid in Bitcoin , a digital currency that's used to purchase goods and services, similar to US currency. However, due to its lack of regulation and general lack of acceptance, Bitcoin is a niche market and not as common as US currency. Adding to the difficulty of procurement is that many exchanges that accept US currency for Bitcoins have limited purchases of larger Bitcoin amounts. There are also strengthened company policies that further restrict the accumulation of the necessary amount of Bitcoins to pay off the ransom. Many of these changes have come about as a direct result of the CryptoWall virus, with some exchanges known to cancel transactions and restrict accounts suspected of using their services to pay off the ransom. Though difficult, it's still possible to open an account at an exchange to begin funding the purchase of Bitcoins in order to pay the ransom in the time allotted. If neither time nor technology is on your side, another viable option is seeking out the services of an IT consultant with experience in this matter. They may be able to assist you in the overall recovery process of your data and may even be able to do so without incurring any penalty due to non-payment within the specified time frame." I cannot/will not pay the ransom. Are other options available to recover the data? Deciding whether to pay the ransom is a matter of personal choice that comes down to the intrinsic value of the data lost. While paying for the decryption key may be a simpler (and sometimes the less costlier) option than say, hiring a consultant or assigning IT members to work on data recovery, there may be no choice in the matter for certain regulated entities or for those whose time limit has expired. Fortunately, there are things end-users can do to see if their files are recoverable without paying. Please realize that this is a big IF, and most cases will result with loss of data for non-payment, while those who do pay within the time frame will be able to recover their data through the use of the private key used for decryption. With that disclaimer in place, the most effective method to recover your files is by using a backup. If your files have been backed up regularly, connect your backup drive to a non-infected computer to check your files; if they are on there and not infected, you clean the infected computer of infection, and you'll be able to reconnect the drive to restore your data. If a cloud-based backup exists, depending on the service provider, you may be able to sanitize the computer before restoring your files from the cloud. Some cloud services (e.g., Dropbox) store a local copy of the data on the host; in these cases, most of the cloud services offer file versioning as a form of added protection against file modifications made in error. By using this feature after sanitizing the computer, you should be able to roll back a file change to the date and time prior to the infection. If no unaffected local or cloud-based backups exist, then the only chance at file recovery will lay in the VSS , restore previous file versions , or System Restore . Since much of the CTB-Locker infection is automated and the newest variation as of January 2015 executed commands to delete Shadow Copies of files, there are times when a command can't execute due to a system resource issue or hanging app. In these cases, though rare, recovery may be possible by initiating a system restore to a time and date prior to the infection occurring. Note: This is the exception, not the rule, and each situation should be handled on a case-by-case basis. Also, you might try using ShadowExplorer to attempt to restore a file or two first to test if this method works for you; if it does, remember to clean the computer first to get rid of any infections before trying to restore all your data. If the system is not cleaned, it will only try to encrypt the files again -- and this time, it may succeed in stopping VSS and clearing the cache. Which steps should be taken to protect computers? There are several steps that should be taken at all times, regardless of the infection risk. The following suggestions apply to security best practices for computers and not just to a particular virus or subset of malware. There should be an active AV application installed with the latest virus definition files and real-time scanning of the system at scheduled times and when opening files. Additionally, a malware scanner with active scanning capabilities and updated with the latest definition files should be used and not disabled at all times. Lastly, a personal firewall is included with every modern computer OS; this firewall should be enabled and configured so that only traffic from known applications can be uploaded/downloaded. All other traffic -- especially from unknown origins -- should be halted until authorized by the end-user. With your computer(s) protected, we move on to one of the greatest threats facing security: users. Educating end-users is tantamount to computer-based protections. After all, the end-user may have the ability to disable a firewall because it's "too annoying" or stop an AV scan because "the computer's running too slowly." Moreover, end-users should be trained to be conscious of not clicking unknown links or installing questionable software since many of the malware infections today start out as phishing attempts and later propagate into relayed spam emails that cast a wider net. Next, securing the network, including reigning in user accounts with unnecessary access to data -- both locally and stored on server shares. In the case of CTB-Locker, the degrees to which files become encrypted are limited to the access rights that the logged on end-user has associated to his/her user account. In corporate environments where users are almost always using standard accounts with limited rights, only the files to which they have full-access rights to -- namely, their profile folder -- will be affected by file encryption; however, for those end-users whose accounts have administrative rights to a system, all files can be potentially encrypted. Security administrators would be well served by performing regular audits of users' and group's rights on the network, as well as, on local computers. Best practices based on the principle of least privilege are a good foundation to build from. Backup or -- in some instances -- lack thereof. A proper backup system with preferably a local and cloud-based backup schedule will go above and beyond to protect your data. Even when the system is compromised, you can count on being able to restore your data, as needed. Other considerations for protection include safe internet practices . Don't visit questionable websites, never click links found within emails, and certainly never provide anyone any form of personally identifiable information in chat rooms, forums, discussion boards, or social media sites! Lastly, consider enabling software restriction policies if you're a system administrator on an enterprise network or using a freely available application such as CryptoPrevent to block many of the avenues to which CTB-Locker uses to gain a foothold on your computer. The bottom line Security is not IT. Security is not an organizational or operations bullet point. Security is everyone, everywhere that is actively engaged in using technology to communicate, send/receive data or otherwise for personal and/or professional use. Security is everyone's responsibility. And while that might not be much to curb malwares existence, it will go a long way toward ensuring that malware infections don't lead to data loss and corruption or being spied on and having sensitive information leaked . Also read CryptoWall: What it is and how to protect your systems 10 best antimalware products of 2014, according to AV-TEST Researchers take a bit out of malware 16 million mobile devices hit by malware in 2014: Alcatel-Lucent (ZDNet) 'Skeleton Key' malware unlocks corporate networks (ZDNet) Security and Privacy: New Challenges (ZDNet/TechRepublic special feature) Penetration Testing and Scanning Policy (Tech Pro Research) Disclaimer: TechRepublic, ZDNet, and Tech Pro Research are CBS Interactive properties. || Oil Train Derailments Muddy Railroad Sector Earnings: A recent string of oil train derailments in both the U.S. and Canada has created a significant obstacle for railroad companies as officials take a closer look into the safety of railroad transport. Train derailments in West Virginia, Illinois and Ontario have raised questions about the safety of the industry's CPC-1232 tank cars, which were touted as a secure way to carry crude from Canada to the U.S. when first introduced. Regulation Rains On Railroad Parade Railroad companies have been able to avoid strict government regulations regarding their crude shipments in the past, because the CPC cars were said to be the most puncture-proof cars available. However, investigations into recent crashes show that ruptures in the new car models may have been the cause. The possibility of stricter and more expensive regulations is now hanging over companies like Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC ) and Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP ), quickly erasing the gains resulting from the President's veto of the Keystone pipeline plans. Related Link: Top 4 NASDAQ Stocks In The Railroads Industry A Double Whammy While the failure of U.S. senators to override the President's veto was a positive for the railroad industry, gains were short lived as worries about tougher regulations weighed on earnings in that sector. Additionally, many investors are concerned about the cost-effectiveness of the CPC-1232 cars, which cost the industry around $7 billion to implement. The cars allowed railroads to avoid costly regulations, but the money spent updating train cars may have been a waste as investigations into the crashes could prompt U.S. officials to implement new regulations anyway. See more from Benzinga Marijuana Investment: Is It Time? Silk Road Bitcoin Auctions Prove There's Still An Interest In Cryptocurrency Getting In On The Apple Watch Buzz, Without Investing In Apple © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || GuestLogix Announces Acceptance of Bitcoin Currency as a Form of Payment on its Retail Platform: TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Mar 16, 2015) - GuestLogix Inc. ( GXI.TO ), the leading global provider of ancillary-focused merchandising, payment and business intelligence technology to airlines and the passenger travel industry, today announced that it has started implementing Crypto-currency wallet components on its Transaction Processing Engine® to enable the acceptance of Bitcoin and similar virtual currencies on its widely used Retail Platform. The Company's PCI-certified Transaction Processing Engine (TPE) currently supports ancillary revenue programs of more than 80 travel operators and handles payments across 114 countries. By adding a virtual currency wallet to the TPE, acceptance of Bitcoin will become readily available on GuestLogix' custom handheld POS terminals and mobile POS platform for Android OS, iOS and MS Windows Mobile. This will allow airlines, as well as other operators and brands within the travel segment, to be able to accept payments in virtual currencies in a secure and reliable manner at all access points such as mobile applications, at kiosks, on handheld POS devices as well as in-flight entertainment systems onboard aircraft. "As ancillary products and services continue to be a vital business component at virtually every touch point where travel operators connect with their passengers, and with an ever growing population of travellers carrying smartphones and holding virtual currencies, there is a need to ensure those travellers can use Bitcoin currency consistently as a form of payment within each access point," said Brett Proud, President & CEO of GuestLogix. "We are proud that the core components of GuestLogix' payment solutions will soon be Bitcoin-enabled for all travel operators and ancillary providers to integrate with." Using its TPE, GuestLogix will allow passengers to pay for products and services using Bitcoin currency. In an offline environment, such as onboard an aircraft with no internet connectivity, passengers can continue to use their own Bitcoin wallets available on their mobile smartphones to transact with the GuestLogix POS terminals. GuestLogix will be accepting the payment and remitting the funds to its customers at a later time when connectivity is available. Travel operators can also opt to price products and services in Bitcoins by utilizing the special pricing and promotions module on GXI's Retail Platform. Travel operators may choose to maintain Bitcoin addresses to receive the payments directly. Alternatively, Bitcoin funds accepted from the passenger will be converted using the daily exchange rate of the Bitcoin relative to the travel operator's base currency and the converted funds will be remitted to their bank account. Story continues About GuestLogix GuestLogix Inc. ( GXI.TO ), is a global leader in comprehensive merchandising, payment and business intelligence technology delivered to the passenger travel industry, both onboard and off-board. Bringing over a decade of expertise as the industry's most trusted onboard transaction processing partner to airlines, rail operators and elsewhere in the passenger travel industry, GuestLogix powers the industry's growing reliance on ancillary revenue generation. Both direct to operators as well as through partnerships with global leaders in catering, duty-free, inflight entertainment and self-service retail experts, the Company provides the payment services touching over 1 billion travelling consumers each year. On December 23, 2014, GuestLogix announced the acquisition of OpenJaw Technologies, a Dublin-based technology company focused on travel retailing innovation in the e-commerce segment. GuestLogix' global headquarters and centre for product innovation is located in Toronto, with regional head offices located in Dallas, London and Hong Kong, and a Product Innovation Lab located in Moncton. More information is available at www.guestlogix.com and www.openjawtech.com . © 2015 GuestLogix. All Rights Reserved. ® Transaction Processing Engine is the property of GuestLogix and is registered in the United States and may be pending or registered in other countries. Forward-Looking Statements This news release includes certain forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations, which involve risks and uncertainties associated with GuestLogix' business and the environment in which the business operates. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking, including those identified by the expressions "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", and similar expressions to the extent they relate to the Company or its management. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts, but reflect GuestLogix' current expectations regarding future results or events. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations, including the matters discussed under "Risks and Uncertainties" in the Filing Statement filed on November 3, 2014 with the regulatory authorities. GuestLogix assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. View comments || Chinese yuan dominates 80% of Bitcoin trades: China's craze for bitcoins has been well-documented over the past year, but a new report highlights just how dominant of a player the country is. About 80 percent of bitcoin volume is now driven by the Chinese yuan (Exchange:CNY=) , according to data from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS - News ) . The U.S. dollar is the second most used currency for transactions, followed by the euro, the bank said in a new report. The bank's findings correlat e with data from Bitcoinity, a popular website used to track market data. A look at trading volume over the past six months reveals China's yuan accounted for 77 percent of total market share, compared with 19 percent for the greenback (New York Board of Trade (Futures): =USD) and just 1 percent for the euro (Unknown:EURBA=) . China's high trading activity comes despite recent moves by the People's Bank of China (PBoC) to clamp down on the crypto-currency. The central bank banned financial institutions from bitcoin trading in December after warning that the currency was essentially a vehicle for speculation. Earlier in 2014, the PBoC also took measures to prevent bitcoin companies from gaining access to payment processors. However, Goldman Sachs believes the mood is gradually improving: "However, in light of a somewhat stabilizing Bitcoin economy in China, a few payment processors have reemerged, such as BTC China's JustPay." Bitcoin's future in China is expected to keep expanding as the country becomes a major mining hub, according to a U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report last year. Read More Feds auction $13.5M worth of Silk Road bitcoins The mainland boasts an enormous online gaming community, where games like World of Warcraft allow players to trade virtual credits earned in the game for cash or real goods and services. The practice is called "gold farming" and can be seen as a precursor to bitcoin mining, the report said. "One prominent figure in Beijing's Bitcoin circles estimated that China's miners, composed mainly of hardware engineers and IT aficionados, number in the tens of thousands." Story continues Goldman Sachs expects global bitcoin acceptance to continue growing thanks to the currency's potential for transforming the remittance market. "Bitcoin and other crypto currencies enable the potential for faster transactions with lower transaction fees. The Bitcoin network can charge as little as zero for processing transactions if there is no time constraint for confirmation." Moreover, concerns over fluctuations in bitcoin prices won't apply to money transfers due to the speed of the transactions and the fact that customers are given rates in advance, Goldman added. More From CNBC Bitcoin is done with its 'tumultuous teen' years Bitcoin finds a place among the world's elite Bitcoin gets first regulated US exchange || AuthentaTrade Appoints CEO Gwyn Jones and CFO David Goh: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / March 16, 2015 / Costas, Inc. (OTC Pink: CSSI) ( CSSI ) Costas, Inc. (CSSI) and AuthentaTrade, Inc. (the Company) are pleased to announce that they have appointed a new CEO and CFO to lead AuthentaTrade forward as it transitions into one of the first ever fully licensed FOREX companies to handle Bitcoin currency transactions. Outgoing AuthentaTrade CEO Kenny Kan has resigned his position effective immediately and will take a position on the Board of Directors of AuthentaTrade. "I'm very proud and excited to announce that we have appointed Gwyn Jones as CEO and David Goh as CFO," said Kan. "These are two very qualified individuals who possess the experience necessary to guide the Company through this transitionary period. With Jones and Goh at the helm, I have full confidence that we will build upon our existing team, raise the necessary financing, then deploy the products that bring efficiency to the market." Gwyn Jones has been a founder and champion of many innovative, scalable products with millions of users. He co-founded both VistaPrint and Serif. Serif is a publisher of award-winning low-cost publishing and graphics applications; including PagePlus, the UK's best-selling DTP product for many years. Vistaprint is a ground-breaking online printing platform that went on to become a market leader with multi-billion dollar NASDAQ listing. Mr Jones stated, "I'm honored to have been given the opportunity to lead AuthentaTrade at this critical juncture in the Companies journey. Digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, are literally about to transform how the world uses and accesses money on a daily basis. This isn't the first time something of this magnitude has happened in the ascent of money, but it's the first time that technology has been the catalyst of change. With our products, we can lead millions of people around the world into a more financially secure and transparent future." As the appointed Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Goh will be accountable for the administrative, financial and risk management operations of the Company. Mr. Goh is a Member of the Certified Public Accountants of Australia, and has spent the last 20 years in public accounting covering a wide range of industries across Asia, Europe and the United States. He started his career with Ernst & Young before spending the balance of his early career with GE Energy as the Asia Pacific Division's Head of Financial Planning and Analysis. Mr. Goh currently runs his own consultancy business assisting startups and established companies set up their operations in Singapore. He is well versed in both the legal and accounting practices required to list companies on stock exchanges throughout the world. Developing risk management strategies, M&A agreements and efficient tax structures on an international level will assist AuthentaTrade in its endeavors. Story continues About AuthentaTrade: AuthentaTrade, Inc. (A) is poised and committed to becoming the leader in the burgeoning digital currency financial landscape. Our revolutionary FOREX and derivatives exchange products will provide the flexibility and efficiency this market desperately needs. AuthentaTrade's goal is to help stabilize the digital currency market by providing bank-level system architecture and security for depositors; also by introducing market liquidity where it has never previously existed. 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. 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. CONTACT: Costas, Inc. Ashley Sansalone, President 713-987-7398 admin@costasinc.com http://www.costasinc.com/ AuthentaTrade, Inc. Gwyn Jones, CEO info@authentaTrade.com www.authentatrade.com/ 1 415 799 7671 39 Castella Court 2 Piale Pasia, 5th Floor, Suite 254 Larnaca 6028 Cypress SOURCE: Costas, Inc. || 10 things in tech you need to know today: uber travis kalanick (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Good morning! Here's the tech news you need to know this Thursday. 1. Uber had a bad day yesterday. The ride-hailing service was declared illegal in Germany , its offices were raided by French police in Paris , and founder Travis Kalanick was charged with running an 'illegal' taxi service in South Korea . But in one piece of good news, Uber cars now outnumber yellow taxis in New York City . 2. Yahoo is pulling out of China. It's axing 200 employees in the country — bringing the total laid off since October up to between 700 and 900. It's part of CEO Marissa Mayer's cost-cutting efforts. 3. A top Silicon Valley investor claims software will replace doctors and lawyers. Keith Rabois says that "one of the most interesting things we’ve noticed over the last decade is the ability of math and machines to replace human judgement, particularly expert judgement... and it’s finally possible now to use data and machine learning techniques to replace the judgement of experts in law and in healthcare." 4. Apple's rumored TV service could have 7 million subscribers by the end of 2016. BI Intelligence crunched the numbers on the streaming TV service the Cupertino company is believed to be building. 5. A former Facebook employee is suing the social network over alleged sex discrimination and harassment. She's being represented by Lawless & Lawless — the same firm representing Reddit CEO Ellen Pao in a sex discrimination case against VC firm Kleiner Perkins. 6. Evolution, the deep web's top drugs marketplace, has vanished overnight in an apparent scam. Tens of millions of dollars-worth of Bitcoin are missing, and the price of Bitcoin dropped more than 6% in response to the news . 7. The UK government is going to regulate Bitcoin exchanges. On Wednesday, the Treasury announced it would apply anti-money laundering rules to the digital currency and invest in research in the sector. Story continues 8. The Guardian, Financial Times, Reuters, CNN, and The Economist have formed an ad alliance to take on Google and Facebook. Tech giants dominate the industry, but the media companies hope their combined weight will be enough to make an impact. The alliance is called Pangaea. 9. Nintendo's stock is skyrocketing. The rise follows the announcement that the Japanese games company is to start making games for smartphones in an alliance with DeNA. 10. Nearly 40% of iPhone owners are interested in buying an Apple watch. It's good news for Apple as it gears up to launch its first-ever smartwatch in April. NOW WATCH: Uber CEO Gave This Raw Speech About Failure In 2011 More From Business Insider 10 things in tech you need to know today 10 things in tech you need to know today 10 things in tech you need to know today || Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin: Universities and schools offering online education have grown in number over the past decade as students' preferences change and college enrollment fees rise. The low-cost nature of an online education has been one of the largest draws for schools like the University Of Phoenix, which offers everything from a Bachelor's Degree in business administration to a Master's Degree in Education. However for many students, financial constraints and self-esteem issues keep them from even considering a higher education. Gunnar Stefansson is looking to change all of that with an online tutoring project designed to get low-income students involved in their education through the use of digital currencies. Online Tutoring In an effort to increase math proficiency among students across the globe, Stefansson founded Tutor Web , an online tutoring system that helps students by providing courses covering topics like calculus and statistics. Students from around the globe can participate in the classes, designed by Gunnar himself and some of his colleagues at the University of Iceland. Digital Rewards This year, the site added a reward system based on its own cryptocurrency, smileycoin. Smileycoin can be bought and sold on cryptocurrency exchanges and is intended to give students an incentive to participating in the program. Students can earn the coin in a variety of ways from passing a lecture for a relatively small number of coins to earning the highest mark in the class for a larger sum. The site is also rolling out a peer-tutoring option, which allows students to tutor each other and pay for those services using smileycoin. Related Link: Charities Are Turning To Bitcoin The Bigger Picture While the value of smileycoin is still quite low, Gunnar told Benzinga that he sees the platform as a jumping off point for bigger things. While only a handful of students have cashed in their smileycoins on an exchange to date, Tutor Web is hoping to expand the project to include new uses for the coin that could further entice students to make use of the service. Story continues In the future, he hopes to partner with other companies like coffee shops and airlines to offer discounts or video game providers to offer free time for smileycoin payments. Ideally, Stefansson said smileycoin would mature enough to give low income students a way to earn their way to a higher education. See more from Benzinga The Future Of Robots World Leaders Looking For Ways To Fight Back Against Terrorism Using Social Media Pot For Spot: Can Marijuana Treat Pets? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Oil Train Derailments Muddy Railroad Sector Earnings: A recent string of oil train derailments in both the U.S. and Canada has created a significant obstacle for railroad companies as officials take a closer look into the safety of railroad transport. Train derailments in West Virginia, Illinois and Ontario have raised questions about the safety of the industry'sCPC-1232tank cars, which were touted as a secure way to carrycrudefrom Canada to the U.S. when first introduced. Regulation Rains On Railroad Parade Railroad companies have been able to avoid strict government regulations regarding their crude shipments in the past, because the CPC cars were said to be the most puncture-proof cars available. However, investigations into recent crashes show that ruptures in the new car models may have been the cause. The possibility of stricter and more expensive regulations is now hanging over companies likeNorfolk Southern Corp.(NYSE:NSC) andUnion Pacific Corporation(NYSE:UNP), quickly erasing the gains resulting from the President's veto of the Keystone pipeline plans. Related Link: Top 4 NASDAQ Stocks In The Railroads Industry A Double Whammy While the failure of U.S. senators to override the President's veto was a positive for the railroad industry, gains were short lived as worries about tougher regulations weighed on earnings in that sector. Additionally, many investors are concerned about the cost-effectiveness of the CPC-1232 cars, which cost the industry around $7 billion to implement. The cars allowed railroads to avoid costly regulations, but the money spent updating train cars may have been a waste as investigations into the crashes could prompt U.S. officials to implement new regulations anyway. See more from Benzinga • Marijuana Investment: Is It Time? • Silk Road Bitcoin Auctions Prove There's Still An Interest In Cryptocurrency • Getting In On The Apple Watch Buzz, Without Investing In Apple © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin regulation is coming to New York: (REUTERS/Peter Nicholls)A bitcoin sticker is seen in the window of the 'Vape Lab' cafe, where it is possible to both use and purchase the bitcoin currency, in London March 24, 2015. There's a new regulator in town. Daniel Robertsat Fortunereports that Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, is putting the finishing touches on BitLicense, a policy that "will require digital currency companies to obtain a license in order to transmit money on behalf of customers." This means that the cryptocurrency is getting slightly more legit, though the Bitcoin community is unsurprisingly somewhat unhappy about that. While some people think that regulation is a way to wider acceptance, Bitcoin is by and large a community full of people with serious philosophical opposition to the mainstream system. That's why they created bitcoin. From Fortune: While some welcome [regulation] (such as those rolling outinsured exchanges) because it can bring the currency and the technology mainstream, many are more philosophically motivated, and were attracted to the space precisely because of its lack of regulation. The latter camp includes people like Roger Ver, nicknamed “Bitcoin Jesus,” who recently toldFortune,“Bernie Madoff… was regulated up and down and every which way, and it didn’t do any good, he ran away with everyone’s money… Without all the regulations, we could do so much more already.” These bitcoiners should get together withJP Morgan's Jamie Dimon. NOW WATCH:How to supercharge your iPhone in only 5 minutes More From Business Insider • Users of now-defunct Mt. Gox can now file a claim to get some of their bitcoin money back • One big reason Bitcoin is going nowhere • This guy has gamed the airline industry so he never has to pay for a flight again [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] 2015年3月3日 00:00:14 btc_jpy 直近[last]:31970円 買[bid]:31600円 売[ask]:31970円 高値[high]:32020円 安値[low]:29698円 API by etwings || LIVE: Profit = $728.26 (19.47 %). BUY B14.92 @ $250.53 (#Bitfinex). SELL @ $255.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || Current price: 244.11$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-03-31 11:00:05 EDT || Price check: The current price of #Bitcoin is $260.00 $BTC http://bitcoinx.io/price/  || $275.00 at 09:15 UTC [24h Range: $270.83 - $279.48 Volume: 5370 BTC] || [Bitcoin] Bitcoin and United States Dollar: 0.0100 BTC = 2.34 USD 1.00 USD = 0.0043 BTCConverter #YAF || @Bitstamp #Bitcoin value falling 5% in last 24 hrs. Now 276.00 USD. Was $290.99 || Bitcoin: 0.2 BTC Freeroll Poker Tournament on Sunday 5th April 7:00 PM EST - http://cryptogeeks.com/bitcoin-02-btc-freeroll-poker-tournament-sunday-5th-april-700-pm-est … || $246.98 #btce; $246.00 #bitstamp; Instantly buy GH/s with BTC: http://bit.ly/LN53k1  #bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $914.20 (23.40 %). BUY B16.70 @ $232.86 (#BTCe). SELL @ $235.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org 
Trend: up || Prices: 225.81, 236.15, 232.08, 234.93, 240.36, 239.02, 236.12, 229.78, 237.33, 243.86
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 2016-11-21] BTC Price: 739.25, BTC RSI: 61.11 Gold Price: 1209.60, Gold RSI: 27.32 Oil Price: 47.49, Oil RSI: 54.24 [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) || 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, asBloomberg 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 theSPDR S&P 500 (SPY)this year—they have practically not gone anywhere: Chart courtesy ofStockcharts.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. 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 theSPDR Barclays 1-3 Month T-Bill (BIL) and a 6.3% allocation to theiShares 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. TheHealthcare Select Sector SPDR (XLV)and theEnergy 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 atcmurphy@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 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || BILL GROSS: Central bankers have turned the economy into a 'casino' that threatens capitalism: (A poker game at the Paradise Walker-hill casino in Seoul in 2007.Reuters) Bill Gross is going after central bankers ... again. The famed bond investor at Janus Capital releasedhis monthly outlook for Octoberon Tuesday and again compared the world's central banks to a dangerous game, this time blackjack. Gross noted the theory of a martingale system, in which a gambler in a casino will eventually win if he or she continually increases the size of his or her bets with each loss. Grossthen comparedthe world's largest central banks — the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, and the European Central Bank — to such a gambler, calling them "martingale gamblers without a purse." "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 wrote in the outlook. Gross noted that central banks theoretically could continue to print money, purchase assets, and drive down bond yields until they hit their goals, just as a martingale gambler with enough money could keep raising bets amid a series of losses. "An interesting counter to my martingale characterization of central bankers is in fact that they do have an unlimited bankroll and that they can bet on the 31st, 32nd, or 'whatever it takes' roll of the dice,"Gross said. "After all, their cumulative balance sheets have increased by $15 trillion+ since the Great Recession. Why not $16 trillion more and then 20 or 30?" The issue, in Gross' opinion, is that these central banks do not work in a theoretical world and that the savings erosion from negative yields will eventually cause pain for investors and damage the world's financial markets.Here's Gross(emphasis added): "I think that the latter contention is true, but central bankers cannot continue to double down bets without risking a 'black' or perhaps 'grey' swan moment in global financial markets.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. Bitcoin and privately agreed upon block chain technologies amongst a small set of global banks, are just a few examples of attempts to stabilize the value of their current assets in future purchasing power terms. Gold would be another example — historic relic that it is.In any case, the current system is beginning to be challenged." All of this is to say that central banks cannot keep rates this low forever. But given that the Fed is already hiking and the ECB has recently signaled it may bring its asset purchases to an end, many central banks have already recognized this. Gross goes on to say low-interest-rate policies threaten "capitalism itself" because capital can no longer be efficiently allocated. "Central bankers have fostered a casino like atmosphere where savers/investors are presented with a Hobson's Choice, or perhaps a more damaging Sophie's Choice of participating (or not) in markets previously beyond prior imagination,"Gross concluded. "Investors/savers are now scrappin' like mongrel dogs for tidbits of return at the zero bound. This cannot end well." NOW WATCH:KRUGMAN: Obamacare was done 'on the cheap' and now it is struggling More From Business Insider • Here's why Janet Yellen might quit if Donald Trump wins • Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen forgot a key measure of the job market during testimony to Congress • A GOP congressman attacked Janet Yellen for looking 'cozy' with Obama and Democrats || Indian bitcoin company raises $1.5 million from U.S., Indian investors: NEW YORK, Sept 29 (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) || 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." 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) || Flow CARIFTA Games 2017: Exciting on-the-go access, more broadcast hours for Caribbean sports fans: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 11, 2016) - As Caribbean sports fans gear up for theFlow CARIFTA Games 2017, they have something new to be excited about. Flow is once again raising the bar for sports viewership by providing fans with anytime, anywhere access with the new Flow Sports App. For the first time ever, fans of the Flow CARIFTA Games will not have to miss a single stride of the action whether they choose to be in the stadium in Curacao, watch from the comfort of their living rooms or tune in on the go -- they simply need to download the Flow Sports app on theirAndroidoriOSsmart devices, or visit the online microsite atwww.flowsports.cofrom any lap top or tablet device. Flow now in its 2ndyear as theOfficial Broadcast Partner and Sponsorof the Flow CARIFTA Games, is alsoextending the live coverage to six hours each dayto bring fans even more of their favourite sports action. Additionally, the coverage will feature commentary from veteran Caribbean journalists from across the region, includingNadine Liverpool, internationally renowned sports broadcaster and host of Flow Sports Premier Weekly, andDalton Myers, Director of Sports at the University of the West Indies. So, now, track and field fans can have the best seats in the houseandget expert insights just by tuning into Flow Sports. Wendy McDonald, Senior Director Communications -- Consumer Group, Flow said, "We are changing the game in sports viewership in the region, delivering more options and more content than ever before by any provider. This is the essence of what we bring to the Flow CARIFTA Games 2017. We are absolutely delighted to be able to work withThe North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association(NACAC) and to have this opportunity to wow sports fans even while we contribute to the development of our athletes and the sport in general. Our mission is simply connecting communities, transforming lives, and we see our role as lead sponsor of the Flow CARIFTA Games as delivering on that commitment." Commenting on the importance of their partnership with Flow, NACAC President, Victor Lopez said, "The IAAF-NACAC Athletics Association is proud of the invaluable partnership with Flow Sports for the sponsorship and broadcast of the Flow CARIFTA Games throughout the Caribbean." This year, The Flow CARIFTA Games 2017 will be held on Easter Weekend in Curacao and will feature the Caribbean's elite up-and-coming athletes who will compete in various track and field events. Now in its 46thyear, the Flow CARIFTA Games has served as a spring board for many of the Caribbean's athletic stars, includingFlow Brand Ambassadors, two-time Olympian, gold and silver medallist, Kirani James of Grenada, Trinidadian Khalifa St. Fort, who holds the CARIFTA 100m women's record and Jaheel Hyde, Jamaican sprinter. The Flow CARIFTA Games 2017 was launched at a press conference at the Hilton Curacao on November 10th. Flow Curacao Country Manager, Didier Renault, thanked the local organising committee, as well as Mr. Lopez and his team, and added, "As we say here in Curacao, 'Bon Bini!' We're proud to host this huge regional sporting event, and once again show that we're committed to helping develop sports across the Caribbean. With so many young athletes vying to inscribe their names in the Caribbean sports history books, the upcoming Flow CARIFTA Games is set to be intense, electrifying and fun --and you can catch it all onFlow Sports." Tune in to Flow Sports -- The Home of Sports in the Caribbean. Click hereto watch press conference highlights. Watch Showreel here 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. 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 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=3079655Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3079657 || Coen brothers are writing 'Dark Web,' the Silk Road movie: Heads up,Fargofans: Fox is making a movie calledDark Webabout Silk Road founderRoss Ulbricht, and the studioenlistedthe help of the Coen brothers. The siblings are on board to write the film's screenplay based on theWiredseries that tells the story of Ulbricht's empire and its fall in the hands of authorities. Silk Road was once a thriving online black market selling illegal drugs, weapons and even the services of hitmen, where buyers and sellers dealt in Bitcoins as their main currency. Ulbricht, who was known in the community under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, began building it back in 2010. Five years later, he wassentenced to lifein prison after he was convicted on seven charges of money laundering, drug trafficking, conspiracy and computer hacking, among other things. The controversial figure also ordered a hit on five people, including a blackmailer, according to a transcript of his conversations with assassins thatWiredpublished. While DPR paid for the hits,nobodyactually got killed. As if those elements weren't enough to make a good thriller, one of the federal agents who investigated the case alsoreceiveda six-and-a-half year sentence. He was found guilty of stealing $800,000 worth of Bitcoins from the marketplace while the feds were investigating the case. It's unclear if the Coen brothers will also directDark Web,but we're sure a lot of people will be thrilled if they sign up for that part, as well. Besides the crime thrillerFargo, they also directed and wrote a number of other award-winning films, includingTrue Grit,No Country for Old Menand Spielberg'sBridge of Spies. || John Reid Confirmed as CEO of Cable and Wireless: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 21, 2016) - John Reid has been confirmed as Chief Executive Officer of C&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 by Liberty Global plc "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. Story continues 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 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. 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 visit www.libertyglobal.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3082861 || 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 thatthe 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. "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 onTwitterandFacebook. || 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 [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] 12Oct2016 00:00 UTC #Bitcoin live spots - #XBTUSD @ 641.67750 $ - #XBTEUR @ 581.36000 € || #ChainCoin #CHC $0.000133 (-0.67%) 0.00000019 BTC (0.00%) || #AudioCoin #ADC $0.000226 (-0.44%) 0.00000032 BTC (-0.00%) || Current price of Bitcoin is $715.00 via Chain || 1 KOBO = 0.00000308 BTC = 0.0019 USD = 0.5776 NGN = 0.0264 ZAR = 0.1923 KES #Kobocoin 2016-10-08 12:00 pic.twitter.com/MEpgLlXhH2 || One Bitcoin now worth $698.00@bitstamp. High $745.19. Low $670.32. Market Cap $11.144 Billion #bitcoin || Bitfinex to Hacker: Can We Have Our Bitcoin Back?: Bitfinex is now seeking to strike a deal with the hacker w... http://bit.ly/2eePgfO  || One Bitcoin now worth $605.00@bitstamp. High $605.99. Low $602.10. Market Cap $9.621 Billion #bitcoin || 1 #bitcoin = $12415.00 MXN | $666.89 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 18.62MXN http://www.bitapeso.com  || Current value of DOGE in BTC: BTER: 0.00000033 -- Volume: 10372024.947 Today's trend: stable at 11/07/16 07:00
Trend: no change || Prices: 751.35, 744.59, 740.29, 741.65, 735.38, 732.03, 735.81, 735.60, 745.69, 756.77
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 2018-05-25] BTC Price: 7480.14, BTC RSI: 33.11 Gold Price: 1303.30, Gold RSI: 46.54 Oil Price: 67.88, Oil RSI: 41.78 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Buy These 2 Stocks Before the Market Catches On: BothWalt Disney(NYSE: DIS)andHasbro(NASDAQ: HAS)possess entertainment brands that are beloved by children and families around the world. Yet shares of both companies have fallen out of favor with investors recently. Because families are not likely to stop visiting Disneyworld or buying toys for the little ones, Disney and Hasbro should be solid long-term investments. Here's why Disney and Hasbro are two top stocks to buy now. IMAGE SOURCE: WALT DISNEY. Disney has been pumping out blockbuster after blockbuster at the box office lately. The recent release of Marvel'sBlack Pantherin February has grossed $1.3 billion worldwide, and that's on top of $4.4 billion from previous releases includingThor: Ragnarok,Coco, andStar Wars: The Last Jedi. Since fiscal 2013 (following the acquisitions of Marvel Entertainment in fiscal 2010 and Lucasfilm in fiscal 2013), the Studio segment's revenue and operating profit have surged, as you can see in this table. [{"Segment": "Media Networks", "TTM Revenue": "$23,520", "% Change Since Fiscal 2013": "(1%)", "TTM Operating Profit": "$6,733"}, {"Segment": "Parks and Resorts", "TTM Revenue": "$19,014", "% Change Since Fiscal 2013": "81%", "TTM Operating Profit": "$4,011"}, {"Segment": "Studio Entertainment", "TTM Revenue": "$8,363", "% Change Since Fiscal 2013": "254%", "TTM Operating Profit": "$2,342"}, {"Segment": "Consumer Products", "TTM Revenue": "$4,807", "% Change Since Fiscal 2013": "68%", "TTM Operating Profit": "$1,719"}, {"Segment": "Total", "TTM Revenue": "$55,704", "% Change Since Fiscal 2013": "38%", "TTM Operating Profit": "$14,805"}] TTM = trailing-12-month. Amounts in millions. Data source: Walt Disney. Through fiscal 2017 ending in September, Disney had released approximately 1,000 full-length live-action films and 100 full-length animated films, and the most successful of these ultimately turn into feature attractions at its theme parks. Over time, these attractions grow guest attendance, allowing Disney to raise prices. In the fiscal first quarter, higher prices for tickets, food, merchandise, and hotel rooms drove a 13% increase in revenue and 21% increase in operating profit for the Parks segment. Disney's theme parks and resorts is the company's second-largest source of revenue, generating $19 billion over the trailing-12-month period. The segment has grown revenue 35% since fiscal 2013 and should be a steadily growing segment for years to come as management opens new parks, expands existing parks, and adds to its Disney cruise line fleet. Theme parks, movies, and consumer products are the heart and soul of Disney. However, investors are more focused on the recent declines in subscribers to its ESPN and Disney cable channels as the cord-cutting trend takes its toll, but this is giving investors a unique opportunity to buy shares in a timeless brand at a discount. At atrailing P/E ratioof just 14, you can buy a piece of the Magic Kingdom at a bargain price compared to theS&P; 500P/E ratio of 25. The recent weakness in media networks shouldn't last forever. Management is beginning to shift investments away from cable to focus more on a direct-to-consumer strategy. This ispart of the rationalefor the pending deal withTwenty-First Century Fox, which will enhance Disney's digital capabilities. Additionally, Disney is set to launch a robust mobile experience with its new ESPN app this year and a new Disney app in 2019. Ultimately, Disney's core brand and pricing power should shine, so don't wait for better performance to send the stock price higher -- consider adding shares now while the House of Mouse is on sale. IMAGE SOURCE: HASBRO. Hasbro is home to some of the top toy brands in the world, includingTransformers,Play-Doh,Nerf,My Little Pony, andMonopoly, among many others. Over the last five years, revenue has grown 22% to $5 billion, and operating margin has expanded 210 basis points to 15.6%. There should be further expansion as management is focusing more on investing in higher-margin products like its digital offerings, including video games and apps, as well as turning its biggest toy brands into movies, most notably withTransformersandMy Little Pony. Hasbro's entertainment and licensing segment generates about 6% of its revenue, including consumer products licensing, mobile games, and movie releases. As you can see in the table below, this segment is growing much faster than the rest of the business and is where management is focusing more of its investments for long-term growth. Management's goal is to produce one animated film and one or two live action films per year going forward. [{"Segment": "Entertainment and Licensing", "TTM Revenue": "$297", "% 5-Year Change": "86%", "TTM Operating Profit": "$99"}, {"Segment": "Total", "TTM Revenue": "$5,076", "% 5-Year Change": "18%", "TTM Operating Profit": "$652"}] TTM = trailing-12-month. Amounts in millions. Data source: Hasbro. Hasbro gaming brands, includingMagic: The Gathering,Dungeons & Dragons, andMonopoly, make up 17% of revenue and have grown 30% over the last three years.Magic: The Gatheringhas seen a surge in its popularity recently with the rise of esports and the growth of game streaming. Through board games, video games, movies, merchandise, and toys, Hasbro has different channels to reach consumers wherever they are, and that's why the recent uncertainty caused by the bankruptcy of Toys "R" Us is giving investors such a great opportunity to buy shares of one of the leading toy brands in the world at a discount. Even after factoring in lower revenue as a result of the void left by Toys "R" Us (which made up only 9% of Hasbro's revenue each of the last three years), Hasbro stock currently sports a forward P/E ratio of 15 times the 2018 consensus analyst estimate. With a modest valuation and an above average dividend yield of about 3%, investors should think about adding Hasbro to their portfolio before the market realizes its mistake. 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 Ballardhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Hasbro and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Is This How AT&T Plans to Make DIRECTV Now Profitable?: AT&T(NYSE: T)has nearly 1.5 million DIRECTV Now subscribers as of the end of the first quarter. The company's over-the-top linear TV streaming service has grown faster than competitors likeDISH Network's(NASDAQ: DISH)Sling TV,Sony's(NYSE: SNE)PlayStation Vue, or Hulu Live. It seems like only a matter of time before DIRECTV Now's subscriber base surpasses Sling TV's 2.3 million subscribers to become the most popular streaming TV service. But one thing AT&T doesn't mention is that its DIRECTV Now subscribers aren't very profitable. In fact,the average subscriber probably produces a loss for AT&T. The average DIRECTV Now subscriber generates an estimated $31 per month for AT&T, and content costs alone costs an estimated $30 per month. AT&T expects to reduce its margin pressure through alternative services, the first of which it's rolling out publicly this month. AT&T is now offering DIRECTV Now customers a cloud DVR service and the option for a third simultaneous stream (standard subscriptions are limited to two streams). Image source: DIRECTV Now. DIRECTV Now is the last of the major over-the-top linear TV services to offer DVR functionality. The DVR service for DIRECTV Now actually has a tier that is included for all of its streaming services at no additional charge. Customers can record 20 hours of video and save it for 30 days. If they want more storage, customers will have to pay an extra $10 per month for 100 hours and a 90-day time limit. Here's how that compares to the competition. [{"Metric": "DVR hours", "DIRECT TV Now (Included)": "20", "DIRECT TV Now (Add-On)": "100", "Sling TV": "50", "Hulu Live (Included)": "50", "Hulu Live (Add-On)": "200", "PlayStation Vue": "Unlimited"}, {"Metric": "DVR time limit (days)", "DIRECT TV Now (Included)": "30", "DIRECT TV Now (Add-On)": "90", "Sling TV": "none", "Hulu Live (Included)": "none", "Hulu Live (Add-On)": "none", "PlayStation Vue": "28"}, {"Metric": "Price", "DIRECT TV Now (Included)": "included", "DIRECT TV Now (Add-On)": "$10", "Sling TV": "$5", "Hulu Live (Included)": "included", "Hulu Live (Add-On)": "$15", "PlayStation Vue": "included"}] Data source: CNET, TechCrunch, Sling, and Sony. It's worth noting all of these DVR options have their own peculiarities. Sling TV restricts the channels you can record. You have to pay for the premium DVR on Hulu Live to be able to skip commercials. All in all, DIRECTV Now's cloud DVR option compares favorably to its competitors' in most regards. If you've had a traditional pay-TV subscription in the last decade, you know cable providers can really throw in a lot of extra fees. Each TV you want to hook up requires its own cable box, which comes with a monthly fee. If you want to unlock the DVR functionality that's already available on all of those boxes, you have to pay a monthly fee for it. Cable companies have become experts at adding fees. One of the biggest attractions of services like DIRECTV Now is the straightforward pricing. People are easily frustrated when they're advertised one price, but end up paying significantly more. AT&T is diving down that rabbit hole with cloud DVR and additional streams. That's not to say AT&T isn't transparent with its DIRECTV Now pricing. It's very clear that if you want more DVR space or an additional stream, you'll have to pay more. But that could erode AT&T's pricing advantage over the competition. It turns out you'll pay roughly the same price for extremely similar services across all the competitors in this article if you want premium DVR functionality. That means AT&T will have a harder time signing up those premium customers than the price-conscious customers it's been attracting. AT&T might have better luck with other ways to increase the revenue from streaming television besides asking customers to pay more each month. On the company'sfirst-quarter earnings call, CFO John Stephens told analysts, "The real growth here is gonna be in these alternative services, whether it's cloud DVRs, pay-per-views, data insights, advertising, doing those kinds of things." Pay-per-view could be an interesting source of revenue. AT&T is the largest pay-TV provider in the United States, and it could use that leverage to acquire exclusive pay-per-view events. More interesting, however, is the use of data and advertising to improve monetization. Digital streaming opens the door to collect a lot more data and improve ad targeting over traditional television distribution. That's an area that could be far more fruitful for AT&T than simply asking for more money from its subscribers. While additional consumer services like cloud DVR and add-on streams are a good start for AT&T, they simply bring DIRECTV Now up to par with the competition. They're unlikely to move the needle much on average revenue per user or profitability. (Remember, it still costs money to provide a cloud DVR, and most customers will use the free tier.) The ability to generate more revenue through sources that don't cost consumers more is what could really drive profitability, but there's no timeline for when we might see that. 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 Levyhas 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. || Facebook Doubles Down on Virtual Reality: Since its $3 billion purchase of Oculus four years ago,Facebook(NASDAQ: FB)has been pouring more resources into its effort to get virtual reality to go mainstream. Clearly, those efforts haven't paid off quite yet, but at its F8 conference last week, Facebook showed that it's committed as ever to VR. The company's much-anticipated Oculus Go headset officially launched and Facebook also gave attendees a sneak-peek at a prototype that it's working on. Let's take a closer look at the company's new hardware, why Facebook ispushing ahead full steamin this space, and a few roadblocks it might face along the way. Image source: Oculus. The current star of Facebook's VR strategy is undeniably its new $199 Oculus Go. Unlike other Oculus headsets before it, it doesn't require the assistance of a smartphone, a high-end PC, or any other pricey hardware: It's completely untethered from other devices. This means the Go lacks some of the high-end features the more expensive Rift headset has (for example, the Go can't track motion, other than head movement), but it does offer big features for a relatively small price tag and works right out of the box. It has speakers built right into the headset strap, a dedicated display, and comes with its own controller. Go even has a spacer that allows eyeglass-wearers to comfortably use it -- or, you can order a pair of prescription lenses that fit right into the device (for an additional fee, of course). The standard version comes with 32GB of memory, or you can opt for the 64GB version for $250. While all of this is impressive considering Go's relatively low price, Facebook isn't stopping there. At its conference, the company talked about another VR headset it's working on, codenamed Half Dome. This new device, which doesn't have an estimated release date yet, will have a wider field of view than other headsets (140 degrees vs. 100 degrees). It will use cutting-edge, variable-focus lenses that physically shift to bring images in and out of focus. The technology works by sensing when a user is bringing an object closer to their virtual face, such as a note they want to read in a game, and adjusts the screen to make the object clearer as it gets closer, similar to how we look at objects in real life. With Go and Half Dome, the company is confirming what CEO Mark Zuckerberg said about virtual reality on Facebook's earnings call last month: So we're investing a lot in this because, frankly, we haven't to date been a hardware company or an operating system company. And we think that we need to build up a lot of different muscles in order to be competitive and be able to succeed in that space and to be able to shape that space. Facebook's VR hardware is clearly moving in the right direction, but investors need to remember that this market is anything but proven. Facebook faces two key hurdles, and the first is exactly the one Zuckerberg described: Hardware and operating systems aren't exactly in the company's wheelhouse. That doesn't mean its VR headsets will fail, but it does mean we shouldn't be surprised if the company stumbles in their development. The second relates to a pointI wrote about last year:Right now, the company with the biggest advantage in virtual reality isSony, which can easily sell its PlayStation VR headset to people who are already own PlayStation consoles. Lacking that kind of ready-made gaming ecosystem, Facebook will have to convince consumers to buy a standalone headset that's not compatible with existing games on a popular console. But Facebook is committed to virtual reality, and Zuckerberg still says he views VR as a potential candidate for the next major computing platform: So on virtual reality here, I think the big picture is that every 10 to 15 years or so, there's a major new computing paradigm, right... So it strikes me as inevitable that, that progression will continue. And these -- each one gets to be more natural to interact with, more natural gestures for controlling, more immersive, more portable. So I think it strikes me as very likely that the next one is going to be around virtual and augmented reality. He's certainly not the only one who sees tech moving in that direction: Zuckerberg may also be motivated by forecasts that the VR market will have a value of $19 billion by 2021, up from just $2.2 billion last year. Investors will still have to wait a little while longer to see how all of this plays out for Facebook, but I think we're closer than ever to seeing if VR can truly go mainstream. With its mix of features and its relatively inexpensive price tag, the Oculus Go might be just the device to jump-start consumer interest. Just don't expect it to add meaningfully to Facebook's top or bottom lines any time soon. 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 Chris Neigerhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 3 Bargain Stocks You Can Buy Right Now: Despite some volatility, the stock market remains in its longest bull market ever. But after more than nine years of gains, many stocks have steep valuations. Do investors have to wait for a major correction to find stocks with attractive prices? Not at all. Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) , Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) , and Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD) actually have relatively low valuations. Here's why these are three bargain stocks you can buy right now. Price value chart with drawing of an arrow hitting bulls-eye in lowest price and highest value quadrant Image source: Getty Images. Gilead Sciences Gilead Sciences stock trades at only 11 times expected earnings. Why is the big biotech stock so inexpensive? Gilead's revenue and earnings have declined over the last couple of years on sinking sales of its hepatitis C virus (HCV) franchise. But Gilead is a value rather than a value trap, in my view. Those HCV sales have fallen in large part because so many patients have been cured that there aren't as many left to begin treatment. However, Gilead thinks the HCV market should stabilize relatively soon. Stabilization in the HCV market should set Gilead up for a return to growth. Market research firm EvaluatePharma expects Gilead's new HIV drug Biktarvy to be the biggest new drug launch of 2018 . Biktarvy could also become Gilead's biggest and best HIV drug ever, with peak annual sales projections of close to $6 billion. Gilead could also benefit from several other big winners over the next few years. Cancer drug Yescarta should be on track to reach peak annual sales of $2.7 billion. Gilead hopes to submit for regulatory approval next year for two other potential blockbusters -- autoimmune disease drug filgotinib and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) drug selonsertib. Micron Technology You won't find too many growth stocks more attractively valued than Micron. The chipmaker's stock trades at a super-low five times expected earnings. That dirt-cheap valuation stems primarily from fears that the notoriously cyclical memory chip business could be headed for another big downturn. Story continues Memory chip stocks do experience huge boom-and-bust swings. Micron is in a boom period right now, with the stock gaining close to 80% over the last 12 months. However, it's possible that history could repeat itself as Samsung and other memory chip companies increase supply, which would lead to lower memory chip prices. On the other hand, prices only fall due to increased supply when demand doesn't grow. But demand for memory chips likely will increase. Artificial intelligence, autonomous (self-driving) cars, and cryptocurrency mining present new markets that either didn't exist or were much smaller in previous memory chip cycles. Other areas like cybersecurity, gaming, and video surveillance also present greater opportunities than in the past. Micron has positioned itself well in supplying memory chips for these markets. That's especially true for autonomous cars . Micron began shipping its super-fast LPDDR4x memory chips to several automakers last year for use in self-driving cars. The company is also working to develop even more advanced autonomous car technology. Walker & Dunlop Walker & Dunlop claims a forward earnings multiple below 11. Like Micron, Walker & Dunlop operates in a cyclical industry -- in this case, commercial real estate services and finance. The company primarily focuses on financing owners and operators of multifamily properties across the U.S. A serious slowdown in the economy would likely hurt Walker & Dunlop in several ways, including higher rates of defaults, fewer financing transactions, and lower price tags on deals made resulting from declining property values. But the U.S. economy still appears to be healthy. Walker & Dunlop's business is doing better than ever before. Last year, the company reported its biggest jump in revenue, earnings, and total transaction volume since its initial public offering in 2011. Walker & Dunlop has increased its market share of the multifamily loan market from 2.8% seven years ago to 7.3% in 2017. Walker & Dunlop's goal is to increase revenue by roughly 40% to $1 billion by 2020. That might seem overly ambitious, but I think the company can achieve its objective. Investors will also be paid as they wait for Walker & Dunlop's growth: The company recently initiated a quarterly dividend . Think long-term These stocks are bargains primarily because many investors have a short-term perspective and are worried about what might happen. Gilead Sciences' revenue and earnings are falling right now. Memory chip prices could plunge, taking Micron's share price down as well. Higher interest rates could lead to a contracting economy, causing problems for Walker & Dunlop. The better approach, though, is to think long term. Gilead Sciences has some great new products and others on the way. Micron is positioning itself to be a key player in several markets with tremendous opportunities over the next several decades. Walker & Dunlop has carved out a niche in a market that should enjoy increasing demand over the long run, even if there are some peaks and valleys along the way. Whether it's with cars, houses, stocks, or anything else bought and sold, bargains only exist when someone doesn't fully appreciate the real value of the item. Gilead, Micron, and Walker & Dunlop should have long-term value that their current stock prices aren't reflecting. 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 Keith Speights owns shares of Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool owns shares of Walker & Dunlop and has the following options: short May 2018 $85 calls on Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA Stock Dropped 12% Today: What happened Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA (NYSE: EBR) stock crashed 11.6% in Wednesday trading, closing at $4.43 per share after Reuters reported that the Brazilian government has removed from its 2018 budget any mention of revenue anticipated to come from the privatization of the government's stake in the power utility. The government had reportedly hoped to reap $3.3 billion from the sale of its stake. Lightning strike against a purple sky Investors in electric utility Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras just got zapped. Image source: Getty Images. So what Why would this push the stock price down? That's a bit difficult to parse. According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence , the Brazilian government currently owns more than 44% of Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras shares outstanding, with the balance publicly traded by institutions and pension, venture capital, and private equity funds. Putting those state-owned shares on the market, one imagines, would ordinarily push the share price down (by increasing supply on presumably static demand). On the other hand, freeing up those shares for trading would also boost liquidity of the stock, potentially making Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras more attractive to investors. Getting the state out of the business might also be expected to encourage Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras to focus more on earning profits and less on keeping the citizenry happy with low utility rates. (Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras is currently unprofitable, and has lost money in four of the past five years). Now what Privatization could still happen, of course. Removing the expected revenue from privatization from the 2018 budget doesn't mean that it is off the table -- if not this year, then perhaps it could happen next year, or even the year after that. For the time being, however, and for whatever reason, investors are viewing this expected delay as a negative for the stock. 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 Rich Smith 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 . || Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 21/04/18: Bitcoin Cash $1,000 Following a slow start to the day, Bitcoin Cash rounded off the week with a 16.3% rally, following Thursday’s 7.9% gain, to end the day at $1,153.1. It was the highest close since the first week of March, with Bitcoin Cash managing to recover from a morning $941 low as the cryptomarket kicked into gear in the late morning, with the rally breaking through the day’s first major resistance level of $1,007.93 and 2 nd resistance level of $1,049.87 before facing selling pressure at the 3 rd resistance level of $1,157.47. The slight pull-back at the day’s end will be of little concern, investors enjoying another day of support levels being left untested, with Bitcoin Cash having surged a whopping 43.8% Monday through Friday. While the scheduled hard fork may have provided support in recent days, a material shift in market sentiment has been the key driver, with similar gains being seen elsewhere, the only laggard being Bitcoin. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash was up 0.4% to $1,129, to lead the way amongst the major cryptocurrencies, with the rest of the pack in the red through the early part of the morning. It’s been a choppy start, which was to be expected following Friday’s rally, though an early $1,061.4 low steered clear of the day’s first major support level of $991.7 and 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $1,022.6. The morning’s moves come from increased appetite from the May hard fork, while a morning $1,143.5 high in the last hour also failed to test the day’s first major resistance level of $1,203.8, with the broader market needing to make a move for Bitcoin Cash to break through to $1,200 levels for the first time since 8 th March. Failure to move through to $1,200 levels will unlikely see a material pullback through the day, the bull run intact following Friday’s swing hi $1,153.1, though a continued slide across the broader markets could see Bitcoin Cash test buyer appetite at the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level later in the day. Story continues BCH/USD 21/04/18 Hourly Chart Get Into Bitcoin Cash Trading Today Litecoin consolidates $150 Litecoin continued on its road to recovery, gaining 6.46% off the back of Thursday’s 4.47% rise, to end the day at $155.8, a 17.6% rise for the week Monday through Friday. With the failings of Litepay behind it, the bull run formed at 6 th April’s swing lo 112.1 remains strongly in place, the bull run supported by Litecoin’s inclusion on a number of exchanges and the end of the U.S 17 th April tax deadline. An intraday low $143.31 in the early part of the day held above the first major support level of $141.19 and 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $139.3, with a choppy start to the day ultimately ending with Litecoin rallying to a day high $156.46 late in the day. While major support levels were untested, Litecoin broke through the day’s first major resistance level of $150.05 by the middle of the day, before breaking through the 2 nd resistance level of $153.33 late on, with Litecoin holding above the 2 nd resistance level by the day’s end. At the time of writing, Litecoin was down 1.62% to $153.19, as investors lock in profits following the week’s gains and Litecoin consolidates ahead of what investors will hope to be another weekend rally. A start of the day intraday high $157.1 came off the back of Friday’s afternoon rally, which went into reverse within the first hour of this morning, Litecoin hitting a morning low $151.3 within the first hour before recovering to current levels. The morning low steered clear of the day’s first major support level of $147.25 and 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $146, as the dips through the current bull rally become shallower. For the day ahead, a move back through to $155 would signal a reversal to this morning’s consolidation and support a run at the day’s first major resistance level of $160.4 and signal the prospects of a 5 th consecutive day of gains, with broader market sentiment capable of seeing Litecoin make a run at the 2 nd resistance level of $165.01. Failure to make a run at the day’s major resistance level could see Litecoin pullback through to sub-$150 levels and test the day’s first major support level, though with general sentiment bullish, Litecoin would find plenty of support towards the end of the day, sub-$150 likely to be a buy signal for the market. LTC/USD 21/04/18 Hourly Chart Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly Ripple Soars Ripple’s XRP rallied 18.53% on Friday, following Thursday’s 19.15% bounce, to end the day at $0.92554. 3 consecutive days of gains led Ripple’s XRP to a 34% rally for the week, Monday through Friday, with $0.90 levels hit for the first time since 8 th March. Ripple’s XRP bucked the trend from the beginning of the morning on Friday, with many of the crypto majors in consolidation mode early on, the day’s $0.77456 low coming within the first hour of the day, from which a rally continued through to the day’s end, a day high $0.95634 breaking through the major resistance levels of the day before easing back to below the 3 rd resistance level of $0.9532 by the day’s end. The bull run formed at 6 th April’s swing lo $0.45716 remains firmly intact, the passing of the U.S tax deadline, talk of Soros and other family money entering the market and an easing in government and regulator chatter supporting the latest bull run. At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down 2.6% to $0.90205 as investors looked to lock in sizeable profits from the rallies of the past two days. Ripple’s XRP slipped to a $0.88034 low in the early part of the morning, before bouncing back, with investors quick to jump in at sub-$0.90 levels, the day’s first major support level of $0.8146 and 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $0.8385 untested in the early part of the day. There’s been no move to speak of, but with sentiment towards Ripple’s cross-border wire transfer platform on a high and the markets expecting the smart money to begin a more selective investment process, the prospects for Ripple’s XRP are certainly on the positive side. A move back through to the start of the day’s $0.93238 would signal the beginnings of another rally, which would bring the day’s first major resistance level of $0.994 and $1.00 levels into play, such a move likely to draw in more investors on any pullback from resistance levels as Ripple’s XRP looks to recover the year’s losses. Failure to make a run at the day’s resistance levels could see Ripple’s XRP stay in consolidation mode through much of the day, with any pullbacks to sub-$0.90 levels likely to find plenty of support, leaving the day’s first major support level of $0.8146 and the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $0.8385 untested, barring a material sell off in the markets. While Bitcoin has been the barometer for the cryptomarkets over the last 12-months, Bitcoin Cash will likely be a more appropriate indicator of investor sentiment ahead of the hard fork next month. XRP/USD 21/04/18 Hourly Chart Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: US dollar rallies against Canadian dollar during the week Bitcoin pulls back during week, only to find buyers Euro climbs against British pound during the week Euro initially rallies, and then turns around during the week The New Zealand dollar falls hard during week Natural Gas goes back and forth during choppy trading week || Think ‘Heretical’ Thoughts: Mike Hearn tells Bitcoin Cash: Early Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn isn’t coming back to the open-source community, but he does have some thoughts on what has transpired since he cut ties with the project in 2016. Hearn — who now develops distributed ledger technology (DLT) atbanking consortium startup R3— conversed at length about Bitcoin’s blocksize debate and its descent into a blockchain split during a wide-rangingReddit AMAheld on Thursday. Though a “big blocker” himself prior toleaving the community, Hearn does not believe that raising the blocksize limit is sufficient to cureBitcoin Cashof its parent blockchain’s perceived ills — particularly in regard to blockchain governance. Hearn wrote: “My view is that Bitcoin Cash strongly resembles the Bitcoin community of 2014. This is not good. That experiment was tried and it didn’t work. It’s tempting to think that what happened was a freak one-off occurrence, but I don’t think it was. I think it was inevitable given the structure and psychological profile of the community at the time. So just trying to ‘get back on track’ as I see it, is nowhere near radical enough.” Hearn acknowledged that the speed with which Bitcoin Cash built its own infrastructure and community in the wake of the blockchain split was “impressive,” but he argued that the fork was not the victory that many proponents believe. “The community lost a lot in the Cash split. I realise it may seem like a victory of sorts but in effect the big blockers abandoned everything except the code,” he wrote. “It is astonishing that this event didn’t negatively affect the price, but as noted below this is a double edged sword. It appears that price and utility aren’t linked at all and that avoided a crisis during the Cash split but also causes crises of its own.” Hearn left the Bitcoin Cash community with a radical proposition: stop treating Satoshi like a god and instead be willing to implement ideas that he and other early Bitcoin developers might have found “heretical.” “If I could get one message across to you in this session it’s this: be bold. Be willing to accept that what happened was not just bad luck,” he concluded. “Liberate yourselves from just proceeding along the path Satoshi imagined and be willing to think radical, even heretical thoughts.” Featured image from Shutterstock. The postThink ‘Heretical’ Thoughts: Mike Hearn tells Bitcoin Cashappeared first onCCN. || Monero Just Hard Forked — and It Resulted in Four New Projects: One hard fork later, there are four new Monero projects. Privacy-centric cryptocurrency Monero hard forked to version 12 of its protocol yesterday. But not everyone is on board. Following theexampleonce set byEthereum Classic, some users are continuing on the pre-hard fork Monero blockchain… though in this case not as a single project. Now there isMonero Classic(XMC),Monero 0(XMZ),Monero Original(XMO) and a second project by the nameMonero Classic(XMC) (which in this article we will refer to as Monero-Classic); these are all continuing on version 11 of the Monero protocol. Of course, this means they are all still compatible on a single network, using the same coin — just with different names. Here’s the story of the pre-hard fork Monero blockchain and the four different projects keeping it alive. As an ongoing protocol upgrade process, Monero has made a habit of hard forking once every six months. The latest hard fork introduced several new features, including an increased ring-size for more private but also bigger (thus more resource-intensive) transactions, multi-signature transactions, initial Ledger Nano S hardware wallet support, and more. The latest hard fork also introduced a tweak to Monero’s CryptoNight proof-of-work hashing algorithm. This backwards-incompatible change makes all existing ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) mining hardware useless. Such specialized hardware is a bigger concern on the CryptoNight hashing algorithm than most other hashing algorithms, as it could let ASIC miners launch denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on non-ASIC miners and non-mining nodes on the network. The risks presented by ASIC-mining hardware appeared to be reason why at least most of Monero’s development and user community agreed on the change. However, not all parties were equally happy with the hard fork, presumably. Most notably, major hardware manufacturerBitmain, as well as smaller manufacturersHalong MiningandPinIdea, recently all announced that they had developed ASIC machines for the CryptoNight hashing algorithm (and such hardware was probably used to mine on the Monero blockchain in secret). All this hardware would be rendered mostly worthless after Monero’s hard fork. Now, over the past couple of days and weeks, four projects have announced that they will continue to use the pre-hard fork Monero protocol. Since all four are using the same protocol, they are (at least as far as we can tell) really all the same network and coin, albeit with different names and logos. These are the four new projects continuing the pre-hard fork Monero blockchain. This first, Monero Classic, is initiated by a group that self-identifies as Monero enthusiasts from Singapore — including developers and “a few” miners — who felt it was “time to take action.” Speaking toBitcoin Magazine, representative Bento Tan explained that he believes that the development of ASICs is a healthy, market-driven process. He said: “The ability to have choices promotes competition and that drives growth. We have to look at things at that level. Unilateral control is a suffocating death because you take away the need to improve and innovate.” Tan added that he considers this healthy market dynamic to be confirmed by the fact there are three different manufacturers to have created ASICs — not just one. Further, hard-forking to make mining hardware obsolete is a considered a bigger risk than the risk of mining centralization. A statement on the Monero Classic website reads: “The main message of Monero Classic is that we believe that the developers changing the proof of work creates more centralization and harms decentralization.” And: “The M[o]nero developers are saying that they can and will change the consensus rules whenever it suits them and the community seems to be conditioned into following the wishes of the developers.” Monero Classic has no connections with any of the other new Monero projects, Tan said, and has no plans to cooperate with them. On the project website, the person behind Monero-Classic identifies himself as “PZ, an early Bitcoin evangelist and blockchain eco builder”. (You can read more about PZhere.) Not unlike (the other) Monero Classic, PZ explains on this website that “the emergence of specialized mining machine[s] for a cryptocurrency is [a] normal market economy phenomenon.” Additionally, PZ argues that “if there are professional mining machines, the events like ‘Monero was attacked by more than 500,000 botnets’ could be avoided,” referring to botnets that have been used to mine Monero. Since the project seems to have originated from China, is activelypromotedby Bitmain’s mining pool AntPool, and of course because Bitmain has much to gain from a continuation of Monero with the CryptoNight hash algorithm, some suspect that this ASIC hardware manufacturer has a hand in this project, too. However, when asked byBitcoin Magazine, a Bitmain representative suggested this was not the case. Bitcoin Magazinewas unable to get in contact with PZ or anyone else from the Monero-Classic project by time of publication. Speaking withBitcoin Magazine, a pseudonymous spokesperson for Monero 0 identified the group as one of “concerned users” and "proof-of-work maximalists,” some of whom operate hobby operations for mining. On the project website, Monero 0 writes: “We’ve decided that the Monero Project’s strategy to continuously hard fork is no longer a stable or a sane strategy. We believe that Satoshi’s Proof of Work is the only mechanism for decentralized consensus. The so-called ‘network upgrades’ that are centrally mandated by the Monero Project are a Trojan Horse designed to compromise the effectiveness of Proof of Work in the Monero network. Monero 0 is not a fork; it is the original Monero.” The Monero 0 spokesperson further said that Monero is "an NVDA project", that “‘proof of fork’ is not a consensus method,” and that “Bitmain is trying to destroy Monero” — but did not have time to explain more. Not much is known about Monero Original or the people behind it. The project has aGitHub, and it sent press releases toseveraloutlets. This press release did not contain much information, but it did include a statement from the “lead developer of Monero Original team”: “Monero has always been about freedom of choice, about diversity and about the strong community behind it. We are providing the Monero fans [with] a possibility to support the iconic coin and stay on the original chain. Monero Original team stands for diversity, which is a logical marker of evolution. We are excited to see our favourite coin mature, and we are even more excited to help [in] keeping this diversity." At least one cryptocurrency exchange —HitBTC—indicatedit would make XMO balances available to all XMR holders at the time of the hard fork. This does not necessarily mean that HitBTC will also offer XMO trading, but it does make it more likely they will. Bitcoin Magazinereached out to the Monero Original project but did not receive any response by the time of publication. So far, it appears that both the new Monero blockchain and the pre-hard fork blockchain are being mined. Most hash power is still on the pre-hard fork blockchain, and both are supported by less hash power than they were before the hard fork. This means that blocks are being found more slowly, in particular on the new Monero blockchain, but this situation should stabilize within days. Assuming that at least one of the four new projects succeeds in keeping the pre-hard fork Monero blockchain running (and assuming the new Monero blockchain keeps running too), this could lead to some complications. For one, the Monero hard fork did not implement replay protection. This could mean that users who spend XMR on the new Monero blockchain could unintentionally spend the equivalent coins on the pre-hard fork blockchain, and vice versa. Thanks to other changes on the new Monero protocol, this risk appears limited for users of the pre-hard fork blockchain, however. The default transactions they make will be considered invalid on the new Monero protocol. But users of the new Monero blockchain do not have that same luck. If they want to keep their pre-hard fork coins, they should move these before they move their XMR, and do so with the default ring-size of five (or six). Over time, replay attacks should become less likely, even for users that didn’t move their coins. This is because on Monero, mixing coins is a requirement, and the odds that users will mix their coins with coins that are only valid on one chain will increase. Doing so will make the whole transaction invalid on one of both chains. A bigger problem is that moving coins on both blockchains independently reveals which coins are controlled by the same user. This is at odds with Monero’s central value proposition of privacy and fungibility. Therefore, anyone who uses Monero for privacy reasons is best advised to completely choose one chain and ignore the other. (It’s presumably best to ignore the chain that carries the least value.) Even users that do not use both chains may suffer from somewhat decreased privacy. If they mix their coins with users who revealed which coins they own, it can reduce the anonymity set of the users that did not. This added risk is probably compensated for on the new Monero protocol by the increased ring-size for transactions, however. Whether the pre-hard fork version of Monero (in the form of the four different projects) will gain and retain any market value of course remains to be seen. Monero lead developer Riccardo Spagni did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.Update April 7th:It appears there is a fifth project on the pre-hard fork Monero blockchain:MoneroC. Additionally, trading of XMO has by now commenced on HitBTC. At the time of writing this update, one XMO trades for 0.00175 BTC, which is about $12, or 0.07 XMR, but the price is very volatile. Some minor details were updated in the rest of the article as well. Thanks to Monero community contributor Justin Ehrenhofer for clarifying some of the technical details. This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || 3 Warren Buffett Stocks to Buy in April: To quote the old proverb, April showers bring May flowers. If you're a shareholder of Warren Buffett's investment vehicleBerkshire Hathaway(NYSE: BRK-A)(NYSE: BRK-B)they'll probably continue to bring the returns too. The company's renowned equity portfolio keeps growing; the total market value of its top equity positions was nearly $171 billion at the end of 2017, well higher than the $122 billion at the close of 2016. A clutch of those stocks have good potential to rise over the course of 2018. With that in mind, here is a trio of noted Berkshire titles to consider buying this month. Image source: The Motley Fool What a difference a decade makes.Bank of America(NYSE: BAC)was a shell-shocked basket case of a lender in the wake of the financial crisis, to the point where it required one of the largest bailouts from the government'sTARP program. It's a confident and prosperous bank these days. A strong efficiency push, in which branches were shuttered and online/mobile interfaces enhanced,reduced its efficiency ratioby 8 percentage points -- a significant improvement for such a huge institution. And the bank has managed to boost its total loans (by 3% year over year in the most recently reported quarter) and deposits (4%), which helped improve revenue and profitability. A humming economy and the near certainty of continued Fed interest rate hikes augur well for the proximate future of Bank of America, not to mention the government's recent big-company-friendly tax reform. The company has a nice streak of earnings beats behind it, so a fresh surprise on the upside would be entirely in character when the bank reports its Q1 2018 earnings on April 16. Since Berkshire started accumulating shares ofApple(NASDAQ: AAPL)in 2016, it has continued to increase its holding. The mighty tech company is now the largest position in Berkshire's equity portfolio. The company looks poised to keep performing well for several reasons despite the concern that it's stilltoo dependent on iPhone sales. Its services revenue is growing considerably -- at an 18% clip in the most recent quarter -- outpacing the products category. Also, the company's customer foundation is getting ever stronger; the installed base of its devices has risen by 30% over the course of two years (to 1.3 billion gadgets in total). This is even more impressive when considering the iPhone's age and the company's lack of a world-shaking, revolutionary new product. On top of that, Apple is a cash-generating machine, with free cash flow rising 7% to a very meaty $25.5 billion in the prior quarter. That's enough to boost the company's dividend, which has been continuously fattened with an annual raise since it was reintroduced in 2012. Buffett loves the idea of aneconomic moatso much, he actually coined the phrase. In the broadcasting world, there aren't many moats wider than that ofSirius XM Holdings(NASDAQ: SIRI). The companyisthe market for satellite radio, holding a nearly impossible-to-break grip on this rising business. This powerful position, combined with auto sales that have been robust over the past few years, keeps lifting the company's results higher. For its fiscal 2017, Sirius XM managed to expand its subscriber base by 4% over the previous year to almost 33 million listeners. This helped improve revenue and adjusted EBITDA notably by a respective 8% and 13%, respectively, for the year. Both line items notched new all-time records for the company. Although some experts are fretting that auto sales have either peaked, or will soon, the impact probably won't be too hard for Sirius XM. After all, with nearly 270 million cars on American roads against that nearly 33 million customer base, there are plenty of autos that could use an upgrade from traditional radio to satellite. Analysts are expecting per-share net profit growth of around 25% in Sirius XM's Q1 of 2018. The company will release that quarter's results on April 25. As of Berkshire's latest 13F regulatory filing, which details the contents of its equity portfolio, the company held positions in nearly 50 stocks. So there are more than these three winners on its hands (and at least a few clunkers, to be even-handed about it). Still, each member of this trio has excellent potential going forward. Let's see how high they grow during this fertile time of the 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 Eric Volkmanhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple and Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). 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 adisclosure policy. || Those 600 Missing Iceland Bitcoin Miners Could Be in China: With an inquiry to police in China, Icelandic authorities are checking to see if the 600 missing bitcoin miners from Iceland’s ‘Big Bitcoin Heist’ have surfaced in Asia. According to areportby the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RUV), the country’s national public-service broadcaster, the island’s police have sent Chinese police an inquiry about the latter’s seizure of 600 bitcoin mining rigs in late April. Chinese policeconfiscated the equipmentin a case of alleged power theft after a local power grid operator in the northeastern city of Tianjin observed abnormally high spikes in electricity consumption. An investigation revealed a tampered junction box, allegedly by bitcoin miners who had tweaked the mains to avoid charges. Tianjin’s police claimed it was the “largest case of power theft in recent years” upon seizing the equipment, which also included eight high-power fans used to cool the mining operation. Curiously, the machines seized in China have the same count as the number of machines stolen in Iceland, 600 in total between four separate burglaries in December and January. 100 power sources, 100 motherboards, 100 memory drives and 100 CPUs were also stolen in the spate of thefts. Labeled as the ‘Big Bitcoin Heist’ by the Icelandic Media, the estimated value of the stolen equipment exceeds $2 million and is believed to be an organized crime leading to Iceland’s biggest ever theft. It remains to be seen if there is a connection between the two incidents in Iceland and China or a case of mere coincidence. The alleged mastermind behind the heist, Sindri Thor Stefansson,dramatically escapedan Icelandic prison through a window before taking a 60-mile trek to Keflavík International Airport before boarding a plane – which also carried Iceland’s prime minister – to Sweden. He was subsequentlyarrested in Amsterdama week later and has since expressed regret for fleeing from thatsafe and comfortable prisonin Iceland. Featured image from Shutterstock. The postThose 600 Missing Iceland Bitcoin Miners Could Be in Chinaappeared first onCCN. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] "Pay it forward" #bitcoin Start Bitcoin mining today!! ccgmining CCG Open-Ended Contract!!! https://www.ccgmining.com/aff.php?aff=20387 …pic.twitter.com/oDibM9GgtG || ツイート数の多かった仮想通貨 1位 $BTC 1329 Tweets 2位 $XRP 278 Tweets 3位 $TRX 155 Tweets 4位 $ETH 155 Tweets 5位 $XVG 154 Tweets 2018-04-21 07:00 ～ 2018-04-21 07:59 COINTREND いまTwitterで話題の仮想通貨を探せ！ https://cointrend.jp/  || Bitcoin exchange Coinbase launches early-stage venture fund https://cnb.cx/2uLvp1M  || ICOs Are 'Absolutely Not' All Fraudulent, Says SEC Chief via /r/CryptoCurrencyhttps://ift.tt/2HhYV1W  || #BUY Signal – Dip detected Market: $LSK Exchange: Binance Current BTC value: 0.00117000 || Current price of #Bitcoin is $8920.00 via Chain #BTCUSD #cryptocurrencies #blockchain || #AtomicX #ATOM #Free #Airdrop #Btc #Eth #Instant #Join #AtomicXhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfUmbu-hF68q5eUO44NfgsD-7T2xC6ylS47DBo_EF2xNymkKQ/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=mail_form_link … || Bitcoin is a complex fraud facilitating money laundering. Let's not think too much into it. Fundamental value = $0.00 || Install CryptoTab and mine Bitcoin! its free and effective ! https://getcryptotab.com/593791  || New Local Crypto Street Exchange Shop Trades Bitcoin for Cash in Central Moscow #BlockChain #Bitcoin #AllThingsCryptohttps://ift.tt/2q8QqOu 
Trend: up || Prices: 7355.88, 7368.22, 7135.99, 7472.59, 7406.52, 7494.17, 7541.45, 7643.45, 7720.25, 7514.47
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 2020-11-18] BTC Price: 17804.01, BTC RSI: 80.73 Gold Price: 1873.50, Gold RSI: 45.60 Oil Price: 41.82, Oil RSI: 58.03 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 5, 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.com, and 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", "$15,073.55", "$0.07", "$0.12", "$36,844 M", "$279,386 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$412.89", "$0.02", "$0.06", "$14,226 M", "$46,783 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.25", "$0.03", "$0.01", "$2,817 M", "$11,119 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$246.52", "$0.03", "-$0.08", "$2,151 M", "$4,576 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$58.46", "$0.07", "$0.06", "$3,065 M", "$3,847 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$158.42", "$0.04", "-$0.06", "$723 M", "$2,941 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$2.43", "$0.03", "-$0.07", "$2,155 M", "$2,283 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$118.62", "$0.01", "-$0.05", "$1,022 M", "$2,105 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.08", "$0.08", "$0.04", "$159 M", "$1,684 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$67.68", "$0.04", "$0.01", "$426 M", "$663 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/615005/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || US Bitcoin Mining Firm Layer1 in Legal Tussle Over Power Facility Ownership: Bitcoin miner Layer1 Technologies has been dragged into a lawsuit from a co-founder who claims he invested millions of dollars and was then forced out of the firm. In a complaint filed in the District Court in the Western District of Texas Pecos Division, the plaintiff, Jakov Dolic, sets out that he co-founded Layer1 with its CEO Alexander Liegl, having developed a liquid cooling system that would allow the company to make use of Texas’ cheap wind power, despite the high summer temperatures in the state. Dolic, a German citizen residing in Switzerland, alleges that Liegl “falsely promised” that he would be able to raise $50 million from investors for a “large bitcoin mining operation.” Related: Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Sees Largest Percentage Drop in 9 Years However, the investments didn’t arrive, per the complaint, so Dolic claims he spent $16.24 million of his own funds to purchase of a Ward County, Texas, power substation from a firm called Hodl Ranch, as well as a further $3.5 million to expand the power facility. Dolic claims he had an agreement with Leigl that Layer1 would refund him the money. Per the allegations, Dolic didn’t receive anything for his investment, while Liegl “took legal title to the properties.” Further, the plaintiff claims, after he confronted Liegl over “unauthorized and wasteful spending of Layer1’s funds,” he was “pressured” out of the company. The complaint alleges Liegl had been “paying himself significant ‘consulting’ fees without Dolic’s knowledge or authorization.” Further, the plaintiff claims Layer1 faced a funding crunch, having failed to garner sufficient investment and had decided to sell the substation at a “fire sale price,” and “before Dolic can protect his rights.” Related: Bitcoin Mining Firm Hut 8 Appoints Jaime Leverton as CEO “”The complaint is completely meritless and contains numerous allegations that are demonstrably and categorically false,” Liegl told CoinDesk. “The company will be responding quickly to seek legal sanctions against Dolic and his counsel for making false allegations that lack a reasonable basis.” Story continues With the lawsuit, Dolic – who founded Genesis Mining in 2013 – aims to assert his “rights to the properties that he bought directly from the seller,” even though Layer1 “technically” has ownership of the title. Also read: Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Sees Largest Percentage Drop in 9 Years “There are simply no plans, and there never were any, to sell the substation,” he added. Layer1 is a Delaware Corporation working out of California that sets out to mine bitcoin using wind power. The firm has seen investment from Peter Thiel, Shasta Ventures and CoinDesk’s parent firm Digital Currency Group. As CoinDesk reported in August, Layer1 was accused by a team member of misdescribing the role of a supposed core team member in a pitch deck for investors. Edit: Corrected location of substation to Ward County, Texas. See the full complaint below: Related Stories US Bitcoin Mining Firm Layer1 in Legal Tussle Over Power Facility Ownership US Bitcoin Mining Firm Layer1 in Legal Tussle Over Power Facility Ownership || As DeFi Deflates, Ethereum Users Get Reprieve From Soaring Fees, Congestion: A slowdown in cryptocurrency trading on so-called decentralized exchanges has helped to alleviate congestion on the Ethereum blockchain, at least temporarily mitigating concerns that the network was becoming overloaded. The trading lull comes as prices tumble for many of the hottest tokens from the fast-growing arena of decentralized finance , or DeFi. SushiSwap’s SUSHI token , one of this year’s splashiest debuts , has fallen by 77% in the past 30 days, while the DeFi lender Compound’s COMP tokens have lost 37%. On Uniswap, the biggest decentralized exchange, or DEX, daily trading volumes have crashed to $224 million, versus a record high of $954 million on Sept. 1. Related: Ethereum Is the Frontier of Financial Innovation “Low volatility in the crypto market as a whole has contributed to lower transaction volume and costs,” said Connor Abendschein, a crypto research analyst at Digital Assets Data. Read More: What Is Yield Farming? The Rocket Fuel of DeFi, Explained DeFi, a subsector of the cryptocurrency industry where entrepreneurs are developing semi-automated trading and lending platforms atop blockchain networks, had surged in popularity in recent months among investors and traders alike. But the resulting congestion had raised concerns that elevated fees for sending transactions over the blockchain might stymie some users, or push application developers to consider alternative networks . Total collateral locked into DeFi platforms jumped to a record $11.2 trillion in September, from below $2 billion at the end of June, according to the data website DeFi Pulse. The amount has since subsided to about $10 billion. Related: First Mover: Bitcoin 'Comatose' Under $16K for Rest of 2020, While Ether Traffic Eases The pullback has contributed to a drop in Ethereum’s daily transaction count to 1.3 million from about 980,000 over the past 2.5 weeks. And with less traffic on the second-largest blockchain network, congestion has dropped, helping to reduce fee rates that had jumped as users paid up for priority transaction processing. The average cost of executing a transaction on Ethereum’s blockchain has dropped to just above $2, from a record $14.58 on Sept. 2, according to the data firm Glassnode . The rate is still well above the 8-cent level that prevailed around the start of this year. “Transaction fees on Ethereum are slowly returning to normal as the DeFi hype that gripped the market for most of 2020 is subsiding,” Nicholas Pelecanos, head of trading at NEM Group, told CoinDesk in a LinkedIn chat. Story continues According to Digital Asset Data’s Abendschein, the relief could prove only temporary for Ethereum users, since fees could quickly shoot back up if a new DeFi protocol emerges or prices rally for ether, the blockchain network’s native token. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market value is currently trading at $340, well off of its two-year high of $480 on Sept. 1. Related Stories As DeFi Deflates, Ethereum Users Get Reprieve From Soaring Fees, Congestion As DeFi Deflates, Ethereum Users Get Reprieve From Soaring Fees, Congestion View comments || The Morning After: Xbox Series X and Series S reviews are in: 2018’s jokes are 2020’s reality. I’m speaking, of course, about Tesla Tequila. Previously featured in an April Fool’s tweet from Elon Musk (pre-SEC settlement era),“Teslaquila” is now an actual drink you can buy. While Tesla didn’t go with the one-word name after trying to trademark it, buyers can expect an exclusive hand-blown glass bottle. The price for this small-batch tequila is $250 per bottle, limited to two per person and only shipped to states that allow online liquor sales. — Richard Lawler Microsoft’s new consoles officially go on sale next week, and we can finally tell you what we think of them. According to Devindra Hardawar,the $499 Series X is “everything we’d want in a next-generation system”with one small problem — lack of new exclusives to showcase its 4K, HDR and ray tracing power. The $299 Series S brings many of the more powerful box’s benefits (speedy storage and a new GPU) in a cheaper, smaller package. However,as Jessica Conditt points out in her review, those benefits do come with some compromises in storage space and for playing older Xbox titles on new high-res TVs.Continue reading. Pre-orders for the Mini and the Pro Max open today at 8 AM ET, but if you're still wondering what they look like and if you need one, check out our photos and hands-on videos before you order.Continue reading. Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht is in jail, but the feds are still chasing the money he made while running the dark web marketplace. This week, cryptocurrency experts noticed one of the largest transfers ever had taken place, which was a move shrouded in mystery until authorities announced they’d seized over 69,000 Bitcoin from a wallet linked to the marketplace. So how did they get the digital currency, which is now worth more than $1 billion? According to the criminal complaint, an “Individual X” stole it from the Silk Road and sat on it until now. The government knows who this person is but so far isn’t giving up any more details.Continue reading. Arcades have taken a big hit in the pandemic. And Sega is cutting its losses. Sega Sammy Holdings has sold 85.1 percent of its Japanese arcade business, Sega Entertainment, to the amusement-machine company Genda. Sega toldFamitsuin an interview that customers can still visit, and that it would still develop arcade games. Genda said it aimed to expand the amusement facility business, but it appears Sega’s plans to turn arcades into“fog gaming” data centersdidn’t pan out.Continue reading. If you haven’t been able to lock in a PlayStation 5 pre-order, don’t plan to line up at a local retailer in the hopes of snagging the console on launch day. All day-one PS5 sales will be online-only via Sony’s retail partners. The company says this is to help keep retailers, staff and consumers safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The move applies to all regions on the PS5’s launch day: November 12th or 19th, depending on where you are. Oddly enough, Sony made the announcement at the same time reviews of the new Xbox consoles went live. Timing is everything.Continue reading. Facebook has taken down a viral group with hundreds of thousands of members after “worrying calls for violence” and group admin efforts to organize offline events in states where votes are still being counted. The group called Stop the Steal was just over 24 hours old and had already gained more than 300,000 members and was growing quickly, according toVice News. Group members used the platform to share conspiracy theories, while others encouraged an armed response to election results. It was these actions that apparently prompted a response from Facebook.Continue reading. iOS 14.2 is out with more inclusive emoji and Shazam controls You will finally be able to watch 'Tenet' at home on December 15th Apple will require app privacy 'nutrition label' info next month 'Apex Legends' tweaks season seven battle pass after players complain Razer's latest gaming headsets are designed for Xbox Series X The 'XCOM 2' saga is now available on your iPhone or iPad The best gear to give to the photographer in your life The best digital gifts to send your friends and family Razer's first mainstream laptop still has an RGB keyboard || KuCoin Restarts Deposits, Withdrawals for Bitcoin, Ether Following $281M Hack: Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin is bringing more services back online after suffering a major hack late last month. In a service update early on Wednesday, the Seychelles-based platform said it is once more allowing deposits and withdrawals for bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and the tether (USDT) stablecoin after upgrading wallet security for those cryptocurrencies. KuCoin noted that wallet addresses for these coins had been refreshed and, while the older addresses would still work, it recommended users update. The USDT version for the Ethereum blockchain is now open for deposits and withdrawals, while those for Tron, EOS are deposit only. Tether on Omni cannot yet be deposited or withdrawn. Full services have been resumed for 65 other cryptocurrency projects, it added. After the breach, which saw $281 million in various crypto assets such as XRP and Ethereum-based coins stolen, KuCoin had moved to freeze all wallets and disable services. On Oct. 3, the company’s CEO, Johnny Lyu, claimed the suspected hackers had been traced and that it had informed law enforcement agencies. Lyu further claimed that another $64 million of stolen cryptos had been recovered, bringing the total value of recovered assets to $204 million at the time. In its latest update on the incident, also posted Wednesday, the exchange said other entities are continuing to help retrieve funds, with Tether having frozen “about $22 million” in stolen USDT. Other projects like Ocean Protocol have returned recovered coins to KuCoin wallets, though the amount involved wasn’t disclosed. KuCoin also provided a list of suspicious addresses related to the hack and recommended they be added to blacklists. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said Sept. 29 the hackers had already exchanged millions of stolen tokens for $7.5 million in ETH on the decentralized exchanges Kyber Network and Uniswap. Also read: Israeli Government Reportedly Investigating Unsuccessful Hack Targeting Crypto CEOs Story continues Edit (13:35 UTC, Oct. 7 2020): Corrected jurisdiction in which KuCoin is based. Corrected details of different availability for versions of tether (14:30 UTC) Related Stories KuCoin Restarts Deposits, Withdrawals for Bitcoin, Ether Following $281M Hack KuCoin Restarts Deposits, Withdrawals for Bitcoin, Ether Following $281M Hack KuCoin Restarts Deposits, Withdrawals for Bitcoin, Ether Following $281M Hack KuCoin Restarts Deposits, Withdrawals for Bitcoin, Ether Following $281M Hack || Grayscale’s Crypto Assets Under Management Break $10B: In another sign of renewed exuberance in cryptocurrency markets, Grayscale Investments has broken above $10 billion in digital assets under management for the first time. • Disclosed Tuesday evening, the New York-based firm now oversees$10.4 billionin assets includingbitcoin,bitcoin cash,ether, horizen,ethereum classic,litecoin,stellar,XRPand zcash. • That’s up from $7.6 billion on Oct. 30, according to the firm’s Novemberreport. • Price appreciation inall cryptocurrenciesthis month is a factor behind the growth, but so are inflows: Grayscale took in$262.3 millionlast week alone, Managing Director Michael Sonnenshein tweeted Friday. • The assets are held across nine single-asset investment trusts and a diversified fund. Shares in these vehicles are offered directly only to accredited investors, but most of them can be publicly traded on the over-the-counter markets. • Grayscale is owned by Digital Currency Group, which is also the parent company of CoinDesk. See also:Galaxy Digital Gets Initial Approval for New Bitcoin Fund in Canada • Grayscale’s Crypto Assets Under Management Break $10B • Grayscale’s Crypto Assets Under Management Break $10B • Grayscale’s Crypto Assets Under Management Break $10B • Grayscale’s Crypto Assets Under Management Break $10B || Blockchain Bites: Square’s $50M BTC Investment, MetaMask’s 1M Users, BitMEX’s New CEO: CoinDesk is preparing for the invest: ethereum economy virtual event on Oct. 14 with a special series of newsletters focused on Ethereum’s past, present and future. Every day until the event the team behind Blockchain Bites will dive into an aspect of Ethereum that excites or confuses us. The Top Shelf news you subscribed to is down below. Now, a few words from CoinDesk markets reporter Daniel Cawrey. Increased usage One of the best metrics of increased usage in the Ethereum economy comes via wallet adoption, the entry point for anyone wanting to interact with decentralized finance, or DeFi. Wallets are a key part of the discussion around DeFi adoption and a focus of the CoinDesk invest: ethereum economy panel “Unlocked: TVL and Beyond – Measuring the DeFi Economy” on Oct. 14. Total value locked, or TVL, may measure the top-line numbers, but wallets are where investors park their crypto. The MetaMask wallet, a browser extension that allows users to interact with the Ethereum network and its multitude of smart contract-based DeFi applications, has surpassed 1 million users. That’s a fourfold increase for the wallet since 2019, which is developed and maintained by New York-based software firm ConsenSys. Chasing juicy returns in the DeFi space, which can sometimes provide double- or triple-digit returns for lending crypto, is one of the reasons for MetaMask’s growth, said John Willock, CEO of Tritium Digital Assets, a crypto liquidity provider. “I think we can all recognize that a lot of the adoption of MetaMask is through the recent DeFi craze and interest in short-term returns that has been perceived to be out there to chase,” he said. However, that speculation is bringing real adoption, Willock added, as he compared MetaMask to a web browser, which is the piece of software that has on-boarded almost everyone to the internet. “I look at the MetaMask numbers as the same sort of early adoption indicator the uptake of Netscape browser use was in the 1990s. It is exciting,” he said. What’s even more interesting: Developing countries lead in MetaMask adoption. India, Nigeria and the Philippines are the countries with most MetaMask usage after the United States. “Metamask passing 1 million users is an impressive feat. It’s by far the most used browser wallet and gives the community a best-in-class balance between security, functionality and usability,” said Brian Mosoff, chief executive of investment firm Ether Capital. “I expect MetaMask will continue to dominate as DeFi and other Ethereum applications flourish over the coming months and years,” Mosoff added. It’s simple: More wallet users means more adoption of the Ethereum economy. Although MetaMask requires some knowledge of mnemonic seed storage by users, it’s actually a pretty delightful wallet for an increasingly growing DeFi ecosystem. Story continues – Daniel Cawrey Featured panel Related: First Mover: Bitcoin 'Comatose' Under $16K for Rest of 2020, While Ether Traffic Eases Stablecoins, Hyper-Collateralization and the DeFi Economy The rise of fiat- and algorithm-backed stablecoins has largely put crypto’s volatility narrative to rest. Now, they have become the bridge into the DeFi economy as well as an engine of hyper-collateralization and “money games.” How will these tools evolve as DeFi matures? What risks do these systems create, and how can they be managed as the stakes get higher? Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, Aave CEO Stani Kulechov and cryptorati Maya Zehavi will go live at 4:30-5:00 p.m. ET on Oct. 14 as part of invest: ethereum economy. Weird DeFi Ethereum’s highly anticipated 2.0 upgrade is poised to bring the network ever closer to fulfilling its original vision to be a “world computer” that plays host to a parallel, decentralized financial system. At invest: ethereum economy on Oct. 14 , we will address the ramifications for investors as decentralized finance takes the crypto world by storm. Related: Blockchain Bites: Crypto's Top Universities, Bitcoin's New Addresses, MetaMask's Token Swaps In a run-up to the event, our two-part CoinDesk Live: Inside the Ethereum Economy virtual miniseries on Oct. 8 and Oct. 12 introduces trending narratives we will break down at the main event: Why all the hype behind yield farming and food-inspired tokens? Should investors take them seriously or are they a fading trend? On Oct. 8, CoinDesk senior business reporter Brady Dale hosts Priyanka Desai of Open Law, Mason Nystrom of Messari and Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX to assess the newest crazes sweeping the DeFi landscape. Watch DeGeneration: How Ethereum Is Making Finance Weird on Oct. 8. Ethereum 101 Just as MetaMask has become an important on-ramp to the Ethereum economy, so, too, are the narratives that capture people’s attention. This past year has seen the rise of new memetic trading strategies – ways to both interact with and discuss Ethereum applications – that have set the pace for development. Yield farming, “the rocket fuel of DeFi,” is one such strategy. A silly name, but an important concept. CoinDesk’s Brady Dale explained in July how it all works. Minding fields The hot new term in crypto is “yield farming,” a shorthand for clever strategies where putting crypto temporarily at the disposal of some startup’s application earns its owner more cryptocurrency. Another term floating about is “liquidity mining.” The buzz around these concepts has evolved into a low rumble as more and more people get interested. The casual crypto observer who only pops into the market when activity heats up might be starting to get faint vibes that something is happening right now. Take our word for it: Yield farming is the source of those vibes. Broadly, yield farming is any effort to put crypto assets to work and generate the most returns possible on those assets. At the simplest level, a yield farmer might move assets around within Ethereum-based credit market Compound, constantly chasing whichever pool is offering the best APY from week to week. This might mean moving into riskier pools from time to time, but a yield farmer can handle risk. “Farming opens up new price arbs [arbitrage] that can spill over to other protocols whose tokens are in the pool,” said Maya Zehavi, a blockchain consultant. Because these positions are tokenized, though, they can go further. In a simple example, a yield farmer might put 100,000 USDT into Compound. They will get a token back for that stake, called cUSDT. Let’s say they get 100,000 cUSDT back (the formula on Compound is crazy so it’s not 1:1 like that but it doesn’t matter for our purposes here). They can then take that cUSDT and put it into a liquidity pool that takes cUSDT on Balancer, an AMM that allows users to set up self-rebalancing crypto index funds. In normal times, this could earn a small amount more in transaction fees. This is the basic idea of yield farming. The user looks for edge cases in the system to eke out as much yield as they can across as many products as it will work on. Right now, however, things are not normal, and they probably won’t be for a while because liquidity mining supercharges yield farming. Liquidity mining is when a yield farmer gets a new token as well as the usual return (that’s the “mining” part) in exchange for the farmer’s liquidity. “The idea is that stimulating usage of the platform increases the value of the token, thereby creating a positive usage loop to attract users,” said Richard Ma of smart-contract auditor Quantstamp. The yield farming examples above are only farming yield off the normal operations of different platforms. Supply liquidity to Compound or Uniswap and get a little cut of the business that runs over the protocols – very vanilla. But Compound announced earlier this year it wanted to truly decentralize the product and it wanted to give a good amount of ownership to the people who made it popular by using it. That ownership would take the form of the COMP token. By giving away a healthy proportion to users, that was very likely to make it a much more popular place for lending. In turn, that would make everyone’s stake worth much more. So, Compound announced this four-year period where the protocol would give out COMP tokens to users, a fixed amount every day until it was gone. These COMP tokens control the protocol, just as shareholders ultimately control publicly traded companies. Every day, the Compound protocol looks at everyone who had lent money to the application and who had borrowed from it and gives them COMP proportional to their share of the day’s total business. COMP turned out to be a bit of a surprise to the DeFi world, in technical ways and others. It has inspired a wave of new thinking. “Other projects are working on similar things,” said Nexus Mutual founder Hugh Karp. In fact, informed sources tell CoinDesk brand-new projects will launch with these models. We might soon see more prosaic yield farming applications. For example, forms of profit-sharing that reward certain kinds of behavior. As this sector gets more robust, its architects will come up with ever more robust ways to optimize liquidity incentives in increasingly refined ways. We could see token holders greenlighting more ways for investors to profit from DeFi niches. – Brady Dale The ledger This year, decentralized finance emerged as Ethereum’s best bet at finding mainstream attraction. While still a fraction of the activity on Ethereum, and an even smaller portion of crypto generally, DeFi has captured the public’s attention. The Financial Times , for instance, wrote a user’s guide to DeFi. But a few questions were left unanswered. CoinDesk contributor Alyssa Hertig responds to a few frequently asked questions, trying to filter the signal from the noise. How do I make money with DeFi? The value locked up in Ethereum DeFi projects has been exploding, with many users reportedly making a lot of money. Using Ethereum-based lending apps, as mentioned above, users can generate “passive income” by loaning out their money and generating interest from the loans.  Yield farming, described above, has the potential for even larger returns, but with larger risk. It allows for users to leverage the lending aspect of DeFi to put their crypto assets to work generating the best possible returns. However, these systems tend to be complex and often lack transparency. Is investing in DeFi safe? No, it’s risky. Many believe DeFi is the future of finance and that investing in the disruptive technology early could lead to massive gains. But it’s difficult for newcomers to separate the good projects from the bad. And, there has been plenty of bad. As DeFi has increased in activity and popularity through 2020, many DeFi applications, such as meme coin YAM, have crashed and burned, sending the market capitalization from $60 million to $0 in 35 minutes. Other DeFi projects, including Hotdog and Pizza, faced the same fate, and many investors lost a lot of money. In addition, DeFi bugs are unfortunately still very common. Smart contracts are powerful, but they can’t be changed once the rules are baked into the protocol, which often makes bugs permanent and thus increasing risk. When will DeFi go mainstream? While more and more people are being drawn to these DeFi applications, it’s hard to say where they’ll go. Much of that depends on who finds them useful and why. Many believe various DeFi projects have the potential to become the next Robinhood, drawing in hordes of new users by making financial applications more inclusive and open to those who don’t traditionally have access to such platforms. This financial technology is new, experimental and isn’t without problems, especially with regard to security or scalability. Developers hope to eventually rectify these problems. Ethereum 2.0 could tackle scalability concerns through a concept known as sharding, a way of splitting the underlying database into smaller pieces that are more manageable for individual users to run. How will Ethereum 2.0 impact DeFi? Ethereum 2.0 isn’t a panacea for all of DeFi’s issues, but it’s a start. Other protocols such as Raiden and TrueBit are also in the works to further tackle Ethereum’s scalability issues. If and when these solutions fall into place, Ethereum’s DeFi experiments will have an even better chance of becoming real products, potentially even going mainstream. – Alyssa Hertig At stake Despite the buzz surrounding DeFi, the risks are clear. Donna Redel, adjunct professor of law at Fordham Law School, and Olta Andoni, of counsel at Zlatkin Wong, are two lawyers who have soured on the field (so to say): Regulators are circling, they said in an op-ed published in August. DeFi’s demise? A corner of the crypto universe representing less than 1% of total market capitalization of crypto assets has been grabbing the headlines since June. This is the world of decentralized finance, or DeFi, which alternatively is referred to as the center of innovation, an experiment or the new wild, wild west where projects move fast and break things. A recent glance of articles on CoinDesk demonstrates the phenomenon. Once again, crypto headlines are focusing on the “craze,” the “frenzy of yield farming,” “investors pouring money into” and “another protocol going up in a fireball.” Will the nonstop headlines and framing around the “hot” new DeFi protocols chill the institutional adoption that is beginning in earnest for crypto, digital assets and blockchain technology? We believe that, at a minimum, the industry needs self-regulation. Without it, it is on a trajectory to serious regulatory scrutiny and reputational risk. As with almost everything in crypto, the strong sentiments and opinions make it difficult to determine the true essence and reality around the majority of DeFi projects. For us, this refrain is reminiscent of 2017’s frothy initial coin offering (ICO) days that ended badly for the good names of blockchain and crypto. There are certainly similarities: trading frenzy; projects emerging with little or no testing and without audit; no clear regulatory guidance and the recycling of ETH now leading to inflated gas prices. Are we on the precipice of one of the regulatory agencies waking up and sending a missive similar to The Dao Report? On the legal front, there is a lack of clear consensus about which agency should be regulating. And, again, there is a lack of guidance from multiple agencies that could be responsible for DeFi projects or for the space generally. We are alarmed and concerned with the apparent lack of 360-degree understanding of the potential role of the various actors or operators and their possible interactions with the projects, the governance and hence DeFi ecosystem. Tokens are appearing overnight. Projects are hesitant to use, or totally avoid, terminology that might infer “issue,” “issuance” or “issuer,” as these are hypersensitive words in the securities world. Calling a project an “experimental game” or an “innovation” is not sufficient to take it out of the regulatory ambit. The focus is shifting from securities regulation of “the issuer” and the Howey Test prevalent during the ICO days and after, to more complex analysis of the application of commodities regulation, questions relating to who is the “controlling stakeholder(s)” and whether liability or responsibility falls on them. Many questions, from a perspective of both securities law and commodities laws, should be examined anew to see how they may be applied to, as well as reimagined for, a disintermediated-decentralized financial model. The outstanding questions include whether the “controlling stakeholders” are determined by voting control on DeFi platforms, who among the investor group and founders who has voting control, and whether there should be standards for exchange listing. Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether defining these projects as  “decentralized” puts them outside of the regulatory reach or whether  the “centralized” ones should be referred to as “disintermediated finance” – aka the ability to conduct secure financial transactions directly, without the use of financial intermediaries. Despite the regulatory uncertainty, traders, projects and exchanges are going full steam ahead, with the result that tokens run high risks of unwarranted price changes, which impacts governance, liquidity and the well-being of the projects. In our view, the DeFi experiment demonstrates the need for creating a new set of industry rules: audits, proper risk disclosures and planning to anticipate what could go wrong before it actually happens. DeFi self-regulation should normalize collateral sufficiency reviews, auditing standards, governance both on an ongoing and crisis basis as well as the distribution-centralized ownership of tokens. It remains to be seen how a regulatory loophole in which these tokens are created, distributed and traded all without regulatory supervision will play out. At least with a modified Safe Harbor, proposed by Commissioner Hester Peirce, and which we commented on earlier this year, the SEC would have some oversight. For the moment, tokens in the DeFi are appearing daily and the explosion of tokens is leading to a distortion of purpose and “investors” are getting burned as projects implode. – Donna Redel & Olta Andoni Top shelf Square <3s BTC Square, the payments company helmed by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, announced Thursday it has purchased 4,709 bitcoins , a $50 million investment representing 1% of the firm’s total assets. “Square believes that cryptocurrency is an instrument of economic empowerment and provides a way for the world to participate in a global monetary system, which aligns with the company’s purpose,” the company said in a statement. “We believe that bitcoin has the potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future,” said Square CFO Amrita Ahuja. “For a company that is building products based on a more inclusive future, this investment is a step on that journey.” Options portend Activity in bitcoin options listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) surged Wednesday as investors traded call options. According to data source Skew, the CME traded $48 million worth of options during the day, the highest daily volume figure since Jul. 28. The number marks a 300% rise from Tuesday’s figure of $12 million. “The CME options had a strong session, and the spike in the volume was mainly due to increased activity in call options,” Skew CEO Emmanuel Goh told CoinDesk over Telegram. The data suggests some traders foresee a bitcoin rally, but believe the upside will be capped near $16,000 until the end of December. Further, they expect prices to remain below $20,000 till the end of the first quarter of 2021. Hayes steps down The founders of BitMEX are stepping down from their executive roles at the parent firm of the crypto derivatives exchange soon after U.S. authorities charged the firm over allegedly illegal conduct. In a blog post Thursday, 100x – the holding group for BitMEX operator HDR Holdings – announced that founders Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed have “stepped back from all executive management responsibilities for their respective CEO and CTO roles with immediate effect.” Vivien Khoo, current chief operating officer of 100x Group, will become Interim CEO, while Ben Radclyffe, commercial director, will take on a supporting role with greater management of client relationships and oversight of financial products. Enter Google Google Cloud is making moves to become an EOS validator, but not for the tokens. “Google Cloud is not getting into crypto mining. This is really an infrastructure play for us,” Google Cloud Developer Advocate Allen Day told CoinDesk’s Brady Dale. On Tuesday, Block.one, the company that runs the EOS blockchain, announced Google Cloud is mulling becoming one of the network’s 21 block producers. Day said the company is committed to supporting public blockchain infrastructure, as seen by previously forged relationships with Hedera Hashgraph and Theta Labs, a video content relayer. FATF standards The Travel Rule Protocol (TRP), a working group favored by banks and traditional financial institutions and focused on bringing crypto in line with global anti-money laundering (AML) standards, has released the first version of its API. The 25-member TRP working group, which includes Standard Chartered, ING Bank and Fidelity Digital Assets, said the product aims to offer a straightforward way for firms to swap identification data.  This includes data of originators and beneficiaries of crypto transactions, as per the requirements of global AML watchdog the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Quick bites KPMG Airs Blockchain Solution to Help Corporates Offset Carbon Emissions (Sebastian Sinclair/CoinDesk) Riot Buys 2,500 More Bitmain Miners in Latest Fleet Expansion (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk) Bitcoin Correlations Depend on What Phase It Is In (Lyn Alden/CoinDesk) Tim Draper Leads Targeted $5M Series A for India Crypto Exchange Unocoin (Daniel Palmer/CoinDesk) Over $26M Worth of Bitcoin Associated With 2016 Bitfinex Hack Is on the Move (Jaspreet Kalra/CoinDesk) Who won #CryptoTwitter? Related Stories Blockchain Bites: Square’s $50M BTC Investment, MetaMask’s 1M Users, BitMEX’s New CEO Blockchain Bites: Square’s $50M BTC Investment, MetaMask’s 1M Users, BitMEX’s New CEO || CloudCoin Announces Ethereum Asset to Allow ERC-20 Trading of World’s First Cloud Currency: CloudCoin Ethereum (CCE) lists on Bitcoin.com. enabling anyone with Ethereum to easily trade CloudCoins (CC) back and forth, accessing fastest payment system that can’t be hacked, lost or stolen Chico, California, Oct. 13, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire ) CloudCoin , the first cloud-based currency that acts as digital cash and is built on the most private, energy-efficient, fee-free monetary system in the world, today announced CloudCoin Ethereum, an iteration of cloud currency that enables a one-to-one exchange for real CloudCoins, now available on Bitcoin.com Exchange. CloudCoin Ethereum allows token holders to quickly trade CloudCoins (CC) to CloudCoin Ethereum (CCE) and back with ease– and is the first phase of fully integrating CloudCoin directly into Bitcoin.com. CloudCoin is a file-based currency that can be shared via email-to-email transfer and is built on DNS instead of blockchain. It's USPTO patented DNS-based authentication protocol, known as RAIDA, enables the fastest, most secure transactions of CloudCoins, which cannot be counterfeited, lost or stolen. Initially, users could only access CloudCoins by creating a Proton Mail account or via a Skywallet. Listing on Bitcoin.com now makes CloudCoins more accessible amongst other major cryptocurrencies, allowing anyone with Ethereum to make use of its innovative monetary system. “CloudCoin is a project unlike any other in the crypto field, and with our dedicated and tech-savvy team we’ve found a way to get this token listed on our platform, and available to trade with other popular coins and tokens among our community,” said Danish Chaudhry, Head of Bitcoin.com Exchange. “I believe this project will stand the test of time, and revolutionize other platforms looking towards multiple technologies to list their token. With CloudCoin’s speed, it’s practically a no brainer.” CloudCoin was designed from the “Theory of Perfect Money,” a concept developed by CloudCoin Founder and CEO Sean Worthington, that suggests perfect money should be private, scalable, fast to transact and prevent loss, theft, counterfeits and all system-wide failures. CloudCoin delivers in all aspects, offering data supremacy and quantum safety, meaning it cannot be taken down by hackers, governments or even nuclear weapons. The post-blockchain, next-gen digital currency uses nearly zero electricity and bandwidth, has a fixed amount so there is never any inflation; and it is totally file-based and can be stored in jpeg files or imported into software and video games. It can also be traded peer-to-peer instantly with no public ledgers, user accounts or fees. CloudCoin also features a “Skywallet” that allows people to send coins using easy to remember DNS names. Story continues “We are honored to be listed on Bitcoin.com, one of the most globally respected crypto exchanges,” said Sean Worthington, Founder and CEO of CloudCoin. “We are excited to expand our vision and provide more accessibility for CloudCoin, the next generation of digital currency.” “Bitcoin.com is all about pushing financial innovation and exploring new ways to address current problems in the blockchain economy,’ said David Shin, head of Bitcoin.com Exchange.” “We share in CloudCoin’s vision to address critical issues and provide a fast and secure monetary system unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” Bitcoin.com exchange aims to make cryptocurrency trading accessible to everyone, anywhere in the world. With a monthly volume of nearly $20 billion, Bitcoin.com has also become a spot market for many other digital assets, making it a good fit for CloudCoin. With a quick and easy signup and two-factor-authentication, users can send crypto to new exchange wallets or buy with a credit card or bank transfer in no time. CloudCoins will be available on Bitcoin.com starting October 8, 2020. CloudCoins will be listed under the symbol ‘CCE’ and the available trading pairs CCE/BTC, CCE/ETH, and CCE/USDT. For more information on CloudCoin and exchange listings, please visit https://cloudcoin.global/index.html . About CloudCoin CloudCoin is the world’s first cloud-based digital currency and may be the only currency in operation today that is patented. Based on the Domain Name System (DNS) and not blockchain. Developed with a mission to overcome current flaws in the global currency market, CloudCoin cannot be counterfeited, doublespent, mined or lost and is 100% private and anonymous, requiring no public ledgers, accounts, encryption, nor any specific software or downloads. CloudCoin also features patented RAIDA technology and the fastest payment authentication system, enabling secure transactions of 100,000 CloudCoins in under 3.5 seconds. CloudCoin is one hundred percent scalable, private and energy efficient. For more information, visit https://cloudcoin.global . About Bitcoin.com Bitcoin.com Exchange’s mission is to empower everyone to trade cryptocurrencies with ease and confidence, from first-time traders to advanced trading professionals. With high liquidity, 24/7 multilingual support and dozens of trading pairs complemented by high security, Bitcoin.com Exchange offers an attractive platform for trading any cryptocurrency. Within two months since launch, the exchange has already on-boarded more than 18,000 users and continues to steadily grow. In the near future, SLP token support will be added, enabling SLP developers to easily scale their token projects. https://exchange.bitcoin.com/ CONTACT: Media Contact: Transform Group, cloudcoin@transformgroup.com Company Contact: CloudCoin@protonmail.com View comments || Bitcoin and Cardano’s ADA – Weekly Technical Analysis – September 28th, 2020: Bitcoin fell by 1.21% in the week ending 27thSeptember. Partially reversing a 5.84% gain from the week prior, Bitcoin ended the week at $10,803.0. It was a mixed but bearish start to the week. Bitcoin rose to a Monday intraweek high $11,000.0 before hitting reverse. Coming up short of the first major resistance level at $11,327, Bitcoin slid to a Wednesday intraweek low $10,152.0. Bitcoin fell through the first major support level at $10,401 before breaking back through to $10,800 levels. Following a 4.78% rally on Thursday to $10,800 levels, however, Bitcoin fell back to sub-$10,600 levels before steadying. A move back through to $10,800 levels late on Sunday limited the downside for the week. Resistance at $10,800 pinned Bitcoin back late in the week. 3 days in the red that included a 4.57% slide on Monday delivered the downside for the week. A 4.78% rally on Thursday offset some of the losses from earlier in the week, however. Bitcoin would need to avoid a fall through the $10,652 pivot to support a run the first major resistance level at $11,151. Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break out from last week’s high $11,000. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and resistance at $11,200 would likely pin Bitcoin back. In the event of a breakout, Bitcoin could test the second major resistance level at $11,500 before any pullback. Failure to avoid a fall through the $10,652 pivot would bring the first major support level at $10,303 into play. Barring an extended sell-off, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$10,000 levels. The second major support level sits at $9,804. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 1.11% to $10,922.9. A bullish start to the week saw Bitcoin rise from an early Monday low $11,803.0 to a high $10,986.0. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested at the start of the week. Cardano’s ADA rallied by 13.31% in the week ending 27thSeptember. Reversing a 6.06% loss from the previous week, Cardano’s ADA ended the week at $0.10123. It was a bearish start to the week. Cardano’s ADA fell to a Wednesday intraweek low $0.075328 before finding support. Cardano’s ADA fell through the first major support level at $0.08402 and the second major support level at $0.07869. Steering clear of sub-$0.075 levels, Cardano’s ADA rallied to a Sunday intraweek high $0.10342. While breaking back through the major support levels, Cardano’s ADA came up short of the first major resistance level at $0.10577. 4-days in the green that included a 7.94% rally on Thursday, a 17.35% jump on Friday, and a 6.13% gain on Sunday that delivered the upside. A 10.75% slump on Monday limited the upside for the week, however. Cardano’s ADA would need to avoid a fall through the $0.09333 to support a run at the first major resistance level at $0.11132. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Cardano’s ADA to break back through to $0.11 levels. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level would likely cap any upside. In the event of another breakout, Cardano’s ADA could test the 23.6% FIB of $0.1125 and the second major resistance level at $0.12142. Failure to avoid a fall through the $0.09333 would bring the first major support level at $0.08323 into play. Barring an extended crypto market sell-off, however, Cardano’s ADA should steer clear of sub-$0.090 levels. The second major support level sits at $0.06523. At the time of writing, Cardano’s ADA was up by 1.92% to $0.10318. A bullish start to the week saw Cardano’s ADA rise from an early Monday low $0.100685 to a high $0.105996. Cardano’s ADA left the major support and resistance levels untested at the start of the week. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Bitcoin and Cardano’s ADA – Weekly Technical Analysis – September 28th, 2020 • The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – September 28th, 2020 • Costco Sells Off Despite Strong Quarter • Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Traders Centered on COVID-19 as Rising Global Cases Keep Lid on Prices • AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Dovish Central Bank Expectations Generating the Pressure • Crude Oil Traders Wary, on Energy Demand Rebalancing || Square's Bitcoin Revenue Rises 1100% In Q3: Square Inc (NYSE: SQ ) on Thursday said the Bitcoin revenue for its Cash App rose 1100% in the third quarter, compared to the same period a year earlier. What Happened: The company’s Cash App Bitcoin revenue touched $1.63 billion. The revenue from the apex cryptocurrency has surpassed all other sources of revenue for the app including transaction-based revenue. Bitcoin takings made up for nearly 80% of the Cash App’s $2.07 billion in revenue. The app saw a gross profit of $32 million in gross profit due to Bitcoin revenue, while the overall gross profit was $435 million for the app. Square’s Q3 revenue exceeded $3 billion. Bitcoin revenues made up over half of the total revenue in this period. The fintech company said that Bitcoin revenue and gross profit “ benefited from an increase in [Bitcoin activities] and volume per customer.” View more earnings on SQ Why It Matters: In the second quarter , Cash App Bitcoin revenue had risen 600% at $875 million. In the third quarter, the company’s earnings per share of $0.34 beat estimates of $0.16, while sales estimates of $3.03 billion beat $2.07 billion estimates. Analysts at JPMorgan Chase had termed a recent $50 million investment of the Jack Dorsey-led company in the cryptocurrency as a “strong vote of confidence for the future of Bitcoin.” Price Action: Square shares traded nearly 3.7% at $181.70 in the after-hours session on Thursday after closing about 2.4% higher in the regular session. Related Link: Square Funds Project To Make Cryptocurrency Wallets More Accessible To Everyone See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Bitcoin Surges 3.5% On US Election Day As Fears Of Uncertainty Persist Bitcoin Fails To Hold On To Gains, Falls Below ,500 Level © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: no change || Prices: 17817.09, 18621.31, 18642.23, 18370.00, 18364.12, 19107.46, 18732.12, 17150.62, 17108.40, 17717.41
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 2016-10-13] BTC Price: 636.79, BTC RSI: 70.02 Gold Price: 1255.00, Gold RSI: 29.38 Oil Price: 50.44, Oil RSI: 62.80 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: LONDON (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 defenses 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 defenses, 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. (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson) || Indian bitcoin company raises $1.5 million from U.S., Indian investors: NEW YORK, Sept 29 (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) || 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 || 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) || Big Banks Team Up to Develop Blockchain Settlement System: Wall Street's increasing focus on digital currency technology has been affirmed yet again with the recent teaming up of a group of financial giants for the development of Utility Settlement Coin (USC). It is a digital cash model based on blockchain that aims to facilitate payment and settlement for global institutional financial markets. Swiss banking giant UBS Group AG UBS and London-based Clearmatics initiated USC last September “to validate the potential benefits of USC for capital efficiency, settlement and systemic risk reduction in global financial markets”.  The successful conclusion of the first phase of this project led to the joining of Deutsche Bank AG DB, The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. BK, Banco Santander, S.A. SAN and brokerage ICAP to develop the concept further. The group also plans to undertake test in a real market environment. USC is a series of cash assets implemented on distributed ledger technology and is entirely backed by cash assets held at a central bank. With a version for each of the main currencies including USD, EUR, GBP and CHF, USC would be convertible at parity with a bank deposit in the related currency. According to a joint release, spending a USC will be equivalent to spending its real-world currency. The group of financial institutions will focus on the financial structuring of the USC and its implications in the broader market. Alongside they will remain engaged in discussions with central banks and regulators to ensure a regulation compliant and efficient framework within which the USC can be implemented. Hyder Jaffrey, Head of Strategic Investment & FinTech Innovation at UBS Investment Bank stated, "Digital cash is a core component of a future financial market fabric based on blockchain technologies.” He further added, "There are several digital cash models being explored across the Street. The Utility Settlement Coin is focused on facilitating a new model for digital central bank cash." Paul Maley, Managing Director, Institutional Client Group, Deutsche Bank noted, "As today's settlement and clearing is a process involving many institutions, it's vital that we collaborate with our peers to develop viable alternatives to current models, creating new digital capabilities for the financial services industry.” Blockchain Buzz Blockchain, the “digital ledger” or the underlying technology behind Bitcoin, has gained attraction for its significant potential to revamp the extensive and complex network of bank payments as well as settlements. While Bitcoin was one of the first cryptographic currencies that drew attention in 2009, several other cryptographic currencies are currently available including Novacoin, Namecoin and Dogecoin. Last December The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS filed a patent application with the US Patent & Trademark Office for a new cryptocurrency called SETLcoin. While Citigroup Inc. C is currently working on the development of its own digital currency “Citicoin,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM partnered with start-up firm Digital Asset Holdings earlier this year to launch a trial project that utilizes the blockchain technology. Bottom line The latest development tied with Blockchain platform crops up as banks are embracing technology and are continuously looking out for ways to restructure daily operations, update back-office functions and making huge investments for auto execution of transactions. While banks and regulators continue to explore prospects and benefits of digital currencies, concerns including security and impact on the broader financial system still lingers. 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 >> 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 JPMORGAN CHASE (JPM): Free Stock Analysis Report BANK OF NY MELL (BK): Free Stock Analysis Report CITIGROUP INC (C): Free Stock Analysis Report UBS GROUP AG (UBS): Free Stock Analysis Report DEUTSCHE BK AG (DB): Free Stock Analysis Report BANCO SANTAN SA (SAN): Free Stock Analysis Report GOLDMAN SACHS (GS): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || '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 (55.7 million pounds) 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 specialises 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 licences 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) || JIM ROGERS: 'I'm not the only person who knows there's turmoil coming': Jim Rogers (Jim RogersREUTERS/Brendan McDermid) There's economic havoc on the horizon, but no safe haven, says legendary investor Jim Rogers. "I'm not the only person who knows there's turmoil coming," Rogers said in an interview with Real Vision TV released Friday. "And people are looking for ways to protect themselves." Rogers is worried about the increasing valuation of gold and the US dollar, as well as the US stock indexes, which he said are up despite most underlying stocks being down. Meanwhile, many investors are seeking shelter in gold and the US dollar, but neither are safe, Rogers said. "I own a lot of US dollars, though," he added. "Not because it's a safe haven, but because people think it's a safe haven. And when the world falls apart, people will put their money into the dollar. That's going to mean the dollar's going to go up." In turn, the dollar's increase is going to hurt a lot of other currencies, Rogers said, including the euro, the UK pound, and the Chinese currency. Rogers warned against seeing strength in the strong US stock market, which has continued to rise. "Everybody thinks, well, things are great because look at the S&P," he said. "Well, look under the S&P, and you would say, 'Oh, my God, look what's going on here.' We've got problems, and that's happening this year as well." Rogers joins other notable investors who have raised concerns about potential market turmoil. Stan Druckenmiller said earlier this year that investors should move their money to gold, and 36 South's Jerry Haworth, who runs a black swan fund, said he also expects chaos to come . NOW WATCH: Kobe Bryant is starting a $100-million venture capital fund 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 || Bitcoin is money, U.S. judge says in case tied to JPMorgan hack: (Adds comments from Murgio's lawyer) By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK, Sept 19 (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) || 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." 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) || Citigroup hits another Costco hurdle: Credit Card Sales (BII) This story was delivered to BI Intelligence " Payments Briefing " subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here . Citigroup is still experiencing hurdles after purchasing the roughly 11 million cardholder Costco portfolio from American Express earlier this summer. Last week, the firm mistakenly emailed a “small portion” of Costco members telling them that their membership had ended and their cards would be canceled, according to Business Insider . Citigroup has since notified the affected consumers that the message occurred as a result of a “systematic error.” The error marks another in a series of problems that Citigroup has faced managing the transition. In the week following the transition, the company fielded multiple complaints from consumers who hadn’t received new cards or were struggling to activate them and couldn’t get the necessary support. Despite that, the portfolio has been performing well, giving Citi $5.7 billion in purchases made on Citi Costco cards in its first three-and-a-half weeks. But ongoing errors could begin to turn off consumers and increase cardholder attrition, particularly since Costco now accepts any Visa card, not just the Citigroup-branded Costco card. That would limit the potential financial impact of the portfolio, which could give Citi over $80 billion in annual billed business and help it further establish separation as the third largest US card issuer this year. Citigroup is just one piece of the larger payments ecosystem, which contains card issuers, processors, merchants, 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. Story continues 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 PAYMENTS INDUSTRY EXPLAINED: The Trends Creating New Winners And Losers In The Card-Processing Ecosystem THE CONNECTED DEVICE PAYMENTS REPORT: Market opportunities, top stakeholders, and new use cases for the next frontier in payments The top 5 fintech predictions for 2016 [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Which CFB coach would request their buyout be paid in Bitcoin? || $596.30 #itBit; $610.00 #bitfinex; $603.00 #btce; $599.35 #GDAX; $595.50 #bitstamp; $604.13 #OKCoin; #bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse  || 1 #bitcoin = $12055.00 MXN | $615.01 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 19.6MXN http://www.bitapeso.com  || Gana BitCoin FAUCET: Que Es y Como Funciona EasyBitcoinFaucet http://ganarbitcoingratisfaucet.blogspot.com/2016/08/que-es-y-como-funciona-easybitcoinfaucet.html?spref=tw … || #Ripple #XRP $0.005919 (-0.02%) 0.00000982 BTC (-0.00%) || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $595.04/$595.91 #Bitstamp $595.92/$597.00 #BTCe ⇢$0.01/$1.96 $593.00/$598.97 #Coinbase ⇢$-2.91/$3.93 || Our Investment: $200.00 Payout Ratio: 280% IN PROFIT Minimal Spend: 0.01 BTC / 1 LTC Referral: 10-2-1-1-1-1%... http://fb.me/5tkmkWicy  || 1 BTC Price: BTC-e 575.123 USD Bitstamp 572.00 USD Coinbase 573.99 USD #btc #bitcoin 2016-09-02 15:30 pic.twitter.com/zf3AHkcRAI || Bitcoin、Litecoin、DASH、Monacoinを完全匿名で現金で個人間で簡単に対面売買することができるサイト、btc-trade-p2pの運営をしております。 #暗号通貨　#ビットコイン　#Bitcoin　#BTC http://btctrade.web.fc2.com  || $606.50 #GDAX; $604.10 #bitstamp; $608.00 #btce; $606.99 #bitfinex; $603.31 #OKCoin; $606.00 #itBit; #bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse 
Trend: up || Prices: 640.38, 638.65, 641.63, 639.19, 637.96, 630.52, 630.86, 632.83, 657.29, 657.07
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 2018-09-24] BTC Price: 6595.41, BTC RSI: 49.57 Gold Price: 1199.30, Gold RSI: 48.54 Oil Price: 72.08, Oil RSI: 64.15 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] NYSE Owner’s Bitcoin Market May Have ‘Hidden Leverage,’ Wall Street Vet Warns: When Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), announced that it was launching a bitcoin market, the move was met with enthusiasm by many within the cryptocurrency industry as a vindication of the legitimacy of the asset class. However, others, including some Wall Street veterans, warned that the “financialization” of bitcoin could introduce elements of the fractional reserve banking system into the cryptocurrency market. Now, the head of Bakkt — ICE’s bitcoin market — is seeking to assuage some of those concerns. Writing in a blog post, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler said that one of the platform’s key missions is to promote “efficient price discovery,” which means that the firm does not intend to allow clients to trade on margin or otherwise put a “paper claim on a real asset.” Shewrote: “A critical element to price discovery is physical delivery. Specifically, with our solution, the buying and selling of Bitcoin is fully collateralized or pre-funded. As such, our new daily Bitcoin contract will not be traded on margin, use leverage, or serve to create a paper claim on a real asset. This supports market integrity and differentiates our effort from existing futures and crypto exchanges which allow for margin, leverage and cash settlement. Coupled with a secure, regulated warehouse solution, you can begin to see how this market infrastructure can help more institutions and consumers participate in the asset class.” That bitcoin contract, as CCNreported, will be a one-day futures contract that is settled in BTC rather than cash. The reason it is structured as a one-day futures contract rather than a conventional BTC/USD trading pair is that futures contracts are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Per CFTC guidelines, Bakkt must provide a “warehouse” where the physical assets undergirding the products are stored. Caitlin Long, who spent more than two decades on Wall Street and co-founded the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, said that she was partially-pleased by Loeffler’s post, which answered some questions that she and others had been asking about ICE’s handling of bitcoin, specifically about explicit leverage and margin trading. However, shenotedthat the post was silent on what she calls “hidden leverage,” through which institutionscommingle and rehypothecatedifferent types of collateral (bitcoins, physical USD, securities, etc.), which involves substituting them for one another on their balance sheet as well as allow multiple parties to declare ownership of the same asset on their financial statements. These practices, Long says, are standard on Wall Street and could serve to taint bitcoin’s fixed currency supply with elements of the wider financial system, which relies on fractional-reserve banking. Images from Shutterstock The postNYSE Owner’s Bitcoin Market May Have ‘Hidden Leverage,’ Wall Street Vet Warnsappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Forecast – BTC Prices Slide a Little: The BTC market continues to trade in a weak manner for another day as conflicting reports emerge about the strength of the market and whether the large players are indeed interested in coming out in support of the market. The Supreme Court in India did not spare time to handle the case regarding the regulation of crypto in India and that could also have been a contributing factor for the market to continue to remain dull over the last 24 hours. Things have been pretty quiet around the markets though some of the cryptos continues to slip in price and this is only serving to embolden the sellers even more in the short term. The bulls have not been able to make any sort of a dent on the confidence of the bears and this has led the prices to drip lower in a slow and steady manner over the last couple of months. The only thing in favor of the BTC market is the fact that the prices have been held in range and it has not broken through the lows of the range despite the best efforts of the bears to make it so. We believe that this is likely to keep the bulls interested and it may also lead to a situation where they try and take control of the market in the medium term. The ETH prices continue to drop and the prices are trading below the $180 region as of this writing and it is likely that the market is going to remain weak during the short term. This has indeed been a drastic turn around for the market and with many of the ICO owners beginning to sell off, it is only going to get worse as the time goes on. For now, there does not seem to be any bottom to the fall so far. Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today Looking ahead to the rest of the day, we can expect some tight consolidation and ranging to continue in the markets as the traders try to come to terms with things happening around the world and try to jostle for space in the hope that the market would pick up in due course of time. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • SP500 defends the support. EURUSD waits for a trigger • Weekly Forex Outlook: September 10-14 • Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – “Fragile” Supply Situation Makes Prices Vulnerable to Upside Spike • Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Forecast – BTC Prices Slide a Little • Commodities Daily Forecast – September 12, 2018 • EUR/USD Daily Price Forecast – EUR/USD Consolidates As US Greenback Gains Strength Owing to Trade War Woes || Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Plenty of Room to Downside, but Also Ripe for Reversal Bottom: Gold futures finished lower last week. The weakness was fueled by a stronger U.S. Dollar, which helped drive down foreign demand for the dollar-denominated gold market. The catalysts behind the selling pressure was aversion to risky assets which drove investors into the safe-haven dollar, and solid domestic inflation data which raised expectations for additional rate hikes by the Fed later this year. Last week, December Comex gold futures settled at $1219.00, down $4.20 or -0.34%. Weekly December Comex Gold Weekly Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the weekly swing chart. The market is in no position to change the trend to up, but due to the prolonged move down in terms of price and time, gold is inside the window of time for a potentially bullish closing price reversal bottom. Since hedge fund and money managers are net short gold, some unexpected news could spark a short-covering rally. A trade through $1212.50 will signal a resumption of the downtrend after a week of consolidation. The minor trend is also down. A move through $1278.20 will change the minor trend to up. Weekly Swing Chart Technical Forecast Since December Comex gold is inside the window of time for a potentially bullish closing price reversal bottom, we’re going to use last week’s close at $1219.00 as our pivot this week. A sustained move under $1219.00 will indicate the presence of sellers. Taking out $1212.50 will confirm the downtrend. The daily chart indicates there is plenty of room to the downside under this low so we could see the start of an acceleration to the downside with the December 15, 2016 main bottom at $1162.00 the next likely target. A sustained move over $1219.00 will signal the presence of buyers. If this move generates enough upside momentum then look for a possible rally into the long-term downtrending Gann angle at $1244.10. The angle at $1244.10, moving down at a rate of $8.00 per week since the main top at $1388.10, has been guiding the gold market lower for 18 weeks or since the week-ending April 13. We could see a technical bounce on the first test of this angle, but overtaking it could trigger an acceleration to the upside. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Gold Falls Further As Turkish Crisis Spiked Demand for USD Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 13/08/18 Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Turkish Effort to Support Lira Not Enough to Stop Dollar Strength, Gold Weakness E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Sustained Move Under 2827.25 Targets 2778.50 GBP/USD Daily Price Forecast – GBPUSD Consolidates Around 1.27 Handle Ahead of a Busy Week Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Plenty of Room to Downside, but Also Ripe for Reversal Bottom || How Crypto Will Grow Into an Institutional Asset Class: There have been rumblings about financial institutions adding crypto services to their offerings, raising new funds for digital currencies, and even launching dedicated trading desks . But until institutional investors have a regulated, full featured trading exchange with diverse sets of spot and derivatives products, their adoption will crawl at a snail’s pace, and crypto will continue to fall short of being the robust, legitimate asset class that it can be. Institutional exchanges for cryptocurrency represent a multi-billion-dollar whitespace market. Various parties—including Intercontinental Exchange, parent company of the NYSE—are vying to get such venues up and running . But some of the exchanges in development today face significant regulatory hurdles, and may be held back from launch until they wrestle with complex issues like securities custody and settlement. So, what are institutional investors to do since many want to make meaningful moves in the crypto markets now, not years from now? Why Crypto’s Retail Infrastructure Won’t Work for Institutions Crypto was born “retail first.” In many ways, crypto wouldn’t exist without the early adoption of retail speculators and entrepreneurs. But this came at a cost, because building an asset class “retail first” ignored the largest consumers of mature asset classes: traditional institutional capital. These investors and speculators provide liquidity for consumers, stabilize prices and drive innovation around valuation. But large institutional players demand levered products (derivatives), highly reliable infrastructure hosted in Wall Street data centers, and compliance features that fit in with their existing trading desks. This is why institutional investors will be challenged to adopt existing retail focused crypto exchanges. Not necessarily because all are untrustworthy, but because they were built retail-first. That said, trust is indeed an issue for institutional players, as many retail exchanges are unregulated and based offshore. Story continues Crypto needs better “rails” in place to turn it from an asset class into a capital class. But it is “here to stay.” Making Crypto a Capital Class What’s needed to make crypto a capital class is to allow physically delivered forwards, or the delivery of the actual asset after the expiration of a trading contract . This will be instrumental for getting institutional investors into crypto—but the existing infrastructure has problems delivering this. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange have started down this path by offering financially settled forwards for Bitcoin (cash settled in lieu of physical Bitcoin). However, because of the thin liquidity in the underlying spot markets, these contracts are subject to manipulation at settlement and distrusted by institutional venues. Daily volumes in August averaged just over 30,000 Bitcoin equivalent on CME and 5,000 on CBOE . This is why Bain Capital Ventures joined OKCoin USA to lead a $15 million Series B in Seed CX , a licensed cryptocurrency exchange to offer institutional trading and settlement for both spot and CFTC-regulated derivatives. This company will give institutions access to the levered products they want, with settlement functionality—including physically delivered forwards—on its platform. Centralized or Decentralized? Ultimately, two parallel worlds will form to support the crypto asset class: a centralized system that mirrors the traditional financial system, but with many friction points removed, creating an on-ramp of fiat into the crypto world. a decentralized, trust-less replica of the centralized system with protocols built to support each independent function. One cannot exist without the other and both can flourish together. There’s benefit in crypto assets and services that fall into the second, i.e., the decentralized, category, because they offer an alternative, non-fiat way to store value and conduct business without reliance on the competence and ethics of sovereigns and central banks, a notion that will gain more appreciation. Central banks—especially in the developing world—can harm national economies if they can’t overcome systemic shortcomings and stem inflation or devaluation. This is why some companies are developing “stablecoins” whose value is less prone to fluctuation, in one case pegging the value of a digital coin to the U.S. dollar. A decentralized digital currency like this can protect a society from the fallibilities of its own central bank. Decentralized money markets built with blockchain will also be of great benefit to the developing world, as they will enable people to lend, borrow and earn interest on their crypto assets without the burden of counter-party risk. There is plenty of opportunity to create new ways for the hundreds of millions of unbanked and under-banked people to join the global economy. Decentralized crypto assets can help people worldwide. But cryptocurrency as an asset class will not fully develop until institutional investors get off the sidelines and into the game. And what these investors want is a centralized, trusted venue for trading these new currencies. || Insider Buys Of The Week: AT&T, GE, Salesforce: • Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors. • Some insiders took advantage of post-earnings slumps this week. • Also, an insider bucked the selling trend in a hot software stock. Conventional wisdom says insiders and 10 percent owners really only buy shares of a company for one reason -- they believe the stock price will rise and they want to profit from it. Soinsider buyingcan be an encouraging signal for potential investors, particularly with markets near all-time highs. Here's a look at a few notable insider purchases reported in the past week. AT&T FiveAT&T Inc.(NYSE:T) directors stepped up to the buy window this past week. The total of more than 90,500 shares of this telecom giant acquired, at per-share prices ranging from $30.21 to $30.73, cost them altogether more than $4.56 million. Note that none of these directors owns more than 100,000 shares. These purchases came just after AT&T sharedits latest quarterly resultsand about the time the stock hit a new 52-week low. Shares ended the week trading at $31.08 apiece, so these directors' purchases seem to be well-timed. The stock has changed hands between $30.13 and $39.80 in the past year, and the analyst's mean price target is $35.99. See Also:Report: CBS CEO Les Moonves Accused Of Sexual Misconduct GE General Electric Company(NYSE:GE) saw one of its directors add to his stake last week. At an average price of $13.04 apiece, the 191,000 shares reportedly acquired cost that director about $2.94 million. Note this director is also the CEO of Danaher, and his stake in GE was listed as more than 360,000 shares. GE saw apost-earnings declineeven though it topped Wall Street expectations on the top and bottom lines. The stock ended last week at $13.06, still near the director's purchase price. It has traded as high as $25.89 in the past year, but the Wall Street consensus price target was last seen at $17.11. Salesforce While the CEO, president and otherSalesforce.com, inc.(NYSE:CRM) executives and insiders were selling throughout July, one director stepped up to the buy window this past week. That director picked up 6,000 shares at between $146.01 and $146.49 apiece. That totaled almost $877,300 and was pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan. While other big tech stocks suffered last week, Salesforce shares hit a new 52-week high. However, the stock ended the past week at $143.91, down about 3 percent and below the director's purchase price range. The S&P 500 was down only fractionally in that time. The consensus price target for Salesforce is $150.40 a share. See more from Benzinga • Benzinga's Bulls & Bears Of The Week: Bitcoin, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Walgreens And More • Barron's Picks And Pans: Amazon, Eli Lilly, Fiat Chrysler And More • Insider Buys Of The Week: BlackRock, Dish Network, Walgreens © 2018 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Move Higher as Inventories Remain Low: Natural gas prices moved higher on Friday, following Thursday’s in line inventory report.  The trajectory of injections continues to flatten ahead of the withdrawal season, which signals that prices should move higher.  The weather in the US is expected to move toward warmer than normal without any areas that are normal or below normal over the next 8-14 day period. Technical Analysis Natural gas prices moved higher climbing slightly more than 1.25%, but was unable to recapture resistance near an downward sloping trend line that comes in near 2.97. Support is seen near the 20-day moving average at 2.93. Additional support is seen near the 50-day moving average at 2.87. Momentum is neutral as the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) histogram is printing in the black with a flattening trajectory which points to consolidation. Inventories Grew In Line with Expectation The EIA reported that natural gas in storage was 2,387 Bcf as of Friday, August 10, 2018. This represents a net increase of 33 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 687 Bcf less than last year at this time and 595 Bcf below the five-year average of 2,982 Bcf. At 2,387 Bcf, total working gas is below the five-year historical range. Lower Coal Inventories Will Boost Natural Gas Demand The EIA reports that in May 2018, coal inventories, or stockpiles, in the electric power sector totaled 128 million short tons, 21% lower than in May 2017, and the lowest at that time of year since 2014. Stockpiles have averaged 22% lower during the first five months of 2018 compared with 2017. A Disturbance is in the Lower Atlantic The National Hurricane Center is issuing advisories on Tropical Storm Ernesto, located several hundred miles north-northwest of the Azores.  A tropical wave located a few hundred miles east of the Windward Islands is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms. Environmental conditions are becoming less conducive, meaning its unlikely to become a hurricane.  Development of this system is not expected while it moves westward at about 15 mph. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – August 17, 2018 Forecast Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Forecast – BTC Prices Consolidate E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – August 17, 2018 Forecast DAX Index Price Forecast – German DAX Likely To Remain Range Bound Ahead of Eurozone CPI Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Picking Up Bid Due to Weaker Dollar Technical Outlook For Gold, Silver & WTI Crude Oil: 17.08.2018 || 3 Reasons Why I Voted for the Rite Aid Merger: I realize it may be a contrarian and unfashionable stance, but I just voted my modest Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD) stake in favor of the chain's proposed merger with Albertsons . We'll see how the vote plays out when the tally is counted at the Aug. 9 shareholder meeting, but it's shaping up to be an uphill battle. The combination of the meandering drugstore operator and the sprawling supermarket giant isn't exactly gaining traction on Wall Street. Rite Aid is making a last-ditch effort to woo shareholders, which it wouldn't be doing if it thought shareholder acceptance was a slam dunk. There are too many naysayers, and well-regarded advisory firms are shaking their heads at the plan that would create a $24 billion drugstore and supermarket behemoth. I disagree with the deal bashers, naturally. Let's go over the reasons why I voted in favor of the combination of Rite Aid and Albertsons. A wooden sign with the words Healthy isn't a goal, it's a way of living. Image source: Rite Aid. 1. Rite Aid's getting a fair share Advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommended voting against the deal late last week. ISS is pretty influential with mutual funds and other institutional investors holding large blocks of Rite Aid stock, so it's an opinion that matters. Glass Lewis -- another advisory firm tastemaker -- also spoke out against the deal. The most common argument is that Rite Aid shareholders will be getting just 28% to 29.6% of the merged entity. They feel that Rite Aid stakeholders should get a thicker slice of the combined company. Rite Aid defends the ownership ratio, pointing out that its assets will contribute just 19% of this fiscal year's projected EBITDA, 27% of the revenue, and 24% of the equity value. It's easy to demand more, especially since it seems as if Albertsons is going this route after facing a lukewarm reception as it considered going public on its own last year. Rite Aid's balance sheet may not be perfect, but its partial asset sale makes it a less leveraged situation than Albertsons finds itself in these days. However, Rite Aid was never going to get the lion's share of the combined company. A nearly 30% slice is fair enough. Story continues 2. The synergies are real Rite Aid and Albertsons are jagged puzzle pieces that fit in place rather nicely. Albertsons will be able to expand the Rite Aid name by rebranding its supermarket pharmacies. Rite Aid will be able to stock some of Albertsons' brands. Each company will expand the sales and presence of the other. The pitch claims that the combination will result in $375 million a year in cost synergies and $3.6 billion in incremental annual revenue opportunities. The combination creates legitimate value, as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 3. Rite Aid is dead on its own It's been a long way down for Rite Aid shareholders since plans to be acquired by Walgreens Boots Alliance came undone . Rite Aid settled for $4.375 billion in a partial asset sale of 1,932 of its stores and three distribution centers, but the past two years with the drugstore operator in limbo left a mark. Rite Aid stock is selling at a third of where it was before Walgreens stepped up as a suitor in late 2015. The recovery process has been slow. Rite Aid -- like other pharmacies -- is struggling with diminishing reimbursement rates. Consolidation among health insurance companies and generic manufacturers is eating away at Rite Aid's margins. Its latest quarter treated investors to another adjusted net loss from continuing operations on flattish revenue growth. It's too late to call Albertsons' bluff, hoping that walking away from this deal will result in Albertsons coming back to offer 35% or 40% of the combined company to Rite Aid shareholders. There's also little reason to believe that the now-smaller Rite Aid will fare any better in the future than when it had 1,932 more stores. The naysayers may win next week's showdown, but Rite Aid will only be that much more desperate to sniff out a new exit strategy. 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 Rick Munarriz owns shares of Rite Aid. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 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 5 th August’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 5 th May’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 31 st July. 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. Story continues 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. {alt} This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 25/08/18 U.S. Dollar Weakens as Fed’s Powell Hints End of Policy Tightening Cycle is Nearing Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – crude markets scream higher during the week Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver markets show signs of support for the week Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast – natural gas chops around again during previous week Bitcoin – The Bulls Take Control as the SEC Hits Pause || Ethereum Falls 10.27% In Bearish Trade: Investing.com - Ethereum was trading at $272.08 by 18:32 (22:32 GMT) on the Investing.com Index on Monday, down 10.27% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage loss since August 13. The move downwards pushed Ethereum's market cap down to $27.94B, or 13.44% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, Ethereum's market cap was $135.58B. Ethereum had traded in a range of $271.51 to $303.74 in the previous twenty-four hours. Over the past seven days, Ethereum has seen a drop in value, as it lost 2.63%. The volume of Ethereum traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $1.38B or 12.55% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $250.84 to $320.81 in the past 7 days. At its current price, Ethereum is still down 80.88% from its all-time high of $1,423.20 set on January 13. Bitcoin was last at $6,299.2 on the Investing.com Index, down 2.97% on the day. Ripple was trading at $0.32558 on the Investing.com Index, a loss of 5.45%. Bitcoin's market cap was last at $109.41B or 52.64% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while Ripple's market cap totaled $13.01B or 6.26% of the total cryptocurrency market value. Related Articles EOS Falls 10.89% In Bearish Trade Ontology (ONT) Technical Analysis: Support Continues to Arrive After Successful Korean MainNet Launch Dash Retailers Rise in Numbers Despite Weak Market || Berkshire Hathaway's Operating Earnings Soar 67% in the Second Quarter: Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) shareholders should be pleased with the company's earnings report for the second quarter. The Omaha-based conglomerate reported operating earnings of $6.9 billion, a 67% increase over the year-ago period, due primarily to higher profits in insurance and a lower tax rate thanks to last year's corporate tax cut. Here's how Berkshire's quarter stacked up, segment by segment. Insurance -- $2.1 billion profit Berkshire's insurance companies had a stellar second quarter. The company reported that its insurers earned $943 million from underwriting, far better than a $22 million loss in the year-ago period. Investment income earned from interest and dividends from the float jumped to $1.14 billion, up from $965 million last year. Notably, all of Berkshire's insurance units generated an underwriting profit in the second quarter. A breakdown of pre-tax underwriting profits by insurance segment appears below: Insurance segment Q2 2018 Q2 2017 GEICO $673 million $119 million BH Reinsurance $297 million ($375 million) BH Primary Group $234 million $232 million Total underwriting $1,204 million ($24 million) Data source: 10-Q filing. GEICO's quarter could be described as simply exceptional. The company benefited from an 8.7% increase in prices over the last 12 months, as well as a 4.9% increase in the number of policies in force during the period. During the second quarter, GEICO posted a combined ratio of 91.9%, an improvement from its combined ratio of 97.9% last year. Speaking broadly, 2018 has been largely devoid of large catastrophe losses so far, a reprieve from last year, when natural disasters in the form of hurricanes and earthquakes took their toll on Berkshire's underwriting results . Railroad -- $1.3 billion profit We knew beforehand that BNSF was likely to benefit from higher railcar volumes, as its carloads report showed a healthy 4.9% increase in the number of cars that moved over its rails in the second quarter. Story continues On an after-tax basis, BNSF's profit increased by about 37% compared to the year-ago period. Pre-tax profit increased by about 8%, however, as a reduction in corporate tax rates, not increased volume or pricing, had the largest effect on profit growth. (Its tax rate declined from 37.7% in the year-ago period to 20.9% in the most recent quarter.) BNSF is in many ways a bet on the U.S. economy and commodity prices. In its quarterly filing, Berkshire said that shipments of industrial product volumes increased by 10.4% in the second quarter, driven by demand for sand, petroleum products, steel, and plastics. Manufacturing, service, and retailing -- $2.1 billion profit This segment essentially includes every Berkshire subsidiary that isn't broken out on its own, but it's fair to think of it as being primarily driven by Berkshire's manufacturing concerns, which produce the vast majority (about 74%) of the segment's profit. Operating earnings increased by roughly 29% from the year-ago period. Warren Buffett at the annual shareholders meeting. Image source: The Motley Fool. Berkshire's major manufacturers reported impressive revenue growth in the second quarter. In its filings, Berkshire said that Precision Castparts saw its revenue grow 6.5% in the second quarter over the year-ago period, though pre-tax profit fell by 8.9%, due to costs associated with plant shutdowns and outages, and new aircraft programs that have high up-front costs, despite the expectation they will generate larger profits in future accounting periods. Lubrizol revenue increased 9.5%, due to higher prices, improved product mix, and favorable currency fluctuations. IMC and Marmon reported revenue increases of 21.4% and 10.2%, respectively, compared to the same period a year ago. The aforementioned companies make up the bulk of Berkshire's "industrial" manufacturers, which produce the highest margins of any of its manufacturing, service, and retail businesses, and about half of overall profits in the segment. Utilities and energy -- $581 million profit The utilities and energy businesses are almost annuity-like, since they generate the bulk of their earnings from the sale and distribution of power in regulated markets across the United States. Operating earnings for this segment increased 14% year over year. After backing out the real estate brokerage business, Berkshire's utilities reported revenue growth of 3.6% year over year, driven by acquisitions and new projects, partially offset by rate decreases in regulated markets where the companies have to pass on the benefit of a lower tax rate to customers. (PacifiCorp revenue, for example, declined by about $58 million year over year, of which $53 million was driven by lower rates as a result of tax reform.) Finance and financial products -- $429 million profit Clayton Homes, which sells manufactured and site-built homes, is the star of this segment. Revenue for the homebuilder increased by 26% to $1.5 billion, as the company benefits from increased home sales volume and rising finance profits. The outsize increase in revenue is partially driven by the sale of site-built homes, where land is included in the sales price (manufactured home sales do not have attached land value). Clayton Homes' pre-tax earnings increased 19% over the year-ago period, substantially lower than the 26% increase in revenue. Other events and important details There's more to an earnings report than just the dollars and cents of what a business earned in a recent 13-week period. Here are a few things that are worth keeping an eye on: Cash holdings -- Berkshire ended the quarter with about $111 billion in cash. With so much cash on hand, it's safe to say that Buffett's "elephant gun" is still loaded for a large acquisition. Net of the $20 billion of cash Buffett likes to have around as a rainy day fund , Berkshire has roughly $91 billion of "excess" cash. Stock concentration -- Berkshire may own a lot of stocks, but a handful are particularly important to its financial results quarter to quarter. Note that about 70% of its stock portfolio is attributed to just five companies -- Apple , Wells Fargo , Bank of America , Coca-Cola , and American Express . To put that in perspective, the five largest companies in the S&P 500 make up less than 16% of the index's value. Share repurchases -- Now that the quarterly report is filed, Berkshire can start repurchasing stock whenever Buffett and Charlie Munger deem it an attractive investment. In July, Berkshire changed its buyback policy, removing a self-enforced rule to only repurchase shares at a valuation of 1.2 times book value. Shares recently traded at about 1.4 times book value. All in all, Berkshire's second quarter shows just how much it can earn when everything goes its way. Its insurance companies were the star performers this quarter, producing robust underwriting profits nearly $1 billion greater than they earned in the year-ago period. 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 Jordan Wathen has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. 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 recommends Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] @eztechwin || @lifeoncoin || @eztechwin || @btc_reddit || @btc_fan || @lifeoncoin || @satoshi_BTC || Pay Towards Contract Select your payment mode and pay for your contract. Please Visit on: http://btcrace.com  #Crypto #Bitcoin #altcoins #bitcointalk #investment #cryptocurrency #altcoin #dash #eth #neopic.twitter.com/p8ekRrkzVa || @eztechwin || 2018-07-31 11:00:02 UTC BTC: $7959.14 BCH: $788.64 ETH: $432.78 ZEC: $202.92 LTC: $79.07 ETC: $16.74 XRP: $0.4351
Trend: up || Prices: 6446.47, 6495.00, 6676.75, 6644.13, 6601.96, 6625.56, 6589.62, 6556.10, 6502.59, 6576.69
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 2018-12-17] BTC Price: 3545.86, BTC RSI: 39.06 Gold Price: 1247.40, Gold RSI: 61.27 Oil Price: 49.88, Oil RSI: 34.28 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Markets See Massive Sell-Off, Bitcoin Dips Below $5,600 for the First Time in 2018: Nov. 14: Crypto markets have suffered sharp losses over the past several hours. The major market drop off took place between 10:30 a.m. (UTC -5) and 12:00 p.m., with some of the top 20 cryptocurrencies dropping by as much as 18 percent at press time, according to data from CoinMarketCap . Market visualization from Coin360 Market visualization from Coin360 According to data from Bitcointicker , after 11:00 a.m. (UTC -5) Bitcoin dropped below the $5,600  price point for the first time in 2018, sinking further to as low as $5,506 at around 2:00PM. Bitcoin is now down around 11 percent on the day, trading at $5,612 at press time. Bitcoin price chart Bitcoin price chart. Source: Bitcointicker Ethereum ( ETH ) the second cryptocurrency by market cap, has plunged below the $200 threshold, and is down 13.4 percent over the day. The altcoin is trading around $179 as of press time, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Ethereum 24-hour price chart Ethereum 24-hour price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap The fourth top cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Cash ( BCH ), is seeing the biggest losses across the top 20 tokens by market cap. The coin, which is scheduled for an update that will likely result in a hard fork tomorrow, Nov. 15, is down more than 16 percent, and is trading at $433 at press time, according to CoinMarketCap . Total market capitalization has dipped to as low as $187 billion today, which represents the lowest point since early November, 2017, according to CoinMarketCap. As of press time, total market cap has slightly rebounded to $190 billion. Total market capitalization annual chart Total market capitalization annual chart. Source: CoinMarketCap While the markets have seen an immense sell-off, Bitcoin has experienced some growth in terms of market share. According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin’s dominance rate has increased to 54 percent, while in the beginning of the day it amounted to 51 percent. At press time, Bitcoin’s accounts for 53 percent of market share. Percentage of total market cap (dominance) 24-hour chart Percentage of total market cap (dominance) 24-hour chart. Source: CoinMarketCap The recent movement of the market was predicted by a number of industry experts, who also suggest that the bear market would last beyond this year. Technical expert Willy Woo, founder of data webstie Woobull, has recently predicted that the bear market end may end “around Q2 2019,” based on “putting together the blockchain view:” “After that we start the true accumulation band, only after that, do we start a long grind upwards.” Earlier this year, crypto investor and founder of Galaxy Investment Partners Mike Novogratz predicted that Bitcoin will not manage to break $10,000 by the end of 2018, claiming that reverse of the trend will take place by Q2 in 2019, when the industry will get more institutional involvement. Story continues Related Articles: After Yesterday’s Bloodbath, Losses Continue for Major Cryptos, XRP Overtakes Ethereum Crypto Markets See Mixed Signals After Recent Downturn Crypto Markets See Mixed Signals While BCH and XLM Grow Significantly Bitcoin Sees Volatility as Prices Hit Three-Month Lows and Altcoins Fall View comments || Bitcoin Cash Price Jumps 10% after Binance, Bitcoin.com Reveal Hard Fork Plans: The bitcoin cash price awoke from its slump on Friday, mounting a double-digit percentage rally during the early evening hours after two major cryptocurrency firms revealed their plans for the BCH hard fork that is scheduled to take place in less than two weeks. Like most of the large-cap crypto market,bitcoin cashhad been in recent weeks beenuncharacteristically stable, and the fourth-largest cryptocurrency spent most of Friday morning trading near $425. Shortly after 12:45 UTC, however, the bitcoin cash price leaped above $450 in a matter of minutes, ultimately touching $470 before falling back to a present value of $465. The surge translated into a daily move of more than 10 percent, ranking bitcoin cash as the second-best performer among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, trailing only small-cap project Ravencoin as of the time of writing. The rally showed some correlation with two separate announcements from large cryptocurrency firmsBitcoin.comandBinanceindicating how they will approach the impending Bitcoin Cash software hard fork, which, as CCNreported, stems fromdeep-seeded disagreementsabout what technological upgrades should be activated on the network and threatens tosever the BCH blockchaininto multiple competing versions. In their announcements today, both Binance — the largest cryptocurrency exchange — and Bitcoin.com, the BCH-promoting website owned byRoger Ver, indicated that they would support theBCH versionpromoted by development team Bitcoin ABC — not thealternative clientrelease by Craig Wright-linked firmnChainand mining pool operatorCoinGeek. Bitcoin.com stated outright that its mining pool, wallet, block explorer, and other services will run the fork-compatible Bitcoin ABC client. Concurrently, these services will the latest client from Bitcoin Unlimited, who has sought tobroker a compromiseand give miners the opportunity to vote on which individual upgrades they would like to activate. While not addressed directly, the announcement makes clear that the company will not support SV. Binance’s announcement was somewhat more opaque, stating that it would support the Bitcoin Cash hard fork but did not address what software client(s) it would support. Crucially, though, the announcement referred users to the “official announcement” for the hard fork and linked to thebitcoincashorg GitHub repository, which lists the upgrade-set included in the ABC client. CCN has reached out to Binance for clarification on whether they will exclusively support this BCH version. While these statements do not completely erase the uncertainty surrounding the Nov. 15 fork, they do suggest that, if the major companies that provide BCH infrastructure continue to line up behind ABC, the so-called hash wars may prove to be less ugly — and disruptive — than they could have been. Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts fromTradingView. The postBitcoin Cash Price Jumps 10% after Binance, Bitcoin.com Reveal Hard Fork Plansappeared first onCCN. || Cryptocurrency Prices Rise as Gemini Supports Bitcoin Cash: Investing.com - The prices of major cryptocurrencies rose on Monday morning in Asia, as a Winklevoss-backed crypto exchange in New York is set to start trading Bitcoin Cash, and Venezuela announced It would trade oil via Its cryptocurrency. Bitcoin gained 2.66% to $3,559 and Ethereum edged up 0.52% to $92.18 at 11:03PM ET (03:03 GMT) on the investing.com index. XRP climbed 0.78% to $3.0754. Litecoin rose 0.24% to $24.993 on the Bitifinex exchange, while Bitcoin Cash was up 4.03% to $106.63 Gemini, founded in 2015 by the Winklevoss brothers, announced last Friday that the exchange would support the trading of Bitcoin Cash’s fork, Bitcoin ABC, after obtaining approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services. “Bitcoin Cash seeks to build on the goal of the original Bitcoin and become an electronic cash system, similar to other payment methods such as debit and credit cards,” Eric Winer, vice president of engineering at Gemini, wrote on the company’s blog. “Their roadmap includes changes such as adjustable blocksize caps, canonical transaction ordering, and new operating codes, which lay the groundwork for further transaction throughput enhancements.” Gemini said it would evaluate Bitcoin SV, the other fork of Bitcoin cash, over the coming months. However, it has yet to reach a decision on whether to support the withdrawal or trading of the token. (Source) Elsewhere, Venezuela will use the country’s digital token, Petro, in selling oil next year, according to reports citing President Nicholas Maduro in the state-run TV TeleSUR on Thursday. The move aims to lower the country’s dependence on the U.S. dollar. “In 2019, we have a schedule for [oil] to be sold in Petros and in this way continue to free us from a currency that the elite of Washington uses,” Maduro was quoted as saying. Maduro’s speech came after his meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow, who was said to have started trading oil with the Chinese yuan. Related Articles Crypto Trading Platform ErisX Hires Serial Exchange Founder Matt Trudeau Bitcoin Flat; Facebook Expands Blockchain Team TenX (PAY) Founder Linked to Austrian Pyramid Scheme || It's been one year since bitcoin was interesting: Congratulations bitcoin bulls. It was exactly one year ago today — December 17, 2017 — that the price ofbitcoin hit a record highof $20,000 per bitcoin. That was also the last time bitcoin was really interesting. As of Monday afternoon, the price of bitcoin was sitting just above $3,500, good for a nearly 10% pop on the day and a roughly 82% drop over the last year. Measured from its most recent low on Saturday, bitcoin prices dropped 84% from their peak last December 17. Back when bitcoin prices and other cryptocurrencies were going to the moon, stocks were near record highs and finishing offone of the least-volatile years on record. In the end, 2017 was a great time to be invested in the stock market but it was a very boring time to be talking about investing in the stock market. Crypto filled that void admirably. But right now,stocks are getting rockedand the drumbeat of strategistscalling the current environment a bear marketis growing louder. Investors are concerned about the Federal Reserve, the end of the economic cycle, and Trump’s trade war with China among other things. Following the stock market and financial markets in 2018 is fun. Following the crypto market is not. Throughout the popping of the 2017-18 cryptocurrency bubble,defenders of the space have taken up a number of positionsto justify why digital assets are here to say, withmany simply arguing that prices don’t matter. But aslayoffs have started hittingthe cryptocurrency space it is hard to argue that prices are just a cosmetic distraction true believers can freely ignore. The price of any financial asset always matters — arguing otherwise is to simply deny reality. And as Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal wrote Monday,price is the most important partof the bitcoin story. Higher prices for bitcoin and other digital assets motivate the miners creating these new assets to continue their work. Lower prices make mining less economically viable, potentially stunting the expansion of the network or rendering the network’s existence obsolete. Or as Weisenthal writes, making crypto nothing more than “a neat science project.” Bitcoin historians will note that this is only the third-worst drop in the history of bitcoin — in 2011 and in 2013, bitcoin dropped more than 90% from peak to trough. But the public mania that accompanied the 2017 frenzy and 2018 crash in the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies certainly makes this the most notable drawdown we’ve seen in the bitcoin space. And while we were promised lots of things during the most manic days of the cryptocurrency frenzy that broke out in the middle of 2017, the only story that ended up being really interesting was the price. At the end of 2017, wewrotethat “if 2017 was about the mania in price with investors expressing regret for having missed this rally, 2018 might be the year that markets start figuring out just what all of these things are for.” Investors are still figuring out what exactly cryptocurrencies and the blockchain are really for. It seems like every big company is “exploring” blockchain technology, but it isn’t clear what that technology would actually do for their business. The entire point of a bank, for example, is to keep a centralized ledger of transactions and keep track of who has money to do what, while the entire point of the blockchain is to decentralize ownership. But even discussing examples of how blockchain applications might fail or succeed in a large corporate setting is so 2017. The decline in price of these assets and the loss of value from the space tell you more about the viability of these applications than any consultant’s pitch deck will. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and blockchain were supposed to usher in anew digital revolution. Instead it was just another asset bubble. And it popped one year ago. — Myles Udland is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter@MylesUdland || Apple's MacBook Pro Gets the AMD Vega Treatment: On July 12,Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL)announcedupdated versions of its high-end MacBook Pro computerswith significantly improved internals. The systems incorporate faster processors -- Apple claimed a 70% boost on the 15-inch model and a doubling in performance for the 13-inch variant -- as well as support for greater memory (32 GB of DRAM from a 16 GB maximum in the prior model). The systems also incorporate Apple's T2 companion chip as well as True Tone display technology. In the 13-inch models, Apple uses the Iris Plus graphics that are integrated inside of theIntelprocessors, but for the 15-inch systems, Apple uses discrete graphics processors fromAdvanced Micro Devices(NASDAQ: AMD). The versions that Apple announced back in July -- and the ones that are available for sale -- can currently be configured with AMD's Radeon Pro 555X graphics or a higher-end version known as Radeon Pro 560X. These are both based on the company's older,lower-end Polaris architecture. The 15-inch MacBook Pro. Image source: Apple. Apple recently announced that, beginning in late November, it would allow buyers to configure the 15-inch MacBook Pro with AMD's newly announced Radeon Pro Vega 16 or its higher-end counterpart, Radeon Pro Vega 20 -- higher-end graphics processors compared with the Polaris-based Radeon Pro 555X and 560X parts. Let's go over what this means for both Apple and AMD. To the extent that it can sell more expensive systems, Apple's Mac-related revenue and, presumably, profit stand to benefit. When I go to Apple's website, the company lets customers choose from two 15-inch MacBook Pro systems to customize. The first comes with a 2.2 GHz six-core CPU, Radeon Pro 555X, and 256 GB of storage starting at $2,399. The second has a faster six-core CPU running at a base speed of 2.6 GHz, Radeon Pro 560X graphics, and 512 GB of storage for $2,799. The $2,399 model can only be configured with up to the Radeon Pro 560X, which means that anybody who wants to get their hands on a Radeon Pro Vega-based MacBook Pro will also have to buy a system that fundamentally starts at a higher price. That's a clear win for Apple. As far as AMD is concerned, keep in mind that every time Apple sells a 15-inch MacBook Pro, AMD already gets a graphics chip sale. The difference now is that if a customer picks a MacBook Pro with a Radeon Pro Vega, not only should Apple benefit by selling a pricier system, but AMD should benefit, too, by selling a pricier graphics processor. Apple offering higher-end configurations of its MacBook Pro with AMD's Radeon Pro Vega graphics chips is a nice way for Apple and AMD to sell pricier systems and graphics chips, respectively, but this isn't a game changer for either company. Remember that during its fiscal year 2018, Apple shipped around 18.2 million total Macs. That figure incorporates shipments of a wide range of Mac laptop and desktop products. Shipments of the 15-inch MacBook Pro make up just a fraction of that total and shipments of the highest-end models with maxed-out graphics likely represent a fraction ofthoseshipments. Ultimately, this announcement isn't something that should have a meaningful impact on the investment theses around either Apple or AMD. 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 Ashraf Eassaowns shares of Advanced Micro Devices. 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 adisclosure policy. || Thanksgiving Survival Guide: How to Talk to Relatives You Convinced to Buy Crypto Last Year: thanksgiving bitcoin crypto For crypto investors, no Thanksgiving is complete without the annual bitcoin pitch. Every year, you deliver your best elevator speech, emphasizing blockchain technology’s ability to disrupt the central banking system and revolutionize data security while your relatives smile with condescension. You’ve done this for three or four years now, making it one of your family’s quaint holiday traditions. There’s just one problem: last year, it worked. Your brother-in-law bought some bitcoin , your sister put her money on ethereum , and a few weeks later your uncle went all in on ripple (XRP) after you assured him it would be listed on Coinbase by the end of the year. The details are a little fuzzy, but you’re pretty sure you also sold a few of your cousins on the virtues of initial coin offerings. Whether they’ve sold their bags or not, it’s unlikely that they’ve forgotten at whose behest they made those purchases, and — spirit of the season or not — they’re probably not feeling very thankful this deep into the present crypto bear market. At least Canadian investors, who celebrated Thanksgiving in mid-October, were able to play the “ Bitcoin is less volatile than Amazon stock ” card and opine about the impending launch of Bakkt’s physically-settled bitcoin futures market in early December. You do not have those luxuries. Bitcoin, you don’t need to be reminded, has cratered over the past week, while Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has delayed Bakkt’s launch until at least late January 2019. Said Tom Lee of his year-end $15,00 bitcoin price target , “These past few days have been a negative development.” Indeed, Tom. Indeed. To put it simply, if you’re going to navigate Thanksgiving 2018 successfully, you’re going to need a survival guide. Feign an Interest in Non-Crypto Conversations bitcoin thanksgiving crypto We get it. The fact that you’re still reading bitcoin news 11 months into this bear market means that you went full-crypto a long time ago. However, for this year at least, you’re going to have to suck it up and pretend that you’re interested in conversations — any conversations — that don’t involve blockchain . Story continues Take an hour on Wednesday evening and get up-to-date on the latest sports news , and don’t be shy about asking when the Saints-Falcons game starts if you think that a conversation is preparing to shift to crypto (It’s 8:20 pm ET, by the way, but don’t let on that you know that). And, for the love of Satoshi, resist the urge to mention that Kobe Bryant will be speaking at an upcoming Tron conference. Don’t be afraid to seek out the family members notorious for monopolizing conversations. A well-placed question or two can easily run half an hour off the clock, and a few such one-sided conversations staggered throughout the afternoon will provide you with plenty of cover from your disgruntled bag-holding relatives. Yes, that means asking your Aunt Kate about your cousin who couldn’t make it to dinner this year because he is doing a semester abroad. “They don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving over there, you know.” Yes, you did know, but now’s now the time to end any conversation before you need to. Your Great Uncle Steve likes to overshare about his various medical maladies? Perfect. Make sure to grab the seat by him at dinner, and — you shouldn’t have to be reminded of this — don’t even think about bringing up Dentacoin . Execute a Preemptive Strike Contrary to the stock photos that populate the headers of virtually every news article about the crypto market’s alleged implosion, bitcoins do not have physical properties. However, when you enter your grandmother’s house on Thursday, you may find that you can cut the crypto-soaked air with a knife. If that’s the case, you need to realize that there’s no activating a hard fork to defuse this difficulty bomb. However, even if you’ve already sold your Lambo to cover that first tax payment to the IRS and are forced to ride to dinner with your parents, you can still control when and how this bomb detonates. When you sense a condescending grin beginning to come your way (I’d say “if,” but let’s be honest, it’s “when”), execute a preemptive strike by cracking a self-deprecating joke about how you’re living in your childhood bedroom again thanks to that ill-timed IOTA investment. If someone asks you whether you have any Black Friday purchases planned, force a smile and ask if they’ve seen the bitcoin price lately. (Note: I advise following this up with, “Actually, GameStop had a few deals I thought I would check out.” I’ll explain why below.) Pepper your early-day conversations with a few of these nuggets, and the rest of the evening should prove far-less excruciating. Just don’t take it too far . Volunteer to Sit at the Kids’ Table Thanksgiving bitcoin crypto Depending on your age and the size of your family gathering, swallowing your pride once more might help you avoid any awkward dinner table conversations. If the grown-up table looks to be crowded, volunteer to sit in the kitchen with the kids. If it doesn’t, plan to stealthily hide a few of the folding chairs in an upstairs closet earlier in the day so that there won’t be enough space at the table. Not only will this provide you cover during dinner, but positioning yourself as one of the kids may also have the added bonus of persuading your XRP-heavy uncle to take some pity on your youth and worldly inexperience. Hit up the Black Friday Sales Early Black Friday sales are increasingly moving online, and brick-and-mortar stores are fighting back by opening their door earlier and earlier with each passing year. Some physical retailers, such as GameStop, will begin “Black Friday” as early as 3 pm on Thursday. This trend is terrible for retail employees and their families — except, those who, like you, convinced family members to buy crypto last year — but, to be frank, it provides you with a convenient excuse to skip the second piece of pumpkin pie and head for the exit if a post-dinner tête-à-tête begins to take an, err, bearish turn. Consider the Nuclear Option Donald Trump bitcoin crypto 19th-century Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke famously said that “No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy,” and that may prove to be the case even if you follow this guide to the letter. If you find that you’ve already exhausted these tactics before the turkey’s even carved, it might be time to considering taking the nuclear option: bringing up politics . Lest you become infamous as the individual who started a decades-long family feud, you should avoid anything too obvious. “Donald Trump, amirite?” probably isn’t going to fly. A more gentle approach could involve attempting to bait your more politically-opinionated relatives into an argument with a seemingly-innocent reference to a headline you read on your smartphone while you were in the bathroom hiding out from that cousin who “bought the dip” in January or a well-timed anecdote about the size of the line at your local polling place during the recent midterm elections. Needless to say, taking this route could end whatever conversational armistice your family had previously arrived at and permanently sever relationships between relatives, so tread with caution. Now, depending on your family dynamic and your willingness to deploy the nuclear option, one or more of these techniques could backfire. If that’s the case, just hodl on. This bear market can’t last forever , right? Stock Photos from Shutterstock The post Thanksgiving Survival Guide: How to Talk to Relatives You Convinced to Buy Crypto Last Year appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin ‘Nuclear Winter’ Doesn’t Scare Billionaire Crypto Bull Jim Breyer: Billionaire investor and venture capitalist Jim Breyer stated that despite a prolonged crypto “nuclear winter,” he still believes that the promise offered by the technology is too great for it to be permanently buried by short-term market movements. Speaking at the 2018 Fortune Global Tech Forum in Guangzhou, China, Breyernotedthat while these are testing times for the crypto investment space, such periods take place in cycles and the current cycle will eventually come to an end. In a session at the event, Breyer — who hasinvestmentsin Ethereum and VeChain, as well as crypto startup Circle — referred to the ongoing market situation as an inevitable part of a market process that takes place roughly once every decade. According to him, despite the turmoil associated with crypto assets,blockchain technologyhas achieved a critical mass of mainstream research and adoption, which makes a future crypto market rebound a near certainty at some point in the future. CCN recentlyreportedthat the plummeting prices of all major coins had affected cryptocurrency mining severely, creating a situation where it is no longer a profitable activity for many small and large-scale miners. Market leader Bitcoin recently fell to a 13-month low, with the total crypto market currently only worth $140 billion — a fifth of its worth as at January 2018 — at press time. The carnage has significantly affected several stakeholders within the cryptocurrency ecosystem, from investors to traders and startups, including Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Capital — which recentlydeclareda $41 million loss for Q3 2018, bringing its total losses for the year to $136 million. Amidst the doom and gloom, however, Breyer says he is unfazed. Drawing on his experience as a venture capitalist — including famously becoming an earlyFacebookinvestor in 2005 — he believes that the crypto market will rebound, driven principally by increasing adoption of blockchain technology. According to him, his many meetings with students, entrepreneurs and technologists all over the world is what convinces him that the downturn will be temporary. In his words: “So many of the very best computer scientists and deep learning Ph.D. students and post-docs are working on blockchain because they have so much fundamental interest in what blockchain can mean. You don’t want to bet against the best and brightest in the world.” Coming from a personality with Breyer’s level of experience and insight into successful investment in artificial intelligence (AI) and human-assisted intelligence (HAI), the pronouncement will come as a minor confidence boost to market participants, as yet another mainstream voice has lent their support to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology following recentcommentsfrom Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne describing blockchain technology as having “greater potential than anything ever seen in history.” Featured Image from JD Lasica/Flickr The postBitcoin ‘Nuclear Winter’ Doesn’t Scare Billionaire Crypto Bull Jim Breyerappeared first onCCN. || Susquehanna Exec: Bakkt and Fidelity Could Solve Bitcoin’s Liquidity Issue: bitcoin sidechain liquid network blockstream Over the past week, the price of Bitcoin has dropped by more than 35 percent, and the majority of analysts in the crypto space have shared the sentiment that the crash was triggered by the contentious hard fork of Bitcoin Cash. According to Bart Smith , the head of digital asset at trading giant Susquehanna, a lack of liquidity in Bitcoin markets allowed the dominant cryptocurrency to be vulnerable to a large sell-off caused by the Bitcoin Cash hash power war and hard fork. In the months to come, Smith explained that the entrance of Fidelity , ICE , and Bakkt into the cryptocurrency market could increase the liquidity of BTC and lead to a rise in capital in the space to soak up big sell-offs. Importance of Fidelity and Bakkt Currently, it is fairly difficult for an average trader to invest in the cryptocurrency exchange market through trading platforms like Coinbase and Bitstamp . Investors are required to hand in photocopies of government-issued documents, undergo rigorous Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, and comply with policies enforced by exchanges. As #bitcoin plunges and nears $4,000, Wall Street's Crypto King Bart Smith of Susquehanna says he's still a long-term believer in the cryptocurrency. pic.twitter.com/SzsL9tZAhB — CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) November 20, 2018 The impractical systems adopted by cryptocurrency exchanges as per the request of government agencies in the US, Japan, South Korea, and other leading digital asset markets have limited the cryptocurrency market to a relatively small group of investors that possess a certain know-how to invest in the emerging asset class. Smith explained: “Number one, the on-ramps for new capital is very difficult. If you’re a global institution, it is still very difficult to buy Bitcoin in a way you might want to. A wealthy individual from the G.I. Generation is not going to take a high-resolution picture of their driver’s license and send it to a website and send money there. They want to invest with Fidelity. They want to invest with Bank of America.” Story continues The Susquehanna executive added that the limited number of fiat on-ramps in the cryptocurrency market made it difficult for Bitcoin markets to absorb growing sell-pressure placed upon by investors that have started to lose confidence in the short-term trend of BTC due to the Bitcoin Cash hard fork fiasco. “That has led to the second problem which is without the new capital on-ramp, liquidity has been very low. And so we’ve kind of seen a stable price all through summer, it was at $6,000 give or take. Volatility got really light at the end of July. So what happens is in that environment, if you have a contentious fork, it does not necessarily create a tremendous amount of confidence and when those sellers come in, there’s just no liquidity to absorb it. Hopefully, with Bakkt, Fidelity, and further regulations, there are going to be enough capital to soak it up.” Targeting Retail Traders As of now, both Fidelity and Bakkt are leaning towards institutional investors as their target client base. But, if financial institutions like Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley begin to provide cryptocurrency investment services to retail traders as proposed in October, it could substantially increase the liquidity coming from individual investors in the crypto space. Images from Shutterstock The post Susquehanna Exec: Bakkt and Fidelity Could Solve Bitcoin’s Liquidity Issue appeared first on CCN . || Your Thanksgiving Turkey’s Provenance Might Be on a Blockchain (Seriously): Your Thanksgiving Turkey’s Provenance Might Be on a Blockchain (Seriously) Honeysuckle White is giving family and friends gathering for Thanksgiving dinner this year the opportunity to talk turkey with a traceable blockchain code on more than 200,000 turkeys sold through 3,500 retailers around the U.S. The traceable turkeys, a limited supply of which is also available through internet retailer Amazon, offer consumers a high-tech connection to the farm where the centerpiece of the meal began its journey to the table. The blockchain, which Honeysuckle White developed using Hyperledger’s Sawtooth platform, is intended to establish a “proven and trusted environment to build a transparent food chain, integrating farmers and producers, suppliers, processors, distributors, retailers, regulators and consumers,” according to a company release . With more than 70 independent farms participating in Honeysuckle’s traceable turkey program, Cargill, the Minnesota-based agricultural giant owner of Honeysuckle, hopes to establish a stronger connection with consumers. While incorporating a blockchain element to the supply-and-distribution chain means the development of a data-rich environment, Cargill’s current emphasis in using the technology centers on storytelling. Putting turkeys on the blockchain marks a deeper dive into data development for companies utilizing the technology. “Most people don’t know what we mean by it,” Deb Bauler, CIO of Cargill’s Protein and Salt Division, told Bitcoin Magazine . Rather than maintain a focus solely on data, utilization of the blockchain also opens an opportunity around a brand’s narrative. Through a text or entering the on-package code at the Honeysuckle White site, consumers trace their turkey to its specific family farm, including the state and county of the farms, and they can also view the history and see photos of the family farm. The code also includes messages from the farmers. Down the road, the Honeysuckle blockchain could include an Internet of Things element. This could include things such as the temperature of the truck transporting the turkeys to retail outlets. Story continues “It’s a unique value statement,” Bauler said. Honeysuckle, based in Wichita, Kansas, began implementing its traceable turkey program last year with a pilot that included only four farms and 60,000 birds available for the holiday season. With the successful pilot, Honeysuckle’s expansion of the program addresses consumer demand for food source transparency. Kassie Long, Honeysuckle White’s brand manager, says the company’s promotion of the product includes social media and other forms of advertising. Thanksgiving turkey buying typically begins on the first weekend in November. As the season progresses and Honeysuckle garners retailer and consumer feedback, the company gains the ability to perform a “robust analysis” of the program on a wider scale, Long says. Included here are things like taking note of the development and strengthening of brand loyalty through repeat customers. Still, transparency in food choice is an aspect of consumer demand familiar to Honeysuckle. According to a company release, a November 2017 survey reported 88 percent of consumers “agree that brands need to be transparent in their food production.” According to the same survey, 80 percent of consumers agree “that at Thanksgiving, it is important for their turkey to be raised by a family farmer.” For consumers, buying blockchain-tracked food seemingly provides a kind of psychological security around food safety issues. For Honeysuckle and other traceable food providers, the security triggers a stronger bottom line through increased sales. According to a reported 2015 study conducted with consumers in South Korea, traceable information translates to more sales and increased brand and product trust. The Food Safety Magazine story cites the study’s co-author, Rajiv Kishore, as noting that when “the customer believes regulatory authorities are ensuring accurate production information, he or she is more likely to buy food that is tracked using traceability information, and even less likely to actual use the food traceability information.” The crux of the observation jives with the consumer research conducted by the Honeysuckle team. That is, consumers’ rising awareness around food safety weighs favorably in their buying decision. However, customers also added the caveat that they weren’t necessarily inclined to act on blockchain tracking, Long said. Darrell Fraser, one of the original pilot participants in the Honeysuckle White traceable turkey program, says the care involved in producing more than five flocks of turkeys each year remains the same. For him, adding the blockchain element to his yields has largely translated into pursuing a kind of vanity grocery shopping. The Texas-based farmer, who has raised turkey flocks for nearly 25 years, says he has yet to find a turkey in the grocery store with roots back to his farm. “I’ve looked and looked and still haven’t found one,” he says. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Lawyer: 5,000 Allegedly Stolen Bitcoins Belonged to ‘Mr. X’ — Not Winklevoss Twins: A lawyer for early bitcoin adopter Charlie Shrem is biting back at claims that his client stole 5,000 bitcoins from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of crypto exchange Gemini and the “first bitcoin billionaires.” In a filing dated Nov. 5, lawyer Brian Klein claims that the 5,000 BTC in question, which the Winklevoss twins allege Shrem siphoned off from funds he had purchased on their behalf in 2012, belong to another prominent investor referred to as “Mr. X” and that the suit is “nonsense.” “Shrem engaged in no wrongdoing. Period,” Klein argued, adding later that, “This…lawsuit can only be characterized as an ambush money-grab designed to cripple Shrem financially.” As CCNreported, the Winklevoss twins, via Winklevoss Capital Fund, had given Shrem — the founder of defunct bitcoin exchange BitInstant as well as the Bitcoin Foundation — $250,000 to help them invest in bitcoin. They allege that $61,000 worth of those funds were never accounted for and that Shrem used the missing capital to purchase 5,000 BTC for himself, coins that arenow worthmore than $32 million. As evidence, they pointed to his lavish lifestyle, which would not seem to mesh with his claim that he had virtually no money when hewent to prison in 2015after pleading guilty to knowingly selling cryptocurrency to people who said they intended to use the funds to purchase drugs on infamous dark web marketplaceSilk Road. He spent more than a year in prison, in addition to agreeing to pay the government nearly $1 million in restitution. “Either Shrem has been incredibly lucky and successful since leaving prison, or — more likely — he ‘acquired’ his six properties, two Maseratis, two powerboats and other holdings with the appreciated value of the 5,000 Bitcoin he stole,” a portion of the suit reads. With the help of a private investigator, theWinklevoss twinsidentified a bitcoin wallet that received 5,000 BTC from an address associated with Shrem around the same time that their funds went missing. The bulk of these coins eventually ended up atXapoandCoinbase, and the twins allege that Shrem has been using them to fund millions of dollars in real estate purchases, as well as other luxury expenses including sports cars and speedboats. In Monday’s filing, however, Klein claims that these funds belong to Mr. X, who in Dec. 2012 asked Shrem for help moving his coins into cold storage. Mr. X sent the funds to Shrem’s bitcoin address and then met him at BitInstant, where Shrem helped him set up a cold storage wallet for the BTC. “Nor can WCF prove Shrem engaged in any misconduct. He did not. Shrem can show by verifiable evidence that he did not take the 5,000 bitcoins WCF accuses him of taking, and that they belonged to Mr. X. Shrem therefore did not breach any duty to WCF, even if one were found to exist.” “WCF’s case collapses on itself because those 5,000 bitcoins were not owned by Shrem,” Klein added. “The scandalous and fantastical story WCF is advancing is nonsense.” The filing further addressed the suggestion in the suit that Shrem was derelict in his obligation to pay the US government $950,000 he owed as a result of hisplea deal, stating that Shrem had already, prior to learning of the suit, begun paying off this debt. According to anotherdocumentlocated by Ars Technica, the two sides will meet in court Nov. 8. Previously, Shrem had agreed to cap his spending at $50,000 per month and refrain from making any cryptocurrency transfers, restrictions which will be reevaluated after the hearing. Read the full filing below: Shrem Filing Nov. 5byCCNon Scribd Featured Image from Shutterstock The postLawyer: 5,000 Allegedly Stolen Bitcoins Belonged to ‘Mr. X’ — Not Winklevoss Twinsappeared first onCCN. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Dünyadaki kripto para market hacminin 1.5 katı üzerinde tutarla bankaa üzerinden kara para aklaması yapılıyor ama Bitcoin karanlık işlerde kullanılıyor diyorlar :) @AtillaYesilada1 @barisesen @AlppIsik @HandeBerktan @mahfiegilmez @ugurses @TuncerSengoz @ismailhpolat @erkanozz || Anerkanntes Zahlungsmittel: Finanzministerium will Aufgaben der Finanzaufsicht Bafin im Bereich des Bitcoin-Handels absichern http://www.faz.net/-i2t-9h3jx?GEPC=s3 … via @faznet || Cotización del Bitcoin Cash: 66 40.€ | +1.53% | Kraken | 15/12/18 18:00 #BitcoinCash #Kraken #BCHEUR || LATEST PRICES FOR TOP 10 CRYPTOCURRENCIES (USD): 1.) $BTC = $4,328.81 2.) $XRP = $0.3798 3.) $ETH = $119.28 4.) $XLM = $0.1673 5.) $BCH = $181.97 6.) $EOS = $3.03 7.) $LTC = $34.28 8.) $USDT = $1.00 9.) $BSV = $92.46 10.) $ADA = $0.0426 || #bitcoin made simple #blockchain #cryptocurrency #innovation https://t.co/c0m0qrddFt || Bitcoin’s New 8% Surge Makes Investors Optimistic About New Gains https://ift.tt/2P5BlYs  || #LIZUN #LIMBO price 11-19 00:01(GMT) $LIZUN BTC:0.00000124 ETH:0.00003224 DOGE:2.6 USD:0.0 RUR:0.5 JPY(btc):0.8 JPY(eth):0.6 JPY(doge):0.7 $LIMBO BTC :0.004 ETH :0.12 USD :25.1 RUR :1600.0 JPY(btc) :2649.0 JPY(eth) :2377.8 || Market Cap: $217,723,435,658 BTC Dominance: 51.41% BTC: $6437.80330666 ETH: 0.033416 BTC XRP: 0.00008351 BTC BCH: 0.09382683 BTC EOS: 0.00087751 BTC 07.11.2018 00:43:16 Powered by #Robostopia || VÍDEO: ¿Cómo funcionan las criptomonedas? (Como Bitcoin) http://ow.ly/ddJl30jucXU  || Current price: $0.023502 Node count: 878 Total accounts: 532314 Coins burned: 2,730,664.00 TRX #tron #trx $trx $btc #btc
Trend: down || Prices: 3696.06, 3745.95, 4134.44, 3896.54, 4014.18, 3998.98, 4078.60, 3815.49, 3857.30, 3654.83
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 2022-02-24] BTC Price: 38332.61, BTC RSI: 42.10 Gold Price: 1925.10, Gold RSI: 74.34 Oil Price: 92.81, Oil RSI: 61.04 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Ntv Asset Management Llc Buys VanEck Agribusiness ETF, SPDR Homebuilders ETF, VanEck BDC Income ...: Charleston, WV, based Investment companyNtv Asset Management Llc(Current Portfolio) buys VanEck Agribusiness ETF, SPDR Homebuilders ETF, VanEck BDC Income ETF, Health Care Select Sector SPDR, Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR, sells Alibaba Group Holding, Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF, ARK Innovation ETF, Altria Group Inc, BP PLC during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Ntv Asset Management Llc. As of 2021Q4, Ntv Asset Management Llc owns 265 stocks with a total value of $603 million. These are the details of the buys and sells. • New Purchases:XHB, BIZD, COLD, XLP, XLV, TIP, HPQ, MKC, SMMF, UNH, IYW, PZA, EXC, NKE, ALC, • Added Positions:MOO, XLI, ROBO, PFXF, QQQ, BETZ, IAU, IEZ, XSW, XLF, SRLN, SMH, PSP, KRE, IWM, VRP, DIA, MTUM, REM, HYD, RWR, FALN, COM, XLU, BMY, NEAR, MILN, DRIV, • Reduced Positions:BABA, SPY, EEM, SPHB, SHY, BLOK, IGSB, CWB, T, TFC, FDN, XLE, AAPL, SLV, DVY, CCI, VZ, AGG, CHIQ, HDV, IDV, TOTL, MMM, BCE, D, DUK, IBM, IBUY, JETS, OEF, SBIO, AEP, ADI, CVX, CSCO, ED, ENB, XOM, WELL, JNJ, PEP, PFE, SO, TRP, V, LYB, ABBV, CQQQ, HYG, IPAY, IVV, XHE, AMZN, AMGN, BAC, BDX, BA, CAT, KO, CL, GIS, GSK, NVS, NVO, NUE, QCOM, WY, KHC, ACWX, IGIB, EFA, FM, FPX, IWF, IWR, MBB, PBW, PRNT, SJNK, VGT, VIG, VOO, XLB, AXP, CHCO, CMCSA, COST, EPD, NEE, INTC, VTRS, RDS.A, TMO, UDR, RTX, GM, KMI, DOW, CARR, OTIS, AMLP, DJD, JXI, PEY, ROOF, SDY, VB, • Sold Out:ARKK, MO, BP, BEN, EFV, NGG, RRX, PM, NCNO, ERTH, EZU, FPF, KD, • Warning! GuruFocus has detected 2 Warning Sign with PYPL. Click here to check it out. • MOO 15-Year Financial Data • The intrinsic value of MOO • Peter Lynch Chart of MOO For the details of NTV ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC's stock buys and sells,go tohttps://www.gurufocus.com/guru/ntv+asset+management+llc/current-portfolio/portfolio These are the top 5 holdings of NTV ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC 1. S&P 500 ETF TRUST ETF (SPY) - 74,662 shares, 5.88% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 3.47% 2. Apple Inc (AAPL) - 147,904 shares, 4.36% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 1.69% 3. PowerShares QQQ Trust Ser 1 (QQQ) - 58,740 shares, 3.88% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 1.48% 4. Microsoft Corp (MSFT) - 51,675 shares, 2.88% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 0.86% 5. iShares Select Dividend ETF (DVY) - 117,159 shares, 2.38% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 1.97% New Purchase: SPDR Homebuilders ETF (XHB) Ntv Asset Management Llc initiated holding in SPDR Homebuilders ETF. The purchase prices were between $71.66 and $86.13, with an estimated average price of $80.15. The stock is now traded at around $71.530000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.11%. The holding were 8,068 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: VanEck BDC Income ETF (BIZD) Ntv Asset Management Llc initiated holding in VanEck BDC Income ETF. The purchase prices were between $16.42 and $17.36, with an estimated average price of $17.01. The stock is now traded at around $17.780000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.1%. The holding were 34,700 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Americold Realty Trust (COLD) Ntv Asset Management Llc initiated holding in Americold Realty Trust. The purchase prices were between $28.13 and $33.31, with an estimated average price of $30.98. The stock is now traded at around $27.840000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.06%. The holding were 11,820 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP) Ntv Asset Management Llc initiated holding in Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR. The purchase prices were between $68.33 and $77.11, with an estimated average price of $72.11. The stock is now traded at around $75.890000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.06%. The holding were 4,750 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Health Care Select Sector SPDR (XLV) Ntv Asset Management Llc initiated holding in Health Care Select Sector SPDR. The purchase prices were between $124.86 and $141.49, with an estimated average price of $132.44. The stock is now traded at around $132.300000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.06%. The holding were 2,705 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: iShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP) Ntv Asset Management Llc initiated holding in iShares TIPS Bond ETF. The purchase prices were between $126.62 and $129.87, with an estimated average price of $128.15. The stock is now traded at around $123.910000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.05%. The holding were 2,232 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: VanEck Agribusiness ETF (MOO) Ntv Asset Management Llc added to a holding in VanEck Agribusiness ETF by 27.74%. The purchase prices were between $88.92 and $95.66, with an estimated average price of $93.34. The stock is now traded at around $93.730000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.12%. The holding were 35,645 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF (BETZ) Ntv Asset Management Llc added to a holding in Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF by 106.67%. The purchase prices were between $22.87 and $31.24, with an estimated average price of $27.35. The stock is now traded at around $21.660000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.04%. The holding were 17,050 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: SPDR S&P Software & Services ETF (XSW) Ntv Asset Management Llc added to a holding in SPDR S&P Software & Services ETF by 68.85%. The purchase prices were between $158.95 and $186.78, with an estimated average price of $173.19. The stock is now traded at around $146.370000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.03%. The holding were 2,575 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: VanEck High Yield Muni ETF (HYD) Ntv Asset Management Llc added to a holding in VanEck High Yield Muni ETF by 25.51%. The purchase prices were between $61.24 and $62.45, with an estimated average price of $61.91. The stock is now traded at around $60.500000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.01%. The holding were 5,880 shares as of 2021-12-31. Sold Out: ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) Ntv Asset Management Llc sold out a holding in ARK Innovation ETF. The sale prices were between $91.12 and $124.1, with an estimated average price of $108.29. Sold Out: BTC iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF (EFV) Ntv Asset Management Llc sold out a holding in BTC iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF. The sale prices were between $47.67 and $51.35, with an estimated average price of $50.11. Sold Out: Altria Group Inc (MO) Ntv Asset Management Llc sold out a holding in Altria Group Inc. The sale prices were between $42.64 and $48.7, with an estimated average price of $45.81. Sold Out: BP PLC (BP) Ntv Asset Management Llc sold out a holding in BP PLC. The sale prices were between $25.65 and $30.13, with an estimated average price of $27.73. Sold Out: Franklin Resources Inc (BEN) Ntv Asset Management Llc sold out a holding in Franklin Resources Inc. The sale prices were between $28.89 and $37.68, with an estimated average price of $32.99. Sold Out: Ncino Inc (NCNO) Ntv Asset Management Llc sold out a holding in Ncino Inc. The sale prices were between $48.39 and $76.76, with an estimated average price of $64.62. Here is the complete portfolio of NTV ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC. Also check out:1. NTV ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC's Undervalued Stocks2. NTV ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC's Top Growth Companies, and3. NTV ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC's High Yield stocks4. Stocks that NTV ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC keeps buyingThis article first appeared onGuruFocus. || Market Wrap: Crypto Traders Reduce Leverage, Selling Pressure Subsides: Bitcoin stabilized at around $41,000 on Friday and is down about 9% over the past week. Analysts expect prices to move sideways, although they may be vulnerable to further declines iftechnical support levelsare breached. The reduction in leverage in bitcoin and ether futures markets could signal healthier market conditions. Typically, there is a lower chance of additional downside volatility when traders reduce their position sizes. Earlier this week, “based on liquidation data, it seems like a few leverage traders tried to speculate on a rebound and got burned in the process,” Genevieve Yeoh, a research analyst atDelphi Digital, wrote in a blog post. Liquidations, which can accelerate downward price movements, occur when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position as a safety mechanism due to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial margin. That happens primarily in futures trading. For now, bitcoin remains near a three-month low, tracking declines in global equity markets. • Bitcoin (BTC): $41,928, -2.97% • Ether (ETH): $3,216, -6.11% • S&P 500: $4,677, -0.41% • Gold: $1,795, +0.19% • 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.76% Some analysts are pointing to signs of stabilization in crypto markets following Wednesday’s sell-off. After roughly$800 millionin liquidations during the price dip, selling pressure could subside over the short term. “We have already seen significant de-risking in recent weeks with both BTC and ETH perpetual swap funding rates near zero,” David Duong, head of institutional research at Coinbase, wrote in a newsletter on Friday. Aperpetual swapis a type of crypto derivative trading product, similar to traditional futures. “Leverage has been reduced sharply, reflected in the BTC basis falling from 20% in early Q3 2021 to 5% in January 2022 and the ETH basis falling from 20% to 2% over the same period (according to Deribit),” Duong wrote. The net flow of bitcoin and ether to and from exchanges has trended lower over the past year. This week, however, more BTC moved into exchanges, which could signal a bearish shift in investor sentiment. Net inflows imply investor intention to sell, while consistent outflows represent strong holding sentiment and take out circulating supply from the market, paving the way for price rallies. While the recent uptick in net inflows to exchanges doesn’t signal a trend shift, analysts are closely monitoring a sustained rise similar to January, which could lead to a prolonged market sell-off. • Ether liquidations:Traders racked up$182 million in losseson ether-tracked futures products in the past 24 hours, according to data from analytics tools Coinglass. That is $14 million higher than bitcoin-tracked futures, which usually see the largest liquidations in the crypto market, during a comparable period. • Serum’s fund raise:The protocol that undergirds much ofdecentralized finance(DeFi) on the Solana blockchain is raising funds to expand operations, and about $70 million has been committed so far. Buyers in the funding round received both Serum’s SRM tokens as well as a portion of the ecosystem fund, with 85% going into the fund. Ecosystem funds are a growing trend among major projects. Read morehere. • Avalanche’s wonderland:Algorithmic money market Wonderland has made aseed investmentin Polygon-based decentralized betting application BetSwap, the team said in aposton Friday. The move marked one of the first instances of a community-governed crypto project investing in a DeFi protocol, which rely onsmart contractsinstead of third parties in providing financial services. • The Inside Story of How India’s Crypto Exchanges Were ‘Inspected’ by Tax Agencies • Users of Hong Kong Crypto Exchange Coinsuper Say They Cannot Withdraw Funds • Turkish Lira Is Now More Volatile Than Bitcoin • JPMorgan Sees More Crypto Adoption in 2022, Debates Bitcoin’s Status as Store of Value Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day lower. Largest winners: [{"Asset": "Chainlink", "Ticker": "LINK", "Returns": "+2.7%", "Sector": "Computing"}, {"Asset": "Cosmos", "Ticker": "ATOM", "Returns": "+0.2%", "Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}] Largest losers: [{"Asset": "Algorand", "Ticker": "ALGO", "Returns": "\u22129.3%", "Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Solana", "Ticker": "SOL", "Returns": "\u22128.5%", "Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Ethereum", "Ticker": "ETH", "Returns": "\u22127.3%", "Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}] 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. || Total Crypto Market Cap Gets Stuck Near $2T As Traders Prepare for Next Moves: Bitcoin remains stuck near the $44,000 level while other leading cryptocurrencies also pause after the recent rally as the total crypto market cap is trying to settle above the $2 trillion level. Total Crypto Market Cap Has Already Gained More Than 30% off Its Lows While individual moves are very important, traders should also keep a close eye on the total crypto market cap as it shows the general trends in the crypto markets. Back in January, the total crypto market cap bottomed near the $1.5 trillion level and rebounded towards the $2 trillion level. Not surprisingly, markets are taking a pause now as some traders are eager to take profits off the table after a 30% rally off lows. The rebound was driven by the biggest coins, Bitcoin and Ethereum , although other leading coins have also enjoyed healthy gains in recent weeks, with the most notable rallies in XRP and Shiba Inu . What’s Next? The total crypto market cap is currently consolidating in the $1.9 trillion – $2.1 trillion range. Once it gets out of this range, it will have a great chance to gain significant upside momentum. Such a move must be triggered by the performance of the top coins as roughly 60% of the total crypto market cap is in Bitcoin and Ethereum. In case the leading coins start to move higher, traders will rush to smaller coins for a catch-up play. Importantly, a move out of the $1.9 trillion – $2.1 trillion range will signal that the previous pullback, which took the total crypto market cap from $3 trillion to $1.5 trillion, is over, and a new upside trend is emerging. I’d also note that traders should be ready for material moves today as the U.S. will release inflation data for January, which will have an impact on all riskier assets. If inflation numbers are not too scary, risk appetite may grow and trigger a rally in the crypto markets. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Binance Signs Partnership for Blockchain Gaming and NFT Ecosystem Tencent-Led NFT Project Gets Green Signal From the United Nations McDonald’s Applies for Metaverse Trademarks Twitter Trading Higher After Meeting Q4 Estimates Terra ‘LFG’ To Commit $450 Million To Maintain Anchor’s 19.3% APY Bitcoin Adoption Causes El Salvador’s Rating To Fall to CCC – FitchRatings || Bitcoin Renaissance Likely in H2: Babel Finance: Battered bitcoin may take cues from growth stocks and chalk up a new bull run in the second half of the year. "After the market adjusts to the pace of the Fed's rate hike, growth stocks and bitcoin will resume their upward trend, that is we will see a strong performance of both in the second half of 2022," researcher at crypto financial services provider Babel Finance, Robbie Liu told CoinDesk in an email. "Historically, per Goldman Sachs, growth stocks have been the worst-performing sector in the three months before and after the first rate hike," Liu added while noting the cryptocurrency's tight correlation with the growth-sensitive legacy risk assets. Bitcoin's correlation with the U.S. stocks recently hit a record high of over 0.75, according to data analytics firm IntoTheBlock. Liu's data-backed view contradicts the budding narrative in the crypto community that bitcoin may begin rallying right after the expected March rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve's (Fed). The market expectation likely stems from two things: The cryptocurrency has tanked 40% in three months, predominantly due to Fed rate hike fears. Secondly, as Friday's First Mover Americas noted , the U.S. dollar tends to top out with the first rate hike. A weak dollar is generally considered bullish for bitcoin. However, growth stocks suggest otherwise. "Given the current strong correlation between bitcoin and growth stocks, especially the synchronized downward trend of the two assets since December, we believe it may be difficult for bitcoin to move upward direction in the three months following the first rate hike," Liu noted. The table shows value stocks tend to outperform growth stocks three months before and after the Fed kicks off rate hike cycle. Value stocks are companies that are currently trading below their intrinsic value and are typically established companies. Growth stocks newer industries with high growth projections and trade at relatively expensive prices. Story continues While bitcoin may be viewed as digital gold by some in the crypto community, it is also an emerging technology sensitive to centralized liquidity flow. Per Reuters, several Wall Street banks expect the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) to kick off the tightening cycle with at least a 25 basis point rate rise in March followed by six quarter percentage point hikes by the year-end. Bitcoin was last seen trading near $39,100, representing a nearly 2% gain on the day. The cryptocurrency seems to have picked up a bid with the European and U.S. stock futures on reports of a potential summit on Ukraine between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. || Integrated Capital Management, Inc. Buys Invesco Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity, SPDR ...: Investment company Integrated Capital Management, Inc. ( Current Portfolio ) buys Invesco Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity, SPDR Portfolio Aggregate Bond ETF, SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Value ETF, General American Investors Company Inc, BTC iShares U.S. Treasury Bond ETF, sells Nuveen Floating Rate Income Fund, Blackrock Floating Rate Inc Stra Fd Inc, Blackrock Debt Strategies Fund Inc, Templeton Global Income Fund, New America High Income Fund Inc during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Integrated Capital Management, Inc.. As of 2021Q4, Integrated Capital Management, Inc. owns 62 stocks with a total value of $128 million. These are the details of the buys and sells. New Purchases: SPYV, GAM, Added Positions: PDBC, SPAB, MFEM, SPTM, EMLC, SPDW, GOVT, EFV, SPIB, TFI, VIOV, RPV, AOD, IGD, PHK, BOE, DIAX, JOF, VEA, VTI, DMO, NUW, GDL, HFRO, DSM, MAV, BRW, DHY, NSL, VVR, AWF, HIO, VLT, FAX, MFM, EMF, BIF, MYD, MYI, JRO, SBI, MSD, KTF, MVF, KSM, EVN, EIM, MHI, EAD, MHD, AGD, Sold Out: JFR, FRA, DSU, GIM, HYB, BGT, BSL, AFT, Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Signs with SPLK. Click here to check it out. PDBC 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of PDBC Peter Lynch Chart of PDBC For the details of Integrated Capital Management, Inc.'s stock buys and sells, go to https://www.gurufocus.com/guru/integrated+capital+management%2C+inc./current-portfolio/portfolio These are the top 5 holdings of Integrated Capital Management, Inc. iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF ( IWD ) - 77,551 shares, 10.20% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 0.57% SPDR Portfolio Intermediate Term Corporate Bond ET ( SPIB ) - 329,110 shares, 9.32% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 1.01% Vanguard Dividend Appreciation FTF ( VIG ) - 66,845 shares, 8.99% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 0.26% SPDR Portfolio Developed World ex-US ETF (SPDW) - 302,531 shares, 8.64% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 1.56% Invesco Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity (PDBC) - 740,657 shares, 8.15% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 39.87% New Purchase: SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Value ETF (SPYV) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. initiated holding in SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Value ETF. The purchase prices were between $38.9 and $42.04, with an estimated average price of $40.62. The stock is now traded at around $40.760000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.17%. The holding were 5,313 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: General American Investors Company Inc (GAM) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. initiated holding in General American Investors Company Inc. The purchase prices were between $41.88 and $46.55, with an estimated average price of $43.99. The stock is now traded at around $40.660000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.16%. The holding were 4,693 shares as of 2021-12-31. Story continues Added: Invesco Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity (PDBC) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. added to a holding in Invesco Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity by 39.87%. The purchase prices were between $13.05 and $14.76, with an estimated average price of $14.1. The stock is now traded at around $14.840000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 2.32%. The holding were 740,657 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: SPDR Portfolio Aggregate Bond ETF (SPAB) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. added to a holding in SPDR Portfolio Aggregate Bond ETF by 61.80%. The purchase prices were between $29.4 and $29.88, with an estimated average price of $29.64. The stock is now traded at around $29.120000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1.22%. The holding were 137,494 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: BTC iShares U.S. Treasury Bond ETF (GOVT) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. added to a holding in BTC iShares U.S. Treasury Bond ETF by 33.12%. The purchase prices were between $26.19 and $26.72, with an estimated average price of $26.43. The stock is now traded at around $26.040000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.11%. The holding were 20,396 shares as of 2021-12-31. Sold Out: Nuveen Floating Rate Income Fund (JFR) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. sold out a holding in Nuveen Floating Rate Income Fund. The sale prices were between $9.96 and $10.45, with an estimated average price of $10.2. Sold Out: Blackrock Floating Rate Inc Stra Fd Inc (FRA) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. sold out a holding in Blackrock Floating Rate Inc Stra Fd Inc. The sale prices were between $13.1 and $13.77, with an estimated average price of $13.51. Sold Out: Blackrock Floating Rate Income Trust (BGT) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. sold out a holding in Blackrock Floating Rate Income Trust. The sale prices were between $13.23 and $14.51, with an estimated average price of $13.76. Sold Out: Apollo Senior Floating Rate Fund Inc. (AFT) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. sold out a holding in Apollo Senior Floating Rate Fund Inc.. The sale prices were between $15.8 and $16.55, with an estimated average price of $16.11. Sold Out: New America High Income Fund Inc (HYB) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. sold out a holding in New America High Income Fund Inc. The sale prices were between $9.06 and $10.3, with an estimated average price of $9.67. Sold Out: Blackstone Senior Floating Rate Term Fund (BSL) Integrated Capital Management, Inc. sold out a holding in Blackstone Senior Floating Rate Term Fund. The sale prices were between $16.24 and $17.17, with an estimated average price of $16.62. Here is the complete portfolio of Integrated Capital Management, Inc.. Also check out: 1. Integrated Capital Management, Inc.'s Undervalued Stocks 2. Integrated Capital Management, Inc.'s Top Growth Companies, and 3. Integrated Capital Management, Inc.'s High Yield stocks 4. Stocks that Integrated Capital Management, Inc. keeps buyingThis article first appeared on GuruFocus . View comments || Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC Buys VanEck Gold Miners ETF, The Walt Disney Co, Amgen ...: Investment company Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC ( Current Portfolio ) buys VanEck Gold Miners ETF, The Walt Disney Co, Amgen Inc, iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF, Southern Copper Corp, sells Oracle Corp, Costco Wholesale Corp, AT&T Inc, BTC iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF, Dimensional U.S. Core Equity 2 ETF during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC. As of 2021Q4, Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC owns 201 stocks with a total value of $269 million. These are the details of the buys and sells. New Purchases: AMGN, SCCO, XLE, MMM, PENN, GDXJ, CSX, FNF, HSY, MS, SNPS, NXPI, UBER, ISO, RVP, Added Positions: GDX, DIS, IWF, FOCS, CRM, PHYS, SGOV, ITOT, SPY, IVV, BAC, FB, PFE, BA, ABBV, ESGU, ICSH, JPST, APD, TYG, CVS, DAL, SPYV, EFV, EFG, GLD, GOOG, WMT, V, KNDI, AXP, JD, GM, BMY, SCHW, KO, CMCSA, JNJ, QCOM, VTI, VLUE, BCS, IXN, IXG, IJR, JPM, ESGE, SPLK, CAPL, PYPL, FULT, SBUX, BABA, TMO, IYE, CVX, UPS, RTX, SIVB, VOO, LOW, TXN, BX, Reduced Positions: ORCL, COST, T, CME, XOM, IEFA, DFAC, QQQ, JNPR, BIL, GER, VZ, ESSA, GSBD, CSCO, IWV, LVS, ZTS, OSUR, PPL, WYNN, SLB, EMO, LUMN, PEP, IBM, GIS, NFLX, XLV, IGT, CIM, TCBI, EPD, VLO, ATVI, GILD, VERX, TEVA, TGT, BLK, ROK, MDT, FDX, INTC, IYG, PG, RY, RF, NKE, GSK, COP, ACN, Sold Out: MMP, SQ, FLS, VRME, PAA, CORR, KD, Warning! GuruFocus has detected 1 Warning Sign with LOPE. Click here to check it out. GDX 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of GDX Peter Lynch Chart of GDX For the details of Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC's stock buys and sells, go to https://www.gurufocus.com/guru/quadrant+private+wealth+management%2C+llc/current-portfolio/portfolio These are the top 5 holdings of Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC Apple Inc ( AAPL ) - 148,997 shares, 9.83% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 0.26% PNC Financial Services Group Inc ( PNC ) - 41,065 shares, 3.06% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 0.36% Focus Financial Partners Inc ( FOCS ) - 131,827 shares, 2.93% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 12.39% Oracle Corp (ORCL) - 87,713 shares, 2.84% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 25.42% Amazon.com Inc (AMZN) - 2,267 shares, 2.81% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 0.80% New Purchase: Amgen Inc (AMGN) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC initiated holding in Amgen Inc. The purchase prices were between $198.88 and $227.6, with an estimated average price of $211.1. The stock is now traded at around $242.520000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.36%. The holding were 4,351 shares as of 2021-12-31. Story continues New Purchase: Southern Copper Corp (SCCO) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC initiated holding in Southern Copper Corp. The purchase prices were between $56.2 and $66.21, with an estimated average price of $60.23. The stock is now traded at around $65.145000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.29%. The holding were 12,750 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC initiated holding in The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund. The purchase prices were between $53.01 and $58.38, with an estimated average price of $55.93. The stock is now traded at around $68.415000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.16%. The holding were 7,782 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: 3M Co (MMM) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC initiated holding in 3M Co. The purchase prices were between $170.04 and $183.66, with an estimated average price of $178.14. The stock is now traded at around $162.540000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.14%. The holding were 2,168 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC initiated holding in VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF. The purchase prices were between $38.05 and $47.11, with an estimated average price of $42.21. The stock is now traded at around $39.965000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.12%. The holding were 7,585 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Penn National Gaming Inc (PENN) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC initiated holding in Penn National Gaming Inc. The purchase prices were between $44.65 and $81.34, with an estimated average price of $60.09. The stock is now traded at around $48.260000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.12%. The holding were 6,201 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC added to a holding in VanEck Gold Miners ETF by 490.45%. The purchase prices were between $29.16 and $34.3, with an estimated average price of $31.49. The stock is now traded at around $31.520000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.76%. The holding were 77,308 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: The Walt Disney Co (DIS) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC added to a holding in The Walt Disney Co by 32.04%. The purchase prices were between $142.15 and $177.71, with an estimated average price of $161. The stock is now traded at around $142.148800. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.4%. The holding were 28,576 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF (IWF) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC added to a holding in iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF by 51.27%. The purchase prices were between $270.63 and $309.52, with an estimated average price of $296.53. The stock is now traded at around $276.390000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.36%. The holding were 9,314 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Salesforce.com Inc (CRM) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC added to a holding in Salesforce.com Inc by 47.98%. The purchase prices were between $247.21 and $309.96, with an estimated average price of $280.77. The stock is now traded at around $216.210000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.29%. The holding were 9,419 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC added to a holding in Sprott Physical Gold Trust by 81.54%. The purchase prices were between $13.78 and $14.69, with an estimated average price of $14.13. The stock is now traded at around $14.499900. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.24%. The holding were 99,798 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC added to a holding in iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF by 160.92%. The purchase prices were between $100 and $100.03, with an estimated average price of $100.01. The stock is now traded at around $100.030000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.24%. The holding were 10,382 shares as of 2021-12-31. Sold Out: Magellan Midstream Partners LP (MMP) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC sold out a holding in Magellan Midstream Partners LP. The sale prices were between $43.99 and $51.44, with an estimated average price of $47.24. Sold Out: Block Inc (SQ) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC sold out a holding in Block Inc. The sale prices were between $158.3 and $265.08, with an estimated average price of $215.58. Sold Out: Flowserve Corp (FLS) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC sold out a holding in Flowserve Corp. The sale prices were between $28.85 and $37.84, with an estimated average price of $32.97. Sold Out: VerifyMe Inc (VRME) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC sold out a holding in VerifyMe Inc. The sale prices were between $3.16 and $3.98, with an estimated average price of $3.48. Sold Out: Plains All American Pipeline LP (PAA) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC sold out a holding in Plains All American Pipeline LP. The sale prices were between $8.76 and $11.37, with an estimated average price of $10.03. Sold Out: CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust Inc (CORR) Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC sold out a holding in CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust Inc. The sale prices were between $3 and $5.28, with an estimated average price of $4.25. Here is the complete portfolio of Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC. Also check out: 1. Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC's Undervalued Stocks 2. Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC's Top Growth Companies, and 3. Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC's High Yield stocks 4. Stocks that Quadrant Private Wealth Management, LLC keeps buyingThis article first appeared on GuruFocus . View comments || Billionaire Investor Bill Miller Now Has 50% of His Personal Wealth in Bitcoin: Market-beating fund manager and billionaire Bill Miller is so bullish on bitcoin that it and investments tied closely to the crypto now represent 50% of his personal assets, he revealed in a video interview with WealthTrack published on Friday . Miller, who gained fame for beating the S&P 500 index for a record-breaking 15 years in a row from 1991-2005 as a fund manager at Legg Mason, has previously invested heavily in bitcoin in funds that he managed , but his revelation about his personal portfolio was new. Miller said he personally started buying bitcoin at around $200 in 2014 after hearing a talk by Wences Casares, known as the “Patient Zero” of bitcoin for introducing it to Silicon Valley circles, at the annual Sun Valley media and tech conference. He bought some more bitcoin over time, but then didn’t buy it for years, until last year when the price hit new highs and then started to fall sharply, and he thought it was a good time to buy the dip. Miller started buying again at $30,000, down from its high of just under $69,000, reasoning that there were a lot more people using it, not to mention that venture capitalists and others were investing in it. Miller noted that a part of his personal bitcoin investments was in companies tied closely to its price, such as bitcoin miner Stronghold Digital (SDIG) and software company MicroStrategy (MSTR), which holds billions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin on its balance sheet. Miller said he thinks bitcoin is best thought of as “digital gold” with a strictly limited supply and that he’s only recently allowed himself to be called a “bitcoin bull” rather than just a “bitcoin observer” because he feels that it’s now developed into a game-changing technology. Despite his own heavily concentrated position, Miller’s advice for average investors is to put 1% of their net worth in bitcoin, reasoning that “if you put 1% of your portfolio in it for diversification, even if it goes to zero, which I think is highly improbable, but of course possible, you can always afford to lose 1%.” Story continues His main rationale for that advice is that bitcoin represents a unique investment. “I think the average investor should ask himself or herself, what do you have in your portfolio that has that kind of track record – number one, is very, very under-penetrated; can provide a service of insurance against financial catastrophe that no one else can provide and can go up 10 times or 50 times? The answer is: nothing.” Read more: Bill Miller’s Flagship Fund Discloses $44.7M Stake in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust || Russia to Regulate Crypto, Dispelling Fears of Ban: Instead of banning cryptocurrencies, the Russian government has decided to regulate them, legitimizing a $2 trillion asset class in the world’s 11th-largest economy. A document setting the principles for the regulation of cryptocurrencies appeared on the government’sofficial websiteon Tuesday night. Notably, the plan has the support of the central bank, which had called for abanon crypto mining and trading. This is the second major regulatory cloud to have been lifted from the global crypto market in a month. India last week took astep toward legalizationwith a tax on digital asset transfers. While it carries a hefty rate (30%), the tax was seen by many as putting the fifth-largest economy on track toward legitimizing crypto. In Russia (population 144 million), residents own over 12 million cryptocurrency accounts and about 2 trillion rubles ($26.7 billion) worth of crypto, according to the government's document (PDF in Russian). It says the country ranks third in the world in bitcoin mining, a share the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Financeagrees with. With such a large volume of crypto, law enforcement agencies are concerned they can't adequately approach crimes involving crypto, the document said. Yet, it stopped short of the draconian measures suggested in January by the Bank of Russia. The central bank’sreportcalled cryptocurrencies a threat to Russia's financial stability and rife with fraud. The regulator suggested banning cryptocurrency trading in Russia, as well as mining. Instead, Russians would have access to the digital ruble, the central bank digital currency in the works by the Bank of Russia, and digital assets issued inside the country by licensed companies. By contrast, the government’s blueprint released Tuesday says cryptocurrency purchases in Russia may take place, but only through locally registered and licensed companies so that users are fully verified and information about their transactions can be made available to government agencies. The document does not address cryptocurrency mining. Many of the stipulations require parliament to pass new laws. All crypto-related transactions bigger than 600,000 rubles would have to be reported to the Federal Taxation Service. Failure to do so should be considered a felony, and using cryptocurrency to conduct a crime should be an aggravating factor, the report said. The proposal suggests allowing banks to operate as intermediaries between users and cryptocurrency exchanges. The institutions would need to verify users' identities, check transactions for signs of illegal activity, provide rails for fiat transfers and keep information about transactions for at least five years. Banks should also provide users the documents necessary to report their taxes, and government agencies data about transactions on the request. Cryptocurrency exchanges and peer-to-peer marketplaces would have to register as legal entities and join an official register of digital-currency exchange operators. They would have to open a crypto account with an authorized bank and satisfy certain requirements applying to traditional financial organizations. Foreign exchanges would be required to have an office in Russia and be registered there. Banks working with crypto exchanges would be required to use the Transparent Blockchain transaction tracking tooldeveloped by Rosfinmonitoring(Russia's FinCEN equivalent) not products from foreign companies like Chainalysis, Elliptic or Crystal Blockchain. According to the document, Transparent Blockchain can help identify owners of cryptocurrency wallets using open-source data, as well as information from the darknet, detect patterns of illegal usage of crypto and serve as a register of addresses related to crimes and terrorism financing. According to the announcement, the proposal was agreed on by the Bank of Russia, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economic Development, Federal Taxation Agency, anti-money laundering watchdog Rosfinmonitoring and the key law enforcement bodies: Ministry of the Interior, Federal Security Service and the Prosecutor General's office. Earlier, the Bank of Russia had been adissenting voice. According to the newspaperKommersant, the approach puts cryptocurrencies on a level with foreign currencies, which are regulated in a similar fashion. The new laws and directives are likely to come into force in the second half of 2022 or early 2023, Kommersant said. Bitcoin’s pricerose about 3% Wednesday morning in the U.S. Russia’s embrace might be having “some level of influence” on the bellwether cryptocurrency's price, said Armando Aguilar, an independent crypto analyst. Other market factors includingKPMG Canada adding BTC to its balance sheetand the U.S. Justice Department'srecovery of $3.6 billion in bitcoinfrom the 2016 Bitfinex hack could also be buoying prices, he said. "We could see other governments adopting BTC in the near future with Russia making the move," Aguilar told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. Anto Paroian, chief operating officer at digital assets investment firm ARK36, said Russia's move "reflects a broader shift in regulatory attitudes towards these assets in various jurisdictions around the world." "The political and economic cost of banning" crypto will outweigh the risk to governments from allowing it to "coexist with legacy financial institutions," Paroian said. In his newsletter Wednesday, crypto investor and blogger Anthony Pompliano noted that U.S. President Joe Biden's threat of sanctions against Russia – including cutting off the country's economy from much of the global financial system – might reinforce the case for bitcoin as "censorship-resistant money." "It is weird that the central bank of Russia started to question bitcoin’s relevance in the country at the same time that it may become incredibly important to the nation state," Pompliano wrote. Similarly, Marcus Sotiriou, analyst at the U.K-.based digital-asset broker GlobalBlock, said in an email that "aside from the huge tax revenue, Russia could be using bitcoin to hedge against aggressive U.S. foreign policy." UPDATE (Feb. 9, 15:55 UTC):Adds context throughout. UPDATE (Feb. 9, 17:20 UTC):Adds section on market impact and second byline. || Russia’s Assertive Foreign Policy Threatens Longer-term Economic and Reform Outlook: The Russian administration seems to be ignoring a likely short-lived opportunity for simultaneously addressing the nation’s structural economic challenges while also improving economic ties with the EU, Russia’s most important trading partner. Windfall gains from today’s elevated energy prices could have been greater, were the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in operation, while the outlook for attracting foreign capital and reducing sanctions risks would also have improved were it not for the crisis surrounding Ukraine. Russia’s strengthened public finances and accumulation of foreign-exchange and fiscal reserves have enabled a more self-sufficient economy to withstand international sanctions over the recent past and pull through the Covid-19 crisis comparatively well. Higher oil prices have allowed the government to support short-run economic recovery with emergency fiscal stimulus. The Russian economy will grow an above-trend 2.7% in 2022 after an estimated 4.5% in 2021. However, growth projections for this year face substantive downside risk should the Ukraine crisis escalate. Scope upgraded Russia’s long-term credit rating to BBB+/Stable last year , based on a strengthened sovereign balance sheet against sanction risks. Rising energy prices might have set scene for better Russia-EU relations Current high oil and gas prices could have set the stage for improved relations with Europe considering the EU’s current reliance on energy imports from Russia, acknowledging that this geopolitical advantage may diminish over the long term as Europe gradually transitions away from fossil fuels. The planned inclusion of some natural gas in the EU Taxonomy implies that gas will play a larger role as a main transition fuel during the EU’s transition into a low carbon economy. Instead, Russian policies have helped push energy security and sustainability faster and further up the policy-making agenda in Europe. Thus, the leverage that Russia has long held over Western Europe through the region’s reliance on imports of Russian energy products now could have an earlier expiry date. Figure 1. EU imports of crude oil and natural gas EUR bn Source: Eurostat, Scope Ratings GmbH Significant potential economic, financial costs for Russia from US, EU tensions The deterioration in relations with the EU and the US could potentially have significant costs for Russia’s energy sector, banking system and real economy in terms of rouble convertibility as well as for top Russian officials if Washington and Brussels impose tougher sanctions. Such geopolitical and sanction-related risks represent a main constraint on Russia’s credit rating. Existing sanctions and risk of more to come have discouraged foreign investment. Inbound foreign direct investment fell from an annual average of USD 55bn over 2010-13 to around USD 20bn over 2018-21. Story continues The economic context under which Russia is pressing claims on the West has also changed. First, Russian exports to the EU could be materially affected by the EU’s proposition of a carbon border adjustment mechanism. Mitigating financial consequences of such an EU carbon levy, which might be expanded to include Russian oil and gas, hinges on a lenient approach from Brussels – something that appears unlikely in the current diplomatic climate. Russia needs to tackle long-term economic, environmental, social challenges Secondly, the Russian administration’s lack of far-reaching reform to curtail economic reliance on energy exports is one manifestation of an intensification of economic, environmental and social challenges. Transforming Russia’s economic model requires more than fiscal prudence and protecting the value of the rouble. More profound reform ought to aim at reducing the state’s significant role in the economy, which has discouraged competition and aggravated outstanding inefficiencies in addition to social inequalities, clouding the business climate and discouraging private investment. In the absence of reform, growth potential over the medium run will remain tepid at around 1.5-2% annually, despite comparatively low per capita incomes and significant economic catch-up potential. Chances that the government embarks on substantive reform near term are low. Reforms are politically costly, if only because of the competitiveness of Russia’s energy sector compared with that of other tradable sectors in the short term. For further reading, please see: Central & Eastern Europe Sovereign Outlook 2022 (published Dec 2021) For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . By Levon Kameryan, Senior Analyst, Scope Ratings Levon Kameryan is Senior Analyst in Sovereign and Public Sector ratings at Scope Ratings GmbH This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: USD/CAD Retreats As Treasury Yields Pull Back Natural Gas Tumbles Despite Robust Inventory Draw Crude Oil Markets Rally Again Gold Markets Continue Breakout ‘Fatwa’ Issued Against Bitcoin As Crypto gets Declared Haram in Indonesia Crude Firms as Strong Demand Trumps EIA Stockpile Build View comments || FTSE 100 Live: Fed signals hikes, banks rise on interest rate outlook, oil close to $90, Tesla ‘breakthrough’: Shares are under pressure again after the US Federal Reserve put investors on standby for a series of interest rate rises starting in March. No options appear to be off the table after last night’s Fed meeting focused on efforts to bring US inflation back from its 40-year high of 7%. Wall Street was hit by selling pressure after the meeting but the FTSE 100 index held on to yesterday’s big gains thanks to progress by banking and defensive leaning stocks. Oil prices, meanwhile, continue to trade near a seven-year high of almost $90 a barrel. • Markets brace for series of US rate rises • Banking stocks keep FTSE 100 higher • Tesla hails ‘breakthrough’ year • Diageo reports strong profits • EasyJet halves loss ahead of travel lift-off 14:56,Brian McGleenon Stocks were off to a solid start today after the news that Uncle Sam's economic health is rapidly improving, despite inflation fears and the lingeringOmicronvariant of the coronavirus pathogen. The gross domestic product in the US grew by 6.9% in the last quarter of 2021. The US has now witnessed its largest one-year expansion in GDP since 1984. After the opening bell on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 93.66 points, or 0.27%, at the open of trading in New York today, to 34,261.75. The S&P 500 opened higher by 30.65 points, or 0.70%, at 4,380.58. while the Nasdaq Composite gained 168.87 points, or 1.25%, to 13,710.99 at the opening bell. 14:40,Brian McGleenon Wall Street is set to open higher today after the tech-heavy Nasdaq futures rose 0.4%. Netflixalso jumped 4% in premarket trading as billionaire investor William Ackman waded into the streaming giant with a new stake worth more than $1 billion. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now tipped to rise by 0.48% and the S&P 500 by 0.75%. Investors will be bolstered by the news thatgross domestic productin the US grew by 6.9% in the last quarter of 2021. The Bureau of Economic Analysis said: "The acceleration in the fourth quarter was led by an upturn in exports as well as accelerations in inventory investment and consumer spending. "In the fourth quarter, COVID-19 cases resulted in continued restrictions and disruptions in the operations of establishments in some parts of the country. "Government assistance payments in the form of forgivable loans to businesses, grants to state and local governments, and social benefits to households all decreased as provisions of several federal programs expired or tapered off. 14:30,Brian McGleenon The new agreement will give customers "exclusive experiences" and "enhanced access" to Universal Music Group’s (UMG) roster of artists. Under the agreements, subscribers toAmazonMusic Unlimited will have access to stream even more music from UMG’s expansive catalogue. Michael Nash, EVP, Digital Strategy, Universal Music Group said, “With the breadth of their music services and products, and their dedicated focus on customers and creators, Amazon Music and Twitch are excellent strategic collaborators, committed to creating the best and most diverse experiences for fans across streaming music, live streaming, artist collaborations, and physical merchandise. "With these agreements, we are proud to build on our track record of success in working closely with Amazon, and we’re looking forward to delivering even more incredible experiences for our artists and music fans everywhere.” 14:18,Brian McGleenon Gross domestic product in the US grew by 6.9% in the last quarter of 2021. The surge in economic activity came amid the rapid spread of the Omicron virus. The US Commerce Department announced the gains were far above the median forecast of 5.5%. Growth in US GDP has now shown a rate of acceleration as the third quarter of 2021 saw a rise of 2.3%. The results reveal that the US economy grew by 5.7% in 2021, the largest one-year expansion since 1984. 14:01,Brian McGleenon Apple is set to report financial results for the last quarter of 2021 after the close of trading in New York on Thursday, 10pm (UK time). The strength of demand for the iPhone 13 and Apple Mac is set to be the main factor in increased revenue for the tech giant. However, supply chain issues due to the increased industry demand for materials after the lifting of Covid restrictions is forecasted as having the potential to have the biggest impact on financial results, with chip shortages suggested as a leading factor. On Wednesday Apple shares closed down 0.1%, at $159.69. Chief Financial Officer at Apple, Luca Maestri, in Quarter four of 2021 said that the company expects a “very solid” year-over-year growth report for the December quarter. Evercore ISI analyst Amit Daryanani said sales for the iPhone 13 in the first quarter of the fiscal year, ending March 2022, are expected to fall 32% from the December quarter. 14:01,Oscar Williams-Grut Activistinvestorsused to be a uniquely American phenomenon: silverbacks like Carl Icahn and Paul Singer made billions stalking the boardrooms ofWall Street, noisily pushing for change. But last year saw the highest number of activist campaigns targeting London-listed companies in half a decade. 2022 is off to an even stronger start: companies worth a collective $500 billion are in the crosshairs, according to Bloomberg. Activistsbuy up chunks of a company’s stock and start lobbying for changes. Typical suggestions include selling off or shutting down under-performing parts of a business, cutting costs and staff to improve margins, or sacking the CEO and getting newmanagementin. They are, in essence, the ultimate back seat drivers. GlaxoSmithKline,ShellandSSEare all currently fighting off pressure from US activists. Why is the UK now such an attractive hunting ground? Read our feature on the trend to find out. 13:30,Brian McGleenon The official Etheruem homepage announced that the Ethereum Mainnet will "merge" with the beacon chain in the second quarter of 2022. Today's announcement read: "Eventually the current Ethereum Mainnet will "merge" with the beacon chain proof-of-stake system. "This will mark the end of proof-of-work for Ethereum, and the full transition to proof-of-stake. "This is planned to precede the roll out of shard chains, which we formerly referred to this as 'the docking'".rollout The news comes as the crypto market has experienced significant growth in 2021, especially in relation to DeFI, NFTs and the launch of the first US Bitcoin futures ETF. David Duong, Head of Institutional Research at Coinbase, commented: “Crypto has now come of age among sophisticated investors. They are now actively using crypto to deploy advanced trading strategies developed in established fields. “We’re seeing quant firms looking to profit from cross-exchange arbitrage opportunities, yield-farming strategies focused on DeFi, and even NFT-specific funds who see the burgeoning market as a scalable trading opportunity.” 13:16,Oscar Williams-Grut As of today, Thursday, is seems highly likely they will rise next week and perhaps three moretimesthis year. TheBank of Englandputratesup in December from 0.1% to 0.25%. TheCitythinks they will go to 0.5% at the Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Thursday. Then from there to 1.25%, in stages. Read more here 12:59,Simon English In 2015Mercedes Benzsold its stake inTesla, claiming the company had “achieved everything it was going to”. I’m with them. Here’s my position: Tesla is an absurdly overvalued business whose stock is kept artificially high bygangsof fanboys who are in love withElon Musk. The electric vehicle revolution is never going to work – or if it does, not for decades yet. read more here 12:10,Oscar Williams-Grut Dr Martens took a kicking on the floor of the London Stock Exchange today despite reporting significant revenue growth from its e-commerce sales. The bootmaker managed to outflank supply chain woes and lockdown restrictions to report an 11% rise in revenue in the final quarter of 2021. But shares fell 45p to 277.68p in London, a drop of 14%. Read the full story. 11:55,Oscar Williams-Grut Fever-Tree has seen its spirits rise in the US after overtaking Schweppes to become America’s top tonic water brand. The London-based tonic and mixer maker today announced strong double-digit revenue growth in the US, with sales doubling since 2019. Just over three after setting up its US operations,Fever-Treeis now the number one Ginger Beer brand in America. The company finished 2021 by snapping up 26% of the US retail tonic water market share, compared to Schweppes’ 25%. It overtook the tonic giant for the first time ever in the final four weeks of 2021. Tim Warrillow, CEO of Fever-Tree, said: “Most notably we finished the year as the No.1 Tonic Water brand by value at US retail, which is a significant achievement, matching an accolade that we have held in the UK for a number of years.” Read the full story. 11:46,Oscar Williams-Grut AO World is poised to complete a humbling retreat from Europe after years of struggling to crack the continent. The online white goods retailer today kicked off a “strategic review” of itsGermanbusiness, as ongoing issues with costs andcompetitionmake its future within AO increasingly unlikely. Third-quarter revenues in Germany sank 24% due to increased local competition, rising marketing costs and supply chain issues. AO said its board would “evaluate a range of options” for the German arm, with a focus on “maximising shareholder value”. Jefferies said: “Given the apparently more enduring nature of the issues being faced, the balance of probability would seem to be meaningfully weighted towards closure/sale.” Read the full story. 10:45,Oscar Williams-Grut Shopping centre owner Hammerson has delivered a rare profit upgrade. The company, which owns Brent Cross shopping centre and the Whitgift centre in Croydon, said profits for the year were now on track to be up to £80 million, ahead of previous guidance of at least £60 million. Hammerson said visitor numbers had “recovered strongly” across the year, with some shopping centres seeing more footfall than they had pre-pandemic. It’s welcome relief after a tough couple of years for the shopping centre sector. Rival Intu collapsed in the early months of the pandemic. 10:39,Graeme Evans Shelter from rising interest rate expectations came from London's “old economy” stocks today as the FTSE 100 index continued its outperformance in 2022. Banks led the way after a hawkish Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell last night signalled the potential for more frequent and larger hikes from March onwards. The guidance fuelled speculation that the Bank of England might follow suit by lifting rates to 1% as early as June, rather than August as previously expected in the City. Such margin-enhancing moves meant Standard Chartered shares jumped 4% in the FTSE 100 index, while HSBC, Barclays, NatWest and Lloyds all rose by 1% or more. High dividend yield stocks such as tobacco firm Imperial Brands and insurer Aviva also appealed to investors as the London market defied initial expectations for a Fed-led sell-off. The FTSE 100 index has often been criticised for its lack of “big tech” exposure, but its reliance on old economy companies is now providing comfort as rates uncertainty causes a rotation away from growth stocks. The FTSE 100 today rose 37.11 points to 7,506,86 and is 100 points above where it started the year. In contrast, the S&P 500 and Japan's Nikkei 225 are about 10% lower in 2022. The fallers board included industrial software business Aveva and warehouse technology firm Ocado, while Tesla-backer Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust was down 2% despite strong results from the electric car company last night. The FTSE 250 index showed similar resilience to the FTSE 100 after limiting its decline to 79.14 points at 21,793.63. Outsourcing firm Mitie rose 5% or 3.5p to 63.1p as its latest trading update prompted analysts at Liberum to back the shares to reach 90p. Mixers firm Fevertree Drinks came under pressure on AIM, despite delivering an “excellent top line performance“ as revenues for 2021 rose 23% to £311 million. It reported significant momentum in the US, where it has become the leading tonic water brand, but investors were spooked by its warning that cost headwinds will be more severe than expected this year. The stock fell 7% or 161p to 2199p, which compares with 2,800p earlier this month. 10:29,Oscar Williams-Grut Pub group Fuller’s said it was expecting a strong recovery in trade after an Omicron-induced slump over Christmas. Omicron restrictions hit trade over the important festive and new year period, with sales falling to 72% of pre-pandemic levels, but the situation had been improving since then and sales are now at 81% of 2019 levels. Simon Emeny CEO Said: "Recent trading patterns suggest that there is a strong desire among many workers to return to office working." 09:55,Simon English EASYJET declared itself ready for lift-off today as travel curbs ease and holiday bookings are poised to rocket. A host of other UK businesses also reported feeling optimistic about this year on the day face masks stopped being compulsory at indoor public spaces. Easyjet saw losses in the quarter to Christmas halve to £213 million while passenger revenue soared from £165 million a year ago to £805 million. CEO Johan Lundgren said: “We believe testing for travel across our network should soon become a thing of the past. We see a strong summer ahead, with pent up demand that will see easyJet returning to near 2019 levels of capacity with UK beach and leisure routes performing particularly well.” read more here 09:27,Simon English IG reported another set of record results today and said the $1 billion takeover of tastytrade is paying dividends. Under CEO June Felix the business has been transformed from spread betting house to global fintech. Tastytrade, bought last June, allows retail investors to play the options and futures markets usually the preserve of City and Wall Street traders. In the half-year client numbers jumped 42% to 320,000 largely thanks to the tastytrade deal. Profit is up 8% to £245 million. While the boom in share trading during lockdown has eased, IG still grew. Rivals such as CMC have been hit by the end of that boom. Felix said: “Some others have had harder landings.” read more here 09:09,Graeme Evans The FTSE 100 index has continued its record of outperformance in 2022 by fighting back from a weak start to stand near its opening mark. Banks provided a major helping hand as expectations for faster-than-expected interest rate rises on both sides of the Atlantic lifted shares. Standard Chartered led the FTSE 100 with a gain of 4%, while HSBC, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group were all up 1% or more. With mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto making progress, the FTSE 100 index bucked gloom elsewhere to stand 2.9 points higher at 7472. 08:46,Oscar Williams-Grut Diageo has jumped to the top of the FTSE 100 in early trade after a bumper update. The drinks giant has reported soaring sales and profits thanks to the reopening ofbarsandrestaurantsaround the world drives. Diageo — which ownsGuinness, Tanqueray gin,Johnnie Walkerscotch and CaptainMorgan’s rum among many others — said sales jumped jumped 20% in the six months to 31 December. The business saw “double digit growth” across all markets. The relaxation of restrictions around the world saw sales at bars and restaurants rebound after being battered by lockdowns. Guinness sales jumped 30% in the UK as Brits returned to the pub. At the same time, drinkers continued to buy bottles to enjoy at home, with no noticeable drop off in so-called “off trade”. People are increasingly buying “premium” bottles of spirits, which have healthy margins and help insulate the company against rising costs. Operating profits grew 22.5% to £2.7 billion in the first half as Diageo’s margins improved despite an increase in marketing. Read the full story. 08:34,Graeme Evans The prospect of the US Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy with as many as five interest rate rises this year has sent growth stocks into reverse once again. Shares in Tesla and Amazon backer Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust have fallen 3%, while industrial software business Aveva and warehouse technology firm Ocado are both down more than 2%. The FTSE 100 index had a strong session yesterday but fell back 0.6% or 46.12 points to 7423.66. The top flight's reliance on oil and financial stocks helped limit the damage, with Barclays among those higher on the back of the interest rates outlook. British American Tobacco and Sainsbury’s rose 1% and drinks giant Diageo lifted 23p to 3667p as investors sought out defensive stocks. Interest in the Guinness and Smirnoff firm was boosted by its robust interim results, which included a 5% dividend hike. Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: “Diageo has again proved its worth as a core portfolio constituent, with a performance which has underlined both its pricing power and its ongoing growth potential.” 08:06,Graeme Evans Tesla has reported record quarterly sales at the end of a “breakthrough” year for the electric car maker. Total revenues jumped 65% to $17.7 billion (£13.2 billion) in the final three months of the year, leading to a net profit of $2.3 billion (£1.7 billion). This figure include the cost of a $245 million (£183 million) shares-based award for chief executive Elon Musk. Deliveries rose 87% across 2021 and Tesla said there should “no longer be doubt about the viability and profitability of electric vehicles”. It added: “While 2021 was a defining year for our company, we believe we are just at the very early stages of our journey.” Tesla intends to ramp up production at new factories in Austin, Texas and Berlin and maximise output from established factories in Fremont, California and Shanghai. Its other primary area of focus will be the development of full self-driving software. The better-than-expected results failed to inspire Tesla shares after the company’s valuation fell back below $1 trillion in recent weeks. Laura Hoy, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the company had done all it could to impress investors, including by putting Musk on the earnings call. She said: “Ultimately the fourth quarter was another good one for Tesla, but with a nosebleed valuation, the group’s been unable to escape the jittery tech sell-off as inflation and interest rate worries plague the wider market.” 07:37,Graeme Evans The Federal Reserve's hawkish stance on monetary policy is set to trigger a fresh wave of selling after policymakers signalled there is “quite a bit of room” for US rates to rise. The FTSE 100 index rose above 7500 prior to the meeting yesterday, but is today expected to fall 110 points at 7359 as the recent volatility for global markets continues. The tech-laden Nasdaq, which has borne the brunt of fears over the impact of rising interest rates, surrendered an initial 3.5% gain to finish broadly unchanged last night. More selling is expected when Wall Street markets open later today. As expected, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell indicated that rates will rise for the first time in three years from March. However, he refused to rule out the potential for future hikes as large as half a percentage point in the fight against inflation. Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets, said: “In essence it was the Fed saying to markets that the days of handholding are over; our priority now is inflation. “His admission that there was quite a bit of room to raise rates before it hurts the labour market, sent the message of a Federal Reserve appearing ambivalent about the risks of moving too quickly to combat an inflation problem that they appear increasingly concerned about.” The US 10-year bond yield rose above 1.85% at one point, close to its highest level since January 2020, while the two-year yield staged its biggest jump since the start of the pandemic. Investors are also watching commodity markets after Brent crude futures yesterday touched a seven-year high of $90 a barrel due to supply tightness and geopolitical tensions. The price settled at $89.40 a barrel this morning. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 39214.22, 39105.15, 37709.79, 43193.23, 44354.64, 43924.12, 42451.79, 39137.61, 39400.59, 38419.98
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] FOREX-Yuan strengthens as Biden-Xi seek reset; dollar waits for data: * Yuan hits 5-month peak as Biden-Xi seem friendly * Euro struggles to rally from 16-month trough * Bitcoin drops 5% By Tom Westbrook SYDNEY, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The yuan scaled a five-month high in Asia on Tuesday as traders welcomed dialogue between the U.S. and Chinese presidents, while the dollar held near a 16-month peak against the euro ahead of U.S. retail sales data that could influence the outlook for interest rates. Calling U.S. President Joe Biden an "old friend," his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping said their countries must increase communication and cooperation - remarks that had markets hoping cordiality could lead to a reduction in tariffs. Support for riskier currencies ebbed as further readouts from both sides showed plenty of differences remain in ties between the world's two biggest economies, but the yuan was kept supported at 6.3728 per dollar. It had climbed as far as 6.3666 per dollar. The euro, at $1.1377, lacks major support until around $1.12 and was pounded on Monday amid concerns about COVID-19 outbreaks on the continent and insistence from Europe's central bank chief that she won't be hurried in to rate hikes. The risk-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars made modest gains but retraced them as traders looked ahead to the U.S. retail sales data due at 1300 GMT. The yen steadied at 114.15 per dollar and the Aussie was last flat at $0.7344. "U.S. retail sales today is the big watch to gauge if demand is resilient amid inflation," said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics at Mizuho Bank in Singapore. If it is, that could mean more pressure on the Federal Reserve to hike rates sooner. Another factor keeping moves small in the Asia session was talk that Biden might soon announce his pick for Federal Reserve chair - probably either a reappointment of Jerome Powell or a promotion for Fed Governor Lael Brainard. "If Powell is chosen, we expect no impact on the dollar. But if Brainard is chosen, we expect a short term fall in U.S. interest rates and the dollar because it is widely believed a Brainard-led FOMC would be more dovish than otherwise," said Commonwealth Bank of Australia analyst Carol Kong. Earlier in the Asia session, Reserve Bank of Australia head Philip Lowe again pushed back on markets pricing in RBA rate hikes as soon as 2022, but it had little immediate effect on traders who expect 100 basis points of tightening by early 2023. The New Zealand dollar was steady at $0.7035 and in a waiting mode before next week's Reserve Bank of New Zealand meeting where markets have priced in a 25 basis point rate hike and a 40% chance that it will be 50 basis points. Sterling was steady at $1.3419. Euro crosses were also languishing after Monday's insistence from European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde that hikes could do more harm than good at this point - a dovish contrast with hawkish hints being dropped by other central bankers. The common currency's tumble to $1.1356 on Monday propelled the U.S. dollar index to its 2021 high of 95.595 as well as hitting the euro pretty broadly. The gulf in tone across the Channel sent the euro on its steepest slide against the pound in six months on Monday as Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey told a parliamentary committee he was "very uneasy" about inflation. Canada's central bank chief Tiff Macklem was even more forthright and said "we are getting closer" to hikes in an opinion piece, driving the Canadian dollar to a four-and-a-half year high against the euro. Bitcoin was down 5% and testing support at $60,600. ======================================================== Currency bid prices at 0633 GMT Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid Previous Change Session Euro/Dollar $1.1375 $1.1367 +0.07% -6.90% +1.1386 +1.1360 Dollar/Yen 114.1900 114.1850 +0.01% +10.56% +114.3050 +114.1350 Euro/Yen Dollar/Swiss 0.9250 0.9246 +0.02% +4.53% +0.9257 +0.9238 Sterling/Dollar 1.3422 1.3415 +0.05% -1.76% +1.3437 +1.3412 Dollar/Canadian 1.2518 1.2511 +0.06% -1.70% +1.2522 +1.2493 Aussie/Dollar 0.7338 0.7348 -0.13% -4.61% +0.7368 +0.7336 NZ 0.7033 0.7045 -0.16% -2.06% +0.7063 +0.7033 Dollar/Dollar All spots Tokyo spots Europe spots Volatilities Tokyo Forex market info from BOJ (Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Jacqueline Wong & Simon Cameron-Moore) || Money at the Speed of Thought: How ‘Fast Money’ Will Shape the Future: Around 2008, an ambitious startup decided to dig a tunnel from Chicago to New York. It would be an arduous and expensive task, with a final price tag of $300 million. But the tunnel would move spectacularly valuable payloads at unprecedented speeds, and customers would pay handsomely for the privilege. The tunnel was not, however, for a new highway, or a high-speed rail line, or a gas pipe. It would not move goods or people or raw materials. In fact, a tall person would have a hard time standing up in it. Instead, the tunnel was intended to move just one thing: money. Completed in 2010, Spread Networks’ new tunnel was home to a fiber-optic cable that sent trading orders from Chicago to New York a whole 3 milliseconds ahead of the next-fastest pathway. Marginal as it might seem, those 3 milliseconds would give the new cable’s users a crucial edge against their competition. The customers were then-trendy “high-frequency trading” investment firms, whose algorithmic strategies often reacted to the same set of signals. A 3 millisecond advantage meant getting better price tags on trading positions, again and again and again. At least in theory, it was a license to print money. Ten years later, we’re entering a different era of monetary speed. By leveraging the internet and innovative blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies can move money around the world faster than legacy banking and payments systems, while also giving control directly to users instead of middlemen. That will have a huge number of implications for commerce, for globalization – and most of all, for investment. What We Talk About When We Talk About Speed You may have noticed a slight inaccuracy above: Spread Networks’ fiber-optic cable wasn’t really “moving money” between Chicago and New York. Instead, it was transmitting orders, and the traders using it presumably had trusted relationships, credit lines or other means to guarantee that they had the money to back those orders up. This two-tier system is how the vast majority of money transmission works now. Think about the act of handing someone a paper check (for those outside of the retrograde U.S.A., let meGoogle thatfor you. Are you handing them “money”? Not at all. You’re handing them a promise to deliver money from your bank account. When they deposit it, their bank and your bank trade a fairly complex series of messages to confirm the money is available. The money doesn’t actually move from one bank’s ledger to the other’s until that back-and-forth resolves to everyone’s satisfaction. That can be a good while after the check is deposited, much less after you gave it to your friend. An international transfer involves a still higher level of negotiation and confirmation before a transaction is well and truly “settled.” The first wave of “fast money” services, whether PayPal or Mastercard or Venmo, hasn’t really upended that model. Instead, the services largely move money “faster” by either creating a self-contained walled garden that adjusts only an internal ledger or accepting a certain amount of the risk to paper over the delay between transmission and settlement. (I suspect this is why you can pay an added fee to send money “faster” with PayPal, for instance. You’re not actually paying for faster processing – you’re paying an insurance premium on increased settlement risk.) So when we talk about cryptocurrencies being “faster,” we’re not quite talking about the kind of speed that Spread Networks was chasing with its fiber-optic cable. Bitcoin can’t somehow magically send data faster than Mastercard can. Instead, the “speed” of crypto is at the settlement stage: Instead of a complicated tete-a-tete between banks that may or may not actually trust each other, Bitcoin and other cryptos combine transmission and settlement. That is why cryptocurrency is referred to as “digital cash.” When you send it, it moves directly into the possession and control of the recipient – there is no distinction between transmission and settlement. On Bitcoin, this takes 10 minutes andcostsless than $3. Despite the back-end differences, the speed of cryptocurrency offers some of the same agility that high-frequency traders sought from Spread Networks. As our Michael Caseyhas discussed, the interoperability of different crypto systems is also becoming faster, amounting to a universally interoperable fast payments system. That’s possible because, unlike PayPal, crypto networks are open access – anyone can plug a service into them, build their own front-end, whatever. It’s hard to envision exactly how this is going to have a huge impact on retail payments. PayPal and the like work perfectly fast enough for ordering Christmas gifts, though crypto’s borderlessness opens up some meaningful new possibilities around the edges. One possible exception is thecredit cardbusiness model, which basically depends on soaking the poorest users in exchange for convenience. If consumer-friendly crypto services deliver similar convenience without the debt bondage, there could be a shakeup. The implications for cross-border remittances are more obvious, but not terribly interesting. Using the old rails, a service likeWestern Unioncharges craaaaaaazy fees to deliver money to a select number of countries. On the fundamentals of lower fees and better service, crypto wins that battle, though there are still big shortfalls in awareness, complexity and user experience. Give it a few more years, though, and there’s no reason for Western Union’s remittance service to continue to exist. Welcome to Thunderdome: The Scary Future of Fast Investment The distinction between a credit card or PayPal payment and a crypto payment, then, isn’t that big if you’re talking about shopping. In remittances, the crypto advantage is pretty much a straightforward upgrade without too many weird nuances. But there is one realm where the change is going to be deep and strange and have a lot of unexpected consequences. The one thing you can do with crypto that you can’t do with a Mastercard or PayPal or Western Union is send and settle a sizable investment halfway around the world to a stranger in 10 minutes. The end-to-end speed of cryptocurrency opens up an entirely new rhythm to collective financial projects, and it is going to be truly wild. We’ve seen dramatic illustrations of this new breed of “fast investment” in recent months.Constitution DAO, for instance, raised $40 million in about a week to buy a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution. That’s not exactly a traditional investment, but consider that as recently as a few years ago, the announcement of a new $40 million venture capital fund was enough to generate mainstream headlines. Sometimes itstill is! Under a traditional model, that $40 million is hard-won, involving a lot of sweaty meetings and elaborate PowerPoint presentations. But here comes a gang of newly rich goofballs and they do it with some Nicholas Cage memes and duct tape without leaving their basements. The same is happening for more traditionally oriented crypto venture capital efforts, whether decentralized or more traditional. Both in traditional and crypto VC, it’s a common talking point that speed in investing that money matters more than ever. If you want the returns from a hot startup or founder, you have to get in the room first and shove a wad of money down their pants. This will become even more pronounced as the money-raising process gets faster, and it will apply doubly to VC projects set up as decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs.. This is where we start to get to the real downsides, though. The increased speed of both raising and allocating capital seems poised to put pressure on the kind of careful decision-making that has long characterized investing of all sorts. The postwar Western financial system has arguably been defined by the rise of the analyst, a kind of mathematical trench warrior of capitalism. The job of the analyst is to examine boring things like inventories and profit margins and what a company is actually doing, or the potential market for a proposed startup. The analyst lives in some windowless back office of a bank or a hedge fund. Closer to the light sit the rainmakers who bring new money into a bank or fund, and the brokers who buy and sell assets. Both the gathering and deployment of capital under these models are slow, thoughtful processes, if nothing else because of structural and technological constraints. The analyst, you might argue, is an artifact of slow money. As money gets faster, and especially in the kind of loose monetary environment we’re in now, the analyst is increasingly left in the dust. In his place, decisions both by investors and allocators (VCs) will increasingly be based on what you might call “money vibes.” The power of memes and social media discourse in driving investment on Robinhood or in crypto has been widely observed, but they’ve been largely treated as oddities or punchlines, even in the financial press. The truth is, they’re just getting started, and they’re going to define the way things work in the high-speed future of crypto-enabled capital agglomeration. For a small elite of the most knowledgeable investors and allocators, that is going to be great. Fast judgment doesn’t inherently mean bad judgment, and more than a few investments that have been carefully vetted by the analyst manage to go belly up before the ink is dry. “If you really know what’s going on, you don’t even have to know what’s going on to know what’s going on,” as the pseudonymous Adam Smith put it in investing classic “The Money Game.” “All you need is a hell of an apperceptive mass [and] an IQ of 150 … and you can ignore the headlines, because you anticipated them months ago.” That won’t change as money accelerates. The big winners will still be the same types: plugged-in, intuitive, confident and good judges of character. But in an accelerated investment environment, the losers might look a lot different. What if the National Treasure memes that helped make Constitution DAO happen were instead memes about how “We’re going to start a Metaverse Venture Capital DAO!” One seductive meme about a sector (or just catchphrase) that’s super hot RIGHT NOW would attract a lot of small amateur investors, especially if it took just a few mouse clicks. These folks don’t necessarily know the difference between the best allocator in the business and the 20th best. They don’t know all that much about the nuances of markets. They don’t have the emotional self-control that makes a great investor. So more often than not, in a fast money environment, they will get rekt. Investment becomes a rapid-fire series of hype and collapse, and the losers get to lose that much faster. We’ve recently seen a kind of low-tech preview of this, by the way, courtesy of something called a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.SPACsuse the stock market as something like a faster VC fundraising pipeline, albeit with a focus on acquisitions rather than on early funding. SPACs focused on trendy sectors like electric cars, but they’ve wound up as mostly iffy investments that benefitted charismatic organizers likeChamath PalihapitiyahandBill Ackmanmore than their actual participants. One possible consequence of this higher-speed environment would be, ironically, a greater role for personal reputation and connections. The best investment vehicles will continue to be based on personal connections and the intuitions of those truly in the know, while promoted tweets raise meme money from the suckers. At least in principle, that is why the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission limits hedge fund and VC investing to so-called “accredited investors.” But both technological innovation and a rising chorus of criticism suggests that the dam can’t hold for much longer. (Notably, the biggest critics of accredited investor rules tend to run VC or hedge funds. Go figure.) The same issue is even more dire for nations like China that want to keep residents’ capital within their borders, even if that’s not where the best investments are. Far more than any concern about the energy use of proof-of-work mining or the risks of speculation and scams, it’s easy to see China’s crypto crackdown this year as an attempt to pre-empt an environment where capital flight is just a few clicks away. We’re sure to see similar moves, or even more draconian measures, as other lackluster economies realize what they’re up against. And fair enough: Capital flight is a real threat to even well-run developing economies. But crypto investing could wind up being a double-edged sword in those cases, because compelling investments in obscure corners of the world could also potentially attract capital more easily. That rhymes with the path to economic globalization and integration over the last 30 years, which has created more wealth and big winners in the developing world, but also more volatility and risk for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Speed turned out to be a mixed bag for the high-frequency traders, too. They’re still important players and make up a large percentage of asset trades by volume, but returns from thestrategyhave declined over the past decade. Privately held Spread Networks, the builder of that Chicago to New York fiber-optic tunnel, doesn’t seem to have profited from speed, either: The link was slatedto be soldin 2017 for $125 million, a serious haircut against the money spent on it. Universal Stablecoins, the End of Cash and CBDCs: 5 Predictions for the Future of Money – J.P. Koning Miami’s Multiple Money Visions – Michael Casey Shiba Inu: Memes Are the Future of Money- David Z. Morris 7 Wild Scenarios for the Future of Money - Jeff Wilser The Downside of Programmable Money - Marc Hochstein Ethereum in 2022: What Is Money in the Metaverse? -Edward Oosterbaan The Future of Money: A History - Dan Jeffries Who Sets the Rules of Bitcoin as Nation-States and Corps Roll In - David Z. Morris The World Bitcoin Will Build - Cory Klippsten The Big Miss in the Biden Administration’s Stablecoin Report – Tom Brown The Radical Pluralism of Money – Matthew Prewitt Aligning Social and Financial Capital to Create Better Money – Imran Ahmed The Transhumanist Case for Crypto – Daniel Kuhn Let the Market Come Up With Better Money Tech - Jim Dorn Stablecoins’ Tenuous Relationships With Banks - Steven Kelly || Stock Market Today: Optimism on Omicron Gives Stocks a Kick: up arrows on stock chart Getty Images The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the other major indexes enjoyed a caffeinated start to the trading week as some encouraging commentary about the COVID omicron strain went a long way toward re-energizing the bulls. White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci told CNN on Sunday that while preliminary data shows that omicron "has a transmission advantage" in South Africa, "thus far it does not look like there's a great degree of severity to it." SEE MORE The 21 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2021 While Fauci added that it's too early to make any definitive statements, Wall Street clearly heard what it wanted, as a widespread rally ensued today. Unsurprisingly, economically sensitive sectors such as industrials (+1.7%), energy (+1.5%) and financials (+1.5%) benefited the most. Travel-related plays enjoyed a boost as well – Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings ( NCLH , +9.5%), United Airlines ( UAL , +8.3%), Las Vegas Sands ( LVS , +7.2%) and Expedia ( EXPE , +6.7%) were among Monday's most noteworthy gainers. The industrial average led the way with a 1.9% gain to 35,227, while the S&P 500 improved by 1.2% to 4,591. Technology (+0.9%), while up, still lagged most other sectors, limiting the Nasdaq Composite's advance (+0.9% to 15,225). Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. stock chart for 120621 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 popped 2.1% to 2,203. Easing omicron fears sent U.S. crude futures spiking 4.9% to settle at $69.49 per barrel. Gold futures slipped 0.3% to end at $1,779.50 an ounce. Bitcoin prices were 8.6% lower from Friday afternoon's prices, though most would consider that a relief, as the digital coin bottomed out around $43,000 over the weekend. "There wasn't a clear catalyst that triggered the selloff with most pointing to deleveraging of risk assets," says Michael Reinking, senior market strategist for the New York Stock Exchange. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.) Jack in the Box ( JACK ) sat out today's broad-market move higher, sinking 4.1% after the fast-food chain said it is buying sector peer Del Taco Restaurants ( TACO ) for $575 million, including debt, or $12.51 per TACO share. TACO jumped 66.1% on the day. Buzzfeed ( BZFD ) is the latest stock to debut on Wall Street. The media company went public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) 890 5th Avenue Partners. BZFD stock opened for trading at a per-share price of $10.95 and reached a session high of $14.77 before turning tail and settling at $8.56 – an 11.0% decline. Walgreens Boots Alliance ( WBA , +3.8%) was the best Dow stock today after Bloomberg reported late Friday that the pharmacy retail chain is exploring the potential sale of spinoff of Boots, it's U.K.-based drugstore. UBS Global Research analyst Kevin Caliendo says the reports don't come as a total surprise, "given the strategic shift toward healthcare management [WBA] highlighted at its analyst day and the emphasis management placed on the value it thought it had in its various and disparate assets (Boots, China, ABC, etc.)." If the company chooses to divest Boots, Caliendo expects Walgreens to "redeploy any proceeds to offset dilution or perhaps to help fund its Health M&A or Health Organic segments growth." He currently has a Neutral rating on the Dow stock. Story continues Embrace the Volatility? Up days like today aren't just nice because of the gains – they also help investors take a moment to collect themselves. SEE MORE 2022's Best Mutual Funds in 401(k) Retirement Plans The markets have been a volatile mess ever since after Thanksgiving, when news of the omicron strain snatched headlines. We might not be done with the roller coaster, either, but Ryan Detrick, LPL Financial chief market strategist, has some words of encouragement: "After more than a 110% rally from the March 2020 lows, perhaps investors needed a reminder that stocks can't go up forever and that while volatility might be frustrating, it is perfectly normal," he says. Ultimately, however, "We aren't minimizing the omicron uncertainty, but we remain bullish that the recovery is alive and well, with a very healthy consumer and corporate earnings backdrop leading the way. "In the end, we expect any lost output due to omicron to simply be pushed out and recovered by early next year." What should you do until then? We provide a broad overview in our markets lookahead to 2022 , though investors can find a multitude of sector-specific and other tactical picks in our investing outlook . However, if your comfort zone is the market's biggest, most financially stable companies – regardless of what headlines are whizzing past – look no further than this list of the hedge fund community's favorite blue-chip stocks . The "smart money" has recently filed to reveal their latest comings and goings, and these 25 stocks represent their collective highest-conviction ideas. SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions Dividend Increases: 14 Stocks That Have Doubled Their Payouts The 13 Best Books for Beginning Investors || Bitcoin: cuáles son las razones de que su precio suba o baje: Algunos analistas afirman que bitcoin (BTC) es inmune a las crisis que sufren las finanzas mundiales; aseguran que es una cobertura contra cosas como la inflación y una apuesta segura contra la incertidumbre. No es así, dicen los medios de comunicación: existen innumerables artículos de prensa que demuestran que bitcoin se ve afectado por alteraciones externas del mercado, además de otros factores que no afectan a los productos financieros convencionales, como la regulación internacional y las redes sociales. En este artículo haremos un rápido repaso por los principales catalizadores que hacen subir y bajar el precio de bitcoin. Acontecimientos del mercado El precio de bitcoin suele caer al mismo tiempo que los mercados globales. Cuando la pandemia de coronavirus afectó a éstos, en marzo de 2020, el precio de bitcoin también sufrió una caída. En el transcurso de una semana, a mediados de marzo, bitcoin cayó 57% hasta alcanzar mínimos de $3.867 . Luego, al igual que el mercado de acciones, se recuperó y se hizo más fuerte que nunca, alcanzando máximos históricos al año siguiente. Los analistas creen que esto se debió al exceso de tiempo y de ingresos disponibles que tuvieron algunos traders minoristas durante la pandemia, además del auge del mercado de stocks. Bitcoin también ha reaccionado a otras crisis del mercado. Por ejemplo, la criptomoneda cayó 6,9% a finales de 2021 cuando los operadores temieron que Evergrande , el gigante inmobiliario chino, estuviera a punto de colapsar. Y también cuando Didi anunció sus planes de retirarse de la Bolsa de Nueva York. En general, ha reaccionado positivamente a la inflación, subiendo junto con los precios de los bienes de consumo y materiales. Es imposible enumerar todas las turbulencias económicas que afectan a bitcoin, pero hay suficientes pruebas para sugerir que sigue los mercados globales en cierta medida. Un artículo publicado en 2020 sobre la volatilidad de bitcoin en el Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control descubrió que la volatilidad no se ve influida por “la mayoría de los anuncios de noticias macroeconómicas programadas en Estados Unidos”, pero que el panorama se agita cuando se publican “indicadores prospectivos, como el índice de confianza del consumidor”. Story continues El sobreapalancamiento sistémico exagera estas alteraciones y contribuye a la volatilidad. El apalancamiento se produce cuando un operador toma prestado capital de un exchange para acelerar su potencial de inversión. En lugar de operar con $1.000 propios, por ejemplo, el inversor pudo pedir prestado a exchanges hasta 100 veces su depósito inicial y operar con hasta $100.000. Por supuesto, tomar prestado ese tipo de dinero conlleva graves riesgos de liquidación . Cuando un gran número de operadores altamente apalancados apuestan por que el precio de bitcoin se moverá en una dirección, se crea una oportunidad para que otros grandes inversores (ballenas) muevan su precio en la otra dirección. Esto desencadena una cascada de liquidaciones, provocando la caída libre del precio de bitcoin y creando enormes pérdidas para los operadores de largo plazo apalancados. Las ballenas entonces pueden comprar bitcoin a un precio mucho más barato que antes a expensas de los traders “rekt” . Por último, los fines de semana —lo creas o no— también pueden tener un impacto significativo en la volatilidad del precio de bitcoin. Hay menos operadores detrás de sus ordenadores supervisando los mercados durante estas fechas, lo que significa que hay menos resistencia cuando los precios caen y no hay tanta toma de beneficios cuando suben. Esto puede llevar a menudo a oscilaciones de precios más significativas en ambas direcciones. Regulación internacional La regulación internacional tiene un gran impacto en el precio de bitcoin porque determina qué mercados pueden acceder a él, dónde pueden establecerse las empresas y dónde pueden operar los mineros. Aunque países como el Reino Unido , Tailandia e India han demostrado tener una influencia directa en el precio de bitcoin, hay dos mercados principales que son los que más influyen: los Estados Unidos y China. El desplome de bitcoin, que pasó de cerca de $65.000 en abril de 2021 a alrededor de $35.000 a mediados de junio, fue en gran parte una respuesta a las medidas enérgicas de China contra la minería de esa criptomoneda , que cayó un 5,5% cuando el gobierno chino aclaró en septiembre de 2021 que las criptomonedas eran ilegales. En los Estados Unidos bitcoin responde a las noticias de reguladores y legisladores. En 2021 el proyecto de ley de infraestructura del presidente Joe Biden perjudicó la cotización de la criptomoneda porque planteaba dificultades a los exchanges descentralizados, ya que iban a tener que proveer información fiscal de clientes que, por su naturaleza, no recogen. No todo es negativo. Bitcoin también reacciona positivamente a las buenas noticias. La expectativa de un anuncio de que la Comisión de Valores de los Estados Unidos daría luz verde a un fondo cotizado de futuros de bitcoin ayudó a que el precio de la criptomoneda subiera alrededor de $3.000 en octubre de 2021. Finanzas tradicionales Los movimientos dentro de las finanzas tradicionales pueden impulsar o perjudicar el precio de bitcoin porque determinan la facilidad con la que epicentros financieros como Wall Street invierten en esa criptomoneda. Los movimientos de mayor envío de dinero de Wall Street a bitcoin —como grandes bancos ofreciendo bitcoin a sus clientes— suelen correlacionarse con subidas de precios. Los operadores tienen miedo de las malas noticias, como que un titán de Wall Street se desprenda de bitcoin. La criptomoneda a menudo ha subido cuando las principales empresas anuncian que la han añadido a sus balances, como ocurrió después de que MicroStrategy y Tesla invirtieron en ella. Por el contrario, la capitalización bursátil de bitcoin cayó de $2.43 billones a $2.03 billones después de que el CEO de Tesla, Elon Musk, dijera que la compañía dejaría de aceptar bitcoin para pagos, en mayo de 2021, citando razones ambientales. Los productos financieros tradicionales también pueden tener un impacto en el precio de bitcoin, particularmente los productos derivados que representan contratos que siguen el precio subyacente de BTC. Como ya hemos comentado, el comercio de futuros apalancados a menudo puede fomentar cambios bruscos de precios, pero también pueden hacerlo otros productos como el comercio de opciones cripto . En pocas palabras, éstas dan a los inversores el derecho, pero no la obligación, de comprar o vender el activo subyacente (en este caso, bitcoin) a un precio determinado (conocido como precio de ejercicio) antes de una fecha determinada o durante ésta. Cuando un gran número de opciones out-of-the-money (OTM) de bitcoin vencen al mismo tiempo, éstas pueden generar volatilidad en el mercado. El término OTM hace referencia a la no rentabilidad de las opciones, como ocurre cuando el precio de ejercicio (el precio acordado para comprar el activo subyacente) es superior al precio actual del mercado. Antes del vencimiento es habitual que grandes inversores, como los market makers , se cubran con el activo subyacente para reducir las pérdidas extendidas si bitcoin oscila en la dirección opuesta. Redes sociales Cuando los CEOs de empresas tecnológicas están en todas las redes sociales, las líneas entre las finanzas tradicionales y la influencia de las redes sociales pueden ser borrosas. Los inversores minoristas parecen especialmente sensibles a los comentarios sobre bitcoin de los grandes influenciadores. La criptomoneda se disparó más de un 20% después de que Elon Musk cambiara su biografía de Twitter por la de bitcoin, ya que indicaba a los inversores minoristas que Musk podría estar a punto de invertir en bitcoin, algo que posteriormente hizo a través de Tesla. Esto va en paralelo con la fuerte influencia del CEO sobre otros activos, en particular dogecoin . Algunos analistas han tratado de analizar las redes sociales para predecir precios. En un trabajo de 2021 dos científicos surcoreanos llegaron a la conclusión de que las publicaciones sobre bitcoin son más frecuentes cuando los precios son altos y menos frecuentes cuando los precios son bajos. Un trabajo de investigación de 2019 de analistas indios concluyó que las publicaciones negativas y positivas están correlacionadas con el precio de bitcoin. || EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Gives Up Early Gains: The Euro initially rallied during the trading session on Thursday but gave back the gains to stay within the consolidation area. By doing so, the market looks as if it has nowhere to be, as we are simply killing time between now and the end of the year in a relatively well defined range. Ultimately, I think this market probably has to deal with chop more than anything else, but that is the way this currency pair typically trades anyway. EUR/USD Video 24.12.21 The 1.1375 level is significant resistance, while the 1.1225 level is significant support. I think we stay in this range between now and New Year’s Day, as we are trying to figure out what to do longer term. As time goes on, there will be less people are trading this market, meaning that it probably will not do much. The 1.13 level seems to be a bit of a magnet for price, so I essentially think of that as “fair value”, which is basically where we are at as I record this. The 50 day EMA is just below the 1.14 handle and reaching towards the resistance barrier, so I think that will make it even more difficult to overcome. The market had sold off quite drastically a few weeks back, and now I think will try to figure out whether or not the concerns in Europe dictate even lower pricing for the Euro. That is something that we will certainly take up in the beginning of January, as a move below the 1.12 level could open up the 1.10 level underneath, and possibly even lower than that. 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: Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Give Up Early Gains Bitcoin and Ether Consolidate Above Support, DOGE Eyes Upside Break Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Rallies as Safe-Haven Dollar Retreats on Optimistic Omicron News Bitcoin Stays Above $48k SEC’s Latest Spot Bitcoin ETF Rejection GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British Pound Reaches Towards ¥153.50 Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Get Hammered || Jack Dorsey Says Bitcoin Will Replace the Dollar: Shutterstock / Shutterstock Former Twitter CEO and CEO of Block (ex-Square) Jack Dorsey said that Bitcoin will replace the U.S. dollar, once again professing his “passion” for the crypto. See: Twitter Stock Soars After CEO Jack Dorsey Announces He Will Step Down Find: Twitter Launches Crypto Dedicated Team — A Move That Could Make Digital Assets The Currency of the Internet Replying to a tweet from Cardi B asking, “Do you think crypto is going to replace the dollar?” Dorsey said “Yes, Bitcoin will.” Yes, Bitcoin will — jack (@jack) December 21, 2021 This doesn’t come as a surprise as Dorsey has been a longtime Bitcoin bull, saying in January that the reason he has so much passion for Bitcoin is largely because of the model it demonstrates: a foundational internet technology that is not controlled or influenced by any single individual or entity, according to a tweet. “This is what the internet wants to be, and over time, more of it will be,” he added. In August, he tweeted that “Bitcoin will unite a deeply divided country (and eventually: world).” And in July, speaking at the B Word Conference, a Bitcoin-focused initiative that aims to demystify and destigmatize mainstream narratives about Bitcoin, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had said that his hope for Bitcoin, “is that it creates world peace or helps create world peace.” “We have all these monopolies of balance and the individual doesn’t have power and the amount of cost and distraction that comes from our monetary system today is real and it takes away attention from the bigger problems […] You fix that foundational level and everything above it improves in such a dramatic way. It’s going to be long-term but my hope is definitely peace,” he said at the time. Story continues Following his most recent tweet, Bitcoin — which has been on a downward trend recently — spiked up briefly. As of this morning, Bitcoin is hovering just under $50,000. See: Bitcoin Bulls Argue for Crypto as a Hedge Against Soaring Inflation Find: Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk and 21 More CEOs Who Changed How We Live “Bitcoin and Ethereum have both entered holiday mode and continue to consolidate around key technical levels,” Edward Moya, senior market analyst, OANDA, wrote in a note sent to GOBankingRates. “ Bitcoin continues to face a wall at the $50,000 level and until that level is breached, speculators may remain on the sidelines .” More from GoBankingRates: 9 Bills You Should Never Put on Autopay 21 Items That Are Always Cheaper at Costco Earn Up To $1,500 in Bonuses With This Checking Account What To Consider When Choosing a Mortgage Lender This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Jack Dorsey Says Bitcoin Will Replace the Dollar || VanEck To Launch Bitcoin Futures ETF: [Join us for our webinar, "Unpacking The Crypto ETF Dilemma," Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021 at 12 p.m. ET] With the SECrejectingits proposal for a physicalbitcoinETF, VanEck has set a date to launch its own futures-based bitcoin ETF. TheVanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF (XBTF)is set to launch on Tuesday, Nov. 16 on Cboe Global Markets. XBTF comes with an expense ratio of 0.65%, undercutting the 0.95% charged by the current U.S.-listed bitcoin futures ETFs. The fund is actively managed and reserves the right to invest in bitcoin-related companies it believes are closely tied to the price of bitcoin futures. The first bitcoin futures ETFs launched in the last half of October, with theProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO)attracting $1 billion in assets in its first two days of trading. It was followed by theValkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF), which had a far less dramatic debut and currently has just $63 million in assets under management. VanEck’s version has been eligible to launch since Oct. 23, but the issuer held off on formally launching for weeks. It’s likely that the firm was waiting for a decision from the SEC on its spot bitcoin product, along with the potential difficulties that new bitcoin futures ETFs will face in gathering enough near-term futures contracts against its competitors. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has indicated in previous comments that he was more comfortable with futures-based bitcoin funds than spot versions. The SEC’s rejection of VanEck’s physical bitcoin ETF earlier today cited lack of confidence that investors would be protected from volatility and price manipulation. Contact Heather Bell atheather.bell@etf.com Recommended Stories • ARK Funds Leaking Assets • Harbor Launches ‘ARKK’ Rival • Hot Reads: Cathie Wood Thinks Metaverse Worth Trillions • New Issuer Debuts 2 Active ETFs Permalink| © Copyright 2021ETF.com.All rights reserved || FOREX-Dollar steady as traders wait for central banks, pound inches lower on COVID fears: By Alun John HONG KONG, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The dollar was quiet at the start of a week in which central bank meetings, including by the Federal Reserve, will likely drive currency markets, while sterling fell slightly after Boris Johnson warned about the impact of the new COVID-19 variant. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major peers, was little changed at 96.091, down from as high as 96.938 in mid November, before news of the omicron variant of the new coronavirus became widespread. On Monday, the euro inched higher to $1.1316 while the yen lost a little ground to 113.51 per dollar. The pound slipped 0.1% to $1.3257 after British Prime Minister Johnson on Sunday said Britain faces a "tidal wave" of the Omicron variant of coronavirus and that two vaccine doses will not be enough to contain it. Markets have swung widely since the new strain emerged due to worries it could have a major impact, initially driving flows to safe-haven assets. Reports that it may not be as bad as feared caused these flows to reverse last week. "All I want for Christmas is clarity," analysts at Barclays headlined a research note. Breaking news about the Omicron variant aside, the most significant scheduled events for currency markets this week are central bank policy meetings, with six of the G10 central banks and a number of emerging-market central banks set to meet. "Central banks will need to strike a difficult balance between Omicron-induced uncertainty and elevated inflation levels," the Barclays analysts said. The most important is the Federal Reserve's two day meet which wraps up on Wednesday. Investors now expect the Fed to announce an acceleration of tapering its bond buying programme, opening the door to at least one interest rate hike next year. Traders now see a more than 50% chance of a rate hike by May 2022, according to the CME Group's FedWatch programme. An acceleration of tapering would likely support the dollar particularly versus currencies whose central banks will likely be slower to tighten. Story continues "The Fed meeting certainly could prove the catalyst for EUR/USD to break down to 1.10. Though investors may prefer to wait from the ECB the next day before chasing the move. USD/JPY could also be pressing 115 post Fed," said ING analysts in a note. Both the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan will review their policy settings this week. Market players are starting to talk about the possibility of the ECB turning more hawkish, while the BoJ is likely to remain dovish. Also holding meetings are the Bank of England, and the Norwegian and Swiss central banks. Bitcoin was trading just under $50,000 after the world's largest cryptocurrency climbed a little over the weekend, but still has work to do to reclaim November's record high of $69,000. (Reporting by Alun John; Editing by Stephen Coates) || Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund Buys Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, Vanguard U.S. ...: Investment companyNewfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund(Current Portfolio) buys Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, Vanguard U.S. Momentum Factor ETF, JPMorgan U.S. Momentum Factor ETF, Fidelity Momentum Factor ETF, BTC iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF, sells Waste Management Inc, EPAM Systems Inc, Expeditors International of Washington Inc, Waters Corp, Alphabet Inc during the 3-months ended 2021Q3, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund. As of 2021Q3, Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund owns 121 stocks with a total value of $62 million. These are the details of the buys and sells. • New Purchases:MDLZ, ROP, APD, AAPL, CSCO, PM, ADSK, BDX, BSX, ROK, SBUX, WMT, DG, • Added Positions:VOO, VFMO, JMOM, FDMO, MTUM, USMV, LGLV, QUAL, FDLO, JQUA, FQAL, SYK, LIN, MDT, CDNS, CTAS, MKC, MMM, AKAM, LBRDA, ECL, KO, SGEN, EA, VRTX, ATVI, TXN, TYL, MRK, ABT, KMB, JBHT, INCY, CL, CHD, CERN, HRL, HEI, BF.B, ANSS, BAX, BR, SNPS, FAST, TMO, VRSN, COO, GWW, MA, MNST, V, VRSK, VEEV, YUMC, CSGP, STE, ITW, JNJ, AMZN, AME, MCD, HD, APH, PEP, HSY, PG, ROL, WCN, LULU, RSG, SPGI, POOL, KEYS, SHW, SWKS, CTSH, EL, NOW, ODFL, IDXX, ANET, ILMN, MSFT, REGN, IEX, ACN, • Reduced Positions:SPY, NVDA, EW, INFO, A, RMD, MTD, INTU, GRMN, WST, ISRG, MCO, DHR, COST, CMG, ZTS, ADBE, TFX, CPRT, CLX, • Sold Out:WM, EXPD, EPAM, GOOGL, WAT, MXIM, AMD, TECH, IEP, CGNX, MPWR, TXG, • Warning! GuruFocus has detected 3 Warning Sign with OMF. Click here to check it out. • VOO 15-Year Financial Data • The intrinsic value of VOO • Peter Lynch Chart of VOO For the details of Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund's stock buys and sells,go tohttps://www.gurufocus.com/guru/newfound+risk+managed+us+sectors+fund/current-portfolio/portfolio These are the top 5 holdings of Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund 1. S&P 500 ETF TRUST ETF (SPY) - 26,498 shares, 18.41% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 2.43% 2. Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) - 23,385 shares, 14.93% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 76.66% 3. JPMorgan U.S. Momentum Factor ETF (JMOM) - 116,761 shares, 8.30% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 21.40% 4. Vanguard U.S. Momentum Factor ETF (VFMO) - 39,875 shares, 8.30% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 24.21% 5. Fidelity Momentum Factor ETF (FDMO) - 104,480 shares, 8.29% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 20.80% New Purchase: Roper Technologies Inc (ROP) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund initiated holding in Roper Technologies Inc. The purchase prices were between $446.13 and $496.63, with an estimated average price of $479.11. The stock is now traded at around $466.005000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.15%. The holding were 206 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: Mondelez International Inc (MDLZ) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund initiated holding in Mondelez International Inc. The purchase prices were between $58.18 and $65.23, with an estimated average price of $62.21. The stock is now traded at around $63.260000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.15%. The holding were 1,562 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: Air Products & Chemicals Inc (APD) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund initiated holding in Air Products & Chemicals Inc. The purchase prices were between $256.11 and $291.67, with an estimated average price of $276.69. The stock is now traded at around $296.510000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.14%. The holding were 346 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: Philip Morris International Inc (PM) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund initiated holding in Philip Morris International Inc. The purchase prices were between $94.79 and $106.1, with an estimated average price of $100.67. The stock is now traded at around $91.940000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.12%. The holding were 763 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: Apple Inc (AAPL) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund initiated holding in Apple Inc. The purchase prices were between $137.27 and $156.69, with an estimated average price of $147.22. The stock is now traded at around $173.480000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.12%. The holding were 543 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund initiated holding in Cisco Systems Inc. The purchase prices were between $52.98 and $59.53, with an estimated average price of $56.12. The stock is now traded at around $57.515000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.12%. The holding were 1,394 shares as of 2021-09-30. Added: Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund added to a holding in Vanguard S&P 500 ETF by 76.66%. The purchase prices were between $390.68 and $416.73, with an estimated average price of $405.71. The stock is now traded at around $423.870000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 6.48%. The holding were 23,385 shares as of 2021-09-30. Added: Vanguard U.S. Momentum Factor ETF (VFMO) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund added to a holding in Vanguard U.S. Momentum Factor ETF by 24.21%. The purchase prices were between $121.81 and $134.1, with an estimated average price of $129.98. The stock is now traded at around $129.664000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1.62%. The holding were 39,875 shares as of 2021-09-30. Added: JPMorgan U.S. Momentum Factor ETF (JMOM) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund added to a holding in JPMorgan U.S. Momentum Factor ETF by 21.40%. The purchase prices were between $42.72 and $46.57, with an estimated average price of $44.89. The stock is now traded at around $46.530000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1.46%. The holding were 116,761 shares as of 2021-09-30. Added: Fidelity Momentum Factor ETF (FDMO) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund added to a holding in Fidelity Momentum Factor ETF by 20.80%. The purchase prices were between $47.69 and $51.75, with an estimated average price of $50.17. The stock is now traded at around $51.982600. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1.43%. The holding were 104,480 shares as of 2021-09-30. Added: BTC iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF (USMV) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund added to a holding in BTC iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 25.24%. The purchase prices were between $73.5 and $77.99, with an estimated average price of $75.9. The stock is now traded at around $78.080000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.57%. The holding were 23,828 shares as of 2021-09-30. Added: SPDR SSGA US Large Cap Low Volatility Index ETF (LGLV) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund added to a holding in SPDR SSGA US Large Cap Low Volatility Index ETF by 24.61%. The purchase prices were between $133.4 and $142.58, with an estimated average price of $138.24. The stock is now traded at around $146.150000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.56%. The holding were 13,106 shares as of 2021-09-30. Sold Out: Waste Management Inc (WM) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund sold out a holding in Waste Management Inc. The sale prices were between $141.17 and $155.85, with an estimated average price of $149.62. Sold Out: Expeditors International of Washington Inc (EXPD) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund sold out a holding in Expeditors International of Washington Inc. The sale prices were between $119.13 and $130.36, with an estimated average price of $125.19. Sold Out: EPAM Systems Inc (EPAM) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund sold out a holding in EPAM Systems Inc. The sale prices were between $510.24 and $643.39, with an estimated average price of $588.17. Sold Out: Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund sold out a holding in Alphabet Inc. The sale prices were between $2448.89 and $2904.31, with an estimated average price of $2720.51. Sold Out: Waters Corp (WAT) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund sold out a holding in Waters Corp. The sale prices were between $351.18 and $424.7, with an estimated average price of $391.65. Sold Out: (MXIM) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund sold out a holding in . The sale prices were between $96.12 and $106.63, with an estimated average price of $100.35. Reduced: IHS Markit Ltd (INFO) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund reduced to a holding in IHS Markit Ltd by 39.62%. The sale prices were between $111.66 and $124.57, with an estimated average price of $118.07. The stock is now traded at around $130.800000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.08%. Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund still held 509 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: NVIDIA Corp (NVDA) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund reduced to a holding in NVIDIA Corp by 38.64%. The sale prices were between $181.61 and $228.43, with an estimated average price of $207.92. The stock is now traded at around $276.990000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.08%. Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund still held 324 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: Edwards Lifesciences Corp (EW) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund reduced to a holding in Edwards Lifesciences Corp by 39.74%. The sale prices were between $102.91 and $122.75, with an estimated average price of $114.13. The stock is now traded at around $117.170000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.08%. Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund still held 564 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: Agilent Technologies Inc (A) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund reduced to a holding in Agilent Technologies Inc by 37.44%. The sale prices were between $147.58 and $179.28, with an estimated average price of $161.83. The stock is now traded at around $150.870000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.07%. Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund still held 396 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: Intuit Inc (INTU) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund reduced to a holding in Intuit Inc by 36.68%. The sale prices were between $491.05 and $577.92, with an estimated average price of $538.69. The stock is now traded at around $631.350000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.07%. Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund still held 126 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: ResMed Inc (RMD) Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund reduced to a holding in ResMed Inc by 34.34%. The sale prices were between $247.68 and $297.36, with an estimated average price of $273.44. The stock is now traded at around $258.040000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.07%. Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund still held 260 shares as of 2021-09-30. Here is the complete portfolio of Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund. Also check out:1. Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund's Undervalued Stocks2. Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund's Top Growth Companies, and3. Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund's High Yield stocks4. Stocks that Newfound Risk Managed US Sectors Fund keeps buyingThis article first appeared onGuruFocus. || Turkey President Erdogan to Send Crypto Law to Parliament: Report: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will send a crypto law to the country’s parliament, two European publications, ABC Gazetesi and the Daily Sabah reported Friday. • “The law is ready, we will send it to the Parliament soon without delay,” Erdogan told journalists in Istanbul, according to the ABC Gazetesi. • Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have grownincreasingly popularin Turkey, where inflation hassoared, and the country’s currency, the lira,hitrecord lows against the U.S. dollar earlier this year. Many consumers have seen crypto as a way to circumvent these issues. • But the growing acceptance has challenged the authoritarian Erdogan, who has been looking to strengthen the lira and bolster Turkey’s struggling economy. In April, Turkey’s central bank said it wasbanningthe use of cryptocurrency for payments, although it remains legal to hold crypto in the country. • At the time, Turkey central bank Governor Şahap Kavcıoğlusaidthat the country’s Treasury and Finance Ministry was developing cryptocurrency regulations but didn’t intend to prohibit them, according to the pro-government Daily Sabah. • The liraroseabout 20% on Tuesday, a day after Erdogan announced measures to protect lira deposits. CORRECTION (Dec. 26 15:22 UTC):Fixes spelling of Daily Sabah. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 47345.22, 46458.12, 45897.57, 43569.00, 43160.93, 41557.90, 41733.94, 41911.60, 41821.26, 42735.86
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 2019-10-29] BTC Price: 9427.69, BTC RSI: 62.66 Gold Price: 1487.00, Gold RSI: 46.86 Oil Price: 55.54, Oil RSI: 53.35 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Gold’s Seasonal Outlook for Q4: Yup, a saying about behavior might be important for the precious metals market. The basic idea is that behavior can be understood as history here. And so, the best predictor of future developments could be past developments. In other words, past developments might hold some indications as to the fluctuations in the market. In particular, market patterns might repeat over time. It might just as well be the case that investors behave in a similar manner during specific times in the year. One classic example is the period after New Year – it has been argued that the investors are optimistic at the beginning of the year and that markets could rally then. Another one are the summer doldrums – the old saying is “sell in May and go away” – meaning that people tend to tune out during the summer holidays more than at other times throughout the year. New Year and the summer do not move throughout the year. But Thanksgiving does – it is not always on the same day. The same goes for the market. Some influences could be difficult to pinpoint. The one we focus on is the expiration of derivatives. Futures contracts and options do not always expire on the same day in the month. And so to account for them is slightly more complicated. Even more so if you would like to combine classic seasonal patterns with the expiration of derivatives. Fortunately, we have been able to combine simple seasonality and the impact of derivatives in one form of analysis. So you do not have to pore over hundreds of charts and try to figure out how all the pieces of the seasonality puzzle fit together. And so, you could boost you investment process with the use of our free Gold Seasonality charts. The main thing to remember about the seasonal charts is that they are a great way to support your investment decisions but they do not replace other forms of analysis. The way to use seasonal charts is to strengthen your trading signals. Another potential use could be to guide you in periods where there are no clear indications from other sources. Seasonality can be useful on its own, but it is at its most useful when combined with other indicators. We highlight the main tenets of the seasonality charts in our seasonality report. Enough about what seasonality is and how it can boost investments. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of the charts. Traditional seasonality calculations are based on the 2002-2019 window and they are augmented by including the expiration of options for the years 2009-2018. The yearly chart is the first one we would like to look at. The first thing to notice on the chart is that gold tends to go up quite strongly and with relatively little choppiness in the first two months of the year. This fits in quite well with the “January story” but if you take a look at the end of the year, you will notice that the move up actually starts in December, not January, so it might be beneficial to consider a “December-February story.” The general second point is that starting in late February, the appreciation tends to wane, giving way to a prolonged period of a more choppy nature. This period encompasses June and July, which gives some credit to the “sell in May” story, but the market tends to take off in August rather than September. And so, thesummer doldrums might be shorter than commonly believed. The third phase is the appreciation in the August December period. The market tends to go up but the moves are a lot more volatile than is the case with the early-year appreciation. This is a relatively wide perspective and it might be interesting to see how it actually played out this year. Please keep in mind that the analogies do not have to perfect – nothing in the markets really is. Let’s take a look at the gold chart for 2018 and 2019. We first call your attention to the turn-of-the year periods. These periods for 2017/18 and 2018/19 are marked with blue ellipses on the chart. As you can see, these are both periods of significant rallies, quite in line with the “December-March” story. Actually, both these periods of appreciation end earlier than would be suggested by seasonality alone butseasonality would have given you quite a nice roadmap to potential market conditions.In particular, it could have strengthened the bullish indications of other forms of analysis. This was the analogy on the annual time scale. However, in present market conditions, you are probably most interested in what seasonality can tell you now. So, the seasonality chart for Q4 is the one you would be interested in. The above chart shows that in October gold tends to go up and down a bit, with a pronounced bounce in the middle. And this is approximately what happened in October. The chart also shows that gold could be moving higher in November but the move looks quite choppy. This is the part where it is particularly important to reconcile the indications of seasonality with the indications of of other indicators. This is precisely what we do in our Gold Trading Alerts. Currently, it seems that the indications of seasonality weaken the bearish outlook but not to the point of making the outlook neutral, let alone bullish. Additionally, the seasonality suggests apotential sizable correctionin late November/early December. This also suggests that one might want to hold off on bullish moves up at least until that moment. So, together with other market conditions, seasonality currently points to a potential move down in early December. The situation might change, and we monitor market conditions. Stay tuned to our Gold Trading Alerts. This concludes our second analysis of current seasonal charts. We hope this helps you navigate the market and gain the necessary tools to become successful in this space. You can also read our first seasonal chart analysis. We hope you have enjoyed this week’s discussion ofTrue Seasonal tradingand we invite you to experiment and make these tendencies work for you – our Seasonality charts are freely available right on our website. We encourage you to sign up for our daily newsletter, too – it’s free and if you don’t like it, you can unsubscribe with just 2 clicks. If you sign up today, you’ll also get 7 days of free access to our premium daily Gold & Silver Trading Alerts. On top of that, you’ll also get 7 days of instant email notifications the moment a new Signal is posted, bringing our Day Trading Signals to your fingertips.Sign up for the free newsletter today! Thank you. Mike McAra Bitcoin Trading Strategist Sunshine Profits – Effective Investments through Diligence and Care Disclaimer: Please note that the aim of the above analysis is to discuss the impact of seasonality on the underlying asset’s price alone. This analysis does not indicate (nor does it aim to do so) whether gold, silver, or mining stocks are likely to move higher or lower in the short- or medium term. In order to determine the latter, many additional factors need to be considered (e.g. sentiment, chart patterns, cycles, indicators, ratios, self-similar patterns and more) and we are taking them into account (and discussing the short- and medium-term outlook) in our Gold & Silver Trading Alerts. All essays, research and information found above represent analyses and opinions of Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA 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, Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA 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. Radomski is not a Registered Securities Advisor. By reading Przemyslaw Radomski’s, CFA 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. Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA, 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. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for October 23, 2019 • Gold’s Seasonal Outlook for Q4 • Sterling Slips as Government Loses Key Vote on Brexit Timetable • Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Supported by Brexit Concerns; Gains Limited by Strengthening U.S. Dollar • US Markets “Roll Over” On Earnings And Economic Data At Channel Highs • The Duel Between Johnson and Parliament. Will Gold Win? || FATF Joins BIS in Calling Stablecoins ‘Global Risk,’ Citing Money Laundering Concerns: Stablecoins pose a money laundering and terrorist financing risk to the world, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said Friday. In documents released after its latest meeting, the intergovernmental organization referred to cryptocurrencies as a “major strategic initiative,” and said cryptos whose values are pegged to fiat currencies could have a particularly big impact. Some 800 representatives from 205 jurisdictions met from Oct. 16 to Oct. 18 to discuss various issues under the jurisdiction of FATF, led this year by Xiangmin Liu of China,according to the publication. Crypto-related concerns were front and center. Related:Bitcoin Has Failed But Global Stablecoins a Threat, Say BIS and G7 While the document addressed cryptocurrencies broadly, it singled out stablecoins on multiple occasions, writing: “Emerging assets such as so-called global ‘stablecoins’, and their proposed global networks and platforms, could potentially cause a shift in the virtual asset ecosystem and have implications for the money laundering and terrorist financing risks. There are two concerns: mass-market adoption of virtual assets and person-to-person transfers, without the need for a regulated intermediary. Together these changes could have serious consequences for our ability to detect and prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.” A second document, titled “Money laundering risks from ‘stablecoins’ and other emerging assets,” said the FATF will continue to examine the characteristics and perceived risks of stablecoins and may even clarify or update its virtual currency guidance to better address this class of cryptocurrency. “The FATF will continue to ensure its standards remain relevant and responsive and it will report to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in 2020 on the risks from global ‘stablecoins’ and other emerging assets,” the second document read. Related:Tourists in Popular Japanese Region Could Soon Use a Local Cryptocurrency The FATF’s warning followed a report from the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies and the and Bank of International Settlements (BIS) calling stablecoins agrowing threatto monetary policy, financial stability and competition. During its session, the FATF determined how it would evaluate countries’ implementation of its last guidance on digital assets and will add this process to its current mutual evaluation procedure. In June, FATF called on national financial services and banking regulators to implement a strict know-your-client/anti-money-laundering regime, going so far as to require exchanges and wallet providers, dubbed virtual asset service providers (VASPs), to hold KYC information for recipients of transactions originating on their platforms. “Countries that have already undergone their mutual evaluation will be required to report back during their follow-up process on the actions they have taken in this area,” Friday’s document said. The document made it clear that FATF member countries are required to implement its standards for digital assets, as well as other emerging asset classes. “Given the global nature of virtual assets, it is essential that countries implement these requirements swiftly, in particular understanding the risks and ensuring the effective supervision of the sector,” one document read. In addition to its concerns about stablecoins, the FATF discussed the increasing importance of digital identity in payment systems, according to the document. “In recent years, there has been a significant shift towards digital payments. The number of transactions [is] growing at over 12 percent every year,” the document read. “Customer identification is essential to prevent criminals and terrorists from raising and moving funds. However, in the growing digital world, different customer identification methods exist.” As a result, the FATF plans to release draft guidance on digital identity for public comment. While the section did not discuss blockchain-based digital identity tools, a number of companies in the crypto industry are looking to create securedigital identity systems. The guidance focuses on a “risk-based approach to using digital ID systems,” the document says, citing due diligence requirements as one issue. It concluded: “The FATF supports financial innovation that does not create new safe havens for terrorists and criminals to carry out their transactions. Responsible innovation in the form of reliable digital ID systems contributes to the objectives of preventing its misuse for crime and terrorism, and supporting financial inclusion.” Money launderingimage via Shutterstock • WATCH: How JET8 Is Injecting Crypto Into the Social Media Value Chain • Bermuda Now Accepts USDC Crypto for Taxes and Government Services || A crypto debit card could be coming to Mexico: Tauros, a brand-new Mexican cryptocurrency exchange, recently opened its doors to the public. And it’s offering more than your average fiat-to-crypto exchange. Tauros comes complete with a crypto debit card for the Mexican market. The card can be ordered from the Tauros platform, but there’s a caveat. The official launch of the platform and debit card took place at the beginning of this month. However, that was one full week after the deadline for fintech companies to comply with new regulations on crowdfunding, electronic payments, and operations involving cryptocurrencies. The Fintech Law issued by the Bank of Mexico in March 2018 doesn’t encourage the use of cryptocurrencies on a large scale. So, it remains to be seen how Tauros plans to navigate these legal obstacles and achieve compliance to facilitate payments in cryptocurrency. The Tauros crypto debit card is not available yet For now, the Tauros debit card only supports payments and transactions in Mexican pesos – the national fiat currency of Mexico. However, the company claims that its new crypto features will be available in the coming months. According to the Mexican publication El Universal , Tauros will allow users to keep their funds in both USD and digital assets, as well as pesos. This information has been confirmed by Tauros CEO Salvador Meléndez, who stated that new banking services shouldn’t be 100% digital. Instead, they should also allow users to decide which currency to save their money in. It all sounds great on paper and on the company’s website. However, for now at least, Tauros and its crypto debit card remain pending regulatory approval. And since you can sign up for an account with just an email address and zero compliance checks; it seems unlikely that the company will work its way around the country’s tough new laws. Meléndez remains hopeful, however, stating that existing laws see cryptocurrencies as a “means of storage or value transfer”. According to him, the legal definition leaves enough room for payments to be made using digital coins. Story continues Mexicans are interested in cryptocurrencies The Mexican economy is weaker than previously estimated, and inflation has been somewhat reducing its citizens’ purchasing power. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may provide an appealing alternative in such a climate, as we’ve seen in countries like Venezuela . On top of that, people in Mexico have shown an increased interest in cryptocurrencies over the past few years. In January 2019, 5.9% of Mexican internet users owned cryptocurrencies. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s higher than the average global rate of 5.5%. For those in the know, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could be a cost-effective way of avoiding banks. In a country where half the population doesn’t have a bank account and isn’t interested in opening one, this may make a lot of sense. Mexico also has 11 active Bitcoin ATMs where people can buy digital assets with cash. If a company like Tauros could somehow push its crypto debit card through, it could make adoption even easier, by allowing people to receive money and spend it without involving banks. That seems like a stretch at this juncture though. Cryptocurrencies are regulated in Mexico and the latest Fintech Law won’t make it easy for the Tauros’ crypto debit card to actually come to market. A law harsh on fintech providers Even PayPal has decided to step back and remove some of its financial services from the Mexican market. Instead of filing for compliance, the payments giant decided to eliminate its e-wallets to the disadvantage of its users. From now on, Mexicans can no longer hold money on the platform and PayPal will transfer all funds directly to users’ bank accounts. This operation automatically converts any foreign currency into pesos, that continue to lose strength against the USD. This is a severe blow to many people who live off of remittances. In 2018, Mexicans living abroad sent a massive $33.4 billion back home. Fintech companies that could have streamlined international transfers have become more limited by the latest legislation and people are being forced to return to banking services and their high fees. Final thoughts If everything goes ahead as described on its website, Tauros could fill a major gap in the remittance market. According to its platform, people can buy cryptocurrencies and transfer funds in seconds without needing to involve a bank. Users can then spend these funds directly from their digital accounts using their cryptocurrency debit card. However, its timing seems to be woefully bad and it looks unlikely that Tauros will convince the Bank of Mexico that payments with a crypto debit card should be possible. The post A crypto debit card could be coming to Mexico appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Huge movement of XRP to mysterious wallet: Ripple appears to be moving large amounts of XRP again—this timemoving a total of 522 million XRPto an unknown address. The recent movement was tracked by Whale Alert, a platform that monitors and identifies large on-chain transactions across a variety of blockchains. Speculators believe that the XRP was sent to an unknown exchange wallet as part of an over-the-counter XRP sale. Ripple's blockchain is arguably much more centralized than most other major cryptocurrencies, as evidenced by the fact that the Ripple company holds more than 50% of the total supply. According to recent reports,Ripplesold more than $250 million worth of XRP in Q2 2019, up more than 50% from the previous quarter. With a market capitalization of close to $11 billion and more than $400 million in XRP sold so far in 2019, investors are understandably concerned that Ripple's actions could be contributing to the significant decline seen by XRP in 2019. Technically, this is just a fraction of the maximum amount Ripple is able to sell. In total, the company is theoretically allowed to sell 1 billion XRP per month, meaning things could get much, much worse. This recent activity has prompted XRP bagholders topetitionRipple to stop selling its coins, under the assumption that this "dumping" is crashing the market price. So far, the petition has received over 2,700 signatures. Since 2019 began, XRP has fallen more than 22 percent against the dollar and has lost significant ground against BTC in this time. As it stands, XRP now sits at its lowest value against BTC since December 2017. || Market Morning: ISIS Leader Iced, Bitcoin Goes Bananas, GM Strike Over, Microsoft Beats Amazon: ISIS Leader Killed by US Forces, Forces That Supposedly Left Syria Two Weeks Ago United States forces have reportedly killed the leader of Islamic State in Syria, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “Our sources from inside Syria have confirmed to the Iraqi intelligence team tasked with pursuing Baghdadi that he has been killed alongside his personal bodyguard in Idlib after his hiding place was discovered when he tried to get his family out of Idlib towards the Turkish border,” an Iraqi official in the know said, according to Rueters . SEE: Cannabis Stock News Weekend Roundup October 27 This is pretty good timing for President Trump, as the success may take some heat off of him while Democrats are pursuing an impeachment case at a quickening pace. The assassination comes just a few days after US forces were ordered by Trump to leave Syria, which now that this news has popped up may have been a ploy to get the ISIS guard down, though this is admittedly conjecture. The withdrawal made room for Turkish forces to operate against Kurdish forces, who were allies with American forces in fighting ISIS forces. Bitcoin Goes Bananas Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) skyrocketed to as high as $10,350 off of record volume of over $38 billion worth traded over the course of 24 hours at the end of last week, and nobody knows why. The most popular guess is that sentiment became extremely positive following comments by China’s President Xi Jinping, who said publicly that “We must take the blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies….We must clarify the main direction, increase investment, focus on a number of key core technologies, and accelerate the development of blockchain technology and industrial innovation.” Xi said this during a Communist Party central committee meeting. Though it is unclear if his comments on blockchain, which may actually be bearish for Bitcoin in a fundamental sense because it could mean that Beijing is getting ready to introduce a state-controlled competitor, really has anything to do with it. Most of the gains occurred in Bitcoin itself, as opposed to the many altcoins created in its wake. Bitcoin dominance as a percentage of total cryptocurrency trading jumped from 65.6% to 68.5% as the gains piled on. By the time you read this, Bitcoin could be back to where it was before the spike began though. Or somewhere else entirely. GM Strike Ends A six-week strike by the United Auto Workers union against General Motors ( NYSE:GM ) has come to an end. It was the biggest strike against any US business since the last GM strike in 2007 in terms of the amount of people on strike (50,000). It was also the longest strike in the auto industry time-wise since back in the 20 th century. It is estimated that GM has lost about $1.75 billion as a result of the strike. The deal was signed for four years, and includes a 6% rise in wages over the course of the new contract. That’s less than the current inflation rate of 2% a year, so GM may have gotten off easy if inflation heads significantly higher than that over the next four years, which seems likely given that the Federal Reserve is printing something like $100 billion a day in repo money, which could end up going much higher by the end of year liquidity crunch. Anyway, next in line for union attack is Ford ( NYSE:F ) and Fiat Chrysler ( NYSE:FCAU ). They’re probably very excited. Story continues Gold Steadies at $1,500 As Germany Buys For First Time Since 1999 & Maduro Pillages Venezuela Gold ( NYSEARCA:GLD ) is back on the move after a mild correction since the beginning of September. Making waves in the gold bug community , though so far not corroborated by the latest Bundesbank balance sheet data released October 11, are reports that the Germany’s Bundesbank has recently started buying gold for the first time in over 20 years. The balance sheet above does show a rise in the Euro value of gold held by the central bank, but that could be accounted for by the price rise between Q1 and Q2. Nevertheless, according to the World Gold Council, central bank gold holdings have increased 15% since 2009. In other gold news, back in Venezuela, the Miami Herald reports on a systematic siphoning operation of the country’s vast gold reserves by the country’s leader, Nicholas the Mustachioed Marxist Maduro. “It is unprecedented, the pillage exercised by the criminal enterprise that Maduro administers while heading the state. This is something never seen before,” Cristopher Figuera told the paper’s Spanish language edition, el Nuevo Herald, in an interview. If you’re short on cash though and want to join the gold wave, Undercoil metal detectors are an option. Microsoft Wins $10B Government Cloud Contract Over Amazon Microsoft ( NASDAQ:MSFT ) won a massive $10 billion government contract that will put the US government, and thereby its taxpayers, $10 billion deeper into an already $23 trillion hole. The money will be printed by the Federal Reserve though, so everything’s fine. Seeking to capitalize off of Star Wars, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract was awarded to Microsoft over Amazon ( NASDAQ:AMZN ) and IBM ( NYSE:IBM ), after Microsoft may have successfully executed the JEDI mind trick, but probably not. Amazon was widely expected to win. The surprise choice of Microsoft over Amazon may have something to do with President Trump’s personal animosity towards Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, since he owns the Washington Post and Trump doesn’t like that newspaper for being “fake news”. Trump made a stink about the JEDI contract back in July. Indonesian Report on Boeing 737 MAX Crash Due Friday A full report on the causes of the Boeing ( NYSE:BA ) 737 MAX Lion Air crash by Indonesian investigators is due by the end of the week. The main problem according to a summary of the report had to do with the Angle of Attack (AOA) sensor, which was malfunctioning but still replaced prior to the crash. However, the AOA Disagree Alert, which pilots must use to override the AOA sensor if it has an incorrect reading, was not installed, because the airline had not purchased what was at that point an optional upgrade, according to Boeing. The company has said it will fix the problem and make the Disagree Alert a standard feature, which kind of seems somewhat important as it would enable pilots to override the safety system that was pointing the nose of the plane into the ground. The post Market Morning: ISIS Leader Iced, Bitcoin Goes Bananas, GM Strike Over, Microsoft Beats Amazon appeared first on Market Exclusive . View comments || Asian Stocks Gain as Risk Appetite Seizes Opportunity to Climb on Global Trade Optimism: US President Donald Trump said that a US-China trade deal is getting “closer and closer”, while the US and Japan signed a limited trade agreement involving USD$7.2 billion in US agricultural goods. Global trade tensions continue to be the primary driver over market sentiment, with risk appetite seizing any opportunity to push higher. Gold prices shed nearly two percent towards the $1500 level before edging back higher, the Japanese Yen weakened past 107.8 versus the Dollar before pulling back, while 10-year US Treasury yields have climbed back above the psychologically-important 1.70 level. The recent nuances in the US-China trade conflict are shaping market expectations leading up to the high-level trade talks in early October. Although investors are displaying risk-on behaviour today, market sentiment remains fragile and ultra-sensitive to any development around the US-China trade conflict. Considering the fact that a rapid deterioration in US-China relations is not without precedence, investors will continue scouring the horizon for any signals that can push risk sentiment either way. TheDollar indexis currently testing the 99.0 resistance level, even as investors keep a watchful eye on the formal impeachment inquiry over US President Donald Trump. The impeachment proceedings come at a time when global investors are already contending with multiple layers of uncertainties, from the US-China trade conflict to Brexit, all of which have kept the Dollar at elevated levels. The timing of the inquiry is raising questions over the current US administration’s political will in forging ahead with its policy agenda, with the China trade deal in keen focus. Having reacted to the impeachment inquiry by resorting to the default risk-off mode, investors will remain vigilant in deciphering what the proceedings could mean for US policy continuity. The Pound slid below the 1.24 mark against the US Dollar to reach its lowest since September 13, as the UK Parliament reconvened. All the emotionally-charged yelling in Westminster has yet to result in a meaningful Brexit deal, which keeps the Pound on a slippery slope towards 1.20 versus the Dollar. Although the prospects of a no-deal Brexit appear limited, it cannot be completely ruled out, hence capping the upside forGBPUSD. Open your FXTM account today Disclaimer: The content in this article comprises personal opinions and should not be construed as containing personal and/or other investment advice and/or an offer of and/or solicitation for any transactions in financial instruments and/or a guarantee and/or prediction of future performance. ForexTime (FXTM), its affiliates, agents, directors, officers or employees do not guarantee the accuracy, validity, timeliness or completeness, of any information or data made available and assume no liability as to any loss arising from any investment based on the same. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – EIA Weekly Storage Report, Contract Expiration to Set Tone • USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Trade Friction, Political Uncertainty Fueling Safe-Haven Demand • Ethereum and Stellar’s Lumen Daily Tech Analysis – 26/09/19 • Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 26/09/19 • AUD/USD, NZD/USD, USD/CNY – Asian Session Daily Forecast • Asian Markets Mixed as Optimism Over US-China Trade Deal Fades || Hong Kong authorities issue notice of disruption at local banks: The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the region's de facto central bank, has issued a notice warning residents that "some banks have to suspend services at certain branches due to vandalised facilities and traffic disruptions." The regulator is advising bank customers to use online banking of ATM services instead. "Recent incidents of vandalism and arson attacks have seriously affected the use of banking services by the public," the notice reads. Last week, The Block reported on the sharp increase in LocalBitcoins volumes in Hong Kong. Hong Kong protestors have been rallying since June when the general public started opposing a bill that could have allowed the extradition of those convicted of crimes to mainland China and Taiwan. While the bill has been withdrawn, the protests are still ongoing. || Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 27/10/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC fell by 2.14% on Saturday. Partially reversing a 21.96% rally from Friday, Bitcoin Cash ABC ended the day at $254.12. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC rally to an early morning intraday high $283.7 before hitting reverse. Bitcoin Cash ABC broke through the first major resistance level at $282.96 before sliding to a late afternoon intraday low $242.0. Steering clear of the major support levels, Bitcoin Cash ABC recovered to $250 levels to limit the downside on the day. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was down by 1.64% to $249.96. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC rise to an early morning high $259.23 before sliding to a low $249.12. Bitcoin Cash ABC left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the day ahead, a move back through the morning high $259.23 to $260 levels would bring the first major resistance level at $277.88 into play. Bitcoin Cash ABC would need the support of the broader market, however, to take a run at $270 levels. Barring a broad-based crypto rebound, Bitcoin Cash ABC would likely come up well short of $280 levels and Saturday’s high $283.7. Failure to move through to $260 levels would see Bitcoin Cash ABC struggle through the day. A fall through to $245 levels would bring the first major support level at $236.18 into play before any recovery. Barring an extended sell-off through the day, however, Bitcoin Cash ABC should steer clear of sub-$230 levels. Litecoin slipped by 0.16% on Saturday. Following a 14.6% rally on Friday, Litecoin ended the day at $56.88. Tracking the broader market early on, Litecoin rallied to an early morning intraday high $64.4 before hitting reverse. Breaking through the first major resistance level at $60.88, Litecoin came within range of the second major resistance level at $64.80. The reversal saw Litecoin slide to a late afternoon intraday low $54.14 before finding support. Steering well clear of the major support levels, Litecoin recovered to $56 levels to limit the loss on the day. At the time of writing, Litecoin was down by 1.32% to $56.13. Tracking the broader market, Litecoin rose to an early morning high $57.34 before falling to a low $55.77. Litecoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the day ahead, a move through to $58.50 levels would bring $60 levels back into play. Litecoin would need the support of the broader market, however, to break through the first major resistance level at $62.81. Barring a broad-based crypto rebound later in the day, Litecoin would likely come up well short of Saturday’s high $64.4. Failure to move through to $58.50 levels could see Litecoin fall deeper into the red. A fall through the morning low $55.77 would bring Saturday’s low $54.14 into play before any recovery. Barring an extended sell-off through the day, however, Litecoin should steer clear of the first major support level at $52.55. Ripple’s XRP fell by 1.48% on Saturday. Partially reversing an 8.07% rally from Friday, Ripple’s XRP ended the day at $0.29497. A bullish start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP rally to an early morning intraday high $0.31533 before hitting reverse. Ripple’s XRP broke through the first major resistance level at $0.3146 before sliding to a late afternoon intraday low $0.28444. In spite of the reversal, Ripple’s XRP steered clear of the first major support level at $0.2797 before recovering to $0.29 levels. At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down by 0.87% to $0.2924. A mixed start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP rise to an early morning high $0.29674 before falling to a low $0.29109. Ripple’s XRP left the major support and resistance levels untested. For the day ahead, a move through to $0.2980 would bring $0.30 levels into play. Support from the broader market would be needed for Ripple’s XRP to take a run at the first major resistance level at $0.3121. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, Ripple’s XRP would likely come up short of $0.31 levels on the day. Failure to move through to $0.2980 levels could see Ripple’s XRP fall deeper into the red. A fall back through the morning low $0.29109 to sub-$0.29 levels would bring the first major support level at $0.2812 into play. Barring a crypto meltdown, Ripple’s XRP would likely steer clear of sub-$0.28 levels on the day. Please let us know what you think in the comments below Thanks, Bob Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -26/10/19 • Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Show Signs Of Resiliency • The Weekly Wrap – Brexit, Earnings, Stats and Trade Give Direction • Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Find Support • S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Market Slam Into Resistance • US Stock Market Overview – Stocks Rally Close near Record; Intel Drives Semi’s Higher || Dow Posts First 8-Day Winning Streak in Over a Year: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied yet again on Friday, posting its first eight-day winning streak in over a year, with improving sentiment around U.S.-China trade relations. While Dow closed 37.07 points higher, or 0.1% at 27,219.52, the other indices faced struggles, as the S&P 500 slipped 0.1% to 3,007.39, and he Nasdaq ended the day down 0.2% at 8,176.71. After closing on their highs Tuesday, stock index futures rallied further Wednesday evening after President Trump declared that he would be postponing the planned increase of tariffs on Chinese goods by a little over 2 weeks, as a “gesture of good will.” The tariffs, which are designed to increase to 30% from 25% on about $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, have been a topic of much debate recently. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday morning that the president “could do a deal any time” with China but won’t until “it’s a good deal.” “The president delayed it because of a request from the vice premier,” Mnuchin added. He clarified that China’s Vice Premier Liu He made the request because Oct. 1 is the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and said raising the tariffs on that day “caused them grave concern on the symbolism.” Most analysts agree that the trade war and it's vacillations are having a profound effect on the markets. “If anybody had any doubt about what was moving markets, it’s the trade war,” said Brent Schutte, chief investment strategist for Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management. On Thursday, President Trump claimed it was anticipated that China would purchase “large amounts” of agricultural products. Trump also said he would consider an interim trade deal with China. “This is quickly becoming the base-case assumption and thus it’s unclear whether stocks will react favorably to any future headlines simply confirming the likelihood of such a scenario,” said Adam Crisafulli, executive director at J.P. Morgan, in a note. Investors looking to see the market target fresh all-time highs, and willing to take on some risk, could look into leveraged S&P 500 ETFs such as theDirexion Daily S&P 500 Bull 2X ETF (SPUU) ,Direxion Daily S&P500 Bull 3X ETF (SPXL) . For more market trends, visitETF 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 • 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 > || Brexit Update – Another Extension and Promise of a Voter Resolution?: The Latest Time is rapidly running out for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to deliver a Brexit deal that would appease, not only the EU but also the pro-Remainers and the DUP. As things stand, there’s no deal likely to be reached by the end of the week. News of France giving the EU until the end of the week to deliver an alternative solution to the Irish backstop merely delivered more false hope than an actual belief of a deal being reached. French President Macron’s offer of more time may ultimately be nothing more than a smokescreen. The British government has continued to deflect blame over the Brexit calamity to the EU. An offer of more time is certainly a softer stance than even a week ago. When considering the time it took to deliver the last proposal, which was largely dismissed by Brussels, an 11 th October deadline looks set to scupper the PM’s ambition of solving the Brexit puzzle. The Pound At the time of writing, the Pound was up by 0.04% to $1.2296. A lack of progress on Brexit continues to pin back the Pound. One area of support, however, is the expectation of an extension. There is an element of disbelief that the British PM will be able to ignore the Benn Act. Assuming that the British PM does make a request for an extension, however, there are likely to be more fireworks to follow. What Lies Ahead? In the wake of the Tory Party Conference, there’s been no progress. With France having given Britain until 11 th October, all that is left is for Johnson to request an extension. A number of member states, including a vocal France, continue to be against any further delays. Boris Johnson would need to demonstrate likely progress in support of an extension request. Simply being forced to make a request as per the newly legislated Benn Act may not be enough. A general election, however, could give Macron reasonable grounds to support an extension. An extension until 31 st January 2020 may be a stretch, however. For the British PM, a failure to deliver Brexit on 31 st October is unlikely to lead to a loss of pro-Brexit voters. The Benn Act has assured that even in failing to deliver Brexit, Johnson can say that he did his best. Few would contest with such sentiment with just 3-weeks remaining until Halloween. A General Election News of Boris Johnson getting election preparations underway will, however, throws the Pound into further uncertainty. From a Tory perspective, Johnson will hope that there are enough pro-Brexit voters to deliver a no strings attached Brexit. For the EU, this would be the worst-case scenario. Well, for those who have any concerns over a no-deal Brexit and its impact on the regional economy… Story continues For Opposition Party leader Corbyn, a call for a general election will be a judgment day. Having flip-flopped on Brexit, is it self-interest or the interest of the nation that will prevail? The assumption is that Corbyn may not be able to garner the necessary support to fend off a Johnson victory. Recent polls suggest just that… As things stand, an EU extension to allow for a UK General Election seems logical. This would allow Britain to address the Brexit Impasse once and for all. Support for Johnson has been on the rise in the last week. If Corbyn doesn’t step down, it may become a battle between the Tories and the Lib Dems. Polls from the weekend showed a jump in support for Boris Johnson and the Brexiteers. A tougher stance with the EU and in Parliament has shown that the Remainers and the EU have little regard for Britain’s democratic call to leave. Johnson has given the Brexit fence-sitters reason to side with the Brexiteers. For Brexiteers that have shifted in favor of remaining over the last 3-plus years, the general election would appease any claims that the EU Referendum was an inaccurate reflection of the nation’s true democratic view on EU membership. Of greater significance, in the event of Johnson victory, would be the backfiring of the EU’s plan scupper Brexit altogether. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: EUR/USD Daily Forecast – Euro Makes Another Run at the 20 DMA Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 08/10/19 USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Two-Sided Trading Expected Ahead of Trade Talks A Confusing State Of Affairs Will Powell Address Market’s Dovish Expectations? Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Traders Waiting for Confirmation of Lower Demand in 11 to 15 Day Forecast View comments [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #crypto #cryptonews #bitcoin #r/bitcoin: "The toxic and condescending comments I see geared at newcomers are not helping bitcoin become a world currency " https://t.co/jlIhzcukQ6 || New Blog Post: Fiat and Crypto Are Staggeringly Different: Part 2 https://t.co/xD7V6bWDDE Please retweet. #Crypto #blockchain #economics #bitcoin #adtech https://t.co/xdpaCIpuLg || $BTC と $GOLD は連動している。 今為替もかなり上がってるし、 $GOLD も暴落した。 $BTC も下がるはず。 現物買うぅうううううううう〜 https://t.co/JT8g2mghKW || How would you like to $22,000 weekly trading forex/binary options with just a little investment capital of $1,000. message me for more info on how to get started. Success doesn't look for you... Track it down...message me for more info... Invest now... #forex #bitcoin #broker https://t.co/4Zh7W1cVzO || 💰Bitcoinトランザクション状況💰 🔧HashRate:10,747,440,835,379 KH/s 🔜NetworkDiff:10,771,996,663,680 ⚠未確認取引数:2,591 件 #bitcoin #ethereum #cryptocurrency #仮想通貨 || Que es una dirección de #Bitcoin y cómo funciona! Te lo explico en detalle aquí! 👉 https://t.co/OFjagRgiNX #bitcoin #btc #crypto #cryptomonedas #cryptocurrencies #blockchain || @Ragnarly Not now no, but once bitcoin evolves as money and eventually is a MoE it’s likely it will be || @aids82507289 I am not dropping, but have my S-L set tight from here. If it gets triggered, so be it. Being that in the coming week and a half, $BTC is likely to make some big moves and volume on #binance is going to at least fade some, I would not say it is a terrible idea to set tight S-L. || Lucky One on #bitcoin #blockchain 's Someone put an empty block ... And get the reward for it ! Block height : 596588 [ See more on https://t.co/edxQxP9HlB ] https://t.co/0LXR0ARfYJ || https://t.co/pjdUIjX9H6 #mexico #BitCoin #sandeigo #nashville #ico #uk #campaign #paris #BitCoin #cuba #detroit #chicago #waves #losangels #crowdfunding #investing #Russia #charlotte #newzealand #columbus #TokenSales #funding #abraaj #saltlakecity #softbank #icotracker #JackMa
Trend: down || Prices: 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10, 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56, 8804.88
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 2017-09-25] BTC Price: 3926.07, BTC RSI: 50.05 Gold Price: 1306.80, Gold RSI: 50.53 Oil Price: 52.22, Oil RSI: 69.76 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin price drops following report that China is going to shut down local exchanges: Another day, another crash and another Chinese ban . This time, as Reuters spotted , a single report from financial news site Caixin is saying that the Chinese government is considering banning cryptocurrency exchanges in China. In particular, the report is saying that Chinese citizens won’t be able to use exchanges to buy bitcoins, ethers and more using Chinese yuan, and vice versa. Cryptocurrencies aren’t banned per se , just exchanges. But do bitcoins have value in China if you can’t exchange them? That’s the main question and the reason why cryptocurrencies are crashing. This is what it looks like on coinmarketcap.com right now: Bitcoin is currently down 7.7 percent, Ethereum is down 11 percent, Bitcoin Cash (which is quite popular in China) is down 11.2 percent, etc. But if you go on Chinese exchanges, the crash is even more important. For instance, Bitcoin is down 13.4 percent and Ethereum is down 18.4 percent on OKCoin. As always, it’s a bit hard to know for sure what’s going to happen. There’s only a single report about this decision. Chinese investors could be trying to exit cryptocurrency markets as quickly as possible because they risk being locked into cryptocurrencies. Those exchanges have already been regulated with KYC (know your customer) rules and anti-money laundering rules. Margin trading is also forbidden in China. Maybe the Chinese government wants even more control and is going to create a centralized exchange and regulate those markets as much as possible. It’s hard to know for sure as Chinese regulation is always very sudden. Earlier this week, the Chinese government banned ICOs in China. There’s currently an ICO freeze and the top 60 ICO platforms are being investigated. Authorities thought ICO tokens were like securities, and some of them were a scam. This isn’t the first time China is banning exchanges. Back in 2013, bitcoin dropped more than 50 percent as the government asked BTCChina to stop accepting deposits in Chinese yuan. The government changed its mind later on. || Amazon's domination of retail comes down to 5 simple areas: FILE PHOTO: An Amazon pickup location is seen at the University of California in Berkeley, California, U.S. August 14, 2017. Reuters/Jeffrey Dastin/File Photo (An Amazon pickup location is seen at the University of California in BerkeleyThomson Reuters) Amazon's total domination of retail is well reported by now , so it's worth considering how the company does it. One Montana brokerage firm, DA Davidson, says the answer is "SIMPL." "To exploit the retail market opportunity in the future, retailers will need to excel in the following areas: Social Networking, International Expansion, Mobile, Payments and Logistics," Tom Forte, an analyst at DA Davidson, said in a recent note to clients. Noise about Amazon's take over of traditional retailers hit a peak after Amazon announced its takeover of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion . By the time the deal was made official, brick and mortar retailers and grocery store chains had lost billions of dollars of stock market value. Some companies' entire futures were held in the balance, as Blue Apron's disappointing IPO demonstrated. Many companies aren't sitting by idly. Google and Walmart recently teamed up to take on Amazon's dominant position in e-commerce. Some retailers, like Nike, have given up on previous resistance to selling their products on Amazon's platform. Forte's SIMPL acronym acts as a sort of measure for how well these companies are doing to attract customers in the rapidly-changing retail sector. He breaks it down like this: Social media : Millennials are one of the most attractive demographics for retailers, and hitting them where they are already spending their time can be a winning strategy for retailers. Both advertising and engaging with youngsters on social media is crucial to succeeding in retail, according to Forte. He rates Amazon's social media presence as the fourth best among its peers. International expansion : Social media is global, and can expand a company's reach well beyond the borders of its home country. Empowering global fans to be able to purchase a company's products or use its platform is important to maintain user growth. Amazon is doing well addressing the largest markets on the planet, but there are still plenty of countries missing from Amazon's current footprint. Mobile : Consumers' habits are increasingly trending toward mobile, according to Forte. Companies who want to dominate their industries will have "best-in-class" mobile offerings to match their ambitions. Companies should be aware that conversion rates on mobile have been lower than desktop traffic, so mobile shoppers are both an opportunity and a threat. Amazon is doing well addressing the mobile market, as it produces its own mobile devices. It also operates a large network of apps for its various services, which seems to be a winning strategy for the company. Payment Methods : Flexibility in payments can provide a boost to any retailer, according to Forte. Allowing consumers to shop the way they want, and pay with futuristic methods like with Apple Pay or Bitcoin, can place a company in a good place among the competition. Amazon is one of the few companies that offers cash on delivery as a method of payment, but it also offers its own credit card to customers and a payment platform for third-party vendors. Logistics : Widening the window for when customers are able to have the product they ordered delivered can be a boon for a retail company. Fast, free shipping has been a huge boost to Amazon, and drones and same-day grocery delivery may be next. Amazon may seem like a logistics whiz, but the company has only 247 total fulfillment centers, compared to Walmart's 348. Walmart also boasts more than 12,000 retail locations and has been beefing up its integrations between online and in-store shopping recently. Story continues Amazon certainly isn't perfect in all the areas it needs to dominate, but it is doing better than most, according to Forte. He rates the company a buy and has a price target of $1,300. Amazon has grown 29.70% so far this year. Click here to watch Amazon trade in real time... Amazon stock price (Markets Insider) NOW WATCH: GARY SHILLING: If you don't like your job, you're 'wasting precious time' More From Business Insider Stock pickers are betting big against these 10 retail stocks Amazon's transformation of Whole Foods puts the entire grocery industry on notice THE BOTTOM LINE: Trump's dollar woes and the misguided Fed || Bitcoin continues record price run as Ethereum nears $400: Bitcoin price latest: Value rises to record $4,890 - but what next? - Bloomberg News Bitcoin ’s price has surged to a new record-breaking high of $4,890, as the price of rival currency ethereum climbed up to just below $400. The volatile cryptocurrency’s record-breaking run has continued, with its value soaring above $4,700 for the first time on August 29. Bitcoin's price has fluctuated closely to a previous high of $,4,522 for much of August and even slumped back to below $4,000 on August 22. FAQ | Bitcoin But what next? A Goldman Sachs investment banker predicted the price of bitcoin would continue to rise in a recent note to clients. “Whether or not you believe in the merit of investing in cryptocurrencies (you know who you are), real dollars are at work here and warrant watching,” the report said. However, Sheba Jafari, a technical strategist at Goldman Sachs, warned the bubble could burst and the price could eventually fall back to below $3,000. But Aaron Lasher, co-founder of Breadwallet, is more optimistic - he predicts the value of bitcoin will keep on rising over the next five years. “Are cryptos in a bubble? Yes, absolutely,” he told MarketWatch. “Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. “The long-term trend is up, however, so past bubbles look less impressive in the rearview mirror. “Do I know how high this bubble will go? Will I be selling any bitcoin before, during, or after the bubble? No.” Meanwhile, the price of ethereum, the rising star of the cryptocurrency world, has risen to a high of $394.32. The price rise of bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum puts the overall value of the cryptocurrency market at record $170bn, coindesk reports. They add the price of bitcoin is now up more than 350 per cent this year. Thinking of investing in bitcoin? The Telegraph’s Technology Editor, James Titcomb, warns: “While the party may continue for a while, it’s just as likely to end spectacularly.” || Bitcoin struggles to fend off slump as rival Bitcoin Cash soars: Investing.com – Bitcoin traded lower on Wednesday, a day after the blockchain supporting the cryptocurrency split into two, creating a new competitor called “bitcoin cash”. On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, Bitcoin fell to $2,708.1, down $27.2 or 0.99%. Bitcoin’s blockchain – the digital ledger which records every bitcoin transaction – split into two at 08:20 ET Tuesday, in an event know as a ‘hard fork’, creating a competing currency called “Bitcoin Cash”. Despite a lack of support for its network, Bitcoin Cash, got off to a good start, rallying 65.54% to $389.49 according to coinmarketcap.com, as market participants defected to the newly created virtual currency. Bitcoin Cash is worth only a fraction of bitcoin and may struggle to build on momentum as some of the biggest bitcoin wallet providers don’t have immediate plans to support Bitcoin Cash. “As of today, we have no immediate plans to fully support the Bitcoin Cash fork within our main product," Blockchain’s Alsyon Margaret said on Sunday. The ‘hard fork’ came after a long-term debate on how best to solve bitcoin’s scaling problem to speed up transactions on the network. Bitcoin transactions are limited to 1-megabyte every 10 minutes - or seven transactions per second. This compares to 2,000 per second for Visa and means that at peak times bitcoin transactions can take hours to be fulfilled, inhibiting the currency. The majority of bitcoin miners – programmers who get paid to contribute computing power to the bitcoin network – had initially pledged support for software upgrade SegWith2x, leading many to believe that the virtual currency would avert a split. But some members of the bitcoin community, felt the proposal failed to adequately addressed the problem and launched an alternative proposal, Bitcoin Cash. The two rival proposals - Segwit2x and Bitcoin Cash - are attempting to solve this problem in different ways. Bitcoin Cash seeks to increase the block size to 8-megabytes whereas SegWit2X proposes moving transaction data outside of the block on a parallel track with plans to increase bitcoin’s block size later in the year. Meanwhile, Ethereum, fell to $220.53, up 4.12%. To stay on top of the latest moves in the crypto-space, be sure to check out:https://www.investing.com/crypto/ Related Articles Brazil's Bradesco web, branch services hit by intermittent glitch Silicon Valley imitation meat startup raises $75 million Spain to extradite accused Russian bank account hacker to U.S. || NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA): Could Become Bigger Than Intel: There is no stopping the stock ofNVIDIA Corp.(NASDAQ:NVDA), the graphics chip designer that dominates gaming and, increasingly, Artificial Intelligence (AI). The shares are up 76% in 2017, with analysts pounding the table for it and one evennick-naming a dog for it.The latestprice target of $250 per sharewould take the market cap to $150 billion, within sight of mightyIntel Corp.(NASDAQ:INTC), whose value has stalled out at $178 billion. But this is not a bubble stock. Nvidia sales are growing 50%, year-over-year, each quarter, and it brings 25% of those revenues to the net income line. The company’s debt is just 25% of assets, and has been declining through 2017. Operating cash flow came in at nearly $1 billion for the most recent quarter. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips The price to earnings ratio of nearly 54 looks high, but if earnings keep growing you may be paying less than 30 times 2018 earnings if you buy now. • The 7 Best Stocks for Your Golden Years If NVIDIA were still suck in its original niche of gaming chips, this would not be happening. But graphics processing can easily be adapted to deep learning, sucking up huge amounts of data and offering quick analysis. That’s the heart of artificial intelligence,which is now being built into clouds. Systems likeAmazon.Com Inc.’s(NASDAQ:AMZN) Alexa,Microsoft Corp.(NASDAQ:MSFT) Cortana,International Business Machine Corp.(NYSE:IBM) Watson,Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) Siri and Google Assistant fromAlphabet Inc.(NASDAQ:GOOGL) aren’t just voice interfaces. They are front ends to artificial intelligence. They require the support of more processing power than the cheap, low-end silicon clouds were originally built with can deliver. Now that these clouds are built, the race is on to upgrade them, to add capability that offers instant answers to complex questions. It’s not just the data center market that’s booming, but AI based on graphics chips turns out to be at the heart of self-driving cars, the next hot market. All this has put NVIDIA in a very sweet spot. • 5 of the Toughest Stocks to Withstand a Downturn NVIDIA is also a “fab-less” chip company. That is, it designs chips and has someone else make them. In this way, it is more a software company than a hardware company. The costs of building chip factories, which rise exponentially as chips get complex through what I have deemed “Moore’s Second Law,” continue to drag down the company Gordon Moore co-founded. Intel’s growth has slowed to a crawl and its debt is continually rising as it absorbs the cost of new gear. Its attention is focused on keeping the factories busy, not on designing for the market. NVIDIA, on the other hand, is entirely focused on the posse that’s after it, chip makers likeAdvanced Micro Devices Inc.(NASDAQ:AMD) advertising cheaper graphics, or Intel itself, promising faster graphics next year or the year after. The lack of a fab means NVIDIA can focus entirely on performance and keep moving forward. It’s why our Will Ashworth has the stock on his“dream team.”It’s why our Bret Kenwell says it’sstill in buy territory, despite its high price. It’s why our Tyler Craig sees itbreaking outand our James Brumley sees itwinning the AI race. Only technicians are worried. Josh Enomoto would like the stock to take a “chill pill” because its rise has been so sudden and so steep. The fundamental call, if you believe in the economy, is simply to buy it. NVIDIA is driving the first cloud “replacement cycle,” the first major upgrade of cloud processing. Games and Bitcoin mining are secondary. It’s the cloud where the action is. Those are the buyers that count. So long as they’re buying NVIDIA with both hands, you should too. Dana Blankenhornis a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the historical mystery romanceThe Reluctant Detective Travels in Time,  available now at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him atdanablankenhorn@gmail.comor follow him on Twitter at@danablankenhorn. As of this writing he owned shares in MSFT and AMZN. • Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Stock Could Return 1,400% After Earnings • The 10 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2017 • 3 Biotech Stocks That Are Just Getting Started The postNVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA): Could Become Bigger Than Intelappeared first onInvestorPlace. || AMD is challenging Nvidia's crown after releasing its newest graphics cards: AMD Radeon RX Vega cards (Linus Tech Tips reviewed AMD's new Vega cards on its YouTube channel. Check it out by clicking on the photo.Youtube user Linus Tech Tips) AMD's stock price is on the rise as reviews of the company's new Radeon RX Vega 56 and 64 graphics cards are released. Shares are up 4.05% on Monday, the same day the cards were released. The cards are currently sold out on Newegg , and only a few units are still available on Amazon, though they are selling much higher than the manufacturer's recommended price. The cards are the company's long-awaited answer to Nvidia's dominant GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070, released last year. AMD has lacked a serious offering to compete with the Nvidia graphics units until the new Vega cards. The number in the name of the new AMD cards refers to the number of computing cores the card has, either 56 or 64. Reviews of the cards boil down to a solid, if unenthusiastic, "they're fine." PC Gamer says " AMD now shows up in the discussion" around high-end graphics cards when it previously hadn't, and Gizmodo says the company's cards are now "neck and neck" with Nvidia's offerings. While testing from both outlets showed that performance from AMD is comparable to the Nvidia cards, power consumption for the Vega cards is higher than the year-old GeForce options. The high-end graphics card market is worth millions a year, and AMD now has a chance at grabbing some portion of that market, according to PC Mag writer Jarred Walton . The shortage of cards seen on launch day is not a new phenomenon. Cryptocurrency miners have been buying up tons of graphics cards from both Nvidia and AMD to speed up their mining. Nvidia is set to release a mining-specific graphics card soon, and the company's CEO has said Nvidia will continue to serve the needs of miners. Meanwhile, AMD's CEO has said that cryptocurrencies are not a "long-term growth driver" for the company. AMD is up 12.64% this year, including Monday's bump. Click here to watch AMD's stock price in real time... amd stock price (Markets Insider) NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: New record highs for stocks and a deep dive into Apple's iPhone More From Business Insider People can't stop talking about how a big moment in 'Game of Thrones' history was ruined by a mansplaining character Bitcoin was immune to overnight volatility in global markets Nvidia trounces estimates for earnings and revenue, shares still tank View comments || 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) || Dollar index holds onto gains in subdued trade: Dollar remains on the upside, Jackson Hole in focus Investing.com - The dollar held onto gains against the other major currencies in subdued trade on Tuesday, as investors awaited the Jackson Hole Summit due to begin on Thursday. Traders were looking ahead to this week's annual meeting of top central bankers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the heads of the U.S. and European central banks will be making keynote speeches. Their comments will be closely watched for fresh policy signals from the world’s two most powerful central banks. Ongoing uncertainty over the economic agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump and doubts that the Federal Reserve will deliver a third rate hike this year have fed into recent dollar weakness. The yen and Swiss franc were lower, with USD/JPY up 0.36% at 109.35 and with USD/CHF advancing 0.38% to trade at 0.9655. However, geopolitical tensions persisted after North Korea unveiled a propaganda video of its threat to fire missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam. Pyongyang threatened the U.S. with “merciless revenge” for ignoring its warnings over annual military drills with South Korea . Elsewhere, EUR/USD slid 0.47% to 1.1760, while GBP/USD dropped 0.61% to 1.2823. Data on Tuesday showed that confidence among German investors deteriorated for a third consecutive month in August . The Australian and New Zealand dollars remained weaker, with AUD/USD down 0.18% at 0.7924 and with NZD/USD retreating 0.42% to 0.7297. Meanwhile, USD/CAD edged down 0.16% to trade at a three-week low of 1.2538 after data showed that Canada's retail sales rose less than expected in June , but the core reading was stronger than forecast. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.41% at 93.38 by 10:50 a.m. ET (02:50 p.m. GMT), off the previous session's one-week low of 92.92. Related Articles Forex - USD/CAD erases gains, hits 3-week lows Bitcoin falls below $4,000 to hit 7-day low Forex - Dollar remains broadly higher in quiet trade View comments || GOLDMAN SACHS: Here's when we'll know bitcoin's top is in: FILE PHOTO - A Bitcoin sign is seen in a window in Toronto, May 8, 2014. REUTERS/Mark Blinch/File Photo (A bitcoin sign in a window in Toronto.Thomson Reuters) Bitcoin is experiencing a monster rally. It has gained more than 15% since Friday's close , topping $4,000, $4,100, and $4,200 for the first time before putting in a high of $4,216 a coin on Monday morning. But that's only part of bitcoin's recent success. The cryptocurrency has seen huge gains since the August 1 fork that split it in two. Since bottoming at $2,643 a coin the day of the split, bitcoin has exploded by 57%, and it is now up 335% in 2017. Sheba Jafari, the head of technical strategy at Goldman Sachs, wrote in a note sent to clients on Sunday that because bitcoin was approaching her target of $3,691 (which it has since passed), an extension wave five of this move could take bitcoin all the way up $4,827 before a correction pushes it all the way down to about $2,221. Jafari isn't the only one who sees bitcoin approaching the $5,000 level. Arthur Hayes, the CEO of BitMEX , a bitcoin derivative exchange, expressed that view to Business Insider after last week's implementation of Segregated Witness, or SegWit, a software update designed to improve the coin's scalability and make it faster to process more transactions. "With Segwit implemented, I believe $5,000 bitcoin is within striking distance," he said. Bitcoin enthusiasts, however, shouldn't get too excited about the big move up. Jafari warns that the gains are unlikely to last. She sees a drop of as much as 38.2% once the fifth wave is completed. That would mean a move back below $3,000. "At this point, Bitcoin would have to move back under 2,935 (Jul. 21st high/top of wave 1/V) to signal that a top is already in place," Jafari wrote. Bitcoin (Goldman Sachs) NOW WATCH: Wells Fargo Funds equity chief: Companies were being rendered obsolete long before Amazon emerged More From Business Insider Bitcoin can get to $100,000 if it keeps following one of tech's golden rules Bitcoin just hit an all-time high — here's how you buy and sell it One of the stock market's biggest opportunities is being ignored || The founder of the world's largest hedge fund says 'bitcoin is a bubble': Ray Dalio (Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates.Reuters/ Ruben Sprich) Ray Dalio, the founder of the world's largest hedge fund, has joined the ranks of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and other top Wall Streeters who think bitcoin , the red-hot cryptocurrency, is in a bubble. While speaking on CNBC's Squawk Box Tuesday, the billionaire co-CIO of Bridgewater Associates said "bitcoin is a highly speculative market." "Bitcoin is a bubble," he added. Bitcoin is not alone, according to Dalio, he summed up the cryptocurrency market as "pretty much speculative people thinking 'can I sell it at a higher price,' so it's a bubble." Dalio's beef with bitcoin, specifically, is that it isn't a good store of value and it's hard to make transactions with, the two criteria Dalio sees as essential for a currency. "Bitcoin today you can't make much transactions in it," Dalio said."You can't spend it very easily." Bitcoin has been dealing with a scaling issue as more people crowd into its network, which was built to process a set amount of information. This has bumped up transaction time and cost and led to a split of the network and an upgrade of its software in August . Since January 2016, the number of bitcoin transactions per day has mostly hovered around 200,000 to 300,000 according to Blockchain.info , despite an ever-increasing number of users. Screen Shot 2017 09 19 at 12.35.18 PM (Blockchain.info) Dalio also doesn't think the cryptocurrency is a good store of value because it is so volatile. The price of bitcoin has swung drastically over the past few weeks amid news of a regulatory crackdown by Chinese authorities. It dropped 16% on Thursday, only to recoup most of its losses on Friday. Dalio didn't go as far as Dimon. Last week Dimon called bitcoin a "fraud" while speaking at a Barclays financial conference on September 12. The banker added that he views bitcoin as "worse than tulip bulbs," referring to the arrival and boom of the tulip plant in 17th-century Europe. Robert Shiller, the Nobel-winning economist and author who predicted the housing and tech bubbles, recently doubled down on his view that bitcoin is a bubble, telling Quartz it was the "best example right now" of one. Story continues Still, the cryptocurrency has proven resilient. Despite pressure from negative headlines and global regulators, bitcoin is trading up 50% since mid-June. Screen Shot 2017 09 19 at 12.54.21 PM (MI) NOW WATCH: A massive Hamptons estate that once belonged to the Ford family is on the market for a potentially record-breaking $175 million More From Business Insider Bitcoin's fate untethers from China Bitcoin's wild volatility continues with $500 swing The former CIO of $3 trillion financial giant UBS has joined the non-profit behind one of the largest cryptocurrencies [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Bittrex #15 Market(1.00%) CVC/BTC - Civic Vol(24h):188.289 BTC / $512,679 - Price: $0.156372 / 5.743e-05 BTC || BTC $4000... buy more? Dump it? Always ask yourself: WWAID? (What Would Artificial Intelligence Do) http://intelligenttrading.org  #ITT_Token || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $3254.45/$3264.08 #Bitstamp $3253.22/$3260.00 #Kraken ⇢$-10.86/$5.55 $3211.59/$3245.92 #Coinbase ⇢$-52.49/$-8.53 || One Bitcoin now worth $4604.00@bitstamp. High $4934.04. Low $4488.50. Market Cap $76.151 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/y6AJlci7FT || $4708.00 at 05:45 UTC [24h Range: $4650.00 - $4979.90 Volume: 17885 BTC] || 2017-08-16 2:00~3:00のBitcoin市場は反騰だったようだ。 変化率は0.4321% 4:00までは反騰になる? 直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は453793.0円 #ビットコイン #bitcoin #AI || 1 KOBO = 0.00000736 BTC = 0.0328 USD = 11.7096 NGN = 0.4236 ZAR = 3.3800 KES #Kobocoin 2017-09-06 00:00 || #Bitcoin #Bitcoinbet #Soccer Kane denied in the box → via http://betbitcoin.pro  √ pic.twitter.com/Xy5FUUdbWg http://btf.st/Cloudbet pic.twitter.com/dfkP1pvrMz || في الوقت الذي ازدهرت فيه التجارة الإلكترونية ووصل سعر العملة الإلكترونيةBitcoinالواحدة 4155$ وتطلق الإمارات فاراد،يُحجب Paypalفي السعودية pic.twitter.com/WZPGCpZq98 || One Bitcoin now worth $3800.00@bitstamp. High $3800.00. Low $3460.00. Market Cap $62.707 Billion #bitcoin
Trend: up || Prices: 3892.35, 4200.67, 4174.73, 4163.07, 4338.71, 4403.74, 4409.32, 4317.48, 4229.36, 4328.41
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 2022-06-03] BTC Price: 29704.39, BTC RSI: 43.69 Gold Price: 1845.40, Gold RSI: 45.63 Oil Price: 118.87, Oil RSI: 64.83 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] ‘A pyramid scheme,’ ‘worth nothing,’ ‘not reliable’: Crypto is being savaged at Davos by critics. Here’s a list of who said what: A “pyramid scheme,” “worth nothing,” and “not reliable”—cryptocurrencies have been given a scathing review by top officials gathering in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s 2022 meeting. Digital assets are a hot topic after the collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD sparked a major cryptocurrency crash this month, with around $1 trillion wiped out of the market . Bitcoin, once worth more than $54,000, was trading at $23,424 on Tuesday, according to Coinbase , and is down by around 37% year to date . Other popular cryptocurrencies, like Ethereum and Solana, have seen even bigger year-to-date losses . Here’s what financial officials have had to say about digital currencies as the world’s elite convene in Davos. A digital pyramid scheme International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva compared some cryptocurrencies to pyramid schemes. “When somebody promises you a 20% return on something that is not backed by any assets, what would we normally call this? We would call it a pyramid,” she said during a panel discussion on Monday. “In other words, this is a pyramid [scheme] in the digital age.” She added: “Bitcoin may be called a coin, but it’s not money. A prerequisite for something to be called money is to be a stable store of value.” However, Georgieva noted value in some digital currencies, with varying risk levels associated with different categories. For example, she said there is value in central bank-issued digital currencies because they are backed by the state, while some stablecoins “deserve the name” because they are backed by assets on a one-to-one basis. Stablecoins are digital assets sometimes referred to as coins or tokens that are designed to keep their value by being pegged to assets like the U.S. dollar. Tether, for instance, is always meant to be worth $1, and promises to redeem coins for $1 if customers want their money back. TerraUSD, or UST—a stablecoin backed by an algorithm and a sister cryptocurrency called Luna— collapsed earlier this month . It was once the third biggest stablecoin by market capitalization, with a market cap of almost $19 million at the beginning of May. Story continues UST, which was supposed to always be worth $1, was trading for around 7 cents on Tuesday. “The less there is backing [a digital currency] up, the more you should be prepared to take the risk of this thing blowing up in your face,” Georgieva told the panel at Davos. However, she urged people not to abandon digital currencies entirely, adding that it is important for global regulators to play a part in their use and offer better education on them for investors. Worthless Speaking to WEF Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab for an episode of Radio Davos, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said “cryptocurrencies are not currencies at all.” “They are speculative assets, the value of which changes enormously over the course of time, and they present themselves as currencies, which they are not,” she said. “We should call a spade a spade. An asset is an asset, it has to be regulated as such, has to be supervised by the asset regulators and supervisors, but should not claim that it is a currency. It is not.” She added that stablecoins were “pretending to be a coin” in their own right, but were actually “completely associated” with an actual currency. “Coin issuers should have to back up their coins with as many dollars as they have coins. That needs to be checked, supervised, regulated, so that consumers and users of those devices can actually be protected against potential misrepresentation,” she said. “Very recent history shows that reserve currencies were not always available and as liquid as they were intended to be.” Lagarde’s latest comments come after she gave cryptocurrencies another blistering assessment on Saturday, telling a Dutch talk show: “My very humble assessment is that [crypto] is worth nothing, it is based on nothing—there is no underlying asset to act as an anchor of safety.” Not reliable currencies François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Bank of France, said at Davos on Monday that he does not refer to crypto assets as cryptocurrencies. “They are not reliable currencies, they are not a reliable means of payment,” he said. “In order to be a currency somebody must be responsible for the value—nobody is responsible for the value of cryptos. And it must be accepted universally as a means of exchange—it’s not.” Following the collapse of Terra, Villeroy said he believes “citizens have lost trust in crypto.” An investment, not a means of payment Meanwhile, Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, governor of the Bank of Thailand, told an audience at Davos: “It’s fine if you want to invest in [crypto], but we don’t want to see it as a means of payment because it’s not appropriate.” Thailand’s central bank is developing a digital currency for the public , but the country announced earlier this year that it was banning the use of cryptocurrencies as a method of payment , saying widespread use of digital assets was a threat to the Thai economy. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com || Bitcoin Shows Signs of Bottoming Out After 9 Weeks of Losses: Don't miss CoinDesk'sConsensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. Bitcoin (BTC) added 5.6% in the past 24 hours to rise over $30,000 during Asian trading hours on Monday in a brief show of strength amid a record losing streak, data shows. The asset has slid for nine straight weeks for the first time in its history, falling from the $48,160 level in late March to last week’s close of $29,600. The drop came alongside inflation concerns in the broader economy, a move away from risk assets, and systemic risk from within the crypto industry. Price-charts suggest bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, saw strong support at the $29,000 mark, a level that has been tested several times in the past weeks. Closing below this level could mean the cryptocurrency could drop to its 2017 high of nearly $20,000, charts show. Resistance at $30,500 continues to exist, however, and a daily close above that level would show strong signs of recovery. Readings on the Relative Strength Index (RSI) – a tool used by traders to calculate the magnitude of an asset’s price move – have fallen to nearly 30, suggesting signs of bottoming out. Short-term buyers could add to this week’s momentum.Sentiment datafrom last week already suggests the market may be headed for higher prices in the coming weeks. Some analysts have said that investors would continue to assess price action before deploying capital. “U.S. markets saw a modest revival last week with stocks rising across the board,” Simon Peters, market analyst at eToro, said in an email. “Although crypto didn’t see quite the same revival, prices have now been holding steady in major cryptos such as bitcoin, suggesting a ‘calm’ of sorts before any fresh commitment to the market is made by large players.” Monday’s run comes on the back of a bump in Asian equities amid reports that majorChinese cities have started to ease coronavirus restrictionsafter months of strict lockdowns. Traders laid bets that the reopening the economy could spark an increase in consumer spending – which could increase company revenues in the coming weeks and could indicate a bottom for stocks in the region. The Asia Dow index rose 2.15%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 2.06% on Monday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 bumped 2.19%, with European indices such as Stoxx 600 and DAX adding at least 0.82% since Monday’s start. Futures in the U.S. rose, as Nasdaq 100 jumped 1.44% while S&P500 added 1.08%. However, some analysts say a recovery in bitcoin could take longer than expected. “It will be premature to talk about a bullish counteroffensive until bitcoin gets above $30,600, its horizontal resistance line since mid-May,” explained Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro senior market analyst. “Renewed risk appetite in global markets is fueling hopes of a turnaround.” “Divergence in equity and cryptocurrency dynamics was conspicuous last week, highlighting the weakness of the crypto market,” Kuptsikevich cautioned. || SpaceX will join Tesla in accepting dogecoin ‘soon,’ Musk says: Dogecoin, a popular crypto meme token, will soon be accepted by SpaceX , Elon Musk tweeted Friday, causing the currency's price to spike as other cryptocurrencies fell. " Tesla merch can be bought with Doge, soon SpaceX merch too," Musk tweeted. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1530209049261658112 Products on the SpaceX website, including "occupy Mars" T-shirts and spacesuit onesies, were still listed in dollars as of Saturday midday. When asked by a Twitter user if Starlink internet subscriptions could be paid with the dog meme-themed currency, Musk replied, "Maybe one day." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1530216449247019009 SpaceX's "DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon," the first space mission funded completely by cryptocurrency, is slated to launch in June , according to spacetv.net. Dogecoin traded higher Friday afternoon after Musk's morning announcement, as other popular cryptocurrencies fell. Dogecoin traded 4% higher, while Bitcoin fell 3% and Ethereum fell 8%, MarketWatch reported . This story was originally featured on Fortune.com || June WTI Oil: Set Up for Test of $100.90 – $98.94 Support: U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures are trading flat early Wednesday after dropping more than 5% the previous session. The market is being underpinned by a report from late Tuesday that showed U.S. oil inventories unexpectedly fell last week. At 01:15 GMT, June WTI crude oil futures are trading $102.07, up $0.02 or +0.02%. On Tuesday, the United States Oil Fund ETF (USO) settled at $76.87, down $3.54 or -4.40%. June WTI crude oil was down sharply on Tuesday on concerns about energy demand after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its economic growth forecasts. However, the demand concerns have been offset by a tighter supply outlook following sanctions on Russia. An unexpected drop in U.S. crude inventory is also helping to underpin prices. Late Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported inventories fell by 4.5 million barrels for the week-ended April 14. Analysts were looking for an increase of about 2.5 million barrels. Daily June WTI Crude Oil Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart. A trade through $109.20 will signal a resumption of the uptrend. A move through $92.60 will change the main trend to down. The short-term range is $121.17 to $90.37. Its retracement zone at $105.77 to $109.40 is resistance. This zone stopped the selling at $109.20 on Monday. The minor range is $92.60 to $109.20. Its retracement zone at $100.90 to $98.94 is the next target zone. The main range is $61.48 to $121.17. Its retracement zone at $91.33 to $84.28 is the major support zone holding up the market. Daily Swing Chart Technical Forecast The direction of June WTI crude oil early Wednesday is likely to be determined by trader reaction to $100.90. Bullish Scenario A sustained move over $100.90 will indicate the presence of buyers. If this is able to create enough upside momentum then look for a surge into the short-term 50% level at $105.77. Bearish Scenario A sustained move under $100.90 will signal the presence of sellers. If this move generates enough downside momentum then look for the selling to possibly extend into the minor Fibonacci level at $98.94. Story continues Look for a technical bounce on the first test of $98.94. A failure to hold this level could trigger an acceleration to the downside. 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: The NBA to Launch 18,000 Ethereum-Based Playoff NFTs Today Gold Prices Drop as Yields Surge Higher Is Bitcoin’s Counter-Trend Rally Done? June WTI Oil: Set Up for Test of $100.90 – $98.94 Support IMF Targets Cryptos in Latest Global Financial Stability Report Framework Ventures Launches $400M DeFi and Web3 Gaming Fund || 7 Up-and-Coming Stocks to Buy Before They Boom: Legacy stocks are getting the most attention, but investors shouldn’t ignore the potential of these seven up-and-coming stocks. Monday.com ( MNDY ) Monday.com is a project management software that provides team collaboration and communication tools. The program helps teams manage their work and organize tasks easily. Roblox ( RBLX ) Roblox is a gaming platform, and as such, it has secular growth driving its usage. While comparing this year’s to last year’s figures will be difficult, the premise of Roblox being able to attract gamers is a given. GitLab ( GTLB ) GitLab shares have fallen alongside the rest of the market. Despite a strong first trading day, it’s never quite managed to return to its former highs. However, the company’s operations remain strong. Coursera ( COUR ) As the pandemic caused unemployment to rise, more people became interested in Coursera. They saw it as a cheap way to update their skills by taking online courses. Bumble ( BMBL ) Bumble provides an important function for lonely people during these hard times. This will also mean growth in the bottom line. Krispy Kreme ( DNUT ) Krispy Kreme is a company focused on making doughnuts, and it hasn’t lost its touch even in the age of high competition. Duolingo ( DUOL ) Last quarter, Duolingo saw rapid user growth and exceeded expectations by acquiring more subscribers than ever before last year. a green button on a keyboard has an arrow pointing upward with the word "Buy". representing safe stocks to buy Source: AdityaB. Photography/ShutterStock.com This article will discuss the seven best up-and-coming stocks to invest in. At the moment, legacy stocks are getting the most attention . This is because investors want to maintain safe options in their portfolios. However, it is important to weigh the costs against the benefits of any investment. Many new options in the market are great for diversifying your portfolio, including new(ish) companies with great operating models and value. Ticker Company Current Price MNDY Monday.com Ltd $138.32 RBLX Roblox Corp $31.76 GTLB GitLab Inc $50.97 COUR Coursera Inc $20.17 BMBL Bumble Inc $23.78 DNUT Krispy Kreme Inc $13.68 DUOL Duolingo Inc $86.26 Up-and-Coming Stocks: Monday.com (MNDY) The Monday.com (MNDY) logo is displayed on a laptop screen. Source: monticello / Shutterstock.com Story continues Over the past few months, tech stocks have been unappealing to investors. Due to falling stock prices, many people are moving away from investments in the industry and instead choosing a more safe market. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips However, for value investors, this is the ideal moment to strike. Monday.com (NASDAQ: MNDY ) is a software development company working to help companies manage and optimize workflows. The solution has been adopted rapidly because it is expansive and tackles key business problems faced by many companies. Of course, the company does have some risks, but they appear to be more than balanced out by benefits. The platform has a Chrome extension that allows users to share files and folders with other team members and add comments to any of the shared items. It also integrates with Google Drive, which means you can upload your Drive files right into Monday.com without opening them in another application first. Roblox (RBLX) Roblox Stock IPO Source: Miguel Lagoa / Shutterstock.com Roblox (NYSE: RBLX ) is a game creation platform that enables players to design their games and then share them with others who can play the games. It offers an open environment where developers can create interactive 3D experiences through a sandbox. This graphical user interface gives the player access to all of the tools they need to make whatever they want. The Roblox community consists of developers, builders, artists, and gamers who use Roblox. The popular social gaming platform Roblox is played by more than 22 million players every day. With over 220 million monthly active users, these numbers will only increase. GitLab (GTLB) The GitLab (GTLB) logo on an iPhone screen. Source: Lori Butcher / Shutterstock.com GitLab (NASDAQ: GTLB ) is a web-based Git repository manager that offers all the features of Git, such as distributed version control and source code management (SCM) and integrated project management tools like issue tracking, code reviews, activity feeds, and wikis. It is a continuous integration and collaboration service that comes in different tiers. The cheapest tier ($19 per month, per user) features tools for enterprises and allows for faster code reviews. To get additional features, like security and compliance, you’ll need to pay $99 per month. GitLab has had exceptional growth rates since it appeared on the scene last year. On its first day of trading on the stock market, the company attracted approximately $650 million . However, since that time, shares have dipped alongside the broader market. Up-and-Coming Stocks: Coursera (COUR) man in headphones writing notes in notebook watching webinar video course Source: fizkes / Shutterstock.com Coursera (NYSE: COUR ) is an education platform that offers online courses and degrees. It posted solid year-over-year growth in full fiscal 2021 with 41% revenue growth and 70% enterprise revenue growth. Coursera was co-founded in 2012 by Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. It provides mass open online courses led by top experts in their field, offering the same type of content that you would generally pay for. As unemployment increased after the pandemic, Coursera received significant attention from people who wanted to update their skills cheaply. The real challenge will come this year as the company faces some tough year-on-year comps. However, the demand for online education is rising. According to one report, from 2021 to 2027, the market will grow from $269.87 billion to $585.48 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate of 13.5% . Bumble (BMBL) BUMBLE (BMBL) app on a smartphone Source: XanderSt / Shutterstock.com Bumble (NASDAQ: BMBL ) is a dating app created by Whitney Wolfe, who had previously co-founded Tinder . The app was released in 2014, and it functions similarly to other online dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid . Covid-19 had a terrible impact on the economy, people’s ability to guarantee their livelihood, and people’s mental and physical well-being worldwide. Research by Harvard psychologists worries that the coronavirus pandemic may be triggering a loneliness epidemic. A study by Making Caring Common shows that over a third of people experience feelings of loneliness frequently or “almost all the time.” Therefore, Bumble fulfills an important function by ensuring we have companionship during these times, translating into solid growth in the bottom line. Krispy Kreme (DNUT) Krispy Kreme donuts Source: Paul30 / Shutterstock.com Krispy Kreme (NASDAQ: DNUT ) was founded in 1937 by Vernon Rudolph, who later became the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation president. In 1996, Krispy Kreme began to expand internationally with locations opening up in Canada, South Korea, and, more recently, China. The company also raised its menu to include donuts with different flavors, such as maple bacon and pumpkin spice latte iced donuts. Krispy Kreme went live on the Nasdaq exchange much more quietly than other companies. After entering at $17 per share, it sold 29.4 million shares and raised $500 million, below the $21 to $24 per share range specified earlier. Unlike many tech stocks, you know what you are getting regarding Krispy Kreme. It has continued to delight in an age where it is hard to find a company that can make a profit. The company reported an 18.6% increase in net revenue last year and is narrowing its losses, clear signs it is headed in the right direction. Up-and-Coming Stocks: Duolingo (DUOL) DUOL stock: A phone displaying the duolingo logo in front of a computer screen displaying the duolingo site Source: dennizn / Shutterstock Duolingo (NASDAQ: DUOL ) is a free language-learning app that has made learning languages easier and more accessible. It wants to give people the opportunity to learn a new language for free, no matter their background or where they live. The app has over 9.6 million daily active users globally. It offers courses for English speakers, Spanish speakers, French speakers, and many other languages. The company has grown exponentially over a short period. Duolingo saw rapid user growth in the last quarter of 2021 and outperformed expectations by adding more subscribers than ever before. With a 55% increase in revenue, Duolingo had a good year. On the publication date, Faizan Farooque 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 7 Up-and-Coming Stocks to Buy Before They Boom appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Meta Begins Testing NFTs on Instagram, Set to Launch on Facebook Too: Key Insights: Mark Zuckerberg has announced the testing of NFTs on Instagram. The company has been looking into this feature since December 2021. Twitter launched this feature earlier this year for a fee, while Meta is doing it for free. The explosion of non-fungible tokens ( NFTs) last year engulfed not just crypto niche organizations but also every major mainstream company, platform, and brand. Meta brings NFTs After revealing the beginning of exploring NFTs for its social media platforms, Meta finally announced today that the feature is now in the testing stage and will be deployed to Instagram and Facebook soon. As reported by FXEmpire, Meta has been eyeing this space since December last year, when Instagram’s CEO stated that the platform intends to make NFTs accessible to a wider audience. And today, the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg himself, stated that they are actively testing the same. Zuckerberg, on Facebook, commented: “We’re starting building for NFTs not just in our Metaverse and Reality Labs work, but also across our family of apps. We’re starting to test digital collectibles on Instagram so that creators and collectors can display their NFTs.” He also stated that the company would soon be bringing the same functionality to Facebook as well, in addition to integrating augmented reality with the NFTs to enable users to project them into 3D physical spaces in their Instagram stories. Twitter leads the race Earlier in January this year, Twitter enabled the option of displaying one’s Ethereum ( ETH )-based NFTs as their profile picture with a distinct frame. While Meta plans on doing this for free, Twitter made it available to its users for a fee of $3, which was criticized by many people, including current owner Elon Musk. Calling it a waste of engineering resources, the Tesla CEO even went to the extent of making a collage of BAYC NFTs as his own Twitter profile picture recently to show that the feature doesn’t do much for NFT owners. Story continues In line with the same, Musk tweeted: I dunno … seems kinda fungible — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2022 Following the social media giant, other platforms such as Reddit and OnlyFans also announced their intention to enable similar functionality. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Meta mulls reducing money it gives news organizations – The Information S&P 500 ends below 4,000 for 1st time since March 2021; growth shares lead decline Bitcoin drops as Wall Street shares tumble Stocks and oil dive as investors hunt safe havens Silver Price Prediction – Silver prices slid sharply as the dollar rises Siemens Gamesa starts to install new generation of wind turbines in Brazil -executive || China Ban on Bitcoin Mining Fails Epically According to New Data: • In 2021, China imposed an outright ban on bitcoin (BTC) mining, leading to a material shift in the mining landscape. • The ban pushed the US into the forefront of crypto mining, which led to a sharp increase in lawmaker scrutiny. • Today’s data, however, reveals a China bounce back in bitcoin mining despite an ongoing ban. In July of last year, the Chinese government banned Bitcoin (BTC) mining. Aside from Beijing’s position on cryptos in general, the ban supported China’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2060. The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance released data in August, showing China’s bitcoin mining hashrate at zero. Since the ban, however, there have been plenty of reports of illegal mining activity in the country and government efforts to clamp down on mining. In March, wereportedon Beijing calling on provinces to crack down on mining activity, with seizures highlighting underground mining activity rife across the country. Today, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Financereleasednew crypto mining data that may alarm the Chinese government. According to the latest numbers, the US remained the largest bitcoin mining nation, based on January 2022 figures. The US bitcoin mining hashrate stood at 37.84%. China, however, saw its hashrate jump from 0% (Aug-2021) to 21.11%, ranking it the second largest bitcoin mining nation. Efforts to clamp down on illegal bitcoin mining appear to have failed. More significantly, the recent surge in fuel prices may have forced miners to return home in search of cheaper energy prices. Following the efforts to clamp down on illegal mining, Beijing is unlikely to stay quiet for long. Moving to other geographies, including the US, may also prove more challenging than last summer. Before China’s ban, the US had a bitcoin mining hash rate of below 20% before jumping to 35.4% as of August 2021. This time around, the return of bitcoin miners to China has had a muted impact on the US. The latest figures come as proof-of-work mining draws more scrutiny from US lawmakers. In January, lawmakerstargetedproof-of-work and bitcoin mining, in particular. Democrats took an anti-bitcoin stance to support US President Joe Biden’senvironmental goals. After re-joining the Paris Agreement, the US has a goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Attitudes vary across the country, however, with some states being more crypto-friendly than others. As of December 2021, Georgia was the largest mining state, with a hashrate of 30.76%. Other notables included Texas (11.22%), Kentucky (10.93%), and New York (9.77%). Last month, New York lawmakers made thenews, with a new bill aiming to push bitcoin miners into renewable energy. The bill blocks new crypto mining companies from non-renewable energy crypto mining. Such is the clamor over carbon-sourced bitcoin mining that US lawmakers evencalledon the Environmental Protection Agency to target firms infringing on environmental laws. While US lawmakers target bitcoin mining in the corridors of Capitol Hill, Beijing is unlikely to be so subtle. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Serbia’s PM links bomb hoaxes with ties with Russia • U.S. traffic deaths in 2021 jump to highest number since 2005 • Apple delays plan to have workers in office 3 days a week – Bloomberg News • Societe Generale says CEO Oudea to quit next year • EU could combine tariffs on Russian oil with embargo, Yellen says • Explainer-How the Northern Ireland protocol divides Britain and the EU || South Africa Mulls Digital Rand, Expects Crypto Regulation in 2023: • South African Reserve Bank deputy governor says digital rand is a few years away. • The South African CBDC could cut the high cost of cross-border payments for banks. • The central bank readies for crypto regulations in 2023. Cryptocurrency is gaining traction in South Africa after the government made it clear that it is taking cryptos very seriously. The South African Treasury announced further crypto regulations in theBudget Review 2022. Last month, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) concluded technical proof-of-concept for a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) settlement system. Dubbed Project Khokha 2 (PK2), this marks the second phase of CBDC launched in 2018. Additionally, SA is also a part of Project Dunbar, a CBDC initiative for international settlements, along with the central banks of Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore. In March, the central bank said that a digitalrandis being explored as a way to improve international banking. The SARB deputy governor Kuben Naidoo has now given a possible timeline for a roll-out. In his interview withReutersWednesday, Naidoo said that a digital rand or a CBDC would turn up in a few years. He noted that the digital rand would work to reduce the high cost of cross-border payments for banks. It remains a nightmare for South Africans who initiate money remittance from SA to other countries. This is because, according to aWorld Bank reportin 2021, South Africa remains the costliest G20 country to send remittances from. Naidoo said, “We’re still learning, we’re still experimenting [CBDCs].” However, he did not mention how long it would take for the central bank to fully implement a digital rand. The deputy governor further said that regulation of crypto assets is soon coming into force. He suggested that the government regulation of cryptos such as bitcoin (BTC), and ether (ETH), might come to light in the next nine to fifteen months or in 2023. The South African Reserve Bank is concerned about the possibility of criminal activities associated withcryptos. The bank believes that a proper crypto regulation would prevent theft, money laundering, and undermining of monetary policy. Naidoo noted, “If crypto assets were to become a very ubiquitous currency, you could undermine the authority of the central bank.” Additionally, South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA)said in December 2021that it is preparing a regulatory framework for cryptos to protect vulnerable members of its society. The regulator said that it is exploring ways to establish rules on how the trading of crypto assets should be conducted. The watchdog said that it would unveil the regulations this year. The role of cryptocurrencies is rapidly increasing in the African continent. Notably, Chainalysis ranks Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria among the top-10 countries for cryptocurrency use. Last October, NigeriadebutedAfrica’s first central bank digital currency, dubbed eNaira. The digital naira promised to make financial transactions “easier and seamless” for the entire population. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Rwanda expects first 50 asylum seekers transferred from UK by end of May • Money for Ukraine tops G7 agenda; inflation, food a concern • Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Get a Significant Bounce • Biden, Saudi crown prince may meet for first time as soon as next month – CNN • Dollar retreats as yen, Swiss franc draw safe-haven flows • Sterling at two-week high, wins respite from growth fears for now || Bitcoin could fall another 33% if it breaks below its key $40,000 support level, Fairlead's Katie Stockton says: • Bitcoin could be on the verge of a significant decline if it fails to hold $40,000 as support. • That's according to Katie Stockton of Fairlead Strategies, who identified $27,200 as secondary support for bitcoin. • "Long-term momentum has deteriorated this year, contributing to recent volatility," Stockton said. Bitcoincould see additional downside if the cryptocurrency fails to decisively stay above a key support level at $40,000,Fairlead Strategies'Katie Stockton said in a Monday note. According to Stockton, if bitcoin breaks below $40,000, the cryptocurrency would likely trend lower to secondary support at $27,200, representing potential downside of 33% from current levels. Bitcoinbriefly fell below $40,000 on Monday before recoveringthe key support level on Tuesday. That temporary break below $40,000 on Monday is not an issue, as Stockton likes to wait for a decisive break below the support level to avoid any head fakes. "We like to see an intermediate term level like this $40,000 hold on a consecutive weekly closing basis, so that's giving it a lot of wiggle room....we just want to make sure we don't see consecutive Friday closes below that $40,000 because it is such a major level and we're willing to kind of wait that out," Stockton told CNBC on Tuesday. If bitcoin manages to hold above its key support level, Stockton sees potential for the popular cryptocurrency to trend back towards its former December resistance level of around $51,000, representing potential upside of 27% from current levels. And Stockton is in the camp that a relief rally is likely for bitcoin later this week. "The DeMARK Indicators are likely to flash a 'buy' signal on Wednesday, which increases the likelihood of a bounce off support, so we stay with out bullish short-term bias," Stockton explained, adding that bitcoin is in a gradual intermediate-term uptrend after it made a higher high in March. "Long-term momentum has deteriorated this year, contributing to recent volatility, but the monthly stochastics suggest the January low was meaningful," Stockton said. If bitcoin fails to hold $40,000 and trends lower towards $27,200, that would represent a multi-year low for the cryptocurrency and lead to a sharp deterioration of its short, mid, and long-term momentum trends. Read the original article onBusiness Insider || Stock Market Today: May's Surprising Jobs Data Slams Brakes on Stocks: A businessman holding a down arrow Getty Images It was a "good news is bad news" trading session Friday. Rather than cheer a better-than-expected May jobs report, investors pondered how the encouraging numbers would affect the Federal Reserve's path forward. The Labor Department reported that May nonfarm payrolls grew by 390,000, which was much better than the 318,000 expected. It wasn't a perfect report – unemployment of 3.6% was above estimates of 3.5%, while average hourly earnings growth of 0.3% was below expectations for 0.4% – but it still fanned fears that America's central bank would need to keep up its hawkish bent for longer, meaning that stiff 50-basis-point interest-rate hikes could continue past the Fed's summer meetings. SEE MORE The 22 Best Stocks to Buy for 2022 "The May employment report perfectly describes the current state of the economy. It is likely still expanding and jobs are still plentiful, but companies are facing elevated compensation costs as consumers grapple with inflation amid a tight labor market," says Shawn Snyder, Head of Investment Strategy at Citi U.S. Wealth Management. "However, the strength of the report is a double-edged sword for investors because a resilient economy will likely make the Fed confident that it can tighten monetary policy further." Meanwhile, Rick Rieder, BlackRock's chief investment officer of global fixed income, sees a potential shift in May's report. "The persistent headlines of major companies freezing hiring, or reducing staff are clearly indicative of a major change in forward business growth expectations," he says. "This is a watershed moment for the trajectory of payrolls and now directly places the spotlight on how deep this turn will be." Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. Speaking of reducing staff, Tesla ( TSLA , -9.2%) shares bombed after CEO Elon Musk said in an email Friday that he planned to cut 10% of the electric vehicle (EV) maker's roughly 100,000 jobs, citing a "super bad feeling" about the American economy. President Joe Biden, asked about Musk's take, countered by listing other automakers who were ramping up investments. "Well, let me tell you, while Elon Musk is talking about that, Ford ( F , -2.8%) is increasing their investment overwhelmingly," he said, adding that Stellantis ( STLA , -3.6%, formerly Chrysler) was also pouring more money into EVs. Story continues Also dragging the market lower was Amazon.com ( AMZN , -2.5%), which snapped a six-day, 20%-plus win streak – its best such run since early 2015. SEE MORE 12 Cheapest Small Towns in America The broader indexes spent Friday retching up much of yesterday's gains. The Nasdaq Composite retreated 2.5% to 12,012, the S&P 500 finished down 1.6% to 4,108 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 1.1% to 32,899. stock chart for 060322 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 was off by 0.8% to 1,883. U.S. crude futures jumped 1.7% to settle at $118.87 per barrel. Gold futures fell 1.1% to finish at $1,850.20 an ounce. Bitcoin joined in Friday's downturn, declining 2.4% to $29,539.64. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.) American Airlines ( AAL ) slumped 7.1% after the company updated guidance for several second-quarter metrics. While AAL said it expects revenue to be 11% to 13% higher than where it was in Q2 2019 – up from previous guidance of a 6% to 8% increase – it believes available seat miles in the second quarter, a measure of passenger carrying capacity, will be down 7% to 8% on a two-year basis, wider than its prior outlook for a decline of 6% to 8%. The air carrier also raised its average fuel cost estimate to a per-gallon range of $3.92 to $3.97 from $3.59 to $3.64. AAL dragged several other airline stocks lower today too, with Delta Air Lines ( DAL , -3.6%), Spirit Airlines ( SAVE , -1.8%) and United Airlines ( UAL , -2.9%) among those losing ground. CrowdStrike Holdings ( CRWD ) reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of 31 cents per share on revenue of $487.8 million, beating analysts' estimates for earnings of 23 cents per share and sales of $465.1 million. The cybersecurity firm also posted annual recurring revenue of $1.9 billion and free cash flow of $158 million – up 61% and 34% year-over-year, respectively. "Like its larger cybersecurity peers, CRWD argues that industry fundamentals are as strong as they've ever been," says UBS Global Research analyst Roger Boyd (Buy). "In addition, we see a market leading position, high degree of revenue visibility, strong balance sheet and cash flow generation as attributes that can help CRWD succeed in the current macro environment." Nonetheless, shares slid 6.9% today. Weather Worries by Setting It and Forgetting It The worry about 2022's slump is that you can't chalk it up to any one or two things – these losses truly are a team effort. SEE MORE Warren Buffett's Inflation Plan: Buy, Buy, Buy "Rising inflation, supply chain woes, labor market troubles, dwindling consumer spending, and the general downcast sentiment in the economy are having a combined negative impact," says Kunal Sawhney, CEO of Australian research firm Kalkine Group. Though he adds that unease over runaway inflation is "almost contagious" and that investors "are also increasingly concerned that Fed's monetary tightening could trigger a recession." As we've mentioned over the past couple of months, one of your best lines of defense is to position your portfolio to combat inflation. Stocks with exceptional pricing power , as well as investments that are either insulated or benefit from inflation , might be able to help investors ward off at least some continued stock-market losses. But another tack to take is to evaluate the market's best long-term, dividend-paying investments, buy them on the dip, slap on an eye mask and noise-canceling headphones, and let compounding do its thing until you retire – or, if you're already in retirement, let the dividend checks help finance your post-career life. OK, we jest: You shouldn't check out completely, but the point still stands that steady high-yield stocks like these 20 names can provide significant peace of mind when the market hits scary patches of turbulence. Kyle Woodley was long AMZN as of this writing. SEE MORE The 22 Best ETFs to Buy for a Prosperous 2022 You may also like The Myth of Passive Real Estate Investing Your Guide to Roth Conversions Why Are Gas Prices Still Going Up? [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 29832.91, 29906.66, 31370.67, 31155.48, 30214.36, 30112.00, 29083.80, 28360.81, 26762.65, 22487.39
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 2018-08-01] BTC Price: 7624.91, BTC RSI: 53.39 Gold Price: 1217.90, Gold RSI: 31.86 Oil Price: 67.66, Oil RSI: 43.28 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Why Altaba Inc. Shares Rose 10.1% Last Month: What happened Shares of Altaba (NASDAQ: AABA) gained 10.1% in May of 2018, according to data from S&P; Global Market Intelligence . As always, the focused investment fund moved in near-perfect lockstep with its largest holding, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) , whose shares rose 10.9% over the same period. So what As a reminder, Alibaba's May gains were based on a strong fourth-quarter report. The company crushed Wall Street's estimates across the board and outlined an ambitious plan for international growth in the long term. Since roughly 80% of Altaba's investment portfolio is locked into its Alibaba shares, Altaba simply rode Alibaba's coattails as usual. Alibaba's corporate logo, featuring a smiling genie. Altaba enjoyed a solid Alibaba report. Image source: Alibaba. Now what The company formerly known as Yahoo! has been holding on to an Alibaba portfolio that was created long before that company hit the public markets in 2014, never buying more shares or selling a single stub. That is changing in May, as Altaba launched a tender offer to unload as much as 25% of its Alibaba holdings. The company aims to maximize the return on Alibaba for its shareholders, eventually giving it all away in the form of dividends and share buybacks. Until that plan runs its course, Altaba remains an alternative method for investing in Alibaba on a fairly direct basis. If you like Alibaba's chances of beating the market, Altaba should look good, too. It gets even better if you expect the company to eventually find a way to sidestep the tax implications of its hugely successful Alibaba investment. So it's no surprise at all to see Altaba shares surging when Alibaba reported a great slate of fourth-quarter results. 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 Anders Bylund owns shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The Motley Fool recommends Altaba Inc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Could Spike to 113 Handle if US CPI Beats Estimate: The Dollar/Yen has been on a tear since holding support at 110.859 and breaking through three main tops at 111.140, 111.396 and 111.477. Besides the technical momentum, the Forex pair is also being driven by a bullish outlook for U.S. interest rates on the back of Wednesday’s better-than-expected U.S. Producer Price Inflation report. At 1200 GMT, theUSD/JPYis trading 112.507, up 0.509 or +0.45%. The current price action has put the Dollar/Yen in a position to challenge three other main tops at 113.381, 113.631 and 113.745. The catalyst behind a move into this area could be today’s U.S. Consumer Price Inflation report. To recap yesterday’s key event, U.S. producer prices increased slightly more than expected in June amid gains in the cost of services and motor vehicles, leading to the biggest annual increase in 6-1/2 years. According to the U.S. Labor Department, the producer price index for final demand climbed 0.3 percent last month also lifted by increases in gasoline prices. In the 12 months through June, the PPI advanced 3.4 percent, the largest gain since November 2011. Traders were looking for an increase of 0.2 percent and an annual gain of 3.2 percent. The Core PPI also rose 0.3 percent in May. Economists had forecast a gain of 0.2 percent. In the 12 months through June, the core PPI rose 2.7 percent. The Fed’s key weapon to avoid runaway inflation is its ability to raise interest rates as aggressively as it takes to prevent inflation from overheating the economy. The trick is to avoid raising too fast to kill economic growth. At this time, the market is pricing in at least two more rate hikes this year. Going into this week, there was some doubt about whether inflation was running hot enough to raise rates in both September and December. This doubt was raised on Friday, following the relatively tame Average Hourly Earnings portion of the U.S. Non-Farm Labor report. However, yesterday’s solid PPI report seems to have squashed those fears. This triggered the breakout in the USD/JPY. Today’s catalyst will be a report on U.S. consumer inflation, due to be released at 1230 GMT. The U.S. consumer inflation report could temporarily take market focus away from trade worries, particularly if it surprises to the upside like yesterday’s producer prices report. Traders are looking for both the headline Consumer Inflation Index and the Core Consumer Inflation Index to post a 0.2 percent increase. Beating this number will likely fuel another surge to the upside. A miss could trigger a huge correction back to support. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Bitcoin – Back in the Red as the Bears Tighten their Grip • Important CAD Pairs’ Technical Overview: 12.07.2018 • Crude Oil Price Update – Needs to Test $70.69 to $71.23 to Set-up Secondary Lower Top • Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Robust CPI Report Could Shift Focus Away from Trade Concerns • Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 12/07/18 • E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – July 12, 2018 Forecast || Pharma's 2 Biggest Setbacks in 2018: Developing new drugs is wildly expensive. Since 2007, for instance, the average cost of bringing a novel drug to market (a new molecular entity) has hovered around a jaw-dropping $3.9 billion, according to EvaluateGroup. When all drugs are thrown into the mix, however, this figure balloons to an unreal $5.5 billion. The point here is that it's extremely painful for big pharmas and blue-chip biotechs when their star clinical candidates flame out in late-stage testing, or suffer a serious regulatory setback. Even so, clinical and regulatory setbacks happen all the time in the pharma industry. Investors therefore need to have a solid understanding of how these setbacks impact valuations in the sector from both a short- and long-term perspective. With this theme in mind, here is a look at howAbbVie(NYSE: ABBV)andCelgene Corporation(NASDAQ: CELG)made the two most costly mistakes halfway through 2018 and why investors in these two elite biopharmas shouldn't necessarily panic over these blunders. Image Source: Getty Images. In June 2016, AbbVie doled out$5.8 billionto acquire Stemcentrx for its cancer stem-cell therapy called Rova-T (rovalpituzumab tesirine) as a possible game-changing treatment for small-cell lung cancer. Immediately thereafter, analysts chimed in to name Rova-T as one of the most valuable experimental therapies in the clinic at the time. EvaluateGroup, for example, had the therapy's peak sales coming in at a staggering $8.3 billion by 2023, which would have propelled it into the top five best-selling pharma products in the world. What a difference two years make. After postingdismal midstage trialresults for third-line small-cell lung cancer last March, AbbVie revealed at the recent American Society for Clinical Oncology meeting that Rova-T'songoing trialsare showing little sign of efficacy, and poor side-effect profiles to boot. The point being that Rova-T went from a shining star to a potential complete dud in a year's time. As a result, EvaluateGroup downgraded its outlook for the drug's peak sales to a mere $193 million by 2024. That's a stunning 98% drop from where the drug stood in terms of market value back in 2017. How did this setback impact AbbVie's valuation? Over the course of Jan. 1, 2017, to the day before Rova-T's midstage results were released in March 2018, AbbVie's shares were up by 80%. That kind of high-flying action is certainly unusual for a large-cap biotech stock, perhaps reflecting the market's enthusiasm for this key pipeline asset. In the intervening three-plus months since Rova-T's initial data release, however, AbbVie's shares have been extremely volatile, shedding nearly 7% of their value overall. That's not the end of the world, but AbbVie's upward momentum has certainly tapered off noticeably. Approximately three years ago, Celgene purchased Receptos for a noteworthy $7.2 billion for its experimental immunomodulatory drug ozanimod. At the time, the drug was already in human trials for both multiple sclerosis and ulcerative colitis; it had shown promise as a truly game-changing therapeutic option for these hard-to-treat conditions. Celgene thus rolled out a peak sales estimate for ozanimod of between$4 billion to $6 billionduring its initial press release announcing the acquisition. The take-home point here is that with this pricey acquisition, the blue-chip biotech appeared to have finally found its heir apparent to the aging multiple-myeloma drug Revlimid as its next flagship product. Then the wheels fell off. Despite strong late-stage trial data showing that ozanimod was indeed a potent new therapy for relapsing multiple sclerosis, Celgene reportedly allowed the skeleton crew remaining at the Receptos facility in California to handle the drug's regulatory application with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). At least that's what Celgene said after the drug got nailed with a refusal-to-file letter from the FDA for missing preclinical and clinical pharmacology data last February. Now the drug isn't scheduled to reach the market until perhaps late 2019. Why is this regulatory delay such a big deal? Analysts believe that this lengthy delay could allow the drug's competitors across its various indications to catch up from a development standpoint. If so, these same analysts think that ozanimod's commercial opportunity could be slashed by a stunning 56% from peak. That's seriously bad news, especially as the company searches for a way to keep growing beyond Revlimid's eventually date with the patent cliff. So it's not surprising that Celgene's shares dropped by as much as 25% from their 52-week highs in the months following this self-inflicted wound. Although investors were none too pleased with these setbacks, the good news is that both AbbVie and Celgene have vibrant pipelines capable of making up for lost ground. As proof, AbbVie and Celgene have the second and third most valuable clinical pipelines, respectively, across all of biopharma, according to EvaluateGroup. That's not surprising given that both companies have taken an exceptionally aggressive approach to pipeline development through external licensing deals, as well as mergers and acquisitions over the past few years. The net result is that the shares of both AbbVie and Celgene are arguably a great bargain here. AbbVie's top line is still forecast to rise at a healthy 4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years, despite losing exclusivity for its top-selling anti-inflammatory drug Humira and Rova-T's implosion. And Celgene is expected to perform even better over this same period with a stately 9% CAGR. Of course, these growth forecasts would have been richer if Rova-T and ozanimod didn't get derailed, but that doesn't mean the sky is falling, either. The bottom line is that AbbVie and Celgene prepared for the possibility of a serious setback by building out extremely robust pipelines capable of smoothing out the rough spots over the long term. Interesting enough, though, several other large biopharmas such asGlaxoSmithKlineandSanofihave failed to follow this same prudent course of action during the height of the patent cliff by relying way too heavily on a small set of experimental product candidates to deliver long-term growth. As such, their shares have drastically underperformed the broad biopharma space over the last decade. AbbVie and Celgene, on the other hand, apparently learned from the follies of their peers by building pipelines with multiple shots on goal, so to speak. And that's the kind of deep value that savvy investors should appreciate. 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 George Budwellhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Celgene and GlaxoSmithKline. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Bitcoin Thieves are Monitoring 2.3 Million Addresses Using a Clipboard Malware: Report: Bleeping Computer, a technical support site, has warned cryptocurrency users to double check addresses to which they send cryptocoins before effecting transactions as a way of safeguarding against a growing type of malware that is re-directing transactions. This comes after the site said over the weekend that malware runners aremonitoring more than 2 million crypto addresseswith a view to replace them with addresses they control. Interest in bitcoin and other cryptocoins usage has steadily grown over the past few years and according to surveys,more people are now aware of virtual currencies. Africa, Asia, and other regions have also shown strong interest in using cryptocurrencies. However, experts have been warning that the malware, CryptoCurrency Clipboard Hijackers, is phishing crypto addresses and replacing them with a new one which they control. All the cryptocoins transferred will go into an address controlled by the hackers. “This type of malware, called CryptoCurrency Clipboard Hijackers, works by monitoring the Windows clipboard for cryptocurrency addresses, and if one is detected,will swap it out with an address that they control,” Lawrence Abrahams, a computer forensics and creator of BleepingComputer wrote at the weekend. The publication adds it has noticed that the current crypto malware is monitoring as many as 2.3 million cryptocurrency addresses. These addresses could be at risk of being replaced by addresses controlled by the hackers. Bleeping Computer has cautioned that this type of malware “runs in the background with no indication that it is even running” hence it is “not easy to spot” that one’s computer would have been infected. “Therefore it is important to always have an updated antivirus solution installed to protect you from these types of threats. It is also very important that all cryptocurrency users to double-check any addresses that they are sending cryptocoins to before they actually send them,” cautions Abrahams, who is also a malware removal expert. He adds that the malware infection was this week as part of the All-Radio 4.27 Portable malware package distributed by BleepingComputer in the past week. “When installed, a DLL named d3dx11_31.dll will be downloaded to the Windows Temp folder and an autorun called “DirectX 11” will be created to run the DLL when a user logs into the computer.” Featured image from Shutterstock. The postBitcoin Thieves are Monitoring 2.3 Million Addresses Using a Clipboard Malware: Reportappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin king Mike Novogratz leads $52 million investment in crypto-lending startup: Thomson Reuters • Mike Novogratz has led a $52.5 million fundraise for crypto-lending startup BlockFi, the company announced Tuesday. • The firm will use the funds to expand its lending platform outside the US and to support more digital assets. • BlockFi allows crypto investors to borrow against their holdings. Mike Novogratz's merchant bank Galaxy Digital has led a $52.5 million fundraising round for crypto-lending startup BlockFi, the firm announced on Tuesday. The New York-based firm offers corporate and retail clients loans on their crypto holdings, with a loan book in the millions. Founded by former Cognical senior vice president Zac Prince, the firm has raised money in two rounds this year. In February, it raised $1.55 million fromConsenSys Ventures, SoFi, and Kenetic Capital,as CoinDesk previously reported. The most recent round comes as BlockFi eyes expansion in new states and international markets, and the addition of new products. It is also looking to support more cryptocurrencies. Potential new business opportunities are in fixed-income and debt investments, as well as lines of credit and a credit card, Prince told Business Insider. To that end, the firm has brought on former Bank of America managing director Rene van Kesteren, who ran a seven-person equity-structured financing business before joining BlockFi in May. Currently, BlockFi allows investors to take out a loan as high as $10 million using either bitcoin or ethereum as collateral. That lets investors retain ownership of their crypto and not miss out on the next potential price surge, but also have cash on hand to pay employees or go on a vacation, for instance. This marks the most recent investment for Novogratz's Galaxy, which has been pouring money into crypto firms at a fast clip. In June, Galaxy invested $35 million into virtual-reality firm High Fidelity, and$15 million in AlphaPoint, a New York firm building out a platform for tokenized assets. As Business Insider previously reported, Galaxy, which has businesses in asset-management, trading, and investing, has made a significant number of investments in the market for digital coins which have not yet been disclosed publicly. People familiar with the firm's operation said the principal-investment team has purchased stakes in high-volume initial coin offering projects and has a significant portfolio of early stage ventures. Novogratz notably made $250 million from cryptocurrency ether and now holds 10% of his entire net worth in digital assets. As for BlockFi, Novogratz said: "A robust lending market is the keystone for financial systems and BlockFi’s institutional approach and deep lending expertise were key drivers in our decision to partner with them." NOW WATCH:A Nobel Prize-winning economist says 'non-competes' are keeping wages down for all workers See Also: • 'Institutions are going to look for something like this': Crypto companies are working with the Big Four to get Wall Street to trust them • Some of bitcoin's biggest traders are teaming up to lure Wall Street money to crypto • Bitcoin may be down 45% this year, but money is pouring into one crypto fund manager at the fastest clip in its history || South Africa’s Secluded Whites-Only Orania Community is Testing a Digital Currency: Exclusively populated by Afrikaners, the town of Orania located in the remote parts of South Africa’s Northern Cape Province, has had its own currency known as the Ora since 2004. Pegged to the rand, the Orania Chamber of Commerce has been responsible for printing the community’s currency. Now the town of approximately 1,600 people is experimenting with a digital currency version of the Ora, the E-Ora, as a way of further solidifying their independence. Safe-Haven from Devaluation or Hyper-Inflation According to the Associated Press, the experiment began in January though the idea had been announced last year as CCN had reported . Per the Orania Chamber of Commerce chairman, Daniel Dames, the E-Ora will offer respite if the South African rand suffers from hyper-inflation or devaluation. As it is not a cryptocurrency in the mold of Bitcoin , for instance, the proponents of the E-Ora harbor the vision of ultimately pegging the digital currency to a hard currency. “If the rand became so weak that one were to decide to walk away from it, one could perhaps couple (the E-Ora) to something else, such as a basket of currencies out there. Or something inside Orania. Something comparable that has value,” Dames told the Associated Press. Work on the digital currency is however still ongoing. The Orania Chamber of Commerce met with various people engaged in the finalization of the eOra (Orania crypto currency) at the Orania Movement offices. Among them @Dawie_Roodt . pic.twitter.com/41sL9QkQBc — Orania – Afrikaner Homeland (@OraniaHomeland) July 11, 2018 According to some of the Orania community members who have been using the E-Ora, some of the advantages that the digital currency has offered include low transaction costs with some already using it to shop via their mobile phones. The digital currency also offers convenience since it makes it unnecessary to carry cash around. Story continues Cheaper to Produce Additionally, the E-Ora will eliminate the expenses of printing paper notes as well as reducing transaction costs. “It is basically electronic cash that will be moved from wallet to wallet with every transaction without the commercial banks standing in the middle. In this way friction and cost is removed from the transaction. Both consumers and retailers will save between three and five per cent per transaction,” Peter Krige, the coordinator of Orania’s digital currency initiative said last year when the plans were initially announced. During the testing phase of the E-Ora digital currency , the transaction costs have been averaging around 0.5%. The proponents of the Ora currency, and by extension the E-Ora, also argue that the digital currency will assist in preserving their Afrikaans culture. Nearing Three Decades of Existence Established by Carel Boshoff in 1991, Orania is situated on private land that measures 8,000 hectares. The community which regularly generates controversy over its lack of racial diversity has two schools and its own municipal services. Its economy is heavily reliant on tourism and agriculture and currently Orania’s own statistics suggest it enjoys an unemployment rate of 2% compared to a South Africa-wide rate of 26.7%. The post South Africa’s Secluded Whites-Only Orania Community is Testing a Digital Currency appeared first on CCN . || Coinbase Internal Probe Finds No Evidence Of Bitcoin Cash Insider Trading: A Coinbase internal investigation into alleged insider trading before it listed Bitcoin Cash has found no evidence to support the allegations. The exchange, which hired two law firms to carry out an in-house investigation of the accusations, has stated that no wrongdoing was found, and it will take no further action. Since December 2017, America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has been dogged by a series of accusations surrounding the events of December 20, when it surprised the market by announcing the listing of Bitcoin Cash. The trouble started when Bitcoin Cash prices suddenly spiked in a heavy and unprecedented manner, driven primarily by a surge in demand from south Korean buyers on December 20. The same day, Coinbase put out a surprise announcement revealing its decision to list Bitcoin Cash on its platform, despite having previously stated that it would not support the cryptocurrency until January 2018. Traders who bought BCH before the announcement saw their assets more than double in price in just a few minutes. Naturally it did not take long for industry players to begin insinuating that Coinbase knew something about the inexplicable BCH spike just before its announcement. Bitfury Vice Chairman George Kikvadze was one of such people. Coinbase immediately announced the launch of an internal investigation, promising to get to the bottom of the matter. To this end the company hired two “well known national law firms” to check whether any of its employees took part in such practises. Following months of investigation by the law firms, the all-clear comes as a boost to Coinbase, which stood to suffer a great amount of reputational damage as a result of the matter. The company is eager to point out that the probe completely cleared Coinbase employees of all insider trading allegations and recommended no further action. In a statement released toFortune,Coinbase said: “We would not hesitate to terminate an employee or contractor and/or take appropriate legal action if evidence showed our policies were violated. We can report that the voluntary, independent internal investigation has come to a close, and we have determined to take no disciplinary action.” The company however is not quite out of the woods yet. In March 2018, Arizona resident Jeffrey Berk filed a class action lawsuit alleging professional negligence on the part of Coinbase. The suit seeks a payout of at least $5 million to Berk and other investors like him. It also places attention on the so-called “Coinbase Effect” where a listing announcement for any digital asset on the exchange results in sharp price increases, such as with Ethereum Classic in June 2018. July 2017 – Coinbase announces that it will not support BCH and advises investors to redeem their funds. August 2017 – Coinbase announces partial support for BCH. December 20, 2017 – Bitcoin Cash records a sudden pricespikedue to a sharp and unexpected rise in demand from South Korea. December 20, 2017 – Coinbase makes a surprise announcement informing the market that it is listing Bitcoin Cash December 20, 2017 – Accusations ofinsider tradingbegin to surface as investors and observers smell a rat. December 20, 2017 – Coinbase announces that it has launched aninternal investigationinto insider trading accusations. March 2018 – Arizona resident Jeffrey Berkfilesa class action lawsuit against Coinbase in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking a payout of more than $5 million on allegations that Coinbase tipped off its employees about its decision to list Bitcoin Cash, enabling them to carry out insider trades ahead of the listing announcement. Featured image from Coinbase. The postCoinbase Internal Probe Finds No Evidence Of Bitcoin Cash Insider Tradingappeared first onCCN. || The Fed said it's hiking rates four times this year, but here's why the market's not convinced: • The Federal Reserve voted Wednesday to approve a rate increase and indicated two more are coming this year, bringing the total to four. • However, futures traders give the fourth hike just a little better than half a chance of happening. • The doubt is fueled over whether the U.S. growth path can continue and if the Fed will want to continue to tighten while its global counterparts remain loose. The Federal Reserve may have telegraphed a fourth interest rate hike this year, but markets didn't quite get the message. After the conclusion Wednesday of its two-day meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee, through the so-called dot plot of individual members' expectations, indicated that it would increase rates two more times before 2018 ends . That would come on top of the quarter-point rate increase the committee approved at the meeting, as well as one already enacted in March. While the more aggressive tilt normally would trigger a corresponding move in the fed funds futures market, where contracts for the central bank's benchmark rate are traded, the response was minimal. As of Friday afternoon, traders were implying just a 55 percent chance of a fourth hike in December — a little better than a coin flip and just 10 percentage points or so above the chances before the meeting and the surprise dot-plot change. There are multiple reasons why the market is not buying into a more hawkish Fed. Primarily, they center on the belief that the central bank will have limited room to move considering the dovish position of many of its global counterparts. There also are fears that a Fed that is too hawkish could invert the curve on government bond yields and signal a recession. "I was of the view that the Fed will and should only go twice. Based on the recent data, it looks like the third hike is hard to argue against," said Joe LaVorgna, chief economist for the Americas at Natixis. "I just don't see the Fed being able to go as much as they want given where the curve is and the dots are. If the Fed hikes four times this year, the curve is going to invert in December." "Maybe they ignore that, maybe it doesn't mean anything, but that would trouble me," he added. The rate increase came as Fed officials gave the economy high marks, though it took just one member to move his or her dot higher on the chart to tilt the median toward another hike. Chairman Jerome Powell said that while the Fed is "not ready to declare victory" on its price stability mandate, he added that growth looks strong and able to support the central bank's continued march back toward normalization. The committee kept its benchmark rate anchored near zero for seven years until beginning to hike in December 2015. Wednesday's move pushes the target range for the rate to 1.75 percent to 2 percent. "The economy has strengthened so much since I've joined the Fed," Powell told reporters at a post-meeting news conference. "Really, the decision you see today is another sign that the U.S. economy is in great shape, growth is strong, the labor market is strong, inflation is close to target. That's what you're seeing." Still, traders were moved only a little by Powell's optimism. Two more hikes would translate to a target funds rate of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent. But traders implied a 2.19 percent funds rate by December, which would get close to but fall short of the Fed's intentions. What will matter between now and then is data — how much more progress the economy makes toward a 2 percent inflation rate, and whether wage pressures will build that also would compel the Fed to act. On the other hand, continued unrest in emerging markets and signs that the U.S. bank is getting out of step with the pace of its global counterparts could give officials pause. Some economists believe the market's skepticism about a more aggressive Fed is ill-founded. "From the data we look at, there is every reason to believe the economy will more than justify the Fed's proposed trajectory for policy rates," Steve Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard, said in a note to clients. "The trajectory for higher policy rates is in place. The market's 'bet' against that happening is what looks wrong." After all, the U.S. is on the path to possible GDP growth of 4 percent or more in the second quarter that could last throughout the year. The Fed could justify tightening faster than other central banks simply on the grounds that the U.S. is growing much better than most other major developed economies. Still, Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets, said "client chats" are indicating that "doubts remain." "Chairman Jay Powell used the word 'great' to specifically describe the backdrop twice and he used 'strong' about a dozen times," Porcelli said in a note. "Any doubts about their conviction on the path they see this hiking cycle taking should be long extinguished." More From CNBC • Cramer Remix: The Qualcomm-NXP deal could signal what’s next for trade • Cramer: Bitcoin and PayPal are putting pressure on bank stocks • Economic conditions 'too good' for stocks: Market veteran Jim Paulsen || Why Huya Stock Took a Hit Monday: China-based game-streaming platform companyHuya(NYSE: HUYA)saw its stock pull back on Monday, falling as much as 14.6%. Shares finished the trading day down about 12.2%. The stock's decline comes amid a broader decline on Monday among Chinese internet stocks. Some investors were spooked whenThe Wall Street JournalsaidPresident Trump plans to stifle investment from Chinese businesses in U.S. technology companies and block technology exports to Beijing. TheJournalcited "people familiar with administration plans" as its sources for the story. Image source: Getty Images. While Huya doesn't market its online game-streaming platform in the U.S., macroeconomic factors resulting from a potential trade war could negatively impact business. Further, Huya listed its ability to "explore strategic investment, acquisition and overseas expansion opportunities" as one of its business strategies in its F-1 filing earlier this year. Trade tensions in the U.S. could make these initiatives more difficult. Huya stock has also beenon a rollsince its IPO earlier this year, making the stock more susceptible to a pullback. Even after today's decline, Huya stock is up about 100% since going public in May. If these new stipulations come to fruition, they may limit companies with 25% or greater Chinese ownership from buying U.S. companies the White House deems "industrially significant technology," said theJournal. These new rules could be announced by the end of the week, the sources said. 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 Daniel Sparkshas 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 General Electric, Puma Biotechnology, and Lennar Jumped Today: The stock market had a relatively calm session on Tuesday, bouncing back slightly after suffering substantial declines yesterday. Investors continue to worry about the threat of prolonged trade tensions across the globe, especially in light of recent U.S. policy, but a strong domestic economy seemed to make them a bit more comfortable with current events. Some individual companies also had good news that lifted their shares. General Electric (NYSE: GE) , Puma Biotechnology (NASDAQ: PBYI) , and Lennar (NYSE: LEN) were among the best performers on the day. Here's why they did so well. GE bids adieu to the Dow Shares of General Electric jumped 8% in a move that many would see as counterintuitive, because the industrial giant was taken out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average effective today . Yet the company also announced some major changes, including its decision to spin off its healthcare division and to sell its Baker Hughes oil services unit. CEO John Flannery has been under pressure to take aggressive action following ongoing struggles in some of the conglomerate's core businesses, and although today's moves might not be enough by themselves to be successful, GE shareholders at least see them as a step in the right direction. Worker on top of wind turbine with other turbines in the distance. Image source: General Electric. Puma takes a leap forward Puma Biotechnology stock soared 24% after the company said that European regulators look ready to grant approval for a key candidate treatment. Puma announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) under the European Medicines Agency recommended approval of Puma's marketing authorization application for neratinib, a treatment for early-stage breast cancer. The CHMP had initially announced a negative opinion at a formal meeting early this year, but the reversal indicates that it's likely that the body will approve neratinib in a final vote at its next meeting. Even with today's news, the stock is still down by about a third so far in 2018. Story continues Lennar builds higher Finally, shares of Lennar gained 5%. The homebuilder reported impressive results in its fiscal second quarter, including a nearly 80% rise in the dollar value of new home orders. Deliveries jumped by more than half from year-ago levels, and Lennar's backlog has more than doubled in dollar-value terms over the same period. Overall sales were up 67%. Executive chairman Stuart Miller explained that "concerns about rising interest rates and construction costs have been offset by low unemployment and increasing wages, combined with short supply based on years of underproduction of new homes." As long as those trends persist, Lennar should be able to keep growing, especially with a smart acquisition bearing fruit for the homebuilder. 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 . [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] In this group we all work together to pump up a coin and dump it when it hits our target. You will make a lot of money! Join us: https://twitter.com/pumpdumpBinance  | https://t.me/binancepumpdump01 … #crypto #cryptocurrency #Binance #Bitcoin #Etherneum #ETH #TRX #XRP #XLM #VEN 1806040000 || POT/BTC Volume Advance - PotCoin (POT) 24h volume advances above 30 day average - $POT $BTC #potcoin #blockchain #trading || el rufián Assange denuncia solo al "malvado imperio" pero NUNCA a Rusia junto al criminal global Vladimir Putin, China y sus prácticas mafiosas, ambos además junto a Assange están tras la creación del Bitcoin que ha servido para lavar MMUSD dinero del narcotráfico y la corrupción || 強きこいんたち〜[binance] BTC 842339円 7694ドル BCH 127873円 1168ドル ETH 67659円 618ドル 60.0分ごとにツイート || #BTC El precio del #Bitcoin es de $6100.00 https://ift.tt/2n2uQJR  || Is #bitcoin worth #mining? via @knowminfohttps://www.knowminfo.com/2018/06/is-bitcoin-mining-worth-it.html … || Ridgeways baptist has an ongoing fundraiser target is 50 million They accept Mpesa paybill donations And Standard chartered bank donations No bitcoin pic.twitter.com/ZGgCuqxmO0 || NTQ Airdrop 50 token ! #airdrop #bounty #BTC #NEO #ETH #freetoken #Crypto #xrp #Blockchain #ripple #trx #tron #trx #binance #NTQ #NTQnetworkhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd4sfGcodiKBw0Yzq1vSNZbJIbGdudL7s_uPpba4U5HSOHJoQ/viewform … || ABCC Exchange(QTUM) #airdrop http://bit.ly/2O1TPJe  1- Sign up and verify mail 2- Do missions #eth #btc #freetoken || ツイート数の多かった仮想通貨 1位 $BTC 446 Tweets 2位 $TRX 185 Tweets 3位 $ETH 100 Tweets 4位 $XRP 68 Tweets 5位 $EOS 43 Tweets 2018-06-05 09:00 ～ 2018-06-05 09:59 COINTREND いまTwitterで話題の仮想通貨を探せ！ https://cointrend.jp/ 
Trend: down || Prices: 7567.15, 7434.39, 7032.85, 7068.48, 6951.80, 6753.12, 6305.80, 6568.23, 6184.71, 6295.73
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 2017-08-21] BTC Price: 4001.74, BTC RSI: 62.79 Gold Price: 1290.80, Gold RSI: 66.06 Oil Price: 47.37, Oil RSI: 47.40 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] WALL STREET PAYDAY: Banks could reap $100 million from the Discovery-Scripps deal: Bourse traders pour champagne after the last trading day at Frankfurt's stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany December 30, 2015. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski (A huge deal for these six investment banks.Thomson Reuters) Several Wall Street banks are set to split a $100 million payday from the deal between cable channel operators Discovery Communications and Scripps Networks Interactive. Discovery, which owns channels like Animal Planet and Discovery Channel, said Monday it will pay $14.6 billion to acquire Scripps, adding HGTV, Travel Channel, and Food Network to its roster. Six banks — including boutiques Guggenheim Partners, Allen & Co., and Evercore — advised on the deal. Guggenheim and Goldman Sachs advised Discovery, and they'll split the vast majority of about $45 million in fees, according to Jeffrey Nassof, director of consulting firm Freeman & Co. UBS will take a small slice for advising Discovery shareholders — which include the Newhouse family , one of the richest in the world with a net worth of more than $18 billion, and billionaire telecom magnate John Malone. Scripps' bankers, Allen & Co. and JPMorgan, will split the lion's share of an estimated $55 million in advisory fees, Nassof said. Evercore will take a much smaller cut for advising the shareholders, primarily the Scripps family, which is also one of the wealthiest families on earth with a fortune north of $7 billion. NOW WATCH: TOP STRATEGIST: Bitcoin will soar to over $20,000 by cannibalizing gold More From Business Insider Goldman Sachs has a long list of 'investment priorities' for its struggling bond trading business Jefferies just hired a former Goldman Sachs partner for a big derivatives role UBS COO Axel Lehmann on fintech: Banking jobs 'will completely change' || The hottest trend in cryptocurrencies was just dealt a big blow: Servers for data storage are seen at Advania's Thor Data Center in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland August 7, 2015. REUTERS/Sigtryggur Ari/File Photo (Servers for data storage are seen at Advania's Thor Data Center in Hafnarfjordur, IcelandThomson Reuters) The hottest trend in cryptocurrency was just dealt a serious blow. On Monday, cryptocurrency trading startup CoinDash reported its site was hacked during an initial coin offering, according to reporting from Bloomberg's Alexandria Arnold . $1.2 billion has been raised by the new cryptocurrency-based capital raising method this year, according to Autonomous NEXT, a financial technology analytics firm . It is a trend that has sparked excitement across Wall Street. A number of startups have used ICOs to raise capital. Gnosis, a prediction market for digital currency Ethereum, raised $12 million in just 10 minutes in April. Brave, a new web browser startup set up by the founder of Mozilla, made that look pedestrian, raising $35 million in less than 30 seconds selling "Basic Attention Tokens" last month. But the hack, which redirected $7 million worth of ether, provides a reason for folks to be skeptical of the red-hot investment vehicle. "Investors had been instructed to pay with Ethereum and send funds to the token sale’s smart contact address. In an email, CoinDash said it appeared that the sending address was hacked and changed to a fraudulent address," Bloomberg's Arnold wrote. Wall Street skeptics were quick to cite the rapid appreciation of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether tokens as one reason initial coin offerings are a bad concept. David Rutter, a Wall Street vet who heads R3CEV, a fintech startup, previously told Business Insider: "There’s approximately 200 coins now. If you had an analyst look at it, this is a typical kind of bubble, in that folks that have made money in bitcoin are trying to parlay that into other kinds of cryptocurrencies and now they’re moving out of those." CoinDash, however, is resolute that it will overcome this hiccup. "This was a damaging event to both our contributors and our company but it is surely not the end of our project," the firm said in a statement. "We are looking into the security breach and will update you all as soon as possible about the findings." NOW WATCH: A $16B hedge fund CIO explains what it takes to work at a hedge fund today More From Business Insider Bitcoin is on a tear amid signs that its civil war is coming to an end ETHEREUM COFOUNDER: There is 'a ticking time bomb' in cryptocurrencies Startups are enjoying a goldrush selling digital coins online — but can you tell the real one from the fakes? View comments || Bitcoin Skyrockets, Race to First Cryptocurrency ETF Heats Up: Bitcoin soared to a new high above $4,300 today, rising more than 28% over the past week. The digital currency has now more than quadrupled in value from around $997 at the start of the year. $1 invested in bitcoin seven years ago is now worth over $1.4 million. Recent surge in bitcoin price resulted from strong investor demand from Japan as also some safe haven buying. Investors have also become increasingly bullish after the smooth split of the cryptocurrency into two. (Read: 4 ETF Ways to Hedge Against Volatility) Bitcoin’s gains this weekend appeared to be at the expense of other newer digital currencies. Below is the one-week price chart from coindesk.com: What is Bitcoin? Unlike traditional currencies, which are issued by central banks, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency. It trades 24/7 around the world without any involvement of central administrator or clearing agency. The market, which remains largely unregulated, is more like a peer-to-peer digital payment network. Creation and transactions in bitcoin are controlled through cryptography to keep transactions secure. And, while users remain anonymous, the record of these transactions is available on the bitcoin network. Bitcoin Becoming Mainstream? Bitcoin now has a market value exceeding $70 billion per coinmarketcap.com. Total value of all cryptocurrencies is more than $139 billion now. They are no longer fancy assets with few backers. In April, Japanese regulators announced rules for bitcoin, establishing it as a legitimate method of payment in the country. Per Goldman Sachs analysts, “whether or not you believe in the merit of investing in cryptocurrencies (you know who you are), real dollars are at work here and warrant watching.” Nvidia (NVDA)’s CEO said in a recent conference call, “cryptocurrency and blockchain is here to stay. The market need for it is going to grow, and over time it will become quite large.”  Nvidia and AMD (AMD) are among the main supplier of chips used for cryptocurrency mining. Story continues Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Bitcoin’s astronomical surge has raised bubble fears. Some are even comparing it to tulip mania. But unlike tulips, bitcoin has real value and is accepted by hundreds of thousands of merchants worldwide. One of the reasons behind the surge is bitcoin’s limited supply. According to the Economist, there are about 16.3 million bitcoin in circulation, with only 1,800 new ones minted every day. The currency’s total supply would be capped at 21 million units. (Read: Follow Gundlach with These ETF Strategies) On the other hand, demand has been rising due to geopolitical uncertainty. Many consider bitcoin a safe have asset like Gold. Due to its low correlation with other asset classes, it also acts as a portfolio diversifier. It is difficult to arrive at a fair value for the bitcoin. I read about a model in FT that is based on the presumption that bitcoin’s core utility value is serving as a currency for the dark economy. The model found the cryptocurrency to be grossly overvalued. Standpoint's Ronnie Moas raised his price target on bitcoin to $7,500 today as he told CNBC, "I believe there are hedge funds and very deep-pocketed individuals going into this now, really hundreds of millions of dollars." Another bitcoin bull Max Keiser predicts $5,000 would be the next target, driven by panic buying by the world’s affluent with “rising war tensions and central bank malfeasance.” If bitcoin’s surge looks excessive, consider this—bitcoin’s closest rival ethereum is up more than 3,400% this year. (Read: Ethereum ETF? The Bitcoin Crushing Digital Currency Explained) Bitcoin ETFs Under SEC Review The race to the first digital currency ETF is heating up. VanEck Vectors recently filed for an actively managed “Bitcoin Strategy ETF” which will invest in exchange-traded bitcoin-linked derivative instruments and other investment vehicles that provide exposure to bitcoin. Earlier this year, the SEC had rejected the ETF proposed by Winklevoss twins but they are now reviewing the decision again. Another bitcoin ETF, proposed by SolidX Management, was also rejected in March. The third one proposed by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) is being reviewed. (Read: 5 Smart Beta ETFs with Brilliant Returns) Bitcoin derivatives are likely to be available to investors much sooner. CBOE plans to launch bitcoin futures in the fourth quarter of 2017 or early 2018, pending regulatory approval. Last month, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved digital currency-trading platform LedgerX to clear bitcoin options. The exchange plans to launch bitcoin options in early fall, and ethereum options within a few months, per CNBC. Zacks' 10-Minute Stock-Picking Secret Since 1988, the Zacks system has more than doubled the S&P 500 with an average gain of +25% per year. With compounding, rebalancing, and exclusive of fees, it can turn thousands into millions of dollars. But here's something even more remarkable: You can master this proven system without going to a single class or seminar. And then you can apply it to your portfolio in as little as 10 minutes a month. Learn the secret >> 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 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis Report GOLD (LONDON P (GLD): ETF Research Reports NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report 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 || Bitcoin Market Cap Reaches 70$ Billion, Now Worth More Than Paypal: The price of bitcoin has gone parabolic in the past few weeks, creating and smashing countless new all-time highs along the way. Mainstream media has been heavily coveringthe break above $4,000, most of the articles and corresponding coverage has been highly bullish. The total crypto currency market cap has ballooned to$140 billion, withbitcoin now conferring to a larger chunk of that pie at $70 billion(more than 50% at the time of writing). The remainder is split up betweenethereumat $28 billion,ripplewhich is holding at $6.5 billion,bitcoin cashat a valuation that is slightly below $5 billion, as well as other alternative crypto currencies and assets. In the meantime, segwit has locked in and has entered itsactivation period. Completion is expected by August 22, if the existing momentum and speed in block generation stays constant. Interestingly, bitcoin is as of this moment, worth more thanPaypal, at least when it comes to market capitalization. Startups in the fintech industry are rapidly taking away business from the ageing banking sector. Disruptions of the old paradigms are rampant, proving that innovation and flexibility may be needed, if the exhausted banking giants and conglomerates are to survive. Exotic predictions are plentiful as well, and certain social media figures are citing the top of this run-upat $5,000, with some even stating $10,000 as a reasonable target. History is being revisited due to the unfolding events, comparisons are being drawn to thedot-com bubble, and the 2008 pre-crash periodtoo. There are other numerous examples that could serve as a cautionary reminder; Silver Thursday comes to mind, as does the infamoustulip mania. Bitcoin was trading at $4068 at the time of the report after reaching all time high of $4430. This post was originally published byEarnForex Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • All the Reasons why Bitcoin Price Breaks Above $4000, What’s Next? • Bitcoin Market Cap Reaches 70$ Billion, Now Worth More Than Paypal • Wall Street Showing Signs of Building Momentum, US Futures Up as N-Korea Tensions Ease • Weak Inflation Will Likely Keep the BoE at Bay • U.K. Inflation Holds Steady, Eyes on U.S. Retail Sales • RBA Minutes, German GDP, UK Inflation and U.S Retail Sales. It’s All Go || Fidelity allows clients to see digital currencies on its website: By Anna Irrera NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fidelity Investments has started allowing clients to use its website to view their holdings of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies held through digital wallet provider Coinbase, the company said on Wednesday. The initiative, previously tested with the Boston-based money manager's employees, is a rare example of an established financial services company warming up to cryptocurrencies. Starting Wednesday, most Fidelity clients will be able to authorize Coinbase, one of the largest crypto-currency exchanges in the United States, to provide the fund manager with data on their holdings. Through the experiment, the company said it aims to learn more about digital currencies, which have been proliferating since the creation of Bitcoin, the oldest and most valuable of these assets. Coinbase enables users to buy and trade Bitcoin as well as competitor virtual currencies Ethereum and Litecoin. "This is an experiment in the spirit of learning what these crypto assets are like and how our customers may want to interact with them," Hadley Stern, senior vice president and managing director at Fidelity Labs, the company's innovation unit, said in an interview. Bitcoin hit a record high on Tuesday, with one unit of bitcoin trading at above $3,400 on Coinbase. The currency's rise in value is not a driving force behind the initiative, Stern said, noting that the integration is part of Fidelity's wider efforts around cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology blockchain. Many large financial institutions around the world have been investing in blockchain over the past two years, in the hopes that it can help them slash costs and simplify some processes. Blockchain is a shared ledger of transactions maintained by a network of computers on the internet rather than a central authority. However, most established financial firms have shied away from associating themselves with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, because the sector remains largely unregulated. Fidelity's Chief Executive Officer Abigail Johnson announced the company's intention to launch the Coinbase integration at an industry conference in May. At the time Johnson also revealed that Fidelity had been accepting bitcoin payments in its cafeteria, but said the experiment had highlighted the technology's flaws as a means of payments. "But I am still a believer – and it's no accident that I'm one of the few standing before you today from a large financial services firm that hasn't given up on digital currencies," Johnson said at the time. (This version of the story has been refiled to remove "Inc" from Fidelity Inc's name) (Reporting by Anna Irrera; Editing by David Gregorio) || Here's how Silicon Valley is responding to the Charlottesville rally, and Trump's comments on it: A Virginia rally instigated by white nationalists over the weekend has escalated tensions between President Donald Trump and the business community . Many critics have perceived Trump's responses to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, as equivocating the actions of white supremacists with those protesting racism. The discord in Washington came amid a growing divide between the administration and Silicon Valley, which have clashed over issues like the environment, immigration and LGBTQ rights. Although tech CEOs did not have the same formal ties to business advisory councils at the White House, many spoke out on the issue this week. Notably, though, some also stayed silent. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) declined to comment to CNBC earlier this week, and Trump ally and venture capitalist Peter Thiel has also not responded to requests for comment. But still, Silicon Valley has overwhelmingly spoken out against both Trump's comments and the racist instigators. Here's what's happened so far: Apple Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Tim Cook responded on Twitter as the events unfolded in Charlottesville, writing that "violence and racism have no place in America," and that the events were an "affront to America." In an internal memo obtained by Recode on Wednesday, Cook announced the company would donate $1 million each to both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, and would also match employee donations until Sept. 30. "Hate is a cancer, and left unchecked it destroys everything in its path. Its scars last generations," Cook reportedly wrote. Apple also plans to set up donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center through iTunes, the memo said, and the tech giant has started to disable Apple Pay payments to white nationalist websites, the company told BuzzFeed News . Facebook It was not Mark Zuckerberg , but Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) 's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg , who first responded to the events in Charlottesville. In a Monday Facebook post, Sandberg wrote that she was heartbroken, and called for her followers to teach their children values like equality and compassion. Story continues Zuckerberg shared more details on Wednesday, writing that he had a hard time processing the events of the past few days. "I know a lot of us have been asking where this hate comes from. As a Jew, it's something I've wondered much of my life," Zuckerberg wrote. "It's a disgrace that we still need to say that neo-Nazis and white supremacists are wrong — as if this is somehow not obvious. My thoughts are with the victims of hate around the world, and everyone who has the courage to stand up to it every day." Facebook is actively monitoring for threatening posts celebrating terrorism after the rally in Charlottesville, Zuckerberg said. The company is perfecting a system for taking the posts down as soon as possible. IBM IBM (NYSE: IBM) CEO Ginni Rometty was one of three female executives that initiated a process that dissolved White House business advisory panels, sources told CNBC . In an internal memo obtained by CNBC on Wednesday, Rometty wrote: "The despicable conduct of hate groups in Charlottesville last weekend, and the violence and death that resulted from it, shows yet again that our nation needs to focus on unity, inclusion, and tolerance. ... And we have always believed that dialogue is critical to progress; that is why I joined the President's Forum earlier this year. But this group can no longer serve the purpose for which it was formed." Intel Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich was one of the first major technology CEOs to defect from White House advisory panels after the events in Charlottesville. On Monday, Krzanich wrote , "I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them. We should honor – not attack – those who have stood up for equality and other cherished American values. I hope this will change, and I remain willing to serve when it does." Uber Then-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had already made his disagreements with President Trump known earlier this year, when he stepped down from a White House council over the administration's immigration proposals. Uber banned several riders on their way to white supremacy rallies over the weekend, telling BuzzFeed News that the event was "deeply disturbing and tragic." In a letter to drivers obtained by The New York Times on Thursday, the company said it would continue to uphold the policy of banning people from the app for discrimination, and that Uber's app would have around-the-clock support. Google (and Dreamhost, GoDaddy, and Cloudflare) Google was one of the several companies to cancel the registration of a Nazi website called Daily Stormer this week. "We are canceling Daily Stormer's registration with Google Domains for violating our terms of service," a company representative said in a statement to CNBC. "The recent events in Charlottesville shocked all of us," Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a statement on social media. "There is simply no place for this type of extremism in America. As a company, we stand united in condemnation." GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving also told CNBC that the company nixed the Daily Stormer, saying the site "went too far." "We always have to ride the fence on top of making sure that we are protecting a free and open internet, and regardless of whether speech is hateful, bigoted, racist, ignorant, tasteless, in many cases we will still keep that content up, because we don't want to be a censor," Irving said. "But when a line gets crossed and that speech starts to incite violence, then we have a responsibility to take that down." Cloudflare was another hosting service that ended up with the Daily Stormer domain. CEO Matthew Prince wrote an email to employees on Wednesday saying, "I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the internet," according to Reuters . DreamHost, on the other hand, faced a different issue this week: The Department of Justice sent DreamHost a search warrant for data that contain IP addresses and email addresses of people who have visited the website disruptj20.org , the activist group that protested Trump's inauguration. DreamHost said it would not comply . Corning Corning CEO Wendell Weeks also stepped down from a Trump council Wednesday afternoon, citing adherence to the values of the company, which supplies parts to companies like Apple. "[T]he events of the last few days have transformed the council's laudable mission of job creation into a perception of political support for the Administration and its statements. This runs counter to my original intention and is inconsistent with Corning's Values. As a result I have made the decision to step down from the council," Weeks said in a statement to CNBC . Airbnb and PayPal PayPal has been working with online racial justice organization Color of Change to cut off funding for hate groups. Ahead of the rally, Airbnb barred housing rentals to people it believed were traveling to participate. "Prejudice, however, does not always march in the street," PayPal Senior Vice President Franz Paasche wrote in a statement . "Intolerance can take on a range of on-line and off-line forms, across a wide array of content and language. It is with this backdrop that PayPal strives to navigate the balance between freedom of expression and open dialogue — and the limiting and closing of sites that accept payments or raise funds to promote hate, violence and intolerance." Reddit and Twitter Both sites are also reportedly suspending accounts and content that incite violence. Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey retweeted former Vice President Joe Biden, who wrote "There is only one side," as well as former President Barack Obama, whose tweet, featuring a Nelson Mandela quote and picture, became the most popular tweet ever. Cisco "The country needed uniting words, words that would bring the country together around what happened this weekend," Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) CEO Chuck Robbins told CNBC on Thursday . "And I don't think we got those words ... from him. And I think that's what we need to focus on." — The Associated Press and CNBC's Patti Domm, Dominic Chu, Jordan Novet and Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report. WATCH: One of Trump's top CEO councils disbands More From CNBC Apple and Aetna met last week—here's what they talked about Bitcoin hits record and its market value now tops big tech companies Alphabet's investment arms are growing, giving it clout over tech start-up scene || Most banks expect legal bills to fall — except Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo (WFC) has had a rocky 11 months. First, news broke that the third largest bank by assets had beencreating millions of accounts without customers’ permission, resulting in $185 million in fines. But that’s not all. The bank has been hounded by more scandals involvingmortgagesandoverdraft charges. Just this month, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), began looking into whether the bank duped borrowersinto buying expensive car insurance. All of this has opened the San Francisco-based bank up to some serious litigation risks, and the bank has continuously had to update how much it may have to pony up to square things with consumers it has wronged. There are many legal balls in the air, and many of them are class-actions. A class-action suit regarding the fake accounts is in the process of being settled; a judge granted preliminary approval to a$142 millionsettlement of that case in July. A proposed class-actionaccusing the bank of “racketeering violations and fraud”was filed recently after the bank admitted to providing unnecessary auto insurance.Multiple lawsuitsare ongoing in regards to unauthorized changes to mortgages. And on Friday, Wells Fargo was hit witha proposed class-action lawsuitalleging the bank’s merchant services overcharged for credit-card processing, thus ripping off small businesses. According to Moody’s, Wells Fargo’s revisions of possible losses from litigation come at a time when “most other banks’ reasonably possible litigation losses are declining.” Wells Fargo is doing very well financially, postingreasonably strong earnings, so the effects of these potential losses may not be a particularly material factor for the health of the company. But compared to other banks, Wells Fargo’s potential legal liabilities in the past two years are stark as the chart from Moody’s shows above. While Wells Fargo’s upper bound of possible legal losses shot up 150%, they went down between 25% and 50% for Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Citigroup (C).Banks have been paying for the way they made, marketed and sold residential mortgage-backed securities ahead of the financial crisis. That litigation is finally starting to wind down. Because of all this legal exposure, it’s not a surprise that the bankis looking closelyat the CFPB’s new arbitration rule that bans banks from forcing arbitration instead of allowing consumers to band together in a class-action suit, which is more costly for the companies. The rule has been challenged by Congress and the House voted to repeal it. Ethan Wolff-Mannis a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter@ewolffmann. Got a tip? Send it totips@yahoo-inc.com. Read More: What Bitcoin needs to do to become real currency Trump weighs slashing one of the most popular tax deductions Big banks are going after Venmo and Venmo is winning 73% of Android users are less likely to switch to iPhone due to headphone jack ‘Market FOMO’ has millennials putting cash into the stock market Sometimes fake holidays like ‘National Ice Cream Day’ actually work A robot lawyer can fight your parking tickets and much more Consumer watchdog is making it easier for consumers to sue banks How ringless spam voicemails became a partisan issue || GOLDMAN SACHS: It looks like demand for Teslas has peaked: Tesla Model 3 (Goldman Sachs said Tesla was likely to miss its production targets for the $35,000 Model 3.AP Photo/Justin Pritchard) Demand for Tesla's Model S sedan and its Model X SUV appears to have peaked, Goldman Sachs analysts said as they downgraded their outlook for the company. Tesla on Monday said it delivered 22,000 vehicles in the second quarter, fewer than analysts including Goldman's David Tamberrino had expected. Deliveries slowed from a record of 25,000 cars in the first quarter amid issues with the largest battery pack for Tesla's electric cars. "We believe the excess production above deliveries, the discontinued 'order rate' metrics, and the company’s 2H17 guidance (Model S and Model X deliveries to likely exceed) in combination with the past four quarters of delivery results point to a plateauing of demand for its current products," Tamberrino and his colleagues wrote in a note released Wednesday. Goldman slightly reduced its forecast for vehicle deliveries this year and forecast "moderate growth" from 2018 through 2021: a 5% compound annual growth rate versus 13% prior. It lowered its six-month target price on the stock to $180 from $190, implying a 49% decline from Monday's closing price of $352.62. Tesla shares were down by about 1.5% in premarket trading on Wednesday. Tesla is preparing for the first deliveries of its Model 3 vehicles on July 28. Tamberrino forecast that the company would miss its production targets for the $35,000 sedan in the second half of the year. Though the Model 3 is going out two months earlier than Goldman had forecast, Tamberrino remained cautious since Tesla has historically missed delivery and production targets. "We still harbor supply chain concerns and believe a more prudent curve is warranted given historical operational execution," he said. NOW WATCH: An economist explains the key issues that Trump needs to address to boost the economy More From Business Insider One of the best tech upgrades I've made to my car cost me less than $30 The best Amazon Prime Day deals members can get starting today GOLDMAN SACHS: Bitcoin could see a big drop then surge to almost $4,000 || Barron's Picks And Pans: Bristol-Myers, Texas Instruments, Altaba And More: "Bristol-Myers Could Return 40% in Two to Three Years" by Vito J. Racanelli points out that Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (NYSE: BMY ) may not be a high-flying tech stock, but it is a leader in high-tech cancer treatments. Though the drugmaker has taken a beating after a disappointing lung-cancer trial and a related setback involving its Opdivo, see how patient investors could be rewarded. In "Texas Instruments' Analog Advantage Could Reward Investors," Lawrence C. Strauss suggests that shrewd moves have made Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ: TXN ) a giant in embedded processors and analog chips, with strong margins and a dominant market position. Find out why Barron's believes shareholders could see 10-percent annual returns for years. Jack Hough's "A Surge of Dealmaking Ahead for Cable, Wireless" makes the case that as cable and wireless operators contemplate joining forces, plenty of opportunity lurks for investors. The article includes possible takeover targets such as Frontier Communications Corp (NASDAQ: FTR ) and Sprint Corp (NYSE: S ), and check out who else is in the mix as well. See also: Benzinga's Bulls And Bears For The Past Week: Delta Air Lines, Buffalo Wild Wings And More Since taking up the reins in 1990, the Mendelson family has found a runway to riches with Heico Corp (NYSE: HEI ), a maker of replacement aircraft parts, according to "A Niche Business With Extraordinary Returns" by money manager Adam Seessel. See why the stock of one of the best companies investors probably have never heard of could climb sharply going forward. In Andrew Bary's "As Altaba Winds Down Yahoo!'s Holdings, Shares May Post 20% Gain," find out why Altaba Inc (NASDAQ: AABA ), which is what remains of Yahoo after the sale of its internet business to Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ ) in June, still offers a lot of ways for investors to win, according to a key research analyst. For instance, the stock trades at a significant discount to its net asset value. Also In This Week's Barron's How to invest in Bitcoin. A skeptic's view of popular stocks. Fed Chair Janet Yellen's prediction of no more financial crises. The path back to normal for central banks. Chip insurgents gaining on Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC ). How to play Latin America's stealth rally. Whether to be wary of "too clever" ETFs. Bank payouts that are set to rise. Why U.S. jobs data are not fake news. See more from Benzinga What Do Short Sellers Know About Home Depot? Benzinga's Bulls & Bears For The Past Week: Netflix, AMD, Colgate And More © 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || Is the Dollar Ready for a Tumble?: One does have to wonder whether the next 3 plus years are going to be anything like the last 8 months, with the U.S administration seemingly more capable of dictating the direction of the Dollar than the FED. Economic data out of the U.S this week hasn’t been too bad, with the weekly jobless claims figures out yesterday having been Dollar positive, while industrial production and manufacturing activity softened in Philly. The markets should be getting to the point where there is less sensitivity to noise from Capitol Hill, but judging by the moves in the Dollar this week, the Trump era has certainly yet to be completely priced out and there may be more to come for the Dollar and the markets as the investigations develop and Trump continues to chop and change members of the administration, not to mention speak. At the end of the day, there has been very little delivered by the administration for there to be any concerns over who comes and goes. Perhaps it should be Dollar positive for the existing members of the administration to be replaced by new… Its food for thought and when considering how little time has passed since Trump’s inauguration, one does need to ponder on how things will be in even a year from now. It’s hard to recall a U.S administration having such a damming impact on the Dollar, but they wanted a weaker Dollar and they got it. On the macroeconomic data front, it’s a much quieter day, with stats out of the U.S limited to prelim August consumer sentiment figures, which are forecasted to be Dollar positive. The survey will have been completed after Trump’s latest failings over Charlottesville and the mass walk out of CEOs this week from his two business councils. So it could well be downhill after this, though looking at how consumer confidence has fared through the year, it’s been pretty resilient despite the administration failing to deliver on growth policies pledged during and after the Presidential Election campaign. Perhaps of more interest will be how the EUR performs in the coming days, having slumped back to sub-$1.17 levels before a partial recovery. The ECB has certainly done a stellar job in pegging the EUR back from $1.19 levels, but with the economic outlook for the Eurozone on a more positive footing than that of the U.S and with geo-political risk having abated in the Eurozone, in stark contrast to the U.S, it’s hard to imagine the EUR easing any further. There’s very little else for the markets to deal with through the day, so on merit, it would be the Dollar that should be on the weaker footing at the end of the week. At the time of the report, the Dollar Spot Index was down 0.19% at 93.442, with both the EUR and the Pound on the bounce, gaining 0.26% and 0.21% respectively. It is a reflection of just how bad market sentiment is towards the U.S administration that even the Pound is able to make ground, despite a weakening economy and the uncertainty over Brexit and what looms. While we do expect the Dollar to remain under pressure, there will also be some support, particularly when considering current levels, though it’s anyone’s guess what comes next from the Oval Office. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • All the Reasons why Bitcoin Price Breaks Above $4000, What’s Next? • Is the Dollar Ready for a Tumble? • Morning Market Updates – EUR/USD • Gold Looking for Breakout • U.S. Dollar Rattled by Political Rumors, Geopolitical Risks, Fed Policy • Market Snapshot – Stock Market Rally Hits a Roadblock [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Aynı yolda durmadan devam abi, yedirmeyiz. || @cnnbrk Historic Bitcoin minicrash without liquidity down full monitoring of currency . Prevent money laundering a move 600to 2000 || 13:00~14:00のBitcoin市場は上昇だったみたいだね。 変化率は0.8928% 15:00までは反騰かな? 直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は288760.0円 #ビットコイン #bitcoin #AI || Aug 01, 2017 22:30:00 UTC | 2,726.50$ | 2,309.50€ | 2,064.10£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/8v1VC1ohZm || なんか賑やかだと思ったらBTCが噴いてんのか(´･ω･｀) || $4101.02 at 21:30 UTC [24h Range: $3800.00 - $4400.00 Volume: 25576 BTC] || #BitConnect: #opensource #bitcoin & #crypto #community; designed 4 #investing https://briandcolwell.com/2017/07/bitconnect-a-self-regulated-financial-system-connecting-bitcoiners-worldwide/.html … #fintech #crypto #iot #socialmedia || 2017-07-30 16:00~17:00のBitcoin市場は反騰でした。 変化率は0.6814% 18:00までは反落かな? 直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は297816.0円 #ビットコイン #bitcoin #AI || #Forex #Brokers Accepting #Bitcoin for Deposits or Withdrawal http://ift.tt/2vuo19l pic.twitter.com/VAI0P9OoVj || Average Bitcoin market price is: USD 2,564.00, EUR 2,273.64
Trend: up || Prices: 4100.52, 4151.52, 4334.68, 4371.60, 4352.40, 4382.88, 4382.66, 4579.02, 4565.30, 4703.39
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 2018-08-31] BTC Price: 7037.58, BTC RSI: 57.10 Gold Price: 1200.30, Gold RSI: 45.68 Oil Price: 69.80, Oil RSI: 57.62 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Opinion: Science’s Acute Replicability Issue and the Crypto Antidote: It may come as a shock to some, but scientific pronouncements aren’t nearly as trustworthy as they seem. Consider the tale of saturated fat. Until about the middle of the 20th century, the Western world was largely unconcerned about the effects of saturated fat on health. Fatty fish, butter, and eggs were seen as components of a healthy diet. However, studies funded by the vegetable oil lobby in the US started declaring saturated fat as a killer; the root of most heart disease. This idea persisted for another 50 years and persists in some places to this day, despite the fact that the vast majority of medical researchers now believe the whole theory was worthless and in fact saturated fat has been proven good for your health. There were 2 causes for this failure of science. First of all, the initial research projects were funded by a lobby group with a vested interest in portraying saturated fat as unhealthy. But secondly, there was a lot of genuine mistakes and error-strewn conclusions drawn by honest researchers. This was in part because of the lack of efforts to replicate study findings to make them more robust. Put simply, the scientific ideas weren’t tested rigorously or openly enough. And what is exciting right now is that crypto technology is playing a part in making sure this doesn’t happen again. And that’s about time, since it is becoming more and more clear thatthis problem is decaying the very foundations of what we thought we knew to be true. It has long been known how observational anomalies can happen in science and important it is to test and retest any findings. This goes to the core of the philosophy of science, as explained by two of the great scientific philosophers, Karl Popper and Ronald Fisher: “Only when certain events recur in accordance with rules or regularities, as in the case of repeatable experiments, can our observations be tested—in principle—by anyone.… Only by such repetition can we convince ourselves that we are not dealing with a mere isolated ‘coincidence,’ but with events which, on account of their regularity and reproducibility, are in principle inter-subjectively testable.” “Non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science.” Karl Popper (1959) “The logic of scientific discovery” “We may say that a phenomenon is experimentally demonstrable when we know how to conduct an experiment which will rarely fail to give us statistically significant results.” Ronald Fisher (1935) “The Design of Experiments” Thus, that which is not reproducible is not useful in scientific advancement. And as we saw with the saturated fat example, scientists often have a reason to generalise from a narrow observation and create flimsy new laws of science. The answer to this problem is obviously clear; the more replication of an experiment the more trustworthy any findings become. The advances of crypto technology enable decentralised verification of information on a massive scale in an efficient way. This is ideally suited to researchers declaring their premises, data samples, and analysis available for replication and double checking. Now researchers that are collaborating with others or investigating results of other researchers can easily parse the data that went through the whole process. More importantly, the immutable nature of ledger technology ensures that researchers do not move the goalposts to suit their results. The more interesting aspects of this challenge are being tackled by a specific crypto paradigm that uses Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) which are like blockchains but more amenable to large and complex datasets. Companies like CyberVein are making it possible to efficiently record large datasets on a ledger easily. And with minimal fees. The way CyberVein have designed their platform to allow this is by using DAGs(which work like blockchains but don’t require all nodes to carry and confirm a full copy of the entire transaction history as happens with the Bitcoin blockchain) and also a different consensus model known as Proof-of-Contribution (PoC, which is more efficient than the more common Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake mechanisms). As explained by their spokesman: “On CyberVein, nodes are only required to store data shards relevant to their own transaction history and the smart contracts they are parties of. With this approach CyberVein is able to store entire databases as smart contracts which are permissioned to their owners and participants, without congesting the rest of the ledger.” In practice, this means that users of CyberVein will be able to record experimental data directly onto their DAG database. This can then be used again towards other research works (making citation easier, or even actual reuse of the data for different analysis) and also for easier peer review in which the reviewers have decentralised access to the relevant data. With these leaps forward in collective computing, new solutions are being found every day. Science has a replicability crisis at the moment, but it looks like another branch of science could be coming to the rescue. Featured image from Shutterstock. The postOpinion: Science’s Acute Replicability Issue and the Crypto Antidoteappeared first onCCN. || Crypto Market Cap Down to $295 Billion, Short-Term Drop For Bitcoin Price Expected: bitcoin price Over the past 24 hours, the valuation of the crypto market has dropped slightly from $300 billion to $295 billion, as the bitcoin price declined from $8,300 to $8,150. Tokens including Aelf (ELF), Holo (HOT), Zilliqa (ZIL), Binance Coin (BNB), and 0x (ZRX), which performed well against both bitcoin and the U.S. dollar last week, dropped substantially by nearly 10 percent. The dominance index of bitcoin, which evaluates the dominance of bitcoin over the entire cryptocurrency market, has increased to 47.5 percent, its highest level since early January when the price of BTC hovered at around $19,500. Short-Term Fall Expected While the volume of bitcoin remains relatively strong in the $4 billion region, it has dropped by a large margin since its peak at $5.5 billion last week. BTC was able to sustain momentum in the $8,300 region for six straight days excluding a brief period on July 27 that led the price to fall by 6 percent temporarily, but has struggled to initiate movements on the upside. The weekly candle of BTC closed as a buy candle on July 30, demonstrating a positive mid-term investment opportunity. bitcoin price However, if BTC fails to maintain its volume and falls below the $8,100 mark, it is possible for BTC to test a major support level at $8,000 and eye a drop below the $8,000 mark. If BTC finds stability in the lower end of the $8,000 region, a short-term bottom will likely be found at $8,000, with expected recovery to $8,500. Despite the stability in the price of BTC throughout the past week, tokens have struggled to find any sort of momentum at the current price level and have continued to fall against both BTC and the US dollar. If BTC falls below the $8,100 mark in the next few hours, tokens are expected to demonstrate a larger decline in value, especially if the volume of the crypto market worsens. Many tokens like ICON (ICX), ZRX, ELF, BNB, and ZIL, which are highly anticipated cryptocurrencies with fairly active development communities, experienced five- to 15-fold increase in their value subsequent to their token sales in early 2018. Since then, the value of these tokens has fallen by around 70 percent against BTC and over 90 percent against the US dollar. Story continues ETF Over Exaggerated? Earlier this week, Tabb Group reported that the over-the-counter (OTC) market of BTC is two to three times larger than the BTC exchange market, dominated by cryptocurrency trading platforms such as Coinbase, UPbit, and Binance. Eric Wall, a cryptocurrency researcher, said: “Just read an estimate from the TABB Group (in a $5,000 report) that OTC crypto markets exceed exchange volumes by 2-3x. That would mean 1-1.5MM BTC is traded OTC daily. Strange it’s not visible on the blockchain, which shows a meager 100k/day.” If the OTC market is significantly bigger than the crypto exchange market, it is possible that large movements like the fall in the value of BTC on July 27 was caused by a big sell order in the OTC market, not necessarily independent events like an ETF rejection. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Crypto Market Cap Down to $295 Billion, Short-Term Drop For Bitcoin Price Expected appeared first on CCN . || Why Geron Corp. Stock Has Skyrocketed 90.6% in 2018 (So Far): What happened Ahead of a make-or-break decision on imetelstat from collaboration partner Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) , shares in Geron Corp. (NASDAQ: GERN) have soared 90.6% through the first six months of 2018, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence . So what J&J licensed rights to imetelstat for hematologic myeloid malignancies, including myelofibrosis, in 2014, and while imetelstat holds promise as the first disease-modifying drug for this indication, there's been considerable doubt about its future. An ascending bar chart overlaid on top of a monitor displaying stock prices. Image source: Getty Images. Previously, J&J abandoned a low-dose arm of imetelstat after interim early-stage data proved to be disappointing. Also, questions about efficacy have dogged imetelstat following trial data showing that it might not reduce spleen volume by as much as Jakafi does, the standard of care. As a refresher, a reduction in spleen volume was the primary endpoint in trials enabling Jakafi's approval. J&J's license allows it to walk away from imetelstat following phase 2 and the above concerns had many industry watchers debating if it would exercise that option. However, there's growing optimism it may be willing to pursue phase 3 trials. Earlier this year, J&J approved an extension study to track and record data from patients already treated with imetelstat. Conceivably, J&J wouldn't have done that if it had already decided to abandon imetelstat. Also, J&J listed imetelstat as a potential top-seller in its pipeline during an investor presentation earlier this year, adding conviction to the thinking that it will continue developing it. Given Geron Corp's sub-$2 share price late last year and declining pessimism, it's easy to understand why shares have rallied significantly in 2018. Now what There's an undeniable need for new myelofibrosis treatments, and since Jakafi's annual sales exceed $1.5 billion, there's reason to think an eventual success that could support FDA approval would be a big win for Geron. About 75% of patients discontinue Jakafi within five years because of side effects, and the life expectancy for patients discontinuing treatment is just 14 months. Story continues If J&J continues development of imetelstat, then Geron can exercise co-commercialize rights. If so, it would pay 20% of future development costs, but it would collect a $65 million milestone payment and it could collect up to $820 million in additional development, regulatory, and sales-based milestones. If approved, it would collect royalties in the high teens to low 20% range, too. A decision against co-commercializing imetelstat would still pay off for Geron, though. In that scenario, it can collect a $135 million payment and up to $765 million in development, regulatory, and sales milestones. If approved, it would get low-double-digit to mid-double-digit percentage royalties. Alternatively, a decision by J&J to walk away would be a big blow. Developing imetelstat on its own would be costly and convincing another partner that J&J was wrong to abandon it could be tough. Overall, investors are betting on a positive outcome, but there's no guarantee of that happening, and for that reason, Geron is best left to aggressive investors able to withstand the heavy price of disappointment. 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 Todd Campbell has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. His clients may have positions in the companies mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Johnson & Johnson. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why More People Should Probably Use Pre-Tax Retirement Accounts Instead of Roths: Anyone saving for retirement has probably had to decide between saving in a Roth account versus a traditional retirement account . The biggest reason people recommend saving in a Roth account is if you think you'll have a higher income in retirement than you do now. But if you're already saving for retirement, and you intend to maintain the same quality of living, your retirement income shouldn't exceed your current income. Moreover, comparing your current income to your potential retirement income isn't exactly the right comparison. Instead, you need to compare the tax rate you'll pay on a Roth contribution today versus the tax rate on traditional retirement account withdrawals in retirement. It's very often the case that you'll pay a lower overall tax rate on withdrawals from a traditional account than you'll pay on Roth contributions today even if you have a higher income in retirement. Notebook with Retirement Savings Plan printed on it, glasses, pen, and calculator sitting on top of it, and a mug of coffee to the side. Image source: Getty Images Marginal tax rates versus effective tax rates Before you can understand why it likely makes more sense to use a traditional retirement account versus a Roth account, you must first understand the difference between marginal tax rates and effective tax rates. Marginal tax rate: the tax rate on your next dollar of income. People that say they're in the 22% income tax bracket are describing their marginal tax rate. Effective tax rate: your total tax bill as a percentage of your income. This number is always lower than the marginal tax rate due to the progressive nature of the U.S. tax system. Jason Hall did an excellent write up on marginal and effective tax rates that goes into more depth. For every dollar you contribute to a traditional retirement account, you're reducing your taxable income and saving on taxes at your marginal tax rate . The corollary is that each dollar saved in a Roth account is effectively taxed at your marginal tax rate because you could've saved it in a traditional account. Story continues That's very important to understand, so you might want to reread that last paragraph. You'd have to spend a lot more in retirement for Roth to make sense A single person making $60,000 per year is in the 22% tax bracket after taking the $12,000 standard deduction. In order to reach a 22% effective tax rate on a traditional IRA withdrawal, he'd have to have an income of $195,105 in retirement, assuming the same tax code as today. The math works a little bit better for someone in the 12% tax bracket. Someone making $50,700 per year is right at the top of the 12% bracket after taking the standard deduction. Still, they'd have to withdraw $52,605 from a traditional IRA in retirement for the math to work out in favor of a Roth IRA. That's a 16.4% increase in spending during retirement after factoring out the $5,500 saved in a Roth account during working years. So, it really depends on how much you spend in retirement . I'm a firm believer of living the life you want as long as you can save for your future at the same time. I don't expect my retirement expenses to increase over my current living expenses. As some expenses like healthcare increase, my housing cost will effectively decrease due to inflation and eventually move a lot closer to $0 after paying off my mortgage. Assuming you maintain the same standard of living in retirement, your taxes will be lower if you choose a traditional retirement account over a Roth account, all else being equal. A scale roughly balanced with coins on both sides. Image source: Getty Images Don't tilt the math in favor of Roths Many Roth proponents also like to point out that you can effectively save more in a Roth account than a traditional account, since you're saving the taxes too. And that's technically true, but what if you just saved your tax savings from using a traditional retirement account in a taxable account? The U.S. government really wants people to invest, so it has very favorable long-term capital gains tax rates . There's even a very generous 0% tax bracket for long-term capital gains. As long as your total taxable income is below $38,700 if your single or $77,400 if you're married, you pay no taxes on long-term capital gains. It's very likely the taxes on your capital gains in retirement will be lower than the taxes on Roth contributions during your working years. When to use Roths While I think most people will be better off saving in traditional retirement accounts, there are always exceptions. If you already have a marginal tax rate of 0%, then you should definitely save money in a Roth account. This actually happened to me recently, when I had a year of relatively low income, saved enough in my traditional 401(k), and had other deductions and credits that resulted in a $0 tax bill. If you have a lot of kids, for example, and you get a lot of tax credits for them, a Roth could work out better for your situation. At the 10% marginal tax rate, it's a very close call and the tax benefits for traditional contributions are practically nothing for most people. It might make sense to lock in the 10% rate as a hedge against potential tax increases in the future. If you don't qualify for a traditional IRA deduction, you should put your money in a Roth account. The IRS phases out the IRA deduction as your income increases. The government also prevents you from contributing directly to a Roth IRA if your income gets too high. You can still, however, execute the backdoor Roth with after-tax contributions to your IRA. If you can execute the megabackdoor Roth , you should definitely take advantage of the opportunity. Saving in a Roth account is better than saving in a taxable account. You'll be able to buy and sell stocks without worrying about capital gains and you'll be able to withdraw the gains tax free regardless of your income in retirement. Ultimately, every person's situation is different. This article aims to provide a framework for making the Roth versus Traditional decision: compare your marginal tax rate today versus your effective tax rate in retirement. It might require you to do some homework to figure out your financial situation, but it can save you thousands of dollars in taxes over the long run. For me, it usually makes sense to max out my pre-tax retirement accounts before looking at Roth contributions. 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 . || Venezuela’s President Devalues Fiat Currency by 95%, Pegs it to Crypto ‘Petro’: Over the weekend, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro began broad economic changes that ultimately ties Venezuela’s currency to the contentious ‘oil-backed’ cryptocurrencyPetro. As CCNreported, President Maduro announced the plan last week and has followed through. As part of the fiscal changes, The Central Bank of Venezuela devalued the nation’s currency by 95% (about five zeroes) due to the ongoing hyperinflation of the Bolivar. The new value and currency is now renamed to the “sovereign bolivar,” which is pegged to the oil-backed Petro cryptocurrency that Madurolaunchedearlier this year as an ERC-20 token. Venezuela’s switch to a cryptocurrency-pegged currency marks the first time that a nation has done so. However, economists warn that the subsequent devaluation will only worsen the inflation rated, which is growing at an annualized rate of a whopping 108,000 percent, according toBloomberg. As CCNreported, Venezuelans were already liquidating their bolivars into Bitcoin earlier this year, in spite of a government ban. The population has also been fleeing Venezuela to avoid the momentary crisis, which now borders on a humanitarian crisis. Though the conditions are not rosy for the history-making event for the cryptocurrency, President Maduro ultimately followed through with sweeping monetary changes, while the world watches the eventual outcome. The switch to the Petro is far from a solution to the Venezuelan economic crisis. The country still teeters on economic collapse. President Maduro also faces losing power over the country or an outright ousting. An assasination attempt with a drone occurred earlier in August while Maduro gave a speech. The dramatic changes reflect the “government’s willingness to do what it takes to stay in power,” Raul Gallegos, an associate director at Control Risks,toldBloomberg from Bogota. “Maduro looks vulnerable, clearly something could happen.” Banks and ATMs have been closed while they scramble to accommodate the new currency rules. Featured image from Shutterstock. The postVenezuela’s President Devalues Fiat Currency by 95%, Pegs it to Crypto ‘Petro’appeared first onCCN. || Why SUPERVALU, Inc. Stock Skyrocketed 57.5% in July: Shares ofSUPERVALU Inc.(NYSE: SVU)soared 57.5% in the month of July, according to data fromS&P Global Market Intelligence, after the supermarket chain agreed to be acquired byUnited Natural Foods(NASDAQ: UNFI). To be sure, SUPERVALU stock was actuallydownmodestly for most of last month,then skyrocketed 65%on July 26, 2018 alone -- the day it announced that UNFI will acquire the company for $32.50 in cash, or an enterprise value of $2.9 billion including UNFI's assumption of debt. Image source: Getty Images. SUPERVALU CEO Mark Gross rightly pointed out that the deal offered a "substantial premium" for stockholders. He also argued that, after implementing an "ambitious strategic transformation" over the past two years, the transaction represents "the best and natural next step for our stockholders, customers, and employees." Together, UNFI and SUPERVALU will enjoy a more diversified customer base, cross-selling opportunities of their respective product offerings, wider geographic reach and scale, and targeted annual run-rate synergies of over $175 million three years after it closes. To that end, the acquisition has been approved by both companies' boards of directors, but still requires a thumbs up from both antitrust regulators and SUPERVALU shareholders. Assuming all goes as planned, SUPERVALU expects the purchase to close in the fourth quarter of calendar 2018. With shares now trading within pennies of the agreed acquisition price -- and assuming waiting a little longer to sell won't result in more favorablelong-term capital gains taxes-- I think SUPERVALU investors would do well to take their profits and put their money to work elsewhere. 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 Steve Symingtonhas 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. || Canada Delays Regulation of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Companies: The Canadian government has postponed the release of its final regulations for cryptocurrency and blockchain companies. The final published regulations were due this fall, but the government now says they won’t be published in theCanada Gazetteuntil late 2019. Because the federal government is already in pre-election mode ahead of the 2019 election, the final cryptocurrency or “virtual currency” regulations have effectively been put on hold, leaving the current regulatory regime in place until well into 2020, as there is an additional 12-month period after publication for any new regulations to take effect. Some companies in the space see this as a positive for the industry’s competitiveness as the government is effectively backing away from the stricterrulesproposed in the draft version published in June 2018. Others are concerned that this delay will harm their competitive position in the quickly growing international crypto market, where countries like Switzerland and Malta are actively encouraging crypto businesses with few regulations and a favorable tax regime. TheBlockchain Association of Canada(BAC) toldBitcoin Magazinethat it appreciates that the government is proceeding with caution, in recognition of the complexities of this new, evolving sector. “The decision to delay the proposed regulations bodes well for the Canadian blockchain and cryptocurrency space. The government is committed to an innovation agenda and sometimes … it may be best to observe and intervene as little as possible,” said BAC Executive Director Kyle Kemper. According to a number of participants, the sheer volume and quality of the comments and responses by the industry to the proposed regulatory package likely contributed to the government's decision to hold off on publishing until next year. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain companies and organizations, like the Money Services Business Association, were invited to submit comments and attend meetings with Finance Canada officials. One set of comments submitted to the federal finance department included areportfrom the influential Toronto-based Blockchain Research Institute (BRI). The BRI assembled a round table of 70 participants from the industry and submitted a report with carefully thought out, detailed recommendations. The report says there’s substantive regulatory work that needs to be done to create certainty and build a competitive industry, although the participants called for a middle ground, saying: “... as the blockchain revolution unfolds, regulators would be wise to avoid the chainsaw when microsurgery could do. To be sure, we do not want the Wild West.” The BRI report points out that Canada is the only developed federal democracy that does not have a securities regulatory authority at the federal government level and recommends creating a central regulatory body at the federal level like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Instead, “ten provinces, three territories, and the federal government all juggle responsibility for ensuring capital market functions efficiently and honestly — attempting to keep a watchful eye on issuers, investors, investment dealers and other market players.” “This model was set up to oversee a much simpler world where there were actual traders on stock exchange floors, and where the pace of innovation in capital markets was glacial and regionally confined,” adds the report. Coinsquare Exchange CEO Cole Diamond, as a member of the BRI’s Advisory Committee, made the case for more regulatory clarity. He toldBitcoin Magazine: “I don’t think that delaying regulatory clarity is a good thing. At the same time, I understand how complex this market is. The regulators are still learning, and I can assure everyone that they are trying.” “My hat goes off to the OSC Launchpad, the Ministry of Finance and others for their focus on the market. We look forward to continuing to work with them to bring about opportunities for Canadian businesses to lead globally in this exciting space.” Evan Thomas, a Toronto-based lawyer working with crypto startups on regulations and compliance, also thinks that there needs to be some serious work done on regulating cryptocurrencies and blockchain companies. Thomas toldBitcoin Magazine: “Delay can put Canadian businesses at a competitive disadvantage. Other jurisdictions are moving more quickly to establish regulatory frameworks around crypto, to the extent those frameworks don't already exist. “Until the regulations are final, it will be challenging for Canadian crypto businesses to establish critical banking and other relationships because many financial sector players are waiting for a regulatory framework to be in place. The longer the delay, the harder it may be for the industry to grow in the meantime.” Amber D. Scott, founder of compliance consultancy Outlier Solutions Inc., is pleased that the government “is taking feedback from stakeholder groups seriously.” Scott toldBitcoin Magazinethat “for the time being, things stay as they are. We advise companies to start thinking about the resources that they will need to deploy when the final version is published but to wait for that version to deploy development because things are likely to change at some point.” In Thomas’s view, this delay will hurt companies in the space, some of whom will go ahead anyway to regulate themselves. He noted that “Canadian crypto businesses are implementing compliance programs even when not legally required because financial partners require them or for general risk management. The longer the delay, the more costly it may be to re-work those programs to meet the final regulations.” This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Prices Supported after Saudi Arabia Suspends Shipments through Red Sea Lane: U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil are trading mixed early Thursday after finishing higher the previous session. The markets are being supported by the news that Saudi Arabia suspended crude shipments through a strategic Red Sea shipping lane. On Wednesday, prices were supported by a friendly U.S. government report. At  0849 GMT, September WTI crude oil is trading $69.13, down $0.17 or -0.24% and September Brent crude oil is at $74.26, up $0.33 or +0.43%. According to reports, Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, said on Thursday that it was “temporarily halting” all oil shipments through the strategic Red Sea lane of Bab al-Mandeb after an attack on two big oil tankers by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said in a statement that the Houthis had attacked two Saudi Very Large Crude Carriers in the Red Sea on Wednesday morning, one of which sustained minimal damage. “Saudi Arabia is temporarily halting all oil shipments through Bab al-Mandeb Strait immediately until the situation become clearer and the maritime transit Bab al-Mandeb is safe,” the minister said. In other news, prices were supported on Wednesday after official U.S. data showed U.S. crude oil inventories last week declined more than expected to their lowest level since 2015 as exports climbed and stocks at the Cushing futures hub dropped. Crude inventories fell 6.1 million barrels in the week-ending July 20, versus analyst expectations for a decrease of 2.3 million barrels, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. At 404.9 million barrels, inventories, not including the nation’s emergency petroleum reserve, were at their lowest level since February 2015. Forecast The announcement this morning that the Saudis have closed some shipping lanes in the Gulf because of rebel Houthi attacks could become a bullish deal today because it is actually affecting supply. It’s not a speculative event. Story continues Additionally, most exports from the Gulf that transit the Suez Canal and the SUMED Pipeline also pass through Bab al-Mandeb strait. Also from the EIA, an estimated 4.8 million barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products flowed through this waterway in 2016 toward Europe, the United States and Asia. Looking at the daily chart, the key area to overcome for the bullish WTI traders is $69.64 to $70.42. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Strengthens Over 2849.50, Weakens Under 2841.25 EUR/USD Daily Price Forecast – EURO Gets a Boost after EU-US Trade Talks Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Forecast – BTC Prices Consolidate Gains Draghi, the ECB and the EUR in Focus After Juncker Delivers Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Prices Supported after Saudi Arabia Suspends Shipments through Red Sea Lane Monero Technical Analysis – The Search for $150 – 26/07/18 || Op-ed: Bitcoin Cash’s First Anniversary — Where Are We Now?: bitcoin cash first birthday cake August 1st marks the first birthday of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), the cryptocurrency that launched (forked) a year ago from bitcoin with the simple purpose of increasing the space available to make transactions through the bitcoin protocol. Bitcoin Scaling Debate Leads to BCH Hard Fork The last year has seen bitcoin truly enter the realm of public consciousness, but increasing usage has also brought growing demand for space on the bitcoin blockchain. At the start of 2017, bitcoin transactions took approximately 20 minutes to confirm and cost $0.35. Six months later, in June, those numbers had risen to over six hours for confirmation and fifteen times the cost: $5.50 USD. Given the increasing popularity to perform peer-to-peer transactions across the world, the bitcoin community ran into a formidable roadblock in scaling their decentralized network to match demand. While bitcoin has received the limeshare of attention, a year on, where does BCH stand and what is its function in the cryptocurrency ecosystem? bitcoin block time The central mechanism governing bitcoin transactions —the blockchain— is used to describe a plethora of projects utilizing the same underlying security apparatus. The size of the blocks dictates how much information can be stored on any given block. This size limit was originally set at 1MB in response to threats posed by denial of service (DoS) attacks (think spamming) from the early frantic days of getting bitcoin to stand on its own two feet. By the time June rolled around last year, while confirmation times and transaction costs skyrocketed, a group of developers decided the easiest, most natural way to avoid cramping growth was to increase the amount of information that can be registered per block, leading to a ‘hard fork’ that changed the consensus rules from bitcoin’s. The catalyst driving developers seeking this change was to preserve, immediately, bitcoin’s status as an electronic cash system, whereby small amounts of money could be easily transferred for very little cost. This enables bitcoin to grow as a currency, specifically as a medium of exchange, in retail, commerce, and markets that are unbanked where people cannot afford high transaction fees – such as Venezuela where monetary inflation is estimated above 40,000% . Story continues In June, the stakeholders and developers seeking to implement a block-size increase organized under the name Bitcoin ABC, increasing the block size limit to 8MB on August 1st, 2017: This launched BCH as a parallel network with all bitcoin account balances copied onto a new ledger encoded with a larger block size limit. BCH found its first block at 6:15 UTC, and was trading at around $230 USD. The network was processing around 7000 transactions per day with transaction fees under 20 cents (see block explorer ). The hard fork was officially a success, and BCH was born. Bitcoin Cash Goes Its Own Way Bitcoin cash hard fork The following weeks of August saw the mining difficulty decrease in order to bring down confirmation times using a tool that ABC developers encoded called Emergency Difficulty Adjustment (EDA), which was designed to ensure the survival of the BCH blockchain in the event that the cryptographic difficulty was too high for the mining power available on the network. If the difficulty is too high for the amount of computers competing to secure new blocks, then transaction confirmations take too long. The problem was that after EDA was used successfully to level out the difficulty levelled out, miners began to exploit differences between BTC and BCH in order to optimize mining profits. These miners that switched back and forth caused spikes in confirmation times in order to drop the difficulty of BCH by triggering EDA making it more profitable to mine. This caused swings of miners to enter BCH network while the difficulty was lowered by the EDA, who would eventually exit once the difficulty properly adjusted, which had long-term ramifications for the integrity of the network. By November, the fix was calculated, ready to implemented, and the various groups of developers managing BCH clients came together to implement a protocol fixing the swings in confirmation times caused by the emergency difficulty adjustment. This was crucial as the entire cryptocurrency market was undergoing a massive influx of investment, causing prices to ‘moon’, which in turn brought more people into the market, generating an unprecedented bull run that generated headlines across the world. Fortunately, BCH blocktimes stabilized to the correct 10-minute time frame, and the system performed smoothly during heavy traffic that occured in and out of the market between November and February this year. During this time, BCH saw block sizes of up to 4MB while maintaining transaction fees during these spikes under a dollar, which demonstrated proof of the immediate utility of larger block size limits and the role BCH sought to fulfill. After the price surge rebounded from record-breaking highs, developers from different clients running BCH’s blockchain came together in May 2018 to increase the block size limit once again to 32 MB. The second significant change that was made in the May hard fork was to re-enable certain functions that had been turned off in the protocol’s scripting language a long time ago, and introduce a couple new ones too. These machine codes, called “Satoshi Op-codes” by the BCH community, allow developers to create different types of metadata implementations, i.e. programmable money. By having the ability to call these functions, developers can create “ colored coins ” or representative tokens that function as smart contracts. These are tokens that can be programmed by individual organizations to correspond to bonds, stocks, precious metals, commodities, and any physical or virtual object. These op-codes broaden BCH developers’ tools to interact with scripting on top of the blockchain, which, in tandem with more space, allows for non-payment related information to be written and accessed on-chain. This has led to innovation in community engagement with applications like the social network— Memo , and a second layer application called Wormhole , which operates by linking a token called Wormhole Cash to the BCH blockchain. One year after its creation, BCH has expanded onto 19 different services, e.g. Bitpay, Coingate, ViaBTC, Coinpayments, and CoinDance. Bitcoin Cash is also involved in fourteen different projects, e.g., OpenBazaar, Joystream, and Counterparty, and tradable on 41 different exchanges. Ultimately utilizing cryptocurrencies as a digital currency is what will push the entire industry forward. #HODL (holding coins as an investment) has been a rallying call for many within the cryptocurrency community, but I hope that the rallying call to #BUIDL (build blockchain solutions and decentralized businesses) will galvanize sustainable and practical use of Bitcoin and BCH alike, building a new age of peer-to-peer financial sovereignty open and accessible to all. About the Author: Alejandro de la Torre has over four years of experience working with Bitcoin, first through pioneering work at BlockTrail’s block explorer, and since being acquired by Bitmain, he helped successfully launch the BTC.com wallet and mining pool in 2016. Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are solely that of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to CCN. Images from Shutterstock The post Op-ed: Bitcoin Cash’s First Anniversary — Where Are We Now? appeared first on CCN . || Cryptos Higher; Bank of America Applies for Blockchain Patent: The price of cryptos rose on Monday Investing.com - Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were higher on Monday as news that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will review the applications of Bitcoin exchange traded funds continued to bolster digital coins. Bitcoin rose 0.20% to $6,725.10 on the Bitfinex exchange, as of 8:17 AM ET (12:17 GMT). Cryptocurrencies overall were higher, with the coin market cap of total market capitalization at $217 billion at the time of writing, compared to $212 billion on Friday. Ethereum, the second-biggest alternative currency by market cap, rose 0.50% to $276.25 while XRP, the third-largest virtual currency, increased 1.41% to $0.32780 and Litecoin was at $57.509, up 0.62%. Virtual coins were bolstered on Friday after the SEC said it would review a decision to reject the applications of Bitcoin ETFs. Last week the SEC rejected the applications from nine companies to list their Bitcoin ETFs, citing concerns about fraud and manipulation of bitcoin markets. Meanwhile, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) applied for a blockchain patent to secure the storage of cryptocurrency. The financial giant has filed 50 patents in relation to blockchain and digital currency. The Aug. 23 patent is described as an application that implements encryption and links data to certain blocks of blockchain as a form of data security. Bank of America is just one of a number of financial institutions that have filed patents related to cryptocurrency. While many bank executives have spoken out against Bitcoin and other coins, the companies have shown increasing interest in blockchain, the technology behind virtual currencies. Related Articles Baidu Joins China’s Crypto Blockade Traxion Offers Blockchain Solution to Philippine Farmers IOTA (MIOTA) Price Recovers as Trinity Desktop Beta Wallet Brought to Users [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] @Bitcoin_Post || @satoshi_BTC || @lifeoncoin || @bitcoin_reddit || @India_Bitcoin || Total Market Cap: $270,268,926,625 1 BTC: $6,672.67 BTC Dominance: 42.35% Update Time: 17-07-2018 - 00:00:12 (GMT+3) || $BNB price is rising! $BTC market on #Binance. Current Price: Ƀ 0.00184990 Sharing = Pushing! || @Bitcoin_Stats || @Bitcoin_price_8 || @India_Bitcoin
Trend: down || Prices: 7193.25, 7272.72, 7260.06, 7361.66, 6792.83, 6529.17, 6467.07, 6225.98, 6300.86, 6329.70
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)] The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – April 25th, 2021: Bitcoin, BTC to USD, fell by 1.91% on Saturday. Following on from a 1.17% decline on Friday, Bitcoin ended the day at $50,161.0. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin rise to an early morning intraday high $51,201.0 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $52,993, Bitcoin fell to a late morning intraday low $48,852.0. While steering clear of the first major support level at $48,422, Bitcoin fell back through the 23.6% FIB of $50,473. Finding late morning support, however, Bitcoin broke back through the 23.6% FIB to revisit $51,000 levels before easing back. A bearish end to the day saw Bitcoin fall back through the 23.6% FIB to end the day at sub-$50,200 levels. The near-term bullish trend remained intact in spite of the latest reversal. For the bears, Bitcoin would need to slide through the 62% FIB of $27,237 to form a near-term bearish trend. Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Saturday. Crypto.com Coinrose by 2.70% to buck the trend on the day. It was a bearish start for the rest of the majors, however. ChainlinkandRipple’s XRPslid by 11.06% and by 10.17% respectively to lead the way down. Binance Coin(-5.68%),Bitcoin Cash SV(-5.21%),Cardano’s ADA(-4.66%),Ethereum(-6.47%),Litecoin(-6.77%), and Polkadot (-8.32%) also struggled. In the current week, the crypto total market rose to a Monday high $2,100bn before sliding to a Friday low $1,648bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $1,787. Bitcoin’s dominance rose to a Tuesday high 54.32% before falling to a Thursday low 50.03%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 52.25%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.15% to $50,238.0. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning low $5,0005.0 before rising to a high $50,273.0. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Polkadot was up by 0.25% at the turn of the day to buck the trend. It was a bearish start for the rest of the majors, however. At the time of writing, Crypto.com Coin was down by 3.22% to lead the way down. Bitcoin would need to avoid the $50,071 pivot to bring the 23.6% FIB of $50,473 and the first major resistance level at $51,291 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break out from Saturday’s high $51,201.0. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Saturday’s high would likely cap any upside. In the event of an extended crypto rally, Bitcoin could test resistance at $53,000 before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $52,420. Failure to avoid a fall through the $50,071 pivot would bring the first major support level at $48,942 into play. Barring another extended sell-off on the day, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$47,000 levels. The second major support level at $47,722 should limit the downside. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – Crude Oil Continues to Struggle • PCE Versus CPI: Which One Will Sway the Fed’s Outlook on Inflation? • European Equities: A Week in Review – 23/04/21 • Asia-Pacific Shares Mostly Higher; Japanese Stocks Fall on COVID-Related Lockdown Fears • Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver Gives Up Early Gains • Crude Oil Price Update – Could Strengthen Over $62.29, Weaken Under $60.83 || How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe?: If you’ve been following the news, you undoubtedly know afew things about Bitcoin right now. Find:Why Some Money Experts Believe In Bitcoin and Others Don’t One: It’s a cryptocurrency. Two: One Bitcoin is worth more than $40,000 in U.S. dollars, although the price fluctuates wildly day to day. Three: Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla recently invested in Bitcoin and announced it would soon allow people to purchase its cars using the cryptocurrency. But, if you’re like many people, you’re still fuzzy on a few things, including exactly what cryptocurrency is, how it works and if it’s a safe way to invest your money. See:Dogecoin’s Major Price Increase: Is It a Worthwhile Investment?Find:Bitcoin Is Pricey and Headed for a Crash – Consider These Smart Crypto Alternatives Bitcoin was invented in 2009 as a form of digital currency. Unlike paper money or debit cards, which represent paper money the buyer holds in a bank, Bitcoin has no physical form. It’s all stored digitally, providing increased security over checks, paper money transactions and even other digital transactions, which, again, represent the exchange of paper money held in accounts. As of Monday morning, Bitcoin’s value sits at $47,794, up approximately 20% since last week, according to Reuters. For perspective, in 2010, a single Bitcoin was worth only 8 cents in USD, Investopedia writes. See:Long-Term Investors Hold Most of the Bitcoin SupplyThe Hype Around NFTs:What Are They? And How Pricey Do They Get? Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, but today there are more than 6,700 cryptocurrencies traded on public markets, according to the website CoinMarketCap. Although Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are used for the exchange of goods and services on the private market, they are not considered legal tender like U.S. dollars and coins. Some of the most common cryptos right now include Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, which you can purchase through Paypal. Other, less common cryptos are termed altcoins. The most popular altcoin is Dogecoin, popularized by billionaire Elon Musk’s tweets. He recently shared, “Bought some Dogecoin for lil X, so he can be a toddler hodler.” The tweet was accompanied by a video of Musk and singer Grimes’ infant son declaring, “Dadada!” See:Musk Tweets Again and Dogecoin – a Bitcoin Rival – SkyrocketsOptions:All About Ethereum (ETH) — To Help You Decided If It’s Worth the Investment “Cryptocurrency is a fully decentralized peer-to-peer electronic money implemented by cryptography,” says Rob Zel, founder of crypto exchange bitni.com. Due to their nature, cryptocurrencies are not regulated, which carries risk of market volatility and loss for investors. However, the security risks and risk of fraud when using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are vastly reduced. Also, due to the highly secure nature of transactions, purchases cannot be traced. That means individuals can use crypto to purchase illegal or highly regulated merchandise, including certain classes of drugs or firearms. Cryptocurrencies use cryptography technology to keep transactions and coins secure. “Cryptography, or cryptology, is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties called adversaries. The most common form of cryptography is using codes to send messages securely between two individuals,” says Dr. Alexander Shipilov, CEO of iModX, a blockchain-based marketplace. See:Crypto Bubble Brings a Curious Problem for InvestorsFind:What Are Digital Wallets? Cryptocurrencies are traded by means of a blockchain, which Shipilov describes as “a way for multiple computers to come to a consensus about a set of information.” He says, “The most common use of a blockchain is to create a ledger of financial transactions between multiple individuals.” Blockchains operate via cryptography, with each block in the chain cryptographically connected to the previous one. “The blockchain is stored and shared across a network of peer-to-peer nodes, similar to file-sharing torrents. The blocks are cryptographically secured against tampering. This makes it very difficult for nefarious parties to modify or shut down,” Zel says. See:How to Invest in CryptocurrencyFind:The Most Googled Money Questions – Answered So, thanks to blockchain technology, Bitcoin and other crypto transactions may be inherently more secure than other types of digital transactions, such as online banking, money transfers through digital wallets or peer-to-peer payment services. But it’s important to emphasize that these services all use state-of-the-art encryption technology to protect your funds digitally. Also, most banks offer fraud protection so that if your account is hacked, the bank will return your missing funds up to a certain amount, which varies by institution. The technology used to keep crypto investments secure is also effective. In fact, it’s so secure that some people who invested in Bitcoin years ago have lost their password with no way to reset it. That wouldn’t happen with a regular bank account or peer-to-peer payment service, which offer ways to reset your online banking password so you can access your money. See:Steal These Money Secrets from 25 Millionaires Under 25Find:How to Invest Your Money in 2021 Although your crypto investment is likely “secure,” that doesn’t mean it’s “safe” by any means. There are two elements that make cryptocurrency riskier than holding cash in a bank account: market volatility and lack of federal insurance and regulation. When you hold your money in a bank account, it is FDIC-insured for up to $250,000 per depositor, per account class, per bank. That means if you have your own checking account with $100,000 in it, a savings account with $50,000 in it and a CD with a $100,000 investment, all within a single FDIC-insured bank, your funds are all protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. If your bank goes out of business, you will not lose your money. On the other hand, if something happens to the company holding your crypto, you could lose your entire investment. See:Banks Might Treat Bitcoin Like ‘Real Money’ – These Experts Weigh the Pros and ConsFind:Mark Cuban – “Bitcoin is Exactly like the Dot Com Bubble” Crypto, like stocks and other investments, also tend to fluctuate wildly. When you hold cash in a bank, the value of your money will fluctuate marginally based on inflation or deflation. That represents the value of the dollar. But it’s highly unlikely you would lose — or gain — large amounts of money overnight. “Cryptocurrencies tend to be highly volatile,” Zel says. “In one day, a coin can move 20% or more. Some newly invented coins can jump 40x in their first few months.” There’s another concern for those seeking a safe haven for their money. “Occasionally, a newly invented coin will be a complete scam and the founders will take the money from investors and disappear, leaving them holding a worthless token,” Zel says. See:9 Investing Bubbles That Will Make You Rethink BitcoinFind:The Classic Cons Behind These Digital-Age Scams Right now, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are considered both an asset, traded like stocks, and a currency, used in the exchange of goods and services. However, high transaction fees and the volatility of the coins prevent its widespread adoption as a currency, Zel says. You can use Bitcoin and other cryptos to make purchases, but it’s not always ideal. See:PayPal Finally Welcomes Bitcoin, More Cryptocurrencies Shipilov adds that the vast majority of cryptos right now are being treated as assets rather than currency. “They are being speculated on by investors who assume the asset will increase in value over a long-time horizon,” he says. However, although people have gained millions through their Bitcoin investments in the past year, crypto may not be the best choice for beginning investors or those with low risk tolerance. “Crypto are non-regulated assets with a high degree of volatility, limited government oversight, and the majority of cryptocurrency lose most or all their value extremely quickly, with over half failing in the first four months,” Shipilov warns. More From GOBankingRates • Money’s Most Influential: Where Do Americans Get Their Financial Advice? • Don’t Miss Out on Nominating Your Favorite Small Business To Be Featured on GOBankingRates — Ends May 31 • ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ Author Robert Kiyosaki: You Should Never Say ‘I Can’t Afford That’ • Everything You Need To Know About Taxes This Year Last updated: Feb. 15, 2021 This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe? || Asia Broadband Reduces Total Outstanding Shares With 107 Million Share Retirement: LAS VEGAS, May 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via InvestorWire – Asia Broadband Inc. (OTC: AABB) (“AABB” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that AABB’s management and Board of Directors have approved the retirement and return of 107 million restricted common shares to the Company treasury. The share retirement process has been initiated with the Company’s transfer agent and is anticipated to be completed in the coming weeks. The Company initiative to create shareholder value led to the agreements with several third-party shareholders to retire the shares. AABB expects to retire additional shares to the Company treasury in the near future with the ongoing plans to continue the shareholder value initiative. In other Company news, AABB will be releasing a progress update of the Company’s proprietary cryptocurrency exchange version of the AABB Wallet that has been under development with Core State Holdings, Corp. since the recent launch of the AABBG gold-backed token. After completion in the coming months, the exchange will allow AABB Wallet users to complete quick two-way exchanges of their AABB Gold tokens for major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. The proprietary exchange will also add tremendously to transaction fee revenues and allow for the price appreciation of AABBG, influenced by market demand and the limited supply of tokens released into circulation. About Asia Broadband Asia Broadband Inc. (OTC: AABB) is a resource company focused on the production, supply and sale of precious and base metals, primarily to Asian markets. The Company utilizes its specific geographic expertise, experience and extensive industry contacts to facilitate its innovative distribution process from the production and supply of precious and base metals in Mexico to client sales networks in Asia. This vertical integration approach to sales transactions is the unique strength of AABB that differentiates the Company and creates distinctive value for shareholders. The Company has recently released its freshly minted mine-to-token gold-backed cryptocurrency AABB Gold token (AABBG) and strives to become a world-wide standard of exchange that is secured and trusted with gold backing, an outstanding quality relative to other cryptocurrencies. Contact the Company at: Investor Brand Network General Email: ir@asiabroadbandinc.com Token Support: www.AABBGoldToken.com/support/ Company Website: www.asiabroadbandinc.com Token Website: www.AABBGoldToken.com Phone: 702-866-9054 Forward-Looking Statements are contained in this press release within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on the Asia Broadband Inc.’s (the “Company”) expected current beliefs about the Company’s business, which are subject to uncertainty and change. The operations and results of the Company could materially differ from what is expressed or implied by the statements made above when industry, regulatory, market and competitive circumstances change. Further information about these risks can be found in the annual and quarterly disclosures the Company has published on the OTC Markets website. The Company is under no obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements as future circumstances, events and information may change. Story continues Corporate Communications: InvestorBrandNetwork (IBN) Los Angeles, California www.InvestorBrandNetwork.com 310.299.1717 Office Editor@InvestorBrandNetwork.com View comments || Bitcoin rises 5.6% to $49,337.72: (Reuters) - Bitcoin rose 5.63 % to $49,337.72 by 0800 GMT on Sunday, adding $2,628.83 to its previous close. Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency is up 77.9% from the year's low of $27,734 on Jan. 4, and down 24% from the year's high of $64,895.22 hit on April 14. Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, rose 6.1 % to $3,868.42 by 0800 GMT on Sunday, adding $222.41 to its previous close. (Reporting by Vishal Vivek in Bengaluru; Editing by David Clarke) || The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Marathon Oil, Diamondback Energy, Occidental Petroleum, ONEOK and ExxonMobil: Chicago, IL – April 23, 2021 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Marathon Oil Corporation MRO, Diamondback Energy, Inc. FANG, Occidental Petroleum Corporation OXY, ONEOK, Inc. OKE and ExxonMobil Corporation XOM. U.S. oil prices slid on Wednesday, as rising inventories and a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases in India outweighed stronger gasoline demand and a decline in distillate supplies. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, WTI crude futures lost $1.32 or 2.1%, to settle at $61.35 a barrel. Below we review the EIA's Weekly Petroleum Status Report for the week ending Apr 16. Crude Oil:The federal government's EIA report revealed that crude inventories rose by 594,000 barrels compared with expectations of a 4.4 million barrel decline. A drop in downstream demand primarily accounted for the surprise stockpile build with the world's biggest oil consumer. This puts total domestic stocks at 493 million barrels — 4.9% less than the year-ago figure but 1% higher than the five-year average. On a somewhat positive note, the latest report showed that supplies at the Cushing terminal (the key delivery hub for U.S. crude futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange) were down 1.3 million barrels to 45.4 million barrels. Meanwhile, the crude supply cover was down from 33.1 days in the previous week to 33 days. In the year-ago period, the supply cover was 38.7 days. Let's turn to the products now. Gasoline:Gasoline supplies increased for the third week in a row. The 85,000 barrels build is attributable to an increase in imports even as demand jumped to the highest since August. Analysts had forecast gasoline inventories to rise by 800,000 million barrels. At 235 million barrels, the current stock of the most widely used petroleum product is 10.7% less than the year-earlier level and 3% below the five-year average range. Distillate:Distillate fuel supplies (including diesel and heating oil) fell for the second consecutive week. The decrease of 1.1 million barrels reflected lower production and imports. Meanwhile, the market looked for a supply drop of 1.3 million barrels. Current inventories — at 142.4 million barrels — are 4% higher than the year-ago level and 2% more than the five-year average. Refinery Rates:Refinery utilization, at 85%, remained unchanged from the prior week. Oil prices settled lower on Wednesday following an unexpected build in inventories after three weeks of decline. Crude was also dragged down by record-high COVID-19 cases in densely populated countries like India that heightened worries about energy demand. The commodity, however, has spent much of the past few months trading higher on continued vaccine-related developments and their successful deployment around the world, offering hope of an earlier-than-expected pickup in demand. The OPEC+ cartel's calibrated production policy has also driven up oil. In its recent meeting, member countries of the OPEC+ group — a coalition between OPEC countries under kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-members led by Russia — decided to gradually loosen the output cuts from May through July, reflecting their confidence in the fuel's demand. Easing coronavirus infections in the United States, signs of robust demand in the world's second-largest oil consumer, China, and the passage of the $1.9-trillion stimulus bill are the other positives in the oil story. The renewed confidence can be gauged from the fact that the Zacks Oil/Energy sector has gained 12.4% so far this year, outperforming the S&P 500 Index's 10.9% appreciation. In fact, some of the major gainers of the S&P 500 this year include energy-related names likeMarathon Oil,Diamondback Energy,Occidental Petroleum,ONEOKandExxonMobil. Marathon is the top-performing energy stock with a gain of 56.52%, followed by Diamondback (55.50%), Occidental (41.25%), EOG (38.28%), ONEOK (35.90%) and ExxonMobil (35.86%). You can seethe complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. 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 >> Media Contact Zacks Investment Research 800-767-3771 ext. 9339 support@zacks.com https://www.zacks.com Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss.This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. 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 reportExxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) : Free Stock Analysis ReportMarathon Oil Corporation (MRO) : Free Stock Analysis ReportONEOK, Inc. (OKE) : Free Stock Analysis ReportOccidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) : Free Stock Analysis ReportDiamondback Energy, Inc. (FANG) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || What stock market history tells us about corporate tax hikes: Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe Monday, April 26, 2021 Stocks usually go up The prospect for higher taxes continues to be a concern for investors, and it'll continue to be a source of uncertainty until some form of tax reform is passed. While a higher corporate tax rate would likely be a hindrance for most companies, it's far from certain that the implementation of a higher rate would be enough for stocks to sell-off, as discussed in the Morning Brief last week . But what does history suggest will happen to stocks should higher taxes come to pass? BMO Capital Markets equity strategist Brian Belski looked into it. And the answer isn't all bad. "Tax increases have been far from detrimental to U.S. stock market performance," Belski wrote in a recent note to clients. "President Biden’s proposal to raise the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28%, from 21%, would mark the first increase since 1993 and sixth tax hike since 1945," he continued. "During the five prior corporate tax rate increases in 1950, 1951, 1952, 1968, and 1993, the S&P 500 index posted an average calendar year gain of 12.9% with positive price returns in each instance . This gain was well above the 4.6% average return registered during the nine annual periods when the tax rate was reduced and also higher than 9% price return for all calendar years going back to 1945." (Emphasis added.) Corporate tax hikes historically come with higher stock prices. (BMO) (Yahoo Finance) Belski also observed that those periods came with above-average real GDP growth of 5.7%. But that's just the period around the tax hikes. What, then, about the overall level taxation — are returns lower during higher tax regimes? "Despite common perceptions to the contrary, our work shows that there is little evidence to suggest that corporate tax rates have any type of meaningful impact on U.S. equity market returns," Belski observed. "For instance, going back to 1945, the S&P 500 has averaged a 10% gain during years in which the U.S. corporate tax rate was below 35% compared to the 10.3% gain posted during years when the tax rate was 50% or higher . Keep in mind that the proposed 28% corporate tax rate would still rank among the lowest in U.S. history after those seen in 2018-20." (Emphasis added.) Story continues Importantly, Belski notes: "A similar story exists on the earnings front. Over past decades, U.S. companies have been able to generate substantial earnings growth in different tax environments, including periods of high corporate tax rates." This is critical because earnings growth is the most important driver of stock prices . Higher tax rates don't necessarily mean lower earnings growth rates. (BMO) (Yahoo Finance) The Biden administration also isn't out to simply rein in big businesses with their proposed tax policies; they're also looking to power demand. "It is important to keep in mind that any increase in taxes and reduction to EPS for U.S. companies could also be offset to some degree by resulting positive factors of higher taxes, such as infrastructure spending and economic stimulus," Belski said. By Sam Ro , managing editor. Follow him at @SamRo Top News Travel stocks rally as EU set to welcome vaccinated American tourists this summer [Yahoo Finance UK] European stock markets slip as UK set for fastest growth since second world war [Yahoo Finance UK] Bitcoin rebounds after hitting seven-week low [Yahoo Finance UK] Disney's Searchlight studio takes top Oscar, Netflix still waiting [Reuters] Yahoo Finance Highlights Coinbase customers with hacked accounts get no justice from 'horrible' US laws: Fintech lawyer These 169 industries are being hit by the global chip shortage Why Berkshire Hathaway's health care project Haven failed — Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance || Ethereum: The Best Cryptocurrency for Your TFSA?: The cryptocurrency industry has gone through a massive boom recently, and many investors are now interested. Several cryptos have significantly outperformed even the best growth stocks over the last year. But after a massive rally the last 16 months, which is the best to buy for your Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA); Bitcoin, Ethereum or something else? For years the industry has been controversial, but it looks like many governments, companies and investors are starting to accept cryptocurrencies as legitimate assets and investments. One of the problems with crypto and why it’s been so controversial is because there is such little regulation in the space. This makes it a lot riskier because there is the potential for fraud. It’s also a difficult industry because it can be hard to understand the technology behind each coin. For many investors, though, the big gains from Bitcoin, and now more recently, Dogecoin, are enticing, and investors understandably want to get involved. Like with stocks, though, it’s important to research it and make sure it has value if you’re making an investment. There have been plenty of examples of bubbles in the past, and there will be plenty in the future. So those cryptocurrencies that have rallied exceptionally but have little value to back those gains likely won’t pan out in the long run. Bitcoin is an asset with potential that could be worth a long-term investment in your TFSA. The coin will always have value because it’s the revolutionary technology that spurred innovation in the industry. It also has a natural advantage because it was the first coin—one of those being the fact that it’s the main trading pair for thousands of coins in existence. The problem is that there are many shortcomings of Bitcoin and its technology. That’s part of why so many new coins have been created over the years, with the aim of improving the issues in the cryptocurrency industry. So Bitcoin will always have value because it’s so well-known and the first comer in the industry. However, the best investments today will be those cryptocurrencies that offer the most technological potential. That’s why last month, I recommended investors focus their long-term investment in the crypto space on Ethereum. In my view, Ethereum offers investors the best potential long-term. That’s why I think one of the best stocks to buy for your TFSA today isThe Ether Fund(TSX:QETH.U). Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain. However, the main differentiator from Bitcoin, which gives it so much potential, is its smart contract functionality. This means you can do a lot more with Ethereum’s blockchain, such as running decentralized applications. It’s a big step up in blockchain technology. And the more popular the Ethereum blockchain gets, the more the value of its native cryptocurrency, Ether, will rise. That’s why The Ether Fund looks so promising as a long-term investment for your TFSA. Investors can gain exposure directly to Ether, which overtime should continue to grow in value. More companies are quickly adapting to this technology too.Visa, for example, is an example of a major company that has announced its intention to use the Ethereum blockchain. The potential of Ethereum and, consequently, Ether haven’t gone unnoticed, though. Investors have been quietly buying up Ethereum lately, even as Bitcoin has been rangebound. Since I recommended Ethereum to investors just one month ago, it has already gained a whopping 67%. So although Bitcoin may not be in the news lately, and speculative cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin continue to make headlines, Ethereum quietly continues to rally, which is only making it more expensive to buy for the long-term. So if you’re looking to make an investment in the cryptocurrency industry, I’d consider Ethereum, and I’d consider it soon. The post Ethereum: The Best Cryptocurrency for Your TFSA? appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada. Speaking of investments you'll want to make soon, here are the top 10 stocks to buy in the month of May! The 10 Best Stocks to Buy This Month Renowned Canadian investor Iain Butler just named 10 stocks for Canadians to buy TODAY. So if you’re tired of reading about other people getting rich in the stock market, this might be a good day for you. Because Motley Fool Canada is offering a full 65% off the list price of their top stock-picking service, plus a complete membership fee back guarantee on what you pay for the service. Simply click here to discover how you can take advantage of this. Click Here to Learn More Today! More reading • 17 Top TSX Stock Picks for May 2021 • Forget Dogecoin: 1 Canadian Growth Stock to Buy in May 2021 for Big Gains • Canadian Investors: Here Are 2 of the Best Stocks to Buy Today • 3 Canadian Stocks Under $10 to Buy Now • Short-Sellers Beware! WELL Health Stock Is a Rocket That Could Be Ignited Anytime • Two New Stock Picks Every Month! 5 Years From Now, You’ll Probably Wish You’d Grabbed These Stocks…Click here nowfor your free subscription toTake Stock, The Motley Fool Canada’s free investing newsletter. You aren’t on the list to receive our newest stock picks — but it’s not too late. 2021 || CME Group (CME) to Introduce Micro Bitcoin Futures Contract: CME Group Inc.CME is set to expand its suite of crypto derivatives with the launch of a new Micro Bitcoin futures contract. Pending regulatory conditions, it will be launched on May 3.The new Micro Bitcoin futures will be one-tenth the size of one bitcoin. The smaller-sized contract will provide market participants with one more tool to hedge their spot bitcoin price risk or execute bitcoin trading strategies in an efficient, cost-effective way, apart from retaining the features and benefits of CME Group's standard Bitcoin futures. This will enhance the trading strategies.CME Group first launched Bitcoin futures (BTC) in December 2017. Since then, it has witnessed 22 successful futures expiration settlements, with over 3,500 individual accounts trading the contracts. Its notional value has increased dramatically.The BTC notional value has increased from $19K on the date that it was launched to nearly $58K on Mar 11, 2021. The amount of capital needed to access the futures market has significantly increased. To make the market more accessible to risk managers and other traders, CME Group will launch the Micro Bitcoin futures contract, which is 1/50 the size of the Bitcoin futures contract.Based on increasing client demand and robust growth in the Bitcoin futures markets, the launch of Micro Bitcoin futures will add more granularity to trading and risk-management strategies and the participants will get the benefit of price discovery of transparent futures where they can see same prices and quotes.CME Group continues to focus on driving growth and new customer acquisition by expanding, innovating and scaling its core offerings, and increasing participation from non-U.S. customers. This is achieved by expansion of its global sales team, cross-selling of products, expansion of the existing benchmark products, product and service launches and deepening of open interest in core futures and options offerings. The company launched bitcoin options and options on SOFR in January 2020.The newly launched futures contracts will add to CME Group's robust suite of futures and options.CME Group exchange consists of designated contract markets for the trading of futures and options contracts. It enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and over-the-counter (OTC) markets and optimize portfolios. It focuses on maximizing futures and options growth globally, diversifying business and revenues, and delivering unparalleled customer efficiencies and operational excellence.Shares of this largest futures exchange in the world in terms of trading volume as well as notional value traded has rallied 23.3% in the past year compared with the industry’s increase of 35.1%. Nonetheless, the company’s policy to ramp up its growth profile and capital position should drive shares higher. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) currently. Some better-ranked stocks from the finance sector areOTC Markets Group Inc.OTCM,Diebold Nixdorf, IncorporatedDBD andRepay Holdings CorporationRPAY, each currently carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.Earnings of OTC Markets surpassed estimates in three of the last four quarters and missed in the other one. It has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 11.96%, on average.Diebold Nixdorf surpassed estimates in three of the last four quarters and missed in the other one. It has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 261.88%, on average.Repay Holdings’ earnings surpassed estimates in each of the last four quarters. It has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 50.35%, on average. With super high data speed, it will make current cell phones obsolete and unlock the full potential of big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. In the next few years this industry is predicted to create 22 million jobs and a stunning $12.3 trillion in revenue.Today you have an historic chance to pursue almost unimaginable gains like Microsoft, Netflix, and Apple in their early phases. Zacks has released a Special Report that reveals our . . . • Smartest stock for 5G telecom • Safest investment in 5G hardware • Single best 5G buy of all! Download now. Today the report is 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 reportCME Group Inc. (CME) : Free Stock Analysis ReportDiebold Nixdorf, Incorporated (DBD) : Free Stock Analysis ReportOTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCM) : Free Stock Analysis ReportRepay Holdings Corporation (RPAY) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here. || US Inflation Rises Faster Than Expected In March, But Unlikely to Deter Fed: U.S. headline inflation rose to a 12-month pace of 2.6% in March, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its latest CPI report, accelerating from the 1.7% increase reported last month. The pace exceeded economists’ average estimate for a 2.5% increase. The gauge of consumer prices is now rising at its fastest since August 2018, largely due to base effects from the pandemic-induced recession that rattled the economy a year ago, when the lockdown-induced drop in demand sent costs tumbling for many goods and services. Related:Why Binance Coin Hit All-Time High (and $86B Valuation) Ahead of Coinbase Listing The CPI report is particularly important for some cryptocurrency investors who view bitcoin (BTC) as ahedge against inflationand ongoing currency debasement. However,concerns about higher inflationbeyond the 2% threshold could cause the Federal Reserve to consider tightening monetary policy, which could weigh on risk assets. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powellhas said he views higher inflation as temporaryand not enough for the U.S. central bank to alter its record-low interest rate policies. • On a month-to-month basis, headline March CPI increased 0.6%, beating expectations for a 0.5% rise after rising 0.4% in February. • The March 1-month increase was the largest rise since a 0.6% increase in August 2012, according to theU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. • The gasoline index continued to increase, rising 9.1% in March, and accounted for nearly half of the seasonally adjusted increase in CPI. • US Inflation Rises Faster Than Expected In March, But Unlikely to Deter Fed • US Inflation Rises Faster Than Expected In March, But Unlikely to Deter Fed • US Inflation Rises Faster Than Expected In March, But Unlikely to Deter Fed || UBER Offers Free Coronavirus Vaccination Rides Through Jul 4: Uber TechnologiesUBER has launched its previously announced free vaccination rides program in partnership with the White House andLyftLYFT. The move is a step towards U.S. President Joe Biden’s goal of getting 70% of the U.S. adult population vaccinated by Jul 4.The company is offering up to four free rides (up to $25 off each) to anyone taking a trip to get vaccinated. Customers can book a ride through the Uber app by tapping on Vaccine. The free rides are available between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., through Jul 4, Uber said in a statement. The two roundtrips to get the shots should be three weeks apart between May 24 and Jul 4.While riders are receiving a discount, drivers are being paid in full, the company said.As for Lyft, people can get two free rides (up to $15 each) for traveling to and from vaccination sites, effective May 24. Customers can avail the rides after receiving a code through the Lyft app upon booking a trip. Users can book a trip on Lyft rideshare, bike or scooter between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m.Both Uber and Lyft carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Uber Technologies, Inc. PriceUber Technologies, Inc. price | Uber Technologies, Inc. Quote Some better-ranked stocks in the Internet - Services industry areFacebookFB andSohu.comSOHU, both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.Shares of Facebook and Sohu.com have rallied more than 39% and 100% in a year’s time, 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 reportSohu.com Inc. (SOHU) : Free Stock Analysis ReportFacebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis ReportUber Technologies, Inc. (UBER) : Free Stock Analysis ReportLyft, Inc. (LYFT) : 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.
Trend: down || Prices: 35678.13, 37332.86, 36684.93, 37575.18, 39208.77, 36894.41, 35551.96, 35862.38, 33560.71, 33472.63
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 advocate Michael Saylor stepping down as CEO of company after crypto crash loses it $1 billion: Ice Sculptor Csaba Vass puts the finishing touches to a large Bitcoin ice carving in front of Tower Bridge in London, to celebrate the eighth anniversary of the world’s leading crypto exchange, Huobi Global. Picture date: Wednesday November 24, 2021. (PA Archive) Michael Saylor, the bitcoin advocate and chief executive of Microstrategy, is stepping down as head of the company after his bets on crypto lost it $1 billion. Mr Saylor has led business intelligence company Microstrategy for the last 30 years, since founding it in 1989. But he became more famous when he publicly supported bitcoin, and began adding the cryptocurrency to the company’s balance sheet. As a result, the company became less a business intelligence firm and more a speculation vehicle for the value of the cryptocurrency. That meant that when the price of the currency crashed in weeks, the company was hit by huge losses. Its latest earnings showed a loss of $1.062 billion – almost entirely down to a $917 million hit it had to take on those crypto investments. Now Mr Saylor will be leaving his role as chief executive, with that job being split from the role of chairman, and with Mr Saylor being named “executive chairman”. Neither he or the company directly linked his departure to the bitcoin purchases, however – and Mr Saylor suggested they would continue. “I believe that splitting the roles of Chairman and CEO will enable us to better pursue our two corporate strategies of acquiring and holding bitcoin and growing our enterprise analytics software business. As Executive Chairman I will be able to focus more on our bitcoin acquisition strategy and related bitcoin advocacy initiatives, while Phong [Le] will be empowered as CEO to manage overall corporate operations,” he said in a statement. In a tweet, Mr Saylor indicated that he would be pursuing a new job that allowed him to focus more precisely on cryptocurrency. “In my next job, I intend to focus more on Bitcoin,” he wrote on Twitter. Mr Saylor’s Twitter account had previously been a way for him to communicate purchases that Microstrategy had made of new bitcoin. The latest of those posts came at the end of June, when Mr Saylor announced the company had spent another $10 million on the cryptocurrency. Since then, as the market has crashed, Mr Saylor’s primary focus on Twitter has been boosting the cryptocurrency. He regularly posts about the transformative power of bitcoin, even as the price has been dramatically falling. View comments || 5 Things to Know in Crypto Today: Key Points After some choppiness late on Thursday/early on Friday, crypto prices are consolidating ahead of US ISM Manufacturing PMI data. Crypto closed out a historically poor quarter on Thursday, with Bitcoin down 56%, its worst quarterly performance since Q3 2011. Celsius is reportedly exploring options to “protect and preserve assets” while FTX is reportedly close to buying BlockFi. Crypto Traders Eye Upcoming US ISM Data Markets are in a consolidative mood on the final day of the trading week and the first trading day of Q3 2022. US equity index futures are currently around flat in pre-market trade after closing lower for a fourth consecutive session on Thursday. Meanwhile, US bond yields continue to gradually head lower after breaking below key levels on Thursday (both the 2 and 10-year are back below 3.0%). Things were a little choppy for cryptocurrency markets during late Thursday trade/early Friday. Bitcoin swung from fresh weekly lows under $18,600 to as high as the $20,800s in a matter of hours. Trade has since calmed down with the world’s largest cryptocurrency back to trading in the mid-$19,000s, down about 2.5% on the day but still over 4.0% up from Thursday’s lows. In terms of the major altcoins, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization Ethereum was last trading just above $1,050, up around 3.5% in the last 24 hours as per CoinMarketCap. Over the same time period, the likes of Binance’s BNB , Ripple’s XRP , Solana’s SOL , Cardano’s ADA and Dogecoin were all up between 2 to 6%. US inflation data on Thursday contained fresh signals that US inflation looks to have peaked, with the Core PCE inflation metric falling to a six-month low of 4.7% YoY. But Consumer Spending data for May was weak and resulted in fresh calls that the US economy might already be in a technical recession. US growth will be back in focus when June ISM Manufacturing PMI survey data is released at 1400GMT later on Friday. Story continues Fresh signs of growth weakness could further weigh on risk appetite (and thus crypto). Equally, any signs of easing inflation pressures might cushion any declines as investors pare back Fed tightening bets. Pay close attention to the Price Paid subindex of the upcoming ISM data release. As Historically Bad Quarter Ends, Investors Mull What’s Next Crypto investors breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday as an ugly second quarter drew to a close. For Bitcoin, it was a historically bad quarter. The cryptocurrency closed out Thursday trade just under $19,900 according to CoinGecko, down over 56% since the end of March, marking the largest quarterly decline since Q3 2011. Meanwhile, June saw Bitcoin sustain its heaviest MoM losses since September 2011, with prices down over 38%. Cryptocurrencies in general have been falling in tandem with a sharp decline in global equity prices. The MSCI World Index on Thursday closed out its worst first half of a year on record. Persistently high inflation amid various supply shocks (including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Chinese lockdowns) has forced central banks to get more aggressive in their tightening of monetary policy. The hawkish shift from central banks has come despite growth and consumer sentiment showing signs of weakness across developed economies. This has created a toxic environment for risk assets, with investors shedding more speculative assets (like crypto and tech stocks) in favor of safer assets (like cash!). So does that mean more pain for crypto? Many think so. “Bitcoin could be vulnerable to one more ugly plunge that could have many traders fearing a fall towards the $10,000 area,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, in a note on Friday. More optimistically, JP Morgan said on Wednesday that the current deleveraging phase engulfing crypto markets, which they say the collapse of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital is a prime example of, is already well advanced. The US mega bank gave two reasons as to why it doesn’t think the current deleveraging phase will last much longer. Firstly, crypto companies with robust balance sheets have been stepping in to stem contagion (for example, FTX stepping in to save BlockFi and Voyager Digital). Secondly, JP Morgan said that venture capital funding in the industry remains strong. El Salvador Scoops Up More Bitcoin, But Still Down Big El Salvador President Nayib Bukele on Thursday announced on Twitter that his country had purchased a further 80 Bitcoins for $19,000 each, thanking the market for “selling cheap”. That marked the country’s first purchase since May, when it bought 500 Bitcoins at an average price of $30,744 each. According to analysis by CoinDesk, El Salvador has purchased 2,301 Bitcoins since it made the cryptocurrency legal tender last September for a total of just under $104 million. CoinDesk says that those holdings are now currently worth only $46.6 million, representing a 55% loss. Celsius Exploring Options to “Preserve and Protect Assets” Celsius Network, which has paused withdrawals, swaps and transfers now for 19 days due to “extreme market conditions”, said in an announcement on Thursday that it is exploring options to “preserve and protect assets”. In a blog post on the crypto lending platform’s website, Celsius said it is “focused and working as quickly as we can to stabilize liquidity and operations, in order to be positioned to share more information with the community”. “These exhaustive explorations are complex and take time, but we want the community to know that our teams are working with experts from many different disciplines,” Celsius said. The platform froze investor assets back on 12 June, fuelling concerns that the downturn in crypto markets in recent months had pushed the firm into insolvency. Crypto news outlet The Block reported on Thursday that FTX passed on an opportunity to buy Celsius, having been put off by the poor state of the firm’s finances. The report said that FTX walked from the talks given a “$2 billion hole” in Celsius’ balance sheet. FTX Close to BlockFi Acquisition Speaking of FTX, the leading crypto exchange is reportedly close to the acquisition of struggling crypto lending platform BlockFi. CNBC reported on Thursday that FTX may sign a deal to buy BlockFi for $25 million by the end of the week, having already provided the crypto lending platform with a $250 million revolving credit facility. BlockFi’s CEO Zac Prince took to Twitter to denounce the report, saying that the company isn’t close to being bought for $25 million. Back in March, a funding round had put BlockFi’s valuation at roughly $3 billion. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: NATO in talks to build naval base in Albania, prime minister says Sterling slumps 1.5% vs dollar on safe-haven demand, weak UK data Ohio top court lets six-week abortion ban remain in effect Palestinians torture detained critics, rights group says TikTok seeks to reassure lawmakers on U.S. data security Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Plunge to Find Buyers || Global stocks rise as Netflix earnings boost confidence and energy fears cool: • Global stocks rose on Wednesday after Netflix posted better-than-expected earnings and global energy fears cooled. • Investors were in a more upbeat mood after the S&P 500 shot up almost 3% on Tuesday as earnings season ramped up. • Reports said Russia would restart natural gas flows to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, easing some worries. Global stocks rose on Wednesday after Netflix earnings came in better than expected and as fears about a global energy crisis cooled. S&P 500 futureswere up 0.16% shortly after 5 a.m. ET, whileDow Jones futureswere 0.12% higher andNasdaq 100 futureshad risen 0.26%. Europe'sStoxx 600index ticked 0.35% higher as investors awaited the latest interest rate decision from the European Central Bank, which is due Thursday. The ECB said last month that it intends tohike rates by 25 basis points. However, the governing council is now also considering a 50-basis point hike, according to media reports, as it tries to tamp down the strongest inflation since the eurozone was founded in the late 1990s. Asian stocks rallied overnight, with Tokyo'sNikkei 225charging 2.67% higher and China'sCSI 300climbing 0.34%. Global stocks have suffered a brutal sell-off in 2022 as central banks have hiked interest rates — making borrowing more expensive — as they grapple with a near-worldwide surge in inflation. But the mood has improved somewhat in recent days as investors have started to see more positives in the global economy after months of gloom. The S&P 500 jumped 2.76% Tuesday. Netflixcheered investors on Tuesday when it revealed it had lost far fewer subscribers than expected in the second quarter of the year,shedding 970,000compared to expectations of around 2 million. Shares in the streaming company were up around 7% in premarket trading. A recent slide in energy prices has also raised hopes that inflation could soon be on its way down. That's despite the fact the falls have been driven by expectations that economies, and therefore demand for raw materials, are set to slow sharply. Reportsthat Russia will restart the flow of natural gas to Europe this week through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which is currently closed for maintenance, have also eased fears of a brutal energy crunch on the continent. However, price pressures showed little sign of abating in the UK, where inflation came in at a a fresh 40-year high of 9.4% in June, according to data released on Wednesday. "Despite Tuesday's more positive trading session, we don't expect a sustained improvement in market sentiment until investors get greater clarity on the outlook for the economy, central bank policy, and political risks," said Mark Haefele, wealth management chief investment officer at UBS. "Uncertainty in all of these areas remains elevated, in our view." Here are how other key assets performed: • Brent crudeoil was down 1.25% to $106.01 a barrel, whileWTI crudewas down 1.05% to $103.13. • The yield on the key10-year US Treasurynote fell 3.8 basis points to 2.984%. Yields move inversely to prices. • TheUS dollar indexwas down 0.12% at 106.55. • Bitcoinwas 1% higher at $23,520. Read the original article onBusiness Insider || Crypto Market Daily Highlights – ETH on the Move towards $1,500: Key Insights: On Saturday, the crypto top ten extended the winning streak to four sessions, with Ethereum (ETH) leading the way for a third session. News updates on the Merge delivered ETH with a breakout session, while market hopes of a 75 basis point Fed rate hike continued to drive investor appetite. The total crypto market cap rose by $31.5 billion. It was a bullish Saturday session for the crypto top ten. Bitcoin ( BTC ) rose for a fourth consecutive day, with ETH touching $1,400 for the first time since June 13. There were no speeches from FOMC members to provide direction, with members entering the blackout period, which extends from July 16 to July 28. From Friday, the talk of a 75-basis point continued to resonate, delivering the upside on the day. FOMC members Bostic and Bullard spoke of a 75-basis point hike this month, easing fears of a 100-basis point hike. With the US equity markets entering the earnings season, the crypto market will be looking to decouple from the NASDAQ 100. However, sentiment toward Fed monetary policy and the economic outlook will likely leave the two interlinked. Crypto – NASDAQ – 170722 Daily Chart The Total Crypto Market Cap Rises for a Fourth Consecutive Session A bearish start to the Saturday session saw the crypto market cap fall to a day low of $897 billion before finding support. A breakout session, supported by further investor reaction to the US retail sales figures and Fed chatter led to a high of $965 billion before easing back. Despite a late pullback, investors poured $31.5 billion back into the market to take the crypto market cap up $80 billion for July. Total Market Cap 170722 Daily Chart The Crypto Market Movers and Shakers from the Top Ten and Beyond ETH rallied by 10.12% to lead the way, with BNB (+4.70%), SOL (+5.95%), and XRP (+5.01%) also making solid gains. ADA (+3.62%), BTC (+ 1.79%), and DOGE (+2.34%) trailed the front runners. From the CoinMarketCap top 100, Lido DAO ( LDO ) led the way, surging by 22%, supported by the ETH breakout. Progress towards the ETH Merge remained the key driver for LDO, with Ether staking on the rise. Story continues Several coins bucked the broader market trend, however. Convex Finance ( CVX ) and TerraClassicUSD ( USTC ) fell by 3.90% and by 3.60%, respectively, with Quant ( QNT ) seeing a 1.55% loss. Total Crypto Liquidations Spike Despite Bullish Sentiment On Sunday, 24-hour liquidations jumped at the turn of the day, despite a bullish start to the Sunday session. This morning, 24-hour liquidations stood at $372.31 million, up from $144 million on Saturday. Liquidated traders surged over the last 24 hours, suggesting a possible deterioration in market conditions. At the time of writing, liquidated traders stood at 63,031 versus 47,290 on Saturday morning. Significantly, 12-hour liquidations surged to $344 million, driving four-hour and one-hour liquidations northwards. According to Coinglass , one-hour liquidations stood at $31.6 million, up from $0.924 million on Saturday. Total Crypto Liquidations 170722 Daily News Highlights Rumors of Coinbase having liquidity issues hit the news wires, with Coinbase reportedly ceasing its affiliate program. Ethereum continued its breakout session, supported by the talk of a September Merge date. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Boeing cuts 20-year industrywide outlook for planes Judge blocks Biden admin directives on transgender athletes, bathrooms Privately issued digital currencies likely better – Australia central bank chief British prime minister contenders set to clash in second TV debate Analysis-Pacific bloc, united, demands climate action as China, U.S. woo Bitcoin (BTC) Fear & Greed Index on the Border of the “Fear” Zone || First Mover Americas: BTC Down 40% in June; SEC Rejects Grayscale’s BTC ETF Application: 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, and welcome to First Mover.I’m Lyllah Ledesma, here to take you through the latest in crypto markets, news and insights. • Price point:Bitcoin suffered its worst monthly returns yet, down 40% in June. • Market moves:In a much scrutinized move, the U.S. SEC rejected the digital-asset manager Grayscale’s application to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into an exchange-traded fund. Within an hour, Grayscale had filed a suit against the regulator over the decision. Pessimism took over the crypto market in June, and bitcoin (BTC) suffered its worst monthly returns, according to data going back to 2013. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization traded down 40% on the month. June has been historically volatile for bitcoin, but this month has redefined the worst case. BTC was trading around $19,000 at press time, after dipping to $18,900 briefly. The cryptocurrency is down 5% over the last 24 hours. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected Grayscale's application to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to an exchange-traded fund (ETF) Wednesday. Grayscale is a subsidiary of CoinDesk parent company Digital Currency Group. Florian Giovannacci, head of trading at Covario AG, said that, looking forward, if equities can find a floor with less troublesome inflation data and crypto lenders stop “falling” one after the other, July might look brighter for the crypto market. “Unfortunately I am afraid we might only get one of the two,” Giovannacci said. Data fromCoinglassshows that the previous worst-performing month was in November 2018, when bitcoin dropped by 37%. Altcoins also took a large hit in June, with ethereum (ETH) losing 47%. Avalanche’sAVAXlost 40%, polygon (MATIC) was down 35% andsolana(SOL) took a 31% hit. Data from CryptoCompare shows that since May, total assets under management (AUM) across all digital-asset investment products has fallen 36% to $21.6 billion. (The data goes through June 23.) The AUM in bitcoin funds specifically fell 33.7% to $15.9 billion; however, they continued to gain market share, currently at 73.6% of total AUM, up from 70.1% in May. The AUM in ethereum-focused funds dropped 46.7% to $4.54 billion, according to CryptoCompare. By Nikhilesh De Grayscale Sues SEC Over Bitcoin ETF Application Rejection Grayscale Investments has sued the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) barely an hour after the regulatory agency rejected its application to convert its flagship Grayscale Bitcoin Trust product to an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The SECrejected Grayscale's applicationearlier Wednesday, citing concerns about market manipulation, the role of Tether in the broader bitcoin ecosystem and the lack of a surveillance-sharing agreement between a "regulated market of significant size" and a regulated exchange, echoing concerns the regulator has expressed for years in rejecting otherspotbitcoin ETF applications. Grayscale is a subsidiary of CoinDesk parent company Digital Currency Group. In thefiling, Grayscale simply asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the SEC's order. The investment firm announced it was prepared to sue the SEC in the event of a rejection earlier in 2022, saying it would file a proceeding tied to the Administrative Procedures Act. To that end, Grayscale tapped former Solicitor General Don Verrilli, who has experience in APA proceedings. “Grayscale supports and believes in the SEC’s mandate to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets and facilitate capital formation – and we are deeply disappointed by and vehemently disagree with the SEC's decision to continue to deny spot Bitcoin ETFs from coming to the U.S. market,” Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein said in astatementWednesday. Essentially, the company will argue that the SEC has to allow products that are like other products already trading, in this case bitcoin futures ETFs. Verrilli told reporters earlier in June that the SEC's approval of futures ETFs indicate the underlying market must be seen as reliable. "This is a place where common sense has a really important role to play. You've got a situation now in which you have certain kinds of exchange traded funds, one that is focused on bitcoin futures, and the SEC has approved that, the SEC is given it the seal of approval," he said. "In order to do so it had to make a determination that that giving this approval was consistent with the securities laws, and in particular, that that there wasn't a sufficient underlying risk of fraud and manipulation." To date, only a handful of bitcoin futures ETFs have been approved to trade. Spot bitcoin ETFs trade based on the price of bitcoin itself, while futures-based ETFs trade based on the price ofCME's bitcoin futures product (which in turn is tied to an index). Bitcoin ETF proponents argue that the futures markets are still based on the underlying spot bitcoin price, while the SEC notes that CME's futures market is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a fellow federal agency. • Banks’ Bitcoin Holdings Should Be Capped, Basel Committee ProposesHoldings of unbacked crypto like bitcoin and algorithmic stablecoins would be limited to 1% of a lender’s capital under the standard setter's new plans put out for consultation Thursday. • Bitcoin Drops to Nearly $19K as Fed Renews Inflation WarningsCentral bank leaders warned Wednesday that inflation is going to last longer than some people anticipated. • Harmony Horizon Exploit Linked to North Korea; $10M Bounty Offered in 'Global Manhunt'Developers said the team was “gathering wallet data” and strategizing plans based on the impact on users. • Singapore Central Bank Censures 3AC for Misleading and False DisclosuresThree Arrows Capital also exceeded the threshold of assets it could manage in Singapore, according to the central bank. • Hurry Up With Crypto ID Checks, FATF Tells CountriesAfter the potentially privacy-busting "travel rule" for crypto transfers, global standard-setters at the Financial Action Task Force have their eyes on Defi, NFTs and unhosted wallets. • Messari Research: DCG’s Barry Silbert Wins from SEC ETF stalemate, but Investors LoseMessari’s Ryan Selkis says Grayscale's product is broken, but SEC leadership won't let them fix it. • OpenSea Reports Email Data BreachAn employee at an outside contractor tasked with managing OpenSea email newsletters copied the list of customer emails and shared it with an outside party, OpenSea says. • Grayscale Sues SEC Over Bitcoin ETF Application RejectionThe SEC rejected Grayscale's application to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to an exchange-traded fund earlier Wednesday. • SEC Rejects Grayscale’s Spot Bitcoin ETF ApplicationGrayscale has said it was prepared for “all possible post-ruling scenarios." Today’s newsletter was edited by Parikshit Mishra and produced by Stephen Alpher. || SEC Boots Grayscale’s Spot Bitcoin ETF Again, Legal Challenge Filed: • The US SEC has rejected Grayscale’s proposal to convert its flagship Bitcoin Trust to an ETF. • Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein noted that the firm is “deeply disappointed” with the regulator’s decision. • The company has launched a legal challenge against the SEC. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) long-delayed rejection of bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) comes as no surprise as Chairman Gary Gensler has been fairly clear that he opposes spot BTC ETFs. The regulator on Wednesday, rejected a spot bitcoin ETF by Grayscale Investments. SEC cited that the proposal did not meet the standard designed to prevent fraud and market manipulation. Grayscale had applied to convert its $13.5 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot bitcoin ETF. The SEC denial comes as a blow for the broader crypto industry even after proving that the ETF product meets all investor protections. According to the SECfilingon June 29, the application was rejected “to protect investors and the public interest” as the proposal failed to demonstrate its “design to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices.” This decision has arrived a week ahead of the actual deadline – July 6 – to decide whether to reject or approve bitcoin ETFs. The SEC also disapproved Bitwise’s Bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP). To date, SEC  has given  green signal to only a handful of bitcoin futures ETFs to trade. Grayscalefiled its initial applicationin October 2021, just after SEC cleared the way for ProShares bitcoin futures ETF to trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). However, the securities regulator delayed the decision to approve or disapprove a bitcoin ETF multiple times. The SEC had also asked for additional information and comments from the public. In December last year, Grayscale wrote a letter to the SEC stating that the commission could bebreaking a law and violatingthe Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by rejecting a BTC spot ETF. Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale Investments said that the firm is “deeply disappointed” with the regulator’s decision. He also noted that the company “vehemently disagree” with SEC over continuous denial of spot bitcoin ETFs. Sonnenshein said in apress release, “Through the ETF application review process, we believe American investors overwhelmingly voiced a desire to see GBTC convert to a spot Bitcoin ETF, which would unlock billions of dollars of investor capital while bringing the world’s largest Bitcoin fund further into the U.S. regulatory perimeter.” Additionally, the company has filed a lawsuit against the SEC. On June 29, the company noted that its Senior Legal Strategist and former U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. has challenged the SEC by filing a petition for review. According to Verrelli, the SEC is “acting arbitrarily and capriciously” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and Securities Exchange Act. He said, “There is a compelling, common-sense argument here, and we look forward to resolving this matter productively and expeditiously.” Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Britain to boost defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by end of decade • Exclusive-ECB to channel cash from north to south in bid to cap spreads – sources • CMA CGM to lower some French shipping rates to curb inflation • Wall St set to fall on last day of bleak first-half on growth fears • Reliance says to launch British chain Pret A Manger in India • Bhutan to welcome tourists ‘who can spend’ for first time since COVID || Bitcoin Hasn’t Hit Rock Bottom Yet: Is The Crypto Winter Going to End or Has It Only Just Begun?: The price of Ethereum (ETH-USD) has also dropped by nearly 70% over the past three months for the first time in the history of the largest altcoin by capitalization. The crisis in the cryptocurrency market has led to massive layoffs and liquidations in many large crypto companies, and crypto lending platforms are now under threat of bankruptcy.CoinbaseandCrypto.comannounced more than 1400 layoffs, the largest crypto investment fund Three Arrows Capital went intoliquidation, and lending company Celsius suspended withdrawals for customers. Mining companies faced difficulties due to falling profitability and began to sell mined Bitcoins to pay their operating costs and cover loans. The price ofBitcoinis largely correlated with the situation in the US stock market. The stock sell-off has seriously impacted Bitcoin and the crypto market as investors are doing away with risky assets. In the second quarter, the US Federal Reserve implemented two aggressive interest rate hikes to cope with record-high inflation, fueling fears of a global recession. As a result, the percentage-wise decline in traditional asset indices has reached double-digit values. The hardest hit were the stocks of high-growth technology names —the Nasdaq Compositedropping by 22.4% in the second quarter and showing its worst quarterly performance over 14 years. Bitcoin has never experienced such strong pressure from external factors as it is now. Since the beginning of the year, the cryptocurrency has lost 57.3% in price, twice as much as theS&P 500(-20.6%). Those who bought shares of companies such asPayPal(-64.2%),Netflix(-70%) andShopify(-77%), suffered more losses. Even classic portfolio strategies in the US are showing their worst performance since the 2008 global financial crisis. There are no reasons in sight for a change in the global downtrend in the market. From the point of view of macro prospects, a change in the trend for Bitcoin is possible only with the change in the rhetoric of the US Federal Reserve to a friendlier stance towards the stock markets. The prerequisite is the normalization of inflation and the stabilization of the economy. Even worse, the likelihood of a further price decline is only increasing. In his recent speech to the US Congress, the head of the Fed acknowledged that there is a possibility of a recession. Previously, high growth in food prices against the backdrop of low unemployment was a typical picture on the eve of economic downturns. The negative sentiment towards digital currencies on the part of regulators wasexacerbatedby the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin, as a result of which global authorities started talking about the shortcomings of the digital currency market and the need for stricter regulation. Improvements in the stock exchange market are unlikely in the near future, which means that the price of Bitcoin in the third quarter will not demonstrate growth. A lot will also depend on geopolitics, new economic measures, prices for commodities, and the results of the elections to the US Congress in early November. Some experts predict a possible rebound in the price of Bitcoin to $25,000. But, subsequently, there is a high chance that the cryptocurrency will continue to fall and begin a long consolidation in search of price lows below the $10,000 mark. Psychological factors are also playing against Bitcoin. During a downtrend, positive news does not contribute to cryptocurrency exchange rates growth, while negative news, on the contrary, has a negative effect on the price. New price lows can provoke traders to a new reset of the cryptocurrency throughout the market. On the other hand, it can be an entry point for market newcomers looking to take advantage of the low price. In many ways, long-term investors are guided by 2024, when the next Bitcoin halving will take place. The price of the coin will most likely update its historical highs after the landmark event, just as it has in the past history of the oldest cryptocurrency. In any case, it can be quite a risky venture to buy any cryptocurrency now, as top instruments may well lose another 50% to 70% of their current value. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • France’s EDF to be fully nationalised -prime minister • Highland Park shooting suspect due in court on 7 murder counts • Crypto Exchange Giant Binance Launches Zero-Fee Bitcoin (BTC) Trading • Wall Street retreats ahead of Fed minutes • Exclusive-Germany’s Delivery Hero, Spanish unit Glovo targeted in EU antitrust raids • Extradited drug lord returns to Italy to serve 30-year sentence || Binance Volume Surges After Zero Trading Fee Policy Goes Live: Binance trading volume spiked after its global zero trading fee policy went live Friday morning. Zero trading fees worldwide for 13 crypto pairs at Binance – the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume – began Friday at 14:00 UTC (10 a.m. ET). The move caused an explosion in trading at the exchange, with bitcoin/tether (USDT) spot volume surging to 320,000 coins within hours. The exchange hasn’t seen volume that high for even a full day since March 2020. Chart from Binance website shows skyrocketing bitcoin trading volume on the crypto exchange immediately after 0% commission trading went live earlier Friday. (Binance) Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao attributed the surge to people trying to gain VIP tiers via high trading volumes. “We will exclude BTC trading from VIP calculations,” he tweeted . “Remove all incentives to wash trade. Announcement with details coming shortly.” A wash trade occurs when an investor buys and sells an asset for the purpose of artificially inflating the price. The exchange made the zero-fee announcement on Wednesday, with the plan becoming effective Friday on Binance’s fifth anniversary. “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,” CoinDesk reported at the time . || The Welshman who accidentally threw out 8,000 Bitcoin in 2013 is mounting an $11 million campaign to get it back: James Howells was doing some housecleaning in 2013 when he mistakenly threw out a hard drive that contained 8,000 Bitcoin he had mined. At the time, it was a mistake that cost him anywhere from $108,000 to $8.6 million depending on when he tossed the drive (2013 was a particularly volatile year for Bitcoin). That’s enough to make anyone kick themselves. Bitcoin, though, has only gotten more expensive , meaning Howells' losses have continued to grow. Even with the recent crypto winter , they now stand at $187 million. And now, he’s launching an expedition to try and recover the lost drive. Howells is petitioning the Newport (Wales) City Council to allow him to dig up the landfill that contains the hard drive. It’s a needle in a very large, very dirty haystack, filled with 110,000 tons of garbage. But if he convinces the city to let him conduct the search, he has a pair of venture capitalists ready to put up $11 million to conduct the excavation. The city, for years, has denied Howells’ request, saying the ecological impact would be too severe. With the current plan, which includes robot dogs and an A.I.-powered scanner, Howells says he believes that would be minimized. He has also vowed to build a solar station above the landfill when the search is complete. Should the Council approve this plan and the disk be found, and should the data on it be recoverable (any one of which is far from certain), Howells won’t walk away with the full $187 million. Under the terms of the deal, he and his VC partners would both keep 30% (roughly $56 million each), the team members who assist in the search would receive a portion, and each of Newport’s 150,000 citizens would receive £50. It wouldn’t be the first time that a treasure (albeit of a different kind) was found in a dump. In 2014, a pair of documentary filmmakers managed to dig up the long-rumored unsold copies of ET: The Extraterrestrial for the Atari 2600 that were buried in a New Mexico landfill after the company was unable to find buyers for the buggy title. The city raised over $100,000 by selling the nearly 900 copies of the long-buried title to collectors. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com || Buy the Dip In Exxon Mobil Stock: The only real question related to oil giant Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM ) is whether it’s too late to buy the company’s stock. Fueled by elevated prices for oil and natural gas, XOM stock has risen 28% this year. And it has largely bucked the market downturn that has pushed both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices into a bear market. But given its big run over the past six months, investors are right to wonder if they’ve missed the boat with Exxon Mobil. Spoiler alert: It’s not too late. Ticker Company Recent Price XOM Exxon Mobil $81.81 InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips XOM Stock Pullback While XOM stock has far outpaced the market this year, it has experienced a pullback in recent weeks as oil prices have softened, providing a decent entry point for investors looking to become Exxon Mobil shareholders. Mounting fears of a global economic recession have pushed the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the U.S. standard, down nearly 20% in recent weeks, falling as low as $98.53 on July 6 from a high of $122.11 on June 8. The price for WTI is currently trading right around $95 per barrel. That decline has impacted the prices of all major U.S. oil companies, including Exxon Mobil. Since June 8, XOM stock has dropped 21%, mirroring the decline in crude oil prices. ExxonMobil’s stock fell from a 52-week high of $105.57 on June 8 to its current price of $81.81. The pullback presents an opportunity for investors to buy the dip before the stock recovers and runs higher along with global energy prices, which are expected to remain elevated throughout the remainder of this year. This expectation gains further strength as we enter the cold autumn and winter months when demand for oil and natural gas to heat homes and businesses, especially in regions such as Europe, is forecast to spike. Bullish Outlook on Exxon Mobil Analysts seem to agree that XOM stock has more room to run despite the gains it has already achieved this year. At the end of June, Credit Suisse issued an extremely bullish outlook for Exxon Mobil, stating that the stock can gain another 45% this year, despite its run since January. Credit Suisse said that Exxon Mobil, which operates in areas ranging from the Gulf of Mexico and northern Canada to Argentina and Indonesia, has some of the best energy assets in the world. The bank raised its rating on Exxon Mobil stock to “outperform” and placed a $125 price target on the shares. Story continues 7 Best Mutual Funds to Buy in July The median price target on XOM stock is currently $105, implying nearly 28% upside from current levels. At the end of June, the company finalized a deal with Qatar Energy to increase its liquified natural gas (LNG) production. Exxon Mobil has taken a 6.25% stake in Qatar’s $29 billion North Field East project. The joint project should help to boost the Middle Eastern country’s annual LNG capacity to 110 million tons from 77 million tons by 2026. XOM stock currently has a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 14.27x, which is in line with other oil majors. And the company pays a dividend that yields a hefty 4.09%, which equates to a quarterly payout of 88 cents per share. Buy XOM Stock Energy stocks have been the lone bright spot in an otherwise down market this year. And among publicly traded oil and gas companies, Exxon Mobil is one of the very best stocks an investor can own. The company has producing oil and natural gas sites around the world, is involved in all facets of the energy market, has annual revenues of more than $275 billion and is well-positioned to capitalize on a prolonged rise in oil and gas prices. Throw in a fair valuation and a solid dividend and it’s easy to see that investors should consider adding ExxonMobil to their portfolio. Buy the dip in XOM stock. 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 $200 Oil Sooner Than You Think – Buy This Now 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 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. The post Buy the Dip In Exxon Mobil Stock appeared first on InvestorPlace . [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 19616.81, 20297.99, 19796.81, 20049.76, 20127.14, 19969.77, 19832.09, 19986.71, 19812.37, 18837.67
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 2020-08-25] BTC Price: 11366.13, BTC RSI: 48.77 Gold Price: 1911.80, Gold RSI: 46.89 Oil Price: 43.35, Oil RSI: 62.33 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] What Does the Twitter Hack Mean for Bitcoin? Crypto Reacts: For five hours, all of Twitter became Crypto Twitter. Wednesday, one of the biggest digital hacks in recent memory went down. A hacker, likely a Bitcoiner , gained access to Twitter’s administrative functions and began a crypto-scam campaign. Some of the world’s most notable accounts on the site started offering to double their investments if they sent funds to a Bitcoin wallet. It’s the type of scummy behavior Twitter promised to address back in 2018 . A federal examination is likely. So, too, is a permanent stain on Twitter’s reputation. What’s unknown is how this incident will affect perceptions of Bitcoin, blockchain and the crypto space, which is once again thrown into the news cycle for all the wrong reasons. Related: Twitter Hacker Is Mixing Bitcoin Loot Using a Wasabi Wallet, Elliptic Says Click here for CoinDesk’s full coverage of the Twitter hack . CoinDesk convened a panel of experts to discuss what the long- and short-term consequences of this scandal may be for crypto, and whether it’s a watershed moment to finally decentralize our social media. Anil Lulla co-founded Delphi Digital, a research and consultancy firm specializing in crypto assets Donna Redel is board member at New York Angels, an angel investment firm and frequent speaker on the crypto conference circuit. Steven McKie founded the venture capital firm Amentum and built a Handshake compatible web browser in his free time. Brekkie Von Bitcoin – A crypto influencer of sorts, Brekkie is known for relentlessly advocating for the coin. Matt Hill is CEO of Start9 Labs and an advocate for digital sovereignty. Vinay Gupta , inventor of the Hexayurt , is now pursuing the radical startup , Mattereum, which is attempting to create a digital twin for all physical items, so humanity can better manage and distribute increasingly scarce natural resources. Their responses have been edited and condensed. Will this increase in the attention to Bitcoin be good for crypto in general? Or will this attack/taint the image of Bitcoin? Related: Money Reimagined: This Isn't Good for Bitcoin Story continues Lulla: I believe there are some positive benefits to Bitcoin. Anyone who works in crypto got messages from friends and family asking what the scam is all about. They were curious to know when they saw the word “Bitcoin” on TV. So maybe this is an opportunity for us to explain how Bitcoin works. We can outline that this isn’t a Bitcoin scam and it was not hacked; Twitter got hacked. Obviously, it is going to increase attention, though whether that’s good or bad is up in the air. These little things shouldn’t really affect the fundamentals of Bitcoin. See also: Jack Dorsey: Mass Crypto Adoption Will Transform Square’s Business Redel: From my perspective, the short-term and long-term impact on Bitcoin from this hack is irrelevant since the emphasis should be on the illegal activity and breach of security. Twitter should be concerned about its short-term and long-term reputation. McKie: I think it’s not going to bring much attention to Bitcoin, aside from the general discourse for the next week or two. There’s just so much going on. Von Bitcoin: As someone who believes that Bitcoin is our best shot at a more prosperous future for everyone. … I’m personally only concerned on whether the increased media attention is good for Bitcoin, not crypto in general. But at this stage, I think the adage still holds that all press is good press for Bitcoin. Hill: The increased attention to Bitcoin might be good for crypto prices in general, but no amount of attention is going to save most of the projects out there from total collapse. Gupta: It’ll be a few stories about Bitcoin in the papers, but I don’t think it’ll spur adoption. Will this reinforce existing biases against crypto being associated with criminals? Lulla: This is a wider topic. People have predetermined biases. Most people in the space by now have been open-minded enough to understand this. Of course, there’s always gonna be a subset of people who always look for information that will always support their biases or their positions. But at the end of the day I don’t think it fundamentally changes anything. It really hasn’t changed anything so far. McKie: I don’t really think anyone will care. It’s Bitcoin. It doesn’t do anything to make it more infamous for those that already didn’t like it. See also: Crypto Criminals Have Already Stolen $1.4B in 2020, Says CipherTrace Von Bitcoin: Well, it didn’t do us any favors with regards to that common bias. There are already plenty of people calling this a “Bitcoin Hack” when obviously that is not the case at all. I am hopeful though that the fallout will be limited. Take this personal anecdote for what it is, but yesterday I spoke to my father about the hack, and despite the fact that his knowledge of Bitcoin is limited, he understood that the criminals were merely using Bitcoin, and that Bitcoin itself hadn’t been hacked. Hill: For some, yes. But I think most people are smart enough to know there were plenty of criminals before crypto. Gupta: Yes, it’s a stuipd mess, and it’s going to be widely understood as a stupid mess – yet more fuel for the people who want to believe crypto is for scammers. Could you speculate into the hacker’s motivations? Lulla: It’s still early to say because we’re still learning about what happened with the hack. Twitter is going to be really impacted by this because there’s gonna be a lot more scrutiny on how this happened and what exactly happened here. The whole motivation of the hacker was to get Bitcoin, but the damage could have been worse. Redel: First, the hack into people’s emails is an illegal activity. Secondly, the impersonation of individuals asking for transactions in bitcoin is simply another version of other illegal “scams” that ask people to send dollars to bank accounts or other locations. See also: How to Spot a Crypto Scam McKie: I’m not quite sure. They probably got access that they weren’t expecting and realized they had an opportunity and did something without planning. It’s really a test of why they didnt do anything with Donald Trump’s account, which would guarantee an immediate shutdown of whatever process they were exploiting. Von Bitcoin: Should I put my tinfoil hat on before I answer? On the surface it seems like the hacker just wanted to steal bitcoin. As others have noted, the hack itself appeared very clumsy, but if that clumsiness was intentional… then there may have been an ulterior motive. Perhaps it was a bad actor with other vested interests trying to discredit Bitcoin or Twitter, but I think it’s too early to say. Hill: I can only say what I hope their motivation was: to expose the fragility of centralized systems. Gupta: Well, if the goal was to make money from a massive Twitter 0-day, I have to say there were probably more effective ways of doing it. I was really surprised there was no political messaging, either! Is this a wake-up call to decentralize our communications systems? Gupta: Decentralized systems aren’t necessarily any more proofed against these kinds of exploits – protocol bugs are just as bad, when they occur. McKie: I don’t think Twitter can do a damn thing. When you have internal social engineering by nefarious actors, taking advantage of admin tools that are there for a particular reason, that’s just the nature of a centralized organization. There’s employee churn, there’s a lot of varied levels of security and accountability, there’s absolutely nothing you can do. There’s no security organization, anywhere in the world, you could have paid to prevent this sort of internal attack. You just have to accept that. Does that build the case for decentralized web? Yeah, sure. But no one immediately will think that, except for the people already in our crypto echo chamber. See also: In Trump Versus Twitter, Decentralized Tech May Win Lulla: People need to understand that Twitter got hacked – a centralized system got hacked. At the end, it is an issue with Twitter. It can take the shape of a wake up call for people. If this didn’t happen for instance there might be some people in the world who would never even imagine a situation like this. This is adding support for our community rights and decentralized systems of communication. Redel: Safeguarding privacy is important and should be a high priority for all. Von Bitcoin: At the very least it’s a wake-up call about vulnerabilities, and I think that Twitter is already taking it very seriously. Jack [Dorsey, the CEO]has hinted at wanting to decentralize Twitter, so I imagine this event might fast track those plans. Unfortunately there is a chicken and egg problem with trying to decentralize communications, and frankly for some use cases, centralization means a more efficient system. Hill: It is yet another wake up call. And like most wakeup calls, it will be greeted with a snooze button and a growing sense of anxiety. Related Stories What Does the Twitter Hack Mean for Bitcoin? Crypto Reacts What Does the Twitter Hack Mean for Bitcoin? Crypto Reacts || Blockchain Bites: Inside Cosmos, Bitcoin at $200B, DeFi Surges: Traders are expecting bitcoin to go higher. DeFi is surging in web traffic. And Cosmos is alive and well, despite internal feuding. No cultsCosmos, the blockchain interoperability project that turned a small ICO into a thriving ecosystem, almost came to an end in February 2020 when the project’s co-founders engaged in a heated feud. It is now a testament to open-source collaboration and teamwork. “The Cosmos community managed to mature beyond a cult of personality without turning founders into martyrs, working together to reduce individual influence over the shared resources,”says CoinDesk’s Leigh Cuen. In lineThe blockchain subsidiary of messaging app giant LINEhas made its native token availableto Japan-based traders for the first time. BitMax – operated by LINE’s LVC Corporation – has become the first crypto exchange in Japan to offer LINK (LN). Related:10 Reasons Quant Strategies for Crypto Fail You’re readingBlockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’snewsletters here. Australian rulesAustralia’s National Rugby League (NRL)announced Mondayit was piloting a blockchain-based app developed by the country’s patent and intellectual property office. Called Smart Trademark, the platform allows the legal owners of a trademark to link online stores and their supply chains to a government registry, so they can distinguish themselves from counterfeit websites. DeFi token YFIrises quicklyfollowing a listing on Binance (Decrypt) Bitcoin’s market capapproaches $200 billion, putting its value on par with Netflix and AT&T (Decrypt) Related:The Fourth Era of Blockchain Governance DeFi sites areseeing a surgein web traffic (The Block) Tuur Demeester’s Adamant Capital fundcloses quietly(The Block) “Bitcoin mania appears to be almost back in full bloom,”says Bloomberg. CoinDesk reporters Sebastian Sinclair and Omkar Godbole havethe latest: Bitcoin ison the hunt for a new yearly high, having crossed above $12,000 early on Monday. The cryptocurrency picked up bids during the Asian trading hours, rising from $11,750 to $12,068, according to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index. A break above $12,118 looks likely, as bullish demand can be seen in the strong hourly volume that continues to rise withbitcoin’shike in value. If bitcoin manages to surpass the $12,118 level, the next target would be the high of $12,325 reached early in August 2019. Crypto investment firm Three Arrows Capital’s co-founder Kyle Davies said Ethereum’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem could be another catalyst bolstering bitcoin’s recent rally. Bitcoin’s Stolen Revolution“Systems of power are rapidly asserting control over Bitcoin. And their incentives are not your incentives,”says Evan Shapiro, CEO of O(1), the team behind the Coda Protocol. Bitcoin was supposed to be an open system owned by its users. Instead it’s increasingly orchestrated by middlemen and powerful mining interests, he argues. Valuing Open-SourceNoelle Acheson’s Crypto Long & Short this weeklooks at how open-source networkscreate and don’t create value. The upshot? Copying is easy and increasingly likely. But size and audience dictates whether projects will be successful ultimately. “You can copy an open-source technology. But what gives a technology value is the community and network support from users,” she writes. Decentralized Ready Next TimeBen Goertzel, the founder and CEO of SingularityNET, a blockchain-based AI marketplace project,writesthat COVID-19 has laid bare the need for decentralized technology. “Decentralized IT may now be, roughly, where internet tech was right after the dot-com crash. Although the speculative bubble popped, the tech built while it was inflating throughout the 90s laid the groundwork for the net-centric world we have today.” Nathaniel Whittemore’s Long Reads Sunday follows the latest big themes around crypto. This week:a look at how public marketsthese days are less about capital raising and more about narratives and liquidity for early investors. • Blockchain Bites: Inside Cosmos, Bitcoin at $200B, DeFi Surges • Blockchain Bites: Inside Cosmos, Bitcoin at $200B, DeFi Surges || BitMEX Owner HDR Appoints Former Bank of China Exec to Board: A former bank exec has said he will help “transform” BitMEX, just a week after the crypto derivatives exchange launched a new corporate service. Announced Tuesday, BitMEX owner HDR Global Trading said David Wong – a former deputy CEO at Bank of China, the second-largest bank in Hong Kong – will join its board as a non-executive chairman to help grow and turn the Seychelles-based entity into a “world-class financial technology company.” Wong had previously been the South-East Asian head of Dutch bank ABN AMRO, before heading up the financial markets division at Bank of China. Since leaving the latter bank in 2013, Wong has become a board member for a range of companies, including various real estate trusts and a life insurance company. Related: To His Own Surprise, Crypto Volume Pumper's Business Is Still Thriving According to his Bloomberg profile , he also sits on the board for Singapore’s Energy Market Authority, as well as its Civil Service College, which offers educational programs for government employees. “Being able to attract someone of David’s calibre is a testament to the distance HDR has traveled,” said Arthur Hayes, HDR’s CEO and co-founder. See also: BitMEX Sees Biggest Short Squeeze in 8 Months After Bitcoin Surge In the same statement, Wong said HDR had an “inspiring vision for the future,” but didn’t elaborate on what that was or how he would help transform the company. Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Traders Expect Big Move as Volatility Plummets Last week, HDR launched a new account service for corporate customers, that comes with enhanced security and full-time relationship managers, liaisons between the exchange and clients, which are commonplace in traditional finance. BitMEX declined to comment on the hiring when contacted by CoinDesk. Related Stories BitMEX Owner HDR Appoints Former Bank of China Exec to Board BitMEX Owner HDR Appoints Former Bank of China Exec to Board || MIT Lightning Creator Unveils First ‘Demonstration’ of Bitcoin Scaling Tech: The infrastructure propping up Bitcoin might become easier for anyone to spin up and run. Lightning creator Tadge Dryja has been working on a new design for a lighter weight Bitcoin full node, about which he first wrote a paper in 2019. Last week, he and a team of coders released a first version of the Utreexo software as a part of MIT Digital Currency Initiative (DCI), putting the idea of lighter nodes into working code. Full Bitcoin nodes act like financial security systems, validating Bitcoin blockchain transactions and protecting users from being tricked into thinking they received money that they didn’t. But they take up a lot of computing space and are quickly growing in size. Related: OpenEthereum Supported 50% of Ethereum Classic Nodes. Now It’s Leaving the Project Since these nodes are the most “trustless” way of using Bitcoin, developers have long been trying to make them easier to use. It’s one of Bitcoin’s nerdy “holy grails.” Read more: Jonas Schnelli Wants You to Run a Bitcoin Full Node Utreexo specifically tackles the size of the “state” of a full node, which shows up-to-date information about who owns how much bitcoin. Utreexo slashes this state size from roughly four gigabytes to less than a kilobyte. In that regard, it could be a big breakthrough. “Utreexo is a new scalability technology for Bitcoin, which can make Bitcoin nodes smaller and faster while keeping the same security and privacy as full nodes,” Dryja wrote in the blog post announcing the release. Related: NEAR Protocol Enlists Bison Trails for Validator Support as It Heads Toward Full Mainnet But it hasn’t been implemented fully yet, which is why it is a big deal to see Dryja releasing a first version of it. The project still has a long journey to go before users can begin using the nodes to plant a flag of financial self-sovereignty. But it’s a crucial first step. A ‘super-pruned node’ Bitcoin full nodes hold every transaction ever made, clocking in at about 200 GB today. “Pruned” full nodes are able to reduce the size of the transaction history to as low as a half a gigabyte, about the size required to store an episode of a TV show. But this doesn’t tackle the storage of Bitcoin’s Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs), which tallies up how much bitcoin is linked to each bitcoin address. This batch of data takes up a little less than 4 GB of data. This UTXO state has grown rapidly over time and it is likely to continue growing, making it harder to run full nodes. Story continues That’s where Utreexo comes in. With the help of fancy, new cryptography, it’s possible to replace this bulk of state with one tiny cryptographic proof that takes up much less storage. Read more: Lightning Co-Creator Releases Code for Bitcoin Scaling Concept “Utreexo is a novel hash based dynamic accumulator, which allows the millions of unspent outputs to be represented in under a kilobyte – small enough to be written on a sheet of paper,” Dryja explains on the MIT DCI website. Because it does what a pruned node does, plus more, one bitcoiner called it a “super-pruned node,” Dryja told CoinDesk. Challenging SPV Trying to shave down these hefty Bitcoin full nodes is far from a new pursuit. Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) is probably the most popular version of a lightweight node, used by Electrum and other wallets. Utreexo is similar to SPV in that it doesn’t require nearly as much computer storage space as a full node. But SPV nodes don’t preserve user privacy as well and are more susceptible to attacks than Utreexo nodes are. Since Utreexo offers these security benefits, Dryja hopes it might chip away at SPV’s dominance in the space (as long as writing the Utreexo software goes as well as planned). “I think it would be great if it replaced SPV to some extent, allowing an Electrum-like user experience but with Bitcoin Core security,” he told CoinDesk. Read more: Could SPV Support a Billion Bitcoin Users? Sizing up a Scaling Claim But in the end, he doesn’t think it’ll replace SPV completely, as SPV is still easier to run. “I think it will be a bit in between. [Utreexo nodes are] heavier than SPV but lighter than current full nodes, so some SPV users may switch to Utreexo, and some current full node users will switch as well,” he said. He also imagines that since Utreexo nodes are so much easier to run, they’ll be much more common than normal full nodes. “Longer term, I can definitely see almost all full nodes using a Utreexo-like design, and nodes which store the entire state and history would be more like current blockchain explorer websites or Electrum servers – there will still be some, but no normal users will run their own,” Dryja said. Careful next steps Utreexo developers now put forward a proof of concept, showing that the idea can be turned into a real working product. But they still have a lot of work to do, including ironing out bugs to make the mini node suitable for real money. “The software also operates on testnet, the Bitcoin testing network, and is not recommended for use with real money. There are still plenty of known bugs and inefficiencies in the code, but we’re improving it at a rapid pace,” Dryja writes. They’ll eventually have to make the Utreexo node compatible with the nodes already running on the Bitcoin network. To do this, developers will eventually need to modify Bitcoin Core, the most popular Bitcoin node software. But this could be dangerous. Utreexo is “a significant re-thinking of how Bitcoin works, changing consensus-critical code,” Dryja writes. “It is thus likely to be difficult to get Utreexo code into Bitcoin Core, and with good reason. We want to be very sure to not introduce problems into a system handling so many people’s money,” Dryja said. That’s why they’ve decided to see if they can try to add Utreexo’s magical powers to alternative Bitcoin node software Btcd first, because it’s not used by nearly as many people to secure their money, “and in the process learn more about how it affects full node operation,” Dryja said. The next step will be eventually applying what they learned to Bitcoin Core. Related Stories MIT Lightning Creator Unveils First ‘Demonstration’ of Bitcoin Scaling Tech MIT Lightning Creator Unveils First ‘Demonstration’ of Bitcoin Scaling Tech View comments || Bitcoin Reaches Record High Correlation to S&P 500: Bitcoin’sone-year correlation to the Standard & Poor’s 500 index hit record highs as the leading cryptocurrency continues to trade in lockstep with traditional financial markets. The realized correlation, which measures the relationship between two assets, reached 0.367 on Thursday, up from -0.06 on January 1, according to data fromCoin Metrics. Bitcoin’s correlation to the benchmark index of U.S. stocks has made new all-time highs for the past three consecutive trading days. Before this, the previous high was on July 5, which lasted for one day. It’s worth noting that a coefficient of 0.367 is not overwhelmingly strong, but correlations on shorter-term bases are significantly higher. The closer a correlation coefficient is to 1.0, the more likely two things are to move in the same direction. Related:Drop in Bitcoin 'Whale' Addresses Suggests Market May Be Decentralizing Bitcoin’s one-month correlation to the S&P, for example, reached a multi-year high of 0.79 on Wednesday, according to data fromSkew, indicating a much stronger short-term correlation trend as levels of investor uncertainty and expected volatility remain high. Analysts expect the trend to continue and even strengthen. Bitcoin’s strong performance from March lows has fueled demand tobuyandtradebitcoin, even with the coronavirus pandemic battering the economy. Investors are increasingly looking for inflation hedges like gold or bitcoin amid aggressive expansionary monetary policy, which has also pushed equity prices higher at the same time. See also:The Federal Reserve’s Declining Balance Sheet Is Bearish for Bitcoin. Or Is It? Bitcoin has historically exhibited little to no correlation to traditional asset classes. But more consistent correlations are likely as the cryptocurrency space matures, according to Kevin Kelly, former equity analyst at Bloomberg and co-founder of cryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital. Related:Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Sets New Record High 2 Months After Halving “One of the biggest reasons we haven’t seen these develop already is the average investor profile is unlike traditional markets, where large institutional players dominate,” Kelly said in a letter to clients. • Bitcoin Reaches Record High Correlation to S&P 500 • Bitcoin Reaches Record High Correlation to S&P 500 || Former Google, Uber Self-Driving Engineer Sentenced To 18 Months In Prison, Seeks $4.1B In Earnouts: A former engineer at Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) (NASDAQ: GOOG ) subsidiary Waymo, who pleaded guilty to stealing secrets related to self-driving technology from the search engine giant and passing them on to Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER ), has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, TechCrunch reported Tuesday. Prison Sentence A Lesson For Others, Judge Says Anthony Levandowski agreed to pay restitution of $756,500 to Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo and a fine of $95,000. He will not have to go to prison till the time the COVID-19 crisis has passed. Judge William Alsup denied Levandowski's request for a home confinement instead of a jail time, saying, it would, “[give] a green light to every future brilliant engineer to steal trade secrets." "Prison time is the answer to that,” Alsup added. The convicted engineer and the prosecutors agreed to a plea deal in March 2020, after he was charged with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets. Engineer Seeks $4.1B Earnouts From Uber Levandowski has brought a separate lawsuit as a part of his bankruptcy proceedings, claiming earnouts of about $4.13 billion related to Uber Freight, the new name of his trucking firm Otto Trucking, TechCrunch noted. The engineer also wants to secure a $179 million payout from Uber under a purported indemnification agreement the company signed with him earlier. This is the same amount that was awarded to Alphabet in an earlier arbitration that led him to declare bankruptcy. The lawsuit alleges that other Google employees also stole secrets. Uber and the search engine giant reportedly settled those theft-related matters. Price Action Alphabet Class A and Class C shares both closed 0.64% lower at $1,473.30 and 1,464.97, respectively, on Tuesday. Uber stock closed about 4.8% higher at $32.68 per share and added another 0.4% in the after-hours. Photo courtesy: Kaxelrod on Wikimedia. Story continues See more from Benzinga 'Mulan' To Stream At Disney+ Starting Sept. At , On Top Of Subscription Square Reports Massive Q2 Earnings Beat, As Bitcoin Revenue Rises 600% Novavax Says Coronavirus Vaccine Generated 'Robust Antibody Responses' In Phase 1 Trial Participants © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bluesky Digital Assets Corp., Announces Appointment of CFO: Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 2, 2020) - Bluesky Digital Assets Corp., (CSE: BTC), (CSE: BTC.PR.A), (OTC Pink: BTCWD), ("Bluesky" or the "Corporation") announced today that Ms. Evelin Wong has resigned as the Corporation's CFO with immediate effect. The Corporation has appointed Mr. Frank Kordy as CFO on an Interim basis. Mr. Kordy previously served as the Corporation's CFO from December 2013 to December 2015. Mr. Kordy has served in the capacity of CFO for several CSE and TSXV listed entities. Mr. Frank Kordy Director stated: "I would like to thank Ms. Wong for her efforts and support in serving in the capacity of both Controller and then as CFO over the course of the last four years and I wish her nothing but success in all of her future endeavours." About Bluesky Digital Assets Corp. Bluesky Digital Assets Corp, is building a high value digital currency enterprise. Bluesky mines digital currencies, such as Bitcoin and Ether, and is developing value-added technology services for the digital currency market, such as digital mining proprietary software. Offering a complete ecosystem of value-creation, Bluesky is targeting reinvesting appropriate portions of its digital currency mining profits back into its operations. A percentage of the profit will be invested in the development of a proprietary Artificial Intelligence ("AI") based technology. Overall, Bluesky takes an approach that enables the Corporation to scale, and respond to changing conditions, within the still-emerging digital currency industry. The Corporation is poised to capture value in successive phases as this industry continues to scale. For more information please visitwww.blueskydigitalassets.com. For further information please contact: Mr. Steve LowInvestor RelationsBoom Capital Markets.T: (647) 620-5101E:steve@boomcapitalmarkets.com Mr. Ben GelfandCEO & DirectorBluesky Digital Assets CorpT: (416) 363-3833E:ben.gelfand@blueskydigitalassets.comMr. Frank KordySecretary & DirectorBluesky Digital Assets Corp.T: (647) 466-4037E:frank.kordy@blueskydigitalassets.com Forward-Looking Statements Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. The forward- looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements included in this document are made as of the date of this document and the Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation. Although management believes that the expectations represented in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such. Neither CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. We seek safe harbor. - 30 - THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES. To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/59070 || Blockchain Bites: PayPal, Mastercard Inch Closer to Crypto: Fintech giant PayPal is leaning on Paxos to handle its crypto services, Mastercard is expanding its crypto program and a prominent Canadian crypto platform has been accused of wash trading as much of 90% of its volumes. You’re readingBlockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why they’re significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’snewsletters here. PayPal Picks PaxosPayPal, the fintech giant planning to bring crypto trading to its massive user base, haschosen Paxos to handle the new service’s supply of digital assets,according to two people familiar with the matter. Paxos launched a brokerage service last week, which provides an API solution to allow businesses to begin offering crypto buying, selling, holding and sending capabilities – while handling all regulatory compliance aspects. It’s unknown what cryptocurrencies PayPal intends to offer, though its entry into the space makes it one of the most mainstream companies to do so. Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Shows Signs of Life But Ether (And Crew) Steal the Limelight Wash TradingCanada-based crypto trading platform Coinsquare has been accused by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) ofinflating its trading volumesin an illegal practice called wash trading. In a Statement of Allegations from the OSC, filed last Thursday, the regulator alleges Coinsquare’s executives directed staff to wash trade as much as 90% of the platform’s reported volume between July 2018 and December 2019. The alleged misconduct occurred while Coinsquare was applying to the OSC to register a subsidiary, Coinsquare Capital Markets. Crypto CardsMastercard is expanding its cryptocurrency program by granting Wirex, a crypto payment business, principal membership status. This status makes Wirex thefirst native crypto company to be able to directly issue payment cardsto its customers. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulated-Wirex offers a payment facility that automatically exchanges crypto into fiat currencies. Custodial EntrantStandard Chartered’s venture and innovation arm has been working on acrypto custody offering for the institutional marketthat could be piloted later this year. Alex Manson, the head of SC Ventures, said as many as 20 institutions have expressed interest in the custodial solution. He added, institutional adoption has been hindered by a lack of proper custodial offerings. Initially, SC Ventures had been looking at creating a market service, but realized it had to go a couple of steps back as many wouldn’t touch the digital asset space “with a flagpole” until they had ready access to an institutional-grade storage solution. Promo OversightThe U.K. government is looking toincrease oversight into cryptocurrency promotionsin order to protect investors. On Monday, the country’s Treasury said it would clamp down on “misleading and inadequate promotions” that endangered retail investors, like crypto promotions. John Glen, the City Minister responsible for the U.K.’s financial services sector, said any firm looking to approve the financial promotions from unauthorized firms would first need to have the consent of the Financial Conduct Authority. He added the proposals would bring crypto product promotions up to the same levels as those for other asset-classes. • A Welsh author memorializes theICO bubble in novelform • Wanted Wirecard executive is thought to besheltered by Russia’s Secret Service • Third Centra Tech founderpleaded guilty to ICO fraud • Balaji proposed a decentralized plan to exit Twitter (Decrypt) • $1.6 billion was invested in institutional-focused crypto custody services (The Block) Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Miners Find Upgrade Financing Aplenty, Even as Prices Languish Elon Musk’s OpenAI opened its third-generation language processing model to private beta, and crypto is aflutter with prognostications. GPT-3, short for Generative Pre-training Transformer, is a new AI-driven tool that revolutionizes how computers process and produce language. “When properly primed by a human, it can write creative fiction; it can generate functioning code; it can compose thoughtful business memos; and much more. Its possible use cases are limited only by our imaginations,”Forbesreports. Fed with nearly all the text available on the internet (roughly 175 billion parameters, or two orders of magnitude larger than its predecessor) GPT-3 can take any chuck of language a human gives it and run wild. It’s the one of themost advanced machine-learninglanguage models to date. Manuel Araoz, Zeppelin Solutions CTO, already used it to write a746-word blogabout a fake experiment looking at how GPT-3 can be used to deceive Bitcointalk forum members,Decryptreports. This meta-blog demonstrates how language generators could be employed to create fake news and misinformation. Araoz wonders whether GPT-3 will be “the biggest thing since bitcoin.” Citing its raw processing power, and Turing Test-passing blogs and tweets, it’s likely this technical edge will have a profound effect on how we judge content – once it’s released to the wild world wide web. There’s plenty to suggest this tool will deepen the skepticism of online content, but Gwern, a pseudonymous researcher in crypto, has already used it to find beauty. “GPT-3’s samples are not just close to human level: they are creative, witty, deep, meta, and often beautiful. They demonstrate an ability to handle abstractions, like style parodies, I have not seen in GPT-2 at all,”he writes,after testing it for a week. “Chatting with GPT-3 feels uncannily like chatting with a human.” Other early testers have their doubts. Delian Asparouhov, a Principal at Founders Fund, cautioned not to “get too excited, this isn’t some sort of general AI, and the machine doesn’t really have a way of understanding if what it is outputting is true or not.” While GPT-3 can predict language and finish a human being’ssentences, paragraphs, essays,it lacks internal understanding of language. It cannot reason. It cannot create. It can only mimic. Whether that’s enough to match the revolutionary potential of a self-sovereign financial system is an open question. But it seems like the genie is out of the bottle in both instances. Futures: BleakTrading activity in bitcoin futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) hascooled notably as the leading cryptocurrency languishesin the price doldrums. Only 1,895 contracts, representing $87 million in daily trading volume, were placed. This is the lowest level since mid-April. This is one part of a larger trend. Total global daily volume, as calculated by adding numbers from BitMEX, Deribit, Kraken, OKEx, bitFlyer, CoinFlex, CME. Huobi, FTX, Bitfinex, Binance, Bybit, and Bakkt, tanked to $4.65 billion – down 87% from the $36 billion observed on May 11. Two of CoinDesk’s senior-most leaders weigh in on theTwitter hack aftermathin their newsletters: Money Reimagined and Crypto Long & Short. You can sign up to get the full account in yourinbox here. This Isn’t Good for Crypto“No, blockchain does not fix this,” CoinDesk’s Chief Content Officer Michael Casey begins his weekly newsletter,Money Reimagined.He’s referring to the conversation on social media following the Twitter hack that left heads-of-state, corporate leaders and prominent crypto accounts exposed on Wednesday. Crypto Twitter responded with arguments that the exploit would shake trust in centralized systems and lead to a digital-first, self-sovereign revolution. That may be true, but Crypto Twitter isn’t likely to change any hearts and minds, Casey argues, especially if the community keeps calling its critics “morons.” On Second ThoughtIn her latestCrypto Long & Shortnewsletter, CoinDesk Head of Research Noelle Acheson argues the Twitter hack was good for Bitcoin, though not for the obvious reasons. While some have labeled the event a “bitcoin scam,” and called for the regulation or eradication of crypto, the hack highlights how this would be impossible: “One of the strengths of bitcoin is that it is out of the range of state actors.” This reassurance may assuage the anxieties of interested, though cautious, investors waiting for regulatory clarity. Further, because Bitcoin is built on a public ledger, a trail of the hacker’s conduct is in full view. “This should reassure regulators that bitcoin-related crime is not the threat to society some skeptics claim.” Bitcoin’s First MetricWhat arebitcoin days destroyed(BDD)? CoinDesk’s research team dive in to give a complete overview of what’s thought to be Bitcoin’s first on-chain metric. • Blockchain Bites: PayPal, Mastercard Inch Closer to Crypto • Blockchain Bites: PayPal, Mastercard Inch Closer to Crypto || Weed Out the Soviet-Era Ponzi Scheme Eating Ethereum: Lex Sokolin, a CoinDesk columnist, is Global Fintech co-head at ConsenSys, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based blockchain software company. The following is adapted from hisFintech Blueprintnewsletter. We have a beautiful Ethereum garden. In it we grow cash equivalents called stablecoins powering applications that run on open-source, programmable blockchains. It promises to be the new economy – free, permissionless and global. It saw more than $50 billion in transaction volume in June 2020 alone. But there is a hungry weed growing underneath. In our beautiful public garden, there spreads corruption. Can we root out this plant? Can we turn the soil? Related:Money Reimagined: Bitcoin and Ethereum Are a DeFi Double Act The weed is called a pyramid scheme, and italways takes advantage of those who feed it. Take a look at the diagram below (from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission). After four levels of targets, the scheme needs just 7,000 people to be profitable to the swindlers. After the 10th level, it needs 60 million people. By the 13th level, you must consume 13 billion participants. There is never enough for the weed. The weed can work on any technology, as long as it touches a human mind. You can spread it with words, on paper, by fax or in code. Here is how the weed looks when it’s implemented in software: This academic paper, published in January 2020,traces 184 software implementations of pyramid schemesoperating on permissionless networks. There are more now. Maybe you don’t understand how bad this is for the garden. Maybe you think letting this grow and overtake our mutual work is freedom. The strongest survive, the weakest die. See also: JP Koning –The $10B Stablecoin Industry Has a Fraud Problem It’s Not Addressing Related:How Bitcoin Is Like Ham Radio With that mindset, we would have no delicate flowers or cultivated beauty. All we would have is a desert of dandelions and horseradish. In the world of money and cryptocurrency, there would be no real economic activity, no central bank digital currency, no crypto-native businesses, no new financial infrastructure and no technology platform shifts to blockchain. Just a loud grind oftheftguzzling gas fees, crowding out productive activity from Ethereum forever. Let me introduce you to MMM, a pyramid scheme with roots in the former Soviet Union, which stole from nearly 10 million people during the 1990s. While decentralized finance and digital asset companies bend over backwards to be customer-centric and reform financial services (each in their own way), MMM is a pretender. It is a pretender that hasstolen the language of the crypto economyto create a cancer in its body. It hides in the Paxos project anduses Ethereum for its 21st century machinations. A personal aside: Growing up in the crumbling Soviet Union of the late-1980s, a series of TV commercials are etched into my memory. You have to sympathize a little bit, and imagine a country that had no functioning economic system and a massive black market. As the Berlin Wall collapsed, so did the economic hallucination that was the centrally planned economy. The Chicago School of Economics group advised then-President Mikhail Gorbachevon a “shock therapy” approach to transition, leading to an unprecedented distribution of state assets (e.g., factories, buildings, natural resources) to people who could not tell the difference between a stock certificate and a stamp. Let’s just say China did better with the gradual approach. Into this context came the ads. They feature a Russian man, Lenya Golubkov, who “invests” his money with a “securities cooperative” called MMM. His fortunes soon improve. He is able to buy boots, then a coat for his wife, eventually touring America with his brother and starting a successful business. The securities he buys look like stock certificates, promising returns of 100% per month and more. White hat hackers should come together to protect their users against naked pyramid schemes. If we don’t, there may never be real money in the system. You must understand that everything on TV carried authority in those times. Like movies from the U.S. that hinted at Western opulence and the promise of new wealth associated with liberalization, MMM was sold as a dream to regular people in a language they understood. I imagine in many poorer, less-educated parts of the world, such storytelling still works. As does this image of a voucher for a share in a pyramid scheme. The man behind the scheme,Sergei Mavrodi, is a cartoon villain, dead at the age of 62 from a heart attack (who knows what that means in Russia now). He spent his life openly gaslighting regulators and politicians, briefly even becoming one to get immunity from prosecution. The people he was defrauding voted him in, but he ended up jailed anyway. Seemingly a brilliant mathematician and deeply cynical, Mavrodi wrapped the popular sentiments on the ground into amisleading trapfor the unwary consumer. It feels like a long time since the 1990s. But in terms of human nature it has been barely a blink. After Mavrodi got out of jail, MMM resurfaced in 2011, made its way to the internet and has now implanted itself into the body of cryptocurrency. Mavrodi is dead, but his scheme is the decentralized autonomous organization that nobody wanted, living on in the code forever. Like a tapeworm, it eats 10% of Ethereum’s transactions andis responsible for 50% of the transfers for stablecoin Paxos, according to Coin Metrics. The weed is not alone, it inspires others.Another pyramid called Forsage is eating up 25% of Ethereum’s bandwidth, beating MMM at its parasitic game. Forsage is the decentralized app with the most users and volume, outperforming legitimate DeFi pioneers like Compound and Kyber Network. Other software versions of this same thing will proliferate and evolve as the smart contracts ecosystem of Ethereum matures. They prey on how easy it is to fool people and sell them a lie, and to undermine the infrastructure on which they grow. Regulators in thePhilippines have attempted to go after the pyramid scheme, but of course to no avail. It has no reach over Lado Okhotnikov, the developer of the code. And we are in the Pirate Bay age of money: There is nothing to shut down, many will argue. This is permissionless. There is hard work ahead. Instead of yield farming arbitrage, the crypto community must root out these weeds. If we ever want broad adoption, it is unrealistic to say “caveat emptor.” Most people are not able to probability-weigh payoffs and parse financial products for what is real and what is false. Think for a moment of computer viruses. Just because computers can become infected and send your data and passwords to maleficent third parties doesn’t mean that is likely to happen. Various shields, defenders and open software protect users from those seeking to troll and harm us. In the early-1990s, there were just 5,000 viruses transferred between computers. In 2020, research shows, there are now nearly abillion infections per year, across millions of websitesdesigned to trap and mislead people. We still use computers. We still use the internet. It is safe to do so because the tools to protect people have been created and are as widely available as their adversaries. In 30 years, I hope to say we still use Ethereum. If black hat hackers can band together to exploit well-meaning decentralized finance projects for their own gain, white hat hackers should come together to protect their users against naked pyramid schemes. If we don’t, there may neverbe real money in the system. Or worse yet, there will be no real decentralized system at all. • Weed Out the Soviet-Era Ponzi Scheme Eating Ethereum • Weed Out the Soviet-Era Ponzi Scheme Eating Ethereum || Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – OPEC+ Wants Overproducers to Cut Their Output: U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil futures are trading steady-to-better on Friday, putting the markets in a position to post their third consecutive weekly gain. The catalyst behind the early strength is major oil producers’ efforts to hold back output amid concerns about the pace of economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. At 08:01 GMT,October WTI crude oil futuresare trading $42.68, down $0.14 or -0.33% andDecember Brent crude oilis at $45.89, down $0.08 or -0.17%. An internal report by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, showed the group known as OPEC+ was focused on ensuring that members who had overproduced against their commitments would cut their output, as flagged following an OPEC+ meeting on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Reuters also said that OPEC+ found some members would need to slash output by 2.31 million barrels per day to make up for their recent oversupply. Among OPEC members, Iraq and Nigeria were the least compliant and even the United Arab Emirates, which made additional voluntary cuts in June, overproduced by around 50,000 bpd over the May-July period. The internal report also flagged demand risks, showing OPEC+ expects oil demand in 2020 to fall by 9.1 million bpd, 100,000 bpd more than in its previous forecast. Finally, the OPEC+ panel said that if a prolonged second wave of infections hits China, India, Europe and the United States in the second half of the year, demand could fall by 11.2 million bpd in 2020. Clearly, OPEC+ believes their production cut agreement is helping to stabilize oil prices and that may very well be true since we’ve seen prices appreciate since it was initially implemented. However, policymakers believe they could do better, but need cooperation from non-compliant members to toe the line to bring the supply/demand closer to equilibrium. Full compliance is likely to continue to underpin the markets, but the poor demand situation is likely to limit gains. Therefore, we continue to expect a most rangebound trade until demand issues improve, particular for gasoline and jet fuel. However, we may not see any substantial increase in demand for fuels until the number of global COVID-19 cases begins to flatten out, or a successful vaccine is developed. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • GBP/USD Daily Forecast – British Pound Is Back To Recent Highs • A Busy Economic Calendar Puts the EUR, the Pound, and the Dollar in Focus • Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – ‘Buy the Dip’ Traders Could Get Crushed by Rising Dollar • Bitcoin Struggling to Break 78.6% Fib in Triangle • Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – OPEC+ Wants Overproducers to Cut Their Output • EUR/USD Daily Forecast – Euro Tries To Continue Its Rebound [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 11488.36, 11323.40, 11542.50, 11506.87, 11711.51, 11680.82, 11970.48, 11414.03, 10245.30, 10511.81
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 2021-05-14] BTC Price: 49880.54, BTC RSI: 38.86 Gold Price: 1837.90, Gold RSI: 66.61 Oil Price: 65.37, Oil RSI: 57.12 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] We just learned a lot about Tesla’s Bitcoin bet: Update: New details about Tesla's Bitcoin stake were revealed in its 10Q filing on April 28th. You can read that story by Shawn Tully here . They're arguably the two biggest business names on the planet: Bitcoin and Elon Musk. So when the [hotlink]Tesla[/hotlink] CEO disclosed in the Q1 earnings release on April 26 that the EV-maker had booked a fat gain by selling part of the Bitcoin horde it famously amassed early this year, the Twitter-sphere erupted. Bitcoin skeptic Dave Portnoy, the celebrity blogger, ripped Musk for perpetrating a con. "So am I understanding this correctly? He pumps it. It goes up. Then he dumps it and makes a fortune," tweeted the founder of Barstool Sports. Bitcoin fans fretted that Musk was souring on the signature token he'd done so much to promote. Sword drawn, Musk riposted to foil Portnoy and reassure the loyalists. "No, you do not," he responded to Portnoy's tweet. "I have not sold any of my Bitcoin. Tesla sold 10% of its holdings essentially to prove liquidity of Bitcoin as an alternative to holding cash on the balance sheet." This was apparently the first time Musk disclosed that he himself owns Bitcoin. That news, and assurances that he's keeping all his coins, backed by the CFO's pledge that Tesla's a long-term holder, cheered enthusiasts and recharged the bull run that started the previous day. Following the release, Bitcoin rose 2% by early afternoon on April 27 to $54,092. How much has Tesla made on Bitcoin? Ever since Tesla announced its $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchase in the 10K, issued on February 8, it's been clear that the EV-maker's been harboring big gains. Still, the Q1 report provides new detail on the approximate price Tesla paid, how many coins remain on its balance sheet, and how much it's made on its big wager. The numbers also reveal a troubling truth: In the first quarter, the digital currency's appreciation dwarfs what Tesla earned in its bedrock business of selling cars and batteries, and providing software updates and other services. Story continues Accounting rules classify digital currencies as "indefinite-lived intangible assets." If at the end of a quarter, the price of Bitcoin falls below what the company paid, it's required to take an "impairment" charge reflecting the size of the hit. But if the price rises, the owner doesn't show that appreciation on the balance sheet. The holdings are still shown at the amount or "book value" the company originally paid. The big profit recorded in Q1 reveals the approximate size of the overall windfall. A note on page 5 discloses that Tesla booked a $101 million "positive impact" from the sale of Bitcoin, recorded in the 'Restructuring & Other' line on the income statement. The cash flow statement shows that the sale garnered proceeds of $272 million. Hence, we know that Tesla paid $171 million for Bitcoin it sold for $101 million more, clinching a 59% profit. On the conference call, CFO Zach Kirkhorn stated that the transaction happened "later in March." Bitcoin's price was uncharacteristically steady in the last three weeks of March, averaging $55,100. So the math suggests that Tesla sold around 4,800 Bitcoins at that price to raise the $272 million. We also can reckon what Tesla originally paid for its stake. Since it pocketed a 59% gain on every Bitcoin sold, its original cost must have been about $34,700. Makes sense. That's close to the average quote in the January to early February period that bookends Tesla's purchases. It appears that the $1.5 billion investment bought roughly 43,000 Bitcoin. Once again, the book value––or what it paid––for the tokens sold is $171 million. So we know the approximate balance-sheet number for what remains is the original investment of $1.5 billion, less the $171 million, or about $1.329 billion. Result: Tesla still holds around 38,300 Bitcoin that cost $1.329 billion. At Bitcoin's price of $54,100 on April 26, Tesla's trove is worth over $2.07 billion. Tesla's gain on what it still owns is $741 million. Add the $101 million from the Q1 sale, and its total take is $842 million. These numbers are approximate, but present what should be close to the full picture. On its balance sheet, Tesla displays its "digital currency" holdings at $1.331 billion. That's $2 million more than the number I get from deducting the sale from its original purchases. But on the earnings call, Kirkhorn said that Tesla "continues to accumulate Bitcoin from transactions from our customers as they purchase vehicles." Musk's famous declaration in February that Tesla would accept the coins in lieu of dollars or yuan may well explain the $2 million discrepancy. If forty customers opened their Bitcoin wallets to buy or make deposits on $51,000 Model 3s, those sales would account for the extra $2 million-worth in Tesla's coffers. My main misgiving: Both Musk and Kirkhorn refer to selling 10% of Tesla's stake. My math shows it parted with just over 11% of the number of coins purchased in Q1. So it's possible I'm missing something, or that Musk and Kirkhorn were giving a ballpark figure. Musk wants to keep holding Bitcoin, but will Tesla buy more? On the conference call, Kirkhorn spoke extensively about Bitcoin's benefits, and why Tesla sold. "Elon and I were looking for a place to store cash that wasn't being immediately used, trying to get some level of return on this, but also preserve liquidity," he declared. The rationale for trimming its position, he explained, was in part to test the ease of buying and selling. Bitcoin passed in a walk. "We've been quite pleased with the liquidity in the Bitcoin market," said Kirkhorn. It would be interesting to know what commissions Tesla paid in reaping that $272 million. [hotlink]Coinbase[/hotlink], the largest U.S. crypto exchange, recently disclosed average fees of 0.47% on each dollar it handles in transactions. At that rate, Tesla would have paid a jaw-dropping $1 million to make the trade. Kirkhorn affirmed Tesla's commitment to Bitcoin, as did Musk in his [hotlink]Twitter[/hotlink] jab at Portnoy. "We do believe in the long-term value of Bitcoin," observed the CFO. "So it's our intent to hold what we have long-term and to continue to accumulate Bitcoin from transactions from our customers as they purchase vehicles." What Kirkhorn didn't say is that Tesla has any intention of making more mega-bets like the $1.5 billion buy that helped propel the Bitcoin to never-before-seen prices. In Q1, speculating in Bitcoin was far more profitable than selling EVs Tesla's been producing autos since 2008, but it's only been trading Bitcoin for a single quarter. It's worth noting that during its maiden three months doing both, it fared much as a Bitcoin speculator than as a carmaker. In Q1, Tesla posted pre-tax profits of $533 million. But those earnings included $519 million in sales of regulatory credits, a boost that will soon disappear, as well as the $101 Bitcoin bonanza. Subtract those benefits outside selling cars, batteries and services, and it lost $87 million. Excluding the $101 million profit, its appreciation from the Bitcoin foray amounted to well over $700 million. Despite that bounty, the decision to tie Tesla's fortunes to an ultra-volatile investment was a poor one. Given the crypto's wild fluctuations, the big holding will only make Tesla's already uncertain profitability harder to forecast. What Tesla investors don't need more of is risk. Instead of gorging on Bitcoin, Musk could pay a special dividend with this excess cash, and let shareholders decide whether to buy Bitcoin or do something else with the cash. Musk is a brilliant, charismatic leader who is sidetracked on a Bitcoin misadventure. He should get back on the track, keep his eyes on the road, and stick to making vehicles that change the world. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com || FOREX-Dollar slides to more than two-month low after big U.S. jobs miss: * Nonfarm payrolls rose by 266,000 jobs vs forecast of 978,000 * Dollar down broadly * MSCI EM currency index hits record high * Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E (Adds reaction to U.S. jobs data, analysts' comments, updates prices, changes dateline) By John McCrank NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - The dollar fell to its lowest in more than two months on Friday after U.S. jobs data for April came in well below expectations, putting a damper on hopes that a roaring economic recovery would lead to higher rates any time soon. Nonfarm payrolls increased by only 266,000 jobs last month after rising by 770,000 in March, the Labor Department said in its closely watched employment report on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls advancing by 978,000 jobs. The dollar was down 0.34% at 90.561 against a basket of major currencies, having dropped as low as 90.338, its lowest since Feb. 26, following the data. "The dollar is really getting spanked this morning," said Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management. "The number was so out of consensus, that I think the market expectation of super-high rates and a squeeze on inflation is going to go down by the wayside, and that obviously means more liquidity from the Fed," he said. It also means U.S. interest rates will stay at ultra-low levels for quite a while and that is going to keep the pressure on the dollar, Schlossberg added. The euro was up 0.44% against the greenback at $1.21140 and the British pound was up 0.3% at $1.3933. "This is only one report, but this is changing many traders' thinking on how this recovery is unfolding," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at FX broker OANDA, in New York. Elsewhere, China's exports unexpectedly accelerated in April and import growth hit a decade high, helping to push the yuan and Asian stocks higher. China's yuan was at a more than two-month high versus the dollar, set for its longest weekly winning streak since September, helped by the strong trade data and softer dollar. The MSCI emerging market currency index hit a record high of 1732.79 on Friday, lifted by gains in the Chinese yuan. Monex Europe's Harvey said that emerging market currencies were also benefiting from the "commodity supercycle". The Canadian dollar was up 0.27% at 1.2185 to the U.S. dollar, having surged on Thursday to its strongest in more than three years. The Australian dollar was up 0.19% versus the U.S. dollar, at 0.77995, more than recouping losses from earlier in the session. The Aussie has been supported by a strong rally in the prices of Australia's top export earner, iron ore. "We expect the likes of AUD, CAD and NOK to remain well supported with the backdrop for positive optimism over global growth still quite favourable", MUFG head of research Derek Halpenny wrote in a note. In cryptocurrencies, ether rose 0.51% to $3,507.92, having hit a all-time high on Thursday. Bitcoin was up 1.4%, at $57,237.60. (Reporting by John McCrank in New York; additional reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in London; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Emelia Sithole-Matarise) || Crypto exchange Binance faces US money laundering probe: It's turning out to be another duly eventful year for crypto. In the span of five months, meme currency Dogecoin has seen prices spike, PayPal has opened cryptocurrency trading and Tesla performed a u-turn on Bitcoin payments . Adding to the volatility, conflicting reports claim the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is under investigation by the US Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). According to Bloomberg , officials interested in how crypto is being used for money laundering sought information from those familiar with Binance's dealings. However, the publication did not confirm whether the investigations were tied to criminal violations, claiming that not all inquiries stem from "allegations of wrongdoing." Binance's CEO Changpeng Zhao was quick to interject with his side of the story. Without explicitly naming the article, he tweeted that the "news" painted his company in a negative light. According to Zhao, Binance had “collaborated with law enforcement agencies to fight bad players,” adding that the story made that "look like a bad thing." However, the fact is the cryptocurrency exchange — which is banned from operating in the US — has been fielding money laundering allegations for a while now. A recent report from blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis said Binance was a top destination for illicit cryptocurrency in 2019. Regulators are also investigating whether Binance permitted Americans to make illegal trades, sources told Bloomberg . It's prohibited from doing business in the US because it offers securities that aren't registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Though the company has repeatedly rejected the claims, crypto news sites have said its restrictions on Americans can easily be bypassed. Bloomberg adds that Binance also previously advised Americans to use a VPN to hide their location when seeking access to its exchange. Story continues The company's entanglement with federal law enforcement arrives amid growing regulatory scrutiny of cryptocurrencies. US officials worried about the lack of oversight over digital assets fear they are being used to cover up illegal transactions, including drug deals. Meanwhile, the IRS has reportedly been expanding its ability to track individuals who owe taxes based on cryptocurrency investments. If you ask experts, they'll tell you that lawmakers are facing the eternal dilemma of playing catch-up with technological innovation. Binance was founded in China, but was forced to move out of the country in the wake of a ban on crypto trading in 2017. It is now incorporated in the Cayman Islands, according to Bloomberg , a notorious tax haven used by corporations and the wealthy to hide their finances. Yesterday, the company issued a statement on Twitter asserting its compliance with US laws. "We take our legal obligations very seriously and engage with regulators and law enforcement in a collaborative fashion," Binance said. "We have worked hard to build a robust compliance program that incorporates anti-money laundering principles and tools used by financial institutions to detect and address suspicious activity." The company continued: "We have a strong track record of assisting law enforcement agencies around the world, including in the United States." || Bitcoin Holders Accumulating BTC Once Again Following Six-Month Sell-Off: Bitcoin holders appear to be accumulating more bitcoin (BTC), following the recent rally, which saw long-term holders decreasing their position sizes. According to on-chaindataand intelligence platform Glassnode, long-term bitcoin holders have begunaccumulating the cryptocurrency once again. Previous data indicates that long-term holders had been selling or decreasing their position sizes since October 2020. The decrease in holdings began once bitcoin had crossed the $12,500 mark. This accelerated and reached a peak in mid-January 2021. Likely around the time bitcoin broke $40,000. The offloading continued until the beginning of April, and it now looks like long-term bitcoin holders are accumulating the digital asset once again. The reason for the shift from decreasing position size to increasing position size is likely due tobitcoin’s consistent bullish momentum. It is likely that bitcoin may not see a major dip back down below $40,000. This would mean holders are looking to get back into bitcoin before it continues to climb in price. Bitcoin has seen an impressive 400% gain in price since the sell-off began, climbing from $12,500 up to its recent high of $64,800. Bitcoin has recently hit a newall-time high, garnering freshspeculation that the cryptocurrency could hit$100,000 sooner than expected. With the current bull market seeing huge gains across the board, bullish sentiment for bitcoin has never been this strong. Cryptocurrency adoption is reaching new levels as U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase recentlylisted publiclyon the Nasdaq, making it the first cryptocurrency-centric company to do so. The evaluation of the company makes it one of the biggest in the market based on share price. However, while long-term holders of bitcoin may be accumulating once again, data suggests thatbitcoin dominance is on the decline. The rapid decline in dominance will see traders moving their funds into altcoins and other major caps. || Alcohol Industry Is Embracing Crypto, From Payments to NFTs: Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies are expanding out from the tech sphere into different sectors, including the alcohol industry. “Fermentation equals civilization,” said American author and poet John Ciardi. Globally, this philosophy has endured with different countries relying on various alcohol producers for significant economic contributions and returns. Brewers, distillers, and wine-makers increasingly embrace new technologies for both better taste and profit. Some are turning to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. Crypto meets the alcohol industry Last year, French wine distributor, Vin Malin said it would begin accepting cryptocurrency payments. Jean-Christophe Gallois, the company’s director, said, at first, this would be limited to bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH). Still, the possibility remains that more cryptocurrencies could be accepted in the future. This is not the first French wine merchant to get into the crypto game. Another French merchant has also been seeing major returns during the latest bitcoin bull run. BTC Wine, an online retailer, run by Lasserre & Papillon, is a Bordeaux-based company that sells wine exclusively in bitcoin. However, France isn’t the only country where alcohol and crypto have joined forces. In February, France’s neighbor Switzerland got involved. Sygnum Bank and Fine Wine Capital collaborated to tokenize premium investable wines as digital assets for trading. “Tokenization of wine assets enables us to expand our private collector investor base to new private and institutional investors interested in fractional ownership in distinctive real assets. This provides them the opportunity to hold, trade or request a physical settlement of this unique asset in an efficient manner,” Alexandre Challand, Fine Wine Capital co-founder, explained. Another European alcohol brewer also joined in on the NFT craze. Irish whiskey distiller Kinsale Spirits’ is offering a rare 20-year old single malt as part of its alcohol NFT auction. By creating legally binding, easily trackable digital assets ownership, the measures may set a precedent for this up and coming space. The rare cask is one of the few that remain from Cooley’s original distillery in Louth. Described by the sellers as a rare piece of history, the whiskey, “Pallet No. 14730,” is from 2001 and resides in an ex-bourbon barrel. Commenting on the development, a co-founder of Kinsale Spirits, Ernest Cantillon, said: “I would be hopeful that bidders in Asia, in particular, could be interested in this. It is a rare whiskey which in itself makes it a good investment but then of course if it captures the imagination then hopefully we get many multiples of its face value.” Story continues In the United States, the country’s oldest wine shop announced it would start accepting cryptocurrencies as payment. Established in 1820, legendary wine shop Acker houses the largest rare and fine wine auction house in North America. Acker seems to be proud to accept this novel form of payment, with Acker chairman, John Kapon, saying: “Cryptocurrency is here to stay, and we are excited to offer these additional options for payment in this ever-changing and shifting world. We look forward to growing our already robust network of wine lovers and making more exciting announcements in the digital space soon.” Businesses embrace blockchain in Europe However, alcohol producers and merchants aren’t the only cryptocurrency enthusiasts in European business. There is a growing trend towards cryptocurrencies in both the public and private sectors in Europe as a whole. Chairman of the European Blockchain Association, Michael Gebert, explains how businesses are turning to blockchain technologies to address problems facing their companies. However, he points out that the region overall is still more conservative than other parts of the world. He explains: “While European companies have identified breakthrough ideas on how blockchain could solve some of the most pressing problems in business and society today, according to our observations, there is a huge gap in their progress toward turning those ideas into reality, particularly from a strategic viewpoint.” Interest by the government is also ramping up. The country’s central bank, Banque de France, started trials of its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) , the first such trial in Europe. Gerbert points out that these kinds of trials and interests are important for the growth of cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance in the region. “Policymakers and regulators need to progress in assessing whether existing policies and laws are fit for purpose or if new frameworks will be required,” he says. Overall, interest in crypto continues to grow across sectors. The alcohol industry is just one of many proving the benefits of looking to the blockchain for solutions and trends. View comments || What's in Store for Universal Health's (UHS) Q1 Earnings?: Universal Health Services, Inc . UHS is set to report first-quarter 2021 results on Apr 26, after market close. For the to-be-reported quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings is pegged at $2.15 per share, indicating an improvement of 24.3% from the year-ago reported figure. Factors to Note In the quarter to be reported, the company’s performance might have gained from solid revenues. The company is likely to have witnessed better admissions, on par with the pre-COVID levels. The company’s segments, namely Acute Care and Behavioral Health, which have been contributing to its top line over the last several quarters, are likely to have benefited from higher admissions. The consensus mark for net revenues at Acute Care and Behavioral Health suggests an improvement of 4.3% and 1.8% each from the respective prior-year reported numbers. The company is likely to have witnessed better emergency room visits and elective or scheduled procedures. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for total revenues stands at $2.9 billion, indicating growth of 3.6% from the year-earlier reported figure. The consensus estimate for average licensed beds at Behavorial Health segment suggests a rise of 0.5% while the same for acute care (United States and Puerto Rico) indicates an increase of 0.3% from the respective year-ago reported figures. At Behavioral Health Centers, the consensus mark for patient days hints at a decline of 2.3% from the prior-year reported number due to contracting patient volumes. The company has a pipeline of opening facilities to cater to people suffering behavioral health issues. Patient days in the Acute Care segment are likely to have rebounded from prior-year levels. The estimate for patient days for acute care (the United States and Puerto Rico) indicates a 4.9% rise from the prior-year reported figure. On its last earnings call, the board of directors declared of the resumption of its quarterly dividend of 20 cents per share, which was paid out on Mar 31. Also, the company is expected to have incurred escalating expenses due to higher salaries, wages and benefits plus other operating expenses, which in turn, might have weighed on its margins. Story continues What the Quantitative Model States Our proven model doesn’t conclusively predict an earnings beat for Universal Health this season. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of a positive surprise, which is not the case here. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Earnings ESP: Universal Health has an Earnings ESP of -3.72%. This is because the the Most Accurate Estimate of $2.15 is higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.07. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they are reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Universal Health Services, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise Universal Health Services, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise Universal Health Services, Inc. price-eps-surprise | Universal Health Services, Inc. Quote Zacks Rank: Universal Health currently carries a Zacks Rank #3. Q4 Highlights and Surprise History Universal Health reported fourth-quarter 2020 adjusted earnings of $3.59 per share, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 24.7%. Further, the bottom line improved 28.7% year over year. Results were aided by higher revenues, partly offset by escalating costs. The company’s earnings managed to beat estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed the same in the remaining one. It has a trailing four-quarter surprise of 124%, on average. Peer Results Of the medical sector players that already reported first-quarter results so far, the bottom-line results of Tenet Healthcare Corporation THC, Anthem Inc . ANTM and UnitedHealth Group Incorporated UNH beat the respective Zacks Consensus Estimate. 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 UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Universal Health Services, Inc. (UHS) : Free Stock Analysis Report Tenet Healthcare Corporation (THC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Anthem, Inc. (ANTM) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. || Crypto Exchange Coinsquare Ordered to Hand Thousands of Customers’ Records to Canadian Tax Agency: Canada’s tax authority, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), has prevailed in a court battle for access to a trove of high-value customer data held by cryptocurrency exchange Coinsquare. And the CRA seems to be coming for more. Under a federal judge’s March 19order, Coinsquare must hand over detailed information on its Canadian customers, their crypto trading activity and identifying information to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Coinsquare told CoinDesk it will disclose information on an estimated 5% to 10% of its 400,000 customers to the CRA, which had originally sought to secure the lot. Court documents indicate only high-value accounts will be caught in the sweep. Related:US Government Sees 'Cryptocurrency Spring Fever' as Great Time to Auction Bitcoin The first of its kind ruling hands CRA a win just seven months after itbegan pursuing Coinsquare’s customer datain court. CRA argued it needed the data to check if taxpayers were meeting their crypto reporting burdens and the federal court agreed. Today, CoinDesk also learned the tax authority is “currently in the process of serving” Coinsquare with a further request for customer information by means of an “Unnamed Persons Requirement” (UPR). According to a spokeswoman for the CRA, the agency needs Coinsquare’s customer information to verify compliance with Canada’s Income Tax Act (ITA) and Excise Tax Act (ETA). Coinsquare will have 15 days to comply with the order once it is received. Five years ago, the Internal Revenue Service, CRA’s U.S. counterpart, launched a similar effort against Coinbase, using a parallel argument for access. Though Coinbase at first lambasted the IRS’“fishing expedition”it ultimately acceded to a judge’s order, handing over records on some13,000 customers. Related:Ethereum’s Transition Could Be Months, Not Years Away At the time, Coinbase called the outcome a “partial victory” because it said it had pared down the scope of the IRS’ demands to include only accounts trading more than C$20,000 (US$15,800). Coinsquare echoed that sentiment on Tuesday as it touted the pared-down order secured through negotiations with CRA as a win. Coinsquare’s final bargain will compel the crypto exchange to hand over at year’s end exhaustive data on accounts that held C$20,000 in crypto from 2014-2020 or cumulatively in their history, as well as the 16,500 largest accounts from each year. “Coinsquare negotiated to protect its clients’ privacy, and limit any disclosure to only what was absolutely required by the CRA under Canadian tax law,” Coinsquare told CoinDesk. “Instead of providing the CRA with all client data dating back to 2013 as was initially requested, Coinsquare and the CRA have agreed that information relating to 90%-95% of Coinsquare’s clients will not be disclosed.” The CRA spokeswoman said the agency “reserves the right” to mount future taxpayer data collection efforts against Coinsquare and “other sources.” However, she said the pared-down court order “appears sufficient to verify compliance with the ITA and/or the ETA.” • Crypto Exchange Coinsquare Ordered to Hand Thousands of Customers’ Records to Canadian Tax Agency • Crypto Exchange Coinsquare Ordered to Hand Thousands of Customers’ Records to Canadian Tax Agency || Bitcoin Miners Saw a Monthly Record $1.5B Revenue in March: Bitcoin miners collected $1.5 billion in revenue in March, a monthly record for the 12-year-old blockchain network, as the price of bitcoin (BTC) broke above $50,000. • “Few had anticipated the scale of this bull run in September 2020. Back then, the monthly miner revenue sat at $329 million. Since then, the revenues have increased by 373%,” according to a new report byArcane Research, a Norwegian analysis firm. • Miners are awarded bitcoin whenever they add a new block of transactions to the blockchain, which they can later sell on the market to fund operating costs or simply just to cash out. Transaction fees are another source of revenue. • “The recent mining revenue spike is rewarding miners who already had a well-established setup before the bitcoin bull run, or great foresight in Q3 2020.” • New mining equipment is estimated to be delivered around November 2021 and January 2022, which could contribute to greater computational power (hashrate) used to mine and process transactions, according to Arcane. • Publicly listed mining stocks have largely tracked the price of bitcoin in March. RIOT Blockchain, a bitcoin mining company (NASDAQ: RIOT), is up about 23% versus BTC’s rise of 26% for the month to date at the time of writing. • Bitcoin Miners Saw a Monthly Record $1.5B Revenue in March • Bitcoin Miners Saw a Monthly Record $1.5B Revenue in March • Bitcoin Miners Saw a Monthly Record $1.5B Revenue in March • Bitcoin Miners Saw a Monthly Record $1.5B Revenue in March || Acuity Brands' (AYI) Shares March Higher, Can It Continue?: As of late, it has definitely been a great time to be an investor in Acuity Brands, Inc. AYI. The stock has moved higher by 38.2% in the past month, while it is also above its 20 day SMA too. This combination of strong price performance and favorable technical could suggest that the stock may be on the right path. We certainly think that this might be the case, particularly if you consider AYI’s recent earnings estimate revision activity. From this look, the company’s future is quite favorable; as AYI has earned itself a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), meaning that its recent run may continue for a bit longer, and that this isn’t the top for the in-focus company. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here . 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 Acuity Brands Inc (AYI) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. || Cosmos Investors Vote to Approve Inter-Blockchain Communication: The long-awaited vision of the Cosmos blockchain has now been realized, as holders of the ATOM token have voted through inter-blockchain communication (IBC), enabling assets to transfer easily between blockchains. The final vote to enable the feature was 112 million to 75, overwhelmingly in support of activation. In the simplest terms, IBC enables messages to travel between blockchains that have implemented the standard. The most obvious use case in crypto is sending messages to transfer tokens off one chain and onto another. Related: Bitcoin + Ether: Risks and Rewards “At its core, IBC is a method of securely exchanging data between two independent (sovereign) blockchains. This means that any two blockchains that support IBC can send communication back and forth in a permissionless manner,” Zarko Milosevic, chief scientist at the blockchain consultancy Informal Systems, told CoinDesk by email. This development has the potential to open up opportunities in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, where a product on an application-specific blockchain could use an asset from a completely different chain. For example, ATOM is the governance token for Cosmos, the blockchain built to enable IBC. “Previously, ATOM was relegated to the Cosmos Hub with regard to its utility as a governance token. It is now transferable and interoperable with all blockchains that support IBC,” Milosevic said. Pent-up demand One place ATOM may go: the Terra blockchain, which runs a DeFi savings account called Anchor. Terra could plug in to IBC and make ATOM one of the tokens its underlying money market will loan. Related: Square's CFO Says There's 'Absolutely A Case' for All Corporate Balance Sheets to Hold Bitcoin IBC was built into the Stargate upgrade enabled by the Cosmos ecosystem in February . ATOM holders, however, opted to let Stargate run a bit longer and do further testing before enabling IBC. The vote put IBC into effect on Cosmos. Story continues There was no delay between the vote and the feature going live. “Since it is a parameter change, it does not require for the chain to be halted,” Milosevic explained. The activation of IBC is not enough for all blockchains to work in conjunction with each other, though. IBC is a protocol that other blockchains can use, but they must upgrade to the IBC standard. That is theoretically possible for any blockchain to do , but those built on Tendermint, the consensus model native to the Cosmos ecosystem, are likely to be the first to adopt the standard. Some of the blockchains that are built on Tendermint include Kava , Agoric, Akash, Foam and Crypto.com . “It’s like dropping a crystal into a supersaturated solution: The pent-up need for interconnection between chains will be unleashed,” Dean Tribble, the CEO at Agoric , told CoinDesk through a spokesperson. “Some of the most interesting connections will be between chains that we have never heard of, accomplishing things not currently feasible.” Agoric is a secure smart contracts platform. It’s not yet running in the wild, but its developers have tried IBC in tests. Open-source cloud services provider Akash and crypto-trading app Crypto.com both told CoinDesk that each is technically ready to join IBC and should do so in a matter of weeks, pending approval by their respective token holders. Mix and match Cosmos’ funding came from a 2017 initial coin offering that raised $17 million to support a cross-blockchain future. Its war chest appreciated dramatically thanks to deft treasury management. The project had a variety of leadership changes through a rocky 2020 but carried on. The website Cosmos-Cap estimates the combined market capitalization for the ecosystem’s blockchains at over $60 billion, led by Binance Coin, Terra, Crypto.com and Cosmos itself. “Since IBC is modular by design, it can be easily extended to support more chains outside of the Tendermint ecosystem. For example, the modules needed to open IBC connections to the Polkadot and Kusama networks and other substrate based networks are under development,” Milosevic wrote. Similarly, the venture fund Multicoin Capital recently released a report on one blockchain in the Cosmos ecosystem, Thorchain, a cross-chain decentralized exchange, in the same mold as DeFi staple Uniswap . Multicoin’s Tushar Jain wrote in an email to CoinDesk about Cosmos’ latest upgrade: “It is a huge deal. Through things like IBC and Thorchain’s bridge to non-Cosmos protocols and other bridges like Solana’s wormhole bridge, we will see the cross-chain future come to life,” Jain said. Disclosure: Brady Dale has a very small holding of ATOM tokens. Related Stories Cosmos Investors Vote to Approve Inter-Blockchain Communication Cosmos Investors Vote to Approve Inter-Blockchain Communication [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 46760.19, 46456.06, 43537.51, 42909.40, 37002.44, 40782.74, 37304.69, 37536.63, 34770.58, 38705.98
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 2020-03-18] BTC Price: 5238.44, BTC RSI: 26.05 Gold Price: 1477.30, Gold RSI: 33.84 Oil Price: 20.37, Oil RSI: 14.54 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Litecoin Falls 10% In Bearish Trade: Investing.com - Litecoin was trading at $58.567 by 12:16 (17:16 GMT) on the Investing.com Index on Friday, down 10.09% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage loss since February 26. The move downwards pushed Litecoin's market cap down to $3.793B, or 1.50% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, Litecoin's market cap was $14.099B. Litecoin had traded in a range of $56.953 to $63.302 in the previous twenty-four hours. Over the past seven days, Litecoin has seen a drop in value, as it lost 19.46%. The volume of Litecoin traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $5.259B or 3.34% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $56.9527 to $79.9201 in the past 7 days. At its current price, Litecoin is still down 86.06% from its all-time high of $420.00 set on December 12, 2017. Bitcoin was last at $8,580.6 on the Investing.com Index, down 4.17% on the day. Ethereum was trading at $221.91 on the Investing.com Index, a loss of 6.66%. Bitcoin's market cap was last at $157.527B or 62.49% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while Ethereum's market cap totaled $24.571B or 9.75% of the total cryptocurrency market value. Related Articles Bitcoin Price Tests 150-Day Moving Average Support; Can it Bounce Back? Grammy-Nominated Artist Akon to Launch Cryptocurrency on Stellar Why Banks Aren’t Banking Your Crypto Startup || Crypto Markets: Cryptocurrencies Surge As Coronavirus Spreads, Singapore Brings New Regulation: A majority of the top cryptocurrencies surged in early trade on Tuesday as stock markets retreated in the wake of the rising casualties from the novel Coronavirus in China. What Happened The surge in cryptocurrency's price at a time when the traditional markets are holding back also brings focus to a long-standing debate on whether they act as a safe haven during times of increased geopolitical adversities or other global risks like posed by the latest virus outbreak. Bitcoin (BTC) surged more than 5% earlier this month after Iran's airstrikes at the United States military airbases in Iraq, quite in tandem with established safe havens like gold and Japanese yen. Nevertheless, cryptocurrencies have proved to be too unpredictable and not adhere to specific trends over time. Kostya Etus, a portfolio manager at CLS Investments, told CoinDesk that BTC can't yet be labeled as either a risk-on asset or a safe haven. "Bitcoin isn't really viewed as a safe-haven asset like gold or cash, and it doesn't have much in common with risk-on assets like stocks either," Etus said. "While most assets are specific to risk-on and risk-off environments, in which you could predict price reactions to certain events, bitcoin is not one of those assets." Meanwhile, the Monetary Authority of Singapore on Tuesday announced that its Payment Services Act has come into force. The law gives the provisions for cryptocurrency businesses to register and get licensed to operate legally in the country. Price Action Here's how some of the cryptocurrencies traded at press time, according to CoinMarketCap data: Bitcoin was up 4.01% at $8,990.16. Ethereum (ETH), the cryptocurrency backing the namesake blockchain platform, traded 2.41% higher at $171.82. XRP (XRP), the cryptocurrency enabling the Ripple payment network, added 1.87% at 23 cents. Among Bitcoin hard forks, Bitcoin SV (BSV) added 5.5% at $297.33, while Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was up 1.04% at $363.97. The stablecoin Tether (USDT) traded at its intended price of $1. Cardano (ADA) made a notable gain of nearly 15% and traded at 5 cents. The cryptocurrency market overall added about 3.64% to its valuation at $247.69 billion. Bitcoin made up for about 66% of the overall market. Story continues 0 See more from Benzinga Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Becomes First Bitcoin Investment Vehicle To Become SEC Reporting Company © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Your Evening Briefing: (Bloomberg) -- Markets on Tuesday recovered some of what they lost Monday, but it’s becoming clear that the coronavirus has exposed a dangerous weakness in the U.S. economy: heavily leveraged companies. Business debt now exceeds that of households for the first time in almost three decades. Moreover, borrowing has been concentrated in riskier companies with fewer financial resources to ride out the current crisis. A wave of defaults could intensify the economic impact of the global epidemic. According to Bloomberg Economics, the chance of a downturn in the next 12 months just rose to 53%, its highest level since the Great Recession ended some 11 years ago. We’re tracking the latest on the coronavirus outbreak and the global response. Sign up here for our daily newsletter on what you need to know. Here are today’s top stories Having assumed a 670-574 lead in delegates, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden faces Senator Bernie Sanders in six Democratic presidential primaries today. Thanks in part to weeks of delay by the Trump administration and its bungled distribution of working Covid-19 test kits, America has lost the chance to control the outbreak in some places, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar claimed there’s now a surplus of those tests. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo responded that Azar is wrong, and that the Empire State desperately needs more. Cuomo sealed off part of a New York City suburb where cases have spiked. There are 793 confirmed cases in the U.S. and 27 dead. Worldwide, cases jumped past 117,000, with more than 4,200 dead. The CDC warned that U.S. hospitals may have a difficult time handling an influx of Covid-19 patients. Because of a strong, late flu season, America’s hospitals are already at 95% capacity or higher. Official data on employment, inflation and GDP will one day show the effect of the coronavirus on U.S. economic activity. But there are five signs that show how consumers are reacting right now. Story continues This London-based hedge fund rarely loses. In 2020, things are different for LMR Partners. It’s had its worst start ever. What’s Joe thinking about today? If you can believe it, the Bloomberg news director is talking Bitcoin, but there’s a good reason: Joe says the cryptocurrency provides lessons for the current market carnage. While there’s strong demand for haven assets, you can get to a point where volatility is so extreme that some stop providing much of a return. What you’ll need to know tomorrow Saudi Arabia and Russia are escalating their oil price war. The Robinhood brokerage app maxed out its credit line. Barclays and BlackRock employees in NYC test positive for virus. Goodbye hot U.S. housing market: Covid-19 may soon crush it. College towns are clearing out, leaving local businesses hanging. The New York auto show has been delayed until August. March Madness without fans won’t hurt ratings, broadcasters say. What you’ll want to read tonight Virus May Cut $6 Billion in St. Patrick’s Spending St. Patrick’s Day is one of the biggest revenue-generating days of the year for many bars, and a boon for liquor and beer brands that associate themselves with the March 17 holiday. Americans were expected to spend $6.2 billion on the event. But now, maybe not so much. To contact the author of this story: David Rovella in New York at drovella@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joshua Petri at jpetri4@bloomberg.net 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. || 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 || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – 27/01/20: Bitcoin rose by 3.21% on Sunday. Reversing a 1.11% fall from Saturday, Bitcoin ended the week down by 0.89% to $8.621.5. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning intraday low $8,301.0 before making a move. Steering clear of the first major support level at $8,273.4, Bitcoin rallied to a late afternoon intraday high $8,631.6. Bitcoin broke through the first major resistance level at $8,440.60 and the second major resistance level at $8,527.50. Falling short of the third major resistance level at $8,694.70, Bitcoin eased back to sub-$8,600 levels late on. In spite of the pullback, Bitcoin held above the second major resistance level, supporting a move back through to $8,600 levels. The near-term bearish trend, formed at late June’s swing hi $13,764.0, remained firmly intact, supported by last week’s pullback. For the bulls, Bitcoin would need to break out from $11,000 levels to form a near-term bullish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the top 10 cryptos, it was a bullish day for the majors. Bitcoin Cash ABC (+12.44%), Litecoin (+5.51%), and Ripple’s XPR (+5.51%) led the way. Bitcoin Cash SV (+4.80%), EOS (+4.43%), Ethereum (+4.59), Stellar’s Lumen (+4.18%), and Tron’s TRX (+4.32%) also saw sold gains. Binance Coin (+3.31%), Cardano’s ADA (+3.64%), and Monero’s XMR (+3.58%) trailed the pack. It was a mixed week for the majors, however, following Sunday’s gains. Binance Coin (+0.46%), Bitcoin Cash ABC (+1.69%), Cardano’s ADA (+6.31%), EOS (+1.04%), Ethereum (+0.36%), and Tron’s TRX (+1.01%) ended the week in the green. It was bearish for the rest of the pack, however. Bitcoin Cash SV (-2.94%), Monero’s XMR (-2.81%), Litecoin (-2.54%), and Stellar’s Lumen (-2.84%) led the way down. Ripple’s XRP saw a more modest 1.64% loss for the week. Through the week, the crypto total market cap rose from a Monday low $234.19 to a Wednesday high $243.39bn. The 2 nd half of the week sell-off saw the total market cap fall to a Friday low $226.29bn before Sunday’s rally. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $240.11bn. Story continues Bitcoin’s dominance fell back to 65% levels after a mixed week for the majors that saw Bitcoin in the red. Trading volumes picked up to $83bn levels on Sunday. On Monday, volumes had hit $122bn levels before falling back to sub-$80bn levels. At the time of writing, 24-hr volumes stood at $87.26bn. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.58% to $8,671.4. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin rise from an early morning low $8,621.5 to a high $8,708.1. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Bitcoin Cash ABC (+3.65%), EOS (+3.47%), and Bitcoin Cash SV (+3.15%) led the way early. Ripple’s XRP bucked the trend, falling by 0.48% at the time of writing. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to move back through to $8,700 levels to support a run at the first major resistance level at $8,735.07. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from the morning high $8,708.1. Barring an extended crypto rally, resistance at $8,700 would likely limit any upside on the day. In the event of another breakout, the second major resistance level at $8,848.63 would likely cap any upside. Failure to move back through $8,700 levels could see Bitcoin hit reverse. A fall through the morning low $8,621.5 to sub-$8,520 levels would bring the first major support level at $8,404.47 into play. Barring a broad-based crypto sell-off, however, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$8,500 levels on the day. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – 26/01/20 EOS, Ethereum and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – 26/01/20 Asia Update: A Risk-Off Sprint For The Exits USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Likely to Plunge on Coronavirus Fears Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Not Much in Forecasts to Suggest Return of Cold Temps Fed Expected to Hold Borrowing Costs Steady for Months || Bitcoin faces the test of being a “safe haven” asset: If you have been involved in the cryptocurrency world for long enough you will have certainly heard Bitcoin be described as “digital gold”. Gold, in times of market downturns has historically acted as a safe haven for investors to protect their wealth. Bitcoin, some suggest, is its digital “safe haven” counterpart. A way for investors to protect their wealth from the traditional markets when they turn red as they have done recently due to concerns over the Coronavirus. Yet as the markets continue to plummet, continuing their slide from Friday , Bitcoin has also been on the receiving end of this turmoil. Bitcoin is entering territory that many proponents have been waiting for. The theory supposed that as a recession, or worse, a depression hits the traditional market that Bitcoin would be the new safe haven asset that people would flood too. Since it’s inception after the 2008 Financial Crisis, Bitcoin has never had to deal with a truly tumultuous stock market that we see now. However, instead of retaining it’s value of around $9,000 at the weekend, Bitcoin saw one of the biggest daily losses in 6 months. While the stock market and other commodities took heavy losses, including oil, gold has a small and relatively painless dip over the weekend. Further fears have arisen in the oil markets as Saudi Arabia and Russia look to be heading towards a price war. Oil dropped 27%, it’s largest drop since the start of the first Gulf War in 1991. With the US stock market opening again today after the weekend break further losses are expected. Many predict that further rate cuts from central banks are to be expected. However, with interest rates still at very low levels there is little leeway for them to cut heavily, unlike 2008. While we are entering uncharted territory for Bitcoin the same can be said for traditional markets. At the same time, the Coronavirus shows no sign of slowing down. With the US still not catching up with testing, due to the bungling leadership of Trump, we can expect vast amounts of new cases to arise in the coming weeks, shocking the stock markets further. Bitcoin then faces one of its first acid tests. As panic continues to consume traditional markets over the spread of the Coronavirus, the price of Bitcoin over the next weeks and months will be fascinating to watch. Will it stand up to the idea that it can be a “digital safe haven” or will it prove that the first cryptocurrency is not immune to wider market forces. || Latest Ethereum price and analysis (ETH to USD): Ethereum has suffered a staggering 30% sell-off over the past 24-hours with price falling towards the $125 level of support. The decline has affected almost all cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin dropping below $6,000 while the likes of XRP has descended to a three-year low. Ethereum needs to begin closing daily candles back above the $145 level of resistance over the coming days to avoid a desperate crash to below $100. It is now down by more than 50% from its $290 high in February, which has erased the gains made by the rally since the turn of the year. Despite being three days away, this weekly candle is on track to mark the worst percentage return since November 2018 as panic begins to take control of the market. Key levels of support to look out for on the Ethereum chart remain at $125, $93 and $53 in a worst case scenario. It isn’t just cryptocurrencies that have suffered over the past months, with global equity and capital markets suffering its largest plunge since the financial crisis in 2008. It has now been confirmed that the impact of coronavirus on global stock markets has been more severe than when Hitler invaded France during the second World War. The recent panic has been ignited by countries like Italy and the Czech Republic locking down and the United States cancelling all inbound flights from Europe. The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is hosting an emergency meeting later today to reassess the nation’s approach to the virus, an event that is expected to cause further turmoil across the markets. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . About Ethereum Ethereum was launched by Vitalik Buterin on July 30 2015. He was a researcher and programmer working on Bitcoin Magazine and he initially wrote a whitepaper in 2013 describing Ethereum. Buterin had proposed that Bitcoin needed a scripting language. He decided to develop a new platform with a more general scripting language when he couldn’t get buy-in to his proposal. Story continues More Ethereum news and information If you want to find out more information about Ethereum or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Please check the below article: https://coinrivet.com/ethereum-adopts-erc-1155-as-an-official-standard/ 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 . Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. || Will stablecoin development dominate 2020?: As 2020 unfolds, stablecoin development is already stepping up a gear. Investors, institutions, and even governments are seeing the benefits of cryptocurrency minus the price volatility. The stability of these digital coins makes them appealing not only to central banks, but also to global corporations ready to shake up the traditional financial industry. The benefits of using stablecoins The primary advantage of stablecoins over Bitcoin (and similar digital assets) is their immunity to sudden price fluctuations. By definition, a stablecoin is designed to offer stability, as it’s tied to an asset or basket of assets. The issuer can peg the stablecoin to exchange-traded commodities (such as oil or gold), other crypto-assets, or fiat currency. The goods in question back the digital asset, making significant price fluctuations less likely – although some are inevitable. Users can still access the benefits of cryptocurrencies without sacrificing price stability, making simple transactions much easier. This major plus creates a bridge between cryptocurrency and the traditional financial systems to provide users with the best of both worlds. Stablecoin development has a series of advantages that could revolutionise international payments, as well as the way people store and use money. Stablecoins are ideal for fuelling the remittance markets Stablecoins can greatly improve the current payment system and all related services as they make cross-border payments faster and cheaper. This benefits both providers and end-users. Moreover, stablecoins make financial services affordable for millions of people who are otherwise denied access to these services (the unbanked ). Stablecoins facilitate peer-to-peer payments Traditional payment systems may have improved lately, but the system still lacks efficiency and can be tedious, slow, and expensive. Stablecoins can power platforms to reduce costs and speed up peer-to-peer payments, with benefits for trading, everyday payments, e-commerce, and end-users who need to transfer small amounts. Story continues In other words, stablecoins eliminate borders and minimise the costs of currency exchanges. Leaders in stablecoin development While most people in the cryptocurrency ecosystem praise the benefits of stablecoins, there are still a few hurdles to overcome. Stablecoins face a series of legal and regulatory challenges before they can have a genuine impact. There are over 200 stablecoins on the market at the time of writing, but not all of them were created equal. The most popular is still Tether (USDT), which owns about 94% of the stablecoin market. Its value is tied to the US dollar, as the issuer’s reserves back every USDT with one dollar – or, at least, this is what the company claims. Tether is not without issues. The company and its sister company Bitfinex have been fighting a series of class-action lawsuits alleging that the two manipulated Bitcoin prices in 2017. Moreover, during these legal battles, Tether’s statement that its stablecoin is 100% backed by USD has been called into question. The other famous stablecoin that grabbed all the headlines last year is still in the development phase. Facebook’s Libra has made it to the front pages worldwide ever since the first rumours about it emerged in May 2019. The idea of a global stablecoin governed by a private corporation that has access to over two billion users has triggered unexpected reactions . Governments and central banks in most countries around the world decided to ban Libra long before its official launch as a way to protect their own national currencies. But with so many possibilities coming to light, stablecoin development could make a big jump to turn 2020 into the year of state or corporation-backed digital coins. Where central banks stand on stablecoins Many states are quite advanced when it comes to stablecoin development, insisting that central bank reserves should back stablecoins. The Central Bank of China , for instance, has been working on a central bank digital currency (CBDC) that will enforce control over the Chinese public and potentially spark a de-dollarisation of world trade. Russia’s Central Bank is also experimenting with stablecoins in its regulatory sandbox, according to a statement by Chairman Elvira Nabiullina. Other countries that have been considering CBDCs as a viable solution include Sweden, France, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand. The European Central Bank (ECB) has also been analysing the merits and dangers of CBCDs as a new form of base money . Final thoughts The potential of stablecoins is luring many private and public organisations into digital currency. Whoever manages to break the ice and launch the first stablecoin to disrupt the global monetary system will likely establish itself as a dominant player. While Facebook hopes to be the pioneer in stablecoin development by launching Libra this year, it remains to be seen whether it can overcome the governmental barriers in an unwelcome political environment. The post Will stablecoin development dominate 2020? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Self-hosted bitcoin payments processor BTCPay launches new ‘Vault’ desktop app: BTCPay has released a new desktop application – BTCPay Vault – to integrate user hardware wallets into its system and allow more users to take advantage of its full Bitcoin node. Established in 2017, BTCPay is a self-hosted, open-source bitcoin payments processor. According to an officialblog post, the platform does not store private keys on its system and requires users to have an external wallet. But as BTCPay went on to note in its post: "However, to spend the received funds from your wallet, you need access to your private keys, which we do not store on BTCPay. That required users to use an external wallet, and due to severe limitations of almost every wallet on the market(gap limit, trusted third-parties, no xpub export support, etc), a majority of users often opted to use wallet solutions such as Electrum and leak their sensitive financial information to a third party server." The Vault product aims to solve this problem by enabling integration between BTCPay Server and any hardware wallet connected to users’ personal computers. All funds will be validated against users’ own Bitcoin full nodes. As a result, users can spend their funds on BTCPay Server without ever relinquishing control of their private keys. Last year, the platform created aninternal wallet systemwith support for Ledger Nano S and ColdCard. The newly launched BTCPay Vault would extend compatibility to all other wallet options. BTCPay’s goal, according to founder Nicolas Dorier, is to provide an alternative platform to payment service giant BitPay. As DoriertoldBitcoin Magazine in October 2018, his priority is to “make sure that all software written to work on BitPay will work on BTCPay with minimal (or no) change.” || Bitcoin Sees Bull Revival as Price Bounces Above $9.4K: View Bitcoin’s solid bounce from $9,100 to $9,450 has invalidated a bearish doji reversal pattern on the daily chart. A channel breakout seen on the four-hour chart indicates scope for a re-test of recent highs above $9,600. A UTC close below Tuesday’s low of $9,075 could lead to a deeper correction. Bitcoin has bounced strongly in the last 24 hours, reviving the immediate bullish view. The top cryptocurrency by market cap started picking up bids at lows below $9,100 late on Tuesday and rose sharply above $9,400 soon before press time, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index . Bitcoin was facing selling pressure yesterday and had looked likely to slide to the 200-day average at $8,867. After all, bitcoin had dropped below the former resistance-turned-support of $9,188, validating the bull fatigue, signaling by Monday’s doji candle. Related: Bitcoin’s Uptrend Is Gathering Pace and Many Altcoins Are Surging Too The decline, however, was cut short near $9,075 as noted above and the 3.5 percent bounce seen since has neutralized the case for a deeper drop. Further, the cryptocurrency has broken out of its two-day long downward trajectory, as seen below. 4-hour chart Bitcoin has found acceptance above the upper edge of the channel. The breakout indicates the pullback from Monday’s high of $9,615 has ended and the rally from the Jan.24 low of $8,214 has resumed. Supporting the breakout is the relative strength index (RSI), which has violated the descending trendline in favor of the bulls. Related: Bitcoin Rises Above $9,700 to Reach Highest Point in 3 Months The MACD histogram, too, has crossed above zero confirming a bullish reversal. Daily chart Bitcoin has now erased Tuesday’s losses, weakening the bearish doji reversal confirmed on Tuesday and validating the bullish crossover of the 50- and 100-day averages confirmed earlier this week. The cryptocurrency has also moved back above the five- and 10-day moving averages, while the RSI is hovering in the bullish territory above 50.00. A UTC close above Monday’s high of $9,615 would likely cause more buyers to join the market, leading to a quick rise to $10,000. On the downside, Tuesday’s low of $9,075 is now the level to beat for the sellers. A potential failed breakout on the four-hour chart would shift risk in favor of a drop to $9,075. Disclosure: The author does not currently hold any digital assets. Related Stories Exchange Deposits in Bitcoin Slide to Lowest Level in 3 Years Galaxy’s Novogratz: XRP Will ‘Underperform Immensely Again This Year’ View comments [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: no change || Prices: 6191.19, 6198.78, 6185.07, 5830.25, 6416.31, 6734.80, 6681.06, 6716.44, 6469.80, 6242.19
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 2018-04-16] BTC Price: 8058.67, BTC RSI: 54.09 Gold Price: 1347.50, Gold RSI: 55.81 Oil Price: 66.22, Oil RSI: 58.51 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] 3 Stocks That Feel Like Microsoft in 1986: Investors who bought intoMicrosoft's(NASDAQ: MSFT)growth story early and held on for the long term minted themselves an absolute fortune. So which stocks do we think will go on to produce life-changing returns for their investors from here? We asked a team of investors to weigh in, and they pickedMatch Group(NASDAQ: MTCH),Shopify(NYSE: SHOP), andCommerceHub(NASDAQ: CHUBA). Dan Caplinger(Match Group):There's nothing new about trying to find romance, but there's been a revolutionary change in the way that people seek out potential partners. Match Group has tapped into the needs of the mobile generation by extending its traditional online dating service to the app world, with its popular Tinder platform seeing its membership rolls nearly double in 2017 to 3.1 million members. Overall,Match has more than 7 million subscribersacross all of its offerings. Match has found ways to turn its leadership in the dating space into cash, with the success of Tinder Gold premium helping to boost average revenue per user by nearly a third for the app. Like many relatively young companies, Match is still in a position in which it has to spend considerable amounts on expenses related to obtaining and keeping new customers, but as the network effect of Match's products increases, the payoff will be able to get larger even as new customer acquisition costs could fall. With plans to add new features that improve the experience and add more opportunities for revenue, Match Group is pushing all the right buttons in trying to cash in on customers looking for love. Image source: Getty Images. Brian Stoffel(Shopify):If you look back to what has made Microsoft such a great investment, the ubiquity of the Office Suite has to be Exhibit A. Competitors have been trying for over two decades to match Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. WhileAlphabet's(NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL)Google sheets and docs have gotten close, they still haven't unseated the king. In the end, the entire world is trained on this platform. That makes theswitching costs and network effectsextremely high -- no one wants to use a tool that no one else is using! In Shopify -- a company that helps just about any business establish an e-commerce presence -- I see the same two moats taking shape. Any small or medium-sized business would have to pay sky-high costs -- not only in fees and services, but also lost business, headaches, and retraining -- to migrate its website, logistics, and online presence away from Shopify and to one of its competitors. And because Shopify has beenwinning over merchantsin droves, it has attracted a host of third-party app developers. These developers are building their apps on Shopify's platform because it has over 500,000 merchants. The flourishing ecosystem of apps will attract even more merchants. It's a virtuous cycle -- the kind that helped launch Microsoft to the fore back in the late 1980s. While Shopify is surely an expensive stock by traditional metrics, I see the markings of a great company in the works. Time will tell if my hunch proves correct, but I have my own skin in the game, as I believe the network effect and high switching costs are significant. Brian Feroldi(CommerceHub):The recent wave ofretail bankruptciesdemonstrates just how much consumer buying habits are changing. In order to survive, brands and retailers everywhere are investing in their e-commerce capabilities so they won't be forced to close up shop one day. However, finding success with an e-commerce strategy isn't easy. That's why scores of companies are turning to CommerceHub for help. CommerceHub sells access to a cloud-based platform that links suppliers, delivery services, brands, and demand channels together. Gaining access to this platform makes it much easier for companies to meet their customers' demands and remain competitive. As a testament to CommerceHub's capabilities, major companies likeWalgreens,Guess, Dell,Kohl's and many others have already signed up. Looking ahead, the continued shift toward e-commerce sales should entice holdouts to partner with CommerceHub before it is too late. That should power the company's revenue and profits higher for years to come. While the stock is not exactly cheap at the moment -- it trades around 70 times trailing earnings -- I think that investors who take the long view can do very well for themselves by picking up a few shares today. 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 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, 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.Brian Feroldiowns shares of GOOGL, GOOG, and CommerceHub.Brian Stoffelowns shares of GOOGL, GOOG, and Shopify.Dan Caplingerowns shares of GOOGL. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends GOOGL, GOOG, and Shopify. The Motley Fool owns shares of CommerceHub. The Motley Fool recommends GES and Match Group. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || UPS Slumped 18% in February and Here's Why: What happened Stock in UPS (NYSE: UPS) declined 18% in February, substantially underperforming the S&P 500 and FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) , according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence . UPS stock was actually outperforming the main market and FedEx on a year-to-date basis up until the fourth-quarter results presentation at the start of February. a laptop in a warehouse E-commerce is creating challenges as well as opportunities for UPS. Image source: Getty Images. Clearly, the earnings report disappointed the market, and in a previous article on UPS , I suggested three areas of concern: Disappointing execution during peak season, whereby UPS was forced to incur an additional $125 million in costs in order to service customers. Ongoing margin pressure in its core U.S. domestic package segment, largely due to burgeoning e-commerce growth. Management's guidance for capital spending indicates elevated levels of spending for the next few years, and moreover, it will be at a level far higher than previously envisaged by management. As if this wasn't enough to contend with, there is also likely to be some negative sentiment on UPS and FedEx following a move by Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) to roll out a delivery service that will compete with FedEx and UPS -- initially in Los Angeles, but likely to spread to other cities later in the year. So what While the Amazon initiative is arguably overblown in terms of its potential threat to UPS's business, the company-specific issues (FedEx is also facing margin pressure due to growing e-commerce volumes) are more concerning. Furthermore, all three issues are correlated. For example, capital spending has had to be increased in order to expand and modernize UPS's network in order to service e-commerce growth generally and during peak delivery season. Meanwhile, the margin pressure felt in the U.S domestic package segment is largely due to the growth in business-to-consumer e-commerce growth. The key question facing UPS is whether the current strategy of investing aggressively in its network in order to capture volume growth is the right option. An alternative option being to increase pricing in order to optimize profit growth at the possible expense of a reduction in volume growth. Story continues Now what The die is cast, and UPS is committed to ramping capital expenditures on its network. This will eat into free-cash-flow generation, at least in the near term, but it could turn out to be the best option in the long term. However, it's going to take a while before it becomes clear that UPS's strategy is working. Moreover, the company needs to start demonstrating that it can halt the decline in its U.S. domestic package margin and manage peak delivery season better before investors will feel fully confident. 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. Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool recommends FedEx. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Cryptocurrencies Like Bitcoin Are Commodities, Federal Judge Says. Here’s Why That Matters: A federal judge has upheld the idea that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are commodities, and can therefore be regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC has been of this opinion for the last three years, and U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein agreed on Tuesday. Weinsteinsaidthe CFTC could go ahead and sue New Yorker Patrick McDonnell and his company, CabbageTech, for fraud. CabbageTech did business as Coin Drop Markets, a service that claimed to provide cryptocurrency investment advice. The CFTC filed its suit back in January, alleging that the company solicited “money and virtual currencies” but never provided the promised advice. “The CFTC Complaint further alleges that to conceal their scheme, soon after obtaining customer funds, Defendants removed the website and social media materials from the Internet and ceased communicating with [Coin Drop Markets] Customers, who lost most if not all of their invested funds due to Defendants' fraud and misappropriation,” the regulator said at the time. The CFTC isn’t the only regulator that claims oversight over the cryptocurrency business. The Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC) sees virtual currencies as securities, and has set up a whole “Cyber Unit” totackle fraudulent initial coin offerings (ICOs). Both federal agenciestestified last monthto the Senate, regarding the threats posed to investors by the booming cryptocurrency market. CFTC chair Christopher Giancarlo testified that the market deserves a “thoughtful and balanced” regulatory response. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com • Here's What It Costs to Mine a Bitcoin Around The World • Where Will Bitcoin Be in a Decade? $100 Is More Likely Than $100,000, Says Harvard Economist • 'Big Bitcoin Heist'--Iceland Cryptocurrency Thefts Lead to 11 Arrests • JPMorgan's Bitcoin Jitters, Goldman Sachs' Crypto Bet, Uber Cofounder's Blue-Sky Ambition • Mexico Will Join Countries Regulating Cryptocurrency || Apple's 2019 iPhone Could Have a Triple-Lens Camera: One area whereApple(NASDAQ: AAPL)has consistently failed to match, let alone beat, the competition has been in mobile photography. Apple spends a great deal of time during each of its iPhone product launch keynotes detailing all of the generational advances it has made in mobile photography and video capture, but when the camera samples and performance measurements come in, Apple is shown to make solid-but-not-market-leading cameras. Considering how significant camera performance is as a selling point -- Apple executives spend a lot of time highlighting camera performance advancements during its product launch keynotes for good reason -- it's critical that Apple revamp its camera efforts so that it, once again, is a mobile cameraleaderrather than merely a fast follower with great marketing skills. Image source: Apple. According to a new leak being reported by Economic Daily News (via MacRumors), Apple is preparing to launch at least one iPhone with a triple-lens rear camera subsystem next year. EDN has published accurate information about future Apple product plans in the past. Apple's current iPhones come with either single-lens or dual-lens cameras, and the same is expected to be true for the iPhones that Apple introduces later this year. Let's go over what this could mean for Apple's competitiveness in the marketplace during the product cycle that begins in the second half of the calendar year 2019. While Apple was one of the first to bring dual-lens cameras to market with the iPhone 7 Plus -- something that it washandsomely rewarded for-- it doesn't seem to be leading the way with respect to triple-lens cameras. Huawei's P20 Pro, for example, just launched with a triple-lens camera subsystem that appears to perform exceptionally well. Huawei is likely to iterate on its triple-lens camera technology for several product generations (new Mate series devices in the second half of 2018, then next-generation P series devices in the first half of 2019) before Apple gets its first iPhone with a triple-lens camera out. Apple is certainly playing catch-up here after being caught flat-footed, but, as the saying goes, better late than never. Apple's task, then, will be not only to match what Huawei (and potentially others) are shipping today but to innovate so aggressively that it'll be able toexceedwhat the competition has available in the market when it finally launches its first iPhone with a triple-lens camera. Given Apple's relatively shoddy execution with respect to camera technology, as well as its apparent preoccupation with more gimmicky featureslike 3D sensing/Face ID, we'll definitely have to wait and see if Apple can reassert itself as a leader in mobile cameras once again. If Apple can, then it will stand a better chance of gaining market share in an increasingly saturated and competitive premium smartphone market. If the iPhone maker drops the ball here, then not only do its prospects for premium smartphone share gains dim, but it could even bleed share to more aggressive competitors, particularly as Apple's brand becomes associated less with the best premium smartphone experience and more with simply being a laggard. 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 Ashraf Eassahas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. 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 adisclosure policy. || General Motors Begs Investors to Take the Long View: More than four years ago, General Motors (NYSE: GM) broke with top domestic rival Ford Motor (NYSE: F) and stopped hosting a monthly conference call to discuss its sales results. Last week, GM made an even bolder move, announcing that it would discontinue its monthly sales reports after March. Whereas ending the practice of sales calls followed the example of many of its overseas rivals, GM is the first major full-line automaker to abandon monthly sales reporting entirely. This appears to be part of a broader effort by the company to get investors to focus on the big picture, rather than obsessing over short-term trends. Shifting to quarterly reporting Going forward, GM will continue to report sales by brand and nameplate, along with details on fleet vs. retail sales, inventory levels, incentive spending, and average transaction prices. However, it will provide this information a few days after the end of each quarter, instead of on a monthly basis. "Thirty days is not enough time to separate real sales trends from short-term fluctuations in a very dynamic, highly competitive market," said General Motors executive Kurt McNeil, explaining the policy change. GM's results from the past two months highlight the limited usefulness of monthly sales reports. In February, domestic deliveries declined by about 7% , stoking investor fears -- even though the downturn appeared to be driven primarily by tough comparisons and lower incentive spending. A red Chevy Colorado pickup truck. General Motors has reported volatile monthly sales results recently. Image source: General Motors. By contrast, General Motors benefited from an extra selling day last month. It also increased its incentive spending on a year-over-year basis. As a result, deliveries surged nearly 16% in March. Looking just at retail sales (to individual consumers), GM started the year with a 2.4% decline in January, followed that up with a 10.5% plunge in February, and bounced back with a 13.8% gain in March. That averaged out to 0.8% retail sales growth for the full quarter. The total may not be a perfect representation of the General's underlying sales trends, but it's certainly a lot more informative than the monthly gyrations GM reported. Story continues Following a trend from other industries While General Motors will be the first major automaker to drop monthly sales reporting, other industries moved in this direction years ago. Retailers used to report their comp sales results every month. (A few still do.) Similarly, airlines used to report unit revenue on a monthly basis, but they have been abandoning that practice one by one in recent years. It may not be a coincidence that GM ended its monthly reporting on a strong note, with double-digit sales growth in March. Management may have wanted to leave investors with confidence that the business is performing well, in order to avoid concerns that it had something to hide. (On a similar note, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian allowed the carrier to stop reporting monthly results last year, but only after it had achieved three consecutive months of unit revenue growth.) Some pundits have speculated that GM's move to quarterly sales reports may spur Ford and other competitors to follow in its footsteps. However, that's not guaranteed to happen. For one thing, it would be harder for Ford to move away from monthly reporting in the near future, given that it has been facing substantial sales and earnings pressure recently. Additionally, the company's management seems to prefer greater interaction with investors. More than four years after GM ended its monthly sales calls, Ford's are still going strong. This shift can't hurt From General Motors' perspective, there isn't much potential downside to ending the practice of monthly sales reporting. In theory, monthly reports might boost the stock price if the availability of frequent business updates gave investors the confidence to award GM stock a high valuation. Clearly, that hasn't worked: General Motors stock trades for just six times earnings. To be fair, auto manufacturing is a cyclical industry, which justifies lower earnings multiples during good years -- but six times earnings is absurdly low relative to the rest of the market. It's possible that the monthly sales reports have actually been holding back General Motors stock. The constant drumbeat of sales updates may be diverting investors' attention from bigger-picture trends, such as GM's improving product portfolio, its investments in next-generation technology, and its cost-cutting success. Since Mr. Market can't seem to tune out the noise, the best move might be to eliminate it entirely. 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 Delta Air Lines and General Motors. The Motley Fool recommends Ford. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || NASA Hopes to Have Boeing Delivering Astronauts to the Space Station Sooner Than Planned: NASA has cleared the way for Boeing (NYSE: BA) to deliver an astronaut to the International Space Station during what was supposed to be a manned test of its Starliner spacecraft, showing faith in the aerospace giant and its transport vessel to solve the growing problem of how to get American astronauts into orbit. On April 5, the space agency said it had updated its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract with Boeing to allow the test voyage to take up to six months, up from two weeks, and carry a third astronaut instead of just the previously agreed-upon two-person crew. The changes would in effect make the Starliner test flight a normal mission. Although Boeing bills itself as a jack-of-all-trades with operations spanning commercial aerospace, defense, and space, in recent years the commercial segment has been the growth engine. Space and defense generated just 22% of total revenue in 2017. If Boeing is to counter that trend, it is going to need multiple project wins on the space and defense side. Success by the Starliner alone won't fix the problem, but it would be a solid step in the right direction. Boeing's Starliner spacecraft Artist's concept of Boeing's Starliner crew transport vessel. Image source: Boeing. In 2014, Boeing and privately held SpaceX, which is run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, each won contracts to build Commercial Crew transports that would be able to ferry U.S. astronauts to the space station. The original contract called for the missions to begin in 2017; however, setbacks have led to delays. Both Boeing and SpaceX plan to fly test missions without crew to the space station this year prior to test flights with a crew on board. After each test flight, NASA plans to evaluate the in-flight performance in order to certify the systems and begin regular post-certification crew rotation missions. The clock is ticking on NASA NASA currently transports American astronauts to the ISS via Russian Soyuz rockets, but it has no seats booked on the Russian rockets after 2019. After that, it is going to be up to Boeing and SpaceX to provide the needed lift. Story continues "This contract modification provides NASA with additional schedule margin if needed," William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA, said in a statement. "Modifying the contract now allows NASA and Boeing an opportunity to tailor the duration to balance the mission needs with vehicle and crew capabilities." With NASA paying about $75 million per seat for lift on Russian rockets, the agency has every reason to want to transition to U.S.-made transports as soon as possible. This would not be the first time in recent memory that NASA has expanded the scope of test flights. In 2012, the agency had SpaceX carry real cargo to the ISS on its commercial cargo demonstration flight. Boeing is ahead in this space race Investors can take this latest move by NASA as further evidence of something my Fool colleague Rich Smith has been saying for a while now: While both Boeing and SpaceX have Commercial Crew contracts, Boeing is staking its claim on being the preferred contractor. While the initial 2010 contracts specified that each contractor perform the same services, Boeing was to be paid $4.2 billion for the services, while SpaceX only received $2.6 billion. In January, NASA released updates on test date targets, announcing a schedule that has Boeing completing its uncrewed and crewed tests ahead of SpaceX's Dragon vessel . The agency's latest decision seems to reinforce the idea that NASA sees Boeing's Starliner as being ready for service ahead of SpaceX. NASA, which has lacked a domestic method for getting astronauts into space since it canceled the Space Shuttle program in 2011, is desperate to see the Commercial Crew program a success. If Boeing's Starliner can rise to the challenge, there should be a steady stream of business coming from NASA as a reward. For investors interested in buying into Boeing for its diversification between commercial and government sales, the Commercial Crew program is a small, but important, step in making sure that balance remains intact. 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 owns shares of and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Is AbbVie or Gilead Sciences Stock a Better Buy?: AbbVie Inc. (NYSE: ABBV) and Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) are two of the world's biggest biotech stocks. However, their sales have been heading in different directions and each has offered up very different forecasts for 2018. Given that these titans are competing head to head for a share in the multibillion-dollar market for hepatitis C drugs, is one of these stocks a better buy than the other? Grading their growth It can pay to invest in companies that are growing sales and profit. By that measure, AbbVie is undeniably the better of the two stocks. A man in a suit with hands outstretched and palms up. A green dollar sign hovers above one palm, while a red dollar signs hovers over the other. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. Because of increased competition from AbbVie and other hepatitis C drugmakers, Gilead Sciences' sales and earnings have been declining since 2016. Gilead Sciences remains a dominant force in HIV treatment, and HIV drug sales have been increasing thanks to the launch of new combination therapies that include TAF, a safer reformulation of the popular HIV drug Viread. However, Gilead Sciences' HIV revenue growth hasn't been able to offset declining demand for the company's hepatitis C medicine, and since sales are falling faster than expenses, the company's earnings are suffering. Gilead Sciences' hepatitis C sales fell 54% year over year to $1.5 billion in Q4 2017. Total revenue declined in 2017 to $26 billion from $30 billion in 2016, and EPS fell to $8.84 from $11.57. It's been a very different story at AbbVie. Growing demand for its best-selling drugs, Humira and Imbruvica, and new drug launches, including Mavyret, the company's latest hepatitis C treatment, are increasing sales by double-digit percentages. Sales of its best-selling drug, Humira, grew 14.6% to $18.4 billion, and revenue from its second best-selling drug, Imbruvica, soared 40.5% to $2.6 billion in 2017. The launch of Mavyret last August boosted AbbVie's hepatitis C revenue by 63% year over year to $510 million in Q4 2017. Those tailwinds translated into full-year sales of $28.2 billion, up 10% from one year ago, and EPS of $5.60, up from $4.82. With AbbVie's revenue and earnings rising and Gilead Sciences still descending, I have to give AbbVie the win in this category. Story continues A scientist studies a medicine capsule. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. Pondering pipelines Gilead Sciences invests heavily in mergers and acquisitions and in research and development. And that means it has exciting drugs advancing through its drug pipeline. However, I have to give the advantage to AbbVie in this category, too. Gilead Sciences catapulted to the forefront of research into the use of gene therapies as cancer treatments when it acquired Kite Pharma for $11.9 billion last year, but it faces stiff competition in this field from many competitors, including Novartis (NYSE: NVS) and Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG) , that could limit that market opportunity. Gilead Sciences' Yescarta is the only CAR-T gene therapy on the market for late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma currently, but it generated only $7 million in sales since its launch last October. With Novartis' gene therapy, Kymriah, already under priority review for use in Yescarta's indication and Celgene's gene therapy, JCAR017, possibly being filed for FDA approval this year, Gilead Sciences may have to fight tooth-and-nail for market share. Gilead Sciences' filgotinib, an autoimmune-disease drug, and serotinib, a treatment for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, appear promising, but we won't know just how promising until pivotal data emerges. Filgotinib's phase 3 rheumatoid arthritis data is expected this year, but we may have to wait until next year for more insight on serotinib. Arguably, AbbVie's pipeline has fewer question marks. FDA decisions are pending for Elagolix, an endometrioisis drug, and Venclexta, a chronic lymphocytic leukemia drug, that could eventually lead to blockbuster revenue. AbbVie also has three potential blockbuster drugs that it hopes to file for FDA approval soon: risankizumab, upadacitinib, and Rova-T. Risankizumab has already successfully completed phase 3 psoriasis trials, and a filing is planned by the end of June. Upadacitinib has already put up impressive data in one phase 3 rheumatoid arthritis study, and two more phase 3 studies are expected to have data available shortly that could support a filing before the end of this year. Rova-T may also be filed for approval this year if it delivers strong phase 2 results in third-line or greater small-cell lung cancer. According to management, all three drugs could be multibillion-dollar-per-year top sellers. A man in shirt and tie sits on the floor as paper money falls down around him. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. Debating dividends Both companies offer income investors market-beating dividend yields, and each company has wads of cash at its disposal to boost dividends in the future. Gilead Sciences initiated its quarterly dividend in 2015, and since then, it's increased the payout from $0.43 to $0.57. Its fat operating margin means it generates more than enough free cash flow to support its dividend even though its sales are falling. In fact, its cash dividend payout ratio is only 23%, significantly lower than AbbVie's, which is north of 50%. Clearly, Gilead Sciences has wiggle room to return more money to investors through dividends. AbbVie's dividend potential may be even more compelling, though. Since being spun out of Abbott Labs in 2013, its dividend has increased by 140%. Given AbbVie's double-digit top- and bottom-line growth, a recent 35% increase to its quarterly dividend payment, multiple potential blockbuster approvals, and a forward dividend yield of 3.3% that's better than Gilead Sciences' 2.8% rate, AbbVie looks better here, too. One more thing The one category where Gilead Sciences shines versus AbbVie is in valuation. AbbVie trades at a forward P/E of 13 and a price-to-sales of 6.4, while Gilead Sciences trades at 12.3 times forward EPS and 3.9 times sales. Clearly, Gilead Sciences is cheaper than AbbVie. That alone might not be enough of a reason to favor it over AbbVie, though. Gilead Sciences is forecasting sales of between only $20 billion and $21 billion this year, down from $25.7 billion in 2016, and if its sales and profit fall faster than feared, then its valuation advantage could fade, especially if AbbVie over-delivers on its outlook for 13% sales growth this year. For this reason, I think AbbVie is the better stock to buy until Gilead Sciences proves its sales and profit have stopped declining. 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 Todd Campbell owns shares of Celgene and Gilead Sciences. His clients may have positions in the companies mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Celgene and Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || What the Last 10 Years at Take-Two Interactive Can Teach Investors: Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) has given investors a lot to cheer about with the stock up more than 600% over the last five years. But the famed creator of the Grand Theft Auto franchise has experienced its fair share of ups and downs. It all started in Feb. 2008 when Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA) made an offer to acquire Take-Two in a potential deal valued at $2 billion, which represented a 50% premium to where shares traded at the time. Take-Two turned down the offer as management believed it significantly undervalued the business. However, over the next five years, Take-Two actually struggled to grow, and its stock dramatically underperformed the broad market. It wasn't until 2013 when the company kept up its momentum, kicking off a bullish rally that would eventually see it outpace both EA and the S&P 500 . Let's look back at what happened in those intervening years and see what they can teach us about long-term investing. The state of EA and Take-Two in 2008 In 2008, EA was pursuing a strategy to grow revenue and profits by expanding their game catalog as much as possible, which would later backfire on the company (more on that later). The acquisition of Take-Two and its top selling Grand Theft Auto series -- which even back then was seen as one of the most valuable titles in the industry -- would've helped EA expand its market share. Take Two's Grand Theft Auto 5 logo Grand Theft Auto V -- released in 2013 -- has sold more than 90 million units. Image source: ROCKSTARGAMES.COM. On the flip side, Take-Two had just been through a rough few years, which included an SEC investigation into its accounting practices and weak financial performance under previous leadership. At the time, Executive Chairman Strauss Zelnick and new CEO Ben Feder were putting in place a plan to grow the business, centered around the success of Grand Theft Auto . In addition, Take-Two's NBA 2K franchise was beginning to gain popularity and dethrone EA's long-running NBA Live series. Story continues In a press release, Take-Two called EA's offer "opportunistic", since Take-Two was on the eve of releasing Grand Theft Auto IV ( GTA IV ), which boosted Take-Two revenue 56% in fiscal 2008 and allowed the company to report its first profit in three years. However, sales of GTA IV proved to be only a short-term catalyst. Back then, the industry survived on major new releases. Take-Two's top line dipped just a year after GTA IV 's release, and the company's financial performance continued to be inconsistent through the fiscal year ending in Mar. 2013. Metric 2013 2012 2011 2009 2008 Revenue $1,214 $826 $1,137 $701 $1,231 Cash from operating activities ($5) ($85) $135 ($210) $151 Figures in millions. Data source: Company filings. Years 2013, 2012, and 2011 are fiscal years ending in March. Fiscal years 2009 and 2008 ended in October. Understandably, the stock underperformed given there was no sustainable growth in sales. From Feb. 2008 through 2013, Take-Two stock declined over 35%. Come 2013, many observers would've considered Take-Two's rejection of EA's offer as a missed opportunity, but the latter was actually in worse shape. Electronic Arts stock was down 51% over that same period, as its bloated game catalog and soaring game development costs under former CEO John Riccitiello caused massive losses on the bottom line. Take-Two finds a groove It's taken a while for the market to appreciate the value that Zelnick saw in the company in 2008, but patient investors have been rewarded Over that time, Take-Two stayed focused on producing a few high-quality games that earn favorable reviews, but it also introduced other successful new franchises like Red Dead Redemption and Borderlands . In 2011, Executive Chairman Strauss Zelnick became CEO and was optimistic about the growth opportunity in digital distribution, which has improved Take-Two's ability to generate more consistent cash flow , since digitally delivered content generates higher margins than packaged goods. Metric 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 Revenue $1,780 $1,414 $1,083 $2,351 $1,214 Cash from operating activities $331 $261 $213 $700 ($5) Amount in millions. Data source: Company filings. Years are fiscal years. Over the last five years, gaming has become more of a social experience, turning many games into a sticky service with high player engagement sustained for months after the original release. One example of how Take-Two has capitalized on this trend is Grand Theft Auto Online -- an online multi-player feature which distributes to players a steady stream of new updates to the base game. The key lesson The last 10 years of Take-Two's history provide a valuable lesson to investors: Stay focused on the business. Given the company's focus on making quality games and management's optimism about the opportunity presented by the emergence of digital delivery of games, investors could have heeded those signals as good reasons to remain patient when the stock was finding its footing. 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 Ballard has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Take-Two Interactive. The Motley Fool recommends Electronic Arts. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 5 Things Nucor Management Wants You to Know: Nucor Corporation (NYSE: NUE) had a good year in 2017. Revenues increased 25%, driven by selling more steel at higher prices, and earnings advanced by 65%. That's the kind of story you want a CEO to tell when they hold an earnings conference call. But those are just the headline figures -- Nucor's CEO John Ferriola had a lot more to say. Here are five key highlights from the call. 1. Imports are still an issue Perhaps the number one problem facing U.S. steel mills is a global oversupply of this key metal. That's largely driven by China, which makes more steel than it needs. That steel gets pushed into the global market, causing a domino effect that has led to increased imports of cheap foreign steel into the U.S. market. That, in turn, has put pressure on the prices that domestic steel makers can charge. The U.S. government has been putting tariffs in place to help stem the flow, but that's only helped so much. A worker in a steel mill Image source: Getty Images According to Ferriola in 2017, "Finished steel imports captured an estimated 27% share of the U.S. market." As long as that number remains elevated, Nucor and its peers will face pricing headwinds. The key takeaway here is that, despite strong results in 2017, imports are still an issue investors need to monitor. 2. We're rewarding our investors With such strong financial performance in 2017, you might not be surprised by Nucor announcing a dividend increase. In fact, you might have expected it. But there's a lot more to the dividend story at this steel giant. CFO Jim Frias summed it up by simply saying, "Our February 2018 quarterly dividend will mark 45 consecutive years of increased regular or base dividends for our Company [sic]. Nucor is one of only 32 publicly held companies that have increased their dividend for 45 or more consecutive years." Step back for a moment to appreciate the power of this statement. Steel is a highly cyclical industry, but Nucor has managed to provide consistent dividend growth through good and bad years alike. In fact, Nucor is a member of the elite Dividend Aristocrat group. That's something that you shouldn't take for granted, especially given that the long steel downturn following the 2007 to 2009 recession led to deep losses for peers like United States Steel Corporation and AK Steel (NYSE: AKS) . These companies ended up cutting and eliminating their dividends, respectively, because of weak performance. Story continues 3. We ran the plan Now that the steel market appears to be strengthening, Ferriola wants to make sure you understand that Nucor isn't just benefiting from an upturn: It was preparing for the industry recovery all through the downturn. NUE Capital Expenditures (TTM) Chart NUE Capital Expenditures (TTM) data by YCharts According to the CEO, "We are ready and eager to realize [the] significant pent-up earnings power we have built with more than $8 billion invested during the steel industry's lengthy downturn that began in 2009. That number includes capital spending of more than $5 billion and acquisitions totaling slightly less than $3 billion." Investing in the bad years is a classic Nucor tactic. The goal is to exit a downturn in better shape than when you entered. And this downturn was no different. That current upturn shouldn't distract you from that fact. 4. We're not done growing Spending on growth doesn't stop, however, when an upturn hits. Nucor is always looking for ways to improve its operations or expand its industry reach -- geographically and by product offering. Which is why Ferriola noted that, "Nucor's Sheet Mill Group is implementing three major growth initiatives." And also, "During the fourth quarter, we announced two major growth investments for our bar mill group." CFO Frias provided some specifics here: "We have six particularly significant growth projects under way this year. First, a specialty cold-rolling facility at our Arkansas sheet mill. Second, hot-band galvanizing line at our Kentucky sheet mill. Third, a sheet galvanizing facility in Mexico being constructed with our joint venture partner, JFE Steel. Fourth, a rolling mill upgrade at our Ohio bar mill. Fifth, a rebar micro mill in Missouri. And sixth, a new merchant bar rolling facility at our Illinois bar mill." There are obviously more details to understand about these plans. But the real takeaway is that Nucor still sees opportunities to expand, and an industry upturn isn't going to lull management into a state of complacency. So look for more growth ahead for this steelmaker and keep a close eye on its capital plans. 5. Solid as a rock All of this brings us down to the foundation of any company: the balance sheet . There are many different ways to look at financial strength, with CFO Frias noting, "Nucor's financial position is strong. With total debt outstanding of $3.8 billion, our gross debt-to-capital ratio was 29% at the end of 2017." He added further that, "After paying off the $600 million of 5.75% 10-year notes that matured on December 1, our year-end cash and short-term investments totaled approximately $1 billion. Nucor's strong liquidity position also includes our $1.5 billion unsecured revolving credit facility, which remains undrawn." NUE Financial Debt to EBITDA (TTM) Chart NUE Financial Debt to EBITDA (TTM) data by YCharts At the end of a long industry downturn during which Nucor invested for the future, this U.S. steel company still has a rock solid balance sheet. Compare that to a competitor like AK Steel, which ended 2017 with a cash balance of just $38 million and negative shareholder equity, which means that debt makes up more than 100% of the company's capital structure. Yes, that's cherry picking a particularly weak peer, but Nucor's financial strength really does stand out in the industry. And that's by design, since being fiscally conservative is another of the company's core goals. But it's exactly what allows the company to thrive when others are struggling to survive. A wonderful call Even taking into consideration the downbeat update on the import issue, Nucor's fourth quarter 2017 conference call was a delight to listen to. Although Nucor's stock is hardly cheap today as the company and its shares are benefiting from the industry upturn, shareholders should be pleased with the key corporate updates. Perhaps the most important takeaway, however, is that Nucor is still working the same playbook that's driven its long-term success. 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 Reuben Gregg Brewer owns shares of Nucor. The Motley Fool recommends Nucor. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Germany ETFs Step Into Spotlight: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. The iShares MSCI Germany ETF ( EWG ) , the largest exchange traded fund tracking German equities listed in the U.S., and the Xtrackers Germany Equity ETF (Cboe:GRMY) are among the Germany ETFs investors should monitor in the days ahead. Improving economic conditions and strengthening company earnings in Europe are signals that diversified exchange traded fund investors should keep in mind when looking for areas of potential growth after a multi-year run in U.S. markets leaves less opportunities at home. “On Sunday, March 4, members of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) will unveil the results of a vote on a "grand coalition" with Chancellor Angela Merkel's more conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). Ahead of the reveal -- and with European stocks in a tizzy on trade war fears -- the iShares MSCI Germany ETF (EWG) is pacing for its lowest close in nearly six months,” according to Schaeffer's Investment Research . “However, if history is any indicator, the German exchange-traded fund (ETF) could be on the verge of a pop higher.” GRMY seeks to track the Nasdaq Germany Large Mid Cap Index, which is designed to track the performance of the German equity market. Recently, Deutsche Asset Management lowered the annual fee on GRMY to 0.09%, making it one of the least expensive Germany ETFs in the U.S. and far less expensive than the rival EWG. Historical data suggest March is often kind to German stocks. EWG is lower by 4% year-to-date while GRMY is down just 1%. “While the results of the SPD vote will likely impact EWG's trajectory, the fund has history on its side -- in the short term, at least. Since inception, the shares have averaged a March gain of 1.7%, followed by an April gain of 3.1% -- tied with December for its best month of the year -- according to Schaeffer's Quantitative Analyst Chris Prybal. From current levels, another 1.7% gain this month would put EWG around $32.26, and a 3.1% gain from there would put the fund at $33.26. That's not quite in new-high territory, but would put the ETF back in the black year-to-date,” according to Schaeffer's. Story continues For more information on European markets, visit our Europe category . 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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Current price of Bitcoin is $6836.00 “Like” if thats good for you and “retweet” if thats not good for you #bitcoin #btc #bitcoinprice || 【BTC】ビットコイン情報交換スレッド808【アフィ https://ift.tt/2GXUsUb  || Korea price Time: 04/04 07:15:09 BTC: 8,093,500 KRW ETH: 452,033 KRW XRP: 586 KRW #Bitcoin #Ethereum #Ripple || Get Free Bitcoin http://bowwellebay.blog.fc2.com  || Cotización del Bitcoin Cash: 531 50.€ | +0.36% | Kraken | 01/04/18 22:00 #BitcoinCash #Kraken #BCHEUR || $BTC told you pic.twitter.com/0J8ceKxnnW || @wachista -BTC dominance- 45.05% #BTC_dominance_memo || BTC Price: 9850.00$, BTC Today High : 10280.00$, BTC All Time High : 19903.44$ ETH Price: 923.14$ #bitcoin #BTC $BTC #ETH $ETH #cryptopic.twitter.com/6H6dWC7Qtc || My INR 10k investment in Bitcoin done in Jan'18 is now worth INR 3.9k. @BTCTN || 5 teorías conspirativas sobre el enigmático Satoshi Nakamoto, el “creador del bitcóin” https://goo.gl/CCg6JT 
Trend: up || Prices: 7902.09, 8163.42, 8294.31, 8845.83, 8895.58, 8802.46, 8930.88, 9697.50, 8845.74, 9281.51
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)] Who Will Win the Race to Offer Crypto Services?: The House passed a bill geared toward ultimately clarifying digital asset regulation in the U.S. If it becomes law, the industry might finally have the regulatory clarity it has been seeking. You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government.Click hereto sign up for future editions. The U.S. House of Representatives passedH.R. 1602, the “Eliminate Barriers to Innovation Act of 2021,” last week, sending it to the Senate, which referred it to the Senate Banking Committee. If passed and signed into law, the bipartisan bill would commission a working group to evaluate how the U.S. currently treats digital assets. Related:Who Will Win the Race to Offer Crypto Services? This might be the first major crypto bill to get anywhere in Congress. What’s more, it’s one that, if passed, would have a direct impact on how the U.S. treats digital assets.  This could finally provide companies in this industry with some much-requested regulatory clarity. The fact the bill has support from both parties is another mark in its favor. Of course, if regulatory agencies don’t act until this bill is implemented, it’ll be quite some time before any actual clarity is adopted. Theentire House of Representatives passedthe “Eliminate Barriers to Innovation Act,” introduced by Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.)in March, making it the first major crypto-specific legislation to get through one of the bodies of Congress. A number of other bills have also been introduced to define how cryptocurrencies can or should be treated under U.S. law, but few have made any progress. “It’s the first bill to address regulatory clarity for digital assets and digital asset marketplaces to pass the house, and in a bipartisan fashion no less,” said Amy Davine Kim, chief policy officer at the Chamber of Digital Commerce. Related:Crypto Talk With PwC Global Crypto Leader Henri Arslanian Representatives for McHenry and Lynch did not respond to requests for comment. According to the terms of the bill, a working group would be established with representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), financial technology firms, financial firms regulated by the SEC or CFTC, academic institutions or advocates looking at digital assets, small businesses using financial technology, investor protection groups and entities supporting historically underserved businesses. The group would have one year to evaluate the current legal and regulatory landscape for digital assets, how this landscape impacts crypto markets and how other countries approach the industry. More important, the group would be asked to draft recommendations for improving the regulatory landscape (and, in turn, improving the markets), as well as best practices to minimize fraud and ensure investors are protected. The bill asks that the recommendations be limited to the powers the SEC and CFTC already hold. “It brings a number of stakeholders to the table, so it’s not just the SEC, it’s not just the CFTC, it’s also businesses and thought leaders who actually have expertise in the digital asset space,” Kim said. Creating a working group with this many stakeholders also brings sunlight to the process of drafting or updating the regulatory framework around digital assets, she noted. The next step is bringing the bill before the Senate. Right now the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, helmed by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Pat Toomey (R-Penn.), is looking at the bill. Kim said the Digital Chamber has already been in touch with some Senators to move the bill forward. No sponsors have been named yet, according to a search of public records. A number of other actions last week might further give heft to the idea of regulatory clarity coming to the U.S. The House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services also renewed the Fintech Task Force last week, under the leadership of Reps. Lynch and Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), both of whom are returning to their roles. “I’m hopeful that the work of this task force will continue to lay the foundation for a better understanding of these financial technologies, and today’s release of the fintech report is yet another step towards fostering financial innovation and keeping America competitive on the global stage,” Emmer said in a statement. Two crypto exchanges abruptly closed up shop in Turkey last week, leaving hundreds of thousands of users at risk of losing potentially billions of dollars in cryptocurrencies. I asked my colleagueSandaliHandagama, who has been following the situation, to explain what’s going on. Here’s what she told me: Within days of each other, not one but two crypto exchanges have come under government investigation in Turkey, where digital assets are largely unregulated. On April 20, Thodex, one of Turkey’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges,abruptly shut downits exchange and operations, informing users the firm was considering a partnership with new investors. At the time of closing, the exchange was trading upwards of $580 million. The founder and CEO of Thodex, Faruk Fatih Özer, reportedly fled to Albania on the night before the exchange closed, according to local police. On April 23, Turkishauthorities shut downthe bank accounts of another crypto exchange, Vebitcoin, after it, too, shut down its exchange citing financial difficulties. The following day, Reuters reported Turkish authorities haddetainedfour people associated with Vebitcoin. Thodex’s Özer claimed in an update on the exchange’s website that everything is fine, but Turkish police are now searching for him, enlisting Interpol in the process and detaining 62 other individuals associated with the company. Another four individuals associated with Vebitcoin have also been detained. In response to the two incidents Şahap Kavacıoğlu, governor of Turkey’s central bank, said on Sunday that a wide range of crypto regulations is coming within two weeks, but ruled out an outright ban. “You cannot fix anything by banning crypto, and we do not intend to do this,” he said. The fact is, completely banning crypto in Turkey is almost impossible to do. It’s a multi-billion dollar market locally where people have been free to purchase and trade crypto. But then, suddenly, last month, the central bankbannedthe use of crypto for payments, although this did not have a long-term effect on trading. Some people in the Turkish crypto community told CoinDesk they will welcome regulation, especially if it means protection from scams, but it remains to be seen whether the incoming regulations will be favorable to Turkey’s devoted crypto enthusiasts. Gary Genslerwas confirmedto be the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission for, like,the second week in a row, which is great news for Gensler and his proponents. Gensler was initially confirmed to serve out the rest of Jay Clayton’s term, which expires this year, at the beginning of April. On April 20, the Senate voted to confirm him for a full five-year termexpiring in 2026. Regulatory clarity for crypto will be one of his priorities, said the Digital Chamber’s Amy Davine Kim. • Millionaire Ex-Banker Who Hates Banks Starts a DeFi Firm inRussia: Former KGB officer, banker and newspaper owner Alexander Lebedev is launching a decentralized finance project called InDeFi, which allows customers to depositDAI, BUSD orUSDTand receive rewards in the form of interest and the company’s native token. The project’s white paper is a little vague on how exactly this works. • South Korea Kicks Off New Crackdown on Illicit Crypto Activities: Via CoinDesk Korea Global Editor Felix Im, South Korea’s Office for Government Policy Coordination is planning a “special enforcement period” to crack down on possible illicit activity around cryptocurrencies in compliance with a new law that’s gone into effect. Separately, the head of its Financial Services Commissionwarned that all local exchanges could be shut down, citing its new regulatory process (though if exchanges can secure a bank partnership and register before September, they may be okay). • Chinese Crypto Miners Face Unstable Regulatory Environment: Increased scrutiny of coal mines in China’s Xinjiang region and regulations on companies that draw a lot of energy in Inner Mongolia might ensnare crypto mining firms, which could, in turn, affect bitcoin’s hashrate. Wesaw a previewof what coal-powered miners being shut down might look like earlier this month, after several power plants were shuttered due to accidents in the (physical) coal mines. • (Signal)This is what you might call a flex. Signal found a Cellebrite device that just so happened to “fall off a truck” and unpacked both how it works and how it might be exploited.Cory Doctorowhas a good thread breaking down exactly what Signal’s Moxie Marlinspike did. • (Vice)Greenidge, a power generation facility that burns gas to create electricity, plans to more than double the number ofbitcoinminers it operates, and received an important green light to do so last week. Environmental activists are concerned this will also lead to more pollution as the facility burns more gas to power the new miners. The next day, Square and Ark Invest published areportclaiming bitcoin will incentivize greater use of renewable energy. 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! • Bitcoin: Spent Output Age Bands • Goldman Sachs Says Blockchain Stocks on Average Outperform S&P 500 (But Not Bitcoin) || Bitfarms Plans 210 MW Bitcoin Mining Facility in Argentina: Publicly tradedbitcoinmining company Bitfarms (TSXV:BITF, OTC:BFARF) has signed an agreement under which it can draw up to 210 megawatts of electricity for its planned mining facility in Argentina. The initial term of the contract with a private Argentinian power producer is eight years, the company said in anannouncementMonday, with an effective cost of $0.022 per kilowatt-hour for the electricity for the first four years. In October, Bitfarms had agreed to develop a 60 MW bitcoin mining operation in Argentina, noting a “favorable year-round climate” for the facility, which the company said will be a “significant contributor” to its target of 8.0 exahash/second by theend of 2022and “provide geographic production diversification to reduce risk.” Related:Meltem Demirors at Consensus: Distributed “Our planned expansion in Argentina is a continuation of our experience and our desire to deliver value to shareholders,” said Bitfarms President Geoffrey Morphy. “The strategic expansion provides the scale and efficiency that we were seeking.” “With considerable low-cost power available to us over many years, we can enhance our margin performance in the short term and ensure we have a viable operation on which we can count through and after the next halving event in 2024,” Morphy said. According to Bitfarms’ announcement, the “210 MW is sufficient to support approximately 55,000 new-generation miners, which could generate approximately $650 million of revenues or 11,774 BTC, based on current difficulty levels and a bitcoin price of $55,000.” Bitfarms now has five industrial-scale hydroelectricfacilitiesin Québec, Canada, with a combined capacity of 69 MW. The company is also preparing for a Nasdaq listing in a U.S. push. Related:Meghnad Desai at Consensus: Distributed In recent months, Bitfarms has purchased tens of thousands of bitcoin mining machines as part of its wider expansion efforts. In early March, it disclosed plans to buy48,000 MicroBT mining machines.  A “substantial portion” of those miners are destined for the Argentinian facility, Bitfarms said Monday. Bitfarms also announced Friday that it had purchased an additional 1,996 newMicroBT mining machines, which will be installed through August and will provide an extra 160 petahash per second. According to Ben Gagnon, director of mining operations at Bitfarms, there has never been as much capital ready to be used in North American markets as there is right now as a result of coronavirus lockdowns. “How do you invest capital in a market like this? Bitcoin mining is the perfect candidate,” he told CoinDesk “It has quick ROIs (return on investments), is capitally intense, can utilize turn-key infrastructure and produce an asset that requires no customers and is appreciating in value faster than anything else they can produce.” The company isn’t alone in its moves toward increasing the mining footprint of North American firms. Other industrial-scale miners such asMarathon,RiotandBlockcaphave purchased tens of thousands of machines in recent weeks. On Monday, DMG Blockchain Solutions, another publicly traded Canadian bitcoin mining company,purchased3,600 application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) machines. • Bitfarms Plans 210 MW Bitcoin Mining Facility in Argentina • Bitfarms Plans 210 MW Bitcoin Mining Facility in Argentina || Ollie's Bargain (OLLI) Q4 Earnings Beat, Comps Increase 8.8%: Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings, Inc.OLLI maintained stellar performance in fourth-quarter fiscal 2020, wherein both the top and the bottom lines not only surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate but also improved year over year. It was the fourth straight quarter of sales and earnings beat. Notably, the company witnessed decent comparable store sales growth.Markedly, shares of Ollie's Bargain rose 4.6% during the after-market trading session on Mar 18, 2021. Evidently, stronger-than-anticipated results and upbeat commentary on first-quarter fiscal 2021 performance buoyed investor sentiment.Management informed that current sales trends are impressive while comparable store sales are tracking up in the high-single digits quarter-to-date. It also added that the company is well on track to deliver robust performance in the first quarter.We note that this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock has risen 4.5% in the past three months against the industry’s decline of 13.8%. Ollie’s Bargain posted adjusted earnings of 97 cents a share that beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 85 cents and surged from 74 cents reported in the year-ago quarter. This year-over-year improvement was fueled by higher net sales, gross margin expansion and better expense management.Net sales improved 22.1% year over year to $515.8 million and surpassed the consensus mark of $486.1 million. This surge in the top line can be attributed to comparable store sales increase and new store unit growth coupled with sturdy performance.Comparable store sales climbed 8.8% during the quarter, driven by a significant rise in average basket, partly offset by fewer transactions. The company’s top-performing categories were bed and bath, housewares, flooring, food, health and beauty aids, and seasonal.The company’s business operating model of “buying cheap and selling cheap” and focus on value-driven merchandise assortment positioned it well to grab opportunities in the marketplace and effectively meet consumer demand amid the ongoing pandemic. Management stated that shift in consumer spending from COVID-impacted categories, such as travel, dining and experiences, to retail, and federal stimulus funds as part of the recently enacted COVID-Related Tax Relief Act of 2020 benefited the company. Ollies Bargain Outlet Holdings, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Ollies Bargain Outlet Holdings, Inc. Quote Gross profit surged 23.6% year over year to $204.7 million during the quarter under review, while gross margin expanded 50 basis points to 39.7%. The increase in the metric can be attributed to improvement in the merchandise margin and leveraging of supply chain expenses due to higher sales.SG&A expenses jumped 20.3% to $114.2 million from the prior-year period on account of increase in number of stores and higher store payroll and variable selling expenses. Excluding the gains from insurance settlements, SG&A expenses increased 20% to $114.4 million in the quarter.However, as a percentage of net sales, SG&A expenses — exclusive of the insurance settlements gains — declined 40 basis points to 22.2%. The decrease was owing to significant leverage in occupancy and other costs owing to comparable store sales growth and cost-containment efforts. This was partly offset by certain increased expenses, such as premium and incentive pay, associated with operating in pandemic-hit environment.Excluding the gains from the insurance settlements, adjusted operating income rose 31.7% to $84.5 million in the final quarter. Again, adjusted operating margin expanded 120 basis points to 16.4% owing to higher gross margin and the leveraging of expense components due to the increase in comparable store sales.Adjusted EBITDA increased 32.9% to $92.1 million during the quarter under review. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 150 basis points to 17.9%. During the fourth quarter, Ollie’s Bargain opened four new stores and closed one location, thereby taking the total count to 388 stores in 25 states. We note that the company opened 46 new locations in fiscal 2020 and plans to open 50 stores including three to four relocations in fiscal 2021. The company informed that so far this year it has opened seven stores, including one relocation. Meanwhile, management is planning to bring the Ollie's brand to three new states — Kansas, Missouri and Vermont. Ollie’s Bargain ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $447.1 million (as of Jan 30, 2021), reflecting significant increase from $90 million as of Feb 1, 2020. The company had no borrowings under its $100 million revolving credit facility and $92 million of availability under the facility, as of the end of fiscal 2020.As of Jan 30, 2021, its total borrowings (comprising solely of finance lease obligations) were $1 million and stockholders’ equity was $1,334.9 million. Inventories, as of the end of fiscal 2020, grew 5.5% to $353.7 million. The company incurred capital expenditures of $30.5 million in fiscal 2020. Management anticipates capital expenditures of $40-$45 million in fiscal 2021, principally for new outlets, IT projects and store level initiatives.The company’s board of directors authorized a $100 million increase in the share buyback program on Mar 16. This resulted in $200 million approved for share buyback through these programs which expire on Jan 13, 2023. Hibbett SportsHIBB has a long-term earnings-growth rate of 17.2% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.MarineMaxHZO has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 99.9%, on average. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).TapestryTPR has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 39.5%, on average. It carries a Zacks Rank #2. 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 reportHibbett Sports, Inc. (HIBB) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTapestry, Inc. (TPR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || S&P 500, Dow hit record highs on bank earnings boost: By Shivani Kumaresan (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Dow hit record highs on Friday after Morgan Stanley wrapped up bumper quarterly earnings reports from big U.S. banks, while optimism about a solid economic rebound put the main indexes on course for weekly gains. Nine of the 11 S&P indexes were higher, with only the information technology and the energy indexes edging lower after outperforming in the previous session. The benchmark S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow are on course for their fourth straight week of gains, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq is less than a percent below its own all-time closing high on the back of upbeat economic data and a solid start to the first-quarter corporate earnings season. "You are just seeing blow out earnings from the banks and all the data pointing to a very strong reopening," said Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital. "So it's a day for (the so-called) 'reopening trade' with strong financials." Morgan Stanley reported a 150% jump in quarterly profit on Friday, joining JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Bank of America in reinforcing hopes of a swift economic recovery. Still, the investment bank's shares fell 2.9% as it also disclosed an almost $1 billion loss from the collapse of private fund Archegos. Shares of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo & Co rose between 0.7% and 2.4%, while the S&P financials index was up 0.4% after hitting a record high earlier in the day. By 12:04 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 101.65 points, or 0.30%, at 34,137.64, the S&P 500 was up 8.02 points, or 0.19%, at 4,178.44, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 7.80 points, or 0.06%, at 14,030.96. The Federal Reserve's pledge to keep interest rates low despite higher inflation has also revived demand for richly valued technology stocks, although bond yields edged higher again on Friday after hitting multi-week lows in the previous session. Tech behemoths Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Tesla Inc and Microsoft Corp, which led Wall Street's recovery last year from the coronavirus-fueled crash, slipped between 0.2% and 1.5%. The information technology index pulled back from an all-time high hit in early trading. "The biggest risk that could cause a (stocks) sell off is the development of COVID-19 variants, a slowdown in the reopening and persistent inflation," Hayes said. Bitcoin-related stocks including Riot Blockchain and Marathon Digital slumped about 4% after Turkey banned the use of cryptocurrencies and crypto assets to purchase goods and services. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 1.15-to-1 on the NYSE, while declining issues outnumbered advancers 1.53-to-1 on the Nasdaq. The S&P index recorded 136 new 52-week highs and no new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 129 new highs and 91 new lows. (Reporting by Shivani Kumaresan in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Anil D'Silva) || Taper Tantrum Takes a Bite Out of Gold: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com. ByPaul Wong, CFA, Market Strategist, Sprott Gold bullion[1] is down 8.66% YTD through February 28, 2020, but is up 9.36% YOY. Gold mining equities[3] have fallen 16.78% YTD but have increased 11.37% YOY. Silver[2] and platinum[19] are the precious metals standouts for the recent period, up 1.01% and 11.28% YTD, and 60.02% and 37.71% YOY, respectively. This compares to 1.72% YTD and 31.29% YOY returns for the S&P 500 TR Index.[6] Month of February 2021 [{"Indicator": "Gold Bullion[1]", "2/28/2021": "$1,734.04", "1/31/2021": "$1,847.65", "Change": "($113.61)", "Mo % Chg": "(6.15)%", "YTD % Chg": "(8.66)%", "Analysis": "The worst month since 2016 as real rates rise"}, {"Indicator": "Silver Bullion[2]", "2/28/2021": "$26.67", "1/31/2021": "$26.99", "Change": "($0.32)", "Mo % Chg": "(1.18)%", "YTD % Chg": "1.01%", "Analysis": "Silver continuing to hold firm"}, {"Indicator": "Gold Senior Equities (SOLGMCFT Index)[3]", "2/28/2021": "113.05", "1/31/2021": "128.61", "Change": "(15.56)", "Mo % Chg": "(12.10)%", "YTD % Chg": "(16.78)%", "Analysis": "Gold equities back to summer breakout"}, {"Indicator": "Gold Equities (GDX)[4]", "2/28/2021": "$31.13", "1/31/2021": "$34.51", "Change": "($3.38)", "Mo % Chg": "(9.79)%", "YTD % Chg": "(13.58)%", "Analysis": "(Same as above)"}, {"Indicator": "DXY US Dollar Index[5]", "2/28/2021": "90.88", "1/31/2021": "90.58", "Change": "0.30", "Mo % Chg": "0.33%", "YTD % Chg": "1.05%", "Analysis": "Still near the lows"}, {"Indicator": "S&P 500 Index[6]", "2/28/2021": "3,811.15", "1/31/2021": "3,714.24", "Change": "96.90", "Mo % Chg": "2.61%", "YTD % Chg": "1.47%", "Analysis": "Back to 50 daily moving average"}, {"Indicator": "U.S. Treasury Index", "2/28/2021": "$2,488.92", "1/31/2021": "$2,534.92", "Change": "($46.00)", "Mo % Chg": "(1.81)%", "YTD % Chg": "(2.75)%", "Analysis": "Bond source of risk and volatility"}, {"Indicator": "U.S. Treasury 10 YR Yield", "2/28/2021": "1.40%", "1/31/2021": "1.07%", "Change": "0.34", "Mo % Chg": "31.85%", "YTD % Chg": "53.84%", "Analysis": "Sharp sell-off, touching 1.60%"}, {"Indicator": "U.S. Treasury 10 YRRealYield", "2/28/2021": "(0.75)%", "1/31/2021": "(1.04)%", "Change": "0.29", "Mo % Chg": "28.11%", "YTD % Chg": "31.68%", "Analysis": "Back up driven by nominal yields"}, {"Indicator": "Silver ETFs (Total Known Holdings ETSITOTL Index Bloomberg)", "2/28/2021": "964.38", "1/31/2021": "939.62", "Change": "24.76", "Mo % Chg": "2.64%", "YTD % Chg": "8.65%", "Analysis": "Silver maintaining accumulation"}, {"Indicator": "Gold ETFs (Total Known Holdings ETFGTOTL Index Bloomberg)", "2/28/2021": "104.18", "1/31/2021": "106.85", "Change": "(2.67)", "Mo % Chg": "(2.50)%", "YTD % Chg": "(2.41)%", "Analysis": "Four outflow months in a roll"}] February was a tough month for gold, which marked its worst monthly performance since November 2016. Spot gold fell $114/oz, or 6.15%, to close the month at $1,734/oz. Half of this decline came in the two final days of February, as bond selling spiked into near panic mode and triggered a multi-asset sell-off into month-end. Figure 1 shows how gold has been inversely correlated to bond yields. February's pullback occurred on the back of various developments. Rising energy prices and the markets’ view on U.S. government spending bolstered the reflation trade with a rally in broader equity markets. The U.S. dollar strengthened as markets priced in a swift economic recovery and as U.S. Treasury yields advanced to the highest level in a year, with the 30-year bond rising above 2% and the rapid move in the 10-year to over 1.5%, which we will discuss in more detail. Meanwhile, gold ETFs saw holdings decline towards the end of February. Silver prices held up much better as markets sought out physical ownership and recognized silver’s undervalued economic merits. Gold stocks were drawn down in a volatile fashion with the gold price move. Precious metal equities followed physical metals’ performance, with silver related stocks outperforming gold stocks. For the past several years, Federal Reserve (Fed) policies have driven yields continually lower, and as a result, most asset classes now have embedded duration effects. For gold, this duration effect is in the real yield. The sudden backup in real interest rates was shockingly quick ― nearly 40 basis points in six trading sessions. The rise in real yields was driven almost exclusively by the rise in nominal rates on the back of term premiums (expectations) backing up. There is just no escaping the pervasive effects and consequences of central bank policies in any asset class. Since August 2020, the U.S. 10-year Treasury nominal yield has been rising, which the Fed has viewed as benign and as a sign of better growth, as rising breakeven yields led it.[7] Just in case, the Fed would reiterate that it was not even thinking about raising rates, and with its new AIT (average inflation targeting) policy, that it would be a long time before the Fed would raise interest rates even in the face of rising inflation. But once 10-year U.S. Treasury yields rose above 1.20%, the bond market began to sell-off and closed out February with a full-blown "taper tantrum."[8] Figure 1. Gold's Decline Tracks Rise in 10-Year U.S. Treasury Yields Source: Bloomberg. Data as of 3/1/2021. Gold is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index. 10-Year Treasuries are measured by the Bloomberg USGG10YR Index. Since early January, the reflation narrative has continued to build, igniting a growing bear steepener trade (investors demanding higher yields in longer-dated bonds to offset the risk of growth and inflation). By the last week of February, tail hedgers had switched from bear steepeners to bear flatteners (yields rising in the curve's middle or belly). Also, new short positions were established in three-year Eurodollar futures (greens).[9] These two trades signaled that the Fed would need to tighten (raise rates) way ahead of its stated schedule. Furthermore, this tightening would be by way of tapering QE (quantitative easing), which would impact the belly of the U.S. Treasury curve the most (the bear flattener trade). When CTAs[10] flipped to bearish (mechanical selling), this compounded the selling pressure. The final catalyst was the failure of last Thursday's (February 25) 7-year U.S. Treasury note auction. Investors showed tepid demand for the $62 billion worth of notes, with the bid-to-cover ratio at just 2.04, the lowest in the auction's history. In response, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield exploded higher to reach 1.6085% but reversed sharply to close at 1.40% for the month, likely a climactic selling spike. Gold was not spared by February's correction, but long-term trends remain in place for our bullish gold view. Not lost on the market was that three-year Treasury yields rose the most last Thursday (2/25/2021) , climbing nine basis points. Fed policy should have kept this part of the yield curve nailed to the floor, and the Fed's failure to do so brought into question its creditability. Not helping was the Fed's silence into the month-end taper tantrum selling panic. If the bond market remains unstable in the near term, we would expect some Fed jawboning. If that were not enough, then the next step would be WAM (weighted average maturity) extension and possibly a change in QE composition. Currently, the Fed is buying $80 billion in Treasuries and $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities each month. The Fed can shift towards more Treasury purchases. The Fed can also bring up the YCC (yield curve control) debate again and wave that at the market. But the bigger question is: Have we reached the point where U.S. 10-year Treasury yields at only 1.50% and 10-year real yields at -0.75% are a threat to the bond market's stability? Or is instability due to rates moving too fast, too quickly? Looking at the flipside extreme, what would happen if the Fed decides (or were forced) to increase WAM, QE and bring in some form of YCC? This would likely mean unlimited liquidity for equities, low yields across the curve to finance all fiscal programs and corporate bond spreads would narrow even more. It would also be the last nail in the coffin for price discovery. Markets would soar until the weight of unsustainability causes a systematic market crash that wipes out the majority of wealth — this is one of the extreme right-tail risk events we highlighted in our November commentary,Gold Tests $1,800 Support. Although we are disappointed by gold's recent price weakness, we recognize that market flows, positioning and momentum can dominate price action in the near term in today's market environment. The last week of February was an uncomfortable replay of the 2013 Taper Tantrum in a condensed form. Two scenarios are likely going forward. One is that the Fed will taper, and yields will rise. The second is that the Fed stays the course. The Fed taper scenario is a total non-starter. Here's why. If the Fed were to truly taper, real yields would rise dramatically. Figure 2 highlights the relationship between the S&P 500 forward P/E multiples[11] and the 10-year real yield over the past five years (the R-squared is 73%).12Not only would P/E multiples collapse, but earnings expectations would see headwinds as higher yields bite into the earnings outlook. Rising real yields would strengthen the U.S. dollar (USD), further tightening financial conditions. In this scenario, the stock market would likely enter a bear market given current dot-com-level valuations. Without the current high QE level, further fiscal expansion programs would come to a halt, and GDP (gross domestic product) growth expectations would hit the wall. Under this taper outlook (basically, the Fed no longer providing full support), one would reduce exposure in equities, bonds, commodities, gold and everything else. The corollary argument is that growth is now so strong and established (despite being in the early stages of the post-COVID recovery) and is now impervious to any taper action. This would go against the entire notion and purpose of AIT (average inflation targeting). Despite the recent tantrum, the Fed fully controls the world's reserve currency's printing press (USD). The Fed is theboot, and bond vigilantes remain theant(rememberThe Avengersfrom 2012?). All tantrums will come to an end, including this one. Figure 2. S&P 500 Forward P/E Multiples and 10-Year Real Yield Relationship Source: Bloomberg. Data as of 2/28/2021. By staying the course, the market's significant risk would be inflation, which is what the Fed is trying to engineer, and why the bond market is in a tantrum. It is not surprising that the bond market reacted in this manner; it is now the primary source of market risk and volatility. Staying the course will mean continuing massive fiscal stimulus leading to ever-expanding M2 money supply[13] and continuing deep negative real yields and a weak USD. The yield curve has already steepened and will likely climb higher in the face of such fiscal spending. Figure 3 highlights the relationship between the 2s10s Treasury yield curve,[14] the MOVE Index (implied bond volatility)[15] and the VIX Index.[16] Historically, the yield curve is the best predictor of the MOVE Index direction. For several years, the MOVE Index had been relatively constrained by Fed policy, which has now come to an end. An untethered MOVE Index will increase cross-asset class volatility (MOVE and VIX generally move together). Rising volatility in all asset classes will place a greater demand for effective hedges and diversification. Our2021 Top 10 Watch Listcommentary highlighted all these points (M2 growth, real yields, USD and market volatility) and their relationship to gold. The long-term trends remain in place for a bullish gold view. Figure 3. 2s10s Treasury Yield Curve, MOVE Index and VIX Index Source: Bloomberg. Data as of 2/28/2021. Since the summer peak, we were looking for gold to maintain the support level at $1,800 or "stickiness" around $1,800. That level would have been a high-level support price similar to what silver is experiencing. The $1,800 level gave way in the final two days of February and has fallen to the first Fibonacci retracement, or support, at $1,725 and is still above the trendline from the 2018 lows (Figure 4). The gold price is also sitting in a cluster of support, marked by the blue dashed lines. The upper blue dash line marked the resistance level before the August melt-up to the peak. Despite the gyrations, gold remains in a bullish trend but is now testing critical medium-term support levels. The relative strength index (RSI)[17] is at extreme oversold levels consistent with prior tradeable lows (bottom panel, red circles). The movement in yields and Fed guidance will likely determine the short-term price action of gold bullion. There are plenty of technical indicators showing yields have reached a short-term climactic blow-off action. Longer-term, the probability of an early Fed taper seems unlikely, but gold has discounted some of this already. Figure 4. Gold Bullion Testing First Fibonacci Support and Trendline Source: Bloomberg. Data as of 2/28/2021. For decades, bond yields have been in one of the most prolonged secular declines in history. In recent decades, when a financial stress event or calamity occurred, central banks quickly cut interest rates. In terms of the Fed's reaction function's prime beneficiary, it has been consistently bonds. Post the GFC (global financial crisis), bonds had morphed to become increasingly negatively correlated to equities and had become the best hedge in a multi-asset portfolio. But with ZIRP (zero interest rate policy), the ability of bonds to act as a hedge is likely gone unless the Fed is willing to go negative on yields. Bonds will still work as a diversifier, but the difference between a hedge and a diversifier is cavernous in any value-at-risk (VaR) based scenario.[18] Figure 5 highlights how extraordinarily well this hedge function worked before ZIRP. Ideally, the price correlation between assets should be negatively correlated in a pronounced manner. Using the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) as the equity and the iShares 20+ Year Treasury ETF (TLT) as the bond, from January 2017 up until the Fed going to a ZIRP in March 2020, there was a very marked negative correlation pattern between SPY and TLT (blue line). Perhaps almost as necessary, the volatility of equities (VIX) and bonds (MOVE) should be highly positively correlated so that volatility events are aligned. The upper and lower green dashed boxes mark this extraordinary period of hedge protection. Since the start of ZIRP, the correlations of both SPY-TLT and VIX-MOVE have broken, and it is clear the hedge function is gone. As a result, we see more asset classes, such as gold, being added to multi-asset portfolios to increase overall portfolio diversification without an effective hedge. Figure 5. Price and Volatility Correlation of Equities and Bonds (Rolling 30-Day Correlation) Source: Bloomberg. Data as of 2/28/2021. Before the end-of-month bond market tantrum, the most extraordinary story in February was Bitcoin. Since autumn, Bitcoin has increased fivefold based on… we are not entirely sure exactly what, exactly. Typically when a security rises fivefold to top $1 trillion in market valuation, there are clear explanations. For Bitcoin, there are several, including increased adoption and institutional acceptance as a store of value, a new currency, or as a new asset class. However, Bitcoin has no prominent value foundation other than market participants' willingness to buy it and lots of it. Bitcoin could be a helpful addition to a precious metals allocation but not as a substitute ― take one last look at that volatility. The one unassailable observation, though, is that Bitcoin is volatile, very volatile. Figure 6 shows Bitcoin's rolling 30-day realized volatility compared to gold and a G7 currency volatility index. Often Bitcoin is compared to gold from the perspective that both are in limited supply, and both can be viewed as an alternative currency. From a volatility perspective, they are nothing alike. The five-year average of the 30-day realized volatility for Bitcoin (58.5%) is 4.4 times higher than gold bullion (13.2%) and 7.2 times higher than the G7 currency volatility index (8.1%). Though the five-year average may seem tempered, one look at the volatility chart in Figure 6, and the phrase "random walk" comes to mind. While the claim of a limited supply of each individual cryptocurrency coin is accurate, there are no limits to the number of cryptocurrencies available. Over 8,600 known cryptocurrencies are now in circulation at last count (and growing), with a market value hitting over $1.7 trillion at the highs. For reference, the Fed states there is $2.05 trillion inFederal Reserve Notesin circulation. The limited supply or scarcity factor holds for single coins but does not hold for cryptocurrencies in aggregate. The alternative currency (or store of value) narrative is also problematic for Bitcoin, given its extreme volatility. Bitcoin was down by more than 20% in reaction to comments by Elon Musk and Janet Yellen. Generally, most prudent investors don't like to see their other stores of value drop more than 20% in less than two days due to two people stating apparent facts, even if it may be up a phenomenal 427% year-over-year. The long-term history of assets going hyperbolic does not always end well. Are we negative on cryptocurrencies? No, but we would like to be clear and say they are not the same as gold. Unlike a tangible asset, cryptos exist only in the digital realm and, as such, can disappear if governments, for whatever reason, choose to do so. But the speed of adoption and market value of cryptocurrencies cannot be denied. Cryptocurrencies are here to stay and will continue to evolve. The more that cryptocurrencies are adopted, the harder it will be for governments to legislate them out of existence. The data history for Bitcoin is limited relative to most other asset classes. However, besides extreme volatility, Bitcoin has so far demonstrated a relatively low correlation to most asset classes, making it viable as a diversifier in a multi-asset portfolio, depending on the allowed volatility. For most funds, that would mean a relatively small allocation. Our early analysis would indicate that Bitcoin could be a helpful addition to a precious metals allocation but not as a substitute ― take one last look at that volatility. Figure 6. Bitcoin vs. Gold, G7 Currency: 30-Day Volatility Source: Bloomberg. Data as of 2/28/2021. On a final note, we continue to believe that the amount of monetary and fiscal stimulus central banks and governments are providing, the resulting debasement of currencies and the inflationary outcome will support gold, silver and precious metals equities for some time. Markets, however, are focused more on the potential for economic growth and ignoring the value generated by the profitable precious metals mining sectors. From our perspective, this certainly presents an attractive buying opportunity and entry point for new capital. Despite the current metals price correction, precious metals equity valuations are fundamentally very attractive because of the profit margin and favorable financial conditions of the sector. Originallypublishedby Sprott, 3/3/21 [{"1": "2", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "Spot silver is measured by Bloomberg SILV Comdty Index."}, {"1": "3", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "The Solactive Gold Miners Custom Factors Index (Index Ticker: SOLGMCFT) aims to track the performance of larger-sized gold mining companies whose stocks are listed on Canadian and major U.S. exchanges."}, {"1": "4", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "VanEck Vectors\u00ae Gold Miners ETF (GDX\u00ae) seeks to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index (GDMNTR), which is intended to track the overall performance of companies involved in the gold mining industry. The SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) is one of the largest gold ETFs."}, {"1": "5", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "The U.S. Dollar Index (USDX, DXY, DX) is an index (or measure) of the value of the United States dollar relative to a basket of foreign currencies, often referred to as a basket of U.S. trade partners' currencies."}, {"1": "6", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "The S&P 500 or Standard & Poor's 500 Index is a market-capitalization-weighted index of the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies. (TR indicates total return and reflects the reinvestment of any dividends)."}, {"1": "7", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "The 10-year breakeven rate measures the difference or gap between 10 year Treasury Bonds and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS). Source: Investopedia."}, {"1": "8", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "\"Taper tantrum\" refers to the 2013 collective reactionary panic that triggered a spike in U.S. Treasury yields after investors learned that the Federal Reserve was slowly putting the breaks on its quantitative easing (QE) program. Source: Investopedia."}, {"1": "9", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "A Eurodollar bundle consists of the simultaneous sale or purchase of one each of a series of consecutive Eurodollar futures contracts. Eurodollars are sometimes color-coded to facilitate reference to individual contract months or to packs and bundles, such as three-year Eurodollar futures (greens)."}, {"1": "10", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) are quant funds or investment funds that select securities using advanced quantitative analysis."}, {"1": "11", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "The price-to-earnings ratio (P/E ratio) compares a company's share price to the earnings it generates per share. A variation on this calculation is known as the forward P/E. Investors or analysts may use projected earnings per share, meaning the earnings expected to be generated per share over the next 12 months."}, {"1": "12", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "R-squared values are commonly stated as percentages from 0% to 100%. An R-squared of 100% means that all movements of a security (or another dependent variable) are completely explained by movements in the index, or the independent variable(s) you are interested in. Source Investopedia."}, {"1": "13", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "M2 is a measure of the money supply that includes cash, checking deposits and easily convertible near money. M2 is a broader measure of the money supply than M1, including cash and checking deposits. Source: Investopedia."}, {"1": "14", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "The 2s10s spread is one of the most-watched economic indicators, and it simply represents the difference between the 10-year and the 2-year U.S. Treasury yields."}, {"1": "15", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "The MOVE Index calculates the future volatility in U.S. Treasury yields implied by current prices of options on Treasuries of various maturities."}, {"1": "16", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "The Volatility Index, or VIX, is a real-time market index representing the market's expectation of 30-day forward-looking volatility. Derived from the price inputs of the S&P 500 index options, it provides a measure of market risk and investors' sentiments."}, {"1": "17", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "The relative strength index (RSI) is a momentum indicator used in technical analysis that measures the magnitude of recent price changes to evaluate overbought or oversold conditions in the price of a stock or other asset"}, {"1": "18", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "Value at Risk (VaR) calculates the maximum loss expected (or worst case scenario) on an investment over a given time period and given a specified degree of confidence."}, {"1": "19", "Gold bullion is measured by the Bloomberg GOLDS Comdty Index.": "Spot platinum is measured by Bloomberg PLAT Comdty Index"}] Important Disclosure Past performance is no guarantee of future results. You cannot invest directly in an index.Investments, commentary and statements are unique and may not be reflective of investments and commentary in other strategies managed by Sprott Asset Management USA, Inc., Sprott Asset Management LP, Sprott Inc., or any other Sprott entity or affiliate. Opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the presenter and may vary widely from opinions of other Sprott affiliated Portfolio Managers or investment professionals. This content may not be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without acknowledgment that it was produced by Sprott Asset Management LP and a reference tosprott.com.The opinions, estimates and projections (“information”) contained within this content are solely those of Sprott Asset Management LP (“SAM LP”) and are subject to change without notice. SAM LP makes every effort to ensure that the information has been derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. 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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 Pare Recent Gains as Interest Rates Jump Again • The ETF Space Is Kicking Off 2021 with Record Inflows • Crude ETFs Soar as OPEC Production Plummets • Tech Takes the Lead as U.S. Stock ETFs Gain Momentum • Stock ETFs Hit Fresh Highs, Rally For Third Day Straight READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Bitcoin’s ‘Rich List’ Shrinks Amid Continued Price Rally: Largebitcoininvestors have been selling some of their holdings amid this year’s price rally, blockchain data shows, supporting recent signs retail buying has been a key factor in supporting the market. Sometimes referred to as bitcoin’s “rich list,” the number of unique addresses holding more than 1,000 BTC has shrunk by over 8% since Feb. 8, according to the data provider Glassnode. “Whale addresses have been selling,” market analystLark Davis tweeted. “This does not mean the bull run is over. It just means that profit taking is happening.” Related:Tony Hawk Skates His Last Ollie 540, Puts the NFT of It up for Auction On Wednesday, 2,275 addresses held at least 1,000 bitcoins, down more than 200 from Feb. 8’s record high of 2,488. A single person or exchange can hold multiple addresses, leaving some doubt in the numbers. It’s possible the rise or fall in the number of addresses containing at least 1,000 coins does not necessarily represent an equivalent influx or outflux of large investors. But a weakening of buying pressure from large investors would be consistent with other recent market indicators, including a decline in the so-called “Coinbase premium,”which theoretically indicates flagging institutional demand. Bitcoin, however, has remained bid over the past 5.5 weeks, clocking new highs above $60,000, possibly on the back of increased retail participation. Related:SBI Crypto Opens Mining Pool Services for the Masses Also read:Bitcoin Price Gets Fed Boost, but Bond Yields Could Play Spoilsport: Analysts “The price since early January was predominantly retail, a fact highlighted by the [five times] more sign-ups on Binance compared to Coinbase,” Glassnode’sUncharted newsletter, dated Feb. 27, said. Coinbase’s Coinbase Pro unit caters to larger, more sophisticated traders such as institutions and rich individuals. The rich list grew during the May 2020-February 2021 period as whalesvigorously accumulatedthe cryptocurrency. • Bitcoin’s ‘Rich List’ Shrinks Amid Continued Price Rally • Bitcoin’s ‘Rich List’ Shrinks Amid Continued Price Rally || VeriBlock Joins Newswire's Guided Tour to Accelerate Growth and Adoption of New Blockchain Security Algorithm: VeriBlock's technology allows any new or existing blockchain to leverage the Proof-of-Work computational security of Bitcoin through its novel Proof-of-Proof (PoP) algorithm. NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / April 28, 2021 /The continued rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) and cryptocurrency has led to many innovative breakthroughs in blockchain technology in recent years.Proof-of-Proofis among those innovations; its developer,VeriBlock, has joined Newswire'sEarned Media Advantage Guided Tourto share its technology that allows any blockchain to inherit the unparalleled security of Bitcoin. Allowing any blockchain to inherit Bitcoin's gold standard of security makes VeriBlock's novel Proof-of-Proof algorithm a significant development in blockchain technology. "VeriBlock has developed some of the most cutting-edge technology in the world of blockchain," says Charlie Terenzio, VP of Earned Media Advantage Business at Newswire. "You have billionaires like Mark Cuban and Chamath Palihapitiya who have both recognized the rise of decentralized finance and are both holders of crypto assets. More and more vendors are accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment, and as that trend continues, we're optimistic VeriBlock's technology will see a lot of interest moving forward." A needs analysis helps Guided Tour customers determine the most relevant and most potentially fruitful areas of opportunity to develop a more effective go-to-market strategy. Newswire provides years of expertise through its account strategists and supporting teams who develop and implement a dynamic media and marketing strategy. Continued outreach, analytics, tracking, benchmarking, and routine follow-ups ensure clients are meeting their specified targets and needs throughout their time on the Guided Tour. Visit Newswire.com today and learn more about how Newswire's integrated solutions are helping organizations in high technology grow their audience, expand their reach, and implement an effective go-to-market strategy. About VeriBlock VeriBlock, Inc. is a Delaware Corporation specializing in blockchain-software development and is the creator of the Proof-of-Proof security protocol and VeriBlock network. VeriBlock allows any blockchain in the world to secure itself with Bitcoin in an entirely Decentralized, Trustless, Transparent, and Permissionless (DTTP) manner. Its subsidiary, Xenios SEZC, is a Cayman Islands Special Economic Zone Corporation specializing in software management and intellectual property licensing, with a focus on building cutting-edge technologies in regulatory environments that cultivate innovation. Xenios SEZC is the official sponsor of the VeriBlock project. About Newswire Newswire delivers press releases and multimedia distribution software and services (SaaS) that empower the Earned Media Advantage: greater brand awareness, increased traffic, greater return on media and marketing communications spend and the competitive edge. With over a decade of experience, Newswire continues to provide its customers with the ability to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time through the right medium. To learn more about how Newswire can help you, visithttp://www.newswire.com. Contact Information Charlie TerenzioNewswire | VP of Earned Media Advantage BusinessOffice: 813-480-3766Email:charlie@newswire.com SOURCE:Newswire View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/643013/VeriBlock-Joins-Newswires-Guided-Tour-to-Accelerate-Growth-and-Adoption-of-New-Blockchain-Security-Algorithm || Bitfarms Announces the Appointment of Officer and Grant of Options: TORONTO and BROSSARD, Québec, April 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Bitfarms Ltd.(“Bitfarms”, or the “Company”) (TSXV:BITF // OTC:BFARF), one of the largest, oldest and most cost-effective public Bitcoin mining operations in the world, today announces the appointment of Mr. Darcy Donelle as Vice President of Corporate Development, effective immediately. The Company has granted Mr. Donelle 50,000 incentive stock options, pursuant to the Company’s Stock Option Plan (the “Options”). The Options are exercisable into one common share of the Company at a price of $6.39, for a period of five years from the date of grant and are subject to vesting conditions. Mr. Donelle is a CFA® charterholder and a Chartered Professional Accountant (CA). He has vast capital markets experience, having spent the past ten years with an international investment company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. During his tenure with that company, he spent time on the sell-side as a research associate, covering junior mining equities. Later, he transitioned to a principal analyst role where he oversaw the finance and operations function for the company's managed investment funds and actively assisted front-line executives with support for acquisition, divestiture, fund-raising, structuring, and financing activities. He brings in-depth experience in financial statement analysis and investment valuation, and has built a reputation as a trusted technical advisor to management and shareholders. Prior to 2010, Mr. Donelle worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Grant Thornton where he was involved with audit engagements and advisory assignments related to private equity, fair value, and corporate taxation. He is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick, earning a BA degree in Economics and Political Science and was a recipient of UNB’s Dean Scholar Award. About Bitfarms Ltd. Founded in 2017, Bitfarms is one of the largest, oldest, and most cost-effective public bitcoin mining operations in the world. Bitfarms runs vertically integrated mining operations with onsite technical repair, proprietary data analytics and Company-owner 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. As mentioned above, we recently filed our first Annual Information Report. On February 24, 2021 Bitfarms was honoured to be announced as a Rising Star by the TSX-V. Bitfarms has a diversified production platform with five industrial scale facilities located in Quebec. Each facility is 100% 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 audit firm. To learn more about Bitfarms’ events, developments, and online communities: Website:www.bitfarms.comhttps://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 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. 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 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 resulting significant negative impact on the Company’s operations, the construction and operation of expanded blockchain infrastructure as currently planned, and the regulatory environment of cryptocurrency in the Provinces of Canada. 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, 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 Bitfarms include but are not limited to: the construction and operation of blockchain infrastructure 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 Province of Québec, 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 there will be no regulation or law that will prevent Bitfarms from operating its business. The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of the Bitfarms’ 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. Contacts Investor Relations: CORE IR+1 516 222 2560Investors@bitfarms.comFor Media Inquiries:CORE IRJules Abraham, Director of Public Relationsjulesa@coreir.com YAP GlobalEllis Ballard, Account Managerellis@yapglobal.com Ryan Affaires publiquesMark Duschene, Directeur / Directormarc@ryanap.com || All About Ethereum (ETH) — To Help You Decided If It’s Worth the Investment: BackyardProduction / iStock.com 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 an understanding 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. 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. What Is Ethereum? Ethereum is an open-source, decentralized blockchain 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 What Is Ethereum Worth? 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. Story continues 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 early April 2021, it is around $2,100. In other words, the price increased by 1,400% in just one year. Read: Breaking Down the Basics of Cryptocurrency Should You Invest In Ethereum? 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 of Blocklink , 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. More From GOBankingRates Don’t Miss Out on Nominating Your Favorite Small Business To Be Featured on GOBankingRates — Ends May 31 Everything You Need To Know About Taxes This Year What Income Level Is Considered Middle Class in Your State? The Average Retirement Age in Every State Last updated: April 7, 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : All About Ethereum (ETH) — To Help You Decided If It’s Worth the Investment || GLOBAL-MARKETS-High-flying stocks wait on Fed signals, Apple results: (Updates to U.S. open) * Equities lack trend as earnings roll in, bond yields creep up * Fed expected to stay course but outlook is improving * Apple, Facebook, Ford, earnings due * Graphic: Global asset performance http://tmsnrt.rs/2yaDPgn * Graphic: World FX rates http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh * By Matt Scuffham and Marc Jones NEW YORK/LONDON, April 28 (Reuters) - World shares cosied up close to record highs and the dollar and global bond yields nudged up on Wednesday, as traders waited to see if the U.S. Federal Reserve utters the dreaded 'T' word later - tapering of its mass stimulus programme. The broad expectation is that it won't want to unsettle markets for now, and with a packed day of corporate earnings, economic data and U.S. President Joe Biden's first address before a joint Congress session, there was plenty to navigate. MSCI's broadest index of world shares was sidestepping towards its best month of the year so far. The index, which tracks shares in 49 nations, rose 0.54 point, or 0.08 percent, to 706.08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 113 points, or 0.33%, to 33,871.93, the S&P 500 gained 5.3 points, or 0.13%, to 4,192.02 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 23.69 points, or 0.17%, to 14,066.53. The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.11% The dollar was on course for its first unbroken two-day run of gains of the month - April is currently set to be its cruellest month since last July. Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 2/32 in price to yield 1.6289%, from 1.622% late on Tuesday. "The thing that we are going to watch most closely is if the Fed says anything along the lines of tapering of asset purchases," said Jim Caron, a senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. "As long that doesn't get mentioned, we are all good," he said, explaining that with the coronavirus pandemic still worsening in many parts of the world, investors would view any move towards tapering as premature. Most Fed watchers expect Chairman Jerome Powell to repeat the bank's recent message that its low interest rates and support programmes will remain in place for a long time yet. Biden will also address Congress and is likely to underscore his administration's plans for infrastructure and stimulus spending. These developments would normally be positive for stocks, but analysts say so much economic optimism is already priced into the equity market that it is difficult to budge equities from current levels. Otherwise, Europe's traders were waiting to hear from ECB President Christine Lagarde and other top policymakers. Economic data releases showed an unexpected drop in Germany’s GfK consumer confidence reading for May though an equivalent in France at least stayed steady for April. APPLE EYED U.S. earnings later include tech and internet giants Apple , Facebook and Qualcomm, as well as Ford . Facebook is expected to report a revenue rise due to online advertising demand during the COVID pandemic, while Apple is expected to post a more than 32% jump in revenue, driven by 5G phone demand. There was a mixed bag of earnings from Tesla, 3M , Microsoft, and Google-parent Alphabet on Tuesday. In the FX markets, the dollar index rose 0.144%, with the euro down 0.21% to $1.2065. As well as the rise in Treasury yields helping the dollar higher, break-even rates on 10-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, a measure of expected annual inflation for the coming decade, rose to 2.41%, the highest since 2013. In the cryptocurrency market there was excitement as the European Investment Bank said it would sell a two-year digital bond worth 100 million euros ($120 million) on the ethereum blockchain network. Rival cryptocurrency Bitcoin fell 0.6%. In commodities, spot gold dropped 0.4% to $1,769.84 an ounce. U.S. gold futures fell 0.72% to $1,765.20 an ounce. ($1 = 0.8278 euros) (Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Steve Orlofsky) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 58232.32, 55859.80, 56704.57, 49150.54, 49716.19, 49880.54, 46760.19, 46456.06, 43537.51, 42909.40
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] 2016: The Volatility Year That Wasn’t: Sometimes how we feel about the market bears absolutely no resemblance to reality. When I look back at 2016, I’m exhausted. And when I talk to many advisors, I hear similar comments: “What a year!” they say. “We had such an awful winter, and then all the craziness around the election!” But the reality is that this was actually one of the most placid years in recent history. Here’s the actual, 30-day realized volatility of the S&P 500 for the last 10 years: What this excellent chart from Bloomberg suggests is that our current market is in one of the lowest volatility periods we’ve seen in ages, and while we’ve had some spikes, particularly in the spring, it’s just about as boring a market as you can get. Of course, you can’t actually trade this chart; instead, what you can trade, sort of, is the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX—a derivative calculation based on the implied volatility of strips of S&P 500 options. Here’s what the VIX chart looks like over the past 10 years: Even the quickest glance suggests these are pretty good proxies for each other, and while they’re not identical, they even “base” around the same number: 10 for low-vol periods, 80 for crazy spikes. And using options is actually sensible, because for a sophisticated investor, making a specific bet on volatility would most easily be done with options. You want to bet the S&P 500 is going to spike in either direction? Options players have a plan for you—a straddle. Think we’re range-bound and want to bet on it? The wonderfully namedIron Condoris for you. Managing volatility is in fact what options are designed to do, so that’s why the CBOE uses the real-world expressions of sentiment from options traders to compute the VIX. The Contango Conundrum Like options themselves, there’s nothing inherently bullish or bearish about the VIX itself. Using either options or futures contracts on the VIX index, investors can bet on either increasing or decreasing volatility. The problem is that in a low-volatility environment like we’ve been in, most investors are going to guess that future volatility will be higher than today’s volatility, and thus they will bid up the price of the futures contracts themselves. A lot. Here’s what the futures curve looks like right now for the VIX: With VIX at 12, buying the front-month futures contract will cost you 14. To put that in perspective, that means that, if VIX remains at 12, you can expect to lose $2 for every $14 invested in a single month. That $2-a-month decay continues from the first to the second month as well. That means even if you’re right, and VIX is going to rise, you’re facing a 14.2% head windevery month. That’s a 396% head wind every year. Of course, thecontangoisn’t always this bad, but it’s generally been sharply upward-sloping all year long. If you think that means investing in a long VIX-futures-based ETF for the last year has been tough, you’re right. The top three worst-performing ETFs over the last year all track near-month VIX futures contracts: theiPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX), theVelocityShares Daily Long VIX Short-Term ETN (VIIX)and theProShares VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (VIXY). ‘Force Of Nature’ For Investors The reason you can’t see three ETF lines on the chart is because these funds are, for all intents and purposes, identical in their returns. The problem is contango: It’s a force of nature, and there’s no getting around it as a futures investor. While this isn’t a pretty chart, it’s worth noting that these funds have done exactly what they said they were going to do day after day. If you went into the month of June with a position in one of these funds, you were up over 25% in a matter of days as you caught the pre-Brexit spike in volatility. But remember, the VIX was never intended as some sort of “long only” asset to invest in—it’s a measurement of the state of the market, just like humidity is a measurement of the state of the atmosphere. Investors can, and do, capitalize on it in other ways, either by shorting funds like this to capture contango, or investing in the suite of inverse products, such as theVelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term ETN (XIV)or theProShares Short VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (SVXY), that take the opposite bets: Again, two strategies following the same basic strategy—taking the “sell” side of the VIX futures trade. These funds not only profit from contango, they’ve also benefited from relatively calm fluctuations in the VIX itself, which means the daily-rebalance effect common to most leveraged and inverse funds hasn’t cut into returns. Of course, just like June was a great time to be in the long ETFs, it was murderous for these funds: If you got the timing wrong, you could have been down more than 35% in a matter of days when volatility spiked. What’s In An (Inverse) Name? Honestly, at ETF.com, we can end up trapped a bit by our own analytical framework. As a matter of course, we exclude leveraged and inverse funds from things like performance charts, because otherwise, every list would be nothing but the most levered version of whatever theme was hot (or awful) at the time. But in the case of VIX, that leads to some missed opportunities for analysis. A long bet on the VIX is no different than a short bet on the VIX in theoretical terms. VIX is mean-reverting by definition, unlike any other investment I can think of in finance. So to my mind, this bizarre year, or relatively calm markets but high anxiety, has made VIX ETFs both the worstandnearly the-best-performing products in the market. At the time of writing, the author held no positions in the securities mentioned. Contact Dave Nadig atdnadig@etf.com. Recommended Stories • Tuesday Hot Reads: 2 Trends That Favor ETFs In 2017 • 2016: The Volatility Year That Wasn’t • Worst Performing ETFs Of The Year • Friday Hot Reads: 2016 A Vintage Year For Bitcoin • Wednesday Hot Reads: JPMorgan Readies Fixed Income ETF Arsenal Permalink| © Copyright 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || Malware study shows people still falling for old tricks, but there’s hope: We’re still getting suckered by malware. Too many of us still fall for the old “click this attachment” email trick, and get our computers infected with malware or viruses. The result: our data is increasingly being taken hostage by ransomware creators. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Malwarebytes’ new “State of Malware Report 2017” brings that and more bad news about security to light. But a chat with one of the people behind the study offered a few reasons to be optimistic, as well. Specifically, that a lot of today’s software, if properly updated, can help protect itself. Ransomware rising Ransomware, or apps that encrypt your data and then demand you pay a ransom (usually in Bitcoin) for a decryption key, have become a big business. In fact, the malware has afflicted everything from hospital computer systems to the occasional “smart” TV to the more than 100 surveillance cameras in Washington hacked days before President Trump’s inauguration. Malwarebytes’ r eport which is largely based on data from the company’s Windows and Android anti-malware apps, helps provide some context as to how bad the ransomware problem has become. According to the report, in January 2016, ransomware constituted 18% of all malware delivered by email or through exploits of existing software. By November 2016, it had climbed to 66%, which the report labels “an unprecedented domination of the threat landscape.” The U.S. is the top target, while Russia, the home of many ransomware developers, is one of the least popular targets. Ransomware will hold your computer hostage unless you pay up. In a phone interview, Malwarebytes director of malware intelligence Adam Kujawa noted the pickiness exhibited by the two major families of ransomware, Cerber and Locky: “Both avoid any systems that appear to be coming from Russia or the surrounding countries.” Old cons come back But that’s not the depressing part of this report if you’ve been following the virus business for a while. That comes when you learn that Malwarebytes still sees a lot of malware getting on computers via in email attachments, many of which are Microsoft (MSFT) Office attachments with embedded macros whose code will attack your computer . Those techniques date back to the days of dial-up internet, when Office was much more lenient about running macros in random documents and defending against them was harder . And yet here they are again. As Kujawa put it: “Where are we, 2005?” Today’s malware spam often comes personalized for particular users and tries to fool them into thinking that clicking a button in a Word document or Excel spreadsheet will unlock it for viewing, when in reality it will start a download of malicious code that can then take over their computers. Story continues (You can read a detailed breakdown of one such attack in this December post from Sophos researcher Paul Ducklin .) Other opponents The Malwarebytes report also calls out a few other growing hazards online. One “ad fraud” malware, which can generate a decent amount of income for cybercriminals, proved nearly as popular as ransomware. Ad fraud malware commanders a victim’s computer to visit sites and click on ads placed by the authors of the malware attack or their business partners. The report further nods to the rise in “botnet” software taking over computers — including “Internet of Things” devices like connected security cameras — and using them as part of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Unlike ransomware, however, the U.S. isn’t seeing the worst of this form of malware. According to Malwarebytes, 61.2% of all botnets are found in Asia, while about 15% are found in Europe. Even your connected refrigerator can be turned against you. Interestingly, the U.S. was the leading venue for Android malware, with 12.74% of all detections happening here. But if you stick to Google’s ( GOOG ) Play Store for downloading apps — the default in the U.S. — your odds of being the victim of an attack are exceedingly low. Kujawa noted that Google does a good job of quickly yanking the occasional malware app that sneaks into its app market. He further added that Apple’s ( AAPL ) iOS, which can’t connect to alternative app sources, is even safer. Not all software is created equal While Malwarebytes’ report leaves it to the reader to figure out how to avoid being a victim of malware, Kujawa pointed out that many of these attacks can be thwarted by using current software. “A lot of these exploit kits, the vulnerabilities they target, they’ve been patched for a long time,” he said. For example, he noted one common way criminals attack people’s computers is through an Adobe ( ADBE ) Flash flaw from 2012 — but his advice for that fast-fading media plug-in remains to “disable it entirely.” (Follow Adobe’s instructions to uninstall Flash .) The operating system you run matters, too. You may feel comfortable with Windows 7 , but Kujawa called Windows 10 “a more secure operating system at the base level,” and other security researchers have come to the same conclusion . The Mac remains relatively more secure, even after incidents like last year’s brief ransomware outbreak . Said Kujawa: “Every year, we say… this is the year when Mac malware is going to be huge, and it has yet to come to fruition.” But more secure software doesn’t mean that malware authors will give up and get real jobs. They’ll just switch their attention to attacking our brains instead of our apps, trying various forms of social engineering to get us to pause our skepticism and click the wrong link just this one time, because it’s really important. More from Rob: Comcast now lets you watch cable on your Roku Study finds most people are scarred of being hacked, but don’t do much about it Why you can’t stream this year’s Oscar nominees on Netflix President Trump’s tech policy is a mystery How carriers will keep D.C. online during the inauguration What you should really know about every major hacking story Outgoing FCC chair: Don’t go backward on net neutrality Selfie drones and more fly into CES 2017 Faraday Future’s FF91: Electric speed at a vaporous price Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro . View comments || Bitcoin firm gets approval to operate in Switzerland: By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi ZURICH (Reuters) - Bitcoin wallet provider Xapo said it has received conditional approval from Switzerland's financial market watchdog to operate in the country in a regulatory breakthrough for companies that provide safekeeping for the virtual currency. "After almost two years of substantial effort and investment, Xapo has received conditional approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to operate in Switzerland," Xapo CEO Wences Casares said in a blog on the company's website. The approval depended on several factors, including membership of a "self-regulatory organization", Casares said, but added that the company was optimistic of meeting the conditions and being able to serve non-U.S. customers from Switzerland. FINMA declined to comment on an individual company's status. Olga Feldmeier, a former managing partner of Xapo who coordinated the Swiss licensing process for the company, told Reuters that Xapo had been designated a financial intermediary, meaning it will not require a costly banking license. Wallet providers like Xapo, which was founded in Silicon Valley, store the private keys that allow clients to access their digital currency funds. While other crypto-currency firms already operate in Switzerland, Xapo's operation as a bitcoin wallet provider had raised questions over whether it required a banking license. A burgeoning industry surrounding bitcoin - a web-based "crypto-currency" that has no central authority, relying instead on a global network of computers that validate transactions and add new bitcoins to the system - has posed questions for lawmakers and regulators. Xapo argued it did not accept deposits. Swiss authorities are eager to secure a leading role for Switzerland while playing catch-up in a rapidly changing financial technology (fintech) landscape. Bitcoin Suisse operates a network of bitcoin ATMs across the country, as well as an online and in-person brokerage for buying and selling bitcoins. But it does not itself store the private access keys that led to questions about whether Xapo was taking deposits. Switzerland's cabinet in November proposed new light-touch regulations for fintech companies aimed at bolstering business and competitiveness. The proposals include a fintech license, granted by FINMA, for institutions which are restricted to taking deposits of up to 100 million Swiss francs ($99.9 million) and do not lend. Xapo is now in the process of joining a self-regulatory organization required under Swiss anti-money laundering regulations to begin operations, Feldmeier said. (Editing by Adrian Croft) || Bitcoin firm gets approval to operate in Switzerland: By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi ZURICH (Reuters) - Bitcoin wallet provider Xapo said it has received conditional approval from Switzerland's financial market watchdog to operate in the country in a regulatory breakthrough for companies that provide safekeeping for the virtual currency. "After almost two years of substantial effort and investment, Xapo has received conditional approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to operate in Switzerland," Xapo CEO Wences Casares said in a blog on the company's website. The approval depended on several factors, including membership of a "self-regulatory organization", Casares said, but added that the company was optimistic of meeting the conditions and being able to serve non-U.S. customers from Switzerland. FINMA declined to comment on an individual company's status. Olga Feldmeier, a former managing partner of Xapo who coordinated the Swiss licensing process for the company, told Reuters that Xapo had been designated a financial intermediary, meaning it will not require a costly banking license. Wallet providers like Xapo, which was founded in Silicon Valley, store the private keys that allow clients to access their digital currency funds. While other crypto-currency firms already operate in Switzerland, Xapo's operation as a bitcoin wallet provider had raised questions over whether it required a banking license. A burgeoning industry surrounding bitcoin - a web-based "crypto-currency" that has no central authority, relying instead on a global network of computers that validate transactions and add new bitcoins to the system - has posed questions for lawmakers and regulators. Xapo argued it did not accept deposits. Swiss authorities are eager to secure a leading role for Switzerland while playing catch-up in a rapidly changing financial technology (fintech) landscape. Bitcoin Suisse operates a network of bitcoin ATMs across the country, as well as an online and in-person brokerage for buying and selling bitcoins. But it does not itself store the private access keys that led to questions about whether Xapo was taking deposits. Story continues Switzerland's cabinet in November proposed new light-touch regulations for fintech companies aimed at bolstering business and competitiveness. The proposals include a fintech license, granted by FINMA, for institutions which are restricted to taking deposits of up to 100 million Swiss francs ($99.9 million) and do not lend. Xapo is now in the process of joining a self-regulatory organization required under Swiss anti-money laundering regulations to begin operations, Feldmeier said. (Editing by Adrian Croft) || Award Winning Flow Lend Issues Over US$1M in Mobile Credit in Less than Six Months: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Dec 20, 2016) -Flowhas been keeping its prepaid mobile customers connected with its cashless mobile top-up app,Flow Lend, which advanced more than US$1Million in less than six months in mobile credit -- and, in partnership withJUVO, won theMondato Innovation Award for Digital Finance and Commerce (DFC)earlier this month. James McElvanna, VP Products,Cable and Wireless, operator of Flow said, "We are proud to have partnered with JUVO to develop an app that addresses the needs of our customers, which in this case is anytime, anywhere access. Since many of our prepaid customers don't use credit cards, and usually rely on in-store cash top ups, Flow Lend gives them the assurance that they can always stay connected, even when they are out of cash and can't make it to a top-up station. We're happy to provide this convenient option to our customers, and we're honoured to be recognized for our efforts and investment in technology that has transformed our customers' experience." Steve Polsky, Founder and CEO of JUVO said, "C&W is a true partner and we are thrilled to be working with their team to offer Flow customers real time access to credit to help them stay connected. Receiving the Mondato Innovation Award, along with the high volume of credit advances issued via Flow Lend, reaffirms the real need for this solution -- and we're excited to provide the Identity Scoring technology that powers it." All prepaid mobile customers who top up regularly are eligible for credit advance from Flow Lend. The app tracks the frequency of top ups and other usage patterns to determine which customers have met the requirements for an advance. Once approved, customers can use Flow Lend to request instant, interest-free credit when they're running low. The loan amount must be repaid within 30 days via any regular Flow top up method. By consistently paying back on time, they can gradually borrow more and never have to worry about running out of credit. "We are addressing a real need for many of our customers who may have little or no credit and may be caught in a situation where they desperately need to be in contact," said McElvanna, highlighting the app's benefits. "For example, the mother who needs to call the doctor's office to make an appointment for her sick child no longer has to wait until she has the cash to go buy credit; the teenager who's nearing a low balance late at night doesn't have to leave the comfort and security of his/her home to visit a top up centre. Regardless of the circumstance, Flow Lend is available to our customers, anytime, anywhere." Flow Lend isavailable in all Flow's mobile markets across the regionfor bothAndroidandiOSsmartphones. EDITORS NOTE:About Mondato Innovation Award for Digital Finance and Commerce (DFC)The Mondato Awardswere created to recognize excellence and innovation in Digital Finance and Commerce (MFC) andDigital Finance Plus (DF+). The winners represent some of the most innovative DFC and DF+ solutions from emerging startups, as well as established companies paving new paths in the industry. C&W Communications in partnership with Juvo received the 2016 award. Juvo was founded with an overarching vision: to establish financial identities for the billions of people worldwide who are creditworthy, yet financially excluded. In partnership with mobile network operators, Juvo's proprietary Identity Scoring technology uses data science, machine learning and game mechanics to create an identity-based relationship with anonymous prepaid users, opening up access to otherwise unattainable mobile financial services. Juvo is a privately held company backed by global business leaders and luminaries in the world of tech, mobile and finance. Its executive team comprises accomplished industry leaders across the data science, consumer internet, financial services and mobile telecom fields. Headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Miami, London, Buenos Aires, Manila, Jakarta and Hanoi, Juvo has a reach of over 100 million subscribers across four continents and is deployed in 23 countries. For more information, follow us onTwitterorLinkedIn, or find us atwww.juvo.com All trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. 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. 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 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) 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 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=3093327Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3093322Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3093330 || Bitcoin firm gets approval to operate in Switzerland: By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi ZURICH, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Bitcoin wallet provider Xapo said it has received conditional approval from Switzerland's financial market watchdog to operate in the country in a regulatory breakthrough for companies that provide safekeeping for the virtual currency. "After almost two years of substantial effort and investment, Xapo has received conditional approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to operate in Switzerland," Xapo CEO Wences Casares said in a blog on the company's website. The approval depended on several factors, including membership of a "self-regulatory organisation", Casares said, but added that the company was optimistic of meeting the conditions and being able to serve non-U.S. customers from Switzerland. FINMA declined to comment on an individual company's status. Olga Feldmeier, a former managing partner of Xapo who coordinated the Swiss licensing process for the company, told Reuters that Xapo had been designated a financial intermediary, meaning it will not require a costly banking licence. Wallet providers like Xapo, which was founded in Silicon Valley, store the private keys that allow clients to access their digital currency funds. While other crypto-currency firms already operate in Switzerland, Xapo's operation as a bitcoin wallet provider had raised questions over whether it required a banking licence. A burgeoning industry surrounding bitcoin - a web-based "crypto-currency" that has no central authority, relying instead on a global network of computers that validate transactions and add new bitcoins to the system - has posed questions for lawmakers and regulators. Xapo argued it did not accept deposits. Swiss authorities are eager to secure a leading role for Switzerland while playing catch-up in a rapidly changing financial technology (fintech) landscape. Bitcoin Suisse operates a network of bitcoin ATMs across the country, as well as an online and in-person brokerage for buying and selling bitcoins. But it does not itself store the private access keys that led to questions about whether Xapo was taking deposits. Story continues Switzerland's cabinet in November proposed new light-touch regulations for fintech companies aimed at bolstering business and competitiveness. The proposals include a fintech licence, granted by FINMA, for institutions which are restricted to taking deposits of up to 100 million Swiss francs ($99.9 million) and do not lend. Xapo is now in the process of joining a self-regulatory organisation required under Swiss anti-money laundering regulations to begin operations, Feldmeier said. ($1 = 1.0009 Swiss francs) (Editing by Adrian Croft) || Here's Why Bitcoin Crashed More Than 20% Today: Bitcoin (BTC), a popular digital cryptocurrency, is on track to have one of its worst days in years after prices suddenly fell more than 20% in morning trading Thursday. While some investors think today’s action is just an adjustment after a months-long rally, others are blaming the expiration of loans from several Chinese BTC platforms for the sell-off. Today’s "Crash" Bitcoin opened the day at $1.129.87 and shortly hit an intraday high of $1,153.02 in morning trading. However, the cryptocurrency quickly dropped as low as $887.47, a plunge of more than 21%. BTC was able to rally again in the early afternoon, and prices returned above the $980 level by 1 P.M. EST. According to some Bitcoin traders on a popular Reddit forum, today’s crash could be the result of a free loan period offered by several Chinese BTC platforms coming to an end. One user pointed out that many Chinese BTC holders would have to sell their bitcoins to pay back loans that end on January 7 Beijing time. Of course, today’s sell-off could also be a value-based adjustment as BTC approached all-time highs. The currency has been on an insane run over the past several months, gaining more than 80% since October 2016. Indeed, Bitcoin traders are no strangers to volatility, and the nature of the currency lends itself to swings that we wouldn’t expect from traditional currencies. What is Bitcoin? As mentioned before, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, meaning that it is an encrypted digital currency that only exists virtually and operates independently of a central bank. Launched in January 2009, Bitcoin has grown quickly and has become a widely-accepted form of payment online (Also read: Explaining Bitcoin and Crypto Currency). Bitcoin is considered an anonymous currency because it is possible to send and receive payments without revealing any personal information. Transactions are tied to a bitcoin address, a series of numbers and letters. All transactions are stored in the so-called blockchain, which records and verifies transactions. This blockchain is operated by a network of “miners” that monitor and validate transactions. In return, miners receive newly issued bitcoins. Bottom Line Trading bitcoins can be a test of one’s patience and determination. One of the most fascinating things about the currency is its legion of loyal long-term holders, and these folks are likely to overlook one-day crashes. Nevertheless, today’s sell-off underscores the volatility that keeps a lot of investors away from BTC. Long-Term Buys You Won't See in the News The stocks you see in today's headlines may not be in the news tomorrow or next week. If you're looking for profitable long-term investments, you may be interested to see what Zacks Research is recommending to our private members. These moves have double and triple-digit profit potential. Starting now, you can look inside our stocks under $10, home run and value stock portfolios, plus more. Want a peek at this exclusive information?Click here>> 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 reportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin plunges as much as 20 percent as Chinese yuan soars: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - A dramatic rally in digital currency bitcoin came to a spectacular end on Thursday with a plunge of up to 20 percent as China's yuan rose sharply - further evidence of an intriguing inverse relationship between the pair. 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 (BTC=BTSP). But it dived as low as $885.41 on Thursday as the yuan jumped by over 1 percent in offshore trading and headed for its strongest two-day performance on record. (CNH=D3) [CNY/] Chinese exchanges have reported high volumes of trading of the web-based "cryptocurrency" over the past year, during which time the yuan has shed almost 7 percent, its worst annual performance since 1994, while bitcoin has surged 125 percent, outperforming all other currencies for a second year in a row. Bitcoin can 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. "Given that the yuan's weakness over recent months seemed to correlate with bitcoin's strength more than any other currency, it's no surprise that bitcoin traders have reacted the way they have to the yuan's sudden strength today," said Paul Gordon, co-founder of London-based Quantave, a firm seeking to make it easier for investors to access digital currency exchanges. Exchanges in China say they account for more than 90 percent of global bitcoin trading, which would help explain why a shift in Chinese demand would sharply affect the price. But many bitcoin experts say Chinese exchanges overstate their volumes in the digital currency, and attribute sharp moves to speculation by, for example, U.S.-based hedge funds. Some said bitcoin's fall was a natural reaction to the speed of its previous rise. It is still up more than 50 percent on three months ago, when it was trading at around $600, "If something goes up very rapidly...people make a lot of money, and at some point they’re going to want to sell, in order to realize their gains," said Marco Streng, CEO of bitcoin mining and trading firm Genesis Mining. By 1645 GMT (11:45 a.m. ET), bitcoin had recovered some of its earlier losses to trade down almost 15 percent on the day at around $950, still leaving it on course for its worst performance in a year. Story continues On some digital currency exchanges - of which there are dozens - bitcoin did reach record highs late on Wednesday. "Once we broke through the nominal all-time high, liquidity dried up - no shorts, no sellers, which means a volatile little bubble formed quickly," said Peter Smith, CEO of London-based Blockchain, the biggest bitcoin wallet-provider globally. "We are seeing the effects of that now as it breaks. It's still fairly thin trading volume though, so who really knows where it goes next." For a graphic on the bitcoin economy, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/HONGKONG-BITCOIN/0100106X09S/BITCOIN%20ECONOMY%20T.jpg For a graphic on bitcoin exchange rates, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/1/2097/4051/s3d90f04kz56.htm (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) View comments || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Man waving (A fisherman from India at the window of a train at Cantonment railway station in Karachi, Pakistan, after he was released with others from a prison.Reuters/Akhtar Soomro) Here is what you need to know. US Markets are back from Christmas break . Markets are set to open little changed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovering near 19,935. The US 10-year yield is higher by 2 basis points at 2.56%. China is home to the world's hottest housing market . Home prices in Nanjing, China, are up 42.9% year-over-year in the third quarter, making it the world's hottest housing market, according to data from the property consultancy and estate agency Knight Frank. Consumer prices fell in Tokyo . Prices slumped 0.6% year-over-year, making for the biggest drop since February 2013. The Japanese yen is weaker by 0.2% at 117.31 per dollar. A Harvard graduate has been named as a vice governor at the PBoC . Yin Yong, who holds a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University, was named vice governor at the People's Bank of China. Bitcoin is charging higher . The cryptocurrency is higher by 1.6% at $912 and is trading at its best level in three years. Monte Paschi needs cash . The debt-ridden Italian bank needs 8.8 billion euros ($9.2 billion) to strengthen its balance sheet, Reuters reports, citing two sources close to the matter. Toshiba might take a huge write-down on its nuclear acquisition . Toshiba may need to take several billion dollars' worth of losses related to its acquisition of Chicago Bridge & Iron, which Westinghouse says owes it more than $2 billion, Reuters reports. Tepco is considering a bond sale . Tokyo Electric Power Company is considering its first bond offering since its 2011 nuclear disaster, Reuters reports, citing people familiar with the plans. Stock markets around the world are quiet . China's Shanghai Composite (-0.2%) slipped in overnight trade, and Germany's DAX (+0.2%) leads in Europe. Markets remained closed in Australia, Hong Kong, and the UK. Story continues US economic data flows. Case-Shiller home prices will be released at 9 a.m. ET, and consumer confidence will cross the wire at 10 a.m. ET. More From Business Insider Israel has reportedly suspended ties with 12 UN Security Council nations Republicans have a massive plan to overhaul the tax code — here's how it would work Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now || Investors bide their time as Trump prepares to talk—after more tweets: Investors are sitting tight as they wait to hear what President-elect Donald Trump says at his news conference this morning. Stock futures are pointing to a mixed open on Wall Street. Here are some of the other stories the Yahoo Finance team is covering for you today. Trump, Russia and BuzzFeed The focus on Russia’s role in the US presidential election intensified after CNN reported that Trump and President Obama were briefed last week on unverified allegations that Russian operatives claimed to have compromising personal and financial information about Trump. BuzzFeed has gone ahead and published 35 pages of memos. How is BuzzFeed defending publishing unsubstantiated claims while other news organizations hold back? Tillerson’s ties to Putin, Exxon The Senate begins confirmation hearings of former Exxon ( XOM ) CEO Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State. Much of the attention will focus on Tillerson’s ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In prepared remarks, Tillerson says Russia poses a danger, but that Russia’s resurgence happened in the “absence of American leadership, ” and that he will call for open and frank dialogue with Moscow. What will senators think? Bitcoin’s China slide Bitcoin fell by about $50, or 5%, after China’s central bank said it had launched investigations into bitcoin exchanges. The investigations involve possible market manipulation and money laundering. What does this tell us about the volatility of the digital currency? [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] New post: "Breadwallet Introduces Cash for Bitcoin Feature on its iOS App" http://ift.tt/2hfkjH1  || MMMBTC || MMMBTC || $789.00 #GDAX; $787.99 #bitfinex; $785.03 #bitstamp; $781.00 #btce; $785.63 #itBit; $785.72 #gemini; #bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse  || MMMBTC || MMMBTC || Who is Blockchain’s Person of the Year? http://officialgoldengateway.blogspot.com/2016/12/who-is-blockchains-person-of-year.html … #CryptoCoinNews #Bitcoin || MMMBTC || LIVE: Profit = $279.11 (0.41 %). BUY B87.16 @ $773.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $777.95 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || #Bitcoin Ultima: R$ 2860.20 Alta: R$ 2895.00 Baixa: R$ 2831.06 Fonte: Foxbit
Trend: down || Prices: 1027.34, 1038.15, 1061.35, 1063.07, 994.38, 988.67, 1004.45, 999.18, 990.64, 1004.55
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 2022-01-12] BTC Price: 43949.10, BTC RSI: 41.31 Gold Price: 1827.20, Gold RSI: 57.26 Oil Price: 82.64, Oil RSI: 68.39 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Shiba Inu: Memes As the Future of Money: The shiba inu (SHIB) coin has had a really interesting week. Between late October and Nov. 28, the “Dogecoin Killer” meme token lost about half of its value in dollar terms. Then it surged more than 30% as the Kraken exchange announced it wouldlist the token. Then, starting early this morning, it crashed again by about 20%. Volatility has been a notorious feature of most cryptocurrencies, of course – they’re speculative investments so they swing on sentiment, much like Tesla and GameStop and Rivian stock. SHIB is distinct in that it’s explicitly a “meme token”: It declares pretty much up front that it has no unique utility and depends on attracting a “community” of holders for its value. I don’t think it would be unfair to describe SHIB as a “decentralized Ponzi scheme.” 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. See CoinDesk’s other “Future of Money Week” coveragehere. Parts of that also applies to the likes of bitcoin or ether but meme tokens lack the underlying technological advantages of top cryptos – bitcoin’s hardness, ether’s use in smart contracts run on the Ethereum blockchain – or even the innovation in so-called altcoins like Decred’s governance experiments over the years. Shiba inu’s spiritual forebear, dogecoin, was in fact created to more or less make fun of the idea that crypto was actually an “innovation.” One of its co-creators has become anextremely saltycrypto critic. But instead of standing as a performance-art critique, DOGE ended up presaging a wild new species of free-market speculation. It was the first meme token, and during its early days circa 2013-2015 it test-drove the lighthearted community shenanigans that have become an inescapable bizarro element of 21st century capital markets. Just like the GameStop crowd nearly a decade later, DOGE holders organized through message boards like Reddit and engaged in eye-catching stunts such as sponsoringa NASCAR teamand theJamaican bobsledders. The DOGE community is not as prominent these days, but those early memes have helped the currency stay in or near the top ten of all cryptos. As developers put their blood, sweat and tears into technological innovators like Ethereum, and more recently Solana and Avalanche, DOGE just kept derping along, changing barely at all, coasting on Good Vibes. And it worked! Which makes it all the more emotionally complicated to watch something like shiba inu skyrocket in value over the past few months. It is arguably an even purer distillation of the memecoin ethos of uselessness than dogecoin. DOGE at least hasits own blockchain, while shiba inu is just an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. It offers no defensible market or technology “moat.” It seems to have benefited substantially fromunit biasas new entrants came to crypto and bought the token just because it was “cheap.” Its presence among the most valuable cryptos on some indexes is thanks to aperhaps misleading “market cap” metric. And its supply cap of 4 trillion coins, even if it were reliably enforceable, means there’s very little long-term scarcity. And yet there it is, trading with the big boys. The one thing you can’t do in response isbecome a meme yourself, gritting your teeth and growling about how “SHIB offers no technological innovation and should be worth zero aaaargh!” By getting mad at SHIB, you’re implicitly buying into the Efficient Markets Theory, or EMT. EMT is (loosely) the “invisible hand” you learned about in your high school economics class, the idea that supply and demand magically converge on a “correct” price. When it comes to assets, EMT assumes that investors, collectively, have access to all relevant information about an asset and reach a price based strictly on that information. But boy oh boy, is that idea deader than a doornail. I’ve recently been digging into a true investing classic, “The Money Game.” Published in 1968, it was in retrospect one of the earliest rebuttals of EMT, après la lettre. It was considered so scandalous, both for its gossip and its principles, that author George Goodman, a working Wall Streeter, felt compelled to publish under the pen name “Adam Smith.” It was a snarky choice, because Goodman set out to undermine, or at least dramatically question, the mechanistic and mathematical worldview that the original Adam Smith developed. And Goodman had some profoundly sage advice that applies to those questioning the rise of SHIB today: “Successful investors I know do not hold to the way it ought to be, they simply go with what is.” Or, translated to modern terms: lol, u mad bro? Now don’t get me wrong here – if an economic slowdown hits at the wrong time, the SHIB Army is going to get routed like Napoleon invading Russia in winter. Even in a minor crypto-market downturn, we saw it sink dramatically. So if the real economy tanks and people decide they need to cash in their SHIB to pay the bills, it’s bye-bye. There is no “buy the dip” or long-term growth flywheel for meme tokens. They’re very much a game of musical chairs; if you’re standing when the music stops, ouch. However, if excitement and community around SHIB remain high long enough, all that logic and reason is out the window. For one thing, in the 21st century, memes have a habit of reshaping reality. Take GameStop, a failing mall retailer that is in the process of leveraging its Reddit popularity tosubstantially restructure its business. SHIB already has at least a few interesting projects and expansions, such as theShibaswap “Decentralized Exchange”(I’m using scare quotes because I frankly have no idea if it’s a real DEX). And here’s where we circle back around to the volatility of crypto as a whole. Bitcoin was itself for a long time just as volatile as SHIB. It still is sometimes! Good, solid ideas are memes too, after all, and they take time to spread and suffer setbacks. Volatility in speculative assets is one index of how a new idea spreads through markets. Or, in the case of SHIB, a new joke. In the medium term, there’s maybe not much difference. This dynamic isn’t particularly a good thing, but its root cause isn’t meme tokens, it’s the broader overheated asset market, which is a function, at least in part, of theslam-bang U.S. economic recovery. Theimplicit long leveragein the valuations of companies like Tesla – which is in the S&P 500! – would melt under the hot lights of a genuine downturn, probably not much more slowly than SHIB. There is still a serious difference between speculative bets like GameStop and SHIB and more established assets with clear theses, like Ethereum or Pfizer. But we live in a world where that line is more permeable than ever. Dreams and memes can evaporate in a light breeze, but given enough time and enthusiasm they can also become reality. And if it’s a crypto, the Real Thing that a meme becomes is simple: It becomes money. || BOTS, Inc. Partners With China's First NFT Museum at The Hainan Wenchang Aerospace International Film and Television Center: San Juan, Puerto Rico, Dec. 06, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- viaNewMediaWire --BOTS, Inc. (OTC: BTZI), ("BOTS" or "The Company"), a global technology conglomerate specialized in Blockchain-based solutions including decentralized finance applications, cybersecurity, crypto generation, mining equipment repair, and warranties, announced today that May 18, 2022, is a day worthy of commemoration by museums and digital art circles. China's first NFT museum will hold a grand opening and celebration ceremony at Wenchang Aerospace International Film and Television Center in Hainan, China. It is now soliciting works from art associations, artists, calligraphy, network media, and digital art lovers at home and abroad, all provinces and regions across the country and globally. At the same time, first China "Digital Art Museum" Invitational Exhibition of Works will be held. BOTS, Inc, is the lead partner for developing interest from North America and will share revenues with Digital Art NFT Museum when bringing in buyers of NFTs as well as sharing revenues when Digital Art NFT Museum sells NFTs that BOTS, Inc. brings into the Digital Art NFT Museum. BOTS, Inc. will also provide extensive expertise in cooperating with the crypto and technical aspects of NFT creation and exhibition. CNN reported in March that NFT artwork sold at auction for a staggering $69 million. This first virtual Non-Fungible Token (NFT) artwork sold at a major auction house fetched $69,346,250 during an online auction held by Christie's. The record-breaking sale of "Everyday: The First 5000 Days" catapults the creator, Mike Winkelmann, who goes by Beeple, near the summit of the most expensive living artists to date, placing him just below David Hockney and Jeff Koons. Hockney's painting "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" sold for $90.3 million in 2018, while Koons' stainless-steel sculpture "Rabbit" topped the list at $91.1 million in 2019. Forbes also reported in March this year that the NFT Market Rages On NFTs Market Cap Grew 1,785% In 2021 As Demand Explodes. The demand for NFTs continues to surge, and the NFT market is showing no signs of slowing down. Within less than three months, the combined market cap of major NFT projects has increased by 1,785%. Businessinsider.com reported back in July 2021 that NFT sales volume soared to $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021, as artists, celebrities, and even Twitter and CNN joined the crypto craze. Sales volumes for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) soared to a record $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021, according to DappRadar, as artists, celebrities, companies, and even government institutions joined the crypto craze and created a red-hot market for digital tokens. Digital analytics firm DappRadar, which tracks data on decentralized applications, including NFT sales platforms that are based on blockchain networks like Ethereum, noted the explosion in growth, particularly over the last 12 months. "In 2020, the total amount of volume generated by the NFT collections tracked by DappRadar equaled a staggering $94,862,807. Even more impressive is that by the end of Q2 2021, that figure stands at almost $2.5 billion dollars," the Company said in a blog post last week. Here are some NFT statistics provided by EarthWEB: *NFTs are a new way of proving ownership over digital goods. They've been around for less than ten years. They have only recently begun to morph into their own market with the emergence of alternatives like Enjin Coin, which is designed specifically for gaming communities. For example, one NFT that sold last year was valued at $69 million – making it the most expensive virtual item ever traded on any platform in history. *There are $10-$20 million worth of NFTs sold on blockchains every week. *Complete value of NFT sales in 2020 was $250 million. *Nonfungible.com surpassed a value of $2 billion in 2021. *The collectibles market is the fastest growing of any other market. The rise of digital art and NFTs have swept the world. NFTs have become the most searched word in the online world in 2021. NFTs have already called the attention of the Louvre in Paris, the British Museum in London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Palace Museum is also quietly laying out NFT exhibitions, and major investment institutions and funds have also laid out the future development pattern of NFT, welcoming the day when the market is coming. In fact, the age of the NFT museum has come, and there have been cases where the first auction has been held. The Digital Art Museum will be used to display various NFT collections, allowing people to experience the scientific and technological achievements of the combination of traditional culture and modern technology. At present, the cultural and art industry is experiencing the impact of high-tech networks in the new era. Therefore, NFT is an important carrier for the generation of new cultural and artistic inheritance in the digital age. The distribution model of art rights and interests and creators provide new channels for selling digital artworks. NFTs can effectively provide a new carrier and consensus mechanism for artworks, open the door to the digital world outside the physical boundaries, and also open a new era of digital art development. BTZI's BeadSWAP partner EquityArt is the developer of the Digital Art NFT Museum in China. About BOTS, Inc. BOTS, Inc. is a global technology company specialized in Blockchain-based solutions, including decentralized finance applications, cybersecurity solutions, and owns a portfolio of digital assets and crypto-related businesses such as BeadSwap, a decentralized crypto exchange, Bitcoin ATM machines, and corresponding U.S. patents and Cyber Security Group LLC, an ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Information Security Management System certified company. The Company also provides crypto mining consulting, optimization, and crypto mining equipment repair and insurance. Track BTZI news on Facebook @https://www.facebook.com/Bots.Bz/ Follow BTZI news on Twitter @Bots_bz http://www.Twitter.com/Bots_bz Find BTZI news at http://www.bots.bz Bots, Inc. has been featured in media nationwide, including CNBC, Bloomberg, TheStreet.com. For more information, visit http://www.bots.bz Visit BTZI on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Bots.Bz/ Follow BTZI on Twitter @Bots_bz 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 the 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 website and filings. Contact: Oleksandr Gordieiev CEO info@bots.bz || Expect a Crypto Gift This Christmas if You Are an American: ABlockFi surveytagged “Real Talk: Happy HODLdays,” which was conducted among over 1,250 US residents in October, shows that one in ten Americans is planning to give crypto as a gift to their loved ones during this holiday. However, despite all the noise surrounding Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a survey on preferred holiday gifts for Americans shows that it’s far from being the choice gift of many. Bitcoinwas by far the top choice for most people, with 75% of respondents who wish to give or receive crypto choosing it their preferred option. The other digital assets that complete the top three list areDogecoinandEther. On the other hand, NFTs are still far below the pecking order, with only 2% of respondents considering giving or receiving it as a gift. This survey reveals that despite the popular perception of NFTs becoming mainstream, it’s still far from being accepted by most people. Even those who are open to Cryptocurrencies, in general, are still skeptical about NFTs. However, while crypto has become a hot topic, there’s still a long way to go. Less than a quarter of respondents know how to send cryptocurrencies. This shows a need for more education, and most people who wish to send or receive crypto as a gift would not do so. Beyond plans for their holiday gifts, BlockFi also asked residents to discuss their new year plans. One-third of millennials plan to buy crypto assets like Bitcoin, Ether and Doge in 2022, but only 25% of older generations have the same plan. For NFTs, only 15% of respondents intend to buy this asset next year, and one notable thing is that most people born after 1997 prefer buying Dogecoin to Ether. A similar survey was also conducted in Australia, and here, a quarter of crypto users in the country plan to gift crypto to their loved ones during the holiday. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Silver Price Prediction – Prices Slip as Dollar Gains • Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Continue Consolidating • USD/CAD Exchange Rate Prediction – The Dollar Eases Despite Strong JOLTS • Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Continue to Build Basing Pattern • USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Canadian Dollar Fails To Gain More Ground After BoC Decision • DeFi Aggregator OpenOcean Adds Layer-2 Solution Arbitrum || An Advisor’s Guide to Altcoin Investing: While 2021 was certainly the year of bitcoin, investors with a particular type of risk appetite are diversifying their crypto portfolios with altcoins. The term “altcoin” is short for “alternative coin” and refers to cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin.Etheris perhaps the most popular altcoin, though crypto insiders quickly bring up other names like the bitcoin copycatlitecoin, the stablecointetherand, of course,dogecoin, the meme coin popularized by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. This article originally appeared inCrypto for Advisors, CoinDesk’s weekly newsletter defining crypto, digital assets and the future of finance.Sign up hereto receive it every Thursday. In total, there are more than 15,000 cryptocurrencies, according to the crypto market data websiteCoinMarketCap.Bitcoin makes up about 40% of the market, and ether makes up roughly another 20%. That leaves the remaining market share – some 40% –composed of other altcoins. Just like purchasing individual stocks, investing in altcoins requires research and knowing the crypto market well. Ahead are some insights from crypto industry insiders that explain what factors to consider when investing in altcoins. One of the first questions that inevitably pops up when discussing altcoins is that of regulation. In a recent panel atDeFiCon, a blockchain event in Brooklyn, N.Y.,American Blockchain InitiativeCEO and founderAlex Allaireexplained that regulation is a top priority for legislators and governmental agencies alike. “More awareness comes with more scrutiny,” he said, noting that government officials have begun to prioritize cryptocurrency discussions more now that bitcoin and alts have reached a level of widespread familiarity. From a national security perspective, there’s real urgency to decide on clear guidelines for stablecoins in particular, Conor Carney, legislative director for Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY.), said during the same panel discussion. Stablecoins are altcoins that arepegged to a form of fiat currency(commonly the U.S. dollar) and work all over the world. According to Carney, stablecoins could provide a way for the U.S. dollar to retain its global trading power as more countries around the world create digital forms of their national currencies, known ascentral bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Yet stablecoin regulation is a hot-button issue that will definitely affect public sentiment. Both Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have been critical of stablecoins in the past. Last summer, Powell said the U.S. wouldn’t need stablecoins if the country instead opted for a CBDC. But Carney argued against Powell’s stance: Other countries are developing their own CBDC at a faster rate than the U.S., which could be an issue for both national security and global trade, he said. “The United States, given the way we finance our budget every year with a deficit, is very reliant upon the U.S. dollar being the global reserve currency,” Carney said. “The only way for that to happen considering there are other nations, including China, who are moving forward with CBDCs at a faster pace, is to make sure that stablecoins and the private issuers that are issuing them in the United States with U.S.-backed assets are the reserve assets for those currencies.” The U.S. stands to lose a lot of its global influence, Carney said, if it doesn’t invest in the development of stablecoins backed by U.S. dollars or assets that are denominated in U.S. dollars. Altcoin investors therefore might argue that now is the perfect time to look into buying stablecoins such as tether (USDT) andCircle’s USDC. If sentiment is low around a particular altcoin you’re interested in, that may be a good sign, arguesLight Node Mediaco-founder and CEO,Nelson Merchan Jr. The principle of “buy low, sell high” applies to altcoins just like it does in the traditional stock market. According to Merchan, when buzz hits social media about a newblockchain projector altcoin, you should do your due diligence while the project has its 15 minutes of fame and wait to buy when the sentiment is down. “When the market is really hot, you see a lot of buzz and a lot of hype that enables you to come up with a list of the most promising ones,” Merchan says. Use every newsworthy altcoin headline as a sign to stop to think about the future. Imagine a world in six months or a few years that needs or wants a particular project, altcoin orblockchainsolution. For instance,blockchain privacyanddata sovereigntyis a burgeoning area of need, Merchan says. Investors could consider buying utility tokens of projects they believe have legs and lasting value. Or on the gaming side, you can look at whichdecentralized finance(DeFi) gaming communities might be taking off in the foreseeable future and then buy altcoins for that system. “When the market corrects, similar to how it did in the last few weeks, a lot of these gaming, crypto protocols dropped 40% to 50%, so that significantly drops the sentiment, and then people slowly stop talking about or most of them,” Merchan says. “So the whole idea is, where is the narrative for gaming? Has it hit a peak? Is it going to? Will it bounce back or recover? Or are we going to see a pretty significant bear run?” Finally, any good crypto project demonstrates its worth by the engagement of its community. After all, the number of buyers and sellers is what drives liquidity in any market, and the same holds true for altcoins andnon-fungible tokens (NFTs). The way to measure community-wide adoption of an altcoin is to evaluate what industry insiders refer to as “use case,” or the ways you can use, apply, redeem and exchange your crypto. Meme coinsare perhaps the most obvious altcoin example of community buy-in. When most meme coins drop, they are worth little or nothing and, ironically, have little to no use case. But through social media and celebrity influencers, their value may rise and create new uses for them where there were never any before. Dogecoin is a perfect example of that phenomena. Ryan Fochtman, a strategic partnerships manager atMoneyMade, says he dabbles in altcoins in his off-hours from work. Using a portion of his personal portfolio devoted to what he considers his play money, Fochtman buys into coins with a healthy understanding that they may not bring a return on investment. But when they do, it’s because of community buy-in, he says. “There’s this new wave of technology using these alternative coins and crypto in general to buy everyday items,” says Fochtman. “NowAMC accepts cryptofor tickets now. The more use cases that we can get out of these coins is going to be just a better overall fun space and bring them more mainstream.” And that’s not even counting the metaverse and virtual real estate projects likeDecentraland. Utility tokens for Decentraland aresurging in valueas corporate brands such as Adidas and Nike express interest inbuying digital land. “I really like the whole Decentraland and meta-universe that everyone’s been talking about,” Fochtman says. A big part of Fochtman’s due diligence is trying to think ahead and consider which coins are going to be the most used by people. “I think the whole crypto space is just evolving and becoming more and more intelligent,” Fochtman says. “I think that these altcoins are just going to be a part of it all.” || Bitcoin Miner Riot Blockchain Buys Electrical Equipment Provider ESS Metron for $50M: Riot Blockchain (RIOT), one of the world’s largest bitcoin mining companies, is buying electrical equipment provider ESS Metron for $50 million, consisting of up to 715,41 Riot shares and $25 million in cash,according to a press release. • Denver-based ESS Metron is a key supplier to Riot’s Whinstone, Texas, facility and provides “highly engineered, custom product offerings” that are used to deploy bitcoin mining operations at scale. • Riot said the acquisition will help ensure the timely installation of its new miners as ESS Metron provides critical infrastructure. • “Riot’s strategic position across the electrical supply chain is significantly enhanced as the company will benefit from ESS Metron’s existing relationships with leading electrical suppliers globally,” Riot CEO Jason Les said in the release. • Riot also said that ESS Metron has helped it develop its customizedimmersion-cooling technology for its 200 megawatt expansion project. • Riot shares were up 6.8% to $39.92 on Wednesday morning ET. • On Nov. 3, Riot Blockchainincreased its forecast for bitcoin mining computing powerto 8.6 exahash per second (EH/s) from its previous estimate of 7.7 EH/s for next year. The increase doesn’t include any potential benefits from the use of its immersion-cooled technology. || Wednesday evening UK news briefing: More than 30 migrants die after boat capsizes in English Channel: Your evening briefing from The Telegraph Evening briefing: Today's essential headlines Covid latest | Angela Merkel reportedly wanted to impose a new coronavirus lockdown on Germany - but was thwarted by the incoming government. It comes with France set to announce fresh Covid-19 measures on Thursday as the country faces a rising tide of infections. Our liveblog will keep you up to speed , while Ambrose Evans-Pritchard analyses why Emmanuel Macron and the EU were too quick to mock Britain's pandemic strategy and the AstraZeneca vaccine. Two cars but one space | Couple stabbed to death in 'parking row' 'Clear my name' | Amanda Knox's plea to Meredith Kercher's killer Miscarriage | Pregnant women at higher risk to be offered drug IVF | Hospital compensate couple for too many healthy babies Princes documentary | BBC chairman: 'I hope we have got it right' The big story: More than 30 migrants die in Channel Time and again the Government has warned of the dangers of migrants illegally crossing the Channel on dinghies in a bid to reach Britain. Today, the biggest loss of life of the crisis so far makes the human cost of the tragic situation hit home. More than 30 migrants have died after their boat sank off the coast of the northern port of Calais. French patrol vessels went to the scene after a fisherman reported seeing over a dozen bodies floating in the water, authorities said. It comes as Channel migrant smugglers are maximising their profits by attempting crossings with bigger boats that can carry up to 90 people amid concerns that France is still failing to take a tougher approach. A group of more than 40 migrants were pictured on Tuesday carrying a 30ft inflatable dinghy on the northern French coast near Wimereux as French police appeared to look on and do nothing . In her column this week, Sherelle Jacobs argued that the only answer to the migrant crisis is for the Government to adopt a "push back" policy, returning boats to the French coast. Story continues In our new Write to Reply series, she responds to readers about the issue . French police watch the group on the beach - Reuters It comes as the new German government is to make the country more welcoming to migrants , under plans announced today. The coalition led by Olaf Scholz will provide new ways for asylum-seekers to reach Germany legally, including humanitarian visas. Mr Scholz is expected to be sworn in as chancellor in two weeks' time after he sealed a coalition deal today, ending the Angela Merkel era . Read a profile of the man once described by Der Spiegel as "the embodiment of boredom in politics" . 'Working class dementia tax' Meanwhile in Westminster, Sir Keir Starmer claimed in a fiery Prime Minister's Questions that Boris Johnson's social care plan is like a "classic Covent Garden pickpocketing operation" , in which people are distracted while being robbed. Having altered the way the cap on care costs is calculated, so it no longer includes council contributions towards total fees, the plan will "pick the pockets of the poorest" while leaving the richest protected, the Labour leader said, accusing the Government of having created "a working class dementia tax". It comes as a new poll has found Mr Johnson's personal ratings have slumped to their lowest level - but Labour is still struggling to cut through. After questions were raised following the Prime Minister's now infamous Peppa Pig speech, Jeremy Black wonders whether we expect too much from our leaders . No babies allowed The other drama in Westminster came from the youngest member seen in Parliament in recent times. Labour MP Stella Creasy was told babies are not allowed in the Commons after bringing her three-month-old son to the House. The Speaker of the Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle has ordered a review into the situation after Ms Creasy received an email reminding her of Commons rules, following the Walthamstow MP's appearance in the Hall on Tuesday with her son, who is breastfeeding. MPs have reacted with dismay to the no-baby-rule but Joanna Williams writes that Ms Creasy can't have it both ways on childcare . Alys Denby says take it from a mother, home working isn't good for women . Comment and analysis Jeremy Warner | Geopolitics will end bull market, not interest rates Tom Harris | Labour shouldn't 'stay neutral' on united Ireland poll Anne-Elisabeth Moutet | Macron's nemesis taking France by storm Michael Nazir-Ali | Forced conversions are an endemic evil Sonia Haria | It's time to stop shaming women for their stretch marks Around the world: The Lovely Bones whodunnit When Alice Sebold wrote of her own horrific rape and how she bumped into her alleged attacker on the street, her memoir launched a glittering literary career. But the man she accused in 'Lucky' has now been cleared after 16 years in prison , flaws in the case having been exposed during production of a film based on Sebold's experiences. Anthony Broadwater, a handyman who has always maintained his innocence, was finally released as a judge deemed his conviction an injustice. Read how 'Lucky' was in the process of being filmed when the executive producer of the adaptation became sceptical of Mr Broadwater's guilt after the first draft of the script came out because it differed so much from the book. Wednesday interview 'Am I entitled to write a black character? Sure' Best-selling author James Patterson - Rankin American author James Patterson talks to Claire Allfree about culture wars, his celebrity friends and his new novel Read the full interview Sport briefing: Vaughan axed - rugby rule changes Michael Vaughan has been axed from the BBC's Ashes team amid the on-going fallout from cricket's racism scandal. The corporation announced it would not be "appropriate" for Vaughan to have a role in its coverage of the sport at the current time. Meanwhile, Roman Abramovich has claimed victory in the first stage of his High Court battle with HarperCollins over a book which said he bought Chelsea under orders of Vladimir Putin. Read on for details . World Rugby have approved an amendment to the game's eligibility laws, with players no longer tied to Test sides and able to switch to play for another country providing they have a birth right or relative born in that country, and also stand down from Test rugby for a period of 36 months. After the autumn internationals, read Maggie Alphonsi's real rugby world rankings . Editor's choice TikTok paedophile craze | My own pupils targeted me – now I can't go back to our school Buy to let | Landlords face punishing new costs under property wealth tax plan Cheddar gorge away | Why your cheese addiction isn't as bad for you as you think Business briefing: Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador A "Bitcoin city" powered by a volcano may sound like a villain's lair from the latest Bond film, but for El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele it's a vision of the future. The Central American minnow has become the first country to adopt the cryptocurrency as legal tender , alongside the US dollar, and is launching a $1bn "Bitcoin bond" that has raised eyebrows both in the crypto and traditional finance worlds. At home, thousands of National Savings & Investments customers may have prizes retroactively cancelled after decades-old Premium Bonds were discovered, breaking rules about maximum holdings. If none of those investment options appeal, here are the next places to invest for house price rises in London and buy shares in these banks to profit from rising interest rates . Tonight starts now Robin Robin | Christmas comes earlier by the year, but when the outcome is this appealing, who's complaining? Aardman Animations' first musical, Robin Robin, is a stop-motion affair crafted with typical charm and eccentricity. Bronte Carmichael voices Robin, perhaps the cutest infant seen on a streaming service since The Mandalorian's Baby Yoda. Read Anita Singh's review of the family fare released on Netflix, also starring Gillian Anderson, and here are the rest of tonight's TV listings . Three things for you Read | The best new science books to buy for Christmas Gaming | Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl review Fantasy Fund Manager | Sign up for 10 chances to win £15,000 And for this evening's downtime.... The Morning Show car crash | Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon's prestige Apple series has an enormous price tag. Rebecca Reid tries to work out how the TV drama drove off a cliff . If you want to receive twice-daily briefings like this by email, sign up to the Front Page newsletter here . For two-minute audio updates, try The Briefing - on podcasts, smart speakers and WhatsApp. || 8 Trends That Will Shape Bitcoin Mining in 2022: If you thought 2021 was a wild ride for crypto mining, you’d better strap yourself in for 2022. The past year saw one of the biggest shake ups in mining history. Swathes of Chinese miners had to look for new homes due to the most intense regulatory crackdown in the country to date, while an ongoing global chip shortage capped the capacity of new mining machines globally. But thanks to these developments, North American miners had a stellar year. With China out of the game, and their machine orders already in place, the U.S. and Canada have quickly risen to be the uncontested hashrate capitals of the world . Read more: How Bitcoin Mining Works As the price of bitcoin hit historic heights, mining profit margins were as high as 90% . The industry entered a “gold rush” period, said Amanda Fabiano, the head of mining at New York based Galaxy Digital, citing the high profitability of the miners. At the same time, a subtler change took place. “Mining seems to have crossed the line where it was very risky and uncertain,” said Didar Bekbau, co-founder and CEO of Kazakhstan-based miner Xive . The global industry is now becoming more like traditional business, where risk is lower and investors are throwing money in and are ready to wait two or three years to get their return, he added. However, the landscape for the digital asset mining industry in 2022 is shaping up to change significantly once again, as the delay in supply of new mining rigs starts to normalize and competition becomes more intense. “As more miners enter the sector, margins will likely shrink, particularly for new entrants, as long as the bitcoin price stays stagnant,” Fabiano added. With competition ramping up next year, some miners will start to feel the margin squeeze, leading to potential for increased mergers and acquisitions. “I think there’s going to come a time, in the not too distant future, where there are companies that have raised money, have machines on order and have not deployed them yet that are in a cash crunch,” said Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital, one of the largest publicly traded bitcoin miners. Story continues “When that happens, you get some very interesting opportunities, because now you don’t have to integrate a company; you’re just acquiring their assets,” he added. To be sure, this is not bad news for the industry in the long term. More consolidation and competition will not only make the industry more mature but will also help usher in the age of more efficient mining operations and incentivize use of more renewable sources of power. “With the overall expansion of market boundaries, such a positive feedback mechanism will elevate the bitcoin mining industry to a more competitive and dynamic stage,” said Edward Lu, vice president of Canaan, one of the industry’s largest manufacturers of bitcoin mining machines. Hashrate doubling It’s unanimous; the hashrate for the Bitcoin network will increase significantly next year. Some estimates project it will double as more miners join the network. The hashrate is a measure of computational resources used to conduct mining activities and secure the Bitcoin blockchain, and it is an important metric of competition. Read more: What Does Hashrate Mean and Why Does It Matter? Along with new entrants, Chinese miners who exited the region have been coming back online outside of China and will continue to do so next year. This will add to the hashrate and consequently the difficulty of the network, according to April Luo, an institutional sales representative for Asia at BlockFi, a company that provides structured financial products to miners and also started mining colocation with Blockstream. Echoing the sentiment, Juri Bulovic, vice president of strategy at Foundry Digital, a North American bitcoin mining pool, said that “mining difficulty will continue to increase and will exceed the previous all-time high next year, as miners continue to expand their operations, but also due to the increased efficiency of the latest generation of mining machines.” Foundry is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which is the parent company of CoinDesk. In fact, some industry participants are calling for hashrate reaching within the range of 300-350 exahash/second (EH/s) by the end of next year, which will be 70%-100% higher compared to around 179 EH/s as of Dec. 14, according to data from analytics firm Glassnode. One such observer is Rob Chang, CEO of bitcoin miner Gryphon Mining, who thinks it’s possible for the hashrate to reach 300 EH/s by the end of 2022. Meanwhile, Ben Gagnon, chief mining officer of Bitfarms, expects the hashrate to be between 300 and 350 EH/s by the end of next year. Bekbau of Xive also anticipates the hashrate doubling in 2022. However, Bitmain-backed mining platform BitFuFu’s CEO Leo Lu doesn’t expect the uptick to kick in until March, because miners in Kazakhstan will likely continue to face power rationing while the build-out of new operations in the U.S. and Russia will slow down over winter. Meanwhile, Chinese authorities are intensifying their crackdown in the country and are actively blocking mining pools . Read more: Kazakhstan’s Crypto Miners Face New Regulations After Contributing to Power Shortages Margin compression As the hashrate and difficulty increases, miners will have to try harder to remain profitable, as long as there are no dramatic fluctuations in the price of bitcoin. “If our top end scenario of 300 EH/s comes to pass, the effective doubling of the global hashrates would mean that mining rewards will be cut in half,” Gryphon’s Chang said. As competition eats away at the high margins of the miners, companies that can keep their costs low and are able to operate with efficient machines will be the one that will survive and have a chance at thriving. “Miners with low costs and efficient machines will be best positioned while those operating older machines will feel the pinch more than others,” Chang added. New miners will be especially affected by smaller margins – and there are a lot of them . Power and infrastructure are among the key cost considerations for miners. New entrants have a harder time securing cheap access to these, due to a lack of connections and increased competition over resources. “We anticipate that the inexperienced players will be the ones to experience lower margins,” said Danni Zheng, vice president of crypto miner BIT Mining, citing costs like electricity and data center construction and maintenance. Miners like Argo Blockchain will strive for ultra-efficiency while growing their operations. Given increased competition, “we have to be smarter about how we grow,” said Argo Blockchain’s CEO Peter Wall. “I do think that we’re in this kind of super cycle that is different from previous cycles but we still have to keep our eye on the prize, which is being very efficient and having access to low-cost power,’’ Wall added. Rise in M&A As winners and losers emerge from the hashrate wars, larger, more capitalized companies will likely gobble up smaller miners who struggle to keep pace. Marathon’s Thiel expects such consolidation to pick up in the middle of 2022 and beyond. He also expects his company Marathon, which is well capitalized after raising nearly $700 million , to grow aggressively next year. This could mean acquiring smaller players or continuing to invest in its own hashrate. Hut 8 Mining, which recently closed a $173 million public offering of common shares , is ready to follow the same playbook. “We’re cashed up and we’re ready to go, regardless of which way the market turns next year,” said Sue Ennis, head of investor relations for the Canadian miner. Other than large miners, it’s also possible that big entities, such as power companies and data centers, may want to join the buying spree, if the industry becomes more competitive, and miners face the margin crunch, according to Argo’s Wall. Several such traditional companies have already entered the mining game in Asia, including Singapore-based real estate developer Hatten Land and Thai data center operator Jasmine Telekom Systems. Malaysian miner Hashtrex’s Gobi Nathan told CoinDesk that “corporations around Southeast Asia are looking to set up large-scale facilities in Malaysia next year.” Similarly, Europe-based Denis Rusinovich, co-founder of Cryptocurrency Mining Group and Maverick Group, sees a trend for cross-sector investments in mining in Europe and Russia. Companies are seeing that bitcoin mining can subsidize other parts of their business and improve their overall bottom line, Rusinovich said. In Russia, the trend is apparent with energy producers, whereas in continental Europe, there tend to be small mines that integrate waste management with mining or take advantage of small bits of stranded energy, he added. Cheap power and ESG Access to cheap power has always been one of the main pillars of a profitable mining business. But as the criticism around mining’s impact on the environment has grown, it is all the more important to secure renewable sources of energy to stay competitive. “We think more mining businesses will follow the trend of carbon-neutral or renewable-powered mining next year as ESG [environmental, social and governance] compliance continues to be a must for most tech companies,” said Igor Runets, CEO of BitRiver, a hosting provider for green cryptocurrency mining. Read more: Crypto’s Carbon Footprint Could Hinder Adoption: Deutsche Bank Miners are already leaning toward securing sustainable power sources, including solar, wind , hydro and nuclear , for their operations to reduce their carbon footprint. A recent survey by the Bitcoin Mining Council, an industry forum, found that 58% of the total energy used in crypto mining globally during the third quarter of this year was sustainable, up 3% from the second quarter. The increase is partly due to the rapid expansion of North American mining amid the exodus from China , and miners rotating toward more sustainable energy and modern mining techniques. Read more: China Crypto Bans: A Complete History As mining becomes more competitive, “energy-saving solutions would be a game-determining factor,” said Arthur Lee, founder and CEO of Saitech, an Eurasia-based, clean-energy driven digital asset mining operator. “The future of crypto mining would be empowered and sustained by clean energy, which is the shortcut towards carbon neutrality and a key to alleviating worldwide electricity shortage whilst improving miners’ return on investment,” Lee added. In addition, there are likely going to be more energy efficient miners, such as Bitmain’s latest Antminer S19 XP, that will also come into play, which will make the businesses run more efficiently and have less impact on the environment. However, efforts toward a more sustainable business model for the mining sector shouldn’t just be limited to more environmentally friendly mining but should also include the “social” part of ESG. With more new miners entering states such as Georgia, Texas and New York, community engagement in these regions will be even more important heading into the next year, according to Zach Bradford, CEO of bitcoin miner CleanSpark. Read more: Why Shouldn’t the Navajo Mine Bitcoin? “I think that community involvement is going to be incredibly important [in 2022]. You’re either going to be in with the community that you’re in or you’re going to be on outs,” he said. “Especially with some of the non-U.S. groups that are coming in, I think they’re going to have a harder time than U.S. domiciled companies,” he added. Fast money versus value investors One of the main reasons many new players are flocking to the crypto mining sector is due to its high margins as well as support from the capital markets. The mining sector saw a slew of IPOs and new funding from institutional investors this year. As the industry becomes more mature, the trend is expected to continue in 2022. “Capital markets will continue looking to deploy capital in bitcoin and miners,” Bitfarms’ Gagnon said. He noted that so far it seems that initial fundraising (pre-IPO) is significantly easier for investors in the sector, as many are looking for a quick flip. However, the outlook for long-term value investors is still unknown, as it remains a largely untapped market, he added. Currently investors are using miners as a proxy investment for bitcoin. But as institutions are becoming more experienced, they will change how they invest in mining, according to Gryphon’s Chang. “We are noticing that they are focusing more on the things institutional investors traditionally place a lot of emphasis on, which are namely: quality management, experienced execution and companies that act like blue chip organizations [established companies] as opposed to stock promoters,” he said. But as more traditional finance looks to dabble in crypto mining, the higher the scrutiny of the sector. “It’s not so rosy. It’s a positive development in the sector, but we should pay attention to these other developments,” such as short-seller interest, Rusinovich said. Another trend that is likely to grow among the miners is the shift towards structured financial products, as they increasingly try to lock in margins, generate additional income from their mined coins and hedge the rise in competitive landscape, according to BlockFi’s Luo. Supply chain: The big uncertainty A conversation about crypto miners’ outlook wouldn’t be complete without assessing the supply-chain issues that have been a big constraint for the industry this year and are likely to spill into 2022. “The chip shortage is one of the defining supply chain issues of 2021,” said Philip Salter, chief technology officer of Genesis Digital Assets. (Note: Genesis Digital Assets is different from Genesis, the crypto lending firm owned by CoinDesk parent company Digital Currency Group.) Driven by Covid-19′s impact on global trade, as well as rising geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, the global chip shortage has impacted 169 industries , from cars to soap manufacturing. Bitcoin miner Blockware Mining Inc.’s CEO Michael Stoltzner explained that before 2021, mining rig orders placed directly with manufacturers would be delivered within six weeks. Now, only large orders are confirmed in the first place, and manufacturer’s order books are filled well into 2022 and even 2023. Blockware Mining has navigated these issues by planning ahead and determining the best way to negate the supply-chain challenges for miners that are looking to ramp up production. However, the industry is divided on whether the chip shortage issue will be resolved heading into 2022. “My hope is that supply chains are going to get better, probably mid-year, call it June, July,” said CleanSpark’s Bradford. He thinks that, right now, the squeeze in the supply chain is more pronounced given there is higher priority for holiday-related shipping. If the supply chain issues get resolved next year, the smaller and newer companies that are feeling the brunt of the challenges currently will be able to enter the industry swiftly and compete with the larger miners, said Jonathan Manzi, the CEO and co-founder of Beyond Protocol, a blockchain technology company. On the flip side, Gryphon’s Chang expects the supply chain bottleneck to last until at least mid-2023, as the chip manufacturers have stated that the global semiconductor shortage will extend through to 2023. And when chip manufacturers are eventually able to resume normal supply, the larger industries, such as cell phones, medical equipment and transportation, will be first in line before bitcoin miners get their fill, he added. But other than the availability of rigs, where to put them will increasingly be a bottleneck. Both BitFuFu and BlockFi identified rack space as a major constraint for the coming year; BlockFi’s Luo specifically highlighted this problem within the U.S. The second life of rigs Following the China mining shutdown and consequent migration, thousands of mining rigs were abandoned in the country. While many have already been shipped overseas, others have yet to be snatched up in second hand markets and deployed. Some miners will find opportunity in this secondhand market in 2022, even if the rigs don’t have the latest technology. “It clearly offers a lot of opportunity for some players ... to develop their hashrate,” Rusinovich said, adding that “people were already saying for a couple of years that S9s were out [of the game], but they are still around.” In the future, the latest mining rigs will be first deployed in regions with “stable laws and regulations as well as developed infrastructures,” like the U.S. and Europe, BitFuFu said. Meanwhile, inferior rigs from these countries will then flow to Kazakhstan, Southeast Asia and other crypto-friendly places with less-developed infrastructures. Old mining rigs will be installed in Russia and Africa, facing a certain level of policy and regional risks. All these can create new opportunities. “It’s a matter of risk, you don’t want to send a S19j pro to a certain country where they might disappear or be turned off,” but an S9 that costs much less is an easier loss to stomach, said Alejandro de la Torre, founder of ProofofWork.Energy consulting firm. New technologies in mining As efficient mining becomes a more important tool in order for miners to stay ahead of the competition, companies will increase their focus on not just better mining computers but new innovative technologies to maximize their overall profit. Currently the miners are leaning toward using technology such as immersion cooling to boost the performance and lower the cost of mining without having to buy additional computers. “Aside from reducing power consumption and noise pollution, the immersion liquid-cooled miner occupies significantly less space, with neither pressure fans, water curtains nor water-cooled fans needed to achieve a better heat dissipation effect,” Canaan’s Lu said. Read more: Cryptocurrency Miners Turn to Exotic Cooling Systems as Competition Heats Up Such technology will be able to increase the efficiency of the mining machines and the entire facility. Most recently, CleanSpark bought 20-megawatt-powered immersion cooling infrastructure for its Norcross, Georgia, bitcoin mining facility and is aiming to increase its mining efficiency by over 20%. Riot Blockchain, one of the world’s largest bitcoin miners, also said in October that it plans to increase its mining hashrate up to 50% by using 200 megawatts of immersion-cooling technology at its Whinstone facility in Texas. || The North American Bitcoin Conference Heads to the Moon: Miami conference attendees have a 1 in 4,000 chance to win a ‘Ticket to Space’ MIAMI, Dec. 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via CryptoCurrencyWire – Boutique space training and travel companyAstranautis giving away one free ticket to space at the North American Bitcoin Conference (“TNABC”), slated for Jan. 17-19, 2022, at the James L. Knight Center in Miami. This landmark opportunity represents the pinnacle of humanity’s pioneering efforts to expand and innovate in the fields of space travel, cryptocurrency and blockchain. The unprecedented giveaway will happen on the same stage that’s responsible for launching hundreds of blockchain and crypto projects like Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Factom, Blockchain Capital – projects which collectively hold a market cap of over $568 billion. “We’re thrilled to be launching an actual human being into outer space from our Miami stage,”says Keynote CEO Moe Levin.“Anyone who attends TNABC in person will automatically be entered into theSpace Ticket Giveaway for free, and we’ll draw and announce the winner on stage on the last day.” Astranaut founder and CEO Shannon Graham says,“We are thrilled to be at the North American Bitcoin Conference amongst the innovators and early adopters who will help mold this exciting future Astranaut aims to create through NFTs, crypto, and unprecedented space training and travel.” Shannon Graham became an entrepreneur at 16. His projects have included helping to launch the world's first platform aimed at ending video game addiction, raising tech entrepreneurship levels in New Zealand, and building financial empowerment for Hispanic immigrants through a fintech startup. Graham says,“As we stand at the crossroads of multiple emerging markets such as crypto and space exploration, the utility and narrative for both are wide open. Our mission is to craft them into something that holds meaning and long-term value for everyone involved.” The North American Bitcoin Conference Space Ticket Giveaway is sure to be a powerful, watershed moment in an already dynamic event where attendees can hear from the planet’s brightest and most brilliant minds including Mark Cuban, Harry Yeh, and the founders of Tether, Tezos, Wax, Tron, Voyager and Fantom. The North American Bitcoin Conference is the pioneer of crypto-events and has remained the most influential yearly event by curating world-class experiences filled with Hackathons, Pitchfests, NFT galleries, Bitcoin Museums, live podcast sessions featuring thought leaders, and change-makers like Ran NeuNer (host of Crypto Banter), exclusive parties, and after-hours experiences. This year’s conference will also feature masterclasses on Bitcoin, NFTs, the Metaverse, Defi, DAOs, Stablecoins, Blockchain and more. Confirmed speakers include: • Mark Cuban, billionaire, owner of 18 blockchain companies • Harry Yeh, managing director, Quantum Fintech Group • Kathleen Breitman, co-founder, Tezos • Ran NeuNer, host, Crypto Banter • Peter Smith, CEO and founder, Blockchain.com • Jenna Pilgrim, CEO and co-founder, Streambed • Charlie Shrem, host, Untold Stories • Matthew Roszak, chairman and co-founder, BLOQ • Craig Sellars, co-founder, Tether • Vanessa Grellet, head of portfolio growth, Coinfund The North American Bitcoin Conference (a.k.a. BTC Miami) brings together leading technologists and disruption pioneers to share insider insights, unconventional wisdom, and industry knowledge, innovations and opportunities. Tickets are now on sale atbtcmiami.com, along with a full speaker list and event agenda. Event Contact:Contact Person: Lyndsey RobsonContact Email:lyndsey@keynote.aeSocials:https://twitter.com/keynote_aeWebsite:www.btcmiami.com Media Contact:IBN (InvestorBrandNetwork)Los Angeles, Californiawww.InvestorBrandNetwork.com310.299.1717 OfficeEditor@InvestorBrandNetwork.com || Leuthold Funds Inc Buys Costco Wholesale Corp, Walmart Inc, PowerShares QQQ Trust Ser 1, Sells ...: Investment companyLeuthold Funds Inc(Current Portfolio) buys Costco Wholesale Corp, Walmart Inc, PowerShares QQQ Trust Ser 1, BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings Inc, JPMorgan Chase, sells Athene Holding, Aflac Inc, Verizon Communications Inc, MetLife Inc, Manulife Financial Corp during the 3-months ended 2021Q3, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Leuthold Funds Inc. As of 2021Q3, Leuthold Funds Inc owns 243 stocks with a total value of $416 million. These are the details of the buys and sells. • New Purchases:COST, WMT, BJ, JPM, C, SYF, ABT, DFS, TMO, ABG, • Added Positions:QQQ, FLOT, CME, ICE, PODD, ECL, ALC, PCG, SPLK, MSA, HEI, ELAN, SUI, COUP, ARMK, PLNT, DDOG, AXNX, SWCH, SHOP, QSR, NVRO, MMC, LUV, HLT, FIS, EFX, BDX, BA, TEAM, MNRO, MLAB, LULU, DXCM, CCOI, XLF, IWF, • Reduced Positions:XLP, XLE, RCL, CRM, AJG, SNOW, AGR, SPOT, U, ROL, MDB, KMB, ES, CTAS, CLX, CS, DLR, O, SQ, PTON, MKTX, MKC, VEEV, TDOC, EQT, AVLR, CWST, RPAY, NCNO, HFC, GDOT, GSHD, TREX, THS, VTRS, WMG, Z, CLVT, BWA, RBA, EVBG, EQC, REXR, GH, H, ORA, WOLF, BYND, WYNN, MPLN, NFE, RGLD, OSH, PRLB, BIGC, SDGR, TWOU, ONEM, WIX, VRM, BLI, • Sold Out:AFL, ATH, VZ, MET, MFC, DLTR, AEL, UNM, CNO, FDX, LOGI, HPQ, ATSG, • Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Sign with KBR. Click here to check it out. • FLOT 15-Year Financial Data • The intrinsic value of FLOT • Peter Lynch Chart of FLOT For the details of LEUTHOLD CORE INVESTMENT FUND's stock buys and sells,go tohttps://www.gurufocus.com/guru/leuthold+core+investment+fund/current-portfolio/portfolio These are the top 5 holdings of LEUTHOLD CORE INVESTMENT FUND 1. SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) - 111,718 shares, 4.41% of the total portfolio. 2. Vanguard Short-Term Inflation-Protected Securities (VTIP) - 338,283 shares, 4.27% of the total portfolio. 3. Target Corp (TGT) - 66,250 shares, 3.64% of the total portfolio. 4. iShares S&P/Citigroup International Treasury Bond (IGOV) - 287,236 shares, 3.54% of the total portfolio. 5. Microsoft Corp (MSFT) - 46,429 shares, 3.14% of the total portfolio. New Purchase: Costco Wholesale Corp (COST) Leuthold Funds Inc initiated holding in Costco Wholesale Corp. The purchase prices were between $394.53 and $467.75, with an estimated average price of $439.33. The stock is now traded at around $525.445000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1.46%. The holding were 13,562 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: Walmart Inc (WMT) Leuthold Funds Inc initiated holding in Walmart Inc. The purchase prices were between $139.32 and $151.45, with an estimated average price of $144.54. The stock is now traded at around $136.520000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1.33%. The holding were 39,826 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings Inc (BJ) Leuthold Funds Inc initiated holding in BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings Inc. The purchase prices were between $46.08 and $59.18, with an estimated average price of $53.37. The stock is now traded at around $66.315000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1%. The holding were 75,534 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) Leuthold Funds Inc initiated holding in JPMorgan Chase & Co. The purchase prices were between $146.97 and $166.98, with an estimated average price of $156.81. The stock is now traded at around $159.685000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.78%. The holding were 19,822 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: Citigroup Inc (C) Leuthold Funds Inc initiated holding in Citigroup Inc. The purchase prices were between $65.08 and $74.3, with an estimated average price of $69.93. The stock is now traded at around $61.450000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.75%. The holding were 44,797 shares as of 2021-09-30. New Purchase: Synchrony Financial (SYF) Leuthold Funds Inc initiated holding in Synchrony Financial. The purchase prices were between $44.8 and $51.95, with an estimated average price of $48.58. The stock is now traded at around $47.190000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.67%. The holding were 56,779 shares as of 2021-09-30. Added: BTC iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF (FLOT) Leuthold Funds Inc added to a holding in BTC iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF by 34.83%. The purchase prices were between $50.7 and $50.79, with an estimated average price of $50.72. The stock is now traded at around $50.680000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.72%. The holding were 228,704 shares as of 2021-09-30. Sold Out: Aflac Inc (AFL) Leuthold Funds Inc sold out a holding in Aflac Inc. The sale prices were between $51.35 and $57.52, with an estimated average price of $54.68. Sold Out: Athene Holding Ltd (ATH) Leuthold Funds Inc sold out a holding in Athene Holding Ltd. The sale prices were between $61.8 and $70.63, with an estimated average price of $66.6. Sold Out: Verizon Communications Inc (VZ) Leuthold Funds Inc sold out a holding in Verizon Communications Inc. The sale prices were between $54.01 and $56.55, with an estimated average price of $55.34. Sold Out: MetLife Inc (MET) Leuthold Funds Inc sold out a holding in MetLife Inc. The sale prices were between $55.86 and $63.61, with an estimated average price of $60.22. Sold Out: Manulife Financial Corp (MFC) Leuthold Funds Inc sold out a holding in Manulife Financial Corp. The sale prices were between $18.46 and $20.45, with an estimated average price of $19.45. Sold Out: Dollar Tree Inc (DLTR) Leuthold Funds Inc sold out a holding in Dollar Tree Inc. The sale prices were between $84.54 and $106.32, with an estimated average price of $96.18. Reduced: PowerShares QQQ Trust Ser 1 (QQQ) Leuthold Funds Inc reduced to a holding in PowerShares QQQ Trust Ser 1 by 9999%. The sale prices were between $354.18 and $381.69, with an estimated average price of $367.93. The stock is now traded at around $398.350600. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was 1.14%. Leuthold Funds Inc still held -5,613 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: CME Group Inc (CME) Leuthold Funds Inc reduced to a holding in CME Group Inc by 9999%. The sale prices were between $185.84 and $214.7, with an estimated average price of $202.65. The stock is now traded at around $229.570000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was 0.3%. Leuthold Funds Inc still held -3,437 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE) Leuthold Funds Inc reduced to a holding in Intercontinental Exchange Inc by 9999%. The sale prices were between $114.82 and $121.36, with an estimated average price of $118.73. The stock is now traded at around $134.360000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was 0.28%. Leuthold Funds Inc still held -6,040 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: Insulet Corp (PODD) Leuthold Funds Inc reduced to a holding in Insulet Corp by 9999%. The sale prices were between $260.36 and $307.27, with an estimated average price of $285.43. The stock is now traded at around $281.610000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was 0.27%. Leuthold Funds Inc still held -2,675 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: Ecolab Inc (ECL) Leuthold Funds Inc reduced to a holding in Ecolab Inc by 9999%. The sale prices were between $208.62 and $229.6, with an estimated average price of $219.13. The stock is now traded at around $230.480000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was 0.26%. Leuthold Funds Inc still held -3,370 shares as of 2021-09-30. Reduced: PG&E Corp (PCG) Leuthold Funds Inc reduced to a holding in PG&E Corp by 9999%. The sale prices were between $8.29 and $10.5, with an estimated average price of $9.45. The stock is now traded at around $12.525000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was 0.25%. Leuthold Funds Inc still held -73,209 shares as of 2021-09-30. Here is the complete portfolio of LEUTHOLD CORE INVESTMENT FUND. Also check out:1. LEUTHOLD CORE INVESTMENT FUND's Undervalued Stocks2. LEUTHOLD CORE INVESTMENT FUND's Top Growth Companies, and3. LEUTHOLD CORE INVESTMENT FUND's High Yield stocks4. Stocks that LEUTHOLD CORE INVESTMENT FUND keeps buyingThis article first appeared onGuruFocus. || Binance becomes the First Regulator to Provide Crypto-Asset Services in MENA-Bahrain: Binanceis the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) has given in-principle approval to Binance to operate as a crypto-asset service provider in the kingdom. The reports came in through its website as of December 27, 2021. Binance recently applied for a license from the CBB to operate as a fully-regulated centralized platform. However, Binance must still go through the complete application procedure, according to CZ Zhao, the company’s CEO. In an email toBloomberg News,he stated that it would be finished “in due time.” The CBB’s decision to allow a Binance entity to operate in their market is the first among the regulators in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. Additionally, earlier in December, Binance and Dubai World Trade Centre Authority in the United Arab Emirates signed a collaboration agreement. The contract aims to establish an international virtual assets ecosystem. Dubai’s World Trade Center(DWTC)announced that it would become a crypto zone and regulatory body for cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets. Moreover, the UAE attempts to attract new business as the Middle East heats up. Additionally, Bahrain is working to improve its crypto sector. In January, the Bahraini central bank gave the nod to CoinMENA, a shariah-compliant cryptocurrency exchange.This year, several financial regulators have targeted Binance. Some organizations prohibited the platform from doing certain things, while others warned customers that it was illegal to operate in their nations. In June, the UK’s financial regulatorissued a warningon its website about Binance as it was providing financial services to customers without authorization. Later on, Binance received similar notices from Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, and the Cayman Binance’s recent expansion into multiple jurisdictions in the Middle East and North Africa has shown to be beneficial. In the UAE, Egypt, and Singapore, the cryptocurrency exchange platform is accessible. Furthermore, it named its Singapore CEO Richard Teng as regional chief for the Middle East and North Africa.Islands. Binance is one step ahead of the game regarding global expansion as a regulated exchange. Its main aim is to become the leadingregulator-friendlyexchange. Furthermore, CZ indicated that international regulatory approval would help pave the way for crypto and blockchain’s wide adoption. CBB’s pro-crypto stance indicates the financial sector, which is currently undergoing significant change. CBB is committed to establishing a crypto-asset framework that meets global anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing, transaction monitoring, and consumer protection standards. Binance CEO CZ said that combining TradFi andDeFiwill provide the best of both worlds to customers. The merger allows investors to invest in cryptocurrencies safely. Binance’s global expansion speed has improved dramatically since it took the centralized route. Binance simultaneously acquired a cryptocurrency financing license from the Canadian authorities when announcing its success in Bahrain. According to reports, Binance has established itself as a native company inCanada,known as the Binance Canada Capital Market. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • S&P 500 Price Forecast – S&P 500 Hit All-time High • USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Canadian Dollar Moves Higher As WTI Oil Gets Back Above $75 • Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Continue to Consolidate • Chinese Courts Consider Bitcoin Mining Contracts as Void • Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Threaten Break Out • Are Bitcoin Payment Services Similar to Credit Cards? What’s the Difference? [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 42591.57, 43099.70, 43177.40, 43113.88, 42250.55, 42375.63, 41744.33, 40680.42, 36457.32, 35030.25
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)] Brokerage Chief: Bitcoin Futures Must Be Quarantined: A well-known electronic brokerage firm is issuing dire warnings against the CME Group's plan to launch a bitcoin futures contract next month. But Interactive Brokers, in a comment letter dated Nov. 14, suggested a way to mitigate the risk it sees from such activity: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), under the auspices of J. Christopher Giancarlo, should sequester systems that handle cryptocurrency derivatives. "This letter is to request that the Commission require that any clearing organization that wishes to clear any cryptocurrency or derivative of a cryptocurrency do so in a separate clearing system isolated from other products," wrote Thomas Peterffy, chairman of Interactive Brokers. The open letter, published on the firm's website (and reportedly included in a full-page ad in today's Wall Street Journal ), comes on the heels of CME's announcement that it would look to offer cryptocurrency-tied derivatives products. Earlier this week, CME CEO and chairman Terry Duffy indicated that the first product could go live as early as the second week of December. Yet that outcome would pose a significant danger, Peterffy argued, suggesting that a hypothetical plunge in the price of a particular cryptocurrency could send CME reeling financially. He went on to write: "If the Chicago Mercantile Exchange or any other clearing organization clears a cryptocurrency together with other products, then a large cryptocurrency price move that destabilizes members that clear cryptocurrencies will destabilize the clearing organization itself and its ability to satisfy its fundamental obligation to pay the winners and collect from the losers on the other products in the same clearing pool." Doubling down on the argument, Peterffy went on to write that "a catastrophe in the cryptocurrency market that destabilizes a clearing organization will destabilize the real economy." "The only way to protect clearing organizations and their members (and the financial system as a whole) from the unique risks inherent in clearing cryptocurrencies is to require that they be cleared in a separate clearing system, isolated from other products," he concluded. Disclosure: CME Group is an investor in Digital Currency Group, CoinDesk's parent company. Medical scientist wearing protective clothing image via Shutterstock Related Stories CME's Bitcoin Futures Likely to Start Trading December 11 FUD From All Sides: In Defense of CME's Bitcoin Futures Plan First Long-Term LedgerX Bitcoin Option Pegs Price at $10,000 Swiss Firms to Let Traders Short Bitcoin With New Futures Products View comments || Bitcoin rockets above $7,000 for the first time: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin took another leap higher on Thursday, rocketing above $7,000 for the first time after a more than tenfold increase in its value over the past year. Bitcoin has seen eye-watering gains in recent months, having more than doubled in value in the past seven weeks alone. It is on track for a fifth consecutive quarter of increases -- a run not seen since 2012-2013, when it was approaching $100 for the first time. It hit as high as $7,354.10 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange on Thursday (BTC=BTSP), before settling back to $7,030 by 1630 GMT, still up over 4 percent on the day. Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam expressed caution about the booming cryptocurrency, saying the current interest in it could eventually subside. "From what we can identify, the only reason today to buy or sell bitcoin is to make money, which is the very definition of speculation and the very definition of a bubble," he said on Thursday. The latest rally was driven in large part by news earlier this week that the world's largest derivatives exchange operator CME Group (CME.O) is to launch bitcoin futures. "The move by such a well-known, established exchange throws open the doors for institutions to get into bitcoin," said analyst Arnaud Masset at Swissquote, a brokerage that offers bitcoin trading to retail clients. "Still, traditional investors will remain cautious and will not rush." Thursday's price move took bitcoin's aggregate value or "market cap" -- its price multiplied by the number of bitcoins released into circulation -- to more than $122 billion, according to industry website Coinmarketcap. The aggregate value of all cryptocurrencies hit a record high of more than $194 billion, the website said, more than the market values of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley combined. "This has been another incredibly bullish week for the cryptocurrency, with the visible upside attracting investors from all directions," said Lukman Otunuga, research analyst at FXTM, a brokerage. "It must be kept in mind that bitcoin’s exponential gains are not only phenomenal, but (also) somewhat frightening." (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Abhinav Ramnarayan and Catherine Evans) || Bitcoin not big enough to threaten world economy, BoE deputy says: LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin is not at a size where it would pose a risk to the global economy, Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe said on Wednesday, as the virtual currency soared to a record high above $10,000 on major exchange. The cryptocurrency has climbed 10-fold so far this year, the largest gain of all asset classes and prompting sceptics to warn it is a classic speculative bubble. "I would just say investors kind of need to do their homework," Cunliffe told BBC Radio. He said he did not think British households as a whole were going on a "debt-fuelled binge" but added that fast rates of consumer credit growth needed to be watched. Cunliffe was in the minority of officials to vote against a rise in interest rates that took place earlier this month. Asked why in a separate BBC radio interview, Cunliffe said that although he agreed with his colleagues that Britain's potential rate of economic growth had slowed since the financial crisis, he wanted to see more sign of inflation pressure. "My view was given the disappointments we've had about pay increases and domestic cost pressures over recent years, we should wait to see those before raising rates." (Reporting by Andy Bruce; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Kim Coghill) || The EUR/USD Daily Technical Analysis for November 20, 2017: The EUR/USD continued to consolidate in a very tight range after surging higher early in the week. Strong housing data appeared to be offset by a larger than anticipated increase in the Eurozone trade surplus which kept prices range-bound. The EUR/USD continued to consolidate after breaking out earlier in the week. The exchange rate is hovering near the 50-day moving average which appear to be acting as a magnate. Support is seen near the 10-day moving average at 1.1692, while resistance is seen near the November highs at 1.1860. Momentum is positive as the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) histogram is printing in the black with an upward sloping trajectory which points to a higher exchange rate. Draghi admitted that the “robust recovery” means the economy “may be becoming more resilient to new shocks”, but stressed that “we still need a patient and persistent approach to monetary policy to ensure that medium-term price stability is achieved”. The ECB President argued that while “we see inflation moving steadily away from the very low levels of recent years”, “progress remains incomplete and partial”, although “as the labor market tightens and uncertainty falls, the relationship between slack and wage growth should begin reasserting itself”. Pretty much a defense of the decision to extend the QE program once again, although with the increasingly optimistic outlook another extension beyond September next year seems very unlikely even if the ECB remains reluctant to commit to an end date for net asset purchases. QE for the ECB is expected to move smoothly until next September and the central bank has not committed to an end date, but comments from Executive Board Member Mersch seem to confirm that in the central scenario there will be no follow-on program when the next QE extension ends in September next year. Indeed, Draghi’s reluctance to officially remove the possibility of another QE extension is likely to have more to do with signaling effects and the ECB’s acute awareness that peripheral markets need the assurance that the ECB is willing to step in again if necessary. Still, a reduction in the ECB’s balance sheet is still far away and the re-investment of redeemed bond holdings will see the central bank propping up peripheral markets well beyond September next year. Exports are driving growth in the Eurozone. The Eurozone current account surplus widened in September. The Eurozone posted a current account surplus of EUR 37.8 billion in September, up from EUR 34.5 billion in the previous month, leaving the 3 months rate on an upward trend as the goods surplus continues to widen. This is consistent with indications that net exports underpinned overall growth in the third quarter of the year. The unadjusted financial account showed direct and portfolio investment inflows of EUR 57.9 billion, down markedly from the EUR 85.4 billion in the previous month, with portfolio investment falling sharply amid outflows of equity investments. Accumulated data for the 12 months to September show total direct and portfolio investments of EUR 414.9 billion, down from EUR 670.7 billion in the 12 months to September last year. Dallas Fed’s Kaplan said the balance sheet unwinding began when the Fed thought it was unlikely to return to zero interest rates and he’s confident in economic growth, since household leverage has fallen, expecting 2% plus growth next year. Kaplan expects more slack to come out of the labor sector, but if the unemployment rate rises that could be a sign of impending recession. He said Powell as chairman represents continuity, though others like Quarles may bring new ideas. He endorses reviewing Fed governance, frameworks, targets and small bank supervision, as any organization needs to make changes. U.S housing starts surged 13.7% to 1.290 million in October, more than erasing the 3.2% hurricane-related September drop to 1.135 million which was revised from 1.127 million. Building permits rose 5.9% to 1.297million from a revised 3.7% drop to 1.225 million which was 1.215 million. As for some particulars, single family starts bounced 5.3% after the prior 4.4% drop which was revised from -4.6%, while multi-family starts rocketed 36.8% higher following the prior 0.3% gain which was revised from -5.1%. Housing completions increased 12.6% to 1.232 million. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • A Dovish Draghi is Good for Riskier Asset Prices • Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 17/11/17 • Friday Support and Resistance Levels – November 17, 2017 • Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – New Concerns Over Russia’s Participation in Output Cut Extension • Forex Trading Signals – November 17, 2017 • Gold Price Prediction for November 20, 2017 || Bitcoin passed $8,000 as institutional money inches closer to cryptocurrency markets: Copies of bitcoins standing on PC motherboard are seen in this illustration picture Bitcoin’s seemingly unstoppable bull run continued as it passed $8,000 for the first time around 6pm UTC yesterday (Nov. 19). The price has been flirting with $8,000 for days, probably because several signs point to the long promised arrival of institutional money in the cryptocurrency markets. Amazon is ruining the Thanksgiving spirit One indicator is the increasing popularity of bitcoin futures. Over the weekend, the first year-long contract for the price of bitcoin was agreed by traders on the LedgerX platform, an issuer of derivatives regulated in the US. The contract is an option to buy bitcoin at $10,000 by Dec. 28, 2018. According to LedgerX, this carries an implied probability that bitcoin will be above $10,000 on that date. LedgerX has conducted $16 million in bitcoin futures trades since it opened for business on Oct. 20, according to CoinDesk . Another major futures trading platform will also start testing bitcoin derivatives today. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) will begin letting customers test bitcoin futures today . The exchange plans to let customers trade bitcoin futures for real before the year is up. Another sign that institutions are getting serious about trading bitcoin is a new service offered by the exchange and wallet provider Coinbase. It launched Coinbase Custody, a storage solution for institutions with at least $10 million in cryptocurrency holdings, last week (Nov. 16). Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong claimed in a blog post announcing the product that there’s over $10 billion in institutional money on the sidelines of the cryptocurrency market, awaiting custodial and other solutions, although he didn’t provide a source for this estimate. 200 universities just launched 600 free online courses. Here’s the full list. The eye-popping returns on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are difficult for any fund manager to ignore . Their entry to the still young cryptocurrency markets could drive the price of bitcoin and its ilk higher still. Story continues Read next: Hedge funds are rushing into cryptocurrencies to juice their weak returns Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the world’s most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: What kind of person makes false rape accusations? All the shows killed by Hollywood in the wake of its sexual-harassment crisis || Trump takes new approach with North Korea: Stock markets are struggling to continue their all-time highs, as investors prepare for more earnings reports. Meanwhile, President Trump is in Seoul to encourage North Korea to come to the negotiation table before heading to China. Yahoo Finance’sAlexis Christoforous, Editor-in-ChiefAndy Serwer,Jared BlikreandSeana Smithdiscuss the big stories of the day. Today’s topics: • Texas gunman had history of violence • Trump asks North Korea to help create peace deal • Trump to visit China Wednesday • Crude oilsoars to two-year high, above $57/bbl. • Snapearnings after the bell • Bitcoin’smeteoric rise • Appleuses Channel Island of Jersey to avoid billions in taxes • GoogleandSalesforceform cloud partnership • Weight Watchersflexes its muscles on Q3 EPS & revenue beat • Red Robinplunges on Q3 profit miss, fast food regains popularity • Microsoftdebuts Xbox One X, competes with Switch & PlayStation • Disneyheld talks with21st Century Foxto buy assets • Weinstein hired spies to investigate accusers, journalists: New Yorker • Starbucksto open first US location of Italy’s Princi Bakery in Seattle TWITTER POLL:What excites you most about a possible deal between Disney and 21stCentury Fox?-Larger Disney library-Better live coverage on Fox-Expanded Marvel Universe || Saudi Arabia is Pushing the Brent Oil to Two-Year High: Oil pricesare at the highest over the previous 27 months. The last time when Brent was as expensive as today was in July 2015. During the second week of November, a barrel of Brent costs $63.74 and investors are really poised to continue buying. Last weekend, Saudi Arabia attracted investors’ attention. There were several arrests of top-level officials, including princes and public servants. It is assumed that the country is experiencing some anti-corruption activities. There were no official comments from the country’s authorities, but there is a rumor that one of the arrested is Prince Al-Waleed. He is not just a random wealthy person, he is a wealthy member of the royal family, who spoke without restraints about both the country’s economy (he is against cryptocurrencies) and politics (he is against Saudi Arabia’s official stance on Yemen). It appears that the acting government of Saudi Arabia is intended at least to eradicate those who are “disagree” or even merge their property and money. “Accumulation of power” is probably the best term right now. We remind you that Saudi Arabia is one of the main lobby members of the OPEC+ agreement, which establishes strict borders and limits for oil extracting countries. The commodity market is responding to political news from Saudi Arabia believing that this very “accumulation of power” will help to extend the current agreement after March 2018. The organization still has no plan B but has some proofs that the document is effective. These proofs show a slowdown of the oil demand. Brent pricesgrowth can be explained not only by the fundamental analysis but by the technical one as well. They are still moving inside rising channels at both short- and mid-term charts. After testing the resistance level of the short-term rising channel, the pair is trying to start a correction towards the downside border at 61.60, which may be a key level for the uptrend. If the price rebounds from 61.60, the uptrend will continue towards the upside border of the long-term rising channel at 64.00. Otherwise, “bears” will push the instrument towards 60.34. If this level is broken as well, a test of 58.95 will dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Forecasts presented in this section only reflect the author’s private opinion and should not be considered as guidance for trading. RoboForex bears no responsibility for trading results based on trading recommendations described in these analytical reviews. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Stocks Slip as Chinese Exports Miss Expectations • Gold is few dollars away from triggering a strong buy signal, Bitcoin is Bullish • Saudi Arabia is Pushing the Brent Oil to Two-Year High • Wednesday Support and Resistance Levels – November 08, 2017 • Economists are Optimistic that 2018 Rate Hike Will be Spectacular • US Dollar Weighed by TAX Reform Uncertainty, Asian Stocks Mixed || Learn Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin: Photo credit: Stack Commerce From Popular Mechanics Over the past few days, the value of Bitcoin surpassed $10,000, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index . As of writing, Bitcoin has a market cap of more than $150 billion, but before diving hastily into the lucrative world of cryptocurrency, you must first understand the fundamentals. OneMonth's Bitcoin & Blockchain Bundle will get you up to speed on the monetary revolution that lies between technology and finance. Comprised of two courses spread across 27 lessons, this instructional bundle will teach you everything you need to know about Bitcoin and the tech it is built upon, called blockchain. You'll be armed with the necessary skills to purchase, trade, and store digital currencies. By the end of the lectures, you'll finally be able to answer the oft-repeated question, "should I buy Bitcoin?" This 2-part crash course typically costs $128, but you can purchase it now for only $16 ! You Might Also Like The 50 Tools Everyone Should Own 50 States, 50 U.S. Parks You Need to Visit 19 Easy Ways to Winterize Your Home || Bitcoin rockets above $7,000 for the first time: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin took another leap higher on Thursday, rocketing above $7,000 for the first time after a more than tenfold increase in its value over the past year. Bitcoin has seen eye-watering gains in recent months, having more than doubled in value in the past seven weeks alone. It is on track for a fifth consecutive quarter of increases -- a run not seen since 2012-2013, when it was approaching $100 for the first time. It hit as high as $7,354.10 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange on Thursday , before settling back to $7,030 by 1630 GMT, still up over 4 percent on the day. Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam expressed caution about the booming cryptocurrency, saying the current interest in it could eventually subside. "From what we can identify, the only reason today to buy or sell bitcoin is to make money, which is the very definition of speculation and the very definition of a bubble," he said on Thursday. The latest rally was driven in large part by news earlier this week that the world's largest derivatives exchange operator CME Group is to launch bitcoin futures. "The move by such a well-known, established exchange throws open the doors for institutions to get into bitcoin," said analyst Arnaud Masset at Swissquote, a brokerage that offers bitcoin trading to retail clients. "Still, traditional investors will remain cautious and will not rush." Thursday's price move took bitcoin's aggregate value or "market cap" -- its price multiplied by the number of bitcoins released into circulation -- to more than $122 billion, according to industry website Coinmarketcap. The aggregate value of all cryptocurrencies hit a record high of more than $194 billion, the website said, more than the market values of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley combined. "This has been another incredibly bullish week for the cryptocurrency, with the visible upside attracting investors from all directions," said Lukman Otunuga, research analyst at FXTM, a brokerage. "It must be kept in mind that bitcoin’s exponential gains are not only phenomenal, but (also) somewhat frightening." (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Abhinav Ramnarayan and Catherine Evans) || Bitcoin soars to new high above $8,300 after $30 million crypto hack: MI • Bitcoin soared to a new all-time high Tuesday above $8,300 per coin. • The coin recovered losses it incurred after a different cryptocurrency announced a $30.9 million hack. Bitcoin's upward climbed continued unabated Monday morning. The cryptocurrency blew pastMonday's record highof $8,285 to $8,368 Tuesday morning, trading up 1.24%. It gave up some of those gains and was trading at $8,289 just before noon ET. The coin was sent in a tailspin after news broke that cryptocurrency firm, Tether, was hacked. Tether, which created a cryptocurrency called USDT that is pegged to the dollar,said in a blog post on Tuesdaythat "funds were improperly removed from the Tether treasury wallet through malicious action by an external attacker." The company said $30,950,010 was taken Sunday. Th news dragged the price of bitcoin down by nearly $450 early Tuesday, according to CoinDesk data. This post has been updated from its original version. NOW WATCH:The stock market is flashing warning signs See Also: • Bitcoin bursts through $8,000 • Zimbabwe's instability had a bizarre side-effect: the nation's bitcoin market went bonkers • Bitcoin pops after Square says it's letting some app users buy and sell the cryptocurrency SEE ALSO:Bitcoin just hit an all-time high — here's how you buy and sell it [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Bitcoin: ¿Por qué invertir en la moneda del futuro? #Moneyhttps://goo.gl/aB2GHU  || こんばんは。 bitcoin priceという || bitcoin priceってゆうか、 || Cramer: Bets against bitcoin will annihilate the digital currency once futures begin trading https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/cramer-bets-against-bitcoin-will-crush-it-once-futures-begin-trading.html?__%7Cmain …pic.twitter.com/eRcQNsuhRy || こんばんは。 bitcoin priceという || BTC/USD: US$ 6.654,53 ▲ 1.99% BTC/BRL: R$ 21.950,63 USD/BRL: R$ 3,30 14/11/2017 00:59:32 (Brasília) #bitcoin || I earned 0.45 BTC in 5 hours. Join now: http://t.me/CryptoWhalesClub … $ADA $BCY $BTS $STORJ $CLAM $CVC $TKN $TK $CRW $DTB $DMD $SNRG $EFL $EGC $WAVES $FTC $FUN $GCR $AGRS $BAT $IOP $LTC $MEME $XMR $MUSIC $BNT $XEM $OMNI $OMG $XVG $BTCD $RBY $SAFEX $UNO cjjdgdifhjf || Tiffany Haddishちゃんが || Steam deja aceptar bitcoin por volatilidad y alto precio en transacciones http://tinyurl.com/y84xk93r pic.twitter.com/1uCbvJyVbw || Tiffany Haddishちゃんが
Trend: down || Prices: 19114.20, 17776.70, 16624.60, 15802.90, 13831.80, 14699.20, 13925.80, 14026.60, 16099.80, 15838.50
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 2017-03-15] BTC Price: 1249.61, BTC RSI: 60.95 Gold Price: 1200.10, Gold RSI: 36.44 Oil Price: 48.86, Oil RSI: 34.11 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Costco has become a major driver of Citi's business: (BI Intelligence) This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, pleaseclick here. Citigroup's acquisition of Costco's co-branded credit card portfolio from Amex in June 2016 continues to pay off. In its Q4 2016 earnings release, Citi posted8%overall revenue growth on a constant-currency basis. The Costco portfolio appears to be a major driver of Citi’s overall growth right now. • Costco cards are still driving massive spending. The customer base, which likely totals roughly 12 million, saw over$52 billionin purchase sales in its first six months, and over $6 billion in loan growth, according to the firm's earnings call. That’s really strong performance — for context, Amex saw roughly $80 billion in Costco billed business in 2015, which puts Citi’s annual run rate roughly $24 billion ahead of the Amex card. • That’s propelling growth in Citi’s US branded cards business. Citi’s branded cards earned $2.2 billion in revenue in Q4 2016, posting 15% growth year-over-year (YoY). Without Costco, that growth rate dips to 2%, showing the massive impact that the portfolio acquisition continues to have on Citi’s business. • And growth in branded cards revenue is one of the major drivers of Citi overall. Citi’s other segments aren’t performing this strongly — retail banking revenue was down 4% YoY, and retail services remained flat. Growth in branded cards, which was driven by Costco, reflects just how pivotal the portfolio is to Citis’ results. And while that’s good in the short term, the rewards rat race we’re seeing could pose some problems for the bank moving forward. Costco has given Citigroup immense growth in the months since acquisition. But it’s also leading to rising costs — operational expenses, for example, rose 6% YoY in Q4, largely reflecting expenditure on the Costco portfolio. The firm will have to “overcome promotional balances” in order to maintain success. And though Costco feels “well-positioned” to do so, keeping an eye out for the bank’s branded cards and other new investments will be key. That’s particularly true in light of stiff rewards competition, which is raising expenses for card networks but providing sometimes limited returns. The Costco and Citigroup relationship is just one part of the broader payments ecosystem, which has grown to include vendors, merchants, acquirers, processors, and more. John Heggestuen, director of research atBI Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has 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 theirmobile 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 2. 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 • European acquirer Worldpay is piloting a phone-based mobile point-of-sale platform • Samsung Pay expands beyond the Galaxy in India • Amazon's new Prime Reload program rewards users but challenges banks || Flow and Manchester United Team up to deliver the Ultimate Football Experience to Caribbean Footballers: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Feb 27, 2017) - Up-and-coming Caribbean footballers between the ages of 13 and 16 will not be able to contain their excitement, as news breaks that Flow and Manchester United will host The Ultimate Football Experience , a skills-based competition, supported by the Caribbean Football Union . The programme seeks to give youngsters, the chance-of-a-lifetime to participate in a talent development football camp; and even earn a trip to Old Trafford, Manchester to see Man Utd vs Crystal Palace on May 21 st 2017. The good news gets even better as registration opens this week for the football competition which runs from March through to May 2017. Here's how it works: skilled boys and girls can register online at https://discoverflow.co/flowmanutd . Registered participants will then be instructed to appear at designated football festivals across all Caribbean markets in which Flow operates. The participants will engage in a Manchester United Soccer School's international programme, which has been specially devised for the campaign and will be delivered by CFU coaches. Throughout the competition Manchester United legends will also be making an appearance at the festivals to offer their tips and advice. This is a proven Manchester United Soccer School programme designed to build and test the skills of young footballers across the globe. As the competition evolves, two participants from each market, along with their respective coach, will advance to a two-day skills session in Trinidad and Tobago to experience one-on-one training with CFU and Manchester United Soccer School Coaches. There, they will participate in a series of drills designed by the coaches and compete for the chance for two finalists and their coach to win a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Old Trafford in Manchester, England. Considered to be the highlight of the development initiative the two winners along with their coaches will travel to the world-famous football stadium to witness first hand Manchester United's final Premier League game of the season against Crystal Palace. This VIP experience will also include a visit to the Manchester United Museum and Tour, taking in the history of the club followed by a tour of the iconic stadium. Story continues Manchester United's Group Managing Director, Richard Arnold said, "Youth development is at the heart of this Club's traditions and success. The Manchester United Soccer Schools were developed to help spread this spirit to as many children as possible. In recent years our partners have been instrumental in helping the great work of our Soccer Schools coaches reach young people around the world. We're proud to work with Flow on this project." "Like Manchester United, Flow also has a deep sense of commitment to youth development as can be seen by our support of several programmes throughout the region that help to hone the skills of young footballers," said Garfield Sinclair, Flow's newly appointed President of the Caribbean . Sinclair also said, "We're therefore proud to work in partnership with Manchester United to offer this once in a lifetime experience to our talented youngsters across the region." The Caribbean Football Union's ( CFU ) President Gordon Derrick gave a ringing endorsement of The Ultimate Football Experience, as he added: "The CFU is proud to be a partner with Flow on this exhilarating and beneficial initiative. Hundreds of young footballers in 15 countries -- half of the CFU's membership -- will have the opportunity to compete, hone their skills, and, for the finalists, live the dream. I am confident that this partnership will bode well for the future of football in the region." The Ultimate Football Experience is one of several Manchester United and Flow partnership initiatives. In January, Flow hosted the FA Cup Caribbean Tour during which the Company gave football fans up-close and unprecedented access to football's most coveted trophy. The final leg of the tour culminated in the Cayman Islands, where Manchester United ambassador Dwight Yorke made an appearance . Cable and Wireless is Manchester United's telecommunications partner in the Caribbean . 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 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 5 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 . || Gartman: Don't Buy Stocks, Consider Gold: Dennis Gartman is the man behind The Gartman Letter, a daily newsletter discussing global capital markets. For almost 30 years, The Gartman Letter has tackled the political, economic and social trends shaping the world's markets. ETF.com recently caught up with Gartman to discuss the latest developments in the financial markets. ETF.com: The stock market continues to hit record highs on a daily basis, with the Dow up 11-straight sessions through Friday [Feb. 24]. You characterized this rally as a "melt-up." Should investors be happy about it, or should they be concerned? Dennis Gartman: They should be egregiously concerned, because they have to ask themselves if they honestly believe all of the benefits that have been put forth by the Trump administration are going to absolutely come to fruition. Will there be tax cuts as consequential as Mr. Trump has indicated? There'll be tax cuts, but will they be as consequential? Probably not. Will there be infrastructure spending? Not a question. But will there be as much infrastructure spending as the markets seem to anticipate? Probably not. Those things make it difficult to remain bullish of stocks at these levels. The market can go higher, but it is at levels I find to be nosebleed territory. People should be very careful up here. New purchases are to be avoided; old purchases should be hedged up in some fashion using derivatives or options; and bring stop orders up close behind the market. ETF.com: From what I gather, you think Trump's agenda is going to be bullish for stocks, but not as bullish as the market is anticipating. Gartman: Mr. Trump's agenda is bullish for the economy, but not necessarily bullish for stocks. That sounds illogical, but it's not illogical at all. Why do stocks go up before economies come out of a recession? Because at the bottoms—when the monetary authorities become expansionary—that money finds its way into the capital markets, because it isn't needed in plants, equipment and labor. Story continues You get that period of time that stocks take off on the upside and the economy continues to dwindle, and everybody wonders how stocks can continue to go up. That's what happens at bottoms. On the other hand, at the tops of economic expansions, when there’s demand for plants and equipment and labor, money has to come from somewhere―especially if the monetary authorities are starting to err on the side of being restrictive rather than expansionary, as the Fed currently is. At that point, money comes out of the capital markets and goes into plants and equipment and labor. Trump's proposals and his agenda are very bullish for the economy. By definition, therefore, it's somewhat bearish for equity prices after this sort of extended rally. ETF.com: Do you think we're close to the end of this bull market we've been in for eight years? Gartman: We are; I would counsel people not to be a buyer of equities up here. If you’re an owner of equities, I would counsel strongly to bring stops up behind your positions, buy puts to protect those positions, sell futures to protect those positions, or write covered calls to protect those positions. I would tell you not to be a buyer of new equities. And anything that you had in the past, do something to protect those profits. ETF.com: Another bull market that seemed to come to an end recently was in the bond market. Bonds sold off sharply last year and interest rates spiked up. Do you think the 30-year run in bonds is over, and will rates continue to head higher? Gartman: Yes, I do. That 30-plus-year bull market, which began in August 1982, is over. It's hard to believe, but I was there at the beginning. I was there at the end of the previous bear market, and I was there at the beginning of this long, protracted bull market in bonds (or the long, protracted decline in interest rates). It's hard for me to make people remember, but in 1982, the 30-year bond had a coupon of 14.75%, and you couldn't give them away at the time. It was astonishing how bad the psychology was. But since 1982, we've been in a 30-plus-year bull market; that bull market has ended. The trend is for higher interest rates, not lower. But you must also remember the bond market tends to move in multidecade, long-term trends. If we're in for 20, 30 or 40 years of higher rates, for the first 15 or 20 years, we'll see rates go up very slowly, and very marginally. It's at the end of this next bear market―the last quarter―that rates will go up the fastest and prices of bonds will fall the most dramatically. So while interest rates are going higher, there's no reason to be panicky about that right now. ETF.com: In this environment, where stocks are overvalued and bonds go down slowly, are there any assets you like right now? Gartman: For the first time in a while, I think you should own commodities in general. You should own gold in dollar terms; you should own gold in euro terms; you should own gold in yen-denominated terms. Gold has started to be a bull market. Also, for the first time in almost four or five years, I'm actually bullish of the crude oil market. Because the term structure had shifted and crude oil prices don't break on bearish news any longer, I'm starting to find myself turning bullish on that commodity. Contact Sumit Roy at sroy@etf.com . Recommended Stories SEC Rejects Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF Swedroe: Political Biases Can Impact Your Investing Big Bitcoin ETF Decision Coming Today, Or Maybe Not This Fallen Angel ETF Really A Rising Star What Snap’s Pop & Drop IPO Means For ETFs Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Bitcoin trading shrivels under Chinese government's glare: By Brenda Goh SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Trading volumes at China's three largest bitcoin exchanges have plummeted after the central bank put the virtual currency market under sharper scrutiny a month ago in a move that coincided with official efforts to stem capital outflows. China had been the world's leading venue for bitcoin trading, with analytics site Bitcoinity estimating that the OkCoin, Huobi and BTCC exchanges had accounted for more than 90 percent of the global bitcoin market on Jan. 11. But data compiled by analytics platform Sosobtc showed the number of bitcoins traded on the three exchanges slumped from 13.6 million on Jan. 6 to just over 120,000 on Feb. 9. The People's Bank of China launched checks into the three exchanges last month and they have responded by saying that they would improve their systems to prevent money laundering and the use of bitcoin to trade against the yuan. On Thursday, the People's Bank of China said it had also warned smaller bitcoin exchanges that it would shut them down if they violated regulations. 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. That, and the relative anonymity the digital currency offers, has prompted some market operators to believe bitcoin had become an attractive, if niche, option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and skirt rules limiting how much foreign exchange individuals can buy each year. The three main exchanges have introduced trading fees, stopped allowing margin lending and increased scrutiny of user identities, making it far less attractive for automated, high speed trades which had previously accounted for the lion's share of their business. The absence of trading fees had provided an advantage over overseas rivals earlier, but that advantage has now gone, traders said. Business has virtually dried up on Beijing-based high-speed bitcoin trading platform BotVS, according to chief executive Chen Zhenguo. "With the transaction fees the profits you can get from hedging (Bitcoin) are too low...You might as well put your money in Yu'e Bao," he said, referring to a money market fund run by an Alibaba Group affiliate. Other traders voiced similar sentiments. Cai Wenhao, business manager at Sosobtc, said trading volume levels in China would likely normalise to around those seen on exchanges elsewhere, like the Hong Kong-based Bitifinex and U.S.-based Coinbase. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by SHANGHAI Newsroom and John Ruwitch; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) || Emerging Markets Report: Betting on a BitCoin Run: ORLANDO, FL / ACCESSWIRE / March 14, 2017 /On March 3, 2017 a single BitCoin hit an all-time high, with the digital currency trading for as much as $1,283. The rise was driven, at least in part, by speculation that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was considering the approval of the first BitCoin-based ETF. Factor in that the leading proponents of the BitCoin based ETF were the Winkelvoss twins of Facebook fame and it is clear that the BitCoin world is in a very different place than it was just a few years ago. This could bode well for companies which have tethered their business to BitCoin and other global digital currencies. EnterDigatrade (DIGAF), a fully-reporting public company on the OTCQB that provides a proprietary global digital asset exchange that includes BitCoin and other others. Digatrade is indeed a pure digital currency play with a mantra of "digitizing finance one bit at a time." The Company is owned and operated by Digatrade Financial Corp, a company with headquarters in Vancouver, Canada. The proprietary Digatrade trading and matching engine manages high volume, high throughput, and low latency trading and was modeled on the same technology recently leveraged by the world's largest Investment Banks. It also features blended multi-currency settlement in addition to real time FX pricing and risk management fully powered by ANX Technologies. Digatrade offers an easy, secure, and affordable platform to buy and sell Bitcoin and other digital assets. Digatrade offers a 24 hour online platform that provides the automated matching of orders between its registered members and it strives to be your Bitcoin connection by making the experience as effortless as possible. It is Digatrade's mission to promote a healthy eco-system by providing value-added Bitcoin exchange services to the public. Digatrade is also lowering the barriers to Bitcoin and other digital asset adoption by increasing ways for consumers to acquire and access digital assets. The Digatrade user interface is focused on simplicity yet provides its' users with all the details they expect when buying and selling Bitcoin. Our designers regularly hold focus groups with the public to obtain feedback on their user experience and preferred user interface. Ease of use and simplicity are the number one priority. If you're looking for confusing menus or complicated navigation then you've come to the wrong place! Security is the cornerstone of Digatrade and the Digatrade team. Every element of our operation has been methodically designed for optimum security. This includes all factors including physical intrusion, exhaustive vetting and background checking of staff members, the cold storage of coins and manual (yet efficient) processing of all withdrawal requests, and dedicated awareness of recurring security threats such as social engineering, phishing, and remote zero day exploits to name only a few. For more information on DIGATRADE visitdigatrade.com. About the Emerging Markets Report: Emerging Markets Report is owned and operated by Emerging Markets Consulting, a syndicate of investor relations consultants representing years of experience. Our network consists of stock brokers, investment bankers, fund managers, and institutions that actively seek opportunities in the micro and small-cap equity markets. For more informative reports such as this, please sign up athttp://www.emergingmarketsllc.com/newsletter.php Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 requires that any person that uses the mails to publish, give publicity to, or circulate any publication or communication that describes a security in return for consideration received or to be received directly or indirectly from an issuer, underwriter, or dealer, must fully disclose the type of consideration (i.e. cash, free trading stock, restricted stock, stock options, stock warrants) and the specific amount of the consideration. In connection therewith, EMC has received the following compensation and/or has an agreement to receive in the future certain compensation, as described below. We may purchase Securities of the Profiled Company prior to their securities becoming publicly traded, which we may later sell publicly before, during or after our dissemination of the Information, and make profits therefrom. EMC has been paid 50,000 dollars by Marzany Inc. for preparation and distribution of this report and other media services. Emerging Markets Consulting, LLCFlorida Office15701 State Road 50, Suite #205Clermont, FL 34711E-mail:jamespainter@emergingmarketsllc.comWeb:www.emergingmarketsllc.com SOURCE:Emerging Markets Report || Logitech Is Ready To Show It Is Bigger Than Just Computer Mouses: Logitech International SA (USA) (NASDAQ: LOGI ) is ready to prove to the world it is more than just a maker of computer mouses. Moving Beyond The Mouse According to a Bloomberg report , Logitech's stock has quadrupled over the past four years as the company maintained its reputation of providing quality products and accessories for PC and other technologies. But now under the direction of its CEO Bracken Darrell, the company is ready to take itself to the next level. Darrell took over Logitech four years ago, and his goal is to establish the company as a technology company that can tie together TVs, appliances and voice controlled devices. The executive believes his company is better positioned to win in the growing market over the dominant names in tech like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ). He told Bloomberg that these tech giants don't want to be "in every little puddle around their operating systems," which leaves a void in the market for a company Logitech. See Also: Logitech Breaks Company Record With Nine iF DESIGN AWARDS in 2017 Logitech's Uphill Battle Logitech does face an uphill battle, as it devotes less than $150 million annually to fund its research and development. By comparison, Amazon's R&D spend totals $16 billion. Nevertheless, Darrell wants to leverage the profits Logitech earns from the PC mouse and keyboard business to finance an entry into areas such as voice-controlled devices, video collaboration and augmented-reality games. Investors may get a sneak peak at the company's plans in April when management hosts a meeting with investors on Tuesday. Image Credit: By Coolcaesar at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons See more from Benzinga One Of The Top Ranked Financial Advisers Thinks Stocks Can Rise 50% - But Don't Call It A 'Trump Rally' For The First Time Ever, One Bitcoin Is More Valuable Than One Ounce Of Gold Snap's Unproven Monetization Potential Doesn't Deserve To Trade At A Premium To Facebook © 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || Digital Currencies Went Crazy in the Wake of the SEC’s Bitcoin Ruling: Something strange is happening in the world of digital currency. When the Securities and Exchange Commission passed aharsh judgmentlast week on bitcoin, many expected the entire asset class to crumble. Instead, the opposite has happened. The SEC ruling, if you missed it, came down on Friday afternoon. The long-awaited decision, citing the possibility of fraud and market manipulation, rejected a proposal to create an exchange traded fund (ETF) for bitcoin, and threw cold water onhopes institutional investors would use the ETFto stock up on the currency. The market quicklypunished bitcoin, driving its price down to around $1,050--a more than 15% drop from its highs earlier that day. But when it came to other digital currencies, investors didn’t bail on them. They started gobbling them up. These other currencies such as Ethereum and Ripple (there are dozens) aren’t as famous as bitcoin but have been around for a while, and some people treat them as a proxy asset for bitcoin. Since the SEC decision, they’ve all shot up, some of them dramatically. Here is a chart that shows how the prices have changed. The data is compiled from each currency’s lowest price on March 10 (the day of the ruling) through Tuesday morning: As you can see,Ethereumhas made spectacular gains. The currency, which is tied to a popular new form of blockchain technology, is up around 60%. Dash, a less well-known bitcoin rival, is up about 59%. Get Data Sheet, Fortune's technology newsletter The other surprise in chart is how nicely bitcoin has recovered from the SEC’s punch last Friday. Here’s a closer look, courtesy ofCoindesk, of how its price has moved since Friday: As you can see, bitcoin is nudging back towards its near all-time high of $1,300, which came amid a frenzy of speculation that a positive SEC ruling would send the price soaring. For now, there is no clear explanation of why bitcoin recovered so quickly, or why the so-called “alt-currencies” like Dash initially rose when bitcoin fell. Some commentators have suggested the recent boom comes from new digital currency converts who learned about the assets as a result of the publicity surrounding the ETF decision. Others say the recent prices simply reflect the fact that digital currencies are a far more sturdy asset than they were two years ago, and their values can no longer be derailed by a bit of negative news. It’s also worth noting the SEC jolt from last week has brought about a change in the makeup of the overall market cap for digital currency. Note below how bitcoin’s share of the pie has dropped about 10% since the news: The upshot of this is that while bitcoin still clearly dominates the digital currency world, other assets--particularly Ethereum--may now be emerging as more than also-rans. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com • Snow Storm Stella Hit the Stock Market Harder Than Wall Street Expected • Here's Why Disney's Shares Are a Buy • Why Ackman's Exit May Not Be the End of Valeant's Stock Plunge • Verizon Wanted a Much Bigger Discount on Its Yahoo Bid • Here's Why National Napping Day Is Actually a Serious Matter || 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 Bats exchange had applied to list the ETF. The digital currency's price plunged, 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 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) || 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) || 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 Bats exchange had applied to list the ETF. The digital currency's price plunged, 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." Story continues The Winklevoss twins are best known for their feud with Facebook Inc 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) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #SativaCoin #STV $0.005241 (-20.51%) 0.00000504 BTC (-22.25%) || Amid Bitcoin Price Recovery, http://Investing.com  Suggests 'Strong Buy' https://goo.gl/wCVmgj  || #Bitcoin 0.00% Ultima: R$ 3255.52 Alta: R$ 3293.99 Baixa: R$ 3255.00 Fonte: Foxbit || NH Lawmakers Advance Proposed Bitcoin MSB Exemption: Legislators have advanced a bill in New.. #Bitcoin #Altcoinhttp://dld.bz/fzqpX  || BITSTAMP INTRODUCES XRP/BTC TRADING PAIR http://ift.tt/2ktohl7  #reddit #bitcoin || USDs Impact on the #bitcoin & Remittance Industries in Iran Novatti http://www.novatti.com/17-02-17-usds-impact-bitcoin-remittance-industries-iran …pic.twitter.com/SrMCe8NisT || VEM COM A GENTE VOCÊ TAMBÉM. GANHE MAIS DE 2 MIL BTC AO MÊS SEM INDICAR E NEM VENDER NADA SIM É POSSÍVEL TENHA... http://fb.me/6FcwN9VYS  || Send 1.0 - 4.9 BTC today, get 20.00 - 98.00 BTC in 20 hours,investment 2017 year. http://ow.ly/QpnH308DkAf  || Planning the Right Kinds of Long Term Investments, bitcoin double multiply . http://ow.ly/ep6K3092YFk  || New post: "Leading Chinese Bitcoin Exchange BTCC: Crypto Withdrawals 'Will Resume' March 15" http://ift.tt/2kNaW3f 
Trend: down || Prices: 1187.81, 1100.23, 973.82, 1036.74, 1054.23, 1120.54, 1049.14, 1038.59, 937.52, 972.78
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)] Binance Hacked: Bitcoin Exchange Suffers $40 Million Security Breach: ByCCN:Binance, the No. 1 cryptocurrency exchange based on trading volume, has been hacked.Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who is at the helm of the exchange,made the announcementon Twitter after previously sharing that “unscheduled server maintenance” was unfolding. The Binance CEOtweetedthat it “was not the best of days.” As it turns out, it was much worse than imagined, with hackers making away with 7,000 bitcoins, which at the current BTC price is worth approximately $40 million. The funds were stolen from Binance’s hot wallet, which was comprised of 2% of the exchange’s bitcoin holdings. Binance issued the following statement: “We have discovered a large scale security breach today, May 7, 2019 at 17:15:24. Hackers were able to obtain a large number of user API keys, 2FA codes, and potentially other info. The hackers used a variety of techniques, including phishing, viruses and other attacks. We are still concluding all possible methods used. There may also be additional affected accounts that have not been identified yet.” The glass half full is that Binance has a SAFU fund, which is a Secure Asset Fund for Users. The fund is designed for situations like this unfortunate one, and the exchange made the following announcement: “Binance will use the SAFU fund to cover this incident in full. No user funds will be affected.” Read the full story on CCN.com. || Algorithmic Crypto Trading Firm GSR Launches Crypto Hedging Product: Hong Kong-based algorithmic crypto trading firm GSR launched cryptocurrency variance swaps, a product for hedging against volatility . The company announced the development in a press release published on April 24. Per the announcement, the variance swaps will allow investors, traders, businesses and other crypto portfolio holders to hedge against crypto volatility. According to Investopedia , a financial swap is a financial derivative used to speculate on the volatility of an asset. The launch announcement of bitcoin ( BTC ) and ether ( ETH ) variance swaps claims that the derivative is the easiest way to get exposure to the volatility of the underlying assets. The contracts are on annualized variance or annualized volatility squared. The derivative allows users to trade the difference between a value set upfront and the variance realized during the duration of the swap. The company explains that ways to obtain a similar effect through the use of vanilla options (puts and calls) exist, but they are much more labor intensive since they need to be actively managed and periodically rebalanced in order to hedge. Lastly, the release claims that GSR successfully traded and managed billions of dollars worth of digital assets through their software. As Cointelegraph recently reported , private bank Kleinwort Hambros launched an exchange-traded note made up of blockchain -related companies. A different derivative, an XRP-based exchange traded product, has been launched on Switzerland’s principal stock exchange, SIX. Related Articles: Crypto Markets Slump, Oil Prices Report Losses Bitcoin Breaks Back Above $5,500, Cryptos Recover From Major Sell-Off Bitcoin Dominates Demand as Genesis Processes $425 Million of Loans in Q1 2019 Almost All Top 100 Coins in Red, Bitcoin Holds Weekly Gains After Dipping Below $5,500 || Bitcoin hits 6-month Highs, Potentially Targeting levels Above $6’000: To assess the short-term prospects, it is worth noting thatBitcoin managed to riseabove the local highs of April. From the technical analysis perspective, the first cryptocurrency may not meet substantial resistance on its way up to the area of $6,000. Support in the form of a 200-day average, was able to withstand, which probably marked the end of the corrective pullback and attracted new buyers who entered the market to buy “cheaper”. Among the news drivers, the market was excited by a large transaction of 40,000BTC in one of the largest wallets. The owner and reasons for the movement of funds have not been identified, but it is obvious that the market has begun to move, and large movements stimulate smaller market participants to follow the “whale”. At the moment, market participants are increasingly sympathetic to Bitcoin, which is good news for “BTC-Maximalists”. The XRP price at the end of last month fell declined to 7-month lows, being obviously “below the market”. But recently Ripple announces new partnerships that will use the xCurrent system, where the XRP token is involved. It seems that the company seeks to influence investor sentiments. Sometime ago, Ripple has entered into an agreement with Ria Money Transfer and Saudi British Bank (SABB), and in both cases will be used Ripple infrastructure based on XRP. The leading provider of information on the crypto market — CoinMarketCap — also conducts work to improve investor sentiment. The company announced that by June of the current year, it will begin to remove exchanges that have not confirmed their trading volumes. Now, those wishing to get on the list will have to connect to the Data Accountability & Transparency Alliance (DATA), where they will be required to show trading data in real time. It seems that CMC is in a great hurry to prove the truthfulness of the rating before actions from the regulator. This article was written byFxPro Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Bitcoin hits 6-month Highs, Potentially Targeting levels Above $6’000 • Gold Price Forecast – Gold markets rally on Friday • GBP/JPY Weekly Price Forecast – British pound bounces slightly for the week • Forex Daily Recap – The Greenback was 0.57% Down Amid Downbeat USD Data • Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver markets recuperate a bit during the week • GBP/USD Weekly Price Forecast – British pound rallies for the week but finds resistance again || DATA Ultimatum: CoinMarketCap Requests More Information From Exchanges to Make Market More Transparent: Recently, CoinMarketCap ( CMC ), arguably the industry’s best-known cryptocurrency market data service, announced an initiative to provide “greater transparency, accountability, and disclosure from projects in the crypto space.” The move followed recent reports on fake volume data and wash trading among cryptocurrency exchanges that were published last month. Now, all exchanges are required to provide mandatory application programming interface (API) data to CMC by June 2019. Those who fail to do so risk getting delisted from the platform. So, can this brand new scheme cleanse the market from untrustworthy data? Fake volume is one of crypto market’s chief problems: two reports Recently, a number of researches highlighted the problem of fake volume among crypto exchanges, suggesting that the majority of platforms claim to handle unrealistic amounts of transactions. As explained by Changpeng Zhao , the CEO of Binance , some exchanges alter their volume to get ranked higher on popular trackers like CMC, and hence get exposure and attract new clients. The Tie: 90% of the volume is fake, 75% of crypto exchanges look suspicious While the problem of fake volume isn’t particularly new to the crypto market , at least two recent reports have stirred up a new wave of discussion. First, on March 18, trading analytics platform the Tie reported that almost 90% of cryptocurrency exchanges’ reported trade volumes may be fake, and that as much as three-quarters of those platforms have suspicious volumes. To conduct the research, the Tie took the reported trading volume for the last 30 days of the top 100 exchanges. They subsequently divided that data by the exchange’s website visits over 30 days estimated by SimilarWeb to determine the volume per visit. As a result, Binance reported $750 traded per visit, Bittrex reported $138 traded per visit, Coinbase Pro $341, Bitfinex $862 and Poloniex $63. Thus, to calculate the expected volume, the researchers used a weighted average of the trading volumes per website visit across Binance, Coinbase Pro, Poloniex, Gemini and Kraken — resulting in $591 — and multiplied this number by the web views. The Tie explained that it picked these exchanges “because of large usage among institutions, reputation within the market, and because their web viewership appeared consistent with their reported trading volumes.” Story continues “In total we estimated that 87% of exchanges reported trading volume was potentially suspicious and that 75% of exchanges had some form of suspicious activity occurring on them,” the organization tweeted at the time, adding that it affects the larger picture: 13/ If each exchange averaged the volume per visit of CoinbasePro, Gemini, Poloniex, Binance, and Kraken, we would expect the real trading volume among the largest 100 exchanges to equal $2.1B per day. Currently that number is being reported as $15.9B. pic.twitter.com/jZzezJMmKk — The TIE (@TheTIEIO) March 18, 2019 Notably, on March 21, two exchanges featured in the research as having questionable figures — LBank and Bit-Z — dethroned Binance in terms of the adjusted trade volume on CMC. According to research presented by the Tie, LBank’s estimated reported volume per website visit amounts to $65,850. However, the Tie admitted that its research had certain limitations: Specifically, the website views didn’t take into account API, mobile application trades and desktop client trades. Because of that, the data could, in theory, just mean that either a much more significant than average portion of LBank users use the API, desktop or mobile clients, or that an LBank user trades over $65,000 per session on average. The Tie notes: “There were limitations to this report including some of the aforementioned, but the point of the exercise was to show those exchanges that appear most suspicious and to start a greater conversation around wash trading, transaction mining, and liquidity.” Bitwise: 95% of bitcoin trading volume on unregulated exchanges appears to be fake On March 20, another substantial report on fake volume surfaced . Issued by cryptocurrency index fund provider Bitwise Asset Management, it argued that 95% of bitcoin trading volume on unregulated exchanges appears to be fake or noneconomic in nature. Notably, Bitwise sourced its data from CMC, which it claims includes a large amount of this suspect data, “thereby giving a fundamentally mistaken impression” of the actual size of the bitcoin market. Bitwise ultimately wrote that the real market for BTC is “significantly smaller, more orderly, and more regulated than commonly understood” — amounting in reality to $273 million instead of the $6 billion reported on CMC. To prove its point, Bitwise first analyzed Coinbase Pro as an example of a regulated exchange to outline trustworthy trading patterns, including an “unequal and streaky” mix of red (sell orders) and green (buy orders) trades, whose distribution fluctuates considerably at any given time. Further, Bitwise studied spread as a parameter, noting: “It’s [the spread is] $0.01. At the time this screenshot was taken, bitcoin was trading at $3,419. That means bitcoin was trading at a 0.0003% spread, making it amongst the tightest quoted spread of any financial instrument in the world.” Coinbase Pro reported around $27 million in daily traded volume of BTC at the time of Bitwise’s analysis — as compared with $480 million reported by Coinbene. The latter was used by the index fund provider to demonstrate the patterns typical of what it characterizes as “suspicious exchanges.” Suspect signs included an unlikely perfect alternating pattern of green and red trades, as well as a lack of trades with round numbers or small values. On Coinbene, buy and sell orders also appear in timestamped pairs, with one compensating the other. Moreover, the spread on Coinbene at the time of Bitwise’s analysis was $34.74: “that compares to $0.01 on Coinbase Pro. It is surprising that an exchange claiming 18x more volume than Coinbase Pro would have a spread that is 3400x larger.” Additionally, as per the Bitwise paper, suspect exchanges showed consistent volume throughout the day, while on regulated exchanges, volume corresponded to waking and sleeping hours. CMC’s response: the DATA alliance On March 25, Carylyne Chan, global head of marketing at CMC, told Bloomberg that concerns over fake volume “are valid,” which is why more information will be added to the website to help users make better decisions. "For instance, if an exchange with low traffic has $300M volume and just 5 BTC in its wallet, users will be able to draw their own conclusions without the need for us to make arbitrary judgment calls on what is ’good’ or ’bad.’ We want to state that our philosophy is to provide as much information as possible to our users, so that they can form their own conclusions and interpretations — and not introduce our own bias into that mix." On May 1, CMC announced that it will require all crypto exchanges to provide mandatory API data, which includes their live trading data and live order book data, as part of a new transparency initiative titled “the Data Accountability & Transparency Alliance” (DATA). The alliance was originally announced in CMC’s sixth anniversary blog post . The company explained that it has to deal with regular requests to delist crypto exchanges based on unverifiable information — such as screenshots of chat logs and emails — which is why CMC chose to empower its users to make more informed decisions and “provide a means for projects to differentiate themselves through enhanced disclosures” instead of applying harsh censorship: “We are paying close attention to the growing discourse surrounding ‘fake volumes’ of exchanges. This is not a trivial problem to solve, as seemingly innocuous decisions can carry unintended consequences. To add to the complexity, we need to be mindful of the numerous use cases for our data – what some deem to be ‘fake data’ is information in and of itself that can yield interesting analyses, and it is important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Indeed, CMC seems to aim for a softer approach after removing a number of South Korean exchanges from its platform “due to the extreme divergence in prices from the rest of the world and limited arbitrage opportunity” back in January 2018, when it caused a major drop in the market . Stressing that the new condition will be compulsory, the tracker stressed that any exchange that does not provide the data will be not be included in the price and adjusted volume calculations on the site. The changes will come into effect on June 14, 2019, CoinMarketCap noted. Specifically, the required data includes exchange hot/cold wallet addresses (“indicative numbers to enable users to determine solvency of selected exchange”), live market-pair trading status (“more granular trading data at the market-pair level for further analysis”), live wallet status (“summary status of all possible deposits and withdrawals across currencies”), and historical trade data (“all time-stamped historical trades for tracking, and in some cases, compliance”). “Our stance is that we do not censor any information, but rather will present all the information to users so that they can make their own judgments and decisions on the data presented,” Chan told Cointelegraph. “This philosophy of providing all the information rather than making our own judgment calls or censorship/curation is the same for data submitted by DATA members.” The global head of marketing at CMC added: “As with all API endpoints submitted to us from exchanges (of which we now have 257 on CoinMarketCap) we work closely to ensure that the endpoints are up and running effectively. This constitutes the reported volume information that is presented on the site. The adjusted volume metric excludes those exchanges with fee rebates or transaction mining, and with the new mandatory data requirements, those that do not provide their live trade and orderbook data.” When asked whether players have enough time to gather and submit the required information, Chan replied that the data “should not be technically hard for exchanges to provide,” and that the 45-day notice should ensure that there is enough time for everyone to join. According to her, no exchange has explicitly declined to join DATA so far: “We carefully evaluated the requirements so as to make sure they are reasonable and not unnecessarily onerous for the majority of exchanges to provide. In fact, about 150 exchanges already submit this data, and we are simply waiting for the other exchanges to come up to speed on these data points.” Exchanges’ comments At this point, DATA is comprised of 12 exchanges : Binance, Bittrex, OKEx, Huobi, Liquid, UpBit, IDEX, OceanEX, Gate.io, KuCoin, HitBTC and Bitfinex. Michael Gan, CEO of KuCoin, told Cointelegraph that CMC approached them about one month ago: “After they introduced the whole idea, we soon decided to join DATA, as one of the early members. We are still communicating with CMC in terms of all the data submission and it will be done before the deadline.” Starry Liu, head of marketing at OceanEX, told Cointelegraph that they were the only Initial Launch Partner of DATA that exists for less than one year. According to Liu, OceanEX approached CMC earlier this year to discuss “the idea of setting up an alliance to improve transparency across the whole industry,'' and soon joined the initiative: “We found out this is also CMC’s goal. They actively asked about our feedback and acted really fast during the preparation of DATA.” Liu specified to Cointelegraph that OceanEX integrated its data to the DATA project in less than one month. The information is collected, but not monitored by CMC, she confirmed: “We prepare and stream raw data from OceanEx to them and CMC is taking a role more of collecting and disclosing data to the public, instead of monitoring. We may have different roles in this program, but we share the same vision and the ultimate goal, that is to benefit the community and the users.” The KuCoin CEO, however, told Cointelegraph that CMC “mentioned that they will have a team to check all the data submitted, ensuring its accuracy as the DATA project expected.” A representative of Exmo, the United Kingdom-based exchange that has applied to join DATA but has not been added to the official roster yet, told Cointelegraph that, while the new alliance is “a considerable step to the formation of the sustainable market,” the industry needs more solutions for the deep-rooted problems such as fake volume. Maria Stankevich, head of business development and communications at the exchange, wrote in an email: “The fact that the data from the trading platforms will be collected in real time will expand the possibilities for studying the market and analyzing it and improve the understanding of the characteristics of various exchanges — that's for sure. But this does not mean that the data provided by the websites will be completely objective. “The same thing applies to the additional information about the exchanges, that is supposed to be submitted by the projects and exchanges by themselves. We don't doubt the fact that it will be really useful for users — as it will be gathered in one place. But in general, we see it as an extension of the functionality of the CMC itself, an increase in its competitiveness in comparison with the other similar data aggregators.” Cointelegraph has reached out to more exchanges currently listed in the top-50 by adjusted volume on CMC that are not part of DATA at this point — including Kraken and Coinbase Pro — but has yet to hear back from them. Matthew Hougan, the author of the aforementioned Bitwise report, told Cointelegraph that he “admires CoinMarketCap for staring down the barrel of systemic fake volume in the crypto market.” “We've seen a number of really robust responses to the problem of fake data, including from OpenMarketCap, Messari and Nomics, and I love that there is a diversity of smart people looking at this problem and driving towards solutions,” Hougan said. However, the researcher also suggested that the data gathered by CMC might still be unsubstantiated in the end: “Ultimately, given the limited nature of regulations, the globally distributed nature of crypto trading, and the perverse incentives to exaggerate volume, the best approach is going to be ‘trust but verify.’ But CoinMarketCap has taken a good first step and is putting some teeth into its reporting requirements, and I'll be interested to see what develops from their efforts.” Meanwhile, CMC plants to extend its initiative even further in the future. “Collecting the data is just the first step,” the tracker wrote . “With a larger dataset, more analyses can be run, and enable the introduction of new, meaningful metrics.” Related Articles: Ripple Escrow Reporting: Creative Accounting or Much Ado About Nothing? Bitcoin Touches $8,200, Gold Hits Its Highest Point Since April Some Major Coins Still Making Gains, Others Trade Sideways as Oil Reports Mixed Signals Bitcoin Surges Above $6,300, Hits Dominance Records From December 2017 || Bitcoin at Most Overbought Level Since Record Bull Run: Bloomberg Analyst: Bitcoin (BTC) is at its most overbought level since its record highs in December 2017, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone claimed in an articlepublishedon April 5. Per the report, Bitcoin’s GTI Global Strength Indicator shows that the coin has not been this overbought since its price neared its record peak of $20,000. Bloomberg also claims that similar patterns in the past have heralded multi-week long downturns. Bitcoin’s GTI Global Strength Indicator. Source:Bloomberg According to McGlone,recent market growthoccurred because of long-term price compression and low volatility, which caused the price to be “released from the cage.” McGlone stated that he expects a similar downturn period to follow the recent growth: “Now it’s a question of duration and I suspect when you have such a massive bubble, you’ll always have an overhang of people who need to sell.” The article also quotes David Tawil, president of crypto hedge fund ProChain Capital, who reportedly expects the market to continue its downward trend. While he admits that “it’s nice to see a positive move as opposed to a negative move,” he notes that it is not comforting: “Certainly, an investor would much rather see a gradual rise with constant floors in terms of downside being established, as opposed to a very, very quick run-up. It could easily be easy come, easy go.” McGlone’s and Tawil’s analysis appear to contrast with that of Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founderThomas Lee. As Cointelegraphreportedyesterday, according to Lee, Bitcoin is back in a bullish trend. Lee pointed out that BTC has now broken over its 200-day-moving-average. Additionally, trade and author Peter Brandt seemingly disagreed with McGlone, havingtweetedon April 5 that he wouldn't be surprised if Bitcoin was to enter another parabolic phase. Earlier this week, leadingUnited Statesderivative marketCME Grouppointed outthat its Bitcoin futures reported record trading volumes on April 4. • Brexit and April Fool's Joke Possible Catalysts for Crypto Rally, Crypto Reporter Says • Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis April 8 • Electrum Faces Another Fake Wallet Attack, Users Reported to Lose Millions of Dollars • Bitcoin Briefly Breaks New $5,300 Support as Traditional Markets Grow || Smell Something Fishy? The CFTC Will Pay You to Report Crypto Scams: Whistleblower Nestled in the exhibition room at this year’s Consensus conference, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had a message for conference goers as they weaved in and out of booths representing various projects and startups in the space: “Be on the lookout for virtual currency fraud” and if you see it, let us know. CFTC Booth at Consensus 2019 “The Whistleblower Office of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is issuing this alert to inform members of the public about how they may make themselves eligible for both financial awards and certain protections while helping stop [sic] fraud and manipulation relating to virtual currencies,” a handout from the booth reads. The CFTC has long classified bitcoin as a commodity, and the document states that the CFTC considers all “virtual currencies [as] commodities under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).” This same act gives the agency regulatory power to prosecute virtual currency fraudsters. Since the 2017 price run-up, crypto scams have been on the agency’s radar and it’s been keen to keep investors privy to project warning signs . In cooperation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the CFTC has cracked down on illegal bitcoin brokers and dealers , as well as fraudulent crypto consultants and token rackets like My Big Coin . In the whistleblowing briefing document, the CFTC uses My Big Coin and CabbageTech as textbook examples of scammy behavior. Among other red flags it warns potential whistleblowers against pump-and-dump schemes, wash/insider trading, unregistered derivatives platforms and “supervision failures or fraudulent conduct (e.g., creating or reporting fictitious trading) by virtual currency exchanges.” If you notice any of these behaviors in practice, “you don’t have to be an ‘insider’ ... to be a whistleblower,” the document reads. It continues to tell readers that they can tip off bad actors through the agency’s website , asking that they provide as much information on the alleged scams and orchestrators as possible (this includes “identifying information” like social media profiles, screenshots, bitcoin addresses, email addresses, etc.). Story continues Anyone whose whistleblow ends in more than $1 million in sanctions against such companies are entitled to 10 to 30 percent of the monetary penalty. A CFTC representative declined an interview, telling Bitcoin Magazine that each employee must be cleared by the agency to go on record. Bitcoin Magazine did learn that this was the CFTC’s first year at Consensus and that the agency has been making its rounds through the crypto conference circuit over the past year. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang Calls for ‘Clear Guidelines’ on Crypto: Andrew Yang, one of a number of candidates looking to take on U.S. president Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, has released a new policy statement for crypto-assets. In the statement , Yang — who is currently vying for the Democratic Party nomination among a crowded field of candidates — indicated his goal to “create clear guidelines in the digital asset world so that businesses and individuals can invest and innovate in the area without fear of a regulatory shift.” With the move, Yang becomes the first 2020 presidential hopeful to stake out a specific position on cryptocurrency policy. Yang cited three problem areas that, in his view, need addressing: “Cryptocurrency and digital asset markets have developed faster than regulations can keep up….Several states have conflicting and varying regulations on digital asset markets….[and] Uncertainty in what regulatory framework will develop is causing US investment in the area to lag behind the investment of other countries.” Crypto Startups Barred from Indian Central Bank Fintech Sandbox “It’s time for the federal government to create clear guidelines as to how cryptocurrencies/digital asset markets will be treated and regulated so that investment can proceed with all relevant information,” the statement reads. The policy statement additionally cited additional following pledges should Yang be elected president, writing: “As president, I will…promote legislation that provides clarity in the cryptocurrency/digital asset market space by: defining what a token is, and when it is a security (e.g., recognizing “utility tokens”)….Define which federal agencies have regulatory power over the crypto/digital assets space….Provide for consumer protections in the space….Clarify the tax implications of owning, selling, and trading digital assets….Promote the nationwide adoption of recognition of protections afforded by a series LLC….[and] Preempt state regulations when possible to create one national framework.” Story continues Yang’s call for tax clarity is notable, given the push by industry advocates as well as members of Congress on the issue. Coin Center, a D.C.-based firm, also highlighted Yang’s desire to focus on state-based money transmission laws. Iran Could Ban Bitcoin for Payments, Central Bank Report Suggests “We are happy to see that Mr. Yang is taking the issues facing cryptocurrency developers and users seriously,” Neeraj Agrawal, Coin Center’s director of communications, told CoinDesk in an email. “He has identified the most pressing issues affecting this technology and seems have come to the right conclusions on how to best address them.” Yang’s statement specifically cites the Token Taxonomy Act — which was recently re-introduced to Congress in a bid to cryptocurrencies a clearer regulatory footing in the US — as well as the expansive work done to date by legislators in the state of Wyoming. CoinDesk contacted the Yang campaign earlier this week for comment regarding its position on cryptocurrencies as well as data on its crypto-related fundraising to date, but has not heard back as of press time. Andrew Yang photo via lev radin / Shutterstock Related Stories Stablecoin Issuers May Need Licenses in Texas, Unlike Most Crypto Startups Switzerland to Regulate Blockchain Within Existing Financial Laws || Bitcoin Transaction Costs are ‘So Much Cheaper’ than Credit Cards, Says Canadian Mayor: A Canadian town mayor says using bitcoin to pay for property taxes has made transaction costs much cheaper. “The advantage of doing it as opposed to [using] a credit card is the transaction costs are so much cheaper,” Mayor Lynn Dollin of Innisfil, Ontario toldDay 6. Innisfil is the first town in Canada to allow residents to use bitcointo paytheir property taxes. It’s part of a one-year pilot program the town entered into with Coinberry Pay, a Toronto-based cryptocurrency company. The program officially launches this week. Mayor Dollin is embracing the crypto project because she wants to woo entrepreneurs to her lakeshore town of 36,000 people to elevate it has a tech hub one day. “It could attract us some opportunities as far as economic development within our community.” Innisfil is the first town in Canada to accept bitcoin for property taxes. (screenshot/Innisfil.ca) Dollin says she’s aware that bitcoin has been roiled by scandals because it’s anascent, unregulated industry, but says she’s being cautious. Read the full story on CCN.com. || Our Binance Overlord’s Bitcoin SV Slaying is Frightening for Cryptocurrency: Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange,announcedthe delisting of Bitcoin SV (BSV) on Monday after CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao decided he’d had enough of the antics of Fake Satoshi, Craig S. Wright. Within hours,KrakenandShapeshiftfollowed suit. You’d have to travel far and wide to find anyone gullible enough to defend Craig Wright at this point, but there’s a case to be made that by delisting BSV on a whim, Binance has shown itself to be a much more dangerous and pernicious force in the crypto space than Bitcoin SV ever could have been. Accompanied by a tweet from CZ with the words ‘Do the right thing’, Binance droppedthis official announcementdetailing BSV’s removal from the exchange. The announcement states: “… At Binance, we periodically review each digital asset we list to ensure that it continues to meet the high level of standard we expect. When a coin or token no longer meets this standard, or the industry changes, we conduct a more in-depth review and potentially delist it.” That statement differs greatly from the one tweeted out by CZ a day earlier, where he laid out his own personal – not technical – reasons for removing BSV. CZ said: Read the full story on CCN.com. || Bitcoin Hovers Over $5,250 as Top Oil Futures See Slight Uptrend: Friday, April 19 — The top 20cryptocurrenciesare reporting mixed movements on the day by press time, as bitcoin (BTC) hovers over the $5,250 mark. Market visualization courtesy ofCoin360 Bitcoin is down a fraction of a percent on the day, trading at$5,264at press time, according toCoinMarketCap. Looking at its weekly chart, the coin is over 3.5%. Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap Ether (ETH) is holding onto its position as the largest altcoin by market cap, which is nearly $18.2 billion. The second-largest altcoin, Ripple (XRP), has a market cap of $13.9 billion at press time. CoinMarketCap data shows that ETH is up over half of a percent over the last 24 hours. At press time, ETH is trading around $173. On the week, the coin has also seen its value increase by nearly 3.5%. Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap XRP is down nearly 2% over the last 24 hours and is currently trading at around$0.331. On the week, the coin is up a modest 0.6%. Ripple 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap Recently, Hbus, the operator of theUnited States-based version of major crypto exchange Huobi.com,launchedthree trading pairs forXRP. Among the top 20 cryptocurrencies, the coin reporting the most notable price action is binance coin (BNB), which is up 8.8%. As Cointelegraphreportedyesterday,Binancehas launched its mainnet, Binance Chain, and expects to execute the swap of its native BNBtokenon April 23. At press time, thetotal market capitalizationof all cryptocurrencies is $179 billion, over 3% higher than the value it reported a week ago. Total market capitalization 24-hour chart. Source:CoinMarketCap In traditional markets, the United States stock market is seeing little movement so far today, with theS&P 500up 4.58% and theNasdaqup 0.02% at press time. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), on the other hand, has lost a solid 4.05% on the day at press time. Major oil futures and indexes are a slight uptrend today, with WTI Crude up 0.31%, Brent Crude up 0.49% and Mars US up 0.35% at press time. The OPEC Basket is also up 1% and the Canadian Crude Index has seen no price change by press time, according toOilPrices. • Bitcoin Holds Over $5,300 as Top Altcoins See Mixed Signals • Bitcoin Hovers Over $5,250 as Top Cryptos See Growth • Bitcoin Approaches $5,250, US Stocks Slightly Down • Bitcoin Holds Near $5,100 as US Stocks Stand Still [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Followback in 24h Arthur’s same-sex marriage episode didn’t air in Alabama https://t.co/UP5VDrAKs1 IFB ETH BTC Crypto https://t.co/T1sFoyfc4e || [BOT SCAN - 25/05 10h] $BTC dominance: 56.95% 🔥 Total bullish score: 📈 4615 pts 🚫 Total bearish score: 📉 5501 pts For more details, please visit https://t.co/XPXD4lOc5A This bot is experimental. Not financal advise. 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Trend: down || Prices: 8673.22, 8805.78, 8719.96, 8659.49, 8319.47, 8574.50, 8564.02, 8742.96, 8209.00, 7707.77
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 2021-04-14] BTC Price: 63109.70, BTC RSI: 65.60 Gold Price: 1734.90, Gold RSI: 49.10 Oil Price: 63.15, Oil RSI: 57.34 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin-Ether Co-Movement: The two cryptocurrencies have many similarities, and supply-demand differences. Since their respective launches in 2009 and 2014, bitcoin and ether have become the two main cryptocurrencies. Moreover, since CME Group introduced the first bitcoin futures contract in December 2017, and ether futures contract in 2021, both have become more consistently positively correlated (Figure 1) with one-month rolling correlations varying from +0.35 on the low to nearly +1 on the high end. Figure 1: Bitcoin-Ether correlation has been more consistently positive since early 2018 Figure 1: Bitcoin-Ether correlation has been more consistently positive since early 2018 Since the summer of 2018, the close co-movement of the two cryptocurrencies has become readily apparent (Figure 2). They both fell in 2018 and traded sideways in 2019 and early 2020 before rallying together in late 2020 and in early 2021. Figure 2: Since 2019 Ether and Bitcoin prices have tracked each other reasonably closely Figure 2: Since 2019 Ether and Bitcoin prices have tracked each other reasonably closely Bitcoin was designed as a digital currency to act as a store of value and medium of exchange. Since its launch, its attributes as a gold-like store of value and inflation hedge has dominated its role as a medium of exchange due to its limit on eventual supply. By contrast, ether enables the Ethereum network, an open-ended, decentralized, blockchain-based public software program that facilitates peer-to-peer contracts known as smart contracts, as well as decentralized applications known as DAPPS. Smart contracts allow users to exchange value and are written in code rather than human languages to avoid ambiguity. DAPPS can make use of smart contracts on the Ethereum network to achieve decentralization. The Ethereum network enforces that all operations on the data happen according to the smart contract code, allowing the data to maintain its integrity without a trusted third party acting as an intermediary. See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC) Bitcoin and ether have many similarities, in that they both rely on the health of the networks that support them. That said, there are important supply- and demand-side economic differences between them: Story continues Bitcoin supply is limited to 21 million total coins; the number of ether is unlimited Annual creation of ether is limited to 18 million coins; bitcoin’s creation halves every four years 4,957,255 Ethereum coins were created in the past 365 days compared to just 418,450 bitcoin Ether was first distributed via an ICO, with 20% of launch coins going to the Ethereum Foundation. Bitcoin was launched from open source software more than five years before ether came into existence. Up to 5% of bitcoin may been mined by its creator. Owing to its first mover status from 2009, bitcoin continues to enjoy a strong incumbency advantage over most rival cryptocurrencies. Ether, launched in 2014, relies on the growth of its developer network for smart contracts and DAPPS. The Ethereum network’s promoters see it as a blockchain 2.0, an updated version of the bitcoin blockchain that is goes beyond being a store of value. ETH versus BTC: Does relative supply drive the price? Each year far more ether coins are created than bitcoin (Figure 3). In fact, the ratio of new ether versus new bitcoin created over any 365-day period since 2016 has varied between 7x and 16.5x. Figure 3: Far more ether coins are created each year than bitcoin, but the ratio changes over time Figure 3: Far more ether coins are created each year than bitcoin, but the ratio changes over time Is relative supply of ether and bitcoin a driver of the ether/bitcoin exchange rate? For example, when ether is created more rapidly versus bitcoin, does that devalue ether in terms of bitcoin? Or put another way, when the creation of ether accelerates does it cause ether prices to fall relative to bitcoin? The answer appears to be no. In fact, since October 2016, ether prices have often been highest in terms of bitcoin when the creation of new ether was at its highest level as a ratio to the creation of new bitcoin. As such, it seems that a high price of ether relative to bitcoin encourages the creation of more ether on the Ethereum network rather than many new ether coins depressing the price of ether relative to bitcoin (Figure 4). Figure 4: High ether prices relative to bitcoin appear to incentivize the Ethereum network’s growth Figure 4: High ether prices relative to bitcoin appear to incentivize the Ethereum network's growth In 2017, ether rose as high as 0.15 bitcoin. During this bull run, the ratio of new ether supply to bitcoin supply increased from 9x to over 16x. Then, as ether prices fell versus bitcoin in 2018 and 2019, the supply of new ether versus new bitcoin fell to as low as 7x. Recently, ether prices have begun to recover versus bitcoin and the ratio of new ether to new bitcoin supply has risen back toward 12x. Market perceptions of risk Since its inception, ether has been consistently more volatile than bitcoin. The ratio of ether’s volatility versus that of bitcoin has, however, fallen since early 2018. For much of 2017, ether was roughly twice as volatile as bitcoin, but since early 2018, the ratio of the two cryptocurrencies’ volatility (as measured by the annualized standard deviation of daily returns for the past year) has fallen from 2x to around 1.25x (Figure 5). With its higher volatility and usually positive correlation to bitcoin, ether could be understood as a “high beta” version of bitcoin (to borrow a term from the equity universe). That said, as can be seen in Figure 4, the price of ether can still move considerably relative to bitcoin. Figure 5: Ether has been consistently more volatile than bitcoin but their volatilities are converging Figure 5: Ether has been consistently more volatile than bitcoin but their volatilities are converging Bitcoin’s exceptionally high volatility is due in part to bitcoin’s near complete inelastic supply. No matter how high the price rises or how low it falls, the total number of bitcoins never changes (Figure 6). See also: How to Buy Ethereum (ETH) That ether supply creation appears to respond to price, and is hence more elastic than bitcoin supply, does not appear to have dampened ETH’s price volatility. This implies that either demand for ether must be more volatile than demand for bitcoin or ether is subject to greater swings in demand than BTC is. Figure 6: No matter what happens to the price of bitcoin, the eventual supply stays the same Figure 6: No matter what happens to the price of bitcoin, the eventual supply stays the same The price of bitcoin may be influenced by the cost of verifying transactions. Past spikes in “cost per transaction” in 2010, 2013 and 2017 presaged sharp falls in the price of bitcoin. Some of those declines in bitcoin prices were greater than 80% from peak to trough (Figure 7). In terms of ether prices, it is worth pointing out that prices fell sharply in bitcoin terms around the time that bitcoin cost per transaction peaked in 2017 and fell even further than BTC did in percentage terms versus fiat currency terms. As such, investors in ether may wish to keep an eye on the cost per transaction of bitcoin even if they are only exposed to ether and not bitcoin. Figure 7: Do rising transaction costs choke off demand for cryptocurrencies? Figure 7: Do rising transaction costs choke off demand for cryptocurrencies? Finally, in commodity markets like oil, gold and agriculture, one common assumption is that prices cannot durably fall below the cost of production. In the world of cryptocurrencies, the number of calculations needed to create a bitcoin and an ether might serve as a proxy for their cost of production. For the moment, it remains unknown whether the increased difficulty (meaning greater number of calculations) needed to create new ether or bitcoin coins will serve as a sort of soft floor under the price of cryptocurrencies in the future. It is also worth noting that the increase in difficulty and price have both slowed significantly in log terms since 2015 (Figure 8). Figure 8: Will the growing difficulty of mining new coins support prices over the long term? Figure 8: Will the growing difficulty of mining new coins support prices over the long term? To learn more about futures and options, go to Benzinga’s futures and options education resource. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Will Stimulus Stoke Inflation? Rescue Act: Four Key Questions © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Gold Price Prediction – Prices Rebound as Risk Appetite Improves: Gold prices moved higher rebounding as riskier assets gain traction. The U.S. Treasury yields moved lower ahead of Wednesday’s CPI report. The dollar also moved lower paving the way for higher gold prices. German’s January trade figures showed a weaker than expected export figures. Trade gold with FXTM Gold prices moved higher on Tuesday rebounding from support and testing resistance seen near the 10-day moving average at 1,728. Support is seen near the June lows at 1,670. Short-term momentum is positive as the fast stochastic generated a crossover buy signal. The fast stochastic is printing a reading of 14, below the oversold trigger level of 20 which could foreshadow a correction. Medium-term momentum has negative as the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) index generated a crossover sell signal. The MACD histogram is printing in negative territory with a downward sloping trajectory which points to lower prices. Germany’s January trade figures showed a surplus of 14.3 billion euros was mainly in line with expectations. The December figure surplus was revised to 15.2 billion euros from 14.8 billion. Exports defied expectations of a decline and instead rose by 1.4% after a revised 0.4% increase at the end of 2020. Imports slumped by 4.7%. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Scream Higher • Gold Price Prediction – Prices Rebound as Risk Appetite Improves • Bitcoin’s New Records $9.5B in BTC in DeFi, $9.6 in Public Company Holdings • Deutsche Post Raises Outlook, Shares Gain About 3% • AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Formed Potentially Bullish Closing Price Reversal Bottom on Tuesday • Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Rebounds As Treasury Yields Move Lower || Thailand’s Securities Regulator Eyes Qualifications for New Crypto Investors: Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will conduct a public hearing this month to gauge what qualifications should be imposed on retail investors opening new cryptocurrency trading accounts. According to areportby the Bangkok Post on Sunday, the regulator is concerned for investor safety amid the recent meteoric rise in cryptocurrency prices and the resulting flood of sign-ups to local exchanges. The regulator aims to determine if new crypto investors have enough experience and are in a financial position to absorb the risks associated with cryptocurrency trading and volatile price swings. Related:All About Bitcoin - Feb 17, 2021 “We should set some screening criteria such as age, trading experience and level of revenue or wealth to limit risks,” said the SEC’s secretary-general, Ruenvadee Suwanmongkol, adding that such measures are already in place for high-yield bonds, which are only available to certain investor types. The SEC reported 124,000 new investor signups within the first week of February bringing the monthly total to 594,000 as of Feb. 8, according to the Bangkok Post’s report. The hearing comes after the country’s finance minister, Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, asked the SEC tokeep tabson local cryptocurrency exchanges in a bid to protect newcomers. CoinDesk attempted to contact the SEC to ask for more details on the hearing, but had not received a response by press time. Related:The Hash - Feb 17, 2021 See also:Siam Bank Launches $50M Blockchain Fund • Thailand’s Securities Regulator Eyes Qualifications for New Crypto Investors • Thailand’s Securities Regulator Eyes Qualifications for New Crypto Investors || What Is a Bitcoin ETF?: A bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) lets traders gain exposure to BTC via traditional stock markets, without needing to directly buy or sell the digital asset on a cryptocurrency exchange. A bitcoin ETF is an exchange-traded fund that specifically tracks the price of the leading cryptocurrency and allows traders to purchase or sell the security on a stock exchange throughout the day. They can be cash-settled or physically settled, meaning investors will receive either fiat currency or actualbitcoinupon exiting, respectively. ETFs are regulated traditional financial products and can be bought through a number of retail-friendly mobile trading apps, including Robinhood, Trading212, TD Ameritrade and Fidelity. The most popular ones track major stock indexes, such as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, or other traditional assets and commodities like oil and gold. Related:The Business of Art and How NFTs Will Change It, With Nanne Dekking Bitcoin ETFs have been a hot topic in the crypto space for many years, ever since the Winklevoss twins’“COIN” bitcoin ETFfiled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2013 was rejected. It was widely believed that a bitcoin ETF would usher in a new wave of institutional investment into the crypto industry, bringing much-needed maturity and stability to the market. Seven years on, however, the SEC still has yet to approve a bitcoin ETF despite dozens of proposals from multiple companies including a second Winklevoss Twin ETF in 2018, one from Bitwise, five from Direxion, two from GraniteShares and many more. Themain argumentsgiven by the SEC for these repeat rejections have been that the bitcoin market is too volatile, lacks sufficient surveillance and is too easily manipulated. Things may be about to change, however, as Canada’s financial regulator, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), recently approved the world’s first two bitcoin ETFs in quick succession. ThePurposeBitcoin ETF (BTCC) and theEvolveBitcoin ETF (EBIT) are both physically settled ETFs and have applied to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. TradeBlock, a CoinDesk subsidiary, is the index provider for the Purpose ETF. With the arrival of a bitcoin ETF in North America, many areoptimisticthe SEC will follow suit soon in the United States especially if Gary Gensler, former commissioner of the Commodity and Futures Commission (CFTC) and MIT blockchain tutor, isconfirmed by the U.S. Senateto replace former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. Related:Why Everyone Wants an Invite to Clubhouse Crypto “My guess is we get an ETF this year,”saysMike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital and former colleague of Gensler at Goldman Sachs in the late 1990s. “Gary taught a class on blockchain at MIT and on crypto. He understands it cold. He’s progressive, right? And progressives broadly are going to go after … the rent takers. Crypto is not a rent taker… Crypto is trying to disrupt the rent takers.” Bloomberg Senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas,tweetedhis support for the new bitcoin ETFs, adding, “U.S. usually follows shortly after. Good sign for U.S. bitcoin ETF.” Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, also anticipates pressure will now be on the SEC to follow suit. “Now that the OSC has said that if a product is well constructed enough the crypto market is sufficiently mature for these types of financial products, the industry’s attention inevitably turns south of the border to the U.S.” You don’t need to be an accredited investor to purchase ETFs. Anyone can invest in them. All you need in order to begin investing in ETFs is to set up an online brokerage account or download one of the many mobile trading apps. From there, you’ll be able to buy and sell a wide range of ETFs that track a number of different markets. A list of leading mobile trading services can be foundhere. While it might seem counterintuitive to invest in a bitcoin ETF rather than buy actual bitcoin, there are a number of advantages to doing it this way, namely: • No need to go through the process of having to store crypto safely yourself • Buying an ETF through an online broker is significantly more secure, faster and less prone to outages than purchasing digital assets directly from a crypto exchange • There are much clearer tax implications and guidance for traditional financial products than digital assets • Stock exchanges are more liquid than crypto exchanges so it’s much easier to buy and sell ETFs There are, however, a number of disadvantages to investing in a bitcoin ETF as opposed to buying the asset directly. • ETFs can only be bought and sold during market trading times, whereas crypto markets run 24/7. This means that if the price of bitcoin moves sharply, you could potentially have to wait hours before you have the chance to offload to buy up more. • It’s free to hold your own bitcoin but ETFs charge management fees. • Buying ETFs requires you to complete know-your-customer (KYC) checks but bitcoin can be bought anonymously peer-to-peer. • ETFs require you to trust third-party custodians. • What Is a Bitcoin ETF? • What Is a Bitcoin ETF? || UPDATE 1-MicroStrategy says non-employee directors to get fee in bitcoin: (Adds details on bitcoin, share movement) April 12 (Reuters) - MicroStrategy Inc, a major bitcoin corporate backer, said on Monday its non-employee directors will get fees for their services in bitcoin , instead of cash. Shares of the world's largest publicly-traded business intelligence company were up nearly 4% at $738 in premarket trade. Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, rose above $60,000 to approach record highs on the weekend, breaking out of a two-week tight range and propelled by talk of constrained new supplies against evidence of wider adoption. MicroStrategy said directors' fees will be converted from U.S. dollar to bitcoin by a payment processor at the time of payment. The company spent last year steadily amassing more bitcoin after making its first investment in August as the cryptocurrency soared in value. It has since made multiple purchases of the digital currency. (Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) || Munger: A little inequality is good for the economy: Investing icon Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway's ( BRK-B , BRK-A ) vice-chairman and Warren Buffett's long-time business partner, says wealth inequality is "the inevitable consequence" of policies that make a nation grow richer and elevate the poor. "I think that to some extent, the complaint about the rich getting richer as the as a result of the COVID panic, I think that's a misplaced concern. Nobody was trying to make the rich richer. We were trying to save the whole economy under terrible conditions. And I think, by and large, we made the most practical decisions that were available to us," Munger said on Wednesday at the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of the Daily Journal Corporation ( DJCO ), where he serves as chairman of the board. When asked if the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates low will only exacerbate income inequality, Munger prefaced that "it's hard to know what exact macroeconomic policy is correct. Because no one knows for sure, just how much government intervention is wise, and what point the government should stop intervening." The 97-year-old investor added that he doesn't have "any great gift" at making macroeconomic predictions either. The policies made the wealthy owners of financial assets were not a "deliberate choice" but instead an "accidental byproduct of trying to save the whole civilization." What's more, it was "probably wise" that those policies were implemented. "And it wasn't some malevolence of the rich that caused it. It was an accident. And the next time around why the poor will get richer faster than the rich, that things circulate it. Who gets rich faster by class is going to vary over time, and I don't think anybody should be too concerned by it," Munger said. He proceeded to point out that a prosperous nation requires a free market system. "And if you have a free market system that's trying to get rich in the way recommended by Adam Smith, what happens is that it's a very irritating system because the poverty that causes so much misery is also causing the growth that makes everybody get out of poverty. In other words, to some extent, it's a self-correcting system." Story continues "That makes the whole thing very awkward. And it's a shame that the economics textbooks don't emphasize how much a growing economy needs poverty in order to get out of poverty. And if you try and reduce the poverty too much, it's counterproductive," Munger said. He added that these are tough questions and most people assume there's a simple answer. "If we could make the world richer by just raising the minimum wage to $100,000 a second or something, of course, we would do it, but we can't." Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, left, and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, briefly chat with reporters Friday, May 3, 2019, one day before Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting. An estimated 40,000 people are expected in town for the event, where Buffett and Munger preside over the meeting and spend hours answering questions. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) Safety nets, not wealth taxes When asked about the long-term consequences of the Fed's policies creating financial excesses and income inequality, Munger again said no one knows how well the economy will work in the future. "I do think that I'm way less afraid of inequality than most people who are bleating about it. I think that inequality is absolutely an inevitable consequence of having the policies that make a nation grow richer and richer and elevate the poor. So, I don't mind a little inequality," Munger said. He observed that rich families "generally lose their power and wealth and pretty fast." "And so I don't worry that the country is being ruined by a few people are getting ahead a little faster than the rest of us." Responding to a question about implementing solutions such as a wealth tax to address inequality, Munger said, "any rich nation ought to have a social safety net that expands a little with its wealth." "And that's what we've been doing through my whole lifetime. And I applaud the result," he said. He noted that the result would have been worse if either political party had been in control all by itself. "In other words, I think the system of checks and balances and elections that our founders gave us actually gave us pretty much the right policies during my lifetime. And I hope that that will continue in the future. But I do think politics is getting more full of hatred and irrationality than it used to be in America, and I don't think that's good." In another question regarding the exodus of wealthy individuals and businesses from high-tax states like California, Munger observed that it's "rising as we sit here." "I just see more and more of the rich people leaving. And of course, I think it's vastly stupid for any state to be user-friendly to the rich people. They do way more good than harm. And, and they lose their money fast enough, you don't need to worry about. Washington State is actually considering a wealth tax at the state level. I think that would be insanity. I predict that if they do that a lot of people will leave Washington." 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 . Read more from the Daily Journal Meeting: Charlie Munger on Robinhood and GameStop frenzy: 'It's a dirty way to make money' Munger diverges from Buffett on Wells Fargo: 'Warren got disenchanted' Munger: 'The world would be better off without' SPACs ‘I have a bust of him’: Charlie Munger on why he admires Singapore's first prime minister Munger compares Bitcoin to what Oscar Wilde said about fox hunting Charlie Munger says Costco 'has one thing that Amazon does not' Munger: It's 'absolute insanity' to think owning 100 stocks makes you a better investor than owning five || Money Reimagined: NFTs Can Learn From DeFi’s Growth: This week, you could be forgiven for thinking bitcoin has ceded ground at the epicenter of the crypto zeitgeist to non-fungible tokens (NFT). Bitcoin’s price dropped to its lowest level since March 8, after failing to consolidate gains made on yet another Elon Musk tweet. Meanwhile, NFT stories were everywhere again. Another Beeple art piece sold for $6 million to raise funds for the Open Earth Foundation’s efforts to fight climate change, and both The New York Times and Time Magazine announced sales of their own NFTs. At the same time, it’s rather indisputable that NFTs are in a bubble. The question, asked by this week’s column, is where their real value might be found once that bursts. It’s also true that bitcoin continues to attract attention in financial troubled parts of the world. There was a spike of interest in Turkey this week as its financial crisis worsened after President Recep Erdoğan got rid of his third central bank governor in less than two years. And there continues to be strong demand for bitcoin in Argentina, the country whose century-long troubles with money are the subject of this week’s edition of our “Money Reimagined” podcast. Related: Hex Trust Raises $6M in Series A Led by QBN Capital We were joined by Lucas Llach, a former vice president of the Central Bank of Argentina, and by Santiago Siri, an Argentine-born crypto developer whose experiences there led him to invent an entirely new, decentralized approach to democracy. Have a listen after you read the newsletter. NFTs’ Post-Frenzy Future Lies in DeFi In a recent CoinDesk TV interview , entrepreneur and digital economy maven Gary Vaynerchuk looked at the current mania around non-fungible tokens, with the mind-blowing prices being paid for tokenized digital artifacts, and compared it to the 2000 dot.com bubble. “Gary Vee,” whose utterances have earned him an Instagram following of 8 million and who will be a keynote at CoinDesk’s Consensus conference in May , meant it as a positive analogy, not a negative reference. Once NFT prices correct to more reasonable levels, he said, it will clear the way for the technology’s true transformative phase, much like the emergence of life-changing social media and mobile computing innovations in wake of the dot.com bust. Story continues You’re reading Money Reimagined , a weekly look at the technological, economic and social events and trends that are redefining our relationship with money and transforming the global financial system. Subscribe to get the full newsletter here . Related: Bitcoin Rallies From Support, Resistance Around $60K The question, then, is what’s coming after the hype around NFT deflates? To explore that, let’s add another, more recent historical comparison: the initial coin offering (ICO) bubble of 2017 and the decentralized finance (DeFi) boom that started last year. That two-step evolution was similar to the internet’s post-dot.com development, but in this case it’s with decentralized, blockchain technologies especially relevant to NFTs. Integration and composability The basic dot.com business model during the Web 1.0 era was to convince consumers they should buy their pet food or their socks or their groceries from different e-commerce websites. The problem was each site was easily replicable, which made for a brutal competition in which there could be only a few winners; or, perhaps just one: Amazon. In the subsequent Web 2.0 phase, developers discovered the real opportunity lay in integrating with other internet applications and services to build audiences through enhanced network effects. We saw an explosion of apps built on the iPhone and Android operating systems, as well as services that tapped Facebook’s and Google’s APIs. The apps and platforms forged symbiotic relationships that expanded the combined ecosystems’ impact, utility and value. Similarly, DeFi represented a break from the ICO model that preceded it. Whereas the unproven token projects of the ICO boom were mostly standalone ideas with self-contained value propositions, the defining features of DeFi are interoperability and “composability.” DeFi projects that incentivize participants to add liquidity to decentralized lending markets proactively encourage cross-integration with different protocols and applications, literally building on top of one another. They leverage the value generated by each to grow a wider lending, borrowing and payments ecosystem out of a network of decentralized exchanges, automated market-makers, self-executing collateral systems, trustless price data and stablecoins. DeFi must overcome scaling and usability challenges before it can fulfill its promise as an alternative, decentralized financial system. But there are already strong lessons to draw from the breathtaking pace of innovation. For NFT projects, a big one may be that they, too, must integrate with other elements of the open-source, blockchain, fintech and data economy if they’re to add meaningful value to the creative, media and entertainment industry. Speculation as a service A second lesson is that speculation, too often derided as a source of excess and scammy behavior , can be your friend. It just needs to serve the project’s objective. That was not the case for most ICOs. They were built on “utility token” models whereby the underlying ecosystem was projected to grow as users exchanged a programmable token whose features were supposed to incentivize them to act in the common interest. The problem was that investors saw the tokens as get-rich-quick opportunities, as assets to buy and hold in the hope of price appreciation, not as something to exchange and use. There was a conflict between user motivation and intended outcomes. By contrast, DeFi projects need speculators. Many of the key DeFi components work on the principle that, when traders in financial products seek to profit from market inefficiencies, their buying or selling behaviors will drive prices back toward equilibrium. In effect, speculators profit by removing the inefficiencies and DeFi seeks to harness that. Thus, MakerDAO’s decentralized platform automatically tweaks fees and collateral requirements  to incentivize the profit-seeking actions of borrowers and lenders in ways that achieve one of the platform’s main objectives: to maintain a steady $1 price for dai , the stablecoin in which loans are denominated. Similarly, other DeFi lending platforms have offered special rewards to borrowers and lenders to entice the liquidity they need to grow their platforms. What about the NFT market? Well, there’s plenty of speculation. But with headlines dominated by a few blowout deals, it might be doing more harm than good. NFT proponents talk of democratizing arts and entertainment, of empowering up-and-coming artists and independent content creators, and of using this technology to raise money for worthy causes. In theory, the technology could give creators access to a wider potential market and encourage greater transparency to prevent powerful collectors and galleries from setting prices. It might also allow programmable features that automatically deliver some of the secondary market’s proceeds to the original artist or to designated recipients. But it’s hard to speak of revolution if most of the value is captured by a few celebrity creators – like Beeple, whose $69 million sale was orchestrated by no less of an old-world art market player as Christie’s , or like Jack Dorsey, whose NFT of his first tweet fetched $2.9 million . As with the traditional art market, these high-priced unique assets will likely not find much liquidity in secondary sales by themselves, which means the market itself won’t grow, which in turn won’t help lesser-known artists. So, again, it’s time to take a leaf out of DeFi’s book. How do you create useful speculation that fosters adoption and innovation? DeFi-ing NFTs The answer may lie not only in copying DeFi, but in joining it. Integrating NFT minting platforms and marketplaces into DeFi’s network of decentralized exchanges and liquidity engines would allow developers of those projects to tap into that ecosystem of self-reinforcing innovation and access its liquidity pools to harness speculation in a constructive way. A key opportunity lies in the innovative, smart contract-driven approach to collateral management employed by DeFi lending platforms such as Compound, Aave and MakerDAO. After all, art works and collectibles are quite often used as security for loans in the physical world, even when there’s not an especially liquid market for buying and selling them. Already, startups such as NFTfi are working on a model that enables NFT holders to borrow against their assets in this way. Meanwhile, if DeFi-based decentralized apps can both incentivize trading of NFTs and automate residual payments to the original creator’s chosen causes whenever a secondary market sale occurs, other radical business ideas might also be possible. In that widening, more diversified market, independent creators of art and other content will find new opportunities to monetize their work, especially if lightweight licensing and copyright solutions can be incorporated. The good news is that, per this piece by CoinDesk’s Brady Dale , there are quite a number of teams in addition to NFTfi working at the nexus of DeFi and NFTs. The projects do everything from fractionalizing art ownership to creating more sophisticated, automated royalty payment systems. The post-bubble NFT world might not be as headline-grabbing, but it promises to be more interesting. Off the charts: The centralizing canal In the parlance of hackers and crypto people, the Suez Canal is a centralized vector of attack, a single vulnerability that, if it fails, can do great harm to the much bigger system that depends on it. That’s the read of the economic impact of this week’s unfortunate incident in which a massive container ship ran aground in the canal and blocked traffic there for days. Lloyd’s of London estimated that $9.6 billion in goods shipments per day was being stalled by the blockage. To put this centralized vulnerability into perspective, Shuai Hao and I came up with pie charts to represent the Suez Canal’s place within the global economy. The most significant measure is in dollar value, which may be a function of the fact that a great deal of the world’s oil passes through the canal. That leads to another point: One decentralizing solution that would reduce the global economy’s dependence on this thoroughfare would be to shift more of the world’s energy consumption to local, renewable sources such as solar and wind. Read last week’s newsletter for a discussion of how bitcoin mining, counterintuitively, could be a catalyst for that. The conversation: Musk strikes again (and misses?) Another week, another tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk moves the crypto market. This time it was a remark, in the early hours New York time Wednesday, that Tesla is now accepting bitcoin for purchases of its cars. The important aspect of the policy shift from Tesla was not that the company is accepting bitcoin payments per se but that it is managing the funds itself and won’t convert them into dollars. That “HODLing” part could, in theory, support the price. Naturally, the usual cast of Tesla and bitcoin enthusiasts weighed in to applaud the move. And, sure enough, over the course of the next five hours, the news helped the largest cryptocurrency add around $3,400, or 6.4%, to post an intraday high of $57,225. But the gains were short-lived. Within just six hours, the price was back down below where it had been before Musk’s tweet. The failure to consolidate gains seemed to act as a weight on bitcoin, such that by early Thursday morning it had dropped to within just $458 of the $50,000 level. Why the retreat? Perhaps because there was no there there. At this stage of the bitcoin cycle, people with enough bitcoins to spend on a Tesla are HODLing it, not spending. Maybe a few people will follow Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s lead and spend their coin on a Tesla. But it’s immaterial to the market. CoinDesk columnist JP Koning had a point: Relevant reads: Money laundering watchdog The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international alliance of financial regulators, is flexing its muscles toward the crypto industry. New guidance this week, reported by Ian Allison, shows the FATF has DeFi in its sights. It is also tweaking the wording around NFTs that could signal a tougher regulatory hurdle for companies involved in that space. Moreover, it outlined a stricter line on the “Travel Rule,” which will require virtual asset service providers (VASPs) – i.e., custodial cryptocurrency exchanges – to track their customers’ transfers to self-custody wallets off-platform. This prompted a stern backlash from crypto regulation lobbyists such as Coin Center’s director of research, Peter Van Valkenburgh, who bemoaned the “absolutely inappropriate” surveillance of individuals that the changes would entail . Undeterred, Rick McDonell, the former executive secretary of the FATF, penned an op-ed for CoinDesk essentially chastising the crypto industry for asking that it be given an easier regulatory standard than that applied to traditional financial institutions. So, how are crypto businesses responding? The hiring moves by Binance, the global exchange powerhouse, provide a hint. As Danny Nelson reports, Binance has added former FATF officers to its regulatory strategy team . Related Stories Money Reimagined: NFTs Can Learn From DeFi’s Growth Money Reimagined: NFTs Can Learn From DeFi’s Growth || Coinbase and Bakkt Are Behind Paul Tudor Jones’ Bitcoin Bets, SEC Documents Show: When Paul Tudor Jones bet1% to 2%of his assets onbitcoinin May it was unclear where the billionaire had bought his crypto, or how. The industry remained uncertain if his investment was direct. After all, his hedge fund had startedflirtingwith bitcoin futures only days before. But in the year since, his firm, the $44.5 billion Tudor Investment Corporation, has indeed established rails for direct crypto ownership. It secured custodial ties with institutional powerhouses Coinbase and Bakkt, according to new filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Coinbase Custody Trust Company, Bakkt Trust Company and Tagomi Trading LLC (the institutional brokerage firm Coinbase bought inMay 2020) all provide custodial services to Tudor Jones’ family-only hedge fund, the documents state. Related:Crypto Trading App Atani Raises $6.25M The filings provide a rare glimpse into the hush-hush world of institutional crypto dealmaking, where well-heeled clients pile into an asset class bankers once deemed absurd. Many, like Tudor Jones, see bitcoin as an inflation hedge, and their ranks are swelling in the pandemic economy. They’re also playing a key role in the 2020-2021 bull market. On-chain data shows whales bought over 500,000 BTC in the final months of 2020, according to Chainalysis. Against this backdrop are service providers like Coinbase that occasionallytouttheir institutional clients as they race to capture yet more hedge funders’ dollars. But Coinbase, which did not comment for this article, never revealed its links to Paul Tudor Jones. Representatives for Tudor Group and Bakkt did not respond to CoinDesk’s requests for comment. Related:New Privacy Coin Iron Fish Launches Testnet With $5.3M in Funding For now, Tudor Jones appears to be restricting direct crypto exposure to a small corner of his clients. “Tudor Family Fund II,” which is open to relatives and close associates of the macro king, was the only one of Tudor Investment Corp.’s eight hedge funds to disclose crypto custodians on the firm’s annual Form ADV, filed March 31. Not even the $27 billion Tudor BVI Global Fund, which last yearpresaged Tudor Jones’ bitcoin romancewhen it jumped into crypto futures in early May, has any industry tie-ups, according to similar Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The Tudor Jones family fund was worth $1 billion at last check but the chances of all that being bitcoin are slim to none. The exclusive fund maintains a vast network of partners in the custodian and prime brokerage space – names like Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Credit Suisse – that suggest broad exposure to the global markets. But a wider swath of Tudor clients nonetheless appears poised for direct crypto exposure, according to the asset manager’s latest regulatory risk brochure. It included an entire section on the risks of investing in crypto for the first time in its four-decade history. “Certain Clients are permitted to enter into cryptocurrency transactions as described in the relevant Offering Materials,” the document states, through “direct investment on a spot basis or indirect investment” in crypto derivatives. Notably, the firm is not holding itself to crypto futures contracts. The document does not specify what it means by “certain clients.” However, in a section describing what investment strategies are only available to “proprietary accounts” like the family fund, it does not list cryptocurrency transactions. Tudor Investment Corp. is not the first big-name asset manager to loudly tout its crypto bets while keeping its custody links more quiet. Britain’s Ruffer Investment pulled a similar strategy when it bought $745 million in bitcoin last November without revealing who was holding the coins. (CoinDesk laterrevealedCoinbase as the custodian.) The soon-to-be publicly traded Coinbase has expanded well beyond its roots as a retail exchange. The firm has served headline-grabbing clients like Ruffer, Tesla and MicroStrategy. The acquisition of Tagomi, the keystone of Coinbase’s institutional offering, wasannouncedin May 2020. The deal closed in August 2020. • Coinbase and Bakkt Are Behind Paul Tudor Jones’ Bitcoin Bets, SEC Documents Show • Coinbase and Bakkt Are Behind Paul Tudor Jones’ Bitcoin Bets, SEC Documents Show || Here Comes the Virtual Real Estate Boom: I have spent my entire professional career devising novel ways to invest in real estate, and recently I have been spending a lot of time in Decentraland. For many years, my colleague TJ Kawamura has been pushing me to look into blockchain-based digital real estate, but it wasn’t until recently that it all clicked for me. Digital real estate has become a legitimate asset class, one worthy of investor consideration and one I believe is likely to appreciate exponentially over the near term. Not only is digital real estate capable of delivering outsized returns due to its alignment with the rapidly growing crypto-investment universe, but it also appears likely to become a viable store of wealth, almost like real-world art and real-world real estate. Digital real estate exists inside virtual worlds, each its own “digital nation” with a system of clearly delineated, irrevocable property rights. Buying land today in virtual worlds feels a lot like buying land in Manhattan back in 1750. It is also insulated from the COVID-induced volatility of the real-world real estate industry. Janine Yorio is head of real estate at Republic, an online investment platform for individual investors that’s launching a series of digital real estate funds called Republic Realm. She was previously head of real estate development at Standard Hotels and worked as a portfolio manager for NorthStar Capital. Related: What Is a Flash Loan? In virtual worlds, players interact with the world, or “metaverse,” while inhabiting an avatar’s body. They can chat with other users, earn cryptocurrency by playing games and gambling, buy art in galleries, attend concerts and events, and do lots of other things. There are other crypto-based virtual worlds, including Somnium Space, Cryptovoxels, Axie Infinity and The Sandbox (which has not yet launched), but Decentraland is the fastest-growing and most developed of all of them. (Editor’s Note: Digital Currency Group, CoinDesk’s parent, is invested in Decentraland.) Story continues Why Decentraland? Decentraland is a multiplayer role-playing game developed by two Argentine software engineers, Estaban Ordano and Ari Meilich. The world centers around a plaza, called Genesis City and, unlike most video games, has no set purpose other than to become a virtual world developed and owned by its users. It shares similarities with early virtual games like SimCity and Second Life, and newer multiplayer games like Minecraft and Fortnite. What distinguishes Decentraland is that its economy is based upon a cryptocurrency. All of the parcels (called “LAND” in the game) except for roads and plazas can be bought, sold and developed by the users of the game using “MANA,” Decentraland’s own crypto-token. (MANA itself has a market capitalization of about $225 million, a more than fivefold increase since its launch in 2017.) As of February 2021, MANA prices have increased 321% in the past year. Related: Valid Points: How CME Ether Futures Work and Why They Matter See also: The People of Decentraland Will Greet You Now LAND ownership is an NFT recorded on the Ethereum blockchain using the ERC-721 standards (the same as CryptoKitties) which makes it both easily transferable and less prone to fraud. The game’s developers have set a cap of 90,061 on the total number of LAND parcels which will ever be minted. LAND parcels are nonfungible because every parcel has a different set of (x,y) coordinates. There is also a secondary market where LAND can be bought and sold, and a supporting economy of contractors willing to design and build on these virtual parcels at very real-world prices. Enough people believe that this virtual real estate is scarce and holds value that they are spending meaningful amounts of money on it. For this reason, its ownership has become something of a status symbol among early adopters. Beyond status, ownership represents something greater – a contribution to the fabric of the Decentraland community. Where and how you develop your parcel has an enormous impact on how players in Decentraland will interact with your LAND. They become spaces where people can engage, explore, build, and socialize, mimicking real-life social interactions while also driving up the LAND’s value. This has led to a multiyear history of price appreciation in Decentraland real estate. In 2017, the year Decentraland launched, LAND parcels sold for about USD $100 per parcel. In 2019, a portion of the “Genesis Plaza” estate called Estate 331 sold for about $80,000, becoming the second-most expensive nonfungible token (NFT) of the year. Last month, the price of an undeveloped parcel of land had increased to roughly 8,000 MANA (approximately USD$1,400), a 14-fold increase in just three years. Since the game’s launch, there have been more than 50,000 secondary LAND sales totaling $30+ million at an average price of $560, so these data points are not outliers. Today, the total value of all the LAND is about  $100 million – and growing. Investing in digital real estate captures all the positive aspects of derivative trades (asymmetric reward-risk) without the bad (recourse margin/debt), and is also an uncorrelated asset class that offsets market volatility. Although it was previously believed that cryptocurrencies (especially BTC ) were like digital gold, backtesting has shown that crypto assets behave differently from gold, equities or bonds. Hence, it’s an extremely useful portfolio diversification tool. There are many reasons I believe digital estate may continue to appreciate. The best-performing asset of the last decade was not Amazon or Apple stock; it was bitcoin, an asset that trades completely outside the traditional banking system. Crypto – once regarded as a folly reserved for gamers and coders – has become so mainstream that anyone with a smartphone can buy and sell it, and large financial institutions are finally following suit. The rise of NFTs Investment in virtual real estate occurs through the purchase and exchange of nonfungible tokens (or NFTs), a special type of cryptographic token which represents something unique; non-fungible tokens are thus not mutually interchangeable. This is in contrast to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin that are fungible in nature. Each NFT is distinct, it is indivisible and it is not interchangeable. Although not as liquid as some cryptocurrencies that trade on larger exchanges, virtual real estate NFTs are exchangeable on NFT marketplaces through transactions that are much more streamlined and transparent than real-world real estate transactions. Instead of a traditional deed or title which is cumbersome to transfer, ownership of virtual real estate is recorded on a decentralized ledger through an NFT. Holders are the perpetual owners of their digital items, even if Decentraland shuts down or is abandoned by the developers. See also: Leah Callon-Butler – The NFT Game That Makes Cents for Filipinos During COVID Evidence of adoption and acceptance of NFTs as a proxy for ownership can be best demonstrated by the depth of the market and the enormity of some of the recent transactions, including a $1.5 million sale of property in the metaverse Axie Infinity this month . The quest for resilient assets will continue in this environment of low interest rates and high inflation, making crypto-assets seem less risky than some real world asset types. I’m concerned about the real-world real estate industry. Retail, office and hospitality rents and occupancy have plummeted, and their future outlook remains bleak. Single-family homes and apartments seem impervious to the pandemic, but how much more can their values rise while still remaining somewhat affordable against the backdrop of stagnant wages? Real estate remains one of the planet’s greatest stores of wealth and hedges against inflation, but even the most unflappable real estate advocates are questioning how to value real estate today. It’s still early days for virtual worlds. Early versions of Decentraland were clunky, but the game has improved a lot since its launch, and players have noticed. LAND owners have invested considerable time and money building elaborate architectural structures, games and wearables for the game. The game’s developers continually release new features; they operate with unparalleled transparency, giving the community a full look into what features, rollouts, and improvements to expect for Decentraland’s future on a publicly viewable Trello board . The discussion boards in-game and on Discord and Reddit are very active. The secondary market for in-game purchases like land and wearables show signs of increasing liquidity and meaningful volume. Every time I revisit Decentraland, I see more users and more interactivity. At the same time, in-game asset prices are trending upwards. That being said, today Decentraland still feels sparsely populated and most LAND remains undeveloped. Some of this feeling of sparseness is because the game was built to accommodate a large user base which has not yet materialized, and so it is played across multiple servers. This system was borrowed from the likes of Minecraft and Fortnite where hundreds of thousands of people play at any given time and so play occurs across multiple “servers” to avoid feeling overcrowded. As a result, a player may only encounter a handful of other players in Decentraland on a typical visit. To some, this reality might seem disconcerting. (Where are all the people?) To me, it feels like a tremendous opportunity to get in early, at the beginning of a new utopia for self-proclaimed misfits. The total addressable market for such a paradise? Nearly infinite and entirely defined by the creativity of humankind. Virtual socialization is inevitable Virtual worlds are not new. Both Second Life and Eve Online, virtual worlds designed for adults, launched in 2003 and attracted millions of users at their peak. Players built complex economies within those games. But, both games rose to popularity when the real world was still very much rooted in real-life interaction, and have since declined in popularity while the new crypto-based upstarts have been growing. Those games were just a bit too early. Since then, human interaction and socialization has become overwhelmingly virtual; most people have moved their social and business relationships to their phone or laptop. If ever there was a tipping point when people would choose en masse to socialize on computers rather than in person, it is now, during a global pandemic that has driven us all online. These new habits will become permanent behavioral and cultural shifts, irrevocably changing what we consider normal and acceptable. See also: Virtual Property Sells for $1.5M in Ether, Smashing NFT Record There are many examples of this shift toward less real-life interaction, including the rise of Clubhouse, one of the fastest-growing startups of 2020, which is a cross between podcasts and a 1980s party line. It is an entirely virtual – and audio – social experience that is growing like wildfire. When we invest, especially in real estate, we must attempt to predict the future – a future 10 or more years down the road. In 10 years, today’s children will be young adults and their preferences will dictate what becomes mainstream and normative. Both of my own children are completely addicted to video games set in virtual worlds – specifically Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. (For example, if I ask my children if they would rather play with their friends or play Minecraft, they will always, without fail, choose the latter.) Their Minecraft addiction – and that of millions of other school-age children – has been fueled by nearly a year of online schooling that has resulted in excessive amounts of screen time and access to video games. Minecraft and similar games are shaping how children interact with technology and with each other. Decentraland and the other adult crypto-based virtual worlds are designed to attract players who have aged out of the children’s games, for the teenagers and young adults who seek deeper human connections based more upon socializing and transacting than on treasure hunt and enemy slaughter. The user experience (UX) of the adult games uses the same conventions as the children’s versions. Virtual real estate: new players, new rules In 2004, Ailin Graef, better known by her avatar’s name Anshe Chung, began amassing virtual real estate in Second Life. She started with less than $10, and became famous for becoming the first avatar to achieve a net worth of more than USD $1 million from business dealings conducted entirely inside a virtual world. Much of today’s excitement about virtual real estate and NFT speculation can be traced back to the mythology surrounding Anshe Chung. The key to speculating on land in the virtual world is to learn the new rules. The old rules, the ones that favor the already-rich, no longer hold true. The old real estate adage “location, location, location” implies that values are set by their proximity and visibility, but in virtual worlds, players can teleport to new locations using cartesian coordinates, so visibility and foot traffic matter much less. What matters in the virtual world is bringing humanity and life to something flat and pixelated, drawing players somewhere, and then encouraging them to return and interact. (These settlements are often called “clusters of content.”) In the virtual world, ingenuity and design matter far more than location and budget. Decentraland’s developers have taken a very thoughtful and light-handed approach to building the game’s foundational layers. New projects and partnerships are already underway to make this virtual world a sophisticated and engaging alternate reality – one that will likely become as ubiquitous and addictive as Facebook and Instagram are today. The winners in Decentraland will not just be one person. And that, right there, is why it will succeed. By leveling the playing field, Decentraland has set itself up to be a winner in the race to build the perfect virtual world – a utopia. For all these reasons, I’m convinced that digital real estate is an investment opportunity worth considering. While this asset class is still extremely risky and a full loss of principal is a probable outcome, it may make sense for risk-tolerant investors to allocate a small portion of their alternative investment portfolio to this nascent asset class. What’s more, participants in this virtual economy will learn it is an exhilarating time to participate. The possibility of escaping to a new world and reinventing yourself will always hold an allure, even to the stodgiest among us. When coupled with colorful graphics, art, music and new friends from around the world, it’s easy to understand why Decentraland is becoming more popular. Early movers in virtual real estate have the ability to get in at prices that are still affordable compared to real-world markets. Like early movers in fast-growing places in the real world (Florida’s The Villages; Austin, Texas; Las Vegas), those who invest early and hold for the long term will benefit. Related Stories Here Comes the Virtual Real Estate Boom Here Comes the Virtual Real Estate Boom || Macerich (MAC) Reaps $95M by Selling Stake in Phoenix Asset: The Macerich CompanyMAC recently completed the 95% stake sale in Paradise Valley Mall in Phoenix, AZ. The disposition, which was made to a newly-formed joint venture (JV) with an affiliate of RED Development, has helped the company generate $95 million.Per management, Macerich’s move to realize the market value of this non-core asset comes as the retail landscape continues to evolve in Arizona and across the country. This will help boost its liquidity position. Moreover, the retention of the 5% JV interest will help the retail REIT participate in the upside of this multi-year, multi-phased project led by RED Development.Notably, the JV partnership will redevelop Paradise Valley Mall as 92-Acre, mixed-use project. The Mall has been rezoned, and its uses will comprise high-end grocery, restaurants, multi-family residences, offices, retail shops and other elements.Ed Coppola, president, Macerich commented, "Our focus remains on Macerich's top-tier, market-dominant properties that will continue to benefit from the industry's increasing momentum toward high-quality destinations."Apart from the selling of the 95% stake in Paradise Valley Mall, Macerich has also resorted to the sale of 36 million shares of common stock under its "at the market" (“ATM”) equity program as part of its effort to boost its liquidity position. Particularly, the selling of 36 million shares of common stock under its ATM equity program at a weighted average price of $13.54 per share through Mar 25, 2021, helped the company reap gross proceeds of $487.3 million. Roughly 1 million shares remain available to be issued under the program now.The retail REIT also obtained commitments for a new revolving line of credit and credit facility from its joint lead lenders. The line and the credit facility’s total capacity is estimated to range between $600 million and $800 million, and the facility is likely to close this month.Such efforts to bolster liquidity are likely to help the company withstand the current turbulence in the retail real estate market. While businesses of physical stores widely depend on customer traffic, consumers have been avoiding crowded public spaces amid the pandemic and increasingly opting for online purchases. This has been taking a huge toll on tenants’ liquidity, thereby making it difficult to meet their rental obligations. As such, retail REITs, which have already been battling store closures and bankruptcy issues, have been widely affected. Apart from Macerich, this turbulence is affecting other retail REITs, includingSimon PropertySPG,Regency CentersREG andKimcoKIM among others.Nevertheless, the relaxations in restrictions continue to improve the operating conditions. Furthermore, widespread vaccinations and a likely uplift in consumer confidence in the second half of the current year are anticipated to buoy retailers’ businesses, in turn, backing cash flows of the retail landlords.Macerich too has been benefiting from the relaxations of the pandemic-related restrictions and witnessing leasing demand from several category and variety of tenants.Shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have gained 12.2% so far in the current year compared with the industry’s rally of 11.9%. You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. 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 reportKimco Realty Corporation (KIM) : Free Stock Analysis ReportMacerich Company The (MAC) : Free Stock Analysis ReportRegency Centers Corporation (REG) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSimon Property Group, Inc. (SPG) : 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.
Trend: down || Prices: 63314.01, 61572.79, 60683.82, 56216.18, 55724.27, 56473.03, 53906.09, 51762.27, 51093.65, 50050.87
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 2021-02-16] BTC Price: 49199.87, BTC RSI: 72.36 Gold Price: 1797.20, Gold RSI: 38.81 Oil Price: 60.05, Oil RSI: 81.09 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] HIVE Blockchain Continues Its Bitcoin Mining Momentum by Purchasing 6,400 Canaan Avalon Next Generation Miners to Expand Its Capacity to 1,229 PH/s in 2021: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 19, 2021 /HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (TSX.V:HIVE)(OTCQX:HVBTF)(FSE:HBF) (the "Company" or "HIVE") is excited to announce that it has achieved its previously announced 2021 ASIC capacity goal of 1,000 Petahash per second (PH/s) with the purchase of 6,400 Canaan AvalonMiner 1246 next generation miners with an aggregate operating hash power of 576 PH/s. New Miners With the addition of these 6,400 Canaan AvalonMiner 1246 Miners, HIVE's aggregate operating hash rate from Bitcoin mining will increase to an estimated 1.229 Exahash per second (EH/s) or 1,229 PH/s by the end of 2021. Based on the orders that have been placed, this new equipment is expected to be delivered in 8 tranches in 2021, with 500 miners delivered in May and June and 900 miners delivered each month in the remainder of calendar 2021 commencing with the July delivery. These secured orders are the culmination of the assertive steps that HIVE has taken towards the vision to achieve an aggregate operating hash power of 1,000 PH/s by the end of calendar 2021. With these secured purchases the Company has achieved this monumental goal faster than planned. We are now focused on new opportunities to increase our Bitcoin mining capacity, with a new goal of 2,000 PH/s by the end of 2021. As we have mentioned before, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact logistics and the supply of miners from Asia. Today's announcement is part of our continuing strategy to increase our bitcoin mining capacity. HIVE intends to continue utilizing cash flow to make opportunistic investments in ASIC and GPU next generation mining equipment that can provide positive gross mining margins. About HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. is a growth oriented, TSX.V-listed company building a bridge from the blockchain sector to traditional capital markets. HIVE owns state-of-the-art green energy-powered data centre facilities in Canada, Sweden, and Iceland which produce newly minted digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum continuously on the cloud. Our deployments provide shareholders with exposure to the operating margins of digital currency mining as well as a portfolio of crypto-coins. 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"Interim 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 information about the purchase of 6,400 Canaan AvalonMiner 1246 Miners, including the expected delivery, operation and increase in operating hash rate from Bitcoin mining; the achievement of an aggregate operating hash power of 2,000 PH/s by the end of calendar 2021; the continued effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on logistics and the supply of miners from Asia; the continued utilization of cash flow to make opportunistic investments in next generation mining equipment that can provide positive gross mining margins; potential further improvements to profitability and efficiency across mining operations, summary contentof the Company's unaudited financial statements, potential for the Company's long-term growth, and the business goals and objectives of the Company. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the newly purchased 6,400 Canaan AvalonMiner 1246 Minersmay not be delivered or operation in the timeframe currently anticipated, or may not have a positive impact on the Company's profitability; the Company may not achievean aggregate operating hash power of 2,000 PH/s in the timeframe currently anticipated, or at all; 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 operating its assets;a decrease in cryptocurrency pricing, volume of transaction activity or generally,the profitabilityof cryptocurrency mining; further improvements to profitability and efficiency may not be realized; and the Company's actual results may be different from the unaudited results reported herein; 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, or at all; a decline in digital currency prices may have a significant negative impact on the Company's operations; the volatility of digital currency prices; and other related risks as more fully set out in the Filing Statement of the Company and other documents disclosed under the Company's filings at www.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 thecurrent profitability in mining cryptocurrency (including pricing and volume of current transaction activity);profitable use of the Company's assets going forward; the Company's ability to profitably liquidate its digital currency inventory as required; historical prices of digital currencies and the ability of the Company to mine digital currencies will be consistent with historical prices; 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 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:Hive Blockchain Technologies Ltd View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/624828/HIVE-Blockchain-Continues-Its-Bitcoin-Mining-Momentum-by-Purchasing-6400-Canaan-Avalon-Next-Generation-Miners-to-Expand-Its-Capacity-to-1229-PHs-in-2021 || Digihost Announces Acquisition of High Efficiency S19 Pro 110th Miners: VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Digihost Technology Inc. (“ Digihost ” or the “ Company ”) (TSXV: DGHI; OTCPK: HSSHF) is pleased to announce the Company’s system upgrade through the acquisition of Antminer S19 Pro 110TH miners. With the most efficient miners currently in the market, each unit utilizing a hash rate of 110TH and a power usage of 3300 watts (34W/TH), Digihost will be integrating and adding 15.4 PH to the Company’s hash rate in the next few weeks. Digihost has acquired 76 PH in additional hash rate from newer and more efficient miners since the start of the year. The Company plans to continue the acquisition of the highest performing miners, further increasing the efficiency of the Company’s operations. Alec Amar, President of the Company, commented, “Growth and acquisition of novel technologies, coupled with our in-house investment in R&D, continues to show our dedication to increasing value for our shareholders. Timing has never been so important and we plan to double our efforts to continuously acquire top tier miners and keep Digihost’s suite of offerings at the cutting-edge of blockchain technology and cost-efficiency.” About Digihost Technology Inc. Digihost Technology Inc. is a growth-oriented blockchain company primarily focused on Bitcoin mining. The Company's mining facility is located in Buffalo, N.Y., and is equipped with an 18.7MVA 115,000-kilovolt-ampere outdoor substation with an option to increase the power output to 42MVA. For further information, please contact: Digihost Technology Inc. Michel Amar, Chief Executive Officer Email: michelamar@me.com 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 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. Story continues Forward-Looking Statements This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the actual results of Digihost and its investee companies to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward-looking. Although Digihost believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Digihost does not undertake to update any forward-looking information except in accordance with applicable securities laws. || Feds’ $3 billion Bitcoin seizure tied to corrupt federal agents: The U.S. Justice Department sent ripples through the cryptocurrency world in November when it announced it had seized nearly 70,000 Bitcoins from a person the agency would identify onlyas “Individual X.”Now, new clues point to who may have owned the stash, which today is worth more than $3 billion. According to recent court filings in the forfeiture case, the proceedings are related to a criminal case involving two corrupt federal agents: Shaun Bridges, who worked for the Secret Service; and Carl Mark Force IV, formerly of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Both men were investigators in a case involving Silk Road, a notorious online drug bazaar, but both wentto prisonfor conducting crime sprees of their own involving extortion and robbery. While the Justice Department did not reply to requests fromFortunefor comment, there are clues in the new documents showing possible connections between Bridges and Individual X. Among such clues is a Justice Department statement in the newer case that “Individual X was able to hack into Silk Road and gain unauthorized and illegal access to Silk Road and thereby steal the illicit cryptocurrency.” In the earlier case, Bridges was convicted of using the log-in credentials of a Silk Road informant to repeatedly steal from the site. Shortly before Bridges was due to enter prison in 2016, he was arrested and charged a second time after authorities declared he was poised to flee the U.S.Reports at the time, which noted that Bridges’ flight plan involved applications for citizenship in foreign countries and bulletproof vests, suggested he may have had other secret cryptocurrency wallets. As for the case the Justice Department announced last November, it involves a cryptocurrency wallet tied to Silk Road that contained a large stash of Bitcoins whose owner could not be identified for years. The Justice Department made a breakthrough in 2020, however, when a forensics firm called Chainalysis was able to trace transactions involving the wallet to Individual X. It is significant that the last such transaction occurred in 2015—shortly before Bridges went to prison. That timing provides more circumstantial evidence that Bridges is the individual in question (Force was in custody at the time of the transaction). A lawyer familiar with the earlier criminal proceedings, who spoke on condition of anonymity, toldFortunethat it is notable that, shortly after it was filed, the Individual X case was reassigned to a different judge—U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg, whoissued an order in Novemberdeclaring the case to be related to the Bridges and Force case. Seeborg sentenced both men to prison in 2015. According to the Bureau of Prisons website, Bridges is incarcerated in a federal penitentiary in Nashville, and is slated to be released in November. Meanwhile, the site shows Force was released from prison last October. A person familiar with Force’s case said he was released early as a result of the pandemic.Fortunewas not able to reach either man directly for comment. It is unclear what arrangement the Justice Department made with Individual X in order to enter the forfeiture agreement. Such a deal would likely have involved the individual turning over the password to the digital wallet, since the cryptography protecting such wallets is all but unbreakable. In addition to 69,370.22491543 Bitcoins, the Individual X wallet contained a similar amount of three spinoff currencies known as Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin SV. Together, those other currencies are worth around $50 million. All of those digital currencies are now in a wallet controlled by the Justice Department. In the past, the agency has sold off seized Bitcoinsvia auctions conducted by the U.S. Marshals Service. Those earlier auctions have included the personal Bitcoin fortune of Ross Ulbricht, a.k.a. the Dread Pirate Roberts, who ran Silk Road and is serving a life sentence in prison after unsuccessfully petitioning former President Trump for a pardon. Those auctions involved multiple blocks of several thousand Bitcoins, which fetched the federal governmenttens of millionsof dollars. Court filings in the Individual X case include a statement from Ulbricht saying he will not make any legal claims to the nearly 70,000 Bitcoins seized from the mystery individual. Any auction involving the Individual X Bitcoins is likely to be closely watched, given how the price of the cryptocurrency has soared in recent months—one Bitcoin is currently worth around $43,000. Meanwhile, billions of dollars’ worth of other Bitcoins tied to Silk Road remainunaccountedfor. Despite the circumstantial evidence that Individual X may be Bridges, the proof is not conclusive. According to Katie Haun, a former prosecutor and crypto expert, the court’s determination that the cases are related does not necessarily implicate Bridges: This story was updated to include comments from the former prosecutor Haun. • Elon Musk’s plunge into Bitcoin is a dangerous bet thatcould saddle Tesla with big losses • Tesla bought Bitcoin.Will Apple be next? • Who would get a $1,400 stimulus check?Here’s what Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is saying • 4 metrics showthe stock market is now wildly overvalued—by as much as 33% • Investors reward French energy giant Totalfor making the best of a brutal 2020 This story was originally featured onFortune.com || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / December 29, 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.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", "$26,976.61", "$0.00", "$0.15", "$46,255 M", "$501,351 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$728.75", "-$0.02", "$0.16", "$17,461 M", "$83,104 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.22", "-$0.24", "-$0.54", "$13,089 M", "$9,834 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$126.01", "-$0.04", "$0.14", "$9,296 M", "$8,341 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$348.53", "-$0.05", "$0.10", "$5,475 M", "$6,483 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$161.89", "-$0.04", "-$0.05", "$584 M", "$3,013 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.14", "-$0.08", "-$0.18", "$807 M", "$3,010 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$160.63", "-$0.02", "$0.04", "$1,163 M", "$2,859 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$2.61", "-$0.08", "-$0.10", "$2,889 M", "$2,451 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$102.98", "-$0.04", "-$0.01", "$711 M", "$1,019 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/622563/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || First Mover: Bulls Are Back as Ether Hits All-Time High, Bitcoiners Hoard: Bitcoin ( BTC ) was higher for a third day, pushing on the upper end of its range over the past couple weeks, between $30,000 and $36,000. “Cryptocurrency has come into the realm of respectability,” Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of the $310 billion money manager Guggenheim Partners, told CNN in an interview . Minerd, who in December said bitcoin should be worth $400,000, said last month that the price could drop to $20,000 in the short term. Now he says a price as high as $600,000 is conceivable. Ether ( ETH ), the second-biggest cryptocurrency, was carrying through on Wednesday after hitting a new all-time high price. (Read more about that below.) Related: Saylor, MicroStrategy Offer Playbook for Corporate Bitcoin Adoption at Annual Summit Dogecoin ( DOGE ) appeared to stabilize around 3.3 cents, which is still more than four times where it changed hands a week ago. The doggie-faced meme token, which is attracting social media chatter , has been the object of price pumps at least five times since mid-2017. Ether rises to new all-time high ahead of CME futures debut Ether breaks $1,500: All eyes are on ether ( ETH ), the second-biggest cryptocurrency, after its price shot above $1,500 for the first time on signs of growing activity on the Ethereum blockchain. Prices, which quintupled in 2020, have more than doubled already this year, overshadowing the better-known bitcoin’s 21% year-to-date return. CME, the Chicago-based commodities exchange, is set to debut its new futures contracts on ether next week . That might generate additional buzz for ether, since the CME’s bitcoin futures, listed in late 2017, have grown to become one of the most popular ways for big institutions to bet on the largest cryptocurrency. Some analysts connected the move to the turmoil in stock markets: Online brokerages including Robinhood restricted transactions to rein in volatility fueled by Reddit-based retail traders’ coordinated buying in GameStop and other out-of-favor stocks. Story continues Related: Taproot Update: Bitcoin Users Home In on Activation Plan, Date Still TBD “ The case for cryptocurrencies only grows stronger ,” Nicholas Pelecanos, head of trading at NEM Group, told CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole. More ether is locked: Simon Peters, an analyst for the trading platform eToro, noted that more ether are getting locked up in specific uses including staking them in Ethereum 2.0, a planned upgrade for the blockchain. The tokens are also getting socked away in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Institutional buyers might be pushing prices higher: “Either way, it’s clear from the price that this diminishing supply is feeding through quickly to prices,” Peters said in emailed comments. “With institutions expected to add further to their positions, we expect the price of ethereum to push higher from here.” GameStop comedown shows appeal of social-media-fueled trading GameStop (GME) continued its slide: The stock tumbled 60% on Tuesday in what appears to be a comedown from last week’s Reddit-fueled price pump. Other “meme stocks” AMC Entertainment (AMC) and BlackBerry (BB) also fell . Virtual asset traders have kept a close eye on the saga. That’s partly because the entire episode recalled the anything-goes culture prevalent in cryptocurrencies, but also because some of those fired-up retail traders might ultimately decide to give digital assets a try . “Looking at the charts today, it does seem like it’s game over for GameStop,” Mati Greenspan, founder of the foreign-exchange and cryptocurrency analysis firm Quantum Economics, told his subscribers Tuesday. “One lesson that the world seems to have learned is that social media can be a leading indicator, and even a driving force, for future price movements.” Of course, the use of social media in trading is as relevant an issue to cryptocurrency traders as it is to the investors in traditional whose faith in stock markets might now be somewhat shaken: If the trading moves were coordinated among a huge number of individuals on a public forum, is it akin to a traditional pump-and-dump scheme? U.S. securities regulators may find it difficult to bring a case. (Though the matter is under review by the Biden Administration, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen , with both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives planning to hold hearings, as reported by CoinDesk’s Nikhilesh De. Chinese regulators are also watching closely, CoinDesk’s David Pan reported .) Mark Cuban, the “Shark Tank” investor and basketball team owner, doesn’t expect the new trading phenomenon to disappear anytime soon , he told CNBC Tuesday: “I think now that they’ve recognized their power and now that they’ve learned some lessons, we’re going to get more of it, not less of it.” Some analysts are starting to connect the dots to cryptocurrency trading. Edward Moya, a senior analyst for the London-based foreign-exchange broker Oanda, wrote Tuesday in a market update that “panic selling across GameStop, AMC and silver is triggering a nice bid on cryptocurrencies.” Few crypto Twitterati would deny the role social media play in newfangled digital markets. Indeed, the Reddit forum r/SatoshiStreetBets was filled early Wednesday with posts calling to pump dogecoin – a digital token created as a joke, with the adorable dog breed Shina Inu as its ubiquitous icon – “to the moon” later this week. There’s even a song . Bitwise, Grayscale, 21Shares look to cash in With bitcoin up 21% so far in 2021 and ether hitting a new all-time high, digital-asset managers are rolling out announcements to take advantage of what they see as still-growing demand among investors for cryptocurrencies. Bitwise Asset Management said Tuesday it’s seeking U.S. regulatory approval to publicly trade shares of its bitcoin fund on the over-the-counter marketplace OTCQX. “There is significant growth in interest from professional investors in accessing bitcoin as a tool to hedge their portfolios against rising inflationary risk,” says Matt Hougan, Bitwise’s chief investment officer. Grayscale Investments reopened its Ethereum Trust earlier this week to accredited investors. (NOTE: Grayscale is a unit of Digital Currency Group, which also owns CoinDesk.) Switzerland’s 21Shares (formerly known as Amun) is launching the world’s first exchange-traded product for the cryptocurrency polkadot ( DOT ), to be traded on the Swiss SIX Exchange under the ticker symbol PDOT. Prices for DOT have doubled this year, for a market capitalization of about $15 billion. The investment firm Accelerate Financial Technologies is seeking approval from Canadian securities regulators to list a bitcoin exchange-traded fund on the Toronto Stock Exchange, CoinDesk’s Tanzeel Akhtar reported Wednesday . The offerings come amid other signs of institutional demand for cryptocurrency-related investments , including the disclosure of a new $10 million bitcoin purchase by Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy (MSTR). The $441 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which is the largest U.S. public pension fund, disclosed Tuesday in a filing it held about 113,000 shares of the bitcoin miner Riot Blockchain (RIOT) at the end of 2020, worth some $1.9 million. And CoinDesk’s Muyao Shen reported Tuesday that balances of the stablecoins dai (DAI) and USD coin (USDC) on cryptocurrency exchanges had reached new all-time highs in the past week. Citing the blockchain data tracker Glassnode, Shen reported the increase might be a bullish indicator if it reflects buyers’ plans to use the two stablecoins to buy cryptocurrencies. It’s DeFi’s time to scale, but kinks are everywhere The furor over the trading platform Robinhood’s stock suspensions in the wake of the GameStop saga is generating fresh interest in decentralized finance, where entrepreneurs are building automated exchanges and lending protocols atop blockchain networks. The idea is that the computer-run systems might be fairer and less prone to ad hoc human interventions in market operations. Yet, the fast-growing industry is still working out its kinks . Stakeholders in Yearn Finance , which acts like a robo-advisor steering users toward opportunities for earning high yields in DeFi protocols, voted this week to sell more tokens to raise money to compensate people who are working on the project as de facto staffers . The decision marked a clear shift for the team, which accrued a unique amount of buzz for eschewing the convention of setting aside governance tokens for insiders, CoinDesk’s Brady Dale reported . “Yearn’s launch was exceptional at creating a decentralized and engaged community, but it did not provide adequate incentives to retain existing and future contributors on an ongoing basis, nor did it provide the protocol with a war chest to fund future activities,” the proposal’s authors wrote. Ren , whose RenBTC has become the second-leading “tokenized bitcoin” in DeFi with a market cap of more than $500 million, is reportedly “joining” cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Reseearch , according to a blog post . But as reported by CoinDesk’s Will Foxley Smith, the exact nature of the arrangement wasn’t entirely clear. Bankman-Fried drew attention last year when he briefly stepped in to take control of the decentralized exchange SushiSwap. Ren said it plans to prioritize support for the blockchain Solana, which Bankman-Fried has supported. The blockhain’s SOL tokens have nearly tripled in price this year, for a market capitalization of about $1.4 billion. Manta Network , another DeFi project, says that while volumes are increasing on decentralized exchanges, they’re also a “ hotbed for front-running opportunities ,” as reported by CoinDesk’s Benjamin Powers. Manta CEO Shumo Chu said in an email that a recent survey showed that nearly three-quarters of the 404 respondents (73.2%) “have either hesitated or completely avoided making a transaction in the past because they were worried about the privacy implications of that transaction.” Bitcoin Watch Long-term investors continue to hoard bitcoin , sucking up market supply and helping the cryptocurrency maintain its broader upward trajectory, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole reports . Data provided by Glassnode shows the total balance of bitcoin held in “accumulation addresses” rose to a 3.5-year high of 2,851,608 BTC on Tuesday. That amounts to 15.32% of the total circulating supply of 18,618,081 BTC. The number stood slightly below 14% three months ago. Accumulation addresses are those that have at least two incoming non-dust transfers (tiny amounts of bitcoin) and have never spent funds. The metric excludes addresses active more than seven years ago to adjust for lost coins and those belonging to miners and exchanges. Related Stories First Mover: Bulls Are Back as Ether Hits All-Time High, Bitcoiners Hoard First Mover: Bulls Are Back as Ether Hits All-Time High, Bitcoiners Hoard || Bitcoin Nears $50k, Texas Blackouts Lift Oil, Nissan-Apple – What’s up in Markets: By Geoffrey Smith Investing.com -- Bitcoin nears $50,000 amid fresh reports of mainstreaming and continued dollar weakness. Apple and Nissan (OTC:NSANY) fail to reach terms on an EV cooperation; oil surges as an Arctic blast causes blackouts in Texas, and stocks are drifting higher after the Senate’s acquittal of Donald Trump underlines Joe Biden’s hurry to get his stimulus bill done. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Monday, February 15th. 1. Bitcoin Tests $50k as Dollar Slides Again Bitcoin prices neared $50,000 over the weekend after two new developments affirming the narrative that the cryptocurrency is ‘going mainstream’. Canada approved its first Exchange-Traded Fund for Bitcoin, further expanding its accessibility to retail investors, while Bloomberg reported that Counterpoint Global, a unit of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) Investment Management, is also considering a first investment in the asset class. The news comes less than a week after Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) said it had transferred $1.5 billion of treasury reserves into Bitcoin as a risk diversification measure. That’s all part of a trend of bets on a cheapening dollar due to loose U.S. monetary and fiscal policy. The dollar index tested a three-week low on Monday in Europe, while the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.21%, its highest in over a year. 2. Australia's Squeeze on Facebook and Google A landmark law that would force social media giants topay publishersfor the news they carry came a step closer to reality over the weekend. Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told ABC that the country was “very close to some very significant commercial deals,” after holding talks with Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Sundar Pichai over the weekend. The law is being eagerly watched by media establishments and governments around the world. Google had threatened to shut down its search engine in Australia if it was passed. It’s unclear whether the weekend talks had led to any significant watering down. 3. Stocks Drift Higher After Trump Acquittal U.S. stock futures drifted higher overnight on Monday, with cash markets set to stay closed until Tuesday due to the Presidents Day holiday. The acquittal of former President Donald Trump on Saturday was taken as reflecting a desire by President Joe Biden to prioritize pushing through his spending plans rather than seeking political revenge on his former opponent. As such, it hints at the $1.9 trillion package getting through Congress faster and without dilution. Overseas, Chinese markets remained closed for the New Year holiday, while Japan’s reopened sharply higher after a stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter GDP report. Italian stocks were the outperformer in Europe after new Prime MinisterMario Draghiselected a number of party politicians, not just technocrats, for his new government of national unity. Analysts said that should help him keep discipline among the often quarrelsome parties that have agreed to back him. 4. Nissan Rejects Apple's Terms Nissan (T:7201) became the latest carmaker to be linked to Apple’s ambitions in the mobility sector. The Financial Times reported that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) had approached the Japanese giant some months ago with a view to partnering on its secretive project for autonomous electric vehicles. However, it reported that talks had broken down over, among other things, branding (Apple reportedly wanted its name on the product). It said that Nissan was reluctant to be seen as the “Foxconn of the auto industry”. Nissan shares fell 2.8% on thenews, while shares in automotive supplier Magna (NYSE:MGA), which has also been linked with Apple, rose 3.5%. 5. Oil Surges as Storms Force Texas Blackouts A blast ofArctic weatheracross the U.S. sent oil prices to their highest in 13 months. In addition to driving a spike in demand for heating oil, the weather front has led to Texas power grid operator ERCOT having to impose rolling blackouts in a state that accounts for much of the country’s oil and gas output. The incident is likely to spark fresh controversy over the rapid buildout of renewable energy sources, output from which has not been able to keep pace with demand. By 7 AM ET (1200 GMT), U.S. crude futures were up 2.1% at $60.72 a barrel, while Brent crude futures were up 1.5% at $63.37 a barrel. Related Articles France calls to step up EU independence on electronic components As Lebanon's banks struggle to raise capital, a deadline looms One-off wealth tax might help fix COVID hit to UK budget: lawmaker || Eye-Popping Projection for $3T Crypto Market Underpins Bakkt Deal: Cryptocurrencies could grow fivefold by 2025 into a $3 trillion market, under new projections from Bakkt Holdings, the digital-asset financial firm. Bakkt published the estimate as part of an investor presentation released Monday in connection with its new plan to go public via a merger with Victory Park Capital , a special-purpose acquisition company. Bakkt is majority-owned by Intercontinental Exchange Inc., which also owns the New York Stock Exchange. The deal would give Bakkt an enterprise value of about $2.1 billion, according to a press release . The underlying assumptions behind the transaction show just how bullish investors, entrepreneurs and financial executives have become over the past year on the fast-paced digital-asset industry, especially after prices for bitcoin , the largest cryptocurrency, quadrupled in 2020 . Related: First Mover: Market Signs Look Healthy as Bitcoin Sell-Off Subsides Just last week, the industry’s total market capitalization surpassed $1 trillion for the first time , though a swoon over the past few days in prices for bitcoin and other digital assets has since trimmed the total value to about $931 billion, according to the website CoinGecko . Bakkt currently runs a market for cryptocurrency derivatives including bitcoin futures, but in March the company plans to release a new consumer application that could allow users to manage digital assets and use them for spending and peer-to-peer payments alongside cash and rewards miles. “It’s these shifts that we are leveraging for the benefit of both customer and merchants, truly unlocking a massive market by empowering the monetization of digital assets,” Gavin Michael, former head of technology for Citigroup’s global consumer bank, told investors Monday on a conference call, according to a transcript . In the investor presentation, Bakkt estimated its revenue, net of transaction-related expenses, could grow by an average 75% per year to $515 million by 2025. The company is expected to turn cash-flow positive by 2023. Related: As Bitcoin Regains Lost Ground, Options Traders Bet on $52K Move by Late January According to one slide in the investor presentation, Bakkt operates in a “massive serviceable addressable market” that was worth about $1.6 trillion in 2020, including $564 billion for the “notional value” of cryptocurrency. By 2025, the presentation estimates, the company’s overall target market would increase to $5.1 trillion, including $3 trillion of cryptocurrency. Here’s the diagram from the presentation: Story continues Related Stories Eye-Popping Projection for $3T Crypto Market Underpins Bakkt Deal Eye-Popping Projection for $3T Crypto Market Underpins Bakkt Deal View comments || Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin price surges after Elon Musk shows support: Musk’s bio change on Twitter boosted bitcoin price on Friday. Photo: Getty Tesla ( TSLA ) founder Elon Musk has sent the price of bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) soaring after the billionaire tagged the cryptocurrency in his Twitter ( TWTR ) bio on Friday. Musk’s move saw the price of bitcoin, which dipped below $30,000 (£21,880) earlier this week, soar nearly 19% to over $37,000 per bitcoin. The CEO tweeted: “In retrospect, it was inevitable” following the surge. The cryptocurrency community and Bitcoin’s chief technology officer, cheered Musk’s bio change which boosted the price. "We’re going back to our roots: encryption, privacy, peer-to-peer, the rights of the individual, free expression, and decentralisation of power,” Balaji Srinivasan said on Twitter. The Tesla boss’ comment comes after online brokerage platforms Robinhood Markets and Interactive Brokers sparked an outrage on Thursday after the platforms restricted its users from trading GameStop ( GME ) and other stocks. Robinhood, which said it’s looking to lift the ban on Friday, followed other platforms after Reddit-inspired investors bought up shares in a war on hedge funds, that have long been shorting the stocks. The world’s richest man also waded into the GameStop drama which has rocked global markets, saying “shorting is a scam.” Prices in the cryptocurrency leapt 16% on Friday, at around 12pm in London. Chart: Yahoo Finance Analysts predict that the digital currency — which has soared to all-time highs of around $42,000 in January — to go into “another rapid ascent.” "Bitcoin may be going into another rapid ascent. An increasing recognition of bitcoin’s distinctive traits should outlast the current GameStop interest. While nascent, cryptocurrencies have the potential to invert the power structure of inequitable financial markets that are weighted against retail investors," Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at Bitfinex, said. He added: “A little ignored fact is that technology underpinned the financial crisis of 2008. It was technology that linked the sub-prime debt to the esoteric derivatives products that so spectacularly blew up. In a similar vein, it is the democratisation of technology that has accelerated the GameStop short squeeze.” Story continues WATCH: What is bitcoin? Ardoino said that he was “confident that these types of social channels have the potential to cause further disruption to the status quo and challenge the financial elite.” The combined value of all bitcoin tokens in circulation reached half a trillion dollars for the first time ever last month, putting it ahead of Visa ( V ) and making it the world’s largest financial service. Bitcoin started 2020 at around $7,000 per coin. Despite its rise in the last year, the cryptocurrency remains extremely volatile and experts continue to remain sceptical about using it as an investment. According to industry data, around 13% of all bitcoin in the world, some $80bn out of $600bn, belongs to just over 100 individual accounts, the Telegraph reported. The top 40% of all bitcoin, roughly $240bn, is held by just under 2,500 known accounts out of roughly 100m overall. READ MORE: Bitcoin suffers worst week in months amid regulation fears But there have been some concerns over the digital currency as fears of regulation mount. Earlier this month, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) warned consumers that they should be prepared to lose all their money if they invest in products promising higher returns from virtual currencies such as bitcoin. The comment kick-started bitcoin’s recent fall from grace. “The FCA is aware that some firms are offering investments in cryptoassets, or lending or investments linked to cryptoassets, that promise high returns,” the City watchdog said. “Investing in cryptoassets, or investments and lending linked to them, generally involves taking very high risks with investors’ money. If consumers invest in these types of products, they should be prepared to lose all their money.” Last week, US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen also expressed scepticism over bitcoin, and concern has emerged over a "double spend" phenomenon that would display a flaw in the cryptocurrency's software. WATCH: How Options-Trading Redditors Fed the GameStop Frenzy || FOREX-Dollar sinks for 3rd straight session as risk sentiment rises: * Dollar down for third straight session * Euro up on ebbing Italy political turmoil * Commodity currencies - Aussie, Kiwi, Norwegian crown up * Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E By Ritvik Carvalho LONDON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - The dollar sank against a basket of currencies for a third straight session on Wednesday as improved sentiment buoyed riskier currencies such as the Aussie dollar and the euro. The Australian dollar was the biggest mover in the G10 group of currencies, gaining half a percent to $0.7734. The New Zealand dollar was a close second, up 0.35% at $0.7140 Ebbing political turmoil in Italy, with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte winning a crucial vote to stay in power, helped lift the euro to $1.2158, already buoyant on a survey that showed improving investor sentiment in Germany. While the world will be watching Joe Biden's inauguration as U.S. President at noon in Washington (1700 GMT), traders were more focused on his policies than the ceremony. "Authorities have warned of possible armed protests across the country, which might cool the markets’ upbeat mood (stock futures point to another positive open), but the muted market reaction to the Capitol riots on 6 January suggests most assets – including the dollar - may end up being only marginally influenced by any episode of social unrest today," ING said in a note to clients. U.S. Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen urged lawmakers to "act big" on stimulus spending at her confirmation hearing and said she believes in market-determined exchange rates, without expressing a view on the dollar's direction. The index that measures the dollar's strength against a basket of peers was down 0.1% at 90.390 While the dollar has perked up in recent weeks on the back of a rise in U.S. Treasury yields, investors still expect the currency to weaken. "We remain bearish U.S. dollar, and expect the downtrend to resume as U.S. real yields top out," said Ebrahim Rahbari, FX strategist at CitiFX. Story continues "Continued Fed dovishness remains important for our view, in addition to global recovery, so we’ll watch upcoming Fed-speak closely." Positioning data shows investors overwhelmingly short dollars as they figure budget and current account deficits will weigh on the greenback. UBS Global Wealth Management's chief investment officer Mark Haefele reiterated a bearish view on the dollar, noting that pro-cyclical currencies like the euro, commodity-producer currencies, and the pound would benefit "from a broadening economic recovery supported by vaccine rollouts". Sterling traded 0.2% higher to the dollar at $1.3668 , up for a third straight day. Cryptocurrency Bitcoin fell 1%, trading at $35,529. (Reporting by Ritvik Carvalho; Editing by Angus MacSwan) || What Bloomberg Gets Wrong About Bitcoin’s Climate Footprint: Recently, Bloomberg published a piece calling Bitcoin an “incredibly dirty business.” It’s undeniable that the Bitcoin blockchain has a carbon footprint. Some bitcoins are mined with non-renewable energy, although plenty is mined with hydro, nuclear, or otherwise-vented natural gas, too. No one contests the externality of bitcoin , although the precise carbon footprint is debated. However, the article, by opinion columnist Lionel Laurent unfortunately relies on the flawed assumption that individual bitcoin transactions carry an energy overhead. The question of bitcoin’s energy footprint is riven with misconceptions. Firstly, it’s a mistake to compare bitcoin to payment networks, and comparisons relying on relative energy use are spurious. CoinDesk columnist Nic Carter is partner at Castle Island Ventures, a public blockchain-focused venture fund based in Cambridge, Mass. He is also the co-founder of Coin Metrics, a blockchain analytics startup. Related: Investors Pump $250M Into Reddit Following Social Media Site's Role in GameStop Mania Second, metrics like the “per-transaction energy cost” are misleading because transactions themselves do not cost energy; nor does bitcoin’s CO2 footprint scale with transactional count. Bitcoin supporters and critics alike should understand how the protocol works, so the energy costs and externalities of the system can be honestly appraised. Bitcoin and Visa: An apples-to-koalas comparison In the Bloomberg piece, the author states: One Bitcoin transaction would generate the CO2 equivalent to 706,765 swipes of a Visa credit card, according to Digiconomist’s closely-followed index, albeit with none of the convenience of plastic. Related: Bitcoin Tops $47K After Tearing Through $45K, $46K in Tesla-Fueled Rise But the “energy exchange rate” methodology the author relies on is completely mistaken. Bitcoin transactions are not equivalent to Visa transactions. They are different in both form and substance. First of all, Bitcoin and Visa are fundamentally different systems. Bitcoin is a complete, self-contained monetary settlement system; Visa transactions are non-final credit transactions that rely on external underlying settlement rails. Visa relies on ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, the global correspondent banking system, the Federal Reserve and, of course, the military and diplomatic strength of the U.S. government to ensure all of the above are working smoothly. Any energy comparison must take the above into account – including the externalities from the extraction of oil, which implicitly backs the dollar. As those who make this comparison inevitably fail to mention, the dollar’s ubiquity is partly due to a covert arrangement whereby the U.S. provides military support to countries like Saudi Arabia that agree to sell oil exclusively for dollars . It’s worth noting that the grossly oversized U.S. military, whose presence worldwide is necessary to backstop the international dollar system, is the largest single consumer of oil worldwide. Story continues Bitcoin transactions, by contrast, rely just on bitcoin. Bitcoin proposes a new monetary unit (also named bitcoin) and mediates its circulation through the Bitcoin protocol, which is administered by nodes and miners. Bitcoin’s energy footprint is highly transparent, due to the accessible and highly integrated nature of the system. This provides fertile ammunition for critics who can easily estimate the externalities of Bitcoin while insisting no equivalent ones exist for the dollar system. But the two systems are different. Until Visa marshals its own private armies to keep the integrity of the dollar intact, the comparison will be a specious one. Bitcoin is a full-stack monetary and payments system. Visa is a thin layer within the international dollar system, wholly reliant on seamless interoperability of the rest of the payments and settlement pyramid. Until Visa marshals its own private armies to keep the integrity of the dollar intact, the comparison will be a specious one. If you look at the actual characteristics of Bitcoin transactions as compared with Visa, their differences are clear. While both systems transmit trillions of dollars of value per year, they do so in radically different ways. In Q4 2020 , Visa processed $2.4 trillion in payments volume via 49.6 billion transactions. That gives us an average transaction size of $46.37. Bitcoin, by contrast, settled $397 billion (using Coin Metrics’ adjusted volume estimates) over the period and handled 25.3 million transactions. The average transaction size for Bitcoin over the period: $15,719. During that time, there were eight distinct transactions worth over $1 billion. The largest among these settled a mammoth $2.48 billion, given bitcoin’s price at the time. And not only can transactions be very large, but they can direct value to a number of recipients all at once. The largest-ever transaction in terms of payments contained 13,107 outputs . Under current constraints, a Bitcoin transaction could theoretically contain up to 32,256 outputs . And of course, layered or sidechain approaches which propose new trust models like Lightning, Liquid, RSK, and Stacks introduce the potential to batch thousands of transactions and settle them on the base layer. A single Bitcoin transaction can settle millions of lightning payments. See also: Nic Carter – The Last Word on Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption So not only are Visa transactions generally much smaller than Bitcoin transfers, but they are different from an assurance perspective. Bitcoin provides final settlement within a few blocks. This means there is no risk of transaction reversal. The payment itself is integrated with the settlement – there is no distinction. Visa credit payments, by contrast, are designed to be reversible, if need be. This is why cardholders generally have the option of making chargebacks within 90 days of their payment. Much to the chagrin of some merchants, payments are not bundled with settlement. Instead, the Visa payment process is a tangle of distinct authorization, clearing, and settlement steps. Actual final settlement happens on an aggregate net basis between merchants banks (who manage the accounts for card-accepting merchants) and issuing banks (who manage the cardholder accounts) via ACH or wire transfer. This means that payments are bundled up and settled on an end-of-day basis through utility-grade settlement channels. The individual payments made when you swipe your card are several layers removed from the final flows of funds between banks. These gigantic wire transfers that power settlement between cardholder banks and merchant banks for Visa are the transactions most comparable to those of Bitcoin. The individual payments happening between Visa users and Visa merchants are unsettled IOUs. If you consider ACH and especially Fedwire transfers, their characteristics are much more akin to Bitcoin. Typical ACH transfers clear thousands of dollars, while your average Fedwire transfer settles millions . Fedwire transfers are “push” rather than “pull” – bank accounts have to be fully funded on the originating side for the transfer to process. No netting occurs in Fedwire: it is what’s called a “real-time gross settlement system.” Fedwire’s counterpart, CHIPS, which is used for international dollar settlements, does include significant netting (checking if banks are paying each other and only sending the difference). Unlike a check, or a Visa payment, you cannot reverse a wire transfer. This gives wires strong finality, and good settlement assurances (sound familiar?). And like Bitcoin, Fedwire processes a few hundred million transactions a year. In Q4, it averaged 550,000 txns per day. In that period, Bitcoin averaged 824,000 daily payments in 305,000 daily txns. These systems scale with transactional size, not frequency. So if you’re going to compare Bitcoin to established transaction systems, compare like with like. (Note that SWIFT is not an apt comparison to Bitcoin: it is a messaging rather than a settlement system and generally relies on third-party settlement through Fedwire or CHIPS.) Bitcoin’s energy cost of transactions explained Now we’ve established that Bitcoin transfers are much more akin to wire transfers, let’s consider the actual “cost” of Bitcoin transactions. The quantitative assumptions made by Bitcoin critics – that transactions have a certain energy overhead – need to be contextualized. Constructing a Bitcoin transaction, and getting the network to accept it, costs virtually no energy whatsoever. What costs energy is grinding through the nonce space to find valid blocks. Miners do this because they are compensated primarily with the coinbase reward of 6.25 BTC per block, which is defined in the protocol. Currently, miners collect about 15 percent of their total revenue of $40m per day in fees. But it’s important to decompose transaction fees and general revenue from creating blocks. Miners collect that coinbase reward regardless of whether they include transactions in blocks. On occasion, they mine empty blocks and collect that 6.25 per-block reward regardless. The individual payments made when you swipe your card are several layers removed from the final flows of funds between banks. The quantity of resources that miners are willing to spend on mining is purely a function of three variables: the price of bitcoin, the issuance rate and the fees transactors are paying to use the chain. Of those three, the first two matter most. As mentioned, fees are not a major source of revenue today. The system is naturally equilibrating: If the price of bitcoin goes up or fees dramatically rise, miner margins expand, inducing existing miners to increase their expenditure or new miners to enter the market. Thus margins contract to a level where mining is just barely profitable. As defined in the protocol, the per-block reward is cut in half every four years. This reduces bitcoin’s issuance rate and thus the miner revenue. So, in the long term, miner revenue from issuance will dramatically contract. As 88% of all coins have been mined already, mining is structurally shrinking, not a growing industry. Academic prognostications of a climate-destroying feedback loop are therefore wildly off-base. While fees are expected to compensate miners in the long term, it’s unlikely that users would stomach $1000 fees. In a purely fee-based system with $10 fees and, optimistically, 800,000 transactions per day, miner revenue would total $2.9 billion per year – far less than the current $16.4 billion in annualized miner revenue. Thus most of the miner expenditure – and hence carbon outlay – from Bitcoin is due to largely invariant coin issuance rather than any variable that’s correlated to transactional intensity. This fact invalidates the “energy cost of transactions” metric that critics like to promote. It is issuance that largely finances miners, not transactions. And because most coins have been issued already, Bitcoin’s future carbon outlay is likely to shrink. This is to say nothing of the energy mix that miners employ – and as we know, renewables and otherwise-vented natural gas make up a meaningful component of the industry. According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance , 39% of Bitcoin’s energy outlay derives from renewables, with 76% of miners using renewables in some capacity. Therefore, comparisons to Visa and other payments systems should be met with extreme skepticism. Bitcoin is a full-stack monetary system with no outside dependencies; Visa is a small part of the U.S. dollar stack that relies, among other things, on 11 aircraft carriers patrolling the world’s oceans and enforcing dollar hegemony. Visa payments rely on a vast interconnected infrastructure of clearing and settlement. Bitcoin transactions are natively final and settle right away – they are more comparable to wire transfers. The energy exchange rate comparisons must take these differences into account. Related Stories What Bloomberg Gets Wrong About Bitcoin’s Climate Footprint What Bloomberg Gets Wrong About Bitcoin’s Climate Footprint View comments [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 52149.01, 51679.80, 55888.13, 56099.52, 57539.95, 54207.32, 48824.43, 49705.33, 47093.85, 46339.76
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 2016-07-26] BTC Price: 651.78, BTC RSI: 47.82 Gold Price: 1320.70, Gold RSI: 51.13 Oil Price: 42.92, Oil RSI: 37.23 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Former U.S. Secret Service agent suspected in additional Bitcoin thefts: By Joseph Menn SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Secret Service agent who stole money seized by the government in the investigation of underground drug bazaar Silk Road is now suspected of stealing money in at least two other cases, according to court filings unsealed on Thursday. In the larger of those cases, he is thought to have been behind the theft of about $700,000 worth of Bitcoin from a Secret Service account three months after the agency was urged to block his access, the documents say. Former agent Shaun Bridges pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced in December to nearly six years in prison for stealing more than $800,000 of the crypto currency Bitcoin during the Silk Road investigation. According to an affidavit unsealed Thursday, the Justice Department learned in April 2015 that Bridges might have kept a private cryptographic key giving him access to a Bitcoin wallet with the $700,000 in currency that the Silk Road task force had seized in 2014. The department urged the agency to move the funds elsewhere. “Unfortunately, the U.S. Secret Service did not do so and the funds were thereafter stolen, something the U.S, Secret Service only discovered once it was ordered by a court to pay a portion of the seizure back to affected claimants,” a team of prosecutors wrote in an accompanying motion. The Bitcoin in question was moved in July 2015 but only discovered missing in December, the affidavit said. The Secret Service and Bridges' attorney Steven Levin declined to comment. In the previous case, Bridges admitted he stole money from Silk Road accounts and framed someone else for it, leading Silk Road chief Ross Ulbricht to plan a murder. Ulbricht is now serving a life sentence. (Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) || Coinbase gets $10.5 million investment from Bank of Tokyo, two others: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase said on Thursday it received a $10.5 million investment from Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), the bank's Mitsubishi UFJ Capital unit and Sozo Ventures as part of a strategic partnership involving its long-term expansion. Coinbase, which is the world's largest bitcoin company and currently operates in 32 countries, does not operate in Japan just yet, though it runs an exchange in Singapore. The company said Japan is a big part of its international expansion. "BTMU will be a strong partner for us both in Asia and globally," Sam Rosenblum, international expansion and banking lead at Coinbase, said in a phone interview with Reuters. "Japan will certainly be an important market for us and one that is pretty critical for the development of digital currencies." Bitcoin is a digital currency that enables users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification. Rosenblum said San Francisco-based Coinbase has been working with BTMU for about a year on various projects and those collaborations have culminated in a strategic investment. Sozo Ventures, which has dual headquarters in Silicon Valley and Tokyo, early on has been instrumental in bringing Twitter to Japan. In order for Coinbase to do business in Japan, it would need regulatory approval from the country's Financial Services Agency. Rosenblum said there is no timetable as to when Coinbase would launch operations in Japan. Coinbase last year raised $75 million from a slew of investors. The BTMU investment is an individual transaction and not part of any funding round, Rosenblum said. Coinbase currently has two trading platforms, one for retail investors and one for institutions. Over the last four weeks, trading volume for the two platforms totaled around $400 million, according to Adam White, Coinbase's vice president for business development. Since bitcoin's inception in 2009, it has grown in popularity and price. Late on Thursday, bitcoin traded at $621.74 on the Bitstamp platform. So far this year, the digital currency is up 44.2 percent. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Leslie Adler) || The newest Bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit: Bitcoin price over the past 24 hours, via WinkDex. The price of the digital currency bitcoin is up 15% in the past 24 hours, and you might reasonably think it has something to do with the massive global economic event that took place on Thursday. And you’d be right. But that isn’t the whole story. Headlines are shouting that bitcoin is up because of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union , which has sent its own currency, the pound, plummeting to a 31-year low . Yes, Brexit may be helping bitcoin, but as with every bitcoin spike, there are many other factors at play. “I’d say Brexit is just one sub-item of one of those factors,” says Gil Luria, a Wedbush Securities analyst who has a pretty good track record on the bitcoin price. In July 2015, when the price was around $250, he projected it would reach $400 in one year. In October, he revised the projection to $600 . The coin is currently trading at $650. So, what are the factors that cause occasional bitcoin spikes? The first, and typically biggest, is China. It’s the biggest country for bitcoin trading activity and speculation (if not for bitcoin startup headquarters) and bitcoin is increasingly the vehicle of choice for capital exits from the yuan. The yuan is sinking as well at the moment, approaching a six-year low at the time of writing, and it is possible some tech-savvy Chinese investors are turning to bitcoin. Second, The Great Bitcoin Halving approaches. Huh? Here’s a quick-and-dirty summary: All bitcoin transactions are recorded on the bitcoin blockchain, a public, decentralized, permissionless ledger . The transactions are recorded in bundles, called “blocks,” by “miners” who receive a small award in bitcoin for mining. Beginning in July, the reward that miners receive per block is being cut in half, for the second time in bitcoin’s history. The result of the halving will reduce the creation of new bitcoins from 9% down to about 4% per year, and while the effect of this on the price is up for debate, many believe the anticipation of the change is bringing up the price. "People are excited" about the halving, Luria says. Story continues Third, general uncertainty and fear help bitcoin. Brexit is just the latest example of this. Bitcoin rose when the Greek debt crisis came to a head. It typically rises whenever a major country’s economy roils. That’s because bitcoin is an “uncorrelated asset” much like gold. “Bonds, stocks, home prices always go in the same direction,” Luria says. “But bitcoin is a place to hide in times of uncertainty. I’d rather have the volatility of bitcoin with the knowledge that my currency is going to get depreciated by 30% in the next few months. Bitcoin has its own drivers, its own value, and it’s not going to go up and down because of the actions of central banks.” It's important to note that bitcoin has already been on an absolute tear this summer. Bitcoin over the past 3 months, via WinkDex, which shows a blended price from the leading price indices. One month ago, the price was in the $400 range. Last week, it nearly hit $800. It’s up 57% in the past three months and 170% in the past year. It has been on a ride that briefly reversed earlier this week, when the price began falling again. Now it's been buoyed back up on the Brexit news. But it is possible, perhaps likely, that the price would have risen again this week, or next, even without the news from England. Nonetheless, bitcoin people are excited. "The pound has crashed; the Euro is in trouble, the dollar turbulent. Maybe it’s time the world looks at a more global solution," said Mihir Magudia of digital currency LEOcoin, in an e-mailed comment. Barry Silbert, whose Digital Currency Group has invested in a lion’s share of the hottest bitcoin startups , tweeted a bit of a grand statement on Thursday night about the price hike. This is bitcoin's coming out party as a global safe haven investment. Amazing — Barry Silbert (@barrysilbert) June 24, 2016 Before anyone goes ditching all their fiat currency for bitcoin, it’s worth keeping some perspective: the market cap of all the bitcoin in the world is only around $10 billion. That’s half an Under Armour. The best piece of wisdom to remember whenever anyone analyzes the price of bitcoin is that no one really knows anything. It’s a volatile commodity, with fluctuations influenced by a whole host of factors and elusive sentiment. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite . Read more: 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 is the new safe-haven asset: Analyst: Bitcoin is becoming as safe a haven as gold, one investment analyst told CNBC. The price of the cryptocurrency(: BTC=)has been rapidly rising in recent weeks. It traded above $730 per bitcoin at the end of last week, levels not since February 2014. According to Chris Burniske, a blockchain analyst and products lead at investment manager ARK Invest, the cryptocurrency could be referred to as digital gold, as it shares many of the characteristics that makes the precious metal a great store of value. "Bitcoin shares those same characteristics," Burniske told CNBC in a phone interview. "[Both have an] extremely limited supply and a relatively inert state. Bitcoin and gold can both be used: for example, gold is used in electronic circuits and bitcoin is used as payment. While gold(Exchange: XAU=)has performed well in recent months, rising 20 percent year to date, Burniske suggested investors should also consider diversifying into bitcoin. "When you look at the global markets, there's lots of fear, uncertainty and doubts. You've got people worrying about the equity markets [and] you've got people fleeing into bonds," he said. "While gold has had a bit of a run in 2016, over the last five year period it's been a terrible performing asset." "So you've got people starting to wonder where there are safe havens to store their assets. I think you have lot of people saying 'Hey we want to diversify a little bit' making allocations to bitcoin'." Some disagree that bitcoin should be considered a safe-haven asset. Vijay Michalik, research analyst at consultancy Frost & Sullivan, pointed out that bitcoin is still very volatile. "Bitcoin is still such a new innovation that the economics of its value aren't fully understood, and the price looks likely to remain moderately volatile in the medium term," he told CNBC in an email. "Volatility and the long-term unknowns involved in bitcoin's development stop it from being considered a safe-haven asset like gold. However, because bitcoin is unlinked to any one national currency or macroeconomic factor, it could be a good choice for portfolio diversification." The recent rise in value of the digital currency is mainly due to anupcoming change which will see bitcoin miners make less moneyfor each block that they extract. This is likely to tighten the supply of bitcoins as fewer new coins enter the system. "In early July, the annual rate of supply inflation will be cut from 8 percent to 4 percent. In basic economics, you cut the supply in half but demand continues to increase, which we're seeing with bitcoin," said Burniske. But Burniske did highlight some risks facing the cryptocurrency in the near future. "There's the risk of the developer community not being able to come to consensus on how they want to scale bitcoin. This has been talked about for the better part of the last year," he said. "They have made a lot of progress; they are going to implement something called Segregated Witness and I think the network will scale." Segregated Witness will reduce the size of each bitcoin transaction, thereby increasing the number of transactions that can be processed at any given time. Another risk is to the security of the bitcoin's network. "Part of the concern around the upcoming block award change is that if those miners make less money, then they are less incentivised to throw machinery at the network to secure it." Meanwhile, gold remains a popular choice for investors looking for safety. Adrian Ash, head of research at investment gold service BullionVault, explained what advantages the precious metal has over other assets. "Throughout civilisation gold has been viewed as a well-established safe haven used to store value by all cultures in all ages across the word and has never gone to zero in recorded history," he told CNBC in an email. "As a physical asset gold cannot default or go bust and is protected by a strong property law which is simple, proven and universally understood." Follow CNBC International onTwitterandFacebook. More From CNBC • Top News and Analysis • Latest News Video • Personal Finance || We could be set for a 'brave new world' of stock trading: Tron Legacy movie poster (Wikipedia) Wall Street is excited about Blockchain. Nasdaq CEO Bob Greifeld has said his company needs to be a "rapid applier" of the technology . Autonomous Research has called the technology a " game changer. " Goldman Sachs has said the use of blockchain technology in stock trading could result in $6 billion in industry cost savings globally . There's no shortage of hype, but widespread implementation is still a long way away in the highly regulated financial services industry. While the rest of Wall Street watches, the Australia Securities Exchange (ASX) is pioneering the attempt to implement blockchain technology in a large scale market. The exchange is looking at replacing its clearing and settlement system with a blockchain solution, and will make a decision on whether to go through with the change by mid-2017. "The securities industry is experimenting with blockchain across the post-trade market," Morgan Stanley said in a research note titled 'Blockchain - Is ASX set to shape a brave new world?' "Within equities, the most progressed of these is the ASX-planned replacement of the central depository (CSD) with a blockchain solution. If successful, the implications could be significant across the securities value chain." Blockchain uses computers with advanced encryption to keep track of transactions, and t he use of a blockchain solution in clearing and settlement has the potential to reduce costs, save time, and cut complexity. Goldman Sachs set out how this could work in a recent note. It said: Essentially, by enforcing agreement at the time of entry, blockchain could eliminate some of the most common post-trade issues and errors, such as incorrect settlement instructions or incorrect account/order details. Today, these details are confirmed/affirmed by multiple parties (DTCC, custodians, broker/dealer, clients) and multiple times throughout the life cycle of the trade. If blockchain could be fully implemented across these parties, many of these attributes could be included in a smart contract, thus becoming a pre-trade requirement to execute an order rather than a downstream, post-trade check that requires multiple parties to agree. Story continues The US bank said this would reduce duplications in affirming and reconciling trades, and help save the industry $6 billion globally. There are challenges however. The size and fragmented structure of stock markets in the US and European Union could slow the adoption of blockchain technology for example, according to Morgan Stanley. There are regulatory concerns too. This will only work on a large scale if global exchanges decide to follow suit and adopt the same standards. Without this, the market risks ending up with multiple systems with similar cost challenges as those faced today. That means the world will be watching what happens in Australia. "If the ASX "flicks the switch", this would increase the pace of innovation and disruption risk to the post-trade securities market,' Morgan Stanley said. NOW WATCH: This behavior could kill your chances in a Goldman Sachs interview More From Business Insider A 'game changer' technology on Wall Street could shake up stock trading THE BLOCKCHAIN REPORT: Why the technology behind Bitcoin is seeing widespread investment and early application across the finance industry A hot stock-trading startup is venturing into China || Virtual Summit Launches Free Gold Investment Online Education Event Starting June 16th, 2016: BOYNTON BEACH, FL / ACCESSWIRE / June 14, 2016 /Gold buyers, investors, and individuals in the financial field can now register to attend TheGold Summitfree online event taking place on June 16th-18th, 2016. This information rich resource is designed to assist those interested in investing for their future during these uncertain times. Many people have become frustrated with the process of trying to ensure a sound financial future for themselves and their families. Those folks will be amazed to discover they have the ability to provide the future they desire with the release of 360summits.com online educational events. "In the past, single income families were able to survive; that just isn't possible in this day and age," explains George Shepherd, founder of the online portal 360summits.com. "People are worried about the economy, and rightfully so. We see countries around the world in various stages of collapse, or recovery, and they do not paint a picture of a future that people want." Shepherd further stated, "Virtual online events, such as The Gold Summit, are quickly becoming the new industry standard for dispersing educational resources to the multitudes of people interested in learning, and we are pleased to be at the cutting edge of this innovative connectivity." Attendees to The Gold Summit will have the opportunity to experience 20 expert presentations, such as: Precious metals and preparedness, How to hide precious metals in plain sight, How to choose the right metals to invest in, When to buy and sell for maximum profit,Numismatic coins; fact vs fiction, Government confiscation, taxation and travel, Bitcoin and crypto-currency, How to read the gold & silver charts right, How to create a local or regional barter economy and much more. The experts featured at The Gold Summit include: Stan Grist, Stefan Gleason, Bob Rinear, George Shepherd, Franklin Sanders, Kenneth Gerbino, Jim Puplava, David Morgan, Josh Phair, Jim Wyckoff, Max Wright, Annette Riggs, G. Edward Griffin, Rachel Fitch, Eric Goldsmith, Mitch Michaels, Chris Olsen, Pastor Jason Young, Dan Nance, Pete Fettig. All those interested in attending can register for free, view the schedule of presenters, topics, descriptions and more athttp://360summits.com/gold-summit/. Learn more about 360Summits and view their other online virtual events calendar at:http://www.360summits.com/. Contact 360Summits.com: George Shepherd714-436-1234george@cdipublications.comPO Box 9 Boynton Beach, FL 33425 SOURCE:360Summits.com || NetCents Partners with European Powerhouse Bitstamp: VANCOUVER BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 5, 2016 / NetCents Technology Inc.(CSE: NC)("NetCents" or the "Company")is proud to announce its newest partnership with Bitstamp Ltd., Europe's largest Bitcoin exchange and one of the world's leading industry players. This initiative opens up our platform for our users, provides even more access to digital currencies, and moves us into the European market. "We are extremely excited about this integration with European powerhouse, Bitstamp. This is another important milestone in our ongoing global expansion and a key part of our business development strategy in broadening our services with leading blockchain groups," commented Clayton Moore, CEO & Founder. "NetCents will leverage this relationship to continue growing our digital currency options. We are committed to solidifying a robust, worldwide digital assets ecosystem that is secure, transparent, and regulated." Bitstamp recently obtained a Payment Institution License in Luxembourg, which will legally allow them to operate as a financial platform in the European Union. Consisting of 28 countries, Bitstamp is the only licensed and regulated exchange in Europe. This partnership will yield several industry initiatives for the Company, further expanding its services and user base. "Our team has made exponential progress building our high performance platform. We expect to grow substantially this year and look forward to continually adding new and innovative services as we do so," commented Gord Jessop, President & COO. "We have a number of exciting initiatives that will be launched this quarter as we are build our platform and team to scale with our users. This integration is expected to derive revenue in line with its projections and business model, and our team is excited on collaborating with Bitstamp to accelerate both of our growth strategies." About Bitstamp Bitstamp is a European Union (Luxembourg) based bitcoin marketplace. It allows people from all around the world to safely buy and sell Bitcoins. As of 2016, Bitstamp was the world's second largest exchange by volume. Bitstamp allows trading between USD, EUR currency and bitcoin, and acts as a gateway for the Ripple payment protocol. In 2016, the Luxembourg government granted Bitstamp a license as a fully regulated Payment Institution. The license is usable around the 28 member states of the EU. About NetCents NetCents is an online payments platform, offering consumers and merchants online services for managing electronic payments. The Company is focused on capturing the migration from cash to digital currency by utilizing innovative Blockchain Technology to provide payment solutions that are simple to use, secure and worry free. NetCents works with its financial partners, mobile operators, exchanges, etc., to streamline the user experience of transacting online. NetCents technology is integrated into the Automated Clearing House ("ACH"), which ensures our consumer's security and privacy. This agreement allows the Company to expand its reach throughout the European Union and its 28 countries, enhancing the users online experience, granting them the freedom and convenience to Pay. Your Way.™ For the latest information on Blockchain, Bitcoin or Fintech we urge our readers to visit our Blog on our website (www.netcents.biz) or visit industry websites such as CoinDesk (www.coindesk.com) a world leader in news, prices and information on bitcoin and other digital currencies. Further information about the Company it is available under its profile on the SEDAR website,www.sedar.com, on the CSE websitewww.thecse.com, on our websitewww.netcents.bizor contact Robert Meister, Capital Markets at Ph: 604.676.5248 or email:Robert.meister@net-cents.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors NetCents Technology Inc. Clayton Moore, CEO & Founder NetCents Technology Inc. Suite 1500, 885 West Georgia Street Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 3E8 The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved of the contents of this press release. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Information This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include regulatory actions, market prices, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. SOURCE:NetCents Technology Inc. || This founder launched a $14,000 smartphone immediately after laying off employees at his other startup: moshe hogeg mirage (Mirage) Moshe Hogeg and team. People in Israel's tight-knit startup community are talking about the reported death, and the odd life, of the once high-flying startup Mobli. Mobli raised $86 million in venture funds in six years, including from some big names. But the company made cuts this week in layoffs first reported by the Israeli business newspaper Calcalist and confirmed by Business Insider. Mobli's CEO, Moshe Hogeg, told us that the company had cut 15 employees this week and was closing its Israeli research-and-development center. Sources are telling us that this represents all of Mobli's remaining Israeli employees, though Hogeg insists that the company is not being closed down entirely. He says he is retaining an R&D team in Europe. Mobli employed about 50 people at its height, but sources tell us only a handful remain. In Israel, the shock isn't so much that Mobli is struggling — it's that people don't understand how the company has stayed alive as long as it has. It jumped from one failed product to the next. How is this company still alive? Mobli sprang to life in 2010 as a photo-sharing social-media site backed by high-profile angel investors including Lance Armstrong, Serena Williams, and Tobey Maguire. It later landed $60 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, it said, for a total of $86 million raised. Lance Armstrong, yellow jerseys (Mobli.com) Lance Armstrong. Perhaps the highest-profile photo shared using Mobli was Armstrong's notorious photo of himself with his Tour de France jerseys after he was barred for life by the International Cycling Union for doping . But then Instagram came along and Facebook bought it, and that pretty much killed Mobli as a photo-sharing social network. The company pivoted to other apps. In 2015 it launched an app called EyeIn, a photo service for publishers that let them find pictures of events shared on social-media sites. It shut EyeIn down just two months after it was launched when Instagram blocked the app from using Instagram photos. Story continues "We had to shut down EyeIn two months after launch because Facebook/Instagram blocked us from their API, rendering our technology useless," Hogeg confirmed to us. See ya later, Slant? Mobli then moved on to Slant, a news site based in New York for freelance articles. Writers got professional editing, and Slant took a 30% cut of any advertising revenue their articles generated. Slant hit 4 million readers in a month and published 9,000 stories from 1,400 writers, but its editor, Amanda Gutterman, announced in her farewell letter in April that Slant was being shut down, as reported by Politico . Mobli Galaxia (www.galaxia.co) Mobli's Galaxia. A former employee told us that much of this traffic was generated through paid-ad campaigns by services like Outbrain . Slant later told Politico that it was not closed for good but would be back once the company figured out a new business model. Gutterman has moved on to a new job at The Dose, however, and the site is not functioning. Mobli now has a new project, a social-network app called Galaxia that launched in March, in which people are encouraged to take on different "personas." Mobli says Galaxia's tech came from a startup it acquired called Pheed. The rumor was that it paid $40 million in cash for Pheed, but Hogeg tells us that the true price was really "just a few million." The people we talked to have marveled that Mobli says it is still in business and can't understand how. Hogeg says Mobli has been clear where its money has come from: venture investors. "We've always been very transparent about our funding," he says. "Amongst are investors: Carlos Slim, Leo DiCaprio, and Kenges Rakishev and all that info is readily available. We raised sufficient funds to allow us to stay in business thus far." Mobli was also known for being one of the first startups to use Nasdaq's private market , allowing early employees to cash out their shares in the company by selling them to other private investors. (Sirin Labs) Sirin Labs' $14,000 phone. A $14,000 phone In the meantime, Moshe Hogeg is focused on a new company, Sirin Labs , where he is president, investor, and cofounder but not CEO. The CEO is Tal Cohen. Right after employees were let go at Mobli, Sirin launched its product on Tuesday in London: a smartphone for about $14,000, or 9,500 pounds. The phone is aimed at wealthy people who want a fast and stylish phone that also encrypts all their data. Sirin says it raised $72 million in funding and has 85 employees based in Switzerland, Sweden, England, and Israel. NOW WATCH: This smartphone works by bending it More From Business Insider This 24-year old raised $6 million in Bitcoin in a month to build a new kind of app store How a 16-year-old kid built his dream video game company with no money Doubts about Domo? Insiders say the $2 billion startup that came out of nowhere is full of hype || Your first trade for Friday, June 10: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final trades of the day. Tim Seymour was a buyer of Atlantic Alliance Partnership Corporation (AAPC (NASDAQ: AAPC) ). Dan Nathan was a seller of the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLF (Mexico Stock Exchange: XLF-MX) ). Brian Kelly was a buyer of the iShares Silver ETF (SLV (NYSE Arca: SLV) ). Guy Adami was a buyer of Raytheon (RTN (NYSE: RTN) ). Trader disclosure: On Thursday, June 9 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 30 year bond Bitcoin, GLD, SLV, TLT, US Dollar UUP; he is short Copper, JJC, Yuan Short DAN NATHAN is l ong PFE Long TWTR, GE long May 28 puts XHB long June put spread IWM long Sept 100 put XLB long June put spread XLF long May/ Sept Put spread HYG long June put spread XLK long Sept Put spread FXI long aug put spred SMH long aug put spread, KO june / aug put calendar, long UA call calendar, long PYPL call calendar, long TLT Sept risk reversal, XLV july calls, MSFT june/july put spread, long C sept puts. TIM SEYMOUR is long AAPL, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, EDC, EWZ, F, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GRMN, GE, GLNCY, INTC, LQD, M, MCD, MPEL, NKE, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, UA, VALE, VZ, XOM. 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, WYNN, XRT More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || A Surprising Post-Brexit Currency ETF Idea: A predictable result of last week’s stunning decision is that, at least in the near-term, investors are likely to bolster their affinity for safe-haven assets. At the currency level, that can include exchange traded products such as the PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund ( UUP ) , which tracks the price movement of the U.S. dollar against a basket of currencies, including the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc. The red hot CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust ( FXY ) is also another likely beneficiary of investors’ desire to embrace safe currencies, particularly as market participants bet on weakness ahead for the British pound and euro. Emerging markets currencies and the WisdomTree Emerging Currency Strategy Fund ( CEW ) probably will not be the first currency ideas to come to mind for the risk averse, but some market observers see post-Brexit opportunity with select developing world currencies. CEW tracks the U.S. dollar against the Mexican Peso, Brazilian Real, Chilean Peso, Colombian Peso, South African Rand, Polish Zloty, Russian Ruble, Turkish New Lira, Chinese Yuan, South Korean Won, Indonesian Rupiah, Indian Rupee, Malaysian Ringgit, Philippine Peso and Thai Baht. Related: Are Dollar ETFs Ready to Rally? “These are rates markets, with obvious currency repercussions. Hedge funds entered the week of the referendum vote very flat in terms of positioning, with maybe a few longs in the emerging market high yield sector (South African rand (ZAR), Turkish lira (TRY), Brazilian real (BRL) and Indian rupee (IDR)). Real money stayed very quiet in terms of new flows in the weeks preceding the vote. That engineered a reasonably flat environment in both emerging market rates and currency,” according to a Citigroup note posted by Dimitra DeFotis of Barron’s. Trending on ETF Trends 11 Surging Silver ETFs as Two-Year High Looms A Gold Boon for these Glistening ETFs As Bank of England Mulls Rate Cuts, More Pound Punishment Likely Story continues As Q3 Begins, Gold Miner ETFs Keep Shining Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF Will Trade on BATS Currency ETFs try to reflect the performance of a single currency or a basket of currencies. ETF providers structure their currency funds to try to reflect the movements of a currency in a foreign exchange market by holding foreign currencies directly, foreign currency denominated short-term debt instrument, derivatives or swaps. Additionally, commodity producing country currencies are enjoying a boost from rebounding crude oil and metals prices. For example, Russia is a large producer and exporter of oil. Brazil also has larger oil and metal reserves. South Africa is also a major gold and precious metals miner. Related: Currency Hedged ETFs Offer a Smoother Long-Term Ride “The UK political timeframe looks too long to vouch for an outright long U.S. dollar in an environment where funding currencies will be forced by monetary policy. Equity fundamentals are weak, for sure. But that will influence emerging market FX in a very choppy way, in bouts of risk-off. It doesn’t look like 2014-15 in terms of U.S. dollar cycle. In doubt, real money will likely buy emerging market bonds,” adds Citi in the note posted by Barron’s. For more news and strategy on the Currency ETF market, visit our Currency category . WisdomTree Emerging Currency Strategy Fund cew The opinions and forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Tom Lydon, and may not actually come to pass. Mr. Lydon serves as an independent trustee of certain mutual funds and ETFs that are managed by Guggenheim Investments; however, any opinions or forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Mr. Lydon and not those of Guggenheim Funds, Guggenheim Investments, Guggenheim Specialized Products, LLC or any of their affiliates. Information on this site should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #BTA Price: Bittrex 0.00001467 BTC YoBit 0.00001500 BTC Bleutrade 0.00001424 BTC #BTAprice 2016-07-13 17:00 pic.twitter.com/nw7SzVG1Zy || $580.99 #bitstamp; $578.67 #bitfinex; $563.00 #btce; Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse  #bitcoin #btc || As little as R200.00 you can start Bitcoin Mining and make extra bitcoins, Get 5% of powers for invited users... http://fb.me/7VOqNGDHz  || #8BitCoin #8BIT $ 0.012543 (-2.00 %) 0.00002151 BTC (-3.17 %) || Poloniex: ETH/BTC Vol.:$ 6,084,690(53.11 %) Price:$ 11.43 | BTC/USDT Vol.:$ 690,703(6.03 %) Price:$ 673.00 | ETH/USDT Vol.:$ 547,587(... || 1 KOBO = 0.00002040 BTC = 0.0117 USD = 2.3300 NGN = 0.1765 ZAR = 1.1821 KES #Kobocoin 2016-06-05 17:00 pic.twitter.com/wWqk1Bj2rB || 23 hours 59 minutes left in Bid period - Price $BCR Bittrex 0.00000190 BTC #fintech #Bitcredit 2016-06-20 20:00 pic.twitter.com/YolABGUDaw || #Bitcoin last trade @bitstamp $742.93 @coinbase $748.00 Set #crypto #price #alerts at http://AlertCo.in  || $674.50 #bitstamp; $672.15 #bitfinex; $656.00 #btce; Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse  #bitcoin #btc || #MaryJane #MARYJ $ 0.001559 (-3.02 %) 0.00000225 BTC (-5.00 %)
Trend: down || Prices: 654.35, 655.03, 656.99, 655.05, 624.68, 606.27, 547.47, 566.35, 578.29, 575.04
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 2015-05-21] BTC Price: 235.34, BTC RSI: 49.07 Gold Price: 1204.40, Gold RSI: 51.15 Oil Price: 60.72, Oil RSI: 60.77 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] 10 mobile payment systems you need to know: googlewallet.jpg Image: Marguerite Reardon/CNET Nearly every day I am confronted with the fact that I am a rarity, the last of a dying breed. I am someone who still regularly uses cash to make purchases. In today's society, that makes me a dinosaur. Mobile technology has driven advancements in the payments industry that are making it easier and easier to make purchases without ever opening your wallet. The plethora of options doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is on board. According to data collected by 451 Research , many users are still uneasy when it comes to mobile payments due to security concerns. Still, the technology is moving forward and more vendors are accepting mobile payments everyday. If you want to get started with mobile payments, you have to first understand all your options. Here are 12 of the top mobile payment systems available. Google Wallet One of the first major NFC-based payment systems, Google Wallet was released back in September 2011. You can use Google Wallet to make purchases online or in a store, and send money to friends and family. Some have argued that it will be overtaken by Apple Pay, but that may not be the case . In fact, Google recently acquired intellectual property (IP) from Softcard to better compete. Apple Pay Apple Pay debuted alongside the iPhone 6 in late 2014. Users with an iPhone 6 or later, or an Apple Watch, register existing credit or debit cards with the service and use it to make payments with one of those cards. To use Apple Pay, you place your device near a reader and place your finger on the fingerprint scanner to quickly make a purchase. PayPal Known as the go-to payment system for eBay, PayPal also has a pretty useful mobile app. Users can snap a picture of a credit or debit card to add it to their account and make purchases or send money straight from their phone. PayPal has integrations with Uber, Airbnb, and StubHub for convenient payments. Square Cash Square Cash is a mobile payment option that allows users to create a unique username known as a $Cashtag. According to the Square Cash website, users can tweet out their $Cashtag for donations, or use it to pay their rent. You can also use it to pay someone for their services or simply send them some money. Stripe A web and mobile payment system that is "built for developers," Stripe offers a host of tools and APIs to customize it for you or your business. Users can accept Bitcoin through Stripe. Additionally Stripe is integrated with companies such as Lyft, Instacart, and Postmates. Dwolla Dwolla is a payment network for moving money. It doesn't require a credit or debit card, rather, it connects directly to your checking account. Use an email address to transfer money for $0.25 per transaction. Or, if the transaction is $10 or less, it's free. Only one party pays the fee and you can use it to send money to people even if they don't have a Dwolla account. Story continues M-Pesa Vodafone launched M-Pesa back in 2007. It allows users to deposit or withdraw money, transfer money, and make payments with their mobile phone. The actual account for the money is stored on the user's phone, and they use secure SMS messages to send money or make payments. The transactions carry a small fee as well. Very popular in some African markets, M-Pesa is huge in Kenya where the service first launched. Venmo Connect your bank account or debit card to send payments with Venmo. According to the company's website, it's always free to receive money through Venmo and most of the time it is free to send money, depending on what credit card or debit card you're using. Sign up with Facebook or by using an email address. Lifelock Wallet After purchasing Lemon Wallet, Lifelock created the Lifelock Wallet. It acts as a cloud storage system for all the cards you'd normally see in a wallet. Your ID, insurance card, loyalty cards, and payment cards are all stored and accessed through the app. The app touts Lifelock's security protection and users can access their credit score through the app for $.99. Samsung Pay After acquiring the company LoopPay, Samsung will fold its Samsung Wallet to be replaced by Samsung Pay. A technology known as Magnetic Secure Transmission is embedded in Samsung's Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, and it allows users to pay with their phone at a standard magnetic stripe reader. The service was only recently announced and will likely launch this summer. What do you think? Do you use a mobile payment system? Why or why not? Tell us in the comments. Also see What to learn from Apple's new Apple Pay mobile payment platform The liability shift and its impact on mobile payments Are people scared of mobile payments? Why Apple Pay won't be the death of Google Wallet View comments || Bitcoin Alternative NXT Announces Upcoming Release of NXT Version 1.5: The Complete Toolkit For Business: With upcoming release of Nxt software version 1.5 - which will include voting functionality, ability to use enhanced multisig account control, and improved data storage and transfer capabilities - Nxt has reached a new milestone as the next generation blockchain platform AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS / ACCESSWIRE / April 21, 2015 /From its inception in late 2013 Nxt has been designed to be a multipurpose toolkit, to be used either directly from the NRS client software or to be incorporated into third party applications. With account authorisation via the issue of secure tokens, enhanced data transfer and storage (with the ability to remove data when required), voting, multisignature transactions and much, much more, Nxt has now developed into a mature and complete next generation blockchain system for business use. Nxt Modularity Nxt is designed and built to be a modular system. It features several different transaction types, which can be used on their own or in combination. The current feature set, after the version 1.5 implementation of Voting and Phasing (enhanced multisig/account control) will include: - Send Transactions (sending the NXT currency or tokens to accounts- Data Transactions (send and store up to 40 kb of data)- Coloured Coins Transactions (create and trade Asset tokens)- Alias Creation Transactions (enabling the assignment of strings, such as a DNS entry, to Nxt accounts)- Sales Transactions (create and manage digital sales via a native marketplace)- Signature Transactions (provide proof of account via single-use token authentication)- Voting Transactions (fully customised polling system based on the Nxt blockchain)- Multisig Transactions- Custom Currencies Transactions (create customisable currencies on top of the Nxt blockchain) More in-depth information about these transaction types can be found in theNxt Wikior on the resource site,NxtInside.org. The perfect tool for DAOs Nxt is the perfect tool for the creation of Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs). A business or developer can issue their own tokens representing their organisational structure, handle a transaction stream, and keep their finance records in a fully transparent and auditable manner on the blockchain. Building new tools to enhance the core Nxt functionality for a business's own requirements is always possible, and the Nxt developer community will be happy to provide support for custom solutions where required. There is no absolute need to use the provided Nxt client software (the NRS client) if users do not want to, since Nxt can be utilised directly from within other applications by using theNxt API, which currently has around 150 function calls. Full documentation for Nxt API can be found on the Nxt Wiki. Examples of projects that have been or are being built with Nxt include MyNxt.info, a browser wallet that supports plugins; DeBuNe, a company building business tools with Nxt; and Pangea Poker, a fully decentralised poker application. Nxt Foundation and PayExpo Last month, theNxt Foundationwas incorporated as a portal organisation to act as a point of contact for the Nxt community and anyone interested in the possibilities offered by Nxt - either from the cryptocurrency world or from the wider mainstream business community. The Nxt Foundation can also connect anyone with project ideas involving Nxt, such as entrepreneurs and business owners, with developers who can support or implement ideas and projects. The people within the Nxt Foundation have a background in sales, marketing and software development, and are happy to help people explore the possibilities of using Nxt. The NXT Foundation will be the official Cryptocurrency Sponsor of the upcoming PayExpo event, to be held in London on the 9th and 10th June 2015. Anyone is welcome to contact the Nxt Foundation atbas@nxtfoundation.orgshould they have any questions or require any assistance with Nxt, or a project involving Nxt. NXT in Space Nxt is also a sponsor for the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) project: a private UK-based initiative to launch an autonomous 3d-printed drone to the edge of space. This mission will carry a copy of the Nxt client software on its flight control computer, taking Nxt to new heights. For more information about us, please visithttp://nxt.org/ Contact Info: Name: Bas Wisselink, Nxt Foundation DirectorEmail:bas@nxtfoundation.orgOrganization: Nxt FoundationPhone: +31 (0)6 13937762 SOURCE:NXT || Lucrazon Global Helps Merchants by Integrating Cryptocurrency With Bitcoin Payment Acceptance: IRVINE, CA--(Marketwired - May 4, 2015) - California-based Lucrazon Global (http://www.lucrazonglobal.com/), a fully integrated Ecommerce platform and Global Business Network designed specifically for Internet entrepreneurs, Work from Home and Network Marketing professionals, and businesses of any type, reinforces its services offered by accommodating encrypted digital currency Bitcoin payments. The integration of Bitcoins aims at protecting merchants from online fraud and other threats, and comes shortly after Californian Governor, Jerry Brown, passed a bill to approve Bitcoins as a legitimate form of currency for financial transactions in the state (source:http://cointelegraph.com/news/113235/bitcoin-becomes-legal-tender-for-transactions-in-california). Cryptocurrency is a form of digital currency that is managed and utilized with the help of encryption techniques such as cryptography (source:http://www.investopeia.com/articles/forex/091013/future-cryptocurrency.asp). The technology is increasingly popular among ecommerce vendors who use it to process transactions and verifications with the help of networks. After initial security hiccups, Federal Reserve recently declared it a trustworthy alternative to paper money. The fact that cryptocurrency is irreversible allowsLucrazon Globalto protect paying customers against chargebacks -- a type of fraud that is possible through more conventional transaction methods like credit card payments. Lucrazon Global's introduction of the encrypted currency comes at a favorable time that holds a lot of potential for international merchants in circumventing certain risks: According to an annual report by LexisNexis merchants incurred a loss of about $3.4 billion in 2011 through online fraud alone (source:http://btctheory.com/2013/10/30/fraud-chargebacks-and-Bitcoin/). Alex Pitt, CEO ofLucrazon Global, knows that chargebacks have been the bane of ecommerce ventures for years. These can be filed against a customer's billing statement on his credit card if a charge is disputed. Since there are no chargebacks in cryptocurrency, Lucrazon Global's incentive is designed to protect merchants from such malicious schemes thereby keeping transactions secure. Bitcoins are originally bought from exchange companies by investors and traders by using valuable currencies. Online businesses that utilize the technology require customers to store the digital funds in online storage software such as eWallets, on their PCs, or on the web. Payments with the currency are enabled through "Pay with Bitcoin" options on these sites. In 2013, Bitcoins grew exponentially and have become a preferred currency for several types of ecommerce transactions. A number of online stores have adopted the currency as their payments of choice. Brands who have gotten on the Bitcoin trend include Target, Victoria's Secret, the car company Tesla, Zynga, Apple's App Store, Home Depot, Wikipedia, and Subway to name a few (source:http://www.Bitcoinvalues.net/who-accepts-Bitcoins-payment-companies-stores-take-Bitcoins.html). By offering Bitcoins as a payment option, Lucrazon Global now introduces the cryptocurrency to smaller stores and businesses. A fully integrated e-commerce platform and Global Business Network, Lucrazon Global is designed specifically for Internet Entrepreneurs, Work from Home and Network Marketing professionals, and businesses of any type. Specializing in providing multi functional websites such as ecommerce stores, the company offers solutions like product inventories, integrated shopping carts, drop shipments, access to multiple suppliers, and real time account activation. The company has become a leader in ecommerce solutions by working closely with suppliers, manufactures, fulfillment centers centralizing opportunity making it simple for anyone to become an online business professional. For more information or to become a Brand Partner, visit:http://www.lucrazonglobal.com/ Lucrazon Global's blog:http://lucrazonglobalnews.com/ Lucrazon Global Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/LucrazonGlobal Lucrazon Global - Twitter:https://twitter.com/lucrazon Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2815608Embedded Video Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2815611 || Thoughts on The Future of Bitcoin From Genesis-Minings CEO Marco Streng – Established Bitcoin Cloud Mining Company: Established In 2013 And One Of The Largest Bitcoin Cloud Mining Platforms In The World, Genesis-Mining's CEO Marco Streng Shares His Thoughts On The Possible Future Of Bitcoin Hong Kong / ACCESSWIRE / May 2, 2015 /Writing about the future of Bitcoin with any certainty is like saying someone knows a certain horse will definitely win the Triple Crown this year. The fact is that the technology could go anywhere, legislation could change everything, andBitcoin culture continues to evolve somewhat sporadically. But there is no fun in not speculating; so Genesis Mining CEO Marco Streng decided to answer the impossible questions.BecauseGenesis Mining is one of the largest suppliers of any Bitcoin company in the world, Streng is uniquely informed about what new technologies are coming into vogue, which are over-hyped, and what research could change the technology tomorrow. "There is a lot of innovation and pioneering going on in the mining world. Advancements range from innovative data center structures, intelligent and more powerful mining farm monitoring solutions, to more and more optimized chip designs for lower and lower nanometer scales." Bitcoin culture today places a premium on the crowd-monitored nature of the technology, but as the power continually gravitates towards large companies and large data centers, that culture's voice is losing its thunder. The question is whether the average user will embrace the new era of mining or reject Bitcoin altogether. While the currency still represents the most regulatory-free currency in the world, its early adopters envisioned nothing short of utopia. Big companies are as prone to corruption as any other organization, or so the argument goes. Streng got the question if the consolidation of mining will hurt or help the Bitcoin movement, especially concerning the Bitcoin faithful. "What people may forget is that the higher the total mining power in the network, the less vulnerable Bitcoin is. In the early days, a private individual could possibly gain enough influence to control the Bitcoin network by a large enough investment in mining. Times have changed and it is much harder to do that now." One of the biggest obstacles still facing the currency is evangelizing the many millions of people who believe it is a fringe movement, a fad, one that will disappear quietly in a few years. It does continue to edge its way in to the mainstream with small but notable successes, like Rand Paul’s new presidential campaign website accepting donations in BTC. And the technology does continue to gain high profile backers from numerous industries. But even with the most rose colored lenses, no one can say that Bitcoin is mainstream. Streng doesn’t think we will have to wait too long for that to happen. "For those of us born in the late 80’s and early 90’s, we grew up with the internet being a major part of our lives. We didn’t have to adopt the technology, we simply had to learn to use it and convince our parents we needed to upgrade our dial up connection. Change is hard, and we saw older generations struggle to use Google instead of libraries and Amazon instead of RadioShack. Despite some people opposing it and all the negativity it received, the internet prevailed and has changed the daily lives of billions of people. I understand that Bitcoin sounds crazy to some, but inmany ways it is following the same path as the internet, and I think it will change the world just as profoundly." Time will tell if Streng is right — if a more centralized infrastructure can mesh with Bitcoin culture, if the technology will be embraced by the general public, and if officials in the US and other countries decide not to regulate. But one thing is for sure, many thousands of highly informed critics said Bitcoin would never last as long as it has. About Genesis-Mining:Hong Kong basedGenesis-Mining was established in October 2013 with Bitcoin cloud mining facilities located in Iceland, USA and Canada. Genesis-Mining has a partnership with the world's largest ASIC manufacturer; Spondoolies Tech.For more information about us, please visithttps://www.genesis-mining.com/a/47631 Contact:Paulo Fioriopaulo.fiorio@genesis-mining.comGenesis-Mining Source:Genesis-Mining || Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin: Universities and schools offering online education have grown in number over the past decade as students' preferences change and college enrollment fees rise. The low-cost nature of an online education has been one of the largest draws for schools like the University Of Phoenix, which offers everything from a Bachelor's Degree in business administration to a Master's Degree in Education. However for many students, financial constraints and self-esteem issues keep them from even considering a higher education. Gunnar Stefansson is looking to change all of that with an online tutoring project designed to get low-income students involved in their education through the use of digital currencies. Online Tutoring In an effort to increase math proficiency among students across the globe, Stefansson founded Tutor Web , an online tutoring system that helps students by providing courses covering topics like calculus and statistics. Students from around the globe can participate in the classes, designed by Gunnar himself and some of his colleagues at the University of Iceland. Digital Rewards This year, the site added a reward system based on its own cryptocurrency, smileycoin. Smileycoin can be bought and sold on cryptocurrency exchanges and is intended to give students an incentive to participating in the program. Students can earn the coin in a variety of ways from passing a lecture for a relatively small number of coins to earning the highest mark in the class for a larger sum. The site is also rolling out a peer-tutoring option, which allows students to tutor each other and pay for those services using smileycoin. Related Link: Charities Are Turning To Bitcoin The Bigger Picture While the value of smileycoin is still quite low, Gunnar told Benzinga that he sees the platform as a jumping off point for bigger things. While only a handful of students have cashed in their smileycoins on an exchange to date, Tutor Web is hoping to expand the project to include new uses for the coin that could further entice students to make use of the service. Story continues In the future, he hopes to partner with other companies like coffee shops and airlines to offer discounts or video game providers to offer free time for smileycoin payments. Ideally, Stefansson said smileycoin would mature enough to give low income students a way to earn their way to a higher education. See more from Benzinga The Future Of Robots World Leaders Looking For Ways To Fight Back Against Terrorism Using Social Media Pot For Spot: Can Marijuana Treat Pets? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin goes mainstream with Goldman Sachs' backing: Bitcoin is getting a big boost…from Goldman Sachs (GS). The financial juggernaut and China’s IDG Capital Partners are investing $50 million inCircle Internet Financial, a start-up that provides services to help consumers use the virtual currency. Goldman is the first major Wall Street bank to make such a big bet on bitcoin. But as Yahoo Finance Technology Reporter Aaron Pressman points out, Goldman isn’t interested in speculating in bitcoins. It’s focusing on how bitcoin operates. “The technology behind the scenes that enables bitcoin to work, that’s something that venture capitalists and a lot of banks have been looking at,” he says. “And maybe really will be what comes out of this.” Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task believes Goldman is just trying to stay one step ahead of the competition. “Everybody around Wall Street is looking at bitcoin and trying to figure out whether they’re going to wait for the regulations or try to get ahead of the regulations and dip their toe in the water,” he explains. “And that’s what Goldman is doing.” Task adds Goldman likely feels more and more of us will be using the virtual currency in the future…and wants to get on that bandwagon now. There’s going to be a greater adoption of bitcoin use as a method of payment,” he says. “I think that’s its promise…and what Goldman is betting on here.” Task believes Goldman sees bitcoin as being an attractive consumer electronic money alternative. “Apple Pay (AAPL) doesn’t do anything for me as a consumer,” he argues. “But if I can transfer bitcoins to somebody else around the world and pay for goods and services, I think they want to be part of that process.” And Yahoo Finance’s Jen Rogers says having Goldman associated with bitcoin is a pretty important milestone for the virtual currency. “It does seem to add legitimacy because it’s such a big name,” she notes. Also from Yahoo Finance Budweiser's 'no' must go:  social media Tyson's chickens just say no Uber now drops off food, not just people || Corrected - Exclusive: Bitcoin exchange itBit seeks New York banking licence: By Lauren Tara LaCapra NEW YORK (Reuters) - (Story corrects amount of fundraising in second-to-last paragraph to $3.3 million in one round from $6.6 million in two rounds) In a little noticed move, bitcoin exchange itBit has filed for a banking licence in New York, according to the state banking authority. Approval for the licence may come in the next couple of weeks, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, which could make itBit the first bitcoin company to be regulated as a bank in the United States. The application is part of itBit's plan to expand its business into different corners of financial services, and present itself as a trustworthy and reputable company. Right now, itBit operates as an exchange where buyers and sellers trade the bitcoin digital currency. After a series of scandals that have roiled the virtual currency markets, reassuring customers, investors, and bitcoin market participants is critical. Last year, rival Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy after its computer system was hacked, and prominent bitcoin advocates had been accused of money laundering. "Some highly publicized failures and potentially illegal activity have focussed attention on virtual currencies and have highlighted the need for a sound regulatory framework for virtual currencies," itBit Chief Executive Charles "Chad" Cascarilla said in an October letter to New York's state banking regulator on an unrelated matter. ItBit, whose exchange operates in Singapore, moved its primary headquarters to New York last year, and hired Erik Wilgenhof Plante from eBay Inc (EBAY.O) as chief compliance officer. The company's web site touts its anti-money laundering efforts and "know your customer" credentials, as well as its compliance in all jurisdictions in which it operates. "Whether fairly or not, companies that work within the regulatory framework are more trusted by customers and partners," said David Berger, CEO of the Digital Currency Council, an industry advocacy group. Story continues The bank application for itBit Trust Company LLC lists three bigwigs in government and regulatory circles as "organizers," including former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair, former Financial Accounting Standards Board director Robert Herz and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley. Organizers are responsible for setting up limited liability companies in New York, but do not necessarily hold operating positions within them. The application also names Cascarilla as an organizer, as well as his business partner Emil Woods, a former SAC Capital portfolio manager who co-founded the investment firm Cedar Hill Capital Partners with Cascarilla. Benjamin Lawsky, New York's superintendent of financial services, has been a vocal advocate of regulating virtual currencies like bitcoin as well as other businesses, like payments, that would operate using the same technology. That technology, called blockchain, essentially records every transaction that happens on the system. Transferring cash requires changing an entry in the ledger, but does not require processing by a bank or other intermediary, making it potentially faster and cheaper. Many on Wall Street and Main Street dismiss unregulated virtual currencies like bitcoin as a wacky concept embraced by paranoiacs, gamblers and bored teenagers. But large companies including International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) are looking seriously at applying the technology behind bitcoin to businesses ranging from payments to trading. Central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have also examined blockchain, while major cities including Singapore, London and New York are positioning themselves as bitcoin hubs. [ID:nL5N0X63BQ] "Many people believe that the real payoff with the bitcoin phenomenon is blockchain and all the various uses it can be put to," said Jeff Neuburger‎, a partner at the law firm Proskauer Rose who specializes in technology. "It will have some impact on the way all kinds of financial services are conducted." Spokespeople for itBit and New York's department of financial services confirmed the company had filed a banking licence application but declined further comment. Bair, Herz, Cascarilla and Woods did not respond to requests for comment. Bradley could not be reached for comment. ItBit is backed by venture capitalists including Canaan Partners, RRE Ventures and Liberty City Ventures, where Cascarilla is a partner. Since its founding in 2012, the company has received $3.3 million in a round of fund-raising, according to the startup site CrunchBase. Lately, itBit has been looking to gather more money from investors including Cedar Hill to fund new business ventures, one person briefed on the matter said. (Reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra; editing by Dan Wilchins and Diane Craft) || Goldman Sachs buys into Bitcoin and McDonald's new DIY burger: Another day of red arrows for the major stock indices (^DJI,^GSPC,^IXIC) a day after the Fed left the door open, at least a little, for a June rate hike.A mixed bag of economic datathis morning didn't help matters. Jobless claims came in lower than any other week in the last 15 years and consumer spending ticked higher. Still the cost of employing the average American worker ticked higher and personal income was flat. 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. McDonald's build-a-burgerMcDonald's (MCD) efforts to revitalize sales have been making headlines pretty much every day, and today is no exception. Now, the fast-food giant is reportedly test marketing custom-made meals, where diners can choose how their burgers and salads are made.Big banks and bitcoinBitcoin is taking another step towards mainstream acceptance. Goldman Sachs (GS) is investing $50 million dollars in consumer digital currency company Circle Internet Financial, becoming the first big banking institution to get behind bitcoin. Secret no moreIt's no longer a secret--the Secret app is no more Co-founder David Byttow blogging that after a lot of thought and consultation with the board, he's shutting the company down after just 16 months. The once-hot app that allows users to share information anonymously has reportedly seen a big dropoff in demand despite a retooling a few months ago.Fastest growing retail appWhat retailer would you think had the fastest growing mobile app last year? Well, if you said Kohl's (KSS), you'd be right. Researcher Comscore finds the Kohl's app jumped 793 percent in 2014...second only to car service Lyft. More from Yahoo FinanceMcDonald's new menu, Apple becoming Microsoft and Budweiser's blunderBudweiser's 'no' must go: social mediaMicrosoft developers conference falls flat, is Apple next? || Coin.co CEO: Bitcoin's Impact On Society Will Rival The Internet: Bitcoinis praised by those who have benefited from the digital currency, butnot everyone agreesthat it will last. Alex Waters, CEO ofCoin.co(a bitcoin payments company), recently told Benzinga about his grand vision for the cryptocurrency. "I think [it will] rival the Internet as far as how widely it could affect the world in a positive way," said Waters, whose company is among those that are competing in theBenzinga Fintech Awards. "I could say that the Internet has enabled things like email and social networks and personal websites, blogs. In many of the same ways, bitcoin enables (as a platform) decentralized organization and tokenization of securities and commodities and a whole bunch of really compelling things that are built on top of a platform." Waters defended his bold prediction by comparing the Internet to electricity. "I think to look at it as electricity has given us the Internet, maybe the Internet has given us bitcoin," he said. "So, what I say is, it rivals the Internet as far as its impact on humanity and the benefits to humanity. As much as electricity has benefited humanity, perhaps the Internet rivals that." Related Link:6 Reasons To Attend The Benzinga Fintech Awards Future Success - Or Failure? Waters said that it was "really hard to say" what bitcoin will look like in the distant future, but he is confident that it will survive and remain the leader in its field. "As far as, 'Will bitcoin be the thing that exists in 10 or 20 years [and] be the dominant digital currency?' -- I think so," said Waters. "I think, very much like Linux, it is an open-sourced platform. It is able to adapt and grow. If a competitor were to come up with something innovative that's better, bitcoin could just incorporate those changes." Waters noted that bitcoin has already achieved critical mass, has momentum and a "large number of really intelligent people working on it." "Tons of people have invested money into it," he said. "For example, the amount of venture capital invested in bitcoin companies last year surpassed that of the Internet in 1994. This year some analysts predicted that approximately $200 to $500 million will be invested in bitcoin companies." Rejected Ideas Waters realizes that some people may never be persuaded to use bitcoin until it has obtained a high degree of mainstream acceptance. He said the same thing happened with other ground-breaking technologies, such as the automobile. "Historically, cultures scoff at new technology," Waters explained. "A good example (in recent history) was the automobile. It was laughed at. It was sensationalized politically and in the media for enabling rum-runners to avoid the prohibition laws. Obviously that's silly, looking retrospectively." Waters said that the media's "sensational painting of bitcoin" is equally as silly. "If we look at percentages of dark market and that sort of thing, it's not really a concern," he added. "It's still a concern, but it's not as it's portrayed. I think people will scoff at things like a unified global currency or something as sci-fi as credits." As recently as 15 years ago, Waters believes some individuals may have scoffed at the idea of building robots that resembled humans. "And yet we see [Google-owned] Boston Dynamics building actual robots that look and resemble humans in the way they move around and behave," he said. "I think bitcoin is one of those things where people discredit it or doubt it, but it is such a technological advancement that it will have its day." Coin.co's Next Step: The Benzinga Fintech Awards Gala Coin.co is heading to the Benzinga Fintech Awards Gala on April 8. Space is limited (the initial batch of tickets are already sold out), so Benzinga is encouraging interested parties topurchase their ticketsimmediately (use coupon code BZFRIEND to save $100 off the regular admission price). Disclosure:At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report. See more from Benzinga • Why Amazon's 'Me-Too' Music Service Is A-OK • Is Xiaomi A Threat To GoPro, Apple, Sony... Everyone? • Digital Ally Rises 17% After Earnings; Time To Buy? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is It Time To Invest In Cuba?: On Tuesday , President Barack Obama told Congress that he was planning to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism in an effort to restore diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba after decades of tension. Congress will have 45 days to review the decision and decide whether or not to block it, but most are expecting that the removal will happen. The improving relations between Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, mark an important turning point for the Caribbean nation's economy and gives investors a reason to look to the island for new opportunities. Investment In Cuba Taking Cuba off the terrorism sponsor list is only the first step in a long process of diplomacy, but some are already gearing up for new investment opportunities. Thomas Herzfeld, who manages the Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund (NASDAQ: CUBA ), is now setting up a private equity fund that will invest directly in Cuba. Herzfeld told CNBC that the fund will invest in sectors expected to grow with improving U.S. relations like tourism, construction and telecom. Related Link: A Busy Week For Eurozone Finance Ministers And Central Bankers Risks Although the lack of foreign investment in Cuba makes it an interesting opportunity for aggressive investors, the nation still carries a high degree of risk. For one, the effects of an improving relationship with the U.S. are unlikely to make any real impact on the Cuban economy for quite some time. Additionally, the country's small population and low wages make it a difficult place to start a business. See more from Benzinga New App Allows Seamless Bitcoin Investment A Busy Week For Eurozone Finance Ministers And Central Bankers Cryptocurrency Finds A Place In Education With Smileycoin © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $223.4, last changed Sun, 19 Apr 2015 20:40:00 GMT. queried at: 20:42:43 || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 19 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,230.45 #bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $948.40 (24.48 %). BUY B16.70 @ $230.97 (#BTCe). SELL @ $235.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || #Monacoin Price 0.00063524 BTC - $ 0.16078900 24h Volume: 46.78160000 BTC - $ 11841.00 Change: -0.30% || LIVE: Profit = $1,085.53 (29.14 %). BUY B16.40 @ $226.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $235.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || current #bitcoin price (bitstamp) is $217.00, last changed Tue, 14 Apr 2015 20:22:16 GMT. queried at: 20:22:26 || current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $223.26, last changed Sat, 18 Apr 2015 22:29:00 GMT. queried at: 22:32:42 || Current price: 149.95£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-05-17 17:00:06 BST || current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $224.96, last changed Tue, 28 Apr 2015 20:55:00 GMT. queried at: 20:58:02 || current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $221.64, last changed Sun, 26 Apr 2015 02:45:00 GMT. queried at: 02:47:57
Trend: down || Prices: 240.35, 238.87, 240.95, 237.11, 237.12, 237.28, 237.41, 237.10, 233.35, 230.19
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin bounces back to above $50,000: Cryptocurrencies recovered from the battering they received at the weekend as concerns around the Omicron COVID-19 variant eased in the global market. Bitcoin (BTC-USD) was up 7.5% at the time of writing, to trade at $51,442 (£38,833), bouncing back above a key level of $50,000. During the weekend it had fallen to about $42,000, almost 30% down from its all-time high of $69,000, which it hit last month. Bitcoin had been trading near two-month lows at $42,000 – levels last seen in the first few sessions of October of 2021. Ethereum (ETH-USD), the world’s second biggest crypto by market cap, surged almost 10% and was trading at $4,415. Solana (SOL1-USD), which some analysts believe has the potential to outperform both bitcoin and ethereum, rose 11% to trade at $203. Read more:Live crypto prices "After such a big fall where vast amounts of leverage have been wiped out, it is very common to see buyers stepping in," said Marcus Sotiriou, analyst at digital asset broker GlobalBlock. He said that though crypto markets have crashed recently in part due to fears surrounding global markets, due to the Omicron variant, "fundamentally for crypto, nothing has really changed in the past few weeks from when Bitcoin was around $60k." “Investors should understand that there is a clear positive correlation between broader stock markets and crypto markets, as evidenced by the price of digital coins over the last few days. Cryptocurrency prices fell in tandem with stock market indices,” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Ava Trade. He said this occurred despite the fact that cryptocurrencies are regarded as a potential alternative to gold and a hedge against inflation. This hypothesis, however, has been tested time and again as cryptocurrencies have followed the stock market swings, albeit with greater volatility. “Investor sentiment has improved and major stock market indices have recovered. Similarly, the price of bitcoin has also been able to surpass $50,000, which is very encouraging for the blockchain space as we approach the end of 2021.” Read more:Do bitcoin charts foretell an impending crash in 2022? He had earlier said the weekend sell-off brought a lot of newer buyers into the market and believed "once the dust settles, we are likely to see more funds reporting their new positions in bitcoin.” This comes as many analysts have forecast bitcoin will hit $100,000 by year-end. Farah Mourad, senior market analyst at brokerage firm XTB MENA, told Yahoo Finance UK some believe the recent price action was triggered by liquidation of excessive leverage positions rather than change in overall market sentiment. In the past, crackdown on crypto by regulators has impacted their price. The most recent example is India, where the government plans to introduce legislation in the ongoing parliament session and may give crypto holders a deadline to declare assets. Anyone not willing to comply may be fined up to INR200m (£2m, $2.7m) or imprisoned for 1.5 years. The country is also considering appointing its capital markets regulator to oversee cryptocurrencies and potentially classify them as financial assets. "Even though these actions may seem strict, I am looking forward to the prospect of the industry gaining more certainty from governments as to what their rules are and where they stand – this could then instigate a further wave of institutional money who are waiting for clarification from governments," said Sotiriou. || Cuplr Announces BEP-20 Token On Pancakeswap: Cuplr App announces partnership with Anthony "Showtime" Pettis and CPLR Coin listing on PancakeSwap Nesbit, United States, Dec. 26, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- There’s a new competitor turning heads in the smart contract platform space with a 5x gain in 48 hours. Cuplr (CPLR) launched for public trading onPancakeSwapand the BEP-20 token outperformed every other cryptocurrency in the top 100, including Bitcoin ($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 || Bitcoin Miner Greenidge’s NY Power Plant Permit Delayed: Report: The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) has delayed its decision whether it will allow Greenidge Generation to continue to use its power plant in the town of Dresden for bitcoin mining, Bloomberg reported. • The decision is now expected to come by March 31, two months later than originally planned, the report said. • The delay will help NYSDEC complete its review with public comments, Bloomberg said, citing a spokesperson. • The minerappliedlast year to renew its permits for the plant, the first time it has come up for renewal since the plant has been powering bitcoin mining operations. • On Jan. 16, Greenidge said that due to high electricity demand resulting from recent cold weather, the companytemporarily curtailedits cryptocurrency mining operations in Dresden on Jan. 15 to supply all its electrical generation capacity to the New York Independent System Operator. • On Dec. 2, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)questionedthe environmental footprint of Greenidge Generation’s (GREE) bitcoin mining operation in New York in a detailedletter. The senator latertargeted six more crypto miners, questioning their energy usage. Read more:Warren Targets 6 More Crypto Miners for Their Energy Use || Sage Financial Group Inc Buys ISHARES TRUST, Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF, ISHARES TRUST, ...: W. Conshohocken, PA, based Investment companySage Financial Group Inc(Current Portfolio) buys ISHARES TRUST, Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF, ISHARES TRUST, iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, SPDR Nuveen Bloomberg Municipal Bond ETF, sells JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal Income ETF, BTC iShares U.S. Fixed Income Balanced Risk Factor during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Sage Financial Group Inc. As of 2021Q4, Sage Financial Group Inc owns 76 stocks with a total value of $939 million. These are the details of the buys and sells. • New Purchases:IEMG, EFG, ITB, FISR, SCHE, KMI, • Added Positions:IGSB, SCHX, VEU, EMB, TFI, SCHZ, IJH, AOR, IJR, SCHP, VWO, PFF, ACWX, SLYV, JUST, SCHC, MDYV, VBK, SCHV, SLYG, IXUS, ESML, DB, ICLN, NWG, • Reduced Positions:JMST, VUG, JPST, VOT, DFAC, IWF, IWP, VO, • Sold Out:FIBR, • Warning! GuruFocus has detected 2 Warning Sign with INTC. Click here to check it out. • IGSB 15-Year Financial Data • The intrinsic value of IGSB • Peter Lynch Chart of IGSB For the details of SAGE FINANCIAL GROUP INC's stock buys and sells,go tohttps://www.gurufocus.com/guru/sage+financial+group+inc/current-portfolio/portfolio These are the top 5 holdings of SAGE FINANCIAL GROUP INC 1. Schwab U.S. Large-Cap ETF (SCHX) - 3,935,475 shares, 47.68% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 2.29% 2. Vanguard Value ETF (VTV) - 332,325 shares, 5.20% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 0.94% 3. Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG) - 147,164 shares, 5.03% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 2.35% 4. iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF (IJH) - 145,602 shares, 4.39% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 6.36% 5. Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU) - 520,082 shares, 3.39% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 30.08% New Purchase: iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG) Sage Financial Group Inc initiated holding in iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF. The purchase prices were between $57.97 and $62.96, with an estimated average price of $60.63. The stock is now traded at around $57.950000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.43%. The holding were 67,321 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: BTC iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF (EFG) Sage Financial Group Inc initiated holding in BTC iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF. The purchase prices were between $104.29 and $112.61, with an estimated average price of $108.92. The stock is now traded at around $98.000000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.3%. The holding were 25,239 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: BTC iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB) Sage Financial Group Inc initiated holding in BTC iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF. The purchase prices were between $66.15 and $82.97, with an estimated average price of $75.43. The stock is now traded at around $69.080000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.09%. The holding were 10,435 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: SPDR SSGA Fixed Income Sector Rotation ETF (FISR) Sage Financial Group Inc initiated holding in SPDR SSGA Fixed Income Sector Rotation ETF. The purchase prices were between $30.69 and $31.35, with an estimated average price of $31. The stock is now traded at around $30.360000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.08%. The holding were 23,675 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF (SCHE) Sage Financial Group Inc initiated holding in Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF. The purchase prices were between $28.67 and $31.28, with an estimated average price of $30.07. The stock is now traded at around $29.020000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.05%. The holding were 14,571 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Kinder Morgan Inc (KMI) Sage Financial Group Inc initiated holding in Kinder Morgan Inc. The purchase prices were between $15.24 and $18.65, with an estimated average price of $16.62. The stock is now traded at around $16.835000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was less than 0.01%. The holding were 271 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: ISHARES TRUST (IGSB) Sage Financial Group Inc added to a holding in ISHARES TRUST by 456.97%. The purchase prices were between $53.7 and $54.33, with an estimated average price of $53.95. The stock is now traded at around $53.460000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 2.07%. The holding were 438,798 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU) Sage Financial Group Inc added to a holding in Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF by 30.08%. The purchase prices were between $58.93 and $62.73, with an estimated average price of $61.15. The stock is now traded at around $58.400000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.78%. The holding were 520,082 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: ISHARES TRUST (EMB) Sage Financial Group Inc added to a holding in ISHARES TRUST by 79.07%. The purchase prices were between $105.86 and $110.18, with an estimated average price of $108.44. The stock is now traded at around $104.710000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.71%. The holding were 137,892 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: SPDR Nuveen Bloomberg Municipal Bond ETF (TFI) Sage Financial Group Inc added to a holding in SPDR Nuveen Bloomberg Municipal Bond ETF by 90.61%. The purchase prices were between $51.05 and $51.8, with an estimated average price of $51.45. The stock is now traded at around $50.832100. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.41%. The holding were 158,492 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Schwab US Aggregate Bond ETF (SCHZ) Sage Financial Group Inc added to a holding in Schwab US Aggregate Bond ETF by 295.20%. The purchase prices were between $53.44 and $54.33, with an estimated average price of $53.89. The stock is now traded at around $53.017500. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.27%. The holding were 63,599 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: iShares Core Growth Allocation ETF (AOR) Sage Financial Group Inc added to a holding in iShares Core Growth Allocation ETF by 44.22%. The purchase prices were between $54.82 and $57.36, with an estimated average price of $56.38. The stock is now traded at around $53.850000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.17%. The holding were 90,309 shares as of 2021-12-31. Sold Out: BTC iShares U.S. Fixed Income Balanced Risk Factor (FIBR) Sage Financial Group Inc sold out a holding in BTC iShares U.S. Fixed Income Balanced Risk Factor. The sale prices were between $98.68 and $100.29, with an estimated average price of $99.57. Here is the complete portfolio of SAGE FINANCIAL GROUP INC. Also check out:1. SAGE FINANCIAL GROUP INC's Undervalued Stocks2. SAGE FINANCIAL GROUP INC's Top Growth Companies, and3. SAGE FINANCIAL GROUP INC's High Yield stocks4. Stocks that SAGE FINANCIAL GROUP INC keeps buyingThis article first appeared onGuruFocus. || Stock Market Today: Optimism on Omicron Gives Stocks a Kick: up arrows on stock chart Getty Images The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the other major indexes enjoyed a caffeinated start to the trading week as some encouraging commentary about the COVID omicron strain went a long way toward re-energizing the bulls. White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci told CNN on Sunday that while preliminary data shows that omicron "has a transmission advantage" in South Africa, "thus far it does not look like there's a great degree of severity to it." SEE MORE The 21 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2021 While Fauci added that it's too early to make any definitive statements, Wall Street clearly heard what it wanted, as a widespread rally ensued today. Unsurprisingly, economically sensitive sectors such as industrials (+1.7%), energy (+1.5%) and financials (+1.5%) benefited the most. Travel-related plays enjoyed a boost as well – Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings ( NCLH , +9.5%), United Airlines ( UAL , +8.3%), Las Vegas Sands ( LVS , +7.2%) and Expedia ( EXPE , +6.7%) were among Monday's most noteworthy gainers. The industrial average led the way with a 1.9% gain to 35,227, while the S&P 500 improved by 1.2% to 4,591. Technology (+0.9%), while up, still lagged most other sectors, limiting the Nasdaq Composite's advance (+0.9% to 15,225). Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. stock chart for 120621 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 popped 2.1% to 2,203. Easing omicron fears sent U.S. crude futures spiking 4.9% to settle at $69.49 per barrel. Gold futures slipped 0.3% to end at $1,779.50 an ounce. Bitcoin prices were 8.6% lower from Friday afternoon's prices, though most would consider that a relief, as the digital coin bottomed out around $43,000 over the weekend. "There wasn't a clear catalyst that triggered the selloff with most pointing to deleveraging of risk assets," says Michael Reinking, senior market strategist for the New York Stock Exchange. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.) Jack in the Box ( JACK ) sat out today's broad-market move higher, sinking 4.1% after the fast-food chain said it is buying sector peer Del Taco Restaurants ( TACO ) for $575 million, including debt, or $12.51 per TACO share. TACO jumped 66.1% on the day. Buzzfeed ( BZFD ) is the latest stock to debut on Wall Street. The media company went public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) 890 5th Avenue Partners. BZFD stock opened for trading at a per-share price of $10.95 and reached a session high of $14.77 before turning tail and settling at $8.56 – an 11.0% decline. Walgreens Boots Alliance ( WBA , +3.8%) was the best Dow stock today after Bloomberg reported late Friday that the pharmacy retail chain is exploring the potential sale of spinoff of Boots, it's U.K.-based drugstore. UBS Global Research analyst Kevin Caliendo says the reports don't come as a total surprise, "given the strategic shift toward healthcare management [WBA] highlighted at its analyst day and the emphasis management placed on the value it thought it had in its various and disparate assets (Boots, China, ABC, etc.)." If the company chooses to divest Boots, Caliendo expects Walgreens to "redeploy any proceeds to offset dilution or perhaps to help fund its Health M&A or Health Organic segments growth." He currently has a Neutral rating on the Dow stock. Story continues Embrace the Volatility? Up days like today aren't just nice because of the gains – they also help investors take a moment to collect themselves. SEE MORE 2022's Best Mutual Funds in 401(k) Retirement Plans The markets have been a volatile mess ever since after Thanksgiving, when news of the omicron strain snatched headlines. We might not be done with the roller coaster, either, but Ryan Detrick, LPL Financial chief market strategist, has some words of encouragement: "After more than a 110% rally from the March 2020 lows, perhaps investors needed a reminder that stocks can't go up forever and that while volatility might be frustrating, it is perfectly normal," he says. Ultimately, however, "We aren't minimizing the omicron uncertainty, but we remain bullish that the recovery is alive and well, with a very healthy consumer and corporate earnings backdrop leading the way. "In the end, we expect any lost output due to omicron to simply be pushed out and recovered by early next year." What should you do until then? We provide a broad overview in our markets lookahead to 2022 , though investors can find a multitude of sector-specific and other tactical picks in our investing outlook . However, if your comfort zone is the market's biggest, most financially stable companies – regardless of what headlines are whizzing past – look no further than this list of the hedge fund community's favorite blue-chip stocks . The "smart money" has recently filed to reveal their latest comings and goings, and these 25 stocks represent their collective highest-conviction ideas. SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions Dividend Increases: 14 Stocks That Have Doubled Their Payouts The 13 Best Books for Beginning Investors || Dollar rises on U.S. interest rate hike optimism: By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar edged higher against a basket of currencies on Monday as recent employment data prompted some Wall Street banks to raise their estimates for how quickly the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.2% at 95.993. The index remains close to the 16-month high it touched late in November. The dollar was supported by Friday's closely watched employment report which suggested the U.S. job market was at or near maximum employment. "A number of sell-side firms have revised their Fed forecasts after the NFP (nonfarm payroll) report on Friday," Brad Bechtel, global head of FX at Jefferies, said in a note. "With the unemployment rate below 4%, the Fed could probably declare their job on employment 'completed' which does indeed set us up for an even faster period of taper potentially," Bechtel said. Goldman Sachs expects the Fed to raise interest rates four times this year and begin the process of reducing the size of its balance sheet as soon as July. The investment bank, which earlier predicted the Fed would raise rates in March, June and September, now expects another hike in December. On Friday, J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank also forecast an aggressive tightening of U.S. monetary policy. Traders have priced in an 80% chance of a rate hike in March, according to CME's FedWatch tool. Rising Treasury yields - the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose to its highest level in almost two years on Monday - also supported the greenback. Traders have ramped up bets for rate hikes this year after the U.S. central bank's minutes from the December meeting suggested an earlier-than-expected rate hike and the possibility the Fed may cut its bond holdings sooner than many initially thought. Investors will be watching inflation data and testimony from Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Fed Governor Lael Brainard this week for clues to the timing and speed of rate hikes. U.S. December consumer inflation data is due to be released on Wednesday, with headline CPI seen coming in at a red-hot 7% on a year-on-year basis, boosting the case for interest rates to rise sooner rather than later. Sterling on Monday fell 0.11% against the dollar, even as easing fears about the adverse impact of the Omicron variant on the economy helped it rise to a near-two-year high against the euro.. Cryptocurrencies, which have faced pressure from broad selling in risk assets at the start of this year, weakened on Monday, with bitcoin down 1.3% at $41,346.71. GRAPHIC - Bitcoin falls on hard times https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/movanwwqmpa/Pasted%20image%201641827562312.png (Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Paul Simao) || Bitfarms Mines 3,452 Bitcoin in 2021: December Production Totals 363 Bitcoin This news release constitutes a “designated news release” for the purposes of the Company’s prospectus supplement dated August 16, 2021 to its short form base shelf prospectus dated August 12, 2021. TORONTO and BROSSARD, Québec, Jan. 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Bitfarms Ltd.(NASDAQ: BITF // TSXV: BITF), a global Bitcoin self-mining company, provides a Bitcoin (BTC) production and operations summary and update for the month of and year ended December 2021. “We began 2021 with an ambitious multi-year growth plan, and in executing this plan we secured nearly 60,000 new generation miners, grew our operational capacity 53%, increased our hashrate 228%, expanded our footprint internationally and mined 3,452 BTC," said Emiliano Grodzki, Bitfarms Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “December production of 363 BTC was up from 199 BTC mined in January, an increase of over 82%, which significantly outpaced network hashrate growth of 29% in 2021. This momentum leads into 2022, a year in which we plan to nearly double our operational farms, triple our operating capacity and quadruple our installed hashrate. We begin 2022 with 298 MW capacity under development and hash rate goals of 3 EH/s by March 31, 2022, and 8 EH/s by December 31, 2022.” “In addition, in 2021 we began to retain virtually all of our BTC production, which strengthened our balance sheet as our BTC holdings grew to over 3,300 BTC, US$151.8 million at current market prices, and enabled us to implement our recently announced $100 million BTC-backed loan facility,” added Grodzki. Mining Production • 2.2 EH/s achieved effective December 12, 2021, up 128% from 965 petahash per second on December 31, 2020. • 363 new BTC mined during December 2021, bringing the 2021 total to 3,452. • 11.5+ BTC mined daily on average in December, bringing the full year BTC mined daily on average to 9.5, equivalent to about US$437,000 per day based on a BTC price of US$46,000 on December 31. • 3,301 BTC deposited into custody for the year 2021, representing approximately 96% of Bitfarms’ 2021 BTC production and a total value of approximately US$151.8 million based on a BTC price of US$46,000. Mining Operations • Increased operating capacity 54% from 69 MW to 106 MW of hydropower. • Received and installed nearly 12,000 new miners in 2021 and exited 2021 with total fleet of approximately 27,000 miners online. • Exited 2021 with 298 MW in contracted capacity and 4 farms under development. • Contractually secured 49,200 miners, including 1,200 latest generation Bitmain S19 XPs, for delivery in 2022. • Rebuilt 17 MW farm in Cowansville, Québec. • Expanded into United States with acquisition of 24 MW facility in Washington state, growing the total number of operating farms from 5 to 6. • Entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to co-develop up to an additional 75 MW in Washington state. • Reached agreement with City of Sherbrooke, Québec, to build 2 new farms, Leger and The Bunker, with 78 MW combined capacity and broke ground on construction of both farms. • Performed construction on new 10 MW farm in Paraguay with planned installation of 3,000 miners in January. • Signed engineering contracts and commenced construction of a 210 MW facility in Argentina. • Rebuilt inhouse management software to accommodate international growth plans. Bitfarms’ BTC 2021 Monthly Production [{"Month": "January", "BTC": "199"}, {"Month": "February", "BTC": "178"}, {"Month": "March", "BTC": "221"}, {"Month": "April", "BTC": "232"}, {"Month": "May", "BTC": "262"}, {"Month": "June", "BTC": "265"}, {"Month": "July", "BTC": "391"}, {"Month": "August", "BTC": "354"}, {"Month": "SeptemberOctober", "BTC": "305343"}, {"Month": "November", "BTC": "339"}, {"Month": "December", "BTC": "363"}] Grants of Options to New Employees Bitfarms continues to strengthen its management team and recently filled key newly created positions in this regard. Options to purchase an aggregate of 120,000 common shares were granted to these new officers pursuant to the Company’s Long Term Incentive Plan. The Options are exercisable into common shares of the Company at a price of CAD$7.41 per share for a period of five years from the date of grant and are subject to vesting conditions. 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. Bitfarms has a diversified production platform with five industrial scale facilities located in Québec and one in Washington state. 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 TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture 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 releaseregarding expectations in respect to its future rate of Bitcoin production, its future accumulation of Bitcoin, its expansion plans,and about other future plansand 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, risks relating to the Company’s new credit facility and the Company’s future reliance upon debt financing, as well as capital market conditions in general; 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; 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 blockchain infrastructure 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 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, 2020, filed on April 7, 2021. 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 || Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc Buys JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF, Vanguard FTSE ...: Investment companyRichard P Slaughter Associates Inc(Current Portfolio) buys JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF, Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF, Procore Technologies Inc, Moderna Inc, Vanguard U.S. Momentum Factor ETF, sells Campbell Soup Co, AT&T Inc, ARK Genomic Revolution ETF, Alibaba Group Holding, BTC BlackRock Ultra Short-Term Bond ETF during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc. As of 2021Q4, Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc owns 125 stocks with a total value of $283 million. These are the details of the buys and sells. • New Purchases:PCOR, HMC, VTI, MMM, MUNI, VO, JPST, HD, IBMO, IBMP, • Added Positions:GSSC, IQLT, JEPI, VWO, GSIE, MRNA, VFMO, SPMD, VEU, ANGL, EMB, VOE, VBR, VBK, ARKW, ARKK, MGV, VSS, VOT, INTC, PKX, L, EEM, JNJ, MGK, DIS, NCR, PDN, SPY, FNDF, TSM, WRK, BRK.B, SWN, SPDW, VLUE, IVV, ABBV, AL, JKD, CMI, SPTM, GSEW, ABC, C, CNHI, SNY, BCE, XOM, ET, • Reduced Positions:T, ARKG, BABA, ICSH, BIIB, RDS.A, VXUS, LEG, LMT, QAI, BGS, PPL, CVX, BP, MSFT, PEP, PETS, WBA, SQ, IRM, APAM, RY, SAFT, TD, MC, PXD, IRDM, PGR, NVS, MTH, JBL, JPM, GT, AMZN, DHR, SCHB, • Sold Out:CPB, MS, PFF, PFE, IBTF, IBTG, SCHF, • Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with WFC. Click here to check it out. • JEPI 15-Year Financial Data • The intrinsic value of JEPI • Peter Lynch Chart of JEPI For the details of Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc's stock buys and sells,go tohttps://www.gurufocus.com/guru/richard+p+slaughter+associates+inc/current-portfolio/portfolio These are the top 5 holdings of Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc 1. Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta U.S. Small Cap Equity ETF (GSSC) - 325,250 shares, 7.65% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 17.27% 2. iShares MSCI Intl Quality Factor ETF (IQLT) - 491,865 shares, 6.85% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 18.63% 3. JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (JEPI) - 201,824 shares, 4.51% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 22.99% 4. Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta International Equity ETF (GSIE) - 285,708 shares, 3.56% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 16.92% 5. JPMorgan Diversified Return U.S. Mid Cap Equity ET (JPME) - 75,640 shares, 2.55% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 0.54% New Purchase: Procore Technologies Inc (PCOR) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc initiated holding in Procore Technologies Inc. The purchase prices were between $75.67 and $104.86, with an estimated average price of $87.4. The stock is now traded at around $70.200000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.54%. The holding were 19,202 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Honda Motor Co Ltd (HMC) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc initiated holding in Honda Motor Co Ltd. The purchase prices were between $27.36 and $30.79, with an estimated average price of $29.04. The stock is now traded at around $30.890000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.37%. The holding were 36,424 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc initiated holding in Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF. 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 $234.930000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.22%. The holding were 2,547 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: 3M Co (MMM) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc initiated holding in 3M Co. The purchase prices were between $170.04 and $183.66, with an estimated average price of $178.14. The stock is now traded at around $181.020000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.11%. The holding were 1,802 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: PIMCO Intermediate Municipal Bond Active Exchange- (MUNI) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc initiated holding in PIMCO Intermediate Municipal Bond Active Exchange-. The purchase prices were between $55.8 and $56.28, with an estimated average price of $56.08. The stock is now traded at around $55.920000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.11%. The holding were 5,489 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF (VO) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc initiated holding in Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF. The purchase prices were between $236.12 and $260.25, with an estimated average price of $250.07. The stock is now traded at around $244.840000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.1%. The holding were 1,145 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (JEPI) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc added to a holding in JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF by 22.99%. The purchase prices were between $58.19 and $63.19, with an estimated average price of $60.84. The stock is now traded at around $62.440000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.84%. The holding were 201,824 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc added to a holding in Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF by 66.95%. The purchase prices were between $47.81 and $51.82, with an estimated average price of $50.01. The stock is now traded at around $50.590000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.82%. The holding were 117,443 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Moderna Inc (MRNA) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc added to a holding in Moderna Inc by 112.36%. The purchase prices were between $225.82 and $368.51, with an estimated average price of $290.69. The stock is now traded at around $210.170000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.51%. The holding were 10,690 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Vanguard U.S. Momentum Factor ETF (VFMO) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc added to a holding in Vanguard U.S. Momentum Factor ETF by 49.59%. The purchase prices were between $126.06 and $141.95, with an estimated average price of $134.17. The stock is now traded at around $128.107100. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.44%. The holding were 28,519 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: SPDR Portfolio S&P 400 Mid Cap ETF (SPMD) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc added to a holding in SPDR Portfolio S&P 400 Mid Cap ETF by 24.34%. The purchase prices were between $46.53 and $50.84, with an estimated average price of $48.79. The stock is now traded at around $48.840000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.42%. The holding were 121,541 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc added to a holding in Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF by 32.32%. The purchase prices were between $58.93 and $62.73, with an estimated average price of $61.15. The stock is now traded at around $62.040000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.3%. The holding were 56,731 shares as of 2021-12-31. Sold Out: Campbell Soup Co (CPB) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc sold out a holding in Campbell Soup Co. The sale prices were between $39.91 and $44.18, with an estimated average price of $41.61. Sold Out: Morgan Stanley (MS) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc sold out a holding in Morgan Stanley. The sale prices were between $94.82 and $104.66, with an estimated average price of $99.64. Sold Out: iShares U.S. Preferred Stock (PFF) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc sold out a holding in iShares U.S. Preferred Stock. The sale prices were between $37.98 and $39.43, with an estimated average price of $38.64. Sold Out: iShares iBonds Dec 2025 Term Treasury ETF (IBTF) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc sold out a holding in iShares iBonds Dec 2025 Term Treasury ETF. The sale prices were between $25.27 and $25.62, with an estimated average price of $25.4. Sold Out: Pfizer Inc (PFE) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc sold out a holding in Pfizer Inc. The sale prices were between $41.32 and $61.25, with an estimated average price of $49.81. Sold Out: Schwab International Equity ETF (SCHF) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc sold out a holding in Schwab International Equity ETF. The sale prices were between $37.11 and $39.68, with an estimated average price of $38.6. Reduced: AT&T Inc (T) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc reduced to a holding in AT&T Inc by 37.88%. The sale prices were between $22.17 and $27.35, with an estimated average price of $24.71. The stock is now traded at around $26.800000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.36%. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc still held 54,532 shares as of 2021-12-31. Reduced: ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc reduced to a holding in ARK Genomic Revolution ETF by 23.91%. The sale prices were between $58.02 and $78.15, with an estimated average price of $68.63. The stock is now traded at around $51.050000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.34%. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc still held 36,206 shares as of 2021-12-31. Reduced: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc reduced to a holding in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd by 27.03%. The sale prices were between $111.96 and $177.7, with an estimated average price of $145.1. The stock is now traded at around $131.370000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.2%. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc still held 9,371 shares as of 2021-12-31. Reduced: BTC BlackRock Ultra Short-Term Bond ETF (ICSH) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc reduced to a holding in BTC BlackRock Ultra Short-Term Bond ETF by 33.13%. The sale prices were between $50.36 and $50.44, with an estimated average price of $50.4. The stock is now traded at around $50.375000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.18%. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc still held 18,462 shares as of 2021-12-31. Reduced: Biogen Inc (BIIB) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc reduced to a holding in Biogen Inc by 32.9%. The sale prices were between $223.92 and $287.77, with an estimated average price of $256.27. The stock is now traded at around $236.670000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.17%. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc still held 3,084 shares as of 2021-12-31. Reduced: Vanguard Total International Stock (VXUS) Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc reduced to a holding in Vanguard Total International Stock by 29.68%. The sale prices were between $61.08 and $65.1, with an estimated average price of $63.41. The stock is now traded at around $64.140000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.08%. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc still held 7,443 shares as of 2021-12-31. Here is the complete portfolio of Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc. Also check out:1. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc's Undervalued Stocks2. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc's Top Growth Companies, and3. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc's High Yield stocks4. Stocks that Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc keeps buyingThis article first appeared onGuruFocus. || Bitcoin Tests Key Support At $45,500 As Treasury Yields Rise: Bitcoinhas recently made another attempt to settle below the key support level at $45,500 while other leading coins remained under pressure. It looks that the recent rise in Treasury yields has put material pressure on crypto markets. The rally in yields was broad-based, and the yield of 30-year Treasuries managed to get back above 2.00%. Back at the beginning of December, the yield of 30-year Treasuries made an attempt to settle below the 1.70% level, so the recent increase in yields was significant. Interestingly, higher yields failed to put pressure on other riskier asset classes like growth stocks, andS&P 500finished yesterday’s trading session near all-time highs, led byTesla,AmazonandApple. At this point, there are two main scenarios for Bitcoin. The world’s leading cryptocurrency, which is down by more than 30% from highs that were reached back in November 2021, may catch up with other riskier assets and get back above the important $50,000 level. The second scenario implies that rising yields will deal more damage to the crypto market. In this case, Bitcoin will move below the support at $46,500 and head towards the $40,000 level. Bitcoin has once again received support near $45,500 and is currently trying to rebound. In recent trading sessions, Bitcoin has been stuck between the support at $45,500 and the resistance at $48,000. If Bitcoin manages to get out of this consolidation and gets above the 20 EMA which is located near $48,000, it will have a good chance to gain upside momentum and move towards the $50,000 level. On the support side, a move below $45,500 would crash bulls’ hopes for any rebound in the near term. In this scenario, Bitcoin will likely gain material downside momentum, which will also put pressure on other leading coins likeEthereumandBinance Coin. Taking a look at H1 chart, we can see that Bitcoin is trying to settle back above $46,500. RSI remains in the moderate territory, so Bitcoin has a decent chance to gain more upside momentum in the near term. If this attempt is not successful, Bitcoin will get back towards the support at $45,500, which may be followed by a move below this level. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Ravencoin (RVN) Rallies Ahead of its Halving Event Later this Month • AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Earlier Fed Rate Hike Expectations Weigh on Aussie, Kiwi • No Crypto Ban in Estonia • CFTC Fines Polymarket and Issues a Cease and Desist • GBP/USD Daily Forecast – U.S. Dollar Stays Strong Against British Pound • Big Money Loves Intuit || Elizabeth Warren rejects the claim that crypto can address inequality, saying the top 1% still reigns supreme: Elizabeth Warren Lou Rocco/ABC via Getty Images In a tweet on Tuesday, Elizabeth Warren rejected the crypto industry's widely held claim that digital assets will foster financial inclusion. "We need real solutions to make the financial system work for everyone, not just the wealthy," she said in a tweet. The Democratic senator has been among the most outspoken critics of digital assets. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell Senator Elizabeth Warren has rejected the crypto industry's widely held claim that digital assets will foster financial inclusion, pointing to the concentration of wealth across the richest individuals. "We need real solutions to make the financial system work for everyone, not just the wealthy," the Democratic senator said in a tweet Tuesday. "Bitcoin ownership is even more concentrated within the top 1% than dollars." Warren, who represents Massachusetts, linked a recent story published by The Wall Street Journal to her tweet, which detailed a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Among the key findings was a validation of the senator's claim: that the top 10,000 bitcoin accounts hold 5 million bitcoins. At Wednesday's price, this combined holding translates to roughly $239 billion. "Approximately 0.01% of bitcoin holders control 27% of the 19 million bitcoin in circulation," the WSJ article said. Warren, among the most outspoken critics of digital assets, called on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to bring in tougher rules for related industries in June this year. In August , the senator urged regulators to speed up efforts to "take hold of the piece that's within their jurisdiction." Her main concern is the damage these volatile assets can bring to small-time retail investors who are mostly getting cheated or losing money thanks to pump and dump schemes. Still, despite the rapid growth of the crypto space, lawmakers seem torn about how to regulate the almost $3 trillion dollar industry . Read more: You're sitting on a huge crypto windfall. Here's what you need to know about taxes, and last-minute tactics to minimize them. Read the original article on Business Insider [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 38483.12, 38743.27, 36952.98, 37154.60, 41500.88, 41441.16, 42412.43, 43840.29, 44118.45, 44338.80
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)] Cardano Climbs 10.19% In Bullish Trade: Investing.com - Cardano was trading at $0.10410 by 17:03 (21:03 GMT) on the Investing.com Index on Friday, up 10.19% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage gain since May 29. The move upwards pushed Cardano's market cap up to $2.69B, or 1.24% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, Cardano's market cap was $23.92B. Cardano had traded in a range of $0.09399 to $0.10562 in the previous twenty-four hours. Over the past seven days, Cardano has seen a drop in value, as it lost 11.52%. The volume of Cardano traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $90.67M or 0.57% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $0.08434 to $0.11602 in the past 7 days. At its current price, Cardano is still down 92.29% from its all-time high of $1.35 set on January 4. Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading Bitcoin was last at $6,475.8 on the Investing.com Index, up 3.22% on the day. Ethereum was trading at $300.92 on the Investing.com Index, a gain of 5.88%. Bitcoin's market cap was last at $111.99B or 51.71% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while Ethereum's market cap totaled $30.60B or 14.13% of the total cryptocurrency market value. Related Articles Singapore Digital Currency Exchange Adds TomoChain and PolicyPal Network US States Have Begun Requiring Cryptocurrency Bonds IBM, UPS Applied for Blockchain-Related Patents, USPTO Files Reveal View comments || Bitcoin Price Stabilizes at $6,400 While Analyst Sticks to Crypto Downtrend: Since falling from $7,400 to $6,300 on September 6, Bitcoin has stabilized in the $6,400 region, providing the crypto market with a small breathing room. Bitcoin has been fairly stable at $6,450 throughout the past 48 hours, recording a movement that has allowed tokens to minimize losses against BTC and other major cryptocurrencies. Still, Edward Morra, a widely recognized technical analyst in the crypto community, has said that Bitcoin and the rest of the market are still on a clear downtrend. From August 8 to August 26, for more than three weeks, Bitcoin had been relatively stable in the $6,500 to $7,000 region, demonstrating small volatility. However, from August 27 to early September, as Bitcoin started to see some major movements on the upside, the cryptocurrency market began to demonstrate extreme volatility. As seen on September 6, the end outcome of the volatility in the cryptocurrency market was a massive crash for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the rest of the market, deleting gains over the past month. Considering the sheer speed in which the crypto market fell to its previous support level, Morraexplained: “I’m not really sure why some people are still bullish here, market clearly showed you the evidence of supply still completely dominating the place. Erasing 2 weeks worth of gains in 2 days. That’s failed rally, and this is a sign of weakness, not the spring.” Morra added that the cryptocurrency market will have to see solid stability in the low price range before properly bottoming out and initiating a mid-term rally. But, BTC and ETH, along with other assets, have not shown any signs of stabilization in their low price range. “Springs occur at bottom of the range, preferably on low volume. Instead, we got the most technical bearish 0.618 macro retest followed by record $1B 1h volume candle. That’s not bullish in any senses,” Morra said. Previously, ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees said that the bear market is not over yet but the low price range presents a viable opportunity to invest in the cryptocurrency market. Even if BTC drops in the upcoming days, it is unlikely to see BTC testing the mid-$5,000 range. But, as Morra emphasized, the market is not bullish and is not demonstrating any signs of mid-term recovery. As such, in this period, it is more urgent for major cryptocurrencies to remain stable in their low price range for weeks if not months to ensure the market truly bottoms out in the $190 billion to $200 billion range. Against Bitcoin, tokens have recorded 50 to 90 percent losses over the past 8 months, despite the 70 percent correction in the price of BTC. Given the magnitude of the decline in tokens, the market will most likely show oversold conditions in the short-term. Still, in the grand scheme of things, tokens present overly high-risk opportunities with insufficient returns, at least for now. Featured image from Shutterstock. The postBitcoin Price Stabilizes at $6,400 While Analyst Sticks to Crypto Downtrendappeared first onCCN. || Yahoo Finance Morning Brief: August 23, 2018: Thursday, August 23, 2018 What to watch today On Thursday, the economic data schedule will bring investors the weekly report on initial jobless claims, the FHFA’s June reading on home prices, July data on new home sales, and Markit Economics’ initial look at manufacturing and service-sector activity in August. And on the earnings side, notable retail names set to report results include Ross Stores ( ROST ) and The Gap ( GPS ), while other companies scheduled to release earnings include HP ( HPQ ), Intuit ( INTU ), Hormel ( HRL ), and Autodesk ( ADSK ). Read More Top news (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Mary Altaffer/AP, Alexandria Detention Center via AP) How the Trump scandals will affect financial markets : The tumultuous Trump presidency has been good for markets, so far. But investors now have some heady new possibilities to consider. The recent convictions of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, and Paul Manafort, his 2016 campaign manager, have exposed Trump to more political peril than he has faced in his 18 months in office. Both men know details of Trump’s business and political dealings that could fuel the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller. [Yahoo Finance] Fed signals readiness to hike again : U.S. central bankers are ready to raise interest rates again so long as the economy stays on track, according to a record of the Federal Reserve’s most recent policy meeting. [Bloomberg] U.S.-China trade war escalates as new tariffs kick in : The U.S. and China escalated their acrimonious trade war on Thursday, implementing punitive 25% tariffs on $16 billion worth of each other’s goods, even as mid-level officials from both sides resumed talks in Washington. The world’s two largest economies have now slapped tit-for-tat tariffs on a combined $100 billion of products since early July, with more in the pipeline. [Reuters] Aramco IPO halted, oil giant disbands advisers : Saudi Arabia has called off plans for the domestic and international listing of state oil giant Aramco, billed as the biggest stock flotation in history, four senior industry sources said. Financial advisers working on the planned listing have been disbanded as Saudi Arabia shifts its attention to a proposed acquisition of a “strategic stake” in local petrochemicals maker Saudi Basic Industries Corp. [Reuters] Story continues SEC quashes more bitcoin ETF pitches in another blow to crypto : The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected another round of attempts to list exchange-traded funds backed by Bitcoin, blocking ETFs from ProShares, GraniteShares and Direxion on concern prices could be vulnerable to manipulation. [Bloomberg] For more of the latest news, go to Yahoo Finance Participants dressed as cuddly animals arrive for the annual Eurofurence ‘furries’ gathering at the Estrel hotel on August 22, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. Eurofurence attracts furry fandom enthusiasts from across the globe for four days of anthropomorphic fun. (Photo by Michele Tantussi/Getty Images) Yahoo Finance Originals Facebook’s latest scandal will leave it unscathed In the Manafort verdict, a primal lesson about debt Hedge funds stand by Facebook as their favorite stock pick How on- and off-campus rent compare in major college towns ESPN says esports is not a fad — Like what you just read? Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. And feel free to share it with a friend! The Morning Brief provides a quick rundown on what to watch in the markets, top news stories, and the best of Yahoo Finance Originals. || Major German Stock Exchange Announces “End-to-End” Cryptocurrency Infrastructure: After creating the BISON crypto-trading app , the second-largest stock exchange in Germany continues to embrace cryptocurrency with its most recent initiative. Boerse Stuttgart is creating an ICO platform, a trading venue and custody for cryptocurrencies and related services. “Boerse Stuttgart Group is creating an end-to-end infrastructure for digital assets. After the start of cryptocurrency trading via BISON, there will soon be a platform for initial coin offerings (ICOs), a multilateral trading venue for cryptocurrencies as well as solutions for safe custody. Boerse Stuttgart Group thus continues to pursue its digitisation strategy and is becoming a pioneer for the digital transformation of financial markets and financial products,” stated a recent announcement . The CEO of Boerse Stuttgart GmbH, Alexander Höptner, states that the group’s know-how in the fields of technology, regulation and trading models favorably positions it for creating a successful infrastructure to complement the BISON app and create a thriving crypto-trading ecosystem. “On this basis we can offer central services along the value chain for digital assets, all under one roof. Investors and market participants know that Boerse Stuttgart Group stands for quality, transparency and reliability. As a Germany-based provider we want to transpose this standard into the digital world. We will help to promote acceptance of digital assets.” The BISON app due for launch this autumn will facilitate market access and allow free and secure trading of cryptocurrencies, making it the first app in the world to be backed by a traditional stock exchange. The app will support trading in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin to begin with. After the launch the group then plans to extend its activities to the primary and secondary markets. The ICO platform will serve to issue digital tokens in cases like corporate financing or to represent rights and assets as well as launching new ICO projects with what the group describes as “standardised and transparent processes.” Story continues The trading venue for digital assets like Bitcoin will comprise a separate aspect of the end-to-end infrastructure. “At the trading venue tokens issued via our ICO platform can be traded on the secondary market. This is an important success factor for ICOs. At the same time we are responding to demand from both retail and institutional investors for a regulated and reliable environment for trading with cryptocurrencies,’ explains Alexander Höptner. The custody services will include differentiated safety concepts for digital assets and will already be available with the launch of the BISON trading app. The group states that the custody service will later be available for use along the entire value chain as well as the app itself. The news of a major German exchange becoming more involved in crypto coincides with the owner of the New York Stock Exchange launching their own Bitcoin market . Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Major German Stock Exchange Announces “End-to-End” Cryptocurrency Infrastructure appeared first on CCN . || 4 Things TerraForm Power Inc's Management Team Wants You to Know About What's Ahead: WhenBrookfield Asset Management(NYSE: BAM)took control ofTerraForm Power(NASDAQ: TERP)last year, it aimed to implement a strategy that would slowly turn the struggling renewable power generating company around. However, the plan has unfolded much quicker than expected, which was evident in TerraForm'ssecond-quarter results. Because of that, management was very optimistic about the company's future on the accompanying conference call where they detailed four things that should drive its performance in the coming years. CEO John Stinebaugh started off the call by stating, "Now that we've completed the acquisition of Saeta, TerraForm Power's portfolio stands at over 3,600 megawatts, 40% larger than when Brookfield assumed control of the company late last year." Further, the CEO noted that the company's portfolio has expanded to 12 geographic regions and that it has contracts supporting 95% of the power it will generate, with the average length lasting for 14 years, which will enable it to produce stable cash flow for years to come. Image source: Getty Images. In addition to quickly increasing its scale, TerraForm has also made excellent progress on its cost-saving initiatives. The highlight in the quarter was signing an 11-year deal withGeneral Electric(NYSE: GE)to service its wind fleet in North America. As a result of TerraForm's agreement with GE, Stinebaugh noted that "we expect to begin realizing cost savings in the first half of 2019, ahead of our stated goal of phasing in these operational savings over two to three years." The company's accomplishments since joining forces with Brookfield have put it on "a clear path to deliver annual dividend per share growth of 5% to 8% through 2022," according to Stinebaugh, while staying within its target ratio of only paying out 80% to 85% of cash available for distribution (CAFD). Stinebaugh noted that four pillars underpin this outlook: Cost savings of $25 million in corporate overhead and operations and maintenance, fully achieved on a run-rate basis by the first half of 2018. Revenue improvement of $20 million from increasing the performance of our wind and solar fleets to our long-term average generation targets. Organic investments in our existing fleet and add-on acquisitions to contribute $30 million in CAFD funded by retained cash flow, project level debt and a potential sale of non-core assets, and finally, the accretion from the Saeta acquisition. With clear line of sight on how it can meet its forecast, TerraForm has removed many of the risk factors that could derail its plan, including eliminating the need to obtain any outside funding to achieve its strategy. A driving factor of the company's ability to self-fund growth is the dramatic improvement of its financial profile. One evidence of this is that "following the closing of the Saeta transaction, Moody's upgraded our corporate credit rating from B1 to Ba3," according to CFO Matthew Berger. That's due in part to the fact that the company decided to issue more equity than initially expected to finance the deal so that it could improve its financial metrics more quickly. That stock, which itsoldto Brookfield Asset Management and its affiliateBrookfield Renewable Partners(NYSE: BEP), helped reduce TerraForm Power's corporate debt-to-cash flow ratio toward its 4.0 to 5.0 times target range. That puts the company within striking distance of receiving another credit upgrade to an investment-grade rating, which is TerraForm's goal. Image source: Getty Images. With its balance sheet on much stronger ground and its operations improving at a faster-than-expected pace, TerraForm is in a better position to capture additional opportunities that might occur in the future. The CEO noted that "the transformation of global power grids is still in very early stages and will require hundreds of billions of investment over multiple decades." While that means there should be no shortage of investment possibilities, the company plans to "look for opportunities to deploy capital at attractive rates of return." If it finds good deals, the CEO believes his company is "well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that will inevitably arise," especially "considering Brookfield's demonstrated willingness to provide support as we pursue investments," according to Stinebaugh. TerraForm Power already had a strong portfolio of wind and solar assets. However, thanks to the help of Brookfield, it has quickly improved the performance of its legacy assets, while adding new ones into the fold. Because of that, the company was recently able to reinstate a high-yielding dividend that it can grow at a high rate for at least the next five years. That growing income stream makes thestock an appealing one to buy these days. 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 DiLalloowns shares of Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners, General Electric, and TerraForm Power. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Better Ways of Storing Value Than Bitcoin, Claims Trump’s Fmr. Economic Advisor: Four months after leaving theWhite Houseas a chief economic advisor,Gary Cohnis looking for his next challenge. Among the various opportunities available, the former Goldman Sachs president has revealed that he is eyeing the cryptocurrency world. If he has his way, there could be some disruption in the offing. “I’m not keen on what’s going on. I’m keen on what I think could be the new world of crypto, but it’s got to have a use. It can’t just be a store of valuation, there are other more practical ways to store value,” CohntoldBloomberg at a charity event after being asked what his next move will be after leaving the White House as Trump’s chief economic advisor. This is not the first time that the formerTrumpadvisor who quit after the president slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports is hinting his discomfort with cryptocurrencies as they currently exist. As previously reported by CCN, Cohn argued in May this year that aglobal cryptocurrency will emergeeventually but it will not be bitcoin. Then Cohn stated that the ‘complicated’ nature of bitcoin worked against the flagship cryptocurrency. Consequently, Cohn predicted that the global cryptocurrency of the future will be one that is well understood and one which is not generated by mining. “It will be a more easily understood cryptocurrency. It will probably have some blockchain technology behind it, but it will be much more easily understood how it’s created, how it moves and how people can use it,” said Cohn. Last year in December even as bitcoin was reaching record highs Cohn revealed that he wasn’t invested in the flagship cryptocurrency. At the time he indicated that he was hoping for a more mainstream digital currency with lower transaction costs to emerge in the United States. AtGoldman Sachs, Cohn had been the president and co-chief operating officer of the famed Wall Street giant where he was seen a likely successor to Lloyd Blankfein, the investment bank’s outgoing CEO. Among the mainstream financial firms, Cohn’s former employer has a fairly progressive stance with regards to cryptocurrencies. Most recently it was reported that Goldman Sachs was looking into unveilingbitcoin custodial servicesfor investment funds and other institutional investors. The investment bank has also made key hires from the cryptocurrency field as rumors swirled that it was launching abitcoin trading desk. Featured image from Flickr/World Economic Forum. The postBetter Ways of Storing Value Than Bitcoin, Claims Trump’s Fmr. Economic Advisorappeared first onCCN. || EightCap adds MetaTrader 5 to its Trading Platform Suite: Australian Forex & CFD Broker EightCap has recently launched the MetaTrader 5 trading platform to existing and new clients. The improved mobile and desktop applications will enable EightCap’s clients to leverage 38 technical indicators and 21 timeframes, whilst also gaining access to new markets. “We are committed to providing our clients with a market leading trading experience. Our clients need access to the very best tools and technology in the industry and we’ll continue to invest in these needs. Our recent introduction of MetaTrader 5 is an exciting step forward for us in this space.” Cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, BTG, Ripple, and Bitcoin have all been added to EightCap’s MetaTrader 5 platform extending their total trading instrument list to over 200+ products. About EightCap Under ASIC regulation, EightCap provides market access to a wide range of Forex & CFD products. Global market indices, metals, oil and both major and minor currency pairs can be traded on MT4 & MT5. Since entering the market in 2009, EightCap now boasts offices around the globe providing a wide range of client support services. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: GBP in a critical condition Precious Metals Move Down as USD Firm on Trade War Woes EUR/JPY Descending Trend Lines Suggest Further Bearish Pressure Pound Sags ahead of BoE Inflation Report Hearing, Gold Sinks Commodities Daily Forecast – September 4, 2018 Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Drop as Hurricane Treat Passes || Thailand AML Watchdog Plans to Seize Bitcoin from Criminal Proceeds: Bitcoin Thailand Thailand’s anti-money laundering agency is considering sealing a loophole that has seen cybercriminals face every other consequence for their actions except have their digital assets confiscated. According to the secretary of Thailand ’s Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO), Witthaya Neetitham, the government agency is planning on setting up its own cryptocurrency wallet for the purposes of tackling crime relating to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Speaking during a seminar held in Bangkok focusing on the crypto-related crime, Neetitham said the wallet would allow the government agency to seize proceeds of crime held as digital assets. “We have discussed launching our own ‘AMLO Wallet’ to hold or confiscate digital currency from illegal sources,” said Neetitham as first reported by The Nation. No Seizure of Digital Assets At the moment Thai law only addresses the confiscation of physical assets and this has seen cybercriminals arrested in the country either jailed or extradited and their digital assets left intact. A case in point occurred last year when the Thai Royal Police arrested a child-porn website operator who possessed bitcoins suspected to have been proceeds of crime but nothing was done about it since the law is silent on the seizure of such assets. The announcement of AMLO’s plans come less than a week since the executive director of the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ), Kittipong Kittayarak, revealed during a seminar that crypto-related crime is tipped to rise in the Asian country in the coming years. As CCN reported Kittayarak said that cases of cryptocurrency crime are currently ‘very few’ though the situation is bound to change. “In Thailand, there are very few criminal cases related to cryptocurrencies yet the number of cases is expected to rise,” said Kittayarak. Not an Easy Job Citing a study conducted by the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute as well as the TIJ, Kittayarak lamented that Thai agencies faced enormous challenges in their efforts to combat crypto-related crime. Story continues “This includes human resource constraints, a lack of effective inter-agency communication due to officials’ lack of proficiency in foreign languages, and bureaucratic red tape,” Kittayarak said . A number of crypto-related crimes committed in Thailand have hit the headlines in the recent past. This includes the highly-publicized case involving a 22-year-old Finnish national who lost 5,564 bitcoins to Thai fraudsters who had promised to make various investments on his behalf. As previously reported by CCN the case has attracted wide public attention partly due to the high profile nature of some of the suspects and this includes famous Thai actor Jiratpisit Jaravijit (aka Boom) and a prominent stock investor, Prasit Srisuwan. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Thailand AML Watchdog Plans to Seize Bitcoin from Criminal Proceeds appeared first on CCN . || FTC Warns of Rise in Bitcoin Blackmail Scams Targeting Cheating Husbands: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is attempting to combat bitcoin blackmail scams by offering consumers advice through its website. In a bulletin published on Aug. 21, the FTC Division of Consumer and Business Education posted a sample quote from a typical BTC blackmail scam: “I know about the secret you are keeping from your wife and everyone else. You can ignore this letter, or pay me a $8600 confidentiality fee in Bitcoin.” Notably, the sample doesn’t specify the nature of the “secret”, which is a common tactic employed by scammers who use sweeping generalisations in the hopes that someone’s guilty conscience will get the better of them and cause them to panic and pay up, unaware that the scammer has just sent out hundreds or thousands of such emails indiscriminately. In January CCN reported a similarscamtargeting victims with paper mail through the U.S. Postal Service. The scammer or scammers accused their many targets of having extramarital affairs, hoping that a few people coincidentally guilty of infidelity would send them bitcoin to “keep quiet.” As CCN reported, the scammers may have been aware thatan estimated one in fivespouses have committed infidelity at some point. TheFTC postdeals specifically with a scam accusing men of infidelity, citing threats, high-pressure tactics, and intimidation as classic signs of a scam and urging vigilance. A linked post called ten things you can do to prevent fraud deals with advice from the FTC on the matter. The government organization advises consumers to avoid sending personal information to strangers making unexpected requests, something increasingly difficult to do in the modern age. Further advice is to conduct online searches of any suspect organizations including the words “scam” or “review” in the search engine to see if other people have complained about the group asking for information. Paying upfront for promised reward is also a classic mistake to make in a scam, as well as depositing a check which may later bounce and leave the victim liable. The FTC warns people that caller IDs can be spoofed these days and advises that people simply hang up on phone calls including a pre-recorded sales pitch. Free trial offers are often scams aimed at gathering credit card details, and the method of payment is also telling: methods that offer the victim no recourse in terms of a refund (such as Western Union or cryptocurrency) are often used by scammers. Finally, the FTC advises people to talk to someone they trust before sending money to strangers and to sign up for thefree scam alerts emailservice the organization offers to help prevent fraud. More and more bitcoin scams have been cropping up recently, with one inHawaiithreatening to disconnect the victim’s utility services unless a phony bill is paid. CCN reported yesterday that aSouth Korean businessman recently lost $2.3 millionin a Bitcoin to Fiat p2p scam. With scammers becoming increasingly more inventive with their methods, it’s important to stay vigilant. A group of blockchain companies recently established aCrypto Community Watchgroup with a 100 BTC reward designed to incentivize whistleblowing and consistent reporting of scams in the cryptocurrency space. Images from Shutterstock The postFTC Warns of Rise in Bitcoin Blackmail Scams Targeting Cheating Husbandsappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Price Analysis: Potential Reaccumulation Could Test Bear Trend: Last week, after a devastating move that shook the market violently up and down for a 7% move in just a few short minutes, bitcoin saw a major sign of strength as it proceeded to have a slow, but steady markup where it managed to establish a local high in the $6,800s: Figure 1: BTC-USD, Hourly Candles, Shakeout Prior to Markup This shakeout forced the market to temporarily establish a new monthly low in what could be argued to be a stop-hunt prior to the move to the $6,800s. Sitting atop its most recent rally is what appears to be a reaccumulation trading range shown below: Figure 2: BTC-USD, 15-Minute Candles, Reaccumulation Trading Range While it’s still early to tell, the current consolidation has some of the hallmarks of a classic reaccumulation trading range that, if realized, will likely lead to a continuation to the upside. Currently, the market is rebounding from what appears to be a “spring” or a “shakeout” — an effort to create liquidity for large players. Part of the alleged shakeout includes testing prior resistance to see if it can properly hold as support. And, as you can see below, the spring tested the previous high and is currently holding support — a good sign for the bulls: Figure 3: BTC-USD, Hourly Candles, Spring Testing Resistance Turned Support So where does that leave us? While it is pure speculation at this point, if we see a strong round of buying, the first immediate test would take us to the top of the current trading range to test the $6,800s again. If the reaccumulation trading range proves to properly consolidate, a break to the upside is expected that will surely have us testing our macro descending trendline: Figure 4: BTC-USD, 12-Hour Candles, Macro Descending Trendline If we manage to make it to the descending trendline, this will mark our fifth test of supply along that boundary. This is a potentially trend-changing signal that could pave the way through the woods and lead us out of the bear market. While several major coins are seeing massive gains, bitcoin is still playing possum; it will continue to do so until this descending trendline is broken. The macro trend is slightly leaning bullish as the total volume is consolidating and, as we have seen in the past, several large coins (seepreviousETH-USD Market Analysis) have begun to set records in volume in what could potentially be a macro bottom. As always, this is pure speculation, but it is a scenario that I feel is entirely possible. We will have to play it day by day and see how the trend interacts with the descending trendline. If we see a definitive break of that trendline, I fully expect to see a large swell of buying interest hit the market as the larger investors regain confidence in a potential bull market. 1. After a violent shakeout, bitcoin managed to climb for several days until it ultimately made a local high in the $6,800s. 2. There is a strong argument that the current bitcoin consolidation is a reaccumulation trading range and could lead to a potential continuation of the uptrend. 3. If we break to the top side of the trading range, we can expect to test the macro descending trendline. From there, we will have to reevaluate the market. 4. If we manage to break the descending trendline, this will likely bring a strong round of buyers as it signals a potential change of trend from bear market to bull market. Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin and ether 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 Media related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTC Media 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 onBitcoin Magazine. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] @btc_current || @eztechwin || @lifeoncoin || @btc_current || `bbcnews SSHHH, Bitcoin has been taking off again but those who rely on corpmedia to inform and educate are left in the dark UNLESS it dives || @lifeoncoin || @whats_a_bitcoin || @btc_current || Burberry Bitcoin https://twitter.com/Burberry/status/1024959858637000704 … || @btc_0
Trend: no change || Prices: 6625.56, 6589.62, 6556.10, 6502.59, 6576.69, 6622.48, 6588.31, 6602.95, 6652.23, 6642.64
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 2021-08-27] BTC Price: 49058.67, BTC RSI: 61.33 Gold Price: 1816.60, Gold RSI: 58.73 Oil Price: 68.74, Oil RSI: 51.33 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Link Global Technologies Enters into an $18 Million Equity Facility with Alumina Partners, LLC: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / August 3, 2021 /LINK GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES INC. (CSE:LNK)(FRA:LGT)(OTC PINK:LGLOF) ('LINK' or the 'Company'), an innovative power and infrastructure solutions provider for Bitcoin mining and data hosting operations, is pleased to provide a corporate update on recent activity. $18 MILLION EQUITY FACILITY WITH ALUMINA PARTNERS The Company announces the signing of a definitive agreement with Alumina Partners (Ontario) Ltd. ('Alumina') for a commitment to purchase up to $18,000,000 of common stock of the Company (the 'Facility'), in a series of private placements offerings (the 'Offerings'). Under the proposed terms of the Facility, Link Global, at its discretion, may elect to drawdown in $1,000,000 increments of the Facility as a new Offering. The terms of each Offering will be determined subject to market conditions at the time of the drawdown. There are no penalties for not drawing on the Facility and no upfront fees or interest associated with the use of this Facility. The Facility's sole purpose is to allow Link to continue its growth strategy with complete financial flexibility and freedom. At the discretion of Link, the Facility enables the accessing of funds when necessary to meet capital infrastructure demands while protecting shareholder value. Stephen Jenkins, Chief Executive Officer of Link, comments, 'We have been busy with the acquisition of quality sites and quality customers. The flexibility of this financing mechanism allows us only to draw down as necessary, minimizing dilution. Building infrastructure is always a sound investment, and the sites we are developing offer great opportunities but require capital partners to achieve successful build-out. We are grateful to Alumina for this financing option.' 'We are excited to support Link Global as they move to aggressively expand their footprint in high-demand managed crypto mining infrastructure,' said Adi Nahmani, Managing Member of Alumina Partners. 'This year has shown everyone in the space that power infrastructure matters both qualitatively and quantitatively as a key differentiator in ways beyond just raw cost per kilowatt-hour. As a result, we are confident in Link management's roadmap in the future. As the field continues to evolve rapidly, we look forward to investing in the growth potential of managed infrastructure in the crypto space.' About Link Global Technologies Inc. Link is engaged in providing infrastructure and operating expertise for digital mining and data hosting operations. Link's objectives include locating and securing, for lease and option to purchase, properties with access to low-cost, reliable power, and deploying this low-cost power to conduct digital mining and supply clean energy and infrastructure for other data-hosting services. To learn more about Link's activities, visit us athttps://linkglobal.io/ On behalf of Link Global Technologies Inc. Stephen JenkinsChief Executive Officer & Director For more information visit http://linkglobal.io/ or contact: Steve Jenkinsstephen@linkglobal.io+1-877-770-6545 For investor information, please contact: Omar DiazInvestor Relations Manageromar@linkglobal.io604-551-2950 The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION.This news release contains 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as 'plans', 'expects', 'is expected', 'forecast', 'budget', 'scheduled', 'estimates', 'forecasts', 'intends', 'anticipates', or 'believes', or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results 'may', 'would', 'could', 'should' or 'might' occur. Forward-looking statements made in this news release include, but are not limited, to: statements with respect to the Facility and the terms and potential benefits thereof;and other business plans of the Company. All such forward-looking statements are based on factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection, including assumptions based on historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments. Since forward-looking statements relate to future events and conditions, by their very nature they require making assumptions and involve inherent risks and uncertainties. The Company cautions that although it is believed that the assumptions are reasonable in the circumstances, these risks and uncertainties give rise to the possibility that actual results may differ materially from the expectations set out in the forward-looking statements. In the case of the Company, these risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors include, without limitation:; those set out in the Company's most recent MD&A, fluctuations in the price of electricity, fluctuations in the price of digital currencies/Bitcoin, the future potential halving of Bitcoin, increases in the network difficulty rate and price of digital currencies/Bitcoin, negative changes in the level of digital currency/Bitcoin rewards per block, the securing of economic rates for the purchase of power, the opportunities for acquiring digital currency mining hardware, unanticipated changes in laws, regulations or other industry standards affecting the business of the Company, reliance on key management personnel, the Company's ability to implement its business plan, litigation risk, stock price volatility, the effects of general economic and other factors beyond the control of the Company, and other matters that may occur in the future. Given these risks, undue reliance should not be placed on these forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date hereof. Other than as specifically required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent or otherwise. SOURCE:Link Global Technologies Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/658119/Link-Global-Technologies-Enters-into-an-18-Million-Equity-Facility-with-Alumina-Partners-LLC || The One Circumstance Where I’d Be a Rabid Buyer of Coinbase Global Stock: Remarkably, the strange dynamic behind the novel coronavirus pandemic sparked an extraordinary rally in cryptocurrencies in the latter end of 2020, sparking a paradigm-shifting credibility boost forBitcoin(CCC:BTC-USD) and other cryptocurrencies. In theory, this should bolsterCoinbase Global(NASDAQ:COIN), basically a secondary market for digital assets. However, a quick look at COIN stock will render disappointment. Source: Primakov / Shutterstock.com As you’ll recall, Coinbase made its initial public offering around mid-April of this year. That coincided with the peak valuation of Bitcoin, where the price went north of $60,000. While BTC would go on to correct the enthusiasm, at the time, it wasn’t a steep drop-off. Furthermore, number-two cryptoEthereum(CCC:ETH-USD) would go on to secure blistering all-time records into May. Thus, there was every reason for investors — who at this point were foaming at the mouth with the fear of missing out (FOMO) — to gamble on COIN stock. After all, the underlying company represented a platform play instead of a wager on an individual asset. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Still, that wasn’t enough to spare COIN stock from significant volatility once the corrective wave really hit in earnest. Based on the time of writing price, Coinbase shares are down nearly 34% from their mid-April closing peak. And we could expect this kind of volatility if the company continues on its growth-oriented track. Yes, Goldman Sachs recently issued a “buy” rating on COIN stock, noting that even if Bitcoin’s price remains deflated, “skittish users paying high fees to trade is a lucrative positionfor the exchange.” But the problem is that this skittishness is a one-off catalyst. Once crypto holders have dumped out, then what? • 7 of the Best Contrarian Stocks to Buy as Others Get Greedy As you can see from its revenue history, Coinbase’s growth rate ebbs and flows with the underlying crypto market. This dynamic will probably force a rethink (which I hope happens). If the circumstances surrounding COIN stock were different, I’d be much more interested in buying shares based on the underlying company’s strategic outlook. But the circumstances that I’m referring to — that the crypto market strongly correlates with Bitcoin’s price action — are too binary for me to be interested. While crypto advocates may have won the credibility battle, the next step is the trickiest: getting alternative cryptos oraltcoins to trade independently of Bitcoin. But we’re hardly making any progress in this department, even as individual cryptos rose to unfathomable levels. Naturally, then, COIN stock faces a feast-or-famine profile: tremendous growth during the upswings and once the party is over… see you in two years’ time. I’m almost certain this will never work. Therefore, the company needs a complete rethink, involving a transition from a growth play into a dividend-earning one. Initially, the idea sounds nuts. And after some thought, it still sounds nuts. But I’m also convinced that if these blockchain experts — many of whom are in Coinbase’s employ or sphere of influence — are as smart as we think they are, they’ll figure it out. In fact, Coinbase already has the goods to make the transition stick. It just needs to market the concept through terms understandable to the widest demographic possible. For instance, Coinbase offers the ability for holders of certain digital assets to earn interest — basically, theblockchain’s version of dividends. Frankly, that’s a much more appealing narrative for the longer-term stability of the crypto market. No, it’s not a chicken sandwich. But rather than kill the fowl, you can enjoy years of egg sandwiches. Therefore, Coinbase should focus on cutting expenses while reaching out to those who are not already predisposed to cryptos. If that happens, I’d buy COIN stock. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that this transition must happen for Coinbase to enjoy holistic success. What crypto newcomers will quickly realize in this coming correction is that when virtual assets fail, they fail hard. And it’s completely different from the stock market. With equities, you can roll fromgrowthto income todefensiveeasily and seamlessly. While the benchmark indexes have significant influence on broader investment behavior, you can almost always find pockets of relative insulation — or even upside — during periods of turmoil. That’s just not the case with cryptos. Here, you are merely rolling over from Bitcoin to a crappier version of Bitcoin. Thus, during bearish phases, you will probably end up losing your funds far quicker than if you had just stuck with the original crypto. Like I said, it’s too binary, which will then negatively effect COIN stock. I’d rather see Coinbase focus on and market the heck out of the virtual currency sector’s passive income potential. That’s something even baby boomers can get behind — but you’ve got to convince them first (which is the point). On the date of publication, Josh Enomotoheld LONG positions in BTC and ETH.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing 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. • Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2… Says Buy THIS Now • It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. The postThe One Circumstance Where I’d Be a Rabid Buyer of Coinbase Global Stockappeared first onInvestorPlace. || ADA, SOL Lead the Way as Crypto Market Sees Price Pullback: The crypto market is a sea of red, with Solana’s SOL, Cardano’sADAtokens and other alternative cryptocurrencies taking a bigger hit thanbitcoinandether. The move seems typical of a breather often observed after notable rallies. ADA was trading at $2.67 at 10:53 UTC, representing a 7.6% drop on a 24-hour basis, and SOL was nursing a 13% loss at $68, according to data source Messari. ADA debuted on Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges today. Earlier this month, Sebastien Guillemot, CTO at dcSpark and a former executive of Cardano-founding entity EMURGO,hailedADA’s entry to Japan as being similar to a listing on Coinbase, the U.S.-based, Nasdaq-listed crypto exchange and institutions’preferred avenueto accumulate bitcoin. XRP,polkadotanddogecoinwere also down more than 8%. Meanwhile, bitcoin was changing hands at $47,500, down 3.7%, and ether traded 5.5% lower at $3,100,CoinDesk 20data show. All sub-sectors, including decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens, were flashing red. Related:Bitcoin Miners Hold Onto Rigs, Betting the Bull Run Will Continue According to analytics platform Laevitas, alternative cryptocurrencies were looking ripe for a pullback as holding long positions in many of the coins had become too costly. “Paying over 100% annualized for longs can’t be sustained forever,”Laevitas tweeted, adding that the price drop looks like a healthy correction. Some of the coins like ADA and SOL looked overbought, having recently rallied to record highs and outperformed bitcoin by a significant margin. For instance, ADA had rallied 187% and SOL 272% in the past four weeks, more than twice as much as bitcoin’s 70%. “The duo of Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL) has seen a meteoric rise in price and valuation lately, with both printing new all-time highs at $2.97 and $81.81 respectively,” Pavel Shkitin, CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Nominex.io said. “Despite the superiority in both tokens’ technologies, the surge in the past days is somewhat unprecedented, and the current reversal is an expected reaction.” James Wo, founder, and CEO of the Digital Finance Group said it is normal for investors to reduce exposure and take profits to enter at a lower price since we’ve seen the market signal that a short-term top was reached. Related:Pyth Launch to Bring Quant Firms’ Market Data to Solana Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value,looked duefor a pause on Wednesday, with exchanges seeing an increased inflow of coins amid renewed selling by whales. Similar dynamics were observable in Ethereum’s ether token. According to blockchain analytics firm Santiment, exchanges received 779,880 ETH on Monday, the most since June 21st. “Judging by on-chain data, it might be a whale possibly looking to take some profits,”Santiment saidin a research note published Tuesday. Analysts remain confident of major cryptocurrencies’ long-term prospects. Laurent Kssis, managing director of exchange-traded products at 21Shares,foreseesa return of institutional demand to the bitcoin market after Friday’s Jackson Hole Symposium. Nominex.io’s Shkitin expects the so-called Ethereum killers ADA and SOL to regain their upward trajectory. “With what Cardano, through its forthcoming Alonzo upgrade, is set to usher in and Solana’s blooming fundamentals, these price drops are at best temporary, and a reversal is imminent in the near to mid-term,” he said. Also read:Cardano Alonzo Hard Fork: What You Need to Know • Goldman Sachs Raises Odds of Fed Taper in November • Valid Points: Ethereum Emerges From Bitcoin’s Shadow || Fees Slashed On 25 iShares Funds: BlackRock has made small cuts to the expense ratios of 25 of its ETFs, ranging from 1 to 3 basis points on a basket of ETFs that amount to roughly $90 billion in total assets after reaching a predetermined breakpoint. The changes, effective Friday, affect funds as large as the iShares Russell Mid-Cap Growth ETF (IWP) at $15.9 billion in assets to funds as small as the iShares North American Tech-Multimedia Networking ETF (IGN) with $108 million in assets. The vast majority of the funds are now charging between 41 to 45 basis points, save for IWP and the iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF (IWS) , which both cut their expense ratios by 1 basis point to 0.23%. All of the funds are part of the same breakpoint group, a mechanism where an issuer will automatically lower the fees on the basket of ETFs once they collectively reach a predetermined figure of assets under management. The affected funds are listed below. Ticker Fund AUM Original ER% New ER% IWP iShares Russell Mid-Cap Growth ETF $15.92B 0.24% 0.23% IWS iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF $14.16B 0.24% 0.23% IBB iShares Biotechnology ETF $10.69B 0.46% 0.45% IHI iShares U.S. Medical Devices ETF $8.01B 0.42% 0.41% SOXX iShares Semiconductor ETF $6.98B 0.46% 0.43% ICLN iShares Global Clean Energy ETF $5.98B 0.46% 0.42% IXN iShares Global Tech ETF $5.57B 0.46% 0.43% IGV iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF $4.86B 0.46% 0.43% IGM iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF $3.75B 0.46% 0.43% IXJ iShares Global Healthcare ETF $3.25B 0.46% 0.43% IGF iShares Global Infrastructure ETF $3.08B 0.46% 0.43% IXG iShares Global Financials ETF $2.87B 0.46% 0.43% ITB iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF $2.39B 0.42% 0.41% IXC iShares Global Energy ETF $1.42B 0.46% 0.43% MXI iShares Global Materials ETF $875.7M 0.45% 0.43% INDY iShares India 50 ETF $665.3M 0.93% 0.90% KXI iShares Global Consumer Staples ETF $593M 0.46% 0.43% RXI iShares Global Consumer Discretionary ETF $459.3M 0.46% 0.43% IGE iShares North American Natural Resources ETF $451.3M 0.46% 0.43% EXI iShares Global Industrials ETF $435.8M 0.46% 0.43% IXP iShares Global Comm Services ETF $332.8M 0.46% 0.43% WOOD iShares Global Timber & Forestry ETF $311.7M 0.46% 0.43% JXI iShares Global Utilities ETF $148.3M 0.46% 0.43% IEZ iShares U.S. Oil Equipment & Services ETF $110.4M 0.42% 0.41% IGN iShares North American Tech-Multimedia Networking ETF $108M 0.46% 0.43% Story continues Contact Dan Mika at dmika@etf.com , and follow him on Twitter Recommended Stories Hot Reads: Global ETF Assets Above $9T Current Bitcoin ETF Filing Updates JP Morgan To Convert 4 Mutual Funds A Narrow, Pricier ETF I May Buy Permalink | © Copyright 2021 ETF.com. All rights reserved || How Mona Lisa Inspired Tech Entrepreneur Seeks To Disrupt The NFT Marketplace: It is not every day we hear of beautiful stories about entrepreneurs like Martin Regan and the Mona Lisa painting. The Mona Lisa , also called La Gioconda, is a realistic portrait of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. It is an oil-on-wood painting and is owned by the French government. The painting is the work of legendary artist Leonardo da Vinci. On August 21, 1911, Mona Lisa was stolen by Vincenzo Perrugia, but he was caught in December 1913, and the painting was returned. It is the most popular painting, the most visited, and the most written about. As a young boy Martin was fascinated by this tale and so began a lifelong enchantment with art and its rich history. Martin is a tech entrepreneur whose modus operandi is championing causes that he believes in. Martin describes his work as not just a career but a way of life. Over the years, he has been captivated and fascinated by the concept of blockchain technology and decentralization. His likeness for blockchain and art, coupled with the current trend of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), led to the creation of the Aloha DeFi protocol. The Aloha DeFi Ecosystem Aloha DeFi is a gateway to the world of decentralized finance that offers NFTs, staking, and a DAO protocol that leverages NFTs. People can earn rewards by taking part in the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). The Aloha app also allows users to earn tokens by sharing their mobile bandwidth with others. People can take part in the governance of the Aloha DeFi ecosystem by staking NFTs. Every NFT is equivalent to a certain number of votes, depending on how rare that NFT is. People can buy Aloha NFTs on the OpenSea marketplace . Alternatively, you can stake the Aloha tokens ($ALOHA) to earn NFTs from the platform. Upon getting their first NFTs, people can stake them through a quick process due to Aloha’s integration with the Polygon blockchain network. On the Aloha DAO, participants can: Submit proposals for the improvement of the Aloha DAO project. Vote on different projects on the ecosystem. Offer their opinions on how to ensure that Aloha is successful. Earn profits from their activities on the platform. Story continues Interview with Martin Regan Aloha platform users can either purchase NFTs directly or earn these NFTs by staking ALOHA tokens. How can participants get these ALOHA tokens? Aloha Defi tokens can be purchased from Hotbit, Probit, Uniswap, smartdex, and sushiswap on the polygon Polygon L2 network We will soon list on a tier 1 exchange. In the first half of 2021, Aloha began its expansion plans into new markets in Asia, South America, and Europe. Will Aloha function differently in these new markets, or will it maintain the same model it operates in the United Kingdom? Aloha will be present in all geo-locations. At the core of our business is the ethos of sharing good karma. That does not change according to where you live! In order to earn rewards, our community will be tasked with undertaking socially positive actions such as sharing wifi data, supporting small and family-run businesses in your community, and generally joining our disruptive cause to bring empowerment through decentralization. Aloha is planning to “Aloha for Business,” which is currently in the testing phase with some selected businesses. Can you give an insight into these selected businesses and their industries? We are running the test phase in the south of England. At this stage the business sector that we are focussing on is retail and hospitality, these are the sectors with high numbers of transactions and strong brand loyalty. It will be a great method of giving the Aloha platforms a thorough shake-down. As a relatively new NFT marketplace, how are you planning on getting more users into the Aloha ecosystem? Will there be incentives for new users? We have an extensive and ongoing marketing strategy in place commencing with exposure on Dextools from the middle of this month. This marketing will carry all through to and beyond the official launch of the Aloha wifi sharing platform in the UK scheduled for October. At that point, we will be attracting 100k new users each month for the UK alone. You can imagine the effect this consistent and relentless increase in numbers will have for Aloha and our stakeholders! In terms of incentives there are many initiatives planned, watch out for our PR statements. Aloha is planning on launching “Aloha Academy” to educate the general public on what they can achieve with the Aloha platform. What are the benefits to its users? The use of cryptocurrencies is gaining momentum globally and at an unprecedented pace. The simple act of buying crypto using decentralized and centralized platforms can be baffling for novices. The new and fast-moving world of DeFi, NFTs, and Farming are totally opaque to all but experienced crypto believers. The Aloha Academy is an important knowledge base and tutoring facility that will educate those new to both crypto in general and the Aloha platform. Graduates of the Aloha Academy will be fully equipped to participate in and reap the huge benefits offered by DeFi and the enormous social changes it is bringing. Aloha plans to make a new introduction within the Q3 of 2021, and one of these will be the creation of the SHAKA token. What benefits does the new token provide for the platform users and the entire ecosystem in general? Platform users can easily stake a variety of popular tokens like MATIC and USDC in SHAKA finance to earn more tokens and SHAKA rewards. A platform deposit fee is collected that is used to buy back SHAKA on the market to increase its price. Since the supply is limited, the value of SHAKA token goes up the more the platform is used. AlohaDeFi token and NFTs are integrated with SHAKA finance and AlohaDeFi DAO participants receive a discount on deposit fees. A project like Aloha seeking to disrupt the NFT market must have notable partners to help drive adoption. Who are the major partners of the Aloha project? What makes us so important to the overall growth of crypto mass adoption is our ability to introduce new crypto users via our data sharing app and marketplace. Aloha is still very much at the beginning of the journey and whilst we have partnered with some exciting projects such as Dextools, Smartdex (Niox), and most recently Travala.com, there are many more in the pipeline. To answer the question, yes we will be partnering with NFT projects when the time is right and there is a tangible reason for both parties to partner. Image Sourced from BTC Peers See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Initial Unemployment Claims Hit New Pandemic Low Comcast Notes Double Digit Ad Rate Surge For Fall TV Season: Reuters © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd believes Bitcoin could fall to $10,000: Scott Minerd, once one of Bitcoin’s biggest boosters, has seemingly lost the faith. Minerd, Guggenheim’s chief investment officer, told CNBC Friday he believes Bitcoin is in the midst of a seriouscrashthat could take it down to between $10,000 and $15,000. Just five months ago, Minerdtold CNNhe believed the cryptocurrency could go as high as $600,000. Andin December, he told Bloomberg the firm’s fundamental analysis showed it should be worth $400,000. Bitcoin, like other cryptos, has been in an extended dive, falling from more than $63,000 in mid-April to just over $33,500 in midday trading Friday. “When we look at the history of crypto and we look at where we are, I mean, I really do believe this is probably a crash. And, you know, a crash would mean we’d be down 70% to 80%, which, let’s just say that’s between $10,000 and $15,000,” he noted, later adding, “Put it this way, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to buy Bitcoin, and I don’t see any reason to own it right now. If you’re going to be a speculator, speculate that it’s heading lower.” Minerd’s enthusiasm for Bitcoin has been waning for several months. In May, he compared the crypto to the Dutch tulip bulb market of the 1600s. https://twitter.com/ScottMinerd/status/1395130420489031683 Late last month, he grew even more dire in his commentary, noting that the next likely level of support was the $20,000 range. https://twitter.com/ScottMinerd/status/1407368715918774273 Bitcoin enthusiasts objected vehemently to that prediction. Despite thebearish outlook, Minerd isn’t giving up on crypto. In June,he tweetedhis long-term support for digital currencies, saying, “Crypto will continue to be volatile, but as a paradigm it is the future.” • What isthe “inflation trade,”and how can you play it in your portfolio? • Everything to know aboutCathie Wood’s new Bitcoin ETF • Support formaking Bitcoin legal tendergrows in Latin America • What will bethe next big meme stock? Chatter on Reddit’s WallStreetBets offers hints • Chinese tech IPOs fuelHong Kong stock exchange’s best first half ever This story was originally featured onFortune.com || NBA Top Shot Moments in Free Fall, But NFTs Far From Dead: NBA Top Shot achieved mainstream recognition in the second half of Q1 2021 (see: CBS Sunday Morning segment ), helping to drive parent company Dapper Labs’ valuation up to $2.6 billion. But since then, the officially licensed digital collectibles marketplace has experienced a precipitous fall in monthly sales volume (-76%, to $53.1 million), traders on the platform (-39%, to 246,000) and total market cap (think: value of all moments), leading many to declare that NFTs are dead. Decrypt editor-in-chief Dan Roberts isn’t ready to write the obituary on non-fungible tokens just yet. “Like most things, the death of NFTs—[and NBA Top Shot more specifically]—has been greatly exaggerated,” he said. “[The craze] was never going to last at the same level of mania it [reached in February and March]. A fall-off was inevitable, but that is not the same as saying it is over.” Crypto as an industry has also suffered through a tough second quarter, and “we still don’t know what the cool, interesting use cases will be for NFTs,” he said. “I am very hesitant to dismiss an entire form of technology just because there was a peak that has since waned.” Our Take : The decline in NBA Top Shot’s sales volume, traders and market cap should not be analyzed in a vacuum. NFT collections are akin to cryptocurrencies, and crypto as a whole got slaughtered last quarter. “It’s all part and parcel of the same industry,” Roberts said. “It’s a headline-driven, narrative-driven space, and the [headlines and narratives] have all been bad. Bad news out of China cracking down on mining. Bad news out of Elon Musk tweeting about Bitcoin’s environmental impact. So, of course there was pullback [within the Top Shot market].” For reference purposes, Q2 2021 was Bitcoin’s worst quarter since 2018 . 2018 was known as crypto winter because “after the big run-up of 2017, everything crashed,” Roberts explained. The Decrypt EIC was quick to say there are few similarities between that downturn and the current dip in crypto prices from early April’s highs. “There is more interest, institutional investment and support [in the ecosystem] than ever,” he said. “It feels like everything is still chugging forward.” It’s worth noting that despite a decline of more than 40%, $BTC is still up 275% over the last 12 months. Story continues While the decline in crypto prices has negatively affected Top Shot, a drop-off in the larger NFT space has certainly played a part, too. “NFTs had a peak moment of frenzied interest, and it has since [largely] quieted,” Roberts said. Santiago Jaramillo (former head of sports at Dapper Labs, currently chief product officer at GameOn) wasn’t surprised to see the dip occur as the great reopening began to take hold. “The last couple months of lockdown, people had more money [to spend] and not as many things to do,” he said. “So, that created more demand for these types of [digital products]. It was never going to be sustainable. The trend downward is just a correction we should have expected.” Some of the air coming out of the bubble is not necessarily a bad thing—at least not for the long-term health of the NFT ecosystem. “When you have a craze, you are going to have a lot of things being created that are not fully thought through and are just kind of capitalizing on the momentum (see: Taco Bell NFTs ),” Jaramillo said. “It’s healthy for those things to come down from the highs and leave just the winning ideas and winning products.” Top Shot metrics have declined five months running. But the bottom—or perhaps a normalization of the market—may be near. Over the last 30 days, sales volume (+13.09%, to $34.38 million) and transactions are up (12.79%, to 1.3 million) and the number of traders on the platform is down by just 6.7%. The data would indicate the platform’s remaining supporters are actively engaged, buying up moments they perceive to be available on the cheap. One metric still declining over the last 30 days is the value of Top Shot moments. The MomentsRank 100 (a handpicked basket designed to reflect the overall state of NBA Top Shot’s NFT market) is down 14.5% over that period. And Roberts has his doubts a turnaround is imminent. “If valuations have been dipping [during the NBA Playoffs], what will happen in the dog days of summer when the league isn’t in season?” he asked. Jaramillo agreed it is likely to take some time before Top Shot prices climb again. “The reason you’re not going to see it [happen] right away is because products take time to develop,” he said. While the Q1 peak pushed many to try building engaging experiences and use-cases capable of driving value (think: daily fantasy sports, video games applications and products that tie collections to real world experiences), they’re probably still 6-12 months from completion. Of course, like the crypto markets, NFT marketplaces are unpredictable. Roberts pointed out that a single unexpected event, “some moment where a major celebrity, entity or company shows they are buying into NFTs” could spark a resurgence for the entire industry (see: Tesla and Bitcoin). As more leagues (see: MLS ), teams (see: Capitals, Wizards and Celtics recent announcements) and athletes (including college athletes ) looking to take advantage of their name, image and likeness introduce NFTs, it is fair to wonder if the digital collectibles ecosystem will become watered down. Roberts, for one, doesn’t foresee that being an issue. “There will be some stupid examples [of collections] that are cash grabs, but that shouldn’t hurt the examples that are uniquely interesting, cool and have been deemed valuable,” he said. Jaramillo suggested products tied to “top-tier IP (like NBA Top Shot) or that have utility to the user” would be the ones that hold their value. If you’re buying NFTs in the hopes of realizing a financial return, NBA Top Shot is a better bet than a digital collectible from a team or player-specific collection. “Dapper Labs is here to stay, and there is probably more potential and more interesting things that will happen with Top Shot over time [in terms of use-cases],” Roberts said. More from Sportico.com Dodgers Owners Walter and Boehly Close on 27% Stake in the Lakers NBA Playoff Injury Rash Extends Real Multi-Year Trend: Data Viz Suns' Booker Says He'll Play in the Olympics Despite Quick Turnaround || AAX Exchange Launches Zero-Fee Crypto Trading Services: SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE / ACCESSWIRE / August 4, 2021 / Institutional-grade cryptocurrency exchange AAX has announced the introduction of a highly attractive zero-fee trading program across all its spot pairs. Users trading on the platform will benefit from completely free trades, both for maker and taker orders, and across all volume tiers. The changes are set to go into effect in early August. The exchange, featuring exceptional liquidity and spread characteristics, is opening its doors to all traders who wish to save on often-prohibitive commissions seen elsewhere. Powered by London Stock Exchange Group's LSEG Technology's matching engine, the exchange offers unparalleled stability and low latency, making it the perfect venue for both institutional, professional and amateur traders alike. AAX plans to lower the access barrier for novice traders using this zero trading fees initiative. Between the months of January to June, the cryptocurrency market has seen an increase of 120% in total market cap, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Given this exorbitant market increase AAX is altering their customer offerings to meet this surging demand. AAX lets users acquire and trade major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Dogecoin and many others, as well as offering a wide basket of DeFi-centric currencies like Solana, Chainlink, Uniswap, Aave and more, all at no cost. Recently, AAX also made moves to provide full support for Polkadot and Solana ecosystem tokens. "The financial revolution, spurred on by crypto has only just begun, and we believe now is the right time to make a big move," said AAX COO, Toya Zhang. "We live in historical times where we will discover the power of collective action and focus in driving one of the biggest social and economic transformations of the century. With just under 2% of the world's population in crypto, there is still so much room for growth and we believe removing as many barriers as we can to drive adoption is the right course of action at this stage." Story continues We are not making money from the spread. Algo traders are still paying trading fees considering that they will take advantage of the superb liquidity from AAX. If competition between centralized exchanges is about driving the trading fees down, let's just go straight to zero " Zhang noted. In addition to traditional crypto trading functionalities, AAX Exchange offers a platform for peer-to-peer fiat trading and lending. The OTC platform allows for simpler trade execution for large clients, while the Fast Buy option is perfect for inexperienced users looking to get their first Bitcoin. AAX also offers a wide range of both fixed and flexible savings packages for more than 50 crypto assets with an annual yield (APY) of up to 20%. About AAX AAX is a premium cryptocurrency exchange that is favored by more than a million users. Powered by London Stock Exchange's LSEG Technology, AAX offers crypto futures contracts, 80+ spot pairs, P2P fiat trading, savings products and top-grade API connectivity. AAX enables users to buy bitcoin easily via its P2P or Fast Buy platforms and supports over 20 major fiat currencies. CONTACT: Dan Edelstein pr@marketacross.com +972-545-464-238 SOURCE: AAX View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/658319/AAX-Exchange-Launches-Zero-Fee-Crypto-Trading-Services || Voyager Digital Acquires Coinify in latest International Expansion: BeInCrypto – Digital Currency Broker Voyager Digital acquires the popular crypto payment system Coinify, in its latest expansion effort. Today, Voyager Digitalannouncedtheir $85 million acquisition of Coinify. This move means a major diversification of the company’s holdings and revenue streams. Coinify has a user base in over 150 countries. Voyager Digital is one of the most rapidly growing and publicly traded cryptocurrency platforms in the U.S. In the same vein as Robinhood, the Voyager platform already boasts of the ability to interact with over 60 cryptocurrencies and allows users to trade and invest digital assets. The platform is also one of noteto offer intereston BTC. This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author backs bitcoin ahead of 'biggest crash' in history: Robert Kiyosaki, author of New York Times bestseller “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and founder ofThe Rich Dad Company, is sounding the alarm about an impending recession, recentlytweetinga warning about an impending “biggest crash in world history.” He predicted that it would be a long economic downturn and encouraged people to buy and invest in gold, silver, and bitcoin (BTC-USD) while they can. Kiyosakijoined Yahoo Finance Liveto discuss why he thinks a market crash is coming as well as his outlook for bitcoin and other stores of value. “What [economist James Rickards] says is quite accurate—the next crash is basically an avalanche waiting for the last snowflake, and since 2008 all they've been doing is piling more debt onto the mountainside,” Kiyosaki said. “And they're just waiting for the next snowflake to hit. And that's going to be the biggest in world history. I thought COVID was it, but they just added more debt onto the avalanche site.” In spite of all this, the Fed holds the view that this period of high inflation remains “transitory,” citing an accelerated economic recovery from the pandemic as businesses continue to reopen to full capacity. Kiyosaki compared bitcoin, gold, and silver to the U.S. dollar and other fiat currencies, suggesting that he believes bitcoin and precious metals to be better stores of value to use as hedges against macroeconomic cycles. He noted that he was optimistic about crypto in spite of therecent crash, stating that he views it as an opportunity to buy more. Kiyosaki stated that he believes it is not a question of “if,” but “when” the Chinese yuan (CNHUSD=X) and the U.S. dollar are substituted for cryptocurrencies such as the “Fedcoin.” Though he conceded that there are many predictions surrounding the adoption of such a currency for widespread use, he is keeping an open mind. As for his advice on how people, especially young investors, can prepare for an impending crash, Kiyosaki says to “be an entrepreneur.” “The thing I say to young people, because Yahoo is for young people, I would say be an entrepreneur,” Kiyosaki said. “Be a capitalist, and build a business that does well in crashes, booms, or busts.” Kiyosaki also denounced the pursuit of living a “debt-free” lifestyle. According to him, borrowing money and investing it in assets such as real estate allow for a generation of cash flows while also creating a tax shield. Kiyosaki said he carries a lot of debt and owns a lot of real estate for these reasons. “I'm not saying having a stock portfolio is right or wrong,” Kiyosaki added. “But there's other alternatives you can do if you just open your eyes and see how the rich are really getting richer.” Thomas Hum is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter:@thomashumTV More from Thomas: Used car prices spike as demand 'grossly eclipses available supply:' BlackRock Beware of impending 'market tug-of-war,' warns investment management CIO Clover Health rides Reddit-fueled 'meme stock' wave amid record-high trading volume Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 48902.40, 48829.83, 47054.98, 47166.69, 48847.03, 49327.72, 50025.38, 49944.62, 51753.41, 52633.54
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 2017-08-31] BTC Price: 4703.39, BTC RSI: 75.90 Gold Price: 1316.20, Gold RSI: 71.17 Oil Price: 47.23, Oil RSI: 48.49 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Zacks Market Edge Highlights: Equal Weight Dow ETF, New Tech and Media ETF, Small Cap Cash Cow ETF, Founder-Run ETF and The Infrastructure Development ETF: For Immediate Release Chicago, IL – August 31, 2017 – Zacks Market Edge is a podcast hosted weekly by Zacks Stock Strategist Tracey Ryniec. Every week, Tracey will be joined by guests to discuss the hottest investing topics in stocks, bonds and ETFs and how it impacts your life. ((Please use this Soundcloud link from this URL for the PR. Thanks: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/273831/the-coolest-new-etfs-of-2017) The Coolest New ETFs of 2017 Welcome to Episode #96 of the Zacks Market Edge Podcast. Every week, host and Zacks stock strategist, Tracey Ryniec, will be joined by guests to discuss the hottest investing topics in stocks, bonds and ETFs and how it impacts your life. In this episode, Tracey is joined by Eric Dutram, Zacks Chief ETF Strategist and the Editor of the weekly newsletter, the ETF Investor, to discuss what are the coolest new ETF launches this year. With over 2,000 ETFs now on the market, it’s hard to sort through all the names to find ones that have stand out niches. Eric brings some sanity to all the ETF news with the most interesting new ETFs. However, before you get your hopes up, a Bitcoin ETF is not among the coolest launches. Not yet. But is a Bitcoin ETF coming soon? Eric discusses the odds of one launching. And yes, Tracey will be doing a podcast on it one, or if, it launches. But if you’re looking to spice up your portfolio with some intriguing niche ETFs that are already available, these are ones you should keep on your short list. 5 of the Coolest ETFs to Launch This Year 1.Equal Weight Dow ETF (NYSEARCA:EDOW– Free Report)solves the dilemma of owning the price weighted version. You really want to own all 30 components equally, right? This is the answer. 2.New Tech and Media ETF(NYSEARCA: FNG– Free Report)is an actively managed ETF that focuses on technology, media and social media. Yes, that means the “FANG” stocks, hence its ticker of FNG. But investors should also think about the content creators. Want to own the companies that own Instagram and YouTube? Then this is the one for you. 3.Small Cap Cash Cow ETF(NASDAQ:CALF– Free Report)is helpful to those who want to own the small caps but don’t want to own them individually. Eric also says it leans towards a value play as it has a P/E ratio of 18.5 while the S&P Small Cap 600 Index is trading at 24.9x. It’s free cash flow yield and 3-year dividend growth rates are also much higher than its small cap peers. 4.Founder-Run ETF (ETR:BOSS– Free Report)lets you buy a basket of companies where the founder is serving as CEO. Right now, it appears to be heavy in technology names and biotechs. But if you’ve ever wanted to own the stocks of the “visionary” type leaders, this is the ETF for you. 5.The Infrastructure Development ETF(BATS:PAVE– Free Report)was launched just as infrastructure seemed to finally be on the table in Washington DC. So far, there is no new stimulus bill, but if you want to be ready for the rebuilding of America, then this ETF, which owns the railroads, construction companies, materials and equipment firms, is one you should explore. About Zacks Zacks.com is a property of Zacks Investment Research, Inc., which was formed in 1978. The later formation of the Zacks Rank, a proprietary stock picking system; continues to outperform the market by nearly a 3 to 1 margin. The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations and market insights of Zacks Investment Research is through our free daily email newsletter; Profit from the Pros.  In short, it's your steady flow of Profitable ideas GUARANTEED to be worth your time!  Click here for your free subscription to Profit from the Pros. Follow us on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/zacksresearch Join us on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Zacks-Investment-Research/57553657748?ref=ts Zacks Investment Research is under common control with affiliated entities (including a broker-dealer and an investment adviser), which may engage in transactions involving the foregoing securities for the clients of such affiliates. Media ContactZacks Investment Research 800-767-3771 ext. 9339 support@zacks.com https://www.zacks.com/performance Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. 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 reportFT-DOW30 EW (EDOW): ETF Research ReportsADVS-NW TEC MDA (FNG): ETF Research ReportsGLBL-X US INFR (PAVE): ETF Research ReportsPACR-US SC CC1 (CALF): ETF Research ReportsGLBL-X FNDR RUN (BOSS): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Hacking Coinbase: The Great Bitcoin Bank Robbery: Sean Everettwasn't sure how his bullish bet on cryptocurrency would turn out. But he definitely didn't expect it to be over so soon. In March, he sold all his stocks, including and , and used a chunk of the proceeds to buyBitcoinand Ethereum on a site calledCoinbase. The decision made Everett, the CEO of artificial intelligence startup Prome, almost instantly richer, as the blockchain-based currencies' value rocketed up exponentially over the next several weeks. But then, while he was out walking the dog after 10 p.m. on Wednesday, May 17, Everett got the call. It was T-Mobile, ringing him to confirm that it was switching his phone number to a different device. It was a suspicious move that Everett had most certainly not requested. But even as he pleaded with the agent to block the switch, it was too late. Less than five minutes later, Everett's cell service abruptly shut off, and as he rushed to his computer, he saw himselfbeing robbedin real time. A raft of email notifications confirmed that someone had taken control of his main Gmail account, then broken into his Coinbase "wallet." They'd gotten in with the help of his switched-over phone number: Everett's account required him to log in with a two-factor authentication code sent by text message, as a second safeguard--and now the text had gone straight to the thief. It took only two minutes for the attacker to clean Everett out of what was then a few thousand dollars' worth of digital coins. From Everett's perspective, the even more painful heist was what came next: Ethereum's price quadrupled over the next three weeks. It had reached its all-time high of $400 just hours before I met Everett in a New York coffee shop on a humid June afternoon. Bitcoin, meanwhile, had broken $3,000 for the first time a day earlier, and Everett was pining for his missing digital coins. "I'm not only still out my money, I also didn't get the rise in price," he lamented. Then again, the biggest surprise for Everett--and, it would turn out, for many other Bitcoin enthusiasts--was that the theft happened on Coinbase at all. San Francisco's Coinbase, the world's largest exchange for trading cryptocurrency, is one of very few such companies whose own coffers have never been hacked, a distinction that carries extra weight in the realm of blockchain, where several costly breaches have made global headlines. Almost any early investor you talk to lost money in Mt. Gox, an exchange that collapsed in 2014 after hackers pillaged nearly $500 million in Bitcoin. Last summer, thieves grabbed $72 million from Hong Kong cryptoexchange Bitfinex in one fell swoop. But hackers have never breached Coinbase's own virtual fortress, and that impenetrability has earned it a reputation as the safest place to buy Bitcoin, helping it attract more than 9 million customers who store at least $3 billion in crypto-currency there, and who have traded $25 billion to date on its retail brokerage as well as its institutional exchange, GDAX. The five-year-old Coinbase just raised $100 million in new funding, valuing the company at $1.6 billion--making it the blockchain industry's first "unicorn." "If you look at what theyare world-class at, it's security, trust, safety ... allthese things that, frankly, banks are good at," Fred Wilson, the venture capitalist and one of Coinbase's earliest and largest backers, said at a conference in March. "They're like JPMorgan or for blockchain." But Coinbase's individual customers do get burglarized--with surprising and unsettling frequency. Even Wilson himself was in for a rude awakening: While vacationing in Europe in early June, the VC woke up to the same telltale emails that Everett saw, signaling that an intruder was trying to get inside his Coinbase account. Wilson managed to lock it down before anything was stolen, but in a rare public chastising of a company in his own portfolio, he wrote in a blog post: "I am still a bit shaken up from the experience and a fair bit more paranoid from it." Since then,Fortunehas spoken with more than a dozen victims, including tech CEOs and well-known blockchain proponents, whose Coinbase accounts have been targeted and hacked in almost exactly the same fashion; still more have been attacked on other exchanges. The day after Everett's robbery, Los Angeles entrepreneur Adam Dachis's account was wiped out of what was then $10,000. On July 7, thieves emptied $18,000 from the Coinbase wallet of blockchain adviser Mike Costache, during the four hours he slept one night while traveling overseas. Since Christmas, there have been months when Coinbase users have been robbed as often as 30 times--a rate of one robbery every single day. In each case, the same blindsiding realization arrives, bringing the inherent paradox of blockchain into focus. The quintessential strength that sets cryptocurrency apart from traditional money--that transactions are instant and irreversible--is also its fatal flaw. "One of [Bitcoin's] reasons for existence is that it's censorship-resistant," says Tom Robinson, cofounder and chief data officer of Elliptic, a London-based blockchain intelligence firm. That means no one, not even a government or central bank, can stop a digital currency transaction from happening. And therefore the fraud protections traditional bank depositors rely on are mostly unavailable. "Any kind of charge-back and reversibility would be the antithesis of what Bitcoin was created to achieve," says Robinson. That's one reason that, when criminals want to pull a heist, they're increasingly choosing cryptocurrency over real dollars. In 2016, $28 million in losses from crimes involving virtual currency were reported to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, more than triple the 2015 total. And that figure is based heavily on voluntary reports by individual victims. It doesn't include large-scale thefts from exchanges like the Bitfinex hack, so it likely underestimates the true damages by many orders of magnitude. Cybercrime is rising at traditional financial institutions too: For example, thefts through so-called account takeovers, a crime analogous to the Coinbase hacks, rose 61% last year to $2.3 billion, according to Javelin Strategy & Research. But hacking losses are a blip relative to the trillions of dollars kept in banks. Hackers are stealing a much larger proportion of the crypto-currency pie, whose total market value is only about $135 billion. In the past 12 months, for example, criminals have absconded with 1% of Ethereum's total market value, or $225 million, according to cybersecurity firm Chainalysis; the Bitcoin toll is estimated to be even higher. Brick and mortar bank robbers have "two problems: stealing the money and hiding the evidence," explains Moran Cerf, a professor of business and neuroscience at Northwestern's School of Management and a former corporate hacker. "Bitcoin solves the second one for you because everyone there is anonymous." Bitcoin diehards seem resigned to the reality of irreversible transactions--and its drawbacks. "I think of that as a feature and not a bug," says Chris Burniske, a blockchain investor and author of forthcoming bookCryptoassets--even though his own accounts were looted in December for digital coins that would now be worth over $100,000. But when victims watch their money up and leave into the digital wallet of a nameless stranger, it becomes more than just a problem for Coinbase: It's a threat to the promise of Bitcoin itself. As the value of cryptocurrency soars, more investors are grappling not just with how to profit from it, but how to hold on to it at all. "Coinbase looks like a bank, talks like a bank, and takes millions of dollars in cash like a bank, but, in practice, it functions like a dimly lit underground casino," says Cody Brown, whose account was hacked for $8,000 in the span of just 15 minutes in May. "You don't realize that the balanced fonts, smooth blue gradients, and endless copy about trust mean absolutely nothing--until you are robbed blind." See also:Blockchain Mania! Coinbase, for its part, won't discuss specific cases except to say that it investigates all account takeovers. But Brian Armstrong, Coinbase's 34-year-old CEO and founder, says Brown's and Wilson's experiences were "helpful" in teaching the company how to improve. Its security measures already match or exceed those at banks--from using machine learning to detect dubious activity, to mandating dual-factor authentication. Yet Armstrong recognizes that Coinbase is also a juicier target: "We need to be held to a higher standard," he tellsFortune,"because digital currency is so new and interesting and powerful that it is attractive to a lot of people out there to try to steal it." If Bitcoin were a religion,its equivalent of "What would Jesus do?" would be "BYOB: Be your own bank," an unofficial slogan widely embraced in the industry. The original blockchain was launched in 2009, by the mysterious founder (or founders) going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, as a utopian form of electronic cash that could change hands, as Nakamoto wrote in a legendary white paper, "without going through a financial institution." But that ideal also attracted a subversive element, repelling many potential adopters. That's where Armstrong saw an opportunity to bring polish to an industry run by "hackers and crypto-anarchists" at the time, he says: "If this was going to go mainstream, it needed something that had a more trusted brand around it." An early engineer at Airbnb, Armstrong quit in 2012 to create the "Gmail for digital currency." His strategy: making it easier and safer to store, and then buy and sell, cryptocurrency. While early Bitcoin wallet companies made people keep track of their own private keys--the secret 64-character passwords that alone provide access to one's cryptocurrency--Coinbase's pioneering innovation was its offer to store keys on customers' behalf. That also came with risk, as customers wouldn't need to know their actual key, but rather just a password, to get to their Bitcoins--and neither would a hacker. "That's a big responsibility to take on," the fresh-faced CEO admits. "But I also think it's necessary to help the industry scale and make digital currency accessible to the next 100 million or billion people." Coinbase has demonstrated a uniqueability to bring the new asset class to the masses. Its base of customers, most of whom are in the U.S., has grown 50% just in the past five months, with as many as 50,000 signing up in one day; trade volume in July alone was twice as much as all last year. Coinbase, which makes money by charging transaction fees, is said to be nearing profitability, and Armstrong ranks No. 10 on this year'sFortune40 Under 40 list. But he is pretty clear about his company's limits. "The average person may at a high level think of us as a digital currency bank, but we're not a bank," he says. Coinbase doesn't lend money, as banks do. And critically: Coinbase, which is regulated as a money transmitter like PayPal or , isn't covered by the FDIC or bound by all the consumer protection laws that govern banks. Armstrong has long taken 100% of his salary in Bitcoin; he now cashes out enough into dollars each month to cover his rent. Many of his employees do the same. They understand the security issues better than just about anyone, yet protecting customers is proving to be a gnarly challenge: Technically, because hackers are breaching accounts from the consumer end, exploiting weaknesses at companies like and Sprint, the hacks aren't directly Coinbase's fault. "Within the realm of reason, it's very difficult for us to prevent their account from being drained," says one executive. Still, Coinbase can't afford to ignore the problem--literally. Even though it is not a bank, Coinbase still bears the cost of banking-system protocols, when traditional financial institutions yank back fraudulent payments induced by hackers. For example, when Dachis was robbed, a Coinbase customer support rep complained right back to him by email that "Coinbase has suffered a $1,657.41 USD loss due to bank reversals" of transactions subsequently reported as fraud. "Coinbase is left holding the bag," Soups Ranjan, the company's head of data science, said at a recent industry event. Problems like this--along with unauthorized credit card purchases of cryptocurrency--cost Coinbase a stunning 10% of all revenue it collects, a fraud-loss rate 20 times as high as PayPal's. "I firmly believe," Ranjan added, "we have the hardest payment fraud and user security problem in the world right now." To combat that, Coinbase has been using analytics to predict which customers have the highest risk of fraud and charge-backs, and preemptively limiting their purchasing power or locking their accounts. But that method comes with a downside of its own in the form of frustrated customers--and a backlog of help-desk requests that has stretched into the tens of thousands. With about 180 employees, the company hasn't been able to hire fast enough to keep up with demand and is now looking to fill another 100 positions. Coinbase doesn't even have a phone number for customer support, though it plans to add one in September. At the same time, Coinbase finds itself slamming headfirst into the expectations that come with being the closest thing cryptocurrency has to Goldman Sachs. The IRS has gone to court seeking Coinbase user records, after only 802 U.S. taxpayers reported Bitcoin profits on their tax returns in 2015. In June, Coinbase had its first "flash crash," withEthereum'sprice collapsing to 10? for a brief, panicky stretch; the company said that all trades "were executed properly" but eventually agreed, as a courtesy, to reimburse traders who had lost money owing to margin calls. And in early August, when a "hard fork" of the Bitcoin blockchain created another currency called Bitcoin Cash, Coinbase initially said it wouldn't support it. Hours later, a denial-of-service cyberattack--which some perceived as retaliation--knocked the exchange completely offline, and customers began threatening to sue. Coinbase gave in: Account holders will be able to withdraw their Bitcoin Cash by 2018. "We're in a period of hypergrowth, and it's superexciting and a little chaotic," Armstrong says. For many blockchain enthusiasts, the Coinbase hacks have been a reminder of the danger of letting anyone else store your cryptocurrency. "If you don't own the private keys, you don't own the coin," says Jonathan Smith, the chief technology officer of Civic, a company that uses blockchain tech for identity verification. Then again, Bitcoin has a dirty little secret: For an asset that epitomizes the future, managing your coin yourself can feel like a journey into the troglodytic past. Smart-money investors who store their own keys often resort to the most rudimentary of tactics to protect them. They're the Bitcoin equivalent of stuffing cash under the mattress: a private key printed out on a sheet of paper, cut into pieces, and distributed among family members who don't know how to put it back together; an encrypted file loaded on a USB stick and buried in the backyard; a password committed only to memory. These jury-rigged methods come with their own pitfalls, and stories of self-inflicted losses are legion: The New York man who reformatted a hard drive and erased the key to $25,000 in Bitcoin. Dominic Fogarty, a hedge fund research analyst who left his phone, storing his cryptocurrency, in a taxi after a bachelor party--then schlepped all over the Adirondacks to retrieve it. ("Yes, we missed our train, but more importantly I didn't lose my Bitcoins!" he tellsFortune.)The ultimate irony is that the gold standard in security, storing private keys in what's known as "cold storage," without connection to the Internet, often means putting them in the very places blockchain advocates hoped to avoid: banks. One cryptocurrency hedge fund manager once went to check on his safe-deposit box at , which stored the key to $5 million, only to find the drawer empty. (A few weeks later, the correct box was found one slot below where it was supposed to be.) Even Coinbase itself relies on banks for some of its cold storage, where 98% of customer funds are kept. "It does seem a little old-fashioned, I suppose," Armstrong acknowledges. And yet, it may also be the future, as more mainstream investors want in on cryptocurrency but without the worries of BYOB. For some crypto devotees, this is nothing less than heresy. Says Michael Krieger, a former Lehman Brothers analyst who abandoned Wall Street for cryptocurrency after becoming disillusioned by the financial crisis, "I wouldn't trust my crypto private keys to a safety-deposit box at a bank. That's just me." But already, the walls between finance's old guard and blockchain's renegades are beginning to crumble, and a day may come where the systems meld together almost seamlessly. "It's almost ironic and funny that some of the rules and procedures we want to get rid of are almost exactly the rules we want in place to [protect] a major client," says Hu Liang, a former State Street exec who left in August to start a cryptocurrency trading platform for institutional investors. Even as they dream of supplanting the conventions that have defined banking for centuries, blockchain disciples are realizing that you can never quite escape them. Jonathan Levin is stillcatching his breath from a six-mile bike commute as he welcomes me into his office, on the second floor of a Manhattan coworking space, early one August morning. Wearing a gray cotton T-shirt that reads "Bitcoin, est. 2009," the 27-year-old British expat exclaims cheekily, "So this is what fighting cybercrime looks like!" Levin is the cofounder of Chainalysis, a startup that tracks virtual currency movement and investigates illicit use. Chainalysis's software assisted law enforcement with the takedowns and criminal indictments of both "dark net" marketplace AlphaBay and notorious digital currency exchange BTC-e during the span of a week in July, according to people familiar with the investigations. Previously, the company was able to locate where the stolen money from Mt. Gox and Bitfinex ended up: Bitcoin keeps an immutable record of all transactions--a literal money trail--so anyone can see the addresses of the digital wallets where funds are sent. Chainalysis's artificial intelligence "clustering" techniques mapped the funds to particular exchanges. But progress seems to have hit a dead end when it comes to determining who controls those wallets. "How many people have been caught for stealing money from major Bitcoin exchanges?" Levin asks rhetorically. "The answer is zero." That's not entirely true, says Kathryn Haun, a former federal prosecutor who led the crackdown on virtual-currency crime and joined Coinbase's board in May. While no one yet has gone to jail for hacking into an exchange or electronically pilfering cryptocurrency, she says, the AlphaBay and BTC-e probes are the first of a wave of cases that have yet to be completed or unsealed. Because wallet addresses are pseudon-ymous, it can take years for investigators to link them to a person--gathering data gleaned from exchanges like Coinbase and more obscure corners of the Internet. "I liken it to more traditional crimes, like bank robberies," Haun says. "If he's wearing a disguise and has a wig and gloves, it makes it that much harder to capture the criminal. But that doesn't mean it's impossible." Individual thefts may be too small on their own to merit a federal case, but as more victims report crimes to the FBI and other government agencies, there's more cause for hope. Chainalysis, for its part, opened a special investigations unit in July to take on personal cases after fielding pleas for help from hack victims. And experts believe the criminals who commit the robberies belong to sophisticated organizations with the technology and manpower to trawl social networks for mentions of cryptocurrency accounts--the kinds of resources that let them, say, call Ver-izon 28 times in 24 hours until they succeed in porting a phone number, as they did in the case of Adam Pokornicky, managing partner at hedge fund Cryptochain Capital. Efforts that ambitious inevitably leave traces, and from such clues a pattern can emerge. "Phone porting cases and schemes like it have captured the attention of law enforcement, so I would say, stay tuned," Haun says. That said, even if the blockchain world's combined forces succeed in capturing cybercriminals, there's no guarantee that victims will get their money back. Some of the legal precedent for charging cryptocurrency hackers is still untested, and there are questions as to whether intangible assets can even be seized. For one, accessing the booty would require knowing the private key: "They could get the criminal, but the government can't force them to say where the gold is," says Jeffrey Berns, whose California law firm specializes in digital currency. In a system that prizes decentralization above all else, the creature comforts of banking may never exist. Adds Berns, "There is no consumer protection, and I'm not sure it can be built in." Deep inside a mountainin Switzerland, down a 200-meter cave, a World War II military bunker now stores what is believed to be the largest repository of Bitcoins on the planet. In the wake of the Mt. Gox hack in 2014, Wences Casares, an Argentinean tech entrepreneur, thought there was one solution to storing digital coins: Go underground. His company Xapo now operates heavily guarded vaults, on five continents, some as far as a kilometer down into the earth. Each contains so-called air-gapped servers on which the encrypted private keys are stored. To ensure hackers cannot rob its clients, who range from $5 account holders in emerging markets to the world's largest hedge funds and institutions, agents of Palo Alto-based Xapo personally witness the manufacturing of the servers before they even come off the assembly line and escort them to the hermetic vaults, guaranteeing they never touch the Internet. "It's somewhat ridiculous," says Casares, who also sits on the board of PayPal, "the extent to which we have to go to make sure that the keys are protected." But even that safeguard has its limits. When customers move funds into a "hot wallet" on Xapo for transaction purposes (itself a 48-hour process), the money could be vulnerable to the same hacks that Coinbase accounts are. In other words, your cryptowealth is as safe as can be--until you want to actually use it. Coinbase account holders lose up to $5 million annually to theft by hacking, according to a person close to the company. Here's how the hacks happen, and why the culprits are so hard to catch. The Stakeout A scammer scouts a target by searching for people who work in the blockchain industry--or by combing social media for mentions of Bitcoin and Coinbase. The attacker finds the target's email address and phone number through online postings or previousdata leaks. The Switcheroo The scammer contacts the victim's mobile provider and "ports" the phone number to a device under the scammer's control. The Disguise Because Gmail -accounts often link phone numbers as a backup access method, the scammer can now log in and reset the target's email password, then do the same at Coinbase. "I'm In!" Coinbase requires two-factor authentication ("2FA") in addition to a password. That 2FA now gets texted to the thief, who logs in. The Getaway The scammer moves the money into digital "wallets" under his control. Law enforcement can easily track the movements of the stolen currency recorded on the blockchain, but they can't block transactions, and figuring out who controls the wallets is difficult. The Laundering To try to cover his trail, the scammer can move the currency to foreign "cryptoexchanges," or convert it to other kinds of digital currency that are harder to track. Eventually, he can convert it to cash or other assets. Building a Better Vault For better security: • Put a "do not port" order on your phone number. • Don't use text-message 2FA; instead, use an app like Authenticator. • Use a unique password, one you don't use for other accounts or social media. This is part ofFortune'snew initiative,The Ledger,a trusted news source at the intersection of tech and finance. For more onThe Ledger,click here. A version of this article appears in the Sept. 1, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline “The 21st-Century Bank Robbery.” See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com • This Country May Launch Its Own Virtual Currency • The IRS Has Special Software to Find Bitcoin Tax Cheats • Our New Place to Find the Latest Bitcoin and Blockchain News • Why Big Business Is Racing to Build Blockchains • 5 Ways Businesses Are Already Using Blockchains || Bitcoin Cash Launches, Bitcoin's Future Unclear: Bitcoin Cash officially launched tonight, a controversial fork inspiring hordes of bitcoin users to swap traditional bitcoins for this new cryptocurrency. Some reddit users even deemed Tuesday “ Bitcoin Independence Day .” The build up has been dizzying. One of the world’s leading bitcoin exchange markets, Coinbase , had outages throughout the weekend “due to a large number of bitcoin withdrawals.” Some of these people were probably just securing their stash on hardware wallets, while others became early BCH users. Read : Why The Bitcoin Fork Debate On August 1st Isn't 'Civil War' A BCH airdrop is already underway, giving away BCH for free to core Bitcoin holders. Stellar previously made the same move with its cryptocurrency, Lumens, so this type of giveaway isn’t surprising. Blockchain startups were hard at work Monday, gearing up for the network shift. Many cryptocurrency experts wished BCH separatists well on social media, despite a lack of confidence in BCH’s prospects. “It seems like a pointless, political gesture,” Monero co-founder Riccardo Spagni told International Business Times. “I don’t think it will serve its intended purpose.” Although he respects many of the people involved with Bitcoin Cash, he considers the project unwise. Spagni’s advice for bitcoin newbies is to “calm down and wait it out.” Bitcoin and BHC prices are both expected to oscillate for a while after the fork. “It could be months before the dust settles,” Spagni said. As for the political debate underlying BCH, wanting bitcoin to be used by as many people doing as many transactions as possible, bitcoin veterans have diverse perspectives on what the real future holds. Many of bitcoin’s most passionate advocates believe cryptocurrency markets aren’t just about getting rich: It’s about “ allowing people to be free .” Blockchain tokens let people to transact without banks or governments verifying their identities and holdings. This gives users more financial autonomy than ever before. However, as the business-centric BCH split underlines, cryptocurrency enthusiasts adhere to a wide range of philosophies. Is the future of bitcoin really universal adoption? It depends on who you ask. Story continues Read : Why You Should Care That Hedge Funds Are Joining The Crypto Boom Many innovators want cryptocurrency to someday become a widespread conduit for daily transactions, such as buying coffee. People like Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin even believe blockchain technology could reshape the global economy by giving people power over their own digital sovereignty in all kinds of online platforms. The blockchain industry is full of cypherpunks and libertarians, white hat hackers and humanitarian activists. Regardless, many bitcoin veterans still think it’s naive to suggest cryptocurrency will fundamentally transform the concept of money. "The technology doesn't seem to support that vision," Patrick Murck, co-founder of the Bitcoin Foundation and a renowned cryptocurrency legal expert , told IBT. “Blockchains don’t scale well.” At least for the near future, Murck said decentralized networks won’t be able to handle all the transactions that Visa and Mastercard can. Business-oriented networks like Ripple have a much higher capacity, but XRP is not as decentralized as bitcoin or the democratically run Tezos. Even if a decentralized network does eventually scale for the kind of capacity a commonplace, international currency would need, local governments still define monetary policy. Politics will define the future of bitcoin, regardless of scalability. Bitcoin Cryptocurrency fundraising is changing the world with initial coin offerings. Bitcoin is just the beginning. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Lawmakers can make it easier, or much harder, for citizens to use decentralized networks. Crypto Lotus hedge fund co-founder Joshua Goldbard told IBT the value of currency is still largely tied to a nation-state’s monopoly on violence. Russia and China are already developing their own national cryptocurrencies. Goldbard said the United States could follow suit and gain more value than decentralized tokens. “That will obviously become a dominate cryptocurrency because the US has all the guns,” he said. “I don’t necessarily see cryptocurrency over the long term as democratizing the world...there will be different concentrations of wealth and different governance.” Spagni agreed with this assessment. Just because a technology could make money free from politics, doesn’t mean it will happen. “Governments are tenacious and they’re not going to just give up because there’s something else people want to use,” he said. Spagni would like to see larger adoption, yet believes cryptocurrency will likely remain niche even as it spreads and matures. Along those lines, Murck sees the future of cryptocurrency as a property revolution, not a new type of money. "Bitcoin and blockchain tokens are unique because they create unique forms property, that have never existed before," Murck said. "It's a little piece of data that is scarce and unique. Usually, data in digital systems is not scarce because you can just copy it infinitely.” For example, once a band digitizes a song, people can make endless copies for almost no cost. Now blockchain allows property owners, including artists who own their work , to keep control of those digital assets. The future of cryptocurrency could be less about mobile shopping and more about business standards. "If you rebuilt the New York Stock Exchange today, you could build it at a fraction of the cost, compared to the way it runs right now," Murck said. Meanwhile, projects like Filecoin are working to bridge the gap between traditional categories, like securities regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Wild West of initial coin offerings. "I think the SEC ruling is a part of it and I think there are some projects that are really embracing that. They want to professionalize the space," Murck said. Bitcoin Cash was born out of a debate about how to scale bitcoin so more people can use it for more things. While cryptocurrency seems like it will become more popular, decentralized networks may never be able to replace national currencies altogether because people are harder to work with than algorithms. “The [blockchain] network could break if you try to scale it prematurely," Murck said. "Money is just a creature of the state, a social phenomena. You can't really divorce the two." Related Articles Countdown To Bitcoin Cash IRS Might Limit 'Highly Intrusive' Bitcoin Audit || Bitcoin plunges below Goldman Sachs' target before rebounding sharply: (A bitcoin sign in a window in Toronto.Reuters/Mark Blinch) Bitcoinis making a comeback after taking a weekend plunge. The cryptocurrencydropped by nearly 20%over the weekend, putting in a low of $1,758 a coin before recouping some of those losses. It's currently trading at $2,048. At the low point, bitcoin was down by more than 40% from its record high of about $3,000, set June 12. The weekend plunge pushed the cryptocurrency below the target of Sheba Jafari, the head of technical strategy atGoldman Sachs. In early July, Jafari put out a note saying bitcoin was "still in a corrective 4th wave" that "shouldn't go much further than 1,857." Jafari wasn't the only one who thought bitcoin was getting ahead of itself. Tech billionaireMark Cuban suggested bitcoin was in a "bubble."Back on June 6, just before the cryptocurrency put in its record high, Cuban tweeted: "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." Additionally, Jeffrey Kleintop, the chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab, saidbitcoin was in a bubble unlike any we had seen before. As for where bitcoin will go from here, Jafari's July 3 note suggested that after a big drop, a fifth wave would take bitcoin to record highs. "From current levels, this has a minimum target that goes out to 3,212 (if equal to the length of wave I)," Jafari wrote. "There’s potential to extend as far as 3,915 (if 1.618 times the length of wave I). It just might take time to get there." Even with the recent plunge, bitcoin is up 113% in 2017. (Investing.com) NOW WATCH:Wells Fargo Funds equity chief: Shorting anything is 'playing with fire' More From Business Insider • Trump's lawyer let something slip about the Russia meeting that raises questions about whether Trump attended • Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer sheds new light on the extent of Russia's election interference • Ethereum is still crashing, and just fell below $200 || 3 ETF ‘Trump Trades’ That Tripped: When it comes to investing, the problem with a sure thing is that no one can really be sure where the market will go. A look at some of the sure-thing, conventional-wisdom Trump trades following last November’s U.S. presidential election is a humbling reminder that crystal balls aren’t crystal clear, and investors can often be caught on the wrong side of a trade. Bet On Rising US Dollar The U.S. dollar was heralded as the big beneficiary of the incoming Trump administration. A business-friendly president determined to “make America great again” could mean only one thing for the greenback: upside. The dollar likes a growing economy. But seven months into the year, the dollar is not only lower, it’s at its lowest level since last summer. It’s down some 8% since its early January multiyear highs. Among the things weighing on the dollar is eroding investor confidence in President Trump’s ability to spur economic growth. His administration is struggling to pass promised legislation, such as a health care bill and tax reform. Seven months in, blockbuster growth isn’t such a given. In ETF terms, that performance can be seen in a fund like thePowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (UUP), the biggest dollar-tracking ETF, with $545 million in assets. The fund goes long the U.S. dollar and shorts the currencies of major U.S. trading partners. The portfolio should go up when the dollar goes up. In 2017, UUP has slid nearly as much as the dollar, and investors have now yanked some $265 million from the fund this year. Bet On Russia The day after the presidential election,we were among the many who called it: Russian ETFs were poised to gain from a Trump presidency. Like many others in this industry, we too thought Trump’s outspoken efforts to improve relations with Russia were going to translate into stock gains forRussia ETFs. That didn’t happen. Of all the single-country ETFs in the market today, as first reported byMarketWatchthis week, Russia is the only one treading in negative territory in 2017. That decline is largely a result of weak crude oil prices, which are a key driver in Russia’s economy. TheVanEck Vectors Russia ETF (RSX)and theiShares MSCI Russia Capped ETF (ERUS)—the largest Russia ETFs—are both down in 2017. RSX, with $2 billion in assets, invests in Russian companies listed both in Russia and overseas, while ERUS tracks a market-cap-weighted index of securities listed on Russian stock exchanges. ERUS has $472 million in assets. As these ETFs dropped, investors have pulled $478 million from RSX, but have added more than $80 million to ERUS so far in 2017. Stay Away From Mexico Nothing about Trump’s initial rhetoric suggested a pro-Mexico administration. On the contrary, there was going to be a border wall built between the U.S. and Mexican frontier, paid for by Mexico. Immigration laws were going to get tougher; trade with our southern neighbors harder. In that environment, Mexico stocks were going to suffer—or so it seemed. But theiShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF (EWW)has rallied—and sharply—defying all expectations. The $1.4 billion fund is up nearly 32% so far this year. Helping fuel those gains is a strengthening local currency, up some 15% since the election, as well as easing concerns that trade agreements were going to go up in flames. But even as EWW rallied, investors have pulled money out of the fund to the tune of $802 million in net redemptions year-to-date. Not only were they wrong about where EWW was headed, they bet with their dollars on the wrong side. Charts courtesy ofStockCharts.com Contact Cinthia Murphy atcmurphy@etf.com Recommended Stories • 3 ETF ‘Trump Trades’ That Tripped • 3 Investing Legends On Bitcoin • This Trump ETF Trade Completely Unwinds • 3 ETFs For Surprise Drop In The Dollar • Emerging Market Local Debt ETFs Shine Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || Why Big Business Is Racing to Build Blockchains: One summer morning in a coffee shop on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, I sit behind my MacBook Pro as tens of thousands of machines around the globe prepare to indelibly inscribe a record of my tinkering into their collective consciousness. I am in the midst of creating my own digital tokens---essentially online currency--on a sprawling, decentralized network known as Ethereum. Mike Goldin, a software developer at ConsenSys, an Ethereum development studio based in Bushwick, walks me through the coding process. Goldin is my Sherpa today, graciously attending, with utmost patience, to my every query. (The 10-plus hours I spent downloading software the day prior was unnecessary, he tells me; we're going to employ some work-arounds that will achieve my goal in a matter of minutes.) After considering a variety of names for my token--"fortunecoin," "hackettoken," "neither"--I settle on a cheeky one that evokes a spectacular flameout of the great '90s Internet bubble: "Petsdotcoin." I click "create." Transaction hash (Pending) ... (Pending) ... (Pending) ... Twenty-seven seconds and one block confirmation later, I am the proud owner of 500 newly minted "petsdotcoin" tokens. Their creation cost me $1.57 in Ether, the cryptocurrency that fuels the Ethereum network. Despite that expense, my tokens are valued at 0 Ether, or $0.00, as the program reminds me. They are worthless. But if I had tied those bits to some worthwhile business idea, petsdotcoin might have offered investors a radical new way to fund me, track their stake, and participate in a miniature, virtualized, in-app economy. In that respect, my funny-money vanity project is a tiny part of a movement of profound economic significance. In case you haven't been keeping track, digital tokens are a new asset class, powered by cryptocurrency networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. The sector has attracted maniacal investor interest this year, giving these e-coins absurdly inflated valuations that have inspired endlesscomparisons to the "dotcom" era. (Hence, petsdotcoin.) At press time, the total market value of all virtual currencies had rocketed past $135 billion, up from just under $20 billion at the beginning of the year. Hundreds of projects have collectively raised more than a billion dollars through "initial coin offerings" (ICOs). There are now tokens funding every conceivable endeavor: Decentralized cloud storage (FileCoin, Storj). Digital advertising (Basic Attention Token, adToken). A gentlemen's club in Las Vegas (Legends Room). Marijuana (Potcoin). Satire (PonzICO). There's even one for dentists (DentaCoin). In a photo recently posted to Instagram,Floyd May-weather, the boxer, sits on a private jet surrounded by stacks of dollar bills, touting the sale of tokens for a prediction market called Stox--a moment some saw as proof that ICO hype had reached peak zaniness. The smart money is also playing in this pool. Established venture capital firms like Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, and Union Square Ventures arepouring millionsof dollars intocryptocurrency hedge funds. The topic is all the rage on Wall Street. But notably, the long-betting investors in this space see today's numismatic delirium as a distraction. "Right now it's much easier to get more focused on the short-term ICO money stuff," says Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "I think this unfortunately overshadows the more important technology story." That story goes like this: Underneath the crypto-hysteria is a grand innovation in the humble realm of accounting. The most bullish acolytes of this electronic book-balancing breakthrough, Dixon included, hold that token-based projects will anchor the web's next revolution, spawning crowdfunded businesses and services that deliver more value to their users while being less dependent on advertisers or rent-seeking middlemen. , meet Tokenbook. Look beyond theICO frenzy, and you can glimpse another paradigmatic shift inspired by that same accounting innovation. Incumbent businesses in countless industries, from finance to energy to health care to food, are peeling back the layers on this budding technology, seeing the potential to trim costs, share and secure information more efficiently, and unleash new products at unprecedented speed. And they're doing so knowing that one day their survival may be at stake: Having witnessed what the advent of digital, cloud, and mobile did to laggard companies, no one wants to be the sucker left behind. The technology in question: that choreographic marvel called a blockchain. No term at present is more hyped, and more poorly understood. During a discussion atFortune's Brainstorm Tech conference this summer,Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain, a London-based cryptocurrency wallet provider, half-jokingly defined "blockchain" as a marketing term exploited by salespeople to ink deals. A less cynical definition might go as follows: A blockchain is a kind of ledger, a table that businesses use to track credits and debits. But it's not just any run-of-the-mill financial database. One of a blockchain's distinguishing features is that it concatenates (or "chains") cryptographically verified transactions into sequences of lists (or "blocks"). The system uses complex mathematical functions to arrive at a definitive record of who owns what, when. Properly applied, a blockchain can help assure data integrity, maintain auditable records, and even, in its latest iterations, render financial contracts into programmable software. It's a ledger, but on the bleeding edge. Blockchain boosters say its development is one that rivals, in significance, the invention of double-entry bookkeeping. That's the revolutionary method of tabulating assets and liabilities that emerged in Renaissance Italy and that, according to some historians, put wind in the sails of capitalism, allowing investors and entrepreneurs to team up in corporations and launch merchant ships beyond the horizon in search of commercial success. Blockchains, in this analogy, are triple-entry bookkeeping, where the third entry is a verifiable cryptographic receipt of any transaction. Perhaps most spectacularly, a blockchain can get rivals to cooperate in creating a common record that is accessible to everyone and controlled by no one. This was the genius of Satoshi Nakamoto, the alias for the as-yet-unidentified creator (or creators) of the first blockchain, Bitcoin, which debuted in 2009. (Since then, the value of a single Bitcoin has reach a high ofmore than $4,300.) Part of Bitcoin's secret sauce is its consensus mechanism, which allows people to agree on a canonical order of transactions, thereby preventing double-spending and fraud, through a combination of cryptography and economic incentives based on game theory--all without needing a third party or middleman, like a bank. Even if participants don't trust one another, they can rely on the shared ledger they create through the transactional dance of their software. You don't need honor among thieves--you just need a blockchain. See also:Hacking Coinbase: The Great Bitcoin Bank Robbery If Bitcoin proved what was possible, Ethereum, a rival system, took its ingenuity to a logical extreme.Vitalik Buterin, a twentysomething Russia-born programmer (No. 10onFortune's 40 Under 40 list this year), created a blockchain that aims to be anything to anyone: His Ethereum can create representations of any asset, which has made it the primary fuel of the digital-token boom. But by showcasing blockchain's fundamental flexibility, Ethereum's rise has also accelerated a deluge of research and development in corporate America. Scores of companies are adapting and advancing the core technology to suit their needs. While some are exploring digital currency and the open-source, free-for-all ecosystem of public blockchains (of which Bitcoin and Ethereum are prime examples), far more are concentrating on how the technology underpinning those systems can add value to their businesses--by helping them with everything from corralling medical records to tracking the provenance of a pork loin. Many are concocting "permissioned" or "private" blockchains, designed for a more centralized architecture where only authorized operators can join. See the full Fortune 201740 Under 40list here. To some stalwarts, this corporate appropriation runs counter to the original, idealized blockchain as introduced by Nakamoto. "The word was hijacked to sell enterprise software, basically," says Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder of Polychain Capital, perhaps the most high-profile of the cryptocurrency hedge funds. Some entrepreneurs, like Chain CEO Adam Ludwin, argue that new ledger technology isn't really a blockchain if the items it tracks aren't financial.R3 CEV, a New York-based consortium of financial firms that began as a blockchain startup, now avoids the word, calling itself a "distributed ledger technology" company. But this schism over terminology isn't hampering the science. Ultimately, anyone working on next-generation data structures with cryptographic signatures and joint-stakeholder elements might now be said to fall under the "blockchain" umbrella. "It's entered the vernacular like Kleenex," says Matt Higginson, partner in McKinsey's global banking practice. And whatever you want to call it, more and more businesses are gathering there. One day last December, Frank Yiannas went to a store near company headquarters in Fayetteville, Ark., and picked up a package of sliced mangoes. Yiannas is Walmart's vice president of food safety, and the fruit was part of a crucial experiment. He brought the mangoes back to his office, placed the container on a conference table, and gave his team a mission. "Find out where those mangoes came from," he ordered, setting a timer. It took six days, 18 hours, and 26 minutes to get an answer. That's better than the weeks it can sometimes take companies, Yiannas says. Still, a near-week is a long time. In the event of an outbreak of foodborne illness--one in which a suspected pathogen is tied to mangoes somewhere--a lag that long could be painfully costly. By that point, Walmart might have had to pull every package of every mango product off its shelves, as a precaution; farmers, distributors, and Walmart itself would take the hit. Yiannas has for years searched without success for what he calls the "Holy Grail of food traceability," a technology that could track and catalog aproduct's status across his supply chain. He admits he was "very skeptical" that a blockchain could fill the gap, but he gave it a try. Walmart partnered with for atrial runonHyperledger Fabric, a blockchain built under the purview of the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger group, where companies collaborate on blockchain R&D. In the Walmart test, food shipments were tracked and digitally recorded via a blockchain. (Yiannas's team's manual search was the "control.") From the start of their journey at the farm, pallets of mangoes were tagged with numeric identifiers. Every time they crossed another checkpoint--from farm to broker to distributor to store--their status was signed and logged. A few months after the fact, Yiannas repeats a version of the IBM demo for me. He enters a six-digit "lot" number on a web portal. In an instant, the mangoes' identifying details appear on-screen: Mango spears, 10 ounces, "Tommy" variety (a cultivar optimized for transport). The fruit was harvested April 24 from orchards in Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. A day later, the fruit underwent hot-water treatment to exterminate the eggs of potentially invasive insects. On April 27, an importer received the shipment; after a few more days, it passed through Customs and Border Protection, entering a U.S. processing plant where they were sliced on May 1. From there, the mangoes moved to a cold storage facility in Los Angeles (you can pull up a safety inspection certificate with a click of a mouse). Finally, the lot arrived at a Walmart store. The time it took to compile and present all this information: about two seconds. (It clocked a similar time when Yiannas demonstrated it at Walmart's annual shareholder meeting this summer.) In the event of anE. colior salmonella outbreak, the difference between two seconds and six-plus days can be decisive, even lifesaving. But in the context of a supply chain, a blockchain is far more than an emergency measure: The granular, secure records in the system could help prevent fraud, and provide an easy-to-use interface for executives to keep tabs on the flow of goods, as well as for regulators to peek under the hood when necessary. "This was not about chasing the shiny coin," Yiannas says. "There were business challenges we were trying to solve." For more, read “5 Ways Businesses Are Already Using Blockchains.” Other companies are now exploring blockchains' potential for their logistics. Maersk, the Danish shipping giant, has started testing a blockchain to track its shipments and coordinate with customs officials. Airbus, the French aircraft maker, is looking to use blockchains to monitor the many complex parts that come together to make a jet plane. Daimler, the German automaker, is investigating similar possibilities for its vehicles. The potential doesn't stop with tangible goods like windshield wipers or watermelons: Many companies and governments think blockchains could help them assemble tamper-resistant systems for storing virtually any kind of data. BAE Systems, the British defense contractor, is exploring sharing cybersecurity threat data on a blockchain. Pokitdok and Gem are looking to revamp electronic medical record management. And Accenture has teamed up with and a United Nations group to build a blockchain for digital identity, especially useful for refugees who lack official documents. Even with all these potential applications, there's arguably no industry where the promise of blockchain tech--or its peril--is more apparent than in finance. Taped up to a glass dry-erase board behindAmber Baldet's desk is an unassuming sketch. It displays the black outline of four circles, four rectangles, a few conjoining lines, and a few acronyms of academic institutions such as SRI, UTAH, and UCLA. The image is an early depiction of Arpanet, the forerunner of today's Internet. Baldet, who heads up the blockchain group at (and isNo. 31on our 40 Under 40 list), views her work as very much in a similar phase of development. For enterprises, she says, it's 1969, and they're tinkering with a technology that could, in time, be as important as the Internet. For more, read “Why Delaware Made It Easier for Businesses to Use Blockchains.” Finance is the most obvious extension of blockchain tech, given the monetary roots of Bitcoin. Trade finance, security clearance and settlements, cross-border payments, and insurance are all areas that could be overhauled and made more seamless. Microsoft is collaborating with on a blockchain to digitize and automate the money flow around trades. HSBC, ING, U.S. Bank, and eight other banks recently completed a prototype application for the same purpose on R3's Corda ledger. Northern Trust, the asset management firm, is using Hyper-ledger Fabric for private-equity deal record keeping. And Ripple built a system to rival the SWIFT interbank money-transferring service. In a hotly competitive sector where customers demand faster transactions and lower costs, the rewards of building the best blockchain mousetrap could be vast--the penalties for missing out, proportionately painful. To help stake J.P. Morgan's claim, Baldet's team has created a so-called permissioned variant of the Ethereum blockchain. The bank open-sourced the code late last year, under a "general public license" that allows anyone to draw from or contribute to the design. This retooled blockchain, dubbed Quorum, is the first software ever released by J.P. Morgan this way. It's an unusual move by the bank, which certainly had the resources to work in-house and in secret. But J.P. Morgan sees a benefit to rallying all parties to work on a common platform that could reduce costs. "We spend a whole lot of money trying to transact with our counterparties and our clients," Baldet explained at a recentMIT Technology Reviewevent in Cambridge, Mass. "The more free that sort of thing is, the better for us." The J.P. Morgan team is already breaking ground--and, in the process, underscoring key differences between private and public blockchains. In March, Quorum began adding support for "zero knowledge proofs," advanced cryptography commercialized by the Zerocoin Electric Coin Co., makers of the Zcash crypto-currency. That cryptography enables state-of-the-art privacy features--something the Ethereum Foundation, the Swiss nonprofit that maintains the public Ethereum blockchain, has yet to do, though it plans to. J.P. Morgan, after all, is designing Quorum to prioritize the needs of corporations, especially in data confidentiality and scalability--areas where private blockchains excel and, for now, public blockchains struggle. Still, many industry insiders believe that public and private will eventually intersect--just as internal networks came to coexist with and feed the public Internet decades ago. "I think we're going to see the distinction between public chain and private chain eradicated in the next two to three years," says Jeremy Millar, chief of staff atConsenSys, and a founding board member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, a group of financial and tech firms that includes J.P. Morgan and is pushing Ethereum-basedblockchains for business. "We'll be talking about global chains vs. industry and company chains." At a recent blockchain event hosted by Microsoft in Manhattan, I ask a group of executives whether they're similarly bullish. The responses span the gamut from "absolutely" to "I have no idea." Patrick Nielsen, lead engineer of Quorum, overhears my line of questioning. He can barely conceal his amusement beneath an impressively leonine beard. We've got some academic institutions and military research agencies, he says with a wry smile, referencing the topology of the Internet in its early days. "Just have to add a few more nodes to the network." If and when all those nodes are in place, it could presage a major shift in the way humans, companies, and their data organize. Of all the analogies that come up in discussing blockchains, perhaps the most frequently cited is the design, in the 1970s, of TCP/IP--the watershed networking protocol that enabled computers to talk to one another and swap data and info. This technology helped upend the point-to-point telephone lines that predominated during the Bell era, paving the way for a network of networks--the Internet. If the Internet is a supranetwork, then a blockchain, in its purest form, is a way to turn these networks into decentralized marketplaces. Ronald Coase, a 20th-century economist, won a Nobel Prize for formulating an explanation for why corporations existed. Their raison d'?tre, he said, was to maximize efficiencies in business and market negotiations: Dealmaking is more productive when done collectively. Blockchains could take that principle and multiply it exponentially. Granted, there are many technical and cultural challenges standing between that vision and reality. The cryptocurrency boom has drawn attention to some of the drawbacks and limitations of blockchains--including the paucity of present demand for cryptocurrency in actual business dealings and transactions outside of pure speculation (lots of people invest in it, few use it) and the potential for security lapses. (For more on the latter, see "The 21st-Century Bank Robbery.") Vint Cerf, one of the coauthors of TCP/IP and now vice president and "chief Internet evangelist" at , has reservations. "I think that the claims that blockchains will change the world are hyperbolic for the most part," he zapped in an email toFortune. "It has become a kind of magic pixie dust for some proponents." Still, even Cerf sees potential in blockchains, where "the parties involved in the system are known and can be evaluated for reliability and trustworthiness." If Cerf's cautious hunches pan out, businesses could be innovating and growing with the help of blockchains, even if the digital token craze proves to be a fad. Maybe petsdotcoin won't be the next big hit. But it's no exaggeration to believe that blockchains could, in the long term, revamp business, government, and even society itself, just as surely as the Internet did last century, and double-entry bookkeeping did centuries earlier. Someday, you may literally be able to count on it. This is part ofFortune'snew initiative,The Ledger,a trusted news source at the intersection of tech and finance. For more onThe Ledger,click here. A version of this article appears in the Sept. 1, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline “Blockchain Mania.” See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com • Our New Place to Find the Latest Bitcoin and Blockchain News • Walmart and 9 Food Giants Team Up on IBM Blockchain Plans • 5 Ways Businesses Are Already Using Blockchains • Why Delaware Made It Easier for Businesses to Use Blockchains • Hacking Coinbase: The Great Bitcoin Bank Robbery || US GDP hits 3% in 2nd quarter: Great again? Stocks ( ^DJI , ^GSPC , ^IXIC ) climbing higher as Wall Street gets optimistic, on Main Street. Plus – Amazon’s everywhere – but one analyst thinks it’s the *weakest* of all big retailers. We explain And – Warren Buffett says stocks are “less attractive” now – but is there any other game in town? Plus – Overstock going crytpo – why CEO Patrick Byrne is embracing Bitcoin at the e-commerce retailer. Catch The Final Round at 4 p.m. with Dan Roberts and Yahoo Finance markets correspondent Myles Udland. Winners and losers Stocks getting hit today include Chico’s as the apparel retailer’s same store sales were worse than expected, Vera Bradley as the fashion accessories maker announced management changes that alarmed investors, and H&R Block – shares dropping as the tax-prep service posted a slightly wider-than-expected loss in its fiscal first quarter. Stocks getting a lift today include Marriott as Wolfe Research upgraded shares to ‘outperform’ from ‘peer perform.’ Netflix as as Bernstein analysts claim the loss of Disney content will be offset by international gains, and Bank of America – shares rising as Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway becomes B of A’s largest shareholder after it exercised warrants to buy 700 million shares. || What Like Ahead for Telecom ETFs?: The U.S. telecommunications industry is currently balanced with almost equal proportions of positive and negative influences. This year, we expect this industry to witness growth more or less in line with the broader market. Positive Factors At present, the U.S. telecom industry enjoys several positive attributes. First, the new telecom regulatory body – Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – has given enough indications that it will be less stringent compared with the Obama administration and is likely to roll back several regulations of the previous regime. Second, the less restrictive nature of the FCC will aid mergers and acquisitions which are likely to spur growth in 2017. Third, President Trump has decided to improve broadband availability in rural areas. Rural broadband development will be an element of his ambitious $1 trillion infrastructure plan he will submit to the Congress soon. (Read: Bitcoin Soars to Record High—Fork, Futures and ETFs Explained) Negative Factors However, several near-term headwinds prevail in the telecom industry. The chief ones include growing price competition for wireless services that are likely to reduce carriers' revenue growth in 2017. Leading cable MSOs (multi service operators) have decided to enter the wireless field this year, which is likely to intensify competition in an already saturated market. Further, capital spending by U.S. telecom carriers may be muted in 2017. 4G LTE wireless penetration is currently 83% in North America. This can primarily be attributed to most carriers’ intention to upgrade to the 5G wireless network standard which requires massive investment. However, a full phased 5G network deployment is unlikely before 2020. Internet of Things (IoT): The Next Growth Driver IoT, which enables any physical electronic device with a valid IP-address to transfer data seamlessly over a wireless network, is fast gaining market traction and bringing about fundamental changes in business models. Next-generation superfast wireless networks (4G LTE, LTE-A, upcoming 5G) will provide the primary impetus to the telecom industry. In this context, IoT holds the potential to be the numero uno factor in driving growth in the space. Superfast 5G mobile networks will be of utmost importance in the management of exponential growth in IoT. (Read: 5 Smart Beta ETFs with Brilliant Returns) Story continues Unlimited Data Plan War Wireless consumers pay millions extra in the form of added surcharges, taxes, monthly fees and carrier price hikes every year. The practice seems to have peaked and carriers are still looking for ways to fetch more from their customers. Several consumer groups have criticized extra fees because these are easily overlooked and lead to higher-than-advertised price payments. The U.S. telecom market continues to witness intense pricing competition as success depends largely on technical superiority, quality of services and scalability. (Read: Q2 Earnings Effect--4 Must-See ETF Charts) ETFs to Tap the Sector Against this backdrop, investors seeking to tap the growth potential of the highly competitive telecom sector may take a closer look at the ETF approach to reap maximum benefit from investing in this sector. This technique can help to spread out assets among a wide variety of companies and reduce company specific risks for a very low cost. Below, we highlight the ETFs in this sector in greater detail for Telecom ETF investors: iShares Global Telecommunications ETF (IXP) IXP is one of the most popular Telecom ETF available in the market. Launched in Nov 2001, this ETF tracks investment results before fees and expenses corresponds to the price and yield performance of the S&P Global 1200 Telecommunications Sector Index. The fund has nearly $331.72 million of assets under management and an average trading volume of roughly 26,660 shares a day in the last 3 months. The fund charges an expense ratio of 47 basis points a year. The fund holds 31 stocks in its portfolio and has a concentrated approach in the top ten holdings with 71.16% of the asset base invested in them. Among individual holdings, top stocks in the ETF include AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., and Vodafone Group Plc. with asset allocation of 18.72%, 15.40% and 6.03%, respectively. Integrated Telecommunication Services, Wireless Telecommunication Services and Alternative Carriers are the three major sectors with asset holdings of 71.78%, 26.45% and 1.36% respectively. This ETF offers a dividend yield of 3.76%. Vanguard Telecommunication Services ETF (VOX) Another popular fund in the Telecom ETF space is VOX. Launched in Sep 2004, this ETF seeks to track the performance corresponding to the benchmark MSCI US Investable Market Telecommunication Services 25/50 Index. It has assets under management of nearly $1,346.40 million and an average trading volume of roughly 105,491 shares a day in the last 3 months. The fund charges an expense ratio of 10 basis points a year. The fund holds 28 stocks in its portfolio and has a concentrated approach in the top ten holdings with 69.70% of the asset base invested in them. Among individual holdings, top three stocks in the ETF are AT&T, Verizon and Level 3 Communications Inc. Integrated Telecommunication Services, Alternative Carriers and Wireless Telecommunication Services are the three major sectors with asset holdings of 61.80%, 23.20% and 15.00%, respectively. This ETF offers a dividend yield of 3.33%. SPDR S&P Telecom ETF (XTL) Incepted in Jan 2011, XTL ETF tries to match the returns of the S&P Telecom Select Industry Index, before expenses. The fund manages an asset size of nearly $72.20 million and an average trading volume of roughly 12,222 shares a day in the last 3 months. The fund charges an expense ratio of 35 basis points a year. The fund holds 52 stocks in total in its basket. However, this ETF is not following any concentrated approach as the top ten stocks hold only 25.33% of the asset base invested in them. Among individual holdings, top stocks in the ETF include Applied Optoelectronics Inc., Infinera Corp. and Ubiquiti Networks Inc., with asset allocation of 3.45%, 2.55% and 2.52%, respectively. Communications Equipment, Integrated Telecommunications Services, Alternative Carriers and Wireless telecommunication Services are the four sectors with asset holdings of 62.21%, 15.26%, 12.92% and 9.39% respectively. This ETF offers a dividend yield of 1.23%. iShares US Telecommunications ETF (IYZ) Incepted in May 2000, IYZ ETF tracks investment results before fees and expenses corresponds to the price and yield performance of the Dow Jones US Select Telecommunications Index. The fund manages assets worth of more than $474.49 million and an average trading volume of roughly 479,580 shares a day in the last 3 months. The fund charges an expense ratio of 44 basis points a year. The fund holds 20 stocks and has a concentrated approach in the top ten holdings with 63.09% of the asset base invested in them. Among individual holdings, top stocks in the ETF include AT&T, Verizon, and Level 3 Communications with asset allocation of 10.50%, 10.45% and 6.37%, respectively. The three major sectors of this ETF include Integrated Telecommunication Services, Wireless Telecommunication Services and Alternative Carriers with asset holdings of 50.77%, 27.30%, and 21.86% respectively. This ETF offers a dividend yield of 2.85%. Fidelity MSCI Telecom Services Index ETF (FCOM) Incepted in Oct 2013, FCOM ETF tracks investment results before fees and expenses corresponds to the performance of the MSCI USA IMI Telecommunication Services 25/50 Index. The fund manages assets worth of nearly $115.80 million and an average trading volume of roughly 40,778 shares a day in the last 3 months. The fund charges an expense ratio of 8 basis points a year. The fund holds 27 stocks and has a concentrated approach in the top ten holdings with 72.08% of the asset base invested in them. Among individual holdings, top stocks in the ETF include Verizon, AT&T and Level 3 Communications, with asset allocation of 23.96%, 22.88% and 4.41%, respectively. Diversified Telecommunication Services and Wireless Telecommunication Services are the two major sectors of this ETF with asset holdings of 84.91% and 13.67%, respectively. This ETF offers a dividend yield of 2.75%. More Stock News: Tech Opportunity Worth $386 Billion in 2017 From driverless cars to artificial intelligence, we've seen an unsurpassed growth of high-tech products in recent months. Yesterday's science-fiction is becoming today's reality. Despite all the innovation, there is a single component no tech company can survive without. Demand for this critical device will reach $387 billion this year alone, and it's likely to grow even faster in the future. Zacks has released a brand-new Special Report to help you take advantage of this exciting investment opportunity. Most importantly, it reveals 4 stocks with massive profit potential. See these 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 FID-TELECOM (FCOM): ETF Research Reports VIPERS-TELE SVC (VOX): ETF Research Reports ISHARS-US TELE (IYZ): ETF Research Reports SPDR-SP TELCM (XTL): ETF Research Reports ISHARS-GLB TELE (IXP): 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 || Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Forecast – Prices Move Higher, Looking to Breakout: The bitcoin prices have started moving higher again and it seems to be only a matter of time before the all time highs generated earlier would be challenged and it would be interesting to see how the prices move once they hit that region. As we have been saying all along, with the number of bitcoins being restricted, the trend is likely to be up as long as bitcoins continue to be used for transactions and as long as the bitcoin network is able to sustain itself through the various ups and downs that it is likely to see. Get Into Bitcoin Trading Today Bitcoin Prices Move Towards Highs It is this part that is likely to be challenged when the bitcoin network undergoes a hard fork and the outcome of this fork would again be watched very closely on how the network would be dealing with it. This fork is likely to be more difficult than the first one in August as the network is split into two and both the sides are at loggerheads with each other on the approach to the fork. But these forks are an important aspect for the network and the technology to grow and hence cannot be avoided. Bitcoin 4H Ethereum prices also followed the bitcoin prices and have since moved through the $330 region and looking ahead to the next target at $340. The ETH network is also scheduled to undergo a fork in September and if it manages to get through the fork without much impact, we could see a string bullish leg in ETH in the short and medium like what we are seeing in bitcoin. Forecast Looking ahead to the rest of the day, we expect both the bitcoin and ETH prices to challenge the range highs at around $4400 and $340 respectively and if the prices do manage to break through, then we are likely to see the next bullish leg in both the pairs over the weekend. The Best and Safest Way to Buy and Sell Bitcoins Virtual currency is becoming more popular by the minute. It’s starting to seem that everyone wants in, yet it isn’t always so easy to get cryptocurrencies. Coinmama allows you to purchase Bitcoin through credit card or cash in sizes that will suit your needs! Click Here for More Info Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Jackson Hole to Drive the EUR and the Dollar DAX Index Daily Fundamental Forecast – August 25, 2017 Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Hurricane Infrastructure Damage Could Spike Prices Higher Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Gasoline Prices Soar on Crack-Spread Buying Commodity Markets In Still Mode Ahead of Jackson Hole AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Focus on Durable Goods Early, Yellen, Draghi Later || Pogue's Basics: Alexa reminders: Well, it took two years. But Amazon has finally added a super- useful feature to the Echo: You can now set Reminders. Like, you can say, “Alexa—remind me to watch the new Game of Thrones at 9 p.m.” And then at 9 p.m., it’ll say: She says “Reminder: Watch Game of Thrones.” Don’t forget! Correction: This post initially referred to the Amazon feature as “named timers.” In fact, the feature is called “Reminders.” Adapted from “ Pogue’s Basics: Tech ” (Flatiron Press), by David Pogue . More from David Pogue: Ossia thinks it’s licked the problems with through-the-air charging Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant is ambitious, powerful, and half-baked Is through-the-air charging a hoax? Pogue’s Basics: The secret Start menu in Windows 10 The pizza-making robots that want to change the world Electrify your existing bike in 2 minutes with these ingenious wheels Marty Cooper, inventor of the cellphone: The next step is implantables The David Pogue Review: Windows 10 Creators Update How a one-of-a-kind business has kept 5,000 kitchens out of landfills Google’s Nest Cam IQ recognizes burglars’ faces—for a steep price The 4 people Steve Jobs handpicked to review the iPhone reflect 10 years later Study: A smartwatch app can detect the heart condition hiding in millions of Americans Now I get it: Bitcoin 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’s davidpogue.com . On Twitter, he’s @pogue . On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. You can read all his articles here , or you can sign up to get his columns by email . View comments [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Aug 24, 2017 11:30:00 UTC | 4,238.40$ | 3,594.30€ | 3,305.40£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/7EHvAmXHzy || Bitcoin Discussion • ऑस्ट्रिया≪≪8107216603≫≫ Family Problem SOLution SpeciaList MOlvi ji https://forum.bitcoin.com/viewtopic.php?t=47295&p=89683#p89683 … #bitcoin || Korean Peninsula And South China Sea Tensions Boost Bitcoin Past $4000 http://dlvr.it/Pdql9B pic.twitter.com/rAx2WV9LRh || 1 KOBO = 0.00000360 BTC = 0.0155 USD = 5.6560 NGN = 0.2041 ZAR = 1.6043 KES #Kobocoin 2017-08-17 06:00 || Take a good breath, and sell your #bitcoin now. Still high price. Buy back low later. $btc || $2341.52 at 11:00 UTC [24h Range: $2307.46 - $2403.99 Volume: 6705 BTC] || accumulating $TKS in the low 40k sats and below #Tokes #altcoins #crypto #bitcoin || BTC: $4062.00, S: $17.06, G: $1288.71 | Act: 23,397 Open: 4419 BTC: 52,406.7 | Total: $212,887,013 http://goo.gl/U94Tki  #bitcoin || #Anoncoin/#ANC price now: $0.791655, that's 0.00% change in 1hour. -0.55% past day, and -55.05% in the past week! #Bitcoin is $2330.97 || $2764.81 at 01:45 UTC [24h Range: $2289.22 - $2938.00 Volume: 33605 BTC]
Trend: down || Prices: 4892.01, 4578.77, 4582.96, 4236.31, 4376.53, 4597.12, 4599.88, 4228.75, 4226.06, 4122.94
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 2019-01-03] BTC Price: 3836.74, BTC RSI: 48.61 Gold Price: 1291.80, Gold RSI: 74.69 Oil Price: 47.09, Oil RSI: 42.42 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] First to Worst: Bitcoin Ridiculed as Most Disastrous Investment of 2018: bitcoin price investment crash FinExpertiza, a network of Russian auditing and consulting firms, has lambasted Bitcoin as the least profitable investment instrument in 2018. Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta requested a report on the investment ranking of 14 instruments from FinExpertiza. While precious metal palladium turned out to be the most profitable investment, Bitcoin losses were noted to be 71.15% at the time the report was compiled. Bitcoin’s price surged in the past which led people to believe that it was becoming “digital gold.” One of these advocates included Alex Gurevich , former JPMorgan executive and Mathematics professor, who said that time was working for Bitcoin despite the recent drop in price. He said, “Every day it doesn’t disappear, it gets one step closer to a permanent status of digital gold.” However, FinExpertiza’s research put Bitcoin below silver , platinum , and gold , which only lost 15.37%, 15.16%, and 5.91% this year. Two Sides to a Story bitcoin price palladium precious metals Currently, the internet is saturated with articles claiming that Bitcoin is as good as dead . The comparisons made between its price in December 2017 and this month are plastered everywhere to warn people from investing in the cryptocurrency. However, Bitcoin hasn’t performed as badly as various researches including FinExpertiza have concluded. According to Bloomberg , when BTC’s price in 2017 and 2018 is compared with its price in 2011 and 2013, this downturn appears to be consistent with the flagship cryptocurrency’s normal market cycles. When looking at the price plunges in the recent months, many would re-consider buying the cryptocurrency. But it must be remembered that BTC declined by 87% in November 2013 and it took almost four years for it to gain its momentum. In the same month in 2017, its lowest price was recorded as $5,555.55. Later, the price went on to break records and reach a maximum of about $20,000. Bitcoin isn’t Dead 99Bitcoins has recorded that BTC has been pronounced dead 91 times in 2018. This figure is still not close to the 125 times Bitcoin was termed an utter loss in 2017. Story continues Jeff Sprecher , chairman of New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), has said that despite living in a “swamp” and dropping in price, Bitcoin has still survived. “Often times in finance, it’s not about being the best — it turns out to be about being the broadest and the most commonly accepted and for whatever reason bitcoin has become that,” said Sprecher. Featured Image from Shutterstock. Price Charts from TradingView . The post First to Worst: Bitcoin Ridiculed as Most Disastrous Investment of 2018 appeared first on CCN . || Mastercard Applies For New Patent for Anonymous Blockchain Transactions – A Regulated Bitcoin Tumbler?: Mastercard, the company who have gone through the entire process oflaughing,fighting, and thenembracing Bitcoin(and then attacking it again), have applied for another newpatent in the blockchain space. Their last one was in regards to — we’re not making this up —a fractional reserve crypto bank. They describe a novel method of anonymizing transactions which does not, in function, represent those in place by Monero or other privacy coins. Instead, the method described sounds a lot likecoin mixing, a service that various businesses in the community have offered for years. For those who are not aware, coin mixing (also calledtumbling) is the process of taking a lot of different inputs, from senders, tumbling them together like a washing machine, and pushing out new transactions from the recipient address – thus obsfuscating the original source of the funds. There are multiple methods of tumbling bitcoins. Mixing coins or tumbling them is no more illegal than getting change at a gas station. In neither case can you be sure that the previous holders of the units were not criminals or engaged in criminal activity. This is where the concept of fungibility is most applicable. The Mastercard method is described as follows; The blockchain node may receive the request and may process the transaction to transfer the specific amount from the processing server’s blockchain wallet to that of the recipient device. In some embodiments, the processing server may notify the sender device and/or the recipient device of the transfer, which may also include the providing of a transaction record identifier for the second transaction. The above is exactly how Bitcoin mixing services work. You create a transaction on the mixer’s site, and then you tell it how much you want to send and where you want to send it. You can also specify, with most decent services, a number of “rounds” you wish to use. This means that the coins will be tumbled between wallets on the server before being sent. The author hasn’t seen a tumblr that does the following though, where more than one wallet will be used to actually send the funds and the amounts will be changed. In some embodiments, the processing server may utilize multiple blockchain wallets to further increase anonymity. In such embodiments, the processing server may possess a plurality of different cryptographic key pairs. […] It’s unclear what Mastercard intends to do with this patent. A regulated financial company, they’ll certainly not launch any products or businesses based on the model without regulatory approval, meaning that if they did such, there’d be what amount to regulated, legal Bitcoin tumblers. In the case of Mastercard-originating transactions, though, at the very least the sender’s information would have to be retained for KYC and AML laws to be respected. Do they intend to get this patent and then enforce the patent against companies which are already doing a similar service, often with similar or higher levels of anonymity? The move raises lots of question in any cryptonaught’s mind, and CCN has reached out to Mastercard for comment as to the nature of their plans around this technology they seek to patent. Featured image from Shutterstock. The postMastercard Applies For New Patent for Anonymous Blockchain Transactions – A Regulated Bitcoin Tumbler?appeared first onCCN. || ‘Alt-Right Twitter’ Gab Moves to Bitcoin Payments Due to Banking Blacklist: Upstart social network Gab has occasionally been dubbed the “ alt-right Twitter .” A haven for mainstream social media castaways like Milo Yiannopoulos and even Alex Jones , the years-long spike in extremist right-wing terrorism has led to a backlash within the banking community toward sites which are seen to foster the ideology behind some acts of violence. For Gab’s part, they state that they do not openly encourage or discourage hate speech. They aim to be a neutral platform which allows the users to determine the type of content that should be on the platform so long as it follows a very narrow set of rules. They haven’t found themselves in a favorable media spotlight in some time. Their last introduction to the reading public was as the favored platform of the Pittsburgh extremist right wing terrorist who killed 11 people in a Synagogue, Robert Bowers. According to Gab founder Andrew Torba , Gab is now having payment processing issues. They’ve had acceptance from several processors, but the banks that have a lot of sway with these processors have allegedly refused to allow business from Gab. This is similar to the way the Daily Stormer was banned from PayPal, as CCN earlier reported, and resorted to Bitcoin and Monero a couple years ago, with surprising results. Gab accept bitcoin There weren’t a lot of details as to the reasoning given for Gab’s denials. It seems easy to presume that businesses like Stripe and PayPal are simply not interested in being associated with Gab due to its reputation, particularly following the association of Gab and domestic terrorist acts. Torba said that “Coinbase has already banned us” and gives that as a reason for choosing BitPay . Luckily for him, BitPay and every other Bitcoin provider could ban them, and they’d still have plenty of options for processing payments with cryptocurrencies. CCN will follow this story in order to see if BitPay reacts in kind, extending service to Gab, or if they join the crowd and also decide not to allow Gab to easily process payments. One thing is for sure: adding a network of tens of thousands of users who have a need to pay in cryptos will not be a bad thing for BitPay or cryptos generally. On the business side for Gab, they’ll have various new stablecoin options as a means to protect their earnings from volatility, although if they’re having banking problems, they could ultimately have problems cashing out in the traditional way. Andrew Torba Image from PAHomepage.com/ YouTube The post ‘Alt-Right Twitter’ Gab Moves to Bitcoin Payments Due to Banking Blacklist appeared first on CCN . View comments || Coinbase is Attempting to Trademark Crypto Rallying Cry ‘BUIDL’: Coinbase crypto exchange Crypto giant Coinbase is attempting to register a trademark for “BUIDL,” one of the cryptocurrency industry’s most prominent rallying cries. The term , of course, is a derivative of “hodl,” itself a drunken misspelling of “hold.” (HODL is not, as many mainstream outlets have incorrectly reported, an acronym for “hold on for dear life.”) Whereas “hodl” is used to demonstrate one’s commitment to keeping a tight grip on their cryptocurrency investments — both during bull runs when they might be tempted to take profits and bear markets when lagging returns would encourage them to sell out of fear — “buidl” is a reminder to devote one’s time and resources to creating the infrastructure that will make hodling a worthwhile decision. According to the authoritative Urban Dictionary : “#BUIDL: When #HODLING crypto just won’t cut it anymore and you need to #BUIDL a real company.” It’s not clear exactly who was the first person to use the phrase “buidl,” though it has been around since at least Aug. 2017 when Nakamoto Institute President Michael Goldstein admonished developers to “Hodl and buidl.” Nevertheless, it would not be surprising if the uproar over this application brings the originator out of the woodwork to fight Coinbase’s trademark claim. Very important lesson, generally. Show, don't tell. Hodl and buidl. https://t.co/DlXtmgxqPr — Michael Goldstein (@bitstein) August 15, 2017 The San Francisco-based company first filed the trademark application on Oct. 2, but it went mostly unnoticed until recently when it began to circulate throughout social media. Unsurprisingly, the move did not play well on Twitter. “Has anyone buitl a case against it yet?” asked Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr in response to a comment from Casa CTO Jameson Lopp. Story continues Has anyone buitl a case against it yet? — Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) December 6, 2018 Crypto analyst Larry Cermak was equally as amused, joking that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao — who frequently uses the phrase on Twitter — will need to “be careful” about self-censoring his posts moving forward. CZ will need to be careful with using BUIDL as Coinbase is in the process of trademarking "BUIDL". 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/fiEKrKaFJP https://t.co/Hf1jecO42V — Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) December 6, 2018 Subtweeting in his usual manner, lawyer Stephen D. Palley said that valorizing phrases that originated out of drunken typos is either “a Yankee Doodle story or dumb as fukc.” The valorization of drunken typos and blind faith is either a Yankee Doodle story or dumb as fukc. — Palley (@stephendpalley) December 6, 2018 CCN has reached out to Coinbase for comment on the decision to attempt to trademark this phrase and will update this article upon receiving a reply. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Coinbase is Attempting to Trademark Crypto Rallying Cry ‘BUIDL’ appeared first on CCN . || First Look: HTC Demos Crypto Smartphone Exodus at Slush 2018: htc exodus 1 phil chen blockchain smartphone slush 2018 Ten years ago, consumer electronics manufacturer HTC made history when it released the HTC Dream, the first commercial device to utilize the Android operating system. A few months later, another monumental event took place, when Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto mined the BTC Genesis Block, birthing what Phil Chen — HTC’s “chief decentralized officer” — coined a “quiet revolution.” Now, a decade later, HTC hopes to marry those two revolutions in the Exodus 1 , the first “blockchain smartphone” produced by a mainstream electronics manufacturer. Chen unveiled more information about the much-anticipated device on Wednesday at Slush 2018 in Helsinki during a presentation that featured an appearance from Litecoin creator Charlie Lee . Crypto Can Rescue Users from Digital ‘Feudal System’ charlie lee litecoin phil chen htc exodus 1 Speaking at the event, Chen said that HTC believes in an “open internet,” and just as the Dream became the first commercial smartphone to feature an open-source operating system, the Exodus 1 will be an important first step to helping users reclaim their personal information and digital identities from the “tyranny” of technology. “This whole movement has been hijacked,” Chen said, arguing that the world’s seven largest tech conglomerates had turned the digital world into a new “feudal system.” “This thing that was open source became a railway to owning all of our digital identities, all of our digital personal data, and all of our digital assets.” Chen said that, if made available to consumers through user-friendly devices, blockchain technology can change that by giving users control of their private keys. HTC Exodus 1: First Look htc exodus 1 slush 2018 Today’s HTC Exodus 1 demo comes less than a week after upstart smartphone manufacturer Sirin Labs — who says that it raised more than $157 million through an initial coin offering (ICO) — formally released the FINNEY , which it claims is the “world’s first blockchain smartphone.” From a visual standpoint, the Exodus 1 is at first glance much sleeker than the FINNEY, though — unlike the Sirin Labs device — it does not appear to feature a true cold storage wallet. Instead, the Exodus 1 stores private keys in a secure enclave called Zion, which isolates them from the remainder of the operating system. While perhaps less secure than cold storage, it is a significant step up from the software wallets — whether custodial or non-custodial — where most mobile users currently store their cryptocurrency funds. Story continues Both phones feature flagship specs, and — at least right now — both can be pre-ordered exclusively with cryptocurrency, with estimated ship dates by the end of the month. During his presentation, Chen formally announced that, in addition to bitcoin and ethereum , users can purchase the Exodus 1 with litecoin at a fixed rate of just under 20 LTC. Images from Slush 2018/ YouTube The post First Look: HTC Demos Crypto Smartphone Exodus at Slush 2018 appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin Difficulty Drops Over 7%: Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has dropped more than 7 percent over the past 24 hours as the fallout of the prolonged market rout continues. Despite a recent recovery that has taken bitcoin above $4,000, many miners are still finding it difficult to remain profitable or break even. CCNreportedin November that any cryptocurrency miners in China are dumping their mining rigs or re-purposing them for non-blockchain uses like video rendering and cloud computing. More recently, CCN alsoreportedthat several cryptocurrency mining operations across Europe and Asia are shutting down because of the bear market, including Bladetech, a startup behind what was to be the largest crypto mining facility in the UK. In the light of the bitcoin blockchain’s reduced hashrate caused by withdrawing miners, the network is designed to automatically adjust the difficulty level in order to avoid a situation where there is a huge transaction confirmation backlog and high confirmation fees. The 7 percent drop in difficulty is likely to be the start of a similar difficulty readjustment pattern as bitcoin below $6,000 increasingly becomes a prolonged reality. As showed in the above chart, Bitcoin’s difficulty fell from about 5.8TH/second to about 5TH/second on December 19. In contrast Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV have remained stable at about 1TH/second. The implication of this is that while interest in mining bitcoin is declining, this has not impacted positively on interest in mining Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV. In other words, miners leaving bitcoin are not merely switching to other cryptographically similar cryptocurrencies, but are exiting the cryptocurrency mining space altogether. This is not likely to create any disruption in the normal functioning of bitcoin in the short term because the dynamic difficulty adjustment system will ensure that there is enough hashpower to service the network. The real danger however lies in the fact that the existing situation can in itself become an obstacle to mass cryptocurrency adoption in the long term if low prices persist. The wider cryptocurrency market has a well-documented history of tracking bitcoin’s moves closely, which means that a perceived reduction of interest in mining bitcoin will eventually lead to an exodus of miners from cryptocurrency altogether which could at least theoretically jeopardise the security of cryptocurrencies. At the moment, it remains too early to say that this is happening, and a significant upward price movement could change the situation almost overnight. CCN is monitoring the difficulty adjustments and will bring more updates as they arise. The postBitcoin Difficulty Drops Over 7%appeared first onCCN. || Crypto Market Adds $7 Billion as Bitcoin and Ethereum Rebound by 5%: In the past 24 hours, thecryptocurrencymarket added $7 billion to its valuation asBitcoinandEthereumrebounded by around five percent. Bitcoin (BTC) successfully defended a relatively weak support level at $4,000 with strength and Ethereum (ETH) prevented a further drop below the $110 level. However, based on the level of the momentum of major cryptocurrencies throughout the past several days, if the dominant cryptocurrency does not cleanly breakout of the $4,000 to $4,200 range, a short-term drop to the mid-$3,000 region still remains a possibility. Bitcoin and Ethereum remain as the only two cryptocurrencies to hold a strong daily trading volume. As of December 1,the daily volume of BTChovers at around $5.5 billion, while that of ETH is stable at $2 billion. The daily volume of ETH is larger than the daily volume ofRipple (XRP),Bitcoin Cash (BCH), andStellar (XLM)combined. Several reports released in the past month have shown that the recent sell-off of ETH was not hugely affected by the liquidation of ETH by initial coin offering (ICO) projects. Chris Burniske, a partner at Placeholder VC,said: “So, in reality just $8 million worth of ICO treasuries’ ETH directly hit exchanges during November 14–30, 2018. Given the data we have, we are confident to say that ICO projects reacted to the market conditions, rather than dictated them.” The high daily volume of ETH and BTC suggest that the two cryptocurrencies are not free falling with low sell-pressure, unlike the majority of major cryptocurrencies and small market cap cryptocurrencies in the market. The danger and the risk of trading low volume cryptocurrencies in a highly volatile period is that if sell orders hit the market, digital assets with low volume will be the first to fall by a significant margin. A high daily volume is also what allowed BTC and ETH to recover by more than five percent in the past 24 hours while XRP and BCH demonstrated a daily increase in price in the range of 1.5 percent to 3 percent. If BTC and ETH can breakout cleanly above major resistance levels, which are estimated to be $4,300 for BTC and $120 for ETH, then the two cryptocurrencies could lead the market through a strong short-term rally. But, if the two assets continue failing in breaking out of their respective resistance levels, it will be challenging for the market to see a major upward price break. Joseph Todaro, a managing partner Blocktown Cap, reported that the Ethereum blockchain network is settling $500 million in daily transaction volume from 600,000 daily transactions, and virtually every emergingdecentralized application (dApp)or project is being built on Ethereum. “$500 mil daily transaction volume, 600,000 daily transactions, 1/3 reduction in issuance Q1, ETH locked up keeps growing (ie dai), down 92%, absolutely terrible press, basically anything of interest is built on ETH,” Todarosaid. View the latestBitcoin price hereand Ethereumhere. Featured image from Shutterstock. The postCrypto Market Adds $7 Billion as Bitcoin and Ethereum Rebound by 5%appeared first onCCN. || SEC’s Next Move: Social Media Influencers Who Promoted Crypto ICOs: TheU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)is actively cracking down on cryptoinitial coin offering (ICO)projects and a top official said earlier this year that dozens of cases are pending. The next wave of enforcement by the SEC, stimulated by its recent settlement with professional boxer Floyd Mayweather and music producer DJ Khaled, is expected to be on social media influencers who have promoted ICOs to the general public. Writers, YouTube celebrities, cryptocurrency review platforms, publications, and many more individuals and organizations could be targeted by the SEC if there’s sufficient evidence to prove that an individual or an organization received compensation from ICO organizers to promote a token sale, without disclosing the amount received from an ICO project to the target audience. “Any celebrity or other individual who promotes a virtual token or coin that is a security must disclose the nature, scope, and amount of compensation received in exchange for the promotion,” the SEC said last year, emphasizing that the failure to disclose compensation is considered a fraudulent activity. On November 28, the SEC followed up on its previous statement and said that investors must be aware of celebrities promotingtokenson theblockchain. The commissionsaid: “Investors should be skeptical of investment advice posted to social media platforms, and should not make decisions based on celebrity endorsements. Social media influencers are often paid promoters, not investment professionals, and the securities they’re touting, regardless of whether they are issued using traditional certificates or on the blockchain, could be frauds.” If a celebrity openly promotes an ICO after receiving a payment to do so, and the ICO is considered a security by the SEC, the individual could be seen as a violator of U.S. securities regulations by the SEC. Over the past seven months,Coinbase, the largest fiat-to-crypto exchange in the U.S. market, has been working with regulators to list additional digital assets on its platform. In May, Coinbase announced its interest in listingStellar (XLM),Cardano (ADA),0x (ZRX),Zcash (ZEC), andBasic Attention Token (BAT). Fast forward nearly seven months, the exchange has only been able to add three out of the five cryptocurrencies it set out to integrate. Coinbase has been cautious in ensuring that a digital asset is not recognized as a security by the SEC because in a hypothetical case that an asset listed by an exchange is declared a security by the U.S. government, the exchange could be prosecuted for illicitly distributing unregistered securities. On Tuesday, Hacked.comreportedthat Jay Clayton, the chairman of the SEC,saidthe commission views most ICOs in the global market as securities: “We don’t believe Bitcoin is a security. Many of the ICOs that you see and you talk about, they are securities. And if you’re going to offer or sell securities, you have to do so in compliance with our laws. We’ve been clear about that, the recent actions further emphasized that our securities laws to apply to the ICO space, and if people are going to raise money using initial coin offerings they either have to do so in private placement or register with the SEC.” Promoting an ICO recognized as a security without disclosing compensation to the target audience could result in a penalty that is twice larger than the compensation itself, as seen in the case of Floyd Mayweather who paid over $600,000 for receiving $300,000 to promote three ICOs. Featured image from Shutterstock. The postSEC’s Next Move: Social Media Influencers Who Promoted Crypto ICOsappeared first onCCN. || 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.” || Bitcoin Bomb Threats, Romanian Fraud Arrests, Bitcoin Cash Continues to Plummet, Coinbase Integrates Paypal and More: This Week in Crypto: Several Notches Above Ransomware An extortion scheme which sought to terrorize people into paying over BTC made global headlines over the course of the week. The threats happened worldwide, at a minimum being reported in the US, New Zealand, and Australia. The bomb threats demanded $20,000 in BTC in exchange for the terrorists to “give the command to my person to get away.” At least one address used in such schemes has to date received absolutely nothing, and there are no reports of anyone actually being injured as a result of failure to pay the ransom. So I actually just got a bomb threat in my work email today ordering me to send the person $20,000 via bitcoin or they will blow up my place of work…. 2018 is wild pic.twitter.com/sn0vVLwe6v — Ryan William Grant (@TheeRyanGrant) December 13, 2018 In related news , a “sextortion” scheme has been ongoing, seducing people into forcefully installing ransomware on their devices, ultimately forcing them to pay BTC or lose access to their data. Romanian Bitcoin Exchange CoinFlux Sees Its CEO Arrested, Wanted for Extradition to the US CCN broke the story of Vlad Nistor in the English speaking world. Nistor is the CEO and founder of a Romanian Bitcoin exchange called CoinFlux and is accused of having helped Romanian phishing scam artists – who actually traveled to the US as part of their scams in 2014 and 2015 – wash the proceeds of their scams in cryptocurrency when the exchange was just getting started up. AriseBank CEO Settles SEC Charges On the subject of scammers, Jared Rice, Sr., the CEO of the ICO-backed AriseBank scam has settled all charges with the SEC , amounting to well over $2 million fines and restitution. His criminal case is still pending. Bitcoin Cash Bears In A Frenzy For the first time ever this week, Bitcoin Cash saw a lower valuation than Ethereum . Ethereum itself is struggling on several fronts, the market being perhaps the least important to long-term bulls in the token platform. Actual dApp usage on the platform is incredibly low overall. We also reported this week how Tron, an alternative smart contract platform with a base token valued well under $1, saw more than a million transactions per day in its own dApps, indicating a growing demand for the token and its applications. Bitcoin Cash ABC, the fork that retained the BCH ticker across exchanges, continues to plummet in value with no end in sight. Erstwhile, the other side of the fork, Bitcoin SV, seems to stay just behind BCH in price, the two being valued at $82 and $77 respectively on Saturday night. The continuing lack of confidence in Bitcoin Cash as a whole might be related to such things as lawsuits alleging overt centralization in addition to the general frigid atmosphere surrounding cryptos amid regulatory moves and prosecutions. Story continues Coinbase Integrates Paypal Coinbase users no longer need a traditional bank account to withdraw proceeds from Coinbase trades. They can withdraw to a Paypal account as of Friday. According to CCN writer Samantha Cheng : Before, you needed an ACH (automated clearing house) or federal wire account to withdraw funds from your Coinbase account. And it could take up to two business days for the transaction to clear. The only thing missing now is PayPal deposits, which are still not available, meaning that customers must use at a minimum a Debit or Credit Card to fund their account. The unbanked stay unbanked if they use Coinbase, at least for now. Porsche Uses Blockchain to Arrange $170 Million Loan Porsche wanted a loan to conduct a targeted acquisition, and according to CCN’s Melanie Kramer , they recently used BBVA’s blockchain products to do so: Acquisition term loans are provided for a specific purpose and period. In this case, Porsche Holding Salzburg, a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, is seeking to expand its retail distribution network in Europe and Asia. The pilot also makes Porsche, still the largest automotive distributor in Europe, the first non-Spanish borrower to use BBVA DLT to negotiate and close a corporate loan. BBVA has conducted other loans using its blockchain infrastructure in the recent past. African Militants Use ERC-20 Token As Official Currency A group of Camaroon separatists who are working to establish what they called “Ambazonia,” have created AmbaCoin, an ERC-20 token that they tout as their official currency. CCN’s David Hundeyin reported that there were still some unanswered questions about AmbaCoin : As is the case with the Petro, it is currently unclear how the natural resources and projected earnings that give it value will be quantified and calculated, and it is also unclear how the said resources will be harnessed given that the Cameroonian military still maintains control of Southern Cameroon. At time of writing, they were still selling the tokens for 25 cents US each to raise funds. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Bitcoin Bomb Threats, Romanian Fraud Arrests, Bitcoin Cash Continues to Plummet, Coinbase Integrates Paypal and More: This Week in Crypto appeared first on CCN . View comments [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #cryptocurrency Price Analysis for #Bitsend #BSD : Last Hour Change : 0.17 % || 09-11-2018 22:00 Price in #USD : 0.1459838815 || Price in #EUR : 0.1287920897 New Price in #Bitcoin #BTC : 0.00002276 || #Coin Rank 633 || 最も高くBTC/JPYを売れるのは？(2018-12-27 10:00:08 現在) coincheck 423608.00 bitbank 423569.00 Liquid 423245.39 bitFlyer 423128.00 BITPoint 423039.90 Zaif 422045.00 || If the circulating supply of BTC includes the BTC in Satoshi’s wallet or any other lost BTC then they should remove that from BTC’s circulating supply. || A Bitcoin miner won't stop dming me on Instagram plz help || Krypto Nachrichten: Start der Bitcoin-Futures von Bakkt verzögert sich https://krypto-nachrichten.com/start-der-bitcoin-futures-von-bakkt-verzoegert-sich/ … #bitcoin #crypto #cryptonews #ethereum #blockchain #bitcoin nachrichten || Sign up using my invite link and we’ll both receive NGN 100.00 worth of Bitcoin when you deposit money into your Luno wallet and buy or sell Bitcoin to the value of NGN 5,000.00 (Luno exchange not included): https://www.luno.com/invite/UZ7W7  || 最も安くBTC/JPYを買えるのは？(2018-11-08 23:50:49 現在) Zaif 719700.00 Liquid 733025.36 coincheck 733842.00 bitbank 733984.00 bitFlyer 734099.00 BITPoint 735040.86 || $BTC : +0.19% 3238$ Top (last h): $WC : +31.01% 35886st $PUT : +22.14% 406st $LGS : +14.00% 25394st $PCH : +11.88% 108st Worst (last h): $IMT : -31.88% 5st $DEX : -16.78% 6434st $BURST : -11.96% 119st #cryptocurrency #blockchain || $NCASH / $BTC has just gone live on #Bittrex: https://www.bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-NCASH … #NCASH #BTC || BlockChannel:The number of Google searches for bitcoin has seen a notable uptick this week, now recording its most searches worldwide since last April. http://ow.ly/wVk130mMX3w 
Trend: down || Prices: 3857.72, 3845.19, 4076.63, 4025.25, 4030.85, 4035.30, 3678.92, 3687.37, 3661.30, 3552.95
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 2019-09-03] BTC Price: 10623.54, BTC RSI: 54.79 Gold Price: 1545.90, Gold RSI: 69.39 Oil Price: 53.94, Oil RSI: 44.84 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Five retailers/brands that are all about the blockchain right now: A1 Austrian telecom operator A1 is testing out the acceptance of cryptocurrency payments in seven stores. Customers can purchase services using Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Litecoin, Stellar and Dash. A1 Payment, a digital payment system developed in collaboration with Salamantex, Concardis and Ingenico, was first unveiled in mid-June. In addition to existing cashless payment methods, A1 Payment will also enable customers to buy services using Chinese payment operators Alipay and WeChatPay. According to Markus Schreiber, Head of A1 Business Marketing, paying with digital currencies is becoming increasingly prevalent globally, while cash is in decline. He adds that the aforementioned crypto pilot will allow A1 to analyse demand for and acceptance of Bitcoin et al. Rakuten Crypto exchange Rakuten Wallet, a subsidiary of Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, has launched. Spot trading of three cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash – is now live. Plans are afoot to release an app for iOS and Android, use of which will be mandatory for deposits and withdrawals. Rakuten acquired Everybody’s Bitcoin in August 2018 for $2.4 million. And it then announced an April 2019 launch date for Rakuten Wallet, but progress stalled. Further details here . Alibaba Alibaba Group has applied for a US patent entitled ‘Domain Name Management Scheme for Cross-Chain Interactions in Blockchain Systems’. A continuation of an application filed in November 2018, this flags up Alibaba’s intention to patent a system that uses a “unified blockchain domain name” (UBCDN) in order to denote and share information. The Chinese e-commerce giant proposes a computing system that would generate a UBCDN message containing a blockchain domain name and a chain identifier that is paired with that name. The patent cites various instances in which this technology could be useful. For example: “The UBCDN can include a human readable identifier or label, helping users to memorise and reach a blockchain instance easily, and thus promoting adoption or use of the blockchain instance. As an example, owners or operators of public blockchains, private blockchains, or consortium blockchains can choose blockchain domain names that correspond to their names, helping users to remember the identifiers of the blockchain instances.” Story continues The patent adds: “Unlike existing cross-chain implementations such as COSMOS, that uses a relay chain for cross-chain interactions, in which each blockchain is assigned an identifier (ID) within the relay chain network but the ID only has a local scope and cannot be reused in other relay chain networks, in the described domain name scheme, the UBCDN can be used and is recognisable globally by all blockchain instances in the unified block chain network.” Earlier this year, Alibaba announced plans to integrate blockchain technology into its intellectual property system of global enterprises and brands. Further info here. Walmart Walmart has submitted a patent application for a drone communication system based on blockchain technology. Abstract as follows: “A method of drone-drone communications using blockchain includes: determining operational parameters of a first drone; encrypting the operational parameters of the first drone; storing the encrypted operational parameters of the first drone in a block of a blockchain; determining when a second drone is in proximity of the first drone; retrieving the encrypted operational parameters of the first drone from the block of the blockchain; decrypting the encrypted operational parameters of the first drone; retrieving the operational parameters of the first drone based on the decryption; and configuring the second drone with the operational parameters of the first drone.” Further details here . Walmart Coin Earlier this month, we reported that Walmart was looking into its own US dollar-backed digital currency, along the same lines of Facebook’s much hyped Libra project. A patent application outlines a method for “generating one digital currency unit by tying the one digital currency unit to a regular currency; storing information of the one digital currency unit into a block of a blockchain; buying or paying the one digital currency unit”. The stablecoin could benefit those with limited access to banking services, one of Libra’s big selling points. “Using a digital currency, low-income households that find banking expensive, may have an alternative way to handle wealth at an institution that can supply the majority of their day-to-day financial and product needs,” Walmart states. Users’ purchasing histories could be stored on the blockchain, with related savings applied to subsequent purchases in a similar way to loyalty programmes. Other features include the ability to remove the need for credit cards, and acting as a “pre-approved biometric (e.g., fingerprint or eye pattern) credit…A person is the ‘credit card’ to their own digital value bank”. De Marchi BlockStar has partnered with cycling brand De Marchi to auction off the world’s only authentic replica of Fausto Coppi’s 1953 De Marchi jersey, all traced on IBM’s HyperLedger blockchain. Coppi, better known as Il Campionissimo, was a two-time winner of the Tour de France (1949, 1952) and a five-time winner of the Giro d’Italia (1940, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953). The aforementioned jersey was created by Elda De Marchi to honour Coppi’s Road World Championship win in 1953, before it vanished for 60 years until being rediscovered in 2015. While the original is now housed in Italy’s Museo Ghisallo, the now 88-year-old De Marchi has sewn a replica using the same materials, colours, dimensions and relic look. De Marchi CEO Mauro Coccia says: “We are proud to pay tribute to Italy’s greatest cyclist by harnessing BlockStar’s world class technology to provide the winner with an authenticated, dual ownership of a true cycling artifact. This auction is a unique opportunity to collect not only the only authorised and one-of-a-kind physical replica of Fausto Coppi’s jersey, but also the digital rights to the piece.” Further info here . The post Five retailers/brands that are all about the blockchain right now appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Steve Bannon: Still bullish on Bitcoin: What does former "Trump Whisperer" Stephen Bannon have in common with crypto-celebBrock Pierce? Bannon, as a Goldman Sachs banker, took over the virtual currency trading outlet,Internet Gaming Entertainment, from Pierce, its founder, who wasforced outin June 2006. That's a long way of saying that Bannon knows crypto about as well as anyone. He gets it at a fundamental level. So it should surprise exactly no one that his comments during a CNBC interview were especially pro-crypto. "Cryptocurrencies have a big future," he said, admitting sheepishly later that he had “enough foresight, enough courage to buy [bitcoin] as it went all the way down.” Indeed, Bannon sounded as all in on crypto as ever, claiming that it will be a “very important part going forward, particularly in this global populist revolt.” In his book, "The Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising," author andBloombergwriter Joshua Green details Bannon's early days as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, who went on to run IGE after the bank took it over from Pierce. The company did brisk business in virtual currency by providing a trading platform for World of Warcraft's virtual goods. Green's book made the point that those insights into the gaming world were pivotal in forging Bannon's worldview. Bannon's comments to CNBC today came on the heels of observations he made about the ongoing tensions in Hong Kong, which Bannon believes Trump's trade war are sparking. Bannon's remarks are similar to those he made in an interview with theNew York Timeslast June, in which he discussed his hope that cryptocurrency would wrest control from central banks. He has made no secret of his belief that crypto could be the key to that. “It’s disruptive populism,” the Breitbart editortold the Times. “It takes control back from central authorities. It’s revolutionary.” Around that time last year, Bannon became an activist, advocating for something called "The Movement," which he hoped would unite right-wing nationalist organizations across Europe. Hereportedlytried to create an alliance between them and the pro-Trump Freedom Caucus, in the U.S. However, the project seems to befraying of late, as one nationalist movement after another has begun to abandon it on the grounds that they don't want to be affiliated with something that appears to be U.S. led. Perhaps he sees crypto as a decentralized way to fund the group. || "Bitcoin will never hit 50k" says crypto skeptic Peter Schiff: For a man who wants nothing to do with Bitcoin , economist and Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff never misses an opportunity to share his opinions about the cryptocurrency. His latest prediction? “Bitcoin will never hit $50k,” Schiff proclaimed today on Twitter. Schiff is well-known in the world of finance for a catalog of profitable investments, shilling gold—and, yes, correctly predicting the 2008 U.S. housing bubble and ensuing financial crisis . More recently, though, Schiff has taken to duking it out with crypto-celebs like Morgan Creek Digital cofounder and eternal Bitcoin bull Anthony Pompliano. Today’s Twitter squabble, in fact, began with a reference to his nemesis Pomp: “Just watched [Squawk Box host] Joe Kernen's love fest with Anthony Pompliano as he touted Bitcoin,” Schiff wrote. “Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, when I was still invited on CNBC, Joe was critical of my advice to buy gold. Joe was wrong to be bearish on gold then, and he's wrong to be bullish on Bitcoin now!” Without saying a word, Kernen fired back with a link —a CNBC story in which Schiff wrongly predicted gold would hit $5,000 by 2014. Gold, in fact, has never even come close to reaching that price in 100 years. Fundstrat cofounder Tom Lee, who likewise enjoys making wild predictions of his own, then got into the mix, mocking Schiff’s gold outlook, which is what really got the economist’s dander up. From the guy who had a $50,000 price target on Bitcoin for year end 2018. My gold forecast came a lot closer than your Bitcoin forecast. Plus at least gold will eventually hit 5k. Bitcoin will never hit 50k. — Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) August 21, 2019 Lee, unsurprisingly, doubled down, challenging Schiff to put his gold where his mouth is: "I would take $50k BTC first over $5k gold" Lee said . Schiff has in the past been unwilling to engage in such wagers, but that hasn’t stopped Bitcoin loyalists from trying to convert the gold diehard into a Bitcoin believer. Pompliano has even gone so far as to donate Bitcoin to Schiff, prompting other hodlers to do the same in an effort to, er—who knows? In Schiff’s defense, however, Bitcoin has shown difficulty breaking through the $12,000 mark as of late. Despite developments in the industry and bullish outlooks, there’s still plenty out there for doom-and-gloomers like Schiff to use to sow doubt. || IRS Says It’s Sending Warning Letters to US Cryptocurrency Owners: The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced Friday that it has begun sending letters to taxpayers who own cryptocurrency, advising them to pay any back taxes they may owe or to file amended tax returns regarding their holdings. Ina news bulletin, the agency said that it began mailing what it called “educational letters” last week. According to the statement, there are three variations of the letter that were sent. The IRS further said that it will have sent such letters to “more than 10,000 taxpayers” by the end of this month,” adding that “the names of these taxpayers were obtained through various ongoing IRS compliance efforts.” Related:IRS Confirms It Trained Staff to Find Crypto Wallets “Taxpayers should take these letters very seriously by reviewing their tax filings and when appropriate, amend past returns and pay back taxes, interest and penalties,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement. “The IRS is expanding our efforts involving virtual currency, including increased use of data analytics. We are focused on enforcing the law and helping taxpayers fully understand and meet their obligations.” In May, it wasreportedthat the IRS is beginning to work on new guidance regarding cryptocurrencies, its first such effort since 2014. A number of organizations and industry advocates have called on the agency in past years to update its guidance following its decision to treat cryptocurrencies as a form of intangible property for tax purposes. On Thursday, a user of the r/bitcoin subredditdescribedreceiving such a letter. Lawyer Tyson Cross, writing forForbes, also detailed how a number of his crypto-focused clients have received this kind of letter from the IRS. Image Credit: Mark Van Scyoc / Shutterstock • What to Expect When the IRS Alters Its Bitcoin Tax Policy • California CPAs Push for Crypto Accounting Clarity • The FBI Is Looking for QuadrigaCX Victims || 5 Top Stock Trades for Thursday: WMT, BABA, LOW, XLNX, Bitcoin: Global stock markets are still trading violently but the U.S. equities are still battling close to the all-time highs. So the upside potential is still viable. Wednesday we saw strong earnings reports. This confirm that there are still stock trades to hunt in spite of the geopolitical risks and rhetoric. Our five stock trade to watch for Thursday include:Walmart(NYSE:WMT),Lowe’s(NYSE:LOW),Alibaba(NYSE:BABA),Xilinx(NASDAQ:XLNX), and Bitcoin InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips WMT stock is near all time highs and for good reason. The company has taken the fight toAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) head on and it’s doing well against this formidable opponent. Investors loved the earnings report last week and WMT stock rallied 8% on the headline. From here, there could be better entry points for the short term. WMT stock is vulnerable to fade and a retest of $110 per share. Maybe even fill the gap $2 lower. But for the long term, this company will continue to deliver and adapt to the market demands. If I am long WMT already, then I stay long. Otherwise I would buy the dips for the long term. • The 10 Best Marijuana Stocks to Buy Now Wednesday,Target(NYSE:TGT) stock soared as they reported a strong quarter. This confirms the strength of the U.S. consumer spending and operational success. Both companies are winners because of strong execution. WMT is employing technology trend to better compete with AMZN one to one and beat it. LOW stock spiked today after a strong earnings report. The investor expectations were tepid going into the event so it made for an easy hurdle. This however is not the time to pile into LOW stock and chase this rally. The reason the expectations were low is because it has a long history of trailing its competitionHome Depot(NASDAQ:HD). I believe this continues until we get several reports to prove otherwise. Case in point, HD stock is up 26% year-to-date which 60% better than LOW. This is also true for the last five year stats. So if I took in profits from the LOW stock reaction to earnings, I would book it for now. From here, it carries the risk of a fade to fill the gap below especially if markets in general correct. This is not the same as shorting the stock. So if I want to remain constructive on the segment, I would rotate my risk into HD stock instead. This one is sitting at another breakout line. Even though the LOW report shows domestic comparable sales beat those of HD, over the long term HD stock has performed better thanks to more consistent management execution. BABA stock has an interesting setup brewing. It will be tough to trigger but the reward if they do so is great. If the BABA stock bulls can break above $180, they can target $192 per share or higher. It won’t be easy and there will be resistance at the neckline and at $185. For a while, BABA stock has been lurking just under this breakout level and doing it from higher lows. But this is a steep rising wedge which leaves the stock vulnerable to pullbacks. If the general markets cooperate then BABA will make this happen; it’s a matter of time. This would then fill an old gap and also places it at a was prior fail. The interesting part is that was also a neckline that if bulls can break could carry it to $200 per share or higher. On pullbacks, BABA stock could fade to $170 which is just above its yearly point of control where bulls and bears loved to fight. XLNX stock is no stranger to headlines. The whole chip sector has been in the line of fire in the economic war between the US and China. XLNX stock moves more on headlines extrinsic to its own execution than not. But Tuesday XLNX fell on headlines of possible “unpatchable” security flaw in its equipment. So this is a rare dump from intrinsic problems. Nevertheless, this dip places XLNX sock at a place with it makes sense that it mounts a rally soon. XLNX stock bulls defended the $100 mark hard on the May correction and yesterday’s scare didn’t even come near it. So as long as the support band below holds, it is likely that XLNX makes another run at $120 per share. There will be resistance at $109 and $113, but if the general markets rally then XLNX can slice through them and reach it major accident scene from the end of July. Since the love-fest with bitcoin of 2017 the interest in the digital coin has not abated. While it’s not hogging the headline it is still a hot debate. Skepticism is high so Bitcoin has a questionable reputation on main street and Wall Street. Both extremes are wrong when it comes to bitcoin. It has value because people say so. This is no different than gold. Bitcoin and gold are rare and people want them so they will continue to be valuable on that assumption. Critics say that it’s used for illicit activities and to that I say that so is cash. At least with bitcoin, they always leave an electronic trace. Furthermore, FIAT cash only has value because the people say so. So in essence cash and bitcoin are more similar than we think. What’s the best place to buy bitcoin? This depends on time frame. If I am buying it like gold as a long term investment then timing really doesn’t matter much. But there are clues on the charts to offer some guidance. Bitcoin price here is falling into support. So in theory it should bounce back up to 10,200. But it moves so fast that by the time you read this note, the landscape would have probably change a lot. • 10 Undervalued Stocks With Breakout Potential So, it’s best to get the general feel for the zones that matter and know what’s at stake. For thathereis a free video from this week that does a great job of that. It sheds light on what’s in store for Bitcoin price. Nicolas Chahine is the managing director ofSellSpreads.com. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. Join his live chat room for freehere. • 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid • 10 Marijuana Stocks to Ride High on the Farm Bill • 8 Biotech Stocks to Watch After the Q2 Earnings Season • 7 Unusual, Growth-Oriented REITs to Buy for Your Portfolio The post5 Top Stock Trades for Thursday: WMT, BABA, LOW, XLNX, Bitcoinappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Crypto Currencies Fall as Facebook Faces Congress Over Libra: Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies traded lower on Tuesday as Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was called to Congress to testify on plans for the launch of its digital coin Libra. Total cryptocurrency market capitalization fell to $280.23 billion by 11:06 AM ET (15:06 GMT), compared to $292.38 billion a day earlier. Bitcoin fell 1.4% to $10,409.2 on the Investing.com Index, Ethereum lost 5.8% to $217.40, XRP slid 4% to $0.30629, while Litecoin declined 5% to $86.852. At the time of writing, David Marcus, who heads the Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) division overseeing the Libra launch, was testifying to the Senate Banking Committee. Facebook has been under regulatory siege since it announced plans to launch its own alt coin, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Monday warned that the company will face much tighter regulatory scrutiny if it ever offers digital financial services, saying that it “must implement the same anti-money-laundering safeguards in countering the financing of terrorism as traditional financial institutions”. Mnuchin’s comments echoed a tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump who came out last week with an attack on cryptocurrencies in general. In the same thread, he warned that “if Facebook and other companies want to become a bank, they must seek a new banking charter and become subject to all banking regulations”. Commenting on Facebook’s appearance before Congress, Allianz (DE:ALVG) Chief Economist Mohamed El-Erian showed little surprise at the scrutiny. “Due to money laundering risks, it was a matter of time until ‘crypto’ initiatives - such as Facebook’s Libra - triggered a regulatory response,” he explained. “Advocates must convince politicians that, rather than ‘currencies’, such initiatives can be a well- monitored part of the payments eco system.” In his testimony, Marcus sought to do just that while assuring U.S. lawmakers that it plans to hold off on the launch until regulatory concerns are fully met. “Digital currencies, such as that of Libra, can fit within a regulatory compliant framework in the U.S. today,” he said, while also suggesting that current regulations were creating an unnecessary obstacle to progress. “Many banks have tried to fix the slumbering payment system and some are attempting to create their own blockchain-based alternative systems, but regulatory barriers have slowed the progress of these projects to a crawl comparatively,” Marcus warned. Related Articles Forex - U.S. Dollar Rises on Strong Retail Sales Pound Sinks to Lowest Since 2017 on Threat of No-Deal Brexit Forex - Sterling near 6-Month Lows, Dollar Edges Higher || Stay Invested, Hedge Downside Risks Using ETFs with Built-In Buffers: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com. Investors seeking an alternative investment strategy to hedge against further risks can consider defined outcome exchange traded funds as these strategies can solve many of the problems with existing buffered structures and can be utilized to build better portfolios. On the recent webcast,Implementing the Only ETFs with Built-In Buffers, Bruce Bond, Co-Founder and CEO, Innovator ETFs, highlighted the ongoing demand for downside risk mitigation, with $3.2 trillion in hedge funds and $1 trillion in equity-linked structured products, but he argued that solutions available to investors today notably products issued by insurance companies and banks, often fail to deliver downside protection and are delivered in sub-optimal investment wrappers. For instance, bonds may not provide the downside buffer investors are historically accustomed to with credit risk exposures. Hedge funds are expensive, have spotty track records over the last market cycle and come with high minimums. Shorting the market typically come with high carry costs, limited upside exposure and requires the ability to time the markets well. On the other hand, investors can look to Innovator's Defined Outcome ETFs, which come with no credit risk, intra-day liquidity, no surrender fees, access on an exchange, no commissions and lower fees. Specifically, Innovator ETFs has come out with a suite of Defined Outcome ETF strategies with a build-in buffer to help investors hedge against risks ahead, depending on one’s level of risk aversion. For example, its April series includes theInnovator S&P 500 BUFFER ETF (BAPR),Innovator S&P 500 POWER BUFFER ETF (PAPR)andInnovator S&P 500 ULTRA BUFFER ETF (UAPR), which have a 9%, 15% and 30% buffer, respectively. The April series joins Innovator’s other Defined Outcome ETFs, including the October series ofInnovator S&P 500 Buffer ETF (Cboe: BOCT),Innovator S&P 500 Power Buffer ETF (Cboe: POCT)andInnovator S&P 500 Ultra Buffer ETF (Cboe: UOCT). The July series includesInnovator S&P 500 Buffer ETF (CBOE: BJUL),Innovator S&P 500 Power Buffer ETF (CBOE: PJUL)andInnovator S&P 500 Ultra Buffer ETF (CBOE: UJUL). The January series includes theInnovator S&P 500 Buffer ETF (BJAN),Innovator S&P 500 Power Buffer ETF (PJAN)andInnovator S&P 500 Ultra Buffer ETF (UJAN). Finally, the June series includes theInnovator S&P 500 Buffer ETF (BJUN),Innovator S&P 500 Power Buffer ETF (PJUN)andInnovator S&P 500 Power Buffer ETF (UJUN). Additionally, the more recently launchedInnovator MSCI Emerging Markets Power Buffer ETF (EJUL)andInnovator MSCI EAFE Power Buffer ETF (IJUL)provide exposure to international emerging and developed markets up to a cap with downside buffer levels of 15% over a one-year outcome period. Graham Day, Vice President of Product and Research, Innovator ETFs, pointed out that international equities have underperformed over 1-, 5-, 10- and 15-year time frames on both a price and total return basis. Nevertheless, global markets exhibit varying rolling returns, with emerging markets offering higher returns in low return U.S. markets and vice versa. Looking ahead, Day projected MSCI Emerging Markets and MSCI EAFE indices to generate higher 10-year expected returns and volatility, compared to U.S. large cap stocks. Nevertheless, downside risks remain and may be growing as we head deeper into the later stages of an economic cycle, along with rising global geopolitical and economic risks. Consequently, investors may look to Innovator's buffer strategies to mitigate risks and still maintain upside potential. Day explained that the Defined Outcome ETFs provide market exposure with a built-in downside buffer. The ETFs start with a synthetic 1 to 1 exposure to the target market. They would then include a put spread to provide targeted buffers of 9%, 15% or 30% to their respective targets. Lastly, the upside is capped by selling an upside call to finance downside buffers. While the quarterly Defined Outcome ETF series are set up with an annual target, investors can still dive into a series intra-period. For example, Day explained that an investor can still achieve a defined outcome buying the April Series. The outcome period is now 307 days and the ETF and S&P 500 have moved slightly from the beginning of outcome periods. PAPR offers investors an opportunity to capture upside, up to a cap, while providing a buffer if the market corrects further through the end of the outcome period. The Defined Outcome ETFs can be used in an investment portfolio to better diversify risk, help investors lock in the rally and remain invested while incorporating a buffer to manage downside risks ahead. Financial advisors who are interested in learning more about alternative investment strategies canwatch the webcast here on demand. 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 • Fed Concerns Stoke Market Jitters As Traders Await Comments From Powell • Consumers Are Still Thirsty For Pepsico • Markets Rally On Anticipated Rate Cuts And Holiday • Facebook Libra: Weighing The Pros And Cons • As Bitcoin Surges Past $13K, Calls to Embrace Crypto Grow READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || XRP Soars 97% In Rally: Investing.com - XRP was trading at $9.35560 by 02:20 (06:20 GMT) on the Investing.com Index on Friday, up 97.17% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage gain since August 23. The move upwards pushed XRP's market cap up to $11.61358B, or 4.32% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, XRP's market cap was $79.53400B. XRP had traded in a range of $0.26774 to $9.36570 in the previous twenty-four hours. Over the past seven days, XRP has seen a rise in value, as it gained 3.55%. The volume of XRP traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $1.02776B or 1.89% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $0.2581 to $9.3657 in the past 7 days. At its current price, XRP is still down 0.11% from its all-time high of $9.37 set on August 23. Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading Bitcoin was last at $10,107.0 on the Investing.com Index, up 1.28% on the day. Ethereum was trading at $189.86 on the Investing.com Index, a gain of 2.11%. Bitcoin's market cap was last at $181.50092B or 67.55% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while Ethereum's market cap totaled $20.54830B or 7.65% of the total cryptocurrency market value. Related Articles Stellar Climbs Above 15.84462 Level, Up 100% Stellar Soars 100% In Rally Litecoin Tumbles 21% In Bearish Trade || Bitcoin and Ether Lender BlockFi Raises $18.3 Million Series A: Crypto lending startup BlockFi received $18.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures, the company announced Tuesday. Valar, which was founded in part by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, was joined by Winklevoss Capita l, Galaxy Digital , ConsenSys , Akuna Capital, Susquehanna, CMT Digital, Morgan Creek, Avon Ventures and PJC. Valar’s investment was its first in the cryptocurrency industry following prior investments in other fintech firms like Transferwise, a press release said. According to a company statement, BlockFi plans on using the capital for additions to its product line up. The firm’s premier product, yield-bearing bitcoin deposits, launched in March. Besides deposits, BlockFi offers cryptocurrency-backed loans. Related: Winklevoss Twins’ Gemini Exchange May Join Facebook’s Libra Project Speaking on participating in the Series A closure, Valar general partner James Fitzgerald said BlockFi’s product is bringing cryptocurrency mainstream. “We are excited to help BlockFi build robust ‘picks and shovels’ for this emerging asset class,” he said. The Series A funding round comes five months after the launch of its bitcoin yield-bearing loans. Related: Galaxy Digital Leads $5.5 Million Round for Contract Management Startup Image via BlockFi Riding on the backs of a promised 6.2 percent interest rate, the product garnered $25 million in deposits after its March 5 launch. By late April , over $50 million was deposited in BlockFi’s interest-bearing accounts. The market-topping rate was cut for larger accounts that same month, however. Accounts with deposits over 25 bitcoins or 500 ether had rates reduced to 2 percent annual yield. BlockFi CEO Zack Prince via CoinDesk archives Related Stories Crypto Lending Startup BlockFi Slashing Interest Rates on Ether Deposits $71 Million: Galaxy Digital Sells Stake in EOS Blockchain Maker Block.One || CoinDesk Talks to Supporters, Critics at Craig Wright’s Contempt Hearing: CoinDesk traveled down to West Palm Beach on Aug. 5 to cover Craig Wright’s second sanctions and contempt hearing. Wright, the self-declared man behind bitcoin, failed to comply with a court directive to produce a full list of his bitcoin addresses acquired prior to 2014, as part of a $10 billion lawsuit brought by Ira Kleiman, brother of Wright’s former business partner Dave Kleiman. Related: Craig Wright Again Claims Authorship of Bitcoin White Paper After an explosive first showing, Wright did not appear in court this time around. However, his acolytes and detractors sat in as witnesses. In this video CoinDesk breaks down the day’s events and speaks with members of the press and public that sat in to watch crypto history unfold. Related Stories Judge Blasts Craig Wright’s Evidence, ‘Inconsistent’ Testimony in Kleiman Trial Messages Proving Wright Created Bitcoin Likely ‘Faked,’ Developer Testifies Legal Expert Katharina Pistor Weighs in on Facebook’s Libra [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Nasdaq Today: Bitcoin &amp; Libra; What’s Broadcom Doing? https://t.co/c4UwNGlIT7 || Shits getting really Quamfy👀👌🏻 #quantnetwork $QNT https://t.co/seaJ1pTbeG || #orionixtoken #blockchain #ethereum #bitcoin #ico #tokensale #airdrop #cryptocurrency || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing &amp; Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || @Smaulgld That was prior to Bitcoin being regulated,....? Correct ? || $IDOL(BTC) Price: 1sat Volume: 0.0 BTC $IDOL(DOGE) Price: 0.00021 DOGE(0.00523sat) Volume: 1157 DOGE(0.0 BTC) $BTC(JPY) ￥1100060 || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing &amp; Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || BTC 強力な上げ波動でトライアングルレジスタンスラインに直面。 ここが現状BTC最大の局面です。 note第2弾()の記述通りの値動きです。 画像は 「note第2弾:2.fibonacci」 の記述の一部分を抜粋したものです。 https://t.co/haG98yt5Cg || BTCUSD 4h: Correction ends at around 9000 or 8000 USD. for OKCOIN:BTCUSD1W by btcinvests $BTC https://t.co/DuNsJuufsi https://t.co/dc1Bh02fMS || Long/Short BTC changes with up to 100x Leverage at PrimeXBT! 🤑🤩 Register today and turn your $75 into $7500: ✅ https://t.co/qTGwI1CppP ✅ Earn money even when BTC is declining! 📉📉 $DOGE - $REN - $GRIN - $NEXO - $GXC - $BLOC - $DASH - $PPT - $NEW - $EGT https://t.co/zqHuTqOxrb
Trend: down || Prices: 10594.49, 10575.53, 10353.30, 10517.25, 10441.28, 10334.97, 10115.98, 10178.37, 10410.13, 10360.55
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)] How nonfungible tokens work and where they get their value – a cryptocurrency expert explains NFTs: NFTs can be used to prove who created and who owns digital items like these images by the artist Beeple shown at an exhibition in Beijing. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images Takeaways · Nonfungible tokens prove ownership of a digital item – image, sound file or text – in the same way that people own crypto coins. · Unlike crypto coins, which are identical and worth the same, NFTs are unique. · An NFT is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, which can be a lot if the NFT is made by a famous artist and the buyer is a wealthy collector. An attorney friend recently asked me out of the blue about nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. What prompted his interest was the sale of a collage composed of 5,000 digital pieces, auctioned by Christie’s on March 11, 2021, for a remarkable US million . Mike Winkelmann, an artist known as Beeple , created this piece of digital art, made an NFT of it and offered it for sale. The bidding started at 0, and the rest of the auctioning process transformed it into a historical event. Similarly, it was hard to miss the news about the iconic GIF Nyan Cat being sold as a piece of art, Twitter’s founder transforming the first tweet into an NFT and putting it up for sale, or an NFT of a New York Times column earning half a million dollars for charity. My friend’s questions were an attempt to understand where the underlying value of an NFT comes from. The issue is that perceptions of what the buyer is paying for are not easily framed in legal terms. NFT marketplaces do not always accurately describe the value proposition of the goods they are selling. The truth is that the value of any NFT is speculative. Its value is determined by what someone else is willing to pay for it and nothing else. Turning something as ephemeral as a tweet into an item that can be sold requires two things: making it unique and proving ownership. The process is the same for cryptocurrencies, which turn strings of bits into virtual coins that have real-world value. It boils down to cryptography. Keys and blocks Cryptography is the technique used to protect privacy of a message by transforming it into a form that can be understood only by the intended recipients. Everyone else will see it as only an unintelligible sequence of random characters. This message manipulation is enabled by a pair of keys, public and private keys: You share your public key with your friend, who uses it to transform his message to you into an unintelligible sequence of random characters. You then use your private key to put it back into its original form. Story continues The special mathematical properties of these two crypto keys are widely used to provide secrecy and integrity. Two crypto keys play the role of digital signatures and are commonly used in blockchain to enable both authentication and anonymity for transactions. Blockchain is a crucial technology for creating NFTs. It uses cryptography to chain blocks into a growing list of records. Each block is locked by a cryptographic hash, or string of characters that uniquely identifies a set of data, to the previous block. The transaction records of a chain of blocks are stored in a data structure called a Merkle tree . This allows for fast retrieval of past records. To be a party in blockchain-based transactions, each user needs to create a pair of keys: a public key and a private key. This design makes it very difficult to alter transaction data stored in blockchain. Although blockchain was initially devised to support fungible assets like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it has evolved to enable users to create a special kind of crypto asset, one that is nonfungible , meaning provably unique. Ethereum blockchain is the basis for most of the currently offered NFTs because it supports the ERC-721 token standard , enabling NFT creators to capture information of relevance to their digital artifacts and store it as tokens on the blockchain. When you pay for an NFT, what you get is the right to transfer the token to your digital wallet. The token proves that your copy of a digital file is the original, like owning an original painting. And just as masterpiece paintings can be copied and distributed as inexpensive posters, anyone can have a digital copy of your NFT. Your private crypto key is proof of ownership of the original. The content creator’s public crypto key serves as a certificate of authenticity for that particular digital artifact. This pair of the creator’s public key and the owner’s private key is primarily what determines the value of any NFT token. The very short history of NFTs NFTs came to prominence in 2017 with a game called CryptoKitties , which enables players to buy and “breed” limited-edition virtual cats. From there, game developers adopted NFTs in a big way to allow gamers to win in-game items such as digital shields, swords or similar prizes, and other game collectibles. Tokenization of game assets is a real game-changer, since it enables transferring tokens between different games or to another player via NFT specialized blockchain marketplaces. Besides gaming, NFTs are frequently used to sell a wide range of virtual collectibles, including NBA virtual trading cards, music, digital images, video clips and even virtual real estate in Decentraland , a virtual world. NonFungible.com , a website that tracks NFT projects and marketplaces, puts the value of the total NFT market at 0 million, a negligible fraction of the total crypto coin market but still highly attractive to content creators. The contract behind the token, based on the ERC-721 standard for creating NFTs, can be set to let content creators continue to earn a percentage from all subsequent sales. The NFT market is likely to grow further because any piece of digital information can easily be “minted” into an NFT, a highly efficient way of managing and securing digital assets. Blockchain’s carbon footprint For all the excitement, there are also concerns that NFTs are not eco-friendly because they are built on the same blockchain technology used by some energy-hungry cryptocurrencies. For example, each NFT transaction on the Ethereum network consumes the equivalent of daily energy used by two American households . Security for most of today’s blockchain networks is based on special computers called “miners” competing to solve complex math puzzles. This is the proof-of-work principle, which keeps people from gaming the system and provides the incentive for building and maintaining it. The miner who solves the math problem first gets awarded with a prize paid in virtual coins. The mining requires a lot of computational power, which drives electricity consumption. Ethereum blockchain technology is evolving and moving toward a less computationally intensive design . There are also emerging blockchain technologies like Cardano , which was designed from the outset to have a small carbon footprint and has recently launched its own fast-growing NFT platform called Cardano Kidz . The speed of transformation of blockchain technology into a newer, more eco-friendly variant might well decide the future of the NFT market in the short term. Some artists who feel strongly about global warming trends are opposed to NFTs because of perceived ecological impact . The coming crypto-economy Whether or not the current NFT craze can keep its momentum going, NFTs have already accelerated a larger trend of digital economic innovation. NFTs have confirmed that the public is feeling increasingly favorable toward a crypto-economy and is embracing short-term risks in return for creating new business possibilities. [ Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world. Sign up today .] NFTs have already made significant inroads into the luxury and gaming industries, and have plenty of room to grow beyond these initial applications. The art sector will continue to be an important segment of the overall NFT market and is likely to gradually reach maturity over the next couple of years, although it is likely to be surpassed by other digital certificate applications like trademarks and patents, training and upskilling certificates. This article is republished from The Conversation , a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Dragan Boscovic , Arizona State University . Read more: Why would anyone buy crypto art – let alone spend millions on what’s essentially a link to a JPEG file? Chinese internet users turn to the blockchain to fight against government censorship What is a blockchain token? Dragan Boscovic receives funding from NSF, Federal and State Government Agencies, industrial corporations. He is affiliated with VizLore LLC, which provides the blockchain as a platform service to other blockchain application developers. || Bitcoin ‘is superior’ to existing payment networks, Strike CEO says: Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of payments application, Strike, believes Bitcoin can bring the first real change to the payments industry since the invention of the credit card. Trading just above $41,000 as of Tuesday afternoon, down about 2% over the past month, Bitcoin is used primarily as a store of value asset that critics and long-time investors agree trades like risk-on equity, making it much less useful as a medium of exchange than cash. But Mallers argues that Bitcoin’s underlying network makes it the world’s most efficient payments network if harnessed correctly. He contends that "using Bitcoin as a payments network is superior to card processing networks or bank networks or remittance networks like Western Union." To reap the potential benefits, consumers and merchants don’t even need to touch Bitcoin, he argues. “This is a payments network that can move value anywhere in the world at no cost in real time and anyone can build on top of it. It's more inclusive, more innovative. To the consumer who's remitting money or buying Chipotle, they don’t know Bitcoin is involved so whether you want to have a stablecoin, a Euro, Starbucks points, it's the payment network that facilitates the settlement of value that’s the disruptor here,” Mallers told Yahoo Finance. During his April keynote speech at the Bitcoin 2022 conference, Mallers announced a series of partnerships between Strike and big-name companies including Shopify, Blackhawk and the world’s largest point-of-sale supplier, NCR. But the talk began with the history of the credit card industry. “It’s a story as old as 1949,” he told his audience as he strutted back and forth on the stage in a black baseball cap and hoodie. That year, Frank McNamara forgot his wallet while dining out in New York — sparking his idea for the Diner’s Club card, which became the first multipurpose credit card. Since then the industry “has seen a lot of consumer innovation… but no one has helped the merchant,” Mallers argued. Accepting credit cards costs merchant businesses anywhere from 1.5% to 3.5% on each transaction total, according toNerdWallet. According to Mallers, those fees can be eliminated by using the Lightning Network, a 2nd-layer payments application built on top of Bitcoin, which he likened to the internet’s impact on communication. Major companies from the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, to institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and most governments including the United States, are exploring the use of digital assets to enhance payments. Outside of the country of El Salvador, the majority of those organizations are considering either the use of a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin or creating their own digital currency issued by a central bank. A recentreportfrom digital asset firm, Arcane Research, found that use of the Bitcoin’s Lightning Network has grown more than 400% year-over-year with payment volume, averaging around $20 million per month for the first quarter of 2022. But it's nowhere near major payments networks like Visa, which in 2021 handled $1 trillion in payments volume and close to 20 billion transactions per month. As for Strike’s own usage numbers, Mallers said he couldn’t share anything specific, telling Yahoo Finance that “we’re in the middle of some pretty big deals.” David Hollerith covers cryptocurrency for Yahoo Finance. Follow him@dshollers. Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Instagram,YouTube,Facebook,Flipboard, andLinkedIn || How to avoid panic buying in an ultra-competitive housing market: This article was originally published on Bankrate.com by Zach Wichter. This article is brought to you by Bankrate. If you decide to purchase products through the links below, we may receive a commission. Pricing and availability are subject to change. With housing inventory still in short supply and historically low mortgage rates starting to inch back upward, the real estate market has gone from brisk to combative. In such a competitive environment, many buyers feel pressure to move quickly and stretch their budgets to make sure a property they love doesn’t slip through the cracks. In fact, according to a homeownership report from Hippo Insurance , 68 percent of buyers in 2021 paid above asking price. Kevin Kieffer, a Realtor with Compass’ EastBayPro Team in the San Francisco Bay area, calls this behavior “panic buying.” In the current market, he says, it can be easy for prospective homeowners to get in over their heads. Don’t let that happen to you. Instead, get familiar with panic buying and its pitfalls, and learn how to avoid them. What is panic buying? “Buyers are so afraid they’re going to miss these low rates, and then they won’t be able to buy a home,” Kieffer says. “They’re just panicking, which creates irrational decisions.” It’s already common for buyers in especially competitive areas to waive contingencies in their offers or include appraisal gap coverage . But Kieffer says he’s also seeing many people offer significantly more than the asking price. In many areas, homes selling over the asking price have become the norm. “We’re seeing 10 offers come in on a property, and, like, two of them just blow out the comps by 15 or 20 percent,” he says. “Twenty percent is something that we’ve never seen before.” Buyers aren’t just overextending themselves with high offers, either. That practice of waiving contingencies means new homeowners could be on the hook for expensive repairs as soon as they move in. In fact, according to Hippo, 81 percent of recent first-time homebuyers had unexpected repairs in the first year. And 66 percent of all new homeowners spent $1,000 or more on repairs in the first year. Story continues Courtney Klosterman, home insights expert at Hippo, notes that COVID added another layer of complication to the real estate landscape with the need for virtual tours, leading more people than ever to buy homes without first visiting them in person. Buyer’s remorse: What regrets do new homeowners have? “There are a lot of people who are buying homes for the first time, and they just don’t realize the volume of things you need to do to maintain a house ,” says Steve Wilson, senior underwriting manager at Hippo. “People are having remorse around the upkeep of the home, and how failure to do that maintenance can lead to a costly issue.” Things like the plumbing, electrical and climate control systems are important to check before you close, as well as structural parts of the house like the foundation, roof and attic. “Those are all things that are easy to see on a basic walkthrough and can help inform your decision of whether you want to buy this house,” Wilson says. Even if you waive your inspection contingency , that doesn’t mean you should skip the home inspection altogether. It’s a good idea to still conduct an inspection, so you know what you’re getting into and can budget for any repairs that will be necessary after moving in. Klosterman adds that for people leaving a city for the suburbs or moving to another part of the country, it’s especially important to understand any environmental risks in your new area. “I have found that a lot of people, especially in the California, Texas, Florida and New York areas, have not looked at home insurance before they buy the house,” she says. “And then they’re in shock that they’re in a wildfire zone or a flood zone or a hurricane zone.” Those external factors can result in big extra expenses. How to avoid panic buying First and foremost, Klosterman says, you should work with a knowledgeable Realtor. But it’s also a good idea to speak to homeowners in your personal orbit. “It’s really smart to lean on a trusted homeowner during the process. Someone in the area, someone you know and trust, outside of your Realtor,” she says. “No offense to our wonderful Realtors, but they’re going to look at properties very differently than you do.” Beyond that, it’s important not to rush, and to make sure you are prepared to ask crucial questions about a property’s condition and your mortgage loan as you go through the process. Kieffer adds that many buyers are also adjusting their expectations as homes keep selling for well over their list price. “A lot of folks are regressing their target price,” he says. “They need to step it back so they’re looking at the properties they’re capable of purchasing.” Overbidding: Causes and consequences In an overheated housing market like the one we’re currently experiencing, bidding wars , which involve multiple buyers competing for the same property, are more common than ever. Bidding on a home is more art than science, but the basic principle is that you don’t want to wind up with more house than you can afford, or pay much more than market value. It’s smart for most buyers to establish a budget well before they start shopping, and to stick to it no matter how much they might fall in love with a property. Keep in mind that if you bid too much for a property, the appraisal is almost certain to come in low. And a low appraisal means you’ll probably have to add more cash to the deal to bridge the gap. If you’re not sure where to start with your budget, check out Bankrate’s housing affordability and mortgage payment calculators, which can help you estimate your monthly costs and figure out what your budget should look like. If you can’t find a forever home in your price range, consider a starter home . If all else fails, remember that patience can pay dividends. The hot housing market will almost certainly cool off eventually, and inventory will slowly rise over time. You may find more favorable market conditions — and fewer bidders — if you wait for a while. Bottom line For most people, a house is the biggest purchase they’ll ever make. It’s not a transaction to be entered into lightly, and it’s not a race to the closing table. If you’re overwhelmed by the housing market, find professionals who can help guide you through the process. And don’t be afraid to walk away from a deal that could ultimately leave you with a house you can’t afford to maintain or pay off. Also, remember: There’s an emergency escape hatch in a competitive real estate climate like this one. “You may still have the option, since it’s a hot market, to sell the house if it’s truly not for you,” Wilson says. “You may not have had that two years ago.” More from In The Know: What is inflation and what causes it? Buy, sell or hold? How to decide what to do with a plummeting stock 11 ways women can shrink the gender pay gap to better achieve their financial goals Bitcoin vs. gold: Which is the better inflation hedge? The post How to avoid panic buying in an ultra-competitive housing market appeared first on In The Know . || Near DeFi Project Bastion Reveals $9M Funding Round on Heels of BSTN Airdrop Plans: Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022 , the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. Near’s largest decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, Bastion , has closed a $9 million Series A funding round, signaling mounting venture capital interest in the Near ecosystem. Crypto venture and trading firm Three Arrows Capital led the round, with participation from FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto, Jane Street, Crypto.com Capital, Spartan Group, CMS and Hypersphere. Bastion declined to disclose the round’s valuation. Bastion is a lending, borrowing and exchange protocol built on Aurora, the Ethereum-compatible layer of the Near blockchain. The funding round announcement comes on the heels of Bastion’s impending token launch. On Wednesday evening, Bastion announced it would be launching its BSTN governance token , with trading set to begin on Near’s decentralized exchange Trisolaris on 23:59 UTC Thursday. The token launch will value the protocol at $180 million. Read more: Near-Based DeFi Protocol Bastion to Launch BSTN Token at a $180M Valuation $BSTN Token Launch is finally here. 🗿🗿🗿 This is the start of the main chapter. 🚀 pic.twitter.com/S13C2WPriX — Bastion🗿 (@BastionProtocol) April 21, 2022 Near DeFi 'Legos' click into place Bastion says it has $620 million in total value locked (TVL) though public data sites place it lower, making it the largest DeFi protocol in the Near ecosystem. The project first launched on March 7 as a fork of Ethereum’s popular lending and borrowing DeFi protocol Compound. Compound, which was founded in 2017 and launched its COMP token in 2020, currently sits at nearly $9.7 billion in TVL, according to data from CoinGecko. Story continues “We have isolated markets,” said Bastion’s pseudonymous founder N^2 (“Near Squared”), who described Bastion as distinct from Compound due to the “separate” lending protocols operating underneath Bastion. “Compound is restricted in the number of assets it can offer,” N^2 told CoinDesk. “If one asset gets hacked, it can drain the entire pool. Meanwhile, we can compartmentalize.” N^2 also told CoinDesk that he is doxxed to Bastion investors but he prefers staying pseudonymous to the public in order to “focus on building the product with fewer distractions.” Near ecosystem hype The project says it plans to use the new funding towards hiring, marketing, business development and partnerships. Last month, Bastion closed a $2 million seed round, also at an undisclosed valuation. Near has attracted a wave of DeFi and investment activity of late, with Tiger Global leading a $350 million raise for the layer 1 blockchain earlier this month. Near’s NEAR token is up 48% over the past 30 days, compared to paltry 6% and 0% gains for ether (ETH) and bitcoin (BTC), respectively. || Bitcoin Approaches Support Zone at $37K-$40K: Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022 , the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. Bitcoin ( BTC ) is extending its pullback that began on March 28 after buyers failed to break above the $48,000 resistance level. The cryptocurrency is not yet oversold , although lower support at $37,500 and $40,000 could stabilize the down move. BTC was trading around $40,500 at press time and is down 5% over the past 24 hours. Countertrend signals, however, are roughly two days away from an inversion (selling exhaustion), per the DeMARK indicators . The relative strength index ( RSI ) on the daily chart is approaching oversold levels, which could pause the current price drop. Still, oversold readings could persist for a few weeks, similar to what occurred earlier this year. On the weekly chart, momentum signals are still positive. That means BTC's recovery from January lows remains intact, so long as buyers can maintain support above $37,500. Despite short-term price rises, further upside beyond $50,000 could be challenging given negative momentum signals on the monthly chart, similar to what occurred during the 2018 crypto bear market. View comments || It’s 3,000 pounds and looks like a giant Transformer. Behold Miami’s Charging Bull statue: No, it’s not the beginning of the robot apocalypse. It’s not an NFT come to life. It’s not the final boss in a video game. And it doesn’t poop bitcoins. “Welcome to the future of finance,” said Miami Mayor Francis Suarez as a blue shroud pulled back to reveal the Miami Bull, a 3,000-pound futuristic statue modeled after Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull. The artwork was unveiled Wednesday morning at the Miami Beach Convention Center, where 30,000 visitors are expected to attend the Bitcoin 2022 conference . The bull will later be installed at the Miami Dade College Wolfson campus after the conference. Poll: What do you think of Miami’s new Charging Bull statue? Suarez, who wore Bitcoin-branded sneakers to the unveiling, was especially excited about the Miami Bull and threw some not-so-subtle shade at New York City, which was “previously the finance capital of the world,” he said. “They’re laying down the gauntlet,” Suarez said. READ MORE: Think a giant bull makes a splash in Miami? We’ve seen it all: butts, fruit and a finger The statue is meant to represent Miami’s place as a rising financial and tech hub or, as Suarez likes to call it, the “capital of capital.” The mayor, known for his ambitions to lure tech leaders to Miami , dubbed April as Miami Tech Month, which kicked off with Miami NFT Week on April 1 in Wynwood. The Miami Bull statue at the Miami Beach Convention Center. TradeStation, a South Florida-based finance company, commissioned and paid for the statue. Read more: Here’s ‘the skinny’ on key goings-on during April’s Miami Tech Month “One of the things we were missing was an anchor, something for the entire community to rally around,” said John Bartleman, the president and CEO of TradeStation Group, as he gestured toward the statue. As more New Yorkers move to sunny South Florida, the Miami Bull raises the question: Is the Magic City copying the Big Apple? The massive Miami Bull has the same dimensions as the Charging Bull and has his head lowered in the same fighting stance, too. (Unlike its New York counterpart, though, the Miami Bull is neutered. No shiny, bronze balls here.) Story continues And if the bull reminds you of a certain robot movie franchise, that’s by design. Furio Tedeschi, the artist who designed the Miami Bull, is known for his work in the “Transformers” saga. Miami City Mayor Francis Suarez poses for photos with the just unveiled Miami Bull statue at the Miami Beach Convention Center on April 6, 2022. SMALL, a renowned New York-based advertising firm, enlisted Tedeschi’s help to design the bull and Onyx Forge Studio to create it, said SMALL executive creative directors Luca Pannese and Luca Lorenzini. Instead of bronze, the bull’s exterior is made of resins and fiberglass, and has several blue lights peeking through the design, including the bull’s angry eyes. Its interior is a sturdy “steel armor.” TradeStation wanted a piece of work that would represent the future of finance and crypto, they said. The inspiration was obvious. “A futuristic robot bull that has the body, shape and the pose of the most iconic bull you can find out there, just upgraded and escalated to a new standard,” Pannese said. Suarez and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava were quick to pose for photos with the bull, flexing next to its glowing blue eyes and golden horns. A gaggle of reporters, photographers and crypto enthusiasts captured every moment on their phones. Not everyone was impressed, though. On Twitter, one person called the statue “cringe,” while others compared it to the biblical Golden Calf idol that the Israelites worshiped until Moses destroyed it. (Ouch.) Other Miami residents sarcastically questioned whether the bull will help lower their rising rent prices. (It won’t.) This story was produced with financial support from The Pérez Family Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work. || Nyan Cat Coin Announces Stealth Launch: Nyan Cat Coin Calabasas, CA, March 23, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nyan Cat is a classic meme that has come back to life and is more alive than ever! Nyan Cat Coin is a completely safe, fully decentralized cryptocurrency with hyper-deflationary protocols and high-yielding holder rewards. The project has announced the date for its launch on March 24th, 3 PM EST. In an online auction in Feb 2021, a one-of-a-kind digital copy of the Nyan Cat meme from 2011 was sold for about $590,000. As cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have risen in value, online sales of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, have exploded as well. Nyan Cat's artist, Chris Torres, said the NFT sale was his first step into crypto art. Now, after almost a year the meme has been revived as meme currency. Meme currencies have also gone mainstream this bull season among various other types of crypto assets. Meme currencies proved that community-driven projects have a long way to go. First, Dogecoin rose over 5000% and then Shiba Inu overtook it in October with a yearly rise of over a million percent. Meme currencies evolved from being just a joke coin to become a formidable investment option, where many new investors who held onto their meme currencies became crypto millionaires. Thus, it is clear that meme currencies also have a market and Nyan cat aims to take the meme currency ecosystem to the next level. Being a meme-themed currency, Nyan cat is also community-centered and all key decisions regarding the project would be decided by these community members. However, Nyan Cat would incorporate a more organized way rather than a Twitter poll of sorts. The HPE token would be the governance token and its holders would be able to vote on important decision-making processes. Insiders also claim that Nyan Cat could very soon find its way onto Binance which could help its price surge by multi-fold. The tokenomics of the Nyan cat ecosystem include: Total Supply: 100k Burn: 46.8% Private Sale: 38% Liquidity: 15.2% Transaction Fees: 7% 3% Marketing 2% Burn 2% Holder Reflection Rewards 95 BNB Private Sale, No Presale 2% max wallet | 1% max transaction Story continues The project ownership will be renounced and has been audited by CoinScope. The project proudly presents a doxxed team and promises low fees with 100% of the liquidity pool locked for 6 months. The Initial Liquidity has been set to 38 BNB and there are no marketing/team token allocations. Nyan cat combines the best of both worlds, in that it will be a fantastic meme currency, but with the purpose of merging the NFT frenzy. Indeed, looking at the concept of meme currencies and NFTs, it appears that they are a natural fit, and Nyan Cat is here to redesign and make it possible. It would provide a variety of unique NFT collections for traders to buy and resell for profit, as well as the local currency being used as a source of passive income with several options. The next phase of Nyan cat project would see: CoinGecko Listing CoinmarketCap Listing Coinsniper Listing Coinhunt Listing CnToken Listing WatcherGuru Listing Poocoin/Bogged Banner Ad Campaign Expand to alternate language communities Weekly AMAs with community Project Partnerships CMC + CGK Top Gainers While most meme currencies now only provide earning chances during a bull market, which many people miss owing to a large number of tokens available. Nyan cat would provide staking services, allowing users to stake unique NFTs in order to earn the native token, which they could then buy, sell, or trade. Don’t miss this great opportunity to get in early on the next big meme coin! CONTACT: Media Contact: Contact Person: Rocco Armeni Company Name: Berserker Media Email: team (at) nyancat.finance Website: https://www.nyancat.finance/ || BTC and ETH Face Uphill Task, TRX Could Extend Rally: • BTC is attempting a recovery wave but faces a hurdle near $39,150. • Ether (ETH) is trading well below $2,900. • TRX has surged over 15% and may rally further if it clears $0.0720. After a sharp decline, thebitcoinprice found support near the $37,500 zone. A base was formed and the price started an upside correction above the $38,000 level. The price was able to recover above the $38,500 resistance and the 21 simple moving average (H1). It is now facing resistance near the $39,150 level or the 50% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the $40,400 swing zone to the $38,500 region. The next major resistance sits near $39,500 and a connecting bearish trend line on the hourly chart. A close above $39,150 and $39,500 is a must for a steady upward move. If not, the price might resume its decline below $38,000. ETHalso followed a similar pattern, after it declined towards the $2,720 level. The price started a recovery wave above the $2,750 level and the 21 simple moving average (H1). The price even climbed above the $2,800 resistance, but the bears were active near $2,865. Ether price is now moving lower and trading below $2,820. There is also a key bearish trend line with resistance near $2,870 on the hourly chart. If ether price stays below $2,865 and $2,870, it could resume its decline. The next major support sits near the $2,720 level. TRXformed a strong base above the $0.0575 level. As a result, there was a bullish reaction above the $0.0650 resistance zone. The price climbed above the $0.0680 resistance and the 21-day simple moving average. It even moved above the 50% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the $0.080 swing zone to the $0.0575 low. It is now facing a major resistance near the $0.0720 zone a bearish trend line on the daily chart. If there is a clear move and close above $0.0720, TRX could extend the rally. The next key resistance on the upside may perhaps be near $0.080 or $0.0850. If there is no upside break, the price could revisit the $0.0620 support zone. Cardano (ADA)is still struggling below the $0.800 resistance zone. It is moving lower and there is a risk of a move towards the $0.750 level. Binance Coin (BNB)attempted a fresh increase above the $392 resistance but failed. It is now trading below $390 and might even test $382. Polkadot (DOT)declined heavily below the $16.20 and $15.50 support levels. If the bears remain active, there is a risk of a move towards the $14.00 level. A few trending coins areLUNA,SAND, andRUNE. Out of these, LUNA gained pace and recovered above the $84.00 level. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Exclusive-Musk in talks for new Twitter financing-sources • U.S. Senate Budget Committee to hold hearing on Amazon • Amazon workers vote against unionizing second New York warehouse • Biden would ‘love to visit Ukraine,’ but no current plans -White House • Grand jury selected in Trump election probe in Georgia -prosecutor’s office • Italy approves 14 billion euros of stimulus measures as growth outlook weakens || New to The Street / Newsmax TV Announces Eight Interviews on its 329th TV Broadcast, Sunday, April 10, 2022, Hour Slot 10-11 AM ET: FMW Media Works Corp New to The Street / Newsmax TV Announces Eight Interviews on its 329th TV Broadcast, Sunday, April 10, 2022, Hour Slot 10-11 AM ET New to The Street’s TV show line-up, features eight (8) interviews: 1). GOLD – Glint Pay 2). Society Pass, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOPA) 3). PetVivo Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PETV) 4) Cryptocurrency – A-NATION Media (CRYPTO: ANTN) ($ANTN) 5). GlobeX Data, Ltd.(OTCQB: SWISF) (CSE: SWIS) (FRA: GDT) 6). Cryptocurrency – Paypolitan (CRYPTO: EPAN) ($EPAN) 7). Cryptocurrency – AAptitude (CRYPTO: AAPT) ($AAPT) 8). Sekur's® (a GlobeX Data, Ltd. division) – The "Weekly Hack - SPECIAL SEGMENT" -https://www.newsmaxtv.com/Shows/New-to-the-Street & https://www.newtothestreet.com/ NEW YORK, April 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FMW Media's New To The Street / Newsmax TV show announces the broadcasting line-up of its national syndicated 1- hour TV show this Sunday, April 10, 2022, airing time 10-11 AM ET. New to The Street’s 329th TV show line-up, features eight (8) interviews of the following Companies and their representatives: 1). GOLD – Glint Pay’s interview with Mr. Jason Cozens, CEO. 2). Society Pass, Inc.’s (NASDAQ: SOPA) interview with Mr. Dennis Nguyen, Founder, CEO, and Chairman. 3). PetVivo Holdings, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: PETV) interview with Mr. John Lai, CEO & President. 4) Cryptocurrency – A-NATION Media’s (CRYPTO: ANTN) ($ANTN ) interviews with Mr. Kade Vu and Mr. Chuck Russell, Co-founders. 5). GlobeX Data, Ltd.’s (OTCQB: SWISF) (CSE: SWIS) (FRA: GDT) interview with Mr. Alain Ghiai, CEO. 6). Cryptocurrency – Paypolitan’s (CRYPTO: EPAN) ($EPAN) interview with Nils Tharandt Ortiz, CEO, and Co-founder. 7). Cryptocurrency – AAptitude’s (CRYPTO: AAPT) ($AAPT) interviews with Mr. Kodi Tanerau-Love, CEO and Lead Developer, and Mr. Juha Kuparisalmi, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). 8). Sekur's® (a GlobeX Data, Ltd . division) – The "Weekly Hack - SPECIAL SEGMENT" interview with internet privacy expert Alain Ghiai, CEO. New to The Street’s TV Anchor Jane King welcomes Mr. Jason Cozens, CEO at Glint Pay , for a live on-set Nasdaq Marketplace interview. Jason talks about the Glint Pay GOLD app regarding worldwide inflationary pressures on goods and services. Once approved, account holders can buy, sell, save, spend, and send GOLD holdings with minimal fees. The relationship between Glint Pay and Mastercard gives account holders the availability to convert GOLD values into fiat currencies to pay for goods/services. Registered in 37 countries, including the US, UK, and Europe, and having account holders in over 200+ countries, many see the intrinsic value of holding and using GOLD. Jason describes account holders as having their own “Gold Standard” platform, used for various transactions. GOLD vs. Bitcoin is different in many aspects; Jason explains those differences to viewers. Glint Pay transactions are seamlessly converted into fiat currencies and used for paying for goods/services in a first-of-its-kind GOLD-based ecosystem app. Download the app to buy, save, spend, and send real GOLD and Fiat currencies digitally with Glint. Story continues This week, New to The Street TV interviews Mr. Dennis Nguyen, Founder, CEO, and Chairman at Society Pass, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOPA). Talking in-studio at the Nasdaq Marketplace with TV Anchor Jane King, Dennis explains the Company’s loyalty rewards program. With business operations primarily in Southeast Asia and South Asia, Society Pass seeks to grow its digital ecosystem, creating loyalty rewards from merchants and consumers based on millions of daily transactions. With multiple business verticals in fashion, travel, food/beverage, and media, the growth continues at SOPA. Dennis talks about the power of women holding key positions at the Company, whose workforce is 60% women. South and Southeast Asia are a demographic with over 720 million people, the median age of 26-32, and 70% technology integrations, a compelling market for Society Pass. The Company went public on Nasdaq in 2021, and Dennis explains the many fiduciary responsibilities in building the next-generation digital ecosystem. Viewers can expect future interviews with updates on SOPA’s customer loyalty and merchant participation using its ecosystem. Mr. John Lai, CEO, and President at PetVivo Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PETV) (NASDAQ: PETVW), is back on this week’s New to The Street TV show. Talking in person at the Nasdaq Marketplace , John gives Anchor Jane King and viewers his corporate updates. The injectable patented Spryng™ product treats osteoarthritis and joint afflictions while providing rehabilitation treatments for horses and dogs and continues to grow as a reliable treatment . Veterinarians see continued successes, and dog and horse owners see excellent results with less pain and more mobilities. Since Spryng mimics cartilage and last about 1-year per injection, competitor products appear to be no match in cost-benefit. Corporate studies continue between Spryng and competitors’ products, giving veterinarians empirical, comprehensive, and marketable data. John talks about hiring seasoned personnel who became regional managers so the Company can handle and expand its growth. John announces its upcoming launch of petvivocares.org, a website dedicated to donating the Spryng product to charitable non-profit animal rescues and assistance organizations. “Word of Mouth” and conference participations seem to be the best form of marketing PETV’s Spryng with OsteoCushion technology. Soon, PetVivo is rolling out its feline product for cats with osteoarthritis. Mr. Kade Vu and Mr. Chuck Russell, Co-founders at A-NATION Media (CRYPTO: ANTN) ($ANTN ) (“A-NATION), join New to The Street’s Anchor Ana Berry, who talk about developing a decentralized blockchain platform for the film industry. Hollywood’s film industry is a cumbersome legacy business platform with many intermediaries, bankers, brokers, talent agents, etc. Kade explains his inspiration to bridge a crypto blockchain onto the production and director capabilities to get a film production launched. Because of budgets and internal operational constraints, many independent movie ideas and industry talents cannot compete in today’s film industry. A-NATION gives an immediate decentralized platform for creating a film with fairness, cost-effectiveness, and transparency. Chuck Russell, a Co-founder , gives his impressive history of well-known films that he developed and produced and explains why lots of independent films never get funded because of the endless complexities of getting a project financed. Chuck sees A-NATION’s blockchain as a must-needed and timely solution for taking creative movie ideas and turning them into viable film releases. The objective of A-Nation is to utilize the rapidly growing blockchain technology in all its parts to rectify the shortcomings of these traditional film business models. The previously aired, Mr. Alain Ghiai, CEO at GlobeX Data, Ltd. (OTCQB: SWISF) (CSE: SWIS) (FRA: GDT), is on-set at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with New to The Street TV Anchor Jane King. Together they talk about the cybersecurity challenges affecting individuals and businesses. The problem is so pervasive that many governments have cybersecurity divisions in their military commands. China and Russia are currently the main perpetrators of cybersecurity breaches and wars globally, risking all of us. China continues to find weaknesses in cyber systems, privately, commercially, and governmentally. Their goal is to steal intellectual properties, ideas, and other commercially viable platforms and recreate them for their benefit with little or no developmental cost. GlobeX Data has an immediate solution with the Company's Sekur ® solutions . For a monthly subscription, priced differently for individuals and businesses, end-users can send, receive, and store files without fear of hacking. The Company will soon release its SekurPro video and SekurVoice encrypted platforms products. And SkeurID, which alerts end-users on fraud and identity theft, is coming to market later this year or early 2023. Alain reminds everyone that open-source platforms which request phone numbers are the main reason hacks usually occur. Based in Switzerland, operating under stringent government privacy laws, the Company owns its servers. And has no third-party platforms, multiple data center redundancies, no API (Application Program Interfaces), no open-source codes, and NEVER asks for phone numbers. New to The Street TV airs the in-studio Nasdaq Marketplace interview with Mr. Nils Tharandts Ortiz , CEO and Co-founder of Paypolitan (CRYPTO: EPAN) ($EPAN). Nils gives TV Anchor Jane King a current update on corporate operations. Paypolitan offers end-users a next-generation payment application used for all types of transactions using cryptocurrency and fiat money. Currently, the ecosystem has over 144,000 users, and they expect about 500,000 users before year-end, 2022. The new P2P (Peer-to-Peer) credit app allows loans on 60 different cryptocurrencies, and loan terms are in a “Smart Contract” put onto the blockchain. Nils talks about his recent trip to Dubai, and that a white label Metaverse deal came out of the visit with an entity. He is still looking at a possible IPO SPAC listing on a major stock exchange, and he gave a heartfelt statement regarding his employees and others trapped in Ukraine. Paypolitian continues growing its cash and loan payment system ecosystem. New to The Street TV Anchor Jane King’s interviews with AAptitude’s (CRYPTO: AAPT) ($AAPT) Mr. Kodi Tanerau-Love, CEO and Lead Developer, and Mr. Juha Kuparisalmi, Chief Marketing Officer. AAptitude is the first deflationary escrow ecosystem using the Binance blockchain . Kodi explains $AAPT’s sophisticated technology ecosystem, which can provide for secure purchases using crypto in an escrow wallet, and he talks about how they generate revenues. Another AAptitude functionality is the reduction of $AAPT tokens, retired or “Burned,” based on the deflationary technology built onto the blockchain. Juha talks to viewers about the marketing projects which focus on current crypto investors and a place where sellers and buyers can come together to generate a secure escrowed transaction. There is a particular focus on developing collaborations and partnerships with other projects and innovators to build $AAPT’s ecosystems community. End-users need payment verifications and KYC (Know-Your-Client) validations for any transactional arrangement over $1000. AAptitude looks to continue to grow its digital ecosystem to ensure safe and effective transactions using its digital escrow product to buy/sell goods and services. New to The Street airs the "Weekly Hack - SPECIAL SEGMENT,” sponsor Sekur ® , a GlobeX Data, Ltd . division, with the internationally acclaimed internet privacy expert, Mr. Alain Ghiai, CEO. This week Alain talks with Anchor Ana Berry about protecting your tax information while using the internet. Most unknowingly use an open-platform email account, typically Microsoft and Gmail email accounts, which are not secure, and information on those email accounts are data mined and shared often. Open-platform email hacks occur frequently and sending private information over these platforms could cause security and identity breaches. As a leader in Swiss hosted private and secure communications and data management, GlobeX Data offers for both individuals and businesses its Sekur Solutions . SekureMail and SekurMessenger give encrypted files to both the sender and recipient, even if the recipient is not a subscriber; they are the perfect solutions for sending IRS tax forms to accountants and lawyers. Alain talks about how easy it is for personal data to fall into the wrong hands in countries with weak data-sharing rules. Switzerland , however, has the most restrictive federal laws globally, and Alain explains how data held on Swiss servers remains confidential even in the most serious of circumstances. If you subscribe to a Sekur® account , you can significantly eliminate the threat of getting your tax information hacked. Remember: What is the price of your privacy worth? About Glint Pay: Glint Pay gives the client the freedom to choose a monetary position in currency or gold as money. Clients can buy, save, exchange, and spend global currencies and gold worldwide at rates cheaper than banks. Glint is reliable and gives you more financial choices and more freedom. In addition to Glint Pay’s ground-breaking gold currency, their app also offers clients the freedom to save in USD and gold. Clients can exchange between them in seconds, on the move, and always get the real exchange rate and low, transparent fees. Use the Glint card to spend the money saved in wallets in more than 150 currencies, anywhere around the World that accepts Mastercard with only a 0.5% transaction fee. Glint is an Electronic Money Institution authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority (FAC) in the United Kingdom - https://glintpay.com/en_us/ . About Society Pass, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOPA): Society Pass, Inc . (NASDAQ: SOPA) is building the next-generation loyalty and data-focused marketing platform in Southeast Asia and South Asia. The Company’s technology ecosystem enables companies to work together synergistically, transforming how consumers and merchants interact. It is all about generating customer loyalty and revenues for merchants and ease of transactions for consumers. As more merchants and consumers register on the platform, more transaction data becomes available. More data generation creates opportunities for developing more loyalty programs - https://thesocietypass.com/ . About PetVivo Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PETV) (NASDAQ: PETVW): PetVivo Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PETV) (NASDAQ: PETVW) is an emerging biomedical device company currently focused on the manufacturing, commercialization and licensing of innovative medical devices and therapeutics for companion animals. The Company’s strategy is to leverage human therapies for the treatment of companion animals in a capital and time efficient way. A key component of this strategy is the accelerated timeline to revenues for veterinary medical devices, which enter the market much earlier than more stringently regulated pharmaceuticals and biologics. PetVivo has a pipeline of seventeen products for the treatment of animals and people. A portfolio of nineteen patents protects the Company’s biomaterials, products, production processes and methods of use. The Company’s lead product SPRYNG, a veterinarian-administered, intraarticular injection for the treatment of lameness and other joint related affliction, including osteoarthritis, in dogs, and horses, I currently available of commercial sale to veterinarians - https://petvivo.com/ & https://www.sprynghealth.com/ . About Paypolitan ($EPAN) : Paypolitan’s (CRYPTO: EPAN) ($EPAN) platform will use blockchain technology, smart contracts, and open banking APIs to provide a next-gen payment solution that meets the needs of modern payment systems for businesses and customers. The platform can offer payment solutions and drive locked liquidity with white label services labeled with its partners’ brands. Paypolitan targets companies with the supporting device or processing several monthly and or recurrent payments - https://paypolitan.io/ . About A-NATION Media (CRYPTO: ANTN) ($ANTN) : A-NATION Media (CRYPTO: ANTN) ($ANTN) (“A-NATION”) is to utilize the rapidly growing blockchain technology in all its parts to rectify the shortcomings of the traditional film business models. The time has come to apply the now multi-trillion-dollar value of the World's cryptocurrency to film and television production. A-NATION’s creates liquidity through an ecosystem that allows for independent funding through the tokenized function of the blockchain technology. As A-NATION’s liquidity increases, the onboarding of systems and procedures will expand the ecosystem, including film-vested auctions, which will give A-NATION token holders a say in the choice of film projects they want to get funded. This process allows for determining the potential popularity of a specific film concept that translates into a global audience. About AAptitude (CRYPTO: AAPT) ($AAPT) : AAptitude’s (CRYPTO: AAPT) ($AAPT) escrow ecosystem is the perfect solution to creating a safer space for consumers in the cryptosphere. The escrow service serves the marketplace to find, review, and facilitate transactions for various projects and services. Vendors can set up a shop to sell or provide legal services or products. When consumers identify a service or product they would like to purchase, they will select "buy" as they complete a swap. The ecosystem allows funds to be transferred into an escrow locker until the services close. By implementing an automated Buyback feature, AAptitude increases the overall buying pressure and maximizes the prospects for the long-term vision of the AAptitude ecosystem - https://aaptitude.com / . About GlobeX Data, Ltd. (OTCQB: SWISF) (CSE: SWIS) (FRA: GDT): GlobeX Data, Ltd. (OTCQB: SWISF) (CSE: SWIS) (FRA: GDT) is a Cybersecurity and Internet Privacy provider of Swiss hosted solutions for secure communications and secure data management. The Company distributes a suite of secure messaging applications, encrypted emails services, secure communications, and secure data management tools, using Swiss privacy laws, proprietary technology, and its independent platform, away from big techs hosting platforms. GlobeX Data, Ltd. sells its products through approved wholesalers, distributors, and telecommunications companies worldwide. GlobeX Data, Ltd. serves consumers, businesses, and governments worldwide – https://www.globexdata.com . Sekur® is a Swiss secure communications application offering secure and private messaging, emails, voice messages, self-deleting messages, and file transfers from any mobile device, tablet, or desktop. Sekur users can communicate with Sekur and non-Sekur users through its unique Chat-By-Invites feature and Sekur, send email system. All data traffic stays in GlobeX Data's Swiss-hosted servers, using its proprietary HeliX technology, military-grade encryption, and benefiting from Swiss Privacy Laws – https://sekur.com & Twitter: @globexdata. About FMW Media: FMW Media operates one of the longest-running US and International sponsored and Syndicated Nielsen Rated programming TV brands, "New to The Street" and its blockchain show "Exploring The Block." Since 2009, these brands have run biographical interview segment shows across major U.S. Television networks. The TV platforms reach over 540 million homes in the US and international markets. FMW's New to The Street / Newsmax TV broadcasting platform airs its syndication on Sundays at 10 -11 AM ET. FMW is also one of the nation's largest buyers of linear television long and short-form - https://www.newsmaxtv.com/Shows/New-to-the-Street & https://www.newtothestreet.com/ . Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer: This press release contains forward-looking statements within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "ongoing," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would," or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. However, not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at which such performance or results are achieved. This press release should be considered in all filings of the Companies contained in the Edgar Archives of the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov. CONTACT: FMW Media Contact: Bryan Johnson +1 (631) 766-7462 Bryan@NewToTheStreet.com "New to The Street" Business Development office. 1-516-696-5900 Support@NewtoTheStreet.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6e144d88-50ce-409c-8336-f6d431d7c703 || WisdomTree Announces First Quarter 2022 Results - Diluted Loss Per Share of ($0.08) (Earnings Per Share of $0.09, as adjusted): WisdomTree Investments, Inc. NEW YORK, N.Y., April 29, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WisdomTree Investments, Inc. (NASDAQ: WETF) today reported financial results for the first quarter of 2022. ($10.3) million net loss ($14.1 ( 1 ) million net income, as adjusted) , see “Non-GAAP Financial Measurements” for additional information. $17.0 million non-cash charge associated with the revaluation of deferred consideration – gold payments. $79.4 billion of ending AUM , an increase of 2.5% arising from net inflows and market appreciation. $1.3 billion of net inflows , primarily driven by inflows into our fixed income and U.S. equity products, partly offset by outflows from our commodity products. 0.40% average advisory fee , unchanged from the previous quarter. $78.4 million of operating revenues , a decrease of 1.0% due to two fewer revenue days in the quarter, partly offset by higher average AUM. 80.2% gross margin ( 1 ) , essentially unchanged from the previous quarter. 22.6% operating income margin (25.7% ( 1 ) as adjusted) , a 5.9 point decrease (2.8 point decrease, as adjusted ( 1 ) ) primarily due to higher operating expenses. Our unadjusted operating income margin is impacted by $2.4 million of expenses incurred in responding to the activist campaign by ETFS Capital Limited and Lion Point Capital, LP (collectively, the “Investor Group”), as evidenced by their Schedule 13D, initially filed January 24, 2022, and thereafter amended (the “activist campaign”). $0.03 quarterly dividend declared , payable on May 25, 2022 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on May 11, 2022. Update from Jonathan Steinberg, WisdomTree CEO “This quarter marked WisdomTree’s sixth consecutive quarter of organic growth, strong earnings results and record assets under management. It is important to note that the robust organic growth and sustainable momentum we are experiencing today did not happen overnight, but rather has been the result of executing on the vision and strategy we laid out over the course of many years of diversifying the business, developing world class tools for advisors and launching a solutions platform into the key driver of growth it is today. Just as our strong execution has yielded today’s robust business with $3 billion of net inflows year-to-date, our strong execution on future opportunities with large addressable markets such as managed models and digital assets will further accelerate WisdomTree’s growth in the years to come.” Update from Jarrett Lilien, WisdomTree COO and President “Managed model portfolios have grown into a WisdomTree success story, with platform AUM at over $2 billion in only two years, and roughly 12% of US ETF inflows from managed model strategies, up from 10% in the second half of last year. Model flows are recurring in nature and stackable on top of our current inflow profile. We are excited about the trajectory of our models franchise and anticipate a long, lucrative growth runway ahead. For WisdomTree, I see another major success story on the horizon: being a first mover in digital assets. The mission is simple: first, bring crypto exposures into the mainstream financial ecosystem through ETPs and separate accounts; and second, bring mainstream financial assets into the digital world through blockchain-enabled funds and tokenized assets. Viewed this way, digital assets are a natural extension of what we do – delivering our investors best structured access to various asset classes. We have the vision, we have the products, we have the new D2C channel with WisdomTree Prime™, and we are excited to execute on this massive opportunity.” OPERATING AND FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS Three Months Ended Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar. 31, 2021 Consolidated Operating Highlights ($ in billions) : AUM $ 79.4 $ 77.5 $ 72.8 $ 73.9 $ 69.5 Net inflows $ 1.3 $ 1.9 $ 0.5 $ 0.9 $ 1.3 Average AUM $ 77.8 $ 76.0 $ 74.5 $ 73.6 $ 69.6 Average advisory fee 0.40 % 0.40 % 0.41 % 0.40 % 0.41 % Consolidated Financial Highlights ($ in millions, except per share amounts) : Operating revenues $ 78.4 $ 79.2 $ 78.1 $ 75.8 $ 71.3 Net (loss)/income $ (10.3 ) $ 11.2 $ 5.8 $ 17.6 $ 15.1 Diluted (loss)/earnings per share $ (0.08 ) $ 0.07 $ 0.04 $ 0.11 $ 0.09 Operating income margin 22.6 % 28.5 % 31.0 % 31.3 % 26.1 % As Adjusted (Non-GAAP ( 1 ) ): Gross margin 80.2 % 80.5 % 80.6 % 81.0 % 80.4 % Net income, as adjusted $ 14.1 $ 15.7 $ 16.3 $ 16.8 $ 12.5 Diluted earnings per share, as adjusted $ 0.09 $ 0.10 $ 0.10 $ 0.10 $ 0.08 Operating income margin, as adjusted 25.7 % 28.5 % 31.0 % 31.3 % 26.1 % RECENT BUSINESS DEVELOPMENTS Company News In February 2022, our Board of Directors authorized an increase and extension to our existing stock repurchase program. In March 2022, our Board of Directors adopted a limited duration stockholder rights plan. Also in March 2022, we promoted Ben Wallach and Heather Reisner to strengthen our ESG focus with customer-focused product innovation in the U.S.; and we won three ETF Express European Awards 2022: Best Leveraged & Inverse ETF Issuer (Including ETNs), Best Thematic ETF Issuer ($100M+) and Best European Equity ETF Issuer ($100M-$1BN). Product News In February 2022, we launched the WisdomTree Battery Value Chain and Innovation Fund (WBAT) on the CBOE; we launched the WisdomTree New Economy Real Estate UCITS ETF (WTRE) on the London Stock Exchange, Börse Xetra and Borsa Italiana; and we cross-listed the WisdomTree Crypto Market ETP (BLOC) and the WisdomTree Crypto Altcoins ETP (WALT) on Euronext exchanges in Paris, France and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In March 2022, we executed a 1:2 reverse share split on the WisdomTree Floating Rate Treasury fund (USFR); we launched the WisdomTree Efficient Gold Plus Equity Strategy Fund (GDE) on the CBOE; we launched the WisdomTree S&P 500 (WSPX), the WisdomTree EURO STOXX 50 (WS5X) and the WisdomTree FTSE MIB (WMIB) on Borsa Italiana and the WisdomTree STOXX Europe Travel & Leisure 2x Daily Leveraged (2TRV), the WisdomTree STOXX Europe Travel & Leisure 2x Daily Short (2STR), the WisdomTree STOXX Europe Automobiles 2x Daily Leveraged (2CAR) and the WisdomTree STOXX Europe Oil & Gas 2x Daily Short (2OIG) on the London Stock Exchange, Börse Xetra and Borsa Italiana; we listed Swiss Franc (CHF) trading lines for the WisdomTree Bitcoin ETP (BTCW) and the WisdomTree Ethereum ETP (ETHW) listed on SIX; we launched the WisdomTree Solana ETP (SOLW), the WisdomTree Cardano ETP (ADAW) and the WisdomTree Polkadot ETP (DOTW) on Börse Xetra, SIX and Euronext in Paris, France and Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and the WisdomTree Emerging Markets ex-State Owned Enterprises ESG Screened UCITS ETF (XSOE) won in the ‘Innovative Newcomer ETF’ category at the XENIX ETF awards 2022. In April 2022, the WisdomTree New Economy Real Estate Fund (WTRE) was restructured from the WisdomTree Global ex-U.S. Real Estate Fund (DRW); we launched our Portfolio and Growth Solutions to address the needs of RIAs and IBDs to help scale and grow their businesses; we launched a pair of thematic metals ETPs: the WisdomTree Battery Metals ETP (WATT) and the WisdomTree Energy Transition Metals ETP (WENT) on the London Stock Exchange, Börse Xetra and Borsa Italiana; we cross-listed the WisdomTree AT1 CoCo Bond UCITS ETF (COCB) and the WisdomTree Cybersecurity UCITS ETF (WCBR) in Mexico; we cross-listed the WisdomTree USD Floating Rate Treasury Bond UCITS ETF (TFRN) on Borsa Italiana; we cross-listed the WisdomTree Global Quality Dividend Growth UCITS ETF (GGRW) on Börse Xetra; and we launched the WisdomTree Recycling Decarbonisation UCITS ETF (WRCY) on the London Stock Exchange, Börse Xetra and Borsa Italiana. WISDOMTREE INVESTMENTS, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (in thousands, except per share amounts) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar. 31, 2021 Operating Revenues: Advisory fees $ 76,517 $ 77,441 $ 76,400 $ 74,169 $ 70,042 Other income 1,851 1,734 1,712 1,606 1,214 Total revenues 78,368 79,175 78,112 75,775 71,256 Operating Expenses: Compensation and benefits 24,787 23,178 22,027 20,331 22,627 Fund management and administration 15,494 15,417 15,181 14,367 13,947 Marketing and advertising 4,023 4,565 2,925 3,594 3,006 Sales and business development 2,609 2,668 2,935 2,159 2,145 Contractual gold payments 4,450 4,262 4,250 4,314 4,270 Professional fees 4,459 2,099 1,583 1,921 2,013 Occupancy, communications and equipment 753 725 1,163 1,266 1,475 Depreciation and amortization 47 45 185 256 252 Third-party distribution fees 2,212 1,830 1,873 2,130 1,343 Other 1,845 1,823 1,787 1,752 1,571 Total operating expenses 60,679 56,612 53,909 52,090 52,649 Operating income 17,689 22,563 24,203 23,685 18,607 Other Income/(Expenses): Interest expense (3,732 ) (3,740 ) (3,729 ) (2,567 ) (2,296 ) (Loss)/gain on revaluation of deferred consideration—gold payments (17,018 ) (3,048 ) 1,737 497 2,832 Interest income 794 864 689 225 231 Impairments — — (15,853 ) — (303 ) Other losses and gains, net (24,707 ) (1,368 ) (714 ) 49 (5,893 ) (Loss)/income before income taxes (26,974 ) 15,271 6,333 21,889 13,178 Income tax (benefit)/expense (16,713 ) 4,084 500 4,259 (1,969 ) Net (loss)/income $ (10,261 ) $ 11,187 $ 5,833 $ 17,630 $ 15,147 (Loss)/earnings per share—basic $ (0.08 ) ( 2 ) $ 0.07 ( 2 ) $ 0.04 $ 0.11 ( 2 ) $ 0.09 ( 2 ) (Loss)/earnings per share—diluted $ (0.08 ) ( 2 ) $ 0.07 $ 0.04 $ 0.11 $ 0.09 Weighted average common shares–basic 142,782 142,070 142,070 145,542 145,649 Weighted average common shares—diluted 142,782 159,826 159,213 164,855 161,831 As Adjusted (Non-GAAP ( 1 ) ) Total operating expenses $ 58,244 $ 56,612 $ 53,909 $ 52,090 $ 52,649 Operating income $ 20,124 $ 22,563 $ 24,203 $ 23,685 $ 18,607 Income before income taxes $ 17,674 $ 19,968 $ 20,991 $ 21,253 $ 15,583 Income tax expense $ 3,888 $ 4,232 $ 4,674 $ 4,458 $ 3,079 Net income $ 14,063 $ 15,736 $ 16,317 $ 16,795 $ 12,504 Earnings per share—diluted $ 0.09 $ 0.10 $ 0.10 $ 0.10 $ 0.08 QUARTERLY HIGHLIGHTS Operating Revenues Story continues Operating revenues decreased 1.0% from the fourth quarter of 2021 due to two fewer revenue days in the quarter, partly offset by higher average AUM. Operating revenues increased 10.0% from the first quarter of 2021 due to higher average AUM, partly offset by a lower average advisory fee. Our average advisory fee was 0.40%, 0.40% and 0.41% during the first quarter of 2022, the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2021, respectively. Operating Expenses Operating expenses increased 7.2% from the fourth quarter of 2021 primarily due to $2.4 million of professional fees incurred in response to the activist campaign, higher compensation expense arising from seasonal payroll taxes and higher third-party distribution fees. These increases were partly offset by lower marketing expenses. Operating expenses increased 15.3% from the first quarter of 2021 primarily due to $2.4 million of professional fees incurred in response to the activist campaign, higher compensation arising from increased headcount, higher fund management and administration costs, as well as higher marketing expenses, third-party distribution fees and sales and business development expenses. These increases were partly offset by lower occupancy expenses. Other Income/(Expenses) Interest expense was essentially unchanged from the fourth quarter of 2021. This expense increased 62.5% from the first quarter of 2021 due to a higher level of debt outstanding, partly offset by a lower effective interest rate. We recognized a non-cash loss on revaluation of deferred consideration of $17.0 million during the first quarter of 2022. The loss was due to higher forward-looking gold prices. The magnitude of any gain or loss recognized is highly correlated to the magnitude of the change in the forward-looking price of gold. Interest income decreased 8.1% from the fourth quarter of 2021 and increased 243.7% from first quarter of 2021 due to a change in our securities owned. Other net losses were $24.7 million for the first quarter of 2022. The quarter includes a non-cash charge of $19.9 million upon the release of tax-related indemnification assets arising from a favorable resolution of certain tax audits as well as the expiration of the statute of limitations (an equal and offsetting benefit was recognized in income tax expense). This quarter also includes losses on our securities owned of $5.1 million. Gains and losses also generally arise from the sale of gold earned from management fees paid by our physically-backed gold ETPs, foreign exchange fluctuations and other miscellaneous items. Income Taxes Our effective income tax rate for the first quarter of 2022 was 62.0% resulting in an income tax benefit of $16.7 million. Our tax rate differs from the federal statutory rate of 21% primarily due to a reduction in unrecognized tax benefits associated with the release of the tax-related indemnification asset described above, a lower tax rate on foreign earnings and tax windfalls associated with the vesting of stock-based compensation awards. These items were partly offset by a non-taxable loss on revaluation of deferred consideration and an increase in the deferred tax asset valuation allowance on losses recognized on securities owned. Our adjusted effective income tax rate was 20.4% ( 1 ) . CONFERENCE CALL WisdomTree will discuss its results and operational highlights during a conference call on Friday, April 29, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. ET. The call-in number is (877) 303-7209. Anyone outside the U.S. or Canada should call (970) 315-0420. The slides used during the presentation will be available at http://ir.wisdomtree.com . For those unable to join the conference call at the scheduled time, an audio replay will be available on http://ir.wisdomtree.com . ABOUT WISDOMTREE WisdomTree Investments, Inc., through its subsidiaries in the U.S. and Europe (collectively, “WisdomTree”), is an ETF and ETP sponsor and asset manager headquartered in New York. WisdomTree offers products covering equity, commodity, fixed income, leveraged and inverse, currency, cryptocurrency and alternative strategies. WisdomTree currently has over $77.8 billion in assets under management globally. WisdomTree ® is the marketing name for WisdomTree Investments, Inc. and its subsidiaries worldwide. (1) See “Non-GAAP Financial Measurements.” (2) Earnings/(loss) per share (“EPS”) is calculated pursuant to the two-class method as it results in a lower EPS amount as compared to the treasury stock method. (3) Cash flows from purchasing securities owned, at fair value of ($1,657) and selling securities owned, at fair value of $1,232 during the three months ended March 31, 2021 that were not acquired specifically for resale or associated with our business activities have been reclassified from operating activities to investing activities to conform to our current presentation in the Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows. Contact Information: Investor Relations Media Relations Jeremy Campbell Jessica Zaloom +1.646.522.2602 +1.917.267.3735 Jeremy.campbell@wisdomtree.com jzaloom@wisdomtree.com WisdomTree Investments, Inc. Key Operating Statistics (Unaudited) Three Months Ended Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar. 31, 2021 GLOBAL ETPs ($ in millions) Beginning of period assets $ 77,471 $ 72,774 $ 73,935 $ 69,527 $ 67,383 Inflows/(outflows) 1,314 1,908 547 932 1,268 Market appreciation/(depreciation) 618 2,804 (1,708 ) 3,480 876 Fund closures — (15 ) — (4 ) — End of period assets $ 79,403 $ 77,471 $ 72,774 $ 73,935 $ 69,527 Average assets during the period $ 77,813 $ 75,986 $ 74,544 $ 73,615 $ 69,570 Average advisory fee during the period 0.40 % 0.40 % 0.41 % 0.40 % 0.41 % Revenue days 90 92 92 91 90 Number of ETFs—end of the period 341 329 322 318 313 U.S. LISTED ETFs ($ in millions) Beginning of period assets $ 48,210 $ 44,742 $ 45,129 $ 42,163 $ 38,517 Inflows/(outflows) 2,250 1,865 612 1,130 1,343 Market appreciation/(depreciation) (1,838 ) 1,618 (999 ) 1,836 2,303 Fund closures — (15 ) — — — End of period assets $ 48,622 $ 48,210 $ 44,742 $ 45,129 $ 42,163 Average assets during the period $ 47,506 $ 46,944 $ 45,506 $ 44,183 $ 40,706 Number of ETFs—end of the period 77 75 73 73 68 EUROPEAN LISTED ETPs ($ in millions) Beginning of period assets $ 29,261 $ 28,032 $ 28,806 $ 27,364 $ 28,866 Inflows/(outflows) (936 ) 43 (65 ) (198 ) (75 ) Market appreciation/(depreciation) 2,456 1,186 (709 ) 1,644 (1,427 ) Fund closures — — — (4 ) — End of period assets $ 30,781 $ 29,261 $ 28,032 $ 28,806 $ 27,364 Average assets during the period $ 30,307 $ 29,042 $ 29,038 $ 29,432 $ 28,864 Number of ETPs—end of the period 264 254 249 245 245 PRODUCT CATEGORIES ($ in millions) Commodity & Currency Beginning of period assets $ 24,598 $ 23,825 $ 24,772 $ 23,656 $ 25,880 Inflows/(outflows) (1,058 ) (246 ) (249 ) (318 ) (672 ) Market appreciation/(depreciation) 2,761 1,019 (698 ) 1,434 (1,552 ) End of period assets $ 26,301 $ 24,598 $ 23,825 $ 24,772 $ 23,656 Average assets during the period $ 25,893 $ 24,423 $ 24,850 $ 25,550 $ 25,290 U.S. Equity Beginning of period assets $ 23,860 $ 21,383 $ 21,285 $ 20,019 $ 18,367 Inflows/(outflows) 779 784 351 191 218 Market appreciation/(depreciation) (901 ) 1,693 (253 ) 1,075 1,434 End of period assets $ 23,738 $ 23,860 $ 21,383 $ 21,285 $ 20,019 Average assets during the period $ 23,141 $ 22,964 $ 21,791 $ 20,982 $ 19,320 International Developed Market Equity Beginning of period assets $ 11,888 $ 11,174 $ 10,785 $ 9,984 $ 9,406 Inflows/(outflows) 97 440 403 399 17 Market appreciation/(depreciation) (566 ) 274 (14 ) 402 561 End of period assets $ 11,419 $ 11,888 $ 11,174 $ 10,785 $ 9,984 Average assets during the period $ 11,539 $ 11,518 $ 11,140 $ 10,520 $ 9,786 Three Months Ended Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar. 31, 2021 Emerging Market Equity Beginning of period assets $ 10,375 $ 10,666 $ 11,519 $ 10,477 $ 8,539 Inflows/(outflows) 189 (3 ) (149 ) 530 1,663 Market appreciation/(depreciation) (573 ) (288 ) (704 ) 512 275 End of period assets $ 9,991 $ 10,375 $ 10,666 $ 11,519 $ 10,477 Average assets during the period $ 10,116 $ 10,550 $ 11,038 $ 11,012 $ 9,875 Fixed Income Beginning of period assets $ 4,354 $ 3,528 $ 3,439 $ 3,244 $ 3,308 Inflows/(outflows) 1,242 837 115 168 10 Market appreciation/(depreciation) (178 ) (11 ) (26 ) 27 (74 ) End of period assets $ 5,418 $ 4,354 $ 3,528 $ 3,439 $ 3,244 Average assets during the period $ 4,690 $ 4,117 $ 3,500 $ 3,335 $ 3,234 Leveraged & Inverse Beginning of period assets $ 1,775 $ 1,663 $ 1,691 $ 1,519 $ 1,477 Inflows/(outflows) (2 ) 11 41 (2 ) (4 ) Market appreciation/(depreciation) 83 101 (69 ) 174 46 End of period assets $ 1,856 $ 1,775 $ 1,663 $ 1,691 $ 1,519 Average assets during the period $ 1,830 $ 1,761 $ 1,715 $ 1,664 $ 1,554 Cryptocurrency Beginning of period assets $ 357 $ 295 $ 229 $ 377 $ 167 Inflows/(outflows) 37 28 12 8 36 Market appreciation/(depreciation) (11 ) 34 54 (156 ) 174 End of period assets $ 383 $ 357 $ 295 $ 229 $ 377 Average assets during the period $ 324 $ 406 $ 277 $ 300 $ 264 Alternatives Beginning of period assets $ 261 $ 222 $ 198 $ 227 $ 215 Inflows/(outflows) 29 56 22 (39 ) — Market appreciation/(depreciation) 3 (17 ) 2 10 12 End of period assets $ 293 $ 261 $ 222 $ 198 $ 227 Average assets during the period $ 275 $ 229 $ 214 $ 231 $ 223 Closed ETPs Beginning of period assets $ 3 $ 18 $ 17 $ 24 $ 24 Inflows/(outflows) 1 1 1 (5 ) — Market appreciation/(depreciation) — (1 ) — 2 — Fund closures — (15 ) — (4 ) — End of period assets $ 4 $ 3 $ 18 $ 17 $ 24 Average assets during the period $ 5 $ 18 $ 19 $ 21 $ 24 Headcount 253 241 235 227 227 Note: Previously issued statistics may be restated due to fund closures and trade adjustments Source: WisdomTree WISDOMTREE INVESTMENTS, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (in thousands, except per share amounts) Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 (Unaudited) ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 110,395 $ 140,709 Securities owned, at fair value 133,846 127,166 Accounts receivable 35,191 31,864 Prepaid expenses 6,177 3,952 Income taxes receivable 244 — Other current assets 327 276 Total current assets 286,180 303,967 Fixed assets, net 559 557 Indemnification receivable 1,452 21,925 Securities held-to-maturity 290 308 Deferred tax assets, net 3,734 8,881 Investments 20,938 14,238 Right of use assets—operating leases 424 520 Goodwill 85,856 85,856 Intangible assets 601,247 601,247 Other noncurrent assets 357 361 Total assets $ 1,001,037 $ 1,037,860 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY LIABILITIES Current liabilities: Fund management and administration payable $ 23,795 $ 20,661 Compensation and benefits payable 8,986 32,782 Deferred consideration—gold payments 17,882 16,739 Operating lease liabilities 244 209 Income taxes payable — 3,979 Accounts payable and other liabilities 15,979 9,297 Total current liabilities 66,886 83,667 Convertible notes 319,269 318,624 Deferred consideration—gold payments 227,295 211,323 Operating lease liabilities 189 328 Other noncurrent liabilities 1,452 21,925 Total liabilities 615,091 635,867 Preferred stock—Series A Non-Voting Convertible, par value $0.01; 14.750 shares authorized, issued and outstanding 132,569 132,569 STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY Common stock, par value $0.01; 250,000 shares authorized: Issued and outstanding: 146,560 and 145,107 at March 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, respectively 1,466 1,451 Additional paid-in capital 284,421 289,736 Accumulated other comprehensive income 196 682 Accumulated deficit (32,706 ) (22,445 ) Total stockholders’ equity 253,377 269,424 Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity $ 1,001,037 $ 1,037,860 WISDOMTREE INVESTMENTS, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (in thousands) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended Mar. 31, 2022 Mar. 31, 2021 ( 3 ) Cash flows from operating activities: Net (loss)/income $ (10,261 ) $ 15,147 Adjustments to reconcile net (loss)/income to net cash (used in)/provided by operating activities: Loss/(gain) on revaluation of deferred consideration—gold payments 17,018 (2,832 ) Advisory and license fees paid in gold, other precious metals and cryptocurrency (16,052 ) (19,757 ) Deferred income taxes 5,273 2,904 Losses on securities owned, at fair value 5,142 549 Contractual gold payments 4,450 4,270 Stock-based compensation 2,936 3,143 Amortization of issuance costs—convertible notes 645 429 Amortization of right of use asset 89 697 Depreciation and amortization 47 252 Impairments — 303 Other 163 (235 ) Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable (3,710 ) 290 Prepaid expenses (2,264 ) (362 ) Gold and other precious metals 11,959 14,166 Other assets (52 ) 5 Fund management and administration payable 3,199 (1,470 ) Compensation and benefits payable (23,690 ) (14,245 ) Income taxes receivable/payable (4,228 ) (1,028 ) Operating lease liabilities (97 ) (918 ) Accounts payable and other liabilities 6,741 982 Net cash (used in)/provided by operating activities (2,692 ) 2,290 Cash flows from investing activities: Purchase of securities owned, at fair value (25,461 ) (1,657 ) Purchase of investments (6,863 ) (5,500 ) Purchase of fixed assets (54 ) (103 ) Proceeds from the sale of securities owned, at fair value 13,639 1,232 Proceeds from held-to-maturity securities maturing or called prior to maturity 18 38 Net cash used in investing activities (18,721 ) (5,990 ) Cash flows from financing activities: Dividends paid (4,842 ) (4,937 ) Shares repurchased (3,394 ) (2,630 ) Proceeds from exercise of stock options — 379 Net cash used in financing activities (8,236 ) (7,188 ) Decrease in cash flow due to changes in foreign exchange rate (665 ) (235 ) Net decrease in cash and cash equivalents (30,314 ) (11,123 ) Cash and cash equivalents—beginning of period 140,709 73,425 Cash and cash equivalents—end of period $ 110,395 $ 62,302 Supplemental disclosure of cash flow information: Cash paid for taxes $ 2,123 $ 1,278 Cash paid for interest $ — $ — Non-GAAP Financial Measurements In an effort to provide additional information regarding our results as determined by GAAP, we also disclose certain non-GAAP information which we believe provides useful and meaningful information. Our management reviews these non-GAAP financial measurements when evaluating our financial performance and results of operations; therefore, we believe it is useful to provide information with respect to these non-GAAP measurements so as to share this perspective of management. Non-GAAP measurements do not have any standardized meaning, do not replace nor are superior to GAAP financial measurements and are unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. These non-GAAP financial measurements should be considered in the context with our GAAP results. The non-GAAP financial measurements contained in this press release include: Adjusted Operating Income, Operating Expenses, Income Before Income Taxes, Income Tax Expense, Net Income and Diluted Earnings per Share We disclose adjusted operating income, operating expenses, income before income taxes, income tax expense, net income and diluted earnings per share as non-GAAP financial measurements in order to report our results exclusive of items that are non-recurring or not core to our operating business. We believe presenting these non-GAAP financial measurements provides investors with a consistent way to analyze our performance. These non-GAAP financial measurements exclude the following: Unrealized gains or losses on the revaluation of deferred consideration: Deferred consideration is an obligation we assumed in connection with the ETFS acquisition that is carried at fair value. This item represents the present value of an obligation to pay fixed ounces of gold into perpetuity and is measured using forward-looking gold prices. Changes in the forward-looking price of gold and changes in the discount rate used to compute the present value of the annual payment obligations may have a material impact on the carrying value of the deferred consideration and our reported financial results. We exclude this item when calculating our non-GAAP financial measurements as it is not core to our operating business. The item is not adjusted for income taxes as the obligation was assumed by a wholly-owned subsidiary of ours that is based in Jersey, a jurisdiction where we are subject to a zero percent tax rate. Gains or losses on securities owned: We account for our securities owned as trading securities which requires these instruments to be measured at fair value with gains and losses reported in net income. In the third quarter of 2021, we began excluding these items when calculating our non-GAAP financial measurements as these securities have become a more meaningful percentage of total assets and the gains and losses introduce volatility in earnings and are not core to our operating business. Tax windfalls and shortfalls upon vesting and exercise of stock-based compensation awards: GAAP requires the recognition of tax windfalls and shortfalls within income tax expense. These items arise upon the vesting and exercise of stock-based compensation awards and the magnitude is directly correlated to the number of awards vesting/exercised as well as the difference between the price of our stock on the date the award was granted and the date the award vested or was exercised. We exclude these items when calculating our non-GAAP financial measurements as they introduce volatility in earnings and are not core to our operating business. Other items: Unrealized gains and losses recognized on our investments, changes in the deferred tax asset valuation allowance on securities owned, expenses incurred in response to the activist campaign, impairment charges and the remeasurement of contingent consideration payable to us from the sale of our Canadian ETF business. Adjusted Effective Income Tax Rate We disclose our adjusted effective income tax rate as a non-GAAP financial measurement in order to report our effective income tax rate exclusive of items that are non-recurring or not core to our operating business. We believe reporting our adjusted effective income tax rate provides investors with a consistent way to analyze our income taxes. Our adjusted effective income tax rate is calculated by dividing adjusted income tax expense by adjusted income before income taxes. See above for information regarding the items that are excluded. Gross Margin and Gross Margin Percentage We disclose our gross margin and gross margin percentage as non-GAAP financial measurements because we believe they provide investors with a consistent way to analyze the amount we retain after paying third-party service providers to operate our ETPs. These measures also assist us in analyzing the profitability of our products. We define gross margin as total operating revenues less fund management and administration expenses. Gross margin percentage is calculated as gross margin divided by total operating revenues. WISDOMTREE INVESTMENTS, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES GAAP to NON-GAAP RECONCILIATION (CONSOLIDATED) (in thousands) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended Adjusted Net Income and Diluted Earnings per Share: Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar. 31, 2021 Net (loss)/income, as reported $ (10,261 ) $ 11,187 $ 5,833 $ 17,630 $ 15,147 Add back/Deduct: Loss/(gain) on revaluation of deferred consideration 17,018 3,048 (1,737 ) (497 ) (2,832 ) Add back: Increase in deferred tax asset valuation allowance on securities owned 2,010 — — — — Add back: Losses on securities owned, net of income taxes 3,893 1,501 1,006 — — Add back: Expenses incurred in response to the activist campaign, net of income taxes 1,844 — — — — Deduct/Add back: Tax (windfalls)/shortfalls upon vesting and exercise of stock-based compensation awards (565 ) — — (233 ) 123 Add back/Deduct: Unrealized loss/(gain) recognized on our investments, net of income taxes 124 — — (105 ) (179 ) Add back: Impairments, net of income taxes (where applicable) — — 12,002 — 245 Deduct: Remeasurement of contingent consideration – sale of Canadian ETF business — — (787 ) — — Adjusted net income $ 14,063 $ 15,736 $ 16,317 $ 16,795 $ 12,504 Weighted average common shares - diluted 158,335 159,826 159,213 164,855 161,831 Adjusted earnings per share - diluted $ 0.09 $ 0.10 $ 0.10 $ 0.10 $ 0.08 Three Months Ended Gross Margin and Gross Margin Percentage: Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar. 31, 2021 Operating revenues $ 78,368 $ 79,175 $ 78,112 $ 75,775 $ 71,256 Less: Fund management and administration (15,494 ) (15,417 ) (15,181 ) (14,367 ) (13,947 ) Gross margin $ 62,874 $ 63,758 $ 62,931 $ 61,408 $ 57,309 Gross margin percentage 80.2 % 80.5 % 80.6 % 81.0 % 80.4 % Three Months Ended Adjusted Operating Income and Adjusted Operating Income Margin: Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar. 31, 2021 Operating revenues $ 78,368 $ 79,175 $ 78,112 $ 75,775 $ 71,256 Operating income $ 17,689 $ 22,563 $ 24,203 $ 23,685 $ 18,607 Add back: Expenses incurred in response to the activist campaign 2,435 — — — — Adjusted operating income $ 20,124 $ 22,563 $ 24,203 $ 23,685 $ 18,607 Adjusted operating income margin 25.7 % 28.5 % 31.0 % 31.3 % 26.1 % Three Months Ended Adjusted Total Operating Expenses: Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar. 31, 2021 Total operating expenses $ 60,679 $ 56,612 $ 53,909 $ 52,090 $ 52,649 Deduct: Expenses incurred in response to the activist campaign (2,435 ) — — — — Adjusted total operating expenses $ 58,244 $ 56,612 $ 53,909 $ 52,090 $ 52,649 Three Months Ended Adjusted Income Before Income Taxes: Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar. 31, 2021 (Loss)/income before income taxes $ (26,974 ) $ 15,271 $ 6,333 $ 21,889 $ 13,178 Add back/ Deduct: Loss/(gain) on revaluation of deferred consideration 17,018 3,048 (1,737 ) (497 ) (2,832 ) Add back: Loss recognized upon reduction of a tax-related indemnification asset 19,890 — — — 5,171 Add back: Losses on securities owned 5,142 1,649 1,329 — — Add back: Expenses incurred in response to the activist campaign 2,435 — — — — Add back/(Deduct): Unrealized loss/(gain) recognized on investments 163 — — (139 ) (237 ) Add back: Impairments — — 15,853 — 303 Deduct: Remeasurement of contingent consideration – sale of Canadian ETF business — — (787 ) — — Adjusted income before income taxes $ 17,674 $ 19,968 $ 20,991 $ 21,253 $ 15,583 Three Months Ended Adjusted Income Tax Expense and Adjusted Effective Income Tax Rate: Mar. 31, 2022 Dec. 31, 2021 Sept. 30, 2021 June 30, 2021 Mar 31, 2021 Adjusted income before income taxes (above) $ 17,674 $ 19,968 $ 20,991 $ 21,253 $ 15,583 Income tax (benefit)/expense $ (16,713 ) $ 4,084 $ 500 $ 4,259 $ (1,969 ) Add back: Tax benefit arising from reduction of a tax-related indemnification asset 19,890 — — — 5,171 Deduct: Increase in deferred tax asset valuation allowance on securities owned (2,010 ) — — — — Add back: Tax benefit arising from losses on securities owned 1,249 148 323 — — Add back: Tax benefit arising from expenses incurred in response to the activist campaign 591 — — — — Add back/(Deduct): Tax benefit/(expense) on unrealized losses and gains on investments 39 — — (34 ) (58 ) Add back: Tax benefit arising from impairments — — 3,851 — 58 Add back/(Deduct): Tax windfalls/(shortfalls) upon vesting and exercise of stock-based compensation awards 565 — — 233 (123 ) Adjusted income tax expense $ 3,611 $ 4,232 $ 4,674 $ 4,458 $ 3,079 Adjusted effective income tax rate 20.4 % 21.2 % 22.3 % 21.0 % 19.8 % Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements relate to future events or our future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” “continue” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. These statements are only predictions. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which are, in some cases, beyond our control and which could materially affect results. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, the risks described below. If one or more of these or other risks or uncertainties occur, or if our underlying assumptions prove to be incorrect, actual events or results may vary significantly from those implied or projected by the forward-looking statements. No forward-looking statement is a guarantee of future performance. You should read this press release completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. In particular, forward-looking statements in this press release may include statements about the ultimate duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, or the war in Ukraine, and its short-term and long-term impact on our business and the global economy; anticipated trends, conditions and investor sentiment in the global markets and ETPs; anticipated levels of inflows into and outflows out of our ETPs; our ability to deliver favorable rates of return to investors; competition in our business; whether we will experience future growth; our ability to develop new products and services and their success; our ability to maintain current vendors or find new vendors to provide services to us at favorable costs; our ability to successfully implement our digital assets strategy, including WisdomTree Prime™, and achieve its objectives; our ability to successfully operate and expand our business in non-U.S. markets; and the effect of laws and regulations that apply to our business. Our business is subject to many risks and uncertainties, including without limitation: adverse market developments arising from the COVID-19 pandemic could negatively impact our assets under management, resulting in a decline in our revenues and other potential operational challenges; declining prices of securities, gold and other precious metals and other commodities can adversely affect our business by reducing the market value of the assets we manage or causing WisdomTree ETP investors to sell their fund shares and trigger redemptions; fluctuations in the amount and mix of our AUM, whether caused by disruptions in the financial markets or otherwise, including but not limited to a pandemic event such as COVID-19, or the war in Ukraine, may negatively impact revenues and operating margins, and may impede our ability to refinance our debt upon maturity or, increase the cost of borrowing upon a refinancing; competitive pressures could reduce revenues and profit margins; we derive a substantial portion of our revenues from a limited number of products, and as a result, our operating results are particularly exposed to investor sentiment toward investing in the products’ strategies and our ability to maintain the AUM of these products, as well as the performance of these products and market-specific and political and economic risk; a significant portion of our AUM is held in products with exposure to U.S. and international developed markets and we therefore have exposure to domestic and foreign market conditions and are subject to currency exchange rate risks; withdrawals or broad changes in investments in our ETPs by investors with significant positions may negatively impact revenues and operating margins; over the last few years, we have expanded our business internationally. This expansion subjects us to increased operational, regulatory, financial and other risks; many of our ETPs have a limited track record, and poor investment performance could cause our revenues to decline; we depend on third parties to provide many critical services to operate our business and our ETPs. The failure of key vendors to adequately provide such services could materially affect our operating business and harm WisdomTree ETP investors; and actions of activist stockholders, such as the Investor Group, against us have been costly and may be disruptive and cause uncertainty about the strategic direction of our business. Other factors, such as general economic conditions, including currency exchange rate fluctuations, also may have an effect on the results of our operations. For a more complete description of the risks noted above and other risks that could cause our actual results to differ from our current expectations, see “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021. The forward-looking statements in this press release represent our views as of the date of this press release. We anticipate that subsequent events and developments may cause our views to change. However, while we may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we have no current intention of doing so except to the extent required by applicable law. Therefore, these forward-looking statements do not represent our views as of any date other than the date of this press release. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 34059.27, 30296.95, 31022.91, 28936.36, 29047.75, 29283.10, 30101.27, 31305.11, 29862.92, 30425.86
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 2018-03-13] BTC Price: 9194.85, BTC RSI: 42.10 Gold Price: 1325.90, Gold RSI: 50.70 Oil Price: 60.71, Oil RSI: 44.59 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Warren Buffett on Tax Reform: It's no secret that the recently passed corporate tax cut will have a positive impact on the profits of many American corporations. Warren Buffett-led conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) is no exception. In fact, Berkshire is likely to benefit more than most. Buffett, however, isn't necessarily a big fan of the new corporate tax cuts, or on the lower tax brackets that will be imposed on the highest earners. Here's a rundown of how Buffett thinks the tax-reform bill will affect the stock market, why it probably won't help everyday Americans too much, and what tax changes he would or would not have made. Warren Buffett speaking to reporters. Image swource: Getty Images. The corporate tax cut will be great for investors The stock market delivered excellent returns in 2017 and rallied in the weeks leading up to tax reform. And the first week and a half of 2018 have been the best start to a year for stock market performance in over 30 years. However, Buffett doesn't think the tax cut is priced in just yet. "I think 21% was not baked in. That's a huge reduction," Buffett told CNBC in a recent interview. Buffett explained the impact of the tax cut on stock valuation like this. "You had this major change in the silent stockholder, the U.S. government, in American business who has been content with 35%, and now instead of getting a 35% interest in the earnings, they get 21%, and that makes the remaining stock more valuable." In other words, with a 35% corporate tax rate, businesses effectively "owned" 65% of their profits. Now with a 21% corporate tax rate, they get to keep 79%. That's a big difference. Berkshire should get a nice boost from tax reform. Analysts from Barclays estimate that the company's book value increased by $37 billion instantly because of tax reform, and that the company's operating earning power could rise by 12% on an ongoing basis. But don't expect the tax cuts to benefit everyday Americans While Buffett acknowledges that Berkshire's bottom line will be helped by the new tax law, and he predicts the stock market is likely to rise, that doesn't mean he thinks the GOP's tax-reform bill is in the best interest of the American public. Story continues Buffett recently wrote an article for Time magazine in which he explained why trickle-down economics doesn't really work. The whole idea behind the GOP's tax-reform bill is that the massive tax cut for corporations will "trickle down" to the American public in the form of more jobs and higher wages. And the early indications are that this is somewhat true -- several high-profile companies announced bonuses for their workers or higher minimum wages in the wake of the legislation. However, Buffett points out that historically, trickle-down economics hasn't had the promised effect. He gives the example of the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans. Between the first version of the list in 1982 and today, the wealth of the top 400 has multiplied by a factor of 29, from $93 billion to $2.7 trillion. Buffett says that at the same time, "many hardworking citizens remained stuck on an economic treadmill." He added: "During this period, the tsunami of wealth didn't trickle down. It surged upward." And Buffett doesn't think the massive corporate tax cut was necessary It's true that the 35% corporate tax rate in the U.S. was at the higher end of the spectrum among industrialized nations around the world. And cutting corporate taxes wasn't just a GOP idea -- in fact, former President Obama expressed his support for a 28% corporate tax rate, which would have been a significant, but not dramatic, cut all by itself. In a 2017 CNBC interview, Buffett said such a drastic cut wasn't necessary. "We [at Berkshire Hathaway] have a lot of businesses," he said. "I don't think any of them are non-competitive in the world because of the corporate tax rate." Rich people don't pay enough, Buffett included It may surprise you to learn that Buffett thinks the rich, for the most part, don't pay enough taxes . And he's got a point. According to a White House report, the 400 richest American households paid less than 23% of their income in taxes in 2013, and about one-fourth of millionaires pay a lower effective tax rate than average middle-income household. Buffett, who actively campaigned for Hillary Clinton, has said many times that the wealthiest Americans, including himself, are not paying enough taxes, and there was even a tax change proposed by President Obama named after him. In a nutshell, the Buffett Rule would apply a minimum 30% tax rate on individuals making more than $1 million per year, which would affect roughly 0.3% of all taxpayers. To sum it up While Buffett thinks investors will benefit from the corporate tax cut, he doesn't seem convinced that middle-income Americans will benefit as well. Buffett doesn't think a massive tax cut for corporations was necessary, and if he had his way, he probably would have shifted tax rates on the rich in the other direction, or limited deductions for the wealthy. 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 Frankel owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Shares of Barrick Gold Plunged 20% in February: What happened Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX) dropped 20% last month, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence . The stock's slide stands in stark contrast to the price of gold's 2.9% rise through the month -- a noteworthy observation, since the price movements of gold stocks often follow movements in the price of gold. Although the company reported fiscal 2017 earnings per share of $1.23 -- a 120% increase over the $0.56 it reported in fiscal 2016 -- it couldn't outshine the pockmarks in the earnings report and fiscal 2018 guidance. Let's dig in deeper to find the sources of investors' disappointment. Gold ore on a stone floor. Image source: Getty Images. So what Whereas the company, in fiscal 2016, exceeded gold production guidance, it failed to achieve the same feat in fiscal 2017. Reporting gold production of 5.32 million ounces in fiscal 2017, Barrick came up short of the forecast, 5.6 million ounces to 5.9 million ounces, which it had forecast in February 2017. Management cited its sale of a 50% stake in the Veladero mine and Tanzania's concentrate export ban as the primary causes of the lackluster performance. Looking ahead, investors found more cause for concern. Initially, management forecast fiscal 2018 gold production between 4.8 million ounces and 5.3 million ounces; however, citing lower production at its operations in Nevada, Pueblo Viejo, and Veladero, management now expects gold production of 4.5 million to 5 million ounces. In addition to digging the yellow stuff out of the ground, the company's challenges in controlling costs disappointed investors. For fiscal 2017, Barrick reported that all-in sustaining costs (AISC) rose approximately 3% year over year to $750 per gold ounce. Although this is well within the guidance of $720 to $770 per gold ounce issued a year ago, the future seems a lot less lustrous. Management estimates that average annual AISC for fiscal 2019 through fiscal 2022 will be $750 to $875 per ounce. Besides lower gold production at the previously mentioned mines, management credits the increased processing of higher-cost inventory and higher costs at Acacia as reasons for the expected rise in AISC. Story continues Now what The stock's drop in February, presumably, would have been more precipitous had it not been for some bright spots in the earnings report. The company, for example, generated $2.07 billion in operating cash flow and lowered its total debt to $6.4 billion -- a 19% reduction from the $7.91 billion on its balance sheet at the end of fiscal 2016. Although the earnings report was mixed, Barrick still remains one of the more compelling opportunities for investors interested in gold-mining stocks. Gold production and AISC are merely two aspects of the company's business. Management's commitment to shoring up its balance sheet, for example, represents a green flag. The Street agrees. Illustrating its confidence in the company's future, Moody's recently upgraded Barrick's senior unsecured ratings from Baa3 to Baa2 with a stable outlook. 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 Scott Levine has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Moody's. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Starbucks Talks China, Digital, and Food: Starbucks(NASDAQ: SBUX)stock finished Friday trading about 4% lower after the company'sfirst-quarter results for fiscal 2018missed expectations. Bearish sentiment toward the stock was likely due to the company's worse-than-expected revenue and comparable store sales growth. First-quarter revenue was $6.07 billion, up 6% year over year. On average, analysts were expecting revenue of $6.18 billion. Global comp store sales increased 2%, short of expectations for a 3% rise. But there was more to Starbucks' first quarter than its lower-than-expected revenue and comp store growth. During the company'sfirst-quarter earnings call, Starbucks shared some insightful perspective on its important China market, its digital efforts, and food sales. Here are some key quotes from the call. Image source: Starbucks. Starbucks' comp sales growth of 2% may have been below what analysts were expecting, but this performance shouldn't cause investors to overlook the company's growth engine that remained strong during the quarter: China. Investors have good reason to be keenly interested in Starbucks' performance in China. Not only is it the company's second-largest market after the U.S., but China is consistently the coffee company's fastest-growing market. This rapid growth continued in Q1, with China comp store sales increasing 6%. The boost was "driven entirely by increased transactions and 30% revenue growth," said Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson. Thanks to expectations for massive GDP growth and ongoing digital efforts to boost sales in the market, Starbucks believes China will become the company's most important segment in the future, Johnson said. The growing relevance and success of our international business and, specifically, our business in China, has emerged as a growth driver that is rapidly moving us beyond our long-standing dependence on our U.S. business for needle-moving growth. Johnson noted that Starbucks middle class is expected to reach 600 million by 2021 -- twice the size of the U.S. Highlighting the incredible growth in its digital adoption in China, the CEO cited a threefold year-over-year increase in e-commerce and social gifting in the market to $20 million during Q1. Starbucks said "strong digital performance" was one of its highlights during the quarter. Specifically, Johnson said: We added 1.4 million active Starbucks Rewards members in the U.S., up 11% year-over-year and now have 14.2 million active members. Mobile payment in the U.S. has grown to over 30% of total tender. Image source: Starbucks. Looking ahead, Starbucks plans to "materially expand" its digitally connected Starbucks customers beyond its Rewards members. Indeed, by the end of fiscal 2018, Starbucks said it expects to have "millions of incremental digital relationships outside of Starbucks Rewards." So, investors should look for updates on this progress throughout fiscal 2018. Food has been a key driver for Starbucks business -- not just in the U.S., but also globally. In China, for instance, management said its comp growth in the market was driven by strong performance in both beverages and food. Image source: Starbucks. And management insists there are big incremental opportunities for food on the horizon. For example, Starbucks opened its Princi Bakery and Cafe in its Seattle Roastery in November and saw significant success, Johnson explained: The artistic nature and high quality Princi baked goods are resonating loudly with our customers and we see a major opportunity to increase sales of Princi food beyond Roasteries. We are now venturing into building stand-alone Princi Bakeries, complete with Starbucks Reserve coffee and coffee bars. Of course, Starbucks Roasteries and Princi bakeries are far in between. But this hasn't stopped management from getting excited about the opportunity. Johnson continued: We currently have four Roasteries under construction and the potential opportunity for Princi Bakeries with Reserve coffee over the next decade. The opportunity is significant as we're off to an excellent beginning to what we believe is an emerging food revenue and profit stream over time. Despite strong performance in China and robust opportunity in the digital and food, investors should still take the time to consider the implications of Starbucks' worse-than-expected comp store growth, as it's global comp store growth that ultimately speaks to the health of the company's global business. Still, China, digital, and food could all prove to be meaningful drivers for comp store growth over the long haul, so investors should keep an eye on these factors, too. Related Video: Watch original series, sports, and more ongo90. 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 Daniel Sparkshas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Starbucks. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || This 11% Yielder Just Became a Bit Less Risky: With a yield north of 11% and a dirt-cheap valuation, Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) offers mouth-watering reward potential . With an enormous debt load and a massive backlog of expansion projects to finance, though, the risk is just as big as the reward. As a result, Energy Transfer Partners isn't for the faint of heart. That said, after agreeing to sell its natural gas compression business to USA Compression Partners (NYSE: USAC) for $1.8 billion, it has taken another small step toward reducing its risk. While it's not in the clear just yet, the move does make it a bit less likely that the company will ultimately need to reduce its lucrative distribution to investors. A dial with segments from green to red to symbolize risk. Energy Transfer dialed back its risk a little bit with this deal. Image source: Getty Images. Drilling down into the deal Energy Transfer Partners plans to sell its entire natural gas compression services business to USA Compression Partners. The business, which compresses natural gas to a smaller volume resulting in higher pressure, enables higher-pressure gas to flow through pipelines to end markets. In exchange, Energy Transfer Partners will receive $1.225 billion in cash along with 19.2 million of USA Compression Partners' common units and another 6.4 million Class B units, which won't pay cash distributions for the first year after closing when they will then convert to common units. In addition, Energy Transfer's parent company, Energy Transfer Equity (NYSE: ETE) , will acquire the general partner of USA Compression as well as 12.5 million common units for $250 million in cash. That cash infusion will enable Energy Transfer Partners to pay down some of its debt, which stood at $33.6 billion at the end of the third quarter, resulting in an elevated leverage ratio of 4.92 times debt to EBITDA . While that's down from a concerning 5.74 times at the start of last year, it's still quite a distance from the company's 4.0 times target, though this deal does take it one step closer. Meanwhile, in addition to that cash infusion, Energy Transfer will receive cash distributions from USA Compression on the units it gets this year, with more cash flowing its way starting in 2019 when the Class B units convert. Story continues A set of compressors, pipelines and natural gas distribution centers in a rural area. Image source: Getty Images. What still needs to happen before this payout is back on solid ground While this transaction will help chip away at Energy Transfer's debt, it won't completely solve all the company's problems. One of the biggest in the near term is finding funding for its current slate of expansions -- $10 billion worth of growth projects are expected to go into service by early next year. While it has prefunded a majority of its capital needs this year, it still has to bridge the rest of that gap, which it can't do with debt given its elevated leverage ratio. In addition to navigating that tight financial situation, the company is one of the few remaining master limited partnerships still paying costly incentive distribution rights (IDRs) to its parent company. That said, Energy Transfer has repeatedly said that it has no plans to undertake an internal restructuring transaction with Energy Transfer Equity until late 2019. That leaves nearly two years of uncertainty on how the company will ultimately address the situation, with many investors fearing that a future transaction will eventually result in a distribution cut given its currently tight coverage ratio. Another positive step Energy Transfer Partners continues to take the steps needed to shore up its financial situation, with the USA Compression Partners transaction being the latest move forward. However, it still has much farther to go before its balance sheet will be back on solid ground, and it needs to figure out how best to address those costly IDRs. Until it deals with both issues, this high yield remains too risky, especially when there are safer options out there . 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 . || Is Enbridge Inc. a Buy in 2018?: Energy infrastructure giant Enbridge (NYSE: ENB) is coming off a down year, with its shares dipping 7% even though the market was red-hot. While the energy sector underperformed last year, Enbridge's slump was mainly because its available cash flow from operations (ACFFO) per share was on pace to end the year 8% below 2016's level -- but that's also because the company issued a boatload of new shares to buy Spectra Energy as well as finance expansion projects. Those growth initiatives should start paying off in 2018, with Enbridge expecting ACFFO per share to rebound 15% this year. Consequently, its stock is dirt cheap right now, which is one of the many reasons Enbridge looks like a compelling buy for 2018. Two men holding signs with arrows pointing up and down with buy and sell written above them. Image source: Getty Images. A great dividend with more to come One of the attractions for investors is Enbridge's dividend, which at 4.7%, is well above average. However, what's even more critical is its safety, which is where Enbridge's payout shines. After all, the company generates very predictable cash flow since 96% of its earnings come from fee-based contracts or similar rate structures. Meanwhile, it only pays out about 65% of its cash in support of the dividend, which is a conservative level for a pipeline company. For comparison's sake, rival Targa Resources (NYSE: TRGP) only gets about 66% of its earnings from stable sources and yet pays out just about everything that comes in to support its 7.1% dividend yield. That puts Targa at high risk of having to reduce its payout if cash flow dives as a result of plunging commodity prices. That said, as good as Enbridge's dividend is right now, it's only expected to get better in the coming years. The company completed 14 billion Canadian dollars ($11.4 billion) of growth projects last year and had another CA$22 billion ($17.8 billion) underway. These expansions should drive its ACFFO up 15% this year and by a 10% compound annual growth rate through 2020. That will enable an increase in its dividend at that same pace . For perspective, that matches the growth rate of fellow Canadian pipeline rival TransCanada (NYSE: TRP) , though with a 4.2% payout, investors can collect more income from Enbridge over that time frame. Story continues Pipes laid out for construction. Image source: Getty Images. A steadily growing income stream for an excellent price That said, what sets Enbridge apart from most other pipeline rivals is its valuation. With the stock currently trading at $39.50 apiece and given the expectation that the company can generate between CA$4.15 to CA$4.45 ($3.37 to $3.61) per share in ACFFO this year, it implies a valuation of 11.3 times cash flow. That makes it one of the cheapest pipeline stocks in the sector considering that the average one trades at about 14.9 times cash flow. In fact, despite much weaker financials, Targa Resources trades at 14 times cash flow while TransCanada sells for around 15 times even though it has similar metrics and growth prospects as Enbridge. That valuation discount doesn't make any sense. While the company does have an elevated leverage ratio of more than 5.0 times at the moment, that's because it has been financing a massive expansion project backlog. As those projects enter service, it should push that metric to a more comfortable level of less than 4.0 times by 2020. In fact, the company is planning to sell some non-core assets to help it get leverage down quicker. A good buy for 2018 and beyond After a down year in 2017, Enbridge is on pace to bounce back this year as recently completed expansion projects should bolster earnings. That catalyst could drive the stock much higher in 2018 and help push its valuation closer to the peer group average. That said, in addition to that bounce-back potential, Enbridge is on track to grow earnings and its already generous dividend by double digits over the next few years, which could potentially give it the fuel to deliver market-beating returns over that time frame. It's that combination of near-term upside and long-term potential for such an excellent price that makes Enbridge a stock to consider buying this 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 owns shares of Enbridge. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Enbridge. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Bitcoin 'creator' slapped with $10 billion lawsuit: Craig Wright, the Australian who has previously claimed to beBitcoincreatorSatoshi Nakamoto, is the subject of a multi billion dollar lawsuit. Wright is being sued by the estate of David Kleiman, who was thought to have co-created the cryptocurrency with the Australian. Kleiman passed away in 2013, but Kleiman's brother Ira claims that Wright somehow appropriated his former partner's bitcoin hoard. According toMotherboard, either Wright and Kleiman were involved in the creation of Bitcoin, or were there moments after the platform was created. Consequently, they apparently had access to mining tools at its earliest time, enabling them to rack up a small fortune in cryptocurrency. The pair are thought to have controlled anything up to 1.1 million BTC, although it's clear that nobody knows the figures for sure. The case itself centers on Wright's conduct shortly after Kleiman died in 2013, and Wright subsequently contacted Kleiman's elderly father. Wright stands accused of fraudulently claiming that David Kleiman had signed over ownership and control of W&K, a company Kleiman ran, to Wright. He supported this with documents that, as far as Ira Kleiman is concerned, were fraudulent, and signed with a fake signature. The lawsuit contends that the value of the contentious Bitcoin, and any associated intellectual property, is worth anything between $5 billion and $10 billion. It also claims that Wright once admitted that the signature used on the documents was computer-generated. The document also highlight's Wright's history of problems with theAustralian Tax Authoritiesthat included the back-dating of crucial documents. Wright himself is a colorful figure in the Bitcoin community, who made a name for himself when he"outed" himself as Nakamotoin 2016. After inviting theBBC, The EconomistandGQto a meeting, he produced evidence that he was in fact the creator of Bitcoin, verified by the Bitcoin foundation's Gavin Andresen. This claim wasthen torn to shreds by other researchers, whoclaimedthe purported evidence waspublicly-available. Days later, Wrightwithdrew his claim, saying that he lacked "the courage," to prove he was Nakamoto. In the subsequent fallout, Wright was subject to intensive scrutiny that painted the computer scientist as something of a fabulist. His Ph.D. credentials werefound to be questionable, and companies he claimed to have worked with professed tohaving never worked with himThe achievements on his LinkedIn profile weresubsequently erasedand questions remain as to whether he was the creator of Bitcoin, or simply had too much free time on his hands. || Here's What Will Impact This Apple Inc. Supplier's Profit Margins: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company(NYSE: TSM)recently talked about two big factors that the company expects will affect its gross profit margin percentage in 2018 relative to the levels that it saw during 2017. In this article, I will go over those factors and provide some additional explanation as to why they'll have the impact that TSMC expects them to. Image source: Apple. Chips are manufactured by etching patterns onto a silicon wafer using light. Much of the manufacturing cost of a finished wafer of chips is determined by the cost of the equipment that's used to perform all of the processing to transform a blank silicon wafer into a wafer full of chips, but the cost of that blank wafer is becoming an increasingly significant part of a chip's overall manufacturing cost. According to TSMC, the costs of those raw, unprocessed silicon wafers continues to grow as industrywide demand outstrips supply. The company says that wafer price increases negatively impacted its gross profit margin by 0.2% in 2017 and that it expects an additional impact of between a half a percentage point and a full percentage point in 2018. Although this might not seem like that big of a deal, the reality is that TSMC is expected to generate about $36 billion in revenue in 2018. The impact to the company's operating profit from the wafer price increases would be worth between $180 million and $360 million. That's not exactly the kind of thing that'll break TSMC's business, and it will likely affect all of TSMC's competitors (so TSMC won't be at a pricing disadvantage to the competition), but it's nonetheless an unfortunate development. On the bright side, TSMC CFO Lora Ho said that because it is such a large purchaser of silicon wafers (TSMC is the largest contract chip manufacturing company, after all), it has been able to negotiate long-term contracts with wafer suppliers that should allow TSMC to "be safe in terms of supply." Whenever TSMC brings a new manufacturing technology into production, that new manufacturing technology usually serves to dilute the company's overall gross profit margins for between seven and eight quarters. SinceApple(NASDAQ: AAPL)is expected to manufacture itsupcoming A12 processorexclusively using TSMC's 7-nanometer technology, and since Apple's order volumes are absolutely enormous (Apple ships more premium smartphones than any other company in the world), 7-nanometer shipments will quickly become a large part of TSMC's overall wafer shipments. Image source: Apple. This is driven significantly by the fact that new production technologies tend to be more difficult to manufacture than older ones, resulting in lower yield rates (the proportion of manufactured chips that ultimately proves salable) and ultimately fewer salable chips. As manufacturing yield rates improve over the life of the technology, the more valuable each processed wafer becomes to the buyer (since more of the chips on the wafer are usable). This ultimately means improved gross profit margins for TSMC for products built on that technology. Fortunately for TSMC, while the ramp-up of 7-nanometer technology will dilute its overall margins, the increasing maturity of the company's currently-in-production technologies (e.g., 28-nanometer, 20/16-nanometer, and10-nanometer) should serve to counterbalance the margin pressure. 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 Ashraf Eassahas 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. || International Paper (IP) Q4 Earnings: What's in the Offing?: Leading packaging and paper manufacturerInternational Paper CompanyIP is scheduled to report fourth-quarter 2017 results before the opening bell on Feb 1. The company is likely to report higher revenues in the quarter across most of the operating segments due to healthy growth dynamics.Whether this could result in higher earnings for the quarter remains to be seen.Top-Line ExpansionInternational Paper is continuing with its restructuring initiatives to transform itself into a core packaging company. The company is investing considerably to improve its North American containerboard mill system, enhance product quality and reduce manufacturing and delivery costs. These projects are expected to have a collective internal rate of return of 20%. At the same time, International Paper is divesting its non-core businesses to focus more resources on high-return capital projects in its core businesses that can drive additional earnings growth.Mergers and acquisitions also remain a key strategy for International Paper to strengthen its business in the long term. In North America, the company envisions a large opportunity within its Industrial Packaging business, which continues to generate the best margins in the industry. It is further taking initiatives to drive margin expansion across the business through inorganic growth.The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues from the Industrial Packaging segment, which accounts for the lion’s share of total revenues, is currently pegged at $3,774 million, up from $3,559 million generated in fourth-quarter 2016. Revenues from Consumer Packaging segment are expected to be $483 million compared with $464 million in the prior-year quarter. Total corporate revenues for the quarter are likely to be $5,942 million, up from $5,381 million in the year-earlier quarter.Other Key FactorsInternational Paper has huge pension obligations for substantially all U.S. salaried employees hired prior to Jul 1, 2004 and largely all hourly and union employees regardless of the hire date. Pension plan assets are primarily made up of equity and fixed income investments. Fluctuations in actual equity market returns, changes in general interest rates and in the number of retirees are likely to increase pension costs and reduce its cash flow, thereby limiting its earnings growth potential. Rising energy, chemical and old corrugated containers’ costs remain headwinds, particularly in harsh winter conditions.Our proven model does not conclusively shows that International Paper is likely to beat earnings this quarter as it does not possess the key components. A stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. This is not the case here as you will see below:Zacks ESP:Earnings ESP, which represents the difference between the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate, is 0.00% as both are currently pegged at $1.19. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. International Paper Company Price and EPS Surprise International Paper Company Price and EPS Surprise | International Paper Company Quote Zacks Rank:International Paper has a Zacks Rank #3. Although this increases the predictive power of ESP, we need to have a positive ESP to make us confident about an earnings beat.Note that we caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 or 5 (Sell-rated) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing a negative estimate revisions momentum.Stocks to ConsiderHere are some companies that you may want to consider, as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter:Apple Inc. AAPL has an Earnings ESP of +1.56% and a Zacks Rank #3.AmerisourceBergen Corporation ABC has an Earnings ESP of +1.50% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.American Financial Group, Inc. AFG has an Earnings ESP of +1.82% and a Zacks Rank #2.Don’t Even Think About Buying Bitcoin Until You Read ThisThe most popular cryptocurrency skyrocketed last year, giving some investors the chance to bank 20X returns or even more. Those gains, however, came with serious volatility and risk. Bitcoin sank 25% or more 3 times in 2017.Zacks has just released a new Special Report to help readers capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly.See 4 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 reportApple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAmerican Financial Group, Inc. (AFG) : Free Stock Analysis ReportInternational Paper Company (IP) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAmerisourceBergen Corporation (Holding Co) (ABC) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Why Dominion Energy Inc Is a Retiree's Dream Stock: Dominion Energy Inc (NYSE: D) is one of the largest diversified utilities in the United States. But unlike some peers, notably Southern Company (NYSE: SO) and SCANA Corporation (NYSE: SCG) , it's successfully executing its construction plans and rewarding investors along the way. Execution, however, is just one of the things to like about Dominion. Here's a fuller picture of why Dominion Energy is a retiree's dream stock. Income and volatility Dividends are often a key consideration for retired investors, as they often want to live off of the income their portfolios generate. Dominion offers a lofty 4.1% yield. That's roughly twice the level you would get from an S&P 500 Index fund. In fact, the spread between Dominion's yield and that of the broader market is nearly the highest it has been over the past 10 years, suggesting that now could be a good time to grab this high yielder. A man standing with power lines in the background Image source: Getty Images Then there's the fact that Dominion has increased its dividend annually for 15 consecutive years. That's an impressive streak that compares favorably to Southern Co and SCANA, which both have 17-year streaks going. It's worth noting here that both of those utilities yield more than 5%, which might make you think about buying them over Dominion. Don't jump at those high yields just yet. So far, Dominion has a market beating yield and a long history of rewarding investors with annual "pay raises." But it also has a very low beta, a measure of relative volatility . Dominion's beta of 0.30 suggests that it is roughly 30% as volatile as the broader market. That's pretty good if you like to sleep at night. Southern's beta is 0.14 and SCANA's is 0.20, meaning both should be less volatile than Dominion. At this point, you might be thinking that Dominion shouldn't be the top pick here -- but keep reading. Execution and dividend growth Southern Company and SCANA are fine utilities, but both have had tough times getting big projects done on time and on budget. Notably, this pair stumbled badly with new nuclear power plants, an issue that got particularly troublesome when construction partner Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy . That event led SCANA to cancel its construction plans, and will mean even higher costs for Southern, which is going ahead with a nuclear build that's already well over budget and very late. Story continues Interestingly enough, SCANA's weakened state following the decision to stop construction led Dominion to attempt an acquisition . That deal is still in process, but you're probably better off owning Dominion in this situation over SCANA, which at this point could use a little financial help to extract itself from the nuclear mess it's gotten into. Dominion expects the addition of SCANA, a much smaller company, to add as much as two percentage points to its growth rate starting in year one. An overview of Dominion's Greenville natural gas power plant projects, showing it is on time and on budget Dominion's big new power plant is on time and on budget, and not nuclear. Image source: Dominion Resources Inc Dominion, for its part, has been working on some big projects as well that are largely on time and on budget. Its plans do not include building a new nuclear plant from the ground up, in case you were wondering. It's executing across its business here, including both its electric and gas operations. It expects all of its growth opportunities to allow for 6% earnings growth (that jumps to 8% if the SCANA acquisition goes through) and 10% dividend growth through 2020. Which brings us to the real crux of the issue here: that 10% is roughly twice the dividend growth that Southern is projecting, and investors seem rightly concerned that SCANA for its part might not be able to sustain its dividend in the face of the political backlash following its decision to halt its nuclear construction. In other words, there are good reasons why these two utilities have yields that are more than a full percentage point higher than Dominion's. An overview of Dominion's growth prospects, highlighting earnings growth potential at least 5% and dividend growth potential of 10% Dominion's outlook for the future is pretty positive. Image source: Dominion Energy Inc Dominion, however, just keeps chugging along, putting up solid results without any material drama. And while buying SCANA is definitely newsworthy, it's really just a sign of Dominion's strong financial and industry positions. A retired investor looking for a cornerstone stock should be leaning toward Dominion. The dream maker I don't want to make it sound like Southern or SCANA are terrible investments -- they aren't. For investors who can handle a little uncertainty, Southern might make a good high-yield investment option since it's likely to survive its current nuclear troubles in one piece. SCANA is a little trickier because of Dominion's offer to buy it. If that deal falls through, I would expect SCANA's stock to fall (it's going to have a harder time dealing with its troubled nuclear plans than Southern) -- and if the deal goes through you're effectively going to end up owning Dominion. In that case, you might as well just buy Dominion in the first place. I say that because Dominion is executing well across its portfolio, and the future looks particularly bright for the utility and its investors based on its growth plans. Significantly, the future also looks free of major complications. That makes it a great option for retirees looking to add a mix of high yield and dividend growth to their portfolios, which sounds perfectly dreamy to me. 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 Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Dominion Energy, Inc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Jeff Sessions' War on Marijuana Is Just Beginning: Chances are that it would be difficult to find an industry growing faster and more consistently than the legal marijuana industry. In the U.S., according to estimates fromMarijuana Business Daily's newest report, "Marijuana Business Factbook 2017," legal weed sales are expected to catapult higher by 45% in 2018, likely as a result of California opening its doors to recreational pot sales. By 2021, the U.S. cannabis market is expected to be generating $17 billion in annual sales, a roughly 300% increase from what it was producing in 2016. It's not hard to understand why marijuana has become such a hot commodity in the U.S., either. A number of recent surveys have all led to the same conclusion: The American publicwants pot legalized. Nearly two-thirds of respondents in Gallup's October 2017 poll favored the idea of legalizing cannabis nationally, with 94% of respondents in an August 2017 survey from the independent Quinnipiac University favoring the legalization of medical cannabis. Presumably, as these support figures move higher, so will legal cannabis sales --andthe pressure put on lawmakers on Capitol Hill to change marijuana's scheduling. Image source: Getty Images. As a reminder, schedule I substances are wholly illegal, considered to have a high potential for abuse, and have no recognized medical benefits. This places marijuana on the same footing as LSD and heroin. But in addition to marijuana's unfavorable scheduling, there are a number of adverse impacts on businesses operating in the weed industry. For instance, medical cannabis companies are buried in red tape. With just a single federally approved grow facility in Mississippi, getting access to medical cannabis to run benefit-versus-risk trials is quite the chore. Marijuana stocks and companies also have very limited access to basic banking services, and they're facingextraordinarily high effective income-tax ratesas a result of U.S. tax code 280E. This specific tax code disallows businesses that sell federally illegal substances from taking normal corporate income-tax deductions. Put plainly, the chance of effecting a scheduling change in Washington is practically nonexistent under the current administration, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions is primarily responsible for this marijuana quagmire. Jeff Sessions speaking to an audience. Image source: Jeff Sessions' Senate webpage. It's no secret that Jeff Sessions is an ardent opponent of the marijuana movement. He's been quoted as saying that "good people don't smoke marijuana," and gave a speech last year to his fellow attorney generals where, to summarize, he suggested that medical cannabis isn't a safe, or appropriate, replacement for opioids. But in 2017, Sessions was all bark and no bite. That changed in a big way earlier this month. On Jan. 4, 2018, Sessions released a one-page memo announcing that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would berescinding the Cole memo, which was named after former Deputy Attorney General James Cole, who served under President Obama. The Cole memo outlined a loose set of "rules" that states legalizing marijuana had to follow in order to keep the federal government off their backs, so to speak. This included keeping cannabis away from adolescents, maintaining safety on the roadways by dealing harshly with drivers who operated a vehicle under the influence of marijuana, and ensuring that cannabis grown within a state stayed in that state. The move wasn't a complete surprise, considering that Sessions' right-hand man at the DOJ, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, had announced over the summer that the DOJ was reviewing the scope of the Cole memo and its validity. The rescinding of this memo by Sessions signals the belief that the Cole memo overstepped its legal bounds. More importantly, the move by Sessions also opens the door for possible legal action against marijuana businesses operating in states that have legalized it in some capacity. Though the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment (also known as the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer Amendment) disallows the DOJ from using federal dollars to prosecute medical marijuana businesses, rescinding the Cole memo effectively gives state-level prosecutors the right to bring charges against marijuana businesses, when deemed appropriate. Image source: Getty Images. Many folks viewed Sessions' actions earlier this month as a speed bump for the U.S. cannabis industry, but not a death blow. In other words, the possibility of legal action doesn't necessarily mean we will see legal action. After all, those attorney generals who share Sessions' views tend to be from states that haven't legalized weed in any capacity. However, Sessions appears to be just getting started in his war on weed. For those who may not recall, in May 2017, Sessions sent a letter to a few of his congressional colleagues requesting that they repeal the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment. Doing so would give the DOJ the ability to go after medical cannabis businesses. Though his request gained no traction, it set a clear precedent that Sessions would do whatever he could to slow, or halt, the expansion of legal marijuana in the United States. Things got particularly interesting in September when the House Rules Committeeblocked a voteon including the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer Amendment in the federal spending bill that was being discussed at the time. This amendment, which disallows the DOJ from using federal dollars to go after medical weed businesses, has to be included and approved in each and every annual federal spending bill. If it's left out, Sessions and the DOJ would be free to go after medical cannabis businesses as they please. If there's a silver lining here, it's that the amendment could still be included in the Senate's federal spending proposal. Nonetheless, Sessions' insistence that the Amendment be repealed, coupled with a House Rules Committee vote blockage, signals that this key protection of medical cannabis companies is under attack. Image source: Getty Images. Sessions also seems highly unlikely to expand medical marijuana research at the federal level in any capacity. In August 2016, the Obama administration outlined a series of changes designed to allow researchers easier access to federally grown marijuana. The new system encouraged universities to apply for grow licenses with the federal government in an effort to establish a much-needed benefit-versus-risk profile for cannabis. But asForbesrecently reported, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency requested that researchers grow 443,680 grams of cannabis in 2018, or just over 978 pounds. This actuallyrepresents a slightdeclinefrom what was grown for medical research in 2017, despite the Obama administration's pledge to open doors for medical cannabis research. Despite 25 proposals from universities to grow medical marijuana for the federal government, the DOJ passed on them, allowing the University of Mississippi to remain the only approved grow facility in the United States. This is unlikely to change with Sessions heading the DOJ. Also, we probably can assume that Sessions isn't going to promote a more favorable tax rate, or easier access to basic banking services, for marijuana stocks, either. Image source: Getty Images. With Sessions' war on cannabis likely to be a multi-year drawn-out affair, my suggestion, should you want to invest in the high-growth marijuana market, or if you already own marijuana stocks, is to stick with our neighbors to the north. Canada legalized medical marijuana all the way back in 2001, and quite a few of the country's bigger players have already been producing marginal profits solely on account of medical weed sales.Aphria(NASDAQOTH: APHQF), for instance, has produced two consecutive full-year profits. Despite spending more than $100 million on a four-phase capacity-expansion project, management has made profitability a priority, which isn't always the case with its peers. Even more importantly, Canada looks to be on the verge of legalizing recreational marijuana by July 2018. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced legislation in April 2017 to make recreational sales legal by July 1, 2018, and a number of hurdles have already been dealt with. For example, the federal government and provinces haveagreed on a two-year tax-sharing deal, and the federal government has proposed a tax rate on legal cannabis that'll be lower than that of alcohol in Canada. In other words, recreational weed should be highly price competitive with black-market pot in Canada, pushing consumers into legal channels. If you're an investor, the smartest thing you can do right now is ignore the potential of the U.S. market, and focus on the more favorable Canadian market. 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 Sean Williamshas 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. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $9251.00/$9259.33 #Bitstamp $9233.40/$9245.40 #Kraken ⇢$-25.93/$-5.60 $9189.05/$9281.42 #Coinbase ⇢$-70.28/$30.42 || More #bitcoin basics 4 part courses are starting soon, details will be released asap, they can also be run in your office at a time which suits you. #hampshire #brighton #pompey #southampton || Is that btc prediction for tomorrow sir? || 2018/01/18 15:00 #BTC 1296561円 #ETH 116366.4円 #ETC 3395.9円 #BCH 208113.6円 #XRP 162.7円 #XEM 120.9円 #LSK 2558.8円 #MONA 732.2円 #仮想通貨 #ビットコイン #Bitcoin #bitFlyer #Coincheck || Look Beyond Bitcoin To The Next Big Thing https://www.penniesandpaydays.com/beyond-bitcoin-cryptocurrency/ … via @heidiblogged || 2018-01-29 08:00:05 UTC BTC: $11257.39 BCH: $1655.77 ETH: $1164.33 ZEC: $455.91 LTC: $180.08 ETC: $30.79 XRP: $1.28 || Gana $45,00 Usd Por Afiliar, Quieres ganarte dólares con Bitcoin sin tanto esfuerzo? Es solo de ··- https://goo.gl/Cdo6SQ  > #España || Chancoin, imageboard cryptocurrency. Traded under CHAN on cryptopia. #pepecash #bitcoin #ethereum #ripple #omisego #rarepepe #dogecoin #monacoin #monero #dash #bitcoincash #litecoin #zaif #iota #vaporwave #cryptokitties #bittrex #aesthetics #btc #eth $meme $memetic #chancoinpic.twitter.com/H9lRNH0TCj || Mar 03, 2018 14:00:00 UTC | 11,438.00$ | 9,285.30€ | 8,288.00£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/Mhm8johDnZ || Bitcoin bounces back from three-month low in volatile trade https://goo.gl/fb/oybQZF 
Trend: up || Prices: 8269.81, 8300.86, 8338.35, 7916.88, 8223.68, 8630.65, 8913.47, 8929.28, 8728.47, 8879.62
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 2015-07-29] BTC Price: 289.59, BTC RSI: 59.56 Gold Price: 1092.70, Gold RSI: 27.29 Oil Price: 48.79, Oil RSI: 32.66 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] A New Cryptocurrency Draws Its Power From Unicorns: Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin earned a bad reputation in the press after several high profile scams depicted the currency as a tool forillegal activity. However, many say that despite digital currencies' shortcomings, they offer charitable organizations an interesting opportunity to raise money from around the world without the cost of a third party intermediary. Unicoin UNICEF and the H&M Conscious Foundation are hoping to capitalize on that opportunity with anew programaimed at giving underprivileged children access to quality care and education. The two organizations have created Unicoin, a cryptocurrency that draws its power from children's unicorn drawings. Related Link:The Apple Store Gets Its First Cryptocurrency Trading App Getting Children Into Giving Young children around the globe are encouraged to draw and submit drawings of unicorns, along with a few lines that sum up their plans when they grow up. The drawings are uploaded to the foundation's website, which in turn donates one notebook and pencil to a child in need. The initiative has been praised as a great way to integrate digital currencies into charitable giving, as well as a good introduction to philanthropy for young children. Charities Using Cryptocurrencies While Unicoin has been touted as the first "charitable cryptocurrency," other organizations are experimenting with accepting digital currencies as well. The American Red Cross and Save the Children are among some of the big name charities that now accept bitcoin donations in hopes of garnering support from new segments of the population. Related Link: Bitcoin Mining Lightbulbs Prove Cryptocurrencies Won't Be Left Behind In The IoT Still Some Risks The low transaction cost associated with bitcoin has been a major draw for charitable organizations, as the total amount a user donates goes directly toward the cause. However, critics say that bitcoin's volatility cancels out that benefit, as charities have to quickly change the donations into another currency to avoid major price swings. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga • Is Bitcoin Expanding Its Reach? • Edible Marijuana Products Get The 'Okay' In Canada • Google Takes To The Streets To Solve Cities' Problems © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || iWallet: Identity Theft Protection and so Much More: WHITEFISH, MT / ACCESSWIRE / June 16, 2015 /Identity theft happens every 45 seconds in the United States and costs consumers more than $24.7 billion in 2012 alone, according to the Federal Trade Commission. While most people associate modern identity theft with high tech crimes, Javelin Strategy & Research found that 43% of all identity crimes stemmed from a lost or stolenwallet, compared to just 11% from online sources and 19% from credit card skimmers and other transactional sources. iWallet Corporation (IWAL), a developer of secure luxury "techcessories" products, aims to combat identity theft with its fingerprint biometric locking mechanisms, Bluetooth(R) BLE communication solutions, RFID blocking, and other technologies designed to secure personal identification, passports and credit cards. Unlike Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Apple Pay or Bitcoin Shop Inc.'s (BTCS) solutions, its technologies are designed to hold existing payment solutions rather than replace them. Beyond the identity theft market, iWallet has launched a technology and licensing division. Based on the company's patented BIO-BLU(TM) Biometric Bluetooth(R) Smart locking technology, the new division is dedicated to expanding, through its own offerings and by licensing to other manufacturers, protection to consumer items such as luggage, purses, jewelry and prescription medicines. If the video below does not display properly, please follow this link to see an interview with iWallet Corp. CEO Jack Chadsey:https://vimeo.com/130554488. SECFilings.com Executive Interview | Jack Chadsey / CEO of iWallet Corp. (IWAL)fromTDM FinancialonVimeo. Booming Industry Consumers have been spending an increasing amount of money on solutions designed to prevent or catch identity theft before it becomes costly for them. LifeLock Inc. (NYSE:LOCK) has built a billion-dollar business - albeit with some FTC issues in the past - around providing identity theft protection services to individuals and enterprises, while Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) generates a substantial amount of revenue from providing credit reports to consumers. At the same time, many software manufacturers like Intel Corporation's (NASDAQ:INTC) McAfee and Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ:SYMC) have built billion-dollar companies providing software to individuals designed to protect their computers from viruses and other malware that can lead to identity theft and stolen information. These technologies certainly help reduce the problem with software, but consumers must pay a yearly fee in most cases. The irony is that LifeLock's services help after-the-fact and Symantec's software only helps with 11% of identity theft cases. In the meantime, the cause of more than 40% of identity theft cases is going largely ignored by the market with the exception of iWallet's innovative technologies and NXT-ID Inc.'s (NXTD) Wocket(R). This segment of the market could be worth much more over the long run as consumer awareness begins to increase. Broad Technologies iWallet has developed a robust patent portfolio of design and utility patents surrounding biometric fingerprint recognition sensors and Bluetooth(R) BLE communications. These technologies can be integrated into existing products or launched as stand-alone products across several verticals. In particular, the company's technologies are designed to enable low-cost biometric fingerprint security for wallets, passport cases, and accessories like handbags. In other words, nobody but the owner can open the wallet. These technologies help prevent simple types of theft where unattended bags are opened or credit cards are snatched. The Bluetooth(R) Low Energy ("BLE") technology is designed to complement biometrics by tethering any device to a phone. For instance, if you forget your iWallet at the checkout counter and walk out the door, an alarm will sound from your phone once the Bluetooth tether is broken. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) protection adds another layer of security, blocking the remote reading of credit cards and passports. Some potential applications for the technology include: - Zero Password Authentication - Fingerprint sensors, heart monitors, or other biometric devices can be used to authenticate users across devices.- Access Control - Biometrics can be used to open Bluetooth(R) enabled door locks and other access control technologies using a fingerprint.- No Hacking Security - iWallet's secure biometric sensors and Bluetooth(R) BLE data connection provide security without the vulnerability of an internet connection.- NFC On-Board - Payment system integration that combines biometrics with payment technologies to validate the correct user is making a transaction. Near-term Commercialization iWallet launched its iPassport product and showcased its other products - including the iWallet - at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show ("CES") in Las Vegas, Nevada. In a sign of increasing interest in the category, the company's products werehonored at the showwith the 2015 International CES Innovation Award and were on display at the Personal Privacy and Cyber Security Marketplace, which showcased personal cyber security products. Yahoo! Travel highlighted the new device as one of "11 Cool Things from the Consumer Electronics Show that Will Make Travel Better," while both products were featured on CNBC, USA Today, Huffington Post, and Fox News, among other global media outlets. These media outlets have already helped to increase awareness of its product lines in a grassroots manner as it begins to set up distribution channels and expand into retailers. The company sells its products directly to the consumer via its website, co-brands with luxury brands such as Dunhill and Montblanc, and is expanding wholesale efforts worldwide. Looking Ahead iWallet is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the growing incidence of identity theft by directly addressing the single largest source of such thefts - wallets. With its initial products already launched and awarded at CES, the company is approaching a tipping point in the luxury sector, while working hard to grow distribution and launch into further markets with new products over the coming quarters. The company plans to develop licensing revenues through its new technology division, allowing other manufacturers to incorporate iWallet's array of protections into their own products. Combining all of these initiatives, management believes that it can significantly enhance shareholder value by generating immediate revenue while setting the stage for longer-term value creation. For more information, visit the company's website atwww.iwalletusa.com. Click here to get email updates on iWallet Corp. developments:http://www.tdmfinancial.com/emailassets/iwal/iwal_landing.php Legal Disclaimer: Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Emerging Growth LLC is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority, and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release. Emerging Growth LLC may from time to time have a position in the securities mentioned herein and may increase or decrease such positions without notice. For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Emerging Growth LLC may be compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation or equity securities in the companies it writes about, or a combination of the two. For full disclosure please visit:http://secfilings.com/Disclaimer.aspx. SOURCE:Emerging Growth LLC || How Will Greece's Problems Affect The Fed?: The sudden sharp decline in Greece's bailout negotiations sent shock waves throughout international markets and gave investors reason to believe that the nation was headed for an exit from the eurozone. In the U.S., markets remained relatively calm with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing just 1.95 percent on Monday following news of Greece's scheduled referendum vote. Now, investors are turning their focus to the Federal Reserve to see if the bank will still raise interest rates despite the international turmoil. Still Not A Problem For now,many analysts saythat Greece's financial turmoil won't have much of an impact on the Fed's decision making when it comes to a rate hike. Because Greece has been struggling to stay afloat for years, many believe the shock to markets will be minimal as most investors have already wound down their positions in the nation. The Bank for International Settlements reported that U.S. banks have only invested about $12 billion in Greece, a figure that won't spell disaster if the nation exits the eurozone. Related Link:Bitcoin Rises As Greece Falls...Coincidence? Strong Dollar A Concern One issue the Fed could face would be a stronger dollar. The dollar's recent rally has already taken a toll U.S.-based firms' bottom lines as it has made their foreign sales less profitable and their products more expensive than foreign competitors.' The bank is likely to keep the greenback in mind when evaluating whether or not the U.S. can withstand a rate hike. Time Will Tell So far, Fed officials have been adamant that their decisions will be based on U.S. data and whether or not the nation's economic improvement warrants a rate increase. With most analysts expecting the bank to raise rates in September, the Fed will have plenty of time to see how the Greek situation plays out. If the problems in Greece become a contagion affecting the global economy, then the bank will likely hold off on a rate hike. But if the issue passes without much impact on U.S. markets, the bank will likely proceed as planned. See more from Benzinga • Greece's Final Proposal Draws Criticism From Syriza • Investors Tentatively Look To Europe © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 5 trades on Costolo's Twitter departure: The timing of Twitter(NYSE: TWTR)'s leadership shake-up bodes well for investors looking to buy into the stock, CNBC "Fast Money" traders said. Embattled Twitter CEO Dick Costolo will step down on July 1, the company announced Thursday. Co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey will take over on an interim basis until the position is filled. "It is interesting. I do think there is change here that is needed that opens the door," said trader Karen Finerman, who noted that she would consider taking a stake in Twitter. Many investors and analysts have called for a change amid a sluggish run for Twitter's stock. The company has struggled to expand its user base and grow revenue through advertising and other streams. But Dorsey said in a conference call Thursday that Costolo's departure did not reflect the company's near-term results. Read MoreAfter CEO exit, Twitter says no strategy change Still, traders felt the stock has room to climb higher; it closed Thursday below $36 per share. Investors should stay long in the stock using $35 as a stop, trader Guy Adami said. Twitter will likely rise during Dorsey's interim tenure, trader Brian Kelly added. Trader Dan Nathan-who owns Twitter stock-said he would stick with the name. Adami added that regardless of whether Facebook(NASDAQ: FB)will see a flood of advertisers or other business after Twitter's shake-up, it stands to move higher. The stock closed Thursday just below $82 per share. Read MoreTwitter employees flood Twitter with tweets for @dickc Disclosures: Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long DXGE, BTC=, BBRY, U.S. dollar and oil. He is short Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, euro, yen and yuan. Today he entered into short euro. Today he closed out his short U.S. 30-year bonds and short DAX. Dan Nathan Dan is long SPY June put fly, TWTR, BBRY June calls, SO, DE June put fly, INTC July put, WMT June call fly, LVS July Aug put spread, TWTR Sept call spread, GRRO June put fly and CAT July/August put spread. He is short SO Aug calls. Today, he bought CAT July/August put spreads. Karen Finerman Karen is long BABA, BAC, C, FINL, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, KORS, M and URI. 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 calls, URI calls and SPY puts. Her firm is short IWM, SPY, MDY and M calls. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. Guy Adami Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS and INTC. Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC • Top News and Analysis • Latest News Video • Personal Finance || MarilynJean Media Interactive (MJMI.QB) Announces Plans to Enter Multi-Billion Dollar Remittance Market Using Bitcoin to Effect Transfers: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / July 24, 2015 /MarilynJean Media Interactive (MJMI) announced today its plans to enter the multi-billion dollar remittance market using Bitcoin to effect transfers. According to the World Bank, sending money internationally, or remittance transactions, were valued at over $580 Billion in 2014 and are expected to exceed $608 Billion in 2015. The World Bank estimates transaction fees to average 7.99% of money sent, making for a staggering $50 Billion in potential fees for participants in this year's remittance business. Most remittance transfers are from developed countries to developing ones, sent primarily by migrant workers. Currently, most transactions are done through brick and mortar institutions like Western Union (NYSE:WU) and Moneygram (NASDAQ:MGI). These type of companies make money by charging an often invisible fee on the currency exchange portion of the transaction and high transfer fees to send and receive the money. Within the existing financial system, Bitcoin's most disrupting feature is its decentralized architecture. A vaster international network of P2P computers provides multiple layers of verification for each transaction using cryptography. All transactions are registered in the publicly viewable blockchain so that users can’t transact with bitcoins they don’t own. This final level of security previously required a third party, typically a bank. In a Bitcoin remittance transaction, a user would purchase Bitcoins via a Bitcoin exchange then send the Bitcoins to a Bitcoin remittance company who would then send the money to the receiver. Each step would be completed electronically within minutes. The bitcoin network has the potential to effectively replace financial institutions and banks in the remittance market. Transfers are virtually in real time, often completing in less than 10 minutes, with ultra-low costs, typically limited to the fee for using a Bitcoin exchange, which averages 2%. In addition, Bitcoin remittance transactions can be easily completed using mobile devices which are now widely available in developing countries. Challenges for Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies in the remittance market include the differing ways such currencies are regulated internationally and the costs associated with compliance in multiple jurisdictions. As a fully reporting, publicly traded company, management believes both regulators and users will be comparatively more confident with MJMI's participation in any regulated markets. MJMI is currently exploring partnering with several existing Bitcoin exchanges as well as manufacturers and operators of Bitcoin ATMs. Such a combination would place the company in an exciting position to offer an end to end solution and potentially capture a share of this lucrative market just as it is poised to undergo a massive shift into the digital realm. Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "With legacy remittance companies and traditional banks continuing to charge high fees while hiding other fees via poor exchange rates, it's hard to see a future where they will continue to be relevant." About Bitcoin and Crypto-Currencies Bitcoin and other 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. Richard Branson, head of the Virgin Group, is quoted on his company's website as saying: "I have invested in Bitcoin because I believe in its potential, the capacity it has to transform global payments is very exciting." Heavyweight investment bank Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), announced on April 30th 2015 that it had partnered with Chinese investment firm IDG Capital partners to invest $50 million in a Bitcoin start-up. Numerous high-profile firms have begun accepting Bitcoin as a payment method including: Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ:DISH), Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE), and Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK). MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focussed on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is MJMI.QB. Website:www.marilynjeancom Press Contact:bonnie@marilynjean.com SOURCE: MarilynJean Media Interactive || Bitcoin is faltering at a bad, bad time for Greece: BitCoin ATM (GettyImages/Pacific Press) Bitcoin's decentralized system is leaving loophole for technical errors — reminding investors that virtual money might not be the perfect alternative to paper, Bloomberg's Olga Kharif reports . At least not yet. As some Greeks rushed to buy Bitcoin during 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 B itcoin 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> NOW WATCH: Here's what you get when you order 'Omaha Steaks' in the mail More From Business Insider Former DEA agent admits to stealing bitcoins while investigating Silk Road How Greece went bust A Greek politician told us Grexit will '100%' happen if 'No' wins on Sunday — and plans are already being made 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 || Marathon Predicts Greece's 'Yes' Vote, Tsipras Out Next Month: With every passing minute, the Greece debt crisis seems to take a new turn. According to latest reports, the Greek government is seeking a last-minute deal from the eurozone. However, according to Bruce Richards, CEO of Marathon Asset Management, regardless of what happens, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will be out soon. Richards was a guest on Wall Street Week's latest edition. He was again onWall Street Week's 'Web Extra'recently to discuss the Greece debt crisis and the best case scenario for the country in the next few weeks. Getting Very Dire "Thirty days from now – Syriza party, which is Alexis Tsipras, who is the prime minister, probably won't be in office," Richards began. "He has taken the country to a point of brink where hopefully there's a point of return in terms of its economy turning around. But right now, it's getting very dire." Related Link:Has Greece Had Its "Lehman Moment?" The Best Case Richards was asked his best case scenario for this crisis in the next few weeks. He replied, "So, what I think happens: There is a small probability he (Alexis Tsipras) resigns, small probability he strikes a deal. What's most probable is, you go to a referendum on Sunday, referendum that the people want to vote for. If the people vote yes, that is a very positive thing for Europe, it's a very positive thing for Greece and that's the base case." He continued, "But over the course of the week, we are going to see all these polls come and we will see the polls come in at 70 percent or 78 percent or maybe it drops down to 65 percent. One poll is different from another poll. But I believe at the end of the day, they are going to vote the rational vote." Related Link:Bitcoin Rises As Greece Falls...Coincidence? Tsipras Is Out Either Way "Greek people are smart; they are good business people, and they are going to vote for the most sane economic program for Greece, which is to stay on the euro. And if that were to happen, then that's a vote against the party of Syriza and Alexis Tsipras and so he's probably out either way," Richards concluded. Image Credit:Public Domain See more from Benzinga • Southern Co, The Supreme Court Ruling On EPA Regulations And Congress' Role In Policy • Juno Therapeutics CEO Weighs In On Celgene Partnership, T-Cell Innovations • Dupont Desires Continued Trian Relationship, Despite Rejecting Seats On The Board © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The Future of Bitcoin; the Opportunity and Obstacles: POINT ROBERTS, WA and NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - June 04, 2015) -Investorideas.com, a global news source covering leading sectors including Bitcoin and payment technology releases commentary from some of the leading digital currency experts along with management from two public plays within the sector. As Wall Street and global financial markets enter the space, these experts give insight into the future of Bitcoin and the obstacles and the opportunities it presents. The following are questions and answers from the participating experts; Brian Kelly, author of the book "The Bitcoin Big Bang"www.briankellycapital.com, David Berger,Founder and CEO,Digital Currency Council (DCC), Mr. Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial Corp. and Michael Sonnenshein, Director of Sales & Business Development, Bitcoin Investment Trust(OTCQX: GBTC). Interviews: Brian KellyQ: Investorideas.comYou have said you were a skeptic like many in the beginning and now you are a respected expert in the sector. With recent acceptance from The New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq Stock Exchange, Goldman Sachs, Richard Branson and a list of new entries every day, what do you see as the turning point for Bitcoin becoming legitimate? A: Brian Kelly, author of the book "The Bitcoin Big Bang"It seems that financial institutions finally realized that Bitcoin and the blockchain is more than a currency. They realized it is a tool to flatten the costs of financial services. Q: Investorideas.comDo you see many publicly-traded stocks in play now and are you hearing of IPO's in the space? A: Brian Kelly, author of the book "The Bitcoin Big Bang"I would expect IPOs in the next 3 years. If we use internet companies in 1995 as a template, it took about three years for major IPOs. Q: Investorideas.comWith the major financial institutions now getting involved, where do you see Bitcoin headed in the next few years and how will it impact the future of currency? A: Brian Kelly, author of the book "The Bitcoin Big Bang"A year ago the survival of Bitcoin was 50/50...with recent investments it's clear that blockchain technology is here to stay. David BergerQ: Investorideas.comCan you give us background on the creation of the Digital Currency Council (DCC) and why you formed it? A: David Berger,Founder and CEO,Digital Currency Council (DCC)The early mission of The Digital Currency Council was to set a common standard of understanding amongst professionals and help those professionals achieve that standard. Today, our over 1500 members across 90 countries are using the knowledge they've gained to build various exciting businesses and streamline existing business processes. Our software is integral to these more complex efforts. Q: Investorideas.comWith a primary focus of education, what kind of individuals and companies are you seeing come forward to understand Bitcoin and what percentage of the financial community at large do you think is getting involved now? A: David Berger,Founder and CEO,Digital Currency Council (DCC)We are at the very beginning. Most individuals and firms have a very limited understanding. Our work with these individuals and firms begins with general competency training. These general competencies are sufficient to ensure that a firm is aware of the opportunities and risks. Our customized software solutions help those firms that recognize an opportunity to capitalize. Q: Investorideas.comWhat do you see as the primary obstacles to the acceptance of digital currency? A: David Berger,Founder and CEO,Digital Currency Council (DCC)It's important that we ensure that bad actors don't hijack this groundbreaking technology. The general public will accept and adopt technologies that make their lives better but only if they trust that the risk doesn't outweigh the benefit. Q: Investorideas.comWhat do you see for Bitcoin within the next year and over the next 5 years? A: David Berger,Founder and CEO,Digital Currency Council (DCC)The next five years will bring increased integration, complexity, and utility. Bitcoin will become so easy to use that you won't even realize you're using it. Brad MoynesQ: Investorideas.comWhat do you think was the turning point for making Wall Street and the financial institutions take notice and want to participate in Bitcoin? A: Mr. Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial Corp.The opportunity to develop technology that could make financial institutions including stock exchanges, broker-dealers, banks, transfer agencies and the DTC more efficient and less costly to reporting issuers, investors and consumers would be considered by Wall Street as a really good thing. The fact that DNCT (blockchain) technology has the potential to achieve this and that many of these institutions have already invested considerable capital into the technology at the fastest rate to date, suggests that the turning point has already occurred. In addition, the recent announcement that the NYDFS has released the final version of its long-awaited regulatory framework for digital currency companies shall provide clarity to the industry as a whole and ease concern regarding over-regulation and the threat of stifling growth and innovation. Q: Investorideas.comWhat do you think are some of the hurdles and obstacles for Bitcoin? A: Mr. Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial CorpPerhaps over regulation. Bitcoin appears to be holding its value at current levels and the Blockchain is gaining considerable awareness across a broad selection of industries. I would expect many hurdles & obstacles along the way but with big break-through ideas later this year and in 2016 to look forward to. Q: Investorideas.comWill your exchange, when launched, offer any educational tools for trading and investing in Bitcoin? What kind of investors/traders do you see currently in the space and do you see the demographics changing? A: Mr. Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial Corp.The exchange will offer our users the tools they need to buy & sell crypto-currencies including Bitcoin. Our customer service will be the best in the business with rapid response time to meet user demands, answer questions and provide solutions. We will also have a Bitcoin forum for users to create various discussion topics. Generally these forums are an excellent way for users to gain information and educate among themselves. There are several investor/trader profiles which include day-traders, medium to long-term investors seeking capital gains and entities who offer investor's exposure to Bitcoin via open market equity-share purchases that tie their shares to an underlying asset [bitcoin] on a pre-determined ratio basis. A beneficial change to the demographic would be an increase in demand for bitcoin in day-to-day use and consumer point of sale purchases. Michael SonnensheinQ: Investorideas.comThe Bitcoin Investment Trust's shares are the first publicly quoted* securities solely invested in and deriving value from, the price of Bitcoin. Can you tell investors how investing in the shares of (GBTC) will give them a different value/investment opportunity than strictly trying to buy and sell Bitcoin? A: Michael Sonnenshein, Director of Sales & Business Development, Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC)Purchasing Bitcoin outright can be a harrowing experience for investors. More often than not, they don't know who to purchase Bitcoin from (are there counterparties they trust), what price they should pay, or how to handle Bitcoin safely and securely. Even if investors can overcome these challenges, storing Bitcoin on one's own can be a liability. If Bitcoin holders are hacked or lose the private key to their Bitcoin wallet, they have zero recourse. In sharp contrast to this experience, purchasing shares of The Bitcoin Investment Trust gives investors the ability to gain exposure to Bitcoin without the aforementioned challenges and through a titled security in the investor's name. Consequently, shares are eligible to be passed onto beneficiaries under estate laws and are eligible to be held in certain IRA, Roth IRA, and other brokerage and investment accounts (this is not possible with outright Bitcoin). The Bitcoin Investment Trust has also brought together credible service providers, as shares are marketed and distributed through a FINRA-registered broker-dealer, and the Trust's financial statements are audited annually by Ernst & Young LLP. Each share of The Bitcoin Investment Trust represents approximately 0.1 Bitcoin and shares are tied to a daily 4pm net asset value that is representative of the Bitcoin market price. Qualified accredited investors have the ability to purchase shares of The Bitcoin Investment Trust at the daily NAV through an ongoing private placement. However, these shares carry resale and transfer limitations. Both accredited and non-accredited investors have the ability to purchase shares of The Bitcoin Investment Trust on OTCQX under the symbol: GBTC. These shares have been deemed freely tradable and are subject to market-driven price movement, which does not reflect the restricted shares daily NAV. In offering these two avenues for investors, their Bitcoin exposure is able to sit alongside their existing investments and their exposure to Bitcoin is attained through a transparent and familiar experience. Additionally, as a titled security, The Bitcoin Investment Trust has resonated well with investors' financial advisors, lawyers, and accountants. More information on The Bitcoin Investment Trust is available through its sponsors website,www.grayscale.co Q: Investorideas.comWhere does the company see the Bitcoin industry now as Wall Street has begun to embrace it and what was the turning point that legitimatized Bitcoin? Where do they see the future of Bitcoin1-5 years from now? A: Michael Sonnenshein, Director of Sales & Business Development, Bitcoin Investment Trust(OTCQX: GBTC)Bitcoin is still in infancy and we'd liken where Bitcoin and digital currencies are in their development to the internet in the mid-to-late 1990's. Namely, just like there were plenty of naysayers who didn't believe in the internet's potential, there are folks who occupy that same mindset when it comes to Bitcoin. While we can't be sure of Bitcoin's ultimate fate, we can see is that there is an unprecedented amount of venture capital and human capital pouring into the space. Entrepreneurs are building the infrastructure and applications that will support Bitcoin's continued adoption and usage globally. Over the past two years, there has been increasing attention paid to Bitcoin from Wall Street. Every bank, broker-dealer, asset manager, and other institution had formed internal task forces assigned to understanding Bitcoin. Recently, many of these firms (and the work of these internal teams) have begun putting their reputations on the line by publicly getting involved in Bitcoin with the likes of Goldman Sachs, UBS, Nasdaq, the NYSE, and other globally recognized institutions integrating Bitcoin into their businesses and/or making strategic investments in some of the aforementioned companies laying the ground work for increased adoption. I think we will continue to see more of these large players get involved in the space over the coming years and that Bitcoin and the underlying blockchain technology will ultimately shake up and transform the entire financial services landscape for the better. Bios:Brian Kellywww.briankellycapital.comBrian Kelly is an investor, author, and financial markets commentator. He is an expert in global financial markets, macro-economics and digital currencies. Brian Kelly has over twenty years' experience in financial markets and is the author of the book "The Bitcoin Big Bang -- How Alternative Currencies are About to Change the World." Brian is a graduate of the University of Vermont where he received a B.S. in finance. He also holds an M.B.A. from Babson Graduate School of Business with a concentration in finance and econometrics. A passion for investments and entrepreneurship has led Brian to start several successful investment businesses. His most recent start-up BKCM LLC is a global investment management firm specializing in Global Macro and Currency investing. Prior to BKCM LLC, Brian was Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Shelter Harbor Capital LLC and managed the Shelter Harbor Capital Global Macro Hedge Fund. As well, Mr. Kelly was a co-founder and President of MKM Partners, a brokerage firm catering to institutional investment managers. Brian provides money management services to a select clientele and consults on digital currencies. David Berger,Founder and CEO,Digital Currency Council (DCC)David Berger is the Founder and CEO of The Digital Currency Council (DCC), the leading provider of digital currency-related training, certification, and continuing education. Mr. Berger is an attorney with extensive experience in finance in the United States and Asia. He has a passion for building professional networks that support members' advancement with actionable commercial insight. Prior to launching the DCC, Mr. Berger was the CEO of Americas at Campden Wealth, the parent company of the Institute for Private Investors -- the premier decision support network for ultra high net worth investors and family offices. Mr. Berger is also the founder of Private Investor Collective, a Hong Kong-based network for sophisticated private investors, and played a key role in the development of two network-based advisory firms for CEOs in Asia Pacific. He also founded Asia Executive Solutions, a Hong Kong-based strategy consulting firm, where his clients included SecondMarket, Corporate Executive Board, and NPD Group. Prior to his career in finance, Mr. Berger was an attorney in the Washington, DC office of the global law firm O'Melveny & Myers LLP, where he focused on securities law. Mr. Berger also spent two years at the United States Department of Justice. He is a graduate of New York University School of Law and Emory University. 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 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 The Bitcoin Investment Trust(OTCQX: GBTC)The Bitcoin Investment Trust is a private, open-ended trust that is invested exclusively in Bitcoin and derives its value solely from the price of Bitcoin. It enables investors to gain exposure to the price movement of Bitcoin without the challenge of buying, storing, and safekeeping Bitcoins. The BIT's sponsor is Grayscale Investments, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Digital Currency Group. About Investorideas.comInvestorIdeas.com newswire is a global investor news source covering multiple sectors including Bitcoin and payment technology. Follow Investorideas.com on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/#!/InvestorideasFollow Investorideas.com on Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/Investorideas Sign up for free news alerts at Investorideas.comhttp://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.aspandhttp://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. || Bitcoin Direct LLC Enters Las Vegas Market; Agreement Includes: ATM, Payment Processing, and Sponsorship: NEW YORK, NY and LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Jul 8, 2015) - Conexus Cattle Corp. (OTC PINK:CNXS) announced today that their subsidiary, Bitcoin Direct LLC, a Nevada limited liability company ("Bitcoin" or the "Company"), will install an automated bitcoin ATM Machine at One Kick Nick's Mixed Martial Arts Gym located at 121 East Sunset Blvd. in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bitcoin ATMs provide consumers with the ability to instantaneously purchase bitcoins through their mobile devices. This is the first of several ATMs expected to be installed by Bitcoin Direct in Las Vegas. Additionally, the Company will process bitcoin payments for the gym, allowing members and guests to pay for memberships and merchandise in bitcoin. The Company believes this is the first gym in the country to accept bitcoin. As part of the agreement, the Company will become a sponsor of the gym, which will include the ability to place display ads in the facility. One Kick Nick's Mixed Martial Arts Gym is home to numerous professional mixed martial arts fighters who regularly compete on national television for the UFC, Bellator, and World Series of Fighting. Conrad Huss, President of Conexus commented: "We believe our bitcoin ATM will begin generating revenue immediately upon installation. The Company's relationship with One Kick Nick's Mixed Martial Arts Gym is an example of the Company's ability to provide a complete solution for businesses of any size interested in accepting bitcoin. We look forward to creating a host of business partnerships with this product." About Bitcoin Direct LLC,Conexus Cattle Corp. (OTC PINK:CNXS) subsidiary, Bitcoin Direct, LLC, a Nevada limited liability company, provides bitcoin transaction solutions for consumer. Bitcoin's initial focus is installing and servicing its bitcoin ATMs (automated bitcoin machines) in multiple locations across the U.S. The bitcoin ATMs provide consumers with the ability to instantaneously purchase bitcoins through their mobile devices. Currently, the Company has installations serving New York City. ATMs present a convenient solution for bitcoin consumers to exchange cash for bitcoins. 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. Safe HarborThis 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 atwww.sec.gov. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 18 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,209.53 #bitcoin #btc || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000004 Bittrex: 0.00000005 Average $9.0E-6 per #reddcoin 17:00:03 || BTCTurk 630.55 TL BTCe 229.78 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 228.78 $ Cavirtex 282.67 $ CEXIO 230.00 $ Bitcoin.de 206.11 € #Bitcoin #btc || One Bitcoin now worth $243.33@bitstamp. High $245.00. Low $241.06. Market Cap $ 3.470 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/3XsMbJIqUp || One Bitcoin now worth $231.73@bitstamp. High $234.00. Low $229.98. Market Cap $3.305 Billion #bitcoin || $232.00 #btce; $229.79 #bitstamp; Instantly buy GH/s with BTC: http://bit.ly/LN53k1  #bitcoin #btc || #Bitcoin last trade @bleutrade $230.00 @btcecom $230.67 @cryptsy $229.82 Set #crypto #price #alerts at http://AlertCo.in  || Current price: 204.96€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-06-06 00:20:04 CEST || Current price: 172.71£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-07-07 14:00:05 BST || $277.00 #bitstamp; $273.80 #btce; Instantly buy GH/s with BTC: http://bit.ly/LN53k1  #bitcoin #btc
Trend: down || Prices: 287.72, 284.65, 281.60, 282.61, 281.23, 285.22, 281.88, 278.58, 279.58, 261.00
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 2017-04-13] BTC Price: 1169.28, BTC RSI: 55.61 Gold Price: 1285.90, Gold RSI: 72.90 Oil Price: 53.18, Oil RSI: 65.83 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] First Bitcoin's COINQX Opening Offices in Shanghai, China: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 23, 2017 / FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP. (OTC PINK: BITCF) CoinQx Exchange LIMITED, a wholly owned subsidiary of FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP. and history's first publicly trading bitcoin business is pleased to announce the opening of its new offices in Shanghai, China to accommodate its rapid growth and future expansion plans into Chinese and other Asian markets. BITCF has designed its trading platform (currently in beta) to cater to Chinese Bitcoin traders and will be offered in Mandarin. New offices in China will provide capacity for customer support, engineering and other important functions for the Chinese market. CoinQX platform will enforce government imposed anti-money laundering (AML) and foreign exchange regulations. BITCF is expanding its cryptocurrency business model to focus on China where the majority of Bitcoin trading occurs. The COINQX bitcoin exchange can provide its Chinese customers access to competitive industry exchange rates and products specifically for the Chinese bitcoin traders. "Expanding COINQX.com in China will allow us to increase our customer base in key areas that align with our current and future growth plans. We will actively attract talent to join the team. Our team is excited about the rapid growth plans we have developed for China and this move represents a commitment to continue to expand into the world's largest Bitcoin trading market. " China remains the largest market for Bitcoin trading and is still responsible for over 91% of all Bitcoin trading volumes. Even the recent inquiries by the PBOC will not deter Chinese traders from getting involved in Bitcoin. Nor should that be the case, as the PBOC reportedly has no direct plans to ban Bitcoin. Volumes of bitcoin trading increased as China's foreign reserves shrank, by about 8% to $3.05 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile, the yuan weakened against the dollar, causing flow of money out of the country and increasing interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. 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.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, $GARY & $BURN -commemorative presidential election coins. Company has recently introduced $XBU -Bitcoin Unlimited Futures available for trading on CoinQX.com and OMNIDEX exchange ( http://omniexplorer.info ) www.bitcannpay.com Open Loop merchant services for dispensaries. 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 . Contact us via: info@bitcoincapitalcorp.com or visit http://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com SOURCE: First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Bitcoin steadies after biggest three-day tumble in over two years: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin regained its footing on Monday, having suffered its heftiest falls since early 2015 between Thursday and Saturday as investors sold the digital currency on worries about its future. Having soared to an all-time high of $1,350 on the Bitstamp exchange on March 10, on speculation that regulators could approve the first U.S. bitcoin exchange traded fund the following day, the digital currency then slipped back. Its falls began accelerating on Thursday and it hit a five-week low of $944.36 on Saturday. But bitcoin recovered a little on Sunday and built on those gains on Monday, climbing around 2.5 percent to roughly $1,050 by 1815 GMT. Bitcoin experts said its steep losses were driven by a longstanding, and intensifying, row over whether - and how - to increase the capacity of the "blocks" that bitcoin transactions are processed in, so as to make sure there are no delays in transactions being finalised. "The bitcoin scaling debate is a risk for the network and highlights core issues in terms of governance and this is where more nimble crypto competitors see advantages in fleshing out their capabilities sooner," said Charles Hayter, CEO of digital currency analysis website Crytocompare, in London. At the same time that bitcoin was plunging, a newer, rival "cryptocurrency" was soaring: ether. The digital currency behind Ethereum - a project that some experts say holds more potential than bitcoin - has almost tripled in value this month, jumping to record highs of around $45. Some experts said traders were selling bitcoin and buying ether, which was exacerbating the falls in the original cryptocurrency. "Traders in the space are looking for better returns in the more risky and nascent cryptos such as Dash, Monero and Ethereum (and are) looking to replicate the extraordinary returns that bitcoin saw in its early days," added Hayter. U.S. regulators dashed Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss's bitcoin ambitions earlier in the month by rejecting their application to list an exchange-traded fund linked to the digital currency. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Alison Williams) View comments || Only 802 People Told the IRS About Bitcoin—Lawsuit: The Internal Revenue Service revealed new details about its investigation into tax evasion related to bitcoin, filing court documents that suggest only a tiny percentage of virtual currency owners are reporting profits or losses in their annual returns. The new documents, filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court, come in the midst of a closely-watched legal fight between the IRS and Coinbase, a popular service for buying and selling bitcoins that hosts over a million customer accounts. The dispute began last year when the IRS issued a sweeping summons for Coinbase to turn over a vast amount of customer data, including every customer account as well as detailed transaction records. Coinbase claimed the IRS demands are illegally broad and refused to comply, which in turn led the IRS to file a federal lawsuit last week to enforce the summons. Jurors Weigh Charges Against a Pastor and Software Engineer in Bitcoin Trial While the lawsuit did not come as a surprise, a new affidavit from IRS agent David Utzke reveals additional information about how the agency is conducting the investigation. Specifically, Utzke explains he ran a computer analysis against the IRS’s repository of hundreds of millions of tax records, and found fewer than a thousand people filed a Form 8949 to account for a “property description likely related to bitcoin.” Form 8949 is used to report capital losses and capital gains and, under current IRS rules, would require bitcoin owners to declare their profits. In some cases, the profit could be significant given the virtual currency soared from $13 to over $1,100 during the three year period (2013-2015) for which the agency is seeking information. Here is a paragraph from Utzke’s affidavit that states only 802 individuals filed a bitcoin-related Form 8949 in 2015(emphasis mine): The IRS searched the MTRDB for Form 8949 data for tax years 2013 through 2015. I received the results of those searches. Those results reflect that in 2013, 807 individuals reported a transaction on Form 8949 using a property description likely related to bitcoin; in 2014, 893 individuals reported a transaction on Form 8949 using a property description likely related to bitcoin; and in 2015, 802 individuals reported a transaction on Form 8949 using a property description likely related to bitcoin. It’s impossible to know what percentage of Coinbase customers these numbers represent, but it’s likely only a small fraction. Even though some Coinbase accounts belong to non-U.S. citizens, and many others did not have any transactions (and therefore did not trigger any capital gains), it’s possible an IRS review of the accounts could identify hundreds of thousands of individuals who should have declared bitcoin income. Story continues In a Friday blog post , Coinbase said it has yet to turn over any information, and that it would push back against the scope of the summons. “Coinbase remains concerned with the indiscriminate and over broad scope of the government's summons and we have produced no records under the summons,” wrote Coinbase lawyer, Juan Suarez. Get Data Sheet , Fortune 's technology newsletter. The company has previously described the IRS probe as unreasonable, noting the agency would not approach other financial institutions like JP Morgan or and demand every single of their customer records. In January, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong complained the legal fight could cost his company up to $1 million, and that he would prefer to spend the money hiring employees. Armstrong at the time also offered an olive branch to the IRS, saying Coinbase is ready to provide customers with 1099-B forms, which are used by brokerages and others to help customers report their taxes. Other virtual currencies a target? Following news of the IRS tax probe, one virtual currency lawyer said the agency’s demand simply represented an opening gambit for negotiations--and that it that would end with Coinbase providing a far more narrow set of information. A person close to Coinbase, who was not authorized to speak for attribution, confirmed to Fortune the company and the IRS have been in talks, but also expressed surprise the agency has so far refused to narrow its demands. A spokesperson for the IRS said the agency cannot comment on specific investigations. The upshot of all this is that many Coinbase customers are likely to feel uneasy since the investigation could eventually lead them to owe back taxes or penalties, or even see the IRS seize their accounts. Bitcoin Prepares For an Ugly Breakup Meanwhile, Coinbase isn’t the only one taking issue with the IRS’s bitcoin stance. A Los Angeles law firm, Berns Weiss, sued the IRS last year , complaining the agency’s summons swept up one of the firm’s partners, Jeffrey Berns, who held bitcoin at Coinbase, but had never sold it. The firm had to drop the lawsuit after the IRS told Berns he would not be a target of the investigation--but has since vowed to resume the legal battle. “We will, however, continue our efforts to protect the rights of Coinbase customers regarding this patently overbroad summons. Thus, we plan to file a motion to intervene in the enforcement proceeding on behalf of other Coinbase customers who have contacted us and expressed their interest in fighting the summons,” said the firm in a statement. Finally, it’s unclear if the IRS is also targeting other virtual currency operators. While Coinbase is the most popular and mainstream bitcoin platform, there are numerous others. Meanwhile, the growing value of other virtual currencies , including Ethereum, mean firms that offer such currencies could soon find themselves in the cross-hairs of the IRS too. An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to the IRS form on one occassion as Form 8948 not 8949. It has been updated. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Why Coinbase's Cofounder Is Moving On New York Warms Up to This Bitcoin Exchange With New License Bitcoin Battle Heats Up as Coinbase Moves to Fight IRS Demand Legal Sparring Continues in Bitcoin User's Battle with IRS Tax Sweep Customer Sues IRS to Halt Probe of Coinbase Bitcoin Accounts View comments || Trades to make after the US airstrike in Syria fails to shake investors: The"Fast Money"traders break down their market moves Friday after a flurry of political headlines during the week, including a ThursdayU.S. airstrike on Syria, failed to shake investors. Trader Steve Grasso said he's stepping away from the market because he is "waiting for this [it] to crack." He said he sold Qualcomm(NASDAQ: QCOM)and Micron Technology(NASDAQ: MU), but he is still invested in housing stocks and positioned for impending mergers and acquisitions across the market. Grasso said he will return to the market if the S&P 500(INDEX: .SPX)jumps over 2400 points on substantial data that's more than just sentiment. The S&P closed at 2355.54 points on Friday, down 0.08 percent. Trader David Seaburg said he was impressed by the resilience of the market following the U.S. airstrike on Syria. He said he likes the healthcare(NYSE Arca: XLV)and technology(NYSE Arca: XLK)sectors. He said merger and acquisitions should accumulate in the technology space. Trader Brian Kelly said he will continue to ride high with Wal-Mart(NYSE: WMT). The retailerwas upgraded by a Telsey Advisory Group analyst on Fridayand saw the company's shares saw a 2 percent gain. He said he got into Wal-Mart because he continues to believe the possible border adjustment tax will not become law. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF(NASDAQ: IBB)sector earned favor from Guy Adami with its consistent move higher. The exchange-traded fund is up over 3 percent in the last 3 months. Adami also said he likes Wal-Mart. He said the stock should continue its climb and outperform Target(NYSE: TGT). Disclosures: Steve Grasso's firm is long AON, BX, CUBA, DIA, F, HES, ICE, KDUS, MAT, MFIN, MJNA, MSFT, NE, RIG, SNAP, SPY, SQBG, TITXF, UA, WDR, WPX, ZNGA. Grasso is long CHK, EEM, EVGN, GDX, KBH, MJNA, MON, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, VRX. Grasso's kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. No shorts. "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" Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, FXI, HLF, TSLA, WMT, XBI. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC • Newsmax CEO: Might be appropriate for Trump to take military action against Syria • Trades to make in an uncertain market • How to trade the French election || Bitcoin Unlimited Futures Used to Extinguish Debt of Leading Bitcoin Public Company: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / April 6, 2017 /First Bitcoin Capital Corp (OTC PINK: BITCF), in a related party transaction paid off approximately $200,000 in debt utilizing Bitcoin Unlimited Futures, making the Company 100% debt free. Bitcoin Unlimited Futures is one of the latest cryptographic creations of the company and rides on the rails of the Bitcoin Blockchain. Released by the Company as a means of allowing speculators to predict the outcome of the forthcoming hard fork of Bitcoin Core into two distinct assets, Bitcoin Unlimited Futures trades under the symbols XBU on the decentralized OMNIDEX and the Company's subsidiary, COINQX.com as well as XB on the CCEX.com exchanges. XBU or XB is not to be confused with competing efforts to presale actual Bitcoin Unlimited (BTU) prior to the hard fork, whereas in the case of XBU/XB our coin will not become BTU, instead, it will trade independently as a third currency. There is no relation of XBU or XB to the actual Bitcoin other than that it was created on and moves along the rails of the Bitcoin Blockchain using the Omni Layer Protocols. BTU is trading at about half of the trading value of XBU/XB. Efforts by two competing exchanges to capitalize on the pending hard fork can be found here:http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-unlimited/ Due to the ephemeral nature of XBU/XB, the Company's creditor agreed to accept XBU at a discount from current illiquid market rates so that the company has paid 2,000 XBU/XT to settle this related party debt from its growing inventory of altcoins. "Becoming debt free not only strengthens our balance sheet but is an important milestone for a development stage company which positions the company for a more rapid path to profitability." The company is also conducting its first ICO (Initial Coin Offering) which is actively offered at a bonus to "early bird" participants. In order to participate in the company's recently announced AltCoin ICO, kindly review further details athttp://www.AltCoinMarketCap.com 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 is developing several cryptocurrency related businesses and owns and operates the following digital assets. 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, $GARY& $BURN -commemorative presidential election coins. www.bitcannpay.comOpen Loop merchant services for dispensaries. List of Omni protocol coins issued on the Bitcoin Blockchain owned by the Company:http://omnichest.info/lookupadd.aspx?address=1FwADyEvdvaLNxjN1v3q6tNJCgHEBuABrS Follow us on Twitter @First_Bitcoin $BITCF About BITCOIN UNLIMITED The Bitcoin Unlimited (BU) project seeks to provide a voice to all stakeholders in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Every node operator or miner can currently choose their own block size limit by modifying their client. Bitcoin Unlimited makes the process easier by providing a configurable option for the accepted and generated block size via a GUI menu. Bitcoin Unlimited further provides a user-configurable failsafe setting allowing you to accept a block larger than your maximum accepted block size if it reaches a certain number of blocks deep in the chain. By moving the block size limit from the protocol layer to the transport layer, Bitcoin Unlimited removes the only point of central control in the Bitcoin economy - the block size limit - and returns it to the nodes and the miners. An emergent consensus will thus arise based on free-market economics as the nodes/miners converge on consensus focal points, creating in the process a living, breathing entity that responds to changing real-world conditions in a free and decentralized manner. This approach is supported by the evidence accumulated over the past six years. The miners and node operators have until now been free to choose a soft limit which, as demand grew, has always been increased in a responsive and organic manner to meet the needs of the market. We expect miners to continue in this tested and proven free-market way by, for instance, coordinating to set a new generated block size limit of 2MB and reject any blocks larger than 2MB unless they reach 4 blocks deep in the longest chain. As demand increases, the limit can easily be increased to 3MB, 4MB, and so on, thus removing central control over the process of finding the equilibrium block size by allowing the free market to arrive at the correct choice in a decentralized fashion. As a foundational principle, we assert that Bitcoin is and should be whatever its users define by the code they run, and the rules they vote for with their hash power. Bitcoin Unlimited seeks to remove existing practical barriers to stakeholders expressing their views in these ways. For more information, please visitwww.bitcoinunlimited.info 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 viainfo@bitcoincapitalcorp.comor visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Bitcoin steadies after biggest three-day tumble in over two years: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin regained its footing on Monday, having suffered its heftiest falls since early 2015 between Thursday and Saturday as investors sold the digital currency on worries about its future. Having soared to an all-time high of $1,350 on the Bitstamp exchange on March 10, on speculation that regulators could approve the first U.S. bitcoin exchange traded fund the following day, the digital currency then slipped back. Its falls began accelerating on Thursday and it hit a five-week low of $944.36 on Saturday. But bitcoin recovered a little on Sunday and built on those gains on Monday, climbing around 2.5 percent to roughly $1,050 by 1815 GMT. Bitcoin experts said its steep losses were driven by a longstanding, and intensifying, row over whether - and how - to increase the capacity of the "blocks" that bitcoin transactions are processed in, so as to make sure there are no delays in transactions being finalised. "The bitcoin scaling debate is a risk for the network and highlights core issues in terms of governance and this is where more nimble crypto competitors see advantages in fleshing out their capabilities sooner," said Charles Hayter, CEO of digital currency analysis website Crytocompare, in London. At the same time that bitcoin was plunging, a newer, rival "cryptocurrency" was soaring: ether. The digital currency behind Ethereum - a project that some experts say holds more potential than bitcoin - has almost tripled in value this month, jumping to record highs of around $45. Some experts said traders were selling bitcoin and buying ether, which was exacerbating the falls in the original cryptocurrency. "Traders in the space are looking for better returns in the more risky and nascent cryptos such as Dash, Monero and Ethereum (and are) looking to replicate the extraordinary returns that bitcoin saw in its early days," added Hayter. U.S. regulators dashed Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss's bitcoin ambitions earlier in the month by rejecting their application to list an exchange-traded fund linked to the digital currency. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Alison Williams) || Hackers claim to have breached hundreds of millions of Apple accounts: Apple’s iPhones and Apple IDs are a tough nut to crack for hackers, but it’s not impossible. At least that’s what a group of hackers seem to suggest, as they’re currently attempting to blackmail Apple for up to $100,000 before they start remotely wiping millions of iPhones. Can they actually do it? Should you be worried? It’s unclear at this point. Don't Miss : Apple just added a brand new iPhone 7 model to its lineup The hackers apparently engaged in conversations with the media to force Apple’s hand. The Turkish Crime Family hacker group, which spoke to Motherboard , want either $75,000 in Bitcoin or Ethereum, or $100,000 worth of iTunes gift cards. “I just want my money and thought this would be an interesting report that a lot of Apple customers would be interested in reading and hearing,” one of the hackers said. Apparently, the hackers have been in contact with Apple’s security team for quite a while now. They even posted a video on YouTube to prove they have actual access to iCloud accounts, access which can be used to remotely wipe iPhones. Apple, understandably, doesn’t appear to be willing to pay up the ransom. “We firstly kindly request you to remove the video that you have uploaded on your YouTube channel as it’s seeking unwanted attention, second of all we would like you to know that we do not reward cyber criminals for breaking the law,” a screenshot of a message purportedly coming from an Apple security team member reads. The hackers say they have access to more than 300 million Apple email accounts, including @icloud and @me domains. The number is the source of some confusion though, because a different hacker from the group claimed they had 559 million accounts in all. They have not explained how they gained access to Apple ID credentials. The hackers are threatening to move forward with remotely wiping Apple devices on April 7th, unless Apple pays up. Apple hasn’t publicly commented on the matter at this point. On the off-chance that the hackers are indeed holding access to millions of iCloud accounts, you might consider changing your password to protect your Apple ID. Story continues Trending right now: Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 review: A perfect tablet, totally ruined $8 gives your Google Pixel the iPhone 7 feature it’s been missing Nintendo Switch will be back in stock at GameStop today See the original version of this article on BGR.com || 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." Story continues 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) || Trump Trick and Tweets: These ETFs May Prosper Ahead: This article is part of a regular series of thought leadership pieces from some of the more influential ETF strategists in the money management industry. Today's article is by Scott Kubie, CFA, chief strategist of Omaha, Nebraska-based CLS Investments. Donald Trump’s narrow presidential victory, Brexit and stronger nationalist tendencies in Europe and Asia indicate an underlying shift in the emphasis of consumers and government policy. While it may continue to cause some volatility, the shift will benefit economic growth through a few key changes in behavior: Greater consumer optimism fuels increased consumption Expansionary fiscal policies support infrastructure projects Regulatory reform increases potential business investment Economic trends show this transition is already in motion. Research originally conducted by MSCI and updated by CLS separates economic regimes into the four different quadrants seen in the chart below. This chart shows the global economy has moved from the slow-growth quadrant to the heating-up quadrant. The heating-up quadrant is associated with stronger economic growth and increasing inflation. Inflation Ratio For a larger view, please click on the image above. This shift will create opportunities for the patient investor in the coming years. There will be numerous ways to tilt portfolios toward these themes. This article briefly summarizes three opportunities CLS sees in the current environment. Value Over Growth All three of the key changes noted above should boost value stocks relative to growth stocks. Rising consumption broadens sales growth, infrastructure projects increase demand for physical goods, and a more favorable regulatory environment benefits energy and materials stocks. All of those trends should boost interest rates and loan demand, supporting financials as well. Prior to 2016, value had lagged growth in six of the previous nine years, and had never outperformed by more than 2.3%. In the six years growth outperformed, three of them (2007, 2009 and 2015) did so by 9.5% or more. Story continues Cumulatively, growth outpaced value by more than 50% from 2007 to 2015. Last year, value picked up more than 10% on growth in the U.S. (see chart above). While value did well last year, we expect the trend to continue to favor value stocks over the intermediate term. Two ETFs that offer exposure to this trend are: iShares Edge MSCI USA Value Factor ETF (VLUE) Guggenheim S&P 500 Pure Value ETF (RPV) Diversify Creatively While this economic recovery has been very long by historical standards, it has also been slow. Only in recent periods have we seen wage pressures starting to break through after a long wintry economic recovery. Global supply chains have helped keep wages low by allowing firms to transfer production to cheaper areas. The new nationalists will pressure companies to keep more production in the home country. That in turn will push up prices, inflation and interest rates. If the economic trend continues, we expect new quarterly inflation data to continue to be above the past quarter’s data. Based on our higher expectations for inflation, we believe TIPS will outperform nominal U.S. Treasury bonds of similar duration. Bank loans also look attractive in a scenario where credit risk is dropping because of good economic growth and increasing yields. In these bond segments, some holdings include: iShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP) PowerShares Senior Loan Portfolio (BKLN) PIMCO 1-5 Year U.S. TIPS Index ETF (STPZ) Index Smartly The financial crisis has provided the dominant market narrative for investment results since 2007. Any narrative that lasts that long begins to creep into capitalization-weighted indexes. With a new narrative of economic populism usurping the financial crisis as the defining trend in global economics, investors should expect shifts in leadership around the world. If this trend-shift proves to be lasting, cap-weighted indexes will be overexposed to the beneficiaries of recent years and underexposed to value stocks, especially financial stocks. Smart-beta alternatives seem more likely than normal to outperform during a period of rapid change. Here is a sample of smart-beta ETFs , excluding the value ETFs mentioned above: iShares Edge MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF (MTUM) J.P. Morgan Diversified Return International Equity ETF (JPIN) Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) At the time of this writing, CLS Investments invests in all of the securities mentioned above for its clients. CLS Investments is a third-party investment manager and ETF strategist. It began to emphasize ETFs in individual investor portfolios in 2002, and is now one of the largest active money managers using ETFs. Contact CLS' Chief Strategist Scott Kubie, CFA, at 402-896-7406 or at scottk@clsinvest.com . Please click here for a complete list of relevant disclosures and definitions. Recommended Stories Wednesday’s Hot Reads: Approving Bitcoin ETFs Will Lead Investors To Slaughter Rebalancing Of Smart Beta ETFs Often Overlooked 2 Smart Beta ETFs Killing It In Emerging Markets February ETF Flows Point To Passive Opportunity Why Low Vol Funds Are Bleeding Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Bitcoin hits all-time high as talk of U.S. ETF approval intensifies: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin hit a record high on Friday on optimism about the approval of the first U.S. bitcoin exchange-traded fund by the Securities and Exchange Commission. "There's one catalyst at the moment and that is the expectation that the Winklevoss Trust will be approved on the 11th of March. That's the only game in town," said Daniel Masters, portfolio manager of Jersey-based Global Advisors Bitcoin Investment Program. Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have a pending application with the SEC for a bitcoin ETF, which was filed nearly four years ago. On March 11, the twins are expected to receive a final decision from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on whether they can list their ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. On Friday, bitcoin climbed to a record $1,298 on the BitStamp platform. Bitcoin last traded at $1,263.01, up nearly 5 percent on the day. So far this year, bitcoin has surged more than 30 percent. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be used to move money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. Darin Stanchfield, founder and chief executive officer of bitcoin wallet KeepKey, said the approval of the Winklevoss ETF would be a big boost to the market. "It should add a fair amount of liquidity to the bitcoin market," added. To date, there are two other bitcoin ETF applications with the SEC. Grayscale's Bitcoin Investment Trust, backed by early bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group, filed its application with the SEC in March last year. SolidX Partners Inc, a U.S. technology company that provides blockchain services, also filed its ETF application in July of last year. 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 with new bitcoins. Analysts said the groundwork for bitcoin gains was laid in July last year in a process called "halving," where rewards offered to bitcoin miners shrink. That has constrained the supply of the digital currency. Dan Morehead, chief executive officer at hedge fund Pantera Capital, said in his recent letter to investors that the bitcoin price moves in line with the currency's use in transactions and both have risen sharply. He sees the bitcoin price possibly rising to $2,288 by the end of the year. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Sandra Maler) View comments [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] "Bitcoin transactional volume in 2017 has been $260M per day, $180K per minute. Up 55% from 2016, which was up 118%… http://dlvr.it/NPCKFg pic.twitter.com/e4JoRKEVQQ || Bitcoin Transaction Volumes Up 55% in 2017 - CoinTelegraph https://goo.gl/znXZ9i  || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $1049.96/$1052.95 #Bitstamp $1032.00/$1033.49 #BTCe ⇢$-20.95/$-16.47 $1052.25/$1063.27 #Coinbase ⇢$-0.70/$13.31 || Nuevo protocolo TumbleBit fortalece anonimato en transacciones de Bitcoin https://criptonoticias.com/aplicaciones/nuevo-protocolo-tumblebit-fortalece-anonimato-en-transacciones-de-bitcoin/ … || BU does not want HF since they have NO knowledge for development. They are trying to hijack #BTC ... || "Bitcoin Unlimited’s 200 New Nodes’ Authenticity Falls Under Suspicion" http://ift.tt/2l0Hfhx  || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $1224.44/$1226.01 #Bitstamp $1215.01/$1220.00 #BTCe ⇢$-11.00/$-4.44 $1225.47/$1238.16 #Coinbase ⇢$-0.54/$13.72 || The latest Bitcoin Price Index is 1,290.68 USD https://t.co/lzUu2wyPQN https://t.co/XZjkuQpROk || Adicionei um vídeo a uma playlist @YouTube http://youtu.be/dPSIgL4lA-I?aInfinity … Btc Referidos Automaticos || 1 DOGE Price: Bter 0.00000022 BTC #doge #dogecoin 2017-02-16 03:31pic.twitter.com/QVFnR1DxiX
Trend: up || Prices: 1167.54, 1172.52, 1182.94, 1193.91, 1211.67, 1210.29, 1229.08, 1222.05, 1231.71, 1207.21
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)] 4 stocks to watch after volatile week: After a rough week for U.S. stocks, "Fast Money" traders looked at companies that may hold upside into next year. The major averages all lost more than 3 percent this week, with the Nasdaq(NASDAQ: .IXIC)taking the biggest hit, falling about 4 percent. Amid the struggles, trader Tim Seymour looked to retail giant Wal-Mart(NYSE: WMT), the worst performer in the Dow in 2015. It has fallen 30 percent this year, mostly on disappointing guidance. Considering the stock's price and strong same-store sales growth in the third quarter, Wal-Mart looks "defensive," he said. Trader Brain Kelly touted BlackBerry(Toronto Stock Exchange: BB-CA), another beaten down stock which has plunged 30 percent this year. He said the company has started to "pick up a little momentum" on sales, and should benefit as a player in the connected car space. Other traders saw continued upside for names beating broader markets this year. Shares of tobacco company Reynolds American(NYSE: RAI)— which have climbed 38 percent this year to trade around $44.50 — could "easily" rise to $55, said trader David Seaburg. Trader Guy Adami saw upside for MasterCard(NYSE: MA), which he said has "tailwinds" moving into next year and gets a boost from a recent increase in capital return. The stock has climbed 10 percent this year. Disclosures: Tim Seymour Tim Seymour is long AAPL, BAC, CLF, DIS, F, FCX, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JCP, JPM, KO, LGF, RL, T, TWTR, VRX. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, SBUX, YHOO. David Seaburg No conflict Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GDX, GLD, Hong Kong Dollar, TLT, US Dollar; he is short Yuan, Candaian Dollar, GSG, EEM, EWC, EWH, SPY 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 || Investors Set Sail With Cruise-Line Investments In 2016: 2015 proved to be a lucrative year for many cruise liners, as an improving economy and low fuel prices created the perfect conditions for a rebuilding year. Industry juggernaut Carnival Corp (NYSE: CCL ) saw its shares rise 19.43 percent over the course of the year, and Barron's sees the firm climbing another 20 percent this year, a sign that the industry can expect smooth waters ahead. Safety In The Water Carnival Corp has been touted as one of the safest plays in the cruise industry, because the company is the largest operator in the world. Carnival has ships in almost every body of water on the planet, operating popular names like Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises and Costa Cruises. Not only does the company have a massive brand appeal and staying power, but Carnival also pays out the heftiest dividend with a yield of 2.2 percent. Related Link: Barron's Picks And Pans: Carnival, Pandora, American Capital And More Expanding Into China Another reason the cruise industry is set to continue gaining through 2016 is the potential for expansion in China as cruise holidays gain popularity. For investors looking to play this angle, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE: RCL ) or Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NASDAQ: NCLH ) could be smart plays. Royal Caribbean has proven to be popular among the Chinese population and has been pushing upscale ships with luxury rooms that have brought in a great deal of interest. Norwegian is a relatively new entrant into the Chinese market, but the firm has been able to learn from its peers who have already penetrated the market and by offering customers a tailored experience different from what European or North American customers prefer. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga 4 CEOs With A Tough Year Ahead Ledger Fights For Bitcoin's Staying Power At CES 2016 Virtual Reality In 2016 © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Seeks To Right Music-Industry Wrongs: The music industry has been plagued by problems ever since the advent of the Internet and digital file sharing. Free file sharing, illegal downloads and streaming services that offer unlimited listening for a low monthly fee have all contributed to a growing resentment among artists who say that the value their work isn't being recognized adequately. However, the bitcoin community is looking to all of that by using blockchain, the ledger-like technology that the cryptocurrency runs on, to create more transparent contracts. Royalty Distribution As many artists have their royalty fees negotiated by their labels, undesirable contracts with streaming services are often outside of their control. That means that their music can be played on services likeApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL)'s Apple Music or Spotify for a minor fee that the artist often find insufficient. In order to combat this, Ujo Music is working to create a system in which artists contracts are secured via blockchain. That way, transparency between the artist, the label and the streaming service is ensured and artists have more control over how and where their music is sold. Related Link:Is Adele Giving Pandora's Stock A Boost? Maybe, But A Major Copyright Overhang May Have Just Been Removed Peer-To-Peer Sharing A service called Peertracks is looking to use an alt-coin in order to deliver value to artists that choose to share their music on the service. The company uses "artist tokens" which increase in value as a particular track gains popularity. Music that doesn't reach many people would generate tokens with less value. In such a system artists are paid for the consumption of their music and rewarded for songs that are particularly catchy. Bitcoin Payments Bittunes is another startup aiming to the music industry, only this service is hoping to keep things simple and use bitcoin as a form of payment. The company allows users to play new tracks for $0.50, half of which goes to the artist while the other half is redistributed to a group of buyers. That way, the company's managing director Simon Edhouse has said, the transaction remains between an artist and their fans. Songs that make it to the service's Top 100 increase in price to $1.00, leaving the artist with 40 percent of the sale, the buyers sharing an additional 40 percent between themselves while Bittunes collects the remaining 20 percent. A World Outside Of Cryptocurrency Blockchain's entrance into the music space underscores the growing enthusiasm surrounding the technology. While bitcoin itself has raised questions about safety and reliability, the technology behind the cryptocurrency is often dubbed one of the most important technological advances of the decade. For that reason, many startups are focusing on how to implement blockchain into new industries rather than on ways to help spread the word about bitcoin. Many believe that bitcoin may never make it as a widely accepted form of currency, but on the other hand blockchain has the potential to revolutionize several different industries. See more from Benzinga • 6 Ways Blockchain Could Change The World • 8 Ways To Add Solar To Your Portfolio • Obamacare Is Still Under Pressure; Here's Why © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || REPORTS: The secret creator of bitcoin has been unmasked — again: (Thomson Reuters) The creator of bitcoin may be an Australian finance geek named Craig Steven Wright, according to anew report by Wired's Andy Greenberg. Or it could be Wright and his close friend Dave Kleiman, who died two years ago, according toGizmodo. Or Wright could be a man who really wants to take credit for it. Or thehunt to identify bitcoin's creator is wrong again. In 2009, someone — or some people — using the name Satoshi Nakamoto invented bitcoin, a type of digital currency that uses cryptography to move money and records it in a ledger without the need of a bank. The cryptocurrency was once an obsession among finance geeks, but emerged into more of a mainstream economic obsession. A bitcoin startup even sponsored the Bitcoin Bowl, a college-football bowl game, last year. Finding the creator of it has been an obsession among bitcoin enthusiasts and journalists alike. In March 2014,Newsweek published a cover story allegingthat Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, a man living in Southern California who denies having heard of the cryptocurrency, was its mysterious creator. ButGreenbergmay have the most compelling evidence so far that points to the Australian genius: • Posts from Wright's blog hint at writing papers about a cryptocurrency, although Wired admits these could have been planted by Wright to make himself seem like the creator. • Wright owns two supercomputers, including the most powerful privately owned supercomputer. These aren't on corporate campuses, but wired to his home in Australia. • According to leaked documents, Kleiman had a trust containing the same number of bitcoins that Nakamoto is rumored to own. When he died, that trust was passed to Wright. Those bitcoins, at bitcoin's price peak, were worth more than a billion. Gizmodo hasposted many of the emails in its own report, and you can readWired's full story on the unknown Australian here. NOW WATCH:Google's self-driving car has a huge problem More From Business Insider • TransferWise's CEO thinks bitcoin has been driven by 'greed' • US investigators are accusing a bitcoin entrepeneur of running a $20 million Ponzi scheme • A star Silicon Valley entrepreneur explains how bitcoin is going to change the world || Cable & Wireless Communications and Huawei Have Successfully Tested the First Trial of the Fastest Copper Based Broadband Service With G.fast Across Latin America: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Jan 6, 2016) - Cable & Wireless Communications Plc's (CWC) business unit in Panama, Cable & Wireless Panama SA (CWP) and Huawei , a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced the first successful trial of the fastest copper based broadband service across Latin America using leading G.fast technology. As a market leader in mobile and broadband services in Panama, CWP is also the largest telecom service provider in the country with a market leading brand, superior network coverage and excellent customer service. CWP partnered with Huawei to deploy CWC's first trial of the G.fast technology on its existing copper infrastructure. "We are excited to be partnering with Cable & Wireless Communications and together pioneering the first trial of the fastest copper fixed line broadband service with G.fast across Latin America," said Mr. Stephen Ma, CEO of Huawei for the Caribbean. "G.fast is the right way to extend the existing fixed line infrastructure to the gigabit access era by accelerating a future oriented ultra-broadband solution with unparalleled user experiences," he added. The G.fast technology trial ran for two months in Panama deploying Huawei's latest multi-service access node equipment. CWP's trial successfully achieved high speeds averaging 500 Mbps to download and 150 Mbps to upload, over its existing copper fixed lines. "We are thrilled to announce that Cable & Wireless Panama was the first market across Latin America to have successfully completed testing of the G.fast technology, which can deliver high speeds, to its customers through the fastest copper based fixed line broadband technology across the region reaching speeds of 500 Mbps," said Carlo Alloni, EVP Technology and Group CTIO, Cable & Wireless Communications. "Our strategic partnership with Huawei has strengthened our commitment to consider solutions that deliver high-speeds," added Alloni. G.fast technology is based on the Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) method with an improved algorithm that cancels the noise in the lines, reducing the effects of crosstalk and allowing transmission of higher rates of bits with a better quality, increasing the speeds of the information transmitted. Huawei's G.fast solution can complement the other technologies selected for its HFC (Hybrid fiber-coaxial) and Fibre delivery platforms. CWP's G.fast technology is providing a fivefold increase in speeds compared to any existing internet copper residential service in Panama and empowering the fastest copper fixed line broadband service across Latin America. Story continues About Huawei Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing. Its innovative ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees. About G.fast G.fast is a digital subscriber line (DSL) standard for local loops, with performance targets between 150 Mbps and 1 Gbps, depending on loop length. Since the launch of the world's first G.FAST prototype by Huawei in December 2011, G.FAST technology has become highly anticipated by the ICT industry and has maintained strong development momentum. 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 $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 7,200 employees serving over 6.3 million customers (Mobile 4.1m; Fixed Line 1.1m; Video 465k and Broadband 680k) 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: www.cwc.com . About CWP Cable & Wireless Panama (CWP) is the market leader in mobile, broadband and fixed line services in Panama. The Company's mobile business operates under the brand name +Movil and the other businesses under + internet and +TV Digital in Panama. CWP is also a leading regional player in enterprise and managed services as well as being a leader in carrier services in partnership with our Caribbean business. View comments || 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. || What's In Store For Bitcoin In 2016?: This year was a difficult one for cryptocurrencies as they struggled with volatile prices and negative press. Many view currencies like bitcoin as tools for criminals and investors tended to shy away from the currency as volatile price swings made it difficult to make accurate predictions. However, many believe that 2016 could be a monumental year for bitcoin as and the underlying technology that the coin runs on gains notoriety. Supply Cut Unlike traditional currencies, the number of bitcoins available to the public is controlled by mining computers. The computers essentially solve mathematical puzzles in order to release new bitcoins. The system was also designed to keep the number of bitcoins finite at 21 million coins, a figure to be reached in the next 125 years. Not only that, but the reward for mining bitcoins would be cut in half every four years, and July 2016 marks the next time that cut is set to take place. Related Link:Ben Bernanke Sees Serious Problems With Bitcoin Price Increase Many believe that halving the number of bitcoins received from each mining transaction will give the cryptocurrency's price a boost. While it has been well known for years that bitcoin supply would be reduced, the fact that the bitcoin market is still so new has kept traders from fully pricing the event in. Blockchain Investments Bitcoin could also see a boost in the coming year as blockchain gains popularity across several industries. The ledger-like system that bitcoin runs on has been touted as one of the most important technological advances of the decade, and many see it revolutionizing the way several industries do business. Blockchain has been suggested as a way to improve the real estate market, make the music industry more transparent and improve the speed and efficiency of financial transactions. See more from Benzinga • FedEx Gets The Blame For Holiday Delays • How Blockchain Can Reform The Real Estate Industry • Not All Of Clinton's Policies Are Bad For Pharmaceuticals © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || SEC Targets Connecticut Bitcoin Companies: The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday charged two Connecticut-based Bitcoin mining companies and their founder with running a Ponzi scheme that defrauds investors. Homero Joshua Garza allegedly committed the fraud through two companies, one called GAW Miners and the other ZenMiner, by purporting to offer shares of a digital Bitcoin mining operation, according to the SEC’s complaint filed in federal court in Connecticut. The complaint describes “mining” for Bitcoin or other virtual currencies as applying computer power “to try to solve complex equations that verify a group of transactions in that virtual currency.” The first computer or collection of computers to solve an equation is awarded new units of that virtual currency. Garza allegedly lied to investors about his companies’ ability to mine for Bitcoin. In a statement, the SEC said GAW Miners and ZenMiner in fact didn’t own enough computing power for the mining they promised to conduct, “so most investors paid for a share of computing power that never existed.” In classic Ponzi scheme form, returns paid to some investors came from proceeds generated from sales to other investors, according to the SEC. “As alleged in our complaint, Garza and his companies cloaked their scheme in technological sophistication and jargon, but the fraud was simple at its core: they sold what they did not own, misrepresented what they were selling, and robbed one investor to pay another,” said Paul G. Levenson, director of the SEC’s Boston Regional Office. The SEC’s complaint charges that from August 2014 to December 2014, Garza and his companies sold $20 million worth of purported shares in a digital mining contract they called a Hashlet. Investors were misled to believe they would share in returns earned by the Bitcoin mining activities when in reality Garza’s companies “directed little or no computing power toward any mining activity,” according to the SEC. Garza and his companies allegedly sold far more computing power than they actually owned and paid out daily returns collected from other investors rather than from currency derived from “mining” for currencies. Most Hashlet investors never recovered the full amount of their investments, and few made a profit, the SEC said. Related Articles Wall Street Flat as Investors Await Yellen Speech Oil Falls on Rising U.S. Stockpiles The 10 Biggest Strikes in American History || Record highs predicted for bitcoin in 2016 as new supply halves: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - 2016 could prove to be the year that the price of bitcoin surges again. Not because of any dark-web drug-dealing or Russian ponzi scheme, but for an altogether less sensational reason - slower growth in the money supply. Bitcoin is a web-based "cryptocurrency" used to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority. But 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 reason 2016 looks set to be different is that bitcoin's price is likely to be driven in large part by similar factors to a traditional fiat currency, following the age-old principles of supply and demand. Instead of being controlled by a central bank, 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 thereby clear the transactions is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, worth around $11,000 (BTC=BTSP). But when it was invented in 2008 by the mysterious "Satoshi Nakamoto", who has yet to be identified, the bitcoin program was designed so that the reward would be halved roughly every four years, in order to keep a lid on inflation. The next time that is due to happen is July 2016. Bitcoin was also designed to emulate a commodity by having a finite supply of 21 million bitcoins, which will be reached in around 125 years, up from around 15 million today. Hence, also, the use of the term "mining". Daniel Masters, co-founder of Jersey-based Global Advisors' multi-million dollar bitcoin hedge fund, started his career as an oil trader at Shell in the mid-1980s and spent 30 years trading commodities before crossing over to bitcoin. Now he reckons the price of bitcoin could test its 2013 highs of above $1,100 next year and then pick up speed to rise to $4,400 by the end of 2017. That would be due to a number of factors, Masters said, including an increased acceptance of payments in bitcoin by big companies and authorities, rapidly growing interest and investment in the "blockchain" technology that underpins bitcoin transactions, and also more demand from China as its currency weakens and the economy slows. But taken in isolation, the halving of the mining reward will increase the price of bitcoin by around 50 percent from where it is now, Masters reckons. That is despite the fact that the halving of the reward has always been inevitable - a factor that would already have been accounted for in pretty much every other market. "If OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)came out tomorrow and said, 'in six months' time we're going to halve oil production', the oil price would instantaneously react. But the bitcoin market is still in its infancy, and I don't think that factor is discounted into the price fully," he said. DECENTRALIZED DIGITAL ASSET Bitcoin's price has already almost doubled in the last three months, putting it on track for its best quarter in two years. It hit $500 last month for the first time since August last year, with Chinese demand for a pyramid scheme set up by a Russian fraudster cited as a reason for the price surge. But Bobby Lee, the chief executive of one of the leading bitcoin exchanges in China, BTCC, reckons there is scope for the cryptocurrency to go much further. He thinks the price could increase by as much as eight times in the time up to the reward halving, taking it as high as $3,500 by next summer. "Today the worth of bitcoin is $1 per capita in the world (population)," Lee said, referring to the value of all the bitcoins in circulation, around $6.5 billion. "For such an innovative, decentralized digital asset, I say 'boy, are we undervaluing it'. But it takes a while for people to realize that." The mining reward has already been halved once before, in November 2012, from 50 to 25 bitcoins. The stakes were much lower then, with one bitcoin worth around $12, but nevertheless the price increased by about 150 percent in the preceding seven months - roughly the time left before the next halving. "It (the halving) dampens supply so, all other things being equal, that puts upwards pressure on price," said Jeremy Millar, partner at London-based financial technology specialists Magister Advisors, who expects demand to continue to increase. "No one can argue with that fundamental economic principle." (Editing by Greg Mahlich) || Celltick Partners With Cable & Wireless to Bring Startscreen to Android Devices: MIAMI, FL and SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 19, 2016) -Celltick, a global leader in mobile marketing announces a partnership with leading Caribbean and Latin American network provider,Cable & Wireless Communications(C&W) (LSE:CWC). C&W will provide a branded, localized and customized version of Celltick's Start on its android phones across its Caribbean and Latin American markets. Start provides users with an intelligent next-generation startscreen giving users what they want most when they wake up their phones. The Start platform learns from the way users operate their phone and provides convenient productive ways to enhance the intelligence of the device. C&W users will get a new startscreen on their android devices under the C&W brands -- Flow, LIME, Mas Movil and BTC. Users will be able to better utilize their phones and personalize their devices with stickers, interactive themes as well as play games on their first screen. "Through this partnership, our customers will now have the benefit of a much more personalized, interactive start screen on their mobile device that meets their specific individual needs," said John Reid, President of C&W's Consumer Group. C&W will provide users with local 'infotainments' such as news and weather, rapid access to social media feeds, web search, latest videos and more on the startscreen. "This underscores our ongoing commitment to continuously innovate and transform the total telecommunications experience across the region," added Reid. "We're excited to partner with Cable & Wireless across its 14 mobile markets to provide an enhanced user experience for their subscribers," said Fernando Bortman, GM CALA, Celltick. "The selection of Start by C&W highlights the innovative approach that we have taken in delighting consumers and the excellence of the product." Start's growing ecosystem includes hundreds of themes, plug-ins, stickers and lockgames. Celltick's Start has been adopted by over 40 large operators, OEMs and media companies who distribute over 100M devices around the globe. In 2014, Celltick powered billions of mobile-initiated commerce transactions for virtual and physical goods serving more than 150 million active consumers across 25 countries. 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 7,200 employees serving over 6.3 million customers (Mobile 4.1m; Fixed Line 1.1m; Video 465k and Broadband 680k) 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:www.cwc.com. About Celltick Celltick is a global leader in mobile marketing. Celltick's Start is a next generation personalized intelligent interface for Android devices. Celltick is unique in creating and managing mass market mobile marketing solutions for mobile operators, large media companies, device manufacturers and large brands. Celltick enables its partners to engage and monetize their users on the mobile. The company drives billions of transactions annually across more than 150 million active consumers across its different mobile platforms in over 25 countries. A rapidly growing company, Celltick has subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, South America and the U.S. For more information, visitwww.celltick.com. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 15 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $790.86 #bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $908.97 (9.35 %). BUY B23.36 @ $450.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $455.67 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000005 Bittrex: 0.00000006 Average $1.9E-5 per #reddcoin 23:00:02 || Current price: 420.2€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2016-01-08 03:00:04 CET || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 7 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $584.38 #bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $719.27 (8.56 %). BUY B20.40 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $447.52 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 15 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $420.20 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 13 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $353.63 #bitcoin #btc || Current price: 408.48$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2016-01-21 20:00:03 EST || LIVE: Profit = $25.54 (1.84 %). BUY B3.65 @ $380.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $388.22 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org 
Trend: down || Prices: 391.73, 392.15, 394.97, 380.29, 379.47, 378.26, 368.77, 373.06, 374.45, 369.95
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)] Is It Time To Start Investing In Greece?: Many breathed a tentative sigh of relief Friday morning after news that European Union policymakers and Greece’s Syriza party have taken steps toward deal making after days of butting heads. Earlier this week, an emergency meeting of the region’s finance ministers suggested that the two sides would be unable to reach a compromise, but on Thursday, newly appointed Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras emerged from an EU summit on a positive note. Tsipras said that although the two sides had a long way to go before striking a deal, they had discussed important aspects of the conflict and were moving forward with negotiation. Grexit On The Horizon? With many fearing a Greek exit from the eurozone is in sight, the country’s markets have taken a beating over the past month since Tsipras took office. However, the prospect of a deal between Greece and its creditors coupled with most investors’ reluctance to take a risk in a volatile market has prompted some to return to Greek assets. Delinquency Insurance Some investors are placing their bets on credit-default swaps rather than buying directly into Greek firms. The swaps offer protection against a company’s delinquency, something many consider likely if the next installment of EU money isn't delivered to Greece at the end of the month. Most are still wary of Greek bonds, waiting until the EU comes to a decision about the nation’s upcoming bailout funds before returning to the bond market. If the nation does not receive funding at the end of the month, most expect that it will run out of cash within a matter of weeks. Related Link: Lazard Reportedly Advising Greece Without A Fee Grexit Fears Overdone In January, Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller warned that the sharp pullout from Greece may have been an overreaction. In his view, Greek companies’ share prices are not indicative of their earnings potential and provide an interesting opportunity for investment. Pacific Investment Management Co. echoed his sentiment by saying that markets are blowing the possibility of a Greek exit out of proportion, making now a great time to buy Greek debt. Story continues See more from Benzinga Smartwatches To Get Bitcoin Technology Discussion On Marijuana Reclassification Back On The Table Apple Store To Offer Weed App Once Again © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Have Seattle's Pot Vending Machines Been Released Just In Time To Become Obsolete?: On Tuesday,ZaZZZunveiled Washington state’s first ever medical marijuana vending machine in Seattle. The company said its pot-dispensing machines are designed to meet the needs of the growing medical marijuana community in Washington, and plans to expand to other cities and sates as the marijuana market grows. Not Just Chips And Soda Anymore ZaZZZ is not the first company to offer vending machines selling marijuana products,Medbox, Inc.(OTC:MDBX) offers a similar self service experience in California and Colorado’sHerbal Elementsoffers consumers a selection of THC-laced edible products in its machines. The vending machines are able to scan customers’ ids in order to dispense the drug, but a retailer must check for a medical marijuana license before a person can us the machine. Self-Service On The Way Out? Critics say the machines may not be a good investment because of the state’s rapidly changing regulations on the sale of the drug. For the moment, medical marijuana sales in Washington are only loosely regulated while recreational sales must follow strict laws which make the end product much more expensive. President Obama's Budget Proposal Backs D.C. Marijuana Sales However, lobbyists are pushing to make the drug’s regulation streamlined across both industries, thus making prices more competitive. If the two markets are regulated similarly, medical marijuana will carry a similar price tag to recreational marijuana, something that will likely decrease the number of medical users. For recreational sales, vending machines would have to be operated by dispensary employees only, making their serve-yourself appeal obsolete. See more from Benzinga • Is Bitcoin Too Big To Fail? • President Obama's Budget Proposal Backs D.C. Marijuana Sales • Net Neutrality Has Some Unlikely Backers © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Alternative DNotes Launches Long Term Saving Plans With Potential To Aid The Unbanked And Retirees Worldwide: Stable cryptocurrency DNotes launches new Cryptocurrency Investment Savings Plans (CR.I.S.P) for Retirement. Long term saving plans will receive up to 12% yearly interest bonus on their deposit with a 1 million DNotes limit on the bonus interest offered and 100% deposit guarantee CHICAGO, IL / ACCESSWIRE / February 18, 2015 /Stable cryptocurrency Dnotes, after the successful launch of Cryptocurrency Investment Savings Plan (CR.I.S.P) for Kids, is pleased to announce their latest long term savings plan for Retirement.CR.I.S.P. allows people worldwide from all financial backgrounds to set up savings accounts with the potential of high returns. Individuals that commit to long term DNotes deposit of 5, 10, 15, or 20 year duration will receive up to 12% yearly interest bonus on their deposit with a 1 million DNotes limit on the bonus interest offered and 100% deposit guarantee. DNotes is a Bitcoin alternative cryptographically created digital currency based on a novel decentralized peer to peer model, where trust is replaced by mathematical algorithms, eliminating the need of an intermediary such as a bank or an automatic clearing house. Assets of value such as Bitcoin, DNotes, and other cryptocurrencies can be sent and received in minutes anytime, anywhere, worldwide without the oversight of any central authority. It takes as little as two simple cell phones, or computers with an internet connection to send and receive funds. CR.I.S.P. rests on the web wallet and secure coin storage platform DnotesVault.com; a secure and a strategic vehicle of DNotes to become the digital currency of the future with lasting value.Its mission is to encourage and assist everyone, worldwide, to support and participate in the high potential returns of digital currency savings. The DNotes' team has gone to great lengths to ensure that the user interface is simple to use and easy to understand. The technology and process control, while complex, make it so secure that a 100% guarantee matching fund, always in excess of the total amount in deposited, exists with the guaranteed fund being displayed with addresses and amounts verifiable on the blockchain. Bitcoin as a digital currency and the associated blockchain technologies are viewed by many highly regarded industry leaders as the greatest technology innovation since the Internet. The distributed and consensus technologies coupled with the blockchain protocols have significant and positive world changing implications. DNotes co-founder and experienced computer entrepreneur Alan Yong has been quoted saying, "We never had and never will have a better opportunity to help the financially disadvantaged and the enormous population of the unbanked who have little means of rising from poverty." Unlike the costly credit and debit card payment network systems, where personal information is always at risk of being stolen with huge identity theft liabilities, DNotes transactions are only identified by a string of numbers, valuable for reference and tracking only. All transactions are posted in the blockchain public ledger and available for public inspection and verification. The complexities built in the hash functions make the successfully confirmed transactions impossible to reverse; thereby avoiding potential fraud and huge cost burdens to merchants who often have been exposed to such risk when accepting credit and debit card payments. Mr. Yong explains that for mass consumer and mass merchant participation to take place, there must be a stable trustworthy digital currency like DNotes to deliver the true cost advantages of an alternative form of payment, beyond just the lower cost of transactions. As reported, the richest 1% of the world's population will own more than the other 99% put together by next year and according to a 2012 World Bank published report there are over 2.5 billion people worldwide who are under-served or not served by banks and financial service companies. These groups, collectively known as the unbanked have limited opportunities to emerge from poverty.DNotes digital currency is the future of money with growth and appreciation potential for early adopters and long term investors. It also has the potential to change the wealth of nations and their citizens, when supported with favorable regulations. Under the right political leadership that has a deep knowledge and appreciation of this powerful technology, massive job creation could be the much needed impetus to propel the next global economic bloom that can benefit more than just the rich. With DNotes long term Cryptocurrency Investment Savings Plans for Retirement, with up to 12% yearly interest bonus with a 1 million DNotes limit on the bonus interest offered following the well-received launch of CR.I.S.P. for Kids - DNotes may very well be a game-changer in terms of long term cryptocurrencies and their impact on personal wealth on a global scale. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to FDIC and other consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. For more information about us, please visithttp://dnotesvault.com/crisp-for-retirement.php. Contact Info: Name: Alan YongEmail: Contact@DNotescoin.comOrganization: DNotes SOURCE:DNotes || Global Bitcoin Marketplace With 26,000 Users CryptoThrift Introduces 'One-Click Re-list' And Bitcoin Affiliate Program: CryptoThrift, the leading online Bitcoin marketplace with over 26,000 users, where anyone worldwide can buy and sell anything for Bitcoin and Litecoin, is pleased to announce a one-click re-list feature, and a new lucrative Bitcoin affiliate program. NEWPORT, AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / March 5, 2015 /CryptoThrift has since launch in 2013 reached and maintained its position as the leading Bitcoin marketplace and auction site where people can buy and sell anything for Bitcoin and Litecoin worldwide. CryptoThrift has over 26,000 users worldwide, 33 000 unique visitors and over 500 000 page views per month. Retailers can enjoy free listings and a low fee of 2.5% on sold items only.CryptoThrift has developed a rewarding affiliate program and is always working to improve their Bitcoin market platform; the team is pleased to have introduced new features such as 'one-click re-list' and 'bulk actions'in order to assist frequent sellers. The CryptoThrift team have developed and released their own Bitcoin affiliate program in order to reward those supporting the marketplace. Affiliates can earn up to one Bitcoin just for referring new users, as well as 1% of any sales or purchases made by the new users within their first 90 days. For more information please visitCryptoThrift.com/affiliate-program-now-open/. The Bitcoin marketplace has increased their security significantly after an unfortunate hack in October 2014. All costs associated with the hacking of the site were paid solely with CryptoThrift's own funds, demonstrating their commitment to their customers, and a more secure escrow service was bought back online. Regardless of the fact that CryptoThrift has not received any external funding they still prioritize excellent customer service and are continually working hard to ensureCryptoThrift remains the best place to buy and sell retail goods and services for Bitcoin. CryptoThrift offers an in-house escrow service and customer support, averaging 96% satisfaction rate with 90% of cases answered within 24 hours. CryptoThrift arbitrates all escrow disputes in-house with no information trusted to a third party in order to sustain a close and trusting relationship with their users. CryptoThrift supports an active community and welcomes feedback and suggestions from their users and other businesses so that they can continue to build and improve their services. CryptoThrift is reaching out to potential partners such as businesses and individuals within the crypto community to contact them. With the launch of new helpful features such as 'one-click re-list', 'bulk actions' and a new affiliate program in the Bitcoin space: where anyone worldwide can buy and sell anything for Bitcoin. For more information about us, please visithttps://cryptothrift.com/ Contact Info: Name: Ahmad AounEmail:info@cryptothrift.comOrganization: CryptoThrift SOURCE:CryptoThrift || Genius wants to be like Wikipedia, but for the entire internet: A noticeable tremor went through the U.S. media establishment on Monday, when well-respectedNew Yorkermusic critic Sasha Frere-Jonesannounced that he was leavingthe venerable magazine to become the executive editor of a site many people have probably never heard of: calledGenius, it was formerly known as Rap Genius. In a nutshell, it allows virtually anyone to annotate or make notes on any kind of text document, anywhere on the internet. Sounds like chaos, right? As Foster Kamer and a number of other media insiderspointed outfollowing the news, the fact that Frere-Jones might be interested in jumping from the magazine to an unproven digital-media startup shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, given that he did more or less the same thing in 2010, when he left theNew Yorkerto join The Daily —Rupert Murdoch’s ultimately futile(and expensive) attempt to build a tablet-based news organization. Genius may not be backed by Rupert Murdoch, but it also isn’t a tiny, struggling startup: after raising money from leading Silicon Valley VC Andreessen Horowitz in 2012, the companyraised a fairly massive $40 millionlast year, which valued the venture at about $500 million. Frere-Jones certainly wouldn’t be the first traditional journalist to be seduced by the prospect of a payoff in startup equity, along with the challenge of trying something new. The holy grail of annotation In a post at the Genius site, Frere-Jonestalks about whyhe decided to join the company, including the fact that it appealed to him as a former musician (in an interview with theNew York Times, he also said he was looking forward tonot having to work so many nights). But one part of his post stuck out for me, and that was the part where he talked about how Genius is in sync with the essential nature of the web and “remix culture.” “One of the web’s strengths is that it revises itself, admitting new information and incorporating dissenting views, rather than simply waving at them, regally. Genius is, by design, an open and unfinished text — a reader who doesn’t think an annotation is strong enough can log on and make that song page more robust.” Over the past decade, there have been a number of attempts to “annotate the web,” including browser plugins that would display user-contributed notes beside a page and widgets that would pop up windows when you hit a site — Google evenhad one for awhile called Sidewiki— but not enough people ever used them. The impulse is a fundamentally web-like one, however: to allow anyone to contribute their knowledge on a topic, just as Wikipedia does. In fact, Marc Andreessen of Andreesen Horowitz said when he invested in Genius that his interest in the companystemmed from the earliest daysof his involvement in the consumer web, when he developed one of the first graphic web browsers, known as Mosaic. “It seemed obvious to us that users would want to annotate all text on the web – our idea was that each web page would be a launchpad for insight and debate about its own contents.” But the feature known as “group annotations” was too expensive to implement. Like web comments, but better As part of its attempt to bring this ability to everyone with a browser, Genius recently launched a newfeature that allows a user to postan annotated version of a web page to the site with highlighted sections pointing to comments, as someone has done (predictably enough) with theNew York Timesstory about Frere-Jones joining the site: The problem with this kind of approach, of course, should be fairly obvious to anyone who has followed the evolution of Wikipedia — not to mention anyone who has seenand been repulsed by reader commentson news stories. The issue with comments is that plenty of people think they know something but actually don’t (or just want to scrawl the equivalent of verbal graffiti where everyone can see it), but the downside of the Wikipedia approach is that editing or contributing becomes something thatonly a tiny cabalactually does. Genius inadvertently became an example of the downside of its free-for-all approach when co-founder Mahbod Moghadamposted some offensive and misogynisticcomments on the manifesto written by multiple killer Elliott Rodger. Moghadam was eventually forced to resign, and the episode only reinforced the impression that Genius was run by “bro-grammers” with an over-inflated sense of their own worth (those who knew them in university, meanwhile,have described them as“potheads who debated Kierkegaard”). How will it monetize? At its best, Genius does something similar to what Quorahas also been trying to do: it allows experts to add their perspective on a topic, like when finance experts annotated a pieceabout the future of Bitcoin. And to some extent it sounds like what Sasha Frere-Jones will be doing is acting as a kind of curator — selecting contributors who can add value — as well as helping site moderators determine which annotations to keep and which to jettison: “I’ll bring in artists to tell the stories behind recordings and help correct errors. That doesn’t mean every artist annotation has to be a tablet delivered from on high – some of my favorites are nothing like that, and show that stars can be self-deprecating, too. I’ll also be looking to expand our circle of contributors as well — people who’ve lurked, people who’ve been curious, some who’ve been critical.” Much like early web communities such as Slashdot, Genius deputizes its own members to moderate the annotations: annotations must be approved by users, and over time regular contributors can earnwhat the site calls IQ points— which in turn allow them to remove comments or put users in the “penalty box,” a form ofsanction that prevents themfrom doing anything for a specific period of time (Slashdot’s approach involves what it calls “karma” points, which give users the right to moderate). Moderating bad behavior is one challenge, but what could be an even bigger one is monetizing the content that it annotates,as Vox writer Timothy Lee points out. Editing song lyrics or even web pages isn’t likely to be something that appeals to a vast number of people — just as only a tiny number of contributors ever edit a Wikipedia page. So where will Genius get the kind of engaged readership that will appeal to advertisers? Image copyrightShutterstock / B Calkins. Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:Subscriber content.Sign up for a free trial. • How cloud-based analytics can help companies crowdsource intelligence • How to utilize cloud computing, big data, and crowdsourcing for an agile enterprise • Applying lean startup theory in large enterprises More From paidContent.org • Virtual reality opens new storytelling challenges for animators || Entrepreneurs Are Working to Uber-fy the Trucking Industry.: There’s the Uber of self-storage , the Uber of dining , the Uber of grocery shopping and the Uber of just about everything these days. And now there’s (more than one) Uber of trucking. While not as sexy as say, the Uber of hot man-dudes , trucking is a big business. The industry does hundreds of billions of dollars worth of business each year . Related: 'We're the Uber of X!' Today, Venice, Calif.-based Cargomatic, a mobile app that connects local shippers with local truckers, announced that it has raised $8 million in venture capital. The Series A round was led by Canaan Partners and included funding from Morado Venture Partners , SV Angel , Sherpa Ventures , Structure Capital , and Volvo Group Venture , among others. Entrepreneurs Are Working to Uber-fy the Trucking Industry. The Cargomatic platform allows local shippers and truckers to coordinate schedules and routes. Image credit: Cargomatic Cargomatic is focused on maximizing utilization and efficiency in the local shipping industry. The platform is designed to ensure that no truck drives anywhere empty and that a business that needs a load delivered can piggyback on a load already in transit, thereby getting its goods delivered more cheaply than hiring a truck to make a separate run. (Check out the handy little animated video embedded at the bottom of this post for a visual.) Related: The Future of the Sharing Economy Is a World Built Like Bitcoin “Trucking has long been an essential part of how business gets done, and the Cargomatic platform provides a win-win scenario for businesses who need to ship goods locally, and for truckers who have available capacity,” says Hrach Simonian of the lead investing house Canaan Partners , according to a statement announcing the funding raise released today. Simonian will join the Cargomatic board. Cargomatic is not the first startup to have the idea to Uber-fy the trucking industry. Another tech company, New York-based Transfix , is helping shippers and truckers automatically locate each other, minimizing waste and ideally, preventing truckers from driving with half-empty cargos. Related: Zappos Is Bringing Uber-Like Surge Pay to the Workplace || 4 ways to play the currency wars: The euro continues to tumble against the dollar (Exchange:EUR=) after the European Central Bank's decision to expand its stimulus program in the euro zone. The euro's slide deepens in a year when the dollar has floated higher against numerous currencies. "The best case you can hope for is a much, much lower euro, but in the short term, you're not going to get that because we've gotten so oversold," said CNBC "Fast Money" trader Brian Kelly. Read More Currency war: Who will be the casualties? With sharp currency movements mounting, uncertainty weighs on markets. "Fast Money" traders looked at plays in exchange-traded funds that would yield gains with choppy currencies. The iShares MSCI Germany ETF (NYSE Arca: EWG) caught Kelly's eye. He sees a short play in the index, which is linked to German equities and ended slightly lower on Friday."I think that Europe still continues to go down the recessionary path," Kelly said. Trader Tim Seymour also chose to play negative sentiment in Europe. Last week, he said to short the euro-linked Guggenheim CurrencyShares Euro Trust (NYSE Arca: FXE), and he said now may be the time to cover the euro short. Read More Currency expert: Euro going 'well below parity' Traders Steve Grasso and Guy Adami saw opportunity in commodities-linked ETFs. Grasso looked at the ProShares UltraShort Oil and Gas (NYSE Arca: DUG)."I think the dollar goes higher, the euro goes lower. I think oil goes lower as well," Grasso said. Adami touted the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX), as he believes miners will benefit as more investors turn to gold. Disclosures: Tim Seymour Tim Seymour is long AAPL, BAC, C, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, BX and SUNE. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, CCU, DSKY, KNDI, MCD, NKE, NOK, SINA, SBUX, TSL and VIP.Steve Grasso Steve Grasso is long AAPL, BA, CLVS, EVGN, FB, GDX, GOOGL, IMMR, KBH, KDUS, MHY, MJNA, NVIV, PFE, POT, SO, T, TMUS, TWTR and YHOO. His kids are long EFG, EFA, EWJ, IJR and SPY. Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BTC=, Gold, US Dollar, HYG puts and TWTR call spreads. He is short EWA, EWG, EWQ, EWZ, EWH, EWW, HGH5, Yen, Australian Dollar, British Pound and Canadian Dollar.Guy AdamiGuy Adami is long CELG, EXAS and INTC. Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. || Bitcoin Is Crashing And Deep Web Drug Dealers Are Losing Thousands: Joel Sagat/Getty Images All manner of illegal drugs are available to purchase on the deep web. "Fantastic!" That's the sarcastic reaction of one deep web dealer after losing $1,000 in a single night due to this week's catastrophic Bitcoin price crash. The virtual currency has been declining in value for all of 2014, but it began 2015 particularly badly —losing 30% of its value in a matter of days. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency is sitting relatively stably around the $205-mark. But it's a level not seen since the end of October 2013, and well below its $350 valuation just a month ago. The price drop has had a damaging impact on the mainstream Bitcoin economy. One mining operation has already beenforced to temporarily close its doorsbecause it's no longer profitable. Other businesses are being forced to sell off Bitcoin reserves in order to stay afloat —risking driving prices down further. But that’s just legitimate businesses. Bitcoin’s growth has been built upon far more nefarious uses — chief among them: buying and selling drugs online. And it turns out drug dealers are freaking out about the price crash just as much as everyone else. CoinDesk A recent chart of Bitcoin's price decline over the past month. Drug dealers and their customers have spent days lamenting over the decline using forums accessible only through anonymising software Tor. “Out a couple of thousand over this,” writes one dealer. “Bad f---ing time to start up. I really hope it bounces back and stays there. I can’t believe how fast they’re dropping. $330 to 280 to 220 in just a few weeks. Bye bye profit.” “I am losing losing 10-20% on all orders in escrow now!” says another. “Make that 30%!!! There goes all profit! FML.” Deep web markets almost exclusively accept Bitcoin as payment, and typically adjust prices automatically to account for Bitcoin’s fluctuations. The customer will always pay the same dollars-worth of Bitcoin, the amount varying depending on the exact price of the virtual currency at the time of purchase. It means that if a vendor makes some big sales, and then the price of Bitcoin plummets before they cash out, they can find their profits slashed, or even losing significant amounts of money. Deep web One user suggests that vendors should weather the storm and buy up in Bitcoin, in anticipation of a rise. “The people this is bad for is buyers who are getting less and less for the coins they bought,” they argue. Another says they’ve “bought a chunk to last me 6 months. Surely it won’t go lower.” But others disagree. “Some of the really big sellers might be able to do that,” a dealer writes, “but many of us have overhead costs that need to be paid to keep the business running! I believe in Bitcoin’s future and try to hold, but when you have been holding since around $800 and you need to cash out under 200, it hurts!” Evolution One deep web cocaine dealer spoke to Business Insider about the price crash. “It’s pretty damn sad,” they said. “We have worked so hard over the past 3 months, and for profits to get halved? It’s hard to swallow, simple as that, but what can you do. It’s a gamble, whether you hold or sell.” They'd cashed out and had a massive payday during the bubble in November 2013, so they weren't immediately hurt by the dropping prices. But it’s still “hard work down the toilet.” And other, newer dealers don't have that luxury: they’ll be forced to sell reserves at a loss just to keep going (and potentially forcing the price down even more in the process). There's been a "slight drop" in sales over the last few days, the dealer said, but it's too early to say what's the cause. As for the future, “it might drop a little or might go up a little… we will just have to ride it out :)” More From Business Insider • Deep Web Drug Dealers Are Freaking Out About The Bitcoin Crash • The Creator Of The Silk Road Claims He's Just A 'Fall Guy' • Mining Bitcoin Has Become A Ruthlessly Competitive Business || 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. || U.S. bitcoin exchanger who sold on Silk Road gets four years in prison: By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Florida plumber who operated an underground bitcoin exchange selling the digital currency to users of the black market website Silk Road was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday. Robert Faiella, 55, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan after pleading guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. His sentence came a year after prosecutors unveiled charges against Faiella and his co-defendant, prominent bitcoin evangelist Charlie Shrem. His sentencing came as trial continued for Ross Ulbricht, the alleged operator of Silk Road, a website where drugs and other illicit goods could be bought secretly with bitcoin. Rakoff in December sentenced Shrem, the former vice chairman at the trade group Bitcoin Foundation, to two years in prison for aiding and abetting an unlicensed money transmitting business. But Rakoff said Faiella, who must with Shrem also forfeit $950,000, deserved a harsher sentence, citing in part a prior conviction for a tax offense. "He knew from his own criminal history the nature of the risk he was taking, and he knowingly assumed that risk," Rakoff said. Prosecutors say from December 2011 to October 2013, Faiella sold bitcoin for cash to users of Silk Road, a website that by the time authorities closed it had $200 million in drug sales. Operating under the name BTCKing, Faiella would fill user orders for bitcoins through Shrem's exchange, BitInstant, ultimately trading in over $1 million in cash, prosecutors said. Lawyers for Faiella, a licensed plumber, said his crimes were motivated by a desperate financial situation amid job and medical problems. "At the time of the offense, I saw no other way," Faiella said in court Tuesday. "That still doesn't change that I broke the law." Ulbricht, 30, faces seven counts including narcotics trafficking conspiracy. Joshua Dratel, his lawyer, has acknowledged he created the website but says his client became the "fall guy" for its true operators. Story continues He has also pointed to other people authorities investigated as being behind Silk Road, including Mark Karpeles, the former chief of the defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. Karpeles denies involvement with Silk Road. A federal judge on Tuesday struck some but not all of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent's testimony from Thursday about the Karpeles investigation. The agent, Jared Der-Yeghiayan, testified again Tuesday and will resume Wednesday. The case is U.S. v. Faiella, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-cr-00243. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Current price: 218.2$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-01-16 00:00:03 EST || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000010 Bittrex: 0.00000010 Average $2.2E-5 per #reddcoin 19:00:01 || Current price: 209.3€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-02-26 21:00:02 CET || Current price: 209.19$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-01-20 03:00:01 EST || LIVE: Profit = $395.89 (0.55 %). BUY B262.08 @ $275.29 (#BTCe). SELL @ $277.00 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 13639.00 INR Sell : 13198.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || One Bitcoin now worth $277.77@bitstamp. High $305.00. Low $272.45. Market Cap $ 3.808 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/jVYSlY7y6a || $220.00 at 20:45 UTC [24h Range: $215.00 - $223.00 Volume: 9751 BTC] || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000010 Bittrex: 0.00000012 Average $2.6E-5 per #reddcoin 15:00:01 || Current price: 238.43$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-02-24 02:00:03 EST
Trend: up || Prices: 274.35, 289.61, 291.76, 296.38, 294.35, 285.34, 281.89, 286.39, 290.59, 285.51
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 2017-09-29] BTC Price: 4163.07, BTC RSI: 54.85 Gold Price: 1281.50, Gold RSI: 39.94 Oil Price: 51.67, Oil RSI: 63.59 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] JPMorgan's Dimon says bitcoin 'is a fraud': By David Henry and Anna Irrera NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin "is a fraud" and will blow up, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), said on Tuesday. Speaking at a bank investor conference in New York, Dimon said, "The currency isn't going to work. You can't have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart." Dimon said that if any JPMorgan traders were trading the crypto-currency, "I would fire them in a second, for two reasons: It is against our rules and they are stupid, and both are dangerous." Dimon's comments come as the bitcoin, a virtual currency not backed by any government, has more than quadrupled in value since December to more than $4,100. Bitcoin is a digital currency that enables individuals to transfer value to each other and pay for goods and services bypassing banks and the mainstream financial system. While banks have largely steered clear of bitcoin since it emerged following the financial crisis, the virtual currency has a range of people who support it, including technology enthusiasts, liberterians skeptical of government monetary policy and speculators attracted by its price swings. "Like it or not, people want exposure to bitcoin," Edward Tilly, chairman and CEO of exchange group CBOE Holdings Inc. (CBOE.O), said at the same conference. CBOE has applied with U.S. regulators to launch a bitcoin futures contract and a bitcoin exchange traded fund on its venues. Any good trade is started with a difference of opinion, Tilly added. "So Jamie can be on the short side and the issuers and those trading in physical can be on the long side, and it sounds like we have a great trade.” Dimon may also be on the other side of another bitcoin trade closer to home. At another conference about two hours later, Dimon said that one of his daughters had bought some bitcoin. "It went up and she thinks she's a genius now," Dimon said at the CNBC Institutional Investor Delivering Alpha Conference. "WORSE THAN TULIP BULBS" Banks and other financial institutions have been concerned over bitcoin's early association with online crime and money laundering. The supply of bitcoin is meant to be limited to 21 million, but there are clones of the virtual currency in circulation which have made the market for it more volatile. "It is worse than tulips bulbs," Dimon said, referring to a famous market bubble from the 1600s. JPMorgan and many of its competitors, however, have invested millions of dollars in blockchain, the technology that tracks bitcoin transactions. Blockchain is a shared ledger of transactions maintained by a network of computers on the internet. Story continues Dimon said such uses will roll out over coming years as it is adapted to different business lines. Financial institutions are hoping blockchain can be adapted to simplify and lower the costs of processes such as securities settlement, loan trading and international money transfers. Dimon predicted big losses for bitcoin buyers. "Don't ask me to short it. It could be at $20,000 before this happens, but it will eventually blow up." he said. "Honestly, I am just shocked that anyone can't see it for what it is." Bitcoin’s price fell as much as 4 percent following Dimon's comments and was last trading at $4,164. Rumours that the Chinese government is planning to ban trading of virtual currencies on domestic exchanges has weighed on bitcoin recently. "It feels like we are in the midst of a negative news cycle, but even considering all this, we are still trading above $4,000." said John Spallanzani, chief macro strategist at GFI Group. (Reporting by David Henry and Anna Irrera in New York Additional reporting by John McCrank, Angela Moon and Lawrence Delevingne; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Jonathan Oatis) View comments || Billionaire bitcoin skeptic Howard Marks admits it could be legit currency, but is still a 'speculative bubble': Howard Marks reassessed his thoughts on bitcoin (Exchange: USDBTC=) after starkly warning his clients against the high-flying digital currency in July . The co-chairman of Oaktree Capital is famous for his prescient investment memos, which predicted the financial crisis and the dot-com bubble implosion. "There has been particularly spirited response to my comments on digital currencies," Marks wrote in an investor letter Thursday. "I think I understand what a digital currency is, how bitcoin works, and some of the arguments for it. But I still don't feel like putting my money into it, because I consider it a speculative bubble."Bitcoin's price is up more 350 percent year to date, according to data from industry website CoinDesk. The digital currency fell 7 percent Friday on a report China may shut down local bitcoin exchanges. The manager did admit his initial assessment of bitcoin wasn't complete, when he called it an "unfounded fad (or perhaps even a pyramid scheme)" in his previous letter. He agreed it could be legitimately used as a viable form of payment."What bitcoin partisans have told me subsequently is that bitcoin should be thought of as a currency – a medium of exchange – not an investment asset," he wrote. "Bitcoin fans argue that it qualifies as a currency … it's something that parties can agree to accept as legal tender and a store of value. That actually seems right."On the flip side, Marks pointed out there are "no limits" on the creation of new cryptocurrencies and warned bitcoin may not become the eventual victor. He compared the current digital currency situation to the dot-com bubble period: "So even if digital currencies are here to stay, who knows which one will turn out to be the winner? Hundreds of e-commerce start-ups appreciated rapidly in the tech bubble based on the premise that 'the Internet will change the world.' It did, but most of the companies ended up worthless." Oaktree Capital had $99 billion of assets under management as of June 2017, according to its website. WATCH: Bitcoin tanks on possibility of increased China crackdownMore From CNBC • Cramer: Yes, disinterested teens can actually make the best investors • Cramer's advice for investing in your 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond • Cramer Remix: How brand names can help you find long term winners || Bitcoin is tumbling after Chinese regulators say an exchange ban is certain: Bitcoincontinued to tumble Thursday, trading down 13.6% to $3,362 per dollar at 1:52 p.m. ET, after Chinese media reported that the country's regulators were moving closer to shutting down exchanges. Reports fromBloombergand The Wall Street Journal on Monday first indicated that China planned to ban trading of bitcoin and other virtual currencies on its exchanges. Bobby Lee, CEO of the bitcoin exchange BTCChina,tweetedThursday that the firm would stop all trading on September 30 followingChina's ban on initial coin offerings, the cryptocurrency-based fundraising method. According toBloomberg, China Business News reported that the city of Shanghai had ordered the closure of bitcoin trading platforms. The websiteCrypto Coins Newsfurther cited a local newsletter that said banning bitcoin exchanges was "certain." Bitcoin has come under pressure in recent weeks following negative headlines out of the UK and China. On Tuesday, the Financial Conduct Authority, a UK watchdog,warned investors about the risk associated with ICOs. Also, rumors that China may ban cryptocurrency trading altogether have escalated; a Caixin report out Friday suggested that China wouldshut down its domestic exchanges. Earlier this week,JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimonsaid it was a "fraud" that would eventually blow up. The cryptocurrency has plunged about 25% since its September 1 high. But it's still up nearly 300% this year. (Markets Insider) More From Business Insider • BANK OF AMERICA: Bitcoin is the 'most crowded' trade • China just reversed 2 policies designed to keep the yuan from sliding • Bitcoin is sinking on a report China is going to shut down exchanges || Bitcoin enthusiasts have figured out a way to get around a China trading ban: WeChat Launch Myanmar (WeChat launch in Myanmar.WeChat) NEW YORK — Chinese regulators are moving forward to shut down bitcoin trading in the country, but one executive says traders have a way to work around a ban. On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal's Steven Russolillo and Chuin-Wei Yap reported that bitcoin traders can still exchange their coins via messaging apps such as WeChat , the largest in China with over 900 million users. "You use WeChat, you meet someone, you chat, you buy and sell, you transfer money, nobody knows why you transferred the money," Leon Liu, chief executive and cofounder of BitKan said at a bitcoin conference in Beijing on Wednesday, according to The Journal. "This is everywhere now." The Journal reported Monday that Chinese regulators would widen their crackdown on the digital coin . Authorities, according to reporting by Chao Deng, plan to shut down all channels for exchanging the cryptocurrency — not just commercial ones as originally expected. Many exchanges in the country have already halted trading or announced their intention to do so in the near future. It's uncertain, however, how long bitcoin investors in China will be able to use WeChat as a go-around to the crackdown. Recently, Beijing has taken a number of steps to increase its surveillance of apps like WeChat . On September 7, authorities said creators of messaging groups on the app will be liable for the behavior of members, according to Bloomberg. "Already, 40 people from one WeChat group have been disciplined for spreading petition letters while arresting a man who complained about police raids, according to reports in official Chinese media," wrote Bloomberg's Lulu Yilun Chen. Still, traders can simply flock to other messaging apps, including ones banned in the country. "While Telegram is officially blocked in China, users can access the service through virtual private networks," Bloomberg says. "As a foreign encrypted platform, it is somewhat beyond the grasp of the country’s authorities." Story continues Read the The Wall Street Journal report here >> NOW WATCH: Trump's lack of progress has caused a major dollar reversal More From Business Insider Bitcoin surges past $4,100 despite reports of a wide-ranging crackdown on trading in China 2 of China's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges are shutting down trading — but bitcoin is soaring Bitcoin is tumbling after Chinese regulators say an exchange ban is certain || Marc Faber: Trump's policies make me 'obviously not optimistic about the US dollar': The U.S. dollar could "easily rebound" by 4 to 5 percent from current levels, but President Donald Trump and his administration stand in the way of the currency's long-term strength, Marc Faber said Thursday. The greenback has had a tough year, with the dollar index tumbling nearly 10 percent since the start of 2017. At the same time, gains among currencies such as euro and peso also added to the dollar's pain. "I think the dollar could easily rebound by 4 to 5 percent, or maybe even more. Longer term, I'm obviously not optimistic about the U.S. dollar. You just have to look at the U.S. administration and their economic policies that will not be very conducive for dollar strength in the long run," Faber, the editor and publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report , said on CNBC's "Squawk Box.""They're actually shooting themselves in their own feet, so long term I'm obviously negative about the U.S. dollar," he added.Despite his longer-term bearishness, the widely-followed analyst said he is looking to shift some euros in his portfolio into dollar. "The question is which currency is much better than the U.S. dollar? They're all not so desirable, that's why some people invest heavily in the so called cryptocurrencies ," he said, referring to the money flowing into assets such as Bitcoin . Faber has not dabbled in cryptocurrencies himself but acknowledged that they offer opportunities to make money. The rapid increase in supply of cryptocurrencies has made it difficult for investors to put a value on the digital money. He also said that emerging-market shares and gold could do well. Faber is looking to buy stocks in China , Singapore and Thailand . "I don't want to increase my bond exposure. Every year, some bonds are maturing, and as a result I'm reducing somewhat the bond exposure," he said. "I think the environment going forward, as had been the case in the first six months of the year, is that active managers can perform well by being overweight" in emerging markets. The U.S. dollar could "easily rebound" by 4 to 5 percent from current levels, but President Donald Trump and his administration stand in the way of the currency's long-term strength, Marc Faber said Thursday. The greenback has had a tough year, with the dollar index tumbling nearly 10 percent since the start of 2017. At the same time, gains among currencies such as euro and peso also added to the dollar's pain. "I think the dollar could easily rebound by 4 to 5 percent, or maybe even more. Longer term, I'm obviously not optimistic about the U.S. dollar. You just have to look at the U.S. administration and their economic policies that will not be very conducive for dollar strength in the long run," Faber, the editor and publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report , said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "They're actually shooting themselves in their own feet, so long term I'm obviously negative about the U.S. dollar," he added. Despite his longer-term bearishness, the widely-followed analyst said he is looking to shift some euros in his portfolio into dollar. "The question is which currency is much better than the U.S. dollar? They're all not so desirable, that's why some people invest heavily in the so called cryptocurrencies ," he said, referring to the money flowing into assets such as Bitcoin . Faber has not dabbled in cryptocurrencies himself but acknowledged that they offer opportunities to make money. The rapid increase in supply of cryptocurrencies has made it difficult for investors to put a value on the digital money. He also said that emerging-market shares and gold could do well. Faber is looking to buy stocks in China , Singapore and Thailand . "I don't want to increase my bond exposure. Every year, some bonds are maturing, and as a result I'm reducing somewhat the bond exposure," he said. "I think the environment going forward, as had been the case in the first six months of the year, is that active managers can perform well by being overweight" in emerging markets. More From CNBC Dollar holds near 4-week high vs yen, focus on US inflation data Sterling skids to 9-month low vs euro as BoE keeps rates unchanged Canadian, Aussie dollars driven higher by oil boost View comments || Gold / Silver / Copper futures - weekly outlook: September 4 - 8: Investing.com - Gold prices rose to the highest level in ten months on Friday after the latestU.S. employment reportcame in weaker-than-expected, underlining doubts over prospects for a third Federal Reserve rate hike this year. The U.S. economy added 156,000 jobs in August from the prior month, while the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%, the Labor Department said. Economists had expected 180,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of 4.3%. Gold futures for December delivery ended up 0.57% at $1,329.79 on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, its highest close since September 2016. For the week, gold prices jumped 2.46%, the largest weekly gain since February amid heightenedgeopolitical tensionsand growing doubts over the possibility of another U.S. interest rate increase this year. Gold is highly sensitive to rising rates, which lift the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets such as bullion, while boosting the dollar. The dollar initially weakened after the jobs report, which also supported metals prices. A weaker dollar makes gold futures, which are denominated in the U.S. currency, cheaper for foreign buyers. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.25% to 92.82 late Friday after initially falling to a low of 92.05. For the week, the index was up 0.1% after ending the month of August lower, its sixth consecutive monthly decline, notching up its longest losing streak in a decade. The index is down 9.7% so far this year. Elsewhere in metals trading, silver futures were up 1.37% to $17.71 a troy ounce late Friday, its highest close since June 7 and platinum was up 1.28% to a six-month high of $1,011.25. Among base metals, copper for December delivery closed up 0.73% to $3.121 a pound. Prices are hovering at nearly three-year highs after recent rally spurred by growing confidence in the global economy. In the week ahead, market watchers will be awaiting the outcome of Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting for fresh clues on when the central bank will shift away from its ultra-easy policy. In the U.S., a report on service sector growth will be the highlight of the holiday-shortened week. Ahead of the coming week, Investing.com has compiled a list of these and other significant events likely to affect the markets. Monday, September 4 The UK is to release data on construction activity. Financial markets in the U.S. and Canada are to be closed for the Labor Day holiday. Tuesday, September 5 The Reserve Bank of Australia is to announce its benchmark interest rate and publish a rate statement which outlines economic conditions and the factors affecting the monetary policy decision. Switzerland is to publish inflation figures. The UK is to release data on service sector activity. The U.S. is to release a report on factory orders. Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard is to speak at an event in New York, while Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari is to speak at an event in Minnesota. Wednesday, September 6 Australia is to release data on second quarter economic growth. Canada is to release reports on the trade balance and labor productivity. Later in the day, the Bank of Canada is to announce its benchmark interest rate and publish a rate statement. The U.S. is to publish figures on the trade balance and the Institute for Supply Management is to publish its manufacturing index. Thursday, September 7 Australia is to release data on retail sales and the trade balance. The UK is to publish industry data on house price inflation. The ECB is to announce its latest monetary policy decision and President Mario Drahi is to hold a press conference. The U.S. is to report on initial jobless claims. Friday, September 8 China is to release data on the trade balance. The UK is to report on manufacturing production and the trade balance. Canada is to round up the week with its monthly employment report. Related Articles Forex - Weekly outlook: September 4 - 8 Bitcoin rally gathers steam, nears $5,000 CFTC: S&P 500 Net Longs at 1-Year High; Gold Net Longs at 11-Month High || MORGAN STANLEY: Equifax shares could get cut in half from here: FILE PHOTO: Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) addresses the audience at the morning plenary session at the Netroots Nation conference for political progressives in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. August 12, 2017. REUTERS/Christopher Aluka Berry (Senator Elizabeth Warren said Friday she had launched an investigation into the breach.Thomson Reuters) Equifax ’s unprecedented data breach , which potentially exposed 143 million American’s personal information last week, has already cost the credit agency $9.75 billion in market value, and the stock could plunge even more, Morgan Stanley says. In its updated bear case out Friday, the investment bank asks, "Where’s the floor?" and says Equifax’s stock could plunge as low as $50 a share, about one-third of where it was before the hack. "The main risks that we see to EFX center around: 1) greater impairment to the Global Consumer Solutions segment (GCS), 2) potential bleed into other businesses and/or share shift, 3) increased regulation, and 4) higher-than-anticipated fines," writes analyst Jeffrey Goldstein. " We note that many of these risks are difficult, if not impossible to quantify, but we give our best estimates." Morgan Stanley maintains its equal-weight rating for the stock, and has dropped its base case price target to $127 from $140. Regulation is a key concern for investors, the bank says. Senator Elizabeth Warren said Friday she, along with 11 other Democratic senators, had launched an investigation into the breach. "This could result in higher compliance costs at best, or nationalization of the credit bureau function at worst," Goldstein says. "We believe that the sharp price decline over the past few days is related to the steady drumbeat of legislative inquiries,and a lack of clarity on what this means for EFX's future business model. The ultra-bear case that we have heard is that the government could decide to takeover the function of the credit bureaus." Shares of Equifax continued their losses Friday afternoon, trading down 5% at 2:15 p.m. ET. They have plunged more than 35% since the breach was announced. Equifax data breach stock price (Markets Insider) NOW WATCH: Bitcoin's bubble swells with a new record high More From Business Insider A top senator calls for an investigation into Equifax in a scathing letter Equifax is getting crushed — and traders are betting it's going to get so much worse STOCKS GO NOWHERE: Here's what you need to know || Gold and Oil Prices Trade in a Buoyant Manner: Gold prices continued to trade in a strong manner during the last 24 hours and there has been not much of a correction so far. It has to be said that the prices are now in a very crucial resistance region and the way that the prices react in this region is likely to determine the direction for the gold prices in the short term. The prices have shot up basically due to the fact that the threat from North Korea continues to exist and no one seems to know what they are going to do next. This risk and uncertainty has helped the gold prices to move higher and the stock markets to move lower. Though the stock markets managed to recover a bit yesterday, the gold prices continue to hold at the highs of the range as the weakness in the dollar also seems to be helping. Gold Prices Continue at Highs As we have said above, this is an important price region for gold and a break through this region is likely to push the prices towards 1350 and beyond. But there does seem to be a good chance of a reversal in the gold prices if the risks continue to recede and if we also see the dollar making a recovery in the short term. There is a bunch of data from the US that will be released towards the end of the week and these could have an impact on the day that the dollar is viewed by the market and this could, in turn, have a bearing on the gold prices. Gold Hourly Oil prices also shot higher yesterday, which is something that was going to be only a matter of time for it to happen. We had mentioned as such in our forecasts last week where we had said that the oil prices were lower due to the decrease in demand owing to shutting down of the refineries in the US following the hurricane. We had said that this was going to be temporary and that the prices would recover once the refineries came back up and thats what has been happening over the last 24 hours as some of the refineries have come back online and this has helped the oil prices move back $49 for a brief while and it continues to trade in a strong manner. Story continues Silver prices have also been trading near their range highs, just short of the $18 region over the last 24 hours, taking the cue from the gold prices which have also been buoyant due to the flight to safety of funds following the tension in the Koreas. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Jury is Out on Bitcoin Australian GDP Numbers Disappoint with Markets Focused on North Korea and U.S Service Sector PMI Numbers Later Today Investors Moving Money Out of Risky Assets into Safe Haven Markets Gold and Oil Prices Trade in a Buoyant Manner Market Snapshot – Markets Recover as Risks Recede IronFX Successfully Concludes agreement to raise US$100 million from strategic family office investor || Mark Cuban backs new $20 million cryptocurrency venture fund: Onetime bitcoin skeptic Mark Cuban is warming to the digital currency world. The billionaire is backing a new venture capital fund for cryptocurrency-related investments called 1confirmation. Founded by Nick Tomaino, former business development manager at Coinbase, the fund plans to raise $20 million, according to a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "It's an interesting space that I [want] to get involved with and learn more" about, Cuban said in an email to CNBC Tuesday. He did not specify the size of his investment. Cuban's opinion on digital currencies has changed fairly recently. In an Aug. 14 tweet, the Dallas Mavericks owner admitted he "might have to finally buy some" bitcoin (Exchange:BTC=-USS) , contrasting with a June tweet that said he thought bitcoin was in a "bubble." "Bias should be up because of finite supply. Until crypto or US politics intrude, and they will," he added in another tweet on Aug. 14. Tweet1 Tweet2 In late June, Cuban said he planned to participate in an initial coin offering by Unikrn, an online esports betting site in which he holds a stake. Earlier that month, Cuban tweeted that he didn't know when or by how much the price of bitcoin, which has soared in value this year, would correct. He did acknowledge then that the blockchain technology backing bitcoin had value and that it "will be at the core of most transactions in the future. Healthcare, finance etc all will use it." IBM ( IBM ) announced Tuesday that it will work with major food companies such as Wal-Mart ( WMT ) , Unilever, Tyson Foods ( TSN ) , Dole and Kroger ( KR ) to "identify new areas where the global supply chain can benefit from blockchain." However, bitcoin's surge and a rush of funds into initial coin offerings have attracted more investment attention. Bitcoin has quadrupled in value this year and hit a record last Thursday of $4,522.13 with a market capitalization of about $74 billion, according to CoinDesk. Initial coin offerings, which are fundraising events used by cryptocurrency-related start-ups, have raised $1.37 billion so far this year, CoinDesk data showed. Story continues Source: CoinDesk The launch of the 1confirmation fund comes amid increased fundraising for cryptocurrency-related businesses. On Aug. 10, digital currency storage and exchange company Coinbase announced it raised $100 million in private equity funding led by Dropbox investor IVP. That marks the largest single traditional funding round for a public blockchain or cryptocurrency start-up, according to CoinDesk. Other participants in 1confirmation include Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript computer programming language; Balaji Srinivasan, board partner at technology venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and David Vorick, who is building a blockchain-based cloud storage system called Sia. The fund's founder, Tomaino, is also a principal at venture fund Runa Capital. Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank," which features Mark Cuban as a panelist. More From CNBC Tech investor: Under Trump, business leaders have become the moral compass Inside the crumbling relationship between Uber and Benchmark These questions will shape Uber’s financial fate || GOLDMAN SACHS: 2 big reasons the stock market is safe from a correction: (Goldman Sachs says stock traders have little to fear — for now.Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Clients of Goldman Sachs can't stop asking about the possibility of a major stock market downturn. And can you really blame them for worrying? After all, it's been 14 months since theS&P 500has seen a 5% sell-off and 19 months since a full-blown 10% correction. Still, Goldman says fear not, for a couple of key factors are still working in favor of a prolonged stock market expansion. The first is a lack of investor euphoria — the type of unabashed confidence that has historically left bull markets vulnerable to sharp downturns. Goldman cites cash positions of 3.2% for mutual funds, which is in line with the historical average. If there were an overabundance of confidence, this measure would be far lower, with more capital in play. "Investors today are situated between skepticism and optimism," a group of Goldman strategists led by David Kostin wrote in a client note. "Few are euphoric as 27% of core managers are beating their benchmark. 'Tormented bulls' best describes investor mentality." A second factor that should keep the stock market afloat is persistent US economic expansion, Goldman says. The firm specifically cites strong monthly job growth, rising wages, confidence at its highest level since 2001, and household balance sheets that are their strongest since 1980. (Household balance sheets are their strongest since 1980, one of several factors supporting a continued stock market rally.Goldman Sachs) Further, both sales and earnings growth for US corporations are headed for more growth in 2018, while companies clearly don't view their shares as overvalued, as indicated by their continued willingness to repurchase shares, Goldman says. Overall, the firm argues that investors would be wise to keep these positive drivers in mind as they watch the stock bull market continue into its ninth year. Instead of worrying about the rally dying of old age, traders should be focused on actual fundamental drivers. NOW WATCH:Bitcoin's bubble swells with a new record high More From Business Insider • NFL quarterbacks and tech stocks dominate their respective worlds — here are 7 perfect matchups • Stocks are heading into what’s historically their worst month, but this time around they could act unexpectedly • A legendary volatility pioneer says one of the market's hottest trades is like 'betting on the roulette' [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Bitcoin vaults to new record above $4K, boosted by Japan and multiplying its value fourfold https://cbnewser.com/science/bitcoin-vaults-new-record-4k-boosted-japan-multiplying-value-fourfold/ … via @cbnewser #bitcoin || 2017-09-01 0:00~1:00のBitcoin市場は上げ一服だったようだ。 変化率は-0.2535% 2:00までは反騰かな? 直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は521730.0円 #ビットコイン #bitcoin #AI || #SegWit blocks mined: 100.00%; 59 more for lock-in. (Period ends in a day) #Bitcoin $BTC || 2017-08-03 18:00~19:00のBitcoin市場は上昇だったのかな。 変化率は0.8985% 20:00までは反騰になる? 直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は305130.0円 #ビットコイン #bitcoin #AI || Gana $45,00 Usd Por Afiliar, Quieres ganarte dólares con Bitcoin sin tanto esfuerzo? Es solo d ···» https://goo.gl/Cdo6SQ  .. #España || Interested in learning about Bitcoin or other Cryptocurencies http://aweber.com/t/8NsPs  || Electricity bills getting too high? #CloudMining #Bitcoin is the way forward... http://freebitcoin.directory/HashFlare pic.twitter.com/0c4sph63Qx || Top 3 $FCT $LTC on @Cryptopia_NZ +144% $UMO $BTC on @Cryptopia_NZ +64% $DON $BTC on @Cryptopia_NZ +35% || Cotizaciones al 23/08/2017 08:00 PM Bitcoin (BTC): 23.177.415 Ethereum (ETH): 1.776.175 Litecoin (LTC): 297.391 BTC Cash (BCH): 3.748.434 || $4185.67 at 09:00 UTC [24h Range: $4062.26 - $4248.97 Volume: 14022 BTC]
Trend: up || Prices: 4338.71, 4403.74, 4409.32, 4317.48, 4229.36, 4328.41, 4370.81, 4426.89, 4610.48, 4772.02
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 2017-05-31] BTC Price: 2286.41, BTC RSI: 64.04 Gold Price: 1272.00, Gold RSI: 61.72 Oil Price: 48.32, Oil RSI: 44.69 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin surges past $1,900 for the first time: Bitcoin (Markets Insider) Bitcoin is 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 a legal payment method in the country. Along the way, Ulmart, Russia's largest online retailer, said it would begin accepting bitcoin even 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 its ruling 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. NOW WATCH: 15 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do More From Business Insider That time when Americans and Germans fought together during World War II US spies caught Russian officers bragging about causing chaos in the election 6 months before the vote This is the work bag professional women everywhere have been looking for || Be Wary Of This Skyrocketing Bitcoin Fund: Bitcoin is flying. Prices for the digital currency briefly topped $2,800 in May, the latest milestone in what's become a parabolic move higher. Consider these figures: In the past month, bitcoin is up 68%; year-to-date, it's up 154%; over the past year, it's up 350%; and over the past two years, it's up 973%. But as incredible as those moves have been, the performance of one bitcoin fund makes them look paltry by comparison. That fund is the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which has more than tripled in the past month alone, while rising an eye-popping 1,600% over the past two years. 2-Year Returns For Bitcoin And GBTC The market value of the trust ballooned to as much as $1.1 billion in May, compared with $224 million at the beginning of the year. Dangerous Premium To NAV GBTC is an "open-ended trust" and the first publicly traded bitcoin investment vehicle. The fund made its debut on the OTC market in May 2015, and since then has been doing its best to track the price of bitcoin―with limited success. Indeed, even though GBTC is a self-proclaimed open-ended trust (and its sponsor Grayscale has periodically created new shares), it's acted more like a closed-end fund, with huge premiums the norm. The share price of GBTC was last trading at double the value of its underlying bitcoin holdings. At 131%, GBTC's premium to its net asset value is astronomical by any measure, and close to the highest level it's ever been. For investors buying into the fund, such large premiums are a disaster waiting to happen. Premiums are a fickle thing, and can fluctuate wildly depending on the supply and demand for shares. For example, GBTC's premium has ranged from zero to 142%, with an average of 40%, since May 2015. Not An ETF For investors used to buying exchange-traded funds, such large premiums are almost unheard of. In an ETF, large premiums and discounts are arbitraged away through the creation/redemption mechanism. When a premium becomes large, authorized participants will buy up the underlying, deliver it to the ETF provider in exchange for ETF shares, and sell them for a profit, pushing the ETF market price back towards the fund's NAV. Story continues But GBTC isn't an ETF. It doesn't abide by the stringent regulations and disclosure requirements of the Investment Company Act of 1940, and currently, its only AP is Genesis Global Trading, an affiliated company that has only offered shares to investors in private placement transactions, according to Spencer Bogart, managing director and head of research for BlockChain Capital. Up until early this year, share creations for GBTC took place through private transactions with accredited investors. Those new shares were subject to a one-year lockup period before they could be sold on the public market, hindering the ability to arbitrage any premium above NAV. After Jan. 19, Grayscale completely stopped issuing shares in connection with an SEC filing it made (more on that later), which means that what little ability to arbitrage the premium away before is now completely gone. Meanwhile, redemptions for GBTC have been completely suspended since 2016 after the trust and its AP were found to be in violation of an SEC rule. Put that all together and you have a product that can't be considered an ETF even by the loosest definition. Grantor trusts, '40 Act funds, '33 Act commodity pools and even ETNs are often lumped together under the ETF umbrella. They all hold securities with a fluid, unrestricted creation and redemption mechanism that serves to keep the traded price close to the underlying fair value. GBTC fails that test (not to mention it doesn't trade on an actual exchange). Only Game In Town … For Now Even with its flaws, clearly there's been a lot of demand for GBTC. Currently, the trust has a market value of nearly $1 billion and even counts two ETFs among its holders: the ARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW) and the ARK Industrial Innovation ETF (ARKQ) . For investors who don't want to go through the hassle and risk of buying bitcoin directly from a digital currency exchange and storing it themselves, GBTC is, in many ways, the only game in town. But it doesn't have to be. The Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust ETF (COIN) was rejected by the SEC in March . The commission didn't allow the ETF to see the light of day because it was concerned about the lack of regulation in bitcoin markets, which could harm investors. Yet COIN would be vastly superior to the readily available GBTC, which is likely to burn investors who buy at premium prices. GBTC's sponsor Grayscale is well aware of the deficiencies of its product. In January, the firm made a filing with the SEC to do an initial public offering on the NYSE. Grayscale also lined up three APs to replace its affiliate Genesis, if the filing is approved. In other words, the sponsor hopes to convert GBTC into a fully fledged ETF. That's probably a smart move. If COIN or another bitcoin ETF comes to market and competes with GBTC in its current form, the latter will likely see an exodus of assets as investors gravitate toward the superior ETF structure. Indeed, in March, when it looked like the SEC could green-light the Winklevoss ETF, GBTC's premium briefly dropped to zero as demand for the product waned. Stark Choice For SEC Currently, the SEC is reviewing its disapproval of COIN. There's no timetable for when the commission will reach a decision. The SEC is also considering the Grayscale filing to IPO GBTC shares on the NYSE; that decision will be reached by Sept. 22. There's plenty of skepticism about whether the SEC will turn around and finally approve a bona fide bitcoin ETF after already rejecting two [along with COIN, the SEC rejected the SolidX Bitcoin Trust (XBTC)]. But as the massive inflows into bitcoin in general and GBTC in particular indicate, investors are going to buy up the digital currency regardless of what the commission does. The SEC can either help investors by allowing a regulated ETF that trades close to NAV come to market, or stand in the way and see those same investors hurt when they buy bitcoin directly from untested exchanges or through the flawed GBTC. At the time of writing, the author did not hold any positions in the securities mentioned. Contact Sumit Roy at sroy@etf.com . Recommended Stories Be Wary Of This Skyrocketing Bitcoin Fund SEC Sends Mixed Signals About Cutting Edge ETFs Bitcoin Flying As ETF Gets Second Shot 3 Market Surprises Impacting ETFs Friday Hot Reads: ETF Survival Rates By Asset Class Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Bitcoin Services Inc. Provides Shareholder Update: KALAMAZOO, MI / ACCESSWIRE / May 3, 2017 /Bitcoin Services Inc. (OTC PINK: BTSC) announced today that it began mining Monero in the 1st quarter of 2017. Monero is currently one of the top digital currencies with a market cap of over 300 mil USD. The Company is pleased to announce their earnings on May 12, 2017, and a launch of a new website in the upcoming weeks. In addition, Bitcoin Services Inc. has begun developing a new Crypto currency wallet that will let users safely store multiple digital currencies in one wallet. Bitcoin Services Inc. would also like to congratulate all Bitcoin users for reaching a historic all time high on April 2nd of 2017. About Bitcoin Services Inc.: Our business operations are Internet based to the consumer and consist of two separate streams, as follows: (1) bitcoin mining, and (2) blockchain software development. The principal products and services are the mining 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@bitcoinservicesinc.com SOURCE: Bitcoin Services Inc. || How to Invest in Bitcoin and Digital Currency: In the years since the Great Recession, you've probably heard about the electronic payment system and so-called cryptocurrency called bitcoin . But you're perhaps less likely to have heard of the underlying technology that powers it. It's called blockchain. Blockchain technology is a digital ledger distributed across a network of computers that keeps track of transactions. But beyond payments, it can be used for a wide variety of applications such as contracts, documents and basic record keeping. "Wall Street is going to eventually move into this in a big way," says Alan Friedland, founder of Compcoin, a blockchain-based public currency trading platform. "In the meantime, it's a great opportunity to get into early." [See: 9 Under-the-Radar Ways to Buy Financial Stocks .] Just like the internet democratized the dissemination of information, blockchain technology democratizes the securitization of information, says Chris Burniske, head of blockchain products with Ark Investment Management. "It's probably the most impactful general purpose technology that's been invented in the 21st century," he says. While bitcoin decentralizes payments, another major blockchain technology called Ethereum enables decentralized applications. Another, Storj, is involved in decentralized computer storage. Each issues its own value token or coin -- bitcoin issues bitcoins, Ethereum issues ether, and Storj issues Storjcoin X -- that can be bought and traded. There are now many different digital currencies. Blockchain assets have a very low correlation to other assets, and so they can be used to diversify portolios , Burniske says. Some use them as a risk hedge similar to how they use gold, he says. Stan Miroshnik, managing director with the Argon Group, an investment bank focusing on the blockchain sector, adds that bitcoin is uncorrelated to bonds, gold, real estate, commodities and emerging market currencies. It only has a very small correlation to U.S. equities, he says. Story continues Blockchain is "an important enough technology that people should try to invest a little bit," Miroshnik says. There are different schools of thought about the best way to invest in this nascent, but growing, industry. On the one hand, you can stockpile tokens , such as bitcoin or another digital currency, and hope the demand for them will increase, their value will rise and you can sell them later at a profit. Or, you can invest in the companies that are creating different blockchain-based products. Morningstar analyst Jim Sinegal falls into the latter camp, saying investors should focus on companies that stand to make money if they find useful applications for blockchain technology. He suggests investors go after the companies because the coins don't generate any cash flow. So the only way you'll make money off it is if a token's price goes up and you can then sell it, Sinegal says. However, because the industry is so new, it can be tough to invest in companies with exposure to blockchain technology, Sinegal says. He compares it to the early stages of internet stocks in the 1990s. A few were successful, but investors lost money on others. "It's very tough to make a direct investment," he says. [See: 6 ETFs That Let You Buy Micro-Cap Stocks .] Still, Sinegal says companies such as Goldman Sachs Group (ticker: NYSE: GS ) and CME Group ( CME ) eventually stand to significantly benefit from the lower costs blockchain technology makes possible. While more than 70 of the world's largest financial institutions have joined a blockchain-development consortium, and large technology firms like International Business Machines Corp. ( IBM ) and Microsoft Corp. ( MSFT ) have blockchain solutions, Miroshnik says it remains difficult to get true exposure to the technology through public companies. The blockchain penny stock universe includes BTCS, Global Arena Holding, HashingSpace Corp. and First Bitcoin Capital Corp. But penny stock companies are very young and may not be the best investment now as their business models are evolving, Miroshnik says. Miroshnik says investing in coins is the way to go because blockchain assets appreciate for two reasons. First, there is a real cost to producing each transactional ledger of the blockchain. It takes computer equipment and energy. These so-called miners compete to produce the next block in the chain and are rewarded with coins. This cost of production keeps going up over time, creating a fundamental driver of higher value, Miroshnik says. Additionally, there is transactional value created as demand rises for a blockchain coin, Miroshnik says. For investors wanting to buy into this emerging asset class, they can go to places such as Coinbase, Bitstamp or Kraken, Burniske says. It's similar to a foreign exchange trade, where investors exchange the value of one asset with another based on exchange rates, he says. His company runs two exchange-traded funds -- the Web x.0 ETF ( ARKW ) and Ark Innovation ETF ( ARKK ) -- that each have exposure to bitcoin though Bitcoin Investment Trust ( GBTC ), he says. Uninitiated consumers should stick with bitcoin or ether to get comfortable with the language of this emerging capital market, Miroshnik says. For other coins, investing means doing research into what project they are supporting and what value the investor thinks it represents, he says. [See: The 9 Best Municipal Bond Funds for Tax-Free Income .] "That process is very similar to how you would think about investing in small-cap stocks," he says. More From US News & World Report The 10 Best Financial ETFs You Can Buy Avoid These 8 Rookie Investing Mistakes 10 Tips for Couples and Young Families to Build Wealth || When and How To Use Niche ETFs: News of a massive worldwide cyberattack involving Windows pushed thePureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF (HACK)and theFirst Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR)sharply higher Monday. Both funds, which focus on cybersecurity firms, were on the frontline of action following the latest news. That’s a great example of what niche investing is all about. TheWannacrypt ransomware attacklate last week caused the appeal of cybersecurity ETFs soar this week. HACK and CIBR rallied some 3% on Monday, putting year-to-date gains at 16% and 13.5%, respectively. Chart courtesy ofStockCharts.com HACK and CIBR are considered “niche” funds because of their narrow focus on a specific corner of the market. But the definition of niche can vary from investor to investor. Niche can be a small segment of the market, as narrow as a subsegment of a specific sector—cybersecurity or robotics as a subsector of technology, for instance. It can also be a thematic area of investment that goes across different sectors. Another example is a fund like theGlobal X Millennials Thematic ETF (MILN), which is niche for its underlying theme that connects the companies it owns across various sectors—they all make money off of millennials’ spending habits. Any way you define it, niche ETFs can be used in different ways. For some, they are merely tactical, short-term tools to express a view on a pocket of the market. For others, a niche can be a long-term play that takes time to come to fruition—like millennials or, say, solar energy. As such, these ETFs would belong in the strategic bucket of the portfolio. There’s no one way to do it. We talked to ETF strategist Grant Engelbart, who’s a portfolio manager at CLS Investments, for his road map to using niche effectively. Here’s what he had to say ... Understand The Risks Adding niche ETFs to a portfolio can help diversify it, working as a risk management tool. Better diversification should mean lower overall portfolio risk. The flip side is that niche ETFs could also increase the risk of a portfolio if you end up adding too much exposure to single stocks. By design, niche ETFs are concentrated, narrower portfolios, and can carry a lot of weight in a handful of stocks. Any underperformance in one of the top holdings could drag your overall returns. “If used as, say, adding floating rate securities to manage your interest rate risk in fixed income, these ETFs can help you manage portfolio risk,” Engelbart said. “But you could be adding more idiosyncratic risk to your portfolio, too, if you have ETFs that have 10-20% weighting in a single stock.” Know Where Niche ETFs Fit Best The best application of niche ETFs is the one that best suits your investment needs and goals. That said, consider these two broad possible applications. First, it’s harder to argue niche ETFs as strategic allocations rather than tactical. “Satellite usage makes a ton of sense in niche ETFs,” Engelbart explained. “They’re great to pair with broader exposures.” For example, you may own emerging market stocks. You may also be bullish on India’s demographics and want added exposure to India’s small-cap and infrastructure stocks. Adding niche ETFs tapping into those segments to your broader emerging markets ETF allocation makes sense, he says. This is one of the common ways CLS incorporates niche to the portfolio. The same applies to cybersecurity, or robotics—adding narrower exposures to your broader-growthtechnology ETFs. Niche funds are great tactical overlays, Engelbart notes. But that’s not the only use. The example of MILN, again, or theLong-Term Care ETF (OLD), shows that niche exposures can also play out in the longer term. Holding on to these funds in your broader equity bucket may make strategic sense. Overlap Is OK With niche ETFs, you might find you own the same stock twice in your portfolio—once in your broader ETF, the other in a niche fund. “Overlap is OK. We’re far more concerned with correlation between two products,” said Engelbart. “When we’re choosing a niche ETF, we look for different valuations and low correlations between products. That’s more important than overlap.” If you get funds that are highly correlated, diversification potential goes down. The idea of niche is to capture performance that’s different from your broader, vanilla ETF. Value is another important factor in niche investing. “Make sure the securities in your niche ETF aren’t priced out of their normal range” (to the upside), because returns could be limited, he says. Know Your Niche From A Hot Fad Finally, there’s the issue of knowing when a niche is a viable investment idea as opposed to a quickly burning fad. A lot of times, niche ETFs come to market as response to investor demand, but are they simply tapping into the latest “hot thing” that will soon pass. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to tell one from the other. But you can discern a good investment based on valuations and on as much data as possible on the underlying securities, notes Engelbart. “You want to make sure you’re buying something that’s trading within its normal price range,” he said. “Bitcoin is a great example—is it a fad? How do you value the underlying?” “We want to be able to value what we’re buying, and if we can’t, we avoid it even if the ETF is ‘cool,’” Engelbart added. “Pay attention to total risk, to valuations and to index construction.” You can find several other niche ETFs in ourTheme Investing Channel. Contact Cinthia Murphy atcmurphy@etf.com Recommended Stories • When & How To Use Niche ETFs • Some Thematic Tech ETFs Are Sticking • A Response To Jim Cramer’s ‘Why I’m Against ETFs’ • HACK & ROBO Funds On A Technical Roll • Why Israeli Tech Stocks Are ‘Underowned & Undiscovered’ Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Trudeau prom (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau jogging past a group of high-school students dressed for their prom in Vancouver, British Columbia.Reuters/Adam Scotti/Courtesy Prime Minister's Office) Here is what you need to know. Oil nears $51. West Texas Intermediate crude oil is higher by 0.7% at $50.70 a barrel ahead of OPEC's Thursday meeting in Vienna. Bitcoin explodes past $2,100. The cryptocurrency trades up by $202, or 10.4%, at $2,140 a coin. It's up by 125% this year. Japan's trade surplus shrinks . Japan's trade surplus narrowed to 481.7 billion yen in April as exports to China rose by 14.8% versus a year ago. S&P is sounding the alarm on Australian financial institutions . The ratings agency downgraded 21 Australian financial institutions, citing the risk of a sharp drop in property prices. Clariant and Hunstman are merging . The two chemical companies are joining forces in a deal that values the combined entity at about $20 billion including debt, Reuters says. Ford is reportedly firing its CEO . Mark Fields is reportedly out as CEO because of the recent performance of the company's stock, and he will be replaced by James Hackett, the chairman of the Ford unit that works on autonomous vehicles, Forbes and The New York Times say. Ford shares have tumbled by almost 40% since Fields took the helm at Ford more than three years ago. Italian regulators have seized documents from IBM . Authorities have seized documents from IBM as part of their investigation into allegations of fraud against one of its customers, BT Italy, Reuters says, citing sources. IBM is not under investigation. Stock markets around the world are higher . Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.9%) led the gains in Asia, and Britain's FTSE (+0.4%) paces the advance in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open little changed near 2,380. Earnings reporting is light. Agilent and Nordson will be releasing their quarterly results after markets close. Fed speak is heavy. Patrick Harker, Neel Kashkari, Lael Brainard, and Charles Evans will all be taking the mic Monday. More From Business Insider 13 best-selling online classes you can enroll in for $10 right now You're wasting money if you use a modem from your cable company — here's a cheap replacement 10 things you need to know today || Over 200 Fintech Startup Finalists to Celebrate Worldwide Fintech Innovation at the Benzinga Global Fintech Awards in New York City May 11: Benzinga Announces Finalists for 2017 Benzinga Global Fintech Awards;Over 200 Companies Will Compete at Fintech's Premier Event in New York City May 11 DETROIT, MI / ACCESSWIRE / April 17, 2017 /Benzinga, a leading online financial media publication and data provider, announced today the finalists for the 2017Benzinga Global Fintech Awards. TheBenzinga Global Fintech Awardsis the largest fintech event focusing on the capital markets. In its third year, Benzinga has expanded the event's purview to the global stage, bringing over 200 companies to New York City from countries including India, Israel, Poland, and Singapore. TheBenzinga Global Fintech Awardsfinalists were chosen by their peers in a social voting competition. In all, 372 companies applied to the competition, and 225 finalists received over 100,000 votes to advance to the judging round. Finalists will soon enter the judging stage of theBenzinga Global Fintech Awardscompetition. A judging board of more than 30 leaders in every fintech vertical will rank the finalists in terms of how innovative their products are and their potential to reshape the finance industry. The judging panel includes an "unprecedented" level of fintech talent, such as current and former C-suite executives of financial institutions like Morningstar and Thomson Reuters, as well as many leading investors, VCs, television personalities and financial innovators of all stripes. Firms from DE Shaw and J.P. Morgan to TD Ameritrade and Fidelity are all contributing insight and mentorship to the 225Benzinga Global Fintech Awardsfinalists. TheBenzinga Global Fintech Awardsfinalists, by category: Best Use of Alternative Investments Platform, Tool, or App • BankerBay • CFX Markets • ClearVest Advisers, LLC • CoolMellon • Entrex • Equitise • Frictionless Healthcare Finance • Income& • Kettera Strategies • Mercury Capital Advisors • SAF Platform • Seedrs • Swaper • YieldStreet Best Analysis Platform, Tool, or App • Alpha Hat • Artivest • BondCliQ • ChartYourTrade • F.A.S.T. Graphs • NewsHedge • Novus • Orchard Platform • Polly Portfolio • TradingView • Web Financial Group • Ycharts Best Digital Mortgage or Real Estate Platform, Tool, or App • Brickvest • BRICKX • BuildFax • Cadre • Morty • Neat Capital • Neighborhood Pay Services • PeerStreet • Quicken Loans / Rocket Mortgage • RealtyMogul • RealtyShares • Unison Home Ownership Investors Best Education & Personal Finance Platform, Tool, or App • BillGO • Clarity Money • Copper Street • Dream Forward 401(k) • FinTech Business School • MoneyLion • Shift • SmartAsset • TradeBench Best Financial Advisor or Wealth Management Platform, Tool, or App • Advisor Engine • ALBRIDGE • Backstop Solutions Group • BaseVenture • CBOE Vest • FUNDBASE • LendingCalc • Mil Advisor • MyVest • ORION • RobustWealth • STRATIFI • Truelytics Best Forex Platform, Tool, or App • Fortex • FXPRIMUS • FXStreet • Markets.com • MarketsFactory.com • MobyTrader • Remitly • TF Global Markets • uChange Best InsurTech Platform, Tool, or App • Aclaimant • Bought By Many • Coverfy • CoverWallet • Embroker • FitSense • Insureon • League • Life.io • Neuroprofiler • Senteri • UnBrokerage • WeSavvy Best Lending Platform, Tool, or App • Bizfi • Datanomers • Global Debt Registry • IdFinance • InterNex Capital • MYJAR • P2Binvestor • PayMe • Rubique • Stilt • Suretly • Think Money • TWINO Best Proprietary Technology or APIs • Alpha Exchange • Connamara Systems • Dataminr • Finicity • Nomad COnnection • OpenFin • OptionsCity • Overbond • Push Payments • Quovo • Redtail Technology • Tradier • Xignite Best RegTech Platform, Tool, or App • AQMetrics • AU10TIX • ComplyAdvantage • ComplySci • Neurensic • Qumram • Rippleshot • ThetaRay • Trulioo • Trunomi • Uniken Best Research Platform, Tool, or App • AlphaSense • FinanceBoards • MackeyRMS • OptionMetrics • PitchBook • Slingshot Insights • Sqoop • Street Diligence • Virtual Cove Best Robo Advisor • Betterment • Clinc • Exeria • Gravity Investments • Polaris Portfolios • Scalable Capital • Unicorn Bay • Vestwell • Ways2Wealth • Wealthfront • Wealthsimple • WiseBanyan Best Trading Execution or Brokerage Platform • DriveWealth • Fidelity • FINVASIA • Lime Brokerage (Wedbush) • m1 Finance • OptionsHouse • SelfWealth • Sterling Trading Tech • StocksToTrade • T3 Live • TD Ameritrade (AMTD) Best Trading Idea Platform, Tool, or App • ADVFN • Alpaca • BullBoard • Chaikin Analytics • Equities.com • iStockPicker • SharingAlpha • Stocks For The Week • TalkMarkets • Ticker.tv • TickerTags • Trade Ideas • Tradespoon • Trumid Financial • Vest Cycle • Vetr Best Under-banked or Emerging Market Solution • Amplify • Billmo, LLC • Eastpesa Limited • Elevate • FarmDrive • Ovamba • PayActiv • Ping Express • WorldRemit Best Use of Blockchain or Bitcoins • AlphaPoint • Blockchain • Brave New Coin • I/O Digital • Melonport • Netcoins • Paxos • Purse • Remitt • SecureKey Technologies Finding Alpha • AlphaStreet • Cindicator • Croudify • DarcMatter • ExtractAlpha • Kavout • PortfolioEffect • Prattle • PureFunds • RelateTheNews • SavaNet • Tradagon • Visible Alpha Institutional Innovators • Bond Price Validation • Bridge Financial Technology • ChartIQ • Cloud9 Technologies • Intro-act • Marstone, Inc. • Opportunity Network • Veriday Investing In Millennials • Aspiration • EZMCOM Inc • GRAIN • Lean Financial • MATADOR • Payscape • SprinkleBit • STASH Leveling the Playing Field • CALL LEVELS • Capitali.se • Click IPO Securities • DIY.Fund • EnergyFunders • finbox.io • IEX • OptaCredit Fintech Private Limited • trigger Solving Problems Through Payments • Alipay • CHeckbook.io • disburze • PayKey • Payment Rails • RenovITe Technologies Inc • Sharepay • Soundpays • Spendesk • SWITCH Inc • Zebit • ZOOZ TheBenzinga Global Fintech Awardsjudges include: • Pete Casella, Point72 Ventures • Adam Boyden, RPM Ventures • Amir Goldman, Susquehanna Growth Equity Partners • Yin Luo, Wolfe Research • Nathan Richardson, TradeIt • David Teten, ff Venture Capital • James Altucher • Tim Seymour, CNBC • Vicki Walia, Alliance-Bernstein • Bill Libby, Goldman Sachs (GS) • Kim Trautmann, DRW VC • Seth Merrin, LiquidNet • Steve Lau, WorldQuant Ventures • Matt Harris, Bain Capital Ventures • Tricia Rothschild, Morningstar • Charlie Hartel, Yahoo! Finance (YHOO) • Ed Skolarus, Investor's Business Daily • Gene Munster, Loup Ventures • Ken Scichiano, TA Associates • Nicholas Britz, Google Finance • Bill Nosal, NASDAQ • John Hart, TD Ameritrade (AMTD) • Alex Wong, DE Shaw Ventures • Kelli Keough, J.P. Morgan Chase • Matt Hatch, E&Y • Jennifer Samalis, Fidelity • David Jegen, F Prime Capital • Man Mahjouri, Tradeworx • Philip Brittan, Fmr. Thomson Reuters • Sue Britton, Fintech Growth Syndicate • Jeff Chiapetta, Charles Schwab • Sonny Singh, BitPay Media Information: Spencer Whiteevents@benzinga.com(for media email inquiries please put "MEDIA" at the beginning of the subject line)313-723-2000 About Benzinga Global Fintech Awards Designed to uncover the most innovative companies within the financial technology capital markets sector, the Benzinga Fintech Awards provide winning finalists with new opportunities for growth and exposure. For last year's winners, please visitwww.benzingafintechawards.comor use the hashtag #BZAwards. About Benzinga Benzinga is a leading originator of actionable financial insights for traders and investors. Benzinga's news desk is constantly breaking stories and moving billions of dollars of market capitalization through its real-time terminal, Benzinga Pro. Benzinga's original content is syndicated to 70 partner websites, such as Yahoo! Inc.'s Yahoo! Finance, Microsoft Corporation's MSN, CNNMoney, Fox Business, Marketwatch, and more. Benzinga is the leading provider of news to the North American brokerage community, with a client list including TD Ameritrade, LightSpeed, TradeKing, and many more. The company is headquartered in downtown Detroit and dedicated to driving Detroit's renaissance. For more information, check outBenzinga.com,Cloud.Benzinga.com, andPro.Benzinga.com. SOURCE:Benzinga || Bitcoin is making a big comeback: Bitcoinis making a big comeback, trading up by 9.8% at $2,563 a coin on Friday. Friday's gain follows awild day Thursday, which saw the cryptocurrency ultimately put in its 27th gain in the past 30 sessions. Bitcoin climbed above $2,500 and ultimately put in a record high of $2,799. But then the bottom dropped out, and bitcoin plunged to a low of $2,200 before recouping some of those losses and finishing the day with a small gain. The cryptocurrency climbed had climbed by much as 26% following Wednesday's announcement that the Digital Currency Group, representing 56 companies in 21 countries, reached ascaling agreementat the Consensus 2017 conference in New York. It has been on fire in the past two months, gaining nearly 140% since the beginning of April, when Japan announced bitcoin had become alegal payment methodin the country. Trade has also been boosted by news that Russia's largest online retailer,Ulmart, had begun accepting bitcoindespite Russia's saying it wouldn't consider the use of the cryptocurrency until 2018. But the market is still waiting on a ruling by the US Securities and Exchange Commission on whether it will overturn itsdecision on the Winklevoss twins' bitcoin-exchange-traded fund. The SEC was accepting public comment on that decision until May 15, but it hasn't announced whether it will overturn its rejection of the ETF. Bitcoin is up 169% this year. (Investing.com) NOW WATCH:9 phrases on your résumé that make hiring managers cringe More From Business Insider • People are making a fortune buying government-seized bitcoins • Bitcoin plunges and then recovers • Bitcoin blows past $2,000, $2,100, and $2,200 for the first time || Bitcoin could hit $100,000 in 10 years, says the analyst who correctly called its $2,000 price: Bitcoin's(Exchange: BTC=-USS)price has the potential to hit over $100,000 in 10 years, which would mark a 3,483 percent rise from its recent record high, an analyst who correctly predicted the cryptocurrency's rally this year told CNBC on Tuesday. In December, Saxo Bank published its annual report called "Outrageous Predictions" withone of the forecasts calling for bitcoin to hit $2,000 in 2017. At the time the note was published,bitcoinwas trading at around $754, so the target price represented a 165 percent rise.Bitcoin hit $2,000 on May 20. But now, Kay Van-Petersen, the analyst behind the call, is looking long term and sees a big rise ahead forbitcoin. Here's how he came up with his price target in 10 years. Van-Petersen is assuming cryptocurrencies in general – not justbitcoin– will account for 10 percent of the average daily volumes (ADV) of fiat currency trade in 10 years. Foreign exchange ADV currently stands at just over $5 trillion, according to the Bank for International Settlements. Ten percent of $5 trillion is $500 billion. This is the ADV that cryptocurrencies could have. Bitcoin will account for 35 percent of that market share, which would that $175 billion of the $500 billion figure, he said. This would mean that $175 billion worth of bitcoin would be traded every day Also, Van-Petersen then implies that bitcoin's market capitalization would be ten times the average daily volume, giving a figure of $1.75 trillion for the market cap. The current figure is around $37.8 billion, according to data from industry website CoinDesk. Bitcoin has a limited supply of 21 million which is expected to be reached by the year 2140. In 10 years, the analyst thinks that there will be 17 million bitcoin in circulation, up from the current 16.3 million figure. If the potential 17 million of bitcoins in supply is divided by the $1.75 trillion market cap estimate, then each bitcoin would be worth just over $100,000. Van-Petersen – who ownsbitcoin– emphasizes that this is a rough calculation but that his growth predictions could be "conservative" given that in the year 2013 alone, bitcoin's price grew over 5,000 percent. The analyst said that cryptocurrencies will survive in the long run. "This is not a fad, cryptocurrencies are here to stay," Van-Petersen told CNBC in a phone interview. "There will emerge two to three main ones. Bitcoin will be one of those. And the reason is the first-mover advantage, the scale and the pioneering." Van-Petersen's views are not the official view of Saxo Bank, the analyst said. The bitcoin industry has had its fair share of problems and reputational damage. The digital currency has often had an image of being used for illegal means such as buying drugs online. Thecollapse of Mt.Gox in 2014, once the world's largest bitcoin exchange, is still fresh in the minds of users. Some members of the exchange are still waiting for compensation. More recent issues include some exchanges not allowing people to withdraw their money in fiat currency. On top of this, the view of bitcoin as a currency for criminals is still prevalent after the major WannaCry ransomware cyberattack saw hackers lock peoples' files andask for bitcoin in exchange to unlock them. Still, Van-Petersen says that the industry is still extremely young and big improvements will come. A few factors will boost bitcoin adoption including better wallets, easier methods to buy the digital currency, use of it for money transfers in areas like remittances, as well as citizens of countries with volatile economies and currencies buying it. "Volumes are going up, volatility is going down. A lot of people talk about the volatility, but if you are in Zimbabwe or Venezuela, this volatility is nothing. This is the interesting thing to me. I think in the West, a lot of people view it is as speculative, but emerging markets will get it, their needs will be different," Van-Petersen added. While Van-Petersen is offering one way to valuebitcoinin the future, others say that there are other factors to take into consideration. "It's one way of slicing the pie to try and predict future prices which always relies on a lot of assumptions," Charlie Hayter, CEO of industry website CryptoCompare, told CNBC by email. "Equating volumes to price value is one method of attempting a valuation, but it doesn't take into account the fundamentals of the ecosystem." The fundamentals of what bitcoin is capable of from a technical point of view and how regulation is molded around its use will determine its value too, Hayter added. More From CNBC • Bitcoin is outperforming major assets but hedge funds are still staying away • Bitcoin correction sees nearly $4 billion wiped off value of the cryptocurrency • Op-Ed: Bitcoin is more akin to the Nasdaq than gold and is not a safe haven asset || WannaCry: Everything You Need To Know About the Ransomware Sweeping the Globe: A massive cyberattack has been spreadingacross the globe since Friday, hitting hundred of thousands of computers and crippling major government and corporate operations. The malware is known as WannaCry, and here’s what you need to know. Absolutely not. There were widespread reports on Saturday that a security researcher haddiscovered a "kill switch"that stopped the ransomware from spreading, but that's only partly true. The kill switch certainly slowed WannaCry down, but it only stopped some of the ways the malware could spread. And Kaspersky Lab security researchers confirmed within hours that new versions of the malware had been detected which werenot stopped by the kill switch. The ransomwarespread to thousands more computers on Monday morning, as companies continued to cope with the fallout of the initial attack, the Associated Press reported. WannaCry is ransomware, a growing category of extremely heinous malware. Once it has activated on a machine, it encrypts the files on that machine so they are inaccessible. Then it instructs the owner to pay a ransom in Bitcoin in exchange for unlocking the files. Get Data Sheet,Fortune'stechnology newsletter. Broadly speaking, WannaCry exploits vulnerabilities in older Windows operating systems, including Windows XP. issued a patch for those systems on Friday, but that didn't stop it from hitting more than200,000 machines in 150 countries. That has included dozens of large institutions and companies, including the U.K.’sNational Health Service, China's National Petroleum Corporation, andRenault factories in France. If any of your personal or corporate systems run an older version of Windows (XP, 8, or Server 2003 specifically),you or your adminsshould immediately install Microsoft'snew security update. You should also, as always, remain extremely careful about opening any email attachments, from known or strange sources. But the truly scary thing about WannaCry is that it can reportedly spread over local networkswithout user interaction. Some authorities--including thegovernment of Indonesia--are suggesting disconnecting unprotected machines from the Internet. Short answer: No. Security firms are getting better at decrypting files from ransomware attacks, but there are as yet no reputable decryptors (tools for removing ransomware) for WannaCry--though that could change at any time. And don’t get tricked twice. Hackers could even use the promise of a WannaCrypt fix as bait for further infections, so be extremely skeptical. Also, according to McAfee researchers, WannaCrydeletes so-called 'Volume Shadow' backupsthat can sometimes be used to restore files. That said, there is one unsavory option here: pay the ransom. WannaCry demands $300 in Bitcoin to unlock files on a machine, and hackers running ransomware have historically proven remarkably trustworthy in fulfilling their end of that bargain. (Whether paying is the ethical move is abig, thorny debate.) WannaCry is believed to have been created with the (unintentional) assistance of the U.S. National Security Agency. An NSA exploit known as EternalBlue, part of anApril releaseby a hacking group called the Shadow Brokers, is at its core. To make money, though that doesn't seem to be working out so well. While global financial damages from the attack could easily climb into the hundreds of millions, the (publicly viewable)Bitcoin addressescollecting ransom for the attackers are almost comically light: at this writing, they contain barely over $34,000 worth of Bitcoin. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com • Ransomware Attack Sends Cybersecurity Stocks Soaring • Microsoft Windows Now Patched Against WannaCry Ransomware Attack • Ransomware Attack Targeting Microsoft Windows Hits Spanish Telco Giant Telefonica • Exclusive: Dell Technologies Is Selling This Cloud Group • How to Protect Yourself From Ransomware [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #BITCOIN ahora: $2,169.69 USD €1,937.91 EUR $40,106.55 MXN @Bitso $45,942.76 MXN @Volabit $43,813.00 MXN pic.twitter.com/ldc9fR6Cxp || Earn 10 to 30% returns a month trading #Bitcoin using our automated Trade Coin Club. http://www.howtoearnincome.com  || Average Bitcoin market price is: USD 2,318.00, EUR 2,068.05 || One Bitcoin now worth $1221.41@bitstamp. High $1229.00. Low $1198.02. Market Cap $19.868 Billion #bitcoin || Média de preços #BTC Compra: R$4.112,37 Venda: R$4.033,35 Horário: 00:00 https://watchcoins.net  #CotacaoWatchCoins #Bitcoin || #TrollCoin #TROLL $0.000371 (1.00%) 0.00000020 BTC (-1.54%) || The latest #bitcoin price is $1,798.00. Price is down from $1,830.85. || $1177.87 at 16:45 UTC [24h Range: $1165.00 - $1221.50 Volume: 5843 BTC] || #UFOCoin #UFO $0.000011 (-0.35%) 0.00000001 BTC (0.00%) || Sign up for Luno and get ZAR 10.00 worth of Bitcoin when you buy or sell BTC 0.10, using https://www.luno.com/invite/YFAU8 
Trend: up || Prices: 2407.88, 2488.55, 2515.35, 2511.81, 2686.81, 2863.20, 2732.16, 2805.62, 2823.81, 2947.71
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 firm gets approval to operate in Switzerland: By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi ZURICH (Reuters) - Bitcoin wallet provider Xapo said it has received conditional approval from Switzerland's financial market watchdog to operate in the country in a regulatory breakthrough for companies that provide safekeeping for the virtual currency. "After almost two years of substantial effort and investment, Xapo has received conditional approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to operate in Switzerland," Xapo CEO Wences Casares said in a blog on the company's website. The approval depended on several factors, including membership of a "self-regulatory organization", Casares said, but added that the company was optimistic of meeting the conditions and being able to serve non-U.S. customers from Switzerland. FINMA declined to comment on an individual company's status. Olga Feldmeier, a former managing partner of Xapo who coordinated the Swiss licensing process for the company, told Reuters that Xapo had been designated a financial intermediary, meaning it will not require a costly banking license. Wallet providers like Xapo, which was founded in Silicon Valley, store the private keys that allow clients to access their digital currency funds. While other crypto-currency firms already operate in Switzerland, Xapo's operation as a bitcoin wallet provider had raised questions over whether it required a banking license. A burgeoning industry surrounding bitcoin - a web-based "crypto-currency" that has no central authority, relying instead on a global network of computers that validate transactions and add new bitcoins to the system - has posed questions for lawmakers and regulators. Xapo argued it did not accept deposits. Swiss authorities are eager to secure a leading role for Switzerland while playing catch-up in a rapidly changing financial technology (fintech) landscape. Bitcoin Suisse operates a network of bitcoin ATMs across the country, as well as an online and in-person brokerage for buying and selling bitcoins. But it does not itself store the private access keys that led to questions about whether Xapo was taking deposits. Story continues Switzerland's cabinet in November proposed new light-touch regulations for fintech companies aimed at bolstering business and competitiveness. The proposals include a fintech license, granted by FINMA, for institutions which are restricted to taking deposits of up to 100 million Swiss francs ($99.9 million) and do not lend. Xapo is now in the process of joining a self-regulatory organization required under Swiss anti-money laundering regulations to begin operations, Feldmeier said. (Editing by Adrian Croft) || Big China bitcoin exchange says no government pressure on outflows: By John Ruwitch SHANGHAI (Reuters) - The head of a major bitcoin exchange in China says few people there use the cryptocurrency to get around rules on how much money they can take out of the country, and despite a publicized meeting with the central bank last week the exchange, BTCC, hasn't been told explicitly to check capital outflows. Bitcoin's price took a steep dive on Friday after China's central bank cautioned investors to take a rational and careful approach to investing in the digital currency. The price had surged to record highs. The central bank's comments come as Beijing escalates a campaign to check capital outflows and slow the depreciation of the yuan currency <CNY=CFXS>, which lost nearly 7 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar last year. With bitcoin's soaring price and the relative anonymity it affords, some believe the digital currency was becoming an attractive option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and circumvent rules that limit individuals to $50,000 of foreign exchange each year. The Shanghai office of the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on Friday it had met with BTCC to understand the platform's operations, highlight the risks, remind the exchange to abide by the law, and "urge the platform to carry out self-examination and corresponding clean-up and rectification" according to law. Asked if BTCC had received direct pressure on outflows, CEO Bobby Lee, who founded BTCC in 2011, said: "No. Not as of yet... Nothing verbal or written to us." In Beijing, the PBOC told two of China's other big bitcoin exchanges, Huobi and OKCoin, not to mention the depreciating yuan when advertising their platforms, the influential news outlet Caixin said, citing people familiar with the meeting. Star Xu, CEO and founder of OKCoin, confirmed there had been a meeting of the PBOC and leading bitcoin exchanges on Friday to discuss the operation of trading platforms. Story continues "The industry can benefit from balanced, risk-based regulation and/or oversight, and we look forward to further constructive discussions with the regulators and industry participants," Xu told Reuters in an emailed comment. Huobi's chief operating officer Zhu Jiawei said in an emailed response to Reuters queries that Huobi plans to work with other bitcoin firms to establish an alliance and rules to self-govern the industry. While it's possible to buy bitcoin with yuan and then sell it abroad for a foreign currency, BTCC's Lee said "to be honest, not many" people were doing it because of the cost. The renminbi price of bitcoin carries a premium to the price in other currencies, he noted. In addition, buy or sell orders in the 100,000 yuan ($14,423) to 1 million yuan ($144,233) range, and up, would influence the bitcoin spot price and affect the transaction. "For that range, you're not going to be able to do it at a good rate. You're going to lose 10 percent of your money," Lee said. "Maybe the individual household might buy 20,000 more dollars worth of bitcoin than their $50,000 (forex) quota, but that's a drop in the bucket." Still, Lee said various indicators, like active trading accounts, new users, actual deposits and withdrawals, were "very active" in China, and some key BTCC metrics were at "all-time highs", though he declined to be more specific. NOT LEGAL TENDER Bitcoin is not regulated in China, but the PBOC has declared it is not legal tender, and is instead a "virtual good", Lee said. That puts it in the same category as other goods. "If I pack a suitcase and take a plane to the United States, do the clothes, does the computer in my suitcase, does the watch I wear count towards capital flight?" he said. "Where do you draw the line?" He said no new or planned rules regarding bitcoin were discussed in the latest meeting with the PBOC, and he estimates it will be two to three years before China regulates bitcoin. In a statement on its website, BTCC, which calls itself the world's longest running bitcoin exchange, said it regularly meets with the PBOC and "work(s) closely with them to ensure that we are operating in accordance with the laws and regulations of China." Exchanges in China say they account for more than 90 percent of global bitcoin trading, which would help explain why a shift in Chinese demand would sharply affect the price. But many bitcoin experts say Chinese exchanges overstate their volumes in the digital currency, and attribute sharp moves to speculation by, for example, U.S.-based hedge funds. (Reporting by John Ruwitch; Editing by Ian Geoghegan) || Bitcoin slides as China's central bank launches checks on exchanges: By John Ruwitch and Jemima Kelly SHANGHAI/LONDON (Reuters) - China's central bank launched spot checks on leading bitcoin exchanges in Beijing and Shanghai, ratcheting up pressure on potential capital outflows and knocking the price of the cryptocurrency down more than 12 percent against the dollar. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said its probe of bitcoin exchanges BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin was to look into a range of possible rule violations, including market manipulation, money laundering and unauthorized financing. It did not say if any violations had been found. Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts to stem capital outflows and relieve pressure on the yuan. While the yuan lost more than 6.5 percent against the dollar last year, its worst performance since 1994, the bitcoin price has soared to near-record highs. That, and the relative anonymity the digital currency affords, has prompted some to believe bitcoin has become an attractive option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and skirt around rules limiting how much foreign exchange individuals can buy each year. The PBOC in Beijing, where officers visited the offices of OKCoin and Huobi on Wednesday, said in a statement that "spot checks were focused on how the exchanges implement policies including forex management and anti-money laundering". Separately in Shanghai, the PBOC said it visited BTCC, noting its checks "focused on whether the firm was operating out of its business scope, whether it was launching unauthorized financing, payment, forex business or other related businesses, whether it was involved in market manipulation, anti-money laundering or (carried) fund security risks." On the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, the price of bitcoin (BTC=BTSP) fell as much as 12.5 percent to a 3-week low of $800. On China's Huobi exchange, the price slid more than 16 percent to 5,313 yuan (CNY=CFXS), equivalent to around $766, putting the yuan/bitcoin rate at a discount to the rate on dollar-based exchanges. Story continues Normally, bitcoin trades at a premium in China, with a lack of trading fees encouraging volumes and boosting demand. "Selling is being driven by China. The fear is that ... this investigation could lead to, worse-case scenario, funds being withheld from them (Chinese investors) or one of the exchanges being found to have acted improperly," said Charles Hayter, CEO of digital currency analytics firm Cryptocompare. "This is a ratcheting up of the rhetoric from the Chinese authorities - instead of 'we're watching' you, it's now 'we're investigating' you," he said. According to his analysis, Hayter says trading between the yuan and bitcoin accounted for around 98 percent of the total market in the past six months. "The long term implications of this are positive as more rigor in the Chinese market only matures and brings respectability to the industry - but in the short term this could effect volumes which have been one of the key drivers of the recent rally," Hayter added. "FRUITFUL MEETING" Bobby Lee, CEO of Shanghai-based BTCC, confirmed the PBOC visit, but said he believed the company was not out of line. "We're definitely vigilant. We think we are in compliance with all the current rules and regulations of running a bitcoin exchange in China," he told Reuters by phone. "I wouldn't call it an investigation. I think they are working closely with us to learn more about our business model and the bitcoin exchange industry. We had a very fruitful meeting today," Lee said. A Huobi executive, who declined to be named, confirmed the PBOC visited its office on Wednesday, but declined to provide details. A spokeswoman for OKCoin told Reuters its platform was operating normally, and the exchange was working with the authorities. Last week, PBOC officials met with the three exchanges, and the central bank publicly urged investors to take a rational and cautious approach to investing in bitcoin. (Additional reporting by Winni Zhou, Brenda Goh and Samuel Shen; Editing by Ian Geoghegan) || 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 || Cable & Wireless Reports Preliminary Results for the Period Ended December 31, 2016: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Feb 16, 2017) - Cable & Wireless Communications Limited ("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 fixed-line 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 CWC On May 16, 2016, a subsidiary of Liberty Global plc ("Liberty Global") acquired CWC (the "Liberty Global Transaction"). Revenue, Adjusted Segment EBITDA 1 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 three and nine months ended December 31, 2016 ("QTD" and "YTD", respectively) have also been aligned to Liberty Global's IASB-IFRS 2 accounting policies and estimates. Significant policy adjustments have been considered in our calculation of rebased growth rates for revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA. For additional information on Liberty Global's definition of Adjusted Segment EBITDA and rebased growth rates, see footnotes 1 and 3, respectively. A reconciliation of net earnings (loss) to Adjusted Segment EBITDA is included in the Financial Results, Adjusted Segment EBITDA Reconciliation & Property, Equipment and Intangible Asset Additions section below. In addition, effective for the 2016 fiscal year, CWC has changed its fiscal year end from March 31 to December 31 to conform with Liberty Global. Operating highlights: Organic increase (decrease) in RGUs of 2,000 YTD and (20,000) QTD were impacted by an adjustment that we recorded in Q4 to eliminate 30,000 non-paying subscribers from our subscriber counts Internet and telephony subscribers were up 7,000 and 2,000, respectively, YTD on an organic basis, as we increased penetration across our high speed networks and sold more bundled packages, particularly in Jamaica and Trinidad At December 31, 2016, 11% of our customers subscribed to a triple-play product, 33% to a double-play product, and 56% took only one product from us. While continuing to improve, our bundling ratio of 1.54 RGUs per customer remains relatively low, which provides ample runway for continued RGU growth as we seek to sell additional products to our customers Mobile subscribers grew by 11,000 on an organic basis YTD, and by 50,000 QTD as promotions drove increased sales during the holiday period, particularly in Jamaica and the Bahamas Highlights across our largest markets were as follows: In Panama, enhanced video subscriber growth accelerated QTD following the launch of our new "Mast3r" bundles during September 2016, and we added 14,000 video subscribers on an organic basis YTD. Of the customers taking our Mast3r products in December, 62% and 13% subscribed to a double-play or triple-play bundle, respectively. Telephony and internet subscribers fell due to continued fixed to mobile substitution as well as churn from our copper network. Our postpaid mobile subscriber base continued to grow, driven by the strength of our network and service quality, but was more than offset by prepaid subscriber losses due to the continued competitive intensity Jamaica continued its mobile subscriber momentum with particularly strong growth QTD as mobile subscribers rose by 56,000, moving above 900,000 in total for the first time. We posted 21,000 organic RGU additions with growth across our internet and telephony services driven by improved bundling propositions In the Bahamas we grew subscribers across mobile, video and internet products YTD. Momentum is steadily building in our video RGU base through penetration of our newly constructed Fiber-to-the-Home (FttH) network. Despite the entrance into the market of our first mobile competitor in November 2016, we were able to grow our subscriber base by 6,000 QTD through increased data-led promotional activity Barbados mobile subscribers were broadly stable YTD with an improving trend QTD whereby our base grew by 3,000 following successful data-led promotions during the holiday period. Fixed-line telephony RGUs fell YTD due to a heightened competitive environment combined with customer experience challenges during our ongoing program to upgrade customers from our legacy copper to nationwide fiber based network Trinidad RGUs were broadly flat YTD on an organic basis as a video decline of 12,000 resulting from increased competition was largely offset by growth in telephony and broadband Story continues Footnotes * The financial figures contained in this release are prepared in accordance with IASB-IFRS. CWC's financial condition and results of operations will be included in Liberty Global's consolidated financial statements under U.S. GAAP 4 . There are significant differences between the U.S. GAAP and IASB-IFRS presentations of our consolidated financial statements. 1 - Adjusted Segment EBITDA is the primary measure used by our management to evaluate the company's performance. Adjusted Segment EBITDA is also a key factor that is used by our internal decision makers to evaluate the effectiveness of our management for purposes of annual and other incentive compensation plans. We define EBITDA as earnings before net finance expense, income taxes and depreciation and amortization. As we use the term, Adjusted Segment EBITDA is defined as EBITDA before share-based compensation, provisions and provision releases related to significant litigation, impairment, restructuring and other operating items and related-party fees and allocations. Other operating items include (i) gains and losses on the disposition of long-lived assets, (ii) third-party costs directly associated with successful and unsuccessful acquisitions and dispositions, including legal, advisory and due diligence fees, as applicable, and (iii) other acquisition-related items, such as gains and losses on the settlement of contingent consideration. Our internal decision makers believe Adjusted Segment EBITDA is a meaningful measure because it represents a transparent view of our recurring operating performance that is unaffected by our capital structure and allows management to readily view operating trends and identify strategies to improve operating performance. We believe our Adjusted Segment EBITDA measure is useful to investors because it is one of the bases for comparing our performance with the performance of other companies in the same or similar industries, although our measure may not be directly comparable to similar measures used by other companies. Adjusted Segment EBITDA should be viewed as a measure of operating performance that is a supplement to, and not a substitute for EBIT, net earnings (loss), cash flow from operating activities and other EU-IFRS or IASB-IFRS measures of income or cash flows. A reconciliation of Adjusted Segment EBITDA to net loss is presented in the Unitymedia section of this release. 2 - International Financial Reporting Standards, as promulgated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), are referred to as IASB-IFRS. 3 - For purposes of calculating rebased growth rates on a comparable basis for the CWC borrowing group, we have adjusted the historical revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA for the three months ended June 30, 2015, September 30, 2015 and December 31, 2015 and the nine months ended December 31, 2015 to reflect the impacts in the three months ended June 30, 2016, September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2016 and the nine months ended December 31, 2016 of the alignment to Liberty Global's accounting policies and to reflect the translation of our rebased amounts for the three months ended June 30, 2015, September 30, 2015 and December 31, 2015 and the nine months ended December 31, 2015 at the applicable average foreign currency exchange rates that were used to translate CWC's results for the three and nine months ended December 31, 2016. The most significant adjustments to conform to Liberty Global's policies relate to the capitalization of certain installation activities that previously were expensed, the reflection of certain lease arrangements as capital leases that previously were accounted for as operating leases and the reflection of certain time-based licenses as operating expenses that previously were capitalized. We have not adjusted the three and nine months ended December 31, 2015 to eliminate nonrecurring items or to give retroactive effect to any changes in estimates that have been implemented in the three and nine months ended December 31, 2016. The adjustments reflected in our rebased amounts have not been prepared with a view towards complying with Article 11 of Regulation S-X. In addition, the rebased growth rates are not necessarily indicative of the rebased revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA that would have occurred if the acquisition of CWC had occurred on the date assumed for purposes of calculating our rebased amounts or the revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA that will occur in the future. The rebased growth percentages have been presented as a basis for assessing growth rates on a comparable basis, and are not presented as a measure of our pro forma financial performance. 4 - Accounting principles generally accepted in the United States are referred to as U.S. GAAP. 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. 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 ) and ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for its European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) and ( 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 visit www.libertyglobal.com . || Fashion Forward: Flow customers in for a treat as Monday Night TV heats up with Caribbean's Next Top Model Season 3 on Flow1: PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD--(Marketwired - Jan 27, 2017) -Flowcustomers will have front row seats asCaribbean's Next Top Model(CaribeNTM) Season 3 heats up Monday night television with its double-length series premiere on January 30that 9 pm -- exclusively on Flow1, formerly known as Flow TV. Over the past few months, aspiring young models from 15 countries across the region auditioned to become the next Caribbean girl who has what it takes to reach the top of the global fashion industry. Seventeen contestants will brace for battle in the new season, which is shot against the enchanting backdrop of the Spice Isle of the Caribbean, Grenada -- home to Season 2 winner, the 6ft tall Kittisha Doyle. Doyle is currently in New York City where she is carded to walk in this year's New York fashion week. Wendy Fitzwilliam, Trinidadian attorney at law, philanthropist, fashion model and former Miss Universe, will return as Host and Chief Judge of Season 3, which promises to bepacked with even more drama and entertainment than ever before. "Modelling is a tough business," says Fitzwilliam, "and we promise Flow customers an exciting Season that will showcase the hard-work and determination that is required to make it to the top. We encourage viewers to tune in to Flow1 every week and support their favourite girls by following and voting on social media as well." Flow's Senior Director, Consumer Communications, Wendy McDonald said, "An added feature for CaribeNTM Season 3 is the ability for our customers to enjoy a more interactive experience, as they can follow the live action no matter where they are via our Flow-to-Go app, as well as catch up on reruns of Seasons 1 and 2 via Flow's video on demand services (VoD)." McDonald also proudly spoke about the company's commitment to create the best viewing experience and bring relevant and relatable content to Caribbean viewers. Flow has made significant investments to bring programmes such as Caribbean's Next Top Model,Caribbean Tales Incubator Programmefor Caribbean filmmakers, and the airing of premier regional sports content like theFlow CARIFTA Games, which will be broadcast live from Curacao in 2017. Caribbean's Next Top Model will air exclusively on Monday nights at 9pm Caribbean and Eastern Time, with a repeat on Thursdays at 9pm on Flow1. EDITORS NOTE: 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 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 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) 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 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=3103371 || 5 Trends That Venture Capitalists Will Have Their Eye On In 2017: With every new year comes a tide ofnew and excitingtechnologies looking to carve out their own niche in the fabric of society. Whether these innovations, and the companies behind them, actually succeed depends on a lot of factors. One of the main driving forces behind innovation is finding capital to grow the business behind the technology. With that in mind, here are five of the hottest trends in tech that smart venture capitalists will be keeping an eye out for in 2017. Augmented and virtual reality While 2016 saw the rapid introduction and growth of AR and VR devices and apps, expect 2017 to have even more offerings as companies refine and expand their implementation of the technology. The application of the technology has so far been monopolized by the videogame and entertainment sectors. However, savvy investors are eagerly anticipating the expansion of virtual and augmented reality other fields. When this happens, the way consumers interact with this technology will change as new companies and peripherals begin to compete for a growing market. TakeCimagine, a crowdfunded startup that combines augmented reality with e-commerce. Investors should be on the lookout for peripheral companies making use of this technology. Advertising tech An ongoing puzzle that marketing firms and digital content providers continue to struggle with is how to get their advertisements in front of the right eyeballs at the right time and through the right medium. Enter ad tech, which aims to solve that question in the shifting sands of digital media and consumer habits. And while the current digital ad market is currently dominated by the likes ofFacebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) andAlphabet Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), startups likeUbimoandShopialare trying to make it easier for others to get in on the action. Investors who can find a firm with an innovative framework to tackle the extremely complex problem of effectively monetizing digital advertising will have a stake in field that will only see growing demand in the future. Cybersecurity and Defense Given the current political and corporate climate surrounding unauthorized access to sensitive digital information like credit card data or personal records, expect 2017 to be a big year for companies developing new ways to safeguard against cyber attackers. Investors should be on the lookout for innovations that aim to simplify data networks—likeCyberX—in order to more easily detect and halt malware infiltration and hacking attempts before they breach a company’s system. It could also pay to be aware of advances in software in development to counteract the hazard of losing important data to ransomware. “The pace of cybersecurity R&D and innovation is faster than at any time in history and the advancements are considerable,” said cybersecurity advisor Ron Moritz, noting that venture capital investment in cybersecurity has increased from $1 billion in 2011 to over $4 billion in 2016. Artificial Intelligence Nothing quite screams “future tech” like Artificial intelligence. But as a the prospect of thinking machines has evolved from sci-fi to fact, the scope of the technology within the real world has also changed drastically. As a result, artificial intelligence can be viewed as more of a catchall term to indicate how well a computer can adapt to, and function, in a variety of tasks conventionally performed by humans. What’s interesting about AI is how broadly applicable it is across industries. Technology companies likeAlphabet Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) andAmazon.com(NASDAQ:AMZN), use AI, but so doesZebra(a medical company) and BillGuard (a fintech company) to the technology behind self-driving cars. Decentralized Banking Databases As more of the world’s banking activity occurs over the Internet, and cryptocurrency earns greater prominence, ensuring the record and security of those digital transactions has become a global economic concern. Because of this, companies like the Bitcoin banking company Blockchain and equity marketplace EquityX have surged as leaders in secure and intuitive online banking. The technology behind these companies that manage and secure ledgers of online transactions is still being refined. The demand for advancements in the database process will only grow as investors and individuals continue to traffic into digital banking. To get a full breakdown of startups in these fields, check out OurCrowd. See more from Benzinga • Avoid The Student Loan Crisis Facing Retirees • Akorn Cracks Open A Buy Rating With Vetr • As Price Rises, Vetr Bumps Philip Morris Down To A Buy © 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin ETFs For Dummies: Spencer Bogart is vice president of equity research for Needham & Co. He joined the firm in 2014 and currently leads the research efforts on blockchain technology and bitcoin while supporting research on cloud software (SaaS) companies. ETF.com recently sat down with Bogart, a former ETF.com analyst, to get his take on all the important developments in the bitcoin market ahead of the key SEC decision on the Winklevoss ETF, expected within the next month. ETF.com: Before we jump into more specifics, in a nutshell, how would you describe what bitcoin is to the layperson? Bogart:Bitcoin is peer-to-peer digital cash that's not issued by any central authority. ETF.com: Tell us about the highly anticipated decision that's coming from the SEC. What is it ruling on and what are the odds the ruling will be positive?Spencer:There's a number of bitcoin ETFs that are going through the regulatory approval process. The one that's been going through the process the longest is the Winklevoss bitcoin ETF [Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust (COIN)]. That's been going on for about 3 1/2, four years now. The exchange they would like to list that particular ETF on―which in this case is Bats [owner of ETF.com]―has filed a proposed rule change, which would be necessary to list the ETF. It's that proposal that essentially we've been watching go through the regulatory approval process. At each point along the way, the SEC has had the option to approve, disapprove the ETF or to extend its time to make a decision. All along the way, it’s chosen the opportunity to extend the time to make a decision, including submitting requests for public comments. We’ll now see an end to that process before March 11, which is the deadline. Before that, we’ll either get an approval, a disapproval or Bats will withdraw its request for a rule change. Or, if no decision is made by March 11, then the rule change is automatically approved. ETF.com: What factors are the SEC considering? Bogart:I don't have any inside information, but my sense is that the majority of the things that the SEC is particularly concerned about revolve around bitcoin itself as opposed to anything specific about the Winklevoss filing. They're asking if a digital asset such as bitcoin―which, unlike a commodity doesn't have a physical form, and unlike a security or derivative, is not under any kind of regulatory supervision―is a suitable underlying asset for an ETF. At the highest level, that's the kind of thing they're considering. A little bit more in the weeds they're asking if the specific markets that bitcoin trades on are stable, fair and efficient, and if they facilitate or enable or encourage any kind of market manipulation. And then of course, there are the factors that are more specific to the ETF itself, which I think, in this case, probably the most important ones are what do you use as a reference price for bitcoin, and how are you going to securely store that bitcoin? ETF.com: Does the Trump administration have any influence on the process? Bogart:I’m hearing there are a number of bitcoin-friendly people that have taken up various posts within the administration. I'm hearing that it's, on the margin, at least a little bit positive for bitcoin. I'm not sure if any of those people are in influential roles at the SEC. They may or may not impact the ETF decision, but overall, the probability of onerous legislation or regulation against bitcoin decreases on the margin with the administration change. ETF.com: All that said, you say you believe the odds of approval aren't very high. Why is that? Bogart:We've pegged the odds at less than 25%. That's because the very first thing the SEC lists in its own mission statement is protecting the investing public. When you think about the game theory aspect of this, if I work at the SEC and I approve this ETF and it goes well, nobody is probably going to come around and pat me on the back and give me a promotion. But if I approve it and a lot of money flows into it and something goes wrong, I'm likely to lose my job. The SEC has gone very deep on this, and it’s really explored it far deeper than I expected it to. It would have been a pretty easy thing for it to just write off three years ago and forget about it. But I just don't know if it can get comfortable with the number of risks related to bitcoin itself. ETF.com: If you're wrong and the SEC allows the launch, how much money do you see it attracting, and what will be the impact on the bitcoin price? Bogart:Roughly speaking, we've estimated that at least $300 million would flow into this fund in the first week. An ETF would be the first time that the gates have been opened to bitcoin for institutional capital. Most institutional money managers have mandates that require they invest in registered securities, and bitcoin itself is not a registered security. So for most institutional money managers, they can't touch bitcoin itself. The ETF would basically be the first time institutional money could really flow into bitcoin in a meaningful way. The effect on price would be very profound. There's something on the order of $15 million to $60 million worth of bitcoin typically traded against the U.S. dollar on the world's major exchanges. If you're trying to source $300 million worth of bitcoin within a few days, there's really no way to do that—even in a normal market—without significantly disrupting the price. Then you add into that the market where an ETF has just been approved and price is going to start rallying, liquidity's going to dry up really quickly just because nobody really wants to sell into that market. Everyone's going to want to hold their bitcoins in a time when the SEC has just approved an ETF. At the same time, you're going to have a favorable shift in public perception away from "Bitcoin is only used for the sale of illegal goods" to "Oh, wow, the SEC has just given it a stamp of approval." And because you’d potentially have a much greater percentage of the population saving bitcoin, the propensity for the regulators to enact onerous regulation on bitcoin would at least decrease on the margin. If you put all this together―you put this large sum of capital trying to flow into bitcoin at a time when price is already rallying, you add in the fact that there's a favorable shift in public perception, coupled with a marginal decline in regulatory risk―and the effect on price would be very significant. ETF.com: The bitcoin price is up tremendously in the last year―about 150% in the past 12 months. How much of the run-up has to do with the ETF? Bogart:I think very little of it has to do with the ETF. It's possible some of the recent price action has been related to the ETF. If at all, it's a small effect on the margin. It's mostly just about general growing adoption and a shifting perception. ETF.com: If the SEC rejects the ETF, do you expect some kind of crash? Bogart:I definitely don't expect a crash. There would be some downside to disapproval. We'll see price slump a bit, but I would guess it won't slump more than 10%. ETF.com: If the SEC rejects the Winklevoss ETF, is there a chance it’ll revisit the issue down the line and another ETF can muster the support to come to fruition? Spencer:Absolutely. This will be an ongoing process. The particular decision that we have coming up before March 11 is only related to the Winklevoss filing. There are two other major filings out there. Even if the SEC rejects the Winklevoss filing, eventually they will try to address whatever concerns the SEC has, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them go back and try to take another swing at this. But it's anybody's guess how long they would wait to do that. ETF.com: Let me ask you about the underlying bitcoin fundamentals, aside from the ETF. What's the current market price and market cap of bitcoin? How much higher can it go? Bogart:We're at about $1,000 today, which translates to a market cap of about $16 billion to $16.5 billion. How much higher can the price go? It's really anybody's guess. There's definitely a heavy percentage of total bitcoin ownership related to speculation. I divide investors into two camps, and if you draw them on a Venn diagram, the overlap between them is probably extremely high. For one, there are people who invest in it kind of as a commodity. These people invest in it for the same reasons they might invest in gold. They're assuming that for reasons outside of bitcoin, bitcoin will become more valuable. They believe maybe hyperinflation in a particular currency, a global financial crisis or things like that will drive up the value. Those are factors that are unrelated to bitcoin itself; they're external factors. On the other side are people who almost look at it like a venture capital investment. They're thinking this is a payments network that is going to have a lot of value in the future, and they want to own a piece of that real estate. Of course, there's a lot of overlap between both camps. I personally own bitcoin and I own it for both those reasons. ETF.com: Is bitcoin like gold in the sense that it's difficult to put a price target on it? Can you say it's going to $5,000 or $10,000? Or is that just impossible to do? Bogart:You can, but you're totally right. To some extent, you're pulling numbers out of the air. The way we look at it is, we ask, "Five years out, what percentage of the gold market might bitcoin be, and what percentage of payments volumes do we think bitcoin might account for?" And then we use a quantity theory of money to come up with what would be a fair price of bitcoin five years from now, and then use a discount rate to get that back to a present value. We've done some of that work in the past. The last thing we published was a price target for $848. That was back when bitcoin was in the $500-600 range. We have not updated that price target since then. Contact Sumit Roy atsroy@etf.com. Recommended Stories • How Hedge Funds Use ETFs • Bitcoin ETFs For Dummies • The Most Interesting New Gold ETF Since GLD • HACK & ROBO Funds On A Technical Roll • The Innovative Side Of Dividend ETFs Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || How Hedge Funds Use ETFs: Eric Balchunas is a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, where he has more than a decade of experience working with ETF data, designing new functions and writing ETF research for the Bloomberg terminal. He also writes articles, feature stories and blog posts on ETFs for Bloomberg.com and appears each week on Bloomberg TV and Radio to discuss ETFs. ETF.com recently caught up with him to discuss how hedge funds are using ETFs. ETF.com: You've recently talked a lot about how hedge funds use ETFs, so I wanted to pick your brain about that. I found it interesting that you said hedge funds have more short positions than long positions in ETFs. Why is that? Eric Balchunas: Correct; they have $104 billion in short positions compared to $30 billion in long positions. A lot of people think hedge funds are out there trying to swing for the fences and return 100% every year. But most of them are looking to isolate certain things in the market, whether they're using merger arbitrage, event-driven or long/short strategies. To do the short side of those trades, they’ll use ETFs so they can cancel out the beta of the market and isolate their positions. Yes, some of the shorting is just straight-up betting against the market. But most of it is this use of the ETFs as a hedging vehicle. It's interesting that the $104 billion worth of short positions is over half of the total short interest in ETFs, so it’s significant. ETF.com: Which ETFs are they shorting? Balchunas: Goldman Sachs lists the short positions, and it's exactly what you would think. It's the old-school products like the Sector SPDRs, the PowerShares QQQ Trust (QQQ) and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) ―all the most liquid ones. They've also started to use the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) now that it's gotten more liquid. None of the names on the most-shorted list are surprising, but I was surprised a little by the funds that they are long. Story continues ETF.com: Which ones were those? Balchunas: VWO is a good example. That's the ETF with the most net long among hedge funds. ETF.com: You noted Vanguard is the only issuer where hedge funds are net long. That's an interesting pairing, because Vanguard ETFs have a reputation for being buy-and-hold types of investments, while hedge funds have a reputation for being relatively active. Balchunas: That number is really fascinating to me and it speaks to, in my opinion, Vanguard's wide appeal. Who doesn't like cheap? That's just so universal. Also, Vanguard may be the only one net-long, because iShares and SPDR have so many really liquid products that hedge funds love to short. On the other hand, Vanguard's products are usually the second- or third-most-liquid in a category, but rarely are they the first. It says a little bit about the cost-consciousness of hedge funds, but it also says a little bit about how Vanguard still has yet to really break through that liquidity barrier where they become the most liquid of a category. They're getting there. Vanguard ETFs have tripled in daily volume over the last five years. This is a big development, because if Vanguard starts to get that mass liquidity, it gets bigger fish attracted to it, and that just beefs up the liquidity exponentially. ETF.com: What ETF is owned by the largest number of hedge funds? Balchunas: SPY; it's owned by 154 hedge funds. The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) is No. 2, at 112. GLD is punching above its weight, because it's not the second-biggest in assets or volume. It speaks to the convenience factor of ETFs. You can go get physical gold, but you have to store it and insure it. It's kind of a pain. The ETF comes along, and even a hedge fund would say that it's just easier and cheaper to own GLD. ETF.com: We talk about hedge funds as a monolith, but they each have very different investment philosophies. Some have claimed that ETFs are dangerous and they wouldn't touch them. Can you tell us about that? Balchunas: They usually have two complaints. One is on the high-yield debt stuff. They ask, "How can something be liquid when the holdings aren't as liquid?" The other complaint is on the general rise of passive investing creating inefficiencies. But on the flip side, as we discussed, hundreds of hedge funds use the products, including HYG. Carl Icahn, who's the king of the hedge funds, says, and I'll quote him here, "There is no liquidity"—this is about HYG—"That's what's going to blow this up." Now, you have 50 hedge funds that hold HYG. So either they don't listen to him, or he has another motivation. Bill Ackman, another big hedge fund manager, also expressed some complaints about ETFs, but that was after a rough year for his hedge fund. You might want to factor that in. Either way, the hedge fund relationship with ETFs is a layered one. They use them in certain cases; they complain about them in other cases. The term I use is "frenemies." ETF.com: Do some of them feel threatened by ETFs, with all the alternative ETFs and smart-beta ETFs coming out? Balchunas: I don't think they feel threatened. Liquid alts—which are hedge fund strategies in passive structures like ETFs—just haven't done much. There are two reasons for this. One is that when you're doing sophisticated strategies that involve shorting―especially since shorting can be costly, and you have to time it―putting that into a rules-based index might not be the most efficient way to exercise that. And No. 2 is, when you buy a hedge fund, you're kind of buying the brain of the manager. Where smart beta has really made a threat to active is in the factors. CalPERS is a high-profile example: They fired their hedge funds and employed a factor strategy in-house. That didn't involve ETFs, but it tells you it's possible you could swap out some hedge fund strategies and use factor ETFs in their place. Smart beta assets are $500 billion. That's real money. So if anything was a threat to hedge funds, it would probably be in the factor area―not the liquid alts. I just don't see the merger arb ETF taking any assets from a real merger arb hedge fund. Contact Sumit Roy at sroy@etf.com . Recommended Stories How Hedge Funds Use ETFs Bitcoin ETFs For Dummies The Most Interesting New Gold ETF Since GLD HACK & ROBO Funds On A Technical Roll The Innovative Side Of Dividend ETFs Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Chinese bitcoin exchanges say to strengthen scrutiny of customers: By Brenda Goh SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's three largest bitcoin exchanges said on Thursday they will strengthen oversight of customers' identities and sources of funds, in the latest shift since the Chinese central bank stepped up its scrutiny of the industry. BTCC, OkCoin and Huobi said in identical statements on their websites that they wanted to curb market speculation and prevent activities such as currency exchange through bitcoin, which they warned was not issued by monetary authorities and carried high risk. Their move comes after China's central bank said it called nine of the country's smaller bitcoin exchanges in to a Wednesday meeting to discuss risks in the bitcoin market, and warned them that they risked closure if they seriously violated regulations or took part in activities such as margin lending. The price of bitcoin on European bitcoin exchange Bitstamp fell by as much as 9 percent on Thursday from the previous day, trading at $960. Beijing signaled that it was keeping a closer eye on the bitcoin industry last month by launching checks into BTCC, Huobi and OkCoin, amid growing government efforts to stem capital outflows and relieve pressure on China's currency, the yuan. 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.] That, and the relative anonymity the digital currency offers, has prompted some to believe bitcoin has become an attractive option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and skirt rules limiting how much foreign exchange individuals can buy each year. BTCC, Huobi and OkCoin last month stopped margin lending and introduced trading fees after the PBOC launched checks into them. In their Thursday statements, they also said they may freeze assets or limit trading by users who were found to flout the rules. Their statements also contained links to documents published by China's banking regulator that warned investors about market risks. Story continues News of meetings between the various exchanges and the People's Bank of China (PBoC), and other government agencies has caused the bitcoin price to swing wildly. On Wednesday, the price fell from a one-month high after sources at bitcoin exchanges in China said the PBoC had summoned some exchanges to a closed-door meeting, before recovering all of those losses in U.S. and European time. The PBOC said the nine exchanges involved in the Wednesday meeting were CHBTC, BtcTrade, HaoBTC, Yunbi, Yuanbao, BTC100, Jubi, BitBays and Dahonghuo. Industry insiders said the majority of these exchanges allowed other cryptocurrencies to be traded on their platforms besides bitcoin. BtcTrade, Bitbays and BTC100 declined to comment on the meeting. Reuters was unable to immediately reach the other six platforms for comment. Charles Hayter, CEO of London-based digital currency analytics firm Cryptocompare said the Chinese actions would ultimately be good for the industry. "The PBoC moves to regulate Bitcoin more stringently will bring short-term woes but will ultimately strengthen the ecosystem," he said in a statement emailed to Reuters. According to Hayter's analysis, trading between the Chinese yuan and bitcoin has fallen to around 26 percent of the bitcoin-fiat currency market from 98 percent at the start of the year. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by John Ruwitch and SHANGHAI Newsroom; Editing by Sam Holmes and Adrian Croft) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] 1 KOBO = 0.00000192 BTC = 0.0017 USD = 0.5355 NGN = 0.0231 ZAR = 0.1760 KES #Kobocoin 2017-01-20 22:00 || We show you how to get #Freebitcoin Visit http://showmethebitco.in  and start earning now!pic.twitter.com/1gO5rgDCTe || NEWS: Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver to Push for OKCoin Liquidation in Court - http://cryptostyle.com/news/news-bitcoin-investor-roger-ver-to-push-for-okcoin-liquidation-in-court … || #bitcoin #miner Antminer S9 11.5Th/s With two PSUs for 110V $2150.00 http://ift.tt/2mjCAs9 pic.twitter.com/R5CGdmtBWg || Hello, make sure you Retweet the first day of our Tweet. Retweeting a previous day's Tweet doesn't earn Bitcoin. || Current price of Bitcoin is $1034.99 via @Chain || Bitcoin Is Rising, And So Will BITCOIN SERVICES I COM USD0.001 (OTCMKTS:BTSC) - Insider Financial http://dlvr.it/NPgFRX  || Your Profitable Kingdom offers high-return investing in the Forex, bitcoin double multiply . http://ow.ly/7msM3092XC3  || http://goo.gl/onxOw8  A $15 card to withdraw $2000 per day in Bitcoin at any bank ATM! #bitcoin #BTC #anonymous NO ID VERIFICATION || Bitfinex Offline as Customer Bitcoin Reported Stolen - CoinDesk https://goo.gl/I2su8B 
Trend: down || Prices: 1267.12, 1272.83, 1223.54, 1150.00, 1188.49, 1116.72, 1175.83, 1221.38, 1231.92, 1240.00
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)] Experts say Petya ransomware is just a ‘test’ for something much worse: A new ransomware attack , modeled after the recent WannaCry exploit, has hit thousands of organizations and users worldwide. But according to a handful of security experts, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. The ransomware attack, which encrypts users’ files and demands a ransom to unlock them, could just be a test attack, or cover for more malicious damage being done by the virus. Don't Miss : The most important accessory any AirPods user can buy ““I’m willing to say with at least moderate confidence that this was a deliberate, malicious, destructive attack or perhaps a test disguised as ransomware. The best way to put it is that Petya’s payment infrastructure is a fecal theater,” security researcher Nicholas Weaver told KrebsOnSecurity . His sentiments were echoed by “the grugq,” an anonymous security researcher who blogs about security issues. He highlights the same thing as Weaver, namely that the payment infrastructure for the virus is poorly designed. Normally, ransomware viruses demand payment in Bitcoin to a Bitcoin account that is unique to every victim. That makes it harder to track the Bitcoin, or for researchers to work out the identity of the attackers. Communication is normally done through the obfuscated Tor protocol, which relies on a distributed web of servers and is impossible for one organization to shut down. In this instance, however, the attackers had one single email address listed for communication. It was quickly shut down by Posteo, the German ISP responsible for the email account. That means that victims will not be able to communicate with the attackers to organize payment or receive decryption codes, effectively meaning any encrypted files will be lost forever, if backups aren’t available. “If this well engineered and highly crafted worm was meant to generate revenue, this payment pipeline was possibly the worst of all options (short of “send a personal cheque to: Petya Payments, PO Box …”),” the grugq explains. It’s suspicious that such a well-designed piece of ransomware would have such a bad payment system — unless, of course, the aim was never to make money. Story continues “This is definitely not designed to make money. This is designed to spread fast and cause damage, with a plausibly deniable cover of “ransomware.”, the grugq continues. Weaver confirmed this to Krebs , saying that Petya “appears to have been well engineered to be destructive while masquerading as a ransomware strain.” Attributing blame for cyberattacks is always difficult, but the high concentration of Ukranian victims — the attack was originally distributed through Ukranian tax software MeDoc — raises questions about potential Russian involvement. Trending right now: Scientists ‘can’t rule out’ collision with asteroid flying by Earth in 2029 Google Pixel phones of the future may have a feature you’ll never find on an iPhone Video: Porsche tries to keep up with a Model S and the result is embarassing See the original version of this article on BGR.com || The Rise and Fall (And Rise and Fall) of Ethereum: InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips The big cryptocurrency story of 2017 is not Bitcoin . It’s Ethereum . The cryptocurrency, sometimes called ether and abbreviated as ETH, was first described in a paper by Bitcoin programmer Vitaly Buterin in 2013. The software was developed by a Swiss company in early 2014, and the market opened on July 22, 2014, less than three years ago. The Rise and Fall and Rise (and Fall) of Ethereum Source: Shutterstock Hacking and development disputes led to a split in the blockchain in July 2016. There are now two cryptocurrencies carrying the Ethereum name — ETH and Ethereum Classic, or ETC. Don’t be confused, many are. The market cap for ETH is $25.6 billion, but just $1.67 billion for ETC. The difference lies in the perceived superiority of Ethereum’s blockchain technology. The Ethereum blockchain can reportedly resist attack from hackers, and handle many simultaneous transactions, unlike rival Bitcoin, where clearing of trades can be difficult, time-consuming and costly. Another difference is that there’s something you can buy with Ethereum, startups launched through Initial Coin Offerings or ICOs . By offering stock for coins, rather than dollars, blockchain startups attracted capital that grows in value, and Ethereum speculators gained a bigger market. Should You Buy Bitcoin? 3 Pros, 3 Cons While the ICOs were meant to take speculation out of the currency, removing coins from circulation by turning them back into real money, they seem to have had the opposite effect. Retail investors around the world, seeing big profits in cryptocurrency investments, have piled in to Ethereum, like day traders in the 1990s. They have overwhelmed the liquidity of some Ethereum markets, creating flash crashes , and a bubble in companies that took coins as their start-up capital, as well as the coins themselves. Some of the companies that used ICOs for start-up capital are bound to fail, like old oil wildcatters with dry holes. Story continues The rush of institutions, including venture capitalists, into the business of Ethereum trading has only made the whole structure more volatile. The result was that the value of a single token peaked at nearly $400 in early June, plunged by one-third to $267 on July 27, rose briefly to $328 a few days later, and opened on July 6 at about $275. Ethereum boosters predict the currency will soon be worth $1,000 per token, but the short-term technical charts remained a mess as this was written. Vantiv’s WorldPay Buy The desire of credit card processors to get ahead of the fintech boom is leading to lots of mergers in the sector. The latest is Vantiv Inc (NYSE: VNTV ) agreeing to spend $10 billion to buy Worldpay Group , at 382 UK pence per Worldpay share. The deal is considered a “Brexit bargain,” but it’s also a defensive move by Vantiv, since WorldPay has a lot of small-business and e-commerce clients . That price may be why Square Inc (NYSE: SQ ) — a processor focused on small businesses that has never made money but did $1.7 billion in business during 2016, and $461.55 million in the March quarter — is up 80% so far this year and is now worth $9.3 billion, meaning its acquisition would likely come at an even higher price than Worldpay’s. Vitalik Buterin: 7 Things to Know About the Ethereum Co-Founder The biggest pure merchant processor, First Data Corp (NYSE: FDC ), currently has a $16.8 billion valuation with trailing-year revenue of $11.584 billion, and a profit. And Finally … The former CEO of Barclays PLC (ADR) (NYSE: BCS ), Anthony Jenkins, warns that banks which refuse to embrace fintech face a “Kodak moment” — a point where they suddenly become irrelevant to their customers. Jenkins was fired by Barclays in late 2015 and has since launched his own fintech start-up, 10X Banking , which aims to eliminate paperwork in areas like opening accounts and making loans. Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the historical mystery romance The Reluctant Detective Travels in Time , available now at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @danablankenhorn . As of this writing, he owned no shares of companies mentioned in this story. To follow the value of cryptocurrencies, bookmark https://coinmarketcap.com/ . More From InvestorPlace The 10 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2017 7 High-Yield Dividend Stocks for Aggressive Investors 8 Mergers That Could Dethrone Amazon The post The Rise and Fall (And Rise and Fall) of Ethereum appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Aussie edges lower, kiwi holds steady in late trade: Aussie gains some ground, kiwi holds steady vs. greenback Investing.com - The Australian dollar edged lower against its U.S. counterpart on Monday, while the New Zealand dollar was little changed as concerns over U.S. political tensions seemed to ease and as markets were still digesting the Barcelona terrorist attack. AUD/USD slipped 0.11% to 0.7923. The greenback recovered from losses posted following reports senior White House advisor Steven Bannon had been fired . Ongoing uncertainty over the economic agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump and doubts that the Federal Reserve will deliver a third rate hike this year have fed into recent dollar weakness. NZD/USD was little changed at 0.7316. Meanwhile, investors were still cautious after after a terrorist attack last Thursday killed 14 people and injured 100 others . Spanish police was still searching on Sunday for the man behind the wheel in the Barcelona van attack, amid growing signs members of the militant group had connections elsewhere in Europe. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was steady at 93.42. Related Articles Forex - Dollar index holds onto gains in subdued trade Forex - USD/CAD erases gains, hits 3-week lows Bitcoin falls below $4,000 to hit 7-day low || Yes, you can now tip strippers with Bitcoin: If you've amassed a fortune in Bitcoin and don't know how to spend it, here's an idea: Go to Las Vegas and squander it all on booze and lap dances. Legends Room is a "gentleman's club" that accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum, and its own cryptocoin LGD for all transactions. SEE ALSO: How's Bitcoin doing after its big split? Never been better That means you could go there on August 26 to watch the boxing bout between boxer Floyd Mayweather and MMA fighter Connor McGregor, and pay for everything with bitcoins. The basic experience is in the main room of the club, which is open to the public and charges $150 (payable in crypto) to watch the fight. If you opt for the members area, you need to own 5,000 LGD tokens (if you don't have them, you can rent them at the entrance). And if you don't really care about this crypto business, you can pay for everything in cash and credit card. The current price of the LGD token on Bittrex is about $2.15 per token, but you know how it is with these volatile cryptocurrencies — prices could go up or down before the event. The token itself doesn't appear to have any technical advantages over similar cryptocoins, but ownership nets you significant discounts on drinks and club services. Sindy from the Members Room at $LGD rocking one of the new dancer tattoos. #bitcoin #blockchain #womenintech #ethereum #vegas #bittrex # pic.twitter.com/luXbunEahl — LegendsRoomVegas (@LegendsRoom) August 14, 2017 The lap dances are where it gets interesting. During the event, dancers will be wearing a strategically placed temporary tattoo with a QR code. If you want to tip a dancer, wave the phone over the tattoo, and voila, you're doing Vegas, crypto-style. Story continues If you're still unsure whether all this is too adult-only to bring your underage nephew along, keep in mind that the place will be teeming with porn stars during the event, including Jesse Jane and Tasha Reign. Disclosure: The author of this text owns, or has recently owned, a number of cryptocurrencies, including BTC and ETH. WATCH: Three construction innovations that will change the way we build Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint api production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fvideo uploaders%2fdistribution thumb%2fimage%2f81201%2f333f636e cffc 4ff9 b985 1e055e975518 || Shaun G. Morgan Discusses the Impact of Sinocoin, the Newest Digital Currency: DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / July 25, 2017 / China has begun to consider implementing its own form of digital currency to compete with or even replace the current reigning cryptocurrencies within its borders. Digitally exchanged monetary systems have had a tremendous impact on the People's Republic's commerce, despite some initial resistance. The government of the populous nation has been cautiously toying with the idea of their own state-sponsored cryptocurrency for quite some time, however, experts such as Shaun G. Morgan , Managing Director of the Emirates Consolidated Investments and frequent consultant for China-based business interests, say that this Chinese digital tender (under the working English title, "Sinocoin") may soon become a reality. http://shaungmorgannews.com Strictly digital currencies have come and gone since the 1990's, often with mixed to negative results. A major roadblock for sustainability of these alternative payment methods against physical tender has been combining the anonymity with transparency, which has led to several legal scandals, criminal investigations, and ultimately shutdowns of the exchange systems. This was rectified by newer services such as Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009 and hosted a public ledger to record all transactions. Keeping the purchases open allowed for less centralized oversight, while encryption kept personal information safe. The startling success of Bitcoin has caused it to grow exponentially in the years since and led to the creation of many similar products. Shaun G. Morgan has recommended vetted cryptocurrencies as a possible investment option due to the potentially positive returns. Alexandr Nellson, writing for the Medium, also posits that Bitcoin is very likely to continue growing based on previous trends, and investors would see a positive increase down the road from purchases made now. The benefits of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have also convinced other national governments to begin looking into forming their own digital alternatives. However, China has experienced some of the largest growth in digitally exchanged currencies in the world, with a highly active and robust crypto-economy. This has worried China's central bank in the past and some officials have claimed that services like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and others lead to the diminishment of the Chinese yuan. The People's Bank of China (PBoC) initially forbid cryptocurrency trading, and even after exchanges were finally allowed, they were scrutinized heavily. However, there are signs that the PBoC is changing its position. The Chief China Strategist of the Bank of Communications, Hao Hong, told the South China Morning Post that the government's attitude towards cryptocurrencies is "shifting." Bloomberg News has pointed out that Chinese citizens rely heavily on online transactions for their purchases, and that trend does not look likely to slow down. After a freeze of Bitcoin by China this past June, Business Insider reported that once withdrawals were resumed, the currency reached a peak value of approximately 2400 dollars a coin. All of the evidence indicates that digital currency will remain a driving force in the Chinese economy for some time and that launching Sinocoin might, in fact, become a necessity for the PBoC. Story continues Shaun G. Morgan is a Managing Director for Emirates Consolidated Investments, CEO of SG Morgan Investment Bank, a Chairman of Greater China Acquisition Corp., and a key shareholder in several other institutions. He has been involved in enterprises all across the globe, including Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and many others. Morgan has been an advisor and consultant for almost 20 years, with a focus on investment banking and cross-border credit lending. He also participates in philanthropic activities, including donating 500 tablets to the Fujairah Welfare Association. Shaun G. Morgan - Managing Director of Emirates Consolidated Investments: http://shaungmorgannews.com SG Morgan Investment Bank - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SG-Morgan-Investment-Bank-1791608931082759/ SG Morgan Financial Services LLC: http://sgmorgan.com Contact Information: ShaunGMorganNews.com http://shaungmorgannews.com contact@shaungmorgannews.com SOURCE: Shaun G. Morgan || Experts say Petya ransomware is just a ‘test’ for something much worse: A new ransomware attack , modeled after the recent WannaCry exploit, has hit thousands of organizations and users worldwide. But according to a handful of security experts, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. The ransomware attack, which encrypts users’ files and demands a ransom to unlock them, could just be a test attack, or cover for more malicious damage being done by the virus. Don't Miss : The most important accessory any AirPods user can buy ““I’m willing to say with at least moderate confidence that this was a deliberate, malicious, destructive attack or perhaps a test disguised as ransomware. The best way to put it is that Petya’s payment infrastructure is a fecal theater,” security researcher Nicholas Weaver told KrebsOnSecurity . His sentiments were echoed by “the grugq,” an anonymous security researcher who blogs about security issues. He highlights the same thing as Weaver, namely that the payment infrastructure for the virus is poorly designed. Normally, ransomware viruses demand payment in Bitcoin to a Bitcoin account that is unique to every victim. That makes it harder to track the Bitcoin, or for researchers to work out the identity of the attackers. Communication is normally done through the obfuscated Tor protocol, which relies on a distributed web of servers and is impossible for one organization to shut down. In this instance, however, the attackers had one single email address listed for communication. It was quickly shut down by Posteo, the German ISP responsible for the email account. That means that victims will not be able to communicate with the attackers to organize payment or receive decryption codes, effectively meaning any encrypted files will be lost forever, if backups aren’t available. “If this well engineered and highly crafted worm was meant to generate revenue, this payment pipeline was possibly the worst of all options (short of “send a personal cheque to: Petya Payments, PO Box …”),” the grugq explains. It’s suspicious that such a well-designed piece of ransomware would have such a bad payment system — unless, of course, the aim was never to make money. Story continues “This is definitely not designed to make money. This is designed to spread fast and cause damage, with a plausibly deniable cover of “ransomware.”, the grugq continues. Weaver confirmed this to Krebs , saying that Petya “appears to have been well engineered to be destructive while masquerading as a ransomware strain.” Attributing blame for cyberattacks is always difficult, but the high concentration of Ukranian victims — the attack was originally distributed through Ukranian tax software MeDoc — raises questions about potential Russian involvement. Trending right now: Scientists ‘can’t rule out’ collision with asteroid flying by Earth in 2029 Google Pixel phones of the future may have a feature you’ll never find on an iPhone Video: Porsche tries to keep up with a Model S and the result is embarassing See the original version of this article on BGR.com || Bitcoin Cash Launches, Bitcoin's Future Unclear: Bitcoin Cash officially launched tonight, a controversial fork inspiring hordes of bitcoin users to swap traditional bitcoins for this new cryptocurrency. Some reddit users even deemed Tuesday “ Bitcoin Independence Day .” The build up has been dizzying. One of the world’s leading bitcoin exchange markets, Coinbase , had outages throughout the weekend “due to a large number of bitcoin withdrawals.” Some of these people were probably just securing their stash on hardware wallets, while others became early BCH users. Read : Why The Bitcoin Fork Debate On August 1st Isn't 'Civil War' A BCH airdrop is already underway, giving away BCH for free to core Bitcoin holders. Stellar previously made the same move with its cryptocurrency, Lumens, so this type of giveaway isn’t surprising. Blockchain startups were hard at work Monday, gearing up for the network shift. Many cryptocurrency experts wished BCH separatists well on social media, despite a lack of confidence in BCH’s prospects. “It seems like a pointless, political gesture,” Monero co-founder Riccardo Spagni told International Business Times. “I don’t think it will serve its intended purpose.” Although he respects many of the people involved with Bitcoin Cash, he considers the project unwise. Spagni’s advice for bitcoin newbies is to “calm down and wait it out.” Bitcoin and BHC prices are both expected to oscillate for a while after the fork. “It could be months before the dust settles,” Spagni said. As for the political debate underlying BCH, wanting bitcoin to be used by as many people doing as many transactions as possible, bitcoin veterans have diverse perspectives on what the real future holds. Many of bitcoin’s most passionate advocates believe cryptocurrency markets aren’t just about getting rich: It’s about “ allowing people to be free .” Blockchain tokens let people to transact without banks or governments verifying their identities and holdings. This gives users more financial autonomy than ever before. However, as the business-centric BCH split underlines, cryptocurrency enthusiasts adhere to a wide range of philosophies. Is the future of bitcoin really universal adoption? It depends on who you ask. Story continues Read : Why You Should Care That Hedge Funds Are Joining The Crypto Boom Many innovators want cryptocurrency to someday become a widespread conduit for daily transactions, such as buying coffee. People like Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin even believe blockchain technology could reshape the global economy by giving people power over their own digital sovereignty in all kinds of online platforms. The blockchain industry is full of cypherpunks and libertarians, white hat hackers and humanitarian activists. Regardless, many bitcoin veterans still think it’s naive to suggest cryptocurrency will fundamentally transform the concept of money. "The technology doesn't seem to support that vision," Patrick Murck, co-founder of the Bitcoin Foundation and a renowned cryptocurrency legal expert , told IBT. “Blockchains don’t scale well.” At least for the near future, Murck said decentralized networks won’t be able to handle all the transactions that Visa and Mastercard can. Business-oriented networks like Ripple have a much higher capacity, but XRP is not as decentralized as bitcoin or the democratically run Tezos. Even if a decentralized network does eventually scale for the kind of capacity a commonplace, international currency would need, local governments still define monetary policy. Politics will define the future of bitcoin, regardless of scalability. Bitcoin Cryptocurrency fundraising is changing the world with initial coin offerings. Bitcoin is just the beginning. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Lawmakers can make it easier, or much harder, for citizens to use decentralized networks. Crypto Lotus hedge fund co-founder Joshua Goldbard told IBT the value of currency is still largely tied to a nation-state’s monopoly on violence. Russia and China are already developing their own national cryptocurrencies. Goldbard said the United States could follow suit and gain more value than decentralized tokens. “That will obviously become a dominate cryptocurrency because the US has all the guns,” he said. “I don’t necessarily see cryptocurrency over the long term as democratizing the world...there will be different concentrations of wealth and different governance.” Spagni agreed with this assessment. Just because a technology could make money free from politics, doesn’t mean it will happen. “Governments are tenacious and they’re not going to just give up because there’s something else people want to use,” he said. Spagni would like to see larger adoption, yet believes cryptocurrency will likely remain niche even as it spreads and matures. Along those lines, Murck sees the future of cryptocurrency as a property revolution, not a new type of money. "Bitcoin and blockchain tokens are unique because they create unique forms property, that have never existed before," Murck said. "It's a little piece of data that is scarce and unique. Usually, data in digital systems is not scarce because you can just copy it infinitely.” For example, once a band digitizes a song, people can make endless copies for almost no cost. Now blockchain allows property owners, including artists who own their work , to keep control of those digital assets. The future of cryptocurrency could be less about mobile shopping and more about business standards. "If you rebuilt the New York Stock Exchange today, you could build it at a fraction of the cost, compared to the way it runs right now," Murck said. Meanwhile, projects like Filecoin are working to bridge the gap between traditional categories, like securities regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Wild West of initial coin offerings. "I think the SEC ruling is a part of it and I think there are some projects that are really embracing that. They want to professionalize the space," Murck said. Bitcoin Cash was born out of a debate about how to scale bitcoin so more people can use it for more things. While cryptocurrency seems like it will become more popular, decentralized networks may never be able to replace national currencies altogether because people are harder to work with than algorithms. “The [blockchain] network could break if you try to scale it prematurely," Murck said. "Money is just a creature of the state, a social phenomena. You can't really divorce the two." Related Articles Countdown To Bitcoin Cash IRS Might Limit 'Highly Intrusive' Bitcoin Audit || Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and the “Wise Guys” Bubble: InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Just as each recovery and recession are different, so is each bubble preceding a crash. Source: Shutterstock The Internet bubble of the 1990s involved investors lying to one another about the prospects for stocks, pushed into the public market by “wise guys” in the venture capital world. There were losers, but at least we had our eyes wide open. We were warned. The housing bubble of the last decade was about wise guys trading a lie called mortgage insurance. Those who bought the lie lost homes and fortunes. This was true even for those of us far from the bubble itself. Popping a bubble creates financial waves. The bigger the bubble, the louder the pop, the bigger the waves. The last popping nearly took down the global economy. Right now, we’re in what I call a wise guys bubble. Unicorns are at the heart of this bubble. Venture capitalists have convinced their investors that companies likeUberare worth what they claim they are. These values have not been tested in the public market. Those which have been went the way ofSnap Inc(NYSE:SNAP). Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, are also a part of the wise guy bubble. The programmers, market-makers, traders and boosters behind Bitcoin have convinced many people that encryption keys have real value, that they’re not only money but better than money, because they’re not manipulated by government. • Should You Buy Bitcoin? 3 Pros, 3 Cons But they are manipulated by Wise Guys, as we saw this past week with the fork of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. At a stroke, we are told, $6.3 billion in new value was created. If you had Bitcoins on July 31, you woke up Aug. 3 to find you had both Bitcoins — worth even more than they had been — along with an equal supply of Bitcoin Cash. One BTH for each BTC. Unless, that is, you had your Bitcoins parked at Coinbase, the largest Bitcoin exchange.Coinbase refused to accept the fork. If you chose a Coinbase wallet the way you would a bank — because it was big and therefore safe — you’re out almost $400 for each Bitcoin you had there. That’s not all the shenanigans going on at Bitcoin exchanges. Another such exchange, Poloniex, changed its terms of service last week, deciding that it now owned anything its customers said about it on social media. Some critics claimed it was preparing to steal their Bitcoin Cash tokensand keep that money for itself. There is no Federal Reserve for Bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency. It’s the way banks were before the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, when a “run” meant the bank was running off with the depositors’ money and those who didn’t get out immediately were just out of luck. Since few unicorns have gone public, investors are also in the dark about the value of their holdings. CB Insights recently counted 209 unicorns witha total valuation of $730 billion, more than the value of the Moscow and Tel Aviv stock exchanges put together. Compared with this, the $101 billion value of the cryptocurrency market is small. But taken together with unicorns, that’s nearly $850 billion — almost10 times the dollar volumeof stocks trading on the New York Stock Exchange on a given day. • Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Surge: Are Cryptocurrencies Becoming the New Reality? That’s also $850 billion in value that is backstopped by no central authority — value that its owners would likely have to recoup in the event of a crash by selling other assets. When the Wise Guy bubble pops — and it will — the damage to the real economy is going to be massive. Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the historical mystery romanceThe Reluctant Detective Saves the World, a mystery novel involving Bitcoin, available now at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him atdanablankenhorn@gmail.comor follow him on Twitter at@danablankenhorn. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. To follow the value of crypto currencies, bookmarkhttps://coinmarketcap.com/. The postBitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and the “Wise Guys” Bubbleappeared first onInvestorPlace. || 3 ETF ‘Trump Trades’ That Tripped: When it comes to investing, the problem with a sure thing is that no one can really be sure where the market will go. A look at some of the sure-thing, conventional-wisdom Trump trades following last November’s U.S. presidential election is a humbling reminder that crystal balls aren’t crystal clear, and investors can often be caught on the wrong side of a trade. Bet On Rising US Dollar The U.S. dollar was heralded as the big beneficiary of the incoming Trump administration. A business-friendly president determined to “make America great again” could mean only one thing for the greenback: upside. The dollar likes a growing economy. But seven months into the year, the dollar is not only lower, it’s at its lowest level since last summer. It’s down some 8% since its early January multiyear highs. Among the things weighing on the dollar is eroding investor confidence in President Trump’s ability to spur economic growth. His administration is struggling to pass promised legislation, such as a health care bill and tax reform. Seven months in, blockbuster growth isn’t such a given. In ETF terms, that performance can be seen in a fund like the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (UUP) , the biggest dollar-tracking ETF, with $545 million in assets. The fund goes long the U.S. dollar and shorts the currencies of major U.S. trading partners. The portfolio should go up when the dollar goes up. In 2017, UUP has slid nearly as much as the dollar, and investors have now yanked some $265 million from the fund this year. Bet On Russia The day after the presidential election, we were among the many who called it : Russian ETFs were poised to gain from a Trump presidency. Like many others in this industry, we too thought Trump’s outspoken efforts to improve relations with Russia were going to translate into stock gains for Russia ETFs . That didn’t happen. Of all the single-country ETFs in the market today, as first reported by MarketWatch this week, Russia is the only one treading in negative territory in 2017. That decline is largely a result of weak crude oil prices, which are a key driver in Russia’s economy. Story continues The VanEck Vectors Russia ETF (RSX) and the iShares MSCI Russia Capped ETF (ERUS) —the largest Russia ETFs—are both down in 2017. RSX, with $2 billion in assets, invests in Russian companies listed both in Russia and overseas, while ERUS tracks a market-cap-weighted index of securities listed on Russian stock exchanges. ERUS has $472 million in assets. As these ETFs dropped, investors have pulled $478 million from RSX, but have added more than $80 million to ERUS so far in 2017. Stay Away From Mexico Nothing about Trump’s initial rhetoric suggested a pro-Mexico administration. On the contrary, there was going to be a border wall built between the U.S. and Mexican frontier, paid for by Mexico. Immigration laws were going to get tougher; trade with our southern neighbors harder. In that environment, Mexico stocks were going to suffer—or so it seemed. But the iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF (EWW) has rallied—and sharply—defying all expectations. The $1.4 billion fund is up nearly 32% so far this year. Helping fuel those gains is a strengthening local currency, up some 15% since the election, as well as easing concerns that trade agreements were going to go up in flames. But even as EWW rallied, investors have pulled money out of the fund to the tune of $802 million in net redemptions year-to-date. Not only were they wrong about where EWW was headed, they bet with their dollars on the wrong side. Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com Contact Cinthia Murphy at cmurphy@etf.com Recommended Stories 3 ETF ‘Trump Trades’ That Tripped 3 Investing Legends On Bitcoin This Trump ETF Trade Completely Unwinds 3 ETFs For Surprise Drop In The Dollar Emerging Market Local Debt ETFs Shine Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Ripple Surged 70% to Become the Third Most Valuable Digital Currency After Bitcoin and Ethereum: It is the age of cryptocurrencies and ICOs and we have been hearing news about the surge in Bitcoin prices and the flexibility of Ethereum. But on August 22 nd , a cryptocurrency named Ripple hogged all the headlines as it rose 44% in one day and 70% in a matter of few days. Many people may not have heard what Ripple is but it is soon likely to become one of the most used currencies in the financial world with many banks and other financial institutions adopting it and moving towards using the underlying technology of Ripple. On a base note, the Ripple currency is used to send and receive payments. So, as can be seen, unlike many other cryptocurrencies, Ripple has a solid fundamental that is underlying it and the use is also something that is very important in the financial world. It can be used by individuals to exchange money irrespective of where their banks are and this helps to move the funds around, all across the world. It uses a technology called interledger protocol where the money never exchanges hands but both the send and the receiver has access to it through a secure digital channel, with all records of the transactions in it, and this makes it a very secure transaction channel. Get Into Bitcoin Trading Today Ripple Aids Financial Payments Since the technology is very secure and it helps the institutions involved to save a lot of money, many banks have begun to adopt this technology. By last count, 12 banks have been using this. Apart from the bank, Google has also been one of the first backers of Ripple as it realised the potential involved. Since then, we have seen many venture capitalists also beginning to back Ripple. So from the above, it is pretty clear that Ripple is on pretty solid footing. The team working on the currency is also very well known and also highly respected as well. With such good fundamentals, it is only a matter of time before the fundamentals show through and the potential is realised and the currency begins to move up and this could probably be that time. The traders and the investors certainly believe so and that is why we have been seeing the prices surge over the last few days. Story continues South Korea Loves Ripple The main interest for buying Ripple has come from South Korea. Of late, this country has become the center of trading as far as cryptocurrencies are concerned and it has been the leading buyer whenever there has been a surge in the prices of bitcoin and ethereum and even in the case of Ripple, a major part of the volume came from this country. Another fundamental reason for the South Koreans to show interest in Ripple are rumors that a major bank in that country, Kakao Bank could be preparing to adopt Ripple technology. This has not yet been confirmed by the bank. Expansion Into China Another rumor that is doing the rounds is that Ripple may expand to China and may even target that country as part of its major push. This is understandable given the fact that the Ripple technology helps in secure financial transactions at low cost and hence would be very useful in countries with large and fragmented population. That is why China and India would be very interested in using this technology as banks and other financial institutions in these countries, which have a large of their citizens outside the country and spread far and wide in the world, could use the Ripple technology to handle financial payments at very low cost. There is also another rumor that says that Alibaba, the tech and e-commerce giant, could be using Ripple technology for handling payments. Nothing has been confirmed as yet but it does speak volumes of the technology and the potential involved in Ripple. Considering these developments, it is likely that the Chinese may also start showing interest in Ripple and this could drive the prices even higher. All this shows the interest generated in Ripple at the moment and this could be the fundamental driver for the price rise, right now. And the move into new markets is only going to increase the demand for Ripple in the short and medium term and hence, it is no wonder that its trading volumes are surging. The Best and Safest Way to Buy and Sell Bitcoins Virtual currency is becoming more popular by the minute. It’s starting to seem that everyone wants in, yet it isn’t always so easy to get crypto currencies. Coinmama allows you to purchase Bitcoin through credit card or cash in sizes that will suit your needs! Click Here for More Info This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Still Waiting for a Catalyst to Trigger a Breakout over $1307.00 Gold forecast for the week of August 28, 2017, Technical Analysis Gold Price Forecast August 28, 2017, Technical Analysis U.S. Stocks Boosted by “Dovish” Yellen, Tax Reform Speculation Gold Price Prediction for August 28, 2017 Commodities Daily Forecast – August 25, 2017 [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Blockchain Will Change the World: Fidelity SVP http://bit.ly/2vyRCwN  #news #bitcoin #fintech #bitcoin #crypto #news #fintech #AI #crypto… || The Rapid Rise And Fall Of Bitcoin Cash - Forbes http://ift.tt/2vzyKxX  || Jul 16, 2017 20:00:00 UTC | 1,900.20$ | 1,656.70€ | 1,450.90£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/2ueYqdx305 || カード作ってないわーwww つくるか、、、 || 1 KOBO = 0.00000804 BTC = 0.0165 USD = 5.7420 NGN = 0.2149 ZAR = 1.7119 KES #Kobocoin 2017-07-16 00:00 || Meet the Kobocoin Team! #Kobo #Bitsoko #BTC #ETH #Fintech #FintechAfrica #MobileMoney #CryptoNews #Africa #Mpesa https://youtu.be/WcJMmhLDpfA  || #Monacoin 75.3円↓[Zaif] -円→[もなとれ] #NEM #XEM 16.2001円↓[Zaif] #Bitcoin 277,840円↓[Zaif] 07/11 06:00 口座開設はこちらで！ https://goo.gl/31dyoO  || Sorry buddy, we're still going to have lots of third parties. Bitcoin solves the double-spending problem (money inflation), not much else || Gana $45,00 Usd Por Afiliar, Quieres ganarte dólares con Bitcoin sin tanto esfuerzo? Es solo dedi ··-> https://goo.gl/Cdo6SQ  > #España || This made me look at bitcoin price again :D
Trend: no change || Prices: 4382.88, 4382.66, 4579.02, 4565.30, 4703.39, 4892.01, 4578.77, 4582.96, 4236.31, 4376.53
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)] Why Shares of Fintech Lenders OnDeck and Lending Club Are Getting Crushed: OnDeck might not have been ready for the major leagues. Shares of OnDeck Capital were down 34% on Tuesday, to $5.50. That caps a tumble that has left the stock off 70% since its IPO nearly a year-and-a-half ago. The source of the pain on Tuesday for the online lender was its first quarter earnings. On Monday afternoon, OnDeck said it lost nearly $13 million in Q1, up from a loss of just over $5 million a year ago. The loss was also larger than analysts were expecting. The $13 million loss is far from life-threatening, though it is concerning. OnDeck blew through $28 million in cash in the first quarter, though it still has $170 million in the bank. The bigger concern is its business model. OnDeck makes loans to small businesses. And lending has been going well. Loans rose by $100 million in the past year. Originally the thought was OnDeck and others were going to eat the lunch of the large banks which are lumbering and weighed down by regulations. Historically it has sold many of those loans off to investors. Yet, in the first quarter the percentage of loans that OnDeck offloaded to investors fell to 26% from 40% a year ago. What’s more, the profits OnDeck got from selling the loans dropped. The problem is that the fintech lenders are having more difficulty finding buyers for their loans. And investors seem to be nervous this is not just an OnDeck problem. Shares of Lending Club dropped 10% on Tuesday on fears that it will report the same problem when it discloses what it earned in the first quarter next week. Other fintech lenders have been struggling with what to do about the fact that buyers for their loans--hedge funds and other investors--appear to be drying up. Another fintech lender SoFi has started a hedge fund with its own money to invest in the loans it is making. Putting the loans in a hedge fund makes the loans effectively disappear from their books, even though Sofi still owns the risk. The arrangement has reminded some of the types of deals Bear Stearns and others set up in the run up to the financial crisis . Story continues As long as the market and regulators treat OnDeck and its rivals as tech companies none of this might be a problem. But regulators have started to hint that they are going to take a closer look at fintech companies and whether they should be regulated like banks. If regulators decide they should be, then OnDeck and others will have to meet the same capital rules that banks do, which will put a ceiling on how much they can lend, if they can’t find genuine third-party investors willing to take a good deal of that risk off of their hands. At the same time, investors no longer seem willing, like they do with other tech stocks, like say Amazon, to stick around while OnDeck continues to have losses. That doesn’t mean the stock is cheap. OnDeck’s shares, after Tuesday’s drop, have a price-to-book ratio of 1.20. J.P. Morgan Chase , by comparison, which has invested in OnDeck, has a P/B ratio of 1.05. OnDeck’s shares would drop to $4.80 if it traded at a similar multiple. But even that might be generous. Bank of America’s P/B is 0.7. If OnDeck’s shares traded at that multiple, they would sink to $3.20. If OnDeck is going to be treated more like a bank, the problem is shares will likely trade like one too. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com This Millennial CEO Thinks the Loan System for Small Businesses Is Broken The Big Flaw Few are Talking About in Fintech Barclays Is Getting Into Bitcoin With Goldman-Backed Circle Slack Users Will Be Able to Pay One Another Using This Bot Japan Looks to Kickstart 'Fintech' Revolution || 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 Andresen’s, supported Wright’s claims. “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 community’s 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) || 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) || CME Group to publish daily bitcoin settlement price: CHICAGO, May 2 (Reuters) - CME Group Inc plans to begin publishing a daily settlement price for bitcoin and real-time price data as the futures market operator moves into the world of the digital currency. Starting in the fourth quarter, the new settlement price will be published in U.S. dollars at 4 p.m. London time on each trading day, CME said on Monday. It will be based on trades at bitcoin spot exchanges, including the Coinbase U.S. market. Real-time prices will be published about once a second and calculated by Crypto Facilities, a London-based trading platform for digital assets, the companies said. Bitcoin is a web-based "cryptocurrency" used to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority. But while some champion it as the digital money of the future, it is often dismissed as a currency that is too volatile to invest in. Last year, the New York Stock Exchange, owned by the ICE, started the first daily, exchange-calculated bitcoin index. Also on Monday, the BBC reported that an Australian tech entrepreneur said he had created the digital currency. (Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn) || Former regulator turns Bitcoin tech advocate: By Mike Kentz NEW YORK, April 13 (IFR) - Former New York state financial services chief Benjamin Lawsky may have taken a harsh view of virtual currency as a regulator, but he has begun to stump for the technology behind it. The man accused of implementing tough regulations on Bitcoins and other online currency now heads a consultancy that is acting as an adviser and media liaison for one of the sector's major new players. The Lawsky Group, which provides legal and strategic counsel for clients on financial regulation issues, was the press contact last week for Axoni, a blockchain technology firm. Axoni was promoting its successful test of blockchain technology into the back office settlement process for derivatives transactions. "We'll be doing a broad range of financial consultancy ... and some financial technology public relations," said Lawsky Group spokesman Matthew Anderson. Anderson was spokesman for the Department of Financial Services, the state regulator where Lawsky was accused of slowing the development of virtual currencies. Lawsky said last June he wanted to "put in place guard rails that protect consumers and root out illicit activity without stifling beneficial innovation". Though some Bitcoin proponents welcomed the safeguards, Lawsky's about-face now that he is profiting from the technology in the private sector has miffed more than a few observers. "I think the most interesting thing about Mr Lawsky's newest venture is that it highlights the cozy relationship between regulators and the regulated industry," Pamela Morgan, CEO of Third Key Solutions, told IFR. Morgan, whose company consults for other companies that use digital currencies such as Bitcoin, called Lawsky's new role "crony capitalism at its finest". Lawsky's spokesman did not respond to two requests for further detail about his work, though others saw no problem with it. "I think it is fantastic that he has entered the private sector and continued to support the Bitcoin/blockchain space," said Adam Draper, CEO of Boost VC, a venture capital firm focused on blockchain and other virtual technologies. Some suggest the addition of public relations brings out a strength that helped raise Lawsky's profile in the first place - his ability to interact with the media. (Reporting by Mike Kentz; Editing by Jack Doran and Marc Carnegie) || 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 Andresen’s, supported Wright’s 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 community’s 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 is dead,’ says prominent fintech exec: Exactly three months ago, a well-known bitcoin developer, Mike Hearn, wrotea post on Mediumthat rocked the community of people who believe in the future of the digital currency and its technology. Bitcoin, he wrote, has failed. “It has failed because the community has failed… Worse still, the network is on the brink of technical collapse.” The post led to screaming headlines about the end of bitcoin. And yet, the industry plugs along. The currency is trading at $430 USD. Transaction volume (the number of bitcoin transactions per day) is higher now than it was before Hearn’s post, according toa tracker at Blockchain.info. Just this week, theWall Street Journalprofiled a top ETF (exchange-traded fund) attorney who is advocating for a bitcoin ETF, the same effort that Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are pushing. Barry Silbert, CEO of the Digital Currency Group,reflected this week, “Hearnado is over.” Maybe not. If you ask Taavet Hinrikus, CEO of international-payments app TransferWise, “Bitcoin, I think we can say, is dead. There is no traction, no one is using bitcoin. The bitcoin experiment, I think we can say, is over.” Hinrikus made the comments in an interview with Yahoo Finance, during a visit to discuss his company’s servicelaunching in Mexico this week. “What really happened was a gold rush,” he continued. “People bought bitcoin because they thought it would be worth more tomorrow. And a lot of people got lucky. But we’re not seeing real people use bitcoin. And we don’t know what problem it solves. Now, blockchain, I think, is a genius advancement in technology. But I’m not sure we’re seeing yet where to apply it. I’m pretty excited aboutR3 and Digital Asset Holdings. I think there are many areas where using blockchain is great, but it’s still early days.” He’s not alone in either opinion: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, for one,has also saidthat bitcoin is “doomed,” and has also drawn a distinction between the currency and its underlying ledger technology, the blockchain. His bank, along with more than 40 others, hassigned on to a consortiumto test blockchain technology for their transaction rails. Of course, TransferWise isn’t a bitcoin company. But the company’s proposition to customers is faster transfer times, and smaller transfer fees, on international remittances. Bitcoin, as a technology, has the same appeal (among many other uses): instant transfers and tiny fees, circumventing big, expensive, sluggish banks or wire services. Startups like TransferWise, and Dwolla, and a host of others that have nothing to do with bitcoin are nonetheless in the same general pool of financial technology, or more specifically, digital payments. The bold claim about bitcoin’s death would mean more, and be more alarming or divisive among the bitcoin community, coming from a bitcoin executive. (After all, one could make the case that bitcoin is a competitor to TransferWise, which deals in fiat currency.)But Hinrikus is no newcomer to fintech: TransferWise has raised nearly $100 million from huge names in tech investing like Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Richard Branson, and before co-founding TransferWise, Hinrikus was the first hire at Skype and worked there five years as its director of strategy. When asked about bitcoin, Hinrikus began by saying, “We’ve certainly paid lots of attention to bitcoin and blockchain.” If tech entrepreneurs like Hinrikus feel they no longer need to keep paying attention, that could be a problem for the coin and its future viability. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Read more: Bitcoin community disputes use of the term ‘Internet of Money’ How big banks are paying lip service to the blockchain Here’s how you can invest in the blockchain Bitcoin's biggest investor just bought its biggest news site || Bitcoin exchange Coinbase to add ether currency to trading platform: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase said on Thursday it will add digital currency ether on its trading platform next Tuesday. The addition of ether comes given the surge in interest in the digital asset among major financial institutions such as Barclays [BARCR.UL] and UBS [UBSAG.UL] as well as other enterprises worldwide like IBM, which are trying to explore the Ethereum network. Ether is the digital currency for the Ethereum platform, a blockchain, or public ledger that can create decentralized applications. Ethereum, which uses ether to execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically without the need for intermediaries, was co-founded and invented by 22-year old Russian Canadian programer Vitalik Buterin. "We're very excited about Ethereum. There has been a ton of progress made in the last six to nine months," said Adam White, vice president of business development at Coinbase in an interview with Reuters. "We have seen hundreds of emerging decentralized apps (applications) launched on Ethereum." He added that bitcoin cannot mirror Ethereum's "scripting language," so both bitcoin and ether can co-exist and will not necessarily compete with each other. Coinbase also plans to change the name of its platform to GDAX (Global Digital Asset Exchange), said White. The name Coinbase, however, will be retained for its retail service such as exchanging dollars for bitcoin or ether, he added. Coinbase, widely believed to be the largest bitcoin-focused company in terms of investment, will offer ether/dollar and ether/bitcoin currency pairs on GDAX. The name change was made because the company will add more digital assets for trading on its exchange, White said. According to coinmarketcap.com, ether is trading at $14.28 late on Thursday, with a market capitalization of about $1.1 billion, the second largest behind bitcoin. Bitcoin currently has a market cap of $6.9 billion. Daily volume for ether is around $48 million, while average daily volume for bitcoin is $87.2 million. Story continues At the beginning of the year, ether traded at just $1 per token and it is the fastest-rising digital currency. White said ether will be available on GDAX in most states except New York because Coinbase is still in the process of applying for a license in the state. Coinbase's move to add ether trading to its currency exchange platform came after New York approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade ether on its exchange. "What's powerful about ethereum is that I can write self-executing contracts and I can run them on Ethereum and it's not on any central server or computer," said White. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Bernard Orr) || "I'm sorry" - Craig Wright on lack of evidence he created bitcoin: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright, who earlier this week said he would provide "extraordinary proof" that he was the creator of digital currency bitcoin, will not provide any further evidence, according to a post on his blog on Thursday. Although Wright did not renege on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto - the name, assumed to be pseudonymous, of the person or group who created the web-based currency in 2008 - the U-turn was taken by many bitcoin experts as confirmation of their suspicions that the claims were false. "I believed that I could do this. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me," Wright wrote. "But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot." 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. Various attempts have been made to identify its elusive creator, but Wright's claims stood out due to the high-profile endorsements they received. Lead bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen and bitcoin consultant Jon Matonis both wrote blogs on Monday endorsing Wright's claims, saying they had been shown proof by Wright that he was Nakamoto. Wright said on Thursday that Andresen and Matonis had not been deceived, but "that the world will never believe that now". "I think he's significantly less likely to be Satoshi than any other person that's been suggested," another lead bitcoin developer, Peter Todd, told Reuters, referring to others who have been suspected of being bitcoin's creator. "PLAIN FISHY" After coming under pressure to provide more credible evidence that he was bitcoin's creator, Wright had blogged on Monday that he would provide "independently verifiable documents and evidence" that would back up his claims. The post could no longer be found on his blog site. Story continues "The possibility that Wright is Satoshi will always exist, but given the amount of evidence calling that into doubt, I think one would be foolish to give that possibility much weight," said Jerry Brito, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based digital currency advocacy group Coin Center. "He's provided no cryptographic evidence verifiable by the public, and many of his answers sound plain fishy... Today's statement on his blog only further tarnishes his credibility." Wright's representatives declined to give any comments on his decision to back away from providing further evidence, but said he was still their client. They believed he was still in London, where he has been living for the past few months. Interviews with some who had done business with Wright in Australia in December, when reports by Wired and Gizmodo that he could be Nakamoto first emerged, and an inspection of documents published by the two tech news websites, painted a complex picture of Wright. They pointed to a smart but sometimes abrasive figure facing growing legal and financial problems at least in part caused by his involvement with bitcoin. Each bitcoin is currently worth around $447 , making the 15 million or so in circulation worth a total of around $7 billion. Wright said his failure to produce better evidence would cause "great damage to those that had supported" him, in particular Matonis and Andresen. "I can only say I'm sorry. And goodbye," Wright wrote. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Toby Chopra) || 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 apologized 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 gray-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 decentralized 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. (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, skeptical 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 judgment 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, decentralized 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) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] LIVE: Profit = $495.99 (6.32 %). BUY B18.96 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $442.14 (#BTCe) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || LIVE: Profit = $839.62 (10.48 %). BUY B19.39 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $456.91 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || Got love for all my nighas who got love for me. #btc || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $459.27/$459.97 #Bitstamp $454.00/$454.89 #BTCe ⇢$-5.97/$-4.38 $461.99/$462.03 #Coinbase ⇢$2.02/$2.76 || My robot has 786 hp left! I've earned a total of 361,650 free satoshis from http://www.robotcoingame.com/?id=5400701  #robotcoingame #Bitcoin || #Anoncoin/#ANC price now: $ 0.179693, that's 1.05 % change in 1hour. 1.54 % past day, and -1.36 % in the past week! #Bitcoin is $ 583.00 || LIVE: Profit = $865.31 (10.81 %). BUY B19.39 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $458.24 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || $525.50 at 06:45 UTC [24h Range: $501.00 - $540.00 Volume: 8074 BTC] || LIVE: Profit = $486.78 (6.21 %). BUY B18.96 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $439.91 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || BTCTurk 1350 TL BTCe 442.499 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 442.00 $ Cavirtex $ CEXIO 445.60 $ Bitcoin.de 396.76 € #Bitcoin #btc
Trend: no change || Prices: 672.78, 704.38, 685.56, 694.47, 766.31, 748.91, 756.23, 763.78, 737.23, 666.65
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] 4 buys for retail stocks ahead of earnings: The bar has been reset in the retail space, and Macy's(NYSE: M)is now the stock to buy for the near term, CNBC "Fast Money" trader David Seaburg said Friday. "Macy's is the one to own here for the short term, but long term, I caution you: I think they're going to have some real struggles," he said. "I think right now is the time to buy it for a trade: I think the stock's been beaten up, there are no expectations they're going to make numbers-I think you'll get a trade to the upside." Still, Seaburg reiterated his caution for investors looking to go long into the retailer, as he predicted that Amazon will displace the company by 2017. For his part, trader Brian Kelly said he "might pick at" Macy's, but similarly cautioned that "it's not really a long-term type of investment." Kelly said he doesn't like the retail space in general because consumer spending is not seeing much boost from the decline in oil. "Fast Money" Trader Steve Grasso, meanwhile, said that "if you have to play in that retail space," go with Target(NYSE: TGT). That company, he said, has been an outperformer with a more than 4 percent year-to-date gain. He also suggested buying Deckers Outdoor(NYSE: DECK), saying, "It makes an excellent takeout target." He noted that it would also work as a seasonal buy in October. Disclosures: Steve Grasso Grasso is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, 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 NEM, LYB, WDR, SHLD, STRP, UDR, ACI, AVP, TEX, CLI, TWTR, WYNN, PCRX, AXP, FNMA, SALT, AMD, CUBA, HSPO, ICE, AMZN, FCX, IBM, KDUS, KO, MAT, MCD, MJNA, NE, NEM, OXY, RIG, STAG, TAXI, TITXF, TSE, VALE, ZNGA. Guy Adami Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; ITB, TAN, TLT, TSL, the VIX, GDX call spread, TWTR call spread, US dollar; he is short DAX, Yuan and Yen. Today he closed his Oil and Ruble shorts. More From CNBC • Top News and Analysis • Latest News Video • Personal Finance || Bitcoin startups lure quant whizzes from Wall Street: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Armed with a doctorate in financial engineering, 34-year-old Timo Schlaefer was on his way to a promising career at Goldman Sachs in London. Previously with the bank's mergers and acquisitions team, he became an executive director of credit quantitative modeling at Goldman, where quants like Schlaefer are highly valued. In February he gave that up, and launched a company called Crypto Facilities Ltd, a bitcoin derivatives trading platform, which now has six employees. For now, the platform trades bitcoin forwards, which are directly linked to the price of bitcoin, but it's also developing other digital currency derivative products. "This is uncharted territory," said Schlaefer. "It's an exciting opportunity to participate in a new area of technology that has massive potential." Bitcoin is a virtual or online currency created through a "mining" process where a computer's resources are used to perform millions of calculations. Once mined, bitcoins can be stored in an online wallet, traded in an online exchange, or used to buy goods and services. Once the province of small-time investors driven by their distrust of government-backed currencies, now Wall Street bankers and traders are leaving high-paying jobs to join bitcoin start-ups, while big firms hire in-house to get their arms around bitcoin and the related 'blockchain' technology. "A lot of people are entering the bitcoin space as the sector has reached an overall level of funding that's hard to ignore," said Jaron Lukasiewicz, founder and chief executive officer at New York-based bitcoin exchange Coinsetter. Lukasiewicz, 29, moved to the bitcoin world in late 2012, having left behind a six-figure salary in private equity at The CapStreet Group in New York. Bitcoin is not backed by a government and its value fluctuates. On Thursday, it was trading at $278, making the value of outstanding bitcoin worth about $4 billion. It has had a volatile history, with a rapid rally in 2013 that boosted its value to more than $1,150 per bitcoin at one point. Story continues Right now, Crypto Facilities' Schlaefer probably won't make anywhere near the kind of money that he would potentially earn at Goldman. But it's less about the compensation for Schlaefer and more about being part of the growth in bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain. The blockchain - a ledger or list of all of a digital currency's transactions - is viewed as bitcoin's main technological innovation, allowing users to make payments anonymously, instantly, and without government regulation. Software engineers have started developing multiple applications for the blockchain, including a land title record system in Honduras to the clearing of trades in financial markets. Meanwhile, Wall Street firms are doing their own hiring in the cryptocurrency realm. In June, online bitcoin job ads surged to a record high of 306, according to data from Wanted Analytics, with demand coming from banks such as Capital One and tech companies such as Intel and Amazon. In previous months, Citigroup and TD Canada Trust posted bitcoin job ads as well. RISKY BUSINESS For 31-year-old Paul Chou, founder and chief executive officer of Ledger X, an institutional trading and clearing platform for bitcoin options, moving into the digital currency space represents what he hopes results in lucrative profits down the road. But there are other reasons for his shift. LedgerX is awaiting regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to trade and clear options on bitcoin. Chou said the firm hopes to operate the first regulated exchange and clearinghouse to list and clear fully-collateralized, physically-settled bitcoin options for the institutional market. "I took a very large salary pay cut to do this, in return for equity in a start-up that can be worth a lot someday," Chou said. Before LedgerX, Chou worked at Goldman Sachs in New York as a quant equity trader after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with degrees in computer science and mathematics. Chou said his hours are much longer as an entrepreneur - he's constantly refining ideas for strategy and thinking which areas to focus on. "The domain expertise, relationships, and career equity I've built are things I never could have done while at Goldman," Chou said. "As a former trader, I'm glad I made this trade-off at the stage of my career that I did." It's a risky move, however. There are already several tales of bitcoin company failures and mismanagement. U.S. bitcoin marketplace Buttercoin, for instance, shuttered its operations in April this year despite raising $1.3 million in funding. Bitcoin exchange MyCoin closed its doors in February of 2015, leaving about 3,000 investors out of pocket. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once one of the most dominant bitcoin exchanges, closed its doors without warning in February last year, filing for bankruptcy and leaving investors approximately $500 million in the red. BITCOIN INVESTMENTS, HIRING Total investments in bitcoin companies for the first half of 2015 - totaling $375.4 million - have already exceeded 2014's total of $339.4 million, data from CB Insights showed. Last year's venture capital funding of bitcoin start-ups grew roughly 280 percent from 2013. The number of bitcoin start-ups has increased by more than 80 percent from last year. As of end-July, there were 814 start-up digital currency companies, up from 444 a year earlier, according to Angel List, an online marketplace for start-ups seeking to raise money from angel investors. As banks defer compensation and add more clawback provisions that give them the right to limit bonuses, traders are seeing better risk opportunities elsewhere, said San Francisco-based Rick Henri Chan, chief operating officer at Airbitz, a digital wallet platform. Chan, 47, who joined the bitcoin industry three years ago, worked for Deutsche Bank as head of its over-the-counter derivatives technology in Japan, and was a trader at UBS and Morgan Stanley. He works long hours at Airbitz, doing everything from strategy to raising money, but the work environment is more flexible. At Deutsche, Chan had a multi-million dollar package, and he admits to missing that paycheck. "But we're doing something special here at Airbitz. And I do think our company will be valued at a lot more in the future," he said. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, editing by David Gaffen and John Pickering) || Best And Worst ETFs Of The Week Amid Independence Day Celebration: The holiday shortened week came to a close on light volume and unenthusiastic price action. Sellers managed to push theSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(NYSE:SPY) over 1 percent lower this week, as Greek default worries led to marked declines in broad-based exchange-traded funds. Nevertheless, hope remains that this embattled nation will come to a truce with its creditors to restore fiscal order in the European continent. The end of the quarter and mid-point of 2015 served as a reminder that very little progress has been made so far this year. TheSPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF(NYSE:DIA) is trading near the flat line, while theiShares Russell 2000 Index (ETF)(NYSE:IWM) notched the strongest gain of all the major indices with a total year-to-date return of 4.68 percent through June 30. Related Link:Bitcoin: The Best Currency For Greece And Other Debt-Ridden Countries? The following ETFs represent a sample of the best- and worst-performing funds over the last five trading sessions. BEST: Volatility Futures On Monday, SPY experienced its largest single day decline of 2015 with a drop of more than 2 percent. This sent volatility futures flying higher as traders scrambled to hedge their positions with options. TheiPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures TM ETN(NYSE:VXX) gained 15 percent this week after recent falling near its lows of the year. This exchange-traded note is the largest dedicated VIX futures fund, with over $1 billion in total assets. VXX is designed to capitalize on swings in investor fear. Heightened selling and uncertainty in the market generally leads to a spike in the CBOE VIX Volatility Index. WORST: Greek Stocks The catalyst for a jump in VXX was spurred by headlines that Greece would be unable to meet an IMF debt repayment deadline and hadclosed the Athens Stock Exchange. This news led to a steep weekly decline of 10 percent in the Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (Global X Funds(NYSE:GREK)). GREK tracks the 20 largest stocks on the Athens Stock Exchange, and prior to this announcement, had been taking in atremendous waveof new assets, as global investors bet on a turn around. While GREK did manage to claw back some of its hefty losses this week, the fund remains a question mark for investors until the Greek stock market reopens and prices can adjust accordingly. Image Credit:Public Domain See more from Benzinga • Home Construction, Treasury And Automobile ETFs To Watch This Week • Best And Worst ETFs Of The Week Amid Agriculture Rally • 3 Core ETFs For Growth Investors © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Best And Worst ETFs Of The Week Amid Independence Day Celebration: The holiday shortened week came to a close on light volume and unenthusiastic price action. Sellers managed to push the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY ) over 1 percent lower this week, as Greek default worries led to marked declines in broad-based exchange-traded funds. Nevertheless, hope remains that this embattled nation will come to a truce with its creditors to restore fiscal order in the European continent. The end of the quarter and mid-point of 2015 served as a reminder that very little progress has been made so far this year. The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSE: DIA ) is trading near the flat line, while the iShares Russell 2000 Index (ETF) (NYSE: IWM ) notched the strongest gain of all the major indices with a total year-to-date return of 4.68 percent through June 30. Related Link: Bitcoin: The Best Currency For Greece And Other Debt-Ridden Countries? The following ETFs represent a sample of the best- and worst-performing funds over the last five trading sessions. BEST: Volatility Futures On Monday, SPY experienced its largest single day decline of 2015 with a drop of more than 2 percent. This sent volatility futures flying higher as traders scrambled to hedge their positions with options. The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures TM ETN (NYSE: VXX ) gained 15 percent this week after recent falling near its lows of the year. This exchange-traded note is the largest dedicated VIX futures fund, with over $1 billion in total assets. VXX is designed to capitalize on swings in investor fear. Heightened selling and uncertainty in the market generally leads to a spike in the CBOE VIX Volatility Index. WORST: Greek Stocks The catalyst for a jump in VXX was spurred by headlines that Greece would be unable to meet an IMF debt repayment deadline and had closed the Athens Stock Exchange . This news led to a steep weekly decline of 10 percent in the Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF ( Global X Funds (NYSE: GREK )). GREK tracks the 20 largest stocks on the Athens Stock Exchange, and prior to this announcement, had been taking in a tremendous wave of new assets, as global investors bet on a turn around. While GREK did manage to claw back some of its hefty losses this week, the fund remains a question mark for investors until the Greek stock market reopens and prices can adjust accordingly. Story continues Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Home Construction, Treasury And Automobile ETFs To Watch This Week Best And Worst ETFs Of The Week Amid Agriculture Rally 3 Core ETFs For Growth Investors © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Under Attack?: The recent turmoil in Greece, which has included the government institution of withdrawal limits at major banks, should have presented a major opportunity for bitcoin to gain positive media attention. With Greek citizens flocking to buy bitcoin during bank closures, the virtual currency should be enjoying media exposure as a stable, safe alternative currency for the Greek people. Rough Weekend Instead, this week has been disastrous for bitcoin. This past weekend, untimely software updates at bitcoin delayed payment confirmations by up to five hours . However, at least those issues were not malicious. Related Link: Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin Under Attack For the past couple of days, bitcoin has been under attack by... someone. According to The Merkle , the Denial of Service (DoS) Attack this week on the cryptocurrency has been bogging down the bitcoin blockchain, the public record of bitcoin transactions. How It Works The responsible party is performing dozens of transactions per minute involving minuscule amounts of bitcoin (0.00001 BTC). Because of the tiny amount of the currency that is involved in each transaction, the spamming efforts are costing the perpetrator only about $0.08 per pop, but the constant barrage of orders has single-handedly filled up each 1 MB block that enters the blockchain. Who Is Responsible? When the largest bitcoin transaction ever made was processed on Tuesday, onlookers initially suspected the Chinese bitcoin mining group F2Pool of orchestrating the attack. However, according to Motherboard, F2Pool was simply trying to clear out the spam by mining the huge, 999KB block. What Now? Unfortunately, in the digital world of cryptography, it can be nearly impossible to determine the identity of the attackers in a scenario such as this one. For now bitcoin must simply try to figure out the best way to stop the attack and/or roll with the punches. See more from Benzinga Gartman: We're Headed Toward 'Fruits Of Fracking,' Net Exports In U.S. Oil Exclusive: 2015 Sentiment Analysis Symposium Preview Greece Is Bad, But China Is Much Worse © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Inside the 'conspiracy' that forced Dov Charney out of American Apparel: • This is the story of how Dov Charney, founder of American Apparel, was kicked out of his own company. • Sources inside the board meeting describe how Dov Charney's own directors ambushed him with a secret plot to remove him from the company. • The board collected personal, texts, emails, and photos to create a dossier of Charney's habit of using company computers to "graphically document his sexual liaisons,” and used that as a bargaining chip against him. • A secret internal investigation of Charney was conducted after the company was forced to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by a model he had been sleeping with. • The company's CFO hatched a secret plan to sell the company without Charney's permission - but accidentally left a copy of the plan on an office photocopier. • The company filed an SEC disclosure stating it wanted Charney to continue as chief when insiders knew the board was already discussing his removal. • Charney signed up a hedge fund, Standard General, to back him in his fight to keep control of the company — but ultimately concluded the fund betrayed him. • And Charney's prediction on the day he was fired came true: Without him, the company went into a death spiral. (Dov Charney poses at The NASDAQ Stock Market in Times Square to ring the closing bell on September 15, 2006, in New York City.Mat Szwajkos/Getty Images) Dov Charney was feeling pretty good when he entered the conference room high up inside the Skadden Arps offices in Times Square. He was going to tell his board of directors — perched at eye level with the rooftops of Manhattan’s forest of midtown skyscrapers — that for the first time in years American Apparel's troubles were behind it. It was June 18, 2014, and, as CEO, Charney had just generated a record year of revenues for the fashion retailer — $634 million, an increase of 3%. And same-store sales were up 3%, too. He had also fixed problems at a massive product-distribution center that had crippled the company’s supply lines for months, crushing sales and driving up expenses. His lawyers had settled or dismissed several lawsuits from former employees and models alleging that Charney had sexually harassed them. One suit, which alleged Charney kept a model locked in his house for sex, turned out to be bogus. And he had staged a public offering of new stock that had raised $28.5 million, saving the company from bankruptcy. There was nothing but good news to deliver. So Charney, carrying a new running shoe he had designed, began the meeting with a presentation about how he was going to launch a line of sneakers. He laid about six of them out on the table. Within seconds he was interrupted by Allan Mayer, American Apparel’s board chairman. Mayer pushed the shoes aside. “Look, there’s something else we want to talk about,” Mayer said, according to a source who was in the room. He passed a couple of pieces of paper over the table to Charney. It was a termination letter. The board was firing Charney, the company's founder and CEO, who had led American Apparel for 25 years. The memo, later filed in court, alleged a long list of misdeeds by Charney: It said he allowed an employee to publish a blog defaming other former employees; he had given severance packages to several employees in order to stop them from suing; he refused to attend sexual-harassment training; he used company money for personal expenses, such as providing travel for family members. All of the above had significantly increased the company’s legal and insurance bills, the letter alleged: “You engaged in conduct that repeatedly put yourself in a position to be sued by numerous former employees for claims that include harassment, discrimination and assault.” “It was clear he was totally blindsided by this — he didn’t have a clue,” one person who was in the room says. Charney went ballistic: “This company will fall apart if I’m not running it!” (Dov Charney paces inside a conference room in the Skadden Arps building after learning that the board wants him out.Dov Charney) This story is based on multiple accounts from people close to Charney, the board, American Apparel employees, and the company’s major shareholders. Several lawsuits have been filed over Charney’s removal, and evidence alleged in that litigation has been used to tell this story, too. Business Insider has also seen confidential documents, emails, photos, and texts associated with the litigation. Because of the fierce fighting — Charney has filed four lawsuits, and two employees and the company have all filed one each — no one wanted to talk on the record for this story. But people had plenty to say privately. What follows is an account of how the tide inside American Apparel began to turn against Charney in January 2014. It details how the board held secret discussions for weeks as it agonized over whether to get rid of him. It describes how his CFO allegedly sketched out a plan to oust Charney, and how that sketch was then obtained by Charney’s loyalists and used as evidence of the coup. (The plan has since been described in court filings.) And it describes how Charney was persuaded to sign a disastrous settlement that left him with no job and no control of the company, despite being the largest shareholder. (Thomas Alleman) Today, Charney is distraught, enraged, humiliated, and vengeful. For years, he was the crown prince of the sexiest fashion company in America. He socialized with the hedge fund executives who funded his company. He did photo shoots with porn stars. His marketing budget was one of the largest in the retail-apparel business. His ads made headlines because they used ordinary women instead of professional models, and because they walked the line in terms of nudity. His girlfriends were the women in those ads, and many of them were decades younger (he is 46). He was a millionaire. He owned a beautiful house, high on a hill in Silver Lake, with a balcony overlooking the Los Angeles skyline.He was an impish, mad geniuswhose real life was like a male midlife-crisis fantasy. In person, Charney is by turns infuriating, charming, arrogant. He can cycle through manic and depressive phases within a single sentence. His retail empire was built with his own hands, in round-the-clock workdays, across three decades. Everyone who knows him agrees the success of American Apparel is 100% because of Charney. He is the epitome of hard work, old-school Jewish garment-trade moxie, and the American dream, all rolled into one. But that wasn’t enough to protect him. (Board chairman Allan Mayer.WorldCommForumDavos / YouTube) It started with a board-commissioned investigation into Charney’s activities as CEO, conducted without his knowledge, which lasted four months. That probe eventually led to the creation of a dossier that has yet to be made public. It has been seen by only a few people inside the company, but two board members recently described some of it in court filings, and it is explosive. It allegedly details “Charney’s use of electronic storage media belonging to the Company for personal purposes to graphically document his sexual liaisons,” some of which occurred in his office. The company has alleged in court that it includes his personal, texts, emails, and photos. It also allegedly includes evidence of a police complaint filed by one model who claims she was sexually assaulted by Charney — a claim he denies. He was never charged. Charney believes he is the victim of a conspiracy, a palace coup in which his board filed false disclosures to the SEC saying they supported him as CEO while they were actually maneuvering to oust him. Charney also argues that the investigation was biased because it was conducted by people who wanted him out, and that he has never been charged with any crime or found guilty or liable for any of the accusations against him. (REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni ) The board has yet to make the photos and messages public. In March, the SECsaid it is investigatingthe company and its termination of Charney. The board denies wrongdoing. The outcome of the federal investigation could be crucial in determining whether Charney can get his company back. Since he was ousted, sales at the company have gone into free fall and itagain faces bankruptcy. (Charney, in one of his own ads.American Apparel) In the conference room in New York, Charney began to read the termination letter and make line-by-line protests against its allegations. After about an hour he texted Iris Alonzo, a longtime creative director who was working in the hallway outside, oblivious to what was happening to her boss. The text said something like "don't go anywhere, this is getting weird with these guys." Charney left the conference room, and the pair took a walk down a corridor to another Skadden conference room, where they shut the door. "They're trying to fire me, it's completely illegal, they don't know what they're doing, they have no idea how the company functions," Charney told her, according to sources who heard about it later. "They're out of their minds," Alonzo said. "We are going to get the whole company behind you, the entire management team is behind you." Charney and Alonzo spent the next 11 hours on the upper floors of the Skadden tower, begging, pleading and arguing with the board to reverse its position. While Charney raged at his directors, the company’s security team was instructed to shut down his email, cancel his access to the HQ building in Los Angeles, and cut off service to his corporate mobile phone, sources told us. At one point, during a break in the debate, Alonzo went into the conference room where the board was holed up. She was furious. “Jesus — this is crazy! Who do you think is going to run this company? You’d need five people to replace Dov,” she said, according to someone who was there. “You’re ripping the heart out of the company — you’re going to destroy the company. You don’t know this business, you haven’t spent more than an hour in the factory cumulatively in the last five years. Who are you, and what do you think you know?” She ended her tirade by saying, “All of you are cowards — every single one of you.” Allan Mayer asked her to leave. Everyone who spoke to Business Insider described the exchanges between Charney and the board as painful to hear. Although Mayer and David Danziger, another board member, had led the movement to prepare Charney’s ouster, they were acutely aware that this was Charney’s company. (An ad from Charney's early days at American Apparel.American Apparel) The company was his entire life’s work. “It was a tense bunch of hours. We sat in that room going well into the evening. There was a lot of discussion going back and forth, and none of us really knew how it was going to end,” one person said. There was nothing Charney could do. The other members of the board had agreed the night before — without telling him — that he would be fired, a source who knew about it says. The letter was already drawn up and dated. The board meeting had only one real purpose: to present Charney with an ultimatum, according to confidential documents seen by Business Insider: Charney could either accept a $4.5 million severance package and the new title of “creative director,” for which he would also be paid $500 per hour. It would not look as if he had been fired, merely moved into a new position with the company. The price of that package was that he had to sign over the voting rights to his 47 million shares, and resign as CEO. Or the board would remove him. "We all love you, and we know you are the hardest-working guy in the room," Danziger told Charney. "But we need to reposition the company and this is going to be good for you and the company." Said Robert Greene, another director, presumably referring to the value of Charney’s stock, if it went up: "You are a genius. You will get over $100 million out of this and start up a new business. (Their conversation was later repeated in court filings.) If he did not accept, the board told him, he would be fired “for cause” and walk out with nothing except his existing stock. The implication, from Charney’s point of view, was that there would be a storm of bad publicity. And, two sources told Business Insider, the dirt that the board referred to in its termination letter — the stuff about the sexual harassment and the misuse of corporate money — would be made public if he did not go quietly. During another break, an increasingly desperate Charney called John Luttrell, his CFO, to see if he knew what to do. Luttrell expressed shock at the news. That was an odd reaction from Luttrell, three sources told us, because Mayer — the board chairman — had asked Luttrell earlier in secret if he was prepared to step up as the interim CEO if they got rid of Charney. Charney, who hired Luttrell in 2011 because he had previously been CFO at Old Navy and Wet Seal, later came to believe Luttrell was the mastermind who had first proposed getting rid of him, months earlier, in February of that year. Sources close to Luttrell regard this conspiracy theory as nonsense. On a bathroom break, Charney also called Minho Roth, an investor who held about 15% of the company's total shares. "I'm having a breakdown," Charney told Roth, according to someone within earshot. "These guys are trying to fire me!" By the end of the call Charney felt reassured: They'd put their shares together, kick out the existing board members, and make Charney CEO again. Charney owned about 27% of the company, and with Roth’s 15% they needed only a couple of other investors to join them. Charney’s belief that Roth would back him would become crucial later in his fight to regain control of the company, court documents show. (Minho Roth, left, of FiveT Capital.Tomorrow-Focus.De / press handout) So Charney refused the "creative director" option. Sometime around 9 p.m., a statement went out to the press. The board suspended him immediately anddeclared its intent to fire him, after a 30-day contractual-notice period. (A still from a video that was leaked showing Charney naked.ABC News / YouTube) At the same time, a new video of Charney appeared on the internet. It showed him dancing naked in his Los Angeles house, apparently filmed by a friend. No one knows how it got there, or why it was leaked at precisely that time. Charney believes it was a deliberate coincidence designed to humiliate him. By the next day, Luttrell had been named CEO, replacing Charney, who was technically “suspended.” Most people don’t know that American Apparel came very close to bankruptcy in March 2014. The only official reference to it is in the company’s annual report for 2013, and it’s written in the generic boilerplate legalese that disguises the seriousness of what the company was required to warn: “We have experienced negative cash flows from operating activities in the past, and our business may not generate sufficient cash flow from operations to enable us to service our indebtedness or to fund our other liquidity needs.” The company was running on fumes. (Charney has always been very proud making his merchandise in his own factory in the US, and not outsourcing it from Asia.American Apparel) The problems went back years, and historically the company has lurched from crisis to crisis. Charney may have built the company, but he was never able to install a mature operational infrastructure to keep the company running smoothly. Part of the board's case against Charney was that he never hired or retained the kind of management bench strength that a company of its size needed. A lot of the company's problems were, ultimately, the responsibility of Charney. In 2009, for instance, there was an immigration audit of American Apparel's factory, and up to 1,800 people working without legal permission lost their jobs. The manufacturing base of the company had to be rebuilt from scratch. As sales fell,Charney ended up lending his own company $8.5 million in cash(and charging 6% interest). A company with a more robust HR department would never have hired those workers in the first place. Then, over the next few years, the company got stuck in an increasingly punitive debt cycle. In 2009, it receivedan $80 million loan from Lion Capital at 15% interest. In 2013, it did anotherdeal with Lion, which carried an upper interest rate of 20%. Those are ridiculous interest rates, higher than many credit cards. Yet Charney signed off on them. In 2013, Charney let himself be persuaded into building a new product-distribution center in La Mirada, California, which cost $5 million. It was supposed to automate the way orders were sent out and thus make deliveries to stores and wholesalers faster and cheaper. Previously, product had been shipped directly from the factory with workers carrying it around, by hand, in cardboard boxes and trolleys, “like the 1950s,” a source said. The distribution center was CFO John Luttrell’s idea. It would require a capital expenditure of about $5 million but once running would save the company millions every year. Charney didn't believe the company had the resources to do it properly. But he said yes to it anyway, to avoid a conflict with the CFO he hired. (Charney and his dog at home in LA.ABC News / YouTube) La Mirada turned into a disaster. The system for ordering the products didn’t communicate with the system for picking the products and packing them in boxes. "It couldn’t ship," a source who saw it told Business Insider. "It couldn’t ship a package!" "When I showed up at the distribution center it was such a sight, it was a mountain, a mountain of apparel — T-shirts and socks and belts and every single SKU that we had was in the center of the building on tables in boxes," a source who saw it said. "It was a like a bad laundry day 1,000 times over, just this enormous mountain. I think it was over 100,000 units just left in the center." (A shot of the chaos inside La Mirada.YouTube / Ana Zai) In the summer of 2013 Charney moved into the distribution center — literally building himself a bedroom there so he could work day and night — and spent about three months fixing the place. He got it up and running, but it cost American Apparel a further$15 million in expenses and lost sales, according to the company’s annual report. The company still booked a record year of revenues, but the loss on the bottom line was $106 million. By January 2014 it was clear to Charney that the company would not have enough cash to meet a $13.7 million interest payment on a bond it had issued the year before. The company had reported only $8 million in the bank at the close of 2013, a razor-thin margin for a business with a turnover of $634 million. If it were not for the La Mirada center, and the costs of fixing it, the company would have had about $20 million more on hand — more than enough to meet the $13.7 million debt payment. (YouTube / Ana Zai) In Q1 2014, sales decreased 1% to $137.1 million, and same-store sales went down 7%. Charney was losing control of the situation. "We were in one of our periodic liquidity crunches, and the company desperately needed to raise capital in March with an April deadline," a source familiar with the refinancing told Business Insider. "We were really up against the wall." So Charney and Luttrell came to an agreement with the board: They would sell about 60 million new shares, and use the money to pay off the debt. With a bit of luck, if sales rose again in 2014, the debts would become less of a problem. The deal came with a downside for Charney: He owned 43% of the stock, a stake big enough to give him absolute control of the company. But the new stock sale would dilute his stake down to about 27%. (American Apparel's LA factory.ABC News / YouTube) Charney, not wanting to lose his controlling percentage, asked the board for a guarantee that over time his stake would increase back up to 43%. Charney believes he had extracted this promise from the board before the equity was sold. But that’s not quite what happened. Rather, Charney was simply allowed to believe that he would regain control. "I’ve known Dov a long time and he often hears what he wants to hear," one source says. Charney was told "the board won’t consider anything until after the capital raise, but if you come to the board with a plan that’s all worked out and includes some performance metrics, the board will consider it." In other words, the board merely told Charney they wouldthinkabout restoring his stake. The sale went ahead, and it netted $28.5 million — enough to keep the wolf from the door. But for the first time in years, Charney no longer had ownership control of the company. (Charney's house in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.ABC News) He was vulnerable. But he wasn't concerned because American Apparel’s seven board members — his bosses, technically — had mostly been picked by Charney himself, and he was the chairman. The board was regarded by outside investors as a cozy, pro-Charney place. These were the people who had heard years ago from the media that Charney was having sex with the models he recruited to appear in the company’s ad campaigns. They did nothing, even when some of the models sued. One, Irene Morales, appeared on TV to accuse Charney of locking her inside an apartment, and still the board made no moves against him. At other companies, the CEO would have been pushed out long ago if that happened. One source told us, jokingly, that the directors were so inactive the only changes they ever asked for in the company’s SEC disclosures were to update their biographies. That was why Charney felt confident that before the board meeting in the Skadden tower. Compared to the last few years, he had good news, and they should have been on his side. (A young Charney in his LA factory.YouTube / ABC News) Charney started his company as a student in the 1980s, carrying boxes of T-shirts across the border in trucks and on trains from America to Canada, where he lived (hence “American” Apparel). By the early 1990s his business had morphed into something more serious. It was still a one-man operation, but Charney showed up with his boxes of T-shirts at every regional US fashion trade show, promoting them to anyone who would listen. In the early '90s he was pushing a "Girly-T" shirt for girls. This was a sexy tight-fitted top. He called his brand "Classic Girl." The shirt came in one size. "I saw him at every single trade show," says someone who knew him then. "If there was a trade show happening, he was there. It was like, one T-shirt style, in two or three colors, in one size. It was a medium, one-sized T. He was like, 'Don’t worry, it will fit a woman from zero to size 8.' I was like, ‘I don’t get it.’ But he sold it.” (American Apparel) In the early '90s the fashion was grunge: baggy jeans and huge flannel shirts. By contrast, Charney’s shirt was a figure-hugging, fitted look. Charney guessed right. The "girly" T-shirt became a top-seller through the late '90s and early 2000s, morphing later into the "baby-doll" shirt which was cropped even shorter, as the trend for baggy clothes went away. The line developed, from a single shirt into American Apparel — 237 retail stores in 20 countries, and 10,000 employees. In 2005, Charney began selling leggings. The last time leggings were trendy was in the late '80s and early '90s. Back then, leggings were fundamentally underwear and worn underneath a skirt or with denim shorts and boots. Charney’s idea was to push leggings as outerwear, an alternative to jeans, without the skirt or shorts on top. Again, it was a prescient call. Womenwereapparently ready to wear butt-revealing underwear as outerwear. Leggings remain one of American Apparel’s best-selling wardrobe basics. Charney’s brilliance as a trendspotter is his ability to figure out exactly what teenage girls are willing to wear in order to most horrify their parents — and then sell that to them. This is the effect it had on sales, according to a document filed in the litigation: (Company sales in millions of dollars.Court documents) In 2011, American Apparel ran into another crisis. Charney was sued by four womenwho alleged sexual assaultor sexual harassment. Alyssa Ferguson, Kimbra Lo, Tesa Lubans DeHaven, and Irene Moraleswere all former employeesor models for the company. In response, American Apparel published three blog posts detailing private photos, emails, and text messages sent between Charney and the women. Charney's termination letter alleges he knew these blogs were going to be published. The posts, which a source said the company officially promoted, appeared on services like Blogger and WordPress. They indicated that at some point the relationships were consensual, and not abusive as the lawsuits claimed. The photos on them were "not safe for work": In the case of Morales, emails and photos indicated she'd had a consensual sexual relationship with Charney for an extended period. In the case of Lo, a large batch of nude photos was published showing her obviously not being assaulted by Charney. The links were emailed to journalists who regularly covered the company. This PR retaliation, using personal, intimate photos was an unheard-of tactic for a publicly traded corporation. Companies usually prefer to litigate quietly until such cases go away. (Kimbra Lo.Today Show) So the suits became huge news. Morales and Lo appeared on NBC's "Today" show to press their case. The company called it a “shakedown.” For a while, the cases went quiet. They were kicked out of the courts and sent to binding arbitration, a confidential nonjudicial process governed by the terms of American Apparel’s employment contracts. Some of Charney’s biggest defenders within the company are women. They regarded the plaintiffs as cynically taking advantage of consensual relations with Charney that had not turned out to their satisfaction. Charney was single and dated a lot of women, and while that was not to everyone’s taste it wasn’t a crime, these female employees say. They sympathize with Charney. Three female employees spoke to Business Insider. One said, “He has really been taken advantage of by women, who have taken advantage of the legal system, and the kind of power a woman can have in a sexual situation. I’ve known almost every woman who has filed against Dov and it’s digusting. It’s such a hard thing for someone to defend themselves about. Everyone thinks he’s a pervert ... he’s got this reputation he’ll never be able to live down, and for him to speak out and deny it, it’s almost impossible [for him].” The headlines were scandalous, but the board didn’t think it needed to act. “There was a lot of rumor and innuendo. You don’t fire the CEO of a public company based on rumor,” a source said. And the legal cases kept coming to nothing, another source said: “There had never been a finding of fact. He always denied them very convincingly. He was an easy target because he was very unconventional and outspoken. He was an easy target for allegations that weren’t necessarily based on anything real. At the time, there was nothing solid for the board to act on. No court of law, civil or criminal, had ever found he had committed an act that he had been accused of.” But that changed in the early part of 2014. At some point after the New Year of 2014, someone went to board chairman Allan Mayer and director David Danziger, who were both on the board’s audit committee, and told them to take another look at the legal settlements that were being made in the harassment cases. A pattern had emerged in the litigation: The cases would be filed in court. Charney’s lawyers would argue that the women had signed employment contracts that required “binding arbitration,” like an employment case and not a state court case. Arbitration is a non-public labor management process that generally produces much smaller damages awards than a trial by jury does. The process is also conducted in private, shielding it from the media. Once inside arbitration, Charney’s lawyers would then show that the women had signed agreements releasing Charney and the company from all legal claims. These releases helped the company get the cases thrown out completely, two sources close to the board say. Business Insider spoke to two employees who said they had signed such releases. They signed them after receiving bonuses or pay raises, and didn’t think they were unusual. Many people in the company were asked to sign releases promising they had no reason to sue the company, in order to get paid. In 2014, the strategy stopped working. More than one case ended up being settled. In 2014 and 2015, American Apparelpaid a total of about $4.5 millionto settle claims, according to the Wall Street Journal. Ferguson was awarded $1.8 million, according to court documents. (The sum is disputed by Charney’s lawyers who say most of the settlements were paid through insurance, at the insistence of the company’s insurance company.) Two other settlements were made that were confidential. (Irene Morales.Today Show) In the spring of 2014 — just as it was dawning on top management that the company was not going to be able to make its April bond payment — American Apparel paid at least $200,000, plus legal bills, to settle with Irene Morales, sources say, and court documents suggest the total may have reached $700,000. Morales was the 17-year-old model who had allegedshe had been briefly lockedinside Charney’s house – with the New York Post calling her a “sex slave.” But the settlement wasn’t over Morales’ sex claims. Those were rejected. Rather, the arbitration judge decided that the blogs which published her personal communications with Charney amounted to an impersonation of Morales. Sources told Business Insider that American Apparel staff had decided to create the posts based on advice from the company’s lawyers. They were written with Charney's knowledge, according to the board's termination letter (anda source told the New York Times the same thing). Charney was getting massacred in the media. It seemed only fair to hit back with the truth — the women’s own sexy texts and emails to Charney, sources close to Charney say. Charney resisted the plan, according to a lawyer who advised the company. That lawyer was deposed during the litigation, according to a court document seen by Business Insider: "Everybody close to him was pressuring him. Everybody. ... I mean, Dov was sitting on photographs and e-mails … that completely refuted their allegations and he was not releasing them for personal reasons. They were private. He only did it after Kimbra Lo made her appearance [on TV], and after that the media coverage was just out of control." The legal advice — to publish the blogs – turned out to have huge unforeseen consequences for Charney: It made the company “vicariously liable” for the posts, the arbitration judge said. That finding of vicarious liability and the settlement that went with it — along with the news that staff were routinely being asked to file claims releases — was the turning point, two sources close to the board told Business Insider. "It was really outrageous, anytime someone got a raise or bonus or was leaving the company and getting severance, in order to get a paycheck they had to sign a release of all claims against the company," a source familiar with the board's thinking said. "If the board had been aware of that we would have put a stop to it." So, in March 2014 the board assigned Jones Day, a law firm, to investigate Charney without telling him. It had to be secret because if Charney had known, the board believes, he would have interfered or stopped the probe. Jones Day pulled all the legal files on Charney and began quietly interviewing employees. What they found was not good. The legal bill for the Morales case was the least of American Apparel’s problems. A 2013 bond offering had left the company owing 13% interest with a 2% payment-in-kind, or PIK, on roughly $200 million in debt, due in April 2014. (A PIK is a type of deterrent provision installed in risky loans when the lender believes the borrower might not be able to make the basic interest payments.) So CFO John Luttrell attended the ICR XChange conference at the Ritz Carlton in Orlando, Florida, in January of 2014, to listen to new financing ideas. ICR is intended to provide a meeting place where analysts, companies and bankers can float investment plans, no matter how wildly speculative they may be. Luttrell could not have been a more different personality than Charney. Luttrell was an older, bookish accountant who preferred to spend time on his ranch in Sonoma, with his dog Jon-Jon and his horses. He arrived at the office with his shirt half-untucked, sources say, a crime at the fashion company. He was quiet and would leave the office early or work from home on Fridays, sources say, while Charney often worked late into the night. He didn’t fit in. The ICR conference — with its talk of bonds and cashflow and balance sheets — was much more Luttrell’s speed. (Marc Cooper.Peter J Solomon) At the conference, Luttrell allegedly spoke to two investment bankers from Peter J. Solomon. Marc Cooper, one of the Solomon bankers, was overheard telling Luttrell that “American Apparel could be sold, but not with Dov Charney in the way,” according to court papers. Luttrell floated the idea past Charney, calling him one morning to ask if he would ever consider taking $100 million for his stake in the company. Charney wasn’t interested. On February 14, Luttrell sketched out a plan, typing it into a Word document. It was titled "Notes to David Danziger," the board member. Much of it has been quoted in court documents. Those who have seen the document say it contained a bullet-pointed list of problems with Charney, "who was incapable of managing a $700 million business." It ended with a proposed plan: "Remove CEO and replace with an interim replacement. Put the Company up for sale. Engage Peter Solomon." "This piece of paper had Dov’s name on it, other people’s names, some points of why maybe he shouldn’t be in charge, what’s been going on, the financials and La Mirada," says a source who read it. "Points of how things weren’t right there. Dov was to blame for La Mirada, Dov had hired people that shouldn’t be in charge of things, the financials, basically a rap sheet blaming Dov for a lot of things that had gone wrong with the company. It was two pages and the last point, on the last page, was 'solution - Jay Solomon taking over American Apparel.'" The paper also named people who had allegedly slept with Charney, three sources told Business Insider. In fairness to Lutrell, the idea that American Apparel might be better off without Charney was not an unusual belief in the investor community. The stock had peaked at $15 in late 2007, but by 2014 it was worth less than a dollar and in danger of being de-listed from NASDAQ, all under Charney's reign. CFOs have a duty to shareholders, and one way to boost the stock would be to shop the company with a new, turnaround CEO. That may not have been to Charney's taste, but it's not an unreasonable argument. Luttrell kept the memo a secret for months. Charney believes he used it as a primer to persuade board members like Danziger and Mayer that the company would be better off if it was sold without Charney. (American Apparel) The note was discovered by accident, sitting on a company printer by an employee loyal to Charney. News of its existence spread quickly within the company's gossip mill. "Woah, where did you get this?" Charney said when he received a copy of it, according to sources inside the company. "This is crazy!" The employee also told Luttrell’s secretary that she had it. Immediately, Luttrell came over. "Has anyone else seen this?" he said. He was told no. "OK, keep it that way," he said. Luttrell then took the note and walked off, according to employees who witnessed the action. Tensions between Luttrell and Charney were coming to a head even before the note was printed. Luttrell “was just telling the chairman of the audit committee [David Danziger] that he was fed up, he wasn’t going to issue another '10-Q’ as long as Dov was CEO,” according to a source who overheard the conversation. A 10-Q is the quarterly earnings statement that all public companies must file with the SEC. If a company fails to file, it appears to investors that something must be very wrong — and that usually tanks the stock. Refusing to file a 10-Q is the most serious threat a CFO can make, short of going to the SEC as a whistleblower. The spring 2014 10-Q was filed on time, however. The company’s next SEC disclosure was much more crucial, and Charney now alleges in court documents that the company filed false information inside it — a potentially criminal offense under US law that can carry a prison sentence, if proven to be true. (American Apparel) On April 28, 2014, the company filed its “proxy” form, a notice to the SEC announcing its annual shareholders meeting, scheduled for June 18 at Skadden in New York. The form specifically recommended that Charney stay on as combined chairman and CEO. Charney believes that statement is false because the board had already assigned Jones Day in March to investigate him, and because John Luttrell’s February note shows he wanted Charney fired. Sources close to the board see it differently. Luttrell’s note is meaningless, they say. Even if Luttrell wanted Charney out, there were six other board members who needed to make that decision. "This notion that John is somehow been pulling the strings since February is nonsense," one person says. And the board wasn’t going to make a decision until after Jones Day finished investigating. When the proxy was filed, no decision had yet been made, they say, and thus it is not false. Jones Day only presented its findings to the board after the proxy was filed. "I can’t tell you how close to the wire we were even on making the final decision. So timing a had a lot to do with everything," one source says. And it wasn’t Luttrell’s note that persuaded the board Charney had to go — it was the legal liabilities arising from the sexual harassment suits, the board now says. (The view from the balcony at Charney's house.ABC News) After he was fired, Charney decided not return to LA. He was locked out of the building anyway. He chose instead to stay at an apartment in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, with Iris Alonzo, turning it into a war room from which he would fight the board. He immediately began working on a plan to get his company back — after all, he still had 27% of its stock. He needed more investors to come over to his side. If he could put together the votes from 51% of the stock, he could force the board to make him CEO again. He called Minho Roth of FiveT capital, a longtime Charney supporter who owned about 15% of the stock. Charney was confident that Roth would be on board because of their previous phone call the night he was fired. But Roth had talked to David Danziger, the board member, on June 20. Roth wanted to know why Charney had been fired two days earlier. But Danziger wouldn’t go into details, hinting ominously that “Roth that would understand the decision if he knew what the board knew,” Danziger later wrote in a court document. (Iris Alonzo (left) and Charney appear in an American Apparel ad.American Apparel) Roth decided thenhe would not support Charney in the fight. This devastated Charney, who believes that Danziger scared Roth away by slandering him, an accusation that Danziger is disputing in court. Charney turned next to Standard General, a hedge fund that had offered to lend the company money back in March (before the company chose instead to sell the stock that diluted Charney’s controlling stake). Charney had a series of phone conversations with Robert Lavan, an analyst at Standard General, including one while he was on vacation, climbing Machu Picchu in Peru. When Lavan got down from the mountain and got a signal on his phone, he discovered that Charney was freaking out about the “conspiracy” to fire him and frighten away his investors. Lavan tried to reassure him: He would fly back to New York, and the guys from Standard General would see what they could do. Lavan sent Charney a picture of himself on the summit of the Peruvian mountain with its ancient ruins in the background. “If I could do this, we can definitely take back APP,” his email said. (The photo of himself that Robert Lavan sent Charney from Peru.Court documents) A day or so later, Lavan and another Standard General member, David Glazek, came over to the Hell’s Kitchen apartment to find a dishevelled-looking Charney who had not slept properly for nearly a week. They hammered out a deal: It was basically a cash loan with warrants attached that required Standard General be paid back with Charney’s stock. The terms were complicated, but essentially Standard General would lend Charney a massive amount of money — up to $20 million — and Charney would use that money to buy stock, building a combined stake up to 51%. Charney’s stock would be the collateral for the loan. In addition, they signed an agreement about how to control the voting rights to the stock. The agreement gave Charney and Standard General “negative control,” meaning that one party could veto the vote if they didn’t like what the other one was doing. The deal was signed at 2 a.m. in the morning. On its face, this was good news for Charney. He began buying the stock, adding to his warchest. If he could get 51% with Standard General’s backing, he would be able fly back to LA, kick out the board, and declare victory. Charney only realized later that he had made a horrendous mistake. (Charney later made a war room in his LA house, too.ABC News) For a while it looked like Charney might succeed. He built a stake back up to around 43%. But the board wasn’t stupid. As soon as they realized Charney was getting close to ownership control again, they adopted a “poison pill.” Basically, the pill was a policy that promised to reward any investor with extra, free stock if anyone accumulated more than a certain percentage of the whole. That meant the more stock Charney bought, the more diluted he would become. The board also declared that Charney’s pact with Standard General was invalid. (It probably didn’t have that power but the declaration was enough to potentially tie up Standard General in litigation for months.) So Standard General approached the board and said, “hey, can we work this out?” They came to an agreement: Standard General would get three seats on the seven-member board, and two more seats jointly agreed with the company. Charney would resign from the board. That basically gave Standard General control of the company. They also agreed that the board would let another outside company, FTI, complete a second, more thorough, investigation of Charney, and his suitability to be CEO. Charney thought this new agreement was a huge betrayal. The company spent $10.4 million to fund lawyers for the probe (according to its annual report), which operated like a prosecution; Charney ended up using his own money to hire lawyers to defend himself against it. And in addition to not being CEO, his stock was now controlled by a hedge fund who could veto his votes. He was completely screwed. (A poster that pro-Charney workers made protesting Soo Kim and Standard General's presence on the board.American Apparel union drive campaign) Charney believes he was hoodwinked into this agreement by Soo Kim, Standard General’s managing partner, he has alleged in court documents. Kim allegedly achieved this by calling Charney at 5 a.m. on the morning of June 30, and insisting that he meet “at a private location in Central Park” where “no one could hear us talking” to discuss signing a deal with the board, Charney claims in court papers. Charney rolled out of bed and took an Uber car uptown. At about 5:30 a.m., Charney found Kim in “freak out mode” near the park, according to Charney’s lawsuit. One of Standard General’s limited partner investors, PAAMCO, had pulled $300 million from Standard General because it did not want to be associated with Charney, the suit claims. “Kim was scratching himself ‘to a bleed’ in panic”, the suit claims. According to the lawsuit, Kim persuaded him that the second investigation was merely a “kabuki dance” and that once it was over, the dust would settle and Charney would be quietly re-installed at Standard General’s request. Charney agreed to sit tight, thinking he would become CEO later. It didn’t happen. Needless to say, Standard General does not agree with Charney’s version of events. This wasn’t a secret meeting in the park, sources say. Their office faces the park, from 5th Avenue and 59th Street. Kim and Charney met for coffee outside the office and happened to sit down on a park bench. And it wasn’t called because Kim was trying to string Charney along — Kim was angry at Charney because he kept telling the media that Standard General was backing him no matter what. That was wrong, Kim told Charney. They would only back him if the investigation cleared him. From Standard General’s point of view, the board’s investigation into Charney was the unknown variable in the deal. They had no idea what dirt the board was holding. There were two possible outcomes to the investigation, and in either Standard General had something to gain: • Either the investigation would exonerate Charney, in which case Standard General would be able re-install him as CEO. • Or it would show that Charney had committed misdeeds that would prevent him from being CEO. In the second scenario, Standard General would at least retain its seats on the board, allowing it to safeguard the massive amount of stock it now controlled but could do nothing with. Maybe, in that scenario, the stock would go up. The disagreement was that Charney believed Standard General would back him as CEO regardless of how the investigation turned out. The new investigation was bogus — it was being done at the behest of people who had already decided he should fired — and Standard General knew that, Charney believed. Why else would he have signed the “negative control” deal? Why else would they have loaned him the money? Charney’s argument is irrelevant, sources told Business Insider, because even if Standard General backed Charney unconditionally there is no way he could be CEO if there was a trove of evidence against him alleging he misused corporate funds and exploited female employees for sex. American Apparel was already being forced to take awful interest rates on its debt because traditional lenders didn’t like the rumors surrounding Charney. What if the rumors were true? What if the files from the investigation became public? You just cannot be a CEO of a publicly traded company with that hanging over you. The probe was essentially out of Standard General’s hands, these sources argue. With the agreement between Standard General and the board signed, Charney’s fight to regain his company officially reached a legal “standstill.” On December 15, the board reviewed FTI’s findings, and fired Charney a second time. This time it wasn’t technical. He was gone for good. (Charney at home, as seen in an ABC News story about him.ABC News) Charney believes his legal battle — or perhaps the SEC probe — will result in him getting his company back. But the board has made it clear that it is holding a sword over Charney’s head: After the two investigations by Jones Day and FTI, the company took possession of a private company server that was used by Charney to store his personal archive of photos. It allegedly includes a ton of sleazy communications between Charney and his female models and employees. The investigation also allegedly found evidence that corporate money was misused. Charney denies that, and believes the company is trying to smear him. Charney launched four lawsuits against the company, its board, and Standard General in an attempt to get his company back. On August 13, 2015, two board members filed papers in one of the cases giving more detail about what the investigations found about Charney. David Danziger alleges that Charney was fired in part due to “Charney’s use of electronic storage media belonging to the Company for personal purposes to graphically document his sexual liaisons.” Chairperson Colleen Brown goes into even more detail. The company "discovered videos and photographs of Mr. Charney engaged in all manner of sexual behavior with numerous models and employees, which for some incredible reason had been saved by Mr. Charney to the Company's network server by him with the use of his Company computer,” she alleges. “These emails and text messages reveal that Mr. Charney repeatedly sent illicit messages to employees. He sent messages that included pornographic videos (or links thereto), pornographic photographs and other nude pictures. Additionally, he frequently engaged in inappropriate sexual banter, infantilizing women and referring to himself as ‘Daddy,’“ she alleges. Her filing then quotes from those messages, and they allegedly describe Charney’s sexual fantasies in lurid, four-lettered detail. The server was supposed to be for Charney’s private use, and contained his personal photos. The historic photo archives of fashion and media companies can often be valuable. Hugh Hefner has one, for instance, and it’s probably worth a lot of money. Founder archives can be sold for hundreds of thousands in media deals. There are rumors thatEntourage's Adrian Grenier wants to make a movie of Charney's life, so all those old pictures could be part of that. Charney will likely argue that he had an agreement with the company that the server be kept separate and private: the messages on it were consensual, and not intended to be seen by the public, and it is thus unfair for the company to break that agreement and publish them. There’s an implicit threat from the company here, too: the subtext directed at Charney seems to be, go away or all this information will become public, including the photos. American Apparel appointed Paula Schneider as its new CEO in December. She has cleaned house. A dozen or so of Charney’s internal loyalists have lost their jobs. (American Apparel's new CEO, Paula Schneider.ABC News) Since then, the prediction Charney made about the company at the board meeting in 2014 — that it would collapse without him — has come true: American Apparel is in a death spiral. The company moved away from its overtly sexual marketing toward a positioning that focuses more on the clothes. Its ads are now less offensive to many, but less distinctive, also. Sales are down, collapsing 17.2% to $134.4 million in Q2, as a result. That followed a 9% decline the quarter before. On August 11, the company disclosed it was not able to file an earnings report for Q2 because it might be unable to make payments on a credit line it has with Capital One. Failing to file a 10-Q on time is always a bad sign. The company may be nearly bankrupt and will definitely need more financing, it said, “Whether or not any such transactions or agreements were implemented or successful, the Company's existing and any new investors could suffer substantial or total losses of their investment in its common stock.” They may have gotten rid of Charney, but the price for that may ultimately be the destruction of the entire company. NOW WATCH:The ugly secret behind why J. Crew's sales have tanked More From Business Insider • Bitcoin splits in 2 • NASA has a job opening for someone to defend Earth from aliens — and it pays a six-figure salary • 50 must-have tech accessories under $50 || 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 || Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin: In areportauthored by Gil Luria and Aaron Turner, Wedbush Securities predicted a bright future for the Bitcoin Investment Trust as well as for the cryptocurrency itself. Though the firm acknowledged the volatility risks associated with bitcoin, it said it ultimately sees the currency continuing to penetrate new markets and expand across the globe. Publicly Traded Bitcoin TheBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC) became the first ever publicly traded bitcoin fund back in March and has since garnered a lot of attention. Wedbush analysts said they see bitcoin's growing popularity pushing GBTC from its current valuation of $30.60 to $40 by next year. Related Link:Bitcoin: The Best Currency For Greece And Other Debt-Ridden Countries? Bitcoin Transactions On The Rise The firm also said that it saw bitcoin increasing in value to as much as $400 in the coming year as more and more people adopt the currency to facilitate online transactions. Wedbush said that the relatively low-cost transaction fees associated with using bitcoin will give the currency a leg up against other e-commerce payment methods like credit cards orPay Pal. Banking For The Unbanked Wedbush analysts also said they saw potential for bitcoin in developing and struggling economies where the financial system isn't very secure or accessible. The firm cited the situation in Greece and the rise in bitcoin's popularity as capital controls took hold of the nation's financial institutions as a good indicator of bitcoin's potential in that arena. Risks Still Evident While the Wedbush report was mostly positive, the firm did acknowledge the potential for uncertainty when it comes to bitcoin trading. The company underscored that the currency does have a history of volatile price swings and that there is a possibility that bitcoin will lose the majority of its value. Latest Ratings for GBTC [] View More Analyst Ratings for GBTCView the Latest Analyst Ratings See more from Benzinga • Which Crisis Is Worse: Greece Or China? • Can The Fed Really Raise Rates Amid All This Chaos? • When Luxury Goes Digital © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin's 'war' could threaten its survival: Bitcoin , the digital currency technology with an ecosystem attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, is struggling through an existential crisis. And what may to outsiders seem like petty squabbling about a single number actually has major financial implications and could even threaten the very survival of the cryptocurrency. The argument-which is pitting Chinese constituencies against largely Western developers, the business community against the often ideological early adopters, and programmer against programmer-centers on a simple number in the global bitcoin system. But if the various parties can't come to an agreement, the whole network could splinter, wrecking its major selling points of security and decentralization. "There is literally a war going on right now in the bitcoin world," Marco Streng, CEO of Genesis Mining, told CNBC last month. There are two major questions facing the technology: Who is bitcoin for? And who gets to decide? Most of the early adopters saw appeal in bitcoin as a decentralized digital currency (: BTC=) -(to over-simplify the promise) a sort of virtual gold that could not be touched by governments, banks or corporations. But in seeking to create the perfect system for such a currency, bitcoin's early creators also created a technology that has wide-ranging applications. That technology is called the "blockchain" (CNBC has gone in depth into how it works) , and this is basically what it does: It can record any information in a secure way, and make that information both public and unchangeable-doing this without relying on any central authority. Banks, stock exchanges, payment companies and others have already begun exploring how this can be used in their own businesses. The issue at hand is about the structure of bitcoin's blockchain (which is composed of "blocks" of data with each block referring back to the preceding chunk of information-thereby creating a chain). The community is arguing about how big the maximum block size should be: The current max is one megabyte, which only allows for about seven transactions per second-far too few for most businesses currently investing in the technology. Story continues This speed is a "roadblock to bitcoin growth," Jeff Garzik, one of five bitcoin core developers who have taken over maintenance of the technology, wrote in a recent paper . (Visa, for comparison, says its network can handle more than 24,000 transactions per second.) Read More Why is it called the 'blockchain?' "Any responsible business projecting capacity usage into the future sees the system reaching an absolute maximum capacity, with this speed limit in place," he wrote. "Increasing or removing this limit will encourage businesses to view bitcoin as scalable and capable of supporting millions of new users." The block size limit may also negatively impact bitcoin's original currency use-case: As the number of transaction requests exceed the limit, the user experience degrades: The pools of "miners" who help inscribe data onto the global network will begin charging ever-higher fees for processing, eliminating some of the appeal over other payment methods. But there are reasons for limiting the size of a block. For one, it provides security for the system by constraining available space, and therefore making it costly to maliciously flood the network with spam. Miners are generally against increasing the size too much: They would have to do more work on each block, but they'd still reap the same benefit per block (while transaction fees remain negligibly low), said Pete Rizzo, the U.S. editor for cryptocurrency site CoinDesk. Also, some early adopters who plan to hold bitcoin for extended periods of time as an investment may prefer to keep the block size limit low-unbothered by transaction fees or business prospects, Garzik explained to CNBC. But even if more interests seem to point to increasing the block size, there's no agreement what size is ideal-balancing present-day security and future promise-or how a change should be made. Gavin Andresen, one of the most important developers of the technology, proposed increasing the max size to 20 megabytes. (He did not respond to request for comment.) A powerful constituency of Chinese miners-who also object to increasing the size of the block, saying their nation's Internet connection to the rest of the world would not allow it-made a counter proposal suggesting an eight-megabyte maximum. Andresen has since backed a version of this plan. Read More Why financial firms are investigating bitcoin tech For his part, Garzik proposed a sliding cap with a change to the bitcoin code allowing for periodic block increases (or even decreases) based on global miners' votes. Different sources told CNBC that the most important parts of the community were variously leaning toward Garzik's proposal, an 8-megabyte increase, or just a small "can-kicking" measure to wait for technologies that might allow them to bypass the question. But as a totally decentralized system, bitcoin has no clear way to weigh these disparate opinions and interests-in other words, no way to make a definitive decision. Garzik called the block size debate the first major alteration to bitcoin policy since it began in January 2009. When other changes have been made, the core software has been changed, and the players on the network have quickly updated (anyone who doesn't follow the current protocol gets booted from the network until they comply). But with a contentious issue like this, the developers risk splitting the network into those who want to follow one set of rules, and those who want another. If someone were to push out a global update without ensuring near-total consensus, a split could occur. Read More Bitcoin firm raises $116M, including Qualcomm investment "That would be the worst of all possible options," Garzik said. Bitcoin runs on a blockchain that is more secure and decentralized than any of its competitors because of its large user base and its comparatively lengthy history. If those users were to splinter, then the entire enterprise could be compromised. So what's at stake? Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in bitcoin and blockchain-related companies, and the current value of all the bitcoin in existence is currently about $4 billion . The risks of a network split are low but not negligible, experts told CNBC. "You're dealing with consensus among a community of people who aren't communicating very well-and haven't for some time," Rizzo said, explaining that making any change to the code risks breaking a technology that already works pretty well. "At what point does that risk become untenable? At this point it's still within the realm of 'danger Will Robinson'-level risk," he added. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Goldman Sachs' former technology chief is doing great business at his new payments company: Hank Uberoi (Earthport) Earthport CEO Hank Uberoi, who is Goldman Sachs' former co-COO for technology. Earthport, the cloud-based payment platform run by Goldman Sachs' former co-COO of technology, Hank Uberoi, put out unaudited results for the year to June on Wednesday — and they're pretty good. The London-based company's revenue jumped 78% last year to £19.25 million ($30 million). The dollar value of payments made on Earthport's cloud-platform rose by 75%, and the company is on track to process $10 billion (£6.4 billion) worth of transactions by the end of the year. Earthport is trying to build a faster, more tech savvy, international payments network, built on the cloud. The current systems of so-called payment "rails" were built decades ago, and are slow and costly. Thirty-one new customers signed up to the platform last year and big names like HSBC, Santander, and Standard Chartered all started routing payments through Earthport's system. Uberoi said in today's statement: "We are pleased and enthusiastic about the acceptance of the Earthport payment network as a truly valuable and innovative solution in the massive payments market." He said the medium- to long-term potential for Earthport's technology is "significant." Investors are clearly buying in to that theory. Earthport's shares, which are listed on London's market for growing companies AIM, are up 6% at a one-month high. Earthport shares (Investing.com) Earthport shares are jumping. NOW WATCH: The science behind losing weight More From Business Insider Citigroup beats earnings estimates Goldman Sachs had a great quarter … if you ignore legal costs Bitcoin is the 'Napster' of finance — and there'll be an iTunes [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] HOY a las 13:00 hrs via #Periscope ; #BITCOIN DO ZERO Evento https://www.facebook.com/events/1634230623527458/ … Enlace https://www.pscp.tv/w/aH_OPTUxNTcwMzh8NDQ4NDg4Mjmxnd4Ihvp0QTe0GkbG_8ufW8Xl6ITDZeWHPmhAhf_GdQ== …pic.twitter.com/YgA5YBsRYq || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 22 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $811.91 #bitcoin #btc || Current price: 244.37€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-12 04:00:05 CEST || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 17589.00 INR Sell : 17036.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || RT @christastevie Come & Join Youthers !! Ibadah @youth_bfa Bdg - BTC Lt 3 - Minggu pk 11.00 Ajak temen,saudara, PASTI mengalami Tuhan, Gbu || Current price: 283.8$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-03 15:00:03 EDT || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000005 Bittrex: 0.00000006 Average $1.4E-5 per #reddcoin 18:00:01 || bitcoin rate-2015-07-27 PDT start_rate:$286.00 current_rate:$284.70(-0.45%) #btc_e @MoneysEdge http://www.moneysedge.com/bitcoin  || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 18779.00 INR Sell : 18196.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 18803.00 INR Sell : 18210.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin
Trend: up || Prices: 228.76, 230.06, 228.12, 229.28, 227.18, 230.30, 235.02, 239.84, 239.85, 243.61
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 2015-08-12] BTC Price: 266.38, BTC RSI: 41.53 Gold Price: 1123.20, Gold RSI: 54.33 Oil Price: 43.30, Oil RSI: 27.03 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin: In areportauthored by Gil Luria and Aaron Turner, Wedbush Securities predicted a bright future for the Bitcoin Investment Trust as well as for the cryptocurrency itself. Though the firm acknowledged the volatility risks associated with bitcoin, it said it ultimately sees the currency continuing to penetrate new markets and expand across the globe. Publicly Traded Bitcoin TheBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC) became the first ever publicly traded bitcoin fund back in March and has since garnered a lot of attention. Wedbush analysts said they see bitcoin's growing popularity pushing GBTC from its current valuation of $30.60 to $40 by next year. Related Link:Bitcoin: The Best Currency For Greece And Other Debt-Ridden Countries? Bitcoin Transactions On The Rise The firm also said that it saw bitcoin increasing in value to as much as $400 in the coming year as more and more people adopt the currency to facilitate online transactions. Wedbush said that the relatively low-cost transaction fees associated with using bitcoin will give the currency a leg up against other e-commerce payment methods like credit cards orPay Pal. Banking For The Unbanked Wedbush analysts also said they saw potential for bitcoin in developing and struggling economies where the financial system isn't very secure or accessible. The firm cited the situation in Greece and the rise in bitcoin's popularity as capital controls took hold of the nation's financial institutions as a good indicator of bitcoin's potential in that arena. Risks Still Evident While the Wedbush report was mostly positive, the firm did acknowledge the potential for uncertainty when it comes to bitcoin trading. The company underscored that the currency does have a history of volatile price swings and that there is a possibility that bitcoin will lose the majority of its value. Latest Ratings for GBTC [] View More Analyst Ratings for GBTCView the Latest Analyst Ratings See more from Benzinga • Which Crisis Is Worse: Greece Or China? • Can The Fed Really Raise Rates Amid All This Chaos? • When Luxury Goes Digital © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Global Arena Holding, Inc. Has Entered Into an Agreement to Acquire Blockchain Technologies Corporation: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Jun 26, 2015) - Global Arena Holding, Inc., ( OTC PINK : GAHC ) reported in GAHC's Form 8-K filed with the SEC on May 20, 2015, that GAHC incorporated a new wholly owned subsidiary in the State of Delaware called "GAHI Acquisition Corp." This entity was incorporated to be the merger subsidiary for the acquisition of Blockchain Technologies Corporation (BTC). GAHC entered into an agreement and plan of merger with BTC. Under this agreement, BTC will merge with GAHI Acquisition Corp., and GAHI Acquisition Corp. will be the surviving corporation. Pursuant to the terms of the merger, GAHC will reserve a number of shares equal to 1/3 of the total issued and outstanding of GAHC to be issued to BTC shareholders. Additionally, GAHC will also have capitalized GAHI Acquisition Corp. with $1,250,000 plus an amount equal to an outstanding bridge loan, which amount shall be used for the development and implementation of the Blockchain business and technologies, as well as, the repayment of said outstanding debt. For complete terms, please see GAHC's Form 8-K filed on May 20, 2015 located at www.sec.gov . BTC is a technology company that acts as an early-stage investor, incubator, and seed accelerator program featuring a number of innovative startups utilizing the Blockchain, the underlying technology of the bitcoin digital currency. BTC currently owns several startups that are operating in the Blockchain technology field. Intellectual property included in the proposed GAHC-BTC merger includes at least four provisional patent applications reflecting material improvements upon rudimentary Bitcoin blockchain technology in areas such as i) database creation and utilization, ii) decentralized voting, iii) retail affinity tokens or rewards, and iv) the invention of an interactive Internet browser that makes possible user-advertiser affinity tokens or rewards. The Provisional Patents are: 1. Application No. 62/029,409 filed July 25, 2014; A system and method for database for self-actuating contracts and other data. 2. Application No. 62/033,706 filed August 5, 2014; Designed for the use of the Blockchain Database to Enhance Security of and Support Secure Electronic Voting and Election Result Tabulation. 3. Application No. 62/090,370 filed December 11, 2014; Retailer-Captive Blockchain System for Hosting Secure and Non-Counterfeit Affinity Token Transactions, and Tracking Affinity Token Inventory, Within A Customer Affinity Program. 4. Application No. 62/112,130 February 4, 2015; System and Method for Blockchain-Type Based Search Engine Database within an Internet Browser Supporting a User Affinity Program. Story continues When consummated, this deal will mark a significant step in the history of the rapidly growing Blockchain ecosystem by having one of its key players be part of a publicly traded company, GAHC. In particular, the GAHC proposed acquisition affords GAHC ownership of Blockchain Technologies Corporation's wholly owned technology companies including: Slidechain LLC: a company that utilizes multiple Blockchains simultaneously, with their backbone being the Bitcoin blockchain; Digital Assets Vending Inc.: a bitcoin ATM / BTM company whose main product, D.A.V.E. (Digital Asset Vending Equipment), is being developed to be the easiest, most flexible, and affordable device of its kind; Cryptos: a high-speed, ultra-secure digital currency-trading platform with AlphaPoint, the same backend Bitfinex uses; Overseas BC Marketing: A company that has entered into an agreement with an Irish gaming company pursuant to which Overseas BC Marketing will market online web-based waging services and products. This platform does not allow wagering from U.S. citizens; Blockchain Apparatus LLC: a company that uses the Blockchain for an incorruptible voting application and self-executing wills and smart contracts, among other uses. GAHC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John S. Matthews said, "I am very pleased with the potential technology acquisition and believe on consummation, BTC and its subsidiaries will add an exciting dimension to the growth of GAHC." BTC Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Nick Spanos stated "We're delighted with the GAHC proposed merger as it will enable us to compensate developers with a publicly traded stock, and we are further inspired by the knowledge that as a function of this proposed merger, the public can now participate in a company with Blockchain technology. GAHC is trading on the OTC pink sheets and has been publicly traded since 2011. GAHC holds a number of interests, including Global Elections Services, and Global Arena Investment Management. Safe Harbor: This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements, which involve assumptions and describe our future plans, strategies and expectations, are generally identifiable by use of the words "may," "will," "should," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "intend" or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. The reader is cautioned that such forward-looking statements should not be construed as a guarantee or assurance of future performance or results. Actual events or results may differ materially from those discussed in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. In light of these risks and uncertainties, there can be no assurance that the forward- looking statements contained herein will in fact occur. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, and the Company assumes no obligation to update this information. The Company is a going concern. Readers are urged to carefully review and consider the various disclosures made by the Company in its Form 10-K and in the Company's other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that discuss certain of the risks and factors that may affect the Company and its business. View comments || Need a Kick in the Butt? 4 Apps That Pay You to Exercise: If you’re finding it difficult to get off the couch and exercise, perhaps you need a little cash incentive. There are numerous websites and apps designed to track your eating and exercise. And while those are undoubtedly helpful for many people, they’re not enough to motivate others (myself included) to increase their physical activity and live a healthier lifestyle. But there are some apps that actually pay you to workout, according to Ozy. Sounds like a win-win, right? Here are four apps that reward you monetarily for living a healthier lifestyle: • Pact: This app allows users to make weekly health goals (for example: veggie pacts, exercise pacts, food log pacts) and track their progress to try to win cash, which usually ranges from 30 cents to $5 per week. If you meet your health goals, you’re paid from a pool of funds contributed by users who failed to meet their pact. That’s right, you can lose money with this app. “People are two-and-a-half times more motivated by the idea of loss than reward,” says San Francisco-based CEO and co-founder, Yifan Zhang. • FitCoin: The more you work out, the more you are paid (in the cryptocurrency Bitcoins) with this free app, Ozy said. All you need to do is create an account and use a fitness tracker (like a Fitbit) to measure your workouts.”Your average heart rate, distance, and pace are counted and turned into a FitCoin value,” the app’s website explains. “Your FitCoin value totals the amount of bitcoin you’ve earned—from your workout to your (BitCoin) wallet.” • GOODcoins: This app rewards fitness goal achievements with “a currency that can be used only for positive purposes,” Ozy said. You earn GOODcoins by walking, running or cycling for 30 minutes each day. The coins can only be used on a selection of “socially and environmentally conscious products.” or donated to a long list of charities. • HealthyWage: All you need to do is create an account, get a verified weigh-in and you’re set to wager to win cash for pounds lost in an allotted time. You bet your own money on your weight-loss goals, and if you win, you’re paid with Amazon credit or a PayPal balance. You can compete individually or with a team. “Cash-based challenges are powerful tools that help you (1) commit to a specific starting point (eliminating prediet procrastination), and (2) avoid quitting before you’ve accomplished your goals,” the HealthyWage website says. How do you stay motivated to reach your fitness or health goals? Share your comments below or on ourFacebook page. Watch the video of ‘Need a Kick in the Butt? 4 Apps That Pay You to Exercise’ on MoneyTalksNews.com. This article was originally published onMoneyTalksNews.comas'Need a Kick in the Butt? 4 Apps That Pay You to Exercise'. • Wearable Tech for Athletes, Babies, Pets and Execs • Bring Out Your Inner Chef: 11 Best Apps for Better Meals • 13 Fitness Hacks That Can Simplify Your Workouts || 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 || Bitcoin's 'war' could threaten its survival: Bitcoin, the digital currency technology with an ecosystem attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, is struggling through an existential crisis. And what may to outsiders seem like petty squabbling about a single number actually has major financial implications and could even threaten the very survival of the cryptocurrency. The argument-which is pitting Chinese constituencies against largely Western developers, the business community against the often ideological early adopters, and programmer against programmer-centers on a simple number in the global bitcoin system. But if the various parties can't come to an agreement, the whole network could splinter, wrecking its major selling points of security and decentralization. "There is literally a war going on right now in the bitcoin world," Marco Streng, CEO of Genesis Mining, told CNBC last month. There are two major questions facing the technology: Who is bitcoin for? And who gets to decide? Most of the early adopters saw appeal in bitcoin as a decentralized digital currency(: BTC=)-(to over-simplify the promise) a sort of virtual gold that could not be touched by governments, banks or corporations. But in seeking to create the perfect system for such a currency, bitcoin's early creators also created a technology that has wide-ranging applications. That technology is called the "blockchain"(CNBC has gone in depth into how it works), and this is basically what it does: It can record any information in a secure way, and make that information both public and unchangeable-doing this without relying on any central authority. Banks, stock exchanges, payment companies and othershave already begun exploringhow this can be used in their own businesses. The issue at hand is about the structure of bitcoin's blockchain (which is composed of "blocks" of data with each block referring back to the preceding chunk of information-thereby creating a chain). The community is arguing about how big the maximum block size should be: The current max is one megabyte, which only allows for about seven transactions per second-far too few for most businesses currently investing in the technology. This speed is a "roadblock to bitcoin growth," Jeff Garzik, one of five bitcoin core developers who have taken over maintenance of the technology,wrote in a recent paper. (Visa, for comparison, says its network can handle more than 24,000 transactions per second.) Read MoreWhy is it called the 'blockchain?' "Any responsible business projecting capacity usage into the future sees the system reaching an absolute maximum capacity, with this speed limit in place," he wrote. "Increasing or removing this limit will encourage businesses to view bitcoin as scalable and capable of supporting millions of new users." The block size limit may also negatively impact bitcoin's original currency use-case: As the number of transaction requests exceed the limit, the user experience degrades: The pools of "miners" who help inscribe data onto the global network will begin charging ever-higher fees for processing, eliminating some of the appeal over other payment methods. But there are reasons for limiting the size of a block. For one, it provides security for the system by constraining available space, and therefore making it costly to maliciously flood the network with spam. Miners are generally against increasing the size too much: They would have to do more work on each block, but they'd still reap the same benefit per block (while transaction fees remain negligibly low), said Pete Rizzo, the U.S. editor for cryptocurrency site CoinDesk. Also, some early adopters who plan to hold bitcoin for extended periods of time as an investment may prefer to keep the block size limit low-unbothered by transaction fees or business prospects, Garzik explained to CNBC. But even if more interests seem to point to increasing the block size, there's no agreement what size is ideal-balancing present-day security and future promise-or how a change should be made. Gavin Andresen, one of the most important developers of the technology,proposedincreasing the max size to 20 megabytes. (He did not respond to request for comment.) A powerful constituency of Chinese miners-who also object to increasing the size of the block, saying their nation's Internet connection to the rest of the world would not allow it-made a counter proposalsuggestingan eight-megabyte maximum. Andresen has since backed a version of this plan. Read MoreWhy financial firms are investigating bitcoin tech For his part, Garzik proposed a sliding cap with a change to the bitcoin code allowing for periodic block increases (or even decreases) based on global miners' votes. Different sources told CNBC that the most important parts of the community were variously leaning toward Garzik's proposal, an 8-megabyte increase, or just a small "can-kicking" measure to wait for technologies that might allow them to bypass the question. But as a totally decentralized system, bitcoin has no clear way to weigh these disparate opinions and interests-in other words, no way to make a definitive decision. Garzik called the block size debate the first major alteration to bitcoin policy since it began in January 2009. When other changes have been made, the core software has been changed, and the players on the network have quickly updated (anyone who doesn't follow the current protocol gets booted from the network until they comply). But with a contentious issue like this, the developers risk splitting the network into those who want to follow one set of rules, and those who want another. If someone were to push out a global update without ensuring near-total consensus, a split could occur. Read MoreBitcoin firm raises $116M, including Qualcomm investment "That would be the worst of all possible options," Garzik said. Bitcoin runs on a blockchain that is more secure and decentralized than any of its competitors because of its large user base and its comparatively lengthy history. If those users were to splinter, then the entire enterprise could be compromised. So what's at stake? Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in bitcoin and blockchain-related companies, and the current value of all the bitcoin in existence is currentlyabout $4 billion. The risks of a network split are low but not negligible, experts told CNBC. "You're dealing with consensus among a community of people who aren't communicating very well-and haven't for some time," Rizzo said, explaining that making any change to the code risks breaking a technology that already works pretty well. "At what point does that risk become untenable? At this point it's still within the realm of 'danger Will Robinson'-level risk," he added. More From CNBC • Top News and Analysis • Latest News Video • Personal Finance || Bitcoin Under Attack?: The recent turmoil in Greece, which has included the government institution of withdrawal limits at major banks, should have presented a major opportunity for bitcoin to gain positive media attention. With Greek citizens flocking to buy bitcoin during bank closures, the virtual currency should be enjoying media exposure as a stable, safe alternative currency for the Greek people. Rough Weekend Instead, this week has been disastrous for bitcoin. This past weekend, untimely software updates at bitcoin delayed payment confirmations by up tofive hours. However, at least those issues were not malicious. Related Link:Wedbush Predicts A Bright Future For Bitcoin Under Attack For the past couple of days, bitcoin has been under attack by... someone. According toThe Merkle, the Denial of Service (DoS) Attack this week on the cryptocurrency has been bogging down the bitcoin blockchain, the public record of bitcoin transactions. How It Works The responsible party is performing dozens of transactions per minute involving minuscule amounts of bitcoin (0.00001 BTC). Because of the tiny amount of the currency that is involved in each transaction, the spamming efforts are costing the perpetrator only about $0.08 per pop, but the constant barrage of orders has single-handedly filled up each 1 MB block that enters the blockchain. Who Is Responsible? When the largest bitcoin transaction ever made was processed on Tuesday, onlookers initially suspected the Chinese bitcoin mining group F2Pool of orchestrating the attack. However, according to Motherboard, F2Pool was simply trying to clear out the spam by mining the huge, 999KB block. What Now? Unfortunately, in the digital world of cryptography, it can be nearly impossible to determine the identity of the attackers in a scenario such as this one. For now bitcoin must simply try to figure out the best way to stop the attack and/or roll with the punches. See more from Benzinga • Gartman: We're Headed Toward 'Fruits Of Fracking,' Net Exports In U.S. Oil • Exclusive: 2015 Sentiment Analysis Symposium Preview • Greece Is Bad, But China Is Much Worse © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Marathon Predicts Greece's 'Yes' Vote, Tsipras Out Next Month: With every passing minute, the Greece debt crisis seems to take a new turn. According to latest reports, the Greek government is seeking a last-minute deal from the eurozone. However, according to Bruce Richards, CEO of Marathon Asset Management, regardless of what happens, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will be out soon. Richards was a guest on Wall Street Week's latest edition. He was again on Wall Street Week's 'Web Extra' recently to discuss the Greece debt crisis and the best case scenario for the country in the next few weeks. Getting Very Dire "Thirty days from now – Syriza party, which is Alexis Tsipras, who is the prime minister, probably won't be in office," Richards began. "He has taken the country to a point of brink where hopefully there's a point of return in terms of its economy turning around. But right now, it's getting very dire." Related Link: Has Greece Had Its "Lehman Moment?" The Best Case Richards was asked his best case scenario for this crisis in the next few weeks. He replied, "So, what I think happens: There is a small probability he (Alexis Tsipras) resigns, small probability he strikes a deal. What's most probable is, you go to a referendum on Sunday, referendum that the people want to vote for. If the people vote yes, that is a very positive thing for Europe, it's a very positive thing for Greece and that's the base case." He continued, "But over the course of the week, we are going to see all these polls come and we will see the polls come in at 70 percent or 78 percent or maybe it drops down to 65 percent. One poll is different from another poll. But I believe at the end of the day, they are going to vote the rational vote." Related Link: Bitcoin Rises As Greece Falls...Coincidence? Tsipras Is Out Either Way "Greek people are smart; they are good business people, and they are going to vote for the most sane economic program for Greece, which is to stay on the euro. And if that were to happen, then that's a vote against the party of Syriza and Alexis Tsipras and so he's probably out either way," Richards concluded. Story continues Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Southern Co, The Supreme Court Ruling On EPA Regulations And Congress' Role In Policy Juno Therapeutics CEO Weighs In On Celgene Partnership, T-Cell Innovations Dupont Desires Continued Trian Relationship, Despite Rejecting Seats On The Board © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fed Meeting Suggests One Or Two Rate Hikes This Year: This week's Federal Reserve meeting served as confirmation for investors that the bank is still planning to raise interest rates some time before the end of this year. Although the bank has promised to take a slow-and-steady approach to policy tightening, investors are beginning to batten down the hatches for fear that the hike will have a dramatic effect on markets. Labor Key On Wednesday, Fed Chair Janet Yellen remarked that the rate increase would be closely tied to labor market data, saying that improvement in that area of the economy was the number one driver of the bank's decision making. Weak economic data at the start of the year had many questioning whether or not the economy would be strong enough for a rate hike, but Yellen suggested in the press conference following the meeting that data shows the nation is on track for one or two rate increases before the year is out. When? Most investors have placed their bets on a September rate increase , though upcoming jobs data will likely play a role in analysts' predictions. Although the bank is likely to tighten before the end of the year, Yellen has promised that the bank will move slowly and gradually so as not to upset markets. Related Link: Fed Rate Hike Predictions All Over The Board How To Prepare Many worry that a rate rise will push stock values lower and wreak havoc on the bond market. While its difficult to tell who the winners and losers will be when markets absorb the Fed's next move, many investors are rushing toward commodities as they are historically unaffected by policy changes. Another good bet for investors looking to avoid a slide in their portfolio is foreign assets. As the dollar rises following policy tightening, foreign goods gain popularity which will be that will beneficial to companies in Europe and Asia. On the other side will be US companies who have borrowed large sums to conduct share buybacks and increase dividends. The age of improving returns for shareholders is likely nearing its end as borrowing costs rise. Story continues See more from Benzinga Bitcoin May Not Go Mainstream, But Blockchain Will Insurers Caught In 5-Way Courtship Competition The Video Streaming Space Is Getting Crowded © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || CCEDK and Bit-X Release Nanocard: The First True Crypto-Debit Card: CCEDK has announced that it is coming out with its own Bitcoin debit card BLOKHUS, DENMARK / ACCESSWIRE / July 13, 2015 / In addition to strictly storing the funds as Bitcoin or USD, the user will have the option to store their money as a BitShares BitAsset. Also referred to as SmartCoins, they would be pegged to the value of the dollar or another major currency. "A new generation of 2.0 coins is being used to address the volatility issue. BitShares' SmartCoins will be available as funding options for the NanoCard in the coming months, meaning that customer balances can be safely stored as crypto coins pegged to USD, EUR, CNY or even gold and silver, and converted only at the time of use," explained CEO Ronnie Boesing. This is a fundamentally lacking feature in many card programs available to Bitcoiners, although Bitreserve has come along way to deal with the problem of volatility. The new card will be called the NanoCard and will be broadly available to customers of the exchange beginning today. The NanoCard is a collaboration between Danish bitcoin exchange CCEDK and forex platform Bit-x , which aims to show how virtual currencies are finally coming of age. Ronnie Boesing believes that something like the NanoCard could be a "killer app" for Bitcoin, saying. "Bit-x, CCEDK, Cryptonomex, BitShares: each provides a part of the puzzle and the result is bitcoin's killer app." However, there are a number of other Bitcoin debit cards out there, including some that allow the user to receive part of their pay in Bitcoin, and then still have access to the funds for spending even after the conversion to bitcoin. Regardless, those at CCEDK were excited to r e lease a debit card for their traders to make use of. According to CEO Mr. Boesing, "We have combined the strengths of digital currencies pioneered by bitcoin with the universal acceptance of major credit cards. It's the combination of technologies that makes the NanoCard so powerful. We are extremely proud to have partnered with Bit-x after just a year in business. The result is perhaps the world's first true crypto-debit card. No one can tell you how to use your own money and thanks to Bit-x this will be accepted everywhere." Additionally, CCEDK is partnering with Cryptonomex in order to provide new security measures to protect funds and trading. Part of what Cryptonomex will do is create auditing and transparency layers for CCEDK's customers to have an opportunity to verify what's on the exchange. Transparency is an element of strength for any exchange, as the Bitcoin community learned, through events like Mt. Gox, what a severe lack of transparency can do. "You won't have to worry about our exchange being hacked or whether it is honest or solvent," explains Boesing. Story continues Contact CCEDK | Crypto Coins Exchange Denmark Aps: Ronny Boesing +45-36-98-11-50 ronny@ccedk.com Tyttebærvej 6, Hune, DK-9492 Blokhus Denmark SOURCE: CCEDK.com View comments || Washington D.C. Celebrates Marijuana Legalization With Growing Competition: Five months ago, Washington D.C. relaxed its regulations governing the recreational use of marijuana despite arguments from the nation's lawmakers. The district has since held several events to take advantage of the new rules and this year's state fare is even incorporating pot into the festivities. Growing Contest A state fair conjures up images of homemade apple pies and prize-winning livestock, but in Washington D.C., the event will also include a marijuana growing competition. Fair organizers will give out a "Best Bud" award for the best specimen of a marijuana plant. The contest will run alongside other D.C. favorites like the knit and crochet contest, the pickled food contest and the homebrew contest. Related Link: Surprising Study Shows Lax Marijuana Laws May Benefit America's Youth Embracing Marijuana Rules The fair, set to take place in September, says its inclusion of a marijuana growing competition is an important step toward embracing the district's new laws. Not only will the contest underscore D.C.'s new freedom, but it will give home-growers a chance to show off their talent for sustaining what can be a difficult to grow plant. Judging The plants will be judged rigorously in four categories including appearance, odor, touch and growing method. However, the plants will not be judged on their potency and judges will not sample any of the entries. D.C. law prohibits anyone from smoking in public spaces, and the fair is planning to uphold that law by banning marijuana use on the premises. See more from Benzinga Bitcoin Makes A Musical Debut Starbucks Hopes To Blend In With The Locals Hacking Concerns Give New Life To Cybersecurity Field © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Current price: 164.71£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-07-04 17:00:07 BST || Bitcoin Stammtisch - 01.07.2015 18:00 http://www.techism.de/events/bitcoin-stammtisch-1944760/ … || BTCTurk 762.88 TL BTCe 263.99 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 270.00 $ Cavirtex 350.55 $ CEXIO 270 $ Bitcoin.de 246.91 € #Bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $794.81 (31.17 %). BUY B10.17 @ $249.66 (#BitStamp). SELL @ $270.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org  || 1 BTC = 277.00 USD at https://bleutrade.com/exchange/BTC/USD … #bitcoin #btc #Bleutrade || Current price: 278.38$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-06 15:00:03 EDT || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $248.66/$248.86 #Bitstamp $249.50/$250.29 #BTCe ⇢$0.64/$1.63 $250.86/$250.87 #Coinbase ⇢$2.00/$2.21 || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes: $241.99/$242.32 #Bitstamp $243.00/$243.81 #BTCe ⇢$0.68/$1.82 $242.76/$242.77 #Coinbase ⇢$0.44/$0.78 || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: Error Bittrex: 0.00000006 Average $1.6E-5 per #reddcoin 10:00:02 || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 15586.00 INR Sell : 15084.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin
Trend: down || Prices: 264.08, 265.68, 261.55, 258.51, 257.98, 211.08, 226.68, 235.35, 232.57, 230.39
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin goes through third 'halving', falls vs U.S. dollar: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin slid on Monday in volatile trading, after it went through a technical adjustment that reduced the rate at which new coins are created, but the outlook remained upbeat as the increase in supply slows down. Monday's "halving" cuts the rewards given to those who "mine" bitcoin to 6.25 new coins from 12.5. The next halving will be in 2024. 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. In late afternoon trading, bitcoin was last down 1.3% at $8,620.43 against the dollar <BTC=BTSP> on the Bitstamp platform. It briefly turned higher. "The incentive is less for miners now to mine bitcoin and they will probably switch to more profitable cryptocurrencies. So in the short term, there's going to be pressure for bitcoin," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA in New York. "But longer term, you're probably going to see higher prices. With all the fiscal and monetary stimulus that's being pumped into the global economy, there's renewed interest from institutional traders looking for alternatives to modern government-backed currencies." Bitcoin has gained more than 20% since the beginning of the year. It touched $10,000 last week, a roughly three-month high, after Bloomberg reported that hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones has backed bitcoin as a hedge against inflation. Traders said the prospect of bitcoin's halving has fueled gains in the asset this year. Bitcoin two earlier "halvings"-- one in November 2012 and the other in July 2016 -- had signaled the start of bitcoin's most dramatic bull runs over a period of several years, although not before a brief sell-off. The previous two bitcoin events propelled rallies of about 10,000% from late 2012 to 2014, and roughly 2,500% from mid-2016 to the currency's all-time high just shy of $20,000 in December 2017, according to traders. Story continues Scott Freeman, co-founder and partner at crypto firm JST Capital, said volatility should subside from its recent highs now that the "halving" has happened. "Given that the halving happened without any interruption to crypto markets, we expect to see continued growth in the crypto eco-systems, especially with recent increased interest from institutional investors and the continued buying by retail investors," he added. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Lisa Shumaker) || Technical Analysis Points To Key Reversal Of Global Markets: Recently, we received a number of email messages and comments regarding our recent Bitcoin article and how we attempted to explain the market trend/technical analysis.  It appears we were not making our interpretation very clear for our friends and followers.  This article should help to clear up our interpretation of the major market trends and our advanced technical analysis tools and utilities. As purely technical traders, there are certain things we want to make clear.  First, we do pay attention to what is happening to the fundamentals and global economic data when it posts.  We’ve authored many previous articles stating our belief that “capital is like a living/breathing entity which attempts to survive (generate ROI with little risk) in various global market environments”.  In order for us, as technical traders, to identify real opportunities for superior trades, we must be aware of what is happening in the “environment” that surrounds us. A perfect example is a recent collapse in oil .  We continue to read articles of how thousands of traders believed super-low oil prices were a GIFT and these traders piled into long trades expecting oil to rebound higher.  This happens when technical traders fail to understand the environment in which the instrument is trading within.  At this time, the supply side for oil vastly outweighs the demand-side – so the environment is skewed towards much weaker price activity.  The chance that any moderate price recovery would take place is minimal until the supply glut is diminished. One of the easiest ways to think of a truly technical trader is that we don’t care if the price goes up or down, we just care that our technical triggers and indicators present clear opportunities that are superior to more traditional methods of trading. To accomplish this, we believe we must understand the environment in which we are trading and the technical conditions that are present within the charts.  Technically, the price may be going up within a defined bearish/downtrend. This does not mean the upside price move is a technically valid “trade trigger”.  The opposite may be true for a move down in a bullish trending market.  Without proper confirmation of the overall technical bias, environment, and shorter-term technical triggers – one might as well throw a dart at a wall and hope for the best. Story continues In our view, we issue many published research reports for our friends and followers to read and review every week.  We show both bullish and bearish potential outcomes and depending on which way the market breaks we will execute trades in that direction. What we do not do, is trade based on forecasts/predictions. Instead, we follow the price. Our interpretation of the technical triggers, economic data, forward expectations, and other setups are designed to help you learn how we conduct our research and to help you find opportunities in the markets.  Our members receive this same research and more – they receive our hand-selected trade triggers.  These are the best technical setups/trade triggers known as BAN Trades (Best Asset Now) so we can find that provide superior opportunities for skilled traders. This chart, below, shows our historical results for the past 2.5 years.  You’ll notice that we do sometimes take losses – yes.  You’ll also notice the consistency of the profits – yes.  We hope you’ll also notice that we work very hard to make sure our member’s success is the first priority in everything we do. 2020 has been a slow year for overall portfolio gains simply because of the market crash and extreme volatility. My #1 goal is to trade when risk is manageable, and the market is predictable. Don’t get me wrong, we have made money on the SPY, over 20% in TLT, 9.5% in GDXJ, and yesterday we locked in 11% on natural gas, so we are trading. But position sizes are small in comparison to our overall portfolio value so we don’t get oversized portfolio growth. When indexes, sectors, and commodities are moving 10-90% a day, it’s a time when position sizing becomes curial for survival. You will not notice the market crash this year had no impact on our account because we did one of the best trades during the unexpected and unpredictable crash, we moved to 100% cash. Our results are based on a $20K account and over the past 2.5 years we are averaging 33% ROI with very little drawdowns. Now, back to technical analysis… Our research team believes the markets have set up a massive downside price advance (creating a much deeper low that confirms Fibonacci price theory and aligns with our Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arcs), which sets up a very unique technical pattern.  Until the price is capable of establishing a series of new higher-high points through consecutive upside price advances AND until the Weekly and Monthly charts confirm a new high price breakout – technically speaking, we’re still in a bearish price trend. Weekly S&P 500 (SPY) Chart This Weekly SPY chart, below, shows you three key technical factors that tell us there is a greater risk of a breakdown in price than any upside price trend continuation… A. The recent low/bottom price level broke below the December 2018 low price level (new lower low). B. The GREEN ARC price level is a massive 1.618 Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arc that suggests massive resistance exists at this level.  Price moving above this level then falling back below it suggests a “scouting pattern” type of event took place and FAILED. C. Recent price activity has rallied from recent lows too, again, reconfirm the GREEN ARC resistance level.  We believe this Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arc will present a major price ceiling as Q2 and Q3 economic data pushes forward – driving the price lower over time and eventually targeting the RED support level near $208 in July or August. You may remember that we’ve been suggesting a bottom will not complete until sometime after July or August 2020 in previous research posts.  Now you know where we derive these projections and expectations, we use technical analysis and our advanced predictive modeling tools to “see into the future”.  Believe it or not, we’ve already mapped out SPY price activity 10+ years into the future. Weekly Transportation Index (TRAN) Chart This TRAN Weekly chart also helps to confirm our technical analysis research.  We are deploying the same types of technical analysis tools on all of these charts to show you how our research team attempts to identify trends and opportunities.  You can see the heavy LIGHT RED Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arc near the peak in February 2020.  This Arc represents a massive price resistance channel.  You may also notice the thinner ORANGE Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arc that touches recent lows?  This arc acts as Support in its current form. Our proprietary Adaptive Fibonacci Price Modeling System is drawing a CYAN projected target level from recent lows where the heavy CYAN line is displayed on this chart.  Additionally, a previous BLUE target level is also displayed on this chart which originated from the recent PEAK in February 2020.  Now, pay attention to where the TRAN price has found recent resistance and stalled…  RIGHT AT THOSE LEVELS. We believe the failure of the SPY and TRAN to move above the ARCs and Fibonacci price targets suggests a critical upward price trend failure.  A failure of this nature will prompt a new downside price move in the near future as price must always attempt to establish new price highs or new price lows based on the Fibonacci Price Theory (technical analysis). Monthly Dow Jones Industrial (INDU) This last chart, the Monthly INDU, is probably the most impressive one so far.  Clear Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arcs suggest massive resistance near the February 2020 peak levels.  A very clear downward price channel originating from the February 2018 lows and transitioning across the December 2018 lows and into current lows.  An Adaptive Fibonacci Price Modeling System target price (CYAN) near 8108 (very near current price levels) and a very clear technical price pattern (Dojis) suggesting a potential top or price reversal is setting up.  Lastly, the recent deep low price stalled very near to the historical YELLOW DASHED price channel that spans the 2000 and 2007 price peaks. Pulling all of this technical analysis together with simple Fibonacci Price Theory suggests that until the markets can prove to us that price is capable of establishing we upside price structures, the recent deep new price low (near 18,265) suggests future price action may collapse even further and attempt to establish a new, deeper, “new price low” before the real bottoms set up in the markets.  On this INDU chart, it suggests that a “deeper price low” may result in a move well below the YELLOW DASHED price channel from 2000/07 and attempt to move to the RED Fibonacci Price Target level near 14,000. Concluding Thoughts: Obviously, we are still very bearish in terms of the current overall market trend.  No technical analysis technique has shown us that the intermediate and longer-term trends have changed direction to Bullish.  Yes, our Daily systems did identify a bullish trigger within this bearish trend on the SPY which we executed successfully for our members.  There is an opportunity to take a bullish trade within a bearish price trend when technical analysis confirms the trigger and it is executed properly. If you are using our free public research for your own trading decision-making and/or using it as an opportunity to find and execute successful trades, please remember you are the one ultimately making the decisions to trade based on our interpretation and free research posts.  We, as technical traders, will continue to post new research articles and content that we believe is relevant to the current market setups. If you want to improve your accuracy and opportunities for success, then we urge you to visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com to learn how you can enjoy our research and our members-only trading triggers (see the first chart in this article).  If you are managing your retirement account or 401k, then we urge you to visit www.TheTechnicalInvestor.com to learn how to protect your assets and grow your wealth using our proprietary longer-term modeling systems.  Our goal is to help you find and create success – not to confuse you. Our researchers will generate free research on just about any topic that interests them.  As technical traders, we follow price, predict future price moves, tops, bottoms, and trends, and attempt to highlight incredible setups that exist on the charts.  What you do with it is up to you.  Visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com/FreeResearch/ to review all of our detailed free research posts. In closing, we would like to suggest that the next 5+ years are going to be incredible opportunities for skilled traders.  Remember, we’ve already mapped out price trends 10+ years into the future that we expect based on our advanced predictive modeling tools.  If our analysis is correct, skilled traders will be able to make a small fortune trading these trends and Metals will skyrocket.  The only way you’ll know which trades to take or not is to become a member. Chris Vermeulen Chief Market Strategist Founder of Technical Traders Ltd. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: How to Spot Support & Resistance – Build a Chart Apartment Building Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Sellers Taking Control, Could Collapse Under $1657.30 Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Mixed Despite Stronger U.S. Dollar Technical Analysis Points To Key Reversal Of Global Markets AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Continues to Struggle at Extreme Highs Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Give Up Early Gains || STAE Wins exemption in Singapore’s regulatory framework: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / March 31, 2020 /The regulatory landscape has been infamously unclear about the legality of blockchain powered financial services, leaving many businesses locked in legal limbo. However, the grey clouds appear to be parting, at least in sunny Singapore, with the enforcement of their Payment Services Act. The law only recently came into effect, but there are not yet clear standards or precedents as to how the law will be interpreted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) or by the courts. To avoid hampering business operations, MAS has granted an exemption period to select businesses who are already operating in the space. Alongside WeChat and Alipay, STAE has been granted this exemption allowing operations in the following areas: Account Issuance Service, Domestic Money Transfer Service, Cross-Border Money Transfer Service, E-money issuance below S$30 million, and Digital Payment Token Service. STAE is currently working with a renowned legal team to earn the official license when the exemption privilege eventually expires. STAE currently provides decentralized stablecoins tied to either the USD or the RMB, backed by either ETH or BTC, has partnered with a wallet provider, and will link up with a custom messager application later this year. With those three services offered and a license coming down the pipes, the blockchain industry could be looking at the very first crypto version of WeChat. CONTACT: Company Name:STAE Name: Sean LiuEmail:Stae_Liu87@gmailTele: +86 10 86358827 SOURCE:STAE View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/583265/STAE-Wins-exemption-in-Singapores-regulatory-framework || Blockchain Bites: Introducing the CoinDesk 50 and a Roadmap to Consensus: Distributed: The CoinDesk 50 Congratulations to the inaugural CoinDesk 50. This new list features the most important, innovative and viable projects in the crypto and blockchain industry. In just 11 years, cryptocurrency and its underlying technology has made serious in-roads, promising to reinvent how the world transacts, how the internet will function and how to more equitably distribute resources. CoinDesk has been covering this varied space for seven intense years. Today, we’re honored to present the first 10 protocols, companies and projects we believe have or will have the greatest impact, not only on the industry, but the world at large. This includes billion-dollar corporations like Binance and Coinbase, but also aspirational projects like Cosmos. We will be releasing the full CoinDesk 50 leading up to, and during, Consensus:Distributed, our free virtual event that starts May 11. (See how we made the choices .) Your Guide to Consensus: Distributed Speaking of Consensus, Blockchain Bites will be your guide as the crypto industry’s largest and most ambitious conference goes distributed. For the five days of Consensus: Distributed, your trusted source of daily crypto updates will double its output. Beginning May 11, Blockchain Bites: Consensus Edition will hit your inbox by 7:30 a.m. ET and then reappear at 5.30 p.m. ET, providing an agenda settings schedule as well as recap of the daily happenings. Every morning edition will feature a special guest appearance from CoinDesk journalists, who will highlight the panels they’re excited about and reflect on what they’ve learned so far. With 300 speakers, 10,000+ attendees and content streaming 24/7, there will be a lot to talk about. Related: First Mover: Search Interest in Bitcoin’s Halving Reaches Fever Pitch as Price Hits $10K For starters, there will be a keynote address by influential economist Carlota Perez , performances from Akon, Haley Smalls, and Skip Marley as well as interactive workshops where you can get your hands on some cryptocurrency. You can also take a walk through Decentraland and tune into CoinDesk TV , a round-the-clock live programming event streaming on CoinDesk.com, YouTube and Twitter from Monday, May 11, at 8:30 a.m. ET to Tuesday, May 12, at 9 a.m. ET. Story continues We hope to see you online, happy, healthy and ready to get engaged at Consensus: Distributed . Register here. Now to the news: Voting Pilot Democrats in the Ohio House of Representatives have proposed launching a blockchain voting pilot for overseas military voters registered in the state. The bill was introduced Tuesday as part of the Democrats’ elections law overhaul. If passed, it would see military members transmit their ballots to election officials via “encrypted blockchain technology” that “protects the security and integrity of the process and protects the voter’s privacy.” The receiving board of elections would then print out that ballot “for counting purposes.” HSBC to Libra The Libra Association has named HSBC Chief Legal Officer Stuart Levey as its first chief executive. Joining late this summer, Levey will oversee the association’s efforts to “combine technology innovation with a robust compliance and regulatory framework.” He has been at HSBC since 2012. Related: The Changemaker: Glen Weyl Puts His Radical Ideas Into Action Cash App: Revenues and Profits Cash App saw first quarter revenues from bitcoin of $306 million, a quarterly high for the firm, surpassing all other revenue streams. Profits on its Bitcoin business, however, are minimal at $7 million in Q1, and $8 million through the whole of 2019. Enter New York Eris Clearing, the clearing and settlement arm of ErisX, has been awarded a Virtual Currency License from New York’s Department of Financial Services. Colloquially known as a “BitLicense,” having received one, the company is licensed to operate in the state. Enter Europe TokenSoft is bringing its security token issuance platform to Europe through a Switzerland-based counterpart, TokenSoft International AG. The regulated STO platform announced Wednesday that it struck a licensing deal with its eponymous European partner, who now has exclusive continental distribution rights for TokenSoft’s tokenization software. Noding Off Despite recent surges in price and mining power, Bitcoin’s total node count fell below 47,000 on Monday, a three-year low, according to developer Luke Dashjr. This trend is confirmed by Bitnodes’s data, which also a spike in nodes using onion services that may make node operators more difficult to locate. Peaking at over 200,000 in January 2018, node operators validate new transactions and store copies of the network’s shared transaction history. New Messaging There is a new messaging standard designed to help cryptocurrency firms comply with anti-money laundering regulations from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The standard, called IVMS101, defines a uniform model for data that must be exchanged by virtual asset service providers alongside cryptocurrency transactions. The standard will identify the pseudonymous senders and receivers of crypto payments, with such information “traveling” with each transaction. Polkadot Designs a Launch Plan The Polkadot network is “very near launch,” founder Gavin Wood said. Guided by the Web3 Foundation and Parity Technologies, Polkadot, an interoperable blockchain that will allow transactions across multiple chains, will roll out through five or six phases. Icy Goodbye? Former Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler reportedly received $9 million worth of stock and other awards from parent company Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) when she was appointed to the U.S. Senate from Georgia. Abra $5K-dabra The Stellar Development Foundation is pumping $5 million into Abra, a crypto financial services app. The foundation’s largest enterprise investment yet precedes Abra’s integration with the Stellar blockchain. Mining Map Researchers at Cambridge University’s business school have created a Bitcoin Mining Map to visualize global hashrate data by country, and more granular data for Chinese provinces. The map shows China provides 65% of Bitcoin’s total mining hashrate, while the U.S. and Russia lag behind at 7%. Monsoon Coming? One of Asia’s largest crypto exchanges by trade volume, OSL, has teamed with enterprise startup Monsoon Blockchain. The partnership may allow for an eventual US expansion. Private Cosmos The nonprofit Zcash Foundation is building a way to bring the privacy coin Zcash onto the interoperable Cosmos ecosystem. ( Decrypt ) Zcash Report Zooko Wilcox hired the Rand Corporation to suss out whether the privacy crypto zcash he shepherds is really the darkweb’s go-to currency. The report says it isn’t, bitcoin is. But there is room for skepticism. Europol and Chainalysis have previously released reports showing Zcash gaining in popularity among criminal elements. You can read the report here , and about the debate here . Ethereal Goes Virtual The Ethereal Summit, a free virtual conference, has kicked off today. One hundred speakers will stream over the course of two days. Watch here. CoinDesk Live: Lockdown Edition CoinDesk Live: Lockdown Edition continues its popular twice-weekly virtual chats via Zoom and Twitter, giving you a preview of what’s to come at Consensus: Distributed, our first fully virtual – and fully free – big-tent conference May 11-15. Register to join our seventh and final session Thursday, May 7, with speaker Felipe Duarte from DAOCanvas to show you how to roll your own DAO, hosted by Consensus organizer Bailey Reutzel. Zoom participants can ask questions directly to our guests. Market Intel It’s Bitcoin, Not You Bitcoin looks to have decoupled from traditional markets as investors refocus on the network’s imminent mining reward halving. Bitcoin gained nearly 5.9% so far this month, while gold has declined by 1% and the S&P 500 is down 2.2%, on a month-to-date basis, as of Wednesday. Halving Soon Bitcoin’s halving is now predicted to come hours sooner. The cryptocurrency’s price rally above $9,000 has caused some miners to switch to more efficient mining machines, thereby accelerating the speed at which new blocks of data are confirmed and pushing up the time of the anticipated halving event. Read the full First Mover newsletter here. Volatile Estimates Bitcoin’s options market may be underpricing cryptocurrency’s future volatility. Analysts say the data is being distorted by “Black Thursday’s” 40% drop. The spread between bitcoin’s three-month implied volatility (IV), the market’s expectation of how risky or volatile an asset will be in the future, and historical or realized volatility (RV) fell to -47% on Wednesday. CoinDesk Monthly Review: April 2020 CoinDesk Research’s monthly review of crypto markets overviews returns, volatility and correlations of bitcoin, ether and other crypto assets – all in a macro context. Plus, we track growth in stablecoins and look at what past halvings can tell us about the upcoming one. The report is free to download . The Pod Surveying the Carnage NLW examines how real estate, travel and music are faring during the COVID-19 crisis on the latest episode of The Breakdown. Who Won #CryptoTwitter? Related Stories How We’re Raising the Virtual Bar at Consensus: Distributed The CoinDesk 50: Binance Eyes the Whole Pie || Bitcoin Can Boost Portfolio Returns, Even if Bought at All-Time High: Bitwise Study: With the right management strategy, bitcoin almost always boosts the value of a mixed portfolio, according to Bitwise research – even if bought at the all-time high. Based on a test portfolio using historical data, the San Francisco-based asset manager found investors who allocated a small percentage ofbitcointo a portfolio made up of stocks and bonds would have made a notable increase to cumulative returns, even in the past three years. Bitwisesaid in its Wednesday report – co-written by its head of research, Matt Hougan – that a 2.5% allocation of bitcoin in January 2014, rebalanced on a quarterly basis, would have boosted portfolio returns from 26% to almost 45% by March 31, 2020. A 5% allocation would have pretty much-doubled returns on a traditional portfolio to 65% over the same timeframe. Related:Shares in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust Up By 14% After Crypto’s Price Rallies That’s not altogether surprising. After all, the price of bitcoin has moved from $750 to $6,500 over the past six years. Considering bitcoin was thebest-performing assetof the last decade, investors would expect outsized returns for holding something that saw a price increase of 766%. But what’s interesting is returns still increased, albeit marginally, even when bitcoin was allocated at the all-time high of $20,000 in December 2017 and continued to be held at the same portfolio weighting until March 31, even as the value dropped by some 66% to just under $6,500. On the same timeframe, and assuming quarterly rebalancing, an allocation of 2.5% or 5% contributed returns of either 0.05% or 0.40% to a portfolio of 60% world equity and 40% bonds. Without any bitcoin allocation, the value of the portfolio would have actually decreased by 0.54%; more than a 1% bitcoin allocation would lead to a 0.51% drop in a portfolio’s overall value. In its report, Bitwise explains these seemingly paradoxical results stem from the nature of bitcoin as an asset: it’s highly volatile, but largely uncorrelated to other assets. Related:Grayscale Says It Raised a Record $500M in First Quarter See also:Bitwise Looks to Retail Market for Its Crypto Index Fund This secret sauce makes it an ideal component for volatility harvesting – a wealth management strategy that only came about in 2012 – whereby rebalancing boosts returns by skimming value off the top of well-performing but volatile assets, such as bitcoin, and locking it into something more stable, like a blue-chip stock. “Adding bitcoin to a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds would have consistently and significantly increased both the cumulative and risk-adjusted returns of that portfolio over any meaningful time period in bitcoin’s history, provided a rebalancing strategy is in place,” the report reads. There are some caveats. Bitwise stresses that it depends on a disciplined and consistent rebalancing strategy. Those who rebalanced too often suffered from lower returns, and those who just held and never rebalanced, significantly increased their downside risk. Bitwise found that between 2014 and March 2020, with a 2.5% bitcoin allocation, a monthly rebalancing led to returns of only 38% and actually raised drawdowns to 22.3%; holding made returns of 42.1%, but came with drawdowns of 32%. An annual rebalancing presented the best of both worlds, with cumulative returns of 67% and maximum drawdowns of only 22.3%, all other things being equal. The asset manager also said that piling too much bitcoin into a portfolio, say more than 5% allocation, actually raised volatility so drawdown risk would begin to outweigh potential gains. See also:Cryptocurrencies Are Still the World’s Best Performing Asset Class This Year Of course, the report works on the basis bitcoin will continue to show the same characteristics and same upside, going forward. Eliezer Ndinga, a research associate at Swiss-based crypto product provider 21Shares, told CoinDesk that market uncertainty could “potentially put on pause the adoption of cryptoassets from high-profile traditional financial institutions in the foreseeable future.” But, he added, “the digital nature of cryptoassets with a finite and predictable supply uncorrelated to traditional monetary and fiscal policies with transportability that do not require social contact, have the chance to increasingly become an attractive asset.” Whatever happens to bitcoin over the next six years, Bitwise’s report appears to provide a solid reason for bitcoin to be incorporated into the next generation of wealth management strategies. • Morgan Creek Invests in Startup Bringing Bitcoin to DeFi • Looking for a Halving Payday? Quick Wins in Investing Are Rare || Judge ‘Puzzled’ by Craig Wright’s Objections to Producing Evidence of Over 1.1M Bitcoin: A federal judge said Craig Wright’s objection to handing over crucial evidence regarding billions in bitcoin left her “puzzled,” as he seemed to be arguing the court should “blindly accept” everything he says. District Judge Beth Bloom overruled Wright’s objections to an Order of Discovery issued by another judge, compelling Wright to produce 11,000 documents for the Kleiman lawsuit. She said the defendant mischaracterized the order and relied on unsubstantiated arguments. In a highly critical explanation for her decision for the Southern District Court of Florida, Bloom said it was the role of the presiding judge to determine what evidence was admissible in court. She ruled Wright’s arguments that the documents would be inadmissible because they would disregard his attorney-client privilege was a mischaracterization. Related:Cryptopia Users Win Victory in Court Case Over Crypto Assets Worth Over $100M The brother of Wright’s deceased business partner is suing Wright for half of the 1.1 million bitcoin supposedly held in a joint mining venture known as the Tulip Trust. Based on today’s price, the overall value of the bitcoin in question would be more than $7.7 billion, according to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index. Wright has long claimed to have access to the bitcoin but has told the court he couldn’t prove this as it would infringe on the privilege he has with a mysterious Kenyan lawyer known as Denis Mayaka, who is supposedly counsel for the Tulip Trust. See also:UK Law Panel Defines Crypto Assets as Property U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart had previously rejected these arguments and evenquestioned whether the lawyer exists. Kleiman’s brother has further accused Wright ofabusing attorney privilegeto withhold evidence and “obfuscate” trial proceedings. Related:Blockchain Association Says Court ‘Erred’ With Decision to Block Telegram’s Token Issuance As Bloom said in this week’s court order, Reinhart already highlighted Wright’s relationship with this lawyer could not properly be authenticated. The evidence consists of a LinkedIn printout and typed declaration asserting he is counsel for the Trust. This “could easily have been generated by anyone with word processing software and a pen,” Reinhart had said. In her reasons for overruling Wright’s objections, Bloom said Reinhart “was not clearly erroneous or acting contrary to law” after he issued the discovery order. “Defendant’s gripe, therefore, is not with the supposed exclusion of the evidence but instead with the weight assigned to it.” Bloom said Reinhart’s skepticism was justified on the basis of Wright’s history of providing false evidence. “[T]he Court is puzzled by Defendant’s apparent argument that Judge Reinhart must blindly accept items produced by Defendant such that Judge Reinhart cannot rely on his past experiences with Defendant in this litigation (including his history of providing forged materials and giving perjured testimony) in evaluating whether Defendant has carried his burden as to privilege.” “That is not how fact-finding works,” Bloom added. See also:Mark Karpeles Accuses Plaintiff in Mt. Gox Lawsuit of Attempting to ‘Thwart’ Court Bloom found nothing to support Wright’s argument that producing the evidence would leave him in violation of Australian law. She also threw out claims the magistrate judge should have determined whether documents were relevant to the proceedings before ordering Wright to produce them in court. The court order is the latest development in a long lawsuit characterized by bad blood on both sides. Wright was previously found to be incontempt of court, while just last month Reinhartcriticized Kleiman’slegal team for charging “excessive fees” that were to be paid by the defendant due to the drawn-out proceedings. Wright now has until April 17 to produce the requested documents. See the full filing below: • Telegram Hopes It Can Still Sell Tokens to Non-US Investors After Court Ruling • Craig Wright Challenges Court Order Criticizing His Evidence in $4B Kleiman Case || The Klein Law Firm Reminds Investors of Class Actions on Behalf of Shareholders of TUP, BDX and CAN: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / April 21, 2020 / The Klein Law Firm announces that class action complaints have been filed on behalf of shareholders of the following companies. There is no cost to participate in the suit. If you suffered a loss, you have until the lead plaintiff deadline to request that the court appoint you as lead plaintiff. Tupperware Brands Corporation ( TUP ) Class Period: January 30, 2019 to February 24, 2020 Lead Plaintiff Deadline: April 27, 2020 The TUP lawsuit alleges Tupperware Brands Corporation made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose during the class period that: (1) Tupperware lacked effective internal controls; (2) as a result, Tupperware would need to investigate the accounting and liabilities of one of its brands, Fuller Mexico; (3) consequently, Tupperware would be unable to timely file its annual report on Form 10-K for its fiscal year 2019; (4) Tupperware did not properly account for its accounts payable and accrued liabilities at Fuller Mexico; (5) Tupperware provided overvalued earnings per share guidance; (6) Tupperware would need relief from its $650 million Credit Agreement; and (7) as a result, defendants' public statements were materially false and/or misleading at all relevant times. Learn about your recoverable losses in TUP : http://www.kleinstocklaw.com/pslra-1/tupperware-brands-corporation-loss-submission-form?id=6118&from=1 Becton Dickinson & Company ( BDX ) Class Period: November 5, 2019 to February 5, 2020 Lead Plaintiff Deadline: April 27, 2020 The complaint alleges Becton Dickinson & Company made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) certain of Becton's Alaris infusion pumps experienced software errors and alarm prioritization issues; (2) as a result, the Company was investing in remediation efforts to address these product issues, rather than a software upgrade to "make enhancements;" (3) the Company was reasonably likely to face regulatory delays in connection with the software remediation; (4) as a result of the foregoing, Becton was reasonably likely to recall certain of its Alaris infusion pumps; and (5) as a result of the foregoing, Defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects were materially false and/or misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. Learn about your recoverable losses in BDX : http://www.kleinstocklaw.com/pslra-1/becton-dickinson-company-loss-submission-form?id=6118&from=1 Canaan Inc. ( CAN ) Class Period: publicly traded securities of Canaan, including its American Depository Shares pursuant and/or traceable to the Company's registration statement and related prospectus issued in connection with the Company's November 20, 2019 initial public offering. Lead Plaintiff Deadline: May 4, 2020 Story continues The CAN lawsuit alleges Canaan Inc. made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose during the class period that: (1) the purported "strategic cooperation" was actually a transaction with a related party; (2) the company's financial health was worse than what was actually reported; (3) the company had recently removed numerous distributors from its website just prior to the initial public offering, many of which were small or suspicious businesses; and (4) several of the Company's largest Chinese clients in prior years were clients who were not in the Bitcoin mining industry and, thus, would likely not be repeat customers. Learn about your recoverable losses in CAN : http://www.kleinstocklaw.com/pslra-1/canaan-inc-loss-submission-form?id=6118&from=1 Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as a lead plaintiff. If you suffered a loss during the class period and wish to obtain additional information, please contact J. Klein, Esq. by telephone at 212-616-4899 or visit the webpages provided. J. Klein, Esq. represents investors and participates in securities litigations involving financial fraud throughout the nation. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. CONTACT: J. Klein, Esq. Empire State Building 350 Fifth Avenue 59th Floor New York, NY 10118 jk@kleinstocklaw.com Telephone: (212) 616-4899 Fax: (347) 558-9665 www.kleinstocklaw.com SOURCE: The Klein Law Firm View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/586207/The-Klein-Law-Firm-Reminds-Investors-of-Class-Actions-on-Behalf-of-Shareholders-of-TUP-BDX-and-CAN View comments || Boerse Stuttgart’s Bitcoin Exchange Adds Stop Orders as Volatility Hedge: The bitcoin exchange arm of Boerse Stuttgart has added a trading tool to help customers deal with volatile market conditions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic and the approaching halving event. The German exchange group said Tuesday that clients of its Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange (BSDEX) would now be able to use stop orders – an order to buy or sell an asset once its price has passed a pre-defined point. Launching in September, BSDEX providesregulated accessfor both institutional and retail investors to abitcoin-euro trading pair. Related:Kyber Network Activity Surges as DEX Plans Switch to Staking Model in Q2 In March, the exchange group’s chief digital officer said the subsidiary is hoped to become one of thetrusted gatewaysfor regulated institutions to enter the digital asset space. BSDEX has said it’s planning to list other digital assets going forward. In a statement, BSDEX CEO Dr. Dirk Sturz said stop orders were a “logical step” for the fledgling exchange, adding they were “particularly important in the current volatile market phase. [As they] enable investors to react automatically to price volatility and to pursue a momentum strategy.” Stop orders help people automate aspects of their trading strategy and, rather than having to watch the market 24/7, let them establish points at which they want to buy or sell. While long a feature in traditional markets, they are increasingly commonplace in crypto: Binance, Kraken and Huobi have all already added them to their exchanges. See also:dYdX’s Crypto Loans Hit $1B Amid Coronavirus-Led Volatility Related:Crypto Exchange Offers Credit Lines so Institutions Can Trade Now, Pay Later But there are some pitfalls, as stop orders can just as easily compound losses for a trader, especially those not accustomed to trading cryptocurrencies. It’s no secret cryptocurrencies are highly volatile assets. Back in June, for example,bitcoin flash crashedas the spot price fell from $13,700 to just under $11,400 in little more than an hour. It then temporarily recovered back to $12,000, before sliding back below again nine hours later. If a trader had put a stop order to sell at $12,000 and then gone out for lunch, they would have returned to see their position liquidated and, to add insult to injury, watched as the price then returned within the range they wanted to hold at anyway. With bitcoin’s volatility levels hitting a six-year high earlier this month, CoinDesk asked Boerse Stuttgart if it was an appropriate time to add stop orders for its clients, particularly as many may be more familiar trading traditional assets than cryptocurrencies. See also:You Call That Volatility? Bitcoin Traders Scoff at Wall Street’s Gyrations In an email, Sturz told CoinDesk that stop orders allowed investors to manage and reduce risk, adding that they could be used to “pursue a momentum strategy as they can react to ongoing price trends, both with stop buy orders in bull markets and stop sell orders in bear markets.” He added that BSDEX had also implemented “volatility interruptions” to protect traders from having all their stops triggered in a flash crash. • Nomics Machine-Learning Tool Offers 7-Day Price Forecast on Top 100 Cryptos • Tim Draper Firm Launches ‘Crypto Exchange’ Anyone Can Plug Into WordPress || Riot Blockchain Moves Part of Bitcoin Mining Operation to Upstate New York: Riot Blockchain, one of the few publicly traded bitcoin mining companies in the U.S., has executed a co-location mining services contract with a crypto data center Coinmint. Announced Tuesday, the Colorado-based firm will send a portion of its S17bitcoinmining machines from its facilities in Oklahoma City to Coinmint’spower plantin upstate New York. The move came two months after Riot purchased 1,060 Bitmain S17 Pro Antminers for that facility. The addition is part of Riot’srecent expansionin bitcoin mining. Related:Bitmain Partially Refunds Bitcoin Miner Buyers After Price Cuts The firm bought 4,000 miners from Bitmain with $6.35 million in December and installed 3,000 miners in the following month. The firm expects to boost its computing capacity by 240 percent with the latest addition. “Riot believes the hosting arrangement can positively impact its power costs, the Oklahoma City facility’s heat and environmental operating issues, and provide a path to diversify its mining operations,” Riot said in astatement. According to the contract, Coinmint’s Massena, N.Y., facility will be responsible for initial operational, security and reporting controls testing and verification. As one of the largest crypto data centers in the U.S., Coinmint claims to have 435 megawatts of transformer capacity. It was converted to a data center from an aluminum smelter in 2016. The plant can generate excess power in part due to the abundant hydroelectric and wind generation in the area. Its management experiences in wholesale electricity markets is another economic advantage for Coinmint to operate mining machines, according to Riot. Related:New York Power Plant Sells 30% of Its Bitcoin Mining Hashrate to Institutional Buyers Riot has also assessed how COVID-19’s impact on its relocation plan and concluded that the novel coronavirus’ risks are reasonably mitigated due to the “plug and play ” infrastructure of Coinmint’s facilities. “To date, the impact has remained minimal,” Riot said. Riot’s rearrangement with its mining facilities could also be part of itsshiftfrom crypto trading to bitcoin mining businesses. The firm has been on the lookout for potential buyers for its crypto trading platform RiotX since February. Chicago-based financial services firm XMS Capital Partners, which advises on potential strategic deals for Riot, identified this opportunity as part of its engagement with the firm. • Bitcoin Miner Maker Canaan Lost $148M in 2019 • Bitcoin Cash Undergoes ‘Halving’ Event, Casting Shadow on Miner Profitability || Blockchain Bites: China’s Miners, Africa’s Venmo and Cuba’s New Exchange: China’s rainy season reduces the costs of bitcoin mining but investors aren’t biting, Starbucks and McDonald’s will pilot the “digital yuan” and Openfinance is threatening to delist tokens on its platform. Miner HardshipsSpring usually draws in a crowd of miners and investors into the Bitcoin network, as China’s rainy season drives down the costs of hydropower making mining more profitable. However,bitcoin’srecent price drop, the cost of buying the latest mining rigs and the upcoming halving have collided and now,this season, miners aren’t investing. Leaseback RigPrivate investment firmArctos Capital has acquired $1 million in assets from Blockware MiningLLC, but will lease them back to the company so it can continue operating as usual. In what’s known as a leaseback transaction, Arctos will lease Bitmain Antminer hardware to the firm allowing the company to continue its mining and hosting operations. Related:Blockchain Bites: Coinbase Oracle, Gun Sirer’s Grants and Lightning-Powered Private Messages China’s Pilot ChainsStarbucks and McDonald’s are reportedly among 19 restaurants and retail shops that will be involved intesting China’s central bank digital currencyin the country’s Xiong’An district. The move signals China’s wider efforts to test out the digital currency project, with state-owned commercial banks already developing wallet applications for the digital yuan, also known as DC/EP. Token ThreatOpenfinance, a security token trading platform, isthreatening to delist all tokens and suspend trading next monthunless issuers cough up more funds to cover its costs. The company has not seen transaction activity on its platform grow quickly enough to cover operating costs, and is now raising fees to close its budget shortfall. Roadmap to RecoveryE. Glen Weyl, founder of the RadicalxChange Foundation and a researcher for Microsoft, collaborated with Harvard professor Danielle Allen and other experts to write aroadmap for reopening the economy.The “Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience” charts a course for scaling up testing, tracing and supported isolation in a way that protects health while preventing permanent injury to regular people’s livelihoods. Loan OriginationDriven by coronavirus-led market speculation dYdX, a decentralized margin trading exchange, haslent $700 million worth of ether, dai, and USDC in Februaryand March, bringing its 12 month originations past the $1 billion mark. “People like to trade (and especially trade with leverage) when there is volatility,” founder Antonio Juliano said. Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Catches Almighty Dollar Even During 2020’s Dash for Cash Newspaper ProvenanceItaly’s largest news wire service is using an Ethereum-based registration system called “ANSAcheck”to combat fake news and copycats.The Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) newswire distributes 3,000 articles a day to 24 shareholder publishers and 87 news partners every day. Reversing CirculationDigital dollars can reduce unemployment,Marcelo M. Prates, a lawyer at the Central Bank of Brazil, argues in a CoinDesk op-ed. He proposes a new form of monetary circulation, enabled by a central bank digital currency, that is issued by employers when paying wages and would reach the central bank only after circulating among persons and businesses. “The [MoneytothePeople] model directly tackles unemployment by granting the power to issue the new currency to public and private institutions responsible for paying wages,” he said. Refuting ResearchResearchers with the University of California Berkeley’s Haas Blockchain Initiative have foundstablecoin issuances do not pump crypto markets,but instead serve as tools for investors to hedge their positions during periods of risk or price depreciation.This refutes claims of research published in 2018 that concluded stablecoin issuances, specifically lead by Tether and sister company Bitfinex, “are timed following market downturns and result in sizable increases in bitcoin prices.” Crypto Culture • Crypto art, and its supporting blockchain-based infrastructure,is presenting a way for artists and collectors to manage the closure of museums and galleries amid shelter-in-place mandates. Nifty Gateway, a Winklevoss-backed non-fungible token platform, has held three exhibitions featuring the works of renowned artists with a functioning secondary market. • “Crypto Rush,” a documentary about the culture, tech and iconoclasts of crypto, is now live on Vimeo. Directed by former Russian broadcaster Liliana Pertenava, the film explores the crypto boom of 2017, its subsequent crash and the ever evolving story of decentralization. (TechCrunch) Prediction ProviderData provider Nomics has launched afree price prediction servicefor cryptocurrencies. The 7-Day Asset Price Prediction feed will give an outlook on future crypto prices based on purpose-built algorithms, machine learning and data scraping from major exchanges. Venmo of AfricaBinance’s newly unveiled social payments app Bundle targeted towards the African market allows users to transfer cash, and buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies. (Forbes) Crypto for CubaThe Qbita Exchange, a decentralized Bitcoin exchange, has launched in Cuba, reports Decrypt. The app is mobile-friendly, features a built-in wallet and requires little bandwidth, meaning it might succeed where other exchanges have failed on the island nation beset by sanctions and poor internet service. (Decrypt) Libra’s TimelineThe Libra Association’s recent decision to scale back its hopes of a fully decentralized global currency to meet the demands of hostile regulators and governments is just the latest turn in a two-year saga. CoinDesk has been tracking the project every step of the way and now provides the comprehensive timeline.“Bookmark this article, because we’ll keep updating it as the story continues to unfold,”writes CoinDesk’s dogged reporter and editor Nikhilesh De. Paywall Provider, PopperYou can nowget paid to use Zoom, thanks to a new Ethereum-based protocol called SmartSessions. Developed by 2key New Economics, the system generates a personalized Zoom link, sets up a paywall and allows people to enter the chat after anETHpayment. New FeatureSecuritize will now allow retail investors to buy and sell security tokens by clicking a web link. The “Instant Access” peer-to-peer trading feature runs on the Ethereum mainnet. After swinging wildly for most of this year, the price ofbitcoin is now back to roughly where it started 2020– around $7,100. The flat year-to-date indicates the cryptocurrency is keeping pace with the U.S. currency, and even outperforming national currencies like the euro, British pound and Canadian dollar. This insight is from First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. You cansign up here. History of MoneyLuke Gromen, founder of Forest From The Trees, joins NLW on the latest episode of The Breakdown to discuss the history of money – from Bretton Woods to the rise of quantitative easing – and how it came to pass thatthe Federal Reserve is the only sugar daddy left. Bitcoin in AfricaIn the final episode Bitcoin in Africa series, we join Anita Posch as she travels to Botswana and speaks with Alakanani Itireleng on bitcoin’s present and potential future in the“original home of the honey badger.” • Blockchain Bites: Ripple Sues YouTube, Monero Hits the Box Office and Draper Wants Crypto Everywhere • First Mover: What the Oil Price Collapse Means for Bitcoin’s Halving Valuation [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 8790.37, 8906.93, 8835.05, 9181.02, 9525.75, 9439.12, 9700.41, 9461.06, 10167.27, 9529.80
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 for 2016-05-25] BTC Price: 449.60, BTC RSI: 51.85 Gold Price: 1223.50, Gold RSI: 36.00 Oil Price: 49.56, Oil RSI: 71.31 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] 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 apologized 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 gray-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 decentralized 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, skeptical 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 judgment 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, decentralized 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) || BTC to Provide Prepaid Electricity: NASSAU, BAHAMAS--(Marketwired - Apr 13, 2016) - Metered and prepaid electricity will soon become a reality as the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) has started testing the service in Spanish Wells, Eleuthera. Prepaid metering allows customers to better manage their electricity use and bills via BTC's 4G LTE data network. BTC CEO Leon Williams said, "With this accomplishment, BTC will become the first Telecommunications Provider in the Caribbean region to leverage its network to provide smart-grid services to the utility industry. BTC's prepaid service eliminates monthly bills, disconnections, and visits to the utility office, while providing the tools necessary to save money on utilities. It's also a step ahead for utility companies who can reduce accounts receivable and transition the management of accounts to the customer." CEO at St. George's Cay Power Limited, Morris Pinder said, "We have been using the BTC prepaid metering solution for about a month now, and thus far everything is going well. In Spanish Wells we have several business owners that operate rental units and prepaid metering will be beneficial as renters will be responsible for their power usage. I'm certain that it will also be beneficial for persons that may have problems paying for electricity." Prepaid metering provides an added layer of flexibility for customers. This tech-savvy solution will use BTC's 4G LTE data network, and will allow customers to top up their accounts using their existing mobile wallet, wherever BTC top-up is available, online and via the BTC Call Center. Consumers will have the ability of monitoring their usage using their smart devices. The prepaid metering system provides notifications, letting customers know when their balances are low and prompting them to top up again. The system can also be customized to allow customers to also pay down on their existing bills. Over the next several months, BTC expects to complete its POC and extend the opportunity to local utility providers. Later this year, BTC will also work with a provider to spearhead a prepaid metering concept for water usage. Story continues About BTC BTC is the national leader in communications services in The Bahamas. The Company offers a full suite of landline, broadband and mobile solutions for residential and enterprise customers. BTC is the 2015 winner of the globally renowned sales and business development Stevie Awards. The Company captured the Silver Award for the National Sales Executive of the Year and the Bronze Award for Sales Team of the Year. BTC is also the 2015 winner of the Gold and Silver medals in the regional Association of Directory Publishers (ADP) Awards. BTC won two First Place Gold Medals for 'Excellence in Cover Design & Art - Product Branding' and 'Excellence in Cover Design & Art - Print'. The company captured the Second Place Silver Medal for 'Excellence in Print Directories'. The Company is also committed to community building and in 2015 alone has been title sponsor of several national initiatives including One Bahamas, The High School Nationals, CARIFTA Swim and Track & Field Teams, IAAF/BTC World Relays and the Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival. Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2992119 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2992121 || Bitcoin exchange Coinbase to add ether currency to trading platform: (Adds quotes, details about ether, and byline) By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase said on Thursday it will add digital currency ether on its trading platform next Tuesday. The addition of ether comes given the surge in interest in the digital asset among major financial institutions such as Barclays and UBS as well as other enterprises worldwide like IBM, which are trying to explore the Ethereum network. Ether is the digital currency for the Ethereum platform, a blockchain, or public ledger that can create decentralized applications. Ethereum, which uses ether to execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically without the need for intermediaries, was co-founded and invented by 22-year old Russian Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin. "We're very excited about Ethereum. There has been a ton of progress made in the last six to nine months," said Adam White, vice president of business development at Coinbase in an interview with Reuters. "We have seen hundreds of emerging decentralized apps (applications) launched on Ethereum." He added that bitcoin cannot mirror Ethereum's "scripting language," so both bitcoin and ether can co-exist and will not necessarily compete with each other. Coinbase also plans to change the name of its platform to GDAX (Global Digital Asset Exchange), said White. The name Coinbase, however, will be retained for its retail service such as exchanging dollars for bitcoin or ether, he added. Coinbase, widely believed to be the largest bitcoin-focused company in terms of investment, will offer ether/dollar and ether/bitcoin currency pairs on GDAX. The name change was made because the company will add more digital assets for trading on its exchange, White said. According to coinmarketcap.com, ether is trading at $14.28 late on Thursday, with a market capitalization of about $1.1 billion, the second largest behind bitcoin. Bitcoin currently has a market cap of $6.9 billion. Daily volume for ether is around $48 million, while average daily volume for bitcoin is $87.2 million. Story continues At the beginning of the year, ether traded at just $1 per token and it is the fastest-rising digital currency. White said ether will be available on GDAX in most states except New York because Coinbase is still in the process of applying for a license in the state. Coinbase's move to add ether trading to its currency exchange platform came after New York approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade ether on its exchange. "What's powerful about ethereum is that I can write self-executing contracts and I can run them on Ethereum and it's not on any central server or computer," said White. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Bernard Orr) || Here's why 21 is the most exciting bitcoin company right now: Before 21 Inc. had even put out a product, it had raised $121 million in venture funding —the most of any bitcoin company. It was unclear, for months, what 21 would actually do or make. But some of the biggest names in fintech funding, including Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and the Winklevoss brothers, were interested enough to invest. Then things started to move very quickly. In February, 21 released its first product—and it was hardware, a rarity among bitcoin companies. It was the 21 bitcoin computer, which allows for mining the cryptocurrency as well as building applications on top of the bitcoin blockchain, the open-source, decentralized ledger that underlies bitcoin . The computer, which runs on Raspberry Pi (a small, single-board programming computer launched in 2012), sells for $400 and is about the length of an iPhone. It attracted a lot of buzz and attention in the bitcoin world. The 21.co bitcoin computer Last week, at the bitcoin conference Consensus , 21 CEO Balaji Srinivasan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, moved the company’s purview forward again. He announced that the 21 software can now be installed on any Mac or Linux-compatible system (Windows is coming soon), and eventually will come to mobile phones. “Every computer is now a bitcoin computer,” he said. And this is why 21 is arguably the single most exciting bitcoin company right now. Most people on Wall Street, as well as regular, everyday investors (and Yahoo Finance readers like you) still don’t quite understand what bitcoin is, or why it matters. Many think it’s a scam or some kind of illegal tool for hackers. (The negative publicity around stories like the Silk Road trial didn’t help.) Srinivasan’s argument is: You don’t need to know what it is or how it works for it to be important to your digital life. He explains it this way to a layperson: “I ask people, ‘Do you use Linux?’ They’ll probably say no. But if you’re using Google.com, or Facebook.com, or Yahoo.com, you actually are using Linux, even if you don’t know it. So Linux is there, everywhere, it’s just behind the scenes, and it just sounds very technical because it solves problems for developers. And I think it’s going to be the same thing with bitcoin.” Story continues Srinivasan frames bitcoin as the next major “system resource” in computing, something that will be a key component in every computer, just like a hard drive, RAM, and bandwidth. Bitcoin, he says, can be the resource that computers trade with other computers (without you having to worry about it), creating a “machine economy.” Once a computer can send a small amount of money as part of its operating system, “it can effectively rent or sell resources to other computers,” Srinivasan says. That was the idea behind the bitcoin computer: “If you had 500 of these things, what could they do together?” So, what can they do together? For starters, you could earn a small amount of money (yes, in bitcoin, but a wide range of platforms now exist for quickly converting bitcoin to U.S. dollars , if that’s what you’d prefer) every time you visit a certain URL. On stage at Consensus, Srinivasan described it thusly : "Every time you load a webpage is a HTTP request. That’s a lot of HTTP requests. If you are earning bitcoin on every HTTP request, that could be a lot of earned bitcoins." This could get exciting for media companies, in particular, with paywalls. For years, print newspapers and magazines have struggled with how to charge readers for access to their content online. Paywalls have only been successful for a select few publications, mostly because of the friction created by the moment when you, a reader in a hurry, have to enter your credit card information. In the future that 21 envisions, your computer could cough up a small fee on its own every time you visit a publication's web site, or even every time you want to read a single article. If this process could become truly seamless, it would have major implications for digital journalism as an alternate revenue stream from selling digital ads, which has severe flaws. But this doesn’t just apply to journalism. It's much, much bigger than that. On the machine web, where computers can accept and send small amounts of money instantly, there would no longer be a need to ever enter your credit card information online. The concept would improve the experience of shopping at Amazon or any other e-tailer, or sending a donation to a Kickstarter campaign, or any instance when you need to send money online. This, after all, has been the value proposition of bitcoin’s rails since its inception—cutting down on the usual transfer fees, delays, and general friction you face when sending money through banks. And 21's vision should be exciting to everyone, not just developers who understand bitcoin, or speculators who have bought bitcoin as an investment. It should be exciting to anyone who has ever sat at their computer, aggravated and impatient, filling out a credit card form online. “One way of thinking about it is, the 21 software makes bitcoin a part of your operating system,” Srinivasan says. “Over time, what we think that will do is increase demand for bitcoin as a resource.” Of course, the rah-rah-bitcoin train has slowed recently, on the whole, as banks and big financial institutions have gone gaga over blockchain without bitcoin. But along with a handful of other companies that are doubling down on the cryptocurrency, like Coinbase , Srinivasan and 21 are betting that it’s still the digital coin that will prove to be the major innovation—not closed, permissioned blockchains. Big business will eventually come around to bitcoin, Srinivasan insists. He compares it to online dating, which once had something of a stigma around it that, today, has all but disappeared. “It was like, it’s for nerds, it’s for nerds, it’s for nerds,” he says, “and then suddenly, oh, here’s Tinder, and now it’s totally flipped and normal and you’d be crazy not to date that way.” For now, to most of the mainstream economy, it’s still the bitcoin believers who look like the crazy ones. Srinivasan is just fine with that. Check back with Yahoo Finance later this summer, when we will test out what the 21 bitcoin computer can do in a follow-up story and video. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite . Read more: Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever How Circle aims to use blockchain to win the payment-app war How big banks are paying lip service to the blockchain Bitcoin's biggest investor just bought its biggest news site || 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. Contact: James Pulver, CEO SOURCE:Coin Citadel || Rocky Mountain Ayre to Launch Crypto-Currency Marketplace: DOVER, DE--(Marketwired - May 10, 2016) - Rocky Mountain Ayre, Inc., a holding company ( OTC PINK : RMTN ) is pleased to announce that it is ready to launch a brand new feature to its Hempcoin website ( www.hempcoin.com ). Hempcoin has developed the first of its kind Crypto-Currency marketplace for goods and services to be offered and purchased using Bitcoin and Hempcoin as the sole means of payment. Users can now offer goods and services for sale on Hempcoin crypto marketplace and get paid with Bitcoin or Hempcoin. The price of the listed products or services in BTC or HMP implicitly changes according to the current rate on the exchanges. This can potentially protect sellers from loss and buyers from over paying due to the constant market price fluctuation of the Crypto- Currencies. Users can also transfer Bitcoin or Hempcoin between each other within seconds without the need to pay any exchange fees. It is a very secure and easy to use. Hempcoin currently trades on two Crypto-Currency exchanges, C-Cex and Yobit , and plans on adding several more in the near future. About Hempcoin Hempcoin (HMP) runs on its own peer-to-peer blockchain like Bitcoin (BTC) but at a faster rate because it is using the script technique like LiteCoin. So in addition to having the advantage of being able to move HMP around faster than BTC, HMP is backed by the marketable securities of RMTN. BTC is strictly a fiat currency like the US Dollar, however, BTC has the potential to go up in value against the Dollar because of supply and demand factors and HMP has this same built in advantage because unlike the Dollar, both BTC and HMP have a limited amount of coins in circulation, while the Dollar is ever increasing in supply. About Rocky Mountain, Inc. Rocky Mountain Ayre, is a publicly traded company listed on the OTCmarkets under the "RMTN" trading symbol. It is a holding company increasing its asset and revenue base through acquisition and/or creation of operating entities. The Company currently has two entities in its portfolio and is focusing its efforts on its Crypto-Currency, Hempcoin, at this time. Safe Harbor Statement This Press Release may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company has tried, whenever possible, to identify these forward-looking statements using words such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "plans," "intends," "potential" and similar expressions. These statements reflect the Company's current beliefs and are based upon information currently available to it. Accordingly, such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or advise in the event of any change, addition or alteration to the information catered in this Press Release including such forward-looking statements. || For real? Australian entrepreneur says he's bitcoin’s inventor: Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright says he's the inventor of the digital currency bitcoin (:BTC=) . Wright told the BBC that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the shadowy creator of the cryptocurrency, in a move that could end the years-long search for the inventor. In a follow-up blog post on Monday, Wright thanked everyone who helped out in bitcoin's beginnings. "I have been staring at my screen for hours, but I cannot summon the words to express the depth of my gratitude to those that have supported the bitcoin project from its inception — too many names to list. You have dedicated vast swathes of your time, committed your gifts, sacrificed relationships and REM sleep for years to an open source project that could have come to nothing. And yet still you fought. This incredible community's passion and intellect and perseverance has taken my small contribution and nurtured it, enhanced it, breathed life into it. You have given the world a great gift. Thank you," Wright wrote. "Be assured, just as you have worked, I have not been idle during these many years. Since those early days, after distancing myself from the public persona that was Satoshi, I have poured every measure of myself into research. I have been silent, but I have not been absent. I have been engaged with an exceptional group and look forward to sharing our remarkable work when they are ready." To prove his claim, Wright digitally signed a message using the cryptographic keys that were associated with the creator and was backed up by experts. "These are the blocks used to send 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney in January [2009] as the first bitcoin transaction," Wright told the BBC. Wright said Finney helped turn his vision of bitcoin into reality. Jon Matonis, co-founder of the nonprofit Bitcoin Foundation, said he believed Wright's claims after seeing the same demonstration. "During the London proof sessions, I had the opportunity to review the relevant data along three distinct lines: cryptographic, social and technical. Based on what I witnessed, it is my firm belief that Craig Steven Wright satisfies all three categories," Matonis wrote in a blog post on Monday. Story continues "The social evidence, including his unique personality, early emails that I received, and early drafts of the Bitcoin white paper, points to Craig as the creator. I also received satisfactory explanations to my questions about registering the bitcoin.org domain and the various time-of-day postings to the BitcoinTalk forum. Additionally, Craig's technical working knowledge of public key cryptography, Bitcoin's addressing system, and proof-of-work consensus in a distributed peer-to-peer environment is very strong." For years, news organizations have been investigating who the real founder of bitcoin is, with several names being mentioned. Someone or a group of people called "Satoshi Nakamoto" was always associated with the invention of the cryptocurrency, but nobody knew who was behind the name. In 2014 , Newsweek said that the bitcoin creator was a 64-year-old Japanese-American living in California named Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin has gained a notorious reputation as a currency that allows people to anonymously buy illegal items online. But it's also accepted as a form of payment by many companies, including Microsoft ( MSFT ) . Many financial institutions have begun looking at ways to use blockchain , the technology that underpins bitcoin. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || What to do if hackers hold your computer hostage and demand cash: You’re sitting at your computer when you get an email from your local bank saying you were just hit with a charge for a new $1,200 MacBook that you never bought. You click the email and follow the embedded link or download the included receipt to find out what’s up. Just like that, your computer has been infected with ransomware. You can’t access your files, and all you can see is a timer counting down the time until hackers delete your computer’s drive unless you pay them a fee in iTunes gift cards. All you can do is scratch your head and wonder what the hell just happened. Well, I’m here to explain that to you — and to help you fight back against ransomware criminals. The most important thing to remember is this: Never, ever pay the ransom. Let’s start with the basics. A particularly nefarious form of malware, ransomware is a piece of software criminals use to lock you out of your computer by encrypting its files and holding them for ransom for a specific dollar amount. If you don’t pay up, you can potentially say goodbye to your photos, tax documents, pay stubs, and any other documents you’ve saved throughout the years. This isn’t some idle threat, either. If you don’t pay, your documents will disappear or simply stay locked up until you completely reformat your system. Ransomware programs sometimes require you to pay in Bitcoin, an anonymous currency that can’t be tracked. However, criminals have increasingly begun demanding payment in the form of iTunes or Amazon gift cards, since the average person doesn’t know how to use Bitcoin, according to Gary Davis, chief consumer security evangelist at Intel Security. The amount you have to pay to unlock your computer can vary, with some experts saying criminals will ask for up to $500. To be clear, ransomware doesn’t just target Windows PCs. The malware has been known to impact systems ranging from Android phones and tablets to Linux-based computers and Macs. According to Davis, ransomware was actually popular among cybercriminals over a decade ago. But it was far easier to catch the perpetrators back then since anonymous currency like Bitcoin didn’t exist yet. Bitcoin helped changed all that by making it nearly impossible to track criminals based on how victims pay them. There are multiple types of ransomware out there, according to Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisor with the computer security company Sophos. Each variation is tied to seven or eight criminal organizations. Those groups build the software and then sell it on the black market, where other criminals purchase it and then begin using it for their own gains. Ransomware doesn’t just pop up on your computer by magic. You actually have to download it. And while you could swear up and down that you’d never be tricked into downloading malware, cybercriminals get plenty of people to do just that. Here’s the thing: That email you opened to get ransomware on your computer in the first place was specifically written to get you to believe it was real. That’s because criminals use social engineering to craft their messages. For example, hackers can determine your location and send emails that look like they’re from companies based in your country. “Criminals are looking are looking up information about where you live, so you’ll click (emails),” Wisniewski explained to Yahoo Finance. “So if you’re in America, you’ll see something from Citi Bank, rather than Deutsche Bank, which is in Germany.” Cybercriminals can also target ransomware messages to the time of year. So if it’s the holiday shopping season, criminals might send out messages supposedly from companies like the US Postal Service, FedEx or DHL. If it’s tax time, you could receive a message that says it’s from the IRS. Other ransomware messages might claim the FBI has targeted you for using illegal software or viewing child pornography on your computer. Then, the message will tell you to click a link to a site to pay a fine — only to lock up your computer after you click. It’s not just email, though. An attack known as a drive-by can get you if you simply visit certain websites. That’s because criminals have the ability to inject their malware into ads or links on poorly secured sites. When you go to such a site, you’ll download the ransomware. Just like that, you’re locked out of your computer. Ransomware attacks vulnerabilities in outdated versions of software. So, believe it or not, the best way to protect yourself is to constantly update your operating system’s software and apps like Adobe Reader. That means you should always click that little “update” notification on your desktop, phone, or tablet. Don’t put it off. Beyond that, you should always remember to back up your files. You can either do that by backing them up to a cloud service like Amazon Cloud, Google Drive or iCloud, or by backing up to an external drive. That said, you’ll want to be careful with how you back up your content. That’s because, according to Kaspersky Lab’s Ryan Naraine, some ransomware can infect your backups. Naraine warns against staying logged into your cloud service all the time, as some forms of malware can lock you out of even them. What’s more, if you’re backing up to an external hard drive, you’ll want to disconnect it from your PC when you’re finished, or the ransomware could lock that, as well. Naraine also says you should disconnect your computer from the internet if you see your system being actively encrypted. Doing so, he explains, could prevent all of your files that have yet to be encrypted from being locked. Above all, every expert I spoke with recommended installing some form of anti-virus software and some kind of web browser filtering. With both types of software installed, your system up to date, and a backup available, you should be well-protected. Oh, and for the love of god, avoid downloading any suspicious files or visiting sketchy websites. Even if you follow all of the above steps, ransomware could still infect your computer or mobile device. If that’s the case, you have only a few options. The first and easiest choice is to delete your computer or mobile device and reinstall your operating system. You’ll lose everything, but you won’t have to pay some criminal who’s holding your files hostage. Some security software makers also sell programs that can decrypt your files. That said, by purchasing one, you’re betting that it will work on the ransomware on your computer, which isn’t always the case. On top of that, ransomware makers can update their malware to beat security software makers’ offerings. All of the experts agree that the average person should never pay the ransom — even if it means losing their files. Doing so, they say, helps perpetuate a criminal act and emboldens ransomware makers. Even if you do pay up, the ransomware could have left some other form of malware on your computer that you might not see. In other words: Tell the criminals to take a hike. Email Daniel atdhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at@DanielHowley. || "I'm sorry" - Craig Wright on lack of evidence he created bitcoin: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright, who earlier this week said he would provide "extraordinary proof" that he was the creator of digital currency bitcoin, will not provide any further evidence, according to a post on his blog on Thursday. Although Wright did not renege on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto - the name, assumed to be pseudonymous, of the person or group who created the web-based currency in 2008 - the U-turn was taken by many bitcoin experts as confirmation of their suspicions that the claims were false. "I believed that I could do this. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me," Wright wrote. "But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot." 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. Various attempts have been made to identify its elusive creator, but Wright's claims stood out due to the high-profile endorsements they received. Lead bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen and bitcoin consultant Jon Matonis both wrote blogs on Monday endorsing Wright's claims, saying they had been shown proof by Wright that he was Nakamoto. Wright said on Thursday that Andresen and Matonis had not been deceived, but "that the world will never believe that now". "I think he's significantly less likely to be Satoshi than any other person that's been suggested," another lead bitcoin developer, Peter Todd, told Reuters, referring to others who have been suspected of being bitcoin's creator. "PLAIN FISHY" After coming under pressure to provide more credible evidence that he was bitcoin's creator, Wright had blogged on Monday that he would provide "independently verifiable documents and evidence" that would back up his claims. The post could no longer be found on his blog site. Story continues "The possibility that Wright is Satoshi will always exist, but given the amount of evidence calling that into doubt, I think one would be foolish to give that possibility much weight," said Jerry Brito, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based digital currency advocacy group Coin Center. "He's provided no cryptographic evidence verifiable by the public, and many of his answers sound plain fishy... Today's statement on his blog only further tarnishes his credibility." Wright's representatives declined to give any comments on his decision to back away from providing further evidence, but said he was still their client. They believed he was still in London, where he has been living for the past few months. Interviews with some who had done business with Wright in Australia in December, when reports by Wired and Gizmodo that he could be Nakamoto first emerged, and an inspection of documents published by the two tech news websites, painted a complex picture of Wright. They pointed to a smart but sometimes abrasive figure facing growing legal and financial problems at least in part caused by his involvement with bitcoin. Each bitcoin is currently worth around $447 , making the 15 million or so in circulation worth a total of around $7 billion. Wright said his failure to produce better evidence would cause "great damage to those that had supported" him, in particular Matonis and Andresen. "I can only say I'm sorry. And goodbye," Wright wrote. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Toby Chopra) || Former regulator turns Bitcoin tech advocate: By Mike Kentz NEW YORK, April 13 (IFR) - Former New York state financial services chief Benjamin Lawsky may have taken a harsh view of virtual currency as a regulator, but he has begun to stump for the technology behind it. The man accused of implementing tough regulations on Bitcoins and other online currency now heads a consultancy that is acting as an adviser and media liaison for one of the sector's major new players. The Lawsky Group, which provides legal and strategic counsel for clients on financial regulation issues, was the press contact last week for Axoni, a blockchain technology firm. Axoni was promoting its successful test of blockchain technology into the back office settlement process for derivatives transactions. "We'll be doing a broad range of financial consultancy ... and some financial technology public relations," said Lawsky Group spokesman Matthew Anderson. Anderson was spokesman for the Department of Financial Services, the state regulator where Lawsky was accused of slowing the development of virtual currencies. Lawsky said last June he wanted to "put in place guard rails that protect consumers and root out illicit activity without stifling beneficial innovation". Though some Bitcoin proponents welcomed the safeguards, Lawsky's about-face now that he is profiting from the technology in the private sector has miffed more than a few observers. "I think the most interesting thing about Mr Lawsky's newest venture is that it highlights the cozy relationship between regulators and the regulated industry," Pamela Morgan, CEO of Third Key Solutions, told IFR. Morgan, whose company consults for other companies that use digital currencies such as Bitcoin, called Lawsky's new role "crony capitalism at its finest". Lawsky's spokesman did not respond to two requests for further detail about his work, though others saw no problem with it. "I think it is fantastic that he has entered the private sector and continued to support the Bitcoin/blockchain space," said Adam Draper, CEO of Boost VC, a venture capital firm focused on blockchain and other virtual technologies. Some suggest the addition of public relations brings out a strength that helped raise Lawsky's profile in the first place - his ability to interact with the media. (Reporting by Mike Kentz; Editing by Jack Doran and Marc Carnegie) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] #BTA Price: Bittrex 0.00001978 BTC YoBit 0.00001710 BTC Bleutrade 0.00001805 BTC #BTA 2016-05-04 02:00 pic.twitter.com/uN1tHqGMyM || Bittrex POT/BTC Vol.:$ 428(68.47 %) Poloniex POT/BTC Vol.:$ 197(31.53 %) Bleutrade POT/DOGE Vol.:$ 0(0.00 %) Bleutrade POT/BTC Vol.:$ 0(0… || @clairedonato Weird. I'm staring at my Bitcoin wallet listening to this http://www.sethandjessicasing.com  || Order your secure and smart Bitcoin hardware wallet - Only 34.80 EUR https://www.ledgerwallet.com/r/4518?path=/products/1-ledger-nano … #bitcoin #btc 00:17 pic.twitter.com/EmLtjY2GCb || 1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000034 BTC YoBit 0.00000077 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000029 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-05-20 00:00 pic.twitter.com/17zarLhB2A || Bitstamp: $449.00/BTC - last trade of USD/BTC at https://www.bitstamp.net/  (high: 449.60, low: 443.58) #bitcoin #BTC http://bitcoinautotrade.com  || #Dotcoin #DOT $ 0.000049 (1.27 %) 0.00000011 BTC (5.52 %) || One Bitcoin now worth $441.64@bitstamp. High $442.90. Low $435.00. Market Cap $ 6.882 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/ECB3vuVNTl || #8BitCoin #8BIT $ 0.014727 (1.33 %) 0.00003250 BTC (0.00 %) || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 18 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $276.37 #bitcoin #btc
Trend: up || Prices: 453.38, 473.46, 530.04, 526.23, 533.86, 531.39, 536.92, 537.97, 569.19, 572.73
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Your first trade for Monday, June 6: The " Fast Money " traders shares which trades they'd make on Monday. Tim Seymour was a buyer of the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE Arca: EEM) . Steve Grasso was a buyer of Under Armour (NYSE: UA) . Brian Kelly as a buyer of the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX) . Guy Adami was a buyer of United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) . Trader disclosure: On June 3, 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. Steve Grasso is long BA, CC, EVGN, KBH, MJNA, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, UA, GDX KIDS OWN: EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY Stuart Frankel & Co Inc. and some of its Partners: CAH, PHM, TEVA, AAPL, UAL, TOL, 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 is long Bitcoin, US Dollar; he is short Australian Dollar, Euro, Hong Kong Dollar, Yuan Short. Tim Seymour is long AAPL, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, EDC, EWZ, F, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GRMN, GE, GLNCY, INTC, LQD, M, MCD, MPEL, NKE, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, UA, VALE, VZ, XOM. 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, WYNN, XRT. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Here's why 21 is the most exciting bitcoin company right now: Before 21 Inc. had even put out a product,it had raised $121 million in venture funding—the most of any bitcoin company. It was unclear, for months, what 21 would actually do or make. But some of the biggest names in fintech funding, including Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and the Winklevoss brothers, were interested enough to invest. Then things started to move very quickly. In February, 21 released its first product—and it was hardware, a rarity among bitcoin companies. It was the 21 bitcoin computer, which allows for mining the cryptocurrency as well as building applications on top of the bitcoinblockchain, the open-source, decentralized ledger that underlies bitcoin. The computer, which runs on Raspberry Pi (a small, single-board programming computer launched in 2012), sells for $400 and is about the length of an iPhone. It attracted a lot of buzz and attention in the bitcoin world. Last week,at the bitcoin conference Consensus, 21 CEO Balaji Srinivasan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, moved the company’s purview forward again. He announced that the 21 software can now be installed on any Mac or Linux-compatible system (Windows is coming soon), and eventually will come to mobile phones. “Every computer is now a bitcoin computer,” he said. And this is why 21 is arguably the single most exciting bitcoin company right now. Most people on Wall Street, as well as regular, everyday investors (and Yahoo Finance readers like you) still don’t quite understand what bitcoin is, or why it matters. Many think it’s a scam or some kind of illegal tool for hackers. (The negative publicity around stories like the Silk Road trial didn’t help.) Srinivasan’s argument is: You don’t need to know what it is or how it works for it to be important to your digital life. He explains it this way to a layperson: “I ask people, ‘Do you use Linux?’ They’ll probably say no. But if you’re using Google.com, or Facebook.com, or Yahoo.com, you actually are using Linux, even if you don’t know it. So Linux is there, everywhere, it’s just behind the scenes, and it just sounds very technical because it solves problems for developers. And I think it’s going to be the same thing with bitcoin.” Srinivasan frames bitcoin as the next major “system resource” in computing, something that will be a key component in every computer, just like a hard drive, RAM, and bandwidth. Bitcoin, he says, can be the resource that computers trade with other computers (without you having to worry about it), creating a “machine economy.” Once a computer can send a small amount of money as part of its operating system, “it can effectively rent or sell resources to other computers,” Srinivasan says. That was the idea behind the bitcoin computer: “If you had 500 of these things, what could they do together?” So, whatcanthey do together? For starters, you could earn a small amount of money (yes, in bitcoin, but a wide range of platforms now existfor quickly converting bitcoin to U.S. dollars, if that’s what you’d prefer) every time you visit a certain URL. On stage at Consensus,Srinivasan described it thusly: "Every time you load a webpage is a HTTP request. That’s a lot of HTTP requests. If you are earning bitcoin on every HTTP request, that could be a lot of earned bitcoins." This could get exciting for media companies, in particular, with paywalls. For years, print newspapers and magazines have struggled with how to charge readers for access to their content online. Paywalls have only been successful for a select few publications, mostly because of the friction created by the moment when you, a reader in a hurry, have to enter your credit card information. In the future that 21 envisions, your computer could cough up a small fee on its own every time you visit a publication's web site, or even every time you want to read a single article. If this process could become truly seamless, it would have major implications for digital journalism as an alternate revenue stream from selling digital ads, which has severe flaws. But this doesn’t just apply to journalism. It's much, much bigger than that. On the machine web, where computers can accept and send small amounts of money instantly, there would no longer be a need to ever enter your credit card information online. The concept would improve the experience of shopping at Amazon or any other e-tailer, or sending a donation to a Kickstarter campaign, or any instance when you need to send money online. This, after all, has been the value proposition of bitcoin’s rails since its inception—cutting down on the usual transfer fees, delays, and general friction you face when sending money through banks. And 21's vision should be exciting to everyone, not just developers who understand bitcoin, or speculators who have bought bitcoin as an investment. It should be exciting to anyone who has ever sat at their computer, aggravated and impatient, filling out a credit card form online. “One way of thinking about it is, the 21 software makes bitcoin a part of your operating system,” Srinivasan says. “Over time, what we think that will do is increase demand for bitcoin as a resource.” Of course, the rah-rah-bitcoin train has slowed recently, on the whole, asbanks and big financial institutions have gone gaga over blockchainwithout bitcoin. But along with a handful ofother companies that are doubling down on the cryptocurrency, like Coinbase, Srinivasan and 21 are betting that it’s still the digital coin that will prove to be the major innovation—not closed, permissioned blockchains. Big business will eventually come around to bitcoin, Srinivasan insists. He compares it to online dating, which once had something of a stigma around it that, today, has all but disappeared. “It was like, it’s for nerds, it’s for nerds, it’s for nerds,” he says, “and then suddenly, oh, here’s Tinder, and now it’s totally flipped and normal and you’d be crazy not to date that way.” For now, to most of the mainstream economy, it’s still the bitcoin believers who look like the crazy ones. Srinivasan is just fine with that. Check back with Yahoo Finance later this summer, when we will test out what the 21 bitcoin computer can do in a follow-up story and video. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite. Read more: Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever How Circle aims to use blockchain to win the payment-app war How big banks are paying lip service to the blockchain Bitcoin's biggest investor just bought its biggest news site || Leon Cooperman Thinks The Hedge Fund Industry Is Under Attack: Hedge fund titan and CEO of Omega Advisors, Leon Cooperman, is concerned about the hedge fund industry's current environment. He is quoted as having warned, "The hedge-fund model is under challenge. It's under assault," according to a report onthe Wall Street Journal. The report said Cooperman was even considering whether it was worth running hedge funds at all. The report recalled the March announcement from Omega Advisors that "U.S. regulators intend to recommend civil charges against the firm for alleged violations of securities law." Cooperman has denied any misconduct, saying he "would defend himself and the firm." Many investors are withdrawing money from the hedge funds, as the tepid market environment makes it tough for them to deliver desired returns that don't commensurate with the high service fees charged. Related Link:Is The Hedge Fund Industry's "Midas Touch" Dwindling? The WSJ report said hedge funds typically charge higher fees than other money managers, usually 2 percent of assets under management and 20 percent of profits. "[F]ees are too high. I'm surprised they've stayed this high for this long," the report said quoting James Chanos, a prominent manager. Meanwhile, the report added that big investors are pulling money from hedge-fund bets and investing into other non-traditional assets such as private equity, real estate, toll roads and bridges. "Others are migrating to cheaper alternatives that mimic the strategies of hedge funds but at significantly lower cost," the report highlighted. "Total global hedge fund capital declined to $2.86 trillion in the first quarter, including investor outflows of $15.1 billion marking not only the largest quarterly outflow since the second quarter of 2009, but also the first consecutive quarters of outflows since 2009," according to apress releasefrom Hedge Fund Research. See more from Benzinga • Richmond Fed Describes Its Role In Designing New Bill • Can Bitcoin Resolve Central Bank Woes? • Feel The Bern Burn? Analyst Says Sanders Presidency Would Add Trillion To National Deficit © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 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. Story continues 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) || 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 || Germophobes Beware, The FDA Calls Into Question The Effectiveness Of Hand Sanitizer: Hand sanitizers kills 99.9 percent of germs and is effective in promoting health and wellness, right? Perhaps if this claim were true the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wouldn't find it necessary to initiate a probe and ask for new studies on its effectiveness. The Associated Pressreported on Wednesday that the federal health officials is requesting from companies that manufacture and sell hand sanitizers studies on how the antiseptic gels and rubs fight germs and get absorbed into the body. The FDA is undergoing a new initiative to review decades-old chemicals that have never had a comprehensive review by a federal agency. The agency did confirm that has no reason to believe at this time that the products are ineffective or unsafe. Ninety (90) percent of sanitizers sold to the public, including at schools and other public spaces, contain either ethanol or ethyl alcohol. Related Link:AbbVie Gets Fourth Breakthrough Therapy Designation From FDA For Ibrutinib "We're not trying to alarm people," said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's drug center. "Obviously ethanol and humans have co-existed for a long time, so there's a lot that's known about it." Nevertheless, the agency has concerns over the long-lasting consequences, if any, of frequent use by children and women of child-bearing age. Companies will have a full year to submit relevant information to the FDA and will take comments on its proposal for six months before finalizing it. See more from Benzinga • Elizabeth Warren: Apple, Google And Amazon Threaten Our Democracy • Winklevoss Twins Approach BATS Global Markets To List Bitcoin ETF • Lions Gate To Buy Starz For .4 Billion © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin is the new safe-haven asset: Analyst: Bitcoin is becoming as safe a haven as gold, one investment analyst told CNBC. The price of the cryptocurrency (: BTC=) has been rapidly rising in recent weeks. It traded above $730 per bitcoin at the end of last week, levels not since February 2014. According to Chris Burniske, a blockchain analyst and products lead at investment manager ARK Invest, the cryptocurrency could be referred to as digital gold, as it shares many of the characteristics that makes the precious metal a great store of value. "Bitcoin shares those same characteristics," Burniske told CNBC in a phone interview. "[Both have an] extremely limited supply and a relatively inert state. Bitcoin and gold can both be used: for example, gold is used in electronic circuits and bitcoin is used as payment. While gold (Exchange: XAU=) has performed well in recent months, rising 20 percent year to date, Burniske suggested investors should also consider diversifying into bitcoin. "When you look at the global markets, there's lots of fear, uncertainty and doubts. You've got people worrying about the equity markets [and] you've got people fleeing into bonds," he said. "While gold has had a bit of a run in 2016, over the last five year period it's been a terrible performing asset." "So you've got people starting to wonder where there are safe havens to store their assets. I think you have lot of people saying 'Hey we want to diversify a little bit' making allocations to bitcoin'." Some disagree that bitcoin should be considered a safe-haven asset. Vijay Michalik, research analyst at consultancy Frost & Sullivan, pointed out that bitcoin is still very volatile. "Bitcoin is still such a new innovation that the economics of its value aren't fully understood, and the price looks likely to remain moderately volatile in the medium term," he told CNBC in an email. "Volatility and the long-term unknowns involved in bitcoin's development stop it from being considered a safe-haven asset like gold. However, because bitcoin is unlinked to any one national currency or macroeconomic factor, it could be a good choice for portfolio diversification." Story continues The recent rise in value of the digital currency is mainly due to an upcoming change which will see bitcoin miners make less money for each block that they extract. This is likely to tighten the supply of bitcoins as fewer new coins enter the system. "In early July, the annual rate of supply inflation will be cut from 8 percent to 4 percent. In basic economics, you cut the supply in half but demand continues to increase, which we're seeing with bitcoin," said Burniske. But Burniske did highlight some risks facing the cryptocurrency in the near future. "There's the risk of the developer community not being able to come to consensus on how they want to scale bitcoin. This has been talked about for the better part of the last year," he said. "They have made a lot of progress; they are going to implement something called Segregated Witness and I think the network will scale." Segregated Witness will reduce the size of each bitcoin transaction, thereby increasing the number of transactions that can be processed at any given time. Another risk is to the security of the bitcoin's network. "Part of the concern around the upcoming block award change is that if those miners make less money, then they are less incentivised to throw machinery at the network to secure it." Meanwhile, gold remains a popular choice for investors looking for safety. Adrian Ash, head of research at investment gold service BullionVault, explained what advantages the precious metal has over other assets. "Throughout civilisation gold has been viewed as a well-established safe haven used to store value by all cultures in all ages across the word and has never gone to zero in recorded history," he told CNBC in an email. "As a physical asset gold cannot default or go bust and is protected by a strong property law which is simple, proven and universally understood." Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook . More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Bitcoin exchange Coinbase to add ether currency to trading platform: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase said on Thursday it will add digital currency ether on its trading platform next Tuesday. The addition of ether comes given the surge in interest in the digital asset among major financial institutions such as Barclays [BARCR.UL] and UBS [UBSAG.UL] as well as other enterprises worldwide like IBM (IBM.N), which are trying to explore the Ethereum network. Ether is the digital currency for the Ethereum platform, a blockchain, or public ledger that can create decentralized applications. Ethereum, which uses ether to execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically without the need for intermediaries, was co-founded and invented by 22-year old Russian Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin. "We're very excited about Ethereum. There has been a tonne of progress made in the last six to nine months," said Adam White, vice president of business development at Coinbase in an interview with Reuters. "We have seen hundreds of emerging decentralized apps (applications) launched on Ethereum." He added that bitcoin cannot mirror Ethereum's "scripting language," so both bitcoin and ether can co-exist and will not necessarily compete with each other. Coinbase also plans to change the name of its platform to GDAX (Global Digital Asset Exchange), said White. The name Coinbase, however, will be retained for its retail service such as exchanging dollars for bitcoin or ether, he added. Coinbase, widely believed to be the largest bitcoin-focused company in terms of investment, will offer ether/dollar and ether/bitcoin currency pairs on GDAX. The name change was made because the company will add more digital assets for trading on its exchange, White said. According to coinmarketcap.com, ether is trading at $14.28 late on Thursday, with a market capitalisation of about $1.1 billion, the second largest behind bitcoin. Bitcoin currently has a market cap of $6.9 billion. Daily volume for ether is around $48 million, while average daily volume for bitcoin is $87.2 million. Story continues At the beginning of the year, ether traded at just $1 per token and it is the fastest-rising digital currency. White said ether will be available on GDAX in most states except New York because Coinbase is still in the process of applying for a licence in the state. Coinbase's move to add ether trading to its currency exchange platform came after New York approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade ether on its exchange. "What's powerful about ethereum is that I can write self-executing contracts and I can run them on Ethereum and it's not on any central server or computer," said White. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Bernard Orr) || We could be set for a 'brave new world' of stock trading: (Wikipedia) Wall Street is excited about Blockchain. Nasdaq CEO Bob Greifeld has said his companyneeds to be a "rapid applier" of the technology.Autonomous Research has called the technology a "game changer." Goldman Sachs has saidthe use of blockchain technology instock trading could result in $6 billion in industry cost savings globally. There's no shortage of hype, but widespread implementation is still a long way away in the highly regulated financial services industry. While the rest of Wall Street watches, the Australia Securities Exchange (ASX) is pioneering the attempt to implement blockchain technology in a large scale market. The exchange is looking at replacing its clearing and settlement system with a blockchain solution, and will make a decision on whether to go through with the change by mid-2017. "The securities industry is experimenting with blockchain across the post-trade market," Morgan Stanley said in a research note titled 'Blockchain - Is ASX set to shape a brave new world?' "Within equities, the most progressed of these is the ASX-planned replacement of the central depository (CSD) with a blockchain solution. If successful, the implications could be significant across the securities value chain." Blockchain uses computers with advanced encryption to keep track of transactions, and the use of a blockchain solution in clearing and settlement has the potential to reduce costs, save time, and cut complexity. Goldman Sachs set out how thiscould work in a recent note.It said: Essentially, by enforcing agreement at the time of entry, blockchain could eliminate some of the most common post-trade issues and errors, such as incorrect settlement instructions or incorrect account/order details. Today, these details are confirmed/affirmed by multiple parties (DTCC, custodians, broker/dealer, clients) and multiple times throughout the life cycle of the trade. If blockchain could be fully implemented across these parties, many of these attributes could be included in a smart contract, thus becoming a pre-trade requirement to execute an order rather than a downstream, post-trade check that requires multiple parties to agree. The US bank said this would reduce duplications in affirming and reconciling trades, and help save the industry $6 billion globally. There are challenges however. The size and fragmented structure of stock markets in the US and European Union could slow the adoption of blockchain technology for example, according to Morgan Stanley. There are regulatory concerns too. This will only work on a large scale if global exchanges decide to follow suit and adopt the same standards.Without this, the market risks ending up with multiple systems with similar cost challenges as those faced today. That means the world will be watching what happens in Australia. "If the ASX "flicks the switch", this would increase the pace of innovation and disruption risk to the post-trade securities market,' Morgan Stanley said. NOW WATCH:This behavior could kill your chances in a Goldman Sachs interview More From Business Insider • A 'game changer' technology on Wall Street could shake up stock trading • THE BLOCKCHAIN REPORT: Why the technology behind Bitcoin is seeing widespread investment and early application across the finance industry • A hot stock-trading startup is venturing into China || Richmond Fed Describes Its Role In Designing New $20 Bill: While by now many are aware Harriet Tubman's likeness will replace that of Andrew Jackson on the new $20 bill, however, what is less circulated is the role the Currency Technology Office (CTO) at the Richmond Fed will play in minting the new money. The CTO is working closely with the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Federal Reserve System's Board of Governors to define machine-readable security features for the new notes. The CTO, which is the technical arm of the Fed's Cash Product Office (CPO), assists in testing how new bills run on the Federal Reserve's high-speed currency processing environment, including effectiveness of reading security features that are visible and invisible to the naked eye. Related Link: Insider: Federal Reserve Process Is Broken And Has Been For A While Highly Sophisticated, Anti-Counterfeit Technology According to Kiran Krishnamurthy, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond writer, "These high-speed machine inspections are one way the Federal Reserve inspects currency to detect counterfeit notes and helps ensure currency is fit for circulation." "We have to determine what the public and private security features in the bills will do when they're on our machines," Richmond Fed Senior Vice President Roland Costa said in a press release. Costa, who leads the CTO, cited an example, saying if a security feature is too shiny, it "could 'blind' the optical scanner on a high-speed currency processor." In order to determine whether an individual note is still fit for circulation or should be destroyed, the machine evaluates "152 fitness characteristics in a mere 0.025 seconds or less and with a 0.35 percent rejection rate across all denominations." Costa noted preparation and testing for new designs is likely to be more complex than in the past, "because the notes will include tactile features for the visually impaired for the first time." What's Next? In April, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the new $10 note is up next; he has instructed the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to work in tandem with the Federal Reserve to speed up the process for the $20 bill and the $5 bill. "We anticipate that final concept designs for the new $20, $10, and $5 notes will all be unveiled in 2020 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote," Costa added. See more from Benzinga Can Bitcoin Resolve Central Bank Woes? Feel The Bern Burn? Analyst Says Sanders Presidency Would Add Trillion To National Deficit Beyoncé Invests In Watermelon Water Company © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] 1 KOBO = 0.00000776 BTC = 0.0052 USD = 1.4671 NGN = 0.0757 ZAR = 0.5251 KES #Kobocoin 2016-07-01 21:00 pic.twitter.com/3tkyUyEEvd || $647.00 at 05:47 UTC [24h Range: $639.40 - $680.16 Volume: 4917 BTC] || 1 #bitcoin = $8450.00 MXN | $471.3 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 17.93MXN http://www.bitapeso.com  || $451.98 #coinbase; $451.88 #bitfinex; $450.70 #bitstamp; $450.00 #btce; Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse  #bitcoin #btc || Bitstamp: $687.06/BTC - last trade of USD/BTC at https://www.bitstamp.net/  (high: 725.00, low: 646.22) #bitcoin #BTC http://bitcoinautotrade.com  || #BTA Price: Bittrex 0.00000856 BTC YoBit 0.00000752 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000853 BTC #BTAprice 2016-07-02 06:00 pic.twitter.com/Q3j7vYgKa7 || Bitstamp: $756.36/BTC - last trade of USD/BTC at https://www.bitstamp.net/  (high: 764.93, low: 735.00) #bitcoin #BTC http://bitcoinautotrade.com  || Send a #Bitcoin at 00:00 AM to 1GUym8dmWSHVQviHeVCdorZU98ZEeAmuFg for The Innamincka Affair. http://tinyurl.com/zxqby3q  || #TrinityCoin #TTY $ 0.000007 (4.11 %) 0.00000001 BTC (-0.00 %) || Bittrex STV/BTC Vol.:$ 41(99.81 %) YoBit STV/BTC Vol.:$ 0(0.19 %) Cryptopia STV/BTC Vol.:$ 0(0.00 %) Cryptopia STV/DOGE Vol.:$ 0(0.00 %)
Trend: down || Prices: 683.66, 670.63, 677.33, 640.56, 666.52, 650.96, 649.36, 647.66, 664.55, 654.47
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 dips below $20,000: (Reuters) -Bitcoin dipped below $20,000 on Saturday, continuing a drop that has taken it down nearly 60% from its year high. Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, was last down 1.5% at $19,946 on Saturday, down $298 from its previous close. It is down 58.7% from the year's high of $48,234 hit on March 28. Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, meanwhile dipped 2.76 % to $1,467.2, losing $41.60 from its previous close. Bitcoin's fall comes after a weak day on Friday for the currency, which fell as Wall Street slumped with all three benchmarks ending more than 3% lower. The weakness in risk assets came after Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell cautioned against expecting a swift end to its rate tightening. The Fed's actions on interest rates has caused some investors to forecast more pain for equities. "Bitcoin broke below 20,000 as investors expect a weekend full of pessimism from Jackson Hole to drag down sentiment," Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA, said on Saturday. "European and Asian central bankers will likely be much more pessimistic than Fed Chair Powell and that has many traders bracing for a weak open on Sunday night," he added. Bitcoin was last below $20,000 in mid-July. (Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru and Megan Davies in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Chizu Nomiyama) View comments || The head of the SEC says most cryptocurrencies are operating illegally: There’s a legal test US regulators use to determine what qualifies as an investment contract, and therefore should be regulated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. And the head of the SEC says most cryptocurrencies pass it. “Of the nearly 10,000 tokens in the crypto market, I believe the vast majority are securities,” SEC chair Gary Gensler said in a Sept. 8 speech . “Offers and sales of these thousands of crypto security tokens are covered under the securities laws.” Read more World's Largest Cruise Ship to Be Scrapped Before First Voyage The real "Weird Al" Yankovic is admittedly shocked his lawyers let him make his fake biopic But What Will Become of Her Majesty’s Royal Corgis? Everything You Need to Know About This Year's Flu Shot<em></em><em></em><em></em><em></em> What to Do When You Can't Even Run Slowly In other words, as Gensler sees it, most of the crypto industry is operating illegally. This is not the first time the SEC chief has argued that most cryptocurrencies pass the so-called Howey Test, which stems from a 1946 US Supreme Court case. But his latest declaration comes as crypto prices are in a bear market or “crypto winter”—and regulation appears increasingly likely. Which regulatory regime should have authority over crypto? In his address, Gensler called on the operators of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins—tokens pegged to another asset like the US dollar—to “get their tokens registered and regulated.” He also pointed a finger at unregistered exchanges, both centralized and decentralized ones, to come under compliance. Crypto advocates—including some members of Congress—have pushed for any regulation to come from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rather than the SEC. Gensler, who ran the CFTC from 2009 to 2014, conceded that a minority of coins, including bitcoin, might not fully qualify as securities. “In the case of a small number of crypto non-security tokens, they might meet some parts of the Howey Test or other tests of a security, but not necessarily all of them, and may not be securities,” Gensler said. Story continues “Bitcoin, the first crypto token, is referred to by some as ‘digital gold’: trading like a precious metal, a speculative, scarce—yet digital—store of value,” he added, strongly implying that bitcoin specifically should be treated under commodities laws rather than the securities regime. Not all cryptocurrencies are created equal But immediately after suggesting bitcoin perhaps ought to be treated more like a commodity than a security, he assured the lawyers in his audience that their clients would likely not fare the same as bitcoin. Underscoring the differences, he asked: “I have a question for the lawyers in this audience. Do you represent any clients regarding their token projects? How exactly were you hired? Did you enter into an engagement letter? I’m going to guess that you had a client. I’m going to guess that you did not take on the work on behalf of a dispersed, unidentified group of individuals in an ‘ecosystem.’” The US government cracks down on crypto The SEC has been slow in prosecuting cryptocurrencies in recent years. The commission cracked down on initial coin offerings (ICOs) in 2018, sued stablecoin operator Ripple for conducting an illegal securities offering in 2020, charged crypto lender BlockFi for failing to register its high-yield lending program, and is investigating the popular exchange Coinbase for selling unregistered securities. But it’s been far from sweeping in its enforcement actions, rather opting to pick off cases one by one. Gensler has become accustomed to making forceful statements about his views on crypto while urging voluntary registration with the commission. In April, he said that only a few cryptocurrencies may not be securities , and he told Bloomberg in a televised interview in July that he sees “a lot of noncompliance” in the crypto industry. Meanwhile, the rest of the US government is upping its enforcement efforts of crypto-related crimes. The Washington Post reported on Sept. 8 that the US Treasury Department is readying a series of reports urging the White House to crack down on cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. The department recently sanctioned Tornado Cash , a crypto software protocol used by North Korean hackers. And the US Justice Department recently brought insider trading charges against former employees of Coinbase and OpenSea , a major marketplace for nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The Biden administration is signaling that it will crack down on crypto-related crimes whether or not they are illegal securities, and Gensler recently doubled the size of the SEC’s crypto assets enforcement division. But it’s still an open question, however, whether he will get more aggressive and speed up efforts to rein in an industry he sees as mostly illegal. || To Unplug or Double Down? Crypto Mining in Crypto Winter: Think crypto winter is painful? Try being a bitcoin miner. If you’re an investor who bought bitcoin when the price was north of $50,000, it can cause heartburn to stare at the screen and see your balance dwindle. But these are just paper losses. Unless you sell, no blood is drawn. Miners play a different game. As I explored in my recent deep dive into home bitcoin mining , generally speaking, there are three main variables that go into a miner’s cost-benefit analysis: the price of bitcoin, the cost of energy and the hashrate – or “difficulty level” (the mining competition) – of the network. For most of the 2021 bull run, home miners could find juicy profits with a do-it-yourself approach. Now the math has changed. “When bitcoin dipped below $36,000, I actually unplugged my bitcoin miners,” says one of the leaders of the home mining resurgence, a man who goes by the pseudonym @econoalchemist. His cost of electricity was relatively high, and after the price drop, he was mining at a loss. Because he had no fiat as a cushion (he’s a purist), this hardcore miner had to stop mining. The long-bearded Econoalchemist wears dark sunglasses and camouflage ball cap on our Zoom call. He looks like a younger member of ZZ Top. Bitcoin mining “has changed a lot” in the last few months, Econoalchemist acknowledges, but perhaps surprisingly, he shares that many miners are still “holding strong” and continuing to crank out bitcoin – even if it’s at a loss. It’s easy to get whiplash from the daily twists and turns of crypto, but a conversation with Econoalchemist gives a wider lens at what’s really happening in the mining business – and perhaps a glimpse of the future. Could a further price drop cause a mining crisis? Would the network itself be at risk? Econoalchemist has the answers (or at least solid guesses), and he now expects to emerge from the bear market in better shape than before, as “tough conditions force you to start making tough decisions.” Story continues This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Hello sir! When we last spoke, the price of bitcoin was around $44k. Today … it is not. (The price of bitcoin was roughly $20,000 during our conversation.) How have things changed for home miners since then? Econoalchemist: The thing you need to keep in mind about home miners is that usually they've got a day job. And their hobbies are usually funded out of pocket, with whatever disposable income they have. So if they can afford to spend 300 bucks a month on bitcoin, instead of using Cash App or whatever, they’ll use that 300 bucks to pay their electricity bill and get bitcoin that way, right? Most of these home miners have other sources of income. So what I've been seeing is that they’re still going to work every day, and they're still paying their electricity bill – because their energy costs aren't going up that much. And they're just continuing to mine and stack bitcoin. Read more: Is Miner Concentration Once Again Jeopardizing Bitcoin? Not Exactly Even at the lower prices? Even though there's a bitcoin price dip and even though they might technically be “mining at a loss” (he uses air quotes on the Zoom), they’re still continuing to do it. Wait, so bitcoin miners are actually sometimes mining at a loss, and they continue to do it? Yeah. The amount of money they're spending on electricity is more than the value of the bitcoin that they're earning for that day, but they can afford to do it. They've put all this time and effort into getting the infrastructure and learning the technology and setting up their home mining system. They're holding strong. Now, a lot of home miners were running S9s (the oldest, cheapest and least efficient of the mainstream application-specific integrated circuits or ASICs), and I have seen a lot of people unplugging those. At the beginning of the year, 30% of the overall bitcoin network hashrate was held up with S9 ASICs, and fast-forward to today, it’s more like 5%. The bitcoin price drop made S9s unprofitable? Yeah. If you go back to the beginning of the year, if bitcoin is trading at $50,000, then it makes sense to run any ASIC you can get your hands on. Even the most inefficient ASICs are still going to be profitable at those prices. Today, with the price at $20,000, those ASICs just aren't cutting it anymore. What else has changed? When the price of bitcoin went down, a couple of things happened. ASICs prices started to go down. To clarify, you mean the cost of the mining equipment? The S19s and the S9s? Yeah. In December and January, you were seeing brand-new S19 Pros that would sell for like $12,000. Now you’re seeing them sell for $4,500. This became a lot more feasible for people. Twelve grand is a lot of money for a lot of people, but four grand can make a lot more sense. So it might actually be easier to start mining. Interesting. How about you? Are you still mining, or did you unplug? Here's some irony for you. When bitcoin dipped below $36,000, I actually unplugged my bitcoin miners. I wouldn't have guessed that. You’re not holding strong? Here's the thing about me. My situation is a little bit different than most [home miners]. When I was saying most people have a fiat job and they're paying their electric bill out of pocket, you have to remember I was fired from my job in October last year. (He was fired after a dispute with his employer over COVID-19 vaccines, and then used that as a trigger to work on bitcoin full-time. More in my mining story .) Right, right. I have just been working for bitcoin ever since. And my electricity prices are like 20 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s really high. And when bitcoin dipped below $36,000, I had to sell more bitcoin, because I don’t have any fiat. No fiat at all? My bank account is $0. All my money is in bitcoin. When I earn money for my content, it's paid in bitcoin. When I want to pay my bills, I have to sell bitcoin to do that. And so my electricity bill is one of them. I was having to sell more bitcoin to pay the electricity bill than my miners were generating. When we continued to go down below $36k, I was like, "Dude, I can't be selling a million sats (satoshis) a month to earn 750,000 sats." You know what I mean? So I unplugged my miners. That sounds devastating. What’s your plan for the future? I've got that shipping container in my [backyard]. And I have arbitraged a very favorable electricity rate. I published a guide with Braiin's that shares how to do this. My new setup is going to be at a commercial rate, and it’s going to come out to around five cents a kilowatt hour. And you were at 20 cents before, so with my crude math … that lowers your operating costs by 75%, right? Right. But dude, it took me seven months. What’s the new magic number for you, the price of bitcoin where it’s profitable for you to mine? (Here he consults an online mining calculator and punches in some inputs, such as the current hashrate difficulty of the network.) Just below $13,000 is my break-even point. How common would you say your situation is? There are a lot of people who are now getting commercial meters installed in their backyard or getting a shipping container like I did. Even though we're in a bear market, you'd be surprised how many people are out there trying to step their game up to this next level of home mining. Let’s pivot to the larger miners. I imagine they’d face similar challenges as you? The large mining companies that have been in this game for a while, like Foundry or Slush Pool, they're going to be totally fine. Those aren't the ones that are going to be unplugging. Those aren’t the ones scrambling to try and figure out their balance sheets. But at the end of 2021, you saw this huge infusion of capital into bitcoin mining. And it was happening with bitcoin mining companies that were publicly traded, selling equity, or getting debt or raising capital in some way. There were a lot of commitments made, but they haven’t been able to follow through. There have been supply chain hiccups. Logistics issues. A lot of that is related globally to the pandemic; it has made building out infrastructure extremely difficult. These companies have to get the permits, get the titles and get the electrical infrastructure in place. I’m kind of surprised by your answer. I would have thought the big issue for the larger miners is the price drop? For the large mining companies, I don't think it's so much an issue of the bitcoin price drop. The main issue is that they're overleveraged, and then they're not able to deploy that hashrate and get it up and running. A lot of them signed contracts with ASIC manufacturers to spend billions of dollars on hardware throughout 2022, and then they don't have a place to plug that hardware in. A lot of them have loans on their ASICs. They're overleveraged, they've got these loans, and now the price of ASICs – of a brand-new ASIC – has fallen from $12,000 when they took out these loans to $4,500 now. And it's now aged seven months and hasn't even plugged in. Read more: Crypto Miners Face Margin Calls, Defaults as Debt Comes Due in Bear Market The companies that are in trouble are the ones who were trying to get off the ground, they overleveraged. The value of the hardware – which is their collateral for them – has now been cut in half, or even more. Now they're really in trouble. But I’m guessing the price crash has to be an issue too, right? Just as you had to unplug at $36k, if the price gets even lower, at some point, they’d have to shut down. What’s your guess for that price? It really depends on what their power agreements are. If you look at companies like Riot, they've got these power purchasing agreements behind the meter. And I have no idea what they pay for their electricity, but, dude, they could be paying like two or three cents a kilowatt hour. If that's the case, the price of bitcoin could drop to like $10K or $7K, and they're going to be fine. Interesting. Just as a thought experiment, what happens if the price drops even below $7k and stays there? Wouldn’t most miners need to shut down? And isn’t that a systemic, existential risk to the Bitcoin network? Look at what happened in the summer of last year, when there was the Chinese mining ban. Fifty percent of the overall network hashrate went offline like within a couple of weeks, right? Right. Then the bitcoin network corrected itself. When the hashrate went offline, the difficulty corrected. The difficulty went down to match the new perceived hashrate. And when that happened, for any of the miners that were still online, their hash value – the number of sats per terahash per day – went through the roof. So for anyone who was home mining at the time, we all looked like geniuses. Read more: Crypto Carbon: Can Blockchain Networks Fix Carbon Offsets? And that's what would happen again. If big companies do unplug, the bitcoin network difficulty will change accordingly. And for anyone who's still on the network, it's still going to be profitable. But what about the overall network security? How would that be affected in this scenario? Let's say there was an attack on bitcoin. You know, what we saw during the Chinese mining ban, with all the hashrate going offline – that's what an attack would look like. Where the hashrate drops very quickly, and therefore, it becomes easier for an attacker to come up with that 51% it needs to do a hashrate attack. Lemme see if I’m getting this. If the price drops below $7k and stays there for a while, a lot of the bigger miners might be forced to unplug. The network would stay running because the hashrate “difficulty” would lower, enticing smaller miners to stay plugged in. But because the difficulty is so much lower, the network is more vulnerable to an attack? The barrier to carrying out an attack like that is lower. They would have to expend less resources in order to get to that 51% mark. For some historical context, how did this play out after the price drop in 2018? If you look at 2018, bitcoin came off the $19,000 peak of 2018, and the price dropped to $6k and then it fell off a cliff to $3,500, right? Oh, I remember. And then it just kind of stayed under $4,000 for months and months and months. All throughout that period, if you look at what was happening to hashrate, more and more hashrate was going online at that time. You’re saying that even in a dark and frosty crypto winter, the network took care of itself? It's almost like a self-correcting mechanism. If the price did crash to $6k for an extended period of time, there are a lot of people out there who would absolutely thrive while there's blood in the streets. They would thrive because they're doing smart things. They’re arbitraging very good electrical rates, like what I did. Or they’re finding very cheap energy sources. They're going to places where energy is being generated that doesn't have a large demand. You're seeing a lot of bitcoin miners flock to Texas, for example, to access the power being produced by these windmills. It almost feels like the price crash has a silver lining? It’s forcing miners to be more efficient. Yeah. Tough conditions force you to start making tough decisions. For me, it's been a lot of grueling work, trying to get all the infrastructure in place and do it right. Predictions for the future of mining? I think you're going to see energy producers leapfrog these large bitcoin mining companies. How so? The business model of these large bitcoin mining companies is to play the fiat game, right? They're selling equity in their company, they're raising debt, they're raising capital, they're becoming overleveraged. The price of bitcoin crashes, and then suddenly they're in trouble, they can't get their hashrate deployed. That business model isn't sustainable. Read more: Jeff Wilser - Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Unlikely Rise of Home Bitcoin Mining What we're going to see is large power-generating assets, like coal mining power generation stations, they're going to start using bitcoin as a tool. They're going to use it as a tool to stabilize the demand on their power-generating assets. (He recently gave a speech at a coal mining conference about this very possibility.) Last question. What has it been like having to sell bitcoin – after the price crashed – to pay for things? Let me put it this way. I have never regretted actually using bitcoin to transact. Money is meant to be circulated. Yeah, it's great when bitcoin is trading for $69,000, and I can kind of daydream about what I'm going to do with my bitcoin. But at the end of the day, I approach it as more of a tool, a tool that can be used to transact without permission, to continue interacting economically with the world around me without having to rely on any sort of third party. Look at what happened with the Canadian trucker Freedom Convoy . If your political views can get you in a situation where you're cut off from basic financial services, then we're living in a pretty scary world. And it's in your best interest to learn how to transact with bitcoin today, when you are not in an emergency situation. So it doesn't really bother me that the price of bitcoin crashed. Yeah, it kind of sucks watching larger and larger chunks of your savings get broken off to pay the bills each month, but I would not have it any other way. Because the alternative is that I'm at the mercy of someone else's permission. You’re walking the walk. Best of luck to you going forward. || Zikbo Crypto-Based Sports Platform Launching on September 12, 2022: NEW YORK, NY - (NewMediaWire) - September 13, 2022 - Zikbo, a revolutionary crypto-based sports platform is set to launch and open its services to the general public on September 12, 2022. According to the founding team, Zikbo is designed to offer unique and revolutionary options where users can earn income from their favorite sports games. Currently, most of the already existing platforms are designed to ensure the company enjoys bigger rewards. However, Zikbo is introducing a new concept where users can earn money by playing against themselves due to the unique weighing algorithm built into the platform. Users can make deposits into their Zikbo accounts using crypto assets like Bitcoin and make withdrawals whenever they like. In addition, the new Zikbo crypto gaming platform allows users to play between two or more events. For instance, a user can decide to play for the first goal or the first red card between two football matches. How the Zikbo Platform Works The Zikbo crypto gaming platform is designed for people to play using mainly cryptocurrency. Users play anonymously and securely. Unlike most gaming platforms, where the odds change with time, Zikbo's odds are fixed because the founders want the platform to be more profitable to players. Users can withdraw their money in crypto at any time. All stakes are accepted before the game starts, and users are allowed to play up until 5 minutes before the event begins. Zikbo does not collect information regarding the personal data of users. All data are protected during registration, and all users' identification processes are safely secured. The platform only uses authorization data and not personal data. About Zikbo Crypto Gaming Platform Zikbo is a new crypto gaming platform where users can play against themselves and also play between two or more events. The platform covers all sporting events. Once a new user signs in on the platform, the person will be rewarded with a $15 sign-on bonus. Zikbo allows fully transparent play, and users have the option of creating their own pools. Zikbo offers huge rewards and mind-blowing baskets to players. According to the team, the platform combines entertainment and mouthwatering benefits. Social Links Twitter:https://twitter.com/zikbobet Discord:https://discord.com/invite/rCX9CRUjdg Telegram:https://t.me/zikbo Telegram Chat:https://t.me/+HUYMDowaO8JkZTUy Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/zikbobet Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/zikbobet YouTube:https://youtube.com/channel/UCpvlzq9s2ngehmPAwQ9O-rA Media Contact Brand: Zikbo Contact: Richard, COO Email:richard@zikbo.com Website:https://zikbo.com/ SOURCE: Zikbo View the original release onwww.newmediawire.com || Stock Market Today: Stocks Brush Off China Growth Concerns: China flag Getty Images Worries over the strength of China's economy – and a surprising central bank move there – weighed on stocks in early trading Monday, though the major indexes managed to bounce back as the session wore on. SEE MORE The 15 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2022 Overnight, a round of data was released that showed economic growth in the mainland slowed in July. The reports included worse-than-expected readings on retail sales and industrial output, as well as a sharp rise in the youth unemployment rate, which hit 19.9% last month – its highest level since the data was first published in 2018. "The economic data from China overnight was very disappointing, to put it mildly," says Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at currency data provider OANDA. "Combined with the lending figures on Friday, it does not paint a good picture of domestic demand or the growth outlook. It seems the reopening boost was both uninspiring and short-lived." In reaction to the weak data, the People's Bank of China unexpectedly cut two key lending rates to help spark growth. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. The headlines from China dragged U.S. crude futures down 2.9% to $89.41 per barrel. As such, energy (-1.9%) was the worst-performing sector today, with oil stocks like Valero Energy ( VLO , -2.8%) and Devon Energy ( DVN , -3.0%) suffering notable declines. While the major indexes spent most of the morning in negative territory, buyers swooped in around lunchtime to push them higher. By the close, the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.6% at 13,128, while the S&P 500 Index (+0.4% at 4,297) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.5% at 33,912) also notched modest gains. stock price chart 081522 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 added 0.2% to 2,021. Gold futures tumbled 1% to end at $1,798.10 an ounce. Bitcoin slipped 0.8% to $23,989.59. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.) Walt Disney ( DIS ) rose 2.2% after Third Point, the hedge fund founded by billionaire investor Daniel Loeb, unveiled a new stake in the entertainment giant. The activist investor is reportedly suggesting several changes at Disney, including spinning off ESPN and voting in new board members. Third Point previously took a stake in DIS shares in 2020 before selling off that stake in Q1 of this year. Bed Bath & Beyond ( BBBY ) surged 23.4%, marking its fourth straight win. BBBY stock is now up more than 200% so far in August thanks to renewed interest from the Reddit crowd. Other meme stocks weren't in favor today, with AMC Entertainment ( AMC , -1.0%) and GameStop ( GME , -2.7%) both ending lower. Story continues Making the Case for a Consumer Stock Rebound It's time for investors to start shopping. This is according to BofA Securities analyst Sara Senatore, who says investors might want to start building a wishlist for when the Federal Reserve starts cutting rates – which BofA economists believe will happen in the second half of 2023 – paying particular attention to high-quality consumer discretionary stocks . SEE MORE 10 Metaverse Stocks for the Future of Technology The sector has taken a beating in 2022, which isn't too surprising, given consumer stocks tend to lag in a rate-tightening cycle, as "the Fed's rate hikes are intended to dampen demand," Senatore says. But, investors might want to start looking for opportunities in consumer stocks, as they "materially outperform during Fed easing cycles – historically peaking five to eight months after the Fed's first rate cut," the analyst adds. Plus, "performance is neutral to positive as early as six months before the first cut and strongly positive for consumer services in those periods." Investors looking for a place to start on their wishlist might want to consider these 11 consumer stocks . The top-rated names featured here have plenty to offer investors, including attractive valuations and impressive long-term growth outlooks. Check them out. SEE MORE The 21 Top S&P 500 Stocks Since the Bear-Market Bottom You may also like EV Tax Credits Are Changing: What’s Ahead Your Guide to Roth Conversions Save More on Green Home Improvements Under the Inflation Reduction Act View comments || The 3 Best High-Yield Monthly Dividend Stocks to Buy Now: There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing the best high-yield monthly dividend stocks. However, there are three key considerations: the company’s history of paying dividends, the size of the dividend, and the current yield. Before purchasing any shares, it’s important to consider a company’s history of dividends-paying. This is important because it shows that the company is committed to paying shareholders and is likely to continue doing so in the future. Second, you want to check the dividend’s size. A large dividend is great, but it may not be as attractive if the stock price is also high. Another smart thing to do when looking at dividend stocks is to check the current yield. A higher yield will often mean more cash for you to use in other ways. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips With these considerations in mind, here are three of the best high-yield monthly dividend stocks: EPR EPR Properties $42.50 PSEC Prospect Capital $7.44 PBA Pembina Pipeline Corp. $34.62 EPR Properties (EPR) A hand dipping into a bowl of popcorn, representing entertainment industry; eating while enjoying entertainment. Entertainment stocks. Source: Iuliia Pilipeichenko / Shutterstock Annual dividend yield: 7.84% EPR Properties (NYSE: EPR ) is a specialty triple-net REIT that owns and operates entertainment and recreation venues across the United States. Total assets are more than $6.4 billion and are spread liberally across 44 states in the U.S., including movie theaters, golf courses, family entertainment centers, and water parks. EPR’s properties are leased to a diversified group of tenants, including major national and regional operators. EPR’s experience in the entertainment and recreation industry and its strong relationships with tenants and operators provide EPR with a unique competitive advantage in the marketplace. The company’s revenue is largely dependent on movie theatre operations. Last year, the pandemic caused a severe decline in EPR’s income. However, as vaccination rates increase and restrictions lift, movie theatre attendance is getting healthier . Story continues EPR’s stock price has already started to recover. As the company’s business returns to normal, investors can expect continued growth. EPR is a well-positioned company for the post-pandemic era, and its stock is an attractive investment for those looking to benefit from the recovery of the entertainment industry. In addition, EPR owns and operates ski resorts, restaurants, and other attractions. So, its portfolio comes with properties from several industries. Although holdings are skewed in favor of movie theatres, the company is far from a one-trick pony. EPR will continue opportunistically deploying capital to strategically grow its portfolio through development projects and acquisitions while returning excess cash flow to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. It had to halt dividend payouts in May of 2020. However, in July 2021, the company resumed payments. In February, EPR hiked its monthly dividend to 27.5 cents per share, which translates to an annualized dividend of $3.30 per share, a hike of 10% over the previous yearly distribution. Prospect Capital Corp. (PSEC) stock market ticker screen with the word "dividends" appearing in large text Source: iQoncept/shutterstock.com Annual dividend yield: 9.78% Prospect Capital (NASDAQ: PSEC ) is a leading capital provider to middle market companies and has a track record of delivering strong returns to investors. The company’s portfolio includes companies in various industries, such as healthcare, energy and software. These investments play a pivotal role in PSEC’s history. The total direct capital it has invested in these companies is $18.7 billion spread across different industries, with an impressive portfolio of 127 currently active companies. This company is all about dividends. It pays out some of its earnings in the form of money but mostly tries to invest back into more companies and generate even better returns for investors. Prospect Capital earns money in interest income, dividends and capital gains or losses. In announcing its results for its fiscal quarter and year ended June 30, the company reported a net investment income of $0.21 per share , surpassing the $0.18 per share dividend distribution. BDCs have similar features to that of REITs or real estate investment trusts. Both, for example, distribute at least 90% of their taxable profits back to their investors as payouts. In return, these companies aren’t taxed at the corporate level. Both of these investment vehicles are ideal for income investors. This list is about the best high-yield monthly dividend stocks, so ultimately, the payout is what matters. Prospect’s focus on special situation investing has been particularly beneficial during market turmoil. The company’s solid performance during the Covid-19 pandemic has reaffirmed its status as a leading alternative asset manager. Overall, the company is in a great position to continue delivering strong results for investors. Pembina Pipeline Corp. (PBA) Source: Shutterstock Annual dividend yield: 5.54% Pembina Pipeline Corp. (NYSE: PBA ) is one of North America’s leading energy service providers. Not only does it offer tailored transportation and midstream services, but Pembina Pipeline also offers a wide range of other equipment and support services to this industry. It can do so because of its widespread distribution capacities and strong financial position. The company’s operations focus on developing and operating strategic energy infrastructure, including pipelines, gas processing plants and oil sands facilities. Pembina Pipeline is doing well this year. The stock price continues to rise exponentially as the world struggles with high oil prices due to the Russia-Ukraine war. Under these circumstances, the company will continue to do well in the foreseeable future. If you factor in a monthly dividend of 21 Canadian cents, you’ll see why this stock is on the list of best high-yield monthly dividend stocks. Keep in mind that in this financial quarter, Pembina Pipeline Corp. plans to increase its monthly dividend by 0.75 Canadian cents to 21.75 Canadian cents per share once a joint venture deal with KKR (NYSE: KKR ) is finalized. Under the terms of the agreement, KKR and Pembina Pipeline are combining with Western Canadian natural gas processing assets to form a new joint venture company. The new company will be 60% owned by Pembina and 40% by KKR’s global infrastructure fund. It is a key development you must keep an eye on this quarter. On the publication date, Faizan Farooque 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 . Faizan Farooque is a contributing author for InvestorPlace.com and numerous other financial sites. Faizan has several years of experience in analyzing the stock market and was a former data journalist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. His passion is to help the average investor make more informed decisions regarding their portfolio. 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 The 3 Best High-Yield Monthly Dividend Stocks to Buy Now appeared first on InvestorPlace . || 3 Cryptos That Could 10X by 2032: The search for cryptos that could 10x is always on. Indeed, for investors in this sector up to last year, 10x returns seemed all but a foregone conclusion for most projects. The rate at which blockchain technology and the tokens that support it grew suggested the runway for growth was unlimited. 2022 has been less kind to crypto investors. The start of monetary policy tightening, combined with recession worries, has led valuations lower. Whether we’re talking about stocks or crypto, any risk-on trade has been hit hard. Indeed, investors have largely gravitated toward defensive risk-off trades while uncertainty remains. Of course, long-term investors may look at this near-term volatility positively. Perhaps there’s a buying opportunity baked in here somewhere. For those who are patient, buying growth assets at a discount has been a historically profitable exercise. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips So, if you have a long-term time horizon and are looking for cryptos that can 10x from here, these are three options to consider right now. DOT-USD Polkadot $7.32 SHIB-USD Shiba Inu $0.000012 XRP-USD XRP $0.32 Polkadot (DOT) Golden Polkadot (DOT-USD) dot coin cryptocurrency on computer electronic circuit board background Source: Thichaa / Shutterstock.com Polkadot ( DOT-USD ) is certainly a high-growth project worth considering. Masterminded by one of Ethereum’s ( ETH-USD ) co-founders, Gavin Wood, Polkadot’s main purpose appears to be fixing problems with the Ethereum blockchain. A more scalable solution, Polkadot operates with a “hub and spoke” model. This enables Polkadot to run its smart contracts independently of the main chain. The smart contracts of Polkadot can run on so-called parachains that can be secured by their own token and not only by DOT. Polkadot recently launched its Polkadot Relayers program . This will help innovators and developers partner to create better Web3 apps. For those bullish on ecosystem growth as a driver of value for DOT, this is a big deal. Additionally, the developer community has received adequate support from Polkadot. Indeed, the DOT token features among the most used interoperable coins. Thus, Polkadot remains a potentially high-value asset that is worth grabbing for the long term. Story continues Shiba Inu (SHIB) Shiba Inu (SHIB-USD) or Shib coin standing centrally placed among bunch of crypto coins on blue background. Close-up, soft focus. Banner with golden Shiba token. Source: salarko / Shutterstock.com OK, now for a highly speculative pick. Shiba Inu ( SHIB-USD ) is undoubtedly one of the highest-risk cryptocurrencies out there. This dog-inspired meme token surged more than a million percent at multiple points last year, riding the wave of momentum higher. Accordingly, there’s a historical basis for making a 10x call for such a highly speculative token, particularly at these lower levels. Now, I remain in the bearish camp with respect to Shiba Inu’s fundamentals and growth prospects. Thus, I think this token represents greater risk than most investors care to take (myself included). However, it has gone on 1,000% runs multiple times over the past two years. A 10x return is not only possible, it’s happened many times before. This is why speculators look to Shiba Inu as an ultra-high-beta way to play the sector. Whether it’s because of Shiba Inu’s meme status, its historical track record, or the need to do something wacky, investors can find reasons to consider Shiba Inu. As long an investment is made within well-defined risk management parameters and with money investors don’t mind losing, this is a token that certainly has 10x potential from here during the next bull market rally. XRP (XRP) A concept token for XRP with stacks of tokens in the background. XRP price predictions. Source: Shutterstock XRP ( XRP-USD ) has been one of the mainstays of the top 10 cryptos in terms of market cap for a long time. Indeed, at the time of writing, it ranked seventh in terms of market capitalization. Notably, XRP has retained its top-10 status over the years despite a 2020 lawsuit from the SEC . This lawsuit alleged Ripple Labs, the parent company of XRP, engaged in unregistered securities offerings. Along with other tokens that are embattled by SEC-related probes, XRP has certainly not benefited from this cloud of uncertainty. The matter is still ongoing in the courts, but recent developments suggest the lawsuit could be nearing some conclusion. For investors, the removal of this overhang will undoubtedly be a good thing. Now, whether or not Ripple and XRP come out ahead in this matter remains uncertain. There’s a chance that Ripple could lose, which could send the token lower. However, for those bullish on a positive conclusion to this saga, this is a crypto that could have 10x potential moving forward. On the date of publication, Chris MacDonald 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 MacDonald’s love for investing led him to pursue an MBA in Finance and take on a number of management roles in corporate finance and venture capital over the past 15 years. His experience as a financial analyst in the past, coupled with his fervor for finding undervalued growth opportunities, contribute to his conservative, long-term investing perspective. 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 That Could 10X by 2032 appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Bitcoin bull Mike Novogratz says crypto's forced deleveraging is over and bitcoin is still an asset to hold amid economic uncertainty: • The forced deleveraging that's weighed on the crypto market in the last quarter is over, Mike Novogratz said. • He thinks the crypto market has reached equilibrium and is awaiting new narratives in the space. • Bitcoin is still an attractive asset amid macroeconomic uncertainty, Novogratz said. Billionaire bitcoin bull Mike Novogratz believes the forced deleveraging of the cryptocurrency market is over and that investors can expect new narratives to shape the space following a brutal quarter for digital assets. His optimism comes after a rocky year for crypto investors, following the crash of the Terra stablecoin and the related Luna token, which set off a domino effect of losses and bankruptcies across the sector. Crypto has enjoyed a few rallies since then, but the bitcoin and ethereum are still down around 60% from their November highs. "We had a forced deleveraging that happened because of a lot of imprudent credit policies at lots of places, that I think exacerbated how bad the move would be," Novogratz said in an interview withCNBC. But Novogratz thinks that the cycle is ending, with the potential for more positive change in the crypto market to come this quarter. "The worst is over," he said of last quarter's big sell-off. "There is no more forced deleveraging that's going to happen. And so now, the market hits an equilibrium, and it waits for new narratives." Developments like ethereum's upcoming merge could be a big narrative shift for the market, one that generates renewed enthusiasm among investors, Novogratz said. The merge is one out of five planned updates to the ethereum blockchain, CoinDeskreported, and will switch the blockchain over from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake system to increase efficiency. Bitcoin may also be on a new path, withCoinbase's recent partnership with BlackRock: "That's like a monumental announcement," Novogratz said. Bitcoin's steady adoption in mainstream finance is keeping Novogratz bullish on the largest crypto by market cap. He added he was particularly optimistic about the outlook for the coin in the current economic climate. "I think bitcoin remains a really good macro asset for an environment where the macro is pretty uncertain," Novogratz said. Read the original article onBusiness Insider || Markets: Bitcoin falls as crypto market loses steam, equities dip ahead of inflation data: Bitcoin and Ethereum fell as most of the top 10 cryptocurrencies gave up ground made earlier in the week. BNB was the exception, posting a slight gain to round out a 15% price increase in the past seven days. See related article: Markets: Bitcoin loses steam, Ether continues run higher in late Asia trading Fast facts Bitcoin changed hands at US$23,216 as of 8:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, off 2.8% in the prior 24 hours. Ethereum fell 4.3% to US$1,707, according to data from CoinMarketCap . BNB was up 0.6% to US$327.21, continuing its price rise since issuer Binance last week said it was extending its staking offerings to more tokens. Solana saw the biggest losses in CoinMarketCap’s top ten, dropping 4.7% to US$40.47. U.S. equity markets fell overnight, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index both ending down a little less than 1%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 1.1%. Investors are cautious ahead of the release of key inflation data on Wednesday. While many economists expect consumer prices in July rose just 0.2%, down from 1.3% in June, other recent inflation indicators, such as jobs, have exceeded expectations, suggesting the Federal Reserve will further raise interest rates. The Consumer Price Index is one of three data sets related to inflation to be released on Wednesday, along with the Producer Price Index and unit labor costs, which measure all wages paid to employees. See related article: Why crypto and DeFi are key to building wealth in times of high inflation || Crypto: New bill aims to give CFTC more authority to regulate crypto markets: Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Senator John Boozman (R-AR) are proposing a new bill that would give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) more regulatory authority to oversee crypto markets. The bill would set a national regulatory standard for crypto, define which tokens would fall under the digital commodity category, and require all crypto trading platforms to register with the CFTC. Crypto players will be held to the same rules as traditional financial brokers and trading platforms that facilitate trading in commodities spot markets. The bill amends the definition of a commodity to include “digital commodity,” which applies to some crypto tokens. Bitcoin and ether, for example, are included in the definition of commodities while securities are excluded. The bill also introduces new categories for digital commodity brokers, digital commodity custodians, digital commodity dealers, and requires them to register with the Commission. “We are closing regulatory gaps and requiring that these markets operate under straightforward rules that protect customers and keep our financial system safe,” Senator Stabenow said in a statement. Under the legislation, crypto trading platforms would be required to monitor crypto trading and protect investors from abuse, and capture and publish trading information in a timely manner. Crypto brokers and dealers would be required to offer fair prices, keep records of all digital commodity transactions, create risk management systems, safeguard against cyberattacks, and provide information to the Commission upon request. Crypto trading platforms would also have to disclose conflicts of interest and the risks of trading crypto tokens. “This fast-growing industry is currently governed largely by a patchwork of regulations at the state level. That simply is not an effective way to protect consumers from fraud,” Senator Boozman, the committee’s top Republican, said in a statement. “Our bill will empower the CFTC with exclusive jurisdiction over the digital commodities spot market, which will lead to more safeguards for consumers, market integrity and innovation in the digital commodities space.” The bill notes crypto miners would not have to register, noting that mining activity alone is not sufficient to trigger registration as a digital commodity platform. The bill would also require the CFTC to conduct a report studying the energy consumption and sources of energy used to create and transfer crypto tokens.The process of creating bitcoin has caught the ire of some lawmakers given its energy consumption. Bitcoin consumes around 91 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, more than is used by Finland, a nation of about 5.5 million, according toCambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. Cambridge also finds global 2021 CO2 emissions for Ethereum and Bitcoin mining is equivalent to the tailpipe emissions from more than 15.5 million gasoline powered cars on the road every year. The legislation comes after CFTC Chair, Rostin Behnam, a former Stabenow aide who worked on the Senate Agriculture Committee,testified before the committee in Februarythat the agency needs more authority to properly regulate crypto. Specifically, Behnam testified that the agency has no authority to oversee the cash market for digital assets, where he sees the most speculative behavior from retail investors, and leverage magnifies asset declines. This is the second piece of legislation that would give the CFTC more power to be the primary regulator to oversee crypto markets over the SEC. A much more sprawlingbill dubbed the Responsible Financial Innovation Act introduced in Juneby Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) would also make the CFTC crypto’s primary regulator while defining how a crypto token’s use would classify it as a commodity or security, along with consumer protections and tax treatment. — Click here for the latest crypto news, updates, values, prices, and more related to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, DeFi and NFTs Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Download the Yahoo Finance app forAppleorAndroid Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn, andYouTube [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 19419.51, 19544.13, 18890.79, 18547.40, 19413.55, 19297.64, 18937.01, 18802.10, 19222.67, 19110.55
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 2018-04-17] BTC Price: 7902.09, BTC RSI: 51.81 Gold Price: 1347.20, Gold RSI: 55.67 Oil Price: 66.52, Oil RSI: 59.55 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Why ONEOK, Inc. Is Better Than Kinder Morgan, Inc. for Dividend Investors: If you are looking for dividend stocks, then the downturn in the midstream oil and natural gas sector is fertile ground for high-yield investment opportunities. Industry giant Kinder Morgan, Inc. 's (NYSE: KMI) recently announced plans to more than double its dividend between 2018 and 2020 might be the type of news that catches your attention, for example. However, don't jump at those planned dividend increases until you take a look at ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE: OKE) , which appears to be a better stock for dividend investors. A quick look at Kinder Kinder Morgan is one of the largest midstream players in North America. It has a largely fee-based business and a long history of successful operation and expansion. However, there's a larger story here that every dividend investor needs to understand. Kinder had difficulty accessing the capital markets to fund its growth plans after oil prices cratered in mid-2014. As a result, it chose to cut its dividend by a massive 75% in 2016. A man welding an oil pipeline. Image source: Getty Images That dividend cut is the backdrop to the current round of dividend hikes. In fact, even after the pipeline company has increased its dividend from the $0.50 per share per year it paid in 2017 to $1.25 in 2020, the absolute value of the dividend will still be lower than it was prior to the dividend cut. Yes, the yield will be around 8% in 2020, based on Kinder's current stock price, but that's not the complete story. Which leads to a bigger question -- why did Kinder need to cut the dividend? The short answer is to fund its growth plans while it was having trouble accessing the capital markets. The longer, more troubling answer is leverage. In 2016 Kinder's debt to EBITDA ratio rose to more than nine times. That's an unhealthy number that suggests the dividend cut was the right move for the company, even if it was a painful one for dividend investors who were counting on that income. The company has done a solid job of managing its leverage since that peak, dropping the debt to EBITDA ratio to around 6.5 times by the end of 2017. But that's still relatively high compared to peers like ONEOK. Story continues A better dividend option ONEOK is a smaller company, but still a material player in the North American midstream space. It offers a current yield of around 5.4% (Kinder's current yield is roughly 3.3%) with plans for 10% annual dividend growth through 2021 . Based on those dividend growth projections, the yield will be roughly 7.4% in 2020 using today's stock price. That's a little lower than what Kinder will offer, but you get to collect the larger dividend between now and then. There are two more little nuances. First, ONEOK has increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years. Kinder Morgan clearly can't match that. KMI Financial Debt to EBITDA (TTM) Chart KMI Financial Debt to EBITDA (TTM) data by YCharts And then there's leverage. ONEOK ended 2017 with a debt to EBITDA ratio of around 4.9 times. That's notably less than Kinder's, suggesting that ONEOK has more leeway to deal with hard times if they come around again. Interestingly, ONEOK's leverage peaked at the start of 2016 at roughly the level Kinder is supporting today. ONEOK is looking to reduce leverage further as well, so that metric should improve over time. Slow and steady wins the dividend race At the end of the day, income investors who buy ONEOK over Kinder will get a higher yield today at a pipeline company with plans for robust dividend growth , less leverage, and a stronger history of rewarding investors. Sure, you'll be giving up the potential for a higher yield in 2020, but the income between now and then coupled with a less leveraged capital structure is the type of trade off that will let you sleep well at night. This isn't to suggest that Kinder is a bad pipeline company -- that's not the case. However, if dividends are what you're looking for, ONEOK appears to be a better option when you look at the larger picture. 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 Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Kinder Morgan and ONEOK. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Ripple, not Bitcoin, will Convert Crypto Cynics: The prediction from Nigel Green comes asRipple (XRP)experienced a spike last week, adding another $62bn to its market value. The cryptocurrency also broke some key resistance, such as $0.6500 and $0.6600, nudging it towards the important $0.7000 level against the U.S. dollar. Mr. Green, whose firm launched the pioneering crypto exchange app, deVere Crypto, this year, says: “After the cryptocurrency market somewhat overheated at the end of 2017 – thanks largely to investors piling in, pushing Bitcoin to an all-time high of more than $19,000 – there was a major, natural price correction in the first quarter of this year of most of the major cryptocurrencies. “But the cryptocurrency market is, once again, now looking already significantly more bullish than it did in Quarter 1.” He continues: “This latest upward crypto market trajectory can be attributed to the fact that institutional and retail investors are increasingly appreciating the fundamentals, such as the need and demand for digital currencies in a digitalized, tech-driven age. “Also there is now huge awareness that blockchain, the technology that underpins the likes of Bitcoin and Ripple, is likely to be the world’s next major disruptive technology.” Mr. Green goes on to assert: “Cryptocurrencies are now really coming into the mainstream. But there are still some critics of the crypto revolution. However, I believe that Ripple (XRP) can be expected to convert the remaining crypto cynics. “This is primarily due to Ripple’s apparent emphasis on integrating with banks and other financial institutions. “For instance, banking giant Santander has recently launched a foreign exchange service that uses blockchain technology developed by Ripple to make same-day international money transfers. It is also reported to be in talks with other major global banks and money transfer groups to develop similar products.” He adds: “However, cryptocurrencies remain highly determined by market sentiment, and caution must be exercised and professional advice should be sought.” The deVere CEO concludes: “By focusing its development strategy in this way, Ripple is likely to help change the perception of crypto, expand its own value, and co-lead the ongoing shift in the way the world uses, manages, accesses, stores and exchanges money.” Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • NZDJPY Analysis. Time for a take profit action on the JPY • USDCAD Continues to Trade Near Range Lows • Wheat Drops as Wet Weather Eases Drought Conditions • Stellar’s Lumen Technical Analysis – Looking to Trend Set – 16/04/18 • The Next Catalyst in Crypto Markets Awaited • Ripple, not Bitcoin, will Convert Crypto Cynics || What Is Ether?: Ether is the underlying token powering the Ethereum blockchain, but it serves a slightly different purpose than bitcoin does to the Bitcoin blockchain. Although ether is traded on public markets and has displayed price appreciation similar to bitcoin, they are quite different by design. Ether is not intended to be a unit of currency on a peer-to-peer payment network; rather, it acts as the “fuel” or “gas” that powers the Ethereum network. At the highest level, Ethereum is an open-source platform that runs smart contracts. When smart contracts are run on a blockchain, they become self-executing when certain conditions are met. The execution of smart contracts requires computational resources that must be paid for in some way: this is where ether comes in. Ether is the crypto-fuel allowing smart contracts to run. It provides the incentive for nodes to validate blocks on the Ethereum blockchain, which contains the smart contract code. Every time a block is validated, 5 ethers are created and awarded to the successful node. A new block is propagated roughly every 15–17 seconds. Some nodes may find the correct solution to a block without having it included in the network. The Ethereum network rewards these nodes with 2–3 ethers. Individuals interacting with decentralized applications on the Ethereum platform will have to pay the network in ether for the use. Developers are incentivized to create these decentralized applications because they will be paid in ether for their work. Developers are also incentivized to write quality applications because wasteful applications will be more expensive and likely will not be used as frequently as better alternatives. Using this information, the narrative around ether becomes more clear. Its final use will most likely be abstracted by basic button clicking, but assuming Ethereum becomes widely used, ether will be rapidly moving between users and miners. Its value is directly tied to the use of the Ethereum blockchain. The total supply of ether is not capped like the total supply of bitcoin. 60 million ether were created during the initial crowdsale, 12 million of which went to early backers and the Ethereum Foundation. Most of the money raised will be used to fund future development initiatives. Ether’s issuance model is unique in that it does not emphasize deflation like most other popular cryptographic assets. Initially, issuance of ether was capped at 18 million per year, which is 25 percent of the initial supply raised in the crowdsale. But more recently, Vitalik Buterin said that issuance levels will be contingent on security rather than a predetermined schedule. Although this rate is fixed each year, the monetary inflation rate actually decreases every year, making ether a disinflationary currency. Disinflation occurs when the rate of inflation shrinks over time. Ether is expected to be lost each year because some users may forget their private keys, some may pass away without transmitting their private keys, and some may send ether to an address without a corresponding private key. As the network grows, it is expected that the annual rate of ether lost will equal the annual issuance rate. The hope is that ether will be deflationary in 2140, around the same time that Bitcoin ceases issuing new coins. For an in-depth analysis of Ethereum’s issuance model, read Joseph Lubin’spiece. These calculations are not set in stone. Ethereum is expected to switch its consensus algorithm from proof of work to proof of stake, which in theory is supposed to be more efficient and require a smaller mining reward. This change has produced some uncertainty within the ecosystem. The Ethereum Foundation is currently researching potential monetary effects and claims that all changes to the network will be handled by smart contracts, as opposed to individuals who may have ulterior motives. This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Bitcoin price drops 10% as hackers exploit Binance’s API keys: Welcome to another rollercoaster day for the cryptocurrency community. In just a few minutes, bitcoin price crashed from $10,740 to $9,690, which represents a 10.8 percent crash. As always, it’s a bit hard to know for sure what’s happening. But one company in particular is having a bad day. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has spotted some unusual activities and halted withdrawals. Binance is one of the biggest exchanges out there. According to CoinMarketCap , it’s one of the 4 biggest exchanges for the top cryptocurrencies when it comes to traded volume. Many people noticed something highly unusual with Viacoin happening right before the crash. There was a huge increase in buy orders for Viacoins on Binance. In just a few minutes, Viacoin’s market capitalization jumped from $64 million to $159 million Binance looked into it and noticed unauthorized sell orders. “We are investigating reports of some users having issues with their funds. Our team is aware and investigating the issue as we speak,” the company wrote on Reddit . “As of this moment, the only confirmed victims have registered API keys (to use with trading bots or otherwise). There is no evidence of the Binance platform being compromised.” So it seems like a third-party service or app got compromised. Users of that third-party app were relying on API keys to control Binance accounts. A hacker may have developed a bot that submits orders at the same time (7:00 AM Pacific). While the Binance team halted withdrawals, it might be too late. It’s also possible that the hacker already had a big position in Viacoin on another exchange. The hacker could have sold a big pile of Viacoins shortly after manipulating the price on Binance. In all cases, it proves once again that security is a big issue when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Don’t store your coins on an exchange. Use a hardware wallet or a wallet that lets you control the private keys. Disclosure: I own small amounts of various cryptocurrencies. || Bitcoin price - latest updates: Cryptocurrency value rises again as recovery continues: The value of bitcoin plunged last month, amid fears that trading was about to be banned in South Korea . It then stabilised briefly, before plummeting again. The volatile cryptocurrency’s value has shifted unpredictably ever since it mid-December - when it hit a record high of more than $19,850 – with frequent wild drops and recoveries. The rapid drops are partly the result of continuing fears about regulation, as well as anxiety provoked by a series of high-profile thefts. Its value tumbled spectacularly at the start of February, falling from $10,000 to $6,000 in four days. However, it now appears to be recovering. It is worth $11,360 as of Tuesday morning UK time, according to the Coinbase exchange. Its value has increased by nearly 4 per cent over the past 24 hours, and more than 24 per cent over the past seven days. However, it has still declined by almost 5 per cent over the past month. The most recent price drops were huge, and followed reports about potential cryptocurrency regulation and trading bans. South Korea recently banned people from trading bitcoin and other digital currencies anonymously , but says it isn’t planning to make cryptocurrency exchanges illegal. Meanwhile, Theresa May has hinted that the UK government could introduce similar measures , and the US government is concerned about bitcoin’s popularity amongst criminals . Recent goings-on have demonstrated just how quickly things can change for investors. The cryptocurrency’s value plummeted ahead of Christmas, dropping by almost $2,000 in just an hour at one point, and almost slipping below the $11,000 mark. It then bounced back, before tumbling again in mid-January, recovering again, and plummeting at the start of February. Bitcoin is notoriously volatile, and its value is expected to continue to shift unpredictably. Its rise last year also led to increasing amounts of interest in other digital currencies, such as ethereum, litecoin and Ripple XRP , and more and more people are now looking to invest in digital currencies. Story continues However, there are serious fears that bitcoin has created a bubble that could burst at any moment . Numerous financial experts have advised potential investors to avoid getting involved with bitcoin , and the SEC has told people to “exercise caution” and be wary of scammers . But others have speculated that it could eventually rise towards the $1m mark. Bitcoin has no central bank and isn’t linked to or regulated by any state. An anonymised record of every bitcoin transaction is stored on a huge public ledger known as a blockchain. However, transactions made with the cryptocurrency are irreversible, which makes investors in bitcoin attractive targets for cybercriminals. This article is being regularly updated to reflect bitcoin’s latest value. We’ve teamed up with cryptocurrency trading platform eToro. Click here to get the latest Bitcoin rates and start trading. Remember that returns are not guaranteed, so you could get back less than you invested. || The 24-year-old billionaire heiress to the Dell fortune left social media after exposing her family to security risks — here's her advice for teens on apps: alexa dell 2 Sigmund Freud/25 Alexa Dell, the daughter of computer magnate Michael Dell, once posted an image to Instagram of her younger brother aboard the family's private jet. The "Rich Kids of Instagram" Tumblr blogged the image, and it went viral. Dell was forced to leave social media after exposing her family to security risks. Dell, now a 24-year-old startup advisor, has advice for teens on apps today. Alexa Dell, 24, is the daughter of tech billionaire and entrepreneur Michael Dell . She grew up in Austin, Texas on a sprawling estate called " The Castle " with her parents and four siblings, and her father gave her an at-home masterclass on building world-changing technologies. But as tech royalty, Dell quickly learned that she couldn't use social media apps the way most teenagers do. Business Insider caught up with Dell at SXSW to hear the whole story. When she was 18, Dell posted a photo to Instagram . Her younger brother, Zacahary, sat in the window seat of what appeared to be a small plane. A spread of fresh fruit, vegetables, charcuterie, and, of course, a Dell laptop, was laid before him. alexa dell zachary dell rich kids of instagram Instagram/Alexa Dell and The Verge "Snachary en route to Fiji @zachdell by alexadell #dell #privatejet," Alexa Dell's caption read. Then the internet descended. Rich Kids of Instagram , a popular Tumblr site that documents the adventures of the world's wealthiest offspring, circulated the image. Within a week 0f the posting, Dell and her brother, Zachary, disappeared from social media. Bloomberg BusinessWeek broke the story that Dell had been documenting her every move on Twitter, complete with GPS locations from her phone. According to BusinessWeek, Dell's father's security detail had her Twitter and Instagram accounts suspended. The article cited concerns over the family's safety, singling out fears of kidnapping for ransom. It's worth noting that Gawker's now-defunct Valleywag reported that Alexa Dell shut down her social media accounts without the Dell company's intervention after the photo went viral. Story continues Dell was an 18-year-old Columbia University student and "W" magazine intern at the time. She told Business Insider her first response to the Rich Kids of Instagram posting was panic. alexa dell 1 Sigmund Freud/25 "That obviously took me completely by surprise. I didn't even realize that account, or that blog-Tumblr-thing, was a thing ," Dell said. "It's unfortunate because it obviously put my family at risk and our safety. It's a shame that there are people out there who just are having fun exploiting others." In 2012, BusinessWeek reviewed proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commision that showed Michael Dell spent $2.7 million annually on his family's security. His company provides the security detail, and Dell reimburses the company for its protection. But the computer magnate didn't know to check his daughter's social media accounts. "[Social media] wasn't there when I grew up. It wasn't something that I was taught how to do. It was something that we sort of taught ourselves how to use, and it sort of grew with us and became what it is now over time," Dell said. Instagram Embed: //instagram.com/p/BQ3Q4sTALK4/embed Width: 800px Dell returned to Instagram only two days after the BusinessWeek article posted, with a photo of the college student sitting poolside in a tropical location with a grove of palm trees behind her. Her posts to Instagram are no longer tagged with her location. Today, Dell runs a tech consulting business, and counts dating app Bumble as a client. Dell said the experience of making it onto Tumblr's Rich Kids of Instagram — and the safety risk it created — taught her a lesson that teens on social media platforms can learn from. "I would advise younger people new to social media to be weary ... everyone's not so nice," Dell said. She encouraged teens to "think twice" and "be careful" before sharing personal information on the internet. She also warned that a person's tone of voice can be lost in translation on apps. "If you think you meant something in a fun and lighthearted kind of context, someone may spin that and take it from you," Dell said. Related: For more news videos visit Yahoo View . NOW WATCH: Dell's CMO says this is the biggest mistake marketers make See Also: Bitcoin boosters partied hard at SXSW as the currency sinks — here's what it was like HBO's 'Westworld' experience at SXSW teased a theory about new park worlds — here's what fans might see in Season 2 Ashton Kutcher's venture fund held one of the most exclusive and bonkers parties at SXSW, the world's wildest tech conference — take a look inside SEE ALSO: The fabulous life of Alexa Dell, the 24-year-old billionaire heiress who grew up in 'The Castle,' dated Tinder's CEO, and got engaged with a million-dollar ring || How to report bitcoin income on your taxes: The price of bitcoin soared to an all-time high above $19,000 at the end of 2017, and if you sold your coins at the top, you might now be freaking out about how to deal with it on your taxes. First of all, let’s step back: most cryptocurrency newbies who bought for the first time last year probably did not sell any. And if you bought bitcoin, but did not sell any bitcoin, there’s nothing to worry about, and nothing to bother disclosing on your taxes. Another group of people may be those who bought toward the end of 2017 when price predictions were sky-high, then panicked and sold at a loss this year. If that’s you, your losses won’t matter until you do your 2018 taxes next year. Now, back to the group that did sell bitcoin in 2017. The IRS first posted official guidance on cryptocurrency in 2014, and hasn’t changed its language since then. (The IRS uses the term “virtual currency,” which is already somewhat out of fashion, and the only specific virtual currency it names is bitcoin. You might reasonably assume the guidelines apply to any cryptocurrencies, like ethereum or litecoin, but maybe not, since the IRS also says, “No inference should be drawn with respect to virtual currencies not described in this notice.”) The IRSclassifies virtual currency as property, rather than as currency. As a result, you should treat bitcoin just like stocks: you must disclose a capital gain (or loss) from the sale of bitcoin, based on what you paid for it initially. This is simpler than it sounds. If you bought one whole BTC at a website like Coinbase when the price was $1,300, your cost basis was $1,300 plus whatever you paid in fees—call it $1,500 total. If you sold your bitcoin two months later when it was at $1,900, your gain was $400. The taxes you must pay on that gain depend on your income bracket, and on whether it was a long-term or short-term gain. You disclose gains from sales of capital assets onForm 8949. Bitcoin miners have to disclose their gains too. The IRS (perhaps surprisingly) specifically mentions mining in a Q&A section in its 2014 notice: “Does a taxpayer who ‘mines’ virtual currency (for example, uses computer resources to validate Bitcoin transactions and maintain the public Bitcoin transaction ledger) realize gross income upon receipt of the virtual currency resulting from those activities? Yes, when a taxpayer successfully ‘mines’ virtual currency, the fair market value of the virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible in gross income.” What if you sold bitcoin at a loss? That, too, gets disclosed. You can deduct your losses—and thenseek better financial advice on how long to hold your coins. What if you were paid in bitcoin by an employer? That, too, has to be disclosed, but not as capital gains: that gets reported as wages on your W-2 form. Now, with all that having been said,most people who did sell bitcoin and did have a gain are likely to simply not mention it in their tax filing—and it’s unclear whether they’ll get penalized. The IRS is still just beginning to figure out how to understand and deal with cryptocurrency, much less go after those who aren’t properly revealing how much they’ve made from selling it. (On the other hand, the IRS signaled it is ramping up its efforts when it demanded Coinbase hand over customer records for anyone who conducted more than $20,000 in transactions between 2013 and 2015.) Accountants that Yahoo Finance spoke with generally said that while more clients than before are asking about bitcoin, they aren’t showing any big gains and the quandary is still a blip on their radars. But that’s not meant to be advice. Hide your bitcoin gains from the IRS at your own risk. It’s safest to disclose. — Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite. Read more: Coinbase under fire for possible insider trading Warning: An ICO is not like an IPO Ripple CEO: ‘There’s a lot of FUD about XRP’ Blockchain CEO on ‘Just Hold’ mantra: ‘I don’t believe in that’ || Genomic Health Hits its Inflection Point: Genomic Health (NASDAQ: GHDX) managed to post its 10th consecutive quarter of improving earnings , but more importantly, the cancer-test maker appears to be at an inflection point where revenue growth will accelerate, helping the bottom line increase substantially. Genomic Health results: The raw numbers Metric Q4 2017 Q4 2016 Year-Over-Year Change Revenue $87.5 million $82.7 million 5.7% Income from operations $2.15 million $1.49 million 44% Earnings per share $0.05 $0.04 25% Data source: Genomic Health. What happened with Genomic Health this quarter? Genomic Health delivered more than 31,990 Oncotype tests during the quarter, up 7% year over year. The prostate cancer test continues its solid launch, with test volume up 33% and revenue up 39% as the company gets reimbursed for more of the tests. Genomic Health estimates it has about 20% of the overall prostate cancer market and is the leader of adoption for patients with low and intermediate-risk prostate cancer. Unfortunately, despite the solid growth, prostate cancer test revenue only contributed $5 million in the quarter, so it doesn't move the overall revenue line that much. New guidelines published by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, which recommend doctors consider molecular testing for men with low- and favorable intermediate-risk prostate cancer, should help boost the overall market for prostate cancer tests. Management didn't break out the fourth-quarter numbers for the U.S. breast cancer test, which make up the bulk of revenue, but noted that the fourth quarter was the strongest quarter for growth in the year -- a year in which breast cancer test volume increased 3%. Internationally, revenue was up 14% year over year in the fourth quarter, adding $13.7 million. Test volume was only up 3%, but that was largely due to a decision to require reimbursement in Germany. Excluding Germany from the numbers, international test volume was up 10%. Economies of scale helped turn more of the extra revenue into income, allowing the bottom line to grow faster than the revenue line. The company made a couple of deals at the end of the year: a multiyear research collaboration with Johnson & Johnson 's (NYSE: JNJ) Janssen Pharmaceuticals, to evaluate the Oncotype DX GPS test with Johnson & Johnson's prostate cancer drug pipeline, and a licensing agreement with Cleveland Diagnostics, to develop and commercialize a high-PSA reflex test to improve the diagnosis of prostate cancer. This quarter, the company launched the Oncotype DX AR-V7 Nucleus Detect, a liquid biopsy test to help doctors pick the best treatment for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Genomic Health decided to stop development of the Oncotype SEQ Liquid Select test and other tests based on next-generation sequencing panels, which will result in a $10 million charge in the first quarter. While it's clearly disappointing to have wasted the resources, Genomic Health sees a bigger opportunity to move its current tests onto Biocartis Group's Idylla platform, which should help with future growth -- especially internationally, where it's easier to get reimbursement on Biocartis' system. Story continues Doctor looking at a computer screen Image source: Getty Images. What management had to say Kim Popovits, Genomic Health's chairman, CEO, and president, pointed to three sources of growth in the (previously fairly stagnant) market in the U.S. for invasive breast cancer diagnostics: In our core U.S. invasive breast cancer business, where we have 60% market penetration, three key catalysts position us to drive higher utilization and revenue, including the recent implementation of AJCC [see below] breast cancer staging criteria, which named Oncotype DX specifically; PAMA [see below] market-based pricing, representing more than a 10% increase to our Medicare rate, or an estimated $6 million to $8 million to the top line in 2018; and likely the most important, the expected near-term readout of the TAILORx intermediate results. For those filling out your acronym bingo cards at home, that's: AJCC : American Joint Committee on Cancer, a group that advises doctors on how to determine what stage a tumor is at. AJCC is recommending using Oncotype DX as one of the tests to help determine the course of treatment. PAMA : Protecting Access to Medicare Act, a law that will increase Genomic Health's Medicare reimbursement rate. TAILORx : Trial Assigning IndividuaLized Options for Treatment (Rx), a clinical trial testing molecular profiling to help determine the best treatment course for breast cancer patients. For a little more context on TAILORx, Popovits added: As a reference point, when the secondary endpoint of TAILORx in patients with recurrence scores less than 11 was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2015, we saw a 5% increase in tests delivered. We expect the results for patients with recurrence scores of 11 to 25 to be reported by study investigators in the first half of this year. Looking forward Assuming everything coming together with the U.S. breast cancer market, continued growth of the prostate cancer market, and a successful launch of the Oncotype DX AR-V7 test, management thinks revenue will increase by 10% to 15% this year. However, that includes a new ASC 606 accounting standard, which will reduce revenue by about 2.5%, but won't have any effect on earnings. Looking at the bottom line, adjusted net income is expected to be in the range of $14 million to $20 million, up substantially from the $0.4 million in adjusted net income last 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 Brian Orelli has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Genomic Health and Johnson & Johnson. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Bitcoin Price Plunges Toward $8,000 as Market Grows Heavy: The Bitcoin price plunged toward $8,000 on Thursday as the cryptocurrency market began to grow heavy across the board. Just two top 100-cryptocurrencies — Kin and DigixDAO — managed to advance against the US dollar, while the other 98 endured another day in the red. Bitcoin Price Dips Below $8,000 On Wednesday, the Bitcoin price fell below $8,000 for the first time since early February, and it has spent the intervening hours fighting to maintain that level the bearish pressure from above. At present, Bitcoin is valued at $8,175 on Bitfinex, which translates into a $139.6 billion market cap and a 42.2 percent share of the overall index. bitcoin price Altogether, the cryptocurrency market cap dropped by $26 billion, a single-day retreat of more than seven percent. At present, the index is valued at $330.2 billion — a decline of more than $500 billion from the all-time high it set in early January. Cryptocurrency Market Grows Heavy Despite Bullish News The decline correlated with reports that Google will ban cryptocurrency-related advertising , a move that brings its ad policies in line with that of rival Facebook, which began prohibiting these types of ads in January. The pullback also came as a US Congressional subcommittee met to discuss cryptocurrency regulations , particularly in regard to rules governing investor protection. It’s notable that the correction has proceeded despite the fact that several major fintech firms — including Square and Robinhood — have begun allowing their customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through their apps, which are already widely-used among cryptocurrency enthusiasts and non-investors alike. More recently, Circle launched a full-fledged cryptocurrency brokerage platform and has already rolled it out to 46 US states. This app leverages the firm’s institutional trading desk to provide investors with the ability to instantly purchase five cryptocurrencies, with more expected to be added to the platform in the near future. However, Google search data indicates that public interest in cryptocurrency is at a relative low point, so the release of these apps is not having the sort of impact it might have had on the market three months ago, when cryptocurrency exchanges were so swamped with traffic that they stopped accepting new user registrations while they worked to scale up their operations. The post Bitcoin Price Plunges Toward $8,000 as Market Grows Heavy appeared first on CCN . || Cryptocurrency Continues to Slump, Bitcoin Remains Stable at $8,200: Bitcoin price The cryptocurrency market has continued to slump over the past few weeks, as both major and minor cryptocurrencies followed the price trend of bitcoin. Bitcoin’s Lead Throughout the past 24 hours, bitcoin hasn’t recorded large price movements and remained in the range of $7,900 to $8,300. At the time of reporting, the price of bitcoin is $8,190, with relatively low trading volumes to support its recovery. Tom Lee, an analyst at Wall Street firm Fundstrat and known to be a bitcoin bull, stated that the price of bitcoin will likely drop to a yearly low before recording a swift recovery. “When sentiment is this weak, the market is increasingly ’fire, ready, aim’ — meaning, any headline today is likely to trigger selling,” wrote Lee, who emphasized that the next support level is $7,535, followed by $5,873. Given that the $8,370 support level has been breached, Lee explained that it is possible bitcoin could fall to $7,535, and make its way down to $5,873 before recovering to its previous levels. While traders still believe the price of bitcoin will likely suffer another correction before a short-term recovery occurs, billionaires including Peter Thiel and Alan Howard have expressed their optimism towards the cryptocurrency market. Howard, who acquired a massive amount of cryptocurrencies in 2017, stated that he has obtained even more digital assets this year, essentially buying the “dip.” “Hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard made sizable personal investments in cryptocurrencies last year and plans to put more of his own money into digital assets and the blockchain technology behind them, according to people with knowledge of the matter,” Bloomberg reported. At the Economic Club in New York City, billionaire investor Peter Thiel stated that he is still long on bitcoin, and that he is more optimistic towards the cryptocurrency than before. Thiel emphasized that he is skeptical towards everything else, including major cryptocurrencies, apart from bitcoin. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] OneWayFaucet BTC　200000000を無料で稼ぐ http://currency.angoutuka.buildingst.biz//faucets pic.twitter.com/Vuis1zcudo || Bitmain Antminer U1 USB Bitcoin Miner / Block Erupter SHA-256 2.2 GH/S https://go.bitrss.com/J8Y37  || @FinMinIndia 's double standard, @arunjaitley #ArunJaitley calls #bitcoin illegal 4 #Indians in #Parliament , then @RBI prohibits #Banks 2 allow #cryptocurrency transaction, N now central #digital #currency mulled:https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/rbi-may-introduce-its-own-version-of-digital-currency/articleshow/63627093.cms … || 12 Nisan 2018 Saat 08:00:02, 1 BTC Kaç TL, 28.777,40 TL. #BTCTRY #btctl #bitcoinfiyatihttp://www.doviz724.com/1-bitcoin-kac-tl.html … || Current Bitcoin Price = $10214.23 --- Includes Sum of Forks, Core $9134.00 (89.42%) + Cash $998.53 (9.78%) + Gold $81.70 (0.80%) || pic.twitter.com/W3kHvbpkeL ビットコイン人気順 1位：　コインチェック https://coincheck.com/?c=bfNXkJYgb-E  2位：　ビットフライヤー https://bitflyer.jp?bf=1j1mizsobitflyer.jp/?bf=1j1mizso  3位：　zaif（ザイフ） https://zaif.jp/?ac=gck05rm4ms  || One BTC is currently worth $10580.00 USD || 3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Price Will Rebound in Q2 2018 https://www.ccn.com/3-reasons-why-the-bitcoin-price-will-rebound-in-q2/ … || #cryptomeme #memes #crypto #cryptocurrencies #news #cryptonews #trading #blockchain #bitcoin #btc #ethereum #mining #tokens #ico #analytics #altcoins #новости #крипта #криптовалюта #криптоновости #мем #мемасики #аналитика #трейдинг #майнинг #биржа #биткоин #битокpic.twitter.com/6MtdSM4eMA || $BTC is now worth $8,900.00 (-0.20%) #BTC
Trend: up || Prices: 8163.42, 8294.31, 8845.83, 8895.58, 8802.46, 8930.88, 9697.50, 8845.74, 9281.51, 8987.05
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 2018-10-02] BTC Price: 6556.10, BTC RSI: 48.18 Gold Price: 1202.40, Gold RSI: 52.58 Oil Price: 75.23, Oil RSI: 72.13 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Op Ed: Making Friends With Time in the Cryptocurrency Space: What follows is an open letter from Jimmy Zhong, co-founder and CEO of IOST, to his team members and shared with Bitcoin Magazine with permission. Recently, I’ve been thinking about an ultimate way of safely storing value — gold, Bitcoin, real estate and power all came to mind. That’s when I started to realize that, in essence, the concept of a “store of value” is simply an act of consensus. Power, even, is no exception. Thousands of years ago, due to geographical and technological limitations, human beings relied on seashells as a store of value and medium of exchange. Seashells, today an unthinkable form of currency, were valuable for their rarity, but only because their value was agreed upon in a social consensus. As mankind developed, we strived for a sturdy yet relatively rare replacement. Enter gold: chemically stable, very unreactive and unlikely to form compounds — making it hard to damage or corrode, rare in supply and difficult to cast. Together, these qualities allowed for a global consensus to form, making gold a relatively secure store of value. Then, in 2008, with the continued development of cryptography, the first portable, rare and sovereign asset in the history of mankind was born: Bitcoin. As a species that is exploring Mars and hoping to one day go beyond Earth, humans need reliable digital assets. Bitcoin was a major step toward an era of comprehensive digitization capable of evading the risks of a centralized system. As Peter Thiel once said, “Bitcoin is a hedge against the whole world falling apart.” It didn’t stop there. The Ethereum network went live in July of 2015 — Vitalik Buterin’s way of showing the world that there is incredible potential for blockchain technology to reshape the world we live in. Suddenly, blockchain wasn’t just about Bitcoin. Today, applications built on blockchains are emerging, including digital signature algorithms, securitized tokens, digital rights management, crowdfunding, prediction markets, remittances, online gambling, social media platforms, financial exchanges, storage systems, distributed computation and identity systems to name a few. We have yet to see mass adoption due to a lack of basic infrastructure, and that is the most common criticism of blockchain technology. Over the last several weeks, I’ve seen a surprising number of editorials claiming that blockchain is a failed experiment. I want to reassure you that the criticisms expressed in these articles are misguided. Just like the internet, the sheer utility of blockchain technology will force adoption in the long run. To quote the Harvard Business Review, “blockchain is not a ‘disruptive technology,’ [it is] a foundational technology.” We are building the foundation to make that future possible. Competition in this market may seem fierce, with thousands of projects cluttering the space and echoing the claims of being an “Ethereum killer.” Truthfully, there are only a handful of competitive infrastructures aside from ETH and EOS. Most live projects either don’t function, run nodes on private servers, or are merely cheap copycats of ETH and EOS. As for projects that have yet to go live, many make unrealistic technological claims that are unachievable in the next 10 years. At IOST, we have one of the few teams actively working to solve the scalability trilemma, perhaps the greatest problem hampering widespread blockchain adoption, and not just trying to ride the coattails of another team’s hard work. That’s something to be proud of. Since we launched in 2018, so many new faces have joined the Internet of Services Foundation. We now have over 80 employees spread around the world in New York, San Francisco, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Germany and Singapore. Every one of you is making a meaningful contribution to the rise of blockchain technology, and thanks to your incredible efforts, we will be launching the IOST Mainnet in early 2019 — six months ahead of schedule! That’s unheard of in the blockchain space, and yet another reason why I am confident that, at IOST, we are building a legacy that will change the world. We are creating the infrastructure for a decentralized economy, one that doesn’t take shortcuts or compromise on the true vision of decentralization. IOST will provide developers with a blockchain platform to develop mass-adoptable applications and contracts, which in turn will help make the world a better, fairer place. In the past eight months, we took many detours, but we also made a lot of good decisions. The experience and lessons we take away from these experiences will be invaluable for the future. Innovative pioneers catch the largest worms, but most pioneers must experience mockery, cold-shoulders and even dark moments. If every venture could be accomplished in a month or a year, then everyone would be a pioneer. As an example, during Bitcoin’s 2013 price dip, Coinbase held out and expanded — they didn’t slow down after the market crash and the following two-year bear market. They remained adamant in their belief that they had made the correct choice, confident that it was simply a matter of time before revolutionary change would occur. They wanted to ride the tide, and while many felt their belts tighten during the market downturn, that didn’t impact their decision-making process. Fast forward to today, and Coinbase has reaped enormous success from their confidence in their beliefs. I’ve met many successful investors and entrepreneurs. They all have one thing in common: Time is their friend, and they understand that given enough time the market will work to service their needs. They set their minds on a direction and work to that end. I’ve also met many bad traders and entrepreneurs. They are crushed by stress, bet against the market, constantly shift gears, and make choices that are easily swayed by the market and emotions of others. Life is a long journey. We often say that choice is more important than effort. We also need to understand that desire and choices only pull through with persistence. I hope we can have faith in our common choice, the future of technology, the power of market cycles; remain unwavering in the face of swaying market sentiment; make independent and clear-headed judgments; and, together, build something people truly want. “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. Dream wildly. Live differently. Love recklessly. Lead courageously.” I am grateful that you have all become part of the family in our early days and are still fighting with us in this sagging market. Let’s build a better future together. This is guest post by Jimmy Zhong, co-founder ofIOST. Views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bitcoin Magazine or BTC Inc. This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Ethereum cofounder defends Tether against manipulation accusations: Tether is the biggest controversy in crypto right now. But Joseph Lubin, cofounder of Ethereum, does not buy the accusations against Tether. Tether is a “stablecoin” pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. Tether tokens are meant to be a way for investors or vendors to get out of bitcoin by exchanging it for tether. Theprice of tetherhas stayed at or right near $1 for its lifetime. But accusations have swirled around the company, Tether, which claims all tethers are backed by U.S. dollars held in bank accounts, but will not publicly identify its banks.In December 2017, the CFTC subpoenaed Tether and Bitfinex, a huge bitcoin exchange that began offering tether in 2015; the two companiesshare a CEO. In May, the U.S. Department of Justice, working with the CFTC,launched a criminal investigation into manipulation of bitcoin prices. And in June, aUniversity of Texas research paper concluded that the run-up in price of bitcoin at the end of 2017 was mostly due to manipulation of tether. To quell the doubts around its reserves, Tether tapped former FBI director Louis Freeh and his D.C. law firmFreeh, Sporkin & Sullivan, to conduct an investigation of its compliance, including a check of its bank balances.Freeh’s firm found that on June 1, Tether indeed held $2.545 billion in two banks, enough to match all tethers in reserve, plus a $7 million cushion. Tether publicly posted the Freeh report in June, but the many vocal skeptics were not satisfied. In August, the Wall Street Journal highlighted the “opaque way in which tethers are created,” which intensified scrutiny of Tether. Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts and onlookers are convinced the company is an elaborate scam. Joseph Lubin doesn’t agree. “Tether’s an interesting project,” Lubin told Yahoo Finance on our Final Round show on Tuesday. “Based on our analysis, which involves just talking to a bunch of people in the space, we do believe that tethers are backed 1 to 1 by U.S. dollars in bank accounts… With respect to market manipulations, I’m not sure that market manipulations are related to Tether directly, if they do exist.” Lubin, whose company Consensys is developing decentralized apps built on blockchain, is one of the more respected veterans in the crypto space.Ethereum, which he cofounded, is a smart contracts platform and the vehicle for mostinitial coin offerings(ICOs). The native token of Ethereum, ether, is the No. 2 cryptocurrency by market cap, though its price has fallen 70% in 2018. Lubin’s apparent defense of Tether may surprise those who are convinced that the token, and the company behind it, are in some way fraudulent. Or it may carry some weight with the skeptics. But Lubin also cautioned about Tether, “It’s still not 100% solid in terms of a story, from my perspective. I expect many other price stable tokens will arise and take its place.” As for thecurrent cryptocurrency correction, with all the major coins seeing big drops in 2018 so far (especially ether), Lubin predicts, “I think there’ll be a series of irrationally exuberant price spikes up, followed by corrections, probably… Each spike will, I believe, bring in a wave of new activity and bring fundamental infrastructure to the ecosystem.” — Daniel Robertscovers cryptocurrency and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @readDanwrite. Read more: Crypto market crash prompts people to post suicide hotline on Reddit Exclusive: Former FBI director Louis Freeh talks Tether investigation Bitcoin VC: ‘People are going to lose a lot of money’ on new coins Beware: An ICO is not like an IPO The 11 biggest names in crypto right now || Will the First Bitcoin ETF Make the Crypto Market Even More Volatile?: bitcoin price The first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) is expected to be approved by February of 2019. But, some experts have stated that ETFs may increase the volatility of the market. How the ETF Will Impact the Market Over the past few months, analysts have been divided on the effect of the ruling of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding Bitcoin ETFs on the crypto market. Brian Kelly, a contributor to CNBC’s Fast Money and the CEO at BKCM, previously explained that the rise in the price of Bitcoin from the lower end of $7,000 to $8,000 in early August could be attributed to the increasing hype around Bitcoin ETFs. Last week, as the price of BTC dropped substantially against the US dollar, Kelly emphasized that the SEC’s rejection of the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF likely had an impact on the market and that investors have overreacted to the news. bitcoin price Recently, in a Q&A session, well respected cryptocurrency researcher and security expert Andreas Antonopoulos disclosed his stance on Bitcoin ETFs, firmly stating that he is against the introduction of ETFs in regulated markets. Antonopoulos said that while ETFs have the ability to open the Bitcoin market to a group of institutional investors and retail traders that have not been able to trade the dominant cryptocurrencies due to issues pertaining to regulation, they also provide a platform for large investors to manipulate the price of BTC. He explained : “Everybody is so excited about ETFs. What we have seen in other markets is that when an ETF becomes available, the price really increases dramatically, as suddenly that commodity becomes available to a lot more investors and these investors pile on. But, the other side of it, is that there are always these claims that the commodities markets are heavily manipulated and opening up these ETFs only increase the ability of institutional investors to manipulate the prices of commodities.” It is possible, given that the ETF of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and VanEck-SolidX may lead to billions of dollars in new capital into the Bitcoin market, that the price of BTC sways by large margins on both the upside and downside during the operating hours of the US stock market, if an ETF is launched. Story continues Unlike futures contracts, in the ETF market, investors do not necessarily have the motivation or the incentive to intentionally bring down the price of Bitcoin by manipulating its price trend. But, for instance, if a group of investors decide to utilize the ETF market to manipulate the price of BTC to record gains in the futures market, the Bitcoin market could become significantly more volatile. ETF, Futures, and Long-Term Growth In the long run, as more publicly tradable investment vehicles are introduced by regulated financial institutions and the liquidity of Bitcoin drastically improves, it will become difficult to manipulate the price trend of the crypto market. However, in a period of instability, high volatility, and fast growth, publicly tradable investment vehicles could provide enough leverage to large investors that are capable of reversing market trends. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Will the First Bitcoin ETF Make the Crypto Market Even More Volatile? appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Forecast – BTC Prices Correct Lower: The BTC prices moved lower back towards the middle of the range only confirming the consolidation and the ranging that we have been seeing in the market over the last few months. Just as there has not been any major reason for the buoyancy and the move higher over the last week, there has not been any major fundamentals or economic news over the last 24 hours to push the prices lower but as a continuation of the consolidation, we are seeing the move lower and this only adds to the woes of the bulls who were looking to push higher and make a statement to the other traders. The bulls do need to generate some sort of momentum and for this, they need the support of a lot of traders and for the traders, it is important for them to see signs of strength and signs that the bulls are in control and the range would be broken sometime soon for them to enter into the market full of confidence. That has not happened so far and that is why we are seeing the consolidation continue and for now, there has been no signs of the range being broken anytime soon and so the traders have to just continue to wait and watch the market and hope that it breaks out sometime soon and also hope that the volatility is back. The ETH market continues to remain strong despite the correction in the BTC prices and the ETH prices continue to trade above the $200 region as of this writing. The ETH prices have received a boost due to the developments in the network and this has helped it to recover from its lows. Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today The prices are expected to continue to consolidate and range over the next 24 hours as well and with the lack of fundamental drivers in the market, it is no surprise if that continues to happen for the short and medium term as well. The range traders are likely to rule the roost for now while the long term traders accumulate and wait on the sidelines. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Is USD gaining back the strength? • EUR/USD Being Steady, Trade Wars Are in Focus • DAX Index Price Forecast – DAX To Trade Bearish Over Cues from International Markets • Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Forecast – BTC Prices Correct Lower • GBP/USD Daily Price Forecast – British Pound Flat Ahead of US FOMC Update • Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 25/09/18 || The crypto world is going wild for 'stablecoins' — here's everything you need to know about them: Chocolate coins are seen at the factory of Swiss chocolate manufacturer Aeschbach Chocolatier AG in Root-Luzern, Switzerland July 21, 2017. 'Stablecoins' are the hottest thing in crypto right now, with over 50 projects in development. A 'stablecoin' is a cryptocurrency that's price is pegged to a real-world asset like gold or the dollar. Here's a guide to what they're used for, how they work, and why people are excited about them. LONDON — The latest innovation in the fast-moving world of cryptocurrencies is the "stablecoin" — cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets such as the dollar or gold. A report from crypto wallet provider Blockchain released this week found that "the number of active stablecoin projects has dramatically increased over the past 12-18 months and more than a dozen project teams have stated they plan to launch in the coming weeks/months." There are now over 50 in development globally. Here's everything you need to know about the hottest new area of crypto: What is a stablecoin? "Stablecoins" are cryptocurrencies whose prices are linked to a real-world asset. In theory, they could be linked to anything, but the majority are linked to currencies such as the dollar or euro. How do they work? There are two main types of stablecoins: reserve-backed and algorithmic. Reserve-backed stablecoins function a little like paper money used to when it was linked to the gold standard. Just as cash used to be ultimately backed by gold reserves in a central bank, reserve-backed stablecoins are backed one-for-one by reserves of the currencies they are pegged to. Issuers of coins like USDC or Tether "tokenize" dollars by exchanging them for a stablecoin and depositing the dollars in a bank. Those dollars are then left untouched until somebody redeems the stablecoin for the dollars. It's this confidence that the stablecoin can be redeemed that maintains the price peg. The second type of stablecoin is one that is not backed by any reserves but instead controlled by an algorithm. Story continues Screen Shot 2018 09 28 at 15.25.02 Blockchain Garrick Hileman, head of research at Blockchain and author of the recent stablecoin report, told Business Insider: "They’re really using software rules to try and match supply with demand to maintain a peg to something like the US dollar. "As demand for an algorithmic stablecoin increases, supply also has to increase to make sure there’s not an appreciation in the value of the stablecoin. At the same time, as the value decreases, there needs to be a mechanism by which supply can be reduced again to try and bring the price of the stablecoin back to the peg. "That’s really the class of stablecoins that are much more challenging to design. They’re really unproven at this point." Examples of algorithmic stablecoins in development include Basis, Terra, Carbon, and Fragments. Why do people need stablecoins? Cryptos have been plagued by price volatility, with swings of 5% or even 10% in a day not unusual. This volatility has led critics to say that cryptos are speculative investments rather than currencies or assets. Stablecoins are an attempt to harness the benefits of cryptos — value can be transferred digitally — and combine them with the stability and trust in mainstream currencies. Hileman told BI: "For millions of individuals, tens of millions in our view, as well as institutions, the volatility of crypto assets that we saw last year really is keeping a number of people’s on the sidelines of the cryptocurrency movement. "Stablecoins can address that and enable a number of use cases that bitcoin or ether or other more volatile cryptocurrencies are suboptimal for — things like insurance." What are they used for? The most common use case for stablecoins at the moment is as a liquidity tool for cryptocurrency exchanges. Many exchanges have been shut out of mainstream banking because banks are wary of dealing with anything crypto-related for compliance reasons. As a result, many exchanges can't accept dollar or euro deposits. Clients want to buy with dollars and to be able to trade out of cryptos into dollars at times of high volatility. Stablecoins offer an elegant solution to this problem. However, proponents of stablecoins think the technology could allow for more complex financial products to be built on crypto — things like insurance, smart contract dividend payments, and loans. Which are the biggest stablecoins? Tether is by far the most popular stablecoin and is used primarily by exchanges to offer dollar-like liquidity. "Tether (USDT) is the second most actively traded cryptocurrency (~60% of BTC daily trading volume) and earlier this year entered the top-10 crypto asset rankings by market value," Blockchain said in its report. Hileman said: "Certainly, last year we saw Tether really demonstrate that there was a real demand for a stablecoin. We saw use of Tether on exchanges like Poloniex that did not have access to US dollar deposits really take off. It helped facilitate the rise of a number of exchanges that were either cut off or chose not to integrate with the existing banking system." Who's developing them? Stablecoins are being developed by both new startups and existing crypto businesses such as Circle and Gemini, the crypto exchange run by the Winklevoss twins. There are currently 57 stablecoins in development according to Blockchain's report. 23 are already live. Recent examples include the Winklevoss twins' Gemini coin , Paxos Standard, the US Dollar Coin, developed by Goldman Sachs-backed Circle, and the LBXPeg. Screen Shot 2018 09 25 at 16.32.31 Blockchain Venture capitalists are also betting big on the space. Blockchain's report said: "$335 million in venture funding has been raised by all stablecoin project teams to date." A notable investment in the space came from Silicon Valley fund Andreessen Horowitz, which recently invested $15 million into stablecoin project MakerDAO. Why are so many appearing? Hileman said that the success of Tether "really set off a whole load of innovative teams to think about: how can we do this better?" Despite its popularity, Tether has been beset by criticism of its auditing standards, corporate opacity, and claims of manipulation. As a result, many in the industry feel there is an opportunity to provide a better solution. The potential for stablecoins to be used in everything from crypto insurance to lending and savings means entrepreneurs also hope there can be room in the market for many successful stablecoins. What are the challenges stablecoins face? Heilman told BI that one of the biggest challenges facing stablecoins is scaling. For reserve-backed stablecoins to reach a level where liquidity is deep enough to support interesting applications of the technology, backers will have to invest millions or even billions in each coin. This could create "a cap on how fast the stablecoin can grow," Heilman said. "When you’re talking about use cases in the trillions, having any upward limit or friction on how quickly something can grow is potentially a huge problem." Heilman also believes that stablecoins looking to replace Tether as a liquidity proxy may end up having a tougher time than some may assume. "Tether, for all the complaints and criticism and concerns, has generally been pretty reliable at holding its peg to the US dollar. It’s worked well enough," he said. "Tether had a huge head start. It has a network effect — it has a love of exchanges, over 150 that have listed it, it’s a top 10 cryptocurrency." winklevoss REUTERS/Stephen Lam Another potential hurdle is regulatory scrutiny. Heilman believes that central banks may be quicker to act on stablecoins than they were on cryptos like bitcoin because stablecoins more closely resemble fiat money and could have effects on monetary policy. Not everyone believes in the promise of stablecoins either. Bitfinex'd, a prominent crypto Twitter account that attacks what it sees as bad practice in the space, recently said: "Essentially the only application for them is for scam exchanges to use it," in relations to those outside the banking system. Preston Byrne, a fellow of the Adam Smith Institute and the former COO of blockchain company Monax, has also expressed skepticism, calling stablecoins "doomed to fail" in a lengthy blog post. Finally, the emerging asset also faces a variety of technical challenges. Blockchain's report concludes: "The technology is still nascent and it is highly unlikely that the perfect stablecoin design exists at present; we expect further experimentation and innovation." NOW WATCH: Ray Dalio says the economy looks like 1937 and a downturn is coming in about two years See Also: A UK startup is planning to develop a 'crypto pound' as the sector goes crazy for 'stablecoins' Chinese bitcoin mining giant Bitmain had revenues of $2.8 billion in the first half of the year 75 banks have joined JPMorgan's blockchain payments 'party' SEE ALSO: A Goldman-backed startup is launching a crypto pegged to the dollar — part of plans to 'rebuild the financial system on top of crypto' DON'T MISS: Everything you need to know about Tether, the cryptocurrency academics claim was used to manipulate bitcoin NEXT UP: 'This is something we have to do to push the ecosystem forward': Tyler Winklevoss explains why Gemini is launching a crypto coin pegged to the US dollar || 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 in bitcoin . 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 the Evening 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. Free Speech Issue Cited 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 and Fox News have 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. Robinson’s Critics Alarmed 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 post English Rightist Tommy Robinson Receives £20,000 In Bitcoin Donations appeared first on CCN . || ‘Multi Billion-Dollar Idea’: Australian Tech Entrepreneur Plans Crypto Bank Launch: Australia Bitcoin Dollar Fred Schebesta, a 26-year old entrepreneur who co-founded comparison website Finder.com, wants to open a crypto bank in Australia . Schebesta believes that interest in cryptocurrency is growing and soon people will need an institution which can fulfill their crypto needs. Bitcoin is Not a Bubble In an interview with Australian news website News.com.au , Schebesta said that he didn’t care much about the current price of Bitcoin. According to him, people have been calling Bitcoin a bubble when it was worth $10, $100 and even $1,000. Due to the volatility in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, people believe that interest in crypto has lessened. However, Schebesta explained that people are only upset at the sudden decline, which doesn’t mean that interest in it has died down. He, like other Bitcoin advocates, believes that Bitcoin bears similarities to gold. “We just saw a massive spike in retail investors coming on board. That’s why everyone bought and they sold and everyone’s really angry,” said Schebesta. The trick here is to wait and watch the story unfold. Schebesta added that if people still think Bitcoin is worth nothing, they can simply send it to him. Crypto Bank in Australia Schebesta said that he is a time traveller and this is the reason why he is successful. He can visit the future and come back to the present to try and follow the steps to achieve something. Luckily, he has seen the future for cryptocurrencies. Schebesta wants to open a crypto bank in Australia and believes that he could complete this task within 18 months. Since he will need an authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) license, he will collaborate with an existing Australian bank. Deeming it a :multibillion-dollar idea”, he has already bought shares in Goldfields Money because it is the only bank in Western Australia with an ADI license. Schebesta said, “As crypto adoption takes off … people are going to [need] certain services [like] custodianship, cold storage, escrow, exchange and spending.” He added that crypto lending would also become a requirement in the upcoming future. Story continues However, Schebesta noted that Australian banks are scared of cryptocurrencies. He thinks that it is unfair that they are discontinuing their services for crypto users. People will realize the importance of cryptocurrencies after facing issues with traditional financial institutions. Even though, crypto wouldn’t be the “be-all and end-all”, it would still become a huge part of the financial ecosystem. “That’s why I’m hedging Finder,” concluded Schebesta. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post ‘Multi Billion-Dollar Idea’: Australian Tech Entrepreneur Plans Crypto Bank Launch appeared first on CCN . || Soros Is Buying Spotify and Pandora: Should You?: Hedge funds are filing their second-quarter moves this week, and it seems as if George Soros has a thing for streaming music platforms. Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) and Pandora (NYSE: P) were among the largest new purchases for Soros Fund Management this past quarter, accounting for $122.6 million and $56.1 million of the widely watched hedge fund titan's assets. Spotify is the leading provider of premium digital music subscriptions. Pandora is primarily a haven for ad-tolerating freeloaders, but it's also making some major headway in getting more of its users to pay up for tunes. Buying big blocks of both companies doesn't necessarily mean Soros is backing up the truck when it comes to stand-alone digital music services, but it obviously means he believes both stocks will be trading higher in the future. Spotify seen on tablets, laptops, and smartphones. Image source: Spotify. Singing a new tune Spotify and Pandora have momentum on their side. Spotify hasn't made a lot of waves since its direct public offering . The stock opened at $165.90 on its first day of trading more than four months ago, and it's trading just 17% higher now. However, the stock is moving higher for the third month in a row as it closes in on new highs. Pandora's been an unexpected rock star. Shares of the music discovery pioneer have soared 66% this year, rising as revenue growth is finally starting to accelerate after years of deceleration. That last statement can probably use some more color, as Pandora's back-to-back quarters of accelerating top-line growth to kick off 2018 is basically revenue growth going from 0.7% in the fourth quarter of last year to 1% and then 2.1% in this year's first two quarters. However, if you back out the revenue generated a year earlier from the Ticketfly event ticketing business it has since unloaded and the operations in Australia and New Zealand that have been closed down, the adjusted revenue would've risen a hearty 12% in Pandora's latest report. Story continues Spotify is growing faster, and it also has two variations of its top-line growth. Revenue rose 26% in the second quarter on a reported basis, but it would've been 34% if you back out foreign exchange moves. The one thing driving both stocks higher is that more and more people are approaching streaming music services as something that's worth paying for. Spotify's monthly active users have risen 30% over the past year to hit 180 million, but premium subscribers have soared 40% to close out the second quarter at 83 million. Pandora's premium subscriber base has risen 23% to 6 million over the past year, but subscription revenue itself surged 67% in the second quarter. Pandora still has a long way to go to approach Spotify's 46% penetration rate of paying users relative to its total audience. Just 8% of Pandora's 71.4 million active listeners are paying users. The trend is still improving quickly at both companies. The risks are there for both companies. Profitability remains elusive for both players. Investors will always have to be looking out for disruptive upstarts and tech giants that can shake things up in this niche, because even disruptors get disrupted. Soros is following momentum and the unmistakable trend of premium streaming music platforms, but both companies still have a lot to prove in justifying their recent gains. 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 Rick Munarriz owns shares of Pandora Media. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Pandora Media. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 2 of America's Favorite Airlines Are Increasing Fees: The last couple of years have not been kind to JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU) and Alaska Air Group (NYSE: ALK) . Rising fuel prices have pinched profitability across the U.S. airline industry, but due to competitive dynamics and other factors, JetBlue and Alaska have had more trouble offsetting these cost headwinds than some other carriers. Both airlines have tried to get profitability back on track through a combination of cost discipline and tactical capacity adjustments. However, it hasn't been enough. As a result, JetBlue and Alaska have both decided to increase various fees to boost their ancillary revenue and counter the weak fare environment. High customer satisfaction doesn't always mean high profits JetBlue and Alaska Airlines regularly rank as two of the top airlines in the U.S. for customer satisfaction. While Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) has been the highest-rated airline in the annual J.D. Power North America Airline Satisfaction Study for two years running -- following JetBlue's 12-year reign at the top -- JetBlue remains a close second. Alaska Air routinely takes the No. 3 spot. Meanwhile, JetBlue still has the highest-rated loyalty program in the country, followed by Southwest and Alaska. A JetBlue Airways plane preparing to land JetBlue has the second-best customer satisfaction ratings of any U.S. airline. Image source: JetBlue Airways. But while customers love all three low-fare airlines, that hasn't translated to equivalent financial results lately. As recently as 2016, Alaska Air and JetBlue were among the most profitable airlines in the U.S. JetBlue's profit margin was 11.4%, right in line with Southwest Airlines' 11.6% adjusted margin. Alaska Air's adjusted profit margin was even higher, at 15.4%. By contrast, while analysts project that Southwest's adjusted earnings per share will reach $4.16 this year -- up from $3.75 in 2016 -- analysts expect adjusted EPS to fall from $7.32 to $4.16 for Alaska Air and from $2.22 to $1.49 for JetBlue over the same period. Story continues The sharp EPS declines for Alaska and JetBlue are even more notable given that they are getting big windfalls from tax reform this year. With fuel costs rising and profitability plunging, both carriers' management teams are highly motivated to find new sources of revenue. That's leading them to rethink their fee policies in an effort to boost non-ticket revenue. Policies are becoming less customer-friendly In April, Alaska Airlines announced that it would make several policy changes in an effort to generate $150 million of incremental revenue annually. Most notably, it will launch "Saver" fares in late 2018, its version of the basic economy fares adopted by the legacy carriers in recent years. Customers buying Saver tickets will only be able to select seats at the back of the plane, they won't be eligible for any flight changes or upgrades, and they will board last. A rendering of an Alaska Airlines plane flying above clouds Alaska Airlines will roll out its version of basic economy by year-end. Image source: Alaska Airlines. Additionally, Alaska Airlines has done away with its policy of allowing free flight changes up until 60 days before departure. Flight changes will cost $125 in most cases, regardless of when they are made. The fee for same-day confirmed changes has doubled to $50. Alaska also has started charging extra for exit-row seats and has adjusted its frequent-flyer award chart. During JetBlue's second-quarter earnings call, management hinted that it, too, was looking to raise fees. Sure enough, JetBlue will increase a variety of fees at the end of this month, according to The Points Guy . First and second bag fees will increase by $5 (for fares that don't include a checked bag allowance). The fees for a third bag, oversized bags, surfboards, and other bulky equipment will be increased by $50. The pet fee will rise to $125 from $100. Finally, JetBlue will raise its change/cancellation fee for vacation packages and for pricier tickets to $200. There's no middle ground on fees Southwest Airlines has had considerable success marketing itself as an airline that doesn't nickel-and-dime customers. Every fare comes with two free checked bags and can be changed or canceled for free until 10 minutes before departure. These customer-friendly policies cause Southwest Airlines to miss out on some ancillary revenue opportunities, but they have helped the carrier develop a large and growing following of loyal customers. The no-hidden-fee policy boosts ticket revenue by enabling Southwest to get more than its fair share of bookings. Alaska Airlines and JetBlue have occupied a middle ground between Southwest and the rest of the pack in terms of fees. All JetBlue fares included a free checked bag until 2015. Meanwhile, Alaska Airlines allowed free flight changes up until the 60-day mark. And JetBlue is still the only U.S. carrier to offer free high-speed Wi-Fi on every flight. However, these carriers appear to realize that customers haven't been giving them much credit for having lower fees and friendlier policies than the legacy carriers. That isn't very surprising. It's hard to build a marketing campaign around the concept of "bag fees are a little lower" or "no change fees if you let us know really far in advance." Southwest has seized the moral -- and marketing -- high ground with its "bags fly free" and "no change fees" mantras. Thus, the best strategy for Alaska Airlines and JetBlue Airways is to boost their ancillary revenue so that they can at least afford to keep base fares low. That's exactly what they're doing. But it means that these popular airlines may seem a little less customer-friendly going forward. 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 Alaska Air Group, JetBlue Airways, and Southwest Airlines and is long January 2019 $10 calls on JetBlue Airways. The Motley Fool recommends Alaska Air Group, JetBlue Airways, and Southwest Airlines. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || GBP/USD Daily Price Forecast – USD Breaches 1.30 level as Brexit Woes Weight down Sterling: The GBP/USD is trading into the bearish side as the new trading week begins to unwind, and traders are remaining on edge as Brexit concerns return to the forefront. The Bank of England’s (BOE) Governor, Mark Carney, stepped up recently and voiced concerns over current Brexit conditions, stating that the ever-rising odds of a hard Brexit scenario are “uncomfortably high”, and UK ministers are warning that European Union leaders in Brussels are at risk of breaking their own laws if they continue to refuse to give up any negotiating ground while the UK seeks to secure trade agreements with the EU prior to the official Brexit date of March 2019. After last week’s BOE action that saw the UK’s central bank disappoint markets with an anticipated pace of rate hikes that fell far short of expectations, this week sees a fairly muted schedule for the GBP, and broader markets will be turning their eyes to the US inflation figures due later this week, though Monday will be seeing the UK’s y/y BRC Like-For-Like Retail Sales for July, which is forecast to slow to 0.4% compared to the previous period’s 1.1%. Market Remains Void of Major Impact News This Week As of writing this article, the GBP/USD pair has moved below 1.30 handle for second time this month and is currently trading at 1.2996 with 0.06% decrease in value. With Brexit back on the front burner once again, the Sterling is facing bearish pressure back into 2018’s lows after July failed to generate a meaningful bounce for GBP buyers to latch onto, a continued decline could see the GBP/USD sliding well beyond 1.29 handle. Daily candles show the GBP/USD firmly in a bearish trend, and July’s half-hearted pullbacks see resistance levels priced in at regular intervals. For the USD this week will be focused on the upcoming Consumer Price Index figures, though the reading isn’t due until Friday and the economic calendar sees little meaningful data for the US. The dollar holds firm against a basket of its peers on Monday after U.S. job data reinforced investors’ expectations the Federal Reserve will gradually raise interest rates this year. The Fed kept rates unchanged as widely expected last Wednesday, and gave an upbeat assessment of the world’s biggest economy. Story continues {alt} As trading session moves forward, the strength of US Greenback seems to be on rise since Sino-U.S trade war tension is greatly weighing down markets and Chinese yuan. The pair is technically bearish, given that in the daily chart, the 20 DMA turned modestly lower while attracting selling interest all through the week. The Momentum indicator in the mentioned chart stands flat below its 100 level, but the RSI heads lower, around 36, leaning the scale toward the downside. Shorter term, the downward potential is stronger, as in the 4 hours chart, the pair keeps moving away from a strongly bearish 20 SMA, while technical indicators remain well into the red, with modest downward slopes. Expected support and resistance for the pair are at 1.2970, 1.2925, 1.2885 and 1.3045, 1.3085, 1.3120 respectively. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – US Prepares to Slap New Sanctions on Iran DASH Technical Analysis – Resistance Levels in Sight – 06/08/18 Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 06/08/18 Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – August 6, 2018 Forecast GBP/USD Double Trend Line Confluence EUR/USD Daily Price Forecast – US Jobs Data Helped EUR/USD Make a Breakout In Favor of US Greenback [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] This tweet, "Bitcoin (-0.02): $7,282.95 Ethereum (0.35): $411.07 XRP (0.31): $0.44 Bitcoin Cash (0.09): $710.23 EOS (0.16): $7.02 Stellar (0.37): $0.25 Litecoin (0.08): $75.94 Cardano (-0.27): $0.13 Tether (-0.04): $1.00 IOTA (1.4): $0.88" hasn't been tweeted more than 0 times. || 2018/09/25 11:00 #Binance 格安コイン 1位 #HOT 0.00000016 BTC(0.12円) 2位 #NPXS 0.00000021 BTC(0.15円) 3位 #BCN 0.00000032 BTC(0.23円) 4位 #DENT 0.00000033 BTC(0.24円) 5位 #NCASH 0.00000085 BTC(0.62円) #仮想通貨 #アルトコイン #草コイン || Total Market Cap: $229,150,423,055 1 BTC: $6,763.91 BTC Dominance: 51.02% Update Time: 23-09-2018 - 13:00:04 (GMT+3) || 08/23 08:00現在 #Bitcoin : 703,195円↓ #NEM #XEM : 10.5603円↓ #Monacoin : 171.9円↓ #Ethereum : 29,795円↑ #Zaif : 0.3149円↓ || #Doviz ------------------- #USD : 6.6305 #EUR : 7.7286 #GBP : 8.5572 -------------------------------------- #BTC ------------------- #Gobaba : 48141.67 #BtcTurk : 46199.00 #Koinim : 46295.00 #Paribu : 46203.00 #Koineks : 46397.00 || LATEST PRICES FOR TOP 10 CRYPTOCURRENCIES (USD): 1.) $BTC = $6,429.78 2.) $ETH = $271.06 3.) $XRP = $0.3204 4.) $BCH = $518.62 5.) $EOS = $4.75 6.) $XLM = $0.2079 7.) $LTC = $55.46 8.) $USDT = $1.00 9.) $ADA = $0.0898 10.) $XMR = $89.42 || 2018/08/29 00:30 #Binance 格安コイン 1位 #HOT 0.00000011 BTC(0.09円) 2位 #NPXS 0.00000029 BTC(0.23円) 3位 #BCN 0.00000033 BTC(0.26円) 4位 #DENT 0.00000044 BTC(0.34円) 5位 #SC 0.00000089 BTC(0.7円) #仮想通貨 #アルトコイン #草コイン || Block 538868 Hash: 0x...02ecd83dc28362a5f4b5f1929552150527eebb6ee4c713 Size: 1.05MB Txs: 888 SegWit spends: 33% 5,918 in → 3,281 out Out/In Ratio: 0.55 Out Value: $336,882,625 | 50,613 btc Fees Total: $9,027 | 1.36 btc Highest: $665.61 Median: $0.67 Lowest: $0.00 pic.twitter.com/XAu21ZI7gs || Read the post to get BTC Bonus: Less Than 1 Percent of Subscribers Use PornHub’s Cryptocurrency Payment Option https://www.pivot.one/share/post/5bb26a1b6c20cd443275b236?uid=5bad3923f2202737f97d5600&invite_code=AXRFUY …pic.twitter.com/K3x2s6lGQc || 09/19 15:00現在 #Bitcoin : 710,960円↓ #NEM #XEM : 10.0071円↓ #Monacoin : 109.3円↓ #Ethereum : 23,895円↑ #Zaif : 0.2699円↓
Trend: down || Prices: 6502.59, 6576.69, 6622.48, 6588.31, 6602.95, 6652.23, 6642.64, 6585.53, 6256.24, 6274.58
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)] Despite New Incentives to Stay, Some of OKEx’s Chinese Users Are Determined to Leave: The unexpected five-week-long suspension of OKEx’scrypto withdrawal servicehas left many of its users, largely based in China, disappointed and determined to leave or reduce holdings on the exchange when withdrawals resume sometime this week. “We will still trade on OKEx but our investment will be much more diversified and [we] will reduce our position on OKEx to about one-third of our previous one,” Alex Zuo, vice president of China-based crypto wallet Cobo, told CoinDesk via WeChat. “Even though we think OKEx is still a trusted exchange, there will be many uncertainties in the future.” That determination has become even stronger after the Malta-based crypto exchange announced itwill launch a mix of compensation and reward programsfor users who have used its service during the suspension period. Related:OKEx Sees Biggest Bitcoin Outflow in 6 Months Soon After Resuming Withdrawals “If OKEx indeed has enough assets to prepare a scenario where bulk withdrawals take place, it would be a smarter move if they told users ‘go ahead and withdraw your tokens. We will guarantee you will receive your tokens immediately,’” Daniel Wang, founder and chief executive of decentralized token exchange protocol Loopring, told CoinDesk in a phone call. Read more:OKEx’s Withdrawal Suspension Isn’t Behind Bitcoin’s Rally: Analysts “Launching compensation and reward programs does not sound quite impressive as their marketing strategy to keep their upset users,” Wang added. OKEx unexpectedly announced on Oct. 16 it suspended all cryptocurrency withdrawals on its platform, saying one of its key holders had “been out of touch” with the exchange because he was “cooperating with a public security bureau in investigations.” Related:OKEx Resumes Withdrawals 5 Weeks After Freeze Nonetheless, open interest for bothbitcoinfutures and options has remained high on OKEx. It still maintains its leading position as the leading derivative crypto exchange with the highest bitcoin futures open interest, at $1.27 billion, according to data source Skew. Without specifying an exact date for resuming withdrawals, the exchange is preparing to reopen the service sometime this week. But this vagueness has raised questions as to why the date has not been disclosed. Although “less likely,” some of OKEx’s larger, or “whale,” clients may be able to manipulate the exchange’s market right before or after the withdrawal opening for “arbitrage opportunities” if they learn the exact date before anyone else, Ki Young Ju, chief executive officer at crypto data source CryptoQuant, told CoinDesk. Other scenarios include one where some whales who intend to leave OKEx may convert their bitcoins to other cryptocurrencies for a number of reasons including faster transactions, according to Ki. Or some hedge funds could send bitcoin ortetherto OKEx for arbitrage opportunities. The better scenario from the perspective of bitcoin’s price would be for a large amount of bitcoin to flow from OKEx into non-exchange wallets, bringing less supply on exchanges in general, Ki said. Usually, more bitcoin on exchanges is viewed as a bearish sign because it is seen as increasing selling pressure. A likely possibility is that more users in China could consider sending their bitcoins to private wallets because their options are limited when it comes to exchanges. Read more:Crypto Long & Short: The OKEx Drama Exposes a Weakness in Crypto Market Infrastructure Crypto exchanges have largely been running in a gray area ever since China’s governmentbanned crypto trading in 2017, Wang said. Chinese crypto holders have mainly been relying on the “Big Three” exchanges – Binance, Huobi and OKEx – that started in China initially with high trading volumes and relatively good reputations. Huobi and OKEx have bothboasted of their close relationships with the Chinese government. However, running their exchange business in a gray area means that close ties with the government does not guarantee the safety of the exchanges’ users’ funds in China, as evidenced by OKEx’s situation. “We believe that after this incident, the trading volumes on OKEx will decline significantly and institutions will also likely withdraw from it,” Cobo’s Zuo said. “Huobi will have the same potential risks. Binance as well.” Zuo told CoinDesk his company has started considering opening accounts on other exchanges including FTX, Coinbase and Bitstamp, but it will take a long time to shift those transaction volumes from the Chinese Big Three exchanges. Flex Yang, founder and chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based crypto lender Babel Finance, said that what remains attractive on the OKEx platform is a variety of derivative products, which may keep some of the more seasoned traders from leaving the leading derivative crypto exchange. “In fact, we have seen that some traders have been trading on OKEx despite the withdrawal suspension,” Yang said. “It is expected that users that have been trading some contracts offered on OKEx only will return to OKEx soon.” • Despite New Incentives to Stay, Some of OKEx’s Chinese Users Are Determined to Leave • Despite New Incentives to Stay, Some of OKEx’s Chinese Users Are Determined to Leave || CEO’s of PayPal, Logiq, Peak Fintech, and Square Discuss Bitcoin, Fintech and New Growth Opportunities in Digital Wallets: NEW YORK, Nov. 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wall Street Reporter, the trusted name in financial news since 1843, has published reports on the latest comments and insights from leaders at: PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ), and Square (NYSE: SQ ). The convergence of AI, Big Data, Smart Phones, and financial innovation is driving massive new growth opportunities in all aspects of financial services.Wall Street Reporter highlights the latest comments from industry thought leaders: PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) CEO Dan Schulman: “Rise of Digital Wallets Will Drive PayPal’s Growth” “...The digitization of the global economy combined with the rise of digital wallets will drive our growth over the next decade. Our scale, two-sided network, trusted brand, our strong relationships with the regulators around the world, and our AI and data modeling capabilities can all be leveraged to ensure our PayPal and Venmo apps are essential parts of our customers’ daily lives...This is beginning to play out in our strong Q3 results. In Q3, our total payment volume grew by a record 36% on an FX neutral basis to $247 billion in annual run rate, just shy of $1 trillion.” “Over the next year, both the Venmo and PayPal apps will undergo a fundamental transformation intended to dramatically increase their functionality and drive engagement...This expanded suite of services will include enhanced direct deposit and check cashing, budget and savings tools, bill pay, investment alternatives, including crypto, subscription management, buy now, pay later optionality and all of Honey’s shopping tools from wish list, price monitoring, deals, coupons, and rewards…We recently announced that PayPal will allow account holders to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies first, in the U.S. and then expanding to international markets in the Venmo platform in the first half of next year…We will rapidly move at the beginning of next year and allow consumers to use cryptocurrencies as a funding instrument to shop across all 28 million of our merchants. This solution will not involve any additional integrations, volatility risk or incremental transaction fees for either consumers or merchants and will fundamentally bolster the utility of cryptocurrencies…” Story continues PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL ) Q3 2020 Earnings Highlights: https://bit.ly/3fsidCx Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) CEO Johnson Joseph: “China Fintech Revenues Ready to Explode” NEXT SUPER STOCK conference presenter Peak Fintech Group (OTC:PKKFF) (CSE: PKK) CEO Johnson Joseph, recently spoke with Wall Street Reporter’s investor audience about PKKFF fast growing China fintech business which connects small-medium business with commercial lending solutions. Joseph explained how Peak Fintech has already gained significant traction, generating over C$7.2 million revenue in Q 2020, and is now ready to start scaling revenues as it enters new markets in coming months. PKKFF’s recently announced partnerships open opportunities to reach thousands more new fintech customers. Watch PKKFF Next Super Stock (November 19) livestream video: https://bit.ly/3kV3bqk November 19 - PKKFF signs agreement with packaged foods wholesale distributor Beijing Jingying Corporate Management Ltd. ("BJM") to bring PKKFF’s Cubeler Lending Hub financing solution to BJM and its more than 250,000 retail clients. BJM is a major distributor of a variety of popular products from China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO), for which it has exclusive distribution rights to approximately 200,000 Petro-China convenience stores and on online retail giant JD.com. COFCO is China's largest food processor, manufacturer and commodities trader and one of the largest agribusiness groups in all of Asia. November 6 - PKKFF hires former People's Bank of China senior manager, Mr. Wenjun Wu, as a special advisor to assist the Company in various business development capacities and in preparing the Company's Cubeler Lending Hub platform for China's upcoming digital currency. October 20 - PKKFF signed an exclusive agreement with the parent company of national consumer electronics distributor Beijing Dianjing Company Ltd. ("BDC") to bring financing solutions to BDC's 60,000 online retail clients. BDC is a wholesale distributor of consumer electronics whose online retail clients sell laptops, smartphones and other consumer electronic products on China's top three e-commerce portals: Tmall, JD.com and Pinduoduo. BDC's clients, who collectively sell about $50B worth of consumer electronics per year, will be able to have up to 90% of the price of the products they purchase from BDC financed. Peak typically earns service fees ranging from 1% to 3% of the value of the credit amounts it helps facilitate, and this represents a total market opportunity of up to $1.35B in annual revenue potential. Watch PKKFF Next Super Stock (November 19) livestream video: https://bit.ly/3kV3bqk Click Here to Join Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream December 2, 2020: https://bit.ly/2PX0SpH Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ) President, Brent Suen: “Southeast Asia Fintech/Ecomm with 10X Upside Potential” Logiq, Inc. (OTC: LGIQ), a regular presenter at Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream events, is rapidly growing it’s mobile e-commerce, and fintech business in Southeast Asia, with revenues accelerating to a $40 million run-rate. In a recent livestream event, LGIQ President Brent Suen discussed the company’s new partnership with Indonesia’s government agency which can potentially offer it’s fintech services to 48 million members. Brent also explained why LGIQ has compelling upside, based on valuation comparables to it’s peers in the e-commerce/fintech space. While LGIQ trades at about 2X revenues, it’s peers such as SHOP, SE, STNE, and JMIA, are often trading at 20-30X revenues. Watch (OTC: LGIQ) NEXT SUPER STOCK (November 18) livestream: https://bit.ly/3lYLhnU November 18 - LGIQ has launched its previously announced mobile fintech platform in Indonesia, in an exclusive strategic alliance with Indonesia’s social security program provider, Koperasi Mona Santoso Berjaya (KMSB). Using the new fintech platform, KMSB will provide micro-lending services to Badan Perlayanan Jaminan Sosial Ketenagakerjaan (BPJSTK), Indonesia’s social security agency that administers retirement and pension plans on behalf of Indonesian government entities and about 600,000 small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), with a combined total of 48 million individual members. LGIQ and KMSB will jointly own and operate the new mobile fintech platform that will deliver mobile financial services. Logiq, through its Indonesian operations, will provide platform design and technology, management, ongoing hosting and technical support. KMSB will provide the financial institutional relationships for enabling the microlending program. The partners will then work together to launch a new marketing and advertising campaign that will encourage adoption and regular use of the mobile fintech offerings. The pilot program will provide mobile micro-lending and related services to 6,000 BPJSTK employees who will be able to borrow up to 20% of their annual salary. “Through this exclusive strategic alliance with KMSB, we have a tremendous opportunity to improve the lives of nearly 20% of the Indonesian population who normally do not have access to traditional financial services,” stated LGIQ president, Brent Suen. “The opportunities for new revenue streams from microlending, mobile payments, and our eCommerce solutions with this enormous user base are also phenomenal, potentially generating tens of millions of dollars of revenue annually…” Watch (OTC: LGIQ) NEXT SUPER STOCK (November 18) livestream: https://bit.ly/3lYLhnU Click Here to Join Wall Street Reporter’s NEXT SUPER STOCK livestream December 2, 2020: https://bit.ly/2PX0SpH Square (NYSE: SQ) CEO Jack Dorsey: “Scaling Business and Consumer Fintech Ecosystems” “...We have scaled not one but two ecosystems focused on expanding access to financial services for sellers and individuals…Let’s start with Seller. We’re focused on providing sellers with fast and flexible access to their funds, which has proven to be especially important this year. Square Card, our business debit card, which we launched last year, provides sellers with a way to immediately access and spend earned funds without setting up a bank account. Adoption of Square Card has increased each quarter since launch...We also work to provide employees easier access to funds. In the third quarter, we launched two new features for Square Payroll, Instant Payments and On-Demand Pay. Instant Payments allows Square Payroll merchants to pay employees using earned funds next business day with direct deposit or instantly when employees use Cash App. This strengthens the integration between our Seller and Cash App ecosystems, and it was a great example of what we can do when we connect the two ecosystems together…” “For Cash App, we’ve continued to find ways to make financial services more relatable and accessible for individuals. We’ve seen strong adoption across the Cash App ecosystem, including our stock brokerage product, which has seen the fastest adoption of any product to-date. Since launching it less than a year ago, more than 2.5 million customers have bought stocks using Cash App and billions of dollars have been traded by the end of the third quarter...This quarter we launched Auto-Invest, which allows for dollar-cost averaging from recurring daily or weekly purchase of Bitcoin or stocks.” Square (NYSE: SQ ) Q3 2020 Earnings Highlights: https://bit.ly/2UCHP6s WALL STREET REPORTER Wall Street Reporter (Est. 1843) is the leading financial news provider, focused on giving investors direct access to CEO's of promising, publicly-traded companies, and market experts. www.WallStreetReporter.com About Wall Street Reporter’s Next Super Stock conference: Wall Street Reporter's NEXT SUPER STOCK Live! conference is dedicated to featuring select companies that have near-term catalysts in place which can drive transformational growth (and stock appreciation) in the months ahead. Click here to join next livestream event: https://www.wallstreetreporter.com/next-superstock-online-investor-conference/ CONTACT: WALL STREET REPORTER (212) 871-2057 ext 7 www.WallStreetReporter.com || Five Most Successful DeFi Assets of 2020: Money-lending services, decentralised exchanges and liquidity protocols, all running on smart-contracts, became a new popular agenda in the world of cryptocurrency in 2020. Many of these projects experienced wild fluctuations, both in terms of liquidity locked in the protocols and price action of their digital tokens. Now, I will share with you my take on the most successful DeFi assets in 2020. In my list of projects I will use the data provided by the cryptocurrency data aggregatorsMessariandCoinGecko. The money-lending platform Aave was launched in January 2020. At the end of 2020, its native token AAVE reached a $1 billion market cap and comfortably leads the DeFi project ranking by market cap. Aave’s original token launched at the end of 2017 was Lend (LEND). In July 2020, the AAVE governance token was launched, and LEND tokens were swapped for AAVE at a ratio of 1:100. The AAVE token enjoyed spectacular growth in both spikes of the DeFi market in 2020: in August and November. From under $30 in July, the token rose to $90 in August, then fell to $25 on 5th November. Then the second wave of DeFi market growth began, taking AAVE to $96 on 3rd December. As of mid-December 2020, AAVE is mainly trading between $75 and $90. Uniswap stormed the scene of decentralised exchanges (DEX’s) in 2020. It made a real breakthrough in terms of decentralised liquidity, quickly becoming the most popular DEX. In December 2020, the project’s reported market cap fluctuates around $850 million. Since the launch of the UNI token on exchanges, its price quickly travelled from $0 to $8.5 in mid-September. Then the UNI price quickly reversed the gains in a corrective move toward $2 and sank below it in early November. But the second wave of DeFi market growth let the UNI token recover its positions above $3. Since the launch of the UNI token on 17th September 2020, it has grown byover 200%as of mid-December 2020. The popularity of AAVE governance token and the governance tokens of such DeFi projects as Compound and Balance led to the rise of Andre Cronje’s Yearn.finance. The platform features several services, such as money lending, liquidity provision and insurance. As of mid-December 2020, the Yearn.finance market cap sits at around $734 million. The platform was created single-handedly by developed Andre Cronje as iEarn, but the platform suffered an exploit in February 2020, creating a wave of criticism and making Andre Cronje step away. But he later returned and rebranded iEarn into Yearn.finance. The project increased in capitalisation multifold after the launch of its governance token YFI on July 18th as people began pouring liquidity into the protocol. According to CoinGecko, YFI grew from $31.65 on 18th July to the dizzying $32,358 on 30st August. As of 16th December, the YFI price remains at around $24,500, with the astronomical77,000%profit over 5 months, because there was no pre-sale or private sale of this token. Compound was the first big player among money-lending protocols in the DeFi space, and it remains one of the top DeFi players at the end of 2020. According to Messari, the project’s reported market cap amounts to around $660 million as of mid-December 2020. Compound rose rapidly with the launch of its own governance token COMP. The token let people maximise their profits by benefiting from the liquidity locked in the protocol and mining the YFI, which surged from $61 on 18th July to $336 on 22nd July. As of mid-December 2020, the COMP profit amounts to over 145%. Synthetic assets are derivative assets, created through liquidity locked in different liquidity protocols. Using crypto synthetic assets investors can peg the protocol’s token to any underlying asset and thus invest in various types of assets with a single token. The most popular synthetic assets DeFi project has so far been Synthetix. As of 16th December, its reported market cap, according to Messari, constitutes around $560 million. The price of its SNX token launched in March 2019 has grown from $0.5 to an all-time-high of $7.84 on 1st September 2020. The rise of DeFi in 2020 has clearly shown its potential in the financial world. The classic services revolutionised through trustless smart contracts have quickly gained public trust and interest, signaling high-profit potentials to high-net-worth investors and large companies. And this may only be the beginning of a larger adoption of DeFi technologies that the world may see in 2021. Anton Chashchin, Commercial Director atCEX.IO Loan Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • GBP/USD Daily Forecast – Test Of Resistance At 1.3540 • Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Up on Stimulus Hopes, but Gains Could Be Capped by Size of Package • U.S Dollar Set to Record its Worst Q4 Drop Since 2003 • Bitcoin And Beyond – Price Vs. Value • Daily Gold News: Thursday, Dec. 17 – Gold Going Higher After FOMC • US Stocks: Tech Rally Sends NASDAQ to Record High; Fed Not as Dovish as Expected || Blue Horizon ETF Targets New Energy Economy: Today, Blue Horizon Capital rolled out an ETF that covers the entire alternative energy economy. TheBlue Horizon BNE ETF (BNE)targets companies in five segments: electric vehicles and other new energy consuming applications; energy storage; performance materials; energy distribution; and energy generation, according to the press release. BNE comes with an expense ratio of 0.87% and lists on the NYSE Arca. While there are many alternative energy ETF products available, BNE is unique in that it covers the entire ecosystem related to the “new energy” economy, from generation to the manufactured products that reach end users. “Many investors and advisors already understand the disruptive power of the New Energy Economy, but for too long have had to invest ‘on the bookends,’ focused on how energy is being produced, such as through solar technology, and how energy is being used, such as in electric cars,” said Govind Arora, partner and president of Blue Horizon. “That approach misses much of the innovation taking place in storage, distribution and efficiency of final energy delivery, which will drive the growth of the New Energy Economy for decades to come. BNE’s holistic approach gives investors a powerful tool for accessing the entire New Energy Economy,” he added. Blue Horizon Partner and Head of Thematic Strategy John Mitchell notes that a company like Tesla, which is extremely popular with investors, would not be able to put cars on the road and in end user hands if it was not for the companies providing the technologies behind the infrastructure. Both Arora and Mitchell hail from the industry side of the equation, having held roles in Albemarle Corp.’s lithium and advanced materials unit. They describe the new energy economy as being at the beginning of a “multi-decade growth story.” Methodology The index holds 100 securities from five segments and 25 subsegments, and it equal weights them on a semiannual rebalancing schedule. Arora compares the early stages of the new energy economy to the early days of the internet economy, in that investors do not yet know who the “winners” will be. The equal-weighting keeps large companies from overshadowing smaller up and comers. Eligible companies must meet size and liquidity minimum thresholds, and each is scored on revenue, market share, growth and technology leadership relative to peers. The highest-scoring companies are selected for inclusion, with each of the segments limited to no more than 30 holdings. Top holdings in the index include JinkoSolar Holding, Lithium Americas Corp and Yadea Group, while the U.S. is weighted at 48% of the portfolio, with top countries in the portfolio beyond the U.S. including China, Japan and South Korea. Contact Heather Bell athbell@etf.com Recommended Stories • Hot Reads: Bitcoin Plunges More Than 10% • Innovator Adds 2nd Series Of Stacker ETFs • A Moving Target • Record ETF Assets Growth In 2020 Permalink| © Copyright 2020ETF.com.All rights reserved || Why $20,000 Bitcoin Matters: Validation. Psychology. FOMO. NLW looks at why today’s price achievement marks a turning point in bitcoin’s history. For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com and Nexo.io . Related: Bitcoin Sailing in Uncharted Waters as Price Crosses $22K for First Time Download this episode After weeks of flirting with all-time highs, bitcoin has broken through the most significant psychological barrier: $20,000. In today’s episode of The Breakdown, NLW looks at why the moment is so significant, arguing: Bitcoin is an incentive design system where price drives more benefits than financial gain The validation of retail traders and more recent institutional investors creates an even stronger group of evangelists The psychological price barrier is likely to increase FOMO among those on the sidelines See also: Bitcoin Hits Record Above $20K as Analysts Remain Confident of Future Related: Coinbase CEO Pens Words of Caution to Crypto Newcomers For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica , iHeartRadio or RSS . Related Stories Why $20,000 Bitcoin Matters Why $20,000 Bitcoin Matters || Blockchain Bites: Coinbase Cuts Margin Trading, Binance Sweeps US Clients, OKEx Offers Rebates: Coinbase cuts margin trading. Binance sweeps out U.S. customers. OKEx offers rebates to clients affected by its five-week pause. Top shelf Tax change Coinbase will no longer send customers 1099-Ks , the U.S. tax form that led the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to mistakenly think traders had underreported their gains. The exchange will instead use the 1099-MISC form, at least for customers who earn interest on lending and similar products. However, the new form may come with its own issues. According to Shehan Chandrasekera, head of tax strategy at CoinTracker, “The threshold for getting a 1099-MISC is very low,” only $600 in trades, meaning more customers may receive tax forms than strictly necessary. Customers who don’t receive any forms from Coinbase and sold or converted crypto in 2020 are still responsible for reporting to the IRS and should consult a tax professional, Coinbase said. Binance sweeps Binance’s flagship exchange will cancel services for all U.S. users in 14 days, according to emails sent to users alerting them to withdraw their funds. “As we constantly perform periodic sweeps of our existing controls, we noted that you are trying to access Binance while having identified yourself as a U.S. person,” the notice reads. Binance also suggested current users open an account with the registered exchange Binance US. The Block noted the bans may be based on IP addresses, though that wasn’t the case for at least one unverified, U.S.-based user, CoinDesk has learned. Bans, therefore, could be based on KYC data. Related: Blockchain Bites: Ethereum 2.0 Deposit Contract Fully Loaded, IRS Sends Befuddling Letters – Again Chained together IDEX, an Ethereum-based non-custodial cryptocurrency exchange, announced Tuesday it plans to expand to the Binance Smart Chain and Polkadot networks. Every holder of IDEX’s Ethereum tokens will get an equivalent number of IDEX tokens for each of the new chains on Dec 7. CEO Alex Wearn said the measure is to “plant our flag early” in case either alternative smart contract platform eventually competes with Ethereum on a meaningful basis. Next up? Expansion to more chains, if and when that makes sense. However, Wearn notes, seamless cross-chain trading is still a ways off. Story continues Everything OK? OKEx will offer a mix of compensation and rewards to users who’ve suffered because of a five-weeks-long suspension in services. Users who have made deposits, held tokens or traded during the withdrawal suspension time period will receive 20% of OKEx’s total income from futures and perpetual swap transaction fees over the last seven weeks. The exchange will also provide rebate cards to users with assets worth more than 10,000 tether within a certain window. Expected to come online before Nov. 27, OKEx remains in the top position for bitcoin futures open interest, currently worth $1.27 billion, according to data source Skew. Levy extension South Korea’s National Assembly is pushing for a delay to the introduction of specific taxation for digital assets until January 2022 . According to a report Wednesday by local news source DongA.com, a proposed legal amendment bringing in the tax regime is planned to come into effect from October 2021. However, the National Assembly said more time is needed to build the relevant tax infrastructure after cryptocurrency exchanges said they couldn’t be ready by the deadline. The Ministry of Economy and Finance tabled the proposal in July, seeking to bring in a 20% levy – plus a 2% local income tax – on cryptocurrency trading profits above 2.5 million KRW (around $2,260). Quick bites HER WORDS: Here’s What Janet Yellen Has Said About Bitcoin ( CoinDesk ) YEARNING FOR PICKLE? Two DeFi yield farming protocols merge. ( CoinDesk ) IN INDIA: Digital innovation clashes with internet censorship. ( CoinDesk ) GAB JIBJAB: “Free speech-focused social media platform Gab earned $100,000 in a month thanks to Bitcoin.” ( Decrypt ) CAPITAL STORAGE: Huobi launches Filecoin incubator backed by $10 million fund. ( The Block ) Market intel Bulls bet Bitcoin is shy 2.8% from hitting a new record high , and options traders are betting it can get there. The one-month implied volatility in bitcoin markets has risen to 81%, the highest level since May, due to a recent uptick in call buying (a financial contract that gives traders the opportunity to buy at a later date), Alpha5’s Vishal Shah said. Further, put-call skews, which measure the spread between the cost of bearish and bullish bets, are hovering near record lows. In other words, call options have been drawing more robust demand than puts, a sign of investor expectations being skewed to the bullish side. “Investors are positioning for a bull market continuation,” Shah said. At stake Related: Blockchain Bites: XRP's Rally, Chainalysis' $1B Valuation, Bitcoin's Volatility in Perspective Actual delivery? Coinbase announced an end to all margin trading as of Nov. 25, 2020, becoming the first high-profile exchange to cut the profitable business line. According to a report from CoinDesk’s Nikhilesh De, the San-Francisco based trading platform is following recent Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) guidance. Margin trading is effectively a line of credit offered by an exchange or brokerage to allow users to place highly leveraged bets. Existing positions will be allowed to close out next month, though Coinbase will cancel any open limit order unfulfilled by 2 p.m. PT today. In March, CFTC clarified the meaning of “actual delivery” of digital assets. According to the guidance, a customer has legal rights, or actual delivery, of a cryptocurrency if they control it after purchase, including if it was acquired via a margin or leveraged product. This also means that the seller has no control over the cryptocurrency in question. This is where it gets tricky for Coinbase’s margin trading business. Because the exchange uses cold storage and other custody solutions as part of this business line, it complicates the nature of actually delivering an asset in accordance with the updated rule. At the time the guidance was first proposed, in 2018, then-Chief Legal and Risk Officer Mike Lempres argued that affiliates and third parties should be able to hold crypto on behalf of Coinbase customers. “Requiring unfettered ability to transfer digital assets would effectively mean that U.S. entities and regulated entities, or entities using cold storage or other asset protection methods, could not hold digital assets acquired through margined transactions,” Lempres said at the time. “Essentially, Coinbase would have to register with the CFTC as a commodities exchange if it wants to continue offering leveraged products,” De writes. Food for thought Related Stories Blockchain Bites: Coinbase Cuts Margin Trading, Binance Sweeps US Clients, OKEx Offers Rebates Blockchain Bites: Coinbase Cuts Margin Trading, Binance Sweeps US Clients, OKEx Offers Rebates || MicroStrategy Now Holds 70,470 Bitcoin After Spending $1.1B in 2020: MicroStrategy Incorporation (NASDAQ: MSTR ) announced the purchase of additional Bitcoin as the publicly-traded company continues to add to its holding of Bitcoin. What Happened : MicroStrategy announced it purchased an additional 29,646 Bitcoin in a press release Monday. The purchase price was $650 million with Bitcoin bought at an average price of $21,925. MicroStrategy now holds 70,470 Bitcoin as of Dec. 21. The Bitcoin were bought at an average of $15,964 each. MicroStrategy paid $1.125 billion for the Bitcoin. “The acquisition of additional bitcoins announced today reaffirms our belief that bitcoin, as the world’s most widely-adopted cryptocurrency, is a dependable store of value,” said MicroStrategy CEO Michale Saylor. Related Link: 8 Stocks To Play Bitcoin’s Resurgence Why It’s Important: The 70,470 Bitcoin are worth $1.6 billion based on Monday’s Bitcoin price of $23,057. Citron Research called MicroStrategy the best investment route and the only safe and cost-effective way to get exposure to Bitcoin. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC: GBTC ) is another way for investors to get pure-play Bitcoin exposure. The trust is up 260% year-to-date. Investors pay a premium to get the exposure to Bitcoin, which was one of the reasons Citron said investors should choose MicroStrategy. MSTR Price Action: Shares of MicroStrategy are trading up slightly to $302 at publication time. Shares are up 111% year-to-date. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga SPAC Recap: 5 Merger Announcements, Merger Votes, New ETF Highlight Busy Week Lancadia Vote, Katapult Deal, Virgin Galactic Share Offering: SPACs Attack Recap © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Huobi Crypto Exchange Returning to US After Winning Nevada Trust License: Global crypto exchange Huobi Group is making its U.S. comeback after an abrupt departure over a year ago. Huobi Tech – a Hong Kong-based publicly traded company acquired by Huobi Group founder and CEO Leon Li via a reverse takeover in 2018 – said a trust license has been approved by the Nevada Financial Institutions Division for its wholly owned subsidiary, the Huobi Trust Company, according to its Tuesdayfilingwith the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The license will enable the company to offer custodial and compliance services in the U.S. market early in 2021. The move is part of Huobi Group’s efforts to launch regulated financial products and services in the states. Related:EXMO Exchange Now Says It Lost 6% of Total Crypto Assets in Monday's Hack Huobi US (HBUS), another legal entity related to Huobi Group,ceased its operationsin December 2019 citing regulatory concerns. The company said at the time the departure was meant to be the next step in making its businesses more compliant with U.S. laws and regulations. The Seychelles-based exchange has since been evaluating different ways to reenter the U.S. market. In April, Huobi Group global head Ciara Sun previouslysaidthe exchange might team up with a fully regulated brokerage in the U.S. to operate its businesses across the country. “The Huobi brand is committed to bringing users a wide range of safe and secure digital asset products and services, whether directly from Huobi Group or indirectly through partners like Huobi Trust Company,” Sun said of the Huobi Trust Company. The Nevada-based Huobi Trust Company will be led by its chief trust officer, Simon Collier, who served as contract project director and global head of wealth solutions at HSBC in Hong Kong for more than seven years, according to a press statement shared with CoinDesk. Related:Craig Wright's Wife Wins UK Lawsuit Over Bitcoin Trading Account Closure Aja Heise, who was formerly the chief compliance officer at Prime Trust, will lead the trust company’s compliance program. She has experience in designing Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) programs for digital asset projects. “The announcement is a key step forward in the company’s ambitious plans to expand its recognized brand and products to a global audience, as well as its ongoing initiative to establish a suite of regulated financial products and services in the blockchain space,” Huobi Tech said. See also:Huobi Launches Crypto Saving Products to Compete With DeFi Yield Farming The move comes at a time when the U.S. regulators, including the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are imposingstricter scrutinyover international crypto exchanges that run businesses in the country. Many global crypto exchanges still face difficulties in acquiring licenses from state regulators in the U.S., especially for their fiat-crypto trading businesses. HUBS received licenses in 43 of 50 states, but a number of them allowed the exchange to do only crypto-to-crypto trading, not crypto-to-fiat, according to an oldFAQ pageon HBUS’ website. Binance, the biggest global exchange by trading volume,said last Juneit was not able to provide services to U.S. citizens until it was sure they were following the exchange’s terms of use and know-your-customer (KYC) procedures. The exchange thenmoved to launcha U.S.-based business in partnership with California-based crypto firm BAM Trading Services, which was already registered as a MSB. Known as BinanceUS, the firm was yet to provide trading services in 13 states, including New York, Texas and Florida, as of September. • Huobi Crypto Exchange Returning to US After Winning Nevada Trust License • Huobi Crypto Exchange Returning to US After Winning Nevada Trust License || Wall Street soars as Biden edges ahead: Biden US 2020 election Stocks rise as path to Biden victory opens up Millions of as-yet uncounted votes expected to favour Democrat Donald Trump falsely claims victory and says he will launch legal bid to stop count Futures swung overnight as ‘blue wave’ failed to materialise Dollar strengthened and equities fell on high nerves, but mood has settled since Investors brace for days of uncertainty US election results and maps 2020: All eyes on Pennsylvania and key Rust Belt states as race goes to the wire Ben Wright: Giddy markets will cheer whoever is in the White House Sign up here for our daily Business Briefing newsletter 08:35 PM Wrapping up Well that just about sums up almost 21 hours of live blogging by our London and San Francisco teams. It's been an exciting, coffee-fuelled run and still the wait continues as to which candidate will be the 46th US president. Markets have let go of earlier volatility, relaxing in the knowledge that a "Blue wave" hasn't materialised and it'll be a tight race between Joe Biden and the incumbent Donald Trump. We'll be back at midnight with a fresh blog to guide you through happenings in the US. Here are some of the day's top stories to keep you going in the meantime: 1.5 million Hong Kong investors owed billions from Ant float ​ High street meltdown as M&S sinks to loss and John Lewis cuts 1,500 jobs Ending duty-free shopping will mean £300m hit to airports First arrests for alleged fraud over Eat Out and Bounce Back loan schemes Three owner nears £9bn mast sale to Spain’s Cellnex Thanks for joining! 08:23 PM US markets rally to close US markets have followed Europe's lead, discarding earlier turmoil and replacing it with rallying share prices. Here's how Wednesday has shaped up: S&P500: +2.5pc to $3,453.69 Dow Jones: +1.6pc to $27,912.60 Nasdaq Composite: +3.7pc to $11,570.81 Big tech stocks led much of the day, with the NYSE FANG+TM index, which includes major FAANG stocks like Apple and Amazon, jumped 4.3pc. Investors tried to find stocks that would thrive no matter the outcome, and a divided Congress is expected to curb efforts to tax the tech giants. 07:12 PM Bitcoin rallies on uncertainty World's largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin rallied as much as 3.8pc to to $14,265, its highest level since January 2018, over an uncertain outcome in the US election. Peer coins, including Dash and Litecoin, also advanced. The Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index gained more than 4% at one point. “The longer that we don’t have a president technically and the longer that we don’t have agreement among the population is positive for crypto,” said David Tawil, president of ProChain Capital, quoted by Bloomberg.“If the courts are forced to get involved, volatility (and fear) will reign for a while. Add all this to the fact that crypto has been performing incredibly well this year -- better than gold and stocks -- crypto is going to gain and gain a lot of believers.” 06:39 PM FCA takes on the EU The UK's financial watchdog hit out at the EU as it announced that British investors will be allowed to keep trading shares on European exchanges, even if the UK does not strike a deal with the bloc before the end of the year. It says the EU is failing to recognise that UK and European rules are 'the most equivalent in the world'. My colleague Michael O'Dwyer reports: The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) threatened to ditch the EU’s financial rulebook, known as Mifid, if Brussels does not allow UK firms to retain full access to its markets. The watchdog said the temporary transitional permission, which will apply until March 31 2022, will avoid market disruption and ensure open markets and competition between financial centres. Read more: FCA threatens to ditch EU's Mifid rules without full market access 05:55 PM Narrow lead for Biden in critical states Joe Biden took narrow leads over Donald Trump in two critical Midwestern states. Mr Trump continued to complain he was being robbed of victory. In Michigan, Biden led by 32,000 votes of about 5 million cast and in Wisconsin, Biden led 20,000 votes out of 3.2 million cast. His campaign said it expects to declare victory on Wednesday afternoon, and the former vice-president plans to address Americans later today. The Democratic hope (and expectation) for a “blue wave” have been stumped. Now they're hoping to scrape together enough for a win... Biden 05:34 PM Uber shares rocket after California victory Uber has shot up 14pc to $40.81 in New York, trading to a nine-month high. Shares in Lyft, meanwhile, are up 11.5pc. Why? Traders are banking on tech stocks likely to do well whatever the presidential outcome. But there is more to it... My colleague James Titcomb explains: Companies including Uber, Lyft and takeaway app DoorDash spent millions in California promoting a measure that would exempt app-based drivers from new laws classifying gig economy workers as employees, and it appears to be money well spent. The measure - known as Prop 22 - has succeeded. The news may also clear the way for DoorDash to proceed with a long awaited IPO. The news is important for the companies not only in California but across the US, since the Golden State is often a precursor to regulation elsewhere in the US. However, Uber continues to face a legal battle in the UK over its treatment of drivers as “contractors” rather than employees. The Supreme Court is due to give a verdict on a long running legal battle by the end of the year. Read more: Uber and Lyft win battle in California to treat drivers as contractors 05:31 PM Biden gains most ever votes Joe Biden is up to 69.9 million votes as of 12:10pm in New York on Wednesday, according to NPR. That means he has surpassed Obama's record for the most votes of anyone who has ever run for president. 05:17 PM Voda and Three price hikes Mobile Networks Vodafone and Three are hiking customer prices, sneakily announced as all eyes are on the US election. Meanwhile, Three is close to a €10bn (£9bn) sale of its European mobile masts to a Spanish infrastructure giant. My colleague Ben Woods has more: Three owner nears £9bn mast sale to Spain’s Cellnex Vodafone and Three have slipped out price rises for new customers, as eyes are fixed on the American election. They come into force next year and are quite a jump pic.twitter.com/hi1sAC5LE6 — Ben Woods (@Ben_Woods01) November 4, 2020 05:00 PM The bulls are back "Tensions surrounding the situation have faded, especially now that President Trump has been less aggressive in relation to how the postal voting situation could play out," said David Madden, Market Analyst at CMC Markets UK "Dealers have gotten over the initially political uncertainty and the bullish sentiment from earlier in the week is in play." 04:50 PM Europe markets on a high Europe markets have had a solid run on Wednesday, driven by healthcare. London's FTSE 100 rose 1.5pc to 5,883.26. Astrazeneca, which said it had started an accelerated review of its potential coronavirus vaccine, led the gains with a 6.6pc boost. A round up around the continent: Paris' CAC 40: +2.2pc Italy's Milan benchmark: +2pc Germany's DAX: +1.9pc Spain's Madrid Stock Exchange: +0.3pc 04:33 PM Backing bonds US 10 and 30-year yields are continuing to sink, with investors backing bonds in a tighter-than-expected presidential race. With the race looking tight, traders' hopes for a Biden fiscal spending package are fading. The yield on the 10-year Treasury briefly touched 0.9pc on Tuesday evening — hitting the highest level since June. Just before midday on Wednesday in New York, it was at 0.8pc. 04:20 PM Xi calls for global cooperation Chinese president Xi Jinping called for global cooperation in the middle of the US presidential election results rolling in. Xi and Trump's relationship has been rocky, characterised by an ongoing and bitter trade war. “Covid-19 is a stark reminder that all countries are in a community with a shared future. No one can stay immune in a major crisis,” he said in a video address to the China International Import Expo in Shanghai. “We need to join hands rather than throw punches at each other. And we need to consult rather than slander each other, bearing in mind the common interest that binds us all.” Xi used the event in 2018 to announce plans for a Nasdaq-style stock board in Shanghai, now the Star Board. This week Jack Ma's Ant Group's listing was pulled. Read more about it: Beijing pulls plug on world's biggest float Alibaba at sea after Beijing blocks Ant Group float 04:07 PM US tech rallies as a safe bet Tech stocks are boosting US market gains, even as the winner of the presidential election is up in the air. Investors could be banking on companies that will do well either way, as a "Blue Wave" failed to materialise and the race remains tight. The New York Stock Exchange's FANG+TM Index, which has the core of FAANG stocks, jumped 3.5pc in late morning trading. Leading the S&P 500's major indexes was information technology and healthcare. The CBOE volatility index, a measure of short-term volatility, slipped to a two-week low. It spiked to a four-month high in the run up to the election. Elsewhere (and interestingly) stocks seen as likely winners from a Biden presidency - like infrastructure, renewable energy and marijuana - lost as much as 8pc. Update on indices by 11am NY time: S&P500: +2.8pc Nasdaq: +3.9pc Dow Jones: +2pc 03:20 PM Handover That was brief stint from me, but (after getting some sleep) my colleague Louise Moon is ready to steer you through the rest of the afternoon and evening. Thanks for following! 03:11 PM British investors allowed to trade on EU exchanges post-Brexit City of London British investors will be allowed to continue trading shares of companies listed on European stock exchanges even if the UK does not strike a so called equivalence deal with the EU before the end of the year. My colleague Michael O'Dwyer writes: The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said the temporary transitional permission, which will apply until March 31 2022, will avoid market disruption and will ensure open markets and competition between financial centres. Nausicaa Delfas, who heads the FCA’s international unit, said the move would ensure UK investors can trade on the best possible trading terms. She said: “We want to preserve freedom for issuers from all jurisdictions to choose where and how to raise capital to support their business activities.” The FCA is taking a more liberal approach than the EU, which is allowing European investors to buy and sell European shares on UK exchanges only in limited circumstances. Ms Delfas criticised the EU’s approach. She said: “At the end of the transition period, the UK’s and EU’s regimes will be the most equivalent in the world, but as it stands this has not been recognised by the EU.” 02:58 PM Provident Financial says it's on course to ride out a second lockdown Provvy Doorstep lender Provident Financial said it was on course to ride out a second lockdown prompting analysts to predict an upturn in fortunes as unemployment rises. My colleague Michael O'Dwyer reports: Provident, which lends at high interest rates to people on low incomes and without a strong credit rating, said bad debts remained stable and that fewer customers than expected were taking payment holidays. The company said its balance sheet was robust and that it was on track to meet expectations for the current year. Malcom Le May, the firm’s chief executive, said: “We remain vigilant for possible economic shocks, including those caused by further local and national lockdowns. Such measures will inevitably have an impact on customer expenditure patterns and loan origination.” Provident has been hit hard by the pandemic, reporting a £28m loss in the first six months of the year and all but ceasing new lending during the first lockdown. Lending in its home credit division remains at 60-70pc of normal levels. A surge in job losses could hurt customers’ ability to repay loans but it has so far proven more resilient than its rivals. Its smaller competitor Non-Standard Finance was forced to deny in June that it was on the brink of going bust and Amigo, the guarantor lender, said this week it will not be able to restart lending until 2021. Their struggles, coupled with a rise in the number of people struggling to pay the bills, could boost business for Provident. Analysts at Jefferies said: “Unlike some peers, [Provident] will be in business after the pandemic, and will likely emerge into a bigger addressable market with fewer competitors.” 02:41 PM Wall Street pops at the open US stocks have opened firmly in the green, driven by a rally in tech shares, as Joe Biden pulls ahead in the election count. US market data - Bloomberg 02:12 PM Biden's odds drop as he takes lead in Michigan It's not so much a blue wave as a very slow-moving ripple, but Biden has taken the lead in Michigan by a few thousand votes. His odds to win are now 1/4 – the lowest level ever on the Betfair Exchange – meaning he has a 78pc chance of victory. 02:03 PM Handover Time for me to hand over to my colleague Simon Foy . Thanks for following along today! 01:42 PM Lloyds plans to cut 1,000 jobs Lloyds Banking Group, Britain’s biggest high-street lender, has unveiled new plans to axe another 1,000 roles as it continues to slash costs. My colleague Lucy Burton reports: The bank, which revived its restructuring plans in September after temporarily freezing any redundancies at the start of the pandemic, told staff on Wednesday that it was cutting 1,070 roles but creating 340 new ones. However Unite, the union, said the decision to cut roles was “shameful” given how hard staff had worked during the pandemic and Lloyds' bumper third quarter results last week. It has urged the bank to freeze its plans. The lender said last week that pre-tax profits reached more than £1bn for the three months to September, almost double City estimates following a boom in home lending and a much smaller than expected provision for soured loans. Read more: Another 1,000 jobs slashed at Lloyds 01:39 PM Philly Enquirer reporter: Path open for Biden victory in PA Jonathan Tamari from Pennsylvania’s Philladelphia Inquirer tweets: Good morning. In PA, here's where Biden's hopes hang: He has won 77% of mail ballots counted so far. There are 1.4m left to count. IF - if - that pace continues, he'd net a 787k edge - and is trailing by 657k (and since much of blue PA is left to count, poss he might exceed 77%) — Jonathan Tamari (@JonathanTamari) November 4, 2020 But also keep an eye on Lancaster County - strong Trump territory with a fair number of votes left to count. Many are mail ballots, which could help Biden. But it's an area Trump has done well in so far. He might expand his advantage there — Jonathan Tamari (@JonathanTamari) November 4, 2020 01:27 PM Coming up tomorrow: Early BoE decision and Sunak statement Two updates on the UK stimulus front: The Bank of England has shifted its Monetary Policy Committee decision to 7am. It had previously been scheduled for noon. Chancellor Rishi Sunak will make a statement to the Commons on spending. 01:20 PM US private payrolls change majorly misses estimates The US added 365,000 private payrolls last months, according to ADP, falling well short of expectations for the a 643,000 increase. The figures bodes poorly ahead of Friday’s labour market report, and suggests a rebound in hiring has lost pace. Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute, said: The labor market continues to add jobs, yet at a slower pace. Although the pace is slower, we’ve seen employment gains across all industries and sizes. 12:57 PM Market moves Just over halfway through the European market session, equities have hit day highs. The pan-continental benchmark Stoxx 600 rose as much as 1.2pc. Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall tweets: Was clear and off-repeated that this wouldn’t be quick, Trump would be ahead in certain states, Biden would overtake but in the interim Trump would declare victory. That’s what has happened. But in Biden giddiness about a blowout the fact this was most likely path was forgotten. — Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) November 4, 2020 12:53 PM Hundreds of thousands of ballots still be counted in Michigan CNN reporter Betsy Klein tweets: Michigan's Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson says on CNN there are 100s of thousands of absentee ballots still being counted, including Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Warren, Sterling Heights. She says they're on track to have "a much more complete picture" by the end of the day. — Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) November 4, 2020 To reiterate, that remains good for Joe Biden, who is likely to pick up up more mail-in and absentee ballots based on current trends. 12:42 PM Democrat candidate wins in key Michigan district More good news for Joe Biden – Michigan Capitol news source MIRS says Rep. Elissa Slotkin has been re-elected as congresswoman for  Ingham County with a 52,000 vote margin. U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin wins re-election on the back of 52,000-vote margin in Ingham County. — MIRSnews.com (@MIRSnews) November 4, 2020 The district is seen as a bellwether, and if those results are echoed in the Presidential vote, could let Mr Biden close the narrow, 12,000 vote gap between him and Donald Trump across the state. On top of that, results for Detroit are still coming in, and remain very favourable to the Democrat. 12:32 PM John Lewis cuts 1,500 jobs John Lewis is swinging the axe on another 1,500 jobs at its head office as it battles to restore profitability and streamline its business. My colleague Laura Onita reports: The employee-owned firm expects to save £50m from the latest round of cuts, as it looks to save £300m a year by 2022. The move comes four months after it said eight of its 50 department stores would never reopen following the first lockdown, affecting 1,300 roles. The mutual has around 80,000 staff. It also announced that finance director Patrick Lewis, who was in the running for the chairman role that ultimately went to Dame Sharon White, will leave at the end of the year after a 26-year tenure. Mr Lewis is the only member of the original founding family still working in the business; his great grandfather established the first John Lewis store. Read more: John Lewis axes 1,500 jobs in head office cull 🛍 NEW: John Lewis to cut 1,500 jobs 💷 Cuts will be at head office to save £50m as part of cost cutting plan to save £300m a year by 2022 £3k each for retraining to partners made redundant who’ve been at firm for 2yrs A cynic would say it’s a hell of a day to bury bad news — Scott Beasley (@SkyScottBeasley) November 4, 2020 12:27 PM Wisconsin Democrat chair: We’ve won the state The chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin tweets: Green Bay and Kenosha results are in. Biden is now up in Wisconsin by roughly 20,600 votes. That number could wobble a bit, but there's no realistic path for Trump to pull ahead. Biden has won more votes any prez candidate in WI history. Folks: Joe Biden just won Wisconsin. https://t.co/xtg0hiSlW4 — Ben Wikler (@benwikler) November 4, 2020 12:18 PM Krugman: Republican Senate win is bad news Nobel prize-winner Paul Krugman has weighed in on the state of play. He’s pretty pessimistic about the prospect (as currently look likely) of a Joe Biden presidency with a Republican-controlled Senate. The good news is that if Biden has in fact won, we've avoided an immediate collapse into authoritarianism. Yes, it was and is that dire. But will Biden be able to govern? 2/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 4, 2020 This means no effective response to an exploding pandemic. No income support for those left destitute. No infrastructure. No action on climate. 4/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 4, 2020 Biden kept saying about the awfulness of the Trump era, "that's not who we are." Well, it's not who the majority of us are — he's probably going to win the popular vote by 5 percent or so. But it is, it turns out, who a lot of us are. 5/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 4, 2020 12:08 PM Retailers face £6.8bn bill for second lockdown High street - Andrew Mathews/PA Wire The second national lockdown in England is expected to cost non-essential retail outlets £6.8bn, according to research from Retail Economics. My colleague Simon Foy reports: The new restrictions, which will come into effect from Thursday and last until at least Dec 2, will hammer the industry as it moves into the key Christmas period, the consumer insights company said. To compound matters, pent-up demand in December could leave shoppers queuing for hours when stores reopen. Nicholas Found, a senior consultant at Retail Economics, said: “With Christmas around the corner, this couldn’t have come at a worse time for retailers. “While some consumers will choose to hold off spending this month, pent-up demand in December could leave shoppers grappling queues both on- and offline given social distancing in warehouses, delivery capacity and restrictions on shopper numbers in store.” Read more: Battered retailers face £6.8bn bill for lockdown 2 11:52 AM Detroit vote comes in strongly for Biden Voting is coming in for Detroit, the biggest city in Michigan. New York Times reporter Kathy Gray says the numbers look good for Biden, who is pulling in more than 90pc of the city’s vote with almost half the ballots counted: The numbers in Detroit are good for Biden, but total vote count is going to matter more. Margins matter. https://t.co/SZFrVznrFN — Kathy Gray (@michpoligal) November 4, 2020 11:49 AM US set for narrow gains at open US shares are set to make narrow gains at the open, with futures trading just about in positive territory after a rocky few hours that saw prices shift sharply in both directions. 11:33 AM Michigan absentee vote coming in now Bloomberg reports that the Lansing absentee ballot is starting to come in now. That’s the Michigan state capital, which means the count is likely to favour Joe Biden (who has been performing better in absentee and mail-in votes, as well as urban areas). 11:21 AM NYT reporter: Biden a favourite across key votes An interesting thread of tweets from New York Times election wonk Nate Cohn, wrapping up the situation in some of the key battlegrounds: We have less concrete data on what's out in Mi than PA, but there are many reasons to think Biden probably catches up, whether it's the trendline/what we know about their count, or what we see in neighboring states and high % counted MI counties https://t.co/9yLRSPZY97 — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 4, 2020 Wisconsin is what it is; I have nothing to add to the many tweets analyzing the situation there in recent hours. — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 4, 2020 And we have a very clear picture in Georgia, thanks to the needle's analysis of the vote by precinct x method--stipulating that there aren't any errors in the GA county data. There's a lot of heavily Dem vote in the Atlanta area left. It's enough to make Biden a narrow favorite — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 4, 2020 11:12 AM Dollar edges down as Biden path looks more possible The dollar has weakened over recent minutes as Joe Biden’s victory chances grow. If the Democrat clearly passes 270 Electoral College votes, that would allow him to declare victory and possible ease market jitters. Still, it’s incredibly tight, and we might we be waiting until Thursday for a clear outcome. 11:01 AM Nevada goes to sleep Nevada has reportedly paused its vote count overnight. Given it’s just before 3am there, this tweet by the state’s electoral officials suggests we’ll be waiting *at least* six hours to hear more from there. Here’s what is left to count: -Mail ballots received on Election Day -Mail ballots that will be received over the next week -Provisional ballots Ballots outstanding is difficult to estimate in Nevada because every voter was sent a mail ballot. Obviously, not all will vote. — Nevada Elections (@NVElect) November 4, 2020 We might well hear Wisconsin’s results before then, and Georgia also might come out before than. That means that, possibly, we could get a provisional result by late afternoon/early evening London time. 10:42 AM Betting odds point to Biden victory For what they’re worth, betting odds now suggest a Joe Biden victory is more likely. 10:36 AM Nevada looks incredibly tight Nevada, which Democrat strategists had been hoping to hold, looks incredibly tight currently. Joe Biden is only slightly ahead, with just a few thousand votes in it. Jon  Ralston, editor of the Nevada Independent, says the result won’t come out “tonight” (it is 2:35am in Nevada). A lot of mail-in ballots have yet to be counted. We are not going to know tonight. Clark and Washoe done counting. — Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) November 4, 2020 10:22 AM Money round-up Here are some of the day’s top stories from the Telegraph Money team: What the muddled US election result means for your investments : The result of the American could take days to be confirmed and will go down to the wire in the “worst outcome for markets”, according to financial analysts. Woodford investors to go 1,000 days without justice as lawyers set out legal battle : Investors in Neil Woodford’s failed Equity Income Fund will have to wait until 2023 to receive compensation if they are successful in their fight against , lawyers have warned. Investors use lockdown to boost pensions as savings spike 35pc : Savers have stepped up pension contributions in recent months, locking away more money into nest eggs during lockdown despite the economic turmoil. 10:06 AM Wisconsin may need three more hours Wisconsin’s elections director, Julietta Henry, says all the votes from Milwaukee County are now in, and the final count should emerge in about three hours. Betfair’s estimate of the likelihood of a Donald Trump victory has sunk in recent minutes, briefly dropping below 50pc from a figure as high as 70pc earlier. And now he’s not again. I’ll stop now https://t.co/fmt8p8EoDS — Tim Shipman (@ShippersUnbound) November 4, 2020 10:01 AM Joe Biden takes lead in Wisconsin As promise, more on Wisconsin, where challenger Joe Biden has taken a slim lead according to reports in recent minutes. The Democrat is ahead by only a few thousand votes, but if he wins the state will have a clear path to an electoral victory. If he wins Wisconsin and Nevada (where he is also leading) and flips Michigan, he will clear the magic 270 mark in Electoral Collegee votes. Bloomberg notes that if Mr Biden wins any two of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, Mr Trump will lose the Electoral College vote count. 09:57 AM Market moves European equities have steadily risen today, and have hit a new high in recent minutes (this graph is delayed by about 15 minutes) on reports Joe Biden has taken a lead in Wisconsin. More on that in a second… 09:50 AM European composite PMIs compared Here’s how composite PMI readings look across Europe’s biggest economies: As some strong-posted lockdown rebounds, only Germany and the UK’s private sectors registered growth in October. 09:36 AM UK services sector suffers slowdown The UK’s services sector lost steam more quickly than originally feared last week despite a continued activity expansion. The services PMI came in at 51.4 versus a “flash’ estimate of 52.3, where the growth threshold is 50. The composite gauge, a weighted balance of services and manufacturing, was 52.1 versus an estimate of 52.9. IHS Markit, which gathered the data, said: October data pointed to a much weaker rise in business activity across the UK service sector, with the rate of expansion the slowest for four months. There were also signs of a sharp reversal in demand conditions, with new work falling for the first time since June. Survey respondents in the hospitality, transport and leisure sectors widely commented on an adverse impact from tightening restrictions on trade due [Covid-19]. Here are some key findings: Growth was often linked to a continued recovery in business operations after the national lockdown period during the second quarter of 2020 and the restart of work on delayed projects In contrast to the upward trend for business activity, latest data indicated a drop in new orders for the first time since June Reduced volumes of new business resulted in lower backlogs across the service economy in October Employment numbers decreased for the eighth consecutive month in October, which was primarily linked to redundancies in response to shrinking revenues during the pandemic IHS Markits/CIPS - IHS Markits/CIPS Tim Moore, economics director at IHS Markit, said: October data indicates that the UK service sector was close to stalling even before the announcement of lockdown 2 in England, with tighter restrictions on hospitality, travel and leisure leading to a slump in demand for consumerfacing businesses. This was only partly offset by sustained expansion in areas related to digital services, business-tobusiness sales and housing market transactions 09:27 AM Wisconsin result coming up Reports from the US than Wisconsin’s outcome should be coming up in about half an hour as – amazingly – it will take that long to upload the ballot results. Julietta Henry reports that 100% of Milwaukee County‘s count is done. after getting the computer information from Claire Woodall-Vogg. Henry says it will take about 30 minutes for the information to be uploaded. @journalsentinel pic.twitter.com/m2wTvDn7Mw — Meg Jones (@MegJonesJS) November 4, 2020 09:15 AM Final PMI reading: Eurozone economy was steady last month The Eurozone’s economy was steady last month as gains in manufacturing were offset by a slowdown in services-sector activity, according to the final purchasing managers’ index reading. The composite PMI gauge for the bloc (a weighted balance of activity change in services and manufacturing) came in at 50 – exactly on the no-change level. Finalised services readings across the top economies came in stronger than the ‘flash’ estimates, although the services slowdown is widespread. IHS Markit, which gathered the data, said: In line with recent developments, the headline index masked the continuation of a two-speed economy in October. Manufacturing output growth was sustained, and to the strongest degree in over twoand-a-half years. In stark contrast, service sector activity contracted again, deteriorating to the greatest degree since May. Here are some key highlights: Germany was the only nation to register an expansion in private sector activity, with growth reaching a three-month high All other nations registered contractions in activity since the previous month with Spain registering by far the sharpest fall, followed by France. Italy and Ireland recorded marginal declines in activity For the first time in four months, levels of incoming new business declined as strong gains in manufacturing new work were more than offset by weakness in services By country, job losses were recorded across all nations, with the sharpest reduction seen in Spain A fifth successive monthly increase in input costs was indicated during October Chris Williamson, IHS Markit’s chief business economist, said: The eurozone’s economic recovery stalled in October as containment measures were stepped up to fight second waves of COVID-19 infections. Service providers have been hit especially hard, led by intensifying weakness in consumer-facing sectors such as hospitality, offsetting the brighter news seen in manufacturing during the month. 08:59 AM US bond yields drop as uncertainty rises Yields on US Treasuries – which move inversely to prices – have dropped steadily overnight as nervous investors piled into bonds. Here’s how the yield on a generic 10-year bond has moved: 08:44 AM FTSE flattens out The FTSE 100 has quickly flattened out after a sharp drop at the open. The pound is offering some support to London’s blue-chips, but it also appears the mood has calmed slightly. 08:41 AM Barclays: Bonds more vulnerable than equities on uncertain outcome Strategists at Barclays say bonds looks more vulnerable than equities as markets react to the inconclusive US election result. They write: Equities rebounded in the last two days, but are still lower than their level of two weeks ago, likely due some remaining uncertainty around the US election result, as well as worries over the 2nd Covid wave. This may thus leave them slightly less vulnerable to a dragged out election result and the possibility of a dispute in the next few days/weeks. Bond yields on the other hand continued to rise into the election, and therefore may have further to fall in the short run as investors rush to safer assets over the period of heightened uncertainty. Early price action is indeed showing a sharp fall in US yields and an unwind of the ‘blue wave’ trade. Bloomberg/Barclays Research - Bloomberg/Barclays Research They added: The disputed 2000 election result could provide a roadmap for asset returns in the short term. Post the 2000 election, where there was no clear winner for several weeks, markets turned risk-off until the Supreme Court ended the vote recount on 12 December and declared George W. Bush President. Both US and European Equities fell by about 10% and VIX moved up initially, although we note it was at far lower levels than today’s elevated level of 36. Nevertheless, with markets pricing in a higher chance of a Biden win ahead of the elections and given the fragile economic backdrop, actual results so far being unclear may further accentuate market jitters. Bloomberg/Barclays Research - Bloomberg/Barclays Research 08:29 AM BMW sales rebound MINI  - TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/Getty Images BMW has rebounded strongly in the third quarter as the German luxury carmaker recovered from coronavirus lockdowns which caused the automotive market to stall in the previous period. My colleague Alan Tovey reports: The company said rising demand in China helped drive deliveries up by 8.6pc worldwide, with 675,592 cars handed over to customers. This was a record high for a quarterly result, and includes deliveries of the company’s Mini and Rolls-Royce marques. Revenues slipped 1.4pc to €26.3bn but pre-tax profit rose by 10pc to €2.5bn. Cost efficiency and cash management were attributed to the improvement, but BMW warned demand in all markets is likely to be lower this year because of Covid-19. As a result, it forecast that annual profits could still be zero. BMW also said that all four of its German car factories will be building electric vehicles “in the foreseeable future”, a move it said would allow the company to “safeguard capacity utilisation in the long term and therefore also the high level of employment at its plants in Germany”. 08:21 AM Pennsylvania’s governor: We will count every vote Tom Wolf, the Governor of Pennsylvania – which is looking increasingly likely to be key to this election – tweets: Let’s be clear: This is a partisan attack on Pennsylvania’s elections, our votes, and democracy. Our counties are working tirelessly to process votes as quickly AND as accurately as possible. Pennsylvania will have a fair election and we will count every vote. — Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) November 4, 2020 08:19 AM Full report: M&S drops into red amid clothing collapse My colleague Simon Foy has a full report on Marks & Spencer’s interim results. He writes: Marks and Spencer swung to a loss for the first time in its 94 years as a public company as it warned of “significant uncertainty” ahead due to the pandemic and Brexit. The struggling retailer posted a £87.6m pre-tax loss for the six months to Sept 26, compared to a £159m profit for the same period last year. Revenue fell almost 16pc to £4.09bn. M&S’s clothing and home business was hammered during the crisis, with sales down by more than two-fifths. Read more: M&S swings into the red as clothing sales collapse 08:11 AM European stock markets open lower Stocks have opened sharply lower in Europe as the US election result remains on a knife edge. Bloomberg TV - Bloomberg TV 08:03 AM When to expect results from the remaining states Bloomberg has rounded up how things stand in the states that have yet to count their absentee ballots: Wisconsin: Milwaukee is likely to complete its count of absentee ballots around 3 a.m. local time, County Clerk George Christenson said. Pennsylvania: Philadelphia is expected to resume reporting on mail- in ballots at about 9 a.m. on Wednesday. State officials say a final result should be ready “within days.” Michigan: “I’m confident we’ll have more of an update for Detroit in Highlights the morning,” said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who added she expects the full tabulation of every vote in Detroit to be complete by late Wednesday. Georgia: Wednesday morning should bring more clarity on the Peach State’s results. North Carolina: State officials have said they expect 97% of the vote 225 to be tallied heading into Wednesday morning hours. Nevada: State officials have said that final results would not be available until several days after the election, per NBC. 07:57 AM US futures hit session lows as pound extends losses Futures trading on the S&P 500 and Dow Jones has continued to deteriorate, with both hitting their lowest levels of the day. Meanwhile, the dollar is continuing to strengthen amid a global risk-off move. That’s hitting the pound (which should, in turn, offer some support to the FTSE 100): 07:55 AM Biden wins Arizona The AP says Joe Biden has won Arizona, the first state which the Democrat challenger has managed to flip. It was seen as a key battleground. 07:54 AM Chinese services activity gains steam Services-sector activity in China has gained pace amid a rise in new orders, according to the latest Caixin purchasing managers’ index. The gauge came in at 56.8, easily clearing the no-change threshold of 50. Caixin said: Notably, the rate of growth was the second-fastest since August 2010 (after June 2020). Business activity has now risen in each of the past six months, to signal a sustained recovery from the Covid-19 related drops in activity seen earlier in the year. 07:49 AM Quick points on Trump’s court challenge claim Plenty of questions swirling over Donald Trump’s stated plan to go to the Supreme Court to stop further vote counting. Here are a few important points to note on that front: The uncounted ballots will largely be from mail-in votes, and are expected (based on polling) to favour Joe Biden more than Mr Trump (who is expected to have done better in in-person voting) Several states have laws that do not require them to count all votes on election day Mail-in votes that are postmarked before election day are still valid, even if they are received after election day 07:42 AM In a nutshell… A sitting US president just declared himself winner in an election with millions of votes still to count and the result very unclear. And called for vote counting to end. And vowed to go to the Supreme Court. — Ben Riley-Smith (@benrileysmith) November 4, 2020 "This is a fraud on the American public... we were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election" Trump claims election victory, but with millions of uncounted votes it is too early to credibly make that claim #Election2020 https://t.co/fVQ13KG8wT pic.twitter.com/144C0V4VTz — BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 4, 2020 07:38 AM European stock futures extend losses The Stoxx 50 is now down 1.8pc in futures trading, extending its losses. 07:35 AM Trump finishes speaking After a forgettable speech by Mike Pence, Donald Trump has left the East Room. In case the significance of that speech was lost on anyone, the president: Falsely claimed he had won the election Accused his opponents of fraud Said he would go to the Supreme Court in an attempt stop further vote counting By any measure, this is seismic: the US President has called for a huge sweep of ballots to be discounted. In particular, this would affect millions of early votes, which polling has suggested may predominantly be for Joe Biden. 07:31 AM Trump: This is a fraud And there it is. The President says “this is a fraud on the American public”, claiming he was getting ready to win the election, adding “frankly we did win this election”. He says “we want the law to be used in a proper manner”, saying he will go to the Supreme Court in a effort to stop further vote counting. Mr Trump adds: “frankly, we did win this election”. His comments are pushing US stock market futures lower. 07:29 AM Trump: ‘Tremendous’ lead in Pennsylvania Donald Trump also claims he is winning Pennsylvania and Michigan. He says the Republicans have had a “big night”. See below why the President's statements need to be treated with skepticism about his vote lead. There's a lot we don't know and haven't counted. https://t.co/IxeYvaWO5p — Ryan Heath (@PoliticoRyan) November 4, 2020 07:25 AM Trump alleges disenfranchisement, claims NC/GA victories Donald Trump says “millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people, and we won’t stand for it”, without citing evidence for the latter claim. He says, without evidence, that he has won North Carolina and Georgia. 07:23 AM Trump speaks The incumbent President has begun speaking (video in 7:06am post). 07:19 AM Trump campaign says Democrats trying to steal election My colleague Ben Riley-Smith tweets: 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 New Trump fundraiser email pic.twitter.com/1oRUEpwMY2 — Ben Riley-Smith (@benrileysmith) November 4, 2020 07:18 AM Election in the balance: analysts react Europe is waking up the prospect of a protracted post-election miasma: we’re still a long way off knowing who the nest President of the United States will be. The only certainty is uncertainty: the ‘blue wave’ has failed to materialise and the Republicans look set to hold the Senate. Lauri Hälikkä , a foreign exchange strategist at SEB , said: The final US election result is not expected before Friday, but already now we can say that the race has once again turned out to be much tighter than the polls have been suggesting during the past months. President Trump is in the lead in many battleground states which has flipped betting odds in favor of Mr Trump. A blue sweep is getting less likely which has had an immediate impact on the markets, with yuan weakening, the dollar strengthening and oil prices increasing. Richard Buxton , from Jupiter Asset Management , adds: Any suggestion that the outcome could be contested by either the Trump or Biden campaigns is likely to be viewed dimly by investors, and could give way to a period of renewed volatility in equity and currency markets. It is important to point out that, at the time of writing, a Biden win is still not “off the cards,” although it seems highly probable that, even if Biden does win the presidency, it will be by a smaller margin than many had forecast. 07:06 AM Trump speaking shortly We have a video feed from the East Room of the White House now. Donald Trump should be speaking shortly. If he echoes his tweeted claim that there is an ongoing attempt to steal the election, this could be a huge moment for US politics. 07:04 AM M&S beats revenue expectations but suffers first loss Quick corporate flash from the UK: Marks & Spencer has beaten analyst expectations with first-half revenues of £4.09bn, versus an estimate of £3.99bn. That’s a 15.8pc drop compared to the same period last year. The high street stalwart made a £87.6m statutory loss before tax, its first-ever loss as a listed company. Chief executive Steve Rowe said: In a year when it has become impossible to forecast with any degree of accuracy, our performance has been much more robust than at first seemed possible. We’ll have more on those results later. 07:00 AM Things get weird… Shares in Shenzhen-listed company Wisesoft, the Chinese name of which (“Chuan Da Zhi Sheng”) sounds like “Trump wins big” to Mandarin speakers have popped up as much as 9.8pc today, echoing a 6.4pc jump after the election result back in 2016. A Chinese stock whose name sounds like “Trump wins big” soared, repeating its performance in 2016 when he unexpectedly became president. https://t.co/EFbxp1pMyj pic.twitter.com/6xREuVN5dE — Stuart Wallace (@StuartLWallace) November 4, 2020 06:56 AM European stocks extend losses Futures contracts for Europe’s Stoxx 50 – an index of the continent’s biggest companies – are trading down 1.2pc currently, extending their losses and pointing to a weak start for the continent’s indices at the open in just over an hour. 06:54 AM Georgia in play as race tightens Another interesting contest is Georgia, a typically reliable state for the Republican Party. Based on current counting, Donald Trump is slightly ahead, but the state has – remarkably – sent its poll counters home, meaning counting has been paused. At present, Joe Biden is just 118,000 votes behind, and the areas yet to be counted include the suburbs of Atlanta – seen as likely to lean Democrat. 06:50 AM One outcome can be ruled out: a draw One quirk that has emerged in recent minutes: due to the way Nebraska counts electoral college votes (on a district-by-district basis), a victory for Joe Biden in the state’s 2nd Congressional District means the likely maths for a dead tie is apparently no longer possible. It could still happen, but would require fairly bizarre results from here. Biden's win in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District means that we can definitively rule out a 269-269 scenario. pic.twitter.com/G8ryVePSxC — ryan teague beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) November 4, 2020 06:43 AM NBC: Trump speaking in next half an hour Broadcaster NBC says Donald Trump expected to give remarks from the East Room of the White House in the next half an four. The President isn’t famed for his punctuality, so we’ll have to wait and see when he shows up. Markets will be watching closely, particularly for signs that the President is lining up a legal challenge over tonight’s results, following his (unsubstantiated) claims of foul play. 06:37 AM Fox: Several states won’t be called today Fox News is reporting that four states – Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – are not likely to be called this morning (remember the US is five hours behind the UK currently). That appears to confirm that we are on track for a protracted, messy outcome from a markets perspective. Investors had hoped for clarity – it doesn’t look like they’re going to get it. IF YOU'RE JUST WAKING UP... - There is no result in the presidential election, it is too close to call - It could take days before a result is known - Dems have held the House, Senate unclear at this time - Markets are 'buying American' to seek safety — Michael Brown (@MrMBrown) November 4, 2020 06:33 AM ING: Financial markets set for more volatility Chris Turner, global head of markets at ING , says currency markets have been sent into a spin by the outcome so far: One of the few things clear so far is that we are not going to see a Democrat landslide win as polls had suggested. That has wrong-footed an FX market which was positioned for some clarity. He warned confusion could continue for some time, with warnings that counting in Pennsylvania and Michigan, the former of which looks like a crucial state, could take a long as until Friday to finish due to high levels of mail-in voting. That could boost the dollar further and send investors to safe-haven currencies, such as the Japanese yen. 06:25 AM How the FTSE 100 has shifted overnight It’s been a rollercoaster morning already for the FTSE 100, which is currently set to open slightly lower following the night’s events. Futures contract prices deteriorated overnight as it became clear no ‘blue wave’ had materialised, before jumping again on signs Donald Trump may have secured a surprise victory. As things stand, the mood is slowly souring as investors accept that we might be waiting a while for a full result. 06:15 AM AP says Trump has won Texas The Associated Press projects Donald Trump has won Texas, a crucial battleground state that the Democrats had been pushing hard to win. 06:12 AM Twitter explains Trump warning Twitter says it has placed a warning on Donald Trump’s tweet baselessly accusing Democrats of trying to steal the election (see 6:04am update). It has taken similar steps at other points in the campaign when the President has shared false information: We placed a warning on a Tweet from @realDonaldTrump for making a potentially misleading claim about an election. This action is in line with our Civic Integrity Policy. More here: https://t.co/k6OkjNXEAm — Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) November 4, 2020 The President has reposted his earlier tweet, fixing the Poles/polls type but leaving the main claim intact: We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020 06:06 AM Voting closes in Alaska Polls have closed in Alaska, the easternmost part of the US, meaning no Americans are currently voting. 06:04 AM Trump accuses Democrats of trying to steal election as Biden says ‘We’re gonna win this’ With the election outcome still far from clear at the time of going to pixel, both main candidates have recently spoken out, with a remarkably different tone. Donald Trump has accused the Democrats of trying to steal the election, without citing any evidence. Here is a screenshot of his tweet, which appears to have since been deleted: Twitter - Twitter Joe Biden, meanwhile, has told supporters that an outcome could take a while to arrive, but that he expects to win. Keep the faith, guys. We’re gonna win this. — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 4, 2020 “I’m here to tell you tonight we believe we’re on track to win this election,” Joe Biden tells supporters in Delaware. #Election2020 https://t.co/IodjwJwV5p pic.twitter.com/HLAs0H7073 — CNBC (@CNBC) November 4, 2020 05:58 AM Handover I’m handing over to my colleague Louis Ashworth in London, who will pick up the blog from here and bring you the latest market reaction to the election, as well as breaking business news in London. 05:32 AM Asian markets update In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 is up around 2pc, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite is trading roughly flat. Investors have taken something of a pause in trading: no clearer picture has emerged in the last couple of hours, with the election still apparently on a knife edge. Alibaba is trading 7.5pc down in Hong Kong after yesterday's shock news that fintech spinoff Ant Group's mammoth listing has been suspended by Chinese regulators . 04:34 AM Uber on the ballot in California Away from the markets, today's election also sees a potentially defining vote for Uber in California. Voters have been deciding on Proposition 22, a ballot measure that would exempt drivers for ride-hailing and delivery apps from a gig economy law that would treat drivers as employees. Uber, Lyft and delivery app DoorDash have been putting more than $200m into supporting the measure. Defeat would be a major blow, potentially seeing the apps cut their operations in the state, and meaning tougher gig economy crackdowns across the US. It is early days, but Proposition 22 is leading in initial results, with 59.8pc of votes. Protests against Uber and Lyft last year - Bloomberg 03:58 AM Volatile trading as investors unwind Biden bets In the run up to Tuesday's election, the smart money had been on a Biden victory and a Democrat majority in the Senate. With that very much in the air, market activity is now as much about unwinding those trades as much as investors laying bets on a Trump victory. As well as US bond yields dropping, stock futures are rising - partly because a lower chance of a Biden victory means a lower chance of America's biggest companies such as Google and Facebook being broken up. Here's the state of US futures: S&P: +1.73pc Nasdaq: +3.54pc Dow: +0.8pc 03:01 AM US treasuries drop as Trump picks up pace US bond yields have dropped as traders anticipate a much closer race than they had just a couple of hours ago. Lower yields can be read as a sign that the picture is shifting towards Donald Trump: a Biden presidency was expected to mean more spending, and thus more borrowing. A clean Democrat sweep also increased the likelihood of a big stimulus to counter the economic downturn caused by coronavirus. U.S. Treasury yields have plunged and the dollar has surged as Joe Biden's lead evaporates https://t.co/hNrXLODZOS pic.twitter.com/beejlEQqMX — Gregor Stuart Hunter (@gregorhunter) November 4, 2020 02:18 AM Handover I'm handing over to my colleague James Titcomb , who is on the ground in San Francisco. Stay tuned for updates as the results roll in. Thanks for joining! 02:13 AM A quick tally Donald Trump has won: Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana. Joe Biden has won: Vermont, New York, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, Delaware, Virginia, New Mexico and Connecticut. 01:58 AM Rush to close deals before election Companies announced a record $143.1bn of mergers and acquisitions globally in the past seven days, rushing to complete transactions before this contentious election, reported Bloomberg. This is the highest for any week before a US presidential vote since Bloomberg started collecting data. It is more than double the tally before the 2016 election. The news service says: The flurry of deals has been across industries. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. announced a $35 billion takeover of Xilinx Inc., helping make this year one of the busiest ever for semiconductor transactions. Then Inspire Brands Inc., the owner of Arby’s and Buffalo Wild Wings, sealed an $11.3 billion purchase of Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. that will turn it into a fast-food giant. 01:53 AM US futures swing negative S&P 500 futures have dipped into negative territory, reversing an earlier climb of 1pc. Investors confidence over an early election decision and a Democratic victory - which had boosted markets - has waned. Mr Trump's performance in the polls is exceeding expectations, particularly during early counting in the bellwether state of Florida. Trump 01:34 AM China opens up, Hong Kong down Mainland China and Hong Kong shares seemed to lack direction on Wednesday open. The Shanghai Composite opened by edging up just 0.07pc to 3,273.43, while the CSI 300 of large caps added 0.08pc to 4,781.45. Across the border in Hong Kong, however, the Hang Seng dropped 0.8pc to 24,743.35. Alibaba dragged Hong Kong, plunging nearly 10 percent after the debut of its financial unit Ant Group was suspended on Tuesday. 01:24 AM Hong Kong futures pointing down Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index (HSI) futures aren't looking as rosy as the majority of Asia's positive start to the day. By 9:20am Hong Kong time, 10 minutes before open, futures are down 1pc to 24,777. So far in Asia: Tokyo's Nikkei up 1.2pc to 23,569.14. Seoul's Kospi up 0.1pc to 2,346.32. Sydney All Ordinaries down 0.9pc to 6,207.80. 01:18 AM Live map - every state, every vote Follow updates of the latest projections with our cracking map: 01:06 AM Social media on disinformation alert as votes roll in As all eyes are on Florida, the largest battleground state in terms of population, which could provide an early signal of where results are headed tonight. It has a reputation for being a bellwether: the Sunshine state's winner has become president in 13 of the last 14 elections. But no matter the result in Florida and elsewhere, Facebook and Twitter have vowed to stop candidates prematurely declaring victory. The social media companies said they would apply warning labels to posts or tweets affirming that a presidential nominee has won in individual states or the overall election, reports James Titcomb . Read more: Facebook and Twitter on alert to stop US election candidates claiming premature victory As we head into Election Day in the US tomorrow, we wanted to share an update on how we’ll be helping people find information about voting or returning their mail ballots, and the steps we’re continuing to take to prevent voter suppression, interference and other abuse. — Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) November 3, 2020 12:48 AM Tokyo opens higher Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index opened over 2pc higher on Wednesday, tracking global market rises as polls begin to close. Japan's benchmark was up 2pc at 23,763.75 in early trade. Mr Trump has won West Virginia as well as Kentucky, a solidly conservative state, in the first 2020 election results. He won by a huge margin of 29.8 points four years ago, in one of his strongest performances of the night. Meanwhile Joe Biden has won Vermont and Virginia. 12:41 AM US futures look set to rally again on Wednesday US equity futures pointed to further gains after the biggest two-day rally since September, as investors speculated America would get a clear election decision and a spending bill would be delivered this year. December contracts on the S&P 500 added 0.7pc as of 7:25pm in New York, according to Bloomberg. It jumped 3pc in the past two days. Polls have started closing on much of America's East Coast, including in some key battle grounds like Georgia. Florida and Pennsylvania are still accepting votes. Final polls taken before voting began Tuesday showed Democratic candidate Joe Biden with a solid lead over the incumbent Donald Trump, making some investors speculate there'll be a quick decision over who will win. This stemmed to remove major uncertainty. 12:28 AM Stock markets bullish on Tuesday Europe’s main bourses all rose for a second consecutive day ahead of polls closing on Tuesday, led by the Milan exchange in Italy and followed closely by Frankfurt, Madrid, Paris and London. The continent trailed Asia Pacific which saw a sea of green across all of the main bourses. China’s Shanghai Composite and Tokyo’s Nikkei both boosted 1.4pc, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 2pc. America's markets were also positive despite the election being one of the most controversial in decades. Read more: Share prices on the up as traders anticipate undisputed Biden win 12:27 AM Polls start to close. Here we go... Good evening. Strap in for what will hopefully be an exciting evening of watching the US presidential election unfold, as the polls start to close. Global stock markets rallied on Tuesday, in anticipation of a win by Joe Biden. Traders are expecting the Democratic candidate to fulfil his promise on post-election economic stimulus, if victorious. 5 things to start your night of election watching 1) Share prices on the up as traders anticipate undisputed Biden win: Global stock markets collectively ­rallied on Tuesday, as investors bet on an uncontested Democratic victory in the US presidential election. 2) Five charts that show whether Trump created the ‘greatest economy ever’ : The incumbent US President is promising a strong post-Covid recovery but his economic record is patchy after the first term 3) Facebook and Twitter on alert to stop US election candidates claiming premature victory: Companies will apply warning labels to posts declaring victory before official declarations are in amid fears of drawn out counting 4) Biggest threat to the US economy is a disputed result: Donald Trump has threatened to contest the results of the election in the case of a narrow defeat, putting Wall Street on high alert 5) Tech titans want Trump dilemma to disappear: The US President may have increased their profits, but if he wins re-election tomorrow, their companies may be torn apart. Coming up today Corporate: M&S, Stobart Group (Interim results); Morgan Sindall, Provident Financial, Smurfit Kappa (Trading statements) Economics: Composite and services PMI final reading (UK, China, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, EZ, US) ; ADP employment change, trade balance (US) || Extreme Optimism Pushed Gold Prices Below 1800$. Is This a Buying Opportunity?: Watch this video to learn: What’s next for Gold ? Can indices extend the November rally? Wall Street vs Main Street in economic data Can EURUSD cross 1,20 Some other topics include: Trump says he will leave the Oval Office JPM sees cryptos lower Tension rises in the Middle East 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: GBP/USD Price Forecast – British Pound Continues To Be Noisy Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Remains Under Pressure At The Start Of The Week Bitcoin is The New Gold. Here is Why! USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Support At 1.2930 Remains Strong Oil Stays Near The $45 Level While OPEC+ Starts Its Two-Day Meeting EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Knocking On Door of Big Figure [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 26272.29, 27084.81, 27362.44, 28840.95, 29001.72, 29374.15, 32127.27, 32782.02, 31971.91, 33992.43
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 2018-03-16] BTC Price: 8338.35, BTC RSI: 36.88 Gold Price: 1311.30, Gold RSI: 43.42 Oil Price: 62.34, Oil RSI: 52.74 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Charlie Munger urges regulators to ease off Wells Fargo, blasts bitcoin: By Jonathan Stempel and Jennifer Ablan (Reuters) - Charlie Munger, the longtime business partner of fellow billionaire Warren Buffett, said on Wednesday it is time for regulators to "let up" on Wells Fargo & Co , which will end up "better off" as it corrects a series of mistakes in how it treated banking customers. Munger spoke at the annual meeting of Daily Journal Corp , the Los Angeles-based newspaper publisher he chairs, where he also denigrated bitcoin as "noxious poison" and urged reforms in the healthcare system. He spoke less than two weeks after the Federal Reserve took the unprecedented step of curbing the San Francisco-based bank's asset growth until it fixes its shortcomings. Daily Journal typically draws little attention from investors, but CNBC broadcast the meeting on its website. That is because the company's star attraction is Munger, 94, who has for four decades also been vice chairman at Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc , which is Wells Fargo's largest shareholder. "Of course, Wells Fargo had incentive systems that were too strong in the wrong direction, and of course they were too slow in reacting properly to bad news," but "practically everyone" makes those kinds of mistakes, Munger said. "Wells Fargo will end up better off for having made those mistakes," he added. "I think it's time for regulators to let up on Wells Fargo. They've learned." The San Francisco-based bank has been beset by scandals for deceiving customers, such as by opening unauthorized accounts and forcing them to take out auto insurance they did not need. Wells Fargo shares gained 2.7 percent to $59.55 on Wednesday. Though Wells Fargo may be learning its lessons, Munger said the banking industry remains a "dangerous" place to invest because of the temptation for chief executives to take unwise long-term risks to boost short-term results. Buffett has credited Munger with broadening his investment horizon, and to seek out great companies at fair prices rather than emphasizing fair companies that can be bought cheaply. BITCOIN IS 'TOTALLY ASININE' For Munger, that leaves no room for bitcoin, saying the recent "craze" in the cryptocurrency is "totally asinine" and a means for people to make a quick buck. He urged the government to help wring out its excesses. "Bitcoin is noxious poison," Munger said. "The more popular it got the more I hated it." Munger also endorsed the plan announced by Berkshire, Amazon.com Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co to set up a healthcare company for their employees to combat spiraling costs that Buffett has called a "tapeworm" on the economy. The current system "runs out of control on the cost side," causing behavior that is "regrettable" and "evil," Munger said. "It's not right to bleed so much money out of our dying people," Munger said. "I'm all for somebody trying to figure it out." Munger also expressed concern about rising U.S. government debt levels, calling it "new territory for us," though he expressed no alarm about the current economy. He said higher inflation may follow, and that long-term U.S. Treasuries, whose prices can fall quickly as yields rise, remain a losing bet over the long haul. Munger fielded questions for two hours. He and Buffett, 87, are expected to field shareholder questions for an even longer period, five hours, at Berkshire's annual meeting on May 5. Given their ages, that meeting is likely to be among their last, and Berkshire is preparing for their succession. Last month, it promoted executives Greg Abel and Ajit Jain to vice chairmen, overseeing non-insurance and insurance businesses, respectively. They are widely considered the frontrunners to succeed Buffett as chief executive officer. Alluding to his age, Munger on Wednesday said he was "very surprised to be here," and drew laughter by referring to a woman who said on her own 94th birthday: "I'm very pleased to be here. In fact I'm very pleased to be anywhere." (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Jennifer Ablan in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski) || Bitcoin broke through $11,000 for the first time since January: • Bitcoin broke through the $11,000 mark over the weekend for the first time since January. • Fears over tighter regulation, which was one of the catalysts for the recent crash, appear to have subsided. • Many commentators, including Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin, have warned that cryptocurrencies could fall to "near-zero" at any time. Bitcoin broke through the $11,000 mark over the weekend for the first time since the end of January as its price continues to slowly rise following a violent sell-off at the start of the month. The price of the cryptocurrency went as high as $11,279.18 on Sunday, its most elevated level since January 30, according to CoinDesk's bitcoin price index, which tracks prices from four major cryptocurrency exchanges. On Monday, bitcoin was trading below $11,000, at $10,789, at around 9:30 a.m. London time (4:30 a.m. ET). Bitcoin's price has been slowly climbing higher after a massive sell-off in early February, which was triggered by fears over tighter regulation, rumors of price manipulation in the market, and a hack on cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck that saw over $500 million stolen . Bitcoin is up over 80 percent since it bottomed at $5.947.40 on February 6. In South Korea, a key market for bitcoin, there were fears that an outright ban on cryptocurrency trading could come into effect. But as new measures were implemented , they were less strict than investors thought, and many sounded a positive note. Earlier this month, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Christopher Giancarlo, and the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jay Clayton, gave a testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee on cryptocurrencies. They struck a positive tone, with Giancarlo saying that regulators should have a "thoughtful and balance response, and not a dismissive one." This has also helped to alleviate fears of tighter regulation. Bullishness appears to be returning to the cryptocurrency markets, with both ripple and ethereum also off their lows seen earlier this month. Tom Lee, the first major Wall Street strategist to cover bitcoin, said recently that bitcoin will likely rise to $25,000 this year . Kay Van-Petersen, an analyst at Saxo Bank who correctly predicted the cryptocurrency's rally at the start of last year told CNBC in a recent interview that bitcoin could go to $100,000. Still, there are a number of major organizations and figures warning about the potential for cryptocurrencies to crash. Goldman Sachs said in a note this month that most digital coins are likely to fall to zero . And Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin also warned Sunday that cryptocurrencies are a "hyper-volatile" asset class and "could drop to near-zero at any time." More From CNBC • BlackRock is a lot more bullish on stocks with tax cuts 'supercharging' profits • The markets are about to see something they haven’t since 1946 • Stock rebound could continue as long as the Fed doesn't spook markets || Closer regulation of Bitcoin is needed, federal agencies say: Bitcoin is in a bad place right now. The crypto-currency has fallen from a high of nearly $20,000 in December to around $6,500 today, making its market cap nearly a third of what it was just two months ago. To fuel the panic, US regulators will reportedly tell Congress tomorrow that digital currencies require “increased oversight” and a “new federal regulatory framework,” Reuters reports. Christopher Giancarlo, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Jay Clayton, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, are scheduled to appear before the Senate Banking Commission Tuesday, and will reportedly push for a more “rational” regulatory framework to manage cryptocurrencies, the report says. Don't Miss : Bose’s answer to Apple’s AirPods were just discounted for the first time ever Giancarlo and Clayton will reportedly use the testimony to highlight the fact that agencies have been actively regulating frauds in the cryptocurrency marketplace in recent months — such as freezing assets behind a massive ICO the regulators deemed a fraud — but also demonstrate that regulators need a new framework to be effective. Currently, the SEC and CFTC struggle to oversee cryptocurrency exchanges, which handle billions in trades daily and oversee hundreds of thousands of accounts. Cryptocurrency trading has become more widespread in the past few months, as Bitcoin has soared to new heights and alternative cryptocurrencies have gained popularity. Trading app RobinHood recently introducted an option for users to trade cryptocurrencies within the app, which opens up speculative trading to far more casual users. BGR Top Deals: Bose’s answer to Apple’s AirPods were just discounted for the first time ever This $90 smartwatch looks like an Apple Watch, but it lasts for 4 months per charge Trending Right Now: Two of the world’s deadliest snakes fought, and both lost Prehistoric spider-like arachnid found preserved in amber, and it even has a tail The 10 best new movies and TV shows coming to Netflix in February See the original version of this article on BGR.com || Are Cashiers' Days Numbered?: A grocery shopping experience almost completely devoid of human interaction is just over the horizon, and it could be just what supermarkets need to prosper. Rising labor costs and increasingly intense competition are driving grocery purveyors, includingWal-Mart(NYSE: WMT),Amazon.com(NASDAQ: AMZN), and more recentlyKroger(NYSE: KR), to venture into a world without cashiers. Image source: Amazon.com. Amazon really gave the idea a jump-start when it opened its first Amazon Go store for employees in 2016. On the shelves at Amazon Go are food items including ready-to-eat meals, grocery staples, and meal kits. Using a mobile app that's activated upon entering the store, the customer picks up items and adds them to her cart just as she normally would. However, rather than having to go to a register to tally the total, an Amazon app keeps a running count, and when the customer leaves the store, the app totals the purchase, charges the customer's Amazon account, and sends the shopper a receipt. Amazon calls it Just Walk Out technology. So far, the company continues to test the concept. Now Wal-Mart is reportedly working on a similar concept.RecodereportsWal-Mart's prototype is dubbed Project Kepler and uses the same type of "computer vision" and machine learning technology that will eliminate the need for cashiers. Without the high cost of labor, profits can fall straight to the bottom line. Kroger's, the largest supermarket chain in the U.S., plans to expand its Scan, Bag, Go technology to 400 stores this year, making its effort more widespread than Amazon Go and similar technology currently available at a handful of Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. Using either an app downloaded to a smartphone or a scanner provided by the store, a Kroger's customer scans items he's placing in his cart as he walks around the store. At checkout, he logs the scanner or his phone into the register and pays for his groceries before exiting. As previously noted, a number of supermarkets already have this technology in place, including Wal-Mart, but it's not nearly as widespread or ambitious as Kroger's efforts. Though Wal-Mart recently said it planned to implement the technology at an additional 100 stores. Coupled with online grocery shopping, whether the customer picks it up or has it delivered to the house, the need for cashiers is rapidly evaporating. Image source: Getty Images. We're seeing it in other industries, too, such as restaurants that are installing self-serve kiosks in greater numbers. Fromfast-food chainslikeMcDonald'sandWendy'stofast-casual outletslikeShake Shack, as workers have demanded dramatically higher wages for performing menial tasks, they have simultaneously priced themselves out of the market, and we're seeing more computers and robots replacing them. Labor is one of Wal-Mart's biggest expenses, and with some 1.4 million U.S. employees, it needs to contend with rising minimum wage rates. Some 18 states and 20 cities hiked the legal minimum wage on Jan. 1, so in a bid to stay above those levels, retailers like Wal-Mart are forced to raise their base wages even higher. It's an unsustainable cycle that will push more employers to seek out alternatives for unskilled workers. Even as Wal-Mart recently announced a raise in itsminimum starting wage, it also said it was closing 69 Sam's Club stores (though it will try to find positions for everyone). While labor costs were not the only reason for the Sam's Club move, and maybe not even the primary one, it still entered into the equation, and as technology improves it will enable retailers like Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, and Kroger to more easily eliminate positions that their higher costs can't justify. Cashiers may soon be more rare than paper grocery bags. 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.Rich Dupreyhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool is short shares of Shake Shack. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Japan punishes seven cryptocurrency exchanges over regulatory lapses: By Taiga Uranaka and Thomas Wilson TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan punished seven cryptocurrency exchanges, ordering two of them to suspend business, in an effort to shore up consumer protection after a $530 million (381.93 million pounds) theft of digital money from Tokyo-based Coincheck Inc earlier this year. The Financial Services Agency (FSA) criticised the exchanges for lacking the proper internal control systems, and ordered them to make improvement in areas from risk management to preventing the criminal use of digital money. The FSA rap on Thursday briefly drove down bitcoin prices. The exchanges included Coincheck, served with its second such notice since it was targeted in the late-January heist, and GMO Coin, run by GMO Internet Inc (9449.T). Bit Station and FSHO were ordered to halt operations for a month. The punishments represent the FSA's broadest response yet to concerns over security at Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges, which were first triggered by the 2014 collapse of the Mt. Gox exchange and resurfaced with the Coincheck heist. The regulator said Coincheck lacked proper systems for dealing with risks such as money laundering and terrorism financing. It gave the exchange until March 22 to submit a report on how it would improve. At a briefing after the FSA's sanctions, Coincheck CEO Koichiro Wada told reporters that the exchange's systems "weren't in keeping with the expansion of our business". Wada said he was looking at options, including resignation, to take responsibility for the hack. Coincheck will from next week repay about 46 billion yen ($434 million) to investors who had lost digital money, the exchange said, adding it would lift curbs on the trading of some cryptocurrencies imposed after the theft. PROBLEM: UNREGISTERED EXCHANGES Bitcoin (BTC=BTSP) fell as much as 5.7 percent following FSA's criticism, before recovering to trade up about 2 percent at $10,124 by 0930 GMT. The virtual currency hit a peak of $19,458 in December, but has since almost halved given a series of crackdowns by regulators across the globe on the digital coin trade. Story continues Japan last year became the world's first country to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges. Some 16 exchanges are currently registered, while another 16, including Coincheck, were allowed to continue operating while their applications are checked. Five of the seven exchanges punished by the FSA are unregistered, including the two forced to suspend business. A senior employee at Bit Station used customers' bitcoin for their own purposes, the FSA said, adding that the exchange has now offered to drop its registration application. Bit Station and FSHO did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment. The head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's cybersecurity taskforce said it was not ideal that exchanges that had not registered with the government should be allowed to continue operations. "It's problematic that these 16 unregistered exchanges have been able to continue trading," Sanae Takaichi told Reuters. "In the first place, should they have been allowed to operate while their applications for registrations are still incomplete?" HOT AND COLD WALLETS The theft from Coincheck, one of the biggest digital money heists ever, underscores the risks policymakers across the globe face in regulating cryptocurrency trading. Coincheck said a hacker used malware to break into its network before stealing an encrypted key and withdrawing the digital coins. The stolen coins were then stored in "hot wallets" or digital folders accessible from the internet. Coincheck said it had moved coins stored in some hot wallets to more secure "cold wallets" - computers or drives not connected to the internet. At GMO Coin, one of the two registered exchanges sanctioned, the FSA said system glitches occurred frequently but the company had failed to sufficiently analyse the root cause. The regulator ordered it to submit a report by March 22. Shares in GMO Internet fell as much as 5.6 percent. The benchmark Nikkei average (.N225) closed up 0.5 percent. "We will look again at our system risk management, and take thorough steps to improve to regain users' trust," a GMO spokeswoman said. (Reporting by Taiga Uranaka and Thomas Wilson; Editing by Chris Gallagher, Sam Holmes and Himani Sarkar) || Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Direction is in Hands of Hedge Funds: U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil closed higher on Wednesday despite a bigger than expected inventories build. Traders said that OPEC’s strong compliance with its plan to cut output offset news that U.S. production topped 10 million barrels per day for the first time in nearly half a century. March U.S. WTI crude oil futures settled at $64.73, up $0.23 or +0.36% and April Brent crude oil finished the session at $68.89, up $0.37 or +0.54%. Daily March WTI Crude Oil The U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that U.S. crude inventories rose by 6.8 million barrels during the week-ending January 26, after 10 straight weeks of declines. Analysts had expected a decrease of 126,000 barrels. Gasoline stocks unexpectedly fell by 2 million barrels, compared with expectations for a gain of 1.8 million barrels, helping to drive up gasoline futures. Distillate stockpiles fell by 1.9 million barrels, versus expectations for a 1.5 million-barrel drop, the EIA data showed. Daily April Brent Crude Forecast The EIA also reported on Wednesday that U.S. crude oil production in November surpassed 10 million barrels per day for the first time since 1970, and neared the all-time output record. However, this news wasn’t enough to deter buyers because it was reported that adherence to the program to limit production rose to 138 percent from 137 percent in December, suggesting commitment is not wavering even as oil prices hit their highest level since 2014. The fundamental seem to be indicating we’ve reached a stalemate in the crude oil market. This tells me that the price action will be controlled by the hedge funds. They have to continue to be willing to buy strength to sustain the rally, or prices will collapse into a value zone. At this time, the key level on the WTI chart is $64.11. This is the contract’s 50% price or pivot. This price is controlling the direction of the market. A sustained move above this level will indicate that buyers are still coming in to support the market. A sustained move under this level will mean that the hedge funds are taking profits and probably playing for a pullback into a value area. If $64.11 fails as support we’re likely to pullback into at least $61.37. Since the long-term fundamentals are bullish, buyers are likely to show up on a test of this level. Brent crude changed its trend to down on Tuesday, but there was very little follow-through to the downside. The key short-term level to watch today is $69.28. If sellers show up on a test of this level then we’re probably going to head lower over the near-term. Story continues If there is an eventual follow-through to the downside then we could see a move into $66.03 to $64.91. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Getting Hit Again in Early Trading New month, new trading setups! EUR/USD, AUD/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY Daily Outlook – February 1, 2018 The Horror Show Continues, with Bitcoin in the Red Again USD/CAD Daily Fundamental Forecast – February 1, 2018 Thursday Support and Resistance Levels – February 01, 2018 View comments || The Quiet Way Social Security Is Cutting Early Benefits in 2018: Tens of millions of people rely on Social Security for retirement income, and many of them count on the program for the vast majority of the money they need to pay their living expenses. Financial challenges to Social Security threaten the long-term viability of the program. Yet many people don't fully understand that already under current law, Social Security is going through a transition that's resulting in new early retirees getting less in monthly benefits. After starting a new series of reductions in 2017, another 3 million 62-year-olds will face the prospect in 2018 of further reductions in Social Security -- thanks to actions that lawmakers took nearly 35 years ago. The cuts are relatively modest, but overall, they're intended to reduce dramatically the total amount of money that Social Security will have to pay out over the long run. Two older people in front of a blue background with a Social Security card imposed over the George Washington picture from the $1 bill. Image source: Getty Images. Why is Social Security on the decline? The way in which lawmakers authorized the Social Security Administration to cut benefits to new program participants was to make changes to the full retirement age . For those who turn 62 in 2018, the full retirement age will be 66 and four months. That's up by two months from the full retirement age that those who turned 62 last year faced, and up by four months from the 66-year-old age that those who turned 62 between 2005 and 2016 had as their full retirement age. These legal changes came about as part of major entitlement in the early 1980s. The Social Security Amendments of 1983 were designed to address more immediate concerns about the sustainability of the Social Security system. Under those rules, the full retirement age was set to rise from 65 to 67 in two distinct phases. The first affected 62-year-olds from 2000 to 2005, who gradually saw retirement ages rise from 65 to 66. The current phase will end when the retirement age hits 67 for those turning 62 in 2022. How much of a benefit cut is it? At first glance, it might not seem like a change in full retirement age is really a benefit cut. However, the 1983 Social Security laws didn't change the ability of 62-year-olds to file for early benefits. It just imposed further reductions on those who claimed early. Story continues Under the method that the SSA uses to calculate monthly benefits , every month before full retirement age that you claim early results in a reduction of five-ninths of a percent for the first 36 months, and then five-twelfths of a percent for additional months. If your full retirement age goes from 66 and two months to 66 and four months, then claiming at 62 means you'll have to deal with two months of further reductions. That amounts to five-sixths of a percentage point, and so your full retirement age benefit will be reduced by 26 2/3% rather than 25 5/6% for those who turned 62 in 2017. Admittedly, an extra reduction of five-sixths of a percentage point might not seem to make that big of a difference. For a typical person who could get a full retirement benefit of $1,500 per month if they waited until full retirement age, the reduction would amount to $1,100 per month for this year's 62-year-olds compared to last year's $1,112.50. Similar rules apply to those who are claiming benefits under their spouse's work history. The reductions are greater, rising from 30 5/6% to 31 2/3% for those who claim spousal benefits at age 62. What if I just wait to claim? It's important to understand that no matter when you claim, a higher retirement age will result in lower benefits. For instance, those who wait until age 70 typically get two-thirds of a percentage point in delayed retirement credits for each month they wait beyond full retirement age. An increase of two months in the full retirement age means two fewer months of credits, costing you 1 1/3% in total. Similar reductions exist regardless of when the roughly 3 million people who turn 62 in 2018 choose to claim their Social Security. New proposals have identified raising the retirement age still further as a possible way to solve current financial challenges that Social Security faces. In considering those proposals, it's essential to understand that such changes are already going on and the consequences that those changes are having on people who are retiring right 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 The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 5 Cryptocurrencies That Have Brand-Name Partners: Since the beginning of 2017, cryptocurrencies have been what dreams are made of for those with the wherewithal to invest in them. Though exceptionally risky and largely unproven, the combined value of all digital currencies soared by more than 3,300% last year to $613 billion, and just weeks ago, they touched as high as $835 billion. In just one year, investors were treated to what amounts to a lifetime of gains. The rise of cryptocurrencies has a lot to do with the emergence ofblockchain technology. Blockchain is the digital, distributed, and decentralized ledger responsible for logging all transactions without the need for a financial intermediary. It's designed to fix a number of perceived issues with the current banking system, including excessive transaction fees and long wait times for payments to settle. With blockchain, transactions have the opportunity to settle almost instantly (even with cross-border payments), and there's no bank (i.e., third-party) involvement, meaning there's the real chance of lower transaction fees. To a lesser extent, investors are also excited about the potential for using virtual currencies in place of traditional paper currencies to buy goods and services. Image source: Getty Images. But the long-term value of cryptocurrencies will likely be determined by their ability to land partnerships and deals with brand-name businesses. The easiest way for digital currencies to distance themselves from what are now nearly 1,500 investable cryptocurrencies is by doing well through brand-name partnerships. The following five cryptocurrencies have done just that. No surprise here. Bitcoin, the world's oldest and most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap, has more than ahandful of brand-name partnerswilling to accept its tokens as a form of payment. It all began in 2014 with online home-goods retailerOverstock.com, which is itself an ambassador of digital currency acceptance among retailers. Bitcoin also addedMicrosoft(NASDAQ: MSFT),DISH Network(NASDAQ: DISH),PayPal, andIntuitas payment partners that year. Microsoft allows users to purchase content in the Windows and Xbox stores using bitcoin, while DISH announced its intention to accept the most popular digital token as a form of payment for its content services. Since adding these partners, bitcoin has continued to expand its merchant network. Unlike the other cryptocurrencies on this list, bitcoin is less concerned with marketing its blockchain technology to enterprises, and has focused its efforts on signing up merchants and replacing traditional paper currencies. Nevertheless, it's responsible for putting blockchain technology in the limelight, and its blockchain is the basis of evolution for many of the proprietary blockchains we see being developed today. Image source: Getty Images. If there were a trophy to hand out for most brand-name involvement, Ethereum would almost certainly have to win. Despite its Ether token having little use at the moment beyond paying for transaction fees on its network, Ethereum has a small army of big businesses currently testing a version of its blockchain. Formed in February 2017, theEnterprise Ethereum Allianceincludes approximately 200 organizations from a variety of industries that are testing a version of Ethereum's blockchain in demos and small-scale projects. These brand-name testers includeJPMorgan Chase, Microsoft,Intel,Mastercard,Credit Suisse, andBP(NYSE: BP), to name just a few. In particular, BP is testing the capabilities of Ethereum's blockchain to expedite energy futures trading settlements. Ethereum was also the first major cryptocurrency to signal to the world that blockchain has applications beyond just currency. Tech and retail applications of Ethereum's customizable blockchain can aid in supply chain management and network oversight. The secret sauce to Ethereum's success are itssmart contracts. These are customizable protocols that help to verify, facilitate, or enforce the negotiation of a contract. Since paper contracts are viewed as legally flimsy and inefficient, legally binding digital records via blockchain that are backed by smart contract protocols are quite appealing to big businesses. Image source: Getty Images. One virtual currency that emerged from bitcoin's shadow in a big way last year was Ripple. It was among the top-performing cryptocurrencies in 2017, with its XRP coin gaining more than 35,500%. Since mid-November, Ripple, which has marketed its blockchain technology to global financial service companies, has announcedtwo partnerships with brand-name businesses. In mid-November, Ripple announced thatAmerican Express(NYSE: AXP)andBanco Santander(NYSE: SAN)would be using its blockchain in a real-world cross-border payment test. American Express users who send noncard payments over AmEx's FX International Payment network to U.K. Santander accounts will have those transactions processed through Ripple's blockchain. Rather than these payments taking up to five days to clear, Ripple is figuring on virtually instant settlements. Then, earlier this month, Ripple announced a partnership with money transfer serviceMoneyGram International(NASDAQ: MGI)that's designed to expedite the time it takes to move money around the globe. MoneyGram should be able to convert the currency of the origin country to XRP coins, then convert those coins into the currency of the destination country, all within a matter of seconds. Plus, Ripple's transactions cost just a fraction of a penny, which could be a major selling point over the high transaction fees of rivalWestern Union. With anexceptionally quick transaction speedrelative to bitcoin and Ethereum, you could rightly say that Ripple is making waves. Image source: Getty Images. Though it stayed under the radar for much of 2017, Stellar exploded onto the scene in a big way in October when it announced blockchain partnerships with both computing giantIBM(NYSE: IBM)and KlickEx, a Polynesian currency exchange service. Unlike Ripple and its focus on big banks, Stellar seems perfectly comfortable going after multinational businesses. Its current partnership with IBM entails having a dozen big banks in the South Pacific region deploy Stellar's blockchain technology in order to quickly settle and validate payments from customers. IBM generates tens of billions of dollars from overseas clients, but these payments can often take days to clear since they're cross-border transactions. Stellar's blockchain is designed toproof these payments in a matter of seconds, perhaps improving order efficiency and cash flow for Big Blue. Though not publicly traded, global financial management services firm Deloitte also has a working partnership with Stellar. Back in July 2016, Stellar announced a partnership with Deloitte to develop custom-built mobile applications, as well as a digital banking platform for businesses, which included invoice tracking and reference numbers. And, as usual, Stellar promised transaction resolution in around five seconds. If it can scale and maintain these quick processing times, Stellar may soon give the big boys (bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple) a run for their money. Image source: Getty Images. But if you want to really dip below the radar, yet still find a cryptocurrency capable of landing big-name partners, Qtum is the digital currency to dig into. What makes Qtum's blockchain so attractive is that it combines bitcoin's popular core infrastructure with Ethereum's Virtual Machine and smart protocols. It basically takes the most popular features of both cryptocurrencies, adds in mobile applications, and ensures that the network will remain backward compatible with existing bitcoin gateways and Ethereum contracts despite future upgrades. This month, the Qtum Foundation announced that it hadpartnered with two major Chinese companies. First, Qtum is working with 360 Finance, a subsidiary of the now-private Qihoo 360. If the name sounds familiar, it's because Qihoo 360 is the company behind the 360 Search engine in China, which has about 10% market share (third-highest in China). The Qtum Foundation, along with the 360 Blockchain Research Center and BTN Foundation, will work to develop next-generation smart contract solutions. The second partnership, which was announced a mere day after the first, is with Baofeng Bokocloud. Though that's not a name folks in the U.S. might be familiar with, Baofeng's media player is one of the most popular video and streaming services in China, with over 200 million users. The two will work to achieve the world's first blockchain consensus network service, with Baofeng using Qtum's blockchain to strength its copyright protections and to handle payments made by users to the company. Qtum has suggested that these are two of five major partnerships it'll announce 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 Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.Sean Williamshas no position in any of the stocks or cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Intuit, Mastercard, and PayPal Holdings. The Motley Fool recommends American Express and Intel. The Motley Fool has no position in any cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || FTSE 100 Price Forecast January 24, 2018, Technical Analysis: The FTSE 100has gone back and forth during the day on Tuesday, showing signs of volatility yet again. Volume is a bad though, so I think what we are looking at is the market trying to build up enough momentum to continue going higher, perhaps offering a base from which to build higher pricing. The 7800 level would of course be the next target based upon the large, round, psychologically significant number theory, and of course structural resistance in the past. I believe that the FTSE 100 is still thought of as cheap, especially considering that the British pound has been so cheap, at least in historical terms. Breakdown, I expect to see a lot of support near the 7680 handle, and then again at the 7650 level. Longer-term, the absolute “floor” in the market is closer to the 7500 level, but it’s very unlikely that we not only reach there, let alone break through it. Longer-term, I believe that the market is trying to go to the 80,000 handle, so I look at short-term pullbacks as buying opportunities in what should be a larger move, and hopefully a larger position. I like the idea of adding slowly, recognizing that we are in more of a grind higher than some type of massive breakout just waiting to happen. I believe that the volatility will remain an issue, so it’s likely that you can build your position very slowly. There’s no need to jump in with both feet, this is a longer-term grind to the upside. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Gold Prices Receive Boost from Weak Dollar • Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 24/01/18 • Crude Oil Price Update – Sustained Move Over Major 50% at $64.11 Will Be Bullish • U.S Dollar Losing Additional Ground, Gold Continues Rising • USD Gets Hammered, with Stats Bringing the EUR and GBP into Focus • The Bitcoin Ship Steadies as Negative News Slows || Banks in Britain and U.S. ban Bitcoin buying with credit cards: By Lawrence White and Emma Rumney LONDON (Reuters) - Banks in Britain and the United States have banned the use of credit cards to buy Bitcoin and other "cryptocurrencies", fearing a plunge in their value will leave customers unable to repay their debts. Lloyds Banking Group Plc (LLOY.L), which issues just over a quarter of all credit cards in Britain, and Virgin Money (VM.L) said they would ban credit card customers from buying cryptocurrencies, following the lead of U.S. banking giants JP Morgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Citigroup (C.N). The move is aimed at protecting customers from running up huge debts from buying virtual currencies on credit, if their values were to plummet, a Lloyds spokeswoman said. Concerns have arisen among credit card providers because their customers have increasingly been using credit cards to fund accounts on online exchanges, which are then used to purchase the digital currencies. However, other banks said on Monday they will continue to allow credit card customers to buy cryptocurrencies. "We constantly review our protections for customers as a responsible bank and lender, and are keeping this matter under close review," a spokeswoman for Barclays said. Barclays is Britain's leading credit card issuer with a market share of around 27 percent through its Barclaycard brand. "At present UK customers can use both their Barclays debit card and Barclaycard credit card to purchase cryptocurrency legitimately," the Barclays spokeswoman said. Spain's second-biggest bank BBVA (BBVA.MC) also said it has no restrictions in place on such purchases. Last week Mastercard Inc (MA.N), the world's second biggest payments network, said customers buying cryptocurrencies with credit cards fueled a 1 percentage point increase in overseas transaction volumes in the fourth quarter. At that time Bitcoin was staging a spectacular rise in value, reaching a peak of $19,187 on Dec. 16 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. But the biggest and best-known cryptocurrency has since fallen dramatically and on Monday was down by 11 percent to $7255 at 1719 GMT on Bitstamp, extending losses from Friday amid worries of a global regulatory clampdown. CREDIT RISK The decision on whether to allow credit card users to buy cryptocurrencies is a credit risk decision made by the card-issuing banks, a spokesman for Mastercard said. A spokeswoman for Chase bank said it is not currently processing credit card purchases of cryptocurrencies because of the volatility and risk involved, while a Citi spokeswoman confirmed a similar ban, but did not give a reason. The bans extends only to credit card purchases, with debit card users still able to buy cryptocurrencies. "Across Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and MBNA, we do not accept credit card transactions involving the purchase of cryptocurrencies," the Lloyds spokeswoman said in an email. Lloyds did not say how it planned to enforce the ban, although the Telegraph newspaper reported on Sunday that its credit card customers will be blocked from buying Bitcoin online through a "blacklist" that will flag sellers. A spokeswoman from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) declined to comment on the bank's policy. Europe's biggest bank HSBC (HSBA.L) did not respond to requests for comment on whether it permits credit card purchases of cryptocurrencies. Concerns about the use of Bitcoin and other such currencies extend beyond the use of credit cards for borrowing. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said Britain should take a serious look at digital currencies such as Bitcoin because of the way they can be used by criminals. (Additional reporting by Anjuli Davies in London and Jesus Aguado in Madrid; Editing by Peter Cooney and Alexander Smith) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] 2018/01/29 01:00 #Binance 格安コイン 1位 #TRX 0.00000573 BTC(7.23円) 2位 #IOST 0.00000707 BTC(8.93円) 3位 #XVG 0.00000793 BTC(10.01円) 4位 #POE 0.00000817 BTC(10.31円) 5位 #FUN 0.00000884 BTC(11.16円) #仮想通貨 #アルトコイン #草コイン || Tu respuesta fue exclente. Cuando el btc estaba en 20k se la pasaba hablando del cambio de paradigma y bla bla. Es un ladri || RT @guardiannews: #Bitcoin price falls below $6,000 as banker signals crackdown http://flip.it/wtjjbg  || #GigApp - online marketplace, use cryptocurrency to buy and sell goods and services! Check us out at: https://t.co/fCsyQPulbX #cryptocurrency #NEO #fintech #blockchain #bitcoin #Ethereum https://t.co/9e3iLstqOW || Cotizaciones al 14/02/2018 01:00 AM Bitcoin (BTC): 48.077.865 Ethereum (ETH): 4.703.782 Litecoin (LTC): 989.676 Monero (XMR): 1.339.718 Dash (DASH): 3.425.901 ZCash (ZEC): 2.532.294 || Let's hope the tide turns guys. Hodling through the storm! $btc $ltc $omg $qtum $xrp $xlm $eth $xem $trx $icx $ethos $etchttps://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/914952/Bitcoin-price-crash-cryptocurrency-dollars-market-investors-value-latest-update-news … || Coin Virtual Currency Virtual Currency Asic Miner Block Erupter Bitcoin Miner Usb 330 Mh/S http://store.financializer.com/2018/02/coin-virtual-currency-virtual-currency_55.html … || Lowest 5M|15M|1H Average Stoch RSI: 1) $DGD/BTC 8.66 2) $BSD/BTC 19.84 3) $BLOCK/BTC 20 4) $NBT/BTC 22.4 5) $MONA/BTC 23.18 || Current rate of #KoreanPremium $STRAT: 3.91% $QTUM: 3.05% $SNT: 4.05% $POWR: 4.74% $BTC: 3.01% $ETC: 3.00% Binance : https://www.binance.com/?ref=20968792  Detail : https://gimchipremium.appspot.com/  || CME Takes Cautious Stance Toward Crypto-Futures Besides Bitcoin https://www.dub.io/tw/37420402  #cme_group_inc #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/vJ0iyDz5C2
Trend: up || Prices: 7916.88, 8223.68, 8630.65, 8913.47, 8929.28, 8728.47, 8879.62, 8668.12, 8495.78, 8209.40
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc. Regains Compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5250(c)(1): SHENZHEN, China, June 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc. (the "Company" or "MFH") (Nasdaq: MFH), a digital fintech group powered by blockchain technology, today announced that it received written notice from the Listing Qualifications Department of the Nasdaq Stock Market ("Nasdaq") stating that the Company has regained compliance with the Nasdaq Listing rule 5250(c)(1) and the matter is now closed. The Company was previously notified by Nasdaq on May 13, 2022, that it was not in compliance with Nasdaq’s Listing Rule 5250(c)(1) due to the failure to file its annual report on Form 20-F for the period ended December 31, 2021.  The Company regained compliance with such Nasdaq continued listing requirement as a result of filing the annual report on Form 20-F on June 15, 2022, for the period ended December 31, 2021. About Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc. Limited Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc. is a digital fintech group powered by blockchain technology. The Company’s primary business scope includes digital asset trading, asset digitization, cross-border remittance and other services, providing compliant, professional, and highly efficient digital financial services to its customers. The Company recently began to narrow in on Bitcoin mining, digital currency investment and trading, and other related fields. This shift has enabled the company to deepen its involvement in all aspects of the blockchain industry, from production to circulation. Forward-Looking Statements This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact in this announcement are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that the Company believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Investors can identify these forward-looking statements by words or phrases such as “may,” “will,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “aim,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan,” “believe,” “potential,” “continue,” “is/are likely to” or other similar expressions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations, except as may be required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and the Company cautions investors that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. Story continues For more information, please contact: In China: Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc. Qi Wang Tel: +86 133-3115-3191 Email: communication@mfhfintech.com In the United States: International Elite Capital Inc. Vicky Chueng Tel: +1(646) 866-7989 Email: mfhfintech@iecapitalusa.com View comments || Ether, Solana Lead Losses Among Major Cryptos, Analysts See Further Declines After Fed Rate Hikes: Major cryptocurrencies slid Tuesday, with ether ( ETH ) dropping under $1,500 as the hype around the “ Merge trade” faded out and equity markets in Asia and Europe took on losses. Futures tracking ether racked up $88 million in losses, the most among crypto futures, as traders took profits following the move from $1,100 to over $1,600 in the past few weeks. In the past 24 hours, bitcoin ( BTC ) fell 4.4%, trading at just over support at $21,000 in European afternoon hours, with XRP and BNB mirroring the losses. Ether slid 8.8%, leading losses among major cryptocurrencies, with Solana’s SOL and dogecoin each dropping more than 7%. “Without support from stock indices, the cryptocurrency market is buckling under its own weight with no meaningful growth drivers,” Alex Kuptsikevich, a senior market analyst at FxPro, told CoinDesk. Current market conditions, he said, were “fueling expectations of a prolonged lull, which fit into historical patterns.” "Bitcoin bottom signals continued this week, but no clear buy signal emerged and the macroeconomic situation still dominates,” said Martin Hiesboeck, head of crypto research at Uphold, a crypto trading platform. He said a 75-basis point hike from the U.S. Federal Reserve this week is more likely than a 100-basis point increase, but he isn't expecting a big decrease in volatility in either case. "Last week's bounce, while showing some good signals, was not nearly enough for bitcoin," he added. Traders, meanwhile, have fully priced in a 75-point move by the Fed, which has almost no choice but to tighten after U.S. inflation touched a four-decade high of 9.1% in June. Equity markets are mixed on Tuesday, with the Asia Dow climbing 0.5% overnight, Europe's Stoxx 600 up marginally, and U.S. stock index futures down about 0.4%. || 3 Best Tech Stocks for Inflation in 2022: Inflation, inflation, inflation. That’s all we seem to hear about these days as the CPI report has become more important than the jobs report and as the Federal Reserve takes the center stage on a monthly basis. The stock market has been hit hard and tech stocks have paid the biggest price. In fact, the Nasdaq composite has now suffered a peak-to-trough decline of 33% — worse than the 32.1% decline we saw amid the Covid-19 panic. Most companies are feeling some sort of pressure in their business. Whether it’s supply-chain related for a company like Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) or ad-related like it is for Snap (NYSE: SNAP ). For non-tech businesses, those pressures can be even worse. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips However, not every company is feeling the pinch. There are a handful of tech stocks that are navigating this storm quite well, as demand continues to bolster revenue and drive profits. You wouldn’t know if you looked at the stock prices, as they have been buried along with everything else. 7 Long-Term Stocks That Never Go Out of Style But for investors who listen to the conference calls and parse through the financial statements, this reality is clear as day. Let’s look at them now. Ticker Company Current Price CRM Salesforce, Inc. $159.85 PANW Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $466.31 ESTC Elastic N.V. $61.62 Tech Stocks Bucking Inflation: Salesforce (CRM) A hand with pink painted fingernails holds a Salesforce (CRM) sticker. Source: Bjorn Bakstad / Shutterstock.com Salesforce (NYSE: CRM ) reported strong earnings on May 31, which allowed its stock to rally about 10% in the following session. The company delivered a top- and bottom-line beat and grew sales 24% year over year. Considering that Salesforce also delivered a top- and bottom-line beat and boosted its guidance last quarter, I never felt that the stock deserved to fall 50% from peak to trough. For what it’s worth, guidance was also strong last quarter. Yet it’s what management said on the conference call that should have everyone’s attention. From Co-CEO Marc Benioff: Story continues I can tell you that our business — you can see this in the Q1 numbers, can’t you, is incredibly healthy…We’re carefully watching the economic data. I know all of you are doing that as well. And so far, we’re just not seeing any material impact from the broader economic world that all of you are in. Palo Alto Networks (PANW) Palo Alto Networks (PANW) logo on corporate building Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com I really liked Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW ) earlier this year, because it was one of the only tech stocks bucking the bear market. Eventually though, it got swallowed up in the sell-off. While its better-than-expected earnings helped snap it out of its downtrend, it still hasn’t recovered a bulk of its losses. That said, business is still going strong, as revenue grew by 29% year over year. From CEO Nikesh Arora: I don’t want to be way too optimistic, but the fact that we were able to tide over that pandemic moment as an industry to be fair in cybersecurity, I’m less worried about it right now given what’s going on in the environment…you’re seeing way more security awareness and concern more than I’ve ever seen. Tech Stocks Bucking Inflation: Elastic N.V. (ESTC) Closeup of the homepage of Close CRM website, a subsidiary of Elastic Inc., Source: Tada Images / Shutterstock.com Lastly, we have Elastic (NASDAQ: ESTC ). With its $6.25 billion market capitalization, Elastic is eight times smaller than Palo Alto Networks and just a fraction the size of Salesforce. Yet, that doesn’t mean it’s one of tech stocks we should ignore. In fact, quite the opposite. On June 1, the company delivered an earnings and revenue beat while the latter grew roughly 35% year over year. Guidance was strong too. Not only are we hearing that business is good from these tech stocks, but we’re also seeing it in the results. From COO and CFO Janesh Moorjani: Turning to the outlook for fiscal 2023. We believe our products are core to our customer success, which helps us build a healthy business that performs consistently through both, upswings and downturns. To be clear, we have not seen any broader macroeconomic impact in our business. 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.com Publishing Guidelines . More From InvestorPlace $200 Oil Sooner Than You Think – Buy This Now Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2… Says Buy THIS Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade “On Air” It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. The post 3 Best Tech Stocks for Inflation in 2022 appeared first on InvestorPlace . || ENNOVA Announces the Expansion of AUC Ecosystem through Mobile App 'Tier' and Crypto Exchange 'LEO12': JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA / ACCESSWIRE / July 6, 2022 / ENNOVA, the fastest growing blockchain service company in South Africa, announces that they expand the ecosystem of the AUC project. ENNOVA PTE. LTD., Wednesday, July 6, 2022, Press release picture African countries actively used mobile money as a measure to improve financial inclusion, and as mobile money lowered the threshold for financial use and increased access, financial inclusion in Africa doubled from 23% in 2011 to 43% in 2017. In particular, according to the results of the FinAccess 2021 survey conducted to measure the nation's financial use and inclusiveness, Kenya's use of financial services through official financial institutions such as banks grew rapidly from 26.7% in 2006 to 83.7%. Mobile money is nothing new. Even before the pandemic, African countries were trailblazers in the industry. Per McKinsey, "Just over half of the 282 mobile money services operating worldwide are located in Sub-Saharan Africa." Today, it is not uncommon for more citizens to have access to mobile money than a traditional bank account. What is even more impressive is that there is still ample room for growth. Per the Wall Street Journal, only 45% of the African population has an active cell phone. To put this into perspective, in Europe, that figure hovers well above 80%. How these figures will be affected by the pandemic is anyone's guess. In this situation, mobile money can effectively influence financial inclusion improvement beyond supply and demand limits. Mobile money has the advantage of being able to easily provide financial services to mobile phone users without installing a special financial infrastructure. In addition, as in the credit scoring system, credit is measured based on users' mobile phone usage history, and services such as microloans can be provided to people with irregular income, low income, or low credit without a job. In particular, the ease of small transactions compared to banks can be effective in financial inclusion of the socially disadvantaged groups. Story continues Tier is a simple, easy, and fast payment and remittance app developed by Ennova that is a financial platform and service provider based in South Africa. The core platform of AUC project, which is conducted by Ennvoa, Tier, a mobile wallet, to register credit cards of various banks in the wallet to provide a service that allows you to conveniently purchase goods in general stores. In addition, pre-paid IC cards issued by Ennova can be registered, and if customers use them, they can purchase goods at a very low cost or receive various rewards through services provided by Ennova. Michael Kwon, co-Founder and managing director of Ennova, said, "We are a fintech and blockchain solution company that has been steadily conducting research and development for the past 3 years to provide more convenient online/offline payment services to African users." he also added that "In the fast-growing simple payment market after the Covid-19 crisis, the Tier App will provide users with a more convenient digital payment environment and enable digital asset payment, providing high discount rates, low fees, and high security." Furthermore, he said that "Currently, the entry of large companies such as PayPal into the digital asset payment market will attract more attention to the digital asset itself and increase demand, and if Tier App's unique strengths are well utilized, it will definitely be able to erode demands from African markets." Lastly, "We also introduce digital assets to Africa through the Leo12 exchange and provide a secure trading environment. It will provide support to blockchain startups in African continent through the LEO12's Jump Deck program. With this ecosystem, we spread the advantages of digital finance to Africa and pursue sustainable development that grows together." Currently, 'Tier' and 'LEO12' are already operating in South Africa and neighboring countries. Tier app and the LEO12 exchange are organically linked, and all users participating in the AUC ecosystem can use the AUC project's digital assets, AUC tokens, and en-Cash points, to easily use cross-border payments and remittance services through the Tier app and the LEO12 exchange without using multiple solutions. Know more about LEO12 Crypto exchange, please visit www.leo12.com . About AUC Project The AUC is a project that starts with the financially underprivileged people in African continent and combines blockchain technology and digital asset into the global payment and remittance markets to provide relative solutions to users. AUC project's ecosystem consists of digital financial platform, digital asset, and crypto exchange. AUC token issued on erc-20 based and used within the network of AUC projects such as transactions, remittances, and value exchanges between countries. As various applications are served on AUC tokens and as users increase, the demand for AUC tokens will increase and create higher value. Tier, digital financial platform, is a total payment and remittance platform made simple for everyone to enjoy all kinds of financial services in just one app. LEO12 is a digital asset exchange supporting 3 markets (ZAR/BTC/USDT) and 11 trading pairs and can buy/sell coins such as BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC and many more. LEO12 is now operating in South Africa and is scheduled to launch LEO12's first branch in Ghana next year. About ENNOVA ENNOVA is an IT and Fintech solution company. Their business will be venturing into the blockchain world as well as revolutionising current digital systems and solutions. Their focus will be around developing and offering new FinTech solutions based on blockchain technology. The mission of ENNOVA is to establish a safe, secure, and convenient digital solution to the world in order to further drive and develop the economy and digital mobile service. For more information and updates about the project, please follow our website. We also periodically provide information on social media: Social Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/AUC_Project Medium: https://medium.com/@advancedunitedcont Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/advancedunitedcont/ Media Contact Contact: Patrick Yu / Marketing Director Email: support@ennovaglobal.com Website: http://aucunited.com , https://ennovaglobal.com SOURCE : ENNOVA PTE. LTD. View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/707702/ENNOVA-Announces-the-Expansion-of-AUC-Ecosystem-through-Mobile-App-Tier-and-Crypto-Exchange-LEO12 || Crypto's latest meltdown leaves punters bruised and bewildered: By Tom Wilson, Elizabeth Howcroft, Nupur Anand and Ece Toksabay LONDON/MUMBAI/ANKARA (Reuters) - For Jeremy Fong, U.S. crypto lender Celsius was an ideal place to stash his digital currency holdings - and earn some spending money from its double-digit interest rates along the way. "I was probably earning $100 a week," at sites like Celsius, said Fong, a 29-year civil aerospace worker who lives in the central English city of Derby. "That covered my groceries." Now, though, Fong's crypto - about a quarter of his portfolio - is stuck at Celsius. The New Jersey-based crypto lender froze withdrawals for its 1.7 million customers last week, citing "extreme" market conditions, spurring a sell-off that wiped hundreds of billions of dollars from the paper value of the cryptocurrencies globally. Fong's long-term crypto holdings are now down about 30%. "Definitely in a very uncomfortable position," he told Reuters. "My first instinct is just to withdraw everything," from Celsius, he said. The Celsius blow-up followed the collapse of two other major tokens last month that shook a crypto sector already under pressure as soaring inflation and rising interest rates prompt a flight from stocks and other higher-risk assets. Bitcoin fell below $20,000 on June 18 for the first time since December 2020. It has plummeted around 60% this year. The overall crypto market has slumped to around $900 billion, down from a record $3 trillion in November. The tumble has left individual investors across the world bruised and bewildered. Many are angry at Celsius. Others swear never to invest in crypto again. Some, like Fong, want stronger oversight of the freewheeling sector. Susannah Streeter, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, compared the turmoil to dotcom stocks crash in the early 2000s - with technology and low-cost capital making it easy for individual investors to gain access to crypto. "We've got this collision of smartphone technology, trading apps, cheap money and a highly speculative asset," she said. "That's why you've seen a meteoric rise and fall." Story continues Graphic: Crumbling Crypto - https://graphics.reuters.com/FINTECH-CRYPTO/jnpweoxxxpw/chart.png 'PACING IN THE DARK AT 2 A.M.' Crypto lenders, such as Celsius, offer high interest rates to investors - mostly individuals - who deposit their coins with these sites. These lenders, mostly unregulated, then invest deposits in the wholesale crypto market. Celsius' troubles appear to be related to its wholesale crypto investments. As these investments turned sour the company was unable to meet client redemptions from investors amid the broader crypto market slump. The redemption freeze at Celsius was akin to a small bank shutting its doors. But a traditional bank, overseen by regulators, would have some form of protection for depositors. One of those impacted by the Celsius freeze was 38-year old Alisha Gee in Pennsylvania. Gee invested "every last bit" of her paycheques in crypto since 2018, which have built up into a five-figure sum. She has $30,000 of deposits at Celsius - part of her overall crypto holdings - earning her interest of $40-$100 a week, which she hoped would help her to pay off her mortgage. Just over a week ago, Gee got an email from Celsius saying she couldn't make withdrawals. "I just was pacing in the dark at 2 a.m., just back and forth," she said. "I believed in the company," Gee said. "It doesn't feel good to lose $30,000, especially that I could've put towards my mortgage." Gee said she would continue to use Celsius, saying she was "loyal" to the company and hadn't experienced problems before. Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky tweeted on June 15 the company was "working non-stop," but has given few details of how or when withdrawals would resume. Celsius said on Monday it was aiming to "stabilize our liquidity and operations." GUARDRAILS For some, enthusiasm for crypto is undimmed. "I have seen multiple bear market cycles by now, so I am avoiding any knee-jerk reaction," said 23-year old Sumnesh Salodkar in Mumbai, whose crypto holdings are down but still in positive territory. For others, warnings from regulators across the world about the risks of dabbling in crypto have become reality. Halil Ibrahim Gocer, a 21-year old in the Turkish capital Ankara, said his father's crypto investments of $5,000 have tumbled to $600 since he introduced him to crypto. "Knowledge can only take you so far in crypto," said Gocer. "Luck is what matters." Another investor, a 32-year old IT worker in Mumbai, said he poured three-quarters of his savings - several hundred dollars - into crypto. Its value has plummeted by around 70%-80%. "This will be my last investment in cryptocurrencies," he said, requesting anonymity. Regulators in countries around the world have been working out how to build crypto guardrails that can protect investors and dampen risks to wider financial stability. The crypto market turmoil sparked by Celsius highlights the "urgent need" for crypto rules, a U.S. Treasury official said last week. Fong, the UK investor who has lost access to his crypto at Celsius, wants things to change. "A bit of regulation would be good, essentially. But then I think it's a balance," he said. "If you do not want too much regulation, this is what you get" he said. (Reporting by Tom Wilson and Elizabeth Howcroft in London, Nupur Anand in Mumbai, and Ece Toksabay in Ankara. Editing by Jane Merriman) || Is Crypto Too Risky? 12 Experts Weigh In: hocus-focus / Getty Images To dabble or not to dabble in crypto , that is the question on a lot of crypto-curious people’s minds lately. While experts are split on the matter, there’s a recurring theme: Proceed with caution and know your risk tolerance and the health of your finances. Crypto on the GO: Check Out Our New Crypto Hub Page for the Latest News and Features Find: The Best Cities To Retire on $2,000 a Month Let’s examine their arguments: Yes, but Beware of FOMO One of the biggest warnings when it comes to start investing in crypto is to be aware of their extreme volatility and whether you are able financially and emotionally to stomach the wild swings. Discover: 6 Alternative Investments To Consider for Diversification in 2022 “Crazy profits have been made just about as much as losses in the industry. As a crypto expert, I wouldn’t advise anyone, least of all someone looking to dabble in the industry to sink their life’s savings in crypto,” said Patrick Moore, of CryptoWhat, a site dedicated to providing news and education about the crypto space. “The risk is still quite high: 5% of your investments would be great, but not all of it.” In addition, some experts argue that crypto may not be a good fit for you if your investment portfolio or mental health can’t manage it. “Cryptocurrency is currently all the rage, but keep in mind that it is still in its infancy,” said Tanya Zhang, co-founder of Nimble Made. “Investing in something new comes with its own set of obstacles, so be ready. If you want to participate, do your research beforehand and start with a small investment.” The sentiment was echoed by Jared Tendler, mental game coach and author of “The Mental Game of Trading” who told GOBankingRates that one interesting aspect behind the rising interest in crypto is the impact of trading psychology and how it is starting to affect the market in unprecedented ways. “People need to understand how fear of missing out (FOMO) can impact their decision making,” Trendler said. “It’s important to learn to isolate elements like FOMO that might force them to jump into positions outside of their strategy.” Story continues He added that inexperienced investors/traders must understand the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which is the tendency of “poorly skilled performers to overestimate their abilities.” “In the crypto market, that means inexperienced investors/traders become overconfident because they’re unaware of how little they know and are therefore unable to recognize their own incompetence,” Trendler said. “That makes them very susceptible to loss in the context of other more experienced investors/traders.” Finally, some experts warn that while you can allocate crypto in the portion of your aggressive investment, investors should know it’s still not a conventional way to invest your money. “Of course, always remember, investing in any asset, especially crypto, means only using money that you’re certain you can lose,” said Ben Reynolds, CEO of Sure Dividend. “Investors should also consider other facts, such as lack of regulation and technical issues that could prevent you from accessing your money.” Crypto Is Too Unstable for the Average Investor Some financial experts, on the other hand, are strongly crypto-opposed, citing concerns of hype and speculation. Jake Hill, CEO of DebtHammer, self-labels as an “outspoken critic of cryptocurrency.” “As a concept, I find them to be steeped in fake advertising,” he said, “essentially playing off of peoples’ fears and valid concerns.” Hill also pointed out that he feels that something “that can be influenced by a single tweet from a billionaire is not a wise investment decision.” Some experts liken crypto trading to gambling, because of the lack of pattern in their rise and fall in value. “I would not recommend dabbling in crypto,” said Michael Shea, financial advisor at Applied Capital. “There has been a lot of hype and speculation around the currency. This has brought a lot of attention to it and driven up prices in recent years. The problem is that you’re not buying an income-producing asset. There is not a future income stream you are purchasing like when you’re buying a business. “People value an investment in a company based on its projected future cash flows. The current stock price reflects this information, which changes from day to day. In crypto, you’re buying a currency that may or may not have sustainable value due to the lack of income and lack of regulation. There are still too many unknown risks associated with it which makes it too risky of an investment, in my opinion.” Some prefer traditional investing — via stocks, 401(k), IRAs, money market funds and index funds — and consider crypto too risky or too unstable. “My advice would be just don’t do it unless you are willing to lose your entire commitment,” said Prof. Robert R. Johnson of Heider College of Business at Creighton University. “Don’t even think about it.  The major disadvantage in speculating in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency is that Bitcoin has no intrinsic (real) value. One cannot invest in BTC, one can only speculate in BTC. “For the vast majority of investors, the KISS mantra — keep it simple, stupid — should guide their investment philosophy. The idea behind index investing is “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” Investors simply can’t afford to make oversized bets on individual securities. Investing in a broadly diversified basket of securities is a prudent strategy.” Adam Garcia, founder of The Stock Dork, said he is not in favor of investing in crypto because it is as “hot-tempered as a 12-year-old.” “You never know what you’ll get each day,” he said. “Cryptocurrencies have tremendous ups and downs in their value. There’s no doubting that some are really popular at the moment, but we’re not sure how long they’ll last. The price reduces when someone sneezes! Investing in cryptocurrencies is, to put it mildly, risky.” Crypto Is Something Everyone Should Invest In For the crypto converts, reasons to start investing in crypto are legion, namely the fact that they can be used as a hedge against inflation, that they provide an independence from traditional banking systems and, of course, their potential huge rewards. “Everyone should be looking at a small venture into crypto,” said Jeff Hancock, CEO of coinpass.com. “Crypto is not only an emerging technology but an emerging asset class. Bitcoin has been the largest appreciating asset in the last 10 years, and the tokenization technology will affect many other, if not all, markets in the future. Future markets will tokenize their stocks, shares, oil contracts, commodity futures all based on the same tech as Bitcoin. There could even be Bitcoin trading pairs similar to what we see with the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. “Having even a small disposable amount of capital in one’s portfolio for crypto exposure will ensure an investor isn’t left behind when the market starts to grow further,” Hancock added. “With increasing regulation for crypto businesses global, more market participants are set to enter into space in 2022-25.” Connor Brown, founder of After School Finance, said it’s smart to invest in crypto, but only once you’ve taken care of your other investments first. “So, max out your 401(k) and your IRA and then dabble in a bit of crypto,” he said. “But you should only invest in crypto with the understanding it is very volatile and overall a risky investment. Of course, like all high-risk investments, it does have the potential for high rewards. As long as you’re responsible with other investments, there’s no reason to not give crypto a try. You can consider it an investment experiment that just might pay off big.” Finally, the increasingly fast adoption of crypto is akin to the way the internet was, and they represent the money of the future, some experts say. “Cryptocurrencies are becoming more and more integrated into our society with each passing day,” said Jason Mitchell, CTO of crypto website Smart Billions. “Traditional fiat currencies are becoming obsolete since they are incapable of providing the final solution to the world’s issues. An international transaction can take many days to arrive. “In most circumstances, using fiat currencies means paying more taxes and worrying more. All of these issues will, however, be alleviated with the rise of cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are the money of the future because they provide the most practical solutions that everyone needs.” In the End … Andrej Ilisin, founder of Smart Billions, said it’s important to remember four things when dabbling in crypto: Volatility is to be expected, so don’t panic at the first sign of trouble. Never borrow money to buy crypto. Build an emergency fund of 3-6 months’ expenses before buying any cryptocurrency. At this stage, where its real-world uses are limited (although quickly expanding), its most common use is still as an investment option. As with any investment it isn’t guaranteed, so having a safety net is key. Do your research before buying and know how to keep your tokens safe. More From GOBankingRates When Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Payments Will Arrive in June 2022 Quiz Yourself on Travel & Learn How To Travel Rich on Any Budget The 1% Don't Want You to Know About These 5 Investments 37 Life Hacks That Will Save You Money This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Is Crypto Too Risky? 12 Experts Weigh In || Three Arrows Capital lines up for liquidation: Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) has been ordered to liquidate as plummeting crypto prices left the firm unable to repay creditors,Sky Newsreported. See related article:Contagion risk from Three Arrows Capital weighs on Bitcoin, crypto • A court in the British Virgin Islands appointed two senior members of global advisory firm Teneo to manage the liquidation, according to a person familiar with the matter, cited bythe Washington Post. • Teneo will soon set up a website allowing 3AC’s creditors to submit claims and stay informed on the insolvency. • The firm defaultedon a US$670 million loan from digital asset brokerage Voyager Digital on Monday, while a group of lenders includingBlockFi canceled roughlyUS$400 million in loans to 3AC in mid-June. • A Hong Kong-based client hasaccused3AC of using client capital to meet margin calls while ghosting creditors’ withdrawal requests funds. • 3AC’s confidence was shaken in May’s Terra crash after buying US$200 million worth of LUNA tokens for Luna Foundation Guard’s US$1 billion raise in February, cofounderKyle Davies told the Wall Street Journal. See related article:Client accuses Bitcoin, Ethereum backer Three Arrows Capital of misappropriating funds || Meitu’s Bitcoin, crypto investments down by over US$50 mln: Hong Kong-listed beauty app Meitu said on Friday it is expecting a net loss of up to 349.9 million yuan (US$52 million) in the first half of 2022, driven by tumbling cryptocurrency prices. See related article: Hong Kong-listed Meitu buys more Bitcoin, now has US$100 million in crypto Fast facts Meitu, best known for its mobile beauty camera app, was one of the first Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies to publicly announce its crypto investments . Meitu said it could see a 154% year-on-year jump in net loss over the first half of 2022. Meitu’s estimates are unrealized losses as the firm has not sold its cryptocurrencies since accumulating 31,000 ETH and 940.89 BTC from March 2021, the firm said. Meitu said crypto losses will not affect its cash flow or operations and that it still believes digital assets will appreciate in the long term. On Monday morning Asia time, Meitu’s shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange fell as low as HK$0.97, down about 6% from last Friday’s HK$1.04 (US$0.13) per share. See related article: Software firm Meitu loses US$17.3M on Bitcoin View comments || FOREX-Dollar loses steam, euro heaves sigh of relief ahead of ECB: By Rae Wee SINGAPORE, July 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar retreated on Wednesday as the euro extended its overnight bounce on relief Europe might be able to avoid the worst fears concerning energy shortages, and on the chance the European Central Bank may deliver a more aggressive rate hike. Russian gas flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline are seen restarting on time on Thursday after the completion of scheduled maintenance, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The euro was up nearly 0.2% in the early Asia trade to $1.0239, having posted its strongest daily gain in a month of 0.75% overnight. Aiding sentiment was news that the ECB is considering raising interest rates by a larger-than-expected 50 basis points at their meeting on Thursday. "If we do see Russian gas flows resume tomorrow, that will be good news for the euro/dollar and in the near term, euro can get a little boost and get away further from parity," said Carol Kong, a currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. "But I am still worried about the euro/dollar, I think downsides still persist ... the potential hawkish pivot from the ECB may not be able to give sustained support." The euro has lost about 2.3% since the beginning of July, and broke parity for the first time in two decades last week following a red-hot U.S. inflation print and fears about a sharp economic downturn in the eurozone. Other major currencies similarly rallied on the back of the weakening greenback, and as central banks around the world become more hawkish in their efforts to tame soaring inflation. The U.S. currency's retreat has also coincided with reduced expectations of a supersized 100-basis-point rate hike at next week's Federal Reserve policy review. The Aussie was steady at $0.69055, after rising 1.3% on the day overnight, also the largest in a month. Minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) July policy meeting out the day earlier showed that the central bank sees a need for more policy tightening to curb inflation. Earlier on Wednesday, RBA Governor Philip Lowe also suggested that rates could at least double from current low levels. Sterling likewise advanced 0.15% to $1.20145. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Tuesday that a 50-basis-point rate hike will be "among the choices on the table" at the BoE's next meeting. The U.S. dollar index measure against a basket of key currencies was down 0.08% to 106.58, well off its two-decade peak of 109.29 last week. Ahead of the Fed's meeting next week, markets are pricing in a 23.2% chance of a 100 bp rate hike., with expectations of the jumbo rate increase easing after policymakers were quick to pour cold water on it. "As markets continue to price out FOMC rate hikes from the markets, I think that will take some pressure off the U.S. dollar, but I don't think any dollar weakness will last long, just given the deteriorating global growth outlook," said CBA's Kong. Conversely, the Japanese yen remained an outlier on Wednesday morning, and last traded 138.155 per dollar, as the Bank of Japan seems determined to stand by its dovish stance. "Sticking to its dovish guns will entail sharpening policy trade-offs for the BoJ. The most pressing of which, is the sharp drop in the JPY; which has fallen a gut-wrenching 20-21% since the September FOMC," said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank in Singapore. Over in the cryptoverse, Bitcoin was down about 1.2% to $23,000, having bounced off the $20,000 mark in recent days. (Reporting by Rae Wee in Singapore and Alun John in Hong Kong Editing by Shri Navaratnam) || Mississippi Woman Who Used Bitcoin To Hire Hitman To Kill Her Ex Gets 10 Years: A federal judge sentenced a Mississippi woman to 10 years in prison for hiring and paying a hitman $10,000 in bitcoin to kill her ex-husband. Jessica Leeann Sledge, 40, pleaded guilty in February to using interstate commerce with the intent to hire an assassin between Sept. 21 and Nov. 1, 2021, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Mississippi. In addition to 120 months in federal prison, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves sentenced Sledge to three years of supervised probation once she is released and a $1,000 fine. Sledge was unaware that that the “hitman” she hired through the internet was an undercover FBI agent. The victim was not harmed, prosecutors said. In handing down the sentence Reeves quoted the author of the book “Just Mercy,” Bryan Stevenson. He said “each person is more than the worst thing they’ve ever done. This is obviously a case of that, based on the letters and her criminal history,” according to WBLT . He added: “But this is an egregious crime. ... Scheming to kill an individual is an extraordinary offense. Any sentence must reflect that this is indeed a serious offense.” Sledge was attempting to murder her ex-husband, Jerry, court documents revealed. Dozens of letters were written on her behalf and the court took a recess so Reeves could read them before handing down his sentence, WBLT reported. Sledge’s attorney, John Colette, sought leniency citing his client’s remorse and that she was a first-time offender with “zero chance of recidivism,” the station reported. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Fulcher pushed back, noting that Sledge told the undercover FBI agent that she might want to have someone else murdered. The prosecutor said that Sledge told the “hitman” that she was romantically involved with another man and might marry him after the hit took place. “The premeditation of this ... the efforts she went to plan this over time,” Fulcher said, according to WBLT. “But for the fact the FBI introduced an [undercover] agent, Ms. Sledge knew [this murder] was going to take place.” Story continues Colette said there was no proof that Sledge was targeting anyone else. He said she was testing the hitman. “[The government] has played this ‘second victim card’ from the arraignment to today. There was never, ever, ever any second person. They had all this time. If there was a second person, there would be another charge and another person,” he said. Reeves said he was troubled by the nature of the crime and Sledge’s demeanor noting that she never appeared afraid or questioned going through with the plot. “What we have here is a methodical plan to kill her husband,” he said. “All of that is very troubling to the court and the law itself.” Prosecutors said in a criminal complaint that Sledge sent three bitcoin payments totaling $10,000 using Whatsapp in October. Sledge had extensive conversations with the undercover agent from Oct. 22 to 26, according to the complaint. “During these conversations, Sledge provided specific information concerning Victim 1 to the UC (undercover agent). Sledge provided the UC with multiple photos of Victim 1 and photos of several vehicles that Victim 1 normally drives, including the license plate numbers/letters of the vehicles,” prosecutors wrote in the complaint. Authorities had Sledge under physical surveillance on Oct. 26, in Pelahatchie, Mississippi. “Sledge contacted the UC via WhatsApp and described the vehicle that Victim 1 was driving to the store to the Marathon gas station to get breakfast.” On Nov. 1, Sledge agreed to meet with the undercover agent making an additional payment in cash and discussing the murder. Sledge was later arrested and admitted to her role in the murder for hire scheme. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 23175.89, 23809.49, 23164.32, 23947.64, 23957.53, 24402.82, 24424.07, 24319.33, 24136.97, 23883.29
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 Price Sees Saturday Slump after 150% Weekly Rally: For a cryptocurrency which has dropped 98 percent from its all-time high already,bitcoin cash— for now — is looking brave in the face of a powerful bearish sentiment. The cryptocurrency’sABC versionthis week surged close to 150 percent against the US dollar, from about $71 to $182 on a 7-day timeframe. The uptrend came as a part of a market-wide recovery in which all the leading coins posted impressive profits. The bulls in the crypto space also appeared at a time when the US stock market wasplunginghard. Overall, bitcoin cash turned out to be themost profitable asseton a weekly basis, even better than Apple stock. The latest recovery action at most compensates 3 percent of the totalbitcoin cashlosses, bringing the overall capital erosion to 95 percent since all-time high. But whether or not it would extend the ongoing recovery action clearly depends on two major factors: mining profitability and demand from investors. Since thefork, the exchanges that had paused BCH trading have now resumed it. In the last three weeks, the BCH volume rate is averaging at 10k on daily basis. There have been few instances in which the volume has peaked as high as 22k, but whether or not these figures are artificially inflated remains unverifiable at present. The mining profitability of bitcoin cash has also improved in recent weeks. After the fork, the coin’s hash rate has dropped significantly, but it has made the mining operations more profitable. According to the CoinWarz SHA256 index, bitcoin cash is more profitable than bitcoin at press time. The bitcoin cash recovery does very little to compensate for thelosses it faced in November, let alone the whole year. The bitcoin-spinoff just concluded aso-called hash warwith its own clone, dubbed bitcoin cash satoshi vision, orbitcoin SV. Both the projects reportedlywastedmillions of dollars worth of computing power to prove supremacy over each other. Bitcoin cash appeared to win after proving a longer chain than bitcoin SV but lost $9 billion market capitalization as collateral damage. As of now, the cryptocurrency is showing signs of a pullback. Its market performance on an adjusted 24-hour timeframe is noting an aggregated 8 percent loss at press time, per CoinMarketCap.com. The pullback resembles the reversals noted during many of bitcoin cash’s previous uptrends. Between September 30 and November 2, for instance, the asset had recovered by almost $222, after which it plunged further to establish new lower lows. Overall, the bitcoin cash recovery does very little to reinstate the investors’ faith in the cryptocurrency. A more interim bullish bias scenario is hoping to be established once the price crosses above its 50-period MA on the daily chart. Until then, the likelihood of a double bottom formation lingers over the BCH market. Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts fromTradingView. The postBitcoin Cash Price Sees Saturday Slump after 150% Weekly Rallyappeared first onCCN. || 2 Beaten-Down Biotech Stocks That Look Like Bargains Now: Get ready, bargain shoppers. TheNasdaq Biotechnology Indexhas plummeted 24% since the beginning of October and it looks like this pair received more lashes than they deserved. Agenus Inc.(NASDAQ: AGEN)andGilead Sciences Inc.(NASDAQ: GILD)look like bargains right now, but market-beating gains are far from guaranteed. Here's what you need to know about potential calamities on their paths to growth. Image source: Getty Images. This biotech has taken a lot of shots on goal that have sailed wide, but its recently depressed market cap seems a little too pessimistic right now. A recent$150 million cash injectionfrom Gilead Sciences for rights to three early stage cancer therapy candidates only pushed the stock's market cap up to around $277 million at recent prices. Agenus has two checkpoint inhibitors in development thatjust mightfind a partner desperate enough to license them, but it's the company's partnered early stage assets that make this stock look like a risky bargain right now. Agenus' collaboration withMerck & Co.moved an undisclosed candidate into clinical trials this summer, and success would trigger significant milestone payments. Gilead's surprising upfront payment will keep Agenus from asking shareholders for more money in 2019, and perhaps much longer. The new collaboration partners have three oncology candidates nearly ready to enter clinical trials. Beginning the studies will trigger milestone payments that begin small and could eventually total $1.7 billion. Biotech collaboration partners rarely recognize a fraction of potential milestone payments. That said, Agenus' partners are taking a lot of shots on goal. Positive results from any one of several early stage clinical trials could send this stock soaring from its present levels. Image source: Getty Images. In 2017, Gilead's $12 billion foray into the oncology spaceseemed bold, but investors are increasingly worried the biotech made a huge mistake. Yescarta launched in October 2017, but sales during the three months ended this Sept. 30, 2018, reached just $75 million. The stock's fallen 18% since the beginning of October, but a new CEO on the way could give it some lift in the new year. Daniel O'Day will step down as head ofRoche's pharmaceutical segment to become chairman and CEO of Gilead in March. Once he arrives, Gilead's pipeline could haveplenty of new directionsto take. In addition to a handful of oncology candidates from Agenus, Gilead recently paidScholar Rock$80 million upfront for options to license three fibrosis-inhibiting candidates. O'Day will also have everything the company needs to move these early stage assets forward at top speed, and acquire more. Gilead Sciences finished September with $30.8 billion in cash and securities after generating $7.9 billion infree cash flowover the past year. Gilead's hepatitis C antiviral sales fell to just $902 million during the third quarter, a frightening drop from $2.2 billion a year earlier. Now that Gilead leans on hepatitis C sales for around 17% of total revenue, the company's HIV franchise will find it a lot easier to pull this entire train uphill. Image source: Getty Images. Biktarvy launched this February as the first single-pill regimen for HIV-infected adults who are virally suppressed with another treatment or new to HIV treatment altogether. Unlike hepatitis C, HIV still requires lifelong treatment to keep the virus at bay. Biktarvy makes it so easy for patients and their doctors that EvaluatePharma thinks the tablet will add $6.1 billion in sales to Gilead's top line in 2024. By then, Gilead could launch a treatment with similar sales expectations. Filgotinib is behind similar oral rheumatoid arthritis treatments in late-stage development, but asuperior safety profilethat we've seen so far in pivotal studies could send it to the top of the class. Gilead is still incredibly profitable, and Bikrtarvy and filgotinib could return this company's bottom line to growth in the years ahead. The stock has been beaten down so far that you can scoop up the shares at just 10.2 times free cash flow generated over the past 12 months. Agenus is a long way from safe, but it's going to have plenty of chances to bounce back before it has to visit the equity tap again. Swinging for the fences with Agenus could more than double your money in a couple years, or clinical trial setbacks could cause investors to lose everything. Gilead Sciences is poised to generate heaps of cash, and it isn't shy about sharing profits with investors as dividends they can keep. This biotech might not have what it takes to skyrocket, but a lot needs to go wrong before this stock drags your portfolio down. 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 Cory Renauerowns shares of Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || More Layoffs: Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Makes Cuts in Amsterdam & Texas: Bitmain’s problems continue, as the world’s largest bitcoin mining firm has announced a fresh round of layoffs. Bitmain is rumored to have lost over $700 million in Q4 2018, and late last monthreportsbroke out that the Chinese mining giant is set to fire 50% of its workforce. Later, the companyshut downits Israeli branch and fired all of its employees. Meanwhile, Chinese mediareportedthat Bitmain CEOs Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan are set to step down. According to a report fromTexas Republic Radio, Bitmain has suspended its operations inRockdale, a former coal-mining town located east of Austin. Announced last year, the Rockdale data center was set to become the largest cryptocurrency mining operation in the US. All of the firm’s employees, other than two engineers and the director of human relations, were fired. Bitmain spent millions of dollars in renovating the buildings and had nearly 7,000 to 8,000 miners out there already. An unhappy Milam County Judge Steve Young said: I’m really disappointed because we had advertised this. We had waited for this. We had wanted this. We had welcomed this. This was huge, we need some positive news here. We need some jobs here. We need tax base here and this was a step in the right direction. Back in July 2018, when Bitmain made the announcement,bitcoinwas trading at $8,000. Now it is less than half that price. The company had expected to invest $500 million in the facility and create 400 new jobs. A spokesperson said: The right-sized team at Rockdale now has the expertise to re-start the project at small scale anytime. Bitmain would like to ramp up the site at a slower pace and scale based on market conditions. Cheap electricity in Milam County and the industrial infrastructure at Alcoa property made it attractive for Bitmain’s mining operations. Rockdale City Manager Chris Whittaker remains optimistic that Bitmain will be back on its feet soon and bring the large scale mining operation that the company had originally promised. After Israel, Bitmain has now shut down its office in Amsterdam as a part of its downsizing. This office mainly focused on operations and development of its mining pool and crypto wallet, BTC.com. While the firm has decided to shut down this office, it does not have an official timeline yet. Cited inCoinDesk, a Bitmain spokesperson said: As we build a long-term, sustainable and scalable business, we are making adjustments to our staff and operations. This includes the decision to close our Amsterdam and Israel offices. We are really focusing on things that are core to our mission and not things that are auxiliary. We will continue to hire the best talent from a diverse range of backgrounds. As Bitmain continues to struggle with its finances, it hasreportedlyfailed to convince Hong Kong regulators to approve its IPO application. Once touted as the largest IPO in crypto industry history, the offering was expected to raise $3 billion. However, Hong Kong regulators are not ready to let any crypto business raise funds through an IPO before proper regulations are in place. Nothing seems to go right for the bitcoin mining giant these days, and its fallout could affect the entire crypto market. Featured Image from Bitmain The postMore Layoffs: Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Makes Cuts in Amsterdam & Texasappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Stands Still Around $3,400 as Most Top Cryptos Report Moderate Gains: Tuesday, Jan. 29 — most of the top 20cryptocurrenciesare reporting moderate gains on the day at press time. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading just over $3,400 again, according toCoin360data. Market visualization fromCoin360 At press time, Bitcoin is down just a fraction of a percent on the day, trading at around$3,450, according to CoinMarketCap. Looking at its weekly chart, the current price is lower than $3,655, the price at which Bitcoin started the week, trading sideways until yesterday, Jan. 28. Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap Ripple (XRP) has gained about half a percent in the 24 hours to press time and is currently trading at around $0.29. On its weekly chart, the current price is lower than $0.32, the price at which XRP started the week, before also dropping on Jan. 28. Ripple 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap Second-largest altcoin Ethereum (ETH) has also seen its value increase by little over 1.7 percent over the last 24 hours. At press time, ETH is trading around $106, having started the 24-hour period about 2 dollars lower. On the weekly chart, Ethereum’s current value has dropped from $119, the price at which the coin started the week. Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap Among the top 20 cryptocurrencies, the ones experiencing the most notable growth are Tron (TRX) — which is up more than 4 percent — Iota (MIOTA), Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Eos (EOS), all of which are up 2-3 percent. 20th largest crypto Waves (WAVES) is up the most, seeing 7.4 percent growth on the day, trading at $2.93 to press time. Thecombined market capitalizationof all cryptocurrencies — currently equivalent to about $113.2 billion — is lower than $120.1 billion, the value it reported for most of last week. Total crypto market cap 7-day chart. Source:CoinMarketCap As Cointelegraph recently reported,South Korea'scentralbank, the Bank of Korea (BOK), says it won’t be issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the near term. Also a recent reportrevealedthat two probably still activehackergroups have reportedly stolen $1 billion in cryptocurrency. • Crypto Prices See Calm as ZB.Com Bypasses Binance to Become Top Exchange • Bitcoin Approaches $3,500 as Top Cryptos See Growth • Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 28 • Total Market Cap Drops $5 Billion as All Major Coins Take Price Hit || 10 Years Ago Today, Satoshi Made Bitcoin a Public Network: On January 8, 2009, Satoshi Nakamotowrote to the Metzdowd cryptographymailing list about the initial release of Bitcoin. It was not his first e-mail on the subject. However, it was the first when he had a working product to show for his idea. With no salutations, the e-mail starts out: Announcing the first release of Bitcoin, a new electronic cash system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending. These features are important to cryptographers, particularly thedouble-spendproblem. Cryptographers still work on the problem today, with Satoshi’s Bitcoin as a key studying point. Satoshi’s solution involves decentralization and consensus rules. Satoshiasks people to set up a node as a way of “helping the network a lot.” He also says that if people want some coins, they can pretty easily get them given the “ridiculously easy” difficulty level that Bitcoins started with. Bitcoin difficulty at time of writing, for the last mined block (557,643), is 5,618,595,848,853.28. That figure plays into the amount of time it takes miners to find the hash for the next block. At the time of Satoshi’s e-mail, difficulties would have been far lower.Block 10, which was mined 10 years ago today, had a difficulty of just 1. You can get coins by getting someone to send you some, or turn on Options->Generate Coins to run a node and generate blocks. I made the proof-of-work difficulty ridiculously easy to start with, so for a little while in the beginning a typical PC will be able to generate coins in just a few hours. It’ll get a lot harder when competition makes the automatic adjustment drive up the difficulty. A typicalblock reward(before fees played much into the mining game) from the earliest days equals over $200,000 on today’s market. It would have taken roughly ten minutes to mine with no special hardware involved. The majority of Satoshi’s coins remain unspent, however. Satoshi warns of a possibility the network might have to “restart.” The software is still alpha and experimental. There’s no guarantee the system’s state won’t have to be restarted at some point if it becomes necessary, although I’ve done everything I can to build in extensibility and versioning. Bitcoin has gone through 16 full point versions since then. It is still far away from a “1.0” release and still comes with a disclaimer as to its developmental nature. The codebase developed by Satoshi has spawned the launch of thousands of alternatives as well as other blockchain implementations and designs. It remains the dominant cryptocurrency with the highest price, market capitalization, and degree of liquidity. If Satoshi Nakamoto is alive, he is either proud or terrified of what his creation has become. The cryptocurrency market is worth over $100 billion today. It isn’t possible without the first version of Bitcoin. Thus we note the passing of 10 years since it was first announced. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post10 Years Ago Today, Satoshi Made Bitcoin a Public Networkappeared first onCCN. || This Kid Has Been Begging For A Bitcoin For Over 15,000 Tweets: Begging in the Bitcoin world is nothing new. Go to any gambling site or even some exchange troll boxes, and you will find people asking for Bitcoin. Look at any Tweet by a major Bitcoin personality, and you will find people asking for Bitcoin. Go to any forum, Reddit related to cryptocurrency, or anything else of that nature, and you will find the same. This reporter has occasionally seen such people who consistently beg for cryptos as “begshits” or “trolls.” The negative connotation is not without merit. After all, there are plenty of ways to get crypto without buying it or even really working for it. Twitter Person Spams User for Free BTC Over 15,000 Tweets Hey its the top of the hour time to beg mrbeastyt for a bitcoin. Pls give me a bitcoin pic.twitter.com/6Tfu92bup3 — Give Me Bitcoin (@PlsGiveBitcoin) December 22, 2018 This Twitter account, which is likely powered by a script of some sort, has spammed “ BeastGangPaulers ” for crypto consistently, at least once an hour, often twice per hour, for the entirety of this year. As a result, he has nearly 16,000 tweets dedicated to the purpose. They all read the same: Hey its the top of the hour time to beg mrbeastyt for a bitcoin. Pls give me a bitcoin or Its 30 minutes past the hour time to beg mrbeastyt for a bitcoin. Presumably the user in question, YouTube gaming star Mr. Beast , who has more than 12 million subscribers on the video sharing platform and over half a million Twitter followers, has blocked the beggar, who does not tag him in the tweets. This is understandable, of course: being notified 15,000 times that someone wants you to give them a Bitcoin for free is not a pleasant user experience. It seems perhaps the motive for the Twitter trolling account was born of a contest that MrBeast ran last year, which this other YouTuber says he won: Story continues The address that @PlsGiveBitcoin would like a Bitcoin donated to has never received a single satoshi as of time of writing. Perhaps he’s hoping that in the spirit of Christmas, users might change this, as his Tweets show up if you search Bitcoin on Twitter (which is how this reporter came upon the scoop.) Decentralized Video Sharing Sites Emerging For his part, @MrBeastYT doesn’t seem to have ever acknowledged the request. According to his YouTube feed, however, he continues to give money away regularly, with videos like this: YouTube continues to be the platform du jour for everyday people to go from video game addicts to live streaming sensations, and the like. Perhaps in the future a decentralized version will emerge which builds in some equitable money-making scheme. An effort in this direction is called D.Tube , which is built on Steem . The post This Kid Has Been Begging For A Bitcoin For Over 15,000 Tweets appeared first on CCN . || US: Bitcoin ATM Firm Coinme to Sell Bitcoin at Coinstar Coin Counting Machines: United StatesBitcoin ATM (‘BTM’) operatorCoinmehas entered a partnership to sell Bitcoin (BTC) at coin counting kiosks owned by Coinstar, the company confirmed in apress releaseJan. 17. Coinme, which was the first BTM operator to receive a license in the U.S. in 2014, will reportedly add thousands of locations via the move, which has already seen integrations go live. CEO and cofounder Neil Bergquist commented in the press release: “Bitcoin is now accessible at your local grocery store via Coinstar kiosks, and this offering will make it even easier for consumers to participate in this dynamic new economy.” Coinstar offers coin-to-cash conversion kiosks in various countries throughout the world. It remains unknown whether the Bitcoin feature will expand beyond the U.S., while the company did not provide figures on how many machines will offer it. “Coinstar is always looking for new ways to offer value to our consumers when they visit our kiosks,” Coinstar CEO Jim Gaherity added. According to industry monitoring resourceCoinATMRadar, there were 4187 known BTMs worldwide as of Friday, of which 2516 (about 60 percent) were in the U.S. The market has grown considerably in recent years, with various operatorsvyingfor control of what they believe will become a highly popular on-ramp forcryptocurrencyusage. A report published in September last yearindicatedthat BTMs would grow to constitute a $144.5 million industry by 2023. With increased presence comes increased risk, however, researchers last year alsowarningabout the appearance of dedicatedmalwarefor the machines. • Hodler’s Digest, Jan. 14–20: Top Stories, Price Movements, Quotes and FUD of the Week • Crypto Payments Service BitPay Reports It Saw Over $1 Billion in Transactions in 2018 • Following Bankruptcy Filing, Mining Firm Giga Watt Reportedly Closes Day-to-Day Operations • Winklevoss Twins Believe Stablecoins, Tokenized Securities Are Future of Crypto Innovation || Overstock.com to Become First Major Firm to Pay Taxes in Bitcoin: Online retailer Overstock.com ( NASDAQ:OSTK ) announced that it will pay a portion of its Ohio state business taxes in Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ), starting from this year. By paying taxes in Bitcoin, Overstock will be become the first major U.S. company to use Bitcoin for tax payment purpoases. Overstock Bitcoin Tax Payment The retailer will pay its commercial activity taxes in Ohio this February using OhioCrypto.com, which allows taxpayers to pay state business taxes with Bitcoin. Ohio is the first U.S. state to offer a cryptocurrency payment system for state business taxes. “We have long thought that thoughtful governmental adoption of emerging technologies such as cryptocurrencies (when accompanied by non-restrictive legislation over these technologies) is the best way to ensure the U.S. does not lose our place at the forefront of the ever-advancing global economy,” Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne said in statement. “We are proud to partner with forward-thinking governments and officials like Ohio and Treasurer Mandel to help usher in an era of trust through technology for our nation’s essential financial systems,” Byrne added. Overstock is bullish on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. It became the first major retailer to accept crypto for purchases on its website in 2014. That same year, the company established Medici Ventures , which focuses on applying blockchain technologies to existing industries to eliminate middlemen, “democratize capital,” and “rehumanize commerce.” Ohio Accepts Bitcoin for 23 Types of Taxes Ohio is the first state in the U.S. and the first governments in the world to accept Bitcoin for tax payments. The state’s online platform called OhioCrypto.com allow businesses to pay taxes with cryptocurrency. Eligible for payment on the website include 23 different taxes. Ohio has been working with BitPay to process cryptocurrency transactions. Payments made on OhioCrypto.com will be immediately converted to USD before being deposited into a state account, meaning that taxes will not be paid ultimately in Bitcoin, but rather Ohio is making it easier to convert Bitcoin into dollars for the purpose of paying taxes in US dollars. Currently, Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency eligible for payment at OhioCrypto.com. Treasurer’s office plans to add other cryptocurrencies in the future. The post Overstock.com to Become First Major Firm to Pay Taxes in Bitcoin appeared first on Market Exclusive . || Bitcoin Hovers Over $3,650 as Top Cryptocurrencies Mostly in the Red: Saturday, Jan. 12 — most of the top 20cryptocurrenciesare reporting moderate to slight losses, while some are reporting up to double-digit gains. Bitcoin’s (BTC) price is still hovering over $3,650, according toCoin360data. Market visualization fromCoin360 At press time, Bitcoin is down under 1 percent on the day, trading at around$3,665. Looking at its weekly chart, the current price is lower than $3,878, the price of BTC one week ago, and $4,108, the mid-week high reported on Tuesday. Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap Ripple (XRP) is down over 1 percent on the day, trading at around $0.333 at press time. On the weekly chart, the current price is lower than $0.359, the price at which XRP started the week — but also lower than $0.381, the midweek high reported on Jan. 10. Ripple 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap Ethereum (ETH) has seen its value decrease by over 1 percent over the last 24 hours. At press time, ETH is trading at around $126, having started the day around $127. On the weekly chart, Ethereum’s current value is significantly lower than $157, the price at which the coin started the week. Ethereum 7-day chart. Source:CoinMarketCap Among the top 20 cryptocurrencies, the ones experiencing the most notable price action are Bitcoin SV, which is up over 12 percent, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ethereum Classic, which are up around 2 and 1 percent respectively. Thecombined market capitalizationof all cryptocurrencies — currently equivalent to about $122.2 billion — is lower than $133 billion, the value it reported one week ago. The current value is also substantially lower than the intra-week high of $138.6 billion reached on Jan 10. Total crypto market cap 7-day chart. Source:CoinMarketCap As Cointelegraph recentlyreported, the number of active Bitcoin wallets, many of which have long been dormant, has seen an uptick that could herald some major market movements. The state legislature of theAmericanstate ofWyominghasreportedlypassed two new house bills this week that aim to foster a regulatory environment conducive tocryptocurrencyandblockchaininnovation. • Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Tron, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 11 • Crypto Markets Attempt to Stem Recent Losses, Some Top Alts See Solid Green • Bitcoin Holds Above $4,000 Amid Checkered Market Outlook • Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Bitcoin SV, TRON, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 4 || Report by South Africa's Reserve Bank Makes Strides Toward Crypto Clarity in the Country: A working group of South African financial regulatory organizations hasreleaseda consultation paper focused on cryptocurrencies, calling for public input to develop a cryptocurrencyregulationpolicy for the country. This latest consultation paper is the most in-depth review ofcryptocurrenciesfrom South African financial institutions since an initial public statement on what it calls crypto assets was issued by South African authorities back in 2014. The group that was responsible for putting together this consultation paper is comprised of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), the National Treasury (NT), the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). As Cointelegraphpreviously reported, South Africa has taken a conservatively optimistic approach toward cryptocurrencies. The sector has been relatively unregulated, allowing blockchain-based businesses like cryptocurrency exchanges to operate, but SARS imposed taxes on crypto gains and investors were cautioned about the associated risks of investments made. Over the next few years, the cryptocurrency industry grew exponentially, and the surge of interest led to the establishment of an Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group (IFWG), which began developing a review for regulators and policymakers focused on fintech, taking into account the implications for the financial sector and economy of South Africa. The IFWG has described its approach to fintech as balanced, weighing up the benefits and risks of the sector. At the beginning of 2018, the IFWG began its review and the release of the consultancy paper is the culmination of a year’s work. Reviewing the current state of cryptocurrency-focused activities, two specific use cases have been analysed by the IFWG. This includes the buying and selling of crypto assets, and transactions made with crypto assets. The consultation paper provides a complete breakdown of the perceived risks and benefits of crypto-related activities and goes on to present recommendations for policies toward crypto assets from a South African perspective. Most importantly, the IFWG has called upon the South African public to give feedback on the paper and engage on the way forward, while making it clear that there was no intent to ban the use of cryptocurrency in the country. The paper analyses the perceived risks that cryptocurrencies could have on the South African economy. Firstly, it is noted that the rise of cryptocurrencies could pose a threat to the central bank’s exclusive right to issue and control monetary supply in the country. Should the popularity of cryptocurrencies increase, this could then cause a decrease in the demand for fiat currency in South Africa. Secondly, the paper recognizes the potential risks posed to financial stability, should the market capitalization grow to over $1 trillion. This figure is said to be psychological barrier that would lead to regulatory scrutiny by financial institutions and lawmakers around the world. Thirdly, the paper suggests cryptocurrencies could pose a threat to the national payment system. Should cryptocurrencies gain massive adoption, there is fear that they will compete with the national payment system, with little to no regulatory oversight. While the risks mentioned are hypothetical, the need for a regulatory response has been prompted by concerns already experienced in South Africa. This includes the need for consumer protection while preventing possible misuse for money laundering and terrorist financing, exchange control evasion, illicit transactions, tax evasion and a lack of market stability. The paper also notes the benefits that cryptocurrencies could provide South Africans. Local investors could find some solace investing in cryptocurrencies, which are an asset class not tied to the risks created by political and economic instability in the country. The anonymity of cryptocurrencies is also recognized as a potential benefit and drawcard for investors. Furthermore, an increased demand for cryptocurrencies in the country could see the premium paid by investors reduced by a greater supply of cryptocurrency exchanges. Furthermore, the working group notes the often-touted benefits of cryptocurrencies — including fast, low fee, anonymous and encrypted transactions — but a lack of working use cases proving these points has led to the belief that major adoption won’t be seen in the medium to long term. Cryptocurrency regulation has been the subject heavy debate around the world, with many countries taking varying stances. Given that the nature of cryptocurrencies is essentially borderless, this makes it very challenging from a regulatory perspective. With this in mind, the report identifies two possible approaches to cryptocurrency regulation. The first is enforcing regulations on cryptocurrencies in accordance with existing legislature. This effectively leaves businesses involved in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries bound to actual laws. The second is a more forward-thinking approach. The South African report cites the American  Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) “do-not-harm” approach, which emphasizes innovation in the financial system. The major focus is avoiding overregulation, which would tend to stifle innovation of the sector. Naturally, a balanced approach seems to be the ideal way forward. The South African report makes reference to researcher Jan Lansky’ssuggestionsof country-specific approaches to cryptocurrencies, as seen below. The classification ranges from 0 to 5, with 0 on one side of the spectrum, where countries completely ignore cryptocurrencies, and 5 is the opposite, where a country has either enforced bans or fully integrated. According to this measurement system, South Africa registers at level 2, given the paper released bySARS in 2018, which enforced normal income tax rules on cryptocurrencies. With this in mind, the working group would like to see South Africa climb further up the level of classification of Lansky’s matrix. Perhaps most importantly, South Africans don’t have to worry about any impending bans on the use of cryptocurrencies. The working group made in clear that there were no plans to ban the buying, selling or holding of cryptocurrency. The report concedes that a certain level of regulation is needed. To this end, specific requirements will be set out to meet Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) standards. The report seems to have been met with positive responses in South Africa. According to Marius Reitz, Luno’s South Africa country manager, the daily volumes have exceeded 1,200 BTC per day on its South African exchange in recent months: “These numbers demonstrate the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies in South Africa and across the globe and reinforces our aim of upgrading the world to a better financial system.” Reacting to the SARB report, Reitz said consumers in the country will have peace of mind knowing cryptocurrency service providers are being held to certain standards: “SARB is taking an activity-based approach, meaning they are not proposing to regulate cryptocurrency itself but rather those persons or entities that provide services involving virtual assets.” Reitz also noted the importance of the implementing requirements to meet AML/CFT standards, as well as the overall positive influence that well-balanced regulation could have for the sector: “This will help keep out fraudsters and other operators with low concern (or capabilities) to keep customer information and money safe. We’ve seen that regulation in the industry can have a very positive impact. Imposing regulations in South Africa (and across the world) will enhance general trust in and stability of the market. It may also result in even more talent and investment capital flowing into the industry, unlocking more business models and bringing more advanced products to market.” Cointelegraph also spoke to James Preston, project lead at local publication SA Crypto, who has been involved in the space for the past five years. He suggests that the move is a balanced approach that protects conventional financial institutions and consumers while not impeding on the use of cryptocurrencies: “Having carefully read through SARB’s consulting paper on regulating crypto assets in South Africa, it’s clear to me that they want to be as progressive as possible without hindering and infringing on the security of South Africa's central banks. “Despite them trying to mitigate the risk, and trying to remain as traditional as possible in terms of fiat, centralised monetary systems, they are still being progressive in their approach to crypto assets.” South Africans have until Feb. 15, 2019 to provide input on the proposed way forward by the South African Reserve Bank. • South African Gov’t Reveals It Has No Plans to Ban Crypto in Recent Consultation Paper • UK Financial Regulator Releases Consultation Paper on Crypto • US: Pennsylvania Rules That Crypto Exchanges, ATMs Are Not Money Transmitters • Coinbase Adds Cross-Border Wire Transfers for High-Volume Customers in Europe, Asia [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] XBTE #Vaultmex Price Alert Time: 2019-01-12 20:30:04 #XBTE 0.00000010BTC Change:-98.00% #bitcoin #monero #coinbase #SmartContracts #BigData #vaultmex https://vaultmex.com  || Market Cap: $122,074,510,720 BTC Dominance: 52.31% BTC: $3,651.82 | 1H: -0.12% XRP: $0.33 | 1H: 0.04% ETH: $123.43 | 1H: -0.2% BCH: $128.80 | 1H: -0.23% EOS: $2.45 | 1H: 0.24% 17.01.2019 04:28:22 Powered by #Robostopia || Let&#039;s Talk Bitcoin! #385 Consensus Concrete #Bitcoin https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-385-consensus-concrete … || Factom, they do a lot with securing your identity via blockchain. bitcoin lender Unchained Capital. Pretty simple model, get a loan against $BTC, and they a three key holder system for security. || Current prices and changes in the last hour: $BTC: $3598.50 | 0.04% $XRP: $0.315818 | -0.07% $ETH: $116.40 | -0.04% $BCH: $128.06 | 0.29% $EOS: $2.46 | 0.42% $USDT: $1.01 | -0.10% $LTC: $32.78 | 0.44% $XLM: $0.101715 | 0.31% $TRX: $0.026675 | -0.18% $BSV: $74.71 | -0.00% || The current price of #BTC is $3602.58 in USD || BUY BTC@$3712.3 51.63% 0.58 (SHORT TERM) || $GNT/BTC #Bıttrex de 1783 üstünde günlük kapanış yaptığı sürece olumlu. 1911 üstüne atınca grafik güzelleşir. Ozaman 2091 ilk hedef olur sonra 2382 hedef haline gelir. || New The newest generation of perpetual swap - Trade with up to 100x leverage on a platform built by former NASDAQ/NYSE engineers. Launching Q1 2019 - #bitcoin #crypto $btc $eth $xrp $eos $ltc #interdaxhttps://www.interdax.com/?kid=TWX7A  || Is it too late to buy and sell bitcoin in India? by Arohi Gupta https://www.quora.com/Is-it-too-late-to-buy-and-sell-bitcoin-in-India/answer/Arohi-Gupta-35?srid=DAg81 …
Trend: up || Prices: 3690.19, 3648.43, 3653.53, 3632.07, 3616.88, 3620.81, 3629.79, 3673.84, 3915.71, 3947.09
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 2019-11-01] BTC Price: 9261.10, BTC RSI: 59.37 Gold Price: 1508.00, Gold RSI: 55.81 Oil Price: 56.20, Oil RSI: 55.83 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Ethereum’s Istanbul Upgrade Will Break 680 Smart Contracts on Aragon: A system-wide upgrade arrived on ethereum’s Ropsten test network on Monday. And while “Istanbul” should ultimately introduce network efficiencies, the testnet launch won’t be smooth sailing for everyone. For governance platform Aragon, in particular, the code changes were expected to break roughly 680 smart contracts, according to Aragon One CTO Jorge Izquierdo. These smart contracts typically manage the governance of decentralized applications (dapps) running on the ethereum blockchain. Izquierdo tells CoinDesk this means forced upgrades are required for the affected smart contracts in order to ensure decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) built on the Aragon platform continue to function smoothly. Related: Ethereum’s Istanbul Upgrade Arrives Early, Causes Testnet Split “Up until now, DAOs could receive ETH from one another,” said Izquierdo. “This will no longer be possible after the Istanbul hard fork.” Aragon One communications lead John Light says these fund transfers between DAOs on Aragon would effectively “run out of gas.” Calling it an unfortunate “tradeoff” from Aragon’s point of view, Izquierdo said: “The issue were going to have hasn’t been deemed important enough for this hard fork not to happen, which from our point of view is unfortunate [but] it’s a hard balance we understand.” Related: New Interest in DAOs Prompts Old Question: Are They Legal? Indeed, for ethereum token-swap platform Kyber Network the system-wide upgrade only affects a single smart contract, according to Kyber Network co-founder Loi Luu. Stepping back, the code change in Istanbul affecting certain smart contracts is known as Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1884 and is meant to address one downside of ethereum’s steady growth. As the size of the blockchain has increased, the computational cost to recall data about the state of the network (such as account balances) has also increased. Gas prices, on the other hand, have stayed stagnant, creating what Ethereum Foundation security lead Martin Holst Swende calls “an imbalance between the price of an operation and the resource consumption.” Story continues In order to mitigate the possibility of overloading the network, EIP 1884 increases the gas prices of three resource-intensive operations. SLOAD down The so-called SLOAD operation will face the greatest increase in cost for application developers building on ethereum, going from 200 gas per operation to 800 gas per operation. This four-fold increase in SLOAD gas cost is what breaks Aragon smart contracts and jacks up prices for end-users of the Kyber Network. “In one Kyber transaction, we actually use a lot of SLOAD operations,” said Luu. “So after [Istanbul] is in effect, the price of most of our transactions will go up by 30 percent.” While this is not the first time gas prices have increased for the SLOAD operation, Luu says the previous increase from 50 to 200 gas back in 2016 occurred when there were fewer active users of the ethereum network and when ETH had a lower market value. Now, Luu says, increasing the cost of SLOAD operations will have greater ramifications to both end-users and application developers. “[Istanbul] is the kind of hard fork that’s going to break a lot of smart contracts,” Luu said earlier this month. “If we weren’t following the conversation between core developers, we would have missed [EIP 1884 information] and that would have been very bad for us.” That said, blockchain researcher Mihailo Bjelic said Monday that “bad developer practices” are likely the cause of such hiccups, rather than the nature of the upgrade itself, adding: “Developers should definitely not be hard-coding assumptions about gas cost into their applications because these numbers can change at any point.” Update (Sept. 30, 19:14 UTC): The Istanbul upgrade went live on testnet earlier than expected . This article has been updated to reflect that. Additional comments have also been added. Vitalik Buterin image via CoinDesk archives Related Stories Why Ethereum Briefly Overtook Bitcoin in Daily Transaction Fees WATCH: How Blockchain Oracles Could Take Chainlink to New Highs || A Smart Idea For International Dividend Exposure: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com. Investors looking for added equity income at a time of still low-interest rates throughout the developed world can consider international dividend ETFs. A compelling option from that group is theFlexShares International Quality Dividend Defensive Index Fund (IQDE) . FlexShares quality dividend ETFs screen for management efficiency, profitability and cash flow. Each company has to show management efficiency or firms that efficiently deploy capital and make smart financing decisions. Companies with wider profit margins are better positions to grow and maintain dividends than those with slimmer margins. Additionally, firms that can meet debt obligations and day-to-day liquidity needs are better capable of maintaining dividends. The quality factor is based on profitability, efficiency, earnings quality and limited leverage, which have historically been a good way to separate good companies from weaker ones. Ex-U.S. developed market dividend payers often feature larger yields than their U.S. counterparts, an assertion proven by comparing large- and mega-cap dividend stocks from familiar dividend sectors such as consumer staples, energy, financial services, and telecommunications. Investigating IQDE An advantage with IQDE is the FlexShares Dividend Quality Score (DQS). The DQS screening process evaluates dividend-paying stocks across a number of various factors and ranks those on a sector basis and compares firms on both a regional and sector basis. In this way, the screen compares like firms against one another and also serves to pick out those in every country and sector that support diversification through the construction process. Low-interest rates in the U.S. have sent investors flocking to dividend stocks and ETFs in recent years. With central banks throughout the developed world paring rates and engaging in monetary easing, government bond yields are falling, giving investors good reason to consider international dividend ETFs. Related:ETFs to Navigate Falling Rates Using High Yield, Dividends & Real Estate IQDE, which holds nearly 200 stocks, has an impressive distribution yield of 5.76%. The six and a half-year-old fund allocates just over a third of its weight to the financial services and consumer discretionary sectors. Industrial and communication services stocks combine for almost 19%. For more on smart beta ETFs, visit ourSmart Beta 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 • 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 > || New York’s Financial Watchdog Is Hiring Another Crypto Superintendent: New York state is looking beef up its cryptocurrency-focused regulatory staff, according to a job advert posted online on Thursday. As outlined in the ad , the new Deputy Superintendent for Virtual Currency will be tasked with creating and maintaining compliance measures for virtual currencies including markets, involved businesses and other regulatory bodies for the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). Specifically, they’ll work for the specialized business unit for cryptocurrencies and blockchain – the Division of Research and Innovation – created by the NYDFS this July. Related: US House Committee Pressuring Zuckerberg to Testify on Libra: Report The watchdog is notably responsible for awarding the infamous “BitLicense,” which requires firms operating within state boundaries to undergo a regulatory review and meet, as it’s previously said, “ stringent standards .” Created in 2015, only some 20 firms have received the license to date. The NYDFS is asking candidates for its new deputy superintendent post to have experience in blockchain and cryptocurrency or relevant capital markets, along with an MBA or law degree. The application closes on Oct. 31. The Division of Research and Innovation currently has four staff, with two superintendents – Matthew Siegel and Olivia Bumgardner – already hired. The NYDFS’s specialized division is flanked by a state legislative body, the Digital Currency Taskforce, created last January. Six representatives from the blockchain and cryptocurrency community were appointed to the taskforce by Governor Andrew Cuomo to help guide state legislation on the nascent industry. Related: Ohio Treasurer Suspends Predecessor’s Bitcoin Tax Payment Service New York signs image via Shutterstock Related Stories Japan’s Financial Regulator Issues Draft Guidelines for Funds Investing in Crypto Missouri Watchdog Hits Unregistered Crypto Brokerage With Cease and Desist || What Is Tokenization?: Traditional asset management is a laborious process. It often requires the involvement of numerous middlemen, including various state bodies and regulators. Assets such as stocks, bonds, property, or even land can often be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to manage, putting them beyond the reach of the vast majority of the world’s population. What’s more, traditional asset management typically involves complex legal agreements and lots of paperwork, which makes it all very difficult to track and transfer ownership. It’s a slow and cumbersome system—and one that often lacks sufficient transparency to prevent fraud and other forms of corruption. What is a token? Simply put: “A token is something representing something else, [and] can be rendered in any sort of form,” according to Joseph Lubin, co-founder ofEthereumand founder of blockchain venture studioConsenSys. “It can be a piece of paper. It can be an idea. It’s a symbol representing something,” he said. “Your driver’s license, for instance, is a token that’s indexed into a ledger that the state maintains of who’s legal to drive.” You can think of a blockchain-based token as a type of digital receipt for a slice of an asset. But unlike the receipts of old, these tokens are immutably logged on an auditable blockchain. In 2009, Bitcoin introduced a peer-to-peer system for transferring value across the Internet. The Bitcoin blockchain is what makes it possible for transactions to be made in a decentralized, trustless, and immutable way—all while avoiding the so-called double-spend problem, preventing transactions from being fraudulently copied and duplicated digitally. The innovation-led entrepreneurs to envision new use cases for Bitcoin’s underlying technology. In 2015, Ethereum introduced the FinTech world to aprogrammableblockchain—a breakthrough made possible by Ethereum’s smart-contract technology. Before long, thousands of tokens were developed on the Ethereum network, each with its own distinct attributes and benefits. Unlike cryptocurrencies, tokens have various potential use cases—anything from managing property, shares, and contracts to poweringdecentralizedapplications and games. The use cases In general, there are two types of tokens: utility tokens and security tokens. Utility tokens are digital assets that give their owners access to products or services produced by a company. As the label implies, these tokens are meant to beusedfor something, rather than held or traded. For example, a utility token can provide access to a future service, such as renting computing power, placing a bet at a sports game or casting a legally binding vote. Brave Software, the makers of the privacy-focused Brave web browser, created the Basic Attention Token, orBAT—a utility token designed for the advertising industry that monetizes the attention of web users. Security tokens, on the other hand, are digital assets that represent an investment of some sort, such as a share in a company, a voting right in how the company operates, a unit of value, or some combination of the three. These tokens can also represent parts of real-world assets, such as gold, classic cars or royalties from your favorite pop-song. As such, security tokens must comply with the existing regulatory frameworks that govern traditional securities, such as stocks. As a result, an entire industry has developed to help tokenization entrepreneurs comply with applicable regulations. Securitize, a crypto startup backed by leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchangeCoinbase, is one such company that specializes in the issuance and management of digital securities, with the explicit aim of helping token issuers remain compliant. Apart from utility and security tokens, there are also special non-fungible tokens, known as NFTs. These tokens represent unique digital collectibles, like those infectiously cuteCryptoKittiesthat famously crashed the Ethereum network in late 2017. To tokenize or not to tokenize… The promise of tokenization rests in its potential to democratize access to digital assets, as well its ability to provide accountability, security, and provenance for these assets. “Creating tokens that represent real-world assets that can be traded and provide accountability is enormously useful,” Paul Snow, founder and CEO of Factom, toldDecrypt. A blockchain-based system eliminates the need to trust in a middleman. But it also provides a better level of accounting, Snow explained, which can be particularly beneficial for businesses that deal in fraud prevention. On the other hand, Snow cautions that tokenization isn’t necessarily as easy as many once believed. The rules that govern blockchains can get complicated, and these networks aren’t immune to their own forms of bureaucracy. On top of that, regulators around the world, and in the United States in particular, are now paying very close attention to thecryptocurrencyindustry, with a close eye on the way tokens have been bought, sold, and distributed thus far. And the rules over the sale, distribution, and management of tokenized assets will vary from country to country, crypto startups that aim to build global, borderless systems must now contend with regulatory and compliance measures in each of the jurisdictions that they expect to do business. This, too, has now become a laborious and expensive process in its own right, especially in the United States, with many token-based companies opting to instead take their firms overseas where the rules are less stringent. Nevertheless, U.S. regulators have shown recent signs of warming to tokenized assets, and blockchain entrepreneurs continue to develop innovative uses for tokenization, as well as solutions to improve the scalability of their respective networks. The future Tokenization promises a world where almost any asset or service can be represented and stored on a blockchain. The possibilities are theoretically endless. But much like the early days of the Internet, we are just starting to understand which ideas are best suited to this technology. It’s still early days, but the transition toward a tokenized world could change the way we think about everything that holds real value. || 5 India ETFs to Watch as Country Continues to Cut Rates: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com. In the U.S., the expectation is that more rate-cutting by the Federal Reserve will take place through the end of 2019, but in the case of India, are further rate declines being instituted to no avail? The country's central bank installed its fifth rate cut in 2019 in an effort to resuscitate growth. PerCNBC, the "Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lowered the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.15% with five members of its Monetary Policy Committee voting in favor, versus one who backed a 40 basis point cut. The decision came against a backdrop of weaker growth, a resurgence of financial stability risks and a surprise fiscal stimulus in the form of a recent corporate tax cut." Growth in India has been declining for five consecutive quarters, allowing China to overtake it in the month of May as the fastest-growing economy based on data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Currently, inflation in the India stands at 3.2% with 4% being the RBI's target rate. “In the event, the RBI’s decision to deliver a more benign 25 basis point rate cut suggests it is trying to balance growth concerns against limited remaining monetary policy space and a diminishing efficacy of monetary policy in boosting growth (hence the growing role of fiscal policy),”saidNomura Chief India Economist Sonal Varma. One of the main reasons for stagnant growth has been the banking sector where a credit slowdown is taking place. “One possible reason for this constraint is the health of India’s banking and financial sectors, which remains weak,”saidShumita Deveshwar, director of India research at TS Lombard. “A shrinking savings rate and a large public sector borrowing requirement are keeping borrowing costs for banks elevated, and many banks are still dealing with relatively large amounts of bad debt on their books.” “Under-reporting of bad loans evidently continues to be a risk despite the RBI’s actions over the past few years to make the balance sheets of banks more transparent and to stop ever-greening of loans,” she added. As for India-focused exchange-traded funds, here are five to watch based on size (total assets): [{"Symbol": "INDA", "ETF Name": "iShares MSCI India ETF", "Total Assets ($MM)": "$4,938.42"}, {"Symbol": "EPI", "ETF Name": "WisdomTree India Earnings Fund", "Total Assets ($MM)": "$1,173.21"}, {"Symbol": "INDY", "ETF Name": "iShares India 50 ETF", "Total Assets ($MM)": "$730.34"}, {"Symbol": "SMIN", "ETF Name": "iShares MSCI India Small-Cap ETF", "Total Assets ($MM)": "$275.04"}, {"Symbol": "PIN", "ETF Name": "Invesco India ETF", "Total Assets ($MM)": "$133.11"}] At the top of the heap is theiShares MSCI India ETF (CBOE: INDA). INDA seeks to track the investment results of the MSCI India Index composed of Indian equities, which measures the performance of equity securities of companies whose market capitalization, as calculated by the index provider, represents the top 85% of companies in the Indian securities market. For more information on India’s markets, visit ourIndia 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 • ETF of the Week: iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF (IWD) • 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 READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Bitcoin Eyes $8.5K Hurdle After Biggest Single-Day Price Gain in Five Weeks: • 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 Monday’s 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 ahistorically strong100-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:Bitcoin’s Dropping Lightning Capacity Might Not Be a Bad Thing Monday’s 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 analystJosh Ragertweeted earlier today that bitcoin price could now run up to $8,500. Rager warned in anothertweetthat 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@TheCryptoDogbelieves the probability of a sell-off to $7,200 has dropped with Monday’s 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. 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 day’s 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 BTC’s 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. 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. 1’s 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. 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, asdiscussedyesterday, although as of now that looks unlikely. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing. Bitcoinimage via CoinDeskArchives; charts byTrading View • Bitcoin Is 2019’s Best-Performing Asset, Even After Recent Price Downturn • Bitcoin May Be Headed for a Stronger Price Bounce || Hedera Hashgraph blockchain goes live with 26 dApps: Hedera Hashgraph, a new public blockchain network that claims to be faster than Ethereum and Bitcoin networks, has launched its mainnet beta for the general public. The network had previously been in a closed beta mode with access to select developers. Announcing the news on Monday, Hedera said the network can support up to 10,000 transactions per second, compared to 15 for Ethereum and 2.8 per second for Bitcoin. Hedera also offers smart contract and file services, and both are currently throttled to 10 transactions per second. The firm plans to increase speed “methodically throughout the remainder of 2019,” it said. Amongst the 26 decentralized applications (dApps) to go live on the Hedera network are AdsDax, a decentralized advertising platform, which claims to have already conducted over 2 million transactions in 10 days; Chainlink, which will provide Hedera-based applications with “reliable oracles” and connectivity to off-chain data; and drug development consultancy Certara, aiming to provide “advanced analytics and demonstrate data provenance on health-related transactions.” "We welcome developers globally to build decentralized applications on our platform, and are excited to see what they will build," said Dr. Leemon Baird, co-founder and chief scientist of Hedera Hashgraph. "With Open Access, our council members have also begun running nodes." The governing council of Hedera includes blue-chip companies such as IBM, Boeing, Deutsche Telekom, Tata and Nomura, among others. || Litecoin’s falling hash rate is a worrying sign: The Litecoin network is rapidly becoming less secure. Since the new amount of Litecoin being mined was cut in half on August 5, the network’s hash rate —computing power that protects the network from attack—has similarly fallen. Every four years, Litecoin undergoes a halving, where the mining rewards that cryptocurrency miners receive for mining new blocks get cut in half—it’s the same with Bitcoin . However, when this happens, it means that miners receive less money when mining new blocks—making it uneconomical to continue spending computational resources earning new coins. While Litecoin founder Charlie Lee argued that miners would continue protecting the network, the miners had other ideas. Since the latest mining block rewards decline, the total hash rate on the Litecoin mining network has dropped over 60 percent from around 500 TH/s to its current level of just 193 TH/s. It is heading rapidly towards its lowest point since March 2018—at 146 TH/s. Litecoin proposes privacy upgrade designed with Bitcoin in mind While this isn’t the first time the network’s hash rate has been in a downturn, it’s falling faster than it has ever before. And this could be a problem for the network’s security. The reason why a high hash rate is important is because it protects the network from attack. Earlier this year, Ethereum Classic suffered a 51 percent attack —where malevolent actors took control of the network by having more hashing power and stole more than $1 million. It was easy to do so because its hash rate was so low. (To put it in context, Ethereum Classic’s hashing power was about 20 times smaller than Litecoin’s is now). While Litecoin is still harder to attack than Ethereum Classic, there’s more money on the line, making it a bigger target. It has a current market cap of $3.8 billion. On top of this, the rise of cloud computing is making it easier for hacks to occur. Last year, a crypto enthusiast known as geocold51 live-streamed a 51 percent attack on Bitcoin Private. He told Coindesk that using cloud computing and services like Nicehash—where you can rent hashing power—made an attack 100 times cheaper. After the halving, Lee tweeted , “Seems like miners have not shut off their hashrate at all. Instead, we are mining at a rate of a block every 1.4 minutes on average, which is much faster than the expected 2.5 minutes. Litecoin network is healthy!” But as the network’s hash rate continues to drop, it now presents a different picture. And if Litecoin’s price keeps falling, its hash rate could drop even further. Lee is now working on such radical plans as bringing privacy transactions to Litecoin—will this be enough to turn its fortunes around? || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -23/10/19: Bitcoin slid by 2.3% on Tuesday. Following on from a 0.20% decline on Monday, Bitcoin ended the day at $8,054.0. A relatively bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin rise to a mid-day intraday high $8,333.0 before hitting reverse. Coming within range of the first major resistance level at $8,349.47, Bitcoin slid to a late intraday low $8,034.9. The sell-off saw Bitcoin slide through the first major support level at $8,159.97 and the second major support level at $8,076.13. While steering clear of sub-$8,000 levels on the day, Bitcoin failed to move back through the major support levels ahead of the day end. For the bulls, the extended bullish trend remained intact in spite of hovering at sub-$9,000 levels. While falling back through the 38.2% FIB, Bitcoin continued to hold above the 62% FIB of 7,245. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the top 10 cryptos, it was red across the crypto board on Tuesday. Bitcoin Cash SV led the way, sliding by 6.55%, following an 18% surge on Monday. Bitcoin Cash ABC (-2.36%), Litecoin (-2.34%), and Ethereum (-1.75%) also saw relatively heavy losses. Stellar’s Lumen (-1.43%). EOS (-1.18%), Ripple’s XRP (-0.78%), and Binance Coin (-0.22%) saw modest losses on the day. Through the early part of the week, the total crypto market cap rose to a high $224.47bn before falling to a day low $216.90, at the time of writing. Bitcoin’s dominance continued to sit at sub-67% levels, with Tuesday’s relatively heavy loss pinning back Bitcoin back. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.67% to $8,000.6. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall from an early morning high $8,074.5 to a low $7,966.9 before finding support. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was also a bearish start for the rest of the majors. Bitcoin Cash ABC (-3.10%), Bitcoin Cash SV (-2.55%), and Ethereum (-2.45%) led the way down. Binance Coin (-2.04%), Stellar’s Lumen (-1.61%), and Litecoin (-1.59%) also saw relatively heavy losses early on. Story continues Ripple’s XRP and EOS saw more modest losses, with the pair down by 0.98% and by 0.71% respectively. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead For the day ahead, Bitcoin would need to move through to $8,140 levels to support a run at the first major resistance level at $8,246.57. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break through to $8,100 levels. Barring a broad-based crypto rebound, the first major resistance level and Monday’s high $8,333.0 would likely limit any upside. Failure to move through to $8,140 levels could see Bitcoin take another hit the day. A fall back through to sub-$8,000 levels would bring the first major support level at $7,948.47 into play. Barring an extended sell-off through the day, however, Bitcoin should steer clear of the second major support level at $7,843.63. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: US Markets “Roll Over” On Earnings And Economic Data At Channel Highs Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Rebound Near Support On Colder Weather Forecast USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Brexit Confusion Weighing on Investor Risk Appetite AUD/USD, NZD/USD, USD/CNY – Asian Session Daily Forecast Ethereum and Stellar’s Lumen Daily Tech Analysis – 23/10/19 EUR/USD Daily Forecast – Euro Struggles to Hold Above 100 DMA || Generations Differ On What Investments They’d Turn to in a Recession: Generations Differ On What Investments They’d Turn to in a Recession When a recession happens, investors often look for relatively safe places to park their hard-earned cash. However, “safer investments” is in the eye of the beholder, as a new survey suggests different generations would protect their money through different means. Global trading platform eToro sought to determine how concerned investors were about the possibility of a recession and whether they had a contingency plan in place should one occur. To find out, they surveyed 1,000 online investors between the ages of 20 and 65 who reported that they either currently invest in stocks, cryptocurrency or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) or will do so within the next six months. ETFs are collections of stocks, bonds and other assets in a single fund. Not only did more than two-thirds of respondents say they feared an upcoming recession, but many had come up with a recession-proof investment strategy. However, that strategy tended to vary by age. Respondents from Generation X, those born between 1965-1979, tended to show an interest in investing in commodities, which are raw materials such as food, oil and gold. Of the Gen X respondents, 38% said commodities were the way to go in a recession. On the other hand, millennials, those born between 1980 and 1994, favored crypto assets, with 40% saying they would invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Respondents from Generation Z, born in 1995 or later, were partial to real estate, with 50% saying that would be their investment focus in a recession. Investors also had other ideas about diversifying during a recession. Those who were most concerned about a recession being on the horizon were most interested in investment vehicles that offer high liquidity, or the ability to easily convert assets to cash. An overwhelming majority of that group of respondents (92%) said they were “very interested” in owning a fraction of assets such as artwork, businesses and landmark buildings. More specifically, 82% said they would be interested in owning a portion of landmark real estate, more than 80% said they’d be interested in owning a fraction of a local business and 68% said they would be interested in buying shares of music rights. The fact that consumers would be seeking out more stable investments during a recession isn’t unusual, but thanks to technology, more options are accessible to investors at all experience levels, said Guy Hirsch, managing director of eToro U.S. in a press release. “Historically, these investment opportunities have been limited to high net worth and institutional investors, but innovation is unlocking these opportunities for everyday investors and clearly, these results indicate that the demand is there," Hirsch said. No investment is 100% safe, but some carry more risk than others. For that reason, whether there is a recession or not, it’s always a good idea to diversify your portfolio . If you’re worried about a possible looming recession, take steps to strengthen your financial standing now. For example, you might pay off debt , cut back on excess spending and pad your savings account so you would be better able to handle tough times. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Current Crypto Prices! BTC: $10153.39 USD ETH: $216.44 USD LTC: $74.31 USD BCH: $312.27 USD XLM: $0.07143 USD DOGE: $ 0.002639 USD NEO: $9.488 USD XRP: $0.2903 USD CANN: $0.008525 USD EMC2: $0.05917 USD XMR: $73.18 USD BTG: $10.68 USD || Talk CMO |Global Regulators To Question Facebook’s Libra Amid Eu Concerns https://t.co/2jkNWAm94g #facebook #libra #EU #bitcoin #cryptocurrencyn #businessNews || Un topo en el corazón del Kremlin informó a Estados Unidos.. @Bitcoinincoins - @InvestCrypForex - el_pais - Twitter - News - Noticias - Bitcoin - CryptoCurrency - Forex https://t.co/1ol0wis66E || Intent-based Keywords Tool - Suggested Keywords Tool) Bitcoin - Investment - Investor - Cryptocurrency - Forex - Trade - Entrepreneur - @InvestCrypForex - @Marketing_1jl4 - @Health14Fitness &gt; https://t.co/hGaI6NE9WK || Web Engineering Lead - Transaction Banking - Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - [ 📋 More Info https://t.co/Xum1RtYq2g ] #Scala #jobs #Hiring #Careers #UnitedKingdom # #Cryptocurrency #Blockchain #BTC #BitCoin #ETH #crypto https://t.co/L1QAhsIOZS || @CryptoWelson #btc || これはでかい || Watch @APompliano pump Bitcoin on CNBC. Get @JoeSquawk to DCA here. Huge buying opportunity. || L&amp;#39;ancienne actrice porno Mia Khalifa "adopte" Bitcoin dans une cabine de jeux de hasard en match de Premier League Mia Khalifa, libanaise également connue sous le nom de Mia Callista, qui était autrefois considérée comme la meilleure act ...https://t.co/5okvlrNEKV https://t.co/t03sZjHiSx || #仮想通貨 #RDD Bittrex高騰/暴落 速報(5分前価格と比較) [BTC-RDD]8.33%0.000000130 [BTC-URAC]8.33%0.000000130
Trend: down || Prices: 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56, 8804.88, 8813.58, 9055.53, 8757.79
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 2022-08-05] BTC Price: 23289.31, BTC RSI: 56.04 Gold Price: 1772.90, Gold RSI: 54.55 Oil Price: 89.01, Oil RSI: 35.23 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] US stocks fall as investors digest ECB rate hike plan and await key inflation data: • US stocks traded lower on Thursday as investors focused on Friday's anticipated inflation report. • Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the consumer price index to have been unchanged at 8.3% in May. • Investors also digested the European Central Bank's decision to not hike interest rates on Thursday. US stocks traded lower on Thursday as investors digested the European Central Bank's plan next month to hike interest rates 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 has been exacerbated by Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine. US investors have turned their attention to Friday's consumer price index report, which will reveal if prices continued to rise in the month of May. 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 in rising inflation 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. Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. ET open on Thursday: • S&P 500:4,106.82, down 0.22% • Dow Jones Industrial Average:32,850.88, down 0.18% (60.02 points) • Nasdaq Composite:12,015.78, down 0.58% Natural gas prices surged 33% across Europeon 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. Bill Ackman's SPAC, which raised $4 billion from investors,may have to return the moneyas 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. West Texas Intermediate crudeoil fell as much as much as 0.61% to $121.37 per barrel.Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, fell as much as 0.40% to $123.16. Bitcoin fell 0.51% to $30,121. Ether prices fell 0.19% to $1,795. Goldfell as much as 0.24% to $1,852.10 per ounce. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose 2 basis points to 3.04%. Read the original article onBusiness Insider || FOREX-Dollar near recent peaks as Fed looms, growth fears weigh: By Tom Westbrook SINGAPORE, July 26 (Reuters) - The dollar held just below multi-decade peaks on Tuesday as traders awaited a rate hike from the U.S. Federal Reserve but wondered whether hints of a slowing economy may prompt a shift away from its focus on inflation. The euro rose 0.21% to $1.0240 but was hemmed in by uncertainty over Europe's energy security, which is not helped by a looming cut in the westbound flow of Russian gas. The yen steadied at 136.43 per dollar. The Fed concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday. Traders have been dialling back expectations as markets try to figure out if or when policymakers might pause inflation-fighting efforts amid signs the economy is starting to slow. Futures pricing points to a 75 basis point (bp) rate hike with a 10% risk of 100 bps. "I don't think the market's got a very good, confident feel that it's going to be one flavour of surprise or the other," said Imre Speizer, an analyst at Westpac in Auckland. "Which is enough to hold the dollar in place." The U.S. dollar index was slightly lower at 106.270, but not too far below a 20-year high of 109.290 hit in mid-July, as the greenback draws strength from expectations of U.S. rate rises and as a safe bet in a global slowdown. A profit warning from Walmart on Monday, which said customers were tightening their belts, was the latest sign that the going is getting tough, following several softer-than-expected U.S. and European data prints. The Australian and New Zealand dollars eked small gains. The Aussie hit a one-month high of $0.6984 and last traded $0.6970, breaking above its 50-day moving average as traders waited for Wednesday's inflation data release. Headline consumer prices are seen galloping at 6.2% year-on-year, the fastest pace in more than three decades. "There may be some slight upside for the Aussie, depending on the data," said analysts at ANZ Bank. "A 50bp hike from the (Reserve Bank of Australia) next week is all but a foregone conclusion – the main risk is for a larger hike," they said. "But this would require a very, very high CPI number, given that the RBA has more flexibility with its monthly meetings." A 50 bp hike is also seen as the most likely move from the Bank of England next week, though it is barely lending support to sterling. The pound inched 0.2% higher on Tuesday to $1.2075. Elsewhere cryptocurrencies wound back last week's gains. Bitcoin sat at $21,100, its lowest since July 18. Ether also hit its lowest sine July 18 at $1,421. (Reporting by Tom Westbrook Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Sam Holmes) || First Mover Asia: Does Tesla Really Believe in Bitcoin?; Altcoins Rise in Thursday Trading: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening: Prices:Bitcoin trades sideways to hold above $23K; altcoins surge. Insights:Tesla's jettisoning of $936 million in BTC suggests it does not really believe in the asset. 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. Hi, I'm James Rubin, here to take you through the day's crypto market highlights and news. Bitcoin (BTC):$23,144 -.6% Ether (ETH):$1,578 +3.2% [{"Asset": "Cosmos", "Ticker": "ATOM", "Returns": "+13.8%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Polygon", "Ticker": "MATIC", "Returns": "+8.6%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Avalanche", "Ticker": "AVAX", "Returns": "+5.7%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}] [{"Asset": "Bitcoin", "Ticker": "BTC", "Returns": "\u22120.5%", "DACS Sector": "Currency"}, {"Asset": "Dogecoin", "Ticker": "DOGE", "Returns": "\u22120.4%", "DACS Sector": "Currency"}] Bitcoin Drops; Altcoins Rise Bitcoin fell slightly in Thursday trading as investors continued to absorb the aftershocks of Tesla's (TSLA) decision to shed $936 million in bitcoin from its balance sheet during its second quarter. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently trading at about $23,100, down more than a half percentage point over the past 24 hours. The second, consecutive daily decline following an early week rally underscored Tesla CEO Elon Musk's influence among digital asset investors. Musk's utterances about bitcoin and dogecoin (DOGE) have sent markets for those assets intermittently soaring and plunging for much of the past two years. "Bitcoin was showing signs of a potentially meaningful breakout, but that quickly came to an end after Tesla reported earnings," Oanda Americas Senior Analyst Edward Moya wrote in an email. Yet, Moya noted that traders should not have been surprised by Musk's support of the sale, given the crypto winter and comments he make a month ago at the Qatar Economic Forum that he had not recommended people invest in crypto. Moya added optimistically: "This is not a game changer for bitcoin." Ether, the second-largest crypto by market cap, was changing hands just below $1,600, up more than 3% over the same period. Other major altcoins were in the green of a mostly dark shade, with Cosmos' ATOM and Polygon's MATIC climbing more than 13% and 8%, respectively, at one point. Equity indexes rise Equity markets also rose on Thursday, albeit less robustly than cryptos. The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 1.3% while the S&P 500 increased almost a percentage point, respectively. Stocks have found even ground lately amid better-than-expected earnings reports from a number of major brands, most recently Tesla and Netflix (NFLX). Investors have also been encouraged by reports that the U.S. central bank's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) would raise interest rates by 75 basis points instead of opting for a more robust 100-point hike. The mildly, less hawkish turn has suggested to some observers that inflation may soon stall without the economy plunging into recession. A Thursday report showing jobless claims in the U.S. reaching an eight-month high offered the latest evidence of a more desirable, gradual economic weakening. Still, rising prices remain a concern in the U.S. and beyond as the European Central Bank raised borrowing costs for the first time in 11 years. Meanwhile, the crypto industry continued to suffer the fallout from the ongoing bear market, with cryptocurrency exchangeBlockchain.comcutting 25%of its workforce – about 150 people. Blockchain.comfollows recent layoffsat a number of other large crypto exchanges worldwide, including Coinbase (COIN), Bullish, Bitso and Buenbit. Other news was more upbeat with banking giant JPMorgan (JPM)saying in a reportthat demand among retail investors in the crypto market was improving, and that the "intense phase" of deleveraging appeared to be over. And decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform Hashflowclosed a $25 millionSeries A funding round at a valuation of $400 million. Moya expects trading to remain volatile until the FOMC meets. "Bitcoin could be in for a choppy period until we get beyond next week’s FOMC decision," Moya wrote. S&P 500: 3,998 +0.9% DJIA: 32,036 +0.5% Nasdaq: 12,059 +1.3% Gold: $1,719 +1.3% Tesla: Wither the Bitcoin Macro Proxy? By Sam Reynolds Let’s rewind to the zenith of 2021’s first-quarter bull market. Bitcoin was on an absolute tear and retail investors were clamoring for more and more of it. But for those uncomfortable with buying bitcoin on an exchange and storing it in a wallet, there wasn’t really any other way of getting exposure to the asset class. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, still, as of mid-2022, hasn’t approved a bitcoin exchange-traded fund. While bitcoin ETFsbegan trading in Torontoin April of 2021, not every brokerage in the U.S. can access the Toronto stock exchange. So the idea of the bitcoin macro proxy was born. These are stocks of a company that has exposure to bitcoin and would allow the trader to realize some of bitcoin’s gains without holding the actual asset. In theory, this is different from companies that are directly involved in the bitcoin industry like miners or payment processors. These firms would need to have bitcoin on the balance sheet for its utility. Abitcoin proxywould have it on the balance sheet for financial gain. Tesla and MicroStrategy (MSTR) are examples of these proxies. Unlike Block (SQ), theentity formerly known as Square, which is also publicly listed, Tesla and MicroStrategy have no practical use for bitcoin. For a while, Tesla offered U.S. consumers the option to purchase a vehicle with bitcoin. It's not clear if anyone took the carmaker up on its offer partially because of thecomplexity of payment but also the unclear tax implicationsof liquidating bitcoin for a purchase. So without a practical use for bitcoin, and theimpairment costs skyrocketing, Tesla jettisoned $936 million of it (75%) during the last quarter. Company executives cited liquidity concerns as the reason, as sales in China have ground to a halt due to the country’s strict COVID-19 measures. But this reason is a non-starter as institutional-grade crypto lending services, like Gemini Prime, could have easily fulfilled an order for a few hundred million dollars-for-bitcoin. That’s if Tesla actually believes in the longevity of bitcoin. And for those who bought Tesla as a bitcoin proxy instead of the coin itself, they would have outperformed crypto. Year to date, bitcoin is down around 50%. Tesla, only down 38%. Remarkable for a company that at one time in 2021made more moneyon its bitcoin investment than from selling cars. 8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT(12:30 a.m. UTC):Jibun Bank manufacturing PMI(July preliminary) 8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT(12:30 a.m. UTC):Jibun Bank bank services PMI(July preliminary) In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of"First Mover"onCoinDesk TV: Bitcoin, Altcoins Dip as ECB Raises Rates 50 Basis Points, First Hike in 11 Years Following the European Central Bank's decision to raise interest rates higher than expected to fight inflation, "First Mover" examined the impact on crypto markets. JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG North America, joined the markets discussion. Also, the latest on South Korea's raids on crypto exchanges. Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, joined the show from South Korea. Plus, Marathon Digital (MARA0 CEO Fred Thiel discussed how the bitcoin mining giant and the overall mining sector are doing. Tesla's Musk Remains Open to Buying More Bitcoin After Selling in Q2 to Raise Cash:Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the EV company could add to its bitcoin position again in the future, but wanted to boost its cash position. Bank of America Survey's Extreme Pessimism Might Be Contrarian Indicator:Bank of America's monthly fund manager survey, conducted between July 8 and July 15, shows dire levels of investor pessimism and increased preference for cash. Ex-Coinbase Manager Among 3 Arrested on Crypto Insider Trading Charges:The SEC also brought charges. What Tesla’s Big Bitcoin Sale Means for Other Firms Putting Crypto on Their Balance Sheets:Corporations are likely to remain cautious on adding bitcoin to their corporate treasuries, but not because of Tesla’s move. Zipmex Confirms Loans Worth $53M to Babel and Celsius:CoinDesk reported Wednesday that the exchange's financial difficulties link back to crypto lender Babel Finance. Is the Ethereum ‘Merge’ Driving This Rally?:A proposed date for the transition from a proof-of-work to proof-of-stake protocol signaled a return of optimism to crypto markets. Other voices:Market Rout Shows Dangers of Margin Lending, Crypto Style(The Wall Street Journal) "Firstly, I would like to sincerely apologize for the panic that has been created by the sudden announcement of us pausing withdrawals. I understand that many of you are concerned and rightly so. I would like to be completely transparent with all of you who have put your faith in Zipmex, whether you’ve been a customer for a long time, or only just started with us recently. We’ve been facing some liquidity issues with counterparties that Zipmex had assets with. The tokens affected are BTC, ETH, USDC and USDT that were specifically in ZipUp+. As such we had to halt withdrawals while we recoup the rest of our funds. Regulators have been informed and are aware of our movements, as well as our investors." (Email to Zipmex customers) ... "If you sell 75% of your bitcoin, you will only have 25% of your#bitcoinleft." (MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor) || Who’s fueling the money race for Broward School Board? The top takeaways for the election: In the Broward School Board elections, a multimillionaire’s campaign chest is brimming with almost $122,000. An 18-year-old candidate — backed by an experienced consultant — has raised more than $19,000. And two School Board hopefuls promoting parental rights, an issue championed by conservatives across the country, have individually raised over $9,000 and $10,000. These are among the 21 candidates who are running to fill six School Board seats up for election this year. The candidates are spending anywhere from zero dollars to over $52,000 on their campaigns. Some candidates are mainly bankrolling themselves, pouring in up to $99,000 from their personal accounts. The campaign finance reports, reviewed by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, show who’s backing the candidates and where the money is going. Here’s what the records show. Conservatives draw support The contests for School Board have drawn bigger attention this year, as new state laws take effect, oriented around what students should and shouldn’t be taught in Florida’s schools. The School Board races are nonpartisan, meaning the party affiliations of candidates aren’t listed. Yet Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has endorsed some candidates in Florida who share his education agenda, including conservative policies on the discussion of sexual orientation and race in classrooms. The Republican Party of Broward County has endorsed three candidates for School Board: District 6 candidate Brenda Fam, District 7 candidate Merceydes Morassi, and District 8 candidate Mourice Hylton. Tom Powers, the group’s chairman, said they chose the candidates because they will reform the district to be more “responsive to the taxpayers and parents,” which he said isn’t just a “Republican interest, it is an outcry from the public.” “You’re seeing this across the country,” Powers said. “Parents are the ones that raise their children. Teachers are involved in the education of a child one year at a time. Parents are there from birth to forever, and they need to be consistent in that child’s life.” Story continues The open seats for the School Board represent Districts 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7, as well as District 8, an at-large seat that represents the entire county. For District 6, which includes Cooper City, Sunrise, Weston and Davie, candidate Brenda Fam has raised a little over $9,000. Her campaign donations include an in-kind donation of $600 for two tickets to a dinner hosted by the Republican Executive Committee in May. Fam, a registered Republican, says if elected, she’ll represent “parents and children” instead of any one party. Her campaign site mainly shares parental rights content, including articles that accuse Broward school district of indoctrinating students. In her most recent post, Fam criticized the school district for “withholding curriculum that promotes transgenderism to students.” Her campaign Instagram account follows Women for Trump Palm Beach County, the right-wing America First Policy Institute, and the Broward-based America First Patriots Club, which endorsed her. The Club aligns itself with Trump and DeSantis, and “welcomes all who oppose rising socialism, globalism and the annihilation of our culture and values,” according to its website. In an interview with the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, candidate Merceydes Morassi, a psychologist, also voiced unease over discussing gender identity in schools. Morassi has raised over $10,000 in her campaign for the District 7 seat, which includes the cities of Coconut Creek and Deerfield Beach. “I don’t think LGB has anything to do with T,” she said. She added, “For people in the psychology field, there is a close relationship between transgender and gender dysphoria, which is a psychiatric illness. I don’t think we should be normalizing and discussing psychiatric illnesses with kids unless we’re going to talk about all of them.” Morassi, who is hoping to unseat incumbent Nora Rupert, has received the endorsement of the Libertarian Party of Broward County and donations from members of the Broward chapter of Moms for Liberty, a parental rights group that has fought to remove certain books from public schools. Their two pages follow each other on Instagram. Moms for Liberty is dedicated to fighting “short-sighted and destructive policies directly hurt children and families” and trying to “unite parents who are ready to fight those that stand in the way of liberty,” according to its website. On July 15, DeSantis was the keynote speaker for a Moms for Liberty event in Tampa. In this election cycle, Morassi has received separate $25 donations from two board members in the Broward chapter of Moms for Liberty. This 18-year-old candidate has Democratic ties and loftier goals Raymond Adderly III, the youngest candidate at 18, is running for the District 8 at-large seat against incumbent Donna Korn, Allen Zeman, and Mourice Hylton. Adderly has raised over $19,000, and spent nearly $18,000 of it. The vast majority of that money — totaling over $9,000 — is going toward public relations and campaign consulting. Adderly has spent several thousand dollars on Progress for Florida LLC, a consulting firm whose founder, Millie Raphael, helped create a “path to victory” for him, Adderly said. The firm describes itself as “working to elect progressive Democrats in Florida at every rung of the ladder.” Adderly has also allocated $500 most months, totaling over $6,000, to Grossman PR, where he receives PR help from co-president Lou Grossman, a former lead adviser on senior outreach for Charlie Crist’s gubernatorial campaign. The two met while campaigning for Joe Biden during the 2020 election, Grossman said. He described Adderly as “the future of our party.” Adderly acknowledged that he has his sights set beyond the School Board. He said he hopes to make it to the statehouse, to Congress, or even governorship. “My boyhood dream was to be President of the United States,” he said. “It’s not a boyhood dream anymore. I definitely think it’s a feasible thing.” A stake in crypto In a sign of the times, cryptocurrency has popped up in candidates’ personal investments. In District 1, which includes Hollywood and Hallandale Beach, two candidates have disclosed a major stake in cryptocurrency, a market that has crashed in recent months. Both have used personal money on their own campaigns. District 1 candidate Paul Wiggins, a pastor, reported that he has placed all $10,000 of his investments in HyperVerse, a new cryptocurrency that doubles as a virtual reality, according to his qualifying documents. When asked why he was invested in the currency, Wiggins declined to comment, saying, “I’m not comfortable answering that.” Wiggins isn’t the only candidate with a fondness for the technology. One of his opponents, Rodney “Rod” Velez, a property manager, has over $203,000 invested in cryptocurrency, according his filings, which he said include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Shiba Inu. Other investments are in properties, he said, as the stock market “is too crazy right now.” Former sheriff supports a District 6 candidate Opposing Brenda Fam and John Christopher Canter for the District 6 seat, Steven Julian has raised over $53,000 so far, now the most of the three candidates remaining in the race after Merick Lewin dropped out earlier this month. Julian, who works in property management, doesn’t have Fam’s conservative backing, but he has received support from a key player in Broward politics: Ken Jenne, a former Florida senator and Broward sheriff, who has donated $750 to Julian’s campaign. But Julian said that Jenne, who long ago served some prison time in a public corruption case, is not serving as an adviser for his campaign, though the two are acquainted. Jenne is a longtime friend of the family, Julian said. “He believes in what I’m doing,” he added. “He believes in my goal of fixing the school system. So that’s why I’m assuming he decided to donate to me.” Julian also has received thousands of dollars from local law firms. Both of his parents are attorneys, as well as several of his siblings. His mother, Joyce Julian, a former Broward county judge, has helped Julian gain a “knowledge base,” he said. “She understands the ins and outs of campaigning.” Companies donate the maximum to incumbents Local vendors who do business with Broward schools have spent thousands of dollars on incumbents and front-runners. Several charter school companies connected to the same individual have spent over $10,000 on four candidates. The limited liability companies Dash Education Solutions, Discovery Schools Inc., AP Properties 2019, Sunbit LLC, and SE Admin Enterprises LLC have each donated the maximum of $1,000 to District 8′s Donna Korn, contributing $5,000 of her current total of nearly $27,000. Several of those companies donated the maximum to Nora Rupert and Ruth Carter-Lynch as well, totaling another $5,000. Discovery Schools is the company behind Franklin Academy, a chain of six charter schools operating in Broward and Palm Beach counties. AP Properties 2019, Sunbit LLC, SE Admin Enterprises LLC, Discovery Schools Inc, and Dash Education Solutions all list the same Fort Lauderdale address and the same registered agent with the Florida Division of Corporations: a man by the name of Jon T. Rogers. Rogers couldn’t be reached for comment. Various combinations of the same companies have donated to school board members in past elections, such as Patricia Good in 2019. They have also donated to city and county commissioners, such as Vice Mayor Lamar Fisher, as well as Iris Siple, commissioner of Pembroke Pines. Smaller names join millionaires, incumbents and their heirs In District 1, Marie Murray Martin opposes Paul Wiggins and Rod Velez to fill the seat left open by her mother, Ann Murray, who decided not to run for reelection. Murray has donated $750 to her daughter’s campaign, which has raised a little over $9,000 so far. But Marie Murray Martin wants to distinguish herself from her mother. “I’m not Ann Murray, I’m Marie Murray Martin,” she said. “We are not the same person.” Meanwhile, in the race for District 4, which includes Parkland, Coral Springs, and Tamarac, incumbent Lori Alhadeff is facing off against Kimberly D. Coward, an attorney. Alhadeff has raised nearly $104,000, while Coward has raised nearly $22,000. District 5, which includes Lauderhill and Lauderdale Lakes, has by far the most competition. Seven candidates are vying for a spot: Antonio Burgess, Ruth Carter-Lynch, Clifford Coach Sr., Jeff Holness, Gloria Lewis, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Nathalie Lynch-Walsh. So far, Carter-Lynch has raised the most, with over $22,000. For District 6, Brenda Fam and Steven Julian are accompanied by John Christopher Canter, who has only raised around $2,000, $1,900 of which he donated to himself. Canter is employed by the School District of Palm Beach County, but lives in Davie, according to his qualifying documents. The District 8 race has seen the most variance when it comes to finances, but also some striking similarities. Mourice Hylton has steep competition facing Zeman, Korn, and Adderly, who have all significantly outraised him. Hylton, a chess teacher, listed a net worth of $0, according to his qualifying documents, in contrast to Zeman, whose reported net worth is over $10 million. Hylton has raised $2,300, $1,900 of which he donated to himself. Meanwhile, Zeman has over $120,000, the most of all the candidates. However, a majority of Zeman’s campaign money, or $99,000, also comes from his own pockets. The Center for Human Capital Innovation, of which Zeman is CEO, also has given him $1,000. The primary election is Aug. 23, and early voting will be from Aug. 13 through Aug. 21. Mail-in ballots must be received by Aug. 23 at 7 p.m. to be eligible. || XRP Leads Crypto Majors Recovery; Bitcoin Rises Over $21K as Rate-Hike Concerns Wane: Don't miss CoinDesk'sConsensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. XRP surged as much as 16% in the past 24 hours as bitcoin topped the $21,000 level, and the largest cryptocurrencies showed signs of recovery after a steep fall last week. Solana’s SOL token jumped 8% after the development team announced the crypto-nativeSolana mobile phoneat an event in New York yesterday. Avalanche’s AVAX rose 8%, extending Thursday's gain as the projectintroduced a native bridgeto the Bitcoin network. Polygon’s MATICadded to Thursday’s runwith a 17% increase. Bitcoin (BTC) passed through the $21,000 level in European afternoon hours, adding to a steady recovery since last weekend’s plunge to almost $18,000. Current levels have acted as a resistance zone for the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and a recovery above $21,000 could see the asset surge to $22,600. Bitcoin has seen selling pressure in the past week amid systemic risks from within the crypto market, such as crypto lenderspausing withdrawalsand the blow-up of prominent crypto fundThree Arrows Capital, which owes creditors hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Friday’s recovery came as broader equity and bond markets rallied. Stocks in Asia gained, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng increasing 2.09%, and the Shanghai Composite and India’s Sensex ending the day up 0.89%. The Stoxx Europe 600 gained 1.49% in midday trading, while futures in the U.S. added at least 0.50%. On Thursday, U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the agency’s commitment to reining in inflation, which is now at a 40-year high, was “unconditional,” adding that he expected economic growth to pick up in the second half of the year after a sluggish start to 2022, as perReuters. While Powell’s comments indicate higher interest rates may be in the offing, Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst at foreign exchange broker Oanda, told clients in a note that markets continued to price in “a recession stopping rate hikes in their tracks much sooner.” Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley reiterated warnings earlier this week, stating that recession risks were “not fully priced in" by investors. Citi pegged the possibility ofa recession at 50%. “The moves this week could still turn out to be the result of a financial market genetically preprogrammed to buy dips in equity and bond prices, thanks to two decades of central bank largess,” Halley said. “It could also be a bear market correction as the stampede for the exit door got overdone in the short term, leading to a short-squeeze.” Powell’s comments came as investors remain spooked by concerns around inflation and supply-chain stresses. Last week, the Fed increased rates by 75 basis points, the most in 28 years, in a move that sought to curb inflation. A further 50-to-75 basis point hike is expected in July. Meanwhile, crypto traders remain cautious of the current market reversal. “It will be too early to talk about a long-term reversal," FxPro’s Alex Kuptsikevich told CoinDesk earlier this week. "All negative fundamentals remain. Until sharp monetary-policy tightening becomes the norm, financial market pressures can quickly negate bounces in cryptocurrencies." || Healthcare providers play 'He's a 10 but… baby daddy edition': 'Where do men find the audacity?': A group of medical professionals has a lot of feelings about all the baby daddies out there. Bitcoin vs. gold: Which is the better inflation hedge? TikToker and labor and delivery healthcare provider @ egelson99 created her version of the popular “They’re a 10 but…” meme, also known as “ The Rating Game .” Symone reflects on the epic year she's had since winning "RuPaul's Drag Race": The game is easy; a person starts with “He’s a 10, but he…” then they add a trait in the hypothetical scenario. The other game players adjust the fictional person’s score based on the behavior. As you might imagine, in the case of baby daddies, medical professionals see a lot of questionable and interesting behavior in the delivery room. So it was only natural they created “He’s a 10, but… baby daddy edition.” “He’s a 10, but he leaves mid-delivery,” @egelson99 said . His score was adjusted to a two by another player. “He’s a two, but he kisses her on the forehead after she delivers,” she said . His score was upgraded to a 10 by the player. “He’s a 10, but he tells her she doesn’t need an epidural,” she said . “That’s a negative,” her coworker responded . Some of the other scenarios she put forth were : “He’s a two, but he cries at delivery,” “He’s a 10 but he brings his Xbox to delivery,” and lastly, “He’s an eight but he tells the doctor to put in an extra stitch.” The video received 7.1 million views and 1.1 million likes on TikTok . “That last one is a DIVORCE,” someone joked . “If my husband ever asked for an extra stitch, he would no longer be my husband, lol. Where do men find their audacity!!?” another said . “Leaves mid-delivery? He better be packed and gone when I get home ,” a person commented . “I WISH we would have brought an Xbox or something. I was so bored watching reruns on HGTV,” another added . “My husband kissed me on the head after I delivered each of our babies and cried every time. He’s a 100!” someone shared . See this bedroom turn into a vibrant oasis after an incredible one-day renovation: Story continues The post Healthcare providers play ‘He’s a 10 but… baby daddy edition’ appeared first on In The Know . More from In The Know: Logan Paul reviews 'Nope,' internet says he's a 'masterclass in not knowing what movies are' The Dyson Airwrap is back in stock — here's where you can buy it Young couple renovating 108-year-old house makes stunning discovery in attic: 'Such an incredible find' Why are people freaking out over Olivia Rodrigo's 'unlimited' Chipotle card? || Trump Aide Navarro Tells Judge He Needs Time to Promote His Book: (Bloomberg) -- Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro pleaded not guilty to criminal contempt and asked a federal judge to hold off on his trial so he could promote his book. Most Read from Bloomberg Putin Gets Unexpected Pushback From Ally Over War in Ukraine Putin May Win in Ukraine, But the Real War Is Just Starting Bitcoin, Ether Bounce Off Lows After Record-Breaking Rout Giant Cruise Ship’s Maiden Voyage May Be to a Scrapyard Fed’s Inflation Battle to Strip Workers of Rare Bargaining Power Navarro, who appeared Friday in federal court in Washington, entered the plea to both counts the US Justice Department brought against him -- for declining to testify in the US House committee investigation of the January 2021 Capitol riot and for refusing to hand over documents in response to a subpoena from the panel. Navarro, 72, is among a small group of advisers that Donald Trump turned to as he pushed false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The contempt case against him comes amid the committee’s televised hearings into the insurrection and the events preceding it, including plans by Trump’s inner circle to prevent the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s electoral victory. In February, the panel sought documents from Navarro based on information that he and others developed a plan to delay the certification. It cited an excerpt from a Navarro book in which he called the strategy the “Green Bay Sweep” and wrote that it was the “last, best chance to snatch a stolen election from the Democrats’ jaws of deceit.” Meanwhile the Justice Department’s investigation is in an aggressive phase marked by grand jury subpoenas including one focused on efforts to appoint electors in states Trump lost to reverse the result. Promoting Book At Friday’s court hearing, Navarro’s attorney, John Irving, asked US District Judge Amit Mehta to hold off on setting a trial date. He said Navarro had just retained legal counsel and also needed time to promote a forthcoming book. Amazon lists a book by Navarro due out in September, titled “Taking Back Trump’s America: Why We Lost the White House and How We’ll Win It Back.” “It is important to him for his livelihood,” Irving said, adding that the duties of promoting the book would “distract him” from helping his lawyers on the case. Read More: Former Trump Aide Navarro Is Indicted for Defying Subpoena The judge noted a trial coming up of members of the right-wing Oath Keepers and the need to schedule Navarro’s trial along with others, and tentatively set it for Nov. 17. Among the cases well along in the courts, the Justice Department’s biggest tests will come with the trial of Proud Boys members accused of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and the trial of the Oath Keepers on charges of seditious conspiracy. Story continues Government prosecutors have gone after others in Trump’s inner circle who have declined to cooperate. This week a federal judge rejected arguments raised by longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon that his own indictment for contempt should be thrown out. Dropping Pelosi Suit Navarro has said he shouldn’t have been held in contempt because he might have a right, or even a duty, to withhold information based on a claim of executive privilege, which shields most communications with a president. In a Thursday filing, he sought the dismissal of his own lawsuit against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the committee, in which he alleged that the subpoena he received was unlawful. He has made similar points to those raised by Bannon, including that the committee was improperly assembled. In court, Navarro’s lawyer explained that his client wanted to drop the case because the deadline to file an amended complaint was Friday and he didn’t want to rush it. The case is US v. Navarro, 22-cr-00200, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington). Read More Thousands Attacked the Capitol. Who Has Answered for It? Proud Boys Case Stalls Without Jan. 6 Committee Records Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek Ethereum Mining Is Going Away, and Miners Are Not Happy Hell Is a Cruise Ship at the Beginning of the Pandemic Sheryl Sandberg’s Wedding Expenses Are the Least of Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Problems Adults Who Love Toys? The Toy Industry Loves Them, Too The Last Bear Market Was Short-Lived. This One Feels Different ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. View comments || Bitcoin price crosses US$22K; Fed cools recession fears: The crypto market gained along with traditional markets overnight in Asia as investors responded to updated guidance on Thursday from U.S. Federal Reserve officials claiming recessionary concerns are overblown. See related article:Bitcoin, Ether recover as Fed guidance reduces policy uncertainty • Bitcoin gained 8% to trade above US$22,000 in the past 24 hours leading to press time for the first time since June 16, as the crypto market capitalization surpassed US$1 trillion, according to CoinGecko data. • Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index closed trading yesterday up more than 1% and the Nasdaq Composite Index closed 2.3% higher, ending four consecutive days of gains — the longest streak since March. • Fed Board of Governors member Christopher Wallerbackedanother 75-basis point interest rate hike this month and a 50-basis point rise next month to combat inflation, in his address to the National Association for Business Economics on Thursday. • St. Louis Fed PresidentJames Bullard echoedWaller’s sentiments, but both officials downplayed recessionary fears, with Bullard saying there was a “good chance” of a soft economic landing. • Crypto and traditional markets have been hit in recent months withconcernsof rising inflation, looming recession, uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine, and a growing list of crypto firms lining up for bankruptcy. See related article:Three Arrows, Voyager failures raise questions of who is next in crypto fall from grace || Chinese Tech Stocks Seek Their Bottom: American tech investors tossed Chinese tech stocks like Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE: BABA ), JD.com (NASDAQ: JD ), and Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD ) away months ago. I kept a few Alibaba shares, but their value is down by half. Today, American tech stocks are also in a bear market. Money-losing stocks doing important work like Cloudflare (NYSE: NET ) are down by more than the Chinese giants. But if I have learned anything in 40 years covering technology, it’s that while tech can find a bear market first, it’s the first sector to climb out. That’s because tech delivers cost savings to businesses and consumers. This creates competitiveness. It can turn inflation into deflation by improving supply chains and replacing management. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips With both eastern and western economies tipping into a recession, it might be time to look again at Chinese tech stocks. Ticker Company Price BABA Alibaba $98.69 JD JD.com $58.46 PDD Pinduoduo $54.17 Chinese Tech Stocks: The Bottom Is Here The bull case for Chinese tech is that the tech crackdown may have some salutary effects. Most of the Chinese government’s actions mirror what European and American reformers have sought, like protection of data, limits on monopolies and greater contributions to the general welfare. Alibaba has been especially hard hit, but it hasn’t been killed. Revenue for the quarter ending in December was $38 billion, 10% ahead of a year earlier . It’s expected to match that in the March quarter , which will be reported May 26. Analysts also expect $1.15/share of earnings, with a “whisper number” of $1.31. Investors were paying about $99/share for this on June 13. That’s still 29 times the last year’s depressed earnings. It’s also in the face of a yuan that is currently depressed against the U.S. currency, thanks to pandemic lockdowns, trading for nearly 4.6% less than a year ago at 6.75 to the dollar. Story continues The Investment Battlefield The bear case can be summarized in one word: Communism. The government of Xi Jinping is no different than Mao Zedong’s, goes the argument. It seeks only power for its own sake. It’s fundamentally intolerant of freedom and capitalism. It’s an evil empire, committing genocide in Xinjiang, stamping out all liberty in Hong Kong, threatening Taiwan with invasion. Those threats have escalated as Xi approaches his re-election this October. If you see China as Ukranians see Russia, you shouldn’t have read this far. But why, then, did JD.com recently beat estimates , sending the stock back up over 5%? Writing at Tipranks recently, our David Moadel called JD “a winner,” despite the crackdown, and despite the lockdown. Other Chinese tech stocks, including Pinduoduo, rose when the JD earnings came out. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM ) upgraded the sector. I remain especially high on Alibaba because of its cloud, which exports services throughout East Asia and has entered Europe. China’s government wants its tech leaders to be exporters , just like governments throughout East Asia. Alibaba’s cloud offers not just storage and a platform, but supply chain and accounting services as well. This gives it more of its customers’ computing dollar than any U.S. cloud czar can hope for, even Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ). As with South Korea, China’s government has focused its tech policy on self-sufficiency . Once a technology becomes self-sufficient, it wants its leaders to export. Alibaba now seems aligned with this policy. Chinese Tech Stocks: The Bottom Line Chinese tech hit bottom during the December and March quarters. The currency’s value has also dropped in recent months, meaning you can get more stock for your dollar. Profits are down but they’re starting to rise, as consumer-oriented companies turn to exports for growth. The lockdowns will end, and the government will focus new investment on hardware. The government must allow the economy to grow to maintain popular support. My belief is Xi won’t risk “the mandate of heaven” over this. Alibaba, JD.Com, Pinduoduo and the other Chinese stocks now trading on American exchanges may never hit the heights again. But I think they’re more likely to rise than their American counterparts over the next six months. On the date of publication, Dana Blankenhorn held long positions in BABA, NET, and MSFT. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . Dana Blankenhorn has been a financial and technology journalist since 1978. He is the author of Technology’s Big Bang: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow with Moore’s Law , available at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com , tweet him at @danablankenhorn , or subscribe to his Substack . 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 Chinese Tech Stocks Seek Their Bottom appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Myntist Announces Launch of Physical and Digital Goods Marketplace: Myntist Coolum Beach, June 22, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Myntist , a blockchain-based marketplace, has announced the launch of its official platform coming soon. The site, which caters to users from all over the world, facilitates the sale of both physical and digital assets as a means of creating passive income. According to the management of Myntist, users can upload their physical and digital items for sale to the site and receive payment in the form of the native token $MYNT, USDC, Bitcoin and Ethereum. After items are listed for sale on the marketplace, the original listers will continue to receive royalties for every resale that takes place. Essentially, a single item listed can become a permanent source of income for the owner. There is also the option to stake earnings and earn up to 100% interest over time. Through a combination of token staking and the reduction in the circulation of the token via the marketplace, Myntist ensures that the value of the token will be consistently high. The selling of old items online has been going on for years but Myntist takes this a step further. Not only does the platform offer permanent royalties from resales but a dedicated staking program as well. According to Geoff Broomhead, the idea for Myntist came about from a desire to bring the benefits of crypto, such as staking and royalties, to the consumer market. “Taking the idea of royalty sharing from NFT’s and applying them to consumer marketplaces opens up a tremendous amount of value to the consumer. I realized that the new royalty sharing, which started with NFTs, if applied to the consumer market opens gives the ability for consumer products to now be used for creating Cashflow with lifetime benefits for ordinary people. The world has been waiting for a new social contract, I believe our royalty sharing algorithm in our consumer marketplace is that contract,” he says. The Myntist platform is expected to go live soon and users can register prior to the launch. Story continues About Myntist: Myntist is a blockchain-based marketplace that offers physical and digital items for sale, with cryptocurrency and a royalty-based reward system. By leveraging the permissionless and borderless nature of blockchain, Myntist ensures that its customers can continue to profit from their listed items for years into the future. Contact details: Website: myntist.com CONTACT: Geoff Broomhead gbroomhead (at) myntist.com [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 22961.28, 23175.89, 23809.49, 23164.32, 23947.64, 23957.53, 24402.82, 24424.07, 24319.33, 24136.97
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 2019-08-14] BTC Price: 10051.70, BTC RSI: 41.37 Gold Price: 1515.90, Gold RSI: 77.90 Oil Price: 55.23, Oil RSI: 48.42 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Cryptojackers Making Secondary Income Off Security Data Seizures: Report: In the wake of lower cryptocurrency prices, ghost mining hackers are turning to metadata seizures. In a report issued today, cybersecurity firm Carbon Black says a well-known 2018 monero crypto mining botnet contained a secondary component capable of seizing IP addresses, domain info, usernames, and passwords. Dubbed “Access Mining,” Carbon Black researchers Greg Foss and Marian Liang say the 2018 botnet campaign has been collecting secret data for the past two years, making millions in the process. According to reports at the time, 500,000 machines were trojanized with a monero cryotojacking mining protocol, XMRig, collecting 8,900 monero. Most infected machines resided in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asian Pacific. Related: State-Sponsored Chinese Hacking Group Targeting Crypto Firms: Report Unbeknownst at the time, the 500,000 computers were not only hacked with the ghost protocol but also data collection software. A patchwork of programs taken from open-source code on GitHub like Eternal Blue and Mimikatz implemented on XMRig helped the hackers innovate, the report states. The hackers turned the security data into a secondary source of income. With one infected machine selling for an average of $6.75 on dark web markets, the 500,000 haul is worth $1.69 million. Infected machines can even be rented for 24 to 48 hours as a source of passive income for hackers. Depending on the machine’s location and owner, machine values can skyrocket. At $90 per monero coin, the group’s assets sit near $3.29 million Carbon Black says. Foss and Liang say Access Mining is more than likely the result of dropping monero prices following the 2018 bear market. Following their report, the firm issued a series of tips for addressing possible concerns. Related: Monero and Zcash Conferences Showcase Their Differences (And Links) Image via CoinDesk archives Related Stories At-Home Crypto Miner Coinmine Now Pays Out Bitcoin New Monero Botnet Looks Like Last Year’s Outlaw Attack || Bitcoin 'Undervalued' Until It Hits $7 Trillion Market Cap: Winklevoss Twins: If you think you’ve already missed bitcoin’s biggest price gains, think again. The Winklevoss Twins think bitcoin has plenty of room to run and is wildly undervalued at anything less than a $7 trillion market capitalization. For perspective, bitcoin's current market cap is $229 billion. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who reportedly own 1 percent of all bitcoin outstanding, base their theory on BTC surprising the market cap of gold. “Our thesis is that bitcoin is gold 2.0 and so until it has a market cap of $7 trillion, which is the size of gold, it’s a very under-valued asset, so I think people are waking up to that.” -via CNBC. Bitcoin has long been considered “digital gold” or a store of value due to its scarce supply and lack of correlation to other market assets. But the digital gold narrative has strengthened throughout 2019. Crypto fund Grayscale, which has more than $2.8 billion assets under management, recently launched a#DropGoldcampaign. It encourages investors to switch gold for bitcoin in their portfolio, something the Winklevoss Twins have also advocated. The narrative is gaining traction. Even traditional Wall Street traders now advocate a 5 percent allocation to bitcoin: Read the full story on CCN.com. || Metal Prices: Gold Recovers Amid Fears of Indecision in the Fed: As anticipated on Friday, markets are opening this week with a hangover from last week inactivity. US holiday of Fourth of July and a stronger than expected job reports are the reason. Experts are now weighing between a good job report in one hand and a rate cut by the fed in the other side. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is expected to talk today and to provide further explanations on the intentions the Fed could have in line of its next FOMC meeting in July. Mitsubishi analyst Jonathan Butler said in a recent note to his clients that “the Fed is likely to cut interest rates as early as this month and in that environment, gold as a non-yielding asset ought to do better and would be more attractive to investors in a world of lower interest rates.” Goldis trading positive on Monday as investors are digesting a stronger than expected jobs report in the United States released Friday. XAU/USD is fighting to hold levels above the 1,400 area after finding support at 1,390 earlier in the day. The metal is now moving at 1,404, 0.35% positive on the day. Technical indicators suggest more room for the downside, but the chart pattern is showing robust middle-term support at 1,380. On Monday, XAU/USD is keeping prices between 1,380 and 1,440, the range it has been trading since June 20. The strong jobs report is also fueling losses in the US equities markets and gains in the US Dollar index. However, it is also pushing gold prices higher. FX Empire analyst James Hyerczykbelievesthat “some traders feel that Friday’s weakness may have been an overreaction to the better-than-expected jobs data.” However, “the news may not be enough to sway the Federal Reserve from cutting its benchmark interest rate at its July 30-31 monetary policy meeting.” So, the synergies in the gold market remain the same as the last week. Silveris opening the week with a positive note after the unit found support at 14.90 on Friday. On Monday, XAG/USD is trading 0.75% positive as it rose from an opening price around 15.00 to current highs at 15.12. Technical indicators are mixed for silver with the 15.15 level acting as a resistance. To the downside, keep an eye to the mentioned 14.90. Copperis trading positive on Monday after logging two negative sessions in a row. XCU/USD is testing the upper side of the range it has been trading since July 2 between 2.6500 and 2.6855. XCU/USD is now moving 0.75% positive on the day at 2.6860. Palladiumremains in consolidation mode around highs since March 2019, as the unit is trading in a small range between 1,555 and 1,575. On Monday, palladium is trading 0.42% negative with the XPD/USD moving at 1,565. Technical conditions don’t show healthy conditions for a bullish continuation. Platinumis consolidating low levels after the collapse from 839.00 to 804.90 performed on Friday. On Monday, XPT/USD is posting 0.25% gains as the unit is moving at 812.00. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • Euro Bulls: Don’t Worry About Fed Rate Cut, Worry About Massive ECB Stimulus • Fedspeak Tuesday: Heightened Volatility if Bostic Hints at Rate Cut • Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 09/07/19 • GBP/USD Price Forecast – British pound quiet on Monday • Stock Market Cycle Top And Fearless Vix Signal Turning Point • Silver Price Forecast – Silver markets stagnant on Monday || DX.Exchange Launches Smart Leverage Tokens to Allow Margin Trading on the Blockchain: BARCELONA, SPAIN / ACCESSWIRE / July 10, 2019 /Coins Marketplace Technologies OÜ is delighted to announce that DX.Exchange is launching a brand-new financial instrument called Smart Leverage Tokens or SLT’s. Branded as Turbo Token it’s the world’s first smart leveraged token enabling margin trading on the blockchain. The launch of SLTs paves the way for the future of leveraged trading in the cryptocurrency markets. “Exchanges are in a race to add leverage products, but they are still tied to the old school of margin trading with high risk and fees” says Daniel Skowronski CEO and Co-Founder of DX.Exchange. “DX always looks to use blockchain technology that can bridge the gap between the old world and the new such as being the first todigitalize real world stockssuch as Tesla and Google. Now we created a new category called Smart Leverage Tokens or SLT’s. It’s a game changer when it comes to margin trading”. What Are Smart Leveraged Tokens? SLTs are a decentralized index enabling trading on margin without any lending, high fees, or complex products. Like traditional leverage, they offer the potential for gains at multiples above the price changes of the underlying asset. However, with current leveraged products, the trader borrows margin from the exchange. Borrowed margin increases risk exposure for the exchange and incurs overnight interest charges for the trader. With SLTs, the trader owns their leverage, and therefore also bears any risk. These leveraged tradable assets will track the price changes second by second, enabling traders to go long or short against the underlying cryptocurrency. Turbo Tokens will offer investors a wide variety of SLTs paired against USDT or DXCASH (the native utility token of DX.Exchange,) including BTC, ETH, XRP, ADA, and BNB. Leverage will be 5x against USDT pairs and 10x against DXCASH token pairs. Leverage creates the potential for substantial gains regardless of whether the markets are going up or down. Turbo Tokens offer traders the ability to multiply returns from applying their knowledge of cryptocurrency market trends. However, unlike traditional margin instruments like futures or CFD products, there is far less complexity. There is also no risk of traders facing socialized losses or auto-deleveraging that have been applied by other exchanges to offset their own risks. Furthermore, Turbo Tokens have a unique compounding mechanism, which means that the value of the asset can never go to zero, so traders never face more risk than the loss of their original investment. Turbo Tokens can be stored in an individual’s own cryptocurrency wallet. How Do Turbo Tokens Work? Turbo Tokens track price movements second by second. For example, with a BTC/USDT 10x long Turbo Token, if the price increases by 0.1% in any given second, the leveraged Turbo Token would increase by 1%. Conversely, a leveraged 10x short Turbo Token for the same pairing would decrease by 1%. If any given Turbo Token loses more than 90% of its value, the Turbo Token will be burned, and a new Turbo Token issued at a new price. Remaining funds will be credited to the customer’s account. Prices of the underlying cryptocurrencies are determined based on an aggregated feed of exchanges around the world, which ensures a smoother price calculation for movements in the value of Turbo Tokens. The price feed is available for each tick-by-tick update, so traders have full price transparency at any given moment, enabling them to make informed decisions about their positions. Turbo Tokens are ERC-20 tokens, with a total supply of one million units. They were created by a team of experts from Coin Marketplace Technologies’ Blockchain Lab and have successfully passed an external security audit from a leading firm in blockchain security. Managing Supply and Liquidity Turbo Tokens are managed by an in-house team with expertise in trading and algorithms. The team will have multiple responsibilities including market making, order book maintenance, and monitoring for price manipulation. They will also periodically sell new Turbo Tokens at allotted times, burn tokens if close-out is triggered, and continually assess risk on the underlying assets. The launch of Turbo Tokens puts DX.Exchange in a position to rival existing margin trading platforms including BitMEX, Bitfinex, and OKEx. Speaking of the launch, DX.Exchange CEO Daniel Skowronski said: Turbo Tokens will also be available for trading on other exchanges, which will be announced in due course. DX.Exchange is also developing a white label trading platform for Turbo Tokens, which is expected to be released towards the end of the year. About DX.Exchange DX.Exchangeis the first digital asset exchange offering the opportunity to trade in cryptocurrencies, digital stocks, security tokens, and now smart leveraged tokens, with cryptocurrency or fiat currency. DX is built on Nasdaq’s market-leading matching engine and market surveillance technology. DX.Exchange holds operating licenses with the Estonian Financial Intelligence Unit. License FVR000051 is for providing exchange services to exchange virtual currencies against fiat currencies. License number FRK000039 is for providing a virtual currency wallet service. With over 70 research and development engineers, the global team at DX.Exchange brings extensive experience in UI and financial technology. Contact: Dan Edelsteinpr@marketacross.com+972-545-464-238 SOURCE:DX.Exchange View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/551406/DXExchange-Launches-Smart-Leverage-Tokens-to-Allow-Margin-Trading-on-the-Blockchain || Winklevoss Twins Fortune Doubles in 2019 Reclaiming ‘Bitcoin Billionaire’ Status: Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, bitcoin (BTC) bulls and founders of theGeminicryptoexchange, have seen their fortune more than double to hit a combined $1.45 billion following the fresh crypto market surge. Bloombergreportedthe news on June 27. As early investors in bitcoin, the twins' wealth now stands at its highest since March 2018 and has soared 120% from $654 million as of January this year, Bloomberg claims. The current bitcoin bull-run has restored the twins to ‘bitcoin billionaires’ once again. As Bitcoin’s price ascent continues apace — surpassing the$13,000price mark in a matter of hours during yesterday, notwithstandingsubsequent falterings— commentators have been drawing parallels with the BTC’s historic bull run of winter 2017. In an email to Bloomberg, Qiao Wang — director of product at crypto data startupMessari— claimed that: “...confidence is certainly returning. The difference between now and the last time Bitcoin reached $13,000 is that the market is currently far more rational." Wang further proposed that the cryptocurrency’s strong performance is in part driven by macroeconomic and geopolitical developments, citing the devaluation of the Chinese yuan and the United States Federal Reserve’s anticipated pursuit of an expansionary monetary policy agenda as two cases in point. He noted: “Bitcoin is digital gold and a hedge against inflationary economic crises. If investors believe in this thesis, they should slowly accumulate Bitcoin and hold it for years to come. They should not go all-in or trade frequently.” As reported, the Gemini founders are now the subject of afresh biographydubbed “Bitcoin Billionaires: A True Story of Genius, Betrayal, and Redemption” — an allusion to their notorious and drawn-out settlement with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg over their part in the social media behemoth’s inception. Perhaps ironically, the trio’s paths are now set tointersectyet again, as Facebookunveiledits own, astrology-themed crypto venture, “Libra,” just weeks after the biography’s publication. • Mike Novogratz: Bitcoin Will Stabilize Between $10,000 and $14,000 • Winklevoss’ Gemini Exchange Launches Chicago Office to Serve as Engineering Hub • No, It’s Not Facebook: Bitcoin Price Already Up 200% in 2019 Before Libra • Google Searches for ‘Bitcoin’ Starting to Catch Up With $10K Euphoria || Mark Zuckerberg Stole Facebook, Now He’s Stealing Bitcoin: ByCCN Markets: One day Bitcoin will occupy the same corner of internet nostalgia occupied by Nikola Tesla. So it goes: were it not for Thomas Edison’s superior resources, influence and propaganda, we could all be running our laptops on Mr. Tesla’s free energy right now. Surveying the thunderous hype surrounding Facebook’s foray into the cryptocurrency game, one can’t quite shake the feeling that Mark Zuckerberg is in the process of pulling an Edison. The analogies between the story of Facebook’s foundation and that of the upcomingLibra/Facebucks are striking. Call it inspiration, theft, or skilled reselling, but when Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004, he was working with live clay. The groundwork of Facebook already existed in the Winklevii’s HarvardConnection/ConnectU. Zuckerberg reshaped it and sent it out to become the global juggernaut it is today – withlawsuits and settlementsin between. Here, Zuckerberg resembles McDonalds tycoon Ray Kroc – a man with better salesmanship than his colleagues, and no moral scruples about taking their ideas and running with them. Like Kroc, Zuckerberg did not yet have any of that wealth, power and influence which would soon come his way. Read the full story on CCN.com. || Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 30/07/19: Bitcoin Cash – ABC – Holds onto $300, for now… Bitcoin Cash ABC fell by 1.88% on Monday. Reversing a 1.72% gain from Sunday, Bitcoin Cash ABC ended the day at $304.78. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC strike an early morning intraday high $313 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $318.42, Bitcoin Cash ABC fell to a late morning intraday low $301.74. Steering clear of the first major support level at $296.94, Bitcoin Cash ABC managed to hit $312 levels before sliding back into the red. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was down by 0.34% to $303.76. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC fall to an early low $302.84 before hitting a high $303.76. Bitcoin Cash ABC left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the day ahead, a move through to $306.5 levels would support a run at the first major resistance level at $311.27. Bitcoin Cash ABC would need the support of the broader market, however, to break out from current levels. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Monday’s high $313 should limit any upside. Failure to move through to $306.5 levels could see Bitcoin Cash ABC struggle on the day. A fall through Monday’s low $301.74 would bring the first major support level at $300 into play. Barring a crypto meltdown, the second major support level at $295.25 should limit any downside on the day. Litecoin Hits Reverse Litecoin gained 0.14% on Monday. Following on from a 1.33% rise from Sunday, Litecoin ended the day at $90.24. A bullish start to the day saw Litecoin strike an early intraday high $92.44 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $92.98, Litecoin fell to a late morning intraday low $87.25. Steering well clear of the first major support level at $85.17, Litecoin recovered to a late $91.33 before easing back. At the time of writing, Litecoin was down by 1.17% to $89.18. A bearish start to the day saw Litecoin fall from a morning high $90.81 to a low $88.43 before finding support. Story continues Litecoin left the major support and resistance levels untested through the early hours. For the day ahead, a move through to $90 would support a run at the first major resistance level at $92.7. Litecoin would need the support of the broader market, however, to break out from $91 levels on the day. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, Monday’s high $92.44 and the first major resistance level at $92.7 should limit any upside. Failure to move through to $90 levels could see Litecoin struggle on the day. A fall back through the morning low $88.43 would bring the first major support level at $87.51 into play. Barring a crypto meltdown, Litecoin should steer well clear of the second major support level at $84.79. Ripple’s XRP stuck at sub-$0.31 Ripple’s XRP slipped by 0.51% on Monday. Partially reversing a 0.68% gain from Sunday, Ripple’s XRP ended the day at $0.30991. Tracking the broader market, Ripple’s XRP struck an early intraday high $0.31434 before taking a fall. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $0.3180, Ripple’s XRP fell to a late morning low $0.30610. Steering clear of the first major support level at $0.3018, Ripple’s XRP recovered to $0.31 levels before sliding to a late afternoon intraday low $0.3054. Ripple’s XRP managed to hold above the first major support level at $0.3018 and recover to $0.3099 levels to limit the downside on the day. At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down by 0.7% to $0.30774. A mixed start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP rise to a morning high $0.31067 before sliding to a low $0.30607. Ripple’s XRP steered clear of the major support and resistance levels early on. For the day ahead, a move back through to $0.31 levels would support a run at the first major resistance level at $0.3144. Ripple’s XRP would need the support of the broader market, however, to break out from this morning’s high $0.31067. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, Monday’s high $0.31434 and first major resistance level should cap any upside. Failure to move through to $0.31 levels could see Ripple’s XRP struggle through the day. A fall back through the morning low $0.30607 would bring the first major support level at $0.3054 into play. Barring a crypto meltdown, however, Ripple’s XRP should steer clear of sub-$0.30 levels on the day. The second major support level at $0.3009 would likely limit the downside in the event of an extended sell-off. Please let us know what you think in the comments below Thanks, Bob This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Pound Slumps to New Two-Year as No-Deal Brexit Fears Intensify NEO Technical Analysis – Support Levels in Play – 30/07/19 As Trade Talks Resume, Key Stats Puts the Dollar in Focus E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – July 30, 2019 Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Strong Core PCE Price Index Could Sink Gold Prices European Equities: Trade, Corporate Earnings and Stats in Focus || tZERO Patents Tech for Recording Trades on Public Blockchains: Security token trading platform tZERO has been awarded a patent for a way of recording trading data on public blockchains. The company, a subsidiary of retail giant Overstock,announcedTuesday that thepatentfor its new tech, dubbed “Time Ordered Merkle Epoch (TOME) methodology,” had been awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The firm explains: Related:Walmart Wants to Patent a Stablecoin That Looks a Lot Like Facebook Libra The technology will allow tZERO to record trades as hashes anchored on a public blockchain, verify previous trades and keep an immutable record of the transactions on its platform, according to the announcement. The method, tZERO CEO Saum Noursalehi said, “can be used in our suite of products, as well as licensed to companies across various industries that are seeking to maintain a tamper-proof and auditable record of time-series-based data.” It can also link the settlement of tokenized securities on a public blockchain with legacy trading systems and anchor data about the resulting on-chain settlements into public blockchains, the company said. Related:Overstock to Pay Shareholders a Dividend in tZERO-Listed ‘Digital Securities’ “For example, off-chain trade data and on-chain settlement data occurring on an Ethereum mainnet can be combined and anchored into the Bitcoin blockchain for added resiliency, security and transparency,” tZERO explained. TZERO,launchedfor trading in January, is designed as an alternative trading system (ATS), a limited version of a securities exchange to trading tokenized private equity. It started with its native equity token, tZERO Preferred (TZEROP), with ambitions to be an issuance platform for other companies that want to tokenize their securities. So far, the second token that was madeavailableon the platform is Overstock’s own digital stock, the Digital Voting Series A-1 Preferred Stock, previously known as Blockchain Voting Series A Preferred Stock, or OSTKP — an early blockchain experiment by Overstock issued back in 2016. The platform has so far seenmeager trading volumes, as only the accredited investors could register and only one token has been available to trade. However, this month, the lock-up period for TZEROP tokens (issued under Regulation D) expires, at which point retail investors will be allowed access to the asset. Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne previously told CoinDesk heexpected to see a boostin trading activity on tZERO after that point. On August 8, Overstock will conduct a Q2earnings callwhere the Overstock and tZERO leadership will share the company’s current state and future plans. The company has previouslywon a similar patentoutlining how it could merge legacy trading systems with cryptocurrencies and digital asset tech. Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne image via CoinDesk archives • Crypto Exchanges Are Benefiting from Algorithmic Trading: Here’s How • Coinbase Releases New Data Tools for ‘First-Time’ Crypto Investors || These Top 10 Altcoins Are Dropping Fast While Bitcoin Gains: It’s no secret that the Bitcoin price is gaining and gaining, but other coins up near the top have seen corrections as a result. Some coins automatically increase in value if they’re mostly traded against BTC. If traders feel uncomfortable with these new values, they can trade these downwards, which is precisely what’s happened in at least the following five top altcoin markets:EOS, BNB, XRP, LTC, and BSV. Hardest hit were Binance and Bitcoin SV, though likely for very different reasons. Binance Coinmay have been pushed further than it wanted to go by other markets, leading it to claw back a little. The recent resurgence in Bitcoin SV markets remains unexplained. Bitcoin SV was kicked off several major exchanges in recent times. That Bitcoin SV sees a moderate 14% correction isn’t surprising at all. It’d be surprising if it somehow came out stronger percentage-wise than others. Read the full story on CCN.com. || Facebook Reveals Revolutionary Cryptocurrency: The most visited social media website on earth just revealed its plan to launch its own blockchain-based cryptocurrency. The currency will be called Libra and will be managed by the new Facebook FB subsidiary, Calibra. Calibra’s digital wallet containing Libra is expected to be launched in Messenger, WhatsApp and as a standalone app in the first half of 2020. Cryptocurrencies across the board have been rallying hard in 2019, with Bitcoin gaining over 150% since the first of the year. Rumors of this colossal crypto’s launch have been circulating for months and now finally coming to fruition, fanning the crypto flame once again. The critical difference between Libra and other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and comparables is that Libra will be backed by a spectrum of international currencies and other investments. An asset-backed digital currency is a key component that I believe will turn crypto skeptics into believers. Being asset-backed will also give this currency stability and a level of security that no other crypto has been able to match. Facebook is partnering with some heavy-hitters in the financial sector including PayPal PYPL and MasterCard MA as well as tech titans Uber UBER and Spotify SPOT. This consortium of partners will help add to the legitimacy of the currency as well as its reach. Facebook currently has 2.375 billion monthly active users (MAU) or 57.5% of the world’s humans with internet access, which is a continuously growing figure. This extensive reach will give Libra proper exposure to achieve global traction. In a press release this morning, Facebook focused on how this new currency will benefit developing countries, quoting that “approximately 70% of small businesses in developing countries lack access to credit and $25 billion is lost by migrants every year through remittance fees.” They are anticipating that Libra will help to mitigate these issues. Take Away This new type of asset-back digital currency is going to change the way that investors and regulators view cryptocurrencies. Partnering with widely trusted financial service firms, PayPal and MasterCard adds to the perceived legitimacy of Libra. The crypto-craze that we saw peak at the end of 2017 might have just been the tip of the iceberg. Cryptocurrencies are making new 52-week highs but is Libra good or bad for the broader crypto market. In my eyes, Libra is bad news for the rest of digital currencies because at the end of the day only the most usable currencies will make it out alive. Libra will allow anyone with a cheap smartphone to have access to banking and the ability to use their funds with no more than a touch to their screen. The extensive international exposure, ostensible ease of use, and stability is expected to propel Libra’s usage beyond any crypto before it. This could be a huge step into the next generation of banking and digital finances. FB is up over 44% year-to-date despite regulatory issues involving privacy and the anti-trust probe that has been combing the tech space. Calibra is going to be set up as a nonprofit organization and it is still unclear how Facebook is planning on monetizing Libra, though I am sure it will involve transaction fees. Look for further updates on how this new currency is expected to affect FB’s financials. 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+98%,+119%and+164%in as little as 1 month. 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 reportFacebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis ReportPayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportMastercard Incorporated (MA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSpotify Technology SA (SPOT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportUber Technologies Inc. (UBER) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] You ought to Take your time to check this! The most gorgeous ever! #Shato || BITCOIN SMASHING RESISTANCE!! 📈 Alts to follow? Libra BIG UPDATE, P vs NP https://t.co/exohOflNMe via @YouTube || Get Free Bitcoin https://t.co/8Bx6tRjvX4 || @DELAZOO btc (bitcoin) jumped $1,000 today so yeah || @DaveCryptos @LLLuckyL @bitcoin_brown @arrangedchaos @BiT_SHaMaNi @colby_one @_RN03xx_ @CryptoSlimer @emmess21 @cryptobuffsaur @CryptoMach @Bullrun_Gravano @CryptoBrag @oddgems @CryptosBatman @scoinaldo @adrienv1520 @Dutch_Offspring @KyleMacLeanX 10k $BTC mothafackos! || The world's most widely traded #cryptocurrency dropped to a low of $11,346.85 Thursday morning — a more than $2,000 drop from where it was trading Wednesday. The plunge began at the same time as an outage on popular #bitcoin trading platform Coinbase. https://t.co/ynL1nOfX6q || La ‘revolución’ del || @Fxhedgers $BTC $100 Gazillion Could care less || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing &amp; Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || Great joy...... Get connected to earn great profits...... #bitcoins #bitcoin #blockchain #crypto #cryptocurrency #bitcoinmining #ethereum #btc #bitcoinnews #bitcoincash #litecoin #bitcoinprice #cryptocurrencies #money #eth #bitcoinexchange #bitcoinbillionaire #trading #coinbase https://t.co/y1oUZe5FRT
Trend: down || Prices: 10311.55, 10374.34, 10231.74, 10345.81, 10916.05, 10763.23, 10138.05, 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96
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 2019-08-19] BTC Price: 10916.05, BTC RSI: 52.13 Gold Price: 1500.40, Gold RSI: 66.92 Oil Price: 56.21, Oil RSI: 51.72 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] How a company is screening public spaces without exposing sensitive details: The summer vacation season means lots of travel — and long lines at airport security checkpoints and other events. However, people being screened sometimes fear that, in airports and other public spaces, theirintimate body detailsare being exposed by advanced technology. U.K.-based Thruvision, whose screening technology wasrecently contracted by the State Departmenthas deployed 200 of its people screening technologies at major transportation hubs worldwide. That includes Los Angeles World Airports which manages LAX and LA Metro airports. Earlier this year, Thruvision was asked by the TSA to update its full-body scanning technology to address certain privacy concerns,according to The L.A. Times. Yet Kevin Gramer, Americas vice president of Thruvision insisted on “YFi PM” that the company’s technology safeguards travelers’ privacy. “As technology evolves to address the evolving threat, our technology is a safe and effective people screening technology,” Gramer said “We maintain a safe and respectful piece on that so we’re not seeing any anatomical details,” he added— even as the tech is able to pick up potential weapons. Thruvision’s screening units can be fixed at various locations, depending on the environment. “We can deploy them on the ceiling, on the walls, in tactical deployment system, so they’re very flexible from a deployment standpoint,” Gramer said. That may alarm some over privacy concerns, but Gramer insisted the onus is on the user. In public spaces, venues are required to disclose monitoring technologies. “Our technology is agnostic to the event,” Gramer said. The people screener uses passive terahertz (THz) technology that measures energy from the body, and the items that blocks that energy shows up on the scan. It not only detects metal objects, it can also pick up non-metallic threats, such as 3D printed guns and explosives, from up to 25 feet away. The tech can be fixed at a covert location. “We look at powders, plastics, liquids, gels, ceramics, all the items a metal detector would not normally catch,” Gramer said. Grete Suarez is producer at Yahoo Finance for YFi PM and The Ticker. Follow her on Twitter:@GreteSuarez Read more: • Bigger than the Kardashians: Bitcoin searches top Kim K, study says • 'Canopy is playing the long game': MGO-ELLO CEO • Wyndham Destinations preps for record summer as US vacationers eye local travel • Amazon drone delivery is still ‘a couple years out,’ drone CEO says Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,SmartNews,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit. || Analyst: Revolve Is Capitalizing On The Influencer Revolution: Bank of America Merrill Lynch has initiated coverage onthe newly publicRevolve Group LLC(NYSE:RVLV) The Analyst Justin Postinitiated coverage of Revolve with a Neutral rating and $36 price target. The Thesis "Revolve offers an aspirational consumer experience in women’s fashion powered by [a] data focused-merchandising approach," Post said in the Tuesday initiation note. (See his track record here.) BofA is constructive on the online retailer's long-term fundamentals on the basis of brand equity, data-focused inventory curation, healthy user growth and positive marketing spend ROI, the analyst said. BofA does not anticipate large revenue upside surprises in 2019, and with the stock up 82% from the IPO price, views the stock as being close to fairly valued. Amid the social media fashion influencer revolution, Revolve should be the top beneficiary of the movement, as it's cultivated a network of over 3,500 influencers alongside multiple marketing events to support the brand, Post said. Revolve’s strong brand and merchandising generates a positive ROI on marketing spend on the first transaction, which is unique in the e-commerce sector, the analyst said. The company has a profitable business model, with a 7.5% operating income margin expected in 2019, he said. Revolve has attractive growth prospects, but they come with high expectations, Post said. Price Action Revolve shares were down 0.6% at $34.58 at the time of publication Wednesday.Related Links: Wall Street Positive On Stitch Fix Despite Tough Apparel Retail Backdrop IPO Outlook For The Week: Biotech, Real Estate, IT Solutions And Secondhand Luxury E-Tail Latest Ratings for RVLV [{"Jul 2019": "Jul 2019", "": "", "Initiates Coverage On": "Initiates Coverage On", "Buy": "Overweight"}, {"Jul 2019": "Jul 2019", "": "", "Initiates Coverage On": "Initiates Coverage On", "Buy": "Outperform"}] View More Analyst Ratings for RVLVView the Latest Analyst Ratings See more from Benzinga • Cramer: Libra Digital Currency Is Transformational For Facebook • Carter Worth Sees The Bitcoin Pullback As A Buying Opportunity • 'Fast Money' Traders Weigh In On McDonald's, Chipotle And More © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin’s Stunning Growth Makes it Investable, Admits Legendary Hedge Fund Manager: Mark Mobius, an emerging markets fund manager and the founder of Mobius Capital Partners, said that if bitcoin continues to grow at the current rate, he would consider investing in the dominant crypto asset. Earlier this month, Mobius said that every portfolio needs to hold ten percent of gold to hedge against the global economy and the performance of the equities market. On Bloomberg Daybreak: Middle East, Mobius said that despite the presence of geopolitical risks as a result of the U.S.-China trade dispute, investors should be exploring both stocks and gold. During the interview, Mobius said that bitcoin, at the current juncture of growth, is not necessarily viable as a store of value but if it grows, it would have to be a buyer and become involved in the market. He said: I’m not a buyer but I realize that it is something we have to account for. The reason why i am not a buyer is that i don’t know what the real value is and unless it is so widely held and accepted then that’s a different story. Let’s face it: all currencies are based on faith. If you have faith in the dollar or faith in the renminbi or faith in the euro, whatever it is, then you can use it. || Watch Today’s Facebook Libra Hearing at the House Financial Services Committee: Today the U.S. House Financial Services Committee will grill Facebook executive David Marcus on the social media giant’s proposed Libra cryptocurrency. The lawmakers will also interview a panel of expert witnesses, including former CFTC chairman Gary Gensler and bitcoin doyenne Meltem Demirors. The session kicks off at 14:00 UTC (10 a.m. EST). Watch it here: Related: Ex-CFTC Advisor: Facebook’s Libra Could Be Both Security and Commodity Also, read our coverage of yesterday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing, where mentions of bitcoin were noticeably scarce and Marcus said he’d be willing to be paid 100 percent in Libra. Join CoinDesk in Washington, D.C., tonight for an evening of instant analysis and reaction as cryptocurrencies and Libra have their day on the Hill. Sign up here . Image via Shutterstock Related Stories Bitcoin Noticeably Absent From Senate Hearing on Facebook’s Libra Cuba Libra? Island Nation Slowly Explores Cryptocurrency Options German Finance Minister: Facebook Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Compete With the Euro || Crypto Gamers Are Showing Little Interest in Decentralized NFTs: A new report on the nascent ecosystem of blockchain-based games indicates that one of the model’s most-trumpeted characteristics — the ability to mix and swap data between games – isn’t panning out. The idea of cross-overs between games isn’t exactly new. Series like Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers perhaps best exemplify this approach, with familiar characters coming together in one game. But those characters are all under Nintendo’s control — and it’s this area that blockchain games promise a new paradigm , in which a player’s hard-earned progress could be utilized in one game and, as they choose, moved to another. Indeed, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures wrote late last month about how anchoring intellectual property in games to a blockchain allows for “extensibility” in a recent post about Dapper Labs, the company behind CryptoKitties and Cheese Wizards , the company’s new tournament game . Related: Coders Are Trying to Connect Bitcoin’s Lightning Network to Ethereum He wrote: “Imagine if developers could build new worlds/games/experiences on top of Fortnite and you could take your character, your weapons, your vehicles, etc with you into those new worlds/games/experiences.” But this “extensibility” doesn’t seem to be happening – at least, not yet – according to the data that’s available thus far. Researchers for NonFungible.com have found that, generally speaking, most players in the non-fungible token (NFT) space have only tried one game so far this year. That is to say, many collectors of NFTs or gamers don’t experiment beyond their first experience. Graphic from NonFungible.com’s report on player behavior. Used by permission. What the data is saying Related: PUBG Players Can Get Crypto Rewards for Winning Games This Summer In two reports published in the past month, the company conducted an analysis of on chain activity for the top 13 NFT games between January 1 to June 30 of this year. The most recent report came out last Tuesday . It analyzed on chain gaming transactions over the course of the year (meaning actual activity that needs to be logged on a blockchain, such as minting a token, interacting with another token or other game specific mechnanics) and found that 91 percent of wallets have only interacted with one game since January. Story continues The largest game, CryptoKitties , was also a pretty isolated game, with 81 percent of its players this year only playing that one game. Even for the least isolated games ( Chainbreakers , Etherbots and Neon District ), 40 to 45 percent of players in 2019 only played that one of those games. The largest single group of overlapping users covered by the report are those that hold both CryptoKitties and Axie Infinity , the latter of which is similar to the popular Nintendo game Pokemon. Similarly, the prior report that came out July 23 – which analyzed purchases of NFTs — found that 90.1 percent of users in that time period made trades on only one NFT game. This latter data point is perhaps the most surprising, because of the speculative association with cryptocurrencies and digital tokens. One would naturally assume that any buyer who decided to get some exposure to one NFT would hedge that bet by purchasing others as well, so their portfolio had a better shot at holding the gaming token that really caught the mainstream imagination. Unsurprisingly, the project that has had the broadest crossover effect has been the one with the most holders overall. CryptoKitties has more users who have tried other NFT games than any other community, but it’s still a small portion. Too early to tell? The home video gaming console has a history that goes back to 1967 . The point being: it takes a while for new gaming formats to take hold. David Pakman, a partner at Venrock, a longstanding venture firm, told CoinDesk in an email that the team behind CryptoKitties found that it had an extremely high proportion of new crypto users in its community. “Which is why we believe gaming is one potential crypto use case that can bring mainstream crypto adoption,” he wrote. But it won’t happen instantaneously, he said, because “gaming, in general, is a very large and non-homogenous space.” Margeurite deCourcelle cautioned that this space is only just finding its footing and it is also not just a gamer’s sector. deCourcelle, CEO of Blockade Games (which created Neon District, a multiplayer role-playing game), told CoinDesk: “Since NFTs are used for all types of products ranging from digital art, game assets, digital real estate or even more abstract assets, the technology is fostering a diverse user base. The report captures that people are collecting and buying NFTs that are more inline with their user-type and not just for generalized NFT collecting.” Patrick Rieger, CEO of Decentralized Concepts, the creators of Everdragons (a gaming platform that uses a shared universe of NFT characters) agreed with this point. “For the effects of digital scarcity to catch on in a large scale, good tools for developers and end users are essential. Even if this will take a few more years, we see a bright future for NFTs,” he said. Rieger also noted that we might not really be seeing a complete picture of the game space by limiting the analysis to on chain transactions. There’s ways to work around the network, and many games make use of it in order to make playing easier. For example, Gods Unchained , a collectible card game on ethereum, doesn’t actually log cards on the world computer unless a player specifically decides to do so and activates them. This presumably saves costs for the sort of player who has no intention to take cards out of the play space. Similarly, MLB Champions takes advantage of similar technological workarounds to improve user experience. “Our games all deploy an Ethereum virtualization layer called Scarcity Engine that allows new players to jump into the games without ETH or Metamask,” said Randy Saaf, CEO of Lucid Sight, a game shop that has made a number of other games as well, including a second NFT game called Crypto Space Commander . Saaf also noted: “The conclusion that [there is] less than 10 percent of overlap between various blockchain games seems correct to us. More people choose the game they want to play based on traditional genres they have enjoyed and blockchain is a value-add feature vs a smaller group of players who just want to play blockchain stuff.” Graphic from NonFungible.com’s report on traders. Used by permission. Analog precedent But while the data suggests that the extensibility aspects of token-based games aren’t being taken advantage of, there’s precedent in the analog for this type of behavior. Take Magic: The Gathering, the best-known collectible card game. Its creators, Wizards of the Coast, defined the basic game, but over time players came up with new games and formats that modify that original system. Most of these developments came about in a grassroots fashion, meaning that the players themselves were responsible for their popularity. The cards are physical things. There’s no way for code to stop players from using them in different ways. In fact, the traditional deck of playing card has been spinning out new games since the 14th century. But the NFT world has made a promise that we don’t really see even in analog gaming: mixing two analog games (such as taking the pieces from Monopoly and Sorry and creating a whole new game). That’s what NFT proponents appear to be hoping for, though. Take for example CryptoKitties’ forays into digital real estate and collectible card gaming . But Finzer noted that some games are meant for such interactions, such as Chainbreakers and Cryptobeasties , which have been built from the beginning to rely on Decentraland , a virtual world where land ownership is defined by token possession. If those take off, Finzer contends, users will start to catch on. If nothing else, Finzer foresees a kind of economic crossover that will at least improve everyone’s user experience, even if it doesn’t yield new games. When a gamer grows tired of a game, they will be able to trade their accumulated assets from one game with other gamers for stuff they do want in the next game they want to play. “Our vision and hypothesis in starting OpenSea was there would be liquidity bleedover across these projects,” Finzer told CoinDesk. Cheeze Wizards imagery courtesy of Dapper Labs Related Stories Reddit Co-Founder Ohanian Leads $3.75 Million Round in ‘Hearthstone’ Competitor Kleiner Perkins, Galaxy Invest in EOS Blockchain-Based Gaming Startup || Bitfinex Swears It’s Trying Super Hard to Block US Bitcoin Traders: Beset with allegations that it is flouting regulations by allowing US bitcoin traders to access its platform, cryptocurrency exchange giantBitfinexpromised that it’s tryingsuper hardto stop that from happening. In anofficial announcement published on Friday, Bitfinex confirmed a report fromThe Blockthat a New York resident had managed to open an account called “ImaNYresident.” After sneakily evading Bitfinex’s security restrictions – read: checking a box that says they pinky-swear they’re not a US resident – ImaNYresident was able to use the bitcoin exchange freely. It’s not a good look for Bitfinex, which hascome under legal scrutinyfor allegedly serving US bitcoin traders. The New York Attorney General claims that Bitfinex, along with stablecoin issuerTether, has offered unlicensed cryptocurrency services to New York residents up to and including 2019. But the firm promises it’s working super-duper hard to keep its exchange squeaky-clean: “we remind United States persons that they are not welcome on our platform,” the announcement read. Read the full story on CCN.com. || Bitcoin Price Tops $10K for First Time Since 2018: Bitcoin’s price soared above $10,000 on cryptocurrency exchanges for the first time in 15 months. The price hopped the $10K barrier at 7:35pm Eastern Time. At press time, the top cryptocurrency by market capitalization is trading at $$10,080.49 – the highest level since March 8, 2018 – representing month-to-date gains in excess of 13 percent, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index . On a 24-hour basis, BTC is outshining most top 10 cryptocurrencies with 7 percent gains. The price rise is backed by a 12 percent jump in trading volumes. As per data source CoinMarketCap, $21 billion worth of bitcoins have traded across cryptocurrency exchanges in the last 24 hours. Messari , however, is reporting the “Real 10” volume at $1.4 billion. Related: Where to Find the Rising Stars of Bitcoin’s Developer Community With the move above $10,000, bitcoin has erased more than 40 percent of the sell-off seen in twelve months to December 2018. Further, prices look set to end the second quarter with triple-digit gains. As of writing, BTC is up more than 130 percent on a quarter-to-date basis. Halving on the horizon Looking forward, BTC may continue to shine bright as the cryptocurrency is set to undergo mining reward halving sometime in May 2020. The process designed to curb inflation by reducing the reward for mining on bitcoin’s blockchain is repeated every four years and leads to supply deficit. Related: Wright Has Not Disclosed Full Bitcoin Holdings Per Court Order, Says Plaintiff’s Representation The upcoming reward halving may leave a bigger supply deficit if Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra ends up boosting bitcoin’s appeal and adoption rate as predicted by some observers. On Tuesday, the social media giant launched the white paper to mixed reviews with pundits it a net positive development for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. While bitcoin’s long-term prospects look bright, the cryptocurrency may see a pullback in the short-term. After all, prices have rallied more than 140 percent in the last 2.5-months and bulls usually take a breather following such stellar gains. Story continues Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing Hot air balloon image via Shutterstock; charts by TradingView Related Stories Bitcoin Price Eyes $10K After Erasing 40% of Bear Market Drop At-Home Crypto Miner Coinmine Now Pays Out Bitcoin || UPDATE 1-NY financial regulator approves Bakkt trust license: (Adds details of statement, notice from ICE Futures, Bakkt comments, byline) By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Bakkt Trust Co LLC has been granted a license to operate as a limited liability trust company, the New York State Department of Financial Services said on Friday. Bakkt is a cryptocurrency platform affiliate of Intercontinental Exchange Inc, which also owns the New York Stock Exchange. A trust company is technically different from a bank in New York but can take deposits and make loans, and act as an agent for government bodies. A limited liability trust company must maintain significant capital reserves consistent with those of a premier fiduciary business, market participants said. In a statement, DFS said it has authorized Bakkt to provide custody services for bitcoin in conjunction with the launch of physically delivered bitcoin futures contracts. Bakkt will serve institutional customers and its bitcoin futures contracts will be listed for trading on ICE Futures US and cleared through ICE Clear US, the DFS said. Both entities are affiliates of Bakkt. DFS has so far approved 22 charters or licenses for companies in the virtual currency marketplace. In a statement, Bakkt Chief Operating Officer Adam White said the trust license enables the company "to offer institutional-grade custody via the Bakkt Warehouse alongside the federally regulated Bakkttm Bitcoin Futures contracts." In a notice on Friday, ICE Futures US announced it will list the new Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) monthly and Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) daily futures contracts for trading on Sept. 23. The crypto-platform earlier faced regulatory delays since ICE announced plans for the new venture last August. Exchange operators CME Group Inc and Cboe Global Markets Inc already offer bitcoin futures in the United States, though Cboe's last contract settles this month and has not been renewed. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Richard Chang) View comments || Australia ETF is Hot, But Run Faces Challenges: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Up more than 17% year-to-date, the iShares MSCI Australia ETF ( EWA ) is one of the best-performing single-country exchange traded funds tracking a developed market outside the U.S. Thanks to comparatively high interest rates, Australia ETFs like EWA sport enticing dividend yields, which can help investors generate current income while expanding the international portions of their portfolios. EWA has a trailing 12-month dividend yield of 5.11%, or more than double the comparable yield on the S&P 500. All of that sounds nice and it is, but some market observers have differing opinions regarding the ability of Australian stocks to continue running higher this year. “Analysts are divided on where Australian stocks will go after this year’s epic rally. Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management gave more reasons for bulls to cheer, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it’s looking elsewhere for gain,” according to Bloomberg . Examining EWA ETF The $1.43 billion EWA tracks the MSCI Australia Index and holds 69 stocks. The fund allocates 37.37% of its weight to the financial services sector, more than double its second-largest sector weight, which is materials . “The nation’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index has surged 18% so far in 2019, and Citi doesn’t see it slowing down. Expectations for Australian interest rates to decline over the next 12 months are likely to drive the nation’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index to a record high next year, analysts led by Tony Brennan wrote in a June 19 note,” reports Bloomberg. Australia’s economic growth is expected to be solid and above the average rate forecast for other AAA-rated countries. “Morgan Stanley is also feeling positive. Analysts raised Australia’s equity market to mildly overweight from underweight on the nation’s ability to weather a global economic slowdown,” according to Bloomberg. Still, Australian stocks have some naysayers, including Goldman Sachs, which recently downgraded stocks there to underweight. Story continues “Goldman Sachs doesn’t agree. Even with Australian equities’ strong showing this year, several warning signs led Goldman 'to favor fading this outperformance in favor of the north Asian markets,' analysts led by Timothy Moe wrote in a June 25 report,” according to Bloomberg. For more tactical investing ideas, please visit our tactical allocation 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 Facebook Libra: Weighing The Pros And Cons As Bitcoin Surges Past $13K, Calls to Embrace Crypto Grow GLDM Marks One Year Anniversary Today, Leads Gold-Backed ETF Flows ROBO Global Healthcare Technology ETF Debuts on NYSE Gold And Silver Rally On Unusual Options Activity READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Should Investors Buy Nvidia Stock Prior to NVDA’s Earnings?: Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA ), the premiere graphics-chip maker, is expected to report its second-quarter earnings on Aug. 15 after the market closes.  Semiconductor stocks, including Nvidia stock, are among the equities that have been the hardest hit by the recent selloff. Why Investors Should Be Cautious About Nvidia (NVDA) Stock Source: Shutterstock Despite the recent slide of Nvidia stock price, it might still be too early to get back into NVDA, given its short-term risks that make it a highly volatile investment. In other words, I recommend investors wait for several weeks before buying Nvidia stock. What Wall Street Will Look For in Nvidia’s Earnings NVDA sells t wo main product s: graphics processing units (GPU) and Tegra processors .  GPUs accelerate central processing units (CPUs), boosting the performance of video and graphics and improving computers’ overall output. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips 10 Stocks to Buy on the Trade War Dip When NVDA reports its Q2 results, Wall Street will pay attention to its five segments that drive its revenues: gaming, data center, professional visualization, automotive, and edge computing. Gaming accounts for over 40% of Nvidia’s total revenue. In Q1, the unit’s revenue tumbled 39% year-over-year. Investors are quite worried about the company’s growth outlook , which is mostly based on its GPUs for gaming and artificial-intelligence servers. Nvidia’s EPS and Nvidia stock price are very closely linked to the sales trends of its GPUs. Investors will also want to hear management’s take on the impact of cryptocurrency mining on NVDA going forward. In recent years,  Nvidia stock price has been largely driven by the popularity of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. However, analysts have noted that the crypto craze , which for the most part waned in 2018, can no longer be relied upon to further boost Nvidia’s GPU business. Indeed, NVDA’s fall from grace started with the collapse of the cryptocurrency craze. The collapse has dealt a blow to the top and bottom lines of NVDA. Story continues Wall Street is also concerned that NVDA’s automotive business, based on the advent of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered autonomous vehicles, may suffer in coming months. Currently, automotive is the smallest of all of NVDA segments, accounting for just over 5% of its revenue. NVDA Faces Competition From AMD For years, NVDA  has been a leader in the competitive graphics-card market. However, in recent months  the battle for market share between Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD ) in that segment has intensified. Long regarded as the perennial runner-up to NVDA. AMD reported its Q2 earnings on July 24. The next day, Nvidia stock price fell meaningfully, indicating that the owners of Nvidia stock are increasingly paying attention to AMD’s earnings. For years, NVDA’s chips had been dominant in PCs. However, a higher percentage of  video  games are being played on consoles now, and NVDA’s GPUs aren’t usually incorporated into consoles. Sony (NYSE: SNE ) is, for example, using AMD’s products in its consoles. In this quarter, AMD is expected to start selling its Navi graphics cards that utilize its 7-nanometer (nm) chips . They are touted as highly power-efficient. As AMD launches its Navi cards, it’s confident that its GPUs will take market share from NVDA in the video-game chip sector. Responding to AMD’s new products, Nvidia’s management has taken several steps. Specifically, NVDA has launched new “Super” versions of its RTX  GPR offerings. These new versions are considerably faster than their predecessors. But NVDA is selling its new chips at the same prices as its old ones, effectively cutting its prices. AMD has responded by reducing its own prices, making investors wonder if either chip maker will  end up in good shape. NVDA Stock Technical Charts Are Signalling More Volatility Over the past year, Nvidia stock price is down about 40%, and the shares have been quite volatile. As a result, the technical outlook of NVDA stock has been damaged. Its short-term  chart still looks weak, and Nvidia stock price looks poised to drop even more in the near-term. Although NVDA’s momentum indicators, which describe the speed at which stock prices move over a given time period, are currently in oversold territory, they can stay oversold for quite a long time. That’s particularly true when, as is the case with NVDA,  a stock’s overall trend is down. Therefore, more buy signals based on momentum indicators need to be confirmed  before Nvidia stock can become  a buy from a technical standpoint. I would suggest that long-term investors wait until Nvidia stock builds a base between $150 and its Dec. 2018 low of $125. On the other hand, if the current trade tensions are swiftly resolved or NVDA reports strong earnings,  Nvidia stock price could rebound quickly. The Bottom Line on Nvidia Stock Given the volatility of  Nvidia stock price over the past year due to the ongoing questions about the fundamentals of NVDA and its sector, I would urge investors to be cautious about NVDA stock. The U.S.-China trade war has not helped NVDA, either, as China accounts for nearly a quarter of Nvidia’s sales. The headwinds of the sector make many analysts wonder whether NVDA can, in the near future, regain the kind of rapid and sustained growth that investors had grown used to in recent years. Although Nvidia stock will likely reward long-term investors, tech stocks may remain volatile over the next few weeks. A couple of negative macro  or global news headlines as well as questionable earnings results from NVDA on Aug. 15, may drive Nvidia stock price down.  If that occurs,  long-term investors will be given a better entry point in Nvidia stock. As of this writing, Tezcan Gecgil did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid 10 Stocks to Buy on the Trade War Dip The 5 Highest-Rated Dow Stocks Right Now 4 Cybersecurity Stocks to Buy for Long-Term Gains The post Should Investors Buy Nvidia Stock Prior to NVDA’s Earnings? appeared first on InvestorPlace . [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] "Google prohibits the promotion of counterfeit goods. Counterfeit goods contain a trademark or logo that is identical to or substantially indistinguishable from the trademark of another." 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Check out: https://t.co/kUyTm6S8J5 Great, huh? https://t.co/VMjNTL2I4F https://t.co/gf76HG3iBr || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing &amp; Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || @Ideias_Radicais É tipo taxista fazendo protesto contra o avanço do Uber. Simplesmente não tem mais como parar. A revolução Bitcoin já começou. #tothemoon #bitcoin #forkthebanks
Trend: down || Prices: 10763.23, 10138.05, 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20
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 2018-02-07] BTC Price: 7621.30, BTC RSI: 31.94 Gold Price: 1311.60, Gold RSI: 43.81 Oil Price: 61.79, Oil RSI: 42.31 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] This Grim Chart Shows Why Ford's Fusion Is in Danger: Ford Motor Company(NYSE: F)said its 2017 U.S. sales fell 1.1% from a year ago despite strong results for its trucks and SUVs, because of a big decline in demand for sedans -- particularly its once-popular Fusion. Ford's U.S. sales in December were up about 1% from a year ago on strong truck demand. That beat the average 1.8% decline expected by analysts polled by Bloomberg. Ford's December gain was also ahead of results from rivalsGeneral Motors(NYSE: GM),Fiat Chrysler Automobiles(NYSE: FCAU), andToyota Motor Corporation(NYSE: TM), all of which posted year-over-year sales declines for the month. Ford added a 325-horsepower Sport model to the Fusion lineup for 2017, part of a larger revamp intended to boost sales. It didn't help: U.S. sales of the Fusion fell 21% last year, calling the model's future into question. Image source: Ford Motor Company. Ford's story in 2017 reflected the market's overall story: At this point in the economic cycle, sales of trucks and SUVs are still growing somewhat, but overall sales are softening. And sales of cars -- coupes and sedans -- are down significantly, as more buyers are migrating to car-based crossover SUVs. For Ford, that means new sales records to celebrate for some SUV models, and another year of sales growth for its huge-selling (and hugely profitable) F-Series pickup family. But it also means the company is taking a hard look at its lineup of sedan models -- and some may not be around for much longer. Why not? Take a look. [{"Vehicles": "Ford cars", "Dec. 2017 vs Dec. 2016": "(3.5%)", "Full year 2017 vs. 2016": "(14.9%)"}, {"Vehicles": "- Ford Fusion", "Dec. 2017 vs Dec. 2016": "(8.8%)", "Full year 2017 vs. 2016": "(21.1%)"}, {"Vehicles": "Ford SUVs", "Dec. 2017 vs Dec. 2016": "10.3%", "Full year 2017 vs. 2016": "3.1%"}, {"Vehicles": "Ford F-Series pickups", "Dec. 2017 vs Dec. 2016": "2.1%", "Full year 2017 vs. 2016": "9.3%"}, {"Vehicles": "Total Ford brand", "Dec. 2017 vs Dec. 2016": "1.9%", "Full year 2017 vs. 2016": "(1.1%)"}, {"Vehicles": "Lincoln cars", "Dec. 2017 vs Dec. 2016": "(25.5%)", "Full year 2017 vs. 2016": "(2.9%)"}, {"Vehicles": "Lincoln SUVs", "Dec. 2017 vs Dec. 2016": "(12%)", "Full year 2017 vs. 2016": "0.9%"}, {"Vehicles": "Total Lincoln brand", "Dec. 2017 vs Dec. 2016": "(17%)", "Full year 2017 vs. 2016": "(0.5%)"}, {"Vehicles": "Total Ford Motor Company", "Dec. 2017 vs Dec. 2016": "0.9%", "Full year 2017 vs. 2016": "(1.1%)"}] Data source: Ford Motor Company. There's some good news in those numbers: • Sales of the F-Series pickup line rose 9.3% to almost 900,000 trucks sold, making 2017 Ford's best year for full-size pickup sales since 2005. As Ford was happy to note, the F-Series has now been America's best-selling pickup line for 41 consecutive years. • Ford sold almost 800,000 SUVs in the U.S. last year, an all-time record. That includes all-time sales records for the Edge and Escape SUVs, and the Explorer's best year since 2003. • The Lincoln luxury brand held its own for the year, despite growing weakness in the overall luxury-vehicle market. But the news wasn't good at all for Ford's sedans: • Sales of the Fusion sedan, which just a few years ago was selling so well that Ford invested in a second assembly line to boost production, were down 21% in 2017. • The Fusion's sales decline was the most extreme, but there were no bright spots in Ford's car lineup: All Ford-brand car models posted declines in U.S sales for the year. It's becoming clear that Ford's senior management is debating the future of most of its car models, At least some of them are likely to be discontinued, at least in the United States, while Ford appears to be looking for ways to improve profitability of the others. Which ones will disappear? Consider this: Ford launched anall-new Taurus in Chinain 2016 and anall-new Fiesta in Europein 2017, but it apparently has no plans to build either car for the North American markets. Ford has also said that the C-Max hybrid will be discontinued here after production ends later this year. It's likely that all three will be gone before long. That would leave the Focus, the Fusion, and the Mustang as Ford's only car models for the U.S. The Mustang, an important and profitable brand-builder for the company, isn't in danger of going away any time soon. But Ford has said that thenext-generation Focus will be built in China-- and plans for the Fusionseem to be up in the airat the moment. It's possible that Ford will redesign the Fusion in a way that makes it more profitable and more appealing as an alternative to an SUV, perhaps by making it a bit larger and offering more upscale option packages. But I suspect that while Ford appears to be actively debating the Fusion's future, it hasn't settled on a plan yet. I should note that technically, Ford's car lineup also includes the hyper-expensive GT sports car. Ford has said that production of the GT will be limited to a total of 1,000, and it's already scheduled to end in 2020. Ford sold a total of 89 GTs in the U.S. in 2017; 9 in December. In stark contrast to its sedans, Ford's F-Series pickups had a great year in 2017: Sales rose 9.3%. Image source: Ford Motor Company. At the same time Ford is moving to prune its U.S. car lineup, it's also working on new SUV models. Several are in the works, including at least a couple that will be additions to the current lineup, rather than replacements. And Ford is also adding (or re-adding) a pickup -- the midsize Ranger, which will go into production late this year at the Michigan factory that currently builds the Focus and C-Max. On top of all that, I expect Ford to continue its recent practice of adding upscale trims and, on models like the Mustang, high-profit limited-edition variants to help boost overall profitability of its existing models. Long story short: Trucks, SUVs, upscale models, and performance vehicles are selling well and generating big profits for Ford. Expect investments in those market segments -- and cutbacks in others. 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 Rosevearowns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || The 10 Best Country ETFs of 2017: International investing can be tricky for U.S. investors. Some foreign companies list their shares on U.S. stock exchanges, but many -- including some of the largest businesses on the planet -- aren't available on the New York or Nasdaq Stock Exchanges. For those who don't want to go to the trouble of inquiring about getting access to foreign stock exchanges,international exchange-traded fundsoffer an easier path into overseas markets. The iShares line of ETFs has made international investing a specialty. Investors can find more than 60 different funds that are oriented toward single countries, many of which performed extremely well in 2017. The following funds had the top returns last year, and they reveal a lot about what the latest trends in international investing are. [{"ETF": "iShares MSCI India Small-Cap(NYSEMKT: SMIN)", "Assets Under Management": "$341 million", "Expense Ratio": "0.75%", "2017 Return": "62%"}, {"ETF": "iShares MSCI Germany Small-Cap", "Assets Under Management": "$74 million", "Expense Ratio": "0.59%", "2017 Return": "57%"}, {"ETF": "iShares MSCI China(NASDAQ: MCHI)", "Assets Under Management": "$3.12 billion", "Expense Ratio": "0.62%", "2017 Return": "53%"}, {"ETF": "iShares MSCI Poland", "Assets Under Management": "$383 million", "Expense Ratio": "0.63%", "2017 Return": "53%"}, {"ETF": "iShares MSCI Austria", "Assets Under Management": "$279 million", "Expense Ratio": "0.49%", "2017 Return": "53%"}, {"ETF": "iShares MSCI Brazil Small-Cap", "Assets Under Management": "$78 million", "Expense Ratio": "0.62%", "2017 Return": "51%"}, {"ETF": "iShares MSCI South Korea(NYSEMKT: EWY)", "Assets Under Management": "$4.31 billion", "Expense Ratio": "0.62%", "2017 Return": "44%"}, {"ETF": "iShares MSCI Chile(NYSEMKT: ECH)", "Assets Under Management": "$578 million", "Expense Ratio": "0.62%", "2017 Return": "43%"}, {"ETF": "iShares MSCI Turkey", "Assets Under Management": "$376 million", "Expense Ratio": "0.62%", "2017 Return": "37%"}, {"ETF": "iShares MSCI India(NYSEMKT: INDA)", "Assets Under Management": "$5.64 billion", "Expense Ratio": "0.68%", "2017 Return": "36%"}] Data source: ETFdb.com. Those who've followed country ETFs over the years have seen the space evolve dramatically. At first, the focus among most investors was on developed nations. Even now, iShares has more assets in its Japan fund than in its next three largest ETFs combined, and Germany also remains a favorite pick among country-fund investors. The rise of emerging markets in the early 2000s started to turn the tide, spurring the fund manager to create new funds offering exposure to those increasingly important foreign markets. Brazil, India, and China attracted huge numbers of investors. Over the years, emerging markets performed quite well, rewarding those investors who jumped in early. Yet more recently, those looking at international stocks have sought new ways to invest, and some of the best returns have come from newly explored niches. Within larger foreign markets, small-cap stocks have gained notoriety, in large part because market capitalization-weighted index funds have tended to ignore these smaller stocks in the past. At the same time, smaller economies like Austria, Chile, Poland, and Turkey have attracted attention from investors wanting opportunities in lesser-followed markets. Image source: Getty Images. The fact that India shows up twice on this list deserves particular notice. The Indian economy has unmatched potential in the world, largely because it has the largest population of any country in which English is a primary language. Although China gets most of the publicity as the most populous nation on Earth and with a long history of strong growth rates, current projections from the U.N.'s economic affairs department show that India will likely become the fastest-growing economy in the world in the near future. India offers plenty of solid large-cap investment prospects, including leaders in the banking, manufacturing, and technology. Yet as the results from 2017 show, some of the smaller companies in the Indian economy are taking even greater advantage of favorable conditions there. With a government in place that has demonstrated a business-friendly set of policies, India could see sustained gains for years to come. Key trends like an increased appetite for small-cap stocks and a greater focus on previously neglected nations with smaller economies played a major role in 2017's returns, and there's little reason to expect changes in those attitudes in 2018. As the U.S. bull market ages, many investors are looking at international markets for better values. Country ETFs make interesting investment vehicles for betting on the success of specific economies, and making the right choices can lead to extremely strong returns for smart 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 Dan Caplingerhas 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. || This power couple bought bitcoin in 2013, donated gains to cancer hospital: Halle Tecco and Jeff Hammerbacher have a knack for spotting early technology trends, ranging from Facebook to digital health. In 2013, they made one of their best bets yet by backing a then little-known cryptocurrency called bitcoin. Specifically, Tecco told CNBC they made an angel investment in the Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust ( GBTC ), a vehicle for accredited investors to invest in cryptocurrency. CNBC has learned that they've donated the investment to cancer research, specifically to the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center in South Carolina. Tecco confirmed to CNBC, "We pretty much forgot about it for a few years (the bitcoin investment) and then this year, it got interesting," she explained. She declined to say exactly how much the investment was worth, as the hospital will have to decide whether to convert the investment into bitcoin and ultimately into dollars, but the value is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars at today's price. Tecco said the couple initially invested in the virtual currency "mostly out of curiosity and to diversify our investments." Around the time they made their investment, Bitcoin was selling for around $800, Tecco said. Bitcoin soared to more than $17,000 last week, after being worth less than $1,000 at the start of the year. It was once the realm of technologists, like Tecco and Hammerbacher, but is now gaining legitimacy on Wall Street. Hammerbacher is an early Facebook data scientist who now runs a lab at Mount Sinai, and his wife Tecco is the co-founder of digital health investment firm Rock Health. Together, they run an angel fund called Techammer. The pair hope that speaking publicly about their bitcoin philanthropy will inspire others to do the same. "The investor community that has benefited from the bitcoin craze should use this foresight (and luck!) to help others," she told CNBC via text. "We hope we are just the first." WATCH: Bitcoin's origin story remains shrouded in mystery. Here's why it matters More From CNBC The seller of this one-bedroom Miami condo will only accept bitcoin You should update your iPhone now, as the new software fixes a pretty big bug Satya Nadella wishes Microsoft had taken on Amazon sooner in cloud || Bitcoin crackdown begins: Bitcoin prices were reeling on Thursday, following reports that South Korea’s government plans to ban cryptocurrency trading. South Korea’s Justice Minister Park Sang-ki said the government was preparing a bill to ban trading of the virtual currency on domestic exchanges, Reuters reported. "There are great concerns regarding virtual currencies and the justice ministry is basically preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading through exchanges," Park said told a news conference, according to Reuters. But, after bitcoin collapsed, a few hours later South Korea’s presidential office said a ban on the country's virtual coin exchanges had not yet been finalized, though it was one of the measures being considered. In South Korea, police and tax authorities raided local exchanges on alleged tax evasion, Reuters reported. Government bodies around the world have been clamping down on bitcoin in some form. Last weekend, Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities had outlined proposals to discourage bitcoin mining. Bitcoin miners are prevalent in China due to low operational costs. Meanwhile, stateside, a few companies withdrew their applications for bitcoin ETFs, according to Coindesk, with some companies saying that the SEC had been “resistant” to their efforts. Companies that withdrew their applications include Exchange Listed Funds Trust, ProShares and Direxion. The price of bitcoin was down more than 5% at $14,106.27 as of 10:30 a.m. ET, according to Coindesk. Related Articles • Top Business stories of the week • 4 Costly Medicare Mistakes to Avoid • Digital currencies dip as South Korea considers trading ban || Ethereum has outpaced its rival cryptocurrencies since the start of 2018: Screen Shot 2018 01 31 at 8.58.25 AM Markets Insider Ethereum is the best performing major cryptocurrency so far in 2018. The second-largest coin by market cap has gained 46% since January 1, compared to the overall market's 15% drop. The global cryptocurrency market might have lost 15% — or $93 billion of value — since January 1, but not all coins have declined equally. Ethereum has fared well in 2018, avoiding the drastic selling that has left other coins in the red. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap is up more than 46% this year, according to Markets Insider data, far outpacing bitcoin’s 25% decline. XRP , the third-largest cryptocurrency, controlled largely by its creating company Ripple, is down more than 45% since January 1. Cryptocurrencies worth less than $1 billion haven't fared well either. The fourth-largest digital coin, bitcoin cash , has plunged 35.9% so far this year. 2018 has been marked by wild price movements, often over 10% in either direction, as fears of regulation in the US and abroad routinely wipe out billions of dollars in market value on any given day. That’s a near complete departure from 2017, a year in which prices seemed to move upward at a breakneck pace. "The state of cryptocurrency is incredibly strong," Andy Bromberg, CEO of CoinList, an ICO hosting platform, told Business Insider. "Looking far beyond the prices, we're seeing an increasing number of high-quality projects in the space, with experienced teams, impressive early technological breakthroughs, and rigorous legal structuring. "We expect to see this continue into 2018 as the industry matures and professionalizes -- a necessary step for it at this time." NOW WATCH: Microsoft President Brad Smith says the US shouldn't get 'too isolationist' See Also: Amazon's store brand makes a lot of great tech, but these are the 12 gadgets actually worth buying Bitcoin is under pressure as the crypto selloff continues in Asia Rapper 50 Cent reportedly made millions selling his album for bitcoin SEE ALSO: Sign up to get the most important updates on all things crypto delivered straight to your inbox. || Apple Leads These Companies With Massive Overseas Cash Repatriation Tax Bills: A new part of the GOP tax law has some of theUnited States’ biggest companies, from Apple to Goldman Sachs, already reporting major losses. The expenses stem from a one-time tax charge to repatriate, or return to its home country, overseas cash or funds. Overseas cash repatriation is an issue that’s been important to multinational corporations for a long time. It’s estimated that more than $2.6 trillion in corporate profits have been sitting in foreign bank accounts waiting for a tax break to be freed up. Apple’s overseas cash alone amounted to $252.3 billion, a treasure trove the company had been loathe to repatriate due to how much it would lose paying foreign cash taxes. The new GOP tax lawallows U.S. companies to repatriate cash at reduced rates for a limited time. As a part of the tax reform, repatriation tax rates could be as low as 8%, compared to the 35% companies traditionally pay to repatriate that money,the New YorkTimesreports. While some companies have announced what they’ll pay for the repatriation taxes, others are expected to report their losses in the near future. For instance, has yet to announce exactly how it will be affected by the tax reform, but its latest quarterly report cites the company has $132 billion in overseas funds. Here’s a list of the companies with the biggest overseas tax bills, updated regularly as the bucks come home. has thelargest overseas cash stashout of any United States company, according to Market Watch. The company reported it would pay$38 billion for a one-time tax paymentto repatriate its cash holdings, according to The Wall StreetJournal. The expense accounts for 15.5% of the $252.3 billion Apple had in overseas cash. reported an $18 billion quarterly toss Tuesday -- after paying $22 billion in repatriation taxes,according to Reuters. In tweet posted on Citi’s account, CEO Michael Corbat said the “tax reform is a clear net positive.” Wall Street bank announcedits first quarterly loss in six years, due to the one-time overseas cash tax payment. According to Reuters, the companypaid $4.4 billion in repatriation taxesdue to the new regulations, an amount that was entirely expected by Wall Street. As a result, the company posted a $1.93 billion loss, news that sent the company’s stock down, despite theexpected financial blow. Repatriation tax took a big chunk out ofBank of American’s quarterly profit, according to Reuters, which reported that the company will pay pay $2.9 billion due to the new legislation. That was enough to cut the bank’s quarterly profits in half. The largest U.S. bank said it will have to pay $2.4 billion for its overseas cash,CNN Money reported.Company CEOJamie Dimon believes that repatriationcould serve as a sort of economic stimulus for the U.S., according to CNBC. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com • KeyCorp CEO: Say Yes to Both Challenges and Opportunities • The U.K. Has Appointed a New City Minister to Oversee London's Financial Sector • Citigroup Fined for Telling Clients to Buy When It Meant Sell • Everything You Need to Know About Global Markets in 2018 • Booking a Holiday? These Travel Sites Let You Pay in Bitcoin || Why Twitter Stock Gained 17% in December: Twitter(NYSE: TWTR)stock outperformed the market by a wide margin last month as shares gained 17%, according to data provided byS&P Global Market Intelligence. ^SPXdata byYCharts The surge helped shareholders finish the year up 47%, which wasn't far from the 53% increase thatFacebook(NASDAQ: FB)enjoyed in 2017. Image source: Getty Images. Investors are growing more optimistic that Twitter will soon find answers to its struggles with audience size and monetization. In fact, the stock jumped last month in response to two bullish upgrades by Wall Street analysts, both of which believed sharescould surge in the months ahead. Twitter's most recent quarterly report showed a 4% decline in revenue and a net loss of $103 million, and those figures didn't hold a candle to Facebook's 49% revenue spike and 79% jump in earnings to $4.7 billion. Still, the results included good news for the micro blogging platform asuser engagement grewin response to several improvements that executives made to the service. Twitter is hoping that the engagement uptick will be followed by faster growth in its audience size in the coming quarters, which is necessary if it wants to eventually rival Facebook's 2 billion user reach. Investors will also be watching for evidence that its data licensing business can lessen Twitter's dependence on the advertising market while pushing it closer to bottom line profitability -- perhaps as early as fiscal 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 Demitrios Kalogeropoulosowns shares of Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook and Twitter. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || What Living on an $11 Minimum Wage Looks Like: Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) has decided to raise the minimum wage it pays workers to $11 an hour, following in the footsteps of Target (NYSE: TGT) , which made the same move in September 2017. Both companies deserve credit for proactively raising wages. Yes, their hands were largely forced by a tightening labor market, but neither retailer had to institute a companywide policy. Both could have chosen to pay more where necessary and less where possible. Making $11 an hour is certainly better than earning the $7.25-per-hour federal minimum wage. It's also an improvement over every state's minimum except for those of California ($11), Massachusetts ($11), Washington ($11.50), and the District of Columbia ($12.50). But can someone actually live on $11 an hour? In some markets, the answer is yes, but in many parts of the country, $11 is simply not enough to provide basic needs such as housing, food, clothing, and healthcare. A crowded Wal-Mart store Wal-Mart has raised its minimum hourly wage to $11, effective February. Image source: Wal-Mart. How far does $11 an hour go? While it's difficult to pick a region that represents the average cost of living in America, Minnesota comes pretty close. The state ranked right in the middle of GoBankingRates' cost-of-living survey covering all 50 states plus Washington, D.C. Minnesota has five different metropolitan areas, and St. Cloud sits near the midpoint in terms of living wage -- the amount required to support an individual and any dependents -- according to data provided by MIT. That means St. Cloud provides a reasonable example of how far $11 an hour will go for an American with a typical cost of living. All calculations assume a person works 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year. At $11 an hour, that comes out to $22,880 a year. Hourly Wages 1 Adult 1 Adult 1 Child 1 Adult 2 Children 2 Adults (1 Working) 1 Child 2 Adults 1 Child 2 Adults 2 Children Living wage in the St. Cloud area $10.64 $23.00 $29.16 $21.95 $13.09 $15.91 Required annual income before taxes $22,136 $47,841 $60,663 $45,646 $54,467 $66,172 Data source: MIT. Story continues As you can see from the data above, an $11-per-hour minimum wage does count as a living wage for a single adult in the St. Cloud area. Add in even a single child, however, and $11 is less than half of what is needed to get by. And even with two working adults who have only one child, you can see that $11 an hour leaves the family short by about $8,700 a year. What does this mean? This is just one example that falls roughly in the middle. If you live in a cheaper market, $11 an hour goes further, and it may be enough to qualify as a living wage. Of course, in pricier locales, a person earning $11 an hour will be even further behind. What this shows is that even though companies like Wal-Mart and Target have taken a step in the right direction, they still don't pay workers at the bottom enough to get by in many markets. Perhaps more notable is that the federal minimum wage is woefully inadequate, and even states that have set a higher bar have not pushed numbers high enough for many people to make ends meet. 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 Daniel B. Kline 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 . || Some of the biggest crypto exchanges are shutting out new users because they can't keep up with demand: CEX • A number of cryptocurrency exchanges have temporally halted on-boarding of new users. • Crypto-exchanges are under pressure to keep up with the breakneck growth of the booming digital coin market. Cryptocurrency exchanges are experiencing growing pains as the market for digital coins explodes. Exchanges have struggled to keep up with the breakneck growth of the crypto-market and eye-popping volumes. Exchanges have halted trading, experienced outages, and crashed during periods of high volumes and demand. Part of that pressure has been driven by hundreds of thousands of new market entrants. Now, at least three cryptocurrency exchanges — Bittrex, Bitfinex, and CEX.io — have stopped onboarding new users altogether. "We have received an enormous number of new account registrations over the past few weeks," said an alert on Bittrex, a US-based exchange."Unfortunately, we have to make a few upgrades to our support and backend systems to handle the increased traffic and load." Bittrex is the third largest exchange by volume, according to data providerCoinMarketCap.com. It's the same story for Hong Kong-based Bitfinex. "Thank you for your interest in opening a Bitfinex account. However, due to extraordinary demand, new account creation has been temporarily paused," said an alert on Bitfinex. Bitfinex said new account creation would be enabled by January 15. CEX.io, an exchange based in the United Kingdom, said the "enormous" amount of new users opening accounts on the exchange was making it difficult for the company to address a backlog of other technical issues on the site. "Every day, an enormous number of users registers on our exchange, which we are extremely excited about," the company wrote ina blog post dated December 21. "At the same time, this has been putting additional pressure on our support and verification teams." On the US-based exchange Kraken, it appears users can open a new account, but they cannot verify their account to buy and sell digital coins. This reporter was unable to verify his account when setting up a Kraken account, and other new users reportedsimilar problems on Reddit. A representative from Kraken did not respond immediately to a message seeking comment. KrakenKraken chief executive officer Jesse Powell told Business Insider in November the firm was actively hiring new developers to build out its infrastructure tobetter handle record trading volumes. Global cryptocurrency markets are nowseeing daily trading volumes similar to the New York Stock Exchange. Twenty-four-hour trade volume in the cryptocurrency market soared above $50 billion earlier in December, which is on par with trading activity on the New York Stock Exchange. The milestone illustrates just how hot the market has become in 2017. Investors have flocked to the crypto-market to capture its eye-catching returns.Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has grown by about 1,400% against the dollar in 2017. A boom in so-called initial coin offerings, an crypto twist on the initial public offering process, has created a raft of other digital assets for investors to speculate on. There are now more than 1,300 cryptocurrencies in circulation,according to CoinMarketCap.com. NOW WATCH:Warren Buffett lives in a modest house that's worth .001% of his total wealth — here's what it looks like See Also: • Bitcoin developers are moving away to create their own cryptocurrencies — here's why • The biotech company that pivoted to blockchain is looking for a CTO and a background in cryptocurrency is a 'big plus' • Bitcoin could trigger the next financial crisis SEE ALSO:TOM LEE: Bitcoin just had a much-needed pullback and is quickly headed back to $20,000 SEE ALSO:A partner at one of the top bitcoin trading firms told us why crypto is 'such an amazingly fun space to be in' || South Korea U-Turn – The Cryptocurrency Winners: Following news hitting the cryptocurrency markets on Thursday morning of the South Korean government looking to ban cryptocurrency trading and shut down the exchanges, the cryptomarket went into sell-off mode. The market response was somewhat surprising when considering the implications, South Korean cryptocurrency holders needing to sell their coins in a worse-case scenario or at best, deal with the uncertainty of a possible clamp down on being able to trade on exchanges beyond South Korea’s borders a major issue. Bitcoin slumped to a low of $12,000 in the early part of the day on Thursday, which was not far off Thursday’s $13,057.48 close. There’s likely to be some debate over the government’s handling of the situation, with the government distancing itself from the Ministry of Justice that had released the statement on introducing legislation to bring to an end cryptocurrency trading. Interestingly, there had been reports of a petition being signed calling for the resignation of the head of the Ministry of Justice in response to its statement. Whether the Ministry of Strategy and Finance flinched at the prospect of voter backlash will never be known, but one thing comes to light from the events of yesterday and this morning. While governments and central banks will have some influence on the availability and performance of cryptocurrencies, voters will certainly make their voice heard. South Koreans have been known to hit the streets in protest and a backlash over such a ban would have certainly been an embarrassing one for the government, particularly when considering the size of the cryptomarkets today. Through early part of the day today, the recovery has not been as spectacular for Bitcoin as for some of the other cryptocurrencies on offer. The less than impressive gains this morning will likely be down to two key reasons: Bitcoin trading volumes are less concentrated than other cryptocurrencies, with the threat of a South Korean ban on trading and the shutting down of exchanges in South Korea having less of an impact on Bitcoin demand and therefore price. Investors will have gone elsewhere in the early part of today in search of the more sensitive cryptocurrencies, which would have been a simple task. The cryptocurrencies that tanked the most on the South Korean news would have also most likely seen the biggest upside in the event of a U-turn, which would have also eased appetite for Bitcoin and the Bitcoin clan. Story continues Bitcoin has gained just 3.32% to $13,683.1 at the time of writing and, as has been the case since mid-December, the Futures market may well be to blame, with the January Cboe Bitcoin futures contract rising by just $360 to $13,680 at the time of writing. It will be interesting to see how Bitcoin moves through the weekend, once the futures markets are closed, with Bitcoin currently sitting well below the start of the week $16,300 high. Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today So, looking through the cryptomarket this morning, there have been some impressive returns for investors dipping their toes back into the market. At the top end of the market cap table, Ripple has rallied 6.86% to 2.066 at the time of writing, recovering from a Thursday $1.514 low. Going down the table, Stellar’s Lumen has been far more impressive, surging 21.6% through the early part of the day, with NXT and Binance’s BNB also impressing, with gains of 13.6% and 10.51% respectively. While there have been some impressive gains, particularly amongst the more recently launched coins, a little more damage has been done to the cryptomarket and its image, with the fact that governments and central banks are able to have such an influence on the broader market being of particular concern. Time will tell whether Bitcoin investors will regain the confidence to drive Bitcoin back towards $20,000, with the recent trends certainly suggesting that forecasts of $40,000 by the end of the year may have been a little too optimistic. Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Friday Support and Resistance Levels – January 12, 2018 E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – January 12, 2018 Forecast EUR/USD, AUD/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY Daily Outlook – January 12, 2018 Commodities Daily Forecast – January 12, 2018 Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Record Draw News is History, Back to Weather Market Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Weak CPI Data Will Be Bullish [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] Bitcoin: UK banks ban Bitcoin purchases with credit cards - http://cryptogeeks.com/bitcoin-uk-banks-ban-bitcoin-purchases-credit-cards … || ¡Recargo/Restock! x5 Capas De Optifine Precio: $2.00 (Dolares) Compra: https://selly.gg/p/79825e5c  Formas De Pago: PayPal,BTC,Steam Gift Card, G2a Gift Card,Recarga De Crédito (Solo Argentinos) [MD] ¡RT Si Quieres Que Te Regale Una Capa De Optifine! pic.twitter.com/6l24IB9k8i || Seven Deadly Trading Mistakes Every Rookie Makes https://t.co/BoGLJ6RI91 #Bitcoin https://t.co/HL0mNgO6Kk || 1hr Report : 03:00:27 UTC Top 10 Mentions $DCT, $BTC, $ETH, $LTC, $XLM, $WAVES, $BCH, $NXT, $MCO, $NEOpic.twitter.com/BfWYHsLFMh || Bitcoin has a huge scaling problem—Lightning could be the solution https://arstechnica.com/?post_type=post&p=1240391 … || OUR NEW PIECE, HOT OFF THE PRESS: "Break Corruption With Bitcoin’s Backbone" Part of the cover story in this month's @ForeignPolicy Magazine... #blockchain #bitcoin #BTC @NDItech @NDI @tatatrusts @BitfuryGroup @BitfuryGeorge @valeryvavilov #WEF18 https://t.co/u65XxQIMu8 || Buy Bitcoin With PayPal! Also with CC, paysafecard, Skrill, OKPAY https://www.virwox.com?r=4db29virwox.com/?r=4db29  #btc #bitcoin 00 pic.twitter.com/MUxwAOoPQv || 24 Ocak 2018 Saat 19:00:02, 1 BTC Kaç TL, 41.334,00 TL. #BitcoinTL #btctry #BitcoinNeKadarhttp://www.doviz724.com/1-bitcoin-kac-tl.html … || BTC Average: 14754.84$ Bitfinex - 14034.13$ Poloniex - 14078.18$ Bitstamp - 14344.98$ Coinbase - 14354.98$ Binance - 14000.00$ CEXio - 16237.16$ Kraken - 14550.00$ Cryptopia - 13998.98$ Bittrex - 14070.00$ GateCoin - 17880.00$ #BTC #Bitcoin #Exchanges #Price || BITCOIN EXCHANGE! Trading fee - 0.00% http://btc-exchange.com 
Trend: up || Prices: 8265.59, 8736.98, 8621.90, 8129.97, 8926.57, 8598.31, 9494.63, 10166.40, 10233.90, 11112.70
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 2020-05-28] BTC Price: 9525.75, BTC RSI: 58.48 Gold Price: 1713.30, Gold RSI: 50.70 Oil Price: 33.71, Oil RSI: 60.53 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Bitcoin Halving: What This Rare Event Could Mean for Futures Prices: The supply of bitcoin entering the market is about to be cut in half. This bitcoin halving isn’t some apocalyptic prediction; it’s just part of the DNA of the cryptocurrency. “It’s an event that’s baked in to the ethos of bitcoin and happens about every four years,” said Sunayna Tuteja, managing director of digital assets at TD Ameritrade. To understand why bitcoin has value at all and what the halving could mean for bitcoin tokens and bitcoin futures prices , it can be helpful to think about gold. Scarce and Costly to Mine Gold is produced by miners who dig it out of the ground, a process that takes lots of money to fuel equipment, pay workers, and secure permits. Part of the price of gold per ounce includes the reimbursement and profit demanded by miners for their time and expenses. And of course, gold is scarce. It’s a rare metal that’s in demand in the financial markets and from jewelry makers to boot. It all adds to the price. So how does bitcoin relate? Even though bitcoin is a digital currency created with computers, the code that governs the cryptocurrency ensures that it remains scarce even as there is a real-world cost to creating it. As with gold, the supply of new crypto coins is controlled by “mining”—a computationally intensive process where computers compete against each other to secure the network by solving mathematical equations. It takes powerful computers and a good bit of energy to mine bitcoin. Miners collect bitcoins as a reward if they’re the first to create a new valid block, which is then broadcast to the rest of the network and added to the blockchain. The blockchain technology is designed to ensure the integrity of the payment system by sharing a ledger across its users. What Is Bitcoin Halving? To ensure that the supply of bitcoin stays limited, the code governing the cryptocurrency mandates that the rewards for mining one block are cut in half every 210,000 blocks, which (so far) happens about every four years. Right now, miners are rewarded with 12.5 bitcoin tokens for every block they mine. Based on current mining power and network difficulty, the next halving is expected to take place in May 2020, at which time the rewards for miners will decrease to 6.25 coins. This is only the third bitcoin halving (the last two were in 2012 and 2016). From an investing perspective, one aspect to watch for is the influence on price given the shift in supply and demand. Currently, 18 million of the 21 million bitcoin have been mined and are in circulation. With the halving, the supply of new bitcoin being mined will slow down, while the demand may stay the same or go up. Story continues How can I trade bitcoin futures at TD Ameritrade? Learn more about quotes and trading capabilities. How Might Prices React? Tuteja believes the halving will affect bitcoin’s price, but a number of question marks remain. As the bitcoin halving countdown winds down, the knee-jerk expectation would be for price to go up, per the typical supply/demand dynamic. But as Tuteja pointed out, the coming halving is no big secret; it’s baked into the code. Many investors believe the adjustment is already factored into the current price. In fact, if the adjustment is indeed factored in, but enough investors expect a surge that doesn’t materialize, it could even lead to a fall in the price of bitcoin. The big price spikes associated with bitcoin—which took it to a record near $20,000 in 2017 and, after a slump, saw it surge again to more than $13,000 in 2019—haven’t occurred at the same time as the previous two halvings. But there aren’t many data points to compare. There’s a price argument to be made both ways, but Tuteja explained that the exact price after the halving will also depend on macroeconomic events. Bitcoin has been particularly volatile as the COVID-19 pandemic essentially ground commercial activity to a halt throughout much of the world. “From a retail investor point of view, we’re excited about the impact of the halving in generating increased awareness and interest for education,” Tuteja commented. “Based on search results, social volumes, sentiment, and so on, we’re seeing that the upcoming halving could serve as another catalyst in expanding the adoption of digital assets by mainstream investors.” As of early April 2020, CME Bitcoin Futures (/BTC) were trading around $7,300 after taking a dive along with other asset classes amid the coronavirus-sparked selloff (see figure 1). bitcoin-halving-tt200424.jpg FIGURE 1: VOLATILE DAYS FOR BITCOIN. Like many other assets, CME Bitcoin Futures (/BTC) have seen outsize price fluctuations in early 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic swept through the world. But the largest cryptocurrency has been volatile for quite some time. Data source: CME Group. Chart source: the thinkorswim® platform from TD Ameritrade . For illustrative purposes only. Past performance does not guarantee future results. See more from Benzinga Investor Movement Index Summary: March 2020 Circuit Breakers: Learn the Basics of These Market-Wide Pauses Tax Filing And Extension Changes For 2020: What You Need To Know © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || HIVE completes $4 million acquisition of mining firm: HIVE Blockchain Technologies has acquired a cryptocurrency mining operation with access to 30 megawatts (“MW”) of low cost green power at a leased facility located in Lachute, Quebec. According to an official press release shared with Coin Rivet, the cost of acquiring mining firm Cryptologic stands at C$4,000,000 , with C$1,000,000 of that being in cash. HIVE will also invest C$3,000,000 in new cryptocurrency mining equipment for the facility. Cryptologic now also own 4% of HIVE’s basic common shares. “We’re extremely pleased to have completed the acquisition of this Facility,” said Frank Holmes, Interim Executive Chairman of HIVE. “Multiple factors make Quebec a very attractive location for us including geographic diversification and competitive costs for green energy, skilled labour and taxes” . HIVE Blockchain Completes Acquisition of 30 MW Cryptocurrency Operation in Canada | Markets Insider https://t.co/JKt5n9PSnN — the Crypto Grill (@TheCryptoGrill) April 9, 2020 “The acquisition provides us direct control of our destiny, including significant capacity for expansion and flexibility for our future operations. To that end, we have exercised an option to extend the term of the Facility lease to November 2025, and we plan to invest in next generation SHA-256 miners to increase the operating efficiency of the Facility and prepare it for the upcoming halving of Bitcoin rewards. Additionally, we are currently investigating the potential to host third-party miners to maximise utilisation of the Facility’s power capacity.” Holmes went on to heap praise on Cryptologic’s COO and VP Finance for facilitating the deal during difficult times as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. He continued:”We also want to extend our appreciation to the Board of Cryptologic, who have expressed confidence in the vision and direction of HIVE by becoming a significant shareholder. Additionally, we also appreciate the cooperation of Cryptologic’s Chief Operating Officer, Paul Leggett and VP Finance, Joshua Lebovic, who have helped facilitate a smooth transition during the challenging period that the world is experiencing related to COVID-19.” For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . View comments || Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD): Bitcoin has suffered a momentary lapse in its pursuit for a $10,000 valuation after a panicked sell-off to $9,200 yesterday evening. The move to the downside was as a result of 50BTC being moved from a wallet that has seemingly been dormant since 2009, stoking fears over whether Satoshi Nakamoto had begun to access his stash of Bitcoin. From a technical perspective Bitcoin did well to recover and continue trading above the $9,300 level of support, with a break down in price being prevented in the short term. However, as Bitcoin continues to consolidate around the current level of support it won’t take a lot of bearish pressure to push it back down to $8,830. Corrections are undeniably expected especially when dealing with assets as volatile as Bitcoin, with some traders predicting a slump to as low as $7,100 . A move of this magnitude would be a shock to investors and traders who were hoping that the recent block reward halving would act as a catalyst for a bull market, although it’s worth noting that Bitcoin has rallied by 112% in the past two months, demonstrating a clear uptrend. If Bitcoin can manage to claw its way back to $10,000 and potentially above the yearly high at $10,500 it would be a clear indication of strength as it would mark the first lower high since May, 2019. 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 in Emerging Markets: The Middle East: In advance of her “Crypto Across Emerging Markets” panel at Consensus: Distributed , Leigh Cuen is writing a three-part column on how cryptocurrencies are used in the developing world. In this first part of the series, she looks at the Middle East. It is a truth universally acknowledged by pundits on Crypto Twitter that emerging markets are more likely to see revolutionary bitcoin usage, at least in the near future, than Silicon Valley. However, the term “emerging markets” encompasses most of the planet, excluding a handful of wealthy nations. For instance, even if fiat-denominated volumes are dwarfed by Asian whales or U.S. institutions, scrappy crypto traders in Turkey have a disproportionate impact on the global bitcoin economy. Related: Bitcoin Fails at $9K Hurdle Again, But Data Suggests Investors Are Bullish Register: Leigh Cuen Hosts “Crypto Across Emerging Markets” on May 11 at Consensus: Distributed Generally speaking, regions with weak states and educated diasporas see more grassroots adoption. For example, Lebanese entrepreneur Michel Haber said most of the 26 remote workers involved with his web services startup, cNepho Global, now prefer bitcoin paychecks. Haber has already been paying some developers this way – with bitcoin from Beirut’s grassroots trading networks – for two years. Now that most workers would rather receive bitcoin, he encourages colleagues to get mobile wallets. This is no longer a fringe outlook. Related: Iran Issues License for Nation’s Biggest Bitcoin Mining Operation The Arab Weekly ran a column in April about how the collapsed banking system is destabilizing Lebanon. Protests surrounded the central bank in April, and protests around bank branches even turned deadly. The situation continues to simmer. “The peer-to-peer bitcoin market is very robust because the Lebanese banking system has failed and people have more cash than the banks do,” Haber said. “Because of coronavirus, you can’t really wait at the bank anymore. … They’re not sure the Lebanese bank will actually give them the money.” Story continues This doesn’t mean bitcoin will easily replace local currencies, however. As witnessed in Iran, once home to a thriving bitcoin mining industry and retail usage, authorities curtailed usability once mainstream adoption grew. Read more: Iranian Bitcoiners Risk Fines, Jail Time as Government Regulates Mining But rather than stamp out demand for cryptocurrency, crackdowns may merely change its manifestation. Some people now use bitcoin for savings and altcoins for transactional alternatives. Markets in places like Iran and Argentina now see increasing demand for stablecoins. Likewise, Argentinian crypto exchange founder Federico Ogue, CEO of Buenbit and Buendolar, said many users who are buying cryptocurrency for the first time are attracted to dollar-denominated stablecoins. More coverage on cryptocurrency in the Middle East: Yemen’s Civil War Shows the Dangers of Crypto In Palestine, Civilians Are Using Bitcoin More Than Hamas Despite Bitcoin Price Dips, Crypto Is a Safe Haven in the Middle East Stablecoin volatility In regions with volatile currencies and scant access to dollars, demand for stablecoins is up. According to a bitcoin trader in Iran, who asked to remain anonymous for safety, plummeting oil prices haven’t increased local demand for bitcoin. This is partially due to government efforts to promote the local stock market. Yet, as the dollar exchange rate fluctuates and paper bills become scarce, Tether stablecoins (USDT) sell for more than a dollar’s worth of Iranian rials. “The government is trying to push financial market demands into Tehran stock exchange to avoid increasing demands in currency or gold markets,” the anonymous Iranian trader said. “Local [crypto] exchanges changed [USDT] rates artificially to get more profit, also demand was so high compared to the low supply of USDT in peer-to-peer exchanges.” The most desirable aspect of the stablecoin isn’t any stability mechanism or collateral, it’s simply the network effects. After all, the reason many of these users turn to cryptocurrency is because they want a global asset, regardless of whether that takes the form of paper bills or software. CoinDesk senior reporter Leigh Cuen hosts the “Crypto Across Emerging Markets” panel on May 11 at 7:30 p.m. ET at Consensus: Distributed , CoinDesk’s first virtual, free conference. Register here . Dapps The Middle East is also one of the few regions where decentralized applications (dapps) that aren’t focused on gambling are still attracting routine users. Dmail founder Mohamed Abdou, whose Egyptian team built a privacy-centric email service using Blockstack, said the dapp now has 15,000 active monthly users. As such, Dmail raised a $500,000 seed round in April, an amount which goes much further in Cairo than Silicon Valley. Read more: Encrypted Email Service Launches on Blockstack With Bitcoin Features “Users will be able to exchange emails, do text chat, voice calls, video calls, invoices and collect fees in crypto,” Abdou said of Dmail’s 2020 roadmap. Although Dmail doesn’t collect user information (and therefore doesn’t know where users are based), this Egyptian project was inspired by a local context where remittances and international payments offer a lifeline to an economy battered by depleted foreign currency reserves . Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Dips to $8.8K but Optimism Seen Continuing Ahead of Halving Stablecoins Push Ethereum’s Transaction Count to Highest Since July 2019 || 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 more excitement than fear, they say, as oil prices sink to historic lows . Oil-extraction companies need to reduce gas emissions for environmental reasons. So, instead of flaring off excess gas on site, some bitcoin mining firms – like Upstream Data in Canada, Crusoe Energy in 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 mining can quickly become unprofitable. Some mining operations shut down rather than lose money. Only larger, industrial farms can withstand months without profits if the bitcoin price remains low. Entrepreneurs need to look for cheap power sources – and that’s where oil-abstraction waste products come in. Texas crude In Texas, a bitcoin miner who goes by the alias DJ Bitwreck said he’s building new hardware for capturing flare 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 Mining co-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’s bitcoin halving , which reduces the rewards bitcoin miners can earn. Wait till June 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. Story continues “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.” Related Stories 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 View comments || Bitcoin News Roundup for May 21, 2020: Spoooky! BTC saw a ghost Wednesday and scared the markets. It’s CoinDesk’s Markets Daily podcast. For early access before our regular noon Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica or RSS . This episode is sponsored by ErisX , The Stellar Development Foundation and Grayscale Digital Large Cap Investment Fund . Related: ‘Dismantle the Euro to Save Europe’ Feat. Tuomas Malinen Today’s stories: 50 BTC Just Moved for First Time Since 2009 – But It Doesn’t Look Like Satoshi Bitcoin Drops Over 3% Despite Golden Cross and Bank Calls for More US Stimulus After Lawsuits and Delays, Overstock Hands Shareholders Digital Dividend Related: Why a Strong Dollar Is Bad for the US and Bad for the World, Feat. Lyn Alden Genesis Trading Buys Crypto Custodian Vo1t in Bid to Become Prime Broker For early access before our regular noon Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica or RSS . Related Stories Bitcoin News Roundup for May 20, 2020 ‘Minsky Moments’ and the Financial History of Pandemics || Bulls And Bears Of The Week: American Airlines, Peloton, Roku And More: Benzinga has examined the prospects for many investor favorite stocks over the past week. Bullish calls included stay-at-home winners and a bankrupt utility. Bearish calls included struggling airlines and a lagging social media player. The major U.S. indexes ended last week with solid gains, led by a 6% rise in the Nasdaq, despite a historically bad jobs report and U.S.-China relations deteriorating once again. Also, another big retailer filed for bankruptcy last week, ahead of the coming retail earnings season. Benzinga continues to examine the prospects for many of the stocks most popular with investors. The following are some of this past week's most bullish and bearish posts that are worth another look. Bulls In "Why Roku Is Still A Long-Term Winner In The Streaming Wars," Wayne Duggan shares why analysts believe Roku Inc (NASDAQ: ROKU ) is positioned to overcome its near-term challenges. Peloton Interactive Inc (NASDAQ: PTON ) analysts are bullish despite mixed quarterly results. So says Elizabeth Balboa's "Analysts See Peloton Taking Off Even After States Lift Stay-At-Home Orders." Priya Nigam's "PG&E Analyst Sees Buying Opportunity In Bankrupt California Utility's Shares" says shares of PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG ) are trading at just the right price. "Nio Analyst Says Improving Sales Trajectory, Easing Liquidity Concerns Support Bullish Stance" by Shanthi Rexaline looks at what prompted a top analyst to turn bullish on Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO ). For additional bullish calls, also have a look at "Bitcoin Gains Major Backer In Paul Tudor Jones" and "Coronavirus Drives Surge In Online Grocery Penetration For Players Like Amazon Prime Now, Walmart." Bears In Elizabeth Balboa's "All The Bad News From Airlines This Week: 'Travel Demand Is Essentially Zero,'" see what happened to American Airlines Group Inc (NYSE: AAL ) and its peers when Warren Buffett walked away. Story continues "These Analysts Aren't Supporting Beyond Meat's Stock Surge" by Jayson Derrick looks at why investors might have been impressed by Beyond Meat Inc (NASDAQ: BYND ) results — but analysts remained bearish. See what limits the ability of Qualcomm, Inc (NASDAQ: QCOM ) to gain market share, according to "Qualcomm Is A Victim Of Its Own Success, Says Bearish Wells Fargo" by Priya Nigam. Wayne Duggan's "Wall Street Weighs In On Pinterest's Disappointing Quarter" discusses ways that Pinterest Inc (NYSE: PINS ) may be lagging its social media peers. Be sure to check out "11 Reasons Billionaire Investor Leon Cooperman Is Worried About Long-Term Impacts Of COVID-19" and "Cramer Says Up To 1 Out Of 3 Restaurants, Bars Will Close" for additional bearish calls. At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities. Keep up with all the latest breaking news and trading ideas by following Benzinga on Twitter. Photo courtesy of Peloton. See more from Benzinga Barron's Picks And Pans: Dropbox, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Teladoc And More Bulls And Bears Of The Week: Caterpillar, Facebook, Microsoft And More Bulls And Bears Of The Week: Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, Twitter And More © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || BitGo Cements Hold on Institutional Market With Lumina Acquisition: BitGo is looking to become an all-in-one provider for the institutional crypto market, acquiring tax management platform Lumina in its latest step to expand service offerings. BitGo announced Thursday that Lumina would become part of its new institutional-grade tax solution that would plug into the wider platform. Known as “BitGo Tax,” it records and analyzes taxable events, calculates possible liabilities and compiles reports for clients. In a statement, CEO Mike Belshe said the acquisition means that in addition to tapping secure storage services, BitGo clients can trade, stake and even lend digital assets, all without leaving the platform. Related:CoinTracker Adds 6 Industry Partnerships for Its Crypto Tax Reporting Tool “Clients have digital asset accounts across many exchanges and wallet providers, and that can lead to a fragmented or incomplete view of their digital asset holdings,” he said. “BitGo clients now have a clear, intuitive dashboard with tax and reporting abilities, and these new services transform their ability to interact with digital assets.” See also:Crypto Holders Still Face Issues Reporting Tax Liabilities, Survey of CPAs Finds BitGo – which doesn’t like to be referred to as just a custodian anymore – started targeting the institutional space when it coaxed former banker Richard J. Corcoranout of retirementto head up its custodial business at the end of 2018. It has endeavored to make itself as amenable as possible to institutions by launching a secure off-chain settlement service and partnering with Genesis to offer trades that execute at speeds customary in traditional markets. This aggressive expansion has borne fruit as BitGo now has a central role in the cryptocurrency market. Belsheclaimed back in Novemberthat the company processes, on average, as much as 20 percent of bitcoin transactions at any one time. Related:Crypto Holders Still Face Issues Reporting Tax Liabilities, Survey of CPAs Finds Back in February itacquired Harbor, a security token platform that held ambitions of becoming a one-stop-shop for tokenized equities. Notably, Harbor was already a regulated broker-dealer and transfer agent, two licenses BitGo lacked. “BitGo is the first digital asset firm to launch comprehensive services for wallets/custody, institutional lending, portfolio management and tax. BitGo is unlike any company in the institutional market for digital assets as no other company provides these institutional services in all three categories,” a spokesperson said in an email to CoinDesk. See also:BitGo Reveals Bitcoin Lending Push; $150M Booked So Far Established in 2018 and based in San Francisco, Lumina raised $4 million in a seed round from investors that included DragonFly Capital and Bain Capital Ventures. The BitGo spokesperson declined to comment on how much Lumina was acquired for, as well as if there were to be any other acquisitions in the pipeline. Lumina CEO Chen Fang, who has now joined BitGo as chief product officer, said in a statement the company planned on bringing new products and services to market in the coming months. • BitGo Allows Customers to Extend Crypto Insurance Cover Over $100M • IRS Crypto Summit Was About the Exchange of Ideas, Not Tax Guidance || Money Reimagined: Designer Money for a Machine-Run Post-COVID World: A headline in MIT Technology Review caught my attention this week: “The pandemic is emptying call centers. AI chatbots are swooping in.” COVID-19’s perfect storm – a global public health crisis, an economic meltdown and a surge in online connectivity – could accelerate what World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution . In creating imperatives for both cost-cutting and software-dependent innovation, the pandemic is bringing us closer to an economy dominated by integrated networks of digital devices. This raises all sorts of vital questions. But here we’ll just drill down into one: what kind of money will this new society need? Related: USV’s Albert Wenger on the World After Capital It’s likely that long-term unemployment will be a defining condition of this emerging machine-dominant economy. We’re not just talking about cyclical, recessionary layoffs but net job losses that are structural and permanent. You’re reading Money Reimagined , a weekly look at the technological, economic and social events and trends that are redefining our relationship with money and transforming the global financial system. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’s newsletters here . If so, the situation could confirm the so-called “end of work” thesis, which foresees new technologies leaving employers with an ever-declining need for human labor. It proved largely unfounded during the 20th century, as each fresh technological wave created new jobs that offset the old ones. But the thesis is gaining weight again in response to a new, self-advancing phase in computer technology. Machine-learning algorithms mean our periodic competitions with new technologies are no longer one-off events. Humans are now engaged in an endless battle with computers that are constantly getting smarter. As machines acquire the very cognitive and creative skills that previously allowed us to reinvent our employment opportunities, the battle may be unwinnable. Story continues UBI’s moment If we are indeed approaching the end of work, expect a surge of interest in universal basic income. Related: Where Bitcoin Fits in the New Monetary Order UBI is the idea that the government should pay a basic living wage to all citizens. It has been thrust into public consciousness by COVID-19 and the sudden, massive expansion in unemployment that came with it – 36 million alone in the U.S. On Thursday, its advocates got a boost when Twitter founder Jack Dorsey announced a $5 million donation to former Presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s Humanity Forward nonprofit , which is using $250 microgrants to make the case for UBI. We don’t have space here for a deep debate about UBI. Just please don’t narrow-mindedly reject it as “socialism.” UBI backers range from liberals who want to expand public safety nets to conservatives who see potential to reform inefficient and highly politicized welfare distribution. Others see UBI as correcting for the power of big tech by redistributing revenue gained through personal data mining. The system should compensate them for those vital resources. If UBI is to be part of our new digital economy, it would seem logical to make it digital too. We’ve already seen U.S. lawmakers propose that, rather than mailing out checks for COVID-19 relief, funds should be sent directly as digital dollars via special Federal Reserve wallets. The proposal didn’t pass, but having central banks establish a digital currency for social distribution payments is, remarkably, now a mainstream topic. There are clear benefits to digitizing UBI: Direct-to-consumer payments could improve efficiency, prevent confiscation by middlemen, create parity for the “unbanked,” and, provided the rollout goes smoothly, legitimize the direct connection between a government and its people. Programmability could also allow authorities to constrain how the funds are used. Software designs could, say, allow supermarkets or landlords to accept the funds, but not barmen. (To be sure, this is inconsistent with the spirit of pure UBI, but it would likely to resonate with some politicians.) On the other hand, as European Central Bank executive board member Yves Mersch noted in a presentation to Consensus Distributed last week, citizens could see their civil rights undermined if central banks don’t build privacy protections into direct-to-consumer digital currency accounts. With this infrastructure, central banks could directly manipulate the value of people’s personal money, creating a more powerful mechanism for managing consumer spending and inflation than the current solution, which relies on banks and financial markets as indirect conduits for monetary policy. Whether you think that’s a good thing depends on how you feel about central banks’ being empowered to manipulate the value of money to manage economic conditions. Another challenging issue is that involving central banks in governments’ fiscal distributions may make their economic policymaking dependent on political interests. That would be a radical departure from the independence principles upon which central banking has been founded for the past four decades. It might make central bankers more accountable to the public interest, as their actions would directly impact voters’ pocketbooks. But they could also be forced to pursue the self interests of politicians. You get the idea: Inevitable or not, digital currency-based UBI brings many complications. Machine money I hate to say this, but we humans aren’t the only constituents in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We must also consider the interests of the digital machines. As social distancing becomes normalized, expect cities to ease ordinances on things like delivery robots, self-driving taxis and other autonomous devices. Next, expect urban planners to draw up sweeping blueprints for smart cities that combine the data generated by such devices with network-driven dynamic pricing so that everything from traffic flows to renewable energy sharing can be managed in a self-correcting system. To optimize such systems, devices owned by different individuals and companies would be given autonomy to interact and exchange data, goods and valuable services, and to receive, hold and send digital, programmable money as standalone entities. For this to happen, the system’s unit of value, its currency, must function as a digital token exchanged peer-to-peer – in this case, machine-to-machine – without the interference of a banking intermediary. Whether such a system would use central bank digital currencies, stablecoins, native blockchain tokens like bitcoin, or all three is yet to be determined. China is surging ahead with such a model, incorporating its Digital Currency Electronic Payment system, or DCEP, into a network of smart cities that deploy tools provided by the national Blockchain Services Network . In due time, the efficiencies China extracts from that will put competitive pressure on Western countries to follow suit. When that happens, we must ensure that optimizing such systems doesn’t compromise the interests of those they are supposed to serve. The money of the future can serve the interests of machines, but only if they align with the interests of us humans. How to scale blockchains? Ask the internet You know how it is: life in lockdown has you staring constantly at a screen. Not just 9-to-5, but always. Almost every single human interaction outside of your immediate family and almost every commercial transaction you make is done online. And how many more hours of streaming videos are watching? So, how much more busy is the internet these days? John Graham-Cumming, the Chief Technology Officer of Cloudflare, answered that question by treating the traffic flowing through his network security company’s systems as a proxy for overall usage. Sure enough, global traffic is up 40% on the year, as per the chart above that Cloudfare provided us. In a blog post addressing earlier data last month , Graham-Cumming highlighted what this says about the resilience of the internet, which has had no real interruptions despite the surging usage. “Overall the Internet has shown that it was built for this: designed to handle huge changes in traffic, outages, and a changing mix of use,” he wrote. There are lessons here for blockchains. To scale them, look to the layered design of the internet. The base layer protocol, known as TCP/IP, is sometimes described as a one trick pony. It only does data switching, but it does it really well. The single task design means it can deal with the challenges of heavy traffic. All the other functionality of the internet – email, web sites, file transfer, etc. – isn’t forced on that main load-bearing system but enabled by higher level open protocols such as SMTP and HTTP, and then by proprietary applications even further “up the stack.” It’s relevant to the bitcoin versus ethereum debate, with the latter more sophisticated, multifaceted and powerful for running things like smart contracts but, according to its critics, entailing a complexity that makes it more prone to breakdowns and security breaches. The global town hall $91 million. That’s the current value of the 10,000 bitcoin Laszlo Hanyecz gave up to purchase two pizzas on this day 10 years ago. It was the first time bitcoin was spent on a good or service, giving the event canonical relevance in the cryptocurrency’s history. Ever since, it has been memorialized on this date as “Bitcoin Pizza Day.” The outside world tends to focus on the massive fortune Hanyecz left on the table by not “HODLing” his bitcoin, which after exchanging them for $25 worth of pizza were valued at a mere quarter of a cent at the time. He tends to respond with a shrug, arguing that he did something to help legitimize bitcoin. And, indeed, his act helped set off a price rally that has continued to today. But Hanyecz’s pizza order is also important for the value it ascribed to bitcoin for its utility as a payment vehicle. Hanyecz has continued to take an interest in initiatives to help make bitcoin more usable for payments, even as the narrative has shifted toward its value proposition as “digital gold.” Two years ago on this day he made a point by using the Lightning Network, which seeks to make bitcoin transactions more efficient and viable for low-value transactions, to make a certain, iconic purchase: a pizza. The Fed is “not out of ammunition by a long shot.” So said the man in charge of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, in a gloomy interview on CBS 60 Minutes last Sunday . Markets rallied in response, which should have left heads scratching. I mean, of course, the Fed has loads more ammunition left – it has unlimited printing power. The question is whether that ammunition is effective. Is it firing blanks? The bigger risk is that the real limit to its effective power won’t reveal itself until some indeterminate time in the future, when it’s too late. But at some point – after the Fed has flooded trillions of dollars into markets, after it has acquired huge swaths of corporate debt to find itself politically compromised, after it has restored the wealth of hedge funds but has left ordinary Americans living hand to mouth – confidence in the dollar will disappear. At that moment, everyone will finally realize that the ammunition was useless all along. Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, is one of the most influential financial journalists of all time . So when an article of his comes out with the title “Why inflation might follow the pandemic” it’s time to sit up and take notice. The headline suggested a countervailing view to that of the economic mainstream, with its persistent argument that the demand contraction from the COVID-19 crisis will produce long-lasting deflation. But if you’re expecting this to align with the forecasts of those in the crypto community who believe the central banks’ aggressive stimulus will result in debased money and hyperinflation, think again. Wolf puts all the variables on the table – huge government debt ratios, rapidly expanding broad money supply measures potentially offset by a slowing money velocity, and the end of the disinflationary effect of globalization – to argue, that inflation might finally return, but also might not. Bottom line: we live in chartered territory. No one really knows. Not even someone who earned himself a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for his services to financial journalism. Related Stories Money Reimagined: No, Secretary Summers, Financial Privacy Is a Vital Freedom The Rise of the Dollar Killers || Riot Blockchain Says Coronavirus Outbreak Might Hurt Crypto Mining Farms: Riot Blockchain is worried COVID-19 may “seriously disrupt” itsbitcoin(BTC) mining operations. The Nasdaq-listed rig builder revealed its concerns in its annual10-K reportwith the Securities and Exchange Commission, filed Wednesday. Such reports always include a “general risks” section detailing worst-case business scenarios. This year, Riot added two pandemic-specific subsections to discuss COVID-19. Riot Blockchain is getting thrashed by the response to COVID-19, the general risk section shows. Its workers are being quarantined and going into self-isolation while its supply chain is seizing up under border restrictions and factory closures, according to the filing. Related:Bitcoin, Stablecoins, DeFi and Privacy: How COVID-19 Is Changing Key Crypto Narratives It also has the unwanted label of being a “nonessential business.” According to the 10-K, Riot has not been classified as an essential business in any of “the jurisdictions that have decided that issue to date.” That potentially cuts off access to Riot’s offices and mining rigs. “If we are unable to effectively service our miners, our ability to mine bitcoin will be adversely affected as miners go offline,” Riot wrote. See also:Microsoft Files Patent Application for Crypto Mining System Powered by Human Activity Riot’s concerns echo issues Chinese mining farms faced nearly two months ago.In early February, PandaMiner Chief Operating Officer Abe Yang told CoinDesk his company had difficulty operating some of its farms due to quarantine controls in certain provinces because they had limited staff repairing machines and running the hardware. Related:While Some Hoard Dollar Bills, Others Envision Germy Cash’s Quick Demise At present, Riot’s Oklahoma City operation features 4,000 Bitmain S17 Pro Antminers purchased over December 2019 for $6.35 million total, according to twopressreleasesissued at the time. Those rigs replaced Riot’s older fleet of about 8,000 S9 models, now offline, the 10-K shows. The “catastrophic” business ramifications of COVID-19 are hardly unique to Riot Blockchain; nearly every business is facing an existential threat that only four months ago would have sounded absurd. It’s an open question where all this will lead. Riot admits that the pandemic’s “sweeping nature” makes it next to impossible to predict the long term impact. One thing is certain, though: “If not resolved quickly, the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic could have a material adverse effect on our business.” • World Health Organization Teams With IBM, Oracle on Blockchain-Based Coronavirus Data Hub • How a Flurry of ‘Digital Dollar’ Proposals Made It to Congress [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 9439.12, 9700.41, 9461.06, 10167.27, 9529.80, 9656.72, 9800.64, 9665.53, 9653.68, 9758.85
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 2022-05-03] BTC Price: 37750.45, BTC RSI: 38.93 Gold Price: 1868.80, Gold RSI: 38.27 Oil Price: 102.41, Oil RSI: 49.34 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Applied Blockchain, Inc. Announces Closing of Initial Public Offering: DALLAS, April 18, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Applied Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: APLD) (“Applied” or the “Company”) announced today the completion of its initial public offering of 8,000,000 shares of its common stock at $5.00 per share. The shares of common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on April 13, 2022, under the ticker symbol “APLD.” In addition, Applied granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,200,000 shares of common stock at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The net proceeds received by Applied from the offering (after deducting underwriting discounts and commission and estimated offering expenses) were approximately $36.1 million. Applied intends to use the net proceeds to lease or purchase additional property on which to build additional co-hosting facilities, to construct those facilities, to enter into additional energy service agreements for each additional site and for funding its working capital and general corporate purposes. B. Riley Securities and Needham & Company acted as book-running managers, Craig-Hallum and D.A. Davidson & Co. acted as lead managers, and Lake Street and Northland Capital Markets acted as co-managers for the offering. The offering was made only by means of a prospectus. A copy of the prospectus relating to these securities, may be obtained for free from B. Riley Securities, Inc., Attention: Prospectus Department, 1300 17th Street North, Suite 1300, Arlington, Virginia 22209, Phone: (703) 312-9580, Email: prospectuses@brileyfin.com or from Needham & Company, LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 250 Park Avenue, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10177, telephone: (800) 903-3268, or by emailing prospectus@needhamco.com. A registration statement on Form S-1 relating to these securities has been filed with, and declared effective by, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). The registration statement may be obtained free of charge at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov under “Applied Blockchain, Inc.” 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 these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. About Applied Blockchain, Inc. Applied Blockchain, Inc. is a builder and operator of next-generation datacenters across North America, which provide substantial compute power to blockchain infrastructure and support Bitcoin mining. The Company has partnered with the most recognized names in the industry to develop, deploy, and scale its business. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release constitute “forward-looking statements.” These forward-looking statements represent Applied’s expectations or beliefs concerning future events, and it is possible that the results described in this press release will not be achieved. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, which are set forth in Applied’s registration statement on Form S-1, as amended, many of which are outside of Applied’s control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. These include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the intended use of proceeds from the offering. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, Applied does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for Applied to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements in the prospectus filed with the SEC in connection with Applied’s public offering. The risk factors and other factors noted in Applied’s prospectus could cause its actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Investor Relations ContactsMatt Glover or Jeff Grampp, CFAGateway Group, Inc.(949) 574-3860APLD@gatewayir.com || reBLOCKmiami Puts the Right People in the Room, April 5, for a Real Estate Blockchain Conference in the Crypto Capital of the World: MIAMI, March 29, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via CryptoCurrencyWire -- Cutting Edge Events, organizers of Florida Bitcoin & Blockchain Summit, Crypto Mondays and the UnOfficial Bitcoin Miami Kickoff Party, is pleased to announce reBLOCKmiami , a one-day real estate blockchain event hosted April 5 in Miami, known as the crypto capital of the world. Those who attend reBLOCKmiami will learn about timely topics in sessions and presentations, including Real Estate Blockchain, Real Estate Tokenization, Real Estate NFTs, Real Estate Liquidity DAOs, Regulatory Updates, DeFi Real Estate, Real Estate Fintech Startups, Tradeable Private Real Estate and Buying Property in the Metaverse. For tickets, visit https://reblockmiami.com/tickets/ . reBLOCKmiami was born out of the Florida Bitcoin & Blockchain Summit. This epic event was specifically designed to bring the right people in the room from the real estate world, including developers, brokers, agents, financiers, startups, traders and policymakers. In addition, the gathering will bring stakeholders in the real estate blockchain space from around the globe to the crypto capital of the world. Previously, this event has been attended by Cathie Wood of Ark Invest; Jeff Vinik, owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning; Finance Commissioner of Florida Russ Weigel III and many more notables. Associations taking part in reBLOCKmiami are the Florida Blockchain Business Association (FBBA), Foundation For International Blockchain and Real Estate Expertise (FIBREE), and the Miami Downtown Development Authority. The conference is tailored to fit the needs of three types of attendees: Beginners looking to learn and build their knowledge of this industry and how to get started in it; Stakeholders like financial institutions, traders, brokers, family offices, fintech startups, innovators and entrepreneurs who play, or want to play, an active role in the future of the real estate blockchain and its development; Advocates including anyone interested in propelling this space forward and helping design active safeguards that allow for a fair and even playing field. Story continues Speakers and presenters at reBLOCKmiami will include Samuel Armes, Florida Blockchain Business Association; Jason Bennick, president of Digital Innovation Group; Elena Bondarenko, Government Relations Counsel, Miami Downtown Development Authority; Michael Carpentier, CIO Certified Blockchain Professional and CEO of Vesta Equity Inc., and many more. reBLOCKmiami will take place at the Hilton Miami Blue Lagoon, four miles from Miami International Airport and just 15 minutes from downtown Miami and Dolphin Mall. South Beach, Zoo Miami and cruises from PortMiami are half an hour away. The hotel features sports courts, bike and car rental, a fitness center and a hot tub. Guests can enjoy a dip in the outdoor pool and a drink at the pool bar. The relationships created and the wisdom imparted at this pioneering event will have a far-reaching impact within the real estate space. For more information on reBLOCKmiami, visit https://reblockmiami.com/ . About Cutting Edge Events LLC Specializing in new media and tech-driven conferences, Cutting Edge Events LLC has earned back-to-back Guinness World Record™ titles for the largest attendance of a virtual podcasting conference in one week. Creators of Podfest Multimedia Expo, Podfest Global Summit and Vidfest Expo, the team behind this cutting-edge events company is excited to bring its expertise and unique style to blockchain and bitcoin influencers. Corporate Communications CryptoCurrencyWire (CCW) New York, N.Y. www.CryptoCurrencyWire.com 212.994.9818 Office Editor@CryptoCurrencyWire.com || 3 Ark Invest Most-Shorted Stocks to Buy: It’s not only the market’s most-shorted stocks going down this week. The bears are seemingly everywhere. And the additional selling pressure hasn’t been without cause. But if investors want to feel slightly less miserable about their own portfolio’s performance, look no further than Cathie Wood and heavily shorted Ark Invest growth stocks. Then and more importantly, consider a purchase or two. Let me explain. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips The roar of a bear is upon many investors 401(k)’s and other financial accounts tethered to Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ), Home Depot (NYSE: HD ), Boeing (NYSE: BA ) and other market heavyweights. Inside Friday’s session the broad-based, large-cap S&P 500 is on pace to finish out the week down 1.50% after briefly flirting with February’s corrective low on Tuesday. 7 Dividend Stocks to Finance Your Golden Years Then of course, there’s the Nasdaq . The tech-focused bellwether is back tangling with a bear market some 20% removed from its late November all-time-high. But while macro risks tied to the overseas conflict, inflation and interest rates chip away at those market’s dazzling returns of the past two years, you’ll get little sympathy from investors involved in a market made up of many other stocks. And that’s particularly true if those decisions reflect owning some of the market’s most-shorted stocks, which also happen to be downtrodden Ark Invest stocks. Block (NYSE: SQ ) DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG ) CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CRSP ) Today though, based on what we’re seeing today in three of those most-shorted stocks and fear running favorably rampant, rather than miserably commiserating, investors might consider the option of happily buying. Ark Invest Most-Shorted Stocks to Buy: Block (SQ) Block, Inc. (SQ) monthly chart hammer with bullish stochastics following deep 70% plus bear market correction Source: Charts by TradingView The first of our Ark Invest plays to buy which also happens to be among the market’s most-shorted stocks is Block. The fintech giant has been through a grueling bear market since hitting an all-time-high of $289.23 last August. Without question, that’s also provided big-time bank for some of SQ stock’s 10% bearish short interest. Story continues But after suffering through a correction which saw this Ark and most-shorted stock down as much as 71% in February, there’s reasons to believe today’s bears are being greedy. SQ’s monthly chart reveals an oversold stochastics narrowly signaling a bullish crossover. It’s the first such occurrence since the bear market cycle began. What’s more, with last month’s most fearful behavior testing key Fibonacci and trend line support and reversing to form a bullish hammer doji, SQ stock looks like it’s at the intersection of growth meeting value. I’d recommend a modestly out-of-the-money intermediate-term bull call spread or similar synthetic vis-à-vis a SQ collar on this most-shorted stock. DraftKings (DKNG) DraftKings (DKNG) extreme bearish action on monthly chart warns bulls to not throw in the towel in DKNG stock Source: Charts by TradingView The next of our Cathie Wood, Ark Invest most-shorted stocks to buy is DraftKings. The fantasy sports and online betting champ has been a losing proposition for investors wagering on the bulls to win. Shares have slid as much as 75% since peaking last March. That, of course, has provided a slam dunk opportunity for at least a few of DKNG stock’s 13% bearish short interest. 7 Dividend Stocks to Finance Your Golden Years Today though and bearish action turning into extreme technical “March Madness” on the monthly chart of this most-shorted Cathie stock, it’s no time for bulls to be throwing in the towel. To avoid always possible downside risk should February’s hammer fail, an actively-managed collar or slightly less-out-of-favor long May or July $20 call are smarter money bets, off and on the price chart, to play the “the over” in this most-shorted stock. Ark Invest Most-Shorted Stocks to Buy: CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) monthly inside hammer with stochastics confirmation Source: Charts by TradingView The last of Cathie Wood’s most-shorted stocks to buy is CRISPR Therapeutics. For once in a long while, CRSP stock’s bulls are doing something other than turning tail. Shares are up nearly 18% this week. But don’t think it’s too late get in on the action in this next-gen genomics stock. The only investors late to the party are bears looking to add to this most-shorted stock’s short interest of around 16%. Behind this week’s bid, CRISPR has benefited from an interview with CRSP’s CEO at Cowen’s Annual Health Care Conference and an upbeat discussion of the outfit’s pipeline and business in general. And today the price chart in this most-shorted Ark Invest stock is also confidently expressing that better days are ahead for CRSP shares. Currently, shares are still more than 70% removed from last January’s all-time-high. But the real value in this most-shorted stock versus simply being cheaper, is this month’s still forming inside hammer candlestick. Backed by CRSP’s Covid-related 76% retracement level and long-term trend support and shares also signaling an oversold bullish crossover, the monthly chart looks ripe for a bull market recovery. Bottom-line though and particularly important with riskier biotechs, a fully-hedged collar or bull call spread equivalent is the treatment plan of choice for this most-shorted stock. On the date of publication, Chris Tyler holds long positions (either directly or indirectly) in Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) and Ark Genomics Revolution ETF (ARKG). 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 3 Ark Invest Most-Shorted Stocks to Buy appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Maker of $777,000 Flying Motorbike Prepares for IPO in Japan: (Bloomberg) -- A former Merrill Lynch derivatives trader with a passion for Star Wars is preparing to take his flying motorbike startup public in Japan. Most Read from Bloomberg Elon Musk Makes $43 Billion Unsolicited Bid to Take Twitter Private Elon Musk Also Threatened to Buy My Company. Here’s How We Handled It Crypto Payments Frozen Across India, Hitting Trading Twitter Adopts ‘Poison Pill’ to Ward Off Musk Takeover Biden Weighing Student Loan Cancellation or Moratorium Extension Tokyo-based ALI Technologies Inc. was founded by Shuhei Komatsu as a drone maker in 2016 before moving on to more ambitious ventures, opening sales of its Xturismo Limited bike in October. The $777,000 single-person transporter can hit a max speed of 80kmh (50mph) and travel up to 40 minutes per charge, according to the company. The bike has so far largely figured as a curio at public events such as a recent baseball game, but ALI President Daisuke Katano says there’s strong interest in it from Middle Eastern nations. “The need for these bikes will be higher in places with desert or other difficult terrain,” Katano said in an interview. “The vehicle will enable people to travel where roads are bad and inaccessible to cars, as well as across bodies of water.” The company has selected lead underwriters for an initial public offering on Tokyo’s Mothers market for startups in what will be the country’s first debut of its kind. It’s presently engaged in discussions with the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Katano said, declining to specify an estimated valuation or a timeline for the offering. Flying personal vehicles have been the stuff of science fiction for decades before Star Wars, which featured a famous racing scene with pods zooming along close to ground level. Electric-air transportation is now moving closer to reality as the first wave of designs by startups like Joby Aviation Inc. reach maturity and developers tap investors for funding. Billions of dollars flowed into the sector in 2021, as well as an impressive number of orders, mostly from commercial airlines. The next 18 months will be pivotal for the fledgling industry, as manufacturers run vital test flights and finalize plans for so-called vertiports and regulators consider how best to guarantee safety. Story continues The ALI bike is not intended to fly far up in the air, primarily helping to traverse inhospitable terrain. It’s built like an enlarged drone with a traditional motorcycle seat and steering on top. Founder Komatsu has described his aim as realizing an “air mobility society,” where cars, bikes and other vehicles can transport people in the sky. No, Really, Flying Taxis Are Getting Closer to Giving You Rides ALI has attracted investment from several well-known Japanese firms, including Sega Sammy Holdings Inc., Nagoya Railroad Co., Nakanihon Air Service Co., Kyocera Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Soccer star Keisuke Honda, who played for the national team at the 2018 World Cup, is also a backer. ALI’s drones were the first thing to attract investors, but the startup is also developing capabilities in artificial intelligence and blockchain tech, a Nagoya Railroad spokesman said. “There are expectations for growth, so once products like these make it to the headlines, the company’s stock could be bought up, getting a boost from retail investors,” said Tomoichiro Kubota, a senior market analyst at Matsui Securities Co. “But the company is not yet at a level where people could talk about a detailed earnings outlook, which makes it hard to pin an appropriate valuation figure.” While a successful IPO will make ALI the only listed company in Japan that specializes in next-generation air mobility, several peers are already trading on New York exchanges. This includes Joby, Archer Aviation Inc., Lilium NV and Vertical Aerospace Ltd. Joby, which has a market capitalization of more than $3 billion, is close to commercializing what the industry calls eVTOLs, or electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. These flying taxis are battery-powered and, the companies say, destined to fly without a pilot once regulations allow. How Do the Leading Flying Taxi Companies Compare? “Air mobility companies listed in the U.S. have pretty sizable market caps,” Katano said. “If you consider our company to be of a similar kind, I think we’ll be able to win the understanding of investors for a decent valuation.” ALI will aim for a unicorn valuation -- $1 billion or more -- over the long term, Katano added. But the company has yet to decide on the best way to categorize its vehicle, which will depend on discussions with local regulators where the product is sold. Read this next: Amazon’s Drone Delivery Program Is Hit by Crashes and Safety Concerns “We think our aircraft could be categorized differently to existing airplanes,” Katano said. “It doesn’t travel on the ground, but still flies closer to land and at low altitudes.” (Updates to add a Quicktake video) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek America’s Favorite Truck Is About to Test Tesla’s Dominance How Two Ex-Cops Cracked a $100 Million Maritime Mystery How Jack Dorsey Quit Twitter to Become Bitcoin’s Spiritual Leader The Fertilizer Shock Might Change Agriculture—for the Better Elon Musk Says He Has a Plan B for Twitter. Does He Have a Plan A? ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || Market Wrap: Cryptos and Stocks Fall; Bitcoin Trades Below $40K: Don't miss CoinDesk'sConsensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. Most cryptocurrencies extended losses on Tuesday, tracking declines in stocks. Bitcoin (BTC) remains in a downtrend over the past two weeks as traders await a decisive move above or below the $40,000 price level. For now, alternative cryptos (altcoins) have gone in and out of favor over the past month, indicating uncertainty among market participants. Dogecoin (DOGE) declined by 8% over the past 24 hours, erasing some gains from Monday's rally. Shiba Inu'sSHIBtoken, another dog-themed meme coin, declined by 4% over the same period. Meanwhile, bitcoin was down by 3% on Tuesday, and is on track for an 18% decline over the past 30 days. Just launched! Please sign up for our dailyMarket Wrapnewsletter explaining what happens in crypto markets – and why. Stocks were also lower on Tuesday, giving back most of the late-March rally. Selling pressure has been dominant so far this year as investors reduced their exposure to both stocks and cryptos. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar is approaching a one-year high, which has been a headwind for BTC's price. ●Bitcoin(BTC): $38,279,−4.85% ●Ether(ETH): $2,842,−5.78% ●S&P 500 daily close: $4,175,−2.81% ●Gold: $1,902 per troy ounce,+0.46% ●Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 2.77% 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. Most analysts agree that bitcoin is set for a volatile price move, but the direction remains uncertain. Some indicators suggest a breakdown could occur, while others point to a short-term price bounce. Currently, the options market places a 60% probability that BTC will trade above $36,000 in May. In the bitcoin futures market, the average dailybasis, or the difference between the spot price and futures price, reached a one-year low. Typically, a rising basis indicates bullish sentiment among futures traders. "The basis has only reached similar lows on two prior occasions in the last year: in July, prior to the summer short squeeze, and in February. The July low coincided with the market bottoming, whereas the February low was followed by more consolidation in BTC,"Arcane Researchwrote in a Tuesday report. Also, there are signs that futures traders are becoming more active. The open interest in BTCperpetualsis currently near a one-year high, after climbing steadily since early March, with more intensive growth in recent days," Arcane wrote. Sentiment has been slightly bearish in the futures market, which could increase the chance of ashort squeezeif BTC's price jumps unexpectedly. On the flip side,technical indicatorsremain neutral, although some analysts are on watch for a possible breakdown in price. "Bitcoin has a breakdown pending confirmation this week below $40,000," Katie Stockton, managing partner atFairlead Strategies, wrote in a report. "If confirmed, risk would increase to secondarysupportnear $27,200." • SUSHI 2.0:SushiSwap, the protocol behindSUSHI, was the darling of 2021, but the lack of operational efficiency and lack of focused attention towards the long term was evident in the second half of 2021. With the failed Frog Nation takeover, the remaining team was left to keep SushiSwap running with major question marks.Read more about the latest restructure here. • Dogecoin, ApeCoin see higher-than-usual liquidations:Volatile trading on futures tracking the dogecoin (DOGE) and ApeCoin (APE) tokens resulted in millions of dollars inlosses to liquidations, data from tracking tools shows. Losses on DOGE futures exceeded $34.26 million in the past 24 hours while losses on APE futures exceeded $10.82 million. The figures were higher than on other days, the data show.Read more here. • NFL draft goes NFT:The National Football League (NFL) is once again dabbling with non-fungible tokens (NFT), launching a series of card-themed collectibles tied to its upcoming player draft on Thursday. The collection is live on the league’sPolygon-based marketplace, which it unveiled inNovember 2021and has since been used for various playoff game ticketing promotions. The NFTs will also be given out to members of this year’s “Inner Circle” club, which includes fans selected to represent each team on draft night, according to CoinDesk’s Eli Tan.Read more here. • Listen🎧: The CoinDesk Markets Daily podcast is back, documenting a use case for crypto that you can eat. 👨🏽‍🍳 • FalconX Tests Waters as First Full-Fledged Crypto Derivatives Dealer: The company's CEO is counting on others to follow. • Buenos Aires City to Allow Residents to Make Tax Payments With Crypto: The crypto will be converted to Argentine pesos by crypto firms before being given to the city, said Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta. • MicroStrategy to Offer Workers Bitcoin Options in 401(k) Accounts via Fidelity: CEO Michael Saylor’s tweet comes the same day Fidelity said it will begin offering bitcoin investments in its 401(k) accounts later this year. • Grayscale Eyeing Expansion Into European Crypto Fund Market: Report: Grayscale, a CoinDesk sister company, is meeting with local partners to discuss entering the European market, CEO Michael Sonnenshein said. • Coinme Enters Its 49th State, Installing Bitcoin ATMs in Vermont Grocery Stores: A Coinme kiosk is now available within five miles of 90% of the American population. Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day lower. There are no gainers in CoinDesk 20 today. [{"Asset": "Dogecoin", "Ticker": "DOGE", "Returns": "\u221213.2%", "Sector": "Currency"}, {"Asset": "Ethereum Classic", "Ticker": "ETC", "Returns": "\u22127.7%", "Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "EOS", "Ticker": "EOS", "Returns": "\u22126.8%", "Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}] 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. || CEBG Has Closed Strategic Angel Investment Round Led by KuCoin Ventures: Crypto Elite's Battlegrounds（CEBG has received a round of angel investment spearheaded by KuCoin Ventures and it will now be deeply engaged in KuCoin's GameFi ecosystem building initiative. Singapore, Singapore, March 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Crypto Elite's Battlegrounds（CEBG）has received a round of angel investment spearheaded by KuCoin Ventures and it will now be deeply engaged in KuCoin's GameFi ecosystem building initiative. CEBG Has Closed Strategic Angel Investment Round Led by KuCoin Ventures The Game Behind the Story CEBG is an online multiplayer Battle Royale game which is located in a lost civilisation on an isolated war-land. In the game, players land in the war zone, searching for guns to shoot other players, fighting each other for precious resources. The game was inspired by PUBG: EACH TIME, ONLY ONE SURVIVE… CEBG is the first Anime game on blockchain with the elements of BEAUTY and MECHA, which make the game experience even richer. Distinguishes itself from other Play-to-Earn games, CEBG has innovated and designed an player-friendly Free-to-Play mechanism. Players can enjoy playing and experiencing the joy of the game. Beyond Play-To-Earn Besides earning $CEG and $CEC tokens through PVP and PVE, players can also earn a wide range of in-game items in reward for their achievements and other in-game activities. Aside from its compelling gameplay, CEBG also boast great social attributes, such as allowing players to team-up with friends to participate in battles. Beyond this, its social module allows for seamless integrating into SocialFi mechanics, facilitating such social gameplay behaviours as teambuilding, online voice chat and streaming. The friend-making element of CEBG is perhaps the game’s greatest fun element, which will continue to infuse the game with new ideas and player interest. All players in the community can participate in the building of CEBG, which, along with its other attributes, affords CEBG the strong opportunity to become the leading mobile blockchain game. GameFi2.0 The entire GameFi sector is currently undergoing a metamorphosis from GameFi1.0 to GameFi2.0; and the very concept of GameFi, which was originally driven and dominated by financial attributes, is gradually returning to the play-for-fun ethos, which is the original essence of gaming. Playability was the watchword which defined the design of CEBG and its economic model has been optimised on the basis of the dual currency model of games such as Axie and DFK.During the planning phase of the project, CEBG placed ads through Google Ads to test the game theme’s market appeal; and through video demos and player interviews in the gaming community to test the market appeal of the gameplay, all of which resulted in resoundingly positive market feedback beyond usual expectations.Highly playable, socially-attuned, medium-heavy casual games are the hallmarks of most long-cycle games. All good GameFi economic models are designed to reward players for long-cycle engagement with the game, and CEBG is designed with these principles very firmly in mind.Strategic Partnerships KuCoin's partnership is not only an endorsement of CEBG's game concept, quality and product design, but also a strong signal of full cooperation going forward. CEBG will build a comprehensive partnership with the KuCoin ecosystem to deliver an exciting and rewarding GameFi experience to KCC users.CEBG has also established a strategic partnership with Multiverse Play(MVP), a DAO to empower GameFi projects and gather players/guilds/developers/investors. MVP owns a GameFi community with 80k+ P2E players and investors, and has enriched experience in game publication. MVP will support&synergy CEBG connecting with 50+ guilds and over 2,200 global influencers based on MVP P2E dispatch platform.About KuCoin Ventures Empowering Web3.0 and Next Generation Technology, KuCoin Ventures is a leading investment arm of KuCoin Exchange that aims to supports Crypto and Web 3.0 builders both financially and strategically with Deep Insights and Global Resources. KuCoin is a secure cryptocurrency exchange that makes it easier to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, KCS, SHIB, DOGE, Gari etc. Contact person: Sissie for Crypto Elite's Battlegrounds contact@cebg.games The information provided in this release is not investment advice, financial advice or trading advice. It is recommended that you practice due diligence (including consultation with a professional financial advisor before investing or trading securities and cryptocurrency).Learn more on https://www.cebg.games/ https://t.me/CEBG_official https://twitter.com/CEBG_GAME https://discord.gg/8dWX6jpcME」 For Media Contact az@kisspr.com || Crypto Added to Telegram by TON Stewards, Opening Path to Payments: Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022 , the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. The TON Foundation has added crypto payments to Telegram, allowing its 550 million users to send and receive toncoin within the messaging app, according to a Tuesday tweet. While only toncoin (TON) can be sent within the app, users can also buy bitcoin (BTC) through the "@wallet" bot. The aim is to make sending toncoin "feel like sending a text message," the TON Foundation, the steward of the cryptocurrency project, said Thursday. The bot has been used by 800,000 Telegram accounts already, it said. "We anticipate that this functionality will extend into consumer to business payments, so that people can easily acquire goods and services by sending toncoin via bots in the Telegram app," the foundation said. Twitter offers a similar facility, having added bitcoin payments over the Lightning Network for its Tips feature in September, which relies on third-party payments services like Jack Mallers’s Strike app. Last week payments giant Stripe said it will use Ethereum scaler Polygon to enable customers to pay in crypto, with Twitter the first company to try it out. The TON crypto project was abandoned by Telegram in August 2020 following a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The foundation recently raised $1 billion worth of TON from its users to advance its ecosystem. Read more: Telegram CEO Endorses TON Blockchain Spin-Off Toncoin || Mexican Remittances Are the Continent’s Largest; Crypto Companies Want a Cut: Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022 , the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. If Mexico had always been a huge market for remittances, the coronavirus pandemic has made it even larger. Crypto companies do not want to miss the opportunity. In 2021, Mexico was the third-largest recipient of remittances worldwide after China and India. According to the Mexican central bank, the amount of money sent to the country from nationals living abroad reached $51.6 billion in 2021, a 27% increase from 2020. Almost all, 95%, came from the United States. Analysts suggest last year’s increase was mostly due to the additional income Mexican first-line workers in states like California, Texas and New York were getting. Plus, they were also recipients of U.S. government-backed stimulus checks. In early January, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Mexican immigrants’ remittances have been key to the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery. This piece is part of CoinDesk's Payments Week . About 99% of these remittances were sent through electronic wire transfers. Money orders and cash deposits comprised the remaining 1%, although these might begin to be substituted by crypto-based remittance services. Bitso, Mexico’s largest crypto exchange, says it saw a fourfold increase in cross-border remittances between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022. For a while now, sending remittances through crypto has been mostly done on these types of exchange platforms. Frida Vargas, head of business sevelopment at Bitso, told CoinDesk the company processed about $1.2 billion in remittances between the U.S. to Mexico in 2020. “Our main users are remittance companies, who use crypto technology to improve and make the remittance sending and collecting process easier,” she said. Read More: Crypto Becomes Lifeline for Russian Emigrés Opposing Putin’s War in Ukraine However, there’s a new wave of remittance-specific crypto products offered by several companies, including Bitso, and they’re mostly using stablecoins. Story continues “Markets like Latin America will leapfrog into using stablecoins, which are perfect for remittances,” Mohamed Elkastassi, chief strategy officer at Tribal Credit, told CoinDesk. Pegged to a fiat currency, these coins eliminate the risks of price volatility while allowing the benefits of crypto’s other main features: speed and lower fees. Tribal provides financing and payments services for small and midsized enterprises in emerging markets. Last December, it launched a cross-border B2B payment option facilitated by Bitso that enables the conversion of Mexican pesos to Stellar USDC , which is pegged to the U.S. dollar, for faster and cheaper transactions between Mexico and the U.S. According to a researcher from the Universidad Iberoamericana de Puebla, Mexican immigrants in the U.S. are wary of using cryptocurrencies to send money back to their homeland because “they change their worth every day.” That’s where stablecoins become handy because they help recipients hedge against any devaluation of their local currency. For Elkasstawi, massive crypto adoption for remittances is just a matter of time. “In the future, immigrant workers will be paid in stablecoins and merchants will be accepting them as a form of payments.” Read More: Are Crypto ‘Legal Tender’ Laws Even Necessary? In November Bitso also partnered with Circle, a peer-to-peer payments company, to launch a new international wire transfer product called Bitso Shift. It’s designed for small businesses and freelancers, allowing them to change their dollars into stablecoins, send them to Mexico and be collected in Mexican pesos. The service charges $12 for every $1,000 sent, and no fee for collecting. Tribal’s Elkasstawi said the reason why stablecoins have not been massively adopted for remittances is that users still depend on actual cash to spend the money they receive. This is especially true in Mexico, where 86% of all transactions are still in cash . But that already might be changing. In mid-February, Coinbase (COIN) announced a new cash-out service across 37,000 establishments in the country. These include the 20,000 branches of Oxxo, the country’s largest convenience store chain, as well as other supermarkets and department stores. It began as a free service, but it now charges a fee for every transaction that’s “25% to 50% lower than traditional cross-border payment solutions,” according to the exchange. Coinbase also allows users in Mexico to convert and invest their balance into over 100 cryptocurrencies, including Circle’s USDC stablecoin if they choose not to cash out. Coinbase’s cash-out product seems to compete directly with Western Union in terms of accessibility. The company has created an app that allows collecting or sending money transfers from Oxxo stores. Western Union fees range between $8 to $37. Read More: The Lightning Network Is Bringing Payments Back to Bitcoin Users seem eager to ditch traditional remittance services and adopt crypto to get their money from abroad. “With long lines and plenty of ID requirements, it seemed like a crime to get U.S. dollars from Western Union,” Moises Martinez, a 25-year-old criminologist living in Mexico, told CoinDesk. “I know the paperwork is part of the security protocols, but I just wanted to get my money in my account.” As an alternative, Martinez turned to crypto. His father, then living in the U.S., paid for his son’s entire college tuition in bitcoin, using Coinbase to send him the currency. Martinez cashed out using Taurus, a Mexico-based crypto exchange that launched a Visa debit card in 2020. Even though Martinez’s father is back in Mexico, his son still uses alternatives to the traditional financial system like other crypto services or neobanks. Martinez still has relatives in the U.S. that rely on companies like Western Union (which was founded in 1851). “I get them: they’re used to that service and it is reliable,” he says. This might still delay massive crypto adoption for remittances between the U.S. and Mexico. But for now, as Elkasstawi says, at least users are seeing that crypto gives them more options to manage their money. More from Payments Week: PayPal’s Blockchain Chief on the Future of Crypto in Payments Blockchains offer unique advantages, but these must be combined with a user experience that feels similar to the one consumers know today, writes Senior Vice President Jose Fernandez da Ponte. Crypto Payments: When the Tech Fades to the Background The evolution in interest among TradFi, which was once dominated by diehard crypto skeptics, from crypto curiosity to crypto commitment is perhaps the industry’s most important move yet. Drugs, Drugs and More Drugs: Crypto on the Dark Web Down The Silk Road: Where Crypto Has Always Been Used for Payments || World Blockchain Festival Will Be a 100% Immersive Crypto Experience: World BlockChain Festival 2022 World BlockChain Festival 2022 SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, March 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- World BlockChain Festival's first edition will be held on April 21, 22 and 23, 2022 at the Salamanca Events Center in the capital of El Salvador, organized by Spartan Hill, a Colombian company in the technology sector and development of Blockchain projects with presence in El Salvador. Participants will have immersive experiences in the metaverse; Hackathon meetings will be held, a space for collective work with the aim of developing applications collaboratively in a short time, in addition, those interested in NFTs will be able to participate in auctions of unique pieces. The event will bring together important exponents such as Philip Ong, a businessman from Singapore and founder of the OGGO system, who, encouraged by the officialization of bitcoin as legal tender, proposed to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele an investment that will make El Salvador much more productive in terms of technology and other items, its projections also include the creation of a university, a cryptocurrency academy, food and water security projects, among other projects that will positively impact the social and economic environment of this country. There will also be the participation of Indira Kempis, a Mexican senator, who is working on a cryptocurrency bill based on El Salvador's "Bitcoin Law", an initiative to achieve the adoption of bitcoin in Mexico and thus promote financial inclusion in this country. As part of the panel of speakers is Mónica Taher, Director of International Technological and Economic Affairs of El Salvador, technology entrepreneur and investor in fintech and artificial intelligence startups and international speaker. She has worked in the business and marketing industry with international companies and some governments. Juan Diego Gómez, is a Business Administrator with a postgraduate degree in Finance, founder and CEO of Invertir Mejor, a financial education company focused on investment in foreign exchange markets, Commodities and shares; financial coach, speaker; with a community of more than 1 million followers on their social networks. Story continues Events such as the World Blockchain Festival will make it possible to understand the opportunities that the blockchain ecosystem and cryptocurrencies represent for the global economy, as is the case of Central American countries that are working on the transition to a decentralized ecosystem so that users have access to a new economic model. To learn more about the World Blockchain Festival and attend this event, visit its website and official networks: Web: https://www.wblockchainf.com/home Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wblockchainf/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldblockchainfestival Twitter: https://twitter.com/WblockchainF Media Company: Cryptocubics / World Blockchain Festival Media Name: JC Luna / HexMentor Media Phone: +1 305.506.0800 Media Email: contact@cryptocubics.com Related Images Image 1: World BlockChain Festival 2022 World BlockChain Festival 2022 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com . Attachment World BlockChain Festival 2022 || 5 Stocks to Buy Now if You Believe in These Analyst Upgrades: • Target(TGT) — Gordon Haskett analyst Chuck Grom has raised his rating on the retailer and upped his price target to $300 from $255. • Kroger(KR) — BofA analyst Robert Ohmes revised his opinion on the stock from “neutral” to “buy,” raising the price target to $75 from $61. • Coupa Software(COUP) — Evercore ISI analyst Peter Levine raised the price target from $75 to $140 while upgrading from “in-line” to “outperform.” • Nio(NIO) — UBS analyst Paul Gong upgraded shares from “hold” to “buy,” with a price target of $32. • Welltower(WELL) — Scotiabank analyst Nicholas Yulico upped Welltower to “sector outperform” from “sector perform.” Although the stock market is unpredictable and anyone investing can suffer losses, analyst upgrades provide useful insight into the best stocks to buy now. They suggest which stocks are low-risk and likely to rise. • 7 Stocks to Add to Your April Must-Buy List Here are five of the most promising stocks that analysts have upgraded in the past few weeks. These stocks are still considered undervalued and are expected to see significant growth soon. [{"TGT": "KR", "Target": "Kroger", "$234.92": "$57.86"}, {"TGT": "COUP", "Target": "Coupa Software", "$234.92": "$105.35"}, {"TGT": "NIO", "Target": "Nio", "$234.92": "$20.36"}, {"TGT": "WELL", "Target": "Welltower", "$234.92": "$96.74"}] InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Source: Robert Gregory Griffeth / Shutterstock.com Target(NYSE:TGT)opened in 1962and has 1,931 stores. The company offers a wide range of services, including retail, online shopping, e-commerce, food distribution and logistics. Since the start of the year, though, things have not been looking up for Target. The company has not done too well alongside the rest of the retail sector. However, Gordon Haskett analyst Chuck Gromhas raised his ratingon the retailer and revised his price target to $300 from $255. In December, the company’s shares were downgraded, with analysts citing concerns about sales growth sustainability and initiatives such as curbside pickup. Grom now believes the company is holding up well, with remarkable consistency in both performance and sales. The analyst also notes a later spring/Easter shift lineup that could continue to see an uptick in performance. The analyst predicts that Target shares will appreciate significantly as confidence begins to increase about the company’s model in the coming stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Source: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com Kroger(NYSE:KR) is a grocery store chain with more than 2,700 stores in 35 states. It is the largest supermarket chain in the United States and has been around since 1883. Kroger hasseen an increase in its online businessas it started to offer online grocery shopping services in 2015. Shares of the grocer gained handsomely when BofA analyst Robert Ohmesrevised his opinion on the stockfrom “neutral” to “buy” on April 8, raising the price target to $75 from $61. According to the new research note, consumer inflation is expected to stay high for the next few years. This means that Kroger should continue to see “significant EPS upside”as wages for U.S. employees have increased by 6%. • 7 Cloud Computing Stocks to Buy for April 2022 High inflation means that consumers are now doing more comparison shopping to find the best deals, which is a good sign for Kroger. This indicates their market share could be on the rise. Source: Shutterstock Coupa Software(NASDAQ:COUP) is a global technology platform that helps businesses, governments and not-for-profits track and manage their business spending. They use an integrated system of financial management tools that help them make better decisions about how they spend their money. They can quickly analyze spending trends in real-time to help with budgeting. Coupa Software has been under pressure due to ageneral slowdown in the tech sector, leading to lower stock prices for other companies. The company has also done well, evidenced by its revenues:$541.6 million in 2021, which is an increase of 39% from the previous year. Evercore ISI praised the companyfor its expansion and demonstrated its notable growth, describing it as having great long-term potential. Peter Levine raised the price target from $75 to $140 while upgrading from “in-line” to “outperform.” Sales cycles for industry verticals are back at pre-pandemic levels, and with pipelines at record heights, the analyst wrote that the company is in a great position. Source: Robert Way / Shutterstock.com Nio(NYSE:NIO) is a Chinese company making waves in the industry since its inception in 2014. It has quickly become one of China’s most successful companies, and it is now considered one of the leading electric vehicle manufacturers worldwide. In 2021,NIO delivered 91,429 vehiclesand saw strong growth of 109.1% year-over-year. However, in the year thus far, there has been a slowdown in growth. As China has been dealing with a major coronavirus outbreak, the EV maker has halted car production, which will have a huge impact on deliveries. China has a strict zero-Covid-19 policy that it has implemented for quite some time now. This is a situation the company will have to manage. • 7 Desirable Dividend Growth Stocks for Income Investors Due to this slowdown, NIO stock has suffered. Therefore, UBS believes the time to strike is now.UBS said Nio’s shares are currently undervalued, and investors should buy up before their price goes back up. UBS Analyst Paul Gong upgraded shares from “hold” to “buy,” with a price target of $32. Source: Shutterstock Welltower(NYSE:WELL)invests in real estate and medical infrastructure, making them a great investment for wealth management or retirement. This company has a focuses on investing in hospitals and medical centers. Scotiabank analyst Nicholas Yulicorecently upped the health care REIT to “sector outperform”from “sector perform.” According to the analyst, WELL is one company with a proven track record of investing in housing, and its prospects for growth are quite impressive. The annual FFO is expected to be over 17% from 2022 to 2023, which will beat analyst estimates. The analyst forecastsover 500 basis pointsof yearly occupancy growth for the next few years. He also expects the REIT to report operating income of 30% and occupancy of 88% by 2023. On the publication date, Faizan Farooque 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 theInvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines. Faizan Farooque is a contributing author for InvestorPlace.com and numerous other financial sites. Faizan has several years of experience in analyzing the stock market and was a former data journalist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. His passion is to help the average investor make more informed decisions regarding their portfolio. • 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 post5 Stocks to Buy Now if You Believe in These Analyst Upgradesappeared first onInvestorPlace. [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 39698.37, 36575.14, 36040.92, 35501.95, 34059.27, 30296.95, 31022.91, 28936.36, 29047.75, 29283.10
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 2021-12-13] BTC Price: 46737.48, BTC RSI: 33.32 Gold Price: 1786.30, Gold RSI: 46.96 Oil Price: 71.29, Oil RSI: 43.73 [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Savings app Chip closes record breaking £12m crowdfund: Alex Latham and Simon Latham, Chip co-founders; Sharon Miles, Chip COO and Femi Kalejaiye, Crowdcube's senior equity campaign manager. Photo: Chip Digital savings app Chip has closed a bumper fundraising round of £11.5m ($16m, in a crowdfund of 12,954 investors. The round comes in at the biggest equity crowdfund of the year so far, as well as the biggest equity crowdfund held on Crowdcube of all time. A large portion of the fundraise came from the fintech's customer base. As part of the round, Chip raised £1m in under 10 minutes and hit £8.6+m in under 48 hours. "This is a huge validation of the strong position Chip is in, and our ambitions to build the next fintech unicorn," says founder and CEO Simon Rabin. Off the back of the crowdfund, the company added 6,500 new investors, growing its shareholder community to over 23,000. The savings app has taken a community-based approach to its growth over the past year, as those that use the app vote on changes and products they would like to see. Rabin says the company sees big banks as its competitors, as a low interest rate environment puts pressure on people's pockets. Rabin wants to build a global challenger bank to capitalise on the huge untapped potential of people's savings. Read more: UK contactless spending limit raised to £100 Chip currently offers banking services through a partnership with Clearbank and is the only non-bank that offers FSCS accounts. “From a product perspective, we’re looking at more market-leading savings accounts, more investment funds, and more automatic investing," says Rabin. "We also have aggressive growth plans, across several marketing channels, as we aim to increase our user base further.” Rabin also says that the next savings offerings could include cryptocurrency products, as interest in decentralised finance grows. Image: Chip Chip’s largest ever raise follows on from a year of aggressive growth that saw the company increase revenues 500% and create profitable unit economics. Read more: Bitcoin surges past $60,000 on hopes of US ETF The fintech’s user base grew by more than 60% to over 400,000 while the total amount of saves processed swelled to over £640m. Story continues The company will use the capital to fuel growth activities across marketing, product and technology. Chip is also looking to significantly increase the size of the team as it eyes European expansion — although the company has not disclosed which specific regions it will target first. Watch: Will Interest rates stay low forever? || ProShares Seeks Waiver From CME for Position Limits on New Bitcoin Futures ETF: Report: ProShares, the sponsor of the first-ever exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by bitcoin futures, has applied for a waiver to limit the amount of bitcoin futures a buyer can purchase in the new fund, Barron’s reported . Starting with the November front-month contract, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) will limit the number of futures a buyer can buy in the new ETF to 4,000, dropping to 2,000 three days before expiration. As each contract represents five bitcoin, total ownership is limited to 20,000 bitcoin. To get around this limit, ProShares has already split its futures portfolio, with half in October and half in November. CEO Michael Sapir told Barron’s that if the CME doesn’t grant the waiver, ProShares could shift assets into later-dated contracts, structured notes or swaps. Barron’s also noted that ProShares’ prospectus for the ETF says the fund could also invest in equities with crypto exposure. View comments || Las Vegas Sands Falls 2% on Disappointing Q3 Results: American casino and resort operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. ( LVS ) reported a wider-than-expected third-quarter loss due to COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions and fewer visitors. Having said that, both Macao and Singapore are witnessing a steady recovery in guest visits as travel restrictions are relaxed. Shares fell 2% on Wednesday to close at $39.52 and another 2% in the extended trading session. The company reported an adjusted quarterly loss of $0.45 per share, worse than the consensus-estimated loss of $0.20 per share. In the prior-year period, LVS posted an adjusted loss of $0.59 per share. Moreover, net revenue grew 92.2% year-over-year to $857 million but also missed Street estimates of $1.24 billion. (See Insiders’ Hot Stocks on TipRanks) Commenting on the results, Robert G. Goldstein, Chairman, and CEO said, “We remain confident in the eventual recovery in travel and tourism spending across our markets. Demand for our offerings from customers who have been able to visit remains strong, but pandemic-related travel restrictions in both Macao and Singapore continue to limit visitation and hinder our current financial performance.” In response to LVS’ weak performance, Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli lowered the price target on the stock to $65 from $73 while maintaining a Buy rating. Santarelli said, “Our view on LVS remains one of a favorable medium-to longer-term risk-reward, though one that is likely to continue to take time to play out, given the uncertainty created by the concession/gaming law process and COVID-19 policies.” Overall, the stock has a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 3 Buys and 5 Holds. The average Las Vegas Sands price target of $52 implies 31.6% upside potential to current levels. Shares have lost 14% over the past year. Additionally, TipRanks data shows that financial blogger opinions are 71% Bullish on LVS, compared to a sector average of 68%. Related News: Netflix Reports Better-Than-Expected Q3 Earnings Dover Corp Jumps on Robust Q3 Results, Lifts FY21 EPS Omnicom Delivers Mixed Q3 Results; Shares Slip After-Hours More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: HP Provides Fiscal 2022 Guidance & Raises Dividend; Shares Rise 5% Rogers Communications Posts Lower Profit in Q3 CleanSpark Adds 2,250 Bitcoin Miners; Shares Rise 5.8% Biogen Posts Q3 Beat and Raises Guidance || Some Chinese Websites Keep Promoting Cryptos Despite Crackdown: The Chinese cryptocurrency crackdown was a headliner at the end of September due to its implications for the domestic industry. However, it was not the first one deployed by the government. Although it seemed to be harsher than the previous ones announced, Bitcoin ( BTC ) had just undergone short-lived bearish pressure as a result, but later it managed to make a strong comeback in terms of price action. That was the case when BTC’s price was hovering around the $50,000 neighborhood, and despite the sell-off at the end of that month, the world’s largest crypto by market cap strongly recovered to refresh its all-time highs above $66,000. Coming back to China’s news, in mid-October, the government promised to bolster its tough stance against the domestic sphere by taking punitive measures against crypto trading and companies dealing with the industry, including the Bitcoin mining one. In fact, Beijing instructed the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security to take care of the situation to reinforce the measures announced, aimed to tackle “cryptocurrency trading hype” in China. Many Crypto Websites Are Alive In Mainland China However, state-owned news media outlet Xinhua reported that there are still many websites operating Mainland promoting cryptos as of press time. Their excuse? Promoting blockchain and “metaverse-related” activities. On such websites, trading tutorials, promotional banners of in-live person meetings or events can be seen. Under the new crackdown unleashed by the government, all these activities are illegal. Many of these websites are highly promoting functions for traders accessing overseas crypto trading platforms to check their activities and projects, as the access from China is blocked, implying the usage of virtual private networks (VPNs). Strengthening The Crackdown? Xinhua suggested in the article that the crackdown needs to be extended to social media and chat platforms – something that the government had done in previous crackdowns. Story continues As a result of the new measures, crypto mining companies fled from China to establish their farms in other crypto-friendly countries to keep running their operations, taking down the Asian giant as the leader in Bitcoin mining globally. However, it’s proven that crypto crackdowns in China are not enough to tackle most crypto-related activities across the Mainland. For now, BTC keeps stagnant at around $61,466, holding the $60,000 handle and looking to crack above the psychological level of $64,000 in case bulls gather momentum. However, a breakout of the support area of $60,000 should open the doors to form a leg lower and extend the bearish bias towards $58,000, which is located below the 200-period simple moving average at the H4 chart. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Trims 4.6% Gains Following Fake News On Kroger The Weekly Wrap – Monetary Policy and a Busy Economic Calendar Delivered Dollar Support Invesco Fundamental High Yield Corporate Bond ETF Might Deliver Only 5% in 2021 The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – November 7th, 2021 Shiba Inu Coin – Daily Tech Analysis – November 7th, 2021 USD/CAD Exchange Rate Prediction – The Dollar Rallies on Employment Gains || Bitcoin QR Code Generator Launches Its Newest Tool: LONDON, Nov. 30, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitcoin QR Code Generator is proud to announce the Launch of its newest tool. Quick Response (QR) codes are frequently used in advertising content to communicate data, and they've now become a standard tool to utilize. They are being used in advertising efforts such as leaflets, billboards, letterheads, and sending and receiving money over the internet. Bitcoin isn't a novel invention, and practically everybody is familiar with it. Still, if people have any queries concerningBitcoin QR Code Generatoror Bitcoin in general, you've come to the perfect location because you'll discover all of the answers here. In simplistic terms, Bitcoin is decentralized digital money issued without a banking institution's involvement. As a result, it travels between users on peer-to-peer networks without the involvement of any mediators. Whenever a Bitcoin transaction happens, it is cryptographically validated by nodes in the network and recorded in a blockchain. Moreover, it is a currency that is less than nine years old and is widely acknowledged worldwide. As a result, a Bitcoin may be traded for goods, commodities, and other currencies. As per statistics, approximately 5.8 million people utilize digital wallets for Bitcoin around the planet. Bitcoin is used for a myriad of purposes, including simplicity, decentralization, and anarchist. Now, that's all about Bitcoin cash; today, let's talk about QR codes because it's critical first to grasp what a Bitcoin QR Code is before learning all there is to know regarding QR code generators. What are QR Codes, and How Do They Work? Given its wide adoption, some consumers are still confused regarding what a QR code is. You've probably seen a picture with visuals on it, such as black dots and bold squares, that can be read with a QR code scanner by many modern gadgets, such as a cellphone. As a result, data such as a site link or contact information is stored in a QR code that may be read and viewed on the smartphone with no need to type anything. As a result, it makes it easier for the customer to find the location and check the site. If users are wondering how a QR code works, you've come to the right place. So don't panic; it works exactly like a barcode that you've probably seen on almost all of the goods you've purchased from the shop and which offers a great deal of information about the item. Let us explain that each QR code is distinctive and represents a bit of specific data scanned by a QR code scanner or translated into some words that people can read and comprehend by a smartphone. What is a Bitcoin QR Code Generator? When people google for a Bitcoin QR Code Generator, people will discover a plethora of free and premium QR code generators includingBitcoin QR Code Generatorthat promise to swiftly convert Bitcoin wallet addresses for receiving and sending into a QR code version for fast and easy transactions. How Does the Bitcoin QR Code Generator Work? Making or accepting transactions is as simple as translating a bitcoin wallet sending and receiving addresses into a QR code layout. Several bitcoin wallets and applications support QR code scanning. By inputting an open bitcoin address into theBitcoin QR Code Generatorand selecting the generate users' QR code option, users may generate their wallet QR code for scanning. Once it's downloaded it can be used on a site or share it with friends after it has been generated. Why Should People Use a Bitcoin QR Code Generator? Today's modern cryptocurrency initiatives have a strong motivation to make cryptocurrency payments easier for its consumers. This technique is made easier and more dependable using QR codes. Everything people need to get the sender or recipient information is a simple scan using users' smartphone's camera. Like those for other currencies, Cryptocurrency wallet addresses are composed of a string of numbers and letters that could be up to 34 characters long. It's cumbersome to have to physically input information every time people have to transfer or receive money. Thus, utilizing the Bitcoin QR Code Generator, a long address may be swiftly converted into a QR code. Is It Safe to Use the Bitcoin QR Code Scanner? The company can guarantee that using digital Bitcoin QR Code Generators is secure, but people should read online evaluations from prior customers to ensure safety and reliability. Another aspect every one of these QR code generators has is that they promise to use secure servers to generate QR codes for wallets addresses. As a result, whether people use premium or free online Bitcoin QR Code Generators. But be careful. Always! About Bitcoin QR Code Generator The team have covered all there is to know about theBitcoin QR Code Generator, and how these operate, as well as the types of cryptocurrencies it supports. The company have also reviewed how these QR code generators are safe and secure to use, but that's not to say people shouldn't be blindfolded going ahead with this. Remember that users' privacy is of utmost importance. Bitcoin QR Code Generator is readily accessible; all people should do is choose the correct one by evaluating users' options from the above details, such as the safety elements and the sorts of Bitcoin money they serve, as there's no use in employing a code generator which can't properly produce Bitcoin code. People can use the Bitcoin QR Code Generator atBitcoin QR Code Generator.io Media Contact Brand: Bitcoin QR Code Generator Contact: Jim Free Nguyen Email:contact@bitcoin-qr-code-generator.io Website:https://bitcoin-qr-code-generator.io/ Address: St. Albans, United Kingdom, NL2 6DW SOURCE: Bitcoin QR Code Generator || P2P Marketplace Bistroo Adds Crypto Payments to Disrupt the Traditional Food Sector: Eindhoven, Netherlands, 28th October, 2021, Bistroo, the peer-to-peer food ecosystem based on blockchain, is delighted to announce that merchants now have the option to accept payment in multiple cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC,) Ethereum (ETH,) and Binance Coin (BNB.) This move significantly extends the existing payment options, which include fiat currency and the platform’s native BIST token. It also makes Bistroo the world’s first food ordering platform to embrace cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Following a successful raise of over $8 million in May, Bistroo has already been working hard to enable payments with its native BIST token. Thanks to a collaboration with Coinpayments, token holders can now spend BIST at any of Coinpayments’ 100,000 merchants operating in over 200 countries worldwide. However, Bistroo is now expanding the collaboration and further cementing its support for cryptocurrency adoption by allowing its customers to make payments in one of five major cryptocurrencies – BTC, ETH, BNB, LTC, and BCH. To further promote the adoption of cryptocurrencies, Bistroo temporarily doesn’t charge commission on all crypto payments. This gives merchants an even larger slice of their returns and consumers receive a discount on their order. This discount is even larger when they choose to pay with the platform’s native BIST Token. Bas Roos, CEO, and co-founder of Bistroo, said of the expansion into cryptocurrency payments: “Bistroo is on a mission to set ourselves up on the global stage with our unique business model. The future is moving towards a protocol economy where parties can directly interact with each other, and Bistroo is taking the first steps in that direction, offering a better value proposition for the food ordering platform market. Enabling our users to transact in crypto is an integral part of that journey.” Food ordering platforms have boomed over recent years, making it easy to enjoy our favorite meals at home, but they’ve also made it difficult for the restaurants we love to sustain their business. Today’s platforms impose high fees on food merchants while controlling all data and payouts, as well as taking over customer relationships and loyalty. Ultimately, the model leads to higher costs for consumers and restaurants in the end. Bistroo provides a peer-to-peer marketplace for food operators and customers that actually facilitates their connection instead of controlling it. The project launched its platform in 2020 and has since helped merchants reach over 25,000 customers and process over $2.3 million in orders, according to the live tracker on its website. Story continues Merchants have full control over their payments, menu configuration, orders, promotions, and analytics. They can transact directly with their customers and are paid instantly when orders are placed. Listing on Bistroo now also gives restaurateurs and food operators the opportunity to easily expand their payments services into cryptocurrencies, while leveraging the substantial benefits of using a peer-to-peer platform. Bistroo’s ultimate goal is to become a global leader in PaaS e-commerce technology for restaurants and food shops. Bistroo.com aims to be the portal that will enable restaurants and specialty food stores all over the world to offer their products directly to their customers, for exceptionally low fees, instant payouts and with full control. Crypto payments can also be made in the demo-store using the testnet: https://www.bistroo.nl/eindhoven/restaurants/the-burger/ About Bistroo Bistroo is a peer-to-peer marketplace for food & beverages, powered by the BIST Token. A protocol where food consumption can be easily organized and personalized against significantly reduced fees. Merchants are in full control of their payments, product selection, customer relations, orders, advertising, and analytics. Customers can have direct relations with their favorite merchants, earn rewards and get food recommendations that fit their taste. Since launching in early 2020, Bistroo has processed over $2.3 million in orders from 25,000 unique customers. Website – https://bistroo.io/ Telegram – https://t.me/bistroo_comm Twitter – https://twitter.com/bistrooIO Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5izSfaX3qpsYXt6V3lFB1A Contacts Creative and Marketing Director Bas Geelen basgeelen@bistroo.nl View comments || ETH-BTC Chart Points to Ether Leadership Ahead: While bitcoin appears to be pulling the broader market higher right now, ether may take the lead in the coming weeks. The ether-bitcoin (ETH/BTC) weekly chart shows a bull pennant – a technical pattern marked by converging trendlines, indicating an impending continuation of the ether-bitcoin ratio’s upward move from 0.023 to 0.08 seen early this year. A move above the upper trendline would confirm a breakout or shift in market leadership toward ether. “It does look like a bull pennant,” Daniel Kukan, senior cryptocurrency trader at Swiss-based Crypto Finance AG, told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat. “I believe ether can take the lead towards the year-end against BTC.” “We see levels of 0.08 in the near term,” Kukan added. The ratio was trading near 0.0705 at press time on Binance. A bull pennant is formed when an initial higher move is followed by a narrowing price range or a consolidation phase. This consolidation is usually resolved to the higher side, allowing for an extension of the price rally. The pattern is negated if the consolidation ends with a downside break.Recent flowsin both the spot and options market support the bullish case in ether. Bitcoin was trading at record highs near $68,200 at press time, while ether was changing hands at $4,800. “ETH was dragged up to an all-time high at $4,740 [last week], but it was actually BTC flow driving the move,” Adam Farthing, chief risk officer at crypto liquidity provider and over-the-counter trader B2C2 Japan, said in a weekly note published Monday. Also read:Open Positions in Ether ‘Calls’ Hits 1 Million Mark as Traders Pile Onto Higher Strike Options || EXCLUSIVE: Dan Olson On The Downside Of The NFT Hype Machine: An NFT Winter of Our Discontent? An interview with Dan Olson on the downside of the NFT hype machine. Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the leading voices in the NFT space -- he is both artist and lead promoter for his Veefriends NFT series. He recently launched VaynerNFTs as a way to handle his future plans for growth in NFTs. Recently, Vaynerchuk also launched a fine art NFT marketplace and Christie’s auctioned five works created by Vaynerchuk for VeeFriends for $1.2 million. This week, Vaynerchuk appeared on “Crypto Goes Mainstream”, an event produced by Yahoo Finance and Decrypt and Gary Vee tempered his usual enthusiasm with direct warnings of an impending NFT winter. “The conversation is about to get very interesting when we hit an NFT winter because there is way too much short-term greed and supply and demand issues and when the whole market crashes... there is going to be a real one I think based on what I’m seeing...,” Vaynerchuk said. When distinguishing what a “real NFT winter” would be, Gary Vee is separating this predicted market dip from the two small dips that have punctuated an incredible run in the NFT market, which increased 700% in transaction volume between Q2 and Q3 of 2021 to $10.67 billion according to Dappradar. Vaynerchuk ultimately believes that NFTs will be an important part of the future -- but his predictions for current NFT projects are less sunny. “I believe that 98% of NFT projects will be less when it’s all said and done. But the problem is the 2% is going to be so extraordinarily high that one is required to do the homework to see the opportunity,” Vaynerchuk said. Of course, Vaynerchukq is enthusiastic about an NFT Winter as a buying opportunity. That seems reasonable, as he is in an excellent position to ride out any rough waters in the market and come out on top, relying on his existing capital and public profile. Gary Vee loves NFTs -- but his body of work goes far beyond NFTs. Even VeeFriends are staked in the value of his already successful seminar series. Story continues But are NFTs really the boon for all creators that they have been and almost certainly will be for already rich and famous creators like Vaynerchuk? Will an NFT Winter be a good thing for investors in the 98% that Vaynerchuk posits will take a beating? Can NFTs be bad for creators and investors? Generally, you don’t see dissenting points of view about NFTs -- and if you do, they usually appear on publications that don’t otherwise write about blockchain. No community is strong if it cannot bear criticism. Yet, too often the criticism comes from people who have not taken the time to understand what NFTs are and how the projects develop their audience. That’s what made Dan Olson a rare find for me -- a content creator who has taken the time to understand NFTs as a phenomenon but who is not foaming at the mouth with uncontrollable zeal over the potential. After following months of Twitter exchanges with @FoldableHuman who vocally believes NFTs are a net negative for creators and buyers, we reached out to Dan Olson to learn his perspective. Olson is a popular YouTube creator whose channel focuses primarily on films and film production. He began his journey to understand NFTs as a phenomenon in September and in addition to Twitter, Olson took to Discord channels to get first-hand views of projects. His observations, though not the popular view for most NFT supporters, are drawn from months of interacting with multiple projects and serving as a hands-on field reporter observing the phenomenon. Dan Olson You do great content about films -- what led you to the topic of NFTs? “A lot of my work revolves specifically around talking about film, but ultimately my job is to make stuff online. NFTs have become pretty difficult for online creators to ignore because they've been pretty aggressively marketed to us as a revolutionary new revenue stream,” Olson said. What was the moment that made you decide to make a public statement about NFTs? “Honestly the tipping point for me... was the night I got invites to NFTits, MagicMarbles, and DIMEZ all in the span of an hour, all via bots lurking the Cool Cats Discord. I'd already been joking about the transparent bubble economics of the procedural PFP projects, but procedural renders of a marble that anyone new to Blender could build from a tutorial in less than an hour broke me,” Olson said. When did you start investigating NFT projects on Discord? “My investigation into the activity on Discord specifically started sometime in September 2021 after evangelists insisted that I just wasn't seeing the bright side -- I wasn't seeing the community and the innovation. I joined several higher-profile servers and wasn't persuaded by what I saw. A lot of the culture was still extremely focused on the projects as financial vehicles. Even in the most established projects... These aren't fandoms in the way you would experience them around a game or a TV show or a book. The product is pretty insubstantial if not functionally non-existent. Of course, just joining any of these servers immediately led to a deluge of spam for other projects, both in the servers' authorized shill channels and via cold call bots reaching out to everyone on a server list. It's tempting to say that this was a flawed way to delve deeper, that obviously this would mainly lead me into less stable projects, but I got just as much spam for successful projects like Humanoids and NFT Worlds as I did for rug-pulls like Crypto Astronauts and Hood Punks. On the whole, if you just look at the pitch package and the sample product, there's very little material difference between a project that's going to sell out 10,000 tokens in six hours and one that's going to become a trash fire as the project leader has a nervous breakdown and burns the mint three days post-launch after only selling 800 tokens,” Olson said. Do you need to be on the invite-only Discord channels to get the full picture? “If you only looked at Twitter and YouTube you could get a reasonable intuitive picture of what's going on, to the point that nothing would really surprise you, but you wouldn't be getting a comprehensive picture. Things don't hit YouTube or Twitter until they've passed through some kind of general social filtering mechanisms. Discord chats, on the other hand, are a lot closer to ground level. Chat rooms are a lot snappier as a means of communication. I wouldn't say it's a definitive look at the broader NFT community's values and norms, but it's a pretty significant one,” Olson said. Can you explain the toxic positivity you see on the Discord channels? “There's an extremely pervasive resistance to any form of skepticism that ultimately manifests as a sort of toxic positivity. This is all part of a complex feedback loop. The projects, broadly speaking, lack any kind of substantial product, existing almost entirely as promises backed by nothing more than a screenshot of a roadmap and some sample PFPs. I think it's really important to keep in mind that goes for successful projects just as much as for rug-pulls. There isn't any meaningful difference between a Party Ape Billionaire Club and a Betting Kongs. BK was never going to make a casino, even if they hadn't tanked, and despite the fact that they're running billboards in Times Square PABC is never making an MMORPG. Both claims are equally ridiculous, but one of the two made a huge pile of money. The primary product is ultimately hype, which is both insubstantial and fickle. Negativity, both internal and external, can have a meaningful impact on the willingness of people to buy into a project, and if buyers are tepid then you won't get a runaway sale, and if you don't get a runaway sale then that's going to turn off buyers even more. This creates toxic positivity where doubt is aggressively policed by both project leaders, who have an obvious financial interest in the hype since their big payday is the minting rush, and community members themselves, who have a speculative financial interest in the hype. While all of that is logical in the pure sense that there's an effect that can be explained by an incentive, the output is effectively a self-organizing cult. Doubters are ostracized so aggressively that it chills all conversation about a project's actual viability. I've been chided and banned from spaces purely for asking questions like has the team ever shipped a video game before? Which one? KwyptoKados banned me very quickly for mentioning that it was troubling that they'd ask for $2.5 million to make a video game, a budget that puts you on par with a serious mid-budget indie game, but only list the developer as "Sam". Questions that would be utterly banal in any other investment forum -- what has the team done, what assets do they have, why should anyone believe they can deliver on their promises -- are treated as hostile. And the frank reality is because there aren't answers. Party Ape Billionaire Club is just as vaporous, and yet they succeeded, so there's an incentive to enforce the collective delusion. The end product is a community trained to ignore warning signs and dismiss criticism. And the results of that are obvious: there are still people convinced that somehow someone is going to pick up the ashes of Evolved Apes and manifest the rest of the project, a belief based on no observable evidence,” Olson said. What are the worst examples you have seen on Discord? “The worst atmosphere I've seen is the most pervasive, which is the whole culture around paper hands as an insult for anyone who cuts their losses and bails out of a project. It comes up constantly even in successful projects, so it's particularly depressing to see it applied so aggressively in projects that are visibly floundering. On the dramatic side, the project lead for Time Travelers had a nervous breakdown and almost rugged the project by accident, the DIMEZ Discord is getting kinda toxic as the devs push out Gen 2 with Gen 1 being barely sold and still available for minting, and despite being rugged weeks ago the Crypto Astronauts general chat is still semi-active with people trying to brainstorm a way to recoup any of their money. That third one (Crypto Astronauts) is particularly heart breaking, since the $300 minting cost meant a lot of buyers dug pretty deep just to mint one, and then panic-bought the floor in a sunk-cost frenzy as they watched the project fail. Honestly, though, enough have failed that there's basically a script at this point for how to avoid being branded a rug pull, and that's to create a slow death. The basic formula is this: the project launches their minting but after 48 hours has sold less than 20% of their stock, new mintings have slowed to a crawl or stopped entirely, and the secondary market floor price has fallen below mint cost. The project leads burn the remaining hashes and say they're going to take a few days to "reconsider the direction of the project." They come back with a dramatically scaled-back proposal, frequently with a name change, and insist that this will now be considered Phase 1 of the grand plan, and everyone who bought in is a founding member of an elite circle, and they just need to HODL until Phase 2. There's some intermittent communication on how phase 2 is shaping up, with attached unrealistic promises about Phase 3, some sneak peeks, and maybe even an airdrop of something largely irrelevant and worthless or a purchase of another NFT of dubious quality for "the community chest". Gradually updates transition to just being promotions of other projects and general communication slows with leads disappearing for longer and longer spans until it becomes sort of obvious that they haven't logged in for a couple of weeks and are never coming back. At this point if the website disappears it's officially branded a rug pull, but if not then forum members mill around in confusion with some declaring it a rug pull while others insist that they're just too busy on the next phase. Around this point, since moderation has laxed or ceased, chat sees a steady spike in (messages like): sorry this didn't work out, but [link to other project] is really legit, DM me for details ,” Olson said. Despite valid criticisms of generative NFT art and collectible projects today, do you see NFTs as a vanguard of digital ownership? “Not particularly. I frankly see it as the vanguard of a future version of the web that is less accessible, less free, less interesting, and substantially more expensive. I see it as the vanguard of a million paywalls and oppressive code-enforced DRM schemes. I see tremendous blind spots in a community that has spent so long focusing on the hype of an untenable fantasy Metaverse where they're the ones cowing corporations with immutable ownership guaranteeing their ability to resell video game horses that they've failed to consider that the enforcement of ownership can and will be used against them if and when corporations decide to leverage their power in the space. (I see) A lot of focus on decentralization as a panacea, very little consideration of power as an actual dynamic,” Olson said. What drives the intense desire among investors to believe in these projects? “The driving force is economic disparity. The wealthy and tenuously wealthy are looking for a space that they can dominate, where they can be trendsetters and tastemakers and can seemingly invent value through sheer force of will. This is, in my opinion, the blindspot of many casual critics. The fact that tokens representing ape PFPs are useless, yet somehow still expensive, isn't an overlooked glitch in the system, it's half the point. It's a digital extension of inconvenient fashion. It's a flex and a form of mythmaking. And that's how it draws in the bottom: people who feel their opportunities shrinking, who see the system closing around them, the casualization of work as jobs are dissolved into the gig economy and want to believe that escape is just that easy. All you gotta do is bet on the right Discord and you might be air-dropped the next new hotness. It could be you plucked out of the crowd on Rarible and bestowed a six figure price by an elusive Saudi music producer. Get a BAYC in your wallet, HODL like a good diamond hands, and enjoy that yield. All you need is $5000 in seed money and you can buy a Farmer's World milk cow, and if you milk that cow every four hours, day and night, for two weeks, why there's all your money back right there and now it's pure profit -- minus the overhead of all the WAX you needed to stake, the barn you needed to buy and build, the barley you needed to purchase and grow, the food you needed to buy to refill the energy you needed to milk the cow, build the barn, and grow the barley. Plus you actually need to cash out which isn't getting paid, it's quitting. The whole ecosystem, from OpenSea fantasies for starving artists to the buy-in for Play to Earn games, it's the same hollow pitch as MLMs. It's LuLaRoe (MLM), but everywhere you look people are wearing ugly-ass ape cartoons,” Olson said. Do you have advice for creators considering dropping NFTs? “I'm not going to say don't do it because even if that's the essence of my advice it's too trite and dismissive on its own. So, try to cut through the hype and get a good look at the nuts and bolts. What are your minting costs going to be, where are you getting your smart contract from, what utility are you going to promise, what parallel infrastructure are you going to need to set up and maintain, what are you going to do if something breaks? If you're selling the most bare-bones NFTs possible with no strings attached, what are the odds anyone outside your circle buys it? Will it provide a meaningful shift in your business model, or are you just buying into someone else's plan to monetize your audience? Are you going to end up on Twitter tearfully trying to explain Kraken to your followers hoping someone has the heart to jump through the hoops because you've sold nothing and have paid hundreds of dollars in Gas? Does this actually solve a problem that you couldn't solve with your existing tools? Succeeding in NFTs is just as hard as it is everywhere else on the web, it's not magic, it's not inherently more profitable, and the overhead and maintenance costs, in both cash, energy, and attention, can be staggering. You risk burning your audience on the raw PR of attaching yourself to a toxic hyper-capitalist subculture. You risk accidentally rugging your own project when you realize that trying to fulfill open-ended promises such as making a DAO or setting up a community fund are making demands on your day-to- day work that consume your time and interfere with your actual product. You are potentially exposing yourself to a whole new plane of liability with regards to rapidly changing tax law and financial regulations. There are enough purely pragmatic considerations that for most creators the answer is "no, don't bother, it's not worth the effort,” Olson said. Conclusion Blockchain technology has an absolute value and utility -- but all the things built on blockchain are up for consideration. Even Bitcoin, the OG of the crypto world, is just 13 years old and like a lot of adolescents has a long road ahead of it before it can really deserve a tested and proven place in the world. It may be “digital gold” but real gold has been used by humans as a transfer of value for over 10,000 years. Critical thinking is an essential part of “doing your own research” and a more nuanced examination of NFTs as a phenomenon may be distressing to those with crossed-fingers wishing for immediate gain (and the projects selling to them) but ultimately is a good thing for the future of a stronger blockchain community. Image from Pixabay by PublicDomainPictures See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Exclusive Interview: Using NFTs for Fan-Funding in Filmmaking © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Whale Holdings Reach 2021 High Amid Inflation Fears: Bitcoin whales, or large investors with ample capital supply, appear to be buying again as fears of inflation lurching out of control strengthen the case for investing in store of value assets. Large investors holding at least 1,000 BTC snapped up 142,000 coins last week, taking the cumulative tally to nearly 200,000 BTC - the highest in 2021, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis’s market intel report published Tuesday. The renewed buying amid rising inflation expectations across the globe suggests investment is the primary use case for bitcoin. “Its a confirmation of the view that bitcoin is seen as digital gold, or perhaps institutions are just making a longer term trade on the bitcoin price,” Chainalysis said. The U.S. 10-year breakeven rate, which represents how the market foresees long-term price pressures, recently rose to a decade high of 2.64%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Bitcoin rallied nearly 40% in October, hitting a record high of $66,975. Analysts at JPMorganhave attributedthe rally to the perception that bitcoin is an inflation hedge contrary. The perception stems from bitcoin’s mining reward halving. This programmed code reduces the pace of supply expansion by 50% every four years, putting the cryptocurrency’s monetary policy at odds with the Federal Reserve’s decades of money printing. However, bitcoin needs to expand its footprint into crypto sub-sectors like Web 3 and decentralized finance to remain relevant relative to ether in the long run, according to Chainalysis. “Bitcoin usage has not reached the sophistication of Ethereum or other layer 1 assets,” Chainalysis said. “A decentralized way of wrapping bitcoin is needed to unlock the use of bitcoin as high-quality capital in DeFi.” “If bitcoin can be used as capital in Web 3.0 then it will have a future as both a scarce fungible asset and as a useful asset in the more innovative side of crypto,” Chainalysis added. The uptick in whale holdings suggests the recent rally is backed by strong hands and is sustainable. Bitcoin’s bullish momentum lost steam in the first quarter as whale holdings started declining. The market crashed in May. The cryptocurrency was last changing hands near $62,900, representing a 0.5% drop on the day, according to CoinDesk 20 data. Also read:Bitcoin Eyes Fed Meeting After Biggest Monthly Price Gain Since December 2020 || Dogecoin struggles to keep pace with shiba inu's record-breaking surge even as Elon Musk boosts his favorite cryptocurrency: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Dogecoin is still grappling with shiba inu for the meme token crown Thursday, despite a boost from Elon Musk. After the Tesla CEO joked about doge and scams on Twitter, it bucked the crypto market trend by rising in price. The dogecoin spin-off overtook Musk's favorite cryptocurrency by market value on Thursday. Shiba inu has rallied as much as 1,000% in October to move up the list of top 10 cryptos by market cap. Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell . Dogecoin got a boost from its best-known advocate Elon Musk on Thursday, but it wasn't enough to completely fend off a skyrocketing shiba inu, as the meme tokens battle for market value supremacy. Self-proclaimed "dogecoin killer" shiba inu gained as much as 60% to hit a record high of $0.00008616 on Wednesday, according to CoinMarketCap data . Its gains took it to the 8th-biggest cryptocurrency spot as it overtook dogecoin in market value. The battle continued Thursday as shiba inu added to its epic rally with a 36% rise, while dogecoin moved up 29% to 30 cents after Musk mentioned it in a Twitter exchange about cryptocurrency-related scams. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO was responding to dogecoin creator Billy Markus, who tweeted Wednesday that "there are no promises in crypto, except from scammers." Musk jokingly said : "If I send you 2 Doge, will you promise to send me 1 Doge?" @BillyM2k/@elonmusk/Twitter Dogecoin has transformed this year from an obscure and novel coin to a household name after being championed by Musk and an enthusiastic group of fans. The Tesla billionaire once referred to it as his favorite cryptocurrency . He also recently revealed he doesn't have any personal investment in shiba inu . The ethereum-based alternative to dogecoin has shot up about 1,000% in the past month as the "SHIBarmy" rallied behind the token. Its blistering gains have been partly driven by an online petition calling on Robinhood to add shiba inu to its list of tradeable cryptocurrencies. By comparison, dogecoin is up 60% in the past month. Story continues Created in August 2020, shiba inu has taken less than two years to become a contender for a top 10 cryptocurrency spot. On Thursday, $SHIB's market cap of $43 billion trumped $DOGE's $40 billion as of 8:50 a.m. ET. Major cryptocurrencies reversed losses after declining earlier in the day. Bitcoin rose 3% to about $61,142. Ether rose 4% to $4,174, and cardano's ada rose 1% to $2.02. Read More: Mario Gabelli has racked up a 7,000% gain on Berkshire Hathaway stock. The billionaire investor explains why he likes Robinhood, still backs Warren Buffett, and worries about the Fed taper. Read the original article on Business Insider [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: up || Prices: 46612.63, 48896.72, 47665.43, 46202.14, 46848.78, 46707.02, 46880.28, 48936.61, 48628.51, 50784.54
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)] Launch of New DLive Protocol Announced at BitTorrentX Product Release Conference: SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 21, 2020 /BitTorrent Inc., the leader in peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, hosted Link the Future: BitTorrentX Product Release virtual conference on December 16th 2020. The live streamed conference boasted over 58 industry thought leaders including Brandon Iles CO & CTO of Ampleforth, Sten Lockhom Strategic Advisor of the Waves Association, Ciara Sun VP of Global Business at Huobi and Nimrod Lehavi CEO of Simplex amongst others. The 12hr long conference was viewed by over 125,000 people from 25 different across youtube, periscope and DLive. BitTorrentX represents the transformation of BitTorrent, a world-renowned peer-to-peer service from a software company into a conglomerate of decentralized storage and data protocols and content distribution platforms. The entirety of BitTorrentX's utilities and services will be powered by the BTT cryptocurrency. 2020 was the year TRON and BitTorrent brought decentralization one step closer to the masses. During this momentous year Bittorrent crosses the historic benchmark of 2 Billion installs, launched BTFS revolutionizing the decentralized storage ecosystem, partnered with Huawei to launch BitTorrent and Utorrent apps on the AppGallery, acquired DLive the second largest live streaming platform in Turkey with over 7M monthly active users and announced the launch of BitTorrentX. During the conference Justin Sun unveiled the brand new BitTorrentX website and teased the new DLive protocol, the final evolution of a peer to peer live streaming technology which has been in research and development for over a decade. By using peer to peer technology, streamers can stream anytime, from anywhere, at a lower cost, and on their own terms. Viewers of the stream are not just passive consumers, but become nodes in a network which helps to distribute the stream outward to the rest of the swarm. Every viewer is a participant in this revolutionary new vision of live streaming. As we add more features and connect peer-to-peer streaming distribution to the peer-to-peer incentives built into the TRON blockchain, the possibilities are endless. "DLive Protocol adds a new way to distribute your live stream at the end of your existing workflow," said Anthony Wade, Engineering Manager at Dlive Protocol, "We currently target users of all live streaming services who utilize Open Broadcaster Software (OBS Studio) and simply add a new target for their output RTMP stream. So, as a streamer, you can use the same setup and production workflow that you use today." "I truly believe that decentralized entertainment is the next big step in blockchain mass adoption," said Justin Sun, Founder of TRON and CEO of BitTorrent. "Together with the BitTorrent and DLive teams, we look forward to bringing disruptive innovations to the digital entertainment space, and create value for all." From sharing revolutionary ideas with Warren Buffet and Steve Wozniak, to establishing a brand new DeFi ecosystem, expanding the functions of BitTorrent's denctralized storage and forging industry transforming partnerships TRON has continued to grow into one of the most active protocols in the industry. This year TRON has seen a string of prestigious partnerships beginning with a record $6.4 billionTether (USDT) on the TRON blockchain. This was followed by strategic partnerships with BitGo to launch WBTC and Wrapped Ether as TRC20 tokens on TRON. They have also partnered with Ampleforth to launch AMPL on the TRON blockchain. 2021 is going to be a big year for TRON and BitTorrent as they will be focused on growing and scaling their new DeFi infrastructure, expanding the functionalities of BTFS and building their influence in the decentralized media space. About BitTorrent, Inc. Founded with a leading peer-to-peer sharing technology standard in 2004, BitTorrent, Inc. is a consumer software company based in San Francisco. Its protocol is the largest decentralized P2P network in the world, driving 22% of upstream and 3% of downstream traffic globally. Its flagship desktop and mobile products, BitTorrent and µTorrent, enable users to send large files over the internet, connecting legitimate third-party content providers with users. With over 100 million active users, BitTorrent products have been installed on over 1 billion devices in over 138 countries worldwide. Since November 2018, TRON (TRX), Binance (BNB), and Bitcoin (BTC) holders have the opportunity to purchase one-year subscriptions of BitTorrent or µTorrent products, including Ads Free and Pro for Windows. Pro includes anti-virus and anti-malware screening, file converting and playability in HD. Users can visit bittorrent.com or utorrent.com to learn more. About DLive: DLive is a decentralized livestreaming community built using the Lino blockchain. DLive utilizes the Lino blockchain to incentivize both content creators and viewers using cryptocurrencies. DLive believes that all rewards belong to platform participants, and does not take cuts or charge any fees to content creators. Currently, DLive has 20 team members across four continents. To learn more about DLive, please visithttps://community.dlive.tv/about/welcome-letter/. Media Contact:press@tron.network SOURCE:TRON View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/621807/Launch-of-New-DLive-Protocol-Announced-at-BitTorrentX-Product-Release-Conference || India Mulls Imposing 18% Tax on Bitcoin Transactions: The Indian government is considering a bitcoin transaction tax that would add $1 billion in revenue a year, a move some industry participants said is a sign of the government’s growing comfort with cryptocurrencies. A proposal put forward to the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) by the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) would categorize bitcoin as an intangible asset and impose an 18% goods and services (GST) tax on bitcoin transactions, according to The Times of India. The proposal also suggests treating bitcoin as current assets and charging GST on margins made in trading. An 18% GST on the estimated annual value of all bitcoin transactions of INR 40,000 crore (roughly $5.5 billion) would yield INR 7,200 crore or $1 billion in tax revenue. Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Down to $26K but Traders Remain Bullish Prominent India-based crypto exchanges say a potential tax structure would bode well for the ecosystem. “Government mulling a tax structure is a sign of better understanding of this novel asset class and we are hopeful that this would lead to more positive news going forward,” Sumit Gupta, CEO of Mumbai-based crypto exchange CoinDCX said in a WhatsApp chat. “Regarding the tax rate, and structure is something that we’ll wait and watch, but this is definitely a positive sign.” Nischal Shetty, CEO of the Binance-owned WazirX exchange, echoed similar sentiments and added that clarity on the tax front could pave the way for increased Indian institutional participation in the bitcoin market. WazirX and Bangalore-based exchange Bitbns said that they are already paying GST on trading fees. “The GST amount paid has grown 500% in the last few months,” Gaurav Dahake, founder and CEO of Bangalore-based exchange Bitbns, told CoinDesk. Also read: India’s Banks Are Once More Serving Crypto Traders and Exchanges Trading volumes on exchanges catering to India-based clients have been rising ever since the Supreme Court quashed the Reserve Bank of India’sbanking ban on cryptocurrencies in March. While the Indian government does not consider bitcoin legal tender, simply holding cryptocurrencies is not illegal or banned. Related Stories India Mulls Imposing 18% Tax on Bitcoin Transactions India Mulls Imposing 18% Tax on Bitcoin Transactions India Mulls Imposing 18% Tax on Bitcoin Transactions || Cypherpunk Holdings Inc. Announces Updated Bitcoin Holdings: Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 26, 2020) - Cypherpunk Holdings Inc. (CSE: HODL) ("Cypherpunk" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has increased its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings to BTC 276.479. This represents a net increase since June 30, 2020 of 72.979 BTC. The increase in Bitcoin holdings is a result of the full liquidation of positions in Monero (XMR) and Ethereum (ETH), as well as the partial use of proceeds from a private placement of $505,000 CAD that closed on August 27th, 2020. During October 2020, Cypherpunk Holdings Inc. was added to the unofficial list of public companies with a treasury position in Bitcoin alongside other companies such as MicroStrategy [MSTR], Square [SQ], and Galaxy Digital Holdings [GLXY]. The web site for Bitcoin Treasuries can be found athttps://bitcointreasuries.org/ Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Generally, any statements that are not historical facts may contain forward-looking information, and forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or indicates that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be" taken, "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to the Company's intention to complete the private placement offering and its goal of making investments in the blockchain and other sectors and enhancing value. There is no assurance that the Company's plans or objectives will be implemented as set out herein, or at all. Forward-looking information is based on certain factors and assumptions the Company believes to be reasonable at the time such statements are made and is 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 forward-looking information. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by law. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. Investor Relations Contact:Lana ThompsonOperations Coordinator, Cypherpunk Holdings Inc.,info@mail.cypherpunkholdings.comOffice: 416.599.8547 To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/69049 || Crypto Markets Jump on OCC Approval for Banks to Use Blockchains: Cryptocurrency prices jumped Monday evening after the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a letter approving U.S. banks to use public blockchain networks. Ether jumped nearly 12% on the letter’s release, given Ethereum’s dominance as a stablecoin payment settlement protocol, and bitcoin gained 5%. Both leading cryptocurrencies almost fully retraced Sunday evening’s losses . “After a flurry of negative regulatory news, investors are pleased to see positive regulatory news allowing stablecoin and public blockchain integration into the traditional banking sector,” said Justin Yashouafar, managing partner at Santa Monica-based Blockhead Capital. Related: Most Important Crypto Regulation Yet? Banks Can Treat Public Blockchains Like SWIFT and ACH The letter addressed national banks and federal savings associations participating as nodes on a blockchain and storing or validating payments made in native digital assets or stablecoins. The OCC’s letter stands in contrast to a bill introduced in the last U.S. Congress session that would have required stablecoin issuers to obtain bank charters. That aggressively anti-stablecoin proposal resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations sent to leading cryptocurrency advocacy group Coin Center. In mid-December the Treasury Department proposed enhanced know-your-customer (KYC) rules on U.S. cryptocurrency users that want to transfer their holdings from an exchange to their own personal wallets. Related: US Federal Regulator Says Banks Can Conduct Payments Using Stablecoins Yashouafar noted the positive reactions of bitcoin and ether Monday were followed by price jumps from native tokens for other stablecoin-supporting networks, such as Algorand and Solana, both of which support the two largest stablecoins: tether (USDT) and Circle’s USDC stablecoin. Yet, while the prices of ether and algorand “reacted immediately to the news,” Yashouafar pointed out that Solana’s had not. Story continues Bitcoin has gained nearly 13% already in 2021 at last check, trading hands above $32,500. Ether is trading just below $1,100, roughly 25% below its record high of $1,448. Related Stories Crypto Markets Jump on OCC Approval for Banks to Use Blockchains Crypto Markets Jump on OCC Approval for Banks to Use Blockchains || Bitcoin Controlled By China, Ripple Tells SEC In Face Of Imminent Lawsuit: Ripple Labs Inc claimed — if the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission deems its token to be an investment contract — the regulator would cede innovation in cryptocurrency to China, which controls Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). What Happened: “The Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains are highly susceptible to Chinese control because both are subject to simple majority rule, whereas the XRPL prevents comparable centralization,” said Ripple, the company behind the XRP token, in a wells notice to the SEC. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin came down heavily on Ripple and said the company was sinking to “new levels of strangeness.” Looks like the Ripple/XRP team is sinking to new levels of strangeness. They're claiming that their shitcoin should not be called a security for *public policy reasons*, namely because Bitcoin and Ethereum are "Chinese-controlled". https://t.co/ts02JqrTrB pic.twitter.com/mKwEzGIetk — vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 22, 2020 Why It Matters: The fintech firm has vowed to defend itself against a yet-to-be filed lawsuit from the SEC against its CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen in federal court. The lawsuit is centered on whether XRP is a security that should be registered with the regulator or not. A former partner at Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS ) and founder of financial services firm Galaxy Digital Michael Novogratz noted on Twitter that BTC and ETH “seem to have an SEC pass,” while commenting on the upcoming XRP lawsuit. Novogratz also found it strange that SEC chairman Jay Clayton “waited years to do this." In 2018, the head of the SEC division of corporate finance, William Hinman, had said that BTC and ETH are not securities. At the time, Hinman had said that decentralization is the key to whether or not a currency is a security. Story continues Price Action: Ripple traded 18.21% lower at $0.46 at press time, while BTC traded 5.27% lower at $22,652.19. ETH traded 6.05% lower at $605.39. On Friday, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust closed 4.58% higher at $30.83. Related Link: ETH Cryptocurrency Surges 2.7% As Grayscale Ethereum Trust Becomes SEC Reporting Company See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga As Elon Musk Touts Dogecoin Again, Here's What You Should Know About The Cryptocurrency As Bitcoin Shoots Past K, Analysts Can Already See It Reaching For K © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Crypto for Advisors: A Growing Opportunity: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Whether you’re a true believer or a skeptic, it’s hard to ignore how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies performed in 2020. Crypto has gone from the realm of early adopters and fringe enthusiasts to major institutions and wealth managers. In the upcoming webcast, Crypto for Advisors: A Growing Opportunity , Matt Hougan, Global Head of Research, Bitwise Asset Management, will present the results of the 2020 Crypto-for-Advisors survey, exploring how the wealth managers have included crypto assets as part of client portfolios, and discuss how to access crypto, how it’s stored, and new ways investors can access this exciting new asset class. Bitwise Asset Management is the creator of the world’s first cryptocurrency index fund and offers low-cost, liquid beta funds, holding Bitcoin and Ethereum exclusively. The Bitwise Bitcoin Fund and the Bitwise Ethereum Fund are the second and third strategies in the Bitwise fund family, joining the broad-market Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund. The funds are driven by inbound client interest and investor dissatisfaction with existing options, many of which carry premiums, charge exit fees, have lockups, and/or charge expenses to the fund outside the stated management fee. The Bitwise Bitcoin Fund holds Bitcoin and captures the total returns available to investors in the world’s largest crypto asset, including any meaningful hard forks and airdrops. The Bitwise Ethereum Fund does the same for Ether. Funds safeguard holdings in 100% cold storage with an institutional third-party custodian and prepare simple K-1 tax documents for investors each year. "The speed at which professional investors are moving into crypto right now is remarkable," Hunter Horsley, cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of Bitwise, said in a note. "While adoption of crypto as an asset class and conviction around its role in portfolios rapidly expands, we continue to urge all investors to consider the risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies in general and the Bitwise Funds in particular." Story continues Financial advisors who are interested in learning more about cryptocurrencies can register for the Tuesday, January 12 webcast here . 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 Banking ETFs Gain as Banks Pause Their Political Donations Stocks Post Records to Start 2021 Bitcoin Drops Over 25%, But Analysts Remain Optimistic Stock ETFs Slip Amid Ongoing Political Turmoil and High Valuations Gold and Precious Metals in the Spotlight: 2020 Recap READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Developments Regarding XRP Relevant To 21Shares’ ETPs: Zurich - December 29, 2020 – In the U.S., the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged that XRP had been illegally marketed to retail customers. As a result of this, XRP is affected by severe price developments and illiquidity. On December 23, 2020, the Bitwise Select 10 Large Cap Crypto Index (BITS10), the Index serving as the Underlying for the 21Shares’ KEYS ETP, was reconstituted in accordance with the applicable Index Methodology. XRP was removed as an Underlying Component from the Index and the respective XRP were reallocated to the remaining Underlying Components as per the respective announcement. On December 24, 2020, MV Index Solutions GmbH as the index administrator of the 21Shares Crypto Basket Index ( HODL5 ), the Index serving as the Underlying for HODL, decided and announced in line with the applicable Index Guide that XRP be removed from the 21Shares Crypto Basket Index (HODL5) and, therefore, as an Underlying Component for HODL. The replacement Underlying Component will likely only be communicated on the Monthly Rebalance Date. Based on Condition 9.3 and Condition 18, the Issuer has exercised its discretion and, to protect Investors' interests, decided to sell the XRP and to invest the proceeds in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) currently serving as an Underlying Component (proportional to current allocations). Such proceeds will be invested in the replacement Underlying Component as soon as known in line with ordinary rebalancing procedures. time period, to remove XRP from the basket following the announcement of the Index Provider. “As part of our quick intervention, the board was able to remove XRP using its broad network of liquidity providers in order to liquidate its XRP position with the ultimate aim of reducing market impact and protecting investors to which it was able to achieve”, said Hany Rashwan CEO and Chairman of the board of directors of 21Shares, "thanks to our trusted partners, our main objective remains to replicate accurately our index and we were able to successfully conduct this ad hoc task despite the difficult trading conditions”. Story continues The board of directors of 21Shares wishes to inform the market that it is also monitoring the situation in regard to AXRP, the single asset ETP tracking the underlying component XRP. Affected ETPs: HODL - 21Shares Crypto Basket ETP (CH0445689208) KEYS - 21Shares Bitwise Select 10 ETP (CH0475986318) AXRP - Single asset ETP in relation to price developments:21Shares XRP ETP (CH0454664043) MVIS publication under https://mvis-indices.com/news/index-updates/mvis-to-remove-xrp-from-digital-assets-indices The listing prospectus is available in English free of charge from the registered office of the Issuer or on its website https://21shares.com/ir#prospectus. About 21Shares 21Shares makes investing in crypto assets as easy as buying shares using your conventional broker or bank. Investors can invest in cryptocurrencies using a conventional ETP structure (or tracker) easily, with total confidence and security, cost effectively thanks to the 21Shares suite of ETPs launched by 21Shares and now composed of 11 Crypto ETPs : the 21Shares Crypto Basket Index ETP (HODL:SW), 21Shares Bitcoin (ABTC:SW), 21Shares Ethereum (AETH:SW), 21Shares XRP (AXRP:SW), 21Shares Bitcoin Cash ETP (ABCH:SW), 21Shares Binance ETP (ABNB:SW), 21Shares Tezos ETP (AXTZ:SW), 21shares Bitcoin Suisse ETP (ABBA:SW), 21Shares Bitwise 10 ETP (KEYS:SW), Sygnum Platform Winners Index ETP (MOON:SW) and 21Shares Short Bitcoin ETP (SBTC:SW). The entire suite is listed on a regulated framework on the official market of Deutsche Boerse, SIX Swiss Exchange, BX Swiss and some on Boerse Stuttgart in CHF, USD, GBP and EUR respectively. Founded in 2018, 21Shares is led by a team of talented serial entrepreneurs and experienced banking professionals from the technology and financial world. Incorporated in Zug, with offices in Zurich and New York, the company has launched several world firsts, including the first listed crypto index (HODL) in November 2018. 21Shares has 11 crypto ETPs listed today and has over $239 million in AuM in total listed products. Press Contact Laurent Kssis +41 44 260 86 60 press@21Shares.com Disclaimer This document and the information contained herein are not for distribution in or into (directly or indirectly) the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan or any other jurisdiction in which the distribution or release would be unlawful. This document does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in or into the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan.This document does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to purchase, any securities in the United States. The securities of 21Shares AG to which these materials relate have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act. There will not be a public offering of securities in the United States.This document is only being distributed to and is only directed at: (i) to investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the "Order"); or (ii) high net worth entities, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"); or (iv) persons who fall within Article 43(2) of the Order, including existing members and creditors of the Company or (v) any other persons to whom this document can be lawfully distributed in circumstances where section 21(1) of the FSMA does not apply. The Securities are only available to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe, purchase or otherwise acquire such securities will be engaged in only with, relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this document or any of its contents. In any EEA Member State (other than the Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden) that has implemented the Prospectus Regulation (EU) 2017/1129, together with any applicable implementing measures in any Member State, the "Prospectus Regulation") this communication is only addressed to and is only directed at qualified investors in that Member State within the meaning of the Prospectus Regulation. Exclusively for potential investors in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden the 2019 Base Prospectus (EU) is made available on the Issuer’s website under www.21Shares.com . The approval of the 2019 Base Prospectus (EU) should not be understood as an endorsement by the SFSA of the securities offered or admitted to trading on a regulated market. Eligible potential investors should read the 2019 Base Prospectus (EU) and the relevant Final Terms before making an investment decision in order to understand the potential risks associated with the decision to invest in the securities. You are about to purchase a product that is not simple and may be difficult to understand. This document is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe for securities of 21Shares AG. Neither this document nor anything contained herein shall form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any offer or commitment whatsoever in any jurisdiction. This document constitutes advertisement within the meaning of the Swiss Financial Services Act and not a prospectus. Copies of the current Base Prospectus dated 13 November 2020 are available free of charge from the website of the Issuer. Subject to applicable securities laws, the Base Prospectus and the final terms of any product mentioned herein can be obtained from 21Shares AG on the website. Copies of this document may not be sent to jurisdictions, or distributed in or sent from jurisdictions, in which this is barred or prohibited by law. The information contained herein does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, in any jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of any jurisdiction. || Bitcoin ‘Making Progress’ on Bid to Oust Dollar, Morgan Stanley Chief Global Strategist Says: Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s Chief Global Strategist Ruchir Sharma waxed bullish on bitcoin’s potential to usurp the U.S. dollar for payments in a Wednesday Financial Timesop-ed. • “Today, most bitcoins are held as an investment, not used to pay bills, but that is changing,” Sharma wrote. He cited increasingBTCusage in small pockets of international trade and PayPal’s recent move to tap cryptocurrencies as a funding mechaism. • Considered in the context of falling faith in ever-growing dollar reserves, this trend could bode well for the market-leading cryptocurrency. Sharma argued that “bitcoin will gain” as its traditional competitors falter. • Sharma cautioned the bitcoin bubble may yet burst. Even if it does, governments and their money printers should be shaken. • “Do not assume that your traditional currencies are the only stores of value, or mediums of exchange, that people will ever trust. Tech- savvy people are not likely to stop looking for alternatives until they find or invent one,” Sharma warned. • Bitcoin ‘Making Progress’ on Bid to Oust Dollar, Morgan Stanley Chief Global Strategist Says • Bitcoin ‘Making Progress’ on Bid to Oust Dollar, Morgan Stanley Chief Global Strategist Says • Bitcoin ‘Making Progress’ on Bid to Oust Dollar, Morgan Stanley Chief Global Strategist Says • Bitcoin ‘Making Progress’ on Bid to Oust Dollar, Morgan Stanley Chief Global Strategist Says || Active Management Opportunity Abounds in 2021: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. With the value factor, international equities, and other assets that have previously been out of favor expected to come back into style this year, opportunities are plentiful for active managers to add value for investors. Active management could be particularly useful at a time when a small number of mega-cap tech stocks are dominating traditional index funds. Meanwhile, traditional index investments have exhibited a higher concentration to growth and tech, with the combined weight of the 5 largest S&P 500 components now at 22.2% of the benchmark, compared to about 12% back in 1991. Aggressive stimulus measures, such as the ongoing near zero-rate environment and government aid package, both of which are supporting the ongoing bull run. More stimulus, which could come to pass now that Democrats run the show in the nation's capital, could be another opportunity for active managers. “Given the great spread in valuations we're seeing in the market at the moment, we think there are really good opportunities for active managers, whether they're selecting individual companies or managing entire portfolios to add value in the coming few years in a way they've really struggled to do over the last few years,” according to Morningstar . Issuers believe the new active ETFs offers the best of both traditional active equity and ETF worlds, highlighting value add through the alpha potential of active management, access to a growing array of active equity strategies, the advantages of the more efficient ETF structure, and the additional choice of structures that meet investor needs. Active management can help investors identify dominant, growing businesses around the world today that may be overlooked by those unwilling to look beyond the index and think long-term. “Again, cost is incredibly important. You need to access an active management with the most talented investors as cheaply as you possibly can. But we can see that coming back into the fore over the next few years as these active managers are able to select companies or select assets that are out of favor with the possibility of much higher return,” according to Morningstar. For more on active strategies, visit our Active ETFs 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 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 Small-Cap, Value ETFs Rally on More Stimulus Bets READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > View comments || Bitcoin on record-setting spree, jumps 5% on day: By Kevin Buckland and Thyagaraju Adinarayan TOKYO/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin jumped more than 5% on Friday to fresh record highs of $41,530, reversing losses from earlier in the session. The world's most popular digital currency slid to as low as $36,618.36 on Bitstamp exchange before bouncing back. Rival cryptocurrency ethereum rose 3% after sinking more than 10%. Bitcoin has rallied nearly 1,000% since a low in March. It topped $30,000 for the first time on Jan. 2, after surpassing $20,000 on Dec. 16. Some market participants had warned of a correction after the $40,000 milestone was reached, but bitcoin was poised to register it's 11th session of gains out of the last 12. Increased demand from institutional, corporate, and more recently retail investors has powered bitcoin's surge, attracted by the prospect of quick gains in a world of ultra-low yields and negative interest rates. "We are seeing a continued demand spike driven largely by sustained and unprecedented institutional interest, showing no sign of abating as we move into 2021," said Frank Spiteri of digital asset manager CoinShares. JPMorgan strategists wrote on Jan. 5 that the digital currency has emerged as a rival to gold and could trade as high as $146,000 if it becomes established as a safe-haven asset. Interest in the world's biggest cryptocurrency soared last year, with investors viewing bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and an alternative to the depreciating dollar. Bank of America investment strategists on Friday said "violent" inflationary price action in markets helped bitcoin's rally in the last two months. But it warned that the cryptocurrency "blows-the-doors-off prior bubbles", such as the dotcom bubble in the late 1990s, China in the 2000s and gold in the 1970s. Graphic: Bitcoin vs. inflation hedges https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/yxmvjqalwpr/Pasted%20image%201610106870597.png Graphic: Bubbly bitcoin https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/buzz/oakpejbamvr/Pasted%20image%201610104586215.png (Reporting by Kevin Buckland and Thyagaraju Adinarayan, additional reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Hugh Lawson) [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 35791.28, 36630.07, 36069.80, 35547.75, 30825.70, 33005.76, 32067.64, 32289.38, 32366.39, 32569.85
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] Not fully available. [Random Sample of News (last 60 days)] Don’t Get Suckered Into Ideanomics Stock: Ideanomics(NASDAQ:IDEX) stock seems like a potentially huge winner. After all, Ideanomics has positioned itself to grow in both the blockchain and electric vehicle industries. Source: Wright Studio / Shutterstock.com I’m as big a bull on those two sectors as anyone. And so you might expect I’d be a bull on IDEX stock as well. That’s not the case, however. I see a number of concerns with Ideanomics — among them the precise fact that the company is targeting two very different industries. Throughout its history, Ideanomics has chased the ‘hot’ sector while failing to deliver. I’d be very worried that history will repeat. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips The first concern with Ideanomics is that it hasn’t been either a blockchain or an EV play for very long. The blockchain pivot came in 2017, after an attempt to develop a streaming video business in China (known asYou on Demand) fizzled out. The move to clean energy, via the company’s Mobile Energy Group, followed in 2019. In both cases, it’s not hard to get the sense that Ideanomics was simply chasing the ‘hot’ sector. It hasn’t had much success in either. The blockchain business wound up with a consulting agreement in 2019 in which it was paid in a cryptocurrency known as GTBDollar. • 9 Stocks That Investors Think Are the Next Amazon Ideanomics said in both an SEC filing and on a conference call that it had converted GTB into bitcoin and Ethereum, but later walked back that statement. In fact, in the middle of 2019, the companyclaimed to own“2,409 Bitcoins and 17,460 Ethereum.” At the moment, those holdings would be worth over $100 million. Yet the following quarter, Ideanomics walked back that statement. Itclarified that its holdings(which had somehow increased over the preceding three months) “do not represent a direct holding” of either cryptocurrency. Its GTBDollar holdings proved to be worthless. At the moment, investors seem more enthused about MEG’s efforts in China. But so far, the company hasn’t had much success there, either. In the third quarter, Ideanomics did have record revenue of over $10 million. It had an operating loss of $12 million. Now, an investor could look at the losses and argue that Ideanomics simply is early in its growth cycle. After all, there is no shortage of unprofitable companies with valuations well above Ideanomics’ current market capitalization of $650 million. In addition, the company has made a pair of acquisitions of late which appear to have stoked investor optimism. Neither case really holds. Investors need to understand what MEG is, at least for now: purely a middleman. It buys vehicles (most, but not all, of which are electric vehicles) from manufacturers and generates a small markup in selling those vehicles to taxi operators and the like. It’s not a profitable business. Gross margins were less than 7% in the third quarter. Nor is it a scalable business, either. As for the acquisitions, we’ll see. Theacquisition of title companyTimios Holdings, which closed this month, is intriguing. But it’s not clear how the business fits into the supposed ‘fintech’ business which has generated less than $1 million in revenue so far this year. Ideanomics then announced the purchase ofWireless Advanced Vehicle Electrification, or WAVE,for $50 million in cash and stock. But the purchase price itself raises concerns. This is a market where EV charging companies are valued in the billions off often-minimal revenues. Why is WAVE, with supposedly advanced wireless charging solutions, settling for a relatively paltry price? There’s also the problem that Ideanomics’ past acquisitions and efforts have generally struck out. In 2018, it acquiredFinTalkfor $5.7 million and promptly wound the business down. ‘Influencer’ platformGrapevinewas acquired and thensupposedly soldlast year, but according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings remains on the books. It’s done little to contribute to Ideanomics’ results. TheDelaware Board of Tradedefaulted on a government loan. Ideanomicsmade little progresson Fintech Village, a supposed blockchain innovation center, in Connecticut, and is now selling the property. Maybe this time is different. Perhaps WAVE really becomes a leader in EV charging, or the blockchain efforts somehow bear fruit. But there’s an old saw that “this time is different” are the four most dangerous words in investing. It’s an old saw for a reason. This is a company that’s constantly chased the ‘hot’ thing: streaming video, blockchain, electric vehicles, EV charging. Every time, it’s failed to deliver. Every time, shareholders paid the price. With IDEX stock gaining once again, clearly the optimism has returned. I hope the end result isn’t the same, though I fear it will be. On the date of publication, neither Matt McCall nor the InvestorPlace Research Staff member primarily responsible for this article held (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in the article. Matthew McCall left Wall Street to actually help investors — by getting them into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else.Click here to see what Matt has up his sleeve now. As of this writing, Matt did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. • Why Everyone Is Investing in 5G All WRONG • Top Stock Picker Reveals His Next 1,000% Winner • It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. The postDon’t Get Suckered Into Ideanomics Stockappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Bitcoin's Biggest Fans Are Hedge Fund Baby Boomers: (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Bitcoin is the ideal holiday gift for an underperforming hedge fund manager. Just ask SkyBridge Capital’s Anthony Scaramucci, who is diving in after his fund of hedge funds posted its worst annual performance since 2008. That’s unlikely to be a coincidence. Whatever one’s misgivings about the sustainability of the cryptocurrency’s price rally — it has doubled in one month to a $35,000 record — it’s a happier tale to tell the market than the bad structured-credit bets that saw SkyBridge clients ask for their money back. At around $40 million, this crypto bet looks like a fig leaf next to the firm’s overall assets of $7 billion, but one in tune with the times. After all, the cryptocurrency’s most vocal advocates nowadays aren’t plugged-in millennials but the hedge fund world’s baby boomers and Generation X-ers — Stanley Druckenmiller, Paul Tudor Jones — backing Bitcoin as the juice their global macro trade playbooks need. As an industry, hedge funds could use the help: While November saw them post their best collective performance for six years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, that still wasn’t enough to match returns available from benchmark equity indexes. As a specific strategy, global macro funds lagged their peer group, the stock market and the returns from the global bond market. What lures the “smart” money to Bitcoin as a trade is the very thing that makes it such a poor currency and an unreliable store of value in times of panic: It’s an illiquid, artificially scarce and volatile commodity whose price is driven by extreme sentiments of greed and fear. “Bitcoin is the perfect vehicle for exploiting mankind’s infinite stupidity," says Julian Rimmer, a sales trader at Investec Plc. “A small percentage of one’s portfolio must be held in this ‘asset’ because gullibility never goes out of fashion.” It could also provide a very convenient halo effect for an industry that has been shrinking for several years. Customers withdrew $50 billion last year, leaving the total amount managed at a bit less than $3.3 trillion, according to eVestment. Talking about Bitcoin as a new spin on “digital gold” hides the fact these are small, speculative bets from a sub-set of Wall Street — when Tudor Jones praised the “birthing of a store of value” last year, he also revealed that only 1% of his assets was in Bitcoin. Expectations for a tidal wave of institutional money into cryptocurrencies still look more hope than reality, therefore. Aberdeen Standard Investments’ Adam Grimsley told Financial News it was “delusional” to claim institutional investors were significantly piling into Bitcoin. As for hedge funds dedicated to trading crypto, they’re still a niche pursuit. A report by PwC found that only 35% of them manage more than $20 million, with a median size of $8.2 million. Even more telling, 90% of their clients are either family offices or high-net-worth individuals. The hope from the crypto-converted is that this will be enough to outdo day traders sitting at home speculating on stocks like Tesla Inc., which has also doubled in the space of a few months. Anything’s possible with Bitcoin, but if history is any guide, there may be tears ahead. The last time hedge funds “went crypto” in 2017 after a frothy run-up in the price, the ensuing downturn led to almost 70 specialized funds closing in 2019. Either way, Bitcoin is a Wall Streeter's toy right now. The early adopters sound distinctly unenthused by the rush to recreate the worst excesses of finance on the blockchain. For this price rally to keep going, it’s the 50-year-olds who have to keep buying. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the European Union and France. He worked previously at Reuters and Forbes. 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 atbloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe nowto stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. ©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin Tops $24.6K on Christmas Day, Sets New All-Time High: “O, come all ye HODLers…” “Bitcoin we have seen on high…” Regardless of what song one wants to ruin, there’s no denying bitcoin has been the gift that keeps on giving this holiday season, cutting through $24,500 on Christmas Day and setting another all-time high. • The price of the leading cryptocurrency, set a new all-time mark of $24,667.63, before falling back to $24,442.24, up 5.92% on the day. • The record price comes a week to the day bitcoinsetthe prior record of $24,122.67. • With the latest price increase, bitcoin’s year-to-date percentage gains have grown to over 240%. “So have yourself a merry little Bitmas…”Sorry, couldn’t resist one more. Happy holidays, everyone! Related:Bitcoin Tops $28K for 1st Time, Hours After Crossing $27K; Market Cap Now Exceeds $500B Read more:Over $20K? Why Is Bitcoin Worth Anything at All? • Bitcoin Tops $24.6K on Christmas Day, Sets New All-Time High • Bitcoin Tops $24.6K on Christmas Day, Sets New All-Time High • Bitcoin Tops $24.6K on Christmas Day, Sets New All-Time High || Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink & Uniswap - American Wrap: 1/6/2021: Bitcoin Cash Price Is Up By 40% And Is On The Verge Of Rising To $500 Bitcoin Cashhas been inside a steady and robust uptrend since September 2020. In total, the digital asset has risen by more than 130% but hasn’t yet beaten the 2020-high of $498 established on February. Chainlink Price Prediction: LINK could reach $25 if this critical resistance level is broken Chainlink had a massive drop on December 23, 2020, from a high of $12.86 to a low of $8. However, bulls managed to buy the dip and pushed LINK towards $13.24 within the next week. The current price of the digital asset is $16.3. Uniswap Price Analysis: UNI’s Rise To New All-Time Highs Only Depends On One Critical Demand Wall Uniswap token is trading at $6.35 at the time of writing, resulting from the considerable surge seen last week. At this rate, UNI will most likely hit its previous ATH at $8.70 very soon. However, a crucial sell wall might pose a threat to the token’s ascent. See more from Benzinga • Click here for options trades from Benzinga • Bitcoin, Ripple & Sushi - American Wrap: 1/5/2021 • Bitcoin, Stellar & Litecoin - American Wrap: 1/4/2021 © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || The Intangible Reasons Ethereum and Bitcoin Lead: Decentralized finance (DeFi) is exploding. The amount of capital locked in DeFi, an imperfect yet useful measure of traction, recently hit an all-time high of $35 billion. Today, Ethereum is the dominant network for DeFi in all important metrics, including capital flows, locked capital, number of projects and developers. Alex is a co-founder at Zabo , a platform enabling fintechs and financial services companies to easily connect cryptocurrency accounts to their applications. Related: Twitter Considering Bitcoin Options, Including on Balance Sheet, Exec Says The exploding growth in DeFi has stoked an already fierce battle among smart contract platforms, aka “Ethereum-killers,” to win share of the emerging category. Tushar Jain, partner at the crypto venture firm Multicoin Capital, recently made comments on Twitter calling into question Ethereum’s DeFi dominance: Jain’s view is held by many smart investors and can be summarized as: eventually higher performance, better designed, less expensive networks will start to eat into Ethereum’s DeFi market share. Indeed, investors have poured billions into competing smart contract platforms in support of this exact thesis. Related: Rhode Island Lawmakers Hope to Boost State Economy With Blockchain-Friendly Legislation Yet, despite many competing platforms launching and deploying vast amounts of capital in their efforts, Ethereum’s network effects and moat are inexplicably as strong as ever. How is this possible? It’s possible because Ethereum has powerful intangible assets that are incredibly difficult to reproduce and compete against. This isn’t a new dynamic – intangible dominance has long been observed and impacted traditional markets and companies, too. Coca-Cola, Google and … Ethereum? You can generally split assets into two categories: tangible and intangible. Tangible assets are physical in nature – things like money, equipment and servers. For computer networks, a tangible asset might include how much computational power can be delivered or how fast a query can be run – things based on underlying physical properties of the network. Given tangible assets’ physical nature, they are quite easy to quantify and measure. Story continues By contrast, intangible assets do not exist in physical form – such as intellectual property, brand recognition and trust. Intangible assets can be very difficult to quantify, making it harder to spot their influence on final outputs like earnings or number of connections in a network. Intangible assets can also be incredibly difficult to replicate, because their creation often relies on something far more complex, like the thoughts of a human brain. Investors have long known that successful companies have strong intangible qualities giving them the ability to accrue outsized value and stay highly competitive for long periods. Consider a company like Coca-Cola. Imagine you created a cola that tasted even better than Coke (“higher performance”) and supplied enough capital to build a better world-wide distribution network to rival Coca-Cola’s (“more scalable” and “less expensive”). Investors have long known that successful companies have strong intangible qualities giving them the ability to accrue outsized value. Would that enable you to convince most existing and new cola drinkers to make the switch off Coke? Probably not. Coca-Cola’s tangible assets – the raw ingredients that make up Coke’s taste, packaging and distribution – are not what secure the company’s dominant market position alone. Coke is dominant today because of intangible assets: its universal brand awareness, customer loyalty and the way it makes people feel. Those are incredibly hard to reproduce. Yet, Coke is a consumer brand. What about technology? We find the same trend there, too. Google is a clear example of intangible dominance in a technology market. While Google is widely viewed as having the best technology (part of its brand and thus intangible), like Coke its brand is so strong that it became a generic term (“google it”). Today, more than 20 years after Google was founded, competing search engines still languish behind Google’s 85%+ market share. Why? Unassailable intangible assets, including brand, trust and existing search volume , which together form part of the moat that enables Google to continually maintain superior tangible assets over long periods. Ethereum the intangible What about open-source networks? Do the same rules apply? In open-source networks, there are far fewer intangible assets to work with. There are no patents or intellectual property that make one network better than the other. All networks compete on a vast, completely open plane, viewable and copyable by all. Initially it may seem that this makes tangible assets such as network speed, computational power or capital availability more valuable. But it’s quite the opposite. Tangible assets are more easily reproduced in open-source software than just about anywhere else. Just as in traditional businesses, intangibles are king in open source. Competing networks are quick to point out tangible weaknesses in Ethereum’s network: high transaction fees (not cheap), lack of scalability (not fast) and even easily fudgable smart contracts (not secure). But they fail to fully appreciate that Ethereum’s immense intangible assets are the real moat behind its dominance: A vast, rapidly expanding interconnectedness, of developer energy (proof of work), capital, assets and projects (akin to Google’s existing search volume moat) A cryptocurrency brand second only to Bitcoin (the category leader) and the dominant brand in DeFi where Ethereum is far and away the category leader A fanatically loyal community that includes the most dominant network of developers and projects in the entire crypto industry. Attacking primarily on a tangible basis – “better technology” and more resources – will not knock Ethereum from its dominant position anymore than “better cola” or “better search results” will unseat Coke or Google. The intangible moat at this stage is simply too wide, giving Ethereum free range to continue building compounding tangible infrastructure. Many well-capitalized, super-talented and well-meaning teams have built and launched networks that have struggled (so far) to put a dent in Ethereum’s DeFi dominance. What most of these attempts have in common is they assume that producing superior tangible outcomes in the same categories Ethereum owns will be the strategy to win. What about new users? Jain’s comment importantly makes the distinction of “ new DeFi users,” implying that Ethereum’s dominance won’t last as DeFi grows and there are many new participants. Yet, we don’t have to look farther than Bitcoin to see the opposite precedent. Similar to Ethereum, and for twice as long, Bitcoin has confronted and ultimately out-competed every contender to the throne of the dominant, decentralized, store-of-value network. Similar to Ethereum, Bitcoin has constantly been attacked over the perceived limitations of its network, including that it’s too slow and not scalable. The intangible moat at this stage is simply too wide, giving Ethereum free range to continue building compounding tangible infrastructure. Yet, despite a seemingly infinite number of tangible iterations, every Bitcoin competitor has failed to generate an intangible moat of significance in brand, awareness, trust or adoption. Instead of faltering, Bitcoin has dominated the market with a more than 60% share by market cap. Bitcoin’s brand of “digital gold” has become so powerful that not even gold itself can escape Bitcoin’s intangible gravity. Twelve years and thousands of competitors later, Bitcoin continues to convert an outsized portion of the incremental crypto user. See also: Money Reimagined: Bitcoin and Ethereum Are a DeFi Double Act The only network with a brand-loyal following and network effects similar to Bitcoin is Ethereum. It obtained them by creating completely new categories – smart contracts and DeFi – that did not compete with Bitcoin directly. If Bitcoin and internet businesses with powerful, intangible network effects are any indication, we’re headed towards more dominance for Ethereum, not less, driven by an ever expanding intangible moat. So what’s a competing technologist to do? Stop building? Stop investing? None of the above. Technologists should keep building and investing in new categories where the authenticity of their product and vision will attract not just users, but loyal followers. Related Stories The Intangible Reasons Ethereum and Bitcoin Lead The Intangible Reasons Ethereum and Bitcoin Lead || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – December 30th, 2020: Bitcoin, BTC to USD, rose by 1.01% on Tuesday. Following on from a 3.09% rally on Monday, Bitcoin ended the day at $27,316.0. It was a relatively choppy day. Bitcoin fell to an early morning low $25,859.0 before making a move. The sell-off saw Bitcoin fall through the first major support level at $26,267. Steering clear of sub-$25,500 support levels, Bitcoin revisited $27,000 levels before a 2ndpullback. Bitcoin fell back to an afternoon low $26,205.0 before bouncing back to a late intraday high $27,329.0. In spite of the late high, Bitcoin continued to fall short of the first major resistance level at $27,641. The near-term bullish trend remained intact, supported by the latest breakthrough to $28,000 levels. For the bears, Bitcoin would need to slide through the 62% FIB of $13,261 to form a near-term bearish trend. Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Tuesday. Ripple’s XRPslid by 10.65% to lead the way down. Bitcoin Cash SV(-3.51%),Chainlink(-6.56%),Crypto.com Coin(-3.03%), andLitecoin(-0.76%) also saw red on the day. It was a bullish day for the rest of the majors, however. Polkadot rallied by 13.04% to lead the pack, withBinance Coin(+8.79%) andCardano’s ADA(+8.21%) also making solid gains. Ethereum(+0.29%) trailed the front runners, however. Early in the week, the crypto total market cap rose to a Monday high $738.59bn before falling to a Tuesday low $678.76bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $732.14bn. Bitcoin’s dominance rose to an early Monday high 70.82% before falling to a Monday low 69.13%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 70.21%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 1.09% to $27,615.0. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin rise from an early morning low $27,312.0 to a high $27,792.0. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Binance Coin (-1.70%), Cardano’s ADA (-0.40%), Polkadot (-1.22%), and Ripple’s XRP (-2.18%) were in the red early on. It was a bullish start for the rest of the majors, however. At the time of writing, Crypto.com Coin was up by 7.45% to lead the pack. Bitcoin would need to avoid a fall through the pivot level at $26,835 to bring the first major resistance level at $27,810 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break back through to $27,800 levels. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and resistance at $28,000 would likely cap any upside. In the event of another extended crypto rally, Bitcoin could test resistance at $28,500 before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $28,305. Failure to avoid a fall through the $26,835 pivot would bring the first major support level at $26,340 into play. Barring an extended crypto sell-off, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$25,500 levels. The second major support level sits at $25,365. Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire • USD/JPY Price Forecast – US Dollar Heading Towards Big Figure • EOS, Stellar’s Lumen, and Tron’s TRX – Daily Analysis – December 30th, 2020 • USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – BOJ Policymakers Divided on Stimulus Tweaks as Deflation Fears Rise • Gold Analysis – Year in Review and Forecast • Imax Could Post Strong 2021 Returns • Oil Gains Ground As Stimulus Hopes Offset Virus Worries || Why Bitcoin 'Whales' Are Not Ready To Cash Out, Even At All-Time Highs: Bitcoin(BTC) addresses that contain more than 1,000 BTC  — worth $38.41 million at press time — now stand at an all-time high of 2,334, CoinDeskreportedThursday. What Happened:“Whale” accounts, or accounts with large BTC holdings, have risen 3.7% since December when the number stood at 2,221, according to CoinDesk. Compared with the previous 2017 bull market, the large accounts have grown by 30%. There are at least 6,633 addresses that hold more than $10 million in BTC, according to BitInfoCharts data. On Wednesday, the combined market value of cryptocurrenciescrossed the trillion mark, with BTC alone enjoying a market cap of $685.76 billion. CoinDesk Research’s quarterly review report noted that the dip in Bitcoin seen at the end of December evoked “little interest” in profit-taking on part of large holders. Why It Matters:Bitcoin touched an all-time high of $40,180.37 on Thursday and has returned 32.35% since the new year began. When asked on CNBC’s halftime show on Thursday where Bitcoin was going, Chamath Palihapitiya, Chairman ofVirgin Galactic Holdings Inc(NYSE:SPCE) said, “probably going to a hundred then 150 then 200,000.” “In what period I don't know five years, ten years, but it's going there and the reason is because every time you see all of this stuff happening it just reminds you that wow our leaders are not as trustworthy and reliable as they used to be,” said the billionaire investor. Palihapitiya described the apex cryptocurrency as “insurance” and said it gave people access to an “uncorrelated hedge and it's going to eventually transition to something much more important.” The "SPAC king" began investing in Bitcoin in 2012 and has sincesold all his individual bitcoins, instead choosing to invest through companies that own cryptocurrencies. See Also:MicroStrategy Now Holds 70,470 Bitcoin After Spending .1B in 2020 Price Action:Bitcoin traded 2.84% higher at $38,338.34 at press time. On Thursday, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC:GBTC) closed 2.37% higher at $44.97 and Grayscale Ethereum Trust (OTC:ETHE) closed 1.18% lower at $14.61. See more from Benzinga • Click here for options trades from Benzinga • Bitcoin Investor Lost 0K In Botched Up Wallet Migration: How You Can Avoid Similar Fate • Cryptocurrency Stellar Has Surged 180% Over A Week — Here's Why © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || This Transportation ETF Could Really Start Moving in 2021: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. One way to tell whether the economy is starting to move again, literally, is to look at the transportation sector. In particular, one fund that could benefit from a healing economy is the Direxion Daily Transportation Bull 3X Shares (TPOR) . TPOR seeks daily investment results equal to 300 percent of the daily performance of the Dow Jones Transportation Average. The index measures the performance of large, well-known companies within the transportation industry. Traders looking at an opportunity in TPOR can note that it has touched down on its 50-day moving average just recently. When looking whether it can keep its upward momentum since the pandemic sell-offs in March, we can use the relative strength index (RSI) as a gauge. In its one-year chart and at an RSI at 46.13, the fund could be heading into overbought territory, which could present a buying opportunity. In conjunction with another technical filter, in this case the moving average convergence divergence (MACD), the exponential moving average (EMA) is below the signal line. Typically, you want to see the EMA line cross above the signal line to confirm a potential bullish uptrend ahead for TPOR. Given the fundamentals, however, that trend could be starting to play out as TPOR looks to retrace back to its pre-pandemic levels. TPOR Chart TPOR data by YCharts Transportation Sector Evolves Amid Covid-19 Just like most business sectors, the transportation sector is undergoing its own evolution. With a heavier reliance on e-commerce, more deliveries need to be made, which is where the business of transportation is seeing strength. Per a NBC News article , consumers "have relied on e-commerce to get everything from toilet paper to groceries to puzzles to sweatpants during the pandemic. Online retail sales were up by 32 percent over last year, a figure that wasn't expected until 2022 , according to the digital research company eMarketer." Story continues "If the pandemic were to continue or a vaccine was distributed right away, it really doesn't change anything, because this was a train already moving down the track," said Rich Thompson, who leads the global supply chain and logistics solutions team for the commercial real estate company JLL. "It's just now accelerating." The increased use of online shopping is causing e-commerce giant Amazon to shore up its fleet of delivery trucks. In the same way, the railroad system signaled the rise of the Industrial Revolution, delivery trucks are a sign of the times. "Parcel deliveries are akin to the creation of the American railroad system," he said. "These alternative logistics providers are trying to create a private delivery network across the country — because that's what we need." For more news and information, visit the Leveraged & Inverse 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 Small-Cap, Value ETFs Rally on More Stimulus Bets Stock ETFs Relinquish Gains Amid Capitol Protest And Lockdown Bitcoin ETF Back In Play As The Crypto Continues To Surge Stock ETFs Rally For Second Day Amid Runoff Results A TIP for Bond ETF Investors Worrying About Inflation READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || How Perth Brokers Allows Australians To Tap Into The Trillion-Dollar Cryptocurrency Market: Perth Brokers Perth Brokers Perth Brokers Perth, Australia, Feb. 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On the 8th of January 2021, Bitcoin touched a peak of $40,000 USD. To give you some perspective into how lucrative an investment it would have been, a year ago, on Jan 8th 2020, it was priced at $9500. The question is, how many Perth stockbrokers or Perth Finance Brokers actually capitalized on this 400% spike? Chances are that it’s very few. Believe it or not, Australia is lagging behind when it comes to investing in the booming cryptocurrency market. That’s quite surprising considering that brokers Perth are usually quite savvy about financial investments. Why then do they twiddle their thumbs while investing in crypto? Is it because it’s too cumbersome? Is it because there are no legitimate trading platforms Australia for cryptocurrency? Well, now there is. Perth Brokers is Australia’s first cryptocurrency trading platform that lets you tap into this massive trillion-dollar economy that’s teeming with opportunity. Perth Brokers: A platform designed for Aussies Perth Brokers prides itself as Australia’s first cryptocurrency trading platform that lets you trade in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin, in simple steps. It’s designed to help anybody invest in crypto and make steady, consistent profit with it. That’s anybody. Even if you are a layman who’s just read about Bitcoin, a school teacher who wants to invest in cryptocurrencies on the sides, a woodworker, a doctor, anybody can invest with Perth Brokers. It has a really easy user interface and does most of the heavy lifting, while you sit back and watch your money grow. The only caveat is that there are limited spots. So, if you want to cash in on the expected boom in crypto, you have to be one of the first ones to register with them. How the Perth Brokers platform works The Perth Brokers Platform is the easiest way for any Australian to invest in cryptos. It features auto trading bots that use complex algorithms and predictive data to plot charts and make investment bets. Story continues All that you have to do, is select which cryptos you would like to invest in, and that’s it. You can buy your favorite cryptocurrencies in Australian Dollars or USD, or even in cryptocurrencies, if need be. You will then be given access to a secure wallet where your coins will be stored. You have the flexibility and the freedom to withdraw, both coins and FIAT at any given point of time. At the same time, perth finance brokers will have the option to take over the reins of the trade, if they are confident about it. There is an option to manually control everything from the amount of investments, the type of trade (short selling, intraday trade) and the volume of trade. The best part about the platform, is that there is no minimum investment amount. You can get started even with $100. Is it worth a try At a time when there are no other Australian brokerage platforms offering a similar investment option, we feel that Perth Brokers has the potential to be a game changer for you and help you grow your investment in no time. Talking about growing your money, Bitcoin prices have dropped 30% since 9th Jan and is now priced at $30000. If experts are to be believed, the next rally will see it touching $50,000, and it is to be expected by the end of this year, or even sooner. Perth Stockbrokers can click here now to register with the platform. They are only accepting limited registrations. Media Details Company: Perth Brokers Email: Office@perthstockbrokers.com Website: https://perthstockbrokers.com/ Attachment Perth Brokers || Coinbase, Readying for Public Listing, Gets $77B Valuation From Nasdaq Private Market: Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which is preparing to trade publicly in the next few months, is being valued at $77 billion, based on trading of the company’s privately held shares on a secondary market. Those shares in the largest crypto exchange in the U.S. are changing hands on the Nasdaq Private Market at $303 a piece, according to two people with knowledge of the auction. That implies a total company value of about $77 billion – greater than Intercontinental Exchange Inc., the owner of the New York Stock Exchange. “The third weekly transaction closed on Friday and the clearing price was $303 a share,” said a source. “The first week it was 200 bucks a share, the second week it was $301 a share, and the third week it was $303 a share. So you can kind of see price discovery happening.” Related:Mining Machine Manufacturer Ebang to Start Mining Bitcoins for Itself Coinbase declined to comment. The Coinbase private market is running an anonymous order book ahead of the company’s direct public listing, a date for which is still unknown. The sale allows current and former employees, as well as investors in Coinbase, to take some cash off the table. Around 254 million shares in Coinbase will be outstanding and available to trade when the firm goes public, according to sources with knowledge of the offering. Coinbasepre-IPO futures contractswere trading on crypto derivatives exchange FTX at about $386 at the time of writing. Hopes for Coinbase’s public listing are riding high within the crypto community, especially as the price ofbitcoincontinues to reach above $50,000. (More will be revealed about Coinbase’s finances when the confidential S-1 it filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is made public in the coming weeks.) Related:NBA Top Shot's 13-Second Highlight Clip of Zion Williamson NFT Sells for $100K Countering such great expectations is the argument that the valuation of 100% of a company could be very different than the valuation of half a percent of its shares. However, the secondary selling of shares sponsored by Coinbase over the past three weeks has seen “meaningful amounts” change hands, according to a source. “It’s not like a handful of shares being exchanged at $300 a share. Each week it’s tens of millions of dollars, a pretty sizable amount,” said the source. • Coinbase, Readying for Public Listing, Gets $77B Valuation From Nasdaq Private Market • Coinbase, Readying for Public Listing, Gets $77B Valuation From Nasdaq Private Market [Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)] None available.
Trend: down || Prices: 57539.95, 54207.32, 48824.43, 49705.33, 47093.85, 46339.76, 46188.45, 45137.77, 49631.24, 48378.99