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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Hackers Threaten to Wipe iPhones Unless Apple Pays Ransom: A hacker group is trying to extort up to $100,000 from Apple by threatening to remotely wipe hundreds of millions of iPhones and iCloud accounts it claims it has accessed. The Vice website blog Motherboard reports that the hackers who call themselves the Turkish Crime Family are demanding that Apple either fork over $75,000 in cryptocurrencies Bitcoin or Ethereum or give them $100,000 worth of iTunes gift cards. In exchange, the hackers say theyll delete the large cache of iCloud and Apple email account data they claim to have. Motherboard says the cybercriminals allegedly have access to anywhere between 300 million and 559 million accounts. The Turkish Crime Family has given Apple a deadline of April 7 to meet its demands. However, before you panic at the thought of losing all your iPhones data including pictures, videos and other files an Apple spokesperson tells Fortune that its systems are secure and have not been breached. In an emailed statement to Fortune, an Apple spokesperson writes: There have not been any breaches in any of Apples systems including iCloud and Apple ID. The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained from previously compromised third-party services. According to Fortune, its possible the hackers alleged data cache is from a previous data breach at LinkedIn. Even if Apples response leaves you reassured that your iPhone and iCloud data are safe, this is a good reminder to take extra measures to safeguard your personal information and electronic data. For example, activate two-factor authentication and make sure youre not using the same password on multiple sites. According to Fortune: Apple customers who secure their iCloud accounts with the same passwords they use on other online accountsespecially ones at LinkedIn, Yahoo, Dropbox, and other sites recently revealed to have suffered big breaches over the past few yearsshould adopt new passwords that are long, strong, and unique. Story continues For more on staying secure, check out: 7 Ways to Guard Your Wallet and Identity When Shopping Online 5 Free Tools That Identify Secure Websites Change Your LinkedIn Password and Others ASAP Have you had your data stolen before? Share your experiences below or on Facebook . This article was originally published on MoneyTalksNews.com as 'Hackers Threaten to Wipe iPhones Unless Apple Pays Ransom' . More from Money Talks News 15 Painless Ways to Save $1,000 by Summer 30 Awesome Things to Do in Retirement Secret Cell Plans: Savings Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint Dont Want You to Know About || PayPal acquires TIO in bill pay push: Paypal Bill Pay (BI Intelligence) This story was delivered to BI Intelligence " Payments Briefing " subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here . PayPal announced late Tuesday that it plans to acquire the Canada-based bill payment firm TIO Networks, which serves as a major player in the North American bill pay market, for $232 million. Following the acquisition, which is expected to close in the second half of this year, TIO will operate as a company within PayPal. The acquisition is likely part of PayPal’s wider strategy to become an omnipresent player in consumers’ full financial lives. TIO’s size and reach could help PayPal push into bill pay, which is likely a valuable play for the company. Bill pay is a valuable space for PayPal right now. US adults paid roughly 14.7 billion bills, worth $3.9 trillion, in 2016, according to data from ACI Worldwide and Aite Group. It’s likely that PayPal, which has been working to become more omnipresent in consumers’ lives, wants to enter that space and grab a share of that market. That’s especially true as bill payment moves online – just under half of one-time bill payments, and 71% of recurring bills, are paid digitally, according to the same study. TIO’s reach could help PayPal scale in the space quickly. The firm offers bill pay kiosks, retail agents, and online and mobile options to its over 14 million clients in North America. It also counts 10,000 biller partners and processed $7 billion in volume in the past year. That’s a small share of the overall market, based on US size, but somewhat significant relative to PayPal’s 197 million customers and $354 billion payment volume in 2016. But the firm’s offerings could also help PayPal attract a new segment of customers. The move likely isn’t a revenue play for PayPal, at least in the short term. Rather, it’s likely part of a bigger push to help PayPal continue to grow as it focuses on playing a role in a wider variety of day-to-day financial processes. TIO can provide convenient bill pay offerings to existing PayPal customers, therefore tying them more tightly to the product, especially as online bill pay becomes more popular. Story continues But more interestingly, many of TIO’s services are likely targeted at un- or underbanked consumers, a massive population that PayPal likely historically struggled to access, since PayPal accounts are often funded by a bank account or card. By targeting this group — 33.5 million US households, and 2 billion people worldwide, for a sense of scale — PayPal could bring a new group of users into its ecosystem and more effectively undercut banks. John Heggestuen, director of research at BI Intelligence , Business Insider’s premium research service, has 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 PayPal adds P2P bot for Slack Fintech could be bigger than ATMs, PayPal, and Bitcoin combined THE RETAILER MOBILE WALLETS REPORT: How stores can benefit from developing their own digital payments apps || Feb. ETF Inflows Push 2017's Record Start To $88B: Total ETF inflows for February were $46 billion, bringing the year-to-date total to a record-breaking $87.9 billion, a record start to any year for new assets.
U.S. equity pulled in more than any other asset class, at $20.4 billion. U.S. fixed income and international equity were neck-and-neck, with inflows of $10.2 billion and $10.5 billion, respectively. Only currency saw outflows, losing $59.8 million.
The top gainer for the month out of the entire field of U.S.-listed ETFs was theiShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG), which pulled in $2.5 billion. TheiShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (LQD)was in second place, pulling in just $20 million less than IEMG during the month.
A Story Of CostsIEMG’s inflows capture a rather fascinating development in the ETF space—the inexorable tide of low-cost victories. With an expense ratio of 0.14%, the fund is basically a broader, lower-cost version of its older brother, theiShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM), which comes with an expense ratio of 0.72%.
While IEMG was among the top gainers in February, the more expensive EEM actually saw zero inflows for the month and is down $33 million for the year. IEMG also holds the top spot for year-to-date inflows, pulling in a total of $4.2 billion in the first two months of the year, almost 22% of its total assets under management. LQD is again in second place, with $3.7 billion in inflows year-to-date.
The No. 3 spot for February inflows was claimed by theSPDR Gold Trust (GLD), which pulled in some $1.7 billion, a notable reversal from its outflows of $866 million in January. Commodities as a whole pulled in $2 billion during the month, after more than $600 million in outflows in January, boosted no doubt in part by the upswing in the yellow metal.
OutflowsThe ETFs with the biggest outflows included theiShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM), which saw its assets fall by $1.6 billion during the month, or more than 4% of its assets under management. TheSPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY)was the second-biggest loser, with outflows of $986.2 million, a reduction in AUM of just 0.42%.
However, theSPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA)was hot on its heels, with outflows of $981.1 million, or nearly 6% of its AUM. SPY and IWM were also the two biggest losers year-to-date, with outflows of $2.6 billion and $2.3 billion, respectively.
Top Gainers (February 2017)
[{"Ticker": "IEMG", "Name": "iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "2,485.09", "AUM ($M)": "23,824.90", "% of AUM": "11.65%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "4,226.25"}, {"Ticker": "LQD", "Name": "iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "2,465.40", "AUM ($M)": "31,078.62", "% of AUM": "8.62%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "3,706.91"}, {"Ticker": "GLD", "Name": "SPDR Gold Trust", "Issuer": "State Street Global Advisors", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "1,664.66", "AUM ($M)": "33,990.50", "% of AUM": "5.15%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "798.19"}, {"Ticker": "XLV", "Name": "Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund", "Issuer": "State Street Global Advisors", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "1,438.89", "AUM ($M)": "16,038.75", "% of AUM": "9.86%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,266.81"}, {"Ticker": "IJH", "Name": "iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "1,385.37", "AUM ($M)": "39,375.52", "% of AUM": "3.65%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "2,719.32"}, {"Ticker": "IVV", "Name": "iShares Core S&P 500 ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "1,303.89", "AUM ($M)": "98,093.81", "% of AUM": "1.35%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,836.45"}, {"Ticker": "VEA", "Name": "Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF", "Issuer": "Vanguard", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "1,279.82", "AUM ($M)": "44,338.13", "% of AUM": "2.97%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "2,191.94"}, {"Ticker": "XLF", "Name": "Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund", "Issuer": "State Street Global Advisors", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "1,252.81", "AUM ($M)": "25,097.97", "% of AUM": "5.25%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,356.12"}, {"Ticker": "VCSH", "Name": "Vanguard Short-Term Corporate Bond Index Fund", "Issuer": "Vanguard", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "1,076.98", "AUM ($M)": "17,426.28", "% of AUM": "6.18%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,505.68"}, {"Ticker": "VOO", "Name": "Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund", "Issuer": "Vanguard", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "1,046.41", "AUM ($M)": "63,313.08", "% of AUM": "1.65%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "3204.42"}]
Top Gainers (Year-to-Date)
[{"Ticker": "IEMG", "Name": "iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "4,226.25", "AUM ($M)": "23,824.90", "% of AUM": "21.56%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "2,485.09"}, {"Ticker": "LQD", "Name": "iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "3,706.91", "AUM ($M)": "31,078.62", "% of AUM": "13.54%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "2,465.40"}, {"Ticker": "VOO", "Name": "Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund", "Issuer": "Vanguard", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "3,204.42", "AUM ($M)": "63,313.08", "% of AUM": "5.06%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,078.92"}, {"Ticker": "IJR", "Name": "iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "2,959.25", "AUM ($M)": "30,138.29", "% of AUM": "10.89%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "995.93"}, {"Ticker": "IJH", "Name": "iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "2,719.32", "AUM ($M)": "39,375.52", "% of AUM": "7.42%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,385.37"}, {"Ticker": "VEA", "Name": "Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF", "Issuer": "Vanguard", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "2,191.94", "AUM ($M)": "44,338.13", "% of AUM": "5.20%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,279.82"}, {"Ticker": "BSV", "Name": "Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index Fund", "Issuer": "Vanguard", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "2,164.93", "AUM ($M)": "21,815.36", "% of AUM": "11.02%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "700.83"}, {"Ticker": "IEFA", "Name": "iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "2,136.43", "AUM ($M)": "18,639.54", "% of AUM": "12.95%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "387.53"}, {"Ticker": "VCIT", "Name": "Vanguard Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond Index Fund", "Issuer": "Vanguard", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "2,127.69", "AUM ($M)": "12,576.56", "% of AUM": "20.36%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "524.11"}, {"Ticker": "VTI", "Name": "Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund", "Issuer": "Vanguard", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "2,054.91", "AUM ($M)": "75,952.49", "% of AUM": "2.80%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,058.11"}]
Biggest Losers (February 2017)
[{"Ticker": "IWM", "Name": "iShares Russell 2000 ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-1,585.66", "AUM ($M)": "37,422.69", "% of AUM": "-4.06%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-2,325.13"}, {"Ticker": "SPY", "Name": "SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust", "Issuer": "State Street Global Advisors", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-986.21", "AUM ($M)": "235,826.66", "% of AUM": "-0.42%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-2,619.20"}, {"Ticker": "DIA", "Name": "SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust", "Issuer": "State Street Global Advisors", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-981.15", "AUM ($M)": "16,281.10", "% of AUM": "-5.68%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "673.31"}, {"Ticker": "SPHD", "Name": "PowerShares S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility Portfolio", "Issuer": "Invesco PowerShares", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-557.35", "AUM ($M)": "3,088.85", "% of AUM": "-15.29%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "165.39"}, {"Ticker": "HYG", "Name": "iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-399.83", "AUM ($M)": "18,573.36", "% of AUM": "-2.11%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-688.22"}, {"Ticker": "EWJ", "Name": "iShares MSCI Japan ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-346.94", "AUM ($M)": "16,292.41", "% of AUM": "-2.09%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "358.70"}, {"Ticker": "ACWV", "Name": "iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Global ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-309.61", "AUM ($M)": "2,954.38", "% of AUM": "-9.49%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-338.99"}, {"Ticker": "USMV", "Name": "iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol USA ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-284.32", "AUM ($M)": "12,365.36", "% of AUM": "-2.25%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-702.94"}, {"Ticker": "MUB", "Name": "iShares National Muni Bond ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-238.66", "AUM ($M)": "7,893.11", "% of AUM": "-2.93%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-327.02"}, {"Ticker": "EWW", "Name": "iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-236.60", "AUM ($M)": "1,667.35", "% of AUM": "-14.19%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-240.35"}]
Biggest Losers (Year-to-Date)
[{"Ticker": "SPY", "Name": "SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust", "Issuer": "State Street Global Advisors", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-2,619.20", "AUM ($M)": "235,826.66", "% of AUM": "-1.10%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-986.21"}, {"Ticker": "IWM", "Name": "iShares Russell 2000 ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-2,325.13", "AUM ($M)": "37,422.69", "% of AUM": "-5.85%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-1,585.66"}, {"Ticker": "IWF", "Name": "iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-1,244.82", "AUM ($M)": "33,669.24", "% of AUM": "-3.57%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "229.67"}, {"Ticker": "USMV", "Name": "iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol USA ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-702.94", "AUM ($M)": "12,365.36", "% of AUM": "-5.38%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-284.32"}, {"Ticker": "HYG", "Name": "iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-688.22", "AUM ($M)": "18,573.36", "% of AUM": "-3.57%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-399.83"}, {"Ticker": "SCPB", "Name": "SPDR Bloomberg Barclays Short Term Corporate Bond ETF", "Issuer": "State Street Global Advisors", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-559.13", "AUM ($M)": "2,966.49", "% of AUM": "-15.86%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-88.64"}, {"Ticker": "HEDJ", "Name": "WisdomTree Europe Hedged Equity Fund", "Issuer": "WisdomTree", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-518.06", "AUM ($M)": "9,030.54", "% of AUM": "-5.43%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-191.09"}, {"Ticker": "IEF", "Name": "iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF", "Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-504.70", "AUM ($M)": "7,099.91", "% of AUM": "-7.11%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-293.71"}, {"Ticker": "QQQ", "Name": "PowerShares QQQ Trust", "Issuer": "PowerShares", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-481.54", "AUM ($M)": "45,443.80", "% of AUM": "-1.06%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "967.66"}, {"Ticker": "XLU", "Name": "Utilities Sector SPDR Fund", "Issuer": "SSGA", "Net Flows ($,mm)": "-396.38", "AUM ($M)": "6,943.23", "% of AUM": "-5.71%", "February 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "324.44"}]
Asset Classes (February 2017)
[{"": "U.S. Equity", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "20,371.81", "AUM ($, mm)": "1,601,910.98", "% of AUM": "1.27%"}, {"": "International Equity", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "10,581.49", "AUM ($, mm)": "562,765.18", "% of AUM": "1.83%"}, {"": "U.S. Fixed Income", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "10,211.31", "AUM ($, mm)": "437,402.33", "% of AUM": "2.38%"}, {"": "International Fixed Income", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "1,880.84", "AUM ($, mm)": "43,560.34", "% of AUM": "4.20%"}, {"": "Commodities", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "1,991.80", "AUM ($, mm)": "65,610.03", "% of AUM": "3.04%"}, {"": "Currency", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "-59.82", "AUM ($, mm)": "3,052.32", "% of AUM": "-1.96%"}, {"": "Leveraged", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "116.42", "AUM ($, mm)": "25,933.54", "% of AUM": "0.49%"}, {"": "Inverse", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "641.13", "AUM ($, mm)": "17,008.62", "% of AUM": "3.73%"}, {"": "Asset Allocation", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "64.72", "AUM ($, mm)": "6,681.04", "% of AUM": "0.90%"}, {"": "Alternatives", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "200.43", "AUM ($, mm)": "4,090.25", "% of AUM": "4.86%"}, {"": "Total:", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "46,000.02", "AUM ($, mm)": "2,768,014.63", "% of AUM": "1.62%"}]
Asset Classes (Year-to-Date)
[{"": "U.S. Equity", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "36,498.38", "AUM ($, mm)": "1,601,910.98", "% of AUM": "2.28%"}, {"": "International Equity", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "23,089.67", "AUM ($, mm)": "562,765.18", "% of AUM": "4.30%"}, {"": "U.S. Fixed Income", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "23,422.48", "AUM ($, mm)": "437,402.33", "% of AUM": "5.35%"}, {"": "International Fixed Income", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "2,796.38", "AUM ($, mm)": "43,560.34", "% of AUM": "6.31%"}, {"": "Commodities", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "1,322.83", "AUM ($, mm)": "65,610.03", "% of AUM": "1.80%"}, {"": "Currency", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "-25.10", "AUM ($, mm)": "3,052.32", "% of AUM": "-3.34%"}, {"": "Leveraged", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "-29.83", "AUM ($, mm)": "25,933.54", "% of AUM": "-0.12%"}, {"": "Inverse", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "847.96", "AUM ($, mm)": "17,008.62", "% of AUM": "4.99%"}, {"": "Asset Allocation", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "-346.80", "AUM ($, mm)": "6,681.04", "% of AUM": "-5.19%"}, {"": "Alternatives", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "453.19", "AUM ($, mm)": "4,090.25", "% of AUM": "11.08%"}, {"": "Total:", "Net Flows ($, mm)": "87,910.92", "AUM ($, mm)": "2,768,014.63", "% of AUM": "3.18%"}]
February 2017 League Table
[{"Issuer": "BlackRock", "Net Flows ($,M)": "15,618.06", "AUM ($,M)": "1,059,680.52", "% of AUM": "1.47%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "30,356.60"}, {"Issuer": "Vanguard", "Net Flows ($,M)": "12,589.60", "AUM ($,M)": "669,923.53", "% of AUM": "1.88%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "27,186.12"}, {"Issuer": "State Street Global Advisors", "Net Flows ($,M)": "6,977.44", "AUM ($,M)": "537,381.47", "% of AUM": "1.30%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "8,309.33"}, {"Issuer": "Invesco PowerShares", "Net Flows ($,M)": "656.29", "AUM ($,M)": "120,079.65", "% of AUM": "0.55%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "2,043.32"}, {"Issuer": "Charles Schwab", "Net Flows ($,M)": "2,249.63", "AUM ($,M)": "67,119.66", "% of AUM": "3.35%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "4,405.53"}, {"Issuer": "First Trust", "Net Flows ($,M)": "687.12", "AUM ($,M)": "44,800.01", "% of AUM": "1.53%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,478.78"}, {"Issuer": "WisdomTree", "Net Flows ($,M)": "174.60", "AUM ($,M)": "41,915.35", "% of AUM": "0.42%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "404.40"}, {"Issuer": "VanEck", "Net Flows ($,M)": "1,511.88", "AUM ($,M)": "34,758.08", "% of AUM": "4.35%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "2,889.57"}, {"Issuer": "Guggenheim", "Net Flows ($,M)": "363.49", "AUM ($,M)": "34,304.06", "% of AUM": "1.06%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,339.46"}, {"Issuer": "ProShares", "Net Flows ($,M)": "377.18", "AUM ($,M)": "26,888.91", "% of AUM": "1.40%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "789.83"}, {"Issuer": "ALPS", "Net Flows ($,M)": "571.39", "AUM ($,M)": "14,389.27", "% of AUM": "3.97%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1,009.97"}, {"Issuer": "Deutsche Bank", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-14.83", "AUM ($,M)": "14,160.27", "% of AUM": "-0.10%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "162.25"}, {"Issuer": "Northern Trust", "Net Flows ($,M)": "516.48", "AUM ($,M)": "13,077.98", "% of AUM": "3.95%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "873.73"}, {"Issuer": "PIMCO", "Net Flows ($,M)": "260.78", "AUM ($,M)": "12,878.40", "% of AUM": "2.02%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "160.65"}, {"Issuer": "Direxion", "Net Flows ($,M)": "179.48", "AUM ($,M)": "11,186.53", "% of AUM": "1.60%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-128.99"}, {"Issuer": "Barclays Capital", "Net Flows ($,M)": "243.49", "AUM ($,M)": "7,134.14", "% of AUM": "3.41%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "529.31"}, {"Issuer": "UBS", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-17.21", "AUM ($,M)": "6,977.94", "% of AUM": "-0.25%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-16.76"}, {"Issuer": "Fidelity", "Net Flows ($,M)": "356.05", "AUM ($,M)": "5,984.57", "% of AUM": "5.95%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "503.64"}, {"Issuer": "JPMorgan", "Net Flows ($,M)": "80.54", "AUM ($,M)": "5,214.85", "% of AUM": "1.54%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "159.07"}, {"Issuer": "Global X", "Net Flows ($,M)": "244.20", "AUM ($,M)": "4,521.77", "% of AUM": "5.40%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "537.66"}, {"Issuer": "US Commodity Funds", "Net Flows ($,M)": "45.82", "AUM ($,M)": "4,251.90", "% of AUM": "1.08%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-134.01"}, {"Issuer": "Credit Suisse", "Net Flows ($,M)": "346.62", "AUM ($,M)": "3,497.50", "% of AUM": "9.91%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "507.68"}, {"Issuer": "Goldman Sachs", "Net Flows ($,M)": "24.76", "AUM ($,M)": "3,181.04", "% of AUM": "0.78%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "155.71"}, {"Issuer": "Exchange Traded Concepts", "Net Flows ($,M)": "73.12", "AUM ($,M)": "2,488.80", "% of AUM": "2.94%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "159.75"}, {"Issuer": "ETF Securities", "Net Flows ($,M)": "47.65", "AUM ($,M)": "2,468.74", "% of AUM": "1.93%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "66.31"}, {"Issuer": "IndexIQ", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-2.98", "AUM ($,M)": "2,255.02", "% of AUM": "-0.13%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-42.01"}, {"Issuer": "OppenheimerFunds", "Net Flows ($,M)": "167.31", "AUM ($,M)": "1,979.78", "% of AUM": "8.45%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "316.60"}, {"Issuer": "ETF Managers Group", "Net Flows ($,M)": "101.46", "AUM ($,M)": "1,172.38", "% of AUM": "8.65%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "114.60"}, {"Issuer": "Victory Capital Management", "Net Flows ($,M)": "81.29", "AUM ($,M)": "1,131.86", "% of AUM": "7.18%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "181.87"}, {"Issuer": "AdvisorShares", "Net Flows ($,M)": "16.60", "AUM ($,M)": "1,098.32", "% of AUM": "1.51%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "10.49"}, {"Issuer": "Millington Securities Inc", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-22.93", "AUM ($,M)": "1,040.81", "% of AUM": "-2.20%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-26.53"}, {"Issuer": "Columbia", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-9.30", "AUM ($,M)": "1,000.29", "% of AUM": "-0.93%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-9.83"}, {"Issuer": "Pacer Financial", "Net Flows ($,M)": "18.51", "AUM ($,M)": "828.38", "% of AUM": "2.23%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "47.83"}, {"Issuer": "Virtus", "Net Flows ($,M)": "19.88", "AUM ($,M)": "787.28", "% of AUM": "2.52%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "143.06"}, {"Issuer": "John Hancock", "Net Flows ($,M)": "34.71", "AUM ($,M)": "742.61", "% of AUM": "4.67%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "45.23"}, {"Issuer": "CitiGroup", "Net Flows ($,M)": "62.09", "AUM ($,M)": "626.95", "% of AUM": "9.90%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "154.55"}, {"Issuer": "Franklin ETF Trust", "Net Flows ($,M)": "44.99", "AUM ($,M)": "605.92", "% of AUM": "7.43%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "50.41"}, {"Issuer": "The Principal Financial Group", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "565.63", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "2.04"}, {"Issuer": "Highland Capital Management", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-9.43", "AUM ($,M)": "485.43", "% of AUM": "-1.94%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "7.49"}, {"Issuer": "FQF Trust", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-8.02", "AUM ($,M)": "450.38", "% of AUM": "-1.78%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-4.42"}, {"Issuer": "Swedish Export Credit", "Net Flows ($,M)": "2.01", "AUM ($,M)": "395.25", "% of AUM": "0.51%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.42"}, {"Issuer": "Cambria", "Net Flows ($,M)": "24.47", "AUM ($,M)": "383.36", "% of AUM": "6.38%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "35.92"}, {"Issuer": "KraneShares", "Net Flows ($,M)": "9.98", "AUM ($,M)": "289.38", "% of AUM": "3.45%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "10.49"}, {"Issuer": "Janus", "Net Flows ($,M)": "6.59", "AUM ($,M)": "181.35", "% of AUM": "3.63%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "36.08"}, {"Issuer": "Northern Lights", "Net Flows ($,M)": "18.91", "AUM ($,M)": "179.58", "% of AUM": "10.53%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "18.91"}, {"Issuer": "Alpha Architect", "Net Flows ($,M)": "1.26", "AUM ($,M)": "168.73", "% of AUM": "0.75%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "25.93"}, {"Issuer": "Elkhorn", "Net Flows ($,M)": "1.52", "AUM ($,M)": "165.71", "% of AUM": "0.92%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "27.41"}, {"Issuer": "Teucrium", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.82", "AUM ($,M)": "159.51", "% of AUM": "0.51%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.21"}, {"Issuer": "Legg Mason", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-2.81", "AUM ($,M)": "148.25", "% of AUM": "-1.90%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "6.94"}, {"Issuer": "Merk", "Net Flows ($,M)": "2.44", "AUM ($,M)": "130.42", "% of AUM": "1.87%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "7.18"}, {"Issuer": "Hartford", "Net Flows ($,M)": "1.70", "AUM ($,M)": "116.62", "% of AUM": "1.46%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "6.47"}, {"Issuer": "Arrow Investment Advisors", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-1.19", "AUM ($,M)": "112.61", "% of AUM": "-1.06%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-1.19"}, {"Issuer": "Morgan Stanley", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "97.25", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Issuer": "Nuveen", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "93.30", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "3.79"}, {"Issuer": "ARK", "Net Flows ($,M)": "5.90", "AUM ($,M)": "86.52", "% of AUM": "6.82%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "12.88"}, {"Issuer": "Recon Capital", "Net Flows ($,M)": "2.00", "AUM ($,M)": "86.51", "% of AUM": "2.31%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "5.42"}, {"Issuer": "Montage Managers", "Net Flows ($,M)": "6.09", "AUM ($,M)": "68.95", "% of AUM": "8.84%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "10.92"}, {"Issuer": "US Global Investors", "Net Flows ($,M)": "-1.39", "AUM ($,M)": "65.63", "% of AUM": "-2.11%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-2.80"}, {"Issuer": "Davis", "Net Flows ($,M)": "14.34", "AUM ($,M)": "61.17", "% of AUM": "23.44%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "14.34"}, {"Issuer": "Reality Shares", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.65", "AUM ($,M)": "57.19", "% of AUM": "1.13%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "8.30"}, {"Issuer": "Academy Funds", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "37.89", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Issuer": "Aptus Capital Advisors", "Net Flows ($,M)": "1.35", "AUM ($,M)": "29.80", "% of AUM": "4.52%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "2.67"}, {"Issuer": "AlphaMark Advisors", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "26.39", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Issuer": "Validea Capital Management", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "22.90", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Issuer": "OSI ETF Trust", "Net Flows ($,M)": "11.33", "AUM ($,M)": "22.02", "% of AUM": "51.45%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "18.92"}, {"Issuer": "Diamond Hill", "Net Flows ($,M)": "1.33", "AUM ($,M)": "19.30", "% of AUM": "6.90%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "1.33"}, {"Issuer": "ACSI Funds", "Net Flows ($,M)": "2.76", "AUM ($,M)": "16.88", "% of AUM": "16.35%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "4.12"}, {"Issuer": "Amplify", "Net Flows ($,M)": "2.73", "AUM ($,M)": "16.77", "% of AUM": "16.30%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "5.38"}, {"Issuer": "Renaissance Capital", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "15.60", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Issuer": "Natixis", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "14.05", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Issuer": "TrimTabs Asset Management", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.70", "AUM ($,M)": "11.36", "% of AUM": "6.19%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "4.79"}, {"Issuer": "Strategy Shares", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "10.91", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Issuer": "LocalShares", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "8.83", "% of AUM": "0.01%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-0.00"}, {"Issuer": "CSOP", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "8.35", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-0.67"}, {"Issuer": "Premise Capital", "Net Flows ($,M)": "1.34", "AUM ($,M)": "8.03", "% of AUM": "16.64%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "2.63"}, {"Issuer": "USCF Advisers", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "5.70", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Issuer": "AlphaClone", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "2.09", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "-0.99"}, {"Issuer": "BMO", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "0.00", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}, {"Issuer": "Royal Bank of Canada", "Net Flows ($,M)": "0.00", "AUM ($,M)": "0.00", "% of AUM": "0.00%", "YTD 2017 Net Flows($,M)": "0.00"}]
Disclaimer: All data as of 6 a.m. Eastern time the date the article is published. Data is believed to be accurate; however, transient market data is often subject to subsequent revision and correction by the exchanges.
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Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || 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 || Bitcoin Crash Creates Golden Opportunity: I’ve been wrong about my timing of the silver and gold trade twice now. Once to my followers inMomentum Traderand another time in a much more public way, on Bloomberg the end of last year. My fundamental investment thesis surrounding gold hasn’t been wrong just my timing. And now, with gold prices bouncing off $1,200 and last week’s Bitcoin debacle I’m taking another stab at it.
The Bitcoin debacle I’m referring to is last week’s decision by the SEC to reject the Winklevoss Twins’ proposal for a Bitcoin ETF. An ETF would have helped to legitimize the cryptocurrency and expose it to an entire new market of potential investors. The SEC’s decision was based on the unregulated nature of the Bitcoin market itself. With no way of overseeing the underlying investment, there was no way the SEC could give it a stamp of approval.
You could argue that Bitcoin and gold are both alternatives to global fiat currencies. Neither has a central bank which governs them nor do they pay interest. They are both a store of value and can be held anonymously. Gold and silver have a tendency to track with each other so I’m including it when I look for stock ideas.
Of course there’s one giant difference between the two. Gold has been a historic store of value for ages and something you can physically possess. Bitcoin is a digital currency that was created from nothing a few years ago. There is still a huge amount of skepticism surrounding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. A rash of high profile hacks, essentially digital bank robberies, have loomed like a cloud over Bitcoin for years. This ETF would have been something like a Bitcoin coming out party.
However, that was not the case and Bitcoin’s value plunged in Friday trading. Nearly simultaneous there was a huge rally in gold prices with the metal bouncing from just under $1,200 an ounce, an obvious psychological support level. Gold still does have an inverse relationship with yields. As interest rates rise you tend to see pressure on gold prices. We all know the Fed is going to hike rates next week. That is a huge negative on gold pricing. But if the metal can rally even in the face of that hike, then there could be overpowering fundamentals at play.
One way to play a potential continuation of silver and gold’s move higher is to look at the silver and gold miners. A lot of these companies got lean and mean in order to survive the plummet in prices and have emerged with much stronger balance sheets. They have found ways to minimize their acquisition costs and streamline their mining process. I’ve put together a list here of gold stocks that are Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stocks for you to investigate a little further.
Alamos Gold (AGI)
Alamos Gold Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and extraction of gold deposits in North America. It also explores for silver and precious metals. The company holds interests in the Young-Davidson mine, which includes contiguous mineral leases and claims totaling 11,000 acres located in Northern Ontario, Canada; the Mulatos mine located within the Salamandra Concessions in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range in the east-central portion of the State of Sonora, Mexico; and the El Chanate mine that comprises 22 mineral concessions covering 4,618 hectares situated in the State of Sonora, Mexico. It also holds interests in a portfolio of development stage projects in Mexico, Turkey, Canada, and the United States.
Avino Silver (ASM)
Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. engages in the production and sale of silver, gold, and copper bulk concentrates; and the exploration, evaluation, and acquisition of mineral properties. The company owns 42 mineral claims and leases 4 mineral claims in the state of Durango, Mexico. It also holds 100% interests in the Bralorne mine located in the Lillooet mining division, British Columbia, Canada; and the Eagle property located in the Mayo mining division of Yukon, Canada.
Fortuna Silver (FSM)
Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. engages in the exploration, extraction, and processing of mineral properties in Latin America. The company explores for silver, gold, lead, and zinc deposits. It holds interests in the Caylloma mine located in the Arequipa Department in southern Peru; and the San Jose mine located in the State of Oaxaca in southern Mexico.
Great Panther Silver (GPL)
Great Panther Silver Limited, a silver mining and exploration company, engages in the mining of mineral properties in Mexico. It explores for silver, gold, lead, and zinc. The company holds interests in the Topia Mine and Guanajuato Mine Complex properties. It also holds mineral property interests in the exploration stage, such as the El Horcon and Santa Rosa projects located in Mexico, and Coricancha Mine Complex located in the Central Andes of Peru.
Bottom Line
I think Bitcoin blowing up here could benefit gold and silver over the short run. That being said, a great way to play the rise in these metals could be to look at the silver and gold miners. This is a short list to start researching the best one to buy.
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 reportGreat Panther Silver Limited (GPL): Free Stock Analysis ReportFortuna Silver Mines Inc. (FSM): Free Stock Analysis ReportAvino Silver (ASM): Free Stock Analysis ReportAlamos Gold Inc. (AGI): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Venezuela is cracking down on 'bitcoin fever': (Opposition supporters take part in a rally against President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela, October 26, 2016.Thomson Reuters)
Venezuela's economy has seen its currency, the bolivar, plummet asinflation has spiraled into the triple digits, causingpeople there to struggleto meet their daily needs.
In response, some Venezuelans have chosen tocross international bordersto stock up on needed supplies, as others turn to a black market where goods are often sold in US dollars.
Another alternative that has gained traction is bitcoin, a cryptocurrency whose value wobbles frequently and which can be used for clandestine purchases, both licit and illicit.
Bitcoin has been embraced in Venezuela as the economy has faltered over the last few years, providing both a way of buying essential goods and resisting theunpopular governmentof President Nicolas Maduro.
The number of users has surged from 450 in 2014 to 85,000 in 2016,accordingto Venezuelan bitcoin trading exchange Surbitcoin.
"Bitcoin is a way of rebelling against the system," Caracas-based software developer John Villartold Reutersin October 2014, not long after he started using the cryptocurrency for online purchases.
Bitcoin had dropped 70% between November 2013 and October 2014, but Venezuela's own currencyhad dropped 60%against the US dollar on the black market in the country over roughly the same period.
"Even though bitcoin is volatile, it's still safer than the national currency," Kevin Charles, then a recent economics graduate,told Reuters. (Many Venezuelans still converted their bitcoin immediately into dollars, however.)
"In Venezuela, we have a gold fever: a bitcoin fever!" a bitcoin miner — someone who uses a complex computer setup to create bitcoins using elaborate algorithms —said to Reutersin October 2014.
(The website of bitcoin trading exchange SurBitcoin on a computer in Caracas, October 5, 2014.REUTERS/Stringer)
Now the Venezuelan government, longcaught up in battleswith the political opposition and inbloody struggles with rampant crime, has turned its attention to bitcoin users and producers.
A recent post on a related subreddit by someone claiming to be a Venezuelan bitcoin miner,cited by The Washington Post, said the government was jailing miners and accusing them of terrorism, money laundering, and computer crimes.
Two brothers in Caracas,who spoke to The Postanonymously, said police had raided their home in November, demanding $1,000 bribes for each of their more than 90 mining terminals. They paid up, they said.
Despite its other turmoil, Venezuela, whichhas no lawsagainst bitcoin, had been amenable to bitcoin miners, for whom electricity can be their biggest expense.
Electricity isheavily subsidizedin the Caribbean nation, where the longstanding socialist government has provided many services and goods to the population at low cost. (Those subsidies have also inspired profligate use by residents.)
(Buildings left unlit during a partial blackout in Caracas, January 13, 2010.Reuters)
The intense power demands of mining terminals may be the undoing of some miners, however. State power authorities can reportedlydetect outsize power usage, and some miners who have been arrested were charged with electricity theft.
The chief of the federal police agencysaid recentlythat bitcoin miners were imperiling the electrical service in a town south of Caracas, which is not implausible, considering that the country's electrical service, plagued by underinvestment and graft, has often beenoverwhelmed in times of high demand. (Thieves havealso started pilferingelectrical and communications gear for valuable components.)
Despite enthusiasm for bitcoin in Venezuela, its spread may be hindered by the seemingly wide net of the authorities' crackdown and by the one-third of Venezuelans who don't have bank accounts.
NOW WATCH:Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin
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• Ecuador's presidential election could have big consequences for the fate of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange || Bitcoin makes a big comeback: FILE PHOTO - A Bitcoin sign is seen in a window in Toronto, May 8, 2014. REUTERS/Mark Blinch/File Photo (A Bitcoin sign is seen in a window in TorontoThomson Reuters) Bitcoin is making a big comeback. Early selling pushed the cryptocurrency down nearly 4% to $1120 a coin, but buying over the course of the morning has it on session highs, up 3% at $1200 as of 4:22 p.m. ET. Trade has been volatile over the past couple of sessions amid speculation surrounding the upcoming ETF ruling by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and more regulation out of China. Bitcoin rallied more than 30% from February 9 to March 3 as traders speculated the SEC will approve at least one of the three proposed bitcoin-focused exchange-traded funds by a March 11 deadline. Because that deadline falls on a Saturday, a decision could come on Monday, March 13. However, bitcoin has come under pressure the last few days. On Tuesday, the cryptocurrency plunged $100 in a matter of minutes after a Bloomberg headline cited a People's Bank of China official as suggesting the recent bitcoin regulation wasn't temporary. It ended up retracing most of those losses before resuming its slide on Wednesday, plunging more than 5% after China's three largest exchanges said they would continue blocking withdrawals until granted approval to let them resume by regulators. Bitcoin is up 25% so far in 2017 after gaining 120% in 2016. It has been the top performing currency in each of the last two years. Bitcoin (Investing.com) NOW WATCH: What happens when you eat too much protein More From Business Insider Bitcoin dives after China's 3 biggest exchanges say they'll keep blocking withdrawals Bitcoin plunges sharply and suddenly Bitcoin is extending its lead over gold || Digital Currencies Went Crazy in the Wake of the SECs Bitcoin Ruling: Something strange is happening in the world of digital currency. When the Securities and Exchange Commission passed a harsh judgment last 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 on hopes institutional investors would use the ETF to stock up on the currency. The market quickly punished 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 didnt bail on them. They started gobbling them up. These other currencies such as Ethereum and Ripple (there are dozens) arent 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, theyve all shot up, some of them dramatically. Here is a chart that shows how the prices have changed. The data is compiled from each currencys lowest price on March 10 (the day of the ruling) through Tuesday morning: As you can see, Ethereum has 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 SECs punch last Friday. Heres a closer look, courtesy of Coindesk , 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. Story continues Its 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 bitcoins 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 || Friday Hot Reads: US Jobs, Wages Show Solid Gains In Trump's First Full Month: Compiled by ETF.com Staff US Jobs, Wages Show Solid Gains In Trump's First Full Month (Bloomberg) U.S. employers added jobs at an above-average pace for a second month on outsized gains in construction and manufacturing. Names Matter in Bond ETFs As Gundlach Clobbers Gross's Old Fund (Bloomberg) Since losing star bond fund manager Bill Gross to Janus Capital Group in 2014, the Pimco Total Return Active ETF (BOND) is sinking, having hemorrhaged more than $1.4 billion in outflows. Compare that to a similar actively managed bond fund that’s retained its star power, Jeffrey Gundlach’s SPDR DoubleLine Total Return Tactical ETF, TOTL . It’s attracted $3.1 billion over the same period. From First Filing To Final Decision: Journey Of The Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF (CoinDesk) As the SEC decision looms, take a look back at how this ETF came to be. Big ETF Sees Epic Bounce & The Best Could Still Be Ahead (CNBC) The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB ) is up more than 12% year-to-date. This makes it the best performer among all the world's large-cap ETFs. Building Trust, Fiduciary Rule Or Not (Vanguard) Regardless of the final outcome of the DOL rule, trust is critical to the advisor/client relationship. The OPEC Deal Is Facing Its Biggest Test (Bloomberg Markets) The producer group is focused on whittling away the crude inventory surplus and driving up oil's depressed prices. Market Suddenly Having Second Thoughts On Reflation (Bloomberg Markets) Oil prices collapsed, threatening the reflation trend, as energy prices have been a key driver of inflation. Why Opportunities Abound For Active Bond Investors (BlackRock Blog) The diversity of needs and goals among fixed-income investors means there are opportunities to outperform bond indexes. US Household Wealth Rose $2.04 Trillion In Fourth Quarter (Bloomberg) Household wealth in the U.S. continued to increase in the fourth quarter as financial assets and real-estate values appreciated. Story continues Recommended Stories Gundlach On Why Interest Rates Are Falling ETFs With The Largest Premiums & Discounts Friday Hot Reads: This India ETF Is Soaring Funds Of Funds Make Sense For ETF Investors BlackRock’s Rieder: Emerging Markets Top Junk Bonds Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved || 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.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Size Matters: Japan Becomes Largest Bitcoin Exchange Market, Beats China and US http://ow.ly/1U2G509CyJ8 || #Bitcoin ― Using The Blockchain To Change Prisons http://dlvr.it/NPVr3Q → powered by http://bit.do/TradOTO || #ChainCoin #CHC $0.000119 (-0.83%) 0.00000012 BTC (0.00%) || felipegomesti says: Current price of #Bitcoin is $1062.00 via Chain. || 1 DOGE Price: Bter 0.00000021 BTC #doge #dogecoin 2017-02-17 05:31pic.twitter.com/S5xOSF5KQ2 || @freebitco lets win btc || 1 BTC Price: BTC-e 1232 USD Bitstamp 1246.16 USD Coinbase 1247.00 USD #btc #bitcoin 2017-03-15 00:30 pic.twitter.com/Ux28Fq6Bwk || $1020.42 at 19:15 UTC [24h Range: $937.52 - $1032.00 Volume: 9403 BTC] || Re: Bitcoins Investment: risk or benefit? https://goo.gl/APTRvF http://ohiobitcoin.com/buybitcoin #bitcoin || New Cloud Mining USD, #Bitcoin #Litecoin , Dogecoin - 100.00 Gh/s StartUp Bonus http://goo.gl/dx7a0N
|
Trend: up || Prices: 1187.13, 1205.01, 1200.37, 1169.28, 1167.54, 1172.52, 1182.94, 1193.91, 1211.67, 1210.29
|
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 for 2021-02-02]
BTC Price: 35510.29, BTC RSI: 56.86
Gold Price: 1830.50, Gold RSI: 42.51
Oil Price: 54.76, Oil RSI: 70.28
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin Crushes All-Time High, Surges Above $20K; ‘Free Ross’ Movement Gains Trump’s Ear: It’s a good day to be a bitcoiner. The top cryptocurrency by market cap officially crossed the $20,000 level, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index.
Hedge trimmings?Ruffer, a $27 billion London-based asset manager,allocated 2.7% of the firm’s assets under managementtobitcoinin November, according to a client memo. That’s some $744 million of fresh capital plowed into the top crypto by market cap. “We see this as a small but potent insurance policy against the continuing devaluation of the world’s major currencies,” the firm said. Ruffer is the latestmulti-billion dollar fund managerto bet on bitcoin as an inflation-resistant hedge.
Building on etherThe Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced Wednesday it willlaunch a futures contractonether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, in February 2021. CME Group said it was “building on the success of bitcoin futures and options” launched three years ago, which has become synonymous with institutional trading. According to some, there’s a growing class of “ether-first” corporate traders.
Related:First Mover: Stimulus Tests Bitcoin in Real-Time, and It Passes $20K
Crypto checkingNew York-based Quontic Bank has become thefirst FDIC-insured financial institution to launch a bitcoin rewards checking program. Joining a long line of cryptorewards cards, this is the first that will be overseen by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks has hinted at more “good” actions on crypto by the end of President Trump’s term.
• BECOMING SELF SOVEREIGN:A how-to guide for setting up a Bitcoin node. (CoinDesk)
• PAPER-FREE:The German government cabinet passed legislation on Wednesday allowing all-electronic securities to be recorded using blockchain technology. (CoinDesk)
• NIFTY NFTs:Jess Klein writes about the growing art scene behind Nifty Gateway’s success. (Input)
• TEMPORARY REGIME:The U.K.’s top financial watchdog has extended an imminent deadline for registering a crypto business to mid-2021. (Decrypt)
• MAJOR M&A:Japanese financial firm SBI Holdings buys European crypto market maker B2C2. (Modern Consensus)
• ‘HAPPY STAKING’:Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan sat for an interview hours before Ethereum 2.0 went live. (CoinDesk)
Fresh highBitcoinflew past its previous all-time highset onDec. 1, and is now trading hands around $20,700 at press time. After three weeks of testing the $20,000 ceiling, bitcoin jumped past the psychological threshold. Whilesome reportedthat bitcoin crossed this level in 2017, that was based on single trades on low-liquidity exchanges. CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index aggregates data from the most popular exchanges with verifiable data.
‘Free Ross‘Rumor is President Trump maypardon Ross Ulbricht, the founder and administrator of the Silk Road darknet drug market, who is currently serving two consecutive life sentences plus 40 years without the possibility of parole.
In 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced for crimes related to his $183 million darknet operation, including computer fraud, money laundering and drug charges. Silk Road was an open bazaar for merchants and buyers to commerce, with thousands of drug listings at its height for anything from marijuana to heroin.
Related:Silk Road's Ulbricht Being Considered for Pardon by Trump: Report
Despite the obvious criminality of such a website, Ulbricht was a first-time offender accused of non-violent crimes. Many criminal justice activists think Ulbricht’s sentence is excessive while others point to evidence of a mishandling of justice at the procedural level. Over the past five years, a strong movement – spearheaded by Ulbricht’s mom, Lyn – has formed urging clemency for the 36-year-old self-taught coder.
On its face, there is a discrepancy between Ulbricht’s punishment and what might be expected. For instance, other Silk Road admins charged with similar offenses were given sentences varying from 17 months to six and a half years. Carl Ferrer, the chief executive of the sex trafficking site Backpage.com, was sentenced to up to five years in prison for money laundering and prostitution charges.
It’s been said thebook was thrownat Ulbricht to discourage future online misbehavior, at a time when peer-to-peer technologies were presenting themselves as potential threats to the status quo.
The Silk Road was a fixture within the popular imagination while still up, becoming the first private-routing Tor site to have name recognition, and the first substantial use case for the internet-native currency bitcoin. Then there was the Dread Pirate Roberts, the site’s mysterious operator – who steered the website with an iron fist, and even allegedly hired out hitmen to neutralize threats to his identity and the Silk Road.
While the government tied Ulbricht to this online DPR moniker and accused him of attempted murder for hire, these charges were not part of his trial. In fact, one of the charges brought by Maryland prosecutors for commission of murder was dismissed with prejudice.
Still, in 2015, when penalties were being laid out, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest included these unproven allegations in her decision. (In 2016, an appellate court said these charges – which were not decided on by a jury – “significantly justified the life sentence.”)
Crypto legal mind Jake Chervinskynotes, “The government convicted Ross of certain (nonviolent) crimes, and then had him sentenced for different, unproven (violent) ones.”
As it stands, Ulbricht has exhausted his options for legal recourse through the court system. His appeals have been denied, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case. In April, Lyn Ulbricht told me the last remaining avenue for leniency would be through apresidential commutation.
“The Eighth Amendment says no cruel or unusual punishment and this is very unusual for a first-time nonviolent offender, and it’s certainly cruel,” she said at the time. TheDaily Beast, which broke the news of a potential pardon, reports there are several people close to Trump who are advocates for Ulbricht’s clemency. Trump is reportedly sympathetic to the case.“In the beginning of the year, [Ulbricht’s] family had reached out to us for our support, and my organization and I have endorsed his full commutation, and I am hopeful that President Trump will commute his sentence in its entirety. This case has perhaps more support than I’ve seen in any case of this kind,” Weldon Angelos, a criminal justice reform activist, told The Daily Beast.
Trump “can sign a piece of paper and Ross would walk out the door,” Lyn said in April.
• Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin Crushes All-Time High, Surges Above $20K; ‘Free Ross’ Movement Gains Trump’s Ear
• Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin Crushes All-Time High, Surges Above $20K; ‘Free Ross’ Movement Gains Trump’s Ear || Coinbase, With Bitcoin Soaring, Files in Preparation for Landmark Public Offering: Coinbase is getting ready to go public. On Thursday, the major cryptocurrency exchange filed preliminary documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Coinbase has been the subject of IPO speculation for months. But the timing, coming just one day afterbitcoinbroke $20,000 for the first time ever, cannot be ignored. The major exchange is positioning itself as Wall Street’s most accessible bet yet on cryptocurrency.In October 2018, Coinbasewas valuedat $8 billion. Given the stratospheric increase in the price of bitcoin since then and the recent demand for initial public offerings, it’s expected Coinbase’s current valuation will be significantly higher.
“The Form S-1 is expected to become effective after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions,” the firm wrote in a sparseblog post.
Related:FTX Seeks to Launch Coinbase Futures Market Ahead of Public Listing
Coinbase said it filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s the first formal step on the long road to a public offering. The document, which likely includes target raise, was not available at press time.
A Coinbase spokesman declined to comment further.
The company’s influence touches all corners of the cryptocurrency industry. It is a major hub for retail bitcoin trading and a gateway for alternative cryptocurrencies. Its institutional business is growing faster thanMicroStrategy’ssats pile. It has an analytics team, a stablecoin in partnership with Circle, a ventures wing and a commerce department.
All of that could appeal to a Wall Street class eager for exposure to the cryptocurrency markets.
Related:Coinbase CEO Pens Words of Caution to Crypto Newcomers
It’s unclear whether Coinbase is looking to go public via an IPO or a direct listing. Coinbase was first rumored to be exploring a stock market listing in July 2020, whenReutersreported it had begun the process of taking its shares public. Unnamed sources told the wire service at the time that Coinbase was looking at a direct listing, rather than an initial public offering.
Both IPOs and direct listings require form S-1s, according to ablog postfrom Andreessen Horowitz, a key Coinbase investor.
The form Coinbase filed is confidential, meaning its contents won’t be made public until three weeks prior to the exchange’s roadshow, when the firm tries to woo potential investors.
This story will be updated.
Zack Seward and Nikhilesh Decontributed reporting.
Read more:Coinbase Plans First-Ever Investor Day Amid Talk It May Go Public
• Coinbase, With Bitcoin Soaring, Files in Preparation for Landmark Public Offering
• Coinbase, With Bitcoin Soaring, Files in Preparation for Landmark Public Offering || Honeywell’s Shares Fall as Q4 Profit Slumps About 13%; Target Price $210: Honeywell International’s shares slumped about 4% on Friday after the technology and manufacturing company reported about 13% fall in quarterly profit as theCOVID-19-relatedtravel restrictions and a collapse in air travel continues to hammer demand.
The company which makes parts for planes made by Boeing and Airbus SEsaid its net income declined to $1.36 billion, or $1.91 per share, in the last quarter of 2020, from $1.56 billion, or $2.16 per share, a year earlier. Adjusted EPS came in at $2.07, beating the Wall Street consensus estimate of $2.0 per share.
Honeywellforecasts 2021 earnings per share of $7.60-$8.00, up 13-19%, and sales between $33.4 billion and $34.4 billion.
“The path to recovery was in focus, with the 2021 outlook. We lower our 2021 sales estimate to $65.2BB (vs $63.4-65.4BB guide) from $67.9BB previously to reflect a slower recovery in commercial aero, with Collins’ commercial businesses likely down slightly y-o-y. Our 2021 EPS est. moves to $3.60 from $3.35 to reflect 80% incrementals at Collins commercial through Q2-Q4, with RTX segment margins exiting the year at 9.6%,” said Sheila Kahyaoglu, equity analyst at Jefferies.
“Given ongoing recovery, we forecast EPS rises to $6.20 (up from $5.50 prior) through 2023 reflecting commercial AM sales 2% above 2019 peak, while OE could be 18% below peak. We est. a 3% CAGR for the defence businesses (RMD + RIS) over the period.”
Honeywell Internationalshares closed 3.68% lower at $195.37 on Friday. However, the stock rose 20% in 2020.
Seventeen analysts who offered stock ratings forHoneywell Internationalin the last three months forecast the average price in 12 months at $210.19 with a high forecast of $245.00 and a low forecast of $175.00.
The average price target represents a 7.59% increase from the last price of $195.37. From those 17 analysts, nine rated “Buy”, eight rated “Hold”, and none rate “Sell”, according to Tipranks.
Morgan Stanley gave a base target price of $220 with a high of $264 under a bull scenario and $158 under the worst-case scenario. The firm currently has an “Equal-weight” rating on the manufacturing company’s stock.
Several other analysts have also recently commented on the stock.Honeywell Internationalhad its price target boosted by UBS Group to $216 from $180. UBS Group currently has a neutral rating on the conglomerate’s stock. Jefferies Financial Group lowered from a buy rating to a hold rating and lifted their target price to $210 from $190.
In addition, JP Morgan lifted their target price to $200 from $198 and gave the company an overweight rating. Barclays lifted their target price to $225 from $180 and gave the company an overweight rating. HSBC lowered to a hold rating from a buy and set a $200.00 target price.
“All the ingredients are present for “typical”Honeywell (HON)year of beats and raises with appropriate conservatism to start the year. We see upside as driven by comm’l aero aftermarket, software acceleration, and SPS leverage. HON’s long-cycle businesses should start to recover more substantially later in 2021 with Aero’s trajectory less certain. We expect Aero to remain weak through 2021 as flight hours see sharp declines and maintenance gets deferred until 2022,” said Joshua Pokrzywinski, equity analyst at Morgan Stanley.
“The company’s software offerings should be very attractive to customers as digital transformation acceleratespost-COVIDand we believe this can partially offset the delayed recovery related to the longer cycle core businesses. We see HON’s balance sheet capacity and repatriation potential as attractive, especially given management’s discipline in M&A to appropriately balance growth, value, and disruption.”
Risks to Upside: 1) Aero growth is stronger than expected with a positive margin mix. 2) PMT orders materialize to M-HSD growth next year – highlighted by Morgan Stanley.
Risks to Downside: 1) Margin expansion slower than expected. 2) Continued inflation and an escalating tariff environment with a lack of offsetting price increases represent a potential headwind.
Check outFX Empire’s earnings calendar
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Honeywell’s Shares Fall as Q4 Profit Slumps About 13%; Target Price $210
• Bitcoin and Ripple’s XRP – Weekly Technical Analysis – February 1st, 2021
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• The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – February 1st, 2021 || Bitcoin Breaches $34,000 as Rally Extends Into New Year: (Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, topped $34,000 just weeks after passing another major milestone.
The currency gained as much as 9.8% to $34,792.48, before slipping to about $33,500 as of 3:05 p.m. on Sunday in London. It advanced almost 50% in December, when it breached $20,000 for the first time.
The latest gains top an eye-popping rally for the controversial digital asset in 2020, which rebounded sharply after a severe crash in March that saw it lose 25% amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The currency “will be on the road to $50,000 probably in the first quarter of 2021,” said Antoni Trenchev, managing partner and co-founder of Nexo in London, which bills itself as the world’s biggest crypto lender. Institutional investors returning to their desks this week will likely boost prices further after retail buying over the holidays, he said.
Bitcoin has increasingly been “embraced in more global investment portfolios as holders expand beyond tech geeks and speculators,” Bloomberg Intelligence commodity strategist Mike McGlone wrote in a note last month. Proponents of the currency have also seized on the narrative that the coin could act as a store of wealth amid supposed rampant central-bank money printing, even as inflation remains mostly muted.
Bitcoin should eventually climb to about about $400,000, Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of Guggenheim Investments, told Bloomberg Television in a Dec. 16 interview.
Still, there are reasons to be cautious, partly since Bitcoin remains a thinly traded market. The currency slumped as much as 14% on Nov. 26 amid warnings that the asset class was overdue a correction. The big run-up in price in 2017 was followed by an 83% rout that lasted a year.
Does Bitcoin Boom Mean ‘Better Gold’ or Bigger Bubble? QuickTake
Ether also rose, surpassing $900 for the first time since February 2018 when it hit a record $959.15. The jump of as much as 20% to $921.92 on Sunday comes as the token continues to develop a following of its own.
(Updates pricing in second paragraph, adds Ether in final paragraph.)
For more articles like this, please visit us atbloomberg.com
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©2021 Bloomberg L.P. || Why Joe Biden’s $3T Stimulus Package Could Add Fuel to Bitcoin’s Rally: The Democratic Party narrowly triumphed in the special Senate elections in the state of Georgia earlier this week, wresting control of the U.S. Senate from the Republicans. As such, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives now has more freedom to implement its economic policies.
Analysts at UBS Bank believe the unified government legislaturewill smooththe path to more fiscal stimulus. According to anAxios report, President-elect Joe Biden is considering a two-pronged stimulus effort in the form of $2,000 checks for Americans and a tax and infrastructure spending package worth $3 trillion.
The new fiscal stimulus is expected to boost inflation,weaken the U.S. dollarand bring more buyers for scare assets such asbitcoinand gold.
Related:Was This The Craziest Week in Bitcoin History?
Alex Melikhov, CEO and founder of Equilibrium and the EOSDT stablecoin, told CoinDesk the extra stimulus would inject more liquidity into markets and likely fuel further bitcoin price rises.
The leading cryptocurrency is already in a strong bull market, courtesy of the inflation-boosting measures adopted by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government over the past 10 months to counter the coronavirus-induced slowdown. These measures have pushed institutions to seek investments that offer a hedge against inflation.
Bitcoin prices have risen from $10,000 to record highsabove $41,000in the past four months, with publicly listed companies such as MicroStrategy buying bitcoin to preserve the value of their treasury reserves. That trend could gather pace, aspredicted by JPMorgan, with Biden’s additional fiscal stimulus and the Federal Reserve’s continued easing.
“The Biden stimulus may add an extra jolt to bitcoin’s price, but nothing more than pushing along a barreling freight train,” Jehan Chu, managing partner at Hong Kong-based crypto investment firm Kenetic Capital, told CoinDesk.
Related:Deluge of Would-Be Bitcoin Traders Prompts eToro to Put Out the Unwelcome Mat
The U.S. central bank is unlikely to unwind or scale back its $120 billion-per-month asset-purchase program any time soon and is committed to keeping interest rates at record lows for sometime after inflation has risen above its 2% target.
Market-based measures of inflation have begun factoring in a potential stimulus-driven rise in price pressures in the economy. The 10-year breakeven rate, which represents how the bond market foresees long-term inflation, rose to 2.09% on Thursday, the highest level in over two years,according toSt. Louis Federal Reserve.
The breakeven rate bottomed out near 0.5% in March 2020 and has been rising ever since. Bitcoin has pretty much mimicked the ascent in inflation expectations over the past 10 months.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback’s value against major currencies, is also extending its 2020 decline on expectations for additional fiscal stimulus. The index fell to a 33-month low of 89.21 earlier this week, while gold, a traditional inflation hedge, rallied to two-month highs near $1,960 per ounce.
Alongside all this, bitcoin has gained over 40% since the start of the year just eight days ago. The cryptocurrency set yet another new record high of $41,026 earlier today.
Also read:‘Bitcoin Rich List’ Rebounds to Hit All-Time High
“Traders are looking toward dollar weakness that would correlate to further upside in bitcoin,” Matthew Dibb, co-founder, and COO of Stack Funds, told CoinDesk. “Dips, if any, are likely to be short-lived, with technical indicators suggesting little signs of prices nearing a bull market peak.”
“The crypto market will eat [Biden’s new stimulus] up,” he said.
• Why Joe Biden’s $3T Stimulus Package Could Add Fuel to Bitcoin’s Rally
• Why Joe Biden’s $3T Stimulus Package Could Add Fuel to Bitcoin’s Rally || Myovant Shares Soar on $4.2 Billion Development Collaboration with Pfizer; Target Price $42: Switzerland-based biopharmaceutical company Myovant Sciences shares soared after it announced a collaboration with Pfizer to jointly develop and commercialize relugolix for advanced prostate cancer and relugolix combination tablet for womens health in the U.S. and Canada. Following this announcement, Myovant Sciences shares soared as high as 35% to an all-time high of $30.89 on Monday but erased some of those gains on Tuesday. However, the stock is up about 18% so far this week and up nearly 75% so far in 2020. Myovant will receive up to $4.2 billion, including an upfront payment of $650 million, $200 million in potential regulatory milestones for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals for relugolix combination tablet in womens health, and tiered sales milestones upon reaching certain thresholds up to $2.5 billion in net sales for prostate cancer and also for the combined womens health indications, the company said in the statement. If Pfizer exercises the option to commercialize relugolix in oncology outside of the U.S. and Canada, excluding certain Asian countries, Myovant will receive $50 million and be entitled to receive double-digit royalties on sales. Analyst Comments We are pleased that Myovant has found a capable partner ahead of relugolixs launches. By drawing on Pfizers commercial strength in prostate cancer and womens health, relugolix will be better positioned to rapidly penetrate these competitive markets. We expect that the greater reach and frequency of interactions with physicians now possible through Pfizers existing networks will create greater demand for relugolix in the near-term, and allow it to compete with ABBV more effectively over the long haul, said Phil Nadeau, equity analyst at Cowen and Company. We find the deal terms attractive: up to $4.2 billion in upfront and milestone payments, as well as a 50/50 profit and cost split. The upfront payment will help fortify MYOVs balance sheet and the 50/50 profit and cost split will allow MYOV to more aggressively invest in relugolixs launch, while still maintaining substantial economics on the franchise, Nadeau added. Story continues Myovant Sciences Price Forecast Six analysts who offered stock ratings for Myovant Sciences in the last three months forecast the average price in 12 months at $32.00 with a high forecast of $42.00 and a low forecast of $30.00. The average price target represents an 18.30% increase from the last price of $27.05. From those six equity analysts, five rated Buy, one rated Hold and none rated Sell, according to Tipranks. Several other analysts have also recently commented on the stock. JP Morgan raised the target price to $38 from $30. Baird upped the stock price forecast to $30 from $24 and gave an outperform rating on the stock. SVB Leerink increased the price objective to $30 from $28. ValuEngine upgraded to a buy rating from a hold. Zacks Investment Research lowered to a sell rating from a hold. We think it is good to buy at the current level and target $42 as 100-day Moving Average, and 100-200-day MACD Oscillator signals a strong buying opportunity. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: US Stocks Dip on Stimulus Uncertainty; Investors Hedging Uncertainty by Shorting Small Caps AUD/USD Daily Forecast Resistance At 0.7675 In Sight EUR/USD Daily Forecast Test Of Resistance At 1.2280 BTC/USD Holds above 26,385 in Downward Triangle, ETH/USD Consolidates above 700 Asia-Pacific Stocks Finish Mixed; South Korea Gains on Final Trading Day in 2020 GBP/USD Daily Forecast U.S. Dollar Remains Under Strong Pressure || RSK Is Changing How It ‘Pegs’ Bitcoin to Its Sidechain: Bitcoin sidechain developerRSKis revamping how users swap bitcoin for its network’s tokenized version of the cryptocurrency.
IOVlabs, the company that develops the RSK platform, has created a new system for monitoring howbitcoinis “pegged to” (or, swapped for) RBTC, a token that represents a 1-1 peg to real bitcoin. RBTC is the native coin on theRSK sidechain– a Bitcoin scaling solution that uses a blockchain-like network that sacrifices decentralization in favor of faster transaction speeds.
Before this change, RSK users would send bitcoin to a multi-signature wallet address – a wallet controlled by 12 different parties. The “signatories” for this wallet would then approve the transaction and transfer the proportional RBTC to the user’s RSK wallet.
Related:How the Bitcoin Blockchain Is Being Used to Safeguard Nuclear Power Stations
The new system, dubbed Powpeg, will supplant these with an automated process, and most of the 12 signatories will now act as “pegnatories,” a group of validators who will monitor the RSK multi-signature wallet and the minting of RBTC to protect against wrongdoing.
Unlike the previous design, Powpeg automates the final step of the RBTC minting process. Now when users send bitcoin to the multi-sig wallet, they generate a proof of that transaction and then send this proof to “special-purpose hardware security modules called PowHSMs,” according to an IOVlabs press release. Once these modules receive the proof, they distribute the RBTC to the corresponding user.
In the event the user does not reveal the proof, the pegnatories will provide the proof, but they do not manually sign off on the transaction; that’s the PowHSM’s job, which also stores the individual private keys for each signatory.
RSK co-founder and IOVlabs Chief Innovation Officer Sergio Lerner told CoinDesk that miners, exchanges and mining pools will make up the first round of pegnatories. He also expects that the number of pegnatories “probably will grow in size in the months to come” since the “security risks associated with adding pegnatories are much lower than [signatories] in a federation.”
Related:California Agency Backs Green-Energy Pilot Using RSK’s Bitcoin Smart Contracts
IOVlabs says the design change was made to decentralize the pegging process for RSK and minimize the trust involved between the pegnatories and the users.
The Powpeg redesign comes on the heels of IOVlab’s efforts to bring the utility of Ethereum’s DeFi apps to Bitcoin’s ecosystem. The RSK sidechain features a number of DeFi-like services, including the MakerDAO-like stablecoin platformMoney on ChainandSovryn, a Bitcoin lending and derivatives market.
Launched in 2018, RSK is a Bitcoin sidechain which can support Ethereum smart contracts. The RSK sidechain is “merge mined” with Bitcoin, meaning miners who mine Bitcoin’s blockchain also contribute hash rate to mine blocks on RSK. According to IOVlabs, mining pools representing 50% of Bitcoin’s hashpower currently mine on the RSK chain.
• RSK Is Changing How It ‘Pegs’ Bitcoin to Its Sidechain
• RSK Is Changing How It ‘Pegs’ Bitcoin to Its Sidechain || Bitcoin Crosses $25,700, Aims At $26,000: Bitcoin has set a new record, breaking the $25,500 level, according to trading platform TradingView . What Happened: Bitcoin price briefly broke $25,005.53 and fell back to $24,971.23 before crossing the $25,000 mark and marching forward from there. It traded at $25,500 as this article published. Why It Matters: The main digital currency has had a record month, surpassing $20,000 less than two weeks ago, on Dec. 16. It reached $24,000 three days later. Crypto enthusiasts have been very optimistic about where todays price is going. Anthony Pompliano, a co-founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital investment firm, suggested on Twitter that crypto traders are trying to pump the price to $26,000 today, for a "$26k on the 26th" push. Whats Next : Analysts and trading experts believe theres a bright future ahead for the leading cryptocurrency. A Citibank managing director, Tom Fitzpatrick, recently suggested that it might reach $318,000, while Guggenheim Investments believes itll cross $400,000. Adam Black, a cryptography veteran and CEO of blockchain technologies provider Blockstream, believes that retail investors are behind this surge, as theres no institutional trading during the Christmas holidays. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Elon Musk Calls Bitcoin 'BS' In Tawdry Tweet, Causes 20% Dogecoin Surge Bitcoin Price Briefly Touches ,000 © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Billionaire Louis Bacon Shuns Bitcoin, Returns 70% By Betting On These Stocks: In this article, we presented billionaire Louis Bacon's top 10 stock picks that helped his hedge fund in generating massive gains in 2020. Click to skip ahead and seeBillionaire Louis Bacon's Top 5 Stock Picks.
Billionaire Louis Bacon’s hedge fundMoore Capital Managementhas generated massive profits during the first year of trading after the macro hedge fund manager decided to step back from managing investors’ money in 2019 and consolidating its three funds into a single fund. Moore Capital, which oversees Bacon’s and partner's money, gained more than 70% in one of the most unpredictable years.
One of the most successful hedge fund managers of his era Louis Bacon, who established Moore Capital in 1989 using a $25,000 inheritance from his mother and returned 17.6% annualized return since inception through 2019 from its flagship Remington funds, last year said in an investor’s letter that his firm would operate with less participation from him. Here is what he said in an investor’sletter:
“Dear Investor, As Moore Capital Management (MCM) approaches its 30th year at the end of this decade, the time is propitious to take a step I have eyed for some time and “privatize” our three multi-manager flagship funds-- that is to say returning client assets and funding the multi-manager program with private capital from the principals at MCM. These three funds –MGI (Moore Global Investments), RIS (Remington Investment Strategies), and MMM (Moore Macro Advisors)--will (post the return of investor funds) be consolidated into one proprietary fund which will continue to trade and invest with the same line-up of Portfolio Managers, but with less participation from me.”
Louis Bacon Moore of Moore Capital
However, the reports are hinting that Louis Bacon has still been working with the portfolio managers. The market value of its 13F portfolio grew from just over $2 billion at the end of the March quarter to more than $5.2 billion at the end of the September quarter.
The New York-based hedge fund has quickly been making changes in its 13F portfolio to take advantage of the market volatility. For instance, the hedge fund has initiated 222 positions during the September quarter and increased its stake in 38 existing positions. Moreover, the firm has sold-out 102 positions and reduced its position in 63 stocks.
Louis Bacon’s hedge fund believes in diversifying investments across several securities and sectors. The top ten holdings accounted for 41% of the overall portfolio and the hedge fund ended the September quarter with 368 positions.
While Louis Bacon’s reputation remains intact, the same can’t be said of the hedge fund industry as a whole, as its reputation has been tarnished in the last decade during which its hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. On the other hand, Insider Monkey’s research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 88 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that significantly underperformed the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 13% through November 16. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to. You can subscribe to our free newsletter onour homepageto receive our stories in your inbox.
Let’s start reviewing the top ten stock picks of Louis Bacon's portfolio to see how many returns these positions have generated during the December quarter and in fiscal 2020.
The billionaire Louis Bacon’s hedge fund has been showing confidence in VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA: GDX) over the years. Fortunately, the GDX position has helped the New York-based hedge fund to generate robust returns in 2020. VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF underperformed in the last three months, but GDX rallied more than 28% in the last twelve months. Other macro-focused billionaire hedge fund managers such as Paul Tudor Jones have been betting on bitcoin in anticipation of an inflationary environment. Moore seems to shun bitcoin and instead picks the more traditional route of investing in gold and gold miners.
Moore Capital Management has raised its position in VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF by 49% in the September quarter to 1.02% of the overall portfolio. Gold price came under pressure in the last month amid a strengthening dollar.
VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF is an exchange-traded fund that invests in public equity markets of the global region. The fund invests in stocks of companies operating across materials, metals and mining, gold, silver sectors.
Moore Capital has initiated a stake in The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) during the September quarter. The position in the movies and entertainment giant helped the hedge fund to post big gains in 2020 as shares of Disney rallied close to 37% in the last three months. Disney accounted for 1.27% of the overall 13F portfolio at the end of the September quarter.
Third Point, which has posted a return of 10.8% for the second quarter, has also highlighted a compelling investment case for Walt Disney in an investor's letter. Here is what Third Pointsaid:
“During Q2, we initiated a long position in The Walt Disney Company when shares traded down on fears that closures of theme parks and movie theaters due to the coronavirus pandemic would cripple the company. A slew of sell‐side analysts had recently downgraded the stock but we believed they failed to grasp that the pandemic also provided Disney with an important opportunity – to accelerate a plan to bring its blockbuster content directly to the consumer via streaming, which will further elevate Disney’s position as the world’s pre-eminent media company.”
Louis Bacon’s hedge fund's stake in Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) added to its 2020 performance. The hedge fund has sold 22% of its Facebook position in the latest quarter. Despite that, the social media company accounted for 1.33% of the overall portfolio. Shares of Facebook soared more than 30% in fiscal 2020, thanks to staying at home policies.
Facebook was in 230 hedge funds’portfoliosat the end of the third quarter of 2020 compared to the previous all-time high of 213.
Wedgewood Partnershas highlighted a few stocks including Facebook in the investor's letter. Here is what Wedgewood Partnersstated:
“Facebook reported 32% growth in constant currency ad revenue, along with expectations for 50-55% growth in expenses as the Company continued with their telegraphed plan to accelerate investments in privacy and security across their social platforms. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also approved a $5 billion fine for violating a 2012 FTC order by misrepresenting users’ ability to control data privacy. While this removed an overhang dating back to early 2018, continued pressure from politicians and regulators kept Facebook’s earnings multiple in check.”
Moore Capital has initiated a position in FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) during the second quarter and raised its position by more than 1000% during the September quarter. FedEx also contributed to 2020 gains because its shares surged close to 60% in the last six months. In addition, the air courier company also offer dividends to shareholders.
Hedge fundpositionin FedEx Corporation hit a new all-time high of 71 hedge funds’ in the September quarter compared to the previous all-time high of 53.
Cartenna Capital, which posted a return of 5.6% for the third quarter, commented on a few stocks including FedEx in an investor's letter. Here is Cartenna Capitalstated:
“FedEx Corporation (“FDX”) was the Fund’s largest positive contributor to performance during Q3, and we remain very bullish on the entire parcel sector into Q4. When we initially purchased shares of FedEx, it represented an extremely attractive idiosyncratic opportunity embedded within our constructive transportation market outlook. For the past several years, we have generally held a negative bias on FedEx operations as they have routinely suffered from both macroeconomic headwinds (US-China trade war) and company specific issues that have been self-inflicted (i.e. lost Amazon as a customer, poor TNT acquisition/ransomware attack). However, as FedEx began their Fiscal Year 2021 in June, many of these headwinds were poised to reverse and become tailwinds.”
Moore Capital has also benefited from its JD.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) position in 2020. Although the firm sold its 24% of stake during the third quarter, the e-commerce platform still accounted for 1.53% of the overall portfolio. Shares of JD.com rallied 121% in the last twelve months amid consumer's move towards online platforms during the pandemic.
Third Point Management, which returned 10.8% for the third quarter, highlighted the confidence in JD in an investor’s letter. Here is what Third Point Managementstated:
“As the e‐commerce market matures, we believe Alibaba & JD will leverage scale and growing repositories of transaction data to increase monetization of their platforms through targeted advertising to improve revenue yields (revenues as a percentage of GMV) from a starting point of less than 4% today. As a point of comparison, brick‐and‐mortar retail store rent expenses in China are greater than 10% of sales on average, which provides a significant umbrella for online marketplaces to take a greater share of GMV through a combination of commission and advertising spending as online retailer cost structures converge with brick‐ and‐mortar retail.”
Click to continue reading and seeBillionaire Louis Bacon's Top 5 Stock Picks.
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Disclosure: No position. The articleBillionaire Louis Bacon's Top 10 Stock Picksis originally published on Insider Monkey.
Follow Insider Monkey on Twitter || Why XRP Is Outperforming Bitcoin Today: The cryptocurrency market is posing a recovery at press-time after the slump over the last two days that saw Bitcoin (BTC) retreat from an all-time high of $41,962.36 to near-$30,000 levels. Bitcoin has recovered 4.35% in the 24-hours leading to press-time at $36,280, with a market dominance of 68.5%. Ethereum (ETH), the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, is up 4.29% at $1,140. Yet, the one stealing the show among the large-cap cryptocurrencies is XRP (XRP), which is trading above the crucial $0.30 mark at press time. XRP has added 10.1% over 24 hours and 31.6% over seven days. The surge comes as Ripple Labs Inc. — the Silicon Valley company behind XRP — announced that former Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Vice President of Delivery Experience Devraj Varadhan has joined the payments network as the senior vice president of engineering. Ripple's all-star engineering team continues to grow – thrilled to welcome Dev as our new SVP of Engineering! https://t.co/OH5ceDOX4K — Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 11, 2021 “Just as the internet was the driving force behind many of today’s leading companies, blockchain has the potential to fundamentally change our current financial system and bring billions of unbanked people into the financial ecosystem and accelerate financial inclusion globally,” the former Amazon executive said on his motivation to join Ripple. XRP has been troubled in the face of a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on whether the cryptocurrency qualifies as a security. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Bitcoin Breaches ,000 Mark In Unfazed Rally Cryptocurrency Market Valuation Crosses T, Bitcoin Zeroes In On Tesla © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 37472.09, 36926.07, 38144.31, 39266.01, 38903.44, 46196.46, 46481.11, 44918.18, 47909.33, 47504.85
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2016-05-11]
BTC Price: 452.73, BTC RSI: 54.52
Gold Price: 1274.60, Gold RSI: 55.47
Oil Price: 46.23, Oil RSI: 64.45
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Chinese hackers behind U.S. ransomware attacks - security firms: By Joseph Menn REUTERS - Hackers using tactics and tools previously associated with Chinese government-supported computer network intrusions have joined the booming cyber crime industry of ransomware, four security firms that investigated attacks on U.S. companies said. Ransomware, which involves encrypting a target's computer files and then demanding payment to unlock them, has generally been considered the domain of run-of-the-mill cyber criminals. But executives of the security firms have seen a level of sophistication in at least a half dozen cases over the last three months akin to those used in state-sponsored attacks, including techniques to gain entry and move around the networks, as well as the software used to manage intrusions. "It is obviously a group of skilled of operators that have some amount of experience conducting intrusions," said Phil Burdette, who heads an incident response team at Dell SecureWorks. Burdette said his team was called in on three cases in as many months where hackers spread ransomware after exploiting known vulnerabilities in application servers. From there, the hackers tricked more than 100 computers in each of the companies into installing the malicious programs. The victims included a transportation company and a technology firm that had 30 percent of its machines captured. Security firms Attack Research, InGuardians and G-C Partners, said they had separately investigated three other similar ransomware attacks since December. Although they cannot be positive, the companies concluded that all were the work of a known advanced threat group from China, Attack Research Chief Executive Val Smith told Reuters. The ransomware attacks have not previously been reported. None of the companies that were victims of the hackers agreed to be identified publicly. Asked about the allegations, China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that if they were made with a "serious attitude" and reliable proof, China would treat the matter seriously. But ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China did not have time to respond to what he called "rumours and speculation" about the country's online activities. The security companies investigating the advanced ransomware intrusions have various theories about what is behind them, but they do not have proof and they have not come to any firm conclusions. Most of the theories flow from the possibility that the Chinese government has reduced its support for economic espionage, which it pledged to oppose in an agreement with the United States late last year. Some U.S. companies have reported a decline in Chinese hacking since the agreement. Smith said some government hackers or contractors could be out of work or with reduced work and looking to supplement their income via ransomware. It is also possible, Burdette said, that companies which had been penetrated for trade secrets or other reasons in the past were now being abandoned as China backs away, and that spies or their associates were taking as much as they could on the way out. In one of Dell's cases, the means of access by the team spreading ransomware was established in 2013. The cyber security experts could not completely rule out more prosaic explanations, such as the possibility that ordinary criminals had improved their skills and bought tools previously used only by governments. Dell said that some of the malicious software had been associated by other security firms with a group dubbed Codoso, which has a record of years of attacks of interest to the Chinese government, including those on U.S. defense companies and sites that draw Chinese minorities. PAYMENT IN BITCOIN Ransomware has been around for years, spread by some of the same people that previously installed fake antivirus programs on home computers and badgered the victims into paying to remove imaginary threats. In the past two years, better encryption techniques have often made it impossible for victims to regain access to their files without cooperation from the hackers. Many ransomware payments are made in the virtual currency Bitcoin and remain secret, but institutions including a Los Angeles hospital have gone public about ransomware attacks. Ransomware operators generally set modest prices that many victims are willing to pay, and they usually do decrypt the files, which ensures that victims will post positively online about the transaction, making the next victims who research their predicament more willing to pay. Security software companies have warned that because the aggregate payoffs for ransomware gangs are increasing, more criminals will shift to it from credit card theft and other complicated scams. The involvement of more sophisticated hackers also promises to intensify the threat. InGuardians CEO Jimmy Alderson said one of the cases his company investigated appeared to have been launched with online credentials stolen six months earlier in a suspected espionage hack of the sort typically called an Advanced Persistent Threat, or APT. "The tactics of getting access to these networks are APT tactics, but instead of going further in to sit and listen stealthily, they are used for smash-and-grab," Alderson said. (Reporting by Joseph Menn in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan in BEIJING; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Clarence Fernandez) View comments || Bitcoin finds room in small funds; large institutions still on sidelines: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin has found favor among smaller investors, thanks to the availability of funds designed to invest in it, but remains a niche among the larger investing community.
Investors at some family offices, smaller mutual funds, and traders at hedge funds say bitcoin has helped returns and demonstrated a low correlation with other asset classes.
Hopes that bitcoin would become a broadly used alternative to other currencies helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalization was $13 billion.
But the market cap has retreated since then, to about $6.4 billion as of Thursday.
Early enthusiasts for the crypto-currency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. The risks of dealing in bitcoin were laid bare in 2013 when Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox collapsed after admitting it had lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds.
The currency's earlier ties to gambling and criminal websites did not endear it to traditional investors.
Jeremy Millar, founder and managing partner at Ledger Partners in London, estimated that 50 to 90 percent of bitcoin's current $6.4 billion market cap is held by near-institutional money such as individuals at hedge funds and family offices. That has not changed over the last two years.
He does not have an estimate for institutional investment holdings of bitcoin. But he said they are likely to be insignificant, compared with the smaller investors who have fewer restrictions about fund allocation.
"What is clear though is that over the last two years, bitcoin has emerged from its 'hacktivist' origins to a more institutionalized ecosystem which includes the participation of hedge funds, traders, and professional investors," said Millar.
BITCOIN IN PORTFOLIOS
Funds dedicated to investing in bitcoin are relatively small. The largest is the Pantera Bitcoin Fund, a $160 million hedge fund founded by Dan Morehead, formerly of Tiger Management, available to institutions and individuals who invest $50,000 or more.
According to a Pantera Bitcoin Fund brochure, the fund was launched in July 2013, a period when bitcoin <BTC=BTSP> traded at around $65. On Thursday, it traded at $418.80, a gain of more than 500 percent from July 2013. The firm did not comment on fund performance or its investors.
The majority of the Pantera Fund's investors are family offices and high net worth individuals, said two people familiar with the fund.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust, with assets of more than $60 million, is another vehicle for investors. GBTC is backed by bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group.
It is the only publicly traded U.S. security in the over-the-counter market invested in bitcoin. Volume is thin, with a few thousand shares traded daily, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Antonis Polemitis, managing director at Ledra Capital in New York, a family office specializing in education and technology, said that on average, clients have allocated 1 to 3 percent of their portfolios to bitcoin.
"A lot of people will take that bet with 1 percent of their assets," he said. "A 1 percent loss does not change anyone's life in any way. If it goes up 10 times, then you get to feel very smart."
Some investment managers say having bitcoin in portfolios has helped performance.
ARK Invest, which manages four exchange-traded funds with $240 million in assets, holds GBTC in its $12 million Next Generation Internet ETF and the $7 million ARK Innovation ETF.
Chris Burniske, analyst and blockchain products lead at ARK Invest in New York, said since investing in September 2015, GBTC has contributed 67 basis points to the Next Generation Internet ETF's return and 62 basis points to the ARK Innovation ETF.
For 2015, the Next Generation ETF posted a 15.29 percent return, while the Innovation ETF had 3.76 percent gains.
For Kingsbridge Wealth Management, a multifamily office in Las Vegas with $150 million in assets, GBTC has become a great diversifier because so far it has had a low correlation with other asset classes, said David Dunn, the firm's founder and chief investment officer. The firm has about $1.7 million invested in bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain, Dunn said.
(Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis) || Japan looks to kickstart 'fintech' revolution: By Thomas Wilson TOKYO (Reuters) - A laggard in embracing the 'fintech', or financial technology, revolution, Japan is set to ease investment restrictions that could free up the flow of capital in an economy sitting on an estimated $9 trillion in individuals' cash deposits. Strict regulation, easy access to credit due to rock-bottom interest rates, and weak demand for innovative financial services from a risk-averse population that still prefers cash to credit cards, have strangled fintech's advance in Japan. Fintech ventures - usually start-ups leveraging technology from cloud data storage to smartphones to provide loans, insurance and payment services - raised $2.7 billion in China last year, and over $1.5 billion in India, according to CB Insights data. Ventures in the United States attracted investment of around $7.4 billion. In comparison, investment in Japanese ventures reached only around $44 million in the first nine months of 2015. Now, Japan's financial industry regulator hopes relaxed rules on investing in financial ventures, and a new system for regulating virtual currency exchanges will pass through parliament by May - a first step in kickstarting the fintech revolution in the world's third-biggest economy. "The law changes aren't a goal, but a first step," Norio Sato, a senior official at the Financial Services Authority (FSA), told Reuters. "Fintech will have a big impact on financial services." The changes, which will allow banks to buy stakes of up to 100 percent in non-finance-related firms, will free up Japan's three megabanks to enter into tie-ups with fintech ventures developing services including robotic investment advisory and blockchain, the decentralised ledger technology behind the bitcoin digital currency. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group have said they are eyeing such investments, having previously been restricted to holding stakes of only 5-15 percent in start-ups. Story continues Under pressure from weak loan demand, the megabanks see an opportunity to earn money through fintech, but are also aware of its potential to disrupt traditional business models. GAME CHANGER The unpromising fintech environment in Japan - which was blindsided by the high-profile collapse of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in 2014 when hackers stole an estimated $650 million worth of the digital currency - has seen some entrepreneurs go overseas for funding. Junichi Horiguchi, co-founder and CEO of bitcoin service provider Zerobillbank Ltd, established his start-up in Tel Aviv last year to take advantage of Israel's advanced technology industry. Investment in fintech start-ups by global banks and tech giants including Barclays, Google and Facebook is far more common in Israel than in Japan, he said. "It's completely different over there," Horiguchi told Reuters. "Every month there are open innovation contests and (start-up) accelerator programmes." Sales at Japan's fintech start-ups could jump to over half a billion dollars by 2020 as the use of technology such as blockchain increases, Yano Research Institute said in a report. The new rules the FSA is promoting on virtual currency exchanges could make Japan one of the first countries to regulate bitcoin at a national level. "Japan hasn't previously been enthusiastic about fintech," said Sato. "But creating these rules this fast could gain the world's attention." Bitcoin entrepreneurs, often reliant on investment for growth, have called for clearer regulation and will welcome the latest changes, said Yuzo Kano, founder and CEO of bitcoin exchange bitFlyer Inc, and head of the Japan Authority for Digital Assets, a lobbying group. "The establishment of the law is extremely surprising," Kano said, referring to how quickly the FSA had drafted the law. "It's set to be very successful." ($1 = 112.95 yen) (Reporting by Thomas Wilson; Editing by Ian Geoghegan) || Halliburton and Baker Hughes deal called off: Wall Street braces from the latest out of Puerto Rico's endless debt crisis. Here are some of the other top stories the Yahoo Finance team is following this morning.
Merger deal called off between Halliburton & Baker HughesBaker Hughes (BHI)will buy back $1.5 billion in stock after a merger was called off with Halliburton (HAL). The $28 billion merger deal is off after opposition from U.S. and European antitrust regulators.Hulu wants to create streaming tv service: WSJHulu wants to move beyond web streaming and challenge cable companies with its own Internet TV service. Customers will be able to live stream channels including FOX (NWS), ABC, and ESPN (DIS), according to reports. It’s estimated the new Hulu service will be around $40 a month.
Craig Wright reportedly steps forward as Bitcoin creatorThe creator of Bitcoin has reportedly stepped forward. Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright says he is the person responsible for the digital currency. Bitcoin fell more than 3% in value after the news of Wright went public. || Cash, Credit or Gold?: Is cash becoming obsolete? "Contactless" payment systems, like Apple Pay and Google Wallet , digitize debit and credit cards in a virtual wallet, letting you pay for a variety of services and products from the convenience of your phone. Apps like PayPal’s Venmo let users send money instantly, splitting the cost of brunch or reimbursing friends for movie tickets with just a few taps. And, despite ongoing growing pains , Bitcoin, the open-source currency project, continues to live on. Related: Why Billionaire Investor Reid Hoffman Is Betting Big on Bitcoin The next payment frontier? Digital payments in gold. Already, the Canadian startup BitGold is advancing the digital payment revolution with a simple mission: Help people securely acquire, store and spend gold. Customers are being offered a prepaid card for spending their gold or converting gold payments into currency at any ATM machine. If this sounds a bit like a science fiction movie, you’re not alone in that thought. But, after years of serious credit-card hacking scandals, could customers finally be ready to say goodbye to credit cards and hello to digital payments, including BitGold? Here’s what your business needs to know about the choices of cash, credit or gold. Credit card theft and data breaches: Is any payment source safe? Each new day seems to find a new data security breach. In 2013, Target made headlines when hackers stole credit card data from more than 40 million accounts . A federal judge later ruled that Target had to pay its hack victims up to $10 million . And that's not all: Last year, an estimated 21.5 million Americans were affected by a colossal breach of government computer systems , where hackers made off with a “vast trove of personal information” that included fingerprints and Social Security numbers. The hack was believed to have originated in China, although government officials declined to pinpoint a specific perpetrator. Related: Would You Work Out Harder If You Got Paid in Bitcoin? With a new identity fraud victim every two seconds, 12.7 million U.S. consumers in 2014 suffered an estimated $16 billion in losses, according to the 2015 Identity Fraud Study from Javelin Strategy & Research. With identity theft and fraud complaints on the rise -- and the federal government seemingly unable to protect sensitive information from data breaches -- it’s natural to wonder if any payment source is safe. Story continues How one contactless system, Apple Pay, has answered the security threat. Safer payments are the goal behind a contactless payment plan like Apple Pay. Apple has made a big deal out of its Apple Pay system, arguing that it’s more secure than other such systems because Apple Pay transactions are verified with a fingerprint. Apple claims that since it never reveals the card number or details to a merchant at payment, its system is more privacy-focused than others; additionally, payment is authorized using a one-time unique dynamic security code, instead of the code from the back of the card. Card payment is tied to each device; information is never uploaded to iCloud or Apple ID accounts. Despite these big promises, Apple Pay adoption has been slow. Consumers feel that swiping or dipping a credit card is still easier and faster, and credit card issuers have no incentive to promote Apple Pay over the standard card swipe. Breaking consumer habits can be hard, especially for financial services. Banks, for example, are still trying to sell older consumers on the security of digital check deposits via smartphone apps. Given Apple's challenge of trying to convince consumers to pay with their iPhones, does something as extreme as digital gold payment even have a chance? Will 'digital payments in gold' take off? BitGold is a brand new platform offering customers the ability to pay digitally with gold. Despite the name, BitGold is much more like PayPal than bitcoin; BitGold is not a “bitcoin” backed by gold, nor is it an anonymous system . Instead, BitGold is a system that knows its customers, protects them from fraud and can reverse transactions, should fraud be detected. BitGold is also an incredibly interesting idea. It’s founded on the belief that gold provides a neutral, natural unit of account in relation to other elements; and it’s an elemental unit of accounting for past, present and future transactions, making it a natural unit for online savings and trade in an age of global cooperation. BitGold’s chief marketing challenge is selling this belief, in tandem with its system for acquiring, storing and process gold-backed payments. Related: It's Crucial to Keep Up With These 6 Digital Trends in 2016 Bottom line While it’s still early in BitGold’s development, the possibility of paying for transactions with gold is certainly intriguing, especially in a world that’s increasingly dominated by credit card theft, rampant debt and data security breaches. The evolution of digital payments in gold is one financial trend to watch closely in months to come. And, you never know: Apple Pay may yet take off. || The biggest names in bitcoin and blockchain in 2016: While critics are still dubious of the future viability of the digital currency bitcoin, at least one group isn’t: venture capitalists. VCs pumped more investment into bitcoin and blockchain-related startups last year than in any previous year—nearly $1 billion.
The investors are keeping this industry hot, even if we haven’t yet seen any so-called “killer app," a mainstream use case for bitcoin that would compel the average person to care. And it isn’t just investors leading the charge—it’s a handful of key executives, thinkers and evenpolicy people.
Of course, investors are just as keen on companies exploring the blockchain, which is the decentralized ledger technology on which bitcoin runs. (For a full explainer on blockchain,watch this video.) The hype around the idea of banks using a form of blockchain (without bitcoin) is high, even though aPwC survey this monthfound that 57% of financial executives say they're “unsure” about implementing blockchain tech in banking.
So, who are the big believers? They are some of the biggest names in bitcoin and blockchain right now. Some are executives at the most well-funded companies, some are investors in those companies. All of them bring clout and connections to bitcoin and the blockchain. Here are 11 of them, curated by Yahoo Finance with input from a number of industry insiders. This is not a list of the hottest bitcoin companies, nor is it a ranking. It’s an unofficial look at the individuals bringing mainstream attention to this still-nascent, still-controversial corner of tech. Call them the "bitcoin celebrities" if you like.
This list is unranked (alphabetical order). Feel free to debate, dispute and make your own suggestions in the comment section.
Everyone in tech knows Andreessen. He is the co-founder of Netscape, a board member at Facebook, eBay and others, and co-founder of the Silicon Valley powerhouse venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The firm’s portfolio includes investments in bitcoin wallet company Coinbase (see No. 6), 21 Inc (see No. 9), and TradeBlock. In 2014, he wrote anop-ed in the New York Timesboldly titled, “Why bitcoin matters.” He liberally shares bitcoin and blockchain-related news to his 500,000 Twitter followers—a considerable benefit to bitcoiners.
When Coinbase, one of the earliest bitcoin startups, raised $75 million in funding in January of last year, it was at the time the biggest fundraising round ever for a bitcoin company. (The figure has since been shattered by 21 Inc.) And Coinbase, which has raised $107 million total, remains arguably the best-known name among all bitcoin startups—it is often where people go to get a bitcoin wallet and to buy their first bitcoins. It was first to market with a bitcoin exchange platform in the U.S. (others waited longer in order to get certain licensing) and Armstrong, its leader, is one of the most sensible thinkers in the industry. (His postexplaining the debate over block size distills the issue clearly.)
Bitcoin is partially based on a previous system called hashcash, an algorithm that cut down on email spam by requiring proof of work, an early form of what is now bitcoin “mining.” Back created hashcash. Now the cryptographer, as president of blockchain startup Blockstream, has become one of the loudest voices in the debate over whether, and how, to increase the size limit of transaction bundles (or “blocks”) on the bitcoin blockchain. His experience in business (he's worked as a consultant to Nokia) and in academia (he has a PhD in distributed systems) have made him a unique authority in the space. Reid Hoffman, the influential co-founder of LinkedIn (LNKD), made a personal investment of $21 million in Blockstream, and the company has raised $76 million overall.
Ethereum is a bitcoin alternative that some believe has more potential than bitcoin. The platform runs on a decentralized blockchain, like bitcoin’s, that allows for any peer-to-peer exchange of value, and it uses its own currency, Ether. And the company is a non-profit. Buterin developed the concept in 2013, and in 2014sold about 60 million ether in a pre-sale, which worked out to $18.4 million at the time. The Ethereum chain went live last summer. Buterin, who is only 22, is seen as a wunderkind; he also helped launch Bitcoin Magazine.
Reid Hoffmanhas calledWences Casares the “Patient Zero for bitcoin in Silicon Valley.” His startup Xapo was one of the earliest bitcoin wallet companies, though it's embroiled in a legal dispute with LifeLock, the company that acquired Casares’s previous startup, Lemon. (LifeLock alleges Casares and others created Xapo while still working at Lemon, within LifeLock; he has filed a counter-suit.) Most importantly, PayPal created a new seat on its board of directors for Casares in January. The appointment was seen as big news for bitcoin—a bitcoin entrepreneur on the board of PayPal was quite a milestone. And Xapo has raised $40 million in funding.
Masters is one of a kind in the bitcoin world. She spent nearly 30 years as a JPMorgan (JPM) executive, including as head of global commodities, before leaving to run Digital Asset Holdings, a startup that seeks to apply blockchain tech to Wall Street. Its first big client: her former employer. JPMorgan is working with Digital Asset Holdings to test out a use of blockchain to settle transactions faster. DAH has raised $60 million in funding. Because Masters is a known name on Wall Street, her move brought big legitimacy to the space. (And Masters isn't the onlyfemale leader in bitcoin:Catheryne Nicholsonis CEO of small blockchain startup BlockCypher, which has raised $3.5 million, andElizabeth Rossiellois CEO of BitPesa, which is working on bitcoin payments in Africa.)
Kraken is a bitcoin exchange headquartered in San Francisco, but with most of its activity in Europe. Here’s why that’s relevant: Last year, when the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) released its controversial regulatory framework for bitcoin companies, the Bitlicense, Krakenled a charge of bitcoin startups out of New York. The company won’t do business in the state, which is a financial risk but a compelling stance against what Powell and others see as restrictive legislation. Kraken, which has raised $6.5 million in funding, has stuck to that vow even as it has ramped up acquisitions lately,buying out Coinsetter, a U.S. exchange that itself had bought out Cavirtex, a Canadian exchange. Kraken's purchase of Coinsetter was the biggest ever M&A deal in the bitcoin space; Coinsetter did operate in New York, but now it won't—that's how rigid Powell is in his stance. Kraken is continuing to get bigger, but without New York, the very place where so much of the activity around blockchain is centered.
R3 CEV is the private firm that rolled out a consortium (the Distributed Ledger Group) for banks interested in exploring blockchain technology. More than 40 of them have signed on, including Bank of America (BAC), Citi (C), Deutsche Bank (DB) and Wells Fargo (WFC). And this month R3 announced an extensive test of online distributed ledgers for banks, with help from Chain, Ethereum (see No. 10) and IBM. It is R3 that has attracted institutions whose involvement can turn the abstract notion of "blockchain for banks” into a reality.
In 2004, Barry Silbert founded SecondMarket, which allows people to buy stock in non-public companies. He sold the company to Nasdaq last year and has since launched Digital Currency Group, the biggest investment firm in bitcoin and blockchain companies. (It has invested in more than 75.) Most recently, DCG bought the leading bitcoin news site, Coindesk, acquiring the annual bitcoin industry conference Consensus along with it. Almost every time a bitcoin startup announces a new fundraising round, Silbert and DCG are involved. Silbert also launched the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), whichtrades over-the-counterand is designed to track the price of bitcoin.
Srinivasan, the cofounder and CEO of 21 Inc, is also a board partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When 21 first launched publicly, it remained mysterious. It wasn’t clear what 21 would be doing, but observers had high expectations: The company raised more than any other bitcoin startup, $121 million in funding. Last year, 21 finally unveiled its first product —a small bitcoin personal computer for building apps on top of the bitcoin blockchain.
The Olympic rowers made their name when they sued Facebook (FB) cofounder Mark Zuckerberg and got $65 million. Since then, they’ve been eager to prove themselves as entrepreneurs, and they have made bitcoin the space in which to prove it. They launched a bitcoin pricing index, Winkdex, in 2014—the site is cleanly designed and tracks the price of bitcoin over time. This year, they launched Gemini, a bitcoin trading exchange. Like their pricing index, the design is appealing, but the user base is small. (Gemini is only doing an average $338,000 in trade volume per day, according to data from TradeBlock; by comparison, Kraken sees about $1.3 million in daily volume.) Their bigger ambition: the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, a bitcoin ETF, which will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol COIN but still awaits regulatory approval. There are signs that the bitcoin community doesn’t love the Winklevoss brothers yet—one prominent bitcoin executivetold Fortune, “Our industry would prefer that if there’s a celebrity spokesperson, it not be them.” But the jetsetting duo certainly bring mainstream star power to bitcoin.
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This is the third in a three-part Yahoo Finance series focused on blockchain technology. Thefirst partwas about why big banks are expressing interest in the blockchain; thesecond partwas about how you could invest in the blockchain.
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.Read more:
Bitcoin advocacy group scores funding from biggest names in industry
Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter
Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its biggest news site
Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin || IONOMY, New Gaming Platform Seeks to Entice Mobile Gamers and Developers Into Digital Currency, Launches Initial Coin Offering for New Currency "ION": SINGAPORE--(Marketwired - April 15, 2016) -ionomy (www.ionomy.com), a gaming and blockchain cryptocurrency startup, on April 4, 2016, announced its new gaming, investment, and digital currency platform, ionomy.com.
With its revolutionary digital currency, ION, at the center of the "ionomy," the company seeks to ease cryptocurrency adoption through mobile gaming and social activities. Revenues from the platform provide continuous support to the development of ionomy.com, ION, and expansion of its innovative "Static Proof of Stake" network.
After securing initial funding of $125,000 through an initial crowdsale offering in November of 2015, the ionomy team built the foundational ionomy.com platform and developed the new blockchain based digital currency.
ionomy has additionally announced an initial coin offering (ICO) for ION, and seeks to raise approximately $500,000 of additional funding for this round of development and deployment. Enhancements include new game releases for mobile platforms, deployment of the trading and earning system (Stakers), and deployment and support of the core blockchain cryptocurrency, ION.
ionomy launched the ICO campaign on April 4, 2016 and has already sold over half of the initial 5 million ION that have been offered at a starting price of $0.20/ION. The price of ion is on a rising scale and increases in increments of $0.01 weekly until the conclusion on May 16, 2016:
• An initial supply of 10.9 million ION has been established with 5 million dedicated to the ICO, the remaining divided between platform and development incentives, and bounties.
• ION is built upon the latest proof-of-stake 3.0 technology based on Blackcoin's core and innovates by adding masternodes (transaction facilitators) similar to Dash.
By leveraging company holdings and pooling user deposited ION into a product named "Stakers," the company can offer users higher than local wallet staking returns by effectively creating a large masternode and staking pool. A traditional cryptocurrency wallet or QT wallet will be offered on launch as well in order to allow users who prefer to manage their own wallets the option to do so.
"Many of our users can be intimidated by a QT wallet, and most prefer the simplicity of an online wallet," Richard Nelson, ionomy Support Director said, "so we made it easy for them to use the online wallet, but also get the benefits of the PoS system, including masternodes."
Stakers are products similar to Certificate of Deposits, time restricted to 3, 6, 9, and 12 months and pay a fixed rate of return for that period of time. Rates start at 10% and can, for brief periods of time, go beyond 100% through platform incentives. "Stakers are impacted by mobile gaming activity -- how much a user plays and wins, and rewards are directly tied to the rate of return on Stakers," Mark Gravina, ionomy Owner stated. "Players are able to charge their Stakers with game winnings for extra returns. It's just one of the many ways to use IONs on the platform."
"We feel the Proof of Work (PoW) model is broken," said Mark' "We're seeing now with the large Bitcoin farms in China, the arms race has gotten to the point where mining is a zero sum game."
ionomy's approach to the distributed consensus model turns traditional cryptocurrency standards upside down. "By starting semi-centralized with ionomy.com, mobile games, and social activities, then development tools and crowdfunding, we're giving the currency a real chance to establish a foothold before being adopted outward," explained Adam Matlack, COO of ionomy. He continued, "The coin is open source, but ionomy is funding development through bounties and incentives; a large portion of ICO funds are set aside just for development of ION itself."
The platform and coin will launch at the conclusion of the ICO on May 16. All coins sold in the ICO will be distributed and the blockchain will be live. Shortly after the platform and coin launch, the company's first game "Gravity" is scheduled to be released on mobile platforms.
About ionomyionomy is a digital entertainment and investment platform built around the ION coin, a digital currency. By integrating ION into mobile gaming and closely tying it to the platform, new users are introduced to cryptocurrency at their own pace.
The mobile gaming market is one of the largest growing sectors in the world. A sustainable draw to the ionomy, for both users and holders of ION, are the digital coin rewards usable for real world goods and services.
For more information please visit ionomy.com. || 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) || 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 hereor 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 weremostly higheron 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. presidentto 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. AsBloomberg reports, traders are starting to withdraw as government deters speculation.
MarketWatch posteda 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-$9MSodaStream(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.
Sell-Side's Most Noteworthy Calls
SunTrust downgradesSt. Jude(NYSE:STJ) to Neutral.
Topeka downgradesGap(NYSE:GPS) to Hold.
Piper Jaffray cutHasbro(NASDAQ:HAS) to Neutral.
Jefferies startedJC Penney(NYSE:JCP) at Hold.
Piper Jaffray initiates coverage onKroger(NYSE:KR) at Underweight.
Bank of America upgradesDover(NYSE:DOV) to Buy.
Deal Talk
Recode scoop: The second round of bidders in the sale ofYahoo(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'sSanofi(NYSE:SNY), people familiar with the situation told Reuters. The San Francisco-based company has agreed to open its books to bothPfizer(NYSE:PFE) andAmgen(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 toGoogle's(NASDAQ:GOOGL) YouTube.
Redditors are debatingTesla'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
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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.
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Can you Pick the 2016 Election Winners Without TV Analysts? Here’s a Better Bet: Watch the video of ‘Can you Pick the 2016 Election Winners Without TV Analysts? Here’s a Better Bet’ on MoneyTalksNews.com.
If you want a quick glimpse at who’s likeliest to be our next president, don’t listen to pollsters and pundits. Follow the money.
We don’t mean the big bucks of super PACs or even the millions from small-money donors.
We’re talking about real money people who wager on election outcomes. It turns out that the collective wisdom of bettors has a better record of predicting winners than the talking heads.
One place that bettors congregate online is theIowa Electronic Markets, or the IEM, at the University of Iowa.
“If you look at polls run during the election, in about 75 percent of the cases, Iowa’s market prices predict the outcome of elections better than the polls,” says Joyce Berg, a University of Iowa accounting professor who oversees the IEM.
Frederick Boehmke, University of Iowa political science professor and faculty adviser to the Hawkeye Poll, recently explained why to theQuad City Times newspaper.
“A poll asks a person’s preference, what they want to happen,” Boehmke said. People investing in the IEM, however, “are trying to make money, so they pick the candidate or party they think will win. They typically set aside personal preferences to make money.”
Also, a poll is a snapshot at a moment in time, Boehmke said. The market “is about who will win in the end.”
The IEM and another exchange,PredictIt, which is set up in Washington, D.C., under the auspices of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, say the predictions work because the “wisdom of crowds” aggregates the expectations of thousands of bettors who have skin in the game.
A now-defunct exchange calledIntradein 2012 “predicted” the electoral outcome in 49 of the 50 states.
People who put up real money are more likely to consider all the available information than people who just offer their opinions, says Money Talks News financial expert Stacy Johnson.
That information could include economic and business conditions, stock market performance, inflation and employment rates as well as other factors that could sway voters’ moods. Once invested in the outcome, bettors follow campaigns closely. As on a stock exchange and similar to fantasy sports leagues, bettors can make or lose money buying and selling their shares in the outcomes in which they invested.
You can get in on the action.
In exchanges, bettors actually are traders who buy and sell real-money contracts based on their beliefs about “yes or no” election outcomes. Unlike a casino sports book, the exchange does not set odds. The prices reflect the probabilities of various candidate winning a given political race.
PredictIt explains it this way:
You make predictions on future events by buying shares in an outcome, Yes or No. Each outcome has a probability between 1 and 99 percent, which is converted into U.S. cents.
“For example, Trader A thinks an event has at least a 60 percent chance of taking place so she offers 60 cents for a Yes share. PredictIt matches her offer with that of Trader B, who is willing to pay 40 cents for a No share. Each trader now owns a share in the market for this event on opposite sides. … If an event does take place, all Yes shares are redeemed at $1. Shares in No become worthless. If the event does not take place before the market closes, traders holding shares in No will be paid $1, while Yes shares will be worthless.
At the IEM, you can open an account for $5 to $200.
If you just want to look, check who’s leading the popular bets.
For the moment, according to the exchanges and other betting venues, the odds-on favorite is Hillary Clinton. That doesn’t mean bettors favor Hillary’s politics over those of Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination, or Republican front-runner Donald Trump. It just means they bet she wins. The likelihood of a Trump presidency, according to bettors, is less than 20 percent.
Both the IEM and PredictIt offer markets in who will be the GOP and Democratic presidential nominees. IEM has a market in which party will win the 2016 election as well as one in which you can bet on how the parties will share the popular vote. As of March 11, it was Democrats, about 55 percent, leading Republicans, 45 percent.
The IEM also has a market on who will control Congress (“Republican House, Democratic Senate” is leading).
PredictIt also has bets on upcoming party primaries, including Ohio (Kasich beating Trump, Clinton beating Sanders) and Illinois (Trump trouncing Cruz, Clinton trouncing Sanders) as well as topics such as whether the GOP will have a brokered convention (No is beating Yes) and will Marco Rubio drop out by March 18 (Yes is beating No).
• Election Betting Odds: Run byFox Business reporterJohn Stossel and his producer, Maxim Lott, Election Betting Odds features odds derived from an exchange,Betfair.com, which does not accept American traders due to regulations. It recently showed Clinton with a 64 percent probability of winning the White House and Trump with a 19 percent chance.
• FiveThirtyEight: This site is run by Nate Silver, known for calling the results in 49 out of 50 states in 2008 and all 50 states in 2012, FiveThirtyEight is predicting outcomes from primaries and caucuses based on data from polls and endorsements.
• PredictWise:Run by David Rothschild, an economist at Microsoft Research in New York City, PredictWise aggregates data on politics as well as sports, finance and entertainment. The site says it is does not favor gambling. It does indicate the Democratic nominee has a 69 percent chance of winning the White House compared with the Republican candidate’s 31 percent chance of winning. It also predicts Clinton will be the Democratic nominee by a better than 9-1 ratio over Sanders, and that Trump has a 76 percent probability of winning the GOP nomination.
• Pinnacle Sports: At the Curacao-licensed online betting site, Clinton has the best odds.
• Paddy Power: An online gambling site that mainly features sports, Paddy Power takes bets (not from the United States) onU.S. politics, too. It has Clinton as favored to win; Trump has the second-best odds.
• Predictious: Established after the demise of Intrade, Ireland-based Predictious exchange allows you to buy and sell contracts using Bitcoins, the virtual currency.
Despite all these predictions, they could be dead wrong, Johnson points out.
Ahead of the March 1 Super Tuesday elections,PredictItbettors andPredictWisesaid Trump would win 10 of 11 states and would lose only to Ted Cruz in Cruz’s home state, Texas. Cruz did win in Texas, but he also took Oklahoma and Alaska while Rubio won Minnesota; Trump won in seven states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.
So, while you might want to get a handle on the odds for your favorite candidate — and bettors can help — in the voting booth, you need to weigh that with your political convictions.
“You need to do your own research, pick your own candidate and then back that candidate with your vote, no matter what gamblers, polls or pundits say,” he said.
If you were betting on the election, where would you put your money? Does that pick line up with your politics? Share with us in comments below or on ourFacebook page.
This article was originally published onMoneyTalksNews.comas'Can you Pick the 2016 Election Winners Without TV Analysts? Here’s a Better Bet'.
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000048 BTC YoBit 0.00000035 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000049 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-04-30 21:00 pic.twitter.com/wt4fjAJLzL || $418.05 at 17:15 UTC [24h Range: $412.00 - $423.89 Volume: 5286 BTC] || LIVE: Profit = $380.72 (4.72 %). BUY B19.53 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $432.83 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || #EuroCoin #EUC $ 0.000049 (0.14 %) 0.00000011 BTC (-0.00 %) || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: Error
Bittrex: 0.00000013
Average $5.5E-5 per #reddcoin
09:00:02 || Bitstamp: $452.60/BTC - last trade of USD/BTC at https://www.bitstamp.net/ (high: 463.00, low: 447.38) #bitcoin #BTC http://bitcoinautotrade.com || $421.87 at 19:45 UTC [24h Range: $418.00 - $422.15 Volume: 3318 BTC] || #BTA Price: Bittrex 0.00002683 BTC YoBit 0.00002350 BTC Bleutrade 0.00002373 BTC #BTA 2016-04-16 13:00 pic.twitter.com/57ZQpVPRsy || One Bitcoin now worth $453.00@bitstamp. High $457.80. Low $446.04. Market Cap $7.007 Billion #bitcoin || BitcoinMuseum: RT ProjectCoin: LIVE: Profit = $134.64 (7.69 %). BUY B4.53 @ $410.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $417.23 (#Kraken) #bitcoin #btc - …
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Trend: down || Prices: 454.77, 455.67, 455.67, 457.57, 454.16, 453.78, 454.62, 438.71, 442.68, 443.19
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin predicted to rise 165% to $2,000 in 2017 driven by Trump’s ‘spending binge’ and dollar rally: The price of Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS)could hit more than $2,000 in 2017 driven by expectations that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump may introduce economic stimulus policies, which could send inflation soaring and propel the dollar to record highs, a report from Saxo Bank claims.
Bitcoin is currently trading around $754.51, according to CoinDesk data. A handle of over $2,000 would represent 165 percent appreciation.
During his election campaign Trump has talked about an increase in fiscal spending. Saxo Bank's note said that this could increase the roughly $20 trillion of U.S. national debt and triple the current budget deficit from approximately $600 billion to $1.2-1.8 trillion, or some 6-10 percent of the country's current $18.6 trillion economy.
As a result, the economy will grow and inflation will "sky rocket", forcing the U.S. Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at a faster pace and causing the U.S. dollar "to hit the moon".
When inflation rises the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates to bring it under control. This causes the dollar to appreciate because it would be seen as an attractive currency for foreign investors.
"This creates a domino effect in emerging markets and China in particular, leading people globally to look for alternative forms of currencies and payment systems not tied to central banks that have exhausted monetary policies or crony governments that are in full financial repression mode nor transaction systems that are long overdue for a revolution," Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank, wrote in a note.
Bitcoin as the largest cryptocurrency would benefit from this "chaos", he added, as emerging market countries look to move away from "being tied" to the monetary policy of the U.S. and banking system.
"If the banking system as well as sovereigns such as Russia and China move to accept Bitcoin as a partial alternative to the USD and the traditional banking and payment system, then we could see Bitcoin easily triple over the next year going from the current $700 level to +$2,100 as the blockchain's decentralized system, an inability to dilute the finite supply of bitcoins as well as low to no transaction costs gains more traction and acceptance globally," Jakobsen said.
Blockchain is the underlying technology of bitcoin which records every transaction using the digital currency so that it can't be tampered with. There is also a finite supply of 21 million bitcoins. This in theory would cause price appreciation of the asset over a long period of time.
Jakobsen's comments were in his annual "Outrageous Predictions" note and the economist says that his views are not the official outlook for Saxo Bank. Instead they are an attempt to "get you to think out of the box" with the aim of "provoking conversation".
But Bitcoin advocates say that the slower appreciation of the dollar against the yuan in comparison to bitcoin against the dollar shows that the $2,000 handle is not unrealistic. The dollar has risen 3.3 percent against the yuan(Exchange: CNY=)in the last three months while bitcoin has gone up 20.7 percent in the same time period.
Bobby Lee, chief executive at bitcoin exchange BTC China, compared the current situation of cryptocurrencies to the advent of digital cameras. He said that it is a "new asset class" with long-term potential.
"It's the advent of digital currency and with bitcoin there is bound to be more in circulation value in the coming years," Lee told CNBC by phone. The amount of bitcoin in circulation is valued at around $12.1 billion.
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• Mark Cuban: Basic income ‘the worst possible response’ to job losses from robots || Bitcoin's total value hits record high above $14 billion: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - The total value of all bitcoins in circulation hit a record high above $14 billion on Thursday, as the web-based digital currency jumped 5 percent on the day to its highest levels in three years after more than doubling in price this year. The price of one bitcoin reached $875 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, its strongest level since January 2014, putting the cryptocurrency on track for its best daily performance in six months. That compared with levels around $435 at the start of the year, with many experts linking bitcoin's rise with the steady depreciation of the Chinese yuan, which has slid almost 7 percent this year. Data shows the majority of bitcoin trading is done in China, so any increase in demand from there tends to have a significant impact on the price. 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. The digital currency is still some way off the peaks it scaled in late 2013, when it traded as high as $1,163 on the Bitstamp exchange. But because more bitcoins continue to be added to the system, currently at a rate of 12.5 every 10 minutes, its total value - or "market cap" - on Thursday surpassed the 2013 peak of around $14.01 billion. That puts its total value at around the same as that of an average FTSE 100 company. Charles Hayter, founder of data analysis website Cryptocompare, said bitcoin had been helped higher by demonetisation in India, and by global political uncertainty. "If that trend continues, bitcoin is a good thematic play on the fracturing of our global norms as a flight to safety," he said. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, editing by Nigel Stephenson) || Bitcoin's total value hits record high above $14 billion: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - The total value of all bitcoins in circulation hit a record high above $14 billion on Thursday, as the web-based digital currency jumped 5 percent on the day to its highest levels in three years after more than doubling in price this year.
The price of one bitcoin reached $875 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, its strongest level since January 2014, putting the cryptocurrency on track for its best daily performance in six months.
That compared with levels around $435 at the start of the year, with many experts linking bitcoin's rise with the steady depreciation of the Chinese yuan, which has slid almost 7 percent this year.
Data shows the majority of bitcoin trading is done in China, so any increase in demand from there tends to have a significant impact on the price.
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.
The digital currency is still some way off the peaks it scaled in late 2013, when it traded as high as $1,163 on the Bitstamp exchange.
But because more bitcoins continue to be added to the system, currently at a rate of 12.5 every 10 minutes, its total value - or "market cap" - on Thursday surpassed the 2013 peak of around $14.01 billion. That puts its total value at around the same as that of an average FTSE 100 company.
Charles Hayter, founder of data analysis website Cryptocompare, said bitcoin had been helped higher by demonetization in India, and by global political uncertainty.
"If that trend continues, bitcoin is a good thematic play on the fracturing of our global norms as a flight to safety," he said.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly, editing by Nigel Stephenson) || Bitcoin hits highest levels in almost three years: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - Web-based digital currency bitcoin hit its highest levels in almost three years on Friday, extending gains since India sparked a cash shortage by removing high-denomination bank notes from circulation a month ago.
Bitcoin was trading as high as $774 on the New York-based itBit exchange, up almost 1 percent on the day and the highest since February 2014, having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month.
Bitcoin is a cash alternative that can be used for moving money across the globe quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced a shock move on Nov. 8 to ditch 500 and 1,000 rupee notes - worth a combined $256 billion - that he said were fuelling corruption, being forged and even paying for attacks by militants who target India.
The cryptocurrency's value has been highly volatile - after rocketing above $1,100 in 2013, it had fallen to around $150 by early 2015. But it has since stabilized, staying above $500 for the past six months.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Jamie McGeever) || Cable & Wireless Preliminary Q2 2016/17 Results: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 4, 2016) -Cable & Wireless CommunicationsLimited ("CWC") is the leading telecommunications operator in substantially all of its consumer markets, which are predominantly located in the Caribbean and Latin America, providing entertainment, information and communication services to 3.5 million mobile, 0.4 million television, 0.6 million internet and 0.8 million telephony subscribers. In addition, CWC delivers B2B services and provides wholesale services over its sub-sea and terrestrial networks that connect over 30 markets across the region.
Liberty Global's Acquisition of CWCOn May 16, 2016, a subsidiary of Liberty Global plc ("Liberty Global") acquired CWC (the "Liberty Global Transaction"). Revenue, Adjusted Segment EBITDA and subscriber statistics have been presented herein using Liberty Global's definitions for all periods presented unless otherwise noted. Further adjustments to these metrics are possible as the integration process continues. The results for the six months ended September 30, 2016 ("Q2 2016/17") have also been aligned to Liberty Global's EU-IFRS accounting policies and estimates. Significant policy adjustments have been considered in our calculation of rebased growth rates for revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA.
Operating and financial highlights*:
• Delivered 9,000 organic RGU additions in Q2 2016/17
• Mobile revenue 2% lower than the prior year in Q2 2016/17, as compared to Q2 2015/16 on a rebased basis, due primarily to a decrease in the Bahamas
• Establishing Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the CaribbeanSuccessful Olympics campaign with over 4.6 million viewers tuning into Flow channels85% increase in Flow Sports viewership in August versus May through July averageExclusive rights to broadcast Premier League commenced during the quarter
• Strengthened customer proposition in Panama through launch of MAST3R fixed bundles in SeptemberProviding HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality300 Mbps broadband product now available to 135,000 homes
• YTD revenue of $1,141 million, 2% lower YoY, on a rebased basis10% rebased top-line growth in Jamaica more than offset by declines in other major geographies primarily due to competitive and macroeconomic factors and lower managed services revenue
• Net losses of $18 million and $124 million in Q2 2016/17 and YTD, respectively
• YTD Adjusted Segment EBITDA of $411 million, up 1.5% YoY, on a rebased basis$9 million (4%) sequential EBITDA improvement from Q1 2016/17 to Q2 2016/17, reflecting margin improvement of 200 basis points
• Property, equipment and intangible asset additions declined to 17% of revenue in Q2 2016/17 from 25% in Q2 2015/16
• BTC in the Bahamas suffered significant infrastructure damage and business interruption as a result of Hurricane Matthew during early October 2016Anticipate Q3 2016/17 adverse Adjusted Segment EBITDA impact of $8 million to $12 millionTotal infrastructure repair costs estimated at $35 million to $45 millionWe expect that our third-party insurance will cover a significant portion of the hurricane-related losses
Synergies from combination with LiLAC
• LiLAC is targeting $150 million of synergies by December 31, 202050% OCF related -- primarily recurring cost reductions50% capital expenditure related -- recurring and nonrecurringAnticipate a substantial amount of total LiLAC synergies will benefit CWC
* The financial figures contained in this release are prepared in accordance with EU-IFRS.28CWC's financial condition and results of operations will be included in Liberty Global's condensed consolidated financial statements under U.S. GAAP10. There are significant differences between the U.S. GAAP and EU-IFRS presentations of our condensed consolidated financial statements.
Subscriber Statistics
We delivered organic subscriber growth across video, internet and telephony product categories in Q2 2016/17. In our mobile business, which represents roughly 40% of total revenue, postpaid subscriber growth was more than offset by a decline in our prepaid base, primarily due to the impact of competitive offers to lower value subscribers in Panama.
On the mobile front, we continue to invest in our networks to enable the delivery of high speed, resilient mobile services and leading converged products to our customers. We are actively expanding our LTE coverage in Panama and plan to launch LTE in the British Virgin Islands later this year.
Turning to our video, internet and telephony businesses, we added 9,000 organic RGUs during the quarter, as we achieved subscriber growth in each of our products. In terms of broadband internet, we added 7,000 organic subscribers on the back of 5,000 RGU additions in Jamaica and 2,000 RGU additions in Trinidad and Tobago. On the video front, we added 1,000 RGUs in the quarter, primarily driven by our DTH business in Panama. The increased RGUs from our DTH business were largely offset by declines in video RGUs in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago as a result of increased competition.
During the quarter, our regional sports offering, led by Flow Sports and Flow Sports Premier, performed strongly, helping to establish Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the Caribbean. Our official Olympic Games application was downloaded approximately 60,000 times during the event with over 73,000 hours of live content streamed. Flow Sports Premier, following its launch in July, also began providing unrivaled coverage of the Premier League in the region beginning in August 2016.
Rounding out fixed-line products, we added 1,000 telephony subscribers in the quarter, as we continued to modestly increase penetration of our VoIP-based services through bundling across our footprint.
At September 30, 2016, our bundling ratio stood at 1.51 RGUs per customer as 10% of our customers subscribed to a triple-play product, 32% to a double-play product, and 58% took only one product from us. This relatively low bundling ratio provides ample runway for RGU growth as we seek to sell additional products to our customers.
From a geographic standpoint, highlights of the trends in our largest markets are as follows:
• In Panama, mobile subscribers declined by 36,000 in the quarter on an organic basis with the decline weighted towards lower value customers as our postpaid base continued to grow (up 2,000). We are seeking to improve our fixed video and internet performance with our improved "Mast3r" bundles featuring HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality and 300 Mbps broadband speeds.
• In the Bahamas, we grew our mobile customer base by 4,000 subscribers (up 1%) due to increased promotional activity, successfully targeting higher-ARPU postpaid customers. We have made steady progress with our broadband internet and video products following the roll-out of our fiber-to-the-home ("FTTH") network, which now passes 14,000 homes.
• Turning to Jamaica, broadband internet and video RGUs were up 3% and 1%, respectively, as our improved product offering and strong Olympics campaign resonated well in the market. We grew our mobile subscriber base by 3,000 RGUs in the quarter, as we continued to win back market share and launched new products such as Flow Lend, an innovative solution enabling prepaid customers to request credit advances and earn rewards for prompt payment.
• In Barbados, competition drove RGUs lower across all products in the quarter. We are implementing changes to our bundling strategy and focusing on quickly migrating customers who are on legacy DSL services to our high-speed FTTH network.
• Rounding out our main operations, in Trinidad and Tobago we delivered 3,000 organic RGU additions, despite a tough macroeconomic environment and increased competition.
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || Bitcoin breaks $1,000 level, highest in more than 3 years: The price of bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=-USS) has breached the $1,000 mark, hitting a more than three-year high on Monday. The cryptocurrency was trading at $1,021 at the time of publication, according to CoinDesk data, at level not seen since November 2013, with its market capitalization exceeding $16 billion. Bitcoin has been on a steady march higher for the past few months, driven by a number of factors such as the devaluation of the yuan, geopolitical uncertainty and an increase in professional investors taking an interest in the asset class. "We are seeing the aftermath of zero interest rates run amok. So bitcoin is a healthy reminder that we don't have to hold on to dollars or renminbi, which is subject to capital controls and loss of purchasing power. Rather it's a new asset class," Bobby Lee, chief executive of BTC China, one of the world's largest bitcoin exchanges, told CNBC by phone. China is the source of the majority of trade in bitcoin and the devaluation of the yuan and fears over capital controls have contributed to the recent spike in the digital currency. But several other factors have also had a notable impact. For example, bitcoin's price has appreciated around 137 percent in the past 12 months but got a big boost after Donald Trump won the U.S. election in November. Another big event this year was in June when a change in bitcoin's underlying rules meant those who were "mining" the cryptocurrency a process whereby users are awarded with bitcoin if they solve complex mathematical puzzles in order for a bitcoin transaction to go through received less rewards. This was due to the process known as "halving," which essentially reduces the supply of bitcoin. But overall, bitcoin experts said that the market is growing in terms of volumes and those participating, creating a "network effect" that will see the price rise further. "The value of Uber in any city is directly dependent on the number of drivers and number of users, it's not linear it's exponential. The same is true of the value of bitcoin," Lee said. || IBM Investing in the Future of Blockchain: - By Cristiano Bellavitis, Ph.D.
Most investors believe that blockchain and Bitcoin (the digital currency) are synonyms. What most people don't know, however, is the fact that the blockchain is an "infrastructure" and Bitcoin is one of many applications.IBM(IBM) is heavily investing in the blockchain to disrupt some large industries.
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Blockchain basics
Blockchain is a new technology that enables businesses to work together with trust and transparency. Blockchain is a distributed shared operating system where all parties involved in an exchange have open access to an unchangeable digital record of transactions. Each participant always has an exact copy of the transactions and therefore all parties can confidently rely on this data. In theory, the blockchain guarantees accountability and transparency while streamlining business processes.
The blockchain industry
There aren't definitive numbers on companies using blockchain, but the IBM Institute for Business Value released some figures a few months ago:
• 70% of early adopters are working with blockchain to create new business models and reach new customers.
• 65% of banks expect to have blockchain solutions in production in the next three years.
• 80% of banks identified trade finance, corporate lending and reference data as having the greatest potential to be disrupted by the blockchain technology.
• 15% of banks intend to implement full-scale, commercial blockchain solutions in 2017.
• Companies expect reference data (83%), retail payments (80%) and consumer lending (79%) to be the segments that will be impacted the most by blockchain.
Another recent study from Markets and Markets speculates that the blockchain industry will grow from $210 million in 2016 to $2.3 billion by 2021, for CAGR of 61.5% during the forecast period. Therefore, the blockchain is in the early stages of development but seems to have great potential and medium term economic value.
Numbers about the market and the companies involved are limited, but according to this article IBM andMicrosoft(MSFT) are the market leaders. IBM provided examples of how they are implementing the blockchain. I will get in touch with Microsoft to see whether they would like to contribute.
Blockchain can disrupt large industries
Food safety
Food safety is one of the sectors that is receiving attention. Authenticity has been a challenge in China, andWalmart(WMT) is taking a proactive role in using new technologies to address it. By using blockchain, Walmart is able to build an ecosystem of supply chain partners that is based on trust.
Health care
The need for private, secure and reliable information flow in health care is clear as organizations balance information sharing needs with privacy, security and protecting against ongoing cyber-attacks. The application of blockchain technology can be applied to address a health care workflow and ecosystem from the beginning as it is introduced to this emerging digital industry.
FinTech
Banks and consumers are turning to fintech companies to disrupt the financial industry. FinTechs are moving quickly to create new approaches in payments, lending and new use cases for blockchain. IBM is helping FinTechs envision, build and monetize these new solutions by providing developer tools, technology, training and programs to share financial services expertise. IBM's cloud and blockchain ecosystem is helping FinTechs, start-ups, developers and independent software vendors drive faster design and development.
For example, Eigencat, a Singapore-based startup, is using IBM Bluemix to deliver digital investment solutions for the financial market. The FinTech startup is also using IBM Cloud to develop new cognitive-based investment solutions using Watson APIs and broaden its reach within and outside Singapore. Working with the Singapore BlueMix Garage, start-up FreshTurf is creating an innovative blockchain-based network of storage lockers for shipping and parcel delivery throughout Singapore.
A few examples of IBM applications in the blockchain industry:
• SBI Securities - testing blockchain for a new bond trading platform and for improving securities operations.
• Japan Stock Exchange - testing the potential of blockchain technology for use in trading in low transaction markets.
• Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFG - using blockchain to examine the design, management and execution of contracts among business partners.
• London Stock Exchange Group - exploring blockchain to manage risk and bring additional transparency to global financial markets.
• Kouvola Innovation - using blockchain to transform logistics value chains into a more seamless process that provides a trusted view of every piece of cargo.
• Kenya - The government is utilizing blockchain to develop an immutable and transparent education management system. In order to reduce the issuance of fraudulent academic degrees and limit the market of illicit academic certificates, the Kenyan government is working with IBM to launch an academic certificate issuance platform on a blockchain network.
• BNY Mellon - designing and developing a unique application for securities lending, using a blockchain network to trade and transfer assets.
• Mizuho Financial Group - testing blockchain for settlements using virtual currency.
• Everledger - using blockchain to track diamonds and other valuable assets.
• CLS Group - collaborating with IBM so that its payment netting service using Hyperledger Fabric meets the requirements necessary for delivering a resilient, secure, and scalable service.
IBM investments in the blockchain
IBM recently announced a $200 million investment in the new global headquarters for its Watson Internet of Things business in Munich. IBM is developing a new capability that connects IoT data to Blockchain through the IBM Watson IoT Platform. In addition, IBM opened a Blockchain Innovation Center in Singapore to accelerate blockchain adoption for finance and trade in the first collaboration of its kind with the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
IBM monetization and blockchain performance
IBM is leveraging its Bluemix technology to implement blockchain solutions. IBM offers two price plans: The starter plan is free, but the more secure system costs $10,000 per month. We contacted IBM to ask about some performance and financial data about its blockchain business but they replied that they "can't provide any financial data related to IBM Blockchain at this time." We assume that the main reason for this is that the business is in its early stages and therefore does not materially impact IBM revenues. Considering that the estimates are for a total global industry valued at $210 million in 2016, at the moment this segment is of minor importance to IBM. We estimate that IBM has approximately 50 paying customers, therefore the revenues generated would be in the range of $6 million a year, plus ancillary revenues in the range of $50 million a year.
Disclosure: We are long IBM.
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• IBM 15-Year Financial Data
• The intrinsic value of IBM
• Peter Lynch Chart of IBM || How Did Bitcoin Perform This Year?: After a strong showing in 2015, Bitcoin investors experienced another strong year of performance from the popular cryptocurrency in 2016. Bitcoin followed up an impressive +26.3 percent gain in 2015 with a +119.8 percent gain in 2016. A large part of Bitcoin’s gains has come in the final weeks of the year. Since December 16, the price of Bitcoin has spiked 20.0 percent to $967.94.
Tech-savvy investorscan buy Bitcoin directly by downloading a Bitcoin Wallet app from Circle, Coinbase, Xapo or other popular services and simply linking their bank account to the app. In addition to these digital wallet apps, investors can buy shares ofBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC), which is a trust that invests exclusively in Bitcoin and trades on the OTC market. Each share of the trust represents on tenth of a Bitcoin. The trust is up 93.6 percent in 2016.
The Winklevoss twins have also filed for a Bitcoin ETF that may be approved in 2017. The twins have made a number of tweaks to the proposed ETF since they first filed in order to convince the SEC of the safety and security of the fund. If approved, the Bitcoin ETF would be the first direct way for investors to bet on Bitcoin on a major U.S. public market.
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Most Popular ETFs Of The Year: In the ETF world, the rich get richer. The biggest funds by assets typically attract the largest flows each year. In that regard, 2016 was no exception.
The smallest ETF to make the top 10 inflows list for the year has an impressive $16.9 billion in assets, according to FactSet. The other ETFs on the list are much larger still.
Together, these 10 ETFs took in $87.1 billion of fresh investor money in the year-to-date period ending Dec. 6. To put that in context, total flows into all ETFs so far this year have been $225 billion.
There's still another three weeks left to go in the year, so the final numbers could change (we'll publish the official figures once they're released). But if there's any conclusion to be reached from these numbers, it's that investors still favor plain-vanilla index ETFs over their more complex counterparts―whether it besmart-beta funds,active fundsor otherwise.
Investors Embrace S&P 500 ETFs
Indeed, for all this year's hype about "smart beta," it's "dumb beta" that investors wanted. In particular, when it comes to U.S. equities, investors plowed billions intoS&P 500 ETFs. Three out of the top four funds on the flows list track the venerable large-cap index, including theSPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), theiShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV)and theVanguard S&P 500 Index Fund (VOO)―all with inflows of more than $10.7 billion.
The only other U.S.-focused equity fund to make the cut was the broaderVanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI), but its year-to-date flows of $5.2 billion were less than half that of the three S&P 500 funds.
Emerging Market Comeback
In a year that featured concerns about China and "Brexit," it's no wonder investors preferred U.S. equities. Even so, a trio ofinternational equity ETFsalso showed up in the top 10. TheVanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF (VEA), which tracks developed-market stocks outside the U.S., had inflows of $8.8 billion in the year-to-date period.
At the same time, two low-cost emerging market ETFs—theVanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO)and theiShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG)—made an appearance on the list, with inflows of $8.8 billion, and $6.5 billion, respectively.
GLD Falls Down The RanksMeanwhile, three nonequity ETFs found themselves on the list. TheiShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG)took in $10.9 billion so far this year. AGG provides exposure to the market of U.S. investment-grade bonds, weighted by market value.
TheiShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP)was another popular bond fund, with inflows of $6.6 billion. TIP holds Treasury inflation-protected securities, a type of U.S. government bond that protects investors in a rising-rate environment.
TheSPDR Gold Trust (GLD)is another inflation-hedge in the top 10. The physically backed gold ETF was at the top of the flows leader board for much of the year, but fell down the ranks rapidly in the weeks following Donald Trump's victory at the polls. A post-election spike in interest rates and the U.S. dollar led GLD to lose some of its luster.
Incidentally, GLD is the most expensive ETF on the top inflows list, with an expense ratio of 0.40%. All the other funds in the top 10 have an expense ratio of 0.20% or less.
Flows For Jan. 1 to Dec, 6, 2016
[{"Ticker": "SPY", "Fund": "SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust", "Net Flows*": "11,329.80"}, {"Ticker": "IVV", "Fund": "iShares Core S&P 500 ETF", "Net Flows*": "11,250.62"}, {"Ticker": "AGG", "Fund": "iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF", "Net Flows*": "10,910.56"}, {"Ticker": "VOO", "Fund": "Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund", "Net Flows*": "10,743.41"}, {"Ticker": "GLD", "Fund": "SPDR Gold Trust", "Net Flows*": "9,076.08"}, {"Ticker": "VEA", "Fund": "Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "8,814.22"}, {"Ticker": "VWO", "Fund": "Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,698.77"}, {"Ticker": "TIP", "Fund": "iShares TIPS Bond ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,562.40"}, {"Ticker": "IEMG", "Fund": "iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,498.14"}, {"Ticker": "VTI", "Fund": "Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund", "Net Flows*": "5,236.37"}, {"Ticker": "*Net Flows in USD Million", "Fund": "", "Net Flows*": ""}]
Contact Sumit Roy atsroy@etf.com
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Permalink| © Copyright 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || UFOMiners Boasts High-Quality Miners with Competitive Prices: LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 /UFOMiners LLC is striving to keep ahead of the competition. Providing first-in-classBitcoin and Litecoinmining hardware, this young company not only guarantees high-quality products, but it also promises affordable pricing, mix-and-match consumer-friendly promotions and free international shipping.
UFOMiners focuses on three main areas: developing crypto hardware, creating blockchain-based technologies and delivering remote access service. The company's product offering now includes four powerful, cost-effectivecryptocurrency miners, each with optimal hashing speeds specifically designed for Bitcoin and Litecoin mining. All hardware goes through rigorous testing before it reaches the client and comes with a 5-year warranty.
What sets the company apart, is its growing team of experts and its philosophy of offering high-performance technologies at low costs. "We're a rapidly growing team of specialists who is extremely passionate about what we do. Our primary mission is to make high-techcryptocurrency miningavailable to a wide range of clients and offer them innovative solutions that are profitable," a spokesperson for UFOMiners explains. UFOMiners is a group of young and ambitious enthusiasts with top-notch experience in hardware development, computer programming, engineering and management. Having in-house experts allows the company to produce key hardware components on site, which eliminates third-party expenditures.
With a recent launch of a promotional deal, UFOMiners demonstrates its commitment to making high-quality cryptocurrency mining economical and readily available. "Our new promotional offer allows customers to mix and match units, according to theirBitcoinor Litecoin preferences. As long as they buy three miners in one purchase, they'll receive a fourth one for free, no matter what the combination," say a company spokesman. To save their customers, even more, money, UFOMiners is also covering the shipping costs, international destination included. Customers can conveniently order on the company website.
Company Profile
UFOMiners was founded in 2014 by XX. It all began with a vision to develop hardware equipment for mining scrypt cryptocurrencies, a project that later expanded to the development of Bitcoin miner. This Las Vegas-based firm is now a rapidly growing provider of cryptocurrency mining hardware and blockchain-based technologies.
For more information visit:www.ufominers.com
SOURCE:UFOMiners
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
MMMBTC || #Bitcoin ― Venezuelans Increasingly Opting for Bitcoin over Bolivar http://dlvr.it/Mvj5B5 via → http://goo.gl/nnFPIZ || MMMBTC || New post: "http://Darknetmarkets.org is a scam site. They suggest Bitcoin tumbling services that take your money." http://ift.tt/2hK0AAl || 1 ZEC: 37.39 USD 35.95 EUR 0.04749 BTC 4.75 ETH Source: http://cryptocompare.com || Leaders wanted now!! Massive Team Build!
.05 bitcoin one time out of pocket ($50.00)
2x6 forced matrix-global... http://fb.me/3zfSdhjd0 || MMMBTC || Analysts Predict Bitcoin Price Could Reach $800 in 2016's Final Weeks - http://goo.gl/alerts/YMhYn #GoogleAlerts || Mexican Booty To Rule the WORLD <ZOWZ> http://www.btcgallery.com/07af5acd7a85 || MMMBTC
|
Trend: down || Prices: 1043.84, 1154.73, 1013.38, 902.20, 908.59, 911.20, 902.83, 907.68, 777.76, 804.83
|
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 2015-11-05]
BTC Price: 386.35, BTC RSI: 75.57
Gold Price: 1104.40, Gold RSI: 31.70
Oil Price: 45.20, Oil RSI: 47.06
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Gaining Traction At Colleges Around The World: The purpose of higher education is to provide students with the tools they need to enter their chosen profession. Real-world skills have long been an emphasis at top schools around the world, and now those skills include an in depth study on cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
As digital currencies gain momentum across the globe, universities are taking notice andadding bitcoin coursesto their syllabuses in order to keep up with the quickly changing fintech landscape.
Teaching In An Evolving Field
American Universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Duke University only recently launched bitcoin classes, but others around the world have been offering such courses for years. The University of Cumbria was the first U.K. university to offer bitcoin courses and the University of Nicosia in Cyprus was one of the first to offer a free bitcoin course in 2013 to any interested parties.
Related Link:New Ruling Defines Bitcoin As A Commodity In The US
Bitcoin Adoption
Universities that offer bitcoin studies are creating a major stepping stone for the cryptocurrency as it expands further. Not only do the classes give the best and brightest the tools to solve real-world problems related to digital currencies, but they draw awareness to cryptocurrencies as well.
Canadian McGill University and MIT both offered bitcoin giveaways to students in an effort to give the cryptocurrency more traction on campus. Others like the U.K.'s Imperial College have dedicated research to the expanding field and given students and staff the opportunity to collaborate in order to solve some of the cryptocurrency's pressing issues.
Bitcoin Payments
Not only are schools offering their students a chance to learn more about bitcoin, but many are accepting the cryptocurrency as payment for their studies as well. In 2013, the University of Nicosia in Cyprus was the first college in the world to accept bitcoin as a form of payment. The school announced that its students could pay for courses and other fees using the cryptocurrency, and had its first student pay in bitcoin just weeks later.
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Mobile Attacks More Vicious Than Ever, New Blue Coat Report Shows: SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 28, 2015) - As mobile devices become more deeply woven into the fabric of our personal and work lives, cyber criminals are taking increasingly vicious and disturbingly personal shots at us, according to the 2015 State of Mobile Malware Report from Blue Coat Systems, Inc. , a market leader in enterprise security. Cyber blackmail (mobile ransomware attacks) leads the way as a top malware type in 2015, along with the stealthy insertion of spyware on devices that allows attackers to profile behavior and online habits. The new Blue Coat report, available here , describes the latest trends and vulnerabilities in mobile malware, provides advice for strengthening corporate defenses and educating mobile device users, and offers predictions about the future of mobile threats. "As we sleep, exercise, work and shop with our mobile devices, cyber criminals are waiting to take advantage of the data these devices collect, as evidenced by the types of malware and attacks we're seeing," said Dr. Hugh Thompson, CTO and senior vice president, Blue Coat. "The implications of this nefarious activity certainly carry over to corporate IT as organizations rapidly adopt cloud-based, mobile versions of enterprise applications, opening up another avenue for attackers. A holistic and strategic approach to managing risk must extend the perimeter to mobile and cloud environments -- based on a realistic, accurate look at the problem -- and deploy advanced protections that can prioritize and remediate sophisticated, emerging and unknown threats." Summary of Findings: Pornography returned as the number one threat vector after dropping to number two last year. The three top types of malware in this year's report are Ransomware, Potentially Unwanted Software (PUS), and Information Leakage. The mobile threat landscape is becoming more active. Get Your Cyber Flu Shot: Top Infection Vectors of 2015 1 Pornography Porn isn't just back on top -- it's bigger than ever -- jumping from 16.55 percent in 2014 to over 36 percent this year. That is, when we see a mobile user's traffic heading to a malicious site, 36 percent of the time that user is following a link from a porn site. To put this in some perspective: when porn led the pack in the 2013 report, it was with a market share of just 22.16 percent. 3 WebAds Dropped from almost 20 percent last year (2014) to less than five percent this year. These include both malvertising attacks and sites that host Trojan horse apps designed to appeal to porn site visitors. Blue Coat has also tracked and defined suspicious WebAd networks that are heavily involved in malware, scams, Potentially Unwanted Software (PUS), and other shady activities. Bitcoin Payment Now or Lose Your Smartphone Contents: Top Malware Types of 2015 1 Ransomware The world of mobile ransomware has grown dramatically over the past year. While some varieties that run on Android devices cause little damage beyond convincing victims to pay the cyber hostage-taker, many have adopted more sophisticated approaches common to ransomware in the Windows environment. With the increased performance capabilities of modern smartphones, it was only a matter of time before more advanced cryptographic ransomware, such as SimpleLocker, started showing up on mobile devices. These threats render music files, photographs, videos, and other document types unreadable -- while typically demanding an untraceable form of payment such as Bitcoin -- and employing a strict time limit for payment before the files become permanently inaccessible to the owner. 2 Potentially Unwanted Software Generally, this class of program exhibits behavior typical of "adware" or "spyware" -- spying on users' on-line activity and personal data -- or serving extra ads. Blue Coat researchers have seen a major shift in the volume of such software in the traditional malware space -- and this is also true of the mobile space -- as the number of junk mobile apps hosted on sites the researchers classify in this category has been rising steadily. This type of mobile app, notable for its dubious utility, frequently finds its way onto a mobile device through the use of deceptive advertising, or other social engineering attacks designed to deceive the victim into installing the unwanted program. 3 Information Leakage Most people are unaware that apps on their mobile device may be watching them -- and reporting out -- on a 24x7x365 basis. This information leakage is usually a minor drip, showing the version of their phone's operating system, the manufacturer, the specific app or browser being used, and similar information. Complicating matters is the fact that there are typically no included system tools available for users to see or know what data is going out of their devices. Whether on an Android or iOS device, leaky data is often openly revealed in the "User Agent" string. The Future of Mobile Security: With no signs of slowing down, the market for mobile devices is booming. Anticipating that millions more of these devices will hit the street in the coming years, Blue Coat makes the following observations and predictions about the future of this trend. Story continues 1 Mobile payment systems Mobile payment systems are set to grow, and services including contactless payment methods will incorporate additional security features, such as biometrics or two-factor authentication. 2 Support for traditional PC and mobile platforms There are already too many mobile devices vulnerable to a host of threats in use. These devices will almost certainly not receive needed OS updates, and that will drive a market in security solutions that can support both traditional PC and mobile platforms. 3 OTA updates to vulnerable devices Mobile carriers and handset makers are already working on plans to fast-track critical OTA updates to vulnerable devices, but the work is slow and it may be some time before this segment of the mobile market matures. To download the Blue Coat Mobile Malware report, including tips for staying safe and advice for strengthening corporate defenses, please visit: www.bluecoat.com/mobile-malware About Blue Coat Systems Blue Coat is a leader in advanced enterprise security, protecting 15,000 organizations every day, including 88 of the 100 largest global companies. Through the Blue Coat Security Platform, Blue Coat unites network, security and cloud, providing customers with maximum protection against advanced threats, while minimizing impact on network performance and enabling cloud applications and services. Blue Coat was acquired by Bain Capital in March 2015. For additional information, please visit www.bluecoat.com . Blue Coat and the Blue Coat logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. || Bitcoin exchange Gemini safe and legal: Founders: Bitcoin is often associated with illegal activity and the dark corners of the Internet. But the Winklevoss twins believe their new exchange will help investors get involved with the digital currency safely and legally. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, famous for their legal spat with Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) founder Mark Zuckerberg, launched bitcoin exchange Gemini on Thursday. While the currency has received criticism for its role in exchanges such as online black market Silk Road, the brothers contend they have established sufficient safeguards to unlock its potential. "We built with a security mentality from Day One," said Tyler Winklevoss. Cameron Winklevoss added that Gemini has "the highest regulatory policies and capitalization requirements." The brothers said they implemented background checks and protections against money laundering. Read More NY issues license to Winklevoss bitcoin venture Specifically, they contended that their platform gives hedge funds and market makers a secure platform to dive into the digital currency. Tyler Winklevoss also touched on Facebook, saying it is a "great company" and Zuckerberg deserves credit for its growth and success. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Wall Street is trying to tap into the 'enormous' potential of the technology behind bitcoin: chain1 (REUTERS/Jim Young) Big banks are looking to link to blockchain, and it would have major ramifications on Wall Street. Bitcoin has gone from a hacker plaything to a mainstream financial instrument accepted in coffee shops. But Wall Street doesn't care about the cryptocurrency. It is the technology behind it - the so-called blockchain - which gets finance executives really excited. Bitcoin is a digital currency, the value of which fluctuates wildly. It has caught the eye of regulators, with New York Department of Financial Services publishing this summer publishing a framework for regulating digital currency firms. Blockchain is technology that underpins bitcoin, and it could have a huge impact on how Wall Street will operate in coming years. Blockchain is a distributed ledger through which each transaction is tracked and recorded, eliminating ambiguity on pricing and ownership. “None of our products are dependent on bitcoin as a cryptocurrency,” Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, told Business Insider. “We build solutions on top of any distributed ledger whether it's the Bitcoin blockchain or a private network." Masters previously spent decades at JPMorgan, and her new company is one of several that is seeking to use blockchain technology to help build secure settlement systems for assets. The company's looking to make use of blockchain technology extends from small, startups such to big banks: Masters' former employer JPMorgan for example is w orking internally to develop blockchain technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Attendee lists at recent industry events serve as a testament to how seriously big banks take the technology. Executives from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Fidelity have been present. Exchanges are interested too. At the Coindesk consensus conference September 10 in New York, Nasdaq chief information officer Brad Peterson told attendees he expects the exchange to start implementing technology to clear trades, among other functions. Story continues Venture capital executives and bankers said they believe a big influx of capital is coming for blockchain, which has the potential to disrupt various elements of finance and transaction execution. Lately, industry cheerleaders have pointed to businesses including loan syndication, land titles and property records, and clearing trades as potential uses of the technology. Blythe Masters (YouTube/ColumbiaBusiness) Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, thinks US regulators could lag behind other countries facilitating blockchain implementation into the financial services sector. Speakers at the event September 10, including Masters, said they believed blockchain technology might catch on faster in other countries where regulators are quicker to adapt to new technologies. "Regulators don't know how to deal with it," said Erik Gordon, clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. "We've got to get regulatory consistency to get into the mainstream." Even this early into blockchain’s introduction to Wall Street, budding industry experts are bullish on the technology’s potential. "The upside is enormous,” Nasdaq’s Peterson told event attendees during the discussion. NOW WATCH: We got our hands on Donald Trump's failed 1989 board game and it's bizarre More From Business Insider Bitcoin startups are luring quant whizzes from Wall Street The Money Of The Future Will Look More Like Bitcoin Than The Paper We Carry Around Today Barclays has two blockchain 'labs' in London and is planning 45 experiments with the technology || 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.
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Buy Some Bitcoin With This ETF: It has been more than two years since Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss filed plans for an exchange traded fund backed by holdings of bitcoin. That ETF has yet to come to market, but a previously existing ETF has added bitcoin to its holdings. ARK Investment Management LLC, the New York-based issuer of four actively managed ETFs, said Tuesday investors can now access bitcoin through the ARK Web x.0 ETF (NYSE: ARKW ). That makes ARKW the first ETF to invest in bitcoin. “ARK has made its investment for ARK Web x.0 ETF through the purchase of publicly traded shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX: GBTC),” according to a statement issued by ARK Investment Management. Related Link: Did Barclays Start The Bitcoin Bull Run? ARKW, which celebrates its first anniversary at the end of this month, is managed by ARK founder and Chief Investment Officer Cathie Wood. The ETF can hold 40 to 50 companies that are legitimately wear the “disruptive” and “game-changing” labels. ARKW currently holds 40 stocks, including Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX ), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB ) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ), according to issuer data . “ARK believes that bitcoin, a digital currency, could disrupt the $500 billion intermediary payment platform industry which includes credit cards, electronic payments and remittances, and might empower the creation of a new group of companies and industries,” said ARK in the statement. Bitcoin burst onto the scene in 2007 and today is the most recognizable of the digital or cryptocurrencies. Unlike traditional currencies, such as dollars, pounds or yen, bitcoin is not created by a central bank, but is created by people. ARK’s investment in publicly traded shares of the Bitcoin Investment Trust will be valued each day at 4:00 p.m. ET at their then current daily market price, according to the statement. The Bitcoin Investment Trust is ARKW's smallest holding at just under a third of the ETF's weight, according to issuer data. Story continues One bitcoin is currently equivalent to just over $231, according to Coinbase data, indicating that the value of the digital currency has been cut in half over the past 12 months. However, Coinbase data also indicate the number of daily transactions involving bitcoin has also more than doubled over that period. ARKW charges 0.95 percent per year, or $95 per $10,000 invested. See more from Benzinga Preferred Stock ETFs Provide Potential Fed Clues Going Small With A Technology ETF Tech ETFs Depend Heavily On Apple Earnings © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Goldman Sachs Still Likes Barclays Among European Banks; Upgrades Credit Suisse: Since 2008, European banks have gone through multiple strategic cycles and goals which were subsequently not met. Jernej Omahen of Goldman Sachs says "this time feels different" and banks' objectives and targets can now be achieved. Top picks in European banks include: Credit Suisse Group AG (ADR) (NYSE: CS ) which was maintained at a Buy rating and added to the Goldman Sachs Conviction List, and Barclays PLC (ADR) (NYSE: BCS ) which remains Conviction Buy rated. Back in 2008 many European banks set out ambitious strategic goals and financial objectives that were subsequently not met, marking a pattern that repeated itself - until now. In a note published Tuesday, Jernej Omahen of Goldman Sachs stated that "this time feels different" with the CEOs of Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE: DB ), Credit Suisse and Barclays having "changing incentives" and can deliver growth better than its peers. Related Link: Is Europe The New Home For Bitcoin? Omahen said the CEOs of the major European banks are "new and outsiders at the same time" and their incentives to persist with previous failed strategies and "ambitious" targets are low. At the same time, their incentives to implement new strategies and three-year achievable plans are "high." European banks are still "strained" by regulators and their capital positions "need to improve further." Using this as a starting point, Omahen suggested that the banks need their strategies to focus on costs and the best, highest-return businesses. The analyst expanded that this is an option as "most likely" at Credit Suisse and "less so" at Barclays. Rating And Price Target Changes (Note: The analyst's coverage and price targets are based on European-listed exchanges, not their respective U.S.-based ADRs). Shares of Credit Suisse remain Buy rated and were added to the Goldman Sachs Conviction List with a price target raised to SFr 32.50 from a previous SFr 30.80. Shares of Deutsche Bank remains Neutral with a price target lowered to €33 from a previous €34.60. Shares of Barclays remain Conviction Buy rated with a price target raised to p345.0 from a previous p335.0 Shares of UBS were downgraded to Neutral from Buy with a target raised to SFr 21.10 from a previous SFr 20.70. Latest Ratings for BCS Aug 2015 Investec Upgrades Sell Buy May 2015 Berenberg Downgrades Hold Sell Jul 2014 Macquarie Upgrades Neutral Outperform View More Analyst Ratings for BCS View the Latest Analyst Ratings See more from Benzinga A Basket Of Stocks To Play New York Fashion Week Analyst: Wayfair Consumer Awareness At Highest Level Ever Google Hires TrueCar President For Self-Driving Car Project; Shares Of The Pricing Website Decline © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || Global Arena Holding Sub Buys Into Blockchain With BTC Purchase: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Oct 26, 2015) -Global Arena Holding, Inc.(the "Company") (OTC PINK:GAHC), announced today, that the Company has officially secured, with an initial investment, six blockchain startups, five provisional patents, one non-provisional patent and the expertise of Mr. Nick Spanos, through its subsidiary's acquisition of Blockchain Technologies Corporation ("BTC").
As noted in the Company'sForm 8-K Filing, GAHI Acquisition Corporation ("GAHI") has formally initiated the acquisition of BTC with an initial investment into the technology firm,solidifying the Company's entry into the Blockchain. Mr. Matthews and Nick Spanos (BTC's President), commenced this acquisition effort during the 2nd Quarter of 2015. During the 3rd Quarter, the Companysecured the initial capitalrequired to start formal execution of theAgreement and Plan of Mergerbetween GAHI and BTC.
As a result, the Company has a tenable accumulation of up to 30% of BTC in this initial transaction, having (i) acquired a 10% stake of BTC through a cash and stock deal, and, (ii) secured a right to acquire an existing position held by a third party BTC debtholder which is convertible into an additional 20% stake of BTC. As this dealsolidifies the Company's entry into the Blockchain, BTC is expected to ultimately merge with GAHI, leaving GAHI as the surviving entity.
"It is now official!" said Mr. John Matthews, CEO of the Company. "Through this deal, we have nowsolidified the Company's entry into the Blockchain. What makes this foray even more exciting is that Global Election Services ("GES") nowhas complete accessto Nick Spanos and his expert knowledge of the blockchain. This givesMs. Maralin Falikthe ability toleverage the power of the blockchain, through vertical applications developed by BTC -- and enhance the rapid expansion of our election services business."
Management believes that the Company is now well positioned to make significant contributions to the ongoing development of whatMarc Andreessensuggests, could be the most important invention since the Internet itself. And with BTC under its umbrella, the Company intends to leverage its new competitive advantage, "using thisdistributed consensus model, to influence and create vertical blockchain applications that will prove both useful to the world and lucrative to Global Arena Holding," concluded Matthews.
For a message from the CEO expanding on this opportunity, visit:http://wp.me/p6Nf5M-CX
About Blockchain Technologies Corporation
Blockchain Technologies Corporation ("BTC") is a technology company which leverages the underlying crypto technology of Bitcoin [Blockchain] and the blockchain'sdistributed consensus model. BTC, which acts as a seed accelerator for blockchain related opportunities, currently features six blockchain startups, five provisional patents and one non-provisional patent, specific to the crypto technology.
For more information visit:http://blockchaintechcorp.com/
About Global Arena Holding
The Company trades on the OTC Pink Sheets under the ticker symbol GAHC. The Company has been publicly traded since 2011 and holds a number of interests, including Global Elections Services, Inc. and GAHI Acquisition Corp. The Company focuses on acquiring technologies, patents and companies having the ability to leverage the blockchain crypto technology.
For more information visit:http://globalarenaholding.com
Twitter:www.twitter.com/GlobalArenaGAHCFacebook:www.facebook.com/GlobalArenaHoldingGAHCLinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/pub/global-arena-holding/107/86a/a7Google+:http://tinyurl.com/GlobalArenaHolding
Safe Harbor Statement
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for forward-looking statements. Certain information included in this press release contains statements that are forward-looking, such as statements related to the future anticipated direction of the industry, plans for future expansion, various business development activities, planned or required capital expenditures, future funding sources, anticipated sales growth, and potential contracts. Such forward-looking information involves important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect anticipated results in the future and, accordingly, such results may differ from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, the company. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those relating to development and expansion activities, dependence on existing management, financing activities, domestic and global economic conditions, and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. || Bitcoin is exploding higher, but no one can agree on why: (REUTERS)
Bitcoin gained another 6% Wednesday, reaching a new high for the year.
The cryptocurrency reached the $450 mark late in the day before falling back to $425. That's compared with around $250 a month ago.
What's behind this? Investors and brokers can't agree.
In the last few days, explanations have included a rise in demand from China, an upcoming auction by US Marshals of seized bitcoin, and the influence ofa convicted Ponzi schemer's latest gambit.
Another catalyst for recent appreciation comes from Europe, saysAdam White, vice president and product manager at Coinbase, one of the biggest bitcoin exchanges globally by volume.
The European Court of Justice recently ruled that thecryptocurrency is exemptfrom the region's "value added tax," which White compared to the decision by US taxation authorities in the 1990s to not implement taxes on goods sold online.
What is certain is that use of bitcoin by consumers and trading is broadly on the rise.
"There has been a steady increase in the number of transactions processed on the bitcoin blockchain," White says.
In the last two years, the number of bitcoin transactions has increased threefold from 50,000 daily to about 140,000 today, according to Blockchain.info, which tracks bitcoin data.
It is true that Chinese investors are eager to trade bitcoin, White says.
In the US, between 300,000 and 500,000 bitcoin are traded daily, White said. But in China, that daily figure has been closer to 1 million to 1.2 million.
That isn't to say US investors are neglecting the currency. There has been a three-times increase in the relative trading volume by what are referred to as "High Net Worth" traders on Coinbase's trading platform — people making trades in dollar amounts worth up to six figures, White said.
Perhaps most telling — at least about the recent jump — is that there's been a recent surge in trading, sharp rise innew usersign-ups, according to White.
So what's behind the recent surge in bitcoin? Maybe just the surge in bitcoin.
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• Even As Bitcoin Gets Obliterated, Retailers Say They Will Still Accept It As A Form Of Payment || MarilynJean Interactive (OTCQB: MJMI) Sets Its Sights on $24B Philippines Remittance Market: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / October 12, 2015 / MarilynJean Interactive ( MJMI ) today announced it has entered into advanced discussions with a provider of Bitcoin-based remittance services. The potential remittance partner is a fully licensed money services business on the cutting edge of the remittance space, using Bitcoin to effect low cost transfers, primarily to the Philippines. With a well-established brand, multiple Bitcoin ATMs, solid financial partnerships in the Philippines, MJMI's management is excited about the potential synergies that could result from this relationship. In 2014, according to Focus Economics, remittances to the Philippines hit a record high, exceeding USD 24 Billion, accounting for roughly 8.5% of that country's GDP. Those funds came primarily from overseas workers sending funds home to their families. Traditional remittance companies charge upwards of 8% fees on the total funds being sent, in addition to less than favorable exchange rates and taking up to 3 days to clear for pick up. Using Bitcoin, transfers can be effected in virtually real time at a fraction of the cost to the user. Funds can be sent directly to the recipient's bank account or made available for pick up at a partner location or even via a card-less ATM withdrawal. In a Bitcoin based remittance transaction, an overseas worker would deliver funds to a remittance provider. This service provider would buy Bitcoin on behalf of the customer and then transfer the coins, paying less than 1% to do so, to the selling partner in the recipient country. The selling partner would then sell the Bitcoins and then transfer the funds to the final recipient. Because there is a price difference between the buying and selling of the Bitcoins, it is possible for the two transfer partners to profit sufficiently from the Bitcoin trade to offer the transfer service for a significantly lower fee than any traditional currency (known as FIAT) based remittance service. Story continues Bitcoin therefore offers the potential to completely alter the landscape of worldwide money transfers. The two companies share a vision on the massive opportunities in this space as well as on the future direction of expansion, namely servicing the remittance markets in Mexico and India. In addition, both companies agree that acquiring and operating a Bitcoin exchange would allow the partners to offer a seamless, end to end solution to customers. More sophisticated clients could eventually use their own Bitcoin wallets to move money through a jointly designed system, allowing them to effect transactions from their mobile phone through a licensed and trustworthy remittance system. Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "We are very excited to be in advanced discussions with this potential remittance partner. They are at the forefront what we expect will be a massive shift in the way global remittances are effected. Their team shares our view that remittance fees are exorbitantly high and that current providers profit excessively by offering poor, often hidden, exchange rates. We believe that, in this area, Bitcoin has tremendous promise to disrupt a system that unfairly charges high rates to hard working people who have left their families to work overseas in hopes of providing them with a better life. We believe the growth potential in this sector is massive and that we are on the right track in terms of identifying the right partners who share our vision." MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. MJMI is currently exploring partnerships with several existing Bitcoin and crypto-currency 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 for trading in various crypto-currencies and potentially capture a share of the lucrative markets of Bitcoin trading and remittance services, just as these markets appear poised to undergo massive growth. 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 focused on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is ( MJMI ). Website: http://www.marilynjean.com/ Press Contact: bonnie@marilynjean.com SOURCE: MarilynJean Interactive
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$237.48/$237.49 #Bitstamp
$236.72/$237.00 #BTCe
⇢$-0.77/$-0.48
$238.76/$238.81 #Coinbase
⇢$1.27/$1.33 || $491.00 at 13:30 UTC [24h Range: $372.53 - $502.00 Volume: 90397 BTC] via #btcusdpic.twitter.com/EuGnQTnfVt || Current price: 204.29€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-14 18:00:04 CEST || $402.00 #bitfinex;
$401.53 #bitstamp;
$400.28 #coinbase;
$394.21 #btce;
#bitcoin #btc via #ThePriceOfBTCpic.twitter.com/wRZh8xMtYk || $394.18 #coinbase;
$394.12 #bitstamp;
$394.00 #bitfinex;
$362.00 #btce;
#bitcoin #btc || Bitcoin traded at $229.68 USD on BTC-e at 06:00 PM Pacific Time || In the last hour, 9 people won 1.00 BTC playing Bitcoin lottery at http://10xbtc.com , the easiest BTC lottery, 160BTC Jackpot || 1 #bitcoin = $4195.00 MXN | $249.04 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 16.84MXN http://www.bitapeso.com || 1 #bitcoin = $4000.00 MXN | $238.495584165 USD #BitAPeso | 1 USD = 16.771799MXN http://www.bitapeso.com || 1 #bitcoin 727 TL, 236.234 $, 209 €, GBP, 16361.00 RUR, 29020 ¥, CNH, 317.68 CAD #btc
|
Trend: down || Prices: 374.47, 386.48, 373.37, 380.26, 336.82, 311.08, 338.15, 336.75, 332.91, 320.17
|
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)]
0x Teams With StarkWare to Bring Speed to Decentralized Exchanges: A cryptographic solution called zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) could help notoriously slow decentralized exchanges (DEXs) reach speeds comparable to more traditional platforms. San Francisco-based DEX startup 0x is partnering with the Israeli software-as-service company StarkWare to test a ZKP solution called StarkDEX, which can process roughly 500 transactions per second. StarkWare CEO Uri Kolodny told CoinDesk the goal is clear: “Non-custodial trading at scale.” Yahoo Japan-Backed Crypto Exchange Taotao Launches This Week Speaking to how ZKPs could be implemented in the 0x DEX ecosystem, 0x marketing lead Matt Taylor told CoinDesk: “Our goal is that by the end of this year we’ll have this in production, on mainnet, so that people can actually use this technology. … We intend to have this be a core part of the 0x DEX stack.” Taylor said the 0x system has facilitated $713,000 worth of trades since it was founded in 2017. DEXs using 0x currently process between a few hundred and roughly 3,100 trades a day, according to 0xtracker.com , but scaling continues to be a challenge. “A marketplace where only three trades per second can be settled is a very illiquid market,” Kolodny said of some networks’ current limitations. ConsenSys Launches ‘Jobs Kit’ to Help Devs Enter the Blockchain Industry Still, Kolodny told CoinDesk it will take months before this alpha test leads to a professional service for 0x relayers and other blockchain companies. Stepping back, StarkWare attracted investment from ConsenSys Ventures, ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and the Zcash company, to name a few. This startup’s ZKP expertise and solutions are so sought after that the Technion University , where StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson also works as a professor, filed a lawsuit claiming Ben-Sasson is “getting rich” from the university’s intellectual property. Regardless of legal disputes, the aim of StarkWare’s latest partnership is to enhance scalability across the industry. Taylor said 0x plans to use StarkDEX solutions to “scale our infrastructure as well as the infrastructure for the rest of the crypto economy.” In September, ethereum heavyweights like Buterin will gather in Tel Aviv for a series of technical sessions hosted by StarkWare. Said Kolodny: “If we provide scalability engines for trading, or gaming, or any application that one wishes to run on the blockchain, you can use [StarkWare] computation that takes everything else you’re doing off-chain and achieve massive scale.” Image: StarkWare co-founders (left to right) Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Uri Kolodny and Michael Riabzev (courtesy of StarkWare) Story continues Related Stories Public Perceptions of the Bitcoin Spot Market Are Wrong, Says Bitwise What Will It Take to Regulate Crypto Exchanges? View comments || Microsoft email hack reportedly targeted crypto users: Earlier this month, reports surfaced suggesting there had been a Microsoft Outlook breach, with latest reports suggesting the breach was targeted at crypto users. The latest report has been provided by Motherboard , who also revealed that the contents of Microsoft Outlook had been compromised. It is believed that the breach led to email contents being compromised and not just metadata as previously reported. The breach centred around a hacker gaining access to the login accreditation of a Microsoft customer. From there, the hacker was able to delve into the contents of non-corporate Outlook, MSN and and Hotmail accounts. Motherboard is now reporting on how several people have come forward to state the breach may have been targeting crypto users. One user reached out to Motherboard and told them: “the hackers also had access to my inbox, allowing them to password reset my Kraken.com account and withdraw my Bitcoin”. The user only discovered his Kraken account had been compromised after checking his trash folder in his emails. They have reportedly lost more than one Bitcoin, which was valued at roughly $5,000. A separate user made a Reddit post inquiring into whether these breaches are a regular occurrence. Another user commented, revealing that they had lost “25,000 in crypto” with the hackers only having access to their emails – though they have not specified which currency in particular they are talking about. As always with technology, hackers will continue to find ways to circumvent security measures and compromise databases. According to various reports, Microsoft has not commented on how the Outlook accounts had been breached, though it did immediately disable the compromised credentials that it was alerted to. Interested in reading more about hacks, scams and how to prevent yourself from falling victim to them? Discover more on how to spot a Bitcoin blackmail email scam and how to avoid being duped by one. The post Microsoft email hack reportedly targeted crypto users appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Novogratzs Galaxy Digital Crypto Fund Lost $272.7 Million in 2018: Galaxy Digital Holdings, the crypto merchant bank founded by former hedge fund manager Michael Novogratz, lost $97 million in the fourth quarter, according to financials disclosed Monday. The net loss widened from $76.7 million in the third quarter and from about $100,000 a year earlier, according to the filing with Canadian securities regulators. (Last February, New York-based Galaxy bought a Canadian publicly traded company in a reverse takeover.) For all of 2018, its first full year of operation, the company lost $272.7 million. Galaxy Digital Backs $15 Million Raise for Crypto Analytics Firm CipherTrace The majority of the red ink in 2018, $101.4 million, came from selling digital assets at a loss. Galaxy also recorded $75.5 million in paper losses on crypto it held that declined in price, $8.5 million in unrealized losses on investments in companies and $88.4 million in operating expenses. Which coins lost At the end of 2018, Galaxy held 9,724 bitcoin ($36.4 million), 92,545 ether ($12.3 million), 2.4 million EOS ($6 million) and 60,227 of monero ($2.8 million). The firm increased its investment in bitcoin and ether from the beginning of the year when it held 5,902 BTC and 57,000 ETH. Galaxy also used to hold large amounts of Wax ($50.2 million) and BlockV tokens ($17.4 million), which disappeared from the top ranks of the firms investments at the end of the year. Galaxy Digital Raising $250 Million to Offer Loans to Crypto Firms: Report According to the report, Galaxy lost money selling bitcoin ($70.3 million) and ether ($64.4 million), which was partially offset by $54.3 million earned selling some cryptocurrencies short (its not specified which ones). Bitcoin was the biggest source of losses at the beginning of 2018, while ether caused the most damage during the rest of the year. Interestingly, Galaxy lost as much as $47 million on the depreciation of the Wax token, an asset created to power a platform for trading virtual goods like items in video games. Story continues Several other altcoins also lost in price before Galaxy could profitably sell them during 2018: Kin ($10.9 million in losses), BlockV ($17.2 million) and Aion ($8.6 million). Some $5 million was also lost on EOS. Protocols, mining and ICOs A number of companies and investment funds in Galaxys portfolio declined in value. For example, the Pantera ICO Fund LP shares depreciation caused the loss of $14.1 million (Galaxy currently has $17.4 million invested in the fund). The firm also took a haircut of $11.3 million on its shares of Canada-based Hut 8 Mining Corp, and $11.1 million on crypto wallet firm Xapo. As of the end of 2018, Galaxy held $41.9 million in the stock of Block.Ones, the creator of EOS, plus some $5 million more in Galaxy EOS VC Fund focused on developing the EOS.IO ecosystem. Meanwhile, payments startup Ripple Labs received $23.8 million, including an indirect investment through a special purpose vehicle, the report says. Galaxy also invested $26 million in mining businesses, including Hut 8 Mining and Bitfury; $7.5 million in custodian and multi-signature wallet provider BitGo; and $5 million in Bakkt, the bitcoin futures exchange yet-to-be-launched by New York Stock Exchange parent ICE. Other investments include Silvergate Capital Corporation, parent of the crypto friendly Silvergate Bank; tokenization startups AlphaPoint and Templum; investment vehicles Cryptology Asset and Pantera Venture Fund; and Mercantile Global Holdings, a Puerto Rico-based entity operating the recently founded San Juan Mercantile Exchange. The firm also provided $3.8 millions of loans for the crypto lending platform BlockFi . Risk factors Talking about the risks Galaxy may face in the future, the report pays special attention to the concentration of power in the hands of the CEO and major stakeholder Mike Novogratz, who owns more than 71 percent of Galaxy. Among the regulatory and market risks, Galaxy is highly dependent on Michael Novogratz, exposing shareholders to material and unpredictable key man risk, the document says, adding that the CEOs interests may be different from those of shareholders, and there is a danger he could engage in activities outside of GDH LP or could quit GDH LP in favor of other pursuits. No less notable, the report adds: Mr. Novogratzs public profile makes it more likely that GDH LP will attract material regulatory scrutiny, which would be costly and distracting regardless of whether GDH LP has engaged in any unlawful conduct. Image of Mike Novogratz via CoinDesk archives Related Stories Novogratz Buys Another 2.7% of His Galaxy Digital Crypto Fund for $5 Million Mike Novogratzs Galaxy Digital Reports $76 Million Q3 Loss || US Copyright Office Says It Does Not ‘Recognize’ Craig Wright as Satoshi: Even as bitoin SV (BSV) enjoyed a Craig Wright/Satoshi bump Tuesday, the U.S. Copyright Office was hard at work dispelling notions that it officially “recognized” anyone as the inventor of bitcoin.
“As a general rule, when the Copyright Office receives an application for registration, the claimant certifies as to the truth of the statements made in the submitted materials. The Copyright Office does not investigate the truth of any statement made,” the Copyright Office wrote in a press release. “In a case in which a work is registered under a pseudonym, the Copyright Office does not investigate whether there is a provable connection between the claimant and the pseudonymous author.”
Asmultiplesourceshave already noted, all it takes to register a copyright is $55 and a stable internet connection. In short, any claim that the U.S. government has registered Wright as the author of bitcoin are spurious at best.
Bitcoin Remains On the Defensive With Price Below $8K
Why did the government go to the trouble of clarifying this point? Wright’sactionsrequired it. On Tuesday, a press representative sent a widely read release that suggested, in short, that the government accepted Wright was Satoshi. From the release:
Importantly, the registrations issued by the U.S. Copyright Office recognize Wright as the author – under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto – of both the white paper and code. This is the first government agency recognition of Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.
The U.S. Copyright Office, on the other hand, doesn’t actually recognize anyone for anything. Ultimately, it is a repository designed for protecting the creators of art and literature.
But it’s not an immutable source of truth, like, uhm…ok let’s not go there.
Crypto Lending Startup BlockFi Slashing Interest Rates on Ether Deposits
Satoshi Nakamoto image byMichal Cander
• Craig Wright Is Playing Three-Dimensional Checkers
• Bitcoin SV Surges 200% as Wright Registers Copyright to Satoshi White Paper || Start-up crypto wallet ‘Button’ clocks up 100,000 users: Button Wallet, which launched at the end of 2018, has announced that it has already surpassed 100,000 users. The Moscow and Los Angeles-based start-up has seen a rapid rise in popularity in just a few months, underlining the growth in messenger apps. Button, which has also now added fiat capability to its app, comes pre-installed on Telegram, allowing users fast access to trade standard currency and an array of cryptocurrencies. Users can trade BTC, BCH, ETH, ETC, LTC, Waves, Dai, and ERC-20 tokens within the app without incurring external fees. Its rise is also reflective of a growing desire for wallets that do not store any user information, passwords, or QR codes. Confusing processes Alex Safonov, Button’s CEO, said Telegram allowed users to have better and easier-to-understand access to the crypto world without going through confusing processes. “Global digital transactions are projected to top $6 trillion by 2022, making international e-commerce greater than the GDP of Japan,” he explained. Button team CEO Alex Safonov with some of the Button team “Cryptocurrency in particular holds tremendous potential, as long as existing pain points can be remedied. “Too often, buying cryptocurrency can be confusing for users. Sometimes it can take up to three weeks to be verified for a new user to purchase crypto with fiat within the US. “By placing our wallet directly in the popular Telegram app – something we think all finance apps will do in the next two or three years – we believe we can help more people enjoy the benefits of cryptocurrency and decentralisation.” Button, with its headquarters spanning Russia and the US, was developed by a team of hackers who are passionate about blockchain technology. The Button team was part of the most recent cohort of the Silicon Valley incubator ETC Labs and graduated from accelerators MIT Play Labs and StartupBoost LA. The team have also won 15 engineering awards and hackathons, including ETHSanFrancisco, ETHSingapore and, most recently, ETHDenver, where they received five awards. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Start-up crypto wallet ‘Button’ clocks up 100,000 users appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Knowing the developers: an analysis of Bitcoin Core: Often when we think of open-source software we think of a landscape with hundreds or even thousands of developers all freely working on a project. While it is true that with open-source anyone can write code and submit proposals, most of it works entirely off a merit-based system. It may not be surprising to some, but many popular public blockchain projects intended to eventually be open for all are being built by only a few people.
With the rising popularity of public blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is useful to know who the developers of these projects actually are, who they work for (if anyone), and an overall analysis of the progress of what is currently taking place in terms of development.
Join Genesis nowand continue reading,Knowing the developers: an analysis of Bitcoin Core! || Tron Co-Founder and CTO Leaves Project, Alleging Excessive Centralization: Lucien Chen the former chief technical officer (CTO) and co-founder of blockchain protocol Tron ( TRX ) has announced he is leaving the project, claiming it has become excessively centralized and strayed from its founding principles. Chen revealed his decision in a Medium blog post published on May 10. In his announcement, Chen recounts the history of the Tron project and TRXs successful growth to become the 11th largest cryptocurrency by market cap globally. Yet the former CTO said that notwitstanding this success, irreconcilable contradictions between himself and co-founder Justin Sun have prompted him to choose to leave the project. Foremost among his concerns, Chen argued that the project is no longer faithful to its founding principle of decentralizing the web becoming ostensibly excessively centralized, as well as neglecting to foster internet-focused commercial applications in its ecosystem. He critiqued Trons delegated proof-of-stake [DPoS] consensus mechanism and Super Representative governance and block production nodes, arguing that: The DPOS mechanism of Tron is pseudo-decentralized. The top 27 SR nodes (block nodes) have more than 170 million TRX votes, and most of them are controlled by Tron. Its hard for other latecomers to become block nodes, so they cannot participate in the process of block production. Chen continued to claim that some nodes have more than 90% of the votes with only a few voters, and that the vote of the ordinary retail investor has thus been ostensibly sidelined. The total number of TRX in Tron is 100 billion, while the total number of votes for the super representatives is just less than 8 billion, he added, stating in summary that: Token distribution is centralized, Super Representatives are centralized, code development is centralized. Even the community is organized under centralization. In addition to his concerns over centralization, Chen also said that as the former CTO who helped build the platform, he knows that real internet applications currently cant function in the Tron network. Story continues Having left Tron, Chen is now launching his own decentralized blockchain project, dubbed Volume Network. He claims that the new venture will stay more faithful to his ideological principles and focus on mining-based decentralization in particular by enabling users to mine using non-specialist hardware in order to lower the participation threshold. As reported earlier this month, the Tron Foundation recently fixed a critical vulnerability which could have crashed its blockchain , awarding the cybersecurity research who identified it with a $1,500 bounty and disclosing the findings after the bug had been fixed. Related Articles: Payments Startup Uphold to Use Ledger Vault SEC Crypto Czar: Platforms Listing IEOs May Face Regulatory Trouble Blockchain Project CEO to Pay $150K Fine, Teach Business Ethics Following Settlement Microsoft Builds Decentralized Identity Network Atop Bitcoin Blockchain || $44 Million Binance Hackers Shuffle Seven Crypto Wallets with Stolen Bitcoin: The Binance hackers are moving stolen bitcoin. | Source: Shutterstock By CCN : Hackers who stole $44M from Binance are busy shifting the 7,074 bitcoin to seven wallets as they work to convert their bounty to fiat. Eagle-eyed analysts at London-based research team, Coinfirm , are tracking the stolen bitcoins, and have found the hackers have now spread them across seven digital wallet addresses. Spider’s web Hackers first split the coins and put them into separate wallets as they worked to cover their tracks. According to @Coinfirm_io analysis the @Binance hacker has recently moved over 1214 #BTC (~$7.16M) to new addresses But almost 5786 BTC (~$34.14M) still sit on the #Binance hackers original addresses More exclusive insights coming! https://t.co/CdRIXAT8dC pic.twitter.com/YUVrHeVOhn — Coinfirm (@Coinfirm_io) May 8, 2019 They then worked to move them through a spider’s web of wallet addresses in an attempt to hide their trail. Now, Coinfirm has found the stolen funds have been placed in seven separate anonymous digital wallets. The #Binance hacker once again moved the #btc to new addresses! This time all of it according to analysis by https://t.co/CdRIXBaJ5a @amlt_token After we documented the movement of some yesterday(orange) all of the funds 7070.9 BTC ($41.8m) were moved to 7 new addresses(red) pic.twitter.com/4vzVFRb7F4 — Coinfirm (@Coinfirm_io) May 9, 2019 Read the full story on CCN.com . || Bitcoin-Gold Price Correlation Shows Widest Spread in Over a Year: With gold on the defensive and down roughly 6 percent since mid-February, bitcoin may continue to shine brightly in the near future. After all, experts have found the two assets to be inversely correlated. The 90-day correlation coefficient between bitcoin and gold a statistical measure of linear interdependence between the two variables is currently seen at -0.71, the lowest level since March 20. A negative number represents an inverse relationship, i.e. meaning the two variables are moving in opposite directions, which has been the case between bitcoin and gold since November. Bitcoin Price Spikes to Fresh 5-Month Highs Above $5,700 For instance, the yellow metal found takers at $1,200 on November 13 and was flirting with the psychological resistance of $1,300 at the end of December. During the same period, bitcoin, fell from $6,200 to $3,122, according to Bitstamp data. It is worth noting that correlation does not imply causation. When a strong correlation develops between the two variables, it does not necessarily mean that one is causing or influencing the other. The gold rally witnessed in November-December could be associated with the broad-based US dollar weakness triggered by speculation that the Federal Reserve will pause interest rate hikes in 2019. Bitcoin, however, did not benefit from the same dollar sell-off and tanked to 15-month lows near $3,100. The negative correlation had weakened somewhat in the first quarter with bitcoin recovering to $4,000 by February end amid an extended gold price rally to a February 20 high of $1,346. 3 Price Hurdles That Could Complicate a Bitcoin Rally to $6K By Februarys end, however, the gold market completed pricing in the Fed rate hike pause, which the central bank confirmed in March, opening doors for the sell the news move in the yellow metal. Gold ended March below $1,300 and has remained on the back foot ever since. As of this writing, it is trading at $1,270 per ounce, representing a 5.6 percent drop from February highs. Story continues Interestingly, bitcoin surged past key resistance at $4,236 on April 2 two days after gold found acceptance below $1,300 and jumped to a five-month of high $5,622, according to CoinDesk price data. This revived the strong inverse correlation with the precious metal. With gold looking increasingly weak, there is reason to believe that the cryptocurrency market leader may extend its ongoing rally past the psychological resistance of $6,000. GOLD and BTC Technicals From a technical perspective, gold is indeed developing a bearish market structure referred to as the head and shoulders reversal pattern, which suggests more downside is likely in the near future. The pattern generally appears as three consecutive troughs, the middle of which being the tallest, essentially depicts the failure of a trend to maintain its bullish streak of successive higher price highs. Gold broke down from the pattern on April 16, confirmed by its price finding acceptance below the patterns neckline, with its scope now set for the 200-day moving average currently located at $1252. Support will need to be provided in order to avoid further depreciation. That said, we can create a measured breakdown of this pattern by subtracting the size of the head from the breakdown point, which suggests more downside is possible toward $1220. Again, correlation is not causation, but golds near-term bearish outlook may be a sign of positive things to come for bitcoins direction. Gold image via Shutterstock Related Stories CoinMarketCap Forms Alliance to Tackle Concerns Over Price Data Integrity Up 28%: Bitcoin Ends April With Biggest Monthly Gain in a Year || ETFs to Consider as Gold Prices Teeter on the Brink of Fragility: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. After the last week's volatility-laden performances in the major indexes, it might seem that investors would want to hide away into safe haven assets like gold. However, prices for gold are on the brink of fragility, according to some analysts. In particular, the precious metal is having the hardest time trying to break through the $1,300 price ceiling. Gold inability to break above $1,300 is an indication that the market is really fragile and I think investors should expect to see lower prices in the near-term, said Fawad Razaqzada, technical analyst at City Index. I think you have to continue to play gold to the downside as long as prices are unable to hold sustainable gains above $1,300. On the weekly chart I dont see any reason to be bullish on gold anytime soon. Furthermore, Razaqzada is eyeing gold's recent low of $1,266 an ounce. Falling below that support level could put downward pressure on prices to $1,256 an ounce. If gold prices go below that target, then where the selloff ends is anyones guess, he said. Gold Prices On The Brink of Fragility 1 Where Are The Opportunities? Is this a buying opportunity for gold? Investors can look to gold-backed ETFs like the SPDR Gold Shares ( GLD ) and SPDR Gold MiniShares ( GLDM ) , while short-term traders can also play the gold market through miners with the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ( GDX ) , Direxion Daily Jr Gold Miners Bull 3X ETF ( JNUG ) and the Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 3X ETF ( NUGT ) . Furthermore, investors can consider funds like the VanEck Vectors ® Real Asset Allocation ETF ( RAAX ) . RAAX uses a data-driven, rules-based process that leverages over 50 indicators, including technical, macroeconomic and fundamental, commodity price, and sentiment. Using this data, it allocates across 12 individual real asset segments in five broad real asset sectors. The aforementioned indicators identify the segments with positive expected returns. Using correlation and volatility, an optimization process determines the weight to these segments with the goal of creating a portfolio with maximum diversification while at the same time, reducing risk. Story continues One of the allocations the fund added as of late was opportunities in gold. With the latest announcement by the Federal Reserve that it would continue to keep interest rates in check, this could mean for strength for gold if the dollar weakens. It increased its gold equity allocation from 13% to 16%, wrote David Schassler , Portfolio Manager at VanEck. This was funded by reducing its REIT position from 12% to 9%. RAAX now holds its largest gold allocation ever, with its gold bullion and gold equity allocation accounting for a combined 36% of its assets. For more market trends, visit ETF Trends . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs Vans, Nike Among 170 Footwear Companies Concerned About Tariffs Bitcoin, Stablecoin, Blockchain, Enterprise Ledger
WTF? So Many Retirement Idiots Columbia Threadneedle Makes Changes to its ETF Line Up Walmart Looks Into Expanding Home Office To Attract Talent READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM >
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin se hunde un 8% y pierde los 8.000 dólares: ¿Qué ha pasado?
https://t.co/m4CGwan20v || @AndrewYang Bitcoin is king || Crypto is my job and I take lots of time to investigate various projects. This project is the most top-drawer in my rating. #Shato || Bitcoin Price Eyes 10K After Erasing 40 of Bear Market Drop #Crypto #CryptoNews #cryptocurrency #cryptotrading https://t.co/w4AFV5oXvV || Portfolio allocation in crypto should be 99% Bitcoin, 1% Alt coins.
Or best only Bitcoin. || #btc #blockchain #Bounty #llc #dex #localcoin Be wise and check this project! It is in the middle of the way to success! I can asure you it will grow up into a something outstanding. || 【愕然】ビットコイン、過去のパターンを繰り返すとすればこんな事になる可能性が・・・ #仮想通貨 $BTC https://t.co/Ffr2FINLfY 仮想通貨情報まとめ【VCキング】 || @cryptomifi @washingtonpost Join me on https://t.co/s9lfrxHkso on WhatsApp -- the world's easiest Bitcoin wallet where you can also earn Bitcoin by referring your friends. You can use this link to get started:
https://t.co/Jrg4nribTj || Crypto is my job and I take lots of time to investigate various projects. This project is the most top-drawer in my rating. #Shato || Zájem o bitcoin podněcují i giganti jako Microsoft, Amazon či Starbucks https://t.co/1ZMuX1g9Fu
|
Trend: no change || Prices: 10855.37, 11011.10, 11790.92, 13016.23, 11182.81, 12407.33, 11959.37, 10817.16, 10583.13, 10801.68
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Crypto market cap surges above $1 trillion for first time: (Reuters) - The total market value of all cryptocurrencies rose above $1 trillion for the first time on Thursday as Bitcoin surged to a record high, according to data by crypto coin trackers CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko. Bitcoin has jumped more than 900% to $38,655 on Thursday, from $3,850 in March, as governments increase speeding to blunt the economic impact of the coronavirus. This has raised fears about rising inflation and U.S. dollar debasement. The cryptocurrency is also gaining traction with more mainstream investors who are increasingly convinced that Bitcoin will be a long-lasting asset, and not a speculative bubble as some analysts and investors fear. Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, a decentralized network that provides data to smart contracts on the blockchain, said that there is a “lack of faith in traditional institutions that is driving this large rally towards cryptoassets.” “While outsiders may view the cryptocurrency industry being valued at over $1 trillion as an incredibly significant milestone, in actuality our space is still in one of its very early stages of development and growth,” Nazarov said. The market cap of all cryptocurrencies rose 10% to $1.042 trillion on Thursday, data from CoinMarketCap shows. Bitcoin accounts for around 69% of the total market cap of the total. It is followed by Ethereum with a 13% share. (Reporting by Karen Brettell and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; editing by Jonathan Oatis) || Bitcoin Closes In on All-Time High as It Hits $18K: (Updated): Bitcoins price broke through $18,000 in what some experts are attributing to global events and bullish fundamentals in crypto. The worlds top cryptocurrency by market capitalization reached a high of $18,062 at 03:01 UTC, a price point not seen since Dec. 16, 2017. After topping out at almost $18,500, prices dropped back below $18,000 for around two hours before crossing the level again. Over the past 24 hours, bitcoin has ranged between $16,560 and $18,464. Related: The Dark Future Where Payments Are Politicized and Bitcoin Wins Bitcoin is now up 146% on a year-to-date basis and has gained nearly 70% so far this quarter, according to CoinDesk 20 data. A few recent events have undoubtedly had an impact, said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder and managing partner at crypto lender Nexo. Institutional investment by the likes of MicroStrategy and Square , PayPal actively shilling crypto, and the bitcoin halving in May were likely causes for bitcoins continual rise, he said. Others see global events such as COVID-19 and negative interest rates in traditional markets such as Germany as the outliers for bitcoins meteoric rise this year. Interest rates are the most important factor in peoples decisions on where to deposit money, said Ki Young Ju, CEO at analytics firm CryptoQuant. Im sure negative interest rates will drive adoption in crypto whether its direct purchasing crypto/index funds or using staking services. Related: First Mover: As Bitcoin Shoots Past $18K, There's Comfort in the Crowded Trade While bitcoin is fast approaching its Dec. 17, 2017, all-time high of $19,666, ether also broke new 2020 heights above $488 to stand at $489 by press time. See also: Traders Brace for Major Volatility as Bitcoin Price Nears Record Highs Another factor could be attributed to the easy money policies of central banks and increased government spending from some of the worlds largest economies including Europe and the U.S in recent months. I think it basically comes down to monetary and fiscal policy, said Kyle Davies, co-founder of Three Arrows Capital. Central banks can lower rates until they get to slightly negative, and then they have to print money. At that point, Davies maintains, central banks dependency on newly printed money will make BTC attractive. Related Stories Bitcoin Closes In on All-Time High as It Hits $18K Bitcoin Closes In on All-Time High as It Hits $18K View comments || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Solidly Trades Above $20K; Ether Jumps on Positive BTC, CME’s New ETH Product: Bitcoin has continued trading higher Wednesday after breaking above the $20,000 level during early U.S. trading hours. Meanwhile, with a short supply of bitcoin and a surging demand, traders and analysts are optimistic the oldest cryptocurrency can keep its bull run going for a longer time.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $20,808.28 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 6.70% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $19,293.30-$20,890.11 (CoinDesk 20)
Bitcoin’s price continued higher after it hit the $20,000 threshold, and that is likely due to a combination of a rising demand and a shortage of supply.
Read More:Bitcoin Hits Record Above $20K as Analysts Remain Confident of Future
Related:First Mover: Geek-Fest Turns Relevant as Bitcoin Passes $21K, $22K, $23K
“This bull run has been evidently driven by traditional financial institutions [that] have been actively buying bitcoin dips of late as an investment and treasury product. They have a long-term strategy for these assets,” Jason Lau, chief operating officer at San Francisco-based exchange OKCoin, told CoinDesk. “So with increased demand, HODLing and fewer block rewards due to the recent halving, the price may have no limits.”
Moments before bitcoin’s price broke $20,000 earlier Wednesday, on-chain data provider CryptoQuant’s chart captured an unusual spike in the number of stablecoin inflow addresses moving to all exchanges.
Read More:Stampede of Bitcoin Buyers Pushed BTC Past $20K, Exchange Data Shows
The increase in stablecoins going to exchanges usually means there is a strong buying power, according to Ki Young Jun, chief executive of CryptoQuant.
Related:Above $100: Litecoin Hits Highest Price Since Summer 2019
The surging demand came around the time U.K.-based Ruffer Investment confirmed to CoinDesk it bought about $744 million worth of bitcoin last month.
Read More:Ruffer Investment Confirms Massive Bitcoin Buy of $744M
“We’re fast approaching a tipping point where more institutions make allocations as an inflation hedge,” Micah Erstling, a trader at GSR, said. “Each new big name instills further confidence in the market.”
Read More:Federal Reserve Keeps Rates Unchanged, Adds Qualitative Guidance on Pace of Money-Printing
Bitcoin’s trading volumes on the eight major exchanges tracked in the CoinDesk 20 were also strong on Wednesday, at $2,075,614,385 as of press time, the second-highest volume in December after Dec. 1.
With bitcoin surpassing its highest level since its 2017 high, if the breakout keeps going for the next two days new resistance at around $25,000 could be possible.
“Because there is no additional resistance and targeted levels have been exceeded,” said Katie Stockton, a technical analyst for Fairlead Strategies, “we can use round numbers like $25,000 as gauges of potential resistance.”
Bitcoin’s options market also supports the widespread optimism on prices, according to Denis Vinokourov, head of research at the London-based prime brokerage Bequant. He noted thatthe most open interest for bitcoin is at $36,000 expiring in January.
“Although a rally of such magnitude is unlikely to be beneficial for overall market health,” Vinokourov said, “it would make the most sense to instead see price action around $19,500-23,000, which will be far better for long-term prospects.”
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH) was Wednesday trading around $623.58 and climbing 5.47% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Analysts expressed their bullish attitude towards ether after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced it will launch a futures contract on ether in February 2021.
Read More:CME Announces Ether Futures Contracts
“Up until now, bitcoin has been the only crypto asset with publicly traded futures on a venue the caliber of the CME,” Vinokourov said. “With ether now also having this on-ramp, and having far more use cases than bitcoin, it would make sense for it to see exponentially higher growth than bitcoin.”
Although ether’s price is still less than half of its all-time high, the current rally could create a new resistance near $805, according to Stockton.
There were very few losers on theCoinDesk 20as of Wednesday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• litecoin(LTC) +8.75%
• xrp(XRP) + 8.07%
• cardano(ADA) + 5.91%
Notable losers:
• usdc(USDC) -0.12%
• kyber network(KNC) -0.12%
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day up 0.26% afterinvestors showed increased optimism over the prospect of more stimulus.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe closed in the green 0.9% aspositive news came from the real estate market in the U.K. and about a possible post-Brexit trade deal.
• The S&P in the United States closed up 0.18%as more hopes grew an economic stimulus deal can be worked out in the Congress.
Commodities:
• Oil was up 0.48%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $47.58.
• Gold was in the green 0.63% and at $1864.80 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Wednesday to 0.92.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Solidly Trades Above $20K; Ether Jumps on Positive BTC, CME’s New ETH Product
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Solidly Trades Above $20K; Ether Jumps on Positive BTC, CME’s New ETH Product || It’s Genesis Block Day. Do You Know Where Your Bitcoin Keys Are?: Today is Bitcoin Day, the anniversary of the Genesis Block that marked the beginning of the Bitcoin blockchain in 2009. This year, with the price of bitcoin shooting for the moon, Bitcoiners have more reason to celebrate – and more reason to assert their sovereignty over their private keys.
Read more:Bitcoin Blasts Past $34K for First Time, Less Than 24 Hours After Blowing Through $30K
An annual event first initiated by Trace Mayer,Proof of Keysis an informal celebration that aims to remind bitcoiners that monetary sovereignty is a fundamental part of Bitcoin’s ethos. It lies at the very heart of the familiar Bitcoiner mantra, “not your keys, not your coin.” In other words, if you don’t control the private keys to yourbitcoin, you don’t really own the coin.
The saying is a reminder that Bitcoin was built to give users complete control over their finances. It’s also a reminder of the potential consequences of trusting your bitcoin keys to a third party (like losing your funds in an exchange hack).
Read more:How to Store Your Bitcoin
Related:SkyBridge's Bitcoin Cache Rises to $310M as New Fund Launches
“Anyone who doesn’t want you to hold your own private keys – they’re your monetary enemy. They don’t want you to be free and independent with your money,” Mayer said in thelead-up to 2019’s inaugural event. “That’s just the way it is.”
The implications of being reliant on others to process, exchange and hold your cryptocurrencies aren’t immaterial. They hold acute consequences and compromises of your privacy, and will limit how you interact with your own money.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)gathers extensive personal informationon millions of people’s financial transactions, all provided by financial institutions, even when those people have not committed any crime.
This year, taking custody of your keys by moving them to a personal wallet takes on an added level of significance. FinCEN hasproposed a planthat will force exchanges to comply with new know-your-customer (KYC) requirements when users try to transfer their funds to a personal wallet. Such a requirement, applicable to any transferred amount over $3,000 in value, threatens to undermine cryptocurrencies’early promiseofprivacyandself-sovereignty. (Note: FinCEN is accepting comments from the public on this issue only until Jan. 4, 2021).
Read more:US Floats Long-Dreaded Plan to Make Crypto Exchanges Identify Personal Wallets
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Briefly Drops Close to $28K as Ether Futures Heat Up
Add to this the recentdelisting of privacy coinsby many exchanges, aforementioned exchange hacksshowing no signs of stoppingand other snafus likeabsent exchange keyholdersinadvertently freezing transactions. Assuming control of your own private keys and becoming the first and last line of control when it comes to your crypto is even more imperative.
The most basic way to exercise your monetary sovereignty is to hold your private keys in your own non-custodial bitcoin wallet. This means taking any bitcoin you own out of exchanges and custodial wallets and transferring the keys to a wallet you control.
“Proof of Keys” takes the notion of self-sovereignty even further by adding the adage, “Not your node; not your rules.” The point here is that it is equally important to withdraw your keys to a bitcoin node that you are running. This way, you can perform your own validation yourself, without having to trust other people’s nodes to prove that your keys are your own.
Read more:Becoming Self-Sovereign: How to Set Up a Bitcoin Node, With Lightning
Participants in Proof of Keys usually pledge to take possession of any private keys on or before Jan. 3. On Twitter, this pledge is denoted publicly by the addition of series of symbols to their user name or profile: [Jan/3➞₿
∎] The date, arrow, Bitcoin unicode and key represent their intent to hold their keys. The block signals that they have completed the verification process.
Self-custodying your keys can be a tricky proposition for the uninitiated – and even for some who have been holding bitcoin for a long time. To help people safely take control of their private keys, Casa is hosting its first KeyFest, a three-day virtual conference from Jan. 5 through 7.
Read more:New to Bitcoin? Stay Safe and Avoid These Common Scams
Each day will feature a new webinar, followed by a workshop to instruct users on different ways they can custody their bitcoin. Speakers include Blockstream CEO Adam Back, Balaji Srinivasan and Avanti co-founder Caitlin Long, among others.
• It’s Genesis Block Day. Do You Know Where Your Bitcoin Keys Are?
• It’s Genesis Block Day. Do You Know Where Your Bitcoin Keys Are? || Bitcoin Is Digital Social Justice, feat. Tyrone Ross: The podcaster and CEO of Onramp Invest discusses DeFi, income inequality and the opportunity for bitcoin in 2021. 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 Nexo.io . Related: The Unorthodox Trades That Will Drive Value in 2021, feat. Tony Greer Download this episode The wealth adviser and CEO of Onramp Invest discusses why the Federal Reserve continues to ignore its role in income inequality and what the bitcoin community can do to be a force for positive change. Find our guest online: @TR401 See also: Its Time for a Revolution in Financial Education, Feat. Tyrone Ross Related: Why Bitcoin Is Bigger Than an Inflation Hedge, feat. Dan Tapiero 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 Bitcoin Is Digital Social Justice, feat. Tyrone Ross Bitcoin Is Digital Social Justice, feat. Tyrone Ross || Ethereum Far Outpaces Bitcoin in Developer Activity in 2020: Electric Capital Report: The number of developers in crypto is ticking up again, according to the annual developer report from venture firm Electric Capital. And one network remains a clear winner in terms of attractiveness to coders. More than 300 new developers per month are joining Ethereum, Maria Shen, a partner at Electric and the reports author, told CoinDesk. Ethereum has continuously grown through Crypto Winter. The report tracks ecosystems by blockchain. In other words, a Bitcoin developer is counted toward Bitcoin even if the person is working on its Lightning Network or any of its wallets. Similarly, Ethereums numbers are driven by developers working on tokens that rely, fundamentally, on Vitaliks world computer. Related: First Mover: Stimulus Bet Wins Even as Bitcoin Slips Below $18K Of the ecosystem, Electrics report shows Ethereum so far out in front that second place is almost misleading. Almost 2,300 average monthly developers worked on Ethereum across the third quarter of 2020, with Bitcoin in second at a bit under 400. Still, the good news for the industry is broader: Developer numbers are going up across cryptos stronger projects. Electrics data is based on ongoing scraping of all the publicly available code documentation (89 million code commits across just under 300,000 repositories on sites such as GitHub and GitLab from January to October). No one can know who is a paid staffer, who is a volunteer and who is trying to earn street cred that will get him or her a spot as a paid staffer. For that reason, the report also takes pains to segment contributors out by their rate of contribution. All that said, when viewed across the board most people believe looking at developer activity in aggregate can be a good sign of health for any open-source technology project, crypto or otherwise. Related: Wallets With Over 1,000 Bitcoin Have Hit Record Number: Chainalysis New monthly crypto developers grew 15% in 2020, Shen writes in the reports summary, noting also that the Bitcoin ecosystem has 70% more developers than it did three years ago. Story continues Electric takes pains to track contributions, developers and to remove double counts as much as possible. For more detail on their methods, check out the report. Also-rans The report drew a line between the top 200 crypto projects by value and the rest, noting that much of the loss in developer activity occurred in the smaller projects, offsetting much of the gains elsewhere. Electric called this a flight to quality. Ethereum , Bitcoin , Polkadot , Tezos , Cardano and EOS are the largest networks, each averaging more than 100 monthly developers. Of those, only EOS lost developers when the third quarter of 2020 is compared to 2019. Read more: Crypto Code Commits Remain Near All-Time Highs, Despite Price Declines While many might think that making a distinction between the top 200 and the rest is still a too-generous threshold, Shen said there are likely some very small networks now that will rise up soon. Longtime denizens of the lower echelons of the top 200 are less likely to ascend but there could be some new arrivals that surprise everyone, and thats why Electric drew the distinction so generously. DeFi The most striking area of growth has been in decentralized finance (DeFi) , which has been a major topic in 2020. No one can know for sure why new people are coming in, but Electrics team had some guesses. Shen noted the tooling is better than it has ever been and theres so much proven code to fork and build upon. That makes it easier to get started. Electric co-founder Curtis Spencer noted that were now in an era where a developer can deploy a smart contract and very rapidly see an enormous amount of assets move into it. Even if they give control of that application away through a fair launch, as has become popular this year, that can still just be tremendously gratifying to someone who just wants to build. Shen concurred that the engagement alone can be rewarding. Once you launch a protocol, suddenly tens of millions of dollars are wrapped in your protocol, she said. For users of DeFi, though, sometimes this eagerness to see people use projects has come at a cost . Depositor beware. Getting started But some of the new activity also, no doubt, comes down to the fact that crypto is a space so well resourced that its fairly easy, for technical adepts, to get a new company started. Weve seen a professionalization of grant funds, Spencer added. This means that well-resourced layer one projects are eager to support promising devs with ideas for applications that might entice users. That makes it easier to get a company off the ground. It should be noted that a grant kicked off Uniswap, now one of the biggest projects out there, in terms of funds entrusted to it. Read more: Hayden Adams: King of the DeFi Degens Ken Deeter, another Electric Capital partner, said the growth in DeFi might also be partially attributed to developers from fintech frustrated by what they cant do there. DeFi is a really interesting area
where theres an ability for developers to really experiment in a way that in the traditional financial system is difficult to do, Deeter said. In last years report , Electric explained that testnets were always moments that saw strong growth in developer activity, led by developments on the Cosmos network . Shen said that has continued to hold true, noting that NEAR had a strong showing this year. Though the spikes fall after the incentives run out, she said they still see gains in ongoing participation following these booms. The prior report also heavily emphasized the total number of commits in 2019 hadnt fallen, though the number of developers had. Theres no update on commit volume this time around, however. We chose not to include it in this report, Shen said, because some commits are so much less significant than others. Related Stories Ethereum Far Outpaces Bitcoin in Developer Activity in 2020: Electric Capital Report Ethereum Far Outpaces Bitcoin in Developer Activity in 2020: Electric Capital Report || Monday's Market Minute: First Trading Week Of 2021: Looks like a busy week to begin the year with lots for investors and traders to keep an eye on; let’s take a minute to get ahead of what’s coming our way. First off, just a few names to mention in terms of companies set to report quarterly results; this week keep an eye on Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY ), Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU ), Conagra Brands Inc (NYSE: CAG ), and Lamb Weston Holdings Inc (NYSE: LW ). As far as economic data, watch the PMI data headed our way today, in addition to a few Fed speakers and the Construction Spending data scheduled for this morning at 10am ET. Later this week, we have Motor Vehicle Sales and ISM Manufacturing data before the focus will shift to the jobs numbers: ADP Wednesday, the weekly Jobless report Thursday, and Friday, the more-closely watched monthly jobs report. Don’t forget the FOMC minutes Wednesday and OPEC’s meeting this week. Investors and traders will be watching the U.S. Dollar trading at multi-year lows, levels we haven’t seen since the spring of 2018. Keep in mind a weak dollar oftentimes is supportive of U.S. indices, metals, and energy products. As I like to think of it, the greenback is at the epicenter of many moves we watch in futures markets. U.S. indices are starting the week and the new year on all-time highs, sticking with the trend we saw throughout 2020. Last but not least, we also have Bitcoin on a tear; it spiked up through 30K, and while many tie it to the weakness in the U.S. Dollar, I’d imagine some of the move up also has to do with recent stimulus in the U.S. and expectations of more to come in the new year. It could be a busy week to begin the year. Photo by MayoFi on Unsplash See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Thursday's Market Minute: S&P Futures Drift Upward Into Year's End Wednesday's Market Minute: The Future Of Movies © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || How bitcoin narratives have evolved to fuel current price surge: If the running joke of the late 2017 bitcoin price surge was the image of families discussing crypto around the Thanksgiving dinner table (Grandma, you should buy litecoin !), the theme of the late 2020 run has been Wall Street hedge fund runners and billionaire investors going on television to say some form of, I was wrong. In the past year, Paul Tudor Jones said he has put 2% of his portfolio in bitcoin and predicted that as new cryptocurrencies proliferate, bitcoin will become even more distinct as the precious crypto . Stan Druckenmiller said he has bought bitcoin , and predicts his bitcoin bet will probably work better than his gold bet because its thinner, more illiquid and has a lot more beta to it. Ray Dalio, one month after saying on Twitter that he sees three major problems with bitcoin, including the potential for governments to outlaw them, reversed his tune , now saying bitcoin could serve as a diversifier to gold and that investors ought to have some of these types of assets. Jamie Dimon, three years after calling bitcoin a fraud... worse than tulip bulbs , now says bitcoin is merely not my cup of tea and acknowledged that very smart people are investing in bitcoin. His bank in 2020 partnered with multiple major U.S. bitcoin exchanges. In 2020, Wall Street warmed up to bitcoin. So did big consumer-facing payments names like PayPal and Square , two brands with more mass recognition and legitimacy than, say, early crypto adopter Overstock.com . Visa and Fidelity are some of the other major financial names that have partnered with crypto startups or dipped into crypto in other forms, if not quite as loudly as PayPal ( PYPL ) and Square ( SQ ). The COVID-19 pandemic provided the spark . With central banks pulling levers and printing stimulus checks, bitcoins long-hyped appeal as digital gold and a hedge against inflation became more convincing than ever before. Theres so many uncertainties in this pandemic, but one thing that seems almost assured is when you print trillions of dollars more paper money, its going to drive up bitcoin and other cyptocurrencies, Dan Morehead, CEO of crypto firm Pantera Capital, said in August . Story continues Bitcoin took more than 10 years to hit $20,000 on most exchanges (since cryptocurrency is traded on multiple exchanges, there is rarely one consensus price ). Then it leapt from $20,000 to $30,000 in a little over two weeks. It topped $35,000 four days later. Bitcoin price, Jan. 5, 2014 through Jan. 5, 2021 Roadblocks to legitimacy Since its inception, the bitcoin market has always been fueled by narratives. After events like the FBI shutting down Silk Road in 2013 (an online black market site that used bitcoin as its payment) and the theft of 850,000 bitcoins from Mt. Gox in 2014 (an early bitcoin exchange that filed bankruptcy shortly thereafter), bitcoin was for years dogged by a stigma that it is unsafe, subject to theft, and favored by hackers and scammers. Crypto diehards adopted the retort that the U.S. dollar is used for crime too, but it didnt do much to combat bitcoins association with cybercrime. Over the years, Nouriel Roubini called bitcoin the mother of all scams ; Jamie Dimon called it fraud ; Saudi Arabias Prince Alwaleed called it Enron in the making ; and Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway called it disgusting... stupid... turds . The image of bitcoin as vaguely fraudulent lingered, but bitcoin and ether (the token of the Ethereum blockchain, launched in 2015, and the No. 2 cryptocurrency by market cap) both eventually enjoyed a boost in legitimacy compared to the junky, meme-based coins of the ICO boom. Amid bitcoins dramatic surge in 2017, fledgling tech startups flocked to a new funding method: the initial coin offering, in which a company creates and sells its own digital token to raise instant capital without begging at the feet of venture capital firms. Token sales began in 2014, but intensified with the rise of Ethereum and peaked in Q4 2017, with investors buying $3.4 billion worth of newly created coins, more than three-quarters of them from companies that had no product and had done nothing apart from sell the token. Then 2018 brought the ICO bust, as the SEC widened its crackdown on companies that conducted token sales and repeatedly made clear its view that the vast majority were unregistered securities offerings . (At a Yahoo Finance summit in 2018, an SEC official declared that the agency does not view bitcoin and ether as securities ; XRP, the token created by Ripple Labs, is currently facing a $1.3 billion SEC suit over this same distinction .) Market maturity With the ICO frenzy largely in the rearview, and with the largest U.S. crypto exchange site Coinbase planning to go public this year , the bitcoin market may be entering a new phase of maturity. The hope among crypto investors: This time is different from 2017. Wall Street investment firms pumped a total $5.75 billion into crypto funds in 2020, up 660% from 2019, according to a crypto inflows report from CoinShares. That flood has boosted Grayscale Investments, the largest crypto asset fund, to $20 billion in assets. The surge has brought the overall crypto market cap above $1 trillion for the first time . This week, trading volume across the major cryptocurrency exchanges hit a new daily record of $68.3 billion, according to CryptoCompare , suggesting an extremely active (if also volatile) trading market. The blockchain research firm Glassnode estimates so much bitcoin is being held by long-term institutional investors that just 22% of existing bitcoin is in circulation for trading , which could mean increased volatility. But with maturity comes regulation. Last month, FinCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an arm of the U.S. Treasury) proposed new, tighter customer information rules for crypto wallets. Companies that hold customer crypto funds were quick to voice their displeasure. Square released a statement saying that the new rules would not only hamstring law enforcement capabilities, but also limit American innovation by hindering our ability to create a competitive service that allows customers to seamlessly transfer and transact in crypto. Coinbase and the powerful VC firm Andreessen Horowitz plan to fight the rules in court. Separately, this week the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a different bureau within Treasury) declared that federally chartered banks are free to embrace stablecoins , cryptocurrencies that are pegged to the price of the fiat currency like the U.S. dollar to limit volatility. (Facebooks intended Libra token, now rebranded Diem, is a stablecoin.) Wall Street firms may welcome regulation as a sign of seriousness, but regulation is at odds with the original appeal of bitcoin to its earliest adopters (many of whom were libertarian): that its outside government reach and control, unregulated, no middleman. This push and pull is yet another narrative that will continue and intensify in 2021 and beyond, as the bitcoin investment market matures. Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and has covered bitcoin since 2011. Follow him on Twitter at @ readDanwrite . Read more: Bitcoin breaks $30,000 as 2020 surge continues into new year Bitcoin shatters $20,000 mark, breakthrough price milestone for the largest digital asset Bitcoin hits new all time high close to $20k, driven by institutional buying Visa has also quietly warmed to crypto, along with PayPal and Square Why bitcoin and altcoins are hot again this summer Square's bitcoin bet is paying off Jamie Dimon says bitcoin is 'not my cup of tea' even as JPMorgan has warmed to crypto || PayPal (PYPL) Invests in TaxBit, Boosts Cryptocurrency Presence: PayPal PYPL is leaving no stone unturned to bolster its presence in the promising cryptocurrency market. This is evident from the latest investment of PayPal’s venture arm in U.S.-based tech startup TaxBit, a firm that provides cryptocurrency tax automation software. Reportedly, other companies namely Coinbase, and Winklevoss Capital have also invested in TaxBit. Founded in 2017, Taxbit’s software enables consumers and businesses to calculate the taxes owed on their cryptocurrency holdings. As bitcoin and other virtual currencies are treated as property for tax purposes in the United States, Taxbit can help people to optimize taxes on these holdings. We note that the move will enhance PayPal’s position in the cryptocurrency market. PayPal Holdings, Inc. Price and Consensus PayPal Holdings, Inc. price-consensus-chart | PayPal Holdings, Inc. Quote Cryptocurrency Market Holds Promise Cryptocurrencies, which hold the potential to revolutionize the process of peer-to-peer and remittance transactions, are gaining significantly from a decentralized system, low fee, transparency of distributed ledger technology, protection from consumer charge backs, and quick international transfers. Additionally, the growing demand for alternative currency as a result of the ongoing pandemic remains a tailwind. All these factors are driving growth in digital currency (especially bitcoin) transactions throughout the world. Per a report from Statista, the number of daily bitcoin transactions at third-quarter 2020 end exceeded 351 million, jumping significantly from around 200 million in first-quarter 2016. Further, a report from Fortune Business Insights shows that the global cryptocurrency market is expected to hit $1.8 billion in 2027 from $754 million in 2019, witnessing a CAGR of 11.2%. PayPal is well-poised to reap benefits from the rapidly growing market on the back of its latest move and strong focus on expansion of its bitcoin facilities. Story continues Bottom Line In this data-driven world, blockchain-backed cryptocurrency space has gained solid traction on the heels of an increasing bitcoin adoption, the most popular and widely used digital currency. Companies like Square SQ, Intel INTC, Advanced Micro Devices AMD and NVIDIA are all making efforts to strengthen presence in this market. Coming to PayPal, the company helps merchants to accept crypto payments via partnerships with three major bitcoin payment processors — BitPay, GoCoin and Coinbase. Further, the payment processing company recently launched a service that allows its customers to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin and Ethereum directly from their PayPal and Venmo app. Also, the company announced its intentions to enable cryptocurrency as a funding source across its 26 million merchants worldwide. We note the latest investment will continue to aid PayPal in gaining momentum among customers. Zacks Rank PayPal currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here . More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone! It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market. Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2021. Click here for the 6 trades >> 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 Intel Corporation (INTC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis Report PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Square, Inc. (SQ) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin Price Could Hit $50K in 2021, Bloomberg Analysts Say: The path of least resistance for bitcoin is on the higher side, and the cryptocurrency could more than double from its current value in 2021, according to Bloomberg analysts.
“Bitcoinwill maintain its propensity to advance in price into 2021, in our view, with macroeconomic, technical and demand [versus] supply indicators supportive of $50,000 target resistance, implying about a $1 trillion market cap,”notedBloomberg Crypto in a monthly report.
The demand-supply mechanics are currently skewed bullish, as only 900 new coins mined each day compared with 1,800 in 2017, and institutional participation is increasing.
Related:$50K BTC in 2021? Bloomberg Analysts Join the 'Traditional Onslaught' Driving Bitcoin's Rally
Notably, assets under management at Grayscale Bitcoin Trustrecently breachedthe $10 billion level, having begun the year at $2 billion. The trust has bought nearly 70% of new bitcoins mined since May 11, when the cryptocurrency underwent its third reward halving. Grayscale is owned by Digital Currency Group, which is also the parent company of CoinDesk.
Open interest in the bitcoin futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has risen above $1 billion for the first time on record compared with closer to $120 million in 2019, as per data source Skew.
Bloomberg analysts said they expect these trends to continue in 2021 because major central banks and governments are unlikely to scale back or halt their inflation-boosting stimulus programs anytime soon. The unconventional policies adopted by authorities to counter the coronavirus-induced slowdown have boosted demand for bitcoin and gold this year.
Past data also favors a rally to $50,000, according to Bloomberg. “The 2017 advance followed a 2016 supply reduction to 1,800 coins a day, and similar occurred in 2012-13,” Bloomberg analysts noted.
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Dips Below $19,000 as Ether Options Volume Drops
Historylooks to be repeatingitself. Bitcoin’s recent move to a new record high of $19,920 has happened roughly seven months following the May 11 reward halving. Similar price action had unfolded following the July 2016 supply reduction.
Read more:Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments
While the odds appear stacked in favor of the bulls, the cryptocurrency remains vulnerable to a March-like panic sell-off in the global equity markets, according to Bloomberg analysts. However, they do not see prices falling below $10,000.
“The $10,000 mark has shifted to a critical support level after serving as the crypto’s resistance mark since 2017,” the report says.
Bitcoin fell sharply to $3,867 in March as global stock markets collapsed on fears of coronavirus-led recession, boosting demand for cash. Prices quickly recovered to $10,000 ahead of the May 11 reward halving.
The top cryptocurrency by market value reached a record high of $19,920 earlier this week, surpassing the previous all-time high of $19,783 reached in December 2017. Prices have more than doubled in the past three months alone.
• Bitcoin Price Could Hit $50K in 2021, Bloomberg Analysts Say
• Bitcoin Price Could Hit $50K in 2021, Bloomberg Analysts Say
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: no change || Prices: 35566.66, 33922.96, 37316.36, 39187.33, 36825.37, 36178.14, 35791.28, 36630.07, 36069.80, 35547.75
|
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 2020-11-10]
BTC Price: 15290.90, BTC RSI: 70.95
Gold Price: 1875.40, Gold RSI: 45.36
Oil Price: 41.36, Oil RSI: 57.43
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 27, 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
[["Digital Asset", "Pair", "Price", "24hr Chg", "7d Chg", "24/hr Volume", "MarketCap"], ["Bitcoin", "BTC/USD", "$13,658.93", "$0.05", "$0.14", "$31,838 M", "$253,072 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$406.44", "$0.04", "$0.10", "$13,620 M", "$46,001 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.25", "$0.02", "$0.03", "$2,239 M", "$11,388 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$265.29", "$0.03", "$0.09", "$2,655 M", "$4,923 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$57.64", "$0.03", "$0.22", "$3,382 M", "$3,790 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$175.66", "$0.03", "$0.12", "$990 M", "$3,259 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$2.66", "$0.01", "$0.05", "$2,069 M", "$2,489 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$133.44", "$0.02", "$0.12", "$870 M", "$2,367 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.08", "$0.01", "-$0.00", "$167 M", "$1,703 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$70.65", "$0.01", "-$0.01", "$403 M", "$691 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/612635/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || EOS, Stellar’s Lumen, and Tron’s TRX – Daily Analysis – October 26th, 2020: EOS rose by 1.87% on Sunday. Following on from a 0.67% gain on Saturday, EOS ended the week up by 6.29% to $2.7095.
It was a mixed start to the day. EOS fell to an early morning intraday low $2.5959 before making a move.
The pullback saw EOS fall through the first major support level at $2.6240 before striking a late intraday high $2.7431.
EOS broke through the first major resistance level at $2.6888 and the second major resistance level at $2.7163.
A bearish end to the day, however, saw EOS fall back through the second major resistance level to end the day at sub-$2.71 levels.
At the time of writing, EOS was up by 0.47% to $2.7222. A mixed start to the day saw EOS fall to an early morning low $2.6973 before rising to a high $2.7528.
EOS left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
EOS would need to avoid a fall through the $2.6828 pivot level to support a run at the first major resistance level at $2.7698.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for EOS to break out from the morning high $2.7528.
Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level would likely cap any upside.
Failure to avoid a fall through the pivot level at $2.6828 would bring the first major support level at $2.6226 into play.
Barring another extended sell-off, however, EOS should steer of sub-$2.60 levels and the second major support level at $2.5356.
First Major Support Level: $2.6226
First Major resistance Level: $2.7698
23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $6.52
38% FIB Retracement Level: $9.68
62% FIB Retracement Level: $14.77
Stellar’s Lumen fell by 2.87% on Sunday. Reversing a 2.20% gain from Saturday, Stellar’s Lumen ended the week up by 4.67% to $0.083177.
It was a mixed start to the day. Stellar’s Lumen rose to an early morning intraday high $0.085851 before hitting reverse.
Falling short of the first major resistance level at $0.08681, Stellar’s Lumen slid to a late afternoon intraday low $0.082125.
Stellar’s Lumen fell through the first major support level at $0.08390 and the second major support level at $0.08219.
Finding late support, however, Stellar’s Lumen briefly revisited $0.085 levels before closing out at $0.083 levels.
Stellar’s Lumen fell back through the first major support level to end the day in the deep red.
At the time of writing, Stellar’s Lumen was up by 0.94 to $0.083959. A mixed start to the day saw Stellar’s Lumen fall to an early morning low $0.082549 before rising to a high $0.084285.
Stellar’s Lumen left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
Stellar’s Lumen would need to avoid a fall back through the $0.08372 pivot to support a run at the first major resistance level at $0.08531.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Stellar’s Lumen to break back through to $0.085 levels.
Barring another broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Sunday’s high $0.085851 would likely cap any upside.
Failure to avoid a fall back through the $0.08372 pivot level would bring the first major support level at $0.08158 into play.
Barring an extended crypto sell-off, however, Stellar’s Lumen should steer clear of sub-$0.080 levels. The second major support level sits at $0.07999.
First Major Support Level: $0.08158
First Major Resistance Level: $0.08531
23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $0.09280
38% FIB Retracement Level: $0.1333
62% FIB Retracement Level: $0.1989
Tron’s TRX rose by 0.38% on Sunday. Following on from a 1.41% gain on Saturday, Tron’s TRX ended the week up by 4.18% to $0.027121.
It was a mixed start to the day. Tron’s TRX rose to an early morning intraday high $0.02773 before falling to an early morning intraday low $0.02648.
Tron’s TRX broke through the first major resistance level at $0.02758 before falling through the first major support level at $0.02664.
Finding support through the afternoon, however, Tron’s TRX recovered to $0.02710 levels to end the day in the green.
At the time of writing, Tron’s TRX was up by 0.67% to $0.027303. A mixed start to the day saw Tron’s TRX fall to an early morning low $0.02680 before rising to a high $0.02735.
Tron’s TRX left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
Tron’s TRX would need to avoid a fall back through the $0.02711 pivot level to support another run at the first major resistance level at $0.02775.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Tron’s TRX to break back through to $0.0277 levels.
Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Sunday’s $0.027734 high would likely cap any upside.
Failure to avoid a fall back through the $0.02711 pivot level would bring the first major support level at $0.02649 into play.
Barring an extended sell-off, however, Tron’s TRX should steer clear of sub-$0.026 levels. The second major support level sits at $0.02585.
First Major Support Level: $0.02649
First Major Resistance Level: $0.02775
23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $0.0291
38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $0.0428
62% FIB Retracement Level: $0.0648
Please let us know what you think in the comments below
Thanks, Bob
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• COVID-19 Virus Put Crude Oil Prices in Jeopardy || StormX Launches New Referral Bonus for Cryptocurrency Cashback Users: SINGAPORE / ACCESSWIRE / October 22, 2020 /StormX, the pre-eminent Crypto Cash Back and rewards platform, has just announced a new ambitious referral program for StormX - an app that allows users to earn Crypto Cash Back for shopping at over 500 online stores supported by the platform.
As part of the new referral program, users will now be able to earn back cryptocurrency for each friend they refer to the platform if they sign up for a Gold, Platinum, or Diamond membership level and maintain their status for at least 90 days.
More Rewards For Users
As a Crypto Cash Back app, StormX allows users to earn a variable cryptocurrency cashback percentage on orders placed with any of the online stores supported by the app. This can range from a few percent up to 87.5% depending on the user's StormX membership level.
StormX users have the ability to boost their Crypto Cash Back rewards by up to 250% and cut the time taken for rewards to become withdrawable by up to 75% by registering for one of several membership levels. With support for a massive range of online retailers, including eBay, Nike, AliExpress, NewEgg, CDKeys, Gamestop, and 500+ more available to choose from, users will be able to easily earn cashback from some of their favorite stores.
"With the potential to earn up to 5.6% cashback at eBay, 22% from AliExpress, and 24.5% cashback at Agoda, StormX offers incredible value for users and an easy way for everyday shoppers to easily gain exposure to a wide array of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and our native StormX token," said Simon Yu, CEO and Co-founder of StormX."
Referrers will earn different amounts based on the level or registration (Gold, Platinum or Diamond) user that joins StormX under their referral links, and meets the minimum requirements. To learn more, please go to.
StormX will also be introducing its own staking rewards feature in Q4 2020, giving users a way to earn a passive income on their StormX tokens (STMX) by staking them through the app. This is in line with StormX's plans to maximize value for its members.
Rapid Growth
Since StormX launched its new Shop feature in February 2020, the platform has seen an incredible response among online shopping and witnessed a dramatic uptick in its userbase - recently breaking through the 350,000 user milestone.
The company has also seen sales consistently more than doubling month over month, highlighting its rapid adoption as a cashback solution.
With over 350,000 unique users and 2.5 million app downloads and growing, StormX is on track to make both cashback and cryptocurrencies accessible to more people than ever before.
About StormX
StormX enables members to shop online at their favorite stores to earn over 85% crypto back. StormX's online Crypto Cash Back solution is supported by ultra-secure blockchain technology and a heavily experienced team committed to keeping users safe and maximizing the value delivered to StormX members.
Related Links:Website:https://stormx.ioAndroid app:https://bit.ly/2IbqNJxiOS app:https://apple.co/3lrOlZ6Chrome plugin:https://bit.ly/2SDQ0OU
Contact:
Keith BaumwaldStormXEmail:keith@stormx.io
SOURCE:StormX
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/611750/StormX-Launches-New-Referral-Bonus-for-Cryptocurrency-Cashback-Users || 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.
• 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 || Playboy CEO Sells $25.8 Million Mansion to Bitcoin Investor Josh Jones: Around the time he became CEO of Playboy Enterprises, L.A.-based financierBen Kohnbegan the construction of a lavish new estate on L.A.’s Westside, within one of the area’s only guard-gated communities. Before the house was completed earlier this year, Kohn changed his mind about moving into the mansion — or maybe he intended to flip it all along — because the place was shopped around off-market and toured by Justin Bieber and Haley Baldwin, who allegedly took a shine to the house and initiated escrow on it, though that deal was ultimately called off. (The high-profile couple eventually paid $25.8 million for a different home, this one high in the mountains above Beverly Hills.)
In June, the Kohn compound popped up on the open market with a $30 million pricetag, and the property quickly sold for $25.8 million — the biggest deal recorded inBrentwoodso far this year. The new owners are tech entrepreneur-turned-leading Bitcoin investorJosh Jones, who already lives in the general area but had been seeking a residential upgrade.
Described as a “young and hip Mediterranean” in listing materials, the nearly 9,300 sq. ft. structure was designed by L.A. megamansion specialistWilliam Hefner, with interiors byEstee Stanley. The red-tile-roofed house sports a mesmerizing entryway, with double glass doors that swing into a foyer that opens — via another set of double glass doors — directly to the backyard, where there’s a sprawling lawn and Century City skyline views framed by mature olive trees.
Gorgeous herringbone-patterned hardwood floors flow into the living room, which offers a beamed ceiling with a crystal chandelier and fireplace. Other public spaces have decidedly contemporary finishes, like the formal dining that easily seats 10 and opens to an outdoor terrace. The magazine-worthy kitchen offers book-matched marble walls, designer Bluestar appliances sheathed in a shiny black lacquer, and custom rustic oak cabinetry for contrast. There’s also a family room that opens to a screened loggia with a limestone fireplace.
The master suite, one of five bedroom suites in the house, includes multiple banks of windows with dazzling views of the entire L.A. basin and — on a clear day — the Pacific Ocean, plus a marble-slathered bathroom and dual closets. There’s also an upstairs family room and a carpeted screening room that’s more casual than the typical mansion’s movie theater but perfectly suits the effortlessly luxurious, low-key vibe of the property.
Outdoors, the 1.8-acre hilltop lot boasts al fresco dining area, a substantial gated motorcourt, and a lap-lane swimming pool with inset spa. The aforementioned grassy lawn is big enough for a soccer pitch — just make sure any out-of-bounds balls don’t go flying down the steep hillside.
Jones, a 42-year-old alumnus of Claremont’s Harvey Mudd College, cofounded web hosting service Dreamhost in 1996. Since then, the company has grown to employ 200 and now services over 400,000 customers worldwide. But to the public at large, Jones may be best-known for his earlyinvolvement with Bitcoin, a lucrative investment — Jonesdescribes himselfas a bitcoin “billionaire” — that turned sour after hereportedly had $45 million worth of bitcoin currency stolenfrom him online account, a major theft that was widely reported online.
In addition to his new $25.8 million Brentwood estate, Jones owns at least four other multimillion-dollar homes on L.A.’s Westside, according to property records, all of them in Santa Monica. His main residence appears to be a $6.2 million Cape Cod-style in a leafy part of the city, while he also own side-by-side teardown houses in the same general area. Shortly after the Brentwood mansion was acquired in July, the two Santa Monica teardown were both put up for sale, asking a total of $11.6 million.
And in 2018, he purchased a plum oceanfront property in Santa Monica that consists of a 1930s cottage sandwiched between two massive neighboring mansions. Records show that demolition permits have since been acquired for the address in question.
Gary GoldofHilton & Hylandheld the listing;David Kramer andAndrew Buss, also of Hilton & Hyland, repped Jones.
Launch Gallery:Inside Bitcoin Investor Josh Jones' $25.8 Million Brentwood Mansion
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• Michael Feinstein Finally Sells Historic Los Feliz Mansion || Filecoin: Understanding the Complex Crypto System Meant to Rival AWS: Filecoin might be the most complex thing the blockchain industry has ever brought to market. The Web 3.0 data-storage project, funded by a $257 million initial coin offering that closed in September 2017 , has been building out its technology ever since. While Filecoin has been quieter than most over that time, Filecoin is currently wrapping up a very active incentivized testnet called Space Race . There are 1.5 million FIL tokens allocated to testnet participants, though it’s hard to assess the value of that offer when the company has refused to discuss details that might inform FIL’s underlying price. Nonetheless, this testnet has been quite popular. Related: Internet 2030: The Future and How We Get There “Miners are learning a ton,” Filecoin’s Ian Darrow told CoinDesk. More than $100 million worth of hardware has come online to serve the testnet, he said. More than 200 pebibytes of data capacity has been proven. “Overall, it’s exceeded expectations,” Darrow said. There are futures markets for the forthcoming token, too. Gate.io is currently trading futures at $18.50 in USDT as of this writing. In a recent investor letter, Pantera Capital said that Filecoin futures were “trading well above our cost basis.” Filecoin’s creator Juan Benet has a bright vision for the future of the web, and thus the Filecoin network aims to be a next-generation marketplace for data storage and retrieval, potentially competing with the web giants that control the data storage space – Amazon, Microsoft and Google – and content delivery networks like Cloudflare. Sept. 15, 2020 | 4 p.m. ET We’re hosting a conversation with Filecoin founder Juan Benet, Filecoin project lead Colin Evran, Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and CoinDesk senior reporter Brady Dale. Watch it live on CoinDesk.com , Twitter or YouTube . Related: What Is Yearn Finance? The DeFi Gateway Everyone Is Talking About Story continues While it’s true the cost of storage has only trended down and selling storage has effectively made it a commodity product, the Filecoin thesis is two-fold: Demand for data storage will soon skyrocket. There will be demand for a new kind of storage, one that can prove redundancy and accessibility. The last Filecoin roadmap update that addressed mainnet launch said it would happen in mid- to late September. When we spoke to Darrow he said this was still on track. “Unlike centralized cloud storage services, which back up data in ways clients can’t change or verify, Filecoin allows clients to easily express their own preferences for reliability and cost,” a new document released ahead of the network launch, Engineering Filecoin’s Economy , explains. It goes into several key elements of the new system. Here are some of the main takeaways. 1. Miners will need to post considerable collateral in order to participate. “One thing that I don’t think was super-well understood before this came out is the mechanics and the rationale around how miner collateral works in Filecoin,” Darrow said. Mining on Filecoin is largely about providing storage space using traditional storage systems. This is commodity hardware. Almost anyone with an internet connection can participate. A quality one-terabyte hard drive can be purchased for around $50, though most entities participating will put up vastly more than that. The point being that Filecoin does not enjoy the expensiveness of specialized hardware (such as Bitcoin or Ethereum ASICs) as a way to discourage unserious participants, so it needs to require a slashable stake in order to prevent malicious actors from accepting deals for terms they don’t honor. The Filecoin system requires upfront collateral. Block rewards are also subject to vesting, in order to help ensure participants stick around long enough to honor commitments. 2. The incentives are built to avoid an early land grab. Filecoin wants the storage capacity of the network to grow, but without inducing an ugly “Day 1 gold rush,” said Darrow. “There’s this really nasty incentive for people to pile in early,” Darrow said of other projects. “Mining rewards are the highest early, total mining power is the lowest, so you attract a lot of people who are bouncing from project to project.” Filecoin has a pre-set growth schedule for storage capacity and 70% of the mining rewards are tied to that baseline. If the network hasn’t hit that target, then block rewards are reduced to the proportion it has achieved. The idea, Darrow explained, is to lessen the first-mover advantage. “Because the network reward grows as mining power grows, it matters less when a miner enters the network,” he said via email. “The overall result is that Filecoin rewards to miners more closely match the utility they, and the network as a whole, provide to clients,” the “Economy” document states. Filecoin increases the baseline 200% annually, only giving the community an option to slow its growth down once the network reaches over 1% of global storage. Based on the experience with the Space Race, Darrow said, “It seems like we won’t have trouble hitting pretty gaudy numbers in the first year.” 3. The main concern is launching a network that’s ready for business. One of the features that might seem strange about Filecoin at the outset is that participants can earn rewards for storing nothing. This is referred to as committed capacity. It’s effectively empty space that has nevertheless received the Filecoin cryptographic treatment and is getting logged and rewarded on the system. At first blush, this might not make any sense, but it’s a matter of having some room in the system. “What you don’t want is a network where there’s no extra capacity available or you don’t know extra capacity is available,” Darrow said. Further, because all nodes are also participating in securing the Filecoin blockchain, they are contributing to consensus. That said, Filecoin doesn’t want that many participants to commit empty blocks, so an incentive system has been created to push folks to find real clients. 4. ‘Verified clients’ are a key incentive. Serving verified clients earns significantly higher block rewards. These are real companies with real needs making real deals for data. The idea is it won’t be that hard to become a verified client, but its business should be significantly more attractive to those on the network. “Verified clients are certified by a decentralized network of verifiers,” the new document explains. This will be a set of large, recognizable entities in the ecosystem, Darrow said, though the list is not public. It will be groups such as: nonprofits that do a lot of data storage, academic entities and the major foundations of the blockchain world. Storing verified client data will receive higher block rewards than unverified data or empty blocks (since it is encrypted, the Filecoin network cannot tell the difference between the two). In fact, Filecoin has already been seeding the world with verified data. Because verified data is so attractive, Darrow said the team expects miners will do business-development work to try to secure deals with verified clients, helping to improve overall competitiveness across the system. 5. AWS isn’t the only thing Filecoin might unseat. Filecoin is usually described as entering the space of Amazon Web Services or Dropbox, but it’s a bit more disruptive than that. Filecoin also seeks to account for content delivery network (CDN) services as well. The most famous CDN is probably Cloudflare, and these networks fulfill a surprising role on the internet. Data moves fast but the world is big, and it’s still true that a file closer to a user gets there noticeably faster than one that’s further away. Most stored data never gets touched and so will never need these services, but some stored data becomes very popular. For such popular data, companies can provide retrieval services, meaning they would get paid for serving the data to customers. An example Darrow gave was when a certain video goes viral. A CDN could cache copies of that video all over the world and bid for the chance to serve it to viewers. These additional copies would not count toward the copies the client had paid to keep securely on Filecoin, but they could be used in a retrieval market. In many if not most cases, Darrow said, the storage providers will also provide the retrieval services, but there are likely to be cases in which it makes sense for CDN-like entities to step in for certain files. 6. Everything in the Filecoin system has an upfront cost. Clients pay for storage in FIL, which is volatile. The Filecoin system requires storage clients to commit their payments upfront over the life of a deal, though miners will only get paid if they meet their commitment. The “Economy” document illuminates the advantages of this arrangement: “In addition to collateral commitments from both parties, there’s also a deal payment from client to miner. This payment is initially locked by the client when the deal is incorporated into the blockchain; as a result, the client’s exposure to Filecoin price volatility ends the moment they enter into a storage deal. Payment is released to the miner as some fraction of the total deal fee per payment period.” On the other hand, many storage clients may be accustomed to paying as they go rather than paying a lump sum at the beginning. Darrow said the trade-off here is they only pay for what they need. As money on the internet becomes more complex, this will also likely present an opportunity for third parties to finance upfront payments for companies that want to use Filecoin but pay at flexible regular intervals. 7. Filecoin treats every chunk of data like it’s special. One of the most important facets of Filecoin to understand is that it relies on a concept called content addressing. Most addressing on the internet relies on locations. Go to a URL and see the thing you want there. As the internet ages, more and more of these links are dead. Called “link rot,” there’s a growing push among bloggers to link to archives rather than the original sources. Filecoin points to content, not location, though, which means it might be found in any number of places. Filecoin takes this a step further and also cryptographically proves the uniqueness of each copy. So if a client wanted to know there were 101 copies of file all around the world, they could use proofs to verify both that each copy was unique and that they were well distributed around the globe. This is Filecoin’s $257 million bet: Storage customers will make considerably more nuanced demands of storage providers as the internet becomes vastly more important than it already is. Update (Sept. 15, 13:47 UTC): Added clarifying information about the intent of Filecoin’s incentive structure in the second section. Related Stories Filecoin: Understanding the Complex Crypto System Meant to Rival AWS Filecoin: Understanding the Complex Crypto System Meant to Rival AWS || Bitcoin Surges to 2020 High, Ethereum Rises Modestly above $389: Bitcoin Rules the Day The pair began the day at $11,918 and instantly began trending upwards without significant corrective moves. The whole day was like almost constant unobstructed rising for Bitcoin as of 17:30 UTC. After 17:30 UTC the price slumped down slightly after 17:30 UTC as the traders began locking in their profits. The days price action shows that Bitcoin is in a strongly bullish mode. Yesterdays breakthrough above $11,862 was a pivotal event in Bitcoins trading that has evidently and finally opened the road to $14,000, which may be not very far ahead. Fridays U.S. presidential debates may have their own effect on Bitcoins price action in the short term as a Democratic lead will be putting more selling pressure on the USD, which will inevitably reflect in a bullish price action in BTC/USD. Since there are no barriers on the chart for BTC/USD until $13,949 by the CEX.IO chart, the pair may finish this week well above $13,000, closing Wednesdays trading session above $12,400. Ethereum Biting Bitcoins Dust Compared to Bitcoins surge, Ethereums Wednesdays price action, though looking strong enough in percent +6.8% as of 18:00 UTC, was only a pale shadow of Bitcoins gains simply from the graphic viewpoint. The smart-contract pioneer opened Wednesdays session at $369.6 and continued in a chart pattern looking quite similar to Bitcoins one. Since the start of the day, ETH/USD began trending up, not even being withheld by the daily $378 daily resistance level. A slight correction followed between 5:00 and 9:00 UTC, with ETH/USD bouncing off the $378 level and turning it into support. Between 16:00 and 17:00 UTC, the pair reached $399.6, which was the days high as of 18:30 UTC. This modest rise amid the heady upside price action in Bitcoin was only a small consolation for Ethereum backers. Probably the launch of Ethereum 2.0 mainnet, which still looks quite far ahead, is making people tired of waiting and puts additional selling pressure on Ethereum. However, there is a little sign of hope for Ether from the technical side of trading as the 20-day SMA has finally made it above the 50-day SMA, which indicates a bullish market. But considering the bullishness in the Bitcoin market, Ethers upside prospects look very uncertain. Story continues Konstantin Anissimov, Executive Director at CEX.IO This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Tesla Posts Fifth Straight Profit in Q3 with Record Revenue of $8.77 Billion AUD/USD Daily Forecast Resistance At 0.7130 In Sight PayPal Rockets to All-Time High After Adding Cryptocurrencies U.S. Dollar Index (DX) Futures Technical Analysis Optimism Over Stimulus Deal Could Extend Break into 91.750 Oil Bears Clawing Down amid Soft Energy Demand Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast EIA Gasoline Inventory Build Raises Concerns About Fuel Demand || Three Safe Ways to Enter the Cryptoconomy: The news of PayPals (NASDAQ: PYPL ) entry into crypto, enabling users to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, adds to the bullish sentiment in the market and provides another indicator of growing mainstream adoption. The payment giant joins the likes of Square ( SQ ) in embracing Bitcoin, despite having initially dismissed the technology. Since new entrants are cautious of the perceived dangers in the space, however, there is a need for solutions that can lower the barriers to entry, strip away complexity, and reduce risk. Here are three projects working on solutions to make crypto more welcoming for newcomers and more useful for long-term participants. Sögurs Volatility Dampening Volatility is one of the most regularly cited concerns for investors when it comes to digital assets, and the greater the volatility, the greater the price risk. Given the comparative immaturity of the asset class and lack of liquidity compared to traditional markets, crypto can be subject to significant price swings. As a result, it is more susceptible to negative developments, such as exchange hacks, as well as macro geopolitical events that impact all markets. Cryptocurrency project Sögur aims to tame such volatility via its SGR token. Sögurs monetary model, backed by a variable reserve held in national currencies, mirrors the composition of the IMFs SDR and is designed to build trust and stimulate growth. The key feature of this model is blockchain-based liquidity provision: a smart contract that offers to sell and issue new SGR or buy back and burn tokens. The aim is to dampen volatility in the short-term while still allowing market forces to determine SGRs value in the long-term. This feature allows SGR to ensure its purchasing power does not change significantly day-to-day. It does not require a fixed exchange rate with any particular currency, but its value should not be erratically volatile either, offering the best of both worlds. Story continues Kirobos Safe Transactions Fears over the safety of making transactions without losing funds is another significant concern, with over 18% of cryptocurrency users estimated to have lost funds through sending errors, according to the 2019 FIO Blockchain Usability Report . Cryptocurrency transactions require a greater level of personal responsibility, and simple mistakes like sending funds to the wrong address prove costly as they are irreversible. Blockchain startup Kirobo offers a novel solution in this regard to protect cryptocurrency users from human error. With support from the Israel Innovation Authority, it has developed an additional logic layer for blockchain protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum. This feature, known as Retrievable Transfer, is suitable for individuals, custodians, exchanges, and wallet providers wanting to incorporate further transactional security measures. The solution acts as a third verification step, helping users avoid losses from transaction errors by requiring senders to add a passcode to their transfer that must be matched by the receiver before funds are released. Until the recipient enters the correct code, the sender can cancel and retrieve the funds, mitigating any such errors. Skrills Custodianship Uncertainty in the task of crypto self-custody and a lack of understanding surrounding crypto-native services causes concern regarding the secure holding of assets. When it comes to the custody of crypto investments, the loss of private keys, which act as a digital key to unlock the safe containing assets, can be disastrous. While self-custody is viable for some, traditional investors used to custodians for managing assets have sought similar solutions in the crypto space. Theyre seeking a solution that can provide the levels of security that they are used to, and in large volumes. Traditional payment platform Skrill has been operating an online payment and money transfer service since 2001. Skrill began offering a fiat-to-crypto gateway in 2018, providing a simple yet secure way for its existing customer base to convert 40 different currencies into Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital assets. It further expanded its operation this year to provide direct crypto-to-crypto services too. Skrill operates a custody service for crypto, taking on the responsibility of managing private-key security for users via a network of approved custodians. Its reputation in the traditional payments and money transfer market provides peace of mind to investors who prefer to leave the security of such assets in the hands of a qualified custodian with a history of financial integrity. Breaking Down Barriers to Entry Solutions to the most cited concerns surrounding digital asset investment are closing the gap between legacy and crypto financial services, helping to break down the remaining barriers to entry in the market. A combination of these services can now be deployed by investors, allowing access to the utility and growth potential of this nascent space while reducing the associated risks. Disclosure: No positions. Insider Monkey doesnt recommend purchase/sale of any securities. Please get in touch with a financial professional before making any financial decisions. You understand that Insider Monkey doesnt accept any responsibility and you will be using the information presented here at your own risk. You acknowledge that this disclaimer is a simplified version of our Terms of Use, and by accessing or using our site, you agree to be bound by all of its terms and conditions. If at any time you find these terms and conditions unacceptable, you must immediately leave the Site and cease all use of the Site. || Bitcoin CEO: MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor Explains His $425M Bet on BTC: MicroStrategy is prepared to HODL its bitcoin for at least a century.
Or so said the business intelligence firm’s founder and CEO, Michael Saylor, in an interview with CoinDesk on Tuesday, shortly after heannouncedon Twitter that MicroStrategy was doubling down on the godfather cryptocurrency with the purchase of $175 million moreBTC.
“I want something that I could put $425 million into for 100 years,” Saylor told CoinDesk.
Related:Bakkt Bitcoin Futures Daily Trading Volume Hits Record High
In the last two months Saylor has transformed his company’s once-sleepy cash surplus into a nearly half-billion-dollar bet on bitcoin, the “digital gold” Saylor is certain will outlast his tenure.
“If [my successor is] staring at this thing, it’s still working,” he said.
“This thing” is a heaping pile of 38,250 bitcoins. The publicly traded firmbought $250 millionworth on Aug. 11, days after telling shareholders that cash was no longer a safe place for its excess $500 million. Tuesday morning, it bought $175 million more.
Read more:MicroStrategy Buys $175M More in Bitcoin, Upping BTC Holdings to $425M
Related:First Mover: Binance's CZ Doesn't Even Dispute That DeFi Might Be Inevitable
Forget about parking the balance sheet surplus in inflation-prone cash or low-yield bonds or overextended tech stocks, Saylor said. In a market like this – and in the future he said is certain to come – there are only two good places to put excess cash to work: stock buybacks and bitcoin.
It’s a radical about-face for a man who seven years ago declared bitcoin’s days were numbered.
What sparked the change?
“I went down the rabbit hole” during COVID-19, Saylor said, admitting he “was wrong” to have doubted bitcoin back in the $600 range.
“I wish I knew then what I know now,” he said.
The first step in his journey to conversion came from an unlikely source for a newly minted bitcoin maximalist: The sale of the “Voice.com” domain to EOS creator Block.one for $30 million in July 2019.
Fast forward to 2020, and Saylor found himself reading up on bitcoin. He learned as much about crypto as fast as he could. Saylor said he pored over essays by “bitcoin luminaries,” listened toNathaniel Whittemore’sand Anthony Pompliano’s crypto podcasts, scoured the internet for Peter Schiff’s bitcoin debates with Erik Voorhees and lost himself in Andreas Antonopoulos’ media empire.
COVID-19’s global business woes were actually a boon for MicroStrategy. Saylor said the firm soon realized it had far more cash on hand than it needed to operate in a newly streamlined virtual-first world.
Moving away from the dollar is now Saylor’s primary concern. He said he can’t stand the inflationary risk.
In bitcoin, he and the firm’s decision-makers have found what they deem the obvious choice for the coming century ofQE infinity.
“I started to cheerfully assign homework” to MicroStrategy’s executives and directors, Saylor said. He staged “a series of learning exercises to bring everyone up to speed.” If MicroStrategy was really going to move millions into bitcoin, then everyone had to be on board.
There was a lot of ground to cover, Saylor said. But in three months’ time, he and his executives had accrued the crypto education, and dealt with the myriad legal, custodial and security issues that he said stand in the way of publicly traded companies getting into crypto.
Then, in late July, executives unveiled the game plan on the firm’s Q2earnings call: MicroStrategy would seek to invest up to $250 million in the next 12 months “in one or more alternative investments or assets which may include stocks, bonds, commodities such as gold, digital assets such as [b]itcoin, or other asset types,” MicroStrategy resident Phong Li said on July 28.
It was a declaration so clouded in corporate vagueness that nobody really noticed the news.
A week passed before Castle Island Ventures partner Matt Walsh resurfaced the earnings call transcript in atweet. He noted how the Nasdaq-traded stock was “diversifying its cash holdings to include bitcoin.”
Walsh gave the news a double-eye emoji. Watch this, he was saying.
Observers didn’t have to wait long.
Six days later MicroStrategy poured all $250 million of its inflation-hedging surplus into bitcoin. Gone was the 12-month timeline and the promise to diversify across gold and other alternative assets. All bitcoin, all the time.
Come September, its board of directors had recognized bitcoin as MicroStrategy’s primary treasury reserve and hinted in an SEC filing that more buying could be on the way.
Read more:MicroStrategy Tells SEC It ‘May Increase’ $250M Bitcoin Reserves
It shattered the self-imposed $250 million bitcoin ceiling mere hours later.
As of press time, MicroStrategy has converted $425 million into bitcoin. The stock has surged 30% since its first bitcoin buy on Aug. 11. It was up 9% on Tuesday.
Other publicly traded tech firms – think Apple and Google – park billions of excess capital in cash and leave it there for years. But Saylor didn’t want to leave MicroStrategy’s millions in a bank account where the specter of inflation could slowly whittle it away.
“We just had the awful realization that we were sitting on top of a $500 million ice cube that’s melting,” Saylor said. MicroStrategy has settled on bitcoin as the treasury alternative.
“This is not a speculation, nor is it a hedge,” said Saylor. “This was a deliberate corporate strategy to adopt a bitcoin standard.”
• Bitcoin CEO: MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor Explains His $425M Bet on BTC
• Bitcoin CEO: MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor Explains His $425M Bet on BTC || Record $166M Ethereum Fees Last Month Were 6 Times Bigger Than Bitcoin’s: Ethereum miners earned over six times more in fees compared to those working on Bitcoin in September.
• Glassnode data shows Ethereum’s total transaction fees stood at an all-time high of $166 million for the month – far more than the $26 million taken in Bitcoin fees.
• Ethereum fees long trailed those on Bitcoin, but have been on a tear over the past few months as surging interest in DeFi led torecord transaction volumes.
• Fee revenue on Ethereum first outpaced Bitcoin’s in June – the same month decentralized lender Compound released its governance token andkick-started the DeFi mania.
• As the DeFi space picked up momentum, the difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin fees has increased from only $10 million in June to well over $70 million by August.
• Thursday’s data shows the fee disparity between the two protocols practically doubled to $140 million in September.
• Monthly Ethereum fees were just $1.5 million at the start of 2020.
• This coincides with total value locked (TVL) in DeFi, which first broke the $1 billion in February but surged over the summer to well over $11 billion, according toDeFi Pulse.
• HIVE Blockchain cited DeFi as a major contributing factor when reporting itearned approximately $12 million in feesin the second fiscal quarter, 30% up from Q1.
See also:DeFi Summer; Bitcoin Fall
• Record $166M Ethereum Fees Last Month Were 6 Times Bigger Than Bitcoin’s
• Record $166M Ethereum Fees Last Month Were 6 Times Bigger Than Bitcoin’s
• Record $166M Ethereum Fees Last Month Were 6 Times Bigger Than Bitcoin’s
• Record $166M Ethereum Fees Last Month Were 6 Times Bigger Than Bitcoin’s
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 15701.34, 16276.34, 16317.81, 16068.14, 15955.59, 16716.11, 17645.41, 17804.01, 17817.09, 18621.31
|
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 2021-12-21]
BTC Price: 48936.61, BTC RSI: 44.79
Gold Price: 1787.90, Gold RSI: 48.70
Oil Price: 71.12, Oil RSI: 46.23
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Member State Inflation Affirms Further Pickup in Eurozone Inflation: Finalized November inflation figures for France, Spain, and Italy were in focus early in the session. Impact on the EUR was relatively muted, however, with the markets looking ahead to the FOMC policy decision and projections.
In November, France’s annual rate of inflation picked up from 2.6% to 2.8%, which was in line with prelim figures. Month-on-month, consumer prices rose by 0.4%, which was also in line with prelim figures. In October, consumer prices had also risen by 0.4%.
According toInsee.Fr,
• Year-on-year, the pickup in inflation resulted from the acceleration in energy prices (+21.6% after +20.2%).
• There was also a pickup in inflation for manufactured goods prices (+0.8% after 0.3%) and service prices (+1.9% after 1.8%).
• The prices of food slowed down (+0.5% after +0.7%), however, with tobacco prices stabilizing (0.0% after +4.8%).
• Month-on-month, the key takeaway were softer prices of energy, which slowed from +4.8% to +1.5%).
Spain’s annual rate of inflation ticked up from 5.4% to 5.5% (prelim: 5.6%).
Ahead of today’s stats, the EUR had fallen to a pre-stat and current day low $1.12537 before rising to a pre-stat and current day high $1.12768.
In response today’s stats, the EUR fell to a post-stat low $1.12629 before rising to a post-stat high $1.12756.
At the time of writing, theEURwas up by 0.12% to $1.12724.
Italy’s finalized inflation figures for November will be out shortly. According to prelim figures, Italy’s annual rate of inflation accelerated from 3.0% to 3.8%.
From the U.S, NY Empire State Manufacturing Index and import and export price index figures are due out, along with retail sales numbers for November. Expect November’s retail sales figures to be of greater significance as the markets look for the impact of inflation on consumption.
While the retail sales figures will influence, the FOMC monetary policy decision and economic projections will be key, however. There’s plenty of uncertainty over when the tapering will come to an end and, more critically, how many right hikes are likely next year.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Second Bitcoin Buy Signal Off Support || Balancing Crypto’s Carbon Footprint with Its Social Utility is Key to Sustainable Finance: Banner big 1 The extraordinary growth that we have seen in the crypto and digital asset sector throughout this year has brought with it much attention from across media platforms, not all of which has been positive. With the industry in the spotlight, our global community has a welcome opportunity to communicate the nuances of the crypto-energy consumption debate, as well as the broader social utility of digital assets. For our report, Digital Assets: Laying ESG Foundations, we asked the members of Global Digital Finance to contribute their insight and research to help deepen the wider understanding of the role of digital assets in building sustainable financial systems. We were privileged to include the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance ’s observations on Bitcoin’s carbon footprint. Michel Rauchs and Alexander Neumueller call for those on both sides of the debate to raise the level of public discourse: neither the argument that Bitcoin is a climate disaster, nor that it has no environmental impact, holds up well in the face of the available data. A radical thought experiment suggests that, in a hypothetical worst case, Bitcoin could produce as much as 158 million metric tons of carbon dioxide this year. . “A radical thought experiment suggests that, in a hypothetical worst case, Bitcoin could produce as much as 158 million metric tons of carbon dioxide this year, or roughly 0.48% of the world’s total emissions in 2019 (assuming an annualized consumption of 100 TWh),” say Rauchs and Neumueller, adding that actual figures will be much lower when the renewable energy in use is accounted for. “While this is by no means a small feat, it is still far away from the climate disaster that opponents often paint.” Their data shows that the seasonal migration between hydro-rich Sichuan during the monsoon season and coal-rich Xinjiang during the dry season materially affected the energy profile of Bitcoin mining in China. With China’s recent crack down on crypto mining, the impact on the overall carbon footprint will be smaller, but this nevertheless demonstrates that the incentive to decarbonise is economic. Social Utility The debate is hindered by a lack of clear data. BitMEX and Coinbase both call the community to collaborate as an industry to share data needed to understand the full extent of the damage caused to the environment, and to address the impact accordingly, while ensuring this is not done at the expense of decentralization. We must assess digital assets just as we have judged legacy industries: by taking the social utility of the product into account while deciding how we address the environmental impact. As presented by R3 , DLA Piper , and Clifford Chance , distributed ledger technology and tokenization provide solutions to the challenges currently found in green and impact-linked bonds. As with many parts of the financial system, KPI-linked bonds suffer from a lack of automation and traceability. Tokenization provides a more stringent way to support the monitoring, reporting, and verification aspects of climate-related projects. Story continues “Funding a sustainable future will require a Herculean effort,” says R3 co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Todd McDonald. Tokenization can be used to finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets by providing the missing infrastructure and enabling accessible, liquid markets. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are leveraged to make ‘unbankable’ conservation projects bankable through art. Digital Key to Sustainability In this increasingly digital world, the overwhelming message from our community is that digital holds the key to sustainable finance. Z/Yen summarized industry frustrations with anti-crypoasset narratives in their article, Don ́t Throw The Digital Baby Out With The Climate Bathwater , in which they call for industry leaders and policy makers to not hinder cryptoasset trading activity at the expense of mandatory innovation in financial markets. Crypto may not be the climate disaster painted by many headlines, but the current environmental emergency suggests not being part of the problem is not enough – we must strive to be part of the solution. The GDF ESG report accurately reflects a community that is dedicated to improvements: improvements to public discourse, self-improvement concerning the industry’s carbon footprint, and improvements to legacy systems that are necessary for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). What Can We Do Better? Whether calling for the industry to share data on mining, help bank the unbanked, give access to funding in emerging markets, finance “unbankable” biodiversity projects, or Maker’s move to ensure all Dai’s collateral comprises sustainable and climate-aligned assets, it is clear that this is a community driven in its efforts to supporting sustainable finance. To turn this drive into further action, GDF will convene a community summit to discuss the what and how of delivering net zero in a digital finance context. The roundtable event will convene participants from across the crypto and digital assets market to gain perspectives on each part of the value chain in the context of net zero and the broader sustainability agenda, as well as insights on scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions, science-based targets and transition pathways, as they relate to this sector. We would like your input on this and invite you to have a voice in the discussion on how to mobilise the industry and to turn awareness into action. The GDF Summit: the Digital Assets-COP26 Dialogues will take place on 11 November 2021, 14:00 GMT. Find out more about the Summit here. For more information on how GDF engages with stakeholders across the digital asset ecosystem, visit gdf.io or follow us on Linkedin and Twitter . Read the original post on The Defiant . View comments || Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Faster Tapering, Slower Rate Hike Expectations Supporting Gold: Gold finished higher last week in a volatile trade. Surprisingly, the source of the volatility wasn’t inflation as some headline writers would like you to believe, but rather the Federal Reserve, in my opinion. While the decision by the Fed to increase the pace of tapering and raise rates was widely expected, investors didn’t expect policymakers to announce as many as three rate raises. However, that’s not the issue. While the pace of tapering was a major concern for weeks leading up to last Wednesday’s monetary policy announcements, the pace at which the Fed will raise interest rates is now a cause of concern. Last week, February Comex gold settled at $1804.90, up $20.10 or +1.13%. The SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) finished at $167.81, down $0.35 or -0.21%. Fed to Speed Up Tapering Pace, Forecasts Three Rate Hikes Next Year The Federal Reserve provided multiple indications last Wednesday that its run of ultra-easy policy since the beginning of the Covid pandemic is coming to a close, making aggressive policy moves in response to rising inflation. For one, the central bank said it will accelerate the reduction of its monthly bond purchases. The Fed will be buying $60 billion of bonds each month starting in January, half the level prior to the November taper and $30 billion less than it had been buying in December. The Fed was tapering by $15 billion a month in November, doubled that in December, then will accelerate the reduction further come 2022. After that wraps up, in late winter or early spring, the central bank expects to start raising interest rates, which were held steady at last week’s meeting. Projections released Wednesday indicate that Fed officials see as many as three rate hikes coming in 2022, with two in the following year and two more in 2024. Gold Rallies Despite Hawkish Fed “Sell the Rumor, Buy the Fact”, Relatively Cheap Prices, Inflation Still Out of Control, Rising Omicron Worries – Those are some of the reasons being cited for last week’s rally in gold after the Fed announced a hawkish strategy. Story continues Of course, there isn’t just one right answer. At first glance, I blamed “Sell the Rumor, Buy the Fact”. But after watching the price action in the Treasury yields and particularly the Treasury Yield Curve, I reached the conclusion that the volatile price action was fueled by aggressive position adjusting in the Treasury markets. It would have been easy to follow the Fed headlines calling for three rate hikes and just sell Treasurys. This would have sent yields higher and gold prices lower. But it’s more complicated than that. Treasury investors and consequently gold investors are now paying closer attention to when the Fed will raise rates perhaps as much as three times. Traders now interpret it to mean the Fed will have a lot more time to decide when to raise rates three times in 2022. This is causing investors to make adjustments to their portfolios to reflect a slower pace of rate hikes, which is helping to underpin gold prices. Moving forward just remember this: Faster tapering, faster rate hikes will be bearish for the gold. Faster tapering and slower rate hikes will underpin gold prices, but I wouldn’t call it bullish. 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: Rollercoaster Start to Week for XRP as Recent Ranges Broken EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Bounces From Bottom of Range Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Retreats Amid Global Market Sell-Off Bitcoin Slides Below $46K As There Are No Safe-Havens Among Leading Cryptos Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – ‘Widow-Maker’ Indicates Little Chance of Winter Price Surge GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British Pound Continues to Hang About ¥150 || Bit Digital Migrates All Its Bitcoin Mining Out of China Amid Ban: North American dominance in bitcoin mining continues to strengthen as most miners continue their migration out of China since the countrys sweeping ban on all crypto-linked activities in July . Most recently, bitcoin miner Bit Digital said Wednesday it has moved all of its mining rigs to North America. Our mining assets are now entirely out of China and 100% in North America, said Bit Digitals CEO Bryan Bullett in a statement . We believe the shift in global hash distribution will result in a stronger bitcoin network, with the majority of hash now located here in North America, he added. In fact, according to a Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance study published in October, the U.S. accounted for about 35% of the total bitcoin mining hashrate, or computing power, while Canada contributed almost 10%, setting up North America as the dominant region for bitcoin mining following Chinas moves. Bit Digital said it owned 27,744 mining rigs with a total hashrate of 1.6 exahash per second (EH/S), as of Sept. 30. This was a decline from 32,500 miners and 1.915 EH/s of mining power as of June 30 because it sold and disposed of some of its mining computers during the migration. However, the miner said the majority of its recently closed $80 million equity placement was used to buy 10,000 new Bitmain miners. Most of these new computers have been installed and the rest will be online through June 2022, raising the miners computing power to about 2.6 EH/s. The current hashrate of the total Bitcoin network is about 133 EH/s as of Oct. 16, according to data analytics firm Glassnode. Read more: Atlas Teams With Luxor to Migrate More Bitcoin Mining to North America View comments || 86% of Americans Have Heard At Least A Little About Cryptos, Young Men Use Them Most: dulezidar / Getty Images Nine in 10 Americans say they have heard at least a little about cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ether , while 16% of them say they have personally invested or traded cryptos, according to a new survey. See: 8 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest In for 2021 Find: Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From? The Pew Research Center survey also finds that men ages 18 to 29 are particularly likely to say they have used cryptos. Of the 86% of Americans who replied said they have heard at least a little about cryptos, 24% say they have heard a lot about them. On the other hand, 13% say they have heard nothing at all, the survey finds. To put these figures into perspective, Pew asked questions in 2015 that were focused exclusively on Bitcoin, and at the time, 48% of adults said they had heard of Bitcoin (to any degree), and just 1% said they had ever collected, traded or used it. In terms of demographics, there are some striking findings in the survey, as 31% of Americans aged 18 to 29 say they have invested in, traded or used a crypto, with men being about twice as likely as women to say they ever used a cryptocurrency, with 22% vs. 10%. These differences are especially pronounced when looking at age and gender together, the survey notes. Indeed, 43% of men ages 18 to 29 say they have ever invested in, traded or used a cryptocurrency, compared with 19% of women in the same age range. Another key finding of the survey is that the share of adults who have heard a lot about cryptos varies by race, ethnicity and household income. For example, 43% of Asian Americans say they have heard a lot about cryptocurrency, compared with 29% of Hispanic adults and about a quarter of Black or white adults. Americans with higher incomes (31%) are more likely than those with middle (25%) and lower incomes (21%) to have heard a lot about cryptocurrency, according to the survey. See: 4 Best Places To Buy and Sell Cryptocurrency Find: 10 Cheap Cryptocurrencies To Buy Story continues There is still a long way to go in terms of crypto education. As GOBankingRates previously reported , a recent survey of 1,000 people across the U.S., Mexico and Brazil showed that 98% of people dont understand basic crypto concepts. For instance, 90% didnt know that the Bitcoin supply is capped at 21 million. Equal numbers didnt understand stablecoins, either . More From GOBankingRates 5 Things Most Americans Dont Know About Social Security Social Security: What Matters Most to You? Navy Federal cashRewards Review: With Great Benefits Come Great Rewards How To Refinance a Mortgage This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : 86% of Americans Have Heard At Least A Little About Cryptos, Young Men Use Them Most || Crypto Miners Rally as Bitcoin Mining Profits Remain ‘Near Highs’: Crypto mining companies, including Marathon Digital and Hut 8, outperformed other crypto-linked stocks on Tuesday, as economics for the miners continues to be lucrative. Shares of crypto miners, which have the highest correlation to the bitcoin price, started November on a bullish tone, tracking gains in the price of the largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin climbed above $64,000 on Nov. 2, after exiting October near $60,000 levels. Ether, the native token of Ethereum, also rallied to an all-time-high above $4,500. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin network’s hashrate, a measure of mining activity, dropped to about 153 exahashes per second (EH/s) from as high as 185 EH/s in October, according to data analytics firm Glassnode. Generally, if the network hashrate declines while prices are rallying, miners make more profit from mining the coins. With bitcoin’s price climb since the start of the month and the hashrate declining about 18% over the last seven days, bitcoin economics remain “near highs,” Lucas Pipes, an analyst at B Riley, wrote in a research note. To put the crypto miners’ profitability into context, DA Davidson analyst Christopher Brendler estimated in a recent research note that for miners such as Marathon Digital, the gross margin, or profit after operating costs, will be about 89.6% in 2021 and 90.8% in 2022. Bitfarms’s stock climbed 12% on Tuesday, after achieving record high mining power in October. Shares of Marathon Digital rose 11%, as did Hive Mining. Hut 8 climbed 10% and Riot Blockchain advanced 7% on Tuesday. Argo Blockchain underperformed its rivals, falling about 1.7% even after reporting record revenue in the third quarter. || Bitcoin Bears Pulled Off the Drop: Has the Rally to $90k Started!?: Over the last month, see here , and here , I used the Elliott Wave Principle (EWP) to assess if Bitcoin (BTC) was ready to rally directly to $90K+ or if the Bears could muster one more leg down to complete a (necessary?!) correction before the rally would commence. In my last update, I found, my EWP point of view has essentially remained the same, [as] the recent rally [to a new all-time high]
left the door open for the Bears to sell BTC down to ideally $54-60K before the Bulls can declare victory . with BTC essentially trading at the same price levels as two weeks ago, the Bears still have an option to trigger a drop to ideally $54-60K. The trigger level is $59555. Fast forward, and BTC dropped below the trigger level the very day after I shared my update and reached $53,332 yesterday. Bingo?! With the rally over the past several hours, it sure looks that way, so let us have a look at the charts. Figure 1. Bitcoin daily charts with detailed EWP count and technical indicators. A rally >$60K is now needed to confirm a low is in place. Figure 1 shows BTC most likely completed an irregular flat wave-ii since mid-October. Namely, from the mid-October high, it dropped in a three-wave fashion (green [minor] wave-a at the October 28 low). Then, there were three waves up to the recent all-time high (ATH) (green [minor] wave-b), followed by five waves down into yesterdays low (grey [minute] waves i, ii, iii, iv, and v) to complete minor-c of (red) intermediate wave-ii. Namely, irregular flat corrections in a Bull market consist of three waves down, three waves to new highs back up, followed by five waves down: a 3-3-5 pattern. BTC completed that path. Thus, I told my premium crypto trading members in my recent daily updates So far, BTC has reached the ideal target zone from where a low-risk swing-trade (multi-week hold) should materialize, similar to the prior September target zone . Besides, just as all the technical indicators (RSI5, MACD, MFI14, and FSTO) were very overbought a few weeks earlier, and sentiment very Bullish, foretelling of a correction. These indicators are now oversold, and sentiment is very bearish. Thus, conversely, they are foretelling of a rally. Story continues If correct, and yesterdays low hold, BTC can stage a rally to possibly as high as $105-110K. However, the possible (red) intermediate wave-i rally from the mid-September lows into the mid-October highs was longer in price than the rally from the June/July lows into the early-September highs (black [major] wave-1). Since the intermediate wave degree is smaller than the major wave degree, it is odd that the former is longer than the latter. As such, we must be cognizant of the alternate option annotated on the chart in that BTC is in a more significant ending diagonal (primary-V) wave, with major-5 only reaching ideally around $77.5K. For now, that alternative option must be monitored, but regardless it also points to (much) higher prices. Bottom line: Two weeks ago, I found the Bears still have an option drop Bitcoin to ideally $54-60K, and the trigger level [for that] is $59555. The cryptocurrency, Bears, and EWP foresight did not disappoint as yesterday the low $53Ks was reached. How price has behaved since the mid-October high, and the recent ATH strongly suggests an irregular flat correction completed. The reversal of yesterdays low followed by a daily close >$60K will likely mean a new rally to ATHs is underway. The ideal upside target for that rally is $105-110K, but please be advised that BTC could stall at $77.5K before embarking on a multi-month correction. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: USD/CAD: Loonie Turns Range Bound as Omicron Worries Ease; Could Turn Volatile European Equities: A Busy Economic Calendar and FED Chair Powell Testimony in Focus Bitcoin Bears Pulled Off the Drop: Has the Rally to $90k Started!? Natural Gas Price Forecast Natural Gas Markets Plunge USD/CAD Exchange Rate Prediction The Dollar Eases as Yields Slide ASX200: Private Sector Credit and China Private Sector PMIs in Focus || 3 Crypto Moonshots to Get Ahead of the ‘Next Big Thing’: This article is excerpted from Tom Yeung’s Moonshot Investor newsletter. To make sure you don’t miss any of Tom’s potential 100x picks,subscribe to his mailing list here.
Source: LuckyStep/ShutterStock.com
Electric vehicles… 5G… Quantum computing… 3D printing…
You’ve heard all these buzzwords before. And you’re probably bored of them by now.Tesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) has been around since 2003 and 5G technology was invented almost a decade ago. Meanwhile, quantum computing has been the “next big thing” ever since I can remember.
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But there’s one Moonshot I bet you’re still wondering about:
Tokenization.
That simple concept of turning tradable goods into digital tokens seems to need an explanation every time it’s mentioned. Google search “NFT,” and two-thirds of the results are descriptions of “what are NFTs.”
Imagine how annoying that would get with the word “toaster.”
But tokenization remains one of the most promising technologies of our time. It’s more than just cryptos and NFTs — it’s a path to trading goods and securing data. Carbon credits… private data logs… pictures of bored apes… tokenization allows users to transfer these assets securely and instantaneously between parties.
Today, we’ll take a look at some of the most promising technologies in the tokenization space. And we ‘ll answer once and for all: “what are NFTs?”
Just kidding. I’d rather give you three good investment picks than regurgitate a Google search.
Source: Catalyst Labs / Shutterstock
To crypto enthusiasts,Bitcoin(CCC:BTC-USD) might have been both the bestandworst thing to ever happen to tokenization.
On the one hand, the world’s first cryptocurrency jumpstarted a trillion-dollar blockchain economy. 46 million Americans — 22% of the country’s adult population — now own Bitcoin, according to the editors atExploding Topics.And it’s hard to go a day without hearing news about how rich youcouldhave been… if you bought $100 of Bitcoin… back in 2010.
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On the other hand, Bitcoin has also sucked most of the oxygen out of the collective crypto room. The world’s “digital gold” accounts for 45% of total cryptocurrency market capitalization and over 90% of the world’s crypto hash rate. Ask any precocious ten-year-old to explain the concept of “blockchain” and most would respond with some version of a digital currency.
But the blockchain ismorethan just cryptocurrencies. It’s an ingenious way to encode data in a secure and public manner. I could publish my social security number or anniversary date (both of which I often forget) on an SHA-256 encoded blockchain, and it would take a supercomputer severalcenturiesto retrieve either number (You’ll find me in the marital doghouse until then). And if anyone were to tamper with the data during those years, everyone would know because the public ledger would have changed.
It’s much like speaking in ancient Egyptian. An observer canhearthe words being spoken, but can’t comprehend the encoded meaning — unless they have a copy of the Rosetta Stone handy. It’s a way to keep sensitive data secured in plain sight.
Crypto enthusiasts have used these features to create an entire industry of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. The most common of these,Ethereum’s(CCC:ETH-USD) ERC-721 token standard, has helped millions of investors keep track of ownership in digital assets.
These tokens are relatively simple, all things considered. The ERC-721 standard, for instance, only has ten key functions (name, symbol, approve, takeOwnership, etc), and two events (Transfer and Approval). It’s a system that’s only designed to encode theownershipof the piece, not the work itself. It’s the difference between a house deed (represented by a piece of paper) versus the bricks and mortar of the house itself.
Source: Catalyst Labs / Shutterstock
Tokenization has since moved onto more complex problems.Internet Computer(CCC:ICP-USD), a much-lauded project by Andreessen Horowitz-backedDFINITY, promises to bring data computation to the blockchain (in other words, it’s digitizing the house as well). In theory, that could create a decentralized cloud service to rivalGoogle(NASDAQ:GOOG,NASDAQ:GOOGL) andAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN).
Meanwhile, some applications are tackling more modest issues.Moss Token(CCC:MCO2-USD) aims to make carbon credits tradable among firms.VEChain(CCC:VET-USD) is tackling supply chain issues by creating a public record of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags.
The issue of course, is that no token is guaranteed to succeed… until it does. The EU Commission could easily crown MCO2’s rivalUniversal Carbon(CCC:UPCO2-USD) as its official carbon credit and send MCO2 prices down the drain. And as ICP’s DFINITY has discovered, digitizing the entire house isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Source: Catalyst Labs / Shutterstock.com
But several clear winners are already emerging in the race to tokenize the world. Not only do these players have superior technology; they also have a head start in adoption.
Perhaps the most underrated cryptocurrency in the world isHedera(CCC:HBAR-USD), a project adopted by no fewer than 23 major organizations including Google,IBM(NYSE:IBM), andTata Communications.
Hedera offers two distinct services.
• Tokens.The ability for companies to configure, mint and manage tokens without deploying a smart contract.
• Consensus.Allows users to send event data to verify and track records.
Essentially, Hedera is creating a platform for enterprises to deploy blockchain applications.
Let’s take an example.
If law firmDLA Piperwanted to track every time anyone edited a sensitive legal document, they might start with a “track changes” function in Microsoft Word and use an honor system to enforce the rules. More enterprising IT managers (and alarmed compliance officers) might eventually contract a third-party firm like IBM to manage security.
But both of these systems are susceptible to fraud. With enough time and skill, an outside player could break in and change a document without anyone ever knowing.
That’s where tokenization comes in. By encoding these logs on a public ledger, Hedera removes the ability for secret changes. Any alterations would get caught by the blockchain’s consensus function.
HBAR is currently available for less than 40 cents. With tokenization surging, don’t be surprised if this cryptocurrency reaches $5 in the future.
It’s hard to mention “tokenization” without a nod to NFTs. And in that realm, Ethereum has become the undisputed king.
Since the beginning of the yera, Ethereum’s market share of NFT sales has risen from 50% to 97%, according to data collected byCoinTelegraph. Its only major competitor — NBA-backedFlow Blockchain(CCC:FLOW-USD) — has long receded into distance.
The reason is obvious, as I mentioned in my article“If You Only Buy One Cryptocurrency…”
“Any new NFT coin looking to replace Ethereum will theoretically need to create new tokens for every asset that ETH-USD now secures… ETH’s dominant position in NFTs and smart contracts make it one of the safer bets in the crypto world.”
Put another way, it’s good to be first in creating a new standard. Upstarts fromPolkadot(CCC:DOT-USD) toCardando(CCC:ADA-USD) have poured millions of dollars into their business development projects, sapping funds that could otherwise be used to hire star coders.
Meanwhile, Ethereum has used its head start to innovate. On Wednesday, the ETH community launched the Altair upgrade, paving the way for an energy-efficient Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol.
These gains haven’t gone unnoticed. Since January, Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin by a 4-to-1 margin, turning $100,000 investments into $450,000. And as tokenization continues to take hold, investors can expect Ethereum to keep notching more gains.
Finally, there’s one coin that’s recently made theMoonshotcut:Chainlink(CCC:LINK-USD).
LINK is what’s known as a “blockchain oracle,” a trusted data feed that helps smart contracts make decisions. If a programmer wans anAave(CCC:AAVE-USD) DeFi contract to pay out a certain USD value of Bitcoin, they’ll need to Chainlink or some other blockchain oracle to provide accurate pricing data. And if a contract needs a trigger, they can rely on Chainlink to provide a decentralized fuse.
There’s a good reason why programmers will use Chainlink — the penalties for mistakes are disastrous. Spoofed data can cause an avalanche of smart contracts getting executed at the wrong prices. And incorrectly-timed triggers can initiate transactions that were never meant to happen.
That’s why Chainlink and other oracles will play such a key role in tokenization. No matter how thick a bank’s safe walls are, it’s only as secure as the guard watching the front door. And in the world of smart contracts, Chainlink plays a critical role in managing the data that determines how tokenized assets move.
AvidMoonshotreaders may wonder: where are the stocks in all this? Surely, there must besomecompanies that are also pushing the envelope in tokenization.
And in fact, there are. Startups fromArweavetoHandshakeare already tokenizing everything from disk space to internet domains. The most promising of these upstarts have already raised billions of investor cash.
The problem is that most of these companies are tucked away in venture capital funds. And much like tech startups in the mid-2010s, those that are publicly traded, likeCircle(NYSE:CND) andCoinbase(NASDAQ:COIN), trade at a significant premium.
That means the best way to find Moonshots remains in the tokens themselves. And as Wall Street wakes up to the fact, you can be sure that these promising cryptocurrencies will be part of the next Moonshot industry.
P.S. Do you want to hear more about cryptocurrencies? Penny stocks? Options? Leave me a note atmoonshots@investorplace.comor connect with me onLinkedInand let me know what you’d like to see.
Thomas Yeung is an expert when it comes to finding fast-paced growth opportunities on Reddit. He recommended Dogecoin before it skyrocketed over 8,000%, Ripple before it flew up more than 480% and Cardano before it soared 460%. Now, in a new report, he’s naming 17 of his favorite Reddit penny stocks.Claim your FREE COPY here!
On the date of publication, Tom Yeung did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
Tom Yeung, CFA, is a registered investment advisor on a mission to bring simplicity to the world of investing.
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The post3 Crypto Moonshots to Get Ahead of the ‘Next Big Thing’appeared first onInvestorPlace. || Largest Crypto Exchange in Brazil Lists Shiba Inu: Cryptocurrency traders in Latin America have more reasons to be happy now thatShiba Inuis coming to a country in the region.
The largest crypto exchange in Brazil, Mercado Bitcoin,announcedon Twitter that it would be listing Shiba Inu for trading starting from December 1. This offers locals the opportunity to finally trade the cryptocurrency on an exchange they are familiar with.
The Twitter announcement also had a video of the Shiba Inu dog wearing military gear. While it didn’t give any reason for the listing, it mentioned that the token has increased in value by over 18,000% this year alone.
Apart fromShiba Inu, Mercado Bitcoin also intends to listCOSMOS(ATOM),Loopring(LRC), andPolkadot( DOT) later this week.
Mercado Bitcoin is owned by 2TM and is the largest crypto exchange in the subcontinent. The parent company recently raised $50.3 million in November after a SoftBank-led investment round in July, where it raked in $200 million.
Shiba Inu, called theDogekiller by its developers and avid fans, has emerged as one of the leading digital assets in recent months. At a point, it was able to dethroneDogecoinas the number one meme coin by market cap after reaching an all-time high and breaking into the list of the top ten crypto assets by market cap.
However, its value has since dropped, and it’s now the 13th largest crypto asset by market cap, as ofpress time. But with over60% of its holders in profits, the altcoin is one of the best-performing assets in 2021.
The performance of the Shiba Inu token has already led many exchanges to provide support for the token so that their users can trade it.
Apart from Binance, which was among the first crypto exchanges to list the meme coin, other exchanges likeKrakenand South Korea-based Korbit are among the most recent crypto exchanges to list the coin on their platforms.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Stocks Try To Rebound After Yesterday’s Sell-Off || US regulators consider allowing banks to explore crypto: US bank regulators are developing a ‘roadmap’ to allow banks to access cryptocurrencies, according to a report from Reuters. Jelena McWilliams, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said that the intention of the interagency group is to “provide a path for banks to be able to act as a custodian of these assets, use crypto assets, digital assets as some form of collateral”. This would pave the way for banks to allow customer trading, use for collateral or potentially even hold them on the books akin to traditional assets. Speaking at a financial technology conference, McWilliams said of crypto “we need to allow banks in this space, while appropriately managing and mitigating risk. “If we don’t bring this activity inside the banks, it is going to develop outside of the banks. …The federal regulators won’t be able to regulate it.” Regulation for the cryptocurrency sector has been confused up to this point. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has changed its tack throughout the year. SEC chairman, Gary Gensler, chose to leave all crypto regulations off the SEC policy agenda for 2021. However, as reported earlier today, Gensler has pushed for the SEC to provide regulation on stablecoins. Putting a stop to this complicated regulatory approach will likely be the logic behind McWilliams’ announcement. Banks have already started to enter this territory despite lacking regulatory clarity. US Bank, the fifth-largest retail bank in the US, launched a Bitcoin custody service earlier this month. This was an early sign that retail investors were seriously considering moving into the decentralised finance space. “At some point in time, we’re going to tackle how and under what circumstances banks can hold [crypto assets] on their balance sheet”, McWilliams said.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: down || Prices: 48628.51, 50784.54, 50822.20, 50429.86, 50809.52, 50640.42, 47588.86, 46444.71, 47178.12, 46306.45
|
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 2021-11-03]
BTC Price: 62970.05, BTC RSI: 60.22
Gold Price: 1763.60, Gold RSI: 44.34
Oil Price: 80.86, Oil RSI: 51.50
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Why You Should Consider Donating Your Cryptocurrency to Charity: Cryptocurrency investments — such as Bitcoin and Ethereum — may provide a tax-smart opportunity to leverage highly appreciated assets to achieve maximum impact with charitable giving.
Donating long-term held cryptocurrency investments can unlock additional funds for charity in two ways. First, you potentially eliminate the capital gains tax you would incur if you sold the assets yourself and donated the proceeds, which may increase the amount available for charity by up to 20%. Second, if you itemize deductions on your tax return instead of taking the standard deduction, you may claim a fair market value charitable deduction for the tax year in which the gift is made and may choose to pass on that savings in the form of more giving.
Related:Your Privately Held Shares Jumped After an IPO. Now It's Time to Consider Taxes.
Donor-advised funds, which are 501(c)(3) public charities, can be a tax-efficient solution for accepting contributions of cryptocurrency, as the funds typically have the resources and expertise for evaluating, receiving, processing, and liquidating non-cash assets. How does gifting appreciated cryptocurrency to a donor-advised fund work?
Please be aware that gifts of appreciated non-cash assets, including cryptocurrency, can involve complicated tax analysis and advanced planning. This article is only intended to be a general overview of some donation considerations and is not intended to provide tax or legal guidance. In addition, all gifts to donor-advised funds are irrevocable. Please consult with your tax or legal advisor.
To illustrate the benefits of donating appreciated cryptocurrency, consider Alison, who purchased 10 Bitcoin five years ago at $500 each for a $5,000 cost basis.
Five years later, Bitcoin is valued at $25,000 per coin, so the total fair market value of Alison’s 10 Bitcoin investment is $250,000. Alison could sell her Bitcoin and donate the net cash proceeds to a donor-advised fund or other public charity. In that instance, assuming a 15% federal capital gains tax rate based on her income level, she would realize an appreciation of $245,000 and owe an estimated $36,750 in federal capital gains taxes ($245,000 x 15% = $36,750).
In this scenario, as shown in Option 1, after paying the federal capital gains taxes, Alison’s estimated net cash available for charitable giving is $213,250.
Related:Cryptocurrency and Taxes: What You Need to Know
Now let’s review Alison’s benefits from gifting that 10 Bitcoin directly to a donor-advised fund or other public charity, as shown in Option 2. In this scenario, Alison can eliminate capital gains tax ($36,750), while potentially claiming a current year income tax deduction for the fair market value ($250,000), assuming she itemizes her deductions.
This hypothetical example is only for illustrative purposes. The example does not take into account any state or local taxes or the Medicare net investment income surtax. The tax savings shown is the tax deduction, multiplied by the donor’s income tax rate (24% in this example), minus the long-term capital gains taxes paid.
In addition to the potential tax benefits described above, the following considerations may apply.
1. Donate before selling.
To maximize the potential tax benefits described above, you can transfer your appreciated cryptocurrency, held for more than one year, directly to a donor-advised fund or other public charity rather than selling the cryptocurrency and donating the cash.
2. Avoid prearranged sales.
You should not enter into any arrangement that would legally compel a donor-advised fund or other public charity to dispose of the cryptocurrency upon receipt. This kind of “prearranged sale” could reduce or eliminate the tax benefits of making your donation. Upon receipt of the cryptocurrency, the donor-advised fund or other public charity controls the asset. For most public charities, the general policy is to promptly sell contributed cryptocurrency, but a charity may reserve the right to sell at any time.
3. Unique tax features may apply to cryptocurrency donations
A gift of cryptocurrency to a donor-advised fund or other public charity is not recognized by the IRS as a gift of currency or legal tender. For tax purposes, cryptocurrencies are treated as capital assets or income, depending on whether the cryptocurrency was held for investment purposes or received as a form of compensation (e.g., as a mining reward or income received in the form of cryptocurrency).
• If the asset was held as an investment for more than one year and you itemize deductions, you may deduct the fair market value (as determined by a qualified appraisal) of the gift, up to 30% of your adjusted gross income (AGI) with a five-year carryover.
• If the cryptocurrency was held as an investment for one year or less, or was not held for investment (i.e., ordinary income asset, such as where cryptocurrency was mined or received in exchange for services rendered), and you itemize deductions, you may deduct the lesser of cost basis or fair market value at the time of contribution, up to 50% of your AGI with a five-year carryover.
To substantiate your charitable income tax deduction, you are required to complete Form 8283 and obtain a qualified appraisal from a qualified appraiser for contributions of cryptocurrency valued at more than $5,000.
Thisinfographichas more information about donating appreciated non-cash assets to charity to maximize your giving power. || 71 Biggest Movers From Yesterday: Gainers Avis Budget Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAR ) shares climbed 108.3% to close at $357.17 on Tuesday after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 adjusted EPS and sales results and added $1 billion to its buyback. The OLB Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OLB ) shares gained 87.4% to settle at $8.60 after the company announced support for Mastercard cryptocurrency processing. Huadi International Group Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ: HUDI ) jumped 29.8% to close at $24.31. Huadi International Group was recently awarded a $3.26 million stainless steel seamless pipe order contracts from a U.S. client. Rogers Corporation (NYSE: ROG ) surged 29.6% to close at $269.90 after the company announced it will be acquired by DuPont for $277 per share in cash. Rogers also released Q3 results. Esports Entertainment Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMBL ) gained 29% to settle at $7.57. Roth Capital initiated coverage on Esports Entertainment with a Buy rating and announced a price target of $22. Cassava Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: SAVA ) jumped 25.9% to close at $58.07. Net Element, Inc. (NASDAQ: NETE ) gained 24.2% to settle at $11.09. Net Element’s reverse merger partner Mullen Automotive announced plans to expand Robinsonville, Mississippi site. Compass Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMPX ) shares rose 24% to close at $3.98. Compass Therapeutics reported pricing of approximately $125 million public offering of common stock and uplisting to the Nasdaq Capital Market. FG Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: FGF ) gained 24% to close at $6.30. Stronghold Digital Mining, Inc. (NASDAQ: SDIG ) surged 22% to settle at $33.26. The company recently priced its IPO at $19 per share. Xilio Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLO ) jumped 21.4% to close at $23.09. Icosavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: ICVX ) gained 20.5% to settle at $34.98. Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE: ANET ) gained 20.4% to close at $491.87 as the company reported better-than-expected results for its third quarter and issued strong sales forecast for the fourth quarter. The company announced a four-for-one stock split and also disclosed a $1 billion stock-buyback plan. Baosheng Media Group Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: BAOS ) jumped 20.3% to close at $1.90 after declining 3% on Monday. The company, last month, swung to a loss in the first half of the year. Cortexyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRTX ) jumped 19.5% to close at $16.98. Cortexyme recently said that the company's Phase 2/3 GAIN trial did not meet its co-primary endpoints. Phunware, Inc. (NASDAQ: PHUN ) rose 19.3% to settle at $4.57. Phunware is expected to a conference call on Thursday, November 11, 2021 to discuss its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2021. Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (NASDAQ: KNSA ) jumped 19% to close at $15.15. The company recently posted upbeat quarterly results. DZS Inc. (NASDAQ: DZSI ) gained 18.6% to close at $13.22 following upbeat Q3 results. Materion Corporation (NYSE: MTRN ) jumped 16.8% to settle at $86.44 following better-than-expected quarterly results. Under Armour, Inc. (NYSE: UAA ) climbed 16.5% to close at $25.60 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 EPS and sales results and raised guidance. SilverBox Engaged Merger Corp I (NASDAQ: SBEA ) climbed 15.4% to close at $11.33 after the company announced a business combination with Black Rifle Coffee Company. Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE: SKT ) gained 15.3% to settle at $20.45 following Q3 results. View, Inc. (NASDAQ: VIEW ) rose 15.3% to settle at $6.10. Bitfarms Ltd. (NASDAQ: BITF ) gained 15.1% to close at $6.41 amid a rise in the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Toast, Inc. (NYSE: TOST ) shares jumped 14.1% to settle at $65.22. The Macerich Company (NYSE: MAC ) gained 13.4% to settle at $21.40. Fabrinet (NYSE: FN ) climbed 13.2% to close at $111.21 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 EPS and sales results. The company also issued Q2 guidance. NetScout Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT ) gained 13.1% to settle at $31.97 after it was announced the company will be joining the SmallCap 600. Harmonic Inc. (NASDAQ: HLIT ) climbed 12.5% to close at $10.50 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 EPS and sales results and issued Q4 net sales guidance and FY21 adjusted EPS and net sales guidance above estimates. Silicom Ltd. (NASDAQ: SILC ) climbed 11.5% to close at $46.72. Silicom received $30 million purchase orders from leading American service provider for Silicom Smart Edge Platforms. Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS ) shares gained 10.3% to close at $5.13 following narrower-than-expected quarterly loss. Extreme Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXTR ) gained 10.2% to settle at $11.37 following upbeat quarterly results. Endo International plc (NASDAQ: ENDP ) rose 9.7% to close at $5.08 after the company reported the California state court issued a tentative ruling in Endo's favor following the opioid trial. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NYSE: TEVA ) rose 9.5% to close at $10.11 after the company reported a California judge ruled that Teva did not cause a public nuisance or make false or misleading statements about opioids. SAB Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SABS ) rose 8.8% to close at $9.17 as traders circulated a new Outperform rating and $23 price target on stock. Navitas Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: NVTS ) gained 7.7% to settle at $14.00. AutoWeb, Inc. (NASDAQ: AUTO ) rose 7.1% to close at $3.45. HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ: HYRE ) gained 6.5% to close at $7.54. Story continues Check out these big penny stock gainers and losers Losers Birks Group Inc. (NYSE: BGI ) shares fell 51.7% to settle at $3.77 on Tuesday. Chegg, Inc. (NYSE: CHGG ) shares tumbled 48.8% to close at $32.12 on Tuesday after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 sales results and issued Q4 and FY21 sales guidance below estimates. Various analysts also downgraded the stock. Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp. II (NASDAQ: BTTX ) dropped 32.9% to settle at $11.50. Better Therapeutics recently completed its merger with Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp II. Triterras, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIT ) fell 27.4% to close at $5.43 after B. Riley Securities downgraded the stock from Buy to Neutral and lowers its price target from $9 to $5. Also, the company reported it did not meet Nasdaq's Nov. 1 deadline to file its annual report on Form 20-F with the SEC. ABVC BioPharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: ABVC ) dipped 26.2% to settle at $4.45 after climbing 137% on Monday. Semler Scientific, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMLR ) declined 25.4% to close at $111.66 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 results. The Pennant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: PNTG ) fell 23.3% to close at $20.80. The company sees preliminary Q3 total revenue of $111.9 million and net income of $1.2 million. Spartacus Acquisition Corporation (NASDAQ: NN ) shares fell 22% to close at $9.97 after jumping more than 16% on Monday. CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE: CEIX ) fell 21.6% to close at $22.24 following weak quarterly sales. Harsco Corporation (NYSE: HSC ) declined 20.2% to settle at $14.49 after the company reported downbeat Q3 results and announced plans to explore strategic alternatives for rail business. Switchback II Corporation (NYSE: SWBK ) fell 18.3% to close at $8.17. Intrepid Potash, Inc. (NYSE: IPI ) dropped 17.6% to close at $42.26 following downbeat Q3 earnings. Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR ) fell 16.6% to settle at $9.01 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 sales results. The company did not give guidance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. HCW Biologics Inc. (NASDAQ: HCWB ) dipped 15.9% to close at $3.29. Guardforce AI Co., Limited (NASDAQ: GFAI ) fell 15.5% to close at $2.23. Guardforce recently announced it has engaged MZ Group, an investor relations company, to ' lead a comprehensive strategic investor relations and financial communications program.' Super League Gaming, Inc. (NASDAQ: SLGG ) dropped 15.2% to close at $3.24. Opendoor Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: OPEN ) dipped 14.7% to settle at $21.12. Muscle Maker, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRIL ) shares declined 13.8% to settle at $1.44 after gaining over 50% on Monday. Muscle Maker inked a Master Franchise Agreement for 40 units in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. MoneyGram International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGI ) fell 13.7% to close at $5.28. CVR Energy, Inc. (NYSE: CVI ) fell 13.3% to settle at $17.19 after reporting a wider-than-expected quarterly loss. Clene Inc. (NASDAQ: CLNN ) fell 12.7% to settle at $4.80 after the company announced its RESCUE-ALS Phase 2 did not meet its primary or secondary endpoint. EverQuote, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVER ) declined 12.1% to close at $12.60 following Q3 results. JP Morgan downgraded EverQuote from Overweight to Neutral and lowered the price target from $41 to $17. Cohen & Company Inc. (NYSE: COHN ) fell 11.9% to close at $18.84 after reporting a Q3 loss. Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z ) shares fell 10.2% to settle at $87.20 after KeyBanc analysts said they believe the company's earnings may be at risk due to its $1.17 billion home inventory, finding that 66% of these homes are listed below their purchase price. Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: NBIX ) dropped 10% to close at $95.58 following weak quarterly sales. LSB Industries, Inc. (NYSE: LXU ) fell 10% to close at $8.69 following weak quarterly sales. Invacare Corporation (NYSE: IVC ) fell 9.8% to close at $4.34. NetScout Systems will join S&P SmallCap 600, will replace Invacare. Leggett & Platt, Incorporated (NYSE: LEG ) dropped 9.5% to close at $43.54 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 EPS results. Lightbridge Corporation (NASDAQ: LTBR ) fell 9.2% to settle at $10.58. Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN ) fell 9.2% to close at $132.35 after the company reported Q3 earnings results and issued guidance. Cipher Mining Inc. (NASDAQ: CIFR ) fell 8.7% to close at $8.99 after jumping 25% on Monday. ADC Therapeutics SA (NYSE: ADCT ) fell 7.4% to close at $29.18 after reporting Q3 results. Puhui Wealth Investment Management Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ: PHCF ) fell 7.2% to close at $1.93 after climbing more than 15% on Monday. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Rises Around 150 Points; Semler Scientific Shares Slide Mid-Day Market Update: Avis Budget Surges After Q3 Results; Chegg Shares Plunge © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Miner Canada Computational Unlimited Corp. Commences Trading as "SATO": Toronto, Ontario(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Canada Computational Unlimited Corp. (TSXV: SATO) (the "Company" or "CCU.ai") is pleased to announce that it has been approved for trading on the TSX Venture Exchange (the " TSXV ") at the opening of the market day as of September 16th, 2021 under the stock symbol ' SATO '. For information on Canada Computational Unlimited Corp. please visit www.ccu.ai . For upcoming investor events and company updates please subscribe here: CCU_Updates Key Highlights Fully operational, high-grade, 100% renewable energy crypto mining facility in place Successfully mining Bitcoins since 2017 and Ethereum since 2021 150 PHs equivalent of Mining Power with around 7.5MW of energy running now 12.5MW of energy remaining to be built in Joliette center for reaching a possible equivalent of 600 PHs of mining power, with intention for more centers to come for future growth Utilizing renewable energy to support high-grade crypto-mining, AI data processing, and fintech infrastructure Team to increase and advance our large-scale mining fleet software All coins are newly minted and traceable. 3 years of audited accounts with Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton/Catallaxy Established by Mathieu and Romain Nouzareth, two French "serial entrepreneurs" with recent backing of True Global Ventures, one of the fastest-growing blockchain equity funds, which just closed a $100 million raise. Romain Nouzareth, CEO and Chairman of CCU.ai commented "We are excited to bring this opportunity to market. Renewable Energy is the driving force of the future and sustainable infrastructure that will support computing power is critical to this green energy transition. CCU.ai presents investors with an opportunity to participate in a resource efficient investment and the crypto market respectively. We are also delighted to have obtained the SATO ticker as an homage to Satoshi Nakamoto and the Bitcoin White Paper published in 2008." Story continues For full terms on the transaction please reference the release available on www.ccu.ai dated September 07, 2021. On behalf of the board, Romain Nouzareth, CCU.ai CEO and Chairman About CCU.ai CCU.ai operates a state-of-the-art, carbon-neutral bitcoin mining center with a contract of 20 MW of stable, eco-friendly energy. The company's high-density calculation centers are built for high-grade cryptocurrency mining, AI data processing, and fintech infrastructure. Founded in 2017, CCU.ai is led by technology entrepreneurs, electricity and ventilation experts, network specialists, and Canadian industrialists. Since its inception, the company has pursued a vision of environmental stewardship throughout the mining process. The excess supply of renewable energy in the province of Québec has made this endeavor feasible and a great base for growth. About True Global Ventures True Global Ventures 4 Plus (TGV 4 Plus) ( https://www.tgv4plus.com/ ) is a global Venture Capital firm, regulated in Singapore, built by a group of very experienced entrepreneurs with a solid track record investing their own money together with Limited Partners into early-stage and late-stage ventures run by serial entrepreneurs leveraging Technology, Data, AI and Blockchain as a competitive advantage to drive change with proven products. TGV 4 Plus invests in Equity across 4 main verticals: Infrastructure, Financial Services, Data Analytics & AI, and Entertainment, in companies which are using the latest technology including the Blockchain / Distributed Ledger Technology. Made by serial entrepreneurs for Serial Entrepreneurs, the TGV 4 Plus Fund has a presence in 20 cities across the globe. Based out of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, Dubai, Moscow, London, Stockholm, Paris, Warsaw, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver among others. True Global Ventures closely supports the portfolio companies to accelerate growth in new markets, expand internationally, introduce new clients, build management teams, establish new partnerships and leverage on 3000+ B2B relationships across the globe. NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the Transaction and certain terms and conditions thereof, the ability of the parties to complete the Transaction, the Consolidation, the Exchange Ratio, the Name Change, the Resulting Issuer's ability to qualify as a Tier 1 Life Sciences issuer, the TSXV sponsorship requirements, the finding of a sponsor, shareholder, director and regulatory approvals, future press releases and disclosure, and other statements that are not historical facts. Wherever possible, words such as "may", "will", "should", "could", "expect", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict" or "potential" or the negative or other variations of these words, or similar words or phrases, have been used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management as at the date hereof. Forward-looking statements involve significant risk, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. As a result, the Corporation cannot guarantee that the Transaction will be completed on the terms described herein or at all. These factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, the Corporation cannot assure readers that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and the Corporation assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law. For additional information, please contact: Caroline Klukowski Tel: 604.260.5490 ir@ccu.ai Canada Computational Unlimited Corp. ( "CCU.ai" ) INVESTORS can read more about CCU high-grade, carbon-free bitcoin mining and ESG vision at: www.ccu.ai/investors To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96750 || Biggest crash in world history: Personal finance expert Robert Kiyosaki predicts economic crisis in October: Robert Kiyosaki, author of bestselling Rich Dad Poor Dad (YouTube @Kitco News) The author of bestselling Rich Dad Poor Dad predicts that a "giant" market crash coming in October has already been triggered and will bring down gold, silver and Bitcoin with it. Personal finance expert Robert Kiyosaki warned the crash is coming regardless of whether the US debt ceiling is raised or what measures are imposed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen or Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. "This is going to be the biggest crash in world history. We have never had this much debt pumped up
the debt to GDP ratio is out of sight," Mr Kiyosaki said. Mr Kiyosaki said the stock market was being artificially inflated by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve with decisions disconnected from the realities of the current economy in the United States. The reason why Ms Yellen and Mr Powell are "scrambling", he said, is theyve expanded the volume of money while the velocity of money is plummeting as no one spends and their cash lingers in savings. Mr Kiyosaki said people dont have to go to Harvard University to understand that "you cant keep printing fake money
thats not good". "So they pump all this money in, prices go up," he told Kitco News on Wednesday. "So it is transitory inflation, but were stacked with this massive debt and all its done is bump up the stock market and real estate market." "The money has not gone into the economy, thats the sad part. So the rich get richer, but the poor and middle class are getting poorer. Its tragic whats happening today." He added earlier that the "house of cards" is coming down and that real estate would crash with the stock market, while the impact from Chinas Evergrande Group implosion would spread to the United States. Evergrande, the second-largest developer in China, is on the brink of bankruptcy with more than $300bn in debt the most indebted company in the world. Mr Kiyosaki is best known for his 1997 book Rich Dad Poor Dad , which advocated the financial literacy that rich parents taught their kids about money that the poor and middle class did not. Story continues While a giant market crash will spell financial disaster for foolish investors, Mr Kiyosaki says the impending market doom is an opportunity for smart investors. "I like crashes, so this next crash is going to be really, really good, but itll bring down gold, silver, Bitcoin stocks, but the good news is a crash is a good time to get rich, so thats why Im optimistic and Im very optimistic on gold silver and Bitcoin, not on stocks," he said. "So when it comes down, and its going to bring everything down with it, thats when Im going to be buying more gold, silver, and Bitcoin. Read More How bad is bitcoin for the environment really? Crypto experts discuss bitcoin price predictions What is Solana? The crypto rising 200-times faster than bitcoin NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week Pat Robertson steps down as host of long-running '700 Club' Hochul could face rising Democrats in New York governor race || Riot Blockchain: Is this Crypto Play Worth the Risk?: Blockchain and cryptocurrency are two major buzzwords in the investor world today. Once an asset class only invested in by aggressive millennials banking on a massive paradigm shift, more and more investors are now piling into this space. Among the crypto-related investments aficionados are gravitating to for returns are crypto miners. One of the prominent names in this space is Riot Blockchain Inc. ( RIOT ). Riot is one of the leading public Bitcoin mining companies in the United States, and has shown impressive success of late. Driven by rising Bitcoin prices, this miner posted strong second-quarter results in August, surpassing analyst estimates in terms of revenue and sales. However, investing in cryptocurrency comes with a certain level of associated risk. I am neutral on the stock. (See RIOT stock charts on TipRanks) Record Q2 Results Riot Blockchain posted stunning second-quarter results. The company reported revenues of $31.5 million, blowing away the $1.9 million Riot reported in the same quarter last year. This represents a massive 1,540% jump in revenue. The crypto miner's net income for Q2 2021 stood at $0.22 per share, in comparison to a loss of $0.31 last year. Any company that moves into the black in terms of earnings is worth considering. Indeed, crypto enthusiasts are on board with Riot right now. This bottom-line performance was driven by margins, which improved to 70% this past quarter. These margins dwarf the 25% margins reported the same time last year. This was a huge win for Riot shareholders, and those bullish on this sector. Riot's share price has reacted accordingly. Given where the average price of Bitcoin stood last quarter (around $46,000), there's plenty of upside potential for Riot, should Bitcoin prices remain elevated. That said, Riot looks to be in a solid financial position to weather any storms that may arise. The company reported total cash and Bitcoin of $195.4 million as of the end of last quarter. Story continues Riot Files Automatic Shelf Registration Offering Riot Blockchain has filed a prospectus with SEC, which enables the company to offer, sell, and issue up to $600 million of common stock. According to the prospectus, company shares can be issued or sold from time to time under an agreement with the sales agents of Riot. Shares of RIOT stock traded lower following the announcement, as would be expected. In general, share issuances tend to be dilutive and negative for existing shareholders. Additionally, one might wonder why Riot would do such an offering, given the company's existing cash and cash equivalents position. However, this issuance could be spun in a bullish way, from a growth perspective. Should Riot use this capital to fund an aggressive expansion program, long-term investors could potentially benefit. RIOT Stock Has Underperformed Crypto of Late As mentioned, due to the recent issuance, and otherwise bearish sentiment in certain hyper-growth segments of the market, companies like Riot have not seen the enthusiasm you might expect. Riot's share price has moved substantially higher since the beginning of the year. That said, RIOT stock still remains more than 50% below its retail mania-fueled peak earlier this year. With crypto prices taking off again, one would think that this stock would take off. However, RIOT stock actually dropped 9% in July, while Bitcoin prices increased. This divergence suggests investors may be getting wary of Riot's valuation. The company's top- and bottom-line growth suggests some elevated multiple makes sense. However, the extent to which Riot can maintain this sky-high growth appears to be the question on many investors' minds right now. Wall Street’s Take According to TipRanks' analyst rating consensus, Riot stock is a Strong Buy. Out of four analyst ratings, there are four Buy recommendations. The average RIOT price target is $47.75, implying 57.2% upside potential. Bottom Line Cryptocurrency mining is a risky sector in which to invest. Investors who are diving into this sector need to be aware of the wild swings that might come. Needless to say, investing in Riot Blockchain requires a considerable risk appetite. Interestingly, Riot has witnessed a 930% return, while Bitcoin has gained 354% in the past 52 weeks. So, the argument can be made that the upside with crypto miners exceeds that of the underlying cryptocurrency itself. However, one must have a heavy stomach to handle the volatility that is likely to materialize over time. Disclosure: At the time of publication, Chris MacDonald did not have a position in any of the securities mentioned in this article Disclaimer: The information contained in this article represents the views and opinion of the writer only, and not the views or opinion of TipRanks or its affiliates, and should be considered for informational purposes only. TipRanks makes no warranties about the completeness, accuracy or reliability of such information. Nothing in this article should be taken as a recommendation or solicitation to purchase or sell securities. Nothing in the article constitutes legal, professional, investment and/or financial advice and/or takes into account the specific needs and/or requirements of an individual, nor does any information in the article constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters or subject discussed therein. TipRanks and its affiliates disclaim all liability or responsibility with respect to the content of the article, and any action taken upon the information in the article is at your own and sole risk. The link to this article does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by TipRanks or its affiliates. Past performance is not indicative of future results, prices or performance. || Bitcoin Profits Introduces The Global Solution For Traders: London, UK, Sept. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --BitcoinProfitis 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. 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Company:Bitcoin ProfitContact Name:Herald JonesE-mail:service@bitcoinprofit.appLocation:12 Aldermans Hill, Palmers Green, London N13 4PJ, United KingdomWebsite:https://www.bitcoinprofit.app/ || 71 Biggest Movers From Yesterday: Gainers Avis Budget Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAR ) shares climbed 108.3% to close at $357.17 on Tuesday after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 adjusted EPS and sales results and added $1 billion to its buyback. The OLB Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OLB ) shares gained 87.4% to settle at $8.60 after the company announced support for Mastercard cryptocurrency processing. Huadi International Group Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ: HUDI ) jumped 29.8% to close at $24.31. Huadi International Group was recently awarded a $3.26 million stainless steel seamless pipe order contracts from a U.S. client. Rogers Corporation (NYSE: ROG ) surged 29.6% to close at $269.90 after the company announced it will be acquired by DuPont for $277 per share in cash. Rogers also released Q3 results. Esports Entertainment Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMBL ) gained 29% to settle at $7.57. Roth Capital initiated coverage on Esports Entertainment with a Buy rating and announced a price target of $22. Cassava Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: SAVA ) jumped 25.9% to close at $58.07. Net Element, Inc. (NASDAQ: NETE ) gained 24.2% to settle at $11.09. Net Element’s reverse merger partner Mullen Automotive announced plans to expand Robinsonville, Mississippi site. Compass Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMPX ) shares rose 24% to close at $3.98. Compass Therapeutics reported pricing of approximately $125 million public offering of common stock and uplisting to the Nasdaq Capital Market. FG Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: FGF ) gained 24% to close at $6.30. Stronghold Digital Mining, Inc. (NASDAQ: SDIG ) surged 22% to settle at $33.26. The company recently priced its IPO at $19 per share. Xilio Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLO ) jumped 21.4% to close at $23.09. Icosavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: ICVX ) gained 20.5% to settle at $34.98. Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE: ANET ) gained 20.4% to close at $491.87 as the company reported better-than-expected results for its third quarter and issued strong sales forecast for the fourth quarter. The company announced a four-for-one stock split and also disclosed a $1 billion stock-buyback plan. Baosheng Media Group Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: BAOS ) jumped 20.3% to close at $1.90 after declining 3% on Monday. The company, last month, swung to a loss in the first half of the year. Cortexyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRTX ) jumped 19.5% to close at $16.98. Cortexyme recently said that the company's Phase 2/3 GAIN trial did not meet its co-primary endpoints. Phunware, Inc. (NASDAQ: PHUN ) rose 19.3% to settle at $4.57. Phunware is expected to a conference call on Thursday, November 11, 2021 to discuss its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2021. Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (NASDAQ: KNSA ) jumped 19% to close at $15.15. The company recently posted upbeat quarterly results. DZS Inc. (NASDAQ: DZSI ) gained 18.6% to close at $13.22 following upbeat Q3 results. Materion Corporation (NYSE: MTRN ) jumped 16.8% to settle at $86.44 following better-than-expected quarterly results. Under Armour, Inc. (NYSE: UAA ) climbed 16.5% to close at $25.60 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 EPS and sales results and raised guidance. SilverBox Engaged Merger Corp I (NASDAQ: SBEA ) climbed 15.4% to close at $11.33 after the company announced a business combination with Black Rifle Coffee Company. Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE: SKT ) gained 15.3% to settle at $20.45 following Q3 results. View, Inc. (NASDAQ: VIEW ) rose 15.3% to settle at $6.10. Bitfarms Ltd. (NASDAQ: BITF ) gained 15.1% to close at $6.41 amid a rise in the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Toast, Inc. (NYSE: TOST ) shares jumped 14.1% to settle at $65.22. The Macerich Company (NYSE: MAC ) gained 13.4% to settle at $21.40. Fabrinet (NYSE: FN ) climbed 13.2% to close at $111.21 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 EPS and sales results. The company also issued Q2 guidance. NetScout Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT ) gained 13.1% to settle at $31.97 after it was announced the company will be joining the SmallCap 600. Harmonic Inc. (NASDAQ: HLIT ) climbed 12.5% to close at $10.50 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 EPS and sales results and issued Q4 net sales guidance and FY21 adjusted EPS and net sales guidance above estimates. Silicom Ltd. (NASDAQ: SILC ) climbed 11.5% to close at $46.72. Silicom received $30 million purchase orders from leading American service provider for Silicom Smart Edge Platforms. Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS ) shares gained 10.3% to close at $5.13 following narrower-than-expected quarterly loss. Extreme Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXTR ) gained 10.2% to settle at $11.37 following upbeat quarterly results. Endo International plc (NASDAQ: ENDP ) rose 9.7% to close at $5.08 after the company reported the California state court issued a tentative ruling in Endo's favor following the opioid trial. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NYSE: TEVA ) rose 9.5% to close at $10.11 after the company reported a California judge ruled that Teva did not cause a public nuisance or make false or misleading statements about opioids. SAB Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SABS ) rose 8.8% to close at $9.17 as traders circulated a new Outperform rating and $23 price target on stock. Navitas Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: NVTS ) gained 7.7% to settle at $14.00. AutoWeb, Inc. (NASDAQ: AUTO ) rose 7.1% to close at $3.45. HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ: HYRE ) gained 6.5% to close at $7.54. Story continues Check out these big penny stock gainers and losers Losers Birks Group Inc. (NYSE: BGI ) shares fell 51.7% to settle at $3.77 on Tuesday. Chegg, Inc. (NYSE: CHGG ) shares tumbled 48.8% to close at $32.12 on Tuesday after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 sales results and issued Q4 and FY21 sales guidance below estimates. Various analysts also downgraded the stock. Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp. II (NASDAQ: BTTX ) dropped 32.9% to settle at $11.50. Better Therapeutics recently completed its merger with Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp II. Triterras, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIT ) fell 27.4% to close at $5.43 after B. Riley Securities downgraded the stock from Buy to Neutral and lowers its price target from $9 to $5. Also, the company reported it did not meet Nasdaq's Nov. 1 deadline to file its annual report on Form 20-F with the SEC. ABVC BioPharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: ABVC ) dipped 26.2% to settle at $4.45 after climbing 137% on Monday. Semler Scientific, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMLR ) declined 25.4% to close at $111.66 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 results. The Pennant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: PNTG ) fell 23.3% to close at $20.80. The company sees preliminary Q3 total revenue of $111.9 million and net income of $1.2 million. Spartacus Acquisition Corporation (NASDAQ: NN ) shares fell 22% to close at $9.97 after jumping more than 16% on Monday. CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE: CEIX ) fell 21.6% to close at $22.24 following weak quarterly sales. Harsco Corporation (NYSE: HSC ) declined 20.2% to settle at $14.49 after the company reported downbeat Q3 results and announced plans to explore strategic alternatives for rail business. Switchback II Corporation (NYSE: SWBK ) fell 18.3% to close at $8.17. Intrepid Potash, Inc. (NYSE: IPI ) dropped 17.6% to close at $42.26 following downbeat Q3 earnings. Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR ) fell 16.6% to settle at $9.01 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 sales results. The company did not give guidance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. HCW Biologics Inc. (NASDAQ: HCWB ) dipped 15.9% to close at $3.29. Guardforce AI Co., Limited (NASDAQ: GFAI ) fell 15.5% to close at $2.23. Guardforce recently announced it has engaged MZ Group, an investor relations company, to ' lead a comprehensive strategic investor relations and financial communications program.' Super League Gaming, Inc. (NASDAQ: SLGG ) dropped 15.2% to close at $3.24. Opendoor Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: OPEN ) dipped 14.7% to settle at $21.12. Muscle Maker, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRIL ) shares declined 13.8% to settle at $1.44 after gaining over 50% on Monday. Muscle Maker inked a Master Franchise Agreement for 40 units in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. MoneyGram International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGI ) fell 13.7% to close at $5.28. CVR Energy, Inc. (NYSE: CVI ) fell 13.3% to settle at $17.19 after reporting a wider-than-expected quarterly loss. Clene Inc. (NASDAQ: CLNN ) fell 12.7% to settle at $4.80 after the company announced its RESCUE-ALS Phase 2 did not meet its primary or secondary endpoint. EverQuote, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVER ) declined 12.1% to close at $12.60 following Q3 results. JP Morgan downgraded EverQuote from Overweight to Neutral and lowered the price target from $41 to $17. Cohen & Company Inc. (NYSE: COHN ) fell 11.9% to close at $18.84 after reporting a Q3 loss. Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z ) shares fell 10.2% to settle at $87.20 after KeyBanc analysts said they believe the company's earnings may be at risk due to its $1.17 billion home inventory, finding that 66% of these homes are listed below their purchase price. Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: NBIX ) dropped 10% to close at $95.58 following weak quarterly sales. LSB Industries, Inc. (NYSE: LXU ) fell 10% to close at $8.69 following weak quarterly sales. Invacare Corporation (NYSE: IVC ) fell 9.8% to close at $4.34. NetScout Systems will join S&P SmallCap 600, will replace Invacare. Leggett & Platt, Incorporated (NYSE: LEG ) dropped 9.5% to close at $43.54 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 EPS results. Lightbridge Corporation (NASDAQ: LTBR ) fell 9.2% to settle at $10.58. Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN ) fell 9.2% to close at $132.35 after the company reported Q3 earnings results and issued guidance. Cipher Mining Inc. (NASDAQ: CIFR ) fell 8.7% to close at $8.99 after jumping 25% on Monday. ADC Therapeutics SA (NYSE: ADCT ) fell 7.4% to close at $29.18 after reporting Q3 results. Puhui Wealth Investment Management Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ: PHCF ) fell 7.2% to close at $1.93 after climbing more than 15% on Monday. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Rises Around 150 Points; Semler Scientific Shares Slide Mid-Day Market Update: Avis Budget Surges After Q3 Results; Chegg Shares Plunge © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || GBP/USD Daily Forecast – U.S. Dollar Moves Higher Ahead Of Fed Interest Rate Decision: GBP/USDcontinues its attempts to settle below the support at 1.3665 while the U.S. dollar is gaining some ground against a broad basket of currencies.
The U.S. Dollar Index is currently located in a tight range between 93.20 and 93.30. In case the U.S. Dollar Index gets above 93.30, it will move towards the resistance level at 93.40 which will be bearish for GBP/USD.
Today, foreign exchange market traders will have a chance to take a look atExisting Home Salesreport for August. Analysts expect that Existing Home Sales declined by 1.3% month-over-month after growing by 2% in July.
This report will likely have minimal impact on currency dynamics as traders will focus on Fed Interest Rate Decision and the subsequent commentary. Fed Chair Jerome Powell will provide an update on Fed’s economic projections and reveal Fed’s thoughts on the reduction of the asset purchase program.
Fed’s commentary may have a major impact on markets today so trading will likely remain choppy until traders get the new information from Powell.
GBP/USD is testing the support level at 1.3665. In case this test is successful, GBP/USD will get to the test of the next support level which is located at 1.3635.
If GBP/USD manages to settle below the support at 1.3635, it will continue its downside move and head towards the support at August lows at 1.3600. A move below 1.3600 will push GBP/USD towards the next support which is located at July lows at 1.3575.
On the upside, GBP/USD needs to settle back above 1.3665 to have a chance to develop upside momentum in the near term. The next resistance level for GBP/USD is located at 1.3690.
In case GBP/USD settles above the resistance at 1.3690, it will move towards the next resistance level at 1.3710. A successful test of this level will open the way to the test of the next resistance at 1.3745.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• FedEx Shares Slump 5% After Earnings Disappoint || Introducing Bitdeer Group, the World's Premier All-Inclusive Digital Asset Mining Service Provider: With services spanning reliable mining machine sharing, compliant global mining infrastructure, and efficiency-boosting smart mining service, Bitdeer Group is a leader in the crypto space. Introducing Bitdeer Group, the World's Premier All-Inclusive Digital Asset Mining Service Provider Introducing Bitdeer Group, the World's Premier All-Inclusive Digital Asset Mining Service Provider Introducing Bitdeer Group, the World's Premier All-Inclusive Digital Asset Mining Service Provider SINGAPORE, Sept. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bitdeer Group was established by renowned crypto pioneer Jihan Wu, the co-founder of Bitmain and Matrixport, which provides mining-related services to individuals and enterprise clients worldwide. With its headquarters located in Singapore, Bitdeer Group has branches in North America, Europe, and other regions. Bitdeer Group is committed to becoming the world's most reliable digital asset mining service provider. It offers three lines of business — Bitdeer, Mining Datacenter, and smart mining service. Bitdeer Group is developing market-oriented strategies and integrating resources for high-quality services and major moves in its global operations. Together, these verticals reflect Bitdeer Group's professional development as well as its drive to continually cultivate authentic and trustworthy services for participants of the blockchain space. "Over the long-term, the blockchain industry is bullish and is undeniably the biggest opportunity for both investors as well as developers. The innovations in this industry may even surpass those that came with the advent of the internet," said Jihan Wu, chairman and founder of Bitdeer Group. Mining and acquiring digital currencies are complex processes, but there are ways to obtain newly minted cryptocurrency without contending with technical intricacies. Whether you are a crypto-curious newcomer or a long-time believer, Bitdeer Group's mining machine sharing, Mining Datacenters, and mining management platform weave together a seamless, easy acquisition strategy for any user around the world. "Bitdeer Group has made arrangements to adapt to developments in the mining sector and changes in the market," said Matt Kong, CEO of Bitdeer Group. Story continues One-Click Mining with Bitdeer's Top-Notch Service As the world's first platform to deliver real hashrate capacity at the base rate of 1 TB, Bitdeer features straightforward traceability for hashrates, direct payouts from the mining pool, and customizable service plans, with a convenience that makes it possible for anyone to take advantage of mining. Bitdeer offers support for more than 10 cryptocurrencies — including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Zcash, Litecoin, and Doge — providing a variety of choices that fit short-term and long-term wealth creation objectives. Moreover, Bitdeer's service verticals include Cloud Hashrate, Cloud Hosting, and Hashrate Market for retail customers, as well as the Institutional Customer Service. Bitdeer's cloud service is convenient of its kind for anyone anywhere in the world. Right now, Bitdeer has hundreds of thousands of mining machines running in Europe and North America, with monthly traffic of over 3 million visitors as an endorsement of long-time clients. Energy-Efficient Mining Datacenters with a Global Footprint Mining Datacenter was the first to develop standardized, professional mining facilities and provide cryptocurrency mining services to global partners, drawing from eight years of experience in the field. This includes site selection, facility design, construction, maintenance, and general one-stop technical support. Its team originates from Bitmain's former mining department. So far, more than 30 Mining Datacenters have been constructed for proprietary and client usage, as well as partners located around the world. Bitdeer's fundamental infrastructure is supported by sophisticated Mining Datacenters located in various parts of the United States and Norway. These facilities can operate at an optimum level under various climate conditions and link up various forms of power supply. Altogether, Mining Datacenters wield the world's sizable aggregate mining capacity. Its facility in the USA, is one of the largest operations of its kind in North America. Alongside a focus on being fully compliant with regulatory demands, Mining Datacenters are forging a path to 100% renewable energy. Boosted Efficiency with Smart Mining Service As an integrated smart mining service of Bitdeer Group, it offers a unified platform for infrastructure oversight and control, giving miners the means to solve problems that they may encounter during their regular operations and achieve the highest efficiency. Tracing its roots to the Antsentry team of Bitmain, it helps miners solve problems they may face during mining operations to achieve the best efficiency This proprietary infrastructure software suite is utilized to regulate the expansive operations involving hardware assets spanning continents. The platform assists miners to prevent and solve problems that may arise during day-to-day operations. It can provide up to a 100% boost in efficiency while eliminating the need for human intervention by 50% for large-scale mining farms. The platform includes automated monitoring functionalities, batch management features, security capabilities, data-driven analysis, as well as energy and power meter management processes. The platform is calibrated to mesh with all mainstream mining rig models and pools for maximal impact in any context. Bitdeer Group Is Committed to Becoming the World's Most Reliable Digital Asset Mining Service Provider With more than 300 staff spread across facilities around the world, Bitdeer Group is distributed at a global scale, ensuring risk resistance and versatility that enables stable mining 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That makes it even more crucial to merge diverse cloud services with its infrastructural backbone and intelligent management and maintenance platform for cutting-edge mining services. With a philosophy rooted in the origins of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, Bitdeer Group is prepared to service customers who are in pursuit of stable, dependable crypto financial growth. About Bitdeer Group Bitdeer Group is the world's leading digital asset mining service provider. It was founded by Jihan Wu, a renowned pioneer in the crypto industry, along with Sequoia Capital, IDG, and other well-known investment institutions in the blockchain field. Founded in 2020 with headquarters in Singapore, Bitdeer Group has branches in the United States, Europe, and other countries and regions. Under the group, there are currently three business lines — Bitdeer, Mining Datacenter, and smart mining service. Together, they provide a full range of mining services, including mining machine sharing, mining infrastructure construction, and mining operation management. For more information, please get in touch with Bitdeer Group: Website : https://bitdeergroup.com/ Business Contact : contact@bitdeer.com Media Contact : pr@bitdeer.com Related Images Image 1: Introducing Bitdeer Group, the World's Premier All-Inclusive Digital Asset Mining Service Provider With services spanning reliable mining machine sharing, compliant global mining infrastructure, and efficiency-boosting smart mining service, Bitdeer Group is a leader in the crypto space. This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com . Attachment Introducing Bitdeer Group, the World's Premier All-Inclusive Digital Asset Mining Service Provider || Bitcoin Not In A Bear Market Despite Eyeing $43k Support: Michaël van de Poppe: The price of the leading cryptocurrency is struggling above the $46k region and could slip towards $43 soon. However, a popular analyst doesn’t think that the bear market is in sight yet.
The cryptocurrency market suffered a dip earlier this week, losing over $300 billion in the process. The dip saw Bitcoin’s price drop from above $52k to trade below the $45k region earlier this week.
Ether was also one of the coins affected, dropping from the $3,800 level to trade above $3,300. However, the market has slightly recovered, withBTCnow trading above the $46k region. The leading cryptocurrency is still struggling to maintain its price above that level, and some analysts believe that it could drop lower in the coming hours and days.
Popular cryptocurrency analyst Michaël van de Poppe revealed in his latestYouTube sessionthat the cryptocurrency market is not in a bear trend. He is optimistic that the support levels at $45,700 and $44,000 should be enough forBitcointo stay above $46k and rally higher.
If the leading cryptocurrency is able to break past the resistance level at $46,700, then it could rally higher. He stated that if BTC surpasses that resistance level, then it stands a chance of moving past the $47,500 pivot and going all the way towards $50,000 in the short term.
For a long time, Bitcoin’s performance has affected that of the other altcoins. When Bitcoin is rallying, most altcoins are also performing well. And whenBitcoinenters a bearish trend, the other altcoins are usually underperforming.
Michaël van de Poppe reiterated that point, noting thatBitcoin’smove towards the $50k level could strengthen the altcoins. Most altcoins are struggling at the moment, losing more than 3% of their value over the past few hours.
IfBitcoincontinues on the current trend, its price could drop lower towards the $44k region, and this could shed billions of dollars from the cryptocurrency market.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 61452.23, 61125.68, 61527.48, 63326.99, 67566.83, 66971.83, 64995.23, 64949.96, 64155.94, 64469.53
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Elon Musk to Join Twitter CEO Agrawal for Staff Q&A Next Week: (Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk, who was added to Twitter Inc.’s board after accumulating a stake in the social network, will join Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal at a company all-hands meeting next week to address employee questions.
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Agrawal will host Musk at the Q&A session to help ease internal concerns about the impact the billionaire will have on the company’s internal culture and policies, according to the Washington Post, which earlier reported the meeting. A Twitter spokesman confirmed the company’s plans.
On April 4, Musk, 50, disclosed that he’d taken a more than 9% stake in Twitter. The following day, Twitter said Musk was joining its board, and Musk filed a new form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission classifying himself as an active investor. He had earlier submitted the form reserved for passive shareholders.
Musk, CEO of automaker Tesla Inc., is the world’s richest man, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He’s also one of the biggest personalities on Twitter and has regularly stirred controversy on the platform. He is currently seeking to exit a 2018 deal with the SEC that put controls in place related to his tweeting about Tesla.
Citing internal company messages, the Washington Post on Thursday reported that some workers in recent days have expressed concern on Twitter’s employee Slack channels that Musk could inflict damage to the company’s culture, as well as make it harder for people to do their jobs.
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©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || Oil down, Bitcoin and Dow up in day of relief for beleaguered investors: Brent crude oil prices dived 13% to $111 per barrel on Wednesday after touching 14-year highs earlier in the week amid concerns about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions from the West.
Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude fell 12% to $109 per barrel while natural gas recovered from mid-day losses to end the day flat.
Oil prices were nudged down by news that the United Arab Emirates favors increasing oil production and is set to push OPEC for higher output,Reuters reported. Additionally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in aninterview with the German newspaper Bildon Wednesday that, "compromises can be made, but they must not be a betrayal of my country,” lending some hope to a possible end to the conflict.
However, the war continued to take a heavy toll on civilians as Russian airstrikes hit amaternity ward in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and the Kremlin’s forces repeated their attempts to encircle the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, illustrating the two sides may still be far from an agreement.
Stock investors rejoiced on Wednesday as theDowJones Industrial Average rose 653 points to 33,286, marking a day of relief from recent war-induced retreats. The S&P 500 andNasdaqfollowed suit, soaring 2.5% to 4,277 and 3.6% 13,255, respectively, as buyers piled into riskier stocks that had taken bigger hits over the past few weeks.
The Dow was led bySalesforceandAmerican Express, which both notched over 5% gains. Energy companies likeChevron,Phillips 66, and Exxon were the biggest losers in equity markets amid oil’s rout.
“The equity market continues to take its cues from changes in commodity prices, namely oil,” Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics,told CNBC. “Trading will continue to be volatile and rally when (oil) prices retreat.”
Abroad, Germany’s DAX index skyrocketed 7.9%, and the EURO STOXX 50 saw a 7.44% gain in the biggest rally since the pandemic bottom in March 2020.
“Risk markets are higher today, suggesting traders are no longer in flight mode and are starting to think about value again,” Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial,told Bloomberg. “That doesn’t mean volatility is over. Economic consequences, macro and micro, are still in flux.”
Bitcoin’s price also jumped on Wednesday, rising roughly 8% to near $42,000, while Ethereum rose 5.5% to top $2,690.
Wednesday was also a cooler day for raw materials and metals as Bloomberg’s commodity index dropped 5.1% after a month of strong gains because of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The index, which is seen as a solid reflection of overall commodity pricing, had risen over 20% in the last 30 days before the drop.
Gold prices also fell 2.15% to end just below $2,000 per troy ounce, while silver and platinum experienced drops of 3% and 6.3%, respectively.
Wheat tumbled 6.6% on the day as well, easingfears of a shortagedue to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Corn, sugar, and lumber prices also fell on Wednesday, leading commodities lower.
This story was originally featured onFortune.com || Bitcoin Hits Break-even for First Time in Year as It Blows Past $47,201 Before Settling Back Down: 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) briefly blew past its 2022 yearly break-even point of $47,201, reaching as high as $47,524 before settling back in the $46,850 range by early afternoon Asia time, according to CoinDesk data.
The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is up 5% in the last 24 hours, according to market data. Bitcoin has gained over 12% since last Sunday after climbing six consecutive days.
In a note published Monday morning Asia time, Singapore's QCP capital pointed to a broader rally in global asset prices as a reason why this "bullish momentum" is likely to continue in the near term. The fund also pointed tothe continued bitcoin buys from Lunaas a reason for the continued momentum.
"One notable buy flow this week was the 125 million USDT purchase of BTC by Luna Foundation Guard (LFG). This purchase is part of the plan to systematically accumulate a total 3 billion USD worth of BTC as a reserve for TerraUSD (UST)," QCP wrote.
Ether (ETH) and most other major cryptos were also blooming. The second-largest crypto by market cap followed a similar pattern to bitcoin on Sunday and was changing hands at over $3,250, its highest level since early February. The tokens of Solana, Cardano and Avalanche were among other altcoins were well into the green. Popular meme coins dogecoin and shiba inu, were up about 6% and 3% respectively.
Trading was accelerating after weeks of low volumes.
"Trading volumes are up as buyers try to turn this resistance line into support and take further steps up in pricing," Joe DiPasquale, the CEO of fund manager BitBull Capital, wrote to CoinDesk, but added: "If we don't remain above this line, we will consolidate lower than here."
DiPasquale said that bitcoin had had "a strong week, especially given the quarterly options expiry" on Friday and noted that bitcoin had "shown resilience" following the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision last week to raise interest rates and the continued escalation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine with its economic fallout.
But he was also cautious in his appraisal of the coming days. "While market participants are starting to get bullish and the fear and greed index is at neutral, BTC bulls will want to see the price consolidating above $46,000 for further continuation," he said. "The coming week is also important as it marks the end of the quarter, and we could see increased volatility after that."
UPDATE (March 27, 2022, 06:11 UTC):Updates headline to say bitcoin hit breakeven for year; adds details throughout.
UPDATE (March 27, 2022, 02:55 UTC):Updates headline to $46.8K, adds details from QCP note.
UPDATE (March 27, 2022, 22:36 UTC):Updates headline to $46.5K. || US stocks surge ahead of the Federal Reserve's expected first interest rate hike since 2018: • US stocks surged on Wednesday ahead of the Federal Reserve's expected interest rate hike.
• The Fed is widely anticipated to raise the Fed Funds Rate to a range of 0.25% to 0.50%, representing its first hike since 2018.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Congress as talks with Russia indicated some progress.
US stocks surged more than 1% on Wednesday, extending their strong gains from Tuesday, as investors prepare for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates for the first time since late 2018.
This afternoon, the Fed is expected to raise the Fed Funds Rate from near zero to a range of 0.25% to 0.50%. The rate has been at rock bottom since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in March 2020.
While a rate hike is fully expected by the market, investors will pay close attention to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's news conference at 2:30 p.m. ET, in which any hints about future rate hikes will likely have an outsized effect on the stock market.
The Fed is poised to continue to raise rates in an attempt to tame inflationary pressures, with prices rising at their fastest levels in 40 years.
Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. ET open on Wednesday:
• S&P 500:4,307.04, up 1.05%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average:33,901.52, up 1.06%
• Nasdaq Composite:13,124.68, up 1.36%
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Congress on Wednesday, asking the US government for a no-fly zone to protect its airspace from Russian attacks. But he also acknowledged US reluctance to enforce a no-fly zone, which could escalate the conflict between Russia and Western countries.
An alternative, according to Zelenskyy, was for the US to provide adequate defensive weapons that Ukraine could then use to fight Russia. He also urged the US to sanction every single politician in Russia and put more economic pressure on the country.
Chinese stocks likeAlibaba and Tencent soared more than 20% on Wednesdayafter China's Vice Premier Liu He pledged support for policies that would benefit its stock market, and said that talks between the US and China on foreign listings have made progress.
Nickel markets reopened on Wednesday following a massive short-squeeze earlier this month that sent prices to more than $100,000 per ton. Nickelprices fell about 5%before trades were halted once again.
Oil prices reboundedafter entering a bear market earlier this weekand were well below their recent highs sparked by the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
West Texas Intermediate crudeoil rose as much as much as 1.99% to $98.36 per barrel.Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, rallied as much as 1.28% to $101.19.
Bitcoin rose 3.16% to $40,406. Ether prices gained 2.03% to $2,675.
Goldfell as much as 0.45% to $1,921.10 per ounce. The yield on the 10-year Treasury added 2 basis points to 2.17%.
Read the original article onBusiness Insider || The 10 Entertainment Stocks to Buy for 2022 and Beyond: • Paramount Global:The company is a very attractive acquisition target
• Nexstar Media Group:Tons of free cash flow
• Electronic Arts:Some of the best games in the business
• BiliBili:It is one of China’s best stocks currently down on its luck
• Skillz:It has got a shot to turn things around
• Sea Ltd.:Financial services and e-commerce will drive Sea in 2022
• Live Nation Entertainment:Concert goers are coming back in droves
• Marriott International:Marriott’s business is stronger than it has ever been
• McDonald’s:The Golden Arches continues to perform at a high level
• Walt Disney:The PEG ratio is at a decade-long low
Source: Iuliia Pilipeichenko / Shutterstock
Investors looking for entertainment stocks to buy are in for a lengthy and protracted search. That is because everyone’s definition of what constitutes entertainment is different.
For example, if you like to go hunting on the weekend, gun manufacturers could be in your field of vision. However, while you might consider hunting entertainment, others might disagree.You say to-mate-o, I say to-mat-o. Different strokes for different folks.
Deal Capital Partners LLCestimates that the media and entertainment industry in the U.S. in 2021 was an$804 billionmarket. That constitutes films, video games, music, and book publishing.Of course, as I said earlier, everyone’s definition of entertainment is different.
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To help make heads or tales of this search, I’ll find several ETFs with the word “entertainment” in the fund name to help me unearth the top 20 entertainment stocks to buy for 2022 and beyond.
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The stocks that qualify should have a minimum market capitalization of $1 billion and be in the ETF’s top 10. Here are my top 10 entertainment stocks to buy for 2022:
[{"PARA": "NXST", "Paramount Global": "Nexstar Media Group", "$37.89": "$187.14"}, {"PARA": "EA", "Paramount Global": "Electronic Arts", "$37.89": "$127.02"}, {"PARA": "BILI", "Paramount Global": "Bilibili", "$37.89": "$28.48"}, {"PARA": "SKLZ", "Paramount Global": "Skillz", "$37.89": "$2.99"}, {"PARA": "SE", "Paramount Global": "Sea Ltd.", "$37.89": "$113.18"}, {"PARA": "LYV", "Paramount Global": "Live Nation Entertainment", "$37.89": "$116.36"}, {"PARA": "MAR", "Paramount Global": "Marriott International", "$37.89": "$171.03"}, {"PARA": "MCD", "Paramount Global": "McDonald\u2019s", "$37.89": "$240.94"}, {"PARA": "DIS", "Paramount Global": "Walt Disney", "$37.89": "$137.96"}]
Source: viewimage / Shutterstock
Paramount Global(NASDAQ:PARA) is the first of three picks from theiShares Evolved U.S. Media and Entertainment ETF(BATS:IEME), anactively managed ETFthat invests in U.S. companies with exposure to the media and entertainment industry.
The media company’s stock has been on fire since mid-February. That is whenCBS/Viacomrebranded as Paramount Global.
The companyrebrandedto recognize the big contribution its Paramount+ streaming service is expected to make to the company’s top and bottom lines. It also reflects on its iconic movie-making past. Equally important, it puts all the warring between CBS and Viacom behind it.
Shares continue to move higher heading into April as speculation mounts that Paramount is open to a buyout. Names likeApple(NASDAQ:AAPL) andAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) have been mentioned aspossible buyers.
Paramount+ is on a roll. In fourth quarter (Q4) 2021, it added9.4 million subscribers, finishing the year with over 56 million subscribers and 84% year-over-year growth in streaming subscription revenue.
Source: Piotr Swat / Shutterstock.com
InvestorPlace’sFaizan Farooque namedNexstar Media Group(NASDAQ:NXST) one of thebest cheap stocks to buyin mid-January. It is up 26% year-to-date (YTD), which is pretty good considering the markets are down on the year.
As my colleague said, Nexstar owns television stations. Lots of them. It owns200 broadcast stations in 116 U.S. markets, but controls more than 50% of the local broadcast media in the U.S.
In its March 2022 investor presentation, it points out that it is nearing$5 billionin annual revenue and $1.4 billion in free cash flow (FCF) generation. In the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2021, it allocated 43% of its $1.24 billion in FCF to share repurchases, followed by 23% debt repayment, 11% acquisitions, 10% to dividends, and 15% on growing the business.
One thing that I did not know about the company: Itowns 31% of theFood Network.
Interestingly, itsNewsNationnational news network is available in more American households than MSNBC. Take that,Morning Joe.
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By most financial metrics, Nexstar is cheaper than it has been in recent years. And it has got a plan to grow.
Source: ricochet64 / Shutterstock
Electronic Arts(NASDAQ:EA) is the final of three stocks from the iShares ETF. The video game company isn’t having a great year in the markets — it is down 3.5% YTD — but its business is doing just fine.
In Q3 2022, its net bookings for the trailing 12 months were$7.25 billion, 22% higher than a year earlier. In the first nine months of fiscal 2022, more than 180 million monthly active accounts played EA games across all of its platforms. Most of its growth comes from its live services thanks to players spending 20% more time in 2022 on its games.
For all of 2022, it expects to generate $694 million in net income from $6.92 billion in revenue and $7.52 billion in net bookings.
I’m a sports fan, so I naturally lean toward Electronic Arts’ sports titles such asNHL 22andMadden 22.
Recently, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson suggested that it is consideringdumping its relationshipwith FIFA, the governing body for soccer worldwide.The Vergereported on this development in February, stating:
“Wilson suggested that EA feels its FIFA branding deal is unnecessarily restrictive, while not providing enough value to the company. ‘Basically, what we get from FIFA in a non-World Cup year is the four letters on the front of the box.’”
EA doesn’t need FIFA to sell games. It is time to rip off the band-aid.
Source: rafapress / Shutterstock.com
Bilibili(NASDAQ:BILI) is the first of three stocks from thetop 10 holdingsof theRoundhill BITKRAFT Esports & Digital Entertainment ETF(NYSEARCA:NERD). NERD tracks the performance of theRoundhill BITKRAFT Esports Index.
Bilibili does a little of everything, although many call it China’s version ofYouTube.InvestorPlace’sShanthi Rexaline recently pickedseven Chinese stocksthat were obscenely cheap at the moment. Bilibili made the list.
While investors weren’t too happy about the company’sQ4 2021results released on Mar. 3, they’re really not that bad.
The company’s revenue in the quarter grew 51% to $907.1 million while its monthly active users (MAUs) were 271.7 million, 35% higher than in Q4 2020. All of its financial metrics were up by 30% or more in the final quarter of 2021. The big negative was its $313.8 million operating loss. It was 121% higher than a year earlier.
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Even though the stock is down 38.7% YTD, the analysts still like it. Of the39 covering BILIstock, 31 rates it a Buy or Overweight.
Source: Dennis Diatel / Shutterstock.com
Of all the names on this list,Skillz(NYSE:SKLZ) is the most beaten down of the bunch. As I write this, it is down more than 7% on the day and 59% YTD.
Despite the collapse in its share price, I’ve continued to argue on its behalf as its share price has fallen into the $2’s in March. I believe aggressive investors ought to be buying its stock under $3.
Here is a brief snippet of what I had to say aboutthe state of its business:
“It finished Q4 2021 with610,000 paying monthly active users(PMAUs), up 56% over Q4 2020 and510,000in Q3 2021, 19.6% higher on a sequential basis. If it continues to grow PMAUs by 20% each quarter, it will get to a million PMAUs by September.”
The problem isn’t that it is not attracting PMAUs; it is that they’re not spending enough. It is a problem that has got to be solved if its shares are to move higher.
I think the risk-to-reward proposition under $3 tilts in the aggressive investor’s favor. If you’re risk-averse, you have no business buying SKLZ.
Source: Wirestock Creators / Shutterstock
JPMorgan(NYSE:JPM) analystsdowngradedthe global consumer internet company’s shares in early March fromOverweight to Neutral. However, it was the price cut that really hurt. The analysts cut it by 58% to $105. That is below where it is currently trading.
Sea Ltd.(NYSE:SE) operates three core businesses: Garena (online games), Shopee (e-commerce), and SeaMoney (financial services). All three are big players in Asia. The entire business saw revenues increase 127.5% in 2021 to$10 billion.
Unfortunately, it lost $593.6 million in 2021, 455% higher than a year earlier. Of the three businesses, only its digital entertainment unit is generating positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).
Investors are losing interest in companies that aren’t profitable.
In 2022, its digital entertainment business will take a step back as Covid-19 recedes, while its e-commercial and financial services units are expected to experience major growth throughout the year.
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There is no question that SE stock carries lots of risk. No risk, no reward.
Source: Piotr Swat / Shutterstock
The first of four picks from theInvesco Dynamic Leisure and Entertainment ETF(NYSEARCA:PEJ) isLive Nation Entertainment(NYSE:LYV). I couldn’t help but pick Live Nation for this list. The word entertainment is right in its corporate name.
Besides, Live Nation ought to experience a rebirth once Covid-19 slows. It operates concert venues, manages the artists that perform at these facilities, and sells tickets to the artist’s concerts. It is a trifecta of post-Covid growth.
Perhaps that is why its stock is up almost 39% over the past year. Investors sense that its business is about to get a whole lot stronger.
Live Nation reported full-year 2021 earnings at the end of February. Its revenues were$6.27 billion, a three-fold increase from 2020. That is the glass-half-full view. The glass-half-empty view is that it was half of 2019’s revenue.
As the company stated in itsQ4 2021press release, through the first two months of 2022, it had already sold 45 million concert tickets for shows this year with ticket sales at most major venues up double digits YTD.
Most importantly, its FCF in 2021 was negative $113.9 million. That is about one-tenth what it was in 2020, which was negative $1.27 billion. Investors should expect the turnaround to continue in 2022.
Source: Serjio74 / Shutterstock
Marriott International(NASDAQ:MAR) opened its8,000th hotelin early March at its new head office complex in Bethesda, Maryland. The Marriott Bethesda Downtown at Marriott headquarters has 245 rooms and 12 floors with floor-to-ceiling windows providing views of the Potomac River.
In 2021, the company added a record86,000 rooms, growing net rooms by 3.9%. It finished 2021 with 1.48 million rooms in 139 countries and territories. It signed deals in 2021 for 92,000 rooms, bringing its pipeline to 485,000.
Luxury hotels, which generate high fees for the company, have a pipeline of 50,000 rooms. Its luxury brands include JW Marriott, The Ritz-Carlton, W Hotels, St. Regis, and The Luxury Collection.
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Its operating income in 2021 was $1.75 billion, just $50 million less than in 2020 on almost $1 billion less in net fee revenues. Marriott’s business has rarely been stronger than it is today.
Source: CHALERMPHON SRISANG / Shutterstock.com
McDonald’s(NYSE:MCD) has always been a tough company to figure out. By that, I mean that you would think the largest restaurant chain on the planet would move more quickly at launching new products.Take the McPlant, for example.
The Golden Arches is currentlytesting the meatless burgerat 600 U.S. restaurants. This is after testing the product on a smaller sample of restaurants in 2021. Unfortunately, McDonald’s franchisees haven’t been impressed by McPlant’s ability to woo customers. As a result, franchisees might not support a national rollout. Instead, McDonald’s might launch the McPlant burger in urban markets where plant-based foods experience higher demand.
By taking its time to test and roll out products over a longer period of time, it is able to make sure the franchisees are fully onside. This is a must for a business where 95% of the locations are franchised.
In 2021, the company’s systemwide sales went over$112 billionworldwide. Its U.S. same-store sales increased by 13.8% this past year, its highest on record. It has now had seven consecutive years of same-store sales growth.
Business is very good at the Golden Arches.
Source: nikkimeel / Shutterstock.com
The last of four picks from PEJ,Walt Disney(NYSE:DIS) is expected to have a strong year in 2022 for several reasons. However, it seems investors haven’t gotten the memo. DIS stock is down 28% from its 52-week high of $191.67.
Morningstar.com’sanalysis of Disney projects that the company’s streaming services — Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and Hotstar — will exceed300 million, up from 120 million in December 2020. As for profits,Morningstar.comexpects operating profits by fiscal 2024.
Like Live Nation, Disney’s parks and resorts will experience tremendous demand in 2022 and beyond as visitors flow to its theme parks to catch up on all they’ve missed out on while Covid-19 was raging.
One of the valuation metrics that suggest now is an excellent time to buy Disney stock is the price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio. ThePEG ratiois the current price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio divided by its five-year expected growth rate. Disney’s current PEG ratio is1.09. It hasn’t been this low at any time over the past decade.
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This makes Disney is a good long-term buy under $140.
On the date of publication, Will Ashworthdid not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to theInvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
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The postThe 10 Entertainment Stocks to Buy for 2022 and Beyondappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Bitcoiner Bruce Fenton Confirms Hes Running for New Hampshire Senate Seat: 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 former executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation, Bruce Fenton, is officially running for the Republican nomination for New Hampshires seat in the U.S. Senate. Hell be starting his campaign with an injection of $5 million of personal bitcoin (BTC) wealth. Fentons announcement Wednesday confirmed earlier reports the long-time crypto proponent and self-described libertarian was flirting with the idea of a Senate run. Incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) is widely unpopular with her constituents, making her seat vulnerable to a Republican challenger and Fenton wants to throw his hat into the ring. Fenton told CoinDesk on Wednesday his initial $5 million contribution would be a loan to the campaign but that he would "spend and raise whatever it takes." "I think that the money system in politics is broken and ready for disruption so I think we can spend very effectively and get a lot more for our dollars," Fenton added. As crypto becomes an increasingly hot topic on Capitol Hill, more federal lawmakers are aligning themselves with the crypto industry. Candidates that are seen as crypto-friendly have enjoyed support from crypto enthusiasts , an increasing number of whom are describing themselves as single-issue voters . Fenton is a relative latecomer to the race, which means he faces a tougher fight in the primary election, which is slated for Sept. 13. But despite the obstacles, Fenton told CoinDesk he felt compelled to try anyway. I knew this is something I had to do or I would regret it, Fenton said. I dont know what change I can make in the world but I know I must try. We are at a very special time in world history, Fenton added. Bitcoin and the crypto revolution is one key part of the major change we are seeing in how our systems work. I think our values of decentralization and freedom are about to change the world. Story continues If elected, Fenton previously told CoinDesk he wants to tear down regulatory obstacles for the crypto industry . Im in favor of limiting government involvement in our lives as much as possible, Fenton said. Whether its crypto or any other issue, I believe government should reduce regulatory burdens and get out of our lives and wallets. Read more: Meet the Libertarian Bitcoiner Considering a Run for New Hampshires Senate Seat || DraftKings Has a Serious Profitability Problem That Isn’t Going Away: WithDraftKings(NASDAQ:DKNG) continuing to face very tough competition that’s severely undermining its profitability and also about to deal with an important, near-term hurdle, the outlook for DKNG stock remains poor.
Source: Lori Butcher / Shutterstock.com
Given the intense competition that DraftKings is facing, I’m unsure if the company will ever be profitable. DraftKings is facing tough competition in the sports-betting space that has weighed on its profitability for some time.
Partly due to Wall Street’s current focus on profitability, investors finally have realized that DraftKings’ losses are very detrimental. Since its losses are mostly caused by high marketing costs spurred by intense competition, I expect the firm to remain in the red for many years, if not forever.
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In 2021, for example, DraftKings’ sales and marketing costsnearly doubled versus 2020to $981.5 million. Those sales and marketing costs were equal to roughly 75% of its entire revenue for the year.
In my view, DraftKings’ main underlying problem is that it’s facing competitors with very strong name recognition. Those competitors are able to spend hundreds of millions on marketing costs without sustaining huge losses.
Competitors likeMGM Resorts(NYSE:MGM),Penn National(NASDAQ:PENN) andCaesars(NASDAQ:CZR) also have access to contact information and data on their tens of thousands of customers. These casino owners can easily contact and effectively market their online betting businesses to these customers, many of whom enjoy gambling with large amounts of money.
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It’s true that DraftKings has access to many current and former fantasy sports participants. But these people are likely to spend less money than traditional casinos gamblers on the whole. These are people who like spending many hours per day and many days per year gambling.
To compete effectively with the casino owners for lucrative gamblers’ dollars, DraftKings has to spend tremendous amounts of money on marketing.
DraftKings expects its EBITDA, excluding certain items, to come in at $825-$925. That is meaningfully worse than the $676 million adjusted EBITDA the company reported in 2021. The EBITDA guidance was also below analysts’ prior average estimate.
Turning to the short-term challenge, Major League Baseball and its Players’ Association have beenunable to reach an agreementon a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
As a result, MLB announced that its 2022 season, will be delayed beyond its slated March 31 start date. That could negatively affect DraftKings’ second-quarter results since there will be no MLB games on which to bet.
Arguably, if the postponement turns out to be long-lasting, MLB’s existing problems with young Americans could be aggravated, hurting DraftKings’ financial results over the longer term.
Wells Fargocut its ratingfrom “overweight” to “equal weight,” citing DraftKings’ spending, which is expected to surge 60% year-over-year.
DraftKings has a huge profitability issue because it cannot keep up its marketing efforts without generating huge losses.
This issue is not going to be resolved for the foreseeable future and may never be alleviated. Therefore, I continue to advise investors to sell DKNG stock.
On the date of publication, Larry Ramer held a long position in MGM. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
Larry Ramer has conducted research and written articles on U.S. stocks for 13 years. He has been employed by The Fly and Israel’s largest business newspaper, Globes. Larry began writing columns for InvestorPlace in 2015. Among his highly successful, contrarian picks have been GE, solar stocks, and Snap. You can reach him on StockTwits at @larryramer.
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The postDraftKings Has a Serious Profitability Problem That Isn’t Going Awayappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Musk’s Q&A With Twitter Staff Is Canceled After He Declined Board Seat: (Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk is no longer hosting a question-and-answer session with Twitter Inc. employees this week since he isn’t taking a board seat at the social media company.
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The world’s wealthiest person was scheduled to join Twitter Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal, for an “ask-me-anything” meeting with Twitter staff after the company announced last week that Musk had acquired a stake of more than 9% and would join the board.
But the meeting was canceled after Musk decided not to take a seat. Employees have the day off Monday for a regular, monthly day of rest the company provides. The break is well-timed as several people described the vibe as “super stressed,” with employees “working together to help each other get through the week.”
Twitter staff had mixed feelings about attending the session with Musk anyway. It might have clarified whether Musk had plans to be friendly or hostile with his stake, but it could also have raised further questions about how to react to his whims. In the past week, his ideas have ranged from striking advertising for Twitter’s subscription service to turning part of its headquarters into a homeless shelter.
By inviting Musk to join the board and speak to the staff, Agrawal gave the impression that the relationship would be friendly. But the sudden change of heart over the seat ignited renewed speculation about Musk’s intentions. By not joining the board, Musk is no longer subject to a standstill agreement that would have capped his stake at 14.9%.
Agrawal warned of “distractions ahead” in his note Sunday. One employee expressed concern that Musk was “just getting started, which is unfortunate.” Multiple employees described the situation as a “sh-t show.”
(Updates with employee sentiment in fourth paragraph.)
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©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stabilizes Amid Geopolitical Uncertainty: Bitcoin ( BTC ) and other cryptocurrencies experienced sharp price swings over the past 24 hours amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. On Thursday, U.S. President Biden imposed additional sanctions on Russia for the attack. Russian airstrikes triggered declines across speculative assets worldwide, including cryptocurrencies. The market capitalization across all cryptos slid toward $1.5 trillion, losing almost 9%. Bitcoin fell as much as 7%, although the crypto pared earlier losses and had returned above $38,000 at press time. Most alternative cryptocurrencies underperformed bitcoin over the past 24 hours. "Option volumes point to the likelihood that many investors are maintaining long positions while hedging risk with derivatives," Sean Farrell, head of digital asset strategy at FundStrat, wrote in a email on Thursday. "Consistent with last week, we think it is wise to maintain long positions with time horizons beyond six months and be prepared to buy on dips," Farrell wrote. Latest prices ● Bitcoin (BTC): $38456, +1.84% ● Ether (ETH): $2645, +0.75% ● S&P 500 daily close: $4289, +1.50% ● Gold: $1898 per troy ounce, −0.61% ● Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 1.97% Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found at coindesk.com/indices. Signs of capitulation Bitcoin's trading volume across major spot exchanges reached its highest level in a month, according to CoinDesk data. Typically, high volume corrections could signal capitulation among sellers. And from a technical perspective, there are initial signs on the charts of downside exhaustion, which typically precede short-term upswings in price. Katie Stockton, managing partner at Fairlead Strategies, a technical research firm, also noticed a short-term counter trend signal for BTC. "Hopefully this allows bitcoin to avoid a confirmed breakdown," Katie wrote in an email to CoinDesk. Story continues A break below $37,361 would be bearish, although Stockton's work shows the current dip in BTC could exhaust itself today and give way to two weeks of stabilization. Flight to safety Risk-off has been the dominant theme so far this year, even before the events in Russia and Ukraine escalated into a full-scale war. The chart below shows that long-term U.S. Treasurys have moved in lockstep with stocks, offering little protection for investors. Meanwhile, bitcoin have largely underperformed traditional assets year to date. And gold has maintained its status as a safe haven asset. Still, returns across assets have narrowed, with bitcoin still in the lead over the past year. Bitcoin and macro asset returns this year (CoinDesk) Altcoin roundup Tether's USDT stablecoin well over $1 on Ukrainian crypto exchange: Ukrainians were paying a steep premium over the U.S. dollar for Tether's USDT stablecoin after Russia invaded the Eastern European country. The price of USDT on the popular Ukrainian cryptocurrency exchange Kuna jumped Thursday by almost 5% in the past 24 hours to 32 Ukrainian hryvnia, the country’s national currency. The price works out to $1.10 per USDT, which is supposed to be worth $1, according to CoinDesk’s Helene Braun. Read more here . OneOf expands sports NFT presence with new collection on Polygon: The digital sports collectible market is growing faster than ever, and non-fungible token (NFT) platform OneOf is planning to get in on the action. On Thursday, the company announced the launch of its “ Sports Pass ” collection, a series of NFTs designed by animation studio 8th Frame that grant holders exclusive perks on OneOf’s new sports-themed NFT marketplace, according to CoinDesk reporter Eli Tan. Read more here . Smart contract tokens’ gain wiped out: Cosmos’ ATOM fell 9.2% today after leading the smart contract tokens’ gains with a 7.2% rise yesterday. Major gainers yesterday like Avalanche’s AVAX fell as much as 7.6% today. Price plunges were more severe in the earlier hours in reaction to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Partial recovery were seen later, but overall sentiment is still bearish. Relevant news Crypto Market Capitalization Slumps to $1.5T as Russia Attacks Ukraine US to Expand Sanctions Against Russia After Ukraine Invasion Bloomberg Integrates Elwood Technologies' Crypto Platform Into Buy-Side Order System Bitcoin Miner Core Scientific Has More Than 100% Upside: BTIG China's Supreme Court Rules Crypto Transactions Constitute 'Illegal Fundraising' Other markets Digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day slightly lower. Largest gainers: Asset Ticker Returns Sector Bitcoin Cash BCH +3.5% Currency Solana SOL +2.2% Smart Contract Platform Bitcoin BTC +1.5% Currency Largest losers: Asset Ticker Returns Sector Cosmos ATOM −6.5% Smart Contract Platform Internet Computer ICP −6.4% Computing Cardano ADA −5.6% Smart Contract Platform Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS) , developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive, and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges. || Has yuan become Russia's new dollar?: Russia could use the Chinese yuan to bypass the crippling sanctions andSWIFT payment ban imposed by the US and its allies.
Oneroublenow buys less than one US cent, causing ordinary Russians to flock to stores of value such as gold and bitcoin (BTC-USD) to protect themselves from the fallout.
AsPutin'sarmoured divisions roll closer to Kyiv, his country's economy rolls closer to the abyss, and speculation has grown that Moscow will resort to using cryptocurrencies as a financial back-channel.
However, there is simply not enough volume and liquidity within crypto markets to offset the disruption that sanctions will have on the Russian economy.
This leaves the Kremlin with another option: to use the Chinese yuan and Beijing's CIPS international payment system for cross border trade.
Disconnecting Russia from world finance could thus create an unwanted side effect for the west, the birth of a new global economic system based upon the Chinese yuan.
Read more:'Crypto lobby groups are dictating terms in Washington'
Steve H Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, told Yahoo Finance UK that "disconnecting Russia from the dollar-based system won't have much of an impact on the dollar initially, but in the long run it might be a different matter".
The senior economist added that the act of removing Russia from the SWIFT dollar-denominated international payments system “has weaponised and contaminated SWIFT”.
"This will make room for challengers to the dollar-denominated international system."
Read more:Steve Hanke: The value of bitcoin is probably zero
The major challenger isChina'sCross-border Interbank Payment System, or CIPS.
China’s competitor to the dollar-based SWIFT system was created in 2015 and currently only handles a fraction of the international claims settlements that are completed by the SWIFT system.
But this imbalance could begin to tilt in China's favour if Russia is forced to rely upon it for international trade.
State media in China likened the SWIFT ban on Russian banks to “a financial nuclear weapon”, but also welcomed it as an opportunity for Beijing’s CIPS.
Hanke said the recent political interference with SWIFT was “accelerating the development and use of CIPS, regardless of whether Russia utilises it or not".
Russian reliance upon CIPS will allow China to develop the yuan's use outside the country’s borders.
Chinese president Xi Jinping's pet infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative, has also helped to introduce the yuan overseas.
But Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute, said that there is still only marginal use of the yuan and it is "still nowhere near being a global currency".
"While Russia will make more use of the yuan, the yuan cannot replace the dollar as the global currency as full convertibility is required for any currency to be accepted as a full global currency or a major reserve currency.”
The Chinese government is unwilling to allow the yuan to be freely traded in case they lose control over its value.
Read more:Ukraine to sell NFTs to fund war costs
In the past, Beijing has been accused of strict mercantilism, after claims that the yuan was being artificially undervalued against the US dollar to give Chinese exports an unfair price advantage.
Geopolitical analysts are anxious about the future, as Hanke suggests that sanctions have a record of failing to meet their desired objectives.
He said that the full economic isolation of Russia could create a "nightmare scenario in which an 'enormous North Korea' emerges, one with nukes".
Tsang sees signs the world is on a trajectory towards a new Cold War in which "Russia and its close allies will form one bloc and the democracies led by the west forming another".
However, he added that China will maintain a cautious approach that will be pragmatic for its own interests and avoid "attracting secondary sanctions against Chinese institutions".
Anders Corr, publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, reinforced the view that sanctions against Russia would “drive the country towards China’s economy, through which it will have to do most of its business until the sanctions are lifted”.
Corr believes Russia’s tilt towards China will give Beijing immense bargaining power.
Read more:Can you live in London for 24hrs using only bitcoin?
He said that Moscow “may in future have to accept contracts denominated in yuan or even a 10% discount for its exports compared to world market prices”.
Beijing would certainly welcome the increased trade in much needed Russian commodities at record low prices.
Russia is already running a trade surplus with China, with major exports of oil, gas, coal and wheat being channelled towards its resource southeastern neighbour.
Chinese state banking regulators have already made it clear they will continue to maintain normal economic and trade exchanges with Moscow.
If Moscow begins to use CIPS it would further Beijing’s ambitions to slowly erode the world's dollar-dominated financial system.
Xi Jinping may well welcome Putin’s commodities in exchange for Chinese yuan and both autocrats could walk hand in hand down the road to “de-dollarisation”.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 39716.95, 40826.21, 41502.75, 41374.38, 40527.36, 39740.32, 39486.73, 39469.29, 40458.31, 38117.46
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
'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) || Benton Capital Increases Land Package at Wisa Lake Lithium Project: THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Apr 26, 2016) - Benton Capital Corp. (TSX VENTURE:BTC) ("Benton" or "the Company") would like to announce that it has acquired a 100% interest through staking in an additional 30 units in 2 claims at its Wisa Lake Lithium project located 80km east of Fort Frances, Ontario (see BTC PR April 19, 2016). The property is connected to Highway 11 (Trans Canada), located 65km north, via an all-weather road that crosses the centre of the project. The land position was increased in order to cover an additional spodumene-bearing pegmatitic dyke located approximately 900m south of the Wisa Lake zone. Selective grab samples collected from the zones have been submitted to the laboratory for analysis. As indicated in the Company's PR dated April 19, 2016, the property covers the Wisa Lake deposit with a historical resource of 330,000 tonnes grading 1.15% Li 2 O (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 recently applied to change its name to Alset Energy Corp. and in is the process of applying for a new trading symbol. The Company has also granted 2,395,000 options to officers, directors and consultants of the company at a price of 7 cents for a period of 5 years. Story continues 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. || 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.
“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) || STOCKS CLIMB: Here's what you need to know: (Jim Young/Reuters)
Stocks finished higher on the first day of May with the Dow gaining triple-digits.
Many investors will be familiar with the cliche of "sell in May and go away," though asAkin Oyedele noted over the weekend, this is kind of silly.
First, the scoreboard:
• Dow:17,891.2, +117.5, (+0.7%)
• S&P 500:2,081.4, +16.1, (+0.8%)
• Nasdaq:4,817.6, +42.2, (+0.9%)
• WTI crude oil:$44.90, -2.2%
It's a busy week for the US economy and things got kicked off with a couple reports out of the manufacturing sector which showed things got better in April.
TheInstitute for Supply Management's latest PMIcame in at 50.8, indicating expansion in the US manufacturing sector but at a slower pace than in March. This report's prices paid sub-index, however, was a complete blowout, rising to 59.0 in response to higher commodities prices.
Commentary in this report indicated that the auto industry is still going strong while things are still "sluggish overall" but showing some signs of picking up.
Markit Economics' final PMI reading for April hit 50.8, in-line with the report's preliminary reading earlier this month, though Markit's Chris Williamson was a bit more downbeat on how things look in the US manufacturing sector.
"The April PMI data suggest there's no end in sight to the current downturn in manufacturing activity," Williamson said in a release.
Elsewhere in the economy,Bob Bryan notedthat the calls from big names on Wall Street for fiscal stimulus out of Washington are getting louder. However, the current state of the US government doesn't at all suggest we're getting closer to the kinds of big investment folks like Carl Icahn and Larry Fink have hinted at in recent months.
The federal budget has, however, stopped being a drag on GDP and the market has noticed:stocks that benefit from a government tailwind have outperformedover the last several months.
Mohamed El-Erianhad bad news for investorson Monday.
Speaking at the Milken Conference in Los Angeles, El-Erian said, "The growth model for the advanced world is getting exhausted, and for emerging markets it's getting contaminated."
El-Erian, we'd note, is the recent author of "The Only Game In Town," which says that central bank policies are only going to go so far to fix the global economy.
Not unlike the aforementioned Wall Street bigwigs calling for more government spending to boost the economy, El-Erian's argument is a bit less prescriptive but does make clear our current path is not going to be one that leads to prosperity. Bummer!
Linette Lopez, who was in the room for El-Erian's presentation on Monday,notedthat after he told attendees that the road we're going down with the global economy ends it will "stop right there," nervous laughter followed.
It was a mixed day for municipal finance.
Atlantic Citymade a $1.8 million bond paymentto avoid default.
Puerto Rico, in contrast,said Sunday it would not make a $422 million bond paymentdue Monday, thus defaulting on debt owed by its Government Development Bank.
And look, I am by no means an expert on the municipal bond market. Hardly even a tourist! For more on the state of municipal finance in the US you should readKristi Culpepper on MediumorJoe Mysak at Bloomberg.
Speaking of defaults, the high-yield default rate for the energy sector has been pushed up to 13%, topping the 9.7% high seen back in 1999,according to Fitch Ratings. The bankruptcy filing from Ultra Petroleum and Midstate Petroleum over the weekend added $3.1 billion to high-yield energy default volume this year.
Fitch expects the default rate in the high-yield energy space will hit 20% this year.
So,here's an argumentthat passive investing makes markets more efficient and doesn't really — at all — risk markets becoming a "socialist" construct in which we all just get a set return and no one can outperform.
I'm expecting people won't love this one, mostly because people seem to really like the idea that low-cost, passively-managed index funds pose a clear and present danger to financial markets.
But the post,constructed from work done by the great finance blogger "Jesse Livermore" over the weekend, not only argues that there's nothing to worry about with the rise of passive investing, rise but that this increase makes marketsmoreefficient.
Much of the conversation in and around the investing world assumes that if you know some stuff you can find a stock or an investment that will, over time, beat the market. But the average return of active managers, Livermore illustrates, must — for a specific index of securities — equal the market average return. Include fees and your chances of beating the market are very, very slim.
The big event this weekend was theBerkshire Hathaway annual meeting. And while Warren Buffett is perhaps the most famous stock-picker in America, he spent nearly 15 minutes going on about how the only thing an individual investor should be doing with their money is putting it in a low-cost S&P 500 fund.
The fees, in Buffett's view, will almost certainly make performance in actively-managed investments worse, but the bigger problem is in finding a manager than can outperform. Again and again.
If the argument holds up that more passive money creates more efficient markets because only the best managers are left running money, this would make Buffett's argument even stronger.
Of course, as Buffett noted, no one selling investment advice wants to sell advice that says, "Just do this one, easy, cheap thing," because, well, that doesn't pay.
A new ECB paper says that it looks like someone is leaking US economic data.
Warren Buffett's non-answer about Coke on Saturday is exactly what the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting is all about.
Morgan Stanley questioned the dominance of Bloomberg and its clients were nonplussed.
There was some Bitcoin news out Monday and Izzy Kaminska is pretty sure that this is, well, like most Bitcoin news: dodgy.
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• FED DOES NOTHING, STOCKS DO NOTHING: Here's what you need to know
• STOCKS GO NOWHERE: Here's what you need to know || Your first trade for Tuesday: The "Fast Money" traders gave their final trades of the day.
Pete Najarian was a buyer of IBM.
Brian Kelly was a buyer of GDX.
Karen Finerman was a buyer of C.
Guy Adami was a buyer of CSCO.
Trader disclosure: On Monday, April 11 the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:
PETE NAJARIAN is long AAPL, BAC, BMY, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMI.A, KO, LUX, MRK, PEP, PFE, SAVE, VIAB Long Calls: AAL, AMAT, AGN, AKS, AMJ, BAC, BAX, BBBY, CL, CRM, DAL, EBAY, ECA, EGO, ENER, GRPN, HAIN, IBM, KBH, KO, KSS, LC, MDLZ, MET, MSFT, NLNK, POT, RIG, SBUX, SCHW, SLV, SLW, SPG, TCK, UAL, WYNN, XOM, YHOO, ZIOP, EWZ, GDX. Long Puts: DB, HES, MS, PBR, RY, VLO
BRIAN KELLY is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GLD, SH, SLV, TLT, US Dollar, UUP, Yen; he is short Aussie Dollar, BLK, British Pound, CS, DB, Euro, EWA, EWH, FRC, Hong Kong Dollar, UBS, SPY, Yuan, 5-Year Note Futures
KAREN FINERMAN is long BAC, C, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, M, SEDG, SPY puts, URI. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, BOKF, C, C calls, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, NRF, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, her firm is short IWM, MDY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International.
GUY ADAMI is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
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• Personal Finance || '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) || 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 on the 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 a press release from 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. || 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 || Microsoft Goes Deeper into Blockchain Technology with R3CV Deal: Blockchain and BMW: Microsoft Is Making Big Strides ( Continued from Prior Part ) Microsoft took its BaaS service a notch higher with R3CV partnership Previously in this series, we discussed Microsoft (MSFT), which true to its partnership strategy in the past has partnered with R3CV to push itself ahead of its peers in the blockchain technology space. Since late 2014, Microsoft has tested and accepted bitcoin and its foundation technology, blockchain. In late 2015, Microsoft partnered with ConsenSys and offered EBaaS (Ethereum blockchain-as-a-service) on MS Azure. This BaaS offering is designed to allow partners to interact with different technologies in a relatively low-risk environment such as smart contracts, social networking, and tax reporting services. ConsenSys is a blockchain startup focused on Ethereum technology, which offers an alternative platform to Bitcoin. Unlike bitcoin, which was primarily designed as an exchange of digital currency, Ethereum provides a broader vision to businesses. Anything that can be digitized—including cryptocurrencies, derivatives trading, securities trading, and settlement—will be a service on Ethereum. Primary factors driving the adoption of blockchain technology According to McKinsey and Accenture (ACN) and as the above chart shows, the financial crisis and the increasing preference toward cryptocurrencies are the key factors that could be instrumental in the increased adoption of blockchain technology. This explains Microsoft’s increased initiatives to cement its place in the blockchain technology space, which is bound to see increased adoption. Partnering with R3CV, as well as offering third-party blockchain offerings on Azure, could lead to Microsoft winning business from the world’s leading banks. According to Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, “Microsoft continues to take a leadership position in integrating blockchain technology into its product roadmap.” Luria added, “The relationship with R3 provides Microsoft access to R3’s high-quality collection of the largest banks in the world, which is the most likely group to make early investments in implementing blockchain technology.” Story continues Later in this series, we will discuss how blockchain technology has attracted Microsoft’s peers RedHat (RHT) and IBM (IBM). Investors who wish to gain exposure to Microsoft could consider investing in the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK). While XLK invests ~10.6% of its holdings in Microsoft, it also has an exposure of ~38% to application software. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: Part 1 - Microsoft Azure Wins a High-Profile Customer in BMW Part 2 - How Microsoft’s Azure Is Giving Stiff Competition to Amazon’s AWS Part 3 - Why Microsoft’s Partnership with R3CV Is Making News || Bitcoin experts are baffled that one of their star scientists thinks he’s solved the Bitcoin mystery: Warning: getimagesize(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Temporary failure in name resolution in /home/sites/www.businessinsider.com/releases/20160428201955/models/Post.php on line 1606 Warning: getimagesize(http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57270233910584716f8bfe88/craig%20wright.png): failed to open stream: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Temporary failure in name resolution in /home/sites/www.businessinsider.com/releases/20160428201955/models/Post.php on line 1606 Warning: Division by zero in /home/sites/www.businessinsider.com/releases/20160428201955/models/Post.php on line 1610
(REUTERS/David McNew)This is what we once thought Bitcoin "Satoshi Nakamoto" looked like.
The world, particularly the geek world, can't stand a mystery. That's why there's been so much attention paid to trying to find out who invented Bitcoin, a form of money that lives only on the internet and is created through a complicated set of cryptography security rules.
Bitcoin's creator is known as "Satoshi Nakamoto" only no one knows for sure who Satoshi Nakamoto is.
On Monday morning, the controversy erupted again when Australian businessman Craig Wrightwrote a blog post claimingto be Satoshi Nakamoto.
Wright has been labeled the Bitcoin creator before, in a widely readexpose by Wired in 2015. Wired later admitted it might have fallen for"an elaborate, long-planned hoax."
The problem is, that the proofWright offered in his blog post on Monday, as well as the proof in earlier investigative reports on Wright, has been largely discredited.
On some levels, the proof isn't that complicated to show. Satoshi Nakamoto owns a unique key. Coded, encrypted messages sent to Satoshi Nakamoto's known public address can only be opened with this key.
Although Wright's blog post talked a lot about cryptography and keys, experts who looked at the post said it was at best inconclusive. At worst, they believed it was a charlatan's trick to fool someone without the technical sophistication to understand it.
(Screenshot Via BBC)This is Craig Wright, the guy claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, but almost no one believes him.
Or, ascryptography expert Drew Blas wrote: "Wright's post is flimflam and hokum which stands up to a few minutes of cursory scrutiny, and demonstrates a competent sysadmin's level of familiarity with cryptographic tools, but ultimately demonstrates no non-public information about Satoshi."
Another crypto expert, Dan Kaminsky, examined the proof, andlabeled it "intentional scammery."
And based on this stuff, anybody who's anyone would likely dismiss Wright's claims but for one thing:
One of the most respected public figures in the Bitcoin world, Bitcoin Foundation chief scientist, Gavin Andresen, believes Wright.
Andresen published hisown blog post on Mondaywhere he said Craig Wright is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto and that Wright proved it to him. Andresen didn't share the technical proof.
Peopledon't understand why Andresen believes Wrightwhen there's evidence that directly contradicts Wright's claims.
People then started wondering if Andresen'sblog and accounts were hacked.
(Gavin Andresen)Respected Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen believes Craig Wright is "Satoshi Nakamoto."
And then the Bitcoin community took the shocking move ofbanning Andresen from directly contributing code to the Bitcoin project,at least for now.
They blocked his Github account from being able to add new code to the Bitcoin project.
ThenAndresen said in a public talk on Monday that, no,his accounts were not hacked.
He really believes Wright is the father of Bitcoin.
And the stalemate continues. One of the smartest guys involved in Bitcoin thinks Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto while most of the other smart people involved do not.
As Dan Kaminsky wrote in hispostabout it all: "UPDATE: *facepalm*"
Andresen has not yet responded to a request for comment.
NOW WATCH:ASSAULT RIFLES AND BATH SALTS — John McAfee tells the inside story behind his outrageous viral video
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#TrollCoin #TROLL $ 0.000058 (-0.96 %) 0.00000013 BTC (-0.00 %) || 1 KOBO = 0.00000800 BTC
= 0.0036 USD
= 0.7166 NGN
= 0.0515 ZAR
= 0.3643 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-04-28 22:00 pic.twitter.com/MeIFAsvWgk || BTCTurk 1247.2 TL BTCe 439.973 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 447.00 $ Cavirtex $ CEXIO 448.92 $ Bitcoin.de 395.80 € #Bitcoin #btc || #bitcoinnews #bitcoin #bitcoinews #wsj See Markets React to the Fed in 7 Charts http://dlvr.it/L9RdYW #bitcoins #bitnews #bitcointalk || #TrinityCoin #TTY $ 0.000008 (-0.21 %) 0.00000002 BTC (-0.00 %) || #THC 0.00000027 BTC(-10.00 %) | Market Cap 53 BTC | Volume(24h) 0 BTC | Available Supply 196,720,220 THC || LIVE: Profit = $140.68 (7.57 %). BUY B4.81 @ $410.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $416.44 (#Kraken) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || LIVE: Profit = $817.73 (10.28 %). BUY B19.24 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $455.65 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || LIVE: Profit = $679.21 (8.44 %). BUY B19.49 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $450.00 (#BitStamp) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || 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/744EUmyFM9
|
Trend: up || Prices: 444.15, 445.98, 449.60, 453.38, 473.46, 530.04, 526.23, 533.86, 531.39, 536.92
|
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)]
‘Coffee for Bakkt’? Starbucks Equity Deal Will See Crypto-Based Payments, Source Claims: New details about Starbucks’ partnership with United States cryptocurrency platform Bakkt suggest the coffee giant will accept Bitcoin (BTC)-based payments after an equity deal, cryptocurrency industry news outlet The Block reported on Mar. 4. Starbucks, which became known as a founding partner in Bakkt upon its unveiling in August last year, will reportedly support its software to allow U.S. customers to pay for products. As The Block reported, no actual cryptocurrency will end up processed by the chain, as the crypto will be instantly transferred into fiat. Still in the final pre-release stages, Bakkt aims to become a major on-ramp for investors looking to gain exposure to cryptocurrencies. Among its plans are the issuance of physically-delivered Bitcoin futures contracts, scheduled for later this year depending on regulatory approval. Starbucks had originally denied any idea that its input would result in “coffee for Bitcoin.” Now, it appears that the company has secured considerable equity in Bakkt, and in return will accept crypto payment indirectly. “There’s high value from having a brand at this level,” the publication quoted an unnamed expert close to the deal as commenting. The Block notes that only U.S. customers will have access to Bakkt’s BTC-USD services at first. As Cointelegraph previously noted , Bakkt has faced ongoing delays to its initial launch as executives stressed the need for full regulatory compliance. The Block, citing an unnamed source, notes that Starbucks will wait to activate the crypto-fiat coffee purchase abilities until after Bakkt’s platform has launched and shown a capacity for holding and storing crypto. The Block’s source reportedly said: “In many ways, there are limits to what Starbucks can do with partnerships because there are limits to what customers can expect,” Grappling with the patchwork U.S. regulatory landscape, some commentators have been buoyant about the platform’s ability to increase the public profile of Bitcoin in particular, opening up cryptocurrency as a trustworthy mainstream asset. Related Articles: Ernst & Young Introduces Tax Tool for Reporting Cryptocurrencies Binance Research: JPM Coin Unlikely to Directly Compete With Ripple's XRP, for Now Two Companies Used Crypto to Pay Taxes in Ohio, Says State Treasurer Report: Major European Derivatives Exchange to Launch Cryptocurrency Futures || Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 12/01/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC in the Red Again Bitcoin Cash ABC fell by 3.61% on Friday, following on from Thursdays 16.69% slide, to end the day at $127.00. A relatively choppy morning saw Bitcoin Cash ABC strike an early morning intraday high $133.04 before sliding to sub-$130 levels. A bounce back to $132 levels mid-morning was short lived, with Bitcoin Cash ABC falling to a late morning intraday low and new swing lo $126.8, before recovering through the afternoon to limit the losses for the day. The moves through the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC steer clear of the major support and resistance levels At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was up 6.25% to $134.93, with moves through the early morning seeing Bitcoin Cash ABC rise from a start of a day morning low $129.48 to a morning high $136.33, breaking through the first major resistance level at $131.09 and second major resistance level at $135.19 before easing back. For the day ahead, a move back through the second major resistance level at $135.19 would support a run at $140 levels to bring the third major support level at $141.43 into play, though support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin Cash ABC to break out from current levels and avoid a pullback. Failure to move back through the second major resistance level could see Bitcoin Cash ABC hit reverse later in the day, a fall back through the first major resistance level at $131.09 bringing sub-$130 levels into play before any recovery, the first major support level at $124.85 unlikely to be in play on the day. Litecoin Sees More Red Litecoin fell by 4.45 on Friday, following on from Thursdays 13.76% tumble, to end the day at $31.79. Relatively range bound through most of the day by recent standards, Litecoin moved to an early morning intraday high $33.71 coming up well short of the first major resistance level at $37.71. An early morning low $32.00 saw Litecoin hold well above the first major support level at $30.37, with Litecoin managing to move back through to $33 levels through the afternoon before hitting reverse late in the day, Litecoin hitting an intraday low $30.43 to call on support at the first major support level at $30.37. Story continues At the time of writing, Litecoin was up 0.53% to $31.96, with rising to a start of a day morning high $32.61 before pulling back to a morning low $31.65, the days major support and resistance levels left untested early on. For the day ahead, a move back through to $32 levels would support another run at the first major resistance level at $33.52, while we would expect Fridays high $33.71 to pin Litecoin back from any break out to bring the second major resistance level at $35.26 into play. Failure to move back though to $32 levels could see Litecoin come under selling pressure to bring the days first major support level at $30.24 into play before any recovery, sub-$30 support levels unlikely to be tested barring another crypto meltdown later in the day. Ripple Steadies Ripples XRP fell by just 0.1% on Friday, following Thursdays 10.63% slide, to end the day at $0.33597. Tracking the broader market through the day, a relatively range bound day saw Ripples XRP rise from a morning low $0.33143 to strike a mid-morning intraday high $0.34495 before easing back, the days first major support and resistance levels left untested. Unable to hold onto $0.34 levels through the rest of the day, a late broad based crypto sell-off kicked in to pull Ripples XRP to an intraday low $0.33018 and into the red for the day. At the time of writing, Ripples XRP was up 0.22% to $0.3367, Ripples XRP falling from an early morning high $0.3410 to a morning low $0.33351 before recovering, the major support and resistance levels left untested early on. For the day ahead, a hold onto $0.336 levels through the morning would support a move back through the morning high $0.3410 to bring the first major resistance level at $0.3439 into play before any pullback. Support from the broader market would be needed to bring $0.35 levels and the second major resistance level at $0.3518 into play later in the day. Failure to hold onto $0.336 levels could see Ripples XRP pullback through to sub-$0.33 levels to call on support at the first major support level at $0.3291, with any broad based crypto sell-off likely to bring the second major support level at $0.3223 into play before any recovery. Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 12/01/19 S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast stock markets press previous important levels Natural Gas Price Prediction Prices Rise to End the Week Gold Weekly Price Forecast Gold markets continue to push Bitcoin From Meltdown to Millpond Silver Weekly Price Forecast Silver markets pause || This Bitcoin Startup Is Working on Free Speech Alternatives to Patreon: Patreon has been making the case for censorship-resistant money increasingly apparent.
The platform allows members to contribute to artists or creators that they support. These contributions are made via standard payment methods like credit cards.
Over the past few months, there has been an increase in public outcry over multiple separate instances where Patreon has removed creators from its platform. BitPatron, a Bitcoin-friendly version of the website, has recently come to the surface as a possible alternative.
One of the first well-known bans dates back to August 2018 when James Allsup, a far-right political commentator, was banned from the funding platform.
In December, a wave of media attention ensued when another alt-right activist and spokesperson, Milo Yiannopoulos, was shut down almost 24 hours after he had set up an account to fund his “magnificent 2019 comeback tour.” Patreon’sreasoningforremovingYiannopoulos’s account was due to his past association with the Proud Boys, a violent, far-right political group (whose founders werekicked off of Facebook and Twitterrecently as well).
Only a day after Yiannopoulos’s ban, British YouTuber Sargon of Akkad had his account removed forviolating Patreon’s hate speech guidelinesby making racist and hateful remarks toward minority groups.
Another notable example occurred when Patreon had to close an account against their will when Mastercard required them to remove the account of Robert Spencer, a political activist and author of several “counter-Jihad” books.
In response to Spencer’s removal and other account bans, Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, and David Rubin, creator and host ofThe Rubin Report,announcedthey were leaving Patreon because of the way that the platform has handled these situations.
Bitcoin is a censorship-resistant currency. One of its many valuable attributes is that nobody can tellanyonewhat they can or cannot do with their bitcoin. As long as someone is able to receive bitcoin (which, by design, is very easy to do), no transaction from anywhere can be stopped.
BitPatronis a direct response to Patreon’s proclivity to censor content on the platform. It will offer a similar crowdfunding platform as its predecessor, but will allow users to support creators with bitcoin.
By using Bitcoin and Lightning as payment methods, BitPatron expects to offer lower fees than its competitor. BitPatron’s payment processing system is built on top of BTCPayServer, an open-source payment processor for Bitcoin and Lightning. According to the website, there is no minimum pledge amount, compared to Patreon’s $1 minimum. Total fees for the platform are 4 percent, much lower than Patreon’s 10 percent.
The platform’s co-founder believes that, more than just offering users a lower fee competitor to Patreon, BitPatron’s focus on bitcoin is about free speech.
“Patreon publicly admitted that Mastercard required them to remove accounts. This is where Bitcoin and BitPatron come in. Bitcoin is censorship-resistant, free-speech money, and BitPatron is taking a leading role at building a Bitcoin-based, censorship-resistant platform that gives the power back to the community where it belongs,” Vin, co-founder of BitPatron, toldBitcoin Magazine.
But BitPatron is still not a completely, “anything goes” platform yet. A spokesperson for the company toldBitcoin Magazine:“For now, we are planning to monitor and block only in extreme cases, such as illegal pornography, threats or calls for violence, or terrorism-related content.
He added that ideally, in its purest form there would be no centralized control, but there’d be some sort of decentralized algorithm to perform the necessary checks. “That's why we are considering blockchain platforms that would allow users to self-host their content and be responsible for it.
“We want to remain a platform for every voice, which is, in our opinion, a far greater task than monitoring ‘hate speech.’ We therefore need to make sure that the platform remains interesting for voices of the entire spectrum.”
BitPatron will first allow podcasters and video creators to offer exclusive content to their supporters, and it also has plans integrate with Discord groups to support chat rooms.
In the bigger picture, a platform like BitPatron could support content creators from all walks of media. It is a platform where people receive financial support from others all across the world in a seamless and instant way with a censorship-resistant currency.
According to the platform, the public beta will go live next month.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Why You Shouldn’t Worry about Crypto Whales Crashing the Bitcoin Price: In a very informative webinarproduced by Chainalysis today, the blockchain research firm made the surprising claim that crypto “whales” – individuals with more than $56 million in Bitcoin – pose no serious risk to theprice of Bitcoin.
Chainalysis defines a Bitcoin whale as an investor sitting on at least $56 million worth of BTC at current prices. | Source: Shutterstock
In the presentation titled “Who are Today’s Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash Whales?,” Chainalysis breaks down the types of whales into several categories including “criminal whales,” “early adopter whales,” and “trading whales.”
One item of interest:Bitcoin Cashwhales, on average, hold about 250% of the crypto that regularBitcoinwhales hold. The company defines a BCH whale at about twice the rate they categorize a BTC whale. So, to be a whale by their definition, you must hold at least 15,000 BTC. To be a Bitcoin Cash whale, you must hold at least 30,000 BCH.
Early adopter holdings have dropped from 9% of all Bitcoin in circulation to roughly 5% today. The presenter told viewers that inflation via mining is only part of the reason for this – some whales did sell part of their holdings during bull runs. The company sees this as a sign of health for the crypto economy. They note that “trading whales” have the most positive effect of the whale classes – they provide a “stabilizing effect.”
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Malta Digital Exchange Relocates Operations to Malta Stock Exchange Premises: Malta Digital Exchange (MDX) is moving in with the Malta Stock Exchange (MSE) in contemplation of the launch of its digital exchange division, the Times of Malta reported on March 5. MDX is reportedly in the process of obtaining a securities license to promote a multilateral trading platform that will introduce a secondary market for digital assets trading. MDX founder and executive chairman Rick Klink said that the “move to the Maltese Stock Exchange means that we are now physically positioned to be at the heart of the next wave of institutional financial innovation.” The move comes the wake of the International Monetary Fund’s ( IMF ) statement that the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) has critical gaps in its supervision for Anti-Money Laundering ( AML ) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) earlier this month. In its Financial System Stability Assessment Report, the IMF recommended to employ more resources to supervise blockchain and cryptocurrency service providers. It also pointed out the need for enhanced screening processes for beneficiary owner information and monitoring of risk-sensitive accounts, including new technologies like digital assets and e-gaming, and IIP-related funds. Also this month, a number of legal firms and financial companies allegedly told the Times of Malta that banks were declining their applications to open accounts. The sources reportedly said that banks did not differentiate between digital currency and blockchain, though they were not always connected. In February, the MFSA issued a consultation on cybersecurity associated with new technologies. The guidance targets professional funds that invest in virtual currencies, issuers, as well as agents and service providers for Virtual Financial Assets Act (VFAA), with latter ones acting as an intermediaries between clients and the authority. Related Articles: Third-Top Exchange OKEx Lists Ripple and Bitcoin Cash on Customer-to-Customer Platform Russian Human Rights Commissioner Seeks UN Help to Extradite Alexander Vinnik Nasdaq-Powered EU Digital Exchange DX Adds Tokenized ETFs US Crypto Exchange ErisX Hires Former Wells Fargo Executive as Business Developer || NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Settled on Bullish Side of .6825 to .6781 Retracement Zone: The New Zealand Dollar reversed earlier weakness on Friday to close sharply higher for the session. The move drove the currency to its highest level against the U.S. Dollar since December 19.
The catalyst behind the bullish outside move was a report that said U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers were nearing a decision on when to end its bond reduction program. This is important to traders because it will signal the central bank is moving closer to ending its tightening cycle. The Kiwi rallied because the news weakened demand for the greenback.
On Friday, theNZD/USDsettled at .6841, up 0.0079 or +1.16%.
Earlier in the week, the New Zealand Dollar posted a daily reversal bottom after the release of better than expected consumer inflation data encouraged investors to reduce bets on an interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart. Friday’s trade through .6850 reaffirmed the uptrend. If the upside momentum is sustained then the next main top target is .6912. The main trend will change to down on a move through the last swing bottom at .6706.
The minor trend is also up. It will change to down on a move through .6747. If the upside momentum continues then look for the rally to possibly extend into the next minor top at .6880.
The main range is .6970 to .6592. The NZD/USD closed on the strong side of its retracement zone at .6825 to .6781. This zone is new support. Holding above it will help maintain the upside bias.
Based on Friday’s price action and the close at .6826, the direction of the NZD/USD on Monday is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the main Fibonacci level at .6825.
A sustained move over .6825 will indicate the presence of buyers. Taking out last week’s high at .6851 will indicate the buying is getting stronger. This could create the upside momentum needed to challenge the minor top at .6880. Overcoming this level could lead to a test of the main top at .6912. This is the last resistance before the main top at .6970.
A sustained move under .6825 will signal the return of sellers and indicate that Friday’s move was an overreaction to the news. If the selling is strong enough, the NZD/USD could pull back into the main 50% level at .6781. If this level fails then look for the selling pressure to possibly extend into the minor bottom at .6747.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• EUR/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Momentum Shifts to Upside with Formation of Weekly Reversal Bottom
• U.S. Dollar Plunges as Investors Shift Focus to Federal Reserve Policy Meeting
• NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Settled on Bullish Side of .6825 to .6781 Retracement Zone
• S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast – stock markets rally to close the week
• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 26/01/19
• Crude Oil Price Update – Needs to Hold $52.49 to Sustain Rally || Why it’s High Time for Millennial Crypto Investors to Go All-in on Bitcoin: One of the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency investors has thrown even more weight behind bitcoin, claiming virtually all other cryptocurrencies will die a painful death. Barry Silbert, CEO ofDigital Currency Groupand Grayscale Investments, says the flagship cryptocurrency has already won the race to become digital gold.
In a phone interview withCNBC, Silbert, who reportedly bought into bitcoin at $10, explained:
“I’m not a believer in the vast majority of digital tokens and believe most will go to zero… As far as I’m concerned bitcoin has won the race to be digital gold.”
Is it time to pull money out of altcoins and go all-in onbitcoin?
Read the full story onCCN.com. || Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Trader Reaction to $1306.50 Will Tell Us if Friday’s Buying Was Real: Gold prices soared on Friday as the U.S. Dollar plunged as investors prepared for this week’s U.S. Federal Reserve report on Wednesday, January 30. The Fed is widely expected to leave rates unchanged. However, this wasn’t the story exerting the most influence on prices. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the Fed is expected to discuss bringing an end to its balance sheet reduction program. This would, in effect, loosen Fed policy, which would make the U.S. Dollar a less-attractive investment. A lower dollar would then make dollar-denominated gold a more attractive asset. On Friday, April Comex gold futures settled at $1304.20, up $18.30 or +1.42%. Daily April Comex Gold Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. The uptrend was reaffirmed when buyers took out the last main bottom at $1300.40. The new swing bottom is $1275.30. A trade through this bottom will change the main trend to down. The minor trend is also up. The minor trend turned up on Friday on a trade through $1292.10. The major range is $1404.40 to $1182.70. The market is currently trading inside its retracement zone at $1293.60 to $1319.70. Trader reaction to this zone will determine the longer-term direction of the market. Minor downside targets come in at $1274.50 and $1264.70. Daily Swing Chart Technical Forecast Based on Friday’s price action, the direction of the April Comex gold market on Monday is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the former main top at $1306.50. Bullish Scenario Overtaking and sustaining a rally over $1306.50 will indicate the presence of buyers. Although this level was taken out on Friday, the market fell back under it, which suggests the rally was fueled by short-covering rather than aggressive buying. Regaining this level on Monday and continuing the rally will indicate that the buying is getting stronger. This could lead to a test of the Fibonacci level at $1319.70. This level is also a potential trigger point for an acceleration into the June 14 main top at $1137.80. Story continues Bearish Scenario A sustained move under the former top at $1306.50 will signal the presence of sellers. This could trigger a break back to the major 50% level at $1293.60. If the rally is valid then buyers will step in on a test of this level. If the selling pressure increases then look for a possible retest of last week’s low and main bottom at $1281.50. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Weaker Dollar Will Drive Up Demand for Dollar-Denominated Gold NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Settled on Bullish Side of .6825 to .6781 Retracement Zone E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Crossing 24890 Puts Dow on Bullish Side of Major Retracement Zone Bitcoin – Who Will Break First, the Bulls or the Bears? E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Strengthens Over 2677.75, Weakens Under 2636.00 Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Trader Reaction to $1306.50 Will Tell Us if Friday’s Buying Was Real || Bitcoin Investors Are Abandoning Crypto for Gold during the Bear Market: Vaneck CEO: Bitcoin, gold Bitcoin investors are abandoning crypto in favor of traditional commodities like gold amid the prolonged market slump. Thats the observation of Jan Van Eck, the CEO of investment management firm VanEck Associates . Van Eck says this is a reversal of the trend he saw in 2017, when the then-sizzling bitcoin pulled demand from gold during the crypto bull market. I do think that bitcoin pulled a little bit of demand away from gold in 2017, Van Eck told CNBC (video below). Interestingly, we just polled 4,000 bitcoin investors. And their No. 1 investment for 2019 is actually gold. So gold lost to bitcoin [before], and now its going the other way. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Darling Ingredients Inc (DAR) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript: Image source: The Motley Fool.
Darling Ingredients Inc(NYSE: DAR)Q4 2018 Earnings Conference CallFebruary 28, 2019,10:30 a.m. ET
• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants
Operator
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Darling Ingredients Inc. conference call to discuss the company's fourth quarter and year end 2018 financial results. On the call today are Mr. Randall C. Stuewe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Brad Phillips, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. John Bullock, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, and Ms. Melissa Gaither, Vice President of Investor Relations and Global Communications.
After the speakers' opening remark, there will be a question and answer period. An instruction to ask a question will be given at that time. Today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Melissa Gaither, Vice President of Investor Relations and Global Communications for Darling Ingredients. Ms. Gaither, please go ahead.
Melissa Gaither--Vice President of Investor Relations and Global Communications
Thank you, Nicole. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Darling Ingredient's earnings results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 29, 2018. To augment management's formal presentation, please refer to the presentation section of our IR website for the earnings slide presentation.
Randy Stuewe, our Chairman and CEO, will begin today's call with an overview of our fourth quarter and fiscal year operational and financial results, focusing on year-over-year comparison, and will discuss some of the trends impacting our business. Brad Phillips, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer will then provide additional details about our financial results. Finally, Randy will conclude the prepared portion of the call with some general remarks about the business and the year ahead, after which we'll be happy to answer your questions.
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Please see the full disclosure of our non-US GAAP measures in both our earnings release and earnings slide presentation. Now, for the safe harbor statement. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements regarding Darling Ingredient's business opportunities and anticipated results of operations. Please bear in mind that forward-looking information is subject to many risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from what is projected. Many of these risks and uncertainties are described in Darling's annual report on the Form 10-K for the year ended December 29, 2018, in our recent press release announced yesterday, and filings with the SEC. Forward-looking statements in this conference call are based on our current expectations and beliefs, and we do not take any duty to update any of the forward-looking statements made in this conference call or otherwise.
Now with that, I'll turn the call over to Randy.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Melissa. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. We carry solid momentum into 2019 as we position Darling as one of the most sustainable and green companies in the world. The fourth quarter truly showed the diversity and consistency of our global ingredients platform and the potential that Diamond Green Diesel has to supercharge Darling's future.
During the year, we executed four bolt-on acquisitions and commissioned seven new and expanded plants that increased our capacity for premium sustainable ingredients. Looking to 2019 and beyond, we have eight additional facilities under construction, including four new plants, to meet the growing demand for Peptan, our specialty collagen product. You can view a list of these projects and their expected completion and timing on earnings on the earnings call slide number three.
Now, for 2018, we grew our raw material volumes by 3.3% year-over-year, including growth of 1.5% during the fourth quarter. We delivered annual-adjusted EBITDA $431.4 million without the benefit of the blender's tax credit. And Diamond Green Diesel generated $65 million in partner dividends this year. Year over year, our earnings were flat, but keep in mind we sold our environmental services business early in the year; we wrote our plasma inventory in China down; FX for both the EUR and CAD were weaker, and we faced a stagnant protein market and a significantly lower fat market during the year. Overall, the team executed well. And the diversity and consistency of our platform is quite evident.
Additionally, we continue to be optimistic the blender's tax credit will be reinstated during 2019. It should be noted that 2018 earnings would have been approximately $90 million higher had the BTC been in during the year. This is a combination of both Diamond Green Diesel and our fuel segment. Now, let's pivot our review to the fourth quarter segment performance.
Our teams managed well through challenging pricing markets, trade disruptions, and a slow recovery from our extended downtime at Diamond Green Diesel during the third quarter. The feed segment benefited from robust raw material supplies globally but battled stagnant and deflationary finished pricing for fats and proteins, as compared to 2017. Clearly, our extended shut down at Diamond Green Diesel and ample palm oil supplies weighed on the fat markets, proteins continue to feel the trade disruptions related to China and the record slaughter volumes. Global pricing is improving across the fats and protein markets, and we feel quite confident that our future results will portray this fact. Our specialty ingredients business embedded in the feed segment continues to perform well, reporting strong margins and record volumes. Our acquisition of Triple T Wet Pet, a specialty pet food operation in Springdale, Arkansas, added to our footprint and our market share in this growing market.
Also, we are excited about the progress of EnviroFlight, our joint Venture with Intrexon. This is the largest black soldier fly protein facility in the US. And phase one production commenced in the fourth quarter. And during the quarter, we also acquired a new organic fertilizer production facility in Turlock, California, which will enable us to grow our production of Nature Safe organic fertilizer. Now, our food segment, anchored by our global collagen business, rebounded nicely and posted a solid quarter. Both Rousselot South America and China reported a strong year, and 2019 looks to be off to a very good start.
Peptan, our specialty collagen product, is rising to meet global demand and achieved record production levels, with further expansion within our operations in Brazil and France expected to come online during the first half of this year. Our fuel segment, which is a combination of our green energy businesses, delivered consistent earnings on strong volumes across Europe. Ecoson, our European bioenergy business, capitalized on higher volumes from phase one expansion of the digester in Denderleeuw, Belgium, and the return of our Netherlands facility to full capacity, after being curtailed for most of 2017. Rendac, our European disposal rendering business, also had a solid quarter generating strong volumes and earnings growth in the Netherlands and Belgium. Despite the absence of the blender's tax credit, our biodiesel businesses remain steady compared to last year, and they were benefiting from the lower fat prices.
In the fourth quarter, Diamond Green Diesel displayed its true potential. The facility resumed production and quickly ramped up to its boilerplate capacity of 275 million gallons per year. For the quarter, we produced 73 million gallons of renewable diesel, delivering a record 110 million of EBITDA on 66 million gallons of sales. Operating margins were a $1.67 a gallon for the quarter and averaged a $1.19 for the full year. For 2019, we anticipate operate at or above nameplate capacity, and we expect full-year margins to be in the $1.25 to $1.40 per gallon range. Diamond Green Diesel continues to capitalize on the premium LCFS markets, and the JV generated partner dividends of $40 million each in the quarter.
Construction on our phase three Super Diamond expansion is already under way. And when complete, it will produce an additional 400 million gallons of renewable diesel and 50 to 60 gallons of renewable naphtha. The estimated cost of the facility is around 1.1 billion. And we anticipate start-up in the latter half of 2021. On Monday, I visited the facility, and one slide 10 of our earnings call presentation, you will see the progress as we prepare the sight. Permits are pending, and we are anxiously awaiting the start of construction.
Now, with respect to the BTC, we remain optimistic Congress will provide a legislative vehicle to renew and extend the BTC during 2019. As you may or may not know, the BTC is part of 28 extenders that Congress has not renewed. From all of our visits to the Hill, we can report that bipartisan discussions are under way to move this issue forward.
Now, before I turn the call over to Brad, I'd like to revisit a point on the Valero Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. During that call, the Credit Suisse analyst asked the value of Darling Ingredients and Valero maintaining the Diamond Green Diesel partnership. Martin Parrish, Valero's Senior Vice President of Alternative Fuels, did a great job in answering that question when he explained how integral Darling is to the partnership. I'd like to paraphrase his answer because I think it's valuable for our shareholders and analysts to keep top of mind.
Martin states, "Darling is one of the largest processors of animals fats and used cooking oil in the world. In fact, Darling processes over 10% of the world's meat industry by-products annually. In doing so, we have created a raw materials supply chain to support Diamond Green Diesel that will be very hard and very expensive to recreate. And it would be complicated to maintain a stand-alone supply network without the balance of our food and feed businesses working in concert with the supply chain. Darling has unique expertise in pretreating the fats and oil feedstocks to optimize the refining process, which Valero has immense expertise in. Valero brings their unrivaled skill in engineering and operating a state of the art renewable diesel refinery as well as marketing operations that ensure the partnership maximizes its unique position to the LCFS markets around the world."
Martin and I both agree that Diamond Green Diesel is truly more valuable with both companies involved, due to our combined innovation and expertise. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Brad to give you a few financial highlights.
Brad Phillips--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Okay. Thanks, Randy. For the fourth quarter 2018, we reported consolidated net sales of $853.1 million compared $952.5 million for the comparable 2017 period. For fiscal 2018, net sales were $3.4 billion compared to $3.7 billion for fiscal 2017. These declines were primarily a factor of lower finished fat product pricing, the closing of the company's Hurlingham, Argentina, facility, the deconsolidation of the company's BestHides subsidiary during 2018, reclassed billed freight recorded in cost of sales in 2018, as compared to net sales in 2017, and the divestiture of our industrial residuals business earlier this year.
We posted net income in Q4 of $40.6 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, compared to net income of $105.7 million, or $0.63 per diluted share for the 2017 fourth quarter. Fiscal 2018 net income was $101.5 million, or $0.60 per diluted share, compared to $128.5 million, or $0.77 per diluted share, for fiscal 2017. The declines of net income were primarily driven by an income tax expense of $8 million and $12 million in the fourth quarter of '18 and fiscal '18, respectively, compared to income tax benefits of $85 million and $69.2 million in the 2017 fourth quarter and fiscal 2017, respectively, due to the remeasurement of deferred tax liabilities per the US tax cuts and Jobs Act and benefits from European tax reform.
Additionally, in fiscal 2018, we had debt extinguishment costs, Argentina restructuring costs, and a loss on the sale of the industrial residual sector. Substantially offsetting these declines, as reflected in our substantial increase in income before income taxes for both the fourth quarter and fiscal 2018, was a significant increase in out equity and net income of our unconsolidated subsidiary, Diamond Green Diesel, which was partially due to recording the 2017 blender's tax credit in 2018. SG&A was $76.4 million and $309.3 million for the 2018 fourth quarter and fiscal year, respectively, compared to $89.9 million and $343.5 million for the 2017 fourth quarter and fiscal year, respectively. The decrease was primarily due to lower wages and benefits, which were partially due to the closure of the Argentina collagen facility and the sale of the industrial residual sector, both in the second quarter of 2018.
Interest Expense declined $2.5 million year-over-year, primarily due to a lower interest rate on the company's €515 million senior notes resulting from the May 2018 refinancing of the notes from 5.75% to 3.625%.
I want to briefly mention taxes. The company reported income tax expense of $12 million for fiscal year 2018. The effective tax rate is 10.2%, which differs from the statutory rate of 21%, due primarily to the retroactive reinstatement of the biofuel tax incentive for 2017, recorded in 2018. Tax law changes in the Netherlands and changes in valuation allowances primarily related to losses that provided no tax benefit. The biofuel tax incentive expired as of the end of fiscal '17. Excluding the impact of the 2017 biofuel tax incentive and tax law changes, the effective tax rate for fiscal 2018 is 34.4%. Cash tax payments were $33.2 million in 2018, compared to $26.3 million in 2017. We are projecting the fiscal year 2019 effective tax rate to be 35% excluding the biofuel tax incentive. If the tax incentive is reenacted retroactively for fiscal year 2018, the effective tax rate is projected to be 20%. Finally, we are projecting cash taxes of approximately $40 million for fiscal 2019.
Now, as for the balance sheet, working capital improved by $10.5 million in 2018 compared to 2017. And capital expenditures for 2018 totaled $322 million, compared to $274.2 million in 2017. We received $65 million in cash dividends from Diamond Green Diesel during 2018. And our total debt-to-EBITDA ratio per the bank covenants improved to 3.13 from 3.47 at the end of '17. Our liquidity remains strong with approximately $929.8 million available under our revolving credit facility. With that, I'll turn it back over to you, Randy.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, thanks, Brad. Overall, we are pleased with the achievements for the quarter and the year. We took several strategic actions to mitigate global macro challenges and continued to focus on opportunities to optimize our platform, strengthen our financial position, and leverage and grow our scale to capture opportunities and deliver on our world of growth strategy. Our strong free cash flow allowed us to deploy $322 million of maintenance and growth capital, with an additional $108 million of strategic acquisitions to build upon our sustainable portfolio of value-added and specialty ingredients.
In 2019, we expect to invest approximately $300 million in maintenance and growth capital for several strategic projects noted in our slide deck, while maintaining capital discipline across the company. Additionally, we continue to take pride in our on-going corporate social responsibility disclosure, making significant achievements that demonstrate our commitment to drive meaningful progress toward a cleaner, safer, and sustainable environment. Towards this end, we are showing specific updates on our website, such as our latest video animation highlighting our biofuel stories at Diamond Green Diesel. If you haven't already watched the video, I encourage you to do so.
Also, we continue to strengthen our corporate governance with the recent appointment of Nicole Ringenberg as a director. Nicole's appointment aligns well without governance strategy. And after a 32-year career with Monsanto, she brings unique and strategic insights related to sustainable, agricultural solutions, global operations, and with a strong emphasis on Asia, corporate finance, and advancing diversity across our workforce. We look forward to providing more updates on our on-going environment, social, and governance effort across the company.
With that in summary, we're excited about the strength of our business, our future market position, and our near-term and long-term growth opportunities. So with that, let's go ahead and open it up to questions, please.
Operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question you may press * then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your questions, please press * then 2. Our first question comes from Heather Jones of Vertical Group. Please go ahead.
Heather Jones--Vertical Group--Analyst
Good morning, everyone.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Heather.
Brad Phillips--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Morning.
Heather Jones--Vertical Group--Analyst
I have just a couple of questions. Randy, you mentioned that global fat pricing has started to improve. And I just was wondering if you could take us through how you view the cadence of the year because, as you know, there's a number of mandate increases around the world. But palm oil production remains strong and all. So, how are you thinking about what that price curve looks throughout the year?
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
We've had a lot of discussion around the table on that. Coming out of December into January, it felt pretty weak throughout the world. We saw some pretty big softening happen in Europe, which is usually pretty steady. But now, here in January and into February, we've seen Europe start to bounce back. The US was a main driver here. We just kinda had a hangover from that extended downtime at Diamond Green Diesel. And then, the slaughter here has been around record levels, and we expect it to remain record levels. And with cheaper feed grains and inputs, you tend to put more weight on the animals. So, at the end of the day, there's ample supplies here, but we're starting to see them move up.
For the first time, we're seeing some strength on the west coast in our fats now. We're also starting to see Europe come back. Europe will be much stronger, I believe, in second quarter than first. So, I think it's a pretty strong bell curve here. If you follow the palm oil kinda reports and predictions, they're at the peak of their production, and then it starts to scale down as you go forward here. And at the end of the day, I think you're gonna produce less fat in China this year than you have in the past. And so, I think the S&D and the global balance sheet would continue to tighten as we go forward, and we'll just see what happens. So, right now, we're pretty bullish the back end of the year here.
Heather Jones--Vertical Group--Analyst
Okay. Thank you. Been thinking about the blender's tax credit. So, you expressed confidence that it gets reinstated. Let's consider a scenario where it doesn't. And given the higher advance mandate and the BOHO spread is not nearly as favorable as it was last year. Where do you think rend need to go to stimulate the kind of production we would need for those mandates?
John Bullock--Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer
Yeah, Heather, this is John. Overall, if we don't see the blender's tax credit come back, then you would anticipate that we would see higher-end prices develop as we go through the course of the year. How quickly that'll happen, who knows. But it certainly looks like it needs to move to a higher level to be able to set the type of production that there is demand for out there now.
Heather Jones--Vertical Group--Analyst
Okay. Thank you so much.
Operator
Our next question comes from Ken Zaslow of Bank of Montreal. Please go ahead.
Kenneth Zaslow--Bank of Montreal -- Analyst
Hey, good morning, everyone.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Ken.
Brad Phillips--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Morning.
Kenneth Zaslow--Bank of Montreal -- Analyst
With the accent -- or for the time being, the BTC, how should we think about the near-term profitability of the feed segment, yellow grease prices, used cooking oil? How do you think about that?
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
I'm gonna talk sequentially, Ken. We saw a small -- our tonnage between Q3 and Q4 was bigger in Q4. And pricing on the fats was even lower. Proteins were pretty stagnant, if you will, out there. The west coast proteins continue to be pretty weak. And European proteins backed off quite a bit during the quarter.
We're starting to see that all turn around, and I don't know that I would tie any of that to the BTC. We're seeing the animal fats move up a little bit, here in the US. And clearly, there's a spread used cooking oil's a pretty substantial premium to yellow grease or animal fats in the US. I think the world's ramping up again on biofuels around there, and I think we'll see some pretty good strength coming on here as we go forward. So, my anticipation is that the feed segment will start to show some improvement here in Q1, and more in Q2, and gonna get much stronger in Q3, Q4 for us.
Kenneth Zaslow--Bank of Montreal -- Analyst
And can you just go through your capex projects and the returns that you expect to have in 2019 and 2020? How do we think about the incremental -- because it sounds like you have a lot of projects going on. And just what's the incremental profitability that we should associate?
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Right. In our K we released around I wanna say -- the maintenance and capex, environmental sustaining capex in the company now, with the size that we are is around 200. And there's about $100 million of growth or efficiency type of capex going in there. As always, we won't breakdown by project for competitive reasons, but we will tell you that all those projects return in the 15% to 20% return. From our perspective, we expect to see anywhere from $15 million layered on, incremental EBITDA coming forward.
Kenneth Zaslow--Bank of Montreal -- Analyst
And you're a CEO who tends to really focus on returns, and it's also about shareholder value. My question -- and this is kind of out the sky. Would you ever think about separating the companies, given the different divergence of profitability, DDG on a different path, maybe, than the other? And is there a value somewhere in that? And I know that's a random question, but just a thought.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
No, it's always a very, very fair question. Clearly, obviously, in my comments, we wanna make sure people understand the value of the supply chain. And that's really integral to the heart of this. And as we've gone forward -- when the plant started at 137 million gallons, we all had our expectation of how much of our internally produced fat went in there. It ended up being a little bit less than we thought. But now at 275, it's ending up being a little more as we value add what I'm gonna call the lower value animal fat that we produce in our system that work well down there. And given the CI scores -- remember each facility that we have has a CI score that supports Diamond Green Diesel. So, it's critical to control not only the supply chain, the origination, the logistics, and the CI side. That's what makes Diamond Green's performance so valuable.
Now, all that said, obviously, in the original documents with Valero that are out there, there is notes that said that, really, we've got a marriage here for a lot of years. And so, any type of discussion of breaking it off is probably premature for me to ever talk about. But at the same time, I'm always open-minded to ways of creating shareholder value. And trust me, I believe that the value of Diamond Green is starting to show and that our share price will start to recognize the value of it, Ken.
Kenneth Zaslow--Bank of Montreal -- Analyst
I appreciate it. Thanks.
Operator
Our next question comes from Adam Samuelson of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Scott Bernstein--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Yeah. Hi, this is Scott Bernstein on for Adam Samuelson. I just had a question on what you're seeing on the impact from ASF in China on the different businesses. If you fought any in the second half of 2018? And any expectations for 2019?
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
This is Randy again. I'll give you a two-second view on ASF in China. Really, we continue to monitor it very closely. There are very, very diverse opinions on what the impact is in China today. I think it's safe to say we have seen the -- there's ample frozen supplies of pork meat as they increase their slaughter in the near term in China. And at the same time, we got a shrinking hog herd over there right now, as we know in our plasma, our blood processing plants. There's just less animals and less blood available right now.
There's a strong move toward alternative meats right now. The borders continue to be somewhat challenging for moving hogs around and also for bringing in, what I'd say, non-Chinese meat into the country. So, as I started the comment saying, we don't know what we don't in China today. My gut says it's a bigger issue that's gonna take a longer time to work through than most people understand today. But, yet, the pricing of pork in China doesn't support that theory today. There is a thesis out there that says, as we know, operating a food business in China -- if you damage consumer confidence in your product, it is a long-term rebuilding of that demand. And so, there is some move away from pork, even though it was the preferred meat for many, many years, and the largest pork consumer in the world.
So, at the end of the day, it feels like they continue to try to tell us -- when I say "they" being the Chinese government -- it's under control. But every day you see three more cases. We've heard numbers that range from the heard down 100 thousand head to 100 million head. And all I can tell you is is for the plasma side of the business, the supply, it's probably 15% to 20% lower right now than it was a year ago. So, time will tell. I think more concerning is the spread of the disease, as it is over in Vietnam now. It's a very difficult disease to maintain. Europe has dealt with it for many, many years and has biosecurity measures to manage it quite effectively. But at the end of the day, China has a very, very challenging problem ahead in their meat sector.
Scott Bernstein--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Got it. Thank you. Very helpful. And my only other question would be on the food segment. I know you guys talked about collagen casings and edible fats on the slides, and I just wanted to hear if you guys have some more comments on Rousselot. And if you could talk about the -- generally for the food business in 2019?
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I think I'll give you three comments. Rousselot, you see -- Rousselot clearly makes up the largest part of that segment today. The gelatin and collagen industry -- or collagen's referred to it -- seems to add a lot of head capacity in big chunks. And over the course of 2015, '16, it added quite a bit of capacity along the way, and it just had to grow into it and work through that capacity. So, we've seen margins improve around the world. We've had supply disruptions around the world with the amount of pigskin available, hide available, beef bone -- the margins seem to have normalized in that business.
And then, we've also continued to grow one of our specialty product lines. And that's our factory that's coming on in Amparo, Brazil, today; and Angouleme, France, later this year; and then Ghent, Belgium, the following year; and then a second plant in Brazil later on next year too. So, at the end of the day, we feel pretty bullish about where our food segment's going. If you look at it on a performance basis, it would be down just a little bit year over year. Part of that's FX related if you normalize that. But the casings business has softened quite a bit out there. That's the natural casings business. And that's related to a lot of the Chinese discussion we already had, the number of hogs being processed into the marketplace.
And then, also, we have an edible fats business. And fat prices are down about 20%. While that's a spread business, you do take a little bit of EBITDA hit there as those prices go down. So, overall Rousselot's carrying its weight. It feels pretty darn good going into '19 right now. And I think we're very proud that the food segment will have an improved performance in 2019.
Scott Bernstein--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Great. Thanks so much.
Operator
Our next question comes from Tom Palmer of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Thomas Palmer--JPMorgan--Analyst
Good morning. Thanks for the question.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Tom.
Thomas Palmer--JPMorgan--Analyst
You said at an industry conference that spot EBITDA margins for renewable diesel were running around $1.40 a gallon -- stronger for the fourth quarter. And I appreciate that diesel had declined a good amount over the course of the quarter but also wondered if there were any unique expense-related items that contributed to EBITDA this quarter? So, any hedging gains to call out? Was there an abnormally high mix of yellow grease because of the unexpected downtime in the prior quarter? Around that -- and then get a sense of what it's running at today.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. No, no. Great questions, really are. And, obviously, we wanted to articulate that, so I appreciate the question. Obviously, we have a pretty long supply chain to support the facility at 275 gallons. And you do put on a lot of heating oil futures in that sense to hedge the supply chain. And as we know today, we don't get hedge accounting at that facility today. So, you get a mark-to-market.
So, as we talked in the third quarter, we had hedging losses. Then, we have a return and had some hedging gains in Q4. And that'll ebb and flow up and down. As far as one supply versus another supply, not really. Pretty constant. Obviously, we try to originate to the right CI mass balance that we can do down there to meet our customers' needs. The plant has been running just excellent at capacity and above capacity. And I guess the way -- we don't want to break it down any more than to say we anticipate margins for the full year of 2019 to be between $1.25 and $1.40. And you kinda nailed it down.
So, there is some gains there in Q4 for sure, from the hedging side. And, occasionally you give those back, but we'll reiterate our outlook for the full year.
Thomas Palmer--JPMorgan--Analyst
Okay. Thanks for the color there. Also, wanted to follow up on your expectations on the longer-term outlook. We have seen a few announcements regarding either construction or expansion of other renewable diesel facilities. Has your enthusiasm for the longer-term profit potential changed at all? And when you were considering the expansion for Diamond Green Diesel, had you assumed that there would be increased competition coming?
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I think -- I'm gonna kinda refer everybody back to our investor day that we had last summer where we tried to lay out kind of the global, low-carbon fuel demand around the world that we see happening over the next three to five years. I think we continue to believe that we understand that and that that's real. Once again, we continue to -- you can monitor the carb website and see what kinda demand comes out of there.
At the end of the day, I think it's as good a decision today as it was then, if not better today. We continue to feel very, very optimistic about its role in fulfilling low carbon fuel demand both here and abroad. And the performance of Diamond Green, as we've said, coming into last year, we thought we would average about a $1.25 a gallon without the blender's tax credit. We ended up at $1.19, not a bad thing for an extended 45 days down in higher costs. And we're giving you the same view today without the blender's tax credit.
As for the competition out there, as John Bullock reminds me, it's pretty easy to put out an announcement on paper. It takes a lot of money, and time, and effort to build a plant. And we've got what I consider to be a first-mover's advantage. It's pretty significant out there right now. Now, all said, I believe someone -- that if the margins are attractive, and honey will attract flies here, and eventually, someone will commit the capital and the resources to do it. But of the four or five projects have been announce out there, I'm not sure we know that any of those are what we would call real at this time. They may be, but not at least from our eyesight.
Thomas Palmer--JPMorgan--Analyst
All right. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Craig Irwin of ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Craig Irwin--ROTH Capital Partners--Analyst
Hi. Good morning and thanks for taking my question. So, Randy, this quarter your production at Diamond Green showed a really nice jump as expected, right, p more than 50% above peak production, looking backwards. Historically, you've talked about the importance of a thesis of buying more of your fats and the experience that you believe that there's a few pennies in fats prices that you've seen as a benefit, sort of the uplift of consuming your own product, $0.03 to $0.05. With this 50%-plus jump in production for Diamond Green in the quarter, do you expect that uplift to maybe increase? Is there anything that you would point to us as external observers of the market that would maybe help us have a way to quantify this increase?
John Bullock--Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer
This is John. I think the way to look at that is, obviously, the increased demand that comes from Diamond Green Diesel is going to ultimately have an impact on the price of the low-CI fats. And it'll have more of an impact as we get bigger, and bigger, and bigger in that segment. It's hard for me to tell you that that's gonna happen in any 30 or 60-period of time. But the trend is pretty obvious here. And I think to answer your question, the answer is pretty obvious. Of course it is. And when it does, it will impact in a positive way our core businesses.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. And, Craig, this is Randy. And I'll just augment what John says. At the end of the day, we've only been running Diamond Green at the new rate now for 100, 120 days. And we basically had fat parked everywhere in the country because the extended downtime. So, at the end of the day, we're starting to see from a low-CI perspective there's a $0.03 to $0.04 a pound differential between the different feedstocks that we can support down there right now or that we process. So, it is going to have an impact on our core business, and that's when we get really excited about Super Diamond.
And not only do we believe the margins can be sustained because of the global S&D in demand -- also, when you think about the waste cooking oil, the animal fat, and the distiller's corn oil business today from the ethanol administered, we've always said that number's around 13, 14 billion pounds annually in this country. And Diamond Green gonna take between 6 and 7 billion of that. So, it's kinda -- as John said in a sense -- it's kinda obvious we're gonna have a pretty good impact as we start to roll forward to the bigger plant here a few years out.
Craig Irwin--ROTH Capital Partners--Analyst
Great. Thank you for that. My second question's for Brad. So, working capital in 2018 was the sixth year where this is a positive contribution for cash flow. How do you see the potential for continuing to squeeze the balance sheet for cash in '19? Is there anything you would call? And then, should we see a similar cadence to working capital to last year where you may be consumed a little bit in the first quarter and then got it back, plus some, by the end of the year?
Brad Phillips--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Craig, yeah, you kinda nailed it there. We're gonna be targeting and working toward similar to what we achieved this past year. You're right. We've got a good five-year tail here of improvement there. And there was a lot to improve on. And there are still some areas. But we'll still see a bit. And you're right. I think you can expect it's probably a little bit more back half of the year where those stronger improvements come in.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Right. And, Craig, this is Randy. I'll build on that with Brad because I think, while this year we showed a little bit of improvement, at the end of the day our volumes keep growing around the world. So, our capacity is growing pretty rapidly. Our opportunities still exist in our food segment to take some pretty significant working capital out of there. And that comes to identifying the customer demands and the products we should be making there. And I'll tell you what, I think we're getting better each year in that area. We've been able to bring our inventories down pretty significantly in the Rousselot area, and we'll continue to do more and more of that as we go forward. So, I'm even a little more optimistic than Brad is coming into '19 here. But it's also being offset by the higher volumes that we're processing around the world.
Brad Phillips--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Great. Thank you for that and congratulations on the strong performance.
Operator
Our next question comes from Andrew Goffe of Overbrook Management Corporation. Please go ahead.
Andrew Goffe--Overbrook Management--Analyst
Hi, guys. I was wondering how you're thinking about how the company will capitalize on the growing demand for renewable diesel in Europe, and kind of how you see how much demand could be coming from Europe within the next couple of years?
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, and I'll take a shot then John can help me out here a little bit on this. Obviously, we've got a very, very strong -- and we've articulated our view and strategy on the USA, and with our double downer, 675, 700 million gallon facility in the US. And you think about it, our USA production within the Darling system's about a million tons of fat. We have about half of that in Europe today. And so, at the end of the day, we're trying to figure out the correct way to value add that. And that could take a whole bunch of various forms, from building a facility in Europe, to shipping fat to the US to make diesel out of it, to just only value adding a portion of our fat stream over there.
And at the end of the day, we see that about half of the world's demand for low carbon fuels will be on the North American continent. And probably about another half will around the world. And so, ultimately, as we Diamond Green Diesel to have the kind of the most efficient supply chain and logistical sight in the world, we're kinda doing that same evaluation as we look forward. And we'll be monitoring those markets to make sure that everybody has kinda the same commitment to reduction of greenhouse gases that seem to be articulated today. John, you got anything you wanna add to that?
John Bullock--Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer
No. I think you said it perfectly.
Andrew Goffe--Overbrook Management--Analyst
Thanks.
Operator
Our next question comes from Bill Baldwin of Baldwin Anthony Securities. Please go ahead.
Bill Baldwin--Baldwin Anthony Securities--Analyst
Good morning.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Morning, Bill.
Brad Phillips--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Hey, Bill.
Bill Baldwin--Baldwin Anthony Securities--Analyst
Just a housekeeping item here. I was gonna ask is there anything in the revenue side of Diamond Green Diesel on the rend hat was unusual or affected the revenues in the fourth quarter? Or was rend accounting pretty straight forward?
John Bullock--Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer
This is John. No, there was nothing unusual.
Bill Baldwin--Baldwin Anthony Securities--Analyst
Nothing unusual. No -- OK. I didn't know you banked any or...
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
No. There was no stockpiling of rend.
John Bullock--Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer
No.
Bill Baldwin--Baldwin Anthony Securities--Analyst
No stockpiling of rend. No, OK. Thank you very much.
John Bullock--Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer
Thanks.
Operator
Our next question is a follow-up from Heather Jones of Vertical Group. Please go ahead.
Heather Jones--Vertical Group -- Analyst
Yes. Thanks for taking this follow-up. First, I just wanted to go back to Europe. So, I know that a number of the countries there won't bring in renewable diesel from the US, but you have a situation there where their double counting rules -- that's accelerating. Demand is accelerating, and yet, there's an issue of finding suitable feedstocks given the move away from palm, etc.
So, wondering if either A.) Do you think there will be a big increase in imports of fats from the US into Europe to feed these big plants that are coming online? Or will we see maybe a loosing of their standards, the regulations, as far as importing renewable diesel from the US?
John Bullock--Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer
Heather, this is John. They can import biofuel into the EU. There's just a tariff associated with it that increases the cost of that. Your question on -- generally, I think what we see in this, there are several markets around the world where there're very good green premiums that are being paid for renewable fuel. And one way or another the renewable diesel is gonna find its way to the markets. What we're focused on is trying to make sure to develop the most efficient supply chains to service those markets, and in the process, utilize the fat that we produce out of our core business to maximize its value. And we continue to look at that constantly.
Obviously, there are parts of Europe that are gonna be extremely attractive markets for renewable diesel. I think the general movement in Europe is away from palm oil. That doesn't mean that they will totally eliminate the use of palm oil. But that speaks very favorably for the low-CI feedstocks that we produce, the used cooking oils and the animal fats. And it's just a question of matching up the supply to the places that pay the really good green premiums.
Heather Jones--Vertical Group -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you. My final question is could you speak to what do you see as the implications if there's a favorable resolution of US-China trade dispute? If we get a deal, what are the implications for Darlings business?
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
What we see when I refer to trade disruptions in the feed segment, it's more industry related right now. We were shipping a lot of poultry meals out of the processors in the US to China, and to a degree, those had backed up the potential tariffs that were on there. So, at the end of the day, I think it helps strengthen our poultry processing side of our business. I think China obviously has an animal herd their gonna have to rebuild. And that'll take some time. And so, at the end of the day, to me, I think it should strengthen the overall green and soybean complex going forward here. And at the end of the day, that kind of spills over in various ways and helps us out.
Heather Jones--Vertical Group -- Analyst
Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much.
Operator
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Randall Stuewe for any closing remarks.
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. So, just want to say thanks to everybody. Great questions today, and we look forward to talking to you again in May and updating you on our progress.
Operator
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Duration: 56 minutes
Melissa Gaither--Vice President of Investor Relations and Global Communications
Randall Stuewe--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Brad Phillips--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Heather Jones--Vertical Group -- Analyst
John Bullock--Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer
Kenneth Zaslow--Bank of Montreal -- Analyst
Scott Bernstein--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Thomas Palmer--JPMorgan -- Analyst
Craig Irwin--ROTH Capital Partners -- Analyst
Andrew Goffe-- Overbrook Management--Analyst
Bill Baldwin--Baldwin Anthony Securities -- Analyst
More DAR analysis
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
I am adult, honest and diplomatic enough to say all Bitcoin forks are real versions of Bitcoin (btc,bsv,bch etc). Sharing the same history.
BUT...
There is ONLY ONE implementation which will succeed. The one which SCALES ON CHAIN to encourage huge volumes of transactions. || South Korean Exchange Loses $5 Million in Accidental Bitcoin Airdrop https://cryptives.com/south-korean-exchange-loses-5-million-in-accidental-bitcoin-airdrop/ …pic.twitter.com/R9ZUz896Aq || #CANCOM : Hochstufung als Kurstreiber - #Aktienanalyse
http://www.bwinvestment.de/empfehlung.html #dax30 #Bitcoin #wiwopic.twitter.com/8m8RYkcHF8 || Chinese internet giants kick off a rat race in Southeast Asia's e-commerce market https://www.coinblock.asia/2019/01/17/chinese-internet-giants-kick-off-a-rat-race-in-southeast-asia039s-e-commerce-market/40600 … #crypto #btc #eth #blockchain || Insightful
When #Bubbles Pop
https://buff.ly/2DcDn6b #fintech #blockchain #crypto @BitcoinMagazine #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/XyH43pXotr || れんちゃさすがやで…|дﾟ)私着替えないと←ｗ || RT #CoinTelegraph Malta’s financial regulator issues an official warning against alleged global Bitcoin scam
https://cointelegraph.com/news/maltas-financial-watchdog-warns-global-investors-against-bitcoin-revolution-scam … #Crypto || “You do not shine under the bright lights; the bright lights only reveal your work in the dark”
40 Days
#BTC #LocalsOnly || _
ノアコイン エイダコイン リップル ネム モネロ 仮想通貨 noahcoin bitcoin Ripple Ethereum nem
monero
■
■
↓YouTube
↓Twitter
↓noah NEWS pic.twitter.com/q25cSCtE5N || Bithumb To Use Reverse IPO To Get US Stock Exchange Listing
https://www.ethnews.com/bithumb-to-use-reverse-ipo-to-get-us-stock-exchange-listing …
#Blockchain #Crypto #BTC #EOS #ETH #bitcoin #LTC #XLM #IOTA #NEO #dash #ETC #BCH #XRP #ZeCash #Cardano #ADA #IOHK #TRX #TMT #fintech
|
Trend: up || Prices: 3951.60, 3905.23, 3909.16, 3906.72, 3924.37, 3960.91, 4048.73, 4025.23, 4032.51, 4071.19
|
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 2017-02-14]
BTC Price: 1004.55, BTC RSI: 56.16
Gold Price: 1223.90, Gold RSI: 59.24
Oil Price: 53.20, Oil RSI: 52.54
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
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.
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) || 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. Beijingannouncedit had beguninvestigating bitcoin exchangesin 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 wastightening capital controls even further. While the rules were aimed atoutbound investments by centrally-controlled state firms, it is still notable thatbitcoin has so far been spared. In a note to clients on Wednesday, Deutsche Bank's Torsten Sløk showed howChina dominates the global bitcoin market, accounting for nearly 100% of the trading.
(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 is tanking after Chinese exchanges block withdrawals: (A bitcoin sign in a window in Toronto.Reuters/Mark Blinch)
Bitcoin was down by 8%, or $85, at $975 a coin as of 4:06 p.m. ET on Thursday after at leasttwoofChina'sbiggest bitcoin exchanges announced they were blocking customers from withdrawing their bitcoins. The announcements followedWednesday's meetingbetween the People's Bank of China and the bitcoin exchanges.
Thursday's announcements are notable becausenearly 100% of all bitcoin transactionstake place on Chinese exchanges. The cryptocurrency has had a wild start to 2017 after gaining 120% in 2016, when it became thetop-performing currencyfor a second straight year.
Bitcoin gained more than 20% in the opening week of 2017 before crashing by 35% on concerns China would startcracking down on trading. China's largest bitcoin exchanges recently announced they would charge a flat fee of 0.2% on all transactions.
Thursday's steep slide has pushed bitcoin to its lowest level since the final trading day of January. It is still higher by 3.6% for the year.
(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 zooming higher
• Bitcoin is rallying for an 8th straight day
• Bitcoin is back above $1,000 || 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 insurers 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 Specialtys Breach Assist Counsel, has been helping the insurers 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 industrys 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 insurers 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 todays 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. || 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 || China central bank urges rational investment in bitcoin: BEIJING (Reuters) - China's institutional and individual investors should take a rational approach to investing in virtual currencies such as bitcoin, the central bank said on Friday.
Bitcoin prices had showed abnormal fluctuations, the Shanghai head office of the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a notice.
This prompted branch officials to meet representatives of a major bitcoin trading platform in China, BTCC.
They cautioned against potential risks in the platform's operations and asked it to carry out "self-inspection" according to the law, the bank said.
It stressed bitcoin is not a currency and cannot be circulated as a real currency in the market.
(Reporting by Yawen Chen and Kevin Yao; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Firing contest (A view of a firing contest among multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) batteries selected from large combined units of the KPA, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang.Reuters/KCNA) Here is what you need to know. Dow 20,000 remains elusive . The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.16% on Wednesday to finish at 19,941.96. It's set to open Thursday's session near 19,935. Wednesday was the most boring day for stocks since 1992 . Wednesday's intraday range of 1.9 basis points was the tightest since Christmas Eve 1992, according to Bespoke Investment Group. The world's oldest bank is moving closer to a bailout . Monte Paschi failed to secure a key investor for its new share offering, and Reuters reports that caused other investors to balk at the deal. Aside from failing, the only realistic option at this point is a state bailout by the Italian government. Bitcoin is at its best level in 3 years . The cryptocurrency trades higher by more than 5% on Thursday at $874.04, its best level since December 2013. Carl Icahn will have a role in the Trump Administration . Icahn will serve as a special adviser to Trump on regulation. " His help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable," Trump said in a release. Air Force One will cost less than previously expected . After meeting with Trump, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the president's plane will cost less than previous estimate of near $4 billion. " We work on Air Force One because it's important to our country and we're going to make sure that he gets the best capability and that it's done affordably," Muilenburg said. Hershey has a new CEO . Michele Buck has been named president and CEO, effective March 1, 2017. Currently, Buck is the company's executive vice president and COO. Stock markets around the world are lower . Hong Kong's Hang Seng (-0.8%) lagged in Asia and Spain's IBEX (-0.4%) trails in Europe. Earnings reporting remains light. Rite Aid and ConAgra Brands will release their quarterly results ahead of the opening bell while Cintas reports after markets close. US economic data picks up. GDP, durable goods, and initial jobless claims will all be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before the FHFA House Price Index crosses the wires at 9 a.m. ET and personal income and spending are announced at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is up 2 bps at 2.55%. More From Business Insider I’ve tested over 100 headphones in the past year, and I keep coming back to this $26 pair Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now 'The global bond rout deepens:' Here's a quick guide to what traders are talking about right now View comments || PRESS DIGEST- New York Times business news - Jan 10: Jan 10 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
- Yahoo Inc said on Monday when its $4.8 billion deal to sell internet business to Verizon Communications Inc closes, it would rename itself "Altaba." And that more than half the company's board members - including Chief Executive Marissa Mayer - would step down.http://nyti.ms/2iyGo40
- Goldman Sachs Group Inc announced on Monday that Elisha Wiesel would become the chief information officer, taking over from Martin Chavez, a prominent executive who pushed to make Goldman more of a forward-looking technology firm.http://nyti.ms/2iyEhx2
- UnitedHealth Group Inc, one of the largest and most diversified health insurance companies in the United States, said on Monday that it planned to buy Surgical Care Affiliates Inc, a chain of outpatient surgery centers, for about $2.3 billion. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2017.http://nyti.ms/2iyHVHi
- McDonald's Corp said on Monday it would sell its businesses in mainland China and Hong Kong for $2.08 billion to Citic Ltd, a state-owned conglomerate, and the Carlyle Group Lp, a private equity firm.http://nyti.ms/2jnN3hu
- The company that serves as the back end for much Wall Street trading - the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, or DTCC - said on Monday it would replace one of its central databases, used by the largest banks in the world, with new software inspired by Bitcoin. The organization, based in New York, plays a role in recording and reporting nearly every stock and bond trade in the United States, as well as most valuable derivatives trades.http://nyti.ms/2jxvMqh(Compiled by Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru) || 6 ETF Trends Likely to Take Centre Stage in 2017: Donald Trump’s win as the U.S. President and the most sought-after OPEC output deal has actually set the tone of 2017 investing. Many are bullish on the prospect of oil price this year though rising U.S. supplies can anytime thwart the winning momentum in the oil patch. However, Trump-backed hopes are still in fine fettle.
Added to these, there are plenty of other events – across asset class and regions – that could prove to be game-changers this year. In view of this, we intend to highlight a few ETF trends that are likely to be prevalent in 2017:
Stocks to Be Bullish Overall
The year can be attributed to stocks. The first and foremost reason for it is an end to earnings recession. Earnings growth entered into the positive territory in Q3 of 2016 following five consecutive quarters of decline. For the upcoming Q4 earnings season, the S&P 500 is expected to score 3.3% earnings growth on 4.1% revenue growth.
Earnings for Q1 of 2017 are expected to surge 10.3% for the S&P 500 on 7.5% higher revenues, as per the Earnings Trends issued on January 4, 2017. The earnings growth trend is expected to stay firm even for Q2, Q3 and Q4 of this year with an expectation of 9.8%, 8.2% and 12.5% on revenue growth of 5.7%, 5.5% and 4.8% (read: Ten Predictions for the ETF Industry in 2017).
Along with earnings recovery, stabilization in the oil patch after a prolonged rout and a Trump-induced fiscal boost along with lower taxes should augur well for stocks this year. Still, withmarkets appearing overvalued by some measure and the President-elect Trump yet to roll out promised measures, cautious investors with a long-term notion can opt for value ETFs over growth. Investors should also note that a stronger U.S. dollar is likely to take some shine off the S&P 500 index as the components are heavily exposed to foreign currencies.
Investors should note thatSPDR S&P 500 Value ETFSPYV has a positive weighted alpha of 23.00 whileSPDR S&P 500 Growth ETFSPYG has it at positive 13.90. This indicates a higher growth potential in SPYV.
Currency-Hedged Foreign ETFs to Rule
The U.S. dollar is presently at a multi-year high on bets over faster Fed policy tightening and an improving U.S. economy. On the other hand, foreign economies are also gaining momentum. Business and consumer sentiments in the European Union are at about six-year highs. Business conditions in the Japanese economy are also improving.
An upside is more likely for European and Japanese stocks given the ultra-easy monetary policy over there, which will keep their currencies low against a soaring greenback and boost those economies.
As a result, currency-hedged ETFs likeWisdomTree Japan Hedged SmallCap Equity ETFDXJS,WisdomTree Japan Hedged Quality Dividend Growth ETFJHDG andO'Shares FTSE Europe Quality Dividend Hedged ETFOEUH will likely rule the year ahead.
More Factor-Based ETFs to Come On Line
Factor-based products have been quite a trend in 2016 as the fashion for plain vanilla ETFs is gone. Issuers are coming up with a more striking investment objective which can create a winning combination in the present investing environment. All in all, smart beta and multifactor ETFs will likely carry forward the legacy of the ETF world. An example of recently launched factor-based ETFs isALPS Dorsey Wright Sector Momentum ETFSWIN (read: 6 ETF Ideas Most Favored by Issuers in 2016).
More Players to Enter ETF Industry
Be it big banking giants or hedge fund managers, players are increasingly entering the ETF industry. We have already have seen J.P. Morgan and Goldman venturing into the ETF world and now Wells Fargo is also eyeing the space with its first-ever multi-factor ETF. Saba Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund manager, is also planning to foray into the ETF space with an ETF related to closed-end funds.
Expense Ratio Cut
With rising competition among issuers for market share, expense ratios are increasingly being slashed. So long, Charles Schwab and Vanguard ruled the world of low-cost ETFs. But last year, BlackRock and Fidelity enacted steep fee cuts for several of their products. A new set of rules under the Department of Labor’s “fiduciary standard,” which asked advisors to give precedence to their client’s interest over their own also played a role in this burgeoning trend.
For example, BlackRock lowered fees for its S&P 500 tracking ETF,iShares Core S&P 500IVV, from 0.07% to 0.04%. The fee cut made IVV less expensive than other popular ETFs in its domain. Even a relatively new-comer like Hartford Funds, which launched Lattice Strategies and its ETF operations earlier in 2016, announced that it will lower the expense ratio on four of its smart-beta funds effective January 1 (read: Buy These ETFs as BlackRock Cuts Fees).
Bitcoin ETF to Hit the Market?
Even if we are yet to have a bitcoin ETF, one is expected to hit the market in 2017. Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust has filed for one to make it easy for investors to bet on this soaring digital currency. As per CNBC, “bitcoin is a very volatile asset” but doesn’t have a strong correlation with other classes. Bitcoin’s value beat the $900 mark in late December for the first time since February 2014 (Also read: Explaining Bitcoin and Crypto Currency).
India's demonetization also gave a boost to bitcoin trading volumes. Moreover, trading volumes in China have been solid with the government taking proactive measures against illegal money transfer. With this, investors expect to see an approval of the first bitcoin ETF in 2017.
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Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportSPDR-SP5 VL (SPYV): ETF Research ReportsISHARS-SP500 (IVV): ETF Research ReportsWISDMTR-JP HSCF (DXJS): ETF Research ReportsOS-FT EUR QDH (OEUH): ETF Research ReportsWISTR-JP HQD (JHDG): ETF Research ReportsSPDR-SP5 GR (SPYG): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || What's going on in China right now reminds us of a great Princess Leia quote from Star Wars: princess leia (Star Wars, YouTube) In the beginning of "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope," rebel leader Princess Leia (RIP the great Carrie Fisher) was captured by the evil Empire. The rebels had managed to steal the plans for the Empire's secret weapon, the Death Star, and so the Empire's agents were ruthlessly hunting for them all over the galaxy. Leia told her captors that the planned Imperial crackdown on the rebels, using the Death Star to terrify planets into submission, wouldn't work. "The more you tighten your grip," she said, "the more star systems will slip through your fingers." Replace the words "star systems" with the words "Chinese yuan" and you could use the phrase to talk about what's troubling Beijing right now. Over the past week, the Chinese government has instituted even stricter capital controls to prevent citizens and corporations from taking money out of the country, according to a note circulated by Wells Fargo's Cameron McKnight and Robert J. Shore on Friday, January 6. Now regular citizens have to report transfers over $10,000 and banks have had their foreign transaction reporting limits cut by 75%. This is on top of three months of the government tightening its grip on where Chinese people and companies send their yuan. When it slips But it's not working. Money is still leaving the country — $82 billion last month, to be exact — and that is pushing the value of the yuan lower against the dollar. On December 28, China's Central Bank was forced to deny media reports that the yuan fell to 7 yuan to $1. It insisted that yuan traded between its comfortable "band" of 6.9500 and 6.9666 per dollar. "But some irresponsible media reported that the onshore rate of the yuan broke the psychological threshold of 7.0000," the central bank said, according to Reuters. The futures market was not satisfied with that response, as indicated in this tweet from Bloomberg Chief Asia Economist Tom Orlik: Yuan drop fears are back, and almost as severe as they were a year ago pic.twitter.com/t4NoN2vDMc — Tom Orlik (@TomOrlik) December 30, 2016 This is a deadly loop. The more controls the government puts on, the more desperate it seems. The more desperate it seems, the more people want to take their money out. Bloomberg estimates that China has suffered about $1.7 trillion in capital outflows since 2015. Story continues And the longer this goes on the more investors are starting to think this loop will make a meaningful difference in the value of the yuan. From Bloomberg: "By repeatedly tightening capital controls, China risks eroding confidence in its currency, said [Benjamin] Fuchs, chief investment officer at BFAM Partners (Hong Kong). At the same time, the dollar’s advance against the yen and other currencies is increasing competitive pressure on China to let the yuan depreciate, he said in an interview." Last year, Fuchs correctly predicted that the yuan would not suffer a sudden devaluation, as many hedge fund managers — like Hayman Capital's Kyle Bass — argued through early 2016. societe generale china residential capital outflows (Societe Generale) This is not to say that the government doesn't have tools to stabilize the yuan as outflows persist. It just doesn't have many, and they're not that great. China has been using its foreign currency reserves to buy yuan to prop up the currency's value. But it can't do that forever, since it needs that money to pay foreign denominated debt. Plus, China has already spent a ton of reserves on this. The exact number is fuzzy, but we do know China's Central Bank was holding $4 trillion at its highest point in 2014. Now official data shows that the number is hovering around $3.01 trillion, down from $3.05 trillion in November, according to official numbers released this weekend. China bears, like hedge fund manager Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates think it could be lower. Specifically, his firm calculates that net reserves could be around $1.7 trillion. china foreign reserves chart (Business Insider; Data source: Kynikos Associates) Another interesting factor is that China has tried really hard to get people to stop looking at the yuan in comparison to the dollar. It announced that it would peg the yuan to a basket of currencies. The problem is that no one cares. It's still a dollar-yuan world, and in that world a yuan slide against the dollar breaking a psychological threshold, like 7 yuan to $1, has consequences. Peking University Professor Christopher Balding wrote a great post about this earlier this week: "Ultimately, of course, the only way to break free of the dollar is to accept a floating currency without capital controls. The government shows no appetite for the volatility this would entail, not least because in the short run, downward pressure on the yuan would prompt even larger outflows. But cosmetic changes to a basket of currencies — most of which don't even trade with the renminbi — are no substitute." Until this is resolved, currency will continue to slip through the government's fingers, no matter how it tightens its grip. NOW WATCH: WWE CMO: The most valuable lesson Vince McMahon taught me about business More From Business Insider At least 5 dead, dozens injured after mass shooting at Florida's Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport Bitcoin is still dropping Former CIA director James Woolsey has split with Trump, 'effective immediately'
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Help me win this awesome #bitcoin promo from @thatssixzs. If you refer your friends you get more chances to win : ) https://allthings.host/2gWXn3o || MMMBTC || MMMBTC || Current price of Bitcoin is $895.00 via Chain || Genesis block - Bitcoin Wiki
Remark:Just read about the genesis block. Other interesting stuff at link. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block … || MMMBTC || #bitcoin Is Being Adopted At The Rate Of Over 300,000 New Wallet Per Month The Cryptoverse http://bitcoinagile.com/9FDFB8/bitcoin-is-being-adopted-at-the-rate-of-over-300000-new-wallet-per-month-the-cryptoverse-168-cryptoversity_stream …pic.twitter.com/Do18iRHBrX || MMMBTC || India is Returning to Barter System, #bitcoin Appeals to the Lots https://news.82bitcoin.com/2016/12/19/india-is-returning-to-barter-system-bitcoin-appeals-to-the-masses-35 …pic.twitter.com/1wAX6TCI6a || MMMBTC
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Trend: up || Prices: 1007.48, 1027.44, 1046.21, 1054.42, 1047.87, 1079.98, 1115.30, 1117.44, 1166.72, 1173.68
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Crashes 9% as Missiles Strike Kyiv, Airport Captured: The price of bitcoin continued to fall as global markets reacted with alarm to the expanding scale of war in Ukraine as missiles continue to reign down on its capital city in Kyiv and its airport was captured by airborne troops. BTC was down 9% to $34,555 as of the time of this writing, according to CoinGecko data. Russian President Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Ukrainian forces to surrender, and warned the U.S, and NATO from getting involved. "Anyone who tries to interfere with us, or even more so, to create threats for our country and our people, must know that Russias response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history,'' Putin said. We are ready for any turn of events. Read more: Bitcoin Wilts as Russia-Ukraine Tensions Push Gold to 8-Month High The US and its allies are expected to hit Russia with a broad sanction package in the coming hours. These sanctions are expected to target Russian banks, Putin's cabinet, and circle of business associates but are not expected to cut Russia off from the global financial system. Russia's former Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has previously said that disconnecting Russia from SWIFT would be a declaration of war. However, Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has backed down from language calling a potential disconnection a "serious threat" in response to a non-binding resolution passed by the European Parliament in April that called on Russia's expulsion from SWIFT should an invasion take place. Russia has pushed ahead with the development of a central bank digital currency as an apparent contingency should it lose access to SWIFT. Within Asia, market reaction was cautious but major stock indices on the continent are in the red. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index is down 2% on-day, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng is down 3.3%. In Taiwan the TAIEX is down 2.5% while Singapore's Straits Times Index is down 3%. Futures for the Dow Jones were down 2% in overnight trading, while futures for the S&P 500 were also down 2%. CNN has reported that Moscow's stock exchange has suspended trading until further notice. Read more: First Mover Asia: China CBDC Is No Government Version of Bitcoin; Terra's Luna, Other Altcoins Jump || Howard Financial Services, Ltd. Buys JPMorgan Ultra-Short Income ETF, Hartford Multifactor ...: Investment company Howard Financial Services, Ltd. ( Current Portfolio ) buys JPMorgan Ultra-Short Income ETF, Hartford Multifactor Developed Markets (ex-US) ETF, iShares MSCI Intl Quality Factor ETF, Vanguard International Dividend Appreciation ETF, WisdomTree Emerging Markets ex-State-Owned Enterpr, sells Tortoise North American Pipeline Fund ETF, VanEck Gold Miners ETF, Boeing Co, JPMorgan BetaBuilders Japan ETF, VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Howard Financial Services, Ltd.. As of 2021Q4, Howard Financial Services, Ltd. owns 133 stocks with a total value of $333 million. These are the details of the buys and sells. New Purchases: KDP, CCL, PFE, JMST, MCD, ABT, HD, QCOM, IWF, XLK, CNK, T, ARKK, Added Positions: JPST, QUAL, SCHD, RODM, RSP, VIG, IQLT, VIGI, XSOE, CALF, HTRB, TOTL, FIXD, NVDA, DIS, ABBV, BBEU, GOOGL, FNDA, AMZN, COP, USMV, SCHF, SCHE, MRK, MOAT, FNDF, MO, BSM, NSC, HON, VZ, PM, DMLP, AGNC, DX, VNOM, NFLX, INTC, QQQE, LEAD, LBJ, MCY, GNR, Reduced Positions: TPYP, SPY, QQQ, MSFT, SHY, SLV, GOOG, IVV, SU, TWO, V, GLD, DGRW, TSLA, MA, EZPW, SLYV, XLV, VGT, VTI, NLY, IHI, BBCA, PEP, JPM, SCHO, FXN, PLTR, FB, WMT, ISRG, Sold Out: GDX, BA, BBJP, BJK, IEMG, BSV, PSQ, SH, Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Signs with RHI. Click here to check it out. JPST 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of JPST Peter Lynch Chart of JPST For the details of HOWARD FINANCIAL SERVICES, LTD.'s stock buys and sells, go to https://www.gurufocus.com/guru/howard+financial+services%2C+ltd./current-portfolio/portfolio These are the top 5 holdings of HOWARD FINANCIAL SERVICES, LTD. BTC iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF ( QUAL ) - 321,542 shares, 14.04% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 12.64% Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF ( RSP ) - 277,004 shares, 13.52% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 6.92% Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF ( SCHD ) - 540,922 shares, 13.11% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 7.61% Vanguard Dividend Appreciation FTF (VIG) - 141,064 shares, 7.27% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 12.86% JPMorgan Ultra-Short Income ETF (JPST) - 307,661 shares, 4.66% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 2993.31% New Purchase: Keurig Dr Pepper Inc (KDP) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. initiated holding in Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. The purchase prices were between $32.72 and $36.86, with an estimated average price of $35.31. The stock is now traded at around $37.600000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.14%. The holding were 13,044 shares as of 2021-12-31. Story continues New Purchase: Pfizer Inc (PFE) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. initiated holding in Pfizer Inc. The purchase prices were between $41.32 and $61.25, with an estimated average price of $49.81. The stock is now traded at around $53.370000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.08%. The holding were 4,616 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal Income ETF (JMST) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. initiated holding in JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal Income ETF. The purchase prices were between $50.97 and $51.07, with an estimated average price of $51.02. The stock is now traded at around $50.780000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.08%. The holding were 5,438 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Carnival Corp (CCL) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. initiated holding in Carnival Corp. The purchase prices were between $16.38 and $25.42, with an estimated average price of $21.3. The stock is now traded at around $19.110000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.08%. The holding were 12,699 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: McDonald's Corp (MCD) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. initiated holding in McDonald's Corp. The purchase prices were between $236.42 and $268.49, with an estimated average price of $252.91. The stock is now traded at around $248.740000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.07%. The holding were 913 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. initiated holding in Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF. The purchase prices were between $147.78 and $176.65, with an estimated average price of $164.65. The stock is now traded at around $151.380000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.06%. The holding were 1,200 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: JPMorgan Ultra-Short Income ETF (JPST) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. added to a holding in JPMorgan Ultra-Short Income ETF by 2993.31%. The purchase prices were between $50.45 and $50.59, with an estimated average price of $50.51. The stock is now traded at around $50.430000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 4.51%. The holding were 307,661 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Hartford Multifactor Developed Markets (ex-US) ETF (RODM) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. added to a holding in Hartford Multifactor Developed Markets (ex-US) ETF by 34.76%. The purchase prices were between $28.5 and $30.33, with an estimated average price of $29.7. The stock is now traded at around $28.880000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.9%. The holding were 388,072 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: iShares MSCI Intl Quality Factor ETF (IQLT) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. added to a holding in iShares MSCI Intl Quality Factor ETF by 27.86%. The purchase prices were between $37.35 and $40, with an estimated average price of $38.88. The stock is now traded at around $36.710000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.83%. The holding were 322,659 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Vanguard International Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIGI) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. added to a holding in Vanguard International Dividend Appreciation ETF by 29.96%. The purchase prices were between $81.39 and $86.06, with an estimated average price of $84.18. The stock is now traded at around $78.420000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.72%. The holding were 121,403 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: WisdomTree Emerging Markets ex-State-Owned Enterpr (XSOE) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. added to a holding in WisdomTree Emerging Markets ex-State-Owned Enterpr by 26.22%. The purchase prices were between $35.66 and $38.97, with an estimated average price of $37.55. The stock is now traded at around $34.630000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.67%. The holding were 292,798 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Pacer US Small Cap Cash Cows 100 ETF (CALF) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. added to a holding in Pacer US Small Cap Cash Cows 100 ETF by 168.90%. The purchase prices were between $41.14 and $47.18, with an estimated average price of $44. The stock is now traded at around $39.440000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.6%. The holding were 74,702 shares as of 2021-12-31. Sold Out: VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. sold out a holding in VanEck Gold Miners ETF. The sale prices were between $29.16 and $34.3, with an estimated average price of $31.49. Sold Out: Boeing Co (BA) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. sold out a holding in Boeing Co. The sale prices were between $188.19 and $233.09, with an estimated average price of $210.93. Sold Out: JPMorgan BetaBuilders Japan ETF (BBJP) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. sold out a holding in JPMorgan BetaBuilders Japan ETF. The sale prices were between $53.41 and $57.11, with an estimated average price of $55.61. Sold Out: VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF (BJK) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. sold out a holding in VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF. The sale prices were between $40.63 and $50.61, with an estimated average price of $46.35. Sold Out: iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. sold out a holding in iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF. The sale prices were between $57.97 and $62.96, with an estimated average price of $60.63. Sold Out: Vanguard Short-Term Bond ETF (BSV) Howard Financial Services, Ltd. sold out a holding in Vanguard Short-Term Bond ETF. The sale prices were between $80.65 and $81.49, with an estimated average price of $80.98. Here is the complete portfolio of HOWARD FINANCIAL SERVICES, LTD.. Also check out: 1. HOWARD FINANCIAL SERVICES, LTD.'s Undervalued Stocks 2. HOWARD FINANCIAL SERVICES, LTD.'s Top Growth Companies, and 3. HOWARD FINANCIAL SERVICES, LTD.'s High Yield stocks 4. Stocks that HOWARD FINANCIAL SERVICES, LTD. keeps buyingThis article first appeared on GuruFocus . View comments || South Korea Regulator to Scrutinize NFTs and the Metaverse: NFT marketplace activity and interest in the Metaverse continues to draw plenty of media attention. In January, NFT trading activity had hit a record high before slumping in February. In spite of the current crypto market environment, more mainstream players are exploring NFTs and buying land in the metaverse. As a result of the surge in activity, illicit activity has also been on the rise, forcing regulators to take notice. Illicit Rises Activity across the NFT Marketplace and in the Metaverse While the crypto market is no stranger to hacks, NFTs have also become the target of cybercriminals. Art thefts , plagiarism , rug pulls , and wash trading have grabbed the headlines in recent months. More alarmingly, however, has been an increase in cyber bullying and sexual harassment in the Metaverse. In late January, we reported the South Korean government having to take steps to curb sexual harassment in the Metaverse. South Koreas Communications Commission set up a council to address user protection in the Metaverse. The council is also to look into sexual harassment, targeting minors. South Korea was not the first to report sexual in the Metaverse. In December, The New York Times and the MIT Technology Review had both reported cases of sexual harassment in the Metaverse. Governments from India , the UK , and the U.S are now also increasing scrutiny over NFTs and the Metaverse. China was amongst the first, however, to talk of the risks associated with digital assets and virtual reality. With iconic fashion brands , fast-food chains , music , and sport entering the Metaverse, greater regulatory oversight is going to be needed. South Koreas Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) Gets Active As regulatory activity picks up, the South Korean government hit the news once more this week. On Monday, the FSS reportedly announced that it will tighten the monitoring of new traded assets including NFTs and also the Metaverse. The news follows the 7 guilty verdicts for V Global executives, including the CEO who received a 22-year jail sentence. In January, news of South Korean prosecutors wanting to put crypto criminals away for life had raised the prospect of heavy sentences for the 7. Story continues Stern punishments and strong regulatory oversight could put South Korea at the forefront of innovation. Addressing the threat of cybercrimes can only be a positive for both the NFT marketplace and the Metaverse. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Coinbase and Cardano Call on Hackers to Plug Security Gaps Russia Reportedly Wants To Introduce Tax on the Exchange of Crypto for Rubles USD/CAD Rises to the Upper End of Its Range Following Increasing Geopolitical Tensions Chainalysis: $400M Worth of Ransomware Crypto Affiliated to Russia Economic Data Puts the EUR, Pound, and the U.S Dollar in Focus The NASDAQ 100 Avoids Red Delivering Bitcoin (BTC) Support || Gold-Backed Tokens Grow Despite Mixed Reviews From Analysts: Gold-backed tokens are outpacing the overall growth of the crypto market, despite some analysts' concerns about the reliability of the tokens as well as the very wisdom of investing in the yellow metal. The market capitalization of tether gold (XAUT), the largest gold-backed stablecoin , has increased fourfold since the start of January 2021 to $421.3 million, according to CoinGecko . The second-biggest gold-backed stablecoin, PAX gold (PAXG), has grown fivefold to $378.3 million. On a combined basis, the market cap of the two tokens has increased 360%, versus 150% for all cryptocurrencies, according to the analysis firm Arcane Research. “Many investors are looking to get involved with the volatile crypto asset class, and gold-backed tokens provide some protection against volatility,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at the foreign-exchange brokerage Oanda. “Gold-backed tokens could continue to see massive appeal as gold’s outlook for the year improves.” Gold is seen by many investors in traditional financial markets as a hedge against inflation – similar to the way that many traders in crypto markets think that bitcoin might increase in value if the dollar's purchasing power erodes. Gold as store of value Some investors also argue that gold might be a safe haven in times of geopolitical turmoil, so the recent tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine have added to the appeal for bullion. These tensions have been cited as a driver for a $1.6 billion flow into the world’s largest gold fund at the end of January. The price of gold is up 2.8% in the past month, trading at $1,849.71 per ounce, gaining while stocks fell. Bitcoin ( BTC ) is up 0.6% during the same period. Analysts said that recent data showing inflation at the fastest pace in four decades is providing some support for gold. The economic and market environment might be fueling a surge in interest in gold tokens among crypto traders. “Commodity-backed tokens are growing in popularity," Arcane wrote on Feb. 8. "So far, primarily gold-backed tokens have attracted investment, but other commodities may soon follow.” The Russian nickel and palladium giant Nornickel was approved on Feb. 3 by the Central Bank of Russia to issue commodity-backed tokens through its subsidiary Atomyze. Story continues Since the gold tokens are tied to the price of the yellow metal, the rising market capitalization really just represents an increase in the number of tokens outstanding, analysts said. "What you are talking about is that there is issuance of gold-backed tokens," said Mati Greenspan, CEO at Quantum Economics and former eToro senior analyst. "If they want to issue them, they issue them." The market value of the gold tokens, now around $800 million combined, pales in comparison with bitcoin's $833 billion. And, of course, the price action on gold in recent years has been anemic compared with many cryptocurrencies whose prices have gone up by many multiples. “For investors, there’s little profit for gold-backed tokens as the price does not change much,” Greenspan said. Supply, demand and 'digital scarcity' With gold and gold tokens, when the price goes up, gold miners can try to dig up more and increase supply. Bitcoin's supply, by contrast, is controlled by the underlying blockchain's original programming. When the price goes up, the supply growth stays the same. “When it comes to valuation of digital assets, it seems that digital scarcity in and of itself is far more powerful than the added benefits of tying it to a metal or other physical materials,” Greenspan said. Garrick Hileman, head of research at Blockchain.com and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, said gold-backed tokens bring advantages, such as fast settlement, zero minimum purchases and high transferability. The redemption process isn't always so smooth, though: Sometimes it can take days or weeks, he said. Greenspan noted that investors may need to trust that the issuers of the gold-backed tokens are actually buying gold to back them up. The Arcane report pointed out that several projects have tried creating tokens backed by commodities other than gold, such as silver or palladium, but have met various obstacles along the way. One silver-backed token offering has been marked as a scam . A big question hanging over dollar-backed stablecoins such as Tether's USDT is whether it has proper reserves to back up those tokens. Tether, the largest dollar-linked stablecoin, has a market capitalization of $78.6 billion, according to CoinGecko. But its issuer, Tether, has been the subject of skepticism over the reserves it uses to back USDT. “Just because somebody said to you they are offering you gold-backed tokens doesn’t mean that you can actually trust them that they are actually backed by physical gold,” Greenspan said. || Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC Buys SPDR Portfolio Intermediate Term Treasury ETF, iShares Core ...: Investment companyOnyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC(Current Portfolio) buys SPDR Portfolio Intermediate Term Treasury ETF, iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF, Vanguard Value ETF, PGIM Ultra Short Bond ETF, sells Xtrackers USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF, SPDR DoubleLine Total Return Tactical ETF, Hartford Multifactor Developed Markets (ex-US) ETF, Vanguard Total International Bond ETF, BTC iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC. As of 2021Q4, Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC owns 171 stocks with a total value of $295 million. These are the details of the buys and sells.
• New Purchases:EWQ, DSI, XLI, VTEB, NULG, BIL, EZU, ABT, BOTZ, SOXX, MA, PEN, NXP, MGC, QTEC, TLT, VWO, EMAN, ACRX, PTE,
• Added Positions:SPTI, IVV, AGG, VTV, VUG, ISTB, PULS, SPEM, VB, VGT, XLY, ESGD, LQD, MSFT, VMBS, VOO, NULV, XLC, TSLA, IEMG, AMZN, AAPL, IEFA, NVDA, XLV, GOOG, XLK, EWI, VFH, ESGE, VHT, GOOGL, QQQ, RDVY, UNH, VXUS, HD, HDV, VCSH, VCIT, SCHP, ITA, DIS, VZ, XLE, JNJ, JPM, MBB, CVX, BMY, IDV, BA, FB, GLD, FDN, BSV, CSCO, AAL, UPS, VTI, XOM, COST, BAC, AMD, VEA, QCLN, MO, CMCSA, ED, IJH, HYG, FXH, IBM, LOW, MCD, MDT, V, PFE, USA, UNP, MHI, GE, NFLX, PEP, VO, IVE, ATAX, BX, ABBV, PDO, MMM, BP, SCHM, ITOT,
• Reduced Positions:HYLB, IXUS, RODM, JHMM, MTUM, ROUS, IUSB, EWU, SPY, NYCB, BCSF, ARCC, CGC, IVW, AINV, IXN, MRNA, FSK, EVV, MRK, AZN, T, IJR, DVY, DHC,
• Sold Out:TOTL, BNDX, VWOB, PENN, DKNG, LYG,
• Warning! GuruFocus has detected 1 Warning Sign with SOFI. Click here to check it out.
• List of 52-Week Lows
• List of 3-Year Lows
• List of 5-Year Lows
For the details of Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC's stock buys and sells,go tohttps://www.gurufocus.com/guru/onyx+bridge+wealth+group+llc/current-portfolio/portfolio
These are the top 5 holdings of Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC
1. Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG) - 125,801 shares, 13.76% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 9.07%
2. iShares Core MSCI Total International Stock ETF (IXUS) - 460,567 shares, 11.14% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 17.03%
3. iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) - 64,062 shares, 10.41% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 27.01%
4. John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF (JHMM) - 410,642 shares, 7.74% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 6.46%
5. iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG) - 158,311 shares, 6.07% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 46.79%
New Purchase: iShares MSCI France ETF (EWQ)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC initiated holding in iShares MSCI France ETF. The purchase prices were between $36.35 and $39.37, with an estimated average price of $37.92. The stock is now traded at around $38.730000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.17%. The holding were 12,784 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: iShares MSCI KLD 400 Social Index Fund (DSI)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC initiated holding in iShares MSCI KLD 400 Social Index Fund. The purchase prices were between $83.16 and $93.49, with an estimated average price of $90.04. The stock is now traded at around $88.140000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.13%. The holding were 4,198 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: Vanguard Tax-Exempt Bond ETF (VTEB)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC initiated holding in Vanguard Tax-Exempt Bond ETF. The purchase prices were between $54.29 and $54.97, with an estimated average price of $54.67. The stock is now traded at around $54.260000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.11%. The holding were 6,115 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: Industrial Select Sector SPDR (XLI)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC initiated holding in Industrial Select Sector SPDR. The purchase prices were between $98.27 and $106.72, with an estimated average price of $103.61. The stock is now traded at around $104.630000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.11%. The holding were 3,105 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF (NULG)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC initiated holding in Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF. The purchase prices were between $61.67 and $70.5, with an estimated average price of $67.3. The stock is now traded at around $61.550000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.1%. The holding were 4,369 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: Abbott Laboratories (ABT)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC initiated holding in Abbott Laboratories. The purchase prices were between $115.53 and $141.46, with an estimated average price of $128.29. The stock is now traded at around $126.570000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.09%. The holding were 1,919 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: SPDR Portfolio Intermediate Term Treasury ETF (SPTI)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC added to a holding in SPDR Portfolio Intermediate Term Treasury ETF by 2214.67%. The purchase prices were between $31.82 and $32.31, with an estimated average price of $32.07. The stock is now traded at around $31.410000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 4.76%. The holding were 461,522 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC added to a holding in iShares Core S&P 500 ETF by 27.01%. The purchase prices were between $428.93 and $479.53, with an estimated average price of $460.12. The stock is now traded at around $458.500000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 2.21%. The holding were 64,062 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC added to a holding in iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF by 46.79%. The purchase prices were between $113.17 and $115.05, with an estimated average price of $114.13. The stock is now traded at around $111.490000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1.93%. The holding were 158,311 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: Vanguard Value ETF (VTV)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC added to a holding in Vanguard Value ETF by 170.35%. The purchase prices were between $135.59 and $147.24, with an estimated average price of $142.08. The stock is now traded at around $147.780000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1.75%. The holding were 55,617 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: PGIM Ultra Short Bond ETF (PULS)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC added to a holding in PGIM Ultra Short Bond ETF by 365.30%. The purchase prices were between $49.45 and $49.51, with an estimated average price of $49.49. The stock is now traded at around $49.460000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.52%. The holding were 39,690 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: SPDR Portfolio Emerging Markets ETF (SPEM)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC added to a holding in SPDR Portfolio Emerging Markets ETF by 29.25%. The purchase prices were between $40.07 and $43.49, with an estimated average price of $41.91. The stock is now traded at around $41.930000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.47%. The holding were 147,692 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Sold Out: SPDR DoubleLine Total Return Tactical ETF (TOTL)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC sold out a holding in SPDR DoubleLine Total Return Tactical ETF. The sale prices were between $47.09 and $47.78, with an estimated average price of $47.42.
Sold Out: Vanguard Total International Bond ETF (BNDX)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC sold out a holding in Vanguard Total International Bond ETF. The sale prices were between $54.87 and $55.81, with an estimated average price of $55.32.
Sold Out: Vanguard Emerging Markets Government Bond ETF (VWOB)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC sold out a holding in Vanguard Emerging Markets Government Bond ETF. The sale prices were between $75.34 and $78.19, with an estimated average price of $77.1.
Sold Out: Penn National Gaming Inc (PENN)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC sold out a holding in Penn National Gaming Inc. The sale prices were between $44.65 and $81.34, with an estimated average price of $60.09.
Sold Out: DraftKings Inc (DKNG)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC sold out a holding in DraftKings Inc. The sale prices were between $26.59 and $49.82, with an estimated average price of $38.79.
Sold Out: Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LYG)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC sold out a holding in Lloyds Banking Group PLC. The sale prices were between $2.3 and $2.76, with an estimated average price of $2.55.
Reduced: Xtrackers USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYLB)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC reduced to a holding in Xtrackers USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF by 89.73%. The sale prices were between $38.9 and $39.95, with an estimated average price of $39.49. The stock is now traded at around $39.290000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -4.93%. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC still held 37,513 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Reduced: Hartford Multifactor Developed Markets (ex-US) ETF (RODM)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC reduced to a holding in Hartford Multifactor Developed Markets (ex-US) ETF by 65.73%. The sale prices were between $28.5 and $30.33, with an estimated average price of $29.7. The stock is now traded at around $29.990000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.58%. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC still held 26,359 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Reduced: BTC iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF (MTUM)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC reduced to a holding in BTC iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF by 63.73%. The sale prices were between $173.56 and $193.28, with an estimated average price of $184.03. The stock is now traded at around $167.680000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.56%. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC still held 4,596 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Reduced: Hartford Multifactor US Equity ETF (ROUS)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC reduced to a holding in Hartford Multifactor US Equity ETF by 54.43%. The sale prices were between $39.73 and $44.12, with an estimated average price of $42.11. The stock is now traded at around $42.500000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.14%. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC still held 7,293 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Reduced: ISHARES TRUST (IUSB)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC reduced to a holding in ISHARES TRUST by 26.02%. The sale prices were between $52.47 and $53.31, with an estimated average price of $52.9. The stock is now traded at around $51.680000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.08%. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC still held 11,457 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Reduced: iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF (EWU)
Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC reduced to a holding in iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF by 43.25%. The sale prices were between $30.97 and $33.32, with an estimated average price of $32.37. The stock is now traded at around $34.400000. The impact to a portfolio due to this sale was -0.07%. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC still held 7,260 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Here is the complete portfolio of Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC. Also check out:1. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC's Undervalued Stocks2. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC's Top Growth Companies, and3. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC's High Yield stocks4. Stocks that Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC keeps buyingThis article first appeared onGuruFocus. || Proactive news headlines including The Good Shroom Co, Mydecine, Harbor Custom Development, Kovo HealthTech and Starton Therapeutics: New York , Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Proactive, provider of real-time news and video interviews on growth companies listed in the US and Canada, has covered the following companies: The Good Shroom Co CEO says quality of cannabis and mushroom products will help gain significant market share in 2022 click here World Copper poised for PEA for Escalones, says Fundamental Research Corp, which starts coverage with a 'Buy' click here Naturally Splendid appoints George Ragogna as new chief financial officer click here Mydecine partners with Combat Stress to treat PTSD in veterans with psilocybin click here Karora Resources says third major Beta Hunt shear zone extended to over 500m of strike with potential to extend over 2 km click here Harbor Custom Development to accept Bitcoin and 12 other digital currencies as payment for its real estate click here Newrange Gold poised to get drill rigs turning at Red Lake projects click here Benchmark Metals reveals high-grade intercepts and extends mineralization at Dukes Ridge deposit on Lawyers gold-silver project click here CleanSpark achieves major milestone at 2 EH/s hashrate click here Esports Entertainment receives approval to kick off betting operations in New Jersey click here Todos Medical announces data lock for Tollovir Phase 2 clinical trial for treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients click here Kovo HealthTech forecasts 30% year-over-year organic growth in 2022 click here Deepspatial expands partner program with new infrastructure client in India click here AIM ImmunoTech announces positive results from Phase 1/2 study of intraperitoneal chemo-immunotherapy in advanced recurrent ovarian cance r click here Kenorland options Hunter Project in Quebec to Centerra Gold Inc click here Champion Gaming Group awarded Vendor Minor sports betting license in Colorado click here Starton Therapeutics says STAR-LLD study successfully demonstrates continuous drug delivery of lenalidomide from a transdermal patch click here OTC Markets unveils the 2022 OTCQX Best 50, a ranking of the top-performing OTCQX companies in the prior calendar year click here PowerTap Hydrogen Capital says Pinakin Patel, co-founder of subsidiary AES-100, elected to California Hydrogen Business Council click here Mandalay Resources hits some of the 'best grades seen at Björkdal' with recent drilling click here Sassy Resources receives drill permits for Highrock Uranium Project in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin click here KetamineOne changes name to Wellbeing Digital Science click here OTC Markets unveils the 2022 OTCQX Best 50, a ranking of the top-performing OTCQX companies in the prior calendar year click here Silvercorp Metals hits high-grade silver and zinc at its SGX mine in China click here Bam Bam Resources pleased with progress made at Majuba Hilll; awaits results from latest drill round click here Xigem Technologies closes on acquisition of Cylix Data click here ESE Entertainment to enter metaverse with new business division click here Algernon Pharmaceuticals includes novel salt forms of DMT in its recent IP patent applications click here Bragg Gaming subsidiary ORYX Gaming goes live in the UK with Novibet click here XPhyto Therapeutics realizing 'significant synergies' after integration of 3a-diagnostics GmbH click here CULT Food Science bolsters its executive team through the addition of an experienced cellular agriculture entrepreneur, Lejjy Gafour, as its president click here O3 Mining reports more encouraging drill results from Québec click here Metal Energy starts drilling at its Strange nickel project in northwestern Ontario click here Pacific Empire Minerals and Engold Mines agree to terms for LLH1 mineral claim in British Columbia click here Story continues About Proactive Proactive is a unique tech-enabled platform providing companies globally with a comprehensive investor engagement solution across their business lifecycle. With six offices on three continents, Proactive works with innovative growth companies quoted on the world’s major stock exchanges, helping executives to engage intelligently with investors. In 2020, Proactive featured in 809 million search results, our content was viewed over 165 million times and our readers spent over 10 million hours on our websites. Proactive has produced over 300,000 articles and 20,000 executive interviews since it was established in 2006. For more information on how Proactive can help you make a difference, email us at action@proactiveinvestors.com || Time to Make Money Moves: The Best Investment Tools for Beginners in 2022: All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, SPY may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. We’re calling it: 2022 is the year we’re going to make our money work for us. There are so many financial stressors to navigate as an adult, from paying off your mortgage to navigating life insurance , picking out credits cards to signing up for a 401k — and somehow you have to make sure you’re saving enough, too. It’s overwhelming, but investing your money in a way that serves you doesn’t have to be. Today's Top Deals Save 36% on Sealy's Memory Foam Gel Pillow - Just $35 Today Amazon's House Brand of KN95 Masks Are Just $1.15/Each Today! Amazon Exclusive: Get TurboTax Filing Software for Just $39.99 Today Investment doesn’t have to be scary or involve a ton of risk. Even if you’re being pressured to explore cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, you really can opt for simpler paths. It can actually be easy, empowering and sort of fun. You no longer have to be super wealthy or rich enough to hire a financial advisor in order to invest in the stock market. All you need is some change you’re willing to part with for the time being, and an app you like and trust to help curate your portfolio. We’ve rounded up our favorite investment tools for beginners looking to expand their wealth without risking it all in the process. If you’re reading to start making money with your money, then read on for the best investment tools and apps for beginners. You got this! What to Consider Before Choosing an Investment Tool As a Beginner There are a few important factors to consider before choosing an introductory investment tool. There are, thankfully, many tools out there aimed at making investing and building an investment portfolio easier for everyone. Here are a few factors to consider before picking the app or platform that’s right for you: Story continues How Much Money Do You Have to Invest? Many of the apps below don’t have a minimum account balance for investing, or if they do, the amount is quite low. This lowers the barrier of entry significantly, and it means you don’t have to be wealthy or have a lot of disposable income to invest. Nonetheless, for financial planning purposes, you’ll want to consider exactly how much money you can afford to invest on a monthly and annual basis. Which Types of Investment Opportunities Are You Looking For? Many of the apps below offer a variety of opportunities for investing your money — including stock options, EFTs, IPOs and fractional shares as well. If there’s one or two you’re looking for in particular, you’ll want to choose an app that offers those as an option, and it could help you narrow down your search. How Much Control Do You Want to Have Over Your Investment Portfolio? There are some investment tools below, like Motley Fool, that offer expert advice but leave the investment decisions in your hands. There are others that simply take your money and manage your whole portfolio for you. There are some, of course, that do both. Consider how much control and ownership you want to have over our investment opportunities, and choose your platform carefully from there. If letting an expert be in the driver’s seat sounds appealing, there are definitely apps that can make that happen. Are You Interested in Alternative Investment Vehicles? If you are interested in investing in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, then some of the retail investment tools featured below will allow you to buy and sell crypto the same way that you would buy and sell traditional stocks. If that feature appeals to you, then you’ll want to pick an app like Robin Hood. 1. Stock Advisor by The Motley Fool SPONSORED The Motley Fool is an excellent resource for investors, and Stock Advisor, the company’s stock recommendation service, is perfect for new investors worried about making the wrong stock choices. To date, more than 1 million investors have leveraged Stock Advisor, which has beaten the market for 19 straight years. Let us put it this way: if you had invested $10,000 with Stock Advisor in 2002, you’d have more than $350,000 sitting in your investment account right now. Back in 2002, Stock Advisor recommended investing in Marvel (now owned by Disney), a stock that’s increased 8,567% in the years since. A Stock Advisor membership is currently 60% off* for new members through February. With a membership you’ll receive two monthly stock recommendations, a regular newsletter, monthly updates from The Motley Fool team on the ten stocks they believe are the best buys of the moment, an annual set of “Starter Stocks” for beginners, and an online platform of updates regarding major company changes, sell recommendations, and more. It’s a no-brainer investment membership for newbies, and it’s currently discounted to just $79/year* for new members. Read More: What’s Included With a Stock Advisor Membership? Motley Fool Stock Advisor Buy: Stock Advisor by The Motley Fool $79.00 (orig. $199.00) 60% OFF Returns as of 1/12/22. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Individual investment results may vary. All investing involves risk of loss. *Based on $199/year list price. Introductory promotion for new members only. Stock Advisor will renew at the then current list price. 2. Robinhood RUNNER UP Robinhood’s active community of users has made major ripples in the past due to the democratic nature of their mission and an ambitious plan to game the Wall Street system. And for people who are just as interested in Bitcoin as they are in traditional investments, it’s a great app. We still think it’s an excellent place to begin investing as a beginner, and it’s very effectively gamified the investment process. Unlike Stock Advisor, which merely recommends stocks and smart investments, Robinhood let’s you purchase stocks and watch the value rise or fall in real time. The Robinhood app is commission-free and they offer even new investors the ability to get in at the IPO price for newly publicly traded companies. There are no minimum account balances or requirements for special status, and you can request shares in new companies before their stock becomes available for trading with the public. You can invest any amount you wish, customize your portfolio with different types of companies and funds to reduce risk, and trade in real-time. Read More: The Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrency Exchanges Robinhood app, best investment tools for beginners Buy: Robinhood $0 Fees 3. Acorns BEST FOR BABY STEPS If you’re brand new to investing and want (or need) to take things slow, Acorns is the investment platform for you. They’re all about helping you invest with any amount of money, and that a little amounts to a lot over time. Their RoundUps platform allows you to invest any space change you’ve got, a piece of your paycheck or other cash you’ve got lying around and help it grow in real-time. They use bank-level security to protect your funds and personal information, and you can set up accounts for you and your family quickly and easily. They’ve got memberships for $3 or $5 per month, as well as customized options for retirement and children too. Acorns investment app Buy: Acorns Starting at $3.00/month 4. Betterment EASY SETUP Betterment is another investment platform designed to make investing accessible for beginners. They start off with a little information gathering about how much you want to invest, why you want to invest and your timeline. You can start with an investing goal or a general investing account, and then from there they take care of the more complicated parts. Your portfolio will be custom-built using diversified, low-cost EFT’s, and they’ll make recommendations once new, better funds become available. Betterment investing, best investment tools for beginners Buy: Betterment 0.25% Annual Fee 5. Stash BEST FOR INVESTORS WHO LIKE CHOICE If you love investing in certain types of companies or want to use your money to invest in a certain industry, Stash gives you the option to do so. Investors have the option to choose the stocks they want and build their portfolios based on their individual interests. Their platform uses fractional shares to enable you to invest only what you can afford on a set schedule. They also have long-term retirement goal options as well as children’s investment accounts. Like Robin Hood, Stash also lets users invest in alternative investment vehicles such as cryptocurrency. Stash investing Buy: Stash Starting at $1.00/month 6. SoFi Invest FEE-FREE SoFi’s investing tool comes with options for IPO investing, active investing, automated investing, retirement accounts and even cryptocurrency. You can trade stocks, EFTs and more all in one place. Their investment platform is fee-free and allows you to have as much or as little control over your investment portfolio as you’d like. The minimum to open an account is $5.00 and you can purchase fractional shares making it a beginner-friendly platform no matter what your budget looks like. SoFi investing Buy: SoFi Invest Free 7. Fidelity GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE If trading makes you nervous, and you want to be able to talk to a person whenever you need help, Fidelity is the way to go. Their investment platform comes with all sorts of perks like $0 trading fees and a $0 account minimum, and their customer service was ranked top-notch by NerdWallet in 2022. You have a broad choice of investments when you use them, from stock options to EFTs, mutual funds, IPOs and more, and their fractional share trading makes dollar-based investing easy as well. Fidelity investing Buy: Fidelity $0 Fees More Top Deals from SPY 1. Get Amazon's House Brand of KN95 Masks for Just $1.15/Each - Limited Time Offer 2. Can We Interest You in $99 AirPods + Free Shipping? Click here to read the full article. || MELD Launches the First Non-Custodial, Decentralized Lending and Borrowing Protocol Based on Cardano Smart-Contract Blockchain: $45M Raised Via World's First ISPO and Private Token Sale
SINGAPORE, Feb. 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MELD is an innovative new startup launching today with a mission to equalize the playing field between the financial 'haves' and the 'have-nots'. Created to serve the more than 2 billion members of the world population that are either under-banked or lacking any banking capability whatsoever, MELD provides a range of financial tools and solutions built around leveraging cryptocurrency assets as collateral for fiat or cryptobased loans.
MELD is unique in terms of token launches as it already claims close to 40,000 token holders. MELD was the first company ever to carry out a successful ISPO (Initial Stake Pool Offering), which attracted $1B US worth of crypto (in ADA tokens) in less than 3 months and helped the company raise $10M US for its own funding ($45M total raised to date via an additional private token sale).
Specifically, MELD represents the first decentralized protocol that incorporates fiat loan capabilities into the cryptocurrency ecosystem. MELD enables low-friction transactions between crypto and fiat positions, while maintaining control of a customer's owned digital assets. The MELD token can be staked on the MELDapp to provide insurance for the MELD protocol. In doing so, MELD stakers will earn an APY through protocol fees and liquidity reward programs (up to 15% currently). The MELD protocol was created to bind the on-chain (crypto) and the off-chain (fiat) worlds together, as well as uniting the many Blockchains and DeFi protocols.
MELD was designed as a world-class DeFi protocol, powered by the Cardano blockchain and smart contracts to ensure complete transparency and fairness for all parties (including both the minting and distribution of tokens). The MELD token is used for governance of the protocol, and users can stake it to earn yield. MELD capitalizes on Cardano's transaction efficiency compared to older blockchains, which drastically reduces fees by more than 99% compared to ETH-based solutions.
The service is expected to gain strong and early traction in the EU and countries such as El Salvador and Nigeria, where cryptocurrency is either already fiat currency or is in mainstream usage. MELD tokens will be available for purchase from leading crypto exchanges such as Bitrue and FMFW beginning today, the 3rd of February, 2022.
MELD will provide unique and innovative new financial services never before offered by traditional banks, including not only standard cryptocurrency-backed loans but also the company's unique Genius Loans™. With a Genius Loan, the customer collateralizes their cryptocurrency and takes out a loan with a slightly higher interest rate. The customer is only required to service the interest on the loan, while the yield generated from the crypto collateral pays down the principal.
MELD also offers a Crypto-Backed Credit Line (CBCL), which provides a valuable and flexible tool for managing fiat cash requirements while only being exposed to interest on the amount of fiat used. The CBCL works in conjunction with the MELD debit card where users can spend with their MELD Card both at point-of-sale and online. The CBCL works similar to a fiat loan, where cryptocurrency is collateralized in a smart contract and 50% of the collateral value can be used as a line of credit. Margin calls and liquidation events work the same in the line of credit product as they do in the MELD Loan.
Users interact with the MELDapp via iOS™, Android or in the browser to easily access their digital assets to lend, borrow and manage the services offered by MELD. Security is dramatically enhanced over competitive wallets as customers keep the keys to their assets at all times.
Finally, MELD also enables so-called 'MELDed assets', where anyone can bring in tokens from other blockchains such as BTC, ETH and BNB directly into the third-generation Cardano smart contract enabled blockchain. This not only increases crypto liquidity, it also allows people to stay long in their crypto of choice instead of forcing them to use only Cardano's ADA tokens. MELD also benefits from the superior performance and user transparency of Cardano.
"We are excited to offer billions of people a new way to access powerful financial instruments, products and services - but even better and more innovative thanks to the power of the MELD protocol," said Ken Olling, CEO of MELD. "Offering a way to stake cryptocurrency as collateral against a fiat loan is powerful for so many reasons - not the least of which is sheltering highly volatile cryptocurrencies from a forced sell during a market bottoming out. We are very excited to provide unique financial products and services to our customers in the months to come as MELD tokens become widely shared across different exchanges."
About MELD:
MELD (Singapore) focuses on decentralized finance (DeFi), with the long-term goal of enabling more than 2 billion individuals - who are either underbanked or have no access to banking services whatsoever - to access tools and solutions built around leveraging cryptocurrency assets. Services offered by MELD include creating cryptocurrency-backed loans, earning an interest return for lending fiat to borrowers and participating in reward incentive programs. MELD enables an instant loan against cryptocurrency holdings at a competitive APR, or to receive a credit line and only pay interest on what you use. A world-class DeFi protocol using the Cardano platform, MELD uses smart contracts to ensure complete transparency and fairness for all parties including both minting and distribution of tokens. The company has currently raised $10M through an ISPO as of Q4 2021 and an additional $35M via a private token sale. For more details, visit www.meld.com.
Contact:Kristin Weissman | Attika Intelligence |Kristin@attikaintelligence.com| 321-203-9325
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• Featured Image for MELD || Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC Buys Global X Variable Rate Preferred ETF, BTC iShares MSCI USA ...: Rocky Mount, NC, based Investment companyIronsides Asset Advisors, LLC(Current Portfolio) buys Global X Variable Rate Preferred ETF, BTC iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF, Vanguard Short-Term Corporate Bond ETF, Vanguard Mid-Cap Value ETF, iShares Russell 2000 ETF, sells ProShares Short High Yield, Barclays Bank PLC ZC SP ETN REDEEM 23/01/2048 USD , Franco-Nevada Corp, iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, Vodafone Group PLC during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC. As of 2021Q4, Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC owns 91 stocks with a total value of $362 million. These are the details of the buys and sells.
• New Purchases:PFFV, IWM, UNH, LOB,
• Added Positions:QUAL, IEFA, VCSH, VOE, AMN, CIBR, MOO, FISV, RYH, BG, RDS.B,
• Reduced Positions:LOW, PFFD, FNV, AAPL, XLV, MELI, VTI, BMRN, EPD, T, MSFT, QYLD, VZ, BRK.B, SWCH, IQV, MPC, CMP, COST, NVO, DLTR, NEE, ICE, AMT, GPN, SLV, CVX, IWF, GDX, XLF, ARE, ORTX, CCI, TSN, PCYO, NTR, MLM, INFY, HD, LHX,
• Sold Out:SJB, VXX, IEMG, VOD, JNJ, PYPL, KROS, DFJ,
• Warning! GuruFocus has detected 1 Warning Sign with NIO. Click here to check it out.
• List of 52-Week Lows
• List of 3-Year Lows
• List of 5-Year Lows
For the details of Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC's stock buys and sells,go tohttps://www.gurufocus.com/guru/ironsides+asset+advisors%2C+llc/current-portfolio/portfolio
These are the top 5 holdings of Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC
1. Lowe's Companies Inc (LOW) - 542,229 shares, 38.68% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 2.4%
2. iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF (ITOT) - 485,903 shares, 14.35% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 0.69%
3. BTC iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA) - 531,540 shares, 10.95% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 2.55%
4. S&P 500 ETF TRUST ETF (SPY) - 37,401 shares, 4.90% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 0.40%
5. Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF (VO) - 49,161 shares, 3.46% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 0.31%
New Purchase: Global X Variable Rate Preferred ETF (PFFV)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC initiated holding in Global X Variable Rate Preferred ETF. The purchase prices were between $27.11 and $27.93, with an estimated average price of $27.47. The stock is now traded at around $26.161200. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.71%. The holding were 92,120 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC initiated holding in iShares Russell 2000 ETF. The purchase prices were between $212.12 and $241.83, with an estimated average price of $225.48. The stock is now traded at around $197.510000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.21%. The holding were 3,394 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC initiated holding in UnitedHealth Group Inc. The purchase prices were between $387.01 and $505.58, with an estimated average price of $454.21. The stock is now traded at around $486.340000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.07%. The holding were 502 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: Live Oak Bancshares Inc (LOB)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC initiated holding in Live Oak Bancshares Inc. The purchase prices were between $66.18 and $97.8, with an estimated average price of $83.71. The stock is now traded at around $59.165000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.07%. The holding were 3,000 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: BTC iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF (QUAL)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC added to a holding in BTC iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF by 125.31%. The purchase prices were between $130.52 and $146.3, with an estimated average price of $141.15. The stock is now traded at around $133.390000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.42%. The holding were 18,780 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: Vanguard Mid-Cap Value ETF (VOE)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC added to a holding in Vanguard Mid-Cap Value ETF by 59.24%. The purchase prices were between $139.66 and $150.33, with an estimated average price of $146.15. The stock is now traded at around $146.240000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.27%. The holding were 17,270 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: Vanguard Short-Term Corporate Bond ETF (VCSH)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC added to a holding in Vanguard Short-Term Corporate Bond ETF by 25.38%. The purchase prices were between $80.95 and $81.89, with an estimated average price of $81.35. The stock is now traded at around $79.880000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.27%. The holding were 59,734 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Sold Out: ProShares Short High Yield (SJB)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC sold out a holding in ProShares Short High Yield. The sale prices were between $17.38 and $17.93, with an estimated average price of $17.66.
Sold Out: Barclays Bank PLC ZC SP ETN REDEEM 23/01/2048 USD (VXX)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC sold out a holding in Barclays Bank PLC ZC SP ETN REDEEM 23/01/2048 USD . The sale prices were between $18.53 and $27.96, with an estimated average price of $22.13.
Sold Out: iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC sold out a holding in iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF. The sale prices were between $57.97 and $62.96, with an estimated average price of $60.63.
Sold Out: Vodafone Group PLC (VOD)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC sold out a holding in Vodafone Group PLC. The sale prices were between $14.62 and $16.1, with an estimated average price of $15.26.
Sold Out: Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC sold out a holding in Johnson & Johnson. The sale prices were between $155.93 and $173.01, with an estimated average price of $163.78.
Sold Out: PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL)
Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC sold out a holding in PayPal Holdings Inc. The sale prices were between $179.32 and $271.7, with an estimated average price of $214.83.
Here is the complete portfolio of Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC. Also check out:1. Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC's Undervalued Stocks2. Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC's Top Growth Companies, and3. Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC's High Yield stocks4. Stocks that Ironsides Asset Advisors, LLC keeps buyingThis article first appeared onGuruFocus. || IZEA Begins Accepting Dogecoin, Litecoin, Shiba Inu, and Crypto.com Coin: Company Expands List of Cryptocurrencies Accepted, Which Also Includes Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) IZEA Begins Accepting Dogecoin, Litecoin, Shiba Inu, and Crypto.com Coin Company Expands List of Cryptocurrencies Accepted, Which Also Includes Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) Company Expands List of Cryptocurrencies Accepted, Which Also Includes Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) Orlando, Florida, Feb. 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ: IZEA ), the premier provider of influencer marketing technology, data, and services for the worlds leading brands, announced today that it now accepts Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC), Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Crypto.com Coin (CRO) as payments for its managed influencer marketing services. Influencers in select campaigns for which IZEA is paid in crypto can also choose to be paid in these cryptocurrencies. This expansion follows an announcement that Bitcoin and Ethereum are now accepted forms of payment. Influencers are early adopters of cryptocurrency and have expressed a desire to be paid in these currencies for their work in the space, said Ted Murphy, Founder and CEO of IZEA. This move opens up even more opportunities for brands and influencers to connect in new and exciting ways. In a recent survey, IZEA found that 64% of influencers who participated already own cryptocurrency, and 50% expressed interest in being paid in cryptocurrency for their content creation. In addition, social media users and influencers who own crypto are just as likely to hold BTC, ETH, DOGE and SHIB. Although Bitcoin and Ethereum are the leaders in the crypto space by market cap, our research shows that they are not always the preferred cryptocurrencies of our customers and creators, Murphy continued. Accepting Dogecoin, Litecoin, Shiba Inu Coin, and Crypto.com Coin is a direct response to the needs and interests of our creator community. If you are interested in partnering with a brand or influencer, visit izea.com . About IZEA IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (IZEA), is a marketing technology company providing software and professional services that enable brands to collaborate and transact with the full spectrum of todays top social influencers and content creators. The company serves as a champion for the growing Creator Economy, enabling individuals to monetize their content, creativity, and influence. IZEA launched the industrys first-ever influencer marketing platform in 2006 and has since facilitated nearly 4 million transactions between online buyers and sellers. Leading brands and agencies partner with IZEA to increase digital engagement, diversify brand voice, scale content production, and drive measurable return on investment. Story continues Safe Harbor Statement 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, as amended. 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 anticipates, believes, estimates, expects, intends, may, plans, projects, will, would or other comparable terms. Examples of forward-looking statements include, among others, statements we make regarding expectations of sales activity, revenue and margins based on bookings, plans to increase the size of our sales team, the financial impact of investments in our software business, and continuation of new IZEAx customers and their effect on future sales. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, as a result of various factors, including, among others, the following: competitive conditions in the content and social sponsorship segment in which IZEA operates; failure to popularize one or more of the marketplace platforms of IZEA; changing economic conditions that are less favorable than expected; and other risks and uncertainties described in IZEAs periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. IZEA assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements to reflect actual results or changes in expectations, except as otherwise required by law. Attachment IZEA Begins Accepting Dogecoin, Litecoin, Shiba Inu, and Crypto.com Coin CONTACT: Martin Smith IZEA Worldwide, Inc. Phone: 407-674-6911 Email: ir@izea.com
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
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Trend: up || Prices: 37709.79, 43193.23, 44354.64, 43924.12, 42451.79, 39137.61, 39400.59, 38419.98, 38062.04, 38737.27
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Forget Cathie Wood’s $500K Bitcoin call — the new price target is $560K: After a glorious rally in October, Bitcoin has pulled back below $60,000. Still, Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood remains optimistic about the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
In fact, she’s even more bullish than before.
Last week, Wood told Barron’s that if “institutional investors move into Bitcoin and allocate 5% of their portfolios,” the price of the cryptocurrency would soar to about $560,000 by 2026.
Her latest projection implies an upside of over 800%. That might seem far-fetched, but remember Wood was right on the money when she predicted a 1,200% upside in Tesla.
So here’s a look at a couple of ways to play the crypto boom — including options withsmall price tags and zero commissions.
Wood herself is offering a new way to invest in cryptocurrency. In September, Ark Next Generation Internet ETF tweaked its prospectus to include exposure to Bitcoin via Canadian ETFs.
The first bitcoin ETF on the New York Stock Exchange started trading last month, but Canada has been ahead of the U.S. for a while. Several Bitcoin ETFs launched in Canada this year, including Purpose Bitcoin ETF, 3iQ CoinShares Bitcoin ETF, CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF and Evolve Bitcoin ETF.
In the U.S., the debut of the ProShare Bitcoin Strategy ETF was arguably a major catalyst behind Bitcoin’s rally in October. The fund holds bitcoin futures contracts that trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Investors who want exposure to the crypto market can invest in these ETFs, but you can also buy Bitcoin directly. Some investing apps allow you to buy both cryptocurrencies and ETFscommission-free.
Companies that have tied themselves to the crypto market provide another way for investors to benefit from the crypto rally.
For instance, enterprise software company MicroStrategy purchased 9,000 bitcoins in Q3. That brings its total bitcoin count to 114,042, a stockpile worth roughly $6.7 billion.
Because of MicroStrategy’s huge Bitcoin stake, some investors have used it as a proxy for investing in the cryptocurrency. In the past, rallies in Bitcoin usually led to similar moves in MicroStrategy’s share price.
Then there’s Riot Blockchain, which mines Bitcoin and hosts Bitcoin mining equipment for institutional clients. Thanks to soaring Bitcoin prices, Riot shares have returned a staggering 492% over the past 12 months.
Investors can also check out Coinbase, which runs the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S. The company’s share price fell below its IPO price of $250 during the summer, but the pop in cryptocurrencies last month has brought it back to over $300.
And while crypto stocks can be pricey, you can get a piece of these companies using a popular app that allows you tobuy fractions of shareswith as much money as you’re willing to spend.
At the end of the day, cryptocurrencies are volatile. Not everyone feels comfortable holding an asset that seems to make wild swings every week.
If you want to invest in something that has little correlation with the ups and downs of the stock market and the crypto market, you might want to consider an overlooked asset:fine art.
Contemporary artwork has already outperformed the S&P 500 by a commanding 174% over the past 25 years, according to the Citi Global Art Market chart.
Investing in art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol used to be an option only for the ultra-rich, like Wood. But with a new investing platform, you caninvest in iconic artworks, too, just like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates do.
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. || What is Solana – One Of Ethereum’s Major Rivals: The cryptocurrency market has been in a bearish trend for the past few weeks. Bitcoin has lost its position above the $50k mark, while Ether has been unable to surpass the $4k mark over the past few months.
Despite the bearish trend in the market, one of the cryptocurrencies that stood out is Solana. Solana (SOL) reached a new all-time high above $200 at a time when theother major cryptocurrencieswere suffering massive losses. This unusual movement in price grabbed the attention of many traders, investors, market participants, and people outside the cryptocurrency space.
As one of the leading cryptos in the world, it is not a surprise that many people want to learn aboutSolanaand why it pumped when other cryptocurrencies were losing their value. This post looks into the Solana basics and explains its rally a few weeks ago.
The first obvious question is what Solana is.Solanais ablockchainplatform specifically designed to host decentralized applications. It is similar to other leading dApp blockchains like Ethereum and Cardano.
However, Solana is an open-source project currently run by the Geneva-based Solana Foundation. The blockchain was built by developers at San Francisco-based Solana Labs.Solanahas gained traction by offering something that the Ethereum blockchain has so far being unable to deliver; faster operation and lower transaction fees.
UnlikeEthereum, Solana is a PoS (proof of stake) blockchain, making it more environmentally friendly than the popular PoW (proof of work) blockchains like Ethereum and Bitcoin. It has a naïve coin called Solana and has the tickerSOL.
The proof of stake protocol used by Solana is currently preferred in the cryptocurrency space. Unlike the proof of work where massive energy is needed to run a blockchain, proof of stake makes the validator nodes on the network to stake something. In the case of Solana, the validators stake theSOLtokens. Although the validators also consume power to operate, their power consumption is far lower than that of the PoW miners.
Solanacan best be described as a programmable blockchain. It is currently one of the fastest programmable blockchains in the cryptocurrency space. It is a major competitor to other programmable blockchains such as Ethereum andCardano.
Programmable blockchains are very popular within the cryptocurrency space and beyond due to their massive functions and potential. They have the ability to store tiny pieces of code known as smart contracts. Smart contracts can be programmed to execute certain actions when the conditions of the contract are met.
For instance, if you rent a car, the dealership might initiate a smart contract that automatically pays back your deposit when you return the car in good condition.Ethereumwas the first and remained the leading programmable blockchain in the world. Over the past few years, the Ethereum blockchain has attracted a wide range of developers who use it to build decentralized applications (dApps).
However, theEthereumnetwork continues to fall short in certain aspects, especially in terms of scalability. The network congestion sometimes leads to huge fees. The developers are currently working onETH 2.0, migrating the blockchain from a proof of work to a proof of stake protocol. The ETH 2.0 upgrade is expected to solve the scalability issue and make Ethereum have a lower carbon footprint.
Due to Ethereum’s shortcomings, new programmable blockchains have come up and are taking some of Ethereum’s market share. The likes ofSolana,TezosandCardanoare designed to be cheaper, faster, and more sustainable than Ethereum. Solana is now the fastest of them all.
Ethereum is currently the leader in the smart contract space, with over 70,000 nodes compared to just 1,000 for Solana. However, Solana is considered to be an Ethereum killer because of its innovation and how it is tackling some of Ethereum’s weaknesses.
Solana, through its proof-of-history (PoH) protocol, is revolutionizing how blockchains work. By allowing validators to be in charge of their own clock, the transaction verification process is reduced since the nodes don’t have to put in processing power before they can verify various timestamps. Thus, improving the speed at which transactions are processed on the Solana network. The Solana network processes up to 60,000 transactions per second, surpassing that of Bitcoin, Visa, XRP and Ethereum combined.
In addition to the transaction speed, the costs are significantly lower on the Solana blockchain. As mentioned above, one of Ethereum’s major challenges is its high gas fees. Users pay up to $50 to process a transaction on the Ethereum network. Earlier this week, Bitfinex paid $23.7 million just to move $100,000 USDT on the Ethereum network. With Solana, the fees are significantly lower, usually around $0.00025 per transaction.
Solanais currently one of the fastest programmable blockchains in the world. It can process more than 50,000 transactions per second (TPS). The developers say the transaction speed can reach 700,000 TPS as the network grows. This is far better than Ethereum, which currently processes between 15 to 45 TPS.
Solana’s speed and low transaction fee have attracted numerous developers to the blockchain. A wide range of dApps and smart contract projects are now deployed on theSolanaproject. Thus, making it one of the most widely-used blockchains and cryptocurrencies in the world.
The Solana blockchain is becoming home to a wide range of cryptocurrencies. Some of them include;
• Chainlink
• The Graph
• Waves
• Serum
• Audius
• REN
• Raydium
• Coin98
• Oxygen
• Akash Network
• Mango Markets
• Velas
• Civic
• Bonfida
• Star Atlas
• Hxro
• Orca
• Kin
• Solanium
• Ramp
• Step Finance
• MAPS
• PARSIQ
• Frontier
• Saber
• Cope
• Only 1 and hundreds of others
There is no denying the fact that Solana (SOL) is one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies this year. SOL has forced its way into the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap, surpassing the likes ofDogecoinandPolkadotand also competing with XRP in terms of market cap.
Although its price is now slightly above $170,Solanareached a new all-time high at $213 on September 9. This was during a time when the broader cryptocurrency market was losing most of its value.
Although other competitors such asEthereum, includingCardano, Polkadot, Dfinity, Terra, Polygon, and Avalanche, have all increased huge gains in price over the past year, Solana’s performance was extraordinary.
A key reason for its growth is that the Solana ecosystem has the backing of FTX, one of the leading digital asset exchanges in the world. FTX has launched numerous Solana-based projects over the past few months.
The Solana project is also backed by some of the biggest investors in the cryptocurrency space, including Alameda Research, Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain.Solanaalso has lower transaction fees than most of its competitors.
Some market experts believe that Solana is at the beginning of its growth cycle and has the potential to match Ethereum in terms of price and market value over the next few years. As such, several investors remain bullish on the medium and long-term prospects of theSolanaproject.
Solana is one of the leading cryptocurrencies in the world. The cryptocurrency and its blockchain are expected to continue growing and eventually pose further challenges to the Ethereum network.
Sam Bankman-Fried is very bullish about the Solana blockchain and for good reasons. The developers continue to innovate and push for more developments. while Ethereum remains the market leader, Solana, alongside Cardano, will continue to eat into Ethereum’s market share.
In terms of price performance, many analysts are bullish that Solana’s price could top the $1,000 mark over the coming months. If the adoption and growth continue, SOL could reach ETH’s price of roughly $3,500 in the next few years.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Shiba Inu Rallies To New Highs While Dogecoin Remains Under Pressure || Bitcoin halal? Muslims in Indonesia told not to buy as crypto declared haram: Indonesias Muslim Council banned crypto trading on 11 November, 2021 (Getty Images) Religious leaders in Indonesia have forbidden Muslims from using bitcoin and other cryptocurrency. The National Ulema Council, which serves as the countrys authority on Shariah compliance, announced on Thursday that cryptocurrencies were haram as they contain elements of uncertainty, wagering and harm. Follow our live coverage of the crypto market The ruling does not serve as an official decree, and no ban on trading has been introduced by the countries legislators, however it will likely have a significant impact on how comfortable people feel using the assets in the worlds largest Muslim country. With a population of 237 million Muslims, Indonesia accounts for roughly 13 per cent of the worlds total Muslim population. In 2018, Indonesias central bank declared that cryptocurrency was not a legitimate instrument of payment, but legalised the trading of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as commodities in February 2019. In May, Indonesias commodity futures trading regulatory agency Bappebti revealed that there were around 4.45 million cryptocurrency investors in the country, with 229 different cryptocurrencies legally traded across 13 licensed platforms and exchanges. This far exceeds the number of stock investors, which is estimated to be roughly 2 million. The high interest in crypto assets is driven by several factors, such as the ease of conducting Know Your Customers (KYC) processes, as well as the fast processing of deposit and withdrawal transactions, Oham Dunggio, chairman of the Indonesian blockchain association, said in May . Moreover, the crypto market operates 24 hours. This is why many young investors are choosing crypto over other types of investment. Bitcoin has faced various regulatory challenges in its history but its decentralised nature means it is relatively immune to bans. While some countries have taken a hard stance on cryptocurrency, citing fears of scams and threats to traditional financial institutions, other countries have embraced it for its ability to act as a hedge against inflation, transform remittance services and reduce the reliance on the US dollar as the reserve currency. Story continues Earlier this year, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. The Central American country also invested in the cryptocurrency, and recently announced the construction of 20 new schools from the profits made from the recent price gains. Read More Bitcoin price hits record all-time high amid crypto market frenzy Bitcoin wallet from Satoshi era mysteriously activates after 11 years How bad is bitcoin for the environment really? Crypto experts discuss bitcoin price predictions What is Solana? The crypto rising 200-times faster than bitcoin || Bank of England museum to host slavery exhibition: The portraits of Sir James Bateman (L), Sir Robert Clayton (C) and Sir Gilbert Heathcote (R) were quietly removed from public view over summer - Bank of England The Bank of England’s museum will host an exhibition about slavery, Andrew Bailey said, as he rejected suggestions that the central bank had “gone ‘woke’”. The display at the Bank’s Threadneedle Street headquarters will include portraits of former governors and directors linked to the slave trade that were taken down during the summer, the Governor said. The museum has been closed since Covid struck but is set to reopen soon. “We’re actually going to open up with an exhibition, a display in the museum, on the history of slavery,” Mr Bailey told students at the Cambridge Union. He added: “Quite a bit of the material that we’ve moved is going to reappear in the public part [of the Bank].” The Bank said in August it had removed oil paintings and busts of seven former leading figures at Threadneedle Street after establishing their links to the transatlantic slave trade . Mr Bailey said the Bank of England had no direct links to the slave trade, but added: “Clearly some of my predecessors were involved in it.” Explaining the decision to remove the portraits , he said: “If you’re a member of staff in the Bank of England from an ethnic background … should you be required to sit in a room looking at a painting of somebody who owned slaves? “Honestly, we can debate this at great length. I think it’s better to do it in the public part of the Bank where we can explain it.” Mr Bailey added: “It’s not because as some of the newspapers say we’ve sort of gone ‘woke’, whatever that word actually means. Let's not make people sit in rooms and feel difficult because they're looking at these images.” A report commissioned by the Bank and released in July found that ethic minority workers faced “material disparities” at Threadneedle Street and were being held back by unconscious bias and microaggressions. At the same talk on Thursday, Mr Bailey also warned that El Salvador’s decision to recognise Bitcoin as legal tender was worrying and risked harming its citizens. Story continues “It concerns me that a country would choose it as its national currency,” he said. “What would worry me most of all is, do the citizens of El Salvador understand the nature and volatility of the currency they have?” Mr Bailey’s comments come after the central American nation announced plans for a $1 billion bond issuance, with the funds raised to be split between buying the cryptocurrency and building a new city near an active volcano. The International Monetary Fund warned earlier this week that El Salvador should not use Bitcoin due to the instability of its price. The world’s biggest digital coin is known for its wild price fluctuations, having swung from under $20,000 to almost $70,000 in the past year. Led by its president Nayib Bukele, an outspoken supporter of Bitcoin, El Salvador officially adopted the cryptocurrency as legal tender in early September, meaning it must be accepted as payment for goods and services. However, the move has been plagued by problems with El Salvadorans reporting issues with the government’s bitcoin “wallet”. Mr Bailey also offered a sceptical assessment of economic developments in Turkey, where the lira has plunged as its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan fiddles the dials of monetary policy. “As far as I can tell, it's a policy stance, which says the best way to tackle inflation is to cut interest rates,” he said. “And that's an unusual combination… I don't comment on other people's policies much. But I’ll just say it's an unusual combination in economics, certainly.” || In a Sign of the Times, Nasdaq Adds a Retail Tracker to ‘Bring Transparency’: Nasdaq announced it is adding a Retail Trading Activity Tracker, that “brings enhanced transparency into the trading activity of retail investors,” according to a statement. The new feature comes on the heels of one of the most striking phenomena of the pandemic —the rise of retail investors.
See:Fed’s Financial Stability Report Says Social Media, Meme Stocks Could Pose Future RisksFind:Crypto Pop-Up Exchanges on the Rise as Retail Investing Grows in Popularity
The Retail Trading Activity Tracker tracks stocks and exchange traded funds (ETFs) traded by individuals. A free version of the tracker with the daily top 10 most traded stocks and ETFs by share of retail activity will be available on Nasdaq Data Link and Nasdaq.com, according to the statement.
“The increased participation of individual investors is rapidly changing market dynamics, and the Retail Trading Activity Tracker is the first of its kind to offer general accessibility to consistent and standardized information on retail trading activity,” Oliver Albers, Senior Vice President and Head of Data, Investment Intelligence, Nasdaq, said in the statement.
“The release of this new dataset underlines Nasdaq’s mission of providing greater transparency and empowering the investing public with data-driven innovation. Through the expansion of Nasdaq Data Link and its library of datasets, we aim to level the playing field and make data, and by extension, the financial markets, more transparent and accessible to all,” he continued.
Chris Motola, financial analyst at MerchantMaverick.com, told GOBankingRates that “this follows a trend of increasing retail investor participation in markets.”
“There’s now a niche for tools and interfaces catering to non-institutional investors who may not necessarily be glued to charts all day,” Motola said. “The question, of course, is about the quality of these tools compared to what the big boys are using. Do they close the gap? Or do they exploit retail investors? Time will tell.”
See:Second Bitcoin-Linked ETF Launches, Aims To Provide ‘Exposure to a Wider Audience of Investors’Find:What $1,000 Invested 10 Years Ago in These Retail Stocks Is Worth Now
The tracker will be available on the cloud-basedNasdaq Data Link platform and Nasdaq.comand will have data history from 2016 to the present day. A free list of the top ten traded securities will be updated daily with trading data from the previous day, according to the statement.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:In a Sign of the Times, Nasdaq Adds a Retail Tracker to ‘Bring Transparency’ || Metaverse Virtual Real Estate is Booming: What’s the Appeal?: BlackSalmon / Getty Images/iStockphoto Metaverse virtual real estate is the new big winner in the crypto world, as leading virtual worlds recorded more than $100 million in NFT land sales in the past week, according to DappRadar data. See: As Traditional and Luxury Brands Gravitate Toward the Metaverse, How Can You Invest in Their Potential? Find: Tinder and Bumble Enter the Metaverse — How Crypto and NFTs Could Become Essential to Virtual Dating Apps The Sandbox – one such virtual world – is leading the pack with both the highest number of traders and sales. The Sandbox also boasted the highest trading volume last week, taking in more than $86 million, while Decentraland followed in second place with more than $15 million traded for land plot NFTs. But what’s the increasing appeal of buying a plot of virtual land? Hayden Hughes, CEO of crypto social trading platform Alpha Impact, told GOBankingRates that NFTs and play-to-earn games – such as Axie Infinity from Vietnamese developers Sky Mavis – have brought an entire generation of people into shared online communities. Hughes expressed that, as these communities grow, participants have a creative desire to express themselves by owning items in the metaverse: in this case, owning land. “The rush to acquire land in the metaverse is driven by creatives who truly want to express themselves, and speculators who want to cash in. Unlike the ICO [initial coin offering] bubble in 2017, the metaverse has actual adoption and a thriving (albeit early) ecosystem. Facebook / Meta is not the leader in this space and the rebrand has also brought attention on the ecosystem,” Hughes said. DappRadar notes that it’s not only the appetite for metaverse experiences that’s increasing, but also the price for metaverse land. Last week, five of the 10 most expensive NFT sales concerned metaverse land plot NFTs in different virtual worlds. Discover: Enjoy Online Gaming? Turn Your Passion Into a Side Hustle With These 5 Options The top grosser was the Fashion Street Estate in Decentraland, which switched owners for 618.000 MANA, or $2.42 million, per the data. However, last month, an Axie Genesis plot – the scarcest land in yet another stand-alone metaverse game – sold for 550 Ethereum (ETH). This transaction represented “the largest sale ever for a single plot of digital land,” according to a tweet from the developers, with 550 ETH being equivalent to $2.48 million as of Dec. 3. Story continues Axie Infinity, Denctraland, and Metaverse Gaming According to Axie Infinity documentation, “Lunacia, the Axie homeland, is divided into tokenized plots of land which act as homes and bases of operation for their Axies. Plots can be upgraded over time using a variety of resources and crafting ingredients that can be found when playing the game.” Lunacia consists of 90,601 plots of Land, which are represented as NFTs and can be freely traded by players, according to the developer documentation. The Genesis property in question is particularly valuable because of its scarcity: there are only 220 Genesis plots within the game’s 90,601 plots. A recent report from Grayscale Investments explains this evolution of the “creator economy,” known as “play-to-earn,” which allows users to own their digital assets as NFTs, trade them with others in the game, and sometimes carry them to other digital experiences. As such, projects like Decentraland are creating an open-world metaverse wherein users can log in to play games, earn MANA (the native token of Decentraland, with which users can purchase NFTs, including LAND or collectibles), vote on economy governance, or create NFTs. The presumed benefit of this framework is that it gives users substantial interoperability between systems as a value proposition for their time spent in-game. Matt Maximo, research analyst at Grayscale Investments and co-author of the report, told GOBankingRates that land in the metaverse is a really interesting concept because traditional real-estate is valued largely due to proximity to shops, services, and other people – you’re bound by the time it takes to travel from your home. Many metaverses like Decentraland, however, allow players to teleport around the world, making travel instantaneous and irrelevant to valuation. However, given that this market is extremely new, a lot of the higher priced sales have come from LAND parcels with good locations – ie. proximity to major attractions in the metaverse. “Investing in LAND is exciting but comes with the risks of any emerging market. LAND and MANA holders are incentivized to prevent expanding the Decentraland map and keeping the number of parcels low, however, there will also be a point where expanding the map and creating new LAND to sell will benefit them more than the dilution of their property,” he said. He added that because LAND plots are NFTs, liquidity is much lower with these assets than with the underlying tokens like MANA. “If you are in a time crunch to sell, you may be forced to sell below market value to the available bidder, whereas if I hold MANA, I can simply go to an exchange like Uniswap or Coinbase and instantly make the trade,” he added. Infinite Land in the Metaverse? While the expanding opportunities within the metaverse have dramatically incentivized the buying of land as a way for participants to stake their claim in a virtual world, one potential issue is that there might bealso be an infinite supply of land. “So it is very difficult to gauge the value that the land will hold in the future, and in that sense, buying right now could be seen as a risky investment. For example, if digital land becomes so abundant, then supply-demand economics kicks in and the price will go down. However, the sheer number of possibilities that the metaverse might be able to offer may outweigh the risk for investors who want to be sure that they’re among the first to own land in the digital space.” Reeve Collins – co-founder of BLOCKv & SmartMedia Technologies – told GOBankingRates. See: Crypto Regulation: Fed Announces Roadmap for 2022 — What It Means for Investors and Developers Find: Understanding the Metaverse and How it Relates to Cryptocurrency The frenzied push to purchase digital real estate might create a brief crash, Eduardo Erlo, marketing manager at blockchain-based encrypted messenger Status, told GOBankingRates. Elro elaborated to suggest that because land in the metaverse may be so infinitely abundant, paying large amounts of money for it now could prove fruitless. One way to circumvent the infinite abundance of digital land, he said, would be for some metaverses to have built-in scarcity concerning plots of land — such as the Genesis virtual land mentioned earlier — akin to the kind of built-in monetary investment scarcity that Bitcoin offers. “It’s still too early to know any of this, but it’s exciting to watch,” he said. The market opportunity for bringing any number of metaverses to life may be worth more than $1 trillion in annual revenue, according to Grayscale. The asset management firm estimates that revenue from virtual gaming worlds could grow to $400 billion in 2025, from $180 billion in 2020. Several experts agree that purchases of virtual land in the metaverse can therefore be viewed as an investment of sorts. That is, as a bet that the metaverse — and the individual metaverses within the greater whole — will deliver on promises and transform into a dynamic virtual ecosystem in which we will all be, in some way, participating in, according to Robert Powers, director of decentralized media at Vivid Labs. Powers told GOBankingRates, however, that we are still in the early days of the emergent metaverse — or metaverses, because there will likely be many of them, not just one — and so we should be cautious about speculation that leads to the kind of rapid prices increases that we are seeing right now in terms of digital land. “But all in all, this explosion of development offers tremendous potential for what is to come in a more fully immersive digital world. Maybe these early buyers of digital land could be the equivalent of owning the digital Empire State Building or New York City itself,” he said. Dan Patterson, general partner at an NFT-focused investment firm Sfermion, makes another point in terms of the value of digital real estate. “Each plot of digital real estate, in these future environments, will be a 3-dimensional profile page that is entirely user-owned and generated,” he told GOBankingRates, adding, “How much is the most high-traffic page on Instagram worth?” More From GOBankingRates Social Security 2022: How the COLA Will Increase Benefits for the Average Senior Couple 21 Items That Are Always Cheaper at Costco This Free Tool Automatically Checks for the Best Deal on Amazon How To Refinance a Mortgage This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Metaverse Virtual Real Estate is Booming: What’s the Appeal? || Why Bitcoin-Related And Ethereum-Related Stock Marathon Digital Is Falling: Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: MARA ) shares are trading lower after the company reported third-quarter earnings results. Marathon Digital reported quarterly earnings of 85 cents per share and reported $51.70 million in sales this quarter. This represents a marked increase over sales of $835,180 in the same period last year. "In the third quarter, we increased our hash rate to 2.7 EH/s and generated 1,252 self-mined bitcoin s, which is a 91% increase from our second quarter bitcoin production," said Fred Thiel , Marathon's CEO. "As a result, we held approximately 7,035 BTC at the end of the third quarter, and we are continuing to grow these holdings each month as we increase our hash rate and maintain our strategy to ‘hodl' the bitcoin we mine," Thiel highlighted. See Also: Amazon 'Doubling Down' On Rivian IPO: What Investors Need To Know Marathon Digital has a 52-week high of $83.45 and a 52-week low of $2.06. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Why AMD Shares Are Falling Why Nvidia Shares Are Falling © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Deripaska wants Russia’s central bank to accept Bitcoin: Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has branded the Bank of Russia as “infantile in ignoring the growing cryptocurrency market”. In a Telegram post, Deripaska wrote that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have massive potential to not only help Russia avoid US sanctions but also weaken the US dollar, saying “the US had realised long ago that uncontrolled digital payments are capable of not only nullifying the effectiveness of the entire mechanism of economic sanctions but also taking down the dollar as a whole”. After the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation raided his homes in Washington and New York this week, Deripaska decided to join other critics, including Russian State Duma member Fedot Tumusov, who recently argued the bank was short-sighted on crypto. “Cryptocurrencies are the reality,” he said. “Either we will accept it, or we will lose.” US government is ‘afraid’ of crypto According to Deripaska, however, the US authority “effectively admitted” that growing fintech tools like cryptocurrencies pose a serious threat to the US dollar. “The development of the cryptocurrency market, uncontrolled by the state, can put the US Ministry of Finance in front of the prospect of default on an exorbitant 30 trillion dollar debt, which will require an amount of 700 billion US dollars to service – half of the Russian economy,” Deripaska said. “It’s time to open your eyes and take cryptocurrency seriously. In the aging American establishment, there are still a lot of people willing to fight.” Deripaska recently praised El Salvador for taking Bitcoin as a legal tender. The businessman wondered when the Bank of Russia would create a financial instrument that ensures independence in foreign trade settlements. “When will the development of financial technology penetrate this wall of the superstition of our Central Bank?” he asked. Story continues “When will we get a proper financial instrument that ensures independence in foreign trade settlements, instead of press releases about the development of the digital rouble.” He added there was no answer to his question, because the Bank of Russia “prefers to tighten the screws and discuss allowing teenagers to trade on the stock market”. “It’s time to open your eyes and take cryptocurrency seriously. There are still enough people willing to fight in the aging American establishment, and the weapons of economic destruction are being sharpened with renewed vigour,” he added. “Or do we still want to remain a testing ground for its testing by a more prudent opponent.” || Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Continue to Build Basing Pattern: Silver marketshave been a bit noisy during the trading session on Wednesday as we continue to consolidate just above the $22 level. The $22 level has been important more than once, so it should not be a huge surprise to see that it has offered a bit of support. With this being the case, the market is very likely to continue favoring buying on the dips in the short term, but whether or not it can hang on to it longer term is a completely different question. That being said, I think this is a market that will eventually have to come to terms with whether or not we are turning things around, but in the short term it looks like it is content to go sideways.
If we were to break down below the most recent low, which was just below the $22 level, then it opens up significant selling, perhaps down to the $20 level underneath. Obviously, that would signify even more weakness but at this point in time it looks like the selling has settled. The question now is whether or not we can hang on. If we can, then overtaken the $23 level would have to be the first step. Pay attention to the US dollar, because it does have a major influence on this market, and it is worth noting that the US dollar has slowed its strengthening just a bit over the last couple of days as well. This might help silver, but it needs to prove itself before I would put any money to work here. Ultimately, this is a market that I think will continue to be noisy, but I think it does favor a bit of a bounce. All it needs is a bit of a boost.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Arista Networks Is A Big Money Favorite
• Crypto Market Today: Bitcoin Remains At Risk, Ether Stable, and LINK Gains Pace
• Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Test Previous Trendline Again
• Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Rise Forming Bear Flag Pattern
• Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Continue to Build Basing Pattern
• USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Canadian Dollar Fails To Gain More Ground After BoC Decision || Getty Images to go public again in $4.8bn SPAC deal: According to a recent interview, the company’s chief executive Craig Peters initially favoured a traditional IPO, but instead opted for the popular SPAC route. Photo: Getty (ymgerman via Getty Images) Getty Images has revealed plans to rejoin the US stock market after more than a decade-long hiatus, in a $4.8bn (£3.6bn) SPAC deal. The British-American visual media company, which provides stock and news photos, will merge with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called CC Capital and Neuberger Berman, with total equity investment totalling $1.2bn. That includes funds raised by the SPAC and a $150m private investment in public equity, or PIPE. Getty is valued in the transaction at 15.2 times an estimated $315m in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation for 2022, the companies said. The SPAC is led by former Blackstone Group senior managing director Chinh Chu. According to a recent interview, the company’s chief executive Craig Peters initially favoured a traditional initial public offering (IPO), but instead opted for the popular SPAC route, with CC Neuberger investing $600m in the transaction. “It was really about CC Neuberger, I think much more so than it was about SPAC or IPO,” Peters said. “That quantum of capital and that certainty and a partner that was very vested in the transaction and believed in the Getty business is really what differentiated them.” Proceeds of the transition will be used to reduce the company’s debt levels, and invest in future growth. Read more: Bitcoin and ethereum fall as crypto slide continues SPACs, also known as “black cheque” companies, have boomed in popularity over the last year. They are companies with no business operations that raise money through a stock market listing and then use that money to buy another business. SPAC investors are typically retail investors and these structures can give them access to private investments they would otherwise not be able to reach. For companies that sell to SPACs, these types of deals offer a quick and relatively easy way to list on the stock market. Over $100bn has been raised through SPACs in just the last 12 months and the total raised in 2021 has already surpassed that of 2020. Notable examples of companies that have gone public through SPACs include Nikola ( NKLA ), DraftKings ( DKNG ), and Virgin Galactic ( SPCE ). Social Capital founder Chamath Palihapitiya is the best known SPAC "sponsor," as founders of the vehicles are known. In August this year, the Financial Conduct Authority introduced new rules to make it easier to list SPACs in the UK, which have featured heavily on Wall Street. According to Norton Rose Fulbright, over the last five years, only around 50 SPACs have listed in the UK, with $2bn raised by SPACs on the London Stock Exchange since 2017. Story continues This compares to hundreds of US-listed SPACs, with most European SPAC listings favouring Amsterdam. Read more: UK economy slows to a crawl in October as GDP rises just 0.1% Getty, which was established 26 years ago, was taken private in 2008 by the buyout firm Hellman and Friedman in a $2.4bn deal. Hellman & Friedman then offloaded a controlling stake in the company to private equity firm Carlyle Group in a $3.3bn deal in 2012. The Getty family subsequently took control of the company in 2018, buying Carlyle’s holding. The transaction is still to be approved by the SPAC’s shareholders, and the combined company’s shares are expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GETY. Watch: What are SPACs? View comments
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 46707.02, 46880.28, 48936.61, 48628.51, 50784.54, 50822.20, 50429.86, 50809.52, 50640.42, 47588.86
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2020-10-08]
BTC Price: 10915.69, BTC RSI: 54.66
Gold Price: 1888.60, Gold RSI: 44.95
Oil Price: 41.19, Oil RSI: 54.80
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Blockchain Bites: Bitmain Denied, Coinbase Blocked and a Potential EOS Exit Scam: Bitmain’s appeal to recoup $30 million in alleged lost revenues from Poolin has been denied, Digital Currency Group has acquired a retail-focused exchange and Venezuelan officials appear to have blocked access to Coinbase.
Bitmain bustA court in China hasdenied an appeal by bitcoin mining giant Bitmain seeking $30 millionin damages from the three co-founders of Poolin, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining pools, CoinDesk’s Wolfie Zhou reports. The mining giant Bitmain claims Poolin’s founding executive broke non-compete agreements in starting itsBTCmining operations, leading to millions in lost revenue. While the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court found Bitmain failed to provide sufficient evidence that its business losses equaled more than fines already imposed, it did agree to increase fines for Poolin’s co-founders. Bitmain originally sought $4.3 million in restitution when filing the suit in April 2019. Meanwhile, rival mining firm Canaan said it willrepurchase up to $10 millionin stock, followed by a prolonged period of underperformance.
AcquisitionBlockchain investment firmDigital Currency Group (DCG) has acquired Luno, a retail-focused cryptocurrency exchangewith over 5 million customers spanning over 40 countries. Luno will continue to operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of DCG, the companies said. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed in an announcement Wednesday, CoinDesk’s Ian Allison reports. The deal marks another shift in strategy for DCG (which also wholly owns CoinDesk) as it makes a full acquisition of a solidly retail-focused business. “We have invested in many retail businesses all over the world – including nearly two dozen exchanges,” said Mark Murphy, DCG’s chief operating officer. “But this is the first subsidiary that is a wallet and an exchange, which of course have large numbers of retail investors.”
Related:First Mover: DeFi 'Vampire' SushiSwap Sucks $800M from Uniswap; BitMEX Basis Lags
Exit scam?Two blockchainsecurity firms have warned the creators of a DeFi contract on the EOS network – Emerald Mine (EMD) – may have stolen investors’ fundsin an exit scam, CoinDesk’s Wolfie Zhou reports. China-based auditing firm SlowMist and security startup PeckShield announced the liquidity mining project has begun moving users’ tokens totaling $2.5 million worth ofUSDT,EOSand other cryptos that were supposedly locked in smart contract to an address labeled “sji111111111” and exchange platforms. The protocol’s contract lacked a multi-signature (multisig) feature. One exchange, Changenow, said it halted the sale of EOS it believes came from the alleged scam, and urged victims to contact their local police for assistance.
Exchange deniedVenezuelan officials haveblocked access to Coinbase and fiat remittance platform MercaDolar, according to digital rights advocacy group Venezuela Inteligente. The advocacy group said the move, discovered late Tuesday evening, has no clear outcome or objective but that internet service providers (ISPs) have been part of the move to block access, CoinDesk’s Sebastian Sinclair reports. “Crypto exchanges have been blocked in the past,” said director of Venezuela Inteligente Andres E. Azpurua in reference to ISPs blocking via a DNS block. “Until recently all of them were lifted.”
Chain resilience?Despite three “51% attacks” in a month,Ethereum Classic’s price has demonstrated strong resilience.Though down a bit for the past month, its persistence may indicate that security is not a top priority for investors rushing to join a bull run in the crypto market, CoinDesk’s Muyao Shen reports.ETCis no stranger to attacks, having suffered one in early 2019, a sign traders could be less concerned about long-lasting security vulnerabilities than a quick profit. Or, as a forked crypto where a large number of addresses have been inactive, some ETC holders may not see the value of selling or even claiming their ETC. James Wo, founder of ETC Labs, told CoinDesk his team has expanded the network’s core development team and partnered with Chainlink, Swarm and Bloq over the past year to improve security.
• Most New Customers at Japanese Exchange BitFlyerAre in Their 20s(Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk)
• What Is Yearn Finance?The DeFi Gateway Everyone Is Talking About (Brady Dale/CoinDesk)
• Bitcoin Miners Are Concerned byBitmain’s New Rigs(Shaurya Malwa/Decrypt)
• Major food delivery service Just Eat will now allow France customers topay in BTC(Saniya More/The Block)
• TheLargest of Whales(Mati Greenspan/Quantum Economics)
Crypto gets activeIs activist investing becoming normalized in crypto?
Related:Blockchain Bites: Is DeFi an Inside Deal?
In the latest push and pull between token holders, investors and projects, hedge fund managerArca is attempting to overhaul one of the earliest DeFi protocols Gnosis.
After backing the prediction market’s 2017 $12.5 million ICO, Arca is claiming the Gnosis platform has failed to live up to its promises and deviated from its original mission.The Blockoriginally reported this story.
Now Arca is asking Gnosis to return value to investors and token holders. Over the summer, the hedge fund discreetly asked Gnosis to make a tender offer for all circulating GNO tokens, giving investors the opportunity to cash out and offer a stock split opportunity for those who stick around.
In a blog post published Tuesday, Arca Chief Investment Officer Jeff Dorman reiterated Arca’s prior suggestions that the project institute revenue-generating and cost-cutting initiatives. The project, he said, should aim to become “free cash flow positive,” rather than reliant on treasury assets contributed by GNO token holders.
The quasi-buyback program would provide an out for investors while also leaving the project enough runway. (Gnosis has $55 million worth ofETHand $10 million of cash as reserves.)
Dorman wrote that Arca often works with management teams throughout the lifecycle of an investment to achieve the goals of the community, which he described as a typically productive and mutually beneficial process. This was not the case with Gnosis, however.
Gnosis, which instituted one of the first decentralized exchanges, is one among many prediction markets struggling to gain a foothold.
Stepping back, the situation points to a rare example of activist investing strategies in crypto. A practice common to traditional markets, activist investing sees large investors buy large shares in companies and acquire board seats to suggest operational changes and agitate for management, in an effort to increase value for shareholders.
Activist investing, popularized by the “corporate raiders” of the 1980s, ballooned from a $12 billion industry in 2003 to having $112 billion assets under management by 2014.
DigixDAO, an early initial coin offering (ICO) which faced a situation where its treasury was more than its market cap, faced similar activist investor behavior when it offered a question to the community – dissolve the treasury or continue making grants?
CorrelationsBitcoin is nowmore closely tied to safe haven goldthan ever, possibly bringing the cryptocurrency greater resilience to risk aversion in the traditional markets, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole reports. The 60-day correlation between the two assets is hovering at record highs, beginning this correlation in July, when the U.S. dollar began a sell-off. While others refute the “store of value” narrative due to bitcoin’s closer correlation with traditional risky assets, the cryptocurrency has defended its $10,000 support for the fifth straight day on Monday, despite losses on Wall Street.
CoinDesk 20Orchid(OXT), issued by Orchid Labs Inc., developer of virtual private network (VPN) software designed to be decentralized and open source, has replaced the basic attention token (BAT) issued by Brave Software Inc., developer of the Brave browser, on the CoinDesk 20 list.Orchid’s price pumped last month,benefiting from attention from David Portnoy, a publisher and media personality, though it started its ascent prior reflecting anticipation of Orchid’s mobile and desktop apps, released in July. The CoinDesk 20 is a list of the digital assets that matter most to the market using a detailed methodology.
Banks Are Toast but Crypto Has Lost Its SoulCoinDesk columnist and author of “The Case for People’s Quantitative Easing” Frances Coppolathinks banks are too lugubrious to survive, but crypto has also lost its way.“But in becoming a high-risk, high-yield playground for dollar investors, the cryptocurrency world sold its soul. The early adopters of Bitcoin believed it would replace the financial system that had crashed and burned so badly,” she writes.
Bitcoin, Mescaline and Parallel WorldsLeah Callon-Butler, a CoinDesk columnist and director of Emfarsis, explores the phenomenon ofhow people get curious, then interested then obsessed with the world of cryptocurrencies– comparing it to the “down the rabbit hole” experiences of psychedelics or philosophy. “The concept of money might be the greatest illusory trick of all time. Over history, all sorts of things from paper notes to gold bars, seashells to giant rocks, and indeed, lines of code, have superseded relative obscurity to be worshipped as money. A mythical system of value is only “real” because we believe it is,” she writes.
Why Bitcoin Investors Aren’t Worried About This Price PullbackCritiques of correlation between bitcoin and equities miss the fact that bitcoin adoption within traditional markets has been driven by a fiat collapse concern, Nathaniel Whittemore writes to introducethe latest episode of The Breakdown.
• Blockchain Bites: Bitmain Denied, Coinbase Blocked and a Potential EOS Exit Scam
• Blockchain Bites: Bitmain Denied, Coinbase Blocked and a Potential EOS Exit Scam || Bitcoin Banking App Mode Eyes £40M UK Listing: A new app that allows users to buy bitcoin, as well as earn interest on holdings, is reportedly looking at going public in the U.K.
• The Daily TelegraphreportedSunday that Mode Banking is expected to announce plans for a £40 million stock market listing sometime in the next month.
• The firm, which was officially incorporated as Mode Global Holdings PLC in August, is also looking to raise £7.5 million ($9.87 million) from investors ahead of the flotation, according to the report.
• CoinDesk understands that Mode has already raised £4 million ($5.26 million) and is hoping to list on the London Stock Exchange.
• An announcement of the final venue may be on the cards in as little as a month.
• Mode‘s founder is Jonathan Rowland, who founded online investment company Jellyworks at the height of the dot-com boom in 2000.
• Jellyworks’ value soared to over £300 million on its first day of trading on the London Stock Exchange, but had fallen back down to roughly $67 million at the time it was acquired by Shore Capital.
• In August, Mode announced it had hired former Alipay exec Rita Liu to lead company strategy and commercial partnerships.
• Customer assets are held with custodial provider BitGo, which has insurance coverage “for up to $100 million” through Lloyds of London.
See also:NYSE Can Allow Firms to Raise Funding Through Direct Listings, Says SEC
UPDATE (Sept. 7, 13:50 UTC):This article has been updated to clarify that Mode Banking uses custodial provider BitGo to hold customer assets.
• Bitcoin Banking App Mode Eyes £40M UK Listing
• Bitcoin Banking App Mode Eyes £40M UK Listing
• Bitcoin Banking App Mode Eyes £40M UK Listing
• Bitcoin Banking App Mode Eyes £40M UK Listing || U.S. charges BitMEX cryptocurrency founders with failing to prevent money laundering: By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Thursday filed criminal charges accusing four founders and executives of BitMEX, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges, of evading rules designed to stop money laundering. The Department of Justice charged Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed and Benjamin Delo, who together founded BitMEX in 2014, and Gregory Dwyer, its first employee and later head of business development, with violating the federal Bank Secrecy Act and conspiring to violate that law. Hayes, 34, of Buffalo, New York, and Hong Kong, is chief executive of BitMEX, while Reed is its chief technology officer. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a separate civil lawsuit to halt BitMEX's U.S. commodity derivatives business. BitMEX is short for Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange. "We strongly disagree with the U.S. government's heavy-handed decision to bring these charges, and intend to defend the allegations vigorously," a spokesman for BitMEX's parent HDR Global Trading Ltd said. Dwyer's lawyer, Sean Hecker, said his client will contest the charges. Lawyers for the other individual defendants could not be identified. An indictment filed in Manhattan federal court said the defendants flouted their obligation to implement an anti-money laundering program with a "know your customer" requirement, which they knew was needed because BitMEX served U.S. customers. Their steps allegedly included incorporating BitMEX in the Seychelles because of its seemingly less stringent regulations, and where Hayes once bragged it would cost less to bribe authorities - just "a coconut" - than in the United States. Prosecutors said BitMEX ultimately made itself a "vehicle" for money laundering and sanctions violations, including claims it was used to launder proceeds of a cryptocurrency hack and that customers from Iran traded on its platform. The defendants "will soon learn the price of their alleged crimes will not be paid with tropical fruit," FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney said in a statement. Story continues Each count carries a maximum five-year prison term. Reed was arrested in Massachusetts and the other defendants are at large. The case is U.S. v. Hayes et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 20-cr-00500. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Richard Chang and Matthew Lewis) || The ‘Hot Swap’ Plan to Switch Ethereum to Proof-of-Stake Explained: With Ethereum 2.0’s much-anticipated move to Proof-of-Stake getting closer, CoinDesk Research Analyst Christine Kim spoke with Ethereum developer Danny Ryan and Liz Steininger, CEO of blockchain security company Least Authority on what users and investors should expect.
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This episode is sponsored byCrypto.com,BitstampandNexo.io.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for Sept. 21, 2020
The highly-anticipated launch of Ethereum 2.0 is expected to have little to no impact on users and decentralized applications (dapps) currently operating on Ethereum. But in the years after its launch, Ethereum developer Danny Ryan expects the upgrade to radically improve network performance and security.
There will be what Ryan calls a “precise point of transition,” where at one block the Ethereum blockchain is progressed and secured through the activity of mining and at the next block it is secured through validating. These two systems of block creation and transaction validation are called proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS), respectively.
The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade is the technology and multi-year roadmap intended to transition the world’s second largest blockchain by market capitalization from PoW to PoS.
See also:Ethereum 2.0: How It Works and Why It Matters
Related:Lyn Alden’s Latest: Why Currency Devaluation Is Inevitable
There are several security concerns that still need to be addressed by Ethereum developers to ensure that at this point of transition, there is no possibility for51 percent attacks,block reorganizations, and other edge cases jeopardizing user funds and network data.
To this end, Liz Steininger, CEO of blockchain security company Least Authority, recommends additional audits of Ethereum 2.0 code in preparation for what developers are calling Phase 1.5 of the upgrade roadmap. However, even with multiple audits on top of the ones already completed for the launch of Ethereum 2.0, Steininger foresees inevitable “hiccups and bumps in the road.”
See also:Quantstamp Audit Greenlights Ethereum 2.0 Client Prysm for Launch
“[Flaws in code] isn’t necessarily a failure but it’s a learning opportunity for everybody in the industry to see how these things work at such a large scale,” said Steininger. “If we can overcome the bumps in the road that are undoubtedly going to happen during this large transition then I think that shows a kind of resiliency to the greater world of what blockchain and cryptocurrency and the development space is capable of.”
Ryan has high hopes that after the “hot swap” from Eth 1.0 to Eth 2.0, users and dapp developers will begin to see noticeable improvements to transaction efficiency and throughput on the merged network immediately.
“We want to increase the layer one capacity of the [Ethereum] system by approximately 100x. The benefits we hope to bring to developers is more capacity, cheaper transactions and a better environment for users to interact with and build dapps on,” said Ryan.
For more information about Ethereum 2.0, you can download the free research report featuring additional developer commentary about the upgradeon the CoinDesk Research Hub.
• The ‘Hot Swap’ Plan to Switch Ethereum to Proof-of-Stake Explained
• The ‘Hot Swap’ Plan to Switch Ethereum to Proof-of-Stake Explained || Gemini lists seven new DeFi tokens, including UNI and YFI: Crypto exchange and custodian Gemini has added support for seven new decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens.
These are Balancer (BAL), Curve (CRV), Ren Network (REN), Synthetix Network (SNX), Uma (UMA), Uniswap (UNI), and Yearn.finance (YFI), GeminiannouncedFriday.
"We believe in the potential of DeFi and are here to help usher in this next wave of growth and financial innovation for the world,"saidCameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of Gemini. "DeFi promises greater choice, independence, and opportunity for all."
Gemini is also adding trading support for five more tokens: Decentraland (MANA), Kyber Network (KNC), Maker (MKR), Storj (STORJ), and 0x (ZRX). These are already supported for custody.
Additionally, Gemini is supporting three new tokens for its custody service: Keep Network (KEEP), Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), and tBTC (tBTC).
Gemini said deposits for these tokens began at 8 am ET today, and trading will start at 11 am ET via limit orders on Gemini's API and ActiveTrader solution. On the website and mobile applications, trading will open on a rolling, token-by-token basis as liquidity builds, said Gemini.
With today's additions, Gemini now supports a total of 24 tokens for trading and 34 tokens for custody.Notably, New York residents are allowed to trade in DeFi tokens on Gemini. Rival Coinbase blocks residents of the state from trading in DeFi tokens on its platform.
© 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. || How the Bitcoin Blockchain Is Being Used to Safeguard Nuclear Power Stations: Nuclearis, a manufacturer of precision mechanical components for the nuclear industry, is using the Bitcoin blockchain to verify the manufacturing blueprints of parts that make up nuclear power reactors.
Announced Tuesday,Nuclearis, which is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has offices in the U.S. and China, is using the Bitcoin-powered RSK blockchain as an immutable anchor, keeping tabs on critical documents. The firm has open-sourced the framework so other players in the nuclear industry can use it.
It’s not the first time blockchain tech has been leveraged within the nuclear industry. Estonia’sGuardtime has been using its own version of DLTfor some time to distribute data as a way to prevent cyberattacks on nuclear infrastructure. There have also beenprojects using blockchainto track the uranium fuel supply chain and also track what happens to nuclear waste.
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Breaks $12K; Uniswap Crosses $1.5B Locked
Read more:No More Nuclear: Japan’s Biggest Utility Turns to Blockchain in Power Pivot
Safety is everything when it comes to nuclear. The track and trace use case for manufacturing documents is important because there have been forgeries in the past, where antiquated nuclear reactors have opted for shortcuts to revamp equipment (a high-profile caseof this sort went through the courts in France in 2016.)
Some 150 new reactors are set to be built over the next 30 years and the “NuclearTech” space is all about instilling trust within the operators of nuclear power plants, said Nuclearis CTO Sebastian Martinez.
“Part of the problem is that there are many intermediaries in this supply chain and parts of it are still paper-based,” said Martinez. “We hash the manufacturing documents and upload to the blockchain at the point of creation of the steel part. Months or even years later, when we deliver the part, the power plant can check if everything digitally matches.”
Related:First Mover: Rookie YFI Token Jumped 8-Fold in August as DeFi Dominated
Nuclearis, which is working with Argentina’s three power plants – Atucha I, Atucha II and Embalse – said the Argentine government and the country’s main operator of nuclear power plants, Nucleoeléctrica Argentina, are looking to adopt its blockchain system.
Read more:California Agency Backs Green-Energy Pilot Using RSK’s Bitcoin Smart Contracts
The RSK blockchain developed with consultancyIOV Labsuses a process called “merged mining” to run a sidechain on the Bitcoin blockchain and harvest the hash power of the largest cryptocurrency.
“The immutability and security that blockchain provides are of the most importance for the nuclear industry,” IOV Labs CEO Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar said in a statement. “We are very excited about Nuclearis’ solution in that industry and thrilled they have chosen RSK blockchain and RSK Infrastructure Framework (RIF) technologies for its development.”
The RSK-based platform now in use is only for tracking the provenance of new parts, but there are lots of interesting use cases going forward around areas like decommissioning of parts, Nuclearis said.
“If you replace something like a pump from a primary circuit that has been radioactive for the last 50 years, you have to decommission it, get it out of the reactor and dismantle it,” said Martinez. “Traceability of that stuff is very important so it doesn’t turn up on some black market, or worse, finds its way into a dirty bomb.”
• How the Bitcoin Blockchain Is Being Used to Safeguard Nuclear Power Stations
• How the Bitcoin Blockchain Is Being Used to Safeguard Nuclear Power Stations || MicroStrategy Buys $250M in Bitcoin, Calling the Crypto ‘Superior to Cash’: Publicly traded business intelligence firm MicroStrategy purchased 21,454 bitcoin on Tuesday, effectively pouring all $250 million of its planned inflation-hedging funds into the digital currency.
• Disclosing itsbitcoinbuy alongside an equivalent stock buyback in a Tuesday Securities and Exchange Commission filing, MicroStrategy, a Nasdaq-listed software firm worth over $1.2 billion, said the cryptocurrency provided a “reasonable hedge against inflation” in a press statement shared with CoinDesk.
• “This investment reflects our belief that bitcoin, as the world’s most widely adopted cryptocurrency, is a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash,” said CEO Michael J. Saylor.
• Saylor cited forces working to weaken fiat currencies – COVID-19, global quantitative easing measures, political and economic uncertainty – but also the technical and qualitative aspects that he said give the bitcoin blockchain strength.
• “We find the global acceptance, brand recognition, ecosystem vitality, network dominance, architectural resilience, technical utility and community ethos of bitcoin to be persuasive evidence of its superiority as an asset class for those seeking a long-term store of value,” Saylor said.
• The capital allocation quickly fulfills Saylor’s late July promise to shareholders that MicroStrategy would buy back $250 million in stock and invest an additional $250 million in gold and bitcoin over the next 12 months.
• The belief was that these and other “alternative investments” would protect MicroStrategy’s dollar-heavy balance sheet.
• It is now clear that half of the $500 million bet turns entirely on bitcoin. MicroStrategy “accordingly has made bitcoin the principal holding in its treasury reserve strategy,” Saylor said.
Read more:Nasdaq-Listed MicroStrategy, Wary of Looming Dollar Inflation, Turns to Bitcoin and Gold
• MicroStrategy Buys $250M in Bitcoin, Calling the Crypto ‘Superior to Cash’
• MicroStrategy Buys $250M in Bitcoin, Calling the Crypto ‘Superior to Cash’
• MicroStrategy Buys $250M in Bitcoin, Calling the Crypto ‘Superior to Cash’
• MicroStrategy Buys $250M in Bitcoin, Calling the Crypto ‘Superior to Cash’ || Bitcoin’s Correlation With Gold Hits Record High: Bitcoin is now more closely tied to safe haven gold than ever, possibly bringing the cryptocurrency greater resilience to risk aversion in the traditional markets.
• The 60-day correlation between the two assets is hovering at record highs above 0.5, according to Coin Metrics data.
• The positive correlation has strengthened sharply since the beginning of July, as the U.S. dollar started taking a beating against other major currencies.
• The sell-off in the greenback, the global reserve currency, is seen as boding well for scarce assets likebitcoinand gold.
• The strengthening of the positive correlation appears to validate the popular narrative that bitcoin is a store of value and a haven asset.Some investorsbelieve it issound money, like gold.
• As such, the cryptocurrency’s sensitivity to movements in risk assets, mainly equities, could lessen.
• Bitcoin defended the $10,000 support for the fifth straight day on Monday, despite losses on Wall Street.
• The repeated defense of the critical support, coupled with several bullish developments in on-chain metrics, suggests scope for a recovery rally.
• Bitcoin’s hashrate, or computing power,has risen tofresh record highs near 150 exahashes per second, according to Glassnode.
• That suggests minersremain unfazedby bitcoin’s recent decline from $12,400 to $10,000.
• Further, the percentage of bitcoin unmoved in over three years has hit a two-year high of 30.91%, according to data source Glassnode.
• “It suggests an increase in the holding mentality,” Simon Peters, a crypto-asset analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro, said in an email.
• “The recent drop represents overselling and buyers may soon step back in again,” Peters added.
• The cryptocurrency is trading near $10,200 at time of writing, representing a 0.7% gain on the day.
Also read:Bitcoin Options Suggest Investors Hedging but Still Long-Term Bullish
• Bitcoin’s Correlation With Gold Hits Record High
• Bitcoin’s Correlation With Gold Hits Record High
• Bitcoin’s Correlation With Gold Hits Record High
• Bitcoin’s Correlation With Gold Hits Record High || Money Reimagined: Memes Mean Money: Before we get into this week’s column, an announcement, one I’m super excited about.
Today, we’re simultaneously launching a new podcast under the same name as this newsletter: CoinDesk’s Money Reimagined. Like the newsletter, it’s a conversation around the technological, political and social forces reshaping our financial system. For each show, I’ll be joined by the tremendous Sheila Warren, blockchain lead at the World Economic Forum, as we sit down with insightful guests from around the world.
Below you’ll find links to the first show which you can use to subscribe with your preferred podcast player. In it, we dive more deeply into the “culture of money” theme addressed in this week’s newsletter, including a four-way interview with multimedia artist Nicky Enright and University of Virginia Media Studies Professor Lana Swartz.
Related:Blockchain Bites: Crypto Tax Switcheroo, Stablecoin Confusion, the Post-Capitalist Plunge
For free, early access to new episodes of Money Reimagined subscribe to CoinDesk Reports withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Stitcher,CastBoxordirect RSS for your favorite podcast player.
Sushi, Hotdogs, Yams, Shrimp.
The whimsical, food-obsessed names of of the latest decentralized finance (DeFi) outfits are antithetical to the stodgy imagery of the mainstream financial system they seek to disrupt. Banks’ memes, by contrast, skew toward strength and durability. (Think of the lion statues and Roman columns guarding bank branches in old parts of London, New York or Paris.)
DeFi’s critics say the silly names show it’s merely a fad, a game – or worse – a scam. It’s all imaginary, they say. It’s not real.
Related:First Mover: Tron's Play for WBTC Shows Competition to Relieve Ethereum Congestion
The problem with that perspective is thatallaspects of money, including the financial systems built on top of it, are imaginary.
And, in case you’re wondering, that’s a feature, not a bug.
Israeli historian Yuval Hararicalls money“the most successful story ever told,” even more important to the evolution of society than religion, corporations and a host of other human-imagined institutions. Like those concepts, money’s power hinges on the collective adoption of a common belief system. It takes a set of mutually understood rules and gives them symbolic representation in a token we call a currency. In exchanging that token, we reach agreements that reflect those rules and so enable commerce, collaboration, value creation and, ultimately, civilization.
Storytelling and cultural creation have always been integral to how society fosters this belief system, how we’ve forged communities around currencies. It’s why representations of money and the conversations around it are rich with iconography, foundational myths and stirring language.
This process of collective imagination has become firmly tied to another powerful imaginary concept: the nation-state. This combination has been so effective that it has survived the introduction of new technologies and tokens over time. We’ve gone from shells to coins to banknotes to checks to credit cards to Venmo, and each time we’ve just accepted that a new transfer vehicle can convey the same rules and values we’ve always attached to our national currencies.
This is a useful lens to apply to the many new ideas for money bubbling up in the crypto world. Whether it’s bitcoin’s bid to become a digital gold-like currency or the fight between Uniswap and SushiSwap to dominate liquidity in DeFi’s lending markets, the semiotic process for creating memes and stories is vital to the establishment of a new system. We need toreimaginemoney.
If you have a $100 bill in your wallet, take a good look at it.
On one side, there’s Ben Franklin’s balding head and torso, behind which are a quill, an inkwell with the Liberty Bell superimposed onto it, and an extract from the Declaration of Independence. There are also the seals of the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve, the signatures of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer, a serial number and other identifying numerals.
On the other, we see Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where Franklin and other Founding Fathers signed the declaration, along with the words “In God We Trust.” On both sides, the number 100 appears numerous times in and around a highly ornate border.
Combined with cotton threads and watermarks, the baroque design helps make the note difficult to counterfeit. But more importantly, the imagery appeals directly to patriotism. It’s all associated with the nation-state to which the dollar, we are encouraged to believe, is indelibly linked.
Now think about the actual value of the note, by which I mean the physical piece of paper. You could use it as a bookmark, maybe, make a paper plane out of it, or write a very small amount of information in very small print on it. But none of those uses add up to $100 in utility.
A banknote’s value comes almost entirely from our shared imagination, a commonality of beliefs fed by centuries of cultural production that forges a type of community. It’s only because the payer and the payee share those beliefs that this piece of paper can function as an instrument for clearing that community’s debts.
Each tribe of cryptocurrency advocates is endeavoring to create the same sense of community and belief around its preferred token. How they attain that is a cultural challenge.
In November 2014,I created a video for The Wall Street Journal with Nicky Enright, a multimedia artist. We filmed him walking the streets of the Diamond District in New York’s Midtown as he wore an A-frame sandwich board and held a wad of “Globos,” his personal currency, in hand. The beautifully ornate notes were on sale for a $1, he told passersby, in a special two-for-one deal.
The interactions with people were fascinating. One of the most common questions was, “Is it real?” Enright’s answer was always something like, “Of course it’s real. You can see and hold it, right?” As a guest on this week’s inaugural Money Reimagined podcast, Enright reflected on those exchanges, noting that “people will question the Globo in a way that they rarely, if ever, question their own currency” and yet the very same questions about what is “real” could be applied to the purely symbolic value of the dollar.
The pertinent question for cryptocurrency advocates is: How do the purveyors and believers in a particular currency similarly get enough people to believe in it, to view it as “real?” And that’s again where the cultural conversation comes in.
It’s why Bitcoin’s culture is filled with ideas, phrases and iconography that help build community. Think of the word “HODL,” or the concept that Bitcoin is “The Honey Badger of Money,” or the almost religious devotion to the mysterious founding father, Satoshi. (By the way, it’s irrelevant that these ideas, like DeFi’s, seem frivolous to traditionalists. They are appropriately in line with the meme culture of the digital age, and consistent with the liberal conventions that internet culture unleashed, as names like Yahoo and Google became corporate mainstays.)
University of Virginia media studies professor Lana Swartz, author of the newly publishedNew Money: How Payment Became Social Media, has some thoughts on all this.
As the second guest on this week’s podcast, she reflected on thevery early research that she and two colleagues did into Bitcoin’s culture in 2013. At that time, she said, “there was a real fixation on the idea that Bitcoin would be free from human institutions, free from human foibles and free from the need for human governance. … But then all these early Bitcoin people ever really did was to talk and create community, and create ways to govern themselves, and create ways to think about this project.”
It’s a great insight. Money is inseparable from community, and community is about values, the expression of which involves governance. (Not government per se, but governance.)
This brings us full circle to DeFi, where tribes conduct meme warfare on Twitter and elsewhere to promote their tokens. Each of those tokens is tied to a protocol, which offers a different form of governance.
The difference with traditional money is that the enforcement of each token’s particular governance model comes via a decentralized network rather than the centralized institutions of a nation-state.
That shift is what makes it so promising. But it’s also why the cultural creation process is so challenging, as it must compete with the giant mindshare that traditional finance occupies. It’s why the meme-ing must continue.
Hats off to Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal for coming up with a killer graph. (Sadly, I’m using that descriptive literally.) The chart, which appearedTuesday in Bloomberg’s daily “Five Things to Start your Day” newsletter, maps the reservations at New York restaurants recorded by OpenTable and subway turnstile receipts from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, against the price of shares in SL Green, a real estate investment trust focused on Manhattan office space. COVID-19 has done a number on all three.
I include this here, because when thinking about the future of Manhattan real estate, it’s hard not to think about the future of Wall Street. Banks, brokerages and other financial institutions are giant contributors to the city’s commercial rents, occupying large open-plan trading areas on multiple floors of some of NYC’s prime real estate. But in the COVID-19 era, banks have learned that, with the help of new low-latency connectivity packages, their traders can work pretty well from home, offering the prospect that the firms can save millions in rents if they pare back their footprint in the city.
An exodus from New York by bankers, traders and brokers would mark an end to an era. Hollywood’s movies about testosterone-fueled trading floors will become period pieces. The bigger question is what it means for the idea of Wall Street as a New York institution and, by extension, for the city’s outsized role in the regulation of the global financial system.
There are plenty of reasons for banks to maintain a legal residence in New York. Most important, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) has a unique role within the Fed’s monetary system, as it conducts the open-market operations by which the central bank implements monetary policy. To act as a counterparty with FRBNY in those trades and gain access to that vital flow of monetary liquidity, banks need, at the very least, a capital markets subsidiary domiciled in New York. Their presence for that purpose in turn gives local regulators such as the New York Department of Financial Services a critical role in world finance.
But it’s not hard to imagine that a physical downgrading of banks’ physical presence in New York could, over time, degrade the city’s dominance. Will the rest of the U.S. continue to grant NYC its gatekeeping role? And as central banks, potentially armed with digital currencies, move to expand the range of counter parties they deal with to include non-banks such as large companies and municipalities, New York’s centrality in the process could be further diminished. It’s yet another way in which the seismic events of 2020 could prove a turning point for the world of finance.
CRYPTO-DERIVATIVES BOOM.According to a comprehensive report by CoinDesk Research Hub contributorBlockchain Valley Ventures (BCC), “future contracts volume on cryptocurrencies has surged by close to 300% between H1 2019 and H2 2020,” mostly driven by institutional players using platforms such as Bakkt and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Other interesting takeaways:
• Asia accounted for 95% of all futures trading in the second quarter of 2020.
• DeFi appears to be increasing the demand crypto derivatives as its smart-contract-based model has the potential to mitigate counter party risks and other dangers of trading in derivatives.
• BVV is predicting this boom will inspire mergers and acquisitions in the crypto exchange space as the derivatives market has the potential to grow to 10 times the size of the spot market.
Pro-bitcoin market professionals have long encouraged the development of derivatives markets, as they are supposed to bring two-sided liquidity to the overall market. That, in turn, should reduce volatility, protect investors from excessive losses, build efficiency and contribute to the overall development of crypto as an asset class. But it’s worth contemplating how that process plays out, because it’s not yet translating into immediate payouts to investors in crypto spot markets. Consider, for example, the fact that despite the boom in derivatives, bitcoin’s price can’t seem to get sustainably above $11,000, even as it also tends to find strong support at $10,000 or just below it.
In other words, the idea that market sophistication will translate into a higher bitcoin price isn’t yet playing out.
Despite talk of a bull market and signs of buy-in by mainstream players such asMicroStrategy’s Michael Saylorandformer Prudential Securities chief George Ball, bitcoin remains well below its 2019 high of $13,789. At this stage of development, the two-sided liquidity of derivatives markets seems to be doing a reasonable job of containing excesses in the spot market. But it will take time for that improved efficiency to breed confidence among institutional and other, more cautious investors, to take actual long-term bets on bitcoin itself.
DEFI’S WHITEHAT SAVIORS.Some students of the 2008 financial crisis look at the highly complex world of DeFi protocols, tokens and lending markets and see parallels. An opaque, hard-to-understand market in which interrelated credit risks are poorly understood seems ripe for the kind of cascading failures that the similarly complex world of credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations delivered 12 years ago.
They’re right to be concerned, but I think the core risks come in a very different form. Algorithmic, decentralized collateral delivery should, in theory, reduce the kind of counterparty risks markets faced in 2008, when fears that debtors did not have the assets they’d pledged created a downward spiral of selling, fear and self-fulfilling collateral demands. What it doesn’t solve for is software risk. The big danger for DeFi is that bugs in multiple smart contracts will be exploited to steal funds in a synchronized manner, triggering a mass panic from which hackers can profit.
So, it was a bit alarming to readthis gripping accountby a prolific “whitehat” coder who goes by the handle @SamCzSun about a recent all-nighter he pulled to rescue $9.6 million worth of ether. The funds were sitting in a smart contract associated with Lien Finance, an Ethereum-based protocol for decentralized options and stablecoins, and were vulnerable to a bug that he’d discovered. Being the honest player that he is, he felt compelled to place the funds into a safe environment before someone could dishonestly claim them. The security researcher talks about the challenge he faced in reaching out to someone from the Lien Finance team, since its leadership is all anonymous. Who could he trust? And when he did find someone to help, they faced the challenge of ensuring that their rescue operation wouldn’t tip off others and create a front-running opportunity for them.
The whole thing demonstrates the downside of decentralized finance. The absence of a middleman and the use of decentralized governance might well create special opportunities for financial creativity and access to finance. But, when things go wrong, the under-regulated structure of DeFi makes it extremely difficult for people to appeal to the one thing they often need in a crisis: someone to trust. It also reminded me of the vital role played by white hackers like @SamCzSun, who could have easily grabbed the $9.6 million for himself. Not only do they keep people safe from bad guys, but, in finding flaws, they help developers fix and strengthen the system.
DATA, CLIMATE AND FINANCE.In last week’s column, we discussed how important it is that blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies be calibrated to the challenge of mitigating climate change. But it’s not just this new form of finance that needs alignment with a healthier planet, it’s also old finance, whose investment priorities have for too long skewed in favor of fossil fuel-reliant industries, even though many economists now argue that those investments represent “stranded assets.” Asthis report from Refinitiv and OMFIF points out, to get financial services to invest more sustainably requires “clear and consistent Environmental, Social and Governance data.” The idea behind ESG is that if reliable data can be provided on environmental performance, more effective mechanisms for rewarding carbon-reducing investments can arise. But right now, both data and the regulations surrounding environmentally sound investments are inconsistent across the globe.
Interestingly, the report makes a clear case for central banks to play a role in setting consistent standards. But what if, as we’ve discussed in a few Money Reimagined newsletters, the whole function of central banks comes into question as technology, economic imperatives and geopolitical tensions move us to a more fragmented, multi-currency world? It’s my view that the world needs data sources that can be trusted across borders, regardless of where they are collected and regardless of the local regulator’s reputation and enforcement capability. It’s where there has to eventually be a place for decentralized systems that can both affirm the reliability of environment-measuring devices and immutably record their data in distributed ledgers that all can access.
Things get really interesting when there’s an intersection between decentralized environmental data and decentralized finance. (See Ian Allison’s piece on Ocean Protocol below.) That’s when carbon markets can be spun up by anyone anywhere so that any innovator with a climate change-fighting project can unlock the capital they need from anywhere else in the world.
Digital Euro Would Provide Alternative to Cryptos, ECB President Lagarde Says.Europe’s goal to develop a central bank digital currency was given a boost when Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, gave a forceful speech in its favor. As the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Lagarde is something of an international finance rockstar. Her words matter. Dan Palmer reports.
The Currency Cold War: Four Scenarios.In the currency war of the future, who ends up on top? The U.S.? China? Bitcoin? Or some multi-currency world. Jeff Wilser surveys four futurists on what to expect as part of our Internet 2030 series.
Ocean Protocol and Balancer Want to Do for Data What Uniswap Did for Coins. DeFi for data markets. This is when things get really interesting. Ian Allison reports on Ocean Protocol’s use of a DeFi-inspired automated market maker (AMM) model for achieving something many have struggled to achieve.
How Small Business Can Achieve ‘Economies of Scale’ by 2030.In another contribution to our Internet 2030 series, EY’s Paul Brody foretells a future of “re-decentralization” in which smart contracts and seamless, digitized commercial systems create new opportunities for small businesses to work together and once again compete with the big monopolies that currently dominate our world.
• Money Reimagined: Memes Mean Money
• Money Reimagined: Memes Mean Money || Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s Weary Bulls, ETC’s Action Plan, INX’s IPO: INX is gearing up for a landmark IPO, 1 billion tether jumped from Tron to Ethereum and a shift in bitcoin’s options market suggests bullish speculation is beginning to ease.
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.
INX IPOINX plans to launch itslandmark initial public offering (IPO) as soon as Monday. The cryptocurrency and security token exchange signaled plans to go public in January 2018, aiming to become the first Securities and Exchange Commission-compliant security token offering, open to mom-and-pop investors. INX will price 130 million tokens at $0.90 each, totaling $117 million in gross proceeds. These tokens will have utility on the company’s exchange and entitle investors to a share in profits.
Related:First Mover: Anything-Goes Token Market Repudiates Rich-Only Venture Capital Club
Auto complete?Three Swiss crypto companies have completed the firstautomated bitcoin transaction that meets anti-money laundering (AML) standards. Zug-based Crypto Finance AG and 21 Analytics, and Geneva’s Mt Pelerin announced Friday 21 CHF worth ofbitcoin(~$23) had been sent in a live demonstration of a new transaction using the Travel Rule Protocol, an automated way to comply with standards set by the Financial Action Task Force’s “Travel Rule.” Since being adopted, intermediaries have had to do Travel Rule compliance manually.
Patching ETCFollowing a spate of 51% attacks,ETC Labs has shored up an action plan to protect the Ethereum Classic blockchain. In the short term, ETC Labs will attempt to stabilize the chain’s plummeting hashrate, increase network monitoring, coordinate closely with exchanges and deploy a finality arbitration system. Longer term could see a change in ETC’s proof-of-work mining algorithm, the introduction of a treasury system and adding 51% attack-resistant features.
Tether swapStablecoin issuerTether shifted 1 billion in USDT from the Tron blockchain to the Ethereumblockchain in an early morning chain swap Thursday. Swapped in conjunction “with a 3rd party,” according to a Tether tweet, the token transfer drains 23% of TRON’sUSDTreserves, which previously stocked $4.3 billion in the stablecoin. It also pumps up Ethereum’s reserves, where well over half of the nearly $13 billion circulating USDT already reside. Ethereum is a hotbed for decentralized finance projects and as such a popular spot for USDT.
Judicial useThailand’slargest court system is developing a blockchain storage networkthat will move judicial information entirely online when it debuts in Thai Courts of Justice in 2021. Already in the midst of a national digitization campaign, the Office of the Court of Justice, which oversees 91% of Thai courts, said Thursday it is “actively developing” the blockchain network. Details are scant on the newly revealed blockchain project, and it was unclear at press time if Thailand is building the network with private-sector help, CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson reports.
• Bitcoin in Cuba: A Local YouTube Influencer Explains How It Works (Leigh Cuen/CoinDesk)
• Ethereum-Based MadNetwork Is Looking toDisrupt Adtech(Ian Allison/CoinDesk)
• John McAfeeghosts his ownprivacy-first cryptocurrency project (Robert Stevens/Decrypt)
• Rep. Soto: DeFi isn’t really on Congress’s radar, but proposed bills set thestage for action(Michael McSweeney/The Block)
• Wacky Bitcoin-to-DeFi Crypto Markets Might Be the NewHome of Capitalism(First Mover/CoinDesk)
Related:Leveraged Funds Take Record Bearish Positions in Bitcoin Futures
Rachel-Rose O’Leary, a trainee C++ developer at PolyTech and prolific cryptocurrency writer, tells her personal account of getting into Bitcoin and Ethereum and her opinion of where things have gone wrong. Excerpted below, you can read thefull story here.
Bitcoin has lost its wayLike the ancient Irish poets, the filí, programmers have the ability to alter reality with an utterance. Code is an incantation, an act of summoning ideas and inclinations into material reality. It is a conduit between the sphere of ideation and that of politics and sociality.
But technology isn’t merely the product of ideas – it actively shapes belief systems, reconfiguring the world in which it is applied.
Programmers know this: When a user’s behavior is influenced by code, it’s called opinionated software. When a user is manipulated for corporate interests, it is known as a dark pattern.
Software also has unintended consequences. Released into the wild, code propagates ideology in unpredictable and chaotic ways. Inevitably, it backfires, and innovation flows through human society, irrespective of, and indifferent to, political difference.
To what extent technology is informed by and produces belief systems has haunted me throughout my adult life.
It has caused me nightmares: dark conclusions on the nature of technology, prophecies of machine takeover and terrifying visions of the future of war.
It has also given me dreams. I believe it is within humanity’s power to reshape the narrative by which technology is formed. In doing so, it becomes possible to take back the reins of runaway technological innovation and re-orientate human destiny.
Crypto is at the front line of this struggle.
Open and shut?Open positions in bitcoin (BTC) options are at near-record levels,increasing to $2.1 billion Thursday. The number of bearish puts relative to bullish calls has recovered from -10.3% to -3% in the past four days, indicating traders are offloading much of their call options onto the market. This suggests bullish speculation is beginning to ease – a sign of investors anticipating consolidation or price drop, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole said.
Going wumboLND, a Lightning Network implementation from startup Lightning Labs, hasadopted support for wumbo channels. This SpongeBob Squarepants-themed standard removes a limit to the amount of bitcoin that can be held in a Lightning channel (currently 0.16777215 BTC) as well as limits on how large an individual payment (previously 0.04294967 BTC) can be, CoinDesk contributor Alyssa Hertig reports. Caps were placed to prevent catastrophic losses on this experimental protocol. ACINQ’s eclair and Blockstream’s c-lightning both adopted a form of wumbo earlier this year.
Not a spoofA little-discussed type of SIM card iscausing havoc for unsuspecting victims. “White SIMs make it extremely easy to conduct outgoing spoofed calls,” said Hartej Sawhney, Principal at cybersecurity agency Zokyo. “They are illegal basically everywhere.” These cards offer the ability to spoof any number, can be encrypted and in some cases allows the user’s voice to be altered and cloaked. Such SIM cards are favored by criminals, and they can make social engineering attacks like those that struck Twitter last month easier to execute, CoinDesk privacy reporter Ben Powers said.
BTC for officeWho are the mostpro-bitcoin politiciansrunning for office? The Breakdown dives deep on both sides of the aisle.
• Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s Weary Bulls, ETC’s Action Plan, INX’s IPO
• Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s Weary Bulls, ETC’s Action Plan, INX’s IPO
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 11064.46, 11296.36, 11384.18, 11555.36, 11425.90, 11429.51, 11495.35, 11322.12, 11358.10, 11483.36
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2020-05-14]
BTC Price: 9733.72, BTC RSI: 66.12
Gold Price: 1738.10, Gold RSI: 59.38
Oil Price: 27.56, Oil RSI: 56.38
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
First Mover: Bitcoin’s ‘Halving’ Is Coming Even Sooner Than You Realize: Bitcoiners planning around next week’s “halving” on the blockchain network need to keep checking their countdown clocks: Every time they look, it seems it’s coming a little sooner.
Last week, Michael Maloney, chief financial officer of Coinmint LLC, a Puerto Rico-based cryptocurrency mining company with operations in upstate New York, examined data from the Bitcoin blockchain and estimated the halving would take place around 1 a.m. New York time on Tuesday, May 12. But on Wednesday he looked again, and it now appears to be arriving on Monday around 7:45 p.m.
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Related:Blockchain Bites: Introducing the CoinDesk 50 and a Roadmap to Consensus: Distributed
The earlier arrival of the once-every-four-years event, which has engendered an almost cult-like obsession among some cryptocurrency bulls, is the product ofbitcoin’srecent price surge above $9,000, at a time when some computer operators on the network have already been pushing to upgrade to faster, more efficient machines.
The combination has led to anacceleration in the speed at which new blocks of data are confirmedon the distributed network.
“Bitcoin prices are up, so a ton of more people are putting on gear,” says Dave Perrill, CEO of Compute North, a cryptocurrency mining firm based in the Minneapolis area. “That’s why you’re seeing it get quicker.”
Bitcoin was launched in early 2009, in the wake of the last financial crisis, and next week’s halving will be the network’s third. Some investors say the event is acatalyst for higher prices, though in the past such rallies have played out over timeframes of months or even years, not instantaneously. Other analysts argue that the whole thing is overblown, and that it’s really justhype and speculationaround the halving that might drive prices higher.
Related:Bitcoin Outperforming Gold and Stocks so Far This Month
Whatever the case, the halving is marching ever closer – and apparently coming faster than most computer operators on the network, known as “miners,” had penciled in.
The halving is an arcane and automatic process built into the cryptocurrency’s 11-year-old design. When it happens, the number of bitcoin awarded to miners for helping to secure the distributed network gets cut in half. In next week’s halving, the number of bitcoin awarded per data block will drop to 6.25 from 12.5. At current prices levels, that represents a loss of about $58,000 in revenue per data block.
While such milestones are supposed to arrive roughly every four years, the actual date and time can vary based on the level of activity taking place on the underlying blockchain network. Officially, halvings happen after every 210,000 data blocks confirmed on the blockchain network; each block is supposed to take about 10 minutes, on average.
But a recent surge in the computing power devoted to the distributed network – known as hashrate – has sped up the creation of new data blocks. That, in turn, has accelerated the march toward the halving, officially set to take place at block number 630,000. As of Wednesday around 6 p.m. in New York, the network was at block 629,263.
In anticipation of the halving, miners have been upgrading their computers – “rigs” in the industry jargon – to newer models produced by manufacturers like China’s Bitmain and Canaan Inc.
It’s widely expected that most of Bitmain’s popular workhorse S9 models,considered state-of-the-art when they hit the market in 2016, will become obsolete after the halving. Since revenue will drop by half, miners will have to spend roughly twice as much on electricity just to get the same number of bitcoin.
In fact, according to Maloney, many of those older-generation mining rigs dropped off the network when prices plunged below $5,000 in March amid the coronavirus-induced sell-off.
But bitcoin has come roaring back, and it’s now up a staggering 30% in 2020, remarkable for a fresh-faced digital asset that the billionaire investorWarren Buffett described in February as having “no value.”Such returns arenearly three times the year-to-date gains for gold– a traditional inflation hedge that many investors have sought out as governments and central banks around the world announcedtrillions of dollarsof coronavirus-related aid and monetary stimulus. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks is down 12%, while the shares of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway are down 24%.
The price rally has made it profitable for the older-generation cryptocurrency mining rigs to come back online, squeezing out another week or more of profitability before the reduction in mining rewards hits.
“If the price action is positive, all the miners who can mine will be mining,” Coinmint’s Maloney said in a phone interview.
In the meantime, the anticipation and hype around the halving has continued to build within the cryptocurrency industry, especially with indications mounting that some institutional investors are considering bigger allocations to bitcoin; the implication is that demand for the digital tokens will continue to rise even as the pace of new supply gets cut in half.
“In my view, I see the halving as the start of the new supply-and-demand equilibrium,” Danny Scott, CEO of the six-year-old, U.K.-based bitcoin exchange CoinCorner, wrote Wednesday in an email. “The event itself can be compared to the likes of New Year’s Eve. There’s typically a big build up.”
Coin Metrics, a digital-asset investment firm, wrote Tuesday in an emailed report that while miners may face a steep drop in profitability, “for the majority of the crypto community, this is a fun, speculative exercise with relatively low stakes.”
Based on the recent trend, the fun looks to start sooner rather than later.
BTC: Price: $9,294 (BPI) | 24-Hr High: $9,408 | 24-Hr Low: $9,065
Trend: With mining reward halving just a few days away, bitcoin is eyeing notable gains above the resistance of the trendline falling from June 2019 and February 2020 highs.
At press time, the cryptocurrency is trading just above the trendline resistance (currently at $9,280), having found bids around $9,030 during the Asian trading hours.
The bulls have failed twice in the last week to keep gains above the 11-month trendline hurdle and another rejection looks likely if we consider the above-70 (overbought) reading on the 14-day relative strength index. In fact, the indicator is hovering at the highest level since June 2019.
However, other indicators are supportive of a continued rally. For instance, the positive reading on the Chaikin money flow shows buying pressure is stronger than selling pressure. The five- and 10-day averages are trending north, too, indicating strong bullish momentum.
The overbought reading on the RSI would become valid if and when the price chart shows signs of buyer exhaustion. Currently, the price chart looks constructive, with the lower wicks attached to the previous three daily candles indicating dip demand.
As a result, a convincing move above the long-term trendline hurdle looks likely. On the way higher, the cryptocurrency may encounter resistance at $9,485 (April 30 high), which, if breached, would shift the focus to $10,000.
The bias would turn bearish if the spot price drops below $8,528, the low of Monday’s long-legged doji candle. Most observers are of the opinion that fear of missing out, or FOMO, buying ahead of the reward halving, supposedly a price-bullish event, will likely ensure that price pullbacks, if any, will be short-lived.
• Blockchain Bites: Coinbase and BlockFi Make Big Hires, Tron Said to Get Coronavirus Relief
• First Mover: US Arms of Binance, FTX Push Into Margin Trading, but Likely Not at 100x || Iran Issues License for Nation’s Biggest Bitcoin Mining Operation: iMiner, a Turkey-based company, has been granted a license to mine cryptocurrencies in Iran.
Local news source Tabnak newsreported on April 28that iMiner has the green light from the nation’s Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade to operate up to 6,000 mining rigs in the city of Semnan.
The mining company has so far spent 311 billion rials ($7.3 million) on setting up the biggest mining operation in the country to date.
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Volatility Higher Than S&P 500 Again but Lower Than Oil
The ministry has also allowed the firm to begin offering cryptocurrency trading and custody from within the country, as per the report.
According to iMiner’s website, the company is the “first and largestbitcoinmining and extraction system in Iran” currently with 2,000 mining machines already hosted on its local site, with additional operations in Russia, Canada, Turkey and the U.S.
See also:Bitcoin in Emerging Markets: The Middle East
It comes at a time when interest for bitcoin mining is building and low subsidized Iranian power rates attract investment from countries like China and France as well as an increasing price in bitcoin’s market value.
Related:Bitcoin Briefly Hits $9K, Investors Remain Bullish
Up until mid-2019, the state sought tocrack down on mining operationsout of fear of cryptocurrency’s potential ability to undermine the national fiat currency, even threatening jail time for infractions.
However, Iran’s cabinet had a change of heart last July andintroduced legislationmaking crypto mining an official industrial activity. Since then, the mining ministry has been actively regulating the space,reportedly issuing around 1,000 licensesto local operations in January.
See also:How Bitcoin’s Price Slump Is Changing the Geography of Mining
The expansion of crypto mining operations can also be viewed as an attempt tocircumvent U.S. sanctionsthat have been hurting the country’s economy since long before U.S. President Donald Trump came to power.
Iran has been tackling with the issue of hyper-inflation as the country’s parliament and lawmakersvoted to amendthe Monetary and Banking Act of Iran on Monday, which would see the nation’s currency renamed as the toman, a unit worth about 10,000 rials.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Dips to $8.8K but Optimism Seen Continuing Ahead of Halving
• First Mover: Capitalism’s Biggest Crisis Isn’t Driving People to Bitcoin – It’s the Volatility || Letter from the Philippines: Life During Coronavirus: Leah Callon-Butler, a CoinDesk columnist, is the director of Emfarsis, a consulting firm focused on the role of technology in advancing economic development in Asia. About a week ago, my boyfriend and I stood in the kitchen and had a discussion about where we would hide a wad of cash if we were to drain our local bank account. The bookshelf was too obvious. Under the mattress was too cliché. I suggested a Ziplock bag in the freezer and he made a joke about freezing our assets. I followed with one about cold storage . While working in crypto often implies a predisposition for this kind of anti-establishment rhetoric, this is not the kind of conversation I ever thought I’d have in my lifetime. But in the Philippines, where we live, cash is still very much king. Not more than 4 percent of all financial transactions take place online, with that figure as low as 1 percent in provincial areas. Some digital payments services – such as GCash, PayMaya and crypto-enabled Coins.ph – have demonstrated great traction with the banked and unbanked alike, but they are still a long way from mass adoption. Related: How Financial Models Could Move Bitcoin’s Price After the Halving See also: Noelle Acheson – How I’m Coping With Spain’s Coronavirus Lockdown So, during a crisis, there is little substitute for cold hard cash. And it seems I’m not the only one a tad concerned. After President Rodrigo Duterte announced a one-month enhanced community quarantine , the CEO of Coins.ph took proactive measures to advance all employee salaries for March, citing some doubt the retail banking system could continue without disruption. It’s two weeks since that happened and everything here is shut down. All land, sea and air travel is restricted. All public transport is suspended, including Grab (our version of Uber or Lyft). All classes are suspended. The shopping malls are closed, only supermarkets and pharmacies remain open. Restaurants can do takeout but no dine-in. Only one person per household is allowed out at a time and you have to carry a slip from your local elected official to prove where you live. Police patrol the streets and armed military personnel guard the vehicle checkpoints. This isn’t the end of the world for we execs who are busy pimping our home office spaces and enjoying new WFH novelties, like wearing pajama pants to online meetings, taking daily arvo naps and gorging on quarantine treats piled high in our cupboards. It’s the less-privileged workers who are left wondering how they’re going to feed their families. Related: Zero Interest Rates Could Hamper the Stablecoin Business Story continues In a country where nearly one in five still live below the poverty line, the ability to pay up, cash out and stock up is a luxury reserved for a few. Small businesses account for nearly 98 percent of local firms in the Philippines and 35 percent of the workforce is in informal employment , so there are millions upon millions of people who earn their income in the sari-sari stores , barber shops and beauty salons. It’s the restaurant wait staff. The trike and jeepney drivers. The street food vendors who deliver your afternoon fishball fix or your late-night balut snack. The majority of these people live day to day with little to no savings to cushion the blow of a sharp and unexpected economic downturn. As such, there are concerns we will see a spike in crime, as desperate people resort to desperate measures. Word on the street is that our local supermarket was held up last Friday morning – and since they’ve been slammed by panic-buyers, I’m not surprised that an opportunist would make a run for those bulging cash registers – but I couldn’t find a media report to confirm it. Who we trust – and how readily we decide to accept their advice – is.. deeply subjective. There are other reports of looting circulating on social media, but the Philippine National Police say they are all fake news , and, in fact, crime rates have gone down since everyone is staying at home. Perhaps it really is fake news. Or maybe the police are suppressing information in an attempt to curb the growing levels of public anxiety. Or maybe they don’t want to give people ideas. Or maybe it’s a little bit of column A, B and C. As we settle deeper into quarantine life, and the voices of nervous community folk get louder and louder, it’s getting harder to separate the legitimate information from the fear-mongering nonsense… Eat more bananas if you don’t want to catch the coronavirus. Stock up on alcohol because a liquor ban is coming. Look up to the sky at midnight because that’s when the planes are going to fly over and spray us all with pesticides. Just last week, the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs tweeted that “all previously issued Philippine visas to foreign nationals are deemed cancelled.” This sent me (and apparently plenty of others) into a tailspin, thinking I was about to be kicked out of the country I’ve called home for nearly two years! But when I double-checked the details with my embassy and the Bureau of Immigration, they said there would be no impact on foreigners already in the country. It was only applicable to new entrants. I was fine to stay. With tensions at an all-time high, and so much information flying at us from every angle, every second of the day, it’s as easy to misinterpret information as it is to miscommunicate it. I used to think I was pretty good at separating fact from fiction. But over the last couple weeks, I’ve become less sure. Who we trust – and how readily we decide to accept their advice – is a deeply subjective phenomenon that shapes the way we respond to the world around us. And during times of calamity, when everything is turned on its head, we may find ourselves rethinking our earlier methods of deduction. See also: Callon-Butler – Coronavirus Is a Catalyst for Work-From-Home Tech Case in point: I’d previously scoffed at the idea of flying pesticides. But then, a friend of mine (who lives nearby me) posted these photos on Facebook of an unidentified person who came around her neighborhood – unannounced – and sprayed all the houses with something that smelled like bleach. Then, this week, the local mayor stepped it up a notch again, sending a misting truck to drive around the city on a disinfectant blitz, spraying all public roads and thoroughfares as a preventative measure to stop the spread of COVID-19. Much to my dismay, there was also plenty of truth behind the rumor about a ban on booze. Last week, when I went downstairs to buy some milk at the convenience store (thankfully, the one at the bottom of our building is still open), I found the sales staff removing all the liquor bottles from the shelves and packing them into boxes. I asked if I could buy some and a staffer said, “Sorry ma’am, we can’t sell alcohol anymore.” Sure enough, my town is now dry. I can’t even get any grog tacked onto a home delivery food order. Which wouldn’t be much good to me anyway, if all the ATMs turned up empty. I’d struggle to buy anything at all because the vast majority of food vendors and delivery drivers outside Metro Manila are cash only. Crypto would be awesome in this situation (especially since twice as many Filipinos have smartphones than they do bank accounts). But I haven’t yet met any provincial locals willing to accept it. In the meantime, I’m wondering what will be the tipping point when suddenly I’m making a beeline for the ATM, and, as the fake news says, stocking up on bananas. Related Stories Bitcoin Ends Q1 Down 10%, Outperforming Equities in Coronavirus Crisis Crypto-Powered Internet Helps Rural Residents Work From Home During Coronavirus View comments || As Crypto Prices Reeled in Q1, These Coins Stood Out: The first quarter of 2020 will be remembered as a period when the coronavirus-led uncertainty set off a liquidity crisis in financial markets, forcing investors to sell everything, including bitcoin (BTC). The top cryptocurrency, often touted as a safe haven , fell by 10 percent in the first three months of 2020. While the cryptocurrency eked out 30 percent gains in January amid the U.S.-Iran tensions, it could not withstand the bearish pressures emanating from the global dash for cash in March. Related: Bitcoin Enters Historically Strong Quarter With 3% Price Gain The broader crypto market also suffered losses in the first quarter, as evidenced from the 5 percent decline in the total market capitalization, according to TradingView . However, a few cryptocurrencies including the privacy coin dash and link, the native token of decentralized oracle network Chainlink, managed to put in a positive performance. Even the most actively traded cryptocurrencies have thin volumes compared to traditional assets like stocks and bonds, so ascribing market movements to fundamentals remains a tricky exercise in this young, speculative market. However, developments such as evidence of real-world adoption or new business partnerships may have played a role in these coins’ gains. See also: How Financial Models Could Move Bitcoin’s Price After the Halving The following are notable winners and losers of the first quarter among 19 major assets featured in the forthcoming CoinDesk Quarterly Review. The list is curated to exclude cryptocurrencies with less than 12 months of trading history, and daily trading volume of less than $5 million. The list does not include stablecoins. CoinDesk Research will publish the Q1 edition of the Review this month. Winners Related: Bitcoin Takes Tumble, Traders Fret Correlation and Next Month’s Halving Dash Quarterly performance: +63 percent Rank by market capitalization: 19 Market capitalization: $606 million Current price: $64 Story continues Dash (dash), the 19th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, jumped nearly 63 percent to register its best quarterly performance since the final quarter of 2017, according to data source Messari Pro. Back then, the privacy-focused cryptocurrency had rallied by a staggering 217 percent amid the bull market frenzy in the crypto markets. The latest quarterly gain is largely the result of January’s stellar 180 percent price rise. While the majority of prominent cryptocurrencies outperformed bitcoin’s 30 percent rise in January, dash went a step further by scoring triple-digit gains, possibly due to increased adoption in Venezuela’s hyperinflated economy. “Dash established meaningful collaborations with international brands including Burger King in Venezuela and Germany. These collaborations, coupled with lower transaction costs and a faster transaction experience than bitcoin, further promote dash’s narrative of day-to-day usability,” said Nemo Qin, an analyst at the multi-asset investment platform eToro. The team behind dash has certainly been pushing that narrative. “Venezuela is now the world’s leading market for crypto adoption,” Ernesto Contreras, the chief of the Dash Core Group, declared in a blog post on Jan.11. See also: Bitcoin All-Time High in 2020? Chances Are Only 4%, Options Market Signals Some observers, however, challenged the dash community’s claim of massive adoption, accusing the cryptocurrency’s Venezuelan team of fabricating merchant usage numbers. Peter McCormack, host of the What Bitcoin Did podcast, said in February that Dash was exploiting Venezuela with propaganda. Ryan Taylor, CEO of Dash Core Group countered skeptics with a detailed post outlining dash’s increasing usage in Venezuela. Taylor’s assurances, however, did not stop the cryptocurrency from taking a hit in February and March alongside sharp losses in bitcoin. The cryptocurrency fell 23 percent in March, but still ended the quarter with outsized gains. Link Quarterly performance: +31.5 percent Rank by market capitalization: 14 Market capitalization: $2 billion Current price: $2.24 Link, the 14th largest cryptocurrency, closed the first quarter with 31.5 percent gains, having put in dismal performances in the preceding two quarters. At one point, in early March, the native cryptocurrency of the Chainlink network was trading at record highs above $5.00, representing a staggering 200 percent year-to-date gain. “Chainlink is benefitting from the shift in focus from base layer smart contracts like Ethereum to oracles, which began in 2019,” Vance Spencer, co-founder of Framework Ventures, a blockchain technology company, said in early March. A decentralized oracle network built on top of Ethereum, Chainlink connects smart contracts to real-world data, events and payments. An oracle is a third-party information source, whose sole purpose is to supply data to blockchains. So for example, if two users bet on the outcome of a soccer match, the oracle will tell the smart contract which team won, so it can pay the winning bettor. Chainlink has made encouraging noises over the last 12 months or so with multiple partnerships that look like the product of relentless business development and go-to-market strategy, as noted by Spencer Noon, head of crypto investments at DTC Capital. Recently, decentralized finance (DeFi) platform bZx integrated Chainlink’s solutions recently following the major hack in February. Meanwhile, Celsius Network, a crypto lending and borrowing platform, announced on Monday that it has entered into a partnership with Chainlink to strengthen the security and reliability of its services. Losers VET Quarterly performance: -39 percent Rank by market capitalization: 36 Market capitalization: $262 million Current price: $0.0030 VeChain’s VET token fell by 39 percent in the January-March period, erasing the rise from $0.0035 to $0.0055 seen in the final quarter of 2019. The first quarter began on a positive note, with the cryptocurrency rising 10 percent in January. The gains, however, were significantly less than the broader market, as indicated by the total market capitalization, which rose by 35 percent. VET remained on the back foot in February, having underperformed in the first month, and took a beating in March as the broader market collapsed with the sell-off in bitcoin. The cryptocurrency hit a record low of 0.0014 on the Binance exchange on March 13 and ended the month with a 43 percent loss. VeChain is a blockchain-enabled platform designed to enhance supply chain management processes and has a strong presence in China. The coronavirus outbreak in China in January and February and across Europe and in the U.S. in March hurt VeChain’s business activity. However, no projects were canceled due to the pandemic, according to a VeChain Foundation blog post. See also: Bitcoin’s Recent Recovery Won’t Salvage a Terrible Month for Prices The foundation announced on March 31 about a collaboration with Shanghai Gas (Group) Co., Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shenergy Group Company Limited with registered capital of 4.2 billion renminbi ($57 million), to develop a blockchain-enabled energy project. NEO Quarterly performance: -20 percent Rank by market capitalization: 22 Market capitalization: $631 million Current price : $6.63 NEO (NEO), which fell 20 percent in the first quarter, is also based in China. The sentiment around “China’s Ethereum” had turned bullish in the final three months of 2019, mainly due to President Xi Jinping’s decision to embrace blockchain technology. The cryptocurrency rallied 14 percent in the October to December period, despite bitcoin’s 13.6 percent drop, only to surrender gains in the first quarter of 2020. Related Stories Online Black Markets’ Bitcoin Revenues Take a Hit Amid Pandemic Bitcoin Ends Q1 Down 10%, Outperforming Equities in Coronavirus Crisis || US County Extends Rule Making Bitcoin Mining Firms Invest in Renewable Energy: Officials in Missoula County, Montana, are considering turning a temporary measure for bitcoin mining operations – that offsets energy consumption with renewables – into a permanent fixture. The Missoula County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to extend a measure to reduce the environmental effects of high-energy-consumption mining operations by another year, until April 3, 2021. That followed a consultation period in which 47 members of the public commented in support of the motion, according to a report by the Missoulian Friday. Under its zoning regulations, Missoula County requires all mining operations – drawn to the area because of its cheap electricity – to either purchase or build renewable sources of energy that completely offset the electricity they consume. The measure also restricts mining operations to designated industrial districts. Related: Riot Blockchain Says Coronavirus Outbreak Might Hurt Crypto Mining Farms The yearlong extension will provide officials with time to consider making the measure permanent. “We are continuing to investigate this issue and this zoning and may ultimately propose it as permanent zoning,” said Jennie Dixon of Missoula’s community and planning services. See also: A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day The original measure came after local residents voiced concern s about the power spikes caused by newly arrived mining farms, and was passed as part of a resolution last April that committed the county to operate completely on clean renewable energy by 2030. The requirements don’t apply to miners operating before the resolution was passed, so long as they don’t then scale up their operations. At the time, one official complained about the “grotesque amount of energy” consumed by HyperBlock, a bitcoin mining company that reportedly used as much electricity as a third of all homes in the county. The company complained the measures were aimed at them and risked driving them out of business. Story continues Related: Aspiring CME Director Wants Exchange to Mine Bitcoin and Issue Tokens Officials denied the measures were intended to target any one business in particular. During a public hearing Thursday, supporters of the measure said crypto mining placed greater demands on the energy grid, making the county dependent on fossil fuels and accelerating climate change. The attorney representing HyperBlock denied the company was “in any way contributing to climate change in our jurisdiction.” See also: Miners Are Selling More Bitcoin Than They Are Mining Commissioner Dave Strohmaier said the decision on whether to make the motion permanent or not will depend on whether energy demand in 2020 can be met by renewables. It is likely to become permanent if the county has to increase its reliance on fossil fuels, he said. Related Stories Singapore Temporarily Exempts Crypto Firms, Including Coinbase, From New Licensing Regime Bitcoin Price Decline Prompts US Mining Firm to Shut Down ‘Indefinitely’ || Crypto M&A and Fundraising Dropped Sharply in 2019: PwC Report: Crypto companies kept buying each other last year even as both M&A and funding deal flow in the industry took a dive, according to a report released Monday by PwC. On the M&A side, crypto-native acquirers took 56 percent of the deal flow, compared to 42 percent in 2018. The total number of M&A deals flagged by the report dropped from 189 in 2018 to 114 last year, while the value of M&A deals dropped by a whopping 76 percent from $1.9 billion to $451 million. Larger companies were able to eat up ones that provided services that were ancillary to their own, PwC Global Crypto Lead Henri Arslanian told CoinDesk in an interview. Related: Makers of Keep Protocol Raise $7.7M to Bring Trustless BTC to DeFi “I think we should expect some of the big players to get bigger, but not by buying direct competitors,” Arslanian said. “Not by becoming vertically bigger but by becoming horizontally bigger. Unicorns are becoming more like octopuses where they have their hands in various areas of the crypto ecosystem.” Meanwhile, the declines on the fundraising side of the report weren’t quite as stark. Post-seed rounds took up eight percentage points more of overall fundraising deals in 2019, a sign of the sector’s maturation. “I think that’s something we should expect to see as well, as the industry matures, there will be enough deal flow and there will be enough exits as well to allow many of the crypto VCs to be successful,” he said. Fundraising overall decreased by 40 percent to $2.24 billion and the number of deals dropped by 122. Equity fundraising decreased by less, showing only an 18 percent drop. The rise of bitcoin in the second and third quarter of 2019 didn’t stave off the funding drop, and the industry should assume going into 2020 that the global economic downturn will further affect funding deals, the report said. Related: ‘They Have the Users’: Binance CEO Explains Why He Bought CoinMarketCap Last year did see a doubling of corporate venture capital involvement, taking up 6 percent of the deals. As clear regulatory frameworks in Europe and Asia begin to develop, more institutional players are taking notice. Family offices with long-term investment strategies that Arslanian advises continue to show more interest in crypto over time, he said. Story continues The type of companies receiving investment also changed year-to-year. In 2018, most VC funding went to blockchain infrastructure projects while crypto compliance and regulatory companies saw the most investment in 2019. Deal flow is also moving away from the Americas and towards Asia and Europe, which increased their deal share by eight and six percentage points, respectively. Last year was the first year most of the crypto fundraising and M&A deals happened outside of the U.S. Companies looking for new institutional clients are flocking to Hong Kong while firms looking for a retail audience are considering Singapore’s new regulatory framework, Arslanian added. “We’ve definitely seen a number of the large players from the U.S. and from Europe really look at Asia not only from an expansion perspective but also as a point of fundraising from strategic investors,” he said. Read the full report below: Related Stories Investors in Polychain Capital’s Crypto Hedge Fund Saw 1,332% Gains – If They Stomached the Dips VC Deals in Crypto Remained Steady but Amount Invested Fell in 2019: Report || Morning Market Stats in 5 Minutes: Movers Indices
• S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:SPY) rose 0.78% to $285.09.
• Nasdaq ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ) increased 1.06% to $216.10.
• Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSE:DIA) increased 0.49% to $238.96.
• FTSE/Xinhua China 25 ETF (NYSE:FXI) increased 1.28% to $38.65.
• FTSE Europe ETF (NYSE:VGK) rose 0.60% to $44.95.
Commodities
• United States Oil ETF (NYSE:USO) decreased 12.23% to $2.26.
• Gold ETF (NYSE:GLD) fell 0.50% to $161.88.
Bonds
• 20+ Yr Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ:TLT) fell 0.68% to $169.69.
Industries
• Retail ETF (NYSE:XRT) increased 1.10% to $34.91.
• Energy (NYSE:XLE) decreased 0.98% to $34.24.
• Technology (NYSE:XLK) increased 0.76% to $89.27.
• Financial (NYSE:XLF) increased 0.94% to $21.94.
Stocks Higher
• Home Depot (NYSE:HD) rose 1.93% to $216.35.
• Shinhan Financial Group (NYSE:SHG) rose 9.82% to $24.32.
• Avadel Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AVDL) rose 28.81% to $12.66.
Stocks Lower
• Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) decreased 0.85% to $280.56.
• Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) fell 7.64% to $12.76.
• Verastem (NASDAQ:VSTM) fell 38.93% to $2.52.
Top News
• Benzinga Pro's Top 5 Stocks To Watch For Mon., Apr. 27, 2020: MMM, SSYS, SBUX, BOX, PLUGhttps://www.benzinga.com/pre-market-outlook/20/04/15883510/benzinga-pros-top-5-stocks-to-watch-for-mon-apr-27-2020-mmm-ssys-sbux-box-plug
• 81 Biggest Movers From Fridayhttps://www.benzinga.com/news/20/04/15881943/81-biggest-movers-from-friday
• Another Chinese Bitcoin Mining Device Maker Files To Go Public In UShttps://www.benzinga.com/markets/cryptocurrency/20/04/15881370/another-chinese-bitcoin-mining-device-maker-files-to-go-public-in-us
• Earnings Scheduled For April 27, 2020https://www.benzinga.com/news/earnings/20/04/15881781/earnings-scheduled-for-april-27-2020
• 33 Stocks Moving in Monday's Pre-Market Session https://www.benzinga.com/news/20/04/15882925/33-stocks-moving-in-mondays-pre-market-session
Upcoming Earnings
• Cathay General (NASDAQ:CATY) is expected to release earnings for Q1. In the same quarter last year, they reported an earnings per share of $0.83 and revenue of $156,237,000. Analysts expect the revenue to be around $146,240,000 and the earnings per share at $0.67.
• Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) will release earnings today for Q1. Last year, for the same quarter, they reported an EPS of $0.17 and revenue of $173,484,000. Analysts predict the revenue to be around $157,370,000 and the EPS to be at $0.08.
• Crane (NYSE:CR) is expected to release earnings for Q1. In the same quarter last year, they reported an earnings per share of $1.45 and revenue of $831,700,000. Analysts expect the revenue to be around $820,760,000 and the earnings per share at $1.25.
Earnings Recap
• Armstrong World Indus (NYSE:AWI) released earnings for Q1, lower than analyst estimates. They reported an EPS of $1.1, and revenue of 248,700,000. In the same quarter last year, they reported an earnings per share of $1.1 and revenue of $242,100,000.
See more from Benzinga
• Stocks That Hit 52-Week Highs On Monday
• Recap: Armstrong World Industries Q1 Earnings
• Afternoon Market Stats in 5 Minutes
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || SHAREHOLDER ALERT: CAN INO NCLH: The Law Offices of Vincent Wong Reminds Investors of Important Class Action Deadlines: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / April 27, 2020 / The Law Offices of Vincent Wong announce that class actions have commenced on behalf of certain shareholders in the following companies. If you suffered a loss you have until the lead plaintiff deadline to request that the court appoint you as lead plaintiff. There will be no obligation or cost to you. Canaan Inc. ( CAN ) If you suffered a loss, contact us at: http://www.wongesq.com/pslra-1/canaan-inc-loss-submission-form?prid=6206&wire=1 Lead Plaintiff Deadline: May 4, 2020 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. Allegations against CAN include 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. Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ( INO ) If you suffered a loss, contact us at: http://www.wongesq.com/pslra-1/inovio-pharmaceuticals-inc-loss-submission-form?prid=6206&wire=1 Lead Plaintiff Deadline: May 12, 2020 Class Period: February 14, 2020 to March 9, 2020 According to a filed complaint, throughout the class period, defendants made misleading statements about the company's development of a purported vaccine for the novel coronavirus, artificially inflating the company's share price and resulting in significant investor losses. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. ( NCLH ) If you suffered a loss, contact us at: http://www.wongesq.com/pslra-1/norwegian-cruise-line-holdings-ltd-loss-submission-form?prid=6206&wire=1 Lead Plaintiff Deadline: May 11, 2020 Class Period: February 20, 2020 to March 12, 2020 Story continues Allegations against NCLH include that: (1) the Company was employing sales tactics of providing customers with unproven and/or blatantly false statements about COVID-19 to entice customers to purchase cruises, thus endangering the lives of both their customers and crew members; and (2) as a result, Defendants' statements regarding the Company's business and operations were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. To learn more contact Vincent Wong, Esq. either via email vw@wongesq.com or by telephone at 212.425.1140. Vincent Wong, Esq. is an experienced attorney who has represented investors in securities litigations involving financial fraud and violations of shareholder rights. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. CONTACT: Vincent Wong, Esq. 39 East Broadway Suite 304 New York, NY 10002 Tel. 212.425.1140 Fax. 866.699.3880 E-Mail: vw@wongesq.com SOURCE: The Law Offices of Vincent Wong View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/587220/SHAREHOLDER-ALERT-CAN-INO-NCLH-The-Law-Offices-of-Vincent-Wong-Reminds-Investors-of-Important-Class-Action-Deadlines || US Says Venezuelan President Maduro Hid Massive Drug Ring Proceeds in Crypto: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro tapped crypto to conceal transactions related to illicit drug-running, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged in anindictment Thursday.
The sweeping charges against Maduro and 14 other Venezuelan officials are primarily targeted at stopping an alleged multibillion-dollar cocaine trafficking ring the DOJ claimed wreaked havoc on American communities for over 20 years. It allegedly involved drug runners, Colombian revolutionaries and narco-terrorism.
Venezuela’s crypto superintendent, Joselit Ramirez Camacho, 33, was also indicted in a separate action in the Southern District of New York.
Related:Alleged Mastermind of Sex Abuse Chatrooms Hid Payments With Privacy Coin Monero
In the indictment’s accompanying press release, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Acting Executive Associate Director Alysa D. Erichs said the conspiracy used crypto to cloak their alleged crimes.
“Today’s announcement highlights HSI’s global reach and commitment to aggressively identify, target and investigate individuals who violate U.S. laws, exploit financial systems and hide behind cryptocurrency to further their illicit criminal activity. Let this indictment be a reminder that no one is above the law – not even powerful political officials.”
The release does not name what cryptocurrency is involved. However, Venezuela notably maintains an oil-backed cryptocurrency called thepetro. That project is regulated by Venezuela’s National Superintendent for Cryptoassets and Related Activities,Sunacrip.
Camacho is Sunacrip’s head.
• Canadians Get US Jail Time for Stealing 23 Bitcoin in Twitter Scam
• Baidu Employee Jailed for Mining Crypto on 200 Company Servers
• US Woman Gets 13 Years in Jail After Funding ISIS With Cryptocurrency || Bitcoin Options Trading Hits One-Month High as Price Turns Bullish: Activity in the bitcoin options market picked up pace on Thursday, as bitcoin’s price jumped above $7,000 and opened the doors for stronger gains ahead of the next month’s reward halving.
Daily trading volume inbitcoinoptions listed on major exchanges – Deribit, LedgerX, Bakkt, OKEx, and CME – rose to $86.4 million on Thursday, the highest since March 16, according to data provided by crypto derivatives research firm Skew.
Netherland-based Deribit, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange by options volume, contributed more than 85 percent of the total daily trading volume. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which is synonymous with institutional activity, traded $832,000 worth of options contracts, a meager 1 percent of the global volume.
Related:Bram Cohen: ‘Getting Rich Is a Terrible Metric of Success’
Aggregate open interest or number of outstanding option contracts also ticked higher to $642.3 million on Thursday, having bottomed out below $400 million in March.
Meanwhile, bitcoin’s price printed a high of $7,200 and closed Thursday with a 4.5 percent gain, its biggest single-day rise since April 6, according to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index.
Importantly, the top cryptocurrency by the market value found acceptance above key average resistance at $7,000.
The breakout has revived thestalled uptrendfrom March lows and could fuel a rise toward $8,000 in the days leading up to the May 2020 halving. The event will reduce rewards per block mined on bitcoin’s blockchain by 50 percent to 6.25 BTC.
Related:Market Wrap: Crypto Mining Stock Hut 8 Jumps on Unusually High Trading Volume
Read more:Bitcoin Halving, Explained
Some observers expect the impending supply cutto bode well for bitcoin’s price. “Next month’s halving should serve as acatalyst for more bullish medium to long term price action,” said Lennard Neo,head of research at Stack.
Options market activity, however, suggests investors are making bets (buying put options), possibly tohedge againsta potential post-halving price drop or another March-likemacro-driven crashin the crypto markets.
The increased demand for put options is reflected in the rise of the put-call open interest ratio to a seven-week high of 0.63, according to Skew data.
Further, one-month, three-month, and six-month25-delta skews are reporting positive values at press time – a sign that putsare claiming higher prices or drawing stronger demand than calloptions.
A put option gives the holder the right, but not the obligation to sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. Meanwhile, a call option represents the right to buy.
Also Read:Options Market Signals Doubt Bitcoin Price Will Rise After Halving
It remains to be seen if halving powers strong gains in bitcoin. Meanwhile, stocks look to havebottomed outon the back of the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented monetary stimulus. Bitcoin, therefore, could remain better bid in the days leading up to the event.
At press time, bitcoin is changing hands near $7,100, representing little change on the day. It is, however, up more than 80 percent from the low of $3,867 registered on March 13.
Meanwhile. traditional markets are reporting an improved risk appetite. Futures tied to the S&P 500 are up over 2 percent alongside impressive gains in the European equities.
Risk assets picked up a bid in Asia after media outletsreportedthat the University of Chicago Medicine researchers are seeing “rapid recoveries” in 125 coronavirus patients taking remdesivir – an experimental drug from US-based Gilead Sciences.
With stocks reporting solid gains, bitcoin could extend Thursday’s gain by rising toward recent highs above $7,400.
Disclosure:The author currently holds no cryptocurrencies.
• Bitcoin Halving Searches on Google Hits All-Time Highs
• First Mover: Stablecoin Surge Might Herald Bitcoin Binge
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 9328.20, 9377.01, 9670.74, 9726.58, 9729.04, 9522.98, 9081.76, 9182.58, 9209.29, 8790.37
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Hate MLPs? 2 Smart Alternatives to Invest In Midstream Infrastructure: When you look at the investment options in the midstream oil and natural gas space, the field is chock-full of master limited partnerships. That makes sense, since these companies are structured to throw off tax-advantaged income to unitholders from the largely stable, fee-based assets they own.
But there are other options, and they pay dividends too. If you don't want to own an MLP like industry bellwetherEnterprise Products Partners L.P.(NYSE: EPD), then take a look atONEOK, Inc.(NYSE: OKE)orCorrEnergy Infrastructure Trust, Inc.(NYSE: CORR).
There's nothing inherently wrong with owning units of a master limited partnership like Enterprise. In fact, this large and well-run energy infrastructure company has been rewarding investors for years with distribution increases. The streak is up to an impressive 21 years worth of annual hikes. The yield today is also notable, at 6.9% -- largely because the midstream sector is out of favor today.
Image source: Getty Images
However, there are reasons you might not want to invest in an MLP. Enterprise is a pass-through entity, so unitholders get treated as if they were owners. All of the profits and losses flow through on a pro-rata basis to unitholders. This is good in that it allows MLPs to pay substantial distributions, and benefits like depreciation pass through to the unitholder, so the distributions normally have a tax shield associated with them. But figuring all of this out is complex and requiresa separate tax form known as a K-1. Owning an LP might actually require you to get an accountant to figure all of this out.
Moreover, since you are treated as an owner, you technically should be paying tax in every state in which the partnerships you own operates, though most investors do not. Additionally, because of the MLP structure, partnerships like Enterprisegenerate a type of income that creates problems for tax advantaged retirement accountslike IRAs. It is best to avoid putting an MLP in a retirement account. In the end, the income is nice, but the headaches that come along with MLPs are not.
Not all midstream pipeline companies are structured as partnerships, however. For example, ONEOK is just a regular company. It had an MLP that it controlled, but ONEOK decided to buy it out andabsorb its assets into ONEOK's operations in 2017. Income investors shouldn't pass this company over just because it isn't a midstream MLP: ONEOK offers a robust 5.4% dividend yield. And that dividend has been increased for 16 consecutive years. Those are pretty desirable stats.
[{"Company": "Enterprise Products Partners L.P.", "Structure": "MLP", "Yield": "6.9%", "Market Cap": "$52 billion"}, {"Company": "ONEOK, Inc.", "Structure": "Regular Corporation", "Yield": "5.4%", "Market Cap": "$23 billion"}, {"Company": "CorrEnergy Infrastructure Trust, Inc.", "Structure": "REIT", "Yield": "8%", "Market Cap": "$440 million"}]
Source: Yahoo! Finance.
A key difference here is that you avoid all of the tax headaches associated with the MLP structure, and those dreaded K-1 tax statements. The normal tax forms you receive from your broker will be all you get, and enough to complete your taxes in a timely fashion (K-1s have a habit of showing up at the last possible moment). And you can put ONEOK in a tax advantaged account like an IRA without fear of upsetting Uncle Sam. Or, better yet, you could put it in a Roth IRA and avoid taxes on the income you generate altogether.
The only wrinkle here, and it's a small one, is that ONEOK pays corporate taxes. That means your dividends could be subject to double taxation -- once at the company level and then again when you receive them. Even if you own this company in a Roth IRA, avoiding the taxes you have to pay on the income, the IRS is still getting a take of the profits in the form of corporate taxes.
Which is where one final corporate structure comes into play:a real estate investment trust(REIT) like CorrEnergy. This is a unique structure, in that the company owns assets and rents them to customers who operate them and pay all of the expenses to maintain them. Enterprise and ONEOK own assets and operate them, with their customers paying for the use of the pipes and facilities. It seems a subtle difference, but it is an important one.
As an REIT, CorrEnergy passes income through to investors without paying income tax on it. If it operated the assets it wouldn't be able to do that. But think about this for a moment: the only tax that gets collected is from investors, who treat the dividends as regular income. But if you put CorrEnergy into a Roth IRA, you would effectively cut Uncle Sam out of the equation and avoid paying any taxes on the dividends CorrEnergy pays -- no corporate taxes, and no personal income taxes. And CorrEnergy throws off a lot of income, offering investors an 8% yield.
CORR Dividend Per Share (Quarterly)data byYCharts
What is most interesting about CorrEnergy, however, is that this relatively small REIT managed through the deep oil downturn that started in mid-2014 without too much trouble. This is a big deal, because it survived the bankruptcy of a key customer without being forced to cut its dividend. Effectively, the downturn was a stress test that proved this company's unique model for owning energy infrastructure. The pipelines CorrEnergy rents to energy companies are vital arteries that allow them to get their product to market. These pipes can't be replaced, so the companies have little choice but to keep paying rent, even when they are going through difficult times.
In the end, if you are looking to invest in the midstream energy business you don't have to be locked into master limited partnerships like Enterprise Products Partners. You have other options. That includes regular corporations like ONEOK and tax-advantaged structures like REITs such as CorrEnergy. All three of these structures tend to pay sizable distributions in the energy infrastructure space, with unique advantages and disadvantages to each depending on where you choose to own them. Now that you have a broader view of the options in the energy infrastructure space you can make a more informed decision about how you want to invest in the sector.
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Reuben Gregg Brewerhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends ONEOK. The Motley Fool recommends Enterprise Products Partners. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Bitcoin Continues Its Death Cross Sell-Off: Bitcoin was lower on Friday. Investing.com - Bitcoin and other virtual currencies declined on Friday amid increased concern of a death cross, in a thinly traded holiday. Bitcoin was trading at $6,945.00, dipping 7.83% as of 6:56 AM ET (10:56 GMT) the Bitfinex exchange, not far from its overnight low of $6,692.20 The decline in Bitcoin was driven by talk of a so-called death cross, which is a term used to describe a crossover of the 50-day moving average and the longer-term 200-day moving average. Technicians often look at this pattern as a bearish sign of what's to come. Increased regulation and a fall in prices has also contributed to an investor sell-off as interest in virtual coins wanes. Total cryptocurrency market cap has fallen almost below $260 billion, according to data from coinmarketcap.com, the lowest point since November 2017. Markets in Europe and the U.S. were closed on Friday for the Easter holiday weekend. Trading is expected to be thin as a result. Meanwhile, email servicing firm MailChimp has banned users that are involved in the production, sale, exchange, storage, or marketing of cryptocurrencies. Information about virtual currencies can still be sent, the company said. The automated email service is just the latest technology company to ban cryptocurrency related content. Twitter, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) have also taken steps to ban digital currency related ads, especially for Initial Coin Offerings. Other virtual currencies were also down, with rival Ethereum, the worlds second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, falling 6.01% to $387.47 on the Bitfinex exchange. Ripple, the third largest virtual currency, slumped 6.87% to $0.49961 while LiteCoin was at $116.61, down 1.80%. Related Articles N Korea Might Be Involved in Youbit Attack, S Korea Police Say Wall Street Bitcoin Bull Says Buy And HODL Despite Slump KIN Project by Kik Announces Gaming Partnership || Bitcoin $10,000 – This weekend or next?: Bitcoin gained 4.74% on Saturday, reversing Friday’s 4.1% fall, to end the day at $9,342.9. The week’s see-saw continuing, with Bitcoin having been unable to string 2 consecutive days of gains together since Monday and Tuesday’s moves that ultimately ended in a reversal on Wednesday.
In spite of the intraweek falls, the good news is that Bitcoin has managed to gain 6.3% for the current week, Monday through Friday and, more importantly, break back through to $9,000 levels and get ever closer to the much talked about $10,000.
Bitcoin’s intraday high $9,500 and low $8,750 came within the same minute through the early part of the morning, Bitcoin managing to reverse the slide through the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $8,996 to resume the upward momentum and hit a post spike high $9,437.6 before easing back to $9,342.9 by the day’s end.
For the Bitcoin bulls in search of $10,000, hitting $9,500 and ending the day above the first major resistance level of $9,216.87 was key, the first part of the weekend rally coming good, the next step being Bitcoin avoiding yet another reversal that has been the trend through much of the week.
The prospects of a Bitcoin Cash hard fork that is expected to deliver a competitive edge over Bitcoin has yet to be reflected in market appetite for the market barometer, though competition is certainly building, with Litecoin also being increasingly used as a payment alternative to fiat money.
Saturday’s gains continued to support the bullish trend formed at 6thApril’s swing lo $6,500.2, while Bitcoin lags Bitcoin Cash for the week, Bitcoin up 6.3% compared with Bitcoin Cash’s 16.9% rally.
Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up 1.01% to $9,440, with the Saturday rally continuing in the early part of the day.
A start of the day $9,565.1 high saw Bitcoin test the day’s first major resistance level of $9,645.27 before pulling back to $9,400 levels, the pullback considered relatively mild by normal standards to support a positive move through the morning.
A move back through the day’s high would support a run at the 2ndresistance level of $9,947.63 that should get the cryptomarkets particularly bullish, Bitcoin’s last attempt at $10,000 being thwarted at the 24thApril’s swing hi $9,767.4.
While Bitcoin may be considered the market barometer, Bitcoin will likely find direction from Bitcoin Cash, another solid rally likely to be a positive for Bitcoin and ultimately the broader markets, any pullback attributed to profit taking rather than a shift in sentiment towards Bitcoin and the cryptomarket in general.
A pullback later in the day could see Bitcoin fall to test the day’s first major support level of $8,895.27, though we will expect Bitcoin to hold at $9,000 levels going into the new week that would continue to support the bullish trend formed at 6thApril’s swing lo $6,500.2
Elsewhere, Bitcoin Cash was up 3.88%, while Waves led the way amongst the majors, up 21.1%, with Monero’s XMR and DASH the only majors to buck the trend early, down 1.52% and 0.17%.
Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Ethereum rallies during the week
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• Stocks Finish Mixed as Investors Struggle with Valuation Concerns, Rising Rates and Economic Data
• Gold Firms on Weaker Dollar, but Finishes Week Down Over 1-Percent
• EUR/USD Fundamental Analysis – week of April 30, 2018
• DAX Index Fundamental Analysis – week of April 30, 2018 || The Estonian bank that works with TransferWise and Coinbase is opening in the UK to catch the 'second wave of fintech': TransferWise
• Estonian bank LHV is launching in the UK.
• The bank plans to work with fintech businesses and already works with TransferWise and Coinbase.
• LHV's UK head is predicting a "second wave" of fintech driven by Open Banking reforms.
LONDON — Estonian bank LHV is opening a UK branch in a bid to win more financial technology business in what it's CEO believes is "the fintech capital of Europe."
"We see a lot of questions coming from UK companies and fintechs about partnering with us," said Andres Kitter, head of retail banking at LHV and head of the bank's UK branch.
LHV was founded in 1999 and is part of the largest financial group in Estonia. The bank already works with UK-headquartered online money transfer service TransferWise, whose cofounders are Estonian, and the European branch of Coinbase, the US cryptocurrency exchange.
The bank wants to become "an innovative partner for fintech and payment companies" in the UK, Kitter said.
LHV"The main focus is payment rails and payment facilities," Kitter said. "For the more complex demand, we provide financing facilities. Basically, the tools that you need as a fintech or money service provider — payments, financing, card acquiring."
Kitter said LHV had decided to enter the UK market now because ofrecent Open Banking reforms, which require UK banks to share customer data with third parties if customers agree. Similar EU rules are coming later this year, dubbed PSD2.
"We do expect the Open Banking initiative and PSD2 in Europe create to a second wave of fintechs, which will be building consumer and SME-focused businesses on the infrastructure," Kitter said.
"We really think that London is the place to be," he added. "London is the fintech capital of Europe."
Kitter said that Brexit was "a little bit of a surprise" but said: "The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is one of the thought leaders on how to regulate and how to work with fintech companies and that won’t change. London will be the fintech capital in Europe and the world and that won’t change."
LHV, which is licensed by the FCA, aims to have five staff working in the UK by the end of the year helping to sign up new customers. Kitter says the bank will work with companies at an earlier stage than traditional lenders.
"I think large banks aren’t in a position to look at fintechs in early stages because they need more time and more focus to make sure you really understand what they’re doing and that it’s suitable for the bank’s processes," he said. "We work with quite a few small companies. We have our technical platform which is capable of delivering service changes quite quickly to the market."
NOW WATCH:Jim Chanos explains the most important asset class in the world
See Also:
• Here's what China's regulatory reshuffle could mean for fintech
• Huge UK tech exit as Experian acquires 2-year-old credit checking startup ClearScore for £275 million
• Bitcoin recovers after dropping below $8,000
SEE ALSO:An invisible banking reform that 'could fundamentally change how we manage our money' is days away
DON'T MISS:IHS Markit CEO on London: 'Regardless of Brexit, we’ll be here running our company' || GM shares jump on upgrade by widely followed analyst at Morgan Stanley: • Morgan Stanley raises its rating to overweight from equal-weight for General Motors shares, citing the profitability of its pick-up truck franchise.
• The firm's analyst is optimistic over the company's truck sales if Congress passes an infrastructure spending bill.
General Motors GM will thrive from rising infrastructure spending, according to Morgan Stanley.
The firm raised its rating for the automaker's shares to overweight from equal weight, citing the profitability of its pick-up trucks.
"We see room for positive earnings revisions for Ford, GM and FCA as investors better understand the dynamic between US pick-up truck sales and the spending/economic outcomes triggered by a potential passage of a US infrastructure bill," analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a note to clients Monday. "The potential earnings impact from an infrastructure surprise on the OEMs is significant."
Jonas raised his price target to $48 from $45 for General Motors shares, representing 27 percent upside to Friday's close. The company's stock is up 2 percent Monday after the report.
Investors follow Jonas for his bold calls on Tesla TSLA and other reports on the future for automakers. His calls have returned an annual gain of 11 percent, according to TipRanks.com.
The analyst cited Morgan Stanley's potential "bull case" scenario for an infrastructure spending bill worth as much as $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years.
He estimates GM's pick-up truck business will generate 65 percent of the company's profits this year. The analyst said every 5 percentage-point increase in the company's pick-up truck sales drives GM's earnings-per-share higher by more than 10 incremental percentage points.
"We believe that GM's markedly improved valuation post sell-off, higher price target derived from our increased pickup truck business valuation in the SOTP [sum of the parts] and tempered Auto 2.0 expectations merit an upgrade," he wrote.
GM shares declined 8 percent year to date through Friday compared with the S&P 500's 3 percent drop.
— CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.
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• How Goldman is playing earnings season: Get stocks with organic growth || Top 5 Things That Moved Markets This Past Week: What will next week bring? Investing.com – Top 5 things that rocked U.S. markets this week 1. Earnings Bonanza Fails to Prevent US Stocks From Weekly Slide Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP), Spotify Technology SA (NYSE:SPOT) and Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd (NYSE:BABA) were a few of the notable names that reported quarterly earnings this past week, attracting the bulk of investor attention. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) eased investor concerns after posting quarterly earnings that topped Wall Street top estimates, and revealed iPhone sales numbers that were not as bearish as many had feared. Yet, the best was saved for the final trading day of week as Apple’s stock hit all-time highs amid reports Warren Buffett increased his stake in the iPhone maker. Tesla’s earnings call, meanwhile, drew more attention than its quarterly report – which showed a record first-quarter loss – after CEO Elon Musk refused to answer a raft of 'bonehead questions' from analysts. Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) fell sharply following the earnings call. Quarterly earnings reports from both Snap and Spotify failed to impress Wall Street, triggering a sharp selloff in both shares. Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd (NYSE:BABA), meanwhile, ended the week strongly, closing 3.5% higher after revealing bumper revenues that topped consensus estimates. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones posted a weekly loss. 2. Crude Oil Prices: Up, Up and Away Crude oil prices settled at three-and-a-half-year highs on Friday, riding a wave of bullish bets on the U.S. imposing new sanctions on Iran next week, raising the potential for tighter global crude stockpiles. U.S. President Donald Trump is widely expected pull out of the Iranian nuclear on May 12, leading to the re-imposition of secondary sanctions on Iran, pressuring countries to cut their purchases of Iranian crude. Focus on the prospect of lower global supplies has dominated flows in oil prices this week, overshadowing a second-straight weekly build in U.S. crude supplies amid an ongoing expansion in output. Story continues On Friday U.S. crude futures rose 1.89% to settle at $69.72 a barrel. 3. Full Steam Ahead: Dollar Hits Highs The dollar added to last week’s gains on its way to its highest level of the year underpinned by the prospect of further rate hikes and a slump in the both the pound and euro. The greenback navigated its way through a raft of top-tier economic data including a widely expected unchanged Federal Reserve interest rate decision and a mixed U.S. jobs report. The U.S. economy created 164,000 in April, missing economists’ forecast of 189,000, while wage growth also fell short of expectations despite a steeper than expected decline in the unemployment rate . The Federal Reserve left interest rates on hold on Wednesday but signalled that inflation was nearing its 2% target, cementing the prospect of a June rate hike. Both GBP/USD and the EUR/USD were largely supportive of the dollar rally this past week, after both pairs posted a third weekly loss in a row. The dollar traded close to year-to-date highs against a basket of major currencies on Friday. 4. Sell Gold in May and Go Away? Gold prices made a tame start to May, falling for the third-straight week as demand fell in the wake of a stronger dollar and limited safe-haven demand. Gold prices struggled to attract safe-haven bids despite the prospect of new U.S. sanctions on Iran, and renewed focus on U.S.-China trade after a U.S. financial delegation left Beijing without making any big breakthroughs following trade talks . 5. Bitcoin: Traders Ready to Bet the ‘Next Guy Pays More’ Following its best start to the year in April, bitcoin continued to tease further inflows as it eyed another crack at a key $10,000 price level. The recent turn in sentiment on cryptocurrencies emerged as traders appeared willing to hold, or “hodl” bullish bets, underpinning a move in bitcoin on Friday to a nearly two month high of $9,875. Traders pointed to signs of institutional demand for the popular digital currency as a supportive factor amid reports that Goldman Sachs was on the cusp of opening its bitcoin trading operation. The Wall Street bank’s first ever "digital assets" division, spearheaded by trader Justin Schmidt, reportedly will begin operations within the next few weeks. This added to expectations for a ramp up in institutional demand after famed investor George Soros was reported to be eyeing an entry into the market last month. But as institutional demand for bitcoin heats up, the popular crypto continued to attract its fair share of detractors. Legendary investor Warren Buffet claimed recently bitcoin investors were making a “gamble,” not an investment as their rationale for investing was mainly based on “hoping the next guy pays more.” Institutional demand is widely seen as a crucial step to legitimise bitcoin as an asset class capable of competing with traditional assets for a space in institutional investors’ portfolios. Over the past seven days, Bitcoin rose 5.96% on the Bitfinex exchange, Ethereum rose 18.08%, while Ripple XRP rose 7.34% on the Poloniex exchange. Related Articles Peru stocks higher at close of trade; S&P Lima General up 0.07% Glare on Southwest highlights tense relationship between management, mechanics Wells Fargo to pay $480 million to resolve lawsuit related to sales scandal || Cryptocurrency Exchange Bitfinex Plans Move to Switzerland: Cryptocurrency Exchange Bitfinex Plans Move to Switzerland Bitfinex, the fifth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by 24-hour trading volume, is looking to hoist itself out of Hong Kong and settle in Switzerland, as first reported by Handelszeitung . As confirmed by sources close to Bitfinex, the exchange is already in talks with Swiss authorities. Jean-Louis van der Velde, CEO at Bitfinex, told Handelszeitung , “We are looking for a new home for Bitfinex and the parent company iFinex, where we want to merge the operations previously spread over several locations.” Van der Velde said that Bitfinex, now based in Hong Kong, was also considering London as a potential new location, but for now, Switzerland remains its first choice. If iFinex pulls off the move successfully, it will form a new AG (or Aktiengesellschaft , which is German for “public company”) to replace the former iFinex in the British Virgin Islands. The company’s core businesses would be based in Switzerland, and van der Velde and other managers would likely relocate there as well. In addition, iFinex is also the parent company of Tether, a subsidiary that produces tether (USDT), a token pegged to the U.S. dollar. USTD trades on several exchanges, including Bitfinex, but since no third-party audit has ever taken place, questions linger as to whether the $2.3 billion in USDT so far issued by Tether are backed by actual dollars. Adding to the opaqueness of Bitfinex’s business dealings, since April 2017, Bitfinex and Tether have been cut off from banks in the U.S. and Taiwan and have been left to move among a series of banks in other countries, without informing their customers. Read the full Bitfinex and Tether timeline here . Van der Velde hints that a move to Switzerland would bring a renewed transparency to the business. “We want to be the most transparent of all exchanges and meet the requirements of the Swiss regulator,” he said, adding that Bitfinex is currently in talks with Swiss banks. Switzerland has emerged as the home of several initial coin offerings (ICOs), where the town of Zug has unofficially become “Crypto Valley.” The move could be a win-win for both Bitfinex and Switzerland. Bitfinex could help Switzerland attract more blockchain technology business, while the support of Swiss banks could shine some light on Tether. Bitfinex is not the only exchange that is looking to exit Hong Kong. Last week, Hong Kong–based Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, announced it was looking to relocate to Malta , after running up against regulatory hurdles in Asia. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Retail Giant Newegg Expands Bitcoin Payments to Canada: Computer hardware retailer Newegg has begun accepting Bitcoin payments in Canada.
Newegg — which has approximately 36 million customers and was one of the first well-known companies to accept cryptocurrency payments — made the announcement on Tuesday, explaining that Bitcoin payments have represented a “small but growing stream of purchase transactions” in the US and that the retailer wanted to make the feature available to Canadian customers as well.
“In 2014 Newegg was among the first major companies to offer customers a bitcoin payment option,” said Danny Lee, Newegg’s CEO. “Since that time the value of bitcoin has skyrocketed and customers holding bitcoin have considerably more purchasing power. We believe the time is right to broaden our acceptance of bitcoin to our customers in Canada.”
Like most merchants,Neweggdoes not accept the cryptocurrency directly. Rather, it usesBitPay, a third-party payment processor, who, for a small fee, converts the coins into fiat currency at the point of sale.
BitPay will continue to serve as Newegg’s Bitcoin payment processor as it expands this feature into Canada.
“Newegg was an early e-commerce adopter of bitcoin, and that leap of faith the company took in 2014 put Newegg on the map as a bitcoin-friendly place for tech enthusiasts to shop,” said BitPay CEO and co-founder Stephen Pair. “We’re seeing a lot of traction in Canada, and we’re happy to see Newegg extend its bitcoin payment option north of the border.”
The retailer’s announcement is welcome news for cryptocurrency enthusiasts, as rising transaction fees had led several merchants to shutter Bitcoin payments in recent months (fees have since declined to more reasonable levels as network congestion has decreased).
Payment processing firm Stripe recently announced it would beginphasing out Bitcoin payments, though it may add support for Stellar (to whom it provided seed funding) or other cryptocurrency projects in the future.
More recently, Reddit — which began accepting Bitcoin for its premium memberships when BTC was priced less than $25 —removed the payment optionlast week. A Reddit admin chalked the option’s removal up to Coinbase’s merchant services overhaul but said the company had not decided whether it will reenable Bitcoin payments when the new platform is live.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postRetail Giant Newegg Expands Bitcoin Payments to Canadaappeared first onCCN. || Better Buy: Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. vs. bluebird bio: The global gene therapy market is forecast to grow at an astounding compound annual growth rate of 33.3% over the next six straight years, according to a report by Allied Market Research. This incredible growth spurt is being driven by a number of technological breakthroughs that have opened up novel ways to address diseases with few available treatment options at present.
Bellicum Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ: BLCM)andbluebird bio.(NASDAQ: BLUE), for instance, are two clinical-stage biotechs angling to become top players in this red-hot emerging market. Armed with this insight, let's consider which company is better equipped to take advantage of this enormous opportunity going forward.
Image source: Getty Images.
Houston-based Bellicum is developing cell-based cancer therapies that incorporate a unique molecular switching mechanism. This proprietary molecular switch is designed to trigger the infused therapeutic cells to either increase in number in order to boost a response, or undergo programmed cell death if a severe adverse reaction occurs. No FDA-approvedadoptive cell therapycurrently offers such finite control after infusion, and dangerous side effects generally have to be treated with powerful immunosuppressants.
While this novel approach should produce a safer and more potent form of adoptive cell therapy in theory, the company was recently stung by aclinical holdby the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its lead product candidate, BPX-501. BPX-501 is being developed initially as a possible treatment for graft-versus-host-disease in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplants.
The hold reportedly stems from three patients in an ongoing trial experiencing an abnormal form of brain function known as encephalopathy. Bellicum, in response, requested a change in study protocols last month in an attempt to get BPX-501 back on track in the United States. Now, the good news is that this clinical hold did not impact the drug's ongoing pivotal trials in Europe, which are expected to pave the way for a regulatory filing in the back half of 2019.
Apart from BPX-501, the company is also developing a next-generation chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy for patients with pancreatic cancer. This product candidate dubbed "BPX-601 GoCAR-T" is currently in an early stage trial, where it's reportedly showing some early signs of efficacy in this particularly hard-to-treat malignancy. As pancreatic cancer remains a largely untapped market, BPX-601 could prove to be a key value driver for the company moving forward.
The main drawback with this cutting-edge biotech is that the company has yet to forge any major partnerships to shore up its balance sheet. As a result, Bellicum may be forced to tap the public markets for funds before the year is up.
Bluebird bio has been one of Wall Street's favorite gene therapy stocks over the last two years, thanks to the company's impressive progress across its broad late-stage clinical pipeline. Last January, for instance, the biotech rolled out a road map for how it plans on filing regulatory applications for three high-value product candidates by2020.
Turning to the specifics, bluebird's gene therapy,LentiGlobin, is on track to become a potential functional cure for the rare blood disorder known as transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia major. The company is therefore hoping to have the therapy under regulatory review in Europe in the second half of 2018.
Next up, bluebird has also been making steady progress with its other lead gene therapy, Lenti-D, as a treatment for a rare X-linked metabolic disorder known as cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy. Bluebird expects to release Lenti-D's top-line data this year. If positive, the company plans on filing for regulatory approval next year.
Lastly, bluebird and its development partnerCelgene Corp.(NASDAQ: CELG)could end up filing for approval for their breakthrough multiple myeloma CAR-T therapy, bb2121, within the next year as well. This game-changing cell therapy, after all, reportedly produced a stunning94% response ratein heavily pretreated multiple myeloma patients in an early stage study.
As an added bonus, bluebird has an exceptionally strong cash position due to its partnerships with biotech heavyweights like Celgene. Bluebird exited the most recent quarter with an astonishing $1.6 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. So the risk of dilution is minimal at this point.
In this head to head match up, bluebird is the obvious winner, and it's not even all that close. Bluebird's pipeline is much closer to producing multiple regulatory filings within the next two years, and the company shouldn't need to dilute shareholders via a secondary offering to do so. Bellicum, on the other hand, will need to raise additional cash to advance BPX-501's pivotal trials in Europe, and keep the rest of its pipeline on track.
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George Budwellowns shares of Bellicum Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Bluebird Bio and Celgene. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Tesla Earnings Preview: Elon Musk Has a Lot of Explaining to Do: Elon Musk's hubris has come back to bite him -- and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) shareholders -- yet again. Less than three months ago, Musk devoted a substantial part of Tesla's Q4 earnings call to talk about plans for massive automation of the vehicle manufacturing process. (This plan flew in the face of decades of industry experience and management theory.) Musk even said that Tesla's factory and production process, rather than its brand or vehicle designs, would be its long-term competitive advantage. It didn't take long for reality to set in. Tesla missed its production target again in Q1 -- partly due to the questionable decision to introduce so much automation. Furthermore, the company's plan to get production back on track by the end of this quarter could easily backfire -- with unfortunate consequences for Tesla. A disappointing quarter Two years ago, Tesla began taking reservations for the Model 3 sedan -- its most affordable vehicle yet. It quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of reservations. For the past year, Tesla's main objective has been to smoothly launch and ramp up production of the Model 3. A Tesla Model 3 parked on a road, with a green field in the background Tesla's main goal for this year is to ramp up Model 3 production. Image source: Tesla. In the fourth quarter, Tesla delivered just 1,550 Model 3s. However, by the beginning of January, Model 3 production had reached a rate equivalent to more than 1,000 vehicles per week. Furthermore, in early February, management predicted that output would reach 2,500 units per week by the end of March. Tesla fell short of that target. In the seven-day period ending on April 2, Tesla produced 2,020 Model 3s. More importantly, it built only 9,766 Model 3 vehicles during the entire quarter -- an average of 751 per week. This makes it clear that the production pace for the last few days of the fourth quarter was just a gimmick -- as was the production rate at the end of March. Rather than smoothly ramping up production, Tesla has focused on maximizing output in the last week of each quarter in order to show off for investors. Meanwhile, its sustainable production rate has lagged far behind. Elon Musk is asking for more trouble In an interview earlier this month, Musk acknowledged that overreliance on robots rather than trained workers was a major cause of Tesla's recent production shortfalls. This casts doubt on the company's ability to meet its previous output goals, as those relied on increasing automation. Overhead views of silver and red Tesla Model 3 sedans Tesla has routinely missed its Model 3 production targets during the past year. Image source: Tesla. Story continues Additionally, Musk continues to pursue artificial production goals for the last week of each quarter rather than maximizing overall output. He recently set a goal of achieving a production rate equivalent to 6,000 vehicles per week ( via Electrek ) across Tesla's full Model 3 production apparatus and supply chain by June 30. The idea is to provide a margin of error so that Tesla can ensure that it hits its official target of building 5,000 Model 3s per week by the end of June. Musk acknowledged that it would take several additional months for Tesla to be able to churn out 6,000 Model 3s per week on a sustainable basis. However, even that estimate might be too optimistic. It's one thing to get a part of the production system moving at a particular speed for a day or a week. This can potentially be accomplished by adding overtime (or extra staff) and stockpiling parts or raw materials. The result is that extra production in the day or week being measured comes at the expense of output during the rest of the quarter. It's far more difficult to get the entire company and its supply chain to raise production in a coordinated, sustainable fashion. Yes, it really matters Some investors may believe that it doesn't matter whether Tesla achieves a sustainable Model 3 production rate of 5,000 vehicles per week in three months or six months. However, Tesla ended 2017 with just $5.4 billion of liquidity. It is likely to burn through billions of dollars of cash this year, and the slower Model 3 production ramps up, the worse that cash burn will be. This could potentially force the company to issue more stock or debt on unfavorable terms. Tesla's production woes will also interfere with its ability to reduce the cost to build each Model 3. That could force it to further delay selling the $35,000 base model, which price-conscious buyers have been waiting for. By the time the $35,000 version becomes widely available, the $7,500 U.S. federal tax credit for Tesla purchases will probably have started to phase out. As a result, some of these price-conscious consumers might never end up buying a Model 3. Thus, Elon Musk needs to show during the upcoming Tesla earnings call that he is learning from his mistakes. To maintain investors' trust, it will be important for him to explain clearly how Tesla will reach and sustain its Model 3 production targets -- all while dramatically reducing costs. 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 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 . View comments
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
2018/04/05 20:00
#BTC 732761円
#ETH 40994.4円
#ETC 1450.4円
#BCH 68361.6円
#XRP 52.4円
#XEM 23.6円
#LSK 854.7円
#MONA 347.2円
#仮想通貨 #ビットコイン #Bitcoin #bitFlyer #Coincheck || Inscrivez-vous à @RevolutApp en 60 secondes, achetez de la crypto-monnaie 30 secondes plus tard - wow #Bitcoin #Litecoin #cryptocurrency #blockchain || Chronobank $1
Join Telegram @chronobank
Start the bot
Enter ETH add & email
https://telegram.me/chronobankrefbot?start=kZsJcmmroUss …
#crypto #ICO #ePRX #erc20 #eBitcoin #forex #OIL #GOLD #AUD #JPY #NZD #BTC
#اقتصاد #فوركس #بورصه #يورو #دولار #عملات_رقمية || April 2: CRYPTO MARKET OVERVIEW, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, IOTA, Litecoin, NEM, Cardano
http://pri.ml/cQa_PnVv via cryptocurrencyguidepic.twitter.com/BJAyibjBAf || In this book, we aim to describe how to make a computer bend to yo http://bit.ly/1PtQtLY #Cybersecurity #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/khqN1h9I6H || #Bethereum #ethereum #BTHR #bitcoin https://twitter.com/bethereumteam/status/978604551078105088 … || Despite its impressive size and population, economic vitality, and http://bit.ly/2qYs3SC #Cybersecurity #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/qEOEGaZBja || CasinoCoin (CSC) 15.23% this hour (20.64% today)
$0.001105 | 0.000000 BTC | 0.000003 ETH
#CasinoCoin #CSC
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/casinocoin … || $BTC #bitcoins This is a no ice summary of where $BtC is up to so far pic.twitter.com/c1kSDIbfBB || I can relate to this. I always hated the old orange. Glad they did something about it
|
Trend: down || Prices: 8723.94, 8716.79, 8510.38, 8368.83, 8094.32, 8250.97, 8247.18, 8513.25, 8418.99, 8041.78
|
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 for 2015-05-22]
BTC Price: 240.35, BTC RSI: 54.97
Gold Price: 1204.30, Gold RSI: 51.10
Oil Price: 59.72, Oil RSI: 56.59
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
UPDATE: CoinCard, The World's First Crypto-based Credit Card Met with Strong Response at Launch: CoinCard is a bitcoin credit card unprecedented in the cryptocurrency space. The first 1 000 customers Receive Limited Edition, No Fee Cards
WALNUT, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 14, 2015 /Cryptocurrencies are evolving as a payment type throughout the world, serving primarily as a peer-to-peer method of conducting financial transactions and as payment device. However, the role and use of cryptocurrencies as mainstream payment for goods or services, whether on- or off-line, has yet to gain widespread adoption. With the help of the Crypto Private Investors Group,CoinCard, the world's first ever crypto-based credit card will be launching in July 2015. Early adopters of cryptocurrencies will be able to pre-order a card and the first 1,000 applicants will be able to take advantage of a limited edition cardwhere all transactions fees, with exception of the annual fee, are waived. The goal of CPIG is to foster adoption of cryptocurrencies worldwide and the launch of CoinCard is a path towards fulfilling that goal.
CoinCard experienced outstanding response with more than 100 cards being reserved within the first hours of being made available.
CoinCard Basic is designed to function as a debit card. CoinCard Elite can work either as a higher utility, lower fee debit or credit card. Whether debit or credit card, both CoinCards can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. Like all MasterCard branded products, all insurance, warranty and affinity programs exist on the CoinCard Basic or Elite products. Provision for Visa and American Express version are currently being considered.
What distinguishes CoinCard from all other cards is that cryptocurrencies can be used to either pay down revolving balances or used as a debit card drawing on the cryptocurrency accounts of its user. Annual fees are competitive to traditional cards at $50USD for a CoinCard Basic and $100USD for CoinCard Elite. CoinCard can be used at ATMs worldwide.
If used as a debit card, CoinCard is reloadable from anywhere in the world and the user may load their card using cryptocurrencies or altcoins including Bitcoin, Paycoin and many others. Users of CoinCard Elite that have credit lines extended will be able to use their cryptocurrency to pay down their extended or revolving credit.
To obtain a reservation for a CoinCard Basic or CoinCard Elite, visithttp://ordercoincard.com/. The first 1,000 to reserve a CoinCard (500 CoinCard Basic and 500 CoinCard Elite) will receive one year free of transaction fees, excluding the annual fee.
About the Crypto Private Investor Group:
The Crypto Private Investor Group (CPIG) was formed to create and promote cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies, as a whole, have the ability to create a new payment / financial consideration system. Inherent in a cryptocurrency payment system are features such as lower merchant and consumer costs, significantly greater security and the possibility of creating a single currency…a digital currency that crosses boarders throughout the world creating a global marketplace where commerce flows easily.
The CPIG will seek to quiet the maelstrom swirling around the crypto category. To undo the negative impact, outcome and perception from circumstances like Mt. Gox and those that seek to undermine the category's success through the use of negatively sensationalized press covering the category based upon conjecture versus fact.
The CPIG is impartial and coin agnostic, serving as a guiding light to the future of cryptocurrency and its utility and adoption in a global marketplace.
**CoinCard is the source of this content. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. 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.
For more information about us, please visithttp://ordercoincard.com
Contact Info:
Name: John C. CaceresEmail:johncharlescaceres@gmail.comOrganization: CoinCardPhone: 802 359 7569
SOURCE:CoinCard || Your first trade for Thursday, April 30: The " Fast Money " traders closed the show with their final trades of the day. Dan Nathan was a buyer of TWTR (NYSE: TWTR) . Brian Kelly was a buyer of the XLE (NYSE Arca: XLE) . Karen Finerman was a buyer of ANTM (NYSE: ANTM) . Steve Grasso was a buyer of BHI (NYSE: BHI) . Trader disclosure: On April 29, 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 is long BBRY June call spread, M May call spread, T, NKE call spread, QQQ May 108/ 98 put spread, WMT June call spread, IWM May put fly, XLP May Put Spread, XLY May Puts, LULU May puts, INTC May /July put spread. Today he bought TWTR and sold SHAK. Steve Grasso is long AAPL, BAC, BTU, DD, EVGN, MJNA, PFE, T, TWTR, GDX, his firm is long IBM, AMZN, AMD, MCD, KO, FCX, OXY, RIG, NE, TSE, VALE his kids own EFG, EFA, EWJ, IJR, SPY. Brian Kelly is long BTC=, Crude Oil, GLD, GSG, BBRY, SPY puts, U.S. Dollar, he is short 30-Year Bond Futures, Australian Dollar, DAX, Yen, Yuan. Today he bought Crude Oil and GLD. Today he shorted DAX. Karen Finerman is long BAC, C, FINL, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, M, MA, KORS, she is short SPY, her firm is long AAPL, ANTM, BABA, BAC, C, CMLS, DIS, FINL, FBT, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, GPS, IBB, JPM, M, KORS, XBI, SUNE, URI, her firm is short IWM, MDY, SPY, Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. FBR's Dan Ives: Firm acts as a market maker or liquidity provider for the company's securities: Microsoft Corporation RBC Capital Markets' Mark Mahaney: RBC Capital Markets is currently providing Facebook, Inc. with non-securities services. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Is It Time To Invest In Cuba?: OnTuesday, 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 theHerzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund(NASDAQ:CUBA), is now setting up a private equity fund that will invest directly in Cuba. Herzfeld toldCNBCthat 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.
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Exclusive: Bitcoin exchange itBit seeks New York banking licence: By Lauren Tara LaCapra NEW YORK (Reuters) - 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. 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. Story continues 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) || Your first trade for Monday: The "Fast Money" traders gave their final trades of the day.
Tim Seymour was a buyer of the TUR(NYSE Arca: TUR).
Steve Grasso was a buyer of TWTR(TWTR).
Brian Kelly was a seller of the TLT(NYSE Arca: TLT).
Guy Adami was a buyer of BX(BX).
Trader disclosure: On April 17, 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, BX, C, DAL, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, EWP, SUNE, TWX, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, CHL, IBN, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, TUR, VALE.Steve Grasso is long AAPL, EVGN, MJNA, PFE, T, TWTR, GDX, BAC, BTU, his firm is long AMD, AMZN, NE, OXY, VALE, RIG his kids own EFG, EFA, EWJ, IJR, SPY. Brian Kelly is long BTC=, CTRL calls, GSG, BBRY, SPY puts, he is short 30-Year Bond Futures, he is short Yuan, today he covered U.S. Dollar, today he sold Euro, today he sold EEM, today he sold GLD. 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 || Established Bitcoin Media Platform Bitcoinist.net Receives Significant VC Investment And Announces Inside Bitcoins Partnership: Trusted Bitcoin news and tech review source Bitcoinist.net is pleased to announce a significant investment to expand its operations, and a new partnership with the leader in the Bitcoin conference industry; Inside Bitcoins
LONDON, ENGLAND / ACCESSWIRE / April 16, 2015 /Bitcoinist.net, a Bitcoin media company founded in early 2014 and dedicated to being an independent voice for the cryptocurrency community, is pleased to announce an additional investment round into the company. Bitcoinist has been a cornerstone of the Bitcoin industry, providing news and reviews since early 2014, and will use this investment for an aggressive expansion plan. Bitcoinist.net's original investor, Zoltan Tokay, has invested an undisclosed amount into the site in recognition of the many milestones that the company has achieved.
For the last year, the Bitcoinist team has been at nearly every Bitcoin conference to show support and provide coverage. As the entire Bitcoin industry has grown, so has the Bitcoinist team and its reach. Earlier this month, Bitcoinist.net andInside Bitcoinsjoined together in a monumental deal. The Inside Bitcoins news section will now syndicate news articles and reviews from the Bitcoinist team, and vice versa. Scott Fargo, Editor-in-Chief at Bitcoinist.net, shared his thoughts on the new partnership:
"We atBitcoinist.netare happy to provide news and other content to Inside Bitcoins, the leader in the Bitcoin conference industry. We are looking forward to providing coverage of their world wide events as well."
Bitcoinist has already taken steps towards securing additional partnerships with key entities in the cryptocurrency industry. Look out for future announcements from the Bitcoinist team. For more information about Bitcoinist, please visit (www.bitcoinist.net). Inside Bitcoins is produced by Meckler Media. More information on MecklerMedia can be found at their website (www.mecklermedia.com).
About Bitcoinist
Bitcoinist LTD. is a private limited company registered in the United Kingdom. Since early 2014, Bitcoinist has provided industry-leading reviews, commentary, and news on cryptocurrency and technology. Notably, Bitcoinist has become a leading source for independent Bitcoin mining and cryptocurrency mining hardware reviews. Since being founded in February 2014 by Mate Tokay, Norbert Kovacs and Zoltan Tokay, Bitcoinist.net has grown into a dedicated international team.
For more information about us, please visithttp://bitcoinist.net/
Contact Info:
Name: Vivien GalEmail:press@bitcoinist.netOrganization: BitcoinistAddress: 1 Hova Villas Brighton & Hove BN3 3DH, United KingdomPhone: +36302722409
SOURCE:Bitcoinist || Bitcoin Foundation Accused: Misleading Members: Bitcoin received another blow to its image over the weekend, when newly elected Bitcoin Foundation board member Olivier Janssens announced that the Foundation was " effectively bankrupt " and accused the group's leadership of misleading the public. Janssens' claims have yet to be verified, but the Foundation released a statement on Tuesday denying those claims, though the damage may have already been done. Poor Management The Bitcoin Foundation has been an advocate for the cryptocurrency 's mainstream adoption, but Janssens said that poor decision making and misleading the public has made it a poor example for the community. Related Link: Rand Paul Uses Bitcoin To Boost His Campaign In a blog post titled "The Truth About the Bitcoin Foundation," Janssens detailed how the Foundation nearly ran out of money last year and fired 90 percent of its staff. Janssens also called on current members to organize a vote to replace the entire board or shut down the Foundation completely. Foundation Denies Claims The Foundation responded on Tuesday with an official blog post claiming that Janssens' claims were completely unfounded. The post admitted that the foundation has been struggling with funding due to the sharp decline in bitcoin's value, but claimed it was not bankrupt. The post also said that many of its staff left voluntarily, and although the foundation did "downsize," it did not fire 90 percent of its workers. Difficult To Move Forward Now it will be up to members of the bitcoin advocacy group to determine how this public dispute is settled. The Foundation's head of core developers responded to Janssens' post, saying that it was important to move forward legally and transparently in order to restore the Foundation's image, though many believe the organization has already lost the public's trust. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Investors Look To Iran With An End To Sanctions In Sight Greece Promises To Pay, But With What Cash? Colorado Residents To Decide If The Government Keeps Or Refunds Their Money © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 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. || Nasdaq's bitcoin plan will provide a real test of bitcoin hype: Bitcoin, the virtual digital currency, has been called the future of banking, a dangerous fad and almost everything in between, but we're finally about to get some solid data to help settle the debate.On Monday, the Nasdaq (NDAQ) stock exchange said it wouldtry using bitcoin's globally distributed network for verifying virtual currency transactionsas a logbook for tracking private company stock deals.Nasdaq is best known for running the $9.5 trillion exchange listing public companies like Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOGL). But two years ago it started a market for trading in shares and options of private companies, such as music app Shazam and messaging service Tango. Keeping records of private stock transactions has sometimes been a haphazard affair and Nasdaq wants to bring more certainty, security and speed to the trades using bitcoin's network.Until now, bitcoin's popularity has been all too dependent on the currency's often-volatile price. It was all over the news when the price of a single bitcoin topped $1,000 back in November, 2013. And there was plenty of coverage of the subsequent crash, as the price dropped more than 75% last year. Currently, each bitcoin trades for about $245. The extreme ups and downs left many people puzzled about how bitcoin could ever be used as a reliable currency.
[Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App]
The Nasdaq's plan, however, has nothing to do with using bitcoin like money. Instead, it's the technology underlying bitcoin -- the network of computers around the world that make the system work -- that intrigues the Nasdaq and many others on Wall Street.Every transaction sending a bitcoin, or a fraction of a bitcoin, from one person's digital wallet to another's entails running the trade through encryption equations which are, in turn, verified by the network, usually in 10 minutes or less. The results are published in a public digital ledger known as the blockchain.The system includes a feature to add more information to each transaction in the blockchain as well, information which can't be altered or forged without being detected by the network.Nasdaq will use this commenting feature for its new private stock transaction service. Each time private stock is issued or transferred, the information can be added as a comment in a bitcoin transaction. And then, within 10 minutes, the blockchain will be updated with the information. The actual amount of bitcoin traded can be tiny -- the system includes 8 decimal places, so deals can take place with just 1/100,000,000 of a bitcoin.Wall Street has been slowly getting more involved in the bitcoin ecosystem. Last month, Goldman Sachs (GS) was the co-leader ofa $50 million fundraising round for Circle Internet Financial, which runs a bitcoin wallet service. And in January, bitcoin exchangeCoinbase got backing from several big financial firms, including the New York Stock Exchange.But the Nasdaq initiative marks by far the most mainstream, large-scale use of the bitcoin network beyond the trading of bitcoin itself. It could uncover previously unnoticed problems or weaknesses in the system. It might also turn out to be more cumbersome or less speedy than expected.Or, it might turn out to be the key to slashing the three-day settlement time that's standard for trading most securities in the United States down to less than 10 minutes.Either way, we'll finally get a reality check for the super-hyped cryptocurrency. || 2 Companies That Are Helping Cities Get Smarter: The 'Internet of Things' has been a huge topic of discussion this year as tech companies find new ways to connect people with their electronics. Wearable devices, integrated automobile systems and even "smart" appliances have made their way to the market this year as automation takes over as one of the biggest trends of 2015. Now, big names like Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO ) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM ) are turning their focus to larger arenas in a race to create cities that boast everything from public transportation systems that are able to communicate with each other and provide travelers with the most efficient route at the moment they wish to travel to real-time pollution statistics. Smart Start IBM recently partnered with chip maker ARM to offer an Internet of Things "starter pack." The kit allows anyone from a home owner to a city planner to use the components to take readings of a certain environment and record data for any objects attached to the device. While IBM says the possibilities for use are endless, one example scenario the company gave was controlling a smart lighting system using a network of internet-connected bulbs. Related Link: Cybersecurity Firms Are Ready To Fight For Government Contracts Cisco Signs Up Big Names Cisco is another major player in the "smart city" sector; the company has already signed on with several major cities around the globe, including Barcelona and Hamburg, to provide automated solutions that monitor and connect important city functions. In Maryland, Cisco created a housing complex that is able to detect problems like water leaks and fires and send that data to the appropriate officials to avoid serious damage or even life-threatening disasters. The company says it hopes to expand that technology to more areas in the years to come. See more from Benzinga Intel May Be Jumping On Board The Digital Currency Revolution IBM Working On 'A Bitcoin Without The Bitcoin' Meet Pepper, The Latest House Robot © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Current price: 218.33€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-04-23 08:00:04 CEST || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000003
Bittrex: 0.00000004
Average $7.0E-6 per #reddcoin
22:00:02 || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 16 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $807.15 #bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $201.29 (7.56 %). BUY B12.10 @ $219.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $221.32 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Current price: 212.49€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-05-05 00:40:09 CEST || LIVE: Profit = $783.61 (21.85 %). BUY B14.67 @ $243.46 (#BTCe). SELL @ $246.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $223.75, last changed Mon, 20 Apr 2015 10:20:00 GMT. queried at: 10:22:44 || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 24 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $771.12 #bitcoin #btc || $233.78 at 23:00 UTC [24h Range: $229.87 - $234.90 Volume: 4611 BTC] || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 15897.00 INR Sell : 15395.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin
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Trend: down || Prices: 238.87, 240.95, 237.11, 237.12, 237.28, 237.41, 237.10, 233.35, 230.19, 222.93
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
GLOBAL TECH INDUSTRIES GROUP, INC. ANNOUNCES LAUNCH OF ITS CRYPTOCURRENCY TRADING PLATFORM, “BEYOND BLOCKCHAIN”: New York, NY, June 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Global Tech Industries Group, Inc. (OTCQB: GTII) (“GTII” or the “Company”),www.gtii-us.com, a Nevada corporation, announced today the launch of its cryptocurrency trading platform, “Beyond Blockchain.” Customers and shareholders can access the service atbeyondblockchain.us,where they will be able to open their accounts.
Beyond Blockchain enables customers to trade cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Tether, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin SV), FX, commodities (physical gold and silver), with other assets to be added in the future such as fractionalized interests in tokenized fine art. As the online wallet is expanded, it will be able to house tokenized and fractionalized assets that the Company may distribute to its shareholders.
David Reichman, CEO of GTII, commented, “We are excited to launch the Beyond Blockchain trading platform. It should provide GTII shareholders the opportunity to participate in buying and selling multiple cryptocurrencies, and to participate in the exciting NFT art portfolio that GTII is building of both classic and contemporary fine art. This is the first step towards incorporating a fully featured NFT marketplace.”
About Global Tech Industries Group, Inc.:GTII, a publicly traded Company incorporated in the state of Nevada, specializing in the pursuit of acquiring new and innovative technologies.
Please follow our Company at:www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GTII
Safe Harbor Forward-Looking Statements:This press release may contain forward looking statements that are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that involve risks as well as uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from those anticipated or expected, including statements related to the amount and timing of expected revenues related to our financial performance, expected income, distributions, and future growth for upcoming quarterly and annual periods. These risks and uncertainties are further defined in filings and reports by the Company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Actual results and the timing of certain events could differ materially from those projected in or contemplated by the forward-looking statements due to a number of factors detailed from time to time in our filings with the SEC. Among other matters, the Company may not be able to sustain growth or achieve profitability based upon many factors including but not limited to the risk that we will not be able to find and acquire businesses and assets that will enable us to become profitable. Reference is hereby made to cautionary statements set forth in the Company’s most recent SEC filings. We have incurred and will continue to incur significant expenses in our development stage, noting that there is no assurance that we will generate enough revenues to offset those costs in both the near and long term. New lines of business may expose us to additional legal and regulatory costs and unknown exposure(s), the impact of which cannot be predicted at this time.
Words such as “estimate,” “project,” “predict,” “will,” “would,” “should,” “could,” “may,” “might,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “intend,” “believe,” “expect,” “aim,” “goal,” “target,” “objective,” “likely” or similar expressions that convey the prospective nature of events or outcomes generally indicate forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of this press release. Unless legally required, we undertake no obligation to update, modify or withdraw any forward-looking statements, because of new information, future events or otherwise.
Blaine Riley –br@intlmonetary.comInternational Monetary620 Newport Center Drive, #1100Newport Beach, CA 92660949.200.4601 || Banks Are Already Cracking Down on Crypto, Indian Traders Say: India hasn’t formally banned cryptocurrencies, but the country’s banks appear to be cracking down on crypto and exchanges. Indian crypto exchanges are struggling to keep fiat coming in as banks are halting transfers to crypto-related accounts, according to members of the local crypto community. Crypto traders also are receiving notifications from banks asking about crypto-related transactions and warning their accounts may be closed, they said. The situation has likely been prompted by the anti-crypto move by India’s top financial regulator. The country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, has been approaching banks and asking them to sever ties with crypto, according to a Thursday report by Reuters. Related: Binance’s Indian Crypto Exchange Lists SHIB Token as Vitalik Gift Garners Local Press The banks have reportedly asked the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a central bank-owned retail payments system, to block crypto-related transactions. However, the agency refused to do it. Despite that refusal, crypto exchanges are having issues with their clients’ banking transfers. Crypto has been gaining popularity in India recently, especially among the younger generation, which sees cryptocurrencies as a novel investment option, replacing gold that traditionally has been used to store family wealth. However, the country hasn’t come up with a consistent regulatory approach yet and rumors of a possible crypto ban have been hovering around India over the recent months. Exchanges’ struggle WazirX, an Indian crypto exchange, has been having issues with transfers from banks for the past two weeks, said founder Nischal Shetty. “We do have trouble with banks not allowing crypto exchanges with access to banking APIs for receiving customer deposits,” Shetty told CoinDesk, referring to application program interfaces. Related: Reserve Bank of India Discourages Lenders From Dealing With Crypto Exchanges: Report Story continues He said the bank WazirX worked with stopped serving the exchange last week, so WazirX had to quickly find another one. As the change took place, there were no banking services available for a few days over the weekend, he said. Shetty did not disclose which bank stopped working with WazirX. The rationale behind the banks’ behavior is not clear. “There’s been no official statement from RBI yet. But I think it’s mostly the banks themselves that are deciding not to provide access to crypto startups in India,” Shetty said, adding, “We are talking to multiple banks now. I’m sure a few forward-looking banks will offer their services.” Read also: India’s Millennials Embrace Digital Gold Despite Proposed Bitcoin Ban Vikram Rangala, chief marketing officer at the ZebPay exchange, told CoinDesk that ZebPay, too, had briefly dealt with banking issues. “Our deposits were down for part of one day and we had to turn to manual deposit methods, which are slower. We are switching to other payment channels so we’re able to adapt, but it is still disruptive,” Rangala said. He believes the banks might be following the old anti-crypto order that the RBI issued in 2018, which was overturned by the Indian Supreme Court in 2020. “That Supreme Court ruling is the law of the land and even the RBI has confirmed that crypto is not illegal. We still have some banks citing the 2018 notice, even though it has been ruled unconstitutional,” Rangala said. Users get a red notice It is not only crypto businesses that have encountered banking troubles. Naimish Sanghvi, founder of Indian crypto news website Coincrunch, told CoinDesk that Axis bank, where he had his account, sent him a letter saying his transactions were found to be “inconsistent,” and his account would be closed in 30 days. “It is not per the normal activity expected as per the information provided by you at the time of account opening,” read the letter, reviewed by CoinDesk. Last summer, Coincrunch reported that Axis bank made its clients sign obligations not to deal with crypto, especially targeting those who were interacting with WazirX’s account at Karur Vysya Bank. Another user that contacted this CoinDesk reporter via Telegram said his brother received a letter from HDFC Bank inquiring about his crypto purchases. The user, nicknamed as “Crypto hustler,” refused to share his real name, fearing “the wrath of government,” but showed CoinDesk the letter his brother received. “Which are the channels/websites through which you are investing in cryptocurrencies?” the letter said, asking the user to share documents related to crypto transactions “for verification.” Read also: Indian Crypto Firms Suggest Policy Ideas to Government Ahead of Possible Ban “But we haven’t shared anything to them,” the user wrote. “We withdrew all money and that bank account is empty. Also not withdrawing to banks nowadays due to this fear.” Indian YouTube influencer Kashif Raza told CoinDesk there were many people who felt an impact of the new policies by their banks. The exact scope of this, however, is not clear. Raza tweeted last week that “banks are closing the individual accounts for dealing in crypto but they are not giving it in writing.” According to Raza, payment networks also shut down on crypto businesses as they “have informally told exchanges in advance that they can’t work with them as they fear RBI wrath.” CoinDesk reached out to Axis and HDFC Bank for comments but had not heard back by press time. We will update this story once we hear from these banks. Related Stories ‘So Many Locked Out’: Binance Users Say Their Accounts Have Been Frozen for Months Thiel, Novogratz Back $10B Funding for Block.one’s New Crypto Exchange Subsidiary || MeiraGTx (MGTX) Sees Hammer Chart Pattern: Time to Buy?: MeiraGTx Holdings plcMGTX has been struggling lately, but the selling pressure may be coming to an end soon. That is because MGTX recently saw a Hammer Chart Pattern which can signal that the stock is nearing a bottom.
A hammer chart pattern is a popular technical indicator that is used in candlestick charting. The hammer appears when a stock tumbles during the day, but then finds strength at some point in the session to close near or above its opening price. This forms a candlestick that resembles a hammer, and it can suggest that the market has found a low point in the stock, and that better days are ahead.
Plus, earnings estimates have been rising for this company, even despite the sluggish trading lately. In just the past 60 days alone 2 estimates have gone higher, compared to none lower, while the consensus estimate has also moved in the right direction.
Estimates have actually risen so much that the stock now has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) suggesting this relatively unloved stock could be due for a breakout soon. This will be especially true if MGTX stock can build momentum from here and find a way to continue higher of off this encouraging trading development. 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 reportMeiraGTx Holdings PLC (MGTX) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here. || Phillips 66 Partners (PSXP) Units Recover Since Q1 Earnings Miss: Phillips 66 Partners LP’s PSXP units — which declined 4.1% after the announcement of weak first-quarter earnings on Apr 30 — have risen 4.4% since then. The partnership reported first-quarter adjusted 2021 earnings per unit of 74 cents, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 78 cents. Moreover, earnings declined from 93 cents per unit in the year-ago quarter.
Revenues of $376 million decreased from $404 million in the year-ago quarter but beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $370 million.
The weak first-quarter earnings can be attributed to winter storms. Moreover, higher operating and maintenance expenses along with lower pipeline and terminal throughput volumes affected the bottom line. The negatives were partially offset by higher terminaling and pipeline revenues per barrel.
Phillips 66 Partners LP price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Phillips 66 Partners LP Quote
The partnership provides services through Pipelines, Terminals, and Storage Processing & Other activities.
Pipeline:In first-quarter 2021, the partnership generated revenues of $104 million, down from $111 million in the prior-year period. The drop was due to lower pipeline volumes of crude oil, refined petroleum products and natural gas liquids than the year-ago period. Pipeline volumes of 1,605 thousand barrels per day (Mbpd) were down from the year-ago figure 1,807 Mbpd. The negatives were partially offset by growth in average pipeline revenues to 71 cents per barrel from 67 cents in the year-ago quarter.
Terminals:The partnership generated $39 million revenues, down from $43 million in the year-ago quarter, primarily due to lower throughput volumes of refined petroleum products and crude oil. Terminal throughput volumes came in at 1,031 Mbpd, way below the year-ago period’s 1,208 Mbpd.
However, average terminaling revenue per barrel was 41 cents for the quarter versus 39 cents in the year-ago period.
Storage, Processing & Other activities:Through these activities, the partnership generated revenues of $109 million, down from $113 million in the year-ago quarter.
For the March quarter of 2021, the partnership reported operating and maintenance expenses of $95 million, up from $88 million in the year-ago period. It incurred an impairment charge of $198 million in the quarter due to exit from the Liberty Pipeline joint venture. As such, total costs and expenses increased to $387 million for first-quarter 2021 from the year-ago figure of $177 million.
As of Mar 31, 2021, the partnership recorded cash and cash equivalents of $3 million, down from the fourth quarter-end level of $7 million. Total debt at the end of the quarter under review rose to $3,944 million from $3,909 million at fourth quarter-end. Notably, it has $299 million available under the revolving credit facility.
Capital expenditure and investment in the first quarter totaled $58 million.
The partnership is constructing the 16-inch C2G ethane pipeline, which is expected to be completed by mid-2021. It will connect its Clemens Caverns storage facility to Gregory petrochemical facilities, located near Corpus Christi.
The partnership currently has a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Some better-ranked players in the energy space includeProfire Energy, Inc.PFIE,NOW Inc.DNOW andHess CorporationHES, each having a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Profire Energy’s bottom line for 2021 is expected to rise 100% year over year.
NOW’s bottom line for 2021 is expected to rise 70.8% year over year.
Hess’ bottom line for 2021 is expected to surge 150.9% year over year.
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 reportHess Corporation (HES) : Free Stock Analysis ReportPhillips 66 Partners LP (PSXP) : Free Stock Analysis ReportNOW Inc. (DNOW) : Free Stock Analysis ReportProfire Energy, Inc. (PFIE) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || The Morning After: Which streaming TV box or stick is the best one for you?: For times when Amazon Primejust isn’t convenient enough, the US Air Force is apparently intrigued by the possibilities of rocket-powered cargo delivery. Its recent budget requestincluded a line for Rocket Cargo, imagining a program that used commercial rockets (like, say, Starship) to move up to 100 tons of cargo from any place on Earth to any other place in an hour.
As described in the proposal, “The Department of the Air Force seeks to leverage the current multi-billion dollar commercial investment to develop the largest rockets ever, and with full reusability to develop and test the capability to leverage a commercial rocket to deliver AF cargo anywhere on the Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capacity.” And here I was just trying to order a new chair.
— Richard Lawler
Mandiant exec Charles Carmakal toldBloombergthat their analysis of the attack found suspicious activity on Colonial Pipeline's network started on April 29th. While they couldn't confirm exactly how the attackers got the login, there apparently isn't any evidence of phishing techniques, sophisticated or otherwise. What they did find is that the employee's password was present in a dump of login shared on the dark web, so if it was reused and the attackers matched it up with a username, that could be the answer to how they got in.Continue reading.
Maybe you're relying on your phone or tablet for binge-watch sessions right now, or your TV's built-in operating system just isn't cutting it anymore. Streaming dongles and set-top boxes are ubiquitous these days, but deciphering the differences between them can be challenging. Plus, they're not the only gadgets that can deliver your latest Netflix obsession to your TV screen. Let's break down all of the streaming device options you have today and give you our picks for the best you can buyContinue reading.
We're looking forward to Father's Day later this month and if you're planning for it early, ourgift guideplus a number of leftover Memorial Day deals can help you get dad something great. Both Apple's 10.2-inch iPad ($299) and its high-end AirPods Max headphones ($520) are on sale, plus Samsung's T7 portable SSD is $20 off ($80). Samsung's still offering an impressive deal on its new Galaxy Chromebook 2 and the Beats Solo Pro on-ear headphones remain at a record low of$149.
Here are all the best deals from the week that you can still snag today, and remember to follow@EngadgetDealson Twitter for more updates.Continue reading.
Facebook has revisited Donald Trump's "indefinite" suspension following a recommendation from the Oversight Board. The company said that Trump's suspension should last two years, which would potentially allow him to return to the social network in time to run for president again in 2024. If that happens, there may be a new rule in place where Facebookdoesn’t automatically consider postsfrom politicians as “newsworthy.”
Last month, the Oversight Board said that Facebook was justified in suspending Trump, but that by imposing an “indefinite” suspension the company was failing to follow its own rules. The board also accused Facebook of trying to “avoid its responsibilities.”Continue reading.
This week, Cherlynn and Devindra chat about the big news from virtual Computex: NVIDIA’sRTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti; AMD’sRadeon 6000M mobile graphics; and thelatest U-series chips from Intel. Come learn why these companies are basically a triad of frenemies. Also, they dive intoMicrosoft’s upcoming next-gen Windows event, and thedemise of Donald Trump’s blog.
Listen onApple Podcasts,Google Podcasts,Spotify,Pocket CastsorStitcher.Continue reading.
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NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti review: An extravagant upgrade || The SPY Was Down Today. Here's Why.: U.S. indices traded lower Tuesday amid a continued sell-off in equities, driven by selling in growth stocks and technology stocks. Inflation concerns have also weighed on stocks and further pressured growth sectors. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NASDAQ: SPY ) finished lower by 0.89% at $414.21. The Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (NASDAQ: QQQ ) fell by 0.14% at $325.31. The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (NASDAQ: DIA ) finished lower by 1.39% at $342.91. Here are the day's winners and losers from the SPY, according to data from Benzinga Pro . Leaders for the S&P 500 were Enphase Energy Inc (NASDAQ: ENPH ), Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL ) and Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR ). Hanesbrands Inc. (NYSE: HBI ), Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: OXY ) and HP Inc (NYSE: HPQ ) were among the largest losers. Elsewhere On The Street Data analytics company Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PLTR ) is the latest public company to embrace Bitcoin. Palantir, which reported forecast-beating first-quarter revenue Tuesday and in-line earnings per share, said on its earnings call that it will accept Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) as payment from customers... Read More Neuberger Berman's Dan Flax talked Tuesday about three growth stocks in particular that he thinks are well-positioned in the long term on CNBC's "Squawk Box." Rising interest rates will be a concern for growth stocks in the near term, but longer-term secular trends around the buildout of digital infrastructure remain healthy, Flax said... Read More A leading retailer of home, fragrance and women’s lingerie and beauty products has announced a spinoff intended to unlock shareholder value. Here’s what investors should know about the spinoff of Victoria’s Secret business from L Brands (NYSE: LB )... Read More See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Tesla, Qualcomm Plummet, Lead QQQ Sharply Lower Monday Nike And Disney Lead The Dow Jones Higher To Close The Week © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Cybersecurity attack hits world's largest meat supplier JBS' IT systems in the US and Australia: UPDATE: JBS USA, the world's largest meat supplier, has reportedly shut down its five biggest U.S. plants in the wake of a cyberattack. JBS USA, the world's largest meat supplier, says it was the target of an organized cybersecurity attack." In a statement , JBS, which has its U.S. headquarters in Greeley, Colorado, said the attack affected some of its servers supporting its North American and Australian IT systems. "The company took immediate action, suspending all affected systems, notifying authorities and activating the company's global network of IT professionals and third-party experts to resolve the situation," the company said in its statement. "The companys backup servers were not affected, and it is actively working with an Incident Response firm to restore its systems as soon as possible." How consumers might be impacted by the attack was not immediately known Monday. Save better, spend better: Money tips and advice delivered right to your inbox. Sign up here Earlier in the month, a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline , a key artery in the nation's energy infrastructure, temporarily disrupted the transportation of fuel in the Southeastern U.S. It triggered panic-buying of gasoline and led to gas shortages. The Colonial Pipeline Co. reportedly paid a $5 million ransom to cyberattackers to allow the vital fuel-shipping system to restart after the hackers had seized control. Some reports estimate the hackers received as much as $90 million in overall Bitcoin ransom payments before shutting down their operation. JBS says it was the target of an organized cybersecurity attack." JBS, which is a leading processor of beef, pork and other prepared foods in the U.S., said it "not aware of any evidence at this time that any customer, supplier or employee data has been compromised or misused as a result of the situation." Target fitting rooms: Target is reopening fitting rooms after keeping them closed more than a year amid COVID-19 Google Photos deadline day: Google Photos unlimited storage for photos and videos goes away starting Tuesday; accounts to have 15GB limit Story continues Bloomberg reported Monday that the JBS incident affected a Canadian beef plant in Brooks, Alberta, about 118 miles east of Calgary, according to a spokesperson for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401. JBS says it has 84 U.S. properties and the company owns facilities in 20 countries. "Resolution of the incident will take time, which may delay certain transactions with customers and suppliers," JBS said. 'Nothing is safe' The one-two punch of the recent cyberattacks shows that nothing is safe, said former senior Department of Homeland Security official Paul Rosenzweig. Not the meatpacking industry, not the chemical industry, not the wastewater treatment industry, not Sony. Nothing. And the only way to be safe in this world is to unplug completely. And you can't do that and be economically competitive, added Rosenzweig, a Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats senior fellow at the non-partisan R Street Institute public policy research organization in Washington, D.C. Rosenzweig said that the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, and the ransom paid by the company, has clearly emboldened non-state actors to strike at potentially bigger and more financially vulnerable targets, including JBS. Until they actually pay consequences, theyll keep doing it, he said. I mean, the Colonial guys got away with $50 million or whatever it was not bad for a weeks work. Who knows what the JBS guys might get away with? The Colonial Pipeline Co. reportedly paid a $5 million ransom to cyberattackers, which allowed the vital fuel-shipping system to restart after the hackers had seized control. So long as the internet is a place of anonymity, the criminals will be able to act with impunity, Rosenzweig added. And why would they stop? Contributing: Nathan Bomey, USA TODAY Follow USA TODAY reporter Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko . This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: JBS cyber attack: Meat company computer networks hit in the attack || CEO of Bitcoin Mining Firm Core Scientific Resigns: Kevin Turner has stepped down as CEO of crypto mining firm Core Scientific, a spokesperson confirmed to CoinDesk. The news was first reported on Wednesday byCNBC.
• Co-founder and Chairman Michael Levitt has stepped in as CEO. Turner will remain in an advisory role.
• Turner had been CEO of Core ScientificsinceJuly 2018, having previously served for 11 years as chief operating officer of Microsoft. Before that, he was chief information officer at Walmart until 2002.
• Core Scientific is the largest host ofbitcoinmining machines in North America.
• Last monthit revealedto CoinDesk the purchase of 112,800 application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, mining machines from Bitmain, doubling its inventory.
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• Upstate NY Bitcoin Miner Greenidge to Offset Rigs’ Carbon Emissions || Bitcoin ‘Kimchi Premium’ Fades Amid South Korean Exchange Crackdown, Price Sell-Off: South Korea’s crypto mania looks to have cooled amid the government’s renewed crackdown on cryptocurrencies andbitcoin‘s price slide.
• According to data provided by the South Korea-based analytics firm CryptoQuant, bitcoin’s Kimchi premium, a gauge of retail frenzy in South Korea, has declined to 2% from the lofty 20.6% observed on Sunday.
• The Kimchi premium is a widely tracked indicator that measures the spread between bitcoin’s price on Korean exchanges and other venues. The market discrepancy results from South Korea’s capital controls and regulations limiting foreign investors from trading on domestic exchanges.
• South Korea announcedon Monday a special enforcement period from April to June to target all “illegal activity involving virtual assets”.
• The move comes a month after the Financial Services Commission’s (FSC)warnedcrypto investors to “check the registration status” of exchanges and trade with those that have long-term sustainability.
• Aside from regulatory developments, bitcoin’s 25% drop from record highs above $64,000 reached on April 14 may have taken the wind out of frenzied action on Korean exchanges.
• The Kimchi Premium turned positive in mid-February and rose sharply in March and early April as bitcoin broke above $60,000 in the days leading to Coinbase’s debut on Nasdaq on April 14.
Also read:Bitcoin Price Drops Below 100-Day MA as Selling Picks Up on Biden’s Tax Plans
• Bitcoin ‘Kimchi Premium’ Fades Amid South Korean Exchange Crackdown, Price Sell-Off
• Bitcoin ‘Kimchi Premium’ Fades Amid South Korean Exchange Crackdown, Price Sell-Off
• Bitcoin ‘Kimchi Premium’ Fades Amid South Korean Exchange Crackdown, Price Sell-Off
• Bitcoin ‘Kimchi Premium’ Fades Amid South Korean Exchange Crackdown, Price Sell-Off || Crypto Hedge Funds Show Growing Appetite for DeFi: PwC: Crypto hedge funds managed nearly $3.8 billion in 2020, up from $2 billion in 2019, and are showing a taste for decentralized finance (DeFi), according to a new report from PwC and the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). Released Monday, the third annual Global Crypto Hedge Fund Report, co-authored by Elwood Asset Management, shows that 31% of crypto hedge funds use decentralized exchanges (DEXs), with Uniswap being the most widely used (16%), followed by 1inch (8%) and SushiSwap (4%). Meanwhile, DeFi-specific tokens are on the rise: oracle service Chainlink’s LINK was included in 30% of hedge fund investments, with interoperability protocol Polkadot’s DOT and lending platform Aave’s AAVE making up 28% and 27%, respectively. Related: Opium, UMA to Launch Decentralized Insurance for SpaceX Flights The DeFi space has seen explosive growth in recent months, with the total value locked in Ethereum-based DeFi platforms now sitting at $60 billion, according to DeFi Pulse . Meanwhile, some large traditional hedge funds like Steven Cohen’s Point72 are reported to be taking an interest in DeFi , as part of a strategy of setting up crypto-focused funds. While bitcoin remains far and away the most popular asset among funds, Ethereum’s native ETH token was included in 67% of investments. Crypto hedge funds are also involved in cryptocurrency staking (42%), lending (33%) and borrowing (24%). There is also increased interest in DeFi from some of the more traditional financial institutions, PwC Crypto Leader Henri Arslanian said in an email. Related: People Behind Crypto Protocol DeFi100 May Have Absconded With $32M in Investor Funds “Whilst they may be still far from using decentralized applications, many financial institutions are trying to be more educated and try to understand the potential impact that DeFi may have on the future of financial services,” Arslanian wrote. Crypto hedge funds on average returned 128% in 2020 (versus 30% in 2019). The vast majority of investors in such funds are either high-net-worth individuals (54%) or family offices (30%). The percentage of crypto hedge funds with over $20 million in AUM increased in 2020 from 35% to 46%. Story continues Meanwhile, 47% of traditional hedge fund managers surveyed, representing $180 billion of AUM, are already invested or looking at investing in crypto, according to the report. “The fact that we have partnered with AIMA and included traditional hedge funds for this year’s report is an indication of how fast crypto is becoming more mainstream with institutional investors,” said Arslanian. “This would have been unthinkable even 12 months ago.” Related Stories Flux Protocol Raises $10.3M Seed Round to Build DeFi Infrastructure on NEAR Market Wrap: Capitulation City as Bitcoin Dumps to $31K, ETH to $2K Before Reversal
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: no change || Prices: 35698.30, 31676.69, 32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28, 34649.64, 34434.34, 35867.78
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2019-02-28]
BTC Price: 3854.79, BTC RSI: 54.38
Gold Price: 1312.80, Gold RSI: 50.89
Oil Price: 57.22, Oil RSI: 63.15
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Here’s Why Pantera Capital Thinks This Bitcoin Bear Market is Different: bitcoin bear market pantera capital Dan Morehead , the CEO of bitcoin investment firm Pantera Capital, says everyone needs to chill out about the current Crypto Winter. Morehead reminded the myopic industry that the crypto space had weathered similar bear markets before, and this one actually bodes well for the future of bitcoin and blockchain. ‘Underlying Fundamentals Are Much Stronger’ Dan Morehead Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead | Source: TechCrunch/Flickr “This is actually our second Crypto Winter,” Morehead said on Laura Shin’s podcast Unconfirmed (audio below). Read the full story on CCN.com . || Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 25/01/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC fell by 1.71% on Thursday, partially reversing a 3.59% gain from Wednesday, to end the day at $128.04.
A bearish morning saw Bitcoin Cash ABC fall from a start of a day intraday high $130.27 to an early morning intraday low $126.00 before steadying.
Falling well short of the day’s first major resistance level at $134.71, Bitcoin Cash ABC fell through the first major support level at $127.29 in the early hours before finding support. A 2ndhalf of a day high $129.13 saw Bitcoin Cash ABC come up short of a recovery to $130 levels by the day’s end, to trail the top 10 on the day.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was down 0.26% to $127.71, with moves through the early hours seeing Bitcoin Cash ABC fall from a start of a day high $128 to a morning low $127.51 before steadying. The day’s major support levels were left untested early on.
For the day ahead, a move through to $128 levels would support a run back through to $130 levels to bring the day’s first major resistance level at $130.21 into play before any pullback. Barring a material improvement in sentiment across the broader market later in the day, we don’t expect the second major resistance level at $132.37 to be in play on the day.
Failure to move back through to $128 levels could see Bitcoin Cash ABC pullback through to $126 levels, bringing the day’s first major support level at $125.94 into play before any recovery. Heavier losses are not expected barring a broad based sell-off, which would bring $123 levels and the second major support level at $123.83 into play.
Litecoin rose by 2.75% on Thursday, following from a 0.41% gain on Wednesday, to end the day at $32.47.
Bearish through the early hours, Litecoin fell through the first major support level at $31.21 to a mid-morning intraday low $31.08 before making a move.
Rallying through to the late afternoon, Litecoin broke through the first major resistance level at $32.10 and second major resistance level at $32.59 to strike an intraday high $33.13 before easing back to $32 levels.
At the time of writing, Litecoin was up 0.92% to $32.77, a bullish start to the day seeing Litecoin rise from a morning low $32.47 to a morning high $32.95 before easing back. The day’s major support and resistance levels were left untested early on.
For the day ahead, a move back through the morning high to $33 levels would support a run at the first major resistance level at $33.37 before any pullback. We would expect $34 levels and the second major resistance level at $34.28 to be off the table later in the day, barring a broad based pre-weekend rally that could deliver $35 levels for the bulls.
Failure to move back through the morning high $32.95 could see Litecoin hit reverse later in the day, a pullback through the morning low $32.47 to $32.2 levels bringing the day’s first major support level at $31.32 into play before any recovery. We would expect sub-$31 support levels to be left untested on the day.
Ripple’s XRP gained 0.89% on Thursday, partially reversing a 0.97% fall from Wednesday, to end the day at $0.32310.
Tracking the broader market, Ripple’s XRP fell to a mid-morning intraday low $0.3180, holding above the day’s first major support level at $0.3170 before finding support from the broader market.
Ripple’s XRP rallied to a late afternoon intraday high $0.32612, breaking through the first major resistance level at $0.3249 before easing back.
At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down 0.02% to $0.32304, with Ripple’s XRP rising to an early morning high $0.32467 before hitting reverse. A pullback to a morning low $0.32211 left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
For the day ahead, a hold above $0.322 levels through the morning would support a move back through the morning high $0.32467 to bring the first major resistance level at $0.3268 into play before any pullback. Support from the broader market could deliver a move through to $0.33 levels to test the second major resistance level at $0.3305 before any pullback.
Failure to hold above $0.322 levels could see Ripple’s XRP slide back through the morning low $0.32211 to bring $0.31 levels and the first major support level at $0.3187 into play before any recovery. While we would expect sub-$0.31 support levels to be out of play through the day, a broad based crypto sell-off would bring the second major support level at $0.3143 into play.
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Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Stocks, Crude and Trade Talks – Where We Stand Before Next Week’s High-Level Meetings || Bitcoin Back in the Red, the Bears Looking for $3,500: Bitcoin rose by 0.56% on Wednesday, partially reversing a 2.53% slide on Tuesday, to end the day at $3,673.6. A bullish start to the day on Wednesday saw Bitcoin rally from an early morning intraday low $3,642.4 to a mid-day intraday high $3,759.9, breaking through the first major resistance level at $3,741.53, while continuing to fall short of $3,800 levels. Reversing through the afternoon, Bitcoin eased back to a 2 nd half of a day low $3,651 and into the red before finding support to move back through to $3,670 levels and into positive territory late in the day. Bitcoin managed to avoid the days first major support level at $3,591.3, with the start of a day intraday low $3,642.4, a return to some relatively tight ranges keeping Bitcoin away from $3,500 levels for a 2 nd consecutive day. For the Bitcoin bulls, Mondays 4.41% rally keeps Bitcoin in positive territory ahead of the weekend, though things could get testy for the more nervous investor should the tight ranges continue. Across the broader market, it was green across the board for the top 10, with the total market cap rising to a mid-day high $123.36bn before easing back to $121bn levels, the bearish start to the year seeing the total market cap sit well off a 2019 high $138.6bn hit ahead of last Thursdays crypto meltdown. Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down 0.46% to $3,656.6. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin slide from a morning high $3,683.6 to a morning low $3,630.0 before steadying. Moving with tight ranges yet again, Bitcoin came within range of the first major support level at $3,624.03, while falling well short of the first major resistance level at $3,741.53 in the early part of the day. For the day ahead, a move through to $3,690 levels would support a run at $3,700 levels to bring the first major resistance level at $3,741.53 into play before any pullback. We would expect Bitcoin to continue to come up short of $3,800 levels to leave the second major resistance level at $3,809.47 out of play on the day. Story continues Failure to move through to $3,690 levels could see Bitcoin take a slide later in the day, with a fall through the morning low $3,630.0 likely to see Bitcoin fall through the first major support level at $3,624.03 to call on sub-$3,600 support levels before any recovery, the bears looking to return Bitcoin to $3,500 levels. Across the broader market, it was red for the top 10 cryptos, with Trons TRX seeing the heaviest losses through the morning, down 3.87% at the time of writing, with a solid start to the year seeing investors lock in some profits as Tron faces the prospects of a 6 th day in the red out of the last 8. On the news front, talk of Bitcoin ETFs have resurfaced, with the broader market having very little to go on as investors wait on the SECs decision on the 9 ETF applications under review. February is around the corner, but it remains to be seen whether there has been enough progress to support a favourable decision. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Gold Gains on Risk Averse Trading Activity in Global Markets GBP/USD Price Forecast GBP Range Bound Near 1.29 Handle Amid Lack of High Impact Headlines EUR/USD Price Forecast EURO Declines Owing to Lack of Fundamental Support Lukmans Week Ahead: Market themes to watch out for Webinar January 21 Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis January 17, 2019 Forecast Commodities Daily Forecast January 17, 2019 || Nasdaq Futures Plunges 1.84% to Open 2019, But Bitcoin Surges: Nasdaq Futures kicked off on abearish notethis Wednesday as signs of weak economic data from China impacted the US markets.
The index has fallen by 116.60 points, down 1.84% at 6,216.75 after closing 2018 on an annual loss of 4.72%,according to CNBC data. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average are also down 299 points — or 1.29% — at 22,969, while those for the S&P 500 Index dropped 1.24% to 2,474.
On Monday, the US stock market hadclosed the year on a positive notedespite posting its worst annual performance in a decade. The Dow was up 1.23%, or 265.06 points to 23,327.46, while the Nasdaq Composite Index closed on 0.7% gains, or 50.76 points to establish an intraday high at 6,635.28. On an annual basis, the Dow closed the year on a 5.6% loss, and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq noted a 6.2% and 3.9% drop in their markets, respectively.
TheChinaManufacturing Index published its weakest figures since February 2016 owing to the ongoing trade war between the US and China. The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, or PMI, which focuses on export-oriented small businesses in China, fell as both domestic and global orders weakened. The demand for Chinese goods subdued despite manufacturers’ attempts to discount them. New export orders also contracted for the ninth monthly session in a row.
“It is looking increasingly likely that the Chinese economy may come under greater downward pressure,” Zhengsheng Zhong, director of macroeconomic analysis at CEBM Group,toldReuters.
The Chinese government is planning to roll out new measures to protect smaller companies from deterioration, mainly by introducing new loan programs and subsidized operational costs.
The US government’spartial shutdownhas entered its second week, with no signs of Congress approving the funds for the Mexico border wall. Government employees were told that they will not receive pay raises this year, which has led federal workers to sue the Trump administration.
As the chaos continues, US PresidentDonald Trumptweeted this Tuesday that he is open for a deal. However, that hasn’t improved investors’ sentiment.
Markets seemingly unaffected by the macroeconomic trends are performing better than the US futures.Bitcoin, for instance, jumped a little over 2% against the dollar on Wednesday, now trading at $3,864 according to CoinMarketCap.com. Ethereum has also surged impressively to reclaim the spot of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. It is now up 11%, trading at just shy of $152.
The uptrend in crypto space has no strong fundamental catalyst behind it.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postNasdaq Futures Plunges 1.84% to Open 2019, But Bitcoin Surgesappeared first onCCN. || 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. || The Top 10 Cryptocurrencies Aren’t The Most Actively Developed: CoinCodeCap.com keeps track of the development activity of dozens of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is the 52 nd most active cryptocurrency in terms of development, though it is the most active in terms of daily trading volume. It also has the largest market capitalization by far, and arguably more liquidity than several national currencies around the world. The top 10 cryptocurrencies do not necessarily line up with the most actively developed. The top 10 most active development teams in cryptocurrencies tracked on the site are: Cardano (ADA) Augur (REP) 0x (ZRX) Ethereum (ETH) Lisk (LSK) Status (SNT) TRON (TRX) Komodo (KMD) Skycoin (SKY) Waves (WAVES) Cardano has more than twice the commits of the second place Augur, at over 45,000. It should be noted that not every commit in a repository is necessarily “of substance.” Simply looking at the external metrics of a git repository does not necessarily indicate the level of work being done. A single commit can contain changes to every single file in a repository and it would still only count once. Likewise, a separate change to every file in a repository could be pushed and it would it would count as numerous commits. While Cardano ranks at the top in terms of developmental frequency, it is currently #11 in terms of market capitalization. At time of writing, it had a price of just over $0.04 and a 24-hour trading volume of around $13 million. Strong Development Efforts Don’t Always Equal Strong Market Results Tron, which is 6 places below Cardano on the development activity list, is currently a top 10 cryptocurrency by marketcap. It had a 24-hour trading volume of $68 million, a total market cap about 25% higher, and a price-per-token about half of Cardano’s. Ethereum, which is 4 th on the list, is still second on the list of cryptos by market cap, after a significant rebounding push over the past couple of weeks. Perhaps it is notable that it tops both chats. Etheruem has multiple development repositories, but only its core client development is tracked by CoinCodeCap . In all, it seems they might be putting the most work and returning the most market-based results. Story continues Several development teams like Monero and ZCash have their work spread across multiple repositories, which are not necessarily tracked by the site or immediately evident. In the case of Monero, it has two main development branches, one for its GUI wallet and one for its daemon implementation. Bitcoin, on the other hand, does the majority of its development in a single repository. Here are the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and their current rankings by CoinCodeCap: Bitcoin (52) Ethereum (4) Ripple (113) Bitcoin Cash (143) EOS (15) Stellar (54) Litecoin (195) Tether (not ranked) Bitcoin SV (not ranked) Tron (7) Cardano (1) We add Cardano since Tether is not an actively developed cryptocurrency, but a smart contract which issues and destroys tokens based on investments. We tracked down the data for Bitcoin SV ourselves: according to a Curl request using Github’s API for statistics of repositories, there have been just two commits to the Bitcoin-SV repository in the weeks since November 15 th , the day it forked away from Bitcoin Cash. There were numerous commits prior to the actual day of the fork, but CoinCodeCap and this article are mainly talking about native work on the active development fork. To be fair, Bitcoin SV has only existed a very short time and much of their work seems to be in “testing” stages. Statoshi.info creator Jameson Lopp recently commented via Twitter on the code development activity of various cryptocurrencies: 2018 commits & contributors, excluding merges from upstream forks: Bitcoin Core: 3274 | 194 LND: 3050 | 139 geth: 1209 | 219 Grin: 1171 | 70 Zcash: 1026 | 53 Monero: 2084 | 111 Bitcoin ABC: 786 | 41 Dash: 766 | 18 Ripple: 304 | 25 Stellar: 626 | 29 Litecoin: 54 | 7 — Jameson Lopp (@lopp) December 31, 2018 Featured image from Shutterstock. Chart from TradingView . The post The Top 10 Cryptocurrencies Aren’t The Most Actively Developed appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin The Bears Leave Bitcoin at sub-$3,500 Levels: Bitcoin fell by 1.76% on Sunday. Reversing a 0.83% gain from Saturday, Bitcoin ended the day at $3,501.7. A late in the day rally on Saturday gave Bitcoin a positive end to the day. There was no such luck on Sunday. Bitcoin hit reverse from the start of the day. Falling from an intraday high $3,566.8, Bitcoin fell to a late intraday low $3,470.1. The reversal saw Bitcoin fall through the first major support level at $3,515 to come within range of the second major support level at $3,465.8. The start of the day high saw Bitcoin fall well short of the first major resistance level at $3,597.2. For the week, Sundays reversal left Bitcoin down 2.65%, Monday through Sunday. As a result, Bitcoin saw its 3 rd week in the red out of the last 4. Elsewhere The bearish sentiment through the week was evident amongst the top 10 cryptocurrencies. Leading the way down was Stellars Lumen, which tumbled by 14.53%. Not too far behind were Trons TRX and Bitcoin Cash SV, which ended the week with 12.7% and 10.5% losses. Bucking the trend through the week was Litecoin and EOS. Litecoin gained 2.65%, in spite of a 3.8% slide on Sunday. EOS gained 0.74%, gains from earlier in the week being wiped out by a 3.5% fall on Sunday. Its been an interesting start to the year. While Litecoin has enjoyed 3 consecutive weeks of gains, Ripples XRP has fallen for 5 consecutive weeks. While Litecoin lightening will have contributed to the upward momentum, increased adoption in evidence, the upward momentum continues to be attributed to Augusts halving event. For Ripples XRP, the continued adoption of Ripple Labs cross border payment platforms appears to be having limited price impact at best. Even SWIFTs trial of R3s platform only provided temporary relief. It was yet another quiet day on the news front, with the end of week reversal leaving the total cryptomarket cap at $113.86bn. Going into the week, the total market cap had stood at $118.5bn, Story continues Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down 0.14% to $3,497.0. Moves through the early morning saw Bitcoin fall from a morning high $3,508.3 to a low $3,492.3. Bitcoin managed to hold above the first major support level at $3,458.93 while falling short of the first major resistance level at $3,555.63. For the day ahead Bitcoin will need to move through the morning high to $3,512.87 to support a recovery of last weeks losses. Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to breakdown resistance at $3,500 to take a run at the first major resistance level at $3,555.63. Bitcoin will likely fall short of $3,600 levels on the day. Failure to move through to $3,512 levels could see Bitcoin pullback through the morning low $3,492.3 to bring the first major support level at $3,458.93 into play before any recovery. Bitcoin will likely avoid sub-$3,400 levels in the event of a broad-based crypto sell-off. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Monthly Forecast February 2019 Crude Oil Price Update Trigger Point for Upside Acceleration is $56.17 AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast US-China Trade Progress, U.S. Treasury Yields Big Influences This Week Oil Monthly Forecast February 2019 Bitcoin The Bears Leave Bitcoin at sub-$3,500 Levels Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast OPEC-led Production Cuts Providing Most Support || Bitcoin Price at $1,800? The Longest Bear Market in History Could End With a Spiraling Collapse: Throughout the past 4 days, since February 1, the crypto market has remained stable at around $114 billion as the Bitcoin price stabilized at $3,500.
Several analysts expected Bitcoin to recover beyond the $4,000 resistance level after rebounding from the low $3,300 region.
Chart from TradingView
But, the dominant cryptocurrency has struggled to show signs of short-term recovery and has experienced three months of consecutive sell-offs.
Read the full story onCCN.com. || Bitcoin – Back in the Red, the Bears Looking for $3,500: Bitcoin rose by 0.56% on Wednesday, partially reversing a 2.53% slide on Tuesday, to end the day at $3,673.6.
A bullish start to the day on Wednesday saw Bitcoin rally from an early morning intraday low $3,642.4 to a mid-day intraday high $3,759.9, breaking through the first major resistance level at $3,741.53, while continuing to fall short of $3,800 levels.
Reversing through the afternoon, Bitcoin eased back to a 2ndhalf of a day low $3,651 and into the red before finding support to move back through to $3,670 levels and into positive territory late in the day.
Bitcoin managed to avoid the day’s first major support level at $3,591.3, with the start of a day intraday low $3,642.4, a return to some relatively tight ranges keeping Bitcoin away from $3,500 levels for a 2ndconsecutive day.
For the Bitcoin bulls, Monday’s 4.41% rally keeps Bitcoin in positive territory ahead of the weekend, though things could get testy for the more nervous investor should the tight ranges continue.
Across the broader market, it was green across the board for the top 10, with the total market cap rising to a mid-day high $123.36bn before easing back to $121bn levels, the bearish start to the year seeing the total market cap sit well off a 2019 high $138.6bn hit ahead of last Thursday’s crypto meltdown.
Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down 0.46% to $3,656.6. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin slide from a morning high $3,683.6 to a morning low $3,630.0 before steadying. Moving with tight ranges yet again, Bitcoin came within range of the first major support level at $3,624.03, while falling well short of the first major resistance level at $3,741.53 in the early part of the day.
For the day ahead, a move through to $3,690 levels would support a run at $3,700 levels to bring the first major resistance level at $3,741.53 into play before any pullback. We would expect Bitcoin to continue to come up short of $3,800 levels to leave the second major resistance level at $3,809.47 out of play on the day.
Failure to move through to $3,690 levels could see Bitcoin take a slide later in the day, with a fall through the morning low $3,630.0 likely to see Bitcoin fall through the first major support level at $3,624.03 to call on sub-$3,600 support levels before any recovery, the bears looking to return Bitcoin to $3,500 levels.
Across the broader market, it was red for the top 10 cryptos, with Tron’s TRX seeing the heaviest losses through the morning, down 3.87% at the time of writing, with a solid start to the year seeing investors lock in some profits as Tron faces the prospects of a 6thday in the red out of the last 8.
On the news front, talk of Bitcoin ETFs have resurfaced, with the broader market having very little to go on as investors wait on the SEC’s decision on the 9 ETF applications under review. February is around the corner, but it remains to be seen whether there has been enough progress to support a favourable decision.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Commodities Daily Forecast – January 17, 2019 || Bitcoin Price Retreats Under $3,400: Heres Why a Fall to the $2,000-Range May Be Inevitable: Bitcoin price In the last 24 hours, the Bitcoin price has dropped from $3,505 to $3,322 by more than five percent against the U.S. dollar. The abrupt decline in the Bitcoin price led the valuation of the crypto market to plunge by over $10 billion in a three-day span. Major crypto assets such as Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and EOS (EOS) recorded large losses throughout the past week and was surpassed by Tether (USDT) in market valuation. Read the full story on CCN.com .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
IBM, Aetna, PNC Explore Medical Data Blockchain for 100 Million Health Plans http://bit.ly/2MwE1yq BTC ETH XRP TRX $BTC $ETH $XRP $XLM $NEO $LTC $LUN $BQX $DNT $XZC $EVX $CDT $SNM $HSR $DASH $ICX $XLM $BTG $BAT $DGD $REQ $BCC $GAS $MANA $ZRX $ETC $FUN $NANO $BTS $ENG $EOS $NA… || 1 BTC = 14900.00000000 BRL em 21/02/2019 ás 09:00:02. #bitcoin #bitcoinbr #bitcoinexchangebr || 14 Enero, 2019 10:00 am #Bitcoin cotiza en $ USD 3592.69549445 || @evanstroud1 @TruthRaiderHQ || Your right it doesn't. However. Since most ppll are shorting BTC with BTC on mex... It makes less sense to be trading crypto. You would make more £ trading any other traditional market. Atleast if I'm short gold. The asset I'm shorting with isn't depreciating :) || WIN UP TO £ 888 - NO DEPOSIT! #casino #bonus #freespins #nodeposit #win #slots #bet #jackpot #bingo #giveaway #lottery #gaming #free #freestuff #tat #bitcoin. GET YOUR FREEBIES HERE: http://ow.ly/Ck3G50kaPgr pic.twitter.com/oRmMkm0jJf || This project is just super . He won my heart and soul at first sight . I can say with confidence that the project has a great future . #EcoStart #blockchain #EcoStartICO #ICO #tokensale #TER #BTC #ETH. || J’en avais pris 3 différentes après avoir analysé pendant des semaines avant de me décider (j’avais regardé pas mal de tes vidéos d’ailleurs). J’ai l’ami d’un ami qui avait emprunté 7000€ pour acheter 5000 BTC qd ils coutaient 1,20€ pièce. Il est multi millionaire mnt || Estate Planning with Bitcoin Explained http://dlvr.it/QxXn6l pic.twitter.com/CSgYqXUQNa || BTC,ETH,XRP
Last: 3805.71, 155.77, 0.35
High: 3840.99, 159.26, 0.36
Low: 3770.00, 150.80, 0.35
%: 0.00% , 0.02% , -0.00%
Total USDT: 4.68, 3.12, -0.00
#BTC #bitcoin #ETH #XRP #ripple #crypto #cryptocurrency #pricepic.twitter.com/W00xKZ55xc
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Trend: up || Prices: 3859.58, 3864.42, 3847.18, 3761.56, 3896.38, 3903.94, 3911.48, 3901.13, 3963.31, 3951.60
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-05-06]
BTC Price: 9268.76, BTC RSI: 76.86
Gold Price: 1684.20, Gold RSI: 50.09
Oil Price: 23.99, Oil RSI: 53.48
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
The Man Who Forecast a Currency Cold War: Many of the impacts of COVID-19 are easy to grasp. Every day we see the gutting news: the rising body count, the millions of unemployed, the makeshift morgues in public parks. We grieve for those we have lost. We worry about those who are vulnerable. We’re sick of staying at home. We miss restaurants and pubs.
And then there are the second-, third- and fourth-order impacts. These are tougher to spot. In the blizzard of news from the U.S. emergency stimulus package, for example, it was easy to overlook a fairly shocking proposal from the House of Representatives: that the COVID-19 relief money (aka the $1,200 checks) could be digitally zapped to Americans instead of going through traditional banks.
As CoinDesk’s own Michael Casey writes in the forward to “The Currency Cold War, “the “half-baked proposal was subsequently removed, but it marked a dramatic widening in the Overton window of what is open to discussion. A digital dollar is now on the table.” Meanwhile, in another corner of this emerging conflict, libra looms large. And China gets ready to launch its central bank digital currency (known as the DCEP).
Related:4 Ways COVID-19 Will Bring Banks and Regulators to Crypto
The upshot? COVID-19 could ignite something of a digital currency war.
See also:Money Reimagined: As Tech, Politics and COVID-19 Collide, a Global Reset Looms
Good thing someone just wrote a book about that exact possibility. Fintech guru David Birch, a consultant and prolific speaker on the blockchain conference circuit, wrote “The Currency Cold War: Cash and Cryptography, Hash Rates and Hegemony,” just in time for our global pandemic. He nailed the timing. For years Birch had his own pet theories about a clash of digital currencies. But “that was just me, just some guy talking about it,” he tells me in his British accent, which seems always on the verge of a sly joke. “And who cares, you know?”
Then came Jackson Hole.
Related:Marketing Ethereum 2.0 and Herding Cats With Hudson Jameson
In the fall of 2019, at a Jackson Hole, Wy., event Birch describes as a “Burning Man for people who run central banks,” the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said that perhaps it was time for some form of “synthetic hegemonic currency” to deal with what he called the “destabilizing dominance” of the U.S. dollar.
This comment seemed to galvanize Birch. “The Governor of the Bank of England is emphaticallynotjust some guy,” Birch says. He realized the Currency Cold War was not just his own pet theory – it was imminent. It might already be happening. And it has consequences. Which currency would society choose? Would it be one or many?
It’s crazy. What the f— are they doing mailing out checks to people?
“Which digital currency?” Birch writes in “The Currency Cold War.” “Will we really be choosing between the Federal Reserve and Microsoft (between dollar bills and Bill’s dollars)? Between Facebook’s Libra and China’s Digital Currency/Electronic Payment (DCEP) system? Between spendable drawing rights (SDRs) and Kardashian kash?”
Regular readers of CoinDesk, of course, already know cryptocurrencies could compete with traditional fiat. That idea is not new. Birch takes the next logical step by asking, effectively, what happens when the rubber hits the road? Let’s pretend we get a Facebook libra or a digital yuan. How would that change the world order? What would that mean to a farmer in Africa, or what would it mean for the United States’ ability to throw around its muscle?
In the book, Birch frames the hypothetical conflict of a digital yuan vs. Facebook libra as “Red vs. Blue,” in a cheeky nod to thecult videosinspired by Halo. (Birch even asked the publisher if they could call the book “Red vs. Blue,” and they politely told him he was crazy.)
Red vs. Blue? Crypto vs. Fiat? Public vs. Private? On a quarantine-Zoom call a few weeks before appearing atConsensus Distributedon May 11 at 9 a.m. ET, Birch explains why the currency Cold War matters, how it impacts global “soft power,” and why you might see things like IBM Money…or an Islamic Money that cannot be used to buy alcohol.
CoinDesk: Your book seems incredibly prescient. How does COVID-19 impact a potential digital currency war?
David Birch:I wouldn’t have wished it this way, obviously, but yeah, COVID-19 might have done me a bit of a favor. You must admit that to somebody outside of the U.S., the idea that government stimulus money will arrive in the form of checks beingmailed in the postto people seems odd.
This is like having an economic stimulus for the Little House on the F–ing Prairie. It’s crazy. What the f— are they doingmailing out checksto people? So the idea that the government could provide a stimulus just by sending money directly into people’s wallets — not even into their bank accounts, but directly into their wallets — that’s really interesting. That might well provide an incredible stimulus to digital currency that none of us saw coming.
See also:How a Flurry of ‘Digital Dollar’ Proposals Made It to Congress
In the book you consider the possibility of the U.S. dollar losing its dominance. What are the implications?
Birch:I think you need to divide it into two categories. So there’s what does it mean in financial terms? And of course, America’s ability to denominate its own debt translates into a tremendous fiscal advantage. So if America couldn’t do that, it couldn’t just print its way out of problems. This is what General [Charles] de Gaulle rather famously referred to as America’s “exorbitant privilege.” And that has implications for trade.
But I think what’s more interesting are the non-financial implications.
Such as?
Birch:America’s ability to exercise soft power. I stress that I’m not making a political point. But for example, do you remember a few months ago, America threatened to cut Turkey off? I can’t even remember what the dispute was about…
Who can? There were 17 crises between now and then! [Editor’s note: This would be the U.S.threatening to cut Turkeyfrom an F-35 stealth fighter jet program.]
Birch:Yeah, a lifetime of crises ago. But the point is that if I’m some country, and America says you have to do something I don’t particularly want to do, I have to do it because otherwise I can no longer buy imports and I get cut off from the global financial system. But what if there was something that was a bit like money but it just wasn’t run by the Americans?
Or let’s say you’re a country in Africa. You sell most of your oil to China, so you decide to price your oil in yuan. You sell your oil in digital yuan. The U.S. Treasury wants to sanction you for doing something, what do you care? You don’t use their stupid dollars anymore. None of your money goes through the New York money central banks, so what do you care? There are several countries, I’m sure, that actively would like that to happen.
How could this impact an average person?
Birch:Let’s say you’re a farmer in Africa. And you’re buying tractors and things from China, and you’re buying fertilizer from China, and you’re supplying food to Chinese companies that are building ports and whatever else things companies do.
You’ve got the choice between getting paid in your local currency, which you may not be too happy about because it may be a little volatile — it may be depreciating or it may have currency controls attached to it. Or you could get paid in U.S. dollars, except you’re not allowed to have a U.S. dollar bank account. And even if you did have a U.S. dollar bank account, when you decide to send some money to your cousin in Afghanistan you can’t, because it gets blocked by the U.S. Treasury.
Or maybe you have a wallet on your phone where you can store your Chinese digital currency. Given those choices, I can understand why a great many people, particularly along China’s emergingBelt and Road, I can see why some of those people would make that choice. I’m sure you can, too.
I personally feel that money is so important that it has to be under democratic control.
In the book you talk about “Red vs. Blue,” and I totally got the Halo reference, by the way.
Birch:It was Halo, yeah! [Laughs.] I thought it was hilarious but no one knew what I was talking about. I’m so old. It fell completely flat. I wanted to call the book “Red vs. Blue,” but my publisher, who knows a lot more about selling books than I do, said, “It’s absolutely meaningless. No one will know what you’re talking about.”
So whatdoesRed vs. Blue mean, outside of Halo?
Birch:It’s the difference between private and public. So if I take Facebucks, which is what I always call them… I think it’s a much better name [than libra]. How come I know more about marketing than Mark Zuckerberg? I don’t get it.
If I take Facebucks, I take Facebucks because I think other people are going to take Facebucks. That’s how money works. And there could be 2.5 billion people around the world who are perfectly happy to accept Facebucks. Zuckerberg said his vision was that sending money would be just as easy as sending a photo. Well, if that were true, if that vision was realized, that would be great, right?
I mean, everyone would use that, wouldn’t they? So is that a bad thing? Well, you know, if you run a government and you want to have some control over things, you’d probably think that was a bad thing, right?
I can see it argued either way…
Birch:Now, if I’m the government, actually, I might be okay with that as long as certain criteria are met, like [know-your-customer]. But I can’t help but feeling… even if Facebook did that, I mean, would you have your salary paid in Facebook money?
Right.
Birch:Or If you get chucked out of Facebook, who’s the ombudsman you call? You see people all the time get banned from Twitter and they can’t figure out why. What would happen with Facebucks? Like, what happens if you wake up one morning and, all of a sudden, Facebook won’t let you send money to anybody? What do you do about it?
Or would this give Facebook too much “soft power,” a consideration you raise in the book?
Birch:I personally feel that money is so important that it has to be under democratic control. Now, that’s not the same thing as saying that money has to be run by thegovernment, because I don’t think I agree with that. But I do think money should be under democratic control. I’m sure you must get into this argument all the time with the bitcoin maximalists.
Can you elaborate? Why is democratic control so important?
Birch:Well, why don’t you get one of the bitcoin guys to write an article which explains to me how you would respond to the COVID-19 pandemic? I mean, I’ve seen them on Twitter, and they’re like, “Well, it just means the people who didn’t save money will go to the wall.” This is teenage. It really is. It’s angry white male West Coast teenage pseudo-libertarianism.
In the book you talk about “very smart money,” which could involve not only cryptography but biometrics. How do you envision this?
Birch:So smart money is money that has apps, right? Very smart money is money that has coordinated apps that function to the benefit of all of the stakeholders. Here’s an example that I tried to use in the book. Suppose you have digital currency that’s effectively anonymous, right? Like with z-cash, it can be either anonymous or non-anonymous. So I can send money to you anonymously. But if I send money to you anonymously, then when you receive the money, there’s an automatic 20% withholding tax which goes to the government to compensate for criminality and money laundering, or that sort of thing.
See also:Chris Giancarlo – Don’t Rush Digital Dollar During COVID-19 Crisis
The libertarians would love that! What’s another example?
Birch:You could imagine money where, if both of us are behaving ourselves, then everything is anonymous. But if one of us does something wrong — like I steal your money and run away with it — then you can unblind the transactions. You can break the glass, basically.
Interesting.
Birch:I’ve always thought that the smart contract layer will be where the real innovation would come from, and I do still believe that. But now I’ve started to think, well, if those smart contracts were kind of coordinated and organized, then you could make money that’s really smart. Not money that just has simple triggers, simple little apps. What if I introduced an Islamic money? And the Islamic money can never be used buy alcohol, for example? A lot of people would prefer to use that kind of money, right?
Or a parent who gives an allowance to a kid that can’t be used to buy R-rated movies or whatever. That gets into money as censorship, and an Orwellian dark side pretty quickly…
Birch: If the tools are there, people who are much cleverer than me will come up with some amazing applications, I’m sure.
You’re a big proponent of having LOTS of currencies. What’s the benefit of this?
Birch:If you only have one currency, and something goes wrong with it — like inflation — then you’re stuck, right? But if there’s lots of currencies and those currencies are constantly competing to deliver what society wants, if one of them goes away, it doesn’t really matter.
It’s the old argument that goes back to the idea of the IBM dollar. If I want to send you IBM stock, it has to go through all sorts of intermediaries, clearings, settlements, T+3 [trade date plus three days] and everything else, right? But if I send you IBM money, the money goes from me to you, end of story. So it makes for a much cheaper infrastructure.
So instead of having one kind of money and using it to buy different kinds of securities, you’d have lots of different kinds of money. And people say, “Well, that would be really complicated to manage,” but that’s because they’re thinking of doing it themselves. In reality, you wouldn’t be doing it yourself because it’s very smart money. The AI in your phone will take care of it for you. Money that’s designed for devices can be much smarter than money designed for people.
What do you want people to take away from the book? What’s the core idea?
Birch:Three things, really. First of all, to stop thinking about digital currency as some kind of nerd cryptographer/bitcoin nutter thing. It’s a real thing and it needs to be taken seriously.
Two, to develop a strategy for digital currency. Obviously, my strategy would be for the Bank of England to create a fantastic digital currency. I’m sure Michael [Casey] and other people’s strategies might be for some private companies to create a fantastic digital currency. For other people, it might be for the U.S. to create a fantastic digital currency. I’m not smart enough to know which should be the best strategy, but I’m smart enough to know there should be a strategy.
And the third thing?
That they should pay me enormous sums of money to come and talk about it in conferences, should there ever be conferences again in the rest of my lifetime.
David Birch will be appearing at virtualConsensus DistributedMay 11 at 9 a.m. ET.
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• Why the Dollar Has Never Been Stronger or More Set Up to Fail || Bitcoin News Roundup for March 31, 2020: For early access before our regular noon Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocketcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Stitcher , RadioPublica or RSS . Todays Stories: Bitcoins Recent Recovery Wont Salvage a Terrible Month for Prices Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for March 30, 2020 MLB Champions Downplays ETH, Aims for Mass Market in New Game Reboot French Central Bank Puts Out Call for Digital Currency Experiments Bitcoin pizza restaurant sees 90% drop in revenue 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 March 27, 2020 Bitcoin News Roundup for March 26, 2020 Bitcoin News Roundup for March 25, 2020 || Looking for a Safe Haven Digital Asset? Try Gold: Olga Feldmeier is CEO and co-founder of SMART VALOR, a European digital asset platform for trading, staking and issuance. She previously held executive positions at UBS and Barclays.
The rapid spread of the coronavirus caught most of us completely unprepared, including most of us in finance.
Now is the time for most people to adjust their financial holdings. The flight to safety pushed many to the U.S. dollar. However, the safety of dollar has also been put in question with the announcement of quantitative easing and other money supply increasing measures. .
Related:How to Protect Your Online Privacy While Working From Home
See also:Tobias Huber – How Financial Models Could Move Bitcoin’s Price After the Halving
Having served an eventful tenure as the head of sales at the Wealth Management Division of UBS, the world’s largest wealth management bank, I learned that the speed of adjustment of the client portfolio in moments of crisis can have a crucial influence on its overall long-term performance.
The key problem is how to switch. When everything is on fire, it is difficult to see what will save your savings. Everybody is looking for the safe-haven assets negatively correlated to the overall market. Many of us hoped it would be crypto. We hoped “digital gold,”bitcoin(BTC), would always move in the opposite direction to the general market. Yet, recently we learned bitcoin could fall from the sky like any other asset. On March 12, it dropped about 50 percent, in line with other financial assets.
Looking at the price development of bitcoin in the last 10 days, to me it looks like the high level of volatility is here to stay. Will bitcoin surge back to $20,000 or more, supported by further money printing, the collapse of the banking system or thehalving eventin May? Or will it keep crashing like last month with volatility spikes attached?
Related:How Blockchain Tech Can Make Coronavirus Relief More Effective
Nobody knows for sure. But one thing is clear. In times of crisis, holding too much in crypto is not advisable. Even for me, as an outright Bitcoin maximalist, and holding the majority my savings in cryptocurrency, I must say: Now is the time to hedge.
See also:Ether-Bitcoin Price Volatility Spread Hits 4-Month Low
But what does this hedge look like? If it is not the US dollar and real estate, what else is out there for us? The natural answer is gold.
Let’s look at the historic correlation between gold and the stock market. In a crisis, it tends to be negative, meaning that gold’s price rises as stock markets fall. Through wars and the worst recessions – including the Great Depression in the 1930s – we have experienced a massive rise in the price of gold. During the last two recessions of 2000 and 2008, gold protected the portfolios of investors like no other asset. During the Global Financial Crisis, gold’s price grew by more than 200 percent. This is why gold is generally referred to as a safe-haven asset or chaos hedge.
The stock market collapse, in which S&P 500 slipped around 30 percent since its peak in late February, has yet to see its counterbalance in the corresponding rise in gold’s price. So far, the gold price is up 10 percent during the last two weeks. Why hasn’t this happened yet? The reason is that during the initial stage of a stock market crash, market participants need to unbundle leveraged positions, liquidating – among other assets – their gold positions. The price is flat on the year-to-date basis, hovering at around $1,500/oz at the time of writing.
Another metric, the total holdings of gold, reveals that investors have been preparing for a shift in the economic cycle for a while now. The total holdings of bullion-backed exchange-traded ETFs are at the record high, having doubled from 1,450 to 2,700 tons during the last four years, accordingto Bloomberg.
One can expect further devaluation of the greenback in the near future.
Lastly, there is a rather inverse relationship between the value of the US dollar and gold. The US dollar lost 93 percent of its value over the last 100 years. And this journey is long from over. Looking at the US’s massive $23 trillion national debt and the recent monetary policy decisions by the US Federal Reserve, one can expect further devaluation of the greenback in the near future. As a matter of fact, last week, the US Federal Reserve decided to lower the benchmark interest rate from 0.25 percent to 0 percent and relaunched its quantitative easing program and other programs mounting to $2 trillion stimulus package.
Today, the predominant way to get gold exposure is through physical gold-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). To invest in these ETFs, you either need to have an account in the bank that offers such instruments or open an account on a trading platform offering gold ETFs. This is the old world. Decentralized finance does away with barriers like these.
Both physical gold ETFs and tokenized gold represent ownership rights in physical gold stored at some secure vault. Also, both can be traded on exchanges and represent a relatively liquid asset. The difference between ETF and tokenized gold is that traders can send the token globally, peer-to-peer, in a few minutes to anybody anywhere who has a blockchain address. No bank account necessary.
Tokenized gold can be used not only as a store of value but also as a means of payment, whereas it can travel completely outside of the banking system. It becomes the type of money we used before Bretton Woods did away with the Gold Standard. Should state defaults and bank runs become daily news, it could be the money the world turns to again.
See also:Crypto Exchange and Custodian Smart Valor Goes Live in Switzerland
While governments are looking at ways of tokenizing national currencies, and companies like Facebook are working on digital corporate money, all of this might come too late. The world in crisis will need a fast and reliable transfer mechanism for stable money that everyone trusts. This is how the global financial crisis might become that catalyst that catapults blockchain-based digital assets such as tokenized gold to mass adoption.
For this to happen we need three things: token issuers, exchanges and trust. The role of token issuers is to reliably put appropriate amount of precious metal behind each token issued. Exchanges enable trade and provide liquidity. (Paxos wasan early pioneer, issuing the gold-backed PAXG token, which is today the only fully regulated gold token that you can redeem for accredited gold bullion bars.) The recent addition is Switzerland-basedSMART VALOR, where I’m CEO. Last week it became the first European crypto exchange to embrace PAXG and enable direct on-ramps and trading in Swiss Franc, GPB and EUR via bank wire or credit card payment.
The third component – trust – will be hardest to achieve. In the eyes of traditional investors, crypto exchanges are not a place of trust. You could see this last week as the streets of many European cities were filled withpeople lining up in front of gold shops.Clearly, they do not trust their banks to hold that gold ETF for them. But many of us in the crypto space may trust tokened or digitalized gold ownership. We trust decentralized networks, we trust the technology and we’re prepared to be early adopters.
• Corporate America Knows the Bailout Is Baked In
• Looking for a Halving Payday? Quick Wins in Investing Are Rare || Enterprise Blockchains: Walled Off Yet Vulnerable: How do you hack an enterprise blockchain? We may find out soon enough. Enterprise blockchain products have been designed mostly as private networks, limited to authorized parties. This is supposed to make them more efficient than public chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum because fewer computers have to reach agreement on who owns what, and in a sense safer because the participants know each other. These products apply technology originally developed for the Wild West of cryptocurrency to a range of unglamorous corporate activities, including cross-border transactions, storing records, and tracking goods and information. Their promise has attracted some of the worlds largest corporations and software vendors. Related: Hackers Plant Crypto Miners by Exploiting Flaw in Popular Server Framework Salt But like any software, they can in theory be hacked , although how to prevent that hacking isnt as well documented. I cant recall a single major company announcing a loss of any kind from a hack on a private blockchain, says Paul Brody, global blockchain lead at consulting giant EY. Read more: Meet Red Date, the Little-Known Tech Firm Behind Chinas Big Blockchain Vision That may change in the near future as companies start bringing these gated systems out of the lab and into real-world use. Related: Meet Red Date, the Little-Known Tech Firm Behind Chinas Big Blockchain Vision Big companies have been working on blockchain apps for a couple years now, said Pavel Pokrovsky, the blockchain lead at Kaspersky, the Moscow-based anti-virus software vendor. Soon, they will start pushing those apps into production and might face new challenges in managing their risks. As more such solutions get deployed, attacks on them might become more frequent. Inside jobs One problem is that private, permissioned systems are most vulnerable to insider threats, both Pokrovsky and Brody said. Insider risk is particularly high in private blockchains because the work that is usually done to secure information within the private network is very low compared to public networks, said EYs Brody, who has been a rare voice among the Big Four professional-services firms in stumping for open systems . On public networks, we make extensive use of zero-knowledge proofs and other tools to keep sensitive data off-chain. Story continues Only one or two of EYs corporate clients went to such lengths with private networks, he said. As a result, if you can gain access to the network or you already have it as an insider, nearly all the critical data is actually visible to all the members. In general, Pokrovsky said, the most common type of attack that can theoretically be employed against an enterprise blockchain network is a denial of service attack. This is different from a DDoS, or distributed denial of service, where a companys servers are inundated with useless requests that overwhelm them. Read more: Miners Trick Stablecoin Protocol PegNet, Turning $11 Into Almost $7M Hoard Denial of service, on the other hand, is a focused attack that uses knowledge perhaps an ex-employee rather than electronic muscle power. Lets say an employee of a company gets fired and hes angry at his ex-employer. He goes to the dark web and sells his knowledge of the vulnerabilities in the system to hackers, Pokrovsky said. In the case of enterprise blockchains, an attacker would need to know the addresses of the nodes and what can put them offline. An attacker can overwhelm the nodes data storage capacity, flood it with useless calculations, Pokrovsky said. For example, one of our clients nodes could not process very large numbers, say, 12 zeroes and more. They would just freeze. The cure for that kind of attack is proper filtering of the data entering the nodes, he said: Its a very widespread mistake, not filtering the incoming data. Cheap trick Exploiting such a vulnerability is easy when you know where the nodes are and, unlike DDoS, it does not require buying traffic in the form of bots that flood your target with garbage traffic, or deploying a lot of hardware to attack the server. You just write a simple script and send it to the nodes, Pokrovsky said. Then the nodes go offline. This can be utilized for criminal purposes from sabotaging a competitor to terrorist attacks, Pokrovsky said. The situation can be exacerbated by the fact that the most convenient way to set up nodes for a private blockchain is to use cloud infrastructure so companies dont have to figure out how to set up a physical node in their office. Most private blockchains have very few nodes and, in many cases, they all reside inside a single cloud infrastructure, creating a single point of failure, Brody said. That also means that far from being immutable stores of information, they are in fact easy to erase or shut down. The risks can vary. For example, Masterchain , the enterprise blockchain for banks developed under the auspices of Russias central bank, is a fork, or modified copy, of the Ethereum blockchain, which uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism. Taking down nodes on such a network would lead to the consensus re-distributing among the remaining nodes, which would continue to validate transactions. However, if it turns out all the remaining nodes are controlled by the central bank, the network participants might argue, the transactions recorded while everyone else was down are not legitimate, Pokrovsky said. Read more: DeFi Project dForce Refunds All Affected Users After $25M Hack DDoS is an attack easy and cheap to organize, but its also easy to prevent, and services like Cloudflare can identify and effectively prevent it. But the denial of service is not identifiable by the filters such services use, Pokrovsky said, adding that sometimes attackers dont even need an insider to locate the nodes its possible to find such information via open source intelligence methods. Its very hard to fix such vulnerabilities as the attack is happening, when everythings crashed, everyones running around and everything is on fire, he said its better to try to predict such situations in a testing environment. Not-so-smart contracts If a blockchain uses smart contracts, they can be attacked as well, Pokrovsky said. For the enterprise blockchains, the typical attack is when a contract contains variables that can turn out different for each node, for example, timestamps or random numbers, he said. In this case, every node would execute the smart contract with a different result and the transaction will not be recorded into the blockchain as a result. If a smart contract refers to documents, there is another possible way to attack it: inserting malicious code into the document. Read more: Hacker Exploits Flaw in Decentralized Bitcoin Exchange Bisq to Steal $250K Its the same as the SQL injection attack and to prevent it you need to filter the incoming data and limit the use of external data by the smart contract, Pokrovsky said. The fact that most private blockchains dont enjoy the attention of a broad blockchain community is also a weakness, Brody said. Perhaps the biggest risk posed by private blockchains is the risk of complacency, he said. Open source code that isnt widely used and doesnt have a vigilant community testing and inspecting it is far less secure and reliable than systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are continuously hardened by nearly constant attack and public inspection. Kasperskys angle With an eye perhaps toward broadening its revenue stream, Kaspersky moved into blockchain-oriented research and consulting in 2018, first focusing on public blockchains including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Kaspersky has been working with crypto exchanges and completed a security audit for the trading software company Merkeleon in October 2018. In October 2019, Kaspersky started working with enterprise blockchains, too. Pokrovsky told CoinDesk the company audited a number of such systems, only two of which he could name publicly: Russia-based blockchain startup Insolar and Waves, which has been re-focusing from public to private blockchains since last year. Kaspersky software has been listed among the top 10 antivirus products globally by PC Magazine in March but it has been banned from being installed on U.S. government computers since 2017 as part of the U.S. response to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. That ban caused sales to plunge in the U.S. and Europe but they have expanded in Russia as well as Africa. Kaspersky reported 4 percent revenue growth in 2018. Kasperskys Waves Enterprise audit took three months, from November 2019 to the end of January 2020. The task was to check the security of the nodes, network infrastructure and nodes web interfaces, Pokrovsky said. The security firm ran what it calls grey box testing, in which the tester does not have access to the blockchain platforms full code, but does have administrator-level access to the system. This kind of testing would show possible insider threats, like an ex-employee going rogue. After the testing is over, Kaspersky presents the client with the list of vulnerabilities and the client fixes them. Then the testing is run again. Pokrovsky would not disclose what weaknesses had to be fixed on Waves Enterprise blockchain. (Waves confirmed it hired Kaspersky.) Related Stories Power Ledger to Bring Blockchain Energy Trading to West Australian Housing Developments Five Ways Blockchain Tech Can Help Us During This Pandemic || Nvidia Urges Gamers To Use Their Gaming PCs To Fight Coronavirus: NVIDIA Corporation(NASDAQ:NVDA) is asking gamers todownload an applicationand use their gaming PCs to fight COVID-19.
What Happened
Nvidia is urging users of gaming personal computers (PCs) to fight COVID-19. The computer hardware companytweetedon Saturday, “Join us and our friends at @OfficialPCMR in supporting folding@home and donating unused GPU computing power to fight against COVID-19!”
The folding@home app has a number of graphics processing unit (GPU) specific projects, which gaming PC users can contribute by just downloading the application.
PCMR, a community of PC enthusiasts, describes the concept behind the app, “You can install a small program on your computer, and it downloads a small amount of data that it analyses, then returning the results to the Stanford researchers.” The website claims that the whole process only takes 3 minutes.
Folding@home will work on COVID-19, but they also focus on cancer, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s diseases.
Why It Matters
The initial “wave of projects” will help researchers get a better understanding of coronaviruses and how they interact with the human ACE-2 receptor, which is required for viral entry into human host cells.
In an update regarding COVID-19 and their efforts to fight the disease, folding@home announced, “In the coming days, we hope to take advantage of some of the new structural biology and biochemical data that is being rapidly released by researchers around the world who are working to understand these viruses and strategies for defeating them.”
Price Action
Nvidia shares traded 11.34% higher at $240.84 on Friday in the regular session.
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© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Crypto Payments for Child Porn Grew 32% in 2019: Report: Nearly $1 million in bitcoin and ethereum flowed into child pornography-linked wallet addresses in 2019, continuing a multiyear upward trend that captures the complicated realities of mass crypto adoption. The statistic, disclosed in a Tuesday blog post by forensics firm Chainalysis, is a tiny sliver of overall crypto usage – even on March 31, 2019, one of the slower trading days of that year, Messari’s estimated $128 million worth of bitcoin in transit dwarfed the nearly $930,000 that Chainalysis traced to addresses flagged by the Internet Watch Foundation across 365 days. But the troubling total nonetheless documents crypto’s growing popularity as a method of payment for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Last year, 32 percent more crypto value moved into CSAM than in 2018, which itself was 212 percent higher than 2017’s total. Chainalysis based its totals on the cryptos’ value at time of transaction. Related: Coronavirus Has Erased 33% of Crypto Scammers’ Revenue: Chainalysis The 2019 figure comes in spite of law enforcement agencies’ global rush to dismantle online CSAM operations, including some of the largest ever uncovered. March 2018’s cross-border takedown of the Welcome to Video CSAM ring shuttered a darknet site that had collected some 420 total bitcoin across its nearly three-year reign. Traceability While Welcome to Video’s downfall did not stop 2018 or 2019 from hitting record usage highs, it does illustrate one of the upsides – from a law enforcement standpoint – of people using crypto to pay for CSAM. Bitcoin and ether are inherently traceable, and when users pay for CSAM without attempting to thoroughly obfuscate their tracks, they’re surprisingly easy to find and jail. Most of the funds come right from exchanges, said Nina Heyden, an economist at Chainalysis. Better yet: from compliant exchanges who collect their users’ identity data as required by law. “The good thing about that is those exchanges often cooperate with law enforcement when law enforcement requests more information during investigations,” Heyden said. Story continues Related: ‘Ship-to-Ship’ Trade and Other Secrets of North Korea’s Illicit $1.5B Crypto Stash For example, law enforcement used crypto tracing software to arrest hundreds of Welcome to Video customers whose transaction trails often led to identifiable exchange accounts. Tracing also helped investigators uncover other CSAM rings associated with Welcome to Video via its users’ wallet addresses, as with DarkScandals . Related Stories Paxful Becomes First P2P Exchange to Partner With Chainalysis US Charges Dutch National With Running Crypto-Funded Child Porn Site || Bitcoin Dips Below 6,652.0 Level, Down 4%: Investing.com - Bitcoin fell bellow the $6,652.0 level on Tuesday. Bitcoin was trading at 6,652.0 by 13:18 (17:18 GMT) on the Investing.com Index, down 4.36% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage loss since March 23.
The move downwards pushed Bitcoin's market cap down to $121.4B, or 0.00% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, Bitcoin's market cap was $241.2B.
Bitcoin had traded in a range of $6,380.8 to $6,814.2 in the previous twenty-four hours.
Over the past seven days, Bitcoin has seen a rise in value, as it gained 26.56%. The volume of Bitcoin traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $48.9B or 0.00% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $5,020.9248 to $6,858.0732 in the past 7 days.
At its current price, Bitcoin is still down 66.52% from its all-time high of $19,870.62 set on December 17, 2017.
Ethereum was last at $136.78 on the Investing.com Index, up 3.07% on the day.
XRP was trading at $0.16121 on the Investing.com Index, a gain of 3.32%.
Ethereum's market cap was last at $15.1B or 0.00% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while XRP's market cap totaled $7.1B or 0.00% of the total cryptocurrency market value.
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Bitcoin (BTC) Rebounds as Fed Stimulus Spurs Investor Sentiment || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -03/05/20: Bitcoin rose by 1.81% on Saturday. Following on from a 2.23% gain on Friday, Bitcoin ended the day at $8,982.3 A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning intraday low $8,756.2 before making a move. Steering clear of the first major support level at $8,609.53, Bitcoin rallied to a late afternoon intraday high $9,004.0. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $9,053.03, Bitcoin briefly slid to sub-$8,900 levels and into the red. Finding late support, however, Bitcoin broke back through to $8,900 levels to wrap up the day in the green. The near-term bearish trend, formed at late June 2019’s swing hi $13,764.0, remained firmly intact, reaffirmed by the March swing lo $4,000. For the bulls, Bitcoin would need to break out from $10,000 levels to form a near-term bullish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the majors, it was a bullish day for the pack on Saturday. Litecoin, Stellar’s Lumen, and Tron’ TRX led the way, with gains of 4.56%, 3.92%, and 3.05% respectively. Bitcoin Cash ABC (+2.27%), EOS (+2.52%), Ethereum (+1.02%), Monero’s XMR (+1.93%), Ripple’s XRP (+2.80%), and Tezos (+1.16%) also found strong support. Binance Coin and Bitcoin Cash SV trailed the back with more modest gains of 0.46% and 0.84% respectively. Following a 7.17% breakout on Friday, Cardano’s ADA slipped by 0.08%, however, to buck the trend on the day. Through the current week, the crypto total market cap rose from a Monday low $220.56bn to a Thursday high $263.29bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $255.17bn. Bitcoin’s dominance recovered to 64% levels following Wednesday’s breakout before breaking through to 65% levels. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 65.6%. 24-hour trading volumes rose from sub-$130bn levels to a Thursday high $253.89bn before sliding back. At the time of writing, 24-hr volumes stood at $145.81bn. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 1.87% to $9,150.0. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin rally from an early morning low $8,944.6 to a high $9,198.0. Story continues Steering clear of the major resistance levels, Bitcoin broke through the first major resistance level at $9,072.13 and second major resistance level at $9,161.97. Elsewhere, it was a bullish start to the day for the majors. Bitcoin Cash ABC (+1.19%), Bitcoin Cash SV (+1.45%), Cardano’s ADA (+1.02%), EOS (+1.50%), Ethereum (+1.53%), and Tezos (+1.08%) led the way early on. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to break back through the second major resistance level at $9,161.07 to bring $9,400 levels back into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from the morning high $9,198.0. Barring an extended crypto rally, the second major resistance level and resistance at $9,200 would likely pin Bitcoin back on the day. In the event of another breakout, the third major resistance level at $9,409.77 would come into play. Failure to break back through the second major resistance level could see Bitcoin struggle later in the day. A fall back through to sub-$8,920 levels would bring the first major support level at $8,824.33 into play. Barring a crypto meltdown, however, Bitcoin should clear of sub-$9,000 levels on the day. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Form Support of Candlestick Fed Cut Equities Stimulus 86% This Week and Stocks Are Falling Stock Index Hit Resistance and Falls, and Transportation Sector Forms Topping Patterns The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -03/05/20 Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Back and Forth EOS, Ethereum and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – 02/05/20 || Bitcoin shows resilience with 10% surge as stocks stutter: Bitcoin is on its way to reinstating its reputation as a safe haven asset as it rallied by more than 10% in the past 24-hours. The sudden move to the upside coincided with a further correction in global stock market indexes, with the Dow Jones and FTSE100 tumbling towards key levels of support. At the time of writing Bitcoin is trading above $5,600 as it takes aim at the $5,800 level of resistance after consolidating over the past week. A break above $5,800 moving into the typically low-volume weekend will be key for Bitcoin if it is to continue rallying until Mays halving event. However, a rejection from this level could prompt a test of last weeks low of $3,600, which would in itself come alongside an abundance of fear and panic from investors. The fact that Bitcoin seems to be finally decoupling with the stock market is undoubtedly bullish in the short term, with the global economy facing a daunting task to recover from the impact of coronavirus. If a sudden spike in cases or mortality rates comes to fruition it would almost certainly worsen the plunge in global equities, especially as economic stimulus from developed nations has already been squeezed. This is when Bitcoin will need to perform as many thought it would; by acting as a hedge to the traditional financial system in the same way gold has for decades. That belief has been damaged over the past month with Bitcoin losing half of its value while several altcoins have fallen by more than 70%. But the recent show of strength has clawed back the negative perception, with investors now eyeing up Bitcoin ahead of a potential breakout. 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: Story continues US Dollar BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen BTCtoJPY Euro BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without relying on trust. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number 0 (or the genesis block), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More 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. Heres an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. || Luxury Watchmaker Breitling Adds Its First Timepieces to a Blockchain: The Breitling Top Time, pictured above, was a hand-wound chronograph from the 1960s popular with the Jet Set of the era. James Bond wore it in “Thunderball,” although his featured a miniature Geiger counter.
The company has rereleased the watch, black and white “panda” face and all, to a new generation and it’s doing something a bit different this time. Instead of offering a certificate of authenticity, the company is registering each watch on a private blockchain that will follow its provenance from owner to owner.
As such, it’s a rare example of an enterprise blockchain project that made its way to real-world deployment; most corporate dabbling with distributed ledgers has resulted in little more than hype.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for March 30, 2020
“The Breitling Top Time Limited Edition will be the brand’s first watch offered with a blockchain-based digital passport, which confirms the authenticity and ownership of the watch with a single click,” the company said in a press release.
Breitling is using a blockchain from valuables registrarArianee, a French company whose aim is to build “perpetual relationships between brands and owners.” The solution ties the watch’s warranty to the watch itself and not to any paper trail, allowing owners to have their pieces serviced by authorized dealers based on the watch’s digital signature.
TheArianee blockchaincombines permissioned and permissionless elements through its use of a consensus mechanism it’s calling “proof-of-authority.” It is permissionless in the sense that users who want to sell products to one another can interact with the blockchain, but the verifying of the ledger and issuance of tokens is controlled by the participating businesses.
Breitling, founded in 1884, is being a good sport about the project, saying the system allows users to “engage with the brand anonymously” and take part in “new online services ranging from advanced clienteling to a revolutionary care program.”
Related:Old Rivals Oracle and IBM Want Their Blockchains to Talk to Each Other
The watch nerd will note that the Top Time has a linear scale on its bezel instead of atachymeter. This is called a decimal scale and was offered on some watches in the 1960s. It was,apparently, used for scientific timings, splitting each minute into 100 sections rather than the usual 60.
The watch costs $4,990, or about 80 percent of the currentprice of one bitcoin. Breitling, one of the first manufacturers tooffer online sales, is shipping the Top Time this month.
• Microsoft, EY and ConsenSys Tout New Way for Big Biz to Use Public Ethereum
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: down || Prices: 9951.52, 9842.67, 9593.90, 8756.43, 8601.80, 8804.48, 9269.99, 9733.72, 9328.20, 9377.01
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-09-24]
BTC Price: 8620.57, BTC RSI: 23.08
Gold Price: 1532.10, Gold RSI: 61.41
Oil Price: 57.29, Oil RSI: 51.00
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
New Jersey Calls Two ICOs Fraudulent Securities, Issues Stop Order: New Jerseys Bureau of Securities has announced enforcement action against two state-based initial coin offerings. Today, Canadian and American regulators coordinated under the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) and executed by New Jersey officials have issued emergency orders against Zoptax and UNOcall, two NJ-based ICOs. Part of Operation Cryptosweep, the Bureau of Securities alleges both ICOs were offering fraudulent securities offerings. Zoptax was seeking between $500,000 and $3.4 million for its Zoptax Coins while UNOcall was issuing tokens and investments in its staking protocol which offered daily interest returns between 0.18% 0.88%. Related: New Jersey Man Indicted Over Unlicensed Bitcoin Exchange New Jerseys Attorney Generals Office says the nature of issuance, the purpose of the investments, and misleading consumer information was behind the decision. A full stop on issuance was ordered. In a statement, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said that market rules apply to all businesses, regardless of the medium they exist on: [The] Bureau of Securities stands ready to enforce our investor protection laws in cases involving initial coin offerings and cryptocurrency-related investment schemes. As innovation in the online cryptocurrency-related investment market continues, market players need to understand that the rules still apply to them. Since January 2019, Operation Cryptosweep has 85 pending or completed cases, 330 inquiries or investigations, and eight enforcement actions, including Zoptax and UNOcall. Related: New Jersey Takes Online Market to Court Over 2018 Crypto Token Sale Initial coin offerings have come into increased scrutiny following a 2017 breakout and subsequent 2018 collapse. Larger regulatory bodies like the CFTC and SEC have recently gone after ICOs as well. Earlier this week, ICO Kik released a 130-page summary rebuttal against the SECs recent enforcement action against it. Story continues Image via Shutterstock. Related Stories Frances Financial Watchdog Proposes Voluntary Regulatory Framework for Crypto Firms Malta Says Crypto Rules Arent Yet In Force || Bitcoin Follows Decline in U.S. Equities, Plunges Below $10,000 Level: Investing.com - Bitcoin plunged below the key $10,000 level on Thursday in Asia following declines in global stocks.
The world’s most popular cryptocurrency slumped 8.1% to $9,784.0 by 1:01 AM ET (05:01 GMT). Other major cryptocurrencies also traded sharply lower. Ethereum plunged 14.01% to $182.16, while XRP and Litecoin traded 14.9% and 16.1% lower respectively.
The reason behind the price movements was unclear.
In the past weeks, Bitcoin showed a high correlation to traditional haven assets such as gold or the Swiss franc, and an equally high inverse correlation to risk assets such as stocks and industrial commodities.
Traders debated whether the largest cryptocurrency is a safe-haven as it surged last week when global stock markets fell amid Sino-U.S. trade tensions.
However, on Thursday, Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrency prices slumped even as Asian stocks markets traded lower and major indexes in the U.S. closed down more than 3%.
The fall is the worst single-day loss since early July.
Analysts have warned that moves in Bitcoin below the key $10,000 level would dent the prospect of a rebound.
“Any such retracement (in bitcoin) from $12,916-$13,971 should be viewed as an opportunity to buy on weakness as long as it doesn’t retrace further than the $9,084 low,” Goldman Sachs said in a note.
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Researchers Find Monero Mining Malware That Hides From Task Manager || IBM staffers file patent for blockchain-powered domain name service: Several IBM staffers are looking to patent a blockchain-powered domain-name system (DNS), according to afilingwith the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office yesterday.
It’s unclear whether IBM itself is actually involved in the project; a request for comment has thus far gone unanswered. But typically, companies such as IBM own all the inventions and patent filings their employees come up with while in their employ, so we’re assuming this is an IBM thing.
Though IBM itself isn’t named in the patent application, 20 researchers employed there, as well as researchers from a handful of venerable institutions, including Peking University, are behind the latest submission. Many of the researchers’LinkedInprofilestie them to IBM.
The application makes the case that the existing DNS system, which routes traffic when users look for websites, isn’t secure. According to the filing, domains would be owned across a distributed network of computers, and run under the auspices of an advanced “governance” structure. The current system, it’s worth mentioning, is alsotechnicallydecentralized—but doesn’t operate on a shared, cryptographically secure ledger as a blockchain-powered version would.
“Looks like competition forHandshake,” says Virgil Griffith, who directs Ethereum-based domain service ENS. Handshake is a protocol aiming to do a similar thing to the IBM researchers’ proposed system.
In the filing, the IBMers disparage other, similar attempts at creating such a system, including the Bitcoin-based DNS replacements Blockstack and Filecoin.The filing says that the cost of running DNS lookup on the Bitcoin network is too expensive. Instead, the researchers propose using proof of stake, in which large and long-term holders validate the network.
IBM’s blockchain ambitions are well-documented. The storied tech multinational has been involved with Walmart, Hyperledger, VeChain, Ethereum, and a host of others in the blockchain space, racking up arecord numberof patents in the meantime.
Another competitor to the putative IBM DNS project is Blockstack, which has already broken ground. Last month the startup wasthe firstto be granted approval by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to sell token to unaccredited investors. || Bitcoin exchange Paxful brings 20 crypto ATMs to Colombia, Peru is next: Bitcoin peer-to-peer exchange Paxful is teaming up with Latin American crypto startup Coinlogiq to bring 20 newBitcoinATMs to Colombia.
The machines will be available in the most important cities throughout Colombia, such as Bogota (the capital) and Medellin (the country’s second most populous city), and will allow users to make transactions in BTC and fiat in a fast and convenient way—especially compared to how tedious it is to trade Bitcoin for cash.
But what really makes these ATMs stand out from the competition is the integration with Paxful Kiosk—a technology that will allow Colombians to exchange their tokens for gift cards, online transfers, debit and credit cards, among other means besides cash.
Colombia is already the country with the most crypto ATMs in Latin America. According toCoin ATM Radar, the country has 46 machines, which makes for 0.7 percent of the world's total. This new partnership will increase that proportion to more than 1 percent—and five times more than its nearest Latin American competitor, Argentina.
Paxful appears keenly interested in the Colombia market—and with good reason. A survey commissioned by the company a few weeks agorevealedthat 80 percent of Colombians are open to investing in cryptocurrency. Maybe these results were the little push that Paxful CEO Ray Yousef needed to invest in the country’s ecosystem.
"The peer-to-peer financial revolution continues to mature in Latin America,” Magdiela Rivas, Paxful's manager for Latin America, said in a statement. “This alliance between Paxful and CoinLogiq will contribute to the adoption and acceptance of cryptocurrencies among Colombians and Latin Americans in general.”
Beyond Colombia, Paxful also intends to launch 25 more ATMs in Peru soon, which would instantly make it the country with the second-most Bitcoin ATMs in Latin America (after Colombia). Paxful, however, has yet to announce firm dates for Peru.
In Colombia, Athena is currently the dominant brand in the crypto ATM market, followed by Panda Bitcoin. But now Paxful could be setting itself up as the market leader in the region—and in record time. In Peru, the only two existing crypto ATMs are maintained by General Bytes and are located in Lima and Arequipa.
Paxful's enthusiasm for penetrating the Latin American market is evident: "Latin America has real heroes in the CoinLogiq crew,” said Youssef in a statement. “They genuinely care and are focused on real use cases. This is what makes bitcoin real and a part of people's daily lives,” he said. || Europe Bank ETF Finds Relief in ECB’s Tiering System: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. European banks and sector-related ETFs have suffered through a negative rate environment, and the European Central Bank just cut key interest rates even further into the red. However, the banking segment is finding some relief after the ECB announced a new tiered deposit rate specifically tailored to help financial companies. The iShares MSCI Europe Financials ETF ( EUFN ) , which provides a targeted play on European financial companies, increased 1.7% on Friday. The ECB cut its key deposit rates by 10 basis points to negative 0.5%, but Europe's financial sector still strengthened on the less-than-anticipated rate cut and the introduction of an exemption for part of deposits that have been struck with negative rates, or a so-called tiering system. "This decision aims to support the bank-based transmission of monetary policy, while preserving the positive contribution of negative rates to the accommodative stance of monetary policy,” the ECB said. “The remuneration rate of the exempt tier and the multiplier can be changed over time.” According to JPMorgan Chase & Co analysts led by Kian Abouhossein, Deutsche Bank AG could benefit the most from the ECB's new tiered deposit rate as Germany's largest lender stands to save roughly 200 million euros, or $222 million, in annual interest payments, or 10% of its 2020 pretax profits, Bloomberg reports. The ECB lowered its deposit rate as the Eurozone economy tackles persistently low inflation rates and a weakening economy, especially with the overhanging trade war that has gripped the global economy. Banks warned that the lower deposit rates would make it even harder to boost their faltering profitability, with Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing previously stating that negative interest rates will “ruin the financial system” in the long run. Commerzbank AG would be the second-biggest tiering beneficiary, JPMorgan Chases analysts added. The bank could save about 100 million euros, or around 6% of its 2020 pretax profit. The total relief for the banking system could amount to about 1.7 billion euros. Story continues “Banks would like to have positive rates, unquestionably,” ECB President Mario Draghi said at a press conference. But profitability is much more affected by costs, and adapting to new technology would be “much more compelling than being angry about negative rates.” For more information on the European markets, visit our Europe category . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs Heated Tobacco May Replace Vaping Amidst Consumer Issues VanEck And SolidX Take First Steps For Bitcoin-Related ETF Approvals Could Inverse ETFs Thrive In September? Social Media Stock SNAP Gets An Upgrade Gold, Precious Metals ETFs Surge on Geopolitical Uncertainty READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Huobi opening up fiat-to-crypto onramp in Argentina: Huobi Group, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, today announced the launch of its latest division, Huobi Argentina—a new exchange based in South America and supported by Huobi Cloud.
The move establishes one of the first significant fiat-to-crypto onramps in the region. Argentina, in fact, is precisely the location which competitor and largest crypto exchange by volume Binancehinted back in Marchthat it would be coming to next.
Huobi plans to establish a local team of cryptocurrency developers and enthusiasts to expand its operations throughout Latin America and open the doorway to trades between the Argentine peso (ARS)—the country’s national currency—and digital assets, according to the company’s statement. The firm also plans to allow users to purchase crypto with credit cards and wire transfers beginning in October.
In a statement, Carlos Banfi, the CEO of Huobi Argentina, said that the volatility of Argentina’s national currency and the people’s distrust of traditional banks makes it the prime spot for such a venture. “Argentina is South America’s most promising market for blockchain development,” he said.
“There is already a general consensus to break from a reliance on the local currency and banks, and with Huobi’s entrance into the market, it is a great opportunity to move the needle on blockchain and crypto adoption in Argentina.”
Latin America has become a prime trading ground for cryptocurrencies. The company behind Dash, for example, recently announced thatapproximately 10,000Dash wallets have been opened in both South and Central American countries. Meanwhile,crypto startup PundiX recentlypartnered with Venezuela’s largest retail company, Traki, expanding its ability to accept Bitcoin as payment for everyday purchases.
According toDavid Chen, senior business director at Huobi Cloud, it’s exactly this sort of demand that drove Huobi to make the jump into Argentina. “The increasing demand for crypto-related products and services makes Argentina a perfect entry point for Huobi to pursue larger projects in promoting cryptocurrency and blockchain to the market,” he said. || The Crypto Daily – The Movers and Shakers – 30/08/19: Bitcoin fell by 2.24% on Thursday. Following on from a 4.53% slide on Wednesday, Bitcoin ended the day at $9,509.4
A 3rdconsecutive day in the red saw Bitcoin close out the day at sub-$10,000 levels for only the 2ndtime since July.
A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin slide from an early intraday high $9,729.7 to a mid-morning intraday low $9,358.2.
Falling short of the major support levels and 38.2% FIB, Bitcoin fell through the first major support level at $9,408.27.
Bitcoin found support in the mid-afternoon to briefly hit $9,600 levels before sliding back to close out the day at $9,500 levels.
For the bulls, the extended bullish trend remained intact in spite of the pullback through the 38.2% FIB of $9,734. Bitcoin last visited sub-$9,000 levels back in mid-June and continued to hold well above the 62% FIB of $7,245.
Across the rest of the top 10 cryptos, it was a mixed day for the majors.
Bucking the trend on the day were Bitcoin Cash SV and Ripple’s XRP, which rose by 1.39% and by 0.30% respectively.
It was red for the rest of the majors, however.
Monero’s XRM and Binance Coin led the way down, with the pair sliding by 7.11% and by 6.68% respectively.
Litecoin wasn’t far behind, falling by 5.01%.
Bitcoin Cash ABC (-3.66%), Stellar’s Lumen (-2.58%), Ethereum (-2.31%) and EOS (-1.66%) saw more modest losses.
The sell-off on the day, which followed on from Tuesday’s meltdown, left Bitcoin down by 5.74% for the current month.
Leading the way down in August were Litecoin and EOS, which were down by 35.85% and 27.56%.
Things were not much better for Stellar’s Lumen (-25.91%), Ethereum (-22.8%) and Binance Coin (-21.65%).
Ripple’s XRP (-19.58%), Monero’s XMR (-17.29%), Bitcoin Cash ABC (-14.81%), and Bitcoin Cash SV (-13.53%) were the best of the rest.
The total crypto market cap fell back on Thursday from $250bn levels to $245bn levels. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $245.66, with Bitcoin’s dominance sitting at 69.1%.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.38% to $9,473.3. A choppy start to the day saw Bitcoin rise to an early morning high $9,552.8 before hitting reverse.
Falling short of the first major resistance level at $9,706.67, Bitcoin fell to an early morning low $9,380.4.
In spite of the pullback, Bitcoin held above the first major support level at $9,335.17.
Elsewhere, EOS managed to avoid red in the early hours, up by 0.02% at the time of writing.
It was red for the rest of the majors. Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash ABC led the way early, with losses of 1.47% and 1.52% respectively.
Bitcoin would need to move back through to $9,530 levels to support a run at the first major resistance level at $9,706.67.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from this morning’s high $9,552.8.
Barring a broad-based crypto rebound, Bitcoin would likely continue to come up short of the 38.2% FIB of $9,734.
Failure to back move through to $9,530 levels could see Bitcoin slide deeper into the red. A fall through the morning low $9,380.4 would bring the first major support level at $9,335.17 into play.
Barring an extended sell-off, Bitcoin should steer clear of the second major support level at $9,160.93.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Silver Price Forecast – Silver continues to explode higher
• The Crypto Daily – The Movers and Shakers – 30/08/19
• Crude Oil Price Update – Near-Term Strength Over $56.95, Weakness Under $55.72
• Economic Data and Brexit Keep the EUR, the USD and the GBP in Focus
• Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude oil markets continue to show resistance above
• Forex Daily Recap – Ninja Upshot +0.37%, Entering the Upper Bollinger Band || Van Eck, SolidX Attempt to Bring a Partial Bitcoin ETF: The bitcoin market has been facing its share of disruption of late. There were repeated attempts by issuers for a bitcoin ETF but the SEC disagreed on the same. In a new attempt, Van Eck Securities Corp. and SolidX Management LLC plan to start selling shares on Sep 5 in a limited version of a crypto exchange-traded fund. The shares will be sold in compliance with SECs Rule 144A, which allows sale of privately placed securities to qualified institutional buyers. The rule will excuse the shares from securities registration. With this, VanEck and Solid will be able to offer shares of their VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust to institutions such as banks and hedge funds, but not retail investors, the report notes, per cointelegraph.com. This is not the first time that VanEck has attempted to launch a bitcoin ETF. On its third attempt in mid-2018, the company had collaborated with blockchain company SolidX. The plan was to make the product physical and not futures based i.e. comprising actual bitcoin, which will be insured against any loss or theft. The VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust was supposed to have the ticker symbol XBTC. However, it failed to amass SECs trust as the regulatory body postponed its ruling on the fund (read: Yet Another SEC Disapproval for Bitcoin ETF: What Next?). Before this, SolidXs proposal of a physically-backed bitcoin ETF was dismissed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in March 2017 and VanEck withdrew its application for a futures-based bitcoin ETF in January 2018, per etf.com. On Aug 12, the SEC postponed decisions on bitcoin ETF proposals by Bitwise Asset Management and Wilshire Phoenix, all of which hoped to become the first to offer a crypto ETF in the United States. Those decisions are now scheduled for later this month and in October. Whats Keeping SEC From Giving Its Nod? SEC is worried about extreme price volatility in cryptocurrencies and liquidity in bitcoin-related funds. Per Reuters, the virtual currency can be deployed to quickly move money anywhere in the world without any central authority intervention, such as a bank or government. The market is pretty unregulated at the current level. Story continues How is the Coin Performing? So far this year, bitcoin has been extremely volatile. The bitcoin market faced its share of troubles from August 2018 to March 2019. It started performing better from late June. Bulls are wagering on the probability of a continued run as more institutions start to build out their own cryptocurrencies or launch projects using the underlying blockchain technology, per Bloomberg. Any ETF Alternatives to Play Bitcoin? Though bitcoin ETFs are not available to investors, they have blockchain ETFs at their disposal. Per a source, the blockchain in Bitcoin literally acts a ledger; it keeps track of the balances for all users and updates them as money changes hands. So, if investors cannot lay their hands on a bitcoin ETF now, they can definitely familiarize themselves with the concept through blockchain ETFs like Reality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF BLCN, Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF BLOK and First Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETF LEGR . 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 Reality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN): ETF Research Reports First Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETF (LEGR): ETF Research Reports Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK): 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 || Importer of Bitmain’s Bitcoin Miners Draws Criminal Investigation in Russia: The Russian Federal Customs Service has opened a criminal investigation into an importer of bitcoin miners for potential underpayment of customs fees.
The Far-East Trading and Industrial Company, or DTPK, may have failed to pay about $1.2 million on 6,012 Bitmain-manufactured ASIC miners imported from August 2017 to February 2018, according to a search warrant obtained by CoinDesk.
DTPK, based in Moscow, showed customs officers falsified documents with the incorrect prices for the equipment, which included Bitmain’s Antminer S9-13.5, L3+ and D3 models, along with power elements for them, says the search warrant, dated July 17.
Related:Iran’s Government Gives the Official Nod to Crypto Mining
The company also reported to the customs service that it received the miners from a Korean firm, MSR Co., via a Hong Kong-based company called Manli. However, when contacted by customs officers, MSR said it didn’t have a contract with DTPK, except an expired one signed back in 2012, the document says.
The warrant, translated from Russian, claims:
“In an undefined time, but no later than August 8, 2017, [DTPK CEO] Artem Aleksandrovich Bublik … got involved in a criminal conspiracy with undefined individuals, the goal of the conspiracy being avoiding due customs fees in especially large amounts while importing into the Eurasian Economic Union of ASIC miners and power elements for ASIC miners.”
When reached by CoinDesk, Bublik asked this reporter to call him back later.
Related:Polychain Leads $7 Million Round in Crypto Trading Desk Altonomy
He hasn’t picked up the phone since. The customs service declined to comment because CoinDesk is not accredited with Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The investigation was made public during the TerraCrypto mining conference in Moscow on July 25.
Price of bitcoin last 30 days via CoinDesk data.
Alexander Shashkov, the founder of Intelion Mining, said customs officers suspected the DTPK-imported miners ended up at his company’s data center and sent armed personnel to his offices in two Russian cities as recently as July 18.
Shashkov told the audience:
“In Tula, 20 people with machine guns arrived; in Moscow, 10 people without machine guns, just pistols. … [They] told everyone to get their hands off the computers.”
According to him, Intelion had nothing to do with the miners under investigation, but law enforcement ended up seizing 2,500 ASICs hosted by the company anyway because the clients who owned them hadn’t presented valid documentation.
He followed the story with advice for fellow mining entrepreneurs to always check the documents for the miners they take for hosting.
Most of the mining hardware coming to Russia from China may be lacking proper documentation, market participants say.
“Seventy percent of miners from China are coming viagrey schemes, but we’re working only with the legit ones,” Intelion’s sales director, Alexey Afanasev, told CoinDesk.
Anton Makarchuk, chief marketing officer of Cryptouniverse, a company selling mining equipment in Russia, agreed with that estimate.
Bitmain’s representative in Russia, Yulia Fetisova, told CoinDesk the grey imports might be coming into the country through companies that buy large batches of miners from the Beijing-based manufacturer and resell them to retail clients.
Fetisova said:
“The grey ones come from the Chinese reselling companies and don’t go through the Russian office. Often, people don’t want to wait for the delivery from us, so they go to these reselling companies because they want their miners here and now.”
The waiting time for Bitmain’s hardware increased this year, she said, with the next shipment of Bitmain’s S17 ASICs available in December at the earliest.
Bitcoin mining image viaShutterstock
• Grin Developers Agree to Alter Technical Development Roadmap
• Crypto Mining Giant Bitmain Said to Be Planning US IPO: Bloomberg || Bitcoin to hit $15,000 as consensus grows on safe haven status: The devaluation of Chinas currency, currently rattling global financial markets, shows that Bitcoin is now becoming a safe haven asset. Thats the view of Nigel Green, Chief Executive and Founder of deVere Group. The Chinese renminbi fell to under seven to the US dollar on Monday, the lowest in more than a decade, igniting drops in stocks and emerging market currencies and driving a rally in government bonds. Bitcoin jumped 10% as global stocks were rocked by the devaluation of Chinas yuan, the trade war with the US intensifying. This is not a coincidence. It reveals that consensus is growing that Bitcoin is becoming a flight-to-safety asset during times of market uncertainty. Bitcoin is currently realising its reputation as a form of digital gold, Green comments. Up to now, gold has been known as the ultimate safe haven asset, but Bitcoin, which shares its key characteristics of being a store of value and scarcity, could potentially dethrone gold in the future as the world becomes increasingly digitalised. With the Trump administration now officially labelling China a currency manipulator, Green believes that investors are set to continue to pile in to decentralised, non-sovereign, secure currencies such as Bitcoin to protect them from the turmoil taking place in traditional markets. The legitimate risks posed by the continuing trade dispute, Chinas currency devaluation and other geopolitical issues, such as Brexit and its far-reaching associated challenges, will lead an increasing number of institutional and retail investors to diversify their portfolios and hedge against those risks by investing in crypto assets, he says. This will drive the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies higher. Under the current circumstances, I believe the Bitcoin price could hit $15,000 within weeks, Green concludes. The post Bitcoin to hit $15,000 as consensus grows on safe haven status appeared first on Coin Rivet .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
@CashSupport need help w verification for btc it doesn’t work || Capital One got hacked.
Bitcoin never gets hacked.
Short the banks, Long Bitcoin! || Sir can I have a venti bera-trappe with caramel in and on top of the cup whip cream blz! $BTC || @cz_binance @mwill_crypto @NuggetsNewsAU @binance We need a button "convert to BTC" - to convert them all to BTC. || Tomorrow's Litecoin(LTC) forecast is
△UP 47%
▼DOWN 53%
#Litecoin, #LTC
Bitcoin Forecast (iOS)
https://t.co/mGv869Ccp6 https://t.co/IM4i6k3zYI || @100trillionUSD Bakkt launch with a big dump, btc to 80% dominace, then magic will start over again... || @jasonericspence @highplainz666 @BlitzkriegQ @Imamofpeace @erikfinman Hungry?
https://t.co/CVErNhDiP9 https://t.co/KDSQtm4DaP || Bitcoin sicher aufbewahren: AXA versichert Hoyos „sicherste Hot Wallet der Welt“
September hervor. Hoyos ist ein IT-Security-Dienstleistungsunternehmen mit besonderem Fokus auf dem Krypto-Sektor. Durch die Kooperation mit ...
https://t.co/YErCPOJSBI || #BTC $BTC #Bitcoin #HBRS #Hubrisone https://t.co/alJaAJT7g1, https://t.co/VixAC9AXgc @HubrisOne || @APompliano @jack a great offer where you get up to $ 60 bonus when registering! a great trading platform with lever!!! I think it's better than bitmex ✍🏽 @Bybit_Official i love this tradingplattform ..... https://t.co/LFTNsM4kdy… #cryptotrading #Crypto #bitcoin #XRP #EOS #ethereum #crypt
|
Trend: down || Prices: 8486.99, 8118.97, 8251.85, 8245.92, 8104.19, 8293.87, 8343.28, 8393.04, 8259.99, 8205.94
|
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 2020-08-21]
BTC Price: 11592.49, BTC RSI: 54.40
Gold Price: 1934.60, Gold RSI: 50.76
Oil Price: 42.34, Oil RSI: 56.21
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s New ETP, Ethereum’s ‘Woodstock Moment’ and Silvergate’s SEN Zen: A crypto hedge fund is folding, Silvergate Bank’s bitcoin-collateralized loans surged this quarter andbitcoinfutures markets record triple-digit growth.
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.
Bitcoin ETPSwiss crypto manager FiCAS AG announced what could be the firstactively managed bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP).The firm’s Chairman Mattia Rattaggi said the Bitcoin Capital Active ETP’s portfolio could contain up to 15 altcoins as determined by market capitalization, liquidity and the rules of its host exchange, the SIX Swiss Exchange. Product managers will trade bitcoin againstETH,XRP,BCH,LTC, BNB,EOS, ADA,XLM,XTZ,TRXand exit to Swiss francs, euros and U.S. dollars. Rattaggi said the list could shift based on coin performance.
Related:First Mover: Crypto Traders 'Greedy' as Goldman Warns on Dollar
De-FundedCryptocurrencyhedge fund Tetras Capital is shutting down and returning investors’ moneyafter quarters of low returns, an anonymous source told CoinDesk. The New York-based fund, founded in 2017, recorded a 75% loss life-to-date. At its height, Tetras managed upwards of $33 million, according to financial filings, with an investment thesis centered around shorting ether and investing in alt-coins. At least 68 crypto hedge funds closed last year internationally, almost double the number – 35 – in 2018, according to a Crypto Fund Research report.
SEN’s ZenSilvergate Bank continuedto book new cryptocurrency customers in the second quarterwhile its portfolio of bitcoin-collateralized loans nearly doubled. According to its latest earnings report, the bank’s $1.1 billion traditional loans increased only 0.1% from the first quarter. Bitcoin-collateralized loans through the bank’s SEN Leverage product surged 88% in the same period, to $22.5 million.
Tracing ToolsLocalBitcoins, a peer-to-peer crypto exchange, has addedtwo Elliptic blockchain-tracing tools, as it continues to become regulatory compliant.The Helsinki-based platform announced Tuesday it will use Elliptic’s Navigator risk analysis tool and Lens wallet screener to crack down on illicit crypto. The platform has been bolstering its anti-money laundering (AML) safeguards in response to the European Union’s AMLD5 and new Finnish business regulations. Recently, LocalBitcoins has suspended cash-for-crypto trading and added mandatory identity verification.
Sustainable InvestmentsFasset, a fintech company headquartered in the U.K., has launched anEthereum-based operating system dedicated to the ethical financing of sustainable infrastructure.The system tokenizes investments made in sustainable infrastructure – like solar power plants, wind farms and fiber optic – and makes them tradable among global investors. By moving the entire financing process to the blockchain, the firm intends to improve liquidity in the sustainable infrastructure sector and lower barriers to entry that will enable asset owners to avoid costly middlemen and directly list their assets on exchanges.
• Revolut adds Stellar to its list of supported cryptocurrencies, citing “overwhelming demand”
• An Australian state treasury mulled “flexible”regulatory reform for blockchain
• Blockchain project Polkadot raises $43 million in a private token sale (The Block)
• Garmin confirms ransomware attack took down services (TechCrunch)
• Big Tech’s power, in four numbers (Axios)
Related:Blockchain Bites: Ethereum's Lifestyle Brand, Twitch's Crypto Discounts and MakerDAO's $1B Milestone
CoinDesk’s Ian Allisonrecounts memories from the first Devcon,a gathering of Ethereans and other tech developers plotting the future of everything from finance to the internet. This excerpt is part of aseries of stories,live-streamed conferencesand a limited-runpop-up newsletterCoinDesk has created to celebrate Ethereum’s five year anniversary this week.
Ethereum’s Devcon 1, held in London in November 2015, was like Woodstock, except perhaps with less nudity.
Bankers and Big 4 consultants disguised in hoodies shared space with dreadlocked Ethereum coders, sitting cross-legged in the corners, their laptops open in front of them.
Packed into a Victorian banking hall in the heart of the City of London, the audience listened as ConsenSys chief Joe Lubin predicted a new future for firms; cryptographer Nick Szabo talked about decentralization in the context of Francis Drake and the Aztecs; and chief scientist Vitalik Buterin assembled shards of the path that lay ahead.
“The internet kind of sucks,” said Ethereum wallet designer Alex Van de Sande during his opening keynote. “It’s centralized, and it’s broken – but we can fix it this week.”
Such was the optimism in the room.
Keeping with the Woodstock motif, this moment in time possessed a kind of prelapsarian innocence: The DAO debacle and hard fork decision that followed was at least six months away, and further off still was the ICO gold rush.
An earlier confab, Berlin’s Devcon 0, preceded Ethereum’s launch. In London, things were starting to get real.
Bitcoin’s BounceBitcoin’sfutures trading volume recorded triple-digit growthMonday, as institutions and investors raced into a marketprimed for a bull run.Aggregate daily futures volume on major exchanges reached $43 billion, the highest single-day volume since March 13, according to data source Skew. Daily trading volume on institutional exchange CME rose 570% to a yearly high of $1.32 billion, Bakkt registered a record volume of $132 million and total open interest for all exchanges rose to $5 billion – the highest since February.
Yearly Highs: Bitcoin & GoldBitcoin’s 13% price jump to 2020 highs of $11,180 on Mondaycame as the dollar’s value slides.This move was in tandem withgold’s newly set all-time high,both of which are referred to as inflation hedges. Bitcoin is up 57% year to date, more than double the 28% gain this year for gold, while the S&P is flat for the year. “Given gold has just set a new all-time high, and with bitcoin’s correlation to stocks breaking down while being replaced by a strong correlation to gold, we envisage further tests to the upside this coming week,” Diginex wrote in a report. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Currency Index, a gauge of the greenback’s value versus other major currencies, has fallen for seven straight sessions. A weakening dollar “mechanically pushes up the prices of the commodities invoiced in greenbacks,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Launchpad Before LaunchEthereum developers have released a “validator launchpad” on the Medalla testnet toeducate and prepare future validators as part of a multi-stage roll out of Ethereum 2.0.The transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, the core component of Eth 2, is designed to improve the system’s scalability. According to an announcement, three phases of the roll out are planned, with the first, phase 0, focusing on the underlying tech behind staking by tracking validators and their balances. The launchpad, which comes before phase 0, will enable validators to track and deposit test stakes on the upcoming Medalla multi-client testnet.
Millennial MovesMatt Luongo, CEO of Thesis, thinksmillennials are shaping the future of money.From fashion to tech, a millennial “desire for autonomy and granular choice” is now extending to finance. “For most of the past hundred years, retail finance was dominated by a small number of regional, and later national, institutions. No more: 71% of millennials would change banks based on the quality of an app, and a full third of us say we won’t need a bank at all in the future,” he writes.
What Sex Workers WantCoinDesk’s Leigh Cuen and OnlyFans performer Savannah Solo talk aboutfintech and the sex industry.
• Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s New ETP, Ethereum’s ‘Woodstock Moment’ and Silvergate’s SEN Zen
• Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s New ETP, Ethereum’s ‘Woodstock Moment’ and Silvergate’s SEN Zen || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $11,000; Derivatives, DeFi Keep Growing: Bitcoin, crypto derivatives and DeFi continue to be hot in late July.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $11,236 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 2% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,844-$11,312
• BTC above 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Just one week ago, bitcoin’s price hit an intraday high of $9,568 in a low-volume environment. This week’s action, fueled by increased exchange volumes, has traders excited at the thought a long-term bull market may be back. As much as $446 million in trades were done on Coinbase Monday.
Read More:Bitcoin Looks Overbought but Analysts Play Down Drop Fears
Related:Ether Addresses in Profit Have Soared 132% in a Year
“The market has clearly jumped to a bullish stance,” said Vishal Shah, and options trader and founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5. “Volatility is higher and we’re now looking at the previous resistance of $10,550 as our new support region.”
Some analysts say the move to $11,000 is just the start of the world’s oldest currency continuing on a price tear upward. “We do not see the move to $11,000 as significant and we are anticipating far higher valuations,” said George Clayton, managing partner of Cryptanalysis Capital.
Clayton noted the European Union passed a €570 billion stimulus measure, and a U.S. package in the works that could provide $1 trillion in new spending should an agreement between President Trump and Congress be reached. “These actions amount to rampant fiat currency debasement. The move in crypto is just beginning,” he added.
The crypto derivatives market is heating up again too, Shah added. “What’s most interesting to me is that CME volumes have been very strong the last two days.” Indeed, CME options volume has picked up significantly during a July that had previously been bereft of action; open interest is now well over $250 million.
Related:CoinDesk Live Recap: The DAO Hack Is Still a Mystery
Andrew Tu, an executive at quantitative trading firm Efficient Frontier, cautions the performance of equities plays a bigger role in the cryptocurrency markets than many might realize, especially if stocks take a dive. “A correction in traditional markets due to deteriorating fundamentals could also cause pullbacks in the crypto world,” Tu noted.
Read More:MIT Lightning Creator Unveils First ‘Demonstration’ of Bitcoin Scaling Tech
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Wednesday, trading around $322 and climbing 1% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Read More:How the EEA Made Ethereum Palatable to Big Business
At the start of July, the total user count on the Balancer exchange was 7,184, according to data aggregator Dune Analytics. The number has swelled 140%, to 17,438 since then for the Ethereum-based DeFi project. “Balancer made an excellent product that allows you to create your own ETF and not pay a rebalancing commission and actually receive commissions for trading,” said Azamat Malaev, co-founder of HodlTree, a new DeFi protocol for interest-yielding tokens.
Malaev also noted Balancer’s BAL token distribution and staking returns as another factor contributing to July’s growth, even though the token’s performance slipped 25% over the past 30 days, according to CoinGecko. “Balancer uses the Compound model in distributing their tokens. Now the percentages are lower, about 30% per annum, but also very attractive.”
Read More:Why DeFi on Ethereum Is Like Algorithmic Trading in the ‘90s
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mixed Wednesday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• iota(IOTA) + 6.1%
• xrp(XRP) + 5.5%
• dash(DASH) + 3.6%
Read More:Proof-of-Stake Chains Team Up to Prove DeFi Is Bigger Than Ethereum
Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• bitcoin gold(BTG) – 3.8%
• litecoin(LTC) – 2.1%
• bitcoin sv(BSV) – 2%
Read More:Digital Yen Now ‘Top Priority’ for Japan Central Bank, Says Senior Official
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day down 1.15%,dragged lower by Canon, which dropped over 13% after reporting its first-ever quarterly loss.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 closed down 0.01% oncautious sentiment of economic recovery versus continued growth in coronavirus cases on the continent.
• The United States’ S&P 500 gained 1.4%,pushed higher by tech stocks while the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged.
Read More:Crypto Traders ‘Greedy’ as Goldman Warns on Dollar
Commodities:
• Gold is up 0.60% at $1,969 as of press time.
• Oil is up 0.33%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $41.24
Read More:Crypto Wallet Maker Ledger Loses 1M Email Addresses in Data Theft
Treasurys:
• U.S. Treasury bonds were mixed Wednesday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the two-year, in the red 13%.
Read More:What Crypto Lender Celsius Isn’t Telling Its Depositors
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $11,000; Derivatives, DeFi Keep Growing
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks to $11,000; Derivatives, DeFi Keep Growing || Decentralized Tech Will Be Ready for Humanity’s Next Crisis: Ben Goertzel is founder and CEO of SingularityNET, a blockchain-based AI marketplace project. The global need for scalable, usable decentralized information technologies has never been more acute than right now, mid-pandemic. Forced digitalization is driving most of the world’s population further into the grip of big tech companies. As more of life goes online, more of the world’s data goes into their hands, and a higher percentage of human thoughts and behaviors are guided by their self-serving algorithms. Related: Blockchain Bites: Inside Cosmos, Bitcoin at $200B, DeFi Surges Effective management of the pandemic cries out for integrated analysis of medical data and data on human movement and interaction. However, integrated doesn’t have to mean centralized. Indeed, the centralized nature of many track-and-trace apps has been their doom , rendering them mostly non-functional due their incompatibility with Google and Apple’s latest privacy-respecting features. See also: For Contact Tracing to Work, Americans Will Have to Trust Google and Apple A recent survey done by my colleagues at Humanity+, a nonprofit that advocates for ethical use of technology, showed that, of the attendees at their online event, 61% were not comfortable with governments collecting their physiological and medical data, even in a pandemic context. But 92% would rather their medical data be stored on a blockchain, than centralized government databases. We should have a global, decentralized system for collecting medical, movement, interaction and lifestyle data from everyone on the planet – and methods to analyze it in a secure, anonymous way. Statistical and AI analysis should be guided democratically by everyone contributing data. While policy could be set by sophisticated agent-based modeling leveraging this data, without sacrificing privacy. Related: The Fourth Era of Blockchain Governance We are not so far off from realizing such a system. A number of relevant tools were created by the 1,000+ developers participating in the COVIDathon decentralized-AI hackathon against COVID this spring. Part of my AI team at SingularityNET set aside their work temporarily to focus on building the Rejuve COVID App that identifies infections early based on data from smartphone peripherals like fitbits and digital thermometers as well as relevant policy decisions like the opening/closing of schools and restaurants. Story continues It’s clear that the centralized systems currently running the planet are not to be trusted to coordinate the next growth phase of humanity However valuable these efforts are, the decentralized software ecosystem is not at the point where it can be used as the default for carrying out all aspects of pandemic management. COVID-19 will be beaten relatively soon, and my hope is that decentralized tools will play a role in the solution, even if not a dominant one. This is unlikely to be the last nor worst pandemic, nor the last nor worst crisis, to hit humanity. I’m hopeful the decentralized tools being built today will be pivotal in whatever comes next. Hype cycles The web went from idea to reality in the space of a decade. While Vannevar Bush’s memex (1950s) and Ted Nelson’s Xanadu (1960s) pre-visioned the web, the core tech was not yet mature enough. Likewise in the mid-1990s when I and other developers were attempting to build decentralized, strong-encrypted systems across the Internet. 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 1990s laid the groundwork for the Net-centric world we have today. See also: Is Bitcoin in 2020 Really Like the Early Internet? Bitcoin’s innovation of a “blockchain” combines strong encryption and distributed consensus. Ethereum adds to this with the successful implementation of general-purpose smart contracts. This goes a long way in terms of transitioning the vision of secure, decentralized computing platforms toward practical realization. Likewise, the proliferation of ERC-20 tokens (and similar tokens), initial coin offerings and initial exchange offerings were speculative, but reflected a genuine flourishing of creativity. The crypto entrepreneurs of 2016-2018 were, for the first time in human history, starting to think through the myriad details of real-world information and value processing without a small elite group of owners or controllers. There was a sense we were soon going to see the old centralized ways of doing things fall by the wayside, in favor of new approaches with robust democratic governance, with respect for data sovereignty and true independence from big tech, with agile potential for bypassing state restrictions. Businesses were soon to diminish their reliance on centralized databases and big tech cloud providers, and interlock their operations with global decentralized networks. Consumers were shortly going to begin making everyday online purchases using cryptocurrencies, and own, manage and monetize their own purchasing histories, tastes and experiences, medical records and so forth via secure blockchain-based information wallets. Very few of the projects that originated in this period – including my own project, SingularityNET – have progressed as quickly as they hoped. But let’s not forget Ray Kurzweil’s message: We live in an era of exponential advance. The transition we’re seeing in the blockchain world right now is much like the transition from the post-dot-com crash to Web 2.0. But due to accelerating change, this transition is going to happen much faster. Revolution rising Companies and protocols that never stopped building are laying the groundwork for a decentralization revolution. Brave browser is a fine Web browser with a functioning token ecosystem integrated. Decentraland has made real progress toward tokenizing the metaverse. Minds.com (with a token currently not publicly traded) comprises a viable alternative to the ridiculously corrupt and stained Facebook. Ocean Protocol’s software framework allows organizations with big data to leverage a blockchain-based marketplace of AI tools to analyze their data locally, without having to upload it anywhere. See also: SingularityNET, Ocean, Algorand, Triffic, Enigma Add To Fight Against Coronavirus Cardano has, step by step, made incredible progress at deploying the key functions of a large-scale public blockchain in a programming language (Haskell) amenable to formal proofs of correctness, and in the spirit of kirik.io and others, has pioneered a new approach to smart contracts. Algorand has rolled out an extremely scalable blockchain platform suited for payments and fintech applications. Augur, the first Ethereum ICO, has released version two of its decentralized online betting platform. SingularityNET has been up and running in a scalable beta of its decentralized AI network for more than a year now. Certainly we lag far behind the Googles and Microsofts of the world in terms of traction. But we have a few tricks up our sleeve, and it may be that by sometime next year we have an AI network in some important senses more powerful than anything these companies have to offer. This is the nature of evolution. The best blockchain projects among those that have survived the crypto winter have solved hard problems and are on the way to solving even more. It’s clear that the centralized systems currently running the planet are not to be trusted to coordinate the next growth phase of humanity and its tech, nor to cope with the next global tragedy. COVID-19 is not going to be the last crisis to hit our species, and if we want to cope with the next one better than we’re doing right now, we desperately need the tools that today’s blockchain projects are bringing toward maturity. See also: Ben Goertzel – AI for Everyone: Super-Smart Systems That Reward Data Creators Related Stories Decentralized Tech Will Be Ready for Humanity’s Next Crisis Decentralized Tech Will Be Ready for Humanity’s Next Crisis || How Much Ether Is Out There? Ethereum Developers Create New Scripts for Self-Verification: Ethereum and Bitcoin advocates have engaged in spirited Twitter exchange since Friday to answer an ostensibly simple question: What’s the total supply of ether? It’s not quite clear where the question originated. But providing one agreed-upon value for Ethereum’s native currency, ether (ETH), proved contentious enough to warrant new code. “Adding a proper total supply command to the client seems like a low-cost and reasonable thing to do,” said Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in the Ethereum R&D Discord channel last Friday. Related: Bitcoiners Launch Cryptocurrency Relief Fund Following Beirut Explosion Multiple independent developers jumped on the opportunity to set the “world computer’s” supply schedule straight. The coin supply brouhaha takes place in the context of Bitcoin’s more-easily verifiable coin supply, thanks to the gettxoutsetinfo command, which every Bitcoin node can execute to calculate the current supply. Due to its distinct design features, Ethereum lacked such a command, hence the impetus behind independent developers writing code to calculate its supply. The total supply of ether is 111,562,994 as of publishing time, according to Messari . (The firm pulls data directly off the blockchain, Messari director of research Eric Turner told CoinDesk.) Ether, bitcoin and verifiability The verifiability of assets is both a strong and novel feature of blockchains. Only rough supply counts exist for other assets such as gold or dollars. The supply of a given cryptocurrency, on the other hand, can be parsed down to the exact unit. This is valuable for modeling or auditing, among other reasons. Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stumbles to $11,300; USDC Lending Rates Skyrocket Bitcoin proponents – notably Kraken developer Pierre Rochard – recently pointed out that Ethereum had no simple method for verifying the supply of its native unit. Bitcoin’s value and perception as “digital gold” emphasizes its supply characteristics – namely scarcity – moreso than Ethereum, which aims to serve as a developer platform for decentralized financial applications. Story continues Read more: Bitcoin and Gold: Evaluating Hard-Cap Currencies in Times of Financial Crisis Indeed, many Ethereum community members were dismissive of the supply question. “I don’t give a shit about the supply,” said Augur co-founder and early cryptocurrency investor Jeremy Gardner on Twitter. Beyond simply running the numbers, however, an additional concern voiced after the fact was the difficulty of running a full Ethereum node . Users who run their own nodes can “self-verify” not only the number of ethers in existence but also the validity of transactions on the Ethereum network. Self-verification is a popular social concept, as well as an ethical touchstone, for Bitcoin proponents. The argument mainly relies on the ease of bootstrapping a Bitcoin node. Running an Ethereum node, on the other hand, is a much more time- and memory-intensive undertaking, one that’s led to the emergence of a small class of infrastructure service providers . Read more: Ethereum 2.0 Testnet Medalla Goes Live With 20,000 Validators Ethereum community members are more dismissive of running a full node based on arguments from Buterin in the project’s early days. Ethereum 2.0 developers are also shooting for self-verification via lightweight clients made possible through Proof-of-Stake (PoS). Third-party scripts As attention paid to the supply discussion on Twitter grew, Ethereum developers started building scripts to calculate the supply. Developers were quick to note that many data sites posted wrong figures because of faulty modeling of coin issuance. In Ethereum, many third party-scripts fail to calculate a few complexities such as uncle or nephew blocks and burner addresses, cryptocurrency educator Andreas Antonopoulos said in a tweet . Bitcoin developers have often made similar mistakes, Casa CTO Jameson Lopp tweeted . Lopp said many scripts fail to take into account block rewards, called the coinbase, left unclaimed by miners. Regardless, Ethereum does have one actual supply figure even if it has been difficult to locate, Geth team leader Péter Szilágyi said in a tweet . If it did not, Ethereum wouldn’t work. “Ethereum has multiple client implementations, so a supply bug in one would instantly break consensus,” Szilágyi said. Related Stories How Much Ether Is Out There? Ethereum Developers Create New Scripts for Self-Verification How Much Ether Is Out There? Ethereum Developers Create New Scripts for Self-Verification || The Twitter Hack Has Dangerous Implications For The 2020 Election: The Twitter accounts of some of the world’s most powerful companies, politicians and billionaires began posting bizarre messages on Wednesday afternoon, promising that if followers sent $1,000 in bitcoin to an anonymous cryptocurrency address, they would get back double the amount. It was almost immediately clear that these accounts had been hacked, but the messages still led to chaos. As more prominent accounts tweeted the scam ― including Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden, Apple and Bill Gates ― Twitter partially shut down its services and is now investigating what led to its biggest security breach in years. Although the motivation behind the hack appeared to be amassing Bitcoin, it has intensified concerns among cybersecurity experts and disinformation researchers about how social media manipulation could be used during the U.S. presidential election. If hackers can dupe at least some people to send cash into the void, what would happen if they instead posted authentic-looking tweets about purported direct messages, voting sites and contested elections? The hack has the potential to create a wide range of disinformation, including falsified documents claiming to be from compromised accounts. There is also the possibility that a similar breach happens again in the future. If Twitter isn’t secure, nefarious actors could hack accounts people use for information — like news outlets or official government agencies — and instead sow confusion and spread falsehoods about the voting process itself, experts said. “The biggest concern for me isn’t necessarily that an account like [President Donald] Trump’s would be hacked, it’s if people could gain access to really legitimate, non-partisan sources of information and post misleading information on those accounts,” said Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of “How To Lose The Information War.” Although Trump being hacked would have obvious national security implications, his fake tweets would be immediately scrutinized and could be debunked rather quickly. A widespread hack of state election officials or local government accounts, however, could create chaos in the reporting of election results that would cast doubt on the outcomes and lead to delays. Story continues Bad actors could also use a hack to suppress voting, researchers say, targeting key districts on election day with disinformation about polling locations, required documentation or closing times. False information about COVID-19 outbreaks at polling stations could create panic and deter voters. There is also already an epidemic of online misinformation regarding mail-in voting, with far-right activists promoting a conspiracy that Democrats will use the process to commit voter fraud. A hack that promoted false political narratives could further divisions and undercut the voting process. “If this happened late October or the first few days of November, and instead of Bitcoin it was mail-in ballots, disinformation actors could easily manipulate trust in the system and disenfranchise millions of voters,” said Diara J. Townes, an investigative researcher at First Draft, an organization that monitors online misinformation. “It would be a question of how many people still believe voting by mail is safe, rather than how much bitcoin did the scammers get.” A screenshot of one of the tweets sent by hackers on Wednesday. HuffPost has put a strike over the image to make clear that it is inauthentic. (Photo: Twitter) A Gift For Bad Actors And Conspiracists Even if Twitter and other platforms manage to deter any attempted cyber attacks or coordinated disinformation campaigns around the election, Wednesday’s hack alone could have insidious and destabilizing effects on the campaigns. The hack compromised the accounts of numerous powerful and highly politicized figures, and researchers worry that there may be a wave of disinformation that purports to be leaked documents or messages from the hack. “The uncertainty around who did this, how it happened and what the objectives of it potentially were could lead to significant disinformation campaigns,” said Chloe Colliver, head of the digital research unit at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank. “It opens the door to a number of malicious actors spreading disinformation about supposedly leaked data, direct messages and different elements of material that it will be difficult for people to know whether it’s real or false,” Colliver continued. A more likely scenario than the president’s Twitter account being taken over may be Trump himself retweeting false information about Biden, or anti-vaccine activists spreading conspiracies about Gates, that claim to be leaked from the hack. There has already been talk on the online message board 4chan from various disinformation actors discussing the hack, according to Colliver. Twitter, which has faced continuous scrutiny over misinformation and election influence campaigns, issued a statement saying that it was working to determine what information that hackers may have been able to obtain from affected accounts and any other malicious activity they might have carried out while they had access. The company stated that they believe the hack was a “coordinated social engineering attack” which targeted some of its employees who had special access to internal tools. The platform has vowed to fix any lapses in its security ahead of the election. Transparency around the hack and what was accessed is important to stopping disinformation from emanating, but Twitter itself is also a highly politicized company that right-wing politicians and far-right activists have dubiously claimed has an anti-conservative bias. The lapse in security already has the potential to make users second-guess the information they may receive even from trusted accounts, while opening the door for partisan conspiracies and attacks. “It just leads to the environment of distrust that allows disinformation to flourish and that bad actors prey on,” Jankowicz said. Related... QAnon’s Coronavirus-Fueled Boom Is A Warning Of What's To Come Facebook Cracked Down On Extremism. It Only Took A Major Boycott And Multiple Killings. Is Congress Ready For QAnon? Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. || Two Reasons Crypto’s Bull Market Is Coming: Anil Lulla is the co-founder and COO ofDelphi Digital, a research firm dedicated to advancing the development of the crypto market.
In the past few months at least fourcrypto hedge fundshaveshuttered. Yet, there’s never been a better time for institutions to get involved in this sector.
Despite an unprecedented global pandemic wreaking havoc on just about every major economy on the planet, investors have made quite a lot of money in recent months in both traditional and crypto markets. When it comes to the latter, this is just the beginning for those with the discipline to seek out under-appreciated opportunities in this fast-paced industry.
Related:Bitcoin's Patronage System Is an Unheralded Strength
The incoming bull market for crypto will look completely different than the last one. Mostly because there won’t be just one, but two different bull markets simultaneously playing out over the next 12-18 months.
See also:Bitcoin ‘Active Entities’ at Highest Since 2017 Bull Run
One will involve the rotation of capital from zombie projects to protocols where the underlying product is actually being used and accruing value. Even without an influx of new capital or users, there is still too much money tied up in ghost protocols, many of which dominate today’s large-cap names.
After the last bull market, we were left with many projects with no real usage other than speculation. They were focused more on marketing efforts than actual product development.
Related:TikTok and the Great Firewall of America
TakeXRP, for example. It is the king of worthless altcoins due to its ability to accrue very little to no value, even if adoption skyrockets. Even after the mid-March carnage, it still held a total market value north of $6 billion and currently trades close to $13 billion. Stellar’s native asset (XLM) is still in the top 15 at nearly $2 billion. NEO, another celebrated project in the ICO bull run that has yet to deliver, has a market cap of $1 billion.
There’s an important difference between the adoption – or “success” – of a certain protocol and the potential for value to accrue to its native token. But as I’vewritten before, the reallocation of capital away from zombie protocols has already begun.
The “crypto tourists” of the last bull market have been driven out by inactivity, while the initial coin offerings and token projects they threw money at are shuttering. Decentralized finance (DeFi)is outshining alts, and investors now demand properly designed systems that actually contribute to the broader crypto ecosystem.
The speed at which these projects innovate and adapt to new market conditions makes them extremely dynamic. They show the advantage of open source development versus more traditional top-down methods. Square may have an incredible team that’s been doing great work on all fronts (e.g., Cash App and Square Terminals). But even it can’t compete with the optionality of DeFi protocols. Now that DeFi base pieces have been laid, the sector is becoming more like an ecosystem than an industry with a bunch of different startup teams.
See also: DeFi Dad –Five Years In, DeFi Now Defines Ethereum
DeFi looks completely different today than even a few months ago. This time last year, there were only four DeFi projects in the top 100 crypto projects by market capitalization – Maker, 0x, Augur and Ren. Today, there are 11 with the addition ofAave,Synthetix,Compound,Kyber,Kava,Bancorand Loopring.
This time next year, I predict there will be at least 25 in the top 100. That’s a lot of redistribution of capital even without an influx of new money coming in.
The second bull market will be led by the usual suspect,bitcoin. As policymakers around the world continue to provide pandemic-related economic relief, bitcoin’s long-term value proposition as a hedge against fiat currency debasement only grows stronger. Circumstances are converging to accelerate us towards precisely the kind of world crypto was designed for.
In the short run, non-sovereign scarce assets (i.e. BTC and gold) could be challenged by increased deflationary pressures. But such conditions would undoubtedly force policymakers to provide even greater monetary relief, compounding our conviction in bitcoin’s long-term value proposition as a hedge against fiat currency debasement.
We saw a consistent misallocation of capital, with firms following each other into rounds at untenable valuations.
When my partners and I left jobs in traditional finance to start a crypto research firm, we knew we were early, but we couldn’t help but sense something truly revolutionary was happening here: an era-defining opportunity on par with the advent of the internet. Two years later, after spending so much time closely tracking interesting protocols, that hunch has transformed into iron-clad conviction. This is exactly why our team is doubling down on our commitment to the industry.
Last week, we officially announcedDelphi Ventures, a new division of our company that will focus on providing long-term financial and intellectual capital to the most promising projects in the space.
Broadly speaking, we saw a consistent misallocation of capital, with firms following each other into rounds at untenable valuations for pre-launch projects with no clear path to value-accrual and no justifiable use for those amounts of capital. On the other hand, our research led us to identify early stage projects with extremely promising ideas that we believed were being underfunded.
See also:Crypto Hedge Fund Neural Capital Closes After Losing Half Its Money
It’s easy in hindsight to say the investments made in the last period of market exuberance were doomed to failure, but there has been a shift in the standards of the industry.
The foundation for the base infrastructure of the decentralized economy is being laid as we speak. The composability between projects allow teams to iterate much faster than traditional software companies and opens up experimentation going forward.
My partner Medio Demarco said it best last year whentweetingthat it was a bigger risk staying in traditional finance than getting involved in crypto.
Eventually, I expect high-profile tech investors like Chamath Palihapitiya and Mark Cuban, who have expressed interest in crypto in the past, to go deeper and become champions of the sector. As of this weekend, the top 100 DeFi projects had a market cap of ~$7.3 billion. The total crypto market cap is around $370 billion. It’s crazy to think DeFi deserves less than 2% of this.
On that note, I wanted to share a secret with all of you. At the top of the 2017 bubble, a friend of mine gave me a shirt as a joke. It says “moon: the moment when the crypto market cap reaches a total market cap of $1 trillion USD.” I can’t remember if I’ve ever worn it (hedging myself in case a photo leaks) but, as these two crypto bull markets converge, I think I may be caught wearing it sooner than I initially thought.
• Two Reasons Crypto’s Bull Market Is Coming
• Two Reasons Crypto’s Bull Market Is Coming || Bitcoin Price Rises 3% as Gold Trades Above $2K for First Time: Bitcoin is again acting like amacro asset, drawing bids amid a record rally in gold and a broad-based sell-off in the U.S. dollar.
• At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency is trading at $11,624.63, representing a 3% gain on the day, according to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index.
• Gold is trading at a record high of $2,040 per ounce, having surpassed the $2,000 mark on Tuesday.
• Investors are flocking to gold on sinking inflation-adjusted bond yields and a weaker U.S. dollar,as noted bymacro analyst Holger Zschaepitz.
• The U.S. 10-year bond, when adjusted for inflation, currently offers a yield of -1%.
• The dollar index, which tracks the value of the greenback against majors, recently reached a 26-month low of 92.55, according to data source TradingView.
• Gold and bitcoin exchange-traded funds have seen strong inflows over the past five months on the growing demand for an “alternative” currency,according toJPMorgan Chase & Co.
• Bitcoin and gold have recently rallied in tandem with the dollar losing ground across the board.
• As gold rose from $1,800 to $1,980 in the 11 days to July 28, bitcoin jumped from $9,100 to $12,100 and the U.S.dollar took a beatingagainst other fiat currencies.
• As such, some analystsare convincedthat bitcoin is now more of a macro asset, meaning it responds to large-scale events in the world’s economies.
• Gold and bitcoincould continue to riseas governments and central banks are unlikely to slow or halt liquidity-boosting programs launched this year to counter the coronavirus-induced recession.
• Bitcoin may see stronger gains in the future, as it looks relatively cheap with prices still down 43% from the record high of $20,000 reached in December 2017.
• The cryptocurrency has gained nearly 60% so far this year, while gold has risen by 34%.
Also read:First Mover: The Dollar Drop May Have Helped Push Bitcoin Past $11K
• Bitcoin Price Rises 3% as Gold Trades Above $2K for First Time
• Bitcoin Price Rises 3% as Gold Trades Above $2K for First Time
• Bitcoin Price Rises 3% as Gold Trades Above $2K for First Time
• Bitcoin Price Rises 3% as Gold Trades Above $2K for First Time || First Mover: This DeFi-Ready Token Is Teaching Crypto Traders to Cherish Inflation: One of the things crypto traders like about bitcoin is that it’sresistant to inflation, potentially serving as a hedge against the trillions of dollars of money that central banks have printed this year to address the coronavirus-inflicted economic collapse.
But what if a cryptocurrency were designed to produce its own inflation – as a good thing?
You’re readingFirst Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You cansubscribe here.
Related:Blockchain Bites: Coinsquare Conclusion, Ethereum Fees and a GPT-3 Poet
That’s the principle behind the cryptocurrency project Ampleforth’s AMPL tokens, which are suddenly getting a fresh look from traders after a tenfold increase in their total supply over the past three weeks to 340 million.
Though the project’smarket capitalizationof $398 million is still tiny in relative terms, at just 0.23% of bitcoin’s $170 billion, some analysts say AMPL could see further uptake as a new form of liquidity in the fast-growing arena of decentralized finance, or DeFi.
In fact, demand for the token has been so hot that its current price of about $2.77 is nearly three times the project’s own target of $1.009. The impetus appears to have been Ampleforth’slaunch last month of Geyser, a new rewards program that encourages the token’s use on Uniswap, a decentralized exchange.
The token “has been on an absolute tear,” Paul Burlage, an analyst with the cryptocurrency research firmDelphi Digital, wrote in a July 9 report.
Related:Bitcoin ‘Active Entities’ at Highest Since 2017 Bull Run
Two years ago, a San Francisco-based engineer and robotics researcher namedEvan Kuo, alongside co-founder Brandon Iles and their team, decided to tackle a problem in digital-asset markets: tight correlations between bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies that make the market vulnerable to widespread sell-offs – as traders scramble for cash or cash-like instruments such as dollar-backed stablecoins.
The dynamic poses risks for DeFi, where the cryptocurrencies are often pledged as collateral on semi-autonomous lending and borrowing platforms.“The high correlations prevalent in today’s cryptocurrencies create systemic risk,” Kuo told First Mover in a Telegram chat.
So in December 2018, the team launched Ampleforth protocol with $3 million in funding from the likes of Brian Armstrong, CEO of the big U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase; Pantera Capital, a cryptocurrency investment fund; and True Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm.
The project aims to address the systemic risk by designing a token to be mostly uncorrelated with other cryptocurrencies, and also isolated from swings in traditional financial markets.
The secret to the design is a combination of intentional inflation and anti-dilution: When prices for the AMPL token rise above a target, more units are issued directly to holders’ wallets in proportion to their holdings. Theoretically, the extra supply creates inflation that should help to push prices back down, but traders are made whole because they suddenly have more of the tokens.
The mechanism is supposed to limit price volatility, potentially making AMPL tokens more desirable as a stable form of collateral for DeFi systems.
“AMPL’s differentiated movement pattern reduces the risk of autoliquidation in the DeFi space,” Kuo said.
According to theproject’s website, traders can use the tokens to diversify investment portfolios, park as collateral in DeFi or even hold as a “better bitcoin.”
Ampleforth has set a target price for AMPL based on the value of the U.S. dollar in 2019. And that target price is adjusted continuously based on the consumer price index, which offers a rough way of gauging monthly decreases in the dollar’s purchasing power.
But during times of heavy demand for the tokens, the market price can diverge from the target price. And that appears to be happening now, as traders deploy the AMPL tokens in fast-growing DeFi platforms.
On June 23, AMPL “traded above its price threshold of $1.06 and never looked back,” according to Delphi Digital’s Burlage.
For example, on July 19, the token was trading at $2.95, nearly three times the target price. Under the rules of the protocol, the supply automatically increased by 16% at the end of the 24-hour period, according toAmpleforth’s dashboard.
The extra supply represents inflation that should theoretically reduce the value of each AMPL token. But since the extra supply goes into holders’ wallets, the overall value of their holdings should theoretically stay the same. Inflation, coupled with anti-dilution, as designed.
Burlage wrote that there are strong incentives built into the system encouraging traders to hold onto their AMPL tokens. But the market could turn, since it’s prone to a “cyclical boom and bust cycle.”
“With the price running up, it is now a game of chicken between large holders to see who sells first and time the top,” Burlage wrote.
It might be the future of money, but as is often the case in cryptocurrency markets, speculation and experimentation are the right-now.
BTC: Price: $9,361 (BPI) | 24-Hr High: $9,445 | 24-Hr Low: $9,304
Trend: Bitcoin is struggling to extend Tuesday’s 2.5% price gain.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value is currently trading near $9,360, representing a 0.4% decline on the day.
The immediate bias remains neutral as the cryptocurrency remains trapped in tight range, as represented by Bollinger volatility bands, currently located at $9,424 and $9,037.
A move above the upper band would imply range breakout and could power the cryptocurrency higher to resistance at $9,800 (June 22 high) and possibly to the psychological hurdle of $10,000. Alternatively, a range breakdown would expose the 200-day moving average at $8,560.
A range breakdown may be seen if the global equities suffer sharp losses on the escalating China-U.S. tensions and the U.S. Congress’ inability to reach consensus on an additional coronavirus relief package. The cryptocurrency has recently developed a relatively strong correlation with the equity markets.
At press time, futures tied to the S&P 500 and major European indices are reporting moderate losses. Risk sentiment weakened early Wednesday after Washingtonordered China to close its consulatein Houston, marking an unprecedented escalation of tensions with the Asian nation.
Note: This article has been edited to show that AMPL’s market cap is 0.23% of bitcoin’s market cap.
• First Mover: This DeFi-Ready Token Is Teaching Crypto Traders to Cherish Inflation
• First Mover: This DeFi-Ready Token Is Teaching Crypto Traders to Cherish Inflation || Barstool’s Dave Portnoy Is Bad at Trading Cryptocurrency: Dave Portnoy, the online sports celebrity founder of Barstool Sports, might be quitting cryptocurrency trading after buying bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies little more than a week ago, according to a tweet published Friday afternoon. Portnoy led his army of day traders into the cryptocurrency world after Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, explained bitcoin to him on Aug. 13. Besides leading to a sizable bitcoin purchase, Portnoy’s meeting with the Winklevoss brothers also resulted in a $50,000 purchase of chainlink (LINK). As of Friday, and after losing $25,000, however, Portnoy told his Twitter followers, “I currently own zero bitcoins.” The bellwether cryptocurrency actually gained more than 7% in the days following Portnoy’s broadcasted purchase. At last check, BTC is still up 1% from the daily open on the day of Portnoy’s meeting. LINK, however, dumped 30% since Portnoy signaled his bullishness for the coin, tweeting, “LINK to the moon.” Another alternative cryptocurrency, orchid (OXT), also dropped 28% since Portnoy tweeted about his position. Trading cryptocurrency just isn’t easy, explained Anil Lulla, former analyst at Bloomberg and co-founder of cryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital. “The market is a bit more sophisticated than it was in 2017. You’ve seen a shift where capital has been flowing to projects with some fundamentals instead of just good marketing and buzzwords.” Dismissing his losses, Portnoy responded to a fake Tyler Winklevoss account that expressed disappointment in the celebrity trader’s decision to sell LINK by saying, “I make six figures a day like clockwork in the real stock market. No need to sit around losing money waiting for Elon [Musk] to mine gold from outer space.” The possibility of mining gold on asteroids was a value proposition for investing in BTC pitched to Portnoy by the Winklevoss twins. “Having a long-term fundamental view helps deal with the short-term volatility,” said Ryan Watkins, bitcoin analyst at Messari and former investment banking analyst at Moelis & Co., referring to trading cryptocurrencies in a private message with CoinDesk. Because everyone looks like a genius in a bull market, though, Lulla said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Portnoy eventually “have some fun and post some headline-grabbing gains.” Related Stories Barstool’s Dave Portnoy Is Bad at Trading Cryptocurrency Barstool’s Dave Portnoy Is Bad at Trading Cryptocurrency Barstool’s Dave Portnoy Is Bad at Trading Cryptocurrency Barstool’s Dave Portnoy Is Bad at Trading Cryptocurrency || 15 Ways to Stay Sane While Trading Crypto: This is not a guide of how to trade crypto. This is not about how to make money, how to invest or where to find alpha. But if you’ve dabbled in crypto trading? Then you know this one thing: It can be all-consuming . When your money is on the line, suddenly you’re checking the prices more than you check social media, you obsess about the charts, and even your dreams are filled with candlesticks and Elliot Waves . Oh, and there’s never a break. Stock day-traders might be Red Bull-pounding stress-monsters from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday to Friday, but they are then forced to relax when the market closes. Crypto is always on. Trades beckon. If you’re asleep at 2am? Maybe you just missed a 10X opportunity. Spent Sunday morning at brunch? Maybe you failed to avoid a -40% bloodbath. So it’s easy to stare at the screens – and stare and stare and stare. Related: How Bitcoiners Can Protect Their Mental Health During the Coronavirus Crisis See also: Crypto Trading 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Candlesticks “The casino never closes,” says Scott Melker, a trader who goes by the alias The Wolf of All Streets (and one of The Men Who Stare at Charts ). “It’s just very, very difficult to detach. It’s a forced skill.” So how do you cultivate that skill? More broadly, how do you protect your mental health while investing or trading in cryptocurrency? We spoke with Kevin Zhou, head trader of Galois Capital ; Bobby Cho, partner at CMS Holdings, and Melker to get some insight on best practices. Each trader stressed – repeatedly – that this is not financial advice. Instead these are tips, strategies, and guidance for how to stay sane. 1. Set trading hours. Sure, the exchanges are open 24/7, but that doesn’t mean you need to be. “I treat it like a business,” says Melker, who only trades between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., and then he has dinner, puts his kids to bed and lives like a normal person. Story continues 2. Make a plan. Stick to it. Each trader emphasized mental discipline. “Do your homework in terms of why you found a trade interesting, and what you intend to do with it,” says Cho. “I tend to take a lot of notes, like, ‘What’s the risk/reward profile of what I’m doing? What am I willing to make on the trade, and what can I stand to lose?’” Cho says that once you’ve “capped” your potential losses and gains, then you’re less likely to impulsively act on emotion. Melker agrees, noting, “A lot of people stare at the charts, willing it [the price] to go up or down.” He doesn’t do this. Instead, Melker plans his trades in advance, creates his entry and exit points, and then he ignores the chart, as it’s “in the hands of the Trading Gods.” He steps away and goes about his life. “The biggest mistake people make is emotionally changing their plan, mid-trade,” says Melker. “Moving your stop-loss down because you think it’s about to bounce 100x right after you got stopped-out.” 3. Tame the greed. Zhou says the biggest problems in trading are hubris, fear and greed. Keep the emotions neutral. Focus on the methodology, the framework of the trade, the cold logic of the percentages. “You shouldn’t feel too good about the wins that you have, and you shouldn’t feel too bad about the losses,” says Zhou. But okay, real talk? That’s easier said than done. How do you cope with the losses? (Because there will be losses.) 4. Treat losses as an opportunity to learn. Every loss, says Zhou, can teach you something about trading. Reframe the loss. Don’t let it be a trigger for anger, despair, or self-flagellation. Let it be a trigger for learning. “Just analyze the situation,” says Zhou. “The first question is, did you take that loss because you came in with a positive edge – more than 50% – and then you got unlucky? And don’t lie to yourself.” If you simply got unlucky, well then just roll with it, as that happens and you need to focus on the long-term. The second question Zhou says you should ask: “If that’s not the case, if you actually made the wrong decision, then try to figure out what led you to that wrong decision. Was the logic unsound? Or was the logic sound but your assumptions unsound?” Cold analysis can temper hot anxiety. It’s just very, very difficult to detach. It’s a forced skill. 5. Exercise. Obvious? Maybe. But also overlooked. “It’s essential that you go to the gym, or exercise somehow, to clear your head,” says Melker. 6. Compartmentalize. Especially in the early days of crypto trading, it’s natural to obsess about the prices, positions and possibilities throughout the day no matter what you’re doing – in the shower, on a date, even playing with your kids. Cho checks this impulse by compartmentalizing his different activities in life, and then lasering his attention on whatever he’s doing. “On Saturday morning, my kids are going to wake up around 7:30 or 8, and I’m going to spend the morning with them,” he says, and in that time he doesn’t check the charts or think about crypto. His priority is the kids. Conversely, on Monday morning when he’s in trading mode, that gets his full attention. “If you don’t have these priorities,” says Cho, “then your focus is all over the place, and you’re half-assing everything.” 7. Don’t put too much financial pressure on trading. The trades become harder to stomach when your livelihood depends on the outcome. It’s harder to think rationally. It’s easy to get swallowed up by anxiety, which might nudge you to chase losses or gains. “Take the pressure off with multiple income streams,” says Melker. “It’s helpful if you don’t need to make $1,000 a day trading.” 8. Strip away the emotions. This one’s critical enough to warrant a bit of repetition. “It’s extremely important to have emotional control while you’re trading,” says Zhou – important for both mental sanity and financial performance. The best way to develop that emotional control? Practice. Repetition. Time on task. See also: Ben Munster – The Men Who Stare at Charts “When you start out trading, it’s very normal that when things go well you feel like a genius, like you’re on top of the world. And when things go badly you feel like an idiot, and you get depressed,” says Zhou. Then you keep trading. You keep learning. “Over time, as you do it more and more, you get used to it, and it doesn’t affect your day-to-day,” he says. “It’s really important to get to that point, because you definitely don’t want emotions affecting you.” 9. Take breaks. Cho frequently steps away from the phone, laptop, charts, crypto Twitter. He says this is necessary for balance and sanity. “Ultimately, there’s a whole world outside of crypto,” says Cho, and then laughs a bit. “Although some would say there isn’t.” 10. Think of yourself as ‘the house.’ In casinos they say the house always wins, because over the long haul, once you tune out the noise of flukey players who do well at blackjack, the house enjoys the percentage edge. If you have a 52% chance of winning, you will rack up many Ls, and maybe you might even lose three or five or ten times in a row. But when the sample size gets to be 10,000, you will win around 52% of the time. Melker says that if you’re trading with the right mindset, that’s how you view each trade, and let the losses roll off you. “It’s almost like this long-term mathematical formula,” says Melker. “If you execute, and you do it long enough, you just win a little more than you lose.” Melker says that at this point, individual losses “don’t affect me at all.” 11. Cultivate other priorities. Or as Melker puts it, Get a life . This helps keep balance and can curb the obsession. “I have two children, and I have a wife,” he says. “It’s important to me not to be an absentee father or a slave to my iPhone.” Along those lines… 12. Practice good time management. “Time management is a key feature in everything I do,” says Cho. “In any given hour I ask, what is my priority? And understanding that list of priorities is very important.” If his priority for the hour is to research Company X, then he will focus on that, and only that, and he won’t obsess about crypto prices. Conversely, if the focus of the hour is to trade, then that commands his attention and he won’t worry about Company X. “Obviously you’re not agnostic about what’s happening in the market,” says Cho, “but establishing priorities helps.” 13. Schedule time for content consumption. Crypto trading and investing, for many, is more than just price action: It’s also about understanding the tech, the philosophy and the constant changes to this fascinating new world. That can be a lot to keep up with. Instead of getting distracted by every tweet and every crypto article – which can add anxiety, fuel ADD and take you away from your current area of focus – Cho simply dumps new content in what is essentially a “to read later” bucket and then catches up when he’s ready to focus on that and only that. See also: How Bitcoiners Can Protect Their Mental Health During the Coronavirus Crisis (podcast) 14. Ditch the phone. In the old universe where people went out to restaurants for dinner, pre-COVID, Melker and his wife had a deal: “If we were out, I would leave my phone in the car,” he says. “When the phone’s in the car, I’m not going to think about it.” Alternatively, in a dissenting opinion, here’s a different perspective entirely: Contrarian Take: Accept that there is no such thing as work/life balance. “I’m a little contrarian here,” Zhou says, acknowledging that this cuts against the grain of the Maintain Balance ethos. “For people who really want to get good at something, there’s no such thing as workplace balance.” He adds, “Sometimes you lose sleep. Sometimes you lose friends.” Zhou admits this can take a toll, and maybe it means your social life takes a hit. “But there’s a lot of opportunity here,” he says. “We can rest while we’re dead.” 15. Know that crypto obsession will never truly go away. Even the most seasoned, well-balanced traders say that, at times, they can still surrender to compulsive price-checking impulse. “It still remains a challenge at times,” says Melker. “You can’t predict when bitcoin is going to strap you into the roller coaster.” And finally, a bonus consideration: Value your time over money. This is less a specific hack and more of a general principle. In essence, the concept is this: Don’t forget what really matters . “The most valuable lesson you learn is that the point of your money is to buy free time,” says Melker. “It’s not so you can spend more time trying to make money. Trading should be one of those rare opportunities where, if you’re successful, you’re not slaving away to make someone else wealthy.” In other words, if you’re spending 24/7 staring at crypto charts, and never doing anything else with your life, have you really beaten the system? Have you really won the game? “If your money is not buying you more time,” says Melker, “You’re doing it wrong.”
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: no change || Prices: 11681.83, 11664.85, 11774.60, 11366.13, 11488.36, 11323.40, 11542.50, 11506.87, 11711.51, 11680.82
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bank of Canada studies payments system using tech behind bitcoin: By Ethan Lou and Leah Schnurr TORONTO/OTTAWA, June 16 (Reuters) - The Bank of Canada is experimenting with a payments system based on the technology behind the bitcoin virtual currency, the central bank said on Thursday. Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins said the central bank has been working with commercial banks to build the experimental interbank payment system. The goal "is solely to better understand the technology first-hand," she said in a statement. "Other frameworks need to be investigated, and there are many hurdles that need to be cleared before such a system would ever be ready for prime time." Wilkins, expected to speak further on the issue on Friday, said the experiment is among many financial technology research projects. Such experiments, she noted, are not aimed at developing central-bank issued e-money for use by the general public. Details of the project, which uses the distributed-ledger technology associated with web-based currency bitcoin, were revealed at a payment-technology event in Calgary on Wednesday that was closed to media. Kyle Kemper, an entrepreneur and head of the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada, who was present at Wednesday's event, said the experiment is called "Project Jasper" and involves blockchain technology. Blockchain's distributed-ledger system allows users to conduct secure transactions with each other without the need for middlemen or central oversight, unlike traditional electronic funds transfers. A slide from a presentation at the event seen by Reuters details how the banks in the experiment would pledge cash collateral in a pool that the Bank of Canada would convert into a digital version. The digital currency would then be used as a medium of exchange and could be converted back to cash. While long known as the backbone of bitcoin, launched under a pseudonym, blockchain has garnered the attention of large financial institutions in recent years. R3, a New York-based research consortium that includes all of Canada's major banks, is a partner in the Bank of Canada's project, along with Payments Canada. Royal Bank of Canada, CIBC, TD Bank and Payments Canada declined to comment. (Reporting by Leah Schnurr and Ethan Lou; Editing by Dan Grebler) || How an early bitcoin leader is staying relevant in a blockchain frenzy: If you are interested in dipping a toe in the waters of the digital currency bitcoin, the easiest way is to buy some bitcoin, and arguably the best-known service for that is Coinbase.
The company launched four years ago today, and was one of the earliest bitcoin wallets—that is, simply, a place to buy and hold bitcoin. By being early to the craze, Coinbase became one of the most recognizable and respected brands in the bitcoin industry, it raised nearly $107 million in venture capital (by far the most raised by any bitcoin startupuntil 21 Inc. came along), and its co-founders, Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, became influential names in the business.
Lately, the narrative about the bitcoin world has shifted toblockchain, the decentralized, peer-to-peer, open-source technologythat powers bitcoin. (For an explainer, check out this video.) The idea of blockchain came about side-by-side with bitcoin in 2009, but now major banks and financial institutions are gaga over the idea of using blockchains to speed up their transaction processing—closed, private blockchains without bitcoin.
Now some of the hottest startups that started out as “bitcoin companies” have subtly edged away from bitcoin in their marketing.Bitreserve, a cloud bank that allows you to hold funds in many different currencies, changed its name to Uphold;Circle, which started as a bitcoin payment app, added the ability to deposit funds in U.S. dollars, and no longer mention bitcoin on its home page. Many bitcoin companies are focusing on blockchain and working with new partners who, in many cases, have no interest in a volatile cryptocurrency.
But Coinbase and its leaders are more bullish on bitcoin than ever.
“I think the whole narrative of blockchain without bitcoin will amount to very little,” declares Fred Ehrsam. In an interview with Yahoo Finance duringthe big bitcoin conference Consensusthis month, Ehrsam compared the current craze over blockchain to corporations that rushed to create “intranets” in the early days of the Internet—they were closed networks, accessible only to one company’s employees. And while those still exist at some companies today, most people eventually realized that they didn’t need to create private corners of the Internet, because the large, open Internet is good enough.
It is a popular comparison among bitcoin believers at the moment. Many people on the banking side of things, in visits with Yahoo Finance, have been dismissive of that dismissiveness. They see potential in blockchain technology to reduce friction in payments overseas, and maybe even speed the settlement of stock purchases.
Ehrsam’s point is that the bitcoin blockchain can already do that. A former Goldman Sachs (GS) foreign exchange trader, Ehrsam brings financial chops to bitcoin, a world which many of the most fervent supporters got into because they are anti-banking and anti-government. Ehrsam has said he aims for Coinbase to be a Goldman Sachs of cryptocurrency. Some in bitcoin would say it’s already there.
Coinbase has grown far beyond a mere bitcoin wallet: It has more than 2 million users; it is now operable in 32 countries; it recently launched the ability for U.S. customers to buy bitcoin instantly using a debit card (previously you had to link up a bank account and wait a few days, which was a nice illustration of the sluggishness of traditional banking); and most significantly, last year it launched an entirely new business: a bitcoin exchange.
Coinbase has major competition among bitcoin exchanges. Many, many exchanges have sprung up in the past two years, includingone from the Winklevoss brothers, Gemini, which last year scored regulatory approvalfrom the New York Department of Financial Services to operate as a trust, and this month got new approval to add the ability for customers to trade Ether, a much-hyped alternative digital-currency to bitcoin. Coinbase, in contrast with Gemini, did not wait for regulatory approval in New York before launching. But a report just this week from Reuters suggeststhe NYDFS is set to grant Coinbase a BitLicenseanyway, which, if true, will certainly make Coinbase look like it was smart not to wait. After a little over one year in business, Coinbase says it has the most liquid bitcoin exchange in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Ehrsam and Armstrong have become key voices in a wonky internal debate in the bitcoin world over whether to increase the block-size limit of bitcoin’s blockchain. In simplest terms, transactions are recorded on the blockchain in bundles called blocks, but the blockchain has slowed down recently under the weight of larger transactions. Some in bitcoin want to raise the limit to allow for larger blocks, while others don’t want bitcoin mining to get to a point where a personal laptop can’t handle the data. Ehrsam and Armstrong are in the former camp, and Armstronghas written publicly on the block size debate.
To be sure, many titans of Wall Street are still certain that while blockchain technology is heating up, bitcoin, the currency, is on its way to the grave. JPMorgan (JPM) CEOJamie Dimon has called bitcoin "doomed."Nonetheless, Ehrsam is laser-focused on a business plan that depends on people like Dimon being very wrong. The value of bitcoin, by the way, is up 91% in the last year.
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Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business.Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
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 || '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.
"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) || Australian says he created bitcoin, but some sceptical: By Byron Kaye and Jemima Kelly SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright identified himself as the creator of controversial digital currency bitcoin on Monday but experts were divided over whether he really was the elusive person who has gone by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto until now. Uncovering Nakamoto's real identity would solve a riddle dating back to the publication of the open source software behind the cryptocurrency in 2008, before its launch a year later. Bitcoin has since become the world's most commonly used virtual currency, attracting the interest of banks, speculators, criminals and regulators. Worth a total of $7 billion at current levels, it fell more than 3 percent on Monday -- a normal intraday move for the volatile currency -- after the news, to below $440 from around $455, before recovering slightly. Some online commentators suggested bitcoin's creator could help resolve a bitter row among the currency's software developers that threatens its future. But Wright made no reference to the row in a BBC interview identifying himself as Nakamoto, and as the protocol bitcoin runs on is open-source and cannot be controlled by any one person, it is unclear whether he would be able to influence the way it develops. "I was the main part of it, other people helped me," Wright, who is now living in London, told the BBC. "Some people will believe, Some people won't, and to tell you the truth, I don't really care," he said. Many bitcoiners said Wright had not done enough to definitively prove that he was Nakamoto, who maintained his anonymity throughout his involvement with bitcoin, which he stepped away from in 2011. But Gavin Andresen, who Nakamoto chose to succeed him, published a blog post in which he described meeting Wright last month and said he is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the Australian is Nakamoto. Jon Matonis, a founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation now works as a bitcoin consultant, wrote a blog post on Monday which, like Andresens, supported Wrights claims. Story continues According to me, the proof is conclusive and I have no doubt that Craig Steven Wright is the person behind the Bitcoin technology, Nakamoto consensus, and the Satoshi Nakamoto name, Matonis wrote. He and Andresen also confirmed they had been responsible for their respective blog posts to Reuters directly. LEGACY Nakamoto's biggest likely legacy lies well beyond his control. The blockchain technology that underpins the currency could transform the way banks settle transactions, the way that property rights and other vital data are recorded, and provide a way for central banks to issue their own digital currencies. The BBC reported on Monday that Wright gave some technical proof demonstrating that he had access to blocks of bitcoins known to have been created by bitcoin's creator. Researchers believe Nakamoto may be holding up to one million of the more than 15 million bitcoins currently in circulation, which would make the creator worth around $440 million. In a blog post also dated Monday, Wright posted an example of a signature used by Nakamoto and an explanation of how bitcoin transactions are verified and thanked all those who had supported the project from its inception. "This incredible communitys passion and intellect and perseverance have taken my small contribution and nurtured it, enhanced it, breathed life into it," he wrote. However he did not state directly that he was Nakamoto. "Satoshi is dead," he said. "But this is only the beginning." Bitcoin expert Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Coin Center, said a new message cryptographically signed using the private key associated with the so-called Genesis block, the first ever "mined" would have been more convincing. The currency's "miners" are incentivised to process transactions every 10 minutes by a possible reward of bitcoins (25 currently), which is how new bitcoins are created. Wright also spoke with The Economist, but declined requests from the magazine to provide further proof that he was Nakamoto. His representatives told Reuters he would not be taking part in more media interviews for the time being. "Our conclusion is that Mr Wright could well be Mr Nakamoto, but that important questions remain," The Economist said. "Indeed, it may never be possible to establish beyond reasonable doubt who really created bitcoin. Hopes that bitcoin would become broadly used helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalisation was $13 billion compared with today's $7 billion. Wright told The Economist he would exchange bitcoin he owns slowly to avoid pushing down its price. HOME RAIDED In December, police raided Wright's Sydney home and office after Wired magazine named him as the probable creator of bitcoin and holder of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency. At the time he made no comment. The treatment of bitcoins for tax purposes in Australia has been the subject of considerable debate. The Australian Tax Office (ATO) ruled in December 2014 that cryptocurrency should be considered an asset, rather than a currency, for capital gains tax purposes. On Monday, the ATO said it had no comment while police were not immediately available for comment. If Wright is Nakamoto he "is now the leader of a movement", said Roberto Capodieci, a Singapore-based entrepreneur working on the blockchain, the technology underlying the currency. That movement ranges from libertarian enthusiasts to central banks experimenting with digital currencies, all of which pay homage in some way to Nakamoto's writings. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Wagstaff in Singapore, Matt Siegel in Sydney and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Nick Macfie, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Philippa Fletcher) || 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) || Billionaire VC Tim Draper wants 9 months and $40,000 to turn you into the next Steve Jobs, starting with military survival training: Tim Draper (Business Insider) Tim Draper. If you are between 18 and 28, famous billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper has a plan to turn you into the "next Steve Jobs." That's why he launched a school for young, would-be entrepreneurs called Draper University of Heroes, he tells Business Insider, which he turned into a reality TV show last year. The show, "Startup U," failed to attract an audience, was dropped from prime time , and there's no word yet if ABC will renew it or not. But even if students won't appear on TV, Draper has a new plan for the school. He just added a new nine-month program to the curriculum, starting in the fall, which he views as an alternative to a master's degree. This is in addition to the school's classic two months of "hero training" offered since it launched three years ago. There's a reason he calls it hero training. Before you can become the next Steve Jobs, you have to learn to be tough. Navy SEAL tough. Days of survival training Hero training includes "four days of survival training with military teams. We have Navy SEAL special forces and Army Rangers that take them to real survival training," Draper says. survival training jungle (Athit Perawongmetha/REUTERS) Once students have spent those days foraging for food and shelter in the wilderness, the next step is city survival training, challenges that sound like what Donald Trump gave to contestants on his reality show, "The Apprentice." "There's another couple of days in the two months of hero training that's Urban Survival training," Draper says. Students have to go out and "sell something embarrassing, or go to San Francisco and come back with a job offer, on paper, in 24 hours." That job offer gives them the confidence that they can always quickly get a position, he says. As Draper says, "How to create a Steve Jobs? It's a way of thinking." The school admits people "that have that spark and we create an environment that ignites that spark." $12,000 to $40,000 Once the students have learned how to survive, they are ready to learn about the tech industry Draper U-style. The nine-month program will include learning about the newest, buzziest technologies. Story continues Tim Draper Startup U (Tim Neely/ABC Family) Tim Draper surrounded by students in the "Startup U" reality TV show. Although every class has a different curriculum, Draper says, students might explore Bitcoin which Draper loves learn design, and use the newest programming languages to build an app, or maybe a robot. They'll also draft a business plan, turn that plan into a pitch deck, and turn the pitch deck into a two-minute presentation and pitch it to "between 30 and 50 VCs," including himself, he says. He's dedicated a $1 million fund to invest seed money in startup ideas from the class, too, he says. But it's not a scholarship program. The two-month hero training costs $12,000. The full nine-month program costs $40,000, Draper tells us. Draper calls it an alternative to traditional school. That's important: This is not an accredited school. Students who finish the program do not earn an accredited degree. Just to compare, many accredited universities charge about $40,000 to earn a bona fide master's degree. Draper defends his school Draper U has been controversial in its three years. While some students have posted glowing reviews of it on Yelp , some have given it bad reviews . Draper says, "We definitely get mixed reviews. Our training is not for everybody." And The Verge's Russell Brandom once called the school a BA in BS . But Draper points to the alumni success stories as proof of the school's value. Draper U has had over 500 alumni from 53 countries who have created 200 startups and landed a total of $22 million in funding, he says. He points to businesses like biomedical startup nVision and conference-tech firm Loopd as examples of alumni startups that got funding. Not that Draper is worried about controversy. He has come up with a plan to turn California into six states , offered to make a large charitable donation if people watched his reality TV show, and bought a huge stash of Bitcoin auctioned by the government after seizing black-market site Silk Road and is fond of making large public bets . NOW WATCH: Meet the founder of a hot fintech startup that an old-line insurance company paid $250 million to buy More From Business Insider This VC thinks Apple CEO Tim Cook is like 'human Ambien' Go inside a venture capitalist's $26 million townhouse The billionaire who wanted to split California into 6 states now has a crazy plan to give everyone $15,000 || 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) || Bitcoin's Novelty Is Spent: If drawing a stack of Benjamins on fast-food napkins and praying they spring to life sounds like your idea of a good time, consider the urban myth behind bitcoin -- the enigmatic digital currency that exists online, has no central bank or even a known founder. Here's what we know, at least from the fabulist perspective: Satoshi Nakamoto is said to have invented bitcoins in 2008 after he sold a vintage McDonald's paper napkin online and the buyer defrauded him out of several thousand bucks. Since then, Nakamoto has been pegged as anyone and everyone from an Irish grad student to a reclusive Hungarian American. And as the legend grows, so grows the legal tender. Today you'll find an estimated 15 million bitcoins in circulation, worth about $872 million. But putting your money into bitcoins isn't a slam dunk (even if the Sacramento Kings accept them). That's because bitcoin fever -- much like the infamous "Tulip Mania" of 17th Century Holland -- has died down. Way down. Observers say once-smitten financial reporters and publications now focus elsewhere. "Bitcoin is actually unchanged since many years ago: What is different is the focus of the media," says Peter Leeds, the author of "Penny Stocks for Dummies." In it, Leeds mentions bitcoin as an example of what he calls "an investor stampede." [See: The 9 Best Investors of All Time .] "Much -- almost all -- of bitcoin's rise in value was driven by the standard media cycle," Leeds says. "And as the story became old news, coverage levels diminished and the currency faded into the background." But arguably, bitcoin was bound to make headlines in 2013, when European speculators sent its value through the roof. The Cyprus economic bailout drove anxious investors to bitcoins as they sought alternatives to the euro and other currencies manipulated by central bankers. Bitcoin also made waves because no one in the investment world had seen anything like it. Bitcoins are known as a "cryptocurrency," a term that appeals to the James Bond in all of us. In fact, early adopters included thieves and criminals who embraced its all-digital nature. Bitcoin's nefarious fans included Silk Road, an online black market (since shuttered) that sold drugs. A handful of anarchists embraced it, too. Story continues That said, old-fashioned cash has long been a favorite of malfeasants. For the rest of us, "the legal status of bitcoin varies from country to country," says Nicolette Kost De Sevres, senior policy advisor with DLA Piper, a global business law firm, "It is banned or restricted in some, undefined in many and explicitly allowed in others." Adding to the mystery, bitcoins hinge on tongue-twisting technobabble even most Wall Street pundits can't grasp. This includes "source code repository" and the concept of "computationally impractical to reverse." Nor is a bitcoin a coin in the traditional sense. It exists as an open-source, peer-to-peer internet protocol, which may explain why the digerati have embraced it. One bitcoin evangelist is Nicolas Cary, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Blockchain, the world's top bitcoin software company. "The virtual currency has specific properties that make it work really nicely as a form of money," Cary says. Ask him why and he rattles off a long list: "It is counterfeit-proof, fungible, easily divisible by up to 8 decimal points, purely digital, robust against the elements -- it won't burn or get corroded in water -- and with certain digital precautions far more resilient than cash." Yes, but... "If you lose the hard drive you've stored your coins on or lose access to a hosted account, you've effectively lost your money," says Cindy McAdam, partner in Goodwin Procter's Technology and Life Sciences Group, and a former executive at Xapo, a leading bitcoin company. And it's not like those things ever happen, right? If you think you'd be better off spending bitcoins than investing in them, online retailers such as TigerDirect and Overstock.com ( OSTK ) accept the currency. You can even make donations with bitcoins at higher-ed institutions that include the University of Puget Sound. Yet you don't have to be an economics professor to describe bitcoin like this: volatile. One bitcoin is worth about $581. On Nov. 29, 2013, it hit a peak of $1,108, according to Coinbase.com, a website that tracks Bitcoin prices. Less than a month later, it had plummeted to $593 -- more than its current worth. But if you bought in at the start of last September, you'd have doubled your money and then some. It's enough to give even a stalwart market-timing enthusiast a case of virtual currency vertigo. "There is a belief that much of the 'Wild West' spike in late 2013 was driven by fraud and market manipulation," McAdam says. "The price fell dramatically in the year following that, but has basically been on an upward trend for the past 18 months." [See: The 10 Best REIT ETFs on the Market .] That includes a price bump of $130 over two weeks between late May and early June. "With the upward price movement, we should expect to see more bitcoin headlines soon," says Anthem Hayek Blanchard, founder and CEO of Anthem Vault, which has created a gold-backed digital currency, HayekGold. He predicts that "it is very likely that bitcoin prices will go higher and breach $1,000 per bitcoin." Taken one way, the recent price rebound could be interpreted as newfound stability away from the harsh media spotlight. "Some speculate the buying is coming from the Chinese market due to currency controls and a devalued yuan," says Jalak Jobanputra, a venture capitalist and founding partner of FuturePerfect Ventures in New York City. Or, it could represent the latest gyration in Bitcoin's brief, marble-in-a-bathtub history. So is now a good time to buy bitcoins? Or is it ever a good time to invest in them? "Bitcoin remains a risky investment," says William Brindise, chief trading officer at DigitalX, a software solutions company in the global digital payments industry. "If growth in demand remains roughly constant as supply growth falls, economic theory suggests the price of bitcoin should rise," Brindise says. "However that's a big if, since the factors driving demand for bitcoins remain in flux." Meanwhile, some argue that the current lack of sensationalism means that bitcoin , once an investment upstart, is settling down. "Bitcoin never went away," says Christopher Burniske, analyst and blockchain products lead at New York City's ARK Investment Management, the first public fund manager to invest in bitcoin. "Its strength can be seen in the 'up and to the right' graphs of transactional volumes, trading volumes, hashing power, number of wallets, startups, merchants, and more, all involved with bitcoin." Burniske also points to the 99bitcoins website, which tracks bitcoin obituaries in the press. The number to date: 104. He notes that while bitcoin isn't the media darling it once was, it doesn't deserve to be on death row, either. The truth, in all likelihood, sits securely in the mundane middle. [Read: Real Estate's New Land of Plenty .] "There are fewer headlines because the currency has leveled out to a degree," says John Sedunov, assistant professor of finance at the Villanova University School of Business in the Philadelphia area. "If anything, it is becoming more mainstream." More From US News & World Report 11 Stocks That Donald Trump Loves 7 Ways to Tell if a Stock Is a Good Price 8 Easy Ways to Make Money || 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.
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: * Wright says will not provide further evidence
* Previous blog posts disappear from Wright's website
* U-turn seen making Wright's claims less likely (Adds comment, details, price reaction)
By Jemima Kelly
LONDON, May 5 (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.
"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)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#TrinityCoin #TTY $ 0.000006 (-0.28 %) 0.00000001 BTC (-0.00 %) || $529.16 #bitfinex;
$525.00 #coinbase;
$517.63 #bitstamp;
$510.00 #btce;
Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse
#bitcoin #btc || 1 #bitcoin 1368.09 TL, 453.976 $, 402.006 €, GBP, 29061.00 RUR, 49727 ¥, CNH, CAD #btc || #EuroCoin #EUC $ 0.000059 (-0.46 %) 0.00000013 BTC (-0.00 %) || http://cubeminers.com SHA: 0.00 KH Scrypt: 123.48 MH x11: 15.20 MH #DigiCube #bitcoin #altcoinpic.twitter.com/U4irOGZnz2 || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 7 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $801.81 #bitcoin #btc || One Bitcoin now worth $459.65@bitstamp. High $461.00. Low $455.95. Market Cap $ 7.134 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/3uENM7EhnE || #BTA Price: Bittrex 0.00001734 BTC YoBit 0.00001615 BTC Bleutrade 0.00001621 BTC #BTA 2016-05-15 12:00 pic.twitter.com/Fn2GF1Ufsw || 1 #bitcoin = $14560.00 MXN | $773.32 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 18.83MXN http://www.bitapeso.com || LIVE: Profit = $498.10 (6.35 %). BUY B18.96 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $440.50 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org
|
Trend: down || Prices: 763.78, 737.23, 666.65, 596.12, 623.98, 665.30, 665.12, 629.37, 655.28, 647.00
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
The Japanese yen is skyrocketing: (Investing.com)
Good afternoon!
TheJapanese yenis stronger by 0.8% at 106.12 per dollar as of 1:01 p.m. ET.
The yen is "breaking higher and more gains are in store from here with falling global and local bond yields working as the catalyst," wrote Morgan Stanley's Hans W. Redeker in a note to clients.
"The deeper global bond yields fall, the more investors express global growth concerns," he added.
As for the rest of the world, here's the scoreboard:
• TheBritish poundis down by 0.2% at 1.4228 after yet another poll showed support for leaving the EU.The latest pollfrom the Guardian and ICM found that 53% of respondents were pro leaving the EU, while 47% think that the UK should stay. Still, it's notably that the pound is only down by 0.2% right now — whereas last week the British currencycrashed after similar results.
• Bitcoinis up by awhopping9.5% at675.720 per dollar aheadof a"halvening" or "halving" later this month. This is a reduction in the amount of bitcoins produced by mining - the process whereby computers dedicate processing power towards creating new bitcoin.
• TheChinese yuanfell 0.4% to 6.5864 per dollar, and is nearing its weakest level since the first quarter of 2011. Also,China's fixed asset investment slowed to 9.6% through May, the first time it's been below 10% since 2000. Additionally, retail sales rose 10% year-over-year, just missing the 10.1% that was expected.
• TheUS dollar indexis down by 0.2% at 94.35 on a relatively quiet day for US economic news.
NOW WATCH:Japan has built a massive ice wall around Fukushima
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• The Australian dollar's spiking — here's what's happening in FX
• The dollar is inching back up — here's what's happening in FX || Traders say it might be time to buy into tech after NASDAQ hits 2016 highs: The " Fast Money " traders are keeping an eye on the big tech names, after the technology-heavy NASDAQ (NASDAQ: .IXIC) saw its highest levels of the year on Tuesday. Trader Pete Najarian said that technology and biotechnology companies could help drive the NASDAQ higher, especially if giants like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) start participating in the rally. Trader Dan Nathan said he likes PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) because of "interesting secular things going on in e-payments." Another stock he likes is JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) , even though the "fundamentals haven't been fantastic." Nathan said that JD is a company is well-positioned. Trader Brian Kelly said that he is less confident in tech's potential. "If you're buying into tech and you're buying into dividend stocks, you just need to know that you're buying into a bubble. That doesn't mean that it can't go higher. Bubbles go on for a long time, a lot longer than most people can stay short them," Kelly said. He said he would rather look at securities outside the United States, especially in Japan. "To me, what happened in Japan over the last couple days could be game changing, so I would look towards Japan," Kelly said, adding that in particular he would look at the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (NYSE Arca: DXJ) . Disclosures: PETE NAJARIAN Long stock: AAPL, BAC, BMY, CSCO, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMI.A, KO, LUX, MRK, PEP, PFE, SAVE, VIAB, ZIOP Long Calls: AAL, AKS, AMJ, CHK, CLF, CNX, CSX, DAL, EGO, GSAT, HBAN, HOG, INTC, KGC, LLY, MT, MU, NLNK, P, SBUX, SLV, SLW, SVU, TMUS, WLL, XLE, YELP. Long Puts: BID, CS,GM, NAV, NLY 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 and short: SPY, XRT. His 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 Story continues BRIAN KELLY Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, DXJ, GLD, MOS, POT, SLV, XME, US Dollar UUP; he is short WTI crude, Swiss franc, euro and Japanese yen. DAN NATHAN Dan Nathan is Long JD Aug call spread, Long PFE, Long TWTR, BABA Aug put spread, IWM long Sept put, XLF long Aug put spread, XLK long Sept Put spread, FXI long Aug put spread, SMH long Aug put spread, long PYPL call calendar, long C Aug put spread, XOP Sept put spread, TGT long Aug calls, TSLA long Aug put, SPY long Sept put spread, BAC long Sept puts. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || U.S. tech company files bitcoin ETF application with SEC: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Nikhil Subba NEW YORK (Reuters) - SolidX Partners Inc, a U.S. technology company that provides blockchain services, on Tuesday filed an application with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch an exchange-traded product that tracks the price of bitcoin. Blockchain is the technology that powers bitcoin, the digital currency. SolidX provides blockchain-based software relating to the recording of digital records, transfer of assets, and identity, according to its website. The ETF product will be called SolidX Bitcoin Trust and will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol XBTC upon regulatory approval, SolidX Partners said on Tuesday. SolidX is the second company to file for a bitcoin exchange-traded product with the U.S. regulator. The Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, owned by brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, filed the first bitcoin ETF application three years ago. In its SEC filing, SolidX said it will provide investors with exposure to the daily change of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin. The value of bitcoin will be based on the price tracked by XBX, an index created by TradeBlock, a financial services company. Bitcoin is a digital asset launched in 2009 that can be transferred among parties through the internet without the use of a central administrator or clearing agency. Its blockchain has gained global popularity due to its perceived usefulness in recording and keeping track of assets across practically all industries. The exact size of the offering was not disclosed, but based on the filing, the company said the ETF will issue a basket of 10,000 shares. Bank of New York Mellon has been tapped as the custodian of the cash held by SolidX Bitcoin Trust, while SolidX Partners will be responsible for the ETF's bitcoin holdings. SolidX, in its ETF filing, said the bitcoin it will hold will be insured. The insurance will cover the loss of bitcoin through theft, destruction, or computer fraud. Story continues 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 in the run-up to the British referendum on whether the country should leave the European Union. On Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $662.44 on the Bitstamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Nikhil Subba in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Chris Reese) || Understanding What Bitcoin & Gold Have In Common in Financial Markets: DailyFX.com - Talking Points: Is It Time To Take Bitcoin Seriously? How Can Understanding Bitcoin Help Traders Interested In The Direction of Spot Gold? Following BTC/USD “I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.” -Satoshi Nakamoto, November 1, 2008 To receive Tyler’s analysis directly via email, please SIGN UP HERE The cryptocurrency Bitcoin appears to be back in a big way. Calling Bitcoin ( Trading View Ticker: BTCUSD ) a cryptocurrency can be enough to make most people turn the page in search of a lighter read. However, a quick introduction can help you see how this innovative coin that is now ~7.5 years old has gone from a coder’s coin and known by only a few hobbyists to an asset class in a class of itself. Understanding What Bitcoin & Gold Have In Common in Financial Markets Is It Time To Take Bitcoin Seriously? Only a handful of people have been following Bitcoin since the creator, Satoshi Nakamoto introduced and explained how and why Bitcoin could work first introduced the digital asset on the cryptography mail archive. However, now many people have at least heard of the Bitcoin though few fully grasp the implications of both commerce and financial markets if Bitcoin can hit the proverbial ‘Tipping Point.' Regardless of whether or not we’ve hit the tipping point, it is worth taking Bitcoin seriously as it has not only stood the test of time, but the technology that is underlying BTC, the blockchain, has garnered the attention of Goldman Sachs, Citibank, JPMorgan, BNP Paribas and many more as the ‘Next Big Thing’ in Financial Markets. Developed markets with some of the most distraught monetary managers like Brazil have recently seen Bitcoin Trading surpass Gold trading per Cryptocoin News. Make no mistake; some will call Bitcoin a fad who will fade away into the oblivion of Financial Innovation in a similar fate of Adjustable Rate Mortgages, while others will say the Bitcoin has and will continue to change everything. While I lay to closer to the ‘Change Everything’ extreme, it has yet to be fully adopted, and likely will not be fully adopted as a replacement of fiat currency for multiple reasons. Story continues At the top of the list for reasons a developed economy would refuse to adopt Bitcoin over the local currency is that the global amount of BTC is fixed at 21 million bitcoins, with ~14 million in existence today. That means if the economy is to grow, the government would need to spend less, and save more in order to buy BTC to build the economy or tax citizens on the BTC they hold, which is inherently difficult. However, it would be an unlikely event to see governments willingly give-up the desire to print and tax in hopes of re-election. How Can Understanding Bitcoin Help Traders of Spot Gold? Understanding What Bitcoin & Gold Have In Common in Financial Markets This section could have easily been titled, how I came to respect Bitcoin. It is hard to say that we’ll look back on the creation of the Bitcoin in the same light as the Guttenberg press or the Internet, it’s fair to say that it inspires the same ‘Animal Spirits’ that causes Gold (CFD: XAUUSD) to go bid when investors look for a haven asset as a store of value. It doesn’t appear to be coincidence when that Bitcoin came onto the seen as banks were being bailed out as the initial or genesis block with the first transaction referenced a Times article dated 03/01/2009 titled, ‘Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks.’ A few days later the source code of Bitcoin was released by Satoshi. Either way, the spirit behind buying gold and buying bitcoin appears to be very similar. In a ‘doomsday scenario’ where you desire an asset to hold value while other fiat-priced assets are plummeting in value, BTC like Gold is ideal for bartering. The difference is that BTC can allow bartering to be done digitally thanks to the blockchain (more on that in a later post for the geeks out there like myself), whereas gold would most likely be bartered face-to-face in the event of an economic collapse. As you can see on the chart above, this mutual symbiotic relationship can be seen with an overlay of Gold (CFD: XAUUSD) and BTCUSD. As a note, FXCM does not provide liquidity for Bitcoin, but its development and price direction can be invaluable for seeing another market in the same spirit as Gold that can enhance your analysis on precious metals. [Warning: A Bit of Technical Info Ahead] One last note before moving on (kudos for reading this far), Bitcoin’s network and maintenance is what sets it apart from fiat currencies, and places it in a similar league as precious metals such as Gold. First, the ledger, known as the blockchain is considered trustless in that it must be verified my multiple nodes called miners that verify, validate Bitcoin transactions. Typically, this is done by a bank, which acts as a one trusted third-party (see opening quote from Satoshi,) whereas Bitcoin utilizes a distributed network of miners to confirm transactions so there cannot be a single point of failure or misuse as we’ve seen with Rogue Traders or Bank Executives cheating out bondholders/ equity holders. Lastly, the base algorithm is cryptographic and is known as an asymmetric encryption that allows public and private keys to validate a transaction that is then validated by the network. In this manner, Bitcoin is allowed to act as a digital barter currency without the need for banks and helps to accomplish what Gold has accomplished for millennia by acting as a store of value in bad times and good times, and accepted at all times if the price is right. [You May Now Turn-Off Your Hard Thinking Cap] Following BTC/USD Understanding What Bitcoin & Gold Have In Common in Financial Markets Lucky you, DailyFX will begin covering Bitcoin. Historically , we’ve covered Bitcoin in relation to sharp price increases in the wake of Brexit or the Eurozone crisis, or the Yuan Devaluation. However, given the correlation of XAUUSD & BTCUSD and the rising popularity of BTCUSD, we felt you’d be interested in learning more about the development of this pseudo-currency / neo-haven asset as it turns toward its awkward growth years of potential adaptability into everyday utilization. If you’re interested in seeing price trends of Bitcoin, the best place to keep an eye on these moves throughout the day is the DailyFX Chart Page where you can keep an eye on BTCUSD or BTCEUR if you wish. However, if you’re keeping an eye on BTC trends in the desire to get a better understanding on the price direction of Gold, it’s likely best to look at BTCUSD. Both BTCUSD & Gold (CFD: XAUUSD) are priced in US Dollar so that a big move in the US Dollar can heavily influence both assets. Thank you for your time, and we look forward to providing you with more information on this new type of currency where a desire for haven digital assets and technology meet. Happy Trading & Please Let Me Know If You Have Any Questions T.Y. original source DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets. Learn forex trading with a free practice account and trading charts from FXCM . || Digital Currencies Could Completely Transform Global Markets: There has been a lot of talk in recent years about Bitcoin and the potential of digital currencies. So far, very few banks and countries have made much actual progress in creating digital currencies, but Bloomberg s Christopher Langner believes that Misubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (ADR) (NYSE: MTU )s pledge to introduce MUFG Coin could be the first drop in a wave of new digital currencies. Langner predicts that Mitsubishi UFJs move could become a trend in Japan, Brazil, China and Spain. Digital currencies will allow for cheaper, safer global transfers of cash. For capital markets, digital currencies could enable instant settlement of securities trades, which would obviate the purpose of marketplaces such as the New York Stock Exchange, Langner explained. Related Link: With The Rise Of Algorithms, Has The Finance Job Market Hit Peak Human? These new virtual currencies would likely be backed by government fiat currency, making them immune to the extreme volatility seen in the Bitcoin market. Digital currencies could pose major threats to trade intermediaries like Intercontinental Exchange Inc (NYSE: ICE ) and custodians like Bank of New York Mellon Corp (NYSE: BK ) and Euroclear . Nasdaq Inc (NASDAQ: NDAQ ) has already launched a digital-asset registry called Linq. The new registry does not yet allow digital asset trading, but Langner sees the move as a step in the right direction. Its unlikely that blockchain will send the Big Board or Swift the way of the dinosaur, he concluded. However, digital currencies certainly seem poised to upset the status quo. Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned. See more from Benzinga © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Another Bitcoin ETF Is On Its Way: The Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, aren't the only notable Bitcoin investors looking to oversee the creation of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the performance of the digital currency.
Related Link:Winklevoss Twins Approach BATS Global Markets To List Bitcoin ETF
SolidX Partners, a blockchain technology company, announced on Tuesday it has filed a Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission related to the proposed launch of an ETF called SolidX Bitcoin Trust.
The ETF is designed to provide investors with exposure to the daily change in the price of a bitcoin in U.S. dollars as measured by the TradeBlock XBX index.
The fund will not be actively managed and is expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol "XBTC."
Did you like this article? Could it have been improved? Please email feedback@benzinga.com to let us know!
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Coinbase offers digital currency to consumers: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase said on Thursday it is now offering the ether digital currency to consumers. Ether is the digital currency for the Ethereum platform, a blockchain, or public database that can be used by consumers or corporations without the need for control by intermediaries. Ethereum, which uses ether to execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically, was co-founded and invented by 22-year old Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin. "Ethereum is still in an early and experimental phase, and as it matures will likely evolve to serve a different purpose than Bitcoin," said Ankur Nandwani, product manager at Coinbase, in a blog posted on the company's website. "In the meantime, Ethereum is pushing the digital currency ecosystem forward and we are excited to support it as part of our mission to create an open financial system for the world." The addition of ether comes given the surge in interest in the digital asset among major financial institutions such as Barclays (BARCR.UL), and other global corporations which are trying to explore the Ethereum network. Nandwani said consumers in 32 countries can now buy, sell, and store in their Coinbase accounts. In May, ether trading was added to its digital currency exchange called GDAX (Global Digital Asset Exchange). That trading platform is focused on institutional investors and professional traders. According to coinmarketcap.com, ether is trading at $12.64 late on Thursday, with a market capitalisation of about $1.04 billion, the second largest behind bitcoin. Bitcoin currently has a market cap of $10.48 billion and trading at $664.85. Volume for ether over the last 24 hours was around $25.7 million, while that for bitcoin was $61.2 million. At the beginning of the year, ether traded at just $1 per token and it is one of the fastest-rising digital currencies. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Andrew Hay) || Why FinTech Could Be a Casualty of Brexit: Aaron Klein is a fellow and policy director at the Initiative on Business and Public Policy at the Brookings Institution. London's role as Europe's financial services center has been called into question as a result of the UK's decision to leave the European Union - the "City's" future in the world of finance is very much in doubt. Yes, London will remain a financial services hub, as it has been one for a long time. After all, the UK is still the world's 6 th largest economy. But the size and scope of that hub could be very different depending on how things shake out with Brexit. Frankfurt is a logical landing spot for financial services firms given its secondary role behind London. Amsterdam has a long history in banking. And France's Prime Minister has made clear his country's strategic desire to lure financial services firms to expand their operations in Paris , even promising to keep taxes on expats living in France the most favorable in Europe to attract London's finance sector. Meanwhile , major American firms like JPMorgan , , Merrill Lynch , and , as well as Britain’s Standard Chartered made a pledge to British finance minister George Osborne to try to support London’s financial sector in the wake of Brexit, although details on what this means are not clear. In order to understand what may happen and where the future of financial services may go, it is important to understand how and why financial services hubs exist. London was the global financial services hub for a long time; after all, London was the largest city in the world in 1900. As the capital of the British Empire, with a strong rule of law, history of financial services, and the world's reserve currency, London was the natural landing spot for the global financial system. Financial services, particularly for activities like payments and settlements between banks, requires economies of scale, and both legal and physical security. When London was viciously bombed during World War II, large portions of the global payments system were forced to move, choosing New York City as a logical landing place. As the United States emerged as the global economic power with the world's new reserve currency after the war, given the cost of movement, and the reality that its location in New York was working, large portions of the global payment and financial system remained. Recently, New York and London have battled each other for the title of global financial capital (with Singapore and Hong Kong rising over time). Brexit is likely a self-inflicted knock-out punch (or to use a soccer metaphor, an "own goal") that will solidify New York's claim to the title. Story continues London may suffer more as it relates to financial technology (aka FinTech) firms. FinTech is a growth industry with new firms emerging daily to challenge the existing system of how we transmit money (PayPal), use credit cards (Square), get a loan (Lending Club), or even what we think of as money (Bitcoin). Before Brexit, London had many advantages, including a smart regulatory system for FinTech and a strategic desire to attract and grow that part of the industry. Already there are over 60,000 FinTech jobs in the UK — more than in other potential hubs like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia combined. A report by E&Y ranked the UK over states like California, cities like New York and countries like Singapore in terms of attractiveness to FinTech, leading the UK's Economic Secretary Harriet Baldwin to conclude that "We are the global capital for FinTech." In fact, policymakers in the United States were racing to think through what could be done to match the UK's innovative approach for FinTech. The White House and the Comptroller of the Currency recently held FinTech summits in Washington, which I attended where this exact question was raised. However, that was all BB – Before Brexit. Today, in a post-Brexit world, if you were a start-up financial services firm, would you locate in London? Given the uncertainty about access and rules going forward to reach the European Common Market, as well as reaching the United States (recall that the US and UK have no independent free trade agreement), it is hard to justify choosing London over the alternatives. Leaving or locating outside of the UK can be a rational choice even if you are expecting that deals will ultimately be worked out in the UK's favor, just because of the large downside and uncertainty of what would happen in the event that deals cannot be reached to guarantee favorable access. Major European Union members have publicly stated that they are opposed to granting the UK financial services access (passporting) without agreements by the UK on freedom of movement, which was a major driver of the vote for Brexit. The risks are just too high if you are a start-up, assuming that alternative environments can be found. For start-up FinTech firms, however, they may want to change more immediately as they do not have the large, sunk costs of already being London-bound. This is where the biggest impact could be felt longer term, even if established financial firms stop expanding in London and target their growth elsewhere on the continent. London is not going to go the way of Constantinople (the world's largest city in 500 AD). But in a post-Brexit world, growth in financial services, particularly FinTech, where London was poised to thrive, is likely to look elsewhere. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Theresa May Set to Become U.K. Prime Minister As Last Rival Pulls out Britain's Finance Minister Is on Wall Street Asking for Money Here's How the Brexit Referendum Is Affecting the U.K. Economy So Far Oil Funds Hold Down Risk, Eye Volatility After Weak First Half Sterling's Fall Could Batter UK's Fish & Chips || Breakout Coin Opens Crowdsale on Bittrex: LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 13, 2016) - Breakout Coin (www.breakoutcoin.com), the eagerly awaited gaming industry payment coin, will begin its public coinsale today at 10 am PDT / 1 pm EDT with a super-bonus of 25 percent for all purchases made in the first 60 minutes. Following that, the bonuses will continue at 15 percent for the first week, 10 percent for the second week, and 5 percent for third week of the sale, which will be hosted by the Bittrex exchange (www.bittrex.com), one of the largest and most reputable cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.
A total of 6,627,494 Breakout Coins (BRK) will be offered for bitcoin at a base price of no lower than 0.00022222 BTC (about 14.4 cents at current bitcoin exchange rates), which along with a prior sale and tokens for incentivizing players and gaming sites, will bring the total number of BRK to ever be in existence to 19,500,000, according to co-founder Paul Kim.
Breakout Coin is part of the Breakout Chain blockchain for gaming, created by a diverse team consisting of gaming and cryptocurrency experts, including lead developer James Stroud, PhD., a co-founder of CryptoCertify, the first cryptocurrency auditing and certification company; Randy Kim, a professional poker player with 20 years' experience in Los Angeles casino management; Paul Kim, with 25 years of experience in IT, computer science and gaming; and Gian Perroni, an iGaming executive with over 18 years of online gaming experience. The full white paper depicting all the technical elements of the sophisticated Breakout Chain, Breakout Coin and its interconnected components is available athttp://bit.ly/25SjGtY
"The online gaming world has been waiting for a solution like this for many years," said Perroni.
"Breakout Coin provides for seamless in-game payments anywhere in the world, while the blockchain technology behind it, Breakout Chain, uses smart contracts and sidechains to enforce these financial agreements between parties," stated Stroud.
"The online gambling industry generates over $42 billion in worldwide revenue annually, with another $96 billion in the video gaming space, which is holding its annual E3 event in Los Angeles this week," added Paul Kim. "Breakout Coin will be used to denominate many of our gaming properties, and will be accepted at all of them, including our soon-to-launch eSports platform and our full digital game download store."
Breakout Coin is one of three cryptocurrencies that can be used in the Breakout Chain. The others are Breakout Stake (BRX), which BRK holders receive based on the size of the crowdsale and which earn staking interest. Miners who are responsible for the processing of BRK transactions also earn another type of token called SisterCoin (SIS). For complete information on the crowdsale, please visitwww.breakoutcoin.com/coinsale.
About Breakout CoinBreakout Coin (BRK), Breakout Stake (BRX) and Sister Coin (SIS) are tokens that work together to power Breakout Chain, the industry's first multicurrency blockchain for gaming industry payments and rewards. Breakout Coin is created and maintained by Breakout Services, Limitada, a Costa Rican LLC, and it operates independently of the regulated poker and casino gaming sites operating by Breakout Gaming, which accepts the tokens for gaming. || 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."
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
$686.00 at 07:00 UTC [24h Range: $655.79 - $725.00 Volume: 16601 BTC] || New post: "How to transfer Monero to Bitcoin wallet? (http://reddit.com )"http://ift.tt/294adXs || 1 KOBO = 0.00001398 BTC
= 0.0094 USD
= 2.6461 NGN
= 0.1396 ZAR
= 0.9494 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-07-06 18:00 pic.twitter.com/E7oucSaLA2 || #UFOCoin #UFO $ 0.000013 (-0.01 %) 0.00000002 BTC (-0.00 %) || One Bitcoin now worth $695.00@bitstamp. High $725.00. Low $636.24. Market Cap $10.879 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/7EBKiIKqMI || $627.94 #bitfinex;
$622.00 #bitstamp;
$599.99 #btce;
Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse
#bitcoin #btc || BTC: $630.35, S: $18.08, G: $1321.00 | Act: 23,856 Open: 3963 BTC: 53,680.0 | Total: $33,848,925 http://goo.gl/U94Tki #bitcoin || 1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000040 BTC YoBit 0.00000057 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000040 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-07-01 15:00 pic.twitter.com/J9NxoA0pMT || #BitRss #Bitcoin: Bitcoin Miner Bitmain S5: £100.00 (0 Bids)End Date: Sunday Jul-3-2016 9:01:28 BSTBuy It Now... http://pa-y.in/6c9 || #STV 0.00000250 BTC(0.00 %) | Market Cap 18 BTC | Volume(24h) 0.00 BTC | Available Supply 7,069,864 STV
|
Trend: down || Prices: 624.68, 606.27, 547.47, 566.35, 578.29, 575.04, 587.78, 592.69, 591.05, 587.80
|
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 2016-04-08]
BTC Price: 420.35, BTC RSI: 51.96
Gold Price: 1242.50, Gold RSI: 54.86
Oil Price: 39.72, Oil RSI: 59.35
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Digatrade Executes Bitcoin Debit Card Development Contract: Digatrade Bitcoin Debit Card Set to Launch
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 25, 2016 /BITX FINANCIAL CORP (BITXF) and its 100% owned and operated digital asset-currency exchange DIGATRADE™ (digatrade.com) today announced the execution of a technology development agreement with ANX Technologies. Under terms of the agreement Digatrade will have a bitcoin debit card developed by ANX Technologies, one of the world's first financial technology companies to have developed a bitcoin debit card and one of the largest distributors of debit cards in the market offering customers as well as businesses a fast and reliable payment solution.
The Digatrade debit card will provide a gateway between digital assets and traditional payments processing. The reloadable debit card can be used to make purchases in any retail, point-of-sale devices or withdraw cash from ATMs that support the global payment network. Digatrade customers will be able to add funds to their debit card via the Digatrade exchange platform and will empower digital assets to be accepted worldwide.
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 || Here's how you can invest in the blockchain: As big banks and other financial institutions continue tofeel the lovefor blockchain technology, many of our readers have wondered how they can get in. Can a private, non-institutional investor somehow invest in the blockchain?
Answering the question requires a distinction between thebitcoinblockchain and the broader, non-bitcoin idea of blockchain technology. Think of the bitcoin blockchain as a public ledger in the cloud, not unlike a library book slip (see the above video for more). It shows every transaction made with the digital currency bitcoin; the transactions are added in bundles called "blocks," by "miners" who receive a small fee in bitcoin as incentive to add the data. (You canview that happeningin-real time.) The bitcoin blockchain is public, open-source and permissionless.
What banks want to build is a private, closed blockchain,sansbitcoin,sansminers, to process their own transactions. The appeal is that it would make their systems faster and more efficient (most big banks are using old, outdated software for their record-keeping), as well as reduce friction and transfer delays. The bitcoin community is skeptical about the effort. "Having a closed, permissioned ledger run by banks might allow for better auditing, but there’s no innovation there," says Jerry Brito, executive director of the nonprofit Coin Center, whichhas raised fundingfrom the biggest names in bitcoin. "You still have to go through a consortium to use the ledger."
Indeed, 45 banks, including heavy-hitters like Citi, Credit Suisse, and JPMorgan, have jumped on board with a consortium,called R3, to test out blockchain technology. JPMorgan, eager to come out to an early lead in the blockchain race,announced last monthit has been testing its own blockchain with 2,200 customers.
In addition to banks trying to build their own blockchains, fintech startups likeitBitare offering their own non-bitcoin blockchains to financial customers.The blockchain product itBit offers is called Bankchain. "Bitcoin is a public, anonymous use case of blockchain technology," says itBit COO Andrew Chang. "Many financial institutions don't want to use the bitcoin blockchain because it’s an anonymous network and they're not okay with that."
Whether the strategy will even bear fruit is unclear, but asAlex Kwiatkowski of financial software firm Misys says, "No one wants to be the one financial company that didn’t invest in blockchain.It feels like California in the Gold Rush -- those making an early claim think they’ll get the most gold. But it’s just an efficiency improvement.There’s going to be some value there, they just need to unlock what it is without promising too much."
As banks and other big corporations continue to claim interest in blockchain, the idealogical divide between that side and the bitcoin side will only widen. Dan Conner, who is building a distributed ledger called DisLedger, aptly explains why: "If you’re a bitcoin fanboy and you’re a crypto-anarchist, that’s fine. But those people don’t tend to run in the same circles as banks." Conner predicts that even the term "blockchain" will go out of fashion for Wall Street the way "bitcoin" has, because there are inherent weaknesses in a blockchain. For now, clearly, the big banks are big believers in blockchain—or at least, they say they are.
If you, a regular investor (and Yahoo Finance reader), are also a believer, is there a way to invest in blockchain technology?
The short answer is: not directly. But there are three roundabout ways you could invest in the bitcoin blockchain or the broader, Wall Street concept of blockchain.
If you believe in the strength of the bitcoin blockchain, the best way to invest is to buy bitcoin. Whether you want to do that for price-speculation purposes or simply out of curiosity to own a nascent asset class, there are myriad ways to obtain some easily, from exchanges like Coinbase, Circle, Bitstamp or Kraken, which hasexpanded in the U.S. recently through acquisitions.
A second would be to buy stock in the banks that have joined up with R3, such asBBVA (BBVA), BNP Paribas (BNP.PA), Citi (C), Credit Suisse (CS), ING Group (ING), JPMorgan (JPM), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), UBS (UBS), and Wells Fargo (WFC). Of course, for bitcoin true believers, buying bank stocks would defeat the purpose of a cryptocurrency designed to avoid traditional banks.
Or you could buy shares in the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which passively holds bitcoin to track the price (it's similar to the GLD gold trust) and began trading publicly over the counter last year. The trust was launched by Barry Silbert of the Digital Currency Group, which has invested in 75 bitcoin and non-bitcoin blockchain startups, andrecently bought the news site CoinDesk. "We started the Trust," Silbert says, "as aneasy way for casual investors to get exposure to the price of bitcoin without having to figure out where do you buy it, what price do you pay, and how do you store it. This is one easy way to play in the bitcoin/blockchain industry."
The trust is up 20% since it began trading last May. And bitcoin itself is up 81% in the same time period.
This is the second in a three-part Yahoo Finance series about blockchain technology. Thefirst partwas about why big banks are expressing interest in the blockchain; thethird partis about the biggest names in the industry.
--
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.Read more:
Bitcoin advocacy group scores funding from biggest names in industry
Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter
Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its biggest news site
Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin || Your first trade for Thursday: The "Fast Money" traders delivered their final trades of the day.
Tim Seymour was a seller of FedEx(FDX).
David Seaburg was a buyer of Gilead(GILD).
Karen Finerman was a buyer of Foot Locker(FL).
Brian Kelly was a seller of the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF.(NYSE Arca: XLF)
Trader disclosure: On March 23, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:Karen Finerman is long BAC, C, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, M, SEDG, SPY puts, URI. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, FINL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, NRF, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, her firm is short IWM, MDY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GLD, GLD puts, SH, SLV, TLT, US Dollar, UUP, Yen; he is short Aussie Dollar, BLK, British Pound, CS, DB, Euro, EWH, FRC, Hong Kong Dollar, UBS, SPY, Yuan, 5-Year Note Futures. David Seaburg: Opinions expressed by David Seaburg are solely his own and do not reflect the views and opinions of Cowen Group, Inc.Tim Seymour is long AAPL, AVP, BAC, BBRY, DO, EDC, F, FCX, GM, GOOGL, INTC, NKE, SINA, T, TWTR, VZ, XOM. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, CLF, KO, MCD, MPEL, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, VALE, WMT,YHOO, short HYG, IWM.
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• Personal Finance || Japan looks to kickstart 'fintech' revolution: By Thomas Wilson TOKYO (Reuters) - A laggard in embracing the 'fintech', or financial technology, revolution, Japan is set to ease investment restrictions that could free up the flow of capital in an economy sitting on an estimated $9 trillion in individuals' cash deposits. Strict regulation, easy access to credit due to rock-bottom interest rates, and weak demand for innovative financial services from a risk-averse population that still prefers cash to credit cards, have strangled fintech's advance in Japan. Fintech ventures - usually start-ups leveraging technology from cloud data storage to smartphones to provide loans, insurance and payment services - raised $2.7 billion in China last year, and over $1.5 billion in India, according to CB Insights data. Ventures in the United States attracted investment of around $7.4 billion. In comparison, investment in Japanese ventures reached only around $44 million in the first nine months of 2015. Now, Japan's financial industry regulator hopes relaxed rules on investing in financial ventures, and a new system for regulating virtual currency exchanges will pass through parliament by May - a first step in kickstarting the fintech revolution in the world's third-biggest economy. "The law changes aren't a goal, but a first step," Norio Sato, a senior official at the Financial Services Authority (FSA), told Reuters. "Fintech will have a big impact on financial services." The changes, which will allow banks to buy stakes of up to 100 percent in non-finance-related firms, will free up Japan's three megabanks to enter into tie-ups with fintech ventures developing services including robotic investment advisory and blockchain, the decentralised ledger technology behind the bitcoin digital currency. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group have said they are eyeing such investments, having previously been restricted to holding stakes of only 5-15 percent in start-ups. Under pressure from weak loan demand, the megabanks see an opportunity to earn money through fintech, but are also aware of its potential to disrupt traditional business models. GAME CHANGER The unpromising fintech environment in Japan - which was blindsided by the high-profile collapse of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in 2014 when hackers stole an estimated $650 million worth of the digital currency - has seen some entrepreneurs go overseas for funding. Junichi Horiguchi, co-founder and CEO of bitcoin service provider Zerobillbank Ltd, established his start-up in Tel Aviv last year to take advantage of Israel's advanced technology industry. Investment in fintech start-ups by global banks and tech giants including Barclays, Google and Facebook is far more common in Israel than in Japan, he said. "It's completely different over there," Horiguchi told Reuters. "Every month there are open innovation contests and (start-up) accelerator programmes." Sales at Japan's fintech start-ups could jump to over half a billion dollars by 2020 as the use of technology such as blockchain increases, Yano Research Institute said in a report. The new rules the FSA is promoting on virtual currency exchanges could make Japan one of the first countries to regulate bitcoin at a national level. "Japan hasn't previously been enthusiastic about fintech," said Sato. "But creating these rules this fast could gain the world's attention." Bitcoin entrepreneurs, often reliant on investment for growth, have called for clearer regulation and will welcome the latest changes, said Yuzo Kano, founder and CEO of bitcoin exchange bitFlyer Inc, and head of the Japan Authority for Digital Assets, a lobbying group. "The establishment of the law is extremely surprising," Kano said, referring to how quickly the FSA had drafted the law. "It's set to be very successful." ($1 = 112.95 yen) (Reporting by Thomas Wilson; Editing by Ian Geoghegan) || Bitcoin finds room in small funds; large institutions still on sidelines: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, March 18 (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin has found favor among smaller investors, thanks to the availability of funds designed to invest in it, but remains a niche among the larger investing community.
Investors at some family offices, smaller mutual funds, and traders at hedge funds say bitcoin has helped returns and demonstrated a low correlation with other asset classes.
Hopes that bitcoin would become a broadly used alternative to other currencies helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalization was $13 billion.
But the market cap has retreated since then, to about $6.4 billion as of Thursday.
Early enthusiasts for the crypto-currency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. The risks of dealing in bitcoin were laid bare in 2013 when Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox collapsed after admitting it had lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds.
The currency's earlier ties to gambling and criminal websites did not endear it to traditional investors.
Jeremy Millar, founder and managing partner at Ledger Partners in London, estimated that 50 to 90 percent of bitcoin's current $6.4 billion market cap is held by near-institutional money such as individuals at hedge funds and family offices. That has not changed over the last two years.
He does not have an estimate for institutional investment holdings of bitcoin. But he said they are likely to be insignificant, compared with the smaller investors who have fewer restrictions about fund allocation.
"What is clear though is that over the last two years, bitcoin has emerged from its 'hacktivist' origins to a more institutionalized ecosystem which includes the participation of hedge funds, traders, and professional investors," said Millar.
BITCOIN IN PORTFOLIOS
Funds dedicated to investing in bitcoin are relatively small. The largest is the Pantera Bitcoin Fund, a $160 million hedge fund founded by Dan Morehead, formerly of Tiger Management, available to institutions and individuals who invest $50,000 or more.
According to a Pantera Bitcoin Fund brochure, the fund was launched in July 2013, a period when bitcoin traded at around $65. On Thursday, it traded at $418.80, a gain of more than 500 percent from July 2013. The firm did not comment on fund performance or its investors.
The majority of the Pantera Fund's investors are family offices and high net worth individuals, said two people familiar with the fund.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust, with assets of more than $60 million, is another vehicle for investors. GBTC is backed by bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group.
It is the only publicly traded U.S. security in the over-the-counter market invested in bitcoin. Volume is thin, with a few thousand shares traded daily, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Antonis Polemitis, managing director at Ledra Capital in New York, a family office specializing in education and technology, said that on average, clients have allocated 1 to 3 percent of their portfolios to bitcoin.
"A lot of people will take that bet with 1 percent of their assets," he said. "A 1 percent loss does not change anyone's life in any way. If it goes up 10 times, then you get to feel very smart."
Some investment managers say having bitcoin in portfolios has helped performance.
ARK Invest, which manages four exchange-traded funds with $240 million in assets, holds GBTC in its $12 million Next Generation Internet ETF and the $7 million ARK Innovation ETF.
Chris Burniske, analyst and blockchain products lead at ARK Invest in New York, said since investing in September 2015, GBTC has contributed 67 basis points to the Next Generation Internet ETF's return and 62 basis points to the ARK Innovation ETF.
For 2015, the Next Generation ETF posted a 15.29 percent return, while the Innovation ETF had 3.76 percent gains.
For Kingsbridge Wealth Management, a multifamily office in Las Vegas with $150 million in assets, GBTC has become a great diversifier because so far it has had a low correlation with other asset classes, said David Dunn, the firm's founder and chief investment officer. The firm has about $1.7 million invested in bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain, Dunn said.
(Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis) || Exclusive: Chinese hackers behind U.S. ransomware attacks - security firms: By Joseph Menn (Reuters) - Hackers using tactics and tools previously associated with Chinese government-supported computer network intrusions have joined the booming cyber crime industry of ransomware, four security firms that investigated attacks on U.S. companies said. Ransomware, which involves encrypting a target's computer files and then demanding payment to unlock them, has generally been considered the domain of run-of-the-mill cyber criminals. But executives of the security firms have seen a level of sophistication in at least a half dozen cases over the last three months akin to those used in state-sponsored attacks, including techniques to gain entry and move around the networks, as well as the software used to manage intrusions. "It is obviously a group of skilled of operators that have some amount of experience conducting intrusions," said Phil Burdette, who heads an incident response team at Dell SecureWorks. Burdette said his team was called in on three cases in as many months where hackers spread ransomware after exploiting known vulnerabilities in application servers. From there, the hackers tricked more than 100 computers in each of the companies into installing the malicious programs. The victims included a transportation company and a technology firm that had 30 percent of its machines captured. Security firms Attack Research, InGuardians and G-C Partners, said they had separately investigated three other similar ransomware attacks since December. Although they cannot be positive, the companies concluded that all were the work of a known advanced threat group from China, Attack Research Chief Executive Val Smith told Reuters. The ransomware attacks have not previously been reported. None of the companies that were victims of the hackers agreed to be identified publicly. Asked about the allegations, China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that if they were made with a "serious attitude" and reliable proof, China would treat the matter seriously. But ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China did not have time to respond to what he called "rumors and speculation" about the country's online activities. The security companies investigating the advanced ransomware intrusions have various theories about what is behind them, but they do not have proof and they have not come to any firm conclusions. Most of the theories flow from the possibility that the Chinese government has reduced its support for economic espionage, which it pledged to oppose in an agreement with the United States late last year. Some U.S. companies have reported a decline in Chinese hacking since the agreement. Smith said some government hackers or contractors could be out of work or with reduced work and looking to supplement their income via ransomware. It is also possible, Burdette said, that companies which had been penetrated for trade secrets or other reasons in the past were now being abandoned as China backs away, and that spies or their associates were taking as much as they could on the way out. In one of Dell's cases, the means of access by the team spreading ransomware was established in 2013. The cyber security experts could not completely rule out more prosaic explanations, such as the possibility that ordinary criminals had improved their skills and bought tools previously used only by governments. Dell said that some of the malicious software had been associated by other security firms with a group dubbed Codoso, which has a record of years of attacks of interest to the Chinese government, including those on U.S. defense companies and sites that draw Chinese minorities. PAYMENT IN BITCOIN Ransomware has been around for years, spread by some of the same people that previously installed fake antivirus programs on home computers and badgered the victims into paying to remove imaginary threats. In the past two years, better encryption techniques have often made it impossible for victims to regain access to their files without cooperation from the hackers. Many ransomware payments are made in the virtual currency Bitcoin and remain secret, but institutions including a Los Angeles hospital have gone public about ransomware attacks. Ransomware operators generally set modest prices that many victims are willing to pay, and they usually do decrypt the files, which ensures that victims will post positively online about the transaction, making the next victims who research their predicament more willing to pay. Security software companies have warned that because the aggregate payoffs for ransomware gangs are increasing, more criminals will shift to it from credit card theft and other complicated scams. The involvement of more sophisticated hackers also promises to intensify the threat. InGuardians CEO Jimmy Alderson said one of the cases his company investigated appeared to have been launched with online credentials stolen six months earlier in a suspected espionage hack of the sort typically called an Advanced Persistent Threat, or APT. "The tactics of getting access to these networks are APT tactics, but instead of going further in to sit and listen stealthily, they are used for smash-and-grab," Alderson said. (Reporting by Joseph Menn in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan in BEIJING; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Clarence Fernandez) View comments || University of California notifies 80,000 of cyber attack: SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Officials at the University of California Berkeley said on Friday that they were alerting 80,000 people, including current and former students, faculty and vendors of a cyber attack on a system that stores social security and bank account numbers. The news comes just more than a week after a Southern California hospital paid hackers $17,000 in the digital currency Bitcoin to regain control of their computer systems after a so-called "ransomware" attack. The San Francisco Bay Area university said there was no evidence that attackers actually took any personal information, but that it was still alerting the 80,000 individuals to be on the lookout for misuse of their information. The school said a hacker or hackers gained access to its financial management software in late December due to a security flaw present when the system is updating. Officials have notified law enforcement, including the FBI, and hired a private computer investigation company. The university said among the potentially affected are 57,000 current and former students; about 18,800 former and current employees; and 10,300 vendors who work with the school. Those figures come out to about half of the school's current students and two-thirds of its active employees. Large, high-profile organizations and businesses routinely come under cyber attack, and the school said it frequently identifies similar hacking attempts. "The security and privacy of the personal information provided to the university is of great importance to us," Paul Rivers, UC Berkeley's chief information security officer, said in a statement. "We regret that this occurred and have taken additional measures to better safeguard that information." The school said it was providing credit protection service free of charge to those potentially impacted. (Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sharon Bernstein) || The biggest names in bitcoin and blockchain in 2016: While critics are still dubious of the future viability of the digital currency bitcoin, at least one group isnt: venture capitalists. VCs pumped more investment into bitcoin and blockchain-related startups last year than in any previous year nearly $1 billion . The investors are keeping this industry hot, even if we havent yet seen any so-called killer app," a mainstream use case for bitcoin that would compel the average person to care. And it isnt just investors leading the chargeits a handful of key executives, thinkers and even policy people . Of course, investors are just as keen on companies exploring the blockchain, which is the decentralized ledger technology on which bitcoin runs. (For a full explainer on blockchain, watch this video .) The hype around the idea of banks using a form of blockchain (without bitcoin) is high, even though a PwC survey this month found that 57% of financial executives say they're unsure about implementing blockchain tech in banking. So, who are the big believers? They are some of the biggest names in bitcoin and blockchain right now. Some are executives at the most well-funded companies, some are investors in those companies. All of them bring clout and connections to bitcoin and the blockchain. Here are 11 of them, curated by Yahoo Finance with input from a number of industry insiders. This is not a list of the hottest bitcoin companies, nor is it a ranking. Its an unofficial look at the individuals bringing mainstream attention to this still-nascent, still-controversial corner of tech. Call them the "bitcoin celebrities" if you like. This list is unranked (alphabetical order). Feel free to debate, dispute and make your own suggestions in the comment section. 1. Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz Everyone in tech knows Andreessen. He is the co-founder of Netscape, a board member at Facebook, eBay and others, and co-founder of the Silicon Valley powerhouse venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The firms portfolio includes investments in bitcoin wallet company Coinbase (see No. 6), 21 Inc (see No. 9), and TradeBlock. In 2014, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times boldly titled, Why bitcoin matters. He liberally shares bitcoin and blockchain-related news to his 500,000 Twitter followersa considerable benefit to bitcoiners. Story continues 2. Brian Armstrong, Coinbase When Coinbase, one of the earliest bitcoin startups, raised $75 million in funding in January of last year, it was at the time the biggest fundraising round ever for a bitcoin company. (The figure has since been shattered by 21 Inc.) And Coinbase, which has raised $107 million total, remains arguably the best-known name among all bitcoin startupsit is often where people go to get a bitcoin wallet and to buy their first bitcoins. It was first to market with a bitcoin exchange platform in the U.S. (others waited longer in order to get certain licensing) and Armstrong, its leader, is one of the most sensible thinkers in the industry. ( His post explaining the debate over block size distills the issue clearly.) 3. Adam Back, Blockstream Bitcoin is partially based on a previous system called hashcash, an algorithm that cut down on email spam by requiring proof of work, an early form of what is now bitcoin mining. Back created hashcash. Now the cryptographer, as president of blockchain startup Blockstream, has become one of the loudest voices in the debate over whether, and how, to increase the size limit of transaction bundles (or blocks) on the bitcoin blockchain. His experience in business (he's worked as a consultant to Nokia) and in academia (he has a PhD in distributed systems) have made him a unique authority in the space. Reid Hoffman, the influential co-founder of LinkedIn ( LNKD ), made a personal investment of $21 million in Blockstream, and the company has raised $76 million overall. 4. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Ethereum is a bitcoin alternative that some believe has more potential than bitcoin. The platform runs on a decentralized blockchain, like bitcoins, that allows for any peer-to-peer exchange of value, and it uses its own currency, Ether. And the company is a non-profit. Buterin developed the concept in 2013, and in 2014 sold about 60 million ether in a pre-sale , which worked out to $18.4 million at the time. The Ethereum chain went live last summer. Buterin, who is only 22, is seen as a wunderkind; he also helped launch Bitcoin Magazine. 5. Wences Casares, Xapo Reid Hoffman has called Wences Casares the Patient Zero for bitcoin in Silicon Valley. His startup Xapo was one of the earliest bitcoin wallet companies, though it's embroiled in a legal dispute with LifeLock, the company that acquired Casaress previous startup, Lemon. (LifeLock alleges Casares and others created Xapo while still working at Lemon, within LifeLock; he has filed a counter-suit.) Most importantly, PayPal created a new seat on its board of directors for Casares in January. The appointment was seen as big news for bitcoina bitcoin entrepreneur on the board of PayPal was quite a milestone. And Xapo has raised $40 million in funding. 6. Blythe Masters, Digital Asset Holdings Masters is one of a kind in the bitcoin world. She spent nearly 30 years as a JPMorgan ( JPM ) executive, including as head of global commodities, before leaving to run Digital Asset Holdings, a startup that seeks to apply blockchain tech to Wall Street. Its first big client: her former employer. JPMorgan is working with Digital Asset Holdings to test out a use of blockchain to settle transactions faster. DAH has raised $60 million in funding. Because Masters is a known name on Wall Street, her move brought big legitimacy to the space. (And Masters isn't the only female leader in bitcoin : Catheryne Nicholson is CEO of small blockchain startup BlockCypher, which has raised $3.5 million, and Elizabeth Rossiello is CEO of BitPesa, which is working on bitcoin payments in Africa.) 7. Jesse Powell, Kraken Kraken is a bitcoin exchange headquartered in San Francisco, but with most of its activity in Europe. Heres why thats relevant: Last year, when the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) released its controversial regulatory framework for bitcoin companies, the Bitlicense, Kraken led a charge of bitcoin startups out of New York . The company wont do business in the state, which is a financial risk but a compelling stance against what Powell and others see as restrictive legislation. Kraken, which has raised $6.5 million in funding, has stuck to that vow even as it has ramped up acquisitions lately, buying out Coinsetter , a U.S. exchange that itself had bought out Cavirtex, a Canadian exchange. Kraken's purchase of Coinsetter was the biggest ever M&A deal in the bitcoin space; Coinsetter did operate in New York, but now it won'tthat's how rigid Powell is in his stance. Kraken is continuing to get bigger, but without New York, the very place where so much of the activity around blockchain is centered. 8. David Rutter, R3 R3 CEV is the private firm that rolled out a consortium (the Distributed Ledger Group) for banks interested in exploring blockchain technology. More than 40 of them have signed on, including Bank of America ( BAC ), Citi ( C ), Deutsche Bank ( DB ) and Wells Fargo ( WFC ). And this month R3 announced an extensive test of online distributed ledgers for banks, with help from Chain, Ethereum (see No. 10) and IBM. It is R3 that has attracted institutions whose involvement can turn the abstract notion of "blockchain for banks into a reality. 9. Barry Silbert, Digital Currency Group In 2004, Barry Silbert founded SecondMarket, which allows people to buy stock in non-public companies. He sold the company to Nasdaq last year and has since launched Digital Currency Group, the biggest investment firm in bitcoin and blockchain companies. (It has invested in more than 75.) Most recently, DCG bought the leading bitcoin news site, Coindesk, acquiring the annual bitcoin industry conference Consensus along with it. Almost every time a bitcoin startup announces a new fundraising round, Silbert and DCG are involved. Silbert also launched the Bitcoin Investment Trust ( GBTC ), which trades over-the-counter and is designed to track the price of bitcoin. 10. Balaji Srinivasan, 21 Inc. Srinivasan, the cofounder and CEO of 21 Inc, is also a board partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When 21 first launched publicly, it remained mysterious. It wasnt clear what 21 would be doing, but observers had high expectations: The company raised more than any other bitcoin startup, $121 million in funding. Last year, 21 finally unveiled its first product a small bitcoin personal computer for building apps on top of the bitcoin blockchain. 11. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Winklevoss Capital The Olympic rowers made their name when they sued Facebook ( FB ) cofounder Mark Zuckerberg and got $65 million. Since then, theyve been eager to prove themselves as entrepreneurs, and they have made bitcoin the space in which to prove it. They launched a bitcoin pricing index, Winkdex, in 2014the site is cleanly designed and tracks the price of bitcoin over time. This year, they launched Gemini, a bitcoin trading exchange. Like their pricing index, the design is appealing, but the user base is small. (Gemini is only doing an average $338,000 in trade volume per day, according to data from TradeBlock; by comparison, Kraken sees about $1.3 million in daily volume.) Their bigger ambition: the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, a bitcoin ETF, which will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol COIN but still awaits regulatory approval. There are signs that the bitcoin community doesnt love the Winklevoss brothers yetone prominent bitcoin executive told Fortune , Our industry would prefer that if theres a celebrity spokesperson, it not be them. But the jetsetting duo certainly bring mainstream star power to bitcoin. -- This is the third in a three-part Yahoo Finance series focused on blockchain technology. The first part was about why big banks are expressing interest in the blockchain; the second part was about how you could invest in the blockchain. Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Read more: Bitcoin advocacy group scores funding from biggest names in industry Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its biggest news site Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin || University of California notifies 80,000 of cyber attack: SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Officials at the University of California Berkeley said on Friday that they were alerting 80,000 people, including current and former students, faculty and vendors of a cyber attack on a system that stores social security and bank account numbers. The news comes just more than a week after a Southern California hospital paid hackers $17,000 in the digital currency Bitcoin to regain control of their computer systems after a so-called "ransomware" attack. The San Francisco Bay Area university said there was no evidence that attackers actually took any personal information, but that it was still alerting the 80,000 individuals to be on the lookout for misuse of their information. The school said a hacker or hackers gained access to its financial management software in late December due to a security flaw present when the system is updating. Officials have notified law enforcement, including the FBI, and hired a private computer investigation company. The university said among the potentially affected are 57,000 current and former students; about 18,800 former and current employees; and 10,300 vendors who work with the school. Those figures come out to about half of the school's current students and two-thirds of its active employees. Large, high-profile organizations and businesses routinely come under cyber attack, and the school said it frequently identifies similar hacking attempts. "The security and privacy of the personal information provided to the university is of great importance to us," Paul Rivers, UC Berkeley's chief information security officer, said in a statement. "We regret that this occurred and have taken additional measures to better safeguard that information." The school said it was providing credit protection service free of charge to those potentially impacted. (Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sharon Bernstein) || Digatrade Executes Joint-Venture with BitCarats: Exclusive Digital Asset Development & Exchange Listing Agreement
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 10, 2016 /BITX FINANCIAL CORP (BITXF) and its 100% owned and operated digital asset-currency exchange DIGATRADE(TM) (digatrade.com) today announced the execution of an exclusive asset-backed digital currency development and platform exchange listing agreement with BitCarats Capital Inc. Under terms of the agreement Digatrade, along with BitCarats Capital, will develop Caratscoin, the world's first diamond-backed digital-asset powered by blockchain.
“Caratscoin will be the first asset-backed digital currency listed on the trading platform, an innovation that will include additional asset-backed crypto-currencies in the future," stated Brad Moynes, CEO of Digatrade. In collaboration with BitCarats Capital and financial technology partners (ANX Technologies), Caratscoin will be powered by secure blockchain technology - the world's first paired with Bitcoin as well as direct purchase via Digatrade multi-fiat currency order-book including US dollars and Euros via Visa & MasterCard, along with eCheck and Interac within Canada.
A fully integrated, custom multi-signature Caratscoin digital wallet will be developed as a comprehensive solution, not only creating the Caratscoin, but adding value through features such as industry leading security architecture and encryption algorithms. Caratscoin owners issue the coin only if all authorized parties are present, the first to use this unique service which is unprecedented in the market. This system is most secure, as no one person has the only authority to issue the coin, considering the Caratscoin is designed to significantly increase in value in direct correlation to the appreciation in value of physical diamonds held in the company vault.
BitCarats Capital CEO & Founder Colin Ferguson stated, "Carats Diamond Investment, which will provide the distinctive collection of diamonds to back BitCarats, has more than 30 years' experience in the diamond business and is the nation's first direct distributor from the world famous Argyle Diamond Mine in Western Australia. We house the country's leading collection of Natural Fancy Coloured diamonds, featuring trending colours such as red, vivid blues and champagnes." Ferguson continued, "Caratscoin will not only provide a new virtual asset-class and store of value, but also offer our investors instant payment, prepaid debit cards and the ability to transfer an asset between end users instantly, at a low cost and on a decentralized network."Caratscoin will be backed by a pool of certified, Natural Fancy Coloured diamonds, primarily featuring red, vivid blue, and champagne colours. Each diamond is certified by the Geological Institute of America, the world's leading diamond educational resource, and home to the most advanced laboratories. The diamonds are insured by Lloyd's of London and stored at a private vault at The World Trade Center, 999 Canada Place, one of the most secure buildings in Vancouver, Canada. Founded and led by BitCarats CEO Colin Ferguson, Carats Diamond Investment (carats.com) is committed to exceptional diamond education, quality and customer service, and was recently recognized by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) when Carats was awarded with their highest rating of A+ since joining the BBB 16 years ago.
More information regarding this exciting new venture will be made available as it materializes.
ABOUT DIGATRADE:
DIGATRADE is a global digital asset-currency exchange located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Company is owned and operated 100% by Bit-X Financial Corp which is publically listed on the OTC.QB under the trading symbol BITXF. BITXF is a reporting issuer in the Province of British Columbia, Canada with the British Columbia Securities Commission "BCSC" and in the United States with the Securities Exchange Commission "SEC". Digatrade has now become a global platform offering its customers instant card-based transactions worldwide.
CORPORATE CONTACT INFORMATION:
Brad Moynes, CEOBit-X Financial CorpDigaTrade.com838 West Hastings Street, Suite 300Vancouver, BC V6C-0A6CanadaTel: +1(604) 200-0071Fax: +1(604) 200-0072www.digatrade.com
Media inquiries:press@digatrade.com
Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains certain "forward-looking information". All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or development that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future constitute forward-looking information. This forward-looking information reflects the current expectations or beliefs of the company based on information currently available to the Company. Forward-looking information is subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the possibility of unanticipated costs and expenses. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein.
SOURCE:Bit-X Financial Corp
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Titan Trade Tells How Not to Trade Emotionally in Binary Options http://bit.ly/1Tdo93O #XBT #BTC #Bitcoin || Hard not to like this even if 75% inaccurate.: http://ift.tt/1n6sg3a #bitcoin #btc || Liquid Bitcoin || Le Journal du Geek : Bitcoin : bientôt légal au Japon ? #Business #Bitcoin #Japon http://tr4.kr/i177833 || Liquid Bitcoin || ProjectCoin: LIVE: Profit = $138.85 (7.93 %). BUY B4.53 @ $410.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $417.41 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - … || Liquid Bitcoin || Every btc gettin || Show /r/bitcoin: Crypto Currency Coin Market Cap for Slack http://ift.tt/1LjMWjR || #WorldCoin #WDC $ 0.007527 (-7.21 %) 0.00001878 BTC (-5.00 %)
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Trend: up || Prices: 419.41, 421.56, 422.48, 425.19, 423.73, 424.28, 429.71, 430.57, 427.40, 428.59
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
BofA, Wells Fargo & JPMorgan to Roll Out Cardless ATMs?: Individuals may soon be able to use their smart phones to withdraw cash from ATMs. According to Reuters, which cited technology website TechCrunch, banking majors Bank of America Corp. BAC and Wells Fargo & Company WFC are working to integrate Apple Inc.s AAPL Apple Pay, a mobile payment system, into their ATM network, thereby eliminating the use of plastic cards. Betty Riess, a press representative for BofA, confirmed that the company is presently developing a new cardless ATM solution, which is expected to be available in selected ATMs in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Charlotte, New York and Boston by the end of this month. Moreover, the facility will likely be available to a larger customer base by the end of 2016. Wells Fargo, which currently supports Googles Android Pay, is considering alternative wallets for its customers. Similar to BofA, Wells Fargo is expected to offer the facility initially at limited ATMs, and expand the same to a broader network by the end of 2016. The ATMs will incorporate near-field communication or NFC technology, which will allow customers to carry out their ATM transactions through smart phone-generated PIN codes. Notably, ATM users will be able required to log in to the respective mobile wallets, and then tap their smart phones to the machines NFC point in order to confirm the transaction. Currently, half of BofAs 16,100 ATMs are already NFC-equipped. Wells Fargo, on the other hand, intends to install NFC readers in at least one-third of its total 13,000 ATMs by the end of 2016. Apart from BofA and Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM is also headed toward rolling out cardless ATMs in 2016. At present, the company is working on a code-based system that will generate a temporary password to facilitate the transaction through its mobile banking application. Notably, such a feature prevents pass codes from being misused or stolen. This apart, BofA and JPMorgan intend to incorporate additional features like pre-setting ATM transactions, which will not only help customers save time, but also lower security concerns owing to shorter duration. Why this Change? We believe higher dependence on smart phones will help banks capitalize on the growing number of active mobile users. During fourth-quarter 2015, the active mobile user headcount at BofA and JPMorgan surged 8% and 13% year over year, respectively. At Wells Fargo, the annual tally increased 14% from 2014. Further, the strategy is in line with the industry-wide focus on right-sizing retail network to curb expenses, as well as enhance customer experience. More importantly, smart phones offer better security compared with desktops and laptops, given their relatively higher protection layers. Bottom Line In this era of digitalization, customers appetite for mobile banking encourages banks to provide sophisticated mobile banking services. Moreover, since traditional methods are gradually taking a backseat, the financial institutions are making consistent efforts to attract and retain clients by offering better digital experience amid a competitive environment. Apart from smart phones, banks are also known to have shown 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. Recently, JPMorgan partnered with start-up firm Digital Asset Holdings to launch a trial project that utilizes the blockchain technology. According to Financial Times, the technology will likely aid in resolving liquidity mismatches in some of the companys loan funds. Moreover, it is expected to lower cost and complexities related to trading. Notably, in Dec 2015, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. filed a patent application with the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) Cryptographic Currency For Securities Settlement for a new cryptocurrency called SETLcoin. 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 WELLS FARGO-NEW (WFC): Free Stock Analysis Report BANK OF AMER CP (BAC): Free Stock Analysis Report APPLE INC (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin finds room in small funds; large institutions still on sidelines: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin has found favour among smaller investors, thanks to the availability of funds designed to invest in it, but remains a niche among the larger investing community. Investors at some family offices, smaller mutual funds, and traders at hedge funds say bitcoin has helped returns and demonstrated a low correlation with other asset classes. Hopes that bitcoin would become a broadly used alternative to other currencies helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 (£692) in December 2013, when its market capitalisation was $13 billion. But the market cap has retreated since then, to about $6.4 billion as of Thursday. Early enthusiasts for the crypto-currency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. The risks of dealing in bitcoin were laid bare in 2013 when Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox collapsed after admitting it had lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds. The currency's earlier ties to gambling and criminal websites did not endear it to traditional investors. Jeremy Millar, founder and managing partner at Ledger Partners in London, estimated that 50 to 90 percent of bitcoin's current $6.4 billion market cap is held by near-institutional money such as individuals at hedge funds and family offices. That has not changed over the last two years. He does not have an estimate for institutional investment holdings of bitcoin. But he said they are likely to be insignificant, compared with the smaller investors who have fewer restrictions about fund allocation. "What is clear though is that over the last two years, bitcoin has emerged from its 'hacktivist' origins to a more institutionalized ecosystem which includes the participation of hedge funds, traders, and professional investors," said Millar. BITCOIN IN PORTFOLIOS Funds dedicated to investing in bitcoin are relatively small. The largest is the Pantera Bitcoin Fund, a $160 million hedge fund founded by Dan Morehead, formerly of Tiger Management, available to institutions and individuals who invest $50,000 or more. Story continues According to a Pantera Bitcoin Fund brochure, the fund was launched in July 2013, a period when bitcoin traded at around $65. On Thursday, it traded at $418.80, a gain of more than 500 percent from July 2013. The firm did not comment on fund performance or its investors. The majority of the Pantera Fund's investors are family offices and high net worth individuals, said two people familiar with the fund. The Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust, with assets of more than $60 million, is another vehicle for investors. GBTC is backed by bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group. It is the only publicly traded U.S. security in the over-the-counter market invested in bitcoin. Volume is thin, with a few thousand shares traded daily, according to Thomson Reuters data. Antonis Polemitis, managing director at Ledra Capital in New York, a family office specializing in education and technology, said that on average, clients have allocated 1 to 3 percent of their portfolios to bitcoin. "A lot of people will take that bet with 1 percent of their assets," he said. "A 1 percent loss does not change anyone's life in any way. If it goes up 10 times, then you get to feel very smart." Some investment managers say having bitcoin in portfolios has helped performance. ARK Invest, which manages four exchange-traded funds with $240 million in assets, holds GBTC in its $12 million Next Generation Internet ETF and the $7 million ARK Innovation ETF. Chris Burniske, analyst and blockchain products lead at ARK Invest in New York, said since investing in September 2015, GBTC has contributed 67 basis points to the Next Generation Internet ETF's return and 62 basis points to the ARK Innovation ETF. For 2015, the Next Generation ETF posted a 15.29 percent return, while the Innovation ETF had 3.76 percent gains. For Kingsbridge Wealth Management, a multifamily office in Las Vegas with $150 million in assets, GBTC has become a great diversifier because so far it has had a low correlation with other asset classes, said David Dunn, the firm's founder and chief investment officer. The firm has about $1.7 million invested in bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain, Dunn said. (Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis) || What to Expect from Overstock.com's (OSTK) Q4 Earnings?: Overstock.com Inc. OSTK is expected to report fourth-quarter 2015 results after the closing bell on Feb 4. Overstock.com is an online closeout retailer that sells brand-name merchandise at deep discounts. The offerings include bed-and-bath goods, kitchenware, watches, jewelry, electronics, sporting goods and designer accessories. Overstock, a Bitcoin supporter, hopes to reinvent the public stock market using cryptosecurities, or virtual stocks based on Bitcoin's blockchain technology. Bitcoin is a digital currency platform with no central regulating authority involved in the transactions. It is also called crypto currency because it utilizes military-grade cryptography to protect users against fraud. Bitcoin and other cryptocurencies operate on blockchain which is a distributed public ledger. Cryptosecurities will likely bring the next major change in the stock market. With the SpeedRoute deal, Overstock will enter a new financial technology space. SpeedRoute’s infrastructure and underlying technologies will help the company to connect the t0 securities trading platform with the entire U.S. equity market. This will enhance transparency and efficiency of the existing capital markets, which was the basic idea behind t0.com. The blockchain technology allows investors and buyers to track down their purchases and ownership of cryptosecurities, ensuring complete transparency. Moreover, the t0.com blockchain technology facilitates same-day settlement of securities. Additionally, Overstock started the Black Friday holiday sales event a full week before the shopping holiday. This should have a favorable impact on the fourth-quarter results. Apart from this, Overstock also announced that Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corporation (“Merrill Pro”), the last defendant remaining after Goldman Sachs, in Overstock.com’s longstanding market manipulation case, has settled its claims by paying $20 million to Overstock.com and its co-plaintiffs. This is likely to boost results in the to-be-reported quarter. Story continues Stocks to Consider Here are some stocks, which you may consider as they have a favorable Zacks Rank and a positive Earnings ESP and are likely to post an earnings beat this quarter: MaxLinear, Inc. MXL has an Earnings ESP of +2.94% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). SolarWinds, Inc. SWI has an Earnings ESP of +2.27% and a Zacks Rank #1. Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. FIS has an Earnings ESP of +2.17% and a Zacks Rank #3. 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 SOLARWINDS INC (SWI): Free Stock Analysis Report MAXLINEAR INC-A (MXL): Free Stock Analysis Report FIDELITY NAT IN (FIS): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || How big banks are paying lip service to the blockchain: IBM has high hopes for blockchain technology. The IT giant announced on Tuesday a laundry list of plans to use blockchain tech and to help developers do the same. IBM ( IBM ) will offer tools through its cloud service for building blockchain apps, and it will open up IBM "Garages" in London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo for experts to collaborate with developers on blockchain tech. Taken in tandem with the recent flurry of banks and financial institutions expressing public interest in blockchain, the technology is having a moment. In September, a slew of banks including BBVA, Citi, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS all joined a coalition, led by a firm called R3 , to implement blockchain technology in banking. In December, five more big names hopped on board, including BNP Paribas, ING, and Wells Fargo. But the great irony of the banks' interest in blockchain is that the idea of a blockchain for traditional banking defeats the purpose of the blockchain—at least as it has been used thus far, with the digital currency bitcoin. And top executives from some of the very same institutions that have signed on to R3 have separately disparaged bitcoin. To understand what it is that banks claim to want to do with blockchain, you first need to understand the bitcoin blockchain, which is a public, decentralized ledger that records every single bitcoin transaction. Think of it like a library card in the cloud (not the card you use to take out a book, but the slip inside a book that lists all the borrowers). If you send a friend $5 worth of bitcoin, the transaction goes on the blockchain. If one bitcoin startup acquires another bitcoin startup for $500,000 in bitcoin, that, too, goes on the blockchain. And you can view the blockchain in real time, as transactions are uploaded, at blockchain.info . Transactions are added in bundles, called "blocks," by "miners," who receive a tiny fee in bitcoin as an incentive to mine. Miners use large, expensive computers to find and mine the blocks. The excitement of the bitcoin blockchain, to people in the digital currency world, is the potential for decentralized applications to be built on top of it that cut out the middle man. And the blockchain can be used to store and send anything of value, so there are companies using it to store documents like property deeds and even marriage licenses. And now: Enter the banks. They've long stayed away from bitcoin, which has a toxic public image thanks to headlines about bitcoin being used in embezzlement and Ponzi schemes. (Think of Mt. Gox and Silk Road .) MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga said he believes bitcoin "starts bumping up against societal rules, which I worry about," and that, "it doesn’t give me the safety and security of knowing that I am who I am, and I’m paying who I know, which is what traditional currency does." And yet, MasterCard ( MA ) invested in Digital Currency Group, a venture firm that has itself invested in 65 different bitcoin and blockchain-enabled businesses. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said bitcoin "is going nowhere... There is nothing behind a bitcoin, and I think if it was big, the governments would stop it." And yet, JPMorgan ( JPM ) has signed on with R3. Story continues Forget bitcoin, embrace blockchain Bitcoin is doomed, if you ask Dimon. But the blockchain—now that's exciting. As Dimon said on CNBC last month, "The blockchain is a technology, which we’ve been studying... and yes, it’s real. If it proves to be cheap and secure it will be adopted for a whole bunch of stuff." Translation: Blockchain is hot, bitcoin is not. We are seeing this sentiment again and again. IBM, in its extensive press release this week about its blockchain efforts, does not use the word "bitcoin" once. Bitreserve, a cloud banking vault launched by CNET founder Halsey Minor and led by former Barclays CIO Anthony Watson , was so eager to shed the stink of bitcoin that it changed its name to Uphold. Blockchain "is so hot right now," writes Erik Voorhees , the CEO of bitcoin startup Shapeshift, while bitcoin "has been left by the wayside, ignored like an embarrassing relative at a family gathering.” (And yet the price of bitcoin is up 24% in the last six months, 85% in the last six.) What will using blockchain tech even look like for banks? R3's web site says its mission is "building and empowering the next generation of global financial services technology." That's pretty vague. David Rutter, CEO of R3 and a former executive at London-based electronic brokerage ICAP, has said R3 will help banks and financial firms use the "fabric" of blockchain technology. You might think that people in the bitcoin world are pleased to see big, incumbent financial institutions embracing the underlying technology behind the leading cryptocurrency. They are not. Most of them see the banks' stated interest as empty lip service so far. What most people believe the banks want to do is employ something like the blockchain in their record-keeping processes: record customer deposits and withdrawals on a blockchain as opposed to whatever (likely outdated) software they currently use. Sounds simple enough. But it would have to be a closed ledger, accessible only to customers of the banks. And therein lies the contradiction: the bitcoin blockchain is public and open-sourced; nothing about it is closed. "I can see why banks are interested in using permissioned ledgers, and maybe it will make their back office more efficient," says Jerry Brito, executive director of digital currency nonprofit Coin Center. "But at the end of the day, it's not a very exciting innovation. The real innovation is a completely open and global ledger that is permission-less. Having a closed, permissioned ledger run by banks, that might allow for better auditing, but there’s no innovation there, you still have to go through a consortium to use the ledger." That is, what banks seem to want to do is incongruous to the purpose of the blockchain. Digital Currency Group's Barry Silbert, who founded SecondMarket, which allowed for the trading of stocks in non-public companies, is similarly dubious of the "blockchain for banking" theme. "I’ve spoken quite publicly about my skepticism around the private blockchain approach," he tells Yahoo Finance. If R3 doesn't yield innovative fruit, then why are banks rushing to join up? For starters, as a PR effort: once a few were involved, the others looked stodgy by delaying. But Brito also believes the interest will subside once banks actually learn more about blockchain technology. " I think right now investors are kind of waiting for Wall Street to get through this blockchain phase," he says. "They have blockchain fever and they need to just get over it. Because if they develop their own closed blockchains, soon they’ll all realize they want to talk to each other, and they’ll be back to square one, doing banking." The bitcoin blockchain is open, global and permissionless. It has potential to serve as the backbone for additional exciting applications. If traditional banks want to employ it in their way, by acting as gatekeepers, it defeats the purpose. But don't expect that to dampen their public expressions of interest just yet. This is the first in a three-part Yahoo Finance series about blockchain technology. The second part is about how you can invest in the blockchain; the third part is about the biggest names in the industry. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Read more: Bitcoin advocacy group scores funding from biggest names in industry Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its biggest news site Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin View comments || Here's how you can invest in the blockchain: As big banks and other financial institutions continue tofeel the lovefor blockchain technology, many of our readers have wondered how they can get in. Can a private, non-institutional investor somehow invest in the blockchain?
Answering the question requires a distinction between thebitcoinblockchain and the broader, non-bitcoin idea of blockchain technology. Think of the bitcoin blockchain as a public ledger in the cloud, not unlike a library book slip (see the above video for more). It shows every transaction made with the digital currency bitcoin; the transactions are added in bundles called "blocks," by "miners" who receive a small fee in bitcoin as incentive to add the data. (You canview that happeningin-real time.) The bitcoin blockchain is public, open-source and permissionless.
What banks want to build is a private, closed blockchain,sansbitcoin,sansminers, to process their own transactions. The appeal is that it would make their systems faster and more efficient (most big banks are using old, outdated software for their record-keeping), as well as reduce friction and transfer delays. The bitcoin community is skeptical about the effort. "Having a closed, permissioned ledger run by banks might allow for better auditing, but there’s no innovation there," says Jerry Brito, executive director of the nonprofit Coin Center, whichhas raised fundingfrom the biggest names in bitcoin. "You still have to go through a consortium to use the ledger."
Indeed, 45 banks, including heavy-hitters like Citi, Credit Suisse, and JPMorgan, have jumped on board with a consortium,called R3, to test out blockchain technology. JPMorgan, eager to come out to an early lead in the blockchain race,announced last monthit has been testing its own blockchain with 2,200 customers.
In addition to banks trying to build their own blockchains, fintech startups likeitBitare offering their own non-bitcoin blockchains to financial customers.The blockchain product itBit offers is called Bankchain. "Bitcoin is a public, anonymous use case of blockchain technology," says itBit COO Andrew Chang. "Many financial institutions don't want to use the bitcoin blockchain because it’s an anonymous network and they're not okay with that."
Whether the strategy will even bear fruit is unclear, but asAlex Kwiatkowski of financial software firm Misys says, "No one wants to be the one financial company that didn’t invest in blockchain.It feels like California in the Gold Rush -- those making an early claim think they’ll get the most gold. But it’s just an efficiency improvement.There’s going to be some value there, they just need to unlock what it is without promising too much."
As banks and other big corporations continue to claim interest in blockchain, the idealogical divide between that side and the bitcoin side will only widen. Dan Conner, who is building a distributed ledger called DisLedger, aptly explains why: "If you’re a bitcoin fanboy and you’re a crypto-anarchist, that’s fine. But those people don’t tend to run in the same circles as banks." Conner predicts that even the term "blockchain" will go out of fashion for Wall Street the way "bitcoin" has, because there are inherent weaknesses in a blockchain. For now, clearly, the big banks are big believers in blockchain—or at least, they say they are.
If you, a regular investor (and Yahoo Finance reader), are also a believer, is there a way to invest in blockchain technology?
The short answer is: not directly. But there are three roundabout ways you could invest in the bitcoin blockchain or the broader, Wall Street concept of blockchain.
If you believe in the strength of the bitcoin blockchain, the best way to invest is to buy bitcoin. Whether you want to do that for price-speculation purposes or simply out of curiosity to own a nascent asset class, there are myriad ways to obtain some easily, from exchanges like Coinbase, Circle, Bitstamp or Kraken, which hasexpanded in the U.S. recently through acquisitions.
A second would be to buy stock in the banks that have joined up with R3, such asBBVA (BBVA), BNP Paribas (BNP.PA), Citi (C), Credit Suisse (CS), ING Group (ING), JPMorgan (JPM), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), UBS (UBS), and Wells Fargo (WFC). Of course, for bitcoin true believers, buying bank stocks would defeat the purpose of a cryptocurrency designed to avoid traditional banks.
Or you could buy shares in the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which passively holds bitcoin to track the price (it's similar to the GLD gold trust) and began trading publicly over the counter last year. The trust was launched by Barry Silbert of the Digital Currency Group, which has invested in 75 bitcoin and non-bitcoin blockchain startups, andrecently bought the news site CoinDesk. "We started the Trust," Silbert says, "as aneasy way for casual investors to get exposure to the price of bitcoin without having to figure out where do you buy it, what price do you pay, and how do you store it. This is one easy way to play in the bitcoin/blockchain industry."
The trust is up 20% since it began trading last May. And bitcoin itself is up 81% in the same time period.
This is the second in a three-part Yahoo Finance series about blockchain technology. Thefirst partwas about why big banks are expressing interest in the blockchain; thethird partis about the biggest names in the industry.
--
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.Read more:
Bitcoin advocacy group scores funding from biggest names in industry
Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter
Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its biggest news site
Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin || BofA, Wells Fargo & JPMorgan to Roll Out Cardless ATMs?: Individuals may soon be able to use their smart phones to withdraw cash from ATMs. According to Reuters, which cited technology website TechCrunch, banking majors Bank of America Corp. BAC and Wells Fargo & Company WFC are working to integrate Apple Inc.’s AAPL Apple Pay, a mobile payment system, into their ATM network, thereby eliminating the use of plastic cards.Betty Riess, a press representative for BofA, confirmed that the company is presently developing “a new cardless ATM solution,” which is expected to be available in selected ATMs in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Charlotte, New York and Boston by the end of this month. Moreover, the facility will likely be available to a larger customer base by the end of 2016.Wells Fargo, which currently supports Google’s Android Pay, is considering alternative wallets for its customers. Similar to BofA, Wells Fargo is expected to offer the facility initially at limited ATMs, and expand the same to a broader network by the end of 2016.The ATMs will incorporate near-field communication or “NFC” technology, which will allow customers to carry out their ATM transactions through smart phone-generated PIN codes. Notably, ATM users will be able required to log in to the respective mobile wallets, and then tap their smart phones to the machine’s NFC point in order to confirm the transaction.Currently, half of BofA’s 16,100 ATMs are already NFC-equipped. Wells Fargo, on the other hand, intends to install NFC readers in at least one-third of its total 13,000 ATMs by the end of 2016.Apart from BofA and Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM is also headed toward rolling out cardless ATMs in 2016. At present, the company is working on a code-based system that will generate a temporary password to facilitate the transaction through its mobile banking application. Notably, such a feature prevents pass codes from being misused or stolen.This apart, BofA and JPMorgan intend to incorporate additional features like pre-setting ATM transactions, which will not only help customers save time, but also lower security concerns owing to shorter duration.Why this Change?We believe higher dependence on smart phones will help banks capitalize on the growing number of active mobile users. During fourth-quarter 2015, the active mobile user headcount at BofA and JPMorgan surged 8% and 13% year over year, respectively. At Wells Fargo, the annual tally increased 14% from 2014.Further, the strategy is in line with the industry-wide focus on right-sizing retail network to curb expenses, as well as enhance customer experience. More importantly, smart phones offer better security compared with desktops and laptops, given their relatively higher protection layers.Bottom LineIn this era of digitalization, customers’ appetite for mobile banking encourages banks to provide sophisticated mobile banking services.Moreover, since traditional methods are gradually taking a backseat, the financial institutions are making consistent efforts to attract and retain clients by offering better digital experience amid a competitive environment.Apart from smart phones, banks are also known to have shown 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.Recently, JPMorgan partnered with start-up firm Digital Asset Holdings to launch a trial project that utilizes the blockchain technology. According to Financial Times, the technology will likely aid in resolving liquidity mismatches in some of the company’s loan funds. Moreover, it is expected to lower cost and complexities related to trading.Notably, in Dec 2015, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. filed a patent application with the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) – Cryptographic Currency For Securities Settlement – for a new cryptocurrency called SETLcoin.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 ReportWELLS FARGO-NEW (WFC): Free Stock Analysis ReportBANK OF AMER CP (BAC): Free Stock Analysis ReportAPPLE INC (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Ericsson Core to Enable WiFi Calling and VoLTE for Cable & Wireless in Panama: MIAMI, FL, and STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN--(Marketwired - Feb 21, 2016) - Cable & Wireless Communications Plc ( LSE : CWC ) Ericsson to upgrade core network to enable Wi-Fi calling and voice over LTE for Cable & Wireless Panama's (CWP) network CWP customers will enjoy both voice and video calling, and seamless handover is enabled between LTE and Wi-Fi, which provides operator voice services in more locations driving loyalty among subscribers Cable & Wireless Communications Plc ( LSE : CWC ) today announces Ericsson ( NASDAQ : ERIC ) will support an upgrade of the Cable & Wireless core network in Panama with an IMS and Evolved Packet Core solution that will enable strong possibilities of fixed and mobile convergence and enhanced subscriber services like Wi-Fi calling and voice over LTE (VoLTE). "We are constantly working to enhance and upgrade our network and offer more services for our customers," said Carlo Alloni, EVP Technology and Group CTIO. "As a result of this upgrade, we will be able to offer our customers in Panama more options to make regular operator calls everywhere, and to have better quality all the time in a simple, seamless way," added Alloni. The Ericsson Wi-Fi calling solution is based on an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) with a Wi-Fi Mobility Gateway (ePDG and TWAG combined) and Ericsson IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). The solution is verified towards the smartphone brands that support Wi-Fi calling. The IMS will also support voice over LTE services which will be implemented in the near future. Rollout, integration, and implementation are currently underway. "With this solution Cable & Wireless will be able to utilize one efficient core network to enable several communication services. In addition, it will unleash a superior communication services user experience by delivering seamless HD voice and video calling services in more locations," said Clayton Cruz, Vice President of Ericsson Latin America. In the Ericsson ConsumerLab report "Wi-Fi Calling Finds Its Voice," (July 2015), 5 out of 10 respondents from the United States said that they would use the service if it were made available. Story continues Ericsson Wi-Fi calling Ericsson Mobile Telephony Evolution with VoLTE Ericsson IMS Ericsson Evolved Packet Core For media kits, backgrounders and high-resolution photos, please visit www.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 in 2015 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.com www.ericsson.com/news www.twitter.com/ericssonpress www.facebook.com/ericsson www.youtube.com/ericsson FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Ericsson Corporate Communications Phone: +46 10 719 69 92 E-mail: media.relations@ericsson.com Ericsson Investor Relations Phone: +46 10 719 00 00 E-mail: investor.relations@ericsson.com About Cable & Wireless Communications Plc Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in Latin America and the Caribbean. With annual sales of over US$2.4 billion, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. CWC delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers. Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers. The Group also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 48,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity. CWC has more than 7,300 employees serving 6.4 million customers (Mobile 4.1m; Fixed Line 1.1m; Video 470k and Broadband 690k) across 42 countries. The Group's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes. Cable & Wireless Communications Plc's shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The Group is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information visit: www.cwc.com . || Surprising Gift Offered to Bitcoin Sellers at Coin Reverse Inc.: Coin Reverse Inc. Is Now Offering Engraved Bitcoin to Their Customers
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / January 29, 2016 /Coin Reverse Inc. (http://www.coinreverse.com) has hit the charts with their latest offer on Bitcoin purchase: they're not only offering 15% more than Blockchain's official rate for each Bitcoin they purchase, but they are also putting a surprise gift on transactions amounting 10+ BTC.
CoinReverse's marketing team has gone creative enough to attach a special gift to each and every transaction amounting more than 10 BTC: they are offering a 24-karat gold coin with the Bitcoin engraved on both sides. The mechanism is simple: each customer selling over 10 BTC within one transaction is asked to provide a mailing address and the company delivers the gift via a courier.
CoinReverse's Marketing Manager Jacob Gustavo is enthusiastic with their latest gift idea, while being positive that people involved in the cryptocurrency market are definitely welcoming a jewelry-like item engraved with the Bitcoin logo, being offered to them for doing business with CoinReverse.
"In this way, we are offering our customers a somehow materialized version of this virtual, non-material coin. We think it's pretty cool to put your hands on a coin carrying the Bitcoin's logo, especially if you're passionate about the cryptocurrencies," declares Jacob Gustavo, company's Marketing Manager.
Coin Reverse Inc. is a cryptocurrency trading company based in NewYork, USA, founded and developed by few bold investment professionals who have seen the business opportunity outside the traditional capital markets and have targeted cryptocurrency trade in terms of medium and long-term investments strategy.
Business is operated in an effective manner, with a user-friendly platform and easy contact means through the company's website and via e-mail, with 24/7 assistance through a Live Chat Section offered. Payments for the trade are free of any charges on the customer's side, while the company covers all the costs involved. The most common payment methods are available: PayPal and Bank Transfer.
All the details related to the company's offer and other information, together with the contact details of the Sales Team are available on their website:http://www.coinreverse.com.
No restrictions on customers' provenience and payment destination countries or currencies are in force within the company's policy.
For more information about us, please visithttp://coinreverse.com.
Contact Info:
Name: Tom JunoOrganization: Coin Reverse Inc.Address: 1370 Broadway, 5th FloorPhone: (315) 210-8349
SOURCE:Coin Reverse Inc. || Australia's ASX invests in blockchain to simplify markets: SYDNEY (Reuters) - Markets operator ASX Ltd on Friday said it has made a minority investment in U.S.-based Digital Asset Holdings to develop distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, to potentially simplify Australias post-trade equity market. Blockchain technology, pioneered by Bitcoin, maintains a continuously growing list of transaction data which cannot be tampered with or revised. ASX paid A$14.9 million ($10.43 million) for a 5.0 percent equity interest in Digital Asset along with funding an initial phase of development and acquiring a warrant that will give it the right to purchase further equity and appoint a director to the board. ASX will work with Digital Asset to design a new post-trade solution for the Australian equity market, it said in a statement on Friday. Over the past year, interest in blockchain technology has grown rapidly. It has already attracted significant investment from many major banks, which reckon it could save them money by making their operations faster, more efficient and more transparent. (Reporting by Swati Pandey) || JPMorgan launches blockchain trial project -FT: Jan 31 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase is partnering with start-up Digital Asset Holdings to launch a trial project using blockchain technology that could reduce the cost and complexity of trading, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The agreement comes as another sign that blockchain, which is best known as the basis of the digital currency Bitcoin, has wide-ranging applications for some of Wall Street's biggest banks. One potential use for the technology is addressing liquidity mismatches in some of JPMorgan's loan funds, the Financial Times said. "To sell a loan is a very cumbersome, time-consuming process; settlement can take weeks," Daniel Pinto, head of JPMorgan's investment bank, told the Financial Times. It "makes all the sense in the world" to explore blockchain's potential to improve that process. Digital Asset Holdings is run by Blythe Masters, JPMorgan's former head of commodities. (Reporting by Carl O'Donnell; Editing by Peter Cooney)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 BTC Price: BTC-e 431 USD Bitstamp 432.60 USD Coinbase 434.56 USD #btc #bitcoin 2016-02-28 13:30 pic.twitter.com/NVKjz9fKNf || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || #AudioCoin #ADC $ 0.000166 (-7.00 %) 0.00000039 BTC (-4.07 %) || Japan considers making #bitcoin a legal currency: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/25/japan-to-make-bitcoin-legal-currency?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Version+CB+header&utm_term=158747&subid=12051185&CMP=ema_565 … || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || #Bitcoin now is $420.00 via Chain
Tweet created March 11, 2016 at 12:00PM
Free ฿itcoin - W… http://goo.gl/ohelJN pic.twitter.com/0NNxGgw5yN
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Trend: no change || Prices: 413.76, 413.31, 418.09, 418.04, 416.39, 417.18, 417.95, 426.77, 424.23, 416.52
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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 2021-12-08]
BTC Price: 50504.80, BTC RSI: 35.32
Gold Price: 1783.40, Gold RSI: 45.06
Oil Price: 72.36, Oil RSI: 45.39
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Indonesia’s Religious Leaders Say Crypto is Illegal for Muslims: Indonesia’s council of religious leaders has declared that cryptocurrencies are illegal for Muslims, bringing yet another contradiction regarding cryptos in Islam.
The National Ulema Council (MUI) in Indonesia has ruled that cryptocurrencies are illegal for Muslims. The councildeemed cryptocurrencies as Haramand, as such, banned Indonesian Muslims from using them.
Indonesia is one of the leading Islamic countries in the world, with more than 237 million Muslims living in the country. Asrorun Niam Soleh, head of religious decrees, pointed out that cryptocurrencies could be traded as commodities if they abide by Shariah law and demonstrate clear benefits.
The head of religious decrees said the decision was reached after the council held a meeting earlier this week. He stated that if cryptocurrency as a commodity or a digital asset can abide by Shariah’s tenets and can show a clear benefit, then there is no problem in using it.
The MIU holds the authority in terms of Shariah compliance in the country. This ruling is a huge one as Indonesia has the highest number of Muslims globally. The finance ministry and central bank consults the MIU regarding Islamic finance issues.
Although the MIU has come out against cryptocurrencies, they still remain legal in Indonesia. The government is supportive of cryptocurrencies, allowing its citizens to trade them alongside commodities as investment options.
The government is also working on establishing a crypto-focused exchange by the end of the year. However, the government doesn’t recognize cryptocurrencies as legal tenders but sees them as commodities and digital assets.
The crypto market has retraced following the rally experienced earlier this week. At the time of writing,Bitcoinis trading just below $65k, down by more than 4% over the past 24 hours. The leading cryptocurrencyreached an all-time high above $69kearlier this week, but the market is currently correcting following the rally.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• European Equities: Eurozone Industrial Production and U.S Consumer Sentiment in Focus
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• Crude Oil Price Update – Early Friday Weakness Under $79.04, Strength Over $80.53
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Trading on Weakside of Pivot at 35915
• Silver Price Prediction – Prices Break Out Forming a Reverse Head and Shoulder || One-Fourth of Fund Managers Expect Bitcoin Price Over $75K in 12 Months: BofA Survey: One-quarter of surveyed global fund managers expect the price of bitcoin to surpass $75,000 in 12 months, according to a Bank of America survey of global fund managers seen by CoinDesk.
• A quarter of fund managers expect the price of bitcoin to be over $75,000 in one year, compared with 20% who think it will remain relatively flat, between $50,000 and $75,000, and 19% who think it will fall to $25,000 to $50,000.
• Long positions on bitcoin are more crowded than those on environmental, social and governance (ESG), the survey found. Long bitcoin was named the most crowded trade in May and January.
• The top answer for “most crowded” trade was long tech with 37% of respondents, followed by long bitcoin at 21%, and long ESG with 14% of the total. Short U.S. Treasurys also rose to 13% from about 10% last month.
• In October, only around 10% of fund managers named bitcoin as the “most crowded” trade when it was surpassed by long ESG trades, at about 17% of respondents, and short positions on China and emerging markets stocks, approximately 15%.
• In November, 59% of fund managers said bitcoin is a bubble. Back in May, 75% of respondents said bitcoin is in a bubble zone, the Business Standardreported.
• Bitcoin also slightly outperformed oil and gold for best asset class in 2022; 12% of respondents named the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, compared with 10% for oil and gold. Emerging markets stocks topped that list at 34% of respondents, followed by S&P 500 at 30%.
• The survey includes 345 fund managers from around the world, whose total funds under management are over $1 trillion.
Read more:Market Wrap: Analysts See Bitcoin as Still in ‘Bullish Phase,’ Despite Pullbacks || Digihost’s Reports 671% Increase ($3.4m) in Y/Y Monthly Bitcoin Production for November: TORONTO, Dec. 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Digihost Technology Inc. (“Digihost” or the “Company”) (TSXV: DGHI; Nasdaq: DGHI), an innovative North American based Bitcoin self-mining company, is pleased to provide an unaudited Bitcoin (“BTC”) production update for the month ended November 30, 2021. All amounts are expressed in USD unless otherwise indicated.
Production Highlights for November 2021:
• Produced 69.01 BTC during the month and received 10.67 BTC as proceeds for the sale of older generation unutilized miners, increasing total holdings to 570.95 BTC valued at approximately $32.7 million as of November 30, 2021 based on a BTC price of $57,350.
• Total Ethereum (“ETH”) holdings of 1,000.89 ETH valued approximately $4.8 million as at November 30, 2021 based on an ETH price of $4,750.
• Total digital asset inventory value consisting of BTC and ETH of approximately $37.5 million as of November 30, 2021.
• Total cash and digital asset holdings were approximately $43.8 million.
• Year-to-date deposits on equipment and infrastructure targeted to be installed in Q4 2021 and Q1 2022 pertaining to the Company’s core business of approximately $32.8 million.
• During November, the Company received 2,700 new, technologically advanced, high-performance M30 Bitcoin miners (the “Miners”) for use in its mining operations.
• The Company’s current hashrate is approximately 415PH and is expected to increase to approximately 1.2EH by the end of Q1 2022.
Bitcoin Mining Update
For the eleven-month period ended November 30, 2021, the Company’s mining fleet produced 459.10 BTC, with production broken down as follows:
• Quarter 1, 2021: 105.26 BTCJanuary: 33.70February: 35.02March: 36.54
• Quarter 2, 2021: 109.97 BTCApril: 37.52May: 34.26June: 38.19
• Quarter 3, 2021: 133.02 BTCJuly: 51.28August: 44.07September: 37.67
• Quarter 4, 2021 (through November 30, 2021): 110.85 BTCOctober: 41.84November: 69.01
Year-Over-Year Monthly Comparison
The Company mined approximately 42.86 more BTC in November 2021, compared to November 2020, representing an increase of approximately 164%. Using the November 30, 2021 and the November 30 2020 closing BTC prices (per CoinDesk) plus the increase in BTC mined in November 2021, the value of the Company’s BTC mined in November 2021 increased by approximately $3.4 million, or 671% over November 2020.
Figure 1. Year-over-year Monthly BTC Production
[["", "", "", ""], ["", "Nov-20", "Nov-21", "MoM Increase"], ["Mined BTC", "", "26.15", "", "69.01", "42.86"], ["Approximate BTC value", "$19,626", "$57,350", "$37,724"], ["Value", "$513,619", "$3,957,724", "$3,444,504"], ["", "", "", ""]]
Month-Over-Month Comparison
The Company mined an additional 27.17 BTC during November 2021 compared to October 2021, representing an increase of 65%. Based on November 30, 2021 and October 31, 2021 closing BTC prices plus the increase in BTC mined in November, the value of the Company’s BTC mined in November increased by approximately $1.4 million, or 54%, month over month.
Figure 2. Month-over-month BTC Production
[["", "", "", ""], ["", "Oct-21", "Nov-21", "MoM Increase"], ["Mined BTC", "", "41.84", "", "69.01", "27.17"], ["Approximate BTC value", "$61,319", "$57,350", "($3,969)"], ["Value", "$2,565,587", "$3,957,724", "$1,392,137"], ["", "", "", ""]]
Corporate Updates for November 2021:
• The Company’s strategic co-mining agreement with Bit Digital USA, Inc (“BTBT) (Nasdaq: BTBT) is in process, with expected completion of the deployment of BTBT miners in Digihost’s premises by the end of Q2 2022.
• A portion of the Miners received during Q4 2021 are related to the Company’s Miner Lease Agreement with Northern Data, NY LLC., pursuant to which the parties have agreed to split a portion of the mining rewards received and energy costs incurred for the Miners put in service pursuant to that lease agreement.
• The Company has been nominated for the DCD Global Awards 2021 Carbon Champion Award. This global award is given every year to the company or companies deploying the most innovative solutions to growing digital infrastructure with energy aware and innovative approaches. Digihost’s facility has been participating in demand response programs in New York, and the Company is pleased to report that, over the May 2019-June 2021 participation season in the demand response programs, the Company has avoided nearly 150 metric tons of marginal CO2, with just 29 hours of demand response participation. This is the equivalent of mitigating 164.4 tons coal burning avoidance or sequestering 182 acres of U.S. forests for one year. Digihost’s site reduced marginal carbon emissions by 5.1 tons per hour of demand response participation – the equivalent of 5,637 tons of coal burned per hour. The analysis was conducted by CPower Energy Management in partnership with WattTime, which uses Automated Emissions Reduction software intelligence to help end users shift the timing of flexible electricity use to sync with times of cleaner energy and avoid times of dirtier energy.
• Pursuant to its March 24, 2021 press release in which the Company announced that it had signed a binding agreement for the purchase of a 60 MW power plant located in the State of New York, Digihost is currently awaiting final Public Service Commission approval of the transaction.
Management Commentary
Michel Amar, the Company’s CEO, stated: “November proved to be an extremely productive month for our mining division, as we increased our Bitcoin production by 54% over the prior month. This was the single highest amount of Bitcoin produced by the Company in any given month in the Company’s history, and, with shipments of our previously purchased miners accelerating over the coming months, we expect our Bitcoin production to become even greater as we continue to scale.”
About Digihost Technology Inc.
Digihost is a growth-oriented blockchain technology company primarily focused on Bitcoin mining. Through its self-mining operations and joint venture agreements, the Company is currently hashing at a rate of approximately 415PH with plans to expand to a hashrate of 3.6 EH by the end of 2022.
For further information, please contact:
Digihost Technology Inc.www.digihost.caMichel Amar, Chief Executive OfficerEmail:michel@digihostblockchain.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 news release.
Forward-Looking Statements
Except for the statements of historical fact, this news release contains “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 U.S. and Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information in this news release includes information about hashrate expansion, diversification of operations, potential further improvements to profitability and efficiency across mining operations, potential for the Company’s long-term growth, and the business goals and objectives of the Company. Factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those described in such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: continued effects of the COVID19 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; the ability to establish new facilities for the purpose of cryptocurrency mining; receipt of Public Service Commission approval or other regulatory or board approvals; the ability to establish new facilities for the purpose of research & development; a decrease in cryptocurrency pricing, volume of transaction activity or generally, the profitability of cryptocurrency mining; delivery of mining rigs for self-mining and for hosting may not be realized in the number anticipated, or at all, or on the schedule anticipated, and resulting hashing power may materially differ from that anticipated; further improvements to profitability and efficiency may not be realized; the digital currency market; the Company’s ability to successfully mine digital currency on the cloud; 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 Annual Information Form 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: the current 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 on the cloud 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. Except as expressly required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, changed circumstances or future events or for any other reason. || Rogers Communications Posts Lower Profit in Q3: Rogers Communications ( RCI.B ) revenue was flat in the third quarter of 2021, but its profit fell from a year ago as the pandemic continues to dampen growth. Total revenue came in at C$3.7 billion in the quarter ended September 30, flat from a year ago. Cable and Wireless Services revenue both grew by 3% in the quarter. Media revenue decreased by 3%. Profit amounted to C$490 million (C$0.94 per share), compared to a profit of C$512 million (C$1.01 per share) in Q3 2020. On an adjusted basis, Rogers earned C$1.03 per share in the third quarter, down 5% from C$1.08 per share a year ago. The Toronto-based company was expected to earn C$1.02 in adjusted EPS on C$3.7 billion in revenue, according to financial data firm Refinitiv. Rogers added 175,000 new wireless postpaid subscribers, 17,000 new Internet subscribers, and 64,000 net Ignite TV subscribers during the quarter. Rogers president and CEO Joe Natale said, "Our Rogers team delivered strong results in the third quarter led by an ongoing recovery in our wireless business. Each of our businesses is benefitting from the ongoing opening of the economy, and we expect to maintain this momentum as we finish the year. "Throughout the pandemic, we have continued to make significant investments in our customers and Canada, which has positioned us well to drive sustainable long-term growth. As we come together with Shaw, we will build on this foundation to bring next-generation connectivity to communities across Western Canada, helping to create jobs, attract investment, and increase economic growth." Rogers announced a deal earlier this year to buy Shaw Communications ( SJR.B ) in a deal valued at C$26 billion. (See Insiders’ Hot Stocks on TipRanks) On October 12, BMO Capital analyst Tim Casey reiterated a Buy rating on the stock while lowering its price target to C$83.67. This implies 37.1% upside potential. Casey stated that the "abrupt" departure of the company's chief financial officer, Tony Staffieri, and the weekend's discussion in The Globe and Mail about the chairman's unsuccessful attempt to oust his CEO reflects its "boardroom drama." Casey added that Rogers' acquisition of Shaw Communications offers compelling industry rationale, and will double Rogers' wireline assets, but his lower price target is driven by the company's "elevated risk premium." Overall, the consensus is that RCI.B is a Strong Buy, based on seven Buys. The average Rogers Communications price target of C$76.24 implies upside potential of about 24.9% to current levels. Story continues Related News: CGI Buys Cognicase Management Consulting CGI Partners with BMO, National Bank of Canada TD: Many Canadian Parents Have Bad Budget Habits More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: HP Provides Fiscal 2022 Guidance & Raises Dividend; Shares Rise 5% CleanSpark Adds 2,250 Bitcoin Miners; Shares Rise 5.8% Biogen Posts Q3 Beat and Raises Guidance Lam Research Drops 2.6% as Q1 Revenue Disappoints View comments || ZoidPay Chrome Extension Lets Shoppers Buy with Crypto on Amazon, eBay and 40M+ Online Retailers: The ZoidPay Chrome extension will allow users to spend their cryptocurrencies on products, pay subscriptions, and even book flights with 40+ million online retailers. Featured Image for ZoidPay Featured Image for ZoidPay Featured Image for ZoidPay BUCHAREST, Romania, Oct. 19, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ZoidPay has announced the launch of its Chrome Extension, allowing millions of users to shop using various cryptocurrencies with all online merchants across the world. Shop Easier than Ever Before The ZoidPay Chrome Extension is platform agnostic, letting shoppers connect to it using any digital wallet. Currently being rolled out in phases, the Chrome Extension will be available globally by November 2021. It promises to bridge the gap in making crypto adoption mainstream. Users can choose from any major cryptocurrency to make payments for their purchases on Walmart, Alibaba, MediaMarkt, Lazada, and eMag to name a few. Through the Chrome Extension, ZoidPay offers instant liquidity of up to $1 billion for crypto assets per day. Eduard Oneci, CEO and Co-founder at ZoidPay, stated: "Our Chrome Extension is unlike any other product in the market. It truly lets one shop anything from anywhere using their digital assets. When we started this journey nearly 3 years ago, we were fixated on building a platform that makes crypto usage seamless and secure. The Chrome Extension manifests this vision." Made for Crypto & Non-Crypto Users Be it a user familiar with cryptocurrencies or one who's not yet ventured there, the Chrome Extension promises a seamless experience. With easy onboarding, (including KYC) the Chrome Extension gets users ready to shop from over 40 million retailers across the world in a matter of minutes. Additionally, it offers instant liquidity for most major crypto assets, independent of the wallet used. With the Chrome Extension, ZoidPay has introduced a liquidity solution that lets all users shop anything from anywhere using crypto. Cashback, Staking, Loans & Much More Whether users are buying the latest iPhone 13 Pro Max, paying their Netflix subscription, or getting ready to book their next holiday trip, cashback is guaranteed on all crypto purchases with Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, and most major cryptocurrencies. All cashback is instant and paid in ZoidPay's native token ZPAY , directly into the user's wallet. Story continues Eduard continued: "Be it a regular crypto holder or even a user who's never dealt with cryptocurrencies before, the Chrome Extension promises a hassle-free journey. Beyond the ease of use and safety, the benefits that come from shopping with the Chrome Extension are unlimited. For a start, every purchase made comes with a reward in the form of cashback." The Chrome Extension comes packed with staking and other DeFi integrations, creating a unique, personalized user experience. From staking ZPAY in shopping pools, getting loans, and paying in installments at merchants, the Chrome Extension becomes a one-stop secure shop for all crypto and non-crypto users. Crypto Adoption 2.0 There have always been questions about the accessibility, safety, and efficiency of using cryptocurrencies for online shopping. With the launch of the Chrome Extension, ZoidPay has taken a major leap in its vision of making cryptocurrency easily accessible for daily use. Consumers can finally use their crypto to buy products, pay subscriptions and even buy tickets with the groundbreaking new Chrome Extension . ZoidPay Socials Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Telegram | Linkedin Media Contact Details Contact Email : hello@zoidpay.com ZoidPay is the source of this content. This Press Release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. Related Images Image 1 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com . Attachment Featured Image for ZoidPay || Direxion Files for Short Bitcoin Futures ETF: Exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer Direxion wants to short the price of a bitcoin futures contract. According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, the Direxion Bitcoin Strategy Bear ETF will maintain short exposure to bitcoin futures contracts issued by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The product wont directly invest in bitcoin. Shorting is a bet that the price of something in this case, bitcoin futures contracts will go down over a certain period of time. The ETF might also invest in other bitcoin futures ETFs or money market funds, deposit accounts or short-term debt instruments. The fund will generally maintain its short exposure to bitcoin futures during periods in which the value of bitcoin is flat or declining as well as during periods in which the value of bitcoin is rising, the filing said. This is Direxions first bitcoin ETF filing in three years, after the SEC rejected past efforts. Direxion isnt the only issuer hoping to put a creative spin on bitcoin futures ETFs. On Tuesday, Valkyrie Investments filed to offer an ever-so-slightly leveraged bitcoin futures ETF. Valkyrie was one of two firms to launch the first bitcoin futures ETF products last week. Although the SEC has proven receptive to a narrow class of bitcoin ETFs after years of stonewalling it has not yet weighed in on these more ambitious follow-ups. The agency has 75 days to respond before Direxions ETF would automatically take effect. || 34 Stocks Moving In Monday's Mid-Day Session: Gainers
• Valneva SE(NASDAQ:VALN) shares jumped 34.6% to $37.75 after the company reported VLA2001 met both co-primary endpoints in the Phase 3 pivotal trial Cov-Compare.
• Greenpro Capital Corp.(NASDAQ:GRNQ) rose 23.2% to $1.1008 after jumping around 19% on Friday.
• Peabody Energy Corporation(NYSE:BTU) gained 20.5% to $19.24. Peabody said it sees preliminary Q3 sales of $670 million to $690 million.
• Aerovate Therapeutics, Inc.(NASDAQ:AVTE) shares climbed 19.8% to $16.93 after declining around 19% on Friday.
• Evolving Systems, Inc(NASDAQ:EVOL) gained 19.2% to $2.67 after the company announced it will sell its activation and marketing businesses to PartnerOne Capital for $40 million.
• MeiraGTx Holdings plc(NASDAQ:MGTX) surged 18.2% to $16.88.
• Progenity, Inc.(NASDAQ:PROG) gained 17.3% to $2.5109. Benzinga recently highlighted stock as a top 5 short squeeze candidate.
• Centrus Energy Corp.(NYSE:LEU) gained 15.2% to $56.97.
• InMed Pharmaceuticals Inc.(NASDAQ:INM) shares rose 14.3% to $1.60. InMed Pharmaceuticals recently announced completion of BayMedica acquisition.
• FuelCell Energy, Inc.(NASDAQ:FCEL) shares rose 14.2% to $8.44.
• TORM plc(NASDAQ:TRMD) gained 13.6% to $9.16.
• BTCS Inc.(NASDAQ:BTCS) surged 13.2% to $6.69.
• DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.(NYSE:DV) gained 12.5% to $35.72. Barclays maintained DoubleVerify with an Equal-Weight and lowered the price target from $42 to $37.
• Amplitude, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMPL) jumped 11.8% to $62.61.
• Agile Therapeutics, Inc.(NASDAQ:AGRX) rose 11.4% to $0.8468. The company said Executive Edelman Joseph bought 8.42 million shares at average price of $0.58.
• Ardmore Shipping Corporation(NYSE:ASC) gained 10.8% to $4.30.
• Macy's, Inc.(NYSE:M) surged 9.3% to $26.28. Jana Partners LLC, an activist investment firm founded by hedge fund executive Barry Rosenstein, has taken a stake in Macy’s and has called on the company’s leadership to spin off its e-commerce operations.
• Riot Blockchain, Inc.(NASDAQ:RIOT) gained 8.7% to $30.28 amid a weekend increase in the price of Bitcoin.
• COMSovereign Holding Corp.(NASDAQ:COMS) gained 5.6% to $1.23 after the company announced its RF Engineering & Energy Resource unit received Google's "Android TV Operator Tier" certification for its new IPTV device.
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• Cullinan Oncology, Inc.(NASDAQ:CGEM) dropped 15.2% to $21.20. Cullinan Oncology named Nadim Ahmed as Chief Executive Officer.
• Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.(NASDAQ:IONS) fell 14.7% to $29.94. Ionis Pharmaceuticals recently highlighted topline results from its tofersen Phase 3 study and its open label extension in SOD1-ALS at the American Neurological Association Meeting.
• Latch, Inc.(NASDAQ:LTCH) dipped 14.5% to $9.34. Goldman Sachs downgraded Latch from Buy to Neutral and lowered the price target from $16 to $10.
• Zillow Group, Inc.(NASDAQ:Z) shares fell 9.7% to $85.54. After buying more than 3,800 homes in the second quarter, Zillow Group has announced that it will make no further purchases for the rest of the year, according to a report from Bloomberg.
• Synaptogenix, Inc.(NASDAQ:SNPX) tumbled 9.1% to $10.86.
• Salem Media Group, Inc.(NASDAQ:SALM) fell 8.5% to $3.1921.
• Flywire Corporation(NASDAQ:FLYW) dropped 7.2% to $48.10.
• Cemtrex, Inc.(NASDAQ:CETX) fell 6.2% to $1.05 after gaining over 8% on Friday.
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Stock Market Today: Dow Leads Broad-Market Rally as Boeing Soars: boeing 737 aircraft Getty Images Investors returned to a buying mood following two days of sharp selling, fueling a broad rally that saw every sector close in the green. Wall Street's mood brightened Thursday after Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), said Wednesday that vaccines would likely provide some protection against the omicron variant of COVID-19. SEE MORE 12 Best Materials Stocks to Buy for 2022 Also in focus was this morning's weekly jobless claims report, which showed initial applications for unemployment rose to 222,000 Thanksgiving week – climbing off the 52-week low of 194,000 hit in the week prior, but below the 240,000 claims expected by economists. And notably, the number of people already collecting jobless benefits fell below 2 million for the first time since the week ended March 14, 2020. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. Financials (+3.0%) and industrials (+3.0%) were two of the biggest gainers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average led the other major indexes, surging 1.8% to 34,639 amid strength from Boeing ( BA , +7.5%). The aerospace giant jumped on news that Chinese regulators have given approval for Boeing's 737 Max to resume flights – the last major market to do so. The S&P 500 Index (+1.4% to 4,577) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.8% to 15,381) finished notably higher as well. stock price chart 120221 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 surged 2.7% to 2,206. U.S. crude futures rose 1.4% to settle at $66.50 per barrel. Gold futures retreated 1.2% to end at $1,762.70 an ounce. Bitcoin rose 0.6% to $57,022.10. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.) Kroger ( KR , +11.0%) was a big winner post-earnings – good news for the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio . The grocery chain reported higher-than-expected adjusted earnings of 78 cents per share in its third quarter, while revenue of $31.9 billion also surpassed analysts' consensus estimate. KR also upped its full-year earnings per share forecast to a range of $3.40 to $3.50 versus its prior guidance for earnings of $3.25-$3.35 per share. Still, CFRA Research analyst Arun Sundaram kept a Sell rating on Kroger. "KR has performed better than we anticipated since our downgrade earlier this year, partly due to robust eating-at-home trends and rising food prices, but also admittedly from strong execution amid a volatile operating environment," he wrote in a note. "That said, we continue to question the sustainability of recent results, particularly if the top line loses momentum due to inflation receding or volumes declining. Other headwinds include higher shrink/wastage, price investments, wage pressures, higher warehousing/transportation expenses and rising competition Snowflake ( SNOW ) – another Warren Buffett stock – also got a lift after earnings, spiking 15.9%. In its third quarter, the cloud-based data platform recorded adjusted earnings of 4 cents per share on revenues of $334.4 million, both more than analysts were expecting. A major contributor to total revenues was the company's product revenues, which jumped 110.4% year-over-year to $312.5 million. "We see a long trajectory of rapid revenue increases for the next few years fueled by an IT shift to a cloud-centric model, digital transformation, and higher spend on machine learning (ML) and data science," says Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron, who has an Outperform (Buy) rating on the stock. Story continues "Get Ready for Accelerated Disruption" So says RBC Capital Markets' directors of research in their latest research report "Preparing for Hyperdrive," which explores investing trends. Among the five themes they see playing out? There's "The Quest for Immortality," in which numerous factors, from biopharmaceutical innovations to space exploration , extend human life expectancy. SEE MORE Can AI Beat the Market? 10 Stocks to Watch There's also "Artificial Intelligence Activated," in which artificial intelligence becomes an increasingly critical part of most businesses – which brings with it opportunities, but also risks. One business that seems to have a role across multiple themes is the cybersecurity industry , which will become increasingly critical to governments and corporate entities alike as the world's digital transformation continues. But many who want to participate balk at the high nominal stock prices in the industry – not a hurdle for all, but certainly for beginner investors and others with little capital to work with. Here, we've analyzed an accessible trio of cybersecurity stocks – each of which have glowing prospects, and each of which trade for less than a hundred bucks per share. SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions Dividend Increases: 14 Stocks That Have Doubled Their Payouts Should You Take an Extra Big RMD This Year? || WonderFi Listed on FTX to Provide 24/7, Global Access to Trading: Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 24, 2021) - WonderFi Technologies Inc. (NEO: WNDR) (OTC PINK: WONDF) (WKN: A3C166) (the "Company" or "WonderFi") today announced the listing of tokenized shares of WonderFi on FTX, a leading global cryptocurrency exchange, founded by Sam Bankman-Fried.
"WonderFi is a strategic partner of FTX and we are extremely pleased to list WonderFi's stock and provide the world with greater access to an emerging leader in the crypto and decentralized finance space", commented FTX CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. "In many countries, investors don't have easy access to North American securities markets or, if they do, it can be very costly. You don't see 24/7 access to most stock markets but FTX's markets are always open."
WonderFi's tokenized shares will commence trading on FTX on November 24, 2021 under the ticker WNDR.
"Not only does our FTX listing provide global access to WonderFi's stock, it also provides FTX's millions of users with the ability to invest in WonderFi through BTC, ETH and other cryptocurrencies", commented WonderFi CEO Ben Samaroo. "This means that people without a bank account can invest in WonderFi."
Additional InformationFor additional information, please contact:
WonderFi Technologies Inc.Ben Samaroo, CEOben@wonder.fi(778) 843-9637
Investor Relations Contact:invest@wonder.fiMedia Contact:press@wonder.fi
ABOUT WONDERFI
WonderFi is a leading technology company with the mission of creating better access to DeFi through the core principles of simplicity and education. WonderFi has a multi-pronged business strategy which includes a high-growth consumer finance app which will serve as a trusted gateway to the new financial system, and a digital asset portfolio which consists of leading crypto and DeFi assets. WonderFi's executive team and Board of Directors have an established track record in finance and crypto, with previous experience at Amazon, Shopify, PayPal, Galaxy Digital, Hut 8 and BIGG Digital. WonderFi's core team of engineers and technologists believe that everyone should have equal access to finance, and are aligned in the mission to empower people around the world to access DeFi in a simple, smart and secure way. For more information, visitwww.wonder.fi.
Forward-Looking Information and Statements
This press release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and may also contain statements that may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are not representative of historical facts or information or current condition, but instead represent only the Company's beliefs regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of the Company's control. Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated", or variations of such words. The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained herein may include, but are not limited to, information concerning:the listing of WonderFi's tokenized shares on FTX.
By identifying such information and statements in this manner, the Company is alerting the reader that such information and statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such information and statements. In addition, in connection with the forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release, the Company has made certain assumptions. Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information and statements are the following: the ability of the Company to work effectively with strategic investors; and changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets, changes in applicable laws, and compliance with extensive government regulation. Should one or more of these risks, uncertainties or other factors materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking information or statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein.
Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information and/or forward-looking statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. All subsequent written and oral forward- looking information and statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf is expressly qualified in its entirety by this notice.
Neither NEO Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the NEO Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/104953 || Bitcoin tumbles 5.5% to $53,436: (Reuters) - Bitcoin plunged 5.5% to $53,435.9 at 22:04 GMT on Friday, losing $3,112.06 from its previous close.
Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, is down 22.6% from the year's high of $69,000 on Nov. 10.
Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, dropped 6.81% to $4,208.68 on Friday, losing $307.35 from its previous close.
(Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 47672.12, 47243.30, 49362.51, 50098.34, 46737.48, 46612.63, 48896.72, 47665.43, 46202.14, 46848.78
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2021-01-20]
BTC Price: 35547.75, BTC RSI: 56.74
Gold Price: 1865.90, Gold RSI: 49.92
Oil Price: 53.24, Oil RSI: 69.70
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Ukraine Oligarch’s Troubled US Steel Plant Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin: Report: A supposedly shuttered U.S. steel plant owned by Ukrainian billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky is said to have been mining bitcoin. Kolomoyskyy, one of the most influential people in Ukraine with net worth of $1.1 billion , is the former owner of PrivatBank, a major privately owned bank in the country. He was also governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region until 2015. His Calvert City, Ky.-based CC Metals & Alloys steel plant has been hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and corruption allegations against Kolomoisky were filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. The facility closed and let staff go this summer, but “every few months, it re-ignited the furnaces and urged the workers to return,” Radio Liberty reported Monday. Related: WEF, Mining Giants Develop Blockchain Platform for Tracking Carbon Emissions The only activity continuing at the plant is the production of bitcoin , employees told the multimedia broadcaster. The sources said one of the warehouses is filled with mining equipment, though it’s not clear how many devices are on site and of what type or brand. Kolomoisky and his partner Gennady Bogolyubov bought the plant plant in 2011 for $188 million as a part of a plan to build their metal business in the U.S., which grew to seven plants across five states. The holding firm, Optima Specialty Steel, filed for bankruptcy in 2016 and ownership of the plant passed to another firm, Georgian American Alloys, of which Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov are beneficiaries, according to a court document . Further adding to their woes, the U.S. Department of Justice this year accused Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov of buying real estate and businesses in the U.S. for money misappropriated from PrivatBank from 2008 to 2016. The DOJ alleges the partners had “obtained fraudulent loans and lines of credit” from the bank before it was nationalized by the National Bank of Ukraine in 2016. Related: Meet the 19-Year-Old Ukrainian Lawmaker With Millions in Monero Story continues See also: A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day They “created a web of entities, usually under some variation of the name ‘Optima,’ to further launder the misappropriated funds and invest them,” the DOJ said. Related Stories Ukraine Oligarch’s Troubled US Steel Plant Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin: Report Ukraine Oligarch’s Troubled US Steel Plant Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin: Report || Elon Musk Calls Bitcoin 'BS' In Tawdry Tweet, Causes 20% Dogecoin Surge: What Happened: Elon Musk has commented on the rapidly increasing price of Bitcoin and, shall we say, how it affects ones ability to concentrate. pic.twitter.com/EbOjGshvrq Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2020 He added that he thinks Bitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money. Bitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2020 Musk later also tweeted in support of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency he has supported before. The cryptocurrency went up by 20% after that, according to TradingView. One word: Doge Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2020 Why It Matters: The Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA ) and SpaceX founder has a history of poking fun at cryptocurrencies. He previously said he owned "only 0.25 bitcoins" in a conversation with a Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling on Twitter. And in July, Musk tweeted about Dogecoin, jokingly calling himself a former Dogecoin CEO in his bio. The digital currency rose by 14% in a matter of hours. Price Action: Bitcoin was trading at $23,720 as of about noon on Sunday, EST. It briefly surpassed the $24,000 level on Saturday for the first time in its history. Dogecoin was trading at $0.00444. Photo source: everipedia.org See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Bitcoin Price Briefly Touches ,000 As Bitcoin Again Surpasses K, Analysts Eye K-Level © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hits $40K Again While Ether Volume Is Erupting This Year: After closing out last week at over $40,000 on Sunday, bitcoin hit that price again Thursday while traders are pushing ether volumes to new liquidity levels.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $39,318 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 8.5% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $36,125-$40,066 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC above the 10-hour and 50-hour moving averages on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin’s price was back tobull modeThursday, steadily climbing to as high as $40,066, according to CoinDesk 20 data. It’s a reversal from this week’s bearish-to-sideways action, with the world’s oldest cryptocurrency at $39,318 as of press time.
Read More:Bitcoin Bounces, Options Market Sees 20% Chance of $50K at Month’s End
Related:First Mover: Biden's $1.9T Plan Shows 'Blue Wave' Bitcoiners Saw Coming
“Bitcoin passing $40,000 was seen by many as inevitable, and reaching this level is just the continuation of a trend of smart money continuing to buy even as traders with less conviction shake out during sell-offs,” Guy Hirsch, managing director for U.S. at multi-asset brokerage eToro, told CoinDesk. The last time bitcoin was over $40,000 in the spot markets was Sunday, Jan. 10,prior to a precipitous fall opening the week.
“Institutions are still buying up BTC in huge quantities,” said cryptocurrency over-the-counter trader Alessandro Andreotti. “I think this rally can continue as before, but it’s too early to call.”
In the derivatives market, funding rates are still in positive territory, signalling that leveraged traders are more than willing to pay up to pile more margin on long plays, according to data aggregatorSkew.
“High volatility is having little impact on risk appetite,” noted Denis Vinokourov, head of research at crypto brokerage Bequant. “Recent success in these opportunistic and somewhat ambitious market bets is also likely driving herd-like behavior.”
Related:Biden's $1.9T Relief Package Proposal Fails to Stir Bitcoin Market
Indeed, volatility is high in the bitcoin market: The cryptocurrency’s 30-day realized volatility was at over 89% Wednesday, the highest it has been since April 17, 2020, when that metric was at 92% in the early days of coronavirus-induced turmoil across all markets.
Analysts don’t expect volatility in the cryptocurrency market to abate, which can actually be good for traders but can be horrendous for long-term investor balance sheets, particularly institutional funds with limited partners to whom they must answer.
“People need to understand that bitcoin is a hyper-asset with a built-in steam engine that is explosive up and down,” noted over-the-counter crypto trader Henrik Kugelberg. “With all the money printing and the sad developing spread of COVID-19 throughout the world, widespread agonizing economic hardship and a few more factors spell advantage to bitcoin.”
Chad Steinglass, head of trading for digital assets capital markets firm CrossTower, agrees gyrations in crypto will continue. “I believe that the trend of bull runs briefly interrupted by short duration profit taking dips will continue for the foreseeable future.”
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Thursday, trading around $1,210 and climbing 8.5% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
In 2020,ether volumeson the eight major CoinDesk 20 spot exchanges averaged $231 million per day. In 2021 so far, those volumes are up almost twelvefold, averaging $2.7 billion per day.
Brian Mosoff, chief executive officer of investment firm Ether Capital, noted decentralized finance, or DeFi, as a spark leading to volumes beginning to rise in 2020. For 2021, Mosoff cites the ongoing bull run and new derivatives tools coming online for traders.
Read More:Paxos Makes Fresh Push for DeFi Market With New Oracle Integration
“Although 2020 ended in a bull market, the first half of the year saw the ETH prices average just a couple hundred dollars and a lack of positive sentiment due to the prolonged bear market and then COVID-19,” Mosoff said. ”Adding fuel to the fire, 2021 has kicked off with the continuation of the crypto bull and the pending launch of the CME futures and institutions waking up to the narrative around Ethereum’s value proposition.”
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mixed Thursday, mostly in the green. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• bitcoin cash(BCH) + 8%
• chainlink(LINK) + 7.6%
• litecoin(LTC) + 5.4%
Notable losers:
• xrp(XRP) – 3.3%
• 0x(ZRX) – 3.2%
• stellar(XLM) – 0.60%
Read More:Sci-Hub Leaves Handshake Blockchain After 2 Days, Citing Centralization
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day in the green 0.85%,led by Japanese machinery order numbers that were higher than anticipated, signaling economic recovery.
• In Europe the FTSE 100 closed climbing 0.84% ascoronavirus vaccination deployments across the continent boosted sentiment.
• In the United States, the S&P 500 slipped 0.38%while investors took a wait-and-see approach on the details of incoming President Joe Biden’s economic stimulus plan.
Commodities:
• Oil was up 1.4%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $53.59.
• Gold was in the green 0.12% and at $1,847 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Thursday jumping to 1.126 and in the green 3.6%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hits $40K Again While Ether Volume Is Erupting This Year
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hits $40K Again While Ether Volume Is Erupting This Year || Crypto Long & Short: How Bitcoin Development Is Evolving – And What’s Behind It: Today I want to talk about code. I know, this newsletter is for professional investors and not developers – why aren’t we talking about price? Don’t worry, we will further down. But things are evolving with Bitcoin technology that are worth keeping an eye on. While these changes have little to do with the short-term price movements, they are likely to play a significant role in bitcoin’s long-term value proposition. Two things happened this week to make this top of mind: a new development funding source was announced, and progress is being made on a particularly ambitious protocol upgrade. Related: Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin All-Time High Puts It on Pace for Highest Monthly Close Before we go into more detail about why these are significant, let’s look at why Bitcoin development matters. Constant evolution The idea of changes to the Bitcoin protocol will be surprising to many. I mean, doesn’t it just, you know, work ? Isn’t one of its strengths that you can’t change the code? These highlight two misunderstandings about the technology and its potential. Bitcoin’s code has been chugging along for over 10 years now, but it has undergone a few changes. In the early days, there were frequent bugs that Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto and collaborators would fix. And old-timers will remember the “civil war” of 2017 around various scaling options that went to the heart of what the community wanted Bitcoin to be. The result was a change to the Bitcoin code to amplify block capacity, while dissenting opinions branched off to form a “new” Bitcoin blockchain, Bitcoin Cash. There’s also steady work on functionality enhancements, such as enabling sidechains or smoothing information exchange. And compatibility issues and other minor bugs require constant attention. Like all technologies, if Bitcoin is not maintained and frequently updated, it will wither. Story continues Related: First Mover: You Call That a Record? Bitcoin's November Gains Are 3x Stock Market's As for how changes happen, anyone can make changes to Bitcoin’s code – it’s open source. Getting the changes implemented, however, requires network consensus, and that is extremely difficult to achieve. Imagine trying to get 20 people with different philosophies, political convictions, economic incentives and life goals to agree on a simple change. Now, multiply that by hundreds if not thousands, make the changes complicated, and you get an inkling of how hard it would be to implement a meaningful alteration. This protects the network from any change other than those the majority believe are beneficial to the entire ecosystem. Incentives matter An important question is, who pays the developers that work on Bitcoin code? In the early days of the Bitcoin network, almost all developer funding came from one source, the Bitcoin Foundation. Since then, other funders have entered the scene, including several companies dedicated to Bitcoin work, such as Blockstream, Chaincode Labs and Lightning Labs. Also involved are well-known crypto businesses such as Square Crypto , Coinbase , OKCoin , BitMEX and others, as well as not-for-profit organizations such as MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative and the Human Rights Foundation . In addition, many developers work on Bitcoin for free, out of passion. Diversity in the backers of Bitcoin development matters, as it ensures that the network cannot be influenced by one set of priorities. This is why the Brink initiative announced this week is significant: It pushes the diversity of Bitcoin development even further. Brink introduces an intriguing funding model. It aims to channel donations to developers from a range of sources, including individuals, companies and not-for-profits. Its initial funding comes from donations from investor John Pfeffer and crypto custodian Xapo founder Wences Casares, as well as the Human Rights Foundation and crypto platforms Kraken, Gemini and Square Crypto. This form of sponsorship could be appealing to individuals and companies that want to support Bitcoin development but don’t want to have to choose specific individuals to fund. The organization has applied for the charitable 501(c)(3) designation in the U.S. so donations can be tax-exempt. Another big step is Brink’s focus on training new developers, to ensure a steady stream of qualified and diverse contributors well into the future. This bodes well for the network’s long-term resilience and growth. Next upgrade The second significant news item of the week highlighting the importance of the underlying technology concerns the Taproot upgrade, which will enhance the network’s smart contract functionality as well as introduce some privacy features. Bitcoin mining pools representing over 54% of the network’s current hashrate have signaled support. This is a strong step towards implementation (although there is yet some way to go – no change to the network is without controversy, no matter how popular the actual change is.) This is significant not just because of the specific changes Taproot will introduce. It also shows that Bitcoin’s use cases are constantly evolving, and that itself is a value proposition. In other words, if you think Bitcoin is a powerful technology now , just wait. As an example of how Taproot could influence bitcoin’s value, let’s look at what smart contract functionality means. Bitcoin’s program is relatively simple. It can do few things, but it does them well. Ethereum, on the other hand, is complex, but it can support the execution of a wide range of “smart contracts,” or decentralized applications. While Bitcoin will never rival Ethereum in flexibility (nor does it want to – the more complex the program, the greater the potential attack surface), some modest improvements could improve its utility as a store of value. For instance, imagine that accountability of ownership could be programmed to enable bitcoin to be more effectively used as collateral. They could also enhance its use as a medium of exchange. A proposed new type of verification signature could make layer 2 transactions easier and cheaper. Taproot also introduces some features that could encourage more use by masking the type of transaction (not its send/receive addresses), which would offer more privacy. Looking ahead While it is convenient to think of Bitcoin as a perpetual machine that just keeps running, we shouldn’t lose sight of the work involved in making that so. The more developers working on keeping Bitcoin clean and efficient, the more resilient the protocol, and the more likely it is that key improvements can be implemented carefully. And the more diverse those developers are in terms of backgrounds and incentives, the less likely it becomes that Bitcoin could fall into the same trap as many of today’s technology networks: built by a few, for a few. It’s also moving to see such a wide range of contributors involved in maintaining a “common good,” even though a direct path to profit is not clear. This is about more than open-source tinkering. It’s about building a new system that all involved believe is an answer to fundamental questions the world is just now waking up to. Time to serve This week U.S. President-elect Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate former Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen to head the U.S. Treasury, and may name former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Gary Gensler to become deputy treasury secretary, according to reports. Treasury appointments are significant for the crypto industry in that the department could shape how some of the main U.S. financial regulators approach crypto assets. Yellen has said in the past that she is not a fan of bitcoin (my colleague Nik De has summarized her views here ) but supports blockchain and cryptocurrency innovation. Gensler has demonstrated deeper expertise and enthusiasm. He testified before Congress about cryptocurrency and blockchain on multiple occasions, pushing back against comparisons with Ponzi schemes and declaring that the still-unlaunched libra token met the requirements of being a security under U.S. law. Late last year, he even wrote an op-ed for CoinDesk. Gensler is currently heading up Biden’s financial oversight transition team, which also includes four other cryptocurrency and blockchain experts: Chris Brummer is a law professor and the faculty director of Georgetown University’s Institute of International Economic Law, author/editor on a seminal book on cryptoassets , and host of the excellent Fintech Beat podcast . He also testified before the U.S. Congress regarding the libra project, and was nominated to serve as a commissioner on the CFTC under President Obama, although the nomination was reversed after the 2016 election. Simon Johnson is an economist and professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he supervised blockchain research and taught a course on the topic. He was part of the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Economic Advisers from April 2009 to April 2015. Johnson has also co-authored a paper about the extensive impact blockchain technology can have on the financial world, and served on CoinDesk’s advisory board, penning this op-ed in 2018. Mehrsa Baradaran, a University of California at Irvine School of Law professor, specializes in banking law and also testified as an expert witness at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the impact of digital currencies on financial inclusion, and at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on regulatory frameworks . Lev Menand, one of the original creators of the digital dollar concept, is an academic fellow and law professor at Columbia University. He served as a senior adviser to the deputy secretary of the treasury in 2015-16, has also worked as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s bank supervision group, and helped with a provision detailing the digital dollar in crisis relief bills from the House of Representatives drafted back in March. Having stewards of U.S. currency regulation that are well-informed about cryptocurrency and blockchain is encouraging because it makes innovation-killing regulation less likely. Furthermore, official support for the exploration of new solutions to financial barriers, including blockchain-based assets, is likely to encourage both progress on regulatory clarity, and further investment in the crypto industry as a whole. However, a statement from current U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin offset the resulting market optimism, triggering concern that onerous rules might be pushed through from his office before the end of the year. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s recent book revealed that President Trump had instructed Mnuchin to “go after” bitcoin . And earlier this year, Mnuchin said that FinCEN, the nation’s financial crimes watchdog, was preparing to roll out some “significant new requirements” around cryptocurrencies. So, some innovation-killing regulation may get rushed through before the transition. Crypto exchange Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted this week that he’d heard rumors Treasury was planning to rush out regulation limiting the use of self-hosted cryptocurrency wallets. This would be bad news for crypto asset use cases such as decentralized finance and merchant applications, and would put U.S. cryptocurrency users in a “walled garden,” effectively negating its core value of resistance to censorship and seizure. It would also force many users to go “offshore” for such services, weaking both the protective oversight from U.S. regulators and the role of the U.S. as a financial innovation hub. Anyone know what’s going on yet? The S&P 500, Nasdaq and even the FTSE 100 saw further gains this week, which I still find bewildering. It looks like I’m not the only one: The European Central Bank , International Monetary Fund and Federal Reserve have all warned this month about shocks to the market should the coronavirus situation continue to worsen. And it looks like it is doing just that, given the latest confirmed case statistics. The latest news on vaccination progress is hopeful, yet expectations are likely to be disappointed by logistical complications and revised efficacy estimates , and the markets seem to be pricing in a strong economic recovery in the short term. A lot can happen to delay that recovery, and not just further surges as Thanksgiving and Christmas throw us together and winter temperatures push us indoors. There’s also the looming possibility of a hard Brexit, which will hit both the U.K. and Europe. That doesn’t mean that markets won’t keep at the laughing gas, though. If there’s bad news, the belief seems to be that governments will support the markets. If there’s good news, then obviously it’s not discounted. Obviously. Gold also defied expectations this week, dropping to its lowest point since July as ( according to analysts ) investors decided now was a good time to move into risk assets and double down on the economic recovery bet. Yes, you read that right. Bitcoin, which at times trades with gold and at times trades as a risk asset, continued to soar, reaching an annual high of almost $19,375 and only just depriving an expectant crypto community from a new all-time-high (ATH) celebration. (According to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index, the ATH is $19,783. Here is a good explanation of why there is confusion over what the ATH actually is.) The bitcoin price started to correct early on Wednesday, and once the U.S. markets closed for the Thanksgiving holiday the correction turned into a rout , unwinding its gains for the past 10 days (at time of writing – at this pace, things could have radically changed by the time you read this). CHAIN LINKS In searching for the reasons behind the recent bitcoin run-up (before this week’s slump), many pointed fingers at the institutions. While we have been hearing for years now about the fabled institutional “wall of money” poised to rush in and push BTC prices to stratospheric levels, there are some signs that institutional interest is growing. The CIO of Fixed Income of BlackRock , the largest investment manager in the world, said on CNBC last week that bitcoin could take the place of gold to a large extent, because crypto is “so much more functional than passing a bar of gold around.” According to two Form D filings, Galaxy Digital ’s bitcoin funds raised $58.7 million in their first year, with $55 million flowing into an institution-focused fund. Analysts pointed out that most of the trading volume occurred in U.S. hours . The past three 8-K filings for Grayscale Investments (owned by DCG, also the parent of CoinDesk) show new accredited investor inflows of over $823 million. (Source: FactSet) In a recent investment note, JPMorgan speculates that bitcoin’s failure to revert to its mean price in recent weeks is a sign that momentum traders such as commodity trading advisers (CTAs) have had a shrinking role in the market relative to institutions. Zerohedge shared a chart that shows that Deutsche Bank includes bitcoin in the asset groups its research team follows for investors. The demand growth is not just coming from institutions: According to Marcus Swanepoel, CEO of crypto exchange Luno (owned by DCG, also parent of CoinDesk), retail trading volumes from South Africa, Malaysia, Nigeria and Indonesia have trebled over the past month. Dan Morehead, CEO and founder of fund manager Pantera Capital, believes that PayPal is behind the rally, buying almost 70% of new bitcoin supply on behalf of its retail users. In an interview on CNBC, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said he believes bitcoin’s usefulness as a currency will ultimately prevail over the buy-and-hold ethos. TAKEAWAY: He has invested his company’s money in these beliefs, promising PayPal users the ability to use cryptocurrencies in approximately 28 million businesses as of early next year. While many of us will splutter and say “but who would want to spend a store of value?!,” we should remember that some regions don’t have access to convenient payment rails. For many, cryptocurrencies may be a more convenient online payment method than fiat. And the applications that could be built on top of public blockchains to enhance this could end up supporting both innovation and cryptocurrencies’ overall value. U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase no longer allows margin trading, in response to recent regulations by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. TAKEAWAY: This is a setback for institutional participation on Coinbase – institutions want leverage, and will move to where they can get it. In this compelling article, my colleague Ian Allison looks at the emergence of a strong bitcoin mining industry in North America, encouraged by the access to capital markets, regulatory stability and the relatively low energy and hosting costs. TAKEAWAY: This is significant for two main reasons: 1) the diversification of the mining base strengthens the protocol’s resilience against political interference, and 2) the enhanced access to capital markets is likely to encourage even more investment in network maintenance. The greater the number of miners working on maintaining the network, the greater its security. New York-based investment management firm VanEck has launched a bitcoin exchange-traded-note on the Deutsche Boerse Xetra. TAKEAWAY: This will be the third exchange-traded product to list on Xetra, one of the largest electronic trading platforms in Europe, with a broad international reach ( around 50% of its trading participants are from outside Germany). Diversity of choice is good for both investors and market maturity. Canada-based investment firm Cypherpunk Holdings (listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange with the very cypherpunk-ish symbol of “HODL”) has sold its positions in monero and ether and increased its bitcoin holding by almost 280%. TAKEAWAY: I do not have insight into their reasoning. I share this news with you because the strong bitcoin conviction demonstrated by this change, combined with the hint in their ticker symbol, is interesting. Related Stories Crypto Long & Short: How Bitcoin Development Is Evolving – And What’s Behind It Crypto Long & Short: How Bitcoin Development Is Evolving – And What’s Behind It || Cryptocurrency Is Not Necessarily the Future: (Bloomberg Opinion) -- As Bitcoin soared to above $28,000 over the weekend, talk resumed about the promising and dramatic future of cryptocurrency. The chief global strategist of Morgan Stanley Investment Management even suggested that Bitcoin could replace the dollar as a global reserve currency. Cryptocurrency serves some useful purposes. But there are some pretty wild speculations going around. One of the more fundamental problems is that crypto assets can be either useful hedges, or useful forms of payment — but not easily both. There is a demand for a non-intermediated, direct payment asset, and crypto can serve that function. That is why stablecoins, such as crypto assets pegged to the dollar, have proven of enduring interest. People want to transfer something dollar-denominated but with crypto-like features. Yet the very stability of these coins means they have to create institutional layers to preserve their value. For the foreseeable future, the institutions building dollar-linked stablecoins will be riskier, less transparent and more difficult to deal with than the dollar-based system itself, including the surrounding banks. If you hold or trade with a stablecoin, you incur several risks. First, the stablecoin peg to the dollar may someday be broken, an old problem with pegged exchange rates that Milton Friedman often warned about. Second, to the extent stablecoins and other crypto assets become a major part of the financial system, they will attract more regulatory interest. That in turn will limit many of their advantages over the traditional bank sector. The U.S. government does not want a financial system that evolves outside the purview of the Federal Reserve, FDIC and other regulatory institutions. Third, the formal banking sector will improve, for instance by moving to more rapid clearing, or by introducing electronic reserve currencies. With the latter, you could transfer your electronically-based dollars within the accounting system of the central bank, and achieve a non-intermediated transfer without resorting to crypto. It is not obvious that crypto will be the market winner once more mainstream institutions learn some lessons from the success of crypto. Story continues Alternatively, consider crypto assets, such as Bitcoin or ether, which are not pegged to major national currencies. They are useful hedges and speculation vehicles, but you probably would not want to use them as your dominant means of purchase. If they can go up in value so rapidly, they can fall too, sometimes precipitously. That’s OK if you’re using crypto assets for a modest portion of your purchases. But it’s too risky to make them the bulk of your checking and savings accounts. The dollar, euro or, for that matter, the Mexican peso are not nearly so volatile. Imagine that virtual reality takes off, and there are economies inside virtual reality, spanning many nations. A crypto asset might be a more convenient means of payment within those networks than the dollar, if only because of the cumbersome reporting requirements for larger dollar transfers. Still, the motive for using that same crypto asset to purchase your next Toyota, or to borrow from your bank to start a restaurant, is less than clear. Some enthusiasts postulate a world where crypto transactions are not transparent to governments, allowing buyers and sellers to live outside the tax system. Such anonymity is technologically possible, and the current black- and grey-market uses of crypto (for instance, getting funds out of China) are likely to continue. But if most of your economic life is in the physical world, and if you own wealth within a country, such as real estate and registered equity shares, the idea that you would be able to evade most taxes is a myth. If anything, the trend is for major technology companies to cooperate with tax collection, and at any rate governments can always change from taxing transactions to taxing wealth. Crypto tax evasion is better suited to be a fringe rather than mainstream endeavor. The recent run-up in crypto values seems to be driven by the possibility that major corporations will start adding them to their balance sheets. If you imagine crypto being treated like gold, and constituting say half of a percent of many balance sheets, that would imply a high price for the major crypto assets. Yet these corporations will want institutionalized, mainstream crypto assets, and they will not mind the notion of more heavily regulated crypto assets and crypto-linked financial institutions. The more utopian scenarios for crypto, whether proponents realize it or not, rely on the notion that crypto remains simultaneously fringe and mainstream. That will be a hard trick to pull off. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University and writes for the blog Marginal Revolution. His books include "Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero." For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. ©2020 Bloomberg L.P. || HIVE Blockchain Announces Private Placement of Convertible Debentures: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / December 24, 2020 / HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (TSX.V:HIVE)(OTCQX:HVBTF)(FSE:HBF) (the “Company” or “HIVE”) is pleased to announce, subject to regulatory approval, that it intends to complete a non-brokered private placement (the “ Transaction ”) of unsecured debentures (the “ Debentures ”), for aggregate gross proceeds of USD$15,000,000 with U.S. Global Investors, Inc. (“ U.S. Global ”). The Debentures will mature on the date that is 60 months from the date of issuance, bearing interest at a rate of 8% per annum. The Debentures will be issued at par, with each Debenture being redeemable by HIVE at any time, and convertible at the option of the holder into common shares (each, a “ Share ”) in the capital of the Company at a conversion price of CAD$3.00 per Share. Interest will be payable monthly and principal will be payable quarterly. In addition, U.S. Global will be issued 5.0 million common share purchase warrants (the “ Warrants ”). Each whole Warrant will entitle U.S. Global to acquire one common at an exercise price of CAD$3.00 per Share for a period of three years from closing. The Company intends to use the proceeds from the Transaction for general corporate purposes and working capital. Mr. Frank Holmes, Interim Executive Chairman of HIVE, commented, “The Transaction is an excellent opportunity for HIVE to enhance liquidity, maintain momentum and deploy capital into additional miners and infrastructure. U.S. Global has recently sold shares of HIVE in order to redeploy capital back into HIVE. No shares have been sold by me personally. The purchase of an 8% debt instrument by U.S. Global is consistent with its investment criteria and assists HIVE by providing working capital for its growth strategy. The financing is being completed without the usual 6% broker fees, and the cost of capital is much less than the 16% cost of capital associated with leasing equipment for crypto mining.” Story continues The issuance of the Debentures is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval and is expected to close on or about December 31, 2020. The issuance of the Debentures to U.S. Global Investors, Inc. is considered a related party transaction within the meaning of TSXV Policy 5.9 and Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (“ MI 61-101 ”) as Frank Holmes, Interim Executive Chairman of HIVE is a director, officer and controlling shareholder of U.S. Global Investors, Inc. HIVE intends to rely on the exemptions from the formal valuation and minority approval in sections 5.5(b) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 in respect of the Company not listed on specific markets and the Transaction fair market value not exceeding 25% of the Company's market capitalization. The Transaction was approved by the independent directors of HIVE and U.S. Global Investors, Inc. The Company expects to file a material change report in respect of the related party transaction less than twenty-one days prior to the closing of the Transaction, which the Company deems reasonable in the circumstances as the details of the Transaction and the participation by U.S. Global Investors, Inc. were not settled until shortly before the expected closing of the Transaction and the Company wished to complete the Transaction in an expeditious manner. 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 visit www.HIVEblockchain.com . Follow @HIVEblockchain on Twitter and subscribe to HIVE's YouTube channel . On Behalf of HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. “Frank Holmes” Interim Executive Chairman For further information please contact: Frank Holmes Tel: (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. The information in this news release about future plans and objectives of the Company, are forward-looking information; and the intentions, plans and future actions of the Company, including the intention to complete the Offering and the expected expenditure of the proceeds of the Offering, and the Company's objectives, goals or future plans as well as the Company's ability to successfully mine digital currency, the construction and operation of expanded blockchain infrastructure, and the regulatory environment of cryptocurrency in the United States and other jurisdictions where the Company may operate . 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: the COVID 19 crisis; the transaction described in this news release may not occur on the terms as proposed and described herein or at all and, if such transaction is completed, the cryptocurrency operation may not meet expected performance levels for one or more reasons; the proposed transaction may not have a positive impact on HIVE's revenues, or gross mining margin; the impact of new electrical power rates which could impair profitability and operating performance; the operation of the acquired assets 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; the volatility of digital currency prices; the Company may never realize more efficient operations, a lower cost structure, or greater flexibility in operation; risks relating to the global economic climate; dilution; and other related risks as more fully set out in the Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations for the year ended March 31, 2020, and other documents disclosed under the Company's filings at www.sedar.com . The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of the Company's normal course of business. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information . The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward -looking information other than as required by law. SOURCE: Hive Blockchain Technologies Ltd View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/622263/HIVE-Blockchain-Announces-Private-Placement-of-Convertible-Debentures || 'No ones losing bitcoin anymore': bitcoin bull Mike Novogratz: Bitcoins ( BTC-USD ) spectacular rise over the past year has been fueled in part by the idea that theres a limited supply of the cryptocurrency. The maximum number of coins, derived through mining, is 21 million, with more than 18 million currently in circulation. But a significant number of them may be lost, never to be accessed, leaving their original holders unable to cash in on untold millions in profits. Our estimate is 3 million were lost, Michael Novogratz, founder and CEO of crypto asset manager Galaxy Digital, told Yahoo Finance Live. Access to bitcoin requires a digital key that only the holder possesses. If the key is lost, the bitcoin wallet cant be accessed. When bitcoin was one cent or four cents or 20 cents, people didnt take it that seriously, said Novogratz. Most of the lost bitcoins arent happening today...They happened right at the early onset of this thing. The New York Times recently told the stories of several individuals who lost their passkeys , including the chief technology officer of crypto company Ripple. The price has soared despite a pullback to around $36,000 from a high of nearly $42,000 in the past week, it has still more than quadrupled in the past year. That means fewer people are making that mistake. No ones losing bitcoin anymore, Novogratz said. That means supply is even more constrained. Bitcoin, recall, was conceived as a decentralized currency, outlined in a white paper by someone called Satoshi Nakamoto . Ledger Wallet, a cryptocurrency hardware wallet, at the DeeCrypto retail store selling cryptocurrency mining equipment by such brands as Bitmain, GPU, KeepKey, Embedded Downloads LTD, Ledger, etc. Artyom Geodakyan/TASS (Photo by Artyom Geodakyan\TASS via Getty Images) As Novogratz pointed out, bitcoin has also traveled some ways from its original conception in another key way as well: few people use it for transactions. One reason I never thought bitcoin would be a currency: fixed supply currencies dont work. Theyre too easily squeezed, they go up in price by definition as more and more people enter the ecosystem. We dont want to buy shoes one day with something thats worth $1 and worth $2 the next day. Rather Novogratz said, bitcoin is a store of value. He says coins-as-currency will be left to the likes of Facebooks Diem coin, formerly called Libra. Julie Hyman is the co-anchor of Yahoo Finance Live, weekdays 9am-11am ET . Read more of Yahoo Finances crypto coverage: Bitcoin bull who sees price hitting $500,000 is bullish on Biden's expected SEC pick || U.S. Global Investors Announces It Has Realized Substantial Gains in Its Investment Portfolio: San Antonio, TX, Dec. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- U.S. Global Investors, Inc. (NASDAQ: GROW ) (the Company), a boutique registered investment advisory firm with longstanding experience in global markets and specialized sectors, is pleased to announce that it has recently sold 10 million shares of HIVE Blockchain Technologies (TSX.V: HIVE ) (OTCQX:HVBTF) (HIVE), locking in substantial gains. HIVE is the worlds first publicly-traded firm involved in the business of mining new cryptocurrencies. The Company also announces that it plans to reinvest the proceeds from the sale back into HIVE via a private placement of unsecured convertible debentures, subject to regulatory approval by the TSX Venture Exchange. HIVE Shares Sold by U.S. Global Investors Frank Holmes, the Company CEO and Interim Executive Chairman of HIVE, comments: U.S. Global Investors has recently sold shares of HIVE with the goal of redeploying capital back into HIVE. No shares have been sold by me personally, despite reports to the contrary. My personal ownership of HIVE stock is completely separate from the Companys, and any reports that suggest I sold my holdings were made erroneously. I continue to believe strongly in the long-term vision of HIVE, and Im excited to remain a part of its unique story. By repositioning our investment in HIVE, we seek to continue participating in the crypto-mining ecosystem while lowering much of the volatility of our investment portfolio. Two years ago, a change was made to how we record unrealized gains and losses of certain corporate investments, such that our equity position in HIVE often swung our net income dramatically quarter-to-quarter. Obviously debt securities such as convertible debentures come with their own risks, but historically theyve been less volatile than stocks. Its important for investors and traders to manage their expectations, as every asset class has its own DNA of volatility. Bitcoin and Ethereum are extremely volatile, which is reflected in HIVEs stock price since it mines both coins. HIVE is the most liquid crypto-mining stock, and yet its still more volatile than a highly disruptive mega-cap stock like Tesla. Story continues Redeploying Capital Back Into HIVE The Company locked in gains of approximately $18 million after selling the 10 million shares of HIVE. Fifteen million dollars of this is expected to be put toward the private placement, if approved by regulators. The debentures are expected to mature 60 months following the date of issuance, bearing interest at a rate of 8% per year, paid monthly. They are also expected to be issued at par, with each one being redeemable by HIVE at any time, and convertible at the option of the Company into common shares in the capital of HIVE at a conversion price of C$3.00 per share. In addition, the Company is expected to be issued 5 million common share purchase warrants. Each whole warrant should entitle the Company to acquire one common share in HIVE at a price of C$3.00 for a period of three years from closing. This transaction could be a win-win for the Company as well as HIVE, Mr. Holmes says. HIVE would be given working capital to enhance liquidity and maintain momentum in acquiring application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips while upgrading and expanding its graphics processing unit (GPU) chip production to mine Ethereum, while the Company would receive a convertible debt instrument yielding 8%. We anticipate the financing to be completed without the usual 6% broker fees, and the cost of capital for HIVE is much less than the 16% cost of capital associated with leasing equipment for crypto mining. All publicly-traded crypto-mining firms have increased by triple digits or more this year, but only HIVE mines Ethereum and Bitcoin, both of which had a phenomenal fourth quarter and 2020. In this high-price environment, many crypto miners, HIVE included, have been expanding their operations, a positive sign of whats to come. HIVEs daily trading volume has increased substantially in 2020, making it an attractive crypto stock for investors who also favor liquidity. In December 2020, through the 29th, HIVE traded more than 302 million shares, almost 30% more than the previous month and 678% more than the same month a year earlier. For the year through December 29, HIVE traded a total of 1.7 billion shares. In Canada alone. HIVE trades in three countries and has traded over 2 billion shares this year. #### About U.S. Global Investors, Inc. The story of U.S. Global Investors goes back more than 50 years when it began as an investment club. Today, U.S. Global Investors, Inc. ( www.usfunds.com ) is a registered investment adviser that focuses on niche markets around the world. Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, the Company provides money management and other services to U.S. Global Investors Funds and U.S. Global ETFs. 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 center facilities in Canada, Sweden and Iceland which produce newly minted digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum continuously on the cloud. Its deployments provide shareholders with exposure to the operating margins of digital currency mining as well as a portfolio of crypto-coins. Frank Holmes has been appointed non-executive chairman of the Board of Directors of HIVE Blockchain Technologies. Both Mr. Holmes and U.S. Global Investors own shares of HIVE. Effective 8/31/2018, Frank Holmes serves as the interim executive chairman of HIVE. The S&P 500 Stock Index is a widely recognized capitalization-weighted index of 500 common stock prices in U.S. companies. Standard deviation is a measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is also known as historical volatility. Holdings may change daily. Holdings are reported as of the most recent quarter-end. The following securities mentioned in the press release were held by one or more accounts managed by U.S. Global Investors as of 9/30/2020: Tesla, Inc. Attachment volatility CONTACT: Holly Schoenfeldt U.S. Global Investors, Inc. 2103081268 hschoenfeldt@usfunds.com || 8 Stocks To Play Bitcoin's Resurgence: The price of Bitcoin is up over 150% in 2020 and the cryptocurrency has seen a resurgence in popularity, discussion and price. Investors seeking exposure to Bitcoin without purchasing the cryptocurrency through a wallet could consider these seven stocks that are involved with Bitcoin. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust: There is no ETF for Bitcoin in the United States, but the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC: GBTC ) is the first publicly quoted Bitcoin investment option for investors. Investors can buy shares of the trust in most eligible tax accounts like IRAs. The fund charges an annual fee of 2%, which is the premium investors pay for this pure-play exposure to Bitcoin. Related Link: Will Bitcoin Reach 0,000 By 2025? MicroStrategy: A new way to get exposure to Bitcoin is by investing in MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR ). The business intelligence company shifted to Bitcoin as its primary treasury for cash. The company bought $425 million worth of Bitcoin in the third quarter. MicroStrategy held 38,250 Bitcoin as of Oct. 26, which is worth more than $725 million. Citron Research recently turned from bear to bull on Bitcoin and called MicroStrategy the best way to invest in the cryptocurrency. Riot Blockchain: One of the pure-play companies in the Bitcoin sector is Riot Blockchain Inc (NASDAQ: RIOT ). In the first nine months of 2020 , cypto mining revenue was up 21% year-over-year to $6.7 million. The company also improved margins in 2020. A total of 730 Bitcoin were mined in the first nine months of 2020. By June 2021, Riot says it will have 22,640 miners. From July to November of 2020, Riot received over 3,000 miners. Hive Blockchain: Another pure-play mining option for investors is Hive Blockchain Technologies (OTC: HVBTF ). Along with Bitcoin, the company is a major player in the Ethereum mining as the only public company producing Ethereum on an industrial scale. Hive reported record second-quarter revenue of $13 million. The company mined 32,800 Ethereum, 88,300 Ethereum Classic Coins and 89 Bitcoin in the second quarter. Story continues Hive acquired a new data center in Canada to boost production. The company has also locked in 50% of its calendar 2021 energy cost at a low rate in Sweden. Marathon Patent Group: A newer Bitcoin pure-play company is Marathon Patent Group (NASDAQ: MARA ), which is investing in mining equipment to focus on Bitcoin. Third-quarter revenue increased 160% year-over-year for the company with revenue of $835,000. For the first nine months of the year, Marathon had revenue of $1.7 million. The company has invested over $72 million in mining equipment and had 2,600 miners as of September. The company plans to have 23,560 miners in operation by the second quarter of 2021. Paypal: Digital payments company Paypal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL ) is increasing its exposure to Bitcoin. Paypal is allowing users to buy, sell and hold the cryptocurrency. In 2021, over 18 million merchants will also be able to accept Bitcoin as a payment option and won’t have to worry about the price risk with the transaction converting to currency. Square: In October, Square Inc (NYSE: SQ ) announced it was investing $50 million into Bitcoin. The move by the company helped its third-quarter earnings . Bitcoin revenue for its Cash App rose 1,100% year-over-year in the third quarter with revenue of $1.63 billion. The revenue from the cryptocurrency surpassed all other sources of revenue for the app. Bitcoin revenue made up over half of the company’s $3 billion third-quarter total. Visa: Payments company Visa Inc (NYSE: V ) is pushing into the Bitcoin market. The company announced plans to offer the Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card. Instead of offering travel miles or cashback, users of the card will earn 1.5% of purchases back in Bitcoin. The company is offering $250 in Bitcoin as a bonus for customers who spend $3,000 in their first three months. The card comes with a $200 annual fee and is expected to launch in 2021. Kroger: Retailer Kroger Co (NYSE: KR ) is another way for users to get rewarded with Bitcoin for everyday purchases. The retailer is offering 1.5% back in Bitcoin to customers who shop at Kroger, including delivery and pick-up orders. The reward is done through Lolli, a cryptocurrency company backed by Ashton Kutcher and Peter Thiel. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Bitcoin To 0,000? Fund Manager Cathie Wood Thinks It Could Happen © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Holding at $18K; Active Ethereum Addresses up 140% in 2020: Bitcoin is struggling to make gains as an expected low-volume weekend could push price further down. Meanwhile, the increasing number of active Ethereum addresses this year is a testament to the network’s growth.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $18,019 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 2% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $17,593-$18,404 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC slightly above its 10-hour moving average but below the 50-hour on the hourly chart, a sideways signal for market technicians.
The price of bitcoin fell to as low as $17,593 Friday, according to CoinDesk 20 data. The price has recovered somewhat, hovering around $18,000 territory, and was at $17,962 as of press time.
Read More:Bitcoin Whales Buy Low, Sell High; Retail Investors Chase Rallies: Data
Related:First Mover: Horrible 2020 Economy Proved Best Thing for Bitcoin
“BTC looks like it lost momentum,” said Misha Alefirenko, co-founder of VelvetFormula, a digital asset liquidity provider. “If buyers are not stepping in soon, we may see a testing of the $16,400-$16,900 range over the weekend.”
Friday is shaping up to be a better day in terms of volume at over $1 billion total for the eight major exchanges tracked by the CoinDesk 20 as of press time. Thursday’s figure was $965 million. However, weekends almost always have lower volume, such as last weekend’s $578 million daily average, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
“It’s a fairly balanced market at the moment, with the fresh inflows from institutional money met with profit taking from some existing large players as well as increased miners’ hedging,” noted Jean-Marc Bonnefous, partner at investment firm Tellurian Capital.
Read More:MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin-Driven Offering Boosted to $650M
Related:Mergers Position Yearn Finance as the Amazon of DeFi
The derivatives market is also a factor, according to Bonnefous. “There is a big concentration around the $16,000 strike for the BTC options expiry on 25th December, which acts as a polarizing target short term,” he said. The $16,000 strike is the third-most popular strike point in the bitcoin options market, based on data from aggregator Skew.
“We are now seeing public companies like MicroStrategy using leverage to acquire a larger position in bitcoin,” said Michael Gord, chief executive officer of quant crypto firm Global Digital Assets.
December doldrums may continue, but many analysts are hyped up about bitcoin’s potential in 2021. “Next year, as annual budgets reopen, I expect a huge surge in demand to enter the industry from enterprises and institutional investors,” Global Digital Asset’s Gord said.
“Macro matters and, in particular, risks surrounding Brexit may rattle equity markets and result in the U.S. dollar potentially strengthening,” said Denis Vinokourov, head of research for crypto brokerage Bequant. Equity markets are down globally Friday on some macroeconomic uncertainty.
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed in the red 0.40%,led lower by losses in SoftBank Group, which fell 4.7% in Japan on Friday.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe ended the day slipping 0.80% asBrexit negotiations closed in on a key deadline, leaving investors to sell on the uncertainty.
• The S&P 500 in the United States dipped 0.13% asinvestors remain unsure regarding the potential for government stimulus to help boost the economy.
“But given bitcoin and broader digital assets this year in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic and U.S. elections, expect bitcoin to show a similar amount of resilience,” added Vinokourov.
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was down Friday, trading around $548 and slipping 3.1% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
The number of active addresses on the Ethereum network has increased to 379,249 as of Dec. 10 from 158,039 on Jan. 1, a 140% increase.
Bequant’s Vinokourov told CoinDesk this data, in addition to metrics showing the movement of Ethereum users from centralized exchanges (CeFi) to decentralized exchanges (DeFi), is a huge liquidity opportunity for token economies within that ecosystem.
Read More:This One Graph Shows Ether Going From CeFi to DeFi: Glassnode
“The amount of gas fees spent on ETH deposits to centralized exchanges has fallen to less than 1%, as of Dec. 9, from around 26% in late October 2017, according to Glassnode data,” Vinokourov noted. “There is plenty of liquidity in the market. As such, DeFi tokens look particularly attractive even with the recent downside.”
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly red Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• cosmos(ATOM) + 2.6%
• kyber network(KNC) + 1.1%
Notable losers:
• stellar(XLM) – 5.1%
• litecoin(LTC) – 4.4%
• chainlink(LINK) – 4.3%
Commodities:
• Oil was down 0.82%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $46.57.
• Gold was in the green 0.14% and at $1,838 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield fell Friday dipping to 0.890 and in the red 1.3%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Holding at $18K; Active Ethereum Addresses up 140% in 2020
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Holding at $18K; Active Ethereum Addresses up 140% in 2020
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 30825.70, 33005.76, 32067.64, 32289.38, 32366.39, 32569.85, 30432.55, 33466.10, 34316.39, 34269.52
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-08-20]
BTC Price: 10763.23, BTC RSI: 50.31
Gold Price: 1504.60, Gold RSI: 68.06
Oil Price: 56.34, Oil RSI: 52.11
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
BIG Blockchain Intelligence Group provides update on acquisition of Netcoins Operations: Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 9, 2019) - BIG Blockchain Intelligence Group Inc. (CSE: BIGG) (OTC Pink: BBKCF) (WKN: A2JSKG) ("BIG" or the "Company") wishes to provide an update on its proposed acquisition of the Netcoins operations. On May 27, 2019, the Company announced that it had entered into a definitive share purchase agreement (the "Agreement") with Netcoins Holdings Inc. (CSE: NETC) (the "NETC") whereby BIG will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of its three subsidiary companies - Netcoins Inc., NTC Holdings Corp., and NTC Holdings USA Corp. (collectively, "Netcoins") by issuing 37,500,000 common shares (the "Payment Shares") to NETC at a deemed price of $0.08 per Payment Share (the "Transaction"). The business of BIG and Netcoins are highly complementary, and the Transaction is expected to create value for shareholders in both the near and long-term. It offers BIG an opportunity to step into the world of cryptocurrency trading, in an immediately operational capacity. Netcoins has over 171,000 retail locations globally, a self-serve crypto purchase portal and an institutional over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk. Natural synergies include the integration of BIG's sophisticated compliance and analytics services into Netcoin's offerings, which should serve to propel its retail and institutional trading platforms in particular. As a ground-floor entrant into the cryptocurrency space, BIG's aggregated knowledge and experience accumulated over several turbulent years has led to the determination that the time is right for consolidation within the cryptocurrency market, and the belief that additional opportunities will open up for a larger, stronger and more diversified combined company. BIG's focus will continue to be on capturing and building out a strong position in the vast market opportunity offered by the emerging cryptocurrency sector. With wider adoption of cryptocurrency underway, the groundswell movement to introduce and implement regulation and controls to safeguard investors will continue to grow - spurred on by the entry of global corporations into the sector. Recent news of Facebook partnering with other industry giants to launch Libra, a digital coin intended to simplify online payments and purchases, and of banking behemoth JP Morgan's impending release of the JPM coin, will likely have the effect of driving forward regulation while simultaneously adding legitimacy to the sector. Story continues As it looks to fulfill its mandate of bringing cryptocurrency mainstream through it's "compliance first" approach, BIG will seek to reduce transactional risk across a broader base - one that includes regulators, compliance experts, law enforcement, institutional traders, and the public at large. The cryptocurrency market is evolving quickly, with Bitcoin continuing to lead the way. After the highs of late 2017 and depths of the 2018 crypto winter, BIG anticipates this next phase will see a more mature Bitcoin that has stronger fundamentals with growth attributable to the entry of financial institutions into the sector. BIG has long believed in the enduring nature of Bitcoin. Prior to the most recent price escalation, the Company added to its BTC holdings, more than doubling its investment. It now holds 56.59 BTC at an average cost of USD$5,070 (CAD$6,819) per coin. At today's BTC price of roughly USD$12,500 (CAD$16,500), its BTC holdings are valued at USD$707,000 (CAD$933,700), with unrealized gains of approximately USD$420,000 (CAD$548,000). Completion of the Transaction remains subject to certain closing conditions and obtaining all necessary approvals, including the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") and the approval of NETC shareholders and other conditions which are customary for transactions of this nature. Closing of the proposed Transaction is now expected to be on or about July 31, 2019. On behalf of the Board, Shone Anstey Executive Chairman About Netcoins Netcoins is in the business of developing software to make the purchase and sale of cryptocurrency easily accessible to the mass consumer and investor through brokerage services. About BIG Blockchain Intelligence Group Inc. BIG Blockchain Intelligence Group Inc. (BIG) brings security and accountability to the new era of cryptocurrency. BIG has developed from the ground up a Blockchain-agnostic search and analytics engine, QLUE TM , enabling Law Enforcement, RegTech, Regulators and Government Agencies to visually trace, track and monitor cryptocurrency transactions at a forensic level. Our commercial product, BitRank Verified®, offers a "risk score" for cryptocurrency, enabling RegTech, banks, ATMs, exchanges, and retailers to meet traditional regulatory/compliance requirements. Our Forensic Services Division brings our team of investigative experts into action for cryptocurrency investigations that require in-depth expertise and experience, either in conjunction with or supplemental to our user-friendly search, risk-scoring and data analytics tools. Based on industry demand, we created our Cryptocurrency Training Academy ( www.CryptoInvestigatorTraining.com ) to help Law Enforcement, the Financial Sector and Regulators learn how to bring security and accountability to cryptocurrency; our Cryptocurrency Investigator Certification Course is a one-stop solution to understanding the world of cryptocurrency, how to reduce associated risk, and investigate cryptocurrency crime. About BitRank Verified ® BIG developed BitRank Verified® to be the industry gold standard in ranking and verifying cryptocurrency transactions. BitRank Verified® offers the financial world a simple risk score, enabling consumer-facing bank tellers, exchanges, eCommerce sites and retailers to know whether a proposed transaction is safe to accept, questionable, or should be denied. BitRank Verified® and its API are custom tailored to provide the RegTech sector with a reliable tool for meeting their regulatory requirements while mitigating the risk of money laundering or other criminal activities. About QLUE TM QLUE (Qualitative Law Enforcement Unified Edge) enables Law Enforcement, RegTech, Regulators and Government Agencies to literally "follow the virtual money". QLUE incorporates advanced techniques and unique search algorithms to detect suspicious activity within cryptocurrency transactions (Bitcoin, Ethereum), enabling investigators to quickly and visually trace, track and monitor transactions in their fight against terrorist financing, human trafficking, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, child pornography, corruption, bribery, money laundering, and other cyber crimes. About the Crypto Fusion Center BIG created the Crypto Fusion Center (CFC) to serve as a community resource dedicated to fighting the criminal use of cryptocurrencies. The CFC's mission is to maintain and promote the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies while protecting the market as a whole by identifying and isolating criminal events as they occur. The CFC enables entities in all sectors to notify major participating exchanges, financial institutions, and law enforcement agencies in a timely manner when cryptocurrency thefts occur. The CFC is a direct result of BIG's greater mission of bringing cryptocurrencies mainstream through social responsibility. Entities interested in learning more about the Crypto Fusion Center or considering participating in the community can visit the CFC here: https://cryptofusioncenter.com/ About Our Expert Training We offer custom on-site and 24/7 online training, enabling Law Enforcement, the Financial Sector and Regulators to understand cryptocurrency risk and successfully investigate suspicious activity. Our in-person, on-site training solutions are designed to fit our clients' scheduling, location and learning needs. Through our online Cryptocurrency Training Academy ( www.CryptoInvestigatorTraining.com ), clients can take our Cryptocurrency Investigator Certification Course to earn their Certified Cryptocurrency Investigator credential from BIG to validate their new knowledge. About Our Forensic Services Division Our Forensic Services Division provides Law Enforcement, Financial institutions and Regulators with expert support to help trace, track and monitor illicit activity involving cryptocurrencies. Our services range from quick and simple due diligence case reviews, to providing in-depth forensic support for ongoing investigations, and providing expert witness testimony from unbiased third-party investigators. BIG Investor Relations Anthony Zelen D: +1-778-819-8705 email: anthony@blockchaingroup.io For more information and to register to BIG's mailing list, please visit our website at https://www.blockchaingroup.io/ . Follow @blocksearch on Twitter . Or visit SEDAR at www.sedar.com . Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which include completion of the search technology software and other matters. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such information can generally be identified by the use of forwarding-looking wording such as "may", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intend", "believe" and "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, estimates, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not occur. These assumptions, risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the state of the economy in general and capital markets in particular, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of BIG. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because BIG can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from BIG's expectations include, consumer sentiment towards BIG's products and Blockchain technology generally, technology failures, competition, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, BIG disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additionally, BIG undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made by, third parties in respect of the matters discussed above. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/46174 || EOS Falls 12% In Bearish Trade: Investing.com - EOS was trading at $3.8687 by 12:19 (16:19 GMT) on the Investing.com Index on Tuesday, down 12.45% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage loss since July 14.
The move downwards pushed EOS's market cap down to $3.7553B, or 1.37% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, EOS's market cap was $17.5290B.
EOS had traded in a range of $3.8500 to $4.3554 in the previous twenty-four hours.
Over the past seven days, EOS has seen a drop in value, as it lost 31.38%. The volume of EOS traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $1.8707B or 2.71% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $3.8500 to $5.9128 in the past 7 days.
At its current price, EOS is still down 83.16% from its all-time high of $22.98 set on April 29, 2018.
Bitcoin was last at $9,952.2 on the Investing.com Index, down 6.46% on the day.
Ethereum was trading at $208.80 on the Investing.com Index, a loss of 10.28%.
Bitcoin's market cap was last at $181.9944B or 66.60% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while Ethereum's market cap totaled $22.9261B or 8.39% of the total cryptocurrency market value.
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Cardano Falls 10% In Bearish Trade || Iran Bitcoin Miners Set Up Shop in Mosques Amid Gov’t Crackdown: Iranian bitcoin (BTC) miners are moving into mosques as the government launches an energy crackdown, social media users revealed on June 25. Iran, which offers free energy to mosques, now has around 100 miners occupying places of worship, generating much-needed income of around $260,000 a year. “This money goes a long way in Iran’s choked sanctioned economy,” Oxford University researcher Mahsa Alimardani explained on Twitter. Despite its increasingly troubled economic situation, Iran remains uncoordinated when it comes to cryptocurrency policy. Last year, the central bank officially forbade lenders from servicing crypto businesses, at the same time as officials said they would consider launching their own digital token. Now, after bitcoin mining allegedly contributed to a 7% spike in power consumption in June, 1,000 miners have been seized, Cointelegraph reported on Tuesday. “Two of these bitcoin farms have been identified, with a consumption of one megawatt,” Reuters additionally quoted Arash Navab, an official from the energy industry in Yazd province, as telling state television. Tehran had previously recognized domestic cryptocurrency mining as an industry. As Cointelegraph reported , the majority of bitcoin mining now uses sustainable energy sources, while separate research tackles claims the process is environmentally damaging. This week, a U.S. company committed to building a solar-powered farm which will become the largest in North America when it starts operating in California . Related Articles: Iranian Authorities Confiscate 1,000 Bitcoin Mining Machines Bitcoin Mining is Now More Competitive Than Ever, New Data Shows Iranian Government to Cut Off Power to Crypto Mining Until Approval of New Energy Prices North America’s Largest Solar Bitcoin Mining Farm Coming to California || Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 07/07/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC rose by 1.59% on Saturday. Following on from a 0.46% gain from Friday, Bitcoin Cash ABC ended the day at $407.05.
A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC rise from an intraday low $400.67 to a morning high $406.43 before easing back to $401 levels.
Steering clear of the major support and resistance levels, Bitcoin Cash ABC rallied to a late afternoon intraday high $416.8.
Bitcoin Cash ABC broke through the first major resistance level at $409.98. Falling short of the 23.6% FIB of $418, Bitcoin Cash ABC pulled back to sub-$410 levels late in the day.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was down by 1.15% to a morning low $402.37. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC rise to a morning high $406.63 before falling into the red.
Bitcoin Cash ABC left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
For the day ahead, a move through to $408 levels would support a run at the first major resistance level at $415.68.
Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Saturday’s high $416.8 would cap any upside on the day.
Failure to move through to $408 levels could see Bitcoin Cash ABC fall deeper into the red. A fall through the first major support level at $399.55 would bring the second major support level at $392.04 into play.
Barring a crypto meltdown, Bitcoin Cash ABC should steer clear of sub-$390 levels.
Litecoin slipped by 0.18% on Saturday. Following on from a 0.79% fall from Friday, Litecoin ended the day at $118.25.
A bullish start to the day saw Litecoin hit a morning high $120.91. Coming up against the first major resistance level at $120.74 Litecoin pulled back to a morning low $118.18.
Steering clear of the 23.6% FIB of $117 and first major support level at $116.27, Litecoin rallied to a late afternoon intraday high $122.29.
Litecoin broke back through the first major resistance level at $120.74 before sliding to a late intraday low $117.3.
Finding support at the 23.6% FIB of $117, Litecoin recovered to $118 levels to limit the downside on the day.
At the time of writing, Litecoin was down by 0.18% to $118.04. A choppy start to the day saw Litecoin rise from a morning low $117.43 to a high $119.14 before easing back.
Litecoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
For the day ahead, a move back through the morning high to $119.30 levels would support a run at the first major resistance level at $121.26.
Litecoin would need the support of the broader market, however, to break clear of $120.
Barring a broad-based crypto rally, Saturday’s high $122.29 should limit the upside on the day.
Failure to move through to $119.30 levels could see Litecoin slide back to $117 levels.
In the event of an extended sell-off, Litecoin could fall through the 23.6% FIB of $117 to test the first major support level at $116.37 before any recovery.
Ripple’s XRP rallied by 3.08% on Saturday. Reversing a 2.15% fall from Friday, Ripple’s XRP ended the day at $0.39155.
Tracking the broader market, Ripple’s XRP rose from an intraday low $0.37936 to a morning high $0.38738.
Ripple’s XRP came within range the first major resistance level at $0.3878 before easing back to $0.381 levels.
An early afternoon rally saw Ripple’s XRP strike an intraday high $0.41113 before sliding back to sub-$0.39 levels.
The rally saw Ripple’s XRP break through the first major resistance level at $0.3878 and second major resistance level at $0.3061.
Ripple’s XRP came up against the third major resistance level at $0.4112 before the reversal.
At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down by 0.6% to $0.38921. A bearish start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP fall from a morning high $0.39199 to a low $0.38820 before steadying.
Ripple’s XRP left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
For the day ahead, a move through to $0.3940 levels would support a return to $0.40 levels.
Ripple’s XRP would need the support of the broader market, however, to take a run at the first major resistance level at $0.4087.
In the event of a broad-based crypto rebound, the 23.6% FIB of $0.4164 would likely limit any upside on the day.
Failure to move through to $0.3940 levels could see Ripple’s XRP slide through the morning low to sub-$0.3850 levels.
Barring an extended crypto sell-off, however, Ripple’s XRP should steer clear of the first major support level at $0.3769.
Please let us know what you think in the comments below
Thanks, Bob
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural gas runs into resistance || Take Five: Half-time scores on doors: LONDON (Reuters) - AFTER THE HALF-TIME WHISTLE After a remarkable six months, it might be too much to hope that scintillating returns earned by almost every sector - whether stocks or bonds, emerging markets or gold - can be replicated in the second half of the year. It's been a barbell approach - dash for safety alongside a reach for yield. But what drives markets from here? Will gloom about economic growth and trade push more investors into bonds and gold? Or will monetary easing promises in the United States, Europe, Japan and China boost riskier markets? Conceivably, growth won't be as dire as the outlook suggests, allowing central banks to hold fire. The world economy will turn on how the Sino-U.S. trade talks end, and whether U.S.-Iran tensions turn into something worse. But wait, isn't there the Powell Put? The ECB, Bank of Japan and People's Bank of China also stand ready to turn on the stimulus taps if things turn ugly. In fact, while markets will be happy to see growth recover, they seem to prefer wallowing in central bank largesse. And with that comfort blanket wrapped around markets, the second half of 2019 probably won't be too bad. (Graphic: Global markets asset performance in H1 2019: https://tmsnrt.rs/2FEcGYS) WILL THERE BE WHITE SMOKE? EU leaders head for Brussels on Sunday to try and parcel out the bloc's top jobs. The appointees will lead the bloc's policies for the next five years on issues ranging from monetary policy to migration and Brexit to trade. The wrangling was compared by one leader, Ireland's Leo Varadkar, to electing a pope. But while a recent meeting failed to yield agreement, there is a good chance the upcoming summit will tell us the name of the next European Commission president. Berlin and Paris have been at loggerheads over who should take the helm of the Commission -- German Manfred Weber or French President Emmanuel Macron's pick Michel Barnier. So the smart money is on a compromise candidate, possibly Denmark's Margrethe Vestager. Story continues The big reveal for the European Central Bank presidency is likely to come at a later date but the nationality of the new Commission head will offer big clues at least on where the next ECB boss will come from. A German at the helm of the Commission should mean Bundesbank head Jens Weidmann, a known hawk feared by market participants, will not get the ECB role. Likewise a commission presidency for France would rule out French ECB candidate Francois Villeroy de Galhau. So Finland's Ollie Rehn stands out as the likely compromise. (Graphic: EU top jobs: https://tmsnrt.rs/2WTUzIp) SUMMER JOBS The U.S. June jobs report will be released between the July 4 holiday and the weekend when many market players are absent. But even if trading volumes are lower than usual, the data won't be getting short shrift from anyone. Whether the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates at its end-July meeting by half a percent, a quarter, or not at all, hinges partly on whether job creation stays as sluggish as May, when payrolls rose 75,000 -- 110,000 below forecasts. That was the second time this year monthly jobs growth dropped below 100,000 -- the level needed to keep up with the rise in the working-age population. Along with tepid wage growth, a weak figure will heap more pressure on policymakers to move into easing mode. The economy is expected to have created 165,000 nonfarm jobs in June while interest rate futures indicate 100% odds of a 25 basis-point cut on July 31 and a 26% chance of a 50-basis-point reduction. But traders might be getting ahead of themselves. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has pushed back on rate-cut pressure. And the economy looks generally robust - unemployment, at 3.6%, is at its lowest in half a century and it likely stayed there in June. (Graphic: US non-farm payrolls: https://tmsnrt.rs/2YgRy2p) THE CRUDE TRUTH ON OPEC Decision-making has never been easy for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries - a group of 14 Arab and non-Arab oil producers, many of which harbour longstanding rivalries. But even by OPEC standards, things have become tetchier of late. A month-long wrangle to set a meeting date highlighted the changing dynamic within the group, with decisions increasingly taken by long-time leader Saudi Arabia together with non-OPEC Russia -- much to the chagrin of members like Iran. OPEC power brokers will gather in Vienna on Monday and meet with non-OPEC states - known as OPEC+ - on Tuesday. They need to decide whether to extend a deal on oil output curbs that expires end-June. How much impact any decision will have is a question in itself. Oil output in Iran and Venezuela, both under U.S. sanctions, has fallen by more than that of fellow OPEC states that are actually meant to be party to the supply cut pact. So actual supply is down by 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) versus the 1.2 million bpd that was agreed. Evidently, President Trump has had more impact on oil production than OPEC. (Graphic: World crude oil production and demand by region: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ZFAZ0e) BACK TO BITCOIN Is Bitcoin back? With an over 200% gain already this year, it sure looks like it. The recent surge is partly down to investors looking to diversify portfolios as bond yields fall ever lower. But for the most part, buyers are being driven by speculation that Bitcoin and its peers will rise in value if Facebook's crypto offering Libra becomes a hit. But the key word is "if'. Facebook plans to launch its digital coin in the first half of 2020 but regulators' reaction has mostly been one of scepticism. The financial services committee in the U.S. Congress has told Facebook to stop development of the project until big questions are answered, while Germany's anti-trust watchdog said it could scrutinise coins from internet giants. And so on. Those and other comments deflated the rally somewhat, pushing Bitcoin down more than 20% in two days. It will probably keep it well off the $20,000 record high hit in December 2017. But further weakness in mainstream currencies, should central banks resume policy easing, might well benefit Bitcoin. (Graphic: Bitcoin's back https://tmsnrt.rs/2YjQR8i). (Reporting by Sujata Rao, Virginia Furness, Karin Strohecker and Olga Cotaga in London; Alden Bentley in New York; editing by John Stonestreet) || U.S Mortgage Rates Tumble as Trade War Angst Bites: Mortgage rates tumbled by 15 basis points in the week ending 8 th August. 30-year fixed rates slid to 3.60% following a hold at 3.75% in the week ending 1 st August. The 15 basis point fall left 30-year rates back at their lowest level since late 2016 according to figures released by Freddie Mac . Compared to this time last year, 30-year fixed rates were down by 100 basis points. More significantly, 30-year fixed rates are down by 134 basis points since last Novembers most recent peak of 4.94%. The weekly slide also left mortgage rates at their lowest level since the month of Trumps inauguration
Economic Data from the Week Key stats out of the U.S through the 1 st half of the week were on the lighter side. On Monday, Service PMI figures for July were in focus. Whilst the Markit survey showed that service sector activity picked up in July, the markets preferred ISM Survey weighed. The ISM non-manufacturing PMI fell from 55.1 to 53.7 in July, signaling weaker U.S economic growth at the turn of the quarter. On Wednesday, the JOLTs job opening figures for June were also disappointing, with job openings falling from 7.384m to 7.348m. With the stats skewed to the negative, concerns over the prospects of a U.S recession rose through the week. An escalation in the U.S China trade war led to a slide in U.S Treasury yields. Following Trumps call for fresh tariffs in the week ending 2 nd August, China responded with the PBoC allowing the Yuan to slide beyond CNY7 at the start of the week. While the Yuan found the support of the PBoC through the rest of the week, Mondays move demonstrated Chinas unwillingness to yield. Freddie Mac Rates The weekly average rates for new mortgages as of 8 th August were quoted by Freddie Mac to be : 30-year fixed rates slid by 15 basis points to 3.60% in the week. Rates were down from 4.59% from a year ago. The average fee held steady at 0.6 points. Story continues 15-year fixed rates also slid by 15 basis points to 3.05% in the week. Rates were down from 4.05% from a year ago. The average fee also held steady at 0.5 points. 5-year fixed rates fell by 10 basis point to 3.36% in the week. Rates were down by 54 basis points from last years 3.90%. The average fee fell from 0.4 points to 0.3 points. According to Freddie Mac, while business sentiment continued to deteriorate, consumer sentiment remained solid. The strong labor market environment and low rates are anticipated to support the housing market through to the fall. Mortgage Bankers Association Rates For the week ending 2 nd August, rates were quoted to be : Average interest rates for 30-year fixed, backed by the FHA, decreased from 3.94% to 3.86%. Points increased from 0.29 to 0.38 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. Average interest rates for 30-year fixed with conforming loan balances fell from 4.08% to 4.01%. Points increased from 0.34 to 0.37 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. Average 30-year rates for jumbo loan balances declined from 4.04% to 3.96%. Points increased from 0.22 to 0.26 (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 5.3% in the week ending 2 nd August. The bounce reversed a 2% fall in the week ending 26 th July. The Refinance Index surged by 12% to leave the index 112% higher year-on-year. The surge followed a 0.1% increase in the week ending 26 th July. The share of refinance mortgage activity increased from 50.5% to 53.9%, following on from a rise from 49.8 to 50.5 in the week prior. According to the MBA, negative sentiment towards the U.S China trade war had a greater impact than the latest FED rate cut, with the slide in Treasury yields weighing on mortgage rates. Refinance applications will likely to continue to rise in the weeks ahead. The MBA also noted that 30-year fixed rates fell to their lowest level since November 2016. The refinance index hit its highest level over the same period as a result. In spite of the slide in mortgage rates, home buyer applications fell in the week as concerns over the economic outlook led to tighter credit conditions. In the week, the MBA also released its Mortgage Credit Availability Report . According to the MBA report, The Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) fell by 0.4% to 189.0 in July, reflecting tighter lending standards. Declines in the conforming (-0.8%) and government(-1.0%) indices weighed on the MCAI in July. For the week ahead Its a relatively quiet first half of the week ahead. July inflation figures are due out on Tuesday. With the markets expecting another rate cut by the FED near-term, driven by an escalation in the U.S China trade war, we can expect Treasury yields to be particularly sensitive to the numbers. Out of China, industrial production figures due out on Wednesday will also test the markets. Any weak numbers and expect demand for the safe havens to surge. Outside of the numbers Geopolitical risk will continue to overshadow any positive stats. On Friday, U.S President Trump stated that the U.S was not ready to do a trade deal with China. Trump also said that the U.S was not prepared to do business with Huawei
We can expect chatter over the weekend and any further response by China at the start of the week to set the tone. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Strengthens Over .6487, Weakens Under .6481 Gold Weekly Price Forecast Gold Markets Continue Bullish Run GBP/USD Weekly Price Forecast British pound continues to show weakness Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 11/08/19 Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 10/08/19 The Bitcoin Bulls Look Set for Another Weekly Gain. But It Isnt Plane Sailing
|| 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 || GBP/USD Price Forecast British pound pulls back: The British pound pulled back a bit during the trading session on Friday, reaching towards the 1.25 handle. This is obviously a large figure, and will attract a certain amount of attention. The fact that we shot straight through the roof on Thursday is a very bullish sign and the fact that we pulled back towards the 1.25 level and found buyers also is a bullish sign. However, this is the British pound and the Brexit is still attached to it. While the UK parliament has voted to take the idea of a no deal Brexit off the table, the reality is that they dont make that decision without the European Union. GBP/USD Video 22.07.19 The 1.2575 region is massive resistance, so I dont look to buy the British pound in this area. Beyond that, we also have the 1.2750 level above offering resistance, so I think its only a matter time before we start selling again. That being said, there are a couple of different ways that I am looking to play this market. If we close below the 1.25 handle, then its likely that we go much lower. At that point I would be a seller. If we rally and show signs of exhaustion near either the 50 day EMA which is pictured in red, or the 1.2750 level, Id be a seller there as well. Quite frankly, I would not be a buyer until we clear that 1.2750 level. Please let us know what you think in the comments below This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: NEO Technical Analysis Resistance Levels in Play 22/07/19 USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast Will Kuroda Signal Need for More Stimulus? Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast Speculators Betting on Escalation of Tensions in Middle East Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 22/07/19 NZD/USD Bullish Continuation Towards 0.6830 Soft Trade in Asia; Investors Prepping for US Earnings Results || 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 || Survey: 27% of UK Residents Want to See Crypto in More Real-World Applications: 27% of surveyed United Kingdom citizens hope to see cryptocurrencies in real-world applications," according to recent research by U.K.-based crypto exchange CEX.io , technology news outlet BTCManager reported on June 27. CEX.io provided BTCManager the results of its recent survey focused on the level of adoption, application, and expectations of digital currencies in the U.K. The report which was prepared in collaboration with London-based research firm qriously highlights answers from 1,013 respondents. Per the survey, 32% of respondents said that they would like the technology to be better integrated with "everyday technology" like payments apps and mobile storage, while 27% revealed they want to see crypto in real-world applications such as credit card payments or sending money abroad. When asked why they own crypto, 21% of respondents said that purchased some driven by curiosity, 18% reportedly liked trading, and 21% were waiting for prices to surge. 43% of those surveyed owned Bitcoin ( BTC ), which made the coin dominant among the 13% who said that they owned any cryptocurrency. 28% of those who did not hold any digital currency said they would purchase crypto if they had better understanding of it, 12% would if they knew how to store it securely, 11% would own crypto if they could buy real-world goods with it, and 7% would if it were easier to buy. A survey by Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab introduced on June 17th revealed that 19% of people globally purchased cryptocurrency. According to the report, 81% of global population have never purchased cryptocurrencies, while only 10% of respondents said they fully understand how cryptocurrencies work. In May, Dubai-based financial consultancy firm deVere Group released a survey revealing that 68% of global high-net-worth individuals have already invested or are planning to invest in crypto by the end of 2022. Related Articles: Coinbase Releases Key Findings on Crypto Awareness and Adoption in US Overstocks tZero Launches Mobile Crypto App Touted as Hack-Resistant Former Visa Exec-Led Startup Ships Nearly 4,000 Crypto Cards in a Week Huobi Expands to Turkey Where 20% of the Population Hold Crypto
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
@NYcryptolawyer @DelRayMan @Forbes @ForbesCrypto @BitfuryGroup Bitcoin. Venezuela recorded some of the highest volumes for buying and selling bitcoin in 2018, but we know bitcoin used in the remittance industry isn’t the best option... also those in Venezuela don’t have access to USD and other currency due to limited banking access. || The latest Cryptocoin Daily! https://t.co/PfnxXnMvan Thanks to @Irina30882068 @eckartmeshkat @KnowYourToken #bitcoin #blockchain || @melissapira Mesmo que vc compre 0,01 Bitcoin, vai ter um lucro de ±50% em um período de um ano pq com os bancos centrais mundias diminuindo a sua linha de crédito o governo chinês terá que emitir mais moeda par sustentar a sua bolha || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing & Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || Listen to the most recent episode of my podcast: Bitcoin biggest use for the future: listen to them if you want their life https://t.co/cdVojHN4TI || Standard Tokenization Protocol Launches Proof of Business Program And Announces Block72 as Inaugural Partner #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #ethereum #investing #business #blockchain #tradecryptochain https://t.co/4AFjnASvqR || $pablo254v8 I need this money || #Bitcoin Not “Strong Enough” To Be A #SafeHaven Asset? Price Loses 18% Value this Week - In the short term, #BTC is struggling, but the top #Crypto's macro outlook is intact
https://t.co/mW2cshMhag || Infact one should realize that we are current generation ETH In the middleware platform globally.. buying below $5 Is a steal for long run. Imagine LINK price before May 2020 BTC halving. Easy $50 for sure https://t.co/V9Wy0JgdrS || It's been a while $BTC... https://t.co/oZ7olxloHd
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Trend: down || Prices: 10138.05, 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20, 9598.17
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2022-08-10]
BTC Price: 23947.64, BTC RSI: 58.79
Gold Price: 1795.60, Gold RSI: 60.47
Oil Price: 91.93, Oil RSI: 41.23
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Crypto at G20: Central banks to get global regulation draft: Crypto: The value of bitcoin has slumped some 70% since its November record of $69,000. Photo: Dado Ruvic/Reuters (Dado Ruvic / reuters) The Financial Stability Board (FSB) will propose global rules for cryptocurrencies after it warned that crypto poses risks to key parts of traditional finance. "The FSB will report to the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in October on regulatory and supervisory approaches to stablecoins and other crypto-assets," the FSB said in a statement. The FSB is an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. Read more: Live crypto prices The global watchdog has so far limited itself to monitoring the crypto sector, saying it did not pose a systemic risk. But now it is calling for an effective regulatory framework to ensure crypto-asset activities posing risks similar to traditional financial activities are subject to the same rules. "The failure of a market player, in addition to imposing potentially large losses on investors and threatening market confidence arising from crystallisation of conduct risks, can also quickly transmit risks to other parts of the crypto-asset ecosystem," the FSB said. Watch: The Crypto Mile — Steve Hanke: Stablecoins and the Herstatt cross-currency settlement risk “Crypto-assets and markets must be subject to effective regulation and oversight commensurate to the risks they pose, both at the domestic and international level.” The market capitalisation of the sector has tumbled to about $900bn (£753.9bn) from a peak of almost $3tn late last year. The value of bitcoin ( BTC-USD ), the largest cryptocurrency, has slumped some 70% since its November record of $69,000 and was trading at around the $20,000 mark on Monday. The ongoing crypto meltdown has had adverse effects on nearly all aspects of the sector, with leading crypto exchanges, including Celsius, freezing withdrawals and trading of assets for customers. Several platforms, such as Voyager Digital and Three Arrows Capital (3AC), have also filed for bankruptcy as companies are going through severe cost-cutting procedures, primarily by laying off employees. Story continues In a bid to rein in the “wild west'' of crypto assets, the European Union (EU) has announced rules will require that cryptocurrency firms provide information regarding the environmental impact of their assets. Read more: How to safely transfer your crypto to a cold storage wallet Last June, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey again warned crypto investors that they could lose all their money as he said unbacked crypto assets have no intrinsic value. "If you want to invest in these assets, okay, but be prepared to lose all your money," Bailey warned. He added: "People may still want to buy them because they have extrinsic value ... people value things for personal reasons. But they don't have intrinsic value. Watch: The Crypto Mile — Jordan Belfort talks about bitcoin and crypto crash The Bank for International settlements (BIS), an association of the world’s major central banks, said in a report that recent collapses of the TerraUSD ( UST-USD ) and luna ( LUNA1-USD ) 'stablecoins', coupled with market turmoil, have demonstrated crypto’s volatility. Stablecoins attempt to “piggyback on the stability of real money issued by central banks,” the report said. The money stolen from crypto frauds has also increased over the past year even as a crash has seen cryptocurrency prices plummet. Crypto fraudsters stole 58% more money in the past 12 months with victims in the UK generally losing £36,250 per fraud, a report by cyber security company NordVPN revealed. Total losses from crypto fraud were over £226m in the year to May 2022, compared with over £142.9m in the previous 12 months. Watch: Buying Your First Crypto: Wallets and Exchanges 101 || UPDATE 5-Texas grid takes emergency actions to avoid blackouts amid heatwave: * Texans asked to cut power usage for third time this year * Coal and gas plant outages and low wind power weigh on supply (Adds ERCOT, consultant comment; updates temperatures) By Arpan Varghese and Scott DiSavino July 13 (Reuters) - Texas's power grid operator on Wednesday took emergency measures to avoid rolling blackouts as soaring electricity demand threatened to outpace available supplies amid a stifling heatwave. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the grid that serves more than 26 million customers, initiated a rarely used emergency program that is triggered when supplies fall below a critical safety margin. Earlier, ERCOT had urged residents to cut power use during the hottest hours of the day and warned of a risk for rolling blackouts. Residents were asked to turn up thermostats, defer the use of high-power appliances and turn off swimming pool pumps. The emergency notice came after ERCOT began paying suppliers an average of $5,000 per magawatt hour to keep generators running. That price is the highest the grid operator pays. "They were pulling a lot of levers to avoid going into emergency operations and rolling blackouts," said Doug Lewin, president of consultants Stoic Energy LLC. With temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), higher than the average for this time of the year, the state had projected Wednesday's peak demand to hit 78,762 megawatts. ERCOT blamed forced outages at coal- and natural gas-fed power plants, and low wind power generation. A spokesperson declined to provide details on the number or type of generating plants that were offline and prompted conservation measures. Stoic's Lewin said there was less coal and natural gas generation capacity available on Wednesday than on Monday when ERCOT last called for conservation measures. It was the third time this year that ERCOT has called on residents to cut power usage and the second time it has warned of the potential for rolling blackouts. As on Monday, it avoided forced cuts when big power consumers agreed to halt operations. Story continues Lee Bratcher, president of Texas Blockchain Council, said all of the state's large-scale Bitcoin mining operations, which consume about 1,000 megawatts, are currently offline because of ERCOT's call for conservation and high power prices. A spokesperson for LyondellBasell said the petrochemical maker's Texas operations worked on ways "to reduce electricity demand without shutting down assets or compromising the safety and reliability of our operations." In February 2021, a grid failure led to the deaths of more than 200 people in freezing weather and prompted an overhaul of the grid regulator. In Houston, the biggest city in Texas, temperatures hit 101 F (38C) on Wednesday and highs are expected to remain above 97 F into the weekend, according to the National Weather Service. (Reporting by Arpan Varghese and Scott DiSavino; additional reporting by Laila Kearney and Erwin Seba; Writing by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Himani Sarkar) || Chileans Take Refuge in Stablecoins Amid Economic Turmoil: Accustomed to living in the most stable economy in Latin America, residents of Chile are turning to stablecoins to protect their assets from recent record inflation and the increasing devaluation of the peso. Local crypto exchanges have seen a 50% increase in stablecoin transactions in the last three months. CryptoMarket , a Chile-based exchange with 200,000 users in the country, registered a 50% increase in purchases of the two most commonly used stablecoins, tether (USDT) and USD coin (USDC), during the second quarter of 2022, CryptoMarket Chile country manager Eduardo Pérez de Castro told CoinDesk. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency whose value is tied to an outside asset, such as the U.S. dollar or gold, to stabilize the price. USDT and USDC are pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar. Today, stablecoins represent 30% of users total purchases, and what they mostly choose to buy if it is their first time using the platform, Pérez de Castro added. Buda.com , which in 2015 was one of the first crypto exchanges to launch in Chile, has also seen increasing interest in stablecoins. Stablecoin market share on the platform rose from 11% in June up to 20% in July. USDC, which has been on the platform for less than a year, is the third-most-traded currency after bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). Read more: Chilean Digital Peso Would Need to Work Offline, Central Bank Governor Says We see this as a huge trend and something users are taking as an opportunity to buy U.S. dollars easily without having to go to a bank or exchange house, said Jazmín Jorquera, chief operating officer at Buda, which has more than 500,000 users and operations in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Colombia. Stablecoin's increasing use is tied to Chiles faltering macroeconomic situation. In June, the countrys year-to-year inflation rose to 12.5%, the highest record in 28 years. One month later, its peso currency hit a record low of 1,045 per U.S. dollar, dropping 3.7% in one day and forcing the central bank to make a $25 billion intervention in the foreign exchange market to stop a higher devaluation. Story continues The common Chilean citizen is turning to stablecoins to save money and conserve value, said Joel Vainstein, co-founder of OrionX , a Chile-based exchange with more than 100,000 users and operations in Peru and, soon, in Mexico. USDT became the platforms second-most-traded currency during the last three months. The reasons According to Pérez de Castro, the recent instability of the Chilean exchange rate is mainly due to political uncertainty. Citizens will vote in September on a pivotal change of the Chilean Constitution, which hasnt been modified since 1980, when dictator Augusto Pinochet was in power. The vote is tied to what Chileans call the social outburst , a series of protests that took place in October 2019 after an increase in public transport rates. The riots, which resulted in military violence, resulted in burned buses and several deaths, lasted until March 2020 and led to the victory of left-wing leader Gabriel Boric over the incumbent right-wing government in the presidential election of December 2021. In context of this instability, local banks saw a 200% increase in demand for U.S.-dollar bank accounts between April 2021 and April 2022. But obtaining a foreign currency account is not an easy thing to do in Chile. According to Pablo Donders, a Chilean economist specializing in cryptocurrencies, to open a bank account in U.S. dollars, locals must first open a national bank account, which requires a minimum level of monthly income of approximately $507, according to official reports or even higher. That is why many people do not have access to checking accounts, even fewer to U.S. dollar accounts, as it also needs certified documentation that proves you carry out a commercial activity abroad, Donders added. Operating with 'uneasy calm' In 2018, when different crypto exchanges were setting up in Chile, traditional banks like Banco del Estado de Chile, Bank Itaú and Scotiabank, among others, began to close the exchanges' bank accounts due to a lack of regulation and uncontrollable risks of money laundering, according to some banks legal statements at that time. The decision placed cryptocurrency platforms in danger of insolvency and hampered their operations in the country. Crypto exchanges Buda.com, CryptoMKT and OrionX took the case immediately to the nation's Competition Court, suing 10 of the biggest financial institutions in the country for abuse of dominant position. One month later, banks were ordered by the Competition Court to reestablish the exchanges bank accounts. The issue, however, is far from settled. The banks appealed and four years later, the lawsuit continues in the Competition Court. According to exchanges, the trial is in its final stages and banks could be facing $76 million in penalty fees if they lose, OrionXs Vainstein told CoinDesk. The trial has us constantly in tension, but at least now we have a market court decision that gives us some protection, so we operate with a constant uneasy calm, said Pérez de Castro. Exchanges seek regulations that will help them gain legal protections, exchange officials told CoinDesk, adding that they expect in its next session Congress will approve a Fintech Law that has been under debate for three years. Furthermore, Chiles government plans to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and gathered a team to write a white paper in the first quarter of 2022. But in May, the central bank published a report delaying any decision, saying that there is not yet enough information to make a final decision regarding the issuance of a CBDC. || Lessons From the Turkish Government's Hasty Attempt to Regulate Cryptocurrencies: The Turkish government's ambitious plan to restrict the use of cryptocurrencies to protect the local currency, the Turkish lira, faced a strong challenge from the crypto communities in the country. It’s a rare example of grassroots action effectively pressuring the government, and may provide a valuable lesson for lawmakers and organizers in other countries. Despite President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressing urgency in December about regulating cryptocurrencies, a bill has not been introduced yet. In late December a draft version of a crypto bill supposedly backed by the ruling party in the country, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), was leaked and circulated on social media. Burak Tamac is a senior researcher at CryptoQuant, and Erkan Oz is an economist and journalist. This proposed legislation sought to restrict international exchanges from operating in Turkey and ban the use of self-custody wallets – in the name of protecting the local currency against capital outflow. AKP never officially accepted that the leaked bill was drafted by the government, but many believed the bill was indeed written by a team close to the president and leaked on purpose to judge reactions. The bill, which suggested significant restrictions on investing and using cryptocurrencies, should be opposed. Crypto adoption has accelerated in Turkey over the past two year, in part due to high inflation. My co-author and I believe that restricting crypto is a restriction on freedom, and is not only ethically and constitutionally wrong but also would worsen the country’s capital outflow problem rather than solving it. See also: Turkey President Erdogan to Send Crypto Law to Parliament One of the principle concerns over the bill was that it would give an unfair advantage to local exchanges over international ones, likely negatively affecting Turkish users. Many think the ruling party executives are being influenced by domestic exchanges to ban more efficient and cheaper global options, though the government has denied such accusations. Story continues Such a ban would benefit both the government (which is trying to curb short-term dollar outflows) and Turkish crypto exchanges (that are trying to maintain their market share against foreign high-volume exchanges), but likely harm users. Engaging with crypto users The outrage on social media forced government actors to engage with various Turkish crypto communities to assuage their concerns about restrictions. A meeting on the draft crypto bill was held at the Parliament on Dec. 29 by Mustafa Elitas (the former deputy economy minister from AKP). The government was also represented by Mahir Unal (the former deputy tourism minister from AKP), Omer Ileri (AKP’s deputy president) and senior bureaucrats from various government agencies including the Central Bank and Treasury. Crypto, too, had a showing. What happened in the meeting? Members of various crypto communities expressed their concerns about the leaked crypto bill. My co-author, the economist Erkan Oz, detailed the prevailing concerns of crypto communities on social media as follows: There are at least 5 million crypto-asset investors in Turkey, according to the report published by local crypto exchange Paribu. Therefore, the opinions of these investors and entrepreneurs should be considered during the law-making process. Crypto investors do not drive foreign exchange outflow from the country, as it is generally assumed and the paramount concern of the government to protect the local currency. On the contrary, because the purchased crypto assets appreciate significantly over time, investors create foreign exchange inflows for the country. Measures such as licensing, technological compliancy and capital-backing requirements should be introduced to protect retail investors. The bill must not strictly prohibit investors from accessing exchanges and the use of self-custody wallets. Otherwise, Turkey's crypto industry would turn into a closed ecosystem. Furthermore, such a ban against exchanges and wallets would engender price premium/discount between the international markets and Turkey. This would also pave the way for establishment of black markets. If the draft circulating on social media is enacted in its current format, Turkey will lose the opportunity to educate software developers and entrepreneurs in the blockchain domain. The ruling party’s officials and bureaucrats attending the meeting did not express their views on either the draft legislation or the proposals expressed by the crypto communities at that time. However, the government postponed the bill for apparently political reasons. Turkey's general elections will be held in June 2023, if not earlier as speculated in November 2022. AKP executives most likely advised the government officials to engage with crypto communities because they are relatively young voters keen on their freedoms. Therefore, jeopardizing millions of voters due to a bill would not be a politically correct action before the election campaigns begin. In addition, according to many polls, the upcoming election would be one of the most vital elections for AKP to remain in power since 2002. See also: Turkey Makes the Case for Bitcoin as Erdogan Runs the Autocrat's Inflation Playbook | The Node Even in Turkey, where the democratic process does not function as intended, a strong government that controls all branches of the state decided not to pass a top-down bill to regulate cryptocurrencies due to community objections. The dynamic power of grassroots organizations prevented even an authoritarian-leaning government from passing a bill restricting the freedoms derived from using cryptocurrencies. From this perspective, we can assume regulations would be legislated more slowly than anticipated in the United States and the European Union because of the robust deliberation processes protected by the democratic structure. || Celsius Shareholder BnkToTheFuture Proposes Bitcoin Investments, Restructuring in Rescue Bid: Don't miss CoinDesk'sConsensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12.
Crypto investment platform BnkToTheFuture proposed three recovery plans on Thursday aimed at helping users affected by the insolvency of crypto lender Celsius Network.
BnkToTheFuture is registered as anexcluded securities businesswith the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority and holds 5% of Celsius. “We believe that this allows us to call a shareholder meeting as part of our statutory shareholder rights that legally cannot be ignored by the Celsius board,” it said in theThursday post.
The first proposal calls for restructuring and relaunching Celsius, which would allow depositors to benefit from “any recovery through financial engineering.” This could refer to the issuance of additional tokens or additional fundraising.
The second proposal is to form a pool of the most influential holders of bitcoin (BTC) and have them “co-invest with the community” in a bid to raise significant amounts of capital for Celsius. BnkToTheFuturesaid it had handledthe previous fundraising of over $20 million for Celsius that 1,039 investors participated in.
“We completed a similar disaster recovery offering for Bitfinex in 2016,” BnkToTheFuture explained. The effort sawover $76 million raised from investorsto help the then beleaguered crypto exchange, which experienceda hack of 120,000 bitcoinsat the time.
The third proposal is to “form an operational plan that allows a new entity and team to rebuild and make depositors whole.” That move, however, would involve “risks and full recovery of funds is not guaranteed,” BnkToTheFuture said.
A community vote for the three proposals is underway as of Friday, following which BnkToTheFuture is expected to hold a formal meeting with Celsius board members.
BnkToTheFuture didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Celsius cut off withdrawals from its platform earlier this month because of “extreme market conditions,” which led to fears of its possible insolvency at the time. Customerwithdrawals remain paused, and regulators haveopened investigationsof the company.
Meanwhile, Celsius said Thursday it is exploring options to “preserve and protect assets,”as reported. || First Mover Asia: Traders See Bitcoin Falling to 2017 Levels Amid Ongoing Inflation, Economic Concerns; Cryptos Struggle: Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022 , the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. Good morning. Here’s what’s happening: Prices: Bitcoin and Ether continue to struggle. Insights: Crypto traders are pessimistic about bitcoin's future pricing. Technician's take: In place of the Technician's Take, First Mover Asia is republishing a Consensus 2022-related column by columnist Daniel Kuhn on Pussy Riot founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova. Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. And sign up for First Mover , our daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Prices Bitcoin ( BTC ): $21,985 -1.8% Ether ( ETH ): $1,201 -0.4% Biggest Gainers Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Chainlink LINK +14.4% Computing Solana SOL +7.1% Smart Contract Platform Stellar XLM +6.1% Smart Contract Platform Biggest Losers Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Polygon MATIC −3.4% Smart Contract Platform Cosmos ATOM −2.7% Smart Contract Platform Bitcoin BTC −1.5% Currency Bitcoin and Ether Continue to Struggle The day after the biggest crypto crash in two years brought little relief. Digital assets continued to flounder Tuesday in a whirlwind of inflation fears and economic uncertainty with bitcoin and ether in a red muck for much of the day, and other cryptos struggling to regain ground they lost in Monday's dramatic sell-off. Bitcoin was recently trading below $22,000 down roughly 2% during the last 24 hours. The decline was bitcoin's eighth consecutive day of losses. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has now dropped nearly 30% of its value over the past month and is threatening to test the not-long-ago unthinkable idea of support below $20,000, roughly where it stood in 2017. Ether, the second-largest crypto by market cap, was changing hands at roughly $1,200, about flat from Monday when it hit a more than 18-month low. Among altcoins, SOL and XLM were recently up more than 5% after plunging on Monday, but WBTC and TRX continued to suffer with the latter off by over 13% at one point. Story continues Crypto investors are nervously awaiting the U.S. central bank latest interest rate increase, which many observers now believe will be 75 basis points, harsh, inflationary medicine that seemed unlikely until the Consumer Price Index showed inflation continuing at four-year highs. Whether hawkish policy can tame inflation without sparking a recession remains uncertain. "Bitcoin traders better be buckled up heading into the FOMC decision," Oanda senior analyst Americas Edward Moya wrote in an email. Bitcoin is still holding the $20,000 level and if Wall Street gets a very hawkish decision and press conference, Treasury yields and the dollar could surge once again and that would test the line in the sand many crypto traders have drawn." Stocks were calmer on Tuesday after the previous day's battering with the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq all about flat. Gold, a traditional safe haven asset, was also down, however, a reminder of the degree of skittishness among investors. "Wall Street was quick to fade the morning rebound that stemmed a modest improvement with producer prices, possibly providing some hope that core inflation continues to ease for businesses," Moya wrote. Meanwhile, bad news and disturbing trends continued to plague crypto markets, with exchange giant Coinbase announcing the layoff of about 18% of its workforce – some 1,100 jobs. The cuts were the latest among major exchanges, following those in recent days by Winklevoss twins-led Gemini, Middle Eastern-based Rain Financial and Latin America-based Bitso and Buenbit. Data on Tuesday also showed that crypto-tracked futures had lost over $1 billion over a 24-hour period, a victim of the fraught investment environment. Liquidation refers to when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position due to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial margin. It happens when a trader is unable to meet the margin requirements for a leveraged position (fails to have sufficient funds to keep the trade open). Also late Tuesday, Fox Business reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was investigating whether crypto exchanges have sufficient protections against insider trading. The SEC has sent a letter to a major crypto exchange inquiring about its safeguards and comes amid increasing scrutiny of the terraUSD stablecoin implosion and more widely, according to the report. Oanda's Moya was pessimistic about crypto's prospects going forward. "If bitcoin breaks below the $20,000 level, support might not emerge until the $17,000 level," he wrote. "Another crypto plunge might not see major support until the 2019 summer high around the $14,000 level." Markets S&P 500: 3,735 -0.3% DJIA: 30,364 -0.5% Nasdaq: 10,828 +0.1% Gold: $1,808 -0.6% Insights Traders See Bitcoin Dropping Below $20,000 Bitcoin stabilized Tuesday at about $22,000 after crumbling Monday amid inflation fears and wider macroeconomic weakness. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization had followed major Asian indices which continued their own recent spiral, closing at least 1% lower. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.32% as the yen tumbled to its lowest level against the dollar since 1998. The currency has declined 15% this year, becoming one of the worst-performing major currencies. Meanwhile, stocks in Tokyo slid the most since March and bond yields hit ceiling values, the Japan Times reported. The decline came after the U.S. released poorer-than-expected inflation data for May in a report last week, which saw inflation increase by 8.6% compared to last year. Traders are now pricing in rate hikes of over 175 basis points through September, which is expected to bring down company revenues and slow down consumer spending. “The crux of the concern plaguing investors is how harshly the [U.S. Federal Reserve] plans to tackle rising inflation in the face of stark new [consumer price index] data,” said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, in an email. “Getting the balance wrong and hiking interest rates too aggressively could see recession fears become a reality.” Crypto traders and analysts are remaining similarly bearish. FxPro senior market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich said in a note Tuesday that market sentiment remained in “extreme fear” mode as bitcoin saw its biggest decline since early 2020. Kuptsikevich added that bitcoin prices could tumble to 2017 highs under $20,000 before long-term buyers return to the market, and provided macroeconomic sentiment improves. Bradley Duke, co-CEO at crypto exchange-traded product provider ETC Group, also stated bitcoin could retest 2017’s levels with the “next major support” at “$20,000.” “Crypto markets are in extreme fear mode, with the only recent comparable period of extended low sentiment stretching back to March 2020,” he said. Meanwhile, some investors said a decline in bitcoin prices was tied to a rout in global stocks. “The global economic environment is becoming extremely tough to navigate for investors involved in all kinds of markets, so it is no surprise that bitcoin is also facing increased downward pressure,” said Mikkel Morch, executive director at crypto/digital asset hedge fund ARK36. He added: “Over the past couple of years, cryptocurrencies have become a global macro asset and so it is to be expected that they will react negatively now when investors realize that central banks haven’t reacted nearly as aggressively as they will need to in order to get inflation under control.” Technician's take Pussy Riot, Political Action and the Future of DAOs Growing up, Nadya Tolokonnikova, one of the founders of protest collective Pussy Riot, wanted to be a feminist. That’s what the 32-year-old artist and punk rocker told CoinDesk at Consensus 2022 in Austin, Texas. Pussy Riot, Tolokonnikova explained while sitting on the floor of the Austin Convention Center, is often mistakenly thought of as just a punk-rock outfit – one that first made headlines in 2012 for its anti-Putin anthems. But the group, which operates like an off-chain decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), is so much more. This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk's daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here . “Anyone can join Pussy Riot,” Tolokonnikova said on the Big Ideas stage on Saturday. “We're open source, we write our own code … We’re decentralized, we’re autonomous and we’re an organization.” The artistic, political collective – which counts over 100 members, of which a punk band is just a small part – is working toward a more equal world. Over the past decade, Pussy Riot has founded media companies, published books and staged protests on and offline to further their “global feminist protest art movement.” See also: Crypto: The Gift That Keeps On Giving (to Charity) | Opinion Lately, the group has been using the censorship-resistant tools enabled by crypto. Tolokonnikova was a co-founder of women and LGBTQ+ activist group Unicorn DAO. She also helped found Ukraine DAO, which auctioned an image of the Ukrainian flag in March for 2,258 ETH (approximately $6.75 million at the time) to support people affected by the Russian invasion. “My goal is for future generations that are going to be onboarding into Web 3 … will have gender equality,” Tolokonnikova said. “This is how I see my role in crypto.” Last week, as the Consensus event was unfolding a few blocks to the south, members of Pussy Riot, UnicornDAO and the Lakota Indigenous group Ikiya Collective charged into the Texas State Capitol building to stage a protest. They unfurled a 45-foot banner reading “MATRIARCHY NOW!” from the third floor and then rushed out of the building. The moment of “domination” was minted as a non-fungible token (NFT) using auction platform Party Bid. To date, the group has raised 2.38980764 ETH – worth just shy of $3,000 – from 23 contributors to fund reproductive rights. John Caldwell, a founder of Unicorn, said the group was “surprised” by how little attention and support this protest action has received. Texas, a U.S. state known for supporting the ideals of autonomy, personal freedom and limited state intervention, has been at the forefront of the conservative-led charge to roll back abortion rights, he said. “I didn’t come here for the conference, I came here to protest,” Tolokonnikova said, adding that the crowdfunding model allows anyone who’s so inclined to contribute dollars or cents to their cause. Decrypt reported “mixed reactions,” with some Capitol building visitors snapping pictures and others hurrying out of the way. Though she’s similarly taken aback by how little buzz the Capitol publicity stunt generated, Tolokonnikova said crypto is full of energy. “A lot of people here are visionaries. They want to build a better world,” she said. Perhaps no one knows better than Tolokonnikova how much work goes on behind the scenes at activist causes. She said she splits her time doing logistical work for the DAO – answering emails, participating in her Discord channels, speaking to artists and auction houses – and planning showstopping events. As co-founder of independent media outlet Mediazona, she has spoken before the U.S. Congress, British Parliament, European Parliament and performed at Banksy's Dismaland exhibition. See also: DAOs and the Coming InDAOstrial Revolution | Opinion At an earlier Consensus event on the Big Ideas stage, Ellie Rennie, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) professor and head of the Australian university’s Blockchain Innovation Hub, said DAOs are a new type of organization that will require a new mix of interpersonal and technological skills to get right. She noted that we should also not vilify DAOs that experiment and fail. “To be transient is OK,” she said. “We need to find what makes communities resilient.” Perhaps the hardest task for DAO managers, faced with a tool that adds elements of financialization and speculation to social causes, is creating ways to “align” everyone’s needs. Economic incentives may encourage participation, but perhaps not commitment. Others come to crypto precisely because it is apolitical – a space that seems insulated from the dramas, inconsistencies and superficialities of modern-day politics. Crypto, by creating tools that anyone can use, has a plausible case for being “credibly neutral.” Of course, some would disagree. Perhaps crypto will only rebound from the unfolding bear market if it finds a way to meaningfully engage with the world. In politics, perhaps that means crypto becoming an effective tool for change. “Being apolitical there is no such thing,” Tolokonnikova said. “Apolitical just means supporting players that are already in power.” Important events U.S. Federal Reserve meeting Australia House Price Index (Q1/QoQ/YoY) 10 a.m. HKT/SGT(2 a.m. UTC): China industrial production (May/YoY CoinDesk TV In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of "First Mover" on CoinDesk TV : Deep Crypto Sell-Off, Coinbase Layoffs, Celsius Pausing Withdrawals, All Eyes on Fed as Investors Fear What’s Next Crypto market capitalization fell by some 12% in the last 24 hours to nearly $970 billion on Monday morning amid fears over aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes. Sean Farrell of Fundstrat Global Advisors and Gritt Trakulhoon of Titan Investment provided markets analysis. Plus, Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten discussed the potential risks associated with crypto lending service Celsius. Headlines Coinbase Lays Off Around 1,100 Employees: The exchange is reducing its workforce by roughly 18%. CEO Brian Armstrong admits the company "grew too quickly." Cryptos See Over $1B in Liquidations as Bitcoin, Ether Lose Major Support Levels: Bitcoin lost the $25,000 level, while ether briefly slid to nearly $1,200. Morgan Stanley Says Ether Underperformance Echoes Crypto Downturn of 2018: Expectations of higher Federal Reserve interest rates are weighing on crypto prices, the bank's analysts said. Celsius’s CEL Token Jumps 8-Fold in Intraday Spike: The lender’s token reached a high of $2.57 in what appears to be a short squeeze. MicroStrategy Defended at BTIG; Saylor Not Expecting Imminent Margin Call: Shares of the technology company have tumbled alongside bitcoin, down 35% over the past few days and nearly 75% so far this year. Longer reads Wanna Bet? Crypto Prediction Markets Could Be a New ‘Source of Truth’: Andrew Eaddy and Clay Graubard made the case for empowering individuals through technology as trust in institutions declines. Today's crypto explainer: What Are Liquidity Pools? Other voices: The crypto industry just had one of its worst days ever — Here’s what happened (CNBC) Said and heard "Economic conditions are changing rapidly: We appear to be entering a recession after a 10+ year economic boom. A recession could lead to another crypto winter, and could last for an extended period. In past crypto winters, trading revenue (our largest revenue source) has declined significantly. While it’s hard to predict the economy or the markets, we always plan for the worst so we can operate the business through any environment." ( Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong in blog post announcing layoffs ) ... ".@CelsiusNetwork is working around the clock for our community. It’s all hands on deck, so there will be no Twitter Spaces this week." ( Crypto lending platform Celsius/Twitter ) ... "There has been continuing volatility and further significant movements of the stETH:ETH exchange rate again today. While the discount on stETH on secondary markets is ~5% at the time of writing, Lido continues to operate normally." ( Liquid staking platform Lido/Twitter ) ... For the current market extreme condition, @trondaoreserve has received another 500 million USDC to defend #USDD peg. Now USDD collateralization rate is 310%. ( Tron ) ... "Like the man said, single digit hashprice comes at you fast...In response to yesterday's brutal market action, Bitcoin's hashprice has dipped to $0.0950/TH/dayHashprice has not traded below $0.10/TH/day since October 2020." ( Hashrate Index, bitcoin mining data analytics by Luxor Mining, on Twitter ) || Dark Web Intelligence Market to Generate $2.30 Billion by 2031: Allied Market Research: Rise in cyber fraud, introduction of crypto currencies such as Bitcoin & Etherium, and technical advancements in the field of cyber-security, antivirus, and malware protection are the major driving factors for the growth of the global dark web intelligence market. Based on region, North America held the largest share in 2021, contributing to nearly two-fifths of the total market share. The implementation of global lockdown has encouraged proliferation of emerging technologies such as dark web intelligence.
Portland, OR , Aug. 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the report published by Allied Market Research, the globaldark web intelligence marketgarnered $341.70 million in 2021, and is estimated to generate $2.30 billion by 2031, manifesting a CAGR of 21.3% from 2022 to 2031. The report provides an extensive analysis of changing market dynamics, major segments, value chain, competitive scenario, and regional landscape. This research offers a valuable guidance to leading players, investors, shareholders, and startups in devising strategies for the sustainable growth and gaining competitive edge in the market.
Report coverage & details:
[{"Report Coverage": "Forecast Period", "Details": "2022\u00ad\u20132031"}, {"Report Coverage": "Base Year", "Details": "2021"}, {"Report Coverage": "Market Size in 2021", "Details": "$341.70 million"}, {"Report Coverage": "Market Size in 2031", "Details": "$2.30 billion"}, {"Report Coverage": "CAGR", "Details": "21.3%"}, {"Report Coverage": "No. of Pages in Report", "Details": "350"}, {"Report Coverage": "Segments covered", "Details": "Component, Deployment Model, Enterprise Size, Industry Vertical, and Region."}, {"Report Coverage": "Drivers", "Details": "Rise in cyber fraud"}, ["Introduction of crypto currencies such as Bitcoin and Etherium"], ["Technical advancements in the field of cyber-security, antivirus, and malware protection"], {"Report Coverage": "Opportunities", "Details": "Rise in popularity of cloud-based operations"}]
Covid-19 Scenario:
• Industries around the globe are severely affected by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the impact on the technology sector during the crisis was comparatively lesser than the rest of the economy.
• The implementation of the global encouraged usage of emerging technologies such as dark web intelligence. Various organizations adopted dark web intelligence solution to tackle various cyber threats and enhance business operations.
• Increase in variety of cyber frauds such as ransomware attack, financial fraud, and data hacking across industries such as BFSI, healthcare, and government created the demand for dark web intelligence solution to perform contactless operations safely and securely even during the pandemic.
• Furthermore, dark web intelligence enables end-to-end business operation management while improving business agility, streamlining processes, and securing the future of enterprises. For instance, in February 2021, Volante Global, a multi-class and multi-territory international managing general agent (MGA) platform, launched the innovative cyber ransomware solution, Cyber LockoutSM, which combines ransomware insurance cover with the latest cyber security technology. It is designed specifically to greatly reduce an organization’s exposure to malware attacks, including ransomware. Such developments are expected to enhance the growth of the market in the post-pandemic.
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The research provides detailed segmentation of the global dark web intelligence market based on component, deployment model, enterprise size, industry vertical, and region. The report discusses segments and their sub-segments in detail with the help of tables and figures. Market players and investors can strategize according to the highest revenue-generating and fastest-growing segments mentioned in the report.
Based on component, the solution segment held the highest share in 2021, accounting for nearly three-fourths of the global dark web intelligence market, and is expected to continue its leadership status during the forecast period. However, the services segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 22.7% from 2022 to 2031.
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Based on deployment model, the on-premise segment accounted for the highest share in 2021, contributing to more than half of the global dark web intelligence market, and is expected to maintain its lead in terms of revenue during the forecast period. However, the cloud segment is expected to manifest the highest CAGR of 22.0% from 2022 to 2031.
Based on enterprise size, the large enterprises segment accounted for the highest share in 2021, holding more than three-fifths of the global market, and is expected to continue its leadership status during the forecast period. However, the SMEs segment is estimated to grow at the highest CAGR of 22.4% during the forecast period.
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Based on region, North America held the largest share in 2021, contributing to nearly two-fifths of the total market share, and is projected to maintain its dominant share in terms of revenue in 2031. In addition, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to manifest the fastest CAGR of 22.8% during the forecast period. The research also analyzes regions including Europe and LAMEA.
Leading market players of the globaldark web intelligence industryanalyzed in the research include Alert Logic, Blueliv, Carbonite, Inc., DarkOwl, Digital Shadows, Echosec, Enigma, Flashpoint, IntSights, KELA, NICE Actimize, Proofpoint, Inc., Searchlight Security, Sixgill, Terbium Labs, Verisign, and ZeroFox. This report gives an in-depth profile of these key players of the market. These players have adopted different strategies such as new product launches, collaborations, expansion, joint ventures, agreements, and others to increase their market share and maintain dominant shares in different regions. The report is valuable in highlighting business performance, operating segments, product portfolio, and strategic moves of market players to showcase the competitive scenario.
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Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.
Pawan Kumar, the CEO of Allied Market Research, is leading the organization toward providing high-quality data and insights. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.
CONTACT: Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States Toll Free: +1-800-792-5285 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1-855-550-5975 help@alliedmarketresearch.com Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com Follow Us on: LinkedIn Twitter || FOREX-Euro just off two-decade low, volatility highest since March 2020: * Euro just off its two decade low
* Rising risk appetite support the single currency
* Swiss Franc hovering around 7-year high vs euro
* Aussie dollar up on commodity prices rebound
* Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E (Adds comments, background)
By Stefano Rebaudo
July 7 (Reuters) - A pullback in the dollar offered the euro some respite, allowing it to edge away from two-decade lows reached this week after surging energy prices fanned recession fears.
Risky assets, including the euro, managed gradual gains on Thursday as investors grappled with the risks of a recession and a potential pause in interest rate hikes.
European Central Bank minutes about its June policy meeting failed to affect the forex market.
Meanwhile, implied volatility remained near its highest levels since late March 2020 at 11.2%, reflecting a nervous market while investors look at the parity between the single currency and the dollar.
"Parity is within reach, and one can expect the market to want to see it now," said Moritz Paysen currency and rates advisor at Berenberg.
The euro rose 0.1% to 1.0194 after hitting a two-decade low at 1.01615 on Wednesday.
According to George Saravelos, global head of forex research at Deutsche Bank, "if Europe and the U.S. slip-slide into a recession in Q3 while the Fed is still hiking rates, these levels (0.95-0.97 in EUR/USD) could well be reached."
"The two key catalysts to mark a turn in the USD embedded in our forecasts are a signal that the Fed is entering a protracted pause in its tightening cycle and/or a clear peak in European energy tensions via an end to Ukraine hostilities," he said.
The dollar index - which measures the value of the currency against six counterparts - slipped 0.2% to 106.86, pulling away from Wednesday's peak of 107.27, a level not seen since late 2002.
Commodity-linked currencies strengthened as copper prices climbed. Some investors returned to the market on Thursday after heightened recession fears sent the red metal to its lowest level in nearly 20 months.
A Bloomberg News story, citing unnamed sources, said China mulled $220 billion stimulus with unprecedented bond sale.
"We saw a pretty muted reaction to the headline about China's stimulus plan, even for offshore yuan," said Roberto Mialich, forex strategist at Unicredit.
"We remain cautious about growth in China while we see commodity-linked currencies recovering today along with commodity prices," he added.
The offshore Chinese yuan was up 0.1% against the dollar to 6.705.
The Australian dollar rose 0.8% to 0.6841 against the U.S. dollar after recently hitting its lowest since June 2020 at 0.6762.
The Swiss Franc eased from its seven-year high, down 0.2% at 0.9909.
Earlier this week, inflation staying above the Swiss National Bank's (SNB) 0-2% target range for the fifth month fuelled talk that the central bank could soon tighten its policy again. Last month it hiked its policy rate for the first time in 15 years.
The SNB has signalled it is prepared to see the Swiss franc strengthen to choke off imported inflation.
Sterling was unchanged after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would resign.
It was up 0.5% at $1.1977.
Analysts said the pound was mostly moving on broader economic concerns about a global recession, rather than Britain's political turmoil.
Bitcoin fell 0.7% and was last trading at $20,402. Ether fell 0.8% to 1,176.
(Reporting by Stefano Rebaudo; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Tomasz Janowski) || 7 Warren Buffett Stocks to Buy for a Bear Market: You can trade alongside a living legend thats been through it all with these seven Warren Buffett stocks to buy for a bear market. Chevron ( CVX ): The Oracle of Omaha has been bullish on oil giant Chevron and the fundamentals suggest hes right on the money yet again. Citigroup ( C ): An interesting name among Warren Buffett stocks, Citigroup might do well on the strength of its wealth management business. Markel ( MKL ): A true oddity within the ranks of Warren Buffett stocks, Markel specializes in insuring difficult-to-classify risks, which is still an in-demand sector. Paramount Global ( PARA ): Although content-driven ideas have proven risky in this bear market, Paramount Global may offer good value for those who follow Warren Buffett stocks. Celanese ( CE ): A chemicals and specialty materials provider, Celanese is boring yet is tied to some of the most exciting applications in the global economy. McKesson ( MCK ): One of the major pharmaceutical and medical supply companies, McKesson benefits from the return to normalization, such as the rebound in dentistry. Apple ( AAPL ): Although risky because of its exposure to consumer sentiment, Buffett believes management is making effective use of its cash. For those seeking to invest according to one of the greatest north stars in the equities world, look no further than these Warren Buffett stocks to buy for a bear market. Known as the Oracle of Omaha, Buffett is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A , NYSE: BRK.B ), an American multinational conglomerate holding firm. Given his expertise, many investors look to what Berkshire adds to its portfolio to guide their own decisions. Now, let me be perfectly clear about something: you should always conduct your due diligence before embarking in any investment decision. That goes for Warren Buffett stocks or any other investing category. Remember that no one perfectly navigates the storm not even close. That said, following Buffett (and more specifically the Berkshire picks) makes sense because the man has seen it all. Story continues Indeed, when Buffett speaks, everyone listens, irrespective of whether theyre believers or naysayers. The ramblings of self-professed market experts is akin to YouTube doomsday prepper content: no one has lived through the collapse of the U.S. so its difficult to say what works and what doesnt. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips 7 Butchered Tech Stocks to Buy and Hold However, Warren Buffett stocks are in a different league because theyre tied to a philosophy commanding decades of success. Ticker Company Current Price CVX Chevron Corporation $149.94 C Citigroup Inc. $47.21 MKL Markel Corporation $1,297.84 PARA Paramount Global $25.56 CE Celanese Corporation $123.01 MCK McKesson Corporation $321.55 AAPL Apple Inc. $137.44 Warren Buffett Stocks: Chevron (CVX) CVX stock Source: tishomir / Shutterstock.com In May 2020, New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin noticed a change in the Oracle of Omahas tone . While typically optimistic and cheerful, two years ago, Buffett carefully expressed his long-term bullishness with the caveat that investors needed to be careful. As Sorkin put it, Buffett was neither optimistic nor pessimistic but rather realistic. I think that sets up the case for Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) very well as one of the Warren Buffett stocks to buy for a bear market. With Berkshire bolstering its ownership of CVX, the legendary investor stayed true to his pragmatism. Yes, the political framework has decidedly pivoted to clean and renewable energy infrastructures. Further, Russias invasion of Ukraine has sparked a global fast-tracking of wind and solar initiatives. Still, fossil fuels reign supreme for now because of their high energy density . Unfortunately from the perspective of environmental advocates, hydrocarbons are not going to lose their relevance for years if not decades. Therefore, CVX is one of the smartest Warren Buffett stocks to buy. Citigroup (C) The logo for Citigroup (C) can be seen on the side of an office building for the company. Source: Willy Barton / Shutterstock.com When Berkshire initiated a new stake relatively recently in banking giant Citigroup (NYSE: C ), I was a bit surprised. For one thing, Citigroup has not performed well in the market, shedding 20% on a year-to-date basis. More critically, the fundamentals of the moment seem to challenge C stock. True, all other things being equal, a rising interest rate environment helps banking firms. Theoretically, banks will benefit from the lending products they distribute to clients. Of course, the problem is that in a recession, business sentiment is negative. And increasing borrowing costs is not going to help the matter. Nevertheless, Citigroup could be a contrarian name among Warren Buffett stocks to buy for a bear market because of its wealth management business. For instance, with baby boomers recognizing that the environment for cheap capital is over, theyll want expert guidance not BS guidance from YouTube luminaries to help them navigate troubled waters. Markel (MKL) Markel website homepage MRK stock Source: madamF / Shutterstock.com One of the small joys of covering Warren Buffett stocks to buy is that theyre not necessarily predictable. Admittedly, if youve followed the Oracle over the years or read books written about his investing philosophies you have a good idea of what to expect. But sometimes, hell throw an unusual name out there like insurance firm Markel (NYSE: MKL ). Its not so much about insurance thats interesting; its one of the oldest industries, actually. Rather, Markel specializes in a sector subsegment that focuses on providing solutions for unusual or difficult-to-classify risks. For instance, it might provide coverage for companies that feature an unusually high workplace injury profile. Among its top sectors are medical services, equine and livestock, sports and fitness and marine-based small businesses. While MKL might appear to be a niche sector, the reality is that such unusual risks can expand because of the gig economy. With more people interested in working for themselves, Markel is an intriguing idea. Warren Buffett Stocks: Paramount Global (PARA) Paramount Plus mobile app icon is seen on an iPhone. Source: Tada Images / Shutterstock.com Another name among Warren Buffett stocks that likely raised eyebrows is Paramount Global (NASDAQ: PARA ). Lets be honest. Given that shedding 20% peak-to-trough is commonly considered the start of a bear market, the loss of 17% in the S&P 500 suggests were well underway in a downturn. Under such circumstances, households dump what they dont truly need. Youd think a content entertainment platform would be one of the things jettisoned. Indeed, what adds to the PARA intrigue is Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ). Seemingly everybody was singing its praises until it lost a staggering 68% YTD in the market. Why then would PARA be any different? While I cant speak authoritatively about the motivations of all Warren Buffett stocks, Paramount might come down to value. The company enjoys strong profitability margins and against a basket of fundamental gauges, Paramount Global is considered modestly undervalued . PARA could also benefit from the cheap respite thesis in that consumers in a recession will want a distraction from the stress. Paramounts platform could offer just that. Celanese (CE) Cellphone with logo of US chemicals company Celanese Corporation (CE) on screen in front of business website Focus on center-left of phone display Source: Wirestock Creators / Shutterstock.com Arguably, Celanese (NYSE: CE ) fits the stereotypical profile of a stock the Oracle would buy. A chemicals and specialty materials provider, Celanese is incredibly boring but also incredibly relevant and necessary. These are the key attributes investors ought to look for when considering ideas against the backdrop of a bear market. While CE might go ignored even among those that follow Warren Buffett stocks to buy, what makes the underlying company interesting is its products and applications cover a range of industries, from the mundane such as adhesives to the revolutionary such as autonomous and connected vehicles. In other words, Celanese is much like selling tickets to the game rather than betting on the over-under for a particular matchup. You might not know the outcome of the tournament but you know that it will be big. Under this context, CE is a perfect hedge. And its no shocker that its also one of the Warren Buffett stocks to buy for a bear market. McKesson Corporation (MCK) McKesson headquarters in Irving, TX Source: JHVEPhoto / Shutterstock.com Representing one of the newest stakes for Berkshire Hathaway, McKesson (NYSE: MCK ) is one of the strongest Warren Buffett stocks to buy for a bear market. A pharmaceutical and medical supply company, McKesson is a clear beneficiary of the gradual return to normalization. Back when the Covid-19 crisis was in full swing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that an estimated 41% of U.S. adults had delayed or avoided medical care including urgent or emergency care (12%) and routine care (32%). Now that fears of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are fading, more people are willing to undergo medical treatment, which should boost McKesson. As well, the Washington Post reported that after a two-year hiatus, people were returning to the dentists office . Getting regular checkups is one of the best ways to maintain your overall health so more folks will likely get back on the wagon. This too bolsters the narrative for MCK stock. Warren Buffett Stocks: Apple (AAPL) Close-up of Apple (AAPL) retail store Logo in Honolulu at the Ala Moana Center. Advertising the latest generation of the ipad, iphones, and ipods with a Retina display. Source: Eric Broder Van Dyke / Shutterstock.com As a consumer technology firm, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) is very much tied to the discretionary sector, which poses risks. Again, should we enter an economic downturn, households will jettison products and services they dont need. While Apple iPhones are arguably the best in class, cheaper alternatives exist. Moreover, customers might not be as willing to upgrade their devices during a recession. Still, AAPL remains one of the Warren Buffett stocks to buy. As the man himself stated not too long ago, he likes Apples share repurchases as an effective use of cash. Beyond that, the company has tremendous brand cachet. True, a bear market makes this narrative tricky. Nevertheless, its going to be difficult for people to part with their Apple products. Another factor that might be drawing Berkshires interest is that the company isnt just a manufacturer of desirable goods but also a provider of a powerful and convenient digital network. With each Apple device connected to a broader whole, the underlying company makes a case for permanent relevance. On the date of publication, Josh Enomoto did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . 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 doesnt matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. The post 7 Warren Buffett Stocks to Buy for a Bear Market appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Mexican crypto exchange Bitso reaches more than 1 million users in Brazil: SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Mexican cryptocurrency exchange Bitso has hit the one million users mark in Brazil about a year after it launched in the country, according to the company's Brazil chief.
"We beat 1 million users in Brazil earlier than expected, and our transaction volumes grew by 66% in June from May," Thales Freitas told Reuters in an interview.
He did not provide detailed figures, but said that July readings have already exceeded the previous month despite the recent downturn seen across most major crypto currencies.
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Mexico, Bitso raised $250 million in a funding round in May 2021, which valued the platform at $2.2 billion ahead of its debut in Brazil.
Freitas, a former executive at Citi and HSBC, took over in Bitso's second largest market, Brazil, three months ago with the mission of leading the company through an increasingly adverse scenario of intense asset volatility and higher interest rates.
To overcome these hurdles, Bitso has boosted its incentive program, offering returns of up to 15% per year in stablecoins, digital currencies pegged to traditional assets such as the U.S. dollar.
"Brazilian investors love fixed income, and stablecoins are a good way to diversify," Freitas said.
Bitso is currently awaiting central bank approval of its application for a payment institution license in Brazil, where it currently operates in partnership with lenders Banco Genial and Starkbank.
The so-called "crypto winter" has led some foreign companies to collapse in the wake of a sharp devaluation of digital currencies.
Nonetheless, Bitso now faces fresh competition on its home turf after SoftBank-backed Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin announced last week it was planning on entering the Mexican market
(Reporting by Aluisio Alves; Writing by Gabriel Araujo, Editing by Isabel Woodford and Nick Zieminski)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 23957.53, 24402.82, 24424.07, 24319.33, 24136.97, 23883.29, 23336.00, 23212.74, 20877.55, 21166.06
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2017-01-17]
BTC Price: 907.94, BTC RSI: 53.27
Gold Price: 1212.00, Gold RSI: 66.76
Oil Price: 52.48, Oil RSI: 52.42
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
A bitcoin ETF would have 'very significant upside' but it probably won't happen: Analyst: Bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=-USS) followers are assigning far too high a likelihood that regulators will OK a fund that tracks the cryptocurrency, which is too bad because approval would provide a major boost to its price, according to one analyst. Regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission are weighing whether to approve an exchange-traded fund proposed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss . The SEC has been considering a proposal that came into being more than three years ago. The Winklevoss brothers are looking to list the ETF on the Bats exchange. Should the fund gain approval, it would attract a flood of investor cash that could hit $300 million, according to investment bank Needham and Co. The total value of bitcoins in circulation was $13.8 billion as of Tuesday afternoon trading. That's the good news. The bad news is that Needham analysts believe there is very little chance the SEC actually will go ahead and approve the ETF. They say the chances are probably less than 25 percent. "In contrast to most of the people that we speak to in the industry, we think the probability that a bitcoin ETF will be approved in 2017 is very low," analyst Spencer Bogart said in a research note. "To be clear, we don't see any specific reason to disapprove the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF, but, instead, think that the confluence of fear, uncertainty and doubt coupled with basic incentives at the SEC will make it very difficult to get approval." That could come as news to many of bitcoin's avid followers who believe the fund will be approved by March 11, which has been set as the deadline for a ruling. Bitcoin was created more than eight years ago as a digital currency and is accepted by more than 100,000 vendors for payment. It has generated controversy through its use in the underworld and because of several high-profile bitcoin thefts. "We think the positive effect that a bitcoin ETF would have on the price of bitcoin is vastly underappreciated, and that the probability of approval is drastically overestimated within the industry," Bogart wrote. Not to worry, however. Regardless of whether the ETF becomes reality, Bogart said bitcoin will be fine. Bitcoin recently hit a brief peak above $1,000 and is up 102 percent over the past 12 months. The Winklevoss brothers did not immediately respond to a request for comment "Overall, this is a low probability event with a very significant upside," Bogart said of the ETF. "Ultimately, while it appears there is significant pent-up demand from the investment public for such a vehicle, bitcoin itself certainly doesn't need an ETF and will continue on regardless of the SEC's decision." Story continues More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance View comments || Tips on How to Protect Your Private Information On Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Americans will line up around stores and standby their computers or smartphones to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, but protecting their private information should also be priority for shoppers. During the holiday season many shoppers are harmed by failing to take simple precautions, says Gene Richardson, COO of Experts Exchange , a network for technology professionals. In Store Vs. Online Retail stores are one of the top areas identity thieves go after, Richardson said in an email to the IBTimes. A large number of some of the biggest identity thefts in the past few years were at large retail stores, he says. Long lines and busy cashiers could potentially put your private information at risk. “All the clerk cares about is getting you through the line as fast as they can so they can deal with the next customer and hope that none of you are angry,” says Richardson. “So, if there is a hiccup with your transaction, they will take “backup” paths to complete your transaction like entering your credit card number by hand.” Richardson, who is also the former head of the data security teams IBM, Charles Schwab and Motorola, says customers should never give their credit card to someone to perform a transaction by entering a card number. “Hand transactions are a huge risk for identity theft,” he says. Customers should also avoid buying if a cashier’s computer is down or too busy, unless it’s with cash, or try to go back later. Credit card scanners are also a threat to customers, as some of them may be rigged to copy a person’s information so that a duplicate credit card can be made. People may be less exposed to this action in large retail stores, but the risk is higher in smaller boutiques shops, says Richardson. Customers should also make sure their credit card number is not printed on receipts and should instead have XXX's where the number is displayed. But online purchases can be riskier because of all the extra information customers hand over, like their name, address, phone number, credit card information, expiration date and CSV. Story continues “They ask for so much more information from you to validate who you are than a purchase in a retail store,” says Richardson. “You have no control of who or where that information is going.” Tips to Protect Yourself Here are Richardson’s tips for shoppers on how they can protect themselves on Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Ensure that the website address is secure and has a valid encryption certificate. It will usually display a “locked, green” indicator in front of the website name. If it doesn’t have that, it does not have a higher level of security that has been guaranteed by a known entity like Verisign, Symantec and others. Ensure your system has the most recent recommended system and security patches. Always use a credit card that is not tied directly to your personal bank account(s), even if you are using PayPal, Bitcoin or some other payment method. Never give anything other than name, address and phone number. You should not need to answer security or privacy questions when making a purchase or checking out. If they ask, see if you can checkout as a “guest” instead. Monitor your credit through a third party for identify theft and have SMS and email alerts sent to you immediately. Set-up alerts with your credit card company that send both SMS and emails when any purchases are made and the credit card was not scanned (meaning, it wasn’t in someone’s hand when the charge was made). Set them as low as $25 per purchase. Also, set-up alerts for total purchases over $500 in a billing period to protect multiple $24.99 purchases. And if possible, a maximum amount of purchases allowed in a billing period such as $1500 before card will get declined. Ensure that you have a reputable Antivirus program running on your computer and that your browser has an Ad blocking plug-in. (Richardson recommends Norton, McAfee or ESET.) Ensure that the network your computer/device is on is secure and you know who has access to your network. This is usually done with your router. You want to lock down your router so that traffic can be initiated from the inside-out but you do not want traffic to be initiated from the outside-in. If you are using a WiFi connection, make sure that network is also secure and requires a password to join. If it is a public WiFi network that doesn’t require a password, then the traffic coming from your device can be monitored and stolen. (Link to onsite how-to article?) Any passwords that you use should be strong, hard to guess ones. Or, even better, hard to guess, but easy to remember . Don’t click on unfamiliar links to sites advertising sales, coupons, etc. Use two-factor authentication/verification, if it is offered. Shopping on Mobile Devices One in 10 mobile apps that are found through searching “Black Friday” are blacklisted as malicious, according to cyber security company RiskIQ An estimated 30 percent of purchases will be made on mobile devices, RiskIQ says. Shopping on mobile devices can substantially increase the risk of encountering phishing pages, malicious apps, and viruses that infect customers’ smartphones and tablets to steal money and private information. There are also fake apps out there that contain malware that can steal customers’ data or lock the device until the user pays a ransom, says RiskIQ. Other malicious apps may ask consumers to use their Facebook or Gmail logins, which could compromise their private information. Tips For Safe Shopping on Mobile Devices Here are some tips from RiskIQ: Ensure that you are only downloading apps from official app stores such as Google or Apple Be wary of applications that ask for suspicious permissions, like access to contacts, text messages, administrative features, stored passwords, or credit card info. Just because an app appears to have a good reputation doesn’t make it so. Rave reviews can be forged, and a high amount of downloads can simply indicate a threat actor was successful in fooling a lot of victims. Before downloading an app, be sure to take a look at the developer—if it’s not a brand you recognize or has a strange appearance or spelling, think twice. You can even do a Google search on the developer for more clues about its reputation. Make sure to take a deep look at each app. New developers, or developers that leverage free email services (e.g., @gmail) for their developer contact, can be enormous red flags— threat actors often use these services to produce mass amounts of malicious apps in a short period. Also, poor grammar in the description highlights the haste of development and the lack of marketing professionalism that are hallmarks of mobile malware campaigns. Check website addresses after following links on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media channels to be sure you end up on the true website of the retailer you want. Look for the “S” in HTTPS when you visit shopping sites. Beware of shopping sites that do not use HTTPS in their website addresses or do not display the symbol of a lock next to the web address. Secure sites use HTTPS, and without that, you’re dealing with unsecured connections or weak encryption of personal data. Never provide your credit card information unless you are in a secure online shopping portal. Sites that ask for it in return for “coupons” or to win “free” merchandise are almost always scams. Protect Yourself From a Major Headache For those who might not want to go through the hassle of setting up credit card alerts on purchases or locking down their router, it’s important to remember that it can and save consumers from a major headache. “Identity theft could cost you several thousand dollars in actual money and can cost you a lot more in your personal time and future anticipated losses cleaning up after the fact,” Richardson said. “The impact of identity theft could last years as you personally have to work to call all your creditors to fix your credit, loss of credibility for future purchases of a home, car, etc. as your credit scores will have been impacted, the effect on future employment opportunities as background checks are run and many, many more,” he added. Related Articles $100 Off HTC Vive On Black Friday and Cyber Monday American Consumers Prep For Cyber Monday || Bitcoin's total value hits record high above $14 billion: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - The total value of all bitcoins in circulation hit a record high above $14 billion on Thursday, as the web-based digital currency jumped 5 percent on the day to its highest levels in three years after more than doubling in price this year. The price of one bitcoin reached $875 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, its strongest level since January 2014, putting the cryptocurrency on track for its best daily performance in six months. That compared with levels around $435 at the start of the year, with many experts linking bitcoin's rise with the steady depreciation of the Chinese yuan, which has slid almost 7 percent this year. Data shows the majority of bitcoin trading is done in China, so any increase in demand from there tends to have a significant impact on the price. 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. The digital currency is still some way off the peaks it scaled in late 2013, when it traded as high as $1,163 on the Bitstamp exchange. But because more bitcoins continue to be added to the system, currently at a rate of 12.5 every 10 minutes, its total value - or "market cap" - on Thursday surpassed the 2013 peak of around $14.01 billion. That puts its total value at around the same as that of an average FTSE 100 company. Charles Hayter, founder of data analysis website Cryptocompare, said bitcoin had been helped higher by demonetization in India, and by global political uncertainty. "If that trend continues, bitcoin is a good thematic play on the fracturing of our global norms as a flight to safety," he said. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, editing by Nigel Stephenson) || Bitcoin's total value hits record high above $14 billion: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - The total value of all bitcoins in circulation hit a record high above $14 billion on Thursday, as the web-based digital currency jumped 5 percent on the day to its highest levels in three years after more than doubling in price this year.
The price of one bitcoin reached $875 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, its strongest level since January 2014, putting the cryptocurrency on track for its best daily performance in six months.
That compared with levels around $435 at the start of the year, with many experts linking bitcoin's rise with the steady depreciation of the Chinese yuan, which has slid almost 7 percent this year.
Data shows the majority of bitcoin trading is done in China, so any increase in demand from there tends to have a significant impact on the price.
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.
The digital currency is still some way off the peaks it scaled in late 2013, when it traded as high as $1,163 on the Bitstamp exchange.
But because more bitcoins continue to be added to the system, currently at a rate of 12.5 every 10 minutes, its total value - or "market cap" - on Thursday surpassed the 2013 peak of around $14.01 billion. That puts its total value at around the same as that of an average FTSE 100 company.
Charles Hayter, founder of data analysis website Cryptocompare, said bitcoin had been helped higher by demonetization in India, and by global political uncertainty.
"If that trend continues, bitcoin is a good thematic play on the fracturing of our global norms as a flight to safety," he said.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly, editing by Nigel Stephenson) || PRESS DIGEST- New York Times business news - Jan 10: Jan 10 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. - Yahoo Inc said on Monday when its $4.8 billion deal to sell internet business to Verizon Communications Inc closes, it would rename itself "Altaba." And that more than half the company's board members - including Chief Executive Marissa Mayer - would step down. http://nyti.ms/2iyGo40 - Goldman Sachs Group Inc announced on Monday that Elisha Wiesel would become the chief information officer, taking over from Martin Chavez, a prominent executive who pushed to make Goldman more of a forward-looking technology firm. http://nyti.ms/2iyEhx2 - UnitedHealth Group Inc, one of the largest and most diversified health insurance companies in the United States, said on Monday that it planned to buy Surgical Care Affiliates Inc, a chain of outpatient surgery centers, for about $2.3 billion. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2017. http://nyti.ms/2iyHVHi - McDonald's Corp said on Monday it would sell its businesses in mainland China and Hong Kong for $2.08 billion to Citic Ltd, a state-owned conglomerate, and the Carlyle Group Lp, a private equity firm. http://nyti.ms/2jnN3hu - The company that serves as the back end for much Wall Street trading - the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, or DTCC - said on Monday it would replace one of its central databases, used by the largest banks in the world, with new software inspired by Bitcoin. The organization, based in New York, plays a role in recording and reporting nearly every stock and bond trade in the United States, as well as most valuable derivatives trades. http://nyti.ms/2jxvMqh (Compiled by Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru) || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: (A view of a firing contest among multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) batteries selected from large combined units of the KPA, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang.Reuters/KCNA)
Here is what you need to know.
Dow 20,000 remains elusive.The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.16% on Wednesday to finish at 19,941.96. It's set to open Thursday's session near 19,935.
Wednesday was the most boring day for stocks since 1992.Wednesday's intraday range of 1.9 basis points was the tightest since Christmas Eve 1992, according to Bespoke Investment Group.
The world's oldest bank is moving closer to a bailout.Monte Paschi failed to secure a key investor for its new share offering, and Reuters reports that caused other investors to balk at the deal. Aside from failing, the only realistic option at this point is a state bailout by the Italian government.
Bitcoin is at its best level in 3 years.The cryptocurrency trades higher by more than 5% on Thursday at $874.04, its best level since December 2013.
Carl Icahn will have a role in the Trump Administration.Icahn will serve as a special adviser to Trump on regulation. "His help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable," Trump said in a release.
Air Force One will cost less than previously expected.After meeting with Trump, Boeing CEODennis Muilenburg said the president's plane will cost less than previous estimate of near $4 billion. "We work on Air Force One because it's important to our country and we're going to make sure that he gets the best capability and that it's done affordably," Muilenburg said.
Hershey has a new CEO.Michele Buck has been named president and CEO, effective March 1, 2017. Currently, Buck is the company's executive vice president and COO.
Stock markets around the world are lower.Hong Kong's Hang Seng (-0.8%) lagged in Asia and Spain's IBEX (-0.4%) trails in Europe.
Earnings reporting remains light.Rite Aid and ConAgra Brands will release their quarterly results ahead of the opening bell while Cintas reports after markets close.
US economic data picks up.GDP, durable goods, and initial jobless claims will all be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before the FHFA House Price Index crosses the wires at 9 a.m. ET and personal income and spending are announced at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is up 2 bps at 2.55%.
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• 'The global bond rout deepens:' Here's a quick guide to what traders are talking about right now || A 27-year-old raised $10 million from venture capitalists for an unusual hedge fund: bitcoin (Andrew Burton/Getty Images) A 27-year-old has raised $10 million for an unusual hedge fund with the support of venture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. The 27-year-old in question is Olaf Carlson-Wee, and he's launching a strategy that invests in cryptocurrencies. To be clear, the $10 million managed by Carlson-Wee's Polychain Capital is peanuts in the hedge fund world. But Polychain's strategy is rare, with few other funds trading in cryptocurrencies. Most hedge funds trade stocks, bonds, and currencies, with variations of different strategies. So what is a cryptocurrency? A cryptocurrency is basically a digital, encrypted currency that is decentralized, so no one power oversees its value. Bitcoin is the most famous of cryptocurrencies nobody knows who created it and it's divorced from any government. It's considered a secure, private currency, drawing the attention of antigovernment and privacy-minded folks . But it's not the only one several other cryptocurrencies exist and are being developed. Transactions for these currencies are recorded in blockchain, a private and encrypted ledger . Carlson-Wee is betting that he can choose the cryptocurrencies that will increase in value and he expects hundreds of them to enter the market. "The challenge for someone running a hedge fund is how to build a portfolio across that spectrum of risk and how to choose which of the new issues are going to become important and which are not," said Brad Burnham, partner at Union Square Ventures, which is investing in the fund. Olaf Carlson-Wee (Olaf Carlson-Wee.Courtesy of Olaf Carlson-Wee) Polychain, based in San Francisco, will be small, hiring only a handful of people. And Carlson-Wee is not looking for traditional Wall Street types. "An amateur trader in the cryptocurrency market may have a more relevant background than someone who has had a traditional background on Wall Street," Carlson-Wee said. Carlson-Wee, a Vassar College grad, wrote his undergrad thesis on bitcoin. Story continues "I was immediately enamored and sort of obsessed," he said. "I thought the prospect of [bitcoin] had massive implications." He then went to Coinbase, a digital asset exchange, and headed risk, overseeing things like fraud prevention and account security, he said. Not only is his background unusual for hedge funds so is his strategy. For instance, the normal research avenues for common hedge fund trades are unavailable, though there are some parallels. Qualitative research Instead of talking with sell-side researchers or looking at credit agencies (there are none), Carlson-Wee spends his time reading through the white papers that describe the protocols, interviewing the lead developers, and looking at a protocol's machinations in the GitHub repository. "This qualitative research is supplemented by market data such as price and trading volume as well as network data such as transactions per day, dollar value transacted per day, and the estimated cost of a network-scale attack," he said. He also embeds himself within the groups that are using the protocols to get a sense of how they are interacting with them, he said. two men computers typing technology digital online internet (Patrick Lux/Getty Images) That model is similar to other funds that have launched in the space. MetaStable, another small hedge fund based in San Francisco, launched in 2014 with a handful of employees. The firm manages a few million, said Lucas Ryan, one of MetaStable's staffers. Its investors tend to be those who are already sold on blockchain but "aren't necessary sold that bitcoin has solved all the problems," so they are seeking to invest in other cryptocurrencies, Ryan said. Ryan, who has a programming background, says his job is to evaluate the protocols that people are developing and the problems they are trying to solve. "The market is so immature and requires a high degree of technical understanding to wade through the stuff that isn't bull----," Ryan said. "A lot of stuff I couldn't do if I wasn't a programmer with a cryptography background. There's not, like, a ratings agency for any of these." Still, like with Polychain's strategy, there are parallels. Ryan meets with protocol developers and tries to get a sense of how serious they are and whether their source coding is legit. To be sure, this world of funds is very young. Until recently, Ryan was working on the fund part time, he said. And it's unlikely these kinds of funds would grow to be large. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, has about a $13.7 billion market cap. "Bitcoin is like 80% of the total market of coins," Ryan said. "It would give someone pause to start a $50 million fund." NOW WATCH: A penny costs 1.43 cents to make heres what the rest of US currency costs More From Business Insider Hedge funds are going to lay out their Brexit wish list to stop the destruction of the city A small hedge fund that says its reports have led to CEO resignations has a new big short There has been a board shake-up at Chipotle, and Bill Ackman is happy about it || How Did Bitcoin Perform This Year?: After a strong showing in 2015, Bitcoin investors experienced another strong year of performance from the popular cryptocurrency in 2016. Bitcoin followed up an impressive +26.3 percent gain in 2015 with a +119.8 percent gain in 2016. A large part of Bitcoin’s gains has come in the final weeks of the year. Since December 16, the price of Bitcoin has spiked 20.0 percent to $967.94.
Tech-savvy investorscan buy Bitcoin directly by downloading a Bitcoin Wallet app from Circle, Coinbase, Xapo or other popular services and simply linking their bank account to the app. In addition to these digital wallet apps, investors can buy shares ofBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC), which is a trust that invests exclusively in Bitcoin and trades on the OTC market. Each share of the trust represents on tenth of a Bitcoin. The trust is up 93.6 percent in 2016.
The Winklevoss twins have also filed for a Bitcoin ETF that may be approved in 2017. The twins have made a number of tweaks to the proposed ETF since they first filed in order to convince the SEC of the safety and security of the fund. If approved, the Bitcoin ETF would be the first direct way for investors to bet on Bitcoin on a major U.S. public market.
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin is going bananas: Bitcoin machine (Photographers take pictures in front of a mock bitcoin ATM during the opening of Hong Kong's first bitcoin retail store.Reuters/Bobby Yip) Bitcoin is going bananas. The cryptocurrency was 10.1% higher at $1,127.48 per coin just after noon in New York on Wednesday, bringing its 2017 gain to 17.8%. On its first trading day of the new year, bitcoin crossed above the $1,000 mark for the first time since 2013. Bitcoin is up 95% since the beginning of September, and it gained 123% in 2016, making it the top performing currency for the second year in a row. Bitcoin's gains have been buoyed by renewed interest from China, where money is rushing out of the country as its currency, the yuan, continues to weaken. China's foreign-exchange reserves shrank by about 8% in 2016 to $3.05 trillion as of November. The outflows have pushed the yuan to its weakest levels against the dollar since 2008. According to a recent Business Insider Intelligence briefing, citing data from Cryptocompare : "In the first 24 hours of the new year, over 5 million bitcoins were bought in Chinese yuan, equating to $3.8 billion. In contrast, just 53,000 bitcoins were bought in US dollars." And while not all of that translates into people actually buying and holding, it shows the tremendous appetite for bitcoin in China. The situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon unless China takes action to stop the bleeding amid the US Federal Reserve ratcheting up its 2017 interest-rate hike expectations to three from two. If those rate hikes happen, an even weaker yuan is most likely in the cards, creating an even more beneficial scenario for bitcoin. Bitcoin (Markets Insider) NOW WATCH: Watch Yellen explain why the Federal Reserve decides to raise rates More From Business Insider 26 things under $20 we use every day Customers developed a new habit during the recession it's killing Applebee's and Buffalo Wild Wings China is behind the latest bitcoin craze || Bitcoin predicted to rise 165% to $2,000 in 2017 driven by Trumps spending binge and dollar rally: The price of Bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=-USS) could hit more than $2,000 in 2017 driven by expectations that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump may introduce economic stimulus policies, which could send inflation soaring and propel the dollar to record highs, a report from Saxo Bank claims. Bitcoin is currently trading around $754.51, according to CoinDesk data. A handle of over $2,000 would represent 165 percent appreciation. During his election campaign Trump has talked about an increase in fiscal spending. Saxo Bank's note said that this could increase the roughly $20 trillion of U.S. national debt and triple the current budget deficit from approximately $600 billion to $1.2-1.8 trillion, or some 6-10 percent of the country's current $18.6 trillion economy. As a result, the economy will grow and inflation will "sky rocket", forcing the U.S. Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at a faster pace and causing the U.S. dollar "to hit the moon". When inflation rises the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates to bring it under control. This causes the dollar to appreciate because it would be seen as an attractive currency for foreign investors. "This creates a domino effect in emerging markets and China in particular, leading people globally to look for alternative forms of currencies and payment systems not tied to central banks that have exhausted monetary policies or crony governments that are in full financial repression mode nor transaction systems that are long overdue for a revolution," Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank, wrote in a note. Bitcoin as the largest cryptocurrency would benefit from this "chaos", he added, as emerging market countries look to move away from "being tied" to the monetary policy of the U.S. and banking system. "If the banking system as well as sovereigns such as Russia and China move to accept Bitcoin as a partial alternative to the USD and the traditional banking and payment system, then we could see Bitcoin easily triple over the next year going from the current $700 level to +$2,100 as the blockchain's decentralized system, an inability to dilute the finite supply of bitcoins as well as low to no transaction costs gains more traction and acceptance globally," Jakobsen said. Story continues Blockchain is the underlying technology of bitcoin which records every transaction using the digital currency so that it can't be tampered with. There is also a finite supply of 21 million bitcoins. This in theory would cause price appreciation of the asset over a long period of time. Jakobsen's comments were in his annual "Outrageous Predictions" note and the economist says that his views are not the official outlook for Saxo Bank. Instead they are an attempt to "get you to think out of the box" with the aim of "provoking conversation". Bitcoin rise realistic But Bitcoin advocates say that the slower appreciation of the dollar against the yuan in comparison to bitcoin against the dollar shows that the $2,000 handle is not unrealistic. The dollar has risen 3.3 percent against the yuan (Exchange: CNY=) in the last three months while bitcoin has gone up 20.7 percent in the same time period. Bobby Lee, chief executive at bitcoin exchange BTC China, compared the current situation of cryptocurrencies to the advent of digital cameras. He said that it is a "new asset class" with long-term potential. "It's the advent of digital currency and with bitcoin there is bound to be more in circulation value in the coming years," Lee told CNBC by phone. The amount of bitcoin in circulation is valued at around $12.1 billion. More From CNBC 9 iconic mobile phones people want to see make a comeback Kim Dotcom extradition ruling: Prosecutors acted in illegal way, lawyer says Mark Cuban: Basic income the worst possible response to job losses from robots
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
MMMBTC || MMMBTC || ADS4BTC - Il Pay to click che paga in #bitcoin | G4RELL #ads #CryptoCurrency #guadagno #Paytoclick #referrals http://bitcoinagile.com/9F907C/ads4btc-il-pay-to-click-che-paga-in-bitcoin-g4rell_stream … || MMMBTC || MMMBTC || Tôi đã thêm video vào danh sách phát http://youtu.be/umpq3oZgWfM?a Overwatch Việt [n] "Drama" BTC giải EAST quịt tiền các http://fb.me/8lkkrtkZ0 || Chinese Police Shut down Illegal Bitcoin Mining Farm https://news.82bitcoin.com/2016/12/19/chinese-police-shut-down-illegal-bitcoin-mining-farm-66/ … || Gana bitcoins facilmente..! Gratis.! , Aqui : http://bit.ly/23rxSXd #Bitcoin #Faucet #Satochispic.twitter.com/50DGj6DK8q || MMMBTC || MMMBTC
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Trend: up || Prices: 886.62, 899.07, 895.03, 921.79, 924.67, 921.01, 892.69, 901.54, 917.59, 919.75
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2018-07-23]
BTC Price: 7711.11, BTC RSI: 70.22
Gold Price: 1224.00, Gold RSI: 30.31
Oil Price: 67.89, Oil RSI: 43.02
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
$1 Billion Bitcoins Lost in Mt. Gox Hack to Be Returned to Victims: A Japanese court ruled Friday to pullinfamous Bitcoin exchange Mt. Goxout of bankruptcy, opening the door for at least $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency to be paid back to the company’s former customers.
The decision was a stunning outcome for victims in a saga that represents Bitcoin’s darkest chapter since its creation nearly a decade ago: Mt. Gox, then the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world,collapsed in early 2014after realizing it had lost all the cryptocurrency it held — 850,000 Bitcoins valued at roughly $473 million at the time. The Mt. Gox hack is still the biggest theft of Bitcoins in history.
While 200,000 Bitcoins weresubsequently discoveredby Mt. Gox’s then-CEO Mark Karpelès, that money had essentially been frozen in the Tokyo-based company’s bankruptcy estate ever since. For more than four years, Mt. Gox creditors have been unsure if and when they could ever expect refunds — or if they would receive paper money or Bitcoins back — even as the value of their recovered assets soared to more than $4 billion when the Bitcoin price peaked last year.
That changed this week when the Tokyo District Court halted Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy proceedings and commenced a legal process known as civil rehabilitation, allowing it to distribute the remaining Mt. Gox assets to ex-customers and debtors. The estate include nearly 170,000 each of Bitcoins and its offshoot Bitcoin Cash, worth roughly $1.2 billion at today’s prices.
“Enormous assets…will be returned to creditors of Mt. Gox,” Shin Fukuoka, a leading attorney and partner at Japan’s Nishimura & Asahi law firm, whopetitioned the Court for civil rehabilitationon behalf of a large creditor, wrote in a statement. “This is the creditors’ victory.”
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The Court also confirmed that those “seeking a refund of Bitcoins” would be paid in that form. Under the original bankruptcy plan, creditors were only entitled to receive the monetary equivalent of the value of their Bitcoins at the time of Mt. Gox’s collapse, when the cryptocurrency’s price was $483. With the Bitcoin price now around $6,200, millions of dollars worth of excess wouldotherwise have lined the pockets of Karpelèsand other Mt. Gox shareholders.
Still, the news came as a relief for Karpelès, on trial in Tokyo for embezzlement and other criminal charges, who feared a backlash of lawsuits if he were to collect the windfall.
“I hope entering civil rehabilitation will be for the best of everyone. As I said previously I am not expecting any kind of profit from this and only hope everyone will be repaid as much as possible as soon as possible,” Karpelès toldFortunein a message following the announcement. “Creditors worked hard for the purpose of seeing civil rehabilitation happen and I will continue to help as much as I can.”
In addition to creditors, investors who speculated on such a fortunate, if once unlikely, turn of events by buying up the claims of others stand to reap major profits from the Mt. Gox disaster. That includes Thomas Braziel, managing partner of hedge fund B.E. Capital Management, who purchased $1 million in creditors’ claims at a discount: “If the rehabilitation happens, it’s a bonanza, and you make eight, nine, 10 times your money,” Braziel told me earlier this year.
The payout, however, won’t come immediately. The Mt. Gox trustee has reopeneda claim-filing processrequiring creditors to submit proof of what they are owed under the rehabilitation, and must also formulate a new plan for the distribution of assets, which is due Feb. 14, 2019. It could be a year from now or longer before that plan becomes final and creditors receive their Bitcoins.
Yet even the prospect of hoards ofMt. Gox Bitcoins flooding the marketonce creditors get their hands on them may have contributed to a sharp rout in the Bitcoin price, which dropped nearly 8% Friday, while Bitcoin Cash fell nearly 12%. The selloff also came on the heels of a $32 million hack of South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb and fears that India may ban Bitcoin.
The rest of Mt. Gox’s missing Bitcoins, some 650,000, were stolen by hackers and may never be recovered, though one suspect in the conspiracy was arrested last summer. (For the full saga, read my feature story inFortune Magazine,“Mt. Gox and the Surprising Redemption of Bitcoin’s Biggest Villain.”)
At the same time, the civil rehabilitation proceedings — marking the first time a defunct business has been “rehabilitated” in Japan’s history — does not mean Mt. Gox itself will make a comeback. “There are no plans to resume operations of the Bitcoin exchange operated by Mt. Gox at this time,” the company’s trustee told creditors. || Bitcoin Edges Higher as Demand Remains Steady: Investing.com – Bitcoin was modestly higher Thursday as traders continued to bet further upside beckoned for the crypto as inflows into the market held steady.
Bitcoin rose 1.04% to $7,432.9 on the Bitfinex exchange, after trading as highs as $7,515.0.
Bitcoin has held above $7,000 since its rally above this price level earlier in the week, which some crypto observers cited as a sign the popular crypto is eyeing a move higher.
The total market cap of cryptocurrencies fell to about $287 billion, at the time of writing, from about $288 billion Wednesday.
Bitcoin's foray higher comes a day after Fed chairman Jay Powell said "bitcoin is not really a currency," and warned it poses "significant" investor risks as it doesn’t have any intrinsic value.
Other large-cap cryptos failed to replicate bitcoin's modest move higher.
Ripple XRP fell 1.41% to $0.47730 on the Poloniex exchange, while Ethereum fell 1.58% to $467.56.
Bitcoin Cash fell 0.77% to $816.12, while Litecoin fell 2.00% to $86.24.
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Expert Before Congress: Fed Crypto a Bad Idea, Remove Capital Gains Tax || Why Frontline Ltd.'s Stock Is on Fire Today: Shares ofFrontline Ltd.(NYSE: FRO)surged more than 13% by 10:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday after the oil tanker company posted better-than-expected first-quarter results.
On the one hand, Frontline's first quarter was weak since it reported an adjusted loss of $0.08 per share because of lower shipping rates. The oil tanker market has been under significant pressure in recent months because of an increase in tankers on the market at a time when the industry isn't shipping as much oil since it's working to reduce storage levels. However, despite those headwinds, Frontline's net loss did come in $0.09 per share ahead of analysts' expectations.
Image source: Getty Images.
Furthermore, "there are encouraging signs that seaborne crude volumes may soon increase as a result of changes by OPEC and a slowing trend of inventory draws," according to CEO Robert Macleod. In addition to those market improvements, the company believes the industry will increase the number of older oil tankers it scraps, which will help reduce fleet levels. Those factors could help bolster tanker rates, where were just $14,900 per day during the first quarter for very large crude carriers, well below Frontline's cash breakeven level of $22,700 per day for 2018.
Tanker rates could spike back up to $25,000 per day if OPEC changes course on its current strategy and raises production by 1 million barrels per day. However, while there have been some reports that the organization might boost output by that level,a more recent one suggests that this might not be the case. Because of that uncertainty, Frontline's stock could be in for a wild ride until tanker capacity better matches the market's needs.
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Matthew DiLallohas 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. || 3 High-Yield Stocks at Rock-Bottom Prices: Finding stocks that offer up a high yield and are trading at a bargain price isn't easy, but there are a few of them floating around. Knowing that, we asked a team of investors to each highlight a dividend stock with a big yield that is currently trading at a rock-bottom price. Here's why they called out AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) , Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE: BIP) , and Retail Opportunity Investment Corp (NASDAQ: ROIC) . Man and woman handing over cash Image source: Getty Images. Income, value, and growth -- this big pharma has it all Keith Speights (AbbVie): Impeccable. That's probably the best way to describe AbbVie's credentials as a dividend stock. The big pharma company was part of Dividend Aristocrat Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT) until it was spun off as a separate entity in 2013. Since then, AbbVie has kept its parent's streak of annual dividend increases going, boosting the dividend payout by a whopping 140% over the last five years. AbbVie's dividend currently yields more than 3.7%. And there's no reason to think more dividend hikes won't be on the way. The company uses only 42% of its free cash flow to fund the dividend program, giving AbbVie ample flexibility to increase its dividends. Investors don't have to pay through the nose to enjoy that nice dividend yield. AbbVie stock trades at only 11 times expected earnings. But the drugmaker's growth prospects make its valuation look even more attractive. AbbVie could realistically achieve average annual earnings growth of 17% over the next few years. The company's top-selling drug, Humira, faces biosimilar competition in Europe beginning later this year. However, AbbVie claims a couple of other fast-growing products -- cancer drug Imbruvica and hepatitis C drug Mavyret. More importantly, the company's pipeline could deliver several more big winners , including autoimmune disease drugs risankizumab and upadacitinib. Whether you're looking for income, value, or growth, AbbVie has it all. Story continues Has yield, will travel Maxx Chatsko (Brookfield Infrastructure Partners): The relationship between Mr. Market and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has frayed in 2018, with the stock sliding 16% year to date. But the company has plenty to offer long-term investors willing to bet on a rebound , including a yield now sitting at 5%. The near-continuous slide in market cap and unit price in 2018 is very uncharacteristic. Consider that the stock has delivered total returns (share gains plus reinvested dividends) of 405% in the last decade, which easily beats the total return of 152% from the S&P 500 in that span. In fact, that makes it one of the best investments of the last 10 years. What's going on with Brookfield Infrastructure Partners stock? Aside from Wall Street jitters over near-term growth prospects , there's an absence of great explanations for the stock's slide. Management recently announced it was proceeding more carefully with capital deployments after it observed changes in the global economy. Since the best opportunities arise in more volatile periods, that's a good thing for the long-term growth of the business. But Wall Street is worried growth will slow in the coming quarters. Nonetheless, management still thinks the business will deliver distribution growth of 5% to 8% in the coming years. A slew of projects including toll roads in India, utilities in South America, fiber-optic cables in France, and energy infrastructure in the United States provides confidence that healthy growth is still more than possible for Brookfield Infrastructure Partners. Simply put, this is a great opportunity to buy a high-yield stock at a great price, then reap the rewards over the long haul. A grocery-anchored REIT Brian Feroldi (Retail Opportunity Investment Corp): Between rising interest rate and the recent troubles of the retail industry, it's not hard to figure out why Retail Opportunity Investments Corp (ROIC) has underperformed the S&P; 500 over the past year. The company's business model is to buy grocery-anchored shopping centers in high-traffic areas and then lease out space to high-quality tenants. The business is structured as a real-estate investment trust , so the vast majority of profits are passed along to shareholders as a dividend (which currently yields 4.2%). Given the recent tidal wave of retail bankruptcies , it's understandable why Wall Street isn't feeling great about this business right now. I understand that skepticism, but a look under the hood suggests that ROIC is actually in great shape. The company's lease rate has stood above 97% for 15 quarters in a row, which suggests there is plenty of demand from retailers to rent the company's properties. That makes sense because ROIC only acquires shopping centers in densely populated areas that have a major grocery store on site. This laser-like focus on quality helps keeps traffic high even when times are tough. That's an attractive prospect for many retailers and helps to explain why ROIC has had no problem pushing through rent increases even as the overall market remains weak. For 2018, management has decided to take its foot off the gas and see how shopping center prices react to the changing retail landscape. Long-term investors should applaud that move since buying new properties would require issuing shares at a depressed price. Looking ahead, I think it's likely that Wall Street will eventually warm up to this business once it realizes that the company's high-quality portfolio will allow it to continue pushing through steady rent increases. If true, then income-loving investors might want to snatch up a few shares of this stock on the cheap while they still can. 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. Keith Speights owns shares of AbbVie. Maxx Chatsko 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 . || Better Buy: Sierra Wireless Inc. (SWIR) vs. NVIDIA (NVDA): The technology sector is full of companies with potential, but with a nearly endless number of trends to follow, it can be difficult for investors to know which ones are leaders in their markets, and which ones are just placing bets. Today, let's take a look at two very different companies -- Sierra Wireless (NASDAQ: SWIR) and NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) -- both of which are making big moves across a wide variety of technology segments, including the Internet of Things (IoT), driverless cars, and artificial intelligence (AI). Each is a leader in its respective niche, but which is the better buy for investors right now? Person holding smartphone with chart on it and chart in background. Image source: Getty Images. The Internet of Things pure play There aren't many companies that are pure plays on the IoT, save for Sierra Wireless. The Internet of Things, broadly speaking, describes the connecting of formerly isolated devices and objects to the Internet . For example, smartwatches, fitness trackers, cars with infotainment systems or driverless technology, and smart thermostats are all examples of IoT devices. Sierra Wireless makes most of its money by selling hardware -- like cellular connectivity and Bluetooth chips -- to device makers. Sierra calls this segment OEM Solutions, and in its most recently reported quarter, that business unit brought in $135 million and accounted for 72% of the company's top line. But as anyone who follows the tech industry will tell you, hardware sales can be fickle, and many companies are looking to long-tail recurring software sales to diversify and grow their revenue. That's why it's important to point out that Sierra's IoT services segment brought in 10% of the company's total sales in the first quarter, and the company expects that percentage to increase to 15% in the coming years. So Sierra is betting on the IoT, but what's the real opportunity here? Research company MarketsandMarkets estimates that the IoT chip business (everything from processors to connectivity chips) will be worth $14.8 billion by 2022. That may not seem like a lot compared the broader IoT market, which could be worth more than $6 trillion by 2025 . But when you consider that Sierra's revenue in Q1 was just $186.9 million, an addressable market of $14.8 billion looks huge. Story continues In Q1, Sierra grew its OEM Solutions business by just 2%, while its IoT services segment soared by 217%. That increase was so sharp thanks to its recent acquisition of Numerex , a specialist in managed IoT enterprise solutions. Slowing growth in OEM Solutions sales isn't a great trend, of course, but the company has new sales opportunities in the pipeline, including a deal to provide chips for Volkswagen's vehicles, which should help expand its hardware revenue in 2019 and 2020. Sierra's shares trade at just 13 times the company's forward earnings. That makes them relatively inexpensive compared the rest of the tech sector, though investors should be ready to stomach some volatility with this small-cap company as the IoT market begins to grow. The case for NVIDIA Investors are likely familiar with NVIDIA. The company has received lots of attention for its graphics processing units (GPUs), which are now being used in a wide array of applications, from gaming to driverless cars to cryptocurrency mining to artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The opportunities for NVIDIA in the autonomous vehicle and AI arenas have helped boost investor sentiment, and pushed its share price up 1,000% over the past three years. I'll get to those opportunities in just a second, but investors considering the stock now should know that NVIDIA still relies on the gaming segment for the bulk of its sales. In the first quarter of its fiscal 2019, GPUs sold for gaming accounted for nearly 54% of the company's total revenue. What's great about NVIDIA's gaming business is that it's a consistently huge sales growth driver -- sales jumped about 68% year over year in fiscal Q1 -- and the company dominates the discrete desktop GPU market with a 66% share. NVIDIA's gaming business growth is certainly impressive, but it has lots of other irons in the fire. One of its most significant opportunities is in supplying graphics processors to companies who use them to power AI applications in data centers. Amazon and Alphabet already use the company's chips for cloud computing AI processing, and there are plenty of other potential customers. NVIDIA's management believes that the company's total addressable market in the AI segment could reach $40 billion by 2023. Additionally, NVIDIA has moved rapidly to stake a claim in the semi-autonomous vehicle market. It's on the third version of its driverless car supercomputer, the Drive PX Pegasus , which processes the image information vehicles receive from their onboard cameras, and has the computing power to serve as the brains in a fully autonomous vehicle. The company is working with automakers to bring its technology to market; management says that in just a few years, Pegasus systems will be controlling fully autonomous taxis on our nation's roads. The company estimates that its total addressable market for driverless cars will reach $60 billion by 2035. That's a vast jump from the revenue the self-driving vehicle segment currently brings on for the company: In fiscal Q1 2019 NVIDIA earned just $145 million from its driverless car tech, about 4.5% of its total revenue. NVIDIA's shares trade at about 30 times the company's forward earnings right now, which puts its valuation about on par with the tech industry's average forward P/E. What's great about this company is that its core gaming business is very strong, even as it builds out new opportunities in AI and driverless cars. That solid foundation means investors won't have to worry too much, even if some of the company's other businesses don't develop as quickly as expected. The verdict NVIDIA gets the win in this match-up because of its strong gaming business and its ongoing diversification into new tech opportunities. While Sierra has a lot of potential, the company is putting all of its eggs in the IoT basket. Meanwhile, NVIDIA may be primarily a company that makes processors for gaming, but it also happens to be making serious inroads into the high-potential AI and driverless car markets. Neither of those are even close to mature markets yet, which means NVIDIA still has plenty of time to expand its footprint in these segments. I think Sierra is still a great Internet of Things investment, but between these two companies, I'd feel more comfortable putting my money into NVIDIA. 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. Chris Neiger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, Nvidia, and Sierra Wireless. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Interest in Senior Bank Loan ETF Picks Up: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
In a rising interest rate environment, hedging investors are looking to move capital into fixed income ETFs that react in conjunction with interest rates, such as the Invesco Senior Loan ETF (BKLN) , which is garnering interest as of late.
BKLN's current average volume is 4.2 million, but that has almost doubled recently. Performance has been solid with BKLN up 1.34% year-to-date, up 2.25% for the year and up 2.42% the past three years.
The higher yields offered by senior loans is an attractive option compared to a flattening yield curve by safer government debt.
BKLN tracks the S&P/LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan 100 Index, which has been on a steady, upward trajectory ever since the Financial Crisis of 2007-08.
With Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raising the federal funds rate by 25 basis points from 1.75 to 2 and a hawkish outlook on the economy, BKLN can serve as a hedge for a rising interest rate environment--the senior loans that BKLN tracks move in correlation with short-term interest rate moves. However, with that hedge comes more risk in that the loans, though higher-yielding, originate from companies that have a lower investment grade.
Nonetheless, despite the elevated credit risks, these senior loans are deemed safer than high-yield traditional bonds. More interest in ETFs like BKLN underscore the increasing investor appetite for more risk.
"Over the last several years, as yields on high-quality issues have remained low, massive amounts of money have plowed into the more speculative areas of credit: high yield, bank loans and hybrid securities,"said Gary Ribe, Chief Investing Officer at MACRO Consulting Group. "There is more yield and less interest rate risk in these areas, but more economic, credit and liquidity risk."
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Top ETF Plays As Small-Caps Outpace Large-Caps: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Small-cap stocks and the corresponding exchange traded funds have recently been outpacing their large-cap counterparts prompting some market observers to speculate that smaller stocks could be in for a lengthy period of out-performance. Some fundamentally-weighted small-cap ETFs could deliver even more impressive returns as more investors revisit the small-cap category. That group of funds could include products such as the PowerShares DWA SmallCap Momentum Portfolio ( DWAS ) . DWAS follows the popular Dorsey, Wright & Associates proprietary selection methodology that is designed to identify small-cap firms with positive relative strength characteristics in an attempt to follow companies with strong forward momentum. The ETF follows the Dorsey Wright SmallCap Technical Leaders Index. Various data points suggest small-caps have momentum in the current environment. Favorable fundamental factors include the recent U.S. tax cuts. “In the three years ending December 2017, the companies in the S&P SmallCap 600 Index had an average effective tax rate 4.3% higher than the S&P 500 Index,” according to Invesco . “Investors looking for stocks that may experience improved profitability due to US tax reform have turned to the small-cap sector.” Favorable Outlook for Small Caps Small-caps are focused on the domestic economy and have less direct exposure to global geopolitical uncertainty and currency risks, as opposed to large-cap companies that have an international footprint, which may be affected by overseas risks and a strengthening U.S. dollar. Additionally, small-cap earnings estimates are improving. “Earnings estimate revisions have been strongest in the small-cap sector. Forward earnings estimates for the S&P SmallCap 600 Index have risen by more than 28% compared to 18.7% for the S&P 500 Index over the past six months,” according to Invesco. DWAS holds 200 stocks and allocates over 30% of its weight to healthcare names. The financial services and industrial sectors combine for over 34% of the ETF's roster. Story continues Importantly, small-cap valuations are not stretched, a potentially positive sign for an asset class that often trades at a premium to large-caps. “Some see better value in small caps as the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has compressed on the S&P SmallCap 600 Index, suggesting that small caps have cheapened in recent years. On a forward earnings basis, the S&P SmallCap 600 Index is currently trading at 20.1 compared to 17.0 for the S&P 500 Index. The ratio of 1.18 is down from a peak of over 1.33 in July 2009,” according to Invesco data. Meanwhile, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSEArca: IWM) , which tracks the benchmark Russell 2000 Index, is up more than 6% over the past month, outperforming major large-cap indexes along the way. For more information on small-capitalization stocks, visit our small-cap category . POPULAR ARTICLES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM 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 6 Hacks to Automate Your Financial Life READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || 3 Reasons TJX Companies Stock Could Rise: People love to find a good deal, whether they're shopping online or at a physical store. And that simple but powerful motivation helps explain how TJX Companies (NYSE: TJX) has managed an impressive streak of unbroken sales and profit growth in the last decade. The off-price retailer is succeeding today despite big challenges impacting the broader retailing industry. Yet investors might not be fully accounting for its healthy business trends. Below, we'll look at a few ways that these metrics might send the stock higher in the coming quarters. Two women in a store standing next to racks of clothing and looking at a top Image source: Getty Images. Grabbing market share Here's how CEO Ernie Herrman recently summed up the retailer's key competitive advantage in a conference call with investors : "The depth and breadth of our off-price knowledge in the U.S. and internationally is unmatched and extremely difficult to replicate." There's plenty of data to back up that boast. After all, TJX Companies just marked its 15th straight quarter of rising customer traffic. And its 3% increase in comparable-store sales, or sales at existing locations, kept it on pace to achieve its 23rd consecutive year of growth in 2018. TJX Companies tends to hold up well during times of market disruption like these, and that's another reason to believe it can keep capturing market share from rivals. When full-price retailers focus on reducing their sales footprints, there are more opportunities for merchandise buyers to step in and secure deals. Meanwhile, TJX Companies is flexible about the products it can offer across its apparel and home furnishings stores. And its huge revenue base, which recently passed $35 billion of annual sales compared to $14 billion for Ross Stores , amplifies that scale advantage. Boosting the store base TJX has more than 4,100 stores, with 71 added in the first quarter. And even as many peers -- especially in the full-price department store segment -- are closing locations, TJX Companies sees a long runway for growth ahead. Story continues Its appeal to young shoppers, flexible store format, and quickly changing product assortments are a few of the reasons that management thinks there is stability in the market for its mix of name brands at compelling discounts. That's why, over the long term, TJX Companies expects to operate over 6,000 stores across its four divisions of TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, TJX Canada, and TJX International, up from 4,100 shops today. More capital returns Like most of its peers, TJX Companies' profits are being hurt by rising costs in two key areas: labor and investments into the digital sales channel. However, the company's strong cash flow, which has been at least $3 billion in each of the last three fiscal years, provides ample room to fund these investments without threatening the company's dividend or share buybacks. That dividend recently jumped 25% and has been raised in each of the last 22 consecutive fiscal years. With just three more increases, TJX Companies will qualify for membership in the exclusive Dividend Aristocrat club. The retailer keeps very little debt on its books, and this strong capital position allows TJX Companies to make opportunistic inventory purchases while supporting healthy cash returns to shareholders. That financial outlook is even brighter thanks to the cash flow benefits set to come from recent tax law changes. In fact, the retailer is planning to roughly double its share buyback spending to as much as $3 billion this year. Those purchases should lift per-share earnings by reducing the outstanding share count. They might contribute to a rising share price, too -- especially if the business extends its long streak of market-beating sales growth into 2019 and beyond. 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 Kalogeropoulos 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 . || 2 Stocks I'd Never Buy, and 1 I'd Consider: Looking at beaten-down stocks is a great way to find companies that still represent good values even as investors may have turned against them. So long as their businesses aren't broken, such companies can offer investors opportunities for making significant returns when the market reawakens to their value.
Yet it's not always easy to discern those that are poised for a comeback from those that are still on their way down. Indeed, even stocks that really don't deserve the confidence placed in them sometimes bounce back.
Below is a mix of all of these types of companies. The stocks under my magnifying glass areFacebook(NASDAQ: FB),Macy's(NYSE: M), andGaming & Leisure Properties(NASDAQ: GLPI). Read on to see what's wrong with two of these companies, and why the third one is a superior business.
Image source: Getty Images.
Although Facebook has always had a dubious reputation when it comes to our privacy, the news the social network's own tools were used to improperly to skim user profile data spurred outrage that likely took CEO Mark Zuckerberg by surprise.
While the chief executive'sapology tourwas meant to mend fences, the social network's reputation may be irreparably harmed. Even beforehand, user engagement was ebbing.The Informationreported in 2016 overall sharing on Facebook fell 5.5% between 2014 and 2015 with people sharing 21% fewer personal updates, which the social network called a "context collapse."
Recently eMarketer said Facebook reaches 91% of millennials in the U.S. each month, that also means it's likely hit a saturation point. It forecasts that average daily user time spent on the platform will remain static from 2017 levels at 23 minutes this year.
That could hurt Facebook's standing with advertisers, which rely on user engagement and which Facebook counts on for the bulk of its revenue. It noted in its earnings conference call with analysts that it is focusing on "connections over consumption," so it is still experiencing a dropoff in time spent engaging with certain content.
The combination of self-inflicted wounds and an approaching saturation point may mean the leading social network's best years are behind it. Shares of Facebook are rebounding from the drubbing they took, but this may be as good as it gets for the platform, and I won't touch its stock.
Image source: Macy's.
Retail's latest trend is experiential shopping. It's no longer enough to have merchandise on hand that consumers want. It's becoming required that shopping be more of an "event." Shopping is boring; experiential retail is exciting. And companies are trying everything from merging the physical with the digital to having no merchandise at all.
Walmart's Bonobos brick-and-mortar spaces andNordstrom's new Local store are examples of the latter. Customers come innot to shop, but to browseand be guided toward maybe making a purchase...of something. Some of the Local locations offer a nail salon, a bar, a tailor -- but no actual clothes to buy. You can order off its website, though, and in keeping with its reputation for customer service, employees will run and fetch clothes for you to try on from a nearby Nordstrom or Rack store.
Macy's is not going to quite those levels, but itsacquisition of STORYis attempting to similarly cater to changing consumer tastes. It literally alters the consumer experience every month by resetting its stores with all-new displays, layouts, and merchandise. Every time customers walk into the store, they're treated to a new experience.
But experiential shopping may simply be the latest fad in retail. Stores still need to sell merchandise, and brick-and-mortar locations have significant costs, particularly if you're changing displays every month. Moreover, this kind of trend is targeting a narrow slice of the retail pie: customers who have the time and inclination to dawdle for entertainment. According to one recent survey, fewer than 38% of people actually prefer to shop in a department store like Macy's, and though most people still prefer buying clothes in a physical location, they dislike the amount of time it takes as well as the difficulty in find styles, sizes, and colors. Changing the layout every month doesn't seem like it will improve that experience.
The brick-and-mortar retailer isn't dead, but it's not a growth story either, and Macy's big comeback may run into the brick wall of reality that investors will want to avoid lest it falls on them.
Image source: Getty Images.
Casino industry real estate investment trust Gaming & Leisure Properties is both familiar and strange at the same time. As aREIT, it pays out most of its profits to investors as dividends. What's different about it is that it was the first to focus solely on the gaming industry, and it's the third-largest publicly traded triple-net-lease REIT, or one which owns the properties but has the tenants (in this case the casinos) agree to pay all real estate taxes, building insurance, and maintenance on the properties.
Created byPenn National Gamingto house its real estate, Gaming & Leisure has since acquired property fromPinnacle Entertainment-- which Penn is now buying -- and it just boughtsix of Carl Icahn's Tropicana Entertainment resortsthat will be operated byEldorado Resorts.
It just reported first-quarter earnings that showed adjusted funds from operations, a closely watched metric for REITs, of $168.7 million, up slightly from last year's $165.8 million, and net income of $96.8 million, or $0.49 per share, a 9% increase from the year-ago period.
With a portfolio of quality rental assets across several markets, including both major destinations like Las Vegas and growing regional markets, Gaming & Leisure Properties continues to consistently produce reliable cash flow for shareholders. Its stock is down 5% so far in 2018, and with the market valuing its shares at just 15 times analyst estimates for earnings this year, this REIT could be the stock investors should consider buying.
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Rich Dupreyhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool recommends Nordstrom. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Better Buy: AT&T, Inc. vs. Verizon: Telecom investors haven't seen a reward from the announcedT-Mobile(NASDAQ: TMUS)andSprint(NYSE: S)deal. It still appears thatAT&T(NYSE: T)andVerizon(NYSE: VZ)would be two of thebiggest beneficiariesif the merger goes through. Nonetheless, both companies' stock prices are down since T-Mobile and Sprint announced their plans to merge on April 29.
Perhaps investors don't believe the deal will gain approval, or don't think the new combined company will reduce the competitive intensity in the industry. Regardless, those interested in taking advantage of the potential merger in the telecom space are likely looking at AT&T and Verizon, as they're the market leaders and each pays a hefty dividend for patient investors.
But if you could only choose one of the two stocks, which should it be? AT&T or Verizon?
Image source: Getty Images.
Even if the competitive intensity could decrease following a T-Mobile and Sprint merger, investors should still pay attention to how each company has handled the increased competition over the last few years. It's a good indication of which company is likely to benefit most from the move from four main competitors to three.
To that end, neither AT&T nor Verizon has performed particularly well. Both saw significant declines in their service revenue for their wireless businesses over the last few years. Those numbers were impacted by the move away from device subsidies, but further exacerbated by a loss of postpaid phone subscribers at each carrier.
Verizon started turning things around last year after getting to the unlimited wireless data plan game a bit late. In the third quarter, it delivered on a promise to produce sequentialgrowth in wireless service revenue, and it managed to add postpaid phone subscribers in the last three quarters of 2017. It ended up losing another 24,000 postpaid phone customers in the first quarter, however, and saw a sequential and year-over-year decline in wireless service revenue. That said, total wireless operating revenue increased year over year in each of the last two quarters.
AT&T is still a bit behind. It saw the slimmest of increases in wireless service revenue in the second and third quarters, before falling back in the fourth and first quarters. Year-over-year growth is still nonexistent as well. It's also bleeding postpaid phone subscribers, losing 125,000 in the first quarter and 570,000 over the course of 2017.
Verizon seems to be better at attracting and retaining wireless subscribers. It consistently posts lower churn rates, and it produces better wirelessEBITDAmargins than AT&T. Verizon's wireless EBITDA margin was 47.8% in the first quarter compared to 41.8% at AT&T.
Both AT&T and Verizon have other services beyond wireless service,. including home phone, internet, and television services. AT&T has invested heavily in the latter, acquiring DirecTV and currently working to gain approval for its proposed acquisition ofTime Warner(NYSE: TWX). Verizon, meanwhile, is investing in digital media assets, buying the assets of AOL and Yahoo! to form Oath.
AT&T's acquisitions come with some hefty price tags. It paid $67 billion for DirecTV, about $20 billion of which was cash. The Time Warner acquisition will cost over $85 billion, and it will pay half of that in cash. AT&T continues to raise debt to pay for these giant acquisitions, and it had $163 billion in debt on its balance sheet as of the end of the first quarter.
What's more, AT&T's acquisitions are in a space that's undergoing immense pressure. DirecTV hasn't quite turned around the company's fortunes with regard to losing video subscribers to cord-cutting. Even its over-the-top service DirecTV Now relies ona questionable business modeland is at a disadvantage to digitally native competitors. AT&T; hopes tobundle its video and wireless businessesto create better economics for itself and its customers, but both segments are seeing pressure on margins.
Verizon's acquisitions aren't exactly hot commodities, either. AOL and Yahoo! Represent the internet of the '90s and aren't attracting massive audiences and collecting loads of ad-targeting data like they once could. The bright side is that Verizon's spending on those properties was tame compared to AT&T's. It spent just $4.4 billion on AOL and $4.5 billion on Yahoo! It currently has about $119 billion in debt on its balance sheet.
AT&T's debt is going up quickly, and if its deal with Time Warner closes, that debt could balloon closer to $200 billion. That will put pressure on its ability to grow its dividend at a meaningful rate.
Verizon is performing better in the core wireless market, and it's not pursuing huge acquisitions in an adjacent industry that's struggling to retain subscribers and maintain pricing. So, if its valuation is roughly in line with AT&T's, it's a clear winner.
[{"Company": "Verizon", "EV/EBITDA": "7.26"}, {"Company": "AT&T", "EV/EBITDA": "6.69"}, {"Company": "T-Mobile", "EV/EBITDA": "5.46"}, {"Company": "Sprint", "EV/EBITDA": "4.68"}]
Verizon currently trades for a premium over AT&T and the rest of the wireless industry. That said, its superior performance in the wireless industry to AT&T, its better EBITDA margins, and its better balance sheet give me more confidence that it's still a better buy.
But it's close.
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Adam Levyhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool recommends T-Mobile US. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#ICO, #Bitcoin ,#EThereum, #Stellarhttps://twitter.com/GlitzkoinToken/status/1002184445569437696 … || A Major Bitcoin Rally Will Underscore Seven Fundamentals - The Daily Hodl https://ift.tt/2LheNCi || #NKN (New Kind of Network) - Listed and Airdrop
-> Starts to trade at UTC 4:00, 28 May on http://gate.io
https://twitter.com/gate_io/status/999923743789957121 …
$NKN @gate_io @Leekico_Info #btc #crypto #TLTradingSignalpic.twitter.com/bk6TL2xG9c || #XEM Price is 0.00003479 (-0.00000013) #BTC / 0.264633 (-0.00216) #USD. Market rank is 15. #nem #bitcoin #blockchain || 「まだ4%程度の日本人しか仮想通貨を買っていない」という事実(仮想通貨野郎)
https://virtualcurrency.news/89522
#仮想通貨 #BTC #XRP #ETH #LISK #草コイン #cryptocurrency || #LIZA #LAMBO price
06-20 18:00(GMT)
$LIZA
BTC :0.02900
ETH :0.36220
USD :198.8
RUR :12011.0
JPY(btc) :21595.6
JPY(eth) :21362.7
$LAMBO
BTC :4.930
ETH :50.001
USD :25009.2
RUR :1510000.0
JPY(btc) :3671099.8
JPY(eth) :2949045.4 || USD: 109.340
EUR: 127.180
GBP: 145.542
AUD: 82.617
NZD: 75.937
CNY: 17.083
CHF: 109.945
BTC: 796,722
ETH: 58,670
Mon May 28 21:00 JST || #BitcoinCash? #bullish.
Look to Bitcoin #BCH if you want 1 sat/byte, instant clearance payments using a scalable on-chain roadmap.
#BTC is not a payment system, it's "store of value", right?. It's also "not for people who make less than $2/day" according to @blockstream.https://twitter.com/Changelly_team/status/1003625258845392896 … || Trade recommendation: Bitcoin / USDT https://btcearn.ru/trade-recommendation-bitcoin-usdt-3/ …pic.twitter.com/dlGtm5i3oh || Ifb
|
Trend: down || Prices: 8424.27, 8181.39, 7951.58, 8165.01, 8192.15, 8218.46, 8180.48, 7780.44, 7624.91, 7567.15
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Colorado Residents To Decide If The Government Keeps Or Refunds Their Money: Colorado stands as a shining example of just how beneficial the marijuana industry can be for state governments. The state's recreational marijuana sales were taxed at a staggering 28 percent, resulting in nearly $60 million worth of tax dollars this year. While that figure is below initial projections, it provided the state with an entirely new source of income. One of the key reasons voters elect to legalize marijuana is the increased funding for projects they care about, and Colorado is no exception. The revenue brought in by pot sales in Colorado was earmarked for projects like school construction and upkeep , but the state's tax law may return those funds to taxpayers instead. Related Link: What States Support Marijuana Legalization? Refund Colorado's legislation says that the state government is only allowed to bring in a certain amount of money each year via tax dollars, and the marijuana tax money has exceeded that figure. The law dictates that the government must return the excess to taxpayers, but state officials say they should be allowed to keep the money and spend it as they promised. Up To The Voters Lawmakers in Colorado are currently working on a bill that will allow voters to determine what happens to that extra money. Instead of making the refund, state officials are appealing to residents to let the government keep the money in order to carry out the projects that were promised to voters when marijuana was legalized. The bill itself will take some time, but if put to a vote, many believe that the state's population will wave their refund. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Rand Paul Uses Bitcoin To Boost His Campaign Spoiler Alert: Google Could Be Watching What You're Watching Why U.S. Tech Companies Are Getting Slammed In Europe © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Meet The 3 Companies Goldman Sachs Says Are Leading The Bitcoin Revolution: Goldman Sachs' equity research analysts say that bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies could be the "future of finance" as the demand for a new way to move money continues to rise.
In areporttitledThe Future of Finance: Redefining The Way We Pay in the Next Decade, authors James Schneider and SK Prasad Borra say merchants will be the largest companies to benefit from the shift toward cryptocurrencies and highlight three existing bitcoin-based businesses as the leading firms in the cryptocurrency space—Coinbase,BitPayandRipple Labs.
Coinbase
Coinbase is a California-based firm that opened the first regulated bitcoin exchange in the U.S. this year.
The company was able to raise $75 million in funding from several high profile investors including the New York Stock Exchange in order to roll out the exchange, which has gained regulatory approval in roughly half of U.S. states.
The company alsorecently joinedthe Internet Association alongside big shots likeAmazon Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) andFacebook Inc.(NASDAQ:FB) in an effort to keep the cryptocurrency's interests at the forefront of internet regulation.
BitPay
BitPay is a global payment processing firm that allows merchants to accept bitcoin in exchange for goods or services. The company has signed several high-profile deals in the past year, bringing bitcoin one step closer to public adoption.
Most recently, BitPay partnered with Adyen in order to make bitcoin acceptance possible for some of the world's largest companies using their current payments system.
Related Link:Bitcoin Company Raises Record Amount Of Cash For Mystery Operations
Ripple Labs
Ripple Labs is a digital payments company that uses the technology powering bitcoin in order to allow companies to transfer money internationally.
The firm uses a cryptocurrency similar to bitcoin in order to validate transactions and make worldwide money transfers in various currencies simple and cost-effective. The company recently hired Ex-Federal Reserve official Norman Reed as its Chief Compliance Officer, saying that Reed's experience will help the company move forward and integrate into the banking sector.
See more from Benzinga
• Currency War Questions Could Cloud Trade Agreements
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin An Unlikely Solution For The Poor: So far,bitcoinhas caught on among tech-savvy enthusiasts; but many see the cryptocurrency as a viable solution for the poor, who often don't have access to banking facilities.
While some bitcoin firms are continuing their efforts to push thecryptocurrencytoward mainstream adoption, others are turning to nations with a large population of bankless-people that would benefit from a new way to send and receive money.
Bitcoin In Africa
Africa has become a major target for bitcoin companies looking to focus their adoption efforts on poor populations without easy access to banking. Many currently rely on companies likeWestern Union(NYSE:WU), which charge a significant premium, to send and receive money, making bitcoin's relatively cheap transaction costs very attractive.
Related Link:Bitcoin Makes Its Way To A Major Exchange
Sending Money Home Carries Costs
In 2014, more than 30 million Africans left their hometowns in order to work and sent around $40 billion back to their families. Since money sending agencies charge about 12 percent of the total amount sent, that means much of their hard-earned cash was spent on the transaction costs alone. Those figures make bitcoin a viable competitor and could help boost the currency's adoption.
Filling The Gap
Several firms are focusing their attention on the unmet banking needs in Africa using bitcoin. Global payment company BitPesa recently raised just over $1 million in order to expand its operations into Kenya, while bitcoin exchange igot saw more than 200,000 transactions in Africa throughout 2014.
Still Some Concerns
Although bitcoin's low transaction costs make it a good option for African populations without access to banking systems, the cryptocurrency still has a long way to go before becoming stable enough to depend on. Because of its high degree of volatility, critics say bitcoin is far too unstable for use in poor populations.
See more from Benzinga
• Is The Euro's Decline A Good Reason To Invest?
• Oil Train Derailments Muddy Railroad Sector Earnings
• Marijuana Investment: Is It Time?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Rivetz and Factom Announce Collaboration: AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwired - Mar 27, 2015) - [Texas Bitcoin Conference] - Today, Rivetz ( http://rivetz.com/ ), and Factom ( www.factom.org ) announced that Factom has selected Rivetz to integrate world cyber-security for the Factom applications, and that Rivetz has selected Factom to assure the global integrity of attribute data for Rivetz-protected applications. This collaboration will leverage Rivetz's Trusted Execution model for the secure protection and processing of data and collection of user intent with Factom's data layer on the blockchain to provide organizations in the financial, manufacturing, distribution and wholesale industries with the efficient means of verifying processes and registering data. David Johnston, chairman of the Factom Foundation board of directors said, "We are excited to integrate Rivetz's capabilities to bring world-class protection of users' identities and private keys as an option for all of Factom's users. Rivetz is providing a fundamental technology that will benefit all new blockchain-based applications." "Rivetz is pleased to partner with Factom to bring a new capability to all applications -- the ability to store a fact. We look forward to integrating Factom's capabilities into our solution to protect and attest to the attributes of modern devices for security, convenience and privacy," stated Rivetz CEO Steven Sprague. Factom uses blockchain technology to innovate how organizations can manage and record their data. Businesses can now reliably look to Factom and Rivetz for highly secure, decentralized record-keeping using their API, without having to ensure their information is being stored in a compliant and private manner. All the data managed by Factom is hashed (a process by which mathematical algorithms encode data into a different form), resulting in an indistinguishable string of alphanumeric characters, rendering information such as names, addresses, transactions and finances impermeable. Only the person who sent the information into the Factom layer is aware of what data it contains. Rivetz provides the local environment which assures that the information being protected was what the user intended, and enhances the quality of the hash signatures by incorporating cyber-security controls for the local keys and identity information. Story continues Rivetz believes that keeping both the data and the location of the data private is essential to many business and consumer transactions. Rivetz allows the assurance of the Factom network to meet all of the global requirements for protection of identity keys and encryption process. Together, the solution will meet the needs of the most demanding customers and substantially reduce the cyber-security risks which face so many solutions today. About Rivetz Rivetz 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, visit www.Rivetz.com . About Factom Factom is a generalized data layer for the blockchain which allows users to publish and verify any kind of digital information. Factom's technology is especially compelling for those who want to build trust with users by providing complete transparency and real-time audit ability of their systems of record, while at the same time maintaining user privacy. Blockchain-based authenticity verification and auditing of documents offers significant value for any business process one wants to make honest and accountable. Check out examples and videos that explain how different companies can use this new platform at Factom.org . All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. || Greece Promises To Pay, But With What Cash?: After much speculation that Greece was almost out of cash, the nationconfirmedthis week that it had enough money to make its debt payment to the International Monetary Fund on Thursday.
Athens is due to pay€460 millionto the IMF, but stalled negotiations with Greece's EU creditors had many worried that the payment would be missed. However, on Sunday, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told IMF chief, Christine Lagarde, that Athens would pay on time.
But, How?
Many are wondering just where Greece will get that money from, as EU lawmakers are still unsatisfied with Athens' proposals of economic reform. Greece's creditors are withholding the next installment of bailout money until Athens proves that it is committed to economic reform and will make the necessary changes and stick to them.
Without the EU funding, the Greek treasury is rumored to run dry on April 9.
Related Link:Here's What Happens If Greece Runs Out Of Money
A New Source Of Income
On Monday, the Greek government revealed part of its plan to recoup some of that money; World War II reparations from Germany.
Greek Deputy Finance Minister Dimitris Mardas claimed in parliament that Berlin owed €278.7 billion in World War II compensation, which German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said was "dumb."
German officials say the war reparations claims are being used as a distraction from the nation's crippled finances and are unlikely to pay up.
Grexit Still A Worry
In any case, it is clear that Greece is strapped for cash, and the deteriorating relationship between Athens and its EU creditors is becoming worrisome for investors.
If the two don't come to an agreement soon, Greece may default and be forced to exit the eurozone.
Image Credit: Public Domain
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Shop, Inc. Acquires Additional Equity Interest in Coin Outlet: ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Mar 26, 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 acquired an additional 2% equity ownership in Coin Outlet from Eric Grill, Coin Outlet's CEO, for 701,966 shares of the Company's common stock. BTCS now owns approximately 4.2% of Coin Outlet's equity and has the ability to own up to 11% upon exercise of its previously issued option and warrant.
BTCS CEO Charles Allen commented, "Today we are pleased to announce our additional ownership interest in, and partnership with, Coin Outlet. Their ATMs should allow consumers to exchange fiat currency for bitcoins through one fundamental and easy-to-use transaction. Additionally, with the help of Coin Outlet, we plan to leverage their ATM network as another on-ramp to our planned universal digital currency ecosystem."
Eric Grill, Chief Executive Officer of Coin Outlet, commented, "Together we are focused on driving bitcoin and digital currency adoption through a systematic roll out of ATMs across key cities from coast to coast. The partnership with BTCS encompasses the perfect collaboration of resources and technology."
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. || Ripple Labs Expands to Asia Pacific to Serve Regional Demand for Ripple's Real-Time Settlement Protocol: SAN FRANCISCO, CA and SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA--(Marketwired - Apr 6, 2015) -Ripple Labstoday announced that it has appointed Dilip Rao as Managing Director of its new Ripple Labs Asia Pacific subsidiary. The office was established in response to growing demand for Ripple's real-time settlement protocol in the region, and to more directly connect interested Ripple Labs partners in the United States and Europe with Asian Pacific markets.
According toMcKinsey, in 2013, cross-border payments in Asia Pacific totaled $200 billion, and accounted for nearly half of all payment revenues in the region. Also according to McKinsey, Intra-Asia trade flows totaled almost $3 trillion in 2012, and are expected to surpass intra-Europe trade flows to become the largest in the world by 2016.
"We are excited to formally unveil a presence in Asia Pacific -- an area that has been aggressively pursuing faster payment technologies for both domestic and cross-border payments," said Ripple Labs CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen. "Dilip is a natural fit to lead this office because of his years of experience in the space and his deep, engaged network in the region."
The first office for Ripple Labs Asia Pacific is based in Sydney, Australia, and isactively recruitingintegration engineers, architects and other key hires. Ripple Lab Asia Pacific demonstrates the company's commitment to the emerging and dynamic market, and its regional mandate will include Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China and other countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Dilip Rao leads business development and operations for Ripple Labs Asia Pacific. In this role he engages with leading banks, regulators and central banks in support of Ripple's adoption.
He has more than 25 years of experience in senior management with technology multinationals in technical, sales and marketing roles in Asia. He has consulted to major banks and corporates in Australia on innovation and was the founder of Australia's first person-to-person payments startup.
Rao holds degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India.
"I am thrilled to bring Ripple Labs to Sydney, where we can more effectively serve eager markets in India, Singapore, the Middle East and across APAC," said Rao. "Banks and enterprises can leverage Ripple to more efficiently service the exploding trade and remittance flows in this region."
Ripple Labs is the global leader in distributed financial technology and standards. The team supports the adoption of Ripple, a settlement protocol that enables the world's disparate financial networks to securely transfer funds in any currency in real time. Banks, money transmitters and clearing houses can use Ripple as an 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 Ripple integrations.
Ripple was created to enable the world to move value as easily as information moves today, giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV) akin to today's Internet of Knowledge. For more information about Ripple Labs, please visithttp://www.ripplelabs.com. For more information about Ripple, please visithttp://www.ripple.com.
About Ripple LabsRipple Labs is the global leader on distributed financial technology. The team supports adoption of the Ripple protocol, an Internet of Value (IoV) 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.
Named one of 2014's50 Smartest Companiesby MIT Technology Review, Ripple Labs' team of 100 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 RippleRipple is an Internet protocol that interconnects all the world's disparate financial systems to power the secure transfer of funds in any currency in real time -- enabling an Internet of Value (IoV). 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 visithttp://www.ripple.com. || Your first trade for Thursday, April 30: The " Fast Money " traders closed the show with their final trades of the day. Dan Nathan was a buyer of TWTR (NYSE: TWTR) . Brian Kelly was a buyer of the XLE (NYSE Arca: XLE) . Karen Finerman was a buyer of ANTM (NYSE: ANTM) . Steve Grasso was a buyer of BHI (NYSE: BHI) . Trader disclosure: On April 29, 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 is long BBRY June call spread, M May call spread, T, NKE call spread, QQQ May 108/ 98 put spread, WMT June call spread, IWM May put fly, XLP May Put Spread, XLY May Puts, LULU May puts, INTC May /July put spread. Today he bought TWTR and sold SHAK. Steve Grasso is long AAPL, BAC, BTU, DD, EVGN, MJNA, PFE, T, TWTR, GDX, his firm is long IBM, AMZN, AMD, MCD, KO, FCX, OXY, RIG, NE, TSE, VALE his kids own EFG, EFA, EWJ, IJR, SPY. Brian Kelly is long BTC=, Crude Oil, GLD, GSG, BBRY, SPY puts, U.S. Dollar, he is short 30-Year Bond Futures, Australian Dollar, DAX, Yen, Yuan. Today he bought Crude Oil and GLD. Today he shorted DAX. Karen Finerman is long BAC, C, FINL, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, M, MA, KORS, she is short SPY, her firm is long AAPL, ANTM, BABA, BAC, C, CMLS, DIS, FINL, FBT, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, GPS, IBB, JPM, M, KORS, XBI, SUNE, URI, her firm is short IWM, MDY, SPY, Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. FBR's Dan Ives: Firm acts as a market maker or liquidity provider for the company's securities: Microsoft Corporation RBC Capital Markets' Mark Mahaney: RBC Capital Markets is currently providing Facebook, Inc. with non-securities services. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || 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.
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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
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• CNBC.com Earnings Central
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Novo post no Grupo Bitcoin Comece agora a mudar sua vida financeira de verdade!
Veja como transformar R$ 20,00 em milhares de reais !!!
Tod… || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 22 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $917.97 #bitcoin #btc || current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $216.73, last changed Tue, 14 Apr 2015 19:30:00 GMT. queried at: 19:32:26 || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 25 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $743.17 #bitcoin #btc || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000008
Bittrex: 0.00000008
Average $2.2E-5 per #reddcoin
14:30:00 || current #bitcoin price (bitstamp) is $221.43, last changed Mon, 20 Apr 2015 00:22:40 GMT. queried at: 00:22:43 || Current price: 246.45$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-03-24 11:00:12 EDT || current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $235.61, last changed Sun, 12 Apr 2015 14:29:00 GMT. queried at: 14:32:20 || current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $233.34, last changed Sat, 11 Apr 2015 10:12:00 GMT. queried at: 10:14:08 || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 18532.00 INR Sell : 17918.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin
|
Trend: no change || Prices: 240.36, 239.02, 236.12, 229.78, 237.33, 243.86, 241.83, 240.30, 242.16, 241.11
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2017-06-30]
BTC Price: 2480.84, BTC RSI: 46.91
Gold Price: 1240.70, Gold RSI: 41.33
Oil Price: 46.04, Oil RSI: 52.49
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
SinglePoint and First Bitcoin Capital Partner Up In An Effort To Solve Payment Problems in the Cannabis Industry Through Bitcoin and blockchain alternative payment technology: SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwired - Jun 6, 2017) - SinglePoint, Inc. (OTC:SING), an acquisition-based company with a focus on emerging markets, today announces its initiative to develop a bitcoin payments solution in partnership with First Bitcoin Capital Corp. (OTC:BITCF). The two companies signed a Joint Venture agreement to develop and distribute a viable payments solution using block chain technology. First Bitcoin Capital is an industry leading Bitcoin and blockchain technology provider and SinglePoint has a deep history in distribution. The two companies believe this partnership will enable each company to focus on their core strengths to build and supply the best Bitcoin solution available.
With the massive and widespread adoption of Bitcoin worldwide, the two companies will pursue opportunities to leverage their payment technology background and develop a proprietary solution specifically for high-risk payment verticals including the cannabis industry.
SinglePoints' representation at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year saw many solutions being utilized in other countries based on Bitcoin and other crypto currencies such as Ethereum. SinglePoint and First Bitcoin Capital believe they have found a way for the customer experience to go unchanged at the point of sale when paying with a credit or debit card at medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries.
Under this initiative, the companies will offer a best-in-class Bitcoin solution to fill the payments gap that currently exists.
As SinglePoint CEO Greg Lambrecht states, "InJanuary 2014SinglePoint announced and started working on a bitcoin payment solution, shortly after we recognized the issue of minimal user adoption of digital currency. The payments industry has rapidly changed since that time. There is now tremendous momentum and demand for bitcoin acceptance as an alternative form of payment. This Joint Venture with First Bitcoin Capital is perfect timing. Bitcoin payments are catching on and cannabis dispensaries need a solution fast."
SinglePoint has successfully completed technology integrations with companies such as Twilio, RedFynn, IATS, and all the major carriers ATT, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. Which has enabled the company to provide its text message marketing and text based payment solutions. SinglePoint will now use its experience to work and integrate with First BitCoin Capital to provide an all-encompassing payment solution. First Bitcoin Capital and SinglePoint plan for this technology to be easily implemented into any Point of Sale machine through a simple download of the application.
Greg Rubin of First Bitcoin Capital stated, "We are optimistic that our partnership with SinglePoint will produce positive cash flow to our bottom line. Between the two of our companies, we will have the ability to develop a best in class solution and SinglePoint will be able to help in distribution. We look forward to providing cutting edge products and services to all states through the establishment of this new venture."
Projections by New Frontier put the cannabis industry at $24 billion by 2026. Cannabis is now legal in some form in 29 states and the District of Columbia. Increased need for payment options correlates with this industry growth, and bitcoin stands to be a promising solution. Based on prices from CoinMarketCap, bitcoin has provided annual returns of over 286%. As a testament, Japan recently recognized the currency as a legal payment method and projects that it will be accepted in 260,000 stores in the near future. Furthermore, bitcoin is an accepted form of payment for a number of large retailers, including Overstock.com.
As the cannabis industry continues to evolve, SinglePoint and First Bitcoin Capital are committed to initiatives to identify and develop solutions that enhance the success of the cannabis industry and participating businesses.
About SinglePoint, Inc.SinglePoint, Inc. (SING) has grown from a full-service mobile technology provider to a publicly traded holding company. Through diversification into horizontal markets, SinglePoint is building its portfolio by acquiring an interest in undervalued subsidiaries, thereby providing a rich, diversified holding base. Through its subsidiary companySingleSeedthe company is providing products and services to the cannabis industry.
Connect on social media at:www.facebook.com/SinglePointMobile,http://www.twitter.com/_SinglePoint_,www.linkedin.com/company/SinglePointandwww.youtube.com/user/SinglePointMobile
For more information visitwww.SinglePoint.comorwww.SingleSeed.com
Forward-Looking StatementsCertain 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. Technical complications, which may arise, could prevent the prompt implementation of any strategically significant plan(s) outlined above. The Company undertakes no duty to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release. || Here’s how self-driving cars could help the American economy explode with new jobs: Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen says we've got this whole artificial intelligence thing all wrong. In fact, the fear of the machines taking over has been a familiar one throughout history. "This is the panic every 25 to 50 years," Andreessen said Tuesday evening at Recode's annual Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. "It never comes true." Andreessen, who developed the Netscape web browser and is the co-founder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, likens today's obsession with robots displacing people to the automobile 100 years ago and the fear that a new form of transportation would replace human labor. Instead, the auto industry turned into one of the nation's biggest employers and spawned a whole new market for people like street pavers. The self-driving car , Andreessen said, will not only save lives but increase productivity in ways that perhaps we're not even considering. The real problem in the labor market isn't an oversupply of people, but "we don't have enough workers" to fill the existing jobs. That situation could get a whole lot worse if "immigration policies continue," he said. As with any emerging trend in technology, Silicon Valley is throwing excessive amounts of money at artificial intelligence. Venture investors are funding robots of every shape and size, creating "one of the biggest booms I've ever seen," Andreessen said. And like with the early days of the internet and mobile, there will be a ton of losers, but a few big transformative winners. "Of course we're going to overdo it," he said. "Out of that will come defining companies of the era." Andreessen, who coined the phrase "software is eating the world," is also investing in industries that have yet to experience the types of efficiencies that technology is supposed to create. The three markets of healthcare, education and construction account for 88 percent of all price inflation and are threatening to "eat the economy," he said. Andreessen said he's investing in companies that are trying to drive down costs in those areas. He highlighted Udacity, a developer of online classes, and said his firm is going "very aggressive" in health care. More From CNBC Amazon is 'awfully scary,' says Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Analyst: 2 tech stocks could reach $1 trillion, and Apple isn't one of them Bitcoin could hit $100,000 in 10 years, says the analyst who called $2,000 price || Should You Jump On The Bitcoin Bandwagon?: Youve likely been hearing a lot about digital currencies lately, and more specifically, bitcoin, which is one of the more dominant (and successful) currencies in a growing field that initially emerged in the 1980s. But what is bitcoin, exactly, and why is there now so much hype? Here are a few things you should know about this decentralized, peer-to-peer currency that has been around since 2009 and is quickly gaining momentum as it quietly dodges its association with illegal activity (Think: drug dealers, tax evaders, and hackers demanding ransom): Its accessible to the masses While most of the people buying biotin are individual investors, anyone can get in, and one of the easiest places to do this is on a trusted exchange like coinbase.com . Its one of the more popular, exchanges for everyday mom and pop investors who are becoming more interested, says Chris Dunn, Bitcoin trader, investor and trainer . You set up an account there, link it directly to your checking account, and work out a few technicals. You buy and sell bitcoin with U.S. dollars. Its kind of like electronic trading of stocks, except theres no broker involved. Theres no minimum investment Currently one bitcoin costs $2760, but that doesnt mean you have to spend $2760. You can buy small fractions of bitcoin, down to 8 decimal places, so technically if you wanted to invest $.01 worth of bitcoin, you could, says Brian Kelly, Founder and Managing Member, Brian Kelly Capital LLC , portfolio manager, BKCM Digital Asset Fund , and author of The Bitcoin Big Bang How Alternative Currencies are About to Change the World. Just expect volatility. Although Im expecting one big push to the upside to maybe $4000-$5000 with all the new money coming in (Speculation is the primary driver of price.), you have to be ok with the price going down by 80% or 90% so dont invest money you cant afford to lose. Kelly suggests investing no more than 1% of your net worth in digital currency. This is revolutionary technology akin to the internet. You have to remember that for every Amazon and Google started during the 1990s internet boom, there is a Pets.com that failed. Risk comes with the territory Bitcoin exchanges are vulnerable to hacking, and if an exchange loses its money, good luck getting your money back, says Kelly. Most exchanges are essentially unregulated banks. Practical? Not exactly
While a growing number of e-commerce sites, including Overstock, Expedia, and numerous others (as well as some bricks and mortars), its not like you can use bitcoin, which is still considered experimental, for your everyday purchases. Nor should you, says Dunn. More people are using bitcoin and thats led to higher transaction fees. On $100 worth of purchases, the transaction fee might be 5%. The Bubble Boils? Things move very quickly in the world of cryptocurrency, and while this has many talking bubbles, consider this: Bitcoin has already been through at least six bubbles and price has always exceeded the prior high, says Dunn. This may not be the case forever, but its attracting mainstream money now, and most people should own at least a little bitcoin to they can familiarize themselves with how cryptocurrencies work because digital currency is here to stay and the technology will only grow in scale and opportunity. Vera Gibbons is the founder and editor of nonpoliticalnews.com , a free, by- subscription newsletter that covers and curates the news in Consumer/Personal Finance; Health & Wellness, Fashion/Beauty; Fitness/Diet. A former analyst with MSNBC who appeared regularly on the Today Show, Gibbons was previously a Financial Contributor with CBS News. View comments || How Ethereum became the platform of choice for ICO’d digital assets: Jason RowleyContributor
Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter forCrunchbase News.
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For most of the history of blockchain-based currencies and assets, the story has been all about Bitcoin. At a market capitalization of around $40 billion, it remains themost valuable cryptocurrency.
But with the rise of a new ‘chain on the -- ahem -- block, namelyEthereum, and new ways to fund the development of new crypto-platforms with ICOs, the narrative is shifting somewhat to theentire cryptographic asset class.
Today, let’s take a more in-depth look at some of the historical trends in the digital currency space, paying close attention to Ethereum and its role as the platform of choice for new cryptographic assets.
In roughly the past 12 months, the number of cryptocurrencies listed onCoinMarketCap.com, a main reference site for digital asset developers and speculators alike, has increased significantly.
Below is a chart compiled from the count of cryptocurrencies listed on historic snapshots of the site’s main table starting with the first snapshoton April 28, 2013(featuring a whopping seven cryptocurrencies) and the most recent snapshotfrom June 4, 2017.
As of the June 4 snapshot, there were 809 cryptocurrencies and other digital assets listed on the main CoinMarketCap page. As of Monday, June 5, 2017, at around 6:00 PM Central time, there were 857 cryptocurrencies and assets listed on the site.
Between January 3, 2016 -- the first snapshot of 2016 -- and June 5, 2017, the number of cryptographic assets listed on CoinMarketCap grew from 551 to 857, an increase of about 56 percent in almost exactly 18 months.
As the chart shows, the pace of growth in the number of crypto-backed assets is itself growing. Based only on the listings on CoinMarketCap, 80 percent of the growth in the number of cryptographic assets over the past 18 months took place since January 1, 2017.
The open-source nature of most cryptocurrency systems means that it’s trivially easy to make copies of the software (or “fork” its code, in developer parlance), make some modifications to the protocol and release it as a new, wholly separate system.
As Bitcoin’s price began to increase rapidly in the latter half of 2013, the aspiringSatoshi Nakamotosof the world began forking various cryptocurrency protocols to establish their own coins. By 2013, most of the forks were off ofLitecoin, which is based on Scrypt.
With Bitcoin’s price spike at the end of 2013, it had become inefficient to mine Bitcoin on commodity hardware (like graphics cards) because the arms race in the Bitcoin ecosystem produceda new breed of specialized hardware.
Scrypt, at the time, was still economical to hash on graphics cards, and as Litecoin and a few other Scrypt-based currencies began to appreciate in value, wholly separate cryptocurrencies were forked off of the original protocols to rise anew. Remember the goofy, meme-basedDogecoin? That was a fork of Litecoin. And in case you’re interested in looking at the “family tree” of cryptocurrencies,MapOfCoins.comproduced some really interesting data visualizations.
The goal was to create cryptocurrencies as valuable, or at least as lucrative, in the short-run, as Bitcoin. This somewhat haphazard approach of throwing cryptocurrencies against the proverbial wall and hoping that something sticks was certainly effective at expanding the scope of blockchain-based currency systems; however, that alone doesn’t explain the appreciating value of the asset class as a whole.
If the forkable, derivative-by-design nature of cryptocurrencies explains the breadth of the ecosystem, what explains the growth in value?
Part of it is surely market speculation, and another part of it is that cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-based assets do have real-world applications today.
But another part comes from cryptocurrency entrepreneurs wising up to the fact that their little upstart protocols, in order to be valuable, needed to have an ecosystem built around them. That, of course, takes time and money.
There are two ways of approaching this. Previously, it’s been common practice for cryptocurrency developers to pre-allocate a certain amount of their new cryptocurrency to self-fund development. Once their new cryptocurrency hit an exchange, and thus had a price, this private stash of coins would then have value, enough to sell for Bitcoin or fiat, which could then sustain a project until the ecosystem of wallets and services around their cryptocurrency became self-sustaining and community-driven.
Today, though, the fundraising mechanism of choice appears to be the initial coin offering. AsAlex Wilhelmexplainedin an article for TechCrunch:
“An ICO is a fundraising tool that trades future cryptocoins in exchange for cryptocurrencies of immediate, liquid value. You give the ICO bitcoin or ethereum, and you get some of Billy’s New Super Great Coin.”
This is how Ethereum’s development was funded, by way of a pre-sale of Ether for Bitcoin in July 2014. That pre-sale -- an ICO by another name --raised some 31,591 BTC, valued at more than $18.4 million at the time.
Although the mechanics of ICOs have been in practice for several years, the name and label for initial coin offering events has only gained some currency recently. And the ICO market has really hit a hockey-stick growth trajectory.
Based on data obtained on June 2 fromthe ICO Calendar on TokenMarket.net, the total number of ICOs listed on the site increased sixfold between March and May of this year.
But what’s fueling this massive growth in ICOs? Chances are, it’s similar to what drove the massive growth in the number of cryptocurrencies in the market back in 2013.
Back then, early speculators in Bitcoin, flush with newfound crypto-fortune, plunged their money back into emerging cryptocurrencies. This was done partially for fun (see Dogecoin and other novelties) but also to chase the same kind of returns they enjoyed from Bitcoin investments.
A recent article from CryptoHustlesuggests there might be a similar mechanism at play today, but it’s not Bitcoin millionaires fueling this ICO boom/bubble. Instead, CryptoHustle explains that “[t]he ICO mania is likely due to early Ethereum adopters making serious returns after the last bull run.”
For now, that bull run has continued unabated. Last week was the first time thatEthereum’smarket capitalization reached half that of Bitcoin’s, a massive milestone for the relatively new blockchain.
What explains the price increase? Speculation and other factors are no doubt at play here too, but it’s likely the architecture behind Ethereum’s blockchain system that makes it uniquely valuable, or at least uniquely flexible and extensible.
Bitcoin is a relatively bare-bones blockchain system that requires layers of protocols to be built on top of it to make it a usable platform for utilities like smart contracts. Platforms likeCounterpartyandOmniare both built on the Bitcoin blockchain and have sprouted their own collection of digital assets and services that ride on top of them.
Ethereum, on the other hand, was launched with its own scripting language baked in, making it possible to build complex smart contracts, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), decentralized autonomous apps (DApps) and even other cryptocurrencies with relative ease.
This ease of development, combined with the rising price of Ether and a desire by early stakeholders to re-invest in the Ethereum ecosystem, has made Ethereum the platform of choice for crypto-asset entrepreneurs -- at least for now.
Based on the same data extracted from TokenMarket we looked at earlier, we charted the proportional share of Ethereum-based assets versus all other assets that have either ICO’d already or soon will.
From zero percent of the monthly asset offerings less than a year ago, to more than half of all the closed or announced ICO events tracked on that page, the growth of Ethereum is impressive.
Ethereum’s flexible, extensible blockchain system makes it relatively easy for developers to build and launch their own DApps, DAOs and crypto-assets. But ease-of-use is not sufficient to explain Ethereum’s growing traction in the new digital assets space. It’s where a disproportionate amount of the money is, too.
For these final charts, we extracted the rows fromCoinMarketCap’s listing of digital assets. The table lists names, blockchain platforms, market capitalizations and prices of some 119 assets.
Although roughly a third of the assets listed were built on Ethereum, just over three-quarters of the market value of all of these assets is tied up in assets built on top of the Ethereum platform.
At the time of writing, there’s approximately $3.4 billion in market value represented by the 119 crypto-assets listed on CoinMarketCap’s digital assets page. Of that, around $2.6 billion is tied up in assets based on Ethereum.
Just the top four Ethereum-based assets --Golem,Augur,Basic Attention TokensandGnosis-- represent $1.27 billion in market value. This is roughly half of all the value attached to Ethereum-based assets and more than a third of all the market value of crypto-backed assets and tokens in general.
The value of crypto-assets listed on CoinMarketCap is divided between those built on Omni and those built on Counterparty. Ethereum is the platform of choice because it offers a blockchain platform with a built-in abstraction layer, which serves to unify the ecosystem.
Ethereum offers the tantalizing promise of one chain to rule them all, or at least one chain to act as the foundation. Ether traders, entrepreneurs and developers alike are keen to let a thousand tokens, DApps and DAOs bloom because, although each of these assets is distinct, their roots run deep and ultimately back to Ethereum. || We went inside an Amazon Prime Now hub to learn how Amazon does 2-hour delivery: Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is quietly expanding Prime Now, its free 2-hour delivery service. After originally launching in one zip code in New York City back in 2014, it's now available in more than 45 cities in eight countries. This year alone, it's added 14 more cities. But don't feel bad if you haven't heard about it yet. Amazon may be keeping it under wraps as it ramps up its offerings and perfects its fastest delivery method yet. After all, you won't find the service on the Amazon mobile app — you'll have to give up some screen real estate for its "Prime Now" app. We headed inside one of Amazon's Prime Now hubs in the company's hometown, Seattle, to see for ourselves what free 2-hour delivery looks like. What we found was surprising efficiency, a whole lot of randomness and some hints as to what Seattle consumers are shopping for. And, possibility, Amazon's vision for the future of ecommerce and retail. The Prime Now service offers a smaller selection of mostly household items available on Amazon.com to Prime members with a free 2-hour delivery window. It's no small feat considering there are tens of thousands of products available, as well as selections from local restaurants and stores. There's even ice cream and chilled wine on offer. Unlike Amazon.com's fulfillment centers, which are over a million square feet and house millions of items, Prime Now hubs are closer to city centers and about 30 to 50 square feet on average. Humans — not robots — manually pick out the items in an order from rows of shelving and bins, using internal Amazon systems that have cataloged where every item is stored. Amazon can also tells a "picker" the most efficient route to getting all those items as quickly as possible. When we visited the hub, around noon, there were only a few orders to fill and everything seemed to run smoothly. We didn't get to see how the hub handled a rush of orders or bottlenecks, which typically happen around 6 or 7pm when customers order items or groceries to arrive as they get home. More From CNBC Gianforte win means two of Montana's three congressional reps have Oracle ties Facebook is making a big push this summer to sell ads to drugmakers Bitcoin rival Ripple is sitting on many billions of dollars worth of currency || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: (Chinese Go player Ke Jie during his second match against Google's artificial-intelligence program AlphaGo at the Future of Go Summit in Wuzhen, in China’s Zhejiang province.Reuters/China Stringer Network)
Here is what you need to know.
Trump reportedly slammed German carmakers and threatened to stop their US sales.During a meeting with European officials, President Donald Trump said he would stop German automakers from selling "millions of cars" in the US and called Germans "very bad," Der Spiegel reports.
The polls are tightening in the UK election.A YouGov poll published Thursday showed Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party holding a 43%-to-38% lead over Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party ahead of the June 8 election. The British pound is weaker by 0.5% at 1.2872 versus the dollar.
Consumer prices in Japan are picking up.Prices rose by 0.4% year-over-year in March, making for the fastest growth since March 2015.
Bitcoin is making a comeback.The cryptocurrency trades up by 4.5% at $2,577 a coin after falling to as low as $2,220 on Thursday.
Costco same-store sales crush estimates.Sales at stores open at least one year rose by 5% excluding the impact of gasoline prices and foreign exchange, easily beating the 3.7% gain that was expected.
GameStop's sales increased for the first time in 5 quarters.The world's largest video game retailer said sales rose by 21.5% in the first quarter, boosted by strong demand for the Nintendo Switch. But the GameStop shares fell by as much as 6% after the company left its guidance unchanged.
Stock markets around the world are lower.Japan's Nikkei (-0.6%) lagged in Asia, and France's CAC (-0.8%) paces the losses in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open little changed near 2,414.
Earnings reporting is light.Big Lots reports ahead of the opening bell.
US economic data is heavy.GDP Second Estimate, core PCE, and durable-goods orders will all be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before University of Michigan consumer confidence crosses the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down by 2 basis points at 2.24%.
US markets are closed Monday in observance of Memorial Day.Additionally, the US Treasury market will close at 2 p.m. ET on Friday.
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• 10 things you need to know today || Bitcoin soars above $2,400 to all-time high: (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin hit a fresh record high on Wednesday, surging above $2,400, as demand for crypto-assets soared with the creation of new tokens to raise funding for start-ups using blockchain technology. Blockchain, the underlying technology behind bitcoin, is a financial ledger maintained by a network of computers that can track the movement of any asset without the need for a central regulator. Bitcoin hit a record of $2,409 (BTC=BTSP) on the BitStamp platform and was last up 4.3 percent at $2,363. So far this year, the price of bitcoin has more than doubled. A key reason for bitcoin's dominance in the nefarious online underworld, say technologists and cybercrime experts, is its size - the total value of all bitcoins in circulation is more than twice that of the nearest of hundreds of rivals. Also, a big part of bitcoin's recent surge is the increase in demand for other digital currencies being sold in so-called "initial coin offerings", or ICOs. Under ICOs, blockchain start-ups sell their tokens directly to the public to raise capital without any regulatory oversight. "Bitcoin up 100 percent in under 2 months. Shanghai down almost 10 percent same timeframe, compared to most global stocks up. Probably not a coincidence!", Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive at DoubleLine Capital tweeted on Tuesday. Strong demand for bitcoins in Japan has also fueled the rise of the virtual currency that can be moved like money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. (Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Martina D'Couto) || Government under pressure after NHS crippled in global cyber attack as weekend of chaos looms: Screenshot of the suspected ransomware message on a GP's computer in the Greater Preston area - PA Hospitals across the country hit badly by attack Nearly 100 countries affected Fears of chaos over weekend Edward Snowden blames NSA for attack Cyber attack hits German train stations as hackers target Deutsche Bahn Russian-linked cyber gang Shadow Brokers blamed Everything you need to know about global attack NHS bosses and the government are facing questions over why hospitals had been left vulnerable to the global cyber attack that crippled services on Friday. The health service faces a weekend of chaos after hackers demanding a ransom infiltrated the health service’s antiquated computer system. Operations and appointments were cancelled and ambulances diverted as up to 40 hospital trusts became infected by a “ransomware” attack demanding payment to regain access to vital medical records. Doctors warned that the infiltration – the largest cyber attack in NHS history – could cost lives. Medics described how computer screens were “wiped out one by one” by the attack, which spread to companies and institutions worldwide, including international shipper FedEx Corp in the US, and Germany's rail operator . 'Biggest ransomware attack in history' Researchers with security software maker Avast said they had observed 57,000 infections in 99 countries with Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan the top targets. Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the Helsinki-based cybersecurity company F-Secure, called the attack "the biggest ransomware outbreak in history". The NHS said there was no evidence that patients’ medical records had been accessed, but it was unable to say whether the hackers – who are threatening to delete information unless payment is received within a week – had the ability to destroy such records. Experts at GCHQ’s national cyber security centre were helping NHS teams fight the attack. The US Department of Homeland Security said late on Friday that it was aware of reports of the ransomware, was sharing information with domestic and foreign partners and was ready to lend technical support. Story continues The ransomware attack has affected people and businesses across the world Credit: Malware Tec The attack has been declared a major incident, and has spread to Scotland, where crisis meetings were also being held last night. A computer hacking group known as Shadow Brokers was at least partly responsible. It is claimed the group, which has links to Russia, stole US National Security Agency cyber tools designed to access Microsoft Windows systems, then dumped the technology on a publicly-accessible website where online criminals could access it – possibly in retaliation for America’s attack on Syria. Questions over NHS vulnerability Microsoft had provided free software to protect computers in March, raising questions about why the NHS was still vulnerable. Last night the technology giant said it was pushing out automatic Windows updates to defend clients from WannaCry. Cyber experts said the health service appeared susceptible to attack because many trusts were using obsolete systems, while others have failed to apply recent security updates which would have protected them. This week it was suggested that 90 per cent of NHS trusts in the UK were using Windows XP – a 16-year-old operating system. Security experts said that computers using operating software introduced before 2007 were particularly vulnerable, leaving many NHS systems at risk. About | Ransomware Others, using newer systems, may have failed to apply recent security updates, which would have protected them, experts said. Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the attack was "terrible news and a real worry for patients" and urged the Government to be "clear about what's happened". Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University's computer lab, said the incident is the "sort of thing for which the secretary of state should get roasted in Parliament. "If large numbers of NHS organisations failed to act on a critical notice from Microsoft two months ago, then whose fault is that?" Mr Anderson told The Guardian. May: 'This was international attack' The hack is thought to be part of a wider attack, which has affected the Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica, which also owns 02, where the same message was presented. The ransomware attack was orchestrated using malware called Wanna Decryptor, also known as WannaCry, which demands each user affected pay $300 (£232) in the internet currency Bitcoin, to have files restored. Thousands of NHS computers have been affected so the ransom could potentially cost taxpayers millions. The attack was described by Theresa May as “intentional”. The Prime Minister said: “We are aware that a number of NHS organisations have reported that they have suffered from a ransomware attack. This is not targeted at the NHS, it’s an international attack and a number of countries and organisations have been affected. “The National Cyber Security Centre is working closely with NHS digital to ensure that they support the organisations concerned and that they protect patient safety. And, we are not aware of any evidence that patient data has been compromised.” Intelligence sources said the attack appeared to have been carried out by criminals rather than a hostile state and the ransomware had rapidly spread through companies and organisations in Europe and the Middle East. Russia’s interior ministry said last night it had come under cyber attack. Patients have operations cancelled In the UK the only affected organisation appeared to be the NHS. Patients awaiting heart surgery were among those who had operations cancelled, with doctors telling how staff were frantically ordering computers to be shut down. New parents were left stuck on wards with their newborns as administrative systems failed. Doctors at dozens of trusts resorted to pen and paper, with no access to medical records that could alert them to medical histories or allergies. Handwritten signs in the entrance of the Royal London’s A&E read: “The emergency department has no IT facilities, there are significant delays occurring.” At a glance | High profile hacks NHS trusts are supposed to regularly back up their files. But yesterday doctors and nurses were left treating patients without any access to their medical histories, with lost access to X-rays, blood tests and details such as allergies to medication. It raises the possibility that recent changes to medical records – such as a cancer diagnosis, or the results of a blood test – could be lost, if hackers delete the files. Hacking tool stolen from NSA The mysterious Shadow Brokers claimed last month it had stolen a “cyber weapon” from the NSA that gives unprecedented access to all computers using Microsoft Windows. The hacking tool had been developed by the NSA, to gain access to computers used by terrorists and enemy states. A screen shot circulated by medical staff showed that users were alerted to their system being compromised by a flashing warning on screen which reads: “What happened to my computer?” and states that many documents, photos, videos and databases and other files are no longer accessible. Warning “nobody can recover your files without our decryption service” it then demands payments of $300 – stating that the price will be doubled in three days. An NHS spokesman said: “At this stage we do not have any evidence that patient data has been accessed.” Colchester A&E was among several yesterday urging the public to stay away, unless in the most severe need tweeting: “Our A&E is open for critical or life-threatening situations requiring medical attention, such as loss of consciousness, heavy blood loss.” A 'miracle if no one comes to harm' At Lister Hospital in Stevenage, the telephone and computer system was fully disabled in an attempt to fend off the attack, with all non-urgent appointments and operations cancelled and patients told to keep away from A&E if at all possible. The loss of computer systems meant doctors and nurses lost access to X-rays, blood test results and booking systems, rendering a normal day’s work impossible. A worker at Colchester General Hospital described how her office’s computers were “wiped out, one by one”. Dominic Marley, a hospital doctor in the Manchester area, said it would be a “miracle if no one comes to harm”. Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs The Royal London, St Bartholomew’s, Whipps Cross and Newham hospitals in London, said it had implemented its major incident plan to cope with disruption. Anthony Brett was about to have a stent put in his liver to treat his cancer when he was told the procedure could not happen. The 50-year-old from Bow, east London, said: “To do it to the NHS that does so much good for people, it’s just disgusting. They should be hung, drawn and quartered.” 6:39AM Taiwan on alert Taiwan has been put on high alert after it was reportedly one of the top targets of the cyber attack that rocked the world on Friday, writes Nicola Smith . While government departments and hospital systems had so far been spared the chaos that struck Britain's NHS, there were fears the full impact of the attack may only emerge after the weekend. Ross Feingold, a Taiwan-based political analyst who advises on Taiwan and Hong Kong political affairs, warned that full picture may not be known until Monday morning when officials returned to work. Read the full article here . Taiwan is among the world’s biggest targets for ransomware attacks Credit: EPA 4:44AM Teams 'working round the clock' Ciaran Martin, the body's chief executive, said teams were "working round the clock" with UK and international partners and with private sector experts to lead the response. "We are very aware that attacks on critical services such as the NHS have a massive impact on individuals and their families, and we are doing everything in our power to help them restore these vital services." The attack has left hospitals and GP surgeries with a backlog of postponed appointments to contend with, including operations, once the crisis is brought under control. 3:58AM 'They will try again' The attack was apparently halted in the afternoon in the UK when a researcher took control of an Internet domain that acted as a kill switch for the worm's propagation, according to Ars Technica. The researcher, who uses the Twitter name @MalwareTechBlog, said: "I will confess that I was unaware registering the domain would stop the malware until after I registered it, so initially it was accidental. So long as the domain isn't revoked, this particular strain will no longer cause harm, but patch your systems ASAP as they will try again." It's very important everyone understands that all they need to do is change some code and start again. Patch your systems now! https://t.co/L4GIPLGKEs — MalwareTech (@MalwareTechBlog) May 13, 2017 Read the full article here. 2:47AM US offers help to tackle crisis The US Department of Homeland Security has said it is aware of reports of the ransomware. It says it is sharing information with domestic and foreign partners and was ready to lend technical support. The global cyber attack renewed concerns about whether the NSA and other countries' intelligence services too often hoard software vulnerabilities for offensive purposes, rather than quickly alerting technology companies to such flaws. Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement: "These attacks underscore the fact that vulnerabilities will be exploited not just by our security agencies, but by hackers and criminals around the world." If NSA builds a weapon to attack Windows XP—which Microsoft refuses to patches—and it falls into enemy hands, should NSA write a patch? https://t.co/TUTtmc2aU9 — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) May 12, 2017 12:51AM Is this how the spread of the virus was halted? God damn. Looks like @MalwareTechBlog stopped the spread of this global ransomware attack https://t.co/pgDiTS9oTR pic.twitter.com/YyFKt7cQwy — Joseph Cox (@josephfcox) May 12, 2017 12:03AM Germany's Deutsche Bahn railways 'affected by virus' Germany's main train operator Deutsche Bahn was attacked by ransomware based on leaked NSA tools. pic.twitter.com/hP66QZT1cQ — Pamela Moore (@Pamela_Moore13) May 12, 2017 11:32PM Chief Executive of NHS Providers speaks out on cyber attack Chris Hopson, Chief Executive of NHS Providers, says trusts are working to limit the impact of the cyber attack: 11:21PM Edward Snowden: Are any other vulnerabilities in software? In light of today's attack, Congress needs to be asking @NSAgov if it knows of any other vulnerabilities in software used in our hospitals. — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) May 12, 2017 10:12PM How to protect yourself from ransomware Back up your files The greatest damage people suffer from a ransomware attack is the loss of files, including pictures and documents. The best protection against ransomware is to back up all of the information and files on your devices in a completely separate system. A good place to do this is on an external hard drive that isn't connected to the internet. This means that if you suffer an attack you won't lost any information to the hackers. Businesses often save copies of their data to external servers that won't be affected if their main network is attacked. Be suspicious of emails, websites and apps For ransomware to work hackers need to download malicious software onto a victims computer. This is then used to launch the attack and encrypt files. The most common ways for the software to be installed on a victim's device is through phishing emails, malicious adverts on websites, and questionable apps and programs. People should always exercise caution when opening unsolicited emails or visiting websites they are unfamiliar with. Never download an app that hasn't been verified by an official store, and read reviews before installing programs. Read our full guide . 9:30PM FedEx reports malware interference in global cyberattack FedEx has said it is experiencing issues with some of its Microsoft Corp Windows systems. "Like many other companies, FedEx is experiencing interference with some of our Windows-based systems caused by malware," a spokeswoman said in a statement. "We are implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible." 9:12PM 'Emergency care is operating as normal,' says NHS London Director The head of the NHS in London, Dr Anne Rainsberry, says patients who are seriously ill should go to accident and emergency as usual, despite a huge cyber attack on hospitals. 9:07PM Russia's Interior Ministry targeted Russia's Interior Ministry says it has come under cyberattack. Two security companies tell AP that more than 70 countries have been affected by the cyberattack, with Russia the hardest hit. Russian police computers were also affected by the attack. 8:57PM We didn't turn anyone away Rozina Sabur reports: One nurse, who did not want to be named, said: "I work in one of the assessment clinics, we had to write everything by paper but it was ok, in our section we didn't turn anyone away". Another, a stroke specialist nurse, said: "We've been directing patients to Luton Hospital all day where they have a specialist stroke department. It started around 11:30/12 so I'd seen 4-5 patients before that." Patients could be seen leaving the hospital with handwritten medical notes scrawled on pieces of paper. Some described how their relatives had been told to attend their nearest alternative hospitals. 8:52PM NHS Digital's head of security: 'health has never paid a ransom' NHS Digital's head of security Dan Taylor the NHS "must ensure it has good cyber crime hygiene". In a hand-washing analogy, he added: "Think of this as washing your hands before going on to a ward to prevent infection, where cyber hygiene prevents digital viruses such as ransomware." Describing ransomware as a situation where data is "digitally locked" and a ransom is asked for for the unlocking key, Mr Taylor said "health has never paid a ransom". He added: "Instead, organisations have restored systems from back-ups after clearing the infection. But as we have seen recently, this can still lead to days of cancellations to patient facing services." 8:43PM Hospital conditions described as 'primitive' Rozina Sabur reports: Two general surgery ward nurse described the conditions today as "primitive". One said: "the usual notes that we do on the computer we had to do by hand. It's gone back to primitive times." The other described the rudimentary systems that the hospital pharmacy have been reduced to using. "I observed the pharmacy, instead they of the usual computer forms they had to write the medication name and dosage by hand. "We had to use forms from ten years ago because we couldn't use them online. We then had to call people to bring the medicine requests because when we do it online it registers automatically." He said the main things affected were laboratory forms and pharmacy forms. 8:38PM Technology writer Kate Bevan explains how ransomware works 8:26PM Hacking attacks reported in Romania and Russia Romania Romania's intelligence service says it has intercepted an attempted cyberattack on a government institution which it said likely came from cybercriminal group APT28 also known as Fancy Bear. Cyberint, subordinated to the Romanian Intelligence Service, said on Friday it thwarted a cyberattack to a government institution, without saying when it occurred, following notification from NATO and the Romanian foreign intelligence agency. Russia A top Russian mobile operator says it has come under cyberattacks that appeared similar to those that have crippled some U.K. hospitals. Pyotr Lidov, a spokesman for Megafon, said Friday's attacks froze computers in company's offices across Russia. He said that mobile communications haven't been affected. Lidov said that the attack involved demands of payment of $300 worth to free up the system. He added that the company managed to restore the work of its call center but closed most of its offices for the day. Some Russian media also have reported cyberattacks on the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee. The committee, the nation's top investigative agency, has rejected the claim. 8:22PM NHS 'will increasingly fall victim to these kinds of attacks' Jamie Moles, Principal Security Consultant at Lastline said: While security remains a low priority for NHS management, they will increasingly fall victim to these kinds of attacks, which will cause serious problems as it results in the cancellation of treatments whilst the affected systems are investigated and cleaned up. The National Health Service is one of the largest organisations in the United Kingdom. With an annual budget in the region of £116 billion, it is a massive target for cyber-attacks and currently, it’s a poorly defended target. There are a number of trusts in deficit and spending on the NHS has dropped in real terms since the recession. Priorities for all NHS trusts are unsurprisingly targeted at medical needs over and above admin and operational needs, but of course this includes IT Security. Interestingly, the NHS takes a very strict and sanitary approach to dealing with these attacks, shutting down almost all of its IT capabilities while it triages and treats the problem. Why would we expect any different from a medical organization? Moving forward if we are to prevent these attacks causing delays to treatment and potentially deaths, NHS trusts are going to have to invest in technology to deal with cyber-threats. There are plenty of good technologies available to assist in this issue and they can be scaled effectively and cost efficiently to cope with massive organisations like the NHS. 8:21PM Former MI6 director: ransomware attacks are 'increasingly common' Nigel Inkster, Director of transnational threats and political risk at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and former MI6 Director for operations and intelligence, says ransomware attacks like the one inflicted on the NHS today have become 'increasingly common'. 7:58PM Extremely Worrying Relatives of NHS patients speak about their fears. Relatives of a patient affected by NHS cyber attack say it is 'extremely worrying as he is seriously ill' #NHScyberattack pic.twitter.com/tjJejPvM7a — Sky News (@SkyNews) May 12, 2017 7:46PM Theresa May reacts The Prime Minister took a break from the election campaign trail to respond to the truly massive global ransomware attack which has done so much damage to the NHS. 7:34PM Scenes of desolation The main reception at Blackpool Victoria Hospital lies abandoned after the ransomware attack hamstrung the operation of the trust. Blackpool Victoria Hospital Credit: Warren Smith/Telegraph 7:24PM Theresa May: NHS not the target Theresa May said the Government is not aware of any evidence that patient records have been compromised in the massive cyber attack on the NHS. The Prime Minister said the ransomware hit was "not targeted" at the health service but was part of a wider assault on organisations across a number of countries. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is working to support the NHS. She said: We are aware that a number of NHS organisations have reported that they have suffered from a ransomware attack. This is not targeted at the NHS, it's an international attack and a number of countries and organisations have been affected. The National Cyber Security Centre is working closely with NHS digital to ensure that they support the organisations concerned and that they protect patient safety. And, we are not aware of any evidence that patient data has been compromised. Of course it is important that we have set up the National Cyber Security Centre and they are able to work with the NHS organisations concerned and to ensure that they are supported and patient safety is protected. 7:20PM The NHS toll: an update The following hospital trusts have confirmed they have been attacked by the malware: George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust (Nuneaten) Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Great Yarmouth) Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust Latest news from GEH Update: Suspected cyber attack at GEH - We are currently dealing with a suspected cyber at... https://t.co/BZ95rLwmI8 — George Eliot NHS (@GEHNHSnews) May 12, 2017 7:07PM The human cost Anthony Brett turned up to St Bartholomew's Hospital in London today for an operation on his liver, but was turned away due to the chaos. A spokesman for the trust said: We are very sorry that we have to cancel routine appointments, and would ask members of the public to use other NHS services wherever possible Liver patient Anthony Brett is turned away from a London hospital Credit: Paul Grover/Telegraph 6:51PM World-wide reach...it makes you WannaCry This map gives a snapshot of the sheer breadth of this ransomware attack. Although the NHS has been badly affected, it shows the health service wasn't the only target. The reach of the WannaCry attack Credit: @Malware Tec 6:42PM FedEx the latest victim US multinational courier service FedEx appears to have been hit hard, according to an online security journalist. Employees have reportedly been instructed to switch off all non-essential Windows systems. FLASH: FedEx USA employees instructed to turn off all non-critical Windows systems on network after WCry compromise starts in UK offices — ZeroTayExploit (@SwiftOnSecurity) May 12, 2017 6:34PM Stay away from 'Clinical Results' This tweet from East Kent Hospitals appears to suggest that the ransomware infiltrated their IT systems in emails with 'Clinical Results' in the subject Trust staff: we are aware of the national cyber attack - DO NOT open any emails that have “Clinical Results” in the title or similar. — East Kent Hospitals (@EKHUFT) May 12, 2017 6:25PM Five more trusts confirmed Five more hospital trusts have confirmed they have been attacked, in addition to the list of 18 we brought you earlier. They are: Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust 6:21PM Spanish companies hit hard Major Spanish companies have been hit by a cyber attack bearing striking similarities with the onslaught against that has crippled the NHS, according to Madrid journalist James Babcock. Firms such as Telefónica, Spain’s leading telecoms company, were targeted by malware around midday, causing operators’ computer screens to turn blue. Access to files became impossible and a demand for a ransom to be paid in bitcoins flashed up on screens at Telefónica’s headquarters in northern Madrid. Spain’s National Cryptology Centre (CCN), part of the country’s secret security services, conformed in a press release that a “massive ransomware attack affecting Windows systems” had affected “a large number of organisations”. 6:15PM Back to the Stone Age A pharmacist in Yorkshire says it's back to paper notes and no patient histories All shut down in Yorkshire-even in GP practice. Back to handwriting notes while seeing patients without full histories! #nhscyberattack — Chris Maguire (@chris_magz) May 12, 2017 6:07PM Spreading worldwide As well as the NHS, the ransomware had struck telecoms companies, and electric utilities companies. Thousands of dollars was already rolling into Internet accounts set up to handle the ransom payments. Adam Meyers, from cyber security firm CrowdStrike advised against paying. We advise people not to pay, because if people do pay, it emboldens these criminal actors. Instead organisations were encouraged to make sure their data was backed up and copies were kept off networks. Employees had to be educated about which sort of emails to beware of and the latest patches and security updates installed. 6:01PM WannaCry: part of a wider attack of The hack on the NHS appeared to be a part of a wider attack of WannaCry ransomware which is spreading rapidly across Europe, security experts have told the Telegraph. Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at the cyber security firm CrowdStrike said it was being spread by people clicking on emails infected with fake invoices and job adverts. Mr Meyers said the ransomware appeared to be relatively new and it was unclear who was behind it. 5:53PM Hacking the NHS 'is easy' The Telegraph's Jamie Bartlett explains how today's strike is a classic example of a ransomware attack . He says that the online purchase of ransomware is one of the fastest growing trades on the internet. Insiders reckon the trade is worth millions of dollars a year. Individual attacks are for sale on the dark net for as little as $39. 5:42PM Like something out of the movies One Twitter posts a conversation between hospital staff. One said: We got a message saying your computers are now under their control and pay certain amount of money. Why would you cyber attack a hospital and hold it for ransom? The state of the world �� pic.twitter.com/e6h6yNrBBB — If.ra (@asystoly) May 12, 2017 5:37PM Mother and son turned away The real-world impacts of today's massive cyber attack on the NHS are beginning to filter through. 5:30PM No guarantee of recovery Cyber crime experts Databarracks say victims of ransomware attacks have got two options: You can either recover the information from a previous backup or pay the ransom. However, even if you pay the ransom, there is no guarantee that you will actually get your data back, so the only way to stay fully protected is to have historic copies of your data. When recovering from ransomware, your two aims are to minimise the amount of data loss and to minimise the amount of IT downtime. 5:24PM Critical or life-threatening only The latest tweets from Colchester Hospital make grim reading.. Our A&E is open for critical or life-threatening situations requiring medical attention, such as loss of consciousness, heavy blood loss... — Colchester Hospitals (@ColchesterNHSFT) May 12, 2017 2/... suspected broken bones, persistent chest pain, difficulty breathing, overdoses, signs of a stroke, ingestion or poisoning. — Colchester Hospitals (@ColchesterNHSFT) May 12, 2017 5:21PM "One by one, the screens were locking down” A shocked worker at Colchester General Hospital described how her office’s computers were “wiped out, one by one”. She said the effects of a hack on modern NHS hospitals could be 'catastrophic'. My computer locked at about 3pm and I couldn’t get anything to work. Then my colleague sat next to me said her computer was down. It swept through the office and everyone was effected and didn’t know what was going on. One by one the computers were wiped out. Nothing was working and switching them off and on did not solve the problems. 5:17PM Not just a British problem? A Milan-based Twitter user has Tweeted a picture of what appears to be a similar ransomware message at what is described as a university. A ransomware spreading in the lab at the university pic.twitter.com/8dROVXXkQv — １２Ｂ (@dodicin) May 12, 2017 5:08PM 'Double in three days' - the demand A screen shot circulated by medical staff shows a warning flashing on screen which reads: “What happened to my computer?” and states that many documents, photos, vidos and databases and other files are no longer accessible. Warning “nobody can recover your files without our decryption service” it then demands payments of $300 dollars - stating that the price will be doubled in three days. Doctors have seen this message on screens across the country Credit: PA 5:04PM The list gets bigger The situation is moving very fast. The Health Service Journal has a list of the hospitals and organisations known to have been hit. A list of NHS organisations who have fallen victims to today's nationwide ransomware attack: pic.twitter.com/LeXTO6YqFI — Shaun Lintern (@ShaunLintern) May 12, 2017 5:02PM Aintree University Hospital 'down' Top radiologist Rashid Akhtar reports that one of Liverpool's big hospitals is affected. Aintree hospital down — Rashid Akhtar (@TheRadiologyReg) May 12, 2017 4:58PM 'Miracle' if on one comes to harm Dominic Marley, a hospital doctor in the Manchester area, gives a grim perspective on the likely consequences of today's attack. No x-rays/bloods/bleeps/phones/notes. This is unprecedented. It will be a miracle if no-one comes to harm #NHS #CyberAttack attack — Dominic Marley (@DominicMarley) May 12, 2017 4:53PM Shocking and Unprecedented Peter Warren, Cyber Security Research Institute said the NHS tends to be 'quite leaky' when it comes to security: This is shocking and unprecedented. It is a historical moment, proving how important cyber security is. It hasn't been taken seriously enough for years, Cyber security is not a priority. The NHS is under pressure on many fronts. They tend to be quite leaky when it comes to cyber security. It is no surprise that this has happened. 4:45PM Cyber Spooks The National Cyber Security Centre are on the case. Sources said officials from the National Cyber Security Centre, a branch of the GCHQ electronic spy agency, said they are working with the NCA, dubbed Britain's FBI, to help health managers. The attack comes only weeks after the NCSC warned that so-called ransomware attacks, where hackers lock up data and demand money to release it, have become one the biggest cyber threats We are aware of cyber incident and we are working with @NHSDigital and the @NCA_UK to investigate — NCSC UK (@ncsc) May 12, 2017 4:42PM Dark Currency Hospitals and GP surgeries appear to have been told to pay $300 dollars - £233 - in order to regain access to their files. The hackers are demanding this is paid in Bitcoins, an unregulated internet currency that authorities find it difficult to trace. 1 Bitcoin is currently equivalent to £1,381. 4:34PM Hospital super boss says everyone has to muck in Chris Hopson, who represents NHS hospital bosses, said trusts will be supporting each other to get through the crisis. The scale and scope of what looks to be an extensive malware attack on the NHS is not yet clear. Given the potential impact, NHS trusts take this type of attack very seriously. They have detailed and well rehearsed contingency plans in place to deal with incidents of this type and these plans have worked effectively when they have been triggered on an individual trust basis in the past. Trusts will rally round support each other to cope with the disruption and early feedback suggests that this is already happening in this case. However, it is likely that some services will be affected, at least in the short term. The trusts affected will now be doing all they can to minimise the impact on patients, and to get their services back to normal as quickly as possible. 4:29PM Files held to ransom Doctors across the country have seen this message - what appears to be ransomware - flash up on their screens #nhscyberattack pic.twitter.com/SovgQejl3X — gigi.h (@fendifille) May 12, 2017 4:24PM NHS confirms it is under attack NHS Digital said: “We’re aware that a number of trusts that have reported potential issues to the CareCERT team. We believe it to be ransomware.” Register Log in commenting policy || Cramer counters Wall Street worries around markets rising in tandem: While simultaneous upward moves in the markets might sound like good news, Jim Cramer sawone reporton Wednesday preaching caution about the "everything rally."
"This morning we wake up to a starkly negative headline — here we go — in the Wall Street Journal: 'Markets Rise in Lockstep, Raising Worries of Reversal,'" the "Mad Money" host said. "The big concern? Stocks, bonds, gold and Bitcoin are all moving up in unison, which makes the market 'vulnerable to sharp reversals.'"
While Cramer is never one to say that the market is immune sharp downturns, especially with a president he finds to be "capable of some acts that, let's just say, were a little unthinkable in previous administrations," Cramer did find some counterweights to the Journal's argument.
For most of his career, Cramer saw interest rates go down as stocks went up. Now, investors want to see theFederal Reservehike rates to confirm the strength of the economy with a market also on the rise.
Watch the full segment here:
"But we've never had such an incredible fluidity in fixed income globally, nothing like this," Cramer said. "You want to own an Italian 10-year bond at the same rate as a U.S. one? That's insane if you do. So that money's coming here, not staying over there. How about a German 10-year where you literally make nothing? That money's coming here, too."
The action in the international bond markets marks one extenuating circumstance in the age-old lower-rates-higher-stocks paradigm. Another one is the movement in gold(CEC:Commodities Exchange Centre: @GC.1).
"The precious metal has had many sustained rallies right along with stocks. There are plenty of structural factors that make it that way as gold is, by the way, a worldwide market more heavily influenced by fund flows from China and India than the United States," Cramer explained.
As for Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS), Cramer said there is a reasonable explanation for why the digital currency is relentlesslysurging higher.
An effectively untraceable way to move money, Bitcoin provides a way for people to extract cash from a failing or unstable country without being followed or having it confiscated.
"It's invisible to the taxman so those countries in Europe that raised taxes? They provide a ready market for Bitcoin. It's the answer for the Chinese because gold's too easily confiscated. You don't think it could happen in those countries? Confiscation? Hey, how about a history lesson? It happened here — FDR confiscated our gold in 1933. You can't confiscate Bitcoin," Cramer said.
And organizations worried about the risks of cyberattacks have been purchasing Bitcoin to pay off hackers, a trend Cramer insisted is completely separate from, for example, the price-to-earnings ratio of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson(NYSE: JNJ).
"Again, there's plenty of unseen worries, ones like Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 that wrecked a perfectly placid summer," the "Mad Money" host said. "But the fact that stocks, bonds, gold and Bitcoin are all rising at once likely won't be the cause of any reversal. You know what I think it is? I think it's an evergreen headline that generates a lot of fear but, frankly, not much else."
Questions for Cramer?Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC
Want to take a deep dive into Cramer's world? Hit him up!Mad Money Twitter-Jim Cramer Twitter-Facebook-Instagram-Vine
Questions, comments, suggestions for the "Mad Money" website? madcap@cnbc.com
More From CNBC
• Cramer lays out the 15 stocks to buy when bad headlines prevail
• Cramer: Here's how this anti-Trump software stock has managed to rally
• Cramer's lightning round: This downtrodden stock's no more than a value play || Bitcoin and Ethereum fall amid profit taking: Investing.com – Prices of both bitcoin and ethereum sank on Monday, as investors appeared to take profit on the recent rally that has seen both cryptocurrencies touch record highs.
On the U.S.-based GDAX exchange, BTC/USD fell to $2,288.1, down $192.5 or 7.76%.
Other big exchanges such as Poloniex, Bitfinex and BitStamp also showed the cryptocurrency trading around the $2,200-level.
Bitcoin has struggled to recover after falling from its peak of $3,000 earlier in June, however, the digital currency is up more 150% for the year.
Fresh off its weekly first loss in three weeks, Ether, a currency transacted through the Ethereum platform, lost 21.63% to $214.70.
Ethereum’s move lower comes amid worries that high demand for ethereum-based projects could overloaded the network, causing flash crashes to occur more frequently.
Some digital currency investors. however, downplayed last week’s flash crash, which saw Ehtereum plunge from $300 to 10 cents on Coinbase’s GDAX exchange, as a reason for the selloff and remained confident about the future prospect of cryptocurrencies.
"My gut says we are headed for a selloff in the crypto sector," Digital currency investor Fred Wilson said in a blog post, adding that he remains optimistic about the future of cryptocurrencies over the next five to 10 years.
At current prices, Ethereum's market cap has dropped to around $24 billion, way below that of Bitcoin's nearly $40 billion, dashing investor hopes that Ethereum would be the alternative cryptocurrency that usurps bitcoin as the largest and best capitalized blockchain – a phenomenon referred to as “the flippening”.
Ethereum’s popularity has soared in a short space of time and boasts large corporate backers such as JPMorgan and Microsoft that share investors’ belief that ethereum empowers its users to “codify, decentralize, secure and trade just about anything.”
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 #bitcoin está custando R$8499.65 na FoxBit. Acesse http://bit.ly/FoxBit e negocie com as menores taxas do Brasil. || On Monday Bitcoin hit a record, by Thursday it had erased its gains for June #HardForkhttps://twitter.com/WSJ/status/875452898892816385 … || Bitcoin is tumbling http://read.bi/2rz7xI3 pic.twitter.com/CyvyQAOUkU < http://www.lividul.info > || $BTC is down.
$ETH is down.
@Coinbase is down.
--
All the feels.pic.twitter.com/8Hkn7wkDLt || 6:00~7:00のBitcoin市場は反落だったのかな。
変化率は0.3744%
8:00までは反落かな?
直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は301836.0円
【AIコメントです:テスト中パターンB】
#bitcoin
#AI || Last I checked #bitcoin was over $2200.00 USD || Bitcoin non-regulation leaves users vulnerable to theft, fraud - http://klou.tt/h77x5vnm62fy || Bitcoin tumbles 12%, erases gains for June https://www.fxinter.net/en/free-realtime-forex-news.aspx?ID=198661&direct=Bitcoin+tumbles+12%25%2c+erases+gains+for+June … || 8:00~9:00のBitcoin市場はよこばいでした。
変化率は-0.0815%
10:00までは反落になる?
直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は310208.0円
【AIコメントです:テスト中@パターンB】
#bitcoin
#AI || #Hyperledger Takes on #Blockchain Scaling with New Working Group http://www.coindesk.com/hyperledger-takes-on-blockchain-scaling-with-new-working-group/ … #Bitcoin #Blockchain #Cyrtocurrency #Crypto #ICO
|
Trend: down || Prices: 2434.55, 2506.47, 2564.06, 2601.64, 2601.99, 2608.56, 2518.66, 2571.34, 2518.44, 2372.56
|
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 2022-04-28]
BTC Price: 39773.83, BTC RSI: 44.81
Gold Price: 1888.70, Gold RSI: 39.24
Oil Price: 105.36, Oil RSI: 53.62
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Silver Markets Crash Into a Big Figure: Silver marketshave been very bullish during the trading session on Tuesday to reach towards the $25 level. The $25 level is of course a large, round, psychologically significant figure, and an area that begins a rather large resistance barrier that extends to the $25.50 level. Because of this, I would not be surprised at all to see a little bit of a pushback, but it is still a market that is going to move based upon a potential safety trade to get towards hard currency such as silver.
Do not get me wrong, I do not believe that silver is a currency in the purest form, but when gold takes off, it often has a bit of a “knock-on effect” over here. The market has stalled just a bit at the $25 level, and that is to be expected so far. If we pull back from here, then it is likely that we could go looking towards the $24.50 level, possibly the $24 level. On the other hand, if we were to turn around and take out the top of that wild candlestick from last Thursday, it is likely that we would see this market go straight up in the air.
Keep in mind that under normal circumstances, silver has a major negative correlation to the US Dollar Index, so you need to pay close attention to that. Ultimately, this is a market that is going to be wild and volatile, so you have to be cautious about the position size that you put into this market. We are a little extended at this point, so I would anticipate a lot of noise between here and the 200 day EMA if we do get a pullback.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Central Bank of Russia Launches SWIFT Replacement With 399 Users
• E-mini Dow Testing Key Retracement Zone at 33461 – 32665
• E-mini S&P Reaction to 4344.00 Pivot Sets the Tone
• Crude Oil Breaks Major Resistance
• Target Shares Soar After Q4 Earnings Blow Past Estimates
• Bitcoin Premium Emerges on Ukrainian Markets Amid Economic Crash || 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 todays 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 Bitcoins 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 || App Store Outages and Missing Crypto Wallets: What to Do? BTCWires Explains: Singapore, March 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a world that offers services increasingly more interconnected, it should come as no surprise that things sometimes do not end up as planned – and yet, it does. Following an outage that rendered most apps and internal systems unavailable last Monday, March 21st, and lasted for about 3 hours, affecting users of no less than 15 different apple services, as reported by Bloomberg, there have been reports and rumors that some crypto wallets were removed from the App Store.
Trust Wallet, a crypto wallet app rated at 4.7 stars and with a total of 166,379 reviews – take from that what you will – has reported on its officialTwitterpage andcommunitywebpage that the app became unavailable “on March 21, 2022 at 1pm PST”, which seems to match the time of the outage reported by more than 3,000 users onDowndetector.
BTC Wires, a leading online digital platform that provides information about crypto and blockchain technology, examined possible reasons in the Trust Wallet case, and came up with steps that crypto users can take.
What Was the Reason?
It is still uncertain if the above mentioned events are related, though the company behind Trust Wallet seems committed to assuring its users that the problem will be solved in “a timely manner”, and transactions have been confirmed to be working just fine.
Another possible explanation for the sudden disappearance of the app from the store might be related to App Store guidelines regarding the use of third-party payment services, whichseems to be the case, at least for Trust Wallet, with the words:
“The app does not sell any crypto, you will be redirected to a 3rd party provider” hanging over its official community post forewarning crypto adventures just as those of Dante in the famous Italian comedy.
Apple has reportedlyrestrictedthe use of third-party payment integrations when there’s no physical exchange of goods or services, making adjustments to their policies whenever legally obliged and/or pressured, as is the case in theNetherlandsand inSouth Korea. However possible for this to be the case surrounding the issue with some wallets, nothing has been disclosed by Apple or by any other company that would confirm this theory.
Are Other Wallets at Risk?
Nevertheless, many users of other wallets and wallet services embedded with exchange platforms have understandably become wary about the situation, which expands the proportion of need-to-know information one requires before trusting any amount of money to a service.
With that in mind, here are a couple of options one can rely on to not have that issue:
• NOW Wallet: Since the company behind the wallet is likewise behind the exchange platform, they do not depend on a third party to execute the payments, thus they are compliant with App Store guidelines. The wallet supports nearly 400 cryptocurrencies, about 60 fiat currencies, and NFTs. Since it is non-custodial, the user has full control of the private keys and the funds. There are other benefits to this wallet as well, such as its simplicity and straightforward app design, making the learning curve accessible even to the most tech-averse person.
• Coinbase Wallet: Coinbase is a staple in the crypto market by now, and its Wallet product, in opposition to the regular Coinbase service, is a DEX, thus allowing crypto swapping just as other DEXs. It supports all ERC-20 tokens (including USDC and DAI), BTC, BCH, LTC, XRP, XLM, and DOGE. Since its inception, it has been known for its appeal among beginners and is well regarded by its users.
• eToro Money Crypto Wallet: Another great option for those who like stability. eToro, like Coinbase, has established itself in the crypto market as a reliable broker service and a wallet. It’s trustworthy, supports over 500 crypto pairs, and is secure. On the other hand, it might be too much of a challenge for beginners.
• Gemini Wallet: If you are out there looking for something different, this might be what you’re looking for. Gemini offers a hot wallet insurance in case of a security breach or hack, which is an added bonus when dealing with money on the internet. There is good and bad in this wallet. Some of the fees can be quite high, and you don't get as many options of currencies (about 70 crypto assets) and they're not as variable as you would get with other wallets. Despite this, it still has a reputation as a reliable wallet.
• Ledger Live Wallet: Now if you are in for something more niche, you might like Ledger Live. The wallet is powered by Ledger, the most reliable hardware wallet available, supports 1,800 coins & tokens, and uses advanced security features. The only downside is the lack of online customer support.
Those are not the only alternatives but are currently some of the most reliable ones out there. The perfect fit for you will largely depend on your crypto interests, and while the aforementioned wallets deal with a wide range of assets, you should always do your own research and see what better matches your needs.
VisitBTC Wiresto find more news and other crypto-related information.
CONTACT: RAGHAV SAWHNEY CEO BTCWires.com contact (at) btcwires.com || FinTech Platform YouHodler Lists Five New Metaverse Tokens For Staking, Lending, and Trading: Lausanne, Switzerland, March 16, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- YouHodler, a FinTech platform focused on crypto-backed lending, stablecoin loans, crypto exchange, crypto savings accounts, and crypto trading announced the listing of several new Metaverse tokens on the platform. For all clients on YouHodler, Decentraland (MANA), The SandBox (SAND), Axie Infinity (AXS), Illuvium (ILV) and Gala (GALA) are available immediately.
All coins are available for exchange (buy/sell), trading, lending, and savings account features. For a limited time, YouHodler will feature promotion interest rates of 25% - 30% APR for these new tokens. The promotion will last one month from the launch of these tokens. After that, the interest rates will decrease to 3% APR plus compound.
YouHodler currently features interest rates as high as 12.3% for some stablecoins. YouHodler’s embrace of the Metaverse comes during a pivotal moment in the internet’s evolution, as the world starts to shift from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 – or simply Web3.
YouHodler Lists Five New Metaverse Tokens
The metaverse is an elastic concept most easily described as a basic evolution of the internet. It’s an online space where people can meet, socialize, shop, and even work using avatars. Unlike a video chat with friends, the metaverse is always there for users to enter and exit at will. The metaverse is not necessarily a new concept but has garnered a lot of attention in recent years, especially with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg announcing Facebook’s evolution from a social media platform to a metaverse platform.
Since then, other metaverse platforms like Decentraland, SandBox, and more have exploded in user growth, with the price of their native tokens along with it. YouHodler CEO Ilya Volkov states “Web3 and the metaverse represent the next iteration of the internet. At YouHodler, we want to help our clients utilize their crypto in a positive way instead of just buying and holding. Hence, we feel offering new tokens such as these give our clients access to the metaverse’s potential combined with our innovative digital asset tools.”
For those interested in learning more about YouHodler, they can download the YouHodler app for Android, iOS and also use the web app found onYouHodler.com.
About YouHodler
YouHodler FinTech platform is focused on crypto-backed lending with fiat (USD, EUR, CHF, GBP), crypto (BTC) and stablecoin loans (USDT, USDC, TUSD, PAX, PAXG, DAI, HUSD), crypto/fiat, and crypto/crypto conversions, as well as high-yield crypto-saving accounts (crypto-rewards & staking). The platform supports BTC, BCH, BNB, ETH, LTC, XLM, XRP, DASH, HT, REP, and other popular cryptocurrencies and tokens. User's digital assets are safely guarded with Ledger Vault's advanced custody and Fireblocks security options.
YouHodler is an EU and Swiss-based brand with two main offices in Cyprus and Switzerland. To learn more about YouHodler Switzerland visityouhodler-swiss.com
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CONTACT: Contact Details: Vaida Saltenyte, Head of Partnerships vaida -at- youhodler.com || BANXA Announces AUD $106 Million February Transaction Volume & Secures Cryptocurrency Custody Registration: Highlights:
• February 2022 Total Transaction Volume (TTV) of AUD $106 million (USD $76 million) up 48% Year-on-Year
• Five new partners signed in February, including TokenPocket, ApolloX, IDEX, Sologenic and IX Swap
• Added two new fiat currencies in February, now supporting a total of 32
• Secured Netherlands cryptocurreny custody registration from the Dutch National Bank (DnB)
TORONTO, CA and MELBOURNE / ACCESSWIRE / March 15, 2022 /BANXA Holdings Inc. (TSXV:BNXA)(OTCQX:BNXAF)(FSE:AC00) ("Banxa" or "The Company"), the world's first listed payment service provider (PSP) and RegTech platform for the digital assets industry, has today announced its February 2022 TTV, recording AUD $106 million (USD $76 million), and growth of 48% Year-on-Year. The TTV is broadly in line with the decline in volumes of the overall cryptocurrency market.
In February, Banxa processed over 127,000 transactions and added five new partners, including TokenPocket and ApolloX. Banxa also added two new fiat currencies to now support a total of 32 fiat currencies enabling seamless access to digital currencies through multiple payment methods.
Banxa also secured a cryptocurrency custody registration from the Dutch National Bank (DnB) which allows Banxa to hold custody of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies on behalf of its customers. This registration adds further to Banxa's focus on acquiring digital currency exchange and custody licences around the world.
Banxa CEO Holger Arians said, "The crypto ecosystem is ever-changing, and Banxa is ideally positioned to continue its accelerated growth in the market. We are delighted to welcome our new partners, providing support for more coins and fiat currencies every month."
-----ends-----
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORSPer: "DOMENIC CAROSA"https://twitter.com/dcarosaDomenic CarosaChairman (1-888-218-6863)
BANXA Holdings Inc. (TSX-V: BNXA) (OTCQX: BNXAF) (FSE: AC00)
Banxa powers the world's largest digital asset platforms by providing payments infrastructure and regulatory compliance across global markets. Banxa's mission and vision are to build the bridge that provides people in every part of the world access to a fairer and more equitable financial system. Banxa is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, with European headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
For further information go towww.banxa.com.
This news release may contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties, and contingencies.
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Banxa's statements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and conditions, many of which are outside of Banxa's control, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties of the Company's business, including: Banxa's assumptions in making forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect; adverse market conditions, including risks related to COVID-19 and risks that future results may vary from historical results.
Except as required by securities law, Banxa does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise.
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For Further Information, seewww.banxa.com.
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Investor Relations:Email:Investor@banxa.comBrian M. Prenoveau, CFAMZ North America561-489-5315BNXA@mzgroup.us
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SOURCE:BANXA Holdings Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/693121/BANXA-Announces-AUD-106-Million-February-Transaction-Volume-Secures-Cryptocurrency-Custody-Registration || Elon Musk to Join Twitter CEO Agrawal for Staff Q&A Next Week: (Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk, who was added to Twitter Inc.s board after accumulating a stake in the social network, will join Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal at a company all-hands meeting next week to address employee questions. Most Read from Bloomberg Putin Says Ukraine Talks at Dead End, Vows to Pursue War Ukraine Update: Polish and Baltic Presidents Set to Visit Kyiv NYC Names Person of Interest as Subway Shooter Remains at Large U.S. Pullout of Locked-Down Shanghai Deepens China Tensions Joke No More: Shiba Inu Is Among Four Crypto Tokens Listed on Robinhood Agrawal will host Musk at the Q&A session to help ease internal concerns about the impact the billionaire will have on the companys internal culture and policies, according to the Washington Post, which earlier reported the meeting. A Twitter spokesman confirmed the companys plans. On April 4, Musk, 50, disclosed that hed taken a more than 9% stake in Twitter. The following day, Twitter said Musk was joining its board, and Musk filed a new form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission classifying himself as an active investor. He had earlier submitted the form reserved for passive shareholders. Musk, CEO of automaker Tesla Inc., is the worlds richest man, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Hes also one of the biggest personalities on Twitter and has regularly stirred controversy on the platform. He is currently seeking to exit a 2018 deal with the SEC that put controls in place related to his tweeting about Tesla. Citing internal company messages, the Washington Post on Thursday reported that some workers in recent days have expressed concern on Twitters employee Slack channels that Musk could inflict damage to the companys culture, as well as make it harder for people to do their jobs. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek How Jack Dorsey Quit Twitter to Become Bitcoins Spiritual Leader Five Million Men Are Still Missing From the U.S. Workforce The Fertilizer Shock Might Change Agriculturefor the Better Lucrative SPAC Trades Spur Insider-Trading Probe Why Commercial Landlords Will Give You Months of Free Office Rent ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin and ETH Struggle To Hold Gains, ApeCoin Could Resume Surge: • Bitcoin is slowly trimming gains from the $40,750 resistance.
• Ether (ETH) might test the key $2,915 support.
• APE is showing bullish signs and might resume uptrend above $18.00.
After a strong move above $40,000,bitcoinprice faced sellers. The bears remained active near the $40,750 level. The price reacted to the downside and traded below $40,400.
There was a move below the $40,000 support and the 21 simple moving average (H1). Bitcoin even traded below the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent wave from the $38,250 zone to $40,750 high.
It seems like the price might extend decline and test $39,500. It is near the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent wave from the $38,250 zone to $40,750 high. On the upside, $40,500 and $40,750 are important breakout levels.
ETHalso attempted an upside continuation above $3,000. However, the price struggled to clear the key $3,035 resistance zone.
It is moving lower below the $3,000 level and the 21 simple moving average (H1). There was a move below the 38.2% Fib retracement level of the recent wave from the $2,800 support to $3,035 high.
On the downside, there is a major support forming near the $2,915 level. It is near the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent wave from the $2,800 support to $3,035 high. Any more losses might send the price towards the $2,840 level.
APEstarted a major increase after it broke the $12.50 resistance zone and the 21-day simple moving average. Besides, there was a break above a key bearish trend line with resistance near $13.00 on the daily chart.
The price even climbed above $18.00, but it struggled to test the $20.00 resistance. It is correcting gains and trading below the $18.00 level.
However, the bulls are protecting the $17.50 support zone. If they remain active, the price could start a fresh surge above $18.00. The next key resistance on the upside may perhaps be near $19.50 or $20.00.
If there is a downside break below the $17.50 support, the price might correct sharply. In the stated case, APE might slide and test the $15.00 support zone in the near term.
Cardano (ADA)struggled to gain pace above the $0.885 resistance zone. It is correcting gains and trading below the $0.860 level.
Binance Coin (BNB)failed to stay above the main $400 support zone. It is now moving lower towards the $388 support. The next major support is near $385.
Polkadot (DOT)faced selling interest above the $17.50 level. It is sliding and seems like the bears might aim a test of the $17.00 support zone.
A few trending coins areDOGE,LUNA, andAAVE. Out of these,DOGE is showing a lot of positive signsabove the $0.150 level.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Ukrainian farmers don bulletproof vests to plough frontline fields
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• Crude Oil Is Holding Its Breath As China Fears COVID Again || Bitcoin generated an 'oversold buy' signal that could lead to short-term upside of 13%, Fairlead's Katie Stockton says: • Bitcoin generated an 'oversold buy' signal that could lead to short-term upside, according to Fairlead's Katie Stockton.
• Stockton sees bitcoin trending towards resistance near $48,100, which represents 13% upside from current levels.
• "The rally off support has kept the weekly MACD on a 'buy' signal in a reflection of improved momentum," Stockton told Insider.
Bitcoincould see more upside in the short-term after the cryptocurrency generated an "oversold buy" signal earlier this week,Fairlead Strategies'Katie Stockton told Insider.
The key test was bitcoin's ability to decisively hold $40,000 as a support level, according to Stockton, who now expects bitcoin to trend towards its 200-day moving average in the short-term.
"Bitcoin held important cloud-based support near $40.0K and has generated an oversold 'buy' signal from the daily stochastics after a three-day rally, supporting a short-term bullish bias," she told Insider.
Bitcoin's 200-day moving average is a likely area for bitcoin to hit resistance, which currently stands around $48,100, according to Stockton. A surge to that price would represent potential upside of 13% from current levels.
"The daily MACD is pinched as well, reflecting improved short-term momentum that supports a move higher toward next resistance near $48.1K," she said.
The MACD indicator, short for moving average convergence/divergence, tracks the movement of moving averages and is separate from moving average crossover strategies that include the widely followed death cross and golden cross.
"From an intermediate-term perspective, the rally off support has kept the weekly MACD on a 'buy' signal in a reflection of improved momentum. If the weekly stochastics turn up, we would move back to a bullish intermediate-term bias," Stockton explained.
Bitcoin has been stuck in a volatile trading range since it topped out near $69,000 in November. The cryptocurrency has fallen to as low as $33,000 before paring its losses. Bitcoin traded up about 3% to $42,761 on Thursday.
Read the original article onBusiness Insider || US stocks fall in volatile trading as inflation surges again and Ukraine-Russia crisis drags on: • Stocks finished Thursday in the red after a choppy day of trading amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
• The Consumer Price Index showed inflation at the highest level since 1982.
• Bank of America recommends buying the dip in stocks, and Fundstrat's Tom Lee still sees upside for a rally.
Stocks closed Thursday's session in the red after a volatile afternoon of trading amid Russia-Ukraine war and another hot inflation reading.
Consumer Price Index data showed prices rising in February at the fastest rate since 1982.Prices rose 7.9%year-over-year last month, matching the median economist estimates. The reading comes ahead of next week's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, during which the Federal Reserve is expected to initiate the first of several rate increases this year, in part to tame high inflation.
Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia yielded little progress. Markets have been whipsawed by volatility stemming from the crisis, with commodities in particular making eye-popping moves amid threats of supply disruptions.
Here's where US indexes stood as the market closed at 4 p.m. on Wednesday:
• S&P 500: 4,259.52, down 0.43%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 33,174.07, down 0.34% (112.18 points)
• Nasdaq Composite:13,129.96, down 0.95%
Goldman Sachs announced it waspulling its business out of Russia, becoming the first major Wall Street bank to cut ties with the warring nation.
The Dow could be on theverge of a shakeup, following the stock splits from Amazon and Apple. Bank of America analysts noted that investors shouldbuy the current dip in the stock market, because geopolitical dips historically bounce back within a few months.
JPMorgan analysts said thatcommodities shocks for consumersis a greater risk amid war in Ukraine than the impact of US corporate earnings.
Fundstrat's Tom Lee expects the S&P 500 torally to 5,100 or higherby the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the Chinese tycoon that lost billions betting against nickel, reportedlywants to keep shorting the commodity, which could lead to continued high volatility. Elsewhere in commodities markets, a wheat ETFbriefly ran out of sharesto sell to investors.
Oil prices pulled back.West Texas Intermediatecrude is down more than 2.1% to $106.35 a barrel.Brent crude, the international benchmark, was down about 1.1% to $109.92 a barrel.
Goldtraded up at 2,007.40 per ounce. The10-year Treasury yieldwas up to 1.986.
Bitcoinslipped 5.79% to $39,509.29.
Read the original article onBusiness Insider || 3 Stocks to Buy to Battle Rapidly Rising Interest Rates: AllianceBernstein ( AB ): Mergers and acquisitions are set to further improve its offerings in this rising rate environment. Ares Capital ( ARCC ): can churn higher returns from the loans offered to mid-sized firms. Costco Wholesale ( COST ): could benefit as housing and employment booms. Stocks to buy: smartphone with the words "buy" and "sell" displayed on the screen. The user's finger is about to press buy. Stock charts are in the background of the image. Source: Chompoo Suriyo / Shutterstock.com The Federal Reserve increased the benchmark interest rates in March to curb rising inflation. Additionally, it has been anticipated that even higher interest rates might be on the way soon. Thus, investors have become skeptical about choosing the best stocks to buy amid rising interest rates. Amid such tailwinds, investors are already withdrawing their money from overvalued stocks. Accordingly, many have redirected their investments towards companies that offer near-term value to shareholders. To be honest, rates are still relatively low even after this hike. For example, the federal funds’ rate currently sits at 0.5%. That’s substantially higher than the previously recorded 0.08% we’ve seen. But it’s microscopic by historical standards. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips That said, rising rates should not be considered a dead end for the economy. The economy will likely change, perhaps negatively, as a result of this tightening monetary policy environment. However, instead of exiting the market completely, investors may do better by sticking it out with companies that have potential to grow in any environment. 7 Stocks to Add to Your April Must-Buy List With that in mind, here are three great stocks to buy I think are worth considering. AB AllianceBernstein $46.15 ARCC Ares Capital $21.58 COST Costco Wholesale $589.70 AllianceBernstein (AB) The AllianceBernstein (AB) logo inside a corporate office in New York City. Source: rblfmr / Shutterstock.com AllianceBernstein is a publicly-owned investment manager . This isn’t your average small-time family office, however. The company currently holds approximately $780 billion in assets under management. With an excellent management team in place, investors may look at this firm as a great way to navigate this higher-yield environment. Story continues This company happens to be among the best-in-class fixed income managers around. Accordingly, with rates rising, expectations are that investors may once again seek out less-risky fixed income investments. This rising demand could provide a tailwind for AB stock. Additionally, a rising interest rate environment could cause more volatility in capital markets. This is typically a good thing for companies like AllianceBernstein. This is because it enables the firm’s shrewd managers to take advantage of the situation and cash in. Over time, investors looking for ways to play this market may find that investing in companies that specialize in this business is the way to go. That’s a simplistic thesis, but an easy one to understand for those looking for a place to park some cash right now. Ares Capital (ARCC) Ares Capital (ARCC) logo on its webpage Source: Pavel Kapysh / Shutterstock.com Ares Capital Corporation is a Business Development Company (BDC). Specifically, ARCC engages in recapitalizations, acquisitions and restructurings of mid-sized firms. Typically, such companies feature a market value of $20 million and $200 million. In simple words, these Goldilocks firms are neither too small nor too big. Interestingly, ARCC stock is the first and only lender to offer “unitranche” constructed investments. These products are a powerful vehicle companies can use regarding loan repayments in the event of a default. Amid a rising interest rate environment, Ares stands to earn higher returns on the credit it provides. Like other financials, ARCC stock should, on net, benefit from this environment. Accordingly, it’s no surprise to see this stock outperform the broader market in recent weeks . 7 Cloud Computing Stocks to Buy for April 2022 Additionally, ARCC stock is unique in that it provides a meaningful dividend. Currently, the yield on ARCC stock sits just below 8%. Thus, for investors looking for passive income, this could be a great way to manage this current rising rate environment right now. Costco Wholesale (COST) A Costco Wholesale (COST) warehouse in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Source: ilzesgimene / Shutterstock.com Last, but certainly not least, we have the legendary Costco. This operator of warehouse-style retail stores is truly a long-term buy-and-hold gem. The company’s business model is as simple as it is elegant. By sourcing products directly from manufacturers, Costco passes on the savings to consumers who often buy in bulk. Additionally, its distribution model is impressive, allowing for substantial savings on freight and handling costs. Overall, Costco is a company worth owning in a retirement account. However, for those looking for a place to park some brokerage money in the near-term, COST stock fits the bill as well. That’s because this retailer has impressive pricing power relative to its peers. Customers shop at Costco knowing they’re getting great prices, even if those prices are rising. Additionally, the company’s product mix centers on consumer necessities. This provides both customer loyalty and guaranteed volume, factors the company can use to leverage with its suppliers. As far as a defensive option goes, there are few stocks better than Costco to own long-term. 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 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 3 Stocks to Buy to Battle Rapidly Rising Interest Rates appeared first on InvestorPlace .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 38609.82, 37714.88, 38469.09, 38529.33, 37750.45, 39698.37, 36575.14, 36040.92, 35501.95, 34059.27
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2018-08-14]
BTC Price: 6199.71, BTC RSI: 34.06
Gold Price: 1193.00, Gold RSI: 25.83
Oil Price: 67.04, Oil RSI: 42.74
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Mastercard has a new patent that could allow bitcoin transactions on credit cards: Mastercard introduces a patent to manage "fractional reserves of blockchain currency." While no products have been brought to market, the technology could speed up blockchain transactions. Bitcoin bull Tom Lee says this is good news as it validates cryptocurrency as a form of transaction. Consumers might one day be able to charge their purchases on their credit cards using bitcoin as a currency. On Tuesday, Mastercard MA won a patent to protect a method that would manage "fractional reserves of blockchain currency." At present, Mastercard holders can only pay for things using currency that the government has declared as legal tender, Seth Eisen, Mastercard's senior vice president for communications, said. In the document , published with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Mastercard said that there has been "increased usage" in blockchain currencies by consumers who "value anonymity and security." But there are disadvantages to using digital currency, the document noted, and there's a need to improve the storage and processing capability of such transactions. "While blockchain currencies can often provide such safety and security for the payer's information, such security may be limited for payees, particularly due to the limitations of the blockchain," the document said. For example, digital coin transactions still take longer: about 10 minutes for blockchain transactions versus nanoseconds for traditional payments. As a result, both consumers and merchants have to wait a "significant amount of time" for these digital transactions to go through, or "rely on the payer's good faith" that they are valid, said the document. It added that in the latter instances, the anonymity of the blockchain may leave those accepting payments at a disadvantage. "Many entities, particularly merchants, retailers, service providers, and other purveyors of goods and services, may be wary of accepting blockchain currency for products and participating in blockchain transactions," the document concluded. Story continues However, while the details are still unclear, if the method was brought to market, it could speed up blockchain transactions by allowing cardholders to instantly pay for things on their credit card with a fraction of their digital currency. In an email to CNBC, Eisen wrote, "We’re consistently looking at ways to bring new thinking and new innovations to market to create value for us and our customers and cardholders. Patent applications are part of that process, taking steps to protect the company’s intellectual property, whether or not the idea ever comes to market." Eisen said currently, no products have been brought to market. Still, Fundstrat Global Advisors Tom Lee told CNBC that this is good news for digital currency. "It’s really validating the idea that digital money, or blockchain-based money, is a valid form of transaction," Lee, who serves as managing partner and head of research at the equity research firm, said on " Fast Money " Tuesday. The bitcoin bull pointed out that other countries, such as Japan , have "taken a much more positive view on digital money, or blockchain based money, being real transactions." Crypto traders celebrated Tuesday as bitcoin passed $7,000 around 2 p.m. ET and held steady above $7,300 for most of the day, according to Coinbase . That's an increase of about 13 percent from a month ago. Bitcoin fell below $6,000 in June , in what some traders deemed was a cryptocurrency bear market. The coin bounced back a few days later . Still, bitcoin, the largest digital coin by market cap — valued at more than $125 billion, according to CoinMarketCap — is nowhere near its December peak when it was priced around $19,500. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Why These 2 Energy Giants Outshine Their Peers: The steep decline in oil prices that started in mid-2014 was shocking, with the swift drop from $100 a barrel to less then $30 showing just how volatile the vital fuel can be. Many oil drillers were bleeding red ink during the worst of it. Now that oil is back into a range where oil majors are profitable, investors shouldn't forget a key lesson of the downturn -- flexibility is important. And on that point, ExxonMobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) and Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) are two of the best positioned oil majors. Here's why these two energy giants outshine their peers. Leveraging the balance sheet Exxon distinguished itself during the oil downturn by continuing to increase its dividend every year, extending it streak of annual increases to 36 years. Most of the other oil majors paused their hikes or cut their dividends . One of the key factors that allowed Exxon to continue to invest in its capital program and raise the dividend was that it made judicious use of its balance sheet. A man wearing an orange hard hat and jacket writing in a notebook with an oil well behind him. Image source: Getty Images At the start of 2014, before the oil sell-off, Exxon's long-term debt stood at around $6.5 billion. It peaked at nearly $28 billion at the end of 2016. That's a huge increase in leverage in just two years. However, the absolute numbers don't tell the whole story. Long-term debt as a percentage of the capital structure went from a minuscule 4% to a still low 15%, over the span. Exxon's rock solid balance sheet gave it the financial flexibility to continue to support its business and reward investors with dividend hikes despite the oil price headwind. Exxon has started to pay down its long-term debt now that oil prices have recovered, bringing it down to around 11% of the capital structure, and it remains one of the least leveraged oil drillers. Chevron is nearly as conservative with its balance sheet as Exxon, with long-term debt making up roughly 18% of its capital structure, providing it with ample flexibility, as well. Royal Dutch Shell is the closest major peer, with long-term debt making up a little over 30% of the company's capital structure. Story continues XOM Financial Debt to Equity (Quarterly) Chart XOM Financial Debt to Equity (Quarterly) data by YCharts To be fair, Shell and its European peers tend to keep more cash on hand than Exxon or Chevron, which levels out the leverage issue on a net basis. However, during downturns the higher debt levels leave these companies with less wiggle room on the liability side of their balance sheets. Conservative investors should favor the low-debt approach taken by Exxon and Chevron in what is a highly cyclical industry. Where to from here? The oil downturn, however, is in the past. Investors tend to focus more on the here and now. On that score Exxon is an underperformer today. Its production fell in each of the last two calendar years, dipping nearly 3% between 2015 and 2017. That's not the right direction to keep investors happy. The company's return on capital employed, meanwhile, fell through the downturn along with peers and now sits in the middle of the pack after years of being ahead of the pack. It's not surprising that Exxon's stock is roughly break even so far this year while many peers are seeing gains in the high single digits and low double digits. However, Exxon is aware of the issues and is doing something about them. For example, it has been working on a number of large projects (including in the onshore U.S. market, Guyana, and Mozambique, among others) to improve its production profile. The results are starting to show up in Exxon's reserve figures, which increased a touch over 6% in 2017. And in an effort to improve returns, the oil giant plans to take a leading role in more of its projects. It believes this will allow it to push return on capital employed from the mid-single digits into the mid-teens as it puts its large project expertise to better use. That said, it's a large and conservative company, and it will take time to turn the ship. If you are willing to think long term , the stock's price to tangible book value hasn't been this low since the 1980s and the yield hasn't been in the 4% range since the mid-1990s. Add in a rock solid balance sheet, and there's a lot to like here. XOM Chart XOM data by YCharts Will Chevron get aggressive? Chevron's stock hasn't been faring quite as badly as Exxon's, but it's only up a little more than 1%, so it still hasn't been a good year for investors. That, however, seems at odds with recent quarterly results, which have been pretty solid , including a 6% increase in production year over year. There are two important things to note about Chevron from here, however, that could be important to long-term investors. First, Chevron has been reducing its exposure to downstream operations by selling refining assets. That increases its exposure to the upstream (oil and natural gas drilling) piece of the business. That isn't a bad thing, but it means commodity prices will have a larger impact on the company's results than at more diversified peers like Exxon, which has long focused on balancing its upstream business with downstream operations. Increased commodity exposure, however, has been a net positive this year. Second, and more notable for the stock price, is that Chevron's capital plans aren't nearly as aggressive as many of its peers.The oil giant's capital spending was roughly cut in half between 2014 and 2017 and it looks like it will be stuck in the current $18 billion to $20 billion range for the next few years. Peers, including Exxon, have far more aggressive plans. A bar chart showing the decrease in Chevron's capital spending and the projected low level from here. Chevron's capital and exploration budget is flatlining for the next few years. Image source: Chevron Corporation Investors, perhaps rightly, would seem to prefer to see Chevron take a more aggressive approach. That said, Chevron's efforts in shale oil space have been producing very strong results and exceeding expectations. The Motley Fool's Tyler Crowe believes this will turn out to be the company's "ace in the hole" and a good reason for investors to like this conservatively financed oil major. Especially when you combine it with the company's conservative balance sheet and 3.5% yield. Staying conservative Oil and natural gas are commodities that, at times, experience swift and extreme price swings. Although Exxon and Chevron are taking different approaches to growing their businesses today and are facing some headwinds, they both have very low levels of long-term debt. That gives them the financial strength to execute their growth plans and deal with any commodity price adversity that comes their way. If you are a conservative investor looking for a long-term energy holding, both Exxon and Chevron are worth a closer look. 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 ExxonMobil. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Kevin O’Leary: 10 Rules of Success to Pick ETFs: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
Businessman, author and TV personality Kevin O'Leary is no stranger to ETFs with hisO'Shares ETF Investmentsthat incorporate his investment philosophies.
In a video with snippets compiled by YouTuber Evan Carmichael, O'Leary outlined 10 rules for success that can be applied to picking ETFs.
1. You Have to Sacrifice A Lot
Though it might be easy to simply follow the advice of a financial advisor or a hot tip from a friend or colleague, the best investments can come from an investor doing his or her own market research. It's easy for an investor to get caught up in the ebbs and flows of life, which limits time to do things, such as looking up an ETF's expense ratio, fund focus, performance, or chart analysis. However, sacrificing time for other things to do market research can help an investor unearth their own investment ideas and discover trends that market leaders have not been quick to recognize.
2. Trust Your Gut
An investor can look at all the stocks held in an ETF's basket with all the fundamental and technical analysis showing that it's a solid investment. However, there could a be a lingering notion that prevents the investor from actually pulling the trigger--his or her own intuition--it might be the most often overlooked indicator and investors should take their intuition into account even if their analysis tells them otherwise.
3. Have Diversification
ETFs offer the luxury of investing in a basket of stocks rather than shares of one particular stock, but even concentrating on one particular ETF that zeroes in on one specific market sector could open up an investor's portfolio to unmitigated risk. Diversifying an ETF portfolio with concentrations from various sectors could help alleviate any unforeseen market disruptions in one particular sector.
Related:Why Investors Should Diversify with a Real Asset ETF
4. Have a Backup Plan
If an investor is looking to own one particular ETF, such as the SPDR 500 ETF (SPY) and the entry price is not to his or her liking, especially during a high volatility market, it's easy to simply wait, but this could lead to missing out on future profits should prices continue to rise. Even if market prices settle, the entry price might still not be attractive, so it's best to have a backup plan. For example, rather than wait for the right entry price of SPY, an investor can also look at another ETF that tracks the S&P 500, such as the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) as a backup plan. Other backup options include using an inverse or bear ETF as a hedge to a bullish purchase going in the unintended direction.
5. Be a Leader
The old market adage of the "trend is your friend" is hard to dismiss, particularly when there's a flock of investors vying for the same hot ETF. This buying frenzy could fuel an inflated price that misaligns with the true market value of a security, which could quickly lead to ETF buyer's remorse. Instead, rather than hopping on the bandwagon, an investor could take the lead and explore other uncharted markets that could also derive profitable ETF investments.
6. Admit Your Weakness
Holding on to losing investments can have ramifications to an investor's pride aside from the balance in his or her portfolio. If an ETF investment idea goes awry, sometimes it's better to cut losses short than to continue riding a losing investment into the ground. As such, investors on the losing end of an investment should know when to swallow their pride and admit their mistakes.
7. Buy Stocks with Dividends
While profitable ETF investments can certainly be had without dividends, it's difficult to deny the attractiveness of those that promise guaranteed money back on an investment. As such, an investor can include ETFs that focus on securities that offer dividend payments, such as the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) , Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (NYSEArca; VYG) or Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (VYM) .
8. Differentiate Between Family, Friends and Money
Friends and family may offer their investment advice, but it's best for an investor to keep his or her ETF investment capital in check and do their own market research before relying on somebody else's tip. This way, relationships won't be sullied due to an investment experiencing a massive downturn.
9. Get Outside of North America
In certain countries outside of North America, emerging markets are outpacing the growth of economic superpowers. As such, an investor should look into ETF investment opportunities that exist in other parts of the world, such as through the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) , iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG) or the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) .
Related:Tilt Toward Trending Emerging Markets Idea
10. Go With Simple Ideas
Legendary value investor Warren Buffettadvises investorsto "Never invest in a business you cannot understand." It's simple advice and a plea to stick to simple ideas based on an individual investor's own knowledge base. If an investor is privy to the market fluctuations of real estate, but dismisses homebuilder ETFs in lieu of purchasing cryptocurrency ETFs, but does not understand the business model for cryptocurrencies, he or she may be setting themselves up for failure. If an investor does not want to take the time to understand the core business of the stocks found in a focused ETF through research, it might be best to invest in industries they already know.
For more ETF investment trends,click here.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Crypto Market Adds $20 Billion in 30 Minutes as Bitcoin Spikes Above $7,400: The bitcoin price has surged 10 percent over the past 30 minutes, subsequent to experiencing a substantial spike in its volume. Within one-hour period, the price of bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, ether, Ripple, and EOS increased by 6 to 10 percent, as the valuation of the cryptocurrency market surged to $292 billion from $272 billion, by more than $20 billion. Market Added $20 Billion in 30 Minutes An unexpected corrective rally occurred in the evening of July 17, pushing the price of major digital assets to spike by large margins. Bitcoin and EOS have been the best performers out of the major cryptocurrencies, rising by nearly 10 percent in a short period of time. In previous reports, CCN noted that the market has seen the emergence of a series of positive events such as the government of South Korea regulating its cryptocurrency market, which could fuel the next rally of the market. Optimistic developments in leading cryptocurrency markets including the US, Japan, and South Korea were not reflected by the crypto market over the past two weeks, and the recent bull run may begin to portray the progress the market has seen in terms of regulation, adoption, and general consumer demand. The last time BTC spiked by a margin as big as today’s rally was April 9, when the price of BTC surged from $6,900 to $8,000, within 30 minutes. Ultimately, the rally from $6,900 to $8,000 led the price of BTC to test $10,000. If the price of bitcoin surpasses the $8,000 mark, it may be able to replicate the same movement it experienced on April 9, and potentially test the $10,000 support level. However, if bitcoin remains stable in the $7,400 region, bitcoin could try breach major support levels between $8,000 to $9,000 in the upcoming week. Strong Volume, Momentum Building The difference between the rally of July 17 and previous false runs throughout June is the volume. Currently, on Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, the volume of bitcoin against Tether (USDT) is $300 million, up from $100 million since July 16. In two days, the volume of bitcoin tripled. Story continues Throughout July, the issue with the crypto market was its low volume, and despite the optimistic momentum indicators and positive signals of the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and momentum average convergence divergence (MACD) of bitcoin, the low volume of the crypto exchange market disallowed a rally from being initiated. The short-term rally of July 17 was supported with a large spike in volume, complemented by positive events such as the appointment of a new CEO for Goldman Sachs, who has discussed bitcoin on a positive light on multiple occasions. Previously, David Solomon, the newly appointed Goldman Sachs CEO, admitted for the first time that Goldman Sachs is preparing to launch a proper cryptocurrency trading platform. He stated: “We are clearing some futures around Bitcoin, talking about doing some other activities there, but it’s going very cautiously. We’re listening to our clients and trying to help our clients as they’re exploring those things too. Goldman Sachs must evolve its business and adapt to the environment.” Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Crypto Market Adds $20 Billion in 30 Minutes as Bitcoin Spikes Above $7,400 appeared first on CCN . || Gold Miners ETFs: Poised for Something Big?: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
As has been documented, gold prices have faltered over the past several months. An interesting element in that scenario is that gold miners ETFs, such as the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEArca:GDX), the largest exchange traded fund dedicated to gold mining stocks, have performed less poorly than ETFs focusing on physical gold.
GDX is comprised of global gold miners, with a notable tilt toward Canadian and U.S. mining companies. Stock fundamentals like cost deflation across the mining industry, share valuations below long-term average and rising M&A are all supportive of the miners space as well, but those fundamentals could be glossed over if the dollar strengthens.
“Recent history shows two other examples of a positive divergence with respect to gold stock performance against Gold. In the summer of 2014, the various gold stock indices relative to Gold made higher highs while Gold didn’t even come close to its earlier 2014 high. That resolved terribly if you were a gold bull. However, at the end of 2016, the gold stocks relative to Gold did not make a new low while Gold did. That resolved wonderfully for gold bulls,”according to ETF Daily News.
Related:World Gold Council, SSGA Launch Low-Cost Gold ETF
Unique Gold ETF Investing Ideas
Another gold miners idea to consider is the U.S. Global GO GOLD and Precious Metal Miners ETF (GOAU) , which is one of the more solid performers among miners ETFs on a year-to-date basis.
The U.S. Global GO GOLD and Precious Metal Miners ETF is a smart beta fund that “provides investors access to companies engaged in the production of precious metals either through active (mining or production) or passive (owning royalties or production streams) means,”according to U.S. Global Investors.
“The current relative strength in the gold stocks would be much more encouraging if it was matched by the same type of positive divergence in the advance decline line,” according to ETF Daily News. “Ultimately, there are two ways the current setup will resolve . Gold will either rally back to and overtake major resistance at $1300-$1310 or roll over after approaching said resistance.”
Related:How Do Gold ETFs Work?
Popular leveraged gold miners ETFs include the Direxion Daily Junior Gold Miners Index Bull 3x Shares (JNUG) . The Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 3X Shares (NUGT) is JNUG’s large-cap counterpart.
For more information on the gold market, visit ourgold category.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Blockchain firm Soluna to build 900MW wind farm in Morocco: CEO: By Ahmed Eljechtimi RABAT (Reuters) - Blockchain company Soluna plans to build a 900-megawatt wind farm to power a computing center in Dakhla in the Morocco-administered Western Sahara, its chief executive John Belizaire said in an interview. Work on the initial off-grid phase will start in 2019 and complete a year later, with the possibility of connecting the site to the national grid, Belizaire told Reuters. Soluna told the Moroccan government it expected to complete the site in five years at a cost of 1.4-2.5 billion dollars. It would invest 100 million dollars in an initial phase, from which it hoped to generate 36 megawatts. Bitcoin is earned -- or 'mined' -- by using your computer to help process the uncrackable "blockchains" or digital transaction records that underpin the currency. This requires huge computing capacity, and a lot of electricity, and so is mostly done with huge machines in aircraft hangar-sized warehouses in the cooler climates of Iceland, Canada, northern China and Russia, where it costs less to disperse the heat generated. Digiconomist, a cryptocurrency analysis platform, estimated in June that bitcoin mining used approximately 71 terawatt hours (TWh) per year, equivalent to almost 10 percent of China's annual energy usage. Soluna is backed by private equity group Brookstone and will mostly likely seek private equity and large institutional investors, Belizaire said. The project will cover 37,000 acres in one of the world's windiest regions enabling the company to own sustainable energy resources along with a utility-scale blockchain computing facility. Belizaire said the company will not make cryptocurrency transactions in Morocco where financial authorities have warned against the use of cryptocurrencies. The computer center will provide computing to blockchain networks offering calculation capacities to foreign entities in exchange for foreign currency, he said. Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, in 1975, and since then the territory has been the subject of a dispute between it and the Polisario Front, an independence movement backed by neighboring Algeria. Morocco has attracted investment in solar and wind power as part of a goal to generate 52 percent of its electricity from renewable energies. (Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi; Editing by Alexandra Hudson) || How Braava Will Be iRobot's Next Big Catalyst: Shares ofiRobot(NASDAQ: IRBT)have climbed more than 30% since the consumer robotics specialist announcedfirst-quarter resultsin late April -- and with good reason. Both total revenue (up nearly 29%) and adjusted earnings per share (up 27%) comfortably exceeded expectations, driven by broad-based geographic strength and global demand for its core Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners (RVCs). As it stands, Roomba still generates the vast majority of iRobot's sales.
iRobot subsequently revealed that -- despite a growing number of competitors in the niche -- the Roomba line still commands a whopping 62% global market share of the RVC segment. And even then, iRobot insists that with household penetration of RVCs still low relative to their upright vacuum counterparts, its current installed base of 13 million households has room to grow nearly tenfold over the long term in the United States alone.
IMAGE SOURCE: IROBOT.
But Roomba isn't iRobot's only product with long-term promise. According to management during a recent investor conference, the company's Braava line of floor-mopping robots should be the next to deliver massive incremental growth.
To be fair, Braava isalreadydoing just that. Braava revenue climbed 65% in 2017 -- albeit from a relatively small base -- thanks primarily to the introduction of iRobot's first-ever national TV advertising campaign featuring the line in the United States.
And keeping in mind Braava revenue went on to climb 35% year over year in the first quarter of 2018 (even as iRobot lapped last year's strong first quarter), the company anticipates Braava to continue increasing sales at a rate faster than overall company growth in the coming year.
If the below chart is any indication, there should be much more to come as Braava enters the so-called "explosion stage," where Roomba currently resides.
IMAGE SOURCE: IROBOT.
We can expect international sales to play a significant role to that end. Though markets outside the U.S. have been historically fragmented as iRobot relied primarily on distributors, the company should be able to maintain much tighter control of its marketing, customer service, and sales efforts overseas after its acquisition of itsexclusive distributor in Japanin late 2016, followed by the purchase of itslargest distributor in Europelast summer.
During iRobot's most recent earnings conference call, Chairman and CEO Colin Angle elaborated:
Where we have made advertising investments, as we did last year in the U.S., demand has been very strong. Therefore, additional advertising investment in Braava, under our direction, is critical. Lack of awareness and articulation of the product's value propositions are the hurdles we must overcome to drive this growth.
As for Braava's value proposition, keep in mind it's a much less expensive bot than Roomba. The Braava jet 240 model, for example, comes with an MSRP of just $169.99, which could make it an attractive option for the fast-growing middle class in any number of emerging markets. And that's not to mention the prospect of recurring revenue as Braava builds its base; iRobot also sells disposable mopping pads and floor cleaner for the mopping bots.
So while Roomba rightly enjoys the spotlight for now, investors should watch closely for Braava to take center stage in the coming years. If all goes as planned, I suspect iRobot stock's recent gains will be only the beginning.
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Steve Symingtonowns shares of iRobot. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends iRobot. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Why Franco-Nevada Has Fallen 14% So Far in 2018: Investors in Franco-Nevada (NYSE: FNV) had high hopes for the streaming and royalty company coming into 2018. After a strong 2017 that featured solid stock performance, Franco-Nevada shareholders believed that the company was making the right moves, expanding its traditional exposure to gold, silver, and other metals while also making a stronger push toward adding more oil and gas financing projects to its pipeline. Yet even though that push into energy timed well with a substantial uptick in crude oil prices to start the year, Franco-Nevada shares haven't been able to keep up their upward momentum, and nearly halfway through the year, the stock is just about exactly where it started 2018. Yet that hasn't changed the fundamental opportunities the business has for continued success, and Franco-Nevada might well prove later on that now would have been a good time to invest in its future. Mining complex on coastline with terminal dock extending offshore. Cobre Panama project. Image source: Franco-Nevada. Moving against the grain One of the most surprising things about Franco-Nevada's poor performance is that it's come in the face of reasonably solid returns for the commodities to which it has the most exposure. Gold has held its own relatively well so far this year, easing downward by just 2%. Crude oil prices have moved sharply higher, and even after falling back slightly over the past few weeks, oil in the $60s has been a boon for the production partners with which Franco-Nevada has forged relationships. Past performance isn't the problem. Franco-Nevada's fourth-quarter financial report in March showed a record year in 2017, including substantial gains in both revenue and earnings. Overall production figures also hit record levels, with the company seeing a shift away from its traditional reliance on gold to incorporate greater exposure to platinum group metals as well as non-precious metals. Yet some concerns arose later in the period about Franco-Nevada's growth. In the first quarter of 2018 , the streaming giant saw revenue rise just a fraction of a percent. Net income rose sharply, but total precious metal production was down substantially from year-earlier figures. Only the increase in revenue from oil and gas investments was enough to keep Franco-Nevada's overall top line moving higher. Story continues The big uncertainty The biggest question mark for Franco-Nevada is how a key investment will pan out for the streaming company. Franco-Nevada is now fully committed to the developing Cobre Panama mine, having boosted its stake in the asset gradually over time. Testing has both the mining companies developing the project and Franco-Nevada excited about its future, with huge proven and probable reserves of copper and molybdenum to go along with the gold and silver expected to come out of Cobre Panama. Franco-Nevada expects the payouts from Cobre Panama to be huge, but before they start, the company will have to be patient. Further development work is needed to get the mine up to full production, and capital expenditures of more than $1 billion in 2018 will add financial pressure to the equation. Once up and running, Franco-Nevada should be a productive force into the 2050s, but until actual gold and silver starts coming in, investors in the streaming company won't be certain about exactly how well the mine will produce. For now, Franco-Nevada's being somewhat cautious in its near-term projections, and that's contributed to the uncertain mood among investors. Full-year 2018 production targets are actually less than what Franco-Nevada saw in 2017, with the company banking on no contribution at all from Cobre Panama this year. Longer-term growth looks better, but investors don't seem to be focused as sharply on that bigger picture. An opportunity to beat the rush Franco-Nevada's lethargic performance could well be a bargain opportunity, because by the time production numbers actually rise when Cobre Panama comes online, investors will have likely already taken those figures into account. That's why it's entirely possible that during the rest of 2018, Franco-Nevada could see shares rise in anticipation of added gold and silver streams from the mine, making now the time to look closely at 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 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 . || 5 Things You Can Do Today to Make Retirement Less Stressful: Retirement is a period of life many people come to enjoy. For others, however, it can be an extremely stressful stage of life. If you'd rather not land in the latter scenario, here are a few moves you can make today to lower your chances.
Though Social Security will play a role in helping you manage your expenses in retirement, those benefitswon't be enough to live on. Rather, you'll need independent savings to ensure that you can cover your bills, and the sooner you begin setting money aside, the more financially secure you're likely to be when you're older.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
The following table shows what sort of nest egg you might accumulate depending on your total savings window:
[{"25": "30", "$1.37 million": "$958,000"}, {"25": "35", "$1.37 million": "$663,000"}, {"25": "40", "$1.37 million": "$453,000"}, {"25": "45", "$1.37 million": "$303,000"}, {"25": "50", "$1.37 million": "$197,000"}]
TABLE AND CALCULATIONS BY AUTHOR.
As you can see, you don't necessarily need to max out a 401(k) or even an IRA for a shot at a comfortable retirement. You just need to save consistently and from as early an age as possible.
Furthermore, you'll want to invest your savings in a manner that maximizes growth, and in this regard, stocks are truly your friend. Though more volatile than bonds, stocks tend to deliver significantly higher returns. In fact, the 7% used above is actually several points below the stock market's average.
Though your Social Security benefits are based on how much you earned during your top 35 working years, the age at which you first file for them can cause your monthly payments to shift. You actually get an eight-year window to claim benefits that begins at age 62 and closes out at 70. Somewhere in the middle is yourfull retirement age, or FRA, which is either going to be 66, 67, or 66 and a number of months, depending on the year you were born.
The good thing about waiting until FRA to take benefits is that it allows you to collect your monthly payments in full, whereas filing at any point prior will result in an automatic benefits reduction. However, there are some circumstances under which filing earlymakes sense.
Furthermore, if you hold off on taking benefits past FRA, you'll boost your payments by 8% a year up until 70. That's why 70 is typically considered the latest age to file for Social Security, even though you're technically not required to sign up at that point. No matter what age you decide to file, be sure to understand the consequences involved, because that single move could impact one of your most significant income sources for the remainder of your life.
Once retired, there's a good chance you'll get most of your income from savings and Social Security, but it never hurts to have a backup source for peace of mind. That source could be a part-time job, ahobbyyou choose to monetize, or a home you're willing to rent out. The key, however, is to know that you have options for generating extra cash if retirement ends up being more expensive than you imagined or your portfolio value declines due to poor market conditions.
Though healthcare is expensive in its own right, it's the notion of paying for long-term care that often causes seniors the most anxiety. According to Genworth Financial's 2017 Cost of Care Survey, the average assisted living facility in the country costs $45,000 a year, while the average nursing home costs $85,775 a year for a shared room and $97,455 a year for a private one. And these are just averages; in some parts of the country, you'll spend a lot more.
That's why it's wise to sign up forlong-term care insurancewhen you're younger -- ideally, during your 50s, but in some cases, you might snag a decent rate in your 60s, as well. Having a policy in place to defray some of the costs you might eventually face is a good way to give yourself one less whopping expense to worry about, and since 70% of seniors 65 and over are projected to need long-term care in some shape or form, it could end up being a very worthwhile investment.
There's a reason retirees are 40% more likely to fall victim to depression that those who are employed on a full-time basis: Having too much free time on your hands could turn an otherwise pleasant period of life into one extended bout of anxiety and boredom. That's why it's crucial to have a plan for filling your time in retirement before you actually leave your career behind. So map out some activities ahead of time, or even create a detailed schedule for your first year or two of post-work life.
Once you get used to the idea ofnothaving a job to go to, you can ease up and leave your calendar more open. But it definitely pays to go into retirement with a solid set of plans.
The more thorough you are in preparing for retirement, the greater your chances of enjoying it fully. Take the above steps and you'll be setting yourself up for the positive, fulfilling experience you deserve.
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The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Bitcoin Price Headed to New Highs: Crypto Hedge Fund Manager Spencer Bogart: We appear to be in the season of predictions as various stakeholders in the bitcoin ecosystem are finding their voices again. The reason for this isn’t far from the recent bullish run of the bitcoin price that has seen ittest the $8,500 markbefore retracing and trading around the $8,200 mark as at the time of writing.
The last time that bitcoin crossed the $8,000 mark before now was in May 2018, after which it pulled back below the $6,000 mark. Overall, the year 2018 has been one of a downward trend for the cryptocurrency after making an all time high of almost $20,000 just before the beginning of the year.
Amidst all the volatility and massive sell-off, several predictions have emerged from different angles both in support and against the sustainability of the cryptocurrency. Some of the predictions have regarded bitcoin as a bubble, especially during its swift downward movements. However, even in the course of the downtrend, a number of enthusiasts maintained their forecast of an eventual bottom in sight while insisting on a pending massive upward movement.
With the most recent bounce off the price region of $6,000, the voices of the enthusiasts and those who support the cryptocurrency have become even louder. While speaking onCNBC’s Fast Money, Spencer Bogart of Blockchain Capital reinforced his prediction that bitcoin is bound for higher price levels in the near future as he thinks that the pullback momentum may have been exhausted.
Bogart noted that bitcoin is in a kind of tinderbox right now and waiting for reasons to go higher. Global currency wars, trade wars, an ETF approval are some of the possible catalysts noted by Bogart that may trigger the next upward movement in the price of bitcoin.
Even though there have been speculations on a possible ETF approval in the near future, Bogart sees 2019 asa more realistic timelinefor that to happen. However, he points out that while SEC’s ETF approval remains pending, other vehicles are already granting access to both retail and institutional investors into the ecosystem. He explained that retail investors are already getting exposure through bitcoin companies like Coinbase, institutional investors are gaining access through companies like Bitwise Asset Management, and Europe already has ETPs.
The rise in level of activity within the cryptosphere is not limited to the big players alone, neither are they restricted within the bounds of expert predictions either. There seems to be an increased vibe in bitcoin and crypto activities on a global level. Services providers in the form of exchanges and trading signal providers around the industry seem to have upped their ante again after a dampened first half of the year.
Another area where participants are also renewing their concern is on issues of security. It can be recalled how the increase in number of cases of hacks and attacks on exchanges and crypto sites rose in correlation with the rally of 2017. It is only natural to also expect bad players who anticipate another price surge to see the industry as yet another potential profitable target.
Therefore, it is apparent that while the bitcoin price is expected to skyrocket by many, the interest of hackers and fraudsters will follow in the same direction. What this means for “hodlers” is to take appropriate measures in safeguarding their assets and investments. Also in order to avoid the fangs of the marauding fraudsters and scammers, proper due diligence is advised prior to any investment venture, especially for newbies.
The bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem is dynamic and remains a continuously evolving environment. Bogart describes it as a quintessential disruptive innovation that is going to favour startups rather than entrenched innovation. As the overall long term forecast portends an imminent disruption, the ability to predict momentary swings remains an essential aspect for most investors who seek the best avenues for maximum profit.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postBitcoin Price Headed to New Highs: Crypto Hedge Fund Manager Spencer Bogartappeared first onCCN.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
@Bitcoin_price_8 || @btc_current || @satoshi_BTC || #BTC 短期戻り売りライン到達で、7,700ロングは全部7,800超えた所で無事クローズ。突然の吹上がくるとありがたいんですが、順当にレジスタンスで閉じですね。ここからは戻り売りをこなしながら7,600を割らずに上に抜けるかどうかを見たい所です pic.twitter.com/NJAtKqeWiH || @Bitcoin_Post || @btc_fan || Duplicate lucrative traders automatically with Bitcoin!
I copy "wangzai888". Do you?
https://1broker.com/?r=25023
Talk about a nice & straightforward 'set-and-forget' gain!
$DGD | $BCH | $MCO | #Bitcoin | $DGB | $VERI | $BIX | $XTZ | $ZEN | $BTC pic.twitter.com/cL0bajC1w6 || @btc_update || @btc_fan || @btc_update
|
Trend: up || Prices: 6308.52, 6334.73, 6580.63, 6423.76, 6506.07, 6308.53, 6488.76, 6376.71, 6534.88, 6719.96
|
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]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Wall Street is trying to tap into the 'enormous' potential of the technology behind bitcoin: chain1 (REUTERS/Jim Young) Big banks are looking to link to blockchain, and it would have major ramifications on Wall Street. Bitcoin has gone from a hacker plaything to a mainstream financial instrument accepted in coffee shops. But Wall Street doesn't care about the cryptocurrency. It is the technology behind it - the so-called blockchain - which gets finance executives really excited. Bitcoin is a digital currency, the value of which fluctuates wildly. It has caught the eye of regulators, with New York Department of Financial Services publishing this summer publishing a framework for regulating digital currency firms. Blockchain is technology that underpins bitcoin, and it could have a huge impact on how Wall Street will operate in coming years. Blockchain is a distributed ledger through which each transaction is tracked and recorded, eliminating ambiguity on pricing and ownership. “None of our products are dependent on bitcoin as a cryptocurrency,” Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, told Business Insider. “We build solutions on top of any distributed ledger whether it's the Bitcoin blockchain or a private network." Masters previously spent decades at JPMorgan, and her new company is one of several that is seeking to use blockchain technology to help build secure settlement systems for assets. The company's looking to make use of blockchain technology extends from small, startups such to big banks: Masters' former employer JPMorgan for example is w orking internally to develop blockchain technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Attendee lists at recent industry events serve as a testament to how seriously big banks take the technology. Executives from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Fidelity have been present. Exchanges are interested too. At the Coindesk consensus conference September 10 in New York, Nasdaq chief information officer Brad Peterson told attendees he expects the exchange to start implementing technology to clear trades, among other functions. Story continues Venture capital executives and bankers said they believe a big influx of capital is coming for blockchain, which has the potential to disrupt various elements of finance and transaction execution. Lately, industry cheerleaders have pointed to businesses including loan syndication, land titles and property records, and clearing trades as potential uses of the technology. Blythe Masters (YouTube/ColumbiaBusiness) Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, thinks US regulators could lag behind other countries facilitating blockchain implementation into the financial services sector. Speakers at the event September 10, including Masters, said they believed blockchain technology might catch on faster in other countries where regulators are quicker to adapt to new technologies. "Regulators don't know how to deal with it," said Erik Gordon, clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. "We've got to get regulatory consistency to get into the mainstream." Even this early into blockchain’s introduction to Wall Street, budding industry experts are bullish on the technology’s potential. "The upside is enormous,” Nasdaq’s Peterson told event attendees during the discussion. NOW WATCH: We got our hands on Donald Trump's failed 1989 board game and it's bizarre More From Business Insider Bitcoin startups are luring quant whizzes from Wall Street The Money Of The Future Will Look More Like Bitcoin Than The Paper We Carry Around Today Barclays has two blockchain 'labs' in London and is planning 45 experiments with the technology || Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders: The tech sector has reached into a new industry over the past year, as more firms rush to make loans to 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 with On Deck Capital Inc (NYSE: ONDK ) have launched a financing product that 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 with United 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. Story continues 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. || Investors Look To China For Bargain Buys: August was a messy month for Chinese share markets, but many believe that Beijing's plans to modernize financial markets and shift toward a consumer-focused economy will be enough to turn things around in the future. For that reason, some investors are picking through the Chinese market's rubble and looking for bargain buys . Who Stands To Gain While commodities are still considered too risky, investors are turning to promising sectors like insurance and consumer goods which are expected to weather the economic storm. China Taiping Insurance Holdings Co. (OTC: CTIHY ) lost 35 percent following the yuan's devaluation, but the company's growth in recent years suggests that its financials are solid. Firms like liquor retailer Kweichow Moutia Co., maintain high profit margins, but the recent crash has stripped more than 20 percent from their share values. Related Link: Why China Isn't Killing Alibaba Location, Location, Location Many investors are looking to blue chip stocks traded on American exchanges but headquartered in China for a good deal. China Mobile (NYSE: CHL ), has long been considered a good buy as the company's position as China's largest network provider and its partnership with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ) have given it a leg up over other telecoms. However, the company's shares have fallen 8.5 percent over the past month as uncertainty in China persists. Worth The Risk? While investing in China now could be a profitable decision, many are still wary of taking positions at such an uncertain crossroads. While Chinese officials have promised to make the nation's markets more approachable to Western investors, their tactics to restore balance to share markets have been questionable. Limits on buying and selling coupled with government led efforts to inflate prices have made China's share markets a risky bet for outsiders . Others worry that the nation's economy is doomed to continue declining despite lawmakers' best efforts, something that would weigh on even the country's strongest firms. Story continues See more from Benzinga Phone Carriers Hoping To Profit From New iPhone AXA Interested In Bitcoin's Potential IBM Uses Tennis To Demonstrate Its Dominance In Data © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin May Be Flailing, But Blockchain Is On The Rise: Bitcoin has suffered from several high-profile scandals which have branded the cryptocurrency as a tool for criminals and given the public reason to question its safety. However, blockchain, the ledger-like technology that bitcoin runs on, has been touted as one of the most important technological advances of the past decade. Many believe that although bitcoin may eventually die out, blockchain will continue to gain support as more and more industries find use for the technology.
Blockchain Not Bitcoin
On Tuesday at Bloomberg Markets Most Influential Summit, blockchainreceived a nodfrom Blythe Masters, the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings. Masters remarked that while bitcoin was of no interest to her, blockchain had the potential to transform the finance space. Blockchain has been suggested as a way to revamp financial markets and make transactions faster and more streamlined, something Masters says is an important trend to watch.
Related Link:Charlie Shrem Weighs In On Bitcoin From His Prison Cell
Support From The Finance Industry
Masters isn't alone in thinking blockchain has potential, a recent survey by Greenwich Associates showed that the majority of finance professionals agree. When asked whether blockchain can continue to thrive without bitcoin, 73 percent of the 55 participants said "yes." That attitude suggests that although bitcoin is struggling to gain mainstream approval, blockchain is already being considered a viable option for finance firms looking to improve their operations.
Several Applications
While financial markets have been at the forefront of discussions about the use of blockchain, other industries also see the technology as a potential game-changer. Blockchain would be able to facilitate online auctions as well as create smart contracts, something that could be applicable in several sectors.
See more from Benzinga
• Fuel Surcharges Give E-Commerce Firms More Reason To Be Creative About Logistics
• Tech Firms Caught Between Privacy And Law Enforcement
• Gemini Prepares To Open Its Doors
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Medical Marijuana May Help Transplant Patients: In recent years, the use case for marijuana for medicinal reasons has expanded exponentially. As the drug becomes widely accepted across the US, more research has been done to better understand the effects of marijuana on certain ailments. Everything from Alzheimer's to Epilepsy is said to benefit from the components of a marijuana plant and now a new study shows that the drug which has long disqualified patients from receiving a transplant could actually aid in their recovery. Mouse Study Scientists at the University of South Carolina have found that Tetrahyrodcannabinol, the psychoactive component of marijuana, may help to delay the rejection of organs in transplant patients. The study examined the effects of THC on mice that received skin grafts and found that those exposed to the drug were better able to accept a foreign graft. Related Link: Marijuana-Specific Doctors Can Make It Difficult To Take Medical Marijuana Seriously New Uses Based on this data, scientists believe that THC suppresses a patient's immune response, something that could prove beneficial for transplant patients or those struggling with other inflammatory diseases. For marijuana supporters, the data represents another reason why federal laws should be relaxed in order to make studies like this one more accessible. Still Some Concerns Much like many other studies touting the effectiveness of marijuana treatments, the scientists at the University of South Carolina cautioned that the results don't tell the whole story. So much is unknown about how marijuana affects the human body that the possibility of using THC in this capacity for humans any time soon is slim. However, it illuminates a new use case and will likely encourage researchers to continue finding ways to use marijuana components to fight illnesses and improve patients' quality of life. See more from Benzinga Netflix Viewing Stats Reveal That All Shows Aren't Created Equally Charlie Shrem Weighs In On Bitcoin From His Prison Cell China's Weakness Isn't All Bad © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Pot-Friendly Candidates Emerge In 2016 Election: Marijuana will play an unprecedented role in the 2016 Presidential race as the drug has never before been regarded by the public in such a favorable light.
In previous elections, marijuana was used as a weapon and candidate after candidate denied using, or liking the drug at all. However, this year pot is expected to come up several times on the campaign train, but as an issue rather than a shameful allegation.
A Big Issue?
It remains to be seen just how important a candidate's stance on marijuana legalization will be when it comes to the election. Most candidates have been vague about their views on the drug, saying that the Obama administration's decision to let states decide for themselves whether or not marijuana should be legalized has provided a good framework to see just how a legal marijuana market will affect the United States.
Related Link:How Every Presidential Candidate Wants To Change The Economy
Pot Friendly
Candidates Ted Cruz and Rand Paul havevoiced their supportfor the marijuana market, saying that it should be each state's right to determine the laws governing marijuana. Paul also became the first candidate toturn to marijuana industry groupsfor campaign support. Others, like Chris Christie claim they will take a hardline against marijuana and reverse states' decisions to legalize the drug.
Unknown
Others, like Hillary Clinton, have taken a wishy-washy view— saying that they'd like to see how things go in Colorado and Oregon before making a firm decision or avoiding the issue all together. However, this week, Bernie Sanders appeared to be planning to take a stand on marijuana and many speculate that stand will be pro-legalization. On Tuesday, Sanders spoke out against the war on drugs and promised voters that his campaign would release his marijuana platform in a month.
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• Despite Record Profits, Turbulence Ahead For The Airline Industry
• One Man's Journey Around The World Using Only Bitcoin
• What The Fed Minutes Could Say About A September Rate Hike
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || How Bitcoins Have Evolved: CFTC Rules to Define Bitcoins as Commodities
Introduction of the bitcoin
The bitcoin, which made its debut in 2009, is often referred to as the world’s first decentralized digital currency, and it has the highest market capitalization when compared to its peers. Its invention is credited to Satoshi Nakamoto. Like other virtual currencies, bitcoins can be used as a form of payment.
Bitcoins are initially created by an activity known as mining, where a person who completes a specific online task is rewarded with bitcoins. As with any conventional currency, inflation affects bitcoins too, so a control process was set up so that the reward goes on decreasing over time for a work of similar difficulty. The major advantages of using bitcoin as a payment method includes anonymity, no taxes on sales through bitcoins, and low transaction costs.
Bitcoin price movements since inception
The Cyprus bailout in 2013 was a major break for bitcoins, as people tried to preserve their wealth before the bailout condition took effect by buying bitcoins. As a result, the bitcoin price nearly tripled in March 2013. After the Cyprus bailout, the bitcoin was trading nearly flat for some time, as virtual currencies like bitcoins were under the radar, as they began to be used for criminal activities.
The next major boost for the bitcoin came towards the end of 2013 with both the US Senate and the People’s Bank of China giving positive remarks about the virtual currency. This drove more investments, especially from China, as the bitcoin scaled all-time high levels in November 2013. In December 2013 however, the Chinese government took action to curb the increasing popularity of the bitcoin, as the official currency, the renminbi, was under pressure. The government banned financial institutions from the use of bitcoins.
After the Chinese governments’ measures, bitcoins failed to recover and have been on a downward trend since then. Part two of the series will look into the latest development in bitcoins with the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) declaring bitcoins and other virtual currencies as commodities.
Market impact
Companies like WPCS International (WPCS) will be sensitive to updates on bitcoins, since they own a bitcoin trading platform. Other stocks that will be majorly impacted are pro bitcoin companies like Tesla Motors (TSLA), Zynga (ZNGA), and eBay (EBAY).
The registration process is ongoing for bitcoin ETFs with the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust ETF (COIN) set to become the first bitcoin ETF if authorities approve it. The bitcoin ETF is expected to be similar to other commodity ETFs like the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) and the United States Oil Fund ETF (USO), which deal with gold and crude oil, respectively.
Continue to Next Part
Browse this series on Market Realist:
• Part 2 - CFTC Rules Bitcoins Be Regarded as Commodity || Innovation ETFs: Real Deal Or Gimmick?: [This article previously appeared in our September issue of ETF Report .] Technological innovations are so integrated into our lives that we don’t think about their impact. Beyond the latest electronic gadget, technology has enhanced everything from medicine to food. Within the past 12 months, several new exchange-traded funds debuted promoting the idea that innovation is an investable theme. These funds are more than simple technology sector ETFs; rather, their idea of innovation is to look at companies using technology to push their industry forward. In fact, many of these companies aren’t necessarily considered technology firms; instead, they inhabit other sectors like energy or health care. The biggest of these funds in terms of assets under management by far is the iShares Exponential Technologies ETF (XT ), based on the Morningstar Exponential Technologies Index. It’s backed by fund manager Ric Edelman, founder and chief executive officer of Edelman Financial, who seeded the fund with about $560 million after its launch. There are two other fund families focusing on technological innovation. ARK Investment Management’s funds include four actively managed ETFs: the ARK Genomic Revolution Multi-Sector ETF (ARKG | D-36) , ARK Industrial Innovation ETF (ARKQ | D-44) , ARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW|D-29) and ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK | D-32) . ARKK contains all three of the other ARK innovation funds. Meanwhile, the newly launched Gavekal Knowledge Leaders Developed World ETF (KLDW ) and the Gavekal Knowledge Leaders Emerging Markets ETF (KLEM) follow Gavekal’s Knowledge Leaders indexes. There is some debate about whether technological innovation is an investment theme, and it may just be pure coincidence that within the space of a year several funds launched based roughly on the same idea without being clones of each other. Technology certainly has blurred the lines regarding the categorization of certain firms based on their business lines—think of Tesla being a car company and focused on energy storage. Yet at least one industry watcher said the name “innovation” is just growth with better marketing. Story continues Another Paradigm Shift? Managers of these funds said when thinking broadly about innovation, consider how the advent of different technologies changed life over the centuries, such as the printing press, the steam engine and electricity. Edelman said previously he went to iShares to create a fund focusing on “new economy” companies, a fund that would include everything from robotics to artificial intelligence to energy and environmental systems to medicine. Innovation is neither a market sector nor a geographical issue, but a fundamental theme. Given recent technological breakthroughs, he has said, this fund could not have existed even a few years ago. XT launched March 23 and has about $689 million in assets under management. Information technology and health care make up the bulk of the fund, a little more than 60% combined, with 67% of the companies domiciled in the U.S. It has an expense ratio of 0.47%. Targeting ‘Disruptive’ Technology XT has the most assets under management of the innovation funds, but it wasn’t the first on the scene. ARK Investments’ fund ARKQ launched on Sept. 30, 2014, ARKW launched on Oct. 7, 2014 and ARKG and ARKK launched Oct. 31. These funds focus on the theme of “disruptive” technology. Tom Staudt, associate portfolio manager at ARK, says the funds look at what they call “general purpose technology platforms” that will drive the economy across sectors. Those platforms include cloud computing and big data, automation and robotics, and genomic sequencing. Innovations Capture For a larger view, please click on the image above. All four funds have expense ratios of 0.95% and have a heavy domestic tilt, with at least 71% of holdings in U.S. companies. By sector breakdown, ARKW has 77% in technology; ARKQ is 56% technology-focused; ARKG is 80% focused on health care. ARKK holds all three funds and comprises 48% ARKW, 31% ARKQ and 20% ARKG. As of July 20, assets under management were $14 million for ARKQ, $13.1 million for ARKW, $9.7 million for ARKG and $7.7 million for ARKK. At first blush, the funds appear to be heavily weighted in technology or health care, but Staudt says they’re really cross-sector funds that fit into a portfolio’s growth allocation. The funds’ construction takes advantage of the blurry lines of classification across sectors. For instance, investors who own the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK | A-90) , don’t own Amazon, the largest cloud provider in the world. “The reason they don’t is because [Amazon] is considered a consumer-discretionary company. They don’t have Netflix, the largest streaming-video provider in the world. Why? It’s consumer discretionary,” he said. Staudt doesn’t necessarily consider innovation to be a new investment idea, but he suggests the current interest in innovation comes from buyers getting comfortable again with technology investing as a whole after dealing with “scar tissue from the tech and telecom bust” that started in 2000. A Semiconductor Spark Steven Vannelli, chief investment officer for Gavekal Funds, says they trace back the idea of technological innovation influencing everyday life to the introduction of the semiconductor and how computing power grew. The exponential growth in computing technology is commonly known as Moore’s law, named after Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel. The semiconductor’s influence is seen in what Gavekal calls “the knowledge effect,” and Gavekal built indexes around companies using this to change how their industries develop. The KLDW and KLEM ETFs are based on those benchmarks. Launched July 8, the funds each have $2.5 million in assets under management as of July 20. Companies using the knowledge effect outperform less innovative companies, Vannelli says, and part of that is due to how the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board forces firms to expense their knowledge investments in the period in which they were incurred. This doesn’t allow companies to treat knowledge investments as assets—unlike the way physical objects are accounted—so it skews what information investors have, he says. Gavekal picks the firms for their funds by reorganizing what’s publically recorded on a company’s balance sheet and treats investments in intellectual property the same way a company might treat equipment. Growth Rebranded? … Christian Magoon, chief executive officer of YieldShares, and an industry veteran who launched many ETFs, is skeptical about whether innovation is a true investment theme. “If you launched a ‘growth-leaders fund,’ there would be yawning in the marketplace. But if you launched an ‘innovation fund,’ people would say ‘oh, innovation, that’s interesting.’ It has a little bit of a branding/marketing feel to it,” he said. Paul Britt, senior analyst at FactSet, says investors interested in an innovation fund need to look closely at the holdings, because some of them contain big-cap names rather than small- or midcap firms most people associate with innovation, noting the PureFunds ISE Mobile Payments ETF (IPAY) as an example. “That’s hot and trending, and I’m picturing a bunch of college kids in a loft somewhere cooking these things up. But if you look under the hood, the top holdings [in IPAY] are Visa, MasterCard and Amex. You’re thinking ‘how innovative is that?’” he said. Britt agrees that blunt sector classification is becoming fuzzy, such as in the Amazon and Netflix examples. He said investors wanting a nuanced approach should review a firm’s revenue attribution to understand what portion is actually focused on the potential innovation theme. “That speaks to the classification notion of what these companies are, and what bucket you put them in,” he said. What makes these ETFs stand out a bit is that they may hold some names not normally represented in traditional indexes, Magoon says, since many leading innovation firms usually have smaller market caps or are emerging companies. He says these are likely more volatile stocks, so owning a basket of 20 or 30 companies in a diversified ETF is less risky than owning, say, a biotech sector ETF. One thing to consider about these funds is their expectations that they will target future growth, Britt says. “It’s one thing to name these companies; it’s another thing to say that these things are going to outperform the market—that the market has underpriced them. At end of the day, they might not outperform Nabisco or something else,” he said. The overall market is currently rewarding growth, which benefits these ETFs, Magoon says, but if value investing becomes popular, it’s hard to say how it will affect the funds. Britt says investors could get some perspective on innovation funds by looking back at what was hot a few years ago, such as renewable energy. He used the PowerShares Global Clean Energy Portfolio (PBD | D-23) as an example of a fund that is down significantly from its highs. “That’s innovation, but it’s not so fresh. It may give you a little perspective on what will it feel like in five years when we’ve moved on to the next thing. Some of these funds will be with us, some not,” he said. … Or A Lasting Theme? Certainly, XT, the largest of these funds, has a heavy growth tilt, though it’s not at all a pure growth vehicle. If you look at the Morningstar classifications of the holdings, 46% of the portfolio is in growth stocks, with 32% in blend and 21% in value. In other words, more than half of the fund is in nongrowth stocks. By contrast, 33% of the SPDR SandP 500 ETF (SPY | A-98) is classified as growth. However, advisors using the funds would beg to differ with the growth characterization. John Eberle, chief investment officer of Fiduciary Financial Partners, notes that he’s been using the firm’s actively managed mutual fund since not too long after it launched, and that he would be moving some of those assets into the ETFs. The ETFs, he points out, don’t need to maintain cash reserves, unlike the mutual fund, which at times has roughly 20% of its assets in cash. Eberle also doesn’t see Gavekal’s approach as a growth-oriented strategy. “I could see these being perceived as more growth-oriented, but I would think of it in a different way. They’re trying to define an asset that’s not defined in the balance sheet, like intangibles,” Eberle said, adding that he considers himself to be a value investor, as he believes growth expectations are frequently overestimated. “Whether the intellectual capital is generated internally or through MandA, it shouldn’t make a difference. Value or growth, what they’re getting is an asset that is—or more to the point, is not —on the balance sheet that will generate revenue and profit opportunity that other people are not accounting for,” he said. For Ric Edelman, who was the main driving force behind XT, the growth characterization seems to be purely coincidental. He notes that growth qualities were not a part of the selection methodology. “The fund was designed to contain companies that are leaders in using or developing exponential technologies, and growth was not a criteria,” he said. And while Edelman doesn’t think the launch of seven similarly themed funds within the space of a year was necessarily a coincidence, he’s not convinced it’s a widespread trend, adding that he’s not aware of any other similar funds in development. He is, however, a firm believer in the exponential technologies theme that underlies XT. “I’m convinced that this particular theme is very important for investment portfolios, and will increasingly be viewed as an essential part of any asset allocation model,” he said. Recommended stories Swedroe: Taxing The Yale Model ETF Options 101: 3 Ways To Go Long SPY Greg King Debuts New ETF Firm All Investors Are Long Volatility, But There’s Help Bitcoins In This ETF Not What It Seems Permalink | © Copyright "dat ETF.com. All rights reserved || Innovation ETFs: Real Deal Or Gimmick?: [This article previously appeared in ourSeptember issue of ETF Report.]
Technological innovations are so integrated into our lives that we don’t think about their impact. Beyond the latest electronic gadget, technology has enhanced everything from medicine to food.
Within the past 12 months, several new exchange-traded funds debuted promoting the idea that innovation is an investable theme. These funds are more than simple technology sector ETFs; rather, their idea of innovation is to look at companies using technology to push their industry forward. In fact, many of these companies aren’t necessarily considered technology firms; instead, they inhabit other sectors like energy or health care.
The biggest of these funds in terms of assets under management by far is theiShares Exponential Technologies ETF (XT), based on the Morningstar Exponential Technologies Index. It’s backed by fund manager Ric Edelman, founder and chief executive officer of Edelman Financial, who seeded the fund with about $560 million after its launch.
There are two other fund families focusing on technological innovation. ARK Investment Management’s funds include four actively managed ETFs: theARK Genomic Revolution Multi-Sector ETF (ARKG | D-36),ARK Industrial Innovation ETF (ARKQ | D-44),ARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW|D-29)andARK Innovation ETF (ARKK | D-32). ARKK contains all three of the other ARK innovation funds. Meanwhile, the newly launchedGavekal Knowledge Leaders Developed World ETF (KLDW) and theGavekal Knowledge Leaders Emerging Markets ETF (KLEM)follow Gavekal’s Knowledge Leaders indexes.
There is some debate about whether technological innovation is an investment theme, and it may just be pure coincidence that within the space of a year several funds launched based roughly on the same idea without being clones of each other. Technology certainly has blurred the lines regarding the categorization of certain firms based on their business lines—think of Tesla being a car companyandfocused on energy storage. Yet at least one industry watcher said the name “innovation” is just growth with better marketing.
Another Paradigm Shift?Managers of these funds said when thinking broadly about innovation, consider how the advent of different technologies changed life over the centuries, such as the printing press, the steam engine and electricity.
Edelman said previously he went to iShares to create a fund focusing on “new economy” companies, a fund that would include everything from robotics to artificial intelligence to energy and environmental systems to medicine. Innovation is neither a market sector nor a geographical issue, but a fundamental theme. Given recent technological breakthroughs, he has said, this fund could not have existed even a few years ago.
XT launched March 23 and has about $689 million in assets under management. Information technology and health care make up the bulk of the fund, a little more than 60% combined, with 67% of the companies domiciled in the U.S. It has an expense ratio of 0.47%.
Targeting ‘Disruptive’ TechnologyXT has the most assets under management of the innovation funds, but it wasn’t the first on the scene. ARK Investments’ fund ARKQ launched on Sept. 30, 2014, ARKW launched on Oct. 7, 2014 and ARKG and ARKK launched Oct. 31. These funds focus on the theme of “disruptive” technology.
Tom Staudt, associate portfolio manager at ARK, says the funds look at what they call “general purpose technology platforms” that will drive the economy across sectors. Those platforms include cloud computing and big data, automation and robotics, and genomic sequencing.
For a larger view, please click on the image above.
All four funds have expense ratios of 0.95% and have a heavy domestic tilt, with at least 71% of holdings in U.S. companies. By sector breakdown, ARKW has 77% in technology; ARKQ is 56% technology-focused; ARKG is 80% focused on health care. ARKK holds all three funds and comprises 48% ARKW, 31% ARKQ and 20% ARKG.
As of July 20, assets under management were $14 million for ARKQ, $13.1 million for ARKW, $9.7 million for ARKG and $7.7 million for ARKK.
At first blush, the funds appear to be heavily weighted in technology or health care, but Staudt says they’re really cross-sector funds that fit into a portfolio’s growth allocation. The funds’ construction takes advantage of the blurry lines of classification across sectors. For instance, investors who own theTechnology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK | A-90), don’t own Amazon, the largest cloud provider in the world.
“The reason they don’t is because [Amazon] is considered a consumer-discretionary company. They don’t have Netflix, the largest streaming-video provider in the world. Why? It’s consumer discretionary,” he said.
Staudt doesn’t necessarily consider innovation to be a new investment idea, but he suggests the current interest in innovation comes from buyers getting comfortable again with technology investing as a whole after dealing with “scar tissue from the tech and telecom bust” that started in 2000.
A Semiconductor SparkSteven Vannelli, chief investment officer for Gavekal Funds, says they trace back the idea of technological innovation influencing everyday life to the introduction of the semiconductor and how computing power grew.
The exponential growth in computing technology is commonly known as Moore’s law, named after Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel.
The semiconductor’s influence is seen in what Gavekal calls “the knowledge effect,” and Gavekal built indexes around companies using this to change how their industries develop. The KLDW and KLEM ETFs are based on those benchmarks. Launched July 8, the funds each have $2.5 million in assets under management as of July 20.
Companies using the knowledge effect outperform less innovative companies, Vannelli says, and part of that is due to how the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board forces firms to expense their knowledge investments in the period in which they were incurred. This doesn’t allow companies to treat knowledge investments as assets—unlike the way physical objects are accounted—so it skews what information investors have, he says.
Gavekal picks the firms for their funds by reorganizing what’s publically recorded on a company’s balance sheet and treats investments in intellectual property the same way a company might treat equipment.
Growth Rebranded? …Christian Magoon, chief executive officer of YieldShares, and an industry veteran who launched many ETFs, is skeptical about whether innovation is a true investment theme.
“If you launched a ‘growth-leaders fund,’ there would be yawning in the marketplace. But if you launched an ‘innovation fund,’ people would say ‘oh, innovation, that’s interesting.’ It has a little bit of a branding/marketing feel to it,” he said.
Paul Britt, senior analyst at FactSet, says investors interested in an innovation fund need to look closely at the holdings, because some of them contain big-cap names rather than small- or midcap firms most people associate with innovation, noting the PureFunds ISE Mobile Payments ETF (IPAY) as an example.
“That’s hot and trending, and I’m picturing a bunch of college kids in a loft somewhere cooking these things up. But if you look under the hood, the top holdings [in IPAY] are Visa, MasterCard and Amex. You’re thinking ‘how innovative is that?’” he said.
Britt agrees that blunt sector classification is becoming fuzzy, such as in the Amazon and Netflix examples. He said investors wanting a nuanced approach should review a firm’s revenue attribution to understand what portion is actually focused on the potential innovation theme.
“That speaks to the classification notion of what these companies are, and what bucket you put them in,” he said.
What makes these ETFs stand out a bit is that they may hold some names not normally represented in traditional indexes, Magoon says, since many leading innovation firms usually have smaller market caps or are emerging companies. He says these are likely more volatile stocks, so owning a basket of 20 or 30 companies in a diversified ETF is less risky than owning, say, a biotech sector ETF.
One thing to consider about these funds is their expectations that they will target future growth, Britt says.
“It’s one thing to name these companies; it’s another thing to say that these things are going to outperform the market—that the market has underpriced them. At end of the day, they might not outperform Nabisco or something else,” he said.
The overall market is currently rewarding growth, which benefits these ETFs, Magoon says, but if value investing becomes popular, it’s hard to say how it will affect the funds.
Britt says investors could get some perspective on innovation funds by looking back at what was hot a few years ago, such as renewable energy. He used thePowerShares Global Clean Energy Portfolio (PBD | D-23)as an example of a fund that is down significantly from its highs.
“That’s innovation, but it’s not so fresh. It may give you a little perspective on what will it feel like in five years when we’ve moved on to the next thing. Some of these funds will be with us, some not,” he said.
… Or A Lasting Theme?Certainly, XT, the largest of these funds, has a heavy growth tilt, though it’s not at all a pure growth vehicle. If you look at the Morningstar classifications of the holdings, 46% of the portfolio is in growth stocks, with 32% in blend and 21% in value. In other words, more than half of the fund is in nongrowth stocks. By contrast, 33% of theSPDR SandP 500 ETF (SPY | A-98)is classified as growth.
However, advisors using the funds would beg to differ with the growth characterization. John Eberle, chief investment officer of Fiduciary Financial Partners, notes that he’s been using the firm’s actively managed mutual fund since not too long after it launched, and that he would be moving some of those assets into the ETFs. The ETFs, he points out, don’t need to maintain cash reserves, unlike the mutual fund, which at times has roughly 20% of its assets in cash. Eberle also doesn’t see Gavekal’s approach as a growth-oriented strategy.
“I could see these being perceived as more growth-oriented, but I would think of it in a different way. They’re trying to define an asset that’s not defined in the balance sheet, like intangibles,” Eberle said, adding that he considers himself to be a value investor, as he believes growth expectations are frequently overestimated.
“Whether the intellectual capital is generated internally or through MandA, it shouldn’t make a difference. Value or growth, what they’re getting is an asset that is—or more to the point, isnot—on the balance sheet that will generate revenue and profit opportunity that other people are not accounting for,” he said.
For Ric Edelman, who was the main driving force behind XT, the growth characterization seems to be purely coincidental. He notes that growth qualities were not a part of the selection methodology.
“The fund was designed to contain companies that are leaders in using or developing exponential technologies, and growth was not a criteria,” he said.
And while Edelman doesn’t think the launch of seven similarly themed funds within the space of a year was necessarily a coincidence, he’s not convinced it’s a widespread trend, adding that he’s not aware of any other similar funds in development. He is, however, a firm believer in the exponential technologies theme that underlies XT.
“I’m convinced that this particular theme is very important for investment portfolios, and will increasingly be viewed as an essential part of any asset allocation model,” he said.
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Permalink| © Copyright "datETF.com.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.
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
LIVE: Profit = $90.87 (1.73 %). BUY B21.83 @ $239.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $240.46 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Current price: 155.59£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-11 09:00:03 BST || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 18 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $250.92 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 18 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $431.29 #bitcoin #btc || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: Error
Bittrex: 0.00000005
Average $1.1E-5 per #reddcoin
21:00:02 || Current price: 198.54€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-24 11:00:04 CEST || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 15439.00 INR Sell : 14938.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || Current price: 204.57€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-03 03:00:02 CEST || i am having a problem with my btc account || One Bitcoin now worth $228.32@bitstamp. High $229.17. Low $226.00. Market Cap $ 0.000 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/qr4pKT6kRE
|
Trend: up || Prices: 247.05, 245.31, 249.51, 251.99, 254.32, 262.87, 270.64, 261.64, 263.44, 269.46
|
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 for 2021-03-02]
BTC Price: 48378.99, BTC RSI: 53.57
Gold Price: 1733.10, Gold RSI: 33.10
Oil Price: 59.75, Oil RSI: 56.94
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Coca-Cola CEO Says Company Learned 'How To Adapt' During Pandemic: Coca-Cola Co.(NYSE:KO) CEO James Quincey appeared onCNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”Wednesday to discuss the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report, which was released before the market open.
Coca-Coca beat the Street estimate for earnings per share, but failed to meet revenue expectations.
EPS:47 cents vs. expected 42 cents
Revenue:$8.6 billion vs. expected $8.63 billion
Coca-Cola was one of the many companies that was hit hard at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, with its stock dropping almost 40% in March 2020.
View more earnings on KO
“I think the good news from the company’s point of view is we have been able to learn through the course of this crisis how to adapt, how to be flexible.” Quincey said.
"While we were impacted mid single digits on volume in the most recent months, that’s much better than what was happening in the second quarter as we’ve adapted our strategy."
Quincey On Coming Back From Pandemic:The pandemic crisis has accelerated Coca-Cola's restructuring, as the company cut about 11% of positions during the pandemic.
Net sales also dropped 5% and missed expectations in the fourth quarter.
Quincey told CNBC he is expecting a steady return to growth after a lengthy period of uncertainty during the pandemic.
“The vaccine is very important in terms of its influence, but there are other factors that we balance in terms of how to invest and how to drive growth for the Coca-Cola company going forward.”
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Investview (“INVU”) Announces Definitive Marketing and Distribution Agreement with Oneiro, N.A. Inc., Developer of the World’s First Adaptive Digital Currency, ndau: EATONTOWN, NJ, Jan. 11, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire -- Investview, Inc. (OTCQB: INVU), a diversified financial technology and global distribution network 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 generation of digital assets, today announced two new product packages for worldwide distribution as a result of their exclusive marketing and distribution agreement with Oneiro, N.A. The definitive agreement entered into in early December 2020 utilizes Investview’s industry leading financial technology and global distribution organization to make ndau, the World’s First Adaptive Digital Currency, available to its customers. Investview entered into the agreement with Oneiro, N.A. Inc. the developer of the decentralized digital currency, ndau, to offer product packages that include ndau to its worldwide customer base. The first product packages will be available in pre-launch this month. ndau is a digital currency optimized for a long-term store of value with attractive staking rewards for ndau holders. " Digital currencies have now fully emerged into the mainstream with Bitcoin as the pioneer. The increase in value of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others have created significant interest from individuals and institutions alike, " said Joe Cammarata, Investview CEO. Although Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies are pretty much in their infancy, they have the potential to become the greatest technological advances since the internet. ndau is a new category of digital asset technology designed as the world's first adaptive digital currency optimized for a long-term store of value with attractive staking rewards for holders of ndau. It is viewed by crypto enthusiasts as a calmer, gentler “conservative digital currency” appealing to the masses, one that’s specifically designed to be less volatile when held over the course of many years. It is also a virtual currency that is well suited to being held along with Bitcoin to help smooth out the ride. ndau has built-in monetary policy mechanisms which aims to help stabilize their value, as demand changes over time. Story continues Could ndau be characterized as the "next generation Bitcoin"? Many crypto leaders and enthusiasts believe it could be due to its unique tamper-proof and effective adaptive monetary policy principles. It has the freedom to rise with increasing demand while mitigating downside volatility. See reference: Daily Fintech in March of 2020. https://dailyfintech.com/2020/03/31/a-buoyant-digital-coin-at-a-tender-age-ndau/ “We are delighted to be partnering with Investview, a recognized leader in digital asset management technology and a global distribution organization, to bring ndau to a wider global audience. We believe that ndau presents an innovative and groundbreaking new form of digital money that is adaptive, aligns all users’ interests, and has an embedded mechanism which strives to create more stability and sustainable growth potential over the long term as user adoption increases. ndau has been built to the highest institutional standards and has been through rigorous security testing and certifications,” said Rob Frasca, Director of Oneiro. "Investview’s mission of making financial technology advances available to the masses is the driving force behind these new product packages. Digital currencies have the ability to create great reward, but they include great risk. Investview is working with companies such as Oneiro to create packages for individuals to participate while mitigating downside risk. The packages will include ndau and a time element so the purchaser knows how long they will hold the coin. The packages to be released include a 3-month package and a 3-year package. The three-year product package will also include a protection component underwritten by a third party that will preserve the package purchase price," said Mario Romano, Investview's Director of Finance. Added Joe Cammarata, Investview CEO, "At Investview we remain tightly focused on our mission to provide education and access to leading edge technology, information, and financial tools that empower individuals to improve their quality of life. Through Investview's partnership with Oneiro, we have arranged access to "ndau" for our customers around the world through our new ndau TPP product package sold exclusively by our distribution network. By providing education and access to leading edge technology our customers can participate in the forefront of the digital currency movement. Together Investview and Oneiro will unlock the full potential of digital transformations and help our clients on the best path for success in the new digital business landscape. Announcing the "ndau TPP" product offering at this time is an epic milestone toward extending Investview's leadership in transformational digital asset technology ensuring individuals from all backgrounds can participate if they choose to do so.” Investview expects to pre-launch the "ndau packages" the week of January 18th, 2021. To learn more about Investview’s “ndau" product offer, please register for a special Zoom event on January 26th at 1:00 PM eastern with founding ndau investors, Rob Frasca and Ken Lang. Click here to register for the event or copy/paste link below: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5wn9FyzDRzqV7WJ62mTEyw About Oneiro (oneiro.com) Oneiro is a leading global provider of advanced blockchain solutions for the decentralized Internet. Its CBDC software platform has been developed to help rapidly bring new digital currencies to market without sacrificing the ability to customize and address future requirements. In addition, Oneiro was the developer of ndau.io, the world’s first adaptive currency. http://oneiro.com About ndau (ndau.io) ndau is the world’s first adaptive currency, a new category of digital asset optimized for a long-term store of value with staking rewards. ndau has the freedom to rise in value with increasing demand while ndau applies monetary policy embedded within its blockchain to mitigate price volatility. An innovative and groundbreaking decentralized form of digital currency, ndau is self-governed by its holders by annually electing delegates to the Blockchain Policy Council, a self-governing ecosystem ultimately responsible for the governance and operating policies of ndau and is cryptographically accountable to the holders of the ndau. ndau is an Open-Source project, and all code is available on the ndau GitHub repo. Community developers can get involved and help contribute to the codebase or innovate new directions. There are many members of the ndau ecosystem striving to create a new generation of digital long-term store of value. More information can be found at http://ndau.io 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 generation of digital assets. 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 Relations Contact: Mario Romano Phone Number: 732.889.4308 Email: pr@investview.com || First Mover: As Wall Street Fixates on Inflation Hedges, Good Luck Finding Bitcoin: Price Point Bitcoin ( BTC ) was lower , after an intraday price spike on Tuesday took the largest cryptocurrency to a new all-time high of $48,226.25, based CoinDesk 20 data . $50K in sight: “Bitcoin needs a couple more big endorsements, and that could be the key to take prices above the $50,000 level,” Edward Moya, senior market analyst for the foreign-exchange broker Oanda, wrote Tuesday. Inflation watch: European shares and U.S. stock futures were higher as Bloomberg News reported that “inflation has quickly become the biggest issue in markets on speculation the Federal Reserve will let the economy run hot out of the pandemic.” The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday in its monthly CPI report that the consumer price index rose 0.3% in January, for a 1.4% increase over the past 12 months. The headline reading was in line with economists’ expectations . The News Related: Iowa Introduces Bill to Level Playing Field for Blockchain and Smart Contracts Argo Blockchain plans new bitcoin mine in western Texas: The publicly-listed company has agreed to buy 320 acres of land to build the 200-megawatt data center, at a cost of $17.5 million to be funded via the issuance of ordinary shares. Argo will use a $100 million credit facility to fund the construction of the site, which ostensibly would be one of the world’s largest bitcoin mines. Bitcoin ‘can’t be stopped’: Nigerians look to peer-to-peer exchanges after crypto ban. Some Nigerians plan to continue using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies despite a directive issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria last week ordering banks to close down accounts associated with cryptocurrencies. Salesforce.com going remote: The company is the largest private employer in San Francisco and occupant of the city’s tallest building, known as the Salesforce Tower, and yet it’s planning for most employees to work remotely part- or full-time after the pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reports . First Mover has written previously about how a permanent shift toward remote working could represent one of the biggest labor-market trends in generations, and yet the Federal Reserve and other economic authorities have barely begun to address the transition. Story continues Market Moves Everybody wants bitcoin, but where will it come from? Related: Crypto Mining Farm Spotted Using Nvidia RTX 30 Gaming Laptops: Report A collision course is setting up in the bitcoin market: a wave of new buyers appearing just as easily obtained supplies of the cryptocurrency fall to their lowest levels in more than three years. Electric-vehicle maker Tesla’s announcement this week that it had bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin triggered a new round of wagering that more corporate treasurers might soon follow CEO Elon Musk’s lead. At least one Wall Street analyst argued that iPhone maker Apple, the world’s largest company, should push into the game. There’s also speculation that software giant Oracle might be next , partly fueled by CEO Larry Ellison’s service on Tesla’s board of directors . Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google and Microsoft could all be candidates , suggests Mati Greenspan, founder of the foreign-exchange and cryptocurrency analysis firm Quantum Economics. Even the obstreperous CNBC personality Jim Cramer weighed in on Tuesday: “Every treasurer should be going to boards of directors and saying, ‘Should we put a small portion of our cash in Bitcoin?'” Cramer said on the financial-news network. (A JPMorgan analyst, for what it’s worth, argues that corporate treasurers are likely to be turned off by bitcoin’s notorious price volatility.) Yet if companies start buying bitcoin en masse, finding fresh supplies of the cryptocurrency is likely to come at a cost , according to professional analysts in digital-asset markets. The number of bitcoins sitting on cryptocurrency exchanges – ostensibly ready for a quick sale if the price is right – has fallen to about 2.3 million, the lowest since July 2018, based on data from Glassnode, a blockchain analysis firm. It’s down from about 3 million as recently as early 2020. The decline may reflect the activity of big investors who bought bitcoin over the past year and then swiftly transferred their holdings to custody providers or offline “cold storage” solutions, awaiting long-term gains, according to Arcane Research , a Norwegian cryptocurrency-analysis firm. “A proper supply crisis is taking place in front of our eyes,” the Arcane analysts wrote. Prices for bitcoin are already up 62% year-to-date , versus 4.1% for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of large U.S. stocks. That track record alone might be enough to tempt more companies, investment firms, endowments, pension plans, governments, endowments, pension plans and regular people – especially at a time when bitcoin is increasingly viewed as a hedge against currency debasement, during an era of easy-money policies from central banks around the world. “If you think Bitcoin is lively now, wait till there’s a liquidity crunch,” says Matt Blom, head of sales and trading for the cryptocurrency exchange firm EQUOS. Some 900 new bitcoins are minted each day by the underlying blockchain network, worth roughly $42 million at current prices . Compare that with the $2.02 billion that has flowed into bitcoin-focused investment products so far this year, based on a report Tuesday from the digital-asset manager CoinShares . That works out to an average $51.9 million per day. And the CoinShares report doesn’t even cover demand from investors or corporate treasurers who may be buying bitcoin directly through their own accounts, or from retail traders who are looking for a piece of the action. The math is pretty simple: There’s not a lot of bitcoin for sale at current price levels. “Holders are not selling their bitcoin in response to price increases,” says Philip Gradwell, chief economist for the blockchain-forensics firm Chainalysis. “If this behavior continues, then price should continue to rise if demand continues.” Bitcoin Watch “Doji candle” signals indecision, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole writes Bitcoin’s daily price chart shows signs of indecision in the form a Doji candle. The range play is typical of price consolidation seen after a notable rally. If buyers fail to defend Tuesday’s low of $45,060, bitcoin may revisit the former record high of $41,962, now perceived as a new level of support. Token Watch Ether ( ETH ): Second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization hit fresh all-time high Tuesday of $1,824, according to CoinDesk 20 data. “We expect some exhaustion on ether coming from the price itself, above $2,200, but also from the fees to use the network itself while solutions are being built to tackle this issue,” Jean-Baptiste Pavageau, partner at quantitative trading firm ExoAlpha, told CoinDesk’s Daniel Cawrey. Litecoin ( LTC ): Alternative cryptocurrency hits 3-year high as network activity picks up, with the number of new addresses climbing to the highest since 2019. DeFi Soars: Collateral locked in decentralized-finance protocols closes in on $40 billion , up from about $1 billion a year ago, according to DeFi Pulse : First Person Opinions and observations Has Ethereum already passed threat from Ethereum killers? Sure, other “smart-contract” blockchains might eventually do what Ethereum does, and do it faster and cheaper. But “Ethereum’s immense intangible assets are the real moat behind its dominance,” including a cryptocurrency brand second only to Bitcoin’s and a “fanatically loyal community,” Zabo co-founder Alex Treece writes for CoinDesk Opinion . End of “Petrodollar” era could loosen U.S. dollar’s domination as global reserve currency, according to Reuters column by Mike Dolan. “Investors who have grown accustomed to central banks always coming to the rescue could find themselves in serious pain” if inflation ticks up and the Federal Reserve steps in to tighten monetary policy, columnist James Mackintosh writes for WSJ. Bitcoin to Keep Dominating? David Russell, an analyst for TradeStation, emails First Mover to say: “Lots of people expected a rally in altcoins this year, and there are legitimate reasons to like smaller coins associated with the growth of DeFi. But investors shouldn’t overlook the much bigger trend of institutional adoption, which could channel hundreds of billions of dollars into the market much faster than anyone thought. It’s a completely different catalyst that could disproportionately favor bitcoin at the expense of altcoins. DeFi and Altcoins offer a steady trickle of innovation and excitement. But institutional adoption could represent a tsunami of cash. Risk-averse corporations and institutions are doing the buying. If they’re just now getting the courage to enter a market that was previously viewed as risky, they will favor the safest asset in that market. This is similar to global investors in a new emerging market. They often target the biggest and most mainstream companies like banks and telecoms rather than smaller industrials.” Opportunism is alive and well in crypto: After just two days, it appears that a website called The Doge Store is already selling a T-shirt for $19.99 with the words “ Elon’s Candle ” and an image of bitcoin’s price chart (candle view) leading up to the moment earlier this week when Tesla announced its $1.5 billion purchase of the cryptocurrency. By the way, the 19.5% price jump over the course of Feb. 8 was the largest daily move in percentage terms since Dec. 7, 2017, and also represented the largest-ever daily price increase in absolute dollar terms, at more than $7,500, according to Arcane Research . (EDITOR’S DISCLAIMER: We know absolutely nothing about this retailer.) Related Stories First Mover: As Wall Street Fixates on Inflation Hedges, Good Luck Finding Bitcoin First Mover: As Wall Street Fixates on Inflation Hedges, Good Luck Finding Bitcoin || Sequoia Holdings says employees can draw part of salary in cryptocurrencies: (Reuters) - Software development services provider Sequoia Holdings LLC said on Thursday its employees can now receive a part of their salary in cryptocurrencies, should they choose to.
Under the new program, employees can elect to defer a portion of their salary into bitcoin, bitcoin cash, or the Ethereum platform's ether, Sequoia Holdings said.
Earlier this month, Bitcoin, the world's most popular cryptocurrency, hit a record high of $40,000, rallying more than 900% from a low in March and having only just breached $20,000 in mid-December.
The surge has been powered by increased demand from institutional, corporate and more recently retail investors, attracted by the prospect of quick gains.
(Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) || Bill Gates On Investing In Bitcoin: 'If You Have Less Money Than Elon, You Should Probably Watch Out': Microsoft Corp.(NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates is not bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) and is cautioning others to reconsider such investments — unless they have more money thanTesla Inc.(NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk.
What Happened:Gatestold Bloombergon Monday that he isn’t worried about Musk’s Bitcoin randomly going up or down.
“Elon has tons of money and he is very sophisticated,” the tech entrepreneur said, adding that he is more concerned about people getting into such manias who don’t have as much money to spare.
“If you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out,” Gates told Bloomberg.
See also: How To Buy Microsoft Stock
The philanthropist explained that he is not keen on Bitcoin, primarily because of the amount of electricity it consumes and the promotion of irreversible anonymous transactions. and that he is more enthusiastic about digital currencies.
“Digital money is a good thing,” Gates said, claiming the difference lies in terms of being regulatory-compliant and still giving the convenience and low-cost associated with cryptocurrency transactions.
Why It Matters:Gatestold CNBClast week that he was “neutral” on Bitcoin and acknowledged the cryptocurrency’s role in bringing down transaction costs.
Gates alsoshowered praiseson Musk in a New York Times podcast, dubbing the entrepreneur's work with Tesla "one of the greatest contributions to climate change anyone’s ever made."
Musk has beenincreasingly tweetingabout cryptocurrencies this year, in particular, the joke cryptocurrencyDogecoin(DOGE).
The Tesla CEO’s tweets oftenmove marketsand several people, including those in the cryptocurrency community, haveexpressed concernover such statements from the world’s second-richest person.
The electric vehicle maker also announced a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin this month, but Musk saidthe move wasn’t"directly reflective of my opinion.”
Price Action:Bitcoin traded 14.3% lower at $47.906.71 at press time on Tuesday. Tesla shares are down 3.8% in the pre-market session at $687.
Read Next:Elon Musk Lost B In A Single Day And The Cause Could Be One Of His Own Tweets
Photo courtesy of World Economic Forum via Wikimedia
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Dogecoin: GameStop frenzy takes crypto market over $1 trillion as Reddit stock investors switch to bitcoin rival: Elon Musk mentioned Dogecoin on Twitter, causing its price to surge (Getty Images) The cryptocurrency market has topped $1 trillion following a huge price rally led by bitcoin and its meme-inspired rival dogecoin . The surge brought the total market capitalisation of all cryptocurrencies to $1.07 trillion on Friday, which is greater than the combined value of payment giants PayPal, Mastercard and Visa. Dogecoin, which was originally created in 2013 as a light-hearted take on the emerging crypto movement, saw the biggest gains of more than 500 per cent over the last 24 hours to take its value above $0.05. The cryptocurrency has long enjoyed a cult-like following among online forums and retail investors appeared to flock towards it in response to trading limitations being placed on certain stocks that were pumped by the equally meme-loving Reddit forum WallStreetBets . “While the stock market is still going wild, fuelled by an epic battle between Redditors and hedge funds, a similar hype is now being triggered with dogecoin,” Eric Demuth, CEO and founder of cryptocurrency broker Bitpanda, told The Independent . “The most interesting aspect is how social communities on the internet now have an immense influence on the volatility and direction certain assets will go into. What we are seeing is a historical power shift from the elite to retail investors – and this is just the beginning.” How bitcoin and dogecoin have fared over the last three monthsCoinMarketCap Bitcoin saw considerable gains on Friday morning after Elon Musk appeared to pledge his support for the cryptocurrency following the fall-out from Robinhood’s decision to block users from purchasing certain stock. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO switched his Twitter bio to simply “#bitcoin” , and within minutes the price had jumped by nearly $5,000 to over $37,000. The endorsement from the world’s richest person, combined with the apparent migration of retail investors from traditional stocks towards cryptocurrencies, means “the weekend ahead will be a fun one”, according to Mr Demuth. “We are witnessing a bottom-up revolution that rattles the financial industry,” he said. Bitcoin’s latest price increase follows nearly 10 months of mostly positive market movement, which has seen it rise from below $5,000 last March. It still remains several thousand dollars off its peak, having reached above $41,000 earlier this month, however sudden spikes in both directions are not uncommon due to the relative lack of regulation and ease of use. Unlike traditional stocks, it is difficult to place trading limits on cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and dogecoin due to their decentralised design. Even during periods of extreme market volatility, no major exchange has ever blocked users from buying or selling established cryptocurrencies. Story continues “An increasing recognition of bitcoin’s distinctive traits should outlast the current GameStop interest,” said Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. "While nascent, cryptocurrencies have the potential to invert the power structure of inequitable financial markets that are weighed against retail investors. “I won’t speculate on whether this is a one-off event or not, but I’m confident that these types of social channels have the potential to cause further disruption to the status quo and challenge the financial elite.” Read More Bitcoin could replace gold as store of value, Bank of Singapore says View comments || ARK Invest Boosted Its GBTC Holdings by 2.14M Shares in Q4: Cathie Woods ARK Investment Management increased its holdings of the Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) by 2.14 million shares in the fourth quarter of 2020, bringing its holdings of the market-leading institutional bitcoin investment vehicle to 7.31 million shares. ARK, the actively managed exchange-traded fund run by legendary manager and early bitcoin investor Cathie Wood, made the disclosure in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. At press time, ARKs holdings of GBTC are worth $357.5 million. ARKs boosted stake is an increase from the 5.17 million GBTC shares it held on Oct. 31, 2020. Not only did ARKs holdings in GBTC rise in the fourth quarter, the value of GBTC shares took off as well, reflecting the meteoric rise in the price of bitcoin during that same time period. GBTC shares rose 222% in the fourth quarter and are up 39% so far this year. The price of bitcoin increased 177% in Q4 and is up 63.1% YTD. Grayscale is owned by CoinDesk parent company Digital Currency Group. Related Stories ARK Invest Boosted Its GBTC Holdings by 2.14M Shares in Q4 ARK Invest Boosted Its GBTC Holdings by 2.14M Shares in Q4 ARK Invest Boosted Its GBTC Holdings by 2.14M Shares in Q4 ARK Invest Boosted Its GBTC Holdings by 2.14M Shares in Q4 || Mt. Gox exchange investors may finally be able to recover some Bitcoin: When Mt. Gox went bankrupt in 2014, it was the worlds largest Bitcoin exchange, holding 850,000 Bitcoins from thousands of users. Now, creditors might finally be able to get a portion of those riches back. One of Mt. Goxs largest creditors, CoinLab, said an agreement with itself, Mt. Goxs bankruptcy trustee and another group might allow creditors to recover as much as 90 percent of the remaining Bitcoins, according to Bloomberg . The agreement would allow investors to either cut their losses and take early payment, or wait for the litigation to finish and possibly recover more. If they agree to early payment, however, they could have to wait for some time to receive their coins. Up to 90 percent of the remaining Bitcoin could be offered upon, but the plan still needs to be approved before any of that can happen. Some of the digital coins have been recovered since the exchange went bust, but much of it is still lost. For each Bitcoin that has a bankruptcy claim on it, the estate only has 0.23 coin to disburse. On the positive side, Bitcoin traded at $489 when Mt. Gox went bankrupt, and is currently trading around $37,000 as of this writing about 75 times higher. That means if you had 100 bitcoins worth $48,900 in 2014, you could now have 23 worth about $850,000. Mt. Gox litigation has dragged on in part because of a $16 billion claim by CoinLab that observers have called the elephant in the room. However, the new agreement could allow smaller investors to recover their funds. Back in 2019, former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles was found not guilty of embezzlement related to the bankruptcy, but was convicted of records tampering and received a 2.5-year suspended sentence. || Postal Service Sets Major Operational Restructuring: The U.S. Postal Service plans a significant restructuring of its business, the quasi-governmental agency said Tuesday. The Postal Service provided no details or a specific timetable in its announcement, which was included in its fiscal 2021 first-quarter results that included the peak holiday shipping season. The Washington Post reported Monday that a restructuring announcement could come as soon as next week. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, whose background is in private-sector logistics and not in the postal world, has been hinting at a restructuring for some time. The revamp will likely include cost reductions, price increases and efforts to streamline what many consider a bloated organization. Kevin R. Kosar, who follows the Postal Service at the American Enterprise Institute, said the agency's operating costs have risen from $65 billion in fiscal year 2015 to about $77.5 billion in FY 2020. Those figures exclude the financial impact of the pre-funding of employees' health-care costs into retirement, Kosar said. The culprit, according to Kosar, appeared to have been compensation costs, which increased about $11.5 billion over the past 10 fiscal years. Price increases in so-called competitive products, which are mostly shipping and package- related, have already been baked into the 2021 cake. Effective Jan. 24, the Postal Service unveiled high single-digit rate increases across a large chunk of its shipping and package portfolio, though headline increases for several of the competitive products were in the low single-digit range. The quarterly numbers had no surprises given that package-delivery volumes were expected to surge as consumers worried about the COVID-19 pandemic spent more time placing e-commerce orders and less time shopping in stores. Shipping and package revenue hit $9.3 billion, up from $6.6 billion in the fiscal 2020 first quarter. Volume rose to 2.1 billion pieces from just under 1.74 billion. The shipping and package business accounted for nearly 44% of the Postal Service's first-quarter revenue of $21.5 billion, a ratio that would have been incomprehensible a decade ago. Shipping volume accounted for about 5.5% of the Postal Service's total volume of 36.8 billion pieces. Story continues The strong package-delivery results helped the Postal Service generate net income of $318 million in the quarter, compared with a net loss of $748 million in the year-earlier period. Another tailwind, albeit temporary and finite, was the surge in the processing and delivery of mail-in ballots and the increase in political advertising mailings leading up to Election Day. The package and shipping segment was the only one of the Postal Service's five categories to show volume and revenue increases quarter-over-quarter. Operating expenses rose by $1.6 billion as the Postal Service spent more on labor and equipment to accommodate the surge in parcel volumes. The growth in parcel traffic is a double-edged sword for the Postal Service because it is a far more labor-intensive business than the highly automated movements of first-class and marketing mail. The latter two segments, long the Postal Service's bread and butter, continued to report declines in revenue and volume in the first quarter as the pandemic accelerated the multiyear secular shift to digitization that has siphoned off large amounts of first-class and marketing mail. In addition, the Postal Service said it does not expect its package revenue growth over the medium to long term to offset losses in mail service revenue caused by COVID-19. Last year was probably the most difficult in the Postal Service's 246-year history. The pandemic sent the agency's costs spiraling. Its work was regularly derided by President Donald Trump. Trump threatened to refuse to sign the $2.2 trillion CARES Act if it contained direct funding for the Postal Service; the agency eventually received a $10 billion, strings-attached loan from the Treasury Department. In the fall, the pandemic forced the Postal Service to process exponentially more mail-in election ballots than ever before, and its efforts were widely praised. It then absorbed massive amounts of holiday parcels from shippers that had been turned away by UPS Inc. (NYSE: UPS ) and FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX ) because their volumes had exceeded per-allotted levels. Toward the end of the peak season, a combination of bad weather, staffing shortages due to COVID and heavier-than-expected parcel traffic led to service delays that took weeks to resolve. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Tesla Invests In Bitcoin And May Sell Vehicles For Cryptocurrency Biden Readies Critical Supply Chain Review © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Meet All the Major Players in the Robinhood vs. GameStop Saga: Andrew Gombert/EPA/Shutterstock / Andrew Gombert/EPA/Shutterstock By now, you’ve probably heard of the GameStop saga that’s taking Wall Street and Washington, D.C. by storm. But do you know most of the key players? How about how they could be affecting your wallet if you currently invest in the market? Learn from GameStop: The Beginner’s Guide to Short Selling Explore: Robinhood Backtracks, Says It Will Allow ‘Limited Buys’ of GameStop and Others – What’s Really Going On? Here’s your guide to the people behind one of the biggest weeks in Wall Street history. There are amateur short sellers who want to see everything collapse, lawmakers eager to regulate both sides of the controversy, and billionaires voicing their support of underdogs . Chewy founder Ryan Cohen GameStop Investor Ryan Cohen As recently as 2019, investors had all but written off GameStop, the video game company occupying space in strip malls and conventional shopping malls, selling used video games, and offering players pennies on the dollar for their used merch. In June 2019, the stock was trading for less than $5 and stores were closing all over suburbia. Now, many who bought low are selling high after a message board made it their mission to drive the stock’s price up. More Context: Robinhood Blocks Traders on Reddit and Beyond from Buying GameStop Stock – Make Sense of the Market Mayhem Ryan Cohen, now a majority shareholder of GameStop, first purchased stock in the company in August of 2020 and joined the GameStop board on Jan. 11 of this year. Many attribute the stock’s rise to Cohen’s presence, according to Bloomberg – after he purchased Chewy, an online pet supply retailer, in 2001, he turned the e-commerce site into an industry leader, and many thought he’d do the same for GameStop. In 2017, Cohen sold the company to pet supply retailer PetSmart for a staggering $3.35 billion. Also according to Bloomberg, his stake in the company has soared to over $1 billion this week, though with the stock’s price swinging up and down by the minute, that number is changing in real time. Cohen clearly understands how to convert retail business models into successful e-commerce companies. Story continues Mandatory Credit: Photo by Ben Margot/AP/Shutterstock (7552742a)Vlad Tenev, Baiju Bhatt Robinhood co-founders Vlad Tenev, left, and Baiju Bhatt pose at company headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev Robinhood has promoted itself as the retail stock trading app that encourages “investing for everyone,” with commission-free trades. Many r/WallStreetBets members and other retail investors used Robinhood to jump on GameStop, AMC and other stocks before they started to rise and fall in ways never before imagined. But on Thursday, in the midst of retail trader wins on rising GameStop shares, Robinhood shut down sales of GameStop and other stocks. It’s important to note that Citadel Trading, who bailed out hedge fund Melvin Capital, is one of Robinhood’s biggest investors. On Thursday, Robinhood reportedly tapped credit lines and even allegedly borrowed millions from JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to cover trading. On Friday, the blog “Guest of a Guest” referred to Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev as “the most hated man in America” for the restrictions he chose to impose on retail traders this week. “In order to protect the firm and protect our customers we had to limit buying in these stocks,” he told CNBC, though he insisted that “there was no liquidity problem.” Learn: Robinhood Backtracks, Says It Will Allow ‘Limited Buys’ of GameStop and Others – What’s Really Going On? London, UK - July 31, 2018: The buttons of the app Reddit, surrounded by Pinterest, Whatsapp, and other apps on the screen of an iPhone. r/WallStreetBets founder Jaime Rogozinski The community on the subreddit r/WallStreetBets are are the retail traders who started it all by buying shares of failing retail chain GameStop against short sellers. They didn’t stop with GameStop. They also purchased stocks and promoted companies like AMC Entertainment Group, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Nokia. The group is now 4.2 million members strong (as of Thursday), nearly doubling in size since Wednesday. Wall Street Bets founder Jaime Rogozinski, who lives in Mexico, called the stock market frenzy sparked by his group “like watching a train wreck” in a CNN interview this morning, expressing regret about the current state of the group. Explore: Should You Take Stock Tips from Internet Gamblers? This Group’s Latest Pick Soared 50% (Almost) Overnight Mandatory Credit: Photo by ALEXANDER BECHER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10764495v)Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gives a statement at the construction site of the Tesla Giga Factory in Gruenheide near Berlin, Germany, 03 September 2020. Tesla CEO Elon Musk Billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk’s role in r/WallStreetBets began with a single-word tweet on Tuesday: “Gamestonk!!!” Musk has previously been vocal about his dislike of shortsellers, and made several comments to this effect on Twitter on Thursday. Meanwhile, he also sided with representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others yesterday that an investigation should be made into Robinhood and other trading platforms that froze purchases of certain stocks this week. Musk agreed with members of the Tesla community on Twitter who stated, “Make shorting illegal.” Ultimately, his feelings on the matter are a mystery – though his actions inspire millions to take action. Power Player: One Hashtag from Elon Musk Makes Bitcoin Spike in Minutes smartphone, stock chart, stocks Hedge Funds Melvin Capital and Citadel Hedge fund Melvin Capital is amongst the most notorious for shorting GameStop, losing billions. Gabe Plotkin founded the firm in 2014, after gaining experience as a top trader at Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital hedge fund, which was shut down following insider trading allegations in 2016. Melvin Capital announced on Tuesday that it had closed its short position on GameStop, but not before the $13 billion hedge fund lost undisclosed amounts. Markets Insider reported that GameStop short sellers (i.e., hedge funds like Melvin Capital) have lost as much as $19 billion this year. Melvin Capital received an infusion of money from other hedge funds to avoid bankruptcy. Global multistrategy hedge fund Citadel , with $25 billion in investment capital just last week, was one of the hedge funds that helped bail out Melvin Capital. Citadel was founded by Harvard graduate Ken Griffin, who is also the firm’s CEO and Co-Chief Investment Officer (Co-CIO). Rumors circulated that Citadel owned stock trading platform Robinhood, which notoriously shut retail traders out of buying GameStop stock Thursday. In fact, the hedge fund is Robinhood’s biggest customer. Citadel issued a statement noting, “Citadel is not involved in, or responsible for, any retail brokers’ decision to stop trading in any way…Citadel Securities has not instructed or otherwise caused any brokerage firm to stop, suspend, or limit trading or otherwise refuse to do business.” See: Wall Street Is Extremely Volatile Right Now – How Safe Is Your 401K? Mandatory Credit: Photo by SHAWN THEW/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (11736512b)Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen delivers remarks during an economic briefing with US President Joe Biden (unseen) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 29 January 2021. Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary of the United States The new treasury secretary under President Joe Biden, and the first female treasury secretary, Yellen has been “monitoring” the situation on Wall Street along with the president. It was recently reported by Fox News that she received approximately $810,000 in speaking fees from Citadel. The company paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars on multiple days in October 2020, 2019, and in December 2019 from the firm. Related: 7 Key Takeaways from Treasury Secretary Nominee Janet Yellen’s Senate Testimony Mandatory Credit: Photo by Uncredited/AP/Shutterstock (10776796a)Hedge fund manager Steve Cohen attends a benefit in New York. Point72 Asset Management's Steve Cohen Steve A. Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management firm, along with hedge fund Citadel, bailed out Melvin Capital with approximately $3 billion after the firm took heavy losses from its short position in GameStop. The Securities and Exchange Commission banned Cohen from managing other people’s money in 2016, after his company pled guilty to “trafficking in nonpublic information,” Investopedia reports. In 2018, the ban expired and Cohen founded Point72. Cohen is, additionally, the owner of the New York Mets major league baseball team, which he purchased in late 2020 from the Wilpon Family for approximately $2.4 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal and other sources. Investopedia lists his net worth at $14.6 billion. See: The Richest and ‘Poorest’ Owners in Professional Sports Mandatory Credit: Photo by Romain Maurice/SouthBeachPhoto/Shutterstock (10539363ae)Dave PortnoyPegasus World Cup, Hallandale Beach, Florida, USA - 25 Jan 2020. Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy Dave Portnoy is the founder of the Barstool Sports blog and the Barstool Fund, a charity devoted to helping small restaurants and bars suffering losses due to the pandemic. He is a noted day trader who took Robinhood and hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen to task for their actions of the week, which included restricting trading certain stocks on the Robinhood platform. On Thursday, Portnoy recorded a video titled, “Everybody On Wall Street Who Had A Hand In Today’s Crime Needs To Go To Prison.” He also retweeted AOC’s sentiments that Robinhood’s trading restrictions were “unacceptable,” declaring “PRISON TIME,” and tagging Robinhood’s Twitter account and that of Steve Cohen, while naming Citadel and Point72. Cohen replied, “Happy to take this offline,” but then followed up with a more diplomatic response, saying that Portnoy had “legitimate questions” that Portnoy said he “appreciated.” Find: Barstool’s Dave Portnoy Is On a Mission To Save Small Businesses Mandatory Credit: Photo by Richard Drew/AP/Shutterstock (10458733b)Chamath Palihapitiya, Richard Branson, Peter Giacchi. Venture Capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya Billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya purchased GameStop stock on Tuesday and sold Wednesday, more than tripling his initial $125,000 investment. He announced on CNBC’s ‘Fast Money: Halftime Report’ that he would donate the money to Portnoy’s Barstool Fund to help small businesses suffering losses during the pandemic. Explore: ‘Don’t Sell a Share,’ Says Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya Even as Tesla Stock Dips Mandatory Credit: Photo by Greg Nash/UPI/Shutterstock (11664661f)Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez The Democratic Congresswoman has been outspoken about a need for investigation, and possible regulation, of the hedge funds, short-sellers, and the stock-trading platforms that froze retail sellers’ capabilities to buy a list of stocks that include GameStop, AMC, Express, Nokia, and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Her tweet criticizing Robinhood’s restrictions has generated over 150,000 retweets since Thursday, as well as agreement from infamous republican rival, Senator Ted Cruz. AOC appeared on TheStockGuy podcast via Twitch Thursday evening, and spoke with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. According to GeekWire, she stated, “All of us got screwed in the Recession. We never saw a single person who was responsible for 16 million or so foreclosures… we didn’t see anyone go to jail for that. We didn’t see virtually anybody held accountable in any serious way. It almost felt like this week, one of the reasons for this populist rally is that it felt like the first time that anybody was holding these folks accountable.” Read More: AOC and 13 Other Political Figures Who Made Major Career Changes KILL NOTICEMandatory Credit: Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/Shutterstock (10320762e)Adam Silver, Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban Billionaire Mark Cuban, with a net worth of $4.2 billion according to Forbes, is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team. He is one of several billionaires supporting the efforts of r/WallStreetBets. He told CNBC Make it that his 11-year-old son loved the subreddit and “made trades” in r/WallStreetBets favorite picks, like AMC and Blackberry, but clarified from an earlier tweet that his son “hasn’t made money yet.” On Tuesday, Cuban tweeted that he loves what the Reddit group is doing. “There are many hedge funds that have made a lot of money over the years targeting heavily shorted stocks,” Cuban said in a CNBC Squawk Box interview. “I don’t think this is anything different. It’s just the people who are making the push aren’t who we expect them to be and so that’s why I like it.” Discover: 20 Genius Things Mark Cuban Says To Do With Your Money We can expect Cuban, Portnoy, Palihapitiya, AOC and others to push for stricter regulations on Wall Street hedge funds and, potentially, to stay on top of investigations of Robinhood and the other trading platforms that placed restrictions on retail traders. It’s a saga that rivals Star Wars as the forces of good and evil battle it out in the market and on social media. More From GOBankingRates: These Are the Best Banks of 2021 – Did Yours Make the Cut? 36 Ways To Save For Your Emergency Fund and Any Unexpected Situations Top 100 Banks Leading the U.S. in 2021 35 Ways To Slash Your Car Costs This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Meet All the Major Players in the Robinhood vs. GameStop Saga
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 50538.24, 48561.17, 48927.30, 48912.38, 51206.69, 52246.52, 54824.12, 56008.55, 57805.12, 57332.09
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2016-03-08]
BTC Price: 413.97, BTC RSI: 49.25
Gold Price: 1262.10, Gold RSI: 67.53
Oil Price: 36.50, Oil RSI: 62.69
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Canada's TSX hires Bitcoin guru, studies currency's technology: By Ethan Lou TORONTO (Reuters) - The Toronto Stock Exchange has hired a Bitcoin entrepreneur as its first chief digital officer as it explores the capabilities of blockchain, the technology behind the virtual currency, a senior executive at TSX parent TMX Group said on Thursday. Anthony Di Iorio, who has founded several companies based on the technology, filled the role at Canada's largest stock exchange in January, Jean Desgagne, chief executive of TMX's Global Enterprise Services, said in an interview. Stock exchanges are embracing blockchain, which allows Bitcoin users to conduct secure transactions without middlemen, as they seek to diversify and boost profit margins. When used to issue securities, the technology could potentially remove the need for clearing houses. "Blockchain is a disruptive technology," Desgagne said, noting that major changes could result from its potential adoption. "We're focused on it, we're going to learn." In January the Australian stock exchange said it had enlisted a blockchain startup to develop a new trade settlement system. Nasdaq in the United States used the technology last year to issue securities to an unidentified private investor. Last month, Nasdaq said it was developing a blockchain-based shareholder voting system for its Estonian stock exchange. Blockchain could make operations "better, faster, cheaper," Desgagne said, but noted that, if adopted, the technology would be only one element in TMX's digital operations. Di Iorio and Desgagne declined to discuss details about potential blockchain projects at TSX. Di Iorio is the founder of the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada and a co-founder of Ethereum, a blockchain-based computing platform. (Reporting by Ethan Lou; Editing by Euan Rocha and Richard Chang) View comments || BTCS Announces Letter to Shareholders From CEO: ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Feb 23, 2016) - BTCS Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) ("BTCS" or the "Company"), a blockchain technology focused company which secures the blockchain through its transaction verification services business, released a Letter to Shareholders updating current activities and outlining its corporate strategy for 2016, as follows: Dear Shareholders, Over the past few months, several major investment banks have published research foretelling the significant potential for blockchain technologies to revolutionize industries on a massive scale. Recognizing this potential, much of our work in 2015 focused on building a strong operational foundation to capitalize on the rapidly-evolving blockchain opportunity. Despite many successes in this effort, our stock continued to decline throughout 2015 and is now trading near its 52-week low. As a significant shareholder myself, I too am feeling the pain of our low stock price, and I firmly believe it is not representative of our accomplishments or potential. BTCS originally began operations focused exclusively on the Bitcoin ecosystem, and while our revenues today are generated from securing the blockchain through our transaction verification services segment, we plan to evaluate broader opportunities in blockchain consumer solutions. As noted in recently published research from Goldman Sachs, the real opportunity lies in the underlying technology of Bitcoin, the blockchain. Referred to as the golden egg by analysts at Goldman Sachs, the blockchain can not only live outside of Bitcoin, it has the potential to streamline a multitude of businesses. We believe the work we completed in 2015 has established us as an early mover in this burgeoning market opportunity, positioning us for strong shareholder value improvement in the quarters and years ahead as the use of blockchain technologies begins to revolutionize standard business practices. Our current transaction verification operation touches every blockchain transaction. Even after doubling our server processing power in January of 2016, we're currently using just 33% of the expanded power capacity we added in July 2015. The foundation to rapidly scale our operations is in place, and our pending merger with Spondoolies-Tech Ltd. ("Spondoolies") is poised to provide us a technology advantage that we believe will positively impact revenues over the long-term. Story continues We've also strengthened our financial footing, most recently with the completion of a $1.45 million capital raise in December 2015, 1,225% year-over-year revenue growth for the fiscal year ended 2015, and a 25% decrease in cash flow used from operating activities. Our management team remains dedicated to creating value and protecting our shareholders and continues to demonstrate its commitment to the future of BTCS through positive steps at improving our capital structure. From management's voluntarily return of 12.75 million shares of stock valued at $1.15 million in late 2014, which absorbed nearly all of the dilution from our January 2015 funding, to the recent voluntary escrowing of founder shares representing 15% of the outstanding shares of the company, we are literally "putting our money where our mouth is" and plan to continue to work tirelessly to make our company a success. Looking ahead, there are several key milestones we anticipate achieving in 2016. We believe our transaction verification services business will lead to rapid revenue growth this year, and our pending merger with Spondoolies should further strengthen our financial performance and product offerings. If we complete these and other initiatives, ultimately we believe we will be in a position to up list to a major exchange this year, greatly improving our visibility in the capital markets and setting the stage for further acceleration of growth as blockchain technology spreads across the global economy. Blockchain technology is still in its infancy, and just as the Internet has become a ubiquitous driver of global commerce in a relatively short period of time, we believe the impending boom in blockchain adoption is nearly upon us. On behalf of our management team, I want to personally thank you for your continued support. Sincerely, Charles Allen CEO and Chairman About BTCS: BTCS secures the blockchain through its rapidly growing transaction verification services business and plans to build a broader ecosystem to capitalize on opportunities in this fast growing industry. The blockchain is a decentralized public ledger and has the ability to fundamentally impact all industries on a global basis that rely on or utilize record keeping and require trust. BTCS continues to evaluate and build additional blockchain technology consumer solutions. BTCS also actively partners and integrates with strategic digital currency and blockchain technology companies who provide products or services that are complementary to its business strategy. For more information visit: www.btcs.com Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release, including those related to an anticipated merger, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its digital currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. || Now You Can Play The Lottery With Bitcoin: While bitcoin has faced several obstacles in its journey toward mainstream adoption, the cryptocurrency appears to be starting the New Year off on the right foot. Not only has bitcoin seen its value increase steadily over the past three months, but the coin has gained some fame, as merchants continue to adopt the cryptocurrency as a valid form of payment. The latest place consumers can find use for their bitcoins is the lottery, which has gotten a lot of attention recently due to its $1.6 billion Powerball Jackpot prize.
Bitcoin Payment
Mobile lottery ticket app Jackpocket has integrated bitcoin as a payment option within the app, meaning that people can purchase their Powerball tickets using the cryptocurrency. On Wednesday, the app announced its bitcoin addition, which garnered a lot of attention for the coin, as the Powerball Jackpot also reached a record high on the same day.
Related Link:UPDATE: Winning Powerball Tickets Sold In California, Florida, Tennessee --ABC News
Bullish On Bitcoin
For Jackpocket, the move was a great way to reach another demographic of lottery players and represents the company's faith in bitcoin's success. Jackpocket CEO Peter Sullivanannouncedthe decision to incorporate bitcoin into the app saying that he and his team are "very bullish on cryptocurrencies and the blockchain in general."
Speedy Transactions
Not only will bitcoin add to Jackpocket's pool of potential users, but Sullivan says he hopes it will help speed up transaction times and reduce glitches. Heavy volumes of users trying to buy tickets have been hindered by regulations, according to Sullivan, and those issues have strained the app's relationship with credit card processors and banks.
Related Link:No Luck On Winning Powerball? Learn The Skill Of Trading
More Customers
It remains to be seen whether many Jackpocket users will use the bitcoin payment option, but Sullivan is hoping it will attract more affluent customers who have experience with technology, a group he says is likely to buy more tickets.
Image Credit: Public Domain
See more from Benzinga
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin group scores funds from biggest names in industry: Bitcoin-related businesses raised more venture capital money in 2015 than in any year before: $485 million, according to industry news site CoinDesk . And yet, even as they court more VC interest, these companies continue to deal with skepticism from the general public and from top executives of big financial institutions, like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan ( JPM ). So they're turning to a non-profit advocacy group for help. Coin Center, a 501(c)(4) lobbying group founded in 2014, calls itself the "leading non-profit research and advocacy center" for public policy on "cryptocurrency technologies such as Bitcoin." Its supporters already included well-known venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz (Marc Andreessen is a vocal bitcoin believer), and some of the biggest companies in the industry, including Chain, Coinbase, and Xapo. Now Coin Center is about to get a lot louder: This month it has raised $1 million in new donations, Yahoo Finance has learned. In an industry where the hottest companies have had recent fundraising rounds of $116 million (21 Inc.), $50 million (Circle) and $30 million (Chain), $1 million may sound like small potatoesand it is, although Coin Center says it will help fund travel for its five staff members, who spend much of their time meeting with lawmakers to discuss policy. But as some big banks have joined a consortium to explore the possibilities of the blockchain (the public, open ledger on which all bitcoin transactions are logged), what is significant here is that Coin Center's extensive list of new supporters includes some of the most powerful people in the exploding fintech sector. Among those who donated are 21 Inc. (which last year released a small bitcoin-mining computer aimed at making it easier to develop bitcoin apps), BitStamp, Overstock.com ( OSTK ), which was one of the first major online retailers to accept bitcoin as payment, and Digital Currency Group. That last firm is key: Led by SecondMarket founder Barry Silbert, DCG has invested in 65 different bitcoin companies, and the companies in its portfolio have raised 70% of all the venture capital in the space. DCG is to the bitcoin industry what Anheuser-Busch InBev ( BUD ) is to the beer market, or what IAC ( IAC ) has been to online-dating companies. Story continues " Our mission is to accelerate the development of a better financial system," Silbert tells Yahoo Finance, "and the way we will do that is investing in great companies, starting companies, buying companies, and helping organizations like Coin Center." In other words: Silbert wants to have his hands in as many digital-currency entities as possible to ensure his influence, and he is quickly carrying out that strategy. It's why DCG bought outright the industry's leading news site, CoinDesk. "There are many ways lawmakers could stifle the bitcoin blockchain," Silbert says, "so providing awareness and education is a very important part of what will make this industry sustainable." In short: Coin Center is getting more influential, and now it has people backing it who have deep pockets and major interest in keeping regulators from interfering too much in what bitcoin companies are doing. Coin Center is not a trade associationnone of the companies in the bitcoin industry are members. But it certainly shares their interests. Jerry Brito, Coin Center's executive director, is a law professor who has testified before Congress about cryptocurrencies. He says Coin Center's primary audience is policy-makersand these people can often be confused about the industry. The fear of bitcoin businesses is that politicians will hastily regulate, or even shut down startups, before they understand the technology. (The tension is not unlike the battle raging in daily fantasy sports right now.) Coin Center can help, Brito says: "P olicy makers hear about these negative aspects, whether its ransoms, or drug sales, or the like, and they will often contact law enforcement and say, 'What's up with this?' This is a challenge just like all new technologies have been, from email to pagers, but we think that we can get a handle on this." To that end, Coin Center teamed with the Chamber of Digital Commerce in October to help create The Blockchain Alliance, a safe-space private forum in which law enforcement groups like the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice can pose questions to bitcoin startup executives and policy pundits. Think of the alliance like a Justice League for bitcoin. But it is unclear how frequently the forum is being used, since the media isn't allowed in. Last year, New York became the first state to release its own regulatory framework specifically devoted to digital currency businesses. Called the BitLicense, it was met with so much opposition from the bitcoin community that a slew of companies packed up and left New York, cutting off service to customers in the state. Other companies happily applied for a license, but bemoaned the high cost. Coin Center makes its stance on legislation clear. "If you look back, [former New York Department of Financial Services superintent] Ben Lawsky said he didn't want to interfere with innovation or hurt business. Ultimately, the BitLicense that we got did not succeed at that. It is not a good model for other states to follow," he says. " I think the only solution is a light touch approach. If you go heavy-handed, as a regulator, youll do two things: not meet your goals, typically, becasuse youll make it so difficult that people cant even comply with it, and not get the visibility that you want as a regulator." Those in the bitcoin business, of course, like that argument quite a lot. Marc Andreessen has been Coin Center's biggest donor since the beginning, giving the lion's share of help. But with Silbert flexing his muscle, Coin Center's role in advocating for digital currency will strengthen. (Brito says donors "can give input," but not dictate what Coin Center does.) Coin Center has received $2 million in donations to date, and it now plans to seek $1 million every year. It won't have much trouble getting it. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Read more: Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its biggest news site Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin Fantex, the 'athlete stock exchange,' signs first golfer || Blockchain Gets A Much-Needed Stamp Of Approval: Finance firmGoldman Sachs Group Inc(NYSE:GS) has become a pillar of the financial sector with traders looking to the bank's advice for everything from investing to saving. For that reason, Goldman Sachs Director Don Duet'spositive remarksregarding blockchain could be a catalyst for the technology's success.
Blockchain Potential
Bitcoin has had a rough ride over the past year, as many of the coin's users suffered losses due to volatile prices and exchange collapses.
However, the technology that bitcoin runs on – a ledger-like system called blockchain – has been gaining momentum. This is especially true in the financial sector, where banks say blockchain could improve their operations and make things like cross-border payments more streamlined.
Related Link:Blockchain Moves Forward In The Financial Industry
Using Blockchain
Earlier this month, Duet commented on blockchain, saying that he sees the technology as both exciting and groundbreaking. He said blockchain systems have the potential to revolutionize banking operations and the technology could help banks share information and conduct asset transfers more easily and securely.
A Single Truth
Duet said blockchain provides banks with a "single truth," meaning that it creates one constant system that all banks can use. One of the problems with the banking sector as it currently stands, he said, is that every bank is operating with different systems and protocols.
Because of this, banks have to spend a lot of time reconciling differences in order to conduct transactions. However, using blockchain could change all of that by providing banks with one single ledger updated with each transaction.
A Bright Future
While Duet's comments were general in nature, many saw his optimism regarding blockchain as a positive sign for the future. Banks like Goldman Sachs,Morgan Stanley(NYSE:MS) andCitigroup Inc(NYSE:C) have been exploring how blockchain might fit into their operations in recent months, and Duet's remarks suggest the outlook is promising.
See more from Benzinga
• Can Bank Stocks Recover?
• Banks' Earnings Tell A Tale Of Cost Cutting
• Is Bank Of America Ripe For A Turnaround?
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || JPMorgan launches blockchain trial project -FT: Jan 31 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase is partnering with start-up Digital Asset Holdings to launch a trial project using blockchain technology that could reduce the cost and complexity of trading, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
The agreement comes as another sign that blockchain, which is best known as the basis of the digital currency Bitcoin, has wide-ranging applications for some of Wall Street's biggest banks.
One potential use for the technology is addressing liquidity mismatches in some of JPMorgan's loan funds, the Financial Times said.
"To sell a loan is a very cumbersome, time-consuming process; settlement can take weeks," Daniel Pinto, head of JPMorgan's investment bank, told the Financial Times. It "makes all the sense in the world" to explore blockchain's potential to improve that process.
Digital Asset Holdings is run by Blythe Masters, JPMorgan's former head of commodities.
(Reporting by Carl O'Donnell; Editing by Peter Cooney) || 4 stocks to watch if market falls even more: U.S. stocks dropped Wednesday, continuing a rough start to the year for investors. "Fast Money" traders picked through the battered markets for names that could have potential ahead. The S&P 500 (INDEX: .SPX) slid 2.5 percent Wednesday and has lost 7.5 percent of its value this year. But opportunities still exist amid the weakness, traders said. Investors may want to avoid U.S. multinational companies that have significant exposure to a stronger dollar, contended trader Dan Nathan. Instead, he looked to the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca: XLU) , which he has previously described as a defensive play with the benefit of a dividend yield. Nathan has a stake in the fund as well as the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSE Arca: UUP) , which he said could continue to rise with strength in the dollar. Trader Karen Finerman, meanwhile, pointed to U.S. consumers stocks that have endured recent losses. She owns Macy's (NYSE: M) shares, which have fallen 41 percent in the last year in trading that she described as "ridiculously overdone." The stock has climbed more than 10 percent already this year. Finerman also said that Home Depot (NYSE: HD) would look appealing on a price dip. The stock has fallen 8 percent this year. Disclosures: Pete Najarian Long AAPL, BAC, BKE, BMY, BP, DIS, DISCA, FOXA, GE, KO, MRK, PEP, PFE, he is long calls A, AAL, ABX, BAC, CHS, CMI, COP, DAL, EMR, GDX, GE, HAIN, HUN, LC, MOS, MSFT, NRF, NRG, PNR, POT, UAL, VZ, WYNN, YDKN, ZIOP, he is long puts FCX, MRO Dan Nathan Long MCD Feb Put Spread, long PFE buy-write, long TWTR March Risk Reversal, long UUP March call, long XLU Feb Call spread, long PYPL Jan Risk Reversal, long M Jan16 call spread, long NTAP Jan risk reversal, long QCOM feb calls, short SPY, long UUP, long WMT puts, long INTC JAN 32 puts. Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GDX, GLD, Hong Kong Dollar, TLT, US Dollar; he is short British Pound, Euro, Canadian Dollar, GSG, EEM, EWC, EWH, SPY, DB Story continues Karen Finerman Karen is long BAC, C, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, KORS, KORS call spreads, M, SEDG, SPY calls, URI. She is short SPY. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, FL, FL calls, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, KORS, LYV, M, MA, MOH, PLCE, URI, URI long puts, WFM, her firm is short IWM, MDY, SPY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || How big banks are paying lip service to the blockchain: IBM has high hopes for blockchain technology. The IT giant announced on Tuesday a laundry list of plans to use blockchain tech and to help developers do the same. IBM ( IBM ) will offer tools through its cloud service for building blockchain apps, and it will open up IBM "Garages" in London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo for experts to collaborate with developers on blockchain tech. Taken in tandem with the recent flurry of banks and financial institutions expressing public interest in blockchain, the technology is having a moment. In September, a slew of banks including BBVA, Citi, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS all joined a coalition, led by a firm called R3 , to implement blockchain technology in banking. In December, five more big names hopped on board, including BNP Paribas, ING, and Wells Fargo. But the great irony of the banks' interest in blockchain is that the idea of a blockchain for traditional banking defeats the purpose of the blockchain—at least as it has been used thus far, with the digital currency bitcoin. And top executives from some of the very same institutions that have signed on to R3 have separately disparaged bitcoin. To understand what it is that banks claim to want to do with blockchain, you first need to understand the bitcoin blockchain, which is a public, decentralized ledger that records every single bitcoin transaction. Think of it like a library card in the cloud (not the card you use to take out a book, but the slip inside a book that lists all the borrowers). If you send a friend $5 worth of bitcoin, the transaction goes on the blockchain. If one bitcoin startup acquires another bitcoin startup for $500,000 in bitcoin, that, too, goes on the blockchain. And you can view the blockchain in real time, as transactions are uploaded, at blockchain.info . Transactions are added in bundles, called "blocks," by "miners," who receive a tiny fee in bitcoin as an incentive to mine. Miners use large, expensive computers to find and mine the blocks. The excitement of the bitcoin blockchain, to people in the digital currency world, is the potential for decentralized applications to be built on top of it that cut out the middle man. And the blockchain can be used to store and send anything of value, so there are companies using it to store documents like property deeds and even marriage licenses. And now: Enter the banks. They've long stayed away from bitcoin, which has a toxic public image thanks to headlines about bitcoin being used in embezzlement and Ponzi schemes. (Think of Mt. Gox and Silk Road .) MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga said he believes bitcoin "starts bumping up against societal rules, which I worry about," and that, "it doesn’t give me the safety and security of knowing that I am who I am, and I’m paying who I know, which is what traditional currency does." And yet, MasterCard ( MA ) invested in Digital Currency Group, a venture firm that has itself invested in 65 different bitcoin and blockchain-enabled businesses. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said bitcoin "is going nowhere... There is nothing behind a bitcoin, and I think if it was big, the governments would stop it." And yet, JPMorgan ( JPM ) has signed on with R3. Story continues Forget bitcoin, embrace blockchain Bitcoin is doomed, if you ask Dimon. But the blockchain—now that's exciting. As Dimon said on CNBC last month, "The blockchain is a technology, which we’ve been studying... and yes, it’s real. If it proves to be cheap and secure it will be adopted for a whole bunch of stuff." Translation: Blockchain is hot, bitcoin is not. We are seeing this sentiment again and again. IBM, in its extensive press release this week about its blockchain efforts, does not use the word "bitcoin" once. Bitreserve, a cloud banking vault launched by CNET founder Halsey Minor and led by former Barclays CIO Anthony Watson , was so eager to shed the stink of bitcoin that it changed its name to Uphold. Blockchain "is so hot right now," writes Erik Voorhees , the CEO of bitcoin startup Shapeshift, while bitcoin "has been left by the wayside, ignored like an embarrassing relative at a family gathering.” (And yet the price of bitcoin is up 24% in the last six months, 85% in the last six.) What will using blockchain tech even look like for banks? R3's web site says its mission is "building and empowering the next generation of global financial services technology." That's pretty vague. David Rutter, CEO of R3 and a former executive at London-based electronic brokerage ICAP, has said R3 will help banks and financial firms use the "fabric" of blockchain technology. You might think that people in the bitcoin world are pleased to see big, incumbent financial institutions embracing the underlying technology behind the leading cryptocurrency. They are not. Most of them see the banks' stated interest as empty lip service so far. What most people believe the banks want to do is employ something like the blockchain in their record-keeping processes: record customer deposits and withdrawals on a blockchain as opposed to whatever (likely outdated) software they currently use. Sounds simple enough. But it would have to be a closed ledger, accessible only to customers of the banks. And therein lies the contradiction: the bitcoin blockchain is public and open-sourced; nothing about it is closed. "I can see why banks are interested in using permissioned ledgers, and maybe it will make their back office more efficient," says Jerry Brito, executive director of digital currency nonprofit Coin Center. "But at the end of the day, it's not a very exciting innovation. The real innovation is a completely open and global ledger that is permission-less. Having a closed, permissioned ledger run by banks, that might allow for better auditing, but there’s no innovation there, you still have to go through a consortium to use the ledger." That is, what banks seem to want to do is incongruous to the purpose of the blockchain. Digital Currency Group's Barry Silbert, who founded SecondMarket, which allowed for the trading of stocks in non-public companies, is similarly dubious of the "blockchain for banking" theme. "I’ve spoken quite publicly about my skepticism around the private blockchain approach," he tells Yahoo Finance. If R3 doesn't yield innovative fruit, then why are banks rushing to join up? For starters, as a PR effort: once a few were involved, the others looked stodgy by delaying. But Brito also believes the interest will subside once banks actually learn more about blockchain technology. " I think right now investors are kind of waiting for Wall Street to get through this blockchain phase," he says. "They have blockchain fever and they need to just get over it. Because if they develop their own closed blockchains, soon they’ll all realize they want to talk to each other, and they’ll be back to square one, doing banking." The bitcoin blockchain is open, global and permissionless. It has potential to serve as the backbone for additional exciting applications. If traditional banks want to employ it in their way, by acting as gatekeepers, it defeats the purpose. But don't expect that to dampen their public expressions of interest just yet. This is the first in a three-part Yahoo Finance series about blockchain technology. The second part is about how you can invest in the blockchain; the third part is about the biggest names in the industry. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Read more: Bitcoin advocacy group scores funding from biggest names in industry Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its biggest news site Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin View comments || Sprott Out At Namesake Gold Fund As Price Collapse Takes Toll: With gold's decline, an entire precious metals industry is in peril. And Eric Sprott's just the canary in the gold mine. [This article first appeared on IndexUniverse.com and is republished here with permission.] For those of you who regularly read my stuff, you know I love to write about charts and numbers and all sorts of nerd-ery. In this blog, I'm only going to use a single chart. If you're a gold investor, you know which chart I'm talking about: Gold Prx since Fall 2011 Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com This is the nightmare chart for gold investors. The price of gold has collapsed from all-time highs of slightly more than $1,900 an ounce in fall of 2011 to near $1,235 today. Just this year, gold investors, a lot of them investing through ETFs like the SPDR Gold Trust ( GLD | A-100 ), are down almost 27 percent, while investors in the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ( SPY | A-98 ) are up 27 percent. You don't need to be a math whiz to recognize that this has been a terrible, terrible year for anyone who made a big rotation out of equities in the last few years and into the shiny stuff. And while it's easy to kick people when they are down, here's the thing: It's not just gold investors who got hammered. It's an entire industry that's been built on the back of the gold rally. Consider GLD all by itself for a moment. GLD's peak NAV in August last year was $184.59. On that day, there were 424 million shares outstanding, for net assets of more than $78 billion, with an implied annual fee due of $313 million a year. Today assets stand at just $33 billion—well under half their peak, with an implied fee base of $131 million a year. That's nearly $200 million that's leaving the GLD management ecosystem. I'm not expecting anyone to feel sorry for the poor ETF issuer here (State Street and the World Gold Council). Rather, I'm pointing out that decline in gold has made for some rather dramatic shifts in the investment economy. Consider Eric Sprott. I first came to know of Sprott when his Physical Gold Trust launched in 2010—right in the froth of the run-up—and it was being called an "ETF" by various media sources (it's not; it's a closed-end fund). At the time, I ripped it apart for tax issues, poor marketing and various other shortcomings. That's nothing to the savaging Sprott received at the hands of one of the smartest bloggers on the Web, Kid Dynamite. Kid Dynamite has made a kind of sport out of watching how Sprott's closed-end funds magically become un-closed and issue new shares when they trade to large premiums. Story continues Nothing wrong there, other than the fact that the big recipient of those nonpremium shares tended to be other Sprott funds, who could then sell them for the premium price . Nice work if you can get it. But while the various shenanigans may have worked on the way up, they've brutalized the company—and Eric Sprott—on the way down. Take their flagship closed-end gold fund, PHYS. It launched on Feb. 26, 2010. GLD investors are up 9.09 percent since then. PHYS investors are up 6.36 percent. I don't know how you leave 1 percent a year on the table when your only job is to buy gold and stick it in a vault, but there you have it. The good news (if you're actually in one of Sprott's many funds) is that Sprott himself has gotten the ax, as noted by the extraordinarily unkind headline at Business Insider this morning: " One Of The Most Famous Gold Bug Fund Managers Has Gotten Obliterated ." The Wall St. Journal article is a bit more professional—" Gold Drop Is Blow to Prominent Hedge-Fund Manager Sprott "—but makes hay out of the fact that his namesake hedge fund is down 50 percent in 2013. That takes work. In the end, Sprott's getting the boot, and being replaced by new management. There's a whole lot of that going on in gold circles: people getting the boot and making way for turnaround specialists to come in and clean up business. The gold miner industry is awash in panic: The bellwether ETF in the space, the Market Vectors Gold Miners fund ( GDX | A-54 ), is down 66.4 percent since gold's peak in 2011, and down 54.49 percent just in 2013. That collapse is driven by very real work being done in the gold miner space to deal with the collapsing gold prices. Anglo American, for instance, brought in a new CEO to help make huge cuts, effect write-downs and position the company for a longer-term business. In some sense, that's all healthier than bubble economics. But that's small solace to any investor who's actually ridden Anglo American, PHYS, GDX or GLD to the ground these past few years. Of course, the question any rational investor should ask is, What's next? And that's where it becomes very difficult to read the news. In most rational sectors of the global economy, analysts are analysts. You read the reports from agricultural experts or retail-stock experts, and they generally call things as they see them. In the precious metals space, nearly every article you get off any kind of Google search will always be telling you why "Now is the time!" It's important to remember that gold—and the entire gold investment economy—is unique. Gold, by itself, is useless and valueless. It has value only because it's scarce, and then only because enough people believe its scarcity can make it a useful medium of representing value and making transactions. Gold is, essentially, an idea that people assign value to. Lots of folks believe? It goes up. Crisis of faith? It tanks. Which makes it surprisingly similar to that other highly volatile source of questionable stored-value: Bitcoin. Maybe that's where Sprott's next adventure will take him. I'll be camped firmly on the sidelines with a bowl of popcorn. At the time this article was written, the author held no positions in the securities mentioned. Contact Dave Nadig at dnadig@indexuniverse.com . Recommended Stories Bearish Inventory Report Doesn’t Change Bullish Outlook For NatGas Record Silver Investing, Record Silver Mine Output In 2014 NatGas Tests Top End Of Price Range After Demand Soars Natural Gas Will Eventually Fall Below $3 Potential Takeover Targets In The Mining Sector Permalink | © Copyright 2016 ETF.com. All rights reserved View comments || 5 trades to watch after wild month: U.S. stocks rallied on Friday, capping a choppy, losing month for markets. With a cloudy outlook ahead, "Fast Money" traders outlined their best ideas moving forward. Major averages rose more than 2 percent each after the Bank of Japan adopted a negative interest rate policy. The promising day put an end to a rough month in which the S&P 500 (INDEX: .SPX) fell about 5 percent. Traders noted that the up-and-down sessions may continue. In the current environment, "you want to buy anything with a yield," said trader Brian Kelly. He believes the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE Arca: TLT) has room to climb if investors seek safer bets. Demand for the U.S. 10-year Treasury note (U.S.: US10Y) has already sent its yield 15 percent lower this year, and it lingered near 1.9 percent on Friday. Trader Dan Nathan also stressed that yield is crucial currently. He previously had long trades in Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca: XLU) , which he sold after the prices of both rose this year. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX) has also beaten markets this year, rising 3.6 percent. In that period, the price of gold futures has climbed more than 5 percent. "Something's going on with gold miners to the upside," trader Guy Adami said. Trader Tim Seymour would sell emerging market stocks on strength. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE Arca: EEM) rose more than 3 percent Friday, but Seymour sees "major structural problems" in emerging economies and said he would sell out of the fund. Disclosures: Tim Seymour Tim Seymour is long AAPL, BAC, DO, FCX, INTC, IWM, NKE, T, XOM. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, IWM, PEP, SAVE, SBUX, VALE, WMT. Dan Nathan Dan is long WMT Feb put spread, long PFE buy-write, long TWTR, long TLT Apr risk reversal, long XLP put spread. Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GDX, GLD, SLV, TLT, US Dollar; he is short Aussie Dollar, British Pound, CS, DB, EWH, Hong Kong Dollar, UBS, SPY, Yuan. Story continues Guy Adami Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#TrinityCoin #TTY $ 0.000008 (-1.12 %) 0.00000002 BTC (-0.00 %) via #TrinityCoinBot
#Bitcoin #BTC #AltCoin #BlockCh…pic.twitter.com/oHfXOYPZf4 || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || @Bsp4Up sir Urdu walo ki vacancy 1 mahine me puri kra Di aur btc walon ki vacancy ko 2 sal ho gye & v r still waiting. Is dis not secularism || $427.13 #bitfinex;
$426.82 #coinbase;
$425.87 #bitstamp;
$425.00 #btce;
#bitcoin #btc || Liquid Bitcoin || In the last hour, 7 people won 0.32 BTC playing Bitcoin lottery at http://10xbtc.com , the easiest BTC lottery, 160BTC Jackpot
|
Trend: down || Prices: 414.86, 417.13, 421.69, 411.62, 414.07, 416.44, 416.83, 417.01, 420.62, 409.55
|
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.
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[Technical Analysis for 2020-02-27]
BTC Price: 8784.49, BTC RSI: 37.35
Gold Price: 1640.00, Gold RSI: 66.83
Oil Price: 47.09, Oil RSI: 27.11
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
5 ways Bitcoin's price is looking up: The Bitcoin bulls are cautiously back in town. Even thoughBitcoin’s pricesaw a big decline in the latter half of 2019, there are a few reasons why this trend may not continue into 2020.
According to data provided by Arcane Research and collated byLuno, here are five reasons why Bitcoin’s price might have turned a corner.
One of the surest signs of a bull market is also one the simplest—prices going up. Most major cryptocurrencies have seen dramatic gains recently, with Bitcoin (BTC),Ethereum (ETH)andXRPall gaining around 30-40% in the last month.
Likewise, a handful of cryptocurrencies have racked up even more impressive gains in this time, with both ICON and IOTA gaining well over 100% in the last month.
However, short term price rises are not necessarily confirmation of a new market direction; volatile cryptocurrencies can have big gains even during a market downturn.
A clearer sign that the Bitcoin market isn’t nosediving any further is that it broke out of its downward path.
From August to November 2019, Bitcoin was heading down in a clear channel. However, Bitcoin’s recent price gains pushed it outside of this channel. This sparked its recent bullish momentum.
Entire crypto market cap breaks out of major downtrend
Crypto analysts have used this to argue that it might suggest Bitcoin is heading in a new direction. When the breakout started to occur, Peter Brandt questioned whether this was the beginning of anew bull market. Now that the price of Bitcoin has cleanly broken out of the downward channel, his theory has more evidence to go on.
Traders are now feeling more positive about the Bitcoin price, according to a sentiment tracker. Alternative.me's crypto Fear & Greed Index now sits at 57—on a scale from one to 100—its highest levels since last August. This shows that traders are more bullish than they have been in the last six months, possibly riding on the back of Bitcoin’s price breakout.
In fact, traders are as confident in the market as they were back in August, when the price went as high as $12,500. Currently the Bitcoin price is just $9,100, having failed to crack the $9,500 mark. But other indicators suggest Bitcoin’s bullish momentum is on the rise.
Bitcoin trading volume has picked back up. This is a sign that traders are getting more active in the market again.
According to the data provided by Luno, Bitcoin volume dipped significantly by the end of 2019, before picking up again in January 2020.
While the current volumes are lower than the spikes seen throughout 2019, they are starting to grow again, suggesting there could be further volumes rises on the cards.
Bitcoin's volatility is also trending upwards. In the last 30 days, Bitcoin's volatility has gradually increased since the beginning of the year.
For Bitcoin’s price to rise—and fall—volatility is obviously a factor. Again, while Bitcoin is still less volatile than it was last year, it is becoming increasingly volatile, suggesting that greater price shifts are on the way. But will the bullish momentum continue or will crypto winter set in once again?
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. || How Coronavirus Outbreak in China Could Weigh on Crypto Prices: Jason Wu had to cancel a dozen meetings with his crypto clients in China after the coronavirus epidemic broke out this month. “We planned a 10-city tour to talk with potential clients in China,” Wu, the CEO and founder of non-custodial crypto lender DeFiner, said. “Nobody wants to attend any crypto-related conferences or any meetings at all because of the virus. We have to rearrange everything.” Since the first patient was identified on Dec. 8 in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in central China, the virus has claimed 80 lives . There were nearly 2,000 confirmed cases as well as 10 cases abroad, including five in the U.S. as of Sunday evening. Related: Bitcoin Eyes $8.8K After Largely Erasing Last Week’s Dip Given China’s status as a crypto investment hub – it has the most exchanges in the Asia-Pacific region, which in turn has 40 percent of the world’s top 50, according to research firm Chainalysis – professionals like Wu are concerned, to varying degrees, about coronavirus’ potential disruption of business and the impact on prices. Wu said marketing events are crucial for underground crypto investment firms in China to raise money and invest in digital assets, and they are likely to slow down due to the virus. “The market might take a heavy blow if the money stops flowing into these crypto asset classes as it usually did before,” Wu said. While Wu could not estimate how much money Chinese investment has brought into the crypto market, he cited PlusToken, one of the largest illicit crypto firms, as an example. Related: Bitcoin’s Halving Captures Growing Interest – Among Google Searchers The defunct company gained its notoriety among Chinese crypto holders by raising over $3 billion through a Ponzi scheme. It attracted 789,000 ether, 26 million EOS and 200,000 bitcoins, which is equal to one percent of the outstanding supply. It was shut down by the Chinese government in June 2019. Besides the virus outbreak, the crypto market could be hit with a double whammy with the Chinese New Year, according to Wu. Many Chinese crypto retailers tend to cash in on cryptocurrencies right before the holiday and reinvest in the market in the next year. Story continues The Chinese New Year fell on Jan. 25 this year. “The outbreak happens to be at the end of that cycle,” Wu said. “We are not sure when and how much of the money would come back after the holiday.” Murky market While Chinese crypto investors are a considerable market force, it is statistically difficult to conclude a one-to-one correlation between the outbreak and moves in the crypto market, said Lingxiao Yang, chief technology officer at Trade Terminal, a San Francisco-based crypto hedge fund. “It is really hard to single out one reason that affects crypto trading volumes and market prices, given the data is not always available and transparent in the first place,” Yang said. Furthermore, the whole market cap of cryptocurrencies is small compared to the stock market, which means many factors could make an impact on the market. However, Yang described a few traits of Asian crypto investors that could make the coronavirus a significant factor to influence the market. Most crypto investors from Asia tend to be retail investors, and historically they became more active around major holidays such as the Chinese New Year, Yang said. “We can’t predict the market prices, but based on our past experiences it tended to get more volatile around those times,” Yang said. “I can see the virus outbreak could potentially lead to more crypto trading for retail investors since they would just stay at home and have even more time to check the market.” It is also difficult to predict market prices as digital assets like bitcoin have a unique set of return drivers, said Kostya Etus, a senior portfolio manager at money management firm CLS Investments. “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.” Fluid situation Since crypto is highly speculative, the coronavirus could conceivably have a significant impact on the global market, according to Samuel Lee, a financial advisor at Chicago-based SVRN Asset Management. “The crypto market might overreact to the outbreak since it tends to be irrational compared to the traditional financial market,” he said. On the other hand, Lee said the outbreak is more likely to have a limited effect. “We have seen bitcoin as an asset class went up at the same time when there was the possibility of a war between Iran and the U.S.,” Lee said. “However, the coronavirus might not be that big of a geopolitical influence.” The World Health Organization (WHO) is still debating whether to declare the outbreak an international public health emergency as of the time of writing. “Chinese residents are not scared enough that they want to flee the country,” Lee said. The S&P 500 turned positive even after WHO summoned an emergency meeting on how to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, although Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index and Shanghai A Shares Index have experienced sizable dips recently. “Most previous regional epidemics appear to have had very limited impact on the equity market, except for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS),” said Wilfred Daye, a senior advisor to boutique investment bank Bardi Co. SARS is an aggressive viral respiratory illness caused by a similar strain of the new coronavirus. “When prolonged epidemics become a market driving factor, the cryptocurrency market will react more sharply,” said Daye, who also worked as the former head of financial markets at OkCoin. Related Stories Crypto and the Latency Arms Race: Market Microstructures Continued Losses See Bitcoin Erase 40% of Recent Price Rally || Open interest for Bitcoin futures surpasses $5 billion: Aggregated open interest (OI) for Bitcoin futures has surpassed $5 billion on Feb. 13, according to data compiled by The Block. Open interest refers to the value of outstanding futures contracts that have not been settled yet. An increase in open interest signals that more money is flowing into the market and that traders are anticipating a near-term rise in the underlying volatility. BitMEX, a cryptocurrency futures venue incorporated in the Seychelles, currently has the largest open interest of $1.6 billion; about 31.0% of the total aggregated sum. BitMEX's dominance has dwindled in recent months, falling from 44% in November. BitMEX is followed by Chinese exchanges OKEx and Huobi, which have about $1.4 billion and $1 billion in open interest respectively. CME is currently the fifth most popular venue for trading Bitcoin futures with about $312 million in open interest while Bakkt only has about $18 million. The Block's analyst Ryan Todd noted the total reportable traders (those that are trading +25BTC) hitting CME’s product on a weekly basis registered all-time highs last month; while the concentration of total open interest among the top 4 largest long traders is now at all-time lows (~20%, down more than 30% since May 2018). Source: The Block, Skew || JPMorgan Sees Institutional Interest In Options On CME Bitcoin Futures: CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME ), a derivatives and options exchange operating in Chicago and New York, formally announced the launch of options on Bitcoin (BTC) futures Monday, delivering on the growing interest and demand for a cash-settled instrument that allows for more efficient exposure and hedging in the most heavily traded cryptocurrency. The following is a list of contract specifications: Contract unit: 1 BTC futures contract (representing exposure to 5 Bitcoin) Minimum price fluctuation: 5 index points ($25) Trading Hours: 5 p.m. to 4 p.m. CT Sunday-Friday Exercise: European settlement into cash settled BTC futures In anticipation of the launch, an increase in activity in the underlying CME BTC futures contract has been witnessed, with open interest rising 69% from year-end, Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM ) said in a statement to Bloomberg. "This unusually strong activity over the past few days likely reflects the high anticipation among market participants of the option contract." Bakkt Bitcoin Options The development comes alongside the launch of Bakkt bitcoin options; Bakkt is a subsidiary of the Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (NYSE: ICE ), the parent of the New York Stock Exchange. ICE is a leader in exchange traded futures products, delivering the globally renowned ICE Brent Crude Oil Futures after its acquisition of the International Petroleum Exchange in 2001. Like CME, ICE expanded on its product portfolio, delivering options that settle into cash settled Bitcoin futures. It's important to note that -- at times -- cryptocurrency derivatives have appeared to place a drag on prices. In 2017, CME launched futures on bitcoin, prior to bitcoin’s massive tumble from $19,000. Similarly, after ICE launched Bitcoin futures, spot bitcoin prices fell $2,000. That said, despite the low volumes in Bakkt options on Bitcoin futures, JPMorgan strategists believe the tide may shift, noting CME’s dominance over the trading of Bitcoin futures on regulated exchanges. Story continues As more exchanges get involved, the crypto options market may grow 10 to 20 times, helping improve liquidity, lower spreads, and stabilize prices, according to a Bloomberg interview with Luuk Strijers, an executive at Deribit, a cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform. Photo: Historical price chart for CME's BTC futures contract. 0 See more from Benzinga Illinois Approves Legalization Of Blockchain Contracts Tesla, Musk Approach Historic Milestones As Automaker's Stock Rally Continues As Bitcoin Holds ,000, Bitfinex Offers Real-Time Data Insights To Reduce Noise For Traders © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || OpenNode Finds Way for Retailers to Turn Fiat Payments Into Bitcoin (Using Apple Pay): The bitcoin payments startup OpenNode just gained access to Apple Pay, according to the startup’s head of marketing, Ryan Flowers. This could be a boon for the small subset of merchants who want to hold bitcoin, because it allows people to spend dollars through their regular fintech accounts yet still have those dollars exchanged to bitcoin for the merchant to receive. The customer’s fiat payment goes through OpenNode’s partner, Wyre, converting to bitcoin (BTC) and depositing in the merchant’s wallet. Merchants can sign up to be part of the private feature release, currently in beta , before it goes live across the platform in a few months. Related: Oil Prices Are Now More Volatile Than Bitcoin “They [shoppers] put the card information into the widget that OpenNode is using, in some cases the card information may already be stored, for example with your Apple Pay,” said Jack Jia, Wyre’s director of institutional sales. “So all the user does is click the ‘Buy with Apple Pay’ button” to make a purchase with fiat that the merchant receives as bitcoin. The same back-end rails that offer indirect access to Apple Pay accounts, which both OpenNode and Wyre declined to name, also work for most debit cards. Now shoppers can spend fiat at online stores and choose for the merchant to receive bitcoin. This assumes shoppers are willing to take a few extra seconds to benefit the merchant, rather than checking out without the bitcoin button. So this might only suit merchants with a devoted customer base. “Our merchants keep some, or most, of their payments in bitcoin. Merchants want exposure to bitcoin,” OpenNode CEO Afnan Rahman said of the 5,000 merchants registered with the startup so far. “This year a lot of luxury goods businesses are signing up.” OpenNode’s Flowers said shoppers are reluctant to spend bitcoin because of the volatility, but demand among merchants for receiving the cryptocurrency hasn’t dwindled. In particular, Rahman said the company has seen the most uptick in 2020 from merchants in India, South Korea, Japan and China. Story continues Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for Feb. 20, 2020 He said OpenNode processes “a couple million” dollars worth of bitcoin a month for such diehard merchants. The startup will initially deploy the Apple Pay feature with less than a dozen merchant testers. “We’re rolling it out slowly to make sure the rate of chargebacks isn’t high,” Flowers said, describing contested payments credit-card companies return to consumers. By this time next year, Wyre and OpenNode hope to complement this feature with a “full-suite treasury management tool for merchants,” Jia said. By relying on Wyre , which has a money transmitter license, OpenNode will offer merchants a bitcoin savings account where they can earn interest and pay out invoices. Jia said this would be “offering the same functions as a bank,” with the option to cash out bitcoin to a personal wallet. “We’re not looking at revenue right now as much as building up infrastructure,” Jia said, referencing debit cards and Apple Pay. “These are all layers on top of the banking system, so connecting those networks to the bitcoin network through infrastructure is more important right now.” Apple didn’t offer any comments by press time. Related Stories Norwegian Air May Allow Customers to Pay With Crypto as Soon as Spring Bitcoin Traps Buyers With Biggest Daily Price Loss in Three Months || Crypto Giant Binance Launches Cloud Service in Revenue Shift: (Bloomberg) -- Binance Holdings Ltd., one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency-trading platforms, has made its first foray into business services by lending its technology and liquidity to those who want to start their own exchanges. The Malta-based crypto behemoth announced its cloud operation to help business clients and partners set up crypto exchanges using Binance’s tech infrastructure, ranging from matching engines to risk controls and data security systems, according to a company statement. Tech giants like Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc. have over the years evolved beyond their core consumer-facing services and become some of the world’s biggest cloud providers -- and Binance envisions the same type of success in crypto. Binance Cloud will overtake the company’s main exchange to become its biggest source of revenue in five years, co-founder and CEO “CZ” Zhao Changpeng estimates. “Theoretically speaking, we can let anyone in the world create their own exchanges, and the demand is huge,” the 43-year-old coder-turned-entrepreneur said in an interview. “Even during the crypto winter of 2018 and 2019, hundreds of new exchanges popped up every day.” The cloud division -- which started just three months ago and now has nearly 20 people -- complements Binance’s strategy of attracting fiat money. Like its peers, Binance makes money mostly via transaction fees on its trading platforms, which fluctuate wildly with crypto prices. The shift into enterprise-oriented businesses could also help the startup unlock a more steady revenue stream. Binance started off in 2017 as a crypto-to-crypto trading platform, and gained momentum quickly by handling only tokens like Bitcoin and Ether, which allowed it to avoid dealing with banks and government watchdogs. Now a major player, Zhao’s firm is working to shake off its reputation as a regulatory arbitrageur: It has set up regulatory-compliant fiat exchanges in jurisdictions like Singapore and Jersey as it seeks to appeal to a much larger user base that hasn’t bought digital money yet. Story continues Binance Applied for Singapore’s New Crypto License, CEO Says And this isn’t Zhao’s first crack at the cloud business. Before Binance, he was the founder of a Shanghai-based startup called BijieTech specializing in outsourcing tech solutions for crypto exchange operators. Zhao said Binance would favor fiat exchanges as its cloud clients, especially those that target regions or communities where the company doesn’t yet have a strong foothold. Ideally they would also have “good compliance status, relationships, and even strong influence with regulators,” he said. Competition is still nascent in cloud services for crypto exchanges. Binance rival Huobi rolled out its cloud operation in 2018 and has signed up partners including Russia’s VEB Bank and Taiwan’s Chi Fu Group, according to its website. Binance will announce the first fiat exchange powered by its cloud service in the coming weeks, while it has confirmed four other clients in the lineup, Zhao said, without sharing specifics. Aside from tapping into Binance tech, Zhao said clients will also be able to access the order books of all the existing trading pairs on Binance. “Liquidity is a chicken-and-egg problem for small exchanges,” he said. “Without liquidity, they won’t have users.” To contact the reporter on this story: Zheping Huang in Hong Kong at zhuang245@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Joanna Ossinger, David Scanlan 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. || Wedbush Upgrades Wingstop, Says It Has Wings To Fly Higher In 2020 And Beyond: Wingstop Inc (NASDAQ: WING ) is scheduled to host an Investor Day presentation on Jan. 16 and management is likely to detail multiple catalysts that will translate to outperformance versus current expectations, according to Wedbush. The Analyst Nick Setyan upgraded Wingstop's stock from Neutral to Outperform with a price target lifted from $88 to $105. The Thesis Wingstop is sitting in an enviable position in the restaurant sector given its direct exposure to the growing popularity of chicken items and a focus on delivery, Setyan wrote in the note. This should help sustain same-store sales growth at industry-leading levels in 2020 and beyond. In fact, Setyan thinks delivery alone could contribute more than 6% of incremental same-store sales in 2020 if management continues to focus on effective marketing programs. A Wedbush survey on all things delivery related found Wingstop's usage and awareness has room to improve versus its peers which implies a potential for sustained delivery growth. The company's favorable positioning is also backed by three specific initiatives, including adding new delivery partners, growth in marketing spend and potential for increased throughput opportunities which were implemented in the U.K. market and now being tested in the domestic market. Price Action Shares of Wingstop traded higher by 3.3% to $87.58 at time of publication. Related Links: Analyst: Food Delivery Companies Have Room For Growth, But Face Cash-Burning Competition Wedbush Downgrades Wingstop, Valuation Reflects Growth Momentum Latest Ratings for WING Jan 2020 Upgrades Neutral Outperform Dec 2019 Maintains Equal-Weight Dec 2019 Maintains Buy View More Analyst Ratings for WING View the Latest Analyst Ratings 0 See more from Benzinga Takeaways From Grubhub's Annual 'Year In Food' Report Google Says Its AI Sometimes Outperforms Human Doctors In Detecting Cancer A Look At Bitcoin's Crazy Decade © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || Former CFTC Chair: Time for Fed to create digital dollar: A former regulator is trying to connect private players with the government to spur development of a central bank-issued digital currency. Former Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo told Yahoo Finance’s “ On The Move ” on Thursday that the Federal Reserve needs to issue a digital currency to catch up with the likes of the Chinese government. A central bank digital currency could take on many forms, but in principle physical currency would be replaced by blockchain-linked digital units held in a mobile wallet. Merchants would have to plug into the central bank’s blockchain when transacting directly in the digital currency. Giancarlo said that with the prevalence of online shopping, the U.S. should offer some digital payment option that isn’t a debit or credit card. Christopher Giancarlo,(R), then Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission speaks while Jay Clayton, L , Chairman and the Securities and Exchange Commission listens during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill May 8, 2019 in Washington, DC. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) “When we talk about a digital dollar we’re talking about in the virtual world, to have that same immediacy of payment that we have in the analog human world,” Giancarlo told Yahoo Finance. A survey earlier this year from the Bank of International Settlements noted that 80% of central banks are currently doing some work on their own digital currencies. About 10% of responding banks said they would likely issue something in the short-term. China is already testing its own version of a digital yuan . Central banks have said a digital currency would make it easier to police possible money laundering. Some central banks have also noted the monetary implications of digital currencies, arguing that less hard cash in the economy would, in theory, give policymakers more control over the money supply. Fed Governor Lael Brainard has expressed interest in issuing something in the United States, but has pointed to legal and operational problems. It is unclear if the Fed has the authority to actually create its own digital currency, and questions remain over the implications of a digital dollar within the context of its international use as a reserve currency. Story continues Giancarlo’s Digital Dollar Project has teamed up with Accenture to encourage dialogue between public and private players to at least brainstorm possible solutions. “A digital dollar is a complete change in architecture of the dollar,” Giancarlo said. “It’s going to take a lot of thought. There are going to be a lot of views on this.” ‘Bitcoin dad’ Giancarlo clarified that a digital dollar is agnostic to other initiatives in the cryptocurrency space. He said bitcoin and innovations like Facebook’s Libra have their own “value propositions” and could co-exist alongside a central bank-issued currency. Online communities have referred to Giancarlo as “Crypto Dad” since 2018, when he told Congress that his kids’ interest in cryptocurrencies made him a witness to the “cultural” significance of the technology. Giancarlo says he believes the U.S. regulatory framework is out of touch with new innovations like cryptocurrencies. He advocated for updated federal laws that would clarify cryptocurrencies’ standing in the financial regulatory framework. “It’s going to change things dramatically and our laws need to evolve with that as they’ve done over the 90 years, now they need to evolve again,” Giancarlo said. After deeming bitcoin a commodity, the CFTC has expanded its review of the cryptocurrency space. CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert told Yahoo Finance in October that the commission deemed Ether a commodity as well, adding that Ether futures could be trading on U.S. markets soon. Brian Cheung is a reporter covering the banking industry and the intersection of finance and policy for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter @bcheungz . Morgan Stanley, E-Trade merger underscores race for scale in financial services Dallas Fed's Kaplan: US economy 'likely at or past' full employment Key GOP senators express worries over Trump nominee for the Fed 'We are all competing': Los Angeles finds new ways to tackle labor shortage 'This is the new normal': California businesses pessimistic on phase 2 deal Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , SmartNews , LinkedIn , YouTube , and reddit . || Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD): Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at around $7,758 following a 3% jump in price since Monday. However, over the past 24 hours, the price of BTC has dropped by 2%. As we move into 2020, Bitcoin seems to be consolidating above its 20-day EMA. Following some positive price action earlier in the week, some are suggesting that the bear market may be over and Bitcoin will push higher again. Let’s take a look at Bitcoin’s chart, courtesy of TradingView . As you can see, Bitcoin has finally crossed its 20-day EMA and even managed to push past its 50-day EMA over the last few days. These are the crucial initial steps BTC must take if it is to start recording higher lows. At the time of writing, BTC is moving to the downside after bouncing off its 200-day EMA, and has now dropped back below the 50-day EMA as well. Over the last quarter of 2019, volume was also showing signs of weakness. During most of Q4, volume stayed below $20 billion. However, since late December, Bitcoin seems to have been turning things around. After the last drop that took BTC from around $7,500 to $6,900, price bounced and started climbing upwards. If Bitcoin is able to maintain the positive trend seen earlier in the week, we might see $10,000 sooner than expected. The current Bitcoin trend Last week , I underlined that within the next few days/weeks, we could see a major reversal after a period of serious accumulation by ‘hodlers’. Volume has remained similar to last week, about 30% to 40% above last month. This means the accumulation cycle could be close to an end and the bull run we’re all waiting for will start sooner than expected. For the time being though, there’s a chance it can go either way. Only if BTC continues to add higher lows will price continue to go up. The upwards movement over the past few days could mean a shift in sentiment, but it is too early to tell. It seems we already found the bottom (during 2019) and could be making our way towards a mid-term move to the upside. Story continues I expect price to bounce between the 20-day and 50-day EMAs until we see a serious break to the upside. At the moment, I expect BTC to trade between $7,500 and $8,000, as there’s strong resistance around this key level. To break the 50-day and 200-day EMAs, BTC will have to go past some serious volume levels. I personally see massive resistance at around $8,000 and again near $10,000. Will the trend reverse soon? As veteran traders and investors usually say, smart money “buys when there’s blood on the streets”. I’ve been saying for the past month that I’m waiting for major drops to make new entries. Moments like these are highly welcomed and appreciated. I strongly believe Bitcoin to be a long-term store of value, especially as traditional markets continue to show weaknesses. How can the markets continue to push higher after the ECB’s recent rate cuts, the continuous share buybacks from huge corporations, or the inverted bond yield shoving investors away towards riskier assets? In addition, repo market activity – as in loans from central banks to commercial and investment banks – has spiked to new monthly records. That adds up to another signal of weakness for the general economy. We shouldn’t forget that the Bitcoin halving is coming in May 2020, which will put extra positive pressure on price as the number of Bitcoin minted per block is halved. The key aspect of the halving event is to work out whether it has already been priced-in by miners. I personally doubt it, since most people (and businesses) have a short-term mindset. In addition, miners’ behaviour shows there’s additional specialisation with better hardware being developed and released. Not only would that make the hash rate go up, it would also diminish profitability for the entire mining space. Therefore, I see miners pushing for lower prices until the halving takes place. The harder it is to mine until the halving, the more miners will drop off, leaving more room for profits for the players who stay. In conclusion, investors and traders should pay attention to the overall economic panorama, as it will most likely be a major catalyst for worldwide BTC adoption. Safe trades! Current live Bitcoin pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling – BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen – BTCtoJPY Euro – BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar – BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble – BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without “relying on trust”. On 3rd January 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number “0” (or the “genesis block”), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More Bitcoin news and information If you want to find out more information about 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. The post Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet . || A Look At Bitcoin's Crazy Decade: Bitcoin ended the 2010s just above the $7,000 per coin mark, which is far removed from it's all-time high of nearly $20,000 but also up a whopping 9,000,000 percent from its roots in July of 2010, according to Bloomberg. Bitcoin's first transaction consisted of 10,000 coins in exchange for two pizzas back in 2010 when the digital coin had a value close to zero. Since then the price of a bitcoin has risen from eight cents to $7,230.58 which translates to a return of exactly 9,038,125 percent. See Also: Boredom Is The Enemy? A Look At Bitcoin Since Peaking At ,000 Why It's Important The narrative over bitcoin's purpose in society has also shifted over the past 10 years, Bloomberg's Eric Lam said Tuesday. At the very beginning, bitcoin was supposed to either "replace the U.S. dollar" or become the "next future medium of exchange." Today, bitcoin is viewed as a form of "digital gold" that will rise in value and isn't meant to perform day-to-day transactions, he said. There are other digital currencies that are specifically designed for that purpose. Over the years bitcoin has picked up a lot of skepticism and regulatory scrutiny which makes its path forward unclear, Lam said. While it's unlikely investors will see another 9 million percent return, "crazier things have happened" over the past 10 years. 0 See more from Benzinga Munster Doubles Down, Says Apple Has 40% Upside This Year Buffett Reportedly Rejects Offer To Acquire Tiffany 2019 A Year To Forget For Hedge Funds © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 8672.46, 8599.51, 8562.45, 8869.67, 8787.79, 8755.25, 9078.76, 9122.55, 8909.95, 8108.12
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2021-10-05]
BTC Price: 51514.81, BTC RSI: 64.73
Gold Price: 1759.60, Gold RSI: 46.84
Oil Price: 78.93, Oil RSI: 74.15
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Gold, Stocks, and Bitcoin: Weekly Overview — August 12: BeInCrypto –
This week’s price movements for Bitcoin (BTC), gold, and our stock picks PayPal and Facebook.
BTC
Bitcoin (BTC) has continued its fortuitous streak over the past two weeks. On July 21, Bitcoin was trading around $30,000, but by July 28, it had risen to $40,000. Going into August, the figure rose further to $42,000. However, it stumbled thereafter, falling to $37,000 on August 4, but life sprang back into it on August 6, up to $41,000. By August 7, it had become $43,000, and by the next day achieved $45,000. Despite slipping briefly to $43,000 going into August 9, BTC has been trading around $46,000 the past few days. It is currently trading just below $45,000.
In its fastest 21-day advance since February, Bitcoin is up four weeks straight and is on pace for its second monthly advance. The cryptocurrency is defying criticism over its toll on the environment. This also flies in the face of logic, as regulators around the world are promising tougher crackdowns. The rally also comes despite potential new tax reporting requirements. Meanwhile, Blockchain Association’s Kristin Smith said she wassurprisedthe coin advanced during the infrastructure bill debate, thinking the opposite would have happened. “I do not understand prices; I thought prices would be tanking because of the bad language that some suggested out there,” she said.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || Zam.io Intends to Transfer 1% of the World's Equity Capital to the DeFi Sector: Tallinn, Estonia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 21, 2021) - Zam.io announces they have developed a unique protocol, zMorgan, that can issue stablecoins secured by clients' shares. Therefore, every stablecoin issued will have real collateral. Crypto investors, hodlers and the EU administration have started to re-consider stablecoins as a potential means of payment after the stablecoin market cap had surpassed the $125.7 billion mark in September this year.
zMorgan
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Crypto enthusiasts might be ready to transfer their assets into stablecoins, to stabilize their profits and survive the possible October market correction without losses, but heads of states are skeptical about stablecoins and are wary of using them in daily life, given the issues with their real value.
More recently, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, stated that stablecoins are not at all the digital equivalent of fiat money as they have serious collateral problems. Lawsuits between the New York prosecutor's office and the issuer of the most popular stablecoin, Tether (USDT), had once again proved that their coins are inherently worthless as they are not backed up by real collateral.
Zam.io has presented a new protocol, zMorgan, which helps address this issue, by transferring stock capital to decentralized finance. We will present the way it works in the sections that follow.
From CeFi to DeFi: How to Secure Stablecoins with Company Shares
According to the analytical resource CoinMarketCap, the daily transaction volume of USDT stablecoin exceeds $137 billion, but the number of coins truly secured by fiat money is indeterminable. Tether representatives claim that absolutely all issued USDT are backed by dollars, bills of exchange and other securities. However, upon investigation, this turned out to be untrue. In fact, millions of people use dummy coins every day.
"We have been observing problems with securing stablecoins for a long time and fully support the position of the authorities, which is aimed at tightening control over issuers of stablecoins. Users need to be sure that every USDT stored in their crypto wallet has real value. Therefore, we've created a unique protocol, zMorgan, that allows the issuance of stablecoins secured by stocks," explains George Gus, founder of Zam.io.
The zMorgan protocol is capable of issuing a certain number of stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies: USDZ (pegged to the US dollar) and AEDZ (pegged to the Emirate dirham).
How the zMorgan protocol works
In fact, the service mechanism is very simple and accessible to everyone. Let's assume you have shares in Fortune 500 companies, which can be Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, etc. You don't intend to sell them yet or use them to obtain a physical product but are holding them solely as a long-term investment.
If shares are worth $100,000 but investors with no money available want to try out crypto investing and plan to buy cryptocurrencies without selling stocks, they can use the zMorgan protocol, which can mint a certain amount of USDZ or AEDZ stablecoins secured by shares as collateral. In this way, each issued stablecoin will be backed by equity.
USDZ or AEDZ stablecoins can be used to buy BTC and ETH cryptocurrencies and other top coins, which can be transferred to decentralized platforms and used to issue loans and credits, while you retain your shares.
USDZ and AEDZ stablecoin issuance process
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Now imagine that thezMorgan protocolis used by large companies, investment funds and banks. These entities are capable of creating stablecoins backed by stocks, gold or other assets, thereby pouring capital locked in securities and other assets into the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance sector. This will result in the rapid development of the digital finance market and the creation of a new economic environment.
"We've estimated the value of the stock market to be approximately $100 trillion. If at least 1% of the blocked capital in public company shares goes to the DeFi sector, the crypto market cap would increase by $1 trillion. What does this mean for cryptocurrency holders? Lightning-fast growth in the price of major cryptocurrencies, record profits, and early adoption of cryptocurrencies as an investment tool," explains George Gus.
All this can become a reality today!
How the stock market will change in the near future
For a long time, the stock market had remained fairly conservative and closed. The rules and regulations have not been changed for centuries in order to reliably preserve world capital among large corporations. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies will lead to the emergence of a new alternative economic system, transforming the stock markets in the future. This is what we are witnessing nowadays.
"The development of blockchain and cryptocurrencies will somehow change the stock market. We've already witnessed the first changes. At the beginning of summer, crypto exchange Binance launched tokenized stock trading, which was a direct challenge to stock exchanges. Trading these assets has now been suspended. Our company, in turn, is enabling the transfer of the stock market's "dead" capital, which has been locked away in stocks for decades, in the bank accounts of large corporations and investment funds, into decentralized finance," explains George Gus.
As the expert describes, in the coming years there will be major transformations in the global financial sector. Traditional investors and bankers who dismiss the obvious benefits of cryptocurrencies will be replaced by young, free money holders. At the same time, blockchain technologies will overrun the world of traditional finance and alter money management approaches. Instead of static banks with huge commission fees, neo-banks which support crypto payments will emerge. Instead of unprofitable deposits, staking will take place. Instead of the usual expensive loans, simple loans on DEX could occur. The world is already moving in that direction, and these transformations have consistently proven difficult to impede.
"We understand and clearly recognize that the world is changing and the financial sector is the first to respond to such changes. Therefore, our team has created a unique service that will facilitate and accelerate the transition from a traditional economy to an alternative one. One could say that Zam.io would act as a bridge between CeFi and DeFi," explained George Gus.
Contact
George Guszam-admin@zam.ioZamZamTechnology OÜ (registry code 14566685)Address is Harju maakond, Tallinn, Põhja-Tallinna linnaosa, Randla tn 13-201, 10315
To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/97158. || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – October 1st, 2021: Bitcoin , BTC to USD, rallied by 5.52% on Thursday. Following a 1.18% gain on Wednesday, Bitcoin ended the month down by 7.06% to $43,830.0. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning intraday low $41,432.0 before making a move. While steering clear of the first major support level at $40,687, Bitcoin fell through the 38.2% FIB of $41,592. Finding early support, however, Bitcoin rallied to a late afternoon intraday high $44,122.0. The rally saw Bitcoin break through the first major resistance level at $42,489 and the second major resistance level at $43,449. Bitcoin also broke back through the 38.2% FIB of $41,592 to end the day at $43,800 levels. The near-term bullish trend remained intact, in spite of the latest return to sub-$40,000 levels. For the bears, Bitcoin would need a sustained fall through the 62% FIB of $27,237 to form a near-term bearish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Thursday. Polkadot slipped by 0.56% to buck the trend. It was a bullish day for the rest of the majors, however. Binance Coin (+5.39%). Chainlink (+4.84%), Ethereum (+5.29%), and Litecoin (+5.90%) led the way. Bitcoin Cash SV (+2.02%), Cardano’s ADA (+2.43%), Crypto.com Coin (+3.58%), and Ripple’s XRP (+2.97%) trailed the front runners, however. In the current week, the crypto total market rose to a Monday high $2,014bn before sliding to a Wednesday low $1,808bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $1,954bn. Bitcoin’s dominance rose to a Tuesday high 42.56% before falling to a Thursday low 41.42%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 42.38%. It was also a mixed month for the majors in September. Crypto.com Coin bucked the trend, rising by 0.52%. It was a bearish month for the rest of the pack, however. Bitcoin Cash SV (-20.69%), Cardano’s ADA (-23.62%), and Ripple’s XRP (-19.64%) led the way down. Chainlink (-10.32%), Binance Coin (-16.53%), Ethereum (-12.53%), and Litecoin (-10.65%) also struggled. Story continues Polkadot saw a modest 1.88% loss, however. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.35% to $43,985.0. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin rise from an early morning low $43,822.2 to a high $43,999.0. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a bullish start to the day. At the time of writing, Crypto.com was up by 2.57% to lead the way. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to avoid the $43,128 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $44,824 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break out from Thursday’s high $44,122.0. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and resistance $45,000 would likely cap the upside. In the event of a broad-based crypto rally, Bitcoin could test resistance at $47,000 levels before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $45,818. A fall through the $43,128 would bring the first major support level at $42,134 into play. Barring another extended sell-off on the day, Bitcoin should steer clear of the second major support level at $40,438. The 38.2% FIB of $41,592 should limit the downside. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: A Busy Economic Calendar Puts the EUR and the Greenback in Focus as the Pound Struggles Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – October 1st, 2021 Crude Oil Price Update – Trader Reaction to $74.54 Sets the Early Tone on Friday E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Vulerable to Steep Break Under 33826 USD/JPY Forex Technical Analysis – Closing Price Reversal Top Confirmed with 110.596 – 110.246 Next Target AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Weak US Dollar Fuels Short-Covering Rally || Bitcoin Investment Outflows Continue for Fifth Consecutive Week: BeInCrypto –
CoinShares released data this past Monday which shows a consistent outflow of Bitcoin investment products and funds.
Accordingto data fromCoinShares, a trusted digital asset manager, investment products and funds related to bitcoin logged outflows for five consecutive weeks. The data comes as industry-changing regulations sit on the desks of regulators in the U.S.
The potential upheaval of industry operations has investors and others functioning within the space skeptical of what is to come.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || Twitter Is Reportedly Testing Tipping In Bitcoin Feature: Twitter Inc.(NYSE:TWTR) is now testing Lightning Network-poweredBitcoin(CRYPTO: BTC) tipping service.
What Happened:According to a MacRumorsreport, Twitter's latest beta update allows to send Bitcoin tips to content creators through a Lightning Network integration in the "Tip Jar" feature added in May. While the option is not yet available to beta users, unused code suggests that the rollout will happen soon.
When the Twitter Tip Jar was first created, it supported Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon,PayPal Holdings Inc.(NASDAQ:PYPL), and Venmo as payment methods linked to their profile — soon, a Bitcoin option is expected to roll out as well.
Why It's Important:The report follows the firm's CEO Jack Dorseystatementto investors in late July that Bitcoin is important to the company and that it was indeed going to be integrated into the Tip Jar.
The code included in the latest Twitter beta update reveals that a dedicated tutorial will guide users interested in using the Bitcoin Lightning Network integration and non-custodial Bitcoin wallets.
Twitter cites Strike, Blue Wallet, and Wallet of Satoshi as examples of custodial wallets and Muun, Breez, Phoenix, and Zap as non-custodial options.
Read Also:Here Is How Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Plans To Expand Bitcoin Trading
The social media giant will use Strike to generate its Lightning payment invoices.
The report follows Dorsey recentlyannouncingthat Square’s new division TBD plans to build a decentralized Bitcoin exchange that will supposedly allow exchanging between the coin and fiat currency with no intermediaries.
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Trader Reaction to .6891 Pivot Sets the Tone on Friday: The New Zealand Dollar is inching lower early Friday after failing to follow-through to the upside following yesterday’s strong performance. The early price action supports the notion that Thursday’s rally was likely fueled by short-covering or end-of-the-month position-squaring rather than aggressive buying. At 05:05 GMT, the NZD/USD is trading .6890, down 0.0008 or -0.12%. A rise in U.S. Weekly Initial Jobless Claims on Thursday helped drive the NZD/USD higher. Later today, traders will get the opportunity to react to two major U.S. releases: Core PCE Price Index and ISM Manufacturing PMI. Both are capable of triggering a volatile response by traders. Core PCE Price Index will be released at 12:30 GMT. It is expected to show inflation rose 0.2% last month. The ISM Manufacturing PMI report, due out at 14:00, is expected to come in at 59.6, slightly below the previously reported 59.9. Daily NZD/USD Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. A trade through .6860 will signal a resumption of the downtrend. A move through .7157 changes the main trend to up. The minor trend is also down. A trade through .7093 will change the minor trend to up. This will also shift momentum to the upside. The nearest resistance is a major Fibonacci level at .6924. This is followed by a short-term 50% level at .6988. Daily Swing Chart Technical Forecast The direction of the NZD/USD on Friday is likely to be determined by trader reaction to .6891. Bearish Scenario A sustained move under .6891 will indicate the presence of sellers. If this move creates enough downside momentum then look for the selling to possibly lead to a retest of .6860. Taking out .6860 could trigger an acceleration into the August 20 main bottom at .6806. Bullish Scenario A sustained move over .6891 will signal the presence of buyers. If this move generates enough upside momentum then look for a surge into .6924, followed by .6947. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: A Busy Economic Calendar Puts the EUR and the Greenback in Focus as the Pound Struggles Bitcoin Moves Higher After Powell’s Comments Silver Price Prediction – Prices Rally as Dollar Eases EUR/USD Daily Forecast – Euro Tries To Rebound Ahead Of The Weekend AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Weak US Dollar Fuels Short-Covering Rally USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – BOJ Struggles with Low Inflation, While High Inflation Plagues Fed || Cybersecurity ETFs' Shifting Fortunes: On Aug. 25, President Biden hosted a meeting with private sector executives to discuss national cybersecurity, referring to the issue as “the core national security challenge we are facing.”
Ransomware attacks have had serious economic effects such as forcing the shutdown of a major U.S. fuel pipeline in May. That particular event disrupted the fuel supply to the East Coast for days, with many gas stations running out of fuel.
The pipeline security breach was far from the first notable story, however. In fact, nearly seven years ago, the breach of film studio Sony Pictures ended up being advantageous for one cybersecurity-focused ETF that had just launched a few weeks prior.
Breaches Benefit AUM
TheETFMG Prime Cyber Security ETF (HACK)was the first ETF on the market to focus on cybersecurity. The ETF launched on Nov. 11, 2014. Less than two weeks later, a hacker group called “Guardians of Peace” leaked confidential info from Sony Pictures. The data included confidential emails, social security numbers and other personal information.
Within its first year of existence, HACK saw net flows of over $1 billion.
Chart courtesy of FactSet
(For a larger view, click on the image above)
A large portion of these flows came from yet another data breach that occurred in early June 2015. If you use the ETF.comETF Fund Flows Tool, you can see that HACK pulled in net inflows as high as $171 million in a single day.
Chart courtesy of FactSet
(For a larger view, click on the image above)
Later in June 2015, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced it had been the target of a data breach involving personnel records related to government employees and their friends and family. It was one of the largest breaches of government data in U.S. history.
In its first year of trading, HACK only outperformed theSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)by 0.8%. However, HACK had been outperforming SPY by as much as 28.4% in June 2015.
Chart courtesy ofStockCharts.com
First Trust Enters The Fray
Not long after the OPM breach came to light, theFirst Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR)came to market. This fund has since become the largest cybersecurity ETF, with $4.8 billion in assets under management as compared to $2.4 billion for HACK.
Though several other entrants have since launched ETFs focused on thecybersecurity space, HACK and CIBR are the only two that hold more than $1 billion in assets.
When it comes to cost, neither of these ETFs holds an edge, with both carrying an expense ratio of 0.60%. CIBR is about twice as big, but its average daily volume is nearly 3x that of HACK, leading to a tighter average spread.
Chart courtesy of FactSet
(For a larger view, click on the image above)
Comparing Construction
CIBR is a more concentrated portfolio than HACK, with fewer holdings and a more significant concentration in the top 10. Between the two portfolios, five names show up as top holdings in both CIBR and HACK.
Chart courtesy of FactSet
(For a larger view, click on the image above)
Performance between these two ETFs has mainly tracked in line over the trailing three years until recently, when CIBR has started to pull away.
Chart courtesy ofStockCharts.com
In particular, CIBR’s concentration in a few names has helped boost recent performance over that of HACK. The largest holding, Zscaler., has risen by 95% over the trailing year, while CrowdStrike, its second largest holding, is up 142% over the same time frame. Both names are also held within HACK’s portfolio, but at smaller weights.
Legal Issues At Play
Though performance could be the reason for CIBR’s place at the top of the field, legal issues have befallen HACK over the last several years.
In December 2019, ETF Managers Group was ordered to pay $80 million to Nasdaq in a dispute over control of several ETFs, including HACK. The judgment was the culmination of a years-long battle over who was entitled to the profits from these ETFs.
In May 2020, Nasdaq and ETF Managers Group announced plans to settle their dispute over these funds. The two entities agreed that ETFMG would no longer maintain control over the funds. The funds would be reorganized under Exchange Traded Concepts, pending shareholder approval. (Read: Nasdaq Settles ETF Legal Fight Over ‘HACK’)
As of the writing of this article, ETF Managers Group still retains control over the HACK ETF, likely due to not enough shareholders having cast their votes on the reorganization.
Launching just prior to a data breach was a lucky break for HACK, but the prolonged legal battle has helped give CIBR the upper hand for now.
Contact Jessica Ferringer atjessica.ferringer@etf.comor follow her onTwitter
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Permalink| © Copyright 2021ETF.com.All rights reserved || Binance Coin (BNB): Why It’s So Interesting to the Cryptocurrency World: Cryptocurrency is red hot, but if you’re looking to get in on the action, you can’t buy it on the stock market through a standard brokerage account like you would with anindex fund or a share of Amazon. Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is traded on special exchanges like Etoro, CoinBase and BlockFi. The biggest exchange in the world by far is called Binance. It’s so big, in fact, that a “native” cryptocurrency called Binance Coin was developed just to make it easier to pay for the site’s services.
Read:Bitcoin Cash (BCH): How’s It Differ From Bitcoin and What’s It Worth?More:What Are Altcoins — and Are the Potential Rewards Worth the Risks?
If you’re not familiar withcrypto exchanges, the following numbers might not mean much to you, but the 1.4 million transactions that are executed on Binance every second and the site’s 2 billion in average daily volume are truly astounding statistics. Exchanges takefeesfor executing crypto transactions, and part of the reason Binance is so popular is that its transaction fees are among the lowest in the world. Users pay just 0.1% to execute each of those billions of trades.
The Economy and Your Money:All You Need To Know
Binance reduces those already-low trading fees by a full 50% if you pay for them using the exchange’s native cryptocurrency, Binance Coin (BNB).That means that instead of paying 10 cents on a $100 transaction, you’d pay only 5 cents if you complete the transaction using BNB.
An Ethereum-based (ERC-20) token, BNB hit the market on July 21, 2017, when Binance made its initial coin offering (ICO) of 100 million BNB tokens. It eventually moved to its own unique blockchain called Binance Chain and limited the BNB supply to 200 million tokens in total.
See:Ethereum (ETH): What It Is, What It’s Worth and Should You Be Investing?
In review, BNB is the native app for Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. It was designed specifically for use in the Binance ecosystem, which offers juicy rebates to incentivize its use — but there’s more to Binance Coin than just the trading discount. According to CoinJournal, BNB:
• Provides lightning-fast transactions
• Can be used to buy and sell a huge variety of cryptocurrencies
• Is safe and secure
• Is accepted as currency by some service providers, mostly in the hospitality/travel industry
Find Out:What Is Chainlink and Why Is It Important in the World of Cryptocurrency?
On April 6, Forbes reported that the cryptocurrency market had topped $2 trillion in value. It was a huge moment for crypto, and Forbes cited BNB specifically as one of the smaller altcoins (Bitcoin alternatives) that are driving so much of that incredible growth.
But investors looking for a quick buck should tread lightly.
Beyond the crypto bubble, BNB is not yet widely accepted as currency outside the travel, accommodations and entertainment industries, although some investment platforms let you use it to buy mainstream securities. It’s just as trustworthy as non-native crypto, but it’s not as anonymous since Binance traders must have registered accounts. In the end, it’s another altcoin that you can invest in if you choose, but like all crypto investments, expect a wild ride with ecstatic highs, terrifying drops andlots of drama in between. That, after all, has been the story of crypto investing so far.
This article is part of GOBankingRates’ ‘Economy Explained’ series to help readers navigate the complexities of our financial system.
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Last updated: April 9, 2021
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Binance Coin (BNB): Why It’s So Interesting to the Cryptocurrency World || Bitcoin is on the cusp of a bull market that could run into the end of the year, even with this week's meltdown: Kraken: • Bitcoin appears to "be back in a bull market" despite this week's sell-off, according to a Kraken report Tuesday.
• Futures open interest and other measures of activity have picked up but are well below the highs of April.
• Weekly fund flows, Google searches and Reddit data suggest there's scope for interest to pick up.
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
Bitcoin has skidded to its lowest in around a month this week, after El Salvador's adoption of the cryptocurrency as legal tender unleashed a tidal wave of forced selling, but trading exchange Kraken said there's another bull run in the making.
In a researchreporton Tuesday, Kraken noted that investor interest has picked up over the summer, but is well below the peaks seen earlier this year, while interest from the retail community also has scope to improve.
Bitcoin plummeted by as much as 20% over Monday and Tuesday this week, briefly falling below $43,000 at one point for the first time in around a month, after El Salvador made the coin legal tender, prompting a "buy the rumor, sell the news" effort to take profit among traders that snowballed into mass liquidation across various exchanges.
But this does not change the optimistic outlook, according to Pete Humiston, manager at Kraken Intelligence.
"While these moves look dramatic, they can be a sign of a healthy market. Because many market participants use derivatives to speculate on price, market leverage can get to a point where it needs to self-correct and reset. This results in a sudden jump in market volatility, much like the one we saw yesterday," Humiston told Insider.
Bitcoin lost roughly 50% in value over the early part of the summer, but rallied steadily throughout July and August. "Signs suggest overall market interest has yet to return to the levels seen in April/May, when BTC and altcoins were setting new all-time highs," the report said.
Open interest for bitcoin futures rose $10 billion in August to reach $33.2 billion, but it has "not yet returned to the market in the size we saw in April," the report said, suggesting there was room for derivatives investors to come back into the market.
The report noted that there is room for an upswing in buying from institutional investors. For example, bitcoin-backed products logged eight straightweeksof outflows from crypto funds until last week, when they saw their first inflows, according to data from CoinShares.
"Assuming the market remains in an uptrend, we could see a resurgence in institutional demand that could fuel the market to all-time highs," the report said.
Retail investors have also shown less appetite for bitcoin lately. There has been a reduction in the numbers of Google searches and subreddit subscriptions, which has left overall interest below where it was in the second quarter, when bitcoin and ethereum's ether hit record highs, the Kraken report said.
"All things considered, one could argue that while we've seen the market post generous returns, interest has yet to return to 'mania' like levels, and interest in the market is starting to pick up again. That said we ought to brace for a surge in demand as we head into the year-end," the report said.
Kraken is the 5th biggest exchange by volume according toCoinGecko.
Read the original article onBusiness Insider || Bitcoin is barter, not money, Mexico central bank chief says: MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Bitcoin is more like a means of barter than "evolved" fiat money, Mexico's central back chief said on Thursday, calling it a high-risk investment and a poor store of value. Bank of Mexico Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon's comments suggest Mexico will not be following El Salvador any time soon in adopting the digital currency as parallel legal tender. "Whoever receives bitcoin in exchange for a good or service, we believe that (transaction) is more akin to bartering because that person is exchanging a good for a good, but not really money for a good," said Diaz de Leon. "In our times, money has evolved to be fiat money issued by central banks," he said. "Bitcoin is more like a dimension of precious metals than daily legal tender." The Banxico boss argued that in order for a cryptocurrency to be considered money it must be a reliable payment method. He added that bitcoin would also need to safeguard its value. Diaz de Leon pointed out that the value of cryptocurrencies have often swung wildly in a single day. "People will not want their purchasing power, their salary to go up or down 10% from one day to another. You don't want that volatility for purchasing power. In that sense, it is not a good safeguard of value," he said. The unprecedented adoption of bitcoin earlier this week as legal tender by El Salvador has been beset by problems that have contributed to a rout in the value of the digital currency globally. Bitcoin has been notoriously volatile. In April it rose to over $64,000 and fell almost as low as $30,000 in May. It last traded up 2.44% at $47,179.04. (Reporting by Anthony Esposito; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Frank Jack Daniel)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 55361.45, 53805.98, 53967.85, 54968.22, 54771.58, 57484.79, 56041.06, 57401.10, 57321.52, 61593.95
|
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 2022-08-18]
BTC Price: 23212.74, BTC RSI: 48.98
Gold Price: 1755.30, Gold RSI: 45.14
Oil Price: 90.50, Oil RSI: 43.30
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
4 Best European Stocks to Buy Now: There’s more to Europe than history, travel and food. The continent is home to many of the world’s leading companies, some of which dominate their respective sector. While investors might know the names of the best European stocks, chances are they do not know the breadth and impact of manyEuropean-based companies, or the benefits of owning their shares.
Holding shares of major European concerns can help to diversify a portfolio and lessen the reliance on U.S.-based stocks. This diversification can be helpful during a market downturn such as the one we are experiencing this year, with both theS&P 500andNasdaq compositein a bear market. Many European stocks also have a solid record of delivering decent returns to investors, along with favorable dividends.
• The 7 Best Tech Dividend Stocks to Buy Right Now
And, perhaps best of all, manyEuropean stocks are undervalued, presenting an attractive buying opportunity. Here are four of the best European stocks to buy now.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
[{"Ticker": "VWAGY", "Company": "Volkswagen AG", "Current Price": "$18.45"}, {"Ticker": "SAP", "Company": "SAP SE", "Current Price": "$88.00"}, {"Ticker": "NSRGY", "Company": "Nestl\u00e9 S.A.", "Current Price": "$117.56"}, {"Ticker": "EADSY", "Company": "Airbus SE", "Current Price": "$26.02"}]
Source: multitel / Shutterstock.com
German automakerVolkswagen(OTCMKTS:VWAGY) is well-known throughout the world. However, while investors might be familiar with the “VW” logo, many do not known the size and scope of Volkswagen today. The company based in Wolfsburg, Germany is a lot more today than its Jetta and Passat vehicles. The modern Volkswagen is a multinational automotive powerhouse that owns many of the top vehicle brands in the world, including Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Ducati. It is thesecond-biggest automakerin the world afterToyota(NYSE:TM).
Volkswagen is also the leader in Europe when it comes to pushing into electric vehicles. The company just announced that it isinvesting $20 billionto build its own electric vehicle batteries. In total, Volkswagen isspending $84 billionto bring 300 electric vehicle models to market by 2030 across all of its automotive brands. The company is aiming to take on all comers in the electric vehicle space, fromTesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) toFord Motor Co.(NYSE:F). And the company seems to have the resources and resolve to pull it off. Year to date, Volkswagen stock is down 36%.
Source: Tada Images / Shutterstock.com
Investors looking for a strong European technology company shouldcheck outSAP(NYSE:SAP). Based in Waldorf, Germany, SAP is the biggest non-American software company, the world’s fourth-largest publicly traded software company, and the second-largest German company by market capitalization. With more than 100,000 employees and annual revenues of $28 billion, SAP is a leader in the European technology sector and offers investors a stable foreign holding for their portfolio.
In the past decade, SAP stock has delivered a 72% return to shareholders. However, the company’s track record has been less impressive during the last five years when it hasdeclined 16%. Despite the weak performance, the stock looks to be slightly undervalued right now with a price-earnings ratio of 20.8. Shareholders also benefit from a reliable dividend that currently yields 2.3%, or a quarterly payout of 52 cents per share.
Themedian price targeton SAP stock is currently $127 a share, implying 44% upside from current levels.
Source: Ken Wolter / Shutterstock
Based in Switzerland,Nestle(OTCMKTS:NSRGY) is the biggest food company in the world. The conglomerate makes everything from baby formula and bottled water to candy and pet food. Some of itsbest-known brandsinclude Smarties, Nesquik, Vittel and Nespresso. Nestle is also a major shareholder of L’Oreal, the world’s biggest cosmetics company. Nestle has been a going concern since 1905 and is one of the top-performing companies in all of Europe, with more than 275,000 employees and annual revenues of nearly $90 billion.
NESN stock is down about 16% so far this year, but over the past five years, the stock has gained 35%, and it has doubled in the last decade. The company has a relatively low P/E ratio of 19 and provides a dividend that yields 2.5%, which is good for a quarterly payment of 72 cents a share. Theconsensus view of analystsis for Nestle’s share price to gain 14% over the next 12 months.
Source: Shutterstock
There are only two companies in the world that make commercial airplanes. One of them is U.S.-basedBoeing(NYSE:BA), and the other is Europe’sAirbus(OTCMKTS:EADSY). Together, Boeing and Airbus have aduopoly over commercial aircraft manufacturing. However, Airbus, which is based in Leiden, Netherlands, has not had to contend with the faulty manufacturing, deadly crashes, and government sanctions that have plagued Boeing in recent years. Owing to Boeing’s diminished fortunes, Airbus surpassed it in 2019 to become the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer with more than 125,000 employees and annual revenues in excess of $50 billion.
Airbus continues to thrive, having secured major orders from multiple airlines and governments around the world coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic. The European aerospace giant recently secured an order for 300 of its Airbus jets fromChina’s big three state-owned airlines– Air China, China Southern Airlines, and China Eastern Airlines. Together, the three Chinese airlines will pay Airbus more than $25 billion for the aircraft order. As is always the case, Airbus beat out Boeing to win the Chinese jet contract. Currently, Airbus stock has a relatively low P/E ratio of 15.5 and offers a dividend that yields 1.5%.
So far this year, AIR stock has dropped 18%. However, the company’s share price is up nearly 30% over the past five years. Theconsensus view among 17 analystswho cover Airbus is that it share price should increase 62% over the next 12 months.
On the date of publication, Joel Bagloledid not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
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The post4 Best European Stocks to Buy Nowappeared first onInvestorPlace. || REFILE-GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks rise as calm returns after heavy selloff: (Fixes typo in second paragraph.) By Selena Li HONG KONG, June 21 (Reuters) - Stocks rose and the safe-haven dollar edged down on Tuesday as investors paused for breath after a steep selloff, but concerns remain about aggressive central bank interest rate hikes and risks of a global recession. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.3%, edging up from a more than five-week low and set for its best day in around two weeks. Japan's benchmark Nikkei average gained 2.22%. Gains were broadbased, but Chinese tech names were among the leaders with Hong Kong-listed firms up 1.9%. European shares were also set to extend the previous day's gains with EUROSTOXX 50 futures up 0.6% and FTSE futures gaining 0.5%. U.S. markets, which were closed on Monday for a holiday, looked set for a bigger pop at the open with S&P 500 e-mini share futures 1.63% higher and Nasdaq e-mini share futures advancing 1.76%. Nonetheless, some investors see the current bounce as short-lived. "I think the green that we're seeing this morning is not necessarily a function that people are moving back in towards risk assets," said Kerry Craig, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. "It's just the normal behavior on the very large selloff to get some reprieve and breathing space come through because fundamentally, nothing has changed on the macro front last week." Central banks around the world are looking to raise interest rates aggressively to curb rising inflation, a sentiment underscored on Tuesday by Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor Philip Lowe, who pointed in a speech to further rate hikes. "As we chart our way back to 2 to 3% inflation, Australians should be prepared for more interest rate increases," Lowe warned. "The level of interest rates is still very low for an economy with low unemployment and that is experiencing high inflation." Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index climbed 1.45% and the Aussie dollar was little changed. Story continues Continuing the central bank theme, two Federal Reserve policy makers are due to speak later in the day, as are two speakers from the Bank of England, with traders watching their remarks closely for clues about the interest rate trajectory. In currency markets, the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, edged down a little in line with the improved risk sentiment to 104.37, as the dollar lost a modicum of ground on the euro "However, the risk rally should prove to be short-lived as major central banks maintained their hawkish tone," said Ken Cheung, chief Asian FX strategist at Mizuho in a note. The Japanese yen remained under pressure at 135.1 yen per dollar, not far off a 24-year low of 135.58 yen hit early last week. In bond markets, the yield on U.S. benchmark 10-year treasury notes was 3.2825%, up from last Friday's close of 3.2313. Last week's peak of 3.495% was the 10-year yield's highest since 2011 and came the same day the Fed raised interest rates by a massive 75 basis points. Oil prices swung higher with traders focusing on tight supplies over slowing global economic growth. U.S. crude rose 1.79% to $111.52 per barrel and Brent was at $115.47, up 1.17% on the day. The United States is in talks with Canada and other allies globally to further restrict Moscow's energy revenue by imposing a price cap on Russian oil without causing spillover effects to low-income countries, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday. Spot gold traded nearly flat at $1,838.41 an ounce. Bitcoin was at $20,629 having failed to break strongly above or below the psychologically significant $20,000 level in recent days. (Reporting by Selena Li; Editing by Richard Pullin and Sam Holmes) || Top Cryptocurrency Exchange Bybit Partners With Electronic Trading Pioneer Actant: Victoria, Seychelles--(Newsfile Corp. - July 18, 2022) - Bybit, the only cryptocurrency exchange to offer USDC options, has partnered with trading solutions provider Actant to provide first-in-class trading tools for professional traders.
Bybit, which has one of the largest BTC futures open interest, is now fully integrated with Actant, bringing a full range of tools for risk, trading, automation, and quoting to the cryptocurrency exchange.
Actant provides trading solutions for financial firms, including proprietary trading and market making firms, investment banks, and hedge funds trading on the world's major derivatives and stock exchanges. Building a strong partnership with Bybit allows Actant users to trade and clear on Bybit.
The full range of Actant tools for risk, trading, automation, and quoting are now available for trading on Bybit's extensive derivatives platform. Bybit covers futures, perpetuals, and has recently introduced stablecoin-margined options contracts, which allows traders access to crypto options using USDC, without the need to buy/own the underlying crypto asset.
Traders on Bybit can take advantage of the platform's margin and unified account system, which lowers margin requirements on hedged positions. This means traders can deploy profits from winning positions to offset the losses of losing positions in the same portfolio. Additionally, with Bybit's industry-leading liquidation protocol and world-class security, traders can be assured of safety and fairness across all Bybit trades, every step of the way.
"Actant is excited to have the opportunity to add and spotlight Bybit as part of our crypto destination offering," said Dan Sacks, CEO of Actant. "Actant is committed to rapidly expanding support of the crypto space, but remains selective in its investments. Bybit's innovation, leadership, and success accelerated our commitment to this integration. We look forward to enabling our mutual clients to unlock the full potential of Bybit with Actant's algorithmic quoting, and ExStream automated trading and hedging."
"I'm confident this partnership will benefit both our institutional and retail clients," said Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit. "Actant, as an industry leader, is a natural fit for Bybit, and we are excited to combine their institutional-grade tools with our deep liquidity and ultra-fast 100K TPS matching engine. This partnership will allow users of both our platforms to benefit from the exponential growth of the crypto derivatives market, and strengthen both parties' positions as market leaders."
//ENDS
About Bybit
Bybit is a cryptocurrency exchange established in March 2018 that offers a professional platform where crypto traders can find an ultra-fast matching engine, excellent customer service and multilingual community support. Bybit is a proud partner of Formula One racing team, Oracle Red Bull Racing, esports teams NAVI, Astralis, Alliance, Virtus.pro, Made in Brazil (MIBR) and Oracle Red Bull Racing Esports, and association football (soccer) teams Borussia Dortmund and Avispa Fukuoka.
For media inquiries, please contact:press@bybit.com
For more information please visit:https://www.bybit.com/
Contact:MarketAcross PRpr@marketacross.com
To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/131125 || 7 Monthly Dividend Stocks to Buy in August 2022: Passive income is an integral part of a holistic investment portfolio, yet frequency issues tend to pop up with most equities, thereby incentivizing the bullish case for monthly dividend stocks. You see, most companies that offer dividends pay out on a quarterly basis. However, if you’re at least partially depending on this cash flow, your portfolio could get “lumpy” with traditional dividend payers. On the other hand, monthly dividend stocks operate on the frequency of everyday life. For instance, your rent or mortgage statements are almost always charged on a monthly basis. So are your utility bills, telecommunication services, content streaming platforms and other recurring expenses. By having cash come in every 30 days or so, your bookkeeping can be smoothed out. Further, there’s also the concept of faster compounding. With monthly dividend stocks, you can take the payouts and invest them into the same underlying or different equities. Further, by not having to wait every quarter, market participants can react to near-term developments. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips 7 Blue-Chip Stocks to Buy Before the Bull Market Returns Finally, many of the companies providing frequent payouts feature relevant businesses. Therefore, take advantage of these monthly dividend stocks to buy in August. Ticker Company Current Price STAG Stag Industrial $32.46 LTC LTC Properties $42.60 MAIN Main Street Capital $44.85 ADC Agree Realty Corp $78.49 GWRS Global Water Resources $13.26 LAND Gladstone Land $26.28 PVL Permianville Royalty Trust $3.39 Stag Industrial (STAG) stocks to buy: warehouse interior with shelves, pallets and boxes D Source: Don Pablo / Shutterstock.com Structured as a real-estate investment trust ( REIT ), Stag Industrial (NYSE: STAG ) focuses on the acquisition and operation of industrial properties throughout the U.S. In total, Stag has a footprint that expands to 40 states, broken down into 551 buildings. Per its website, the company features an enterprise value of $9.9 billion. Arguably the most compelling feature of Stag Industrial is that its properties are tied to the burgeoning e-commerce sector. During the catastrophe that was the coronavirus pandemic, multiple non-essential businesses were temporarily shut down. However, commerce kept moving forward thanks to online retail. Stag is one of the background players in the sector, providing an important cog in the wider supply chain network. To be fair, the share of e-commerce sales relative to all retail sales has declined since its peak in the second quarter of 2020. Still, the industry itself commands great promise once the global economy eventually normalizes, making STAG an excellent idea among monthly dividend stocks. Story continues LTC Properties (LTC) A group of senior people having lunch together in a retirement home, LTC Properties operates senior housing and living facilities Source: Juice Flair / Shutterstock.com Although the sudden rise in the equities sector following the spring doldrums of 2020 caught many folks by surprise, those who excessively ran with the optimistic wave are probably regretting it. Unfortunately, the capital markets are not linear-growth platforms. They ebb and flow like many other events in life, meaning that the exuberance had to be corrected. However, with LTC Properties (NYSE: LTC ), investors have on their hands one of the monthly dividend stocks that’s still playing in the early innings. As a specialist in the senior care and nursing industries, LTC Properties enjoys an incredibly powerful demographic catalyst: The massive number of baby boomers entering retirement age. 7 Stocks to Buy on the Dip Up until 2019, baby boomers were the largest living adult demographic in the U.S. until they were overtaken by the millennials. However, with improvements in healthcare, baby boomers are retiring and living longer than ever. That’s going to likely lift LTC, making it one of the monthly dividend stocks to put on your must-watch list. Main Street Capital (MAIN) Source: Shutterstock A little bit on the risky side, adventurous investors of monthly dividend stocks should take a look at Main Street Capital (NYSE: MAIN ). A business development company (or BDC), Main Street provides debt and equity capital to middle-market firms. It’s an important function as many enterprises that require BDC services find themselves in an awkward position. On one hand, they’re too big to qualify for certain programs geared toward small businesses. Further, the solutions available might not be adequate for the target company’s ambitions. On the other hand, many middle-market firms are not big enough to justify an initial public offering (or IPO). Therefore, a BDC like Main Street is the bridge between these two business phases. A key advantage of investing in BDCs is that they usually pay sizable yields, which is the case for MAIN. As one of the monthly dividend stocks, the regularity of frequency helps significantly. However, they can be higher risk opportunities, particularly if interest rates spike too much. Agree Realty Corp (ADC) Agree Realty Corporation (ADC) logo visible on display screen. Source: Pavel Kapysh / Shutterstock.com Featuring an investment portfolio of real estate leased out to some of the biggest names in the retail industry, Agree Realty Corp (NYSE: ADC ) is among the monthly dividend stocks to consider buying and holding for the long haul. Admittedly, the current inflationary environment is a doozy of a headwind for both investors and households. Still, you must keep the bigger picture in mind. With Agree Realty, the clients include the titans of industry. We’re talking names like Walmart (NYSE: WMT ), CVS Health (NYSE: CVS ) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY ), among many other immediately recognizable brands. So unless you envision that we’re entering an unprecedented depression, it’s reasonably safe to say that ADC will remain relevant for years to come. 7 Dividend Stocks to Buy Before the Bull Market Returns As well, the company is more of an investment into retail as a sector rather than a specific retail company. With many ways for the economy to go, it’s desirable to navigate with a wide canvas, which is exactly what ADC provides. Global Water Resources (GWRS) A photo of water being poured into a glass that's sitting on a table. Source: HQuality/ShutterStock.com While Global Water Resources (NASDAQ: GWRS ) hasn’t had the best start to the first half of this year, the second half onward could be a different story. First, I think the technical profile of the water-resource management firm is significant. Looking at its “lifetime” price chart, GWRS stock appears to be charting a series of higher lows. Therefore, the steep losses that it incurred since the late summer of last year could offer a long-term discount. Fundamentally, the company is immensely relevant because anything related to water management is becoming extremely critical. Obviously, it’s one of the few precious resources that we can’t live without. Moreover, as the World Wildlife Fund stated, “ some 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water , and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year.” Like the final services industry, Global Water Resources’ underlying narrative is inherently viable. Thus, it makes for a solid bet among monthly dividend stocks to buy. Gladstone Land (LAND) a tractor cultivating a farm from an aerial view Source: Shutterstock Speaking about relevant services, Gladstone Land (NASDAQ: LAND ) is another enterprise to consider for inherently viable monthly dividend stocks. As a real-estate company focused on high-quality farms and farm-related properties, Gladstone Land is essentially tied to our national security. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, Time reported that American farmers were in crisis , particularly with farm debt soaring. Gladstone may be able to mitigate some of the pressure affecting the broader agricultural industry through its three-pronged business model. First, it offers long-term sale leaseback transactions, allowing farmers to improve their operations. Second, Gladstone rents out land to farmers with flexible lease terms. Third, the company also purchases land outright, finding new farmers (if needed) to operate the property. 7 Nasdaq Stocks to Buy on the Dip Although Gladstone is extraordinarily relevant for our times, there are factors to consider. For one thing, LAND stock has been wild since the fourth quarter of 2021, with searing highs and lows. Also, it doesn’t offer the highest yield. Still, for the importance to our security, LAND is hard to beat. Permianville Royalty Trust (PVL) Environmental protection, renewable, sustainable energy sources. Plant growing in the bulb concept Source: Proxima Studio / Shutterstock.com Ending this list of monthly dividend stocks is Permianville Royalty Trust (NYSE: PVL ), arguably the riskiest name here. As per its name, Permianville is structured as a royalty trust, which is a special-purpose financing vehicle that allows investors to benefit from the income generated in energy-related ventures. Essentially, companies like Permianville distribute monthly cash distributions based on royalties paid by those firms in the prior month. However, what you must keep in mind is that this business structure represents a pass-through entity, meaning that income and expenses are passed through to unitholders, with the expectation that unitholders will pay federal income taxes. It’s a complicated affair, meaning that most folks will instead take a pass on the pass through. However, PVL is intriguing because like most other royalty trusts, it features a very generous dividend yield. In this case, we’re talking about 8.1%. Combined with Permianville’s oil and natural gas business, at least some investors might be interested in taking another look at PVL. Editor’s note: This article is regularly updated with the latest information. On the date of publication, Josh Enomoto did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . 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 7 Monthly Dividend Stocks to Buy in August 2022 appeared first on InvestorPlace . View comments || First Mover Asia: Bitcoin and Ether Fall; Angry That Hodlnaut Has Frozen Your Funds? Too Bad, It’s in the Terms and Conditions: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening:
Prices:Bitcoin falls below $24K before recovering slightly; ether is down.
Insights:Crypto savings platform Hodlnaut angered users by freezing withdrawals, but the law may be on the company's side if there's ever a court case.
Catch the latest episodes ofCoinDesk TVfor insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. Andsign up for First Mover, our daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context.
●Bitcoin (BTC): $24,141−1.0%
●Ether (ETH): $1,898−2.7%
●S&P 500 daily close: 4,297.14+0.4%
●Gold: $1,794 per troy ounce−0.3%
●Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 2.79%−0.06
Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found atcoindesk.com/indices.
Bitcoin Falls Below $24K Before Recovering Slightly; Ether Drops
By James Rubin
Bitcoin seemed headed for a bright start to the week, topping $25,000 late Sunday (U.S. time) after flirting with the psychologically important threshold multiple times in previous days.
But the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization quickly retreated and was recently trading just over $24,000, down almost a percentage point over the last 24 hours, albeit still above the top part of the $20,000 to $24,000 range it's occupied for over a month. Investors remain in wait-and-see mode following weeks of sometimes hopeful and other times confounding economic indicators and company earnings.
"It seems the cryptocurrency, like many other instruments, is testing a potentially significant barrier following the recent recovery and we may be seeing some profit-taking," Craig Erlam, senior market analyst, U.K. and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) for foreign exchange Oanda, wrote in an email. "Whether that becomes a full rotation lower isn't clear yet but it doesn't appear to have the momentum for a breakout at this time.
Ether followed a similar pattern, rising to over $2,000 late Sunday before falling below $1,900. The second-largest crypto by market cap was recently down roughly 2.5% from the previous day, although well above levels earlier this summer amid growing investor enthusiasm for The Merge, which will change the Ethereum protocol from proof-of-work to the faster, more energy efficient proof-of-stake model. Two of Sunday's big winners, the popular meme coins SHIB and DOGE, were losers a day later, recently plunging more than 9% and 7%, respectively. MATIC tumbled more than 5%.
Equities trade sideways
Stocks fared somewhat better than major cryptos, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq and S&P 500 increasing 0.6% and 0.4%, respectively, amid ongoing hope that inflation has peaked and the U.S. Federal Reserve may be able to back off some of its current monetary hawkishness. But commodity prices declined after a number of indicators showed slowing growth in China. The price of Brent crude oil, a widely regarded measure of the energy market, dropped over 3% to about $95 per barrel.
"The economic data from China overnight was very disappointing, to put it mildly," Erlam wrote. "Combined with the lending figures on Friday, it does not paint a good picture of domestic demand or the growth outlook."
Crypto news
A scotched deal between cryptocurrency custody company BitGo and crypto-focused financial services firm Galaxy Digital highlighted Monday's industry news. Earlier in the day, Galaxy Digital, the creation of noted investor Michael Novogratz, said it was abandoning its plan to purchase BitGo because the latter had failed to provide financial statements by an end-of-July deadline. The companies had first announced the deal in May 2021 for what was at the time about $1.2 billion in stock and cash.
Later Monday, BitGo said it wasplanning to sueGalaxy Digital for backing out of the merger agreement, and will seek $100 million in damages from Galaxy, the amount of a previously promised break-up fee.
The Federal Reserve announced it was publishing its final guidance for novel financial institutions to access its "master accounts," something these firms need to participate in the global payment system. The announcement would seemingly move the U.S. central bank one step closer to possibly allowing Wyoming trust companies, like Custodia and Kraken Bank, access to these accounts.
European digital bank Revolut has beengrantedauthorization by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, allowing it to offer crypto services across the European Economic Area. The authorization will enable Revolut to offer crypto services to its 17 million customers.
AndSingapore's High Courtgranted beleaguered crypto exchange Zipmex more than three months of creditor protection so that Zipmex can devise a funding plan,Bloomberg Newsreported.
Decoupling from macro events?
Arca Chief Investment Officer Jeff Dorman optimistically noted evidence of a decoupling between crypto prices and macroeconomic events. "The coincidental timing of idiosyncratic digital asset events (LUNA/UST, defaults/bankruptcies, ETH 2.0 Merge) and macro events (peak inflation, commodities rolling over, bad economic data leading to 'bad news = good news') makes it difficult to prove the decoupling," Dorman wrote in a Monday newsletter. "But if you look elsewhere in digital assets, there has been massive dispersion in digital asset prices since mid-June."
He added: "All the market leaders that released big news/partnerships/tokenomics changes ultimately rallied the most (UNI, DYDX, LDO, ETH, CRV, AAVE, MATIC, CHZ, etc.). This is a very encouraging sign that digital assets are once again trading on their own information flows rather than being 100% tied to macro events."
There are no gainers in CoinDesk 20 today.
[{"Asset": "Shiba Inu", "Ticker": "SHIB", "Returns": "\u22129.8%", "DACS Sector": "Currency"}, {"Asset": "Gala", "Ticker": "GALA", "Returns": "\u22126.5%", "DACS Sector": "Entertainment"}, {"Asset": "Terra", "Ticker": "LUNA", "Returns": "\u22126.2%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}]
Angry That Hodlnaut Has Frozen Your Funds? Too Bad, It’s in the Terms and Conditions
Earlier this month, Singapore-based crypto savings platform Hodlnautfroze withdrawalsand token swaps citing “difficult market conditions.”
Naturally, its user base was aghast and the legal threats came in fast and furious over Twitter. At the time, Holdnaut was applying for a license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (it has since withdrawn the application), and surely this isn’t the type of behavior becoming of a licensed institution.
Except this is all laid out in the terms and conditions, and Singapore courts may favor upholding this contractual agreement.
“The standard terms and conditions of the crypto lenders will usually provide it with a broad and absolute discretion to suspend all, or any part, of its services to its customers,” Yuankai Lin, partner at RPC Premier Law Singapore told CoinDesk via email. “In Hodlnaut's case, it did have a contractual right under its standard Terms and Conditions to ‘suspend or terminate the Service or any part of the Service, at its discretion and without prior notice to the User.’”
Lin said that, like any other digital service, the user would need to indicate their acceptance to open an account and this agreement would be binding on them.
As for any legal challenge, this might not go anywhere. Lin said this has been tried before in the TradFi world, and the courts have ruled on the side of the institution.
“The Singapore courts will generally recognize and uphold contractual terms giving the bank absolute discretion in relation to certain acts, provided that the bank exercises this discretion in good faith and not arbitrarily or irrationally. Any party seeking to challenge the bank's act will essentially have to prove the bank had abused its discretion,” he said to CoinDesk.
Lin said that while there have not been any reported decisions in Singapore on crypto lenders specifically exercising their discretion to freeze funds, he expects the same framework of discretion from TradFi to be applied.
As of now, MAS has been focused on regulating crypto from an anti-money laundering and combating terror financing perspective.
“MAS has stated that it will look towards widening the scope of cryptocurrency regulations in Singapore to cover more areas such as consumer protection, market conduct, and reserve backing for stablecoins,” Lin told CoinDesk.
Without a license from MAS, Holdnaut won’t be able to offer token swap services. It can however still offer lending and borrowing services for cryptocurrency-related transactions, Lin explained, as it is not an activity currently regulated by the MAS.
Holdnaut has not applied for bankruptcy protection unlike other CeFi lenders Celsius Network and Voyager Digital. The company has previously announced that it has "no exposure or loans" with Three Arrows Capital or Celsius.
Per previous CoinDesk reporting the lender is working with Singapore-based law firm Damodara Ong on a timeline for a plan to preserve user assets.
Hodlnaut hassaid on Twitterthat it plans to provide another update to users on August 19.
9:30 a.m. HKT/SGT(1:30 a.m. UTC):Reserve Bank of Australia monetary policy minutes
12:30 p.m. HKT/SGT(4:30 a.m. UTC):Japan tertiary industry index(MoM/June)
5 p.m. HKT/SGT(9 a.m. UTC):Eurostat trade balance n.s.a.(June)
In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of"First Mover"onCoinDesk TV:
Bitcoin (BTC) briefly tops $25,000 for the first time since June. Brent Xu, Umee Founder and CEO, joined "First Mover" to discuss. Plus, Monero’s privacy-focused crypto protocol upgrade is now live. And Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon broke his silence about Terra's collapse.
Crypto Lender Celsius On Pace to Run Out of Cash by October:The firm, which filed for bankruptcy protection in July, is also short of $2.8 billion in crypto assets, the court filing reveals.
Acala’s Stablecoin Falls 99 Percent After Hackers Issue 1.3 Billion Tokens:A bug in the protocol’s newly-deployed iBTC-aUSD liquidity pool left the door wide open for hackers to exploit.
Netherlands Arrests Suspected Developer of Sanctioned Crypto-Mixing Service Tornado Cash:The country's Fiscal Information and Investigation Service hasn't ruled out making more arrests.
JPMorgan: Ethereum Miners Face an Abrupt Change Following the Merge:Ethereum Classic miners are likely to be among the main beneficiaries of the shift to proof-of-stake validation, the bank said.
An Alleged Tornado Cash Developer Was Arrested. Are You Next?:If you’re developing a crypto mixer, it’s best to do it anonymously.
Other voices:Crypto Evangelist Mark Cuban Is in Trouble(TheStreet)
"Blockchain founders need to return to the space’s roots of decentralization, while using “DeFi” as a guiding ethos to introduce smart contracts and new incentive structures into legacy industries." (Unchained founder Matt Waters/CoinDesk) || Morning Crypto Briefing: Equity Rally Supports Crypto Into Weekend, BTC in Mid-$21Ks, ETH Above $1.2K: Key Points A strong finish to the week for US equity markets has given cryptocurrencies positive momentum into the weekend. Bitcoin was last trading in the low $21,000s and Ethereum was above $1,200 amid broad altcoin outperformance. FTX is in talks to acquire a BlockFi stake while Goldman Sachs is looking to scoop up distressed Celsius assets. State of the Market US equity markets rallied hard into the weekend, with the S&P 500 ending Friday trade over 3% higher, taking its weekly gains to nearly 6.5%. Market commentators cited an unexpected decline in a measure of US consumer inflation expectations that is closely followed by the Fed as easing fears about excessive monetary tightening from the US central banks, thus supporting the rally in equities. Throughout the week, rising bets for a near-term US recession were also cited as broadly supporting risk appetite in equity markets, with market commentators arguing that given weaker growth with lower inflation and reduce pressure on the Fed to tighten so aggressively. The key takeaway here is that the improvement in US equity risk appetite has facilitated further upside in cryptocurrency markets, which have been closely correlated to stocks in recent months. As of Saturday, total cryptocurrency market cap was around $940 billion, up around $60 billion this week and up over 23% versus last week’s lows around $760 billion. Bitcoin is currently trading with a positive bias in the mid-$21,000s and eyeing a break above earlier weekly highs in the upper-$21,000s. Any such break could facilitate a push higher towards the 21-Day Moving Average in the low-$24,000s. Bitcoin’s weekly gains currently stand at just over 4.0%. Meanwhile, altcoins are outperforming, indicative of buoyant crypto sentiment. As a result, Bitcoin’s crypto market dominance is on course to have dropped a further 1% to around 43.5% this week, down sharply from above 48% at the start of the month. “This weekend could be another testing period for the cryptocurrency (Bitcoin), despite the resilience shown this week in holding back above such a major level,” Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said in a note on Friday. “Support still looks shaky below and another break could see confidence in the space really put to the test,” he warned. Story continues Ethereum broke above $1,200 on Friday and is currently holding above this level, taking weekly gains to about 8.5%. If the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap can break above resistance in the mid-$1,200s per token, the door is open for a push towards the 21DMA near $1,350. Shiba Inu , meanwhile, has been the best performing top 20 crypto in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap, with gains of over 12%, taking SHIB/USD to around $0.0000115. Avalanche and Solana are the next best top 20 performers, up around 7.5% in the last 24 hours each. Next week is set to be a busy one for big US data releases and Fed commentary. Durable Goods Orders and more housing data is out on Monday, followed by a widely followed Consumer Confidence survey on Tuesday. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and a few other of the bank’s policymakers will be orating on Wednesday, followed by the release of May Core PCE inflation data on Thursday (this is the Fed’s favored inflation gauge). Finally, the Institute of Supply Management’s widely followed Manufacturing PMI survey is set for release on Friday. The playbook for stocks and crypto markets right now appears to be that worse economic data (anything to increase recession bets) and anything to suggest easing inflation is good for risk appetite. This is likely to be the case next week. Crypto Winter: FTX in Talks to Acquire BlockFi Stake, Goldman Looking To Buy Celsius Assets, Bitpanda Slashes Headcount According to a report by the Wall Street Journal on Friday, one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing crypto exchanges FTX is in talks to acquire a stake in crypto lending/borrowing platform BlockFi. The move would deepen the financial relationship between the two firms after FTX gave BlockFi a $250 million emergency credit line earlier this week. BlockFi has suffered in recent weeks amid the downturn in cryptocurrency markets and recently announced that it would be laying off 20% of its staff. However, the platform announced on Friday that it would be increasing deposit rates across a range of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins effective as of 1 July. BlockFi cited effective risk management, a decrease in market competition and a changing macro environment as facilitating the increase to deposit rates. Elsewhere, US mega-bank Goldman Sachs is reportedly looking to raise up to $2 billion from investors in order to scoop up distressed assets from beleaguered crypto lending/borrowing service and (former?) BlockFi competitor Celsius Network, which froze all withdrawals 12 days ago amid what it called “extreme market conditions”. As of the end of May, Celsius had $12 billion in assets under management and had lent out more than $8 billion. According to a WSJ report on Friday, Celsius has hired restructuring consultants from Alvarez & Marsal to advise on a potential bankruptcy filing. Meanwhile, one of Europe’s largest crypto exchanges Bitpanda has announced in a blog post on Friday that it is to slash its headcount by more than 25% to a target of 730. According to LinkedIn, the company employs more than 1,000 workers at present. The exchange’s founders cited the recent deterioration in market conditions as behind the decision and said their prior fast expansion pace was a mistake. Sticking with exchanges, the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance announced on Friday that it is to launch a new advanced platform for professional investors which will be called Binance Institutional. Binance said its new platform will offer over-the-counter liquidity, algorithmic trade execution, instant pricing, advanced digital asset custody solutions and more. Binance has proven thus far to be one of the most resilient crypto firms amid the ongoing market downturn. As many rival exchanges cut workforces, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said that the company will continue to hire. The company this week announced that it would eliminate spot Bitcoin trading fees on its Binance.US platform in order to attract more users. On Friday, Zhao said the company is looking at 50 to 100 deals from crypto businesses given recent market turmoil. Other Crypto News: US SEC Approval of Spot Bitcoin ETF Unlikely Analysts Say, Sky Mavis Starts Reimbursing Ronin Hack Victims Whilst some crypto market commentators said this week that the recent narrowing of the GBTC discount to the Bitcoin price might indicate a build-up of expectations for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve a spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund ( ETF ) soon, other analysts remain downbeat. Upcoming SEC decisions on 29 June and 6 July on applications from Bitwise Bitcoin ETP Trust and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust are both “highly unlikely” to secure approval, argued Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart in an interview with CoinDesk. According to Seyffart, the SEC has made it clear what it wants to see before it gives the green light to any spot Bitcoin and approval isn’t coming until “a ‘market of significant size’ has surveillance-sharing agreements or is regulated by the likes of the SEC or CFTC”. Until a “spot Bitcoin exchange or likely multiple spot bitcoin exchanges come under the purview of the SEC and/or CFTC, the SEC isn’t going to approve a spot bitcoin ETF,” he told CoinDesk. The ETF Store President Nate Geraci expressed a similar sentiment. “The overwhelming market assumption is that the SEC will disapprove these ETFs,” Geraci commented, noting the lack of regulatory oversight of crypto exchanges. Elsewhere, play-to-earn game Axie Infinity creator Sky Mavis announced that it will begin the process of reimbursing victims of a $625 million hack of its Ronin bright from 28 June. Back ion March, hackers took 173,600 ETH and $25.5 million in USDC. Ethereum’s sharp decline in recent months means Sky Mavis will only end up returning crypto worth $216.5 million to hack victims. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Malaysia plans record $18 billion subsidy spend in inflation fight Taliban appeal for more aid after deadly Afghanistan earthquake Mondelez to reopen war-damaged potato-chip plant outside Kyiv Norway shooting suspect thought to be Islamist with mental health issues – police North Korea denounces U.S. ‘aggression’ as it marks war anniversary U.S.’s Russia sanctions architect Singh departs as Ukraine war drags on || 7 Best Semiconductor Stocks to Buy Now: Uncertainty on Wall Street means even the best semiconductor stockscontinueto struggle. Shortages remain across the sector while industries from consumer electronics to automotive manufacturing vie for the limited supply.
Chipmakers have ramped up production, but the bottleneck comes from a lack of enoughfabrication plants, orfabs. Fortunately, semiconductor manufacturers are working to address the issue. Research from SEMI, a global association,highlights, “There are 25 new construction projects of volume fabs in 2022… Fab equipment spending for 2022 is expected to break the $100 billion mark.”
For now, however, investors remain wary of semiconductor shares.Exchange-traded funds (or ETFs) tracking the chip sector, such astheInvesco Dynamic Semiconductors ETF(NYSE:PSI), and theiShares Semiconductors ETF(NASDAQ:SOXX), have fallen around36% year-to-date(YTD). In comparison, theS&P 500 Indexhas dropped17% over the same period.
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The ongoing supply-chain crisis is undeniably significant but will likely be alleviated as production begins in the new facilities.As a result, semiconductorstocks should experience a stronger rebound compared to the overall marketin the coming months.
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With that information, here are the seven best semiconductor stocks tobuyin July:
[{"AMD": "ADI", "Advanced Micro Devices": "Analog Devices", "$91.09": "$165.19"}, {"AMD": "INTC", "Advanced Micro Devices": "Intel", "$91.09": "$40.61"}, {"AMD": "KLAC", "Advanced Micro Devices": "KLA", "$91.09": "$360.54"}, {"AMD": "LSCC", "Advanced Micro Devices": "Lattice Semiconductor", "$91.09": "$59.31"}, {"AMD": "MPWR", "Advanced Micro Devices": "Monolithic Power Systems", "$91.09": "$456.03"}, {"AMD": "ON", "Advanced Micro Devices": "ON Semiconductor", "$91.09": "$61.17"}]
Source: Joseph GTK / Shutterstock.com
52-week range:$71.60 – $164.46
Leading chipmakerAdvanced Micro Devices(NASDAQ:AMD)has a wide-ranging portfolio of products, includingcentral processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs) and various other types of processors. Its flagship products include the Zen architecture, Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs.
In early May, Advanced Micro Devices reportedfirst-quarterfinancials. Revenue was $5.9 billion, representing a 71% increase year-over-year. Dilutedearnings per share (EPS)was $1.13, compared to 52 cents the prior year. Free cash flow (or FCF) was $924 million.
The company recentlyannouncedthe Ryzen Embedded R2000 Series system-on-chip (SoC) processors. Analysts point out theoptimized performance for industrial and internet of things (IoT) solutions.According to AMD, the new second-generation processors deliver “up to 81 percent higher CPU and graphics performance” compared to the prior generation R1000chips.
AMD stockhas tumbled more than 37% YTD. Shares are trading at19.1times forward earnings and5.5times sales.Meanwhile, the 12-month medianpriceforecast stands at$120.
Source: jejim / Shutterstock.com
52-week range:$138.50 – $191.95
Analog Devices(NASDAQ:ADI) manufactures a variety of signal processing integrated circuits (ICs).The chip name focuses onmixed signal, radio frequency (RF), as well as digital and sensor technologies. Over a 100,000 global customers use ADI products in communications, automotive, industrial and consumer markets.
In mid-May, Analog releasedQ1earnings. Revenue grew 79% YOY to $2.97 billion. Adjusted diluted EPS was $2.40, compared to $1.54 the year before. Quarterly FCF was $1.1 billion.
Recently, the companydetaileda new collaboration withSynopsys(NASDAQ:SNPS), where Analog will provide products for Synopsys’ Saber simulation tool. These solutions will accelerate the design process, decreasing the time required to bring a new product to market.
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So far in 2022, ADI stockhas declined over 6%. The current price supports a dividend yield of1.9%. Forward price-to-earnings (P/E) and price-to-sales (P/S) numbers are15.5x and7.8x, respectively. Wall Street’s 12-month medianpriceforecastisat$192.
Source: canon_shooter / Shutterstock.com
52-week range:$35.54 – $56.54
Intel(NASDAQ:INTC) istheworld’sleading semiconductor chip manufacturer. On average,two-thirdsofallcomputers use Intel processors. The latest iteration of IntelCPUs,the12thgeneration Core, was released earlier this year. The company also maintains a substantial research division known as Intel Labs.
The chip leader announcedQ1metricson April 28. Non-GAAP revenue was $18.4 billion, down 1% YOY. Diluted EPS was 87 cents, compared to $1.34 the previous year. Adjusted FCF was $5.5 billion.
Intel recentlyunveiledthe NetSec Accelerator Reference Design forimproved network and security processing performance. Wall Street is keen to see how this new product will contribute to Intel’s top line.
INTC stockhas lost around 21% since thebeginningof the year. As a result, the dividend yield has gone up to3.6%. Shares are trading at10.8times forward earnings and2times sales.Analysts’12-month medianpriceforecast stands at$45.
Source: Shutterstock
52-week range:$282.83 – $457.12
KLA(NASDAQ:KLAC) is one of the leading semiconductor equipment providers. It developsadvanced process control and process-enabling solutionsfor manufacturing wafers integrated circuits, printed circuit boards, as well as flat panel displays. The company invests heavily in research and development, having spent$3.3 billionin the last four years alone.
In late April, KLAissuedQ3 FY22financial results. Total revenues were $2.29 billion, increasing from $1.8 billion the prior year. Diluted EPS was $5.13, compared to $3.85 the year before. FCF was $718.6 million.
Recently, the companylaunchedFrontline Cloud Services,the first cloud-based design platform for complex printed-circuit boards (PCBs). The software solutionshould cut back on IT bottlenecks and time devoted to analyses.
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KLAC’s stock pricehas dropped over 16%YTD, and now supports a dividend yield of 1.2%. Forward P/E and P/S numbers are13.6xand 5.8x, respectively. Wall Street’s 12-month medianpriceforecastisat$392.50.
Source: Shutterstock
52-week range:$43.41 – $85.45
Lattice Semiconductor(NASDAQ:LSCC)designslow-power field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),which“can be reprogrammed to desired application or functionality requirements after manufacturing.” The company maintains development centers in Shanghai and Silicon Valley.
In early May, LatticeSemiconductorreleasedQ12022earnings. Revenue increased 30% YOY to $150 million. Adjusted diluted EPS was 37 cents, compared to 22 cents the previous year. Cash and equivalents totaled $123 million.
The chip company recentlyintroducedthe Lattice MachXO5-NX line of FPGAs,the fifth device built on the Lattice Nexus platform. Analysts highlight that it will help monitor systems in communications, industrial, and automotive markets.
LSCC stockhas fallen more than 23%since the beginning of the year. Shares are trading at33.3times forward earnings and13.6times sales.Finally, the 12-month medianpriceforecast stands at$71.
Source: shutterstock.com/wacomka
52-week range:$348.02 – $580
Monolithic Power Systems(NASDAQ:MPWR) provides small, easy-to-usepower management solutions. Its products are used in numerous industries, such as automotive, industrial, robotics, telecom and high-end consumer applications.
The power management solutions heavyweight reportedQ1financial resultson May 2. Revenue was $377.7 million, a 48.4% increase YOY. Diluted EPS was $2.45, compared to $1.46 the year before. Cash and equivalents totaled $260.6 million.
Recently, the companylaunchedthe MPSafe portfolio of automotive products emphasizing safety. The entire portfolio meets various Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) requirements set forth by the ISO26262 international standard. These products include a six-channel voltage monitor, a 12-channel system sequencer, and a multi-channel camera power management IC.
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So far in 2022, MPWR stockhas declined 8%but still has returned around 15% over the past year. Forward P/E and P/S numbers are36x and14.8x, respectively.Analysts’12-month medianpriceforecastisat$550.
Source: Shutterstock
52-week range:$34.81 – $71.26
Our final semiconductor stock isON Semiconductor(NASDAQ:ON), a leading namein intelligent power and sensing technologies.Its portfolio includes around 80,000 parts used in automotive, industrial, 5G, IoT and healthcare as well as aerospace and defense (A&D).
In early May, management put outrecordQ1earnings. Revenue was $1.95billion, an increase of 31% YOY. Diluted EPS was $1.22, compared to 35 cents a year ago. FCF was $304.8 million.
The company recentlyannouncedthe launch of the NCN26010 Ethernet controller. The new device can reduce the amount of wiring required by up to 70% while still increasingdata throughput. Additionally, the new controller isphysicallysmaller and easier to integrate than previous models.
ON stockhas lost 10% since the beginning of 2022yet has appreciated 71% over the past 12 months. Shares are trading at12times forward earnings and3.5times sales.Meanwhile, the 12-month medianpriceforecast stands at$70.
On the date of publication, Tezcan Gecgil, Ph.D., 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.
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The post7 Best Semiconductor Stocks to Buy Nowappeared first onInvestorPlace. || GOP Candidate for New York Governor Zeldin Fights Off Stabbing Attack: (Bloomberg) -- Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor of New York, fended off an attempted stabbing at a campaign rally near Rochester on Thursday night. Most Read from Bloomberg Teslas Bitcoin Dump Leaves Accounting Mystery in Its Wake WHO Chief Overrules Panel to Call Monkeypox Global Emergency Russian Odesa Missile Strike Tests Day-Old Grain Export Deal VW Billionaire Clan Plotted CEO Ouster as He Was on US Trip Three Arrows Founders Break Silence Over Collapse of Crypto Hedge Fund Someone tried to stab me on stage during this evenings rally, Zeldin, 42, said in a statement released by his campaign, but fortunately, I was able to grab his wrist and stop him for a few moments until others tackled him. He added that his running mate, Alison Esposito, who was also at the event in the village of Fairport, and others nearby were not harmed. Grateful for the attendees who stepped up quickly to assist and the law enforcement officers who quickly responded, Zeldin said. The Monroe County Sheriffs Department said David Jakubonis, 43, of Fairport, New York was arrested and charged with attempted assault after the attack. Police said Jakubonis climbed up on stage, approached Zeldin and said, Youre done, as he swung a weapon at the congressmans neck. Jakubonis was arraigned late Thursday and released on his own recognizance. Zeldin has made public safety a central issue in the governors race, attacking Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul for not doing enough to tackle gun violence and other types of crime. While crime in New York remains at historic lows, the pandemic brought an uptick in violent crimes like shootings and assaults -- an issue that factored heavily in the election of New York City Mayor Eric Adams last year. If elected, Zeldin has promised to roll back cash bail reform, increase police forces statewide, and repeal the HALT Solitary Confinement Act, a law signed by Hochul in March that curtailed New York prisons use of solitary confinement, a form of punishment classified by the United Nations as torture. Story continues This is very much getting out of hand in this state, campaign spokesperson Katie Vincentz said in a statement. Unfortunately, Congressman Zeldin is just the latest New Yorker whose life has been affected by the out of control crime and violence in New York. This needs to stop! Hochul, Zeldins opponent in the November election, condemned the attack in a tweet, adding she was relieved to hear Zeldin wasnt injured and that a suspect was in custody. I condemn this violent behavior in the strongest terms possible -- it has no place in New York. Republicans have not won a New York gubernatorial race in two decades as Democrats consolidated their advantages in voter registration and advanced into suburban areas. Zeldin, a lawyer and former US Army intelligence officer who had a tour in Iraq in 2006, represents a district on Long Island. He defeated three primary opponents in June, and is also running on the Conservative Party line. Zeldin is betting that a campaign focusing on the economy and public safety will outweigh his vociferous support of former President Donald Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in much of New York. In 2021, Zeldin joined with more than 100 Republicans House colleagues in voting against certifying Joe Bidens victory. (Adds police comment in fourth and fifth paragraphs.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek The $260 Swatch-Omega MoonSwatch Is Reviving the Budget Brand Postmortem Sperm Retrieval Is Turning Dead Men Into Fathers The US Has Lost Its Way on Computer Chips Ghosts of 2012 Haunt Europe as Rate Hikes Begin Sam Bankman-Fried Turns $2 Trillion Crypto Rout Into Buying Opportunity ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Dips Below $21K; Why the Current Bear Market Differs From 2018: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening: Prices: Bitcoin falls under $21K; ether is flat. Insights: The initial coin offering crypto crash of 2018 can’t happen in 2022. Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. And sign up for First Mover , our daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Prices Bitcoin ( BTC ): $20,807 -1.7% Ether ( ETH ): $1,349 -.06% Biggest Gainers Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Polygon MATIC +5.1% Smart Contract Platform Gala GALA +1.5% Entertainment Ethereum ETH +0.4% Smart Contract Platform Biggest Losers Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Cosmos ATOM −2.6% Smart Contract Platform Chainlink LINK −2.4% Computing Avalanche AVAX −2.1% Smart Contract Platform Markets S&P 500: 3,863 +1.9% DJIA: 31,288 +2.1% Nasdaq: 11,452 +1.7% Gold: $1,707 -0.2% Bitcoin Falls Below $21K; Ether Is Flat Bitcoin's four-day winning streak snapped on Sunday with the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization tumbling below $21,000. Bitcoin was recently trading at about $20,800, down more than a percentage point over the past 24 hours, although still higher than it stood before starting its mini-rally on Wednesday. Market observers see the crypto continuing to trade in the $18,000 to $22,000 range that it has maintained for a month, at least until investors have a clearer sign whether central banks can lick inflation without casting the global economy into recession. "While bitcoin saw positive momentum this week, it remains range-bound when you take a broader view, and is still struggling to cross the $22,000 resistance," Joe DiPasquale, the CEO of crypto asset manager BitBull Capital, wrote to CoinDesk. DiPasquale noted optimistically that "BTC managed to stay strong," despite the recent gloomy inflation report that affected stocks and other high-risk assets. "For now, we remain interested in the bottom of this range when it comes to Bitcoin's price, and are monitoring for accumulation during this range-bound movement." Story continues Ether, the second-largest crypto by market cap, was recently changing hands at roughly $1,350, flat over the same period. Most other major altcoins were in the red with UNI and AAVE off approximately 2.5% and 3%, respectively. Cryptos veered slightly from stocks' path as major indexes closed solidly in the green on Friday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq and S&P 500, which has a heavy tech component, climbing 1.7% and 1.9%, respectively, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising over 2%. The gains reversed some ground lost earlier in the week as investors tried to reconcile the latest data showing inflation still on the march and disappointing earnings among major brands in a range of industries with more encouraging signs that the global economy may not be cratering anytime soon. Hot inflation On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' consumer price index showed June inflation rising 9.1% , a 40-year high, with core goods and services, such as food and energy rising at an even faster rate . The University of Michigan's widely watched, monthly consumer sentiment index remained near its all-time low in its most recent release Friday. Yet, the job market and retail spending have remained strong, indicating that the economy is still expanding. Crypto news remained largely bleak, even without the continued afflictions of crypto lender Celsius Network, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, and crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy earlier this month. Among other, more recent developments, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning digital payments across the nation, according to a policy amendment on Thursday. The legislation prohibits the use of digital securities and utility tokens as a means of payment for goods, services and products in Russia. BitBull's DiPasquale will be eyeing the possible impact of the U.S. Federal Reserve's expected interest rate hike later this month on bitcoin pricing. The bank's Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy, meets next Tuesday and Wednesday and is widely expected to raise interest rates by at least 75 basis points in its quest to stem inflation. "If bitcoin does not break down from this range by the end of the month, especially post the FOMC [meeting], we could see it as a strong sign of a potential long-term bottom," DiPasquale wrote. Insights Here’s Why the ICO Crypto Crash of 2018 Can’t Happen in 2022 Digital assets crashed hard in 2018 as a result of the bursting of the 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) bubble . As students of crypto history know, once ICO projects finished their token sale they converted their treasury to dollars, and this rapid glut of bitcoin and ether on the market crashed prices leading to the crypto winter of 2018-2019. Those who had a broad portfolio of these ICO tokens and HODL’ed them through the dark days of that crypto winter came out well ahead, beating the stock market, even high-growth tech stocks that had their best days between 2018-2020, by a mile. ICOs vs. Tech Stocks historical returns (Data compiled by CoinDesk from ICO Drops) But there were also plenty of retail investors that got burned. Not just on fraudulent tokens – of which there were many – but on the rapid plummeting of crypto prices. A big part of the crash, and subsequent winter, was that the infrastructure at the time wasn’t very sophisticated compared to what’s available now. As bad as the market correction of 2022 is, what happened in 2017-2018 was minuscule as far as market capitalization goes. “The environment in the current crypto ecosystem vastly differs from the heyday of ICOs in 2018," Singapore-based Danny Chong, co-founder of DeFi protocol Tranchess, told CoinDesk. "Market maturity has driven the need to establish stronger technological foundations to be laid which have enabled exchanges and [decentralized finance] protocols to provide a variety of products, with lending, bridging and liquid staking abilities, to reduce price fluctuations.” Chong also points to the availability of more blockchain ecosystems beyond Ethereum that help shield the market from such rapid declines as experienced during the days of ICOs. “Although the perceived domino effect hasn't changed since the ICO crash, the impact felt by institutions and retail investors is relatively less in 2022," he said. One key piece of infrastructure that didn’t exist during the ICO bubble was automated market makers (AMM) . These autonomous trading mechanisms are more efficient than a centralized order book, and prevent price slippage, by providing a readily available pool of deep liquidity to traders. When a seller can’t find a buyer on a centralized marketplace, the price keeps dropping until there’s a match. AMMs would slow down this price slippage by providing liquidity to absorb the sale acting as a counterparty. This liquidity could be used for future transactions, or redistributed to other pools. Right now, Uniswap has around $3.6 billion in value locked across dozens of pools, with most major digital assets represented. “AMM models continue to improve over time and are more efficient than order book algorithms,” a person identifying themselves as "Puff," who claims to be the lead contributor to the DeFi protocol Iron Bank, told CoinDesk. “DeFi has had five years to showcase its ability to handle volatility in both directions.” And where was the genesis of most of these protocols? The crypto winter that chilled the market after the ICO crash. One has to wonder what will be built during this market downturn. Important events First meeting of Three Arrows Capital's creditors First hearing in Celsius bankruptcy case Australia new home sales (June/MoM) CoinDesk TV In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of "First Mover" on CoinDesk TV : Reaction to US Inflation Data and China Q2 GDP As it prepares for its first hearing in New York bankruptcy court on Monday, crypto lender Celsius Network has acknowledged it now has a $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet. Legal expert Ron Hammond of the crypto lobbying group Blockchain Association joined "First Mover" to share his insights. Jason Pagoulatos of Delphi Digital provided crypto markets analysis. And Avery Akkineni, Vayner3 president, discussed her outlook on NFTs and the Web3 space amid the recent market downturn. Headlines Bitcoin’s Up, Gold’s Down, the Euro Is Dragging – and It’s All Inexorably Tied: Bitcoin the inflation hedge; the prodigal child returns. US Congressional Group ‘Disturbed’ by Crypto Mining Energy Usage: The six Democratic lawmakers found that seven large crypto miners consume enough energy to power all the households in Houston, Texas. Vladimir Putin Bans Digital Payments in Russia: He has signed a bill that adds to a previous prohibition against cryptocurrency payments in the country. The Fall of Celsius Network: A Timeline of the Crypto Lender’s Descent Into Insolvency: A timeline of Celsius’ battle with insolvency during the crypto crash, from the firm’s decision to limit some user activity before the “pause,” to its decision to file for bankruptcy on the advice of restructuring experts. Celsius Owed $439M by Lending Firm EquitiesFirst: Report: Celsius first borrowed from EquitiesFirst in 2019 before an overcollateralized crypto loan went sour in 2021. Longer reads Satoshi Wept: How Crypto Replayed the 2008 Financial Crisis: It only took 13 years for crypto to recreate the same kind of financial crisis it was designed to prevent. Here’s how it (almost) all went down. Other voices: Limiting crypto helped the Texas power grid weather a heat wave Said and heard “Over 95% of industrial-scale bitcoin mines curtailed their power consumption during peak demand times over the past week. The bitcoin miners were able to push over 1,000 [megawatts] back into the grid for ten-hour plus periods multiple times during the week.” ( Texas Blockchain Council President Lee Bratchern/Washington Post ) ... "Kia America is putting Dead Army Skeleton Klub NFTs into its next national advertising campaign, another indication that the characters from Web3 worlds are becoming the next commercial stars." ( Ad Age ) || Crypto Market Daily Highlights – Bitcoin (BTC) Eyed a Return to $22,000: Key Insights: It was a bullish Thursday for the crypto to ten, with bitcoin (BTC) leading the way with a breakout to a day high of $21,840. A sharp pickup in demand for riskier assets supported a 2.28% NASDAQ rally fueled by hints from the Fed of a less aggressive rate path trajectory. The total crypto market cap rose by $35 billion to record the fifth increase in six sessions. It was a bullish Thursday session for the crypto top ten. Bitcoin ( BTC ) led the way, with SOL and ETH close behind. Investors brushed aside fears of a global economic recession, with the FOMC meeting minutes from Wednesday driving demand for riskier assets. The FOMC meeting minutes highlighted the risk of rate hikes having a ‘larger-than-expected effect on economic growth.’ Prior to the minutes, the markets had priced in a 75 basis point rate hike for July. However, the minutes revealed that participants judged a 50 or 75 basis point increase as appropriate. Total Market Cap – NASDAQ – 080722 5 Min Chart At the time of writing, the NASDAQ 100 Mini was down 32.5 points. The Total Crypto Market Cap Jumps on Fed Minutes A bearish start to the session saw the crypto market cap fall to a low of $889 billion before jumping to a high of $945 billion. NASDAQ 100 support was the key to the move back toward $1,000 billion levels. While bullish on the day, crypto market headwinds linger. The threat of a global economic recession remains real, as does a likely shift in the crypto regulatory landscape. From a monetary policy perspective, while Fed concern over the impact of policy on economic growth prospects delivered relief, the Fed has stated its commitment to bringing inflation to target at any cost. The Crypto Market Movers and Shakers from the Top Ten and Beyond BTC rallied by 5.19% to lead the way, with SOL (+3.88%) and ETH (+4.35%) close behind. ADA (+3.46%), BNB (+1.26%), DOGE (+3.13%), and XRP (+3.13%) also found strong support. From the CoinMarketCap top 100, Storj ( STORJ ), Aave ( AAVE ), and Internet Computer ( ICP ) led the way. STORJ rallied by 15%, with AAVA and ICP gaining 13% and 11%, respectively. Story continues Maker ( MKR ) and KuCoin Token ( KCS ) were among a handful of cryptos to buck the trend. MKR fell by 0.53%, with KCS falling by 0.60%. Total Crypto Liquidations Reflect Improving Market Conditions Despite the bullish session, 24-hour liquidations rose through the Thursday session. This morning, 24-hour liquidations stood at $169 million, up from $101 million on Thursday morning. Liquidated traders over the last 24 hours also increased. At the time of writing, liquidated traders stood at 42,406 versus 30,986 on Thursday. However, one-hour liquidation figures suggested improving market conditions at the turn of the day. According to Coinglass , one-hour liquidations stood at $1.36 million, down from $24.4 million on Thursday. A fall back to sub-$1 million levels would suggest another bullish day ahead. Total Crypto Liquidations 080722 Daily News Highlights Crema Finance hacker returned $8 million for a $1.6 million bounty. The US banned crypto-owning government officials from working on regulations. Polygon is set to deliver a DeFi Overhaul with the launch of Avail. SEC filed a motion to limit Ripple Lab expert testimony. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Reaction to shooting of Japan’s former PM Abe British navy says it seized smuggled Iranian missiles Instant View: Japan’s ex-Prime Minister Abe shot, condition unknown Australia seeks to stabilise China ties, says FM Wong ahead of meeting China holds combat exercises around Taiwan as U.S. senator visits Japan’s Abe shot while making election speech, taken to hospital
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 20877.55, 21166.06, 21534.12, 21398.91, 21528.09, 21395.02, 21600.90, 20260.02, 20041.74, 19616.81
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2021-12-02]
BTC Price: 56477.82, BTC RSI: 44.17
Gold Price: 1760.70, Gold RSI: 36.68
Oil Price: 66.50, Oil RSI: 29.72
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Daily Gold News: Friday, Nov. 5 – No Clear Direction Ahead of Jobs Data: Thegoldfutures contract gained 1.68% on Thursday, Nov. 4, as it retraced its Wednesday’s decline of 1.4%. The market extended its month-long consolidation along the $1,800 price level. This morning the yellow metal is trading along its yesterday’s daily closing price, as we can see on the daily chart (the chart includes today’s intraday data):
Right now gold is 0.1% higher, as it is trading sightly below the $1,800 mark. What about the other precious metals?Silveris 0.1% lower, platinum is 0.2% higher and palladium is 0.8% higher.So precious metals’ prices are mixed this morning.
Yesterday’s Unemployment Claims release has been slightly better than expected at 269,000. Today we will get the importantmonthly jobs data release.
Where would the price of gold go following today’sNonfarm Payrollsannouncement?We’ve compiled the data since September of 2018, a 38-month-long period of time that contains of thirty eight NFP releases. The first chart shows price paths 5 days before and 10 days after the NFP release. The last three cases are marked with dashed lines. Gold gained 0.40% in October and in September it lost 3.81%.
The following chart shows the average gold price path before and after the NFP releases for the past 36 months. The market was usually advancing ahead of the release day and closing 0.19% higher on the 10th day after the NFP release.
Below you will find ourGold, Silver, and Mining Stockseconomic news schedule for today:
Friday, November 5
• 8:30 a.m. U.S. –Non-Farm Employment Change, Unemployment Rate, Average Hourly Earnings m/m
• 8:30 a.m. Canada – Employment Change, Unemployment Rate
• Tentative, U.S. – Treasury Currency Report
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Paul RejczakStock Selection StrategistSunshine Profits: Analysis. Care. Profits.
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Disclaimer
All essays, research and information found above represent analyses and opinions of Paul Rejczak and Sunshine Profits’ associates only. As such, it may prove wrong and be a subject to change without notice. Opinions and analyses were based on data available to authors of respective essays at the time of writing. Although the information provided above is based on careful research and sources that are believed to be accurate, Paul Rejczak and his associates do not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the data or information reported. The opinions published above are neither an offer nor a recommendation to purchase or sell any securities. Mr. Rejczak is not a Registered Securities Advisor. By reading Paul Rejczak’s reports you fully agree that he will not be held responsible or liable for any decisions you make regarding any information provided in these reports. Investing, trading and speculation in any financial markets may involve high risk of loss. Paul Rejczak, Sunshine Profits’ employees and affiliates as well as members of their families may have a short or long position in any securities, including those mentioned in any of the reports or essays, and may make additional purchases and/or sales of those securities without notice.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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Investing.com -- Bitcoin surges to a record high, a day after the Federal Reserve grumbles after the financial stability risks of crypto. Lael Brainard has been interviewed by President Joe Biden for the top job at the Fed, according to reports. Stocks are grinding higher ahead of producer price inflation data for October, and there are two key releases from the U.S. for the oil market to digest. Here's what you need to know in financial markets on Tuesday, 9th November.
1. Bitcoin hits all-time high
Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high of $68,493, supported by a monetary policy backdrop that has turned more friendly in recent days as central banks have backed off raising rates.
While there have been few triggers specific to Bitcoin itself, risk assets have flourished since Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell emphasized that the Fed hadn’t yet put the U.S. on a glidepath to higher rates, despite starting to wind down its bond purchases.
Other digital coins have also ridden the recent rally, notably Ethereum, which has gained over 70% in the last two and a half months.
Bitcoin’s latest highs come a day after the Federal Reserve highlightedstablecoins– rather than Bitcoin itself – as one of the chief risks to U.S. financial stability.
2. Competition for Powell
Jerome Powell has competition. Bloomberg reported on Monday that Fed governorLael Brainard was interviewed by President Joe Bidenfor the central bank chair during her visit to the White House last week.
Brainard is widely seen as an inflation ’dove’ and her recent public statements have shown no hurry to raise interest rates. Her interview comes after vocal and repeated interventions from Democratic lawmakers such asSenator Elizabeth Warrenopposing Powell’s reappointment for a second term.
Powell’s current term ends in February, and both vice-chair Richard Clarida andRandall Quarles, the Fed’s head of banking supervision, will step down in the two months prior to that – something that will give the Democrats the chance to shape the Fed’s board more to their taste. While that could mean lower rates for longer, it may also mean a less indulgent line on financial stability issues.
3. Stocks grind higher ahead of PPI data
U.S. stocks are set to continue their drift ahead of the latest update on the inflation front at 8:30 AM ET (1330 GMT), in the form of October’s producer price index.
By 6:20 AM ET, Dow Jones futures were down 36 points, or 0.1%, while S&P 500 futures were flat and Nasdaq 100 futures were up 37 points.
Stocks likely to be in focus later include brokerage Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD), which fell in premarket after announcing a data breach, and AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC), whose numbers late on Monday showed how far it still has to go to get back to pre-pandemic levels of business.
DR Horton (NYSE:DHI) heads the list of early earnings reporters, whileWynn Resortsreports after the bell.
4. Covid-19: more cases, more treatments
Another stock likely to be in focus later is Regeneron (NASDAQ:REGN), whichannounced trial resultsfor its antiviral Covid-19 pill on Monday showing a high (82%) degree of efficacy in reducing serious illness.
It’s the third such drug to show such effects, after ones developed by Merck (NYSE:MRK) and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), and adds to the growing list of remedies that can reduce the risks arising from economies staying open and active.
However, the start of the northern hemisphere winter means that the near term still promises to be challenging: new infection rates have stopped falling in the U.S., and far exceeded previous record peaks in central and eastern Europe.
The three parties likely to form Germany’s next government issued published a draft bill earlier Tuesday that would impose the so-called ‘3G’ system across almost all of public life for adults. That system requires people to show either proof of vaccination or naturally-acquired antibodies, or a negative test result.
5. Oil rises ahead of STEO, API
Oil prices edged higher again, ahead of two key releases from the U.S. later in the day. First will be the government’sShort-Term Energy Outlook, which will update its forecasts for prices and output in the U.S., followed by weekly inventory data from theAmerican Petroleum Institute.
Crude stocks are expected to have risen for a seventh straight week, by some 1.90 million barrels, against a backdrop of surging prices that have started to hurt demand. Some reports have suggested that the STEO may be used by the government to justify sales of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – although the causal link between the two is far from clear.
By 6:30 AM ET, U.S. crude futures were up 0.4% at $82.22 a barrel, while Brent crude was up 0.3% at $83.70 a barrel.
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Japan PM says crafting stimulus package to achieve 'virtuous' growth || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – October 11th, 2021: Bitcoin, BTC to USD, fell by 0.52% on Sunday. Partially reversing a 1.89% gain from Saturday, Bitcoin ended the week up by 13.37% to $54,691.0.
A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning intraday low $54,114.0 before making a move.
Steering clear of the first major support level at $53,939, Bitcoin rose to a late intraday high $56,450.0.
Bitcoin broke through the first major resistance level at $55,736 before falling back to sub-$55,000 levels and into the red.
Late in the day, the second major resistance level at $56,504 pegged Bitcoin back.
The near-term bullish trend remained intact, supported the latest return to $56,000 levels. For the bears, Bitcoin would need a sustained fall through the 62% FIB of $27,237 to form a near-term bearish trend.
Across the rest of the majors, it was a bearish day on Sunday.
Chainlinkslid by 6.52% to lead the way down.
Binance Coin(-4.20%),Bitcoin Cash SV(-3.60%),Cardano’s ADA(-3.48%),Ethereum(-4.48%), and Polkadot (-4.75%) also saw deep red.
Crypto.com Coin(-0.36%),Litecoin(-2.82%),Ripple’s XRP(-2.09%) saw relatively modest losses, however.
It was a mixed week for the majors, however, in the week ending 10thOctober
Binance Coin (-6.14%), Chainlink (6.94%), and Polkadot (-5.42%) led the way down.
Cardano’s ADA (-2.78%) and Ethereum (-0.15%) also struggled.
It was a bullish week for the rest of the majors, however.
Bitcoin Cash SV jumped by 19.28% to lead the way.
Crypto.com Coin (+6.24%), Litecoin (+2.49%), and Ripple’s XRP (+7.67%) also joined Bitcoin in the green.
In the week, the crypto total market fell to a Monday low $2,009bn before rising to a Friday high $2,425bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $2,287bn.
Bitcoin’s dominance fell to a Tuesday low 42.52% before rising to a Wednesday high 45.62%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 44.97%.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.40% to $54,473.0. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin rise to an early morning high $54,681.0 before falling to a low $54,461.0.
Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
Elsewhere, it was a bearish start to the day.
At the time of writing, Crypto.com Coin was down by 1.32% to lead the way down.
Bitcoin would need to move through the $55,085 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $56,056 into play.
Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break back through to $56,000 levels.
Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Sunday’s high $56,450.0 would likely cap the upside.
In the event of a broad-based crypto rally, Bitcoin could test resistance at $58,000 levels before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $57,421.
Failure to move through the $55,085 would bring the first major support level at $53,720 into play.
Barring an extended sell-off on the day, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$52,000, The second major support level at $52,749 should limit the downside.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Tesla Readies Monday Night Launch of Full Self Driving Tech || Crypto-Crowdsourced Funding for Sotheby’s Auction Could Further Legitimize Digital Currency: Capuski / Getty Images A group of crypto investors is crowdsourcing financing to acquire a copy of the Constitution being auctioned off by Sotheby’s. See: Best Bitcoin or Crypto Wallets 2021: How To Choose Find: Twitter Launches Crypto Dedicated Team — A Move That Could Make Digital Assets The Currency of the Internet The copy is one of just 13 Official Editions of the U.S. Constitution surviving from a printing of 500 issued for submission to the Continental Congress and for the use of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, according to Sotheby’s. The auction house estimates its price to be between $15 and $20 million and the proceeds from the auction will be given to a charity that has been established by the current owner. ConstitutionDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), is collecting money to win this auction. A DAO is a community-led entity with no central authority, explains ConsenSys. It is fully autonomous and transparent: smart contracts lay the foundational rules, execute the agreed-upon decisions, and at any point, proposals, voting, and even the very code itself can be publicly audited. Ultimately, a DAO is governed entirely by its individual members who collectively make critical decisions about the future of the project, such as technical upgrades and treasury allocations, according to ConsenSys. “We intend to put The Constitution in the hands of The People,” according to ConstitutionDAO’s website. The group explains that decentralization and cryptocurrency (web3) “have created structures that allow people to self-govern with unparalleled levels of autonomy and freedom. It’s fitting that we use this technology to honor and protect the greatest historical tool for human governance: the U.S. Constitution.” So far, the group has raised 1,254 ETH or $5.4 million as of today’s price through a Gnosis Safe wallet on Juicebox. If the DAO doesn’t win the auction, funds will be returned to donors. Mark Elenowitz, president of global exchange and trading app for crowdfunded securities Horizon Fintex/Upstream, told GOBankingRates that purchasing a copy of the U.S. Constitution would be a huge symbolic step in the battle for the legitimization of crypto. Story continues See: Ready To Invest In Cryptocurrency? Get Started With Just $1 Find: Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From? “It would bring a lot of attention to the crypto world, and introduce a lot of new people to the concept of a DAO, allowing the democratization of blockchain to the masses. This is the sort of move that can get a lot of people excited about the possibilities that crypto unlocks,” Elenowitz said. “ It would also represent how crypto is overtaking traditional finance . The crypto movement could reshape our financial system as drastically as the birth of the American Democracy reshaped our political system, so there is a powerful symbolism in owning a document that changed the world. In 200 years, an NFT of Satoshi’s original whitepaper might be the equivalent of the Constitution,” he added. More From GOBankingRates 5 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About Social Security Social Security: What Matters Most to You? Navy Federal cashRewards Review: With Great Benefits Come Great Rewards How To Refinance a Mortgage This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Crypto-Crowdsourced Funding for Sotheby’s Auction Could Further Legitimize Digital Currency || Cryptocurrency and the Wash Sale Rule: A Tax Loophole That May Soon Go Away: picture of person trading cryptocurrency on their phone Getty Images You might not realize it by looking at today’s booming crypto market performance, but in the not-too-distant past, cryptocurrencies fell to some of their lowest prices of the year. Bitcoin hit an all-time high in May but then quickly pulled back to lower levels. Nearly every cryptocurrency followed suit. This wasn’t the first time it happened, and it’s almost surely not the last. SEE MORE How Is Cryptocurrency Taxed? Here's What You Need to Know While this might seem like a distressing situation for investors speculating on these coins’ long-term appreciation potential, some alert investors welcome opportunities like these with open arms. Why? The IRS classifies virtual currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin or even Shiba Inu as property. This means crypto investors are subject to the same taxes on capital gains and losses that apply to other investors, but with one important difference. They escape one rule that applies solely to financial securities: the “wash sale” rule . This tax loophole, which might soon get closed by pending legislation , can save cryptocurrency investors a lot of money come tax time. Unlike people investing in securities, crypto investors can take full advantage of the tax-loss harvesting rules without having to time out virtual currency purchases to comply with the wash sale rule. So, if you own crypto and plan to implement a tax-loss harvesting strategy, it’s important to know what is and isn’t allowed. To get you up to speed, let’s delve deeper into tax-loss harvesting, wash sales, the wash sale rule, and how the current landscape might change for cryptocurrency investors. What is a Wash Sale? You experience a wash sale when you sell or trade a security at a loss and then buy it or a substantially similar security back after a short period of time. (Selling at a loss entails disposing of the asset at a fair market value below that of your original cost basis.) SEE MORE 14 Bitcoin ETFs and Cryptocurrency Funds You Should Know Story continues Investors use wash sales to maximize the tax deductions allowed after selling a position in a loss-making security. For example, if an investor sells a security at the end of the calendar year and then repurchases it at the start of the new year, he or she could lock in a loss for tax purposes but remain invested in the security going forward. Seeing this method of “gaming” the tax system, the IRS limited the practice by establishing the wash sale rule. What is the Wash Sale Rule? The wash sale rule generally disallows tax deductions for losses from the sale or other disposition of stock or securities if you buy the same asset (or substantially similar one) within 30 days before or after the sale. If you choose to repurchase the same or similar security within the 30 day window, denying you the chance to claim a deduction for your loss, you can add the loss to the cost basis of the newly repurchased security. As a result, when you choose to sell the new stock later, any capital gains taxes you’d pay will still be lower. The intent behind the wash sale rule is to prevent the creation of “artificial” losses and the manipulation of tax laws by trading in and out of a stock for the purposes of harvesting capital losses to offset capital gains or income. SEE MORE 9 Ways to Cut Crypto Taxes Down to the Bone However, the wash sale rule only applies to assets formally classified as securities, investments like stocks, bonds, ETFs and other financial instruments that are traded on organized exchanges. Cryptocurrencies, at least for now, don’t satisfy this requirement . As a result, some investors take advantage of the heightened volatility of many virtual currencies by selling a position to lock in a capital loss and immediately repurchase it without losing exposure to the cryptocurrency. As an example, imagine you purchased Ethereum, one of the best investments of 2021, and established a $10,000 cost basis. If the cryptocurrency declined by 50% in value and you chose to sell your entire position, you’d have a $5,000 capital loss. This capital loss would first go toward offsetting any capital gains recognized during the year with any unused balance lowering your ordinary taxable income by up to $3,000 for the calendar year. Any remaining balance rolls forward indefinitely to future years to offset future capital gains or taxable income until fully exhausted. If you wanted to remain invested in Ethereum, you could repurchase those same coins immediately after selling them, locking in a loss but keeping the crypto in your portfolio. If you attempted to do the same with a stock position you held, this loss would be disallowed under the wash sale rule, preventing you from offsetting any capital gains or taxable income. What is Tax-Loss Harvesting? Generally, tax-loss harvesting is the selling of investments at a loss and using the loss to offset capital gains. Even with the wash sale rule, you can still utilize a tax-loss harvesting strategy with securities to lower your taxable capital gains. This works by selling an investment at a loss with the intention to repurchase it at a later date, outside of the IRS’ 30-day wash sale rule window. SEE MORE How Do I Spend My Bitcoin? (And Where?) It’s different with cryptocurrency, though. There are more options when applying a tax-loss harvesting strategy, since the wash sale rule doesn’t apply. For example, imagine you purchased an Ethereum position for $10,000 and you held the asset for 18 months. The value decreased by half during this holding period. You now have a position worth $5,000 and an unrealized capital loss of $5,000. You could sell your stake and recognize a long-term capital loss of $5,000. If this was a stock or other security, you’d have to wait 30 days before repurchasing to avoid the wash sale rule. However, because cryptocurrency isn’t classified as a security for wash sale rule purposes, you can have your cake and eat it too by immediately repurchasing that same $5,000 worth of Ethereum and reestablishing the position. In the process, you lock in your long-term capital loss to offset long-term and short-term capital gains while continuing to maintain a position in the cryptocurrency. The unused capital loss balance can then be used to lower your taxable income by up to $3,000. Now, imagine you also bought $5,000 worth of Bitcoin the same day you initially purchased your $10,000 Ethereum position. If you sold your Bitcoin on the same day 18 months later for $7,500, you would recognize a $2,500 long-term capital gain at the same time you recognized a $5,000 long-term capital loss from selling your Ethereum. This long-term capital loss could offset this $2,500 investment return while also allowing you to reinvest in Ethereum without worrying about the wash sale rule. The balance of this long-term capital loss could be used to lower your ordinary taxable income by an additional $2,500. Closing Window for the Crypto Tax Loophole Given the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, Congress is considering a tax law change that would make the wash sale rule applicable to cryptocurrencies. Closing this tax loophole would change one attractive element of this burgeoning asset class and generate significant tax revenue for the IRS. Interested investors should be able to lock in capital losses and repurchase their holdings before year’s end without risk of encountering the wash sale rule. Starting in 2022, though, that might be subject to change. SEE MORE PODCAST: Bitcoin Explained with Tyrone Ross You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions What to Do When You’re the Executor Minimizing Taxes When You Inherit Money || Citadel-Backed Stock Exchange Lists Crypto Futures: Chicago-based stock exchange The Small Exchange which is backed by Citadel Securities, Jump Capital, Interactive Brokers Group Inc. and Peak6 Investments has launched cryptocurrency futures. See Also: BEST CRYPTOCURRENCY EXCHANGES What Happened: The Small Exchange launched futures on the Small Cryptocurrency Index, which has 17 components that include Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC: GBTC ), Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN ), Paypal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL ) and Square Inc. (NYSE: SQ ), according to a Thursday Bloomberg report . Frank Kaberna , Small Exchanges chief content strategist, said there was reluctance among stock and derivatives traders to adopt cryptocurrencies because of the lack of accessible productsand education. For this reason, he said that the company proposes crypto futures that "come in at one of the smallest notional sizes of any futures in the entire marketplace, and it trades and settles to cash just like most standard equity index futures. The Small Exchange launched its first products in mid-2020 and purportedly "made its mark with smaller-sized contracts on stocks, Treasuries and precious metals." Its contracts are smaller-sized and aim to cater to retail investors, which apparently paid off considering that the exchange's volume grew more than 60% year-over-year since its launch last June, and it tallied its best daily volume on Sept. 14. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga FTX User Paid Almost M In Fees, Claims Exchange's Fault Who Let The Doge Out? Public.com Lists Dogecoin, Other Coins For Trading © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Stock Market Today: Nasdaq Outperforms as Mega-Cap Tech Stocks Soar: stock market chart Getty Images Stocks ended a choppy week on a positive note but it wasn't enough to pull the major market indexes into the green on a weekly basis. In focus today was the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index, which fell to 66.8 in November from 71.7 in October – its lowest level in a decade and well below the 72.5 expected by economists. SEE MORE 65 Best Dividend Stocks You Can Count On Also on the economic front, the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed the number of job openings eased slightly in September (to 10.4 million from August's 10.6 million), though the number of quits hit a record high of 4.4 million. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. At the close, the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.0% at 15,860 as Meta Platforms ( FB , +4.0%) led a rally in mega-cap tech stocks . The S&P 500 Index gained 0.7% to 4,682 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% to 36,100 on strength in Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ , +1.2%). The healthcare giant gained on news it will split into two publicly traded companies, which you can read more about here . Still, all three benchmarks notched their first down week since Oct. 1. stock price chart 111221 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 rose 0.1% to 2,411. U.S. crude futures shed 1% to settle at $80.79 per barrel. Gold futures edged up 0.3% to end at $1,868.50 an ounce. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) plunged 7.8% to 16.29. Bitcoin slipped 1% to $64,192.14. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) A day after rocketing higher on the sale of its Ohio plant, Lordstown Motors ( RIDE , -17.6%) pulled a 180 after its third-quarter earnings report. Results didn't repel investors – the company's 54-cent-per-share loss was actually better than the 62-cent deficit Wall Street expected. The bears were instead focused on the electric vehicle maker's announcement that the launch of its first vehicle – the Endurance pickup truck – was being pushed back to the second half of 2022. Kura Sushi USA ( KRUS , +30.2%) exploded to new all-time highs after the conveyor-belt sushi chain reported a smaller operating loss and higher revenues for its fiscal fourth quarter. The company's 32 locations had returned to full indoor dining as of Aug. 31, helping to spur revenues by more than 400% year-over-year to $27.9 million. Meanwhile, its operating loss narrowed to $762,000 from $6.8 million in the year-ago period. KRUS shares are now up more than 260% year-to-date. Story continues What's in Your 401(k)? As the end of 2021 nears, we have four words for you: Don't neglect your 401(k) . If you're like many payrolled retirement savers, you have taken a "set it and forget it" approach to your 401(k) contributions and allocations. However, there are several reasons to check in on your retirement account. Perhaps your investment goals have changed or you'd like to reallocate funds to make sure you're getting the most bang for your buck. SEE MORE The Best Funds to Buy for the Roaring ’20s We continue our annual look at the top mutual funds offered in 401(k) plans that so far has included options from Vanguard , Fidelity and T. Rowe Price . And we've now arrived at American Funds . According to Kiplinger's Nellie Huang, "American Funds is a powerhouse in the 401(k) world, where investors of all sorts can access them. Six of its funds appear among the 100 most widely held funds in employer-sponsored retirement savings plans; another seven of its target-date funds, American Funds Target Date Retirement series, also rank among the top 100." Today, we delve into seven American Funds that are commonly found in 401(k) plans , rating each one a Buy, Hold or Sell. SEE MORE 14 Best Index Funds for a Low-Priced Portfolio You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions What to Do When You’re the Executor Minimizing Taxes When You Inherit Money || Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Rapid Turnaround Fueled by OPEC+ Output Expectations: U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil futures are up more than 2% on Thursday following a dramatic reversal to the upside. The catalysts behind the market’s strength are expectations that OPEC and its allies will continue to slow output increases. The recovery came as a surprise with traders facing headwinds from yesterday’s U.S. government inventories report that showed another build in crude oil stocks and calls to OPEC from the U.S. and other large importers to bump up production. At 12:29 GMT, December WTI crude oil is trading $82.29, up $1.43 or +1.77% and January Brent crude oil is at $83.73, up $1.74 or +2.12%. OPEC+ Likely to Stick to Oil Output Plan Sources Tell Reuters OPEC and its allies are likely to stick to plans to raise oil output by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) at an OPEC+ meeting on Thursday, sources said, despite calls from the United States for extra supply to cool rising prices. Top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia has already dismissed calls for more oil supplies from OPEC and allies. Kuwait and Iraq also support the current plans. The virtual talks on Thursday start with a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, followed by the decision-making meeting of all OPEC+ ministers scheduled for 1400 GMT. A Russian source told Reuters he expected OPEC+ to stick with the current plan. US Crude Stockpiles Rise, While Gasoline Draws to Four-Year Low – EIA U.S. crude oil stockpiles rose more than expected, but gasoline inventories dwindled to a four-year low on steady demand, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday. Crude inventories rose by 3.3 million barrels in the week to October 29 to 434.1 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.2 million-barrel rise. U.S. gasoline stocks fell by 1.5 million barrels in the week to 214.3 million barrels, the EIA said, putting those inventories at their lowest levels since November of 2017. Story continues Daily Forecast The rapid turnaround in prices once again proves the market is being well-supported by the fundamentals. OPEC+ is currently under producing with the global economy recovering quickly. However, they are likely to continue to stick with their plans because producers are concerned about going too fast, fearing renewed setbacks in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. OPEC+ is also not likely to cave to pressure from the U.S. It feels that the United States has plenty of capacity to raise production itself if it wants to help the world speed up the economic recovery. 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 Daily Forecast – Silver Rallies As Treasury Yields Decline People Are Still Buying Bogus SQUID Token Despite Scam Allegations Bitcoin Compensation Gains Traction as Fed Taper Begins IoTeX Tops the $0.17 Level. Will it Surge Higher Soon? USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Test Of Resistance At 1.2450 Best Cheap Stocks to Buy Now November 2021 || The US crackdown on stablecoins is targeting Tether first: The CFTC headquarters The US government is cracking down on stablecoins, taking its first major shot on Oct. 15 against Tether. The US Commodities Futures Trading Commission fined the popular stablecoin operator $41 million for allegedly misstating its reserves. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to certain government-backed currencies or precious metals, like silver or gold. While an odd fixture in the crypto community, which largely avoids governments and major financial institutions, stablecoins serve a purpose : They are mostly used by crypto businesses to transfer cash, or by investors that want to easily go in and out of crypto investments, without the intense volatility of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The Chappelle controversy is a test of what kind of workplace Netflix wants to be But stablecoins are mostly unregulated, meaning that consumers have no guarantee that the company issuing the currency has appropriate reserves. In fining Tether, the US government sent a message that it is watching closely. Is tether actually tethered to anything? Tether (USDT) is the most valuable stabelcoin in the world, sporting a market capitalization of $69 billion , more than double the value of USD Coin (USDC), the next largest coin. India’s second wave of Covid-19 may have protected it from a devastating third wave In order to assure buyers that it is trustworthy, Tether claimed it had cash reserves equal in value to the stablecoins it issued. The US government found that wasn’t at all true. During a period from 2016 to 2018, the CFTC found that Tether held 27.6% of the value of issued stabelcoins in fiat currency reserves. The Commission filed and settled charges with Tether that the company made “untrue or misleading statements and omissions of material fact.” Rather, the company’s reserves depended on “unregulated entities and certain third-parties to hold funds comprising the reserves,” the government said, and shared reserves with Bitfinex, a cryptocurrency exchange with an undefined relationship to Tether. (The CFTC simultaneously fined Bitfinex $1.5 million for engaging in “illegal, off-exchange retail commodity transactions.) Story continues In a statement, Tether pointed out that the findings were based on actions from more than two and a half years ago. The company insisted it always had enough money in reserve, saying in response to the CFTC fine that “[t]here is no finding that tether tokens were not fully backed at all times—simply that the reserves were not all in cash and all in a bank account titled in Tether’s name, at all times.” Stablecoins are a largely unregulated space While the US government can enforce some laws to crack down on stablecoins, as the CFTC did in enforcing the Commodity Exchange Act against Tether and Bitfinex, the tokens are still largely unregulated. The Biden administration is reportedly working on new bank-like regulations on stablecoins, though it’s unclear whether they will recommend them to Congress or try to impose them unilaterally through the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is led by the US Treasury Department. And earlier this month, the US Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed Circle , a key backer of the USDC stablecoin, for documents about its operations and products. Wanted: a clearer definition of cash backing for stablecoins The legal action against Tether is likely the beginning of a push for consumer protection and transparency from stablecoins, said Charley Cooper, a former chief operating officer of the CFTC who is now the managing director of the blockchain company R3. “We anticipate that due to the potential systemic nature of some stablecoins, regulatory supervision is a likely outcome in the near term.” Darrell Duffie, a professor of management and finance at Stanford, said the fine against Tether was very much justified, but that better regulation is needed—including clearer definitions of what “cash backing” entails in the context of stablecoins. “Providers of financial products should be held to high standards for meeting their claims about their products,” Duffie said, “especially on such a basic thing as the assets backing the product.” Banks don’t need to keep one-to-one cash reserves, but they’re subject to lots of regulation, as Hanna Halaburda, an NYU professor and a former senior economist at the Bank of Canada, pointed out. “To allow for fractional banking in a safe way, not only reserves but also operations would need to be subject to regulation,” she said. And this of course has drawbacks for the industry, and for taxpayers. “Regulation not only goes against the original ideology of crypto,” Halaburda said, “but also is costly.” 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” || 7 of the Best Altcoins to Buy: Bitcoin isn't the only crypto game in town. Bitcoin (BTC) typically gets the lion's share of cryptocurrency media coverage, and rightfully so. In the years since the first Bitcoin transaction was completed in 2009, however, thousands of other cryptocurrencies have popped up, creating a confusing landscape for investors. Some altcoins have unique technology that improves on or differentiates them from Bitcoin. Others are simply popular digital currency brands and viral social media memes. Investing in altcoins is a risky endeavor, but it can also be very lucrative given the extreme volatility in the crypto market. Here are seven of the best altcoins to buy. Ethereum (ETH) Ethereum is by far the largest and most popular alternative to Bitcoin, but it was built with an entirely different goal in mind. The decentralized network was the first to introduce smart contracts: code that allows blockchain platforms to run decentralized applications, or dApps. There are currently 2,889 Ethereum dApps, according to the website State of the dApps. The network includes dApps for gaming, gambling, socializing and even decentralized finance, or DeFi. Most nonfungible tokens , or NFTs, are also based on the Ethereum network, making Ethereum arguably the most functional and useful blockchain in the world. Solana (SOL) Compared to Ethereum, Solana is a relative newcomer to the crypto space. The cryptocurrency has skyrocketed in popularity, however, making Solana the fourth-most-valuable crypto in the world. Solana also supports dApps and NFTs, but it claims to have only 350 or so projects on the network at this point. Solana's unique combination of proof-of-history, or PoH, and proof-of-stake, or PoS, transaction verification models is much faster than Ethereum's proof-of-work, or PoW model. Solana also has lower fees than Ethereum, and its unique verification process uses far less energy than PoW models, making it a greener crypto than Bitcoin and Ethereum. Story continues Polkadot (DOT) The Polkadot blockchain launched in 2020 and was developed by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood. Polkadot operates a main network blockchain where transactions are permanent. Its unique feature is its so-called parachains, which are user-created blockchains that can be customized while still benefiting from the same security measures as the main chain. Users can customize different parachains for different uses without the main chain requiring additional computing resources. Polkadot also allows for trustless communication between different blockchains. In a practical sense, the Polkadot system could allow investors to trade Bitcoin for Ethereum directly without having to rely on an exchange. Dogecoin (DOGE) Dogecoin was created in 2013 as a parody of Bitcoin. The joke cryptocurrency caught fire in 2020 thanks in large part to its Shiba Inu dog mascot. Dogecoin became a social media meme phenomenon, but the cryptocurrency has also won over some heavy hitters in the business world. Tesla Inc. (ticker: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk is a Dogecoin investor and claims he has been working with developers to improve Dogecoin system efficiency. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban has also called Dogecoin the "strongest" cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange. The price of Dogecoin is down about 70% from its May peak. Litecoin (LTC) Litecoin was created in 2011 by former Google engineer Charlie Lee, who now works for crypto exchange company Coinbase Global Inc. ( COIN ). Lee essentially created Litecoin to be to Bitcoin what silver is to gold . Litecoin's biggest advantage over Bitcoin is its faster block generation time, which allows for shorter transaction confirmation times. AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. ( AMC ) recently said it is pushing to accept Litecoin and other cryptos as payment by the end of 2021, potentially expanding Litecoin's footprint. The price of Litecoin is up more than 450% in the past three years, but the cryptocurrency has lost significant market share to higher-flying competitors such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Shiba Inu (SHIB) Like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu's success is primarily a testament to its branding, including its name and logo. Shiba Inu was created in August 2020. In July 2021, its developers launched the ShibaSwap decentralized exchange, which provides financial services for its user community. Outside of ShibaSwap, Shiba Inu has limited functionality. The cryptocurrency is accepted as payment at just 371 global merchants, according to Cryptwerk. By comparison, Bitcoin is accepted by more than 7,600 merchants. A Change.org petition calling for the popular trading app Robinhood Markets Inc. ( HOOD ) to list Shiba Inu has more than 540,000 signatures, but Robinhood has yet to add Shiba Inu trading. SafeMoon (SAFEMOON) SafeMoon launched in March 2021 and hit the ground running, skyrocketing in price within weeks of its rollout. SafeMoon was designed to encourage long-term investing and discourage selling. Sellers are charged a 10% fee, and a portion of that fee is returned to existing investors. This system allows investors to generate passive income from their holdings. Like Dogecoin, SafeMoon has gotten some high-profile celebrity endorsements, including Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and social media influencer Jake Paul. Investors hope that the upcoming launch of SafeMoon V2 will help the crypto recapture its momentum after a sizable pullback from April highs.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 53598.25, 49200.70, 49368.85, 50582.62, 50700.09, 50504.80, 47672.12, 47243.30, 49362.51, 50098.34
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
7 Reddit Stocks to Add to Your February Buy List: A year after Redditors grouped to squeeze institutional short-sellers, the subgroup still has plenty of buying ideas. Once members on WallStreetBets warm up toRedditstocks mentioned in the forum, others who like the stock buy start positions in them too. This echo chamber cycle is not without risks. An anonymous penny stock pumper could create bots to flood the forum. They could mention the same stock ideas to trick investors. Fortunately, Reddit has moderators who look for posts promoting risky stocks. Furthermore, the subgroup banned the discussion of cryptocurrencies andspecial purpose acquisition companies (SPAC). This lowers the chance of Reddit stocks including highly speculative instruments that will get pumped and then dumped.
According to the quant scores from theStockrover research library, Apple and Microsoft have the highest quality scores. Reddit recognized stocks offering only wishes (ContextLogic stock) or four-leaf clovers (representing Clover Oncology stock) would only keep falling. Conversely, those two firms may outperform the index as investors flee to safety.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
• 7 Triple-A Rated Stocks to Buy Now
For February, Reddit has seven mega-capitalization stocks for readers to add to the buy list. For the most part, they have a mix of strong quality and growth scores. The companies are:
• Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)
• GameStop(NYSE:GME)
• Robinhood(NASDAQ:HOOD)
• Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)
• Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX)
• SoFi Technologies(NASDAQ:SOFI)
• Tesla(NASDAQ:TSLA)
Source: pio3 / Shutterstock.com
Apple not only earns strong profits from iPhone sales, but it also has multiple catalysts this year and beyond. The mere mention of Apple entering theelectric vehicle, virtual reality, or the metaverse market will lift the stock.
While long-term investors would hold AAPL stock through its volatility, Redditors may trade the stock swings.
Apple does not need to offer eye-opening innovations on its iPhone. Its incremental updates in the chip processor, graphics, display, and camera quality are enough to justify the iPhone’s price. Once new customers join Apple’s platform, they will buy apps on the App Store. They may also sign up for services such as Apple TV+, Fitness+, and Apple Arcade.
The more Nasdaq corrects on fears of overvaluation, the more value Apple gets for conservative investors. Speculators will sell shares in companies that earn no profit. As they rotate from growth to value, they will build a position in Apple.
On Wall Street, the average price target from among the 29 analysts is around $192.18 (according to Tipranks). Apple’s earnings per share will grow by at least 15% in thenext five years. This would support that price target.
Source: Shutterstock / mundissima
Reddit’s WSB gained notoriety when the group bought GameStop to squeeze institutional short-sellers in 2021. “Gorillas will hold strong” on GME stock as bears fail to learn their lesson. The short floatis around 15%.
In the third quarter, GameStop’s $1.39 a share GAAP loss on revenue of $1.3 billionis hardly inspiring. Still, the gaming retailer ended the quarter with $1.413 billion in cash and cash equivalents. It has barely any debt, except for $46.2 million in a low-interest, unsecured term loan. Armed with liquidity, the company has many ways to pivot the business. For example, GameStop hired more than 20 people who arereportedly focused on NFTs(non-fungible tokens).
NFTs are arguably the biggest bubble in financial markets or the next generation for facilitating transactions. GameStop will need to evaluate NFTs fit in its gaming business.
• 7 IT Stocks to Buy No Matter What Earnings Season Brings
Investors should watch out for GameStop’s core business deteriorating. In Q3, inventory ballooned to $1.141 billion, upfrom $861 million last year. The company front-loaded investments in inventory so it would meet increased customer demand. Given the ongoing supply chain issues, strong sell-through should lift the company’s revenue this year.
Source: OpturaDesign / Shutterstock.com
Redditors have a mixed opinion on Robinhood. They may easily share screenshots of trades, gains, and losses from their Robinhood app. Yet last year, Robinhood did not help retailer investors. They prevented users from buying GME stock.
On Jan. 13,The Vergereported that Robinhood had to pay a trader almost $30,000 for restrictingtrades on certain stocks. With the past behind it, the subgroup might bet that HOOD stock will stop falling. Shares are well off the intra-day $85 high in the days following its initial public offering (IPO) last year.
Fundamentally, Robinhood is in trouble. Its stock trading app has no moat. Competitors already offered similar no-fee trades. The trading app needs to differentiate its offering by entering new markets. For example, on Jan. 20, 2022, Robinhoodannounced Crypto Wallets. It will roll out the service to the first 1,000 customers on the top of the Wallets waitlist.
Bitcoin’s plunge to around $35,000may have permanently scared cryptocurrency investors. The coin needs a consistently high daily volatility for Robinhood to earn revenue from cryptocurrency transactions.
Source: Asif Islam / Shutterstock.com
Among the FAANGM stocks, Microsoft and Google are cash flow generators. Microsoft is more compelling because it has a metaverse strategy. Google is mulling virtual reality (VR) headsets. After it failed to release a consumer product with Google Glasses in the last decade, Microsoft is more compelling.
On Jan. 18, Microsoftannounced it would acquireActivision Blizzard(NASDAQ:ATVI). The eye-popping cost of $68.7 billion in an all-cash transaction. This purchase is a good deal for Microsoft and its shareholders. This will not dilute shareholders. Microsoft gets many blockbuster titles, too. This includesWarcraft, Diablo, Call of Duty, Candy Crush,andOverwatch.
Microsoft accelerated its metaverse strategy with Activision. It immediately added popular content that will push it ahead of competitors. For example,Sony’s(NYSE:SONY) blandstatement about the dealshows how Microsoft benefits from owning Activision. Hopefully, Microsoft will continue to support Activision’s games on the Sony PlayStation platform. Everyone benefits when companies support cross-platform game development, especially customers. Simplywall.st calculated MSFT stock is worthalmost $400 a share.
• 10 Stocks to Buy That Could Make You a Millionaire in 2022
MSFT has plenty of upside.
As shown on the right, the site calculated MSFTstock valuebased on a perpetual growth rate of 2% and a discount rate of 6.3%.
Source: Kaspars Grinvalds / Shutterstock.com
Before Netflix fell by around 22% after its earnings report, investors thought that the streaming giant had pricing power. Netflix announced it would immediately raise pricesfor new subscribers. This is the third price hike since 2019.
In the fourth quarter,Netflix posted8.28 million net additions, sharply ahead of the 4.38 million in Q3. With 221.84 million global paid memberships, the company only grew its customer base by 8.9% year-over-year. Free cash flow of negative $569 million is a concern. By using $403 million for operations, investors expect heavier expenses will weigh on profitability for 2022.
For the upcoming first quarter, Netflix expects to add only 2.5 million subscribers. Now that the stock price reflects the lower expected growth, traders could bet that the company exceeds estimates. The firm may expand globally to outflank competitors likeDisney’s(NYSE:DIS) Disney+. Furthermore, the American market is not saturated. Many viewers are still consuming content from cable television. As cable cutting accelerates, customers might sign up for a Netflix account before prices rise again.
Source: rafapress / Shutterstock.com
Post-SPAC, Sofi is a Reddit favorite. For months, the group waited for the fintech to receive its Bank Charter. That happened on January 18, 2022.
Sofi said it receivedregulatory approvalto become a national bank. The company will contribute $750 million in capital. It will maintain its Golden Pacific Bancorp community bank business and footprint. This includes GPB’s three physical branches.
Although investors expected the Bank Charter, markets may value SOFI stock like a bank. This would suggest downside valuations ahead. Still, SoFi’s Galileo provides a software solution to help the company sell many digital banking products. Sofi will need to post growing product sales per customer added. As long as customer growth increases, Sofi stock has a good chance of performing well in February.
• 7 Hot Stocks Poised to Get Even Hotter in Q1
As a bank, Sofi needs to offer customers competitive rates. It might undercut established banks to take market share.
Source: Shutterstock
Tesla’s breakout that began in 2020 rewarded many Redditors who bought bullish options. Importantly, Tesla raised the price of full self-driving software to $12,000 (per CEOMusk’s tweet on Jan. 17). This signals the view that the EV giant is a software company that justifies some of its excessive valuations.
Speculators may guess that Tesla stock performs, thanks to a combination of the ability to raise software prices and exceed deliveries. On Jan. 2, Tesla posted Q4 vehicleproduction of 305,000 vehicles. Model 3/Y accounted for most of the deliveries: 296,850 out of 308,600. If the EV giant wants to retain a lead in the luxury EV market, it will need to sell more Model S units. Otherwise, companies likeLucid Group(NASDAQ:LCID) could build their brand name in the space.
Tesla is an enigmatic stock that will rally more than bears expect and fall when bulls least expect it. CEO Musk has a strong Twitter following. He may tweet about cryptocurrency and send its value higher. As long as he still has that influence, consider TSLA stock a Reddit favorite for February.
On the date of publication, Chris Lau did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
Chris Lauis acontributing author for InvestorPlace.com and numerous other financial sites. Chris has over 20 years of investing experience in the stock market and runs the Do-It-Yourself Value Investing Marketplace on Seeking Alpha. He shares his stock picks so readers get original insight that helps improve investment returns.
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The post7 Reddit Stocks to Add to Your February Buy Listappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Bitengen Changes Global Fintech Market with Crypto and NFT Exchange: Covent Garden, Feb. 18, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Covent Garden, England -
First Global Exchange Platform Interacting with NFT, Crypto, Fiat, and Commodities all in one.
(London, England) Bitengen, the global leader in the crypto marketplace, launches an NFT Marketplace that allows users to browse and purchase a wide range of NFTs, including art, media, games, avatars, and much more initiates the launch of Bitengencoin while issuing token holders a return on investment.
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Bitengencoin (BENG) is a BEP-20 token on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) used in almost every part of the Bitengen ecosystem and provides distinct advantages for its holders. The token is used for exchange fees, withdrawal fees, listing fees, and pretty much any other fee on any of the Bitengen platforms to include trades for commodities, NFT, Fiat and Crypto
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The four areas of significance include security, a best-in-class trading platform, low trading fees, and a powerful charting engine. Regarding security, there is a focus on protecting trading regarding user information, and funding is the priority. The best-in-class trading platform is a fast, safe, and reliable trading platform is suitable for novice and professional traders. Low trading fees allow for the enjoyment of tight spreads and low commission rates while trading BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, and BCH with 1:100 leverage. Lastly, as a powerful charting engine, the user has access to multiple chart types, a variety of indicators and drawing tools, as well as the ability to trade directly from the chart.
These features aren’t available to regular users and include increased exposure for listings, reduced service charges, and more.
BENG has a total of three (3) billion tokens with a built-in burn plan that makes the token naturally deflationary. Every quarter, 25% of Bitengen profits will be used to buy back BENG tokens and permanently remove them from circulation. This action will continue until 25% of the entire BENG supply is removed from circulation.
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Bitengen is a Global Bitcoin-based platform offering leveraged trading on several digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash. Providing clients with access to top-tier liquidity and a wide range of trading tools while maintaining security liquidity, enabling a safe and efficient trading environment for everyone. Bitengen remains committed to creating a dynamic and most innovative platform that equips users with all necessary tools for trading activities. Download Bitengen Apps on Apple and Android to trade over 20+ assets, including Crypto. For more information, Bitengen may be found athttps://bitengen.io.
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For more information about Bitengen, contact the company here:Bitengensupport@bitengen.io71-75 Shelton Street London Greater London WC2H 9JQ UNITED KINGDOM || FTSE 100 Live: Tech stocks hit by US rates talk, Next and B&M boost profits guidance, Greggs boss to retire: (ESI) London's strong start to trading in 2022 was halted today as investors reacted to the prospect of US interest rates rising as soon as March. Wall Street markets fell sharply and the FTSE 100 index is 1% lower after the release of meeting minutes from the Federal Reserve suggested rates could rise relatively soon. The sell-off overshadowed another strong trading performance from Next, with the fashion chain upgrading its profits guidance on the back of a strong Christmas trading. FTSE 100 Live Thursday Festive sales cheer for Next US rates rise fear stalls FTSE progress Greggs boss to step down London closes 1% lower even as banks rally 16:46 , Oscar Williams-Grut The FTSE 100 has closed down 73 points, or 1%, at 7443, dragged lower by rate rise fears. Design software firm Aveva is bottom of the pile, down over 5% after spending the day in the red. Meanwhile, banks ended the day with handsome gains: Standard Chartered rose 3.7%, while Lloyds, HSBC and Natwest all gained 2% or more. The rotation out of tech and into banks is being driven by investor bets that interest rates are about to go up. Danni Hewson at AJ Bell says: Will this be the tale on repeat for early 2022? Banking and Energy shares heading up and rate sensitive growth stocks heading down? Investors shouldnt have been surprised by the increasingly hawkish tone being employed by the US Federal Reserve and yet just the anticipation of seeing its most recent comments in black and white prompted a tech stock sell off yesterday which has just kept on rolling. It certainly feels like the piper is calling to be paid, inflation numbers for the next few months look pretty nailed on if Germanys latest update is anything to go by. Data out today showed German inflation running at 5.7% in December, well above the level economists normally target but down slightly on Novembers 6% reading. Thats all from us on the blog today. Join us again tomorrow for more market action, with Halifax house price data out at 7am. Story continues Small respite for US tech stocks 14:53 , Oscar Williams-Grut Wall Street has opened slightly higher, with tech stocks stemming the bleeding after a huge sell-off on Wednesday. The Nasdaq, the main barometer of US tech sentiment, is up about a third of a percent shortly after the open, while the S&P 500 has gained a quarter of a percent and the Dow is down about 0.1%. The mild bounce for tech is probably being supported by the worse-than-expected US jobs numbers just before the open. A weaker jobs picture could make the Fed less likely to hike rates though it looks pretty marginal at the moment. The FTSE is still struggling for direction and is down around 0.8% with an hour and a half of the trading day left. US jobless numbers overshoot forecasts 14:07 , Oscar Williams-Grut The latest US jobless numbers have been published in the last hour and they have come in higher than forecast. There were 207,000 initial jobless claims in the four weeks to 31 December, above the 200,000 economists had forecast. Dan Boardman-Weston, CIO at BRI Wealth Management, says: Whilst this is a slight negative, its worth noting that they remain at historically low levels and continue to show significant strength in the US labour market. This is likely to add further impetus for the Fed to raise rates faster or sooner than the market had been expecting. Unless the rapid spread of Omicron starts to put the economy under significant pressure - which markets dont expect will happen - then the stage looks set for continued economic growth and for monetary policy to become tighter over the coming months. Wall Street opens in about 20 minutes, with futures pointing to mixed open the tech-heavy Nasdaq is called to drop another half a percent at the open, while the Dow should rise 0.2%. On this side of the pond the FTSEs mild lunchtime fight back has faded, with the bluechip index down about 0.7%. Ex-Barclays exec joins startup bank 13:55 , Oscar Williams-Grut A former top Barclays exec who began his career in the army has joined a new challenger bank targeting the mass affluent. Ian Rand, former boss of business banking at Barclays, has joined startup lender Monument as chief executive . Rand spent 12 years in the British army before moving into banking in 2000. He began his career at JPMorgan before moving to Barclays, where he worked for 12 years. Rand left the bank in late 2020. He will take over as CEO at Monument from Mintoo Bhandari, a former managing director at US investment giant Apollo who founded the lender in 2018. Read the full story. 13:25 , Oscar Williams-Grut Pod Point, which listed in London in November , has said it continues to enjoy strong trading and full-year results are on track with forecasts. The company works with businesses like Tesco and Barratt Homes to install charging infrastructure in public places and private properties. Shares have improved 8.7p, or 3.5%, to 255.5p on the update. Perhaps surprisingly, CEO Erik Fairbairn says its exactly the right time for the government to cut electric vehicle grants, as new figures showed a quarter of vehicles bought at the end of last year were battery powered. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said 2021 was the most successful year in history for electric vehicles, with plug-ins representing 18.5% all new cars bought last year. Momentum is accelerating, with battery powered vehicles accounting for 25.5% of the market by December. What subsidies are for is to encourage activity before its commercially viable, Fairbairn told the Standard. I think electric vehicles stand up on their own two feet now. Read the full story. Tech sell-off eases in London 13:00 , Oscar Williams-Grut Having been down as much as 1% earlier in the session, the FTSE 100 has managed to claw back some ground. The bluechip index is down around 44 points, or 0.6%, at 7473 this lunchtime. Tech companies still foot the index, with industrial design software business Aveva the biggest faller. Tech stocks have sold off around the world after new minutes from the Fed overnight suggesting rates could rise sooner than expected in the US. When America sneezes, the world catches a cold and there are expectations that other central banks could now follow suite. Rising rates are bad for high-growth stocks like tech but good for banks. And unlike US markets, which have a large number of tech businesses, Londons stock market relies much more on lenders than it does tech. Asian-focused bank Standard Chartered is currently at the top of the FTSE leader board with a gain of 3.6%. Lloyds, HSBC, Natwest and Barclays are all not far behind. In ad land, WPP is up just over 1% after an upgrade to Buy from Shore Capital. Elsewhere, the top stories this lunchtime are: - Greggs boss Roger Whiteside is retiring after a stellar nine years in charge - A profit upgrade and special dividend from Next have spurred hopes that retailers avoided the worst of the Omicron downturn to enjoy a bumper Christmas - M&C Saatchi, Margaret Thatchers favourite advertising agency, is facing a surprise takeover bid from its own deputy chair Sell off puts boot into Dr Martens 12:57 , Simon Freeman (Dr Martens) Dr Martens share price has suffered its biggest one-day fall after former owner Permira, which took the boot-maker public 12 months ago, offloaded a 6.5% stake at a discount. The UK-based private equity group sold 65 million shares at 395p, below yesterdays 421p closing price, sending the stock down by as much as 13% to 366p. Permira raised £257 million from the sell-off, which was offered via its Luxembourg-based IngreLux fund, in a placing to institutional investors overseen by Goldman Sachs. That is not far short of the £300 million it paid to take control of the company in 2013. It still retains 36% of Dr Martens issued share capital. The iconic boot-maker enjoyed a bumper IPO last January with shares leaping 16% on its market debut. It posted a 46% jump in pre-tax profits to £61 million in the six months to September 30 but wa r n e d s h i p p i n g d e l ays a n d snagged supply chains could weigh on sales into the next financial year Bumper year for bitcoin 11:19 , Oscar Williams-Grut Crypto trading volumes surged last year to rival some major currencies, a new report shows. Chainalysis, a US crypto data company, said cryptocurrency transactions rose 550% last year to reach $15.8 trillion, equivalent to daily volumes of around $43 billion. That would put daily crypto turnover on a par with foreign exchange dealings for the Danish krone and more than the Polish zloty, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements . The surge in trading came in a year when Tesla founder Elon Musk helped drive a rally in dogecoin by Tweeting memes, crypto-enabled NFTs grew from almost nothing to a $41 billion market , and bitcoin reached a new all-time high . 2021 was a banner year for the emerging sector. While last year was a breakout for crypto, 2022 has had a rougher start. Bitcoin is in a bear market and fell another 6.8% overnight to reach $46,163, its lowest level since September. Read the full story. Womenswear firm Sosandar toasts sales jump 10:23 , Joanna Bourke Womenswear retailer Sosandar has recorded sales growth (Sosandar) Online womenswear retailer Sosandar has toasted encouraging festive trading, helped by very strong sales of partywear before Christmas. The AIM-listed firm added that trading into early January has also been strong, with an increase in demand for active and casual clothing since December 25. Total revenue in the three months to December 31 was £8.9 million, up from £4 million and representing a record quarter. Read more HERE . M&C Saatchi faces £250m bid from its own deputy chairman 09:25 , Simon English M&C Saatchi, the storied Soho advertising firm with close links to the Conservative Party, faces a £250 million takeover bid from its own deputy chairman. Vin Murria, a software entrepreneur with a near 10% stake in the business, is poised to make an offer that would take the business off the stock market. A story in the Daily Telegraph this morning flagged her intentions. Today M&C was forced to tell investors that it has received a preliminary approach from AdvancedAdvT Limited, a vehicle connected with Vin Murria, a director of the Company. read more here Investors wrong-footed by Fed minutes 09:25 , Graeme Evans Rising US rate expectations weighed on currency markets, with the pound reversing some of its recent recovery to stand 0.4% lower at just above 1.35 versus the US dollar. Pressure extended to Asia markets, where Tokyo's Nikkei 225 finished almost 3% lower. Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said the minutes had taken investors by surprise but that the dip in stocks seemed overdone. He told clients: The normalisation of Fed policy shouldnt dent the outlook for corporate profit growth, which remains on solid footing due to strong consumer spending, rising wages, and still easy access to capital. Bear in mind that the Fed has become incrementally more hawkish since last summer and equity markets have performed quite well. Growth companies have been the main beneficiaries of low real and nominal interest rates, pushing valuations to elevated levels. Haefele added: As the Fed begins to normalise policy, its logical that these stocks will face the strongest headwinds. Within the US equity market, we continue to have a preference for value stocks over growth stocks. Company behind UK gas project puts itself up for sale 09:02 , Oscar Williams-Grut Buyers are circling UK gas assets after surging global prices prompted a renewed focus on domestic supply. AIM-listed Angus Energy said it had recently received a series of approaches from buyers interested in its 51% stake in the Saltfleetby Gas Field in Lincolnshire and one offer to buy the entire business. Angus has kicked off a formal sale process as a result, with CEO George Lucan saying its in the best interests of investors as public markets are attributing little value to hydrocarbon reserves in general. In the meantime, Angus said it was continuing plans to restart gas production at the Saltfleetby site, which was first discovered in the 1990s. Shares jumped 14.5% to 0.88p. Next jewel in high streets crown 08:55 , Graeme Evans Next shares have failed to kick on, despite the retailer's fifth profits upgrade of the past year. Analysts were full of praise, however, as sales for the eight weeks to Christmas Day came in £70 mllion ahead of management expectations and full year pre-tax profit guidance was raised by £22 million to £822 million. Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: For all the tales of woe on the high street, there is one shining jewel to be found in the form of Next. There arent many bricks-and-mortar retailers dishing out special dividends or upgrading guidance multiple times over. The latest upgrade means Next is able to pay another special dividend of 160p a share, in addition to the 110p which has already been paid. RIchard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: This implies a dividend yield of over 3% which is notable in the current interest rate environment, and which also leaves the potential for more gas in the tank as the company returns to the pre-pandemic ordinary dividend cycle, including the possibility of share buybacks if certain hurdles are met. FTSE 100 falls 1%, Next shares lower 08:26 , Graeme Evans The FTSE 100 index is down 1% or 74 points to 7440, although still above the 7384 level at which London's top flight started the year. British Airways owner IAG gave up recent gains by falling 3% and tech-focused Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust declined 2% as the latest rise in US bond yields put pressure on the value of holdings including Tesla and Amazon. Transatlantic retailer JD Sports Fashion also fell 2% on fears of a consumer squeeze caused by an imminent hike in US interest rates. Discount chain B&M European Value Retail rose 2% after it upgraded full-year forecasts on the back of a very strong Golden Quarter, but there was no rally for Next shares. The FTSE 100-listed stock was 52p lower at 7986p, despite another profits upgrade. Greggs boss Roger Whiteside to retire, Roisin Currie to become CEO 08:00 , Joanna Bourke Roger Whiteside, the chief executive of high street bakery chain Greggs, will retire from the company he has led since 2013 this year. The boss, who is 63, will step down from the post after Greggs annual meeting in May. He will be succeeded by Roisin Currie, the FTSE 250 firms retail and property director. During his time leading Greggs, the firms estate has grown from around 1600 shops to 2181, and more openings are planned. Whiteside said: Greggs is a fantastic organisation with a very strong team. Roisin is a great leader and has played a key role in the development of the business over many years, most recently in shaping our ambitious plans for further growth. Read more HERE . Next shows other retailers how it is done (again) 07:50 , Simon English Next is on the up. Not for the first time. Today it posts another profit upgrade and another special dividend to shareholders. You can read more here . US rates fear triggers FTSE 100 fall 07:37 , Graeme Evans The FTSE 100 index is to open sharply lower after the latest US Federal Reserve minutes triggered a big sell-off on Wall Street last night. The comments from the Fed's most recent meeting in December suggested a rate rise could come relatively soon, prompting bets among traders for a hike in March. Some Fed members also considered when would be the right time to reduce the size of the central bank's balance sheet as part of the normalisation of monetary policy. US inflation is currently well above 6% while the central bank also noted America's very tight labour market as reasons for accelerating their policy response. The prospects of a spring interest rates rise put upward pressure on US bond yields for the third session in a row, diminishing the appeal of high growth companies valued on future cash flows. The tech-focused Nasdaq closed down 3.3% and the S&P 500 lost almost 2% of its value, although US futures markets are pointing to a steadier session today. London's FTSE 100 index is expected to open more than 100 points lower, having gained ground in the first two sessions of 2022 after closing last night at its highest level since February 2020. Michael Hewson of CMC Markets said: What appears to have spooked markets is talk about balance sheet reduction. This has prompted a quite a bit of anxiety with some on the Fed talking about the probability of when it might be appropriate to reduce the size of the balance sheet, thus pulling liquidity out of the market. While this might be a valid concern, speculation that the Fed might start doing this seems a little premature given that it hasnt stopped adding to its balance sheet yet, let alone reducing it. || Cryptocurrency Predictions for 2022: ozgurdonmaz / Getty Images Cryptocurrency has boomed in popularity over the past few years, to the point that the alternative investment class has essentially gone mainstream. While Bitcoin was the first and still remains the best-known cryptocurrency, literally thousands of other cryptos have entered the scene. Part of the reason for the hype surrounding the asset class is the tremendous returns that have been earned by some investors. Bitcoin, for example, was the best-performing asset from March 2011 to March 2021, with a staggering 230% annualized return. The next best-performing asset class over that time period was the Nasdaq-100 ETF, symbol QQQ, with “just” a 20% annualized return. But, what’s to come for the rapidly growing cryptocurrency market? Here’s a look at some of the most popular cryptocurrency predictions for 2022. Options: 10 Cheap Cryptocurrencies To Buy Consider: 8 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest In for 2021 Ethereum May Overtake Bitcoin Ethereum is not as widely known as Bitcoin, but it should be. Currently, Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency, and its gains have been outpacing Bitcoin’s. If current trajectories continue, Ethereum may very well overtake Bitcoin as the most valuable cryptocurrency sometime in 2022. This might make Ethereum an interesting choice for investors looking to diversify their crypto portfolios away from simply owning Bitcoin. Economy Explained: Ethereum: All You Need To Know To Decide If This Crypto Is Worth the Investment Cryptos Will Become More Accepted as a Payment Source One of the major bear cases against cryptocurrency is that it’s not accepted as a viable substitute for traditional currencies. If this scenario plays out, many cryptocurrencies may indeed become worthless. However, just the opposite has been happening in 2021, and the trend seems likely to continue into 2022. As more and more businesses begin accepting cryptocurrency like Bitcoin as legal tender, both the viability and the value of cryptos will likely increase. Story continues Consider: Dogecoin: Is It Still Worth an Investment? More Countries Will Adopt Crypto as Legal Currency In September 2021, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Alexander Höptner, the CEO of the crypto exchange giant BitMEX, feels that five or more countries could follow suit in 2022 and adopt crypto as legal currency. If these adoptions prove to be successful, it’s likely that other countries may look into adopting crypto as well. Do You Know? Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From? Central Banks Will Issue Their Own Digital Currencies China has been leading the push among nations to adopt its own central bank-issued digital currency. In an effort to fend off threats from existing cryptocurrencies, many other countries are also looking into creating their own digital currencies. By managing and controlling their own digital currencies, countries can avoid the unregulated, decentralized nature of existing cryptocurrencies. Beyond Bitcoin: Looking at Some Crypto Financial Jargon Investors and Companies Alike May Raise Their Crypto Allocations As cryptocurrency becomes more mainstream, it’s being adopted with more regularity into the portfolios of both individual investors and companies. Some financial advisors now recommend cryptocurrency allocations of a few percentage points, and more companies are allocating cash to cryptos and digital assets. These types of allocation shifts tend to take on their own momentum, meaning more and more money is likely to be flowing into cryptocurrencies in 2022. Find Out: What Is Chainlink and Why Is It Important in the World of Cryptocurrency? Some, and Perhaps Many, Cryptos Will Become Valueless While general trends toward the acceptance of cryptocurrency seem to be increasing, with thousands of cryptos out there all competing for a space in the industry, it’s inevitable that some, if not many, will lose all of their value. Industry leader Bitcoin still has plenty of major investors lined up against it, suggesting that ultimately the value of Bitcoin will be $0. If the largest and most well-known cryptocurrency topples, there likely won’t be much support for the thousands of lesser cryptos that are not nearly as useful or accepted. Take a Look: The 10 Wildest Things Selling as NFTs The Bottom Line Although cryptocurrencies have exploded in visibility and valuation, they’re still a long way from being used as mainstream currencies or sources of payment. Even if digital currencies do eventually supplant or at least co-exist with traditional paper currencies, it’s difficult for investors to predict exactly which cryptocurrencies will survive, let alone which one will be the dominant long-term player in the industry. Still, it seems quite likely that cryptocurrencies will continue to make gains in usage, visibility and even valuation in 2022. While not all of the predictions on this list will come to pass, it’s likely that at least a few of them will. If you want to participate in this emerging market, consult with your financial advisor to determine if cryptocurrency should play a role in your investment portfolio. More From GOBankingRates The 5 Fastest Ways To Become Rich, According To Experts How Much You Need To Be ‘Rich’ in 50 Major US Cities Top Bank Account Promotions for January 2022 – Avoid Fees and Earn Up To $1,500 The Top 10 Best Travel Hacks To Save the Most Money This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Cryptocurrency Predictions for 2022 || U.S Inflation Hits Bitcoin (BTC) and the Broader Crypto Market: Bitcoin (BTC) saw it’s 4-day winning streak come to an end on Thursday. Reversing a 0.78% gain from Wednesday, Bitcoin fell by 2.01% to end the day at $43,532. It was just the 2ndpullback in 8-sessions.
Things were not much better for the broader crypto market. Terra (LUNA) tumbled by 8.82% to lead the way down, with Solana (SOL) sliding by 6.87%. Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH) weren’t far behind, with losses of 5.06% and 5.28% respectively.
In the early hours of Thursday, we hadhighlightedU.S inflation figures and U.S market reaction to the numbers as key for the crypto market on the day.
In January, the U.S annual rate of inflation accelerated from 7.0% to 7.5%. The pickup in inflationary pressure forced the markets to price in a more aggressive FED rate hike path for the year. In response to the stats, the NASDAQ 100 ended the day with 2.10% loss.
Bitcoin reaction to the numbers further justified the IMF’s concerns over the interconnectedness of cryptos and the U.S equity markets.
In response to the inflation figures, Bitcoin slid from $44,973 to an intraday low $43,254. Tracking the NASDAQ 100, Bitcoin bounced back to strike an intraday high $45,837 before sliding back to sub-$44,000 and into the red.
In spite of Thursday’s pullback, theBitcoin Fear & Greed Indexheld steady at 50/100 overnight. Having pulled back from 54/100 on Thursday, avoiding a fall back into the red zone was key.
Near-term, however, trend will be key. The Index will need to move back through Wednesday’s 54/100 and through to 55/100 levels to support Bitcoin’s run at $50,000.
For the day ahead, further market reaction to Thursday’s inflation figures will influence, which leaves the NASDAQ 100 in the driving seat.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.37% to $43,373. A move through the day’s $44,208 pivot would support a run at the first major resistance level at $45,161. Bitcoin would need support to break back through to $45,000 levels, however. In the event of an extended rally, Bitcoin could test resistance at $47,000 before any pullback. Plenty of support would be needed, however, for a breakout from Thursday’s high $45,837. The second major resistance level sits at $46,791.
Failure to move through the pivot would bring the first major support level at $42,578 into play. Barring an extended sell-off, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$42,000 levels. The second major support level sits at $41,625. The NASDAQ 100’s movements will continue to influence following Thursday’s moves. At the time of writing, the NASDAQ 100 mini was down by 37 points.
Looking at the EMAs and 4-hourly candlesticks (see below), the signal remains bullish. The 50-day EMA has pulled further away from 200-day EMA after this week’s bullish cross. The 100-day EMA has also narrowed on the 200-day EMA. A bullish cross of the 100-day through the 200-day EMA would further support the move towards $50,000 levels.
Key near-term, however will be for Bitcoin to avoid a fall back through the 50-day EMA, currently sitting at $42,270 levels, to sub-$42,000.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• GBP/USD Pulls Back After Bullard’s Comments || Fusion Capital, LLC Buys LyondellBasell Industries NV, BTC iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF, ...: Investment companyFusion Capital, LLC(Current Portfolio) buys LyondellBasell Industries NV, BTC iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF, Citigroup Inc, Qualcomm Inc, WisdomTree U.S. LargeCap Dividend Fund, sells Newmont Corp, Wynn Resorts during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, Fusion Capital, LLC. As of 2021Q4, Fusion Capital, LLC owns 85 stocks with a total value of $197 million. These are the details of the buys and sells.
• New Purchases:LYB, USMV, QCOM, DLN, LVS, NSC, SPY, MCD, NEE, PEP,
• Added Positions:VIG, AMGN, VUG, BBL, VTWO, JNJ, CAT, LRCX, CSCO, IVV, USB, C, LLY, AAPL, JPM, HD, MSFT, UPS, XOM, VOT, TROW, TOTL, AMZN, XLB, WMT, BAC, CVX, LQD, PYPL, XHB, LOW, DIS, SRLN, FB, BA, XLK, SBUX, VBK, VYM, CAH, SO, SCHD, NVDA, ABBV, VCSH, V, DEO, XLF, SPTM, VTI, VZ, NFLX,
• Reduced Positions:WYNN, MINT, IVW, T, BRK.B, IGSB, SCHG, BSV, PG, SCHX,
• Sold Out:NEM,
• Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with C. Click here to check it out.
• C 15-Year Financial Data
• The intrinsic value of C
• Peter Lynch Chart of C
For the details of Fusion Capital, LLC's stock buys and sells,go tohttps://www.gurufocus.com/guru/fusion+capital%2C+llc/current-portfolio/portfolio
These are the top 5 holdings of Fusion Capital, LLC
1. Apple Inc (AAPL) - 99,946 shares, 9.02% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 1.41%
2. Vanguard Dividend Appreciation FTF (VIG) - 93,751 shares, 8.19% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 5.40%
3. iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) - 23,721 shares, 5.75% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 2.44%
4. Vanguard Russell 2000 Index Fund (VTWO) - 95,970 shares, 4.38% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 5.01%
5. Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG) - 24,550 shares, 4.00% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 6.38%
New Purchase: LyondellBasell Industries NV (LYB)
Fusion Capital, LLC initiated holding in LyondellBasell Industries NV. The purchase prices were between $84.55 and $99.46, with an estimated average price of $92.69. The stock is now traded at around $99.890000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 1.6%. The holding were 34,061 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: BTC iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF (USMV)
Fusion Capital, LLC initiated holding in BTC iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF. The purchase prices were between $73.05 and $81.04, with an estimated average price of $77.29. The stock is now traded at around $78.710000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.15%. The holding were 3,572 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: Qualcomm Inc (QCOM)
Fusion Capital, LLC initiated holding in Qualcomm Inc. The purchase prices were between $122.95 and $189.28, with an estimated average price of $161.24. The stock is now traded at around $186.420000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.13%. The holding were 1,439 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: WisdomTree U.S. LargeCap Dividend Fund (DLN)
Fusion Capital, LLC initiated holding in WisdomTree U.S. LargeCap Dividend Fund. The purchase prices were between $59.49 and $66.15, with an estimated average price of $63.06. The stock is now traded at around $66.720000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.13%. The holding were 3,872 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS)
Fusion Capital, LLC initiated holding in Las Vegas Sands Corp. The purchase prices were between $33.98 and $42.64, with an estimated average price of $38.47. The stock is now traded at around $38.950000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.12%. The holding were 6,412 shares as of 2021-12-31.
New Purchase: Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC)
Fusion Capital, LLC initiated holding in Norfolk Southern Corp. The purchase prices were between $247.88 and $297.71, with an estimated average price of $279.86. The stock is now traded at around $288.180000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.12%. The holding were 777 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: Citigroup Inc (C)
Fusion Capital, LLC added to a holding in Citigroup Inc by 146.13%. The purchase prices were between $58.28 and $72.53, with an estimated average price of $66.33. The stock is now traded at around $67.280000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.13%. The holding were 7,278 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: Walmart Inc (WMT)
Fusion Capital, LLC added to a holding in Walmart Inc by 48.37%. The purchase prices were between $135.47 and $151.28, with an estimated average price of $143.31. The stock is now traded at around $143.440000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.07%. The holding were 3,092 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: Bank of America Corp (BAC)
Fusion Capital, LLC added to a holding in Bank of America Corp by 25.58%. The purchase prices were between $43.14 and $48.37, with an estimated average price of $45.61. The stock is now traded at around $48.860000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.07%. The holding were 16,000 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: Chevron Corp (CVX)
Fusion Capital, LLC added to a holding in Chevron Corp by 50.51%. The purchase prices were between $104.72 and $118.79, with an estimated average price of $113.83. The stock is now traded at around $127.330000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.07%. The holding were 3,656 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Added: PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL)
Fusion Capital, LLC added to a holding in PayPal Holdings Inc by 65.40%. The purchase prices were between $179.32 and $271.7, with an estimated average price of $214.83. The stock is now traded at around $187.200000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.06%. The holding were 1,702 shares as of 2021-12-31.
Sold Out: Newmont Corp (NEM)
Fusion Capital, LLC sold out a holding in Newmont Corp. The sale prices were between $53.27 and $62.02, with an estimated average price of $56.75.
Here is the complete portfolio of Fusion Capital, LLC. Also check out:1. Fusion Capital, LLC's Undervalued Stocks2. Fusion Capital, LLC's Top Growth Companies, and3. Fusion Capital, LLC's High Yield stocks4. Stocks that Fusion Capital, LLC keeps buyingThis article first appeared onGuruFocus. || ‘Fatwa’ Issued Against Bitcoin As Crypto gets Declared Haram in Indonesia: The most recentannouncementfrom the country has brought a lot of questions to mind pertaining to the acceptance ofBitcoinand othercryptocurrencies. If not legally can this become a method of obstruction now?
Tajdid Central Leadership (PP) Muhammadiyah along with the Tarjih Assembly today issued a fatwa against cryptocurrencies. According to the fatwa, the use of Bitcoin and other such coins for investment and payment is consideredharam.
The Muhammadiyah Tarjih Assembly stated that “The Tarjih Fatwa stipulates that the legal cryptocurrency isharamboth as an investment tool and as a medium of exchange”
The reasons revealed behind the fatwa fall back to the same reasons why regulations on cryptocurrencies are being considered. Albeit these reasons are more religiously motivated than legally.
As per the Islamic Sharia cryptocurrencies’ speculative nature is a huge shortcoming. The volatility of currencies such as Bitcoin and such makes it haram.
Secondly using such volatile assets is obscure according to the fatwa. Since cryptocurrencies are not backed by any physical asset, it becomesgharar.
Majelis Tarjih and Tajdid PP Muhammadiyah further added that,
“This speculative andghararnature is forbidden by sharia as the Word of Allah and the Hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and does not meet the values and benchmarks of Business Ethics according to Muhammadiyah, especially these two points, namely: there should be nogharar(HR). Muslim) and there should be no maisir (QS. Al Maidah: 90)”
This is the first time that the objections are arising out of religious stipulations. And although this isn’t an established pattern, many Islam-dominated countries such as Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Qatar, and Tunisia previously absolutely banned cryptocurrency.
In fact, mostrecently, Pakistan’s central bank too proposed a ban on all forms of cryptocurrency citing risks surrounding volatility.
As it is, regulations are already becoming a huge roadblock when it comes to crypto adoption. And the use of crypto might further reduce if such objections come from religious provenance as people are more obedient to religious laws.
Ironically, over the past 2 weeks, Bitcoin hasn’t been volatile at all. The king coin has kept its movement sideways bound and continues to head in that direction. Although at the time of this report it is maintaining a strong green presence having risen by 3.72%, it might remain consolidated for a while.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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BeInCrypto takes a look at Bitcoin (BTC) on-chain indicators that relate to lifespan, more specifically the liveliness indicator.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Improve Crypto Tax Laws — Here’s How It Would Make Life Easier for Consumers: Weedezign / Getty Images/iStockphoto Legislation reintroduced to Congress last week by a bipartisan group of lawmakers aims to change the way cryptocurrency purchases are taxed and help clear up some of the confusion over how to account for certain crypto transactions on your tax returns. See: Taxes 2022 — Questions About Your Crypto Purchase To Ask an Accountant Before You File Find: There’s a New Free Service for Compiling Tax Data To Report Crypto and NFTs The Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act was introduced on Feb. 3 by Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) and Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) and is co-sponsored by Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) and Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Accounting Today reported. The bill would exempt personal transactions made with cryptocurrency when the gains are $200 or less. Under current tax laws, all gains from virtual currency must be reported as taxable income regardless of the size or purpose of the transaction. Taxpayers are required to calculate and report any changes in the currency’s value against the dollar from the time they bought the currency until it’s used in a transaction, according to Accounting Today. Under the proposed legislation, taxpayers would no longer have to worry about the tax implications of smaller transactions — a major benefit, considering the rise of crypto as a consumer currency and the confusion over how crypto is taxed. See: 4 Best Crypto Exchanges of 2022 Find: How To Keep Your Crypto Investments Safe, According to Experts “Virtual currency is reshaping our everyday lives, and the United States needs to recognize this and work to treat these currencies fairly in our tax code,” Schweikert said in a news release. “Antiquated regulations around virtual currency do not take into account its potential for use in our daily lives, instead treating it more like a stock or ETF … This commonsense bill cuts the red tape and opens the door to further innovations, ultimately growing our digital economy.” Schweikert, Emmer and Soto co-chair the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, a congressional group that includes 35 lawmakers, Forbes reported. The caucus aims to simplify tax laws involving virtual currency and make it easier for both investors and consumers to use it — something industry officials have been lobbying for as cryptocurrency becomes a bigger part of the financial mainstream. Story continues “While Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are technologically innovative payment methods, today you have to keep track of and report every transaction you make using them, whether it’s a $10,000 investment trade or whether you’re buying a 99¢ song online or a latte at a cafe,” Jerry Brito, executive director of cryptocurrency think tank Coin Center, said in a statement. “This obviously creates friction and puts cryptocurrencies at a disadvantage relative to other digital payment methods.” See: Ready To Invest In Cryptocurrency? Get Started With Just $1 Find: 8 Cryptocurrency Tax Nightmares and How To Avoid Them The proposed bill will “create a level playing field” and “help unleash innovation on applications like micropayments, which can consist of dozens of transactions per minute and thus are difficult to square with the current law,” Brito added. Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, an industry trade group, said new laws are especially important as more consumers make retail purchases with crypto. Among the retailers that now allow Bitcoin payments are Whole Foods, Starbucks, Home Depot, Overstock and Etsy. “As the use of virtual currencies for retail payments increases, it’s important that Americans are able to easily understand their tax obligations,” Smith said in a statement. “By providing an exemption for small everyday purchases, the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act would ease this burden for consumers.” More From GOBankingRates GOBankingRates’ Best Banks of 2022: Live Richer by Banking Better Gen Z and Millennials Favor National and Online Banks, Survey Shows — What Does That Mean for the Future of Credit Unions? In the Market for a New Home? Do These 4 Things to Prepare 16 Effective Tips and Tricks To Help You Save Money In 2022 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Improve Crypto Tax Laws — Here’s How It Would Make Life Easier for Consumers || ADA Loses Its Momentum and Is Down 10% in the Last 24h: ADA, the 5th biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization ($46 billion), joins other cryptocurrencies with the crypto bearish sentiment and is down over 10% in the last 24 hours.
ADA’s price has been in an amazing rally in the last seven days, especially because of its upcoming launch on January 20 of the decentralized exchange (DEX)SundaeSwapand its first metaverse calledPavia.
Another fact that could have pushed ADA’s price up in the last week, was the recent poll in Twitter made byEthereum‘s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, in which ADA was preferred as the currency in 2035 if ETH does not exist, you can see the results below in his tweet:
This recent rally made ADA to top at $1.62, but it is now trading at $1.38$ and it’s still approximately 50% down from it’s all time high of September 2021.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalization is down approximately 2.5%, from $2 trillion to $1.95 trillion, giving an overall bearish sentiment in most of the cryptocurrencies, according to CoinMarketCap.
Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency with $780 billion in market capitalization, and representing 40% of total crypto market cap, is down 1.5% in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin, usually drives the crypto sentiment, either if it is bullish or bearish, as it is happening right now.
Yesterday, a blockchain data company claimed that cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com lost about $15 million of crypto because of a hack, but a few hours later Crypto.com’s CEO denied thelossof the funds.
ADA’s price right now is around $1.38, touching its previous support of January 16th, but if this support is broken, its next strong support is around $1.25 as you see in the price chart below:
ADA/USD chart. Source: FXEmpire
ADA could consolidate in the area of 1.38$ for the next few days, but can also continue the rally after SundaeSwap is launched tomorrow.
But time will tell, and let’s see if ADA can move on its own way without relying on the crypto sentiment in general, especially in Bitcoin price movements.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 37075.28, 38286.03, 37296.57, 38332.61, 39214.22, 39105.15, 37709.79, 43193.23, 44354.64, 43924.12
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2015-03-10]
BTC Price: 291.76, BTC RSI: 69.27
Gold Price: 1160.10, Gold RSI: 27.37
Oil Price: 48.29, Oil RSI: 44.88
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Force Minerals Corporation Finalizes Acquisition of Crypto Currency Digital Mining Company; New Commerce Platform for BTC Transactions Under Development: IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / February 24, 2015 /Force Minerals Corporation (OTC Pink: FORC) (FORC), is pleased to announce the Company has completed acquisition of an established Crypto Currency digital mining company and its digital mining assets. The acquisition is now finalized.
The acquisition of Digital Mining Corporation, a developing Crypto Currency and Alt Currency Mining Corporation is finalized and the company is now moving forward in executing its business plan, which will concentrate in two primary divisions of operations. These divisions will include mining, mining pools, trading and arbitrage across all crypto currencies. The second division of operations will include the development of crypto security features particular to Bitcoin for merchants.
The company is developing a platform which will allow merchants to utilize, by subscription, the ability to confirm the authenticity of Bitcoin being offered as payment on a much timelier basis than currently available. Bitcoin transactions can take between half a minute to several minutes to confirm the authenticity of the Bitcoin being offered as payment with larger transactions involving several Bitcoin taking up to 15 minutes or more. The company believes that upon successful development of its platform the transaction times can be reduced to a few seconds, no matter how large.
"We believe this new transaction platform will be a significant game changing technology for merchants utilizing Bitcoin," states, company President, Mr. Nate Lewis. "Companies such as Microsoft, Dell and many others with collective annual revenues of over 180 Billion now accept Bitcoin and the market is growing worldwide. We look forward to becoming a key developmental company in the Bitcoin and Crypto Currency markets in the future."
Upon the successful implementation of this process the company will expand to other relative Crypto Currencies as opportunities become available.
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; FORC's ability to commercialize its technology; ability to defend intellectual property; material and component costs; competition; economic conditions; consumer demand and product acceptance, and availability of growth capital.
Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed on Form 8-K and 10-K 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.
CONTACT:
Force Minerals CorporationMr. Nathaniel LewisPresident1-970-660-8197www.digitalminingcorp.comir@forceminerals.com
SOURCE:Force Minerals Corporation || Marijuana Finds Popularity Among An Unlikely Group: While the term “pot-head” is typically associated with a person laying on the couch, eating potato-chips and watching TV, marijuana use has unexpectedly taken hold among another group of people: jocks.
Drug use, especially with a drug closely related to smoking, may not seem like a growing trend for those interested in physical fitness, but more and more athletes are turning to marijuana to give their workouts an edge.
Cannabis Gives Distance Athletes An Edge
The fitness community has slowly been testing the effects of marijuana on athletic performance, with many long-distance competitors swearing by the effects of cannabis products.
Runners say the effects of THC help calm their minds and keep their bodies relaxed and able to go for longer periods of time, while other sportsmen say the drug helps manage their pain post-workout.
Usage Still Prohibited For Most Sports
TheWorld Anti-Doping Agencyhas banned the use of marijuana during competitions, saying that studies show its effects are useful in decreasing anxiety and increasing airflow into the lungs.
USA Track & Field takes a similar stance saying that athletes competing in running events in America are not allowed to use marijuana in preparation for races.
Ultramarathoners Say Cannabis Is A Popular Pain Management Drug
But marijuana use among athletes is still growing in sports where the drug is not regulated, like ultramarathon running. Many ultramarathon runners, whose races last for roughly 20 hours, consider cannabis to be another form of pain management much like Advil or Tylenol.
Users say the drug helps keep their heart rates lower and makes the time pass more quickly during the long races.
Related Link:Colorado's Recreational Marijuana Policies Under Attack
A New Marketing Opportunity?
Avery Collins, a 22-year-old ultramarathoner, has beensponsoredby a Colorado company associated with the state’s marijuana industry and will wear a marijuana leaf logo on his jersey throughout 2015.
He says he uses cannabis products to enhance his training, but doesn’t consume the drug prior to races. The sponsorship deal, though relatively small, may open the door to a new marketing angle for the growing marijuana industry in the U.S.
See more from Benzinga
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• EU Tax Law Could Make Bitcoin Transactions Invalid
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Continues Downward Spiral, Plunges Below $200: Bitcoin continues to kick off the new year on an appalling note. Just two weeks after being named the worst-performing currency of 2014 -- and only a day after opening statements took place in the trial of the Silk Roads alleged creator -- the virtual currency has plummeted below the $200 mark. It fell with a consumer confidence-shaking thud to a low of $170.08 early this morning, down from around $244 one day earlier, nosediving by 30 percent. Related: NYC Wants Drivers to Pay For Parking Tickets Via Apple Pay, Mobile Apps and Bitcoin The price of the rapidly declining cryptochash is now inching back toward $200, hovering around $194 at press time, per the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index . Bitcoins value hasnt dipped below $200 since October 2013. It peaked at $1,130 in December 2013, a record high for the 4-year-old digital currency. Meanwhile, global Bitcoin exchange trading volumes -- mainly sell orders -- spiked amid the price crash, tripling in the number of trades per minute, according to Bitcoinity . Related: New York Regulator Lays Out Tweaks to Bitcoin Rules The Bitcoin price freefall, along with increased mining difficulty, this week spurred Bitcoin cloud mining company CEX.IO to temporarily halt its services. Suspension of CEX.IO cloud mining service is only a forced temporary measure, the result of cloud mining costs exceeding mining profit, the startup stated in a Jan. 12 announcement . A CEX.IO representative told CoinDesk that the firm would only resume mining operations if the price of the virtual currency rises above $320. In the meantime, CEX.IO says it will continue operating its exchange platform. Related: Microsoft Is Now the Largest Company in the World to Accept Bitcoin || Hong Kong lawmakers urge ban on bitcoin as scam victims turn to police: By Michelle Price and Lizzie Ko HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong lawmakers on Wednesday urged authorities to ban bitcoin as more than 25 people flocked to police headquarters to complain over a scam involving the digital currency that media estimate could have duped investors of up to $387 million. The government should clamp down on bitcoin, said lawmakers Leung Yiu-chung and James To, who accompanied the complainants, among them Nepalese and mainland Chinese, as well as Hong Kong citizens. "The government should not just stand aside," Leung told reporters. "It's simply not enough to just ask people to exercise caution when investing ... it has to ban the circulation of such virtual currency in the market." His comments came in the wake of a statement by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority urging people "to exercise extra caution when considering making transactions or investments with Bitcoin". The company at the centre of the scam, MyCoin, describes itself on its website as a "leading global Bitcoin trading platform and application service provider". Telephone calls to MyCoin in Hong Kong could not be connected on Wednesday. Calls to its China customer service line were not answered. MyCoin promised clients a return of HK$1 million ($128,966) 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 on Monday. It claimed to have 3,000 customers investing an average of HK$1 million each, the paper said. Investors said they had been lured to the scheme by real estate brokers, insurance agents, and legal clerks. "Clients seem not to be the young, savvy bitcoin crowd, but older, less savvy investors," said Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong, whose help has been sought by victims. "Many are embarrassed." A police official declined to say how many complaints had been made, but said a statement would be issued. Bitcoins are created through a "mining" process that uses a computer's resources to perform millions of calculations. Story continues Advocates say the virtual currency is revolutionary as it is not controlled by a central bank. But the rising popularity of bitcoin, unregulated in many places including Hong Kong, has stoked concern it can be used as a vehicle to launder money and finance militant groups. A middle-aged woman, who identified herself as Grace, said she had re-mortgaged her apartment to invest HK$ 1.6 million with MyCoin to realise her dream of setting up her own company. "Now I don't even dare tell my husband." she said. ($1=7.7540 Hong Kong dollars) (Additional reporting by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) || Without Drugs, What's the Point of Bitcoin?: The trial of Ross Ulbricht , which began last week in Manhattan, doesn't lack for entertainment value. The 30-year-old is accused of founding and administering Silk Road, an online market that allowed users to buy and sell illegal drugs using bitcoins as currency. Founded in 2011, prosecutors allege that Silk Road generated $1.2 billion in revenue including an estimated $80 million paid in commissionsuntil the FBI shut it down in 2013. Ulbricht has pled not guilty. But whatever the verdict, the legacy of Ulbricht's high-profile case may strike a blow against Bitcoin's future viability. The idea behind Bitcoin is simple. Unlike modern fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar, Bitcoin has no supervising authority, no regulation, and no central bank. Users can use bitcoins to buy and sell goods anonymously without any outside interference. The idea has caught on. Created in 2009 by an unknown entity called "Satoshi Nakamoto," Bitcoin has begun to enter the mainstream. Companies like Amazon, CVS, and Victoria's Secret now accept them as legal tender. "Bitcoin is insanely traceable," Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at University of California Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute told the Verge . As an unregulated currency, Bitcoin appeared to be a natural fit for the illicit drug market. But while Bitcoin is anonymous, it isn't untraceable. When users convert bitcoins to hard currency, their name becomes linked to a "public blockchain" that comprises the entire transactional history of the bitcoin. This would be equivalent to a $20 bill containing a comprehensive history of every person who has touched it since emerging from the printing press. These public blockchains make it very easy for law enforcement officials, once users' identities are compromised, to understand the full extent of their illicit activity. Bitcoins, of course, are used for more than just drugs. But even in legal markets, the currency's volatility makes it an unattractive bet for would-be investors. Everyone knows that the fall in oil prices gutted Russia's ruble, which lost more than half of its value in 2014. But Bitcoin fared even worse , falling 76 percent. And unlike the ruble, which Moscow can rescue through manipulating interest rates and instituting capital controls, Bitcoin's lack of a central bank means there's nothing to stop it from sliding even further. Story continues Why is Bitcoin so volatile? Although generally thought of (and used as) a currency, bitcoins are better thought of as an asset bubble, the Washington Post 's Matt O'Brien argues . The supply of bitcoins increases when investors "mine" new ones, a process that involves using supercomputers to solve difficult mathematical equations. Because this process is expensive, miners borrow (real) money to finance it. This routine worked well in 2013, when bitcoins were worth more than $1,000 each. But when bitcoins lose their value, investors cannot mine each bitcoin to pay off their loansa fate that struck Mark Karpeles, a Tokyo-based owner of the world's largest Bitcoin exchange who was forced to file for bankruptcy early last year. * Ross Ulbricht's trial will focus on far more than the currency he used for facilitating the drug trade. But while Bitcoin itself will remain legal and popular, its potential to rival traditional forms of currency appear unlikely to materialize. * An earlier version of this post misstated Mark Karpeles' first name as Jason. We regret the error. Read Without Drugs, What's the Point of Bitcoin? on theatlantic.com More From The Atlantic Why Can't Public Transit Be Free? Preschool Teachers Should Earn Like They Matter The Logic of Long Lines || Bitcoin fund for the public?: Now everyone can have a slice of the Bitcoin market. Bitcoin Investment Trust , or BIT, is slated to become the first publicly traded Bitcoin fund. The Wall Street Journal reports BIT has been racing a fund offered by the Winklevoss twins to be the first to launch publicly. Currently BIT is only available to accredited investors with incomes greater than $200,000 per year or assets above $1 million. Will opening the trust to the public give greater legitimacy to Bitcoin? Not quite, says Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli . “The way they're winning the race to the public markets is by taking a shortcut and doing it on the Over-The-Counter market,” he notes. “It’s not going through a full SEC review for a regular exchange, which the Winklevoss fund is doing. I don’t really think they've magically gotten legitimacy for Bitcoin as an asset class, but I do think it shows you this is an area that’s maturing.” Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App The value of Bitcoin has plummeted over the past year, from over $800 per coin in 2014 to under $300 today. Santoli points out that the uses for Bitcoin are not limited to just being a store of value. “The optimists will say, and I’ve often wondered about this, it can be a really good payment protocol without necessarily having each Bitcoin worth all that much,” he says. “It’s not clear to me they have to operate in tandem like that.” Total market capitalization for cryptocurrencies is over $4 billion, according to coinmarketcap.com . Santoli notes that Bitcoin is not a particularly large asset class. “Remember the number of Bitcoin is going to be capped at some point down the road,” he says. “It’s not as if it can accommodate the world deciding that this is a great place to store some money, or replace gold for example, unless the price goes up a whole lot.” Santoli adds that the trust funds won’t smooth out Bitcoin's volatile pricing immediately. “They'd have to get a lot bigger relative to the size of the Bitcoin market, and that's not what you want to see as far as I'm concerned. I don't think you want it to be a speculative instrument.” || 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. || How the Next Five Years Will Revolutionize Business: It’s 2015. The arrival of any new year inevitably provokes discussion on how the next 12 months will unfold, but with the pace of innovation accelerating faster than ever before, progressive entrepreneurs should be looking even further ahead and adapting their businesses for a new decade.
The period between 2015 and 2020 is poised to redefine virtually every facet of how we live and work. It probably won’t bring jetpacks and hoverboards, but it will usher in other radical technologies, business models, customer experiences and even a new breed of entrepreneurs—a wave of so-called digital natives who think and act differently from every generation before them.
Entrepreneurasked leading futurists and cultural anthropologists what this brave new world will be like, how it will evolve and what you need to know to thrive within it. In short: how to play chess while everyone else is playing checkers. Here are their forecasts, in their own words.
Tom Cheesewrightfounded the applied futurism practice Book of the Future and is a regular presence on U.K. TV and radio. He previously launched a series of technology-driven startups, including venture-backed big data analytics firm CANDDi.
Peter Diamandisis chairman and CEO of the XPrize innovation competition, executive chairman of Silicon Valley-based teaching organization Singularity University and the founder of more than a dozen high-tech organizations.
Steven Kotlerco-founded and serves as director of research for the Flow Genome Project. Diamandis and Kotler have teamed on two books:Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You ThinkandBold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World.
Bob Johansenis a distinguished fellow at nonprofit research organization Institute for the Future. His latest book,The Reciprocity Advantage: A New Way to Partner for Innovation and Growth(written with Karl Ronn), argues that businesses can gain a competitive advantage by sharing assets and forming collaborative relationships.
Brian Solisis a principalanalyst at research and advisory firm Altimeter Group whose work examines disruptive technology’s impact on business and society. His latest book isWhat’s the Future of Business? Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences.
Johansen:Business is moving from products to services to experiences. If you think about the next five years, it’s going to get harder and harder to make money in transactional businesses, so you’ve got to figure out some way to break out of that. The future of small business is more and more about mutual-benefit partnering on a global scale, which we call “the reciprocity advantage.” It involves finding your right-of-way—the space where you can innovate; finding a partner to help you do the things you can’t do alone; experimenting to learn; and then scaling.
Diamandis:Over the next five years, we’ll go from 2.5 billion people online to upward of5 billion to 7 billion online. These people represent a long tail of the economy, and there are going to be billion-dollar companies serving people across the developing world on a micro-payment level: a penny here, 10 cents there. As we bring these 3 billion to 5 billion new minds online, these individuals are now able to become entrepreneurs themselves, and the tools they can access are extraordinary.
The best way to become a billionaire is to help a billion people. Identify a product or service that can impact a billion people, begin with a near-term revenue stream and grow it using scalable, exponential technologies, gamification, crowd and community—all the tools that enable you to take big swings at the problem without having to scale a huge number of people. If you’re passionate about solving a problem, you literally can be a guy or gal in a garage using the internet and exponential tools and technologies to take on any problem at scale. An individual has the potential to impact the lives of a billion people in a decade.
Kotler:There are also exponential organizational tools, like crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and online communities. [An] extremely personalized coffee shop in a tiny town can have a global reach in ways it couldn’t before, and if it wants to suddenly morph up to a giant chain, it will have access to crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and all the stuff it needs to scale up very, very quickly.
Johansen:Cloud-served supercomputing … will disrupt the concept of scaling. Computing will increasingly occur on the network, and that means the ability to scale—to amplify—will be dramatically better than anything we’ve had before. It’s going to get easier and easier to create businesses. It used to be that startups had to buy a server or get server time somehow, but now you get it off the cloud, and if you have an idea in the morning, you can start a company in the afternoon.
Solis:The older generation is making decisions based on their experience and how they went through life—going to college, getting a job, getting married, buying a house and buying a car. Today’s generation is rethinking whether or not college is important, and whether they want full-time jobs or want to be entrepreneurs. They’re rethinking whether to buy cars because they can take Uber everywhere. They’re shedding belongings because they don’t want the burdens of ownership. Their value system is profoundly different, and they’re forming relationships with products and services based on the things they value and appreciate. They want authenticity, they want transparency, and they want to know your business is thinking about questions like sustainability.
Johansen:Digital natives—people who are now 18 or younger—are the first generation becoming adults in the age of early-stage social media, early-stage cloud-served supercomputing and quite advanced video-gaming interfaces that are many times better than what we have in offices. The digital natives are a very disruptive force. They’re very entrepreneurial and tend to have a lot of global connectivity. They’re very interested in environmental issues and sustainability. They’re the ones to watch out for.
Another future force [is what] we call “socialstructing,” which is network-based organizational structures. It’s remarkable how people can form socialstructed organizations, and they can be very disruptive in positive ways and negative ways. The big socialstructed threat now is ISIS, which has a very old theology and a cutting-edge set of digital skills.
Cheesewright:I recently got involved in an exercise looking at the future of education. We spoke to a lot of employers, and they all came back with some version of what I ended up calling “the three C’s”—the skills they want from young employees. They want them to be able to curate, and discover and qualify information; they want them to be able to create, and synthesize something new from the information they’ve discovered; and they want them to communicate, tosell their ideas to their colleagues and customers. They don’t care about the knowledge in young employees’ heads—to employers, knowledge is just the context in which the skills are taught.
Johansen:Physical stores like hardware stores or coffee shops are going to get increasingly commoditized. You already see people coming into physical stores with smartphones and doing price comparisons. That means you have to figure out how to offer something they can’t get online. It’s a world of “and”—it’s not either in-store shopping or online shopping, it’s blended-reality shopping. The value is going to come from services, and the way of delivering the value is going to come from mutual-benefit partnering. Ask yourself, How can I partner with somebody to allow me to do something I couldn’t do alone?
Cheesewright:Maybe a mom-and-pop shop has a really good local delivery service that currently only serves its own products and clientele, but could serve others. Maybe they’ve got really good business administration—is that a service they could open to others? Maybe they’ve got a storefront—can they open up space to other retailers who can’t afford the rent on their own? Breaking open your business and thinking about each different component of value and whether it can be interfaced with and offered to other parties is a really interesting model for agility moving forward.
Kotler:It’s not just the tech that’s changing. The interfaces are becoming incredibly user-friendly, and when it comes to something like 3-D printing systems, it’s plug-and-play—if you can point a mouse and click, you can print objects.
The scale of what is possible is also changing considerably. When digital technologies first started to come up, what got democratized was information sharing: “Here’s a song; you can have it for free.” But 3-D printing can democratize the entire manufacturing industry.
Diamandis:We’re also going to see a real explosion in sensor technology. Sensors are becoming extraordinarily cheap, ubiquitous and accessible, and it’s going to lead to a real revolution in data and data mining, especially in healthcare and biomedicine. We’re going to see robots entering the workspace, and we’re going to see an explosion in drone applications, with entrepreneurs utilizing them for data gathering and for services.
Another meta-trend I see is extreme personalization, where data is about what I want, when I want it and where I want it, and consequently, service providers that can provide that to me. I’ll constantly be sensed for my biomedical chemistries—I walk into a restaurant and I’m being fed the amount of calories and the vitamins I need to consume that day. Or I’m at home 3-D printing the foods I need that day.
Every business will incorporate these new technologies. You’ll have coffee shops taking Bitcoin, or coffee shops that have big data knowledge of customers—as they walk in, the drink is being prepped, because they know that every day, Steven Kotler orders the same thing. There should never be a coffee shop out of banana bread at 10 a.m., because they know exactly what their usage patterns are on that day.
All companies are going to use these technologies to be as efficient as possible. Their job is to layer on top of that culture, comfort and familiarity—the human aspects of a fun place to go.
Solis:The way we go about business is slowly dying. Connected consumerism says that things are not only changing, but are so radically different that the business models we have today cannot support a much more dynamic approach to the market. Even if you’re over the age of 35, if you use an iPad or social networks or apps, you slowly start to act like a Millennial. It influences how you make decisions and where you go for information. All of this starts to add up differently from being a traditional customer: The touchpoints, the screens we use, our expectations—we become more demanding, more informed and more connected.
Johansen:[Another] force is gameful engagement. It’s not just gamifying, but changing the nature of work to add a playful and engaging element. It’s how you engage with people on their terms—not just pushing product at them, but something like the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, which gives anybody the chance to do a commercial that Doritos will show during the Super Bowl. It’s the future of marketing and advertising, and the digitalnatives are going to require it.
Solis:The research you do around the digital customer experience allows you to understand where you’re going to make your investments. A lot of times, people go to market believing that the functions of sales and marketing and services are just the bolt-on pieces to go and be successful around your vision and your product, when in fact, it’s the opposite.
Solis:Ideas don’t really count until you can demonstrate relevance, engagement and momentum. Entrepreneurs who have a purpose will succeed, as opposed to entrepreneurs who have a product. If you don’t understand this, you’redestined to be irrelevant because you never tried to be relevant in the first place.
Cheesewright:If you give a kid a die-cast toy car for Christmas, chances are it won’t last a month as a favorite toy. But if you give him a box of Lego bricks, he’s probably going to get two, three, four, five or 10 years of use [out of them]. That’s because no matter what instructions are on the back of the Lego package or what picture is on the front, it can be adapted to be something else.
Historically, business has focused heavily on optimization: We tried to make every business as efficient as it could be at what it did. But I would argue that today it’s more important to change than it is to optimize, because the rate of change around us is accelerating. The better you become at one thing, the deeper into your rut you go, and the harder it is to get out of that rut when change comes.
Johansen:The future of small business is very bright, because you’ve got this potential to create new business models and partner with very small or very large organizations, and then to scale much more quickly than before. This is entrepreneurial heaven we’re approaching here. If you’ve got a great idea and the ability to pull together a company, there’s no better time in history to do it. || Winklevoss twins aim to take Bitcoin mainstream with a regulated exchange - NYT: REUTERS - Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are trying to firm up support by creating the first regulated Bitcoin exchange in the United States, dubbing it the "Nasdaq of Bitcoin", the New York Times reported. The investor twins have hired engineers from top hedge funds, enlisted a bank and engaged regulators with the aim of opening their exchange named Gemini in the coming months, the newspaper reported. ( http://nyti.ms/1Jq2745 ) Representatives at Winklevoss Capital could not be reached for comments outside regular business hours. The Winklevoss twins, who famously accused Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea, have been seeking regulatory approval for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Bitcoin is not backed by a government or central bank and its value fluctuates according to demand by users. Users can transfer bitcoins to each other over the Internet and store the currency in digital "wallets." Last March, New York's financial services regulator Benjamin Lawsky said he wanted companies that want to operate virtual currency exchanges in the state to submit formal applications, in a step toward eventual state regulation of bitcoin exchanges. The New York regulator held two days of hearings with industry participants last January, including the Winklevoss brothers, and said he planned to issue "BitLicenses" to virtual currency firms. (Reporting by Supriya Kurane in Bengaluru) || Free Bitcoin Debit Card Offered by AltoCenter Bitcoin and Litecoin Exchange: Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Trading Platform AltoCenter is Pleased to Announce Free Bitcoin Debit Cards for Users; AltoCenter Provides Simple Solutions for New Traders, and Plenty of Advanced Tools for More Experienced Bitcoin and Litecoin Traders
PANAMA CITY, PA / ACCESSWIRE / February 11, 2015 /Transparent Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange platformAltoCenter combines simplicity and user friendliness with cutting-edge technology to enable businesses and enthusiasts to trade Bitcoin, Litecoin and an array of other digital currencies with ease. Convenient features such as automatic cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals, 'Perfect Money' payment system, wire transfers and SEPA payments in Europe ensures there is plenty of features for novice traders and crypto enthusiasts alike. For a limited time period AltoCenter offer a free debit card for new customers that open and fund their account on the website. AltoCenter operates under KYC policies and does not process third party deposits or withdrawals.
"We try to look at the bitcoin industry from a trader's point of view and believe that cryptocurrency trading process should be simple and straightforward. Here at AltoCenter we are doing our bit to provide such trading environment," says Michael Vernik, AltoCenter Business Development Manager.
AltoCenter enables easy to use web interface in English, Russian and Chinese and users do not need to be tech savvy or have previous expertise in trading. To get started the user simply creates an account, uses one of the deposit options to add funds, chooses the currency pair to trade and places either a buy or a sell order. AltoCenter do not charge anything for depositing cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin; other depositing methods such as Perfect Money may require low fees which are clearly listed and easy to find. Deposits using Perfect Money are instant while digital money may take up to an hour to show in balance. Other deposit methods such as bank transfers may take 2-5 working days.
For a limited timeAltoCenter offers free ATM debit cards which can be connected to the AltoCenter account provided the user passes certain conditions and country restrictions. The ATM debit card is accepted in all Maestro certified ATMs and merchants worldwide. Each card can load a maximum of USD 10,000 per day with a withdrawal limit of USD 2500 per day. AltoCenter also allows card holders to check their card balance online for free. Long time AltoCenter users can also get a card issued and shipped for free with certain deposits to the trading account or at a flat rate if the user does not make a deposit.
As more and more people are adopting Bitcoin after the recent years of media attention there is a void in exchange platforms for the mainstream audience. AltoCenter aims to aid mainstream adoption by providing an exchange that is easy to use for ordinary people but still offers plenty of options for experienced traders. With withdrawal and deposit options ranging from bank transfers to one of the world leading financial service providers 'Perfect Money', and even the possibility to have debit card connected to the account: AltoCenter might very well be on their way to filling that void.
For more information about us, please visithttps://altocenter.com.
Contact Info:
Name: Michael VernikEmail:support@altocenter.comOrganization: AltoCenterAddress: Ricardo J. Alfaro Ave., The Century Tower Bldg., 4th Floor, Panama City, Rep. of Panama
SOURCE:AltoCenter
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
2015年1月20日 08:00:08
btc_jpy
直近[last]:25550円
買[bid]:25120円
売[ask]:25400円
高値[high]:25750円
安値[low]:24771円
API by etwings || Current price: 207.86€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-02-03 18:00:10 CET || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 16812.00 INR Sell : 16275.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 17849.00 INR Sell : 17294.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || 2015年1月18日 01:00:12
btc_jpy
直近[last]:23500円
買[bid]:23510円
売[ask]:24870円
高値[high]:25700円
安値[low]:23001円
API by etwings || LIVE: Profit = $56.37 (9.70 %). BUY B2.67 @ $216.79 (#BTCe). SELL @ $220.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 13413.00 INR Sell : 12998.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || 2015年2月14日 03:00:02
BTC_MONA
買[bid]:3200.00000000MONA
売[ask]:3700.00000000MONA
API by もなとれ || $279.10 at 09:45 UTC [24h Range: $272.45 - $305.00 Volume: 30564 BTC] || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$241.19/$241.38 #Bitstamp
$236.13/$237.00 #BTCe
⇢$-5.25/$-4.19
$241.59/$241.70 #Coinbase
⇢$0.21/$0.51
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Trend: down || Prices: 296.38, 294.35, 285.34, 281.89, 286.39, 290.59, 285.51, 256.30, 260.93, 261.75
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2020-06-26]
BTC Price: 9162.92, BTC RSI: 43.50
Gold Price: 1772.50, Gold RSI: 61.88
Oil Price: 38.49, Oil RSI: 57.62
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Options Market Faces Record $1 Billion Expiry on Friday: Bitcoins (BTC) derivatives continue to grow despite light spot trading over the past two months. The cryptocurrencys options market is on its way to a record $1 billion monthly expiry this Friday. At press time, there are 114,700 option contracts (notional value of over $1 billion) set to expire on June 26 across major exchanges Deribit, CME, Bakkt, OKEx, LedgerX according to data provided by the crypto derivatives research firm Skew . Options are derivative contracts that give buyers the right but not obligation to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. A call option gives the right to buy and the put option represents the right to sell. With options, traders can make bullish or bearish bets on contracts at various price levels called strikes that expire in different months. Related: First Mover: Whats Going On With Bitcoin Derivatives? This is definitely the largest BTC option expiry by a country mile, said Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of Polychain Capital-backed derivatives exchange Alpha5. Meanwhile, Skew CEO Emmanuel Goh said that with big quarterly expiry, you tend to see some pinning and then the market moving post-expiry. Option expiries can influence market direction via a process known as pinning in which option traders try to move the spot price to avoid sharp losses. See also: Miners Are Sending Bitcoins to Exchanges Again And That May Be Bearish Related: Bitcoin Still on Track for Quarterly Gains After Drop Toward $9K Holders who benefit from higher prices in the underlying asset put sellers and call buyers often take long positions in the spot market to raise prices before the expiration date. On the other hand, put buyers and call sellers, who benefit from a drop in the underlying asset, take short positions in the spot market to keep prices under pressure ahead of expiry. Story continues The tug of war often leads to prices being pinned at or near the strike price where a large number of open positions are concentrated. Depending on where the open interest [open positions] is scattered, you could be in the game to pin strikes, Shah told CoinDesk, and added further that, the bulk of distribution of OI [open interest] in general is skewed slightly higher. Indeed, open interest is concentrated at $10,000 and $11,000 strike prices. Meanwhile, on the downside, notable open interest buildup is seen at $9,000 strike. According to Pankaj Balani, CEO and founder of Singapore-based Delta Exchange, traders have sold a good amount of calls around $10,000-$11,000 strikes for the June expiry. As a result, $10,000 may act as a stiff resistance heading into expiry. If prices begin to rise, call sellers may take short positions in the spot markets in order to keep the cryptocurrency from scaling the $10,000 mark. At press time, bitcoin was changing hands near $9,400, representing a 2.5% decline on the day. The cryptocurrency has traded largely in the range of $9,000 to $10,000 ever since its third reward halving , which took place on May 11. Post-expiry volatility? Bitcoin may become vulnerable to violent price moves over the coming months if traders rollover short positions in June contracts to July and September expiry. A rollover refers to squaring off positions in contracts nearing expiry and replicating the same position in the next-nearest expiry. As noted earlier, there has been significant call writing (selling) at $10,000 and $11,000 strike prices. Alpha5s Vishal Shah says there is risk in transporting short positions to July or September expiry as bitcoin options are at a very low level of implied volatility historically. This is definitely the largest BTC option expiry by a country mile. The three-month implied volatility is hovering below its lifetime average of 96.6% on an annualized basis, according to data source Skew. A prolonged period of low volatility consolidation, similar to the one seen over the past two months, often paves the way for a big move in either direction. Thus, if traders rollover short positions, they face risk of an impending rise in volatility that would make options costlier. That, in turn, would lead to more chaotic trading and further rise in volatility. If the current options structures [short position] are replicated into July and September expiries, traders would run into a potential situation of having sold too low in terms of volatility. That can bring in all types of complications, and lead to some disorderly behavior if and when the spot picks up directionality, said Shah. Volatility has a positive impact on option prices. The higher the volatility (uncertainty), the stronger is the hedging demand for options. Seasoned traders often sell options when volatility is well above its lifetime average and buy options when volatility is too low. Options expiry a non-event? Some analysts say bitcoins options market is too small to have any meaningful impact on the cryptocurrencies price. Options expiry is unlikely to have an influence on price action in comparison to the impact of futures expiry, said Richard Rosenblum, co-founder, and co-head of trading at crypto liquidity provider GSR. But we expect options volumes to continue growing, options could end up having a bigger impact in the long term. Indeed, global option volumes are only 1% of total futures and swap volumes, analysts at cryptocurrency exchange Luno noted in its weekly report. Meanwhile, there is a sizable open interest of 4,605 contracts ($214 million at current price) in CME futures expiring in June, which is yet to be rolled over the July contracts, as noted by Ecoinometrics, a bitcoin analysis company. See also: First Mover: Bitcoins Recent Stability May Come From a Fleeting Correlation With Equities If these are residual longs from the reverse cash-and-carry arbitrage that was available in March and are covered with spot buying into the expiry, we will have opposing forces at play, which will further add to price volatility, Balani told CoinDesk. Reverse cash-and-carry arbitrage is a market-neutral strategy, wherein a trader takes a sell position in the spot market and a long position in the futures market. This strategy is implemented when futures trade at a notable discount to spot price. For instance, following the March crash, futures were trading at nearly a 4% discount to the spot price. Back then, traders may have bought futures and sold BTC in the spot market, thereby locking a 4% riskless return. This is because futures converge with the spot price on the day of expiry. Traders would either square off long futures positions on or before Friday or let them lapse and buy bitcoin in the spot market. That could lead to a two-way business in the spot market. Related Stories Bitcoin Options Market Faces Record $1 Billion Expiry on Friday Bitcoin Options Market Faces Record $1 Billion Expiry on Friday || Bitcoin now outperforming S&P 500 for the first time since equity sell-off: The equity market had consistently outperformed bitcoin since the stock market sell-off in mid-March, but that trend has been reversed on Wednesday.
The digital asset's return since February 20 bounced back to around -13.85% today, compared to S&P 500's -14.01%. BTC price also surged above $8,000 in the morning for the first time since March 10 while S&P 500 hit $2,920.
The stock market peaked on February 20 with S&P 500 closed at $3,396. Around the same time, BTC was trading at above $9,600.
Both the equity and the digital asset markets then plummeted on March 13, with BTC return dropping to as low as -50% on March 16 and S&P 500 touched the -35% bottom at the end of March. Since then, the returns for both BTC and S&P 500 had seen steady recovery as their prices climbed up.
© 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. || Goldman Sachs: Cryptocurrencies ‘Are Not an Asset Class’: Goldman Sachs held an investor call Wednesday to discuss current policies for bitcoin, gold and inflation in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. The big takeaway? The stalwart investment bank is still no fan of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. A slideshow released before the call cited hacks and other losses related to cryptocurrencies as well as their use to “abet illicit activities” as some potential liabilities. Seven of Goldman’s 35 slides mention bitcoin , but the people on the call only discussed bitcoin for roughly five minutes at the end, with no questions taken after. Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for May 28, 2020 In the call materials , Goldman notes that while cryptocurrencies like bitcoin “have received enormous attention,” they “are not an asset class.” Why? The reasons include bitcoin’s inherent lack of cash flow, unlike bonds, and its inability to generate earnings through exposure to global economic growth, according to the presentation. Goldman also notes bitcoin’s volatility, citing the recent drop to 12-month lows in early March. The price spiked nearly 5% to $9,200 a few hours before the call. See also: Number of Bitcoins on Crypto Exchanges Hits 18-Month Low Some professional cryptocurrency analysts were less than impressed by Goldman’s analysis. “The criticisms were very cookie cutter, the type you’d expect if someone just read mainstream headlines,” said Ryan Watkins, bitcoin analyst at Messari and former investment banking analyst at Moelis & Company. “It’s like they didn’t fully diligence the asset.” Related: Bitcoin Price Tests $9.4K as Demand for Put Options Drops Goldman’s cash flow argument was particularly odd to Tom Masojada, co-founder of OVEX Digital Asset Exchange. “Many investments that Goldman labels as ‘suitable for clients’ do not generate cash flows and are primarily dependent on whether someone is willing to pay a higher price at a later date,” he said on Twitter. “One could argue bitcoin isn’t backed by anything, but to liken it to a game of hot potato ignores the subjective value such a novel asset provides,” said Kevin Kelly, former equity analyst at Bloomberg and co-founder of Delphi Digital, a cryptocurrency research firm that recently published a comprehensive report on bitcoin. Story continues Bitcoin’s current value, according to Kelly, is backed by “the demand for an apolitical speculative asset that may or may not turn out to be one of the world’s most valuable safe havens.” The two Goldman speakers on the call, its head of research and a Harvard economics professor, said several bitcoin forks, which they refer to as “nearly identical clones,” occupy three of the six largest cryptocurrencies by market value. With this, Goldman inferred that cryptocurrencies as a whole “are not a scarce resource,” according to the presentation. See also: Bitcoin Transaction Fees Decline as Network Congestion Eases This critique is “particularly eye roll worthy,” Watkins told CoinDesk. “Forks are their own assets and have nothing to do with bitcoin.” In its conclusion, Goldman does not recommend investing in bitcoin “on a strategic or tactical basis for clients’ investment portfolios even though its volatility might lend itself to momentum-oriented traders.” “I was hoping for a more constructive call,” said Kyle Davies, co-founder of cryptocurrency trading firm Three Arrows Capital. Still, he added, “The fact that they are having this call, period, means there’s a lot of interest.” Related Stories Market Wrap: Bullish Traders Push Bitcoin Over $9,100, Returning to Halving Levels Bitcoin Transaction Fees Decline as Network Congestion Eases || Craig Wright Called ‘Fraud’ in Message Signed With Bitcoin Addresses He Claims to Own: The credibility of Craig Wright – the Australian tech entrepreneur who controversially claims to be bitcoin’s pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto – has taken another blow.
After a list ofbitcoinaddresses Wright had provided as being his holdings in an ongoing court case were briefly and “inadvertently” made public by plaintiffs on May 21, 145 of the addresses were used to sign a public message both calling Wright a “fraud” and making it plain that he does not in fact own or control them.
The court case was brought by Ira Kleiman, the brother of Wright’s former business partner, David Kleiman, and seeks half of 1.1 million bitcoin (worth around $9.6 billion) the two allegedly mined in the early days of the cryptocurrency, as well as intellectual property. The case hinges on whether Wright can prove he has the keys to the trove of cryptocurrency.
Related:Bidooh Founders Admit to Cloning Business for Rival Advertising Venture
While the list of addresses wasquickly resealed by the Kleiman legal team, itstill existson Court Listener and looks to have provided a means for another individual to identify a number of addresses they in fact hold the keys to. That, in turn, enabled them tosign a message with the bitcoin keys. It reads:
“Craig Steven Wright is a liar and a fraud. He doesn’t have the keys used to sign this message. The Lightning Network is a significant achievement. However, we need to continue work on improving on-chain capacity. Unfortunately, the solution is not to just change a constant in the code or to allow powerful participants to force out others. We are all Satoshi.”
Some of the many addresses in the court filing published on Court Listener are indeed used to sign the message.
The message was first brought to wider attentionon Reddit, with the claim that the addresses are for bitcoin mined in 2009 and that have not been moved since.
Related:Judge ‘Puzzled’ by Craig Wright’s Objections to Producing Evidence of Over 1.1M Bitcoin
BitMEX Research tweetedit had taken “a random sample of 20” of the addresses and found they did not match the holdings of the “dominant” early bitcoin miner in 2009, who many think was Satoshi. The firm’s earlier research on this isto be found here.
Wright had claimed in court his billions in bitcoin were held for him in so-called Tulip Trusts, but that he could not prove his control of the keys due to attorney-client privilege. He has beenaccused by the judgeof “abusing” client-attorney privilege to withhold documents and “obfuscate” proceedings elsewhere in the case.
Last August, the judgealso foundWright had argued in bad faith, perjured himself and admitted false evidence.
In another filing on May 21, the Kleiman teamfiled an omnibus motion for sanctionsagainst Wright, claiming: “Wright has engaged in a sustained pattern of perjury, forged evidence, misleading filings, and obstruction – this included submission of false evidence which, if not unmasked, could have resulted in Plaintiffs being deprived of their day in court.”
Saying the abuses are “undeniably directed at the singular goal of making it impossible for Plaintiffs to prevail at trial,” defendants seek sanctions and a default judgement against Wright.
Wright, for his part, ishoping to bring new expert witnessesinto court, one of whom is said to be a “licensed clinical psychologist who has studied Autism Spectrum Disorder.”
If the judge rules in favor of Wright on this matter, Dr. Ami Klin “will testify that he has diagnosed Dr. Wright with Autism Spectrum Disorder with high intellectual skills. Dr. Klin’s testimony will help the jury understand how this disability affects behavior.”
Another of Wright’s experts would testify on whether David Kleiman “had the requisite skills and experience to have written or significantly have contributed to the original Bitcoin software application released in 2009.” The Kleiman team is seeking to block the appearances of the four expert witnesses.
• Cryptopia Users Win Victory in Court Case Over Crypto Assets Worth Over $100M
• Blockchain Association Says Court ‘Erred’ With Decision to Block Telegram’s Token Issuance || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -23/05/20: Bitcoin rose by 1.14% on Friday. Partially reversing a 4.68% slide from Thursday, Bitcoin ended the day at $9,162.4. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning intraday low $8,935.4 before finding support. Steering clear of the first major support level at $8,726.9, Bitcoin bounced back to a late afternoon intraday high $9,269.0. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $9,475.7, Bitcoin eased back to sub-$9,200 levels late on. The near-term bearish trend, formed at late June 2019’s swing hi $13,764.0, remained firmly intact, reaffirmed by the March swing lo $4,000. For the bulls, Bitcoin would need to break out from the 62% FIB of $10,034 to form a near-term bullish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the majors, it was a bullish day on Friday. Cardano’s ADA rallied by 8.20% to lead the way. EOS (+5.24%), Ethereum (+4.39%), Tezos (+6.07%), and Tron’s TRX (+4.67%) also found strong support. Binance Coin (+3.17%), Bitcoin Cash ABC (+3.26%), Litecoin (+3.66%), Monero’s XMR (+2.37%), Ripple’s XRP (+3.30%), and Stellar’s Lumen (+2.31%) trailed the front runners. Bitcoin Cash SV saw a modest gain of 1.48% on the day. In the current week, the crypto total market cap rose to a Monday high $268.43bn before falling to a Thursday low $239.96bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $253.79bn. Bitcoin’s dominance rose to a Monday high 68.31% before falling to a Friday low 66.90%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 67.03%. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.89% to $9,243.5. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin rise from an early morning low $9,162.3 to a high $9,266.7. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Binance Coin (+1.05%), Bitcoin Cash ABC (+0.87), and Ethereum (+0.84%) led the way early on. Bitcoin Cash SV (-0.31%) and Tezos (-0.15%) bucked the trend at the start of the day. Story continues For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to avoid sub-$9,200 levels to bring the first major resistance level at $9,309.13 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from Friday’s high $9,269.0. Barring an extended crypto rebound, the first major resistance level would likely limit any upside. In the event of an extended crypto rally, the second major resistance level at $9,455.87 would likely come into play. Resistance at $9,500 may limit any upside, however. Failure to avoid sub-$9,200 levels could see Bitcoin hit reverse. A fall back through to sub-$9,120 levels would bring the first major support level at $8,975.53 into play. Barring another extended crypto sell-off, however, Bitcoin should steer clear of the second major support level at $8,788.67. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: S&P 500 Preview – Earnings Resume on Tuesday May 25, After the Memorial Day Holiday Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Straddling Key 50% Level at $1727.50 EOS, Ethereum and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – 23/05/20 Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Gain Back Some Losses Crude Oil Price Update – Major Retracement Zone at $36.07 – $40.50 Providing Resistance Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Continue to Show Signs of Resistance || How Bitcoin Fits Into Lebanon’s Banking Crisis: Lebanon’s financial crisis has banks looking for alternative monetary policy and citizens scrambling for alternative banking services.
The economic crisis has been raging for years, but political turmoil and the pandemic-induced global market downturn has raised fears of government defaults and the devaluation of the Lebanese pound. As a result, more Lebanese people are seeking information aboutbitcoin (BTC), which is relatively cheap and accessible compared to the fractured banking system.
The exchange rate for Lebanese pounds to dollars has skyrocketed from 1,500 pounds for every dollar to 4,200 pounds for every dollar, said Patrick Mardini, assistant professor of finance at the University of Balamand in Lebanon. That exchange rate also varies depending on the type of dollar.
Dollars already inside the restricted Lebanese banking system trade for less than physical dollars from the local black market, which are easier to move around. This is why some people are using bitcoin to buy black-market dollars to pay off their bank loans cheaply, said bitcoin researcher Matt Ahlborg.
Read more:Bitcoin in Emerging Markets: The Middle East
Most LocalBitcoin traders get their bitcoin by using bank accounts outside of their country of residence and use the local listing as a type of advertisement. Some software developers and poker players, who earn bitcoin from foreign clients or online games, also bring their bitcoin to these over-the-counter (OTC) traders to liquidate for local currency. Likewise, attorney Charbel Choueh,partner at Choueh Law, said his firm is the first in Lebanon to accept both tether (USDT) and bitcoin from clients abroad.
“The bitcoin coming into the country is coming from the freelance market … plus a little bit from poker people and remittances,” Ahlborg said, referring to how most newbies use social networks to find bitcoin veterans rather than rely on exchanges. “There’s more demand due to the COVID-19 shutdown of traditional finance and supply chain businesses.”
Related:How Bitcoin Fits Into Lebanon’s Banking Crisis
One anonymous OTC trader, who has been operating in Lebanon since 2013, estimated the Lebanese people trade between $1 million and $5 million a month using informal networks, which dwarfs the$54,916worth of Lebanese bitcoin transactions tallied over the past year on Paxful andLocalBitcoinscombined. He added the COVID-19 pandemic increased demand, and therefore the fees, of localhawala remittancenetworks. Now that hawala options are more expensive, by comparison, bitcoin is a cheaper and more attractive option, he said.
Such traders primarily use sites like Paxful for advertising but conduct the trades using other mobile apps.Many bitcoin traders inemerging marketslike Lebanon, even professionalOTC tradersthat move assets at-scale, rely onWhatsAppas one of the top chat platforms for discussing deals. Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter are among the most important platforms in this scene.
Social networks have essentially become grassroots financial networks without banking restrictions, relying on global currencies like dollars and bitcoin. In response to this, the governmenthas banned exchange-rate appsshowing the actual exchange rate for pounds to dollars.
Meanwhile, proposals from the government and bankers suggest the country is in reform, Mardini added.
If the country can prove that it is rebuilding its fiscal infrastructure, it might be able tosecure billions of dollars in financing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). IMF backing would encourage further investment from the international community, Mardini added.
At the moment, the government’s plan is to cut its debt by about 62% and wipe out $44 billion in foreign exchange losses at the Lebanese central bank. This plan would include wiping out the reserve capital at the central bank, the reserve capital at private banks, and a certain amount of deposits from the country’s wealthiest people.
The result of both the government and central bank defaulting on debts would likely shrink the number of banks in the economy from 50 to 10, Mardini added. In a country that’s already dealing with a central bank that struggles to prove its independence from political factions, Mardini said he worries that the restructuring of the banking system in Lebanon would create more distrust in banks.
Read more:Despite Bitcoin Price Dips, Crypto Is a Safe Haven in the Middle East
“If you let the government do the restructuring, they would put their hand on the banking sector – the crown jewel of the Lebanese economy,” Mardini said. “It would be an oligopoly of 10 banks controlling the market.”
Currently the Lebanese banks are asking the government toconsider a counter-proposalthat would include no government defaults. The first part of the plan would allow the government to purchase bonds with lower interest rates from private banks. The second part of the proposal looks similar to tokenization in the crypto space: Government assets like the telecommunications networks, waterfronts and real estate assets in Lebanon would be made into bonds and essentially be tradable shares.
The banks argue that this would hypothetically decrease the government’s debt by $40 billion, but the bonds would be wholly owned by the government. “You’re just transferring it from one central government to another government entity in a fund,” Mardini said.
Mardini said he’d prefer the government dissolve the central bank and replace it with a currency board that would ensure that the Lebanese pounds would be backed 100% by the U.S. dollar.
“Either they keep them in cash or put them in secure-asset American government bonds, which would allow a certain income and cover the costs of operations for currency board,” Mardini said about his proposal. “The quantity of money issued by the currency board into circulation would be determined by market conditions.”
Jon Gayfield, a U.S. Navy veteran who began mining crypto in 2013 and was an early trader on Mt. Gox, has been working with Professor Mardini on ways to introduce crypto to the Lebanese people after meeting Mardini through Gayfield’s sister who does humanitarian work in Lebanon.
The ethos of economic freedom that undergirds the cryptocurrency community made Gayfield realize that bitcoin could be a humanitarian endeavor in addition to a business model, he said.
“I believe cryptocurrency is potentially the best anti-war idea ever devised,” Gayfield said. “If the citizens of a nation actually owned their currency/wealth and not the government, then the government must actually serve the people and cannot wage war without the consent of the governed for funding.”
Initially, Gayfield considered having Lebanese expats use bitcoin for remittances to get crypto flowing into the country.
“In an ideal case that is a necessary part of what we’re trying to do,” Gayfield said. “However, the way to get this working is not to use a really broad solution like that you’re going to have to get a large portion of the population to learn how to use the technology.”
Read more:Lebanese Bitcoiners Show How to Talk About Crypto at Thanksgiving
Currently, Gayfield is looking at having importers send crypto to a company that Gayfield and Mardini would headquarter in Malta, converting that crypto to fiat, and using that fiat to pay international suppliers and curtailing the banking system.
“We could get a couple of importers on board for our proof-of-concept and demonstrate that it works,” Gayfield said. “Then we’re driving the adoption where regular citizens could potentially pay the importer directly in crypto. … Expats are more likely to send crypto to the country if there’s a demonstrable use case for crypto there.”
At first, Gayfield was thinking about using a stablecoin like tether for the project, so that Lebanese businesses would have something less volatile to move money, but “there’s the inevitable concern about influence from politics or sanctions,” Gayfield said.
Bitcoin being the most recognizable cryptocurrency, it seems to be the easiest to use in Lebanon, he added. Gayfield was supposed to fly to Lebanon to meet Mardini and network with businesses that might be interested in using crypto, but his flight was canceled after the U.S. banned flights to Europe as part of its pandemic response.
Since most major exchanges don’t operate in Lebanon, citizens have to work with local traders which makes scaling difficult. Users are also not allowed to buy bitcoin in Lebanon with a credit card, and banks have set limits on withdrawals.
If all goes well, the project could have further implications than just Lebanon’s failing bank system.
“This isn’t just a Lebanon project,” Gayfield said. “There’s no reason this couldn’t work somewhere else … in any other country that’s going through a financial crisis.”
• Bitcoin in Emerging Markets: The Middle East
• When Currencies Fail: A Primer on the Dollar Crisis in Lebanon || Will Bitcoin reach $100,000 within the next two years?: The recent Bitcoin halving caused a number of investors to return to old habits, with intense and rampant speculation beginning to circulate across social media, which prompted some to call for a $100,000 price prediction within the next two years. And while this is most certainly a possibility, it is important to remain grounded and understand that the market is far different to how it was in 2017 when Bitcoin surged to its all-time high of $20,000. Two years ago the entire cryptocurrency market was driven by two things, first of all the ICO boom that saw companies raise hundreds of millions on the back of poorly written whitepapers, and secondly the influx of hype-driven investors who believed they could get rich quick by following the trend. ICO bubble has burst In 2017 investors could throw a dart at a board of random ICO projects and make money, not because the companies were actually worth anything but because people wanted to find the next Ethereum or next Bitcoin. As a result of this, the bear market that followed was painful as the majority of projects that raised capital in ICOs lost more than 98% of value in the next year, with investors taking the brunt of the pain. Early last year Coin Rivet interviewed the CEO of Pillar Project , David Siegel, whose company raised $20 million during the height of the ICO boom in 2017. 1/ Its now obvious that ICOs were a massive bubble that's unlikely to ever see a recovery. The median ICO return in terms of USD is -87% and constantly dropping. Let's look at some data! pic.twitter.com/zmCXVPjup6 Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) August 7, 2019 Siegel explained the complexities of operating a company during a bear market, which was made even more difficult by aggrieved investors pleading with make an announcement to drive price to the upside. Story continues This was, of course, completely unsustainable and now more than two years later we are finally seeing companies that are based on thin air fall from significance. How does this relate to Bitcoin? One of the main reasons why Bitcoin rose so rapidly in 2017 was because investors made substantial profits on altcoins, and as the market was immature was limited trading pairs they would then sell their coin directly for Bitcoin, thus causing an increase in price. The ICO boom also lured the get rich quick type of investor into the market. These investors can be categorised as people who work regular nine to five jobs but have no idea how to trade, they just want to make some money on the side with limited time or resources. With the vast majority of these investors actually making huge losses during the 2018 bear market, public trust and interest in cryptocurrencies is far lower than it was more than two years ago. This can be seen clearly when looking at Google searches for Bitcoin, which intriguingly follows the price action of Bitcoins chart. In 2017 there were millions, maybe even billions, of people searching for Bitcoin. Now we are at a point where the amount of searches for Bitcoin is 87% lower than what it was in December 2017. And until there is another influx of investors that believe they can get rich quick, which will then lead to a hike in searches and interest, Bitcoin will struggle to break above its previous all-time high of $20,000, let alone $100,000. There are models that negate this theory, the most renowned of which being the stock to flow model that factors in the recent halving and assumed lack of new supply, but its undeniable that in order to reach 2017 levels cryptocurrency needs a catalyst far greater than statistical analysis, it needs to reinvent its image on a wider public scale. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. || CAN INVESTOR ALERT: Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC Reminds of Class Action Against Canaan Inc. and Lead Plaintiff Deadline: May 4, 2020: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / April 29, 2020 / Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC reminds investors that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Canaan Inc. ("Canaan" or the Company") ( CAN ) and certain of its officers, on behalf of shareholders who purchased or otherwise acquired Canaan securities pursuant and/or traceable to the Company's initial public offering commenced on or about November 20, 2019. Such investors are encouraged to join this case by visiting the firm's site: www.bgandg.com/can . This class action seeks to recover damages against Defendants for alleged violations of the federal securities laws under the Securities Exchange Act of 1933. The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose 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 IPO, 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. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to review a copy of the Complaint you can visit the firm's site: www.bgandg.com/can or you may contact Peretz Bronstein, Esq. or his Investor Relations Analyst, Yael Hurwitz of Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC at 212-697-6484. If you suffered a loss in Canaan you have until May 4, 2020 to request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as a lead plaintiff. Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC is a corporate litigation boutique. Our primary expertise is the aggressive pursuit of litigation claims on behalf of our clients. In addition to representing institutions and other investor plaintiffs in class action security litigation, the firm's expertise includes general corporate and commercial litigation, as well as securities arbitration. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. Story continues Contact: Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC Peretz Bronstein or Yael Hurwitz 212-697-6484 | info@bgandg.com SOURCE: Bronstein, Gewirtz and Grossman, LLC View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/587021/CAN-INVESTOR-ALERT-Bronstein-Gewirtz-Grossman-LLC-Reminds-of-Class-Action-Against-Canaan-Inc-and-Lead-Plaintiff-Deadline-May-4-2020 || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – June 14th, 2020: Bitcoin rose by 0.14% on Saturday. Following a 2.05% gain on Friday, Bitcoin ended the day at $9,480.9. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning intraday low $9,363.6 before making a move. Steering clear of the first major support level at $9,294.87, Bitcoin rallied to an early evening intraday high $9,498.6. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $9,592.87, Bitcoin fell back to the intraday low $9,363.6 before finding support. A late move back through to $9,480 levels delivered the upside, while resistance at $9,500 continued to pin Bitcoin back. The near-term bullish trend remained intact in spite of last Thursday’s sell-off, with Bitcoin holding well above the 23.6% FIB of $8,900. For the bears, Bitcoin would need to slide through the 62% FIB of $6,400 to form a near-term bearish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the majors, it was also a mixed day on Saturday. Bitcoin Cash SV, (-0.26%), Cardano’s ADA (-0.52%), and Ripple’s XRP (-0.30%) ended the day in the red. It was a relatively bullish day for the rest of the pack, however. Binance Coin (+1.02%), Monero’s XMR (+1.25%), Stellar’s Lumen (+2.10%), Tezos (+1.14%), and Tron’s TRX (+1.62%) led the way. Bitcoin Cash ABC (+0.69%), EOS (+0.36%), Ethereum (+0.25%), Litecoin (+0.85%) also joined Bitcoin in the green. Through the current week, the crypto total market cap had recovered from a Tuesday low $265.84bn, rising to a Wednesday high $278.33bn before Thursday’s sell-off. The sell-off saw the total market cap slide to a current week low $252.82bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $263.63bn. In the week, Bitcoin’s dominance slid to a current week low 65.7% before hitting a current week high 66.39% in Thursday’s sell-off. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 65.99%. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.27% to $9,455.5. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall from an early morning high $9,486.0 to a low $9,452.3. Story continues Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Bitcoin Cash SV and Monero’s XMR bucked the trend early on, with gains of 0.08% and 0.33% respectively. It was a bearish start for the rest of the pack, however. Cardano’s ADA led the way down, with a 0.70% loss at the time of writing. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to avoid sub-$9,448 levels to bring the first major resistance level at $9,531.8 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from Saturday’s high $9,498.6. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Saturday’s high $9,498.6 would likely cap any upside. In the event of a crypto rebound, Bitcoin could eye the second major resistance level at $9,582.7 before any pullback. Failure to avoid a fall through the $9,448 pivot level could see Bitcoin hit reverse. A fall back through the morning low $9,452.3 to sub-$9,448 levels would bring the first major support level at $9,396.8 into play. Barring another extended crypto sell-off, however, Bitcoin should steer clear of the second major support level at $9,312.7. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Testing Trendline Again EOS, Ethereum and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – June 14th, 2020 The Week Ahead – Central Banks, Economic Data, COVID-19, and Brexit in Focus Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Pull Back US Stock Market Overview – Stocks Rebound but Finish Lower for the Week European Equities: A Week in Review – 13/06/20 || Square Crypto grants $100K to bitcoins Lightning Network watchtower The Eye of Satoshi: Square Crypto has awarded a new grant to Talaia Labs, which is building bitcoins Lightning Network watchtower called The Eye of Satoshi. The grant amount is $100,000, Talaia Labs CEO Sergi Delgado told The Block. He added that the funds would be used exclusively for Bitcoin development, with a current focus on the watchtower. Watchtowers are third-parties that monitor the bitcoin blockchain for discrepancies between on-chain transactions and closing off-chain channels with invalid states. Square Crypto said The Eye of Satoshi monitors blockchain transactions to protect you from peers closing the channel and taking your coins. It went on to say that Talaia also "improves censorship resistance by making certain attacks harder, and that it will integrate with several Lightning Network implementations. Notably, Square Crypto recently unveiled its own Lightning Development Kit to help developers integrate the Lightning Network with their bitcoin wallet applications. The latest grant marks Square Cryptos sixth grant. The firm has previously offered donations to bitcoin developers Jon Atack and Tankred Hase, pseudonymous bitcoin Lightning Network developer ZmnSCPxj and the BTCPay Foundation. © 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 9045.39, 9143.58, 9190.85, 9137.99, 9228.33, 9123.41, 9087.30, 9132.49, 9073.94, 9375.47
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-03-12]
BTC Price: 4970.79, BTC RSI: 14.08
Gold Price: 1589.30, Gold RSI: 44.53
Oil Price: 31.50, Oil RSI: 21.73
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
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 thetraditional markets are holding backalso 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.
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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. || Blockstream Co-Founder Joins Bitcoin-Only Start-up River Financial: Industry veteran Jonathan Wilkins, a co-founder of bitcoin tech start-up Blockstream, is joining up-and-coming bitcoin brokerage River Financial as chief security officer (CSO).
River is a bitcoin-only financial institution for buying and selling the digital currency (emphatically not an exchange; it says it’s “for the long-term investor”). Currently available only to testers who have received invites, the San Francisco-based outfit is working on an interface it hopes will be as slick as Jack Dorsey’s Square Cash, equipped with automatic recurring buys.
Wilkins brings C-level gravitas and cypherpunk bona fides to River. He was the CSO at Blockstream, an outfit dedicated to improving bitcoin technology with projects such as Liquid, for faster payments between exchanges and a system of satellites used to broadcast bitcoin block data from space.
Related:Bitcoin Price Indicator Eyes First Bullish Turn Since August
Early in his career he worked atZero Knowledge Systems,which built a forerunner to the anonymizing Tor network. (His title there was “adversary,” according to his LinkedInprofile.) Later he was a security architect at Microsoft, Zynga and Yelp.
Compared to other Blockstream co-founders who are outspoken on Twitter or often appear in the media, Wilkins has laid low. He’s joined River to shepherd the company’s security model, a particularly important part of the business, since it is custodial, taking care of users’ private keys.
“By focusing on simplicity and what is best for users in the long term (dollar-cost averaging and holding) instead of pushing altcoins and encouraging more active trading in order to increase fees, River is closer to the historical ideal of a bank,” said Wilkins. “I wanted to be part of a company concerned with helping its community grow its wealth and providing an alternative to today’s more predatory financial institutions”
River Financial has built its infrastructure from “the ground up,” founder and CEO Alexander Leishman said.
Related:After Sudden 8% Drop, Bitcoin Bulls Must Defend Price Support at $8,460
“We’re in this in the long term,” Leishman said, adding that River has already made a couple of big decisions based on Wilkins’ “guidance,” such as not relying on third-party cloud computing services.
“It’s a lot of work to not do that but we can build a system that we fully control,” Leishman said.
River Financial differs from many services used to buy and sell cryptocurrency in that it’s focused solely on bitcoin.
“We believe bitcoin is going to be the most dominant cryptocurrency. If anything becomes a world money, it’s going to be bitcoin,” Leishman said.
Even adding one cryptocurrency significantly increases the complexity of engineering a system, he said. Other companies managing many tokens are constantly “putting out fires.”
Plus, working on bitcoin exclusively has allowed River to adopt some cutting-edge technology that other companies don’t have the time and energy to look into, Leishman said. “Bitcoin-only lets us take it to another level no one has ever taken things before.”
River Financial is one of the earliest companies to adopt the lightning network, a speedier payment system that’s widely considered a key part of bitcoin’s future.
In addition, Leishman said River relies “heavily” onPartially Signed Bitcoin Transactions(PSBT) so that each user in a multi-signature transaction can sign it from a different hardware device.For those interested in the nitty-gritty, River Financial software engineer Philip Glazmantweeteda thread outlining many of the technologies it’s using and the decisions it made.
• Bitcoin Falls Back After Briefly Breaking $9k Resistance
• Deribit Using New Trading Tools to Capture ‘Exploding’ Options Market || Bitcoin Climbs Above 9,215.7 Level, Up 1%: Investing.com - Bitcoin rose above the $9,215.7 threshold on Wednesday. Bitcoin was trading at 9,215.7 by 19:48 (00:48 GMT) on the Investing.com Index, up 1.23% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage gain since January 31.
The move upwards pushed Bitcoin's market cap up to $167.3B, or 63.47% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, Bitcoin's market cap was $241.2B.
Bitcoin had traded in a range of $9,185.8 to $9,221.6 in the previous twenty-four hours.
Over the past seven days, Bitcoin has seen a stagnation in value, as it only moved 0.35%. The volume of Bitcoin traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $29.8B or 27.96% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $3.0846 to $9,582.7783 in the past 7 days.
At its current price, Bitcoin is still down 53.62% from its all-time high of $19,870.62 set on December 17, 2017.
Ethereum was last at $189.58 on the Investing.com Index, down 0.64% on the day.
XRP was trading at $0.27395 on the Investing.com Index, a gain of 7.04%.
Ethereum's market cap was last at $20.8B or 7.88% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while XRP's market cap totaled $12.0B or 4.55% of the total cryptocurrency market value.
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IOTA Focuses on Immediate Adoption with Chrysalis Upgrade || Twitter co-founder backs an app that lets users buy bitcoin: Christopher Isaac “Biz” Stone, co-founder of Twitter and Medium, has invested in a fintech app that allows users to trade bitcoin.The app, Mode Banking, claims to allow opening an account in less than 60 seconds and completing know-your-customer (KYC) requirements in less than two minutes, according to a statement shared with The Block. However, a test user at The Block, could not verify their KYC even after 45 minutes.The Mode app is accessible globally, except in the U.S, and users can buy bitcoin from £50 (~$65). The London-based firm charges a trading fee of 0.99% and also supports the U.K.’s faster payments scheme for instant GBP transfers, per the statement.Once bought, users’ bitcoins are then stored with crypto custodian BitGo, said Mode.“Although there are multiple existing ways to access the Bitcoin market right now, few appeal to the everyday person, who wants to buy and hold some Bitcoin. Most of the current apps all have one problem at their core—access," said Stone, who is also an advisor to Mode.He added that Mode offers a simple user interface and experience, “rivaling that of the major challenger banks.”
Mode's parent firm R8 Groupraised$5 million in a funding round last April, from investors including Stone.
Another co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, also offers an app (Cash Appvia his other firm Square) that lets users buy bitcoin. || 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 official blog 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 an internal wallet system with 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 Dorier told Bitcoin 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 vs. Ethereum: Which Is a Better Buy?: It's no surprise that investors are interested in cryptocurrencies . Bitcoin was first traded back in 2009. Back then, you could buy one of the new digital tokens for less than $0.01. Prices steadily rose until peaking above $20,000 per coin in late 2017. Ethereum debuted in 2015 at $2.83, and in under three years was worth over $1,400. By comparison, General Electric Co. (ticker: GE ) shares first hit $2.83 in 1995, adjusting for dividends and stock splits. Today, a quarter century later, it goes for about $12. Although they're the two biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, similarities more or less end there. Bitcoin and Ethereum are totally different animals, developed for different reasons and with different internal dynamics. [ Artificial Intelligence Stocks: The 10 Best AI Companies. ] But enough history -- investors want to know which is the better buy: Bitcoin or Ethereum? Here's a quick rundown of some of the biggest considerations regarding the investment outlook for each cryptocurrency. Bitcoin The de facto cryptocurrency leader, no other coin even comes close to Bitcoin, or BTC. At the time this article was written, the dollar value of all outstanding Bitcoin was $150 billion. The total market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies is $230 billion, and the second-most valuable digital currency was Ethereum, with a market value less than $18 billion. Here are some key things investors should know about BTC in the Bitcoin versus Ethereum investment debate: Upcoming halving event. The reward for bitcoin miners will be cut in half in mid-2020. Miners verify transactions on the Bitcoin network and are rewarded for doing so with a set reward for every block of verifications. The reward is how new bitcoins are put into the system, and that rate automatically halves every 210,000 transactions. The reward is falling from 12.5 BTC per block to 6.25 BTC, and this will slow the expansion of supply. There's a maximum of 21 million bitcoins that can ever exist; nearly 18.2 million are already in circulation. Story continues [ SUBSCRIBE: Start Your Day With Investing Advice. Sign up for Invested. ] Highest attention from large investors. "Bitcoin has the most traction amongst major financial institutions and private equity investors," says Alex Adelman, CEO & co-founder of Lolli, the first bitcoin rewards application allowing people to earn bitcoin while shopping online. The Winklevoss twins, the famous Harvard alumni who claim Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook ( FB ) from them, famously tried to start a bitcoin ETF , but they were rebuffed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Relative stability, simplicity and acceptance. "Bitcoin's strict purpose is basically being an alternative to fiat currency," says Cindy Yang, team lead of the fintech industry practice group at the law firm Duane Morris. A decentralized currency, beyond the grasp of the Federal Reserve or any other central bank and with a predefined maximum supply, is a concept that people worldwide can resonate with. This, what Yang refers to as the crypto's "simplistic nature," has real-world repercussions on the digital asset itself. "Bitcoin has been used for payment, you can buy property with it, you can buy coffee with it -- it's farther along in adoption in terms of people using it as a store of value," Yang says. Ethereum Before asking yourself " Should I buy bitcoin or ethereum ?" you should understand the different motivations behind the Bitcoin and Ethereum platforms. Ethereum: a different goal than Bitcoin. The two leading cryptocurrencies have "very different use cases, with Bitcoin acting as store of value and Ethereum acting as a new decentralized computing network for application development," says Zac Prince, founder and CEO of BlockFi, a crypto lender and wealth management company backed by investors like Peter Thiel and the Winklevoss Twins. Yang agrees. "I think they're so different that it's actually like choosing between two stocks from different sectors," she says. The ability to use the Ethereum platform to change the way mortgage transfers, securities trading and many other fields work has naturally brought about the next characteristic. More development. Naturally, because Ethereum's utility is only limited by the ingenuity of the world's developers, there's more activity surrounding the platform. Technically, the cryptocurrency used to facilitate Ethereum transactions is called "ether," but it's popularly referred to as ethereum. Either way, the number of Github ethereum-related repositories is 223 to Bitcoin's four. Repositories are similar to project folders where developers collaborating through Github can access project information. A fundamental change in how blocks are created. Instead of miners with the most computing power having the greatest advantage in successfully creating new tokens, those with the largest ownership stakes will be granted that right. Some believe this could pose risks. Ethereum will soon "become a 'proof of stake' coin rather than a 'proof of work' coin," says Clem Chambers, CEO of Online Blockchain and ADVFN, a leading global investor website. [ See: 10 of the Best Stocks to Buy for 2020. ] "This has a fair chance of killing Ethereum as a top crypto. It might not, but it certainly can and there is little upside from the change if the scheme works. As such, why take the risk on Ethereum when Bitcoin has proven its robustness time and again?" Chambers says. >Brass tacks: should you buy bitcoin or ethereum? When it comes right down to it, there appears to be broad consensus among sophisticated cryptocurrency investors, entrepreneurs and subject matter experts: Bitcoin is, all-things-considered, a better buy than Ethereum. "Our belief is that Bitcoin has the highest near-term probability of adoption and inclusion in mainstream portfolios," says a spokesperson at Galaxy Digital, a merchant bank focused on digital assets and the blockchain. "If you ask yourself: 'Is this an investment worth having over 10 years time?' Bitcoin stands out," Yang says. She cites its more conservative nature, evidenced by fewer changes on the horizon, a stronger brand name and impressive adoption. As for Ethereum, "it may not be the most elegant right now but there's so much development you can't take your eyes off of it." "It's two different storylines and two different personalities," Yang says. More From US News & World Report 9 Small-Cap Stocks to Buy for Big Gains 10 of the Best Tech Stocks to Buy for 2020 15 of the Best Dividend Stocks to Buy for 2020 || Grayscales Bitcoin Trust is now registered with the SEC as reporting company: Crypto asset manager Grayscales Bitcoin Trust has been officially registered as a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting company. As previously reported , the New York-based firm filed a registration statement on Form 10 with the SEC in Nov. 2019 on behalf of its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). It has been over 60 days after the initial filing the typical wait period before Form 10 filings automatically go effective and GBTC is now the first cryptocurrency investment vehicle to become an SEC reporting company, according to a press statement . The fund was offered a private placement exemption from SEC registration in 2013, but decided to pursue this registration voluntarily to boost its compliance standard and gain confidence from investors. Grayscale voluntarily pursued this designation and will continue to work within existing regulatory frameworks, said Michael Sonnenshein, managing director at Grayscale Investment. Todays announcement should signal to investors that our regulators are willing to engage with our products and our space as a whole." The trust will now have to turn in its quarterly and annual reports, audited financial statements as well as other required forms to the SEC. Additionally, Grayscale is set to reduce the statutory holding periods for shares purchased from the trusts private placement from 12 months to 6 months, the statement said, which would give accredited investors an earlier liquidity opportunity. The change will take place at least 90 days from now on the condition that the trust has met all relevant requirements under the Securities Act. GBTC has seen considerable success in 2019, a company spokesperson told The Block, with over $471 million total inflow into private placement, almost twice the amount in 2018. Sonnenshein previously emphasized that the filing was not a move to turn GBTC into an exchange-traded fund (ETF), although its products were modeled after popular investment products and have a familiar structure, according to a Nov. statement. || Panic grips financial markets after U.S. travel curbs, ECB move: By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - Panic hit world financial markets on Thursday after stimulus efforts from the European Central Bank failed to calm investors alarmed by U.S. moves to restrict travel from Europe because of the coronavirus pandemic. An MSCI global gauge of stocks posted its largest daily percentage drop on record, as did European shares <.STOXX>. Wall Street's Dow industrials index <.DJI> recorded its largest daily decline since the Black Monday crash of October 1987. The New York Federal Reserve pumped more liquidity to banks, briefly reversing some of the day's losses. It was the third substantial increase in repo support announced by the U.S. central bank this week, a sign the Fed is taking drastic steps to inject more liquidity into the banking system as markets show signs of stress. The U.S. dollar responded atypically, rising against numerous currencies and gold in yet another sign of financial market stress. Oil prices sank further, while traditional safe-haven assets like gold and the Japanese yen lost value against the dollar. Trading was halted for 15 minutes shortly after the open in New York after the benchmark S&P 500 stock index tumbled more than 7%. It ended down 9.5%. In a televised address late on Wednesday that included support measures for the economy, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed restrictions on travel from Europe to the United States, shocking investors and travelers. Traders were disappointed after hoping to see broader measures to fight the spread of the virus and blunt its expected blow to economic growth. "The economy is going to grind to a halt in the next month and the recession risk is real now," said Zhiwei Ren, managing director at Penn Mutual Asset Management in Horsham, Pennsylvania. Trump said the United States would suspend all travel from Europe, except Britain and Ireland, for 30 days starting on Friday. He later said trade would not be affected by the restrictions. Story continues Worries spread far beyond stocks to companies' lines of credit and their ability to finance business activity in the short term. Fear of the unknown "is gripping markets and it’s more impactful in the credit markets at the moment; liquidity has effectively evaporated," said John McClain, a portfolio manager at Diamond Hill Capital in Columbus, Ohio. "People are looking ahead and saying 'What’s this world going to feel like when we’re all working at home?'" The European Central Bank approved fresh stimulus measures and temporarily dropped banks' capital requirements to help the euro zone cope with the shock of the pandemic, but kept interest rates on hold, disappointing markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI>sank 2,352.6 points, or 9.99%, to 21,200.62, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 260.74 points, or 9.51%, to 2,480.64 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 750.25 points, or 9.43%, to 7,201.80. The pan-European STOXX 600 index <.STOXX> lost 11.48% and emerging market stocks lost 6.71%. Japan's Nikkei futures <NKc1> lost 10.88%. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> shed 9.51% and was down more than 20% from its 52-week peak. The index has lost more than 26% over the last 20 sessions. The VIX volatility index <.VIX> - Wall Street's "fear gauge" - and an equivalent measure of volatility for the Euro Stoxx 50 <.V2TX> hit their highest since the 2008 financial crisis. INTO THE UNKNOWN Fed fund rate futures <0#FF:> are now pricing in a 1.0 percentage point cut, rather than 0.75, at a policy review next week. The euro weakened after the ECB stimulus announcement. Demand for dollars via the currency derivative markets surged to the highest levels in years in a sign that coronavirus-induced economic stress is starting to manifest itself in a broad scramble for funding in dollars. "Dollar liquidity is king in times of crisis and that is what the blow-out in swap spreads is telling us," said Kenneth Broux, a currency strategist at Societe Generale in London. He said this could mark a move into the next sell-off stage, which could mean a three-week-long worldwide rout in shares and riskier bonds giving way to a rush for dollars. The dollar index <=USD> rose 0.792%, with the euro <EUR=> up 0.08% to $1.1192. The Japanese yen weakened 0.09% versus the greenback at 104.76 per dollar, while Sterling <GBP=> was last trading at $1.2585, up 0.11% on the day. The Brazilian real <BRL=>, Colombian peso <COP=> and Mexican peso <MXN=> all hit historic lows versus the greenback. Bitcoin plunged 28.1% amid wild volatility in cryptocurrency markets. <BTC=BTSP> Oil prices were also hit, compounded by an intensifying price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, on top of fears of a sharp slowdown in the global economy. U.S. crude <CLc1> fell 6.03% to $30.99 per barrel and Brent <LCOc1> was last at $32.84, down 8.24% on the day. Spot gold <XAU=> dropped 3.5% to $1,576.79 an ounce. Palladium <XPD=> dropped 20.6% to $1,831.09 an ounce. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes <US10YT=RR> rose 3/32 in price to yield 0.8121%, from 0.822% late on Wednesday. (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Saikat Chatterjee and Sujata Rao in London, Karen Pierog in Chicago, Medha Singh in Bengaluru, Ann Saphir in San Francisco and Jonnelle Marte, Kate Duguid, Karen Brettell, Herb Lash and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Dan Grebler) || Bull Breather? Bitcoin Market Turns Indecisive at Two-Month High: • Bitcoin is facing temporary bullish exhaustion, according to Wednesday’s “doji” candle.
• The case for a notable pullback will strengthen if prices break below Wednesday’s low of $8,555. That could yield a drop to $8,200.
• A move above the hourly chart resistance at $8,705 would allow a re-test of Wednesday’s high near $8,900.
The bitcoin market istelling a tale of bullish exhaustion with indecisive price action following arise to the highest point since November.
The top cryptocurrency witnessed two-way business on Wednesday. Prices rose from lows near $8,550 seen during the Asian trading hours to a two-month high of $8,903, only to end the day (UTC) on a flat note at $8,808, according to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index.
Essentially, bitcoin createda “doji” candle, which is widely considered a sign of indecision in themarketplace.
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In this case, however, the candle could be considered a sign of buyer exhaustion, as it has appeared following a sharp rally from $6,850 to $8,900 and suggests the indecision is predominantly among the bulls.
The price action seen so far today is telling the same story. The cryptocurrency fell from $8,800 to $8,575 during the Asian trading hours and has struggled to chart a strong bounce ever since. This is in contrast to the quick reversals from sub-$8,600 levels seen in the previous two days.
At press time, bitcoin is trading near $8,600, representing a one percent drop on a 24-hour basis.
Bitcoin now risks a deeper pullback below Wednesday’s low of $8,555. A drop through that support would validate buyer exhaustion signaled by the doji candle (above left), attracting selling pressure.
Related:Bitcoin Eyes $9K After Biggest Single-Day Rise in a Month
It would also confirm a double-top breakdown on the hourly chart (above right). That would open the doors for $8,210 (target as per the measured move method).
That said, the short-term outlook would turn bearish only if any pullback ends up violating the bullish higher low of $7,667 created Jan. 10.
That, however, looks unlikely with the five- and 10-day averages continuing to trend north. These averages, currently located at $8,508 and $8,276, respectively, tend to reverse pullbacks when they are on an upward trajectory. Further, the longer duration charts have recentlyturnedbullish.
Wednesday’s high of $8,903will likely come into play if prices violate the lower high of $8,705 seen onthe hourly chart in the next few hours.
A break above $8,900, a level that has acted as strong resistance in the last 48 hours, would likely invite stronger buying pressure, yielding a quick move to the 200-day average at $9,100.
Disclosure:The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
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• Upbit Exchange Resumes Ether Services Months After $49M Hack || 7 Explosive Cryptocurrencies to Buy for the Bitcoin Halvening: The third big “bitcoin halvening” is coming in May, and according to our very own Matt McCall — whoseUltimate Cryptoportfolio has averaged a jaw-dropping 70% gain over the past five weeks alone — that’s ahugereason to be bullish on cryptocurrencies in 2020.
But, before we jump into understanding what that halvening is (also referred to as a “halving”) and which cryptocurrencies to buy for 2020, let’s first understand why cryptocurrencies as a broad asset class have a bright future.
The core purpose of cryptocurrencies is relatively simple: leverage technology to eliminate the middle-man in financial transactions and make buying and selling things less costly and more efficient. Through the blockchain — a decentralized public ledger of transactions that anyone can view consistent across the whole network, unable to be edited and/or updated unless the whole network agrees with the update — cryptocurrencies are able to conduct and verify financial transactions without needing any central oversight.
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That may sound like a mouthful. It’s not. Traditional currencies need big banks to oversee and verify all transactions. Cryptocurrencies do not. This means they’re less costly and more efficient than traditional currencies, because there’s no middle-man to pay and no paperwork to fill out.
Sure, there are risks to cryptocurrencies achieving mainstream adoption and overtaking government-backed currencies. But, lower transaction costs and quicker transactions are large enough value props to warrant there being a bright future for cryptocurrencies (even if they don’t take over the world).
Now, let’s take a deeper look at why cryptocurrencies will rise in 2020.
Two key characteristics ofbitcoinare limited supply and constrained supply growth. That is, there are a fixed number of bitcoins in the world (21 million).
The bitcoin world started with most of those bitcoins being locked in the system. Each time an individual updated bitcoin’s ledger (also called “mining”), the individual would unlock new bitcoins. But to constrain supply growth and retain incentives for mining, the bitcoin system is set up so that every so often, the amount of new bitcoins unlocked for mining a block is halved.
So far, bitcoin has undergone two halvings. After the first halvening in 2012, bitcoin prices rose about 8,000% over the following 12 months. After the second halvening in 2016, bitcoin prices rose about 2,000% over the following 18 months. In both instances, manyalternative cryptocurrencies actually rose far more than bitcoin.
In other words, bitcoin halvings have traditionally been exceptionally bullish catalysts for cryptocurrencies. And that makes complete sense. According to Will Cong, Associate Professor of Finance at Cornell University, “money supply and velocity would be important determinants” to the value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. At the end of the day, prices are determined by supply and demand. If supply growth slows, and demand growth doesn’t, then prices should go up.
The third bitcoin halvening is coming in May 2020. The number of bitcoins unlocked for mining one block will fall from 12.5 bitcoins, to 6.25 bitcoins. Because of this halving, bitcoin’s supply is expected to rise byjust 2.5% in 2020— an all-time low for the cryptocurrency — and less than 2% in 2021.
Concurrently, demand growth should accelerate in 2020, driven by the introduction of more financial derivative products, broader support from central banks and increasing recognition of bitcoin as a digital store of value.
Bigger demand growth plus lower supply growth equals higher cryptocurrency prices. That’s largely why Matt McCall, who has already picked one 100%-plus altcoin winner this year, thinks that thebest of the big 2020 cryptocurrency rally is still ahead of us.
It’s also why I’m bullish on cryptos in 2020, and these seven cryptocurrencies are ones to keep an eye on in the coming year:
Of course, the most obvious cryptocurrency to buy for 2020 is bitcoin. Over the next few months, bitcoin will be a direct beneficiary of slowing supply growth and accelerating demand growth across the cryptocurrency world.
On the supply side, the third halving in May will directly impact the amount of new bitcoins coming into market, and will lead to relatively slow supply growth.
Meanwhile, on the demand side, bitcoin demand will move higher in 2020 simply because this is the “gateway” into cryptocurrencies for new investors. That is, as new investors enter the cryptocurrency market over the next few quarters, most of them will likely start by getting their feet wet with bitcoin, implying that cryptocurrency demand growth in 2020 should run largely parallel to bitcoin demand growth.
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Accelerating demand growth plus constrained supply growth will lead to higher prices for bitcoin in 2020.
Privacy is a top priority in the cryptocurrency community, and privacy-focused coins will likely win big in 2020. That’s why McCall has picked top privacy coinZcashas one of his top altcoin investments for 2020.
Zcash,which is already up about 30% since McCall recommended it about a month ago, is a pure play on the growing importance of privacy in cryptocurrency.
That is, the first wave of cryptocurrencies was all about decentralization …
“Existing currency valuation models do not quite take into consideration decentralization — a potentially distinguishing feature of cryptocurrencies,” says Professor Cong.
Now that cryptocurrencies have gained more mainstream traction and are starting to exhibit staying power, it’s time for another distinguishing feature to emerge — privacy. Privacy is one of the more important and discussed characteristics in both the crypto world and the financial transaction world at large.
As the importance of privacy grows in the crypto world, privacy coins will outperform, and Zcash looks particularly primed to outperform given the company’srecent pivot into private mobile transactions.
A leading altcoin positioned for potentially big gains in 2020 isRipple.
Ripple is a company which leverages blockchain technology to enable banks, payment providers, digital asset exchanges and corporations to send money globally, usually using the company’s cryptocurrency, XRP.
In many ways, then, Ripple is the infrastructure behind cross-border cryptocurrency payments.
As cryptos gain more mainstream traction, Ripple is adding more and more banks and various other customers to its network. Most recently, the National Bank of Egypt just partnered with Ripple.
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More and more banks will partner with Ripple in 2020 as cryptocurrency awareness and demand rises. As it does, the price of XRP will rise, too.
One of the more interesting cryptocurrencies to watch in 2020 — and which could explode higher — isBasic Attention Token.
The core idea behind BAT is pretty simple. The digital advertising model is broken, in that user and advertiser incentives are not aligned. Instead, they run opposite one another. That is, advertisers want users to watch their ads, while consumers want to skip the ads.
The idea of BAT is to realign the incentive structure in the digital ad network so that user and advertiser incentives match one another.
To do this, users get paid Basic Attention Tokens to watch ads in the Brave browser, so that they are now financially incentivized to watch the ad. The end goal, of course, is that more consumers watch ads, and advertisers sell more product/generate more brand awareness.
It’s a pretty smart business model.
And, as cryptocurrencies gain more mainstream consumer traction in 2020, this smart model for compensating users to watch ads should similarly gain traction. As it does, the price of BAT should rise.
One of the hottest cryptocurrencies, and one which Matt McCall thinks will remain red hot for the foreseeable future, isChainlink.
In hisUltimate Crypto portfolio, Matt first recommended Chainlink in early January at a price of $2.09. Today, Chainlink trades hands at $4.50, up a whopping 115% in just over a month. What’s more, that 115% return over the past month, follows a 450% return in 2019.
In other words, Chainlink has been scorching hot. Strengthening fundamentals imply that it will remain hot for the foreseeable future.
Specifically, Chainlink leverages blockchain technology to create smart contracts, which are essentially self-executing contracts that can be executed without central oversight.
But businesses have been slow to adopt smart contracts because data is integral to executing these smart contracts, and there hasn’t yet been a reliable way to connect external data with the smart contract.
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That’s exactly what Chainlink does. So, they provide a very necessary gateway to usher in broader adoption of smart contracts. This adoption uptake in 2020 will provide a natural tailwind for LINK, and the coin’s red-hot rally will likely persist.
TheSynthetix Network Tokenis a cool platform in theethereumecosystem which leverages blockchain technology to help bridge the gap between the often very obscure cryptocurrency world, and the far more tangible traditional asset world.
That is, in the Synthetix Network, there are Synths, which are synthetic assets that provide exposure to assets such as gold, bitcoin, U.S. Dollars and various equities likeTesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) andApple(NASDAQ:AAPL). The whole idea of these synthetic assets is to create shared assets wherein users benefit from asset exposure, without actually owning the asset.
It’s a very unique idea, and a promising project in the ethereum landscape. Because it helps bridge the gap between cryptocurrencies and traditional assets, it creates a level of familiarity and value that are often missing in other cryptocurrency assets. This familiarity and value ultimately position SNX price to rise in 2020.
On the smaller side, a cryptocurrency which look like an interesting speculative buy in 2020 isDxChain Token.
DxChain is a very ambitious project which aims to use blockchain technology to solve the world’s data computation, storage and privacy issues. It’s a tall order. But, if it works, it could yield huge results in terms of DXC usage and value growth.
In 2020, data privacy concerns are front and center. As such, privacy-focused coins should rise. DXC is one of the more interesting privacy-focused coins with potentially huge long term upside.
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While it’s still all very speculative, those attributes may make this altcoin worth the risk over the next few quarters.
It’s not an understatement to say thatthe opportunity in cryptocurrency in 2020 isa once-in-a-lifetime event.
New technologies are often undergirded by periods of rapid, exponential growth … before either dying out in supernova fashion or normalizing to meet realistic expectations. So when cryptos had their first “once-in-a-lifetime” event in 2013 — which turned every $1,000 into $93,000 — the spectating world thought they had missed out.
Then came thenextlife-changing event in 2017, turning every $5,000 into $123,000 …thatwas assuredly the big boom that you either rode to 25x gains or, well, you didn’t, right? Wrong.
Cryptocurrencies are unlike any trend we’ve ever seen before, andthere will be another opportunity for investors to turn a fistful of dollars intomillions of dollars.
The key to this explosion is the Halvening. Don’t miss out this time!
As of this writing, Luke Lango did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
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The post7 Explosive Cryptocurrencies to Buy for the Bitcoin Halveningappeared first onInvestorPlace.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 5563.71, 5200.37, 5392.31, 5014.48, 5225.63, 5238.44, 6191.19, 6198.78, 6185.07, 5830.25
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2017-02-06]
BTC Price: 1038.15, BTC RSI: 68.55
Gold Price: 1230.00, Gold RSI: 66.75
Oil Price: 53.01, Oil RSI: 51.99
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
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) || 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) || 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.
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, clickhttp://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/HONGKONG-BITCOIN/0100106X09S/BITCOIN%20ECONOMY%20T.jpg
For a graphic on bitcoin exchange rates, clickhttp://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/1/2097/4051/s3d90f04kz56.htm
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) || 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.
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, clickhttp://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/HONGKONG-BITCOIN/0100106X09S/BITCOIN%20ECONOMY%20T.jpg
For a graphic on bitcoin exchange rates, clickhttp://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/1/2097/4051/s3d90f04kz56.htm
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) || How A Single Bitcoin Could Soon Be Worth More Than An Ounce of Gold: Could 1 Bitcoin be worth more than 1 ounce of Gold? This could actually happen sooner than most people think.
Bitcoin, as of this writing, is approaching $1,000.
The last time it traded that high, it was late 2013. Bitcoin went from about $100 to $1,000 in about 3 months. Here’s how the rise then compares toits current rise today:
But while $1,000 is a very interesting psychological level for Bitcoin, and could even signal new all-time highs, there’s something much more interesting going on. It has to do with gold.
Gold is considered the longest lasting true store of value. People have been trading, investing, and minting gold as currency for thousands of years. Today, gold is primarily measured in ounces. The standard unit is one ounce of gold and an ounce currently costs about $1,160.
As Bitcoin approaches $1,000, a unique situation begins to emerge. For the first time ever,1 Bitcoin could soon be worth more than 1 ounce of gold: || 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) || 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.
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) || Gartman: Bitcoin Is Nearly Incomprehensible At This Point: After skyrocketing 43.7 percent in the final two weeks of 2016, theBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC) has made a sharp reversal in the past two days. On Thursday, the ETFplummeted 11.6 percent. In early Friday trading, the GBTC is down another 7.7 percent.
According toDennis Gartman, author of The Gartman Letter, a Bitcoin selloff was inevitable. Gartman says the recent runup in Bitcoin came from Indian and Chinese citizens rushing into the currency to avoid weakness in their native denominations.
“These sorts of things always...ALWAYS...end badly and they ended yesterday amidst early buying panic and then even greater panic selling,” Gartman writes.
Gartman adds that he hasn’t ever seen anything like the trading action in Bitcoin in the past 48 hours. He predicts that the panic-selling is not yet over and Bitcoin investors could be staring at significantly more downside in coming days.
He also hints that the complexity of Bitcoin’s technology may be scaring off potential investors.
“Bitcoin may be the currency of the future but quite honestly we find it quite nearly incomprehensible at this point,” Gartman concluded.
The GBTC ETF was up roughly 90 percent in 2016. A new big-board-listed Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF could be launched sometime in 2017.
See more from Benzinga
• How Did Bitcoin Perform This Year?
© 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 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. Beijingannouncedit had beguninvestigating bitcoin exchangesin 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 wastightening capital controls even further. While the rules were aimed atoutbound investments by centrally-controlled state firms, it is still notable thatbitcoin has so far been spared. In a note to clients on Wednesday, Deutsche Bank's Torsten Sløk showed howChina dominates the global bitcoin market, accounting for nearly 100% of the trading.
(Investing.com)
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• Bitcoin is charging higher || Why Small Businesses Should Consider Bitcoin: In 2015 bitcoin finally made its mark: More than 100,000 businesses , including industry giants like Microsoft, Overstock.com and Dell, accepted it. But, what exactly is this mysterious "cryptocurrency" everyone has been talking about for years? And, is it time your small business accepted it, too? Related: 5 Ways to Participate in the Bitcoin Revolution Here's what you need to know about what bitcoin is, its advantages and potential drawbacks. What is bitcoin? Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency or an entirely digital form of money, invented in 2009. While that might not sound interesting, what sets bitcoin apart is that it's purely person-to-person , with virtually no banks, financial institutions or government bodies standing in the way between you and your money. Bitcoin relies on a technology system called blockchain that keeps your bitcoin wallet safe and secure from fraud. The currency's digital format also makes for faster, cheaper, easier exchanges of cash, from which many small businesses may benefit. Overall, Bitcoin's assets stem from its decentralization. Blockchain, the technology bitcoin was built on, allows you to not have to rely on a bank to process your financial transactions. Here are other reasons to consider bitcoin: 1. No fees If your 2 to 3 percent merchant transaction fees are a drain on your cash flow, then bitcoin has you covered. Bitcoin transactions typically cost between 1 percent and zero. That's no typo. You can send or accept bitcoins as payments with no fees attached. Since bitcoin doesn't require a bank to verify each transaction, you don't have to sacrifice your own revenue to the financial institutions that own your business loans or credit cards . However, you'll often have the option to pay an extremely small transaction fee, which can speed up your processing. 2. No wait Maybe those fees aren't bothering you, but waiting around for your money to arrive in your bank account does. Because there's no centralized institution that checks every bitcoin transaction -- its underlying technology, blockchain, does it for you -- there's no need to wait nearly as long to receive your payment. Bitcoin transactions are processed quickly, usually in a fraction of the time credit card transactions do. Story continues You can charge a customer, go for a walk around the block and receive your money. Bitcoin is that fast . 3. No borders If you export your goods and services or purchase supplies or materials from abroad, then bitcoin is a great solution for dealing with foreign transaction fees, exchange rates or currencies. Why? Because bitcoin is a global currency, not tied to a single government or company , it ignores border restrictions. As long as your customers or suppliers accept bitcoin, you're good to go. 4. No payment disputes Even though bitcoin is digital, it works more like cash than credit. Bitcoin transactions are final and can't be contested by a customer on the basis that he or she, for example, didn't enjoy the service you provided. If you have trouble with customers disputing their credit card payments, then accepting bitcoin could help. 5. An investment opportunity Like other currencies, bitcoin fluctuates in value. However, it's generally less stable than the payments in cash, gold or other commodities you're used to. Related: The Strange Positive Effect Political Uncertainly Has on Bitcoin While this fluctuation can be a drawback to accepting bitcoin, as we'll discuss below, it can also have a large upside. You can look at bitcoin as an investment: By accepting bitcoins, then waiting to cash them in, you're taking a chance on their value increasing. Bitcoin makes investing in a currency seem much less absurd or boring. From 2011 to 2013, the value of a single bitcoin rose from $2 to $1,242. Although it has since fallen back to around $800 today, there's still much potential for growth. Challenges of accepting bitcoin It's always important to be aware of the potential dangers, as well. Here are the three largest obstacles to running a business with bitcoin. 1. It's unregulated. Although its decentralization is a plus, bitcoin's lack of government support may scare some away. The U.S. government recognizes bitcoin as a valid commodity and possibly even a positive influence on financial regulation, but some other countries have restricted or banned the use of bitcoin. 2. It's unstable. Although bitcoin has become increasingly more stable over time, even recently beating out gold , it's still fundamentally a currency that isn't overseen by a single financial institution. If the economy requires it, the Federal Reserve can raise or lower interest rates, but no such option exists with bitcoin. Some observers point to this "unstable" quality as a good thing, since the bitcoin market has no interference, but it could also make things difficult for your small business if that market suffers. You'll want to figure out your aversion to risk before investing big in bitcoin. 3. It's tough to plan for. With a decentralized, volatile, purely digital currency, it can be difficult to plan financial statements, figure out taxes and determine your prices . How can you make projections that account for large fluctuations or changing government regulations? This is not an easy task, although it is do-able. You'll definitely need to speak with your bookkeeper and accountant before accepting bitcoin at your small business. Related: Bitcoin Is Money, U.S. Judge Says in Case Tied to JPMorgan Hack Overall, there's a lot that bitcoin can help your small business with, but also plenty of question marks involved in accepting the currency. If you're considering accepting bitcoin, sit down and determine why it can help your business and how you will deal with the challenges it may bring.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
The latest JUST YAP! http://paper.li/JMYap?edition_id=b140b910-c49c-11e6-95ce-0cc47a0d164b … Thanks to @inklesstales @TGIFhaas #bitcoin #usrc || Combining Gold Assets With the Blockchain — and Bitcoin https://news.82bitcoin.com/2016/12/19/combining-gold-assets-with-the-blockchain-and-bitcoin-67/ … || How the Lightning Network Layers Privacy on Top of #Bitcoin http://btcm.ag/sphinxln #blockchain #privacypic.twitter.com/Q5n17PNVh7 || MMMBTC || MMMBTC || $781.17 at 14:00 UTC [24h Range: $771.24 - $782.36 Volume: 3786 BTC] || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$790.02/$790.03 #Bitstamp
$779.26/$780.00 #BTCe
⇢$-10.77/$-10.02
$785.62/$794.41 #Coinbase
⇢$-4.41/$4.39 || Moon Bitcoin - The bitcoin faucet where YOU decide when to claim! http://moonbit.co.in/?ref=855b0826bd09 … #bitcoin #faucet с помощью @Moon_Bitcoin || $998.03 at 00:45 UTC [24h Range: $960.53 - $1005.00 Volume: 6903 BTC] || Bitregion is the best peer to peer donation system that able you to multiply your bitcoin up to 30,000 BTC.
http://goo.gl/XyoRwT
|
Trend: down || Prices: 1061.35, 1063.07, 994.38, 988.67, 1004.45, 999.18, 990.64, 1004.55, 1007.48, 1027.44
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2015-11-11]
BTC Price: 311.08, BTC RSI: 46.12
Gold Price: 1084.70, Gold RSI: 26.96
Oil Price: 42.93, Oil RSI: 39.69
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
MarilynJean Interactive (MJMI.QB) Welcomes Top Bitcoin Remittance and ATM Expert to Board of Advisors: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 9, 2015 / MarilynJean Interactive ( MJMI ) today announced it has retained Christopher Concepcion to serve on its board of advisors. Mr. Concepcion has an MBA from Stanford University, over 30 years of international corporate expertise at the executive level, wide ranging business relationships in the Philippines and extensive experience in Bitcoin remittance and ATM operations. Mr. Concepcion was born and raised in the Philippines where he earned his undergraduate degree in business at The University of The Philippines in Manila. He then completed an MBA at Stanford University in California. While in the Philippines, Mr. Concepcion held executive positions in companies involved in supply chain management, real estate financing, insurance and communications. He has worked with Filipino remittances for the last 12 years. Mr. Concepcion was also a member of the Capital Markets Development Council that provided public / private business policy advice to the Philippine government. Mr. Concepcion and his family relocated to Canada in 2014. In late 2014, Mr. Concepcion formed Bitcoiniacs Holdings Inc., to acquire the world's first Bitcoin ATM operator. Mr. Concepcion then pivoted the business toward remittances, with a focus on using Bitcoins to allow foreign workers to quickly and inexpensively remit funds to the Philippines. Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "We couldn't be more excited to have Mr. Concepcion join our growing team. His expertise and the business direction of his firm match perfectly with 's plans in the remittance space. Mr. Concepcion's firm owns the world's first Bitcoin ATM and the first standalone Bitcoin remittance storefront, both in Vancouver Canada. With his Bitcoin expertise and top level Philippine contacts, we firmly believe Mr. Concepcion will provide invaluable advice and important introductions as we target the multi-billion dollar Philippine remittance market. We look forward to updating our shareholders as we grow this relationship." Story continues About MJMI MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence. MJMI is currently exploring partnerships in several verticals within the crypto-currency space, including the multi-billion dollar remittance market. Management believes that several industries, including both international remittances and online gambling are on the verge of being revolutionized by the use of Bitcoin to effect transactions. MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focused on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is MJMI.QB. Website: www.marilynjean.com Press Contact: bonnie@marilynjean.com SOURCE: MarilynJean Media Interactive || Bitcoin keeps surging, makes another new high for 2015: (A sign welcomes consumers paying in bitcoin.Thomson Reuters)
2015 may be the year that bitcoin rebounded.
The digital currency smashed through a new high for the year on Monday morning, trading at nearly $370 andcontinuingits impressive streak as of late.
Bitcoin has been on a big run for much of the last two months, gaining about 70% on private exchanges since hitting a second-half low of $213 in late August.
For investors who bought in during bitcoin's headiest days to date, in early 2014, that's not enough of a rebound: before the price of the digital currency plummeted in 2014, it reached more than $1100 a bitcoin.
Now, after bitcoin's big seven-week run, it is trading at around $363 a coin.
Even as detractors to bitcoin point toward a difficult-to-regulate culture that has popped up around the cryptocurrency, there is a growing push from well-known investors to advance thepayment technology.
In October, investors including MasterCard and Bain Capital Ventures provided backing toBarry Silbert's Digital Currency Group. Already, Silbert's latest project has backed dozens of cryptocurrenty startups, largely focusing on bitcoin deals.
BitcoinCharts.com tracks the daily price of the cryptocurrency, and captures the last month's run-up in value. Monday morning marked the biggest single day of gains for bitcoin, as it rose about 10% in one day.
(Bitcoin value has been growing steadily over the last two months.BitcoinCharts.com)
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The value of bitcoin has rocketed higher since late August, gaining more than 60% as investors around the worldclamor to buy into the cryptocurrency.
It recently hit new highs for the year.
Long-term bitcoin watchers have seen this happen before, and they know that bitcoin rallies can be huge.
The last time bitcoin's value began soaring the cryptocurrency went from below $200 in September 2013 to more than $1100 by early 2014.
Right now – after the recent gains – bitcoin is trading at around $380. That's right, after that peak last year, bitcoin crashed – badly damaging investor interest. It took more than a year for that interest to return.
So what's bringing people back? The digital currency is gaining traction both in the consumer marketplace, as a tradeable security, and with regulators. To illustrate - you can donate to theAmerican Red Crossin bitcoin, buy a new personal computer with it, or even book a holiday.
It isn't just digital-currency enthusiasts that are bullish. Equity research firm Wedbush expects it to rise to $600 because of the growing adoption. That target includes a "high discount rate to account for uncertainty," the firm says in a Nov. 4 research note. In other words, there is a lot of risk here, but even factoring that in, the potential exists for a big gain.
“We’re crossing the chasm from early enthusiasts to mainstream adoption," says Adam White, a vice president of business development with bitcoin exchange Coinbase.
(Wedbush Securities)Payments with bitcoin have been on the rise — as has the value of bitcoin, as an investment.
As more people use bitcoin, retailers have become increasingly welcoming of it.
Companies including Dish, Microsoft, Dell and Expedia are accepting cryptocurrency as payment.
Perhaps most crucial: payments startups and legacy players including Square, Stripe, and PayPal are integrating it into their offerings.
Regulators in the US and internationally are embracing bitcoin now, instead of fearing — or, worse still, thwarting — it.
"What there needs to be is greater regulatory clarity," said Jerry Brito, executive director at Washington-based advocacy group Coin Center. "It's a very different world than it was in 2013."
Bitcoin legislation is being readied in several US states, Brito said.
In October, a consortium of startupsannounced the establishmentof theBlockchain Alliance, a partnership between bitcoin companies and US and foreign agencies including the Department of Justice, FBI and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, among others.
Last month, theEuropean Court of Justice said bitcoin transactions will be exemptedfrom a consumer tax, which could lead to even greater use of the cryptocurrency.
Another big step, yet to come, would be the declaration of bitcoin by US regulators as a security.
Another factor lending greater legitimacy to bitcoin is the investment capital being poured into related startups.
Recently, the total dollar volume backing startups in the sectorcrossed the $1 billion threshold. But the investors behind the money have also increased bitcoin's visibility.
The roster of bitcoin startup backersincludes Wall Street investment banks; the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ; andleading credit and debit card companiesincluding Visa, MasterCard and Capital One.
"The global banks and wire-houses have meaningfully gotten involved in the space," said Michael Sonnenshein, director of business development and sales at Grayscale Investments,which manages the Bitcoin Investment Trust, a publicly listed vehicle that tracks bitcoin. "In 2013, they were beginning to dip their toe, but primarily behind closed doors and within internal working groups."
There are still lingering issues surrounding bitcoin's validity.
To be sure, it is volatile and – because its loosely regulated – a draw for frauds and criminals.
Some big names in the crytptocurrency community — perhaps most notably Blythe Masters, the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings — have been critical of bitcoin and say the underpinning blockchain technology is actually what's most sexy to Wall Street.
But right now, to many investors, bitcoin is hot. And it could stay that way.
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• The Winklevoss twins tell us why they believe Bitcoin will come to dominate global finance || Bitcoin spikes 70% in a month; nobody knows why: Bitcoin (:BTC=) , the world's most popular digital currency, has been on a roll but no one is really sure why. After dipping well below $200 in January, bitcoin traded at more than $410 Tuesday afternoon before cutting some of those gains, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index. That's about 25 percent higher than the same time last year but well below the historical high of about $1,150. This upswing, which began about a month ago when bitcoin traded below $240, comes on the heels of a steady stream of good news for the digital asset and its associated ecosystem. But even with recent favorable regulatory rulings, press coverage and business investments, experts in the space are struggling to explain the one-month jump of more than 70 percent. For comparison, gold (CEC:Commodities Exchange Centre: @GC.1) is down about 5 percent on the year, and slightly negative on the month. Some have attributed the size of the recent jump to investors' fear of missing out (FOMO) , while others such as "Fast Money" trader Brian Kelly point to ecosystem headlines like the Winklevoss twins launching their exchange and the Digital Currency Group announcing funding from Bain and MasterCard ( MA ) . But bitcoin has boasted a steady parade of media highlights and major investments from important financial firms all year, so it's not immediately obvious why this past month would mark a turning point. Read More Why financial firms are investigating bitcoin tech Brendan O'Connor, the CEO of bitcoin trading firm Genesis Global Trading, told CNBC he has no easy answers about the price jump. Although he said rumors were flying around the community about international rings of traders teaming up to drive up the exchange rate, O'Connor was unable to confirm anything he'd heard. For its part, Genesis Global is experiencing a "dramatic increase in activity" from renewed interest in bitcoin as a tradable asset, O'Connor said. "When the price starts going up, people start coming out of the woodwork," he said. "We're setting new records almost on a daily basis for amount traded and number of transactions." Story continues Read More Bitcoin to be 6th largest reserve currency by 2030: Research It should be noted that bitcoin is a relatively illiquid market, so its exchange rate against major world currencies has been historically volatile. Still, O'Connor said volume from the Chinese bitcoin market has been "off the charts," so there may be a genuine upswing in interest from that region. In fact, Kelly suggested in a Tuesday note that Beijing's tightening of capital controls may have spurred some of the recent price gains. Additionally, many in the bitcoin community insist that the daily price of the cryptocurrency is not a relevant metric, as it distracts from the world-changing potential of the technology. Martindale tweet. Others worry that the cycle of mainstream media coverage on bitcoin's price will recreate a story they've seen before: Lopp tweet. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || C&W Business Develops Comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plans to Complement Industry-Leading Disaster Recovery as a Service Solution: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Oct 22, 2015) - C&W Business, part of C&W Communications , announced today that it has completed the development of a portfolio of Disaster Recovery Plans for each of the platforms on which it delivers Disaster Recovery as a Service. With this development, clients that utilize C&W Business Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution not only receive the most comprehensive managed solution for business continuity on the market, but they also get a complete roadmap of processes and procedures to ensure they are following international best-practices for business continuity. The C&W Business DRaaS Solution, which was recently placed in the first Gartner Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service 1 , protects business data and applications from all types of disasters, from natural to man-made. Thanks to the ability to failover and failback in mere minutes, companies minimize any risk to their data, applications, or business with this fully-managed service. With an easy-to-use, secure online portal that allows companies to manage and track real-time activity and system health, businesses can rest-assured that their most important information is always secure. Now, C&W Business is also delivering a comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan with each instance of DRaaS. These plans help businesses understand the complete benefits of the DRaaS solution beyond the technological advantages. These Disaster Recovery Plans, which are tailored directly to the platform the client utilizes, provide dynamic tools to document recovery plans at the information technology level, so businesses can manage their resources more proactively. Developed using international standards used by the Disaster Recovery International Institute (DRII), BCI, ISO 22301, and ITIL, C&W Business Disaster Recovery Plans spell out specific roles and responsibilities for each party throughout the disaster recovery process. With detailed instructions on what needs to be done before, during, and after a business interruption, businesses utilizing these tools are well-prepared to deal with all types of interruptions to their business mitigating the risk of valuable data loss. Story continues "For years, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity solutions were viewed as a major drain on companies and their IT organizations. At C&W Business, we're focusing our efforts to change this perception. By including these specialized Disaster Recovery Plans, customized based on the technologies our customers are using, we now can help to protect our customers' networks, secure their valuable data, and assist in developing their best-practices company-wide. We feel that this, coupled with the most comprehensive managed Disaster Recovery solution on the market, will be a real game-changer for our customers," said John Maduri, President of C&W Business. With an impeccable track record and a growing list of highly satisfied users in the Caribbean and Latin American markets, C&W Business' DRaaS solution is the industry leader in managed disaster recovery in the region. To find out more about C&W Business' DRaaS solution and to read the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service, visit www.cwcbusiness.com/draas . 1 Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service, John P Morency, Christine Tenneson, April 21, 2015 Disclaimer Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Source: Gartner, "Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service," April 21, 2015 About C&W Communications Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over US$2.4 billion, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc on 31 March 2015, C&W now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and TV/video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and TV consumer offers. Through its business division, C&W provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers. The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 48,000 km - the most extensive in the region - as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity and a growing suite of wholesale managed services. C&W has more than 7,500 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; Video 460k and Broadband 665k) as well as over 125k corporate clients and 225 wholesale customers across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include: LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. C&W is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programs. 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 . || 10 things you need to know today: (https://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResultFarmer Zhang Xianping with pig Big Precious during an interview with the media in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, China.
Here is what you need to know.
Volkswagen has another emissions scandal.The German automaker announced that an internal investigation had discovered "irregularities in CO2 levels" in as many as 800,000 vehicles. It is unclear whether the irregularities are related to the recently discovered emissions scandal related to nitrogen-oxide testing. "Under the ongoing review of all processes and workflows in connection with diesel engines it was established that the CO2 levels and thus the fuel consumption figures for some models were set too low during the CO2 certification process," Volkswagen said in a statement. "The majority of the vehicles concerned have diesel engines."
Tesla is flying high after its latest outlook.Shares of Tesla were up 10% in after-hours trade after the company announced it expected to deliver 17,000 to 19,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, outpacing the Wall Street consensus. For all of 2015, Tesla said it would deliver 50,000 to 52,000 vehicles, narrowing its range from its previous estimate of 50,000 to 55,000. On the earnings front, the electric-car maker lost $0.58 per share, which was slightly worse than the $0.56 loss that was anticipated. Revenue jumped 33.4% to $1.24 billion, in line with estimates.
US auto sales are at the highest level in a decade.The latest Autodata showed US auto sales rose at an annualized pace of 18.24 million in October, the best in a decade. The number easily surpassed the Wall Street consensus of17.7 million vehicles. Mazda (+35.4%) saw the biggest gains, while General Motors (+16%) and Ford (+13%) posted solid results. BMW USA (-6.6%) was the lone decliner.
Honda is dumping Takata airbags.The AFP reports that Takata's largest client, Honda, has severed its relationship with the company after US authorities announced a $200 million fine against the airbag maker. Takata airbags have been linked to eight deaths and even more injuries around the world."On a global basis, no new Honda and Acura models currently under development will be equipped with a front driver or passenger Takata airbag inflator," Honda said in a statement. Shares of Takata were down as much as 20% in Tokyo.
Iceland raised rates.Iceland's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate 25 basis points to 5.75%. The central bank noted that domestic demand was expected to increase by more than 7% this year and that gross domestic product was forecast to grow at 4.6%. As for inflation, the central bank said: "It is still expected that large pay increases will cause inflation to rise above the target as 2016 progresses and the effects of low global inflation taper off. Inflation will not return to target until 2018." The Icelandic krona is weaker by 0.2% at 128.90 per dollar.
European services data was strong.October Services PMI for the eurozone was released, and it showed that every country outpaced expectations except for Germany. Spain saw the biggest month-over-month increase, as its reading climbed from 54.6 in September to 55.9 in October and easily beat the 54.6 that was expected. Germany's number ticked up to 54.5 from 54.1 but missed the 55.2 that economists were expecting. The eurozone as a whole improved to 54.1 from 53.7. The euro is down 0.3% at 1.0935.
Bitcoin has gone parabolic.On Tuesday, bitcoin rallied 10% to close just shy of the $400 mark. On Wednesday morning, bitcoin is up another 15% near $454. The digital currency has surged 89% since the beginning of October.
Stock markets around the world are higher.China's Shanghai Composite (+4.3%) surged after the People's Bank of China released some dated comments fromgovernor Zhou Xiaochuan. In Europe, Spain's IBEX (+1.2%) leads the gains. S&P 500 futures are higher by 2.75 points at 2,105.75.
US economic data is moderate.ADP Employment Change is due out at 8:15 a.m. ET before the trade balance crosses the wires at 8:30 a.m. ET and ISM Services is released at 10 a.m. ET. Crude-oil inventories will be announced at 10:30 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 2.20%.
Earnings reporting remains heavy.21st Century Fox, Allergan, CDW, Honda Motor, Michael Kors, and Time Warner highlight the names scheduled to release their quarterly results ahead of the opening bell. Facebook, Marathon Oil, MetLife, Prudential, Qualcomm, Sturm Ruger, and Whole Foods are among the companies reporting after markets close.
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• 10 things you need to know today || IBM Gets Behind Blockchain: While bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have struggled to find mainstream appeal, blockchain, the ledger like technology that they run on, has been touted as one of the most important technological advancements of the past decade. The system has the ability to facilitate transactions in a way that many say will transform more than just the financial industry. That idea is now being put into practice by tech giant International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM ), as the company announced that it is working to use the technology to create a "smart contracts" system. Related Link: Buy Some Bitcoin With This ETF Smart Contracts The Wall Street Journal reported that IBM Research Senior Vice President Arvind Krishna said that the firm is working on a way to develop blockchain technology into a system that can facilitate contracts. The system is expected to eventually be released as open-source software and will likely give other big name companies reason to look into using the technology. Improving Business Transactions IBM's smart contracts system won't include the use of cryptocurrencies, but will instead draw on blockchain's ability to track individual transactions but keep the details private. The idea is to allow companies to embed rules into their contracts and allow the blockchain system to enforce them. One example the company is looking into would be a system that automatically pays for goods once they are delivered, however the possibilities for using the technology could reach into several aspects of business operations. See more from Benzinga IBM Uses Tennis To Demonstrate Its Dominance In Data U.S. Tech Firms Hope To Have A Say In New EU Digital Market Rules iBusiness, iPrograms: Apple Stretches Its Legs © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || Buy Some Bitcoin With This ETF: It has been more than two years since Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss filed plans for an exchange traded fund backed by holdings of bitcoin. That ETF has yet to come to market, but a previously existing ETF has added bitcoin to its holdings.
ARK Investment Management LLC, the New York-based issuer of four actively managed ETFs, said Tuesday investors can now access bitcoin through theARK Web x.0 ETF(NYSE:ARKW). That makes ARKW the first ETF to invest in bitcoin.
“ARK has made its investment for ARK Web x.0 ETF through the purchase of publicly traded shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX: GBTC),”according to a statementissued by ARK Investment Management.
Related Link:Did Barclays Start The Bitcoin Bull Run?
ARKW, which celebrates its first anniversary at the end of this month, is managed by ARK founder and Chief Investment Officer Cathie Wood. The ETF can hold 40 to 50 companies that are legitimately wear the “disruptive” and “game-changing” labels. ARKW currently holds 40 stocks, includingAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN),Netflix, Inc.(NASDAQ:NFLX),Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) andApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL), according toissuer data.
“ARK believes that bitcoin, a digital currency, could disrupt the $500 billion intermediary payment platform industry which includes credit cards, electronic payments and remittances, and might empower the creation of a new group of companies and industries,” said ARK in the statement.
Bitcoin burstonto the scenein 2007 and today is the most recognizable of the digital or cryptocurrencies. Unlike traditional currencies, such as dollars, pounds or yen, bitcoin is not created by a central bank, but is created by people.
ARK’s investment in publicly traded shares of the Bitcoin Investment Trust will be valued each day at 4:00 p.m. ET at their then current daily market price, according to the statement. The Bitcoin Investment Trust is ARKW's smallest holding at just under a third of the ETF's weight, according to issuer data.
One bitcoin is currently equivalent to just over $231, according to Coinbase data, indicating that the value of the digital currency has been cut in half over the past 12 months. However, Coinbase data also indicate the number of daily transactions involving bitcoin has also more than doubled over that period.
ARKW charges 0.95 percent per year, or $95 per $10,000 invested.
See more from Benzinga
• Preferred Stock ETFs Provide Potential Fed Clues
• Going Small With A Technology ETF
• Tech ETFs Depend Heavily On Apple Earnings
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Cannabis Sativa Inc and THC Farmaceuticals’ Subsidiary, Terpene Research Labs (TRL) to Produce Terpenes Based on CBDS’ Patent Pending Strain: MESQUITE, NV / ACCESSWIRE / September 18, 2015 / Cannabis Sativa Inc ( CBDS ) and THC Farmaceuticals, Inc (CBDG) announced today that they have entered into an agreement for TRL to develop for CBDS terpene based products from CBDS' patent pending stain of Cannabis known as "CTA." As part of the agreement CBDG shall pay CBDS 10,000,000 hempcoins for the non-exclusive right to sell products TRL produces from the CTA strain plus a 5% cash royalty. CBDG will pay 35% royalty to CBDS on all fees or other gross revenues it receives from licensing products for others to produce products using CTA genetics. CBDS shall retain the right to sell the same products under its "Hi" brand (or such other of its brands in its sole discretion) and will pay a 5% royalty to TRL for all products sold using the terpene products developed by TRL. CBDS shall pay a royalty at the rate of 35% of gross revenue to CBDG for all terpene products developed by TRL and licensed by CBDS to other parties. CBDS also transfers to CBDG all rights to the CTA products developed by TRL for distribution outside of North America. CBDS granted CBDG a 3 year option to acquire all of the CTA plant and patent rights outside of North America for an additional 10,000,000 hempcoins. The option begins to run from the time that the first hempcoins are delivered to CBDS. Should this option be exercised, CBDG will then pay a royalty of 3% of gross revenues received from with respect to products produced by or for CBDG or any of its affiliates and 20% on all royalties it receives. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission ruled yesterday that "[t]he definition of a commodity [being] broad... Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are encompassed in the definition and properly defined as commodities," the agency has turned our newest earned asset into a commodity. About Terpenes; Terpenes (/ˈtɜrpiːn/) are a large and diverse class of organic compounds, produced by a variety of plants. About Hempcoin : Hempcoins (HMP) is a litecoin type crypo-commodity that can be mined and is backed by shares of $RMTN. See: http://www.hempcoin.com . About CBDS: Cannabis Sativa, Inc. is in the business of branding and licensing via its 'hi' intellectual properties. The Company also offers the Wild Earth Naturals line of CBD Water and cosmetic products which are designed to use organic and natural ingredients, including CBD and hemp seed oil. The Company is engaged through its subsidiaries, Kush and Hi Brands International, Inc., in the research, development and licensing of specialized natural cannabis products, including cannabis formulas, edibles, topicals, strains, recipes and delivery systems. Story continues This press release contains "forward-looking statements." Although the forward-looking statements in this release reflect the good faith judgment of management, forward-looking statements are inherently subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those discussed in these forward-looking statements. Readers are urged to carefully review and consider the various disclosures made by us in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risk factors that attempt to advise interested parties of the risks that may affect our business, financial condition, results of operation and cash flows. If one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may vary materially from those expected or projected. Readers are urged not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect any event or circumstance that may arise after the date of this release. Contact Information: Investor Relations Mesquite, NV 89027 702-345-4074 http://www.cbds.com SOURCE: Cannabis Sativa, Inc. View comments || Pot Resort To Open Fully Booked On New Year's Eve: In September, the Santee Sioux tribe of South Dakota announced that it was embracing new laws that allow Native American Tribes to sell and consume marijuana on their reservations by opening a marijuana-themed resort. The tribe outlined plans to create the ultimate "adult playground" where people could come to relax and enjoy marijuana in public spaces without fear of being prosecuted.
Now, the Tribe's lawyers say thatreservationsfor the resort's opening night are flying in, and that the establishment will likely open its doors for the first time to a sold out weekend.
See Also:Relax And Get High
New Year's Eve Opening
The marijuana resort is slated to open on New Year's Eve, providing the perfect atmosphere for partygoers who are interested in making cannabis a part of their 2016 celebrations. The venue will feature dance clubs and a dedicated smoking lounge where around 30 different strains of cannabis will be on offer. The tribe's attorney Seth Pearmansaidthe resort has already booked in rooms for 100 people as interest continues to grow.
Tribal Revenue
Much like casinos, many Native American tribes are hoping to bring in revenue from marijuana sales as laws allow them to sell and use the drug even if the state they reside in has classed it as illegal. For the Santee Sioux tribe, that has opened the door for a revolutionary idea to create the world's first cannabis resort. However, the venture comes with its own risks as the marijuana industry is still under the microscope.
For one, the tribe will have to ensure that marijuana isn't taken off the reservation and that visitors aren't buying too much of the stuff. However, for the tribe, which has struggled to stay afloat financially, the estimated $2 million per month the resort is forecast to bring in is well worth it.
See more from Benzinga
• Bitcoin Takes A Hit In Australia
• Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders
• As California's Drought Drags On, Winners And Losers Emerge
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Current value of DOGE in BTC: Vircurex: 0.00000048 -- Volume: 3150.0 Today's trend: stable at 10/09/15 00:55 || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000004
Bittrex: 0.00000004
Average $1.0E-5 per #reddcoin
03:00:02 || Cotización del #bitcoin a las 00:00hs
Venta: 3646 ARS
Compra: 3507 ARS || LIVE: Profit = $13,850.77 (6.44 %). BUY B472.07 @ $458.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $485.00 (#BitStamp) #bitcoin #btc - … pic.twitter.com/6uMIDpHSPn || Current price: 211.47€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-10-02 00:00:04 CEST || ★Infomation of BTC★
Get Discount coupon!!! https://www.facebook.com/backtochilltokyo …
￥1000 [Before 24:00→ENTRANCE FREE!!!]
#BACKTOCHILL #GOTHTRAD #dubstep || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 21 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $5,247.45 #bitcoin #btc || $373.99 at 10:00 UTC [24h Range: $364.37 - $502.00 Volume: 108392 BTC] || Current price: 340.39€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-11-03 13:00:15 CET || Current price: 217.37€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-10-10 00:20:02 CEST
|
Trend: down || Prices: 338.15, 336.75, 332.91, 320.17, 330.75, 335.09, 334.59, 326.15, 322.02, 326.93
|
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 ‘War on Bitcoin’ Is Almost Here – And It Will Get Ugly: For better or worse, bitcoin is now on the global stage, and the cryptocurrency could face a war for its very survival. | Source: Shutterstock For better or worse, bitcoin is now on the global political stage. It was discussed in Congress . Donald Trump slammed bitcoin on Twitter . The Treasury Secretary called cryptocurrencies a national security threat , and the chairman of the Federal Reserve urged caution . Meanwhile, India just proposed an all-out ban on bitcoin while China scrambles to create its own cryptocurrency . What we’re seeing around the world is eerily similar to a theory put forward by Eric Voskuil . If the theory holds, we may see a “global war on bitcoin” emerge. 4 phases of bitcoin and government interaction According to the thesis, bitcoin will go through four phases in its battle with states and regulators. Honeymoon Black Market Competition Surrender The US is arguably in the “honeymoon” phase right now. In this scenario, governments don’t outlaw bitcoin entirely, but they exert heavy regulatory pressure on companies operating in the bitcoin ecosystem. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Singapore Proposes to Kill Double Taxation (GST) on Cryptocurrencies: Singapore's taxation authority wants to put an end to GST taxation of cryptocurrencies. | Source: Shutterstock The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore is proposing to end the Goods and Services Tax that is imposed on cryptocurrencies. Under the existing rules, users of cryptocurrencies are taxed twice when they use them to pay for goods and services. This is because the IRAS treats such a transaction as a barter trade that results in two separate cases of supply a supply of the digital payment token as well as the supply of the services and goods paid for using the digital asset. Consequently, the IRAS is now seeking feedback with a view of making the proposed change starting January 1 st 2020. Comments will be welcomed until July 26 th . Non-digital payment tokens will still pay GST Per the IRAS, the exemption from the GST will only apply to those cryptocurrencies that qualify as digital payment tokens. Digital tokens such as those that represent ownership rights to specific property will still be subject to the Goods and Services Tax. To assist taxpayers, the IRAS has already outlined the qualities of digital payment tokens and this includes fungibility. Among the cryptocurrencies that the IRAS lists as qualifying to be digital payment tokens include Bitcoin , Ethereum, Dash, Litecoin, Monero, XRP and ZCash. Additionally, the IRAS also requires digital payment tokens to not be based on the value of other fiat currencies: Read the full story on CCN.com . || 2019’s Bitcoin Price Boom is Reawakening Hellish Crypto Scammers: ByCCN Markets: Cryptocurrency evangelist and educator Andreas Antonopoulos has warned that the bull run the bitcoin price has been enjoying has revived fraudulent activities in the crypto space.
In a series oftweets, Antonopoulos indicated that the prolonged crypto winter had driven scammers away. But now with the bitcoin price having nearly tripled from its 2018 low, bad actors are back with a bang.
Antonopoulos likened the current wave of scams as reminiscent of the period between August and December 2017. This was when the bitcoin price from below $3,000 to a record high of nearly $20,000.
Bitcoin Price between August – December 2017 | Source: CoinMarketCap
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Chewy will make its public debut, priced its IPO at $22 per share: Morning Brief: Friday, June 14, 2019 Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe WHAT TO WATCH Its a busy day ahead for market watchers. Ahead of the opening bell, the U.S. Census Bureau will release the retail sales data for May. Core retail sales are expected to have jumped 0.5%, according to economists polled by Bloomberg. Meanwhile, online pet-products retailer Chewy is expected to make its public debut, after pricing its shares at $22 Thursday . Chewy will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CHWY. Read more TOP NEWS Bitcoin coin with the Facebook logo screen background [Getty] Facebook's cryptocurrency reportedly gets big backers : Facebook Inc. ( FB ) has enlisted more than a dozen companies including Visa Inc, Mastercard Inc, PayPal Holdings Inc and Uber Technologies Inc to back its new cryptocurrency, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. [Reuters] Oil price choppy as Iran suspected of oil tankers attack : Oil has risen for a second day after spiking on Thursday after the suspected attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Brent crude ( BZ=F ) was up 0.3% to $61.47 as the U.S. claimed Iran was behind the attacks, which fuelled fears of reduced crude flows along one of the worlds busiest shipping routes. [Yahoo Finance UK] China factories see slowest growth since 2002 : Chinas industrial output growth slowed to the weakest pace since 2002 and investment decelerated, highlighting the headwinds the economy is facing as it grapples with the U.S. tariff war. Industrial output rose 5% from a year earlier, while fixed-asset investment expanded 5.6% in the first five months. [Bloomberg] DoubleLine's Jeffrey Gundlach puts chance of recession at up to 65% : Prominent bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach, the CEO of $130 billion DoubleLine Capital, sees the increasing likelihood of a recession within the next six to 12 months. A couple of years ago, Gundlach said he began highlighting key recession indicators on his webcasts, to see if there was potentially one on the horizon. [Yahoo Finance] Story continues Broadcom retreats from annual forecast, citing trade concern : Broadcom Inc. ( AVGO ) cut its annual sales forecast, indicating the trade war between China and the U.S. will wipe out a rebound in orders it had been predicting for the second half of the year. Shares fell as much as 8.7% in extended trading. [Bloomberg] MORE FROM YAHOO FINANCE Fiverr stock soars after IPO, CEO promises it will make money How Huaweis loss could be Apples gain Why Apple, Nike, Budweiser, and Starbucks all need to worry in China Why the media is blaming Google and Facebook for its decline Mark Cuban: We'll see fewer mass shootings by 'taking care of income inequality' To ensure delivery of the Morning Brief to your inbox, please add newsletter@yahoofinance.com to your safe sender list. Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , SmartNews , LinkedIn , YouTube , and reddit . || Fold App Adds Bitcoin ‘Kickbacks’ for Purchases at Target, Starbucks: The crypto payments startup Fold, which launched a portal for buyingDomino’s pizzausing the Lightning Network in February, now offers cash-back rewards in bitcoin to shoppers who use the mobile app for purchases at Amazon, Uber, Starbucks, Burger King, REI and Target, just to name a few.
The in-browser appLollialready offers this feature for desktop users and is developing a mobile app of its own. Now with Fold entering the game, bitcoiners might benefit from competition between the shopping apps. But while Lolli offers an in-browser, custodial wallet, which can also be used to send bitcoin rewards to external wallets, Fold’s app automatically directs the rewards to an external wallet specified by the user.
“It’s akin to accruing rewards points, just these are denominated in satoshis [fractions of bitcoin],” Fold product lead Will Reeves told CoinDesk. “They can be used for purchases within Fold or withdrawn to an actual bitcoin wallet.”
Bitcoin price over the last 30 days viaCoinDesk data.
Related:Bitcoin Price on Track to Post First Monthly Loss Since January
Fold’s lightning compatibility also sets it apart from Lolli’s beginner-friendly service. This is possible because while Lolli works directly with merchants, Fold partners with pre-paid card networks and essentially buys a gift card with users’ bitcoin then facilitates the purchase on users’ behalf.
Reeves said the lighting pizza feature has generated nearly $22,000 worth of transactions so far, with dozens of pizza purchases still rolling in every day.
Executives at both Lolli and Fold now say their respective startups have thousands of active monthly users. Lolli CEO Alex Adelman told CoinDesk that, in addition to launching a mobile app, his team has plans to implement lightning options into the Lolli payout feature.
“Lightning will be a powerful tool to help with the mainstream adoption of bitcoin,” Adelman told CoinDesk. “I’m excited to eventually share it with all our merchants.”
Related:WATCH: Metal Pay CEO Says He Isn’t a Bitcoin Maximalist
Meanwhile, from Reeves’ perspective, competitors like Lolli have adapted incumbent affiliate models while Fold seeks to build a new payments system.
“Soon, Fold users will be able to spend any currency they choose directly with these retailers and get free bitcoin for doing so,” Reeves said. “Beneath all the fun of shopping and rewards we intend to introduce a whole new paradigm to consumer spending.”
Image via Fold app
• Golden Cross Provides Glimmer of Hope for Bitcoin Price Revival
• Bitcoin Faces Sub-$9K Price Move as Bear Trend Strengthens || How to buy Litecoin in Indonesia: This article will teach you everything you need to know to buy Litecoin in Indonesia and which exchanges you can use. Litecoin was one of the first altcoin projects and was created by Charlie Lee in 2011. To this day, it is still one of the most popular cryptocurrencies as it offers cheaper transactions than Bitcoin. Having this affordable transaction fee means LTC can be used for everyday purposes. Often referred to as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, Litecoin has caught the attention of many investors and traders around the world. So is it time you got your hands on some LTC? Regulation in Indonesia Regulation surrounding cryptocurrencies in Indonesia has always been fairly murky – that is, until recently. In February 2019, Indonesia’s Futures Trading Regulatory Agency – Bappebti – authorised cryptocurrencies as a trading commodity. Currencies similar to Bitcoin are now being treated as commodities and can be traded legally in the country. Prior to this new regulation, cryptocurrency exchanges did not exist in Indonesia, and Indonesia’s Central Bank had banned all cryptocurrencies as a payment option. Having this barrier made it extremely hard for the citizens of Indonesia to buy and sell Litecoin. However, through the decentralisation of blockchain technology, people were still able to buy Litecoin through global exchanges. The new regulation now gives these exchanges legal certainty to operate and sell in Indonesia. Exchanges The first step when buying Litecoin in Indonesia is to choose a trusted and safe exchange. Here, we will go through three of the most reliable exchanges that can be used in Indonesia. OKEx OKEx was founded in 2014 in China and is the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by volume. The exchange offers a wide range of trading pairs and allows users to trade directly to and from fiat currency. Service fees on OKEx are very small for such a diverse platform – they only charge 0.1% for maker and taker fees. The exchange also promotes top security features including two-factor authentication, meaning users can be sure they will be safe from potential hackers. Story continues OKEx also offers a wide range of payment options, from bank transfers to credit/debit cards, making this exchange great for beginners who may want to use multiple payment methods. Bitfinex Founded in 2012, Hong Kong-based exchange Bitfinex has cemented itself as one of the leading exchanges in the world in terms of trading volume. It caters to both retail and institutional investors because of its impressive funding model. Bitfinex aims to be the premier destination for experienced traders across the globe, but beginners are still able to use the exchange due to its friendly interface. Due to past experiences of hacks, the exchange prioritises security and employs many different safety features. Customer support is also 24/7 on the exchange, with the team ready to answer any questions at all times. Huobi Based in Singapore, Huobi aims to provide users with independent crypto analysis and top customer support. It has a focus on the Asian market but is available globally. The exchange is supported by multiple platforms including MacOS and Android. Huobi requires users to complete Anti-Money Laundering and Know-Your-Customer tests to ensure they are complying with relevant regulations and to determine how likely a user is to carry out illicit activities. Get yourself a wallet Whatever country you live in, it is always advised to get a cryptocurrency wallet to store your assets. Due to the number of hacks on exchanges, every cryptocurrency owner needs to keep their assets on a wallet. Some of the best Litecoin wallets include Trezor and the Ledger Nano X. All wallets have different features and security options, but always remember to keep your private address safe at all times. For guides on cryptocurrencies , exchanges , and blockchain technology , click here . Make sure you take a look at all the latest crypto and blockchain news . The post How to buy Litecoin in Indonesia appeared first on Coin Rivet . || This Crypto Startup Hacks Its Own Users’ Wallets to Rescue $13 Million: ByCCN: Better the thief you know than the one you don’t. Cryptocurrency platform Komodo has had to hack its users after discovering a serious security flaw in one of its wallets.
According to apress statementby the blockchain startup, Komodo’s cybersecurity team was able to ‘sweep’ in and retrieve 8 million Komodo coins (KMD) and 96Bitcoinbefore hackers got hold of the exposed loot. An estimated $13 million worth of cryptocurrency was saved in the process.
A video on YouTube reveals how bad actors could have potentially gained access to Komodo users’ private keys:
The Komodo team has moved all funds to two company-owned wallets in the meantime:
• RSgD2cmm3niFRu2kwwtrEHoHMywJdkbkeF(KMD)
• 1GsdquSqABxP2i7ghUjAXdtdujHjVYLgqk(BTC)
Owners can claim them back in the coming weeks as the details are ironed out. Komodo urged affected users to get in touch via their Discord channel:
Plans are in the works to refund Komodo users. Source:Twitter.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Marcus by Goldman Sachs thrives, so why did Finn by J.P. Morgan die?: Marcus by Goldman Sachs acts like a too-cool-to-care, too-hot-to-die tech startup, but it’s a hip new brand that has a $931 billion bank behind it. You’d think that if J.P. Morgan Chase, a $2.6 trillion dollar bank, tried to do the same thing, it’d be twice as cool, right? Wrong. It’s the complete opposite. Chase launched Finn, a digital bank app that was supposed to be everything we millennials crave last year. No fees, mobile-first banking, automatic saving, and a brand that hasn’t been around since the 19th century. But this month, it pulled the plug on Finn less than a year into its life. Researchers estimated 232,000 people downloaded the app, but more than half of those people were Chase customers to begin with. Chase is giving everyone who opened a Finn account a Chase account, which is a nice way to convert fee-free Finn users into fee-paying Chase users. No one in my millennial gen knows how to close a bank account, so smart move on Chase’s part. But why scrap the project? Chase said Finn was essentially redundant and existing Chase products augmented with Finn features will serve customers better. Marcus by Goldman Sachs on the other hand has 4 million customers, has made nearly $5 billion in loans in 3 years, holds $46 billion in deposits, and will soon find its way into the wallets of every hipster who gets Apple’s credit card. This might be comparing apples and oranges—Chase has 47 million people using its mobile app already, so maybe it was confusing and unnecessary to add another app to the mix. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank primarily serving corporate and ultra-wealthy clients, had to build a consumer brand from scratch, which explains Marcus’ major growth. But it’s doing something new, offering good products to build brand loyalty, and has a ton of momentum. Chase, on the other hand, just scrapped a potentially cool experiment to do more of what it’s already doing. I’m not knocking that because it’s obviously working for now, but it makes me go back to Marcus exec Adam Dell’s quote that prompted Julian’s analysis last week: Story continues Chase already has customer acquisition nailed. It was early in the bank app and mobile check deposit * spaces to begin with, so the bank doesn’t have to figure out how to hack innovation and customer focus into its existing processes. It can write off a bet like Finn, take the good parts, and use them to improve the rest of its offering. J.P. Morgan vs. Goldman here is a battle between a relatively agile incumbent versus a lightning-fast in-house startup backed by the same depth of capital and fueled by startup acquisitions. But J.P. Morgan is still powered by small tech companies too. Look at this page from their investor deck: Three-quarters of the technologies the company is hyping to investors are made by startups, and the one in-house app has been scrapped. Where does this leave us? The banks need the startups to stay cool , while the startups try to be banks . And maybe Marcus has a media-friendly growth play that fuels the hype, while J.P. Morgan Chase’s existing dominance is old news. Will the startups rise up and consume the banks they power, or will they continue to partner with the big dogs to deliver you better, faster, easier banking? We’ll keep watching this closely for you. More reading below. ___ Reference : – Why Did A Big Goldman Sachs Banker Say Big Banks Are Screwed? (The Basis Point) – JPMorgan Scraps New App Service for Young People (Wall Street Journal) – J.P. Morgan 2018 Strategic Update (J.P. Morgan Chase) – El Finn: Why Don’t Flanker Brands Work In Banking? (Commerce Ventures) – * check out the quotes from OG The Basis Point friend and StockTwits CEO Ian Rosen in this one . DO YOU LIKE MONEY? GET MORE AT THE BASIS POINT ® STAT FIGHT! Who’s winning the battle for jobs? Linkage: Trump said it, so it’s official. Bitcoin is not money. Make The Fed Political Again—July 2019 Edition || What to Watch: Ryanair amends buyback, Bitcoin surges, We Buy Any Car takeover: Ryanair is preparing for a no-deal Brexit. Photo: Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Ryanair amends share buyback deal for no-deal Brexit Irish airline Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, said on Wednesday that it would amend the terms of its €700m (£625m) share buyback to prepare for a no-deal Brexit. The changes, which will allow it to repurchase shares from UK shareholders by way of block trades, would help ensure that the airline remains a majority EU-owned airline, something it needs to be to comply with the bloc’s rules. “Ryanair advises that it is amending the terms of the arrangements to allow for shares to be repurchased by way of block trades from EU holders of shares,” the airline said in a statement. Bitcoin surged 7% as it eyes $13,000 The price of bitcoin continues to climb higher, with the cryptocurrency spiking 7% against the dollar on Wednesday morning. At 8.45am UK time, bitcoin is up 7.1% against the dollar to $12,583.66 ( BTC-USD ) and up 7.5% against the pound to £9,967.56. Earlier in the session bitcoin came close to breaking through $13,000. The price rise extends bitcoin’s recent rally, which has seen it climb over 200% against the dollar so far this year and over 50% this month. TDR Capital is acquiring the owner of auto website We Buy Any Car Private equity firm TDR Capital said on Wednesday that it had reached agreement on an acquisition of BCA Marketplace, which values the company behind auto website We Buy Any Car at around £1.9bn. It comes as BCA Marketplace announced that its revenues jumped 24.5% to £3bn in the year to the end of March, with pre-tax profits climbing 18% to £89.5m. Shares in BCA Marketplace have been boosted by around 20% since the two companies announced last week that they were in advanced discussions about a possible takeover. Even then, the 243p per share offer by TDR Capital is a slight premium on Tuesday’s BCA closing price of 235p. The acquisition comes amid difficult trading conditions for the UK car industry. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned on Tuesday that a no-deal Brexit could cost car manufacturers £50,000 per minute . Story continues European stocks fell European stocks looked set to follow their peers in Asia on Wednesday, which broadly fell. The Nikkei 225 ( ^N225 ) was down 0.51%, while the SSE Composite ( 000001.SS ) was down by 0.19%. The Hang Seng ( ^HSI ), however, was up by just 0.10%. The FTSE 100 ( ^FTSE ) fell by 0.13% in early trading. Germany’s DAX ( ^GDAXI ) declined by 0.2%, while France’s CAC 40 ( ^FCHI ) was down by 0.15%. Sterling was down 0.12% against the dollar ( GBPUSD=X ) on Friday, to around $1.267, and down 0.14% against the euro ( GBPEUR=X ), to around €1.115. What to expect in the US Stock futures are pointing to a higher open for the US market. S&P 500 futures ( ES=F ) are up 0.06%, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures ( YM=F ) are up by marginally by 0.01%, and Nasdaq futures ( NQ=F ) are up by 0.11%. Companies reporting later in the US today include: General Mills ( GIS ) || Lightning Labs launches mainnet Lightning Network mobile app: Lightning Labs has released the alpha version of its Lightning mobile app for iOS and Android platforms. With the release of the new mobile application, users can now send Bitcoin instantly around the world using their mobile phone, with full control over their own funds and data. We've released the mainnet alpha of our Lightning Mobile App for iOS & Android, the first on all major platforms! ⚡️📲 Send money instantly around the world. Control your own funds and data with Neutrino and Autopilot. Read more and try it out here: https://t.co/d9V6P2dkzf pic.twitter.com/OnGNI8qik6 — Lightning Labs⚡️ (@lightning) June 19, 2019 Following the recent release of the firm’s Lightning app on desktop, the alpha release on mobile means the app is now available across the full platform suite of iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux. In the announcement blog post , the team said that they had “designed the mobile app to be approachable for a wide range of users”, with “a clean user interface and a goal to hide complexity” for new users. The team also confirmed that as with the desktop app, “the mobile app integrates a fully functional Lightning Network node using our very own LND”. Includes Neutrino and Autopilot features The new mobile app also includes the same two core technologies that power the desktop app. The first, Neutrino , is a “light client specification that allows non-custodial Lightning wallets to verify Bitcoin transactions”, giving improved privacy without needing to sync the full Bitcoin blockchain (which is about 225 GB). The second feature is Autopilot, which helps users select which node to open a channel with (as the team think this is something many users will not be equipped to do). Story continues Commenting on the launch , the CEO of Lightning Labs, Elizabeth Stark – seemingly in a nod to the great infrastructure vs service provider debate – said: “When it comes to AOL vs the internet, I’m betting on the internet every time.” It’s still early days, but with the technology-focused company now completing the release of its full suite of interoperable tools for Bitcoin’s most prominent layer-two scaling solution, the project is taking another small step closer to its goal of delivering instant digital micropayments for all. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Lightning Labs launches mainnet Lightning Network mobile app appeared first on Coin Rivet .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Crypto is my job and I take lots of time to investigate various projects. This project is the most top-drawer in my rating. #Shato || This team offers conditions at a first-class level. Best product I've ever experienced! #Shato || @BigMikD1 Peak Btc Fomo is the bottom for alts. Alt season is coming it will be absurd. new ATH incoming || @jakagraham @Th3Technomancer @AOC Hahaha I tweet about bitcoin and whine? It’s the people who have you stuck thinking inside the box is the problem. || $btc https://t.co/CWppCIl3Kv || @rutgervz Zolang mensen bitcoin vnl als beleggingsinstrument zien wordt het geen betaalmiddel. Zonde! || Swedish Bitcoin-Powered Mobile Refill Service Bitrefill Raises $2M to Expand Services https://t.co/yhl3sA6eQf #XBT #BTC #Bitcoin || Crypto Tidbits: Donald Trump Jabs Bitcoin, Bitpoint Hacked for XRP, Litecoin Bags… https://t.co/Q97pZ3HgYP #bitcoin || @JMD_PECE @SnowsCrypt @BeatzCoin @cryptohodlerr @theemrsmcafee @FIatEarthMaps @sf10ydy @I_Make_Lemonade @PieceOfThePy @Ben_TRX @WehLung @cryptobuzznews @SheDeGuzman8 @KuyaJsChannel @CryptoKhuletzz 🌟🌟 ETHCOIN TOKEN TWITTER AIRDROP 🌟🌟
🔘 100 ETHCOIN TOKENS ($25 USD) FOR THE 1ST 1000 PARTICIPANTS 🔘
🈵 1. FOLLOW @CryptoLend_
🈵 2. LIKE + RETWEET THIS TWEET
🈵 3. COMMENT ETH ADDRESS + TAG 5 FRIENDS
#BITCOIN #ETHEREUM #AIRDROP #CRYPTO #ETHCOIN #ERC20 #BLOCKCHAIN || Looks like the next stage in the evolution of blockchain technology. Cant see how Facebooks Libra or bitcoin can compete with a Gold backed instant currency transfer technology. Mmmm Who knows ? What is the catch ?
|
Trend: down || Prices: 11805.65, 11478.17, 11941.97, 11966.41, 11862.94, 11354.02, 11523.58, 11382.62, 10895.83, 10051.70
|
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 2016-03-24]
BTC Price: 416.39, BTC RSI: 50.95
Gold Price: 1221.40, Gold RSI: 47.25
Oil Price: 39.46, Oil RSI: 59.94
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
BTCS Announces Letter to Shareholders From CEO: ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Feb 23, 2016) - BTCS Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) ("BTCS" or the "Company"), a blockchain technology focused company which secures the blockchain through its transaction verification services business, released a Letter to Shareholders updating current activities and outlining its corporate strategy for 2016, as follows: Dear Shareholders, Over the past few months, several major investment banks have published research foretelling the significant potential for blockchain technologies to revolutionize industries on a massive scale. Recognizing this potential, much of our work in 2015 focused on building a strong operational foundation to capitalize on the rapidly-evolving blockchain opportunity. Despite many successes in this effort, our stock continued to decline throughout 2015 and is now trading near its 52-week low. As a significant shareholder myself, I too am feeling the pain of our low stock price, and I firmly believe it is not representative of our accomplishments or potential. BTCS originally began operations focused exclusively on the Bitcoin ecosystem, and while our revenues today are generated from securing the blockchain through our transaction verification services segment, we plan to evaluate broader opportunities in blockchain consumer solutions. As noted in recently published research from Goldman Sachs, the real opportunity lies in the underlying technology of Bitcoin, the blockchain. Referred to as the golden egg by analysts at Goldman Sachs, the blockchain can not only live outside of Bitcoin, it has the potential to streamline a multitude of businesses. We believe the work we completed in 2015 has established us as an early mover in this burgeoning market opportunity, positioning us for strong shareholder value improvement in the quarters and years ahead as the use of blockchain technologies begins to revolutionize standard business practices. Our current transaction verification operation touches every blockchain transaction. Even after doubling our server processing power in January of 2016, we're currently using just 33% of the expanded power capacity we added in July 2015. The foundation to rapidly scale our operations is in place, and our pending merger with Spondoolies-Tech Ltd. ("Spondoolies") is poised to provide us a technology advantage that we believe will positively impact revenues over the long-term. Story continues We've also strengthened our financial footing, most recently with the completion of a $1.45 million capital raise in December 2015, 1,225% year-over-year revenue growth for the fiscal year ended 2015, and a 25% decrease in cash flow used from operating activities. Our management team remains dedicated to creating value and protecting our shareholders and continues to demonstrate its commitment to the future of BTCS through positive steps at improving our capital structure. From management's voluntarily return of 12.75 million shares of stock valued at $1.15 million in late 2014, which absorbed nearly all of the dilution from our January 2015 funding, to the recent voluntary escrowing of founder shares representing 15% of the outstanding shares of the company, we are literally "putting our money where our mouth is" and plan to continue to work tirelessly to make our company a success. Looking ahead, there are several key milestones we anticipate achieving in 2016. We believe our transaction verification services business will lead to rapid revenue growth this year, and our pending merger with Spondoolies should further strengthen our financial performance and product offerings. If we complete these and other initiatives, ultimately we believe we will be in a position to up list to a major exchange this year, greatly improving our visibility in the capital markets and setting the stage for further acceleration of growth as blockchain technology spreads across the global economy. Blockchain technology is still in its infancy, and just as the Internet has become a ubiquitous driver of global commerce in a relatively short period of time, we believe the impending boom in blockchain adoption is nearly upon us. On behalf of our management team, I want to personally thank you for your continued support. Sincerely, Charles Allen CEO and Chairman About BTCS: BTCS secures the blockchain through its rapidly growing transaction verification services business and plans to build a broader ecosystem to capitalize on opportunities in this fast growing industry. The blockchain is a decentralized public ledger and has the ability to fundamentally impact all industries on a global basis that rely on or utilize record keeping and require trust. BTCS continues to evaluate and build additional blockchain technology consumer solutions. BTCS also actively partners and integrates with strategic digital currency and blockchain technology companies who provide products or services that are complementary to its business strategy. For more information visit: www.btcs.com Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release, including those related to an anticipated merger, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its digital currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. || Exclusive: Chinese hackers behind U.S. ransomware attacks - security firms: By Joseph Menn (Reuters) - Hackers using tactics and tools previously associated with Chinese government-supported computer network intrusions have joined the booming cyber crime industry of ransomware, four security firms that investigated attacks on U.S. companies said. Ransomware, which involves encrypting a target's computer files and then demanding payment to unlock them, has generally been considered the domain of run-of-the-mill cyber criminals. But executives of the security firms have seen a level of sophistication in at least a half dozen cases over the last three months akin to those used in state-sponsored attacks, including techniques to gain entry and move around the networks, as well as the software used to manage intrusions. “It is obviously a group of skilled of operators that have some amount of experience conducting intrusions,” said Phil Burdette, who heads an incident response team at Dell SecureWorks. Burdette said his team was called in on three cases in as many months where hackers spread ransomware after exploiting known vulnerabilities in application servers. From there, the hackers tricked more than 100 computers in each of the companies into installing the malicious programs. The victims included a transportation company and a technology firm that had 30 percent of its machines captured. Security firms Attack Research, InGuardians and G-C Partners, said they had separately investigated three other similar ransomware attacks since December. Although they cannot be positive, the companies concluded that all were the work of a known advanced threat group from China, Attack Research Chief Executive Val Smith told Reuters. The ransomware attacks have not previously been reported. None of the companies that were victims of the hackers agreed to be identified publicly. The security companies investigating the advanced ransomware intrusions have various theories about what is behind them, but they do not have proof and they have not come to any firm conclusions. Story continues Most of the theories flow from the possibility that the Chinese government has reduced its support for economic espionage, which it pledged to oppose in an agreement with the United States late last year. Some U.S. companies have reported a decline in Chinese hacking since the agreement. Smith said some government hackers or contractors could be out of work or with reduced work and looking to supplement their income via ransomware. It is also possible, Burdette said, that companies which had been penetrated for trade secrets or other reasons in the past were now being abandoned as China backs away, and that spies or their associates were taking as much as they could on the way out. In one of Dell’s cases, the means of access by the team spreading ransomware was established in 2013. The cyber security experts could not completely rule out more prosaic explanations, such as the possibility that ordinary criminals had improved their skills and bought tools previously used only by governments. Dell said that some of the malicious software had been associated by other security firms with a group dubbed Codoso, which has a record of years of attacks of interest to the Chinese government, including those on U.S. defense companies and sites that draw Chinese minorities. PAYMENT IN BITCOIN Ransomware has been around for years, spread by some of the same people that previously installed fake antivirus programs on home computers and badgered the victims into paying to remove imaginary threats. In the past two years, better encryption techniques have often made it impossible for victims to regain access to their files without cooperation from the hackers. Many ransomware payments are made in the virtual currency Bitcoin and remain secret, but institutions including a Los Angeles hospital have gone public about ransomware attacks. Ransomware operators generally set modest prices that many victims are willing to pay, and they usually do decrypt the files, which ensures that victims will post positively online about the transaction, making the next victims who research their predicament more willing to pay. Security software companies have warned that because the aggregate payoffs for ransomware gangs are increasing, more criminals will shift to it from credit card theft and other complicated scams. The involvement of more sophisticated hackers also promises to intensify the threat. InGuardians CEO Jimmy Alderson said one of the cases his company investigated appeared to have been launched with online credentials stolen six months earlier in a suspected espionage hack of the sort typically called an Advanced Persistent Threat, or APT. “The tactics of getting access to these networks are APT tactics, but instead of going further in to sit and listen stealthily, they are used for smash-and-grab,” Alderson said. (Reporting by Joseph Menn in San Francisco; editing by Jonathan Weber and Grant McCool) || New Ways To Trade China, Crude Oil And The Fed: You’re reading the news about China and oil . The Fed will be talking about that news and much more and making news of its own. Some traders will find ways to profit. But will you trade the news you read? Or does the cost and risk keep you on the sidelines? George Soros got a shout-out Tuesday from no less than China’s People’s Daily, considered the official paper of China’s Communist Party. China sent a rare personal warning to the man who once “broke the Bank of England” by shorting the pound and making a billion in a day, not to try short-selling the yuan. The opinion piece by a commerce ministry researcher was quite specific: “Soros's war on the renminbi and the Hong Kong dollar cannot possibly succeed...” You may agree or disagree with what Soros said in Davos about a hard landing for the yuan and Chinese stocks. You may have an opinion about where Chinese stocks are headed next. But does that mean you can turn that opinion into a trade? You might speculate on how China’s problems might affect your Apple stock. You might even try a China-based ETF, but you’d still be dependent on the skill of the fund’s manager and other factors. How to directly trade the price of a Chinese stock index yourself? Oil is another fun topic to have opinions about. I’ve heard guys talk for 10 minutes about which gas station has the cheapest price that week. Even Bloomberg Businessweek did some of that, reporting that gas is now cheaper in Houston than in Dubai for the first time since 2008. Dennis Gartman, whose “Gartman Letter” many read and some even agree with, recently said oil would not go above $44 a barrel “in his lifetime.” Mr. Gartman is in great health, so this is a long-term forecast. Some of you almost certainly disagree. Last year I made a cocky prediction on oil when it was around $70 a barrel, that it would be under $45 by August. The cocky part was that I made it to a friend who worked for Koch Industries and knew petroleum up close and personal. When I was proven right, I gloated for a few minutes, but not much. Because I didn’t trade that prediction. I’ve traded for 18 years, but I took a pass on crude even when I was confident. Trading crude futures or even options was more risk than I wanted to take on just then. Story continues FOMC meeting week is usually a time for wide-ranging discussions. While the Fed is talking, so is everyone else, it seems. And when the Fed is done, they often move many markets and the US and other economies with their opinions. Stock markets will have short-term reactions and counter-reactions. Currencies may fluctuate and so can commodities, which are priced in dollars. Traders on all these markets stand to profit. Soros has an opinion, Gartman has an opinion, the FOMC has a dozen opinions. The rest of us have valid opinions of our own, but few ways to turn those opinions into opportunities to profit. Too much capital required or too much risk involved. The Nadex binary options exchange offers a secure, CFTC-regulated, affordable new way to trade not just crude oil, but even more exotic (to US traders) markets like the China A50 stock index of China’s 50 biggest companies. Exchange-traded binary options from Nadex offer guaranteed limited risk, low fees, and thousands of contracts traded daily with great liquidity thanks to the exploding growth in the popularity. Last year, a special report in Bloomberg Businessweek called Nadex binary options “The Future of Trading” because they address the problems of cost and risk. You can start with a minimum balance of just $100, the fees are 90 cents a side or less, and you always know your maximum possible loss before you enter the trade. No worrying about stop-losses or unlimited risk. That means you, too, can trade your opinions on China’s markets. You probably won’t get called out by the People’s Daily, either. And next time you’re talking gas prices, you could pull up the Nadex app on your phone and trade crude oil for less than $100 of risk. And of course, you can trade the most popular global stock indexes, commodities, and forex pairs—all from one screen and one account. Nadex even has binaries on Bitcoin (without having to own bitcoins). And if you have an opinion on whether the Fed will raise rates this week or not, Nadex has a binary option for that. Regulated by the CFTC, with your money held in US banks, Nadex offers an innovative new way for the rest of us to find profit opportunities in all parts of the world’s markets (well, except cannabis). This information has been prepared by Nadex, a trading name of North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc., prepared by independent third parties contracted by Nadex or reproduced form third party news agencies. In addition to the disclaimer below, the material on this page does not contain an offer of, or solicitation for, a transaction in any financial instrument. Nadex accepts no responsibility for any use that may be made of these comments and for any consequences that result. No representation or warranty is given as to the accuracy or completeness of this information. Consequently any person acting on it does so entirely at their own risk. Any research provided does not have regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation and needs of any specific person who may receive it. It has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such is considered to be a marketing communication. See more from Benzinga Here's How The Rate Hike Will Affect Oil And Inflation © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Oil drives Wall St. higher; most & least favorite stocks; Amazon clothing line: Stocks ( ^DJI , ^GSPC , ^IXIC ) are continuing their rally, boosted by higher oil prices ( CLH16.NYM) following comments from Iran about limiting oil production. Keith Bliss of Cuttone & Co. joins us live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to discuss the markets. Yahoo Finance's Alexis Christoforous talks about that and some of the other big stories of the day with Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer and Yahoo Finance's Dan Roberts. Stocks you love, stocks you hate Love 'em or hate 'em? The latest filings from the Securities Exchange Commission are showing which stocks are being bought and sold by the largest investors. So far, the 13F filings are showing some of the leaders to be The Blackstone Group ( BX ), Visa ( V ), Amazon ( AMZN ), Google ( GOOGL ) and LinkedIn ( LNKD ). Pulling up the rear, we have Coca-Cola ( KO ), IBM ( IBM ), Apple ( AAPL ), Microsoft ( MSFT ), and ExxonMobil ( XOM ). Who will be the new leaders in 2016? Bitcoin push Virtual currency fans get no respect! Well, apparently that's how they feel, so Bitcoin believers are turning to a non-profit advocacy group to help lift some of the shroud of mystery surrounding cryptocurrency. Will it succeed, disrupt, or fail? Amazon clothes Would you buy your clothes from ... Amazon ( AMZN )? The online retail powerhouse hopes so. Fashion news site WWD reports the company is increasing hiring for Amazon Fashion Private Label, suggesting the line is getting closer to launch. || Bitcoin finds room in small funds; large institutions still on sidelines: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin has found favor among smaller investors, thanks to the availability of funds designed to invest in it, but remains a niche among the larger investing community.
Investors at some family offices, smaller mutual funds, and traders at hedge funds say bitcoin has helped returns and demonstrated a low correlation with other asset classes.
Hopes that bitcoin would become a broadly used alternative to other currencies helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalization was $13 billion.
But the market cap has retreated since then, to about $6.4 billion as of Thursday.
Early enthusiasts for the crypto-currency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. The risks of dealing in bitcoin were laid bare in 2013 when Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox collapsed after admitting it had lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds.
The currency's earlier ties to gambling and criminal websites did not endear it to traditional investors.
Jeremy Millar, founder and managing partner at Ledger Partners in London, estimated that 50 to 90 percent of bitcoin's current $6.4 billion market cap is held by near-institutional money such as individuals at hedge funds and family offices. That has not changed over the last two years.
He does not have an estimate for institutional investment holdings of bitcoin. But he said they are likely to be insignificant, compared with the smaller investors who have fewer restrictions about fund allocation.
"What is clear though is that over the last two years, bitcoin has emerged from its 'hacktivist' origins to a more institutionalized ecosystem which includes the participation of hedge funds, traders, and professional investors," said Millar.
BITCOIN IN PORTFOLIOS
Funds dedicated to investing in bitcoin are relatively small. The largest is the Pantera Bitcoin Fund, a $160 million hedge fund founded by Dan Morehead, formerly of Tiger Management, available to institutions and individuals who invest $50,000 or more.
According to a Pantera Bitcoin Fund brochure, the fund was launched in July 2013, a period when bitcoin <BTC=BTSP> traded at around $65. On Thursday, it traded at $418.80, a gain of more than 500 percent from July 2013. The firm did not comment on fund performance or its investors.
The majority of the Pantera Fund's investors are family offices and high net worth individuals, said two people familiar with the fund.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust, with assets of more than $60 million, is another vehicle for investors. GBTC is backed by bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group.
It is the only publicly traded U.S. security in the over-the-counter market invested in bitcoin. Volume is thin, with a few thousand shares traded daily, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Antonis Polemitis, managing director at Ledra Capital in New York, a family office specializing in education and technology, said that on average, clients have allocated 1 to 3 percent of their portfolios to bitcoin.
"A lot of people will take that bet with 1 percent of their assets," he said. "A 1 percent loss does not change anyone's life in any way. If it goes up 10 times, then you get to feel very smart."
Some investment managers say having bitcoin in portfolios has helped performance.
ARK Invest, which manages four exchange-traded funds with $240 million in assets, holds GBTC in its $12 million Next Generation Internet ETF and the $7 million ARK Innovation ETF.
Chris Burniske, analyst and blockchain products lead at ARK Invest in New York, said since investing in September 2015, GBTC has contributed 67 basis points to the Next Generation Internet ETF's return and 62 basis points to the ARK Innovation ETF.
For 2015, the Next Generation ETF posted a 15.29 percent return, while the Innovation ETF had 3.76 percent gains.
For Kingsbridge Wealth Management, a multifamily office in Las Vegas with $150 million in assets, GBTC has become a great diversifier because so far it has had a low correlation with other asset classes, said David Dunn, the firm's founder and chief investment officer. The firm has about $1.7 million invested in bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain, Dunn said.
(Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis) || Blockchain Gets A Much-Needed Stamp Of Approval: Finance firm Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS ) has become a pillar of the financial sector with traders looking to the bank's advice for everything from investing to saving. For that reason, Goldman Sachs Director Don Duet's positive remarks regarding blockchain could be a catalyst for the technology's success. Blockchain Potential Bitcoin has had a rough ride over the past year, as many of the coin's users suffered losses due to volatile prices and exchange collapses. However, the technology that bitcoin runs on – a ledger-like system called blockchain – has been gaining momentum. This is especially true in the financial sector, where banks say blockchain could improve their operations and make things like cross-border payments more streamlined. Related Link: Blockchain Moves Forward In The Financial Industry Using Blockchain Earlier this month, Duet commented on blockchain, saying that he sees the technology as both exciting and groundbreaking. He said blockchain systems have the potential to revolutionize banking operations and the technology could help banks share information and conduct asset transfers more easily and securely. A Single Truth Duet said blockchain provides banks with a "single truth," meaning that it creates one constant system that all banks can use. One of the problems with the banking sector as it currently stands, he said, is that every bank is operating with different systems and protocols. Because of this, banks have to spend a lot of time reconciling differences in order to conduct transactions. However, using blockchain could change all of that by providing banks with one single ledger updated with each transaction. A Bright Future While Duet's comments were general in nature, many saw his optimism regarding blockchain as a positive sign for the future. Banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS ) and Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C ) have been exploring how blockchain might fit into their operations in recent months, and Duet's remarks suggest the outlook is promising. See more from Benzinga Can Bank Stocks Recover? Banks' Earnings Tell A Tale Of Cost Cutting Is Bank Of America Ripe For A Turnaround? © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || Exclusive: Chinese hackers behind U.S. ransomware attacks - security firms: By Joseph Menn (Reuters) - Hackers using tactics and tools previously associated with Chinese government-supported computer network intrusions have joined the booming cyber crime industry of ransomware, four security firms that investigated attacks on U.S. companies said. Ransomware, which involves encrypting a target's computer files and then demanding payment to unlock them, has generally been considered the domain of run-of-the-mill cyber criminals. But executives of the security firms have seen a level of sophistication in at least a half dozen cases over the last three months akin to those used in state-sponsored attacks, including techniques to gain entry and move around the networks, as well as the software used to manage intrusions. “It is obviously a group of skilled of operators that have some amount of experience conducting intrusions,” said Phil Burdette, who heads an incident response team at Dell SecureWorks. Burdette said his team was called in on three cases in as many months where hackers spread ransomware after exploiting known vulnerabilities in application servers. From there, the hackers tricked more than 100 computers in each of the companies into installing the malicious programs. The victims included a transportation company and a technology firm that had 30 percent of its machines captured. Security firms Attack Research, InGuardians and G-C Partners, said they had separately investigated three other similar ransomware attacks since December. Although they cannot be positive, the companies concluded that all were the work of a known advanced threat group from China, Attack Research Chief Executive Val Smith told Reuters. The ransomware attacks have not previously been reported. None of the companies that were victims of the hackers agreed to be identified publicly. The security companies investigating the advanced ransomware intrusions have various theories about what is behind them, but they do not have proof and they have not come to any firm conclusions. Story continues Most of the theories flow from the possibility that the Chinese government has reduced its support for economic espionage, which it pledged to oppose in an agreement with the United States late last year. Some U.S. companies have reported a decline in Chinese hacking since the agreement. Smith said some government hackers or contractors could be out of work or with reduced work and looking to supplement their income via ransomware. It is also possible, Burdette said, that companies which had been penetrated for trade secrets or other reasons in the past were now being abandoned as China backs away, and that spies or their associates were taking as much as they could on the way out. In one of Dell’s cases, the means of access by the team spreading ransomware was established in 2013. The cyber security experts could not completely rule out more prosaic explanations, such as the possibility that ordinary criminals had improved their skills and bought tools previously used only by governments. Dell said that some of the malicious software had been associated by other security firms with a group dubbed Codoso, which has a record of years of attacks of interest to the Chinese government, including those on U.S. defense companies and sites that draw Chinese minorities. PAYMENT IN BITCOIN Ransomware has been around for years, spread by some of the same people that previously installed fake antivirus programs on home computers and badgered the victims into paying to remove imaginary threats. In the past two years, better encryption techniques have often made it impossible for victims to regain access to their files without cooperation from the hackers. Many ransomware payments are made in the virtual currency Bitcoin and remain secret, but institutions including a Los Angeles hospital have gone public about ransomware attacks. Ransomware operators generally set modest prices that many victims are willing to pay, and they usually do decrypt the files, which ensures that victims will post positively online about the transaction, making the next victims who research their predicament more willing to pay. Security software companies have warned that because the aggregate payoffs for ransomware gangs are increasing, more criminals will shift to it from credit card theft and other complicated scams. The involvement of more sophisticated hackers also promises to intensify the threat. InGuardians CEO Jimmy Alderson said one of the cases his company investigated appeared to have been launched with online credentials stolen six months earlier in a suspected espionage hack of the sort typically called an Advanced Persistent Threat, or APT. “The tactics of getting access to these networks are APT tactics, but instead of going further in to sit and listen stealthily, they are used for smash-and-grab,” Alderson said. (Reporting by Joseph Menn in San Francisco; editing by Jonathan Weber and Grant McCool) || Bitcoin finds room in small funds; large institutions still on sidelines: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin has found favour among smaller investors, thanks to the availability of funds designed to invest in it, but remains a niche among the larger investing community. Investors at some family offices, smaller mutual funds, and traders at hedge funds say bitcoin has helped returns and demonstrated a low correlation with other asset classes. Hopes that bitcoin would become a broadly used alternative to other currencies helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 (£692) in December 2013, when its market capitalisation was $13 billion. But the market cap has retreated since then, to about $6.4 billion as of Thursday. Early enthusiasts for the crypto-currency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. The risks of dealing in bitcoin were laid bare in 2013 when Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox collapsed after admitting it had lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds. The currency's earlier ties to gambling and criminal websites did not endear it to traditional investors. Jeremy Millar, founder and managing partner at Ledger Partners in London, estimated that 50 to 90 percent of bitcoin's current $6.4 billion market cap is held by near-institutional money such as individuals at hedge funds and family offices. That has not changed over the last two years. He does not have an estimate for institutional investment holdings of bitcoin. But he said they are likely to be insignificant, compared with the smaller investors who have fewer restrictions about fund allocation. "What is clear though is that over the last two years, bitcoin has emerged from its 'hacktivist' origins to a more institutionalized ecosystem which includes the participation of hedge funds, traders, and professional investors," said Millar. BITCOIN IN PORTFOLIOS Funds dedicated to investing in bitcoin are relatively small. The largest is the Pantera Bitcoin Fund, a $160 million hedge fund founded by Dan Morehead, formerly of Tiger Management, available to institutions and individuals who invest $50,000 or more. Story continues According to a Pantera Bitcoin Fund brochure, the fund was launched in July 2013, a period when bitcoin traded at around $65. On Thursday, it traded at $418.80, a gain of more than 500 percent from July 2013. The firm did not comment on fund performance or its investors. The majority of the Pantera Fund's investors are family offices and high net worth individuals, said two people familiar with the fund. The Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust, with assets of more than $60 million, is another vehicle for investors. GBTC is backed by bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group. It is the only publicly traded U.S. security in the over-the-counter market invested in bitcoin. Volume is thin, with a few thousand shares traded daily, according to Thomson Reuters data. Antonis Polemitis, managing director at Ledra Capital in New York, a family office specializing in education and technology, said that on average, clients have allocated 1 to 3 percent of their portfolios to bitcoin. "A lot of people will take that bet with 1 percent of their assets," he said. "A 1 percent loss does not change anyone's life in any way. If it goes up 10 times, then you get to feel very smart." Some investment managers say having bitcoin in portfolios has helped performance. ARK Invest, which manages four exchange-traded funds with $240 million in assets, holds GBTC in its $12 million Next Generation Internet ETF and the $7 million ARK Innovation ETF. Chris Burniske, analyst and blockchain products lead at ARK Invest in New York, said since investing in September 2015, GBTC has contributed 67 basis points to the Next Generation Internet ETF's return and 62 basis points to the ARK Innovation ETF. For 2015, the Next Generation ETF posted a 15.29 percent return, while the Innovation ETF had 3.76 percent gains. For Kingsbridge Wealth Management, a multifamily office in Las Vegas with $150 million in assets, GBTC has become a great diversifier because so far it has had a low correlation with other asset classes, said David Dunn, the firm's founder and chief investment officer. The firm has about $1.7 million invested in bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain, Dunn said. (Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis) || REUTERS AMERICA NEWS PLAN FOR TUESDAY FEB 2: REUTERS AMERICA MIDDAY NEWS PLAN FOR TUESDAY FEB 2
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TOP STORIES
Cruz calls Iowa win a victory for 'conservative grass roots'
DES MOINES - Relishing his victory in the first Republican nominating contest of the U.S. presidential election, Senator Ted Cruz called his defeat of Donald Trump in the Iowa caucuses a tribute to "conservative grass roots." (USA-ELECTION/ (WRAPUP 5, PIX, TV, GRAPHIC), moved at 10:33 a.m., by Ginger Gibson, 636 words). See also: USA-ELECTION/TRUMP (PIX, TV), moved at 7 a.m., by Steve Holland, 765 words and USA-ELECTION/RUBIO (PIX), moved at 7 a.m., by James Oliphant, 586 words)
Virtual tie raises doubts: Can Hillary Clinton close the deal?
DES MOINES, Iowa - Hillary Clinton's struggle in Iowa to fend off underdog Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, reignited questions about her ability to close the deal with Democratic voters and turned up the pressure on her high-profile White House campaign. USA-ELECTION/DEMOCRATS (PIX, TV), moved at 7 a.m., by John Whitesides, 718 words.
FBI joins Flint, Michigan water contamination probe
WASHINGTON - The FBI is joining a U.S. criminal investigation into Flint, Michigan's water contamination crisis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit said on Tuesday. (MICHIGAN-WATER/ (UPDATE 2), moved, 599 words)
Punxsutawney Phil predicts early spring
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. - Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog renowned for his ability to forecast the onset of spring, did not see his shadow after emerging from his burrow on Tuesday morning, predicting an early spring. (USA-GROUNDHOG/ (UPDATE 1, PIX, TV), moved at 7:54 a.m., 497 words)
Africa, Asia vulnerable to spread of Zika virus -WHO
GENEVA - The Zika virus linked to a microcephaly outbreak in Latin America could spread to Africa and Asia, with the world's highest birth rates, the World Health Organization warns as it launches a global response unit against the new emergency. (HEALTH-ZIKA/ (UPDATE 1, TV, PICTURE), moved, by Stephanie Nebehay, 305 words). See also: HEALTH-ZIKA/OLYMPICS, moved, 100 words and HEALTH-ZIKA/AUSTRALIA, moved, by Jane Wardell, 380 words
Nine migrants, including two babies drowned off Turkish coast- coastguard
ISTANBUL - Nine people, including two babies, are found drowned off the coast of western Turkey after a boat carrying people to Greece partly capsizes, the coast guard says. (EUROPE-MIGRANTS/TURKEY (UPDATE 1), moved, 181 words)
PM resigns as Haiti scrambles for interim government before deadline
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Haiti's prime minister has resigned, government sources said, in an attempt to clear the way for a temporary government to replace outgoing President Michel Martelly after a botched election and violent street protests last month. (HAITI-ELECTION/ (UPDATE 2, TV, PIX), moving shortly, 391 words)
Bill Cosby fighting sex assault charge in Pennsylvania court
NORRISTOWN, Pa. - Bill Cosby appeared at a suburban Philadelphia courthouse on Tuesday to fight sexual assault charges, which his lawyers say violate a decade-old agreement with a former district attorney not to prosecute the disgraced comedian. (PEOPLE-COSBY/ (UPDATE 3, PIX, TV), moved, 485 words)
CAMPAIGN
Bernie Sanders shows strong momentum on social media
NEW YORK - It may be too close to call between Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in the Iowa caucuses on Monday but the senator from Vermont was the clear winner on social media. (USA-ELECTION/SOCIALMEDIA (UPDATE 3, PIX), moved, 370 words)
Cruz's Iowa victory could be big blow to Big Corn
NEW YORK - Ted Cruz's victory on Monday in corn-rich Iowa could represent a major blow to the nation's controversial biofuels program, reflecting its waning influence over politicians even in the U.S. farming heartland. (USA-ELECTION/ETHANOL (UPDATE 1, PIX), moved, 670 words)
WASHINGTON
Pentagon's 2017 budget reshapes spending amid changing security environment
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday the Pentagon would seek a $582.7 billion defense budget next year and reshape its spending priorities to reflect a new strategic environment marked by Russian assertiveness and the rise of Islamic State. (USA-DEFENSE/BUDGET (UPDATE 1, PIX, TV), moving shortly, 404 words)
U.S. military leaders: women should have to register for draft
WASHINGTON - U.S. armed forces leaders said on Tuesday that women should be required to register for the military draft, along with men, as the military moves toward integrating them fully into combat positions. (USA-MILITARY/WOMEN (UPDATE 1, PIX), moved, 390 words)
IS pushed back in Iraq, Syria, but a threat in Libya -Kerry
ROME - An international coalition is pushing back Islamic State militants in their Syrian and Iraqi strongholds but the group is threatening Libya and could seize the nation's oil wealth, U.S Secretary of State John Kerry says. (MIDEAST-CRISIS/COALITION (UPDATE 1, PICTURE, TV), moved, by Arshad Mohammed, 590 words). See also: MIDEAST-CRISIS/IRAQ-IS (INSIGHT, PICTURE), moved, by Samia Nakhoul, 1,515 words
New European, U.S. data transfer pact imminent - sources
BRUSSELS - European and U.S. negotiators are on the brink of clinching a new transatlantic data transfer pact which should prevent EU regulators from restricting data transfers by firms, two people familiar with the talks say. (EU-DATAPROTECTION/USA (EXCLUSIVE, UPDATE 2), moved, by Julia Fioretti, 525 words)
China defends law enforcers as U.S. calls for clarity on booksellers
BEIJING/WASHINGTON - China's Foreign Ministry says its law enforcement officials will never do anything illegal, especially not overseas, after the United States calls on China to clarify the status of five missing Hong Kong booksellers. (HONGKONG-BOOKSELLERS/USA (UPDATE 1, TV), moved at 5 a.m., 430 words)
OTHER U.S. NEWS
Leader of Oregon occupation to appear in court
PORTLAND, Ore. - Ammon Bundy, who led a group of armed protesters in the occupation of a wildlife refuge in remote Oregon, will appear in federal court in Portland where his attorneys will argue that he should be released on bail ahead of his trial. (OREGON-MILITIA/COURT, expect by 3 p.m. 400 words)
White Michigan ex-cop to be sentenced in beating of black motorist
DETROIT - A white former suburban Detroit police officer is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday for the beating last year of a black motorist during a traffic stop caught on video. (MICHIGAN-POLICE/SENTENCE, moved at 9:28 a.m., 221 words, will be led)
Controversial Detroit school manager to step down this month
DETROIT - Detroit Public Schools' emergency manager Darnell Earley is stepping down later this month, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said on Tuesday. (DETROIT-EDUCATION/ (UPDATE 1), moving shortly, about 400 words)
Ferguson, Mo., to hear from public on proposed justice reforms
FERGUSON - Residents of Ferguson, Missouri, which has a proposed agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to reform its police department after the 2014 shooting by a white officer of a black teenager, will voice their opinions on the deal at a meeting on Tuesday night. (MISSOURI-FERGUSON/, moved at 1019 am ET, 270 words)
Georgia to execute its oldest death row inmate for 1979 murder
ATLANTA - A 72-year-old man convicted of murdering a convenience store manager in a 1979 robbery in Atlanta's suburbs is set to be executed on Tuesday in Georgia. (USA-EXECUTION/GEORGIA (PIX), moved at 7 a.m., 281 words)
Three teenagers arrested in fatal shooting at Seattle homeless camp
-- Three teenagers were arrested on Monday in connection with a shooting at a Seattle homeless encampment where two people were killed and three wounded, police said. (SEATTLE-SHOOTING/, moved, 181 words)
Teacher arrested in Southern California jail escape freed
LOS ANGELES - A teacher arrested in connection with the escape of three inmates from a Southern California jail was freed from custody on Monday after prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to charge her with a crime. (CALIFORNIA-ESCAPE/ (UPDATE 1), moved at 11:45 p.m., 383 words)
SUPER BOWL
Super models, super heroes add up to Super strange Media Day
SAN JOSE - Media Day was transformed into Opening Night for Super Bowl 50 but the switch to prime time did nothing to change the zany tone as super models and super heroes mingled with giants of sports journalism. (NFL-SUPERBOWL/MEDIA (PIX), moved at 2:15 a.m., 397 words)
Newton shows serious side at media night
SAN JOSE - Cam Newton became known for his on field celebrations during the Carolina Panthers march to Super Bowl 50, but the quarterback says preparation is what brings him real joy. (NFL-SUPERBOWL/NEWTON (PIX), moved at 2:20 a.m., 368 words)
Broncos' Manning says no decision yet on retirement
SAN JOSE - Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning said on Monday he has not yet decided whether he will retire following Super Bowl 50 and that he is strictly focused on winning his second NFL championship. (NFL-SUPERBOWL/MANNING (PIX), moved, 360 words)
MIDDLE EAST
Syrian army threatens to encircle Aleppo as talks falter
BEIRUT/AMMAN/GENEVA - A Syrian military offensive backed by heavy Russian air strikes threatened to cut critical rebel supply lines into the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday while the warring sides said peace talks had not started despite a U.N. statement they had. (MIDEAST-CRISIS/SYRIA (WRAPUP 3, TV, PICTURE), moved, by Tom Perry, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and John Irish, 1,059 words)
Iraqis running out of food and medicine in besieged Falluja
BAGHDAD - Tens of thousands of trapped Iraqi civilians are running out of food and medicine in the western city of Falluja, an Islamic State stronghold under siege by security forces. (MIDEAST-CRISIS/IRAQ-FALLUJA (UPDATE 2), expect by 1530 GMT/10,30 AM ET, by Stephen Kalin, 900 words)
Jordan needs international help over refugee crisis-King Abdullah
LONDON - King Abdullah says Jordan needs long-term aid from the international community to cope with a huge influx of Syrian refugees, warning that unless it received support the "dam is going to burst". (MIDEAST-CRISIS/JORDAN, moved, 320 words)
WORLD
Proposal unveiled to keep Britain in EU, sceptics unmoved
LONDON/BRUSSELS - European Council President Donald Tusk presents proposals for keeping Britain in the European Union to a mixed response, underlining the challenges Prime Minister David Cameron faces to win over his people and other EU leaders. (BRITAIN-EU/ (UPDATE 4, PICTURE), expect by 1530 GMT/10.30 AM ET, by Elizabeth Piper and Jan Strupczewski, 900 words)
Socialists ready to lead talks to form government in Spain
MADRID - The leader of Spain's Socialists offers to lead talks between parties to form a government in a bid to break political deadlock and avoid a new national election in the next few months. (SPAIN-POLITICS/ (UPDATE 2, PICTURE, TV), expect by 1900 GMT/2 PM ET, by Julien Toyer and Blanca Rodriguez, 500 words)
Cuba open for business, ministers tell French executives
PARIS - Cuba seeks to drum up foreign investment as ministers on a state visit to Paris promise French business leaders that the Communist-run country is open for business. (CUBA-FRANCE/, moved, 280 words)
China's nuclear envoy in North Korea amid sanctions push
SEOUL - China's envoy for the North Korean nuclear issue arrives in the capital, Pyongyang, the North's KCNA news agency reports, amid a push by the United States and South Korea for tougher sanctions on the North after its fourth nuclear test. (NORTHKOREA-NUCLEAR/CHINA, moved, 370 words)
EU to step up checks on Bitcoin, prepaid cards to fight terrorism
BRUSSELS - The European Commission will propose by the end of June stricter rules on prepaid cards and virtual currencies in a bid to reduce anonymous payments and curb the financing of terrorism, documents released show. (EU-TERRORISM/FINANCING (PICTURE), moved, by Francesco Guarascio, 464 words)
North Norea notifies IMO of planned satellite launch
SEOUL - North Korea has notified the International Maritime Organization of plans to launch a satellite between Feb. 8 and Feb. 25, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported late on Tuesday. (NORTHKOREA-SATELLITE/ (UPDATE 1), moving shortly, 150 words)
Australia PM weighs early poll to break political deadlock
SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull raises the possibility of dissolving both houses of Parliament and calling an early election to break a political deadlock that has stymied the government, say government officials aware of the matter. (AUSTRALIA-POLITICS/ELECTION, moved, 430 words)
India's Supreme Court will review law criminalising gay sex
NEW DELHI - India's top court says it will review a decision over whether to uphold a colonial-era law that criminalises gay sex in a victory for homosexual rights campaigners at a time when the nation is navigating a path between tradition and modernity. (INDIA-COURT/ (UPDATE 2, PICTURE, TV), moved, by Aditya Kalra and Andrew MacAskill, 410 words)
HEALTH AND SCIENCE
Long shifts for young surgeons don't threaten patient safety
-- Controversial rules that limit the hours young surgeons can work while in training aren't needed to protect patient safety, a nationwide experiment finds. (HEALTH-SURGERY/RESIDENT-HOURS, moved, 753 words)
ENTERTAINMENT AND LIFESTYLE
Britain's James Corden to host 2016 Tony Awards
NEW YORK - British actor James Corden will host the Tony Awards for theater for the first time at a ceremony in New York in June, organizers announced on Tuesday. (AWARDS-TONYS, moved, 186 words)
Baggy but futuristic looks kick off NY men's fashion week
NEW YORK - Following a successful debut in July, New York hosts its second menswear fashion week, with dozens of established fashion names as well as new designers showcasing their autumn/winter offerings - from slick suits to more casual wear. (FASHION-NEWYORK/MEN (TV), expect by noon, 238 words)
CONSUMER TECH
Spin-off or sale? Yahoo turnaround plan in focus as earnings awaited
SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc's plans to turn around its struggling core business are set to dominate its earnings report after the bell on Tuesday, with investors keen to see if CEO Marissa Mayer will push ahead with a proposed spin-off or entertain calls for a complete sale. (YAHOO-RESULTS/PREVIEW, moved at 7 a.m., 355 words)
Lower costs nudge Nintendo's profit higher
TOKYO - Japan's Nintendo reported a 5.3 percent increase in third-quarter operating profit, in line with analysts forecasts, as lower costs helped offset a decline in overall sales. (NINTENDO-RESULTS/, moved at 2:30 a.m., 134 words)
BUSINESS TRENDS
Fearing lean times, U.S. companies tighten purse strings
NEW YORK - The capital spending slump that originated in the hard-hit energy sector appears to be spreading more widely across other U.S. industries. (USA-RESULTS/CAPEX (ANALYSIS), moved, 600 words)
A new global oil deal could draw lessons from 1998
LONDON - After a year of secret diplomacy and hushed-up private talks around the world, OPEC's mighty Saudi Arabia and rival Venezuela were persuaded to cut a deal by non-OPEC Mexico which overcame mutual acrimony and led to a much-needed rise in oil prices. (OPEC-RUSSIA/DEAL (ANALYSIS, PIX), moved, 1,345 words) See also: GLOBAL-OIL/ (UPDATE 6), moved, 365 words
BUSINESS AND MARKETS
ChemChina close to striking deal for Syngenta -sources
China's state-owned ChemChina is nearing a deal to buy Swiss seeds and pesticides group Syngenta for $42.2 billion, two people familiar with the matter say, two people familiar with the matter say. (SYNGENTA AG-M&A/CHEMCHINA (UPDATE 3), moved, Arno Schuetze and Pamela Barbaglia, 350 words)
Exxon's profit tumbles 58 percent, slashes capex by one-quarter
Exxon Mobil Corp reports its smallest quarterly profit in more than a decade and says it will cut 2015 spending by one-quarter and suspend share repurchases as it copes with a prolonged downturn in crude prices. (EXXON MOBIL-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 2), moved, by Anna Driver, 340 words)
GM January U.S. sales up slightly, Ford's down
DETROIT - U.S. auto sales appeared to fare better than expected in January, early returns show, as the industry benefited from low gasoline prices, easy credit and moderate economic growth. (USA-AUTOS/ (UPDATE 2), moved, Bernie Woodall, 410 words)
Dow Chemical CEO Liveris to step down by mid-2017
Dow Chemical Co Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said he will retire from the company by mid-2017, months after activist investor Daniel Loeb called upon him to step down from the company, which is merging with rival DuPont. (DOW-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 4), moving shortly, by Amrutha Gayathri and Swetha Gopinath, 400 words)
Stocks snap winning streak as oil pressure returns
LONDON - World stocks end three days of gains as lackluster global economic data lead to another slump in oil prices. (GLOBAL-MARKETS/ (WRAPUP 5), updated throughout the day, 600 words). See also: USA-STOCKS/ (UPDATE 3), updated throughout the day, 460 words)
Oil slides more than 5 percent as hopes for output cut fade
LONDON - Brent oil falls more than 5 percent, while U.S. crude slides below $30 per barrel, on worries about future demand and rising supply, while hopes for a deal between OPEC and Russia on output cuts fade. (GLOBAL-OIL/ (UPDATE 9), updated throughout the day, 460 words)
Low metals prices sink zinc producer Horsehead Holding Corp
WILMINGTON, Del. - U.S. zinc miner Horsehead Holding Corp files for bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest victim of a commodity price crash that has claimed scores of U.S. energy exploration companies, miners and metals producers. (HORSEHEAD HLDG-BANKRUPTCY/, moved, by Tom Hals, 320 words)
Argentina says reaches provisional debt deal with Italian creditors
BUENOS AIRES - Argentina has reached a preliminary deal with a group of Italian creditors who hold 30 percent of unpaid sovereign debt stemming from Argentina's record $100 billion default in 2002, Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay says. (ARGENTINA-DEBT/ (UPDATE 1), moving shortly, 300 words)
Brazil industrial output plunges 8 percent in 2015
BRASILIA - Industrial output in Brazil fell for a seventh straight month in December, capping the worst year for manufacturers in more than a decade as they struggle with inflation, high interest rates and political uncertainty. (BRAZIL ECONOMY/INDUSTRY (UPDATE 1), moved, by Silvio Cascione, 300 words)
German jobless rate falls to lowest on record
BERLIN - German unemployment fell more sharply than expected in January and the jobless rate dropped to a record low, suggesting private consumption will help offset a slowdown in emerging markets to keep growth in Europe's largest economy steady. (GERMANY-ECONOMY/UNEMPLOYMENT (UPDATE 1), moved, 290 words)
Alphabet overtakes Apple in market value - for now
Alphabet Inc might win the market cap battle against Apple Inc, but will it win the war? Maybe not. (APPLE-ALPHABET/RESEARCH (UPDATE 1), moved, by Sayantani Ghosh and Supantha Mukherjee, 510 words)
Pfizer 2016 forecasts disappoint; shares fall
U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc forecasts 2016 revenue and earnings below analysts' estimates, largely because of the strong dollar. (PFIZER-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 3), moved, 350 words)
UPS fourth-quarter profit surges, gives robust outlook
CHICAGO - United Parcel Service Inc reports a significantly higher quarterly net profit on a solid holiday season performance and gives a solid earnings outlook for 2016 despite warning of uncertain economic conditions. (UPS-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 1), moved, 330 words)
*****************
For story queries, please contact us.general- news@thomsonreuters.com
For photo queries use USCanada-Pictures-Editors@thomsonreuters.com) ***************** || Bitcoin finds room in small funds; large institutions still on sidelines: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin has found favor among smaller investors, thanks to the availability of funds designed to invest in it, but remains a niche among the larger investing community.
Investors at some family offices, smaller mutual funds, and traders at hedge funds say bitcoin has helped returns and demonstrated a low correlation with other asset classes.
Hopes that bitcoin would become a broadly used alternative to other currencies helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalization was $13 billion.
But the market cap has retreated since then, to about $6.4 billion as of Thursday.
Early enthusiasts for the crypto-currency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. The risks of dealing in bitcoin were laid bare in 2013 when Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox collapsed after admitting it had lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds.
The currency's earlier ties to gambling and criminal websites did not endear it to traditional investors.
Jeremy Millar, founder and managing partner at Ledger Partners in London, estimated that 50 to 90 percent of bitcoin's current $6.4 billion market cap is held by near-institutional money such as individuals at hedge funds and family offices. That has not changed over the last two years.
He does not have an estimate for institutional investment holdings of bitcoin. But he said they are likely to be insignificant, compared with the smaller investors who have fewer restrictions about fund allocation.
"What is clear though is that over the last two years, bitcoin has emerged from its 'hacktivist' origins to a more institutionalized ecosystem which includes the participation of hedge funds, traders, and professional investors," said Millar.
BITCOIN IN PORTFOLIOS
Funds dedicated to investing in bitcoin are relatively small. The largest is the Pantera Bitcoin Fund, a $160 million hedge fund founded by Dan Morehead, formerly of Tiger Management, available to institutions and individuals who invest $50,000 or more.
According to a Pantera Bitcoin Fund brochure, the fund was launched in July 2013, a period when bitcoin <BTC=BTSP> traded at around $65. On Thursday, it traded at $418.80, a gain of more than 500 percent from July 2013. The firm did not comment on fund performance or its investors.
The majority of the Pantera Fund's investors are family offices and high net worth individuals, said two people familiar with the fund.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust, with assets of more than $60 million, is another vehicle for investors. GBTC is backed by bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group.
It is the only publicly traded U.S. security in the over-the-counter market invested in bitcoin. Volume is thin, with a few thousand shares traded daily, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Antonis Polemitis, managing director at Ledra Capital in New York, a family office specializing in education and technology, said that on average, clients have allocated 1 to 3 percent of their portfolios to bitcoin.
"A lot of people will take that bet with 1 percent of their assets," he said. "A 1 percent loss does not change anyone's life in any way. If it goes up 10 times, then you get to feel very smart."
Some investment managers say having bitcoin in portfolios has helped performance.
ARK Invest, which manages four exchange-traded funds with $240 million in assets, holds GBTC in its $12 million Next Generation Internet ETF and the $7 million ARK Innovation ETF.
Chris Burniske, analyst and blockchain products lead at ARK Invest in New York, said since investing in September 2015, GBTC has contributed 67 basis points to the Next Generation Internet ETF's return and 62 basis points to the ARK Innovation ETF.
For 2015, the Next Generation ETF posted a 15.29 percent return, while the Innovation ETF had 3.76 percent gains.
For Kingsbridge Wealth Management, a multifamily office in Las Vegas with $150 million in assets, GBTC has become a great diversifier because so far it has had a low correlation with other asset classes, said David Dunn, the firm's founder and chief investment officer. The firm has about $1.7 million invested in bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain, Dunn said.
(Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
ExeXD has won a round in a playground (Paid) and won 0.00021122 BTC, join @ChopCoin and earn BTC (00:15UTC) || Grow Your Income 150% Interest Daily for 30 days. bitcoin cash deposit . http://ow.ly/YQ8Au || #BTA Price: Bittrex 0.00001032 BTC YoBit 0.00001237 BTC Bleutrade 0.00001227 BTC #BTA 2016-02-19 16:00 pic.twitter.com/Wkf5N6JaW1 || LIVE: Profit = $476.72 (5.83 %). BUY B19.82 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $436.91 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Current price: 295.45£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2016-03-07 12:00:20 GMT || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: Error
Bittrex: 0.00000007
Average $3.0E-5 per #reddcoin
22:00:01 || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || In the last hour, 8 people won 0.36 BTC playing Bitcoin lottery at http://10xbtc.com , the easiest BTC lottery, 160BTC Jackpot || Liquid Bitcoin
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Trend: no change || Prices: 417.18, 417.95, 426.77, 424.23, 416.52, 414.82, 416.73, 417.96, 420.87, 420.90
|
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)]
5,500 delegates flock to Malta for AI and Blockchain Summit: More than 5,500 delegates flocked to the picturesque Mediterranean island of Malta for this years AI and Blockchain Summit. An illustrious list of speakers included the likes of Bitcoin Cash founder Roger Ver, Bitcoin bull Bobby Lee, and the always insightful Tone Vays. Coin Rivet has been reporting live throughout the event, conducting video interviews with Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, Digimax Globals Dennis ONeil, and many more. Stay tuned to Coin Rivet for the full interviews, and be sure to subscribe to Coin Rivets YouTube channel for an array of exciting talks with some of cryptocurrencys most influential and inspirational characters. Social media round-up The @CoinRivet team have arrived in Malta. Come and see us in the press room @BlockchainMT tomorrow and on Friday. pic.twitter.com/AKgEmM01xh Oliver Knight (@KnightCoinRivet) May 22, 2019 Corporate & Fintech Senior Manager, Steve Muscat Azzopardi being interviewed by @KnightCoinRivet from @CoinRivet at the @BlockchainMT . #AIBCsummit #Blockchain #AI pic.twitter.com/FlIBmAvhKB CCA Malta Law Firm (@Chetcuti_Cauchi) May 24, 2019 Bobby Lee is on stage @BlockchainMT @bobbyclee pic.twitter.com/kiuWlN6VWp Oliver Knight (@KnightCoinRivet) May 23, 2019 The @CoinRivet team are back for round two of @BlockchainMT pic.twitter.com/TAU7gxju01 Jordan CoinRivet (@JordanCoinRivet) May 24, 2019 Interview with @ToneVays wrapped up at @BlockchainMT We talked bear market, #usdt , and grabbing a beer with @rogerkver . Stayed tuned to @CoinRivet for the full interview Ross CoinRivet (@RossCoinRivet) May 23, 2019 For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post 5,500 delegates flock to Malta for AI and Blockchain Summit appeared first on Coin Rivet . || ‘Satoshi’s Useful Idiot’ Zuckerberg Will Boost Bitcoin Price Beyond $20,000: Max Keiser: ByCCN Markets: Crypto bull Max Keiser has predicted that Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra will help boost the bitcoin price to new all-time highs.
According to Keiser, this is because Libra will increase the awareness and appeal of cryptocurrencies in general. Consequently, this will raise Bitcoin’s hash rate up leading to a new record price.
Currently, Bitcoin’s hash rate is slightly above 60,036,687 TH/s according to statistics obtained fromBlockchain.com.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Andreas Antonopoulos: Blockchain Tech Cannot Be Uninvented or Stopped: Andreas Antonopoulosis a well-knownbitcoin(BTC) educator and crypto commentator, as well as a security and decentralized systems expert. His 2014 book, Mastering Bitcoin, gave an in-depth technical analysis of the top cryptocurrency and a solid foundation of the crypto revolution’s beginnings.
In a recent interview, Cointelegraph spoke with Antonopoulos on what he believes is the future ofblockchain’ssocial impact, what’s going on with the current crypto market volatility, and what is still missing in the crypto space.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Molly Jane Zuckerman: In your opinion, is the recent volatility in the crypto markets a positive development for overall crypto adoption?
Andreas Antonopoulos:Volatility is an inevitable fact that arises from the small size and limited liquidity of crypto markets at the moment. When it's downward volatility, it creates panicked sentiment and losses. When it's upward volatility, it creates a wave of fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) investors with very little understanding of the technology fundamentals or principles.
Fortunately, some of those investors stay through the cycle and try to learn more about the technology, building a more solid foundation of users for the next cycle.
This cyclical boom-bust pattern is part of the behavior of this technology and has now repeated more than 8 times in the last 10 years. It is dangerous for inexperienced investors, but it also provides the funding needed to develop each stage of infrastructure and technology. Caveat emptor!
MZ: What are concrete developments that you feel the Bitcoin blockchain needs in order to be more widely adopted?
AA: As new technology is developed at the protocol layer, it does not get adopted until it can be presented in a clear, unambiguous, secure and easy-to-use way as a user interface and user experience. This happens at the product/application design layer and it is where the greatest development is needed. The open blockchain space in general needs more design and creative people, not more software engineers.
MZ: What, in your opinion, went wrong and what went well in the blockchain and crypto industry in the last year? Do you think we are closer to blockchain adoption now than we were a year ago?
AA: In bitcoin, the scaling debate has quieted down, as"forks"have given everyone a choice to pursue any scaling strategy they want. Unfortunately, this has created some confusion as more than one "fork" attempt to use the same name. In the end, the choice is up to users and the name is not as important as the rules of consensus each user chooses to follow.
In other open blockchains, the scaling debates are just beginning, as they encounter the same growing pains as bitcoin did in the last 3 years. Everyblockchainwill face these issues, despite claims to the contrary. Scaling requires deliberate design tradeoffs, against decentralization and security.
Many open blockchains try to claim they have solved this trilemma but they're either lying or are unaware of the tradeoffs they have made to gain scalability. In this space, maturity and growth bring new challenges in scaling and eventually governance. All blockchains will face those challenges once they become big enough to matter.
MZ: What is the social impact you personally expect from blockchain technology in the years to come?
AA: The primary impact I see is open and disintermediated platforms and protocols for finance and governance. These can be incredibly empowering, especially for people who have limited access to financial services.
The lack of financial inclusion is not a "bug" of the traditional financial system. It's a direct result of the regulatory architecture and the intermediaries policies.
An increasingly global world needs neutral, open and borderless finance and governance systems. Open public blockchains will provide those, even against the extreme discomfort, opposition and interference of nation states and corporations. The world needs this too much and the technology itself cannot be un-invented or stopped.
• Malaysian Securities Regulator Registers Three Cryptocurrency Exchanges
• Research: China Leads World in Tether Trading Volumes in 2019
• Marshall Islands Form Dedicated Fund to Support Implementation of Its National Crypto
• Blockchain-Based Alternative Investment Firm to Be Listed on Bloomberg Terminal || IPO’s in 2019 – What’s the Score?: With the S&P500 skyrocketing by ~15% YTD and Nasdaq climbing by more than 19%, timing seems perfect for founders and early backers to cash out or get the much-needed capital influx. We saw a fair share home-run IPO’s such as Beyond Meat and Zoom Video Communications as well as a few flops such as Lyft and Uber Technologies . And with the year not even half over we have a lot more to look forward to. What can be learned from the results so far and what are the prospects of future upcoming initial public offerings? The Losers As it is inherent to human psychology (and to prudent investing) to focus on the risks before the rewards it is best to start this overview with the largest flops so far. Uber The most anticipated IPO of 2019 is shaping out to be somewhat of a disappointment. I know it is a bit early to call an IPO a flop when its shares traded for just one day, even if the results were as miserable as they were, with share price dropping 7.62% on the first day of trading (May 10 th) . However, we should consider that just a month ago UBER (Ticker: UBER ) was aiming at an IPO valuation of $100 Billion , when they actually managed to reach a total valuation of $75.5 Billion (and that’s if you round up) raising $8.1 Billion at $45 a share. Timing played a large role in the IPO’s outcome and the initial trading – the company updated its preliminary estimate of Q1/19 results in the IPO documents, little to say, the results weren’t flattering. Uber Stock Price. Source: Yahoo Finance The fact that Uber and Lyft drivers went on strike just before the IPO and the trade war with China was reignited didn’t help either, but in my humble opinion, it was Lyft’s IPO that really screwed the pooch for Uber. Lyft Uber and Lyft competed on who will be the first to go public and Lyft won that race offering its shares to the public on March 28 th, 2019. Lyft’s IPO (Ticker: LYFT ) started off strong, raising $2.34 Billion, with shares going public at $72 – at the top of its price range. Story continues The IPO price provided a valuation of $20.6 Billion which translates to almost a 40% premium over its private valuation. Not to mention that on the first trading day the stock touched a high of $88.6 per share before closing at $78.29. But just like an enthusiastic sprinter realizing he was actually competing in a marathon the strong start didn’t much matter. Lyft Stock Price. Source: Yahoo Finance Lyft’s shares plunged by 29.04% since its initial offering and due to the numerous business similarities with Uber, Lyft’s performance provided a pessimistic outlook for Uber as well. The Winners While the ride-hailing industry was beaten and abused by the capital markets it is not to say all IPO’s this year performed negatively. On the contrary, out of the 77 IPO’s of companies with a market cap greater than $50 Million, 56 are in the green. In fact, there are too many successful IPO’s to cover them all, some mentionable ones include: Levi Strauss & Co. (Ticker: LEVI ) which is up 31.65% since its IPO on March 20 th Pinterest (Ticker: PINS ) which is up 52.89% since its IPO on April 18 th Tradweb Markets (Ticker: TW ) which is up 59.26% since its IPO on April 3 rd But the 2 IPO’s that really catch the eye are those of Zoom and Beyond Meat. Zoom Zoom Video Communications (Ticker: ZM ), the developer of video conferencing software, listed its shares on April 17 th at $36 per share, above its price range of $33 – $35. Zoom raised around $750 Million for a total valuation of almost $9.3 billion, or nine times that of its latest private market valuation. Not resting on its laurels the stock exploded and at the moment of writing is priced at $79.63 per share or a whopping 121.19% upside, amazing performance for a relatively obscure unicorn. Beyond Meat The plant-based meat company which was founded by Ethan Brown in 2009 is generating so much buzz and expectations to disrupt/augment the plant-based meat markets its stock is basically boiling. The marketing and branding efforts of the company are as important to its growth as the R&D efforts, the ability to draw in carnivores in addition to vegetarians could be pivotal for Beyond Meat and these efforts are assisted by endorsements from famous personalities such as Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio and even Snoop Dogg . Beyond Meat (Ticker: BYND ) was listed on May 1 st at the higher part of its $23 -$25 range, the company raised $240M to be invested in R&D for a total post IPO valuation of $1.66 Billion. Beyond Meat Stock Price. Source: Yahoo Finance Since the shares were listed the stock exploded by ~165% closing on Friday at 66.22 per share. Things to come: 2019 is expected to provide much more IPO drama with names like Airbnb , Slack , Robinhood and WeWork expected to go public. The current trend seems to favor companies with a strong service/product offering while shying away from companies based on the gig economy . It would be interesting to see if this trend continues and if it does what it bodes for the sharing economy in general. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Shines Through Market Uncertainty: Uber shares Sink Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Traders Watching How Dollar Responds to China’s Tariffs Against US GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British pound testing support against Japanese yen E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Straddling Major Support Angle at 7351.25 E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Major Fibonacci Level at 2816.00 Controlling Direction Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude oil markets rally to kick off week || Silver Price Forecast – Silver markets forming Triangle: Silver marketscontinue to grind sideways overall against the US dollar as we are trying to figure out what to do next. Ultimately, the 200 day EMA underneath offers a lot of support as well, just as the gap will. At this point I think that the market will continue to find buyers in that area, and even if we do break down a bit from here I’d be more than willing to look into the idea of buying closer to the $15.00 level. Above, I see the $15.50 level as significant resistance but ultimately we can break above there and go looking towards the $16 level. It’s going to take some time to get there, and we will have the occasional pullback.
The Federal Reserve is looking to cut interest rates so that should help precious metals in general. Ultimately, I think that the market will probably find buyers on dips, and that’s essentially how I’m going to play this market. Taking advantage of value every time we get an opportunity to do so is the best way to play this market. It’s not until we break through the $15 level significantly that I would be a concerned party. Until then, I anticipate that we will grind our way higher, as this market tends to be a bit slower moving than gold, perhaps due to the massive contract size. Either way, I have no interest in shorting and I do believe it’s only a matter time before we go higher. If we can break above the $16.00 level, then the market could go even higher from a longer-term situation.
Please let us know what you think in the comments below
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Traders unwinding G20 hedges, but can the good-will last? || ABN AMRO Eyes Launch of Blockchain Inventory Platform, Dropping Wallet Plan: As ABN AMRO drops its exploration of a cryptocurrency wallet product, the Dutch bank says it’s seeking to launch a blockchain platform for trade inventory. The bank said in a news release Friday that it’s currently “exploring options” for bringing the platform, called Forcefield, to market, and is in discussions with firms in the commodities industry and financial institutions. So far, it said, Accenture, Anglo American, CMST International, Hartree Partners, ING Bank, Macquarie, Mercuria and OCBC Bank are among those firms that have already signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to launch the platform. My Bank Account Was Frozen for Bitcoin – And It Only Made Me Love Crypto More Built using blockchain tech, Forcefield is designed to provide a real-time view into trade inventories. ABN AMRO explained: “The platform can communicate with physical trade inventories through the Internet of Things, sensors and Near Field Communication chips. As a result, the inventories, which are often collateral for loans, can be monitored very effectively, which will lead to more secure physical handling processes and a reduction of costs.” Over the last year, Forcefield has been developed as a stand-alone product, and saw a “successful” proof of concept phase with Accenture taking care of the technology, ABN Amro said. It’s now been turned into an independent company with the plan being for it to operate as a market utility, initially focusing on refined metals and later to expand to other “dry” bulk commodities. Opera Will Soon Add Tron Support to Its In-Browser Crypto Wallet Karin Kersten, managing director of trade & commodity finance at ABN AMRO, said the platform would “strengthen the entire commodity trading supply chain. Parties involved will benefit from more effective controls, greater efficiency, transparency and traceability.” At the same time, the bank – the third largest in the Netherlands – has reportedly backed off its vague plans to launch a cryptocurrency wallet. Story continues ABN AMRO told The Next Web that the “Wallie” wallet concept would not be carried through, as crypto assets are currently not sufficiently regulated and therefore “too risky” for the bank’s investment clients. Rather than actually developing a wallet, as had been claimed on social media in January, the bank had been soliciting feedback from clients over what functions a possible wallet might need and how it should look, TNW said. It’s the second time the institution has been forced to deny wallet product rumors. Back in 2016, CoinDesk reported that the bank had experimented with the idea of a bitcoin wallet for several years, but the project had been shelved. ABN AMRO image via Shutterstock Related Stories Samsung to Roll Out Crypto Features on Budget Galaxy Phones HTC Has Added In-Wallet Crypto Swaps to Its EXODUS Phone || Coinbase in advanced talks to acquire Xapo: sources: Regulated U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is in advanced talks to buy custody provider Xapo for about $50 million to boost its custody business, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Xapo’s CEO Wences Cesares is a serial entrepreneur from Argentina known to be one of the biggest champions of bitcoin from its earliest days. Sources cautioned that the deal has yet to close, and requested anonymity due to the confidentiality and fluid nature of the talks. According to sources, Coinbase and Fidelity Digital Assets have been locked in a neck-and-neck race for the prized asset for the past few weeks, with Coinbase ultimately prevailing. If the tentative terms being discussed hold, Coinbase will pay ~$50 million in cash for Xapo, plus a contingent earn-out for remaining with the company. Xapo raised $40 million since its founding in 2012. Fidelity Investments has looked to bridge crypto and traditional finance by launching Fidelity Digital Assets and bringing on Tom Jessop as head of corporate business development last year. Jessop has a background in traditional finance and has made forays into the world of Blockchain startups. However, sources say Coinbase beat Fidelity to the sale, making a move that likely indicates the crypto giant is looking to aggressively diversify its revenue to be less prone to the cyclical nature of cryptocurrency trading. Xapo’s core product is cold storage vault custody of bitcoin, with rumors that the company holds as much as $5.5 billion of assets under custody (AUC) at the current $BTC price near $8,000, reflecting ~700K bitcoin under custody. Xapo custodies 226,000 BTC that are part of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. The addition of several billion of AUC would be a huge shot in the arm for Coinbase. Under Xapo’s current business model, customers are not charged for storing their bitcoin. Rather, they generate revenue by enabling over-the-counter (OTC) trades for customers using the bitcoin under custody. Xapo’s set of top-tier backers included top Silicon Valley VC firms such as Greylock Partners and Index Ventures as well as crypto investment firms Digital Currency Group, Winklevoss Capital and Blockchain Capital. Individuals including Max Levchin and David Marcus, currently head of Facebook’s cryptocurrency initiative, are also investors. The acquisition will sit alongside other recent deals for Coinbase. The company has acquired 14 companies since its founding, with many in the past year including Earn , which it has since re-modeled to Coinbase Earn, and controversial blockchain analysis startup Neutrino. Coinbase faced severe criticism for that acquisition due to its leadership being nearly identical to that of Hacking Team, which had reportedly been involved in human rights abuses. || The Investing Questions People Ask the Most: taking big financial risk on investments Whether you’re brand-new to investing or more experienced, it’s likely you have questions about how to invest money wisely. You’re not alone: I spoke to numerous financial experts to learn the investing questions that they get asked over and over again, and then found the answers to these common questions. With topics ranging from how to invest with little money to how to adjust your strategy as you age, here’s what the experts had to say. Read More: 10 Things Mark Cuban Says To Do With Your Money 1. If I Only Have a Small Amount of Money To Invest, Is It Even Worth It? “Of course it is,” said Pauline Paquin, founder of Reach Financial Independence . “Small amounts add up and snowball over long periods of time. Don’t take my word for it — use a compound interest calculator, and see how much your nest egg can grow. Twenty dollars a week can turn into over $130,000 after 30 years at an 8% [return] (the average rate the S&P 500 has returned over the past 30 years). Many robo-advisors have no minimum to start investing.” See: 25 Money Experts Share the Best Way To Invest $1,000 2. Where Should I Invest If I’m Brand-New to Investing? “There are two excellent ways to begin investing,” said Barbara A. Friedberg, CEO of Robo-Advisor Pros . “The first is to invest in your workplace 401(k) account. Choose a target date fund, and you’ll be on the right path. Or open a Roth IRA at a robo-advisor like M1 Finance or Betterment, and transfer $500 into that account every month. That will ensure that you’ve invested the $6,000 allowed by law for 2019 and 2020.” If you want to invest directly in the market, entrepreneur and financial writer Eric Rosenberg recommends starting with low-cost index funds. “These give you access to dozens or hundreds of stocks in one purchase, which gives you instant diversity and helps keep risk lower than when buying single stocks,” he said. “While it isn’t as exciting as trying to pick a hot stock, it is a great long-term strategy and better for most investors.” Start Easy: 10 Low-Risk Ways To Invest Your Money 3. Everyone Says I Should Invest In Stocks, but I’m Nervous About the Markets. Should I Be? “You’re right that there are no guarantees in the stock market, and your investment could go down. But remember that stocks have historically had a very high success rate over long-time horizons,” said Roger Young, a senior financial planner at T. Rowe Price. “If you’re saving for the distant future, like the later years of retirement, you want some investments with growth potential. And a diversified portfolio can help you manage the risks.” Story continues Be Prepared: 20 Things To Do in a Falling Stock Market 4. If I Want To Invest In a ‘Hot’ Stock, How Should I Pick One? “Picking specific investments and timing the market is ultimately a losing game,” said Nora Dunn, a certified financial planner and founder of The Professional Hobo blog. “Studies show that your returns are largely predicated on creating an asset allocation plan and sticking to it. And your asset allocation plan starts with what you want to do with your life and how you are going to engineer your finances to get you there. I’m invested in the stock market, but I don’t presume to have the expertise to know which stocks are ‘hot’ right now. That is a full-time job unto itself. So I outsource that to mutual fund managers. They are paid according to how well their funds perform — so they not only have the knowledge but also a vested interest in investing better than I can. The funds I pick are specific to my own customized asset allocation plan. How do you create an asset allocation plan? Sit down with a financial planner who can act as your ‘financial quarterback’ and bring all the pieces of your income, assets, liabilities, taxes, portfolio, goals and dreams together into a cohesive — and adjustable — plan.” Discover: 10 Key Ingredients to Your Strongest Investment Portfolio Yet If you want to make selections on your own, be sure to do your research, said Ben Watson, an education coach at TD Ameritrade. “What is ‘best’ may vary widely from investor to investor,” he said. “That’s why markets move — because of differing opinions of what and when to buy and sell. Some investors use research and analysis of a company’s fundamental business aspects, such as profit margin, revenue and debt ratios. Other investors may use technical and statistical analysis of stock price movement to determine what and when to trade . Many investors use a combination of these and other strategies to inform stock selection, but a first step in answering the question may be determining what role a particular stock may play in an investor’s portfolio. Price appreciation, dividend generation and asset allocation/exposure are just a few of the reasons why an investor may choose a specific stock. Ultimately, it’s better to do some research and searching rather than trading on a blind recommendation.” 5. Are Alternative Investments, Like Angel Investing or Cryptocurrencies, a Good Idea? “Generally, they aren’t,” said Jim Wang, founder of Wallet Hacks . “Most investors need to put their savings into a couple of low-cost mutual funds and then focus on increasing those investment contributions through making more or saving more of what they make. Too many people fall into the trap of seeing what’s ‘hot’ and wanting to get a piece of the action. The reality is that so many trends are nearing their end when regular people hear about them, and trying to catch the trend is a mistake. It also teaches you the wrong principles — that the path to wealth is trying to find the next lottery ticket when the real path is saving, investing and waiting patiently.” Check Out: 10 High-Risk, High-Return Alternatives to Bitcoin 6. Should I Tweak My Investment Strategy as I Age? “Making sure your portfolio is balanced is only one part of keeping your financial plan on target. You also need to make sure your overall strategy is tracking with your age, your income and when you retire,” said Chris Hogan , a financial expert and the No. 1 national best-selling author of “Everyday Millionaires.” “When you’re young, you have more time to invest. With a longer time horizon, you could probably afford to invest in funds that carry a little more risk. But when you’re closer to retirement, you want your money to be in less volatile funds. This helps to protect the wealth you’ve grown over time.” Essentially, your strategy needs to evolve when your life changes. “Based on your goals and your current financial status, you may need to save more,” he said. “Or maybe you need to save outside your work retirement plan. Or you might discover that you’ve reached a milestone sooner than you thought, and you need to adjust your strategy to protect your wealth. That’s why you need to ask this question on an ongoing basis.” 7. Should I Invest a Cash Windfall or Use the Extra Money To Pay Down Debt? “After investing the minimum required for the match in a company-sponsored 401(k), deploy your cash where you will earn the highest return,” said Paul Vachon, founder of The Frugal Toad . “For example, paying down a mortgage with a 4% interest rate instead of investing in an index mutual fund such as the S&P 500 index would have cost you a 14% return on your money this year.” Learn: 13 Ways To Invest on a Budget 8. What Kind of Returns Should I Expect? “Investment returns are determined by a variety of factors, beginning with investment objectives, time horizons and risk tolerances,” Watson said. “Additionally, since no one can predict market movement with absolute accuracy, and projection of expected return for any investment is simply an assessment of known factors and risks, then whenever new information comes into the market, that assessment changes. Investors can evaluate past performance of a stock or other financial instrument, or a portfolio, or a specific strategy, for a look at what has happened, but similar returns in the future are never guaranteed. Rather, an investor may look at potential returns vs. risk and decide what is appropriate for their level of risk tolerance. Once that’s determined, managing risk becomes the primary task. Remember, markets — even highly liquid and electronically traded ones — are reflections of human emotions of fear and greed. For example, the average percentage return for the S&P 500 over the last 20 years has been around 5% to 6% per year. Some years have been much higher, and some much lower. That number may inform investor expectations as long as it’s understood that future performance is never guaranteed.” 9. How Can I Get the Best Returns With the Least Amount of Risk? “I try to change the frame of reference from market returns in a vacuum to planning for goals,” said Justin Pritchard, founder of Approach Financial Inc. and a certified financial planner in Montrose, Colorado. “If you need your money in the near future, then the risk is problematic, and you need to ask yourself if the potential short-term gain is worth the potential loss you’re facing. But if we’re talking about specific long-term goals, as opposed to your account balance on paper, clients seem more willing to take on an appropriate level of risk that can help them reach those goals and hopefully outpace inflation. In some cases, it doesn’t make sense to take many risks, and that’s fine. The other answer is that diversification can potentially help you reduce your risk without sacrificing returns, but it doesn’t eliminate risk.” Related: 20 Smart Investments Everyone Should Try 10. How Do I Know How Much Risk I Can Tolerate? “You should dip your toe into the stock market with a small amount of money to feel out your reaction on the day-to-day movements in stock prices,” said Kyle Kroeger, founder of Millionaire Mob . “From there, research the different investment options from a capital stack perspective. You can be a lender or invest in real estate. If you are not comfortable with the stock market, there are plenty of alternatives that can accomplish similar results. The best way to determine your appetite is to just get started.” Take a Look: 13 Ways To Invest That Don’t Involve the Stock Market 11. How Can I Invest More Tax-Efficiently? “There are three ways to invest in a more tax-efficient manner,” said Amanda Salyer, a financial consultant with Fidelity Investments. “One, defer taxes — consider saving the maximum annual contribution limit to employer-sponsored accounts such as 401(k) and 403(b) accounts, and/or save the maximum to IRA accounts if eligible. If more savings are possible after maxing out 401(k)/IRAs, then consider a low-cost tax-deferred annuity. Two, manage taxes — in your taxable accounts such as joint or individual brokerage accounts, consider tax-efficient strategies, such as favoring long-term capital gains versus short-term capital gains when considering selling investments or using municipal bonds for bond exposure. Three, reduce — consider ways to ‘reduce’ your tax burden, such as gifting appreciated securities to charities or considering Roth conversions as a way to manage taxes from a long-term planning perspective.” Find Out: What Is Unrealized Gain or Loss and Is It Taxed? 12. Should I Invest More When the Market Is at a High? “It’s important to distinguish between ‘timing the market’ — which research shows does not work as clients tend to invest emotionally — and dollar-cost averaging,” said Denise Davis, vice president and wealth planner with Fidelity Investments. “Dollar-cost averaging allows us to put money to work in a measured and rational manner regardless of the market cycle to ensure that we meet our client’s goals and objectives.” Joe Vietri, branch network leader at Charles Schwab, said that investments should be seen as a long-term strategy. “In a perfect world, every investor could ‘buy low and sell high,’ but the realities of the market often prove more complex,” he said. “Emotions often steer investors in the wrong direction. When the market is moving up, investors don’t want to be left out of the party so they tend to buy when prices are high. On the flip side, when the market experiences some volatility and declines, investors get scared and end up selling. Building wealth is a long-term endeavor, and time in the market is more important than timing the market.” See: What $1,000 in Stocks Invested 10 Years Ago Would Be Worth Today 13. What Is the Ex-Dividend Date for a Stock, Mutual Fund or ETF? “Many folks often believe it is important to buy before the ex-dividend date in order to receive the dividend,” said Cogdell Bradshaw, vice president and financial consultant with Fidelity Investments. “However, once the security gets to the ex-dividend date, the price is adjusted downward by that amount, so buying the dividend before will likely add to your tax bill, while buying after the dividend allows you to buy more shares at the adjusted price.” Keep reading to learn about investing myths no one should believe . More on Investing Strategy Stocks and Bonds: How To Choose the Best Investments How I Simplified Investing Without Sacrificing Success How To Keep Your Emotions From Messing With Your Investing Strategy 12 Best Apps for First-Time Investors Gabrielle Olya contributed to the reporting for this article. This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : The Investing Questions People Ask the Most View comments || Bitcoin Price Targets $10,000 and Beyond, Thanks to Weak Dollar Sentiment: ByCCN Markets: Price of Bitcoin established another year-to-date high on Friday, touching levels not seen in over a year.
Earlier during the Asian session, the bitcoin-to-dollar exchange rate flew past the $9,800 level for the first time since May 6, 2018. As of 0200 UTC, the pair settled a fresh yearly high towards $9,812 on Coinbase exchange, up 5.92 percent on a 24-hour adjusted timeframe. Bitcoin futures on CME also surged to establish its 2019 peak of $9,840.
Bitcoin Price Soars Past $6,700 in Latest Upside Action | Source: TradingView.com, Coinbase
The price rise appeared 12 hours after the Federal Reserveagreedto the possibility for a rate cut in July, carrying the yield on the benchmark US 10-year Treasury note down below 2 percent for the first time since November 2016.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey Expounds on Planned Crypto Team: Disclaimer: This article has been updated following revisions. Jack Dorsey, the founder of social media website Twitter and mobile payments provider Square , went into depth on his plans for his new team dedicated to improving the crypto sector at Square in an interview with The Next Web on June 14. According to Dorsey, this initiative, Square Crypto, will add to the fiat payment company’s operations by providing an infrastructure for frictionless internet payments. Right now, he says that regulations and partnerships slow Square down — obstacles that he hopes to avoid in the future with an improved crypto infrastructure: “Just from a business perspective, we don’t look like an Internet company today. An Internet company can launch something and it’s available around the world. Whereas with payments, you have to go to each market and pay attention to regulators. You need a partnership with a local bank. This is a very slow process in any new market.” The team’s efforts to provide solutions for the crypto space will reportedly all be made open source. Dorsey says that security and currency efficiency are areas he hopes to tackle with the team, as well as potentially less prominent issues like code reviews, which Dorsey cites as a major issue for bitcoin ( BTC ). The planned team will reportedly be a small group, comprised of a handful of crypto-literate software engineers and a single designer. Dorsey plans to work directly with the team. The first announced dev hire for the team was Steve Lee, a former director at Google . Dorsey also touched on the role of including a designer, saying that better design could make the crypto space more accessible to the layperson: “This designer will be tasked with doing educational tasks [...] These will include making it easier for ordinary people to conceptualize using digital currencies like Bitcoin as an everyday tool for payment.” Story continues As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Square recently saw a revenue high in BTC through its payment app Cash, an option made available to users in February 2018. According to its first quarter report for 2019, the company has made a net profit of about $830,000 through BTC in the quarter, with a total BTC revenue of $65.5 million. Related Articles: Swedish Bitcoin-Powered Mobile Refill Service Bitrefill Raises $2M to Expand Services Binance Announces Bitcoin-Pegged Token on Binance Chain The Strange Case of CCN and the Google June 2019 Core Update Conglomerates’ Deep Pockets Continue Blockchain Growth in South Korea Despite Crypto Ban
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
@Hanakookie1 @CryptoRegs Even at $1 trillion market cap 1 Kin would only be worth $1 today or $.10 in the future, and it can be broken into 5 decimals. If there are things people want to buy, they will spend, like BTC. To be clear, you prefer users being diluted and inflated into infinity just because? || @Frenchy_BTC @LebedevAP Looks like BTC is beginning to wake up . This is private channel with market info . And it is free for newcomers !
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weed b gon sale https://t.co/g4SuesT3iG || @bitcoinbella_ Bitcoin || Traders are piling into bitcoin as a haven against volatile markets. This researcher warns they could get burned. – Business Insider https://t.co/hJZCyNYhZJ https://t.co/SiCSzSzKCU || I will get acquainted at this ICO-project and I will consider supporting them. I more than one hundred per cent sure that they will become successful! #Shato || Flight using btc- great || @EnginChaglar Hi ! There is a new cryptobet platform ! 50% $CBET mining bonus from May 27 - June 30. It‘s in addition to the 25% Affiliate commission. Every 0.01 $BTC bet at https://t.co/r8ZjT03lcJ get you 1.5 $CBET. 100% of net gaming revenues goes to $CBET. || I wouldn’t even be surprised if $XRP doesn’t even get a pump when $BTC reaches 10k at this point but I’m trying to remain strong #FeelsBadMan || 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
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Trend: up || Prices: 10817.16, 10583.13, 10801.68, 11961.27, 11215.44, 10978.46, 11208.55, 11450.85, 12285.96, 12573.81
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
AMD is slipping ahead of earnings: amd headquarters (The entrance to the Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.AP Photo / Paul Sakuma) Wall Street is generally bullish ahead of AMD 's second-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, with most analysts rating the stock a neutral or buy, according to Bloomberg. However, shares are trading down about 0.5% at $14.12 a piece. Analysts are expecting earnings of $0.001 per share on revenue of $1.16 billion, according to data from Bloomberg. The company has beat on earnings estimates in the last seven quarters, topping estimates by an average of 106.82% over that period. For the first quarter , AMD lost $0.04 per share as revenue rose 18.3% year-over-year to $984 million. Higher demand for the company's low-cost Ryzen CPUs helped drive the growth, according to CEO Lisa Su. The company has been riding the wave of increased demand for its graphics processing units due to the rising popularity of cryptocurrency mining . Ethereum and Bitcoin have been in the headlines with their explosive growth this year. AMD has sold out of its GPUs at several points this year because cryptocurrency enthusiasts are buying all the cards they can to better their machines and grab a larger share of the growing currencies. AMD is facing steep competition from its main rival Nvidia. Its rival is not only taking over traditional GPU businesses like data center acceleration, but is also placing its highest performing chips in the hands of top researchers and car companies, sometimes for free in a move to outpace the competition. Millennials, who have been one of the most bullish groups, are selling AMD shares ahead of its earnings. According to data from Robinhood about users of its app, millennial investors are selling the stock 7% more frequently than they are buying it . AMD is up 24.49% this year. Click here to watch AMD's stock price live... amd stock price (Markets Insider) NOW WATCH: An economist explains the key issues that Trump needs to address to boost the economy More From Business Insider 22 awesome and weird things we bought using Amazon Prime 11 accessories that’ll help you get more out of your MacBook This might be our new favorite commuter backpack || 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
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Permalink| © Copyright 2017ETF.com.All rights reserved || Cramer's lightning round: Here's the problem with MoneyGram: It's that time again! Jim Cramer rang the lightning round bell, which means he gave his take on callers' favorite stocks at rapid speed:
MoneyGram International Inc.(MGI): "Here's the problem with MoneyGram: it's financial tech. we don't want that one, we want either Mastercard(MA)or Visa(NYSE:V)."
Schlumberger Limited(SLB): "I think the stock of Schlumberger is trying very hard to put in a bottom, and I'm starting to think that maybe, for ActionAlertsPlus.com, it is time to finally average down in this dog."
Masonite International Corp.(: ): "Oh, man. That last quarter was bad. We've got to get that CEO on, because I think he's a good guy, but man, that was some big miss."
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.(CTSH): "I love this company. OK? I think it's absolutely terrific. You know, sometimes you think it's going to come back and haunt you because the stock's already up 24 percent, but they've done so many things right."
Advanced Micro Devices Inc.(AMD): "Look, the stock has moved up very big. I know it's churning and people are getting very nervous about it. I am not concerned. Intel does have a rival product, a lot of people feel bitcoin's(Exchange:BTC=-USS)peaking, but AMD's churning. It is not falling apart. OK? It's churning."
Cerner Corporation(CERN): "Health care maintenance and records is good. As good as Cerner is, I do prefer UnitedHealth(UNH)because of Optum. I think Optum's really fabulous."
Applied Optoelectronics(AAOI): "Oh, man. That thing is way too hot for me. It's up and down and up and down and too scary."
Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Schlumberger.
Questions for Cramer?Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC
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• Del Taco CEO on staying fresh amid rising avocado costs || CFTC: Euro Net Longs at 6-Year High; Gold Longs at 1-Year High: CFTC: Euro Net Longs at 6-Year High; Gold Longs at 1-Year High Investing.com - The Commodity Futures Trading Commission released its weekly Commitments of Traders report for the week ending September 5 on Friday. Speculative positioning in the CME and ICE currency, commodity, energy and index futures: LongShort NetPriorChangeGrossChangeGrossChange EUR 96.3k 86.5k 9.8k 195.0k0.6k98.7k-9.1k GBP -52.9k -51.6k -1.4k 54.5k-5.6k107.4k-4.2k JPY -72.9k -68.5k -4.4k 47.3k3.4k120.2k7.8k CHF -2.2k -1.8k -0.4k 11.9k-1.3k14.1k-0.9k CAD 53.6k 53.2k 0.5k 94.7k7.9k41.1k7.4k AUD 64.9k 66.5k -1.6k 103.4k2.4k38.4k4.0k NZD 14.7k 18.8k -4.1k 26.8k-2.2k12.1k1.9k MXN 113.6k 97.0k 16.6k 141.1k5.5k27.4k-11.1k S&P 500 157.9k 199.7k -41.8k 564.2k-55.8k406.3k-14.0k Gold 245.3k 231.0k 14.3k 336.1k17.2k90.8k2.9k Silver 64.2k 53.6k 10.5k 96.4k3.4k32.2k-7.1k Copper 48.9k 43.7k 5.2k 172.1k5.5k123.2k0.2k RUB 0.5k 0.0k 0.5k 5.8k2.0k5.4k1.4k Crude Oil 382.1k 365.9k 16.2k 675.6k12.3k293.5k-4.0k Related Articles CFTC: Euro Net Longs at 6-Year High; Gold Longs at 1-Year High Insurers rebound even as Irma barrels toward Florida Bitcoin slumps on report China plans to shut down crypto-exchanges || Top Wall Street strategist expects bitcoin to be the best asset through year-end: Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS)will likely outperform stocks and bonds the rest of the year, according to the first major Wall Street strategist to issue a report on the digital currency.
"I think bitcoin is an underowned asset with potential for huge institutional sponsorship coming," Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee said Wednesday on CNBC's "Fast Money."
"It has a lot of characteristics that are very similar to gold that I think will make it ultimately attractive as an alternate currency," he said. "It's a good store of value."
Here's Lee's outlook on bitcoin given on the show into year-end:
Gold or bitcoin? Bitcoin?
Bitcoin leaped to record highs this week above $3,500, more than tripling in value for the year despite a split in the currency last week into bitcoin and bitcoin cash, an alternative version supported by a minority of developers.
Bitcoin traded 1.5 percent higher near $3,428 Thursday morning, according to CoinDesk. Bitcoin cash steadied after wild swings in its first week, trading near $303, according to CoinMarketCap.
Another digital currency, ethereum(Exchange: ETH=), rose 1 percent to just under $300, according to CoinDesk.
Bitcoin three-month performance
Source: CoinDesk
Lee published a report in early July outlining thepotential for bitcoin to rise above $20,000 and potentially reach $55,000 by 2022.Formerly the top stock strategist at JPMorgan and a perennial favorite of big institutional investors, Lee was also one of the few on Wall Street to predict that a Donald Trump win in last year's election would cause stocks to rally, not fall like most had seen.
Lee sees another reason for optimism about bitcoin.
"Institutions have to directly buy the coin today through a broker, but both theCBOEand theCFTChave opened up options futures trading, so I think it's going to grow in holdings," he told CNBC.
In the last month, the Chicago Board Options Exchange said it plans to offer bitcoin futures by early next year, while the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a digital currency trading firm called LedgerX to clear derivatives.
Market strategists have noted there are few highly attractive investment opportunities with U.S. stocks at all-time highs and bonds steady as the Federal Reserve remains on a gradual pace of monetary policy tightening and gold in a trading range.
The median S&P 500 target ofstrategists surveyed by CNBCis 2,475, just a point above where the stock index closed Wednesday. Lee happens to bethe most bearishamong those strategists with a year-end target of 2,275, or 8 percent below Wednesday's close.
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• North Korea concerns set the stage on Wall Street, stock futures fall || Base Metal ETFs Buck Commodity Swoon: There's a bewildering rally taking place within the commodities markets, and few on Wall Street are buying it. Base metals, a group that includes everything from copper to zinc to aluminum, have shot higher in 2017 despite a relatively dismal year for the broader commodity market. The PowerShares DB Base Metals Fund (DBB) , which holds an equal-weighted basket of all three metals, has jumped 20.8% year-to-date, handily outperforming the 6.9% loss for the broad PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund (DBC) , the 13.3% swoon for the PowerShares DB Energy Fund (DBE) and the 7.4% decline for the PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (DBA) . YTD Returns For DBB, DBC, DBE, DBA Factors Driving Rally Analysts attribute the base metals rally to a few factors, including rebounding growth in China and a weaker U.S. dollar. GDP in China expanded by 6.9% during the first half of 2017, outpacing the government's target of 6.5% and even last year’s 6.7% growth rate. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index has slid 8.7% so far this year. But those bullish factors aren't unique to base metals. Other commodities would seemingly benefit from a stronger Chinese economy and sliding greenback, but they haven't. That means it may be the supply side that's really powering metals higher. "Our view is that there are several separate factors at play accelerating the metals' price boom. Demand conditions within China are supportive and the dollar has weakened,” said Dane Davis, commodities research analyst for Barclays. “That helps, but it’s not enough. What’s turbo-charging some metals are supply disruptions and tightness. Copper, for example, has seen disruptions ranging from weather to strikes, cutting 612 kt [612,000 metric tons] of production so far in 2017." ‘Tightening Environmental Controls’ Robin Bhar, head of metals research for Societe Generale, also sees the industry as getting a supply-side lift from environmental reforms in China. "Supply-side reforms in China are a key factor" driving the rally, he noted, adding: "Tightening environmental controls/monitoring of mines and smelters (mainly aluminum and zinc) are constraining output. In aluminum, smelting capacity is being forced to close if it doesn’t have the necessary licenses from the central government." While analysts largely agree on what's driving metals higher, they're split over whether the rally will continue. Most agree with Barclays’ Davis, who noted that "something seems off about this recent rally" and that he remains "skeptical of its strength and duration." Story continues Keep An Eye On Iron Ore Davis is especially wary of iron ore, a key ingredient in making steel. The steel market is running very hot at the moment in China, but that will likely change relatively soon, he says. "While demand conditions are supportive in the short term, they’re running up against long-term head winds, including a China that is facing demographic pressures of a slowdown," Davis predicted. Meanwhile, Bernard Dahdah and Alomgir Miah, analysts at Natixis, also believe the rally will run out of steam soon. "Although in the long run we are bullish on copper and aluminium, we believe in the short to medium term they have overshot where they should be fundamentally due to the excitement of better- than-expected demand indicators in China," they said. "We expect prices for both metals to fall in Q4'17 after the end of leadership elections in China." On the other hand, Societe Generale's Bhar believes there is ample support for a continued rally in base metals. Though nickel in particular looks overvalued, "base metals overall from a supply/demand perspective are in better balance and inventories are falling," he said. In Bhar's view, the base metals uptrend is sustainable through the end of the year, but the situation gets murkier in 2018 when he anticipates China's economy will slow. Contact Sumit Roy at sroy@etf.com . Recommended Stories Why The Lithium ETF Is Up 58% This Year Bitcoin Vs Gold Debate Barclays' Cohen On Oil Topping $60 Hurricane Fuels Refinery ETFs More Than Oil Base Metal ETFs Buck Commodity Swoon Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved View comments || Bitcoin Market Cap Reaches 70$ 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?
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• RBA Minutes, German GDP, UK Inflation and U.S Retail Sales. It’s All Go || Bitcoin regains momentum after regulatory crackdown in China: Investing.com – Bitcoin traded higher on Tuesday but remained well below its recent peak as market participants continued to assess the fallout from China’s decision to ban individuals and organizations from raising funds through initial coin offerings (ICOs).
On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, bitcoin rose to $4,386, up $185.6 or 4.42%, but lagged its recent peak of $4,911.80. At current prices Bitcoin boasts a market cap of $72.42 billion.
The People’s Bank of China said on its website Monday that it had completed investigations into ICOs, and will strictly punish offerings in the future while penalizing legal violations in ones already completed.
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.
An initial coin offering (ICO) is a used as a means of fundraising via the use of cryptocurrency in which a company attracts investors by releasing its own digital currency which can appreciate in value if the business is successful.
The Chinese government’s latest measures to curb the activity of initial coin offerings are seen as a threat to the strong demand that currently supports cryptocurrency growth. Ethereum, in particular, is widely believed to one of the main cryptocurrencies at risk of suffering from a dip in demand, as ICO issuers often request payment in ether – a currency transacted through the Ethereum network.
Ethereum, gained 7.43% to $317.69 while Bitcoin Cash rose $36.10, or 6.96%, to $555.08.
To stay on top of the latest moves in the crypto-space, be sure to check out:https://www.investing.com/crypto/
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Dollar falls on concern about North Korea, Fed rate outlook || GUNDLACH: 'Markets have been coiling' and there's one big thing that could unleash volatility: (Jeffrey Gundlach of DoubleLine Capital thinks you should be keeping an eye on the 10-year Treasury as you await market volatility.REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)
To "bond king"Jeffrey Gundlach, the market hasn't simply been sitting still. It's been coiling.
In other words, under a seemingly placid surface, the co-founder and CEO of DoubleLine Capital sees conditions brewing that could eventually unleash price swings upon a market so starved for them.
As for apotential trigger, Gundlach has singled out the10-year Treasury note.
"One way or another, it’s going to have to break," Jeffrey Gundlach, co-founder and chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital, said in an interview on CNBC. "I think it’ll break to the upside. If it happens, that will introduce volatility into the market."
He's specifically eyeing a threshold at 2.42%, a level that hasn't been breached since March. The 10-year sits at 2.27% as of 1:14 pm ET on Tuesday, and has tested but not exceeded 2.42% on two separate occasions in the past five months.
"It sounds like you're calling a bond yield-fueled stock market correction," replied interviewer Scott Wapner.
While Gundlach did not repeat the phrase back to Wapner, he simply replied "yes," before diving into his views on the stock market, as well as theCBOE Volatility Index— or VIX — which serves as a fear gauge for theS&P 500.
Gundlach made waves two weeks ago when hepurchased some five-month put optionson the S&P 500, calling it "free money."
He expanded upon the trade and those comments on CNBC, stressing that the investment was less of a bear call on the S&P 500, and more of a bull call on the VIX, which has sunk to record lows in recent weeks. It traded as low as 9.52 on Tuesday.
"With all of the shorting of the VIX that’s out there, I think you could have a big shock higher from offsides positioning," he told CNBC. "When we get whatever correction is coming, the VIX will easily go to 20."
The way he looks at it, stock market volatility is so low right now that the S&P 500 only has to drop 3% by the time the options expire for the trade to be profitable. He thinks that should be enough to spur an outsized VIX move.
"I’ll be surprised if we don’t make 400% on those puts," he said, before trotting out what's quickly becoming his new catch phrase. "Going long the VIX is free money."
NOW WATCH:Stocks have shrugged off Trump headlines to hit new highs this week
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• GoPro surges after cost cuts lead to earnings beat || BANK OF AMERICA: Here's how to make a killing from the next tech boom with 'limited risk': mit team robot helios (Patrick Fallon/Reuters) It's been hard to miss the rally in technology stocks this year. The S&P 500 sector is up about 24% year-to-date, outpacing the broader index's 10% rally. Even stock pickers , whose funds have suffered outflows to more passive strategies since the end of the recession, are having a strong year thanks to bets on stocks like Facebook and Apple . But tech's outperformance has also brought sharp drawdowns. Stock investors are expected to brace for these kinds of swings, but the swings have been worse in the tech sector. That's why Bank of America Merrill Lynch advises investors to bet on the next move higher by using options, which reflect expectations for volatility. "In the last six months alone, tech suffered four daily drawdowns exceeding three standard deviations, the highest number in such a short time span in history," the bank's global equity-derivatives research team said in a note Wednesday. This has raised the sector's realized volatility above the broader market year-to-date, BAML said. Screen Shot 2017 09 06 at 3.40.32 PM (Bank of America Merrill Lynch) That's one sign of how fragile the sector is. Another sign is that several measures of its valuation are at their highest level since the tech bubble in 2000. Also, since so many stock pickers have come to love tech stocks, they make the sector vulnerable to sharp sell-offs when many of them decide to sell at the same time. "Hence investors who want to position for further upside may wish to do so via options to reduce the risk of sharp sell-offs, especially given mounting geopolitical stress and potential debt ceiling/government shutdown risks," Bank of America said. The problem is that tech options are expensive because the sector is more volatile than the rest of the market. The solution, Bank of America said, is to look for the stocks with relatively low option volatility. The table below, for example, shows stocks with three-month at-the-money forward call options implied volatility below the 25th percentile over the past year. Story continues Screen Shot 2017 09 06 at 3.48.26 PM (Bank of America Merrill Lynch) 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 match-ups A pioneer of the VIX says the market is looking at volatility all wrong An ETF is launching that tracks GOP interests — and its ticker is MAGA
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
$3973.27 at 16:30 UTC [24h Range: $3900.00 - $4268.25 Volume: 20919 BTC] || #bitcoin Prices Pass $4,000 for the First Time http://bit.ly/2vuKQKk pic.twitter.com/DrKFCp55S0 || RT @jackfru1t: #bitcoin
$0 - $1000: 1789 days
$1000 - $2000: 1271 days
$2000 - $3000: 23 days
$3000 - $4000: 62 days || Winkdex Bitcoin price changed -0.51% to $3945.71 #bitcoin || 1 BTC Price: BTC-e USD Bitstamp 4437.00 USD Coinbase 4438.99 USD #btc #bitcoin 2017-08-17 09:31 pic.twitter.com/zf8ZyNwksH || Aug 18, 2017 21:30:00 UTC | 4,054.90$ | 3,447.70€ | 3,149.70£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/o2VzM6UXYl || The next big disruption - crypto currencies and banking! Yes, Bitcoin Has No Intrinsic Value. Neither Does a $1 Bill https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-value-neither-does-a-dollar1-bill/amp … || Gana $45,00 Usd Por Afiliar, Quieres ganarte dólares con Bitcoin sin tanto esfuerzo? Es solo de ···» https://goo.gl/Cdo6SQ * #España || 1 BTC Price: BTC-e USD Bitstamp 4243.99 USD Coinbase 4343.00 USD #btc #bitcoin 2017-09-09 00:30 pic.twitter.com/9JjgFTDeyJ || Preço do Bitcoin marca um novo topo histórico https://www.criptomoedasfacil.com/preco-do-bitcoin-marca-um-novo-topo-historico/ …
|
Trend: down || Prices: 4161.27, 4130.81, 3882.59, 3154.95, 3637.52, 3625.04, 3582.88, 4065.20, 3924.97, 3905.95
|
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)]
ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 3, 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 tech 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/604742/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 19, 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/606883/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || Bitcoin Looks Overbought but Analysts Play Down Drop Fears: With bitcoin rising to its highest level in 11 months this week, some investors are beginning to worry that the cryptocurrency is overbought and may be due for notable price drop.
But analysts suggest that’s an overreaction.
• Bitcoin’s price rose to $11,319 on Monday, the highest level since August 2019, according to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index.
• At time of writing, the cryptocurrency is trading near $11,100, representing a 18% gain from lows near $9,400 observed a week ago.
• The sudden rally has pushed the 14-day relative strength index (RSI) above 80.00.
• A measurement of over 70.00 is considered overbought, meaning the bullish move is now overstretched.
• Asim Ahmad, co-chief investment officer at London-based Eterna Capital, said that an above-70 RSI does not necessarily imply an impending major price slide.
• More likely it indicates that the bullish move is overstretched and vulnerable to consolidation or a minor retracement at worst, Ahmad said.
• Lennard Neo, head of research at Stack funds, explained the RSI can stay inflated for longer periods in a strongly trending market, adding that other indicators are showing strong buying momentum.
• The RSI is based on price and remained elevated during the previous bulls runs.
• Bitcoin remained bid and rose 160% in the second quarter of 2019 (above left) despite the RSI printing highs above 70.00 several times during the three-month period.
• A similar pattern was observed during the bull market frenzy of 2017 (above right).
• Back to summer 2020 and the overbought measurement on the RSI may keep the cryptocurrency hovering around $11,000 for some time. Support is seen around $10,500.
• Rotation of money out of the DeFi space and traditional markets and into bitcoin would create momentum for the cryptocurrency, said Neo.
• Prices could rise quickly toward $12,000 in the short-term if the U.S. Federal Reserve signals higher tolerance for inflation. That could yield another sell-off for the greenback and send gold above the $2,000 mark.
• Bitcoin still remains vulnerable to a sell-off in equities, as was seen during the wider markets crash in March, according to Joel Kruger, a currency strategist at LMAX Digital.
Also read:How Real Is Bitcoin’s Rally? 8 Interpretations of Bitcoin’s Massive Surge
• Bitcoin Looks Overbought but Analysts Play Down Drop Fears
• Bitcoin Looks Overbought but Analysts Play Down Drop Fears
• Bitcoin Looks Overbought but Analysts Play Down Drop Fears
• Bitcoin Looks Overbought but Analysts Play Down Drop Fears || Previewing the Economic Showdowns Coming This Fall: From the size of a second round of stimulus to COVID-19 litigation to reshoring, last week previewed some key issues for the months to come.
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:Rage Against the Economic Machine: The Best of the Breakdown July 2020
On this week’s edition of The Breakdown Weekly Recap, NLW argues the big story of the week was actually a set of smaller stories that preview the faultlines and economic debates likely to absorb us in the coming months.
• The Federal Reserve signaling that fiscal stimulus needs to do more
• The beginning of the battles on fiscal stimulus
• The introduction of the “not safe to vote” narrative
• The Big Tech vs. The World fight
• The beginning of coronavirus lawsuits
• Back to school
• Jobless claims getting worse
• Kodak and reshoring
Monday |SPACs 101: A Bubble, the Future or Both?
Tuesday |How Real Is Bitcoin’s Rally? 8 Interpretations of Bitcoin’s Massive Surge
Wednesday |How DeFi Could Disrupt Traditional Finance, Feat. Sergey Nazarov
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for August 3, 2020
Thursday |The Bond Market Is the Truth Teller No One Heeds, Feat. George Goncalves
Friday |What a Professional Trader Thinks of the Fed, Robinhood and Real Estate, Feat. Tony Greer
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.
• Previewing the Economic Showdowns Coming This Fall
• Previewing the Economic Showdowns Coming This Fall || Twitter orders politicians, journalists to fortify passwords before election: Twitter will require certain political candidates, elected officials and journalists to beef up their passwords, the company said Thursday, in an effort to head off any more breaches of high-profile accounts as the 2020 election draws near. The change comes two months after an embarrassing cyberattack in which hackers exploited Twitter employees' credentials to wrest control of dozens of accounts, including those of former President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The steps announced Thursday would not have prevented that hack but could foil less sophisticated exploits. The new rules : Accounts deemed to have weak passwords will be compelled to make them stronger, and those users must now verify their phone number or email address before making password changes. The social media company will also encourage, but not force, high-profile users to implement two-factor authentication, a security measure that requires them to input a unique code in addition to their password. Who must follow the rules : The new rules will apply to presidential campaigns, political parties and certain political candidates, as well as members of the executive branch and Congress. Governors and secretaries of state must also adopt tougher security measures, as do major U.S. news outlets and political journalists, Twitter said. Those who must adhere to the new rules will receive an in-app notification, but other users can opt to take the same precautions, the company said. About that big breach : Twitter revealed after the massive breach on July 15 that hackers had not gained access to users' passwords, so the changes outlined Thursday would not have kept those accounts safe. But less-sophisticated breaches often involve obtaining a user's password. Instead, the hackers deceived Twitter employees whose job gives them access to high-profile accounts, Twitter disclosed in late July. Prosecutors have since charged a Florida teenager with masterminding the attack and adults in Florida and the United Kingdom with taking part in the scheme, in which the seized accounts sent out tweets asking their followers to send Bitcoin payments to a mysterious address. Story continues The attack targeted 130 Twitter accounts, tweeted from 45 of them, accessed the direct messages of 36 and downloaded data from seven accounts, Twitter has said. "This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems," Twitter said. As a result, Twitter temporarily restricted employee access to its internal controls. What's next : Twitter said Thursday it plans to instill security safeguards internally that help the company more quickly detect and respond to suspicious activity, as well as make it more difficult to maliciously takeover an account. The company called those moves "a critical preventative step." || Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Stays Near The 20 EMA: Silvercontinues to trade near the 20 EMA at $26.70 as the U.S. dollar remains mostly flat against a broad basket of currencies.
U.S. Dollar Index is once again trying to settle above the key 93 level. Today, the U.S. financial markets are closed due to Labor Day holiday, so trading dynamics of the American currency may be muted.
However, if the U.S. Dollar Index manages to gain upside momentum above the 93 level, silver may find itself under significant pressure.
Meanwhile,goldremains below the 20 EMA at $1945. In the recent trading sessions, the 20 EMA served as a significant resistance level for gold. In case gold fails to get above the 20 EMA in the upcoming trading sessions, it will likely gain more downside momentum which will be bearish for silver.
Gold/silver ratio continues to trade in a range between 71 and 73. Gold/silver ratio has been in this range since mid-August and made a single attempt to move out of the range when it tested the support at 69.50. If gold/silver ratio continues its previous downside trend, silver will have good chances to test the nearest resistance level at $27.75.
Silver is currently trying to find support near the key 20 EMA level. In case silver manages to stay above the 20 EMA, it will gain more upside momentum and head towards the test of the next resistance level at $27.75.
Silver’s RSI is in the moderate territory so there is plenty of room to gain more momentum in case the right catalysts emerge.
If silver moves above the resistance at $27.75, it will head towards the next resistance at $28.50.
On the support side, a move below the 20 EMA will be very problematic for silver bulls at it will indicate that silver lost its upside momentum. The next support level for silver is located at $26.20.
If silver manages to settle below the support at $26.20, it will gain more downside momentum and decline towards the next support level at $24.95.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Stays Near The 20 EMA
• Weekly Recap: Bitcoin and Ethereum Incur Significant Losses
• EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Pulls Back Slightly
• Expectations Running High Ahead Of Peloton Earnings
• Silver Price Forecast – Silver Gapped Higher to Kick Off the Week
• Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Quiet on Labor Day || Bitcoin’s Jump to $10.7K Ends 10-Day Sideways Trend: Bitcoin advanced on Monday, ending a 10-day-long price consolidation, as the U.S. dollar weakened against gold and fiat currencies.
• The number one cryptocurrency by market value printed a high of $10,691 at 14:05 UTC, the highest level since Sept. 4, according to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index.
• The bulls finally led the price action, having shown little interest in the preceding 10 days when the cryptocurrency was stuck in a narrow range of $10,000 to $10,500.
• On-chain metricskept improving despite the price pullback from $12,000 to $10,00 earlier this month. Many expected a breakout.
• While bitcoin gained over 3%, gold, a classic haven asset, rose 1% to $1,960 per ounce, according to data sourceTradingView.
• The 60-day correlation between bitcoin and gold recently rose to a record high above 0.5. Correlations move between 0 to 1.
• Correlations whose magnitude are between 0.5 and 0.7 indicate the two assets are moderately positively correlated. Above 0.7 means a strong positive correlation, meaning the two assets are moving in tandem.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index, which gauges the greenback’s value against a basket of major currencies, fell by 0.4%.
• Bitcoin has evolved as a macro asset since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March and has increasingly taken cues from the action in the forex markets and gold in Q3 2020.
Also read: Against the Odds, Some Bitcoin Traders Are Bettingon a $36K Priceby Year’s End
• Bitcoin’s Jump to $10.7K Ends 10-Day Sideways Trend
• Bitcoin’s Jump to $10.7K Ends 10-Day Sideways Trend
• Bitcoin’s Jump to $10.7K Ends 10-Day Sideways Trend
• Bitcoin’s Jump to $10.7K Ends 10-Day Sideways Trend || Total Value on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Sets Another Record High Amid Market Rally: Bitcoin’sLightning Networkset a record high Monday as total capacity held in the protocol’s payment channels – sometimes referred to as “total value locked” (TVL) – reached $12.4 million.
• Two weeks ago, Lightning set the prior high of $12.37 million, surpassing the long-standing previous mark of $12.3 million that was reached in early July 2019 and lasted for 405 days.
• Bitcoin’sprice appreciation has certainly helped boost Lightning’s TVL as the bellwether cryptocurrency has gained more than 30% since July.
• The total number of bitcoins held on Lightning sits at 1,060, up 24% so far this year, but still remains below the record high of 1,105 BTC set in early May 2019.
• Compared with the tens of millions of dollars pouring into Ethereum and related protocols because of thedecentralized finance craze, Lightning’s growth may seem slow, but a variety of data underscores the network’s steady increase in activity.
• The number of publicly broadcasting nodes, for example, has steadily increased throughout the entire lifetime of the protocol. Currently more than 7,600 nodes are connected to payment channels, up 55% from January.
• In August, Lightning’s node count grew 26%, adding 1,581 nodes, representing the largest monthly percentage growth since April 2018 and the largest real monthly growth ever.
• Lightning Labs, the company building the most popular implementation of Lightning, LND, further quantified the network’s growth in atweetshared earlier in August. Over 70 companies are currently building on LND, the company said.
Read more:Ready to Wumbo: LND Enables More, Larger Bitcoin Transactions on Lightning
• Total Value on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Sets Another Record High Amid Market Rally
• Total Value on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Sets Another Record High Amid Market Rally
• Total Value on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Sets Another Record High Amid Market Rally
• Total Value on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Sets Another Record High Amid Market Rally || Crypto ETPs provider 21Shares crosses $100 million AUM for the first time: 21Shares (formerly Amun), a crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) provider, has crossed $100 million assets under management (AUM) mark for the first time.
Revealing the news to The Block on Monday, 21Shares said its products are seeing increasing demand from retail and institutional investors across Europe. 21Shares currently provides 11 ETPs, which are listed across Switzerland exchanges SIX and BX Swiss, as well as German exchange Deutsche Börse Xetra.
Out of the 11 ETPs, BNB (Binance coin) product is the most popular, crossing $25 million AUM, according to data provided by 21Shares to The Block. Tezos (XTZ) and bitcoin (BTC) ETPs follow next, with over $20 million and $19 million AUM, respectively.
Source: 21SharesHany Rashwan, CEO of 21Shares, said the firm is now focused on achieving the AUM of $1 billion.
21Shares rivals Grayscale and CoinShares' XBT Provider both already manage assets of over $1 billion. Grayscale remains the market leader and currently has AUM ofover $5.9 billion. XBT Provider has justcrossedAUM of over $1 billion.
© 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. || Ebang International Holdings Inc. Reports Unaudited Financial Results for The First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2020: HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ebang International Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: EBON, the “Company,” “we” or “our”), a leading application-specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”) chip design company and a leading manufacturer of high-performance Bitcoin mining machines, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first six months of fiscal year 2020.
Operational and Financial Highlights for the First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2020
Total computing power soldin the first six months of 2020 was 0.25 million Thash/s, representing a year-over-year decrease of 86.02% from 1.82 million Thash/s in the same period of 2019.
Total net revenuesin the first six months of 2020 were US$11.04 million, representing a 50.60% year-over-year decrease from US$22.35 million in the same period of 2019.
Gross lossin the first six months of 2020 was US$0.97 million, representing a 94.59% year-over-year decrease from US$17.87 million in the same period of 2019.
Net lossin the first six months of 2020 was US$6.96 million compared to US$19.07 million in the same period of 2019.Mr. Dong Hu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, commented, “The outbreak of the COVID-19 has significantly affected business and manufacturing activities worldwide. Measures to contain COVID-19, such as travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines and suspension of business activities have caused severe disruptions and uncertainties to our business operations and adversely affected our results of operations and financial condition. Our chip suppliers have reduced their production capacity due to the impact of the COVID-19, resulting in our shortage of raw materials during the first six months of 2020. Faced with the turbulent social and industrial environment, we have taken timely and proactive measures to ensure the resilience of our business operations and allow us to deliver solid performance after the market condition resumes normal. In light of this, our management has been actively optimizing our revenue structure based on the productivity ratio and strategically exploring expansion into blockchain-enabled financial services.”
Mr. Hu continued, “With the preparatory work we have initiated in Singapore and Canada, we are at an initial preparatory stage of executing our plan to launch blockchain-enabled financial business by establishing cryptocurrency exchange(s) and online brokerage(s) and by combining the blockchain-enabled financial businesses with the traditional ones to capture the entire value chain of the blockchain industry. Marching into these new fields, we are staying true to our mission in strengthening the technological innovation in our products and services to ensure their competitiveness in the market.”
Unaudited Financial Results for the First Six Months of Fiscal Year 2020
Total net revenuesin the first six months of 2020 were US$11.04 million, representing a 50.60% year-over-year decrease from US$22.35 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in total net revenues were mainly due to the combined impact of COVID-19 and Bitcoin halving event, which significantly affect the expected returns on Bitcoin related activities such as mining, and in turn resulted in a much lower demand and average selling price of our Bitcoin mining machines.
Cost of revenuesin the first six months of 2020 was US$12.01 million compared to US$40.21 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in cost of revenues were in line with the changes in the Company’s sales and the decrease in inventory write-down.
Gross lossin the first six months of 2020 was US$0.97 million, representing a 94.59% year-over-year decrease from US$17.87 million in the same period of 2019.
Total operating expensesin the first six months of 2020 were US$7.71 million compared to US$9.60 million in the same period of 2019.
• Selling expensesin the first six months of 2020 were US$0.45 million compared to US$0.49 in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in selling expenses was mainly caused by reduced salary and bonus expenses relating to selling activities.
• General and administrative expensesin the first six months of 2020 were US$7.26 million compared to US$9.10 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in general and administrative expenses was mainly caused by a decrease in research and development expenses due to decreased purchase in materials used for research and development purposes in the six months ended June 30, 2020 compared to the same period of 2019.
Loss from operationsin the first six months of 2020 was US$8.68 million compared to US$27.47 million in the same period of 2019.
Other incomein the first six months of 2020 was US$0.02 million compared to US$0.03 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in other income was mainly caused by the decrease in investment income from wealth management products purchased from the banks in the six months ended June 30, 2020.
Government grantsin the first six months of 2020 were US$2.54 million compared to US$6.18 million in the same period of 2019. The year-over-year decrease in government grants was mainly caused by the decrease of tax rewards from government.
Net lossin the first six months of 2020 was US$6.96 million compared to US$19.07 million in the same period of 2019.
Net loss attributable to Ebang International Holdings Inc.in the first six months of 2020 was US$6.21 million compared to US$18.11 million in the same period of 2019.
Basic and diluted net loss per sharesin the first six months of 2020 were both US$0.06 compared to US$0.16 in the same period of 2019.
About Ebang International Holdings Inc.
Ebang International Holdings Inc. is a leading application-specific integrated circuit ASIC chip design company and a leading manufacturer of high-performance Bitcoin mining machines. The Company has strong ASIC chip design capability underpinned by nearly a decade of industry experience and expertise in the telecommunications business. The Company is one of the few fabless integrated circuit design companies with the advanced technology to independently design ASIC chips, established access to third-party wafer foundry capacity and a proven in-house capability to produce blockchain products*. The Company was also a leading Bitcoin mining machine producer in the global market in terms of computing power sold in 2019*. For more information, please visit https://ir.ebang.com.cn/.
[]
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the Company’s development plans and business outlook, which can be identified by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “aims,” “potential,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” “continue,” “likely to” and other similar expressions. Such statements are not historical facts, and are based upon the Company’s current beliefs, plans and expectations, and the current market and operating conditions. Forward-looking statements involve inherent known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the Company’s control, which may cause the Company’s actual results, performance and achievements to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.
Investor Relations Contact
For investor and media inquiries, please contact:
Ebang International Holdings Inc.Email: ir@ebang.com.cn
Ascent Investor Relations LLCMs. Tina XiaoTel: (917) 609-0333Email: tina.xiao@ascent-ir.com
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: down || Prices: 10775.27, 10709.65, 10844.64, 10784.49, 10619.45, 10575.97, 10549.33, 10669.58, 10793.34, 10604.41
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Tim Draper Stands Up for Bitcoin Amid Elon Musk U-Turn: Tim Draper has issued a belated response to Elon Musk’s decision to withdraw Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment option at Tesla. The global investor and billionaire, who has founded a number of enterprises including venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), riposted Elon Musk’s environmental standpoint on BTC, by referring to the energy and carbon dioxide implications of the current banking system. Taking to Twitter, he suggested that Musk should not accept fiat currencies for cars instead. Elon Musk announced on May 12 that his company Tesla had suspended vehicle purchases in BTC. In a statement that he tweeted, he made it clear that while cryptocurrency is “a good idea on so many levels,” and that the future is promising, the future “cannot come at great cost to the environment.” He referred to the fossil fuel emissions involved in Bitcoin mining. The tweet, which was the first in a thread, also emphasized that Tesla intends to retain its BTC and will use it in transactions in future, once mining is a more sustainable energy source. The tech mogul clarified a day later, to reiterate how much he believes in crypto. However, his stance has been attributed to the recent decline in BTC’s price. According to data , BTC has been on a steady slope since May 14, falling below the $50,000 threshold. It has struggled to surpass that threshold again since the morning of May 15. The Elon Musk effect on crypto This, in turn, is yet another example of Elon Musk’s influence, or the so-called “Musk Effect”. Over the last few weeks, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has become notorious for affecting cryptocurrency prices with his social media activity. Most notably, the performance of Dogecoin (DOGE). His tweets have previously impacted the surge in price of DOGE, which has climbed near 20,000% this year. After a string of all-time h i ghs , DOGE finally had something of a fall from grace. Musk’s appearance as host of Saturday Night Live on May 8 triggered a sell-off that caused the price to crash from $0.66 to $0.50 in the space of 45 minutes. It continued to decline throughout the day, but has since regained some of its position. At time of writing, data indicated that DOGE remains firmly above the $0.50 threshold. Story continues BTC advocates voice their support Draper is the latest high-profile figure to voice support for the world’s largest cryptocurrency. While BTC’s performance is hardly at its best at the moment, it is regarded as “the apex predator” of digital currencies by financier and investment advisor Anthony Scaramucci. The SkyBridge Capital founder said he advises his clients to own 1-3% in BTC to avoid missing out. Meanwhile financial services company Square also took a stance on BTC in light of Musk’s decision. They indicated their stance was more in line with Tesla; that they will not buy any more BTC until the fossil fuel emission issue is addressed. That said, Square execs remain supporters of BTC. Co-founder Jack Dorsey stated on Twitter that Square “will forever work to make bitcoin better”. || Ingersoll (IR) Sells Majority Stake in High Pressure Solutions: Ingersoll Rand Inc. IR announced that it completed the sale of the majority stake of its High Pressure Solutions segment. The other party to the transaction was American Industrial Partners and the divestment value was fixed at $300 million. The divestment agreement was signed by the parties on Feb 16, 2021. It is worth mentioning here that Ingersoll’s shares gained 0.8% on Apr 1, ending the trading session at $49.61. Private equity firm, American Industrial invests in industrial businesses that are actively serving the U.S. and international markets. Notably, this New York-based firm is managing assets worth more than $7 billion for many of its clients (including financial, pension and endowment institutions). Inside the Headlines Ingersoll’s High Pressure Solutions segment comprises the Petroleum and Industrial Pump business of Gardner Denver. Its pumps, fluid ends and consumables are primarily used for oil and gas development activities. The segment accounted for 3% of Ingersoll’s net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2020. As part of the agreement between the parties, Ingersoll will retain 45% common equity interest in the divested business. The stake sale has helped Ingersoll to reduce its exposure to the upstream oil & gas market. Revenues sourced from this end now will be less than 2% for the company. On the other hand, the company now stands to focus on its higher-growth markets like life sciences, renewable energy and water. In the first quarter of 2021, the High Pressure Solutions segment’s result will be considered as discontinued operations. Equity method earnings will be used for the segment, going forward. For 2021, Ingersoll anticipates year-over-year revenue growth in the high-single-digit and low-double-digit range. The impact of the High Pressure Solutions segment is not considered in the yearly projections. Ingersoll’s Inorganic Activities In addition to the above-mentioned stake sale, Ingersoll acquired Springfield, MO-based Tuthill Vacuum and Blower Systems so far in 2021. The transaction value was fixed at $184 million in cash. As noted, the addition of Tuthill Vacuum and Blower Systems to Ingersoll’s portfolio is anticipated to strengthen the latter’s existing vacuum and blowers product offerings as well as enhance technical capabilities. Further, Tuthill Vacuum and Blower Systems’ presence in multiple end markets, especially those in the Americas, and the employee base will likely prove to be boons for Ingersoll. The acquired assets are now part of Ingersoll’s Industrial Technologies and Services segment. Story continues Zacks Rank, Price Performance and Estimate Trend With a market capitalization of $20.8 billion, the company currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Solid product offerings, zeal to innovate and synergistic gains from acquired assets are likely to aid the company in the quarters ahead. However, issues with international exposure and high costs might be concerning. In the past three months, the company’s stock has gained 6.3% compared with the industry’s growth of 83.8%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Ingersoll’s earnings is pegged at $1.86 for 2021 and $2.15 for 2022, reflecting growth of 2.8% and 0.5% from the 60-day-ago figures. Also, the estimate for first-quarter 2021 earnings at 35 cents reflects growth of 2.9% from the 60-day-ago figure of 39 cents. Ingersoll Rand Inc. Price and Consensus Ingersoll Rand Inc. Price and Consensus Ingersoll Rand Inc. price-consensus-chart | Ingersoll Rand Inc. Quote Stocks to Consider Three better-ranked stocks in the industry are Chart Industries, Inc. GTLS, EnPro Industries, Inc. NPO and Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. AIT. While Chart Industries and EnPro currently sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Applied Industrial carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here . In the past 60 days, earnings estimates for these companies have improved for the current year. Further, earnings surprise for the last reported quarter was 58.75% for Chart Industries, 143.14% for EnPro and 28.95% for Applied Industrial. 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 Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. (AIT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Chart Industries, Inc. (GTLS) : Free Stock Analysis Report Ingersoll Rand Inc. (IR) : Free Stock Analysis Report EnPro Industries (NPO) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Crypto: Bitcoin and ethereum sink as dogecoin rallies on 'doge day': undefined It is unclear exactly why supporters have decided 20 April, which is also International Weed Day, will be celebrated as ‘doge day’. Photo: Getty Images (Yuriko Nakao via Getty Images) Bitcoin and ethereum on Tuesday extended price declines that began last week, while Dogecoin maintained its rally on what supporters have dubbed ‘DogeDay’. Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) was down 4.6% to trade at $54,763.19 (£39,152.67) by 9.20am in London. Ethereum ( ETH-USD ), the second largest cryptocurrency, was down around 5.3% to trade at $2,134.7. Both cryptocurrencies have come under selling pressure in the wake of Coinbase's ( COIN ) hotly anticipated IPO. Last week, Coinbase became the first major crypto firm to list on the Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ). Bitcoin's price neared $65,000 ahead of the listing but has sold-off sharply since the debut. Over the weekend, alarm bells sounded in crypto markets amid reports that the US Treasury was planning to censure financial institutions for money laundering carried out through digital assets. Regulatory action in Turkey has also hit sentiment. Watch: What is bitcoin? READ MORE: Bitcoin price drops after Turkey bans cryptocurrency payments Dogecoin ( DOGE-USD ), meanwhile, was up 18% to $0.4075 on Tuesday. The surge coincided with a flurry of social media attention around what fans of the cryptocurrency have called 'DogeDay'. It is unclear exactly why supporters have decided 20 April, which is also International Weed Day, will be celebrated as ‘DogeDay’, but posts on sites like Twitter and Reddit are urging fans to buy up the joke token and push its price up to $1. Credit could go to Slim Jim, a report in Fortune explained. "The packaged meat product latched on to Dogecoin-mania on its Twitter account last Wednesday (saying 'RT to send Doge to the moon!!'—the rallying cry among the r/WallStreetBets crowd for GameStop stock). The cry worked. Doge fans—and even other brands—jumped on the bandwagon quickly," the publication said. Dogecoin has soared more than 400% in the past week and by more than 5,000% since the start of the year. The rally has made the joke token the fifth most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalisation. The total value of tokens in circulation is now over $52bn. Story continues Dogecoin's wild ride: The cryptocurrency has surged in value since the start of the year. Photo: Yahoo Finance UK (Yahoo Finance UK) Nigel Green, CEO of financial advisory organisation deVere Group, said: "Dogecoin has become the new GameStop, with frenzied trading potentially going to deliver a bloody nose to novice investors. “This week, since Reddit lifted its ban on the discussion of three cryptocurrencies... activist investors and also some celebrity investors on social media have been urging others to invest their cash into Dogecoin – their new pet populist bandwagon. “In the same way that the GameStop frenzy was pitched as a battle-play of ‘Wall Street versus The Little Guy’, Dogecoin is being pitched as a battle-play against the well-established crypto giants like bitcoin." READ MORE: FTSE dips as UK unemployment unexpectedly falls Watch: What are the risks of investing in cryptocurrency? || 3 Stocks to Watch as Streaming Services Grow in Popularity: Video streaming services witnessed unprecedented growth in the number of subscribers over the past year, thanks to the pandemic that kept people at home who had not much to do in their spare time but to binge on films and web series. Video streaming services have been giving cable and traditional television stiff competition for some time now.
The pandemic further intensified the rivalry as it also coincided with the lunch of a number of new video streaming services. According to Fortune Business Insights, the video streaming market is projected to surpass $800 billion by 2027.
As most people were left with no option for entertainment following the COVID-19 outbreak and the lockdowns thereafter, they took to watching videos online. This saw subscribers increasing by leaps and bounds. According to a report in Variety, the combined user numbers of leading video streaming services grew more than 50% year over year in 2020.
Interestingly, a couple of video streaming services were launched just months before the pandemic broke out and following that a few more services were launched. Interestingly, almost all the service providers gained during this period in the number of subscribers, which eventually helped to boost their revenues.
According to Deloitte's 15th annual Digital Media Trends, today 82% of consumers subscribe to at least one or more paid video streaming services. The churn rate for video streaming services between October 2020 and February 2021 is hovering around approximately 37%.
Pay TV has been suffering at the hand of streaming services for quite some time. In fact, according to a Bloomberg report, The Walt Disney Company, Inc. DIS plans to shut down 100 of its international TV channels by the end of 2021 as it plans to focus more on its streaming services like Disney+.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global video streaming market share will witness a CAGR of 12% and hit $842.93 billion by 2027. The video streaming market stood at $342.44 billion in 2019.
Moreover, many media companies that have been waiting for theater releases are premiering on OTT platforms, which have further been helping the streaming industry.
Streaming services have been on a high ever since the coronavirus outbreak. With not too many entertainment options left open till now, they are likely to benefit in the coming months too. This thus makes an opportune time to invest in video streaming stocks.
Apple, Inc.AAPL launched its streaming services last year and has gained immense popularity since then. The company reportedly has more than 30 million TV subscribers.
The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 55.5%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has improved 13.8% over the past 60 days. Apple has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Netflix, Inc.NFLX is considered a pioneer in the streaming space. It has been spending aggressively on building its original show portfolio. The company added more than 3.98 million paid subscribers in the first quarter of 2021 for a total of 207.64 million globally.
The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 71.7%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has improved 6.4% over the past 60 days. The company currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Amazon.com, Inc.AMZN ,besides being an e-commerce giant, offers several other services. Amazon Prime, a membership program, provides access to streaming of movies and TV episodes among other services, and is one of the market leaders in the streaming space.
The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 34.5%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has improved 13.3% over the past 60 days. Amazon carries a Zacks Rank #3.
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 reportAmazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis ReportApple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportThe Walt Disney Company (DIS) : Free Stock Analysis ReportNetflix, Inc. (NFLX) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || BitMart Listings: Rooting in Community and Building Triple-Win Relationship: New York, NY, May 20, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire ) Not many investors would have predicted that cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, or the recent superstar DOGE could surge to records like nowadays. With enthusiasts enjoying the game and mainstream players start shifting their attention, the crypto industry is fully blooming, but the competition just started. As a premier global digital assets trading platform, BitMart has quickly gained a solid reputation and strong competitiveness by serving the most satisfactory service for both our users and clients. At present, BitMart has included over 400 digital assets among the most popular categories in the crypto market. With more than 440 trading pairs, BitMart users can always pick their favorites in Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Polkadot Ecosystem, Yield Farming, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), Storage, and so on. As meme currencies are popping up everywhere, BitMart is one of the first batch exchanges to list trending meme coins, for example, SHIB, with the highest ROI exceeding 1244.89%. The accomplishment is no coincidence but deeply rooted in BitMarts dedication to bringing our users the latest projects and assets with high qualities and potentials. To achieve this, BitMart has been adhered to a sturdy process to seek exceptional projects. BitMart Photo Available Fundamentals are Key to Succes s First, we conduct a far-reaching due diligence and code review for every project to assess its fundamentals, including the token economy, technology infrastructure, product application, financing situation, teams background, and user base. BitMart values projects with constant and steady progress before and after the listing. We believe that a proven team with a sustainable business model can build long-term benefits for our community. Something Beyond the Project Itself Besides these essentials, BitMart also focuses on vital factors beyond the project itself. We insist that a substantial project should have a robust ecosystem matched with an energetic community and a resourceful marketing team. Moreover, the projects capability to manage the liquidity and maintain a smooth trading experience with a small spread and great depth is even more crucial in its success after the listing. Story continues Compliance is the Bottom Line Last but not least, BitMart always cherishes its compliance status. Therefore, only tokens with obvious utility functions or features that do not conform with securities law requirements will be listed. In addition, tokens with law violations or under law enforcement scrutiny are not eligible for listing on BitMart. Tips from BitMart CEO I have three primary considerations when rating projects: 1. First is the fundamental technology, the underlying protocol, and the core algorithm technology. 2. I appreciate some public chain-based applications in the specific industry. 3. Some blockchain services which can form a digital services ecosystem, such as media, eCommerce, integrals, etc., will catch my attention, commented Sheldon Xia, Founder and CEO at BitMart. With the profound analysis and complete review of each project, BitMart offers its community some of the best coins in the market. At the same time, with the long-standing support and all-life cycle management for project teams, BitMart offers the clients sustainable development. The win-win-win pattern lies in the core of BitMarts business strategy and will always be BitMarts core competitiveness to bring refreshing experience to our community and clients. BitMart believes the determination and efforts to find the right project are critical for its long-term success as a premier global exchange during the crypto industrys explosion. Finding the next best listing is also what BitMart constantly makes efforts in. Contact us now at service@bitmart.com and build a future together with BitMart! About BitMart BitMart Exchange is a premier global digital assets trading platform with over 5.5 million users worldwide and ranked among the top crypto exchanges on CoinGecko . . BitMart currently offers 440+ trading pairs with one of the lowest trading fees in the market. To learn more about BitMart, visit their website , follow their Twitter , or join their Telegram for more updated news and promotions. Download BitMart App to trade anytime, anywhere. Contact: Daisy Zhang Content Marketing Specialist BitMart Exchange daisy.zhang@bitmart.com https://www.bitmart.com || British Banks Crack Down on Crypto Transfers Amid Financial Crime Fears: Leading banks such as Barclays have all blocked their customers from transferring funds to cryptocurrency exchanges. Online challengers like Monzo and Starling have joined them. According to reports , the British institutions are stopping payments to the crypto sector amid fears of the financial crime opportunities it could present. People in the UK have lost over £60 million in the last year in social media investment fraud scams. Reports indicate that nearly half of those scams involved cryptocurrency. Recently, Barclays, Monzo and Starling customers have been unable to transfer funds to popular platforms like Binance and SwissBorg. Representatives at Starling have stated the measure is temporary, put in place for the protection of their customers. They also said they would reverse the measure once they can introduce additional checks for transfers to crypto exchanges. British crypto skepticism continues The UK banks move comes amid continuing skepticism from the country about cryptocurrencies. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, for one, has referred to them as dangerous. His cynical stance on crypto goes back as far as, at least, March 2020. When he advised anyone holding bitcoin (BTC) should be prepared to lose all [their] money. Meanwhile, the financial lobbyist TheCityUK has called for more consumer protection as the number of people owning crypto increases. They recorded that more than 10 million people in the UK have owned digital assets in 2021 so far. A 558% increase from the figure recorded in 2018. Furthermore, TheCityUK stated that firms that market digital assets to their customers should be both authorized and regulated. Warnings from other banks British institutions are not the only ones taking action against cryptocurrency transactions. On May 29, reports revealed that a bank and a card service provider in India issued warnings to its customers regarding crypto-based activities. Story continues Emails from HDFC Bank, the leading private sector bank in India, cited 2018 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines. More specifically stating that virtual currency transactions were prohibited. It also instructed those suspected of probable virtual currency transactions to report to their nearest HDFC branch. They threatened to restrict all transactions without further notice if customers did not clarify the nature of their transactions. Card services provider SBI Card also issued a similar warning email to its customers. Users were quick to point out that the Indian Supreme Court overturned the RBI banking ban in 2020. As such, the HDFC were citing outdated guidelines. || US Officials Arrest Alleged Operator of $336M Bitcoin Mixing Service: Bitcoin was up Tuesday despite lower-than-average spot volumes. Meanwhile, ether’s price hits record high and the cyrpto’s dominance is back at February levels.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $54,840 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 1.4% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $52,722-$55,261 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC near the 10-hour and well above the 50-hour moving average on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.
The price of bitcoin climbed as high as $55,261 around 17:00 GMT (12 PM ET) before settling to $54,840 as of press time.
It’s possible the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization could be headed higher.
Related:US Officials Arrest Alleged Operator of $336M Bitcoin Mixing Service
“A test of the $56,000 mark will soon follow, then will most likely roll back,” said Constantine Kogan, a partner at investment firm Wave Financial.
According to CoinDesk 20 data, bitcoin was last at $56,000 on April 20, when it declined from the all-time high price of $64,829 reached April 14.
The rise this week comes after bitcoin’s price went as low as $47,272 on Sunday.
Stefan Coolican, chief financial officer for investment firm Ether Capital, says dumps and recoveries are just part of the crypto market. “I think the weekend sell-off was overdone, personally, so a bounce back makes sense,” Coolican said.
Related:Square Adds Bitcoin Policy Lead From US Chamber of Commerce
Spot bitcoin exchange volumes for Tuesday were around $2.6 billion as of press time, compared with the past three months’ average of $5.1 billion of BTC changing hands daily.
It’s possible larger players are the ones in the market this week, with retail and new investors remaining cautious because of crypto’s notorious gyration. This caused lower volumes Tuesday.
“Bitcoin is an information-asymmetry environment,” Wave’s Kogan said. “A small number in the community are aware of impending price changes, and only a small number of global venues are able to manage these large trades.”
Despite the volume doldrums, a positive news cycle is affecting bitcoin’s price, Kogan said.
“JPMorgan is preparing to launch anactively managed bitcoin fundfor high-net-worth clients,” Kogan said. “Teslaannounced the saleof part of [its] bitcoins and profit taking, which is also positive. This helps the bullish trend. ”
Read More:Bitcoin Options Market Eyes $4.2B in Expiries on Friday
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH), was up Tuesday, trading around $2,631 and climbing 5.2% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Ether rose Tuesday to a record high price near $2,700 after a powerful three-day rally.
The price of ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, climbed as high as $2,683.30 around 16:00 UTC (12 p.m. ET), based on CoinDesk data.
The new high came after three straight daily gains totaling 19%. The move extended the cryptocurrency’s stunning rally this year. Ether’s price has tripled thus far in 2021, in part thanks to trader enthusiasm over growth indecentralized finance(DeFi) and non-fungible tokens, both of which use the Ethereum blockchain. Bitcoin (BTC), by comparison, is up 89% this year.
“Ether has picked up its head and looks poised for a few more days of outperformance,” said Katie Stockton, a technical analyst for the consulting firm Fairlead Strategies.
Technical progress on Ethereum may be enticing investors to buy, said Ether Capital’s Coolican.
“It’s just more people understanding the value [proposition] of Ethereum and the token accrual model with proof-of-stake and EIP 1559,” Coolican told CoinDesk. Proof-of-stake is the more efficient form of consensus for cryptocurrency networks to which Ethereum is upgrading, and EIP 1559 is a development proposal expected to reduce fees on the network.
Read More:Bitmain to Release Antminer E9 ASIC for Ethereum Mining
On a day when all major assets on the CoinDesk 20 were up, the meme-centric cryptocurrencydogecoin(DOGE) was struggling to stay in the green.
Wave Financial’s Kogan says interest in DOGEwaxes and wanesat its own rhythm.“They are good in memes creation, I give them that. But I’m very skeptical about this Doge mania,” he told CoinDesk. “It may end up badly, with retail investors losing a lot of money. Or, better to say, when it will happen.”
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are all green Tuesday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• nucypher(NU) + 23.7%
• yearn finance(YFI) + 8.7%
• uniswap(UNI) + 8.3%
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 index closed in the red 0.46% asexpectations from traders on corporate earnings fell flat.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 ended the day slipping 0.26%, withinvestors exhibiting some anxiety ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting that started Tuesday.
• The U.S. S&P 500 index was flat, in the red just 0.02%, astraders took a wait-and-see approach ahead of major earnings reports coming after Tuesday’s close.
Read More:Elon Musk’s Tesla Sold Bitcoin in Q1 for Proceeds of $272M
Commodities:
• Oil was up 2%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $63.19.
• Gold was in the red 0.27% and at $1,776 as of press time.
• Silver is gaining, up 0.33% and changing hands at $26.27.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Tuesday to 1.623 and in the green 3.51%.
• Turkish Government Plans Central Custodian Bank to Manage Crypto Risk: Report
• Polygon’s Ethereum Scaling Project Is Never Complete: Sandeep Nailwal || Musk tweets, dogecoin leaps and bitcoin retreats: By Tom Wilson and Tom Westbrook LONDON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Bitcoin was heading on Friday for its worst week since February, while dogecoin leapt by a quarter, as the latest tweets on cryptocurrencies from Tesla boss Elon Musk sent the digital coins on a wild ride. Bitcoin is down about 13% this week, and was last up 1.6% at $50,503. It has slumped over a fifth from its record of just under $65,000 hit last month. Cryptocurrency markets have gyrated to Musk tweets for months, with his comments on dogecoin - a token started as a joke that has scant practical use - fuelling a hundred-fold rally this year. Musk knocked bitcoin this week after tweeting that Tesla would stop accepting it for payment owing to environmental concerns. "Toppy markets (are) looking for an excuse to breathe," said Ben Sebley of crypto firm BCB Group. "Long money doesn't care about Elon's tweets. Fast money trades around that stuff now." $68 BILLION MARKET CAP Dogecoin has climbed about 25% after Musk's latest tweet, according to CoinGecko, and was last at $0.52, down from its record $0.73 hit last week. "Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising," Musk wrote on Thursday. He called it a "hustle" last week, knocking its price. It was unclear if Musk was referring to efficiency in terms of energy, ease of use or suitability as a currency, said Mark Humphery-Jenner, associate professor of finance at the University of New South Wales. Dogecoin consumes 0.12 kilowatt hours of electricity per transaction compared with 707 for bitcoin, according to data centre provider TRG. The token, whose logo features a Shiba Inu dog, has surged this year to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency with a total value of $68 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. Few major companies accept Dogecoin for payment, and its supply is unlimited. In contrast, bitcoin's gains this year have been fuelled by growing mainstream adoption for payment, as well as a store of value given its limited supply. "Dogecoin remains a lesson in greater fool theory," said David Kimberley, analyst at investing app Freetrade, which posits that buying overpriced assets can be profitable, so long as there is a "greater fool" to buy them. (Reporting by Tom Wilson in London and Tom Westbrook in Singapore Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in San FranciscoEditing by Tom Hogue, Shri Navaratnam and Frances Kerry) || Watch this space: Volatility is bitcoin's main attraction: Raoul Pal: By Divya Chowdhury (Reuters) - Bitcoin's volatility is its main attraction as that is what gives the cryptocurrency its exponential rises, ex-Goldman Sachs bitcoin enthusiast Raoul Pal said. "People have to learn to adapt to an asset that is that volatile... it has such a big upside risk-reward skew," Pal, founder and CEO of Real Vision, told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on Wednesday. The Cayman Islands-based former hedge fund manager said he had a diversified crypto assets portfolio to cover exchanges, decentralised finance (DeFi) and community tokens. "I'm probably right now 50% bitcoin, 30% ethereum and 20% alternative tokens... to try to keep a balance across the whole space, because I don't really know what's going to win in that space and what's not." Bitcoin was trading 2.8% lower at $55,946 on the Bitstamp exchange, and Ethereum was down nearly 3.0% at $2,259. Pal said he had a small exposure to meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin as well, to be "involved in the fun of it". "It becomes the in-joke that becomes a network in itself. Will it last forever? Who the hell knows? But I bought some because the crowd is behind that," Pal added. An 8,000% price increase this year has seen Dogecoin, launched as a satirical critique of 2013's cryptocurrency frenzy, overtake more widely used cryptocurrencies like Litecoin, and briefly Tether, to become the sixth-largest coin. It was trading at $0.3091 on the CoinMarketCap exchange. Pal said increased regulation and uncertainty could push bitcoin lower. "I think there's a negative narrative that may happen, where we see more risk come back into the markets," Pal said. However, the markets were more worried about the uncertainty than regulation itself, Pal said, which he expected to benefit bitcoin over the longer term. "I don't think anybody's going to stop this space," he said, adding that governments will eventually arrive at a balance to ensure taxation of crypto assets. Story continues For a graphic on Price performance of top 6 cryptocurrencies: https://graphics.reuters.com/CRYPTO-CURRENCY/GMF/bdwpkblqbvm/chart.png Pal said Tether had passed its first regulatory hurdle, and its next obstacle will be the launch of digital currencies by various central banks. The owner of Tether and the Bitfinex trading platform will pay an $18.5 million fine to settle charges it commingled client and corporate funds to cover up $850 million that went missing. Pal expected the European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve to launch their digital currencies in the next three-to-five years, and India to move "quickly" in this space too. India already had "pretty advanced" digital payment mechanisms, he said. "I think India will figure this out eventually." A senior government official told Reuters in March that India was expected to propose a law banning cryptocurrencies, fining anyone trading or even holding such assets in the country. (This interview was conducted in the Reuters Global Markets Forum, a chat room hosted on the Refinitiv Messenger platform. Sign up here to join GMF: https://refini.tv/33uoFoQ) (Reporting by Divya Chowdhury and Savio Shetty in Mumbai; Additional reporting by Aaron Saldanha, Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Supriya Rangarajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Macfie) || MicroStrategy: Another Dip, Another $10M Bitcoin Purchase: Publicly traded business intelligence firm MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) is making the most of the downturn in bitcoin prices as it bought another 229 BTC for $10 million in cash. The purchase, which was disclosed by CEO Michael Saylor on Twitter and in an filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday, was for an average price of $43,663 per bitcoin. MicroStrategy now holds 92,079 BTC bought for a total of $2.251 billion at an average price of about $24,450 per bitcoin. That means the firm has almost doubled its money since it started investing in the cryptocurrency, with the total holdings now worth $4.15 billion, according to CoinDesk’s price calculator . Only five days ago, Saylor announced the purchase of 271 BTC for $15 million. The company has a policy of regularly buying bitcoin for its treasury reserves as a hedge against U.S. dollar inflation. At press time, a bitcoin is worth $45,141, roughly flat over 24 hours. See also: Crypto Custodian Copper Raises $50M in Series B Round Related Stories Why You Shouldn’t Look at Bitcoin Backwardation Like an Oil Trader ‘Extreme Fear’ Grips Bitcoin Market After Price Plunge, Sentiment Gauge Shows Blockstream Hosts BlockFi’s New Bitcoin Mining Venture China Reiterates Crypto Bans From 2013 and 2017
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Trend: no change || Prices: 37332.86, 36684.93, 37575.18, 39208.77, 36894.41, 35551.96, 35862.38, 33560.71, 33472.63, 37345.12
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
With General Electric Kicked Out, This Is Now the Longest-Tenured Dow Stock: All good things must come to an end eventually, and the swan song has come for what has been the longest-tenured stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) , General Electric (NYSE: GE) . Despite more than 50 changes in the Dow's components since its inception more than 122 years ago, General Electric has survived most of them. It was briefly booted from the Dow in favor of U.S. Rubber all the way back in September 1898, only to return in April of the following year. It again was kicked to the curb on April 1, 1901, and remained out of the Dow until Nov. 7, 1907. However, of the 41 changes to the Dow's components since this date, more than 110 years ago, GE has remained a fixture. A gas turbine being moved in an indoor manufacturing facility. Image source: General Electric. So long, General Electric But beginning June 26, 2018, this 110-year-plus streak will come to an end. As announced after the closing bell on Tuesday, June 19, by S&P Dow Jones Indeces, General Electric will be removed and replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA) . Walgreens is a giant in the pharmacy space and a smart add by the committee given an aging U.S. population. Said David Blitzer, Managing Director and Chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indeces, "The U.S. economy has changed: consumer, finance, healthcare and technology companies are more prominent today and the relative importance of industrial companies is less." It's certainly hard to argue with Blitzer's analysis considering what a poor showing GE has had of late . Shares of the conglomerate have fallen by more than 60% since July 2016, and shareholders have endured multiple profit forecast reductions, as well as a halving of its dividend in November of last year. Despite reorganizing its business to focus on three core segments -- aviation, power, and healthcare -- it's going to take time for the company to exit its other operations, as well as turn around the segments it's keeping. Story continues As of Tuesday's close, a share of General Electric was going for just $12.95, and it was down another 2% in after-hours trading following the news that it was being given the boot from the Dow. Meanwhile, Boeing , the Dow stock with the highest share price, closed at $341.12. Since the Dow is a price-weighted, not market-cap-weighted index, this meant Boeing had roughly 26 times the influence on the Dow Jones Industrial Average as GE, and generally speaking, the index committee doesn't like when the high-versus-low ratio in terms of share price gets this large. In other words, the writing was on the wall that GE was going to be shown the door. Pumpjacks operating at sunset. Image source: Getty Images. The new longest-tenured Dow stock So, with General Electric out, you might be wondering which stock is next in line in terms of seniority. That would be none other than integrated oil and gas giant ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) , which will be celebrating its 90th anniversary in the Dow when Oct. 1 rolls around. ExxonMobil joined the Dow back on Oct. 1, 1928, when the index was expanded from 20 components to 30 components (originally, when debuted in May 1896, it had just 12 components, of which GE was one). Of course, it didn't have the company name we now know. It was then known as the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. In 1972, the company changed its name to Exxon, and when it merged with Mobil in 1999, it became the mammoth oil and gas company we're familiar with today. Unlike General Electric, which had been teetering for a while, ExxonMobil is in virtually no danger of giving up its seat in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It sports a healthy $80.70 share price and is the ninth-largest publicly traded company by market cap in the U.S., assuming you count both share classes of Alphabet and Berkshire Hathaway as one. It also ended 2017 with a not-so-shabby 21.2 billion oil-equivalent barrels of proved reserves, adding 2.7 billion oil-equivalent barrels to its reserves last year, ultimately replacing 183% of its 2017 production. Barring an unforeseen issue with the company, or a precipitous and lengthy decline in oil and natural gas prices, ExxonMobil is likely to remain a fixture in the Dow. Digital quotes of the Dow Jones and other major U.S. indexes. Image source: Getty Images. A word to the wise With General Electric being removed next week, and Walgreens Boots Alliance being shown the red carpet, the Dow divisor, which determines what each $1 in share price equates to in Dow points, will again need to be adjusted. But, even following the addition of Walgreens and an adjustment to the Dow divisor, the same flaw with the world's most iconic stock index will remain: its reliance on share price instead of market cap . As noted, the Dow is a price-weighted index, meaning companies with a higher share price have more influence over those stocks with a smaller number of outstanding shares, regardless of market cap . Boeing has nearly 10 times the impact on the Dow as drug giant Pfizer , which has a share price of $36.22, as of June 18. Yet, Pfizer's market cap is about $15 billion larger than Boeing's. This makes no sense. In short, the Dow has really become nothing more than a novelty index that's overstayed its welcome. It's full of history and packed with companies that have time-tested business models. What it's not is an accurate portrayal of the U.S. economy or the health of American business. Thus, even with this upcoming change, the Dow should still be an index the retail investor mostly ignores. 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. Sean Williams has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A and C shares) and Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Up, Down Prices in Stocks, Gold and Crude Oil Capture the Spirit of June Volatility: Here are a few market odds and ends for Wednesday as we approach the end of the one of the most volatile two-sided trading months in years. U.S. Equity Markets The three major U.S. equity markets are trading sharply higher early Wednesday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting the biggest intraday gain after the Trump administration’s anticipated crackdown on Chinese tech investment’s turned out to be less-restrictive than expected. Today’s price action strongly indicates that the sell-off on Monday was another case of investors reading into the headlines before they had all the facts. Investors should know by now that the U.S. has a President that likes to exaggerate, and while there seems to be little method to his madness at times, he seems to be consistent in his message to protect U.S. intellectual property interests. The next reaction in the markets will likely occur if China decides to respond to this current move by the White House with restrictions of their own although the price action suggests investment professionals seem to think that Beijing has little to fight back with in this case. However, there always seems to be the option of a tariff on U.S. crude imports, an idea that seems to be floating around. During this tumultuous month, we saw all three major stock market barometers turn lower for the period, suggesting the selling pressure was getting serious. However, today’s price action has turned the indexes higher for June. As far as volatility is concerned, this month, the VIX jumped higher earlier this week indicating investors were increasing their positions in put options. We also saw the NASDAQ Composite reach an all-time high then just two sessions later threaten to form a technically bearish closing price reversal top for the month. We also saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average post its longest consecutive session losing streak since 1978. Gold While stocks were taking it on the chin in June, support for gold continued to deteriorate with prices moving lower for the year, while selling pressure drove the usual safe-haven asset to within a few dollars of a six-month low. Story continues According to government reports, open interest in the long side of the gold market has reached a 2-1/2 year low, while hedge funds increased bets on a bullish U.S. Dollar for the first time in a year. It all comes down to liquidity issues in the gold market. There is simply no liquidity , or money flowing into gold because the hedge funds believe that a rise in the U.S. Dollar is a safer bet, given that the Fed is likely to raise interest rates at least two more times this year and possibly as many as three times next year. U.S. Dollar And speaking of the U.S. Dollar , it’s in a position to post a solid gain for the month despite the possibility of lower Treasury yields in June. Additionally, the Greenback is also showing little reaction to the so-called harmful effects of the trade war. At times in June, traders actually moved money into the U.S. Dollar on the notion that a trade war would drive up prices in the U.S. and consequently inflation, which would mean the Fed would have no choice but to be more aggressive in hiking interest rates. And we all know that higher rates makes the U.S. Dollar a relatively more attractive investment. Crude Oil After ending May and starting June on a steep price slide, crude oil prices are now trading at their highest level of the year. Although OPEC and its other major trading partners agreed to raise output last Friday, their less-than-1-million barrel per day increase in output left little room for error. Sure they accounted for production losses from Venezuela due to economic turmoil and Iran because of the sanctions, however, they didn’t figure on supply disruptions in Canada and Libya. Furthermore, U.S. producers may have figured out how to convert shale to crude oil at record levels, but they didn’t think that perhaps they needed pipelines and other means to actually deliver the product to their customers. So essentially, they moved oil from the ground and put it into tanks until last week when about 9.9 million barrels left storage. Also what was the White House thinking when they reportedly asked Saudi Arabia to push for an increase of about 1 million barrels of oil per day in extra output in order to keep prices down, then turnaround just days later and order zero exports from Iran, only to drive prices up? Obviously someone in the Trump administration missed class the day they were teaching the laws of supply and demand in Economics 101 class. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – June 27, 2018 Forecast Crude Oil Price Update – Strengthens Over $71.14, Weakens Under $70.40 E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – June 27, 2018 Forecast Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Rally on Warm Weather Forecast Bitcoin – The Struggle Continues as some of the Majors Rebound USD/CAD Price Forecast – USD/CAD Turns Range Bound Ahead of BOC Poloz’s Speech || Why Ashton Kutcher Donated $4 Million in Cryptocurrency to Charity: Ashton Kutcher, an actor and tech investor, had a pretty non-traditional gift for TV host Ellen DeGeneres on Thursday. Kutcher and his team donated $4 million in Ripple’s XRP tokens to her wildlife charity, The Ellen DeGeneres Wildlife Fund. “We can actually transfer [the donation] into Rwandan francs right now, right here, and all we have to do is push this button and it’s in your account,” Kutcher said. XRP, the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap after Bitcoin and Ethereum, is the name for both a digital currency and an open payment network. It allows users to efficiently send money globally using the blockchain. Kutcher has been active in tech investing in recent years through his venture capital firm, Sound Ventures (which is the successor of his previous firm firm A-Grade Investments). He co-founded it with business partner Guy Oseary, and the duo have invested in high-profile companies such as Uber, Airbnb, and Spotify. Kutcher has also been increasingly interested in the cryptocurrency market. He has made investments in startups including Ripple as well as bitcoin payment service provider BitPay. He’s been a supporter of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology for quite some time. At a TechCrunch conference several years ago, Kutcher spoke glowingly of the “decentralized technology” that makes Bitcoin possible. “The notion that we could civically monitor each other in an anonymous way actually keeps the anonymity of the Internet. We don’t have to worry about Big Brother,” he said at the time. “And that same infrastructure that built out Bitcoin could be used in the security industry for mass good.” || Better Buy: Celgene Corporation vs. Merck: A series of setbacks caused Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) stock to tumble around 47% from a peak reached last October. Over the same time frame, Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) shares have slipped a bit even though its lead product hit an important mark that will drive billions in additional annual sales toward the big pharma. Global spending on oncology medicines reached $133 billion in 2017 according to healthcare analytics provider IQVIA, and that figure could reach $200 billion in 2022. Which of these stocks is best poised to ride the trend? Let's look at the case for each to see which drugmaker comes out on top. Tug-of-war close up Image source: Getty Images. The case for Celgene Corporation Celgene's flagship product, Revlimid, made this a top-performing biotech in years past, but the multiple myeloma treatment is going to begin losing market share to generic competition in early 2026. First-quarter sales of the treatment rose an impressive 19% over the previous year to hit an annualized $8.9 billion run rate. Investors don't get to smile at Revlimid sales growth for long before it reminds them the company depends on the therapy for 63% of total product sales. It's hard to reduce reliance on a product growing as fast as Revlimid, but two more recently launched treatments are putting up big numbers. Second-line multiple myeloma treatment Pomalyst contributed 24% more during the first three months of 2018 than in the previous year, and the company's first foray into psoriasis, Otezla, popped 46% over the same time frame. Combined, the pair finished the three months of 2018 on pace to kick in a combined $3.2 billion in sales, and they've still got room to run. Perhaps the biggest reason to buy Celgene, though, isn't the drugs it's selling today, but the ones about to emerge from its late-stage pipeline. Celgene recently showed that its experimental CAR-T treatment , called liso-cel, can help patients with aggressive lymphomas that had already relapsed following other treatments. Eliciting any measurable response from this group would be impressive, but liso-cel helped 49% of treated patients achieve complete remission six months after a single treatment. Story continues Similar CAR-T therapies that liso-cel could begin competing with next year carry list prices that start at $373,000 for a single dose. High efficacy and a high price suggest liso-cel could become a blockbuster, and it isn't the only candidate getting close to the finish line. Celgene's multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease candidate, ozanimod, hit an embarrassing speed bump during its FDA review, but it could contribute around $4 billion in annual revenue at its peak if approved. Pills and a syringe on a pile of cash money. Image source: Getty Images. The case for Merck & Co. Sales of Merck's flagship cancer therapy Keytruda finished the first quarter on pace to contribute $6 billion in revenue this year, and I think it'll blow past analyst forecasts and hit $10 billion by 2021. An expansion to the first-line lung cancer indication helped Keytruda sales bound 151% higher in the first quarter, and that was before Merck's salesforce had new unambiguous survival data to work with. Earlier this year, the company showed us that adding it to standard chemotherapy reduced new lung cancer patients' risk of death by half compared to chemo alone. Unfortunately for Merck shareholders, Keytruda only makes up just 15% of total sales, and its former lead product, Januvia, is showing its age. Sales of the type-2 diabetes medication have stalled, and its cholesterol-lowering drug, Zetia is sliding. Keytruda is a powerful engine, but it can only pull the entire train so far on its own. Overall sales inched 6% higher in the first quarter, or just 3% when you exclude the effects of currency exchange. Earlier this year, Merck joined forces with AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) to market a new kind of ovarian cancer pill that recently earned an approval to treat a large population of breast cancer patients. Total annual Lynparza sales could pass the $2 billion mark, although Merck's portion will be much smaller. Celgene doesn't offer a dividend, but those buying shares of Merck at recent prices will receive a 3.1% yield. If anything derails Keytruda, though, raising the quarterly payout could be impossible. Over the past year, Merck used 97% of free cash flow to meet this obligation to shareholders. The better buy has more cash to invest Ozanimod and liso-cel were discovered outside Celgene, but the company was able to acquire them with cash its commercial-stage drugs throw off. In 2017, Celgene generated $5.0 billion in free cash flow , which was around $400 million more than Merck produced last year, and Celgene doesn't have a dividend obligation. A relative lack of profits to work with in recent years shows itself in Merck's late-stage pipeline. The big pharma doesn't have any candidates on EvaluatePharma 's top 20 list of the most valuable R&D projects at the moment, while Celgene boasts two. There's a lot to like about Merck, but a better capacity to forge new partnerships and acquire new growth drivers make Celgene the better buy 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 Cory Renauer owns shares of Celgene. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Celgene. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why Under Armour Stock Gained 18% in May: Athletic apparel specialistUnder Armour(NYSE: UAA)(NYSE: UA)outpaced the market last month by gaining 18% compared to a 2% increase in theS&P 500, according to data provided byS&P Global Market Intelligence.
The rally pushed shares into positive territory over the past year, yet the stock remains far below the highs it set back in late 2015.
^SPXdata byYCharts.
Investors were happy to hear there was progress in the company'srebound initiatives last month. CEO Kevin Plank and his executive team revealed in early May that first-quarter sales were flat in the U.S. market, which is an improvement over the losses in prior quarters. Demand was strong in international markets and in Under Armour's direct-to-consumer business.
Image source: Getty Images.
Yet the company generated a net loss, as restructuring charges combined with weak profit margins to account for all of Under Armour's operating earnings.
These costs are likely to continue pressuring earnings results through fiscal 2018 and beyond. However, now that many retailers have improved their inventory holdings, pricing pressure appears to be lightening up, and that is allowing Under Armour and rivalNiketo scale back on the discounts that have hurt profits lately.
Under Armour's plan is to press that pricing advantage in advance of the key holiday shopping period through innovative launches like the recent expansion of the Curry 5 sneaker franchise.
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Demitrios Kalogeropoulosowns shares of NKE, Under Armour (A Shares), and Under Armour (C Shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends NKE, Under Armour (A Shares), and Under Armour (C Shares). The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || The genome sharing economy: How you could make money renting out your DNA: Companies could soon pay for your genome data Are you worried what companies are doing to make money from your personal data and who is getting their hands on it? Amid the panic about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, imagine if the data was not ‘likes’ and survey results, but your most intimate biological particulars - the details of your genome. If the thought of companies sharing the DNA code which provides your own genetic instruction booklet makes you queasy, you are apparently not alone. Privacy concerns about how companies could share gene data are one of the biggest fears holding people back from getting their DNA read by commercial companies, it is claimed. Genomics, the science of mapping genomes, is set to revolutionise medicine and public health, allowing scientists to diagnose rare conditions, understand diseases like cancer and to develop better, more targeted drugs with fewer side effects. The biggest obstacle is educating people in the value of genomic data. People will pay $1,000 for an iPhone, but they won’t pay $1,000 to understand their DNA Dennis Grishin, Nebula co-founder The discipline also promises to transform public health in the developing world, allowing better understanding and treatment of infectious diseases and epidemics. But big studies need large databases of genomic data, from huge numbers of people, that can be easily shared and analysed. Somewhere over a million people have been sequenced so far and researchers complain the lack of data is hampering studies. The cost of sequencing and the fears that people will not have control of their data are deterring people, according to Harvard scientists and technology entrepreneurs who say they have come up with a solution. Their ambitious proposal will allow you to not only get your genome sequenced, but potentially to also cash in on the data making money by securely sharing it with researchers or pharmaceutical companies. Their company, Nebula Genomics, aims to marry two of the hottest technologies around - genetic sequencing and the secure blockchain platform underpinning crypto currencies like Bitcoin . Story continues The venture is co-founded by Professor George Church, a Gandalf-like American geneticist feted as a visionary in DNA sequencing. Nebula hope to persuade you that genomics can enter the sharing economy. By getting your genome read, you can improve your own health care, help your family, do something altruistic that will help health research around the world and even get paid for it. It is only 15 years since the first human genome was fully sequenced after a $3bn international project taking more than a decade. Credit: Getty The cost has since plummeted to around $1,000 as technology breakthroughs have enabled quicker reading. Yet that cost is still too high, consumer research by Nebula shows. Their survey found that nearly three-in-10 were put off by the cost and two-thirds thought they wouldn’t pay more than $250. The other big turn off is privacy. Their survey found that 29 per cent of people had concerns about their data. “Most of them find the cost just not worth it and the other is privacy, people are concerned about what could be done with their genomic data,” explains Kamal Obbad, another of the co-founders. Commercial firms like 23andMe and Ancestry already read genomes, though not full sequences, and this data can be purchased by research companies. Nebula want to cut out these genetic middlemen and use Blockchain as the basis for a sharing community that allows people potentially to monetise their own genome. People will pay to get their genomes sequenced by Nebula, though if they have characteristics or a medical history particularly of interest to researchers, then this cost could be subsidised. Nebula plans to use Blockchain technology, like that of Bitcoin, to monetise genomics Credit: Getty Armed with their new genome data, they can then control exactly who is given access, either keeping it to themselves, or if they want to, can sell it to researchers. Early adopters and those with particularly sought after characteristics could make “a reasonable amount of money”, says Mr Obbad. Though the company won’t elaborate on how much individuals stand to gain, they point out they will be tapping into a genomic data market serving big pharma companies that is already already worth billions. Drug giants have enormous resources and spent more than $150 billion on research and development in 2016 alone. They already pay the right volunteers tens of thousands of dollars to take part in clinical trials and sought after genomes are likely to be just as lucrative, Nebula suggests. But earnings will ultimately not be the main driver for people getting sequenced, Nebula reckons, compared with the prospect of better, more personalised healthcare. Having their genome sequenced will allow them to make informed family planning decisions, while doctors will be able to give them more tailored drugs and therapies. Persuading them of those material benefits and that there is more to getting your genome sequenced than a bunch of “fun facts” about their makeup is currently Nebula's biggest obstacle. “I think the biggest one is really educating people in the value of genomic data,” says Dennis Grishin, another of the co-founders. CAMBRIDGE, MA - OCTOBER 26: Research Scientist Edgardo Lopez at Claritas prepares samples to be fed into the company's array of genomic sequencers which is the largest of it's kind in North America. The machines can perform 185 million sequencing reactions in parallel, allowing Claritas and partner company WuXi NextCODE, to search a patient's entire genome for disease causing mutations. “Most people will pay $1,000 for an iPhone, but they won’t pay $1,000 to get their genome sequenced to understand their DNA.” For researchers, the proposed benefits include not just access to more genomes as more people join, but also easier access to data. An early problem of genomics is the vast size of the data required. With each genome 3 billion letters long, sharing and downloading data is slow and cumbersome. Nebula’s claim to be able to solve both these problems has caused a lot of interest since the idea was floated in a white paper in February, says Prof Stephan Beck, professor of medical genomics at the University College London Cancer Institute. Healthcare delivery is so different in different countries. This Nebula proposal is a very American take on it. It’s not necessarily right or wrong, it’s just an American take. Dr Ewan Birney “I think everyone at this point is really intrigued, because it offers fundamental solutions to problems that we have not been able to overcome. Whether this is going to work, still I think needs to be shown, but at least we have now a concrete proposal which promises to overcome fundamental problems.” Nebula says it will decentralise how the vast quantities of data are stored into a cloud, making it easier to analyse. Prof Beck said: “I think what has created the excitement in the community, is that there is really a proposal here on the table which solves the problem of getting very large cohorts organised in a single place with access where the data sharing and the data transfer problem can be overcome. Perhaps completely and that would be fantastic progress if that were to come true.” Genomics is already transforming the study and treatment of rare diseases and cancers. It also holds promise for understanding infectious diseases in the developing world. Nebula claim their model could widen the pool of genomes that scientists study, moving beyond the well-off American and Western European subjects that currently make up the majority of sequences. “One of the problems we have right now with genomic data is that some groups of people are really over represented, while others are really under represented,” said Mr Obbad. “Those really strongly underrepresented groups tend to be those socio economic groups that are less well off.” Nebula’s model allowing researchers to subsidise the cost and will “eventually attract many groups of people that are currently strongly under represented,” he says. Technology intelligence - newsletter promo - EOA Not everyone is carried away with the hype though. Dr Ewan Birney, director of the European Bioinformatics Institute, said Nebula’s “teenage geeks in a room” proposal fails to appreciate advances in Europe where the public is more trusting of public institutions with their data. He said countries like the UK, Denmark, France and Finland were already building powerful genomic databases as their state-based health systems sequence more and more people with rare diseases or cancer. He said: “Because healthcare delivery is so different in different countries, you don’t get the same schemes in the different countries. This Nebula proposal is a very American take on it. It’s not necessarily right or wrong, it’s just an American take. “You really need to see it in the context of America. There are two things about that, obviously a slightly more individual rights-based view where every individual is a sort of island and it fits that world view. But the other key thing is that healthcare there is a big business and very focused on the relationship between rolling out a new technology into healthcare and the way the business works, means the landscape is very different.” Dr Sobia Raza, head of science at the Cambridge-based health policy think tank the PHG Foundation, is also cautious. “It’s an interest concept in terms of its approach to facilitating data sharing, but I guess from my perspective how it will work in practice and whether is a model that will work for individuals and the companies and researchers seeking genomics still remains to be seen,” she said. She is also sceptical that users will be truly anonymous, particularly if they have to share medical details. “While genomic data is not intrinsically identifying, to make it useful for research and clinical applications, it typically has to be combined with other sets of information about the individual, about their medical history,” she said. “The idea that the data is not in the public domain so that equates to it being anonymous and private is questionable.” Nebula admit there is a chicken and egg problem with people unable to see the benefits of getting sequenced, but scientists unable to deliver those benefits until they get their hands on more genomes. Prof Church has spent decades working on DNA sequencing, but also trying to push the technology out of the lab into the real world, his colleagues say. They believe their proposal marks the tipping point, making genome sequencing mainstream enough to kickstart a revolution. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security || Elon Musk's Boring Company Lands a Loop Contract With Chicago: Call it brilliant marketing or call it a happy coincidence -- either way, Elon Musk's The Boring Company has just bagged a big contract to connect Chicago O'Hare Airport to the city's downtown Loop district. To do it, he'll be building a "Loop" of his own. Loop, as we discovered at The Boring Company (TBC) press conference in L.A. last month, is the name of Musk's latest transportation brainchild, a system of tunnels bored through solid rock that can be used to transport passenger "pods" along underground highways at speeds approaching 150 miles per hour. Elon Musk and Rahm Emanuel speak at press conference on Loop contract Image source: The Boring Company. An offer they couldn't refuse Late last year, Musk announced on Twitter that TBC would be one of four companies bidding on the Chicago transportation contract , and just a little over six months later he's come out on top. Musk's promise to pay for building his O'Hare-Loop Loop out of pocket, and recoup his costs by charging usage fees for the service, was likely key to the company's success. As The Chicago Sun reports, Musk has promised that his Loop will carry passengers from downtown to the airport (an 18-mile trek) in 12 minutes flat, at a cost of $20 to $25 per ticket. An anonymous source confirmed to the Sun that TBC is estimating the project's cost at "less than $1 billion." That's an ambitious goal. Other urban public transportation costs in other cities have sometimes topped the $1 billion mark per mile of tunnel constructed. Still, taking the $1 billion projection at face value and using it as a ceiling amount on the cost of the project, assuming 16 passengers per pod paying $20 to $25 a head, it could take Musk anywhere from 2.5 million to 3.1 million trips to pay for the project -- not counting any financing costs, and assuming full capacity on each trip. However, consider that O'Hare is the third busiest airport in the country, shuttling nearly 80 million passengers through its doors every year. If each of those passengers used Loop just once, the revenue would suffice to pay for Loop's construction in less than one year. Additionally, TBC will be able to sell advertising on board its pods, and sell goods and services to passengers in transit, which could further shrink the payback period on Musk's investment. Story continues What this means for investors Musk is financing Loop primarily out of his own pocket, and the company is not publicly traded. Still, there are at least two ways investors should be looking at Loop -- one medium-term, and one much further out. Musk is hoping to begin construction of Chicago's Loop as soon as he receives all the needed permits, perhaps as soon as three to four months from now. Medium-term, construction could be complete, and Loop operational, within 18 to 36 months. Again, this seems an ambitious schedule for a major urban public transportation project. Still, if Musk can pull it off, the Chicago Loop project could provide a financial boost to Musk's most famous company, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) . TBC has confirmed that it will be buying the pods that will run passengers through Loop's tunnels from Tesla. Depending on how many pods we're talking about (and it could be a lot, to accommodate those 80 million O'Hare passengers), that could mean a sizable revenue boost for Tesla, albeit along with attendant capital investment costs to build the new type of vehicle. Longer term, if Loop proves out as a concept in Chicago, it has the potential to remake the transportation market in other cities, and indeed throughout the U.S. -- depressing sales of personal automobiles, helping sales of mass transit vehicles such as Loop's pods, and providing Tesla with a captive market for one of its products. Ultimately, Musk envisions Loop as less of a Point A-to-Point B shuttle service such as Chicago is envisioning, and more of an underground highway network connecting hundreds or even thousands of small stations for boarding and offloading passengers. The closer he gets to that goal, the more revenue for Tesla, and the greater the danger of investing in car companies other than Tesla. 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 owns shares of and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Here's Why Patterson Companies Jumped Higher Today: What happened Shares of Patterson Companies (NASDAQ: PDCO) are up 4.4% at 12:45 p.m. EDT, having been up as much as 12.1%, after the dental and animal health company announced results of its fourth fiscal quarter that ended on April 28. Rather than being a case of Patterson hitting the ball out of the park, today's increase is more like investors cheering because it didn't strike out. At this point, they'll happily take the bloop single and hope for better results in the next inning. So what This time last year, management was looking for adjusted earnings for recently completed fiscal year of $2.25 to $2.40 per year. By the second-quarter report, expectations had fallen to $2.00 to $2.10 per share. And after the third quarter, management was only guiding for $1.65 to $1.70 per share. Patterson was able to hit that revised-revised range with non-GAAP earnings of $1.68 for the fiscal year. Break out the peanuts and Cracker Jacks. Dentist examining a patient's teeth Image source: Getty Images. Internal sales, which adjust for changes in currencies and selling relationships, were down 3.3% in the fourth quarter with the dental segment dragging down the company average, dropping 10.5% year over year. Management blamed a realignment of its sales force, transition of its enterprise resource planning platform, and dentists continuing to transition to digital equipment. The larger animal health division isn't exactly stealing any bases with internal sales of the division up 2.4%, but at least sales aren't declining. Now what Management is looking for a little growth in the upcoming fiscal year with adjusted earnings expected to be in the $1.73 to $1.83 range, although the growth is likely to come in the back half of the year as it's still facing a tough comparator for the first fiscal quarter. Today's results are a good start to the turnaround, but risk-averse investors should be careful as it's likely a long road back, especially with antitrust violation allegations hanging over the company. 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 Orelli and The Motley Fool have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Better Buy: Celgene Corporation vs. Merck: A series of setbacks causedCelgene Corporation(NASDAQ: CELG)stock to tumble around 47% from a peak reached last October. Over the same time frame,Merck & Co.(NYSE: MRK)shares have slipped a bit even though its lead product hit an important mark that will drive billions in additional annual sales toward the big pharma.
Global spending on oncology medicines reached $133 billion in 2017 according to healthcare analytics provider IQVIA, and that figure could reach $200 billion in 2022. Which of these stocks is best poised to ride the trend? Let's look at the case for each to see which drugmaker comes out on top.
Image source: Getty Images.
Celgene's flagship product, Revlimid, made this a top-performing biotech in years past, but the multiple myeloma treatment is going to begin losing market share to generic competition in early 2026. First-quarter sales of the treatment rose an impressive 19% over the previous year to hit an annualized $8.9 billion run rate. Investors don't get to smile at Revlimid sales growth for long before it reminds them the company depends on the therapy for 63% of total product sales.
It's hard to reduce reliance on a product growing as fast as Revlimid, but two more recently launched treatments are putting up big numbers. Second-line multiple myeloma treatment Pomalyst contributed 24% more during the first three months of 2018 than in the previous year, and the company's first foray into psoriasis, Otezla, popped 46% over the same time frame. Combined, the pair finished the three months of 2018 on pace to kick in a combined $3.2 billion in sales, and they've still got room to run.
Perhaps the biggest reason to buy Celgene, though, isn't the drugs it's selling today, but the ones about to emerge from its late-stage pipeline. Celgene recently showed that its experimentalCAR-T treatment, called liso-cel, can help patients with aggressive lymphomas that had already relapsed following other treatments. Eliciting any measurable response from this group would be impressive, but liso-cel helped 49% of treated patients achieve complete remission six months after a single treatment.
Similar CAR-T therapies that liso-cel could begin competing with next year carry list prices that start at $373,000 for a single dose. High efficacy and a high price suggest liso-cel could become a blockbuster, and it isn't the only candidate getting close to the finish line. Celgene's multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease candidate, ozanimod, hit anembarrassing speed bumpduring its FDA review, but it could contribute around $4 billion in annual revenue at its peak if approved.
Image source: Getty Images.
Sales of Merck's flagship cancer therapy Keytruda finished the first quarter on pace to contribute $6 billion in revenue this year, and I think it'll blow past analyst forecasts and hit $10 billion by 2021. An expansion to the first-line lung cancer indication helped Keytruda sales bound 151% higher in the first quarter, and that was before Merck's salesforce had new unambiguous survival data to work with. Earlier this year, the company showed us that adding it to standard chemotherapy reduced new lung cancer patients' risk of death by half compared to chemo alone.
Unfortunately for Merck shareholders, Keytruda only makes up just 15% of total sales, and its former lead product, Januvia, is showing its age. Sales of the type-2 diabetes medication have stalled, and its cholesterol-lowering drug, Zetia is sliding. Keytruda is a powerful engine, but it can only pull the entire train so far on its own. Overall sales inched 6% higher in the first quarter, or just 3% when you exclude the effects of currency exchange.
Earlier this year, Merck joined forces withAstraZeneca(NYSE: AZN)to market a new kind of ovarian cancer pill that recently earned an approval to treat a large population of breast cancer patients. Total annual Lynparza sales could pass the $2 billion mark, although Merck's portion will be much smaller.
Celgene doesn't offer a dividend, but those buying shares of Merck at recent prices will receive a 3.1% yield. If anything derails Keytruda, though, raising the quarterly payout could be impossible. Over the past year, Merck used 97% of free cash flow to meet this obligation to shareholders.
Ozanimod and liso-cel were discovered outside Celgene, but the company was able to acquire them with cash its commercial-stage drugs throw off. In 2017, Celgene generated $5.0 billion infree cash flow, which was around $400 million more than Merck produced last year, and Celgene doesn't have a dividend obligation.
A relative lack of profits to work with in recent years shows itself in Merck's late-stage pipeline. The big pharma doesn't have any candidates onEvaluatePharma's top 20 list of the most valuable R&D projects at the moment, while Celgene boasts two.
There's a lot to like about Merck, but a better capacity to forge new partnerships and acquire new growth drivers make Celgene the better buy right now.
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Cory Renauerowns shares of Celgene. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Celgene. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Here's Why Investors Are Excited About NVIDIA's Automotive Business: Graphics specialist NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) is one of the names that probably comes to mind when the phrase " self-driving car stock " is uttered -- at least it is for me. The company has spent a great deal of time and energy promoting its efforts in this space, talking up both its hardware and software innovations as well as its broad set of engagements with major car manufacturers. And yet, despite all of the hype and excitement around NVIDIA's self-driving car efforts, the reality is that NVIDIA's automotive business -- at least if you look at the company's financial results -- doesn't seem all that exciting. NVIDIA's DRIVE self-driving car platform is on display with four monitors showing different views of the road. Image source: NVIDIA. Last quarter, NVIDIA reported that its automotive business generated just $145 million in sales -- a figure that was up a relatively anemic 4% year over year. Not only was it NVIDIA's slowest growing business segment, it's also NVIDIA's smallest. To put things in perspective, last quarter NVIDIA raked in about $3.2 billion in revenue -- automotive revenues represented just 4.5% of its total sales. That's so low that I'd be tempted to call it immaterial. Yet, if the financial performance of NVIDIA's automotive business is so underwhelming, why are many investors excited about this segment? It's about the future Today, NVIDIA's automotive business consists primarily of selling in-vehicle infotainment platforms to automotive makers. These platforms aren't terribly differentiated (there are many companies out there that build competent in-vehicle infotainment platforms), nor are they particularly high value, either -- so, gross profit margins are likely lower than NVIDIA's corporate average. There's just not a lot of money to be made from the in-vehicle infotainment chip market -- at least not the kind of money that could support a significant portion of NVIDIA's roughly $160 billion market capitalization. However, there's a lot of excitement around the kind of computing power that may one day be found in the typical car as well as NVIDIA's strategy for going about capturing that share. Story continues NVIDIA's strategy According to what NVIDIA said during its most recent financial analyst day, the company expects that, over the long term, "every vehicle will be autonomous." Translating that into a financial opportunity, NVIDIA thinks that by the year 2035, the total addressable market ahead of the company will reach $60 billion. If we assume that NVIDIA's prediction that the opportunity here will eventually hit $60 billion, it's worth taking a look at what steps NVIDIA is taking to go after this market. The company's strategy isn't just about providing hardware or just providing software for these future autonomous cars -- it's aiming to provide automobile makers with complete end-to-end solutions. These solutions will include future Tegra processors that power the computing systems that NVIDIA will offer to automotive makers. NVIDIA also handles a lot of the artificial intelligence processing that, according to the company, collects data, trains artificial intelligence models based on that data, runs simulations based on those models, and then handles the driving of the cars in the real world. NVIDIA says that it has more than 370 partners working with it on these self-driving car technologies, including car makers, truck makers, automotive component suppliers, mapping specialists, sensor providers, and even academic research institutions. The company is clearly serious about its long-term investment in self-driving car technologies and, based on the excitement around NVIDIA's efforts here and the high multiple that the stock commands, investors seem to be serious about them, too. Investment takeaway If you're interested in NVIDIA stock because you like the automotive story, just keep in mind that while the opportunity presented does look quite large, it'll be a while before it is fully realized -- if it's realized at all. Ultimately, NVIDIA' is still driven by its core gaming and data center processor businesses, with both its professional visualization and automotive efforts coming off like nice side segments by comparison. Over the long term, though, if NVIDIA's vision that all cars will be self-driving cars, and if NVIDIA can capture its fair share of that opportunity, then NVIDIA's automotive business could prove to be a source of robust growth and actually matter to the company's financial performance. 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 Eassa has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
ちょっと、BTCにキツク言っておきますね！ || 2018-06-18_00-30-45 Forecast #BTC $BTC #Bitflyerpic.twitter.com/oiFMfDLTPX || Earn bitcoin on a daily basis!
1. Follow @slidecoin
2. Complete instructions in pinned tweet || LexisNexis Partners With Australian Crypto Exchange Blockbid to Increase Security https://ift.tt/2kOBXFd #bitcoin #blockchain #fintech || Bitcoin Price Watch: Currency Holds Ground at $7,600 http://bitlyfool.com/?p=18312 pic.twitter.com/8pbhuZvsDr || Essa criptomoeda chinesa DESCONHECIDA promete! https://goo.gl/RJM2E6 #bitcoin #bitcoinprice #BTCtoUSD #btcprice || A $XMR is worth 0.0217016 BTC || The Genesis Files: Hashcash or How Adam Back Designed Bitcoin’s Motor Block #LTChttps://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-hashcash-or-how-adam-back-designed-bitcoins-motor-block/ … || The Genesis Files: Hashcash or How Adam Back Designed Bitcoin’s Motor Block - http://bit.ly/2Jg2ntS
Advertise #ICO http://bit.ly/2GFT1Gp
#bitcoin #news #btc #bitcoinnews #cryptocurrency #blockchainpic.twitter.com/0nSjsUYUGv || Many previous waves have been orchestrated, hostile, and political in nature. Nothing to do with coffee.
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Trend: up || Prices: 6773.88, 6741.75, 6329.95, 6394.71, 6228.81, 6238.05, 6276.12, 6359.64, 6741.75, 7321.04
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Decentralization and What Section 230 Really Means for Freedom of Speech: Bitcoin underwent a protocol update to make the network more resilient to state attacks, while researchers separately found Ethereum may be losing its anonymity.
Elsewhere, “Crypto Mom” Hester Pierce has been tapped for a second term at the SEC, and an ex-Yang advisor is making crypto a cornerstone to his House campaign.
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.
EthereumThe most popular way to use bitcoin off-chain is on Ethereum, data suggests.Ethereum projects including WBTC and imBTC hold 70% more bitcoinsthan Bitcoin-native scaling solutions Lightning or Liquid. Separately, researchers have found that governments and private entities canstrip away anonymity from Ethereum,and users are making it easier for them by revealing links between deposits and withdrawals. This could also “impact the anonymity of other users, since if a deposit can be linked to a withdraw, it will no longer belong to the anonymity set,” the authors write.
BitcoinThe20th iteration of Bitcoin Core, the open source software powering the Bitcoin blockchain, was released Wednesday.Included in the update is an experimental software called “Asmap” to protect against a theoretical “Erebus” attack, which allows nation states and/or large internet providers such as AWS to spy, double-spend or censor bitcoin transactions. Meanwhile, HDR Global Trading Limited, BitMEX’s parent company, has awarded its second grant to a Bitcoin Core contributor. (The Block)
MiningThe Bitcoin blockchainadjusted its mining difficulty downwards,dropping 9.29%, to reach the lowest level since January. This is the eighth-largest negative difficulty adjustment in Bitcoin’s history and the eighth instance of two or more consecutive negative adjustments. Elsewhere, mining firm Argo reported a34% dip in May mining margins,possibly as a result of the bitcoin halving event. Last but certainly not least, Micree Zhan Ketuan, the ousted Bitmain co-founder, sent a letter calling for employees to return to the office to join him rather than his rival co-founder Wu Jihan. The message offeredcash bonuses to loyalists, and said Zhan would complete the company’s long-awaited IPO while pushing its market capitalization to over $50 billion in the coming years.Decryptreported that Zhan retook the office with a dozen security guards in tow.
BankingArival Bank islaunching in beta Thursdaywith a 20-person team and offices in Singapore, Puerto Rico and Saint Petersburg, Fla., to provide banking accounts to crypto startups via a sponsor bank. Japanese banking giants Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Mizuho Financial Group, and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group – institutions thatcontrol more than $6.6 trillion in assets between them– will participate in a study group to determine the feasibility of a national digital payments solution.
Related:Blockchain Bites: Bitmain’s Shakeup, Bitcoin’s Resilience and Ethereum’s Anonymity
Policy and lawHester Peirce, also known as “Crypto Mom,” for her favorable outlook on this emergent asset class, has beentapped for a second term at the SEC.Jonathan Herzog, an ex-Andrew Yang advisor, is running for office on the platform of expanding civil liberties, instituting universal basic income andpassing a constructive cryptocurrency framework.Exchanges Bittrex and Poloniex have beennamed defendantsin a class-action lawsuit against USDT creators Tether and Bitfinex. (CoinTelegraph)
Use casesThe Offshore Operators Committee, a nonprofit focused on offshore energy, has found ablockchain management system reduces costs and time for transporting wastewater.Luxury asset firm Idoneus used its native token to purchase a Picasso painting. (Decrypt)
The Neil Ferguson Affair Shows the Limits of Science During COVID-19Nic Carter, CoinDesk columnist and partner at Castle Island Ventures,tackles the narrative drama around a U.K. epidemiologistwho predicted 250,000 deaths in Britain and influenced lockdown policy in the U.K. and abroad. “The depth of the outrage [which followed] reveals just how scandalized the public can become when trusted institutions are revealed to be less reliable than expected,” Carter writes.
The Last Last Word on Bitcoin’s (Horrifying) Energy ConsumptionMichael Reece Purson responds to Nic Carter’s op-ed,“The Last Word on Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption.”Challenging Carter point by point,Purson apparently made his firstfactual errorwhen saying the VC has “‘analyst’ in your job description.”
Bitcoin Doth Protest too Much?Wall Street traders appear to be looking past the protests roiling across the nation, focusing instead on prospects for an improving economy as states reopen and business activity picks up. The dollar weakened Wednesday against the euro and British pound, seen as a sign that investors in traditional markets are ramping up, not ratcheting back, risk-taking.The bitcoin market, too, has barely reacted to the news.Prices nudged 0.4% higher on Wednesday to about $9,600, leaving the cryptocurrency squarely within the range where it has traded since late April, between $8,500 and $10,200.
Bloomberg Is BullishA Bloomberg analyst thinksbitcoin will hit $20,000 this year,after comparing the price action seen over the last 2.5 years to the patterns over the 2.5 years following the leading cryptocurrency’s rise to record highs in December 2013, when bitcoin printed a lifetime high of $1,100 before crashing.
CoinDesk Research: May 2020 ReviewBitcoin’s returns continue to outpace stocks, bonds and gold, and so does its volatility. Spot exchange volumes probed historic highs in May and bitcoin options markets passed a milestone and didn’t look back. Outperforming crypto assets a couple of use-specific crypto tokens that topped crypto returns for the month.Download the full report here.
5 Numbers That Tell the Story of Markets Right NowIn this episode of The Breakdown,NLW tries to make sense of today’s economyby looking at the growth of the S&P 500, unemployment statistics and growing global debt.
• Blockchain Bites: Poolin Lending, Square Crypto’s Grant and a Senate Candidate Who Holds Bitcoin
• First Mover: BSV Doubles in 2020 as Bitcoin Offshoot Wins Devotees || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -07/06/20: Bitcoin rose by 0.50% on Saturday. Partially reversing a 1.74% fall from Friday, Bitcoin ended the day at $9,668.4. It was another mixed start to the day. Bitcoin fell to an early morning intraday low $9,552.6 before making a move. Steering clear of the first major support level at $9,538.6, Bitcoin rallied to a midday intraday high $9,742.3 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $9,784.0, Bitcoin slid back to sub-$9,600 levels before briefly revisiting $9,700 levels. Resistance at $9,700 ultimately pinned Bitcoin back late in the day to limit the upside on the day. The near-term bullish trend remained intact, in spite of the mixed week. 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 another mixed day for the majors on Saturday. Stellar’s Lumen rose by 1.64% to lead the way on the day. Cardano’s ADA (+0.40%), Ethereum (+0.81%), Monero’s XMR (+0.79%), Ripple’s XRP (+0.57%), and Tron’s TRX (+0.94%) also avoided the red. It was a bearish day for the rest of the majors. Bitcoin Cash ABC fell by 1.32% to lead the way down. Binance Coin (-0.74%), Bitcoin Cash SV (-0.28%), EOS (-0.53%), and Tezos (-0.24%) also saw red, while Litecoin ended the day flat. Through the current week, the crypto total market cap rose to a Monday high $285.71bn before sliding to a Tuesday low $255.98bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $270.22bn. In the week, Bitcoin’s rose to a Monday high 67.13% before falling to a Thursday low 65.58%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 65.81%. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.12% to $9,657.0. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall from an early morning high $9,668.5 to a low $9,619.4. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. The rest of the majors saw another mixed start to the day. Story continues Ethereum (-0.09%), Monero’s XRM (-0.19%), and Tezos (-0.13%) joined Bitcoin in the red. The rest of the majors were in the green at the time of writing, with Bitcoin Cash SV up by 0.44% to lead the way. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to move through to $9,760 levels to bring the first major resistance level at $9,756.27 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from Saturday’s high $9,742.3. Barring another broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Saturday’s high would likely limit any upside. In the event of an extended crypto rally, Bitcoin could eye the second major resistance level at $9,844.13 before any pullback. Failure to move through to $9,760 levels could see Bitcoin struggle on the day, however. A fall back through the morning low to sub-$9,600 levels would bring the first major support level at $9,566.57 into play. Barring an extended crypto sell-off, however, Bitcoin should steer clear of the second major support level at $9,464.73. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Whipsaw and Settle Lower as Rigs Decline S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast – Stock Markets Shoot Straight Up In The Air Again for the Week U.S Mortgage Rates Tick Up as Stimulus and Stats Point to a Speedier Recovery Gold Price Prediction – Prices Drop on Strong Jobs Gains Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Will Trop Storm Cristobal Hit or Miss Production Facilities? Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Next Major Value Zone is $1621.90 to $1582.40 || Bitcoin miners made $366.4 million in revenue during May, despite halving: Bitcoin miners across the world generated an estimated $366.4 million in revenue during May, despite the halving, which reduced mining rewards per block from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. The May revenue is just 11% down from April revenue of $412.5 million, as noted by The Block's Larry Cermak in his May by-the-numbers report. The figures are based on the assumption that miners sell their bitcoin holdings immediately and are drawn from the daily close price of bitcoin. Source: Coin Metrics, The Block Research Notably, bitcoin transaction fees accounted for a higher share in the total revenue generated in May - at 8.3% - as compared to just 1.5% in April. It was the highest monthly share since January 2018. To read the full May report and more such data-driven stories, subscribe to The Block Research . © 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. || Drug Dealer Just Sentenced to 25 Years Hoped to Build a Better Bitcoin Miner: Fear not, Wall Street.
While this week’s sell-off in stocks was steep, the S&P 500 is still up 34% from its March 23 nadir on Friday morning. In other words, the United States’ fiscal and monetary COVID-19 stimulus efforts continue to be heavily favoring hedge fund managers, bankers and corporate CEOs. Meanwhile, as stocks have posted arecord-breaking rally, 115,000 Americans have died from a pandemic that forced 38 million others to file for unemployment benefits.
This is not only fundamentally unfair, it also highlights how our current capital market system grossly misallocates resources. Failed companies with dire long-term prospects – see Hertz, below – get rescued while small businesses and startups working on solutions to our economic and public health malaise miss out.
You’re readingMoney 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’snewsletters here.
It’s time to talk about an alternative mechanism for allocating capital, one that’s not skewed by the stock market. It’s time to revisit ICOs.
First, some level-setting: The 2016-2017 ICO boom was an abomination. Rife with scams, ill-defined business plans and hype, the initial coin offering bubble provided a reminder of why securities regulations exist: to make fundraisers withasymmetric informationaccountable and to protect investors from their abuse.
But the token boom did unleash some valuable outside-the-box thinking. We should tap into it now.
Related:Money Reimagined: The Fed, Hertz, a Bonkers Stock Market and why ICOs Still Matter
ICOs were touted as a means for innovators to gain access to a wider funding pool and for retail investors to earn the kind of returns otherwise reserved for privileged insiders. Startups, it was said, could now bypass the venture capital gatekeepers who decide who gets funded and who gets the golden handout of a stock market initial public offering, while token investors could make those 100x payouts VCs boasted about.
Disintermediating both Silicon Valley and Wall Street paved the way to an open market for ideas, ICO fans proclaimed. Yes, there’d be losses, blowups and scams. But in its roundabout way it would ultimately allocate resources to where the economy most needed it: to the innovators.
Those voices were quieted by the bubble’s bursting in 2018. But the current state of U.S. financial markets demands we revisit some of their arguments – if not to resurrect the failed ICO model than to think through related regulatory reforms that address the problems with the Wall Street model.
After all, the transfer of wealth from ordinary Americans outside the system to a privileged few insiders has been many magnitudes greater these past two months than anything that happened in the token issuance markets.
For most of the 20th century, that system served reasonably as an engine for monetizing American ingenuity and funding economic development. But, over time, mostly because of the excessive political clout that Wall Street accumulated, it has incorporated some perverse incentives that discourage innovation.
Part of the problem stems from our political culture. The mainstream narrative fed by media outlets like CNBC and by Dow industrials-obsessed political leaders like Donald Trump positions the stock market as the bellwether of the American Dream. With elites so invested in the market, both economically and politically, it’s little wonder the COVID-19 monetary and fiscal bailouts were geared toward propping it up.
But it’s also structural.
Think of how the quarterly “earnings season” sets standards. The rewards for all involved – Wall Street’s earnings forecasters, ROI-obsessed fund managers and corporate executives and, by extension, the bonuses of their middle management staff – hinge on “beating the number” every three months.
This isn’t conducive to taking bold bets on innovative strategies that take much longer to gestate. Consider the problem of“stranded assets.”Most pension funds continue to hold big stakes in carbon-heavy companies such as oil and gas producers even though reams of analysis suggest they will be worthless within the longer-term retirement horizon of most of their members. It’s hard to get off the drug of quarterly returns.
(A tangential thought experiment: Quarterly company reports are a byproduct of centralized, siloed accounting systems in which bookkeepers and auditors must reconcile records and draft periodic financial snapshots. What would happen to the quarterly rhythms of Wall Street if these reports became obsolete? What if all counterparties within a particular supply chain or economic ecosystem instead contributed to a single distributed ledger with an openly available yet privacy-protected snapshot of all transactions in real time? Such models are not possible now, but blockchains and zero-knowledge proof developers are putting them within the realm of imagination.)
To imagine an alternative, cast your mind back to 2018 when token prices were tanking, the ICO market was drying up and “Crypto Winter” was setting in. There was actually a sensible debate back then on what token-based fundraising ideas should be retained and which ones should be dispelled.
We should revive it.
For example, are security token offerings, which require regulatory filings but can integrate smart contracts that traditional stocks and bonds cannot, a better way for startups to fund themselves?
STOs were hot for a brief post-ICO period, and then lost momentum as it was clear the regulatory, compliance and technical framework had a long way to go. But there seems to be some resurgent interest, with issuer platformsPolymathandSecuritizeboth making technical progress. One can imagine therecent tie-up between Galaxy and Bakktalso veering into security token services for institutional investors.
Can we also agree on what legal utility tokens are, and on what the best practices for marketing them are? If, as the“Hinman doctrine”suggests, a token can cease to be security if its network evolves to a more decentralized state, what is the right framework for token issuers to stay compliant through that evolution toward utility status? How can they stay compliant at the outset but have a means to attain the desired network effects of a token-governed decentralized system?
And how do we make it easier for small investors to legally and safely buy and sell tokens?
Accredited investor rulesare outdated, favor the same set of privileged wealthy players and unreasonably restrict the general public’s access. Meanwhile, U.S. restrictions on a host of crypto exchanges deny ordinary Americans access to a market that’s intrinsically designed for little guys to participate in.
Regulation is both unavoidable and necessary. But it absolutely should not function as protective armor for a capital market system that harms our economy’s capacity to optimize capital allocation.
At a time when the U.S. economy needs innovative approaches to everything, we urgently need an innovative approach to how we fund innovation.
For proof of our broken capital allocation system, look no further than the performance of Hertz’s stock. On May 24, the car rental company filed for bankruptcy after incurring massive losses on account of the COVID-19 travel restrictions, which had left the industry’s fleets at a standstill. In response, Hertz’s share price, which had already shed more than 85% from a two-year high in late February, plunged further, dropping into penny stock territory to $0.56. But then a strange thing happened: On Thursday last week, Hertz started a three-day tear to hit $5.54 on Monday, a 574% gain.A surge in trading activity by accounts listed on small investor trading app Robinhoodseemed to be behind the gain. As the rest of the market absorbed the euphoria of a stimulus-fueled recovery, the bankrupt car rental firm was suddenly attracting an influx of speculative retail investors.
For many of those newcomers, the story hasn’t ended well. On Wednesday, the New York Stock Exchange put the company on notice for delisting. Hertz is appealing that decision, but the announcement sent the shares crashing back to earth. At Thursday’s close, the price was at $2.06.
A commoncaveat emptorresponse would simply say that some greedy speculators learned a lesson and we can forget about it. But the reality is more nuanced. That kind of speculative mania is inseparable from the broader sentiment of the market, which is now consumed by a“don’t fight the Fed”logic on monetary stimulus. Hertz’s mini-bubble was (indirectly) engineered by central bankers.
What’s your story, bitcoin?June has been a frustrating month so far forbitcoinbulls. That’s not only because a series of rallies offered false hope, each faltering near the psychologically important $10,000 level. It’s also because market performance has again confounded efforts to define a narrative for bitcoin as an asset. After its COVID-19 sell-off in early March, which challenged the idea of bitcoin as a safe haven, bitcoin’s relatively strong rebound was explained in terms of fiat money supply issues. Bitcoin would then be described as an antidote to the fiat world’s “quantitative easing” as the Federal Reserve’s stimulus efforts spawned the“Money Printer go Brrrrr”meme and bitcoin’s own monetary policy “quantitatively tightened” via thehalving. But on Thursday, one day after theFed said it was “committed to using its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy,”bitcoin again sold off sharply. After staging another frustrating rally to just above $9,900, it plunged to an intraday low of $9108.47. Crucially, this was in sync with a big unwinding in U.S. stocks as concerns grew around new COVID-19 cases.
So, is bitcoin just a “risk asset,” moving up and down with overall investor risk appetites? It’s unclear. Having a more consistent story would make it easier to make an investment case for bitcoin. But maybe the lesson is we shouldn’t be searching for a narrative. Don’t try to pigeon-hole it. Bitcoin just is.
We laid the table for you…The failure of a meaningful price breakout is proof enough that the long-awaited arrival of institutional investors into crypto markets remains unfulfilled – regardless ofPaul Tudor Jones’orBloomberg’supbeat comments about bitcoin. But this hasn’t stopped big players in the crypto industry from continuing to build services catering to institutions for when they finally do show up. Three separate firms – Genesis (a CoinDesk sister company), BitGo and Coinbase –have established crypto prime brokerages, which leverage deep balance sheets and market connections to provide assured liquidity and price-efficient order routing for institutional investors. Meanwhile,Galaxy and Bakkt are teaming upto offer specialized crypto custody and trading services to the same kinds of players.In a press release, the firms described it as a “white-glove service,” the kind of business that lays it all on with a tailored service for its clients. So, there you go, institutions, the price is right, the butlers are waiting for you. What more do you need? Jump in. The water’s fine.
Go for a bike ride, get doxxed.Those of us who obsess about privacy – as Money Reimagined does from time to time – can get frustrated by an apparent lack of concern about it among the general public. That’s why it’s important to humanize it, to show the real-world impact of privacy breaches on people’s lives.Enter Peter Weinberg. Thanks to a date error in a police public service announcement and some overzealous users of geolocating cycling appStrava,a Twitter mob wrongly flagged Weinberg as the instigator of a rather ugly incident. A viral video had earlier shown a different man on a bicycle accosting two young girls who were posting flyers in support of George Floyd on a trail in Bethesda, Md.. When the Maryland-National Capital Park Police tweeted a request for information about the unhinged cyclist, it wrongly used June 1 as the date of the incident. That tweet was shared 55,000 times. It later corrected the tweet to say June 2. But that one was only shared 2,000 times. You can piece together what happened. A Strava user must have surveyed the site’s data, found what was thought to be a likeness, tied it to Weinberg’s associated social media profiles, put two and two together to come up with five and then outed him. Weinberg’s Twitter and LinkedIn message feeds were barraged with comments accusing him of being a racist and of engaging in child abuse. This is surely not what he signed up for when he agreed to communicate information about his rides and exercise regime with a friendly community of fellow cyclists.
• Money Reimagined: What CoinDesk’s Style Debate Says About Crypto as Public Tech
• Money Reimagined: Designer Money for a Machine-Run, Post-COVID World || Bitcoin Mining Pool Poolin Partners With BlockFi to Expand Crypto Lending Service: Poolin, the second largest bitcoin mining pool, is expanding its cryptocurrency lending and financial services businesses.
The pool announced Monday that it has started working with U.S.-based crypto lender BlockFi, which will be acting like an interbank lender, providing a source of capital for Poolin.
The firm initially rolled out crypto lending offerings in February via its Singapore-registered wallet entity, Blockin. With more capital now available, Poolin will be able to extend the business to more miner customers, offering annualized interest at levels that can be below 6%.
Miners that connect to the pool currently have about 18.3 exahashes per second (EH/s) of combined computing power, accounting for roughly 20% of the bitcoin network’s total. That makes PoolIn the second largest bitcoin mining pool, close behind F2Pool with around 19 EH/s of hashing power.
“[A] mining pool is a traffic business and it is getting more and more competitive,” said Yang Jianguo, head of Poolin’s financial services. “Poolin has its unique advantage but we also want multiple business lines – not just lending but also financial services – that are parallel to our pool business.”
Toward that end, the firm developed and launched its custodial Blockin wallet late last year. Poolin is the latest major bitcoin mining pool to have expanded into crypto lending products, despite a drop in demand after the major sell-off in March which force-liquidated the bitcoin collateral of many crypto miner operators in China.
Yang said, though, there is still demand from miners for loans originating from the need to pay for electricity or buying new mining equipment with bitcoin pledged as collateral. There’s also a demand for options and derivative products.
Related:Bitcoin Mining Pool Poolin Partners With BlockFi to Expand Crypto Lending Service
The firm declined to disclose the current value of outstanding loans or how much it is borrowing from BlockFi.
The partnership also comes as BlockFi moves to extend credit to miners, as previouslyreportedby CoinDesk. The U.S. lender plans to accept mining equipment as collateral when other competitors see that as a risky move.
Poolin said it’s also studying a similar offering, but acknowledged the valuation of mining equipment used as collateral is not as definable as bitcoin.
• Blockchain Bites: BlockFi Hacked, Block.one Sued, BitMEX Down
• The Last Word on Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption || The Chad Index Versus Doomer Internet Money: The Breakdown Weekly Recap: This week, the wildest, most nonsensical, volatile part of the market wasn’tbitcoin, it was the “Robinhood Rally” in equities.
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 byBitstampandCiphertrace.
The stock market has long been disconnected from the underlying economy, but much of what happened this week – particularly the pumping of bankrupt company stocks – suggests that something new is afoot.
See also:The Revolution Will Be Retweeted: The Breakdown Weekly Recap
In this episode, NLW breaks down three long-term trends suggested by the so-called Robinhood Rally, including:
• The “insurgency” aspect of a generation of young professionals who are willing to play the financial game rather than have it be played for them
• A totally new force in financial media, which could hit like a wrecking ball in one of the stodgiest, traditional media industries
• An embrace of a certain type of cynicism or nihilism when it comes to the values of financial markets
Monday |Why War Reporting Is the Right Mental Model for Today’s Media, Feat. Jake Hanrahan
• The founder of Popular Front joins NLW for a discussion about protests, media and how the people being covered tend to not reflect divisive politics.
Related:The Chad Index Versus Doomer Internet Money: The Breakdown Weekly Recap
Tuesday |What the Stock Market’s ‘Robinhood Rally’ Means for Bitcoin
• The largest 50-day rally in stock market history and even shares of bankrupt companies are up more than 100%. What is going on?
Wednesday |A Vision for Digital Property Rights, Feat. Nic Carter
• Most people today look at social platforms like any other private company, but what if we saw them as alternative jurisdictions with a new set of property rights?
Thursday |Why the Fed Keeps Denying Its Role in Increasing Inequality
• The Federal Reserve expects low inflation, says rates will stay close to zero through 2022 and keeps lying about the role of central banks in increasing inequality.
Friday |Bitcoin Is More Than an Inflation Hedge
• While fears of a “great monetary inflation” have driven the recent bitcoin narrative, other aspects like censorship resistance and peaceful protest matter just as much.
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.
• Bitcoin Is More Than an Inflation Hedge
• Bitcoin News Roundup for June 12, 2020 || US Stock Market Enters Parabolic Price Move – Be Prepared, Part II: In thefirst partof this research article, we briefly discussed the recent price andglobal economicevents related to the 2018 to 2020 US stock market volatility and the COVID-19 virus event. The premise of this research post was to highlight the current upside parabolic price trend that initiated shortly after the 2015~16 US election cycle event. It is almost impossible to look at the NAS100 chart, below, and not see the dramatic upside price advance that took place after the November 2016 US elections.
It is almost as if theUS stock marketshad been primed by Federal Reserve intervention over the previous 5+ years and someone let the monster out of the cage. The deregulation, changes to tax structures and general perception of market opportunity changed almost immediately after the November 2016 elections and really never looked back.
A close friend of mine suggested the current tax structures provide a very clear advantage for corporations which allows them to retain a minimum of 14% more revenue annually. This is a huge advantage for any profitable US corporation when one considers all aspects of tax laws. Additionally, President Trump changed the system from a “global” to a “territorial” structure. (Source:https://en.wikipedia.org) This provided additional tax reductions for multi-national corporations and prompted US companies to stay within the US. These new tax laws had a major impact on the bottom line after-tax revenues for thousands of US companies over the past 3+ years.
Yet, one has to earn a profit to be able to take advantage of these tax law changes and the COVID-19 virus event has put a serious dent in the earning capabilities of thousands of the US and foreign companies. The Redbook YoY data, representing Retail and Consumer Merchandise activity, has continued to post negative levels that appear to be far greater than at any time over the past 20+ years.
How can one rationalize the upward parabolic price trend continuing while the consumer sector, the largest segment ofUS GDP,has collapsed to levels that are more than double those of the 2008-09 credit crisis? The only answer in our minds is that a euphoric “bubble” has set up in the minds of speculative and foreign traders. This “bubble psychology” takes place when certain factors have been put into place. Typically, these factors include
_Displacement: when new technology, process, innovation or product/production capabilities disrupt and displace existing technologies. This creates an opportunity for traders and investors to “shift focus” and creates a new, untested, valuation process for the company or asset.
_Credit Creation: when central banks act in a manner to support the credit market, capital investment, and corporate enterprise. This creates the opportunity for new enterprises, businesses, and corporations to “startup” and creates a facility for capital investment from speculators, traders, VCs, and investors.
_Euphoria: the feeling that nothing can go wrong. You can invest in almost anything and make money. You could stand on the corner and sell empty cardboard boxes for $400 all day long because something thought they could “flip them” for $800 to the next person that walked by. This euphoria phase is a “self-feeding frenzy” that improperly validates very destructive behavior. In this phase, everyone feels utterly fantastic – until…
Now, you have to start asking yourself a few questions at this point in time.. Have we seen any of these phases over the past 10+ years? If so, how far along are we into these phases? Bitcoin was a displacement component that didn’t really start to take off until 2011~2013.
After that initial rally, it launched into a euphoric phase with the historic rally to $13,880. WeWork was another displacement component – promising a high-level remote work environment for the Gig/Millennial workers of the world. It built a foundation, found Softbank to back it, rallied to extreme valuations – then what? Hundreds of other displacement companies exist that have yet to deliver any proven profits. Their valuations are incredible and their believers continue to pour more and more capital into them with the expectation that “nothing can go wrong”. All of this reminds me of the Beanie-Baby craze years ago.
Financial Distress: when traders and investors begin to pull away from the euphoria and begin to revalue their belief in the ability of the displacement company to really engage in huge revenue creation. When more and more traders and investors begin to move in this direction, suddenly we see a change in how people really value assets and future expectations. The displacement company that everyone loved 5 months ago becomes the distressed company that everyone questions.
_Revulsion: when trust in the markets and valuation levels is completely lost to almost everyone. This is what I like to call the “shock-wave” of the bubble. And this revaluation process leads everyone to run for the exits before the last bobblehead on TV suggests “this is only temporary, buy everything and you’ll be really happy in 20+ years – don’t worry”.
Our research team believes we are very near to the “financial distress” phase of bubble psychology as a result of the COVID-19 virus event and the disruptions to the financial markets in 2018 and 2019. A number of critical “blips” took place over this time that very few people really paid attention to.
_ The revised corporate tax laws created a revenue source for all existing corporations that prompted a massive push for capital to be deployed in the US stock market. That 14%+ extra revenue suggested that everyone would see increased bottom line profits if they could make a profit.
_ The Case-Schiller US National Home Price Index has risen almost 70 points since 2013 (just over 7 years ago). The only other time in history the Case-Schiller US National Home Price Index has risen that fast was between 2001 and 2007. Consider that for a moment.
_ The US Fed burped up an error in August 2018. This error prompted a change in future guidance from the US Fed from a hawkish Fed to a very dovish Fed. Basically, the markets collapsed on Fed comments and the Fed became more accommodating – almost immediately.
_ Speculative investments (both foreign and domestic) pushed to higher and higher levels. Homes flipped. Cars flipped. Everything flipped and traders/investors pour billions into the US technology markets and other sectors because “nothing could go wrong”. Even as we knew the world was upended by geopolitical trade issues, foreign credit collapse events, BREXIT and dozens of other issues near the end of 2019, the US stock market rallied to new highs well into February 2020 – even though we knew the Corona Virus was making its way around the world and could be a complete disaster.
Then, the first phase of the financial distress hit – February 24, 2020. That big bad day when the markets suddenly realized “uh oh – this could be bad” and traders/investors throughout the world watched as almost the entire globe “shut down” because of the COVID-19 virus. What does that to the earning capabilities of almost all of the global corporations and businesses? How are they going to be able to sustain revenues to take advantage of those tax breaks when their businesses have collapsed by 40%, 60%, 80%, or more? Is everything going to go back to the euphoric party mode or not?
Right now, the Fed has again come to the rescue with more credit and the markets ate it up like cotton-candy covered in gum-drops. Everyone wanted to get back to that euphoric feeling so badly, they jumped into the markets almost as soon as they heard that the US Fed would “intervene” – off we go into parabolic trending.
If you are starting to understand what we are attempting to illustrate for you, then you already know how this article ends. The parabolic price trends we’re seeing right now are likely the end stage of a hyper-inflated, credit-fueled price trend. Yes, they could continue to rally much higher from current levels. Or, it could all suddenly come to a stop as Q2 comes to a close and everyone starts to suddenly realize “uh oh – that’s not good”.
We’ve been warning our client and followers for almost 10+ months that our super-cycle research suggested the end of 2019 and all of 2020 and 2021 were going to be incredibly volatile periods in the markets. We warned that traders needed to start investing in Gold and Silver back in 2017 and 2018 – to hedge against risks. We issued a Black Swan warning on February 21, 2020 – just days before the markets collapsed as a result of the COVID-19 virus. Now, we’re warning that this current parabolic upside price trend near the end of Q2:2020 could be a massive setup for one of the biggest “revaluation” events we’ve seen since 1999~2000 (the last big bubble).
Our researchers believe a shift away from the global financial speculation that has driven a total global asset bubble over the past 8+ years will suddenly shift away from wild speculative euphoria and quickly transition into the realization phase of “uh oh, what have we done”. It is this point that we suddenly enter a financial distress phase where investors flee over-inflated assets to move into risk hedging strategies. Why do you think Gold has rallied to levels near $1800 over the past 4+ years? A certain segment of global investors has already had their “uh oh” moment.
The US stock market has gone parabolic because a very unique set of circumstances have come together at this particular time in history. Now, we have to deal with the current and future phases of this cycle and prepare for what’s next. Protect your open long trades and/or take some profits out now. If our research is correct, we have already entered the Financial Distress phase. Q2: 2020 may be the catalyst event and that is only a few days away.
Get ourActive ETF Swing Trade Signalsor if you have any type of retirement account and are looking for signals when to own equities, bonds, or cash, be sure to become a member of myPassive Long-Term ETF Investing Signalswhich we are about to issue a new signal for subscribers.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Chris VermeulenChief Market StrategiesFounder of Technical Traders Ltd.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• US Stock Market Overview – Stocks Rise Led by Financials; Durable Goods Surge
• US Stock Market Enters Parabolic Price Move – Be Prepared, Part II || AUD/USD Price Forecast Australian Dollar Drifts Lower: The Australian dollar has initially tried to rally during the trading session on Thursday but gave back some of the gains and then drifted towards the 50 day EMA. As the market approach that the 0.64 level it did see a little bit of pressure to the upside but ultimately this is a pair that looks as if it is trying to start rolling over soon. This makes sense, the Australian dollar has no business being this elevated, especially in an environment where economic growth is all but gone. AUD/USD Video 15.05.20 The US dollar will continue to be a safety currency that people will run to, and as the US Treasury market continues to attract a lot of inflows, it makes sense that the greenback will strengthen. At this point, it is highly likely that we will continue to see market participants fade short-term rallies, but keep in mind that this is a market that is also highly levered to China which is not going to be a helpful thing at this point in time. China is on the back foot when it comes to growth, because quite frankly most of its customers are not buying. While being tethered to China for the last three decades has been a particularly good thing with the Australian economy, the overreaching dependence on Chinese trade has shown itself in Australia as it enters its first recession in 30 years. It is highly likely that we have come close to seeing the top and the Aussie dollar during this cycle. The 0.65 level has offered a lot of resistance, and it is also an area where we had seen massive selling to begin with. Ultimately, this is a market that is trying to determine its longer-term direction. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: USD/JPY Price Forecast US Dollar Finding Support Against Japanese Yen Economic Data and Central Bank Commentary Is Coming Back into Focus Crude Oil Price Forecast Crude Oil Markets Continue to Grind Sideways Gold Price Forecast Gold Markets Break Out of Triangle Finally Time to Question The Recovery in World Stock Markets? US Open Waking From a Stimulus Induced Dream Oil, Gold and BTC in Focus View comments || Bitcoin Outperforming Gold and Stocks so Far This Month: Bitcoin looks to have decoupled from traditional markets as investors refocus on the networks imminent mining reward halving. While the top cryptocurrency by market value has gained nearly 5.9% so far this month, gold, a haven asset, has declined by 1%. Meanwhile, as of Wednesday, the S&P 500, Wall Streets equity index, was down 2.2% on a month-to-date basis, according to data source Skew. Bitcoin is also the best performing asset of 2020 to date, with a 28% year-to-date gain. Oil (WTI) is down 66% flashing red due to the massive destruction of demand brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin at $9.9K as Halving Chatter Increases The cryptocurrency has moved largely in tandem with the stock markets over the past two months. Prices fell from $10,000 to $3,867 in the first two weeks of March because the coronavirus-led sell-off in global equities triggered a global dash for cash. The cryptocurrency rose back above $7,000 in the following four weeks, tracking the recovery in stocks. The positive correlation, however, weakened last week with bitcoin posting double-digit gains despite moderate losses in equities. The cryptocurrency is now trading near $9,300 , representing a 4.4% gain on a week-to-date basis, according to CoinDesks Bitcoin Price Index. The crypto markets focus seems to have shifted away from the coronavirus to the reward halving , expected to take effect on May 12 (though it may happen sooner ). The supply-altering process has been hailed as a price-bullish event by many analysts for over a year now, and the recent rally from $7,600 to $9,400 may have been fueled by a fear of missing out (FOMO) on the expected gains. Bitcoins network is also experiencing its busiest period in over two years. For instance, the seven-day average of the number of unique addresses active on the network jumped to 947,088 on Wednesday to hit the highest level since January 2018, according to the data from Glassnode . The spike suggests increased investor interest in the cryptocurrency, as noted earlier this week. Story continues Related: Hedge Fund Pioneer Turns Bullish on Bitcoin Amid Unprecedented Monetary Inflation Further, the cryptocurrencys hash rate the computing power dedicated to mining blocks recently rose to an all-time high of 140 exahashes per second. Most observers expect bitcoins price to rise into five figures ahead of the halving. From a technical analysis standpoint, the case for a rally to $10,000 would strengthen following an acceptance above a major resistance level. Daily chart Bitcoin is currently trading just above the resistance of the trendline connecting the July 2019 and February 2020 highs (currently at $9,280). If prices hold above that level for a few more hours, stronger chart-driven buying will likely emerge, lifting prices toward $10,000. However, bitcoin has failed a couple of times in the last six days to keep gains above the long-term trendline hurdle. Put options in demand While the cryptocurrency is gaining altitude, investors seem to be buying put options (bearish bets, in effect), possibly to hedge against a potential post-halving price drop . This is evident from the rise in the one-month put-call skew from -3% on May 1 to 9.1% on Wednesday. The positive reading indicates that put options are more expensive than calls (bullish bets) as a result of drawing higher demand. Similar sentiments are being echoed by the put-call open interest ratio , which rose to a three-month high of 0.75 on Wednesday, according to data provided Skew. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing . Related Stories First Mover: Bitcoins Halving Is Coming Even Sooner Than You Realize Market Wrap: Derivatives May Reduce Miner Selling Pressure After Bitcoin Halving || First Mover: Search Interest in Bitcoin’s Halving Reaches Fever Pitch as Price Hits $10K: With fewer than four days left till bitcoin’s halving, popular interest in the once-every-four-years event is reaching a fever pitch.
Google Trends, a barometer for gauging interest in trending search topics, shows searches for “halving” or “bitcoinhalving” at five times the peak in 2016, when the blockchain underwent its previous halving event.
You’re readingFirst Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You cansubscribe here.
Related:Market Wrap: Interest in Bitcoin Rises as Prices Near $10K, but Can It Continue?
In the buildup to the halving, prices have surged over recent weeks. The rise is also likely because of speculation that bitcoin might work as an inflation hedge against the trillions of dollars of new-money injections this year by the Federal Reserve and other central banks.
Bitcoin jumped 9.3% on Thursday to about $10,000. The cryptocurrency is now up 39% year to date, triple the returns for gold, which is seen by many investors in traditional markets as a hedge against inflation. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks is down 11%.
Paul Tudor Jones II, the hedge-fund magnate known for correctly predicting the 1987 stock-market crash, told Bloomberg News Thursday his $38 billion Tudor Investment Corp. is putting money into bitcoin futures.
“I am not a hard-money nor a crypto nut,” Jones told clients in a market outlook note titled, “The Great Monetary Inflation.” But the “best profit-maximizing strategy is to own the fastest horse,” he wrote.
Related:Blockchain Bites: Paul Tudor Jones, Open Options and Why Bitcoin Looks Strong Heading to the Halving
“If I am forced to forecast, my bet is it will be bitcoin,” according to Jones. “The most compelling argument for owning bitcoin is the coming digitization of currency everywhere, accelerated by COVID-19.”
Such growing interest reflects how the size of the cryptocurrency market – and the industry supporting it – has ballooned over the past four years. In 2017, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance reckoned there were about 2,000 people working in the entire digital-asset industry. Fast forward to 2020 and companies like Kraken and Coinbase are hiring hundreds of people at a time.
Trading activity is also up. CryptoCompare released data this week showing the second-highest trading volumes on record was on April 30:
Some $66.2 billion worth of cryptocurrencies changed hands that day, second only to the $75.9 billion traded during March 12’s 39% price plunge, when the economic devastation from the coronavirus suddenly became clear to traders in both digital and traditional asset markets.
According to Lewis Harland, founder at analytics site Formal Verification: “Higher volumes in the futures market in terms of open interest point to perhaps a greater interest from institutions.”
There’s also been an increase in the number of trading products and instruments offered in the fast-growing market.
Last month, the cryptocurrency derivatives platform FTX introduced a token that allows investors to trade bitcoin volatility.
And, this week, Bitfinex released a perpetual swap giving exposure to bitcoin dominance – essentially the market share occupied by the largest and oldest cryptocurrency, relative to the overall digital-asset market.
21Shares, which sponsors exchange-traded products tracking cryptocurrencies, launched a new token via its Amun arm that rises in value whenever bitcoin’s price falls, and vice versa.
If the last two halvings are any indication, next week will see an upswing in volatility, offering rich opportunities for traders to take advantage. In the meantime, many are preparing by creating preferred exposure and using products to hedge or take positions on a specific market move.
Traders will continuously adjust their positions ahead of the big day, and soon enough the price action will separate winners from losers. Some investors think the halving will drive bitcoin a lot higher; others say an event that’s been in the works for 11 years is so well-known that it’s already baked into the price.
What’s beyond dispute is how fast this market is growing. The spike in interest in the halving might just be another reflection of that.
BTC: Price: $9,861 (BPI) | 24-Hr High: $9,999 | 24-Hr Low: $9,961
Trend: Bitcoin bulls are taking a breather so far on Friday, having engineered a rally to two-month highs above $10,000 on Thursday.
At press time, the top cryptocurrency by market value is trading around $9,860, down 0.5% on the day. The bulls failed to keep prices above key resistance at $10,048 during overnight trading. That level marks the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of the drop from the June 2019 high of $13,880 to the March 2020 low of $3,867.
The 61.8% Fibonacci retracement, or the golden ratio, is widely tracked by chart analysts and traders. Hence, a move above that hurdle could cause more buyers to join the market.
Observers suggest the pullback seen over the last few hours could be temporary and prices will likely find acceptance above the Fibonacci hurdle ahead of the mining reward halving due on Monday. “We’ll go higher this weekend because of FOMO by retail investors” said Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank.
FOMO, or fear of missing out, refers to an emotional reaction that pushes traders to invest in a less disciplined way. As prices rise, more and more investors become concerns they will miss out on the opportunity to buy the asset at attractive prices. That fear forces them to invest in a less-disciplined way and leads to stronger price gains.
Many in the investor community believe bitcoin’s imminent halving will put bitcoin on a long-term bull run and are likely to keep buying while heading into the event.
A convincing break above $10,048 would shift the focus to the next major resistance at $10,385. That level is currently housing the trendline falling from December 2017 and June 2019 highs.
• Open Positions on Bitcoin Options Pass $1B for First Time
• Blockchain Bites: Introducing the CoinDesk 50 and a Roadmap to Consensus: Distributed
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 9190.85, 9137.99, 9228.33, 9123.41, 9087.30, 9132.49, 9073.94, 9375.47, 9252.28, 9428.33
|
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 2017-03-09]
BTC Price: 1188.49, BTC RSI: 56.00
Gold Price: 1202.40, Gold RSI: 37.01
Oil Price: 49.28, Oil RSI: 29.91
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin is making a comeback: Overnight selling pushed bitcoin down by more than 6% to a low of $776.95, but buying on Friday has wiped away those losses. The cryptocurrency was up 2.06%, or $16.60, at $817.34 a coin as of 12:36 p.m. ET.
The early selling still did not pass Thursday's low of $752.46, a sign that bitcoin could be putting in a near-term bottom. The cryptocurrency has had a wild start to the year, climbing by more than 20% in the first four trading days, reaching a 2017 high of $1,161.88 a coin, before tumbling by more than 35% as China beganinvestigating bitcoin exchangesin Beijing and Shanghai on suspicion of market manipulation, money laundering, unauthorized financing, and other issues.
(Investing.com)
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• Bitcoin is getting demolished || 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. Story continues 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) || Bitcoin dives below $1,000: Bitcoin is back below $1,000. Overnight selling has pushed the cryptocurrency down 1.10%, or $11, to $989 a coin, and below the psychologically important level for the first time since February 3 as sellers remain in control following the decision by some of China's largest exchanges to block withdrawals . Last Thursday, following a meeting with the People's Bank of China, Huobi and OK Coin announced customers would be blocked from withdrawing their bitcoins. The announcement comes following a wild start to 2017 for bitcoin. It rallied more than 20% in the opening week of the year before crashing 35% on fears China would crack down on trading. Last week's announcement wasn't the first action China's exchanges have taken this year to curb trading. Earlier, they announced they would begin charging a flat fee of 0.2% per transaction. Bitcoin (Markets Insider) NOW WATCH: Here's how to use one of the many apps to buy and trade bitcoin More From Business Insider Bitcoin dropped sharply and suddenly on more news out of China Bitcoin is zooming higher DEUTSCHE BANK: Trump could name China a 'currency manipulator' in the coming weeks || Your first trade for Monday, January 17: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final trades of the day. Brian Kelly is a buyer of Tesla. Steve Grasso is a buyer of Nvidia. Guy Adami is a buyer of Amazon. Tim Seymour is a buyer of the iShares MSCI Emerging Market ETF (EEM). Trader disclosure: On (DATE HERE) 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 'S FIRM IS LONG: AGN, BIIB, CHK, COG, CUBA, DIA, FCX, GLD, ICE, KDUS, MFIN, MJNA, MSFT, NE, REGN, RIG, SPY, TITXF, VIRT,WDR, WLL, ZNGA. GRASSO IS LONG: CHK, EEM, EVGN, GDX, KBH, MJNA, MON, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, SPY, T, TWTR. GRASSO'S KIDS OWN: EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. NO SHORTS. BRIAN KELLY is long: FCX, TSLA, SLV, Bitcoin TIM SEYMOUR i s long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, C, CLF, CVX, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWN, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,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 || 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 Trumps 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 quarters 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 Wednesdays 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 || Analyst Outlines Why Snapchat Has a Facebook Put for Potential Buyout: Snap Inc. (SNAP) has had a pretty wild initial public offering. After some analysts and publications have discussed how overvalued the parent of Snapchat really is, one more analyst has chimed in with a less negative view of Snap. A firm called FBN Securities has rated Snap with a Sector Perform rating and assigned a $23 price target.
After shares closed on Wednesday at $22.81, what investors will care about here is that if the price of Snap gets too low then Facebook Inc. (FB) is speculated to be a buyer. There is also a Twitter Inc. (TWTR) aspect to this call.
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Before getting excited that perhaps Snap would be considered as a hostile acquisition, guess again. Snap's founders have full control, and the public stock buyers have no vote whatsoever in Snap's management decisions.
FBN's Shelby Seyrafi noted that Snap has a very strong presence in the 12- to 24-year-old age demographic and that Snap has been highly innovative so far. The analyst's checks so far indicated that advertisers intend to spend much more on Snap, and at the expense of Twitter, later in 2017.
FBN did address some key concerns, hence the Sector Perform rating. These were slowing user growth, its relatively weak presence outside of the 12-to-24 demographic, and of course the weak corporate governance, in which shareholders get no vote at all. In fact, the report further highlights that Snap is unlikely to be admitted to any of the major indexes due to investors having no vote. Other concerns included massive operating losses and difficulty penetrating non-developed markets.
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The report offers a valuation for a long-term adjusted EBITDA margin of 32%, with upside. As far as why the firm feels there is a Facebook put, that was put down at $14 per share. The report said:
One of the key points that the bears on Snap may be missing is that we believe that Facebook would love to acquire the company, and it could be willing to pay at least $20 billion-plus ($14/share) for the asset. If this is so, then investors in Snap effectively have a “put” at around $14 per share. Remember that Facebook paid $21.8 billion for WhatsApp, a company which, although it had more users than Snap, was not generating any real revenue.
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Several reasons were highlighted for why Facebook might make a bid for Snap at the right price. The primary reason was that Facebook already tried to acquire Snap for about $3 billion back in 2013. Facebook is also said to have the balance sheet and cash flow to finance such a deal. Lastly, a deal to acquire Snapchat's parent would remove one of the few long-term threats to its business.
As for Twitter, it feels like yet another call is being made that Twitter could be left in the cold here. Thursday's report suggested that advertisers are expected to increase ad spending on Snapchat later in 2017, at the expense of Twitter more than anyone else.
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As a reminder, Snap's IPO price was $17.00 per share, with an offering of 200 million shares. Its initial range had been set at $14 to $16 per share for that IPO.
Investors are not all that excited about the possibility of a "Facebook put" down at $14. That being said, maybe that at least keeps the risk lower than if this were to just trade without the hope that anyone would want to buy it. Snap shares were trading up fractionally at $22.99 on Thursday morning, in a post-IPO range of $20.64 to $29.44.
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• The Happiest (and Most Miserable) Cities in America || Endurance Insurance Introduces New Cyber Extortion Response Service: PEMBROKE, Bermuda - January 17, 2017 - Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. (ENH), a Bermuda-based specialty provider of property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, announced today that the company has introduced a new service enabling its insureds to better respond to ransomware and similar extortion events. Endurance`s Breach Assist Counsel, Mullen Coughlin LLC, a recognized leader in incident response legal services, coordinates with leading providers of forensic and response services to assist Endurance`s clients in the event of a data breach or other data security incident. Kivu Consulting, a computer forensic company, has been providing computer forensic investigation services as part of that network and will now also offer extortion response services.
Mullen Coughlin`s and Kivu`s expert teams work with ransomware victims to guide them as they respond to malicious attacks, including arranging for payment in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, analyzing and testing decryption keys to ensure they are effectively and safely applied without further compromising the company`s network, and preparing documentation for reporting events to appropriate law enforcement agencies.
Mr. Brad Gow, Senior Vice President, Endurance Pro, commented "Companies faced with ransomware are often ill equipped to obtain Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency under tight deadlines. By providing our policyholders with access to experts to guide them through the payment and decryption processes, we assist them to minimize disruption to their business operations and execute the crisis response in a manner that best protects our insured from future harm."
Mr. Christopher Sparro, Chief Executive Officer of U.S. Insurance added, "We are excited about this new service as we continue to evolve our cyber response capabilities, adding innovative products and services for our clients. Mullen Coughlin and Kivu are two members of a selected team of best-in-class preferred vendors that our breach response team can access to assist our insureds to quickly and professionally respond to breaches."
Mr. John Mullen, Partner, Mullen Coughlin, stated, "Rapid growth in ransomware attacks is impacting both small and large organizations. Given the increasing complexity of the attacks, some targets have experienced multiple extortions if they don`t effectively manage the initial response. We are extremely pleased to be offering these technical support services as they are a natural complement to the cyber extortion coverage that Endurance provides their clients."
About Endurance Specialty Holdings
Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. is a global specialty provider of property and casualty insurance and reinsurance. Through its operating subsidiaries, Endurance writes agriculture, professional lines, property, marine and energy, and casualty and other specialty lines of insurance and catastrophe, property, casualty, professional lines and specialty lines of reinsurance. We maintain excellent financial strength as evidenced by the ratings of A (Excellent) from A.M. Best (XV size category), A (Strong) from Standard and Poor`s and A2 from Moody`s on our principal operating subsidiaries. Endurance`s headquarters are located at Waterloo House, 100 Pitts Bay Road, Pembroke HM 08, Bermuda and its mailing address is Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd., Suite No. 784, No. 48 Par-la-Ville Road, Hamilton HM 11, Bermuda. For more information about Endurance, please visitwww.endurance.bm.
About Mullen Coughlin
Mullen Coughlin LLC is a law firm uniquely dedicated to servicing insured organizations of every size and from every industry faced with data privacy crises, security incidents, and risks. Having handled thousands of such events, our accessible and motivated attorneys possess experience and talent with respect to the complicated and constantly changing risks to the security of information systems and data as well as the complex state, federal, and international laws imposing requirements on organizations. Founded by John Mullen, Chris DiIenno, Jim Prendergast, and Jennifer Coughlin, Mullen Coughlin is the largest team of experienced attorneys - currently 17 - uniquely focused on providing tailored data privacy and security incident response services under the umbrella of cyber insurance, as well as pre-breach planning and compliance, breach response, regulatory investigation and management, and privacy litigation defense. Mullen Coughlin services organizations from every sector, including: Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, Education, Government and Non-Profit and Professional Services. We think of ourselves as ".first, focused, and finest" when it comes to cyber counsel.
ContactInvestor RelationsPhone: +1 441 278 0988Email: investorrelations@endurance.bm
# # #
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: Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd via GlobeNewswireHUG#2071736 || 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.
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• These 13 online classes will help you learn something new in 2017 — and they’re all $10 || 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? || 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)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#UFOCoin #UFO $0.000009 (-0.99%) 0.00000001 BTC (-0.00%) || 5 Common Misconceptions About #bitcoin http://bit.ly/2lTYFec pic.twitter.com/nEhAO64fPX #ResidualBitcoin || #bitcoin #miner * Antminer S7 * 4.73 TH/s * Free Priority Shipping * $350.00 http://ift.tt/2jLThe4 pic.twitter.com/pN3BHvaXeJ || secrets of an internet millionaire anthony morrison,bitcoin double multiply . http://ow.ly/cnwg3092Wni || Buy #Gulden for 0.00002141 #BTC https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-nlg … #trade || BTC
bitFlyer:119804JPY(-136)
BTCBOX:121500JPY(±0)
coincheck:119890JPY(-151) || The latest More about exploring! http://paper.li/joeldpagaduan/1409607349?edition_id=e2df6250-f48f-11e6-ba17-0cc47a0d1609 … #bitcoin || 現在の価格は 113677円(http://blockchain.info )です。前回比は0円(0.00%)です。http://konvert.in/currency/1-bitcoin-to-japanese-yen … #ビットコイン #bitcoin via @konvertin || Sosobtc adopts Bitfinex price amid market confusion http://ift.tt/2kZIPAA #bitcoin #Blockchain #Cryptos #Reddit || Ethereum’s Price Rises by Almost 25% http://dlvr.it/NPbYGL #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/nWFvWYlgvG
|
Trend: down || Prices: 1116.72, 1175.83, 1221.38, 1231.92, 1240.00, 1249.61, 1187.81, 1100.23, 973.82, 1036.74
|
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 2015-04-10]
BTC Price: 236.07, BTC RSI: 36.82
Gold Price: 1204.60, Gold RSI: 53.95
Oil Price: 51.64, Oil RSI: 55.86
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Smartwatches To Get Bitcoin Technology: Circle, an internationally accessible banking operation that recently integrated abitcoinarm, haslauncheda new smartwatch-compatible app that will allow users to manage their wallets conveniently using their wearable devices.
Another Option For Mainstream Adoption
The app marks another attempt by the currency’s supporters to bring it into mainstream use.
The company’s app will allow users to make payments, view their wallet and monitor the value of bitcoin on a smartphone-compatible app as well as on the Android Wear devices.
Circle Fosters Confidence
Circle has been working to make the currency more mainstream by marketing itself as a safe place to store your bitcoins.
Last year’s Mt. Gox exchange collapse coupled with the more recent MyCoin ponzi scheme in Hong Kong have made the public apprehensive about adopting the cryptocurrency.
However, Circle touts a reliable experience for all customers, as depositors are required to make their identities known and all accounts are insured against theft.
Related Link: Cryptocurrencies May Be Down, But Blockchain Technology Is Still Hot
Apple Watch App In The Future?
The Circle app is currently available for smartphones in both the Android and Apple stores and is compatible with Android Wear devices.
WithApple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) smartwatch not expected to hit shelves until later this year, most wearables in use at the moment use the Android platform.
Although Circle has not made any announcements regarding compatibility with Apple’s smartwatch, most expect that the company will release a similar offering for Apple users.
Bitcoin Price Over Time | FindTheBest
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is LEOcoin The Real Deal?: Last week, LEOcoin had its official debut and the coin's creators claimed it would become the second largest cryptocurrency in the world after bitcoin.
However, the launch was met with muchskepticismfrom cryptocurrency enthusiasts, who say the altcoin is nothing more than a "pump and dump" scam.
LEOcoin To Take Cryptocurrency Mainstream
Dan Andersson, one of LEOcoin's founders, has said the cryptocurrency is more accessible and easier to use than bitcoin, and thus will be a good catalyst to push digital currencies into mainstream use.
Andersson claims that his relationship with thousands of big name companies through the Learning Enterprises Organization will help spread the adoption of LEOcoin to merchants around the world. He claims that over 30,000 merchants have already signed on to accept the currency and that the number of users has risen to 150,000.
Related Link:Bitcoin's Jail Stint Creates New Currency Offering
Is LEOcoin Really Such A Big Deal?
Many are criticizing LEOcoin, saying that Andersson's claims are unfounded and likely untrue. Since LEOcoin has yet to release a list of merchants willing to accept the currency, some have begun to doubt what he said. Also, LEOcoin has been criticized for touting its existence as a "new" coin offering. While its true that the official launch was on April 2, the coin has been mined since August 2014, something critics say the altcoin's founders were not forthcoming about.
Only Time Will Tell
While the April 2 launch was shadowed by skepticism, many are excited about the new coin and look forward to its mainstream adoption. However, both supporters and critics will have to wait to find out whether or not the altcoin will withstand the test of time.
See more from Benzinga
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitnet Partnership Opens Up Bitcoin Transactions For Airlines, But Will They Use It?: Universal Air Travel Plan, the payment network serving several big name airlines including British Airways and American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ: AAL ), has inked a deal with Bitnet , a bitcoin payment processor. The deal marks another huge hurdle for the cryptocurrency as it will allow 260 international airlines as well as Amtrak railways to seamlessly integrate bitcoin payments into their payment options. Bitcoin And Travel A Perfect Fit Supporters of the cryptocurrency are hailing this deal as a big advancement for the cryptocurrency, which has been on a downward trajectory despite high profile merchant partnerships and a regulated exchange opening. Lower transaction costs and less chance of fraud are reasons many say the travel industry is a great fit for bitcoin integration. Vice President of Solutions Strategy at Bitnet Akif Khan noted that fraud mitigation will be a huge potential upside for many airlines as once a customer has paid, that money cant be taken away in a fraudulent transaction. Airlines Have Yet To Put The Deal To Use However, the partnership itself doesnt mean the cryptocurrency will be easily adopted. Since the bitcoin payment option became available on Tuesday, none of UATPs customers have chosen to add it on. Related Link: MyCoin Ponzi Scheme Another Setback For Cryptocurrencies Companies like Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE ) and CheapAir have led the charge in incorporating bitcoin into the travel world, but with mixed results. There is still a lot of mistrust surrounding digital currencies, especially after another Asian exchange closed over the weekend leaving several thousand investors without access to their funds. See more from Benzinga A 2015 Run Down The Runway: U.S. Airline Stocks 3 Sectors That Benefit From Lower Oil Prices © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Force Minerals Corporation Acquires Crypto Currency CandyCoin: IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / March 9, 2015 / Force Minerals Corporation ( FORC ), is pleased to announce the Company has completed negotiations for the acquisition of an established Crypto Currency CandyCoin a digital crypto currency company and its digital mining assets and intellectual properties. CandyCoin can be found at the following URL: www.candyco.in . CandyCoin is a digital crypto currency that trades under the symbol "YUM" at www.allcrypt.com and https://askcoin.net/trading/YUM/BTC . Candycoin has its own mining pool that is a peer to peer mining network. "The acquisition of CandyCoin a developing Crypto Currency fits into the company's developmental plans to bring enhanced value to crypto currencies, promote the use of CandyCoin and establish a conversion capability so that CandyCoin can be utilized as a mainstream alternative currency," states company President, Mr. Nate Lewis. "We expect that the company will develop CandyCoin into a very liquid and merchantable currency over the next several months." The company will initially be establishing a mining presence to support the mining of CandyCoin, as well as establishing itself in the trading arenas in order to take advantage of market discrepancies. Upon the successful implementation of this process the company will expand to other relative Crypto Currencies as opportunities become available. Backed by a publicly trading company, Digital Mining Corporation is dedicated to creating shareholder value by utilizing market opportunities to successfully mine crypto currencies on a global level maximizing their value to the highest levels possible while being highly innovative utilizing crypto security and blockchain technologies to minimize Bitcoin transaction completion times for consumers. 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; FORC's ability to commercialize its technology; ability to defend intellectual property; material and component costs; competition; economic conditions; consumer demand and product acceptance, and availability of growth capital. Story continues Additional considerations and risk factors are set forth in reports filed on Form 8-K and 10-K 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. CONTACT: For further Information: Force Minerals Corporation. President: Mr. Nathaniel Lewis 1-970-660-8197 www.candyco.in www.digitalminingcorp.com ir@forceminerals.com SOURCE: Force Minerals Corporation || How tech trials force a choice between bad people and bad law: Of course Ross Ulbricht was guilty. Despite his far-fetched claims of mistaken identity, a New York jury confirmed the obvious: that Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) was the criminal mastermind who took on a villains name, and became rich by running an online marketplace that sold any drug imaginable. All the same, protestors on the internet and at the courthouse still insisted Ulbricht was innocent. More broadly, the Dread Pirate (who is now awaiting sentencing) also enjoyed sympathy from many in the tech press, which often downplayed the bad things he did, and instead cast the FBI as the villain in the case. Such moral indulgence is odd, and doesnt extend to Ulbricht alone. Other tech rogues, including a corpulent charlatan and a Nazi sadist, also enjoy public sympathy. But why? A big part of it may lie with the governments heavy-handed approach to internet-related crime. Bad people Ross Ulbricht didnt start out bad. Indeed, accounts of his past life from his mother and Ulbricht reveal a very different sort of person: an Eagle Scout, and then a bright and sensitive physics student who worked hard to build a used books company. But then he became someone else. He started the Silk Road marketplace, which began as a relatively benign forum for finding magic mushrooms, but then devolved into a free-wheeling playground for hard drugs, forged documents and prostitution. The notorious bazaar also changed Ulbricht himself: FBI evidence from a seized laptop suggests that he attempted to hire hit men to murder those he believed had betrayed him (the hit men turned out to be government agents but Ulbricht believed they were real). This tragic arc, which saw the Eagle Scout become the Dread Pirate Roberts, may explain some of the sympathy for Ulbricht. But thats hardly the case for Weev, another famous figure in internet circles who is also facing prosecution by the Justice Department. Weev, whose real name is Andrew Auernheimer, was sentenced to three years in prison for what the government describes as a hack on AT&T. But he is better known for his other legacy as one of the cruelest trolls on the internet, whose antics have exposed women to death threats. And last year, Weed reinvented himself as a Jew-hating White Supremacist. Story continues Despite all this, many tech outlets hailed an appeals court decision last year to vacate Weevs conviction on the hacking charges on procedural grounds, and to release him from prison. And while Weev doesnt exactly enjoy public sympathy, stories of his legal battle often elide the bad things he has done. Other antiheroes of the tech worlds include Julian Assange, the self-aggrandizing Wikileaks leader who faces sexual assault accusations in Sweden, and outlaw music mogul Kim Dotcom. Dotcom has done a litany of bad things, including making millions from purloined movies and allegedly ratting on his rivals, but he is still hugely popular with many internet communities. The 300-pound fugitive is even dabbling in mainstream politics in New Zealand , where he is living while he fights U.S. efforts to extradite him to face multiple criminal charges. The celebrity-style adulation that Dotcom and the others receive is no doubt frustrating for the law enforcement officials trying to convict them. The reason for it, however, is not just because the outlaws are good at gulling the public (though thats part of it), but because of peoples legitimate misgivings about the laws that the U.S. is using to prosecute them. Bad laws Aaron Swatrz was a genius so beloved in the tech community that a film-maker made an acclaimed movie about him called The Internets Own Boy . But he was also a criminal in the eyes of the government, and some believe the Justice Departments relentless effort to prosecute led the 26-year-old Swartz to commit suicide in his Brooklyn apartment two years ago. What crime led to this end? In 2009, Swartz used MIT computers to download millions of academic articles from a database called JSTOR articles whose authors are typically unpaid, but that are licensed to universities at high fees. His action may have been ill-advised, but hardly amounts to a serious crime. Nonetheless, the Justice Department came at Swartz with a law called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that gave prosecutors discretion to seek a prison term of 35 years and a $1 million fine. The CFAA is a clumsy statute dating from long ago that relies on vague concepts like unauthorized access, and lawmakers have tried to reform it. Yet those efforts have so far failed, and the Justice Department keeps using it in all sorts of cases including that of Weev. In the governments view, Weev committed illegal hacking under the CFAA when he accessed the AT&T website to demonstrate a security flaw that spat out private email addresses. Skeptics, however, point out that Weev simply entered information into a public website available to anyone with an internet browser, and ask how this amounts to hacking. The CFAA also grounded one of the seven charges conspiracy to commit hacking on which Ross Ulbricht was convicted, although that charge was overshadowed by other elements of the trial (including a theory that the government itself had violated the CFAA.) Meanwhile, the CFAA is hardly the only questionable law that is at issue in tech-related prosecutions. Before the Silk Road case, Ulbrichts mother made a forceful argument that her sons prosecution should be seen through the lens of systemic abuse by the Justice Department of surveillance and drug laws. She has a point: whatever harms caused by Silk Road drug deals, they pale in comparison to the destruction wrought by Americas ruinous war on drugs. As for Kim Dotcom, his use of a mass piracy company to get rich is impossible to justify. But so too are many aspects of U.S. copyright laws, whose absurd terms and harsh penalties serve to benefit a narrow sector of the entertainment industry at the expense of the general public. Is it a surprise that knee-jerk attitudes to digital media by government and industry has led some to cheer for Dotcom instead of the industry that wants him prosecuted? The hard choice The cases against Ulbricht, Weev and Dotcom raise a dilemma because they can force us to choose between supporting a bad person or a bad law. A choice to convict such men may serve to legitimize unjust laws, while exonerating them amounts to giving them a free pass for unacceptable actions. The cases can be harder still since they often involve technology (like TOR, peer-to-peer tools and bitcoin) that is unfamiliar to average people, but that the government often characterizes as inherently suspicious and related to hacking. All of this helps to explain why the tech community can embrace antiheroes over Justice Department prosecutors who are apt to employ every legal tool at their disposal even if it is one that is harsh or outdated. The solution then is to give the prosecutors better tools, and not simply more of them. If the U.S. government is going to retain credibility in its effort to go after what it sees as online bad guys, it will have to do a better job of defining crime, and matching crime to punishment. This story was updated on 2/15 to replace the word charges with accusations to describe the sexual assault allegations against Assange. Image copyright Wikipedia . Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research: Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial . Bitcoin: why digital currency is the future financial system The software-defined data center shifts to the enterprise How utilities are using modern data analytics More From paidContent.org The Internet of Things has a new home on Gigaom Research || Smartwatches Bring Good Vibrations: Much like mobile phones brought about an acronym-based texting language and smartphones allowed users to communicate with emoji's, the smartwatch is introducing a new language of its own — vibration. The idea of communicating through tactile sensations may sound like an impossible task, but developers are using what they already know about people's responses to having their arms grabbed or their hands touched to create intuitive sensations that deliver information to wearers without them having to look down at their wrist. Ahead Of The Curve Immersion Corporation (NASDAQ: IMMR ) is one such company whose research centers on how the public receives tactile messages. Called "haptic feedback," Immersion is the leader in creating tiny actuators that vibrate differently for different types of messages. The company uses strength and frequency to convey whether or not a message is time-sensitive or urgent and says its technology can produce between 40 and 70 recognizably different alerts. Related Link: Expert: Why Apple Watch Will Be Apple's Most Upgradeable Product The Language Of Feels Communicating with users through tactile sensations is not a new concept. At Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT ), haptics researchers have been working to develop a system that will allow users to feel textures on the smooth glass surface of their tablet or phone. Walt Disney Co (NYSE: DIS ) is similarly looking into haptic technology in order to improve improve the company's games and movies. Because this type of user engagement is relatively new, it can be difficult to determine how to correctly stimulate a consumer's tactile senses in a way that enhances their experience rather than taking away from it. See more from Benzinga UK Could Become Bitcoin Hub With New Regulations Conflicting Data Makes Rate Increase Difficult To Predict Juniper Sees Bitcoin Usage Growing, But Not Among Retailers © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 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 || Bitcoin fund for the public?: Now everyone can have a slice of the Bitcoin market. Bitcoin Investment Trust , or BIT, is slated to become the first publicly traded Bitcoin fund. The Wall Street Journal reports BIT has been racing a fund offered by the Winklevoss twins to be the first to launch publicly. Currently BIT is only available to accredited investors with incomes greater than $200,000 per year or assets above $1 million. Will opening the trust to the public give greater legitimacy to Bitcoin? Not quite, says Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli . “The way they're winning the race to the public markets is by taking a shortcut and doing it on the Over-The-Counter market,” he notes. “It’s not going through a full SEC review for a regular exchange, which the Winklevoss fund is doing. I don’t really think they've magically gotten legitimacy for Bitcoin as an asset class, but I do think it shows you this is an area that’s maturing.” Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App The value of Bitcoin has plummeted over the past year, from over $800 per coin in 2014 to under $300 today. Santoli points out that the uses for Bitcoin are not limited to just being a store of value. “The optimists will say, and I’ve often wondered about this, it can be a really good payment protocol without necessarily having each Bitcoin worth all that much,” he says. “It’s not clear to me they have to operate in tandem like that.” Total market capitalization for cryptocurrencies is over $4 billion, according to coinmarketcap.com . Santoli notes that Bitcoin is not a particularly large asset class. “Remember the number of Bitcoin is going to be capped at some point down the road,” he says. “It’s not as if it can accommodate the world deciding that this is a great place to store some money, or replace gold for example, unless the price goes up a whole lot.” Santoli adds that the trust funds won’t smooth out Bitcoin's volatile pricing immediately. “They'd have to get a lot bigger relative to the size of the Bitcoin market, and that's not what you want to see as far as I'm concerned. I don't think you want it to be a speculative instrument.” || Bitcoin An Unlikely Solution For The Poor: So far, bitcoin has caught on among tech-savvy enthusiasts; but many see the cryptocurrency as a viable solution for the poor, who often don't have access to banking facilities. While some bitcoin firms are continuing their efforts to push the cryptocurrency toward mainstream adoption, others are turning to nations with a large population of bankless-people that would benefit from a new way to send and receive money. Bitcoin In Africa Africa has become a major target for bitcoin companies looking to focus their adoption efforts on poor populations without easy access to banking. Many currently rely on companies like Western Union (NYSE: WU ), which charge a significant premium, to send and receive money, making bitcoin's relatively cheap transaction costs very attractive. Related Link: Bitcoin Makes Its Way To A Major Exchange Sending Money Home Carries Costs In 2014, more than 30 million Africans left their hometowns in order to work and sent around $40 billion back to their families. Since money sending agencies charge about 12 percent of the total amount sent, that means much of their hard-earned cash was spent on the transaction costs alone. Those figures make bitcoin a viable competitor and could help boost the currency's adoption. Filling The Gap Several firms are focusing their attention on the unmet banking needs in Africa using bitcoin. Global payment company BitPesa recently raised just over $1 million in order to expand its operations into Kenya, while bitcoin exchange igot saw more than 200,000 transactions in Africa throughout 2014. Still Some Concerns Although bitcoin's low transaction costs make it a good option for African populations without access to banking systems, the cryptocurrency still has a long way to go before becoming stable enough to depend on. Because of its high degree of volatility, critics say bitcoin is far too unstable for use in poor populations. See more from Benzinga Is The Euro's Decline A Good Reason To Invest? Oil Train Derailments Muddy Railroad Sector Earnings Marijuana Investment: Is It Time? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || Ribbit.me Forms Strategic Alliance With Card Capture International, LLC to Integrate Blockchain-Based RibbitRewards Into Its Expansive Merchant Services Platform: NEW YORK, NY --(Marketwired - April 03, 2015) - Key Facts RibbitRewards™ is the first rewards program based on blockchain technology (patent pending), the same technology Bitcoin uses. Card Capture International can now position to seamlessly offer RibbitRewards to both merchants and consumers through its credit and debit processing channels. Ribbit.me is set to launch Marketplace.life™, the first-ever p2p marketplace where buyers and sellers earn RibbitRewards for each transaction, with Card Capture International's merchant services accepting major credit cards. Ribbit.me, the creator of RibbitRewards, the world's first rewards program based on blockchain technology and with its own marketplace, today announced a strategic partnership for Card Capture International DBA Cocard to serve as a merchant processor on Marketplace.life and to incorporate Ribbit.me's blockchain-based RibbitRewards program into its payment processing portfolio. Marketplace.life is an eBay-like, p2p marketplace where merchants and shoppers benefit from the convenience of using one rewards program for all of their purchases, while earning RibbitRewards for each transaction. The marketplace is easy and free for all to use, accepting all major currencies, both fiat and digital. A percentage of RibbitRewards go to buyers, sellers and to charity. " Card Capture's expansive merchant base is an ideal entry point for mainstreaming our rewards program built on blockchain technology," said Sean Dennis, Ribbit.me CEO. "The RibbitRewards program has the potential to save billions of dollars a year across the rewards industry from operating efficiencies, consolidating rewards onto one platform and taking it off balance sheet. We are excited for Card Capture International to be among the first to realize these benefits." "We are pleased to embark down this innovative path with Ribbit.me and believe our investment in their success will have long term financial benefits for our merchants," said Elan Bennett, Card Capture International Owner. "The team at Ribbit.me is comprised of progressive and forward thinkers with sound financial backgrounds in payments, banking and technology. Taking this step with them puts us on the forefront of what is now almost certain to become the future underpinning of all rewards programs." Story continues Ribbit.me is developing a retail plug-in and mobile app so that RibbitRewards can be earned on any merchant platform. Watch for signs that say "Earn RibbitRewards Here" to appear in retail shopping outlets soon. About Ribbit.me Ribbit.me! USA is a U.S.-based Delaware C Corp. Our mailing address is P.O. Box 1817, NY, NY 10159. For more information about RibbitRewards, visit www.ribbit.me . You can also follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/Ribbit.me and facebook.com/Marketplace.life) and Twitter (@RibbitRewards). Embedded Video Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_09gwWKfvk
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
2015年3月26日 01:00:02
BTC_MONA
買[bid]:1351.35000000MONA
売[ask]:1600.00000000MONA
API by もなとれ || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 24 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $81.95 #bitcoin #btc || 1 #bitcoin 665.34 TL, 249 $, 236.06 €, 166.89999 GBP, 14401.00 RUR, 30500 ¥, 1605 CNH, 345 CAD #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 21 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $3,457.31 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 20 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $675.08 #bitcoin #btc || 2015年3月30日 13:00:02
BTC_MONA
買[bid]:1550.00000000MONA
売[ask]:1750.00000000MONA
API by もなとれ || 1 #bitcoin = $3543.06 MXN | $238 USD #BitAPeso Precio: http://www.bitapeso.com - Wednesday 18th of February 2015 11:00 AM || BTCe Prices
LAST: $248.00
BID: $247.47
ASK: $248.00
VOL: 5224.76 BTC
http://bit.ly/Cryptoticks || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 26 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $374.78 #bitcoin #btc || BTCe Prices
LAST: $231.00
BID: $230.59
ASK: $231.00
VOL: 6178.41 BTC
http://bit.ly/Cryptoticks
|
Trend: down || Prices: 236.55, 236.15, 224.59, 219.16, 223.83, 228.57, 222.88, 223.36, 222.60, 224.63
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Fred Wilson throws a little cold water on bitcoin enthusiasts: For all the excitement around digital currency technology in New York this week, venture capitalist Fred Wilson said it will probably take much longer for bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=) to go mainstream. "I've been trying to transact with bitcoin and a lot of cryptocurrencies for a long time. It's not that rewarding to do, honestly," Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, said Thursday at the Token Summit. "It will probably be a long time before people understand what a blockchain currency is," he said. Hundreds of developers, start-up founders and digital currency investors packed a New York University lecture hall for the all-day conference, which focused on how bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology and digital currencies, or tokens, could change the way business operates. "I do think some digital currency will end up being the reserve currency of the world. I see a path where that's going to happen," Brian Armstrong, CEO of the Coinbase exchange for buying and selling digital currencies, said at the conference. Coinbase said Thursday it suffered outages due to "unprecedented traffic and trading," according to Reuters. The week was a big one for bitcoin, especially in the financial center of New York. The Token Summit followed a two-and-a-half-day digital currency conference called Consensus, both held in Manhattan. Bitcoin prices climbed all week and skyrocketed to all-time highs above $2,700 on Thursday, raising some concerns of euphoria, similar to 1999 prior to the dotcom bubble. Wilson compared the state of blockchain innovation to the early- to mid-1990s, when the internet's infrastructure was just being built. He pointed out that the only major consumer internet businesses at the time were Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) , eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) . Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) came later, and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) , Uber, Airbnb and SoundCloud only emerged in the last 15 years, after the tech bubble's collapse in 2000, Wilson pointed out. Story continues That doesn't give bitcoin the all clear. Rather, it's more likely that the currency and blockchain are still in an early phase, before overspeculation and before widespread adoption. "I think there's a ways more we could go before the whole thing could come undone in a massive way," Wilson said, noting investors also need to be wary of scams, fraudulent use and challenges in technological development. That said, the longer-term view is more positive. "By the end of this decade," he said, "we should start to see native blockchain applications receiving massive adoption." Watch: Bit risks to bitcoin rally More From CNBC Markets will be watching economic data and whether Amazon can break $1,000 Market highs don't feel 'solid,' expect some profit-taking next week: Trader Bitcoin 'nerds' give way to Wall Street suits at digital currency conference || 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 || DIMON: It's embarrassing to travel the world as an American citizen given 'the stupid s--- we have to deal with': FILE PHOTO: JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon speaks at a Remain in the EU campaign event attended by Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne (not shown) at JP Morgan's corporate centre in Bournemouth, southern Britain, June 3, 2016. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez/File Photo (JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.Thomson Reuters) Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, is thinking about a lot more than his bank's earnings these days. One a pair of calls Friday ostensibly to discuss the Wall Street firm's better-than-expected results Dimon went off on the political gridlock in the US. At one point, Dimon went so far as to say on a call with analysts that it was "almost an embarrassment being an American citizen traveling around the world and listening to this stupid s--- we have to deal with." He cited recent trips to India, China, Israel, Argentina, and Ireland, saying those countries understood the importance of investing in education and infrastructure and getting tax policy right. "It's amazing to me that every single one of these countries understands that practical policies that promote business and growth are good for the citizens of these countries for jobs and wages and that somehow, this great American free-enterprise system, we no longer get it," he said. He was pressed on the political situation in the US on several occasions, with one Wall Street analyst asking whether clients were beginning to worry about dysfunction and a lack of progress in Washington. Dimon flipped the question, saying that the US economy had grown despite years of bad policy and that it would continue to grow regardless of the political climate. It could just grow faster. Dimon has taken the opportunity on numerous occasions in recent months to highlight problems in America , including its failing education system , stifling bureaucracy , and high levels of incarceration and opioid deaths . He has set out some solutions along the way . These issues are much bigger than quarterly results, Dimon says, and he urged journalists to see the bigger picture. "Who cares about fixed-income trading in the last two weeks in June?" he said. "I mean seriously?" NOW WATCH: TOP STRATEGIST: Bitcoin will soar to over $20,000 by cannibalizing gold More From Business Insider 'If the EU determines over time that they want to move a lot more jobs out of London into the EU, they can simply dictate that' JPMorgan launched a new tool to help fill 7,500 finance jobs in New York City DIMON: Central bankers are facing an unprecedented and potentially 'disruptive' challenge || Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein tweets the US needs to 'keep up' with China's infrastructure — the day after Trump kicks off infrastructure week: Lloyd Blankfein (Lloyd Blankfein.John Moore/Getty Images) Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to praise the infrastructure of China and suggest the US is falling behind in its maintenance of roads, bridges, and airports. " Arrived in China, as always impressed by condition of airport, roads, cell service, etc. US needs to invest in infrastructure to keep up!" Blankfein tweeted. The message is just the third tweet from the Goldman CEO. Blankfein joined Twitter on Thursday , criticizing President Donald Trump's decision to remove the US from the Paris climate change agreement. Interestingly, Blankfein's tweet comes amid Trump's infrastructure push. The president announced a plan to privatize and modernize the US air traffic control system on Monday and will deliver a speech in Ohio highlighting his plans for a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure. Trump frequently took aim at Goldman Sachs during his campaign, and Blankfein was even featured in an unflattering light in one of Trump's advertisements. Since the election, Blankfein said he thinks some of Trump's policies could be good for the US economy , but has also taken issue with the travel ban. Blankfein also isn't the only major bank CEO to point out China's more updated infrastructure. In an interview with Business Insider in May , JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon also made a similar point. "Then there is infrastructure," Dimon said. "You might be shocked to find out, we haven't built a major airport for 20 years. China built 75 in the past 10 years. It takes 10 years to get all the permits to build a bridge today. Ten years? What happened to the good old can-do America?" NOW WATCH: Colonel Sanders' nephew revealed the family's secret recipe — here's how to make KFC's 'original' fried chicken More From Business Insider HSBC: The dollar looks like it's about to repeat an ugly move that happened under Reagan — but that's exactly what Trump wants Bitcoin is taking off after China's biggest exchanges allow withdrawals GOLDMAN SACHS: These 14 underappreciated stocks are set to take off || SEC Reviews Bitcoin ETF: The Skyrocketing Cryptocurrency Explained: There has been a lot of interest in bitcoin of late, mainly due to its astronomical rise. The cryptocurrency is up more than 135% year to date. Looking at the longer-term performance, $100 invested in bitcoin 7 years ago would be worth about $75 million now, per CNBC. Bitcoin was also in focus because the hackers responsible for the massive WannaCry cyber-attack wanted ransom to be paid in bitcoin and they were able to get some payments. Investors have been hoping that the SEC would approve a bitcoin ETF, which would add legitimacy to the digital currency and also provide investors a convenient way of investing in the digital currency. What is Bitcoin? Unlike traditional currencies, which are issued by central banks, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency not issued by a central bank. It is more like a peer-to-peer digital payment network. Creation and transactions in bitcoin are controlled through cryptography. And, while users remain anonymous, the record of these transactions is available on the bitcoin network. Why is Bitcoin Surging? Bitcoin is up almost 400% over the past one year.The main reason behind the surge is its limited supply, According to the Economist, there are about 16.3 million bitcoins, with only 1,800 new ones minted every day. On the other hand, demand has been rising due to geopolitical uncertainty. Many consider bitcoin a safe have asset. Due to its low correlation with other asset classes, it also acts as a portfolio diversifier. In April, Japanese regulators announced rules for bitcoin, establishing it as a legitimate method of payment in the country. It is difficult to arrive at a fair value for the bitcoin. I read about a model in FTthat 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. What Are the Risks? Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not regulated or backed by a central bank. Story continues The cryptocurrency is very volatile and usually goes through boom-bust cycles. Just last Thursday, it dropped by almost 19% from its all time high level. Due to users’ anonymity, it is used by criminals and in dark economy for illegal payment transfers and for purchase of illegal drugs. There have also been many instances of hackers stealing bitcoins Bitcoin ETFs In March, the SEC had rejected the ETF proposed by Winklevoss twins but they are now reviewing the decision again. This was not the only bitcoin ETF; there were two more going through the regulatory approval process. 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 and a decision is due by Sep 22. Will You Make a Fortune on the Shift to Electric Cars? Here's another stock idea to consider. Much like petroleum 150 years ago, lithium power may soon shake the world, creating millionaires and reshaping geo-politics. Soon electric vehicles (EVs) may be cheaper than gas guzzlers. Some are already reaching 265 miles on a single charge. With battery prices plummeting and charging stations set to multiply, one company stands out as the #1 stock to buy according to Zacks research. It's not the one you think. See This Ticker 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 SPDR-GOLD TRUST (GLD): ETF Research Reports ISHARS-GOLD TR (IAU): ETF Research Reports SPDR-SP 500 TR (SPY): 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 || Google Must Take Down Some Search Listings Globally After Canadian Lawsuit: Google must remove a company website from its global listings as the result of a ruling Wednesday from Canadas Supreme Court. The 7-2 ruling in Google Inc. v. Equustek Solutions Inc. involves the networking hardware company Equustek Solutions, which is based in British Columbia. Equustek won an initial case against competing company Datalink Technology Gateways, which Equustek accused of relabelling and selling one of its products. Read: Google Will No Longer Scan Gmail Content For Targeted Advertising At first, Google voluntarily removed Datalinks search results on Google.ca the Canadian variant of its search engine but Equustek pushed in a secondary injunction to have the results further removed from Googles global search results. The internet has no borders its natural habitat is global, the court wrote in its decision. The only way to ensure that the interlocutory injunction attained its objective was to have it apply where Google operates globally. In response to the decision, several digital rights groups criticized the courts ruling. Canadian advocacy group OpenMedia, which acted as an intervenor in the case, said free expression rights should be prioritized in cases involving the potential restriction of online content. In a blog post , the group argued the court did not emphasize this distinction in its ruling strongly enough. The internet is a global phenomenon, and there is great risk that governments and commercial entities will see this ruling as justifying censorship requests that could result in perfectly legal and legitimate content disappearing off the web because of a court order in the opposite corner of the globe, OpenMedia said. That would be a major setback to citizens rights to access information and express ourselves freely. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was similarly critical in a statement , arguing the Canadian court had potentially established a precedent for restricting online content that could be abused by foreign governments and courts. The ruling largely sidesteps the question of whether such a global order would violate foreign law or intrude on internet users free speech rights, the foundation said. Instead, the court focused on whether or not Google, as a private actor, could legally choose to take down speech and whether that would violate foreign law. This framing results in Google being ordered to remove speech under Canadian law even if no court in the United States could issue a similar order. Read: Canada Bans Phones Locked To Carriers, Removes Unlocking Fees Story continues However, the decision was championed by Equustek and others in Canada. Graham Henderson, president of Canadian trade group Music Canada, told CBC News he was pleased with the courts ruling. Platforms like Google and YouTube have traditionally cited their position as general hosting platforms against claims that theyve helped support illegal or pirated content. "Today's decision confirms that online service providers cannot turn a blind eye to illegal activity that they facilitate, Graham told CBC News. On the contrary, they have an affirmative duty to take steps to prevent the internet from becoming a black market." As for Google, the company cannot appeal the court ruling at the moment. But in a statement, the company said it is carefully reviewing the court's findings and evaluating our next steps. Related Articles Google Pixel 2 Specs Might Have Already Been Revealed Google Ventures Invests In Bitcoin Startup Blockchain View comments || GOLDMAN SACHS: Bitcoin could see a big drop then surge to almost $4,000: (A bitcoin sign in a window in Toronto.Thomson Reuters)
Bitcoin had a blistering first half of 2017. It rallied from about $1,000 a coin to a record high near $3,000 before finishing June near $2,500. It booked a first-half gain of about 168%.
The historic run for the cryptocurrency has prompted observers both in the tech world and on Wall Street to talk about the cryptocurrency being in a "bubble."
Last week, Jeffrey Kleintop, the chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab, suggestedbitcoin was in a bubble unlike any we had ever seen before. Kleintop's warning came just a few weeks after tech billionaireMark 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."
Goldman Sachs thinks bitcoin could see a big drop before running to another record high. In a note to clients sent out Sunday, Sheba Jafari, the head of technical strategy at Goldman Sachs, suggested that while bitcoin's correction hadn't run its course, the cryptocurrency was ultimately heading higher.
Jafari wrote bitcoin was "still in a corrective 4th wave" that "shouldn't go much further than 1,857." That would make for a drop of about 25% from its current level.
But bitcoin enthusiasts shouldn't worry too much, according to Jafari, because from there she sees the fifth wave of the move taking the cryptocurrency to a record high.
"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."
(Goldman Sachs)
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More From Business Insider
• How often you should wash your bed sheets, according to a microbiologist — and what happens when you don't
• Bitcoin's 'bubble' is unlike anything we've ever seen before
• Bitcoin is tumbling || SEC Reviews Bitcoin ETF: The Skyrocketing Cryptocurrency Explained: There has been a lot of interest in bitcoin of late, mainly due to its astronomical rise. The cryptocurrency is up more than 135% year to date. Looking at the longer-term performance, $100 invested in bitcoin 7 years ago would be worth about $75 million now, per CNBC.
Bitcoin was also in focus because the hackers responsible for the massive WannaCry cyber-attack wanted ransom to be paid in bitcoin and they were able to get some payments.
Investors have been hoping that the SEC would approve a bitcoin ETF, which would add legitimacy to the digital currency and also provide investors a convenient way of investing in the digital currency.
What is Bitcoin?
Unlike traditional currencies, which are issued by central banks, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency not issued by a central bank. It is more like a peer-to-peer digital payment network.
Creation and transactions in bitcoin are controlled through cryptography. And, while users remain anonymous, the record of these transactions is available on the bitcoin network.
Why is Bitcoin Surging?
Bitcoin is up almost 400% over the past one year.The main reason behind the surge is its limited supply, According to the Economist, there are about 16.3 million bitcoins, with only 1,800 new ones minted every day.
On the other hand, demand has been rising due to geopolitical uncertainty. Many consider bitcoin a safe have asset. Due to its low correlation with other asset classes, it also acts as a portfolio diversifier.
In April, Japanese regulators announced rules for bitcoin, establishing it as a legitimate method of payment in the country.
It is difficult to arrive at a fair value for the bitcoin. I read about a model in FTthat 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.
What Are the Risks?
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not regulated or backed by a central bank.
The cryptocurrency is very volatile and usually goes through boom-bust cycles. Just last Thursday, it dropped by almost 19% from its all time high level.
Due to users’ anonymity, it is used by criminals and in dark economy for illegal payment transfers and for purchase of illegal drugs. There have also been many instances of hackers stealing bitcoins
Bitcoin ETFs
In March, the SEC had rejected the ETF proposed by Winklevoss twins but they are now reviewing the decision again. This was not the only bitcoin ETF; there were two more going through the regulatory approval process.
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 and a decision is due by Sep 22.
Will You Make a Fortune on the Shift to Electric Cars?
Here's another stock idea to consider. Much like petroleum 150 years ago, lithium power may soon shake the world, creating millionaires and reshaping geo-politics. Soon electric vehicles (EVs) may be cheaper than gas guzzlers. Some are already reaching 265 miles on a single charge.
With battery prices plummeting and charging stations set to multiply, one company stands out as the #1 stock to buy according to Zacks research.
It's not the one you think.
See This Ticker 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 reportSPDR-GOLD TRUST (GLD): ETF Research ReportsISHARS-GOLD TR (IAU): ETF Research ReportsSPDR-SP 500 TR (SPY): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: ARK Web x.0 ETF, Bitcoin Investment Trust, NVIDIA, Square and MercadoLibre: For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – June 01, 2017 – 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 includeARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW– Free Report), Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC– Free Report), NVIDIA (NVDA– Free Report), Square Inc. (SQ– Free Report)andMercadoLibre Inc. (MELI– Free Report).
Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.
Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:
Best-Performing Stocks from the Best ETF in May
The technology sector, no doubt, has been leading the broad market rally and is a the clear winner this month as well. That said,ARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW– Free Report)has topped the list of the best performing ETFs of May, with impressive returns of about 15.6% (read: 5 ETFs & Stocks to Ride the Tech Mania).The impressive rally was mainly driven by the emergence and extensive adoption of new technology such as cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, wearables, drones, virtual reality devices and artificial intelligence. Additionally, the surge in bitcoin prices is a big boon for this disruptive companies focused ETF. This is especially true as ARKW is the first ETF to add bitcoin to its roster and the move is paying off.Bitcoin, commonly known as a cryptocurrency, is a digital or virtual currency that uses peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments. Notably, the digital currency shot up to an all-time high of above $2,700, doubling its value since the start of May (read: Will We Finally See a Bitcoin ETF?).Let’s take a closer look at the fundamentals of ARKW.ARKW in FocusThis is an actively managed fund focusing on companies that are expected to benefit from the shift in technology infrastructure to the cloud, enabling mobile, new and local services. These include companies that rely on or benefit from the increased use of shared technology, infrastructure and services in cloud computing, e-commerce, big data, social media, Internet of Things, new payment methods, media ecosystems, health care, point of sale, telecom and cryptocurrencies.The fund holds 39 stocks in its basket with none holding more than 7.6% share. From a sector look, Internet & mobile applications makes up for 29% of the portfolio while software & programming and Internet & direct marketing round off the next two spots with 13% exposure each. The ETF has amassed $40.1 million in its asset base and trades in a paltry average daily volume of around 10,000 shares. The expense ratio comes in at 0.75%.Though most of the stocks in the fund’s portfolio delivered strong returns, a few were the real stars having gained more than 20%. Below we have highlighted those best-performing stocks in the ETF with their respective positions in the fund’s basket (see: all the Technology ETFs here):Best Performing Stocks of ARKWBitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC– Free Report): Shares of GBTC have soared about 210% this month. GBTC is an open-ended grantor trust based in the U.S., sponsored by Grayscale Investments. It is quoted on the over-the-counter market and derives its value solely from the price of bitcoin. The Trust's objective is to track the market price of bitcoin. GBTC occupies the top spot in the fund’s basket with 7.5% of the total assets.NVIDIA (NVDA– Free Report): This stock takes the seventh position in the fund’s basket with 4.02% allocation. It has also delivered incredible returns of 39% in May. The stock has seem solid earnings estimate revision of 30 cents for this fiscal year over the past one month with an expected earnings growth rate of 19.36%. NVIDIA has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) with a VGM Style Score of C and a solid Zacks Industry Rank in the top 7% (read: 5 ETFs to Tap the Hot NVIDIA).Square Inc. (SQ– Free Report): This stock takes the seventeenth spot in the fund’s basket with 2.5% of assets. It gained 24.7% in May and has seen positive earnings estimate revision from a loss of 25 cents to a loss of 16 cents over the past one month for this year. As a result, its earnings are expected to grow 53.88% versus the industry average of 9.91%. Square currently has a Zacks Rank #3 with a VGM Style Score of B and solid Zacks Industry Rank in the top 39%.MercadoLibre Inc. (MELI– Free Report): The stock has gained about 22.3% this month. It has seen solid earnings estimate revision of 30 cents over the past one month for this year with an expected earnings growth rate of 34.05%. This is much higher than the industry average of 20.82%. MercadoLibre currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) with a VGM Style Score of D and a solid Zacks Industry Rankin the top 20%. The stock occupies the sixteenth position in the fund’s portfolio, making up for 2.5% share.
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Strong Stocks that Should Be in the News
Many are little publicized and fly under the Wall Street radar. They're virtually unknown to the general public. Yet today's 220 Zacks Rank #1 "Strong Buys" were generated by the stock-picking system that has nearly tripled the market from 1988 through 2015. Its average gain has been a stellar +26% per year. See these high-potential stocks free >>.
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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 reportARK- WEB XO ETF (ARKW): ETF Research ReportsClick for Free NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) Stock Analysis Report >>Click for Free Square, Inc. (SQ) Stock Analysis Report >>Click for Free MercadoLibre, Inc. (MELI) Stock Analysis Report >>To read this article on Zacks.com click here. || Top Tech ETFs Of The Year: Technology investors are partying like it's 1999. That was the infamous final year of the dot-com bubble, when the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose a whopping 86%, an impressive end to one of the greatest bull markets in history. Today's rally may not be as heady as it was back then―nor share prices as inflated―but for the first time in nearly two decades, tech is back to hitting new highs on a consistent basis. As measured by the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) , tech is the top-performing sector of the year, with a return of 15.8%, more than double the gain of the broader S&P 500. Tech heavyweights like Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook are hitting new records seemingly every day. Their combined weighting in the S&P 500 is now 11%, while tech as a whole accounts for 23% of the index. It's not just the giants. Tech companies big and small are performing well this year, as evidenced by the 15.9% return for the Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight Technology ETF (RYT) , a fund that gives the same weighting to Apple as it does to every other tech stock in its portfolio. Indeed, to see the best returns among tech-focused exchange-traded funds, investors must venture outside of broad tech ETFs into more niche areas, and in a few cases, outside the U.S. altogether. Here are the top tech ETFs of the year so far. China Internet ETFs At the top of the tech heap are internet ETFs focused on China. The Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF (EMQQ) holds internet-related companies across emerging and frontier markets, but China accounts for about two-thirds of the portfolio. Top holdings such as Tencent, Alibaba and Naspers have been on fire this year, buoying EMQQ to a year-to-date gain of 43.4%. The KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB) and the broader Guggenheim China Technology ETF (CQQQ) are in the same boat, with returns of 41.4% and 29.9%, respectively, in the period. Though not focused on China, another international tech fund to see sizzling returns this year is the SPDR S&P International Technology Sector ETF (IPK) , with its 23.4% gain. IPK holds a market-cap-weighted basket of tech stocks in developed markets outside of the U.S. Because it targets developed markets, it excludes China, giving it much different exposure than the aforementioned ETFs. Story continues Currently, its three largest holdings are Samsung, SAP and ASML Holding. Disruptive Technology ETFs Back in the U.S., the top tech-focused fund is the ARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW) , with a nice 33.5% return for the year so far. ARKW is an actively managed ETF that invests in companies that are "expected to benefit from shifting the bases of technology infrastructure to the cloud." Stocks held include firms tied to cloud computing, cyber security, big data, e-commerce and social media platforms. The ETF also holds a 6% position in the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), something that has served it well, as prices for the digital currency have exploded to the upside recently. Other top holdings include Athenahealth, Amazon and 2U Inc. ARKW is one of five ETFs from ARK Invest , an issuer that focuses on "disruptive innovation." Another of the firm’s active funds to do well so far this year is the ARK Industrial Innovation ETF (ARKQ) , with its 29.3% return. ARKQ invests in companies that are poised to benefit from technological advances related to energy, automation, manufacturing and transportation. Top holdings include Stratasys, Tesla and Nvidia. Social Media ETFs Shares of Snapchat parent Snap Inc. may be struggling this year, but an ETF that holds social media companies more broadly is doing just fine. The Global X Social Media ETF (SOCL) is up a solid 32.7% year-to-date. As the name suggests, SOCL holds a basket of social media stocks from all around the world. From Tencent to Twitter to Facebook, SOCL is a social media pure-play ETF. Sharing some overlap with SOCL is the PowerShares Nasdaq Internet Portfolio (PNQI) . PNQI's focus is broader in that it holds shares of internet companies in general. All of its holdings are U.S.-listed, but can be headquartered anywhere. Amazon, Facebook and Netflix are the top three holdings currently, and the fund is up 25.2% year-to-date. For a full list of this year's top technology ETFs, see the table below: Top 15 Technology ETFs Ticker Fund YTD Return (%) EMQQ Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF 43.40 KWEB KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF 41.41 ARKW ARK Web x.0 ETF 33.53 SOCL Global X Social Media ETF 32.65 CQQQ Guggenheim China Technology ETF 29.91 ARKQ ARK Industrial Innovation ETF 29.26 PNQI PowerShares NASDAQ Internet Portfolio 25.22 IGV iShares North American Tech-Software ETF 25.08 IPK SPDR S&P International Technology Sector ETF 23.40 PSI PowerShares Dynamic Semiconductors Portfolio 22.47 PRNT 3D Printing ETF 22.35 QTEC First Trust NASDAQ-100 Technology Sector Index Fund 21.44 FINX Global X FinTech ETF 20.65 IXN iShares Global Tech ETF 20.39 MTK SPDR Morgan Stanley Technology ETF 20.29 Contact Sumit Roy at sroy@etf.com . Recommended Stories Similar Sector ETFs Not Built The Same Tech ETFs Retreat: Pullback Ahead? Best Performing ETFs So Far This Year Top Tech ETFs Of The Year ARKQ Vs. ROBO: Battle Of Edgy Tech ETFs Permalink | © Copyright 2017 ETF.com. All rights reserved
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#bitcoin #miner Bitmain AntMiner S7 4.73 TH/s Bitcoin Miner ASIC Crypto hard working miner! $425.00 http://ift.tt/2rwug8G pic.twitter.com/NfhPsEVbAy || Why people are going crazy over bitcoin and other digital currencies
http://wapo.st/2s0GCYS || #bitcoin #miner Antminer T9 Not S9. 12.5/Ths Bitcoin miner - used tested, ready to ship NOW! $2600.00 http://ift.tt/2tC3Um4 pic.twitter.com/sQoja3LYzp || Hope many didn't get shaken out in the BTC dump! As always I am holding my #BTC and #altcoins strong!!pic.twitter.com/KXcHxvRDjF || 13XSheYsB...Wy9HNSgkY just won 0.0000026 BTC in our Free #lottery. Get your free bitcoins now: https://yabtcl.com/freeLottery.aspx … #YABTCL #Bitcoin || #Bitcoin crecerá a pesar de alcanzar los máximos: @libertexesp Esta semana #bitcoin creció 10% y ascendía hasta la marca de 2713,00 dólares pic.twitter.com/Ob8D6eRIMd || @ #1, Bitcoin with unit price of $2,576.16, market cap of $42,294,717,350 (40.47%), and 24 hr vol. of $1,023,740,000 (26.00%) || @maryloucfrpic.twitter.com/LPhrqIZz66 || News: (PR: Insurex Announce Crowdsale for ...) - http://bit.ly/2s4MuR1 #bitcoin #bAgile #blockchain #litecoin #cryptocurrencypic.twitter.com/pv4TgjnsnO || #BTC 24hr Summary:
Last: $2706.91
High: $2720.99
Low: $2665.00
Change: -0.01% | $-0.26
Volume: $ 8552.19
$BTC #Bitcoin #coinbasepic.twitter.com/B7XaRQCWXp
|
Trend: up || Prices: 2228.41, 2318.88, 2273.43, 2817.60, 2667.76, 2810.12, 2730.40, 2754.86, 2576.48, 2529.45
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Coinbase offers digital currency to consumers: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange Coinbase said on Thursday it is now offering the ether digital currency to consumers. Ether is the digital currency for the Ethereum platform, a blockchain, or public database that can be used by consumers or corporations without the need for control by intermediaries. Ethereum, which uses ether to execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically, was co-founded and invented by 22-year old Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin. "Ethereum is still in an early and experimental phase, and as it matures will likely evolve to serve a different purpose than Bitcoin," said Ankur Nandwani, product manager at Coinbase, in a blog posted on the company's website. "In the meantime, Ethereum is pushing the digital currency ecosystem forward and we are excited to support it as part of our mission to create an open financial system for the world." The addition of ether comes given the surge in interest in the digital asset among major financial institutions such as Barclays (BARCR.UL), and other global corporations which are trying to explore the Ethereum network. Nandwani said consumers in 32 countries can now buy, sell, and store in their Coinbase accounts. In May, ether trading was added to its digital currency exchange called GDAX (Global Digital Asset Exchange). That trading platform is focused on institutional investors and professional traders. According to coinmarketcap.com, ether is trading at $12.64 late on Thursday, with a market capitalisation of about $1.04 billion, the second largest behind bitcoin. Bitcoin currently has a market cap of $10.48 billion and trading at $664.85. Volume for ether over the last 24 hours was around $25.7 million, while that for bitcoin was $61.2 million. At the beginning of the year, ether traded at just $1 per token and it is one of the fastest-rising digital currencies. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Andrew Hay) || First Bitcoin CapitalCorp. FINRA approved Name Change is effective as of today: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / August 15, 2016 /FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP. (OTC markets: BITCF), announced today that FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) has approved its name change to FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP from Grand Pacaraima Gold Corp. The change will be reflected at the opening of the market today, August 15th, 2016. For shareholders, the name change has no effect on the stock that is held. The name will automatically change in shareholders' brokerage accounts and the amount of shares will remain unchanged.
All shareholders are asked to update their email addresses in order to receive Company electronic communications and further instructions. Kindly send an email to us via:info@bitcoincapitalcorp.com
The company is excited to announce that it has developed for its own account and third parties certain crypto currencies such as TeslaCoil Coin (trading symbol TESLA), President Clinton coin (trading symbol HILL), President Trump coin (trading symbol PRES) , President Johnson (trading symbol GARY). These last three digital crypto coins -we believe to be history's first commemorative election coins trading as crypto currencies and public interest in these commemorative coins may increase as the election process comes to a close with the winning candidate's coin showing the most interest. These currencies have been launched using the OMNI protocol, developed by OMNI FOUNDATION and ride on the rail of the Bitcoin blockchain.
We also believe that we are history's first publicly traded company to develop a blockchain for our shares to dually trade both in a traditional market (OTC Markets) and on crypto currency exchanges, such as company's own cryptocurrency exchange COINQX. Our crypto currency symbol is: BIT
About the company:
First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange-www.CoinQX.comWe see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new type of digital assets. "Being first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time Company owns and operates the following digital assets.
1. www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.comcompany website.
2. www.CoinQX.comCompany operated Cryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN.
3. www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site
4. www.BITminer.cccompany provides mining pool management services.
5. www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES,$HILL and $GARY coins
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This press release may contain forward-looking statements. The words "believe," "expect," "should," "intend," "estimate," "projects," variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements are based upon the Company's current expectations and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file at www.OTCMarkets.com.
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || How Apple And Facebook Helped Take Down The Largest Torrent-Sharing Site In The World: Thirty-year-old Ukrainian national Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of the world’s largest torrent-sharing site, Kickass Torrents, was arrested Wednesday in Poland, accused of criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. After years on the run, the man, known over the Internet as "Tirm," was found due to a series of really dumb mistakes — for a complete review of the process that led to this outcome,click here.
The king of online piracy was also operating a Kickass TorrentsFacebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) fan page — apparently without even using an IP blocker or a disposable email. After the U.S. government presented a warrant requesting the social network to hand over the log data, which they did, they weren't even faced with a difficult task.
Related Link:The Crucial Role Twitter Played In Finding The Center Of Our Galaxy
Supposedly, Vaulin had been using anApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL)-owned @me.com email address to log into the site. Moreover, when U.S. authorities went over his emails, they found several messages related to the administration of the Kickass Torrents site.
To makes things even worse, Tirm decided to use the same email account to make a legal iTunes purchase. Again, he didn't use an IP blocker, so his IP address was registered.
Instead of locating and arresting Vaulin immediately, U.S. officials used the IP addresses to find his online Bitcoin account.
“Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell voiced in astatement. “In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits. His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice,” she concluded.
Did you like this article? Could it have been improved? Please email feedback@benzinga.com with the story link to let us know!
Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no interest in any of the securities or entities mentioned above.
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || High Prices and Expensive Gifts Offered by PowerBTC to Bitcoin Sellers: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Aug 8, 2016) - With the rise in popularity of Bitcoin commerce, many online firms are finding creative new ways to take advantage of this valuable virtual resource. However, none are more market-savvy than PowerBTC, an up-and-coming financial world star that is taking e-commerce by storm.
PowerBTC LLC (http://www.PowerBTC.com), an already well known cryptocurrency trader on the virtual market, has its on-going offer of higher-than-the-market-price premiums on Bitcoin purchase. Their offer is time-limited but comes along with a bunch of benefits for 10+ or larger transactions. While their standard approach of Bitcoin sellers remains a bonus of 10% more than the market's official rate, the company has added few more additional premiums and gifts for volume business.
While having listed all of them below, customers can be assisted and given additional information at any time.
POWERBTC CURRENT PROMOTIONAL OFFERS:
10+ BTC (24-karat gold coin);20+ BTC (24-karat gold coin +3 %);30+ BTC (24-karat gold coin +5 %);50+ BTC (24-karat gold coin +8 %)
24-karat gold coin worth of 450 USD based on the gold market price.
Tom Clark, the CEO of PowerBTC, commented: "We are happy that with this promotional offer we will be able to help the Bitcoin community. By riding on this next wave of digital technology, we hope to become a major leader of the Bitcoin community, and offer exceptional deals for all Bitcoin purchases. It's about staying in-step with the times, and we know that Bitcoin is a wise investment and are confident that it can take us to the top."
A visit tohttp://www.PowerBTC.comreveals a cleanly-designed website that is easy to use, making Bitcoin transactions quick and easy. Users only need to enter their email address, and bank or PayPal information and they will be ready to take advantage of this new promotional offer.
While the offer may appear to be a bit chaotic for the regular seller, the mechanism behind it is based not only on the company's appetite for Bitcoin purchase, but also on the outcome of the Bitcoin PowerBTC is reinvesting, together with a sophisticated calculus and certain principles common within any financial services business.
Rates are updated constantly, following current market trends, for the most accurate information. Combined with knowledgeable staff and a regularly updated news page, this gives PowerBTC the edge over competitors in the field by offering a depth of market knowledge that is unrivaled.
PowerBTC is currently purchasing Bitcoins so any interested sellers should visit their website as soon as possible for the best deals. For more information, visit,http://www.PowerBTC.com. || Bitfinex users set to lose 36% of their holding in bitcoin hack: The digital currency exchange platform Bitfinex has taken more than a third off all accounts following last week's cybertheft of nearly 120,000bitcoins.
On Saturday, Bitfinexconfirmed it had spread losses among all users of the platform, rather than just users who had lost bitcoins. These losses amount to 36.067 percent of each account, although Bitfinex has not yet explained how it calculated this figure.
Bitfinex justified the decision by arguing that if the company was forced into liquidation, losses would have to be spread among all users.
"After much thought, analysis, and consultation, we have arrived at the conclusion that losses must be generalized across all accounts and assets," the company said in a statement on its website. "This is the closest approximation to what would happen in a liquidation context."
Bitfinex allows users to trade in several different digital currencies, including bitcoin, and deposit U.S. dollars in their account.
A total of 119,756 bitcoins, worth $70.5 million at today's price(: BTC=), were stolen as a result of a cybersecurity breach.
Bitfinex's decision is likely to disappoint many of the site's users who held assets other than bitcoins, warned Charles Hayter, chief executive and founder of digital currency comparison website CryptoCompare.
"What's disappointing is that the losses seem to be arbitrarily decided with larger operators being offered sweetners to keep them trading - and there is little clarity on BitFinex's company losses," Hayter told CNBC via email.
To compensate users, BitFinex is crediting each account with a digital token that will record how much the customer has lost as a result of the hack. These tokens will either be redeemed in full by the company in the future or they can be exchanged for shares in BitFinex's parent company, iFinex Inc. The statement did not specify any timeframe for the redemption.
"The convertible debt token is a way of kicking the can down the road and finding breathing space for the exchange - it opens up interesting trading possibilities with its junk status as well as a fair few legal ramifications," explained Hayter.
Hayter criticised BitFinex's latest attempt to deal with the situation.
"It's all been desperately scrambled together to give some form of closure - although a lot of their plan has not been fully fleshed out with details thin on the ground," he said.
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• Personal Finance || Spain's Santander names ex-JPMorgan executive Masters blockchain guru: (Reuters) - Banco Santander SA, Spain's largest lender, named former JPMorgan executive Blythe Masters its senior blockchain adviser as banks race to find new uses for the technology behind virtual currency Bitcoin. Proponents of blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, say it has the potential to shake up how financial markets operate. The technology creates a shared database in which participants can trace every transaction ever conducted. Santander is one of several banks investing in this sector to avoid being left behind by fintech start-ups. Citigroup, BNP Paribas and Goldman Sachs are among other big global banks that have invested in the technology. Masters, who spent 27 years at JPMorgan, has been leading the charge into blockchain by financiers. The blockchain software firm she started, Digital Asset Holdings, has raised more than $60 million from investors such as Goldman Sachs and the Australian Securities Exchange, which is partnering with the firm to work on using the technology in the cash-equities market. Masters was previously the chairman of Santander Consumer USA Holdings' board. She rose to prominence during the 1990s when she helped to create the credit-derivatives market. Her appointment comes shortly after Santander became the first British bank to start using blockchain to record international payments. The lender said at the time that it may start rolling out the service to customers next year. (Reporting by Richa Naidu in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty) View comments || MJMI Focus on Blockchain Technology Opens Doors to Multi-Billion Dollar Global Real Estate Markets: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / August 16, 2016 /MarilynJean Interactive (MJMI) continues to receive positive feedback from the investment community on its focus on Blockchain technology, the distributed ledger system that underpins Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. The Blockchain is an enormous distributed database that runs across a global network of independent computers that are not controlled by any government.
Globally recognized audit and professional services firm Deloitte recently published an analysis of the public sector applications of Blockchain technology. In their report, Deloitte identified numerous sectors where Blockchain technology could be used to address inefficiencies and provide added reliability and security. Among these were both physical and intellectual asset ownership records including vehicles, patents and real estate.
Several countries, including Sweden, have begun testing use of the Blockchain ledger and verification system for their national land title registries. In the United States residential housing market alone, roughly $6 Billion of real estate changes hands every month. The integrity of the system that records title for all of these transactions is immensely important. In many developing countries, these systems are incredibly inefficient and open to fraud. Using Blockchain technology, the entire global real estate system could conceivably be digitized and secured by an independently verified, distributed ledger.
How Blockchain Technology Could Revolutionize the Global Real Estate Market
Property transactions could be handled on a Blockchain in a similar way to how payments between parties are handled using Bitcoin. However, instead of assuming that each 'coin' is the same, it is possible to associate a unique house or piece of land with a particular 'colored coin' and exchange it between parties. The entire transaction history of the property could then be followed through the Blockchain. Using 'smart contracts', a feature of digital currencies like Ethereum, which MJMI is also focussing on, asset exchange could follow specific instructions encoded as part of the transaction to be executed automatically once agreed criteria have been met.
Using Blockchain technology could increase the efficiency of transaction processing and reduce, if not eliminate, property fraud.
Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "We continue to receive positive feedback regarding our focus on Blockchain technology and believe we are positioning the company well to participate in how Blockchain technology will completely alter the way billions of dollars of assets change hand every day."
About MJMI
MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies.
Crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence.
MJMI is currently exploring partnerships in several verticals within the crypto-currency space, including the multi-billion dollar remittance market. Management believes that several industries, including both international remittances, the trading of futures and options contracts as well as online gambling are on the verge of being revolutionized by the use of Bitcoin and the underlying Blockchain technology to effect transactions.
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.marilynjean.comPress Contact:investorcommunica@gmail.com
SOURCE:MarilynJean Interactive || What the Brexit means for your retirement: Brexit and the chaos it unleashed in financial markets are no reason for investors with a sound financial plan to panic. That’s the word from Ric Edelman, who runs one of America’s top financial advisory firms. Stocks ( ^DJI , ^IXIC , ^GSPC ) tanked on Friday, with all three major indexes plunging three to four percent. Investors turned to classic safe havens, sending gold prices ( GCN16.CMX ) soaring and bond yields ( ^TNX ) sharply lower. U.S. stocks are pointing to a slightly lower open Monday after mixed results in Europe and Asia overnight. “This is a classic knee-jerk reaction from Wall Street traders,” Edelman tells Yahoo Finance about the Brexit selloff in stocks . “Our clients are focused on their long-term goals. There will be no sustained impact five years from now. They can ignore it, or if anything, capitalize.” Edelman Financial Services manages $16 billion for more than 30,000 clients. Edelman says given Brexit, the US presidential election and other worries, investors should expect market volatility for a while. In response to wild market swings, his strong advice is “do not change your long-term investment strategy.” Edelman says his clients will take advantage of the volatility to rebalance their portfolios, selling assets that have appreciated in value and adding assets like stocks that have suffered declines. “This represents investment opportunity,” he said. Unfortunately, Edelman says, many investors will do exactly the opposite and dump stocks when they’re falling. “Nobody knows how low is low, and nobody knows what the market is going to do to. Trying to time the market is a fool’s bet , and that’s precisely what a lot of people try to do.” That said, Edelman says events like the Brexit vote and the market’s reaction are a good time for people who need to get their financial houses in order to take action and to avoid making mistakes. “If you don’t have a long term strategy, if you’re not properly diversified, this is the time to get effective financial advice,” Edelman says. “Investors could act on impulse and do the very wrong thing at the very wrong time.” Story continues More from Yahoo Finance The Brexit vote could bring uncertainty to America's scotch imports The big question looming over the markets after the Brexit bombshell The newest Bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit || Bitcoin worth $72 million stolen from Bitfinex exchange in Hong Kong: By Clare Baldwin HONG KONG (Reuters) - Nearly 120,000 units of digital currency bitcoin worth about US$72 million was stolen from the exchange platform Bitfinex in Hong Kong, rattling the global bitcoin community in the second-biggest security breach ever of such an exchange. Bitfinex is the world's largest dollar-based exchange for bitcoin, and is known in the digital currency community for having deep liquidity in the U.S. dollar/bitcoin currency pair. Zane Tackett, Director of Community & Product Development for Bitfinex, told Reuters on Wednesday that 119,756 bitcoin had been stolen from users' accounts and that the exchange had not yet decided how to address customer losses. "The bitcoin was stolen from users' segregated wallets," he said. The company said it had reported the theft to law enforcement and was cooperating with top blockchain analytic companies to track the stolen coins. Last year, Bitfinex announced a tie-up with Palo Alto-based BitGo, which uses multiple-signature security to store user deposits online, allowing for faster withdrawals. "Our investigation has found no evidence of a breach to any BitGo servers," BitGo said in a Tweet. "With users' funds secured using multi-signature technology in partnership with BitGo, a lot more is at stake for the backbone of the bitcoin industry, with its stalwarts and prided tech under fire," said Charles Hayter, chief executive and founder of digital currency website CryptoCompare. The security breach comes two months after Bitfinex was ordered to pay a $75,000 fine by the U.S. Commodity and Futures Trading Commission in part for offering illegal off-exchange financed commodity transactions in bitcoin and other digital currencies. BITCOIN SLUMP Tuesday's breach triggered a slump in bitcoin prices and was reminiscent of events that led to the 2014 collapse of Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox, which said it had lost about $500 million worth of customers' Bitcoins in a hacking attack. Story continues Bitcoin plunged just over 23 percent on Tuesday after the news broke. On Wednesday it was up 1 percent at $545.20 on the BitStamp platform. Tackett added that the breach did not "expose any weaknesses in the security of a blockchain", the technology that generates and processes bitcoin, a web-based "cryptocurrency" that can move across the globe anonymously without the need for a central authority. A bitcoin expert said the scandal highlighted the risks of companies using cryptography for their ledgers. "The more you rely on its benefits, the greater the potential for damage when keys are stolen. We still have some way to go to create highly secure but convenient systems," said Singapore-based Antony Lewis. The volume of bitcoin stolen amounts to about 0.75 percent of all bitcoin in circulation. It is not yet clear whether the theft was an inside job or whether hackers were able to gain access to the system externally. On an online forum, Bitfinex's Tackett said he was "nearly 100 percent certain" it was no one in the company. Bitfinex suspended trading on Tuesday after it discovered the breach. It said on its website that it was investigating and cooperating with the authorities. The security breach is the latest scandal to hit Hong Kong's bitcoin market after MyCoin became embroiled in a scam last year that media estimated could have duped investors of up to $387 million. The bitcoin trading company closed after the scandal. The president of the Hong Kong Bitcoin Association said the only way to protect information is to disperse it in so many small pieces that the reward for hacking is too small. "For an attacker, the cost-benefit strategy is quite easy: How much is in the pot and how likely is it that I'm getting the pot?" said Leonhard Weese. (Additional reporting by Hera Poon in HONG KONG, Jeremy Wagstaff in SINGAPORE and Jemima Kelly in LONDON; Editing by Will Waterman) || After mass shooting, German police focus on 'dark net' crime: By Frank Siebelt WIESBADEN, Germany (Reuters) - German police will do more to fight crime committed on the "dark net", they said on Wednesday, days after a gunman killed nine people with a weapon bought on that hidden part of the internet. "We see that the dark net is a growing trading place and therefore we need to prioritise our investigations here," Holger Muench, head of Germany's Federal Police (BKA), told journalists as he presented the latest annual report on cyber crime. The dark net, which is only accessible via special web browsers, is increasingly used to procure drugs, weapons and counterfeit money, allowing users to trade anonymously and pay with digital currencies such as Bitcoin, the BKA said. The man who killed nine people at a shopping mall in Munich on Friday was a local 18-year-old obsessed with mass killings who had bought his reactivated 9mm Glock 17 pistol on the dark web, Bavarian officials said. The BKA said it had taken five market places in the dark net out of circulation last year. Muench said the BKA did not just want to take the sites offline but also catch criminals using them. Cyber crime cost Germany 40.5 million euros ($44.5 million) last year, the BKA's report said, a rise of 2.8 percent. Most of the more than 45,000 cases involved computer fraud. Muench said the figures only represented a small part of the true size of cyber crime. "If we look ahead we see little relief," he said. "Cyber crime is still a growing phenomenon - you could say almost a growing business, even a growing industry." Police solved 32.8 percent of cyber crime last year, Muench said, adding that many crimes do not get past the exploratory phase and others go unnoticed or are not reported. ($1 = 0.9098 euros) (Writing and additional reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 #bitcoin = $11805.00 MXN | $637.51 USD #BitAPeso 1 USD = 18.52MXN http://www.bitapeso.com || 1 KOBO = 0.00001780 BTC
= 0.0118 USD
= 3.4751 NGN
= 0.1692 ZAR
= 1.1977 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-07-20 18:00 pic.twitter.com/4wYZ9OewTZ || LIVE: Profit = $44.19 (17.81 %). BUY B0.50 @ $520.10 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $590.00 (#BitKonan) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || #STV 0.00000551 BTC(-29.81 %) | Market Cap 39 BTC | Volume(24h) 0.00 BTC | Available Supply 7,070,149 STV || 1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000060 BTC YoBit 0.00000387 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000067 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-08-13 09:00 pic.twitter.com/8P6yI9Quym || #Triangles #TRI $ 0.204262 (0.46 %) 0.00034999 BTC (0.00 %) || #Bitcoin last trade
@bitstamp $661.00
@coinbase $662.00
Set #crypto #price #alerts at http://AlertCo.in || 確信犯だ。問題ない || Bitcoin Uncensored Call-in. w/ @derosetech @Dylan_4011 @ShaunAppelbaum https://blab.im/dje1ea pic.twitter.com/5aZO8aYdYM || Bitcoin Price Watch; Finally Some Support? http://goo.gl/suZzLq http://ohiobitcoin.com/buybitcoin #bitcoin
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Trend: down || Prices: 586.75, 583.41, 580.18, 577.76, 579.65, 569.95, 573.91, 574.11, 577.50, 575.47
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Paraguay unveils new cryptocurrency law: After a month of anticipation, the finalised details of Paraguay’s new crypto legislation have been revealed as the country moves to become a key player in Latin America’s unfolding crypto race. The finalised version of the proposed Bitcoin bill has been presented to the National Congress of Paraguay by the progressive Senator Fernando Silva Facetti and Congressman Carlos Rejala. Paraguay today is embarking on a historic regulatory journey, assuring our coveted electrical sovereignty. Paraguay hoy embarca en un histórico viaje regulatorio que garantiza su soberanía energética. — FernandoSilvaFacetti (@FSilvaFacetti) July 14, 2021 However, it seems that a potential legalisation of Bitcoin (BTC) as an official tender for use across Paraguay is off the cards. The proposed legislation aims to create an attractive regulatory environment within the country through the establishment of a straightforward licencing regime that would enable the crypto industry to easily open operations. This is part of a wider strategy attempting to draw in high-tech businesses that can help drive innovation within the Paraguayan economy. This draft bill provides a clear regulatory framework on the cripto generation industry to attract foreign investment. Esta ley brinda un marco regulatorio claro sobre la industria de generación de criptomonedas atrayendo inversión extranjera en el Paraguay. — FernandoSilvaFacetti (@FSilvaFacetti) July 14, 2021 The proposals suggest the country’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce should be the central body responsible for administering this licencing regime as it has the ministerial capacity and infrastructure to handle registrations, supervision, and commercial controls on cryptocurrencies. Story continues In addition, the proposals include a mechanism for regulatory input from the National Securities Commission (although the bill avoids classifying cryptos as securities products), the Secretariat for the Prevention of Money Laundering, and the National Electricity Administration. After this bill passes Py will position itself in this competitive industry, and plans to lead in sustainable Bitcoin Mining Después de que este proyecto de ley sea aprobado, Py se posicionará en esta industria competitiva y planea liderar en la minería sostenible de Bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/scO5tyRpaK — Carlitos Rejala 🙏🇵🇾🙌 (@carlitosrejala) July 14, 2021 Crypto mining operations, exchanges, cryptocurrency projects, traders, and other businesses such as digital-asset custodial services will all be eligible to apply under the new licencing regime. READ MORE: Latin America’s emerging crypto race The politicians pushing the bill have also reached out to the National Electricity Administration in order to create a pre-emptive energy consumption plan, which will ensure supply meets demand as well as work on carbon footprint reduction through the use of surplus power produced by the Yaciretá and Itaipú hydroelectric power plants. Curiously, any discussion of tax has been omitted from the finalised bill, marking a change from previous drafts. It seems that tax will be conducted at an individual level, with the Paraguayan government seeking to prosecute those operating outside of the licencing regime. More crypto 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. || EOS, Stellar’s Lumen, and Tron’s TRX – Daily Analysis – August 9th, 2021: EOS EOS slid by 6.60% on Sunday. Reversing a 6.48% rally from Saturday, EOS ended the week up by 8.97% to $4.2966. A mixed start to the day saw EOS rise to an early morning intraday high $4.6730 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $4.7432 EOS slid to a late intraday low $4.2308. EOS fell through the first major support level at $4.3707 to end the week at sub-$4.30 levels. At the time of writing, EOS was down by 1.19% to $4.2453. A mixed start to the day saw EOS rise to an early morning high $4.3173 before falling to a low $4.2328. EOS left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the day ahead EOS would need to move through the $4.4001 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $4.5695 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed for EOS to break out from $4.50 levels. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Sunday’s high $4.6730 would likely cap any upside. In the event of an extended rally, EOS could test resistance at $5.00. The second major resistance level sits at $4.8423. Failure to move through the $4.4001 pivot would bring the first major support level at $4.1273 into play. Barring another extended sell-off, however, EOS should steer clear of sub-$4.00 levels. The second major support level sits at $3.9579. Looking at the Technical Indicators First Major Support Level: $4.1273 First Major resistance Level: 4.5695 23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $6.52 38% FIB Retracement Level: $9.68 62% FIB Retracement Level: $14.77 Stellar’s Lumen Stellar’s Lumen slid by 6.63% on Sunday. Partially reversing a 7.81% rally from Saturday, Stellar’s Lumen ended the week up by 4.42% to $0.2873. A mixed start to the day saw Stellar’s Lumen rise to an early morning intraday high $0.3135 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $0.3190, Stellar’s Lumen slid to a late intraday low $0.2857. Stellar’s Lumen fell through the first major support level at $0.2891 to end the day at sub-$0.2880 levels. Story continues At the time of writing, Stellar’s Lumen was down by 1.02% to $0.2843. A mixed start to the day saw Stellar’s Lumen rise to an early morning high $0.2889 before falling to a low $0.2833. Stellar’s Lumen left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the day ahead Stellar’s Lumen would need to move through the $0.2955 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $0.3053 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Stellar’s Lumen to break back through to $0.30 levels. Barring an extended rally, the first major resistance level and Sunday’s high $0.3135 would likely cap any upside. In the event of another broad-based crypto rally, Stellar’s Lumen could test resistance at $0.32 before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $0.3233. Failure to move through the $0.2955 pivot would bring the first major support level at $0.2775 into play. Barring another extended sell-off on the day, Stellar’s Lumen should steer clear of the second major support level at $0.2677. Looking at the Technical Indicators First Major Support Level: $0.2775 First Major Resistance Level: $0.3053 23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $0.3402 38% FIB Retracement Level: $0.4277 62% FIB Retracement Level: $0.5690 Tron’s TRX Tron’s TRX fell by 4.08% on Sunday. Reversing a 4.11% gain from Saturday, Tron’s TRX ended the week up by 14.15% to $0.07190. A mixed start to the day saw Tron’s TRX rise to a mid-morning intraday high $0.07644 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $0.07747, Tron’s TRX slid to a late intraday low $0.07059. The extended sell-off saw Tron’s TRX fall through the first major support level at $0.07195 to end the week at $0.07190. At the time of writing, Tron’s TRX was down by 0.57% to $0.07149. A mixed start to the day saw Tron’s TRX rise to an early morning high $0.07247 before falling to a low $0.07075. Tron’s TRX left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the Day Ahead Tron’s TRX would need to move through the $0.07298 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $0.07536 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Tron’s TRX to break back through to $0.075 levels. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Sunday’s high $0.07644 would likely cap any upside. In the event of an extended rally, Tron’s TRX could test resistance at the 23.6% FIB of $0.07870 and the second major resistance level at $0.07883. Failure to move through the $0.07298 pivot would bring the first major support level at $0.06951 into play. Barring another extended sell-off, however, Tron’s TRX should steer clear of sub-$0.068 levels. The second major support level sits at $0.06713. Looking at the Technical Indicators First Major Support Level: $0.06951 First Major Resistance Level: $0.07536 23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $0.0787 38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $0.0989 62% FIB Retracement Level: $0.1316 Please let us know what you think in the comments below Thanks, Bob This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: European Equities: Economic Data from China and Germany in Focus Bitcoin Buyers Face Stiff Resistance At 200-day SMA Dogecoin – Daily Tech Analysis – August 8th, 2021 Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – August 9th, 2021 What are Real Yields? The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – August 9th, 2021 || Green Crypto Mining for Ethereum and Bitcoin Using O-Power: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 10, 2021 /Axis Technologies Group, Inc. (OTC:AXTG) ('AXTG' or the 'Company') has announced a groundbreaking strategic partnership with O-Power LLC to provide the world's first truly 'green' cryptocurrency. The envisaged system will be capable of producing any desired cryptocurrency using crypto-mining computers and peripherals that are powered verifiably by electricity produced by O-Power's patented 100% zero-emissions electricity generators that offer scalable, portable, constant (24/7/365) power production that does not use solar, geothermal, hydroelectric or wind-turbine technologies to produce electrical power.
The generators produce no toxic waste and they can be deployed in any environment regardless of climate, weather, seasonal conditions, proximity to bodies of water, or the availability of wind or sunshine, to produce constant electricity that is beyond 'eco-friendly' for as little as 1.5¢ per kilowatt.
About O-Power
O-Power is the California-based holder of the exclusive worldwide license to manufacture, distribute, deploy and service the units that employ this disruptive technology. Says its Executive Manager, Ryan Carter, 'As a debt-free and independent company, O-Power is free to enter relationships that make the most sense in solving urgent problems, while meeting the burgeoning demand for energy that is truly emissions-free and constant.'
O-Power recognizes the ability of this technology to enable cryptocurrency to shed its greatest stigma: that it exacerbates climate change due to the massive electricity consumption required for the mining of each new coin. Although the technology has myriad humanitarian applications (e.g. enabling remote refrigeration of vaccines, providing clean electricity for individual and mass transit, facilitating greater connectivity in the developing world), O-Power recognizes the superior economic opportunity that is presented by first applying the technology to crypto mining.
Implications
This innovative marriage of O-Power technology with standard crypto-mining equipment has the potential to impact both the production of fungible tokens (i.e. BTC, ETH, etc.) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by eliminating the chief impediment to the adoption of cryptocurrencies by corporations that are concerned with social responsibility. The innovations include the ability to go beyond the notion of merely cleaner, or 'green' crypto, to a more exacting level of environmental responsibility (zero-emissions crypto), at a lower cost than conventionally produced crypto.
Not only will the market be free to accept these zero-emissions cryptocurrencies, thereby allaying the environmental-impact concerns of their patrons, but this new class of cryptocurrency will possess verified blockchain-embedded proof of origin to distinguish it from conventionally produced crypto or so-called 'green' crypto (which is not zero-emissions, constant, and 100% independent of solar, wind, geothermal or any supplemental generative augmentation). And, lastly, according to Mr. Carter, 'Due to the portability, scalability and lower cost of the O-Power technology, this new class of crypto can be made available rapidly and in sufficient quantities to meet current and future global demands of retailers.'
Proof of Concept
William Tien, President of AXTG, states that 'Our Company and O-Power are advancing quickly toward the establishment of a demonstration project in Southern California in order to prove the efficacy of the technology and provide verifiable proof of the key conceptual elements of this momentous innovation.' Proof of Concept work is expected to be completed within the third quarter of 2021. Interested parties, including investors, patrons and developers, may inquire further by contacting ceo@axtg.us.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements related to anticipated revenues, expenses, earnings, operating cash flows, the outlook for markets, and the demand for products. Forward-looking statements are no guarantees of future performance and are inherently subject to uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Such statements are based upon, among other things, assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management, including management's own knowledge and assessment of the Company's industry and competition. The Company assumes no duty to update its forward-looking statements.
SOURCE:Axis Technologies Group, Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/659161/Green-Crypto-Mining-for-Ethereum-and-Bitcoin-Using-O-Power || Bitcoin Declines From $40K Resistance; Support at $34K: Bitcoin (BTC) had a sharp 10% pullback after approaching the $40,000 resistance level on Monday. The cryptocurrency is holding initial support above $36,000 at press time and is up about 25% over the past week.
Lower support is seen around $34,000 which could stabilize the current pullback.
• The relative strength index (RSI) on the four-hour chart reached extreme overbought levels over the weekend as bitcoin rallied. Overbought conditions typically precede price declines as buyers take profits.
• The RSI on the daily chart is approaching overbought levels, which could limit bitcoin’s upside beyond $40,000 resistance.
• Although the intermediate-term downtrend is improving, bitcoin remains in a consolidation phase between $30,000 and $40,000, which suggests buyers and sellers are in a stalemate despite occasional rallies and selloffs.
• Bitcoin, Ether Options Markets Pare Bearish Bias
• Bitcoin Takes a Breather as Stocks Drop, Inflation-Adjusted Bond Yields Hit Record Low
• Amazon: No, We Have No Plans to Accept Bitcoin Payments
• The Tether Put: Crypto Equivalent of Credit Default Swap? || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – August 20th, 2021: Bitcoin , BTC to USD, rose by 4.57% on Thursday. Following a 0.06% gain on Wednesday, Bitcoin ended the day at $46,765.0. A choppy start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning intraday low $43,992.0 before making a move. Finding support at the first major support level at $43,988, Bitcoin rallied to a late intraday high $47,061.0. Bitcoin broke through the first major resistance level at $45,732 and the second major resistance level at $46,743. A late pullback, however, saw briefly Bitcoin fall back through the second major resistance level before ending the day at sub-$46,760 levels. The near-term bullish trend remained intact, supported by the latest return to $48,000 levels. For the bears, Bitcoin would need a sustained fall through the 62% FIB of $27,237 to form a near-term bearish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the majors, it was a bullish day on Thursday. Cardano’s ADA surged by 15.99% to lead the way, with Binance Coin and Ripple’s XRP rallying by 8.78% and by 7.71% respectively. Chainlink (+6.86%), Ethereum (+5.71%), Litecoin (+5.48%), and Polkadot (+6.34%) also found strong support. Bitcoin Cash SV (+1.94%) and Crypto.com Coin (+0.51%) trailed the front runners, however. In the current week, the crypto total market rose to a Monday high $2,061bn before falling to a Wednesday low $1,832bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $2,010bn. Bitcoin’s dominance fell to a Tuesday low 43.67% before rising to a Wednesday high 45.35%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 44.17%. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 1.06% to $47,263.0. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning low $46,647.0 before rising to a early morning high $47,407.4. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Cardano’s ADA (-0.74%), Polkadot (-0.42%), and Ripple’s XRP (-0.45%) bucked the early trend. It was a bullish start for the rest of the majors, however. Story continues At the time of writing, Crypto.com Coin was up by 3.00% to lead the way. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to avoid the $45,939 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $47,887 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break out from $47,500 levels. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and resistance at $48,000 would likely cap any upside. In the event of an extended crypto rally, Bitcoin could test resistance at $50,000 levels before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $49,008. A fall through the $45,939 pivot would bring the first major support level at $44,818 into play. Barring an extended sell-off on the day, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$44,000 levels. The second major support level sits at $42,870. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Looking to Find Bottom E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Weakens Under 4412.00, Could Strenthen Over 4427.50 Silver Price Prediction – Prices Slip on Dollar Gains GOLD FORECAST – Gold Prices Must Hold $1675 to Prevent a Breakdown Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Gapped Lower Economic Data from the UK and Canada to Put the Pound and the Loonie in Focus || Millennials are quitting jobs to become crypto day traders. Here's the risk, reward.: Cryptocurrencies are the poster child of the market boom in the pandemic. But most Americans lack knowledge around them. Hamez Trezhnjeva became so enthralled with stocks and Dogecoin during the coronavirus pandemic last year that he decided to make day trading a full-time gig this summer. The 27-year-old Albanian immigrant recently quit his job as a bartender at a French restaurant in Manhattan to spend more time trading on his phone. His decision was sealed when he became frustrated that his work income was just 20% of his earnings prior to being laid off from another bartending job last year. “I kept thinking about all of the lost opportunities ... to make even more money day trading,” says Trezhnjeva, who lives with his wife, Gabrielle, in Bayonne, New Jersey. “I was going into work to make money, but I could have made at least twice that amount if I was at home spending more time investing.” Gabrielle and Hamez Trezhnjeva, of Bayonne, NJ, trade cryptocurrency from their laptop or phones. Monday, August 2, 2021. Meme mania pushes millennials, Gen Z into the stock and cryptocurrency markets The fear of missing out (FOMO) on record-high stock prices and the boom in cryptocurrency – or digital currencies – has pushed more young Americans like Trezhnjeva to try day trading and other kinds of investing for the first time. For people who kept their jobs during last year’s COVID-19 recession and are flush with stimulus money and savings, there’s an anxiety to cash in big on everything from GameStop to cryptocurrencies. It’s easy to see why. The stock market has surged nearly 100% since March 2020. AMC, a struggling cinema chain, has managed to soar more than 1,490%. Robinhood, the online trading platform that catapulted AMC to new heights, also has been a market darling, shooting up more than 60% since it went public on July 29. Meanwhile, Bitcoin more than doubled in value this spring, reaching $64,000 in April before briefly tumbling back to below $30,000. Why young investors have COVID-induced FOMO All these lofty values and the wealth generated by it have drawn young Americans to investing, even though they have been hit by two “once-in-a-lifetime” recessions early in their prime earning years. The ability to become rich quickl seems close at hand. Story continues But the drive to get in on the action comes with big risks. And while the do-it-yourself spirit of day traders is understandable given frustrations with low-paying retail jobs and a distrust of big financial institutions, low levels of financial knowledge leave most Americans at risk of losing more money than they can spare when markets turn volatile or crash. “It’s like a Las Vegas-style atmosphere where you’re gambling and things can work out in your favor," says Michael Sheldon, chief investment officer at investment adviser RDM Financial Group at Hightower. "But just as quickly they can turn against you.” Still, most Americans aren't familiar with cryptocurrencies It was only 17 months ago that the COVID-19 pandemic drove down financial markets 34% and sent the economy into one of the sharpest downturns since the Great Depression And while that market collapse was the shortest on record, $9.5 trillion in wealth was wiped out. That implosion serves as a warning of what can happen to people without a financial plan or solid grounding in investing basics. And it came just 13 years after the Great Recession of 2007-2009 began, prompted by a collapse in the U.S. housing market. Yet despite both meltdowns occurring within recent memory, many amateur investors in the U.S fall short when it comes to knowledge of finances, markets and investments, according to Wall Street regulators and financial experts. And one of the newest and most volatile of investments is among the hottest: cryptocurrencies. They are essentially digital coins created and exchanged over a decentralized computer network where transactions are secured and verified through coding. If Americans struggle with financial knowledge in general, it’s also true they don’t fully grasp the finer points of this asset. Roughly 60% of U.S. adults say they are "not very" or "not at all" familiar with cryptocurrencies, according to results of a Harris Poll provided exclusively to USA TODAY. Here's how much lack of financial literacy costs Americans More broadly, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they understand investing well, though only 20% say they understand it very well, according to Harris. Literacy appears to correlate with income. About 40% of U.S. households with income over $100,000 say they are "very" literate, compared with only 21% of households with incomes under $50,000, Harris Poll data shows. Lack of financial literacy and not knowing how to manage one’s personal finances cost Americans more than $415 billion in 2020, or an average of $1,634 per U.S. adult, the National Financial Educators Council estimates. "When it comes to investing, Americans say they're sufficient, but not proficient by any stretch," says John Gerzema, CEO of The Harris Poll. "They acknowledge they're OK at it, but they haven't mastered it." Americans think they know more about investing than they actually do This is also a nation where most Americans believe they know more about investing than they actually do, according to data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street’s self-regulatory arm. In a 2020 survey conducted by FINRA, 50% of investors exhibited low investing knowledge, yet their confidence in their investing capability was relatively high, with 71% of investors reporting average or higher levels of confidence in their skills. Although most Americans may think they’re financially literate, new investors are less likely to have high levels of financial literacy compared with their more experienced counterparts, FINRA data shows. Most younger investors exhibited low levels of investing knowledge, including 57% of 18- to 29-year-olds and 53% of 30- to 44-year-olds. Key errors young investors make Young investors are making two pivotal mistakes while trading cryptocurrencies: Their investing time horizon is too short and they’re scooping up too many speculative assets in their portfolios that are risky, according to Yosef Bonaparte, associate professor of finance and the director of external affairs in finance at the University of Colorado Denver. Cryptocurrencies can see wild swings within a day or even minutes, making day trading dangerous for small-time investors who lack knowledge about them. "The everyday individual is looking at crypto assets as an investment or opportunity to build wealth," says Tyrone Ross, chief executive of Onramp Invest , which provides cryptocurrency asset-management technology for financial advisors. "But the majority of people should not be investing in them." To be a professional trader, for instance, requires exams and a FINRA license to execute orders for a Wall Street securities or brokerage firm. The average Joe in America, however, isn't required to do that if they're day trading for themselves. “It can work for the right person, but there are so many things that are important before you get there, like having an emergency savings, paying down debt and setting your financial goals,” Ross adds. “If you haven’t done that, you shouldn’t be trading crypto.” Test Your Financial IQ: Take this quiz Trezhnjeva says that he's still learning the in and outs of day trading. He was attracted to cryptocurrencies because he either paid no fee or lower fees to transfer money back to his family in Europe. He wakes up two hours before the stock market opens to prepare for his day. His wife Gabrielle, a 24-year-old leasing agent at an apartment-rental company, gets texts from him throughout the day, asking her opinion about whether to buy a particular cryptocurrency or stock. But they are still cautious. The couple plans to hold their crypto money for the long haul to build up their nest egg and save for a home. "We never invest more than we're willing to lose," she added. Gabrielle has been investing for the past five years and helped push him into cryptocurrency by buying Dogecoin, a popular meme stock that was created as a joke. She predominantly uses the Robinhood and says she feels a rush of validation when she gets congratulated or sees positive emojis for her trades on the app. “It can get addicting because it’s a sign of reward," she says. "We get gratification and it’s a big part of the gamification of investing.” Gabrielle and Hamez Trezhnjeva, of Bayonne, NJ, trade cryptocurrency. Monday, August 2, 2021. The gamification of investing brings significant risks James Fielder, an adjunct professor of political science at Colorado State University who has studied Robinhood, wrote in a research paper that “by delighting users, Robinhood creates players rather than investors. This helps them overlook the fact that speculative investing is very difficult and could cause them to lose lots of money – even if they are professionals who spend hours and days scrutinizing companies and trades.” Fielder adds that Robinhood’s emojis, push notifications and backslapping affirmation emails create a “game play loop” that makes stock trading easy. Fielder in an interview with USA TODAY said Robinhood’s gift of a free stock to those who join for the first time is a “very powerful” tool to bring in new investors. Yet, he said novice investors should be careful. “I tried it myself, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is crazy,’” he said. Fielder says Robinhood allows traders to directly link their savings accounts to the app, which could cause a novice trader dabbling in options or other risky trades to quickly lose their money. Gabrielle, meanwhile, says that investing classes weren't offered in her school curriculum growing up. She's paying off her student debt and currently maxes out her 401(k) contributions because of investing help from her parents. Her husband doesn't have a retirement vehicle like a 401(k) or IRA. America lags other countries in financial literacy Part of the issue with retirement planning and investing, experts say, is that Americans aren't equipped with much financial education since most states don't require financial literacy classes for high school students. As of 2020, 21 states required high schools to teach financial literacy, and 25 states required a high school economics course, according to the Council for Economic Education. Each year, Americans graduate high school without knowledge of basic life skills like how to keep a budget, file taxes, open and maintain a bank account and save for retirement, according to Bonaparte. That's added to a staggering dilemma where two-thirds of states – 35 states including Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. – earned grades of "C" or less for financial literacy instruction, with just 17 states earning grades of "A" or "B," according to a study released by the American Public Education Foundation in 2021. The U.S. ranks 14th in the world for the percentage of financially literate adults, with only 57% of them meeting that standard, according to Standard & Poor’s Global Financial Literacy Survey. Countries with the highest rates include Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom, where about 65% or more of adults are financially literate. Crypto frenzy pushes millennials to mine for digital currencies Travis and Carolina Stewart, who live in Houston, are mining a cryptocurrency called ether with four computers in a shed in their backyard. Mining is the process that creates cryptocurrency. Their electricity bill is $250 per month, at least double of what it once was. But they say it’s worth it because they’re making enough money off their ether profits. Travis, a 32-year-old petroleum engineer, got burned and lost money on a medical stock in his early 20s and decided he had an issue with financial literacy. So, he took a coding course that also had a curriculum on cryptocurrencies at Rice University in his hometown during the pandemic. “It was terrible losing that money, but it caused me to take a deeper dive and learn more about investing,” he says. Why young investors are drawn to speculative investments The pandemic has been a boon for speculative corners of the market like cryptocurrencies, with 68% of owners having possessed it for less than a year, according to Harris Poll. And much of that is ownership comes from young investors. Overall, just 13% of Americans own cryptocurrency, but among millennials that number is far higher, at 25%. Younger investors need money to buy a house or a car, or they want to get married or travel. But some of them saddled with debt or low-income jobs aren’t setting themselves up to invest for the next 50 years. They’re doing it for just the next three or four years to cover short-term needs, pushing them to buy speculative assets like cryptocurrency, says Bonaparte. “The fear of missing out is huge. If you want to gamble like in Vegas, only 2% of your portfolio should be in speculative assets, not 100%,” Bonaparte says. “You can buy cryptos because they have a good run sometimes, but you can’t have your entire portfolio in speculation,” he says. “That’s what we’re seeing with millennials.” Dan Kearns, whose son Alex committed suicide after he thought he had lost a significant amount of money trading options on Robinhood, agrees with Bonaparte. Kearns says he believes too many teenagers have become investors by getting caught up in the "outsized influence" of social media and are trying to get rich quick. "There's the 'fear of missing out,' or FOMO, that seems to rule the day," Kearns told USA TODAY." How some young investors spend their crypto profits The Stewarts, while young, are taking a measured approach to investing. They paid off their student debt and car payments, padded their emergency savings and have been maxing out their retirement contributions. So, they've using their cryptocurrency profits to generate more savings for retirement and have even incorporated it into their life milestones. Travis bought Carolina’s engagement ring with about $10,000 he made off ether before the pandemic. Once Carolina, 33, paid off her student loans a few years ago, she started maxing out her 401(k) plan and began trading Bitcoin and gave Travis a fancy watch for their wedding with her cryptocurrency profits. “I wanted to be a day trader, but then I realized I wasn’t good,” Carolina said, who is a clinical trials project manager at a biopharmaceutical solutions organization. “It’s very stressful because you can lose so much money within hours. I gave up and decided to hold those crypto investments for the long haul.” “Young Americans who are investing for the first time may be having fun making money, but we really haven’t had an extended economic downturn or bear market,” says Sheldon, the chief investment officer at RDM Financial Group at Hightower. “Under those circumstances, younger investors might feel differently about taking risks and their decision-making may certainly change if the markets weaken for a period of time,” he said. “They don’t really teach financial literacy in school, but they should.” Bitcoin outperformed the S&P. Ross agrees. "I have yet to meet a billionaire who made their billions from day trading," Ross says. "The greatest investment is education." Even so, Trezhnjeva, the young day trader in New Jersey, isn't worried about his prospects, for now. “I’m not afraid of leaving my job. I can always go back to hospitality," he says. "I’m confident that crypto is the future.” GRAPHICS: George Petras/USA TODAY Contributing: Craig Harris, USA TODAY “Young Investors: Risk and Reward” is a series that examines the aspirations and anxieties of young Americans as they invest money in the current market boom, which is lifting traditional stock prices to record highs and elevating a new, risky marketplace for virtual goods, from digital art to Dogecoin. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Crypto FOMO: Millennials, gen Z face risks in Robinhood, bitcoin boom || DeFi Summer Is Here - The Blockchain Is Heating Up: It’s hot outside, as summer is in full swing and it’s getting even hotter inside the blockchain. According toDeFiPrime, there are currently 235 DeFi projects built, of which 219 are based on Ethereum, 17 on EOs, and 26 on Bitcoin. But what is DeFi?
DeFi which stands for Decentralized Finance is the new world order for the financial system. It takes the old method of doing things and leverages the power of the blockchain to host projects and platforms that are trustless in nature, thus making transactions anonymous and private. The fact that all transactions are conducted directly on the blockchain and then verified and authenticated automatically, removes the need for a middle man or an intermediary. This tends to make transactions more efficient, more secure and means they are not subject to tampering or human error.
There are a variety of use cases for DeFi, which include banking, cross-border transactions and payments, betting markets, trading markets, and of course the ability to invest your holdings directly on the blockchain. Staking is a new way of investing that often brings unparalleled returns, which an investor just cannot get from inside the traditional banking and savings industries. Passive yield can be anywhere from around 5%-8% APY or higher.
Let’s take a look at some of the projects that are shaking up the system and helping to propel DeFi forward.
Centrifuge -
Centrifugeconnects lenders with borrowers directly. Meaning no contracts to sign and you don’t even have to meet the other person you are borrowing from. The process is as transparent as it is cost-effective. It removes the necessity for the middleman, such as the agent and it does away with the inefficiencies inherent in the traditional financial marketplace.
The project allows businesses to tokenize their assets and then use them as collateral against their on-chain borrowings, giving the lender security. This is conducted throughTinlake, an open marketplace of asset pools introducing Asset Originators and Investors. Asset Originators turn their real-world assets into tokens, with the assets backing each token. Investors can lend to the asset originators and in return can seek generous yields on their choice of tokenized real-world assets which include invoices, mortgages, or streaming royalties. Tinlake works on a smart contract basis and it automatically matches up the parties interested in administering, structuring, and financing the asset pools.
The team behind the project, which was founded in 2017, consists of finance and crypto entrepreneurs from the supply chain FinTechTaulia. Centrifuge raised $8M from its seed round in 2018 and a further $4.3M from a SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) in 2020. Investors include IOSG, Fenbushi, Blueyard, Galaxy, Fintech Collective, Mosaic, Rockaway, Moonwhale, TRGC, HashCIB, Crane Venture Partners, Fabric Ventures, Atlantic, Inflection, Semantic, Mariano Conti, Stani Kulechov, and Julien Bouteloup.
Reef
Definitely a project to watch this summer,ReefFinance has been busy launching wallets, DeFi lending protocols, and bridges with long-term vision. Their successful Mainnet launch is expected imminently following a positive testnet launch. Reef, whose slogan “DeFi made easy” offers an entire ecosystem to investors and users in order to gain exposure to opportunities just not available in the traditional marketplace.
They focus on interoperability across a variety of blockchain ecosystems., meaning they integrate with DeFi projects from across Ethereum, Polkadot, Avalanche, Cosmos, and the Binance Smart Chain. This bridge across protocols helps boost the liquidity across the entire ecosystem. Investors who participate in Reef chain validation and governance can earn competitive APY on their Reef tokens.
Transactions on Reef are fast, scalable, with low transaction costs and they promise no wasteful mining. Reef is built using the Polkadot Substrate and comes with on-chain governance for token holders. Reef recently launched a $20 million fund for developers to help propel the usability and technology behind Reef Chain forward.
RSK
RSKis helping boost the usability of the Bitcoin blockchain, as this smart contract-based platform converts BTC to RBTC across its network through a two-way peg system. This means BTC is locked into Reef and users are furnished with the equivalent in RBTC. RSK Network uses the security of the Bitcoin blockchain, yet gives users the advantage of using a Layer 2 chain.
Bitcoin miners are able to mine RBTC using the same technology and systems they currently use for Bitcoin, and they can earn rewards along the way. RSK, which currently has around 50,000 account holders and growing, also promises scalability, as it can process approximately 100 transactions each second.
There is currently the equivalent of around 1400 BTC locked up inside this protocol, which at today's value is worth $43,957,200.00.
RSK is a way to execute BTC transactions that are faster and much cheaper than using the Bitcoin blockchain itself.
Orion Protocol
Orion Protocolgives users a new way to engage with the entire ecosystem of DEXs or digital exchanges, and CEXs or centralized exchanges using one single account. It is like the gateway to most of the leading exchanges, with the advantage of being able to compare market prices at a glance. To use Orion, investors only need a wallet address and from there they can immediately start buying, selling, and exchanging a huge selection of digital assets including leading cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and altcoins using the exchange of their choice.
This system removes the need for clunky KYC processes and for opening accounts across the various exchanges, which is a time-consuming and often frustrating pursuit.
Trading using Orion is conducted in 3 simple steps:
1. Add your wallet2. Deposit your assets3. Start trading
With many users currently experiencing problems in depositing and getting withdrawals from CEXs like Binance due to regulatory issues, Orion, which links users directly to Binance, among other leading exchanges, means traders from anywhere in the world can access the platform seamlessly and of course deposit and withdraw freely.
Orion’s native token is the ORN and there are currently 12,647,511 ORN circulating or the total supply of 28,985,000 ORN which is equivalent to $52,048,205. There is a 24-hour trading volume through Orion of $19,145,535 at the time of writing.
The Bottom Line
Things move fast on the blockchain and the blockchain is so much more than just buying and selling Bitcoin. The crypto curious and crypto savvy should keep an eye on the ever-expanding DeFi market, with the number and quality of new projects heating up. Have a great summer!
Image byMiloslav HamříkfromPixabay
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• Leading Blockchain Game Splinterlands Raises Private Equity Funding, Taps Two Industry Veterans As Advisors
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Fintech App Titan Adds Actively Managed Crypto Basket: Mobile investment platform Titan is getting into the crypto game.
The company, which describes itself as a “Fidelity for millennials and Gen Z,” currently offers three “strategies” – Titan’s version of an index fund – for investors to gain exposure to the stock market. It manages approximately $500 million for over 30,000 clients.
But with its new product,Titan Crypto, the investing app is expanding its offerings into the crypto realm with a basket of leading coins. Titan’s actively managed crypto offering will feature a collection of five to 10 cryptocurrencies that, according to Titan co-CEO Clay Gardner, will includebitcoinandetheras well as altcoins like Cardano’sADAand Stellar’sXLM.
Related:Prime Trust Raises $64M to Scale Fintech Infrastructure Biz
As cryptocurrencies become more mainstream, retail investors are clamoring to get involved. But for some, the process of setting up a wallet and navigating the crypto ecosystem can be overwhelming. User-friendly investing platforms like Robinhood, PayPal and now Titan have sprung up offering various levels of crypto exposure to crypto-curious retail investors.
Titan Crypto’s investment team, led by analyst Gritt Trakulhoon, will make monthly adjustments to the allocations and coins contained in the crypto portfolio based on performance.
Titan did not tell CoinDesk where the actual crypto would be custodied. (For example, PayPal uses Paxos to power its crypto services.)
Gardner told CoinDesk that over time, Titan hopes to expand its crypto offerings to include decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens as well as add more features for users including staking and lending.
Related:Crypto-Friendly Investment Search Engine Vincent Raises $6M
In July, Titanraised$58 million in a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm known for its crypto investments. Anish Acharya, a general partner at a16z, joined Titan’s board of directors.
• Titan Raises $58M in Series B Round Led by A16z
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Struggles Below $40K as Traders Digest Fed Statement || Bitcoin on Longest Weekly Winning Run in 9 Months Ahead of Jackson Hole Symposium: Bitcoin has chalked up an impressive rally ahead of the Federal Reserves annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Friday. Analysts say the virtual event could strengthen cryptocurrencys bullish trajectory. Bitcoin was trading at a three-month high of $50,200 at press time, having recorded gains for a fifth consecutive week. Thats the longest weekly winning trend since November, CoinDesk 20 data show. After Jackson Hole the dollar could see some depreciation, and with institutions missing out on bitcoin in the last two weeks and now slowly coming back to work for September start, this will trigger renewed inflows into the cryptocurrency and also equity, Laurent Kssis, managing director of exchange-traded products at 21Shares, told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat. Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stalls Near $50K Ahead of Options Expiration Date The Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, which is sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City every year, hosts prominent central bankers, finance ministers, academics and financial market participants. Until a few weeks ago, some observers were suggesting that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell would use the event to set the stage for an early scaling back of the central banks asset-price inflating stimulus measures. Those expectations have been watered down in recent days, with the renewed spike in coronavirus cases in the U.S. and other parts of the world, as ForexLives Justin Low noted . The Fed may now want to gauge the impact of the viruss resurgence on the economy before signaling a taper, or winding down of stimulus. That may revive the global macro trade of sell dollars and buy everything denominated in terms of the greenback seen in the second half of 2020. We expect the Fed to remain dovish and offer no surprises, said Matthew Dibb, co-founder and chief operating officer at Stack Funds. If this is the case, we will see continued risk-on across most markets. Related: Cuando China habló, bitcoin reaccionó. ¿Cuando lo hizo Estados Unidos? No tanto Story continues Bitcoin nearly quadrupled to $40,000 in the final three months of 2020 as the dollar nosedived. The cryptocurrency reached a record high of $64,801 in April before taking a beating in May and June. The recent bounce from July lows of below $30,000 looks impressive, considering it has happened alongside an increase in the dollar index (DXY), which measures the greenbacks value against major currencies. The DXY reached a nine-month high of 93.73 on Friday and was recently at 93.25. The ascent was in part fueled by the minutes of the June Fed meeting confirming that the central bank may begin tapering later this year, as Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, noted in a blog post. The minutes, therefore, look to have stolen some of Jackson Holes thunder. So even a hawkish comment from Powell later this week may not significantly deteriorate the risk sentiment. Other crypto-specific factors also support a continued rally. The calmness of the $50,000 break leads me to think it could be sustainable with minor setbacks, Patrick Heusser, head of trading at Crypto Finance, said. The market does look calm, with the perpetual funding rate or the average cost of holding long positions in the derivatives market still below 0.010%, according to Glassnode. Thats significantly lower than highs above 0.10% observed during the bull frenzy of the first quarter and suggests little or no speculative froth in the market. Looking at funding and the options market, this rally still appears to be spot-driven, Dibb said. Our expectation is that this break of psychological resistance will likely result in a rotation back to bitcoin in the coming weeks, with the next target of $60,000. The cryptocurrencys rally from July lows has been backed by strong hands, according to data analytics firm IntoTheBlock. A minor correction, however, cannot be ruled out as short-term technical indicators are pointing to overbought conditions. That may weigh heavily on alternative cryptocurrencies like solana and cardano which have outperformed bitcoin in recent days. Recently the market has seen modest inflows in bitcoin but rather large exchange-traded product inflows in all other coins especially Solana, Polkadot, Cardano and, of course, ether, Kssis said. The performance is attributed to bitcoins rise, which may see a reset at $50,000 and a short correction before what will be anticipated inflows from institutions back in September. Also read: Bitcoin Trades Above $50K Psychological Resistance for First Time in 3 Months Related Stories El Salvador Will Not Require Bitcoin Acceptance, President Bukele Confirms Crypto Funds Snap 6 Weeks of Outflows as Markets Rally || Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Recover After Initial Selling: WTI Crude Oil The West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil market initially fell during the course of the trading session on Friday but found enough support near the 50 day EMA and perhaps even more importantly the $70 level to turn around and form a bit of a hammer. With that being the case, the market looks as if it is ready to go higher, at least in the short term as it looks like we are simply consolidating the previous gains. At this point, the world is waiting to figure out whether or not OPEC+ can come to an agreement to allow the production of crude oil to be stable again. At the same time, we have seen a lot of noise coming out of the US dollar, which can have a negative correlation on this market as well if it starts to strengthen. If we break down below the $70 level, we probably go looking towards the $67.50 level. Crude Oil Video 19.07.21 Brent The Brent market also fell significantly during the course of the trading session on as well, but just as we had seen of the WTI market, the 50 day EMA as offered enough support to turn this thing around. At this juncture, it looks like we are trying to form a bit of a consolidation zone, so that is worth paying attention to as well. If we see the US dollar strengthen though, that might be enough to push this market down towards the uptrend line. After that, we have the $70 level that should also offer support. Quite frankly, I do not have any interest in trying to short the market, but I recognize that we have a lot of noise ahead of us. 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 Prediction – Prices Drop Sharply Breaking Through Support and Poised to Test Lower Levels E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Strengthens Over 4358.50, Weakens Under 4326.75 Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Consolidate Forming Bull Flag Pattern Jack Dorsey’s Square Targets Bitcoin Network for DeFi Baby Doge Follows in Meme Father’s Footsteps, Makes Payments Push Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Choppy for the Week
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Why Chesapeake Energy Corporation Stock Plunged 23% in October: What happened Shares of Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) plummeted 23.4% in October, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence . Fueling the sell-off was the company's surprising decision to buy Wildhorse Resource Development (NYSE: WRD) for nearly $4 billion. So what Chesapeake Energy shocked investors toward the end of the month when it agreed to buy Wildhorse Resource for a combination of cash and stock. On the one hand, the deal will bolster Chesapeake Energy's position in the oil-rich Eagle Ford Shale, which should give it the ability to double its oil production by 2020. That growth should help accelerate the company's deleveraging plan, with Chesapeake estimating that leverage will fall from its current level of around 4 times debt to EBITDA down to 3.6 times next year and 2.8 times by 2020, which puts it much closer to its 2 times target. A drilling rig at sunset. Image source: Getty Images. However, while Chesapeake Energy believes the transaction will accelerate its strategic plan, some analysts weren't as bullish. Bernstein spoke out against the move, saying that the deal was eerily similar to Range Resources ' (NYSE: RRC) $4 billion acquisition of Memorial Resource Development in 2016, which it anticipated would be a major boost to its strategic plan. However, that deal hasn't panned out as Range Resources anticipated. Bernstein worries that the same thing could happen to Chesapeake given that it is also an "excessively" levered gas-focused company that's buying a private-equity-backed entity to improve its leverage profile and accelerate its strategic plan. Add that to the fact that Chesapeake is giving up a sizable portion of its equity to do this deal, and also has a poor acquisition track record, and this transaction has investors concerned. Now what Chesapeake Energy's acquisition of Wildhorse has the potential to transform the company by speeding up its shift toward oil while improving its balance sheet. However, the company paid a high price, and that could come back to burn it if oil prices tumble. Story continues More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Matthew DiLallo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 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. || 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 , its 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, its 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 dont wish to rain on anyones parade, I believe that bitcoins 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. || Crypto Falls; French Tobacco Stores to Sell Bitcoin: Investing.com - Cryptocurrency prices were lower on Thursday, as trading remained thin due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Bitcoin fell 2.57% to $4,537.90 on the Bitfinex exchange, as of 7:40 AM ET (12:40 GMT), after falling as low as $4,411.00 during a steep decline on Tuesday. Cryptocurrencies overall were lower, with the total coin market capitalization at $147 billion at the time of writing, down from $150 billion on Wednesday. Ethereum,or Ether, was down 4.92% to $133.85 and Litecoin was at $33.510, off 1.27%, while XRP lost 1.76% to trade at $0.44332. Meanwhile, France’s National Federation of Tobacco Vendors announced that tobacco shops will offer bitcoin vouchers starting Jan. 1, 2019. The project was created by French startup Keplerk and will enable clients to convert their vouchers into bitcoin and store it on wallets on its platform. The startup has been trying to find a way to sell to retail investors for over a year and plans to charge a 7% commission fee on transactions. The French central bank does not oversee the Keplerk initiative and warned investors against the potential risks of investing in digital coins. “Those are purely speculative assets and not currencies. Those who invest in bitcoin or other crypto-assets do it at their own risk,” the Central Bank said in a statement on Wednesday. In other news, Saudi Arabia is close to launching its own digital coin next year, according to the Saudi Press Agency. The project, which is being made with the United Arab Emirates, will be finalized by mid-2019, Mohsen Al Zahrani, head of innovation at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA), the Kingdom’s central bank, told the agency. Related Articles Japan: Zaif Exchange Handover Complete as Previous Owner Vows to Dissolve Company $1M in Crypto Disappears after SIM Swapping by US Hacker Swiss Railway Tests Blockchain Identities for Workplace Safety Boost || DoubleLine's Gundlach: Now is the time for capital preservation: By Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach, who runs DoubleLine Capital, said on Tuesday that investors should focus on capital preservation and avoid corporate bonds and Treasuries as inflationary pressures intensify.
Gundlach said investors have not shown an appetite for Treasuries, even as the U.S. stock market has plunged. "There’s no bond rally," he said in a telephone interview. "Obviously, it is not a deflationary bear market, otherwise you would have a bond rally."
The S&P 500 (.SPX) hit a three-week low on Tuesday, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell to its lowest level in more than seven months, down about 14.6 percent from its record closing high in late August.
Gundlach, who oversees more than $123 billion and is known on Wall Street as the Bond King, said investors should avoid investment-grade bonds. They are riskier than they used to be because "triple-B" rated credit - the grade for securities just above "junk" status - has increased dramatically since 2008, from 20 percent of all investment grade credit to approximately 50 percent today, he said. Those companies are at the greatest risk of a downgrade when the next economic downturn hits.
"Stay out of investment grade bonds," Gundlach said. "Because when rates start to rise in earnest, God forbid you get a downgrade. It’s amazing how people have been copacetic about the credit situation."
Gundlach said the severe selling pressure in U.S. stock markets has not been accompanied by higher volatility. "We don’t have anything resembling a panic low ... which means stocks have further to go," he said.
"It’s amazing how low the market is and how low the VIX is," Gundlach said, referring to Wall Street's volatility index. "Weirdly, with the sell-off, the market is overbought."
Bitcoin, the highly volatile digital currency, has proven to be the "lead horse" of risk assets, with its recent plunge having a cascading effect on other risk assets, including equities and high-yield junk bonds.
Gundlach added that bitcoin carries so much predictive power "because it is the poster child for excess" in the current market environment. Bitcoin is the "embodiment of the fringe of speculative instinct," Gundlach said.
Bitcoin (BTC=BTSP) has plummeted over 75 percent this year, from a peak of $20,000 touched in December, as retail investors piled into one of the largest bubbles in history.
In April, Gundlach recommended investors short Facebook Inc (FB.O) as there had been increasing talk of regulating social media companies. Equity bubbles are often popped by regulation, Gundlach said back then.
"Facebook (and other social media companies' shares) went way too high," Gundlach said on Tuesday.
Facebook is down over 20 percent since Gundlach's investment call.
(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Dan Grebler and Rosalba O'Brien) || Bitcoin Opinion: This is the Quiet Before The Storm: The air feels different during the autumn, which is around the corner here in the northern hemisphere. I must admit, I really enjoy walking down the street when it’s covered in colorful leaves. Can’t really say why, but it has always been one of those guilty pleasures of mine.
Now, more than ever, due to the crypto-market seasonality, I’ve become passionate about this period.
For the bitcoin bull-seasonis about to begin.
Prices don’t lie and, from experience, bitcoin doesn’t usually stay this stable for such long periods. At the time of writing,bitcoin is still below the USD $7000 levels; nonetheless, if we take into account the contrarian rule for investing, as well as the dynamics of volume and volatility when aligned to a spike in general people’s interest, we may be able to predict a significant rise inbitcoin’s price.
The absolute truth is that we haven’t seen such low volatility in bitcoin since last year, just before the most epic bull-run in history begun.
Plus,I can’t deny my guts.
There’s definitely something peculiar in the air, no denying it.
Is it the smell of fresh cash? Could it be a false sense of hope assome predictedwe haven’t reached the bottom?
Whatever happens, the next couple of weeks will make waves that will ripple throughout 2018.
Something big is coming, and I feel it’s now timeto play your cards.
–This article isn’t financial advisement as it representsmy personal opinion and views only. 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. Never forget: with great power, comes great responsibility. Being your own bank means you’re always responsible for your own money—
Mati Greenspan,Senior Market Analyst at eToro, just shared with us anamazing piecefrom the Economist released in 1988 (20 years ago), discussing the need for alternative sound-money like currencies, detached from governments and political ruling. The title was spectacular for its publishing time:“GET READY FOR A WORLD CURRENCY.”
Sadly, it seems most 21st century economists have put that idea into thelet’s-forget-about-thatbucket; however, as of 2009 Satoshi Nakamoto made sure we could all benefit from a proper P2P digital permissionless world currency, limited by mathematical parameters which give itsound-money-like properties; and today here we are again, discussing when its value should sky-rocket, like that’s an absolute certainty.
The value of bitcoin is entangled to its massive store of value properties,as explained by Jimmy Song, long-time bitcoin developer and maximalist: the fact there’s a limited supply available, while it’s still easy to get and store makes bitcoin the perfect digital asset to use as money. However, nowadays it’s super straightforward to exchange and spend bitcoin, giving it unit of measurement properties as well.
To me, this is a joke. Look at the value of the global financial and assets market when compared to cryptocurrencies. If bitcoin is now worth about USD$115 billion, that simply means when 10 percent of all wealth shifts from stocks and gold into bitcoin, there will be about 7-8 trillion dollars coming into the market.
If a couple of million dollars in volume have such an effect on the cryptocurrency market prices, can you imagine the impact a couple trillion will have? At some point, we gotta ask ourselves:can bitcoin really hit $100k?What about $1 million per bitcoin?
I honestly don’t see why not. Nonetheless, can the opposite also happen?
There are many factors which could potentially destroy the short-term price of all cryptocurrencies, such asbans, regulatory action, and price manipulation. However, in the long-run, no single entity can have such an impact on bitcoin’s price, as the more people who purchase bitcoin, the more distributed it gets. Right now, if you hold about 0.1 bitcoin,you are part of the top 1 percentwho can ever own that much. This is, assuming in the future everyone owns just a tiny bit of bitcoin, due to the 21 million supply upper limit, 0.1 bitcoin becomes the necessary amount threshold to be part of the top 1 percent people in the world with the most bitcoin.
Surprising, right?
Looking at the market through optimistic lenses, I truly believe sooner or later the price of bitcoin will explode. That’s what history tells us, plus, in the long, long-term I personally don’t thinkany fiat-currency will ever be able to compete with bitcoin’s sound-money logic.
I’m usually quite patient and try not spread FUD or FOMO; however, it seems the “planets” are aligning, and we might soon experience a bull run like last year’s.
That alignment can be represented by a couple of historical factors, which have been connected to huge bullish seasons; from seasonality to people’s overall interest in cryptocurrency and powerful TA indicators, there are common grounds for a huge price swing. Let’s discuss them below.
The core argument for most people, why bitcoin’s price is about to moon, is linked to the crypto-market seasonality; this is, during the last quarter of the year there seems to be a sudden spike in cryptocurrency prices. It has happened a couple times in the past like from 2013 -> 2014, 2015 -> 2016, 2016 -> 2017 and, finally last year, from 2017 -> 2018.
If we take into account mathematics and the theory of probability, looking at the past 5 years, there’s only a 20 percent chance bitcoin’s price won’t rise; that is, since 2013 to 2018 bitcoin’s price skyrocketed 4 out 5 times.
I mean, those odds are pretty great.
Should we ignore them? Is there some other factor correlated to bitcoin’s price we cannot foresee? Some“randomness,”per se,linked to the price, we cannot comprehend?
One thing’s for sure: the number of people looking up bitcoin seems to be directly correlated to its price. This is, whenever bitcoin’s price goes up, people go crazy and start looking up bitcoin on google. That’s also a trait of dumb-money, to become interested in an asset after the price skyrockets. What’s the purpose of investing if you’re already sure you’re haven’t caught the bottom or at least a nice price-level that lowers your risk?
That’s the role of smart-money: whales, financial institutions, funds, and whatnot, decide when the price goes up by purchasing directly in the market. If you’re looking to lower your risk, try to buy bitcoin when people’s interest is at its lowest, as historically this is when prices are at their lowest levels too.
If you’re looking to widen your knowledge on how social media predicts bitcoin’s price, you can readthis great paperpublished in 2015, which aims at answering just that.Another reportfrom Business Insider published in late 2017 also came to the same conclusion, that prices and Google searches were highly correlated.
To most of you, this is what matters the most, right? Good old price analysis, the purest form of technical analysis there is.
As this is not my field of expertise, I’ll be borrowing knowledge from some experts likeMati Greenspan,Alessio Rastani,Datadash,andSunnyDecree. There’s plenty of others you can follow on YouTube, Medium or Twitter, but these are some of my preferred analysts!
The overall sentiment is that we should expect something big to come in the next couple of weeks. There’s an array of factors which contribute to their stance, and I too believe, most are logical and corroborate our previous analysis of seasonality and people’s interest in points 1 and 2 respectively.
For the past few weeks, volatility has been at its lowest levels since 2016. That means price swings are very unlikely to happen, as long as volume stays low.
Although you might think the outlook is that of a bearish market, one thing we need to understand is that tipping points happen whenever you’re not expecting them.
Currently, bitcoin is clearly oversold. The fact there’s not much interest in trading bitcoin (look at volume) also means price swings are very unlikely to happen (look at volatility). Both factors aligned with people not being interested in bitcoin (point 2) shows a very pessimist view.
However, this was the exact outlook of the cryptocurrency market immediately before every major bull-run. Just look at last year’s!
Now, to enter a proper bull-run, a few check-boxes need ticking, as our dear TA experts point out:
1. Fresh cash must enter the market through exchanges, exponentially increasing volume (sorry OTC traders, it’s time to move into therealworld).
2. With a proper increase in volume, short-sellers will go bust, increasing the short-term price of bitcoin.
3. Bitcoin needs to break-out and annihilate the current price-wall sitting around the USD $8000 level.
4. The 100-day moving average needs to surpass the 200-day moving average.
5. The 50-day moving average needs to surpass the 100-day moving average.
We can obviously infer that a price increase will lead people to regain interest in bitcoin and start purchasing again due to FOMO.
If a bull-run is about to come that would be a great indicator of the current bitcoin seasonality, which may soon be gone, as the more cash enters the cryptocurrencies market, the less impact one single dollar has on the overall price.
Meaning, the higher the overall volume and the more distributed it is, the less likely manipulation of bitcoin prices is to happen, making it a more stable medium of exchange.
Is the bullish season open for business? No one really knows. Looking at different indicators seems to point in that direction.
The only thing we ought to do is to wait patiently and see.
If you’re looking to learn more about different cryptocurrency projects, checkthis article.
Don’t forget to give this article a like! Share your opinions and thoughts down below.
Follow me on twitter@febrocas.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postBitcoin Opinion: This is the Quiet Before The Stormappeared first onCCN. || This Week In Cryptocurrency: DoJ Investigates Tether, Crypto Hacker Steals $1M: The cryptocurrency market finished another disastrous week on a low note on Friday, with most major currencies trading down more than 6 percent on the day.
Here’s a look at some of the headlines that were moving the cryptocurrency market this week and which currencies were on the move.
Headlines
The cryptocurrency sell-off continued this week afterBloomberg reportedthe U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission are investigating cryptocurrency market price manipulation. The DoJ and the CFTC have been coordinating on a criminal probe of Bitcoin, Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex and their possible role in driving last year’s cryptocurrency market bubble. Sources familiar with the probe said the DoJ is investigating whether or not traders illegally pumped up the price of bitcoin in late 2017 by using USDT to strategically buy and sell bitcoin based on inside information.
On Wednesday,Riot Blockchain Inc(NASDAQ:RIOT) revealed in its latest quarterly filing that a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the company that was first disclosed back in April is still ongoing. The SEC is reportedly looking into the “unsettled nature of accounting treatment for the Company’s cryptocurrency mining and the fair value method selected by the Company,” Riot said in the filing.
Hacker Nicholas Truglia has been charged with with 21 counts of crimes including identity theft, fraud and embezzlement after Truglia allegedly used a technique known as "SIM swapping” to steal more than $1 millionin cryptocurrencyfrom a victim’s accounts. According to CipherTrace, criminals and hackers stole roughly $1.21 billion in cryptocurrency in the first half of 2018.
Price Action
TheBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC) closed at $6.05, down 21.8 percent for the week.
Here’s how several top crypto investments fared this week. Prices are as of 3:00 p.m. ET and reflect the previous seven days.
• Bitcoin declined 22.8 percent to $4,304;
• XRP declined 14.3 percent to 40 cents;
• Ethereum declined 31 percent to $175;
• Bitcoin Cash declined 49.1 percent to $204;
• Stellar declined 26 percent to 17 cents.
The three cryptocurrencies with at least $1-million market caps that have made the biggest gains over the past seven days are:
• Birake: $3.2-million market cap, 76.4-percent gain.
• Factom: $82.6-million market cap, 64.4-percent gain.
• Timicoin: $10.4-million market cap, 56-percent gain.
The three cryptocurrencies hit hardest in the past seven days were:
• Novacoin: $1.5-million market cap, 90.2-percent decline.
• Dimecoin: $2.7-million market cap, 83.6-percent decline.
• Gravity: $1.1-million market cap, 61.9-percent decline.
Related Links:
This Week In Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin Cash Fork Chaos, XRP Jumps Ethereum
With Tether In Focus, The DoJ Is Investigating Last Year's Cryptomania
See more from Benzinga
• With Tether In Focus, The DoJ Is Investigating Last Year's Cryptomania
• Bitcoin Falls Under K As Cryptos Take Big Hit Ahead Of Bitcoin Cash Fork
© 2018 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Birthday blues for bitcoin as investors face year-on-year loss: By Tom Wilson LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin was heading towards a year-on-year loss on Wednesday, its 10th birthday, the first loss since last year's bull market, when the original and biggest digital coin muscled its way to worldwide attention with months of frenzied buying. By 1300 GMT, bitcoin was trading at $6,263 on the BitStamp exchange, leaving investors who had bought it on Halloween 2017 facing yearly losses of nearly 3 percent. A year ago, bitcoin closed at $6,443.22 as it tore towards a record high of near $20,000, hit in December. That run, fuelled by frenzied buying by retail investors from South Korea to the United States, pushed bitcoin to calendar-year gains of over 1,300 percent. Ten years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin's still-unidentified founder, released a white paper detailing the need for an online currency that could be used for payments without the involvement of a third party, such as a bank. Traders and market participants said the Halloween milestone was inevitable, given losses of around 70 percent from bitcoin's peak and the continuing but incomplete shift towards investment by mainstream financial firms. "The value mechanisms of crypto and bitcoin today are based more on underlying tech than hype and FOMO (fear of missing out)," said Josh Bramley, head trader at crypto wealth management firm Blockstars. Growing use of blockchain - the distributed ledger technology that underpins bitcoin - is now powering valuations of the digital currency, he said, cautioning that some expectations for widespread use have not yet materialised. Others said improvements to infrastructure such as custody services may allow mainstream investors who are wary of buying bitcoin to take positions. "We see behind closed doors financial and non-financial institutions beavering away to create the infrastructure," said Ben Sebley, head of brokerage at NKB Group, a blockchain advisory and investment firm. Bitcoin has endured year-on-year losses before, according to data from CryptoCompare, most recently in 2015-15. Retail investors still account for a strong proportion of trading, market players said. Investors who bet early on bitcoin and have stuck with it have faced a roller-coaster ride in its first decade. Many told Reuters they are optimistic that they are still onto a winner. (Reporting by Tom Wilson) || Lawsuit Claims Bitmain Mined Bitcoin Using Customer Devices: According to a class-action lawsuit filed in the US district court for Northern California, Bitmain has been taking advantage of its customers the past couple years in an interesting way: mining crypto for itself, using their resources, during the “initialization” process. You read that right. According to at least one Bitmain customer and bitcoin miner, who is filing a suit for damages in excess of $5 million on behalf of miners everywhere, the initial period during which a miner is in its owners’ possession is spent mining for Bitmain’s benefit.
The lawsuit brought by Gor Gevorkyan, who lives in Los Angeles, alleges that the initialization process for a Bitmain miner can be several hours in length. An outfit that purchased, say, 500 or more units, could, therefore, contribute significant hash power toBitmain— at no actual cost to the company. In fact, the company has already profited prior to receiving this hash power.
Per the filing, there is no way to know how many people are actually represented in the class-action lawsuit because they could feasibly number in the “hundreds of thousands.” Further, it notes that Bitmain did not always operate this way — previously, when miners were in “initialization” mode, they could be set to consume less power.
The allegations in the suit will have to be proven out in the courts, and even if they are true, Bitmain’s defense could involve the good old terms and conditions of a purchase. However, this defense is likely to be weakened by the invocation on the part of the plaintiff of the unfair competition rules in place in this country, as well as the appearance of unjust enrichment. In essence, Bitmain is double-dipping to the extreme if any of his allegations are provably true.
As blockchain lawyer Nelson M. Rosario explained in his weekly “Crypto Caselaw Minute“:
“If these allegations are true (and we are not saying that they are) … that’s, that’s not good. Even under some sort of theory that customers agreed to this under the terms & conditions of their purchase, or something like that, this is not a good look regardless of its legality. With respect to its legality, the plaintiff is alleging unfair business practices, unjust enrichment (receiving a benefit at someone else’s expense), and conversion (basically stealing).”
Gevorkyan’s suit is being litigated by Robert Starr and Frontier Law Center, both of whom have successfully prosecuted class-action suits in the past. Starr has claimed tens of millions in damages under the California “lemon law,” which protects car owners from unsavory dealers and/or auto companies.
It would seem that if Bitmain decides to make a settlement in the case, anyone who purchased a miner in the qualifying period would be eligible for damages. What’s unclear is whether those who purchased them second-hand would also be eligible, as presumably when the hardware is reset, the “initialization” process is then again required.
In any case, the suit comes at an interesting time for Bitmain, which isplanning an IPOfor next year. As CCN’s Josiah Wilmoth wrote, this lawsuit will just be one more problem for Bitmain and its IPO:
“[…] As detailed by BitMEX Research, Bitmain appears to have made severalquestionable business decisionsover the past year, including stockpiling bitcoin cash — the value of which has taken a steep hit — and overestimating consumer demand for mining hardware, which has left the firm sitting on a stockpile of rapidly-depreciating products. These factors could have played a role in the decision to make changes ahead of the public offering.”
CCN has reached out to Bitmain for comment and will update this article upon receiving a reply.
Read the full filing below:
Bitmain Class ActionbyCCNon Scribd
Images from Shutterstock
The postLawsuit Claims Bitmain Mined Bitcoin Using Customer Devicesappeared first onCCN. || Four Fake Cryptocurrency Wallets Found on Google Play Store: Malware researcher Lukas Stefanko has found four fakecryptocurrencywallets on theGooglePlay Store that were trying to steal users’ personal data, according to a blog postpublishedNov. 13.
The apps were posing as cryptocurrency wallets forNEO,Tetherand an extension for accessing Ethereum (ETH), MetaMask. They were purportedly designed to phish users’ mobile banking credentials and credit card information.
Stefanko classified the wallets into two groups, wherein the fake MetaMask app was a “phishing wallet” and the other three apps were “fake wallets.” Once the phishing app is installed and launched, it requests the user's private key and wallet password.
In avideoattached to the blog post, Stefanko explained his research into the “fake wallets,” noting the example of the fake NEO app dubbed “Neo Wallet”, which had over 1,000 installs since its launch in October.
The fake cryptowalletsreportedly did not create a new wallet through generating a public address and a private key — which are needed to securely send and receive digital currency — but only displayed the attacker’s public address with no user access to the private key. Thinking that the app generated their public address, users would deposit their funds to that wallet, but were unable to withdraw them as the private key belonged to a cybercriminal.
Stefanko noted that the apps were developed using the Drag-n-Drop app builder service, which does not require specific coding knowledge from the user. This means that nearly anyone is able to “develop” a simple malicious app to steal sensitive personal data, “once the Bitcoin (BTC) price rises,” according to Stefanko.
The analyst states in the post that he reported the fake apps to the Google security team, after which the wallets were subsequently removed.
Just yesterday, Cointelegraphreportedthat the officialTwitteraccount of Google's G Suite was supposedly compromised to promote a Bitcoin (BTC) giveaway scam. Scammers reportedly spread a message luring users to participate in a fraudulent 10,000 BTC giveaway.
• Report: Google G Suite Twitter Account Compromised to Promote 10,000 Bitcoin Scam
• Bitcoin, Altcoins Begin Recovery While Bitcoin Cash Becomes Top 20’s Worst Performer
• Japan: Crypto Exchange Coincheck Resumes NEM Trading Almost 10 Months After Major Hack
• Ethereum’s Joe Lubin: Blockchain Will ‘Take a Little Longer’ to Develop Than the Web
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Careful peeps, like I've been saying on my CRYPTOBEADLESGROUP on telegram all day, don't confuse this Consensus pump with a bull run. #crypto #cmc #cryptonews #blockchain #btc || #Hdac #HDAC $HDAC
2018-11-30 - CoinBene Listing
null
https://coineventchart.com/coin/hdac
#crypto #cryptocurrency #coin #bitcoin #blockchain || Bitcoin - BTC
Price: $6,573.80
Change in 1h: -0.06%
Market cap: $113,900,465,255.00
Ranking: 1
#Bitcoin #BTC || Growing ecosystem and big adoption boost: Kik's coin (#KIN) to be integrated with #Tapatalk
http://ow.ly/QuJG30mNMhI
#fintech #blockchain #cryptocurrency #trading #bitcoin #altcoins #crypto #cryptonews || #BTCUSD Market #1H timeframe on November 30 at 03:00 (UTC) is #Bullish. #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #btc #crypto #trading #idea #report technical analysis || ふあぁぁ…おはよ～ゆきママFX＆BTC投機姫 || BTC/USD | $BTCUSD | $BTC $USD
Semi long Term BTC
Long or short BTC/USD on WCX:
http://wcex.com/trade/BTC-USD pic.twitter.com/ojRaySUeSt || Systems Report:(Alpha Testing) November 20, 2018 [US500]: US500–83-1084503-2018.11.20 08:00 https://www.financialinterferometry.com/?p=30500 #money #finance #btc #forex || Bitcoin Cash Price Analysis: BCH/USD Approaching Next Break https://twi.li/P8NbpM #Blockchain #decrypted #bCHpic.twitter.com/i8kCctZOU6 || Nov 08, 2018 10:30:00 UTC | 6,475.20$ | 5,668.50€ | 4,936.80£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/yhllMdiQ0h
|
Trend: down || Prices: 4139.88, 3894.13, 3956.89, 3753.99, 3521.10, 3419.94, 3476.11, 3614.23, 3502.66, 3424.59
|
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 2018-04-19]
BTC Price: 8294.31, BTC RSI: 56.85
Gold Price: 1346.80, Gold RSI: 54.91
Oil Price: 68.29, Oil RSI: 64.65
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Coinbase gears up to jump through regulatory hoops with new CFO and other big hires: TheCoinbasehiring spree continues. In the last week and a half, the company has picked up a new CTO, a new VP of communications, a global head of inclusion and now a new CFO. In ablog post today, the company announced the addition of Alesia Haas, who joins the team from New York-based alternative asset management firm Oz Management. Previously she held roles with Merrill Lynch and General Electric.
"I'm incredibly excited to have Alesia join Coinbase as our new CFO. She brings deep financial services experience to our growing company," Coinbase CEOBrian Armstrongsaid of the hire.
"As a fintech company, finance is core to everything that we do. We plan to continue bringing the best and brightest from both finance and technology companies to help create an open financial system for the world."
Coinbase's other very recent hires:
• Balaji Srinivasan, Chief Technology Officer (April 16). Srinivasan joins through the company'sacquisition of Earn.com, where he served as CEO.
• Rachael Horwitz, Vice President of Communications (April 9).Horwitzwas a partner at Spark Capital.
• Tariq Meyers, new Coinbase Global Head of Belonging & Inclusion, formerlythe head of diversity and inclusion at Lyft.
Lyft’s diversity efforts are not going unnoticed
But that's not all for Coinbase's recent staff-up. The company also recently brought on board: Emilie Choi, Vice President of Corporate and Business Development;Tina Bhatnagar, Vice President of Operations and Technology; andEric Scro, Vice President of Finance. In ablog post, the company noted that it was "working quickly to expand our executive team" during the current period of extreme growth. While it's certain that the company is undergoing some major growth, it's also girding for potential regulation.
Coinbase buys Earn.com and makes CEO Balaji Srinivasan its first CTO
Earlier in April, Coinbasereportedly approached the SECabout the possibility of registering as a licensed brokerage firm and electronic trading venue. Such a move would allow Coinbase to invite into its elite ranks coins currently under scrutiny for looking like securities. If that comes to pass, the company could see a major expansion beyond the four coins (Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin) that trade on the platform now, particularly a move toward bringingERC20 tokens into the foldas the company signaled it would in late March.
Disclosure: The author holds a small position in some cryptocurrencies. Regrettably, it is not enough for a Lambo. || Fiat Chrysler's Bold Bet on SUVs Seems to Be Paying Off: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles'(NYSE: FCAU)bold bet on SUVs might be starting to pay off: The Italian-American automaker said that its U.S. sales rose 14% -- reversing an 18-month streak of declines -- thanks to huge demand for Jeeps.
Much of that demand came from retail buyers. An 11% retail sales gain was enough to push Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) pastFord Motor Company's(NYSE: F)retail sales total for only the second time since 2010. Ford's U.S. salesrose 3.4% in March; Detroit rivalGeneral Motors'(NYSE: GM)rose 15.7%.
Year to date, FCA's sales in the U.S. are up 0.8% through March.
Big demand for the all-new 2018 Jeep Wrangler helped the iconic SUV brand to a huge sales gain in March. Image source: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
The high points have to start with FCA's powerhouse Jeep SUV brand, which had a tremendous month led by its all-new Wrangler and revamped Cherokee.
• Jeep sales rose 45% to 98,382 vehicles, its best monthly result ever.
• Sales of Jeep's iconic Wrangler rose 70% to 27,829 vehicles, its best result ever.
• Sales of the Jeep Cherokee rose 63% to 23,764. That wasn't quite its best result ever, but it's a high number. It appears that the Cherokee's new assembly line is now running at full speed.
• Sales of the stylish Chrysler Pacifica minivan rose 40% to 13,086.
• In what must be a sign of spring, sales of the Dodge Challenger muscle coupe rose 31% to 8,150.
• Alfa Romeo sold 2,576 vehicles, with the new Stelvio SUV nearly equaling the Giulia sedan's total sales.
The low points:
• Sales of the Ram full-size pickup line fell 11% to 41,307. Although it's never good to see a decline when Ford and GM post gains, it's not quite as bad as it looks: FCA's all-new 2019 Ram just began shipping in the second half of March.
• Both of FCA's Ram ProMaster commercial-van models posted double-digit sales declines.
• Sales of the well-regarded three-row Dodge Durango crossover SUV fell 10%, and sales of its Jeep Grand Cherokee sibling declined 4%. The Grand Cherokee was the only Jeep model to post a sales decline in March.
• Fiat sales fell 47% to just 1,544 vehicles. The Italian brand's quirky novelty appears to have faded for U.S. buyers.
It must be spring: Dodge Challenger sales rose 31% in March. Image source: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
CEO Sergio Marchionne was ahead of the industry in making a bold bet on SUV sales when he announced in early 2016 that the company woulddiscontinue productionof its two mass-market sedans, the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200. Its only remaining car models are niche products with (in theory, at least) above-average profit potential: the little Fiat 500, the brawny Dodge Charger and Challenger, and the Charger's upscale Chrysler 300 sibling.
Marchionne's decision to abandon the mainstream sedan market set off anelaborate assembly plant shuffle. Production of the Ram 1500 and Jeep Cherokee moved to the sedans' former factories, and the trucks' former homes began undergoing renovation to build all-new models -- more trucks and SUVs.
That plan is still unfolding, but now that Cherokee is up and running in the Dart's former home in Belvidere, Illinois, and all-new Ram 1500s are beginning to ship from the 200's former factory in Sterling Heights, Michigan, we're starting to see the results: big sales gains that should drive big profit gains as the year goes on.
FCA still appears to be well behind on the key technologies that most analysts expected to drive the future of autos. But it appears exceptionally well positioned in the market that exists in the here and now. Assuming that the U.S. market remains strong, FCA's strength in SUVs and trucks should drive outsized profit gains for at least the next couple of years, if not longer.
Below you'll find March sales totals for the six largest-selling automakers in the U.S. market. All butNissanhad sales gains to report.
Note that these totals include both retail and fleet sales.
[{"Automaker": "General Motors", "March 2018 sales": "296,341", "Change vs. March 2017": "15.7%"}, {"Automaker": "Ford", "March 2018 sales": "244,306", "Change vs. March 2017": "3.4%"}, {"Automaker": "Toyota", "March 2018 sales": "222,782", "Change vs. March 2017": "3.5%"}, {"Automaker": "Fiat Chrysler Automobiles", "March 2018 sales": "216,083", "Change vs. March 2017": "14%"}, {"Automaker": "Nissan", "March 2018 sales": "162,535", "Change vs. March 2017": "(3.7%)"}, {"Automaker": "Honda", "March 2018 sales": "142,392", "Change vs. March 2017": "3.8%"}]
Data sources: The automakers.
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John Rosevearowns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool recommends Ford. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 3 Stocks That Feel Like Disney in 1957: Chances are that Walt Disney needs little introduction. It's a business model that spans theme parks, iconic movies, television stations, and even a planned streaming service. This multi-generational, memory-making company has catapulted higher by more than 100,000% since it was first listed for trade in 1957. But the big question is: Are there are other Disneys out there? We asked three of our Foolish investors to come up with a stock that they believe is reminiscent of the way Disney was more than 60 years ago when it started trading publicly. Rising to the top were streaming giant Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) , video and ad kingpin Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) , and satellite radio operator Sirius XM Holdings (NASDAQ: SIRI) . Mickey and Minnie Mouse at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Image source: Disney World. A Disney in the making Danny Vena (Netflix): When Disney was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in November of 1957, it wasn't the global media powerhouse it is today, but it had all the makings of the company it would become. Walt Disney imagined a company that was grounded in its intellectual property and reinforced through movies, television programs, comic strips, merchandising, music, and of course, theme parks -- with each segment reinforcing all the others. It would be difficult to find a company that meets all those criteria, but one comes very close: Netflix. After initially producing shows that others owned, Netflix decided that the best economics resulted from owning its content outright. The company has only recently started that journey, but it's had a surprising number of original programs that have resonated with fans -- like The Crown , Sense 8 , Narcos , The OA , Bojack Horseman , and Stranger Things . Netflix has been exploring other ways to bolster its ever-growing library of intellectual property. Last year, the company made the first acquisition in its 20-year history with the purchase of comic-book house Millarworld , gaining the services of founder Mark Millar. While not a household name, Millar is the creative mind behind such blockbusters as Captain America: Civil War , The Avengers , and Logan . He also authored the tales that led to Kick-Ass , Wanted , and Kingsman: The Secret Service . Story continues Two happy siblings lying on the carpet and watching television. Image source: Getty Images. The extraordinary popularity of pop culture phenomenon Stranger Things has convinced Netflix to take the plunge into licensed content. Company executives showed off Christmas sweaters based on the hit show during an investor presentation late last year, announcing to the world that its foray into merchandising had begun. With the cultural zeitgeist of some of its shows, this could quickly evolve into a multi-billion-dollar opportunity . With 117 million subscribers and a growing library of original content, the company is hitting many of the high points that led to Disney's 60-year run: movies, television shows, comics, and merchandise. The company hasn't yet announced a theme park, but can you imagine an attraction based on Stranger Things ? I can -- and it would be awesome. The internet's video leader Travis Hoium (Alphabet): Disney's strength since 1957 has centered around being one of the best content producers in the world and being a step ahead of the competition in content distribution. Buying ABC/ESPN, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel are just a few of the deals that have built an incredibly profitable empire, and the steady expansion of theme parks has led to a waterfall of profits pouring out of the company. On their own, these assets don't make a dominant business, but combined they have given Disney market leadership over the course of many decades . I see a lot of the same characteristics in Alphabet and its growing media empire. YouTube is the dominant platform for streaming video on the internet, making its way to websites, televisions, and set-top boxes. The YouTube TV service is a new content service that brings traditional channels to consumers with an innovative cloud DVR to go with it, arguably providing better service than any other over-the-top cable offering. A father and son watching a show on their laptop. Image source: Getty Images. YouTube and YouTube TV combined are the kind of platforms that can cause disruption in the media business. On the YouTube side, users can upload their own content and make money through advertising, all with Alphabet taking a large cut of the revenue. YouTube TV is one of the streaming services upending cable television and could be just the start for Alphabet. We already know that YouTube has partnerships with the NFL, the NBA, and MLB to distribute content, and it wouldn't be surprising if it expands further into original content that would augment existing services. Alphabet's data from its other services could then be used to match users with content more effectively than Netflix, Disney, or any other streaming service. Advertisers also could be matched with users on a very personalized basis. After all, Alphabet and Google know more about most people's personal preferences than their own families, which is something the company exploits to make the most of its money in search. Alphabet is now a power player in the media business and may have the best streaming technology in the world. It can leverage that to be a power player for decades to come, just like Disney did 60 years ago. Space Mountain, meet space radio Goliath Sean Williams (Sirius XM Holdings): Trying to duplicate Disney's success is extremely difficult, given how well the House of Mouse has used branding and emotional engagement to its advantage. But if there's another company out there that offers similar long-term advantages and branding potential, it's satellite radio operator Sirius XM Holdings. Unlike Disney, which has a few major competitors today, Sirius XM is the sole satellite radio operator. Though the company faces local terrestrial radio competition, as well as challenges from online operators, there's really nothing that can stand in the way of Sirius succeeding, aside from its own two proverbial feet. A driver pushing a button on their Sirius XM auto interface. Image source: Sirius XM Holdings. You see, one of the biggest differences between the Sirius XM model and that of terrestrial and online radio is where the money comes from. Sirius XM makes nearly all of its revenue from the subscription model. A consumer buys a new car and renews their service, and Sirius XM continues to reap the rewards. Only a negligible amount of revenue is derived from advertising. Comparatively, terrestrial and online radio lean very heavily on ads to pay the bills. The ad market is very lumpy at times, which can wreak havoc on a business. Just as Disney's theme parks and media library allow it to be mostly recession resistant, Sirius XM's subscription model provides a similar benefit. Sirius XM also is working on a business model where margins should increase over time. That's because its customer-acquisition costs are relatively fixed. Sure, it has to spend money on talent to put on the airways, as well as on deals with major sporting associations. However, its satellites in space require no extra costs, regardless of how many subscribers it tallies. This fixed cost allows predictability to be Sirius XM's ally. Finally, the two companies are incredible at emotionally engaging their audiences. Disney needs no introduction. Simply walk into any of their theme parks worldwide and you'll see the fruits of their ability to connect with families. By a similar token, Sirius XM's average self-pay monthly churn was only 1.8% for 2017, down from 1.9% in 2016. Snagging personalities like Howard Stern and working out a deal to broadcast all National Football League games through the 2022 Super Bowl are examples of the lengths Sirius XM has gone to in order to connect with its users. Based on this churn rate, it's working. There will be only one Disney, but Sirius XM offers similarities that can't be overlooked. 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. Danny Vena owns shares of Alphabet (A shares), Netflix, and Walt Disney and has the following options: long January 2019 $85 calls on Walt Disney. Sean Williams has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Travis Hoium owns shares of Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Netflix, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Why General Motors Made Cadillac Wait for the All-New XT4 SUV: Last week,General Motors(NYSE: GM)introduced theall-new Cadillac XT4. It's a stylish crossover SUV, a size down from the brand's existing XT5, that will go on sale in the U.S. and China later this year.
The XT4 is a product that Cadillac has sorely needed for a couple of years now. The brand has had to watch from the sidelines as sales of compact luxury crossover SUVs boomed in both the U.S. and China over that time.The good news is that the XT4 looks like a winning product. But why did Cadillac have to wait so long to get it?
As Cadillac's president explained to me in an interview last week, he had to go halfway around the world to convince GM to fund the new vehicles that Cadillac needed.
The all-new 2019 Cadillac XT4 will go on sale this fall. Image source: General Motors.
The story starts in mid-2014, when longtimeAudiandNissanexecutive Johan de Nysschen joined GM totake on a daunting mission: restoring Cadillac to the top of the world's luxury-car rankings.
De Nysschen demanded (and got) plenty of leeway from CEO Mary Barra and the blessings of GM's board of directors. One of the first things he did was to draw up anambitious product planfor the brand. But he quickly ran into trouble: As he told me in an interview last week, his sales projections weren't enough to get those new Cadillacs funded:
We recognized that there was all this white space in our product portfolio. But General Motors is now run with a very high degree of vigor in terms of financial discipline. That's why the company is performing well.
It sounds like a Catch-22, but it was a genuine dilemma. Cadillac's sales were poor because it urgently needed new products, but de Nysschen couldn't get GM's board to fund those new products because its sales numbers were poor -- meaning that any reasonable sales projections weren't enough to justify the investments.
"We couldn't get the numbers to work," he said.
What de Nysschen and his new team needed was a way to start selling a whole lot more Cadillacs, quickly. Fortunately, the answer was right in front of them.
Johan de Nysschen, shown here at the New York International Auto Show last week, has led Cadillac since 2014. Image source: General Motors.
"We had to prioritize China in order to solve our U.S. product challenge," de Nysschen said.
GM had a large presence in China, and Cadillac a modest one, when de Nysschen came on board. But luxury sales were booming in China, and de Nysschen saw an opportunity to invest in a much bigger presence.
We invested very heavily, far more aggressively perhaps than what might normally be the case. We decided that the only way to be competitive is to localize, so we could avoid the big tariffs [that China levies on imported vehicles].
Cadillac also invested in a big expansion of its China dealer network, de Nysschen explained, carefully selecting high-quality dealers who were willing to take chances on stores devoted entirely to the Cadillac brand.
In 2014, Cadillac had sold about 68,000 vehicles in China, far short of the 170,000 it sold in the U.S. that same year. But growth came quickly once de Nysschen's effort got underway: Sales rose 17% in 2015, 46% in 2016, after the new Shanghai factory was up and running, and another 51% in 2017 to 116,406.
"The China business has now become self-sustaining. It doesn't need our investment anymore," de Nysschen said. "In fact, now the opposite is happening. It's sending us money, which we can now directly apply here."
GM opened a new, highly flexible Cadillac factory near Shanghai in early 2016. The added production helped Cadillac's China sales rise 46% that year, and another 51% in 2017. Image source: General Motors.
Cadillac's sales in China have boomed since 2014, but its U.S. sales haven't: Cadillac's U.S. sales in 2017 were about 170,000 -- roughly equal to its 2014 result -- despite strong growth in luxury-vehicle sales overall.
The XT4 is the first in a series of new Cadillacs that should help change that for the better. De Nysschen confirmed that the next new Cadillac will be a larger, three-row crossover SUV and it's likely to be unveiled late this year or early in 2019.
More new Cadillacs will follow -- on average, one every six months or so -- until the brand's portfolio expands to cover more than 90% of the luxury market, up from 65% today. Those will include an all-new version of the big (and hugely profitable) Escalade SUV and at least two all-new sedans to replace the ATS, CTS, and XTS.
(There may be a third Cadillac sedan in the works: A version of the stunning Escala show car could go into production as a new top-of-the-line model for the brand early next decade.)
Those new Cadillacs seem all but certain to give the brand's U.S. sales the boost its dealers have been waiting to see. Of course, they'll boost the brand's sales in China, too -- and given the fat profit margins on Cadillacs, those sales gains should have an outsized impact on GM's bottom line over the next few years.
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John Rosevearowns shares of General Motors. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || The 2 Most Valuable Investing Lessons I Ever Learned: For investors in Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) , the future has never looked brighter. In its just-completed fourth quarter, the company reported the highest subscriber gains in its history, adding 8.3 million customers, up 18% over the prior year quarter, and far exceeding the 6.3 million it expected. Netflix also achieved a full-year international contribution profit for the first time since embarking on its worldwide expansion. At the same time, its revenue grew by 33% year over year to $3.3 billion, while net income nearly tripled to $186 million. It's easy to forget that things weren't always this rosy. In a move destined to become a case study for generations of business school students, Netflix once made a couple of decisions that upset and bewildered even its most devoted customers and sent the stock reeling. While those events were somewhat painful at the time, they provided me with the two most important investing lessons I've ever learned. Graduation cap with degree scroll on a stack of books. How to avoid two of the most costly mistakes in investing. Image source: Getty Images. Setting the stage The first of Netflix's bungled moves came in July 2011. After a period of offering its nascent streaming service as a free add-on for subscribers to its DVD-by-mail business, Netflix decided to divide the two, and charge customers separately for each. At the time, a subscription for both DVD rentals and on-demand streaming video cost $9.99. After the change, it planned to charge subscribers $7.99 per month for one service, or $15.98 for both. The reasoning behind this change was simple. Netflix had begun to see that it was operating two very distinct businesses, each with its own cost structures and benefits. The company believed it was best to set each business on its own path in order for them to thrive. The headlines focused on only one aspect of the change, screaming "Netflix to Raise Prices by 60%!" -- and customer outrage ensued. The second problematic decision occurred just two months later. In a classic "out of the frying pan and into the fire" move, Netflix announced that it would fully segregate the two services, rename its DVD-by-mail business "Qwikster," and require customers to log into separate websites to access their suddenly distinct DVD and streaming accounts. Story continues The company might as well have poured gasoline on its customers' already-smoldering fury. An enraged couple looking at a bill. Some Netflix customers were outraged. Image source: Getty Images. In its 2011 third quarter, Netflix lost 800,000 domestic subscribers, which sent investors running for the exits. Those loses accelerated the following quarter as the price increases took effect: An additional 2.76 million domestic subscribers dropped their DVD plans, offset by only 600,000 streaming additions worldwide. Netflix very quickly abandoned its Qwikster plans, and CEO Reed Hastings issued a mea culpa, famously saying, "I messed up." Subscriber growth returned just two quarters after the ill-fated move, and the total customer count eclipsed its previous highs just one year after the troubles began. Lesson No. 1: The stock of every company will at times fall -- and fall hard Even the best and most well-run companies will experience some significant stock price declines. In his recent letter to Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) (NYSE: BRK-A) shareholders, legendary investor Warren Buffett included a table that detailed times when his company's stock had suffered "four truly major dips," losing between 37% and 59% of its value. It's important to note that in spite of those precipitous declines, the stock has rewarded shareholders with gains of 2,404,748% since 1965. Netflix's stock price has also seen its fair share of significant drops, but the one associated with the Qwikster debacle was the most extreme. From its high in July 2011, the stock fell more than 80% before it bottomed out in September 2012. Investors should be aware of the potential for large, and sometimes precipitous, stock price declines. They are a fact of life. NFLX Chart NFLX data by YCharts Lesson No. 2: If the business is still solid and your investment thesis is intact, don't sell simply because the stock price changes This is easy advice to give, but hard to put into practice. Watching the stock of a company -- any company -- you're invested in fall day after day, week after week, with no apparent end in sight, is difficult for even the most seasoned investors. Yet letting emotions rule your investment decisions can rob you of significant gains. Many Netflix shareholders (myself included) were tempted to sell in light of the events of 2011. Those who looked at the fundamental strength of the underlying business and the massive opportunities it had were perplexed by the long, steep plunge in its stock price. International subscriber growth was surging, with double-digit percentage sequential growth and triple-digit year-over-year growth -- and the company had barely begun to tap foreign markets. On the domestic front, Netflix was still the best value for your entertainment dollar. This was evidenced by the fact that many subscribers who initially cancelled due to their outrage over the price hike quickly returned. Even at its worst, Netflix lost only 6% of its subscriber base. More importantly, after the initial dip, year-over-year subscriber growth returned almost immediately. The rest is history To put this into perspective, investors who bought Netflix stock on the day before the fateful announcement in July 2011 and held on through the precipitous drop have enjoyed gains of nearly 700%. Those who were invested previously and held on through the ordeal have been even more richly rewarded. NFLX Chart NFLX data by YCharts Another quote from Buffett's shareholder letter seems appropriate, which addresses the subject of share price declines: There is simply no telling how far stocks can fall in a short period ... your mind may well become rattled by scary headlines and breathless commentary. And an unsettled mind will not make good decisions ... No one can tell you when these will happen. The light can at any time go from green to red without pausing at yellow ... When major declines occur, however, they offer extraordinary opportunities. Selling an investment too soon, and for the wrong reasons, can be among the most costly investing mistakes. Those who sold in fear during Netflix's rough patch have likely been kicking themselves ever since. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Danny Vena owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway (B shares) and Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Netflix Could Be Cash-Flow Positive by 2022: Netflix(NASDAQ: NFLX)has been spending a lot more cash than it generates from subscriptions since it started ramping up its original content plans. Last year, for example, Netflix burned through about $2 billion in cash. This year, the company plans to spend a lot more on both content and marketing, and expects it to result in negative free cash flow between $3 billion and $4 billion.
The company has been funding its spending by issuing debt, despite a relatively poor credit rating. But the company just got a nice bump fromMoody's, which increased its credit rating based on estimates that show the company turning cash-flow positive by 2022.
Here's how investors can expect Netflix to go from burning cash at unprecedented levels to rolling in the dough.
Image source: Netflix.
Netflix is investing all of this money in content and marketing now because it believes it will pay off in long-term subscriber growth. The company had nearly 111 million paid streaming subscribers as of the end of 2017, and Moody's analyst Neil Begley expects it to reach 200 million by the end of 2021.
That estimate basically assumes Netflix will see no slowdown in subscriber growth after adding 21.5 million net new subscribers in 2017. Netflix, in fact, has exhibited accelerating user growth over the past year despite lapping its global expansion launch at the beginning of last year.
Most of that growth will come from international markets, where Netflix is still relatively young. But Netflix's growth isn't really slowing down in the U.S., and management sees long-term potential for between 60 million and 90 million subscribers. It had 52.8 million as of the end of last year.
Due to Netflix's consistent pricing between countries, each subscriber is worth relatively the same amount to Netflix regardless of where they're located. That's in contrast to other companies that price their services based on the economies of individual markets. So, even if growth stagnates in the U.S., international growth is worth just as much to Netflix.
Netflix customers in the U.S. saw a series of price increases from 2014 to 2017 that resulted in the price of the most popular Netflix plan increasing from $7.99 per month to $10.99 per month. Customers in more mature international markets saw similar price increases based on their currency and exchange rates.
In all likelihood,Netflix will continue to raise its ratesover the next five years. Its price is still well below HBO Now, and it's even below Hulu's commercial-free price. Considering the quality of content, there's likely still room to increase the price.
Price increases coupled with continued subscriber growth ought to result in significant revenue growth over the next five years. An 80% increase in subscribers (to about 200 million) combined with a 10% increase in price (about $1 per subscriber) would result in nearly double the revenue.
The growth of Netflix's content spending is slowing on a relative basis. The company spent $6.4 billion on content last year, up from $5 billion in 2016, a 28% increase. This year it expects to spend between $7.5 billion and $8 billion on content, a 17% to 25% increase year over year.
Of course, those numbers only include the amortized figures Netflix uses toaccount for its content spending. Its actual cash payments are higher because actors and producers work in entertainment, not accounting, and need to be paid for their work as they're doing it. As it slows down its shift to from licensed content to more original content, the growth in cash used for content ought to slow even faster than the growth in amortized content spending.
In the company's fourth-quarter letter to shareholders, management wrote, "We are increasing operating margins and expect that in the future, a combination of rising operating profits and slowing growth in original content spend will turn our business [free cash flow] positive." The company is certainly executing on that plan.
Whether or not Netflix becomes cash-flow positive in 2022 (or sooner) is largely dependent on how effective its increased spending on content and marketing is. As long as Netflix's investments are paying off in subscriber growth and enable it to continue raising its prices, Netflix may keep pushing its spending higher. That would delay becoming cash-flow positive, but it would ultimately result in more cash coming in over the long run.
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Adam Levyhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Moody's and Netflix. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || 5 Revelations From SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Launch You May Have Missed: Last week, SpaceX launchedthe world's biggest(operational) rocketship. If you missed it, you can watch here again onYouTube. It was quite a show -- from first ignition all the way up to the release of Elon Musk's RedTesla(NASDAQ: TSLA)Roadster into an orbitaltrip 'round the sun, blasting David Bowie's Life on Mars on the radio.
Butif you signed off after the launch, you may have missed the very best part of the launch: Elon Musk's half-hour-long Q&A with his space fans explaining just what happened -- and what happens next.
Here are five of the most far-out facts he revealed.
Don't panic. You're not seeing things. That really is a Tesla car in space. Image source:Elon Musk on Twitter.
One of the highlights of any SpaceX launch is watching the Falcon 9 first-stage rocket boosters descend to land back on Earth after accomplishing their primary mission. In that regard, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch on Feb. 6 offered a special treat: watching both booster rockets land in tandem back at Cape Canaveral -- a feat never before accomplished by anyone but SpaceX.
Admittedly, the performance wasn't flawless. SpaceX lost Falcon Heavy's core stage in a failed landing attempt at sea. But that's OK. This was, after all, the 1.0 version of that core, which Musk said constituted "basically a complete redesign" of the original Falcon booster. As a first attempt, FH's all-but-successful there-and-back-again trip to space was still pretty impressive.
What's even more interesting is that, as Musk told attendees at his press conference, the thing he was most nervous about was recovering the titanium gridfins on the two side boosters -- whichdidmake it back to Earth safely. Said the SpaceX CEO: "That was the most important thing to recover were those gridfins."
As Musk then explained: "Those titanium gridfins [are] super expensive and ... the production rate on them is slow." Had they been lost, SpaceX would have had to buy new ones for use on future Falcon 9 missions -- and had to wait to get them, potentially delaying future launches.
Perhaps the thing that will surprise investors most, though, is that at the same time the world was applauding Falcon Heavy's launch, SpaceX was already moving on to the next big thing.
With the Falcon 9 "version 5" almost ready to fly, and Falcon Heavyflight-proven, Musk says "there won't be any more major versions of Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy." Instead, SpaceX is turning its attention to building a "way bigger" rocket, and devoting "most of our engineering resources" to getting its even larger "BFR" rocket ready to fly -- perhaps as soon as next year.
BFR, says Musk, will be "a beast," measuring "30 feet roughly diameter" and more than 300 feet in length. SpaceX plans a first test flight of the complete BFR rocket "in three or four years." But even before that happens, Musk predicts "we'll be able to do short hopper flights with the spaceship part of BFR maybe next year."
That rather modest statement may have sent shivers down the spines of investors in package delivery companies likeFedEx(NYSE: FDX)andUPS(NYSE: UPS)-- already reeling from last week's news thatAmazon.com(NASDAQ: AMZN)is gearing up tocompete with them directly.
To understand why, you have to think back to September 2017, when Musk laid out his plans for BFR at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) inAdelaide, Australia. In the course of describing how he planned to make enough money to send BFR to Mars, Musk described an audacious plan to use BFR as a package (and maybe human) delivery service right here on Earth -- launching massive rockets into the air at multi-Mach speed, then bringing them back down to land on the other side of the ocean, like peaceful ICBMs.
Travel by BFR on Earth, in Musk's imagination, would begin and end at platforms at sea. Hearkening back to that, Musk mentioned that while "most likely" SpaceX will test BFR spaceship launches at its Texas proving grounds, he might decide to run the tests "ship to ship" -- launching from and landing on drone ships at sea.
In further evidence that this is the real plan, SpaceX announced on Wednesday that it is building a second drone landing barge to base out of Florida. (A third barge already bases out of California, supporting launches from Vandenberg AFB.) Like its twin, this ship will probably support Falcon 9 launches from Cape Canaveral, but it could also facilitate ship-to-ship test flying of BFR.
Speaking of Falcon 9, over the past few years, SpaceX has won itself a reputation as sort of aWalmartfor space access, offering "always low prices" to Low Earth Orbit. But is there a limit to Elon Musk's generosity?
Addressing the low cost of SpaceX launches last week, Musk said it was "interesting" that Falcon Heavy has "three times the capability" of Falcon 9, but costs only about 50% more to launch. The reason is that FH has the "same level of expendability as Falcon 9," discarding only "the upper stage," but reusing the more expensive first stage (and boosters), so that "the cost difference between a Falcon 9 and a Falcon Heavy is minor."
That sounds rather innocuous. But here's the thing: SpaceX was charging $60 million or so for Falcon 9 launchesbeforeit got the reusability thing figured out. Back then, the company line was that once reusability was achieved, it would allow SpaceX to cut its launch costs even further,perhaps by as much as 30%.
Now, Musk seems to have changed his tune.Now, he seems to be saying reusability what permits prices to go as low as $62 million (for Falcon 9), or $90 million (for Falcon Heavy) in the first place. I may be reading too closely between the lines, here, but it sounds to me like SpaceX's offer of steep discounts for flying on used rockets may no longer be on the table.
There may indeedbea limit to Musk's generosity -- and to how steeply he's willing to cut prices to steal business away fromBoeing(NYSE: BA)andLockheed Martin(NYSE: LMT). Combined with somesmart marketing movesby their United Launch Alliance, that may give Boeing and Lockheed some breathing room -- and a chance to continue to compete.
What would SpaceX get in exchange for relenting and not pushing launch prices any lower? Simply, it could save money to fund an eventual trip to Mars, by keeping more of its cost savings for itself -- and those cost savings are starting to add up.
In addition to savings from recovering and reusing rocket cores, Musk says "we're going to start recovering the fairings, the big nose cone," from Falcon launches as well. "My guess is in the next six months we figure out fairing recovery. We've got a special boat to catch the fairing. It's like a catcher's mitt but in boat form," Musk confided last week. (This same boat could be used to catch falling Dragon capsules, too.)
Now, that may not sound very exciting, but as we know from previous Musk talks, Falcon payload fairings cost about $6 million new. On a $60 million Falcon 9 launch, that's 10% of the cost. Referring to booster recovery,Musk once quipped: "Imagine it's a pile of cash that was falling through the atmosphere, and it was going to burn up, and smash into tiny pieces, would you try to save it? Probably yes."
Granted, next to the $30 million savings from reusing a booster, saving $6 million from reusing a nose cone may not seem like much. Still, it's free money, falling from the sky. SpaceX might as well hold out a bucket and try to catch it.
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John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors.Rich Smithhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends FedEx. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || $81 Billion Allianz Says Bitcoin is a Bubble, Search Engine Results Show Otherwise: On March 14, $81 billion investment firm Allianz stated in a report released by the firm’s global economics and strategy head Stefan Hofrichter that the cryptocurrency market, regardless of its liquidity, is a bubble. Intrinsic Value Again Hofrichter stated that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin lack intrinsic value, and that the base value of cryptocurrencies is zero. “In our view, its intrinsic value must be zero. A bitcoin is a claim on nobody – in contrast to, for instance, sovereign bonds, equities or paper money – and it does not generate any income stream. Bitcoin’s demise would have few spillover effects on the ‘real world,’ since the market for this cryptocurrency is still quite small in size. As a result, we believe that the risks to financial stability stemming from bitcoin are negligible — at least as of today,” said Hofrichter. However, as stated many times by respected analysts and bankers like Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, the concept of intrinsic value is flawed, and base value in assets simply does not exist. For instance, stocks, commodities, and fiat currencies also do not have intrinsic value, as their value solely depend on the supply and demand sought out by the free market. Emphasizing that multi-billion dollar conglomerates rely on digital trust and thus do not have intrinsic value, Fundstrat analyst Tom Lee explained: “If you ask a baby boomer, ‘Can you justify the value of anything that’s a digital business?’ they probably don’t accept that Facebook, Google, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, these are the largest companies in the S&P 500 and they’re primarily digital businesses built almost purely on digital trust.” The value of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin derive from their security, decentralized protocol, and the distributed network of nodes, miners, and users that sustain the network. The computing power of the bitcoin network has increased to a point in which no single entity or organization can ever match it, disallowing or eliminating the possibility of double spending, or taking advantage of the system to produce more digital currencies. Story continues More importantly, unlike the stock market and other private markets that are open exclusively to accredited investors and brokers, the cryptocurrency market is public. Any investor can trade or invest in cryptocurrencies. As such, bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have become more liquid than any other stock or asset in the global stock market. Search Engine Results Box Mining, a renowned cryptocurrency analyst, revealed that the number of Google search engine searches for the keyword “bitcoin bubble” has actually decreased since late 2017. At least nobody is worried about the Bitcoin Bubble #Bitcoin #cryptocurrencies #BitcoinBubble . pic.twitter.com/d0lEbwfctS — boxmining (@boxmining) March 14, 2018 The major correction that occured in the cryptocurrency market throughout January and February has shown that due to its liquidity, long-term bubbles within the cryptocurrency market do not form. Short-term bubbles implode with minor and major corrections, as the value of major cryptocurrencies drop 50 to 70 percent in some periods. Hence, to describe the entire market as a bubble by disregarding investors within it, institutional and retail traders with billions of dollars in capital, and the $13.5 billion daily trading volume of the market is highly incorrect. The post $81 Billion Allianz Says Bitcoin is a Bubble, Search Engine Results Show Otherwise appeared first on CCN . || OKEx to Roll Back ‘Irregular’ Futures Trades After Bitcoin Price Crashes Below $5,000: Cryptocurrency exchange giant OKEx is rolling back a series of Bitcoin futures transactions in response to an “irregular” sell-off that was localized to the trading platform.
The Hong-Kong based exchange announced on Friday that it would reverse transactions that occurred this morning between 4:47 am and 6:30 am Hong Kong Time (HKT) when Bitcoin futures inexplicably plunged as low as $4,755 on OKEx even as the global average Bitcoin price remained closer to $7,000.
Noting that prices on OKEx varied dramatically from other exchanges during this period, users alleged that market manipulation must be at play. Some even pointed the finger at the exchange itself.
The irregular trades had caused many futures traders to get margin called, liquidating their holdings. One trader — who allegedly lost more than 11 million yuan (~$1.8 million) during the liquidation event — stood outside the OKEx offices andthreatenedto commit suicide.
“In order to protect the interests of customers, after a careful discussion, OKEx will roll back weekly, weekly, and quarterly contract data for all currencies,” the company said in its statement, adding that the rollback was scheduled to occur at 3:30 pm HKT on Friday.
But though this specific sell-off was isolated to OKEx, the wider market has been in a steady downtrend that has quickened its pace in recent days.
At the time of writing, theBitcoin pricewas trading at $6,897 on Bitfinex and has dipped as low as $6,614 during intraday trading. Bitcoin’s market cap is now just $117 billion, down from a December high above $325 billion.
A variety of large-cap altcoins — including Ether, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash — are trading at or near their year-to-date lows, and while Bitcoin is still holding slightly above its 2018 floor, it risks dipping below it if the downtrend proceeds much further.
OKEx, meanwhile, currently ranks as the fourth most popular cryptocurrency exchange, with a daily trading volume of approximately $1.3 billion.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postOKEx to Roll Back ‘Irregular’ Futures Trades After Bitcoin Price Crashes Below $5,000appeared first onCCN. || Why Energy Stocks Sank in Trump's First Year in Office: From election day to inauguration day, energy stocks were on fire, with the average one in the S&P 500 rallying more than 7% on the hope that the pro-energy Trump Administration would eliminate some of the regulatory burdens that had been holding the industry back. That said, the sector has fallen on hard times since Trump took office, with energy stocks sinking by an average of nearly 10% since that day. Many factors played a role in driving energy stocks lower since Inauguration Day, most unrelated to presidential policy changes. However, one thing that stood out is that, despite the President's pro-energy stance, there's only so much that any administration can do in one year to fix an industry's problems. That's clear by looking at two examples from last year that show that, despite the President's efforts, he can't fix everything overnight. President Donald J. Trump signs Presidential Memorandum Regarding Construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead. From action to delayed reaction One of the Trump Administration's first actions upon taking office was to grant a long-delayed permit to pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) so it could finish up its controversial Bakken Pipeline . The company had initially hoped to finish that project in late 2016 but ran into some unexpected roadblocks . Energy Transfer finally received that crucial permit in early February, which enabled the company to not only move forward with the final stage of construction, but unlock some much-needed funding. Oil finally started flowing through the line in June, more than six months behind schedule. That delay cost Energy Transfer money, both from added carrying costs, as well as lost income. Further, because it couldn't get access to the project-level funding until it had the final permit, the company had to secure costlier financing in January to pay down some debt. The impact of these and other issues weighed on the value of Energy Transfer last year, causing it to tumble more than 25%. Story continues However, the company's fortunes are finally starting to turn around, which was evident in its recent fourth-quarter results where it reported strong cash flow growth to end the year, fueled in part by the addition of the Bakken Pipeline. While it took a while for that cash flow to show up, Energy Transfer might still be waiting for it if Trump hadn't made completing the pipeline one of his Administration's priorities. That said, this example shows that it takes time for a Presidential action to deliver a tangible reaction, and even then the stock might not move in the expected direction. Pieces of coal in the hands of a miner. Image source: Getty Images. Reducing the red tape when the ship is sinking Coal stocks were also expected to get a boost from the Trump Administration's pro-coal stance. However, many slumped last year, including Alliance Resource Partners (NASDAQ: ARLP) and Cloud Peak Energy (NYSE: CLD) , which tumbled 19% and 25%, respectively. That's because deregulation alone can't rescue the industry , which is battling a structural decline due to waning demand from utilities, which are increasingly switching over to cheaper, cleaner alternatives. This demand destruction weighed on the U.S. coal market in 2017, hurting coal producers. For example, Alliance Resource Partners reported a 3.1% improvement in its coal sales volumes last year, to 37.8 million tons, which was mainly due to a strong export market, not rising U.S. demand. In fact, if we strip out the additional 4.7 million tons Alliance Resources shipped overseas last year, sales would have declined 10%. Meanwhile, even though overall sales volumes rose, the average price Alliance realized per ton fell 10.9% last year due to lower coal prices, causing cash flow to slip 3% last year. Cloud Peak experienced similar problems, reporting both a decline in sales volumes and pricing in the fourth quarter . Because of that, revenue came in much lighter than analysts expected, while its loss was wider than anticipated. The core issue for coal is that even with the regulatory rollbacks, demand for the fossil fuel is in decline in the U.S. because utilities are burning less of it. Last year, for example, utilities used 1.8% less coal in generating electricity, and that trend isn't expected to reverse since the sector continues retiring coal plants and replacing them with cleaner ones powered by gas, sun, and wind. Unless the Trump administration makes it far cheaper to build new coal plants, demand won't rebound, and neither will the stocks of coal companies. Presidential policy positions don't always make a great investment thesis Energy stocks rode the wave of euphoria after the election on the premise that the pro-energy President would ease the industry's regulatory burdens and unleash the country's energy potential. That said, policy changes don't come overnight, and even when they arrive, the desired reaction often isn't immediate. Further, if the fundamental issue impacting an industry doesn't get addressed, regulatory rollbacks alone won't boost the sector's fortunes. That's why buying stocks based on election results doesn't always work, since new administrations can't solve every problem with the stroke of a pen. 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 recommends Alliance Resource Partners. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
https://guidatrading.com/mondiali-calcio-gratis-con-xm-com/ … #fifa2018 #russia2018 #russia #bitcoin #trading #sport #WorldCup2018pic.twitter.com/tVjATt0kao || http://www.Sohu.World |SOHU IS ICO SOLUTION AGENCY.
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Use my referral link:https://invite.sohu.world/?code=CPzd5278is … and follow @SohuWorld to claim your free #SOHU #tokens. #ICO #erc20 #Crypto #bitcoin #SohuWorld || #fintechnews #fintechdistrict #bitcoin #fintechhttps://twitter.com/sole24ore/status/981055701475721216 … || Learn how to trade Bitcoin , Bitcoin trade , Different methods of Bitcoin Trading ,Categories of Bitcoin gambling, B http://bit.ly/2GwROWe || 19.1% price drop! Bitmain Antminer S9 Bitcoin Miner, is now only $1050.49 on Amazon Marketplace! See more: https://www.cryptominingdeals.io/products/219 #ASICmining #CryptoMining #deals #mining || RT CryptoGura "PDATA token puts value in personal data and creates a currency that exactly expresses their value.https://www.opiria.io #Crypto #btc #PDATA" || New post (Never Miss Any Critical Bitcoin Related News Again With This Easy Guide) has been published on Bitcoin Guide Online https://bitcoinguide.online/never-miss-any-critical-bitcoin-related-news-again-with-this-easy-guide/ … || If a network is not secure, how valuable is it? Introduction to Co http://bit.ly/2sD0X7C #Cybersecurity #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/ZSpUGxqQvU || 2700 users on /r/Bitcoincash, yet the comments and posts are mostly a ghost town. Is there anything we can do about this? For me it feels uncomfortable posting the same anti-Core stuff there as we do here in /r/btc. Should we start to change the vibe ove… https://ift.tt/2q2bQNP || 4 hour #RSI Signals:
$BTC - $NULS: 22.23
$BTC - $DMT: 24.34
$BTC - $GVT: 27.52
$BTC - $WTC: 27.93
$BTC - $DGD: 30.28
$BTC - $CTR: 30.36
$BTC - $PKB: 31.19
$BTC - $WPR: 32.12
#BTC #crowdsale #AltCoins #Crypto #decentralized $Crypto #masternodes #altcoin #ZOI #TRX #cryptomemes
|
Trend: up || Prices: 8845.83, 8895.58, 8802.46, 8930.88, 9697.50, 8845.74, 9281.51, 8987.05, 9348.48, 9419.08
|
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 2017-12-26]
BTC Price: 16099.80, BTC RSI: 55.87
Gold Price: 1284.10, Gold RSI: 60.20
Oil Price: 59.97, Oil RSI: 67.72
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Forecast – BTC Prices Crash as SegWit2X Raises Its Head Again: We have been repeatedly mentioning in many of our recent forecasts that the BTC prices are stalling and with the introduction of the BTC futures at the various exchanges, it brings into a whole new dimension of trading into the bitcoin market. It has also led many of the speculators to think twice before investing into BTC and many of them seem to have migrated to the alt coins as is evident from the way that their prices have been rising in the recent weeks. As more evidence of the same, we saw the BTC prices crash by more than 15% from their highs over the last 24 hours and the volatility continues in the market as of this writing.
Get Into Bitcoin Trading Today
The BTC prices trade just above tthe $17,000 region as of this writing and it is likely to remain under pressure in the short term. Though all of the factors above have contributed to the weakness in the BTC prices, the immediate trigger seems to be the new that the hard fork SegWit2X which had been dropped in November is likely to be revived and pushed through and this is likely to bring in a lot of uncertainty and confusion in the bitcoin industry once again. This is not liked by many of the traders and investors and they have begun to pull out of BTC and so far today, Bitcoin Cash seems to be the biggest beneficiary as it has been buoyed by news that it would be listed by Coinbase.
The ethereum market also seemed to bear the brunt of the fall in the BTC prices for sometime as it fell towards the $720 region but it has since managed to recover back and trades just below the $800 region as of this writing. We continue to believe that the ETH market has better fundamentals than most and hence believe in it for the medium term and the long term.
Looking ahead to the rest of the market, we expect the BTC prices to continue to be under pressure as more news comes out regarding the Segwit2X hard fork and traders should be careful not to jump into this kind of volatility. ETH seems to be a much better bet at this point of time and this should benefit the ETH market in the short term as we look for new all time highs from the ETH prices.
Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 20/12/17 || Bitcoin falls almost 20 percent from recent peak to one-week low: By Hideyuki Sano
TOKYO (Reuters) - Bitcoin fell more than 10 percent on Wednesday to a one-week low of $15,800 at cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp (BTC=BTSP), losing almost one- fifth of its value from a peak hit just three days ago.
The digital currency has been sliding since it reached a record high of $19,666 on Sunday, when the exchange giant CME Group (CME.O) launched bitcoin futures, one week after its rival Cboe Global Markets (CBOE.O) listed the world's first bitcoin futures.
"The listing of two bitcoin futures makes it easier for institutional players to trade bitcoins. Futures also enable players to go short on bitcoins, which was difficult without liquid futures," said Makoto Sakuma, researcher at NLI Research Institute in Tokyo.
The bitcoin's monumental gains this year - its price has soared about 19 times - have spurred caution and alarm among some policymakers.
Singapore's central bank on Tuesday issued a warning against investment in cryptocurrencies, saying it considers the recent surge in their prices to be driven by speculation and that the risk of a sharp fall in prices is high.
South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service said on Tuesday it does not consider bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to be currencies of any kind.
Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday that bitcoin had not been proven as a credible currency.
However, for Japanese retail investors who are estimated to account for 30 to 50 percent of bitcoin trade worldwide, a more worrying warning may have come from a Japanese day trader guru known as Cis.
The individual trader, who claims to own 21 billion yen ($186 million) in assets, tweeted over the last 24 hours that he had sold cryptocurrencies.
"Given that he has a lot of followers, his tweets could have had an impact on Japanese traders, which in turn could have moved the market," Sakuma said.
Bitcoin has since pared some of the losses and last traded at $16,939, down 4.3 percent for the day.
Its decline since Sunday is hardly a major correction for digital currency. In November, it tumbled almost 30 percent in four days from $7,888 to $5,555. In September, it fell 40 percent from $4,979 to $2,972.
Many financial professionals have said bitcoin, which now has market capitalisation of about $275 billion, slightly bigger than Visa Inc (V.N), is a typical bubble, given how small the actual number of transactions are.
The market is highly inefficient, with bitcoin futures (BTCH8) (XBTc1) trading much above cash bitcoins while the gaps of price quotes between various exchanges are also very large, they say.
(Reporting by Hideyuki Sano; Editing by Richard Borsuk) || Global stocks weighed by doubts on US tax reform, sterling falls: By Sinead Carew NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks notched a small gain in choppy trade on Monday amid uncertainty over the fate of U.S. tax reform efforts, while Britain's pound fell as investors worried if Theresa May can remain Prime Minister and get a good European Union exit deal. U.S. stock indexes made little ground. Some investors sought bargains after a few days of losses while others were put off by a dividend cut and weak financial forecasts at heavyweight General Electric which plans to radically shrink to focus on aviation, power and healthcare. Investors were waiting for any signs of compromise on U.S. tax policy after U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a plan that would cut corporate taxes a year later than a rival House of Representatives' bill. "What the market seems to be focused on is if and when tax reform will be agreed on by Republicans in both the Senate and the House and how it'll fare in Congress," said Ryan Larson, head of U.S. equity trading at RBC Global Asset Management in Chicago. While senators and representatives are trying to reach a deal, investors can still hope, said Nathan Thooft, senior managing director at Manulife Asset Management in Boston. "They're still working through the math attached to the two plans. They still have to go through reconciliation but the fact the conversations are happening is a positive." The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 17.49 points, or 0.07 percent, to 23,439.7, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 2.54 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,584.84 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 6.66 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,757.60. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> lost 0.53 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> shed 0.25 percent, a third straight day of losses after hitting an intraday record high on Thursday. Sterling fell 0.6 percent, its biggest daily fall against the dollar since Nov. 2. It was also down 0.6 percent against the euro after the Sunday Times newspaper reported that 40 members of parliament from May's Conservative Party agreed to sign a letter of no-confidence in her, eight short of the requirement to trigger a party leadership contest. "That just highlights some of the internal weakness that the Conservative party has within its own self and I think that’s going to undermine the Brexit negotiations going forward," said Sireen Harajli, foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho in New York. [nL1N1NJ1AQ] The+ dollar edged higher against a basket of other major currencies, recovering ground after a 0.6 percent drop last week. It <.DXY> rose 0.1 percent, with the euro up 0.03 percent to $1.1666. U.S. two-year Treasury note yields hit a fresh nine-year high as the yield curve resumed its flattening, with investors pricing in a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in December. The two-year yield hit a nine-year peak of 1.687 percent, up from 1.662 percent Friday. Oil prices held steady in a tight range Monday after briefly testing lower, with support from Middle East tensions and record long bets by fund managers balanced by rising U.S. production. [nL3N1NJ1BB] A purge of Saudi Arabia's leadership by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has raised concerns about political stability in the region's largest oil producer. U.S. crude fell 0.04 percent to $56.72 per barrel and Brent was last at $63.13, down 0.61 percent. (For a graphic on 'Bitcoin' click http://reut.rs/2zwrYNz) (For a graphic on 'MSCI World' click http://reut.rs/2zycSXR) (For a graphic on 'World FX rates in 2017' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh) (Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Dhara Ranasinghe and Saikat Chatterjee in London, and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish) || Bitcoin Drops below $6,000 as Bitcoin Cash Surges: Investing.com - The price of the digital currency bitcoin fell below the $6,000 level on Sunday to trade down more than $1,000 from an all-time high hit on Wednesday amid a shift by traders to bitcoin offshoot Bitcoin Cash.
On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, Bitcoin hit a low of $5,426.00, its lowest since October 25 before pulling back to trade at $6,143.30 by 04:49 AM ET (09:49 AM GMT), still down 2.5% for the day.
Bitcoin has fallen in recent sessions after a software upgrade planned for next week that could have split the cryptocurrency in a so-called "fork" was called off due to waning support.
The planned split or fork, known as "SegWit2x", had intended to allow for more transactions to be processed at any given time, making fees for bitcoin transactions much cheaper.
As Bitcoin tumbled, Bitcoin Cash, which was generated from another software split on August 1, surged.
Bitcoin Cash hit an all-time high of $2,790.00, before pulling back to $1,680.60, still up 26.36% for the day.
Bitcoin Cash has a total market cap of around $27 billion at current prices, making it the third most valuable cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin has tended to rebound quickly from pullbacks. Bitcoin started the year near $1,000 and at current prices has a total market capitalization of around $103 billion.
In a sign that the financial industry is starting to warm up to bitcoin, the world's largest derivative exchange operator CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) this month announced plans to launch bitcoin futures later this year, pending regulatory approvals.
The futures will allow investors to short-sell bitcoins, making two-way bets possible, a development that CME expects will attract major institutional investors, not just speculators.
CME’s announcement came just weeks after Goldman Sachs said it was considering setting up a new trading operation focused on bitcoin and other digital currencies.
Ethereum, the second most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap after bitcoin, was down 3.46% at $304.77.
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Bitcoin slides by over $1,000 in less than 48 hours || Under Armour and consumer confidence — What you need to know on Tuesday: It’s the busiest week of the year.
And Monday started us off with a bang.
Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for then-candidate Donald Trump, wasindicted on Mondayby the FBI on charges of conspiracy to launder money and making false statements. And in a year of wild political headlines, Monday was perhaps the top.
Stocksalso finished the day lowerwith the small-cap Russell 2000 leading losses, dropping 1.15%.
Reports fromPoliticoandThe New York Timeson Monday also indicated that President Donald Trump will pick Jerome Powell, a current member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, to replace Fed Chair Janet Yellen, likely on Thursday.
On Tuesday, investors will likely still be dealing with a flood of headlines from Washington, D.C., as well as economic data and a bunch of big corporate earnings.
Thedata calendarbrings investors the August report on home prices from S&P/Case-Shiller, while the October reading on consumer confidence from The Conference Board and the third quarter reading on the employment cost index is also expected.
On the earnings calendar, headline results Tuesday are expected from Under Armour (UAA), Aetna (AET), Pfizer (PFE), Kellogg (K), and Mastercard (MA).
In markets, investors gotgood news about consumer spending, though the flip side of this report shows that the personal savings rate is now down to 3.1%, the lowest since 2007.
George Pearkes, a strategist atBespoke Investment Group,had a great thread on Twitteron Monday morning outlining what factors are pushing household savings down. Without getting too into the weeds, it is effectively the result of corporate and current account surpluses.
In 2017, stocks have been on a monster run.
Through the end of Monday’s close, the S&P 500 is up 15%, the Dow is up 18%, and the Nasdaq is up 24% this year. And over the last 12 months, the Dow’s and Nasdaq’s performance is almost a 30% return with the S&P 500 up 20%.
The last year has been, in a word, good for stock investors. In two words, it’s been very good.
But read the headlines of the day and you’re likely to see nothing short of a political food fight (to use Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman’s phrase) coming out of Washington, D.C.
This has led many to argue that markets are still facing huge amounts of uncertainty and political risk when it comes to any and all directives that may or not come out of the Trump administration. And yet stocks power higher.
In a post on Monday, Bespoke Investment Group compared Trump’s approval rating to the S&P 500. They are going different ways.
“Sure, the President may be unpopular, and based on his approval ratings there’s only a one in three chance that anyone reading this approves of the job he is doing,” Bespoke writes.
“Like him or not, though, never let politics impact your investment decisions. Just as a lot of investors missed out on the bulk of this bull market because they didn’t care for President Obama and his policies, another group of different investors has now likely missed out on another good year for the US equity market just because they don’t care for President Trump.”
This tension between what seems to be the country’s prevailing mood and the stock market’s performance can, however, serve to bolster the argument of some who think the action we’re seeing is a sign of froth, or the later stages of a bull market that is now in its ninth year.
Over at Oppenheimer, John Stoltzfus wrote Monday that given the aforementioned 12-month returns we’ve seen in stocks, some are asking how much longer the run can go.
“If it weren’t for what we see as decidedly improved fundamentals (economic and corporate, both stateside and in the international realm) we’d think that investors might have good reason to be concerned,” Stoltzfus writes.
And Stoltzfus adds that the market’s enduring logic of declaring all good things actually bad things lends credence to the idea that stocks need not stop going up just because some investors think “we’re due” for a correction.
“Ironic as it may seem to some,” Stoltzfus writes, “the concern and worry investors have shown about the markets’ recent gains as well as over most of the past eight and a half years since the market hit a crisis low on March 9, 2009, gives us reason to believe that ‘what’s going on’ may have a good chance to ‘go on’ for some time into the visible future.”
In any case, what happens in Washington, D.C. will likely not help when trying to foresee where markets go next.
—
Myles Udland is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter@MylesUdland
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• America’s shortage of workers is about to get ‘much worse’ || Zimbabwe's 93-year-old president lost his grip on power in the middle of the night — and nobody knows what will happen next: Zimbabwe military Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo Zimbabwe's military stormed the capital city of Harare early Wednesday. President Robert Mugabe is said to be "safe and sound" and under house arrest. Emmerson Mnangagwa, whom Mugabe dismissed as vice president last week, is reportedly on his way to Harare and set to take control on Friday. After nearly 40 years as Zimbabwe's leader, President Robert Mugabe appears to have lost his grip on power. Early Wednesday, the country's military drove tanks into the capital, Harare , and seized control of the state broadcaster, ZBC. A senior officer of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces denied that a coup was in progress and said Mugabe, 93, was "safe and sound." Later Wednesday, South African President Jacob Zuma said in a statement that he had spoken to Mugabe and that Mugabe was unharmed and under house arrest. The Guardian's Jason Burke reported that Mugabe would step down on Friday . Zimbabwe's first lady, Grace Mugabe, who was contending for leadership of the ruling ZANU-PF party, has fled to Namibia , The Guardian reported, citing opposition sources. The first lady has long been seen as Robert Mugabe's chosen successor . Mugabe's reported removal from power is surely welcome news to his critics in a country that saw its economy collapse into a hyperinflationary spell in 2008 as Mugabe implemented price controls and printed large amounts of money, leading to a multibillion-percent inflation rate. The human-rights group Amnesty International has also accused Mugabe and his government of repressing political expression, arbitrarily arresting activists and others, carrying out "torture and extrajudicial executions," and fomenting mass political violence. Emmerson Mnangagwa Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo So what's next? The military's denying a coup implies Zimbabwe's next leader won't be a general. South Africa's Independent Online reports that Emmerson Mnangagwa, whom Mugabe dismissed as vice president last week, is en route to Harare to take control of the country's government. Mnangagwa has the support of both the military and the wider population, according to BMI Research. The firm says there are three possible outcomes that could play out over the coming months: "Mugabe resigns and is replaced by Mnangagwa before year-end." "Mnangagwa selected to run as ZANU-PF party leader in 2018 election." "Mnangagwa established as constitutional successor in the event of Mugabe's death." The economic impact It is likely to take years to reverse the damage caused by Mugabe's economic policies. Story continues "It was the 10th-largest economy in the region in the late 1990s," said William Jackson, the senior emerging-markets economist at Capital Economics. "But its performance has been significantly worse than many of its peers. For example, in 1998, Zimbabwe's economy was roughly the same size as that of Angola, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. Now, those economies are three to seven times larger than Zimbabwe." Additionally, Mugabe's policies have caused public external debt — most of which is already in arrears — to balloon to more than 40% of gross domestic product, the International Monetary Fund says. It's unclear what would happen if Zimbabweans fled to other parts of the region. "There is already a large Zimbabwean diaspora in South Africa — the UN estimates there are around 500,000 Zimbabweans living there, although unofficial estimates suggest that it could be closer to 3 million," Jackson wrote. "If refugee inflows did pick up again, there would be a fiscal cost to the South African government, and it could lead to social strains in an economy already struggling with very high unemployment." Members of the ZANU-PF party and the opposition weren't immediately available for comment. NOW WATCH: $6 TRILLION INVESTMENT CHIEF: Bitcoin is a bubble See Also: You can tell someone's lying to you by watching their face — here are 12 dead giveaways This inexpensive TV antenna gets you the most mileage for the money The world's largest pyramid is not in Egypt View comments || Gold Prices Fall Lower: Gold prices continued to move lower during the course of the day on Friday and as of today as well. The stock markets around the world have been gaining during this period and this has put a lot of pressure on the gold prices. The move lower also marks the fact that after completing the move towards the highs of the range and spending some time over there, the gold prices have fallen back into the range and now, it looks as though they are set to move towards the lows of the range in due course of time over the short term. This would mean that the prices are likely to move towards the 1260 region during this period.
The gold prices have been under pressure due to the strengthening of the dollar as well. The dollar has been buoyed by the smooth passage of the tax reform bill through the Senate so far. It is expected that the bill would be passed this week and it should be a boost for the dollar though the strength is likely to be tempered by the developments around the Flynn issue which is basically dollar negative at this point of time. It remains to be seen how this pans out during the course of this week when the focus would be clearly on the dollar and the incoming data from the US.
Oil prices have also fallen slightly as the build up in the oil inventory in the US has been putting the prices under pressure over the last few days. But as we have been saying all along, we expect the prices to continue higher over the short term and we should be looking at $60 in due course of time. The bulls have done a good job so far in keeping the prices high and this is likely to continue in the short term.
Silver prices have also been moving lower as the pressure on the gold prices is beginning to tell on the silver market as well. This trend is also likely to continue in the short term as the dollar strengthens across the board.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• USD/CAD Daily Fundamental Forecast – December 4, 2017
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• Gold Daily Analysis – December 4, 2017 || E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – December 22, 2017 Forecast: March E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futuresare expected to open nearly flat based on the pre-market trade. Volume is expected to be well-below average ahead of the long Christmas holiday week-end. Due to the thin pre-holiday trading volume, we could see a few volatile intraday moves so investors have to be careful to avoid getting caught on the wrong side of a false breakout.
The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart, but upside momentum has slowed, leading to a mostly sideways to lower trade this week.
A trade through 24896 will signal a resumption of the uptrend. A move through 24677 will put the Dow lower for the week.
The short-term range is 24086 to 24896. Its retracement zone at 24491 to 24395 is the primary downside target.
Based on the early trade, the direction of the Dow today is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the steep uptrending Gann angle at 24790.
A sustained move under 24790 will indicate the presence of sellers. The daily chart is wide open under this angle with the first major downside target the 50% level at 24491. This is followed by an uptrending Gann angle at 24438 and a Fibonacci level at 24395.
Overtaking and sustaining a rally over 24790 will signal the presence of buyers. This could drive the Dow into a longer-term uptrending Gann angle at 24866. Crossing to the strong side of this angle will put the Dow in a bullish position.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for December 22, 2017
• EUR/USD Daily Technical Analysis for December 25, 2017
• Bitcoin Fighting for Survival
• Crude Oil Price Analysis for December 25, 2017
• Gold Price Prediction for December 25, 2017
• Important CAD Pair’s Technical Outlook: 22.12.2017 || Bitcoin $20,000 Before Zero: Welcome back to Mind Over Money. I'm Kevin Cook, your field guide and story teller for the fascinating arena of behavioral economics.
Last week we dove into the brave new world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. I read some good passages from a prescient 2014 essay by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen who explained and validated many of the amazing accomplishments we've come to see from "fintech" and Bitcoin, nearly four years later.
In this episode of the podcast, I read a few more important ideas that Andreessen shared back then, including his explanation of Bitcoin as "a classic network effect, a positive feedback loop" of at least four constituencies: consumers, merchants, miners, and developers.
Andreessen believed that all four players were important but that developers played a special role. Here's what he said...
All over Silicon Valley and around the world, many thousands of programmers are using Bitcoin as a building block for a kaleidoscope of new product and service ideas that were not possible before. And at our venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, we are seeing a rapidly increasing number of outstanding entrepreneurs – not a few with highly respected track records in the financial industry – building companies on top of Bitcoin.
For this reason alone, new challengers to Bitcoin face a hard uphill battle. If something is to displace Bitcoin now, it will have to have sizable improvements and it will have to happen quickly. Otherwise, this network effect will carry Bitcoin to dominance.
What Andreessen got right was the success of Bitcoin. What he may not have seen is that other platforms could evolve with new features.
As we discussed last week, while Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan calls Bitcoin "a fraud," he built a new blockchain banking technology called Quorum on the Ethereum cryptocurrency protocol.
"Bitcoin Surges Back Above $7200 As Square Tests Crypto Payments"
That was the headline this morning from ZeroHedge. Recall in last week's podcast Blockchain 101: If Bitcoin's a Fraud, How is Ethereum Different? we talked about Bitcoin surging to new highs above $7,000 afterCME Group(CME) announced they would be launching a futures contract on Bitcoin.
That further validated Bitcoin as a legitimate member of an asset class -- or, more likely,a new asset class of its ownas Marc Andreessen would probably suggest.
But the day after my podcast, a big decision event for Bitcoin miners and developers transpired, sending share flying first higher, then over $1,500 lower. That potential event, known as a "hard fork," is a radical change to the protocol that makes previously invalid blocks and transactions valid, and as such requires all nodes to upgrade to the latest version of the protocol.
This is why I asked my colleague and Bitcoin fanatic Dave Bartosiak to be a guest on my podcast and help me break it all down. He explains the "hard fork" and why it didn't happen. He also explains how to avoid losing your hard-earned cryptocurrency with the right kind of crypto "wallet."
One thing Dave explained is that Bitcoin started surging on Monday from below $6,000 up over $6,500 as word got out that a hedge fund master named Novogratz bought between $15 and $20 million worth over the weekend. More on him coming up.
Back to Square
The ZeroHedge story was actually broke by Forbes on Tuesday night as Laura Shin reported “Some customers of Square's Cash app have gotten a surprise in the past week. The app, which is used for payments between friends and is a competitor to Venmo, has also given them the option to buy or sell Bitcoin.”
Not-so-ironically, word started spreading on Twitter, as Jack Dorsey was a founder of both companies. Early Wednesday morning, Bitcoin was in surge mode, up over $700 to $7,300 because the Square experiment added further validity from a leader in "liberated" payments processing.
Square(SQ), the peer-to-peer payments provider which just hit a $15 billion market capitalization today above $40 per share, is apparently testing integration of cryptocurrency payments in its cash app.
According to CoinTelegraph, Square has issued a rollout to a limited number of customers, using pooled wallets to allow Bitcoin payments without the current high fees.
"We’ve found that customers are interested in using the Cash App to buy Bitcoin,” the company said in a statement.
“We're exploring how Square can make this experience faster and easier, and have rolled out this feature to a small number of Cash App customers. We believe cryptocurrency can greatly impact the ability of individuals to participate in the global financial system and we're excited to learn more here.”
Banks and Hedge Funds Are Getting Ready for Bitcoin Adventures
In addition to JPMorgan's entrance in October into the Blockchain realm with Quorum, in September there was chatter about Goldman Sachs launching a trading desk to facilitate liquidity and hedging for their institutional clients. They probably knew that CME was researching a Bitcoin futures contract.
Well on Monday, Reuters talked to Mike Novogratz, the former macro hedge fund manager at Fortress Investment Group who now runs Galaxy Investment Partners, a firm that bets on cryptocurrencies and related businesses. He believes that mainstream institutional investors are about six to eight months from adopting bitcoin.
In the article Big money is coming to bitcoin, Novogratz is quoted talking about a "turning-point product" from a big financial firm that could make buying Bitcoin as easy as picking up the phone. There is also a video interview in that link.
“When it’s that easy, the price of bitcoin or ethereum is going to go much higher. And that is a lot closer than people think,” said Novogratz, who spoke at the Reuters Global 2018 Investment Outlook Summit in New York.
Novogratz also told Reuters that he bought $15 to $20 million worth of Bitcoin over the weekend in that recent pullback.
And on Tuesday, Reuters spoke with Luke Ellis, CEO of hedge fund firm Man Group, with $100 billion AUM. Ellis said the firm will add Bitcoin to its 'investment universe' if CME launches a futures contract as planned. So there is a case of an established trading institution like CME attracting other entrants.
But maybe the Square news is what Novogratz was talking about. He did tweet this on Wednesday: "Big news -- looks like Square is adding a function to buy and sell BTC... the herd is coming #bitcoin."
Note: in the podcast, I mistakenly referred to Novogratz as the CEO of Man Group.
CME Group to Provide Regulated Price Discovery… and Arbitrage
While there has been concern about CME entering the Bitcoin market, I am a firm believer that it's a fantastic move for all participants. I used to work for the exchange and came to understand its economic functions of risk transfer and price discovery quite well across all asset classes.
The CME Bitcoin futures will bring a new level of transparency and access to big institutions, small hedgers, and private speculators. And obviously, a new ability to "go short" Bitcoin will provide its own brand of fun to those who believe that the cryptocurrency is a bubble waiting to burst.
In the podcast, Dave said he's getting the popcorn ready for mid-December when the contract launches. We also discuss the pros and cons of the newest CME initiative. You can learn more about the CME contract here.
On the pro side, I really like the fact that exchange officials and quants did their homework for the past year to track and create reliable Bitcoin cash market price information. This is extremely important since the futures contract will be cash-settled in some rule-based relationship to these prices.
This brings in a vital market function that links various related cash markets and their derivatives: arbitrage. In short, if a price isn’t “fair” in one location, a bank or large trading institution should be able to buy the cheaper version and sell the pricier one.
According to the CME website, "CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) and CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index (BRTI), a standardized reference rate and spot price index with independent oversight are accelerating the professionalization of bitcoin trading and further establishing digital assets as a new asset class."
The BRR and BRTI launched November 14, 2016 and CME notes that "Several bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms will provide pricing data, including Bitstamp, GDAX, itBit and Kraken.
I'm really looking forward to the launch of this futures contract and all the other financial, trading, and payment institutions that will step out before year's end with their own Bitcoin initiatives.
This week's past news and research has really opened my eyes and I now have a "sure thing" prediction of my own: Bitcoin will reach $20,000 sometime in the next year, well before it ever fails and collapses to zero as the naysayers believe.
What's a Teraflop and Why Does the New Xbox Have 6?
Dave is also a "gamer" and so while I had him on the show, I had to ask about the exciting new launch of the Xbox OneX. I heard that sales in the UK were trouncing the new PS4 Pro and that it is now the fastest console on the planet with 6 teraflops of processing power.
A teraflop is the capability to handle one trillion "floating point operations per second" (FLOP).
Dave explained that the One X also has the capability to be upgraded, thus eliminating hesitation and preventing buyer's remorse over obsolescent consoles.
Check out the full podcast for his views on the console wars between Sony andMicrosoft(MSFT) and the GPU chip wars betweenAdvanced Micro Devices(AMD) andNVIDIA(NVDA) -- both of who also make the chips that power cryptocurrency mining.
Finally, I asked Dave -- a car fanatic like none I've ever met -- what we should expect from Tesla's big announcement Thursday about their new electric truck. While we can be pretty sure one reveal will be that the truck is autonomous too, Musk usually has more surprises too.
And a tweet on Sunday was already prepping the hype...
“Tesla Semi Truck unveil to be webcast live on Thursday at 8pm! This will blow your mind clear out of your skull and into an alternate dimension. Just need to find my portal gun.”
Be sure to tune into the Mind Over Money podcast to hear my favorite car expert's wild prediction about what Elon could have in store for us.
The one burning question I forgot to ask Dave was this: "Why didn't you tell me to buy Ethereum at $10 earlier this year?"
Disclosure:I own shares of NVDA and AMD for the Zacks TAZR Trader portfolio.
Kevin Cook is a Senior Stock Strategist for Zacks Investment Research where he runs the TAZR Trader service.
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 reportSquare, Inc. (SQ) : Free Stock Analysis ReportMicrosoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAdvanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis ReportNVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportCME Group Inc. (CME) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin Price Steady above $17,000 as Trading Launches on CBOE, Cryptocurrency Market Rises: The price for Bitcoin futures with a January expiration date went up from $15,000 to $17,780. The CBOE also decided to introduce automatic stop cranes for transactions to face the possibility of sharp movements, with trading to be halted for 2 or 5 minutes if price increases or falls more than 10% or 20% respectively. Prior to the launch of Bitcoin futures, the price of the cryptocurrency had adjusted to $13,309, with market participants speculating that contracts would be massively bought against Bitcoin. A similar trend was also exhibited by altcoins generally, which may be taken as a sign that investors wanted to wait out this moment in fiat assets. According to Coinmarketcap, today Bitcoin is trading at around $17,040. Though there have been no surprises so far, investors remain cautious, viewing it very likely that the real market activity will start closer to the launch of CME. It is worth mentioning that there are approximately 200K of incomplete transactions on the Bitcoin network, in spite of the higher fees. Fears that the network has serious scalability problems seems to foreshadow greater problems to appear in the near future. Suggested Articles How to Buy Bitcoin Cash? Top Five Cryptocurrencies Experts Talk about Bitcoin, Blockchain and ICOs How Blockchain will change our Life, Economy and the World Against this backdrop, investors are seen to hedge their risks with assets like DASH , which doesnt seem to have such problems. The result, so far, is good for it the price is at $758, up roughly 56% in the last month. Another crypto that attracts attention on Tuesday morning is Litecoin which rises 15.13% to trade at $251. In general, the cryptocurrency market seems optimistic about staying in the green zone. For now, at least, investors seem eager to ignore any technical concerns regarding Bitcoin, most likely an effort to gain from the current optimistic wave. This article is written by FxPro This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Forex Trading Signals December 12, 2017 Euro Developing into Intriguing Proposition Equities Turning Cautious as Fed Approaches, Gold Under Pressure The New Zealand Dollar strengthened its positions Technical Update For EUR/USD, USD/JPY, AUD/USD & NZD/USD: 12.12.2017 EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for November 12, 2017
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin preço atual #bitcointoyou : 1 BTC = 54899,99 Reais 08/12/2017 17:05:47 #1xbit #bitcoin #preçobitcoin http://bit.ly/2kCeQkb pic.twitter.com/NQpIKJUNtk || Tiffany Haddishちゃんが || secara x sengaja dh 3 org housemate aq hasut psal BTC ni.. || High Bitcoin Prices Spiking Demand for Washington's Cheap Electricity http://ift.tt/2kDDXTC || This guy on CNBC sounds like he's talking about Bitcoin in 2015... "there is no fee" || Tiffany Haddishちゃんが || What it feels like to earn #bitcoin on a daily basis with http://SlideCoin.co (Available on Google Play) #money #Androidpic.twitter.com/AAODslgfh6 || 12月09日 2時過ぎ
仮想通貨JPY建てレート
BTC→1820621
ETH→54226.5
XEM→36.0301
BCH→168982
XRP→28.1832
LTC→14323.8
DASH→88652.9
ETC→3108.93
MONA→1942
#BITCOIN pic.twitter.com/MwNjry1ZHb || こんばんは。 bitcoin priceという || Tiffany Haddishちゃんが
|
Trend: up || Prices: 15838.50, 14606.50, 14656.20, 12952.20, 14156.40, 13657.20, 14982.10, 15201.00, 15599.20, 17429.50
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2016-03-07]
BTC Price: 414.32, BTC RSI: 49.45
Gold Price: 1263.20, Gold RSI: 68.01
Oil Price: 37.90, Oil RSI: 69.32
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
C&W Networks Selects Xtera for Upgrading Its Multiple Submarine Cable Systems to 100G Technology: MIAMI, FL and DALLAS, TX--(Marketwired - Jan 26, 2016) -C&W Networks, part ofCable & Wireless Communications(CWC), the largest telecommunications service provider across the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and United States with more than 48,000 miles of subsea fiber-optic network has selectedXtera Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:XCOM), a leading provider of high-capacity, cost-effective optical transport solutions, for upgrading its submarine cable systems in the western Atlantic ocean and the Caribbean Sea to 100G. By introducing Xtera's 100G coherent solution, C&W Networks continues to offer robust services across 42 countries with superior reliability and scalability of international wholesale capacity.
C&W Networks has bolstered its subsea network capacity by upgrading several unrepeatered and repeatered segments to 100G, using Xtera's Nu-Wave Optima™ multi-purpose optical networking platform. The submarine cable systems were upgraded with new 100G channels to include the 1,570 km Gemini - Bermuda cable system, the 1,700 km Caribbean - US (CBUS) cable system, the 1,700 km East West Cable (EWC) system, the 1,440 km festoon Eastern Caribbean Fiber System (ECFS), and part of the 8,700 km ARCOS-1 submarine ring.
"The global build-out of data centers, coupled with rapid deployment of cloud-based services, are driving renewed demand for even higher fixed and burst rate connections with emphasis on high availability through redundancy," said Paul Scott, President of C&W Networks. "Our goal is to proactively prepare our networks with the right technology to efficiently address the evolving business needs of today and the future. We are very excited to enhance our network performance to100G and 100G+ and Xtera was a natural choice for us."
The same optical networking platform was used over the unrepeatered and repeatered segments, enabling a unified, seamless network from an operational perspective. For the upgrade of unrepeatered segments, advanced 100G optical channel technology combined with Xtera's Wise Raman™ solution raised the capacity to multi terabits per second level even on the longest unrepeatered segments (approaching 400 km spans). This combination of technologies also enabled C&W Networks to bypass some intermediate sites when no local add/drop of 100G waves was needed, eliminating the need for back-to-back terminal equipment as found in the previous network design based on 10G optical channel technology.
"Strengthening our relationship with C&W Networks, these new upgrade projects are further evidence of the confidence network operators place in Xtera's capabilities to improve subsea optical transmission infrastructure already deployed across the world," said Jon Hopper, President and Chief Executive Officer of Xtera. "Upgrading existing subsea cable systems to increase their capacity and extend their lifetime -- from a capacity-cost perspective -- is part of our subsea solution portfolio, which includes subsea cable recovery and re-lay, and as well as new build."
About C&W NetworksC&W Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Communications and a wholesale telecommunications service provider that offers broadband, IP capacity and a growing portfolio of managed services and integrated solutions to global, regional and local telecom carriers, TV cable companies, Internet Service Providers and Network Integrators. C&W Networks operates the largest subsea multi-ring fibre-optic network throughout the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean region along with the most comprehensive fully meshed MPLS network in the region. Reaching 42 countries, the company's fully protected ringed submarine fibre optic network spans more than 48,000km. Cable routes include the Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS-1), Colombia-Florida Express (CFX-1), EC-Link cable system, Fibralink, Maya 1, Eastern Caribbean Fiber Express (ECFS), Taino-Carib, East-West, Cayman-Jamaica Fibre system, Caribbean-Bermuda U.S (CBUS), Americas II, Gemini Bermuda, Pan America (PAN-AM), Antillas 1 and Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS). For more information visit:www.cwnetworks.com.
About Cable & Wireless CommunicationsCable & 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 48,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity.
CWC has more than 7,200 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, please visit:www.cwc.com.
About Xtera Communications, Inc.Xtera Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:XCOM) is a leading provider of high-capacity, cost-effective optical transport solutions, supporting the high growth in global demand for bandwidth. Xtera sells solutions to telecommunications service providers, content service providers, enterprises and government entities worldwide. Xtera's proprietary Wise Raman™ optical amplification technology leads to capacity and reach performance advantages over competitive products. Xtera's solutions enable cost-effective capacity to meet customers' bandwidth requirements of today and to support their increasing bandwidth demand fueled by the development of data centers and related cloud-based services.
For more information, visitwww.xtera.com, contactinfo@xtera.comor connect viaLinkedIn,Twitter,FacebookandYouTube. || Blockchain Gets A Much-Needed Stamp Of Approval: Finance firm Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS ) has become a pillar of the financial sector with traders looking to the bank's advice for everything from investing to saving. For that reason, Goldman Sachs Director Don Duet's positive remarks regarding blockchain could be a catalyst for the technology's success. Blockchain Potential Bitcoin has had a rough ride over the past year, as many of the coin's users suffered losses due to volatile prices and exchange collapses. However, the technology that bitcoin runs on – a ledger-like system called blockchain – has been gaining momentum. This is especially true in the financial sector, where banks say blockchain could improve their operations and make things like cross-border payments more streamlined. Related Link: Blockchain Moves Forward In The Financial Industry Using Blockchain Earlier this month, Duet commented on blockchain, saying that he sees the technology as both exciting and groundbreaking. He said blockchain systems have the potential to revolutionize banking operations and the technology could help banks share information and conduct asset transfers more easily and securely. A Single Truth Duet said blockchain provides banks with a "single truth," meaning that it creates one constant system that all banks can use. One of the problems with the banking sector as it currently stands, he said, is that every bank is operating with different systems and protocols. Because of this, banks have to spend a lot of time reconciling differences in order to conduct transactions. However, using blockchain could change all of that by providing banks with one single ledger updated with each transaction. A Bright Future While Duet's comments were general in nature, many saw his optimism regarding blockchain as a positive sign for the future. Banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS ) and Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C ) have been exploring how blockchain might fit into their operations in recent months, and Duet's remarks suggest the outlook is promising. See more from Benzinga Can Bank Stocks Recover? Banks' Earnings Tell A Tale Of Cost Cutting Is Bank Of America Ripe For A Turnaround? © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || BTCS Announces Letter to Shareholders From CEO: ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Feb 23, 2016) - BTCS Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) ("BTCS" or the "Company"), a blockchain technology focused company which secures the blockchain through its transaction verification services business, released a Letter to Shareholders updating current activities and outlining its corporate strategy for 2016, as follows: Dear Shareholders, Over the past few months, several major investment banks have published research foretelling the significant potential for blockchain technologies to revolutionize industries on a massive scale. Recognizing this potential, much of our work in 2015 focused on building a strong operational foundation to capitalize on the rapidly-evolving blockchain opportunity. Despite many successes in this effort, our stock continued to decline throughout 2015 and is now trading near its 52-week low. As a significant shareholder myself, I too am feeling the pain of our low stock price, and I firmly believe it is not representative of our accomplishments or potential. BTCS originally began operations focused exclusively on the Bitcoin ecosystem, and while our revenues today are generated from securing the blockchain through our transaction verification services segment, we plan to evaluate broader opportunities in blockchain consumer solutions. As noted in recently published research from Goldman Sachs, the real opportunity lies in the underlying technology of Bitcoin, the blockchain. Referred to as the golden egg by analysts at Goldman Sachs, the blockchain can not only live outside of Bitcoin, it has the potential to streamline a multitude of businesses. We believe the work we completed in 2015 has established us as an early mover in this burgeoning market opportunity, positioning us for strong shareholder value improvement in the quarters and years ahead as the use of blockchain technologies begins to revolutionize standard business practices. Our current transaction verification operation touches every blockchain transaction. Even after doubling our server processing power in January of 2016, we're currently using just 33% of the expanded power capacity we added in July 2015. The foundation to rapidly scale our operations is in place, and our pending merger with Spondoolies-Tech Ltd. ("Spondoolies") is poised to provide us a technology advantage that we believe will positively impact revenues over the long-term. Story continues We've also strengthened our financial footing, most recently with the completion of a $1.45 million capital raise in December 2015, 1,225% year-over-year revenue growth for the fiscal year ended 2015, and a 25% decrease in cash flow used from operating activities. Our management team remains dedicated to creating value and protecting our shareholders and continues to demonstrate its commitment to the future of BTCS through positive steps at improving our capital structure. From management's voluntarily return of 12.75 million shares of stock valued at $1.15 million in late 2014, which absorbed nearly all of the dilution from our January 2015 funding, to the recent voluntary escrowing of founder shares representing 15% of the outstanding shares of the company, we are literally "putting our money where our mouth is" and plan to continue to work tirelessly to make our company a success. Looking ahead, there are several key milestones we anticipate achieving in 2016. We believe our transaction verification services business will lead to rapid revenue growth this year, and our pending merger with Spondoolies should further strengthen our financial performance and product offerings. If we complete these and other initiatives, ultimately we believe we will be in a position to up list to a major exchange this year, greatly improving our visibility in the capital markets and setting the stage for further acceleration of growth as blockchain technology spreads across the global economy. Blockchain technology is still in its infancy, and just as the Internet has become a ubiquitous driver of global commerce in a relatively short period of time, we believe the impending boom in blockchain adoption is nearly upon us. On behalf of our management team, I want to personally thank you for your continued support. Sincerely, Charles Allen CEO and Chairman About BTCS: BTCS secures the blockchain through its rapidly growing transaction verification services business and plans to build a broader ecosystem to capitalize on opportunities in this fast growing industry. The blockchain is a decentralized public ledger and has the ability to fundamentally impact all industries on a global basis that rely on or utilize record keeping and require trust. BTCS continues to evaluate and build additional blockchain technology consumer solutions. BTCS also actively partners and integrates with strategic digital currency and blockchain technology companies who provide products or services that are complementary to its business strategy. For more information visit: www.btcs.com Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release, including those related to an anticipated merger, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its digital currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. || University of California Berkeley notifies 80,000 of cyber attack: SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Officials at the University of California Berkeley said on Friday that they were alerting 80,000 people, including current and former students, faculty and vendors of a cyber attack on a system that stores social security and bank account numbers.
The news comes just more than a week after a Southern California hospital paid hackers $17,000 in the digital currency Bitcoin to regain control of their computer systems after a so-called "ransomware" attack.
The San Francisco Bay Area university said there was no evidence that attackers actually took any personal information, but that it was still alerting the 80,000 individuals to be on the lookout for misuse of their information.
The school said a hacker or hackers gained access to its financial management software in late December due to a security flaw present when the system is updating. Officials have notified law enforcement, including the FBI, and hired a private computer investigation company.
The university said among the potentially affected are 57,000 current and former students; about 18,800 former and current employees; and 10,300 vendors who work with the school. Those figures come out to about half of the school's current students and two-thirds of its active employees.
Large, high-profile organizations and businesses routinely come under cyber attack, and the school said it frequently identifies similar hacking attempts.
"The security and privacy of the personal information provided to the university is of great importance to us," Paul Rivers, UC Berkeley's chief information security officer, said in a statement. "We regret that this occurred and have taken additional measures to better safeguard that information."
The school said it was providing credit protection service free of charge to those potentially impacted.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sharon Bernstein) || The Crisis in Bitcoin and the Rise of Blockchain: Remember the hype over bitcoin? The crypto-currency that so tantalized techies and excited investors is today in a sorry state: Its core supporters are at war with each other and ordinary consumersstilldon’t care about this supposedly revolutionary form of money.
But that’s only half of the story. The other half is about the remarkable rise of blockchain, the core technology underlying bitcoin that is enjoying unprecedented adoption by banks and big business.
This development--the fall of bitcoin and the rise of blockchain--has accelerated in recent months, and it has big implications for those who have sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into these technologies. Here’s the latest on the story of bitcoin, which has turned out far differently than many imagined.
How We Got Here
Flash back five years, the bitcoin scene was an exciting place to be. A motley mix of coders, libertarians, and get-rich-quick hucksters latched onto the promise of bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto’s new distributed, tamper-proof money system and ledger run from millions of computers. The ledger provided an indelible record of near-anonymous financial transactions in offering a global payment platform to ordinary merchants, drug dealers, and everyone in between.
The early bitcoin buzz soon exploded, and the currency’s value briefly soared to$1,200. The mainstream news media caught onto the story while venture capitalists lined up to fund any business with “bit” in its name. Meanwhile, businesses from Virgin Galactic to the NBA’s Sacramento Kings realized they could get a heap of free press just by announcing they would accept bitcoin.
The currency never caught on, however. Despite all the startups offering wallets and other tools to popularize the payment technology, average consumers never took to bitcoin--even as they did adopt another person-to-person mobile payment platform, known as Venmo , in droves.
So what happened? One problem is that bitcoin never shook its sordid side. While there is nothing intrinsically evil about bitcoin, its most famous adopters have always been a rogue’s gallery of fraudsters, prostitutes,dark web drug lords, andPonzi schemers. Even some members of bitcoin’s governing foundation, who sought to make the currency respectable, are on the lam orin jail.
This rogue reputation certainly didn’t help bitcoin. But it wasn’t the crypto-currency’s biggest problem. Instead, the main reason bitcoin didn’t catch on is because it’s just not practical. Even if you can find merchants who accept it, the process involves exotic apps, currency transactions, and a verification process that takes minutes to get the okay. Compare that to swiping a credit card, and you see the problem.
In recent months, bitcoin’s adoption problem has suddenly worsened. Meanwhile, big banks are finding they can use bitcoin’s best feature and leave the currency itself behind.
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The Current Crisis and the Rise of Blockchain
“Bitcoin’s nightmare scenario has come to pass,” reada headlinethis week from tech site, The Verge. That’s a pretty fair way to describe a recent schism within the bitcoin developer community--the collection of gnomes who decide on the protocols and computer code under the hood.
The Verge report offers a good run-down of the technical specifics but, for present purposes, they can be summed up like this: the bitcoin community failed to agree on a system upgrade, which means the ledger’s infrastructure faces a growing backlog, and it now takes over 40 minutes to confirm a transaction. As a result, bitcoin is less practical than ever and merchants (the few who accepted it in the first place) are bolting.
This schism deals a further blow to bitcoin’s hopes of ever becoming a mainstream currency. This is a setback for the bitcoin community, but here’s the kicker: it doesn’t really matter.
That’s because the true value of bitcoin is not the currency itself. Instead, it’s the blockchain technology underneath it. Banks and other big businesses have already reaped the benefit of this technology.
AsFortunereportedin December, IBM , Intel , JP Morgan , and several other big banks are betting on the blockchain’s ledger system. As with bitcoin, the system requires a set of diffuse computers to prove that a transaction has occurred. Once a confirmation occurs, it’s recorded in a common ledger and cannot be reversed.
Why is this such a big deal? It has to do with record keeping.
The idea of a tamper-proof ledger created by computers is so significant because it could let a number of industries--especially banking, brokerages, and law firms--overhaul the way they do business. Instead of relying on slow and cumbersome settlement systems to notarize and record documents, they can let a blockchain do it for them.
“The clearing and settlement will be done in a matter of seconds. An efficiency comes with this that is a pretty significant force multiplier,” explains Jeff Garzick, a former bitcoin developer who recently launched a consultancy calledBloqthat advises banks and others how to deploy blockchain technology.
Garzick and his partner Matt Rosack expect the financial industry will begin using the blockchain for stock and loan settlements as soon as the end of this year. Likewise, they think banks’ transactions at the discount window of the Federal Reserve will soon be recorded on a blockchain.
And that’s just the beginning. Garzick and Rosack say the Big Four auditing firms will soon have a blockchain-based transaction feed that will be visible to regulators, who have been studying the potential of blockchain technology for years.
The Future: Blockchain Without Bitcoin
Even for those familiar with crypto-currency, it can be hard to get one’s head around just how the blockchain can operate without bitcoin. The reason is that bitcoin supplies the financial incentive for people around the world, known as miners, to operate the ledger in the first place.
For more about bitcoin, watch our video:
In return for devoting their computers to running the blockchain (which publishes the ledger), they receive a reward in the form of a bitcoin that can be spent online or exchanged for traditional currency. In the absence of such an incentive, how do the banks plan to develop the blockchain?
The answer is they are building their own version of blockchain and running it themselves. As Garzick explains, this process involves taking the core protocol underlying bitcoin and then stripping off all the “mining” and compensation functions. He says the miners are an interesting way to creating a ledger, but they are not essential in the case of a “private chain,” like the one the banks are developing.
“The mining is a really elegant software solution that equally distributes who is going to validate the next set of bitcoin transactions,” Garzick says. “A private chain replaces the entire trust-less aspect with a more private closed network of participants.”
In practice, this will involve the banks rejecting a global federation of miners in favor of a handful of trusted verification partners within their own network--a processalready underway. For instance, a group of 15 banks might agree that the ledger becomes official once computers from seven group members agree to record a set of transactions.
So what happens to bitcoin in this scenario? AsTheEconomistnoted in a recentfeature, it may become no more than a novelty or a historical curiosity. If this is the case, the venture capitalists who made big bets on consumer bitcoin startups like Coinbase andXapocould see a pool of wealth vanish. Ditto the U.S. government, which has seized a large pile of bitcoins in high-profile drug investigations.
For now, that worst case scenario for bitcoin hasn’t come to pass yet. Despite the recent convulsions in the developer community, its price has heldfairly steadyaround $400 for months. It may find niche roles as a currency, such as for foreign remittances.
Meanwhile, bitcoin still has defenders such as Jeremy Allaire, a successful entrepreneur who raised over $60 million for his startup, Circle, a money transfer service for consumers using bitcoin behind the scenes. Allaire says there is still time for bitcoin to break through in place of services like Venmo.
“Venmo is another AOL--I don't want another walled garden. I want the Google of money,” Allaire said in a recent interview. “We've gone from a world where everyone is in denial about the tech and its usefulness. Now traditional financial institutes say, ‘We love the technology but we want to control it with our own private technology.’ That's not practical.”
Other defenders include my former colleague atFortune, Dan Roberts, who said thebull caseoutstrips the bear case for bitcoin in 2016.
Still, based on recent developments, a bitcoin resurgence looks like a long shot. When the final history of bitcoin is written, the currency itself is likely to be just a colorful footnote in the tale of the emergence of a powerful new blockchain technology.
See original article on Fortune.com
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• Here's Why Europe Is About to Crack Down on Bitcoin Anonymity || Antwerp diamond trade turns to fintech platforms: Diamonds love Antwerp.
At least, that is the official slogan of theAntwerp World Diamond Centre(AWDC), the public/private company (it's part government-owned) that oversees the diamond trade in Antwerp, Belgium, the world's leading city for buying and selling the stone. In 2014 some $59 billion worth of diamonds (in USD) were brought into or exported out of Antwerp—more than 5% of the GDP of Belgium. The AWDC serves as a watchdog for the industry, sets standards and promotes the market, and has a commercial arm that counts all the world's leading diamond dealers as members.
But lately, the global market doesn't love diamonds. Sales declined across the board last year, and Antwerp saw its own trade volume fall some 18%, from $59 billion to $48.3 billion. (AWDC points out that "competitors such as India and Israel endured much steeper declines.")
To address the diamond downturn, AWDC is turning to unlikely partners: fintech startups. It announced today a "pilot project" with San Francisco-based Uphold and Belgium-based FX4BIZ. Both are payment platforms that allow for fast and free conversion between many different currencies, including fiat and virtual currency, and commodities.
"We, as the industry’s representative organization, are always searching for new technologies and ways to distinguish ourselves from our competitors," said AWDC CEO Ari Epstein in a statement. Last year the AWDC held a diamond investment symposium with Morgan Stanley (MS), and Epstein says the two new partnerships are a result of the symposium.
For Uphold, which markets itself as a sort of cloud-money vault, this deal brings not just financial potential, but the legitimacy of a global market partner to a still-nascent platform that rebranded at the end of last year. Uphold launched in 2014 as BitReserve, and originally customers needed to deposit funds in the virtual currency bitcoin. They could convert money into dollars, pesos, francs, and other currencies or even precious metals, but they had to start in bitcoin. That is no longer the case, and Uphold dropped the "bit" from its name, seemingly to distance itself from the controversy and stigma of the digital coin.
The web site now allows for conversion into23 different fiat currencies(including dollar, euro, pound, shekel, rupee, and yen), plus four metals (silver, gold, palladium and platinum) and bitcoin. About $836 million in transactions has been moved around on Uphold, with $85 million currently held in Uphold wallets.
"Some of the legacy players in this space are very focused on specific virtual currencies," says Uphold CEO Anthony Watson, likely referring to bitcoin, "but... I predict in the next 5-10 years virtual currencies will become vertical to support vertical businesses and industries. If you look at our platform, we deal in all forms of currency. We'll support any and all types of value that the market supports."
Watson, a former chief information officer at Barclays (BCS) and then at Nike (NKE), surprised many when he left to join Bitreserve. Its founder, Halsey Minor, a founder of technology news site CNET, brought Watson on for his banking experience, then made him Uphold's CEO after only a few months. Watson has said he hopes Uphold can serve to level the financial playing field, bringing banking service to the unbanked and underbanked.
Thanks to the AWDC partnership, "We get to showcase our platform in something that hasn't been done before," he tells Yahoo Finance. As for AWDC, "They needed areal-time platform that allows for payment processing and clearing for their traders and dealers." Uphold says using its platform will save diamond traders "tens of millions of dollars each year."As a result of the partnership, Uphold is also opening a new office in Antwerp.
AWDC will encourage its member companies, which in turn have relationships with some 2,000 diamond dealers around the world, to use Uphold or FX4BIZ for their banking services, foreign exchange and money transfer services. The value proposition of these startups is that they allow for the conversion and transmission of funds much faster and cheaper than traditional wire transfer. Whether diamond traders will hop on board is a different question.
--
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.Read more:
Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its leading news site
Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin
Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter || Your first trade for Wednesday: The " Fast Money " traders delivered their final trades of the day. Tim Seymour was a seller of the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE Arca: TLT) while Brian Kelly was a buyer. Dan Nathan was a buyer of Twitter ( TWTR ) . Peter Najarian was bullish on Viacom ( VIAB ) , a name he highlighted as a stock which could soon be aligned for stratospheric returns. Trader disclosure: On January 19, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Tim Seymour is long AAPL, BAC, CLF, DIS, F, FCX, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, IWM, JCP, JPM, KO, LGF, RL, T, TWTR. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, SBUX, YHOO. Pete Najarian is long AAPL, BAC, BKE, BMY, BP, DIS, DISCA, FOXA, GE, KO, MRK, PEP, PFE, he is long calls AAL, BAC, BX, CHS, GE, GDX, HAIN, LC, MSFT, NRF, WMB, WYNN, XBI, YDKN, he is long puts FCX, MRO. Dan Nathan is long WMT Feb Put Spread, long PFE buy-write, long VZ Buy-write, long XLU Feb Call Spread, long QCOM Feb Calls, long UUP, long TWTR, long TLT Apr risk reversal; he is short SPY. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GDX, GLD, SLV, TLT, US Dollar; he is short Aussie Dollar, British Pound, CS, DB, EWH, HSBC, SPY, Yuan. SunTrust Managing Director Robert Peck: Firm makes a market in Netflix. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its leading news outlet: There is one trade publication in the digital currency industry that every mainstream news outlet knows well, and cites regularly in stories about bitcoin:CoinDesk. It is a source of news about bitcoin investments, price spikes or crashes, and executive hires, and it is a regular destination for journalists who write about bitcoin (as well as for bitcoin enthusiasts who don't get paid to write about the currency).
Last week, CoinDesk reported some newsabout itself. The website has been bought by Digital Currency Group, the investment firm of Barry Silbert, who in 2004 founded SecondMarket, which allows for the trading of private-company stock. He sold the platform to Nasdaq (NDAQ) last year. This is DCG's first full acquisition; it did not disclose the sale price, but sources tell Yahoo Finance it was around $750,000.
DCG has invested in 60 different digital currency companies, and the companies in its portfolio have raised 70% of the venture capital in the industry. You might think that creates an obvious conflict of interest here. Silbert owning CoinDesk is like Red Sox co-owner John Henry buying the Boston Globe (which actually happened), or Peyton Manning buying the Denver Post, or Donald Trump buying Politico.
But Ryan Selkis, the DCG executive who will oversee business at CoinDesk for the time being, insists that won't be a problem. Nonetheless, he says the possibility did concern him at first.
The subject of changing ownership at a bitcoin news site may seem like granular inside-baseball, but it is significant when viewed in the context of ongoing fears about who owns the media. From NewsCorp to Bloomberg to recent changes at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, it is a topic on the minds of both journalists and their readers.
Is bitcoin's primary news site selling to bitcoin's biggest investment firm another piece of bad news for the industry? Selkis, DCG's director of growth, spoke to Yahoo Finance about that question and about DCG's plans for the site. What follows is an edited transcript.
Yahoo Finance:Before we get into CoinDesk, what was your take on the fallout from Mike Hearn's post last week? [Hearn, a bitcoin developer,declaredthat bitcoin had "failed" and that he was leaving the industry; it resulted in a media firestorm.]
Ryan Selkis:I won’t comment on the theatrics of it. I will say that Mike Hearn was one of the really solid developers, he’s contributed a good chunk of his life and energy into making bitcoin what it is today, so, style aside, there’s not a whole lot people can say to critique his overall contribution to the industry. But this [ongoing debateover the size of blocks, or bundles of transactions, recorded on bitcoin's public ledger] is more of a governance issue than it is a bitcoin issue, in terms of how this will get resolved. I think it will get resolved. But the governance of the overall project needs to be better.
What was DCG's approach to buying CoinDesk, what were the considerations?
The first priority we had when we considered this acquistion, my main hesitation, was whether we’d be able to preserve CoinDesk’s editorial independence. And it’s why I’m working with the team full-time now on operating activities. We are going to create both informational and physical barriers between the editorial team and Digital Currency Group. From a policy standpoint, I’ve recused myself from all investing activity at DCG. I was its director of investments; I have completely transitioned away from that and now I’m director of growth.
How does handling growth for DCG pertain to CoinDesk?
In this particular instance it means making sure we have a smooth transition post-acquisition. We’re combining two teams. We’ve kept all the CoinDesk employees and our plan is to continue to employ everyone that came over, hopefully for a long time. But we also have a professional events team we’ve been working with that were already in the midst of planning a large conference in May, and now we’re merging those two teams to plan one event, Consensus 2016. So now everyone, with the exception of myself, is a CoinDesk employee. And functionally, I’m full time with the CoinDesk team.
So how are you separating CoinDesk from DCG?
We are physically relocating offices to a different part of Manhattan. So the CoinDesk folks are not going to be sitting right next to our Genesis [a broker dealer that is another DCG subsidiary] trading team or our investment team, which has proprietary information on how 60 or so bitcoin companies that we are invested in are performing.
What if CoinDesk is now afraid to write bad news about companies DCG is invested in? Or it could go the other way: Will CoinDesk start getting all the scoops on DCG companies?
On the latter point, I’m not concerned because even before this, CoinDesk had established itself as a clear industry leader in terms of a trade journal. So they were already getting most of the scoops. When you talk about embargoed news releases, they are going to continue to be on the same lists as the other folks that DCG reaches out to. So that doesn’t really change. To be honest, CoinDesk was typically part of a broad group of outlets that would be contacted whenever there was news about a DCG company, because we never want to restrict press attention to just one outlet for any of its business interests. So that is the much easier question to answer.
With respect to editorial conflicts, look, that’s what I’m here for, is to make sure there’s a buffer between both entities. So on the one hand, I’m not influencing CoinDesk editorial, but on the other hand, I’m leading the team on a day-to-day basis, and I’m able to interface with DCG but I’m no longer privy to any inside-baseball related to the portfolio companies.
That seems like a contradiction: You won't influence CoinDesk editorial, but you'll lead CoinDesk day to day? So will you be full time at CoinDesk, or at DCG?
I’m DCG's director of growth, but I'm focused full time on CoinDesk and this acquisition, and the 10 or so employees we’ve absorbed, and the large-scale conference we’re producing in May. That makes CoinDesk our top priortity in terms of growth initiatives.
Is the conference the main reason DCG bought CoinDesk? Why else?
We think there’s a lot of organic growth potential for CoinDesk. They’ve had display advertising and various sponsors, but last year they hosted Consensus 2015, it was profitable, it was well-attended, folks were raving about the content of the event. And in mid-2015 they also began publishing paid research reports. As we continue new investments in CoinDesk, paid research and live events are going to be meaningful drivers of growth for the business.
We have the resources to invest not only in fantastic new editorial talent, as in full-time reporters, but also strengthen the ranks of freelance contributors. One area we will invest in is looking beyond just bitcoin the currency and the very insular community there, and branching much further out into blockchain applications that enterprise is taking a look at. Now, that doesn’t mean we are on this "blockchain, not bitcoin" bandwagon, because I don’t want to give that impression at all and it’s a very shrill conversation that happens on Twitter and Reddit when you bring it up. But I do think there will be private ledger solutions that work for enterprise where bitcoin isn’t necessarily a good alternative.
Yes, big financial institutions and banks, from Nasdaq to JPMorgan, have been on the "blockchain, not bitcoin" trend lately. Do you think that's all talk?
I think the interest is definitely real. The bigger question is, over what time frame does this play out? I don’t think that anyone should expect fully functioning products in the next year, two years, handful of years. It will take many years to build some of these core products that are used currently for clearing and settlement. But I think it’s not just a buzzword, I think "blockchain for banks" truly is more relevant in many cases than using the bitcoin blockchain. If you’re a large institution and you’re looking to create an open ledger where you can move securities around safely and transparently to other regulated institutions, you don’t need a native currency like bitcoin or a consensus mechanism that uses anonymous miners. You already know the parties. You could have five banks that are the only signatories to that particular blockchain. So that would be interesting.
--
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.Read more:
Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter
Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin
Fantex, the 'athlete stock exchange,' signs first golfer || Lead developer quits bitcoin saying it "has failed": By Jemima Kelly LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Bitcoin slid by 10 percent on Friday after one of its lead developers, Mike Hearn, said in a blogpost that he was ending his involvement with the cryptocurrency and selling all of his remaining holdings because it had "failed". Hearn, one of five senior developers who has spent more than five years working on the web-based currency, said he would no longer be taking part in development. "Despite knowing that bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly," Hearn said in his post on blog-publishing platform Medium. Along with Gavin Andresen, who was chosen by bitcoin's elusive creator Satoshi Nakamoto as his successor when he stepped aside in 2011, Hearn has been locked for months in a battle with the other lead developers over whether the "blocks" in which bitcoin transactions are processed should be enlarged. Each block currently has a capacity of one megabyte, which Hearn says is "an entirely artificial capacity cap", and allows a maximum of just three payments to be processed per second. In August, Hearn and Andresen released a rival version of the current software, called Bitcoin XT, which would increase the block size to 8 megabytes, allowing up to 24 transactions to be processed every second. While that is still a fraction of the 20,000 or so that Visa can process, it would increase every year, so that bitcoin could continue to grow. But the new software has not been adopted by the "mining" computers that secure the network, the majority of which are in China, according to Hearn. Hearn says the bitcoin network is about to run out of capacity as the volume of transactions increases. And when that happens, the network will become unreliable, with payments unable to be processed and vulnerable to fraud. "If an IT system runs out of capacity like that then all kinds of things go wrong - all hell breaks loose," he said in an interview with Reuters in late December. Story continues Hearn reckons the bitcoin community has "failed" in its governance of the crytocurrency's code. "What was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked 'systemically important institutions' and 'too big to fail' has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people," he wrote. SUDDEN DEPARTURE Just months ago, in August, Hearn told Reuters that whether or not Bitcoin XT was adopted, the crypocurrency would live on. "If we thought it might be the end of bitcoin, we wouldn't do it," he said then. Bitcoin was trading at around $390 on the itBit exchange by 2000 GMT, down from $430 before Hearn's blog post was published. In his December interview, Hearn said that when people realised that the bitcoin network was at breaking point, the price would fall. "The current price of bitcoin is supported almost entirely by people speculating on its future, in the assumption that this could be the money of tomorrow," he said. "So if the network starts to collapse, then a lot of people are going to look at it and say: well maybe we've miscalculated (its) future value." Hearn is now working for the R3CEV consortium of banks working on using the blockchain technology that underpins bitcoin in financial markets. Stephan Tual, the former chief operating officer of blockchain firm Ethereum, who now works at blockchain-based app developer Slock.it, also reckons bitcoin's future looks shaky. "Bitcoin is outdated technology - almost prehistoric by crypto standards," he said. "It's because of petty quarrels such as these that it hasn't been able to evolve in five years." Others were more upbeat. "I'm not ready to declare that Bitcoin has failed," wrote U.S. venture capitalist Fred Wilson. "Sometimes it takes a crisis to get everyone in a room... So if we are going to have a crisis, let's get on with it. No better time than the present." (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) || Sprott Out At Namesake Gold Fund As Price Collapse Takes Toll: With gold's decline, an entire precious metals industry is in peril. And Eric Sprott's just the canary in the gold mine.
[This article first appeared onIndexUniverse.comand is republished here with permission.]
For those of you who regularly read my stuff, you know I love to write about charts and numbers and all sorts of nerd-ery. In this blog, I'm only going to use a single chart. If you're a gold investor, you know which chart I'm talking about:
Chart courtesy ofStockCharts.com
This is the nightmare chart for gold investors. The price of gold has collapsed from all-time highs of slightly more than $1,900 an ounce in fall of 2011 to near $1,235 today.
Just this year, gold investors, a lot of them investing through ETFs like the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD | A-100), are down almost 27 percent, while investors in the SPDR S&P 500 Trust (SPY | A-98) are up 27 percent. You don't need to be a math whiz to recognize that this has been a terrible, terrible year for anyone who made a big rotation out of equities in the last few years and into the shiny stuff.
And while it's easy to kick people when they are down, here's the thing: It's not just gold investors who got hammered. It's an entire industry that's been built on the back of the gold rally.
Consider GLD all by itself for a moment. GLD's peak NAV in August last year was $184.59. On that day, there were 424 million shares outstanding, for net assets of more than $78 billion, with an implied annual fee due of $313 million a year.
Today assets stand at just $33 billion—well under half their peak, with an implied fee base of $131 million a year. That's nearly $200 million that's leaving the GLD management ecosystem.
I'm not expecting anyone to feel sorry for the poor ETF issuer here (State Street and the World Gold Council). Rather, I'm pointing out that decline in gold has made for some rather dramatic shifts in the investment economy.
Consider Eric Sprott. I firstcame to knowof Sprott when his Physical Gold Trust launched in 2010—right in the froth of the run-up—and it was being called an "ETF" by various media sources (it's not; it's a closed-end fund). At the time, I ripped it apart for tax issues, poor marketing and various other shortcomings.
That's nothing to the savaging Sprott received at the hands of one of the smartest bloggers on the Web, Kid Dynamite. Kid Dynamite has made akind of sportout of watching how Sprott's closed-end funds magically become un-closed and issue new shares when they trade to large premiums.
Nothing wrong there, other than the fact that the big recipient of those nonpremium shares tended to be other Sprott funds,who could then sell them for the premium price. Nice work if you can get it.
But while the various shenanigans may have worked on the way up, they've brutalized the company—and Eric Sprott—on the way down. Take their flagship closed-end gold fund, PHYS. It launched on Feb. 26, 2010. GLD investors are up 9.09 percent since then. PHYS investors are up 6.36 percent. I don't knowhowyou leave 1 percent a year on the table when your only job is to buy gold and stick it in a vault, but there you have it.
The good news (if you're actually in one of Sprott's many funds) is that Sprott himself has gotten the ax, as noted by the extraordinarily unkind headline at Business Insider this morning: "One Of The Most Famous Gold Bug Fund Managers Has Gotten Obliterated." The Wall St. Journal article is a bit more professional—"Gold Drop Is Blow to Prominent Hedge-Fund Manager Sprott"—but makes hay out of the fact that his namesake hedge fund is down 50 percent in 2013. That takes work.
In the end, Sprott's getting the boot, and being replaced by new management.
There's a whole lot of that going on in gold circles: people getting the boot and making way for turnaround specialists to come in and clean up business. The gold miner industry is awash in panic: The bellwether ETF in the space, the Market Vectors Gold Miners fund (GDX | A-54), is down 66.4 percent since gold's peak in 2011, and down 54.49 percent just in 2013.
That collapse is driven by very real work being done in the gold miner space to deal with the collapsing gold prices. Anglo American, for instance, brought in a new CEO to help make huge cuts, effect write-downs and position the company for a longer-term business.
In some sense, that's all healthier than bubble economics. But that's small solace to any investor who's actually ridden Anglo American, PHYS, GDX or GLD to the ground these past few years.
Of course, the question any rational investor should ask is, What's next? And that's where it becomes very difficult to read the news. In most rational sectors of the global economy, analysts are analysts.
You read the reports from agricultural experts or retail-stock experts, and they generally call things as they see them. In the precious metals space, nearly every article you get off any kind of Google search will always be telling you why "Now is the time!"
It's important to remember that gold—and the entire gold investment economy—is unique. Gold, by itself, is useless and valueless. It has value only because it's scarce, and then only because enough people believe its scarcity can make it a useful medium of representing value and making transactions. Gold is, essentially, an idea that people assign value to. Lots of folks believe? It goes up. Crisis of faith? It tanks.
Which makes it surprisingly similar to that other highly volatile source of questionable stored-value: Bitcoin.
Maybe that's where Sprott's next adventure will take him. I'll be camped firmly on the sidelines with a bowl of popcorn.
At the time this article was written, the author held no positions in the securities mentioned. Contact Dave Nadig atdnadig@indexuniverse.com.
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Liquid Bitcoin || VJ MACHIAVELLI-THE VOICE OF THE GODS-: SATURDAY BITCOIN OR BITCON NEWS REVIEW http://vjmachiavelli.blogspot.com/2016/02/saturday-bitcoin-or-bitcon-news-review_27.html?spref=tw … || STS again chance to win = 1satoshi coins for sell
volume 4.5 BTC
@YobitExchange (check wallet)
https://yobit.net/en/trade/STS/BTC … || Liquid Bitcoin || Tendermint Thinks It Will Be Better Than Bitcoin - http://Bitcoinist.net http://dlvr.it/KdJxgH pic.twitter.com/RgF4mkj714 || $372.62 at 21:45 UTC [24h Range: $369.12 - $377.00 Volume: 6259 BTC] via #btcusdpic.twitter.com/hptjNmMmzB || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 18 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $21.89 #bitcoin #btc || #UFOCoin #UFO $ 0.000018 (1.44 %) 0.00000004 BTC (-0.00 %)
|
Trend: up || Prices: 413.97, 414.86, 417.13, 421.69, 411.62, 414.07, 416.44, 416.83, 417.01, 420.62
|
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 2016-12-27]
BTC Price: 933.20, BTC RSI: 82.14
Gold Price: 1137.30, Gold RSI: 33.65
Oil Price: 53.90, Oil RSI: 65.81
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Tips on How to Protect Your Private Information On Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Americans will line up around stores and standby their computers or smartphones to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, but protecting their private information should also be priority for shoppers. During the holiday season many shoppers are harmed by failing to take simple precautions, says Gene Richardson, COO of Experts Exchange , a network for technology professionals. In Store Vs. Online Retail stores are one of the top areas identity thieves go after, Richardson said in an email to the IBTimes. A large number of some of the biggest identity thefts in the past few years were at large retail stores, he says. Long lines and busy cashiers could potentially put your private information at risk. “All the clerk cares about is getting you through the line as fast as they can so they can deal with the next customer and hope that none of you are angry,” says Richardson. “So, if there is a hiccup with your transaction, they will take “backup” paths to complete your transaction like entering your credit card number by hand.” Richardson, who is also the former head of the data security teams IBM, Charles Schwab and Motorola, says customers should never give their credit card to someone to perform a transaction by entering a card number. “Hand transactions are a huge risk for identity theft,” he says. Customers should also avoid buying if a cashier’s computer is down or too busy, unless it’s with cash, or try to go back later. Credit card scanners are also a threat to customers, as some of them may be rigged to copy a person’s information so that a duplicate credit card can be made. People may be less exposed to this action in large retail stores, but the risk is higher in smaller boutiques shops, says Richardson. Customers should also make sure their credit card number is not printed on receipts and should instead have XXX's where the number is displayed. But online purchases can be riskier because of all the extra information customers hand over, like their name, address, phone number, credit card information, expiration date and CSV. Story continues “They ask for so much more information from you to validate who you are than a purchase in a retail store,” says Richardson. “You have no control of who or where that information is going.” Tips to Protect Yourself Here are Richardson’s tips for shoppers on how they can protect themselves on Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Ensure that the website address is secure and has a valid encryption certificate. It will usually display a “locked, green” indicator in front of the website name. If it doesn’t have that, it does not have a higher level of security that has been guaranteed by a known entity like Verisign, Symantec and others. Ensure your system has the most recent recommended system and security patches. Always use a credit card that is not tied directly to your personal bank account(s), even if you are using PayPal, Bitcoin or some other payment method. Never give anything other than name, address and phone number. You should not need to answer security or privacy questions when making a purchase or checking out. If they ask, see if you can checkout as a “guest” instead. Monitor your credit through a third party for identify theft and have SMS and email alerts sent to you immediately. Set-up alerts with your credit card company that send both SMS and emails when any purchases are made and the credit card was not scanned (meaning, it wasn’t in someone’s hand when the charge was made). Set them as low as $25 per purchase. Also, set-up alerts for total purchases over $500 in a billing period to protect multiple $24.99 purchases. And if possible, a maximum amount of purchases allowed in a billing period such as $1500 before card will get declined. Ensure that you have a reputable Antivirus program running on your computer and that your browser has an Ad blocking plug-in. (Richardson recommends Norton, McAfee or ESET.) Ensure that the network your computer/device is on is secure and you know who has access to your network. This is usually done with your router. You want to lock down your router so that traffic can be initiated from the inside-out but you do not want traffic to be initiated from the outside-in. If you are using a WiFi connection, make sure that network is also secure and requires a password to join. If it is a public WiFi network that doesn’t require a password, then the traffic coming from your device can be monitored and stolen. (Link to onsite how-to article?) Any passwords that you use should be strong, hard to guess ones. Or, even better, hard to guess, but easy to remember . Don’t click on unfamiliar links to sites advertising sales, coupons, etc. Use two-factor authentication/verification, if it is offered. Shopping on Mobile Devices One in 10 mobile apps that are found through searching “Black Friday” are blacklisted as malicious, according to cyber security company RiskIQ An estimated 30 percent of purchases will be made on mobile devices, RiskIQ says. Shopping on mobile devices can substantially increase the risk of encountering phishing pages, malicious apps, and viruses that infect customers’ smartphones and tablets to steal money and private information. There are also fake apps out there that contain malware that can steal customers’ data or lock the device until the user pays a ransom, says RiskIQ. Other malicious apps may ask consumers to use their Facebook or Gmail logins, which could compromise their private information. Tips For Safe Shopping on Mobile Devices Here are some tips from RiskIQ: Ensure that you are only downloading apps from official app stores such as Google or Apple Be wary of applications that ask for suspicious permissions, like access to contacts, text messages, administrative features, stored passwords, or credit card info. Just because an app appears to have a good reputation doesn’t make it so. Rave reviews can be forged, and a high amount of downloads can simply indicate a threat actor was successful in fooling a lot of victims. Before downloading an app, be sure to take a look at the developer—if it’s not a brand you recognize or has a strange appearance or spelling, think twice. You can even do a Google search on the developer for more clues about its reputation. Make sure to take a deep look at each app. New developers, or developers that leverage free email services (e.g., @gmail) for their developer contact, can be enormous red flags— threat actors often use these services to produce mass amounts of malicious apps in a short period. Also, poor grammar in the description highlights the haste of development and the lack of marketing professionalism that are hallmarks of mobile malware campaigns. Check website addresses after following links on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media channels to be sure you end up on the true website of the retailer you want. Look for the “S” in HTTPS when you visit shopping sites. Beware of shopping sites that do not use HTTPS in their website addresses or do not display the symbol of a lock next to the web address. Secure sites use HTTPS, and without that, you’re dealing with unsecured connections or weak encryption of personal data. Never provide your credit card information unless you are in a secure online shopping portal. Sites that ask for it in return for “coupons” or to win “free” merchandise are almost always scams. Protect Yourself From a Major Headache For those who might not want to go through the hassle of setting up credit card alerts on purchases or locking down their router, it’s important to remember that it can and save consumers from a major headache. “Identity theft could cost you several thousand dollars in actual money and can cost you a lot more in your personal time and future anticipated losses cleaning up after the fact,” Richardson said. “The impact of identity theft could last years as you personally have to work to call all your creditors to fix your credit, loss of credibility for future purchases of a home, car, etc. as your credit scores will have been impacted, the effect on future employment opportunities as background checks are run and many, many more,” he added. Related Articles $100 Off HTC Vive On Black Friday and Cyber Monday American Consumers Prep For Cyber Monday || The 'failure' of election polling was about 3 key things: Before voting began on Election Day, nearly every major poll was predicting a Hillary Clinton win by 2-4 percentage points. When the smoke cleared Wednesday morning, Donald Trump had won.
In the wake of Trump’s surprise win, arguably the biggest fascination has been the failure of the polls.Politicoasked, “How did everyone get it so wrong?”Fusionasked how it went “so, so, so wrong?”Harvard Business Reviewwrote that pollsters were “completely and utterly wrong.”
Yes, the polling was wrong—but the reasons why are numerous, and nuanced, and will take a long time to fully parse and understand. In addition, it wasn’t just the polls that went wrong, but also the media’s interpretation of the polls.
One of the biggest theories as to what the polls missed was the idea of “shy Trump voters” who didn’t want to say when polled that they were planning to vote for Trump, but always knew.
White women, in particular, proved to be a surprise: 53% of them voted for Trump overall, led by those without a college degree, who went for Trump by a 2-1 margin. White women with a college degree went for Clinton, but only barely, by six percentage points. “There’s your shy Trump vote,”tweeted Kristen Soltis Anderson, a pollster at Echelon Insights.
Andersonlater addedthat a bigger problem than secret Trump voters was “a phony mirage of a Clinton vote.” Trump got fewer votes than McCain did in 2008 and Romney did in 2012 and won anyway, because too many Democrats didn’t vote.
Indeed, polling also fails to account for turnout, which was the lowest overall it has been since 2000. (Latino turnout was up from 2012 and skewed toward Clinton, but not by enough to beat Trump.) All non-white ethnic groups went for Clinton, as did millennials—but not enough of them voted.
AsHarvard Business Reviewpoints out, “People tend to say they’re going to vote even when they won’t… the failure of a complex likely voter model is why Gallup got out of the election forecasting business.”
As much as big data (and the technology to sift through it) has advanced, our methods of gathering data are still dated. Most of the national polls are still done by landline telephone. And that has been a problem for over a decade now.
In 2003, Gallup wrote a post about thefalling response ratesin polls. If you start with a target sample size of 1,000 households, Gallup wrote, at least 200 households fall out because they are businesses or non-working numbers. Of the 800 left, another 200 “may be unreachable in the time frame allocated by the researcher… household members at these numbers may use caller ID or other screening devices and refuse to answer.” Now you’re down to 600, of which 200 more people may pick up the phone but refuse to participate in the poll. Suddenly, the sample size has shrunk from 1,000 to a mere 400 households. Declining to pick up the phone, or declining to participate in the poll, may have been a particular problem with this election polling.
The shrinking sample size is a significant problem. As pollster Andersontweeted, the “only way you can bring down margin of error is to raise sample size.” That’s not easily done.
In an interview withBloomberg, Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer pointed to “the continuing barrier of the lack of landlines, the erosion of landlines” as a particular problem this cycle. Bloombergwrote it in October: “Your mobile phone is killing the polling industry.” And Matthew Nisbet atThe Breakthroughnoted back in 2012, “Other under-reported sources of error also factor into a poll’s accuracy, including the greater reliance on cell phones.”
Online polling is a newer method, but has its own problems. Trump campaign managerKellyanne Conway said back in August, after a Trump dip in the polls, that the candidate “performs consistently better in online polling where a human being is not talking to another human being about what he or she may do in the elections.” TheWashington Postpointed out that this wasn’t the case overall—on average, Trump wasn’t doing better in online polls than in telephone polls.
However, a Morning Consult post from Nov. 3 (with nearly the now-suspect headline, “Yes, there are shy Trump voters. No, they won’t swing the election”) pointed out that Trump was doing 1% better in online polls than phone polls, a difference small enough to be dismissed. But here was the key line in the Morning Consult post: “Trump’s edge over Clinton online instead of in phone polling is especially pronounced among people with a college degree or people who make more than $50,000… more-educated voters were notably less likely to say they were supporting Trump during a phone poll than in an online survey.” That was the exact slice of voters that went for Trump more than anyone expected.
So it isn’t black-and-white whether phone or online polls are better, and it isn’t clear that phone polls should die; but it is clear that methods of polling need to evolve and improve, and that the best route to get as many data sets as possible is a combination of different methods.
After an initial immediate backlash to the polls, a newer narrative is already emerging: the polls didn’t fail as terribly as everyone is saying they did.
Many are pointing out that Clinton looks likely to win the popular vote (although barely, and by a smaller margin than Gore won it in 2000). If Clinton does win the popular vote by around one percentage point, then polls that showed Clinton winning by two or three points were only one or two points inflated. Moreover, polls come with a margin of error that in many cases did cover the eventual difference.
The problem is that in a 140-character media landscape, margin of error is often left out, or squeezed into posts and articles as an asterisk.
The election polls were actually off by less than Brexit polls were off. And Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight pointed out on Thursday morning that this year’s polls were in fact more accurate than in 2012. That year, polls generally predicted a slim Obama win margin of 1 percentage point, and he won by 4 points. This time, the polls gave Clinton a margin of 3-4 points, and she looks likely to win the popular vote by 1 or 2.
Of course, that defense won’t exactly quell outrage over the polling (just look at the replies to Silver’s tweet), because the polls in 2012 didn’t call the wrong winner. There’s a big difference between Obama winning by a larger margin than polls said he’d win by, and Trump winning when polls said Clinton would win.
And to be sure, a fair retort to Silver and others claiming that the polls weren’tthatwrong is that the result here was binary: polls could either predict the right winner or the wrong winner. Almost all of them predicted the wrong winner.
Polls are estimates. They are aprojectionof what appears likely to happen, within a margin of error. But we take them too literally. As Fairleigh Dickinson University professor Peter Woolleytold Bloomberg, “We tend to over-report the accuracy of the poll, and tend to forget very quickly that it’s an estimate within a range.” The biggest problem with the polls this time around, then, wasn’t actually the polls, but our interpretation of them.
Because the vast majority of the polls (all of them but two, from USC/LA Times and IBD/TIPP) had Clinton winning, the media and the public counted on a Clinton win, ignoring the fact that most polls had her winning only slightly, and many had a margin of error that allowed for the opposite result. The volume and noise drowned out nuance.
In a September article inThe Atlantic(appropriately headlined, “Taking Trump seriously”), Salena Zito wrote of Trump, “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” The media spent time picking over everything Trump said as though he were serious, when he often wasn’t, and didn’t take him seriously as a legitimate threat to Clinton; his voters didn’t worry too much about each individual shocking sound bite, but took him seriously as a candidate.
In a column published after Trump’s victory,Maureen Dowdof The New York Times pointed to Zito’s line as a “prescient” one, and it truly was—it describes not just the result of the election, but the problem with how the media embraced the polls. Pundits – and the public – took the polls literally.
Many are now asking whether polls are even useful if they can be so wrong. Does the Trump surprise win kill the polling industry? Hardly. Polling isn’t going anywhere, but the methods need to improve, and we must temper our embrace of the predictions they yield. They are only that: predictions.
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.
Read more:
Trump ‘trounced’ Clinton in his use of Facebook video
Facebook and Twitter played very different roles in the 2016 election
Bitcoin price flies after Trump is elected
What it was like to listen to Trump and Clinton debate on the radio || First Bitcoin Capital Acquires Large Stake in One of the Oldest Mineable Cryptocoins Ranked High on Coin Market Cap; Also, Company’s Digital Shares Are Now Listed on Two International Cryptocurrency Exchanges: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 30, 2016 /First Bitcoin Capital Corp. (BITCF) is pleased to announce that it has sold its Venezuela mining concessions for a large stake in the cryptocurrency of one of the oldest mineable coins that ranks high on Coin Market Cap. See:http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/kilocoin/.
Kilocoin which is similar to Litecoin primarily trades on a popular cryptocurrency exchange athttps://c-cex.com/?p=klc-btc
A list of its nodes can be found viahttps://c-cex.com/?id=ws&shownodes=klc
Kilocoin mining can be tracked athttps://www.blockexperts.com/klc#
From its web site viahttp://kilocoin.com/their wallet can be downloaded.
At its current rate of mining (159 coins per block) it should take centuries to reach the maximum of 25,000,000,000 mineable coins with a little over 10,000,000,000 coins mine thus far, giving BITCF nearly 10% participation. The Company anticipates that the KLC exchange will boost BITCF's balance sheet with tremendous upside potential and may become a source of future dividends.
Differences from Bitcoin and Litecoin and Kilocoin
[{"": "Coin limit", "Bitcoin": "21 Million", "Litecoin": "84 Million", "Kilocoin": "25 Billion"}, {"": "Algorithm", "Bitcoin": "SHA-256", "Litecoin": "Scrypt", "Kilocoin": "Scrypt"}, {"": "Mean block time", "Bitcoin": "10 minutes", "Litecoin": "2.5 minutes", "Kilocoin": "5 minutes"}, {"": "Difficulty Target", "Bitcoin": "2016 Block", "Litecoin": "2016 Blocks", "Kilocoin": "288 Blocks"}, {"": "Initial Reward", "Bitcoin": "50 BTC", "Litecoin": "50 LTC", "Kilocoin": "159 KLC"}, {"": "Current block reward", "Bitcoin": "25 BTC", "Litecoin": "50 LTC", "Kilocoin": "159 LTC"}, {"": "Block explorer", "Bitcoin": "blockchain.info", "Litecoin": "block-explorer.com", "Kilocoin": "https://www.blockexperts.com/klc#"}, {"": "Created by", "Bitcoin": "Satoshi Nakamoto", "Litecoin": "Charles Lee", "Kilocoin": "Kilocoin, Inc (DAC)"}, {"": "Creation date", "Bitcoin": "January 3, 2009", "Litecoin": "October 7, 2011", "Kilocoin": "Feb 27th, 2014"}, {"": "Coins Mined (as of 8 April 2015)", "Bitcoin": "14,029,116.67", "Litecoin": "37,984,800", "Kilocoin": "10,013,105,152"}]
Furthermore, in conjunction with BITCF's expanding ownership of its common shares onto its own blockchain (BIT) and trading on foreign international cryptocurrency exchanges, the company is proud to announce that its digital shares are now trading on an additional, popular cryptocurrency exchange, LIVECOINwww.livecoin.net.
About the company:
First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange-www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. "Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets.
www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.comcompany website.
www.CoinQX.comCryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN.
www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site.
www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.
www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY $BURN coins.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || John Reid Confirmed as CEO of Cable and Wireless: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 21, 2016) - John Reid has been confirmed as Chief Executive Officer ofC&W Communications("C&W", or the "Company") effective November 7, 2016. C&W serves 18 countries and is one of the largest full service telecommunications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin America. The Company was recently acquired byLiberty Globalplc "Liberty Global", the world's largest international TV and broadband company.
"This is a time of meaningful change and development for C&W, and I am excited for the expertise and continuity that John brings to this growing region," said Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global. Reid is tasked with aligning the former UK-based company with Liberty's Latin America and Caribbean ("LiLAC Group") division, while strengthening the Company's growth opportunities, in particular triple-play, mobile data and fixed-mobile convergence, and seizing on the significant business-to-business and wholesale opportunities in the region.
"I am honored to lead C&W Communications into the next phase of our development. I look forward to achieving our growth objectives, creating greater value for our stakeholders, and transforming our employee and customer experience," Reid said.
Reid, a Canadian national, is uniquely positioned to take C&W to its next chapter as he has over 28 years of telecommunications and cable television experience, and has spearheaded complex integrations and pioneered a culture of transformation and engagement, first in Canada, and during the past 11 years, across the Caribbean. Prior to his role as Interim CEO of C&W, Reid served as C&W's President, Consumer Division and was part of the executive leadership team at C&W that achieved in excess of $100m in synergies in less than 18 months following the Columbus transaction.
At Columbus, where he was President and Chief Operating Officer, he led the Company to become a leader and innovator in the broadband and entertainment industry across the Caribbean and Latin America. Prior to Columbus John held various roles with Canadian MSO Persona, holding the position of Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer.
John holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Memorial University of Newfoundland, serves as the Chairman of Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), a 49% subsidiary of C&W, and is a member of the Advisory Board of Caribbean Tales.
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Liberty Global invests in the infrastructure that empowers its customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Liberty Global's scale and commitment to innovation enables it to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect its 29 million customers who subscribe to 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. Liberty Global also serves over 10 million mobile subscribers and offers WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for its European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of its operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com.
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3082861 || Here's how traders are positioned ahead of Election Day: The " Fast Money " traders shared their strategies before Americans pick either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as the next president. Trader Steve Grasso cautioned investors to wait for closure from the election before shuffling their portfolios. He said he would mostly hold cash going into the election. Trader Brian Kelly said he is holding gold going into the election. For one, it works as a tail-risk hedge in the situation where Trump wins, but Kelly explained that both major party candidates will push up inflation expectations. For investors looking to stay long in the financial sector, trader Guy Adami said to look at U.S. Bancorp as it's "the most conservative bank out there." 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 Bitcoin, SLV and silver futures, US Dollar UUP. He is short the Japanese yen and the euro. STEVE GRASSO Steve Grasso is long: BA, CC, CHK, EVGN, KBH, MJNA, MON, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX. His children own: EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. No shorts. Grasso's firm is long: APC, VIRT, DVN, LDP, WDR, AVP, CVX, FCX, ICE, KDUS, KO, MAT, MCD, MJNA, NE, NEM, OLN, OXY, RIG, STAG, TAXI, TEX, TITXF, URI, WDR, WYNN, ZNGA, CUBA, HSPO, ICE, AMZN, MJNA, TITXF, SPY, QQQ, DIA, XLI, BGCP, VIRT, GE, AIR FP. TIM SEYMOUR Tim Seymour is long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, CVX, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM and short: EEM, SPY, XRT. His firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, TCEHY, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, and short EWG, HYG, IWM. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || First Bitcoin Capital Corp Announces Appointment of Bitcoin Protocol Development Expert Patrick Dugan to the Company’s Board of Directors. Additional Developments Announced: VANCOUVER, B.C. / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2016 /First Bitcoin Capital Corp is pleased to announce that leading bitcoin protocol development expert in the crypto currency field Patrick Dugan has joined the company's Board of Directors.
A serial entrepreneur with several years of experience in blockchain, finance, ecommerce and game development, Mr. Dugan has extensive knowledge of complex securitization structures and trading strategies.
Mr. Dugan brings 9 years of trading experience, with over 3 years in cryptocurrency trading, averaging 50% annual returns. He served as a consultant on social game economics, and market making operations for exchanges.
Mr. Dugan has served for the last year and a half as operations manager for the Omni Layer Foundation (previously Mastercoin), and has been involved in the issuance of the world's first bearer bonds on the Bitcoin blockchain.
"Patrick Dugan is well known in the international crypto-currency space," the company said. "He brings a wealth of strategic experience in finance and blockchain business development. We look forward to his contributions as a member of our Board as we advance the development of the world’s first on-blockchain REIT offering."
Mrs. Dugan said he seeks to bring to First Bitcoin Capital his expertise in bitcoin and blockchain protocol and assist new or existing initiatives that plan to build upon and take advantage of the capabilities offered by the Omni Layer protocol. BITCF has thus far utilized the Omni Layer Protocol to launch 6 cryptocurrencies such as symbols, PRES, TESLA, HILL, GARY, BURN, and OTX.
Furthermore, in conjunction with BITCF expanding ownership of its common shares onto its own blockchain (BIT) and trading on foreign international cryptocurrency exchanges, the company invites its shareholders to exercise an option to convert their paper certificates into digital shares. Shareholders need only surrender their certificates with instruction to deliver those shares to the BIT wallet address they provide to the company.
About the company:
First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. "Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets.
www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.comcompany website.
www.CoinQX.comCryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN.
www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site.
www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.
www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY $BURN coins.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release .Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
Contact us via:info@bitcoincapitalcorp.comor visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Here's how Walmart and Green Dot could incentivize prepaid use: How unbanked consumers use prepaid cards (BI Intelligence) This story was delivered to BI Intelligence " Payments Briefing " subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here . New gamification features are coming to Walmart MoneyCard, the retailer's prepaid card issued by Green Dot. The program, called Prize Savings, is an effort to encourage holders to keep more money in savings. The firms believe there’s a “savings crisis” in the US, which reportedly prompted the launch of the program, but it could also indirectly increase engagement with Walmart MoneyCard, which ultimately helps both the retailer and the issuer. The program uses cash prizes to incentivize savings. The program enters MoneyCard customers into a monthly sweepstakes for saving funds. Users can use the MoneyCard app or website to transfer money from their card balance into the MoneyCard Vault, a free savings feature. For every dollar they enter into their Vault, they receive one entry in a sweepstakes, which draws 500 winners for cash prizes per month. Indirectly, the program incentivizes users to engage more with their prepaid card, which could indirectly encourage usage. The program pushes users to engage with their MoneyCards more often. Thus far, the program is working. Prize Savings soft-launched in August, and since then has seen a 35% increase in the average Vault savings balance. To transfer, customers are forced to log into their MoneyCard online — something they might not do otherwise — which could help them discover other available features, like reload or transfer options — that they might use down the line. In addition, the cash prizes are distributed directly into users' MoneyCard accounts, which means customers are forced to engage with and use their cards in order to redeem their winnings. This could help users better form habits around the card, which could increase usage of the MoneyCard product. Customers are beginning to use their prepaid card accounts much more like traditional bank accounts than ever before, a move that Prize Savings encourages. That could ultimately improve engagement with MoneyCard, which might ultimately benefit both Walmart and Green Dot in the form of fees. In addition, Green Dot has been looking for ways to improve digital engagement with its offerings, and it’s plausible it could apply a similar model if Prize Savings continues to be effective. Story continues Prepaid cards such as this are just one piece of the much larger payments ecosystem, which has grown more complex in the last several years and now includes issuers, merchants, processors, and more. John Heggestuen, senior research analyst at BI Intelligence , Business Insider’s premium research service, has 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 You won’t recognize the new world of digital payments without this report THE MOBILE PAYMENTS IN CHINA REPORT: What the US can learn from China's enormous success in mobile payments || Bitcoin Activity in India Has Doubled Since the Banknote Ban: Early in November, Indiaabolishedthe 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes in an effort to fight corruption and so-called "black money". Since then, interest in Bitcoin appears to be increasing in the Asian country based on a variety of different metrics. Although there was already a vibrant Bitcoin community in India, the recent move to clamp down on illegal income and tax evasion seems to have sparked new interest in the peer-to-peer digital cash system.
So who uses Bitcoin in India? According toSunny Ray, who is the president and co-founder of Indian bitcoin exchangeUnocoin, there are two main categories of Bitcoin users in the country.Inan interviewwithBitcoin Uncensoredco-hostChris DeRosejust before the large denomination banknote ban was put into place, Ray claimed that 40 to 50 percent of their users are savers who view bitcoin as a digital gold. "India is the largest gold market in the world," said Ray. "If you couple that with—I think it's something like 20 or 25 percent of the world's programming and IT population also live in India—digital gold is obviously something that I think people have the capacity to get."Ray also noted that roughly 20 percent of Unocoin's users are freelancers who use Bitcoin as a cheaper alternative to PayPal. Ray noted that Bitcoin currently offers what are essentially negative fees for freelancers based in India because of the relatively higher price bitcoins sell for in the country.During the Bitcoin Uncensored interview, Ray stressed that his estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as the very nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult to get real user data.
So what's happened since India got rid of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes? For starters, Ray toldCoinJournalthat Unocoin has seen a doubling in traffic and trading volume over the past 30 days.An increase in trading volumecan also be seenonLocalBitcoins, where the daily volume has increased from around 1.25 million rupees (around $18,500) per day before the cash ban to around 2.5 million rupees per day in early December. There was also an all-time high of more than 5.5 million rupees (just over $81,000) worth of bitcoin traded on November 26th.
It's important to remember that LocalBitcoins trading volume is a rather rough metric because many traders continue exchanging bitcoins off of the site after finding someone they trust.
Bitcoin currently trades at a high premium in India due to capital controls in India, which make it difficult for Bitcoin companies, such as Unocoin, to settle against foreign exchanges; however, Unocoin is currently working on a method to bring more bitcoin liquidity into the Indian market.In ablog poston their website,BitGohas noted the value of India-based transactions co-signed by them has increased by 240 percent since September.
While there's been a nice uptick in Bitcoin activity in India over the past month or so, Ray believes the larger effects of India's removal of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes from circulation will be seen over the long term.
"Right now, people are being very careful with their spending," said Ray. "We think it will be long term because with all of the restrictions, the push towards digital money, and the amount of new money that's entering the banking system, some of that will find a home in bitcoin." || The Dark Web: Brought to You by U.S. Taxpayers: Beneath the internet you use every day lies a hidden network of thousands of encrypted sites known as the Dark Web.
Unlike the so-calledclearnet– where everything is open, indexed and searchable – thedarknetoffers anonymous access to information, products and services of all kinds, legal and illegal. Illicit drugs, creative chemists, child pornography and hacked personal information are all readily available, if you know where to look.
The software primarily used for encrypting, hosting and browsingDark Web sites is known as TororThe Onion Router, named for its sites’ .onion suffix. But here’s the thing. The tools were originally developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and DARPA, the advanced research arm of the Department of Defense (DOD). And to this day,Tor is largely funded by the U.S. Government.
I’ll pause for a second to let that sink in.
If you’ve had lingering doubts about the good guys and the bad guys being two sides of the same coin, you can finally put them to rest. Inonionland, crime and punishment don’t just go hand-in-hand. They operate side-by-side. They’re next-door neighbors. Frenemies.
I guess the spooks wanted a way to gather intelligence, track evil doers, and communicate with each other, confidential sources, whistleblowers and dissidents, without leaving an online trail of IP addresses. So in the mid-to-late 90s, they came up with what later became known as Tor, akathe anonymity network.
Wait, the story gets better.
Aside from the scientists, developers, researchers and project managers who handle the technical side of Tor’s suite of software tools, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit is essentially run by Shari Steele, a civil rights attorney and long-time head and legal director of theElectronic Frontier Foundation or EFF.
The EFF is an online civil liberties advocate – essentially a digital version of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The organization, also a 501(c)(3) NPO, has been involved in a long list of lawsuitsagainstfederal law enforcement agencies. Steele and the EFF have been responsible for spearheading and funding Tor since the NRL set the code free in 2004.
ICYMI, the EFF was recently involved in a scuffle withT-Mobile’s free-wheeling CEO, John Legere, claiming the carrier’s unlimited data plan violates net neutrality rules because it offers unlimited streaming of standard quality video and charges $25 more for high-def. Sounds like nitpicking to me, but I guess that’s what activists do.
Steele, incidentally, is married to Bill Vass, engineering veep of Amazon Web Services. Before joining Amazon and running a robotics company, Vass spent much of his career as a senior IT executive with the U.S. Army, the DOD and Sun Microsystems, where he was CIO and oversaw the company’s federal government operation. Strange bedfellows, if you ask me.
Tor bills itself as the best thing since the First and Fourth Amendments, protecting anyone and everyone’s right to online privacy and freedom from prying eyes, web crawlers, IP trackers, search engines, site indexers, trolls and the like. That goes for evil-doers and do-gooders alike.
Whether you’re in the market for protected animals, selling hacked bank account data, peddling the latest designer drug, trying to build a bomb without blowing yourself up, searching for a hitman, a journalist trying to dig up dirt for a hit piece, or men in black, blue or camo, Tor’s Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Android-compatiblehidden servicescan help you do your dirty deeds on the sly.
Keep in mind, .onion marketplaces probably don’t take Visa, MasterCardorAmerican Express. Bitcoin is the currency of choice on the dark side of cyberspace.
The Dark Web is not all dark intentions run amuck, mind you. A new report byventure-backed security firm Terbium Labsfound that just over half the content on a random sampling of 400 of the more than 7,000 Tor sites was legitimate.
There are blogs, chat rooms and political forums free of censorship, political correctness and prying eyes. Facebook maintains a presence there for users living under repressive regimes that limit web access. And some people just don’t like the idea of their online activity being tracked.Google definitely gives me the creeps, that’s for sure.
The FBI has cleaned up a few sites, shutting down at least the first two versions of the infamous Silk Road black market. And while Tor may be the easiest way to get around the Dark Web, it’s certainly not the only way (not that I know anything about that sort of thing). As Tor becomes more mainstream, dark forces will inevitably migrate to shadier networks.
Of all the bizarre and unlikely interactions in the Tor saga, the one that surprises me the least is that you and I paid for it.
Shari Steele or representatives from the Tor Project could not immediately be reached for comment.
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• Yum unit Taco Bell to have 9,000 U.S. outlets by end-2022 || Cable & Wireless Preliminary Q2 2016/17 Results: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 4, 2016) -Cable & Wireless CommunicationsLimited ("CWC") is the leading telecommunications operator in substantially all of its consumer markets, which are predominantly located in the Caribbean and Latin America, providing entertainment, information and communication services to 3.5 million mobile, 0.4 million television, 0.6 million internet and 0.8 million telephony subscribers. In addition, CWC delivers B2B services and provides wholesale services over its sub-sea and terrestrial networks that connect over 30 markets across the region.
Liberty Global's Acquisition of CWCOn May 16, 2016, a subsidiary of Liberty Global plc ("Liberty Global") acquired CWC (the "Liberty Global Transaction"). Revenue, Adjusted Segment EBITDA and subscriber statistics have been presented herein using Liberty Global's definitions for all periods presented unless otherwise noted. Further adjustments to these metrics are possible as the integration process continues. The results for the six months ended September 30, 2016 ("Q2 2016/17") have also been aligned to Liberty Global's EU-IFRS accounting policies and estimates. Significant policy adjustments have been considered in our calculation of rebased growth rates for revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA.
Operating and financial highlights*:
• Delivered 9,000 organic RGU additions in Q2 2016/17
• Mobile revenue 2% lower than the prior year in Q2 2016/17, as compared to Q2 2015/16 on a rebased basis, due primarily to a decrease in the Bahamas
• Establishing Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the CaribbeanSuccessful Olympics campaign with over 4.6 million viewers tuning into Flow channels85% increase in Flow Sports viewership in August versus May through July averageExclusive rights to broadcast Premier League commenced during the quarter
• Strengthened customer proposition in Panama through launch of MAST3R fixed bundles in SeptemberProviding HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality300 Mbps broadband product now available to 135,000 homes
• YTD revenue of $1,141 million, 2% lower YoY, on a rebased basis10% rebased top-line growth in Jamaica more than offset by declines in other major geographies primarily due to competitive and macroeconomic factors and lower managed services revenue
• Net losses of $18 million and $124 million in Q2 2016/17 and YTD, respectively
• YTD Adjusted Segment EBITDA of $411 million, up 1.5% YoY, on a rebased basis$9 million (4%) sequential EBITDA improvement from Q1 2016/17 to Q2 2016/17, reflecting margin improvement of 200 basis points
• Property, equipment and intangible asset additions declined to 17% of revenue in Q2 2016/17 from 25% in Q2 2015/16
• BTC in the Bahamas suffered significant infrastructure damage and business interruption as a result of Hurricane Matthew during early October 2016Anticipate Q3 2016/17 adverse Adjusted Segment EBITDA impact of $8 million to $12 millionTotal infrastructure repair costs estimated at $35 million to $45 millionWe expect that our third-party insurance will cover a significant portion of the hurricane-related losses
Synergies from combination with LiLAC
• LiLAC is targeting $150 million of synergies by December 31, 202050% OCF related -- primarily recurring cost reductions50% capital expenditure related -- recurring and nonrecurringAnticipate a substantial amount of total LiLAC synergies will benefit CWC
* The financial figures contained in this release are prepared in accordance with EU-IFRS.28CWC's financial condition and results of operations will be included in Liberty Global's condensed consolidated financial statements under U.S. GAAP10. There are significant differences between the U.S. GAAP and EU-IFRS presentations of our condensed consolidated financial statements.
Subscriber Statistics
We delivered organic subscriber growth across video, internet and telephony product categories in Q2 2016/17. In our mobile business, which represents roughly 40% of total revenue, postpaid subscriber growth was more than offset by a decline in our prepaid base, primarily due to the impact of competitive offers to lower value subscribers in Panama.
On the mobile front, we continue to invest in our networks to enable the delivery of high speed, resilient mobile services and leading converged products to our customers. We are actively expanding our LTE coverage in Panama and plan to launch LTE in the British Virgin Islands later this year.
Turning to our video, internet and telephony businesses, we added 9,000 organic RGUs during the quarter, as we achieved subscriber growth in each of our products. In terms of broadband internet, we added 7,000 organic subscribers on the back of 5,000 RGU additions in Jamaica and 2,000 RGU additions in Trinidad and Tobago. On the video front, we added 1,000 RGUs in the quarter, primarily driven by our DTH business in Panama. The increased RGUs from our DTH business were largely offset by declines in video RGUs in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago as a result of increased competition.
During the quarter, our regional sports offering, led by Flow Sports and Flow Sports Premier, performed strongly, helping to establish Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the Caribbean. Our official Olympic Games application was downloaded approximately 60,000 times during the event with over 73,000 hours of live content streamed. Flow Sports Premier, following its launch in July, also began providing unrivaled coverage of the Premier League in the region beginning in August 2016.
Rounding out fixed-line products, we added 1,000 telephony subscribers in the quarter, as we continued to modestly increase penetration of our VoIP-based services through bundling across our footprint.
At September 30, 2016, our bundling ratio stood at 1.51 RGUs per customer as 10% of our customers subscribed to a triple-play product, 32% to a double-play product, and 58% took only one product from us. This relatively low bundling ratio provides ample runway for RGU growth as we seek to sell additional products to our customers.
From a geographic standpoint, highlights of the trends in our largest markets are as follows:
• In Panama, mobile subscribers declined by 36,000 in the quarter on an organic basis with the decline weighted towards lower value customers as our postpaid base continued to grow (up 2,000). We are seeking to improve our fixed video and internet performance with our improved "Mast3r" bundles featuring HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality and 300 Mbps broadband speeds.
• In the Bahamas, we grew our mobile customer base by 4,000 subscribers (up 1%) due to increased promotional activity, successfully targeting higher-ARPU postpaid customers. We have made steady progress with our broadband internet and video products following the roll-out of our fiber-to-the-home ("FTTH") network, which now passes 14,000 homes.
• Turning to Jamaica, broadband internet and video RGUs were up 3% and 1%, respectively, as our improved product offering and strong Olympics campaign resonated well in the market. We grew our mobile subscriber base by 3,000 RGUs in the quarter, as we continued to win back market share and launched new products such as Flow Lend, an innovative solution enabling prepaid customers to request credit advances and earn rewards for prompt payment.
• In Barbados, competition drove RGUs lower across all products in the quarter. We are implementing changes to our bundling strategy and focusing on quickly migrating customers who are on legacy DSL services to our high-speed FTTH network.
• Rounding out our main operations, in Trinidad and Tobago we delivered 3,000 organic RGU additions, despite a tough macroeconomic environment and increased competition.
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
5 Issues Each Investor Ought to Learn about #bitcoin https://news.82bitcoin.com/2016/12/19/five-things-every-investor-should-know-about-bitcoin-24 …pic.twitter.com/iSnv1VegyE || MMMBTC || Zug, the Heart of the Swiss Crypto Valley, Warms to Bitcoin: The little Swiss city of Zug .. #Bitcoin #BTC #News http://dld.bz/fn4J7 || MMMBTC || #Bitcoin last trade
@bitstamp $881.00
@coinbase $870.83
Set #crypto #price #alerts at http://AlertCo.in || How To Use A Bitcoin ATM For Beginners: http://www.oodlestechnologies.com/blogs/How-To-Use-A-Bitcoin-ATM-For-Beginners#.WFaGf1BmJ7I.twitter … || CALLING DIGITAL CRYPTO PRENEURS,our special invite only member club, rewards of between 8 & 12% #bitcoin #london
http://tcpros.co/VsmFQ || Indian Bitcoin Exchange Suffers Outage as DDoS Attacks Continue http://ift.tt/2h2MWeM pic.twitter.com/ZnppeamtHo || MMMBTC || MMMBTC
|
Trend: down || Prices: 975.92, 973.50, 961.24, 963.74, 998.33, 1021.75, 1043.84, 1154.73, 1013.38, 902.20
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin group scores funds from biggest names in industry: Bitcoin-related businesses raised more venture capital money in 2015 than in any year before: $485 million, according to industry news siteCoinDesk. And yet, even as they court more VC interest, these companies continue to deal with skepticism from the general public and from top executives of big financial institutions, likeJamie Dimonof JPMorgan (JPM).
So they're turning to a non-profit advocacy group for help.
Coin Center, a 501(c)(4) lobbying group founded in 2014, calls itself the "leading non-profit research and advocacy center" for public policy on "cryptocurrency technologies such as Bitcoin." Its supporters already included well-known venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz (Marc Andreessen is a vocal bitcoin believer), and some of the biggest companies in the industry, including Chain, Coinbase, and Xapo. Now Coin Center is about to get a lot louder: This month it has raised $1 million in new donations, Yahoo Finance has learned.
In an industry where the hottest companies have had recent fundraising rounds of $116 million (21 Inc.), $50 million (Circle) and $30 million (Chain), $1 million may sound like small potatoes—and it is, although Coin Center says it will help fund travel for its five staff members, who spend much of their time meeting with lawmakers to discuss policy.
But as some big banks have joined a consortium to explore the possibilities of the blockchain (the public, open ledger on which all bitcoin transactions are logged), what is significant here is that Coin Center's extensive list of new supporters includes some of the most powerful people in the exploding fintech sector. Among those who donated are 21 Inc. (which last year released a small bitcoin-mining computer aimed at making it easier to develop bitcoin apps), BitStamp, Overstock.com (OSTK), which was one of the first major online retailers to accept bitcoin as payment, and Digital Currency Group.
That last firm is key: Led by SecondMarket founder Barry Silbert, DCG has invested in 65 different bitcoin companies, and the companies in its portfolio have raised 70% of all the venture capital in the space. DCG is to the bitcoin industry what Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) is to the beer market, or what IAC (IAC) has been to online-dating companies.
"Our mission is to accelerate the development of a better financial system," Silbert tells Yahoo Finance, "and the way we will do that is investing in great companies, starting companies, buying companies, and helping organizations like Coin Center." In other words: Silbert wants to have his hands in as many digital-currency entities as possible to ensure his influence, and he is quickly carrying out that strategy. It's why DCGbought outrightthe industry's leading news site, CoinDesk."There are many ways lawmakerscould stifle the bitcoin blockchain," Silbert says, "so providing awareness and education is a very important part of what will make this industry sustainable."
In short: Coin Center is getting more influential, and now it has people backing it who have deep pockets and major interest in keeping regulators from interfering too much in what bitcoin companies are doing. Coin Center is not a trade association—none of the companies in the bitcoin industry are members. But it certainly shares their interests.
Jerry Brito, Coin Center's executive director, isa law professor who has testified before Congress about cryptocurrencies. Hesays Coin Center's primary audience is policy-makers—and these people can often be confused about the industry. The fear of bitcoin businesses is that politicians will hastily regulate, or even shut down startups, before they understand the technology. (The tension is not unlike the battle raging in daily fantasy sports right now.) Coin Center can help, Brito says: "Policy makers hear about these negative aspects, whether it’s ransoms, or drug sales, or the like, and they will often contact law enforcement and say, 'What's up with this?' This is a challenge just like all new technologies have been, from email to pagers, butwe think that we can get a handle on this."
To that end,Coin Center teamed with the Chamber of Digital Commerce in October to help create The Blockchain Alliance, a safe-space private forum in which law enforcement groups like the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice can pose questions to bitcoin startup executives and policy pundits. Think of the alliance like a Justice League for bitcoin. But it is unclear how frequently the forum is being used, since the media isn't allowed in.
Last year, New York became the first state to release its own regulatory framework specifically devoted to digital currency businesses. Called the BitLicense, it was met with so much opposition from the bitcoin community that a slew of companies packed up and left New York, cutting off service to customers in the state. Other companies happily applied for a license, but bemoaned the high cost.
Coin Center makes its stance on legislation clear. "If you look back, [former New York Department of Financial Services superintent]Ben Lawsky said he didn't want to interfere with innovation or hurt business. Ultimately, the BitLicense that we got did not succeed at that. It is not a good model for other states to follow," he says. "I think the only solution is a light touch approach. If you go heavy-handed, as a regulator, you’ll do two things: not meet your goals, typically, becasuse you’ll make it so difficult that people can’t even comply with it, and not get the visibility that you want as a regulator." Those in the bitcoin business, of course, like that argument quite a lot.
Marc Andreessen has been Coin Center's biggest donor since the beginning, giving the lion's share of help. But with Silbert flexing his muscle, Coin Center's role in advocating for digital currency will strengthen. (Brito says donors "can give input," but not dictate what Coin Center does.)
Coin Center has received $2 million in donations to date, and it now plans to seek $1 million every year. It won't have much trouble getting it.
--
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.Read more:
Bitcoin industry consolidates: Why Kraken bought Coinsetter
Bitcoin's biggest investor bought its biggest news site
Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin
Fantex, the 'athlete stock exchange,' signs first golfer || 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 || Mike Tyson Dives Deeper Into Bitcoin: Former boxing star Mike Tyson is deepening his interest in the bitcoin space by creating a digital bitcoin wallet that will allow users to store, purchase and sell the cryptocurrency. The wallet was developed by Bitcoin Direct in partnership with BitPay and will be one of the first wallets that allows users to buy and sell from inside the app.
Tyson's Bitcoin Projects
This is not Tyson's first foray into the bitcoin space. He partnered with Bitcoin Direct last year to launch a line of bitcoin ATMs that gave people the ability to turn cash into bitcoins at any machine's location. Now, with Tyson endorsing a wallet as well, many are wondering whether or not celebrity attention will drive mainstream usage.
The new wallet will feature Tyson's tribal face tattoo as the background image and is available for download on iOS. An Android version is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Celebrity Appeal
Bitcoin Direct believes that Tyson's popularity around the world and across several generations makes him a good option to engage the masses,saying that his"potential to expand the Bitcoin market is dramatic." However, it remains unknown whether or not the power of celebrity will be enough to encourage new users.
Safety Still A Concern
Although celebrity endorsements often get products more notoriety, bitcoin itself has struggled with safety and security issues that some believe can't be overcome by a recognizable face. Tyson may bring more attention to the cryptocurrency community, but he may not be able to convince the public that it is trustworthy. Instead, many believe that more regulation is the real key to taking bitcoin mainstream as that would provide users with more protections.
Image credit:Eduardo Merille, Flickr
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Flux Party seeks to be the bitcoin of Australian politics: By Matt Siegel SYDNEY (Reuters) - A new Australian political party is using the virtual currency bitcoin as a model to replace what they say is an outdated political system - representative democracy - with a streamlined new polity for the information age. The Flux Party says its goal is to elect six senators. They will propose no policies and will not follow their consciences, but will support or block legislation at the direction of their members, who can swap or trade their votes on every bill online. "If they didn't have to be senators, if they could just be software or robots they would be, because their only purpose is to do what the people want them to do," Flux Party co-founder Max Kaye told Reuters in an interview. Australia is set to hold an election in September or October after a period of turmoil that brought five prime ministers in as many years. At the same time the upper house, which thanks to the quirks of its electoral system has a history of returning mavericks and fringe party candidates, has been hopelessly deadlocked by a handful of senators, at least one elected on less than 1 percent of the vote. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week raised the possibility of calling an early poll to break the gridlock that has held up the government's legislative agenda. That type of policy inertia is what bitcoin enthusiasts Kaye and Flux co-founder Nathan Spataro say inspired them to explore alternative systems that better represent the world of 2016. Bitcoin is a web-based "cryptocurrency" used to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority. The technology behind it is called the blockchain - a massive electronic ledger of every transaction that is verified and shared by a global network of computers. To Spataro and Kaye, bitcoin is not just an alternative financial system: it is the missing link between representative democracy and Democracy 2.0. "This ancient system we've got of representative democracy, which at the time liberated us from monarchies and was awesome, now we're at a point where it's become this monster," Spataro said. Story continues "We're in a society now that's got the Internet and when democracy in its current form was conceived, you had to sail on a ship from England to get here. This model wasn't designed for this world." "DELIGHTFULLY NAIVE" Bitcoin's strength comes from its ability to build trust through ease of verification and by removing human frailty from the equation, said Dr. Adrian Lee, an expert on bitcoin at the University of Technology Sydney. That makes what the Flux Party is proposing both unique and also potentially fraught. "I haven't seen a party which would vote via blockchain," Lee said. "If you removed the politician and made it just a bitcoin machine, then maybe it would work but you can't do that," he said, noting the absence of a legally binding mechanism to make Flux senators vote as directed. Although the party's architecture for calculating and distributing voters' wishes to their elected officials uses highly complex computer code, the overall idea is fairly simple. Flux members and single-issue campaigners that agree to support the party at the election are allotted bitcoin-like tokens that they can use themselves, trade or give to experts or interest groups they trust to vote as their proxy. Outcomes are distributed proportionately, so if 80 percent vote in favor of a bill and 20 against, five Flux senators vote yea and one nay. Ministers are not often experts in their portfolio, and yet they are charged with making critical decisions on issues such as environmental or fiscal policy. Under their system, the Flux Party founders say, large blocs of voters could effectively grant their vote on such issues to a scientist or economist. "You get sick, you go to the doctor, right? You don't self-diagnose and you don't go and call your plumber," Kaye said. The Party filed its registration papers with the Australian Election Commission last month after obtaining the requisite support of at least 550 registered voters. Its website currently puts its membership at 1,009 people. Attempting to apply the transformative power of the Internet to democratic systems is not a new one, said Peter Chen, a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Sydney, who called the Flux Party "delightfully naive people". "They're just the modern version of something that's always been around: utopian political system designers," he said. "They're obviously guys who are really focused on the tech thing and that has always been the problem with the e-democracy people. They're often really tech-driven and they need political scientists at the brainstorming floor to say 'well, I don't know if that'd work'." (Reporting by Matt Siegel; Editing by Alex Richardson) || You say advertising, I say block that malware: The real reason online advertising is doomed and adblockers thrive? Its malware epidemic is unacknowledged, and out of control.
The Forbes 30 Under 30 list came out this week and it featured a prominent security researcher. Other researchers were pleased to see one of their own getting positive attention, and visited the site in droves to view the list.
On arrival, like a growing number of websites, Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers in order to view the article. After doing so, visitors were immediately served with pop-under malware, primed to infect their computers, and likely silently steal passwords, personal data and banking information. Or, as is popular worldwide with these malware "exploit kits," lock up their hard drives in exchange for Bitcoin ransom.
One researcher commented on Twitter that the situation was "ironic" -- and while it's certainly another variant ofhackenfreude, ironic isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe what happened.
That's because this situation spotlights what happened in 2015 to billions -- yep, billions -- of people who were victims of virus-infected ads which were spread via ad networks like germs from a sneeze across the world's most popular websites.
Less than a month ago, a bogus banner ad was found serving malvertising to visitors of video site DailyMotion. After discovering it, security companyMalwarebytescontacted the online ad platform the bad ad was coming through, Atomx. The company blamed a "rogue" advertiser on the WWPromoter network.
It was estimated the adware broadcast through DailyMotion put 128 million people at risk. To be specific, it was from the notorious malware family called "Angler Exploit Kit." Remember this name, because I'm pretty sure we're going to be getting to know it a whole lot better in 2016.
Last August, Angler struck MSN.com with -- you guessed it -- another drive-by malvertising campaign. It was the same campaign that had infected Yahoo visitors back in July (an estimated 6.9 billion visits per month, it'sconsideredthe biggest malvertising attack so far).
October saw Angler targeting Daily Mail visitors through poisoned ads as well (monthly ad impressions64.4 million). Only last month, Angler's malicious ads hit visitors to Reader's Digest (210K readers;ad impressions 1.7M). That attack sat unattended after being in the press, and was fixed only after a week of public outcry.
It's crazy to consider what a perfect marriage this is, between the advertisers and the criminals pushing the exploit kits. They have alotin common.
Both try to trick us into giving them something we don't want to. We've recently learned that both entities surveil and track us beyond what we're OK with. And both are hard to get rid of. You know, like those gross toenail and skin condition ad-banners found at the bottom of every cheapo blog you've ever seen, forever burned into the "can't unsee" section of your brain.
It actually makes business sense to think about malware attacks like an advertiser. You want to deliver your infection to, and scrape those dollars from, every little reader out there. You need a targeted delivery system, with the widest distribution, and as many clueless middlemen as possible.
It's easy to want to blame Reader's Digest, or Yahoo, or Forbes, or Daily Mail, or any of these sites for screwing viewers by serving them malicious ads and not telling them, or not helping them with the cleanup afterward. And it's a hell of a lot easier when they've compelled us to turn off our ad blockers to simply see what brought us to their site.
But the problem is coming through them, from the ad networks themselves. The same ones, it should be mentioned, who control the Faustian bargains made by bartering and selling our information.
What should the websites do? The ad networks clearly don't have a handle on this at all, giving us one more reason to use ad blockers. They're practically the most popular malware delivery systems on Earth, and they're making the websites they do business with into the same poisonous monster. I don't even want to think about what it all means for the security practices of the ad companies handling our tracking data or the sites we visit hosting these pathogens.
So, to my friend on theForbes 30 Under 30 list-- a malware researcher, which I'll concede is actually ironic -- I'm sorry I won't be seeing your time in that particular spotlight. What we need is a word for the fact that ad blockers have become our first line of defense against a malware epidemic. Especially during a time when the sites we visit are begging, pleading, demanding and practically tricking us into turning off Ad Block Plus.
[Image credit: Getty Images] || XBT Provider AB: Bitcoin Tracker EUR (COINXBE) Now Available on Nasdaq Nordic through Interactive Brokers: Stockholm, Sweden (January 19, 2016) - XBT Provider AB (publ) announced today the availability of the ETN Bitcoin Tracker EUR in 179 countries. Starting today anyone with an Interactive Brokers account can trade the ETN Bitcoin Tracker EUR. The ticker code is COINXBE. ISIN: SE0007525332
The tracker is an exchange traded note designed to mirror the return of the underlying asset, U.S. dollar (USD) per bitcoin.
This is the first bitcoin-based security denominated in Euro available on a regulated exchange. XBT Provider launched this financial instrument to meet the needs of investors` growing appetite for exposure to bitcoin prices.
"Bitcoin tracker EUR" is listed on Nasdaq Nordic and traded in the same manner as any share or instrument listed on the Nasdaq exchange in Stockholm. COINXBE is also available via Bloomberg terminals.
Direct link to specifications at Nasdaq:http://www.nasdaqomxnordic.com/etp/etn/etninfo?Instrument=SSE113749
Direct link to specifications at Bloomberg:http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/COINXBE:SS
The full prospectus and more information is available onxbtprovider.com
ABOUT THE ISSUER: XBT PROVIDER
XBT Provider AB (publ) is a public limited liability company formed in Sweden with statutory seat in Stockholm. The issuer is incorporated under Swedish law and registered with the Swedish companies` registration office under registration number 559001-3313.
Press release (PDF)
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: XBT Provider AB via GlobeNewswireHUG#1975095 || MarilynJean Interactive (MJMI.QB) Shareholder Update: Marilynjean Interactive ( MJMI ) Is Pleased To Update Its Shareholders on Its Business Plan for the Coming Year HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / January 18, 2016 / The crypto-currency space saw major strides forward in 2015 with ground-breaking developments in its underlying technology and regulation as well as an unexpected rise in Bitcoin prices. The space appears poised for a quantum leap forward in 2016 and MarilynJean is excited to be a part of what will likely be tremendous growth in the industry. From a technology standpoint, Bitcoin's blockchain is envisioned to revolutionize the settlement of securities and payments for both financial and non-financial institutions alike. Major stock and futures exchanges, clearing houses, and other technology organizations are exploring the use of blockchain technology to underpin their transaction verification systems. Bloomberg estimates that approximately $373 million was invested in Bitcoin start-ups in 2015. As investment in Bitcoin and blockchain technology grew, new regulation evidenced that Bitcoin is on track to become a widely used and accepted currency. New York issued its first Bitlicense allowing Goldman Sachs backed Circle Internet Financial to offer digital currency services in the state. The advent of regulated exchanges and trading instruments may have been a factor in driving demand for Bitcoin, its value having increased over 40% in 2015. While price volatility remained higher than traditional FIAT currencies, 2015 was overall a more stable year than its predecessor for Bitcoin. Looking ahead to 2016, MJMI plans to continue its focus on the key verticals of exchange, remittance and gaming. In addition, the Company plans to seek partnerships with firms involved specifically in development of applications based on blockchain technology. The Company plans to continue to expand its management and advisory board in 2016, advance the partnerships it began negotiating last year and continue to forge new alliances in the space. Story continues Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "We believe that MJMI's best avenue for growth is via acquisitions and strategic partnerships. We expect the industry to continue to expand and evolve rapidly and, as such, we expect our publicly traded currency to be a key strategic tool for growth and financing." About MJMI MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular Bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of Bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence. MJMI is currently exploring partnerships in several verticals within the crypto-currency space. Management believes that several industries, including international remittances, currency exchange and online gambling are on the verge of being revolutionized by the use of Bitcoin to effect transactions. MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focused on Bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is OTCQB: MJMI. Website: www.marilynjean.com Press Contact: bonnie@marilynjean.com SOURCE: MarilynJean Media Interactive || Cybersecurity A Hot Topic At Davos: Cybersecurity has been a hot-button issue in both the public and private sectors over the past year after a spate of hacking attacks left several companies in jeopardy and illustrated that the U.S. government is struggling to keep pace with hackers. With concerns about cyber-terrorism ramping up in the wake of several terror strikes around the world, the Word Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has become a battle ground for world leaders and tech firms to discuss how to protect each nation's security without compromising customers' privacy, according to the Wall Street Journal. Data Tug Of War Government officials are pushing tech firms like Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB ) and Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR ) to make their data more accessible in order to give law enforcement better surveillance options. Related Link: Bitcoin Makes An Appearance At Davos They argue current encryption processes make it impossible for the firms to give officials access to communications that could be essential in preventing further terror attacks. However, tech firms say that making data more accessible would land them in a difficult position, as it makes customer data more accessible to everyone, not just law enforcement. Brad Smith, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT )'s chief legal officer said that loosening encryption could violate customer privacy laws in the United States, causing tech firms to choose which laws they want to break in order to comply with government requests. Making Customers Happy Companies like Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG ) (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ) have ramped up their privacy protection in the years since U.S. contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents detailing the Untied States' widespread surveillance practices. Since that time, many consumers have become much more conscious about their privacy protection, and companies like Google and Apple have responded by using encryption that even they don't have the keys to. Story continues Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Apple Moves Into India Twitter Begins The Year On A Low Are Share Repurchases On The Horizon? © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Blockchain Moves Forward In The Financial Industry: Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have had a lot of negative attention over the past year, as several hacking attacks and scams have painted the coins as an unsafe way to make transactions.
However, blockchain, the ledger-like system that bitcoin runs on, has received a great deal of praise across several industries that say the technology has the potential to completely reform the way they do business. This is especially true in the financial space, where banks say that although they are still wary of bitcoin transactions, incorporating blockchain into their operations could actually improve their businesses.
Related Link:Now You Can Play The Lottery With Bitcoin
Cross-Border Payments
One way blockchain could improve the financial industry is by improving the way banks make cross-border transactions.
The current system is cumbersome and takes a great deal of time and effort for both the sending and receiving bank. This process has made it difficult for banks to interact with one another from country to country, but incorporating blockchain could change all of that. The ledger system would streamline cross-border payments and take out much of the administrative work associated with processing international transactions.
Closer To Integration
From January 11 to January 15, several major banks begantestingwhether blockchain could be used in this way and the results looked promising, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Eleven different banks were able to use a private blockchain in order to exchange tokens across several continents. The test included big name financial institutions likeBarclays PLC (ADR)(NYSE:BCS),Credit Suisse Group AG (ADR)(NYSE:CS) andWells Fargo & Co(NYSE:WFC), and it is expected to pave the way for future blockchain investments. While this initial test provided only a small snapshot of what blockchain is capable of, many believe that its success will push banks to continue testing the technology and eventually put it into practice.
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 5 'Bold' Predictions For 2016: In a new report, Cup & Handle Macro analyst Michael Lingenheld revealed five bold market predictions for 2016. Here’s a breakdown of his list.
1. Revolution in a major emerging market
Lingenheld believes that South Africa is the top target, but names Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Russia as other possibilities. All of these countries are currently suffering from large debt burdens, poor leadership and high youth unemployment.
2. Bitcoin outperforms all fiat currencies
Lingenheld made this same prediction prior to 2015, and it came true. Bitcoin gained 35 percent in 2015, and he sees no reason why the cryptocurrency won’t outperform again in 2016.
3. A major currency peg will break
Lingenheld notes that the IMF’s annual review of currency regimes revealed than only 35 percent of member countries let their currencies float as of the beginning of 2015. He adds that Middle Eastern countries suffering from low oil prices are top candidates, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE.
“Bringing down any of these pegs would be a major macro story, but a free-floating or devalued Hong Kong Dllar would be a monumental development,” Lingenheld explains.
4. Corn and wheat will each rally at least 20 percent
Global stock-to-use ratios are at 16-year highs, and low gas prices have been a major boost for farmers. However, Lingenheld is not convinced that crop prices are high enough to drive a huge planting season in the spring.
5. A unicorn company will go bankrupt
Lingenheld sees a shift in market enthusiasm for new tech companies, including the disappointingSquare Inc(NYSE:SQ) IPO pricing. He believes that the reality of competing with big tech companies likeAlphabet Inc(NASDAQ:GOOGL), Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) andAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) will start weighing heavily on smaller unicorn companies and their investors.
Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.
Latest Ratings for AAPL
[{"Dec 2015": "Dec 2015", "Cowen & Company": "Barclays", "Maintains": "Maintains", "": "", "Market Perform": "Overweight"}, {"Dec 2015": "Dec 2015", "Cowen & Company": "BMO Capital", "Maintains": "Initiates Coverage on", "": "", "Market Perform": "Outperform"}]
View More Analyst Ratings for AAPLView the Latest Analyst Ratings
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: 0.00000005 Bittrex: 0.00000005 Average $2.1E-5 per #reddcoin 14:00:01 via #p…pic.twitter.com/8nhA31d5vo || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$454.56/$455.25 #Bitstamp
$450.00/$450.00 #BTCe
⇢$-5.25/$-4.56
$455.87/$456.00 #Coinbase
⇢$0.62/$1.44 || 現在の価格は 43260円(http://blockchain.info )です。前回比は-2円(-0.00%)です。http://konvert.in/currency/1-bitcoin-to-japanese-yen … #ビットコイン #bitcoin via @konvertin || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 16 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $58.99 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 11 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $80.60 #bitcoin #btc || 1 #bitcoin 1312.16 TL, 429.969 $, 400.022 €, GBP, 30367.00 RUR, 51000 ¥, CNH, 610 CAD #btc || LIVE: Profit = $289.96 (3.45 %). BUY B20.42 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $426.39 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Goedkoopste Nederlandse aanbieder op dit moment is Clevercoin (http://www.bitcoinweb.nl/kopen-clevercoin …) - 393.00 Euro/bitcoin - http://www.bitcoinweb.nl/prijzen-bitcoins-vergelijken/ … || $416.06 at 00:30 UTC [24h Range: $404.00 - $421.11 Volume: 11919 BTC] || LIVE: Profit = $25.92 (1.86 %). BUY B3.65 @ $380.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $386.36 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org
|
Trend: down || Prices: 437.75, 420.74, 424.95, 424.54, 432.15, 432.52, 433.50, 437.70, 435.12, 423.99
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2017-10-23]
BTC Price: 5930.32, BTC RSI: 72.88
Gold Price: 1277.70, Gold RSI: 43.51
Oil Price: 51.90, Oil RSI: 58.29
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Prices Cant Be Stopped: Bitcoin prices took a hit when China seemingly announced a crackdown, but the correction wasnt tragic and, in the long term it wont matter. On the basis of mainstream hysteria and the questionable use of click-bait tactics, youd think that bitcoin prices were completely collapsing. Certainly, the price chart doesnt help matters. Since hitting an all-time high of $5,000, the digital coin fell briefly below the $4,000 mark. Due to what CNBC termed as a Chinese crackdown on cryptocurrencies, traders rushed for cover. Again, on the surface, its easy to assume that China banned cryptocurrencies altogether. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Bitcoin prices Source: Shutterstock If that were the case, bitcoin prices would have corrected with far greater magnitude. Fortunately, thats not whats happening here. If you read the fine print, ended the practice of initial coin offerings , or ICOs. To outsiders, the distinction may be lost, but its actually a critical one. An ICO is a corporate fundraising operation similar to an initial public offering. The key difference is that rather than the issuance of equity shares, a company instead offers a new digital currency. Called tokens, these financial stakes are sold to investors, who acquire them via fiat currencies, bitcoin, or other major cryptocurrencies. The granular details of the ICO isnt really that important for our discussion. Rather, its the fact that ICOs effectively bypass financial laws and regulations that govern legitimate fundraising activities. This matter is further exacerbated (at least from the regulatory perspective) because of the concealed nature of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. China banned the ICO practice because it would mean substantive economic transactions are occurring outside of their yuan. Obviously, China has global ambitions, as noted by the rise of companies like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA ), Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ: BIDU ), and JD.Com Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ: JD ). They have incentives to protect their interests; hence, their reactionary moves and the ensuing correction in bitcoin prices. Story continues Still, this is hardly the end of cryptocurrencies! The 10 Best Tech Stocks from Top-Ranked Analysts Bitcoin Prices Are Beyond Chinas Power First off, China struggled for years to address money outflow problems. Historically speaking, the average Chinese doesnt have the saturated experiences that we do with the stock markets. Thus, they may not always react calmly to both bullish and bearish phases. Inevitably, this exacerbates the outflow issue as Chinese investors flock to safe-haven assets. Such assets include U.S. and western real-estate markets. A big reason why were experiencing multi-year record home prices in many American neighborhoods is due to Chinese buying frenzies . China has largely been ineffective in curbing this outflow, but they want to plug any holes they can. The ICO crackdown is a good start for them. Naturally, this event negatively impacted bitcoin prices, but dont expect a permanent downfall in cryptocurrencies. The communist government will always make noise with their anachronistic policies, thats what they do. But at the time of writing, bitcoin jumped up to $4,528. From its $5,000 high, the correction is now just under 10%, which is bad, but very much recoverable. In my article about the possibility of $10,000 bitcoin, I cited the accelerated time frame as one way that cryptocurrencies will continue to surprise people. Its also the reason why Im not worried about China or the current bearish cycle. The stock market is open on business days only for six-and-a-half hours (assuming public trading hours). Contrasting sharply, bitcoin is open 24/7, no exceptions. In one day, bitcoin will trade for nearly four Wall Street days. By next Monday, cryptocurrencies will have traded for 168 hours, or more than a month in stock-market time. In other words, bitcoin prices have likely fully absorbed the China crackdown, to the point that its literally old news. China matters, but it doesnt matter that much. 10 Retirement Stocks to Buy and Hold for the Rest of Your Life Cryptocurrencies Will Change Finance Forever Where bitcoin is now, and where it will be are two different things. Currently, only the knowledgeable and the relatively well off are putting money to work with cryptocurrencies. But eventually, the digitalization of money is the ultimate frontier for the broader financial industry. Strangely enough, this point is best illustrated in the recent flare-up involving North Korea. In the wee hours of the morning, the hermit nation is either testing their ICBMs or detonating hydrogen bombs. But traditional market investors have no way of trading this news in real-time. Instead, they have to wait, per (antiquated) protocol, for the stock market to open at 9:30am EST. Should armed conflict breakout on a weekend or on Presidents Day, investors are completely out of luck. Not only are these rules and regulations completely ridiculous in a globally-connected, technologically-advanced world, theyre arbitrary and unfair. Market insiders and professionals can get in and out, whereas the general public will likely hold the bag. Bitcoins revolutionary concept is to provide a fair platform for everyone, irrespective of nationality, social status, and education level. In my opinion, this idea is so groundbreaking that it cannot be suppressed indefinitely. Sure, China and the ICO mess is concerning in the nearer-term. But innovations like bitcoin have a way of sparking mass integration. To contain cryptocurrencies is akin to containing the internet. I suppose you can be successful for a while. But once you go digital, youll never go traditional. Josh Enomoto is long bitcoin. The post Bitcoin Prices Cant Be Stopped appeared first on InvestorPlace . || 5 top finance stories, and how Bitcoin is in hyperinflation: North Korea fires another missile over Japan: North Korea sent a missile over Japan and into the northern Pacific Ocean in its longest-ever test flight. According to a North Korean newspaper, this demonstrates that the country can “turn the American empire into a sea in flames through sudden surprise attack from any region and area.”
Alphabet is looking to invest in Lyft: Alphabet’s private-equity arm may invest $1 billion in ride-hailing company Lyft, Bloomberg reported. Lyft is the No. 2 ride provider behind Uber Technologies.
Angry Birds maker Rovio thinks it’s worth $1 billion: Finnish mobile games company Rovio Entertainment set its the initial price range for its IPO at 10.25-11.50 euros per share would give the company a market value of 802 million euros to 896 million euros ($955.34 million – $1.07 billion).
Oracle earnings beat expectations, but outlook disappoints: Oracle’s reported revenue of $9.21 billion and earnings of $0.62 per share, beating expectations for the quarter ending August 31. But management’s outlook for current quarter earnings fell short of expectations, signaling slowing growth in its red-hot cloud computing business.
US equity funds see biggest inflows in 13 weeks: Investors poured $1.9 billion into US stock funds in the week ending September 14, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
World marketsare brushing off the latest defiant act from North Korea. Stocks closed higher in Asia with Japan’s Nikkei climbing 0.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng up 0.1%. Markets are flat in Europe. The British pound climbed to a 14-month high of $1.35 afterBank of England’s Gertjan Vlieghe said“the appropriate time for a rise in Bank Rate might be as early as in the coming month.”
Japan’s Softbank wants a big chunk of Uber, but at a steep discount
Macy’s to hire 80,000 workers for holidays, fewer than last year
Portland probe finds Uber used software to evade 16 government officials
Facebook is the latest tech giant to hunt for AI talent in Canada
Who’s Warren Buffett’s successor? JPMorgan thinks it’s Greg Abel
Hugh Hendry closes hedge fund after 15 years as losses mount
• 8:30am: Retail Sales: Analysts estimate 0.1% growth month-over-month, or 0.3% excluding autos and gas.
• 9:15am: Industrial Production: Analysts estimate 0.1% growth month-over-month.
• 10:00am: Univ. of Michigan Consumer Sentiment: Analysts estimate this index fell to 95 from 96.8 a month ago.
Theunfavorable sentiment towards Bitcoin by Wall Street analysts persists. Here’sUBS’s Paul Donovonon the suggestion that Bitcoin is a currency: “In 1922, the start of the Weimar hyperinflation saw the German Mark lose 27% of its value against the dollar every fortnight. Bitcoin has lost 45% of its value against the dollar in the last fortnight. If Bitcoin were a currency, that loss of value would be considered hyperinflation. German Mark banknotes could be reused as wallpaper. Bitcoin cannot.”
Hurricane Irma couldn’t come at a worse time for the US Virgin Islands
Here’s Facebook Messenger’s plan to get its next 1 billion users
You have over 70 different credit scores
Why NFL scandals don’t matter to corporate sponsors
You and I don’t deserve a tax cut || Dollar Rises After U.S. Producer Inflation Rebound in August: The U.S. Dollar posted a solid gain against a basket of currencies on Wednesday after a report showed U.S. producer prices rebounded in August and as traders shifted their focus to consumer inflation data due on Thursday. Both producer and consumer inflation data will be important to the Federal Open Market Committee when it meets next week to discuss monetary policy. September U.S. Dollar Index futures settled at 92.508, up 0.652 or +0.71%. Daily September U.S. Dollar Index The index rallied after the U.S. Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand increased 0.2 percent in August after slipping 0.1 percent in July. The rebound was driven by a surge in the cost of gasoline. While the rebound suggests that the U.S. economy is holding on to underlying momentum, traders should note that the overall demand picture may not lead to an increase in consumer prices. All the producer price data showed was that the U.S. economy was retaining underlying momentum. Domestic producer prices actually came in less than forecast. The Fed meets next week, but is not expected to raise rates. Daily GBPUSD Forex The GBP/USD hits its highest level in a year, but a massive wave of selling pressure drove the Forex pair lower for the session, forming a potentially bearish closing price reversal top chart pattern. The catalyst behind the selling pressure was weaker-than-expected U.K. wage growth which may have curtailed the Bank of England’s plans to raise rates in response to a surge in inflation. Daily December Comex Gold Gold Gold retreated to its lowest level in 1 ½ weeks on Wednesday in response to a jump in the U.S. Dollar Index. Weaker stock prices probably prevented further losses. Low volatility in higher risk assets and a more cautious approach by investors has led to profit-taking weakness in gold this week. Demand for gold as a safe-haven asset has dropped this week due to reduced concerns over North Korea. Daily November West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil Crude Oil U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil rallied sharply higher on Wednesday in response to a bullish report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Story continues According to the IEA, global oil demand is set to accelerate faster than anticipated this year. Strong second-quarter demand has buoyed oil markets, which have been struggling to rebalance as a supply glut has weighed heavily on prices, the IEA said in its September report released on Wednesday. In other news, U.S. crude stockpiles rose sharply last week and gasoline inventories fell the most on record as refineries continued to be hampered by damage from Hurricane Harvey, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Crude inventories rose 5.9 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations for an increase of 3.2 million barrels. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Crypto Future of Currencies Dollar Rises After U.S. Producer Inflation Rebound in August Daily Economic Calendar, September 14, 2017 Market Snapshot – Bitcoin Prices Plunge on Renewed Chinese Fears Will U.S. Inflation Prove Stronger Than Expected? Soft Earnings Data Weighed on Sterling || No Fraud: Ex-JPMorgan Trader Masters Thinks Bitcoin Breakout Just Beginning: Of the many people to make the jump from Wall Street to cryptocurrency, few if any were as successful in their careers as Daniel Masters.
After working at legendary investment bank Salomon Brothers as an energy and derivatives trader, Masters took on an even bigger job, running global commodities trading at JPMorgan Chase. He then made a transition most people in the financial markets only dream of – moving from the sell side in banking to the buy side in hedge funds.
Masters opened his first hedge fund in 1999, but in the mid-2010s – as commodities and other traditional asset prices became less volatile and in turn less profitable – he discovered and ultimately became engrossed in the rollercoaster world of cryptocurrency.
Yet wild price swings weren't the only aspect of the market that interested the former trader. In a new interview, Masters told CoinDesk he was also captivated by the promise of borderless, frictionless, digital money.
From there, Masters began developing a strong intuition that bitcoin could, potentially, challenge fiat money and gold, and that it might play an important role incapital formation, the money-raising function that has traditionally been accomplished by stocks and bonds.
Masters said:
"I think, at the core of this, is the development of new tools that are challenging the role that fiat money and gold have historically played. And that challenge is being brought forth by bitcoin."
And while he still keeps an ear to the ground about his old shop – especially when JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon opines about cryptocurrency – those disruptive functions have become the foundation on which Masters bases his bullish investment thesis forGlobal Advisors Bitcoin Investment Fund, GABI for short.
While the legacy financial system sits on its haunches, failing to adapt to the opportunities cryptocurrencies present, as Masters sees it, the technology now exists to digitize and tokenize large swaths of traditional asset classes – such as money, precious metals, commodities, stocks and bonds.
Moreover, once those assets have been tokenized on a blockchain, they will be able to perform far more intelligent functions, because the assets themselves will be programmable, just like any other instance of computer code.
There are serious benefits, something that he points to for the rise of the cryptocurrency market, which is currently valued at over $150 billion.
In his mind, cryptocurrency has found a way to reach that scale in almost total isolation from the legacy financial system. Now becoming self-sustaining and reaching a kind of "escape velocity," cryptocurrency is finally gaining enough momentum to challenge the old ways of doing business in financial services, he said.
Still, institutions and investors are hesitant, seeing the market's intense volatility as a sign for concern.
But that doesn't phase Masters. He believes the price of commodities is "notoriously fractal," meaning that prices swing wildly in both directions, adding the big picture takeaway:
"Don't get hung up on price."
To highlight his theory, Masters cited his work trading natural gas in the late '90s.
At the time, there was a five-year period during which the commodity was trading between $0.50 and $0.85, making it difficult for many people to foresee natural gas trading above $15, as it later did. He also pointed to his years trading in the oil market, when the price of a barrel of oil hovered between $5 and $20, figures that made the $145 it traded at in 2008 seem exaggerated.
In a similar fashion, if you were obsessing about the price of ethereum's ether token when it hit $1, you would never have bought it at $20 – and, as Masters said, "Look where it is now." Notably, ether is currently trading at just below $300, according toCoinMarketCap
Masters sees the relatively low valuation of cryptocurrencies when compared to other asset classes as a major opportunity.
When you look at all digital assets currently trading, the combined market capitalization isn't as high as a single one of world's 100 largest stocks, a statistic Masters believes means there's room for growth. Further, as bitcoin is only the 65th largest currency in the world, and some of the larger currencies are highly problematic for political and economic reasons, he believes it's not unthinkable to believe the cryptocurrency could provide a real alternative.
One of the key drivers of Masters' thesis is that an investment in cryptocurrency is a fundamental investment in the forward movement of technology.
In essence, he believes, an investment in cryptocurrency is tantamount to an investment in fintech, medtech and the Internet of Things. In this way, the view provides an elegant counterargument to the cryptocurrency skeptics who believe blockchain technology may change the world, but that cryptocurrencies are a passing fad.
To Masters, cryptocurrencies will be the true market force.
He said:
"The vital thing to understand is that the momentum and the scale that you have in some of these public blockchains essentially means that it's going to be near impossible to build any of this big technology on any other kind of platform."
Masters adds that the cost savings derived from using cryptocurrencies to access a global, open-source financial platform will make it impossible for even large tech companies to bootstrap their own proprietary technology to effectively compete.
And when you begin to see cryptocurrencies in that context, you get a sense for just how large the potential of its digital economy may be.
Bearing in mind Masters' bullish view of the cryptocurrency space, one could expect him to disagree with Jamie Dimon's comments on bitcoin (most recentlycalling bitcoin a "fraud").
Indeed, despite their common background at JPMorgan, the two former colleagues have gone opposite ways when it comes to cryptocurrency.
While Masters believes Dimon has proven smart and hardworking in his role running the financial behemoth, Dimon doesn't have adequate time to understand the complex issues at stake in the cryptocurrency space, he said, calling the comments on bitcoin "short-sighted."
"I don't think Jamie Dimon has an open enough mind, all the time, to properly accept the contribution that digital assets can make," he said.
He points out that other senior financial executives – at such renowned institutions as Chicago Mercantile Exchange & Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Board Options Exchange, and NASDAQ, where Masters' shop lists its bitcoin trackers – feel very differently.
Masters also points out that JPMorgan does, in fact, trade in bitcoin, and that JPMorgan Securities was buying bitcoin for its clients at the same time Jamie Dimon was criticizing cryptocurrencies.
He concluded:
"They either need to get with the program and support their clients who want to buy bitcoin, or they need to stop talking about it like a fool. Because those things are not consistent with an organization of that character."
Daniel Mastersimage via Vimeo
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• 'Wolf of Wall Street' Jordan Belfort: Jamie Dimon is Right About Bitcoin || JPMorgan handles bitcoin-related trades for clients despite CEO warning: By David Henry NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) has been routing customer orders for bitcoin-related instruments, a spokesman said on Monday, despite the bank's chief executive's calling the crypto currency "a fraud." Like other Wall Street banks, JPMorgan acts as an agent for buyers and sellers of Bitcoin XBT, an exchange-traded note designed to track the value of the crypto currency. JPMorgan does not take positions in the instrument with its own capital and routes the orders electronically to exchanges, JPMorgan spokesman Brian Marchiony said. "They are not JPMorgan orders," Marchiony said. "These are clients purchasing third-party products directly." JPMorgan's relationship with Bitcoin XBT came into question over the weekend when the financial blog Zerohedge asked why the bank was involved with the trading after Chief Executive Jamie Dimon called bitcoin a fraud and said he would fire anyone at the bank who trades it. Bitcoin is a digital currency that enables individuals to transfer value to each other and pay for goods and services outside of the regulated financial system. Because it is not backed by any government and has been tied to crimes, including money laundering, hacking and drug trafficking, most financial institutions have stayed away from dealing in bitcoin. Dimon captured that sentiment in his comments last week. "If we have a trader that trades bitcoin, I would fire them in a second, for two reasons: It is against our rules and they are stupid, and both are dangerous," he said at an investor conference. Even so, major financial firms including JPMorgan have invested in a technology called blockchain that underpins bitcoin transactions in hopes that it can be used for other purposes, such as settling ordinary trades. Bitcoin prices fell last week to nearly $3,000 from $4,200 after Dimon spoke and China reportedly cracked down on crypto currency exchanges. But bitcoin rebounded with the new week, trading on the Bitstamp exchange (BTC=BTSP) at $4,025 on Monday. Story continues Along with JPMorgan, more than a dozen banks, including Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.S), have acted as brokers for buying and selling Bitcoin XBT on Nasdaq's Stockholm-based exchange, according to Swedish online bank Nordnet AB. Other exchanges want to trade, too. CBOE Holdings Inc (CBOE.O) has applied with U.S. regulators to handle a bitcoin futures contract and an exchange-traded fund. "Like it or not, people want exposure to bitcoin," CBOE CEO Edward Tilly said last week at the same conference where Dimon spoke. (Reporting by David Henry in New York; Additional reporting by Anna Irrera and John McCrank; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Leslie Adler) || Bitcoin's Fall Unlikely to Last: 3 Great Choices: Digital currencies received a massive jolt on Monday when China’s authorities issued a notice declaring that initial coin offerings (ICOs) were illegal. Following this announcement, the price of bitcoin declined from $4,584 to nearly $4,350 per bitcoin. By Tuesday morning, the virtual currency was hovering just above the $4000 mark, nearly 20% lower than the record level of $5,000 it had hit over the weekend.
Bitcoin’s fall has prompted some commentators to state that the virtual currency is entering a new phase of price discovery. However, most market watchers are characterizing this three day slide as a short term phenomenon. Bitcoin is likely to emerge stronger after such systemic cleansing, which makes it a good idea to invest in stocks gaining from the virtual currency.
China Bans ICOs
On Sep 4, seven of China’s government agencies, including the People’s Bank of China and the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued a statement which declared that ICOs were illegal. According to this notice, the use of ICOs as a fundraising tool stands effectively suspended, since this could lead to financial irregularities.
Additionally, the document mandates that funds already raised using ICOs should be returned. Further, illegal financial activity emanating from this mechanism would be investigated. Digital fundraising platforms are also likely to be required to have enhanced oversight mechanisms in the future.
Curbs Difficult to Implement
China’s ban on ICOs led to a substantial fall in the value of bitcoin and another popular cryptocurrency, ethereum. ICOs are utilized by start-up companies to raised funds via the sale of cryptographic tokens to prospective investors. In return, the start-up receives more widely accepted digital currencies such as bitcoin or ethereum.
At first glance, restrictions on ICOs should not directly impact the likes of bitcoin. However, this development has had a negative impact on the virtual currency category as a whole. But curbs may be difficult to implement in practice since putting an end to cryptocurrency would mean fighting evolving technologies.
Bitcoin’s Decline Only Temporary
Of course this hasn’t stopped several governments from seeking to place restrictions on the category. Developments in china closely mirror the actions of the SEC two months ago. At that point, the SEC had declared that ICOs were also investments and hence subject to the same regulations as stocks.
Market watchers feel that ultimately the category will emerge stronger from purges of this nature. Analysts have gone on record to state that stricter regulation will lead to a “new gold standard of ICOs." Others think that this short-term dip is likely only profit taking after bitcoin hit a record high of $5,000 recently.
Our Choices
Despite China’s latest restrictions on ICOs and bitcoin’s subsequent decline, long term prospects of the cryptocurrency remain undiminished. In fact, market watchers think that bitcoin will emerge stronger from such regulatory action.
Investing in stocks from the bitcoin phenomenon continues to be a smart option. We have narrowed down our search to the following stocks based on a good Zacks Rank and other relevant metrics.
NVIDIA Corporation’s NVDA GPU sales have gained substantially from the Bitcoin phenomenon. Increased demand for cryptocurrencies owing to increased adoption of bitcoin and newer technologies like ethereum has helped in lifting GPU demand, thereby contributing to the company’s GPU sales growth. This is also true for its smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices AMD.
NVIDIA has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). The company has expected earnings growth of 40.1% for the current year. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved by 16.8% over the last 30 days.
Micron Technology, Inc.MU is the largest manufacturer of memory chips in the United States. Memory chips are among the key components of a mining rig, the hardware setup utilized to extract cryptocurrency tokens from a blockchain, which is why Micron stands to benefit from the popularity of bitcoin.
Micron’s earnings estimate for the current year has improved by 4.1% over the last 30 days. The forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) for the current financial year (F1) is 5.45. The stock has a Zacks Rank #1. You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Zynga Inc.ZNGA was among the first companies to accept bitcoin transactions. It will likely continue to incentivize the use of blockchain related transactions, thus benefiting from the bitcoin phenomenon.
Zynga has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The company has expected earnings growth of more than 100% for the current year. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved by 12.5% over the last 60 days.
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Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportZynga Inc. (ZNGA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAdvanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis ReportNVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportMicron Technology, Inc. (MU) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – September 14, 2017 Forecast: September E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index futures are trading lower shortly after the release of the August U.S. consumer inflation report. The stronger-than-expected report is not likely to change the Fed’s mind about raising interest rates. They are likely to remain dovish.
While the report is not likely to move the Fed’s benchmark interest rate, it should lead to a few asset allocation plays. Treasury yields are likely to rise, making the U.S. Dollar a more attractive investment. Investors may also make adjustments to their stock portfolios.
The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart, however, momentum has been trending sideways-to-lower since the formation of the closing price reversal top at 6019.75 on September 1.
The main range is 5777.25 to 6019.75. Its retracement zone at 5898.50 to 5869.75 is the primary downside target.
The early weakness suggests investors are going to go after the nearest uptrending Gann angle at 5953.25. We could see a technical bounce on the first test of this angle.
The angle at 5953.25 is also the trigger point for an acceleration to the downside with the next targets the 50% level at 5898.50, the Fibonacci level at 5869.75 and another uptrending angle at 5865.25.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – September 13, 2017 Forecast || BANK OF AMERICA: Bitcoin is the 'most crowded' trade: (A live look at fund managers crowding into the long bitcoin trade.Reuters/China Daily)
Count large fund managers among those unable to resist the allure ofbitcoin's massive returns.
Owning the scorching-hot cryptocurrency — which has surged more than 350% this year — is seen as the most crowded trade to a pool of 214 fund managers overseeing $629 billion, according to a survey conducted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
To be specific, 26% of investors surveyed in September said they viewed being long bitcoin as the most crowded position. Coming in second place and being dethroned from the top spot was the longNasdaqtrade, with 22% of responders mentioning it, BAML's data showed.
(Long bitcoin is the most crowded trade right now, according to a monthly BAML fund manager survey.Bank of America Merrill Lynch)
But while bitcoin has seen unbelievable gains in recent months, its price has fallen from a record high reached on September 1 amid aChinese crackdown on cryptocurrency exchanges.The reported ban comes afterChina decided to halt initial coin offerings, a hot new way for startups to raise funds by generating their own virtual currency.
Further, Nobel-winning author Robert Shiller, who predicted the two biggest speculative markets in recent history, recentlydoubled down on his view that bitcoin is a bubblein an interview with Quartz. BAML's survey shows large fund managers have yet to heed his warning — a choice made at their own potential peril.
Rounding out the top three most crowded trades in BAML's study is the short US dollar trade. The greenback has slid almost 10% in 2017, and hedge funds in particular have been keen toposition for further weakness, according to recent Commodity Futures and Trading Commission data.
The prevalence of shorting the dollar marks a major shift for fund managers, for whom going long the currency was the number one investment as recently as April, capping off a five-month streak as the most packed trade.
The following chart shows the evolution of the BAML survey's most crowded investment, with bitcoin taking the reins in September:
(Bitcoin is the most crowded trade for fund managers, while the long dollar trade has fallen out of favor.Bank of America Merrill Lynch)
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• ROBERT SHILLER: Bitcoin is the 'best example right now' of a bubble || What you need to know on Wall Street today: (Scott Olson / Getty Images)Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign uphere to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox.
Warren Buffett'sBerkshire Hathawaypurchased a stake in Pilot Travel Centers, which owns thePilot Flying J chain of truck stops. Thebillionaire investor's conglomerate said it will acquire 38.6% of Pilot Flying J, and plans to become its biggest shareholder over six years.
The stake adds to Berkshire Hathaway's bet on the US economy. Buffett already owns stakes in US airlines andBurlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., one of America's largestrailroads, which would also benefit from an increase in trade and economic activity.
"Whenever I hear people talk pessimistically about this country, I think they're out of their mind,"Buffettsaid at an event last month.
BDT & Company advised Pilot Flying J on the deal with its in-house finance arm, BDT Capital Partners, exiting its minority investment in the company. Not heard of BDT & Company? That's by design. Here'severything you need to know about Warren Buffett's favorite banker.
In Wall Street news, Goldman Sachshas made a big hire in electronic trading, and isflirting with bitcoin trading. Elizabeth Warren told Wells Fargo's CEO: "You should be fired." And Congress slammed theex-CEO of Equifax during his testimony.
Wall Street isunprepared for the magnitude of Europe's looming regulatory overhaul, according to UBS.And the COO at BlackRock told us why the $5.7 trillioninvestment giant is a "growth technology company."
In fintech news, the CEO of "email killer"Symphony told employees to "buckle up" and apologized for driving colleagues "crazy." Bondtrading startupAlgomi says business is back on track after losses. And apopular stock picking game has launched a platform for users to buy real stocks.
In markets news, oil could be hit hard by threemajor geopolitical risks that may be"coming to a head in October." Traders aremaking record bets against AMD. Stocks areflashing a major sell signal.
We talked to a UBS behavioral finance specialistabout how emotions get the best of even the most experienced investors.
Tesla Model 3 deliveriescould be worse than expected in 2018. The company isstruggling to be two different car companies at the same time, according to Business Insider's Matt DeBord. Traders bettingagainst Tesla are finally making millions.
Lastly, take a look inside The Grill, the luxurious,revamped version of the NYC restaurant that invented the power lunch.
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• What you need to know on Wall Street today || Betting on Bitcoin is Wall Street's most crowded trade right now: Wall Street loves Bitcoin (BTC).
The cryptocurrency, up over 300% this year alone, is also maybe too loved by investors, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s latest monthly survey of fund managers.
In September, a survey of 181 managers revealed that being long Bitcoin — that is, betting that its price would rise — is most crowded trade right now. Most simply, this means managers see bets on Bitcoin as disproportionately favored by investors right now.
On Tuesday morning, Bitcoin was trading just above $4,300. At the start of the year, Bitcoin was trading closer to $900. We’d also note that on Monday, our daily Yahoo Finance Twitter pollindicatedthat 20% of respondents would put $10,000 in Bitcoin right now if they had this much money to invest for the next decade; 53% of respondents said an S&P 500 index fund.
As Yahoo Finance’sDan Roberts has chronicled, the hype around Bitcoin, however, isn’t just about the digital currency’s price but the blockchain technology that backs up Bitcoin. A blockchain is a distributed, immutable ledger for recording data or executing smart contracts — effectively a set of characters unique to a transaction executed on the blockchain. And so the enthusiasm around Bitcoin is largely an enthusiasm around our transactions moving to execution via blockchain rather than, say, through existing financial institutions.
Bitcoin took over from being long the tech-heavy Nasdaq as the most crowded trade in September, with the tech play dominating investor sentiment throughout the summer.
During the first part of 2017, the FAAMG stocks — Facebook (FB), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Google (GOOGL) — accounted for about a third of the market’s advance.
For the first few months of 2017, going long the U.S. dollar was seen as the most crowded trade. This has unwound in recent months, with the dollar last weekhitting its lowest level in over two years. Though asBloomberg’s Luke Kawa wrote Monday, this change in the dollar’s value relative to other major currencies is a function of stronger global economic growth.
—
Myles Udland is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter@MylesUdland
Read more from Myles here:
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• Two charts show why the stock market today is nothing like the tech bubble
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
11 Eylül 2017 Saat 22:00:26, 1 BTC Kaç TL, 14.362,90 TL. #BTCTRY #btctl #bitcoinfiyatihttp://www.doviz724.com/1-bitcoin-kac-tl.html … || THE MOST INNOVATIVE AND LUCRATIVE WAY TO EARN BITCOIN
JOIN BITCLUB NETWORK!! || bitstamp: $ 4601.7
coinbase: $ 4604
kraken: $ 4608
Average: $ 4604.57 || #Putin Tells Central Bank Not to Create Barriers to #Cryptocurrencies || All this optimism with #bitcoin and pessimism with #alts make me want to sel some btc and buy some alts || #Putin Tells Central Bank Not to Create Barriers to #Cryptocurrencies || Köşede TL tutmak zarar. Bitcoin garanti yatırım. Detayları konuşuruz. || #KolesCoinNews | Video Crypto News: http://ift.tt/2xwvuCw | Interest to bıtcoın reached a peak:http://ift.tt/2sd0Hcw || 1 KOBO = 0.00000321 BTC
= 0.0183 USD
= 6.4416 NGN
= 0.2473 ZAR
= 1.8904 KES
#Kobocoin 2017-10-19 12:00 || BTC Real Time Price: ThePriceOfBTC: $4333.37 #bitstamp;
$4330.99 #GDAX;
$4345.70 #kraken;
$4330.88 #hitbtc;
$4342.09 #gemini;
$4459.00 #cex;
|
Trend: up || Prices: 5526.64, 5750.80, 5904.83, 5780.90, 5753.09, 6153.85, 6130.53, 6468.40, 6767.31, 7078.50
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2018-11-13]
BTC Price: 6359.49, BTC RSI: 43.15
Gold Price: 1199.20, Gold RSI: 39.83
Oil Price: 55.69, Oil RSI: 13.39
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bull Call: Novogratz Says Bitcoin Will See Record Highs in 2019: Mike Novogratz Bitcoin price Mike Novogratz, the CEO of crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, predicts that bitcoin will break out of its 2018 doldrums and soar to $20,000 in 2019 — fueled by a spike in institutional investments. The former Goldman Sachs investment banker says institutional “FOMO” (fear of missing out) will drive the market up over the coming months as cryptocurrency assets gain more mainstream acceptance and traditional finance players take the leap into crypto. Year-End Bitcoin Price Target: $8,800-$9,000 “Bitcoin has to take out $6,800, and after that we could end the year at $8,800 to 9,000,” Novogratz told Financial News . “By the end of the first quarter [of 2019], we will take out $10,000. And after that, we will go back to new highs — to $20,000 or more.” This past summer was a bloodbath for cryptocurrencies, which were hamstrung by a slump the market could not shake since the beginning of the year. It was a humbling anti-climax for bitcoin, whose prices rocketed to almost $20,000 in December 2017. Despite the recent downswing, the industry scored major street cred after Harvard, Yale, and Stanford University announced that their multi-billion-dollar endowments had invested in crypto. MIT, the University of North Carolina, and Dartmouth also jumped on the bandwagon, as CCN has reported . The combined endowments of the six universities top a staggering $108 billion. While the universities’ allocation to crypto is reportedly small, analysts say the move will trigger a chain reaction among other big-name institutional investors, such as pension funds. Because Wall Street and traditional finance giants tend to copy each other, Mike Novogratz and other experts say it’s only a matter of time before the herd mentality takes over, opening the floodgates for other institutional investors to jump into crypto. “There’s going to be a case of institutional FOMO [fear of missing out], just like there was in retail,” Novogratz predicted. Story continues Regulation Will Legitimize and Boost Crypto While the crypto ecosystem prides itself on being decentralized and — according to some — unregulated, Novogratz has repeatedly said the market will actually benefit from some formal regulation. The former hedge fund manager says regulation will push prices up by legitimizing the industry and ridding it of scam artists. As CCN reported , BlackRock — the world’s largest asset manager — has slowly started embracing crypto, but warned that it would not launch a bitcoin ETF until the industry becomes “legitimate,” said CEO Larry Fink. BlackRock Won’t Launch Bitcoin ETF Until Crypto Is ‘Legitimate,’ Says CEO Larry Fink https://t.co/OD1awOqxkN — CCN (@CryptoCoinsNews) November 1, 2018 “It will ultimately have to be backed by a government,” Fink said. “I don’t sense that any government will allow that unless they have a sense of where that money’s going.” Despite the recent bear market, Mike Novogratz believes the long-term outlook for crypto is off-the-charts. Novogratz said an impetus for the upcoming rally is that major institutional players like Goldman Sachs and ICE (Intercontinental Exchange Inc.) — the owner of the New York Stock Exchange — have begun building financial frameworks to facilitate the adoption of crypto. “It’s a bull market in institutions building the infrastructure needed for real-money investors to start investing in this space,” Novogratz told CNBC in September 2018 (video above). “Three to six months from now, there will be an ‘all-clear’ sign for people — big institutions and pension [funds] — to start investing.” Featured Image from Bloomberg/YouTube The post Bull Call: Novogratz Says Bitcoin Will See Record Highs in 2019 appeared first on CCN . || Two of Blockchain's Biggest Consortiums Just Joined Forces: Decred is handing control of its $21 million treasury and all aspects of the protocol, from consensus through staffing, over to token holders. Seismic shifts are happening in the world of enterprise blockchain. Announced Monday, the Hyperledger Project and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) have agreed to collaborate on bringing common standards to the blockchain space and cross-pollinate a wider open-source community. This joining of forces is notable as EEA and Hyperledger represent two of the three largest and arguably most influential enterprise blockchain communities, the third being the R3 Corda ecosystem. ConsenSys Invests $6.5 Million in Former R3 Exec's Blockchain Startup If the team-up succeeds in creating common standards between the two platforms, it could sway enterprises previously on the fence to build their blockchains on one or the other, since the risk of creating new silos that don't talk to other systems is being addressed. As EEA executive director Ron Resnick told CoinDesk: "The enterprises of the world are going to want to purchase solutions where they have a choice of multiple vendors." Further, for Hyperledger's 200 member organizations, there is now the promise of interacting with tokens and smart contracts on the ethereum public chain. Sign Emerges That Falling Bitcoin Price Just Might Have a Floor Stepping back, Hyperledger was founded as an umbrella organization â cast in the image of the Linux Foundation â for open source blockchain development, comprising a number of protocols designed specifically for enterprises. Meanwhile, the 500-member EEA is a standards organization looking to build private or permissioned businesses applications on the foundations of the public ethereum blockchain. But over time, there has been growing support for ethereum within Hyperledger. Formalizing that convergence, the new alliance "will enable Hyperledger developers to write code that conforms to the EEA specification and certify them through EEA certification testing programs expected to launch in the second half of 2019," the organizations said in a blog post published Monday. Story continues Brian Behlendorf, Hyperledger's executive director, told CoinDesk that the EEA's work on standards and attempt to align a whole universe of different vendors into a common enterprise picture is very complementary to Hyperledger. "It's a two-way street. There's not a lot of groups effectively doing standards in the blockchain space today and EEA has a head start there. What can we contribute to that momentum?" said Behlendorf. He said both groups can now work on a reference implementation (a software standard from which all other implementations and corresponding customizations are derived). "We think that doing that as a project or a lab at Hyperledger would be interesting," he said. Building bridges Illustrating how the Hyperledger community had already been moving in an ethereum-friendly direction: earlier this year Sawtooth (a codebase contributed to Hyperledger by Intel) added support for the ethereum virtual machine (EVM) as a transaction processor. This made it possible to bring smart contracts developed for the public ethereum blockchain over to Sawtooth-based networks. That effort, dubbed "Seth," is now in active use, and gathering some momentum. Sawtooth proponent Dan Middleton was recently elected chairman of Hyperledger's technical steering committee and Seth awaits "conformance testing to the EEA specification as soon as possible," according to the joint statement by Hyperledger and EEA. Meanwhile, EVM work is also now underway with Fabric, arguably Hyperledger's flagship protocol. This work, which will start to really come to the fore in Fabric 1.3, aims to allow users to run ethereum smart contracts and also be able to have ERC-20 and ERC-721 (the standards that gave rise to ICOs and CryptoKitties, respectively) as the token model on Fabric, as currently is the case on Sawtooth. Behlendorf said he keeps an open mind about how these architectures might evolve. "I think in the long term the benefits of one accrue to the other," he said in reference to Sawtooth and Fabric. "Whether that means they and other frameworks will merge together or specialize, it's still an open book." Working on common standards and building bridges between communities would seem to pave the way to some future state of interoperability â an often talked-of ideal in the blockchain world. "I do think that interoperability between ledgers will happen at a much higher level in the stack than most people expect," explained Behlendorf. In other words, building common standards and data formats, rather than monkeying with complex consensus protocols, will link use cases in a multi-chain universe. As well as the working with the EVM, Hyperledger developers also want to keep a close eye on decisions being taken within the ethereum community around using WebAssembly, a coding standard for web pages, to potentially make the next generation of the public blockchain protocol more JavaScript-orientated. "We are tracking this very closely in Burrow [a third Hyperledger implementation] and in Sawtooth and would like to be there as soon as they make that call," said Behlendorf. R3's a crowd? All this talk of collaboration and mutual benefit might have you imagining the whole enterprise blockchain community gathered around a campfire singing "Kumbaya," but make no mistake: this is still a fiercely competitive field. And R3, which boasts more than 200 members and partners across multiple industries, clearly views EEA and Hyperledger as its competitors. In a recent interview, R3 lead platform engineer Mike Hearn seemed to anticipate the announcement of an alliance between the EEA and Hyperledger, which he dismissed as more of "a marketing event rather than a major change to the way the platforms work." Behlendorf agreed that this joining of forces is, to an extent, about marketing, but not just to end-user organizations and the vendor community â marketing to developers. "This is about letting developers know where our organizations are," he explained. "It's about where the industry is going and where you may want to contribute to that momentum, to benefit from it; if you want to be tribal and fight against it, that's your choice as well." Whatever you want to call it, in terms of strategy, a strong alliance between the EEA and Hyperledger would seem to put them on one side and R3 on the other. Even so, R3 is definitely invited to the party, said Resnick. "I already asked them to join us. Will they agree? That might be a different story." However, Resnick said R3 is different from Hyperedger or EEA in that "they are not really open source," making the distinction between open source and "open-core," where open source software is centered around a single vendor. "With a proprietary solution such as R3's, you've got to buy stuff from them. That's not what we are about and it's not what Hyperledger is about," said Resnick, concluding: "The question is, are they going to last?" Brian Behlendorf image via CoinDesk archives Related Stories Up 80%: XRP's September Wasn't Just Bullish, It Was Record-Setting This Meme Marketplace Uses Dummy Tokens to Draw Users in a Bear Market || Just How Bad Will Harley-Davidson's Third Quarter Be?: Harley-Davidson(NYSE: HOG)is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on Oct. 23, and investors should brace for things to turn ugly. The period is typically among the worst-performing quarters of the year, second only to the winter-weary fourth quarter, and there's no reason to believe the motorcycle maker is about to change results this year.
Below are some areas Harley-Davidson investors should watch to gauge just how bad the situation is getting.
Image source: Getty Images.
Hope springs eternal at Harley-Davidson, and despite plummeting sales, it says it will boost shipments to dealers by anywhere from 45,500 to 50,500 bikes, a 9% to 21% jump from last year, when it shipped 41,662 motorcycles. There are several reasons why it is increasing shipments.
Inventory in the U.S. was down by 14,100 units in the second quarter as part of a plan to reduce supply on dealer lots. Slow sales had caused dealers to have too many bikes, so Harley has been managing the cadence of deliveries. Now, the new 2019 models are hitting showrooms, boosting the shipment numbers.
Overall, though, Harley expects shipments to be down about 2% to 4% for the year (shipments were down 10.5% in the first half of the year). With as many as 236,000 bikes expected to be shipped for the full year, Harley is building the numbers back up in the second half of the year. But without sales, dealers might soon be in the same boat of having too many bikes on hand.
Last quarter, Harley motorcycle salessurprised everyoneby not being as terrible as expected. Not that they were good, but the 6.4% decline was much better than the 12% plunge experienced in the second quarter, making it look as if the turnaround everyone was waiting for had finally arrived.
The problem: The 46,490 bikes sold were the fewest since the second quarter of 2009, when it sold only 35,000 bikes during the depths of the Great Recession. So sales might have been better than everyone thought they would be, but they still weren't good. And since the new crop of bikes are pretty much the same as those they're replacing -- big and expensive, even with themerged Dyna and Softail lines-- it means today's motorcycle buyers aren't going to be lining up to ride off on a Harley.
The new demographic of young, urban, and female riders are looking for smaller, lighter, and cheaper bikes. And though Harley plans to build them sometime in the future, that's not the case now -- and investors shouldn't expect that sales will increase or even appreciably narrow the decline.
They also face competition from used bikes, the sales of which are outpacing new ones by 3 to 1,The Wall Street Journalreports. And there is the lingering threat from the trade war between the U.S. and seemingly everyone else. Although it shipped bikes to Europe ahead of the retaliatory tariffs being imposed, Harley is eating the higher costs instead of passing them along to dealers or customers, which means margins are going to be hurt.
Analysts are forecasting earnings of $0.54 per share this quarter, a 38% increase over the $0.39 per share it earned a year ago. One thing Harley-Davidson has always done well, even during this downturn, is protect its bottom line, though often to its detriment interns of sales.
It has mostly refused to engage in the discounting that its rivals use to move bikes, and that has kept margins intact. Because it owns about half the U.S. motorcycle market and about a third of the global market, it believes it can afford to stay above the fray.
This past quarter it did try several promotional offers, such as discounted financing of 1.99% and amailing to select customersoffering a $1,500 rebate. Both were for a limited time, but the results suggest they had the desired effect. Harley said sales had a slow start due to poor weather in April, but the promotions helped lift sales in May and June, and likely led to the "less worse" sales performance in the quarter.
Harley generated adjusted earnings of $1.52 per share, a less than 3% gain from the prior period, which indicates it could do more on the discounting front. It could generate more sales, preserve its market position, and still grow profits for shareholders.
Harley is shipping more bikes to dealers to get inventories to targeted levels. But without sales, those new bikes will again face the prospect of gathering dust on showroom floors. Earnings will eventually be hurt too.
Without any catalysts to move bikes off the lot, Harley-Davidson's third quarter is going to see more of the same, and ultimately that will damage the bike maker's reputation and hurt the premium positioning it is fighting so hard to maintain.
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Rich Dupreyhas 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. || The Probable Reason Grubhub Is Tanking Today: Despite the business posting expectation-topping third-quarter results, shares of thefood delivery companyGrubhub(NYSE: GRUB)fell as much as 18% in early-morning trading on Thursday. Shares were down about 9% as of 10:53 a.m. EDT.
Here's a review of the key numbers from the company's third quarter:
• Revenue increased 52% to $247.2 million. By contrast, analysts were only expecting $239 million in revenue.
• On a non-GAAP basis, net income grew 72% to $42.2 million, or $0.45 per share. That number also compares favorably to the $0.41 in earnings that Wall Street was expecting.
• The number of active diners on the platform grew 67% to 16.4 million.
• Users ordered an average of 416,000 deliveries per day, which was up 37% year over year.
• Total food sales were $1.2 billion during the period. That figure rose 40% when compared to the same time last year.
Image source: Getty Images.
Turning to guidance, here's what management is projecting will happen in the upcoming quarter:
• Revenue is expected to land between $283 million and $293 million. By contrast, Wall Street was only expecting $272 million in total revenue.
• Adjusted EBIDTA is expected to land between $40 million and $50 million.
So if the results were solid and guidance was good, what can explain today's sell-off?
It is possible that this quote from Grubhub CFO Adam DeWitt can explain the decline:
We are opportunistically investing an incremental $20–$30 million in marketing and delivery expansion in the fourth quarter, taking our total 2018 investment in growth to substantially more than$200 million. The 200 total delivery markets we will launch in 2018 plus accelerated diner growth put us in a great position to capture takeout orders as they move online.
Another possibility is that this is just normal market noise, since several high-multiple stocks have been selling off recently.
Short-term price movements aside, I think it is clear that Grubhub is doing a great job at executing against its huge market opportunity. I also applaud management's decision to keep its foot on the gas to open up even more markets and drive future growth.
In total, I see plenty of reasons for bulls to remain optimistic. With the share price currently on sale, it might not be a bad time for forward-thinking investors to consider opening up a position.
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Brian Feroldiowns shares of Grubhub. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Commodities Daily Forecast – November 2, 2018: The gold market has rallied stringently in the Thursday’s session, showing signs of strength to reach towards the $1235 level. The level above is a lot noisy for the market until it manages to break above the $1250 level, which would free up the market to move further higher. Today’s job numbers are likely to keep the market volatile, and if stronger than expected job numbers are reported, the market might witness a pullback.…Read More
The silver prices exploded higher with heavy volumes during the yesterday’s session, reaching towards the $14.70 level. There is a slight resistance placed at $14.80 level, and if it breaks higher, it can move towards the $15 level. The $14.50 level underneath has a strong support and will continue to attract buyers around.…Read More
The crude oil market had a rather flat session on Thursday hovering around the $64 level, as the market is trying to find a base around. There is a massive support place around the $62.50 level also Iranian sanctions are coming to effect on Nov. 4, which will have a slight impact on the market. The $65 level above is now acting as a strong resistance and a break above could send the prices much higher.…Read More
The natural gas market has pulled back a little during yesterday’s session, breaking below the $3.25 level, because of less than estimated inventory numbers were posted. Today’s US job data will also have an impact on the price of natural gas. The probable range for the market in short term is now between $3.20 and $3.30 level.…Read More
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 03/11/18 || Bitcoin volatility sinks to lowest in nearly two years: By Tom Wilson LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin has experienced one of its worst annual price performances of its short 10-year-old life but also appears to have become more stable in the process. Volatility of the original and biggest cryptocurrency has sunk to its lowest for nearly two years, with price swings falling lower than increasingly edgy U.S. stocks for more than two weeks in a row. Measured on a weekly basis, bitcoin volatility is set to fall to its lowest since the end of 2016, when the digital coin was still a niche asset yet to muscle its way into global focus. Volatility has been a major characteristic of the digital currency, which turned 10-years-old last week, throwing up major hurdles to its emergence as a mainstream asset class. GRAPHIC: Bitcoin volatility sinks to near two-year low interactive - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PcdKdr Most mainstream institutional investors, skeptical about its ability to store value in any predictable way, have also stayed clear. At the same time, regulators across the globe have emphasized price instability when issuing warnings to retail investors dabbling in the cryptocurrency. Volatility has also prevented the spread of bitcoin as a method of payments, its intended purpose. Traders and investors are waiting for clarity on how regulators will treat bitcoin products such as exchange-traded funds, leading to them holding off on major purchases or sales. A fall in trading volumes over the last three months is also a key factor, said Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, CEO of BCB Group, a cryptocurrency prime broker. In contrast to bitcoin, volatility in the S&P 500 <.SPX>, has since late September climbed to near seven-month highs. Investors in U.S. stocks are worried over rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and global trade and protectionism. Bitcoin soared over 1,300 percent last year to a record high of almost $20,000 in December. This year it has slumped as much as 70 percent, before settling into a period of relative stability since September. On Tuesday it was trading at around $6,420. GRAPHIC: Bitcoin becomes more stable than U.S. stocks - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PaFj6Z GRAPHIC: Bitcoin volatility sinks to near two-year low - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PcIafz GRAPHIC: Bitcoin becomes more stable than U.S. stocks interactive - https://tmsnrt.rs/2Pb8HKi (Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Alison Williams) || Cryptocurrency That Works Without Internet, mCoin Launches In Africa: mCoin London-based ONEm Communications has announced the launch of its mCoin program across Africa. Designed to be a hybrid currency, mCoin is a digital currency that can be transferred over text or through the smartphone app. Africa is a continent with millions of people who have access to mobile phones but little to no internet connectivity. ONEm wants to bring the benefit of cryptocurrency to millions of the unbanked in Africa through the mCoin program. ONEm Communications is a tech startup that develops advanced platforms supporting an ecosystem of services. The ecosystem is a set of interactive services that seeks to transform the way people communicate and access information on mobile. In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine , ONEm Co-Founder & CEO Christopher Richardson said the reception for the mCoin in Africa has been “tremendous.” He believes the blockchain can be combined with mobile technology to connect the unbanked in Africa. "We believe when combined with informational and community-based services; this can leverage their happiness by giving them simple and effective tools that extend their capabilities. Africa is just the beginning; we will be launching in many countries all over the world to allow everyone to enjoy cryptocurrency on ordinary mobiles." Crypto Wallet The ONEm Wallet is a digital wallet that allows users to send mCoin to others in the community, by means of a wallet address in the form of a username. Users can also send mCoin from an offline SMS wallet to the digital wallet. Richardson, who has experience in the telecommunications sector, says the SMS wallet is secure as it's not connected to the internet. The SMS wallet was created to mirror a cold storage wallet. The SMS wallet works with a set of shortcodes that provides options to the user, such as sending mCoin and viewing the wallet address. According to the company, users can send mCoin to another SMS wallet or to a digital ONEm Wallet using the shortcodes. Story continues While Richardson believes the funds in the offline SMS wallet are secure, there is still a high risk of losing tokens if the registered phone falls into the wrong hands. Also, unlike hot wallets, the SMS wallet doesn't have the capability to enable two-factor authentication, which acts as an extra layer of security for wallets. Earning and Trading mCoin For now, users can only earn the token by participating in a “Pseudo-Mining” program — a form of mining activity that rewards users for their activities on the platform with points (mPoints), which are then converted into mCoin. The company plans to add an option for users to purchase mCoin with their phone credit in the future. Richardson says the users will be able to trade their mCoin on both local and global exchanges, but he refused to mention any names. mCoin has a growing community of over 80,000 users, and it currently operates in seven African countries. mCoin is not to be confused with M-Coin , the mobile payment solution for web and mobile devices. You can learn more about mCoin here. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Cryptocurrency ATMs coming to Argentina to exploit peso volatility: By Maximilian Heath BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina could get up to 30 automated teller machines that buy and sell bitcoin by the end of the year, industry representatives said, an expansion of the cryptocurrency market amid an economic crisis that has seen the peso's value tumble. Athena Bitcoin, a U.S. company that specializes in cryptocurrency ATMs, launched Argentina's first bitcoin ATM last month in a Buenos Aires shopping mall, a company spokesperson told Reuters. Another company, U.S.-based Odyssey Group, said of the 150 ATMs it aims to install by the end of the year in Argentina, 80 percent of those will be bitcoin-operational within the first months of 2019. Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies not backed by any central bank or hard asset, with bitcoin the world's biggest and best-known. Bitcoin was trading around 6,480 to the U.S. dollar on Wednesday. "Today, the cryptocurrency ATMs in the world are growing exponentially. In Argentina, there were no commercial ATMs and the idea was to be the first to capture the market," said Dante Galeazzi, Argentina operations manager for Athena Bitcoin. Athena Bitcoin already has 12 ATMs in Colombia, and the Argentine financial crisis, with inflation expected to exceed 40 percent by the end of the year, presented a growth opportunity in the cryptocurrency market, Galeazzi said. The peso has lost more than 50 percent of its value against the dollar so far in 2018. "With currency devaluations, we have seen a spike in bitcoin transactions. We see that as a safeguard to (the peso's) value, as well as an opportunity to invest in the market," Galeazzi said, adding that the machines will initially support only bitcoin, but will eventually include other cryptocurrencies like litecoin, ethereum and bitcoin cash. Unlike Athena Bitcoin machines, which only allow customers to buy and sell digital currencies, Odyssey Group ATMs will be able to complete traditional bank transactions including depositing and withdrawing cash and transferring money between accounts. Story continues Octagon, a company owned by Odyssey Group that will process the ATM transactions in Argentina, said it hopes to have installed about 1,600 bitcoin-enabled ATMs for Odyssey in the country a year from now, the company's general manager Begona Perez De Solay said. Both Athena Bitcoin and Odyssey group have said they also have ambitions to expand in other Latin American countries. Galeazzi said that Athena Bitcoin is eying Chile, Brazil and Mexico as other potential markets, while Odyssey Group said it is examining other potential locations across the region. (Reporting by Maximilian Heath,; Writing by Scott Squires,; Editing by Cassandra Garrison and Phil Berlowitz) || Crypto Markets See Ongoing Mild Losses, Bitcoin Trades Below $6,400: Friday, Nov. 9: crypto markets are continuing to see downward momentum, with virtually all of the major cryptocurrencies at least mildly in the red, as data from Coin360 shows. Market visualization Market visualization by Coin360 Bitcoin ( BTC ) is down just over 1 percent, trading around $6,340 at press time. After a period of protracted stability , the top coin has seen a short-lived burst of price action of late, growing Nov.7 to break above the $6,500 mark. Bitcoin has since corrected downard to trade close to the start of its weekly chart, where it is seeing virtually no price percentage change to press time. On the month, Bitcoin is down a mild 3.6 percent. Bitcoin 7-day price chart Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: Cointelegraph Bitcoin Price Index Bitcoin pioneer Jeff Garzik – reportedly the “third-biggest contributor” to Bitcoin’s code and one of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's key collaborators – gave an interview today in which he reflected that: “[Bitcoin] hasn’t evolved in the direction of high-volume payments, which is something we thought about in the very early days: getting merchants to accept Bitcoins. But on the store-of-value side it’s unquestionably a success." The market’s largest altcoin Ethereum ( ETH ) has also sustained a fractional loss, down just over percent to trade at $211. Correlating with Bitcoin, the altcoin saw an intra-week spike at around $220 Nov. 7, and has since jaggedly shed value down to its current price point. Nonetheless, on the week, the asset remains a strong 6 percent in the green, with monthly losses at around 7.2 percent. Ethereum 7-day price chart Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source: Cointelegraph Ethereum Price Index Most of the remaining top ten coins on CoinMarketCap are in the red, although remaining within a 1-4 percent range. Bitcoin Cash ( BCH ) has taken the heftiest hit among the top ten, down just under 4 percent to trade around $567, as controversies ahead of its forthcoming hard fork – scheduled for Nov. 15 – continue to divide the community. Story continues Another top ten alt shaken by larger-than-average losses is Cardano ( ADA ), down 3.19 percent at $0.074. Altcoins Ripple ( XRP ) and Stellar ( XLM ) are the only top ten coins in the green by press time, both up under 1 percent over the past 24 hours. The top twenty coins by market cap are likewise almost unanimously red, with the exception of the 19th largest crypto, privacy-focused alt Zcash ( ZEC ), which is pushing 3.5 percent growth to trade at around $133. For the remaining coins, losses are capped below 4 percent, with Vechain ( VEC ) and DASH ( DASH ) each on the higher end, down 3.9 and 3.47 percent respectively. Total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies is around $212.5 billion as of press time, down from an intra-week high of around $220.7 billion Nov. 7, but above the $207-210 billion levels it held throughout much of the past month. 7-day chart of the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies 7-day chart of the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies from CoinMarketCap In other major crypto news of the day, ConsenSys -backed blockchain startup Kaleido and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have launched a full-stack platform that helps enterprises implement blockchain solutions without starting from scratch. The platform, dubbed Kaleido Marketplace, reportedly “eliminates 80 percent of the custom code” needed to build a given blockchain project. In Asia, Thailand’s securities regulator is set to clear “at least one” Initial Coin Offering ( ICO ) “portal” to operate legally this month, with officials saying that ICOs themselves “might” start being approved as soon as December. Related Articles: Crypto Markets See Widespread Wave of Green, Bitcoin Pushes $6,500 Crypto Markets Placid on 10th Anniversary of Bitcoin Whitepaper Crypto Markets See Mixed Signals After Recent Downturn Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON: Price Analysis, Nov. 9 || Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON: Price Analysis, Nov. 9: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange.
While many experts and investors view the current crypto bear market as a negative, economist Tyler Cowen, professor at George Mason University, believes that a crash ispositivebecause it helps clean up the system. The dotcom bubble, though painful, wiped out the bad companies, paving the way for today’s leaders likeAmazonandGoogle.
Previously, the naysayers pointed to the sharp volatility in cryptocurrencies as a deterrent for mass adoption. However, since September, Bitcoin has traded in a tighter rangethanthe Argentine peso, the Turkish lira, the Brazilian real, the Mexican peso, and the South African rand. In fact, its range was only 2.7 percent greater than that of the safe haven currency, the Swiss franc.
Both on the way up and on its way down, Bitcoin has been the leader, whose price action is followed by the altcoins. However, someanalystsbelieve that this might change in the future and the next bull market might be led by one of the top altcoins. Let’s see what the charts forecast.
Bitcoinhas failed to attract buyers at higher levels. It turned down from $6,600 levels and easily broke below both the moving averages. This is a sign of weakness. The next stop is a fall to $6,250–$6,200.
A break below $6,200 will threaten the critical support zone at $6,075.04–$5,900, which has not been breached in 2018. Any break of this support can result in a sharp liquidation of long positions, dragging theBTC/USDpair to $5,450 and $5,000 within a short span of time. Therefore, traders can keep the stops at $5,900.
If the bulls support $6,200 levels, the leading digital currency can extend its stay in the range for a few more days.
Absence of follow up buying has pushedEthereumto the 20-day EMA. If this support breaks, it can slide to the lower support of $200 and $188.35. The downtrend will resume if the bears sink prices below the Sept. 12 lows of $167.32.
If the bulls defend the 20-day EMA, theETH/USDpair might attempt to rise above $225.12 once again. We will turn positive on a breakout and close above $249.93. The flat moving averages and the RSI close to 50 suggests that consolidation might continue for a few more days.
Price action inside the range is usually volatile and can hit stops quickly. Therefore, positional traders can wait for a breakout and close above $249.93 before initiating any long positions. On the other hand, aggressive traders can buy close to the bottom of the range, near $188.35, after the digital currency shows signs of moving up.
Rippleis not finding buying support at higher levels. After breaking out of the tight range, it has corrected back to the moving averages that are sloping up. We anticipate the bulls to offer strong support at current levels.
If theXRP/USDpair bounces off the moving averages or from the breakout levels of the tight range, it will attempt to breakout of $0.565 once again. If successful, the digital currency can reach $0.625 and $0.7644.
On the other hand, if the bears sink prices below the moving averages and the tight range, a fall to $0.37185 is probable. For now, traders can retain the stops at $0.425, a level below which our bullish assumption fails.
Bitcoin Cashhas turned down from the critical overhead resistance of $660.0753. We were expecting this, hence, we recommended booking partial profits in ourpreviousanalysis.
The current pullback can extend to the moving averages, which have completed a bullish crossover; hence, we anticipate a strong support at the 20-day EMA. The RSI has also corrected its overbought levels, therefore, theBCH/USDpair might try to breakout of $660.0753 once again. If the attempt fails, traders can close their positions.
Our bullish view will be invalidated if the bears continue to pound the digital currency, sinking it below the moving averages and $400.
EOShas turned down from close to the top of the tight range. It is currently back at the midpoint. If the bears push prices below the 20-day EMA, a fall to the bottom of the range is probable. Traders can keep the stops on their long positions at $4.90.
A breakdown of $5 can sink theEOS/USDpair to $4.49 and below that to the critical support at $3.8723. However, we expect the bulls to offer strong support at $5.
The virtual currency will show signs of strength if it breaks out of $6. A reversal will be signaled when the bulls sustain the price above $6.8299. Following a breakout, the target levels to watch on the upside are $9.1668 and $11.4.
Stellarcontinues to trade above the moving averages and the downtrend line of the descending triangle. As the virtual currency is consolidating after breaking out of the downtrend line, we shall retain our buy suggested in thepreviousanalysis.
If our buy gets filled, the target objective if $0.36, with a minor resistance at $0.304. Though we expect this level to be scaled, in trading, we should be ready for any eventuality. Therefore, if the bears defend $0.304, traders can either close their position or raise their stops to breakeven. The initial stop loss can be kept at $0.2, which can be quickly trailed higher after the position gets filled.
Our bullish view will be invalidated if theXLM/USDpair breaks below both the moving averages and re-enters the downtrend line of the triangle. The downtrend will resume on a breakdown of $0.184.
Litecointurned down from the downtrend line. It has broken below both moving averages and is likely to retest the support zone between $49.466–$47.246. Traders, who are left with partial positions can maintain their stops at $50.
TheLTC/USDpair remains bearish as long as it trades inside the descending triangle pattern. The downtrend will resume if the bears break below $47.246.
The pattern will be invalidated if the bulls breakout of the downtrend line of the triangle. Such a move can push prices to the top of the range at $69.279. We expect a trend change if the virtual currency breaks out and closes (UTC time frame) above $69.279.
Cardanois largely trading inside the tight range of $0.082207–$0.068989 since Oct. 12. After finding support at $0.068989 on Oct. 31, the price rallied to the top of the tight range at $0.082207 on Nov. 6.
However, both these levels held out strongly. While the bulls defended the bottom of the range, the bears defended the top of the range.
With both moving averages flat and the RSI at the midpoint, theADA/USDpair is not giving any clear insight about the next move. We anticipate a new uptrend if the bulls push prices above $0.094256. Until then, we suggest trades remain on the sidelines. If the virtual currency breaks down of $0.060105, it will resume the downtrend.
After failing to breakout of the $112.44 level for four days,Monerohas turned down and broken below both moving averages.
Unless the bulls scale the moving averages quickly, a decline to the bottom of the tight range at $100.453 is probable.
The flat moving averages and the RSI close to 50 suggests that the range bound action is likely to continue. TheXMR/USDpair is not showing any reliable buy setups; hence, we are not recommending any trade.
TRONhas been trading inside the $0.02815521–$0.0183 range since Aug. 8. Between Aug. 8 and Oct. 15, the price rose to the top of the range thrice and fell to the bottom of the range on two occasions.
However, since then, theTRX/USDpair has largely been gravitating close to the midpoint of the range. Any deviation from the center gets pulled back quickly.
A new trend will form either on a breakout or a breakdown from the range. A rally and close (UTC time frame) above $0.02815521 can result in a move to $0.04158193. Below $0.0183, the downtrend will resume.
Market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange. Charts for analysis are provided byTradingView.
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON: Price Analysis, November 5
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON: Price Analysis, October 31
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON: Price Analysis, Nov. 7
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON: Price Analysis, November 2
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
I thought that guy was a bitcoin tout || Ganhe R$10,00 para comprar Bitcoin, Ethereum ou Litecoin na Coinext. Cadastre-se neste link https://coinext.com.br/index.html?aff=3694 … || Total Market Cap: $203,011,931,604
1 BTC: $6,526.62
BTC Dominance: 55.54%
Update Time: 15-09-2018 - 14:00:04 (GMT+3) || 10-05 02:00(GMT)
#SPINDLE price
$SPD (BTC)
Yobit :0.00000022
HitBTC :0.00000020
LiveCoin:0.00000018
$SPD (JPY)
Yobit :0.16
HitBTC :0.15
LiveCoin:0.13 || Most Active #Botswana #imlToday 19Oct $BSE.bw
BIHL | $BIHL.bw - 48,270 shares | Thebe1,750.00 | 0.00%
BTC | $BTCL.bw - 1,000 shares | Thebe114.00 | 0.00%
Choppies | $CHOPPI.bw - 1,000 shares | Thebe67.00 | 0.00%
http://zpr.io/6hxJZ pic.twitter.com/6dSR44Vpbw || Current price: $0.023175
Node count: 861
Total accounts: 525765
Coins burned: 2,668,786.00 TRX
#tron #trx $trx $btc #btc || Volume changes in last 10 minutes:
Binance:
$MTH: 9138.00%
$RDN: 26.71%
$FUEL: 11.19%
Bittrex:
$MFT: 4.72%
$BTC: 4.04%
$XRP: 0.93% || Simplemente descifrando los honorarios de Bitcoin Bitcoin a menudo http://bitcoinmxn.com/2017/12/21/simplemente-descifrando-los-honorarios-de-bitcoin/ … #bitcoin #btc #blockchain #crypto #cryptocurrency #money #currency #bitcoinmexico #bitcoinvenezuela #criptomonedas #criptomoneda #bitcoincash #monero #bubble #futures #bitcoinprice #fiat || Up signal on Binance
+311%, buy vol. incr. by 8.00 BTC
+1.00%, price: 0.00000768 BTC || $46.00 GekkoScience 2Pac Miner Minador USB SHA-256 BTC Bitcoin PPC MZC ZET #cryptocurrency #miner http://corneey.com/wLkd3y pic.twitter.com/yoAT2FBk5Q
|
Trend: down || Prices: 5738.35, 5648.03, 5575.55, 5554.33, 5623.54, 4871.49, 4451.87, 4602.17, 4365.94, 4347.11
|
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)]
Wall Street week ahead: It's all about tax reform and the jobs report: This year has been a bonanza for investors: The Dow (Dow Jones Global Indexes: .DJI) has risen more than 22 percent and there's no apparent end in sight for the latest leg of the market rally. However, the week ahead will bring a critical test for the market. Plus, a key economic indicator: the November jobs report.Tax reform watchThe big question in the market this year has been: Is it solid corporate earnings or hope for meaningful tax reform that has been powering this market? That question will get answered this week if the House and Senate can reconcile their two tax bills and get something on President Donald Trump 's desk. While the goal is to do something by Christmas, it's certainly possible something happens this week. Traders love to buy the rumor and sell the news, so pay attention when Trump finally puts his signature on the bill. Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel, who's been right about the market's direction pretty much the whole way up, thinks Dow 25,000 is nearby . However, many others in the market foresee increasing volatility ahead. Big jobs FridayThe biggest economic news of the week happens Friday, when we get the monthly look at the state of the U.S. jobs market.The Labor Department will release its November nonfarm payrolls report, a closely watched report that not only talks about how many jobs were created during the month but also what paychecks looked like for those at work. These days, the latter number has been attracting more attention than the headline payroll count.Economists right now figure the payrolls grew by about 191,500 jobs, that the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1 percent and the pace of hourly earnings ticked up 0.3 percent for the month and 2.7 percent compared to last year, according to FactSet. Fed Chair Janet Yellen is watching the wage-growth number closely to gauge whether the central bank is on the right track with its planned interest rate increases . And Wall Street will be closely watching this November report as a gauge of how the economy is really doing. This has been an uneven year for job creation, given the fast start then the late-summer lull because of the nasty hurricane season.More on the economyWhile the jobs report will take the focus, there are other data points on the way that investors should be watching closely. There's a pretty wide disparity in perspectives now for how the economy is growing. CNBC's reliable Rapid Update tracker has fourth-quarter GDP coming in at 2.5 percent, though the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow puts the figure at 3.5 percent. Any way you slice it, this has been a strong year. If you split the difference in the Q4 estimates at 3 percent, 2017 comes in at 2.65 percent growth — well on its way to the 3 percent projected by the Trump administration.For this week: Monday is factory orders, Tuesday is trade balance and ISM non-Manufacturing, Wednesday is the ADP private payrolls report, unit labor costs and nonfarm productivity, Thursday brings the usual weekly jobless claims and Challenger job cuts, while Friday, in addition to the jobs report, also features the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey and wholesale inventories.The last wordSince the reaction to tax reform is likely to be the most compelling market story of the week, we'll close with some thoughts from Binky Chadha, chief strategist at Deutsche Bank, for what the bill means and how investors should be playing it:"After the rally this week how much is priced in at the market level? About a third at the recent peak ... Tax reform is not taking place in a vacuum or where everything else is constant. Indeed it is taking place against the backdrop of a strong rebound in US and global growth and earnings..."The biggest beneficiary of a cut in the corporate tax rate are high tax companies and the simplest strategy is to be long them. We do not suggest being short low tax companies since these are generally global companies and one would be doing so against the backdrop of strengthening global growth. We would hedge the high tax basket against the S&P 500 instead. More generally we prefer what we see as already compelling trades that would benefit additionally from tax reform such as small vs large cap, Value vs Growth, Financials vs Utilities."Simply stated, the higher the tax rate for a company, the more it will benefit from reform. This year has been a bonanza for investors: The Dow (Dow Jones Global Indexes: .DJI) has risen more than 22 percent and there's no apparent end in sight for the latest leg of the market rally. However, the week ahead will bring a critical test for the market. Plus, a key economic indicator: the November jobs report. Tax reform watch The big question in the market this year has been: Is it solid corporate earnings or hope for meaningful tax reform that has been powering this market? That question will get answered this week if the House and Senate can reconcile their two tax bills and get something on President Donald Trump 's desk. While the goal is to do something by Christmas, it's certainly possible something happens this week. Traders love to buy the rumor and sell the news, so pay attention when Trump finally puts his signature on the bill. Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel, who's been right about the market's direction pretty much the whole way up, thinks Dow 25,000 is nearby . However, many others in the market foresee increasing volatility ahead. Big jobs Friday The biggest economic news of the week happens Friday, when we get the monthly look at the state of the U.S. jobs market. The Labor Department will release its November nonfarm payrolls report, a closely watched report that not only talks about how many jobs were created during the month but also what paychecks looked like for those at work. These days, the latter number has been attracting more attention than the headline payroll count. Economists right now figure the payrolls grew by about 191,500 jobs, that the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1 percent and the pace of hourly earnings ticked up 0.3 percent for the month and 2.7 percent compared to last year, according to FactSet. Fed Chair Janet Yellen is watching the wage-growth number closely to gauge whether the central bank is on the right track with its planned interest rate increases . And Wall Street will be closely watching this November report as a gauge of how the economy is really doing. This has been an uneven year for job creation, given the fast start then the late-summer lull because of the nasty hurricane season. More on the economy While the jobs report will take the focus, there are other data points on the way that investors should be watching closely. There's a pretty wide disparity in perspectives now for how the economy is growing. CNBC's reliable Rapid Update tracker has fourth-quarter GDP coming in at 2.5 percent, though the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow puts the figure at 3.5 percent. Any way you slice it, this has been a strong year. If you split the difference in the Q4 estimates at 3 percent, 2017 comes in at 2.65 percent growth — well on its way to the 3 percent projected by the Trump administration. For this week: Monday is factory orders, Tuesday is trade balance and ISM non-Manufacturing, Wednesday is the ADP private payrolls report, unit labor costs and nonfarm productivity, Thursday brings the usual weekly jobless claims and Challenger job cuts, while Friday, in addition to the jobs report, also features the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey and wholesale inventories. The last word Since the reaction to tax reform is likely to be the most compelling market story of the week, we'll close with some thoughts from Binky Chadha, chief strategist at Deutsche Bank, for what the bill means and how investors should be playing it: "After the rally this week how much is priced in at the market level? About a third at the recent peak ... Tax reform is not taking place in a vacuum or where everything else is constant. Indeed it is taking place against the backdrop of a strong rebound in US and global growth and earnings... "The biggest beneficiary of a cut in the corporate tax rate are high tax companies and the simplest strategy is to be long them. We do not suggest being short low tax companies since these are generally global companies and one would be doing so against the backdrop of strengthening global growth. We would hedge the high tax basket against the S&P 500 instead. More generally we prefer what we see as already compelling trades that would benefit additionally from tax reform such as small vs large cap, Value vs Growth, Financials vs Utilities." Simply stated, the higher the tax rate for a company, the more it will benefit from reform.More From CNBC
• Ron Paul: Inflation is creating a dangerous distortion in stock market
• Bitcoin hits all-time high above $11,700 as recovery accelerates
• Top technician thinks Dow 25K could happen by the end of the year || Here's Why Bitcoin Cash Soared Today: The price of Bitcoin Cash, a so-called hard fork of Bitcoin, soared on Tuesday after Bitcoin.com co-founder and CTO Emil Oldenburg said that he has sold all of his original Bitcoins and replaced them with the rising altcoin. An investment in Bitcoin right now I would say is the most risky investment one can make. It is extremely high-risk. Ive actually sold all of my Bitcoins recently and switched to Bitcoin Cash, Oldenburg told Swedish tech site Breakit . Oldenburg also cited increased transaction fees and slow confirmation times as two reasons for his departure from Bitcoin. These issues, which have been caused by skyrocketing interest in the original cryptocurrency, were the primary catalysts for the creation of Bitcoin Cash. Launched in August, Bitcoin Cash is hard fork of Bitcoins. A hard fork in the cryptocurrency world refers to a change in the rules of the blockchain infrastructure that is not recognized as valid by the older software. In some ways, hard forks are similar to stock splits in that they are designed, in part, to alleviate barriers to entry for new users. Oldenburg explained that his company, which serves as a popular Bitcoin wallet, has started to move away from Bitcoin and will begin focusing more on Bitcoin Cash. Weve actually stopped developing new services for the old Bitcoin network now and are focusing mostly on Bitcoin Cash, he said. In the wake of Oldenburgs comments, the price of Bitcoin slipped more than 3.5% on Tuesday morning, while the price of several notable altcoinsincluding Bitcoin Cashsoared to new highs. In overnight trading, Bitcoin Cash soared more than 20% to a new peak of $2,400. Bitcoin Cash could also be benefitting from the news that Thomson Reuters added the altcoin to its Eikon platform, making it the third cryptocurrencyafter Bitcoin and Ethereumto be included on the service. Eikon is a set of financial analysis software products that are used by hundreds of thousands of financial professionals. Story continues Want more stock market analysis from this author? Make sure to follow @Ryan_McQueeney on Twitter! Zacks Editor-in-Chief Goes "All In" on This Stock Full disclosure, Kevin Matras now has more of his own money in one particular stock than in any other. He believes in its short-term profit potential and also in its prospects to more than double by 2019. Today he reveals and explains his surprising move in a new Special Report. Download 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 BITCOIN INVT TR (GBTC): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Did Fed Remarks Spark Start of Next Rally?: Gold prices spiked higher on Wednesday in response to a weaker U.S. Dollar and a late session sell-off in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index. U.S. Dollar and stock market traders were responding to the minutes of the Fed meeting which said Fed officials fear valuations in the stock market are too high and a ‘sharp reversal’ could be ahead. The weakness in the stock market late in the session sent investors into safe-haven assets like gold and the Japanese Yen.
December Comex Gold settled at $1292.20, up $10.50 or +0.82%.
The minutes of the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting in November released Wednesday revealed that central bank officials were largely optimistic about the economy but also worried that financial market prices are out of balance and posing a threat to the economy.
In other news, U.S. Durable Goods declined 0.5 percent last month. That was the biggest drop since September 2016 and followed an upwardly revised 2.1 percent increase in September. Traders were looking for an increase of 0.5 percent last month after a previously reported 1.7 percent jump in September. Core Capital goods orders rose 4.4 percent on a year-on-year basis.
U.S. Weekly Unemployment Claims came in at 239,000 for the week-ended November 18 versus an estimate of 240,000.
According to a revision of the data for November from the University of Michigan’s Consumer Survey Center, U.S. consumer sentiment was revised up more than expected. The survey showed consumer sentiment inched up to 98.5 from the initial reading of 97.8. Traders were looking for a slight rise to 98.0.
The Comex gold market is closed on Thursday due to a U.S. bank holiday.
Due to this week’s holiday trade, I don’t think we’ve seen the full reaction to the Fed minutes. Traders may have to wait for Monday for this.
With the Fed clearly warning that the stock market may be overvalued and ripe for a correction as well as a possible threat to the economy, the next move is up to equity market investors.
They can brush off the remarks and continue the stock market rally. In this case, gold is likely to remain rangebound. Gains would definitely be limited.
If investors take heed to the Fed’s remarks and it leads to a stock market correction, then gold is likely to be underpinned. Depending on the size and duration of the stock market correction, gold prices could surge over the near-term.
Wednesday’s rally was likely fueled by short-covering. However, if stock market investors believe the Fed and start to pare positions then the next rally in gold is likely to be fueled by new buying.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Did Fed Remarks Spark Start of Next Rally?
• The DAX Rises Following Strong German GDP
• Pound & Euro Make Big Moves along with Gold
• Commodities Daily Forecast – November 23, 2017
• AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Aussie Developing Bullish Tone
• How CME’s Bitcoin Futures Launch can Affect Bitcoin Prices || Is Amazon Getting Set To Accept Bitcoin As Payment?: FromTyler Durden: Over the past week, rumors have swirled that Amazon may be preparing to accept bitcoin as a form of payment, a decision which would lend immediate credibility and legitimacy to the cryptocurrency.
Last week,Die Welt reportedthat fintech sources in Silicon Valley were suggesting that the global online retail giant could soon integrate Bitcoin as a payment option.
When questioned, an Amazon spokesman replied to the German publication in a predictably generic fashion: “(Amazon) opts to include new products or services only when these are useful for our customers – until that point, we do not engage in rough speculation”,CoinTelegraph reported.
Photo credit: Cointelegraph
Amazon has faced years of lobbying and rumors regarding its Bitcoin relationship ever since smaller competitor Overstock (which recently announced plans to raise capital via an ICO) became a pioneering virtual currency adherent in 2013. While multiple other midsize operators have since engaged with Bitcoin, Amazon’s participation would still be a first-of-its-kind move. Meanwhile, several dedicated services already exist to offer purchases with Bitcoin from their websites through the intermediary of gift cards.
And while Amazon has refused to commit on the record, rumors that the world’s biggest online retailer may be adopting cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum, got a renewed push today whenCoinDesk reportedthat according to industry news site DomainNameWire,Amazon has registered three cryptocurrency-related web domains, online records show.
According to information from Whois Lookup,three domains – “amazonethereum.com,” “amazoncryptocurrency.com” and “amazoncryptocurrencies.com” – were registered on Oct. 31. The domains are linked to Amazon Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. that has been attributed to past patent filings from the e-commerce company.
Phone numbers listed on the registration documents connect to Amazon’s legal department, though a representative of that office could not be reached by press time.
While coindesk admits that as of this moment, “it’s not entirely clear what purpose the domain names will serve” the mere fact that Amazon has telegraphed its intentions vis-a-vis the crypto space may be sufficient to boost demand for the digital currency even more, as the eventual acceptance by Amazon would be widely seen as a universal stamp of approval. What is interesting is that Amazon may be branching out beyond merely the generic “bitcoin” and into its biggest competitor, which arguable has broader corporate acceptance, ethereum.
Then again, Amazon may be simply moving to safeguard its brand. Back in 2013, Amazon secured “amazonbitcoin.com,” which currently redirects to Amazon’s main page – an arrangement that further suggests the protective intent of the registration.
Alternatively, Amazon could be seeking to avoid confusion between cryptocurrencies and Amazon Coin, a virtual currency product introduced in 2013 that serves as an online payment method for customers.
This article is brought to you courtesy ofZeroHedge. || How Safe Is Bitcoin, Really?: Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. With prices doubling to $18,000 in just the past month—and then dropping sharply—Bitcoin is drawing more attention than ever in its eight-year history. The "cryptocurrency" carries some well-known risks—the price could drop precipitously, and scams have been reported. But there's also another, more technological danger: One crashed hard drive or online hacking incident can wipe out an owner's stash of Bitcoin, leaving them with essentially no recourse. That's because of some basic differences between Bitcoin and a conventional currency such as dollars or Euros. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, such as Litecoin and Ethereum, are wholly digital forms of cash stored in so-called wallets. Like other files, Bitcoin wallets can be stored locally, say on a hard drive stuffed under a mattress, or in the cloud. And like dollars, Bitcoin can be lost or stolen. Just ask Rickey Payne, a customer service manager at Denver’s DataTech Labs data recovery firm. According to Payne, it’s not unusual these days for people to bring into his store dusty old, nonworking computer hard drives in a desperate attempt to recover Bitcoin. “Either the drive just failed and they have a wallet on there, or they have a drive that’s been laying around for years and they suddenly remember they had some Bitcoin on it,” Payne says. Having a hard drive with Bitcoin fail is something like opening a leather wallet and discovering that your paper money has disintegrated—except that $20 bills haven't risen in value by 20,000 percent in four years. Payne won't say how much Bitcoin DataTech Labs has recovered for customers, but he says he has helped quite a few people recover their digital money from the abyss. “There have been many awesome stories here,” he says. The Threat of Online Hacking Hard-drive crashes aren't the only threat facing a Bitcoin investor—hacking can be a problem, too. Bitcoin exchanges are online services that lets people buy and sell Bitcoin (and similar cryptocurrencies) using a website or mobile app. They are primary gateway through which most consumers buy and sell Bitcoin. And, just like other online companies, they can be hacked. Just this week, a prominent South Korean exchange was forced to shut down after being raided by hackers. And longtime Bitcoin watchers can hardly forget the spectacular implosion of Mt. Gox, the first high-profile Bitcoin exchange, which ceased operation in 2014 after allegedly being hit by hackers. Story continues The case of Mt. Gox is currently being litigated in Japan, where the exchange was based. In the United States, Coinbase and Gemini are the two highest-profile Bitcoin exchanges. Coinbase started way back in 2013 (when Bitcoin was frequently used on black market sites such as the Silk Road) while Gemini was started by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss—the twins who are perhaps best known for suing Mark Zuckerberg over the creation of Facebook. (The Winklevoss brothers are now Bitcoin billionaires.) The FDIC insures U.S. dollar deposits on these exchanges up to $250,000, just like the deposits in a conventional consumer bank. However, the FDIC does not insure Bitcoin held on the exchanges. Both exchanges take measures to protect Bitcoin deposits. For instance, they claim to store only small percentage of cryptocurrencies online at any one time, with the vast majority being held in offline cold storage, out of reach of any potential hacker. The Physical Wallet Nevertheless, some industry insiders say that, while exchanges are useful for buying and selling Bitcoin, they may not be a great place to store them. “We do not hold Bitcoin on exchanges,” says Matt Galligan, the co-founder and CEO of a San Francisco startup called Picks & Shovels that helps traders buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Allow an exchange to hold the "private keys" associated with your Bitcoin and "you are at the mercy of someone else no matter how you look at it,” he says. John Biggs, a former editor at TechCrunch who lauched a Bitcoin company several years ago, says that Bitcoin should be treated more like a physical asset than a conventional currency. “Yeah, maybe we have to assume some risk when it comes to this kind of stuff, but if you want to be serious about it and take care of your own assets then you need to treat it like a bar of gold," he says. "It’s not like you take a bar of gold and just give it to your banker. You instead say, ‘I want to put it in a special box.’” Both Galligan and Biggs recommend that Bitcoin owners use something called a hardware wallet. These devices resemble USB thumb drives, cost around $100, and are typically viewed as the gold standard when it comes to securely storing your Bitcoin. A recovery process is also available in case you physically misplace the wallet. “The point of these devices is to prevent a scalable software attack that can take down an exchange and suck down all the money in it,” says Josh Datko, a security researcher who demonstrated a security flaw in a popular brand of hardware wallet at the DefCon computer security conference last summer. If your Bitcoin is in a physical wallet, they can't go up in smoke if the exchange is compromised. But, of course, none of these measures can save you if Bitcoin values suddenly plummet. Because even the most secure hardware isn't bubble-proof. More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright © 2017, Consumer Reports, Inc. View comments || 3 Cryptocurrencies to Consider Buying Over Bitcoin: It may be hard to believe, but it's the truth: Cryptocurrencies are considerably closer to hitting $1 trillion in total value than $100 billion in value.
When the year began, the combined market cap of all virtual currencies was just $17.7 billion, and bitcoin made up nearly 88% of that total. However, as of Dec. 20, the aggregate market cap of the better than 1,360 digital currencies had soared to $635 billion, representing a year-to-date increase of almost 3,500%, and bitcoin's contribution was less than 50%. By comparison, the stock market historically gains about 7% a year, inclusive of dividend reinvestment and adjusted for inflation. Cryptocurrencies have simply whooped traditional equities in 2017.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why such bullishness, you ask? A number of catalysts have played a role in pushing virtual currencies higher. For example, theemergence of blockchainis creating a lot of buzz on Wall Street.
Blockchain is the digital and decentralized ledger that records all transactions without the need for a financial intermediary like a bank. Think of it as the infrastructure that underlies digital currencies like bitcoin. Blockchain has the potential to speed up transaction settlement times, reduce transaction fees, and could be considerably more secure than current databases, just to name a few advantages.
Dollar weakness has also been helpful, especially to bitcoin. A falling dollar is great news for U.S. exporters, but it's not such positive news for investors holding cash. These investors will often seek the safety of gold as a store of value, given gold's scarcity and use as a currency for more than 2,700 years. Yet some cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, have protocols that limit the number of coins that can be mined. This creates the perception of scarcity, which has pushed some investors to choose bitcoin, or other cryptos, over traditional commodities, like gold.
Emotions are clearly playing a role, too. The fear of missing out, or "FOMO," and watching everyone else make money has coerced both novice and experienced investors into buying cryptocurrencies.
Image source: Getty Images.
As you might imagine, the buzz is almost always about bitcoin -- and with good reason. It comprises nearly 46% of the aggregate cryptocurrency market cap, is the most popular virtual coin in the world, was the first tradable digital currency, and is accepted by more merchants relative to any other cryptocurrency.
Yet, if you ask this investor, it's pretty far down the list of cryptocurrencies worth considering for purchase. Bitcoin, and Litecoin, for that matter, are laser-focused on growing their partnerships with merchants, and have largely ignored the enterprise-based application of their blockchains. While there's value to be had as a means of money transmittance, I personally believe that blockchain is where the bigger long-term opportunity lies. As such, I believe the following three cryptocurrencies may be worth buying over bitcoin.
Image source: Getty Images.
There's a good reason why Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap: It has areally popular blockchain. Formed earlier this year, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is comprised of 200 organizations that are currently testing a version of Ethereum's blockchain in demo, pilot, and small-scale projects. These testers include governments, financial-service companies (which are expected to be the biggest benefactor of blockchain technology), and tech and energy companies.
What makes Ethereum really stand out is itsincorporation of smart contracts, which help facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation of a contract. While Ethereum's blockchain is somewhat similar to that of bitcoin, these smart contract protocols allow it to move beyond currency-only applications. Its blockchain could be used to store information about an application, or can function as a multi-signature account that allows money to be spent when a certain percentage of people agree. Or in the case of integrated oil and gas giantBP(NYSE: BP), it could speed up transaction settlement times to improve energy futures trading efficiency.
The one knock on Ethereum is that its coin, Ether, is almost exclusively used to cover transaction fees and doesn't have a clear path, like bitcoin, to being accepted by merchants. Again, I believe the smarter path for the Ethereum Foundation is to focus on blockchain, which is what they're doing, but it's unclear how exactly the Ether coin ties into its future.
Image source: Getty Images.
Another cryptocurrency that's been very impressive of late is Ripple. Its token, the XRP, has galloped higher by more than 12,000% since the year began.
As with Ethereum, the buzz here is all about the company's blockchain technology. But unlike Ethereum, which is partnering with a number of industries, Ripple is focused on becoming the go-to blockchain for the financial-services industry. The company's blockchain offers the ability to rapidly proof payments and transactions, which could drastically improve the time it takes for settlement. In particular, Ripple's blockchain may offer the potential forinstantaneous cross-border payments and transactions.
In June 2016, Ripple announced that four major banks were testing out its distributed ledger technology in some small capacity:Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce,UBS,Banco Santander(NYSE: SAN), andUnicredit. But it wasn't until Nov. 2017 that Ripple really put itself on the radar.American Express(NYSE: AXP)and Banco Santander announced that they were partnering to test Ripple's blockchain in non-card cross-border payments across AmEx's FX International Payment network to U.K. Santander accounts. These payments are expected to process instantly.
What's more, it looks like the XRP is going to play a vital role in the growth of Ripple's blockchain. In particular, it could be used as an intermediary in cross-border transactions that allows for one currency, say Japanese yen, to be exchanged to another currency, like the euro, instantly. Ripple is certainly worth keeping a close eye on, and it looks to be far more intriguing than bitcoin.
Image source: Getty Images.
Sticking with the theme that blockchain is king, one under-the-radar cryptocurrency you should be following is Stellar (formerly Stellar Lumens), and its coin, the XLM. This is a virtual currency thatholds true to its name, as the XLM has been "stellar" this year with a 10,400% year-to-date gain.
Stellar's focus is similar to that of Ripple: building financial products for transactions around the globe. In other words, it's targeting enterprise clients with high volumes of cross-border transactions. But whereas Ripple is sinking its teeth into big banks and financial-service companies, Stellar is looking at servicing multinational corporations that conduct billions in revenue outside of their home country. Stellar's blockchain suggests that cross-border payments could settle in just two-to-five seconds.
What's more, Stellar also incorporates smart contract protocols into its blockchain. Though they aren't exactly the same as Ethereum's, they nonetheless are an attractive addition for enterprise customers.
In October, Stellar announced a partnership withIBM(NYSE: IBM)and KlickEx to facilitate quicker cross-border transactions. IBM generates tens of billions of dollars from global clients, signaling that this could be Stellar's opportunity to prove the value of its blockchain to other multinationals. Currently, a dozen banks in the South Pacific region are deploying this project, with IBM expected to scale the project beyond this region if it's successful.
Nevertheless, keep in mind that the word "consider" is paramount with all three of these cryptocurrencies. While this investor views them as far more intriguing over the long run than bitcoin, I wouldn't suggest chasing these valuations at this time. Therisks in cryptocurrencies are aplenty, and it wouldn't take much for this bubble to burst.
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Sean Williamshas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends American Express. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Hedge Funds are Key to Next Move: Crude oil futures finished the week mixed with U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures posting a loss and international-benchmark Brent finishing higher. U.S crude was pressured by the start of the Keystone pipeline and higher production. Both gained after OPEC voted to extend its production cut program with Brent retaining most of its gains for the week.
January WTI crude oil settled at $58.36, down $0.59 or -1.00% and February Brent finished at $63.73, up $0.26 or +0.41%.
Prices eased early in the week due to uncertainty over the OPEC deal and the news that TransCanada would restart the 590,000-bpd pipeline at reduced pressure after getting approval from U.S. regulators.
Mid-week, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported U.S. crude oil stocks fell last week, led by the biggest fall in inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma storage hub in eight years, while gasoline and distillate stockpiles rose.
Crude inventories fell 3.4 million barrels in the week to November 24, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a decrease of 2.3 million barrels. The EIA said that most of the drop was attributed to a fall in stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, futures delivery hub, which was down by 2.9 million barrels.
Stocks of gasoline and distillates rose more than anticipated. Distillate inventories, which include diesel and heating oil, rose 2.7 million barrels, versus expectations for a 230,000-barrel increase, the EIA data showed. Gasoline stocks rose 3.6 million barrels, compared with forecasts for a 1.2 million-barrel gain.
Late in the week, OPEC, Russia and nine other producers decided to extend production cuts through the end of 2018 at a meeting in Vienna, Austria. The deal will be reviewed in June for signs that the oil market is overheating.
In other news, U.S. energy companies added two oil rigs in the week to December 1, bringing the total count up to 749, the highest since September, General Electric Company’s Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report on Friday.
The extension of the OPEC-led production cuts was already priced into the market so, in my opinion, the next move will be up to the hedge funds since they hold huge long positions. We’re going to be watching to see if they continue to be willing to buy strength to extend the rally, or if they decide to book profits and play for a retracement into more favorable price levels.
I believe the key takeaways in the extension is that countries involved in the deal will be keeping an eye on price levels and on U.S. production and will be willing to take steps to prevent prices from rising too high, too fast.
Russia in particular is worried about U.S. production. It fears that if prices move too high, the U.S. will ramp up production so it wants to have the ability to exit the deal early should the market overheat and prices rise too far.
This week, we may get to see if the hedge funds are willing to test this particular aspect of the extension deal, or respect it and start taking profits.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin Gold DASH and Monero Price forecast for the week of December 4, 2017, Technical Analysis || Bitcoin Futures Trading Brings Crypto Into Mainstream Finance: The intersection of digital money and traditional finance is at 400 South LaSalle Street in Chicago this weekend. Thats where trading in bitcoin futures opens Sunday evening, as the first major U.S. exchange offers a product pegged to the wildly fluctuating cryptocurrency. The currency has risen more than 1,500 percent this year, and about 85 percent just in the past two weeks, driven largely by demand from individual investors. But even as bitcoin launched in 2009 as an alternative to banks divides Wall Street executives and central bankers worldwide, those kinds of gains are a powerful magnet. The futures offered by Cboe Global Markets Inc., and similar contracts that start trading in a week at at another Chicago-based exchange, CME Group Inc., may open the door to greater inflows of institutional money, while also making it easier to bet on bitcoins decline. Either way, its likely trading will start slowly, said Mike Novogratz, chief executive officer of Galaxy Investment Partners, which is raising a crypto hedge fund targeted at $500 million. If people have expectations that its going to have huge liquidity on day one, theyre just wrong, Novogratz said Thursday in Toronto. Its going to take a while to build liquidity. People need to go through at least one cycle to figure out how it settles. Derivatives trading is the culmination of a wild year for bitcoin, which captured imaginations and investment around the world, propelled by its stratospheric gains, and its anti-establishment mission as a currency without the backing of a government or a central bank, and a payment system without a reliance on banks. The derivatives contracts should thrust bitcoin more squarely into the realm of regulators, banks and institutional investors. In addition to the contracts at Cboe and CME, which will start trading Dec. 18, Cantor Fitzgerald LP won approval from regulators to trade binary options, and LedgerX, a startup exchange, already trades bitcoin options. Story continues There will be a ramp-up time, said Ari Paul, chief investment officer of Blocktower Capital Advisors LP. There just isnt a rush. The professional traders will mostly be looking to do arbitrage, between the futures and bitcoin itself. I dont expect massive money flows right away but then I expect gradual buying from people who want passive exposure without buying bitcoin directly. The two exchanges on Dec. 1 got permission to offer the contracts after pledging to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission that the products dont run afoul of the law, in a process called self-certification. Derivatives should have the effect of bringing a deeper liquidity to the market which should reduce volatility, said Alistair Milne, chief investment officer and co-founder of Altana Digital Currency Fund that is based in Monaco. As the whole cryptocurrency economy gets bigger the volatility should reduce. But not everyone is convinced its a good idea. On Dec. 6, the Futures Industry Association a group of major banks, brokers and traders said the contracts were rushed without enough consideration of the risks. Last month, Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire chairman of Interactive Brokers Group Inc., wrote an open letter to CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo, arguing that bitcoins large price swings mean its futures contracts shouldnt be allowed on platforms that clear other derivatives. Still, Interactive Brokers will offer its customers access to the futures, though with greater restrictions. They wont be able to go short betting that prices will decline and Interactives margin requirement, or how much investors have to set aside as collateral, will be at least 50 percent. Thats higher than either Cboes or CMEs margin requirements. Cboes futures are cash-settled and based on the Gemini auction price for bitcoin in U.S. dollars. The exchange plans to impose trading limits to curb volatility, halting trading for two minutes if prices rise or fall 10 percent, and a five-minute halt kicks in at 20 percent. Margins for Cboe bitcoin futures, which will be cleared by Options Clearing Corp., will be at 40 percent or higher. Cboes futures market is a niche player in derivatives trading, which could limit how many contracts change hands in the initial days. Fueled by contracts on the VIX, the Cboe Futures Exchange handled 56 million contracts during the first three quarters of 2017, according to data compiled by the Futures Industry Association, the industrys trade and lobbying group. CME traded 3.1 billion contracts in the same period. Some traders also will prefer CME contracts over Cboes because theyre based off four exchanges, instead of just one, reducing risk of disruptions because of outages, attacks or price manipulations. The smaller Cboe does have an advantage over CME Group, however, because its a major player in stock and equity options trading, giving it access to broker-dealers and investors who may not trade on CME. || BlackRock's Fink says bitcoin thrives on its anonymity: By Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin, whose value has fluctuated significantly this month, remains a "speculative" investment that thrives because of the cryptocurrency's anonymous nature, BlackRock Inc <BLK.N> Chief Executive Larry Fink said on Monday. "The reason why it does so well is it is anonymous. It's anonymous, and it's cross-border," Fink, whose firm oversees nearly $6 trillion of assets, said at the Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit. "If you legitimize it, you know who your counterparties are...the question is how many people will use it if you have to acknowledge you are a buyer or a seller." Fink called bitcoin a "very speculative instrument. More importantly, it is an instrument that people use for money laundering." The value of bitcoin plunged as much as 29 percent from its Nov. 8 record high of $7,888 following the cancellation of a planned technology upgrade and amid persistent concern of a bubble. Bitcoin recouped some of its losses on Monday. Investors who have held bitcoin for the long term have fared well. Even after the recent drop, its value has increased more than sixfold this year. Investors who held on longer have been rewarded even more: in 2011, bitcoin traded at below $3. Fink, however, said most investors with long-term horizons, and who are keeping "record amounts" on the sidelines, should be focused on traditional assets such as stocks and bonds. He said that for a 30-year-old person, "100 percent equities is the right investment strategy," at a time when the world's economies are enjoying "synchronized growth" for the first time since the financial crisis. Bitcoin "is tiny in the scheme of financial markets," Fink said. Overall, "there's too much focus on bitcoin," Fink said. "I don't know why it has so much fascination for the press." Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter @Reuters_Summits For other news from Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit, click http://www.reuters.com/summit/investment18 (Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Andrea Ricci) View comments || Dow Jones 30 and NASDAQ 100 Price forecast for the week of November 27, 2017, Technical Analysis: Dow Jones 30 The Dow Jones 30 broke higher during the course of the week, reaching towards a fresh new high. Pullbacks should continue to offer value, and I believe that the 23,250 level should offer support. Longer-term, I believe that if we can stay above the 22,000 level, the market should continue to go higher and remain in a longer-term uptrend. I believe that given enough time, we should go to the 25,000 handle, as the money keeps flowing into this marketplace, and is very likely that algorithmic traders will be attracted to dips. With any luck, the market should reach 25,000 rather quickly, as although the Federal Reserve looks likely to raise interest rates, it’s likely that the market has already priced this in and is not concerned. Dow Jones 31 and NASDAQ Index Video 27.11.17 NASDAQ 100 The NASDAQ 100 has broken out to a fresh, new high, and looks likely to continue to reach towards the upside. The 6400-level offered a bit of resistance at the end of the week, but it’s probably going to be just a matter of time before we break out to the upside and reach above it. Once we do, I think the next target is 6450, followed very quickly by 6500. The NASDAQ 100, of course, has to lead the way for some time and should continue to be a market that buyers get involved in on dips, as they present a significant amount of value. I believe that there is a massive amount of support for the 6000 handle as well. Because of this, if we can stay above the 6000 handle, it’s likely that the uptrend remains intact, and should continue to be a market that algorithmic traders continue to push to the upside. NASDAQ weekly chart, November 27, 2017 This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: FBS Obtained CySEC License Gold Daily Analysis – November 27, 2017 EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for November 27, 2017 Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Oversold Conditions Fueling Short-Covering Rally Market Snapshot – Bitcoin Is the Star of the Day E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis – November 27, 2017 Forecast
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
bitcoin priceってゆうか、 || こんばんは。 bitcoin priceという || こんばんは。 bitcoin priceという || Bitcóin https://es.rt.com/tr7 via @ActualidadRT || Tiffany Haddishちゃんが || Tiffany Haddishちゃんが || Tiffany Haddishちゃんが || 青い子で！ || I put $500 in BTC #bitcoins || #Bitcoin is down . #Litecoin & #Ethereum EXPLODING !
|
Trend: up || Prices: 14156.40, 13657.20, 14982.10, 15201.00, 15599.20, 17429.50, 17527.00, 16477.60, 15170.10, 14595.40
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2016-06-13]
BTC Price: 704.38, BTC RSI: 90.47
Gold Price: 1284.40, Gold RSI: 65.46
Oil Price: 48.88, Oil RSI: 55.76
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin's Creator Reveals Himself: More than seven years after the first bitcoin transaction, Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright has stepped forward to identify himself as “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the creator of Bitcoin.
Major players involved in the development of Bitcoin have confirmed that the proof that Wright has presented that he is Nakamoto is legitimate.
In a meeting withthe BBC, the Economist and GQ, Wright digitally signed messages using cryptographic keys created during the early days of Bitcoin development and linked to blocks of bitcoins mined by Nakamoto.
Wright says these blocks were used to make the first ever bitcoin transaction back in January of 2009.
Jon Matonis, Economist and founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation, verified Wright’s claims.
“During the London proof session, I had the opportunity to review the relevant data along three distinct lines: cryptographic, social and technical,” Matonis explained.
“It is my firm belief that Craig Wright satisfies all three categories.
Related Link:Poll: Analysts See More Upside For Gold, Silver
Other Bitcoin enthusiasts remain skeptical, but Wright plans to publicly release data to allow others to verify his identity.
Since Bitcoin’s inception, Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to have accumulated more than one million bitcoins. That would mean that Wright could potentially have generated about $450 million in profit to date.
TheBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC) is up 12.7 percent in 2016.
Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.
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© 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. "So there is a whole 99 percent that has broad applications across the broad industries." Over the past year numerous Wall Street firms, led by Goldman Sachs, have declared their commitment to pursuing blockchain as a potential revolutionary technology for tracking and clearing financial transactions. The blockchain technology works by creating permanent, public "ledgers" of all transactions that could potentially replace complicated clearing and settlement systems with one simple ledger. Still, bitcoin is by far the largest implementation of blockchain technology and there is considerable debate as to whether one can truly develop without the other. "Bitcoin is still the only blockchain-enabled, cross-border large scale, provable application that's actually in production," said Joseph Guastella, a principal at Deloitte Consulting in New York. "Bitcoin as a currency may not be as relevant as it was in many ways, but it actually is relevant as a proof case for the blockchain technology." Bitcoins are created through a "mining" process, in which specialized computers solve complex math problems in exchange for bitcoins. One bitcoin is equivalent to $444.75 late on Monday and trade on various exchanges around the world. But bitcoin transaction volume has been in decline over the past six months amid a bitter split over technical changes in the protocol that are needed to increase the capacity of the system that produces them. Because the cryptocurrency has no formal governance, it relies on a core group of developers for direction - and they are sharply divided over the changes. But that debate was of relatively little concern to the Blockchain enthusiasts gathered in New York. Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright identified himself on Monday as the creator of controversial digital currency bitcoin. "It's irrelevant because his announcement doesn't solve a problem or resolve a conflict," said Bharat Solanki, managing director at Cambrian Consulting in New York. Story continues "It probably helps to determine the origins of bitcoin but only for recognition," Solanki said. For Naoki Taniguchi, a global innovation expert at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd in San Francisco, he does not really care about who created bitcoin. "It's all about the blockchain," he said. View comments || Australian says he created bitcoin, but some sceptical: * Unmasking Nakamoto would solve bitcoin mystery
* Some sceptical that Wright is Nakamoto
* Wright's blog mentions development of his "small contribution" (Updates with quotes from bitcoin experts)
By Byron Kaye and Jemima Kelly
SYDNEY/LONDON, May 2 (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 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. 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) || Cash, Credit or Gold?: Is cash becoming obsolete? "Contactless" payment systems, likeApple PayandGoogle Wallet, digitize debit and credit cards in a virtual wallet, letting you pay for a variety of services and products from the convenience of your phone. Apps like PayPal’sVenmolet users send money instantly, splitting the cost of brunch or reimbursing friends for movie tickets with just a few taps. And, despiteongoing growing pains, Bitcoin, the open-source currency project, continues to live on.
Related:Why Billionaire Investor Reid Hoffman Is Betting Big on Bitcoin
The next payment frontier? Digital payments in gold. Already, the Canadian startupBitGoldis advancing the digital payment revolution with a simple mission: Help people securely acquire, store and spend gold. Customers are being offered a prepaid card for spending their gold or converting gold payments into currency at any ATM machine.
If this sounds a bit like a science fiction movie, you’re not alone in that thought. But, after years of serious credit-card hacking scandals, could customers finally be ready to say goodbye to credit cards and hello to digital payments, including BitGold? Here’s what your business needs to know about the choices of cash, credit or gold.
Each new day seems to find a new data security breach. In 2013, Target made headlines whenhackers stole credit card data from more than 40 million accounts. A federal judge later ruled thatTarget had to pay its hack victims up to $10 million.
And that's not all: Last year, an estimated 21.5 million Americans were affected by acolossal breach of government computer systems, where hackers made off with a “vast trove of personal information” that included fingerprints and Social Security numbers. The hack was believed to have originated in China, although government officials declined to pinpoint a specific perpetrator.
Related:Would You Work Out Harder If You Got Paid in Bitcoin?
With a new identity fraud victim every two seconds, 12.7 million U.S. consumers in 2014 suffered an estimated $16 billion in losses, according to the2015 Identity Fraud Studyfrom Javelin Strategy & Research. With identity theft and fraud complaints on the rise -- and the federal government seemingly unable to protect sensitive information from data breaches -- it’s natural to wonder if any payment source is safe.
Safer payments are the goal behind a contactless payment plan like Apple Pay. Apple has made a big deal out of its Apple Pay system, arguing that it’s more secure than other such systems because Apple Pay transactions are verified with a fingerprint. Apple claims that since it never reveals the card number or details to a merchant at payment, its system is more privacy-focused than others; additionally, payment is authorized using a one-time unique dynamic security code, instead of the code from the back of the card.
Card payment is tied to each device; information is never uploaded to iCloud or Apple ID accounts.
Despite these big promises, Apple Pay adoption has been slow. Consumers feel that swiping or dipping a credit card is still easier and faster, and credit card issuers have no incentive to promote Apple Pay over the standard card swipe. Breaking consumer habits can be hard, especially for financial services. Banks, for example, are still trying to sell older consumers on the security of digital check deposits via smartphone apps.
Given Apple's challenge of trying to convince consumers to pay with their iPhones, does something as extreme as digital gold payment even have a chance?
BitGold is a brand new platform offering customers the ability to pay digitally with gold. Despite the name, BitGold is much more like PayPal than bitcoin;BitGold is not a “bitcoin” backed by gold, nor is it an anonymous system. Instead, BitGold is a system that knows its customers, protects them from fraud and can reverse transactions, should fraud be detected.
BitGold is also an incredibly interesting idea. It’s founded on the belief that gold provides a neutral, natural unit of account in relation to other elements; and it’s an elemental unit of accounting for past, present and future transactions, making it a natural unit for online savings and trade in an age of global cooperation. BitGold’s chief marketing challenge is selling this belief, in tandem with its system for acquiring, storing and process gold-backed payments.
Related:It's Crucial to Keep Up With These 6 Digital Trends in 2016
While it’s still early in BitGold’s development, the possibility of paying for transactions with gold is certainly intriguing, especially in a world that’s increasingly dominated by credit card theft, rampant debt and data security breaches. The evolution of digital payments in gold is one financial trend to watch closely in months to come. And, you never know: Apple Pay may yet take off. || Australian says he created bitcoin, but some skeptical: By Byron Kaye and Jemima Kelly SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright identified himself as the creator of controversial digital currency bitcoin on Monday but experts were divided over whether he really was the elusive person who has gone by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto until now. Uncovering Nakamoto's real identity would solve a riddle dating back to the publication of the open source software behind the cryptocurrency in 2008, before its launch a year later. Bitcoin has since become the world's most commonly used virtual currency, attracting the interest of banks, speculators, criminals and regulators. Worth a total of $7 billion at current levels, it fell more than 3 percent on Monday -- a normal intraday move for the volatile currency -- after the news, to below $440 from around $455, before recovering slightly. Some online commentators suggested bitcoin's creator could help resolve a bitter row among the currency's software developers that threatens its future. But Wright made no reference to the row in a BBC interview identifying himself as Nakamoto, and as the protocol bitcoin runs on is open-source and cannot be controlled by any one person, it is unclear whether he would be able to influence the way it develops. "I was the main part of it, other people helped me," Wright, who is now living in London, told the BBC. "Some people will believe, Some people won't, and to tell you the truth, I don't really care," he said. Many bitcoiners said Wright had not done enough to definitively prove that he was Nakamoto, who maintained his anonymity throughout his involvement with bitcoin, which he stepped away from in 2011. But Gavin Andresen, who Nakamoto chose to succeed him, published a blog post in which he described meeting Wright last month and said he is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the Australian is Nakamoto. Jon Matonis, a founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation now works as a bitcoin consultant, wrote a blog post on Monday which, like Andresens, supported Wrights claims. Story continues According to me, the proof is conclusive and I have no doubt that Craig Steven Wright is the person behind the Bitcoin technology, Nakamoto consensus, and the Satoshi Nakamoto name, Matonis wrote. He and Andresen also confirmed they had been responsible for their respective blog posts to Reuters directly. LEGACY Nakamoto's biggest likely legacy lies well beyond his control. The blockchain technology that underpins the currency could transform the way banks settle transactions, the way that property rights and other vital data are recorded, and provide a way for central banks to issue their own digital currencies. The BBC reported on Monday that Wright gave some technical proof demonstrating that he had access to blocks of bitcoins known to have been created by bitcoin's creator. Researchers believe Nakamoto may be holding up to one million of the more than 15 million bitcoins currently in circulation, which would make the creator worth around $440 million. In a blog post also dated Monday, Wright posted an example of a signature used by Nakamoto and an explanation of how bitcoin transactions are verified and thanked all those who had supported the project from its inception. "This incredible communitys passion and intellect and perseverance have taken my small contribution and nurtured it, enhanced it, breathed life into it," he wrote. However he did not state directly that he was Nakamoto. "Satoshi is dead," he said. "But this is only the beginning." Bitcoin expert Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Coin Center, said a new message cryptographically signed using the private key associated with the so-called Genesis block, the first ever "mined" would have been more convincing. The currency's "miners" are incentivized to process transactions every 10 minutes by a possible reward of bitcoins (25 currently), which is how new bitcoins are created. Wright also spoke with The Economist, but declined requests from the magazine to provide further proof that he was Nakamoto. His representatives told Reuters he would not be taking part in more media interviews for the time being. "Our conclusion is that Mr Wright could well be Mr Nakamoto, but that important questions remain," The Economist said. "Indeed, it may never be possible to establish beyond reasonable doubt who really created bitcoin. Hopes that bitcoin would become broadly used helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalization was $13 billion compared with today's $7 billion. Wright told The Economist he would exchange bitcoin he owns slowly to avoid pushing down its price. HOME RAIDED In December, police raided Wright's Sydney home and office after Wired magazine named him as the probable creator of bitcoin and holder of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency. At the time he made no comment. The treatment of bitcoins for tax purposes in Australia has been the subject of considerable debate. The Australian Tax Office (ATO) ruled in December 2014 that cryptocurrency should be considered an asset, rather than a currency, for capital gains tax purposes. On Monday, the ATO said it had no comment while police were not immediately available for comment. If Wright is Nakamoto he "is now the leader of a movement", said Roberto Capodieci, a Singapore-based entrepreneur working on the blockchain, the technology underlying the currency. That movement ranges from libertarian enthusiasts to central banks experimenting with digital currencies, all of which pay homage in some way to Nakamoto's writings. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Wagstaff in Singapore, Matt Siegel in Sydney and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Nick Macfie, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Philippa Fletcher) || 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. || CME, ICE prepare pricing data that could boost bitcoin: By Tom Polansek CHICAGO (Reuters) - CME Group Inc (CME.O) and rival Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N) plan to publish new pricing data on bitcoin that they say will increase credibility and transparency for the controversial digital currency. Starting in the fourth quarter, the CME aims to begin publishing bitcoin prices about once a second during trading days and a daily settlement price based on transactions from several bitcoin spot exchanges, the company said on Monday. The owner of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and other futures markets said the data will add "significant credibility to the nascent digital asset market." Bitcoin is a Web-based "cryptocurrency" used to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority. Despite being championed by some as the digital money of the future, it is often dismissed as a currency that is too volatile to invest in. The CME's pricing data "will lower uncertainty among market participants and would very likely reduce bitcoins traditionally high volatility" by aggregating information on transactions from multiple bitcoin markets, said Paul Chao, founder and chief executive officer of Ledger X, an institutional trading and clearing platform for bitcoin options. The New York Stock Exchange, owned by the ICE, is evaluating whether to include data from a number of exchanges for a daily settlement price it has published since May 2015, said Dwijen Gandhi, head of indexes for the NYSE. Currently the settlement price is based only on transaction data from U.S. market Coinbase. The NYSE also will soon launch a real-time pricing index to "provide additional transparency and insight into the bitcoin price," Gandhi said in a statement. The CME is planning to publish its settlement price at 4 p.m. London time (1500 GMT), the same time the NYSE publishes its settlement. The availability of more data from major exchange operators could promote the development of bitcoin derivatives contracts, said Gil Luria, a managing director for Wedbush Securities. Story continues "The more active exchanges like CME or ICE become, the easier, the more liquid it will become for traditional investors" to trade bitcoin, he said. The CME declined to say whether it wants to launch bitcoin futures. The ICE did not respond to a question on the matter. Earlier on Monday, Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright identified himself as the creator of bitcoin. Experts were divided over whether he really was the elusive person who has gone by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto until now. (Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Matthew Lewis and Bernard Orr) || Earningspalooza: 6 trades to make right now: Several companies reported disappointing earnings after the bell Thursday. The "Fast Money" traders debated the names they would buy or sell on the news.
Trader Brian Kelly said that Starbucks(NASDAQ: SBUX), which posted a miss on same-store sales, isn't exactly his favorite name, but he has a lot of respect for its CEO.
"I would never, ever, ever bet againstHoward Schultz. The guy's amazing. Look at what he's done with the company," Kelly said.
"But what I would bet against in this space, based on this news, is Dunkin' Brands(NASDAQ: DNKN), because it seems to me if you can translate that weak economy to the other places, Dunkin' Brands hasn't executed," Kelly said.
Guy Adami also isn't convinced on Starbucks, though he said it's been a good stock to buy on dips.
"Yes, the comps are concerning, but again on every pullback, the stock's been a buying opportunity. My sense is that this one is as well," he said.
Another stock that did not perform well after hours Thursday was Visa(NYSE: V), after the company amended the terms of its deal so that it would be required to pay, roughly, an additional $1.98 billion.
Adami noted Visa is trading at close to 26 times forward earnings, which makes it expensive enough that anything less than stellar reports "get the stock whacked."
While many of these stocks rallied ahead of earnings, Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN)is dipping before it reports April 28. Adami thinks it's time to take money off the table with the online retail giant. Trader Karen Finerman agreed and thinks that in general the FANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google), will also begin to show signs of weakness the way Google(NASDAQ: GOOGL)-owner Alphabet did on Thursday.
Disclosures:
Guy Adami
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
Karen Finerman
Karen is long BAC, C, FB, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, M, SEDG, SPY puts, URI. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, BOKF, C, C calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, NRF, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, her firm is short IWM, MDY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International.
Brian Kelly
Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GLD, SLV, TLT, US Dollar, UUP; he is short Aussie Dollar, BLK, CS, DB, Euro, EWA, EWH, FRC, Hong Kong Dollar, UBS, Yuan, 5-Year Note Futures
Dan Nathan
Dan is long XLF may/ sept put spread. Dan is long AAPL April Put Fly, long PFE, long TWTR, long GE May 28 puts, long JPM April puts, long INTC April puts , long QCOM April put spreads, long HYG June puts, long IWM May and September puts, long XHB June put spread, long XLE April/June put spread. QCOM long May put spread. FXI Long Aug Puts, SMH Long Aug puts
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• Personal Finance || What to do if hackers hold your computer hostage and demand cash: Ransomware can ruin your computer and all of your files. 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. 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. Where it comes from 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. Story continues Ransomware 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. How they get you 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. How to protect yourself 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. A fake warning used by ransomware criminals. 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. What to do if you’re infected 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 at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com ; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Retweeted LTCBTC (@LTC_BTC):
0.00878 (12:00 UTC) || LIVE: Profit = $455.19 (0.22 %). BUY B492.82 @ $427.35 (#BTCe). SELL @ $430.00 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || http://cubeminers.com SHA: 0.00 KH Scrypt: 12.86 MH x11: 7.75 MH #DigiCube #bitcoin #altcoinpic.twitter.com/WrhXDtjvOO || I love Bitcoin very good, i go try now. https://twitter.com/spinataque1/status/724709362565021701 … || 1 KOBO = 0.00000380 BTC
= 0.0020 USD
= 0.3982 NGN
= 0.0317 ZAR
= 0.2017 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-05-31 16:00 pic.twitter.com/dXh6iy55a8 || Current price of Bitcoin is $532.00 via Chain || #BTA Price: Bittrex 0.00001900 BTC YoBit 0.00001805 BTC Bleutrade 0.00001900 BTC #BTA 2016-05-07 22:00 pic.twitter.com/gopAdWTnQg || $ 0.025622 (0.16 %) 0.00005581 BTC (0.00 %) #WHIPPED #FETISH #BDSM || A unregistered user has won a round in a playground (Faucet) and won 0.00005000 BTC, join @ChopCoin and earn BTC (00:50UTC) || $450.11 at 08:17 UTC [24h Range: $446.33 - $452.00 Volume: 5092 BTC]
|
Trend: down || Prices: 685.56, 694.47, 766.31, 748.91, 756.23, 763.78, 737.23, 666.65, 596.12, 623.98
|
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 2018-12-26]
BTC Price: 3857.30, BTC RSI: 48.13
Gold Price: 1269.20, Gold RSI: 67.36
Oil Price: 46.22, Oil RSI: 37.13
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Difficulty Drops Over 7%: Bitcoins 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. CCN reported in 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 also reported that 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. Difficulty Adjustment and Implications In the light of the bitcoin blockchains 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. Source: BitInfoCharts As showed in the above chart, Bitcoins 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. Source: BitInfoCharts 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. Story continues 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 bitcoins 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 post Bitcoin Difficulty Drops Over 7% appeared first on CCN . || The Full Guide to Day Trading Using MetaTrader 5 (MT5): Now that you’ve decided that day trading is the right trading style for you, you need to be sure you’re trading in the best trading environment. All you need is a reliable, robust, and fast trading platform, like MetaTrader 5 (MT5).
Through its official website, the currencies, indices, stocks and commodities brokerLBLVoffers its clients a better way to trade the financial markets through robust trading platforms like MT5.
The goal of a day trader is to profit from intraday movements of trends on different financial assets with trading positions being open from a few minutes to a few hours – so timing is everything!
Consequently, being a successful day trader requires a powerful trading platform with advanced trading functions – mathematical, technical, as well as fundamental analysis tools to determine better entry and exit points and achieve more precise timing.
Day traders love to use the multi-asset platform MetaTrader 5, as it’s “the fastest, efficient and cost-effective trading platforms in the world” allowing them to trade in the best trading conditions.
With reliable and secure brokers, like the licensedLBLVbroker, you can open a demo account on MT5 following a few simple steps, allowing you to discover the trading platform and its unique features.
Once on the platform, you’ll see all the key elements of the simple and user-friendly interface to facilitate your daily trading routine.
All commands are accessible from the main menu bar, which includes the following tabs: file, view, insert, charts, option, and help. These functions help you to settle your charts with indicators, other analytical tools, and various platform settings to create your own personalized trading environment.
Below the main menu, you can find different built-in toolbars that will duplicate some of the commands and functions you can find in the main menu. The toolbars are customizable, allowing you to change chart timeframes, chart types (line chart, bar chart, candle chart…) and more.
On the left of the chart, you can also see the Market Watch section, where prices of selected financial assets such as EUR/USD, GBP/USD, gold and crude oil are displayed. This section can also provide other information, such as details and specifications of financial contracts, as well as one-click trading options.
Below your chart(s), you’ll find a toolbox section where you can follow the evolution of your open trading positions, as well as your pending trading orders, and modify them when needed (stop-loss, take-profit, limit prices, etc.). This multifunctional window can also be used to access other information that can be useful to your trading, such as account history, alerts, news, internal mailbox, expert journals, and much more.
Easy, right?
As you can see, MetaTrader 5 interface is quite simple to use and provides all necessary trading tools and information to start trading the markets. There are different menus, toolbars, as well as service windows within a single highly customizable and convenient user interface that will simplify your trading.
Do you want to place your first order? It’s easy! Follow these simple steps.
1) Once you’ve selected your financial instrument, right click on it in the Market Watch window.
2) Select “New Order”.
3) Then, decide which type of order you want to execute: a pending order or an instant or market order.
Instant order
If you select an instant order, you need to determine:
• the size of your position (volume),
• the levels of your stop-loss and take-profit.
Then, click on “Sell” or “Buy” depending on your preferred scenario and your order will be processed at the next available price.
Pending order
If you select a pending order, you need to determine:
• the type of order you want to place (Buy/Sell limit, Buy/Sell stop, Buy stop/Sell stop limit),
• the price at which you want your order to be placed,
• the size of your position (volume),
• the levels of your stop-loss and take-profit.
Then, click on “Place”.
As soon as your order has been executed, it will appear at the bottom of your interface.
Not a problem! MetaTrader 5 (MT5) has all the features you need!
LBLVdescribes MT5 as a “multi-asset platform offering exceptional trading possibilities and technical analysis tools, as well as enabling the use of automated trading systems (trading robots) and copy trading”.
So, this all-in-one platform for trading the currency, stock and futures markets can also be used by day traders who like to automate their trading strategies, or who prefer to duplicate trading strategies from the most successful traders around the world.
As you’ve seen, MT5 is a great trading platform for day traders who want to take their trading to the next level. Before you start using it, be sure to fully understand how it works and how you can customize your MT5 trading environment to improve your trading process.
A few things to consider:
• Only trade with money you can afford to lose– as trading is a very risky – but rewarding, activity – you want to be sure that you’re only trading with money you do not need to live.
• Constantly work on your financial & economical knowledge –as understanding how financial markets and trading work is essential in your success.
• Apply a consistent trading strategy & respect money management rules –as you can’t make money if you don’t implement a trading routine, follow your trading method and respect your money management parameters.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• EUR/USD Price Forecast – EUR/USD Trades Range Bound On Last Trading Session Of The Week || Crypto Investors Are Trying to Save Their Funds Amid Bitcoin Crash: The safe harbor of cryptocurrency has eventually sunk under the volatility wave, which triggered a massive collapse of all crypto coins. During the peak of this decline, market capitalization has shrunk by $30 billion. During the last 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price has lost almost 13%, trading at around %5,500. On the morning of November 15, 2018, the second largest global Bitcoin wallet, which belongs to the Binance exchanged, moved out 109,234 BTC ( $600 million at the current exchange rate). Considering this huge sell-off in the past day, the news in regards to such a big move of almost all Bitcoins from a “cold” wallet may reinforce negative dynamics in the market. It is worth remembering the sharp reaction of the market, subsequent to the sale of BTC and BCH by the Mt.Gox bankruptcy trustee Kobayashi. The lever near $6,000 was defended by bulls for months and the decisive hit of this mark is a bad signal for the whole market. The altcoins suffered even more: Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) lost almost 13%. It is noteworthy to note that in the recent days, BCH has attracted consumer demand due to the hardfork prospects which can split the chain, as it was in the case with the original Bitcoin. However, the fierce confrontation between the two camps advocating a different future for the project frightened even the speculators. It is very unlikely that BCH sell-off had started before hardfork. According to technical analysis, the next important stop could be the area of the previous price consolidation: distant marks near $3,500. A well-known crypto investor, Barry Silbert, has the same opinion. He considers what is happening now as a “cryptocurrency capitulation” due to a deep disappointment in the prospects and falling interest from traders and users. At the same time, the ambiguous and often negative position of the American regulator is an additional pressure factor. One of the triggers for the collapse in the market could be the prospects for action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in dozens of cases against crypto exchanges that may be accused of distributing unregistered securities. Story continues This article was written by FxPro This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: USD/CAD Daily Price Forecast – USD/CAD Trades Range Bound For Fourth Consecutive Trading Session Technical Checks For USD/CHF, EUR/CHF, GBP/CHF & CHF/JPY: 14.11.2018 UK Down On Brexit Woe, Pound Sinks, Asian Up On Brexit Hope, US Dollar Moves Higher EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for November 15, 2018 Crypto Investors Are Trying to Save Their Funds Amid Bitcoin Crash USD/JPY Price Forecast – US dollar falls against yen || BitPay Sides with Bitcoin ABC in Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork: BitPay has joined the litany of industry heavyweights includingCoinbaseandBinancein backing the Bitcoin Cash ABC side of the upcoming Bitcoin Cash hard fork.
Without delving too much into the debate surrounding the upcoming chain split, Bitpay said ina blog post:
BitPay’s system uses the primary software implementation of Bitcoin Cash called Bitcoin ABC. Bitcoin ABC has scheduled a Bitcoin Cash protocol change via hard fork on November 15th. […] BitPay has not made any plans to migrate from the Bitcoin ABC implementation of Bitcoin Cash to a different implementation.
They also recommended that users not send transactions in the time surrounding the actual hard fork, saying this could increase the risk to user funds being lost or double-spent.
During the fork, your funds held in your wallet will be safe, and you won’t be at risk of losing funds. However, we strongly recommend that you stop sending or receiving transactions from your Bitcoin Cash wallets at 10 AM EST (about two hours before the fork). During a hard fork , there is an increased risk that outgoing or incoming transactions can be lost or double-spent.
With Coinbase, Bitpay, and Binance all having announced support for one side of the split, the “Satoshi Vision” client and chain, which as a baseline raises the maximum block size to 128MB currently only truly has the support of the largest BCH mining pool, Coingecko. If the economic support of the market tends toward one version or the other, miners are likely to follow suit – individual miners, without regard to the mining pool as a whole.
Craig Wright and nChain believe they are restoring the original vision of Bitcoin and disregard all evidence to the contrary. CEO Jimmy Nguyen saidearlier this year:
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.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postBitPay Sides with Bitcoin ABC in Bitcoin Cash Hard Forkappeared first onCCN. || 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) || Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 19/12/18: Bitcoin Cash ABC rallied by 16.41% on Tuesday, following on from an 11.98% gain on Monday, to end the day at $103.65.
A late morning intraday low $84.18 was the only bearish move of the day, Bitcoin Cash ABC steering well clear of the first major support level at $80.59, before finding support from the broader cryptomarket.
Through the 2ndhalf of the day, Bitcoin Cash ABC hit a late in the day intraday high $105, breaking through the first major resistance level at $93.7 and second major resistance level at $98.9 to hold onto $100 levels by the day’s end.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was up 10.92% to $114.97, early moves seeing Bitcoin Cash ABC breaking through the first major resistance level at $111.04, with a rise from a morning low $101.99 to a morning high $117 before easing back.
For the day ahead, holding above the first major resistance level through the morning would support another run at the second major resistance level at $118.43, with support from the broader market needed for Bitcoin Cash ABC to break out from $118 levels to bring $120 levels into play later in the day.
Failure to hold above the first major resistance level could see Bitcoin Cash ABC hit reverse later in the day, a pullback through the morning low $101.99 bringing sub-$100 levels into play, with the first major support level at $90.22 in play in the event of a broad based crypto sell-off.
Litecoin gained 4.29% on Tuesday, following on from Monday’s 14.51% rally, to end the day at $30.12.
A relatively choppy day saw Litecoin fall to a late morning intraday low $27.71 before recovering to $28 levels through the afternoon, Litecoin holding well above the first major support level at $25.86.
It all boiled down to a late in the day broad based crypto rally, with Litecoin striking an intraday high $30.20, falling short of the first major resistance level at $31.19, while holding onto $30 levels.
At the time of writing, Litecoin was up 1.79% to $30.66, with moves through the early hours seeing Litecoin rise from a start of a day morning low $29.6 to a morning high $31.38, Litecoin breaking through the first major resistance level at $30.98, before easing back.
For the day ahead, a hold onto $30 levels through the morning would support another move through the first major resistance level to $31 levels to bring the second major resistance level at $31.83 and $32 levels into play, though Litecoin will need support from the broader market for a breakout from $31.8 levels later in the day.
Failure to hold onto $30 levels could see Litecoin ease back through the morning low $29.6, with a fall through $29.3 bringing $28 levels and the first major support level at $28.49 into play before any recovery, sub-$28 support levels unlikely to be in play on the day.
Ripple’s XRP gained 7.02% on Tuesday, following on from Monday’s 15.42% rally, to end the day at $0.0.36182.
Tracking the broader market, Ripple’s XRP struck a morning high $0.35398 before easing back to a late morning intraday low $0.33151, leaving the major support and resistance levels left untested through the morning.
A relatively range bound 2ndhalf of a day also saw Ripple’s XRP steer clear of the major support and resistance levels ahead of a broad based cryptomarket rally, Ripple’s XRP rising to an intraday high $0.36183 at the day’s end, breaking through the first major resistance level at $0.3612 on the way.
At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was up 5.3% to $0.3810, with Tuesday’s late rally continuing into the early hours, Ripple’s XRP breaking through the first major resistance level at $0.3719 and second major resistance level at $0.3820 to strike a morning high $0.3833 before easing back.
For the day ahead, a hold onto $0.38 levels through the morning would signal more to come later in the day, with a broad based crypto rally supporting a run at $0.40 levels to bring the third major resistance level at $0.4124 into play before any pullback.
Failure to hold onto $0.38 levels through the morning could see Ripple’s XRP cough up some of the morning gains, while we would expect Ripple’s XRP to avoid a pullback to sub-$36 levels, barring a broad based sell-off, Ripple’s XRP tracking the broader market through the first half of the week, with the bears very much in the driving seat.
Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Crude Oil Price Forecast – crude oil markets continue to fall || BP Smashes Earnings Predictions and Makes Its New Acquisition Even More Attractive: BP(NYSE: BP)has put together a rather impressive string of earnings results that have surpassed analyst estimates. This past quarter, the company not only beat expectations, but it also blew them out of the water by nearly doubling its net income result for the third quarter. On top of those impressive earnings, the company also announced that it is changing the way it will finance its recent acquisition in a way that will benefit shareholders.
Let's take a look at what happened this past quarter, what management is doing to improve the terms of its recent shale acquisition, and what investors should make of BP's recent string of success.
[{"Metric": "Revenue", "Q3 2018": "$80.8 billion", "Q2 2018": "$76.9 billion", "Q3 2017": "$60.8 billion"}, {"Metric": "Net income", "Q3 2018": "$3.40 billion", "Q2 2018": "$2.87 billion", "Q3 2017": "$1.76 billion"}, {"Metric": "Earnings per ADS (GAAP)", "Q3 2018": "$1.00", "Q2 2018": "$0.84", "Q3 2017": "$0.53"}, {"Metric": "Operating cash flow", "Q3 2018": "$6.09 billion", "Q2 2018": "$6.31 billion", "Q3 2017": "$6.02 billion"}]
DATA SOURCE: BP EARNINGS RELEASE. ADS = AMERICAN DEPOSITARY SHARE;GAAP= GENERALLY ACCEPTED ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES.
BP has done a truly fantastic job ofdelivering growth in recent quarters. While much of that can be attributed to higher oil prices, it also has to do with the fact that it's starting up new capital projects both ahead of schedule and under budget. This past quarter's result was the highest per-share earnings since 2014, and that is with an average realized price of $69.6 per barrel of oil and $3.86 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas.
What is equally impressive is that BP was able to maintain strong earnings results from its downstream segments even though earnings from the refining and marketing businesses tend to drop as oil prices rise. Management attributed the results to high utilization rates for its fuel refining and resilient results from its lubricant and petrochemical divisions.
Cash generation was flat for the quarter, but the company noted that it had a $700 million working capital build in the quarter for maintenance and turnaround expenses.
Data source: BP. Chart by author.
• Production for the quarter came in at 2.46 million barrels per day, which was flat compared to this time last year. Management noted, though, that this was a period of heavy maintenance that temporarily shut in a lot of production. Stripping out the effects of maintenance, production was up 6.8% year over year thanks to new projects starting operations.
• BP also delivered two new projects in October: its Thunder Horse expansion in the Gulf of Mexico and the Western Flank B project in Australia. Both of these were expected to be completed in 2019 and will grow overall production faster than anticipated.
• BP's equity interest in Russian oil giant Rosneft produced about 1.2 million barrels per day, up 2.8% compared to this time last year.
• The company signed an agreement to resume exploration and development work in Libya. As part of the deal, Italian oil company Eni SpA will take half of BP's 85% working interest in the prospective fields and become the operator of the project. This will allow BP to monetize an asset that has been on hold since 2014 while allowing it to benefit from future production.
Image source: Getty Images.
Late last quarter, BP announced it would acquireBHP Billiton's(NYSE: BHP)entire portfolio of onshore oil and gas in the U.S.for $10.5 billion. The deal, designed to boost BP's shale position, was going to be paid for with cash from asset sales as well as the company issuing shares. Thanks to another quarter of strong cash generation, though, CFO Brian Gilvary announced some changes to the way it plans to finance the deal.
This quarter's underlying result was significantly higher than the second quarter in a very similar price environment. Since we announced the BHP transaction, oil prices have firmed to levels significantly above the acquisition assumptions. While oil prices remain at these levels, we expect to finance the transaction fully using cash. In this event, the $5-6 billion divestment programme linked to the transaction will be used to reduce debt. We will also continue our share buyback programme to offset dilution from the scrip dividend.
Investors have to be happy about this outcome. The company will avoid diluting its share count and pay down a decent chunk of debt at the same time. When BP inked the deal for BHP, it was using an assumption of $55 per barrel of oil. With domestic crude prices hovering closer to $70 a barrel lately, this is looking like a great deal.
BPdata byYCharts.
BP hasn't been a good investment over the past decade. Between the Deepwater Horizon spill and the oil price crash, the company has struggled to generate returns for its investors. Were it not for its rather generous dividend, investors would still be looking at a stock that is down compared to a decade ago.
It appears, though, that all of that history is behind it. It has brought several new major projects into service that have desirable rates of return, its downstream business is performing considerably better than it has in years, and management is making some impressive moves that should drastically improve returns. The fact that it is going to pay cash for its $10.5 billion acquisition is a sign of how much better of a position this company is in today.
BP anticipates the BHP deal to close on Oct. 31, which combined with other capital projects will add a significant amount of production to next quarter's result. Pending any unforeseen changes to oil prices or another accident, it looks like BP's shareholderscould see much better days ahead.
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Tyler Croweowns shares of BHP Billiton. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Crypto Markets Meet December in Green, Bitcoin Trades Above $4,200: Saturday, Dec. 1 — Crypto markets have seen a substantial influx on the first day of this winter month, with all top 20 coins by market cap firmly in the green, according to CoinMarketCap . Market visualization from Coin360 Following multiple plunges below the $4,000 threshold yesterday , Nov. 30, Bitcoin ( BTC ) has managed to finally hold $4,000 support today. The major cryptocurrency is now trading at $4,202, up 4.5 percent over the past 24 hours to press time. Bitcoin is down around 1.9 percent over the week, according to data from CoinMarketCap . Bitcoin price 7-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Bitcoin Price Index Ripple ( XRP ), the second cryptocurrency by market cap, is seeing milder gains, up around 3 percent over the past 24 hours and trading at $0.37 as of press time. The coin is seeing considerable losses over the week, down more than 7 percent. Ripple 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Ripple Price Index TRON ( TRX ) and NEM ( XEM ) are seeing the biggest gains among the top 20 coins by market capitalization. TRON, ranked 11th on CoinMarketCap by press time, is up 6.5 percent, also holding a significant grown over the week — more than 11 percent. NEM is up 7 percent , seeing around 5 percent gains over the past 7 days. Bitcoin Cash’s ( BCH ) hard fork , Bitcoin SV (BSV), is seeing a massive increase over the past 7 days, up more than 45 percent over the period. The hard forked cryptocurrency is ranked nine on CoinMarketCap and is trading at around $94, seeing a small growth over the day — around 0.1 percent. Total market capitalization has seen a marked increase over the day, having spiked from around $129 billion to as high as the current $137 billion. Daily trade volume has been stable over the day, accounting for $16 billion, while seeing a small drop to $15 billion at press time. Total market capitalization 24-hour chart. Source: CoinMarketCap While the markets have taken another dip recently, Bitcoin fundamentals, such as cost per transaction and number of transactions, have increased, as noted by crypto evangelist Anthony Pompliano, a partner at crypto investment firm Morgan Creek Digital Assets. Story continues In yesterday’s post , Pompliano emphasized seven fundamentals of Bitcoin, pointing out the increasing number of Bitcoin wallets as well as the growth of the amount of daily confirmed transactions. The crypto believer also stressed the increasing power of Bitcoin’s hash rate, claiming that it has almost “quadrupled in the last year or so,” while the number of Bitcoin nodes has been 98 percent up over the last two years, the expert said, citing data from Bitnodes. Concluding his analysis, Pompliano argued that price of a cryptocurrency is “only one measurement of value for an asset,” stating that underlying fundamentals is the main focus of the future value of the currency. He wrote: “Don’t be distracted by the noise. Focus on the fundamentals. Bitcoin isn’t going anywhere.” Related Articles: Bitcoin Hits Another Low, Bitcoin Cash Is Down Almost 50% on the Week Crypto Markets Shaky but Most Top Coins See Only Mild Losses Bitcoin Briefly Breaks Over $4,000, Bitcoin Cash Sees Gains Near 20 Percent on the Day Crypto Markets Come Back Down After Slight Jump Yesterday || Bitcoin Private Denies Fraud Allegations and Calls for Halt to BTCP Trading: Bitcoin Private has confirmed the allegations made by CoinMetrics,reported by CCN yesterday. Calling them “mathemetically accurate,” the development team says that no one on their team knows where the extra coins wound up. Again, CoinMetrics stated that at least 300,000 of them had already been moved through exchanges.
Due to the low take-up by the Bitcoin community of Bitcoin Private (in which users could essentially have claimed free coins on the BTCP blockchain), this is a significant portion of the overallactualsupply of Bitcoin Private, or the supply that is in use.
Bitcoin Privatehas conducted a full auditof the situation and has determined that the blame is with a single developer. The developer is called airk42. He has not contributed to Bitcoin Private since claiming a bounty and completing an “issue” they had out, which was to tweak the import so that BTCP could “add arbitrary transactions as coinbase inputs at a given block height.”
The developer completes the issue, merges his own code, and is sent his reward. One line of code is missing which allows the fork mine to be exploited due to the nodes not properly verifying the falsified fork blocks. […] The missing line of code is as follows: || tx.vout.size() > 1. We determined this after the CoinMetrics report was released.
Bitcoin Private does not believe the developer in question exploited his own mistake. Instead, they believe an unidentified “bad actor” took advantage of the bug during the establishment of the BTCP blockchain.
During the publicly announced fork mine, a bad actor exploited this bug, creating 2 million coins. It went unnoticed by the contribution team until it was uncovered by CoinMetrics.
According to the official statement on the situation, Bitcoin Private has requested that all exchanges immediately stop deposits and withdrawals of Bitcoin Private.
BTCP Contribution team requested for deposits and withdrawals to be closed on exchanges trading BTCP.
The contribution team is unwilling to point fingers at this time, although despite the use of theshielded addresses, exchanges could potentially reveal the identities if they were legally required to do so. Either a lawsuit or a law enforcement agency would have to bring a valid subpoena against the exchanges which essentially laundered the fake coins.
While Bitcoin Private says it could have been anybody, the odds are high it was someone with an intimate knowledge of the Bitcoin Private codebase, someone who would have been sharp enough to notice the bug and utilize it. It was either the author of the bug, someone in the development team, or someone deeply ingrained in the small community with a strong blockchain development background.
As the code was open source, and the fork-mine was announced on Twitter, anyone with sufficient blockchain development knowledge could have exploited it.
They have “contacted HitBTC,” but HitBTC is unlikely to reveal user information on simple request. Exchanges abide by user agreements which guarantee some level of user privacy. They would be opening themselves up to legal action if they were to easily reveal the identity. Instead, legal channels would be the best option to recover the identity of the hacker.
To fix the issue, Bitcoin Private has announced they will be eliminating all coins held in shielded addresses. This will eliminate the false coins and will also eliminate a number of legitimate coins. It will require a hardfork which essentially rewrites the blockchain, and in the case of transactions sent to exchanges, it might have a negative economic impact.
CoinMetrics has stated they believe less than 20k legitimate BTCP coins exist in shielded addresses along with 1.7–1.8 million illegitimate coins. Our team is favoring an option to hard fork and remove all shielded coins from existence. While this would cause the 20k legitimate coins to disappear, we believe this is preferable to the alternative of leaving the 1.7–1.8 million illegitimate coins in circulation. This would also fix the over-supply issue.
It should be noted that in the original Zcash and Zclassic protocols, it’s possible to move coins out of shielded addresses, to unshielded addresses. Those who hold shielded BTCP coins are advised to do so immediately because the Bitcoin Private contribution team has said they are moving forward with this solution immediately.
There are a couple of potential outcomes.
The first is that the community, including the miners, overwhelmingly agrees with the notion of eliminating all existing shielded coins and thus things move on as Bitcoin Private’s team would like: as if it never happened.
The other is that two Bitcoin Private chains will emerge, one which preserves all of the shielded addresses and one which does not. This is essentially a DAO Hack situation, which resulted in Ethereum Classic, which still exists today and recently saw some price momentum alongside Ethereum.
Another possibility is that this is the end of Bitcoin Private. The community fizzles out and the coin trends toward zero, trading in the sub-cent range. It’s happened dozens of times to other blockchains and is well within the realm of reasonability. Plenty of people have been upset by the revelations, here are a few examples:
The “fix” does not, reportedly, seek to eliminate the creation of shielded addresses, which are the whole point of Bitcoin Private. It just intends to eliminate those coins that are already stored in shielded addresses. Again, as a public service announcement, the author recommends anyone with shielded coins to move them to a transparent address until such a time that the hard fork and update are complete.
It would be interesting if the attacker were to do this.
In short, this story isn’t over. The identity of the attacker is likely to be revealed in the coming months, as grumblings of a lawsuit have been heard.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postBitcoin Private Denies Fraud Allegations and Calls for Halt to BTCP Tradingappeared first onCCN. || Crypto ETF Could Launch Bitcoin Price to $20,000 in 2019: BitPay’s Sonny Singh: bitcoin etf vaneck bitcoin price With Thanksgiving now in the books and the calendar just days away from turning the page to December, most bitcoin bulls are conceding defeat in regard to their 2018 crypto market predictions. However, the new year is just around the corner, and BitPay COO Sonny Singh believes that 2019 could bring good tidings to the bitcoin price. Speaking during an interview on Bloomberg TV , Singh said that he believed that the crypto market would likely turn a corner at some point during the first two quarters of 2019 as major companies such as Fidelity and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) begin to roll out cryptocurrency products. bitcoin price chart Fidelity, as CCN reported , is building a cryptoasset custody service targeted at institutional investors, while ICE — via its new crypto subsidiary, Bakkt — plans to launch a physically-settled bitcoin futures product in late January. Singh said that he expects other legacy financial firms to eventually follow suit and release products that compete with his company, BitPay , as well as other crypto stalwarts such as Coinbase . He said that these launches, coupled with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finally approving the first bitcoin ETF — which is by no means a certainty — will enable the bitcoin price to burst out of its slump and return toward its all-time high heading into late 2019. “I would say, if these traditional incumbents do launch their products, actually, you would see price maybe around $15,000, possibly even $20,000 by the end of next year.” However, hearkening back to comments he has made in the past, Singh expressed skepticism that the next rally will see crypto prices rise indiscriminately, irrespective of their fundamentals. “I think there’s a big night and day difference between bitcoin and everything else. Bitcoin is the 800-pound gorilla. That’s the one that has the mass network effect. That’s the one that the traditional financial incumbents are building products around,” he said. “The other ones, I don’t know what’s going to happen to them….None of them are going to survive unless bitcoin survives first.” Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts from TradingView . The post Crypto ETF Could Launch Bitcoin Price to $20,000 in 2019: BitPay’s Sonny Singh appeared first on CCN .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
ツイート数の多かった仮想通貨
1位 $BTC 457 Tweets
2位 $TRX 121 Tweets
3位 $C20 78 Tweets
4位 $XRP 76 Tweets
5位 $ETH 52 Tweets
2018-11-08 05:00 ～ 2018-11-08 05:59
COINTREND いまTwitterで話題の仮想通貨を探せ！
https://cointrend.jp/ || #Doviz
-------------------
#USD : 5.4327
#EUR : 6.1854
#GBP : 7.0495
--------------------------------------
#BTC
-------------------
#Gobaba : 34511.13
#BtcTurk : 34750.00
#Koinim : 34975.00
#Paribu : 34800.00
#Koineks : 34999.97 || 最もBTC/JPYのスプレッドが狭いのは？(2018-12-14 07:00:03 現在)
bitFlyer 35.00
bitbank 169.00
Zaif 270.00
coincheck 353.00
Liquid 380.96
BITPoint 415.93 || Top 5 #cryptocurrencies
Alert Time: 2018-11-19 00:40:01
#Bitcoin: $5,604.810
#XRP: $0.504
#Ethereum: $175.989
#BitcoinCash: $383.373
#Stellar: $0.249
#instaairdrop #bittrex #SmartCash #trading #stockmarket
http://www.coincaps.ai || The cryptocurrency prices today!
#dftrades #cryptocurrency #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #bitcoinnews #bitcoinprice #altcoins #ethereum #cryptotrading #cryptonews #cryptocurrencynews #trading #trader #forex #forextrader #trade #bitcointrading #cryptoworld #cryptotrader #cryptopic.twitter.com/ITRKIuFj8Z || So all the bad guys have to do is send BTC to every exchange cold storage wallet or to wallets of known important figures and BTC becomes a weapon.
Imagine being able to throw large accounts into question just by transferring some Bitcoin. || USD: 113.460
EUR: 128.450
GBP: 144.741
AUD: 83.030
NZD: 78.038
CNY: 16.290
CHF: 113.562
BTC: 469,790
ETH: 13,215
Sat Dec 01 23:00 JST || #LIZA #LAMBO price
10-29 04:00(GMT)
$LIZA
BTC :0.00000
ETH :0.00000
USD :0.0
RUR :0.0
JPY(btc) :0.0
JPY(eth) :0.0
$LAMBO
BTC :0.009
ETH :0.211
USD :55.0
RUR :3891.0
JPY(btc) :6556.3
JPY(eth) :4765.9 || Amazing book by the one and only @aantonop Education is the key to gaining and maintaining wealth in the cryptosphere.
#bitcoin #crypto #KnowledgeIsPower #investinghttps://twitter.com/aantonop/status/1068178553311817731 … || 最もBTC/JPYのスプレッドが狭いのは？(2018-11-18 21:00:02 現在)
bitbank 3.00
Zaif 10.00
Liquid 33.35
bitFlyer 217.00
coincheck 388.00
BITPoint 493.29
|
Trend: up || Prices: 3654.83, 3923.92, 3820.41, 3865.95, 3742.70, 3843.52, 3943.41, 3836.74, 3857.72, 3845.19
|
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)]
Identifying Bitcoin’s Trend Allows for More Manageable Trading: I usually present my Elliott Wave Principle count, but I would like to focus on something else since the Bulls fumbled the ball a few weeks ago (see my previous update here ). In this case, identifying a trend as “the trend is always your friend” in trading. Why? It helps us determine to be aggressive, conservative, or downright Bearish and make trading less complicated. I always start my daily crypto trading updates with my “the trend is your friend chart.”: see Figure 1 below. It is so simple; one does not even need to know BTC ’s actual price to tell us if the price is trending higher or lower and how one should position oneself. Figure 1. Bitcoin daily chart with moving averages and Ichimoku Cloud. The trend is down. Trade it accordingly. Here I plot BTC’s price as a dotted line because I only need to know where it is concerning the following indicators: four simple moving averages (SMAs), the Ichimoku Cloud (the Cloud), and the Bollinger Bands. These variables help determine what the trend is. Namely, the SMAs are: very short-term (VST), short-term (ST), intermediate-term (IT), and long-term (LT). It is a Bullish trend when BTC’s price is above the VST, above the ST, > IT, > LT. In addition, all SMAs should be rising. Besides, one also wants the price above “the Cloud,” The Cloud needs to be green (rising) too, to know the trend is 100% Bullish. Lastly, the uptrend is powerful if the price is at the upper Bollinger Band. Trading strategy: by the dip (BDP), stay long, sell into strength. Figure 1 shows three such periods with the blue boxes. As you can see, with such a setup, the trend is your friend for long positions. Yes, the VST-SMA can dip below the ST-SMA, but that’s your “BDP” for shorter-term traders. Conversely, the trend becomes Bearish when BTC’s price drops below “the Cloud,” subsequently below more of the SMAs, and “rides” the lower Bollinger Bands. Figure 1 shows two such periods over the past 15 months: red boxes. Trading strategy: become conservative, i.e., raise cash, sell the rips, possibly short the crypto. As you can see, following this chart could have avoided a lot of pain during the May through July sell-off. And avoiding significant drawdowns is still the most effective way to riches as it allows one to preserve capital, which is then ready to be deployed during the next uptrend. Or, as they say, “ (s)he who loses the least amount of money comes out the winner ,” and “ rinse, lather, repeat .” Unfortunately, BTC entered an initial downtrend for the Bulls in mid-November early December as the VST and ST-SMAs dropped below the IT-SMA. That does not happen in strong uptrends (see blue boxes). In early December, the initial downtrend was confirmed when BTC also moved below “the Cloud.” Story continues Adding insult to injury, the crypto is now also trading below its LT-SMA. Thus, there is now a BTC<LT>VST<ST<IT<the Cloud setup, exemplified by the five red arrows in what I call “the traffic light.” The traffic light has been almost entirely red over the past several weeks. That means “caution, stop, etc.”. Something I communicate with my premium crypto trading members daily. Thus the current trend is not the Bulls’ friend and similar to June-July when BTC lost another 25%. As such, the trend tells us to look lower, not higher. Two weeks ago, I was already looking for preferably $28-36K. See here . With BTC currently trading at around $46K it has room to drop some more, which is what the “trend is your friend” chart tells us. Bottom line: The Bitcoin Bulls fumbled the ball already two weeks ago, and since the price of BTC has declined another 10%. Here I present a simple “the trend is your friend” chart that objectively helps identify if BTC is trending higher or lower and if one, therefore, should expect lower or higher prices. That trend, in turn, enables us to determine how to trade BTC. The current setup already called for “raising cash, conservative mode” a few weeks ago, and that strategy has yet to be proven wrong. When the trend changes again, we have plenty of time to ride the uptrend and deploy the cash stashed on the sidelines. Because please remember, “ cash is also a position .” Trade safely! This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Markets Get Crushed to Kick Off Week More Than a Quarter of All Bitcoin in Circulation Is Controlled by Few Investors Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Choppy to Start Off Week NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – .6702 Main Bottom Potential Trigger Point for Acceleration into .6589 Instagram is Currently Exploring NFTs, CEO Reveals European Equities: German and Eurozone Consumer Sentiment in Focus View comments || 4 Top-Performing ETF Areas of Last Week: Big three U.S. indexes including the S&P 500 (up 1.33%), the Dow Jones (0.40%), the Nasdaq Composite (up 2.70%) and the Russell 2000 (up 4.2%) made last week a winning one for investors. Crypto-related investments and clean energy ETFs hogged attention last week. The month was great from the bitcoin context as the investing world welcome the first U.S.-listed bitcoin futures ETF – ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO). The ETF started trading on Oct 19, making the world’s biggest cryptocurrency available in a tax-efficient wrapper to investors via any brokerage account (read: What You Should Know About Bitcoin ETFs). Plus, Valkyrie Investments’s bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund also won the green signal of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund (BTF) started trading from Oct 22. VanEck will join ProShares in launching a bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (XBTF). No wonder, crypto-related companies which focus on the blockchain technology were in the positive zone last week. Another winning area was clean energy thanks to the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) at Glasgow. This summit aims to lower emissions of greenhouse gas and tackle global warming. Added to this, there was downbeat U.S. GDP growth report. The American economy grew an annualized 2% in Q3 of 2021, falling shy of market forecasts of 2.7% and slowing sharply from 6.7% in Q2. It is the weakest growth of pandemic recovery as government support is fading and a surge in Delta-variant related COVID-19 cases and global supply chain issues hurt consumption and production in the period (read: 5 ETFs to Win Despite Downbeat U.S. GDP Growth). Against this backdrop, below we highlight a few ETF areas that gained handsomely in the past week. Robocar Disruption Simplify Volt Robocar Disruption and Tech ETF VCAR – Up 23.6% Electric vehicle maker Tesla became a one-trillion company and jumped 8.7% last week. The rally came after the news of the biggest-ever order from Hertz. The rally was also driven by the news that the company's Model 3 become the first electric vehicle to top monthly sales of new cars in Europe, beating stalwarts like the Renault Clio and Volkswagen Golf. Tesla sold 24,591 units of Model 3 in Europe in September, representing year-over-year growth of 58%. The fund VCAR invests about 20% of its weight in Tesla. No wonder, the fund surged massively last week (read: 6 ETFs to Ride on Tesla's Trillion-Dollar Market Cap). Story continues Hydrogen Hydrogen is often touted as the fuel of the future as the world transitions away from fossil fuels. Even big oil companies are investing millions in green hydrogen projects, but the technology is not cost effective currently (read: Market Outlook & Thematic ETF Ideas for Q4). With COP-26 taking place in October and delegates from about 200 countries to be announcing how they will reduce emissions by 2030, alternative energy had every reason to rally. Global X Hydrogen ETF HYDR – Up 14.1% ETF Series Solutions Defiance Next Gen H2 ETF (HDRO) – Up 11.6% Direxion Hydrogen ETF (HJEN) – Up 11.0% Solar This is yet another beneficiary of COP-26. Investors took positions in solar energy ahead of the outcome of the meeting. Notably, India and the United Kingdom will launch a project that aims to create a solar grid connecting countries in different parts of the world at the upcoming U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland. Solar Invesco ETF TAN – Up 12.1% Proshares S&P Kensho Cleantech ETF (CTEX) – Up 11.4% Global X Solar ETF (RAYS) – Up 10.6% Wilderhill Clean Energy Invesco ETF (PBW) – Up 10.5% Alps Clean Energy ETF (ACES) – Up 10.4% Blockchain Everything in the world is getting digitized. Most of the sectors including energy, water utilities and real estate are becoming digitally transformed. Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $66,000 in October as it received the mainstream acceptance, which helped the blockchain funds. Global X Blockchain ETF BKCH – Up 10.3% Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators ETF (BITQ) – Up 10.1% Vaneck Digital Transformation ETF (DAPP) – Up 8.7% Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Invesco Solar ETF (TAN): ETF Research Reports Global X Blockchain ETF (BKCH): ETF Research Reports Global X Hydrogen ETF (HYDR): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Underperforms Altcoins as Sell-Off Pauses: Bitcoin held steady around $57,000 on Friday after a near-10% decline over the past week. The cryptocurrency is roughly flat over the past 24 hours, compared with a 5% rise in ether and an 8% rise in Solana’s SOL token over the same period. “Market sentiment seems short-term bearish/sideways – people are shorting BTC in the perpetual futures market ,” Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, wrote in a blog post on Friday. Analysts pointed to rising leverage as a possible sign of froth in the crypto market, which forced some traders to liquidate long positions earlier this week. From a technical perspective, bitcoin’s long-term uptrend remains intact so long as support above $53,000 holds. Latest prices Bitcoin (BTC): $57,828, -0.52% Ether (ETH): $4,272, +5.01% S&P 500: $4,697, -0.14% Gold: $1,846, -0.68% 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.53% Off the peak The chart below shows BTC’s drawdown, or percentage decline from peak to trough. Currently, bitcoin is down about 13% from an all-time high of around $69,000. A slight drawdown is typical after a price reaches an all-time high, although losses can exceed 10%-15% even within a bull market. Over the long term, bitcoin remains vulnerable to deep corrections along a broader uptrend. Still, drawdowns appear to be limited around 50% to 60% before a price recovery occurs. Bitcoin drawdown (CoinDesk, Koyfin) Some analysts view the current drawdown as a warning sign of further downside in BTC’s price. “A drop in total capitalization of another 5% would signal the onset of a bear market, assuming cryptocurrencies live by the same laws of psychology that underpin technical analysis,” Alex Kuptsikevich, an analyst at FxPro , wrote in an email to CoinDesk. “The sell-off in cryptocurrencies from the May peaks ended only after the market lost more than half its valuation. The odds have significantly increased that the bears are aiming to sell the rate down to the $48K level, although there are still a few significant stops along the way,” Kuptsikevich wrote. Story continues Bitcoin holders unmoved For now, blockchain data shows steady demand for bitcoin. “Even after a near 20% correction of the all-time high, long-term BTC holders do not appear to be spending their coins in panic,” Glassnode, a crypto data firm, tweeted on Friday. “After peaking at 13.5M BTC, long-term holders have only distributed 100K BTC over the last month, representing just 0.7% of their total holdings,” Glassnode wrote. Still, long-term holders could eventually react to a potential down move in BTC’s price. Bitcoin long-term holder supply (Glassnode) Altcoin roundup Layer 1 tokens outperform ETH: The rise of alternative layer 1 ecosystems have been a key theme this year, with several networks including Terra, Avalanche and Solana seeing a boom in usage as the multi-chain thesis takes shape,” Delphi Digital , a crypto research firm wrote in a Friday note. “LUNA (Terra), AVAX and SOL have performed remarkably well against ETH, especially as the market picked up in the second half of the year, according to Delphi. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade gets in on NFT craze with collectible balloons: The famed New York City parade’s 95th run will feature an NFT collection in partnership with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, CoinDesk’s Eli Tan reported . Binance fully integrates Ethereum scaler Arbitrum One: Binance has completed the integration of Arbitrum One mainnet, a way of expanding on the Ethereum network, and is allowing users to deposit ether via Arbitrum One Layer 2, the exchange announced on Nov. 19. Relevant news Blockchain Tech Has Evolved Enough to Meet Some Demands of Financial Markets: RBC Report Chinese Local Government Warns of Digital Yuan Fraud Norway Considers Backing Swedish Crypto Mining Ban Proposal, Hints Minister Crypto Could Destabilize Nations, Undermine Dollar’s Reserve Currency Status, Hillary Clinton Says Other markets Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): Stellar (XLM): +6.89% Aave (AAVE): +5.11% Polygon (MATIC): +4.92% Notable losers: Algorand (ALGO): -3.74% || U.S. offers $10 million reward in hunt for DarkSide cybercrime group: (Reuters) -The U.S. State Department on Thursday announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of anyone with a key leadership position in DarkSide, a cybercrime organization the FBI has said is based in Russia. The FBI has said DarkSide was responsible for the May cyber attack targeting the Colonial Pipeline, causing a days-long shutdown that led to a spike in gas prices, panic buying and localized fuel shortages in the U.S. Southeast. The State Department also said it is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country of any person attempting to participate in a DarkSide ransomware incident. "In offering this reward, the United States demonstrates its commitment to protecting ransomware victims around the world from exploitation by cyber criminals," the department said in a statement. Colonial Pipeline has said it paid the hackers nearly $5 million in Bitcoin to regain access to its systems. The U.S. Justice Department in June recovered about $2.3 million of the ransom. The State Department in July offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of any person who, while acting at the direction or under the control of a foreign government, participated in malicious cyber activities against U.S. critical infrastructure. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Will Dunham) || Could Elon Musk Really Be 'The Simpsons' Villain Hank Scorpio?: ByHernán PanessiviaEl Planteo.
He's happy, he looks like he got it.
Homer Simpsonreceives a basket of food and, also, a nice welcome. After years of grumbling with Mr. Burns, Homer has changed jobs. His boss is the very niceHank Scorpio("The Simpsons," Season 8, Episode 2, 1996).
"I've never liked to see myself on top of other people. I'm just like you. Sure, I have better hours, I earn a lot more, I get more vacation time, but I'm not more than you," Scorpio tells Homer.
However, minutes later,Hank reveals himself as a psychopath who threatens the United Nationswith a nuclear device, is determined to kill Mr. Bont - a hero who parodies James Bond,andfaces an army carrying a flamethrowerbecause of a "little problem with the government."
Oddly enough, Hank never stopped being nice to Homer. Thus, the question arises: Can people be relatable and, at the same time, a supervillain?
In the edges of the Internet, a conspiracy theory was soon woven: What if, in reality, Hank Scorpio is inspired by a real-life character?
The Simpsons Know The Truth
Thepredictive ability of Matt Groening'sanimated series is well known: from Donald Trump’s presidency, through the attack on the Twin Towers, the 2016 Rolling Stones tour and so many more events.
Therefore,Hank Scorpio's inspiration(appearing in the episode"You Only Move Twice"in the 8th season) in the billionaireRichard Branson, founder of theVirgin Galactic Holdings, Inc.(NASDAQ:SPCE) and owner of a fortune of more than $4.8 billion, could be just a mask, a feint, a bait, a hint to a bigger idea.
Could it be that Hank Scorpio is, in fact, another billionaire?
Instantly, the name of Elon Musk comes to mind.
Elon Musk is the CEO of Space XandTesla Motors(NASDAQ:TSLA), chairman of SolarCity, and co-chairman of Open AI. Owner of a fortune amounting to $223 billion, Musk competes for the position of the richest man in the world with Jeff Bezos, the majority shareholder ofAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN).
And every time he moves a piece, whether, to endorse a crypto meme (that rose 65% in a few hours) orinvest in Bitcoin, he becomes news.
"The whole thing is like a billionaire's whim," said Marc Odo, client portfolio manager at Swan Global Investments, in an interview with Bloomberg.
One Thing And The Other
The world knew Musk as an avant-garde nerd who was making waves in Silicon Valley and amassed an enormous fortune after sellingPayPal(NASDAQ:PYPL), his first great invention, for $1.5 billion toeBay(NASDAQ:EBAY).
But he soon revealed himself as an eccentric visionary who designed technology for NASA, founded drilling companies (The Boring Company, the best and most honest name in the galaxy), promised trips to Mars because the Earth "is doomed," sent a vehicle into space while David Bowie's "Starman" was playing on a loop and even created a flamethrower that he put on sale for $500.
Musk stands as the person who dreams of changing the world through his space, automotive and technological projects.
Touted as a flesh-and-blood Tony Stark (an elegant billionaire who is also one of Marvel's Avengers), suddenly the world began to cook up the opposite idea.
Elon Musk, Hero Or Villain?
If anything can be said about Elon Musk, it's that he's not a smoke peddler. Almost all of his controversial inventions have been put into practice. Intransigent, impulsive, demanding and unquestionably brilliant. "The architect of tomorrow", was the headline of Rolling Stone magazine, in an interview that portrays him as somewhere between petulance and genius.
But what if the same guy who one daysmoked a joint at Joe Rogan'spodcast and aroused everyone's sympathy suddenly had a screw loose and decided to finish it all?He could.
Hence, the comparisons with Hank Scorpio, the villain of The Simpsons, a guy who could be a good boss and also the man who could end humanity.
In fact, in 2019, a Twitter userwroteabout it and Elon Musk took charge:"OK, fine, I'm Hank Scorpio,"he clarified.
Although his response was loaded with irony and cynicism, it build up the suspicions raised in social networks: at the end of this story,Elon Musk... will he be a hero or a villain?
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – December 3rd, 2021: Ethereumfell by 1.58% on Thursday. Following a 1.07% loss on Wednesday, Ethereum ended the day at $4,514.
A mixed morning saw Ethereum fall to an early morning low $4,455 before finding support. Ethereum fell through the first major support level at $4,481 before rallying to a mid-afternoon intraday high $4,637.
Falling well short of the first major resistance level at $4,739, however, Ethereum slid to a late afternoon intraday low $4,435. Ethereum fell back through the first major support level before ending the day at $4,500 levels.
At the time of writing, Ethereum was up by 0.08% to $4,518. A mixed start to the day saw Ethereum rise to an early morning high $4,520 before falling to a low $4,507.
Ethereum left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
Ethereum would need to move through the $4,529 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $4,623 into play.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Ethereum to break back through to $4,600 levels. Barring an extended rally, the first major resistance level and Thursday’s high $4,637 should limit the upside.
In the event of a broad-based crypto rally, Ethereum could test resistance at the ATH $4,868 before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $4,731.
Failure to move through the $4,529 pivot would bring the first major support level at $4,421 into play. Barring an extended sell-off, however, Ethereum should steer clear of sub-$4,300 levels. The second major support level at $4,327 should limit the downside.
First Major Support Level: $4,421
Pivot Level: $4,529
First Major Resistance Level: $4,623
23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $3,738
38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $3,039
62% FIB Retracement Level: $1,909
Litecoinfell by 2.56% on Thursday. Reversing a 0.43% gain from Wednesday, Litecoin ended the day at $203.63.
A mixed start to the day saw Litecoin rise to an early morning intraday high $210.29 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $216, Litecoin slid to an early morning intraday low $200.14.
Litecoin fell through the first major support level at $204, however, before briefly revisiting $207 levels. A bearish end to the day, however, saw Litecoin fall back through the first major support level to end the day at $203 levels.
At the time of writing, Litecoin was up by 0.01% to $203.65. A range-bound start saw Litecoin rise to an early morning high $203.86 before falling to a low $203.20.
Litecoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
Litecoin would need to move through the $205 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $209 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Litecoin to break back through to $209 levels.
Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Thursday’s high $210.29 would likely cap the upside.
In the event of an extended rally, Litecoin could test resistance at $220 before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $215.
Failure to move through the $205 pivot would bring the first major support level at $199 into play. Barring an extended sell-off, Litecoin should steer clear of sub-$195 levels. The second major support level at $195 should limit the downside.
First Major Support Level: $199
Pivot Level: $205
First Major Resistance Level: $209
23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $178
38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $223
62% FIB Retracement Level: $296
Ripple’s XRPfell by 1.73% on Thursday. Following a 0.66% loss on Wednesday, Ripple’s XRP ended the day at $0.97298.
A bearish morning saw Ripple’s XRP fall from an early morning intraday high $0.9901 to an early morning intraday low $0.9573. While falling short of the first major resistance level at $1.0123, Ripple’s XRP fell through the first major support level at $0.9754.
Finding support at the second major support level at $0.9597, however, Ripple’s XRP revisited $0.984 levels before easing back.
At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down by 0.17% to $0.9713. A mixed start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP rise to an early morning high $0.9735 before falling to a low $0.9702.
Ripple’s XRP left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
Ripple’s XRP would need move through the $0.9735 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $0.9896 into play.
Support would be needed, however, for Ripple’s XRP to break back through to $0.985 levels. Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Thursday’s high $0.9901 would likely cap the upside.
In the event of a broad-based crypto rally, Ripple’s XRP could test resistance at $1.03 levels before any pullback. The second major resistance level sits at $1.0062.
Failure to move through the $0.9735 pivot would bring first major support level at $0.9568 into play. Barring an extended sell-off, however, Ripple’s XRP should avoid the second major support level at $0.9407.
First Major Support Level: $0.9568
Pivot Level: $0.9735
First Major resistance Level: $0.9896
23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $0.8533
38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $1.0659
62% FIB Retracement Level: $1.4096
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• LUNA Hits New All-Time High After Terra’s DeFi Milestone || First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Declines After Reaching a Record High; Ether Also Drops: Good morning, Here’s what’s happening this morning: Market moves: Bitcoin soared past $69K before dropping below $65K. Technician’s take: Intraday charts are showing initial signs of upside exhaustion. Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. Prices Bitcoin ( BTC ): $64,626 Ether ( ETH ): $4,613 Market moves Bitcoin faced a pullback below $65,000 in the past 24 hours, a more than 4% decline, after it surpassed $69,000 for the first time in its history during U.S. trading hours on Wednesday. Ether fell to about $4,600, a roughly 3% drop. The sharp dip came after news that China Evergrande Group failed to pay at least some of its international investors interest payments on bonds the real estate giant issued, raising more concerns about a potential default of the company. The market perceived the new record price above $69,000 as a reaction to the newly published U.S. Consumer Price Index, which jumped to its highest level in three decades. Data collected by CoinDesk also shows Wednesday’s rally was not supported by strong trading volume. It was lower on Wednesday than it was on Monday and Tuesday across major centralized exchanges. Credit: CoinDesk/CryptoCompare As CoinDesk’s David Morris wrote , the deeply indebted Chinese real estate developer has been an important factor to the much broader financial market, crypto included. With its roots in China and worries about Tether’s holdings of Chinese debt , investors may want to watch how Asia’s crypto markets react on Thursday. Technician’s take Bitcoin Pulls Back From All-Time High, Support Between $63K-$65K Bitcoin was slightly lower, trading around $65,000 at the time of publication, although buyers could hold support above $63,000-$65,000 into Asian trading hours. Intraday charts are showing initial signs of upside exhaustion, which typically lead to a brief pullback in BTC’s price. For example, the relative strength index ( RSI ) on the four-hour chart continues to hover near short-term overbought levels. Story continues Still, upside momentum signals are improving on the daily price chart for the first time since Oct. 1, which preceded a price rally from $44,000. This suggests that buyers could remain active on pullbacks. Two consecutive daily closes above an all-time price high would yield further upside targets, initially toward $86,000. Important events Australian Housing Industry Association new home sales (October) 8:30 a.m. Hong Kong/Singapore (12:30 a.m. UTC): Australian unemployment rate (October) 3:00 p.m. Hong Kong/Singapore (7 a.m. UTC): UK manufacturing production On CoinDesk TV In case you missed it , here are the most recent episodes of “First Mover” on CoinDesk TV : MakerDAO Is Now Fully Decentralized, Foundry Announces Digital Assets Staking Business and Range of Services for Institutions “First Mover” hosts spoke with crypto OG and the founder of MakerDAO – a decentralized credit platform on Ethereum that supports the Dai stablecoin – Rune Christensen. He shared his thoughts on the Biden administration’s stablecoin report and the latest decentralization within his organization. Oanda Senior Market Analyst Edward Moya provided markets analysis as bitcoin retreated from an all-time high. Plus, Foundry announced a digital assets staking business and range of services for Institutions supporting 20 blockchains and counting. Foundry CEO Mike Colyer shared details of this launch. Latest headlines Huobi Global to Expel Singapore Users, Citing Local Regulations Circle Establishing Singapore Hub Amid Global Expansion Bitcoin Jumps to New All-Time High as Inflation Spikes to 6.2% in October Kazakhstan Won’t Restrict Electricity to Lawful Crypto Miners, Minister Says Polkadot DeFi Darling Acala Has Gathered Over $600M and Counting Longer reads Not Everything Needs to Be ‘on the Blockchain ’ Missed the ENS Airdrop? Here Are the Crypto Projects Rumored to ‘Decentralize’ Next || Qual é a popularidade do Bitcoin no Brasil?: A América Latina está liderando o caminho na adoção em massa do Bitcoin (BTC) – com o continente sendo apelidado de “América descentralizada” após a legalização do Bitcoin em El Salvador pelo pioneiro Presidente Nayib Bukele. Enquanto o governo de Bukele abriu um caminho para outros seguirem, os olhos institucionais no espaço estão de olho nos peixes grandes – Colômbia, México e Brasil – todos os quais devem impulsionar um salto quântico no uso diário do Bitcoin sendo utilizado para reserva de valor, meio de remessa e opção de pagamento digital cada vez mais popular. O Brasil é de longe o maior país do continente – em tamanho, população e peso econômico – no entanto, sob a liderança incendiária do polêmico Jair Bolsonaro, a adoção da criptomoeda desacelerou com o presidente declarando de forma infame “Não sei o que é Bitcoin “. Mas como em muitos outros lugares do mundo a revolução descentralizada é de natureza popular e a adoção é alimentada não pelas permissões dos legisladores mas pelas pessoas comuns que optam por usá-la. Uma coisa é clara: os brasileiros estão escolhendo o Bitcoin . Estima-se que 5% de toda a população do Brasil agora possui criptomoedas – mais de 10 milhões de pessoas. Este número impressionante permite que o Brasil se orgulhe de ser a quinta maior comunidade de criptografia do mundo, com pesquisas demográficas mostrando que os detentores são em sua maioria homens com menos de 40 anos. Popularidade do Bitcoin no Brasil está impulsionando a adoção Porém, nem toda máquina estatal está adormecida – o BACEN e o Banco do Brasil estão acordados para a revolução que está à sua porta. Apesar da postura de desprezo do Bolsonaro, o Banco Central do Brasil (BACEN) reconheceu oficialmente o Bitcoin e as criptomoedas como ativos monetários em 2019, e o Banco do Brasil se tornou o primeiro banco estatal do mundo a permitir a exposição do consumidor ao Bitcoin por meio de produtos ETF – um enorme movimento para a indústria no início deste ano. A adoção em massa e a empolgação em torno do Bitcoin desde o início da corrida de touros de 2021 agora colocou as criptomoedas firmemente nas mesas dos legisladores do Brasil – com um projeto de lei em andamento que visa dar ao Bitcoin o status de curso legal completo – semelhante a El Salvador. Houve também a recente aprovação de emendas que trouxeram punições mais rígidas para os fraudadores de criptografia e cibercriminosos. A criptoeconomia do Brasil também está se beneficiando do boom do Bitcoin – o Mercado Bitcoin , com sede no Brasil, conseguiu levantar $ 200 milhões em sua recente rodada de financiamento da Série B. Story continues Este investimento no Mercado Bitcoin fez da 2TM (controladora do Mercado) a 8ª empresa ‘Unicórnio’ mais valiosa da América do Sul. Leia mais: O mercado brasileiro de apostas esportivas movimenta US $ 1,6 bilhão anualmente. View comments || Market Wrap Year-End Review: Bitcoin Peaks as Coinbase Goes Public: Hello, Market Wrap readers! During the final two weeks of 2021, we’re using this space to recap the year’s most dramatic moments in cryptocurrency markets – and highlight the key lessons from this fast-evolving corner of global finance. Over a series of eight posts starting on Dec. 20 and running through Dec. 30, we’ll recap what shook crypto markets this year. (For the latest digital-asset prices and news headlines, please scroll down.)
InTuesday’s episode, we documented the social-media craze that fueled price rallies in bitcoin and dogecoin in January and February. Today, we’ll show how Tesla’s involvement in bitcoin sent prices even higher in February and March. There was hype and ebullience leading up to the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase’s direct stock listing in April, but the rally quickly fizzled.
The bitcoin price broke above $50,000 in February after Tesla disclosed it had invested $1.5 billion into BTC.
The market reaction inspired a bit of opportunism on the part of one enterprising T-shirt vendor, who rushed to offer a T-shirt for $19.99 with the words “Elon’s Candle,” referring to the electric vehicle maker’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk. The “candle” referred to the dramatic pattern that appeared on bitcoin’s price chart as a result of the Musk-fueled price pop:
In March, Musk ratcheted up the drama with a tweet stating that consumers can “now buy a Tesla with bitcoin.”
Theannouncementshelped propel bitcoin, the oldest cryptocurrency, toward a previously unthinkable $1 trillion market capitalization for the first time.
But from a professional price chart reader’s perspective, bitcoin appeared to be “overbought;” that term meant the market’s run-up had probably gone too far, too fast and wasn’t justified by the underlying level of buying interest at the new, elevated threshold.
Once again, bitcoin turned lower – dropping back to its 50-day moving price average of around $30,000. Apparently, it was a level where buyers once again appeared to grow interested.
The market stabilization offered a signal to traders: Bitcoin appeared to hold above the price where it had started 2021, at $29,112. That was cause for renewed optimism.
So as news headlines in traditional financial media and breathless commentators began to highlight the upcoming direct stock listing of Coinbase, the biggest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, the bitcoin rally resumed.
Over the coming months, the price would more than double, a reminder of just how volatile cryptocurrency markets can be.
On April 14, Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, wentlive with its direct stock listingon the Nasdaq exchange, under the ticker symbol COIN.
“This is a watershed moment for the digital-asset industry, as it signifies a larger moment of credibility for a market that is maturing rapidly,” Hunter Merghart, head of U.S. for rival cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, told CoinDesk in an interview.
The initial trading price for the COIN stock, at $381, was an impressive 52% above thereference price of $250 a sharepublished a day earlier by the Nasdaq. But even that lofty price level was well below some of the price targets issued recently by stock analysts, with some estimates ranging as high as $600 a share.
The failure of COIN shares to push even higher suddenly seemed, well, deflating for a crypto market that had grown accustomed to prices constantly going higher.
By the end of the first day of trading, COIN’s stock price had dropped to $342.
The fading spirits spilled over into the bitcoin market: It turned out the hotly anticipated public trading debut of the cryptocurrency exchange wasn’t enough to sustain the twofold price rise in BTC over the prior couple of months.
Bitcoin stalled near an all-time high of around $64,800 on April 14 and quickly went into a sharp sell-off. The chart below shows slowing price momentum, defined by lower highs in the daily relative strength index (RSI), which typically precedes a decline in price.
The hotly anticipated COIN direct listing ended up being a classic “buy the rumor, sell the fact” event. In hindsight, the date of the Coinbase IPO would coincide with bitcoin’s top.
For seasoned crypto traders and newbies alike, the episode offered a fresh lesson in how even sky-high price predictions, euphoric rallies and milestones like the Coinbase direct stock listing do eventually come head to head with the reality of fickle and notoriously cryptocurrency markets, and down-to-earth valuations.
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• Bitcoin (BTC): $48,973.01, +0.8%
• Ether (ETH): $4,005, -0.1%
• S&P 500: +1%
• Gold (per ounce): $1,805, +0.9%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.456%, down 0.005 percentage point
Here are the biggest gainers and losers among theCoinDesk 20digital assets, over the past 24 hours:
[{"Asset": "Cosmos", "Ticker": "ATOM", "Returns": "+22.5%", "Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Polygon", "Ticker": "MATIC", "Returns": "+13.5%", "Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Polkadot", "Ticker": "DOT", "Returns": "+11.1%", "Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}]
[{"Asset": "Ethereum", "Ticker": "ETH", "Returns": "\u22120.1%", "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. || Weight loss pills sold online had a poisonous ingredient in them, feds say: In pill bottles labeled with a scorpion and a warning that the capsules are “not for human consumption,” authorities say an Oregon man sold weight loss pills on his site, ScorpionDNP.com. Inside those purported pills, officials say they found a poisonous, unapproved additive called 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP), an ingredient used in explosives, dyes and pesticides. DNP was used in diet pills until 1938, when the Food and Drug Administration said it was “extremely dangerous and not fit for human consumption.” Now, the 33-year-old accused of selling those homemade pills with DNP sourced from China has been sentenced to a year in federal prison. Jonathan E. McGraw, of Newberg, was sentenced by a federal judge in Chicago after pleading guilty to “a federal charge of introducing a new drug into interstate commerce without approval,” according to a Nov. 22 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. McGraw’s defense attorney, Michael Johnson, told McClatchy News this is an “extremely sad case.” McGraw had “no ill will,” Johnson said, and never wanted anybody to get hurt. McGraw has plans to surrender, Johnson said, and will look forward to getting on with his life after the year-long prison sentence. The investigation into DNP pills The FDA began an investigation in summer 2017 after learning a 20-year-old Illinois man died from a DNP overdose in March of that year, according to court documents. “According to his parents, the male had lost a significant amount of weight in the months leading up to his death and frequently complained of being hot,” the government’s sentencing document says. “In March 2017, his grandmother found him in his bedroom profusely sweating and convulsing. He was taken to the emergency room, where he told a nurse that he wanted to kill himself and had taken DNP pills for that purpose.” It was not clear if the man originally bought the pills to lose weight, but officials say he is believed to have bought them after talking with “ScorpionDNP” on reddit.com. Story continues Officials say McGraw sold the capsules to customers across the U.S. through ScorpionDNP.com and through postings on sites like Reddit. The site listed capsules for sale, ranging from $0.75 per capsule for a 125 mg dosage to $2.40 per a 400 mg dosage, and authorities say Bitcoin was the only accepted payment. All buyers had to purchase a minimum of 40 pills. “The website additionally included a calculator that allowed users to calculate ‘estimated weight loss,’” court documents say. “The calculator required users to input, among other things, their weight, dietary intake, DNP dose, and other information.” Officials note the website also included links to downloadable pamphlets that explained the risks of DNP, including one that warned DNP is “by far the most dangerous drug available to dieters.” It also said overdosing means “you will absolutely 100% positively die” and “do not overheat or you will die.” The sting In October and November 2017, an undercover FDA agent bought two different shipments of capsules. Authorities say the pill bottles had no reference to an intended use of weight loss and did not mention containing DNP. Rather, it said the pills were to be dissolved in water and sprayed on plants to protect from pests. After the first purchase, the agent says he emailed ScorpionDNP saying his wife “freaked out” after reading the label. Officials say McGraw replied, “My apologies, sir. The bottle is labelled with the legal use for DNP as it is illegal to sell DNP for human consumption.” The two talked back and forth about using the pills for weight loss, and authorities say McGraw provided his dosage recommendations. Around the same time, agents monitored his home and followed him as he took similar shipments to the post office. The government got a search warrant for one of the parcels, officials say, and testing confirmed the pills contained DNP. With enough evidence, the government received a search warrant for McGraw’s home, where they found a laboratory in his garage and “significant quantities of DNP.” In reviewing his electronics, officials say they found an April 2016 text message that McGraw sent to his brother. The text said, “I looked up the laws. With this new labelling it is completely legal for both parties involved. If it is seized, inspected, and even tested it is still legal.” Between April 2016 and December 2017, officials say records show McGraw cashed in over $200,000 in Bitcoin. His gross sales are believed to be between $95,000 and $150,000 over more than 1,000 shipments and sales. McGraw counters that he grossed about $30,000 in sales, though officials say that is “dramatically inconsistent with the other evidence presented.” ‘Dirty’ meth-filled baby diapers were headed from Texas to Australia, feds say Car and sex for sale were part of Ohio man’s ploy to rob interested buyers, feds say ‘Con man’ tricked friends out of $391,000 with fake roofing contracts in Texas, feds say
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: down || Prices: 50429.86, 50809.52, 50640.42, 47588.86, 46444.71, 47178.12, 46306.45, 47686.81, 47345.22, 46458.12
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-05-28]
BTC Price: 8719.96, BTC RSI: 71.50
Gold Price: 1276.50, Gold RSI: 45.59
Oil Price: 59.14, Oil RSI: 37.86
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Why ‘NOBL’ is a Dynamite Dividend ETF: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. With equity market volatility rising on the back of trade tensions between the U.S. and China, some investors are mulling defensive strategies. Some of the related exchange traded funds can come with income kickers, including the ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF (CBOE: NOBL) . NOBL tracks the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index, a benchmark that only includes companies that have boosted dividends for 25 consecutive years. Dividend growth strategies, including NOBL, often feature exposure to the quality factor and a recent analysis of NOBL’s underlying index confirms as much. NOBL has a dividend yield of 2.13%. Over the long-term, dividend strategies top the S&P 500 on a total return and an absolute basis. Reinvesting dividends is also a vital part of the equation. For the three years ended Jan. 29, 2019, including dividends reinvested, NOBL returned 44.30 percent compared to 35.50% without dividend reinvestment. “While history may not be a good predictor of future returns, company dividend policies are sacred,” according to Seeking Alpha . “A company that adopts a certain dividend policy and then deviates from that policy is likely to alienate many of the dividend-seeking investors that favor the stock.” Dividend Growth Advantages Companies that have consistently increased dividends tend to be high in quality and show a strong potential for growth. These dividend growers have been able to withstand periods of market duress, exhibiting smaller drawdowns as investors sold off riskier assets, while still delivering strong returns on the upside, to generate improved risk-adjusted returns over the long haul. Company stocks that issue high dividend yields can be masking their distressed books or may not be sustainable and are heading for dividend cuts. Quality dividend ETFs, such as NOBL, try to limit the impact of these value traps by requiring a history of sustainable dividend growth. Story continues NOBL's underlying index “has comfortably outperformed the S&P 500 Index consistently, which has helped NOBL gain traction among other dividend-focused ETFs in the market,” according to Seeking Alpha. “The outperformance of the underlying index in comparison with the S&P 500 Index has also come at a lower volatility as well, and this attractive risk-return profile has been embraced by many investors over the last decade.” Investors have added nearly $175 million to NOBL in the second quarter. For more on core investing strategies, please visit our Core ETF 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 Bitcoin Tear Continues As BTC Breaches $8,000 New Bitcoin ETF Filed as BTC Price Eyes $8K Beyond Meat Up 5.25% Despite Sea of Red Crytocurrency Devotee Sees Bitcoin Tripling by 2021 Universal Basic Income Would Be a Social and Economic Disaster READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || When the Chips Are Down, Look to Leveraged Semiconductor ETFs: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Semiconductors have taken a 12 percent hit thus far in May after leading the rebound following 2018's fourth-quarter sell-off debacle. According to TradingAnalysis.com founder Todd Gordon, the chips might be down, but it's an opportune time to buy the dip. The semis have led us on the way down, said Gordon. I think support has now been reached, and they are in a worthy spot of a low-risk, long setup here with a very clearly defined stop loss. So, you have an old low back here, youve got the 50% retracement offering some support, plus we see a market that is beginning to stabilize, added Gordon. I think its a good opportunity to short ... expensive puts rather than buying expensive calls, so Id like to set up a trade here, a short put with a protective long put below that is known as a put credit spread. Traders can take advantage using exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to set up similar tactical plays like the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X ETF ( SOXL ) and the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bear 3X ETF ( SOXS ) . What we want to happen here in this trade is, one, wed like to see this bounce continue back up into this range here, and if that bounce continues, well be right from a directional aspect, he said. But if we do get the bounce, you also see that implied volatility start to drop away. That will hurt the put that were short more than the put that were long. Net benefit is good for our trade. The sensitivity of semiconductor exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to trade wars was evident in funds like the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF ( SMH ) and the iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF ( SOXX ) as U.S.-China trade deal news continued to keep markets guessing. The semiconductor sector can certainly lay blame on the recent trade war news. China responded to the latest tariff threats by U.S. President Donald Trump by promising to take necessary countermeasures if the Trump administration followed through on its threat to increase tariffs on Chinese goods, which they did: Story continues Category 1 (includes cotton, machinery, grains) went from 10% to 25% Category 2 (includes aircraft parts, optical instruments, certain types of furniture) went from 10% to 20% Category 3 (includes corn flour, wine) went from 5% to 10% Category 4 (includes certain types of chemical, rare earths, medical equipment like ultrasound and MRI machines) stayed the same at 5% "Semis are starting to roll over. Technology is definitely showing some outflows," said Mark Newton, technical analyst at Newton Advisors. "For me that signals people are exiting technology and it's really not the right place to be." For more market trends, visit ETF Trends . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs Kevin OLeary: Motherly Advice I Will Never Forget Marijuana ETF YOLO Looks Toward A Budding Future Vans, Nike Among 170 Footwear Companies Concerned About Tariffs Bitcoin, Stablecoin, Blockchain, Enterprise Ledger
WTF? So Many Retirement Idiots READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || How Crypto Is Taxed in the US: A Taxpayer’s Dilemma: Last year was a bear market for cryptocurrencies. Many investors who did not know how to hedge their cryptocurrency investments saw these investments lose value from the market highs of 2017. Facing the deadline to report their taxes by April 15, 2019, United States individual taxpayers may wonder what their United States tax reporting obligations are if they held, donated or sold/exchanged their cryptocurrencies at a loss during 2018. A taxpayer’s dilemma Let's imagine a potential 2019 taxpayer sitting in front of his tax advisor and feeling embarrassed to tell him that he had lost 90 percent of a 100K investment in cryptocurrencies when the cryptocurrency markets experienced a downturn during 2018, with leading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin ( BTC ) and Ethereum ( ETH ) down 80 percent or more. The taxpayer invested heavily into crypto at the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018 — which he said he regretted everyday since then, because he lost almost all of it. The tax advisor assured the taxpayer that this would give rise to a taxable event only if he sold, exchanged or donated his cryptocurrency during 2018, and that these things would need to be reported on his U.S. tax return — noting, however, that holding cryptocurrencies would not give rise to a taxable event but may give rise to tax-reporting requirements if the cryptocurrencies were held in a foreign financial account. Cryptocurrency hodlers If a taxpayer for 2018 has not sold, exchanged or donated the cryptocurrency he bought at the end of 2017 or beginning of 2018 and is still holding them, then there is no taxable event to report on his U.S. tax return. Tax-reporting requirements would arise if the taxpayer held these cryptocurrencies in a foreign financial account and if mandatory financial thresholds were met under Foreign Bank Account Report (FBAR) and Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) reporting requirements, according to a letter from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) to the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ). Story continues FBAR : A taxpayer with a financial interest in or signatory authority over a foreign financial account must file a foreign bank account report (FBAR) FinCEN Form 114 if the aggregate value of the foreign financial account exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. Noncompliance with FBAR would subject a taxpayer to steep civil and criminal penalties. Each nonwillful failure to file violation can carry a civil penalty of $10,000. Penalties for each willful violation could be the greater of $100,000 or 50 percent of the amount in the account. FATCA : A taxpayer with foreign financial assets of $50,000 or more must report it for FATCA purposes on Form 8938 . It is recommended that cryptocurrency-invested hedge fund accounts and cryptocurrency-denominated exchange accounts be reported in the summary information in Part I of Form 8938. Specific information should be given in Part V. Noncompliance with FATCA could subject a taxpayer to taxes, severe penalties in excess of the unreported foreign assets, and exclusion from access to U.S. markets, which could include a regulated cryptocurrency derivatives clearing market. Cryptocurrency charitable donations A taxpayer may feel generous and decide to donate their cryptocurrencies to a tax code Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity of their choice, to give the charity a large gift. Since a cryptocurrency is considered property for U.S. tax purposes , it will be valued at the time of donation at its fair market value. Donors of cryptocurrencies of over $500 — which are noncash donations — will be required to comply with IRS appraisal requirements by filing Form 8283 . The donation will be tax deductible for the U.S. individual donor as follows: If the donor held the cryptocurrency as a capital asset for more than a year, the donor will be able to deduct the fair market value of the gift up to 30 percent of their adjusted gross income (AGI). If the donor held the cryptocurrency as a capital asset for a short term (i.e., less than one year) or as ordinary income property, the donor will be able to deduct the lesser of cost basis or fair market value up to 50 percent of their AGI. If the donor received the cryptocurrency as payment for services rendered, the donor may claim a deduction of the fair market value on the date of receipt. Charitable contributions that are not deductible in the current year, because they exceed the taxpayer’s AGI limitation, can be carried forward for five years. Cryptocurrency investment sold or exchanged at a loss If a taxpayer held the cryptocurrency as an investment and sold it during 2018, he will be taxed just like bonds or stocks at capital gains rate, which is calculated by subtracting the cost of the asset at the time of purchase from the amount at which it was sold. That difference is typically levied at between 15 percent and 20 percent for long-term investments, held for over a year, or at short-term rates, ranging from 10 percent to 37 percent. If the taxpayer is in the three highest income brackets, he may also have to pay a 3.8 percent tax on the net investment income from short-term investments, held for less than a year. A taxpayer can use his cryptocurrency investment capital losses to offset gains and deduct the difference on his tax return, up to $3,000 per year. Cryptocurrency software services such as Bitcoin.tax or Cointracking.info may ease the calculation of cryptocurrency investment gains and losses that are reported on Form 8949 , which then becomes part of a taxpayer’s Form 1040 Schedule D . Any portion of a capital loss that exceeds the $3,000 annual deduction limit may be carried forward, but not carried back. According to a survey prepared by personal finance company Credit Karma, only around half of cryptocurrency investors who lost $1.7 billion during 2018 plan to report their losses to the IRS. Their reasons for staying quiet is partially tied to not knowing if they can deduct their losses, believing they don't have to, or that they neglected to report cryptocurrency gains in past years and now are afraid to report their cryptocurrency losses. However, taxpayers who have neglected to pay their cryptocurrency-related U.S. taxes and who file their applicable U.S. tax returns should do so by April 15, 2019 to avoid interest, penalties, and even jail time for tax evasion or, worse, for tax fraud, since “cryptocurrencies are a key part of the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement’s work,” Don Fort, chief of the Criminal Investigation Department at the IRS said at a Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement meeting in Amsterdam, citing the risk that such coins are used in the U.S. to avoid paying taxes. Selva Ozelli , Esq., CPA is an international tax attorney and CPA who frequently writes about tax, legal and accounting issues for Tax Notes, Bloomberg BNA, other publications and the OECD. Related Articles: Coinbase Expands Into Cross-Border Payments Tether Daily Transaction Volume Hits All-Time High New USStocks Token Lets Investors Access US Stock Market With Stablecoin Dai OKEx Founder Reveals OK Group’s Partnership With US Trust Firm, Plan to Launch Stablecoin || China's retail sales growth slumps to 16-year low as trade war escalates: Morning Brief: Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET.Subscribe
Key consumer spending data will take center stage.
The U.S. Commerce Department will be releasing retail sales data for April ahead of the market open, and investors will get a peek into the health of the American consumer. After advancing 1.6% in March from the prior month, economists are predicting a more modest jump of 0.2% in April, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, some of the big corporate earnings reports scheduled for Wednesday includeAlibaba(BABA) and Macy’s (M) before market open, and Cisco (CSCO) after market close.
Read more
China's retail sales growth slumps to 16-year low: China reported surprisingly weaker growth in retail sales and industrial output for April on Wednesday, adding pressure on Beijing to roll out more stimulus as the trade war with the United States escalates. [Reuters]
Walmart mulls floating Asda on stock exchange: Walmart (WMT) in the U.S. is considering putting UK supermarket giant Asda on the stock exchange, according to multiple reports by Reuters, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times. According to the reports, Walmart International CEO Judith McKenna, told Asda managers at an event in Leeds, northern England, on Tuesday: “While we are not rushing into anything, I want you to know that we are seriously considering a path to an IPO – a public listing – to strengthen your long-term success.” [Yahoo Finance UK]
Tilray posts bigger quarterly loss: Canada's Tilray Inc. (TLRY) reported a bigger quarterly loss on Tuesday, as the cannabis producer ramped up investments, acquired a hemp-based food maker and expanded internationally. [Reuters]
All the theories behind bitcoin's recent price surge: Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is back. The cryptocurrency has risen by over 100% against the dollar since the start of the year and over 50% since the start of the month. As of Tuesday, bitcoin was trading at a 10-month high above $8,000. [Yahoo Finance UK]
Rivlin, trailblazer in the economics field, dies: Alice Rivlin, former head of the Office of Management of Budget, and vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, died of cancer at the age of 88 on Tuesday. Rivlin, known for her penchant for budget economics, also headed the Congressional Budget Office as its first ever director in 1974 and left a lasting imprint on the way that the U.S. government approaches funding. [Yahoo Finance]
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Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,SmartNews,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit. || The Bigger Picture Behind Bitcoin’s Latest Price Rebound: Bitcoin’s out-of-the-blue bounce over the $5,000 mark this month has prompted some predictable pontificating from price-obsessed people within and outside the cryptocurrency community.
Investors who are long-cryptocurrencies have gleefully pronounced that the Crypto Winter, which began when bitcoin’s bubble burst at the end of 2017, is now mercifully over. The most optimistic are forecasting a rerun of bitcoin’s fall 2015 bounce from its prior post-bubble collapse, which sent it not only back above its 2013 high of $1,150 but all the way to a December 2017 peak of $19,500.
At the same time, bitcoin skeptics have pointed to the seeming lack of fundamental news behind the price rise and declared it meaningless. Typical of the genre, Matt Novak at Gizmodo penned an angry screed titled “Bitcoin Surges 15% Overnight Because Nobody Learned Their Lesson After the Last Crash.”
The Upside of Bitcoin’s Upside (It’s Not What You Think)
One of Novak’s insights: “To be clear, bitcoin is absolutely worthless by any real measure. It’s fake money that’s about as practical to use in the real world as Monopoly bills.”
Readers won’t be surprised to hear that I disagree with Novak’s simplistic rant. But I’m also turned off by the knee-jerk cheerleading from crypto traders whenever bitcoin’s price bounces.
There’s something fundamentally wrong with reducing the measure of bitcoin’s worldwide importance to a price metric that’s denominated in a fiat currency that its advocates hope to replace. It pushes the debate into an inane all-or-nothing binary set of predictions: bitcoin is either going to zero or “to the moon.”
What matters is that 10 years after an unidentified software engineer created it, this decentralized system for recording sequences of transactions continues to do its job, block after block, with no authority in charge, no user able to alter past transactions, and no person or entity able to shut it down.
Bitcoin Defends Psychological Support Line After Price Dip to $4,900
The more this goes on, the more it reinforces the powerful vision behind bitcoin: a peer-to-peer, disintermediated system for exchanging value around the world. And in that context, we can also think of bitcoin the cryptocurrency – differentiated from bitcoin the system – as a unique, provably scare digital asset that expresses the overall value in that vast potential.
A point that’s lost on critics like Novak is that the longer bitcoin simply survives – in the face of the $90 billion valuation that stands as a de facto bounty for hackers to try to take it down, compromise its security or corrupt it – the more its overall value is confirmed.
Bitcoin is progressively proving itself to be an unstoppable, digital system of global exchange, one that functions outside of the traditional national government-mandated system of currency and banking. That status is what gives bitcoin its value.
Of course, the global impact of the bitcoin value exchange system, and therefore its worth to humanity, will be significantly enhanced if adoption advances to a much wider scale and it is used frequently in the world’s transactions. And, yes, a great deal of development work is still needed if it is to ever reach that point.
(Some recent technological leaps such as the Lightning Network and the emergence of decentralized, non-custodial asset exchange technologies offer hope that this scaling challenge can be achieved, though nothing is guaranteed.)
However, widespread adoption in payments is not necessary for bitcoin to have value. To understand why that’s the case, it’s useful to think about gold, to which bitcoin is often compared.
Similar to bitcoin, gold is a mutually agreed store of value that, for all intents and purposes, lies outside the control of nation-state governments and banks. It’s not widely used as a day-to-day currency, but it does enjoy a widespread, shared belief in its value.
Where does gold’s value come from? The answer is somewhat tautological: it comes from that same widely held belief, from a shared understanding in gold’s capacity to function as a depoliticized global system of exchange that’s free of manipulation. Sure, we tend to think of gold in terms of its material qualities: that it’s durable and that it’s shiny in a way that connotes beauty. But its lasting worth really derives from the more esoteric notion that human beings have for a long time deeply held a shared belief in its value.
That belief has turned gold into a system for protecting property, a system used through the centuries by refugees, dissidents and investors for moving and storing value and for hedging against lost spending power. That we now have a digital version of this concept, one that’s designed for the borderless, internet-shaped world of the 21st century, is a big deal.
When dealing with debates over bitcoin’s value, it’s also worth going a little way down the rabbit hole of thinking about what money actually is. Not everyone agrees on a definition, but I think it’s useful to think of money as a societally agreed system for storing and exchanging value. The system has to have certain properties for people to reach this agreement – it must fungible, durable, transferable, divisible, etc. – but it’s the agreement itself that gives it its value.
Here, too, is where many of bitcoin’s detractors get lost.
Fixating on the misplaced idea of money as a thing, they exclaim that bitcoin can’t have any value as it isn’t backed by anything. This, of course, also misses the fact that it is backed by the energy and other resources that miners spend to do the computational work needed to secure the bitcoin ledger.
But the bigger point is that bitcoin’s value, as with all forms of money, comes from the existence of a wide agreement in its potential use as a store of value and medium of exchange.
In bitcoin’s case, the agreement is arguably one that involves 35 million people, ifCambridge University’s latest survey of authenticated users is to be believed. This large level of participation is essentially why bitcoin holds a much greater value than the altcoins that are forks of its code.
So, this is why bitcoin at $5,000 is important, not because it’s a sign of that new investors are coming to push up its price again, but because it validates the core proposition of bitcoin’s resilience and promise.
Bitcoin puzzlevia Shutterstock
• Bitcoin Drops Back to $5K Price Support After Failed Breakout
• This Bitcoin Price Pattern Suggests $5,800 Potential Ahead || Nonfarm Payrolls may stop the Dollar Growth: However, the Friday’s U.S. labour market report is able to put into question, or, conversely, strengthenthe USD growth trend.
The American economy is set to create about 180K jobs in April, according average analysts’ estimates. This is insignificantly worse than the average monthly growth over the last 12 months. During the week we see some controversial data: the ADP announced a strong employment growth in the private sector, but weekly unemployment claims and Manufacturing ISM point to a cooler growth compared to previous months.
Additionally, the auto and housing markets show a decline in sales, which one more evidence of a consumer confidence drop. Thus, macroeconomic data indicates that the situation in employment is getting a little cooler. And this can be a serious obstacle to the USD growth.
Against a trade-weighted basket of 6 major currencies, the dollar rose to 2-year highs last week. But for the further dollar growth, this employment report may need to significantly exceed the expectations. However, indirect indicators are set to a “slightly worse than average” report, potentially creating space for a retreat of the USD.
This article was written byFxPro
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Testing Last Support Level Before Steep Plunge || Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis May 24: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange.
Cryptocurrency fund manager Brian Kelly expects Bitcoin to rally further in the next few months on the back of its “halvening,” due in 2020. Heproposesinvestors to buy around the current levels and keep 1% to 5% of their portfolio in Bitcoin.
Similarly, CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Mark Yusko believes that Bitcoin investments will outperform the S&P 500 investment fund over the next 10 years. According to him, the low correlation of the cryptocurrency with other asset classes is also a reason why it should be ineveryinvestors portfolio.
Other than Bitcoin, the altcoins are also putting forth their use cases in various fields. The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance has outlined various use cases for thereal estatesector. Not only crypto and blockchain companies that are looking at various opportunities where the technology can be of help. Elvira Nabiullina, the head of the Bank of Russia is interested in agold-backedcryptocurrency as she believes it will improve mutual settlements with global jurisdictions.
Facebook is intalkswith the major cryptocurrency exchanges on the issue of its rumored cryptocurrency. The social media giant wants to ensure that its cryptocurrency is liquid, tradeable and secure. With fundamental factors supportive, how do the technicals look? Let’s find out.
The trend in Bitcoin (BTC) is up. It held its first support of $7,413.46 on May 23, which is a positive sign. Both the moving averages are trending up and the RSI is in positive territory. This suggests that the bulls have the upper hand.
A breakdown of $7,413.46 and the 20-day EMA will be the first indication that the momentum has weakened. If the 20-day EMA breaks down, theBTC/USDpair can drop to the next support of the 50-day SMA and below it to $5,900. We anticipate this level to hold.
On the upside, if the pair ascends $8,496.53, it can rally to the next resistance of $10,000, which is likely to act as a stiff resistance. We do not find any reliable buy setups at current levels, hence, we are not suggesting a trade in it.
Ethereum (ETH) has been holding above the support of $225.39 for the past few days. This shows strong demand at lower levels. Both the moving averages are trending up and the RSI is in positive territory. This shows that the bulls are in command.
The bulls will now try to push theETH/USDpair to the overhead resistance of $268.24. Above this, a rally to the $300–$322 resistance zone is possible. The pair will lose momentum if it breaks down of the 20-day EMA and the trend will turn in favor of the bears if the 50-day SMA cracks. Though bullish, we do not find a reliable trade setup, hence, we are not proposing a trade in it.
Ripple (XRP) is attempting to bounce off the 20-day EMA. A strong rebound from the current levels can carry it to the overhead resistance of $0.45. If the bulls succeed in ascending this resistance, the rally can extend to $0.60. Though there are minor resistances at $0.50 and $0.55, we expect them to be crossed.
Currently, both the moving averages are flattening out. This shows a balance between the bulls and the bears. A breakdown of the 20-day EMA will sink theXRP/USDpair to the next support of the 50-day SMA. This is just above the horizontal support of $0.33108. We expect this level to hold. Traders can retain the stop loss on thelongpositions at $0.2750.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) bounced off the 20-day EMA on May 23. The bulls are presently attempting to push the price towards the overhead resistance of $450. Both the moving averages are sloping up and the RSI is in the positive zone. This shows that the bulls are at an advantage.
However, we anticipate a stiff resistance between $450 and the resistance line of the ascending channel. TheBCH/USDpair will weaken if it turns around from the overhead resistance and dips below the 20-day EMA. The next support on the downside is the 50-day SMA and below it the support line of the channel. We will wait for a new buy setup to form before recommending a trade in it.
EOShas bounced sharply from the 20-day EMA. This is a positive sign as it shows buying on dips. The bulls will now try to scale the overhead resistance of $6.8299. If successful, the pair can rally to $9. Both the moving averages are sloping up and the RSI is in positive territory. This shows that the bulls have an edge. The only red flag is the developing negative divergence on the RSI.
We anticipate a stiff resistance at $6.8299. A turnaround from the resistance is likely to find support at the 20-day EMA. TheEOS/USDpair will weaken if it breaks below the moving averages. We might suggest long positions if the pair breaks out and sustains above $6.8299.
Litecoin (LTC) has broken out of the overhead resistance of $91 with force. This is a positive sign. The bulls will now try to scale the overhead resistance of $107. If successful, the cryptocurrency can rally to its target objective of $158.91. Both the moving averages are sloping up and the RSI is in the positive territory. This shows that the bulls are in command.
During the recent pullback, theLTC/USDpair held above the support of $84.3439. This is a bullish as it forms a new base for the cryptocurrency. A breakdown of this support will result in a fall to $74.6054. The traders can trail the stops on thelongpositions to $80. We do not like the negative divergence on the RSI, hence, let us reduce our risk.
Binance Coin (BNB) continues to be the strongest major cryptocurrency as it is consistently making new lifetime highs. Unlike previous occasions, the digital currency has not corrected to the 20-day EMA after reaching the resistance line. This suggests that the bulls are holding on to their positions as they expect a further rally.
TheBNB/USDpair is attempting to climb above the resistance line once again. If successful, it can move up to $40.2919564. With both the moving averages sloping up and the RSI in the overbought zone, the bulls have the upper hand. Our bullish view will be invalidated if the pair reverses direction from the resistance line and plummets below the moving averages.
Stellar (XLM) is attempting to hold the moving averages, which are flattening out. The RSI has also dipped to just above 50. This suggests a balance between the bulls and the bears.
A drop below the moving averages can sink theXLM/USDpair to $0.088542. Thereafter, the pair might remain stuck in the range of $0.088542 to $0.14861760 for the next few weeks.
Conversely, if the bulls hold the moving averages and push the price above $0.14861760, the pair might pick up momentum and rally to $0.22466773. We will wait for the price to close (UTC time frame) above $0.14861760 before proposing a trade in it.
The bulls are struggling to hold Cardano (ADA) above the moving averages for the past few days. Though the bulls bought the dip below the 20-day EMA on May 23, they have not been able to propel the cryptocurrency higher. This shows some buying on dips but a lack of demand at higher levels.
A close (UTC time frame) below $0.073 can result in a fall to the next support of $0.057898. Both the moving averages are flattening out and the RSI is also close to the center. This points to a likely consolidation in the next few days.
But if theADA/USDpair holds the current levels and scales above $0.094256, it will complete a reversal pattern that has a target objective of $0.161275. Therefore, we maintain the trade recommendation given in anearlieranalysis.
Tron (TRX) has held the support at the moving averages and is attempting to rise back above the overhead resistance of $0.02815521. If the price sustains above this level, the digital currency is likely to pick up momentum. However, the digital currency has seen a number of failed breakouts in the past few months, hence, we will wait for the price to stay above the range for a few days before confirming the start of a new uptrend. The target level to watch on the upside is $0.040 and above it $0.050.
On the other hand, if theTRX/USDpair reverses direction from the overhead resistance and sinks below $0.0250, it can dip to the next support at $0.02094452. Both the moving averages are flattish and the RSI is just above the midpoint. This points to a range bound action for a few days. For now, the traders can retain the stop loss on thelongpositions at $0.0209.
Market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange. Charts for analysis are provided byTradingView.
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis May 20
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis May 17
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• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis May 13 || Danish Man Faces Over 4 Years in Prison for Laundering $450K With Bitcoin: A 33-year oldDanishman has been sentenced to four years and three months in jail forlaunderingover $450,000 in Bitcoin (BTC), tech news agencyThe Next Webreports April 8.
Citing apress releasefrom Danish Police, the report says that the criminal pleaded guilty to laundering 3 million Danish kroner that came fromcriminalactivity.
Thecryptolaunderer reportedly exchanged the dirty money in Bitcoin and sent the funds to his accomplices via accounts of unspecified foreigncrypto exchanges.
Danish police reportedly detected the intruder through an investigation of card abuse after they found that one of the criminal’sbankaccounts was connected to a blackmail and extortion scam.
The police commissioner stated that authorities are well equipped to combat illegal activities associated with crypto industry, claiming that they are “willing to prioritize the resources to investigate complex cases on the Internet.”
Criminal use of cryptocurrencies has been a subject of increasing concern to regulators, as somebelievethat crypto affords criminals a high degree of anonymity.
While multiplereportsstate that cryptocurrencies represent a poor form of money for criminals as compared tofiat money, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorism Financing (CTF) measures in the crypto spaceremainhighly discussed among regulators globally.
As such,G20member countries will reportedlymeetin Fukuoka,Japanin June to discuss the establishment of international crypto AML regulation.
In late March, American non-profit think tank RAND Corporationreleaseda report claiming that cryptocurrencies are not well-suited for the needs of terrorist groups. While arguing that crypto poses no sufficient threat as a method of terrorism financing, the think tank stated that the lack of crypto regulations combined with anonymity and improved security could increase the potential use of crypto by terrorists in future.
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• California Sentences Bitcoin Trader to 2 Years in Prison Over AML Compliance Failures || Crypto Market Bleeds $8 Billion Wipeout in Minutes but Bitcoin Recovers Swiftly: ByCCN.com: The valuation of the crypto market dropped by $8 billion in a matter of minutes after the office of New York Attorney General’s officefiled a lawsuitagainst iFinex, alleging Bitfinex of mismanaging $850 million in Tether funds. Bitcoin fell by 7.5 percent at its day’s low point.
Following the filing of the lawsuit by the Attorney General against iFinex, the bitcoin price dropped from $5,500 to $5,085 as many investors panic sold.
Bitcoin is down about 5 percent in the past 24 hours (source: coinmarketcap.com)
But, the bitcoin price has recovered swiftly to $5,170, closing the day with a 5 percent loss.
According to the lawsuit, Bitfinex granted itself access to $900 million of Tether’s treasury in an attempt to “hide” its apparent loss of $850 million.
Bitfinex sent $850 million to a company based in Panama called Crypto Capital Corp, failed to get the money back, and took a loan from Tether to sustain the exchange’s operations.
The Attorney General’s office alleged that the covert operation of iFinex and the mismanagement of funds could be considered as fraud.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Tron Co-Founder and CTO Leaves Project, Alleging Excessive Centralization: Lucien Chen — the former chief technical officer (CTO) and co-founder ofblockchainprotocol Tron (TRX) — has announced he is leaving the project, claiming it has become excessively centralized and strayed from its founding principles. Chen revealed his decision in a Medium blog postpublishedon May 10.
In his announcement, Chen recounts the history of the Tron project and TRX’s successful growth to become the11th largest cryptocurrencyby market cap globally.
Yet the former CTO said that notwitstanding this success, irreconcilable contradictions between himself and co-founder Justin Sun have prompted him to choose to leave the project.
Foremost among his concerns, Chen argued that the project is no longer faithful to its founding principle of decentralizing the web — becoming ostensibly excessively centralized, as well as neglecting to foster internet-focused commercial applications in its ecosystem.
He critiqued Tron’s delegated proof-of-stake [DPoS] consensus mechanism andSuper Representativegovernance and block production nodes, arguing that:
“The DPOS mechanism of Tron is pseudo-decentralized. The top 27 SR nodes (block nodes) have more than 170 million TRX votes, and most of them are controlled by Tron. It’s hard for other latecomers to become block nodes, so they cannot participate in the process of block production.”
Chen continued to claim that some nodes have “more than 90% of the votes with only a few voters,” and that the vote of the ordinary retail investor has thus been ostensibly sidelined. “The total number of TRX in Tron is 100 billion, while the total number of votes for the super representatives is just less than 8 billion,” he added, stating in summary that:
“Token distribution is centralized, Super Representatives are centralized, code development is centralized. Even the community is organized under centralization.”
In addition to his concerns over centralization, Chen also said that as the former CTO who helped build the platform, he knows that real internet applications currently can’t function in the Tron network.
Having left Tron, Chen is now launching his own decentralized blockchain project, dubbed “Volume Network.” He claims that the new venture will stay more faithful to his ideological principles and focus on mining-based decentralization — in particular by enabling users to mine using non-specialist hardware in order to lower the participation threshold.
Asreportedearlier this month, the Tron Foundation recently fixed a critical vulnerability which could have crashed itsblockchain, awarding the cybersecurity research who identified it with a $1,500 bounty and disclosing the findings after the bug had been fixed.
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
リミックスポイント
決算前に一変できる
市場の状態に戻りましたね。
まさかBTC70万以上にこんなに
早くもどるとは！
株価は317円と4月に吹いたのに
全て帳消しにする異常な状況。
業績発表は今期見通し一点に尽きる
まともな数字で株主を
安心させてほしい。
#ビットコイン
#BTC
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BTC Miss World Việt Nam 2019 tiếp tục mở nhận hồ sơ dự thi từ các thí sinh... https://t.co/2QoBWP6DkJ || #ooobtc #obx #crypto #bitcoin #ethereum #blockchain #btc #toqqn || Thoughts on SEC postponing decision on a #bitcoin #ETF? Talking about it on the #CryptoRundown at https://t.co/xzjn0Cf2lo || #Blockchain #BTC #ETH #blockchaintechnology #sharding || 指数だけどんどん上がる || @BoPolny .@LandM_Marius called $10,000 bitcoin for May/June 2019 on December 17th in his report of that week. He also called the low of December 15th one week before it happened and recommended we enter markets on 16th. See his reports. I’m a subscriber. || This nigga asked for bitcoin 🤣
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Trend: down || Prices: 8659.49, 8319.47, 8574.50, 8564.02, 8742.96, 8209.00, 7707.77, 7824.23, 7822.02, 8043.95
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2018-08-08]
BTC Price: 6305.80, BTC RSI: 30.86
Gold Price: 1212.60, Gold RSI: 34.07
Oil Price: 66.94, Oil RSI: 41.59
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Trump May Have Built Enough Goodwill to Press Forward with Tariffs Against China: The majorU.S. equity indexesare trading lower shortly before the cash market opening. Investors appear to be bracing for a “risk-off” session amid chatter that U.S. President Donald Trump will press ahead with additional tariffs on Chinese products.
According to a report from Reuters, President Trump is expected to announce today “pretty significant action” in tariffs on Chinese goods worth around $50 billion. CNBC is also citing three sources saying that fewer products would be affected, but the dollar value of those goods was unclear.
Some are saying that Trump is leveraging his denuclearization deal earlier in the week with North Korea against China, perhaps feeling he doesn’t need them to negotiate with the rogue nation.
Reuters said, citing an unnamed administration official, “Trump no longer thought of China’s influence over North Korea as a compelling reason not to impose tariffs now that the United States had a direct line of communication with Pyongyang.”
Others feel that Trump may have built enough goodwill after the North Korean deal and given the strength in the economy, may be able to move forward with tariffs against China without severe political and economic consequences.
The recent price action suggests that investors were comfortable enough to continue to buy stocks when the U.S. and China were negotiating on trade. However, today’s early weakness indicates that uncertainty has returned and this is making investors nervous.
Today’s session begins with tensions high across the board after China said that it’s prepared to retaliate should the U.S. proceed with the additional tariffs on Friday. Beijing could back off from an earlier promise to buy more American products including soybeans and natural gas, and announce tariffs against U.S. products that would hit Trump’s key base of political support.
The trend is up in the majorU.S. stock indexesso today’s sell-off looks like a blip on the charts. Additionally, the markets have just completed a 10 day rally so profit-taking would not come as a surprise. It makes no sense to start exiting the stock market at the first sign of weakness because the trade issues between the U.S. and China could be cleared up fairly quickly.
Time will tell if this market will turn from bull to bear because the longer the uncertainty lingers, the more nervous investors will become. Furthermore, it may take an escalation of the trade conflict to really rev up the selling.
I’ll turn a little more bearish on this market if China retaliates with additional duties on U.S. exports and the U.S. counters with even more trade pressures. At this point, we can call it an escalation. Until then, I’d have to say that each side is still negotiating, but with a different level of strategies. I don’t think we’re going to see the markets sharply lower over the near-term, but a long, drawn out downtrend will send a signal that investors are starting to prepare for a lengthy trade war.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• The Dollar Finds its Mojo as Trump Hits China with Tariffs || Best Low P/E Stocks to Buy in July: Stocks that trade at low earnings multiples typically do so because the market doesn't expect much in terms of growth from them. However, finding sturdy companies in this category that are capable of surpassing these low expectations and rewarding shareholders with returned income can be a great way to limit your downside risk while still notching strong returns.
Here's a look at three stocks that have attractive price-to-earnings ratios, offer substantial dividend payouts, and have the potential to benefit from some huge trends:General Motors(NYSE: GM),AT&T(NYSE: T), andWestern Digital(NASDAQ: WDC).
Image source: Getty Images.
With the cyclical nature of the auto industry in mind, it would be a mistake to take GM's 6.3 forward earnings multiple as a face-value buy signal. On the other hand, it is a metric that casts the stock in an attractive light when recent performance, growth initiatives shaping the company, and its appealing returned-income profile are taken into account. GM stock also comes with a chunky 3.8% dividend yield at current prices.
If business accelerates as management expects in the year's second and third quarters, the company's earnings should actually increase this year. There's some promising news on that front with GM's U.S. auto sales up 4.6% year over year in the second quarter. The company also expects that new launches in its truck lines and growth in markets like China and South Korea will help deliver earnings growth in the 2019 fiscal year.
Some investors also appear to have trepidation about the potentially disruptive impact that self-driving cars could have on the auto space. Mass-market deployment ofLevel 4 and Level 5 autonomous vehicleswill likely change the game, and companies that fail to adequately prepare for the shift will face consequences.
However, GM looks well-positioned in the space as it plans to launch a self-driving ride-hailing service by 2019. And, the economics seem to support rides-as-a-service being an advantageous development for industry leaders. The as-a-service model has already been hugely beneficial for the software industry, and while the maintenance costs for cars are likely to be higher, GM's estimate that an autonomous-ride-share car could generate hundreds of thousands in revenue points to big opportunity.
In spite of competitive pressures and recent escalations in trade tensions between the U.S. and China, GM looks to have better growth prospects than its valuation implies.
AT&T shareholders have had to be content with the company's admittedly generous dividend payouts over the last decade. Its share price has remained fairly flat over the last decade while the S&P 500 index has climbed roughly 115% over the stretch.
Much of the poor stock performance comes down to increasing competition in the mobile wireless space and paying a steep price to acquire DirecTV right before subscription declines accelerated due tocord-cutting trends. Recently, the telecom's stock has gotten a haircut amid investor concerns that the roughly $180 billion in debt it carries following the Time Warner acquisition could mean that a dividend cut is in the cards. Those concerns intensified following news that the telecom giant intends to purchase advertising and analytics company AppNexus at a price around $2 billion.
So, there's been no shortage of reasons for the lack of enthusiasm surrounding AT&T stock. The flip side is that shares trade at roughly 9.5 times this year's expected earnings, come with a sizable 6.1% dividend yield, and the company expects to generate $21 billion in free cash flow (FCF) this year. That would put the cost of covering its payout at a still-reasonable 70% of this year's FCF.
The business also enjoys an entrenched market position, is backed by strong brands, and appears to have growth opportunities in 5G network technology andsynergies created by the Time Warner acquisition. For income-seeking investors, I think AT&T is worth adding to your portfolio this month.
As with GM, the cyclical nature of the Western Digital's business presents something of a caveat when valuing the stock against short-term earnings expectations. The company's profits will fluctuate based on product-refresh cycles, heavy investment periods, and swings in pricing strength for its offerings.
On the consumer side of things, Western Digital should continue to benefit from growth in the solid-state drive and NAND flash memory markets. The general trend is that the pricing power per terabyte is declining, and that will almost certainly continue, but the good news for Western Digital is itsproduction costs are also on a downtrend.
The amount of data to be stored is rising as video becomes an increasingly widespread medium and emerging product categories like smart cars and Internet-of-Things devices gain traction. The company expects to start rolling out a microwave-assisted hard drive in 2019, with storage up to 40 terabytes. There's increasing need for storage in the enterprise market as businesses move to support these technologies and ramp up their cloud processing and data analytics offerings.
Still, Western Digital stock boasts a solid 2.6% yield and trades at less than six times this year's expected earnings. The company'spayout growthhas stalled since 2016, but with the cost of distributing its dividend representing just 17% of trailing free cash flow, the company could likely maintain its returned-income distribution even if business shifts to a down period.
WDC Free Cash Flow (TTM)data byYCharts
While some consumer storage business is migrating to the internet and the company faces tough competition fromSamsungand others, there are still drivers of demand for Western Digital. The storage stock looks like a cheap buy this July.
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Keith Noonanowns shares of AT&T.; The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Why Appian Corporation Stock Popped 17.6% in May: What happened Shares of Appian (NASDAQ: APPN) climbed 17.6% in the month of May, according to data from S&P; Global Market Intelligence , on the heels of the software development platform provider's strong quarterly results . Appian announced that revenue had climbed 35% year over year to $51.7 million, which translated to an adjusted net loss of $7.3 million, or $0.12 per diluted share. Both the top and bottom lines arrived well above management's own guidance, provided in February, which had called for revenue growth of 20% to 21% and a wider adjusted net loss per share of $0.18 to $0.17. Man on ladder spray-painting a rising yellow line on a brick wall Image source: Getty Images. So what Founder and CEO Matt Calkins noted that the company recently unveiled "native artificial intelligence capabilities and an Intelligent Contact Center application," both of which should improve clients' service to their customers. That's not to say the market seemed pleased at first. Appian stock initially declined 9% the day after its earnings report, as investors lamented the company's seemingly light guidance for more modest top-line growth of 30% to 31%, and per-share losses of $0.18 to $0.17 in the current quarter. Now what Even so, Appian also boosted its full-year guidance to call for 2018 revenue growth of 14% to 16% (up from 12% to 14% previously), with an adjusted net loss per share of $0.64 to $0.61 (improved from a loss of $0.65 to $0.62 previously). And it seems investors subsequently remembered that Appian has made a habit of underpromising and overdelivering. So following the initial disappointment that Appian didn't boost guidance even more, investors appeared to come to their senses to rightly bid up the stock in response. 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 Symington has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Appian. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || The Separation of Ripple and XRP: Why it Happened? What Does it Mean and What are the Differences?: What Is Ripple? What is XRP? Differences between Ripple and XRP Ripple-XRP Separation Ripple-XRP Separation Consequences Bottom Line Contrary to perception, Ripple and XRP are two different and totally independent entities. However, most people, for the longest time have used ‘Ripple’ to refer to the underlying cryptocurrency XRP. While it has been okay, things could soon change as the Securities and Exchange Commission pushes for a clear distinction between the two. A separation between XRP and Ripple is set to come into effect, a move that will allow both retail and institutional investors to have a clear idea of what the two are and what they stand for. What Is Ripple? Ripple is a San Francisco startup company, and the majority holder of cryptocurrency XRP. The company develops software that banks use to facilitate fast, global financial transactions powered by the network’s underlying cryptocurrency XRP. Its platform is one of the most successive, having been used by large financial institutions to enable cross-border payments. Founded in 2012, the American technology company was originally named OpenCoin before being renamed Ripple Labs in 2015. The company’s main objective is to provide a frictionless experience for sending money using the power of the blockchain. Financial institutions are increasingly joining the company’s growing global network also called RippleNet to process customer payments reliably, instantaneously and cost-effectively from anywhere in the world. Ripple has offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Sydney, India, Singapore, and Luxemburg. The company’s value comes from being the creator and majority holder of digital currency XRP. Ripple owns about 60 billion of the 100 billion XRP tokens that will ever be in circulation. The company placed about 55 billion of the XRP coins it owns in a secured escrow account from which it can only release 1 billion every month. Ripple has never come close to releasing 1 billion tokens to the market as part of an effort that seeks to prevent over flooding of the market that would significantly affect the value of the altcoin Story continues Ripple core product away from its XRP holdings is xCurrent , a network used by banks as a messaging solution for settling cross-border payments in real time. The company also owns xRapid , a solution that allows financial institutions to convert fiat currencies to XRP quickly and cheaply. What is XRP? XRP is an independent digital currency that is used to facilitate transactions on the Ripple Network. The technology behind the cryptocurrency is called XRP Ledger and acts as the blockchain in which the XRP token reside. The ledger is community-based which means only users can decide whether it succeeds or fails. The virtual currency acts like a bridge between different fiat currencies as well as a source of liquidity. The first version of the cryptocurrency dates back to 2004 as work of web developer Ryan Fugger. However, the protocol in its current form began in 2012, immediately after OpenCoin now Ripple Labs came into being. Developed as a currency for powering the Ripple Network, XRP allows people to send money digitally. The cryptocurrency came into being as an upgrade of Bitcoin with the aim of solving issues of high transaction costs and slow transaction speeds associated with the popular digital coin. XRP can process transactions in as little as 4 seconds compared to Bitcoin which can take minutes. It can also handle up to 1,500 transactions per second. Ripple Labs helped develop XRP, resulting in the creation of 100 billion XRP tokens that are used to run and power the Ripple Network concept. While the people behind XRP and Ripple are the same, the two operate independently. The fact that the network is open source and XRP can be bought, ensures the independence of the two form each other. Ripple Labs owns 60 billion XRP coins of the 100 Billion produced at inception. The remaining coins are traded freely in the market. Despite being the majority holder, Ripple only utilizes the XRP tokens in one of its product, xRapid. The product was developed with the aim of providing a form of liquidity to XRP tokens while acting as a bridge currency for cross-border payments The success of Ripple, the company, is not in any way tied to the value of XRP the currencies. Differences between Ripple and XRP Ripple Vs. XRP Differences RIPPLE XRP What is It Ripple is a privately owned company based in San Francisco in the U.S with Offices in New York London, Sydney, India Singapore and Luxembourg XRP is an independent virtual currency that acts as an underlying currency powering for powering Ripple’s network AIM Ripple seeks to develop and provide solutions for sending money with ease, and at low costs all over the world XRP seeks to act as a bridge currency for facilitating cross-border payments between different fiat currencies Relationship Ripple uses XRP in its xRapid products to provide banks and other financial institutions with access to on-demand liquidity. Ripple does not in any way own or control the technology behind the digital currency XRP XRP being an open source cryptocurrency can be used by anyone including Ripple. That said, it is neither owned or controlled by any entity or person as it operates independently Control Ripple Labs are owned by the board, founders and employers who helped start the company in 2012 Being a decentralized cryptocurrency XRP is owned by anyone who uses XRP and the XRP Ledger. Usage Ripple develops and offers products that are used in the financial industry, mostly banks Anyone can use XRP for a variety of purposes, i.e. for making payments. Developers can also build on the XRP Ledger Ripple-XRP Separation Ripple control of a good chunk of XRP, while not a bad thing, has been the subject of increased scrutiny and criticism in the recent past. The fact that most people are attracted to cryptocurrencies because of the promise of decentralization has not gone well with some. With Ripple Labs controlling a good chunk of XRP coins, there is fear that the firm wields too much power making it a central authority in a project that is supposed to be decentralized in all aspects. Ripple, the company, has in the recent past gone on a rebranding drive, trying to emphasize its relationship with the digital asset XRP. The clarification comes at a time of mounting regulatory pressure as regulators call for more clarity on how the two are related. The unveiling of a new logo for XRP token marks the first step in Ripple moving to distinguish itself from the token. The new logo emphasizes the need for XRP operating independently. However, the two will still maintain close ties. Suggested Articles A Basic Introduction to Ripple and How to Buy XRP Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple: The Differences How Can Bitcoin Be Used as a Crime Weapon? And How Can this be Solved? Ripple-XRP Separation Consequences Separation is a good thing in that it will lead to a clear distinction between the two entities, something that regulators have been calling for. Ripple is currently entangled in three legal cases all of which have been thrown into disarray on regulators and authorities struggling to understand how the two are different and independent from each other. Ripple and its products led by xCurrent and xRapid won’t be affected in any way by the separation. xCurrent does not use XRP. xRapid on the other hand only uses the cryptocurrency as an exchange mechanism and not for storage of value. Separating XRP from Ripple should also help alleviate the centralization concerns that many people have come to question. Ripple has already made it clear that even if it holds a majority of XRP coins, it does not mean that it controls it or have an impact on its market cap. Talk of separation should thus help alleviate the concerns allowing market participants to treat XRP just like any other decentralized cryptocurrency. While there have been concerns that separation could see Ripple dumping a lot of the XRP coins, it currently owns in the market, that won’t be the case. The people at Ripple Labs are smart enough to understand that the success of XRP as a cryptocurrency would be to their benefit thus won’t do anything that would hurt its market value. There are a number of institutional investors who have been’ skeptical about investments in XRP, on concerns of its association with Ripple Labs. Separation should clear the wave of uncertainty, especially on the three legal cases in court, allowing investors to be in a position to value the token for investment purposes. XRP has seen its value disintegrate in the recent past on its sentiments in the market taking a hit as a result of regulators alleging that it was issued as an unlicensed security Offering. Breakaway from Ripple could see the matter put to rest on regulators having a clear understanding of what the altcoin is all about. The coin price should thus receive a boost on the regulatory pressures easing off. Bottom Line Ripple is one of the most successful payments and exchange platform that will have a big impact on financial transactions in the future. XRP on the other hand, the underlying digital currency powering the network, should see its value continue to tick higher as more financial institutions use the Ripple network to facilitate cross-border transactions. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Oil Price Update – In Position to Cross to Bearish Side of Major Retracement Zone Technical Overview of NZD/USD, EUR/NZD, GBP/NZD & NZD/CAD: 02.08.2018 Gold Rebounds Post Testing Near 2018 Lows but Dovish Market Sentiment Remains Prevalent in Market Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – August 2, 2018 Forecast Stock Market Weakness: Don’t Blame the Tariffs, Blame Rising Interest Rates Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Rising Production, Trade Dispute Fears Likely to Continue to Weigh on Prices || ExxonMobil Is Spending Billions of Dollars to Solve the Permian Basin's Biggest Problem: The Permian Basin is the gift that keeps on giving to oil companies. Since 1921, producers have pumped out more than 29 billion barrels of oil from the play. However, instead of running dry, production from the Permian is on pace to rise quickly in the coming years due to advances in shale drilling technology. In fact, some would argue that the Permian is coughing up just too much oil these days because output has risen so fast that it has filled pipelines to capacity , which is making it harder for producers to get crude oil off the basin. That congestion is putting pressure on regional oil prices and pinching producer profits. ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) is one of the many producers contributing to this problem because the oil giant is on track to boost its shale oil output by 18% this year . However, Exxon is also part of the solution because it plans on spending more than $2 billion to expand midstream infrastructure in the region. Two shiny, black oil barrels on top of U.S. currency. Image source: Getty Images. A major growth engine for Exxon ExxonMobil sees the Permian Basin as a crucial growth driver over the next several years. The company currently plans to deliver a fivefold increase in output from the region by 2025, when it sees production reaching 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/D). That's a key component of the company's long-term plan to add 1 million BOE/D to its total -- boosting it up to 5 million BOE/D -- in a move that would also double earnings and cash flow. Given that Permian pipeline capacity is filling to the brim, Exxon needs to make sure it has access to the infrastructure necessary to facilitate its growth in the region. That's why it plans to spend upwards of $2 billion on transportation and terminal upgrades over the next several years. The company is leveraging that investment by working with midstream companies to build these assets as quickly and efficiently as possible. A pipeline under construction. Image source: Getty Images. Partnering up to meet its needs ExxonMobil has several midstream partners lined up to help support its growth. In late 2016, it formed a strategic joint venture with Sunoco Logistics, which is now part of Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) , called Permian Express Partners. The joint venture combined key oil pipeline networks from both companies to help expand ExxonMobil's options in suppling Permian crude to its refineries along the Gulf Coast. The Energy Transfer-operated partnership recently placed its third Permian Express pipeline into service and could boost that 140,000-barrel-a-day (BPD) line by another 50,000 BPD if it can secure enough additional shippers to support the project. Story continues Meanwhile, ExxonMobil's XTO subsidiary agreed to dedicate natural gas produced from two counties in New Mexico to Summit Midstream Partners (NYSE: SMLP) last July. Summit is currently investing $110 million in building out a natural gas gathering and processing system to serve new wells in that area, which should be in service this month. In addition, Summit has proposed a long-haul pipeline to move gas out of the region, which would cost up to $450 million and could help support Exxon's growing gas output from the area. Exxon's most recent partnership is with oil pipeline giant Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE: PAA) . The companies announced this week that they're pursuing the creation of a joint venture that would build a more than 1 million BPD oil pipeline from the Permian to the Gulf Coast. That project would add to the more than $2.4 billion Plains All American plans to invest in building out Permian infrastructure over the next few years to serve the growing needs of producers in the region, which are on pace to boost oil production from 3.5 million BPD this year up to an estimated 6.4 million BPD by 2023. Making sure nothing stunts its growth ExxonMobil is in the midst of an ambitious push to boost production, which will in turn double earnings and cash flow by 2025. The Permian Basin is a crucial part of that plan, which is why Exxon is working to get ahead of any potential problems by partnering with midstream companies to build the infrastructure it needs to support its growth. This strategy increases the odds that Exxon can achieve its growth objectives, which has the potential to create significant value for investors over the next several years. 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 . || 5 Top Dividend Kings to Buy and Hold Forever: Income investors often ask "who are the dividend kings?" They're indisputably the best and the safest dividend stocks you can buy because dividend kings are companies that have increased their dividends every year for the last 50 consecutive years or more, which means growth, stability, and reliability -- the three keys to successfuldividend investing. They're the safest because companies that have come as far as increasing their payouts for five decades are least likely to cut dividends.
Having paid uninterrupted and growing dividends for such a long time, these companies exhibit the highest qualities of resilience, discipline, and commitment, all of which are also essential attributes of a king, hence the befitting name.
The extraordinary 50-year streak of dividend increases also means that dividend kings are one notch above the more popularS&P; Dividend Aristocrats. Both groups are comprised ofdividend growthstocks, or companies that have consistently grown earnings and cash flows to support a higher payout, year after year. The focus here, therefore, is less ondividend yieldand more on the rate of dividend increases andpayout ratio, both of which are key criteria for any investor when selecting dividend stocks. While a high yield can be enticing, investing in top dividend growth stocks like dividend kings could fetch you big returns in the long run.
So, what does it take for a company to make the cut as a dividend king? A lot, if you might.
If you invest in a stock for thedividend, you'd not only want to be paid consistently, but you'd also expect your dividend income to rise with time. That's possible in two ways: You buy more shares to boost your total dividend income, or the company rewards you with regular dividend increases so you take home more money with the same number of shares. The latter, of course, is a more meaningful way to grow your income, which is why dividend kings are such powerfulwealth-compoundingtools.
Dividend kings are among the best and safest dividend stocks income investors can buy. Image source: Getty Images.
To be able to increase dividends every year for decades, even during the deepest of business downcycles, a company must possess the following attributes:
• A sustainable and compelling business model.
• A strongeconomic moat.
• Financial fortitude.
• Efficiency incapital allocation.
• Commitment to shareholders.
• Visionary management.
Financial fortitude and efficient capital allocation are, perhaps, the most important yet underrated factors that decide how consistent a company's dividends can be. While a visionary management should be able to exploit competitive advantages and growth catalysts to drive the company's top and bottom lines, astrong balance sheetand prudent capital allocation are imperative to support higher payouts and avoid putting dividends on the chopping block to service debt or fund growth projects if business conditions were to worsen.
That's exactly whereGeneral Electric(NYSE: GE)faltered. While the megaconglomerate was never a dividend king, it had raised its dividends for 32 consecutive years by 2007. Soon after, a financial crisis forced GE to slash its dividend in 2009 for the first time since 1938. If that wasn't bad enough, an unsustainable payout ratio and an unhealthy balance sheet, replete with a high debt load and low cash flows, forcedGE to cut its dividendagain in 2017.
Situations like that of General Electric's are few and far between, but the example proves how even the most dependable dividend stocks can flounder if financials are overlooked. Clearly, becoming a dividend king and maintaining that status is no cakewalk, which is why although there are hundreds of companies that have been around for decades, only a couple of dozen stocks are dividend kings today. All of them are typically large, established, and mature companies that have stood the tests of time and display unwavering commitment to shareholders.
The only other stocks that come close to displaying such dividend discipline are the Dividend Aristocrats and dividend champions, with some of them on their way to becoming dividend kings.
With so many companies paying a dividend today, income investors are spoiled for choice. Investors can choose high-yielding stocks with dividend growth to generate compound returns. While it's easy to find high-yielding stocks using a standardstock screener, the classification of companies into groups such as dividend kings, Dividend Aristocrats, and dividend champions has also simplified dividend growth investing to a great extent.
The three dividend terms are often thrown around casually and even used interchangeably. However, while all three groups are comprised of stocks with a strong history of dividend increases, there are subtle differences between them that every income investor should know.
Dividend kingsA dividend king is a company with a record of at least 50 years of consecutive dividend increases. That means dividend kings have twice as good a record as Dividend Aristocrats, making them superior in terms of dividend longevity and reliability.
Dividend AristocratsDividend AristocratsareS&P; 500companies that have increased their dividends consecutively for 25 years or more. Put another way, once a company becomes a Dividend Aristocrat, it'll require another 25 years to become a dividend king, which is why I consider dividend kings to be the epitome ofsafe dividend stocks.
Dividend kings, however, are not officially tracked. On the other hand, the list of Dividend Aristocrats is compiled by Standard & Poor's, which launched the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index in 2005 to measure the performances of S&P 500 companies that have a 25-year-plus record of dividend increases. There are also Dividend Aristocratexchange-traded funds(ETFs) for investors who want exposure to a basket of stocks without spending time and effort on research.
The S&P tag and an index to track their performances is perhaps why Dividend Aristocrats are more popular among income investors. Comparatively, it's harder to find a list of dividend kings, and there's no dividend king ETF orindex fundto track the group.
There's also another group of stocks you should be aware of: the dividend champions.
Dividend championsDave Fish of theDRiP Investing Resource Centerdefines dividend champions as "U.S. companies with [25-plus] straight years higher dividends." At first blush, that sounds exactly like the Dividend Aristocrats, but again, the difference is that dividend champions need not necessarily belong in the S&P 500.
Dividend champions, therefore, can be considered the biggest group of dividend growth stocks as it doesn't filter out dividend-paying companies with long streaks on the basis of market capitalization or liquidity. As of Fish's last updated list, there are 120 dividend champions. Comparatively, there are only 53 Dividend Aristocrats per the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index, and only 25 dividend kings.
Though dividend kings don't usually have high yields, income investors often want to find the top dividend kings by yield. I don't blame them. After all, who doesn't want the best of both worlds: dividend growth and a good dividend yield?
So, below is a list of the top 10 dividend kings by yield. A point to note is that the highest-yielding dividend kings may not necessarily have grown their dividends at the fastest pace, which is why I have included the 10-year dividend compound annual growth rate (CAGR) data for each stock to give you a broader view.
[{"Dividend King": "Procter & Gamble", "Current Yield": "3.9%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "7.7%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "72.2%"}, {"Dividend King": "Coca-Cola", "Current Yield": "3.5%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "8.1%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "440.7%"}, {"Dividend King": "Federal Realty Investment Trust", "Current Yield": "3.5%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "5.3%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "97.6%"}, {"Dividend King": "Genuine Parts Company", "Current Yield": "3.1%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "6.3%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "62.7%"}, {"Dividend King": "Northwest Natural Gas", "Current Yield": "3.1%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "2.7%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "NA*"}, {"Dividend King": "Cincinnati Financial Corporation", "Current Yield": "3%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "3.5%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "49.6%"}, {"Dividend King": "Emerson Electric", "Current Yield": "2.7%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "6.2%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "69%"}, {"Dividend King": "3M Company(NYSE: MMM)", "Current Yield": "2.7%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "9.4%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "70.4%"}, {"Dividend King": "Colgate-Palmolive Company", "Current Yield": "2.7%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "8.6%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "73.6%"}, {"Dividend King": "Johnson & Johnson", "Current Yield": "2.6%", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "7.4%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "724.9%"}]
TTM: Trailing 12 months. NA = Not applicable as Northwest Natural Gas incurred a loss per share in TTM primarily because of tax implications. Data sources: YCharts and Yahoo! Finance. Table by author.
Note that Coca-Cola's and Johnson & Johnson'spayout ratiosfor the trailing 12 months are unusually high as both companies incurred substantialGAAPlosses in the fourth quarter because of the recenttax code overhaul.
In terms of dividend growth, only four of the above stocks -- 3M, Colgate-Palmolive, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble -- feature among the 10 fastest dividend-growth kings. In other words, there are six other stocks from the dividend kings list that have grown their dividends at a faster pace than most stocks in the above table in the past decade, some even at double-digits.
[{"Dividend King": "Lowe's Companies", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "18.5%", "Current Dividend Yield": "2%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "34.5%"}, {"Dividend King": "Hormel Foods", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "16.3%", "Current Dividend Yield": "2.1%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "39.2%"}, {"Dividend King": "Parker-Hannifin Corp(NYSE: PH)", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "14%", "Current Dividend Yield": "1.7%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "35.2%"}, {"Dividend King": "Nordson Corporation", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "12.2%", "Current Dividend Yield": "0.9%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "13.3%"}, {"Dividend King": "Dover Corp(NYSE: DOV)", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "9%", "Current Dividend Yield": "2%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "37.4%"}, {"Dividend King": "American States Water(NYSE: AWR)", "10-Year Dividend CAGR": "7.6%", "Current Dividend Yield": "1.9%", "Payout Ratio (TTM)": "54.8%"}]
TTM: Trailing 12 months. Data sources: YCharts and Yahoo! Finance. Table by author.
Interestingly, all of the dividend kings that have grown their annual dividends by double-digit percentages in the last 10 years also have a lowpayout ratio, which means there's a lot of room for them to grow dividends year after year, regardless of business conditions.
While every dividend king has proven its mettle, I look for companies with strong growth catalysts, and preferably ones with set financial goals for the foreseeable future, as it provides better visibility into the company's earnings and dividend growth potential. I also prefer stocks with 10-year dividend growth of at least 6% and a payout ratio not exceeding 60% to 70%.
With that in mind, here are five dividend kings that you could buy and hold, even for a lifetime. I've saved the best for the last, so read along.
Stanley Black & Decker(NYSE: SWK)gained entry into the prestigious dividend kings group only last year, when it increased its dividend for the 50th straight year. The company's backstory is fascinating as it has an uninterrupted dividend record of 142 years.
From a small hardware shop in 1843 to the world's leading tools and engineered fasteners manufacturer and the second-largest commercial security services company, Stanley Black & Decker has come a long way. Chances are, you've been using its products more often than you realize. Including repair tools, lawn mowers, fasteners that secure your electronic devices, and industrial components to security surveillance systems, Stanley Black & Decker's portfolio has grown to a whopping 500,000 products sold across 50 countries.
Stanley Black & Decker generated $13 billion in sales last year. Now picture this: Nearly 80% of the 175-year old company's revenue growth so far has come in just the past two decades, thanks to acquisitions. Since 2002, the company has spent $9 billion on acquisitions, including abuyout of Craftsmanbrand and Newell Tools last year, which contributed a combined 19% to its fiscal 2017 revenue.
In the past five years, Stanley Black & Decker's earnings per share (EPS),free cash flow(FCF), and dividends grew at compound rates of 10%, 11%, and 6%, respectively. The company grew its dividends by 7% in the past decade and paid out roughly 37% of net profits in dividends over the trailing 12 months. Management has well-defined long-term financial goals, which include:
• Revenue: 10% to 12% growth with 4% to 6% organic growth.
• Earnings per share: 10% to 12% growth, 7% to 9% excluding acquisitions.
• Free-cash-flow: 100% or more of net income.
• Capital allocation: Return 50% FCF to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases, and use 50% for acquisitions.
• Target payout ratio: 30% to 35%.
That payout target may look uninspiring, but the third point -- FCF conversion of 100% or more -- is where Stanley Black & Decker stands out. Because a company pays dividends or repurchases shares out of FCF, greater efficiency in converting net income to FCF almost always translates into higher shareholder returns. With management committed to dividend growth, income investors can expect mid to high single-digit annual raises from thislow-risk dividend king.
American States Water is a great example of how beautiful boring can be. Water utilities is an oft-ignored industry, yet American States Water has the longest streak of dividend increases among publicly listed companies: a jaw-dropping 63 consecutive years.Utilities are known for their dividend-paying capabilities, mainly because contracted and regulated revenue eliminates much of the volatility associated with the top line and cash flows. American States Water is a class apart, even among utilities, thanks to its incredible dividend record.
American States Water operates two subsidiaries: Golden State Water Company (GSCW) and American States Utility Services (ASUS). GSWC is a regulated water and electric utility that contributed 77% and 78% to the company's revenue and net income, respectively, in fiscal 2017. ASUS is a contracted water and wastewater systems provider that serves 11 military bases in the U.S. under 50-year contracts, and it accounted for 23% of American States Water's revenue last year.
American States Water's success with dividends can be credited to six broad factors:
• A strong position in a capital-intensive industry with high barriers to entry.
• A highly regulated and contracted business model.
• A healthywater rightsportfolio, which includes 73,600 acre-feet of owned adjudicated groundwater rights, and 11,300 acre-feet of surface water rights.
• A stable customer base in a resilient industry.
• A strong management team with extensive experience in utilities.
• Strong financials and commitment to shareholders.
Between 2011 and 2017, American States Water grew its EPS and dividends at compound rates of 8% and 10.4%, respectively. In the long run, management aims to grow dividends at a compound rate of "more than 5%." I expect much higher growth from this dividend king, especially as GSWC has applied for rate increases for 2019 through 2021. If they are approved by the California Public Utilities Commission by the end of this year, as expected, the increase would bring in good incremental revenue and cash flow for the company.
3M's and Stanley Black & Decker's ubiquity and brand power make them incredible dividend kings to own. Image source: Getty Images.
3M is one of only eight publicly listed companies to increase its dividends for six decades. To put it in a fun way, 3M just celebrated its tenth anniversary as a dividend king. The company has paid uninterrupted dividends for more than 100 years now. Credit goes to 3M's ubiquitous products, a hugely diversified portfolio, and disciplined deployment of capital.
If 3M's name doesn't ring a bell, think Post-it notes and Scotch tape. Those are just two of the company's well-known brands. Though, 3M also owns Scotch-Brite, Scotchgard, Filtrete, Command, and Nexcare brands, among others, and a portfolio of more than 60,000 products that are sold across 70 countries today.
Above all, you have to credit 3M's innovative leadership for its success. Otherwise, who'd imagine a manufacturer of low-profile products like adhesives and tapes to become a global leader someday? In fact, 3M might be an industrials company, but its tag line isn't even close. "Science. Applied to Life" -- that's what it says. The company is living up to it, applying science and innovation to everyday products to make lives easier. Today, nearly one-third of 3M's sales come from products invented in the past five years.
3M is on target to achieve the below five-year goals through 2020 as unveiled in 2016:
• Revenue: Local-currencyorganic growthof 2% to 5%.
• EPS: 8% to 10% growth.
• FCF: 100% conversion of net income to FCF.
• Return on invested capital: 20%.
Going by3M's operational performance in 2017, it appears on target to achieve those goals. Again, 3M's target FCF conversion of 100% is the key to its dividend growth. In fact, management aims to grow dividend "in-line with earnings over time," which means, a high single-digit or even a double-digit annual dividend increase is very possible. Income investors have a lot to look forward to from thismoney-minting dividend king.
Dover Corp has raised its dividend every year since it was founded in 1955 -- that's 62 consecutive annual dividend increases so far. The impressive record and a high 10-year dividend growth rate of 9% compelled me to deep-dive into the company. Dover's intriguing business mix and a recent growth move struck me.
Dover manufactures and sells equipment and components through four business segments: engineered systems (industrials and fast-moving consumer goods), fluids (pumps and filtration systems), energy, and refrigeration and food equipment. Over the years, engineered systems and fluids have grown bigger in size, contributing nearly 62% combined to the company's total sales in fiscal 2017.
Pursuant to an acquisitive strategy to growth, Dover scooped up as many 13 companies between 2015 and 2017 for nearly $2.2 billion. For perspective, Dover generated $7.8 billion in sales last year. Dover's recent move tospin offits upstream energy business into a separate company calledApergy Corp, therefore, marked a shift in strategy and reflected management's agility to recognize and work on weak spots. The spinoffeliminates a cyclical, volatile, and leveraged portion of Dover's business, giving it a chance to unlock greater shareholder value from other businesses that are on a solid footing.
Unlike the other dividend kings discussed here, Dover hasn't laid out long-term financial goals yet. Nonetheless, you just can't ignore that the company's free cash flow exceeded net income in nine out of the past 10 years. In fact, 100% or greaterFCF conversionis a common theme among all of my dividend stock picks, validating the direct link between FCF and dividend growth. Dover can unlock considerable business value after the spinoff of Apergy, which, when combined with its prudent capital allocation policies, should mean solid dividend growth ahead.
Parker Hannifin has both a really long dividend streak and a solid dividend growth rate. The company caught my attention recently when, while increasing its dividend for the 62nd straight year, management confirmed that maintaining a "dividend increase record" remains a "top priority for capital allocation." When Parker also updated its long-term financial goals, I knew I was looking at a top-quality dividend king here.
Parker Hannifin is the global leader in "motion and controls technologies". Jargon aside, the company makes systems and technology, mostly automated, that keep machines moving in a controlled manner. As the company says, "Parker can be found on and around everything that moves." That may not be an exaggeration, though, in the company's own words, they run into "hundreds of thousands of individual products."
Remarkably, no single product contributes more than 1%, and no single customer more than 3%, to Parker Hannifin's sales. Diversification is, therefore, a major competitive strength for the company which has broadly organized its business into two segments: diversified industrial (which includes engineered materials, filtration, fluid connectors, instrumentation, and motion systems groups), and aerospace systems.
In a significant growth move,Parker Hannifin acquired filtrationproducts top-dog, CLARCOR for $4.3 billion last year in it largest-ever deal. This past March, they unveiled an upgraded set of financial goals through 2023. Here's what the company's aiming for by 2023:
• Segment operating margins (excludes corporate administrative expenses, interest, and taxes): 19%.
• Adjusted EPS growth: at least 10%.
• FCF conversion: 100% of more.
• Payout ratio: 30%.
From $3.9 billion incash from operationsbetween fiscal years 2016 and 2018, Parker Hannifin expects to nearly triple its cash flows in the next five years, which should translate into hefty dividends. In fact, the company expects to pay out $2.6 billion in dividends between 2019 and 2023 compared to a dividend outflow of only $1 billion from 2016 to 2018. Clearly, Parker Hannifin won't give up its position as a top-quality high-growth dividend king anytime soon.
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Neha Chamariaowns shares of Colgate-Palmolive. The Motley Fool owns shares of Johnson & Johnson and Nordson. The Motley Fool recommends 3M. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Is It O.K. to Use My 401(k) for Emergencies?: You never know when a financial emergency might strike. Your car might break down. Your roof might spring a leak. And then there's the possibility of losing your job and having your income disappear overnight. If you're in a financial crunch, you may be tempted to tap your 401(k) for the cash you need. The question is: Is that a smart move? Don't confuse your retirement savings and emergency savings It's understandable that you'd want to raid your 401(k) in a pinch. But if you have an emergency fund , that's where the money to cover unforeseen expenses should come from -- not your retirement savings. Man holding open a wallet to reveal that it's empty Image source: Getty Images. Now, if you don't have an emergency fund, you're in pretty good company. An estimated 40% of U.S. adults don't have the money available to cover a $400 emergency, according to the Federal Reserve Board. But even if you're missing that safety net, you should still explore other means of getting that cash before removing it from your 401(k). The problem with early 401(k) withdrawals What's so bad about removing funds prematurely from a 401(k)? A lot, actually. Unless your savings are housed in a Roth-style account , you'll face a 10% early withdrawal penalty on distributions you take before reaching age 59 1/2. This means that if you remove $10,000 to cover a home repair, you'll immediately lose $1,000 of it. You'll also pay taxes on that withdrawal, though to be fair, the same would hold true for distributions taken after 59 1/2. But penalties aside, the problem with taking early 401(k) withdrawals is missing out on the money you remove during retirement, when you need it the most. You lose the principal amount you withdraw early, as well as whatever growth that sum could've achieved. Imagine your 401(k) investments currently generate an average annual 7% return each year. If you take a $10,000 withdrawal at age 40 to cover an immediate need, and then retire at 67, you won't just have $10,000 less to work with at that point. Rather, your ending 401(k) balance will be $62,000 less when you factor in growth on that $10,000 over a 27-year period. And that's a lot of money to give up, which is why it's generally a bad idea to access your retirement dollars during your working years -- even if you think you need them. Story continues So what should you do if an emergency strikes, you don't have the money to pay for it in the bank, and you're sitting on a 401(k)? For one thing, try immediately cutting back on expenses to free up cash in your budget. Depending on the expense, that just might do the trick. There's also the option to get a side job to drum up extra money. Finally, don't discount the possibility of raiding your home and selling off nonessential belongings. If you're desperate for cash, it may be worth selling the video game system you enjoy on occasion but can do without. Borrow rather than withdraw If you truly have no choice but to tap your 401(k) for emergencies prior to retirement, then you're better off taking that money out as a loan than as an early withdrawal, provided your plan has that option. With a 401(k) loan, you're still losing out on investment growth, but you're also paying yourself back at whatever interest rate your plan imposes, which means you're not taking quite as much of an overall hit on your ending balance. Just as important, with a 401(k) loan, you're not subjecting yourself to the aforementioned early withdrawal penalty, and that could be a huge amount of savings depending on the amount of money at play. That said, 401(k) loans are not without risk. If you separate from your employer before paying back your loan, you'll generally have only 90 days to repay it entirely before it's treated as an early withdrawal and penalized accordingly. Still, it's better than a pure withdrawal. Ultimately, your best move is to always leave your 401(k) alone when you need money and find other ways to manage your expenses, unplanned or otherwise. If you're lacking in emergency savings, let this be your wake-up call to start building that safety net. This way, the next time you find yourself in need of cash, you won't have to contemplate raiding your retirement plan in the first place. 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 . || Business Showcase: Cryptassist: TALLINN, ESTONIA / ACCESSWIRE / July 14, 2018 / Describe the Company The concept for Cryptassist was born out of the frustration about the time taken to research information and data on the crypto world and to perform simple tasks needed daily to manage even a basic portfolio. Astounded at all the new ICOs, exchanges, explorers and the complexity of navigating through all the sites, logins, 2fa codes and everything else needed, it was realized that we needed to make cryptocurrency easy to use, for everyone, in everyday life. We thought what if it was possible to get everything needed on one platform, with one login and it could be accessed from a desktop or a mobile device, how much easier would it be and how much time it would free up in our usually busy schedules. Initially, the idea was to produce a simple platform that did the basic tasks that would allow trading and basic research from frequented websites. As this idea developed we realized that there were many, many more features that could be added and customized to suit individual users as we understood that each person involved in the crypto world had unique needs. We also want to encourage new people that are intrigued by the world of cryptocurrencies, but really don't know how or where to start. From a small team of individuals with an idea, we have assembled a team of industry professionals, each highly skilled within their disciplines to develop the platform and bring the Cryptassist vision to life. What we are developing with Cryptassist is a platform like none before. How is Cryptassist Different? Cryptassist is different because our ICO is not just to raise capital to fund one idea. The Cryptassist platform is a plethora of different ideas or features, but all crypto related and all designed to make the use of crypto easy for everyone to use on an everyday basis and with one of our apps, CryptoGo, to have fun with tangible rewards. Also, unlike many other ICOs and corporations, we have a strong social responsibility to the community and the environment and Cryptassist have an app that is available free of charge to nonprofit organizations and their donors that allows full transparency of the donation process from beginning to end. Cryptassist is also is also donating 1% of funds raised during the ICO to a non-profit reforestation organization and a further 1% to an ocean conservation organization. Story continues Why will Cryptassist do well? Simply because we are different. Different as in the most positive definition of the word. We are going to make the crypto world simple, our concept we believe is unique in offering all the features on one platform. As we say: simplicity is key! Where is Cryptassist based? Cryptassist has legal offices located in Selangor, Malaysia and Tallinn, Estonia and a marketing office in Bangkok, Thailand. When was Cryptassist launched? It was only a year ago in the third quarter of 2017 that the first concept was created and for the size of the project it has developed very quickly. Now it is arguably the largest crypto related project ever undertaken with an abundance of features and apps on the platform, backed by a large, professional team and technical partners. What have been your biggest wins to date? We have been fortunate to have several big features of our platform nearing completion, or already complete. Our DAG algorithm is already running and our fully licensed exchange is ready to operate within the next few weeks. The Cryptassist debit card will also be available soon and linked to our exchange. That link facilitates the conversion of the top 50 cryptocurrencies that we accept to refill the debit card, which can be used anywhere globally that accepts Visa or MasterCard. Another major win is the Cryptassist Philanthropy Innovation app is now ready to use and we have mentioned before. Who are you trying to attract to your product? Everyone. The Cryptassist platform is so diverse we believe that we can fulfill the needs of anyone interested in crypto, or indeed attract people that currently have no or little knowledge of crypto to investigate what we offer and participate in the crypto world. What tips would you give to others looking to build their business? To operate on the same principles as other successful businesses. Define the scope of the project and research to establish the need for the project in your proposed market. Undertake further research to see what competition, if any, exists. Formulate a development plan to establish goals and a business model to establish revenue sources, the proposed customer base, and financing. Build a team suitable to service the needs of your goals and adhere to time frames and milestones agreed upon with any investors. Be transparent in all business communications and transactions and importantly, allocate resources to a marketing campaign. Many great ideas have failed due to a lack of effective marketing. Tell us About the Cryptassist Team Our core team has expanded rapidly over the past few months. Once a draft roadmap was formulated we were able to ascertain what team resources were required and set about locating and bringing them onto the team. Our team now consists of a group of talented individuals who are highly experienced and respected in their various disciplines, working cohesively along with our technical partner, Mobiloitte Technologies, who provide web and development support on the Cryptassist web, Android and iOS platforms. Our team is made up of advisors who are the industry leaders, who have been attracted to work alongside us because they understand our vision and want to contribute to the realization of that vision. What are the Cryptassist plans for the future? We are now into our ICO and well progressed on the development of our platform. We already have some of the platform complete and within the current quarter our license for the Cryptassist spot exchange will be granted and therefore operational, we will have our debit card available for issue where users can refill their card with the top 50 cryptocurrencies, the Cryptassist Webshop will be operational and our OTC platform will be launched. By the end of 2018, we will have both our iOS and Android platforms operational, including the pay-per-alert push notifications and features like Cryptassist Freelancer will be launched. Early in 2019, we will implement our DAG algorithm followed throughout the year by all the other apps and features that are outlined on our roadmap and continue to refine these to make them more user-friendly and accessible via an improved user interface, based on experience and feedback from customer use. As all this is in progress more features may be added to the platform as product planning and development continues and, of course, the continuation of support of the Cryptassist platform. What are your favorite tech gadgets? Undoubtedly the Cryptassist fun augmented reality app, CryptoGo, where users can win real crypto and our Multi-Coin Block Explorer that saves crypto enthusiasts so much time and will be the "Google" of block explorers. Anything else you'd like to add? We would like to stress that the Cryptassist platform will have something for everyone and will fulfill our philosophy of making crypto easy to use for everyone in everyday use. How do people get in touch with you? There are many ways for people to contact us via email or through social media and they are all listed on our website and below: Facebook: www.facebook.com/cryptassistcoin Twitter: www.twitter.com/cryptassistcoin Medium: https://medium.com/@cryptassistcoin Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptAssist/ Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4553885.0 VK: https://vk.com/cryptassistcoin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cryptassistcoin/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cryptassist/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CryptAssistCoin SOURCE: Cryptassist || Bitcoin has fallen more against the dollar than almost every other currency this year: Its been a tough year for just about every currency except the US dollar. The euro and Swiss franc are down against the greenback, to say nothing of Argentinas collapsed peso . But you know whats faring even worse? Bitcoin. To find a currency thats depreciated more against the dollar this year, you have to look to Venezuelas bolivar, the near-worthless money printed by a hyperinflationary state. A Nobel-winning economists guide to taming tech monopolies The deepening bitcoin bear market is disappointing for crypto believers, and not just the speculators trying to get rich quick. Some hope that digital assets like bitcoin could give ordinary people in places like Argentina and Venezuela a way to protect their wealth. Instead of turning to black-market dollars, as is often the case now, citizens could convert their assets to digital tokens that would, theoretically, keep their value and be more difficult for officials to debase or confiscate. So far, however, virtual coins are failing as money (pdf). Bank of England governor Mark Carney refers to digital tokens as crypto assets instead of currencies, because their volatility makes them such a poor store of value. Stanford economist John Taylor (paywall) thinks that crypto tokens have potential in countries where policymakers have shipwrecked the domestic economy. The former US Treasury official is an advisor to Basis , a crypto project founded by Princeton computer science graduates. Find your passion is bad advice, say Yale and Stanford psychologists Taylor is best known for his Taylor Rule , which policymakers use as a guide for setting interest rates to maintain price stability. He regularly consults with central bankers around the world and had a hands-on role in reconstructing Iraqs currency after the US invasion 15 years ago. Taylor thinks the token is an upgrade to bitcoin because it would be more steadfast. He says Basiss algorithmic central bank is consistent with his thinking on rules-based policy (pdf). Former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh and hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller are also backers of the project. Story continues Basis is designed to remain stable against the dollar, or potentially a basket of other assets. Instead of pegging it to the US currency by holding dollars, as some so-called stable coins say they do, the supply of digital tokens is meant to expand and contract using a system that resembles the open market operations performed by central banks. It does this using three tokens: basis tokens linked to the greenback, bond tokens that are auctioned by the blockchain, and share tokens. The system is as complicated as it sounds. You can read more about it here (pdf). Saga, a stable coin project backed economics Nobel laureate Myron Scholes , has similar ideas. Naturally, people have questions . Will US regulators consider these tokens a security , for example? One of the crypto communitys ambitions is to get away from the concentration of power (and single point of failure) that comes with centralization. If Basis relies on an exchanges prices to make adjustments, it will have failed on this measure (more on this in the white paper). Financial crisesthe subprime panic that started in the US, as well as Europes more recent sovereign debt crisishave shown the need for creative, ad-hoc measures when markets go haywire. Can you rely on an algorithm for that? Whatever the case, experiments like Basis are noteworthy. Bitcoin is a brilliant invention in terms of software and cryptography, but the embedded economic principles leave something to be desired if it is to become anything but a volatile, speculative asset. Could projects like Basis marry the technical genius behind bitcoin with sophisticated economic principles? At some point, crypto tokens might even prove more stable than the Argentinian peso or Turkish lira. The future of finance on Quartz Square CFO Sarah Friar is more skeptical about bitcoin than her boss, Jack Dorsey, and she dreams of a day when machine learning will provide entrepreneurs with a mini-CFO inside their (virtual) cash register. Nobel prize-winning economist Jean Tirole discusses tech monopolies ; he notes that breaking Facebook into five smaller Facebooks wouldnt do much to address privacy concerns. Mt. Goxs customers may end up with more money than they lost when the infamous bitcoin exchange collapsed in 2014. About 3,500 Swedes now contain surgically implanted biochips that can replace their wallets, among other things. The worlds first ATM machine was installed 51 years ago this week. Also in history, financial reporters routinely filed remarkably melancholic dispatches for market news. The future of finance elsewhere Cheaper computing is helping upstart investment bankers (paywall) compete with Wall Street. Meanwhile, Wall Street stalwart Goldman Sachs has created a new team to compete with high-speed traders like Virtu. (The group presumably gets amped up by listening to Goldman president David Solomons electronic dance music .) A Bank of England regulator wrote to finance CEOs (pdf) to remind them of their obligations when they have exposure to digital assets. Crypto exchange Coinbase has a bank account with Barclays, while London Block Exchange has an account with ClearBank. A YouTuber says he gets paid the equivalent of about $5,000 to promote crypto projects. John McAfee has said he charged more than $100,000 per tweet to promote tokens. Icelands finance minister is worried about the risk bitcoin mining poses to the countrys economy. Kabbage says it has lent out $5 billion to businesses across the US, with $1 billion accessed during non-banking hours. Previously, in Future of Finance Friday June 22: Get ready for self-driving money June 15: A philosopher thinks technology could make anarchists dreams come true June 8: The Swiss are voting on the radical concept of sovereign moneythe anti-bitcoin Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: Chinas testing some of its most liberal ideas on this palm-fringed tropical island The full list of 229 US products targeted by Canadas retaliatory tariffs || This Technical Indicator Suggests Bitcoin's Rally May Be Overbought: Bitcoin rallied another 6.2 percent on Tuesday, breaching the $8,000 level for the first time in two months. The cryptocurrency is now up 17.4 percent in the past week, but at least one technical indicator is suggesting the bitcoin rally may be overbought.
What To Know
Accordingto CoinDesk, bitcoin’s RSI reached 74.56 on Tuesday, its highest level since it reached its all-time high near $20,000 back in December. Any RSI reading above 70 is considered overbought.
RSI is an abbreviation for relative strength index, a technical metric that measures short-term momentum. RSI is a measure of how strong recent gains have been compared to recent losses. The equation for calculating RSI is as follows:
RSI = 100 - 100 / (1 + RS)
Why It's Important
Where RS is the average gain of up periods divided by the average loss of down periods. The typical period for RSI calculation is 14 trading days.
RSI ranges from 0 to 100, with readings over 70 considered overbought and readings below 30 considered oversold. Technical traders often see these extreme overbought and oversold levels as opportunities for a correction, something bitcoin traders should be prepared for in coming days.
What's Next
The good news for long-term bitcoin investors is that these short-term RSI corrections often have nothing to do with the longer-term trend. Bitcoin investors are hoping the recent strength is a sign the cryptocurrency is finally back on the right track after losing more than half its value in the first half of the year.
Even after the recent rally, theBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC) is down more than 45 percent overall in 2018.
Related Links:
This Week In Cryptocurrency: Bannon Bullish, BlackRock Curious, MLB And Ethereum
Bitcoin's Technicals Look Strong, But Should Bulls Celebrate Just Yet?
See more from Benzinga
• This Week In Cryptocurrency: Bannon Bullish, BlackRock Curious, MLB And Ethereum
• Bitcoin's Technicals Look Strong, But Should Bulls Celebrate Just Yet?
• Crypto Crime In 2018 By The Numbers
© 2018 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
@Bitcoin_Stats || #ABT - Rapid increase 1h: 9.7% V: 17.7M$
Subscribers have been notified 1 hour ago via http://Coinalert.Live & App.
#blockchain #cryptocurrency #altcoins #coinalert $ABT $BTC $ETH $XRP $BCH $LTC $EOS $NEO $TRX $IOTA $XVGpic.twitter.com/tUdoM70yZV || @whats_a_bitcoin || @India_Bitcoin || The progress flies by and it's needed to be in toach with new technologies. That's why I would like to present you this auspicious ICO-projec #BitexGlobal #TokenSale #ICO #bitcoin #ethereum #crypto #cryptocurrency || @whats_a_bitcoin || This is a very interesting project Joe.
While they're only talking about Bitcoin support and generic "digital assets" mentions, It has a great relevance for the whole crypto-space.
Have in mind Galaxy Digital (investor in AlphaPoint) and Pantera Capital (Ripple) are investors || @btc_current || @whats_a_bitcoin || @India_Bitcoin
|
Trend: down || Prices: 6568.23, 6184.71, 6295.73, 6322.69, 6297.57, 6199.71, 6308.52, 6334.73, 6580.63, 6423.76
|
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 2020-11-23]
BTC Price: 18364.12, BTC RSI: 78.89
Gold Price: 1837.80, Gold RSI: 39.46
Oil Price: 43.06, Oil RSI: 62.40
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
FutureFuel Releases Third Quarter and Nine-Month 2020 Results: FutureFuel Third Quarter Net Income of $6.9 Million
Reports Net Income of $6.9 Million or $0.16 per Diluted Share, and Adjusted EBITDA of $5.6 Million
CLAYTON, Mo., Nov. 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --FutureFuel Corp.(NYSE:FF) (“FutureFuel”), a manufacturer of custom and performance chemicals and biofuels, today announced financial results for the third quarter and the nine months ended September 30, 2020.
Third quarter 2020 Financial Highlights(all comparisons are with the third quarter of 2019)
[{"\u25cf": "\u25cf", "Revenues were $54.1 million, down 17.6% from $65.7 million": "Adjusted EBITDA was $5.6 million, down 18.4% from $6.8 million"}, {"\u25cf": "\u25cf", "Revenues were $54.1 million, down 17.6% from $65.7 million": "Net income increased to $6.9 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, from $6.6 million, or $0.15 per diluted share."}]
Nine-month 2020 Financial Highlights(all comparisons are with the first nine months of 2019)
[{"\u25cf": "\u25cf", "Revenues were $154.6 million, down 16.4% from $185.0 million": "Adjusted EBITDA was $18.4 million, up 17.7% from $15.6 million"}, {"\u25cf": "\u25cf", "Revenues were $154.6 million, down 16.4% from $185.0 million": "Net income increased to $41.1 million, or $0.94 per diluted share, from $15.8 million, or $0.36 per diluted share."}]
“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to dominate our business environment. We have witnessed reduced demand for all consumer and energy products in our Chemicals segment and in response, we have tailored our operation to match this lower level of activity and manage costs. We are well positioned to ramp up production when demand returns and, in the meantime, we will actively pursue new opportunities that arise in a post-COVID-19 marketplace.
Our Biodiesel operation continues to operate at record-breaking production rates and with positive margins, demonstrating once again the benefit of this diversity within our business.” said Tom McKinlay, Chief Operating Officer for FutureFuel Corp.
2020 Cash Dividends
FutureFuel paid a regular quarterly cash dividend in the amount of $0.06 per share on our common stock in the third quarter of 2020. In addition to the normal quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share paid in the first, second, and third quarters of 2020, we also declared a special cash dividend of $3.00 per share paid in April. The remaining quarterly dividend of $0.06 per share will be paid in December.
Financial Overview and Key Operating Metrics
Financial and operating metrics, which include non-GAAP financial measures, include dollars in thousands, except per share amounts:
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Financial and Business Summary
Consolidated revenue in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020, decreased $11,546 and $30,407, compared to the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019. This decrease primarily resulted from lower sales volumes in the chemicals segment and lower biofuel selling prices driven by the COVID-19 pandemic along with the absence of an agrochemical product we no longer make. Partially offsetting this decline in the three and nine-month period was increased biofuels sales volumes.
Gross profit in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020 increased $984 and $11,762 compared to the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019. This increase was primarily from: i) the blenders’ tax credit (“BTC”) being in effect for the current period and not in effect in the prior year; ii) increased sales volumes of biofuels; and iii) the change in the unrealized and realized activity in derivative instruments. The change in derivatives was a gain of $867 and $322 in the three months ended September 30, 2020 and 2019, respectively. The change in derivatives had a greater impact in the nine-month comparison period with a gain of $6,789 in the nine months ended September 30, 2020 and a loss of $711 in the nine months ended September 30, 2019. Partially offsetting these increases in gross profit was the reduction in chemical sales volumes as described above.
Also impacting gross profit in both the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020 and 2019 was the adjustment in the carrying value of our inventory as determined utilizing the LIFO method of inventory accounting. In the three months ended September 30, 2020 this adjustment decreased gross profit $628 and increased gross profit $557 in the three months ended September 30, 2019. In the nine months ended September 30, 2020 and 2019, this adjustment increased gross profit $2,266 and $2,480, respectively.
Net Income
Net income for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020 increased $268 and $25,284, respectively, as compared to the same periods in 2019. This increase resulted primarily from biodiesel tax credits and incentives that were in effect in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020 that were not in effect for 2019 (see Note 2 to our consolidated financial statements) and tax law changes in the first nine months of 2020 not in effect for 2019. In the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020, income was also benefited by other income from the resolution of a prior year contractual matter. Partially offsetting this increase in the nine-month period was net unrealized losses on equity securities.
Capital Expenditures
Capital expenditures were $3,717 in the first nine months of 2020, compared with $6,139 in the same period in 2019. FutureFuel was reimbursed for a portion of these expenditures by certain customers as summarized in the following table.
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Cash and Cash Equivalents and Marketable Securities
Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities totaled $243,647 as of September 30, 2020, compared with $316,951 as of December 31, 2019.
About FutureFuel
FutureFuel is a leading manufacturer of diversified chemical products, specialty chemical products, and biofuel products. In its chemicals business, FutureFuel manufactures specialty chemicals for specific customers (“custom chemicals”) as well as multi-customer specialty chemicals (“performance chemicals”). FutureFuel’s custom chemicals product portfolio includes proprietary herbicide and intermediates for major life sciences companies, and chlorinated polyolefin adhesion promoters and antioxidant precursors for a major chemical company. FutureFuel’s performance chemicals product portfolio includes polymer (nylon) modifiers and several small-volume specialty chemicals for diverse applications. FutureFuel’s biofuels segment primarily produces and sells biodiesel to its customers. Please visit www.futurefuelcorporation.com for more information.
Forward-Looking Statements
This document contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements deal with FutureFuel’s current plans, intentions, beliefs, and expectations, and statements of future economic performance. Statements containing such terms as “believe,” “do not believe,” “plan,” “expect,” “intend,” “estimate,” “anticipate,” and other phrases of similar meaning are considered to contain uncertainty and are forward-looking statements. In addition, from time to time FutureFuel or its representatives have made or will make forward-looking statements orally or in writing. Furthermore, such forward-looking statements may be included in various filings that the company makes with United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), in press releases, or in oral statements made by or with the approval of one of FutureFuel’s authorized executive officers.
These forward-looking statements are subject to certain known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to the COVID-19 pandemic and the response thereto, as well as assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in these forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to, those set forth under the headings “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in FutureFuel’s Form 10-K Annual Report for the year ended December 31, 2019 and in its future filings made with the SEC. An investor should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements contained in this document, which reflect FutureFuel management’s opinions only as of their respective dates. Except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revisions to forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties described in this document and in current and future filings with the SEC are not the only ones faced by FutureFuel. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the company to predict which will arise. There may be additional risks not presently known to the company or that the company currently believes are immaterial to its business. In addition, FutureFuel cannot assess the impact of each factor on its business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. If any such risks occur, FutureFuel’s business, operating results, liquidity, and financial condition could be materially affected in an adverse manner. An investor should consult any additional disclosures FutureFuel has made or will make in its reports to the SEC on Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K, and any amendments thereto. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to FutureFuel or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained in this document.
Non-GAAP Financial Measures
In this press release, FutureFuel used adjusted EBITDA as a key operating metric to measure both performance and liquidity. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure. Adjusted EBITDA is not a substitute for operating income, net income, or cash flow from operating activities (each as determined in accordance with GAAP), as a measure of performance or liquidity. Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as an analytical tool, and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of results as reported under GAAP. FutureFuel defines adjusted EBITDA as net income before interest, income taxes, depreciation, and amortization expenses, excluding, when applicable, non-cash share-based compensation expense, public offering expenses, acquisition-related transaction costs, purchase accounting adjustments, loss on disposal of property and equipment, gains or losses on derivative instruments, other non-operating income or expense. Information relating to adjusted EBITDA is provided so that investors have the same data that management employs in assessing the overall operation and liquidity of FutureFuel’s business. FutureFuel’s calculation of adjusted EBITDA may be different from similarly titled measures used by other companies; therefore, the results of its calculation are not necessarily comparable to the results of other companies.
Adjusted EBITDA allows FutureFuel’s chief operating decision makers to assess the performance and liquidity of FutureFuel’s business on a consolidated basis to assess the ability of its operating segments to produce operating cash flow to fund working capital needs, to fund capital expenditures, and to pay dividends. In particular, FutureFuel management believes that adjusted EBITDA permits a comparative assessment of FutureFuel’s operating performance and liquidity, relative to a performance and liquidity based on GAAP results, while isolating the effects of depreciation and amortization, which may vary among its operating segments without any correlation to their underlying operating performance, and of non-cash stock-based compensation expense, which is a non-cash expense that varies widely among similar companies, and gains and losses on derivative instruments, whose immediate recognition can cause net income to be volatile from quarter to quarter due to the timing of the valuation change in the derivative instruments relative to the sale of biofuel.
A table included in this earnings release reconciles adjusted EBITDA with net income, the most directly comparable GAAP performance financial measure, and a table reconciles adjusted EBITDA with cash flows from operations, the most directly comparable GAAP liquidity financial measure.
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Reconciliation of Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities to Adjusted EBITDA
[["", "2020", "", "", "2019", ""], ["Net cash provided by operating activities", "$", "76,576", "", "", "$", "24,358", ""], ["Benefit for deferred income taxes", "", "951", "", "", "", "273", ""], ["Interest and dividend income", "", "(4,562", ")", "", "", "(7,830", ")"], ["Income tax (benefit) provision", "", "(18,931", ")", "", "", "2,889", ""], ["(Gain) loss on derivative instruments", "", "(6,789", ")", "", "", "711", ""], ["Change in fair value of derivative instruments", "", "757", "", "", "", "357", ""], ["Change in operating assets and liabilities, net", "", "(21,248", ")", "", "", "(5,125", ")"], ["Other income non-operating income", "", "(8,350", ")", "", "", "-", ""], ["Adjusted EBITDA", "$", "18,404", "", "", "$", "15,633", ""]]
[{"FutureFuel Corp.": "Condensed Consolidated Segment Income"}, {"FutureFuel Corp.": "(Dollars in thousands)"}, {"FutureFuel Corp.": "(Unaudited)"}, {"FutureFuel Corp.": ""}, ["", "Three Months EndedSeptember 30,", "", "", "Nine Months EndedSeptember 30,", ""], ["", "2020", "", "2019", "", "", "2020", "", "2019", ""], ["Revenue", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", ""], ["Custom chemicals", "$", "10,328", "", "$", "25,270", "", "", "$", "52,129", "", "$", "70,935", ""], ["Performance chemicals", "", "2,409", "", "", "3,376", "", "", "", "11,139", "", "", "10,922", ""], ["Chemicals revenue", "$", "12,737", "", "$", "28,646", "", "", "$", "63,268", "", "$", "81,857", ""], ["Biofuels revenue", "", "41,401", "", "", "37,038", "", "", "", "91,374", "", "", "103,192", ""], ["Total Revenue", "$", "54,138", "", "$", "65,684", "", "", "$", "154,642", "", "$", "185,049", ""], ["", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", ""], ["Segment gross profit (loss)", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", ""], ["Chemicals", "$", "4,754", "", "$", "8,488", "", "", "$", "20,345", "", "$", "22,978", ""], ["Biofuels", "", "1,692", "", "", "(3,026", ")", "", "", "3,411", "", "", "(10,984", ")"], ["Total gross profit", "$", "6,446", "", "$", "5,462", "", "", "$", "23,756", "", "$", "11,994", ""]]
Depreciation is allocated to segment cost of goods sold based on plant usage. The total assets and capital expenditures of FutureFuel have not been allocated to individual segments as large portions of these assets are shared to varying degrees by each segment, causing such an allocation to be of little value.
COMPANY CONTACT
FutureFuel Corp.Tom McKinlay(314)854-8352www.futurefuelcorporation.com || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion: Analysts are bullish on bitcoin’s price but the options market is decidedly bearish on the remaining weeks of 2020. Ethereum’s wrapped bitcoin token crosses $2 billion locked. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $16,240 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.30% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $15,971-$16,487 BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians. Bitcoin’s price trended up for the third straight day, hitting as high as $16,487, according to data from CoinDesk 20. It dipped somewhat since hitting that level and traded at $16,240 as of press time. “Bitcoin rose significantly above the $16,100 mark. Buyers pushed the price due to the large volume,” noted Constantin Kogan, managing partner at investment firm Wave Financial. Related: Record Levels of Negative-Yielding Debt Strengthen Case for Bitcoin: Analysts Major exchange daily spot volumes on Friday were at $668 million as of press time, but not close to Thursday’s $1.1 billion in volume. George McDonaugh, managing director at investment firm KR1, highlighted a key difference between the price run-up in 2020 versus the mooning that occurred back in 2017. “Bitcoin has spent 0.32% of its life at $16,000 and above, which means there were relatively very few buyers at that level back in 2017,” he told CoinDesk. “This correlates to there being very few sellers at this level now, meaning there isn’t a strong resistance band for the bulls to push the price higher.” “I’m seeing an increasing demand from more traditional family offices making their first investments into bitcoin as a long-term hedge or as insurance for their existing portfolio of investments,” Michael Gord, chief executive officer of Global Digital Assets, told CoinDesk. “I expect this trend to continue as bitcoin keeps maintaining its value and being uncorrelated to most other asset classes.” Story continues Read More: $300M BTC Flow to Binance From Huobi as China Toughens on Exchanges Related: Fidelity's Crypto Arm Responds to 6 Common Bitcoin Criticisms Bitcoin isn’t entirely uncorrelated from other asset classes like equities, but lately the correlation between the world’s oldest cryptocurrency and the S&P 500 has dropped a little bit. KR1’s McDonaugh is expecting bitcoin’s price to reach $20,000, but it might take some time to get there as some profit-taking is likely to ensue. “ $20,000 is a far more psychological barrier, so it is likely to be ‘HODLers’ – people holding bitcoin forever – that may de-risk at that level and produce some selling pressure,” he said. Bitcoin options traders aren’t fully convinced that it will trade at $20,000 in 2020. The probabilities calculated using December expiration have pegged only a 16% chance of $20,000 bitcoin, a 29% for $18,000 and a 39% of $17,000 according to data aggregator Skew. Nevertheless, analysts project that bitcoin can soon surpass at least $16,500 consistently. “Given market sentiment and current trends, I am still bullish on BTC,” said Andrew Tu, an executive at trading firm Efficient Frontier. “Though we may range between $16,000 and $16,500 for a bit before breaking resistance.” Wrapped bitcoin hits $2 billion locked Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Friday, trading around $470 and climbing 2.6% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: Payments Provider BitPay Rolls Out Cryptocurrency Payroll Service The amount of bitcoin “locked” in the Ethereum-based wrapped bitcoin contract passed $2 billion Thursday, and is staying at that level Friday. In order to use bitcoin on Ethereum, it must be “wrapped” and used as a token on the network using a standard called ERC-20. Brian Mosoff, chief executive officer of investment firm Ether Capital, says the parking of bitcoin on Ethereum is giving the network a huge leg up over its up-and-coming smart contract competitors, including Polkadot, Cardano and Cosmos, among others. “It’s proving that Ethereum is the thing everyone is plugging into and (networks like) Polkadot may not have its day in the sun,” Mosoff told CoinDesk. Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly green Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): litecoin (LTC) + 10.4% kyber network (KNC) + 7.3% eos (EOS) + 5.6% Notable loser: bitcoin cash (BCH) – 0.27% Read More: Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Nets $44.3M in Q3 Equities: The Nikkei 225 ended the day in the red 0.53%, led lower by investor concern about rising coronavirus cases and a sell-off in Trend Micro, which fell 7% . Europe’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.36% as a stronger British pound, which negatively affects multinational corporations’ overseas revenue, dragged the index lower . In the United States the S&P climbed 1.5% as traders placed strategic bets on the possibility a coronavirus vaccine will eventually lift the economy . Commodities: Oil was down 1.7%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.21. Gold was in the green 0.60% and at $1,888 as of press time. Treasurys: The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed Friday jumping to 0.896 and in the green 2%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion Market Wrap: Bitcoin Fails to Reach $16.5K; Wrapped BTC Hits $2 Billion || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 3, 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 ALT5 Sigma Market Summary Tuesday, November 03 2020 at 4:13:40 PM Digital Asset Pair Price 24hr Chg 7d Chg 24/hr Volume MarketCap Bitcoin BTC/USD $13,735.54 $0.01 $0.01 $27,728 M $254,560 M Ethereum ETH/USD $382.93 -$0.01 -$0.06 $11,228 M $43,378 M XRP XRP/USD $0.24 $0.01 -$0.05 $2,980 M $10,806 M Bitcoin Cash BCH/USD $240.88 -$0.07 -$0.09 $2,818 M $4,471 M Litecoin LTC/USD $53.67 -$0.01 -$0.07 $2,572 M $3,531 M Bitcoin SV BSV/USD $153.71 -$0.03 -$0.12 $805 M $2,853 M EOS EOS/USD $2.35 -$0.04 -$0.11 $2,426 M $2,205 M Monero XMR/USD $119.39 -$0.01 -$0.11 $1,129 M $2,119 M Stellar XLM/USD $0.07 -$0.02 -$0.08 $126 M $1,564 M Dash DASH/USD $63.77 -$0.03 -$0.10 $445 M $625 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. Story continues 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/614295/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 30, 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/608586/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || Why Bitcoin Thrives (and Why It Won’t Replace the Dollar): Bitcoin is the leader of the pack in the crypto space. It has recovered from the disastrous crash of 2018 and is heading back towards the price it reached in December 2017. So what does the future hold for bitcoin? Could it eventually replace the dollar as the global reserve currency, as its loyal supporters claim? Will it eventually crash and die, asNouriel Roubini has predicted? Or is it destined to remain a speculative asset, spicing up investment portfolios but never being adopted as a main medium of exchange?
More than a decade after its emergence from the ashes of the financial crisis,bitcoinis still a minority sport. Predictions thatit will reach $1 million or moreseem wildly over-optimistic. Nor is it showing any signs of becoming a main medium of exchange. Over the last 10 years, the U.S. dollar has entrenched itself ever more firmly as the world’s premier settlement currency. Bitcoin is no nearer universal acceptance than it was when it started.
Frances Coppola, a CoinDesk columnist, is a freelance writer and speaker on banking, finance and economics. Her book “The Case for People’s Quantitative Easing,” explains how modern money creation and quantitative easing work, and advocates “helicopter money” to help economies out of recession.
Related:Crypto Execs Need Liability Insurance
But bitcoin has survived two major crashes and numerous smaller ones, and is now on the way up again. Unlike many smaller cryptocurrencies, its value has never fallen to zero – indeed, over the 12 years of its existence, its value has risen considerably. Volatile though it is, it has demonstrated that it can hold value over the longer term. It has achieved a degree of maturity as a store of value, though not as a medium of exchange.
It’s tempting to predict Bitcoin’s future based on its performance so far. Speculative high-yield asset, yes. Long-term store of value, maybe. Medium of exchange, not so much. But as any investor knows, past performance is not a guide to future returns. So let’s examine whether despite its apparent resilience, bitcoin’s value could still fall to zero, and conversely, what it might take for bitcoin to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.
To understand how either of these scenarios could happen, it’s instructive to look at how fiat currencies work. What gives fiat currencies value – and how do they lose it?
There are two competing theories for what gives fiat currencies value: what we might call a “metallist” theory, that the value of a fiat currency is conferred by the gold to which it used to be pegged, and the “chartalist” theory, which says that a fiat currency has value because people have to pay taxes in it. Of course, neither applies to bitcoin: it has never been pegged to gold, and no government accepts taxes in it. So are there other ways in which a currency can acquire and hold value over the long term?
Related:Data Is Labor: Why We Need Data Unions
See also: Frances Coppola –Banks Are Toast but Crypto Has Lost Its Soul
Underpinning both the metallist and the chartalist view of fiat currency value is a deeper fundamental: the belief that what backs the currency is itself trustworthy. In the case of metallists, it is the belief that gold will always be valuable. This belief has been tested over millennia and never failed, so it is probably reasonable. Less reasonable is the notion that a currency currently not pegged to gold is valuable because it used to be pegged. However, many metallists believe fiat currencies will eventually be re-pegged to gold (more on this shortly).
For chartalists, the underlying belief is the government is capable both of imposing tax liabilities and collecting them. Ability to tax doesn’t have to mean authoritarianism: Reasonable taxation by a government perceived as fair and benign is actually more likely to result in a stable currency than punitive and unfair taxes harshly enforced.
What gives currency value, therefore, is trust in whatever is backing it. So what is backing bitcoin? Responding to the criticism that “bitcoin isn’t backed by anything,”the investment website Fidelity Digital Assets said, “Bitcoin is backed by code and the consensus that exists among its key stakeholders.”
The sort of social and political collapse that would destroy the dollar would surely also destroy global civilization.
This is a statement of faith. It amounts to “the code is perfect, and the key stakeholders would never do anything to make it less than perfect.” Neither is necessarily true, but all is necessary for bitcoin to hold value is for a sufficient number of people to believe it.
The code isn’t perfect, of course. If it were, it would never have been hard forked. But Fidelity Digital Assets has an answer to that one too. Bitcoin may not be immutable, but its community is: “While Bitcoin’s open-source software may be forked, its community and network effects cannot.”
Many people have commented on Bitcoin’s cult-like nature, which appears to be a design feature – the pseudonymous leader who disappeared after three years, the refusal of those who know who Satoshi is to reveal his/her identity, the reverence with which followers treat the sayings of Satoshi and his/her close associates. Network effects are particularly strong in cults, and the incentives of cult members are not necessarily financial. True believers remain invested in bitcoin and actively trading even when the price is falling catastrophically, because of their faith bitcoin will eventually become the heart of a new world order. While they exist, there will always be an incentive to mine bitcoin – and while that remains the case, the price cannot fall to zero.
See also: Jill Carlson –Cryptocurrency Is Most Useful for Breaking Laws and Social Constructs
So the faith of bitcoiners is what gives bitcoin its value. If they were to lose that faith, the currency’s value would fall to zero. But is their faith alone enough for bitcoin eventually to replace the U.S. dollar as global reserve currency?
There are at present no indications whatsoever that the world is likely to ditch the dollar anytime soon. If anything, the present pandemic has increasedreliance on the dollar, forcing the Federal Reserve to provide more liquidity to financial markets. Even in crypto markets, there is a growing need for greenbacks – after all, what are stablecoins but a means of tying cryptocurrencies ever more tightly to the dollar?
A global switch to bitcoin would cause the mother of all financial crises, destabilizing not only conventional markets but crypto markets, too. However, a significant number of people, including but not limited to bitcoiners, think this is not only possible but inevitable. They believe that quantitative easing (QE) will eventually trigger uncontrollable hyperinflation of all major fiat currencies. This belief has proved persistent despite the failure of QE to generate significant price inflation anywhere in the world.
In the early 2010s, people who believed in this hyper-inflationary Armageddon thought the inevitable result would be the return of the global gold standard. Some of them still believe this. But bitcoin’s true believers argue it is bitcoin, not gold, to which the world would turn when fiat currencies crashed and burned.
Why bitcoin? Because it has both the advantages of gold and the convenience of digital currency. It is not issued or controlled by a government, and – unlike gold – its supply increases predictably and will eventually be permanently fixed. It can be subdivided into tiny amounts, making it more usable than gold as a medium of exchange. And as its value increases, the prices of real goods and services bought with it will fall. A digital currency independent of government and naturally deflationary would be just what would be needed to restore trust in money after the dollar’s hyper-inflationary collapse.
But hyper-inflationis very much associated with social, political and economic collapse. So those who believe bitcoin is destined to replace the dollar as the premier international reserve and settlement currency, and investing in it for that reason, are essentially betting on the collapse of the U.S. and the unravelling of the current international order.Sudden disastrous hegemonic collapses are the stuff of apocalyptic fiction, not reality. It took over half a century and two world wars for hegemony to transfer from Great Britain to the U.S., and even then the transfer was slow and not particularly disorderly. The sort of social and political collapse that would destroy the dollar would surely also destroy global civilization.
See also: Frances Coppola –Why Bitcoin-Like Scarcity Would Be a Disaster for the Dollar
Would people even have the devices, broadband and electricity needed to use and mine bitcoin after such a catastrophe? The apocalyptic fiction of the Cold War era, when nuclear war was a real threat, unanimously says “No.” Not only would the devices and the electricity fail to survive, but in their own struggle to survive people would quickly forget they ever existed. You can’t eat bitcoin.
It’s possible the world might avert a deflationary collapse by agreeing to make bitcoin the underpinning of a global system of digital fiat currencies, much as gold underpinned the “Bretton Woods” system of the post-World War II period. But the Bretton Woods system barely lasted 20 years before global economic imbalances and conflicts fatally destabilized it. Why would “Bitcoin Woods” last any longer?
When faith rules the roost, people believe all sorts of incredible things. Bitcoin replacing the dollar as the global reserve currency is such an incredible thing. The chances of it happening seem very small. But as long as bitcoin’s supporters continue to believe that it is destined to rule the world, bitcoin will have value; others can benefit from that value even if they don’t share the belief. Thanks to the faith of bitcoin’s true believers, bitcoin will continue to be a good bet for investors.
• Why Bitcoin Thrives (and Why It Won’t Replace the Dollar)
• Why Bitcoin Thrives (and Why It Won’t Replace the Dollar) || Helium Wireless Network Approves New Hard Cap for HNT Token Emissions: Helium is hard-capping production of the tokenized fuel that powers its decentralized wireless network. Under a newly passed improvement proposal , Helium miners will stop adding to the circulating supply of HNT tokens at 223 million, a figure they will reach sometime in 2070 once bi-annual “halvenings,” also new to the network, have reduced new HNT monthly issuance to a negligible amount. But that inflation hard cap does not mean an end to HNT mining. Miners will continue to mint HNT tokens even after they hit 223 million by replacing burned tokens. Project contributors say this will continue to incentivize mining even after inflation subsides. Related: The Terminators: A Short Story Called “net emissions,” the unique twist is made possible by the nature of the Helium network. HNT tokens are essentially data credits for users. They spend and burn their HNT supplies to share data across Helium’s low-power alternative to WiFi and cellular networks. Newly minted tokens replace the ones removed through user activity. The token currently has a $74.5 million market cap, according to CoinGecko . Read more: Crypto-Powered IoT Networks Are on Their Way to Over 250 US Cities HNT’s tokenomics had already accounted for gradual inflation – sort of. Project contributor James Fayal told CoinDesk the network previously issued 5 million tokens monthly using an equilibrium model meant to keep inflation in check. Related: How the Decentralized Web Transfers Wealth From Corporations to People But the coming changes will introduce a max supply that outside investors can more easily comprehend. “Historically the biggest sort of question people have had about Helium tokenomics, people that are interested, they look at and go, ‘Oh, that’s really cool. You know, I don’t want to get involved with a token that has an infinite supply.’” Introducing a hard cap conceptually similar to that of Bitcoin’s is meant to make the system more understandable to the crypto community, Fayal added. Story continues Helium intends to implement the new tokenomics in time for HNT’s first scheduled halvening in August 2021. The project, backed by a Series C funding round of $15 million from the likes of Union Square Ventures and Multicoin Capital, currently has roughly 12,500 hotspots in the wild. A third-party manufacturing deal announced in September has seemingly boosted the reach of the network. “The Helium Network is growing like a weed largely, in part, due to the new RAK miners, which slashed the cost to entry by 50% and made mining HNT a more attractive enterprise,” said Multicoin investor and Decentralized Wireless Alliance President Tushar Jain. “At the current pace, I expect there to be more than 20,000 hotspots deployed around the world by the end of the year.” Related Stories Helium Wireless Network Approves New Hard Cap for HNT Token Emissions Helium Wireless Network Approves New Hard Cap for HNT Token Emissions || Chainalysis Wants to Help the Feds Sell Millions in Forfeited Bitcoin: Chainalysis is preparing to help its governmental clients sell the same trove of forfeited cryptocurrencies the blockchain tracing company often assists in tracking down. On Thursday, Chainalysis unveiled a program for storing and selling forfeited crypto in partnership with confiscated asset consultancy Asset Reality. The program will likely cater to many of the same government clients that already pay Chainalysis millions of dollars annually to help trace illicit crypto transactions. Those investigations sometimes lead to agencies taking possession of eye-popping crypto sums. Just last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it seized over $1 billion in bitcoin that Chainalysis software traced back to Silk Road. DOJ agencies unload their crypto on the public through semi-regular forfeiture auctions. These sales can raise tens of millions of dollars for the government. But the U.S. Marshals Service, which runs those auctions, has been asking since April for a private-sector partner to help it manage and dispose of forfeited cryptocurrency. Chainalysis representatives did not immediately confirm if its new partnership with Asset Reality was in response to the U.S. Marshals request. Read more: US Seized More Than $1B in Silk RoadLinked Bitcoins, Seeks Forfeiture Related Stories Chainalysis Wants to Help the Feds Sell Millions in Forfeited Bitcoin Chainalysis Wants to Help the Feds Sell Millions in Forfeited Bitcoin Chainalysis Wants to Help the Feds Sell Millions in Forfeited Bitcoin Chainalysis Wants to Help the Feds Sell Millions in Forfeited Bitcoin || US Alleges Top Russian Cyber Hackers Tried to Cover Digital Tracks With Bitcoin: Russia’s most notorious state cyberhackers usedbitcointo cover their ties to critical hacking campaign “infrastructure” such as servers and domain names, according to an indictment unsealed Monday by U.S. prosecutors.
• Six members of Russia’s state-run hacking teams who allegedly targeted “thousands” of victims across companies, political campaigns, governments and the 2018 Winter Olympics through Russian Military Unit 7445 are named in thesuit.
• Prosecutors also allege they were responsible for 2017’s catastrophic “NotPetya” malware attack that caused billions of dollars in damage. Security researchers have made such claims before.
• NotPetya was based on the petya bitcoin ransomware exploit but with a malicious twist, prosecutors allege: “Even if victims paid the ransom ($300 worth of bitcoin), the Conspirators would not be able to decrypt and recover the victims’ computer files.”
• US Alleges Top Russian Cyber Hackers Tried to Cover Digital Tracks With Bitcoin
• US Alleges Top Russian Cyber Hackers Tried to Cover Digital Tracks With Bitcoin
• US Alleges Top Russian Cyber Hackers Tried to Cover Digital Tracks With Bitcoin
• US Alleges Top Russian Cyber Hackers Tried to Cover Digital Tracks With Bitcoin || Money Reimagined: Crypto-Informed Ideas for the Future of Government: The good news is America is not in the midst of a full-blown civil war – not yet, at least.
But, however you feel about Joe Biden’s apparent victory in the most difficult presidential election in living memory, you’d be foolish to believe all is well in this country. Four years after Donald Trump rode a wave of white suburban discontent to a shock victory, and with the echoes of this year’s Black Lives Matter protests still resonating, the vitriol and conspiracy theories generated by a starkly divided vote suggest trust in the U.S. system of government is cratering.
Why? Well, as a starting point, the American Dream has been decimated by the disruptive forces of globalization and digitization. Huge swaths of society, many concentrated in the so-called Rust Belt of the Midwest, no longer believe the future will be brighter for them or their children.
Related:The Terminators: A Short Story
That stirs up the same-old 20th century ideological arguments for getting the Dream back. (The left wants to tax the rich and widen the safety net for the middle class while the right says that’s socialism and that it will halt job creation.)
But there’s a more fundamental problem here: governance itself is broken. Too many people feel they have no agency, their voices aren’t heard, they have no means to shape policies that are dictated by vested interests.
We need a system designed for a globalized economy and an internet-connected society, one that favors transparency, accountability and efficiency, and which mitigates the influence of hidden, vested-interest money. We need to address theprincipal-agent problem.
This column is most definitely not going to say “blockchain fixes this.” But it will draw on a guiding CoinDesk maxim, one coined by Executive Editor Marc Hochstein: “Blockchain doesn’t have all the answers but it asks the right questions.”
Related:Blockchain Bites: Buterin's Stake, Google's Bitcoin Searches, Square's Bustling BTC Business
Applying the lens of decentralization and programmable contracts to big societal issues can help expose where current thinking is wrong. It can reveal how centralized control of information and transactions enables powerful interests to influence policy and, in so doing, undermine the free market. And it helps us think creatively around how new open-information and incentive models might address those problems.
It doesn’t mean “put it on a blockchain.” (And definitely not blockchain voting –bad idea.) It means thinking outside the box.
In our weeklyMoney Reimagined podcast, Sheila Warren and I talked to two outside-the-box thinkers on their ideas for improving governance.
One of our guests was Glen Weyl, the political economist and Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England, who co-authored the book “Radical Markets” with University of Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner. We chose to focus on just two of the many ideas that that book puts forward.
One isquadratic voting, which allows people not only to vote for or against a particular issue but to express how strongly they hold that view by buying extra votes – up to a certain limit of assigned credits. The cost in credits of each additional vote increases by a quadratic formula. It’s designed to help small groups of voters who care deeply about particular issues while still constraining them from overly skewing results.
Weyl has also worked on a variation of the concept with Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin calledquadratic funding, which in theory could diminish the influence of wealthy “whales” in voting systems that are based on financial holdings or contributions.
The second big idea we explored is that of perpetual open auctions. Here, every bit of property, including what we might otherwise think of as public property, is owned by private entities with the proviso that it is always up for auction and that the majority of the value created from it is shared equally among citizens as a social dividend.
Weyl and Posner argue that such an arrangement would incentivize owners to manage the property well, and that the wider distribution of wealth creation would give a greater number of people the wherewithal to start businesses. It would also be easier to develop land for infrastructure, such as high-speed rail lines, because the developer could easily acquire it.
Both of these ideas are rooted more in legal and process innovation than in software and distributed computing per se. But they intersect nicely with concepts associated with the crypto and blockchain space.
One is the potential forself-sovereign identitymodels to prevent people from gaming quadratic voting. Another is the potential enhancements that smart contracts, non-fungible token-based property, and decentralized finance (DeFi) concepts such as automated market-making might bring to open auctions. Also,quadratic funding might fix free-rider problems in blockchain projects, Buterin believes.
Our other guest was Jeff Saviano, the global lead of tax innovation at EY. He is a member of theProsperity Collaborative, within which organizations such as the World Bank, MIT Media Lab’s Connection Sciences lab and the New America Foundation are working with governments to improve transparency and efficiency in the collection and distribution of taxes.
Saviano talks of how blockchain-based tracing systems might not only give taxpayers a transparent view of how their taxes are being spent but also incorporate programmability.
For example, the actual, uniquely identified dollars that you contribute could be channeled directly and transparently into identifiable services that immediately benefit you and your community. Or, governments could use smart contracts to put hard constraints on those dollars, so only certain categories of expenditure, and not others, are enabled.
Whether these ideas work or not, policymakers must restore the social covenant between those who govern and those who are governed. And that comes down to trust.
We are the principals in this relationship. As our representatives, government leaders are supposed to be our agents. But if there is insufficient trust in them, people instead see them as competitors.
As has been seen in countless failed states, a vicious, self-fulfilling cycle can arise. People avoid paying taxes so as not to feed the kleptocracy, which starves the state of the resources it needs, encouraging more corruption and theft by police and other employees of the state.
The endgame in all that is a collapse in the most important expression of the state’s relationship with its people: its currency. The hyperinflation seen in Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela can be thought of as a manifestation of the collapse in the social covenant.
It’s worrying to think similar breakdowns may be underway in western nations, including the U.S. While there are currently no big inflation risks in the benchmark Consumer Price Index, these kinds of concerns underpin this month’s sharp rally inbitcoin, which burst through $15,000 on Thursday.
Buying bitcoin is one way for people to protect themselves from future governance failures. But it’s more important that we find solutions to prevent those failures.
Around 9 p.m. ET during the early vote-counting phase of the U.S. election on Tuesday evening, the value of the Trump futures contract on FTX crypto derivatives exchange dramatically surged higher. As you can see in the chart below – a five-day snapshot taken on Thursday morning from the FTX website – the value of the contract doubled from about $0.40 to $0.80 at that time. FTX was then assigning an 80% probability to President Trump winning the election. Early Wednesday morning, an even more dramatic change happened: The contract’s value plunged all the way down to around $0.12, which is more or less where it stayed.
There’s an easy explanation for this relatively short-lived spike. Early results on Tuesday showed some strong numbers for President Trump, especially in the vital battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and there was not yet any data on the shift that would later go toward Joe Biden once early-voting and mail-in ballots were counted. Suddenly, expectations had changed from what the FTX market and other prediction markets such as PredictIt had been saying in the days beforehand, when Biden was forecast to win.
All through the week, politicos had been warning about the “red mirage” effect, where the early count would favor Trump because more of his voters were expected to vote on Election Day whereas Biden vote would skew toward early or mail-in votes, which were to be counted later. We were repeatedly told to be patient, that we were in it for the long haul. All this was, in other words, predictable ahead of time. In short, neither the rally or the subsequent sell-off should have happened at all.
So much for the “wisdom of the crowd.” So much forpredictionmarkets.
It seems all FTX did on Tuesday evening was to enable speculators to take short-run bets on people’s herd instincts during the hyperbole of election-night TV commentary.
This was supposed to be prediction markets’ coming-out moment. The most high-profile election of all time and tight polling made for a big chance to show off what the new crypto-based versions of an old idea could do. Instead, we got further evidence to back uppast results showing prediction markets don’t work well.
BITSTRATEGY. One person no doubt pleased with bitcoin’s price surge over $15,000 is Michael Saylor. In separate transactions in August and September, the CEO of investment advisory firm MicroStrategy shifted a total of $425 million worth of the company’s cash on hand into the dominant cryptocurrency. The move turned Saylor into a rock star in crypto circles, set off some copycat measures by other companies such as fintech provider Mode Global Holdings and payments service Square, and stirred a debate on whether bitcoin is a viable treasury-management asset for companies looking to protect the purchasing value of their cash.
Veteran Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig wasn’t impressed, though.An otherwise balanced analysis of Saylor’s moveended on this note:
“…MicroStrategy is no longer just a software company. Now it’s a bitcoin bet. Investors who wish to buy bitcoin could always do so themselves with the proceeds of a dividend or share buybacks. The point of buying a stock is to get a stake in a business, not to take a flier on cryptocurrency.”
It’s a clever line, but in the face of the improvement in bitcoin’s price Saylor could equally argue that he’s achieved what he needs to do. He legitimately sees a decline in the dollar’s purchasing power because even though the benchmark measure of the consumer price index is stable to low, there are rising prices in asset markets, in food and commodities. This was a hedging strategy for a time of great uncertainty and, as anyone who’s tried to run a business in the middle of a crisis will tell you, a necessary one. Sometimes the need to survive is more important than running the underlying business activity. You have to make smart decisions around cash on hand.
Yes, Saylor could have launched a share buyback to return value to stockholders, but doing so would leave less room for maneuver with cash on hand in the future (should an acquisition target come along, for example) and would continue to tie the company’s valuations to a fiat valuation he believes will be depleted in purchasing power terms. So, it really comes down to whether or not you believe there’ll be long-term inflation.
I’m looking forward to chatting with Saylor next week when he joins our“Bitcoin for Advisors” eventfor registered financial advisors.
GOING IT ALONE.Andrew Browne, another veteran financial journalist, also formerly of The Wall Street Journal and now at Bloomberg,took a look at China’s new policy of “self reliance.” Somewhat alarmingly, the phrase, which was inserted into Xi Jingping’s new five-year plan, stems from Mao-era rhetoric. But as Browne points out, it’s unlikely to mean China is closing its doors and may even end up making its economy more open and less isolationist. The reality is the kind of policies Xi’s government will need to pursue to give greater emphasis to its domestic economy and reduce China’s reliance on foreign export markets will require it to further open up to foreign service firms, especially in the field of finance.
Browne doesn’t mention capital controls. But any talk of liberalizing financial services to better serve domestic consumers and businesses inevitably leads to that question, because to grow such businesses with foreign help there needs to be a more free-flowing interest rate market, which in turn requires a more open flow of capital in and out of the economy.
One big question is, what does this mean for cryptocurrencies? Would looser capital controls put the yuan under pressure and favor bitcoin, or would that lower the appeal of bitcoin, which has been used by Chinese nationals to bypass those restrictions?
Another question: How does this tie into China’s new digital currency, the digital currency electronic payments (DCEP) system? Lowering capital controls might signal a path to making that currency available in offshore markets or as a payment rail in overseas supply chains such as those expected to operate overChina’s One Belt One Road network. But probably more important though less obvious to observers obsessed with China’s geopolitical strategy is that “self reliance” is consistent with the heavy investment the country is making in integrating technologies such as the DCEP with itsBlockchain Services Networkto boost the performance of its domestic economy.
Tying those in with a host of data-driven Fourth Industrial Revolution developments could give China an advantage in its competition with the U.S.
Square Reports Over $1B in Quarterly Bitcoin Revenue for First Time: Q3 Earnings. Something that’s going to be quite different about this bull run in bitcoin from the last one three years ago is it will be accompanied by upbeat earnings reports from mainstream companies with exposure to it. We discussed MicroStrategy above. This news, reported by Brady Dale, is from Square. Worth noting is that what’s good for Square shareholders isn’t necessarily good for its customers, as these revenues represent the fees they are paying for using a payments technology that, in theory, should be middleman-free.
US Seized More Than $1B in Silk Road–Linked Bitcoins, Seeks Forfeiture.It’s the bitcoin crime story that will never go away. U.S. agents seized some $1 billion worth of bitcoin they say was earned by the shuttered Silk Road drug market. The massive stash was forfeited by an unnamed hacker who had stolen the bitcoin from Silk Road. The report raises more questions than it answers – such as, what involvement did jailed Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht play in all this? Kevin Reynolds reports.
Ethereum 2.0 Countdown Begins With Release of Deposit Contract. It’s hard to keep track of all that happened in this past, busy week of news. This one would have been a much bigger story if it weren’t for the bitcoin rally and the return of Silk Road: the first big step in Ethereum’s long-awaited, highly complex migration to its new proof-of-stake architecture. CoinDesk reporter Will Foxley has been all over this. He reports on the deposit contract by which a group of market participants will lock up their existing ether funds in return for the right to own a new version of ether that will operate within a parallel proof-of-stake network.
In the CBDC Race, It’s Better to Be Last.In a contrarian take, CoinDesk columnist JP Koning – one of the first people to envisage a central bank digital currency with his “Fedcoin” idea in 2014 – is now saying the U.S. can afford to take its time. While others worry American tardiness will put it at a disadvantage to China’s fast-moving digital currency, Koning says that because, like all central banks, the Federal Reserve is a de facto monopoly, it need not worry about competition and can instead afford to wait. I disagree, but if you’re a regular consumer of Money Reimagined, you’d already know that. Koning, as always, is a good read.
• Money Reimagined: Crypto-Informed Ideas for the Future of Government
• Money Reimagined: Crypto-Informed Ideas for the Future of Government || Bitcoin ETF Time? What SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Stepping Down Means for Markets: Jay Clayton is stepping down as chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission. Here’s what that means for crypto and traditional markets.
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.comandNexo.io.
Related:A Bitcoin Shortage? PayPal and Cash App Buying More Than 100% of New Supply
On this week’s Long Reads Sunday, NLW reads Joe Nocera’s recent Op-Ed “Clayton’s Exit at SEC Opens Door to Protect Investors” from Bloomberg.
NLW expands upon the piece, discussing Clayton’s legacy in crypto and how a Biden economic team might impact the space.
See also:SEC’s Clayton Says Payment Inefficiencies Are Boosting Bitcoin’s Rise
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.
• Bitcoin ETF Time? What SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Stepping Down Means for Markets
• Bitcoin ETF Time? What SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Stepping Down Means for Markets
• Bitcoin ETF Time? What SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Stepping Down Means for Markets
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 19107.46, 18732.12, 17150.62, 17108.40, 17717.41, 18177.48, 19625.84, 18803.00, 19201.09, 19445.40
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-06-03]
BTC Price: 8209.00, BTC RSI: 56.71
Gold Price: 1322.70, Gold RSI: 68.78
Oil Price: 53.25, Oil RSI: 22.98
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Ransomware Crooks Cashed Out $16 Million from Defunct Bitcoin Exchange: Google Research: ByCCN: In the two years leading up to 2018, a spate of ransomware attacks wereanalyzed in a reportby a team of researchers hailing mostly from leading U.S. universities and Google. Results showed a conservative estimate of total funds stolen to be $16 million, with bitcoin providing a way for malicious actors to take payment from anywhere in the world.
The first quarter of 2019 has perhaps seen these types of attacks become more frequent and severe. Citing cases involving Ryuk, a notorious family of ransomware, the amounts demanded to be paid have reportedlyincreased by 90%since the end of last year. This marks an average ransom of $12,762 as compared to$6,733 in Q4 of 2018.
Numerous attacks were carried out in April on U.S. based targets. The city of Greenville, North Carolinais still dealing with the falloutfrom a RobinHood ransomware infection; on April 13, Imperial County, California wasstruck by Ryuk ransomwarecausing some city systems to cease working; the very same dayStuart, Florida was hit by Ryuk,also, forcing a temporary shutdown of payroll, utilities, and other important functions.
Other attackstargeted infrastructure in Augusta, Maineas well as the Cleveland Hopkins International airport, which suffered outages of flight and baggage information thattook up to a week to resolve. For private enterprise it is often easier to pay up rather than suffer the costs of downtime–typically 10x the amount of the actual ransom–but this would be highly problematic for local authorities who cannot be seen to incentivize these types of attacks.
Ransomware has proved a thorn for businesses and public services alike. | Source: Shutterstock
Rogue hackers hailing from North Korea, Iran, and Russia are leading suspects for many ransomware attacks. Ryuk is seen as a scheme led by a group or groups of Russians which would explain the focus on U.S. municipalities and enterprises: ajoint-report in February 2019 by cybersecurity companies McAfee and Covewarestates that attackers from post-Soviet states seem to express an underlying view of “the capitalistic West versus the poor East”.
Meanwhile, another family of ransomware, Cerber, was found to haveprobably stolen around $2.5 millionfrom South Korean victims.Ryuk was at first mistakenly reportedto be the work of North Koreans.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Warren Buffett: Bitcoin is like a seashell or something: Twitter Facebook The price of Bitcoin is rising again, and famous investors are conjuring up fresh insults for the cryptocurrency. Speaking at the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha, legendary investor Warren Buffett — known for his disdain towards everything crypto — once again had choice words for Bitcoin, according to CNBC . And this time, the derogatory remarks got really weird. SEE ALSO: Investment giant Fidelity to launch crypto trading within weeks, report says In a short chat with reporters in Omaha, Buffett called Bitcoin "a gambling device" that "just sits there" and that "hasn't produced anything." Read more... More about Bitcoin , Warren Buffett , Blockchain , Cryptocurrency , and Tech || Embarrassed Wankers Cough Up $1 Million in Bitcoin to Sextortinists: ByCCN: Long ago the fear of going blind was drummed in people to prevent self-pleasure. Now the biggest fear seems to not being able to look your co-workers, friends and relatives straight in the eye if a compromising video of you lands in their hands. Scammers have realized this and are extorting bitcoin from victims and making a fortune out of it.
According to an investigation conducted by cybersecurity firmArea 1, sextortionists have so far made $949,000. Initially reported byFortune, the report claims that the average payout by victims of sextortion is 0.073 bitcoin (about $585).
Typically, the email the scammers send their victims is formulaic. In thesextortionemail the scammers will warn their selected targets that they possess videos of them watching porn. The fraudsters will claim to have obtained the video by installing malware on a porn website which the victim then unwittingly downloaded to their device.
The scammers then say they recorded the victim engaging in masturbation via their webcam. They may also claim that they were able to obtain the victim’s social and professional contacts using the malware. The scammers then threaten to send the videos to all the victim’s contacts.
At the bottom of the email, they will include an amount that they want sent to a bitcoin address. In most emails, the scammers will give their victims one day to make the payment.
If not, they will threaten to send the video they claim to have recorded to co-workers and close relatives. They promise to delete the video if the payment is made.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Silk Road 2 Founder Sentenced 2 Five Years For Child Porn and Drugs: Silk Road 2andSilk Road Reloadedlaunched shortly afterRoss Ulbrichtwas arrested and the Silk Road, the first and largest darknet marketplace, was taken down. The drama that would unfold surrounding the case of Ulbricht would overshadow the existence of flourishing alternative markets, many of which did not have the same scruples as the Silk Road. For example, on the Silk Road, it was against the rules to traffic in child pornography. Silk Road 2 did not have such a law, and many later markets have allowed for the sale of anything –even people.
Thomas White wassentencedto five years in prison in the UK today. He is said to have been Dread Pirate Roberts 2, the founder of the Silk Road 2, and moreover, one of his charges was “making indecent images of children” – child pornography. Police found records of White talking about founding a child porn-specific darknet website to facilitate the sale of such images.
Ross Ulbrichtreceived two life sentencesin a federal court, without the possibility of parole, for his creation of the Silk Road. No one else has received anything near that sentence in the various dark web stings. A growing chorus of influential people inside and outside of the Bitcoin space have called for Ross’sclemency.
According to Motherboard, Thomas White was arrested in 2014, but information about his case has been kept secret while investigations were ongoing. The investigation took a long time because investigators struggled to break through the encryption that White used on his various computing devices. They caught a break when they were able to compromise the password to one of his password managers, which subsequently gave them access to one of his laptops.
On that laptop, police discovered that White possessed the Dread Pirate Roberts 2 PGP private key. In cryptography, maintaining the private key to something is as good as owning it. From there they were able to build a case that White was, in fact, DPR2 and various charges stemmed from there.
Additionally, police had back-up evidence. They discovered at least a few of DPR2’s Bitcoin wallets in his possession and found packages addressed to him from busted Silk Road vendors. After a lengthy investigation, they were able to trace his activity as “StExo” on the Silk Road to his eventual role as Dread Pirate Roberts 2 in his new enterprise.
In total, White will do five years and four months in a UK prison on charges of making indecent images of children, drug trafficking, and money laundering. In the intervening years, he has been cited as an expert by outlets includingForbes, all while privately awaiting the conclusion of a severe case.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Bitcoin Price Could ‘Absolutely’ Crash Below $3,000: Crypto Pioneer: Bitcoin’s April rally has captured the attention of observers both inside and outside crypto–land, with the price perched above $5,200 once again. Blockchain pioneers are confronting the pop, even if they have different views on what it means.
Vinny Lingham, who is at the helm of blockchain identity platform Civic, isn’t convinced that crypto winter is over and wouldn’t be surprised to watch the price retrace its former lows. Binance CEOChangpeng “CZ” Zhao, meanwhile, is an unapologetic bitcoin bull who sees all of the signs that it’s onward and upward from here.
The blockchain leaders are on opposite sides of the bitcoin bull market spectrum. They each joined CNBC’s Crypto Trader Ran NeuNer to discuss what’s next for thebitcoin price.
Lingham, who maintained a conservative bitcoin price outlook throughout the bear market, isn’t tossing that winter coat just yet. The Civic chief is not convinced that crypto winter is over, saying he is waiting for the bitcoin price to hold a particular level before he’s ready to concede that the bears have lost control.
“I’m not buying any bounce right now that doesn’t go to around $6,200 and stays there for at least 24-48 hours as being the end of the bear market cycle.”
While Lingham is willing to suggest that the bitcoin price is near the bottom of the bear market cycle, it could have more bouncing to go. Historically, bitcoin hasn’t escaped a bear market until the price is two times higher than the bottom. Considering that the bitcoin price bottom of the current cycle is $3,100, the cryptocurrency will have the “all clear” when it holds $6,200.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Velocity Ledger Technology Launches Testnet and Blockchain API in Bermuda: Bermuda-basedfintechfirm Velocity Ledger Technology (VLT) has launched a testnet andblockchainAPI for trading digital assets in Bermuda, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 28.
VLT is reportedly letting users develop digital asset applications with their blockchain viewer and web portal, if they are granted early access to the products via request forms. User can create apps for issuing, trading and settling digital asset tokens.
Companies can reportedly launch initial coin offerings (ICOs) via these applications via a white label software-as-a-service basis, provided that they are approved by the Ministry of Finance of Bermuda or Bermudan Monetary Authority.
In the press release, VLT purports that it is the first platform of its kind to operate with regulatory compliance from the Bermudan government.
Velocity Ledger Holdings Limited (VLHL) itself — the parent company of VLT — has been granted approval to launch its own ICO by the Ministry of Finance on March 22 and is in the middle of its initial sale of VL tokens at press time.
Bermuda becoming increasingly popular for launching ICOs — as well as security token offerings and non-fungible tokens — because it does not distinguish between certain digital tokens and traditional securities. As previouslyreportedby Cointelegraph, the CEO of VLHL praised the local digital asset laws, saying:
“Bermuda has adopted pragmatic, non-restrictive frameworks for digital assets that provide regulatory certainty to market participants.”
In the summer of 2018, the Bermudangovernmentintroduced several crypto andblockchainindustry-friendly pieces of legislation thatreduced legal ambiguityfor ICOs andcreateda new class ofbankfor serving fintech and blockchain companies.
In theUnited States, legislators Warren Davidson (R) and Darren Soto (D) are seeking regulatory certainty by attempting toexcludecryptofrom securities laws via the reintroduced Token Taxonomy Act.
• Proposed Securities Framework Wrong for Regulating Crypto Exchanges, Argues Kraken
• German Watchdog Warns Public About Alleged Hiring by Crypto Exchange CoinBene
• Bitwise White Paper: Fake Trading Volumes by Exchanges Do Not Impact BTC Prices
• Trading App Robinhood Set to Raise at Least $200 Million: Report || Bitcoin Pushes Over $5,300 as Most Top Cryptos See Gains: Saturday, April 27 — most of the top 20cryptocurrenciesare reporting slight to moderate gains on the day to press time. Bitcoin (BTC) has pushed just over the $5,300 mark.
Bitcoin is up just under 1% on the day, trading at$5,306at press time, according toCoinMarketCap. Looking at its weekly chart, the coin has seen almost no change, down just under 1%.
Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Ether (ETH) is holding onto its position as the largest altcoin by market cap, which is nearly $16.9 billion. The second-largest altcoin,XRP, has a market cap of $12.5 billion at press time.
CoinMarketCap data shows that ETH is up nearly 3% over the last 24 hours. At press time, ETH is trading around $160. On the week, the coin has also seen its value decrease by over 7%.
Ether 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
XRP is down just 0.23% over the last 24 hours and is currently trading at around$0.297. On the week, the coin has also lost a significant almost 10 percent.
XRP 7-day price chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
Among the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, the coins reporting the most notable price action are ontology (ONT), which is up over 11% on the day and down 12% on the week, and tezos (XTZ), which is up nearly 10% today and down almost 9% on the week.
Most other top 20 coins are up between one and three percent over the past 24 hours to press time.
At press time, thetotal market capitalizationof all cryptocurrencies is $172.2 billion, over 5.2% lower than the value it reported a week ago.
Total market capitalization 7-day chart. Source:CoinMarketCap
As Cointelegraphreportedearlier today, Samsung has become yet another big-name company to consider issuing its own cryptocurrency, according to a recent report.
In other crypto news, the ongoingsagasurrounding crypto exchange Bitfinex and its sister company, stablecoin tether (USDT), continues to unfold. Bitfinex has been accused by the Attorney General inNew Yorkof using Tether’s cash reservesto cover a rumored $850 million funding gapwith reserves meant for backing the stablecoin.
Today, April 27, Bitfinex’s CEOsenta letter to users stating that the accusations against it are “filled with inaccuracies and false assertions.”
• Bitcoin Falls Under $5,300 Again as Top Altcoins See Losses
• Bitcoin Hovers Over $5,250 as Top Cryptos See Growth
• Bitcoin Approaches $5,250, US Stocks Slightly Down
• Crypto Markets Drops as Bitcoin Fails to Hold $5,300 Support, Stocks Hit All-Time Highs || $25,000 Bitcoin Price Next for Perma-Bull Tom Lee after Ringing Crypto Winter Dead: ByCCN:FundstratCEO Tom Lee says the ‘crypto winter’ is finally over, offering 13 solid reasons to back up his claim. According to the bitcoin perma-bull, there’s nothing but blue sky between here and his$25,000 price prediction.
If he’s right, then bitcoin has bottomed for this cycle and we have now entered a bull market. Lee’s 13 signs touched on everything from technical analysis, Wall Street involvement, bitcoin metrics, and generally positive sentiment.
Lee said that bitcoin’s recent flash crash to $6,200, which wastriggered by a huge sell order on Bitstamp, was a blip. And the subsequent rebound to $8,000 strengthened the case that bulls were back in control of the market.
Tom Lee believes bitcoin has bottomed at $3,200 and begun the road to recovery. Source: CoinMarketCap
As Lee points out in his 13 reasons, negative news stories no longer seem to dent the market. Citing recent events that ought to have shaken the markets, he said:
“Stable market reaction to controversy around Bitfinex/Tether and NY Attorney General’s court order alleging undisclosed transfer from Tether’s reserves to Bitfinex in order to cover up mishandled funds.” || How the Deficit Will Reach $40 Trillion: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
By Harry Dent viaIris.xyz
Smart people are worried about our deficit. They should be.
Never mind the chaos around the world (like mass shootings, terrorist bombings, Armageddon marches, etc. ad infinitum), it was recently reported that Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, is “doubly concerned” about the level of global debt. She was speaking at theMilken Institute Global Conferencelast week, where sheexplained why excessive debt is going to become a serious problem for developed and developing countries alike.
In case you’re wondering – I had to look it up – the Milken Institute is a research driven, non-partisan think tank that develops policy initiatives aimed at increasing economic growth to improve the standard of living for people across the globe.
I assure you. The levels of global and U.S. debt are way beyond concerning. They’re also way beyond being repayable.
Doubling down…
Did you know that our very own Federal debt has been doubling about every two administrations, or every eight years? It went from about $5 trillion to $10 trillion under President Bush’s two terms… from $10 trillion to $20 trillion under President Obama…
At this rate, the $20 trillion debt that Trump walked into when inaugurated in early 2017 could be close to $40 trillion in early 2025, when his second term is up (if he survives in the White House through the crash of a lifetime, that is).
We’re well on the way too. Our Federal debt is already up $1.5 trillion in the last two years, and these are supposed to be the “good times.” When the shit hits the fan early in 2020, that number is going to explode into the stratosphere. That’s what happens to deficits during bad times. They increased 122% (more than double), in the aftermath of 2008. 2020 will be infinitely worse, so debt growth will respond accordingly.
This first chart gives us an idea of what this looks like…
Look at how much more the total deficit was from the operating deficit in 2008. The total Federal deficit was 122% more than the operating budget deficit that year. That’s what happens when you suddenly get a deep recession. Now imagine what that number could look like when a depression like the early 1930s sets in. That’s what I expect we’ll see at the end of this Dark Window.
Click hereto read more on Iris.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || UpBit Exchange Phishing Email Scam Came From North Korea, Source Claims: Hackers fromNorth Koreawere behind a phishing scam targeting users ofSouth Koreancryptocurrency exchangeUpBit, Korean-language cryptocurrency news outletCoinDesk Koreareported on May 29.
According to findings by local cybersecurity firm East Security, the scam came in the form of an email sent to UpBit users requesting account information.
The pretence was a fake giveaway, with the emails also containing a file called “Event Winner Personal Information Collection and Usage Agreement.hwp,” which would run malicious code when opened.
UpBit had alerted traders a day before, warning anyone receiving an email from the address “events@UpBit.co.kr” to discard it.
“Please note that this mail is not an email sent from UpBit,” a rough translation of astatementreleased at the time reads. It continues:
“If you receive an email with an attachment with a similar title that impersonates UpBit in future, please do not download the file attached to the email and delete the email immediately.”
According to East Security, the emails were the work of North Korean hacker group Kim Soo-Ki.
As Cointelegraphreported, North Korea continues to target thecryptocurrencyindustry worldwide, withUnited StatesFBI officials this week claiming such activity was a direct response to sanctions placed on its economy.
“Sanctions are having an economic impact, so cyber operations are a means to make money, whether it’s through cryptocurrency mining or bank theft,” a senior FBI official warned.
UpBitis South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and the only one out of the country’s top five platforms torecord an overall profitduring the 2018 bear market.
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• Hackers Steal $100,000+ Worth of BTC From Engineering Manager at Crypto Custodian BitGo
• Chainalysis: 64% of Ransomware Attackers Launder Proceeds via Crypto Exchanges
• Liquidators of Hacked Cryptopia Exchange Release Report, Note $4.2M Owed to Creditors
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#blockchain #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #ethereum #ICO #P2PS #P2PSF #startup https://t.co/6abpfYk6eB || @Cryptoinvestte1 Nice 👍, now check out this growing hidden #crypto #gem 💎 @BitBall_Erc20 #Bitball #btb.
#trade/#exchange anything anywhere around the world using #btb, #btc, #eth, #btrs & #fiat, launching soon- on 27 #exchanges & on #coinmarketcap https://t.co/Thk7OkC2Zs
https://t.co/kf2TFHDYiH || Hyperledger Rolls Out Suite of Blockchain Tools for Interoperability https://t.co/YPsTvQeNs6 BTC ETH XRP TRX $BTC $ETH $XRP $XLM $NEO $LTC $LUN $BQX $DNT $XZC $EVX $CDT $SNM $HSR $DASH $ICX $XLM $BTG $BAT $DGD $REQ $BCC $GAS $MANA $ZRX $ETC $FUN $NANO $BTS $ENG $EOS $NAV $TNB $… || GO/BTC touched 0.00000351 ✅ Target 2 ✅
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#cryptocurrency #bitcoin #blockchain #cryptonews #coinnews #coinmarketwars #news #marketcap
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Trend: up || Prices: 7707.77, 7824.23, 7822.02, 8043.95, 7954.13, 7688.08, 8000.33, 7927.71, 8145.86, 8230.92
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2021-11-24]
BTC Price: 56280.43, BTC RSI: 39.82
Gold Price: 1784.10, Gold RSI: 41.25
Oil Price: 78.39, Oil RSI: 45.31
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Epic goes exec hunting at Facebook: N&O Innovation and Technology Newsletter: November 5, 2021 Enjoying the newsletter? Subscribe to it here , and share with your friends and colleagues. Epic Games and Facebook, which just changed its corporate name to Meta, might be the two earliest companies trying to shape the future of the metaverse. And now Epic has upped the competition by poaching one of Facebook’s executives to shape its own efforts at crafting the metaverse. Matthew Henick, a former vice president of content at Facebook, joined Epic in October, the company confirmed. His previous work at Facebook included a focus on interactive gaming and he could provide some key insights into what Epic’s competitor is thinking. [ Read more here ] Philanthropy funds the Innovate Raleigh fellowship. Consider supporting philanthropy-funded journalism by going to www.newsobserver.com/donate Customers line up to order drinks at 321 Coffee, a coffee shop located at the State Farmers Market in Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 15, 2021. The business employs adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Tech news from the Triangle Biotech specialty businesses are expanding into Johnston County, as Triangle’s life science industry grows. [ N&O ] Pendo helps 321 Coffee, which employs people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, expand into downtown Raleigh. [ N&O ] Minnesota company withdraws Pitt County crypto proposal due to community concerns. [ N&O ] Apple posts job opening for RTP manager. [ TBJ ] IBM spinoff Kyndryl opens on the stock market. [ WSJ ] Raleigh-headquartered Workplace Options, now backed by PE firm, to expand global operations. [ WRAL ] What I’m reading North Carolina passes new maps giving GOP an edge in Congress, state legislature. [ N&O ] Soccer looks different when you can’t see who is playing. [ 538 ] Facebook shuts down its facial recognition system. [ RTRS ] UNC board rejects trustee’s move to ban preferential treatment based on race. [ N&O ] Electric car marker Rivian could fetch $60M valuation with IPO. [ WSJ ] Incoming NYC mayor wants to be paid in Bitcoin. [ Protocol ] Google’s parent company launches new company focused on drug discovery. [ NYT ] Other Triangle business This one-of-a-kind Zimbabwean restaurant is now expanding to downtown Durham. [ N&O ] More apartment options are coming to downtown Raleigh, plus a luxury hotel. [ N&O ] The Durham East End Connector won’t open this year after all, NCDOT says. [ N&O ] Story continues Let me know what you’re seeing. Email me at zeanes@newsobserver.com. Tweet me @zeanes . Call me at 919-829-4516. Zachery Eanes is the Innovate Raleigh reporter for The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun. He covers technology, startups and main street businesses, biotechnology, and education issues related to those areas. This newsletter was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more ; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate || Square's Cash App opens up to teens ages 13 to 17 with parental oversight: Amid a growing number of banking apps aimed at teens, Square Inc.'s Cash App today is broadening its reach by making its payments appavailable to younger teensbetween the ages of 13 and 17. Previously, the app required users to be at least 18 years old, likerivalVenmo. The company says younger teens will need to get a parent or guardian toauthorizetheir account, but can then begin to send peer-to-peer payments and take delivery of a customized Cash Card, powered by Visa.
The Cash Card, essentially a Visa debit card tied to the teen's Cash App account, can be personalized using the Cash App mobile app. Teens (or any user, really) can pick out the card's color, add stamps, draw on it. or even make it glow in the dark, the company's website explains. Currently, the standard card comes in black or white, while custom cards like the Glow in the Dark version or limited-edition 100 Thieves card are $5 to purchase.
Image Credits:Cash App
In addition, teens will be able to send and receive peer-to-peer payments with family and friends, or anyone else on Cash App's network of over 40 million monthly active users. Other features also mirror the existing version of Cash App, including access to spending rewards at top retailers, ATM access with a $2 fee and support for paycheck direct deposit.
However, teens will not be able to access either Bitcoin or stock investing at this time, the company notes. Other features limited to users 18 and up include Borrow, Check Deposit, Paper Money Deposit and cross-border payments.
The teens' accounts are designed to be managed with parental oversight. Parents who authorize Cash App for their kids are the account's legal owner and will be able to review their teen's monthly activity through Statements. They'll also be able to pause or cancel the teen's account and Cash Card at any time.
Like some other banking services aimed at teens, there are also restrictions about where Cash Card can be used, based on merchant categories. In Cash App's case, younger teens can't use the card at bars and clubs, liquor stores, cigar stores, hotels or other lodgings, or for lottery tickets, casinos or gambling, bail and bond payments, or car rentals.
The company believes the expansion will open Cash App to a large market of new users, noting that there are approximately 20 million teens in the U.S. today, who will soon represent a greater portion of spending power in the years to come.
Image Credits:Cash App
The expansion comes at a time when Cash App has become one of the fastest-growing digital payments apps in the U.S. Today, it counts70 millionannual transacting customers and, recently, introduced tighter integrations with parent company Square, Inc. via the Septemberlaunchof Cash App Pay, a Cash App-based checkout experience for Square merchants.
The company's growth also benefitted from the broader shift to digital payments that took place during the pandemic and its support foraccepting users' COVID stimulus checksand unemployment benefits. In 2021, it generated a gross profit of $546 million, up 94% year-over-year. This growth has put Cash Appwithin striking distanceof Venmo, which as of its most recent report had 76 million users. Now, by opening up to a new teenage userbase, Cash App could close that gap even further.
However, Cash App won't be without its competition. The mobile banking market has seen a number of entrants in recent years developing solutions aimed at addressing the needs of teenage users and their families, likeGreenlight,Step,Current,Revolut,Till Financial,Go Henryand others outside the U.S. But what Cash App may have going for it is that its app is not just a "teen banking service" -- it's an app that users can continue to use even when they age up.
The Cash App for teens is available starting today across iOS and Android in the U.S. Teens and families can learn more through the dedicated website,cash.app/13+. || Crypto.com Replaces Staples in Historic LA Venue Name Change: There is a new sheriff in town in Los Angeles. Crypto.com, a crypto trading platform, has secured the naming rights on the famous LA sports arena where the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers and LA Clippers call home. Since before the turn of the century, the arena has been known as the Staples Center. In a sign of the times, effective Dec. 25, the arena will be called Crypto.com Arena. Crypto.com inked a 20-year naming agreement with venue owner AEG. The new arena logo will go up on Christmas, though it will be another six months before all of the outside signage is complete. According to reports , the deal represents the “largest U.S. venue naming rights deal” in history. Crypto.com the token, which trades under the symbol CRO, is rallying on the development and is up 15% on the day. The deal is a major coup not only for Crypto.com but the broader cryptocurrency market, for which the market cap currently hovers at $2.6 trillion. Bitcoin alone has a market cap of $1.1 trillion. It is also a signal to critics that crypto is here to stay. The LA center that’s soon to be called Crypto.com Arena has a capacity to hold 20,000 fans for a single game across hundreds of events each year. In addition to the Lakers and the Clippers, the venue is also home to the LA Kings and the Los Angeles Sparks of the NHL and WNBA, respectively. Crypto.com becomes the official partner of the Lakers and the Kings. 👀👀 https://t.co/pMUxpfZDWr — LA Kings (@LAKings) November 17, 2021 Notch in Crypto.com’s Belt This is not Crypto.com’s first rodeo. The crypto powerhouse recently signed famous celebrities like Matt Damon for a new ad campaign, and its profile has undeniably been on the rise across professional sports leagues. Earlier this year, the company announced a partnership with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). That deal just expanded to also include a line of digital collectibles known as NFTs tied to Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). The NFT set will showcase items ranging from championship belts to athlete profiles to artwork from individual fights. Story continues In addition, Crypto.com also recently partnered with the Lega Serie A and is the official crypto and NFT sponsor of the 2021 Coppa Italia football league. Not Surprised For some athletes, the name change from Staples to the Crypto.com Arena will take some getting used to. LA Clippers player Paul George revealed at a press conference that he is into crypto and NFTs. He said it’s a growing market, one that he is learning about from people around him, adding, “It’s no surprise that crypto found a way to get their hands on our arena.” Paul George confirms he's into Crypto and NFTs. pic.twitter.com/6rYcOvB6IC — Farbod Esnaashari (@Farbod_E) November 17, 2021 The Staples Center holds some nostalgia for George. He suggests the name change is “stripping history” but acknowledges that there is “new history to be written.” He is looking forward to when the Clippers makes the Inglewood Intuit Dome its home in 2024. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Continues to Plunge USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Canadian Dollar Remains Under Pressure As WTI Oil Moves Towards $79 Why Visa Stock Is Down By 5% Today USD/JPY Price Forecast – US Dollar Tests ¥115 Level Gold Price Prediction – Prices Rebound But Remain Rangebound Vanguard S&P 500 ETF is One of the Best Large Cap Funds this Year || AUD/USD Price Forecast Australian Dollar Recovers After Initial Selloff: The Australian dollar has initially fallen during the trading session on Wednesday but found enough support after the CPI numbers in America to turn things around and show signs of strength again. This does make a certain amount of sense because the Australian dollar is highly levered to commodities, which are all recovering at this point. At this point in time, it looks like the market is more than likely going to continue seeing a lot of noisy behavior, but it is also look like the Australian dollar is trying to recover in this environment. AUD/USD Video 11.11.21 Underneath, the 0.73 level is an area that now offers a little bit of support, and if we can break above the 0.7450 level, the market could go much higher, perhaps trying to take out the recent highs. The Australian dollar course has languished a bit against the US dollar, so we could see a little bit of catching up in this marketplace. All things being equal, this is a market continues to see a lot of noisy behavior, I think that is going to be the case going forward as we continue to argue back and forth between the idea of the economy slowing down around the world, and of course inflation picking up due to the reopening trade. It appears that Australia is being it looks as if we are ready to pick up the momentum to the upside. With this, this remains a buy on the dips type of situation. For a look at all of todays economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin (BTC) Poised To Crack Above $70K After Refreshing ATHs Gold Price Prediction Gold Breaks Out on Robust Inflation Acceleration Ethereum: The Low-Risk Buying Opportunity Came and Went. $7K Next?! Robinhood Makes No Promises to Shiba Inu Fans USD/JPY Price Forecast US Dollar Recovers to Continue Trend Crude Oil Price Forecast Crude Oil Markets Pull Back View comments || Nio Stock Has Big Upside Potential: In the world of cryptocurrencies, any rally inBitcoin(CCC:BTC-USD) is followed by upside in altcoins. Things seem similar for electric vehicle stocks whereTesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) is comparable to Bitcoin. With TSLA stock surging to all-time highs, it’s not long before other electric vehicle stocks follow.Nio(NYSE:NIO) is often referred to as the Tesla of China. Nio stock has been subdued for year-to-date 2021. However, a break-out on the upside is imminent and the stock is worth accumulating.
Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com
Let’s discuss the factors that make Nio stock a potential value creator.
It’s worth noting that Nio delivered 3,667 vehicles in October 2021. On a year-on-year basis,vehicle deliveries declined by 27.5%.
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However, the decline in deliveries was due to restructuring, upgrade of manufacturing lines and preparation of new product introduction. I believe that the markets are likely to focus on the potential growth coming in 2022. That’s likely to be a catalyst for stock upside.
In terms of industry tailwinds, the Central government istargeting 20% of new cars sold to be new energy vehiclesby 2025. William Li, founder and CEO of Nio, believes that 90% of new car sales will be electric vehicles by 2030.
These might be ball-park estimates. The key point is that the industry is positioned for steady growth over the next decade. Nio seems to be one of the players that’s positioned to survive competition and grow.
The number of electric vehicle companies in China have surged in the last few years.
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Bain & Company’sHelen Liu believes that “consolidation in the sector cannot be avoided.” With fierce competition, Liu also opines that “nobody knows who actually is going to survive in the end.”
China’s minister for information and technology, Xiao Yaqing, also opined that the “EV sector is too fragmented and indire need of consolidation.”
Clearly, consolidation seems to be on the cards. In all probability, Nio is likely to be among the few survivors.
It’s worth noting that as of Q2 2021, Nio reported a healthy cash buffer of $7.5 billion. The cash buffer was sufficient for funding medium-term growth plans.
However, in September 2021, Nio announced anat-the-market offering of $2.0 billion. It seems clear that Nio is preparing for some big investments. These investments can be potential acquisitions to boost manufacturing capabilities.
Another important point to note is that Nio reportedvehicle margin of 20.3% for Q2 2021. Vehicle margin for Q2 2020 was 9.7%. With growth in deliveries, it seems likely that margins will continue to improve. In the next few years, operating cash flows will provide additional financial headroom for aggressive growth.
For Nio, growth is not limited to China. The company hasalready launched its ES8 electric SUV in Oslo. Further expansion in Europe islikely in Germany and the Netherlands. International expansion will ensure that vehicle delivery growth remains robust in the coming years.
Considering the company’s cash buffer, it seems likely that Nio will expand in all key European markets in the next 12-24 months. Nio already has a manufacturing agreement with Jianghuai Automobile Group.
The latter will be expanding its annual production capacity to 240,000 vehicles to meet the growing demand. Therefore, other than chip concerns (which is temporary), I don’t see any challenge in terms of manufacturing capacity in 2022.
Another factor that makes me bullish on Nio stock for 2022 is the new launch line-up. In the coming year, the company plans todeliver three new productsbased on Nio Technology Platform 2.0. One of the products is expected to be a lower priced sedan. This can significantly boost the delivery volume.
With these factors in consideration, Nio stock looks attractive after under-performing almost through 2020. I would not be surprised if the stock is among the top performing electric vehicle stocks in the next few quarters.
On the date of publication,Faisal Humayundid not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
Faisal Humayun is a senior research analyst with 12 years of industry experience in the field of credit research, equity research and financial modelling. Faisal has authored over 1,500 stock specific articles with focus on the technology, energy and commodities sector.
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The postNio Stock Has Big Upside Potentialappeared first onInvestorPlace. || NFL star Odell Beckham Jr to receive 100% of salary in Bitcoin: LA Rams player Odell Beckham Jr has teamed up with the popular crypto wallet Cash App to receive 100% of his salary in Bitcoin. Beckham Jr took to Twitter to update his 4.1m followers on the collaboration by saying: “It’s the start of a new era and I’m looking forward to the future. That’s why I’m taking my new salary in bitcoin, thanks to @CashApp.” The wide receiver also revealed that he is “giving back a total of $1m in BTC” through his partnership with Square-owned Cash App. It's a NEW ERA & to kick that off I'm hyped to announce that I'm taking my new salary in bitcoin thanks to @CashApp . To ALL MY FANS out there, no matter where u r: THANK YOU! I’m giving back a total of $1M in BTC rn too. Drop your $cashtag w. #OBJBTC & follow @CashApp NOW pic.twitter.com/ds1IgZ1zup — Odell Beckham Jr (@obj) November 22, 2021 OBJ’s partnership with Cash App follows NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ first venture into cryptocurrency via a similar deal . The two aren’t the only NFL players with an interest in the industry either – Legendary quarterback Tom Brady started working with crypto exchange FTX this year and has already stated he would like to get paid in Bitcoin . Brady has also co-founded his own NFT company – Autograph – a platform that creates digital collections of the biggest names in sport and entertainment such as Tiger Woods, Naomi Osaka, and Usain Bolt. Additionally, the NFL has taken advantage of the popularity of NFTs by partnering with Dapper Labs to launch a series of collectable NFL sports highlights. Fan token platform Socios has also expanded expansion efforts in the US following its first partnership with NFL team New England Patriots. || Bitcoin Approaching Resistance Near $58K; Support at $50K: Bitcoin’s (BTC) price continues to rise, now near $56,000, although the rally appears to be exhausted given overbought signals on the charts. The cryptocurrency is up about 14% over the past week and facesresistancebetween $58,000 and $60,000.
• The relative strength index (RSI) on the four-hour chart is declining from an overbought extreme last week. A negative divergence between the RSI and price typically leads to a brief pullback similar to what occurred in mid-September.
• The RSI on the daily chart is approaching overbought levels, suggesting buyers could exit positions near upper resistance levels.
• Momentum has improved over the past two weeks, which means pullbacks could be limited toward initial support at $50,000. || Bitcoin trades higher, Shiba Inu outperforms: By Samuel Indyk Investing.com Most major cryptocurrencies were trading higher on Monday with Bitcoin trading in close proximity to $62,000. Outperformance was observed in some of the more prominent meme-based coins with Shiba Inu retracing some of the losses from the weekend to rise by over 15% in the last 24 hours. Monthly cryptocurrency performance October was a great month for cryptocurrencies with Bitcoin once again hitting an all-time high after previously trading at its peak in April. For the month, Bitcoin was up almost 40% and recorded its best monthly gain since December last year. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum, had a similar performance, rising by around 43% in October. Other cryptocurrencies with Decentralised Finance (DeFi) applications and smart contracts were mixed. Cardano, which was the third-largest cryptocurrency at one stage, shed over 7% of its value in October after falling 24% in September. However, the losses came amid a run in August that saw the coins value more than double. Solana, which also uses DeFi apps on its network had slightly stronger gains than Bitcoin and Ethereum with the value increasing by 43% during the month. Dogecoin gained marginally less, rising by 37% during the month, however, this was still its best performing month since April this year when the dog-based cryptocurrency rose over 500% amid a surge in interest from retail traders. However, there was one coin that ruled them all in October, Shiba Inu. The cryptocurrency rose almost 830% during the month as the coin rocketed into the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, overtaking Dogecoin. Outlook for cryptocurrencies In the immediate term, focus could well fall on the key macro events in the US this week, including the Federal Reserve interest rate decision on Wednesday and Fridays Nonfarm Payrolls report. A particularly hawkish Fed could put a cap on the rally especially if equities were to sell off in the wake of the decision. A decision that is perceived as dovish by the market could see Bitcoin retest its record high from 20th October. Story continues On a technical level, the zone around $62,300-$62,500 remains key resistance for Bitcoin, which a break above could open the door to $65,000 and eventually the recent all-time high just below $67,000. On the downside, support lies at the $61,300 pivot point before the psychological $60,000 level. Related Articles Bitcoin trades higher, Shiba Inu outperforms Huobi trials NFT marketplace to further GameFi and metaverse strategy Twitter flags Squid Game token accounts as price crashes || You Ask, We Analyze: How Sphere 3D, Warrior Met Coal, United Natural Foods Stocks Look Going Forward: On Wednesday morning, Benzinga asked itsBenzinga Procommunity which tickers they’d like analyzed. From the replies Benzinga selected three tickers for technical analysis.
Pro userScottRaywanted to see a technical analysis onSphere 3D Corp(NASDAQ:ANY), whileRodney_BeasleychoseWarrior Met Coal, Inc(NYSE:HCC) andmlnltrdris watchingUnited Natural Foods, Inc(NYSE:UNFI).
All three stocks look bullish heading into the remainder of the week although any bullish chart can be negated by a turn in the overall markets.
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The Sphere 3D Chart:On Sept. 30 and Oct. 4, Sphere 3D created a double bottom pattern at the $5.62 level, under a descending trendline that has been holding the stock down since Sept. 15. On Wednesday they opened higher and bust up through the descending trendline, which is bullish.
Sphere 3D then fell slightly lower and back-tested the descending trendline as support. The stock is battling to regain the $6.52 level and close the trading day above it, likely in sympathy with uncertainly in the market.
The stock is trading above the eight-day and 21-day exponential moving averages (EMAs), with the eight-day EMA trending above the 21-day, both of which are bullish indicators. Sphere 3D is also trading above the 200-day simple moving average (SMA), which indicates overall sentiment is bullish.
• Sphere 3D has resistance above at $6.52 and $7.36 and support below at $5.62 and $4.46. Sideways consolidation on low volume may be needed for a larger move north.
The Warrior Chart:Warrior made a high of $28.40 on Tuesday and on Wednesday began consolidating the move. The sharp rise higher paired with a few more days of consolidation has settled the stock into a potential bull flag pattern on the daily chart, with the pole created between Sept. 29 and Oct. 5 and the flag beginning on Wednesday.
The consolidation on Warrior’s stock is needed to drop the relative strength index (RSI) back down to a more comfortable level. On Wednesday the stock’s RSI measured in at about 73%, which put it square into overbought territory. When a stock’s RSI exceeds 70%, it's a sell signal for technical traders.
Like Sphere 3D’s stock, Warrior is trading above the eight-day and 21-day EMAs and the 200-day simple moving average, which should give bulls confidence moving forward.
• Warrior has resistance above at $28.40 and $30.57 and support below at the $26.51 and $24.17 levels. The bull flag will remain intact as long as Warrior doesn’t lose support of the eight-day EMA or trade down lower than 50% of the length of the pole.
The United Natural Foods Chart:United Natural has been consolidating a big 40% rise for the past four trading days. Like Warrior’s stock, United Natural looks to be settling into a bear flag pattern with the pole created between Sept. 27 and Sept. 30 and the flag formed between Sept. 30 and Wednesday.
The stock may continue to consolidate further within the flag to drop its RSI, which is still registering in high at about the 69% level. If the bull flag pattern is recognized, United Natural could eventually make another big move north toward the $60 level, which is the measured move of the flag break.
Like Sphere 3D and Warrior’s stocks, United Natural is trading above both EMAs and the SMA, which is bullish. The eight-day EMA is close by and bulls will want to watch to make sure the stock holds above the level so as not to negate the bull flag.
1. United Natural has resistance above at $48.85 and $52.35 while having support below at $45.72 and $41.37. Bulls will want to watch for continued decreasing volume as the stock consolidates for increased validation a move higher will come.unfi_oct._6.png
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || CleanSpark Announces Monthly Bitcoin Mining Data Updates to Increase Industry Transparency, Shares First Report: CleanSpark aims to bring more transparency to the mining industry with the monthly release of data about its bitcoin mining operations. SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CleanSpark, Inc. (Nasdaq: CLSK) (the "Company" or "CleanSpark"), a sustainable bitcoin mining and energy technology company, today released its unaudited bitcoin production and operations update for the calendar year-to-date ending October 31, 2021. Additionally, the Company announced that it will release such data every month to set new standards of transparency in the bitcoin mining industry. Bitcoin Production & Operations Update (unaudited) October monthly production: 216 Calendar year-to-date production ending October 31: 1,083 Total BTC holdings as of October 31: 729 Total BTC converted for operational growth in CY2021: 370 Deployed fleet of approximately 11,780 latest-generation bitcoin miners with a total hashrate of 1.2 EH/s “These updates are part of our commitment to lead the industry’s transparency efforts,” said CleanSpark CEO, Zach Bradford. “We will continue to include key metrics in these updates as we scale our bitcoin mining operations at different locations.” Moving forward, the Company intends to publish monthly updates on key metrics on its website and Twitter account . The bitcoin mining industry has been criticized for the lack of transparency by miners. CleanSpark is hoping to change how the space is perceived by being open about its operations. CleanSpark operates and owns two facilities in the Atlanta, Georgia metro area. In addition to its owned facilities, it has a co-location agreement with Coinmint in Massena, NY. CleanSpark’s sustainability efforts account for variation in local energy mixes by purchasing carbon offsets, and, once facilities are at scale, by deploying distributed energy systems onsite. Energy mixes are highly variable, so CleanSpark participates in voluntary programs, like Georgia’s Simple Solar, as part of its commitment to sustainability. Story continues About CleanSpark CleanSpark, Inc., a Nevada corporation, is a clean bitcoin mining and energy technology company that is solving modern energy challenges. For more information about the Company, please visit the Company's website at https://www.cleanspark.com/investor-relations . Forward-Looking Statements This release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the Company's plans and expectations for expansion of its energy initiatives, operating results, business strategy, partnership with Coinmint, deployment of miners, digital currency mining activities, the growth of its facilities and other statements regarding the expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions and strategies of the Company. The Company has tried to identify these forward-looking statements by using words such as "expect," "target," "anticipate," "believe," "could," "should," "estimate," "intend," "may," "will," "plan," "goal" and similar terms and phrases, but such words, terms and phrases are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. Actual results, performance and achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors, including, without limitation: the successful deployment of energy solutions for residential and commercial applications; the fitness of the Company's energy hardware, software and other solutions for this particular application or market; the success of its digital currency mining activities; the expectations of future revenue growth may not be realized; ongoing demand for the Company's software products and related services; the impact of global pandemics (including COVID-19) on logistics and shipping and the demand for our products and services; and other risks described in the Company's prior press releases and in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent filings with the SEC. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to revise or update this press release (including any forward-looking statements contained herein) to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. Investor Relations Contact: Matt Schultz ir@cleanspark.com Media Contacts: Isaac Holyoak pr@cleanspark.com BlocksBridge Consulting Nishant Sharma cleanspark@blocksbridge.com CONTACT: Isaac Holyoak CleanSpark, Inc. pr@cleanspark.com
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 57274.68, 53569.77, 54815.08, 57248.46, 57806.57, 57005.43, 57229.83, 56477.82, 53598.25, 49200.70
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2018-08-02]
BTC Price: 7567.15, BTC RSI: 52.10
Gold Price: 1210.60, Gold RSI: 28.44
Oil Price: 68.96, Oil RSI: 48.23
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Father's Day Spending Will Be Big This Year (Just Not Mother's-Day Big): Americans will once again shell out a tidy sum to honor their dads this Father's Day, but it will still trail what they spent for Mother's Day by nearly $8 billion, according to recently released data from the National Retail Federation (NRF). Father's Day spending is expected to reach $15.3 billion in 2018. That would be its second-highest tally ever, just behind 2017, when it hit $15.5 billion. Still, it's well below the $23.1 billion the NRF believes was spent on Mother's Day last month. The difference stems from two factors: First, more people celebrate Mother's Day (86% of Americans versus 77%); and second, yes, on average, they really do spend more on mom ($180 compared to $133). "We are pleased to see consumer confidence continue to rise, leading to another near-record holiday spend on Father's Day," NRF CEO Matthew Shay said in a press release. "Leading into the second half of the year, Americans are looking forward to treating their dads and retailers will be prepared to offer a variety of gift options that will create new memories on this special day." A sign in a heart says happy Father's Day Father's Day spending will hit near-record levels. Image source: Getty Images. What is dad getting? The good news for dad is that maybe he's not getting a tie or some other cheesy item he doesn't want. In fact, the largest share of the gift spending ($3.2 billion) will go towards "special outings" like tickets to a concert or sporting event, or dinner out. Nearly half of the individuals surveyed by the NRF (47%) said they planned to purchase something that fits that category. Outings are trailed by clothing ($2.2 billion, 43%), gift cards ($2.1 billion 42%), and consumer electronics ($1.8 billion, 20%). Some 16% of respondents said dad was getting home improvement supplies ($878 million), and $844 million will be spent on greeting cards, which is pretty close to the $862 million that will go toward personal care products. The survey of 7,681 people also revealed that dads will also receive about $830 million in tools and appliances, $798 million in sporting goods or leisure items, and $628 million in books or music. Story continues "Special outing gifts have steadily grown in popularity for Father's Day since their lowest point in 2009," Prosper Insights Executive Vice President of Strategy Phil Rist said. "These consumers, especially those between 18 and 24 years old, want to offer something to their dad's that is unique, thoughtful and allows for quality time on dad's special day." A big day for dads While many families consider Father's Day an important celebration, please remember: While dad might love a new lawnmower, front-row seats to Fleetwood Mac, or perhaps a trip to Vegas, he probably would want even more for his kids to make smart financial choices and stay within their means . So enjoy the day, honor the dads in your life, but also pay attention to your bottom line, and only spend what you can afford. 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 . || $1 Billion Bitcoins Lost in Mt. Gox Hack to Be Returned to Victims: A Japanese court ruled Friday to pull infamous Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox out of bankruptcy, opening the door for at least $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency to be paid back to the company’s former customers. The decision was a stunning outcome for victims in a saga that represents Bitcoin’s darkest chapter since its creation nearly a decade ago: Mt. Gox, then the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world, collapsed in early 2014 after realizing it had lost all the cryptocurrency it held -- 850,000 Bitcoins valued at roughly $473 million at the time. The Mt. Gox hack is still the biggest theft of Bitcoins in history. While 200,000 Bitcoins were subsequently discovered by Mt. Gox’s then-CEO Mark Karpel?s, that money had essentially been frozen in the Tokyo-based company’s bankruptcy estate ever since. For more than four years, Mt. Gox creditors have been unsure if and when they could ever expect refunds -- or if they would receive paper money or Bitcoins back -- even as the value of their recovered assets soared to more than $4 billion when the Bitcoin price peaked last year. That changed this week when the Tokyo District Court halted Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy proceedings and commenced a legal process known as civil rehabilitation, allowing it to distribute the remaining Mt. Gox assets to ex-customers and debtors. The estate include nearly 170,000 each of Bitcoins and its offshoot Bitcoin Cash, worth roughly $1.2 billion at today’s prices. “Enormous assets…will be returned to creditors of Mt. Gox,” Shin Fukuoka, a leading attorney and partner at Japan’s Nishimura & Asahi law firm, who petitioned the Court for civil rehabilitation on behalf of a large creditor, wrote in a statement. “This is the creditors' victory.” Subscribe to The Ledger, Fortune's weekly newsletter about cryptocurrency and the blockchain. The Court also confirmed that those “seeking a refund of Bitcoins” would be paid in that form. Under the original bankruptcy plan, creditors were only entitled to receive the monetary equivalent of the value of their Bitcoins at the time of Mt. Gox’s collapse, when the cryptocurrency’s price was $483. With the Bitcoin price now around $6,200, millions of dollars worth of excess would otherwise have lined the pockets of Karpel?s and other Mt. Gox shareholders. Still, the news came as a relief for Karpel?s, on trial in Tokyo for embezzlement and other criminal charges, who feared a backlash of lawsuits if he were to collect the windfall. Story continues “I hope entering civil rehabilitation will be for the best of everyone. As I said previously I am not expecting any kind of profit from this and only hope everyone will be repaid as much as possible as soon as possible,” Karpel?s told Fortune in a message following the announcement. “Creditors worked hard for the purpose of seeing civil rehabilitation happen and I will continue to help as much as I can.” In addition to creditors, investors who speculated on such a fortunate, if once unlikely, turn of events by buying up the claims of others stand to reap major profits from the Mt. Gox disaster. That includes Thomas Braziel, managing partner of hedge fund B.E. Capital Management, who purchased $1 million in creditors’ claims at a discount: “If the rehabilitation happens, it's a bonanza, and you make eight, nine, 10 times your money," Braziel told me earlier this year. The payout, however, won’t come immediately. The Mt. Gox trustee has reopened a claim-filing process requiring creditors to submit proof of what they are owed under the rehabilitation, and must also formulate a new plan for the distribution of assets, which is due Feb. 14, 2019. It could be a year from now or longer before that plan becomes final and creditors receive their Bitcoins. Yet even the prospect of hoards of Mt. Gox Bitcoins flooding the market once creditors get their hands on them may have contributed to a sharp rout in the Bitcoin price, which dropped nearly 8% Friday, while Bitcoin Cash fell nearly 12%. The selloff also came on the heels of a $32 million hack of South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb and fears that India may ban Bitcoin. The rest of Mt. Gox’s missing Bitcoins, some 650,000, were stolen by hackers and may never be recovered, though one suspect in the conspiracy was arrested last summer. (For the full saga, read my feature story in Fortune Magazine , “Mt. Gox and the Surprising Redemption of Bitcoin's Biggest Villain.” ) At the same time, the civil rehabilitation proceedings -- marking the first time a defunct business has been “rehabilitated” in Japan’s history -- does not mean Mt. Gox itself will make a comeback. “There are no plans to resume operations of the Bitcoin exchange operated by Mt. Gox at this time,” the company’s trustee told creditors. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Why Robinhood Doesn't Care If It Makes Money on Cryptocurrency Trading Cryptocurrency Hedge Fund Gets VC Fred Wilson's Backing Amid Bitcoin Slump Dreaming of a Crypto Christmas With Ethereum Cofounder Anthony Di Iorio The Ledger: Ethereum Cofounder on SEC Blessing, Tether's Bitcoin Domination, Ripple vs. Stellar Lumens Stellar Lumens Cryptocurrency Approved for Trading in New York for the First Time View comments || Snap Inc. Shutters Another Business: Snap Inc.(NYSE: SNAP)continues to underperform on the public markets. After a debut in which shares were richly valued, the company has failed to grow into the market's lofty expectations. Shares currently trade hands at more than 20% below their 2017 $17 IPO price as user growth in particular has failed to impress. Perhaps more worrisome to investors is the fact Snap continues to post negative, and deteriorating, cash flow figures.
Image Source: Getty Images.
Snap's buy thesis was that its rapid growth and young user demographics would make the service a marketer's dream, as at the timeFacebook's eponymous site was trending older. More recently, however, Facebook's Instagram has proven to be a Snap-killer, both in network effects and in growing the number of teen users, which were once considered Snap's strongest demographic.
In what's becoming a familiar occurrence, Snap recently admitted failure in another business. What should investors take away from the shuttering of Snapcash?
According to technology-focused siteTechcrunchand later verified by Snap, the company is shuttering its Snapcash product. The peer-to-peer cash transfer partnership withSquarewas launched in late 2014. However, the service never made a large splash in the space, even though growth in the industry has exploded with companies like Square and Venmo-ownerPayPalreporting huge increases in users and transfer totals. Shares of the latter two companies have advanced by 167% and 52%, respectively, versus Snap's 8% decline over the last twelve months. Even larger players have entered the space, withApplePay andGooglePay adding cash-transfer functionality to their digital wallets.
Snapcash joins a growing list of Snap's initiatives that have failed to add significant value. Before its IPO, Snap had a grander vision for its social media site, with plans to create and develop original content for the Snap Channel. The company shuttered the service in less than a year. Snapchat's most visible initiative, Spectacles, resulted in a near-$40 million inventory write-down. Later, CEO Evan Spiegel observed "I guess we made the wrong decision" on the product. However, the company recently announced it wouldlaunch a second generation of Spectacles.
The failure of Snapcash, along with the other Snap initiatives, points to possible execution risk. It should be noted that others are succeeding in many of these areas. Several companies are succeeding in the cash-transfer space, and Facebook'sInstagram has recently expanded into original content via IGTV, which followsFacebook's video platform, Watch.
As disappointing as Snapcash's demise is, it's mostly symbolic for long-term investors. For starters, Snapcash produced little to no revenue, as the service was free to users. So, the company's revenue growth won't be affected by shuttering the service. If anything, Snapcash was a liability considering the increased costs the company incurred to monitor transaction disputes and possible illegal activity.
What all these failures have in common is they were all designed to keep users enmeshed in the service. Online measurement company SimilarWeb (viaRecode) found that U.S. Android users spend nearly an hour a day on Facebook, followed by 53 minutes on Instagram. Importantly, Snapchat wasn't much lower, with approximately 50 minutes of daily time spent in June 2018, double the 25 minutes spent in July 2017. Spectacles, Snap Channel, and Snapcash were all launched to keep this figure growing at a rapid clip.While Snap has a few issues as an investment, one thing it's doing well is holding the attention of its users.
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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors.Jamal Carnette, CFAowns shares of Alphabet (C shares) and Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Apple, Facebook, PayPal Holdings, and Square. 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. || Why Wynn Resorts Stock Is Cheap: Wynn Resorts, Limited (NASDAQ: WYNN) stock been one of the hottest in gaming, nearly doubling in the last three years and outperforming most of its major gaming rivals. The company has benefited from growing revenue in Macau, the completion of Wynn Palace in the Cotai region of Macau, and anticipation of the company's newest market, Boston, where Encore Boston Harbor is under construction. What hasn't stopped Wynn Resorts stock is the loss of Steve Wynn himself. The company's founder resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations and has sold all of his shares to prevent potential headaches for the company. That's allowed a new management team, led by CEO Matt Maddox, to refocus Wynn Resorts on profitability and growth . Here's why I think that focus will drive the stock higher in the long term. Rendering of Wynn Palace in Macau. Wynn Palace in Macau. Image source: Wynn Resorts. Wynn Resorts' core is strong One of the ways we judge performance of gaming companies and the value of their stock is by looking at earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), which is a proxy for the cash flow coming from a resort. This is a good metric because it pulls out non-cash costs like depreciation, which are big expenses for the multibillion-dollar resorts that Wynn Resorts owns. EBITDA for Wynn Resorts is been growing rapidly because of the addition of Wynn Palace in Macau. In the first quarter of 2018, EBITDA was up 32% to $564.3 million, driven by Wynn Palace's growth. To try to get an idea of Wynn Resorts' value for investors, a ratio like enterprise value (net debt plus market cap) to EBITDA is valuable because it's more representative of value in the gaming industry than a P/E ratio, which includes non-cash costs like depreciation. I've calculated EV/EBITDA below and I've annualized Q1 2018's EBITDA because this is a better representation of ongoing EBITDA than just trailing-12-month numbers. Metric Value Q1 2018 EBITDA annualized $2.26 billion Net debt $7.20 billion Market cap $20.90 billion Enterprise value to EBITDA 12.4 times Data source: Wynn Resorts and Google Finance. Calculations by author. Story continues An EV/EBITDA ratio of 12.4 is on the low end of where gaming stocks are trading, and you can see that it compares favorably to Las Vegas Sands , Melco Resorts , and MGM Resorts . LVS EV to EBITDA (TTM) Chart LVS EV to EBITDA (TTM) data by YCharts . If investors were just buying Wynn Resorts' current business, not any growth projects, I think the current valuation would make it a good investment. But the company has a lot of growth prospects that could make it a huge winner for investors. Wynn Resorts' vision for the future There are three areas of growth Wynn Resorts is focusing on: Las Vegas, Boston, and Japan. In Las Vegas, Maddox has pulled back plans to build a new tower and is focusing on an entertainment and convention addition where the golf course used to sit behind Wynn Las Vegas. The investment is currently budgeted at $360 million and historically annual EBITDA for each dollar of capital invested is slightly over 10% . Expanding in Las Vegas isn't a game-changer, but it could bring some growth to Wynn Resorts. Rendering of Encore Boston Harbor at night. Rendering of Encore Boston Harbor at night. Image source: Wynn Resorts. Encore Boston Harbor is currently under construction with a $2.5 billion budget and will be the company's first foray outside of Las Vegas or Macau. There's no real precedent that shows what revenue or EBITDA will be in Boston, but there's a decent proxy from MGM a few hundred miles south. MGM National Harbor near Washington, D.C., was completed in 2016 at a cost of $1.4 billion and generated EBITDA at an annualized rate of $168 million in the first quarter. The annualized EBITDA return of over 12% of total construction costs proves that East Coast gaming has high potential, and Wynn Resorts hopes its new location near downtown Boston will be a bet that pays off in the long term. The wild card is Japan, which is expecting to open up a few gaming licenses in the next year or two. Estimates have put the gaming market in Japan at $10 billion to $40 billion , which could make it bigger than the $6.5 billion in gaming revenue on the Las Vegas Strip over the past year. Maddox has made Japan a high priority, and if Wynn Resorts won a gaming license there, it could be a game-changer. With shares trading at a decent value based on existing operations, these growth projects are icing on the cake for Wynn Resorts investors. Wynn's financing wild card One untapped option Wynn Resorts has to generate value is selling its real estate assets to a REIT . The company sold nearly half of its mall in Las Vegas to Crown Acquisitions for $292 million in 2016, but has avoided selling hotel or casino real estate thus far. To give you an idea of the value of gaming real estate, MGM Resorts sold the MGM National Harbor real estate for $1.2 billion shortly after the project was completed, so there's a lot of money that could be freed up by selling assets to a REIT. If Wynn Resorts sold its real estate in Las Vegas and Boston, it could easily generate over $5 billion in cash that could be used to pay down debt or fund future growth. Steve Wynn would never sell Wynn Resorts' real estate to a REIT, but under new CEO Matt Maddox, a sale may be on the table. When you consider the current operating value, potential growth, and the possibility Wynn Resorts will free up billions by selling real estate to a REIT, this is a gaming stock that's a great bet 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 Travis Hoium owns shares of Wynn Resorts. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Chinese Authorities to Shut Down ‘Illegal’ Bitcoin Mining in Autonomous Region: Xinjiang Uyghur, an autonomous region in northwest China, has warned local Bitcoin mining enterprises to close their operations before August 30, 2018.
Chinese news outlet Jinsepublishedthe notice posted by the Xinjiang Economic and Information Commission on July 21. These mining companies will also have to report to the commission.
As explained in the notice, one of the reasons for taking this step is that these companies haven’t undergone tax registration. Furthermore, they are not registered as mining enterprises and fail to comply with local regulations. Another reason for shutting down such companies is that they are not in agreement with any power supply company in the autonomous region. Hence, not only are they operating illegally but also utilizing a large amount of electricity.
Similarly, another document surfaced on the internet in January 2018, where Xinjiang’s local authorities were supposed to report the progress of miners exiting the region. Xinjiang’s commission also requested authorities to be cautious when dealing with Bitcoin mining companies in June 2017.
Before Xinjiang’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies, Bitmain, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining company based in China, announced on November 2016 that it was planning to open a mining data-center in the region. However, the company hasn’t provided any update after the initial announcement.
Ever since September 2017, China has been trying its best to lessen mining activities in the country. Up until then, the country was home to the biggest mining companies in the entire world. Even now,Bitmaincontrols 51% of the Bitcoin hash-rate.
China has shut down many crypto exchanges and mining companies, however, Bitcoin miners are still present in the country.
For instance, Sichuan, a province in China which was once known as the country’sBitcoin mining capital, was recently hit by floods. Upon close inspection, it was discovered that some of theBTC mining farms were destroyed. Li Yang, the owner of a $5 million mining rig, told a local news channel that the unfortunate incident cost him 10 million yuan (~$1.5 million). The report stated that as a result of the flood, many miners were planning to move to Xianjiang to continue their mining operations. However, with the latest notice provided by Xianjiang’s commission, these miners will definitely need to find another solution.
Xinjiang Uyghur image from Shutterstock.
The postChinese Authorities to Shut Down ‘Illegal’ Bitcoin Mining in Autonomous Regionappeared first onCCN. || AUD/USD Weekly Price Forecast – Aussie bounces yet again: The Australian dollarhas found support yet again on a bounce from the 0.7325 region, as the 0.7350 handle looks to be the beginning of massive support. We have formed a hammer for the week, just like we did the week before and several weeks before that. Overall, I believe that the Australian dollar is trying to find its way higher, but obviously we have some churning to do in this general vicinity. However, for the longer-term trader, this provides a significant opportunity as a bounce from here could very well lead to the 0.76 handle, and then eventually the 0.80 level, realizing quite nice gains.
The alternate scenario of course is that we break down through these hammers and go looking towards the 0.72 handle. However, the resiliency of this market suggests to me that the path of least resistance is probably going to be higher, eventually. Keep in mind that the Australian dollar is highly sensitive to gold and of course the tariffs on China, as Australia provides China with so many of its raw materials.
It should be pointed out that a huge portion of the gains for the week were realized on Friday after President Trump tweeted that he wishes the Federal Reserve would reconsider raising interest rates, which through some doubt on the US dollar in general. However, he doesn’t have the power to make that happen, so I think this was the excuse that the market was looking for to rally anyway.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Crude Oil Price Forecast – crude oil markets gapped lower on Friday || FireEye Stock Upgraded: What You Need to Know: Every day, Wall Street analysts upgrade some stocks, downgrade others, and "initiate coverage" on a few more. But do these analysts even know what they're talking about? Today, we're taking one high-profile Wall Street pick and putting it under the microscope...
Stock market analysts like to say that the "market is forward-looking," and that what a stock has done in the past isn't always as important as what it's going to do in the future. Investors inFireEye(NASDAQ: FEYE)had better hope they're right about that.
Sinceits IPO in 2013, FireEye has taken investors on a wild ride, more than doubling in the six months after going public, only to plunge below its IPO price three months later. At a recent share price below $16, this internet security specialist still trades 20% below its $20 IPO price of three years ago, a fact due in no small part to the company's failure to ever earn aGAAPprofit -- or generate a full year's worth of positive free cash flow.
ButPiper Jaffraythinks all this is about to change.
Image source: Getty Images.
Piper Jaffray believes that after five long years of booking little but losses, FireEye stock is poised to deliver "positive operating income and free cash flow starting in 3Q18."
FireEye specializes in cyberattacks -- more specifically, in preventing them when possible, detecting them when not, and then proceeding to "remediate" the damage. This should be a good business to be in, here in our era of cyberhacking and internet espionage. However, FireEye's sales growth stalled out last year, rising just 5% in comparison to 2016 numbers -- a big letdown from the 15% sales growth enjoyed in 2016, and the 46% growth achieved in 2015.
Last quarter, however, CEOKevin Mandia advised investorsthat in an effort to restart growth, FireEye is updating the "pricing and packaging" of the services it offers. According to Piper Jaffray, these efforts are bearing fruit. "Our channel contacts noted that the new pricing bundles are having a positive impact on overall demand trends," explains the analyst in a note covered onStreetInsider.com(subscription required).
Things are going so well, in fact, that Piper Jaffray decided to upgrade FireEye stock to overweight and assigned it a new $20 price target.
Can FireEye reach this goal that Piper Jaffray has set for it? One reason the analyst is optimistic is because, as Piper explains in its note, FireEye shares trade "well below the peer group average (3.2x EV/CY19E Sales vs 4.7x for the peer group)," and thus have room to grow.
You'll notice that in making its comparisons, however, Piper Jaffray bases its estimations on FireEye's sales, not its profits. This is because FireEye doesn't actually have any profits on which to value its stock. (Rather, it's racked up losses of nearly $1.9 billion over the past five years, according to data fromS&P Global Market Intelligence.) Because Piper Jaffray is itself forward-looking, though, it's recommending FireEye stock based on how well the company might perform in the future.
So how does that future look?
S&P Global has the answers for us here. According to its survey of Wall Street analysts, precious few of them expect to see FireEye turn GAAP-profitable anytime soon. Pro forma profits, on the other hand, could arrive as early as this year. (The consensus is for FireEye to earn $0.02 per share before accounting for one-time items in 2018.)
Personally, I don't give a lot of weight to pro forma numbers -- but the news on the free cash flow front is just as encouraging. According to the consensus of analysts who track FireEye, the stock is likely to produce positive cash profits of $18 million this year, nearly triple that cash haul (to $53 million) in 2019, and more than double it again in 2020 (to $122 million). It will take another two years to double FCF again -- $253 million is anticipated in 2022.
FireEye stock today is trading for about 12 times that final estimate for FCF production. Given that $253 million would represent 30% annual earnings growth in 2022, you might think that's an attractive price. (Piper Jaffray certainly seems to.) The problem, of course, is we're talking about hypothetical free cash flow four years out, and that FCF may or may not appear as promised -- and if you ask me, four years is a bit too far out to be investing with any confidence that the future will shape up as planned.
Meanwhile, in the here and now, FireEye is still growing sales only in the double-digit range and earning no profits on those sales. In the final analysis, therefore, although I understand Piper Jaffray's bull argument in favor of FireEye, I just can't recommend the stock until the company has proven itself capable of earning the profits and generating the cash that Piper Jaffray thinks it can.
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• Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This
Rich Smithhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends FireEye. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Rogue Qiwi Employee Mined 500,000 Bitcoins on Company Hardware [Then Lost Them All]: bitcoin mining Qiwi , a large Russian payments company, has played a pioneering role in blockchain development in that country, largely driven by its CEO and major shareholder, Sergey Solonin. The reason for Solonin’s interest in cryptocurrency recently came to light during a lecture he gave at the Moscow School of Communications, according to Rubase . In 2011, Solonin learned that his company computers minted 500,000 bitcoins, unbeknownst to him at the time. At the time, he did not know what bitcoin was, let alone bitcoin mining . A Stealth Mining Operation Solonin’s security chief tipped him off that the company computers were being operated at night. After three months of investigating, he learned his chief technical officer minted 500,000 coins worth $5 million in three months, an amount that is now worth billions of dollars. When Solonin confronted the man and told him to explain what he was doing and make restitution to Solonin, the man quit. Solonin then put together a team and told them they needed to use all the computer terminals to mine bitcoin. He was able to restore some of the data the former employee had erased but were not able to recover the bitcoins. The Experience Made Him A Believer bitcoin cryptocurrency Solonin then became a cryptocurrency investor. He hired people experienced with computer chips and instructed them to speed up the mining process. The company now sells mining equipment. Solonin noted that he migrated to IT in the late 1990s after he began buying real estate from bankrupt companies. Insecurity reigned as businesses were being raided. He realized he did not have to continue to work in an unsafe environment and has focused on IT businesses ever since. The IT sector is also one in which one is able to explore the future, he said. Also read: Payment giant Qiwi’s execs to launch Russia’s first crypto investment bank Focus On AI And Computer ‘Blocking’ Qiwi’s operation is presently focused on artificial intelligence and “blocking,” which Solonin thinks will ultimately integrate computer systems. Story continues He envisions extensive data becoming available on the block, including medical data, which will significantly increase life expectancy. AI, meanwhile, will find correlations between what a person eats and what diseases they get more accurately than doctors. A student with six months of education in AI knows more about the tools than someone who has been doing it all his life, Solonin said. Cryptocurrencies are currently 100% effective and will remain so, he said, but as a means of saving, accumulating and exchanging value, they will not be necessary for most people. What is needed is a fast and convenient cryptocurrency. The company recently created the first crypto investment bank in the Russian market. Qiwi also became the first Russian company to join the R3 blockchain consortium of more than 60 banks and financial institutions in 2016. Images from Shutterstock The post Rogue Qiwi Employee Mined 500,000 Bitcoins on Company Hardware [Then Lost Them All] appeared first on CCN . || Accenture plc (ACN) Q3 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript: Logo of jester cap with thought bubble with words 'Fool Transcripts' below it Image source: The Motley Fool. Accenture PLC (NYSE: ACN) Q3 2018 Earnings Conference Call June 28, 2018, 8:00 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to thank you for standing by, and welcome to Accenture's Third Quarter Fiscal 2018 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question and answer session, with instructions being given at that time. If you should require any assistance throughout today's call, please depress *0 and one of us will be with you immediately. And, as a reminder, today's conference call will be recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host and facilitator, as well as our Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations, Angie Park. Please go ahead. Angie Park -- Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations Thank you, Steve, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today on our Third Quarter Fiscal 2018 Earnings Announcement. As the operator just mentioned, I'm Angie Park, Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations. With me today are Pierre Nanterme, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and David Rowland, our Chief Financial Officer. We hope you've had an opportunity to review the news release we issued a short time ago. Let me quickly outline the agenda for today's call. Pierre will begin with an overview of our results. David will take you through the financial details, including the income statement and balance sheet for the third quarter. Pierre will then provide a brief update on our market positioning before David provides our business outlook for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2018. We will then take your questions before Pierre provides a wrap-up at the end of the call. As a reminder, when we discuss revenues during today's call, we're talking about revenues before reimbursements or net revenues. Some of the matters we'll discuss on this call, including our business outlook, are forward-looking, and as such are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those factors set forth in today's news release and discussed on our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed on this call. 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 Story continues During our call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures which we believe provide useful information for investors. We include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures where appropriate to GAAP in our news release or in the Investor Relations section of our website at Accenture.com. As always, Accenture assumes no obligation to update the information presented on this conference call. Now, let me turn the call over to Pierre. Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Angie, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Accenture had a truly outstanding third quarter. We delivered excellent results from new bookings and revenues to operating margin, EPS, and cash flow, and we gained significant market share once again. The durability of our performance demonstrates the relevance of our growth strategy and our ability to continue delivering strong results and returns for shareholders, while at the same time investing significantly in new growth opportunities to strengthen our position for the long term. Here are a few highlights from the quarter. We delivered record new bookings of $11.7 billion, we grew revenues 11% in local currency to $10.3 billion, and our growth continues to be well balanced across the dimensions of our business. We delivered earnings per share of $1.79 on an adjusted basis, a 19% increase. Operating margin was 15.7%, an expansion of 20 basis points on an adjusted basis. We generated very strong free cash flow of $1.8 billion, and we returned approximately $1.6 billion in cash to shareholders through share repurchases and the payment of our semiannual dividend. So, we are entering the fourth quarter with excellent momentum in our business and I feel confident that we are very well positioned to deliver our business outlook for the year. Now, let me hand over to David, who will review the numbers in greater detail. David, over to you. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Pierre, and thanks to all of you for taking the time to join us on today's call. As you heard in Pierre's comments, we're extremely pleased with our results in the third quarter, which once again reflect strong momentum across every dimension of our business. Based on the strength of our third-quarter results and the strong confidence and visibility we have in our fourth quarter, we will be increasing key elements of our full-year outlook, which I'll cover in more detail later in our call. Importantly, both our third-quarter results and our updated outlook for the full year reflect very strong execution against all three financial imperatives for driving superior shareholder value, which I covered in some detail at our Investor/Analyst Day in April. So, before I get into the details of the quarter, let me summarize the major headlines of our third-quarter results. Net revenue increased more than $1.4 billion, reflecting growth of 11% local currency and representing the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. The strong top-line growth exceeded our expectations and reflected strong and balanced growth across all operating groups and geographic areas, with several growing double digits. Growth continues to significantly outpace the market, reflecting both our leadership position in the New and the durability of our diverse yet highly focused growth model. Operating margin of 15.7% expanded 20 basis points compared to adjusted operating margin last year, consistent with our expectations, and reflected strong underlying profitability, which allowed us to invest at scale in our people and our business. And, we delivered very strong EPS of $1.79 on an adjusted basis, up 18% over fiscal '17 adjusted EPS. And, our free cash flow of $1.8 billion reflected both our strong profitability and excellent VSOs. We continue to execute our strategic capital allocation objectives, with year-to-date investments of over $450 million in acquisitions and roughly $3.8 billion returned to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases. With that said, let me turn to some of the details, starting with new bookings. New bookings were $11.7 billion for the quarter, the highest level of new bookings in our history, and represents 15% growth in local currency. Consulting bookings were $5.9 billion with a book-to-bill of 1.0 and outsourcing bookings were $5.8 billion with a book-to-bill of 1.3. Our new bookings were extremely well balanced across the dimensions of our business. Accenture Interactive, Accenture Applied Intelligence, Accenture Industry X.0, as well as Cloud and Security, were all important themes and represented roughly 60% of our total new bookings. Turning now to revenues, net revenues for the quarter were $10.3 billion, an increase of 16% USD and 11% in local currency, reflecting a foreign exchange tailwind of roughly 5% compared to the 5.5% impact provided last quarter. This result was approximately $200 million above the upper end of our FX adjusted range. Consulting revenues for the quarter were $5.7 billion, up 18% in USD and 12% in local currency, and our outsourcing revenues were $4.6 billion, up 14% in USD and 10% in local currency. Looking at the trends in estimated revenue growth across our business dimensions, the overriding theme was strong and balanced growth across all business dimensions. We saw an uptick in Strategy and Consulting Services, which grew high single digits, while both Application Services and Operations posted double-digit growth. And, the New, including Digital Cloud and Security, continued to deliver very strong double-digit growth reflecting many of the market themes and key points of differentiation, which we discussed at our Investor/Analyst Day. I'd like to also highlight the strong demand for Intelligent Platform Services, which continued to be an important contributor to our growth. As you know, Intelligent Platform Services brings together our industry, functional, and next-generation application capabilities powered by our innovation architecture to drive mission-critical programs for our clients, and these services primarily relate to deploying next-generation technologies in SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Workday. Taking a closer look at our operating groups, Communications, Media, and Technology led all operating groups with 18% in local currency, reflecting continued strong momentum in many parts of the business, especially Software and Platforms and Communication and Media, which both posted double-digit growth, as well as double-digit growth across all three geographies. Resources grew 12% in the quarter, driven by strong double-digit growth in Energy and Chemicals and Natural Resources. We continue to see strong demand for our services across all geographies with double-digit growth in North America and the growth markets and strong growth in Europe. Products delivered its 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth with 11% growth in the quarter, led by Industrial and Consumer Goods, Retail, and Travel Services. Growth was strong across all geographies with double-digit growth in both Europe and the growth markets. Financial Services grew 8% in local currency, reflecting strong growth in both Banking and Capital Markets and Insurance. Growth was strong across all three geographies, led by double-digit growth in the growth markets. Finally, H&PS grew 7%, driven by double-digit growth in Public Service. We continue to be pleased with double-digit growth in Europe and the growth markets and solid growth in North America. Moving down the income statement, gross margin for the quarter was 32.2% compared to 32.8% in the same period last year, sales and marketing expense for the quarter was 10.7% compared to 11.1% for the third quarter last year, and our general and administrative expense was 5.7% compared to 6.2% for the same quarter last year. We have two items impacting metrics this quarter. As a reminder, in Quarter 3 last year, we recorded a settlement charge related to the termination of our U.S. pension plan. In this quarter, we recorded charges of $122 million related to tax law changes, which increased our Quarter 3 tax rate by 7.6% and decreased diluted earnings per share by $0.19. The following comparisons exclude those impacts where applicable and reflect adjusted results. Operating income was $1.6 billion in the third quarter, reflecting a 15.7% operating margin, an increase of 20 basis points compared to adjusted operating margin in Quarter 3 last year. Our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 26.8% compared to an adjusted effective tax rate of 26.6% for the third quarter last year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $1.79 compared to an adjusted EPS of $1.52 in the third quarter last year, and this reflects an 18% increase over last year's result. Day services outstanding were 39 days compared to 40 days last quarter and 41 days in the third quarter of last year. Our free cash flow for the quarter was $1.8 billion, resulting from cash generated by operating activities of $2 billion net of property and equipment additions of $174 million. Our cash balance at May 31st was $3.9 billion compared with $4.1 billion at August 31st. With regards to our ongoing objective to return cash to shareholders, in the third quarter, we repurchased or redeemed 4.7 million shares for $720 million at an average share price of $153.60 per share. At May 31st, we had approximately $1.4 billion of share repurchase authority remaining. Finally, as Pierre mentioned, on May 15th, 2018, we made our second semiannual dividend payment for fiscal '18 in the amount of $1.33 per share, bringing total dividend payments for the fiscal year to approximately $1.7 billion. So, in summary, we're extremely pleased with our outstanding third-quarter results and now focused on Quarter 4 and closing out a strong year. Now, let me turn it back to Pierre. Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, David. At our Investor and Analyst Conference in April, we provided an update on our strategy of building differentiated capabilities for the digital world, applying innovation at scale and ensuring that we anticipate the impact of the next wave of technology disruption for our clients. Our excellent results for the third quarter demonstrate that we continue to execute this strategy very well. The end-to-end capabilities we have built at scale and in an industry context are unique in the marketplace. Our ability to integrate these services, from strategy and consulting to digital technology operations and cybersecurities, enables us to deliver targeted business outcomes for clients. Our rapid rotation to the New -- Digital Cloud and Security -- continues to drive significant growth for Accenture. Revenues in the New again grew at a very strong double-digit rate in the third quarter and accounted for about 60% of total revenues for the first time, highlighting that the New has now become the core of our business. Digital transformation is now a clear imperative for our clients and we are uniquely positioned to deploy digital services end to end at scale across industries and geographies. With Accenture Applied Intelligence, we are bringing together our capabilities in data analytics and artificial intelligence combined with our deep understanding of industries and business functions to help clients reimagine their core processes. With Bepensa, a Coca-Cola bottler in Mexico, we are leveraging the Accenture Insights platform to mine the data from 2 billion transactions a year to provide a holistic view of the business, better serve its 300,000 daily customers, and significantly increase market share. We are also gaining significant traction with Accenture Industry X.0, where we are reinventing manufacturing with smart connected products and services using advanced technologies, including the Internet of Things, connected devices, and digital platforms. We are helping BSA Group, the Italian manufacturer, expand beyond products into digital services. BSA is rolling out connected services ranging from maintenance alerts to in-depth analytics across an install base of 20,000 industrial machines, driving new revenue streams as well as significant cost savings. And, we continue to build our Industry X.0 capabilities. This month, we announced our agreement to acquire design affairs, a design firm based in Germany that specializes in smart products and services for manufacturers. This complements very well our acquisition of Mackevision in the second quarter. Accenture will remain the partner of choice for the world's leading companies on large-scale, mission-critical transformation programs, and our ability to mobilize and integrate end-to-end services to deliver value and business outcomes is clearly setting us apart in the marketplace. We are helping Dow DuPont with the post-merger integration of Dow Chemical and DuPont as well as preparations for their planned spinoffs. We are expanding the scope of our services to include substantial work in digital, strategy, and management consulting with the goal of enabling each of the future companies with the distinctive capabilities needed to lead in their respective markets. Turning now to the geographic dimension of our business, I'm just very pleased that we again delivered strong growth in the third quarter across all three of our geographic regions with double-digit growth in most of our major markets. Starting in North America, we delivered 11% growth driven by further acceleration in the United States. In Europe, revenues grew 9% in local currency driven by strong double-digit growth in Germany, Italy, Ireland, France, and Spain. And, in growth markets, I'm delighted that we delivered another exceptional quarter, with 17% growth in local currency, led once again by very strong double-digit growth in Japan as well as double-digit growth in Australia, Brazil, and Singapore. Before I hand it back to David, I want to take a moment to touch on Accenture's role in helping to solve important societal challenges. Trust and responsibility are increasingly critical in evaluating companies as a potential partner, employer, or investment, and at Accenture, we feel a responsibility to encourage the use of emerging technologies as a positive force for the economy and the broader society. For example, we are using blockchain and biometrics to support ID 2020, which is helping to solve the challenges of identity faced by more than $1.1 billion people around the world. In Japan, we used artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a revolutionary system to dispatch emergency vehicles more quickly, ultimately saving lives. And, I'm particularly proud of the work our people do across the Accenture Labs in Bangalore, Dublin, San Francisco, and Sophia Antipolis to use cutting-edge technology in innovative ways through our Tech for Good initiative, like our A.I. smartphone solution that helps the blind navigate the world and lead more productive lives. Creating innovative solutions that improve the way the world works and lives is our mission at Accenture, and quite simply, the right thing to do. With that, I will turn the call over to David to provide our updated business outlook. David, again, over to you. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Pierre. So, let me now turn to our business outlook. For the fourth quarter fiscal '18, we expect net revenues to be in the range of $9.8 billion to $10.05 billion. This assumes the impact of FX will be about flat compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal '17 and reflects an estimated 7% to 10% in local currency. For the full fiscal year '18, based upon how the rates have been trending over the last few weeks, we now assume the impact of FX on our results in U.S. dollars will be positive 3% compared to fiscal '17. For the full fiscal '18, we now expect our net revenues to be in the range of 9.5% to 10% in local currency over fiscal '17. For operating margin, we continue to expect full fiscal '18 to be 14.8%, consistent with adjusted fiscal '17 results. We now expect our annual effective tax rate to be in the range of 27% to 28%. The increase in our guidance from last quarter is primarily due to the $122 million tax charge that I mentioned earlier. The charge includes two components: An additional $41 million provisional charge related to the adoption of the U.S. Tax Act as well as an $81 million expense from a non-U.S. tax law change. Excluding the impact of these tax law changes, we now expect our adjusted annual effective tax rate to be in the range of 22.5% to 23.5%. For earnings per share, we now expect our diluted EPS for fiscal '18 to be in the range of $6.26 to $6.31. Excluding the impact of tax law changes, we now expect adjusted full-year diluted EPS to be in the range of $6.66 to $6.71, or 13% to 14% growth over adjusted fiscal '17 results. For the full fiscal '18, we now expect operating cash flow to be in the range of $5.5 billion to $5.8 billion, property and equipment additions to be approximately $600 million, and free cash flow to be in the range of $4.9 billion to $5.2 billion. Finally, we continue to expect to return at least $4.3 billion through dividends and share repurchases and continue to expect to reduce the weighted average diluted shares outstanding by about 1% as we remain committed to returning a substantial portion of our cash to our shareholders. With that, let's open it up so we can take your questions. Angie? Questions and Answers: Angie Park -- Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations Thanks, David. I would ask that you each keep to one question and a follow-up to allow as many participants as possible to ask a question. Steve, would you provide instructions for those on the call? Operator Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please depress *1. You will hear a tone indicating that you have placed yourself in a queue and all questions will be pulled in the order they are received. Our first question will come from the line of Jason Kupferberg of Bank of America. Please go ahead. Jason Kupferberg -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Hey, good morning, guys. How are you? David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Good morning, Jason. How are you? Jason Kupferberg -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Good, thanks. Great set of constant currency results here, obviously. So, we're just continuing to get a lot of questions around FX, just given some of the recent moves. I wanted to just get some of your initial thoughts. If FX spot rates today or in recent weeks were to, in theory, hold going forward, how should we think about the potential FX headwind to revenue and EPS next year, just so we can start to get our models calibrated? David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Yeah, this will be the only comment I'll make relative to next year quantitatively, by the way, but I don't mind saying this because it's just really an extrapolation of the math. As we do our analysis -- so, looking at the rates that we used as a basis for the FX impact that I just provided for this year -- if those rates were to hold constant as we do our analysis, it would create a headwind of about 2%, so it would have a negative 2% impact on our results next year. Jason Kupferberg -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Okay, both top and bottom line? David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Yeah, essentially. Jason Kupferberg -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Okay, great. So, just as my follow-up, obviously, really good to see the constant currency top-line raise for this year. Is most all of that organic? I know you did announce a couple of additional acquisitions since the last earnings call, but it didn't seem like there'd be enough time left in this year for them to contribute much. So, are we still thinking 2.5%-ish for M&A contribution in fiscal '18? David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Yeah, the beat, if you will, in Quarter 3 was 100% organic, and therefore, that's the basis for us raising our guidance for the year. There is no change in our view on inorganic for the full year. We still think we'll end the full year with it making about a 2.5% contribution, and against that 2.5% contribution for the year, it was a little higher than that in the first half of the year, it's a little lower than that in the second half of the year, and averages to about 2.5% for the year. Jason Kupferberg -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Okay. Well, nice job. Thanks for the comments. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you. Operator Our next question will come from the line of Tien-tsin Huang of JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Tien-tsin Huang -- JPMorgan Chase -- Managing Director Good morning. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Good morning, Tien-tsin. Tien-tsin Huang -- JPMorgan Chase -- Managing Director Good morning. Good revenue acceleration here. So, on the revenue front, I'll ask if there are any callouts on what surprised you -- perhaps Strategy Consulting accelerating. Just curious what drove the -- I think you said $200 million above the FX adjusted range to the top line of the guidance. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer The good news is that the additional revenue was really broad-based. Literally, every operating group delivered above their expectations. As you might guess, the strongest over-delivery came from the three operating groups with the double-digit growth -- so, CMT, Products, and Resources were the biggest contributor to the strong revenue performance. As you also alluded to -- and, I called out in my script -- Strategy and Consulting combined was also quite strong, high single digits, and we were very pleased with that. But, it was -- really, the over-delivery from a top-line standpoint was broad-based and I think it aligns with the fact that we had such strong, broad-based, record-setting new bookings that underpinned that, and just reflective of the strong momentum in the market overall. Tien-tsin Huang -- JPMorgan Chase -- Managing Director Sure, good. So, my follow-up, quickly, is just on the outsourcing bookings -- that 1.3x book-to-bill. So, what's the -- are larger deals back? Just curious of anything chunky that contributed to that, or if there's anything unusual. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Yeah, as you would expect, we had some larger deals in there. We had a couple larger deals in particular. I think the total number of deals more than $100 million -- I didn't say it, but it was...I think it was 12, if I'm remembering that correctly, and so, that is in the zone, probably, on the high end of what we see in a typical quarter. I don't know that big deals are back, necessarily, because we've always had a good flow of big deals, but as we look at our pipeline going forward, what we call our mega pipeline actually looks really good. And, actually, I'm being told that we had 13 deals over $100 million, not 12. Tien-tsin Huang -- JPMorgan Chase -- Managing Director Off by one. Yup, that's in the zone. Thank you, sir. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Tien-tsin. Operator Bryan Bergin of Cowen. Please go ahead. Bryan Bergin -- Cowen and Company -- Director Hi, good morning. Thank you. I wanted to ask on the headcount growth versus revenue growth. Can you comment on whether you're seeing any change in the inflection of the resource requirements that you need for this high level of growth due to better automation traction of the Platform business? And then, can you just give us some color on the pickup penetration? David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Yeah. So, our headcount growth did grow at a pace below our revenue growth, and we have seen that several quarters if you look over the last eight quarters or so. Certainly, there's the potential for that trend to be more common as we look forward, both as it relates to the productivity efficiencies that we will drive into the business, including through technology, and as well, we are always constantly focused on pricing improvement and increasing the revenue yield per head in our revenue. And so, it is a part of our strategy of extracting more value from our business for our shareholders and our employees, and in a perfect world, we would see a higher revenue yield per head going forward, and our challenge is to achieve that through the mix of our services, the pricing, et cetera. On the attrition front, there's not anything we're particularly concerned about. The attrition did tick up, but we feel very good about our ability to attract the talent in the marketplace that we need. We are an employer of choice, certainly, in our sector. We have no issues recruiting the people that we need in the market, and we also are quite pleased with our overall retention, including retention of critical skills, even with what was a slight tick-up in overall attrition. So, we don't have any particular concerns there. Bryan Bergin -- Cowen and Company -- Director Okay, thanks. And then, on the H&PS segment, have you seen improvement in those healthcare contracts that you cited last quarter? Anything around the contract profitability? Thank you. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Yeah, very pleased with the H&PS profitability, as we were all the operating groups. Every single operating group -- if you look at this concept of underlying profitability that we talk about sometimes at the Accenture level, which is the underlying profitability above and beyond our reported profitability where we'll use the headroom to invest in our people and our business. Every single one of our operating groups had really strong improvement in underlying profitability. Now, underneath that, they had investments, et cetera, that are reflected in the operating margin numbers that we report, but we were quite pleased with all our operating groups, and H&PS included, which did show sequential improvement in profitability, and that is as we expected and as we signaled in the first half of the year. Bryan Bergin -- Cowen and Company -- Director Thanks. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you. Operator Jamie Friedman of Susquehanna Financial Group. Please go ahead. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Good morning, Jamie. Jamie Friedman -- Susquehanna Financial Group -- Analyst Hi, thank you. Good morning, guys. Good set of results here. I'm sorry if I don't have the greatest connection, but David, I wanted to ask you -- in your prepared remarks, I thought you said something that was new -- at least, new to me -- where you decomposed the bookings. It was the Industry X.0 and the Interactive. I thought you said 60%. If you wouldn't mind just repeating that if you have that there, that would be helpful. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer It was a subtle change, and frankly, the intent was to -- we talk about the New so much that I was just taking the opportunity to remind people what are the components of the New, so I called out the five components by name, and the only intent was, again, to remind the components of the New, especially as we have changed some of the terminology as we've evolved Digital to talk about Accenture Interactive, Accenture Applied Intelligence, and Accenture Industry X.0. And, the New overall -- so, those five components in aggregate -- represented about 60% of our total bookings, and that's consistent with the comment that Pierre made, where, from a revenue standpoint, the New represents approximately 60% of our revenues at this point as well. Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Maybe I can jump on this one because nobody's asking me any questions. They're all for you, David, so I'm jumping on it. You mentioned that we have evolved the terminology, but of course, it's more than the terminology, and the reality is that we are constantly evolving the content of our capabilities in the New. Accenture Interactive has been there since day one. No change. We continue growing, developing, and scaling. We have Accenture Mobility around enterprise apps and connected platforms. We've evolved now to Industry X.0 to build a capability totally focused on smart and digital manufacturing, same thing we've been doing with Accenture Analytics. We upgraded this year to Accenture Applied Intelligence by adding on top of the analytics machine learning and applied intelligence. So, it's important for all of you to understand that almost every year or every couple of years, we will always significantly improve, upgrade what we're calling the New to make sure we are always ahead of the curve and bringing innovation at the heart of our existing capabilities. Jamie Friedman -- Susquehanna Financial Group -- Analyst Thanks, Pierre. And then, I did have one for you, Pierre, which was with regard to the growth in Strategy Consulting and Application Services, is it fair to think of those as lead indicators for the company, or would that be an exaggeration? Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer No, I think for us, it's important to be growing Strategy, Management Consulting, and Intelligent Platforms -- so, the added-value part of our system integration -- because it's demonstrating that what we are selling is highly differentiated, is more at the high end of the value chain of our services, and of course, it is important in the context of contributing to our margin, and ultimately, profitability. So, I'm very pleased that we moved Strategy Consulting to high single digits. I think this is a good place to be, and it's the demonstration that our services are more and more differentiated with that piece, which is clearly around industry-specific solutions and very cutting-edge consulting work. Same with Application Services. The system integration piece is on fire, right? And, especially with what we're calling the Intelligent Platforms. So, all these new digital artificial intelligence analytics-rich platforms where we are leading with all of them to be next in the marketplace, and again, it's a significant contributor to our rotation to the New. So, it's a sign of good health. You're absolutely right. Jamie Friedman -- Susquehanna Financial Group -- Analyst Thank you. Operator James Schneider, Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Hey, good morning, Jim. James Schneider -- Goldman Sachs -- Managing Director Hey, good morning, David. Just a question on the CMT. That continues to be very strong there, and the growth, you think, could be accelerated even further. Could you give us a sense about what the components of that growth are and what kind of work you're seeing there that maybe you didn't see a year or two ago? Is there anything incremental on that front? Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer I'll take this. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Go ahead, Pierre. Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer CMT -- we talked a lot about CMT these last years. Needless to say, it's a set of industries under massive transformation. If you take the different components -- high-tech, telecom, and what we're calling software and platforms -- software and platforms are the driving force of the growth in terms of CMT because these companies are investing massively in the context of leading in the market. So, here, the business is to support the leaders providing -- you know the names -- the leading platforms in the marketplace. So, we're supporting them in supporting their growth, and we are an enabler of that growth. On the other side of the spectrum, you will find telecom. Telecom is more transformational. These companies are facing significant challenges, and you know now they're embarking on some massive M&A consolidation. And so, a lot's happening, including they're all launching new networks. We're moving from the third to the fourth to the fifth-GV, you put the fiber on top of it, so they need to continue investing, and again, they need people like us to support their transformation as well as being an enabler of their network implementation. And then, in between, you have the high-tech, and high-tech companies, again, are not only CMT companies, but they're enablers of many industries in providing the equipment, providing the technology, and I'm extremely pleased with the progress we're making in high-tech across the board, especially with some recent excellent progress we have made with aerospace and defense, where we decided to focus on a very promising industry, and with the focus we put as administration on this industry, it is a good contributor to our overall growth. So, three different segments with three different sets of issues that we are the enabler of that change, that transformation, and ultimately, their leadership in the marketplace. James Schneider -- Goldman Sachs -- Managing Director Thanks, that's helpful. And then, regarding the tax rate, David, I know you said you wouldn't talk about fiscal '19, but can you maybe just talk about your overall tax rate -- your overall tax planning, how that's evolved over the last few quarters or so, and whether you think that there's any kind of change to what you've previously said about the tax rate on a go-forward basis given all of that context? David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer First of all, it goes without saying that the tax environment continues to be highly complex and fluid, if not even volatile, perhaps. And so, it is a significant effort with a lot of talented people that stay on top of our tax planning and all of the matters and policy progression and all the tax jurisdictions around the world. You're right -- I'm not going to comment on FY '19 beyond what I have said previously. I would prefer that we just give one update in September when we provide guidance. There's basically two statements that I've made -- or, that we've disclosed -- just to remind you. So, one thing that we disclosed that I've commented on is the accounting change on income tax effects of intercompany transfers, the ASU 2016-16, and we've disclosed that in isolation, that would have about a 3.5% impact on our tax rate, and so, that's one item that we've called out which is in our future. Now, that impact would be in isolation, and obviously, there are other elements of our tax planning that we're constantly working on, and so, that's not to imply necessarily that that would be the ultimate impact, but that item alone will have that impact, and of course, the other item that we called out, obviously, is the U.S. tax reform, and previously, we had said that that would create modest upward pressure on our tax rate. And so, those are really among a longer list of items that we're focused on, those are the two things that we've talked about the most and that we've had disclosures on. James Schneider -- Goldman Sachs -- Managing Director Thank you. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you. Operator Harshita Rawat of Bernstein. Please go ahead. Harshita Rawat -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So, Pierre, it does appear that we are in one of the strongest enterprise IT demand environments in many years. Do you have a sense of whether this is cyclical in tax-reform-related uptick, or is this more structural in nature because IT is, again, perceived to be more of an investment area versus a budget that needs to be managed? Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer I tend to believe it's more structural than something which is more cyclical or on the short term, and for many reasons. First, it's incredibly pervasive across all the industries. So, when you look at our rotation to the New, it's amazingly consistent across all our industries, whether you're taking the B2C, and now the B2B. Same thing -- it's amazingly consistent across the world. When you look at the rotation to the New from the U.S., to Europe, to Brazil, Australia, and Japan, you see the same level of demand across the world. So, it's something which is extremely significant. Next, when you look at this IT revolution -- and, let's call that digital revolution -- it's coming through waves. So, it's not one thing. It is now a continuous flow of new technologies coming one after the other to change the game. So, we started with some basic internet technology solutions, more on the B2C. Now, we're moving to look at it everything connected. If you look at this, that would be a big market in itself -- so, what we're calling the Internet of Things, but, everything connected. Then, you move to the artificial intelligence at large. Everybody would believe we are more at the very beginning of this wave than anything else. Then, the blockchain. We took it the last three years and incubated it. Now, it's starting to pick up, and by the way, we have put our act together, we have made significant investments, and now, we're taking a position of leadership in this blockchain technology. And, it's not enough. You move into immersive realities, virtual realities, and then you have the new IT and the new ways of developing systems -- DevOps, Agile -- and then, I can continue with quantum computing. So, look at the series of incredible digital technology disruptions. Where, in the past, probably, you would have one for 40 years, now, you have one every 18 months. So, I tend to believe we are in a true fourth industrial revolution based on digital, and it's something which is going to be more secular than cyclical. Harshita Rawat -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst Great, thank you. And, just as a follow-up, against this context of this growing IT demand environment, is there any change in your thinking about your continued ability to hire and retain talent in this tightening labor market? Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer We have no issue to make it. I know the data -- when you look at this and you take it to your microscope, you will see some tick-up in the attrition, but we are in the zone, as David said rightfully. The reality is are we able to attract the best talent in the marketplace? Sometimes, we call them iconic talent from the outside. The answer is yes. Are we retaining our best managing directors? We have, and we have now 7,000 managing directors. The level of attrition is incredibly low in the ranks of our managing directors. Every day, we have people willing to join Accenture. And, finally, our brand is attractive, and the brand is attractive because of the success of the rotation to the New and the pivot we've been executing to be now perceived -- it's not a perception, it's a reality -- as a highly innovative company accommodating multiple cultures in the same company, from designers, to business scientists, to the more classic programmers and developers, and to people extraordinarily knowledgeable in leading and cutting-edge IT. Plus, all the effort we made to make Accenture what we call a truly human -- Tech for Good, what I mentioned in my script. All of this is creating an environment which I tend to believe is very attractive. Evidence is recently, we won many awards in terms of the best place to work, most attractive place to work, and I'm very pleased that you're giving me the opportunity to mention that, that we're not only the best place to work for everybody, but as well, with a great sense of diversity in it. So, we have received many recognition for women, for LGBT, and I'm extremely pleased that we are attractive for everybody, as we should. All the talent, all the background, all the different gender, and all the diversity, and we have a good brand supporting that. Harshita Rawat -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst Perfect. Thank you very much for taking my question. Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator Rod Bourgeois of DeepDive Equity. Please go ahead. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Good morning, Rod. Rod Bourgeois -- DeepDive Equity -- Head of Research and Consulting Hey, good morning. Good to talk to you guys. Hey, within the Intelligent Platforms business, where you work on ERP systems, can you talk about which ERP platforms are contributing the most to your growth? And also, perhaps, the software market trends that are catalyzing your demand in that ERP services space? Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer As you know, Rod, we're working with all the usual suspects from a platform standpoint. So, I would mention the names you all know in the leading platform, from SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Workday, to mention the names everybody would know. All these platform providers -- these are the rotation to the New. So, the ones that were not in the cloud are now in the cloud, and all of them, as they have added features in terms of analytics, in terms of artificial intelligence insight -- that's why now, we're calling them at Accenture "Intelligent Platforms," because they are not anymore the old ERP we knew. They are ERPs in the cloud, rich in terms of new functionalities, analytics, and artificial intelligence. So, this market has been very good for Accenture. We've been driving excellent growth from our -- let's call that the ERP business or Intelligent Platform business. We are, again, the partner of choice, and the market is vibrant as well because many clients have been waiting for the new platforms to arrive, to upgrade and move, and I believe that we are more at the beginning of this wave of replacing the old ERP with the new one because it's going to drive lots of benefits in terms, again, of leveraging the cloud, leveraging analytics, and leveraging artificial intelligence. So, we have a very strong position. We organized our capabilities in our operating group as well as in Accenture technology to have at-scale capabilities to support all these leading platforms, and we are getting a very good return. Rod Bourgeois -- DeepDive Equity -- Head of Research and Consulting That's helpful. And, just a quick follow-up -- can you give any color on the relative contributions of the components of New to your overall growth? I'm particularly interested in your view on which component in the New has the most future potential to evolve with success akin to the Accenture Interactive business. So, as an example, is IoT the best candidate for future growth potential, or is something else catching your attention there? Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer I would say all our new babies have the potential to grow successfully for many years. Now, in the family, some are already operating at scale -- grown up. You mentioned Accenture Interactive, now three years in a row No. 1 in Advertising Age as the fastest-growing and largest digital expense agency. By the way, I'm pleased that you gave me the opportunity to mention to your group that we won seven awards at the Cannes Lions with an acquisition we made in Dublin with a company called Rothco. So, we are in the interactive game big-time, we are winning -- not only awards, but as well, big clients. So, with Accenture Interactive, it's scaled to lead in the world. It's more mature than the others. Next, I would mention, certainly, Cloud as well is more scaled to lead. These two are scaled to lead. Then, Applied Intelligence is, as well, at a very significant scale, but the name of the game for us is to infuse the latest cutting-edge artificial and algorithmic technologies in that unit we're calling Applied Intelligence. And then, we have two with big potential to grow because they are not yet operating at the same scale. I'm thinking about Accenture Security, where we have put together all our cybersecurity capabilities, and it's growing -- David would say "strong double digits." I would probably add "hyper-strong double digits" just to give you a sense that it's a bit more than strong double digits. And, the last one we launched was Industry X.0 that I mentioned, which is all the digital applied to manufacturing. This is clearly, for us, a significant investment we're going to make this year and in the coming three years because it's all about replicating to the B2B industries the success we have with the B2C, and we're making good progress, and I'm pleased. And, more to come because every year, we're going to launch new capabilities in the New when they will mature. Rod Bourgeois -- DeepDive Equity -- Head of Research and Consulting It sounds like you don't have a favorite baby; you love all of them. Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer I mean, this is the way we are in France. We love all of them. Rod Bourgeois -- DeepDive Equity -- Head of Research and Consulting Thank you, guys. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Thanks, Rod. Operator Bryan Keane of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Bryan Keane -- Deutsche Bank -- Managing Director Yeah, hi, guys. Congrats on very solid results here. Just wanted to follow up on the bookings and the strength in the bookings. Was that a lot of renewals in there, or is that new business that pushed that higher? And then, just thinking about the pipeline now, does it become a little more depleted since you had such a big quarter this quarter? David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer So, there's a lot of new business in the $11 billion-plus bookings -- $11.7 billion -- in the quarter. You don't get to that number with a disproportionate or unusual level of renewals. The other part of the question was with pipeline -- yeah, any time we have a bookings quarter that large, obviously, it has some impact on the pipeline, but having said that, we have had a lot of replenishment even during the quarter, so we feel good about our pipeline, but yet, as you can imagine, we're very focused on our pipeline replenishment as we think about turning the page into fiscal '19 and, let's say, the next challenge of growth. So, we always have work to do on our pipeline. We feel good about it, but we're always focused on expanding it. Bryan Keane -- Deutsche Bank -- Managing Director Okay. And then, just wanted to follow up on the fourth-quarter revenue guidance. I know top line was strong and 11% constant currency this quarter. I think the guidance implies something like 7% to 10% constant currency for the fourth quarter, which is a tad below the strength this quarter. Just thinking about that growth considering the strong bookings. Is that just a little bit of conservatism built in there -- or, another possibility is some of the M&A business that's falling off is causing a little lower growth rate than we saw in the third. Thanks so much. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer I don't know if it's conservatism. 11% growth is really outstanding, and frankly, as well, the upper end of our range at 10% is also outstanding. And so, as we always say, we have a three-point range. You never like the bottom part of the range, and of course, we're always focused on being as high in the range as we possibly can. To the extent we were to deliver at the upper end of the range, we would continue to gain massive share in the marketplace. That level of growth would be outstanding and we would be very pleased with that at the upper end of the range. So, I wouldn't say -- there's not the intent to be conservative. There's the intent to have a reasonable range, and again, the upper half of the range is quite strong. Bryan Keane -- Deutsche Bank -- Managing Director Okay, great. Thanks. Angie Park -- Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations Hey, Steve, we have time for one more question, and then Pierre will wrap up the call. Operator Okay. Our last question will come from the line of Brian Essex, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Brian Essex -- Morgan Stanley -- Executive Director Great, thank you for taking the question. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Hi, Brian. Brian Essex -- Morgan Stanley -- Executive Director Hey, how are you? I was just wondering if maybe you can unpack the digital a little bit. I get a lot of questions in terms of what's maybe migrational in nature, and Pierre did a great job differentiating the ERP part of the equation, but you've also had some great stories on truly transformational digital projects. I think Pierre had one in his prepared remarks on the operational side. The operations team has some great supply chain examples, particularly in the beverage market. How much of the digital would you say is truly transformational versus more migrational in nature, where you're just taking an application and putting it into a new operating environment? Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer It's getting more and more transformational. You're right -- the first waves, you always fight to catch the low-hanging fruit. Let's put it that way. And, the low-hanging fruit, for instance, would be I'm taking my current applications, no change, no transformation, and I move them to the cloud just to benefit from the cost difference with the classic infrastructure, what you're calling the migration. So, we've seen some of the journey to the cloud. You're taking the existing, you lift and drop to the cloud, and you're making the benefits. You still have some of this work, of course, but what I found very interesting is indeed, the market is shifting -- at least, with us and our clients -- to using digital as more transformational. For instance, when you move or change from the existing ERP to a new ERP in the cloud, and then you're using the analytics and apply the artificial intelligence features in order to drive more value in the company in terms of forecasting, for instance, or other activities, then it is more transformational. As we speak, we're working in some very large organizations in CMT, again, in the context of aerospace and defense, to deploy these new digital platforms from engineering services to production to post-sales end to end with 3D features in it, and so forth. It's truly transformational, and it's not just low-hanging fruit or simple migration. So, we see more and more now -- as the market is maturing and as the leaders are understanding better the power of the digital transformation -- the shift from simple migration to drive the easy cost to more profound digital transformation to win the big prize. So, from the low-hanging fruit to the big prize, this is the difference with the migration to the transformation. We see more of those. Brian Essex -- Morgan Stanley -- Executive Director Great, that's very helpful. One quick follow-up for David. David, I think last quarter, you said you might come in a tick under $1 billion for M&A. Do you still have that outlook, or does that change at all for the remainder of the year? David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Yeah, it is -- our current view is that we'll land somewhere in the range of $650 million to $750 million of invested capital. We're fine with that. We're not in the business of just trying to do deals for the sake of doing deals. We want to do the right deals, and so, that's going to be the level that we're going to be at this year, but we are committed to that being an important part of our strategy going forward, and as we've said, up to 25% of our operating cash flow is our strategic capital allocation model objective. We always have an active pipeline, and that's true today, and so, it's something that we continue to focus on as an important part of our strategy. Brian Essex -- Morgan Stanley -- Executive Director Super helpful. Thank you for squeezing me in. David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Great, thank you. Operator We'll now turn the conference back over to our host and panelists for any closing remarks. Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thanks a lot again to all of you for joining us on today's call. In closing -- and, I'm sure you heard that throughout the call -- we and I feel very good about where we are. We feel confident in our ability to finish the year strong. We believe that with the highly differentiated capability we have built in the New, our continued investments across Accenture, and the disciplined management of our business, we are extremely well positioned to continue driving profitable growth and delivering value for our clients, our people, and our shareholders. We look forward to talking with you again next quarter, and in the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to call Angie and the team. All the best, and thanks again for joining and supporting Accenture. Operator Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference call for today. On behalf of today's panel, we'd like to thank you for your participation in today's earnings call and thank you for using our service. Have a wonderful day. You may now disconnect. Duration: 64 minutes Call participants: Angie Park -- Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations Pierre Nanterme -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David P. Rowland -- Chief Financial Officer Jason Kupferberg -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Tien-tsin Huang -- JPMorgan Chase -- Managing Director Bryan Bergin -- Cowen and Company -- Director Jamie Friedman -- Susquehanna Financial Group -- Analyst James Schneider -- Goldman Sachs -- Managing Director Harshita Rawat -- Sanford C. Bernstein -- Analyst Rod Bourgeois -- DeepDive Equity -- Head of Research and Consulting Bryan Keane -- Deutsche Bank -- Managing Director Brian Essex -- Morgan Stanley -- Executive Director More ACN analysis This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. 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 recommends Accenture. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . View comments || Most Americans Know What It's Like to Be Broke: Being "broke" can mean different things to you depending upon the stage of life you're in. A college kid who views themselves broke may have no money, but still have access to food and a roof over their head. To an adult, broke may mean that the cash available to them won't cover their core bills, or will do so with no cushion.
Regardless of your exact definition, being broke is something the vast majority of Americans say they've experienced, according to a new survey of 1,050 adults conducted byCreditLoan.com. In the study, 86% of respondents said they'd been broke at some time in the past -- or consider themselves broke right now.
That sobering number shows that money problems are nearly universal. On the positive side, if you're in the subset of the 86% who are running on fiscal fumes today, that figure shows you're not alone, and suggests there's hope.
Image source: CreditLoan.com
Based on the study, most people don't require someone to have literally no money to their name to be viewed as broke.
"Our survey revealed, on average, people considered having $878 available to them in cash or a bank account to be 'broke,'" wrote CreditLoan.com Founder Daniel Wesley in a blog post on the survey. "Close to $900 in the bank might seem far from destitute, but considering it's 71.3% of the average national rent, that little nest egg can evaporate quickly, especially if you're living on your own."
It's important to note that neither gender nor age made much of a difference in the answers that survey respondents gave. The reasonswhypeople wound up broke, however, varied by age.
The top three reasons millennials (born 1981-1997) gave were "spent my money on food" (28%), "spent money on unnecessary items" (25%), and "quit my job" (17%). Generation Xers (born 1965 to 1980) had the same two top answers, albeit at 21% and 19% respectively, but followed those with "spent my money helping someone else" (15%) and "had to wait on significant other or roommate to get paid" (14%).
Baby boomers (born 1946 to 1964) had spending money on others as their top answer at 21%. That was followed by "spent money on unnecessary items (13%), with "spent my money on food" and "fired from my job" in a tie for third place at 11%.
Being broke is something most people have experienced. Image source: Getty Images.
The best first step anyone can take to stay away from the financial edge is tomake a budget. It's hard to avoid overspending if you don't know how much you have, or where your money is going. Once you have a handle on your income versus your expenses, consider where you can trim that later category so you can start setting more aside. Task No. 1 in that vein is building up an emergency fund sufficient to cover at least six months of your household expenses -- assuming you don't have one already.
Saving that much cash likely won't happen quickly, and may require you to make more changes to your life than simply spending less. You might need to start volunteering for more overtime (if you can), take on another job, or develop a side hustle. But it's hard to beat the peace of mind provided by having a robust cushion between you and being broke.
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
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#SPINDLE price
$SPD (BTC)
Yobit :0.00000201
HitBTC :0.00000218
LiveCoin:0.00000238
$SPD (JPY)
Yobit :1.51
HitBTC :1.64
LiveCoin:1.79 || #SellCryptocurrency, #BitcoinAndCryptocurrency Cryptocurrency Charts – Ethereum & Bitcoin Turning Near-term Bearish - DailyFX https://goo.gl/t3ch6Y pic.twitter.com/o0buA3jXCH || One Bitcoin now worth $7691.38@bitstamp. High $7790.690. Low $7617.420. Market Cap $131.316 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/4kIkFJz3iF || Do you guys find it odd that so many people do technical analysis on BTC, but 99.9999% of them have never shown trade, let alone a live trade? Know who to trust in this game. It's extremely important that you guys don't ever get scammed or mislead. So eyes opened always. || Blockchain-Based Video-On-Demand Platform Aims to Revolutionize the Entertainment Industry https://themerkle.com/blockchain-based-video-on-demand-platform-aims-to-revolutionize-the-entertainment-industry/ …
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Trend: down || Prices: 7434.39, 7032.85, 7068.48, 6951.80, 6753.12, 6305.80, 6568.23, 6184.71, 6295.73, 6322.69
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2019-10-25]
BTC Price: 8660.70, BTC RSI: 55.51
Gold Price: 1499.50, Gold RSI: 52.46
Oil Price: 56.66, Oil RSI: 59.43
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Binance offers 125X margin borrowing for high-risk traders: Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trade volume, now offers high-risk margin traders up to 125 percent leverage on its derivatives platform, Binance Futures. Launched earlier this year , Binance Futures lets traders borrow money against bets on Bitcoins future price, amplifying both the losses and gains by the borrowed amount. When a user is unable to pay back the margin, their holdings on the platform are liquidated. Binance Futures previously offered up to only twenty-times margin, a far cry from the 100X margin popularized by derivatives exchanges BitMEX . Now users trading the Bitcoin-USDT pair will be able to borrow up to 125 percent of the funds they hold. USDT is a dollar-denominated digital currency used widely in Asia and currently the subject of an investigation by the New York Attorney General. As Binance puts it in todays announcement, at 125x leverage, a 100 USDT collateral deposit on Binance Futures will allow users to hold 12,500 USDT in BTC. A spokeswoman said the new margin option was the result of surging popularity in the platform. Yesterday it was revealed that Binance Futures had hit an all-time-high of $700 million traded in a single day. Binance wont say how many traders its futures platform has claimed, but CEO Changpeng Zhao noted the first liquidation in a somewhat cautionary tweet earlier this year. Nevertheless, the spokeswoman insists that these losses are covered by the exchanges insurance fund. We've had 0 liquidations so far, she said. Thats a marked different from BitMEX, whose auto-liquidations are so frequent that they are catalogued by a Twitter account . The 125X feature was in high demand among customers, said Aaron Gong, the director of Binance Futures. What about the potential risks posed? Users have the choice to decide and adjust their leverage if they want lower or higher leverage, he said. In this update, we provide built-in risk controls for traders and have also released a slider bar function, which allows users to choose their leverage between 1x and 125x. Conservative users are invited to set their leverage as low as 1x. Binance Futures also plans to roll out several new major features that address community feedback, as well as several surprises of our own, said Gong. || Three key insights from Zuckerberg's Libra testimony in Congress: Four months can make a lifetime’s worth of difference to a project like Facebook's Libra.
When he appeared before Congressional representatives in July,Libraco-creator David Marcus adopted an aggressive posture and refused to halt development of its blockchain and cryptocurrency for the sake of regulators. Back then, curiosity about the project was high and lawmakers were asking for a moratorium on its development until they could understand its implications.
Marcus’ boss, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, appeared more contrite in his Congressional appearance today. “Our views [about Libra] have clarified,” he said in response to a question from Rep. Juan Vargas (D-CA).
That clarification includesa commitment to withdrawFacebook from Libra, if it was not approved by U.S. regulators, a rebranding of Libra as a payment system instead of a currency, and an admission that theirblockchainwas, in fact, not decentralized like mostcryptocurrencies.
Zuckerberg said Facebook would exit the Libra Association, if the latter went ahead and released a cryptocurrency that was not approved by U.S. regulators. “We won’t launch it [Libra] here or elsewhere in the world until we get FSOC [Financial Stability Oversight Council]approval,” he said.
Zuckerberg’s commitment is a sharp departure from his colleague David Marcus’ July non-assurances to Congress that his team would work with regulators even as it continued work on the project.
The Libra Association haslost a quarter of its partnersand its proposed currency is under fire from regulators worldwide. A Facebook departure will be a further blow to its existence and could jeopardize its very survival.
Since it was announced in June, Libra has been the subject of intensegovernment andregulatory scrutiny. Concerns about the cryptocurrency have ranged from its possible effect on government monetary policy to the implications of having one of the world’s biggest technology companies issue its own currency for transactions on its platform.
Today’s hearings held a mirror to those concerns and added some more, including diversity and the status of Libra. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) took Zuckerberg to task for failing to name the civil rights law firm that Facebook has hired in Washington D.C. while Rep. Al Green (D-TX) highlighted the Facebook CEO’s ignorance about the diversity in Libra’s Board.
Representatives also focused on Facebook’s past record on these topics to make their case against Libra. For example, Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-NY) pointed to Facebook’spayment of afine to EU officials for sharing data between WhatsApp, its messaging platform, and the social network as proof that Facebook could not be trusted. “Have you learned [from the fine] that you should not lie?” she asked Zuckerberg. But he was unable to provide definite answers to most questions.
In between, Zuckerberg also let slip that Libra’s organization was centralized. “As a big company, we are not going to do anything that’s decentralized,” he told Rep. Carolyn Mahoney (D-NY).
To be sure, Libra’s centralized structure, which violates one of the key tenets of decentralized cryptocurrencies likeBitcoin, is an open secret within the cryptocurrency community. Crypto purists have balked at its structure, which places select multinational corporations and nonprofits at the top and includes authorized sellers of the coin.
In today’s Congressional hearing, Zuckerberg corrected course quickly from his verbal mishap and later told Rep. Vincente Gonzalez (D-TX) that decentralization was an aspiration and a goal but was not necessarily set in stone.
Throughout the hearing, Zuckerberg held out the prospect that Libra’s implementation and plans could change based on circumstances and regulatory engagement.
When Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) asked him about the dividends that Libra Association members were initially expected to receive for their $10 million investment, Zuckerberg demurred. “That idea has either morphed or been abandoned,” he said. A dividend payment could potentially set up Libra to be regulated as a security under existing SEC rules.
He also told Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) that Libra was a payment system and not “money.” The distinction is important because it could mean that the blockchain might be released without its currency.
To that extent, Zuckerberg also left the door open in today’s hearings for Libra to be launched with “individual sovereign currencies” in digital form, instead of a globally accepted coin. With governments around the worldworking onormullingaboutdigitalequivalents of their fiat currencies, the idea might gain regulatory traction and will be easier to navigate for the association.
“We clearly have not locked down how this will work,” said Zuckerberg.
That might be the understatement of the year. || US Lawmakers Ask Fed to Consider Developing ‘National Digital Currency’: Two U.S. lawmakers want the Federal Reserve to consider creating a digital dollar.
In a letter sent to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) outline concerns they have about risks to the U.S. dollar if another country or private company creates a widely used cryptocurrency, and ask whether the central bank is looking into creating its own version.
First reported by Bloomberg Law, the letter details how the Fed has the right to create and manage U.S. currency policy.
Related:No Argument for Replacing Dollars Global Role With Crypto: Ex-Fed Official
The Federal Reserve, as the central bank of the United States, has the ability and the natural role to develop a national digital currency, the Congressmen wrote, adding:
We are concerned that the primacy of the U.S. Dollar could be in long-term jeopardy from wide adoption of digital fiat currencies. Internationally, the Bank for International Settlements conducted a study that found that over 40 countries around the world have currently developed or are looking into developing a digital currency.
Indeed, there have been some calls for the global financial system to move away from the dollar. Most notably, Bank of England governor Mark Carney suggested that a digital currency backed by a basket of other financial instrumentsmight help nations make this shift.
In Mondays letter, Foster and Hill wrote that cryptocurrencies are currently used for speculative purposes in the U.S., but their use may increasingly align with that of paper money in the future.
Related:What Trumps Bitcoin Tweet Changes
The U.S. should not rely on private companies to develop digital currencies, they wrote. The letter specifically mentions the Facebook-led Libra stablecoin.
The Facebook/Libra proposal, if implemented, the congressmen wrote, could remove important aspects of financial governance outside of U.S. jurisdiction.
The letter goes on to mention recent cryptocurrency efforts byJ.P. MorganandWells Fargo.
The letter asks a number of questions, including whether the Fed is currently looking into developing a digital currency, whether there are any contingency plans if digital fiat currencies gain traction, what legal, regulatory or national security issues might prevent the Fed from developing a digital currency, what market risks or other issues might result from a Fed cryptocurrency and what benefits there might be to the project.
Hill and Foster are not the only individuals to suggest that the Fed might benefit from creating its own cryptocurrency. Last year, former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chair Sheila Bairalso recommended the Fed look into creating a digital currencyas a way of avoiding being disrupted by the private sector or another nation.
The Federal Reserve is also lookingto create a real-time payments system, though it is unclear whether there will be a cryptocurrency-like aspect to it.
In the letter, the Congressmen suggest that it might even be an urgent matter for the Fed, writing:
With the potential for digital currencies to further take on the characteristics and utility of paper money, it may become increasingly imperative that the Federal Reserve take up the project of developing a U.S. dollar digital currency.
A message left with the Federal Reserves press office was not immediately returned.
Update (Oct. 3, 16:52 UTC):Following the publication of this article, a spokesperson for Hill told CoinDesk that the Congressman does not have a position on the Fed creating a digital currency, and considers the correspondence more of a fact finding letter.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell image viaFederal Reserve / Flickr
• Fed Chairman Jerome Powell Compares Bitcoin to Gold
• Fed Chair Says Libra ‘Cannot Go Forward’ Until Facebook Addresses Concerns || The Block Review: BitBox02: Disclosure: Shift Cryptosecurity, the creators of BitBox, sent The Block the BitBox02 devices that are reviewed in this article. The Block is beginning a new series in which we will offer "first impression" reviews of products in the cryptocurrency industry; this article is the first in that series. As supporters of hardware devices, it is always exciting to test out the innovative and distinct products produced by manufacturers in this industry. To be clear, I am not a security expert or engineer, so reviews considering those aspects will be left to those better suited to write them. For The Block's series of reviews, we will approach products from the perspective of an everyday consumer, where we do have significant experience in. Let's jump in! BitBox02 is the second version of Shift Cryptosecurity’s flagship Digital BitBox (now called BitBox01) cryptocurrency hardware wallet. While Shift Cryptosecurity opted for an extremely minimalist approach (the device was the size of a large thumb and had no screens) when making BitBox01, the team has launched a much larger device with a clean design and a screen with BitBox02. In addition to their multi-coin support, Shift Cryptosecurity also launched a Bitcoin-only version of the BitBox02. A spokesperson tells me there was an internal push from the team to build the device and that Bitcoin-dedicated hardware reduces the device's attack surface. The BitBox02 device came in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag and, unlike the bags Coldcard wallets come in, can’t be opened with your bare hands. This approach, one would imagine, lowers the chance of a supply-chain attack, so out came the scissors. Hardware After opening the package, we are presented with a three-flap box containing the BitBox02 and a number of accessories. Below is a picture of the items: The numbered items include: Manual Stickers USB-C extension cable 8GB SanDisk microSD card USB-C to USB-A adapter Lanyards The BitBox02 with a rubber cover Below is a picture of the BitBox02 We also took a picture of the device with a Ledger Nano X for comparison purposes. As mentioned earlier, unlike its predecessor, the BitBox02 has a screen. The resolution is 1,28 x 64 pixels according to the company, which is similar to the Ledger Nano X. The screen is also a huge fingerprint magnet. As an owner of one of the newer MacBook Pros, I felt immediate satisfaction after realizing BitBox02 was built with USB-C support. Having to always pull out an Apple dongle whenever you want to use a Ledger or Trezor with your USB-C only laptop can be very annoying. It’s good that the Shift Cryptosecurity team is taking a forward-looking approach with their products. Story continues On that topic, one of the first things that immediately confused me was the extension cord (#3) that came with the box. I couldn’t figure out why it was necessary, considering you can just attach the USB-A adapter directly to the BitBox02. Then, I actually started using the device plugged directly into my laptop, and I realized why the cord was necessary. But more on that later. Another annoying experience was having to deal with the microSD card slot. Shift Cryptosecurity said that they fixed some issues after feedback from their beta users, but I still find plugging the card into the slot much more difficult than doing the same for Coldcard. There are times where I would miss the slot just by a little and wouldn’t be able to lock the card in. Software At the time of publishing, the BitBox02 is only usable with the native BitBox desktop app. However, I was told by the team that it was working on adding Electrum support. The native desktop app offers support for Windows, macOS, and Linux. To use the app, users are initially required to plug in their microSD card. Unlike other hardware devices, BitBox02 backs up a user’s private keys directly onto the microSD card, so they don’t have to manually write down their 24 words. Users can still access the words in the desktop app if they ever feel the need to. Long-time BitBox users are used to this process as are some Coldcard users. If you are moving from Ledger or Trezor, however, you might feel a sense of anxiety at not being able to physically hold a rectangular piece of paper or a metal plate embedded with your private keys. Here is where we also experience BitBox02’s quirky user experience and its touch sensors. Unlike any device I’ve ever seen, BitBox02 has built-in touch sensors that users must interact with to use the device. The main motions are tapping for selections and a sort of pinching for confirming. While I found these sensors fun and unique, my colleague called it “damn annoying.” We both agree the pinch move was cool. This is also where the extension cord comes in. As you can see in the GIF above, a plugged-in BitBox02 on a flat surface leaves little room to tap. This would lead to the device, at times, not receiving the signals to input characters. Once a user has selected their password to unlock the device, they are presented with a dashboard with the Bitcoin app shown by default. Users can then click the “manage device” settings to change between fiat currencies they want the app to display and the cryptocurrencies they want to interact with. Currently, the multi-coin BitBox02 has support for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and six ERC-20 tokens (USDT, LINK, BAT, MKR, ZRX, DAI). As a note, Ethereum and ERC-20 support are currently in beta-mode with Shift Cryptosecurity recommending users keep a small amount in these wallets until they come out of beta, so BitBox02 is not exactly an Ethereum-friendly wallet. The Shift Cryptosecurity team did tell me that Ethereum support will come out of beta mode when they feel that their users are happy with its usability. Shift Cryptosecurity plans on adding MyEtherWallet support for the device as well. Conclusion While Shift Cryptosecurity and the BitBox have been around for a while, they have yet to receive the same amount of mindshare obtained by the likes of Ledger, Trezor, and even Coldcard. While the BitBox02 might not be a newbie wallet, its unique spin on user-interface and forward-looking approach make it, at the very least, a piece of hardware that cryptocurrency holders should consider. Please reach out to steven@theblockcrypto.com if you have recommendations on new products to review View comments || Bitcoin volumes in Hong Kong skyrocket via LocalBitcoins amid city-wide protests and unrest: Hong Kong has seen a sharp increase in bitcoin (BTC) volumes in recent weeks as the city reels from protests and unrest.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange LocalBitcoins recorded its third-highest weekly BTC volume at $1.42 million or 172.8 BTC in the last week.
Source:LocalBitcoins, The BlockThe highest weekly BTC volume on LocalBitcoins was recorded in Dec. 2017 at $1.53 million, followed by $1.51 million in Jan. 2018.
Hong Kong has been witnessing the “worst unrestin more than 50 years” amid worsening political tensions. Protestors have been rallyingsince Junewhen the general public started opposing a bill that could have allowed the extradition of those convicted of crimes to mainland China and Taiwan. The bill has been withdrawn, but the protests are still ongoing. || Bitcoin IRA Is Letting Customers Lend Out Their Crypto Retirement Funds: Bitcoin IRA will soon allow customers to lend their retirement assets for interest.
The firm, which provides digital asset individual retirement accounts (IRAs) is partnering with digital currencytraderand lender Genesis Trading to offer interest on cryptocurrency and cash holdings that customers want to lend out, including bitcoin, ether, XRP, litecoin, and zcash.
The program will be launched in November with a limited number of participants on a first-come, first-served basis, and annual interest rates will vary based on lending coin and term length.
Related:Lending Protocol Founders to Launch ‘Neo-Bank’ Offering Interest on USDC
Bitcoin IRA declined to define a limit, but chief operating officer Chris Kline told CoinDesk that the firm aims to have the product available to anyone over the next six to seven months.
Kline said:
“We’re breaking new ground here, and we want to make sure clients understand everything and that it works well.”
The product is part of the company’s goal to eliminate annual custodial and monthly wallet fees for customers, he added. Yet, the firm wouldn’t reveal estimates on what interest rates would be.
Related:Genesis Trading Acquires Quant Investment Firm Qu Capital
“We’ll be able to offer more details on interest yields when we have an actual result,” Kline said.
“You’ll see some groups offer up to 8 to 12 percent interest. They often have asterisks next to those numbers … those rates are more in the 2 to 3 to 4 percent range. You’ll see someone deploy a 12 percent rate on bitcoin for three days.”
Bitcoin IRA chose Genesis because of the lending firm’s track record for being able to take on new clients.
Currently, Bitcoin IRA has processed more than $350 million in investments for more than 4,000 clients. Genesis has so far lent out a cumulative $2.3 billion in cryptocurrency and cash.
The product expansion is a deepening of Genesis’ relationship with Bitcoin IRA, which was already using Genesis’ over-the-counter trading desk.
“They are the largest digital IRA provider that we are aware of, and I think that we always want to be working with the leaders in the space,” Martin Garcia, co-head of sales and trading at Genesis, told CoinDesk.
Bitcoin IRA’s partnership with Genesis comes despite the fact that the pension plan provider is embroiled in a lawsuit with Kingdom Trust, a Kentucky-based trust custodian that supported its product in 2016.
Kingdom claims that Bitcoin IRA has been using deceptive practices to get customers to switch from Kingdom Trust to BitGo, a qualified custodian with which Bitcoin IRA partnered in June.
Jason Anderson, president of Kingdom Trust, told CoinDesk:
“Clients have been surprised to find that their account is being transferred to a new custodian. In a lot of cases clients have chosen to reverse that decision.”
On Friday, a Kentucky federal judge dismissed Kingdom’s claims with prejudice, and Bitcoin IRA has filed a motion that the claims should proceed in South Dakota, where it filed its countersuit.
Despite the suit, Bitcoin IRA hasn’t stopped releasing products. In early September, the firm announced facial recognition for authentication of transactions. Later last month, it announced crypto swaps from bitcoin into ether without delays in settlement.
By next year, the firm aims to make its accounts open to a wider customer base by removing it’s $3,000 account minimum and replacing it with an automatic minimum monthly savings increment. While the firm doesn’t have a set estimate yet, Kline said that $50 a month might be a “realistic estimate.”
Kline said:
“It’s our biggest rollout. It will be designed so that everyone has access to retirement savings for cryptocurrencies.”
Bitcoinimage via Shutterstock
• Custody Provider Legacy Trust Launches Crypto Pension Plan
• Crypto Lender Dharma Pivots to Stablecoin Savings Accounts || Bitfinex adds public leaderboard for Bitcoin traders to showcase their skills: Bitfinex has gone live with anew leaderboardfor traders to compete and publicly verify their crypto trading gains.
Traders who decide to opt into the public leaderboard will be able to chart their trading performance on any trading pair listed in Bitfinex—and compare their trading statistics with rival traders.
Having such a leaderboard is not uncommon amongst crypto exchanges. In fact, the leadingBitcoinfutures exchange today, BitMEX—has had aleaderboardfor many years that displays the top 25 traders by both ROE (return on exchange) and also the notional profits in Bitcoin.
On the BitMEX leaderboard, users are however unable to filter by time frame—with the leaderboard acting more like an all-time greatness list—rather than who is doing the best over a period of time or a certain market.
Unlike BitMEX, Bitfinex’s leaderboard will have a number of categories that are available to toggle. These include both time (3 hours, 7 days and 30 days), a user's trading volume, and trading profits in USD.
Just last week, Bitfinexwent livewith a new set of 100x leverage Bitcoin and Ethereum derivative markets.
With high leverage now available, and an interactive list for traders to showcase their skills—we hope that traders don’t get too carried away in volatile crypto markets. If they do, they may end up with their names at the wrong end of the leaderboard. || Inside Telegram's secretive TON blockchain network: The Telegram Open Network, or TON, is Telegram’s upcomingProof-of-Stakenetwork that promises to integrate blockchain payments into its messaging app that serves some 300 million users. If it delivers on promises of high speeds and decentralization, it will be the largest blockchain launch in history.
TON’s slated to launch by October 31, having raised $1.7 billion in a privateICOfor its native token, GRAM. But the project has been shrouded in mystery from its conception; with little information, no regulation, and barely any acknowledgment by Telegram itself. It’s anyone’s guess how things will go.
But earlier this month, Telegramreleasedthe source code for the TON blockchain. With it, 450,000 lines of code, and several hundred pages of documentation, including a new whitepaper, detailed technical guides to the TON blockchain and the TON Virtual Machine, and a guide to Fift, a programming language created for TON.
It’s the first time TON’s code has been released to the public. TON began closed testing in April 2019, but developers could only access TON through a client that connected to a single node, according to Russian news outletVedemosti. Now, there are 100 nodes operated by Telegram, many more by TON, and developers can use the code to create their own nodes. It’s the first public major stress test of the network, and developers are finally getting their hands on it.
But even if TON’s network turns out to be a dud, Telegram's probably going to stick to the October 31 launch date “because theyhave to,” blockchain critic David Gerard toldDecrypt. Gerard’s referring to a leaked private sales agreement which stated that, if Telegram doesn’t build a GRAM wallet into its messaging app by October 31, investors have a right to ask for their $1.7 billion back, paid in US dollars. We spoke to those currently building on TON to find out more about the secretive project.
The recent data dump finally gives the public something concrete to go on.
First, we finally got confirmation about what TON actually is. The release included a new description of the blockchain and a description of TON’s virtual machine providing us with the most recent, comprehensive explanations of the TON network to date. TON, then, is aproof-of-stakeblockchain platform, promising instant, secure transactions. There’s one master blockchain, many more “working blockchains” that do the heavy lifting, and then “shard blockchains” that separate the “working blockchains” even further.
What else? “We learned that it's a very fast blockchain,” Mitja Goroshevsky, CTO ofTON Labs, a company that is building developer tools for the TON network, toldDecrypt. “It has around [a] five-second master chain block time [confirmation], and an average of about two to three seconds on the work chain,” he said.
These early signs suggest that TON seems to be delivering on its promise to be faster than popular competitors like Ethereum and Bitcoin, but speed is more than just a number. “There are 2,000 applications on Ethereum, but they’re more or less simple dapps with limited functionality because you’re waiting seventeen seconds [for transactions to be finalized],” Goroshevsky toldDecrypt. “We can create very complex applications [on TON] of different smart contracts interacting with each other”. Think decentralized fintech, gaming, and e-commerce, said Goroshevsky. “It can push the blockchain use case to another level”, he toldDecrypt.
And although some blockchains, likeEOS, are already faster thanEthereum, not many people are using them (apart from bots). By comparison, more than “300 million users of Telegram will have access to the blockchain by the end of October,” Goroshevsky toldDecrypt. First-time users of crypto still have to install a new app, like Coinbase or Binance—companies most people have still never heard of before. TON, by comparison, will be integrated directly into Telegram messenger, a shiny, easy to use application built by a company that hundreds of millions already know and trust. “That’s never happened before”, said Goroshevsky.
Goroshevsky said all this means that Ethereum and EOS developers are very interested in working on TON because their products will finally be accessible to the masses. His own company, TON Labs, is working on tools that make it easier for developers to build on the TON network, and he toldDecryptthat hundreds of developers are already working on projects for the network.
But the new data dump is also notable for the things itdidn’tmention. Blockchain critic David Gerard has long noted that documentation on the TON network never adequately addressedsecurity concerns, and this new documentation doesn’t do much better. But Goroshevsky, who’s worked closely with the developers of TON toldDecryptthat the specs have been available to developers for over a year , the testnet has been available for around six months, that anybody could have performed a full security audit if they wanted to. “We'll see how TON goes when it's live with money circulating in it, and attackers have a prize to win,” Gerard toldDecryptin response to hearing Goroshevsky’s defense.
But that’s not all: Mitesh Shah, CEO of blockchain analytics companyOmnia Markets Inc, and an expert in crypto regulatory issues said that Telegram has given little information about where and how user data is stored. “There are more users here than on any other chain, and having it stored in a proper place is one of the largest concerns,” Shah toldDecrypt. With a novel, untested protocol, launching to more people than ever before, TON is a risky business.
And it’s still too early to tell if TON is actually any good: Constantine Koltsov, a partner at Qiwi Blockchain Technology, toldDecryptthat there’s so much code that it’ll take a long time to sift through it all. Koltsov toldDecrypthe expects it’ll take longer than a month for the public network to stabilize, cutting things close to the looming October 31st launch date.
If Telegram bungles the launch date, and doesn’t end up pushing TON out by Halloween, investors can ask for their $1.7 billion back. || Ethereum is halal, conclude prominent Muslim scholars: Cryptocurrencies haveperplexedMuslim scholars for several years now.
Debates generally concerns its status as currency: Shari'ah principles forbidusury—lending money to make profits through interest—and prefer exchanges of goods to be backed by physical assets, like gold. But cryptocurrencies typically aren’t backed by physical assets, and people can make massive profits through interest, causing a stir within the Islamic finance community.
But a new paper released earlier this month might finally provide some clarity.
Prominent Muslim scholars have released awhitepapercertifying that Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, ether, is, in fact, Shari'ah compliant. The paper, by Amanie Advisors, said that because ether is a utility token, which is mostly used to power the network, the Shari’ah laws around currency don’t apply.
But the scholars reserve judgment on particular uses of the Ethereum network. If specific tokens, for instance, are used to make profits from interest, then that wouldn’t be Shari’ah compliant. And if Ethereum started being used as currency, then Amanie Advisors would need to take another look. They also said that both the Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake mining mechanisms could be Shari’ah compliant, but Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake mechanism is subject to review once work on it has been completed.
Though Amanie Advisors’ judgment is by no means enforceable, their opinion is influential. Amanie Advisors is a well-respected, moderate voice within the Islamic finance community, and the report could convince Muslim developers to develop apps on the network.
“It is easier for Islamic finance houses to produce certified products. Individuals who are more faith conscious can now engage without any doubt that the emerging tech is fully permissible to use,” saysAtif Yaqub, a Muslim blockchain enthusiast who helped communicates the technical aspects of Ethereum to Amanie Advisors, and the Shari’ah understanding to Ethereum.
More conservative schools of thought may not accept Amanie’s judgment. In a 2017 speech, Shaikh Haitham al-Haddad, a conservative Muslim scholar who sits on the UK’s Islamic Sharia Council, issued afatwaon Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But Yaqub says that Amanie and its scholars have a broad enough appeal for their scholarly opinion be widely accepted. Amanie Advisors’ chairman, Dr. Mohamed Ali Elgari, is a professor of Islamic Economics and the former Director of the Centre for Research in Islamic Economics at King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia.
The project started when Virgil Griffith, head of special projects at Ethereum, wrote ablog articlelast year saying that ether is more halal than bitcoin. Then, Yaqub ran into Griffith at a blockchain conference in Korea and talked to him about his blog article. Griffith, enthused, reach out to Amanie Advisors. They’ve been working together ever since.
The project has courted controversy last month whenCoindeskaccused Ethereum of courting investors from Saudi Arabia, which has a poor human-rights record. Griffith said that blockchain technology has generated a lot of interest from Saudi Arabian investors, but the interest has nothing to do with the country’s politics.
Yaqub’s own blockchain project, CLARITY, could stand to benefit from the judgment. Amanie’s judgment means that it’d be easier to connect Islamic Finance products into CLARITY’s ecosystem. But Yaqub tellsDecryptthat “the religious input was purely from Amanie and therefore no direct impact from my involvement.” || Casa announces a new version of its Bitcoin full node: Casa, the bitcoin custody services provider, hasannouncedthe launch of Casa Node 2, the second iteration of its flagship plug-and-play Bitcoin full node.
According to the company, Casa Node 2 will run with a faster processor on the new Raspberry Pi 4 and will include 4GB of RAM compared to the 1GB found in the original Casa Node device
In addition to the launch of the new node, Casa has announced a new version of its native node software, NodeOS. NodeOS will offer a new design, dark mode, and support for BTCPayServer, the popular open-source bitcoin payments processor.
Casa plans to ship a "limited number" of Casa Node 2 devices in October and November at a discounted price.
According to Casa CEO and founder Jeremy Welch, since launching the original Casa Node in 2018, the firm has soldand shipped over 2,000 nodes globally to over 60 countries.
"This is just the beginning," Welch said, adding that Casa's recentlylaunchedHeartbeats product and its mobile application SatsApp will make it "easier than ever to maintain your own Node and own security."
When asked whether Casa plans to move into the hardware wallet space, Welch tells The Block that "we have no plans to make a hardware wallet," adding that the company, however, plans to add new wallet integrations to its multisig product such as Coldcard Wallet support.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
⚡⚡1hr Volume Alert!⚡⚡ $MDA current volume: 14.23 $BTC average: 2.47 $BTC which is 476.06% above average, Price: 0.00005733 (-0.09%) || Bitcoin-Friendly Japan Clarifies Stance on Crypto Donations – It’s Legal https://t.co/V3dEdFNlfm #Bitcoin #Cryptocurrency #CryptocurrencyNews #japan #Regulation || It is extremely hard to see the truth when you rule the World. You're just too busy. || 仮想通貨市場全体
基軸BTCを含め、メジャーアルトの多くのチャートではボラが抑えられ、よこよこチャートが観測されます。
落とされるところで落とされない。
売りと買いの勢力が大きな足で見ても均衡状態にあると言えます。
嵐の前の静けさでしょうか。 || I will do website redesign, clone or duplicate
#Trump #bitcoin #BoyWithLuv #KasautiiZindagiiKay #Bangladesh #coinmasterfreespinslink #graphicdesign #ITChapterTwo
#Millennials #Onam #QAnon
https://t.co/uzDA92owdX || #биткоин #bitcoin #ethereum #eth #криптовалюта #btc #блокчейн #blockchain #cryptocurrency #ico #новости #news https://t.co/JxLbQVK5iK || #BTC || @naomibrockwell @mkibbe @naomibrockwell
If you just ignore who wrote it for one second, and read these articles, you will find that your visions are aligned. What you support without really knowing I suppose is anonymity, which is not freedom for anyone.
https://t.co/dIzIcNahgi || MercadoBitcoin(BTC) => R$42385 | BlockChain(BTC) => R$42038 | MercadoBitcoin(LTC) => R$289 #bitcoin #litecoin || @Silver_Watchdog Max Keiser being so pro climate change alarmist makes me think to question BTC even more.
Isnt weird that someone who is so against global banking would be OK with green nonsense?
Unrelated?
|
Trend: up || Prices: 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10, 9324.72, 9235.35, 9412.61
|
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)]
A crypto mining company is listing on the London stock market: A REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi Argo Blockchain plans to raise £20 million through an IPO on the London Stock Exchange. The company is launching a subscription service to let people mine cryptocurrencies through their phones or computers. LONDON — A new company that lets people mine cryptocurrencies through a subscription service has announced plans to list on the London Stock Exchange, a first for the exchange. Argo Blockchain said in a statement on Monday it hopes to raise £20 million in the listing and expects to be valued at around £40 million. Argo says it will be the first crypto-mining company to join London's stock market. The company was set up last year to provide what it calls "mining-as-a-service." The subscription-based service allows consumers to mine cryptocurrencies through their smartphones and computers through Argo's website. Mining is the process through which new cryptocurrencies are created. Computers complete complex cryptographic tasks, which help to process crypto transactions, and are rewarded for their work with newly minted digital coins. However, as the network matures it gets harder and harder to earn new cryptocurrencies and, as a result, the amount of computer processing power needed is increasingly rapidly. Argo cofounder Mike Edwards said in a statement: "Setting up a computer rig to mine cryptocurrency is challenging, inefficient and expensive. I knew that we had to change the game and democratise the process so that crypto-mining could become a mainstream consumer activity." Mining "pools" that allow people to band together to share computer power for crypto mining are already popular in China, with services such as Antpool and BTC.com. Argo will charge customers $25 or £18 a month to join its mining pools, which will let users mine bitcoin gold, ethereum, ethereum classic, and Zcash. Argo's mining facility is located in Quebec, a crypto mining hub , but is headquartered in London. Story continues Jonathan Bixby, executive chairman of Argo, said: "A London stock market listing will provide Argo with the profile, credibility and access to global capital to drive our growth and help us establish a leadership position in the long term." Bixby was entrepreneur-in-residence at Vancouver-based startup accelerator GrowLab prior to Argo. He had set up and sold two tech companies in the past. Edwards is a serial tech investor and has backed businesses that have been sold to Google, Twitter, and Yahoo. NOW WATCH: 80% of startup money goes to 3 states — here's what one visionary is doing to help spread the wealth See Also: A small startup is developing a tool to make money from 'insane' cryptocurrency spreads — and hedge funds are interested CHANOS: 'The last thing I’d want to own is bitcoin if the grid goes down' A top crypto hedge fund lawyer explains the 4 main trading strategies that funds use to make money SEE ALSO: Canada could become the world's bitcoin mining capital as China cracks down DON'T MISS: A top crypto hedge fund lawyer explains the 4 main trading strategies that funds use to make money || 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. || ‘Dark Horse’ U.S. Presidential Candidate Accepts Bitcoin Donations: Andrew Yang Andrew Yang, a “dark horse” U.S. presidential candidate running as a Democrat, tweeted that he is accepting donations in bitcoin, Ether and other cryptocurrencies for his 2020 presidential bid. Yang is a successful entrepreneur who founded an organization called Venture for America, an entrepreneurial fellowship. He authored a book called “The War on Normal People” which argues in favor of a universal basic income of $1,000 a month for all U.S. adults. He is also opposed to artificial intelligence and automation technology. Yang, whose organization is based in New York City, favors a new type of capitalist economy called “human capitalism” that is geared to maximizing human well being. Crypto Donors To Receive Forms Yang’s campaign noted that it accepts bitcoin and any coin based on the ERC20 standard. Donors will receive a form that will allow the campaign to verify their voter qualifications, after which the campaign will send a cryptocurrency wallet address to allow them to make the donation. The maximum donation for an individual is $2,500. The campaign advised donors not to share the campaign’s wallet address since it would allow untraceable donations to be made. Donors must be U.S. citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents. They must be 18 years old and cannot be a federal contractor. Reactions Mixed The Twitter announcement drew mixed reactions. One tweeter said Yang should not be accepting cryptocurrency because bitcoin servers consume too much energy and non-renewable energy that is contributing to climate change. Another tweeter said cryptocurrency is “dark money.” Still, another said cryptocurrency would be used to accept illegal foreign donations. Supporters said it is about time candidates accepted cryptocurrency. Other Candidates Accept Crypto Yang is not the first presidential candidate to accept cryptocurrency donations. U.S. Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, accepted bitcoin campaign contributions in 2016 when he ran for president. Austin Petersen, a Missouri Republican who’s running for Senate, accepted 24 fractional bitcoin donations (totaling $9,700) in January of 2018. Story continues The Libertarian Party of Texas accepted bitcoin donations in 2014. The U.S. federal government, the state of Montana and Washington, D.C. allow cryptocurrency campaign contributions, while Wisconsin is considering accepting them as well. Featured image from Youtube/ The Artificial Intelligence Channel. The post ‘Dark Horse’ U.S. Presidential Candidate Accepts Bitcoin Donations appeared first on CCN . || Better Buy: Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) vs. Alphabet (GOOG): If you had invested in Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Google -- now part of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) -- three years ago, your return on investment would be about the same. Microsoft's shares have climbed 119% as of this writing, and Google/Alphabet shares are up 105%. Those are impressive gains on their own, but they're even better when you consider that the S&P 500 gained just 30% over the same period. Share-price gains aside, both of these companies are still dominating the tech space. But which company looks like the better long-term buy right now? Let's take a look at the companies' financial fortitude, competitive advantages, and valuations to help answer that question. People standing over a conference table pointing to charts Image source: Getty Images. Financial fortitude Company Cash Debt Free Cash Flow (TTM) Microsoft $132.2 billion $88.6 billion $33.5 billion Alphabet $102.8 billion $5.3 billion $21.2 billion Data sources: Yahoo! Finance and Morningstar. TTM = trailing-12-month. Each of these companies has an impressive amount of free cash flow and a massive amount of cash. But Alphabet has significantly less debt, with just over $5 billion, while Microsoft has amassed far more. That doesn't mean that Microsoft has any problems covering its debt responsibilities, but it does mean that Alphabet gets the win in this category. Winner: Alphabet. Competitive advantage Microsoft built its dominance with its Office suite of applications and its Windows operating system, but lately the company has focused its attention on becoming a cloud computing powerhouse. Several years ago Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella set a goal for his company to achieve an annual run rate of $20 billion for cloud computing sales by the end of fiscal 2018. Microsoft achieved the goal in the first quarter of the fiscal year, several quarters ahead of schedule. Much of the company's progress comes from its Azure cloud computing services, which saw sales jump by 93% in the most recent quarter. That's great news, as the cloud computing market is expected to grow from $285 billion last year to $411 billion by 2020. Story continues But even with all of this growth from Microsoft's cloud computing efforts, the company still falls far behind the current leader. Amazon held 33% of the cloud infrastructure market in the first quarter, leaving Microsoft in the No. 2 spot with just 13%. So while cloud computing continues to offer new areas of growth for Microsoft, the company doesn't really have a competitive advantage in the space right now. In contrast to Microsoft, Alphabet has some significant advantages over its competitors in a few key areas. First, and most importantly, Google holds a massive 37% of the digital ad market, compared to its rival Facebook 's 19%. According to data by eMarketer, Google will hold onto 36% or more of the market until at least 2020. This leading position in the ad space earned Google $26.6 billion in the most recent quarter, an increase of 24% year over year. But Alphabet's competitive leads go beyond just the advertising space. Consider that Waymo, a driverless car company spun out of Google, has already taken the lead in the autonomous vehicle space. Waymo has plans to launch a self-driving fleet of taxis later this year, which would be the first ever of its kind . Sure, Waymo isn't a significant source of revenue for the company, but with the autonomous vehicle market expected to reach $127 billion by 2027, Alphabet's advantage starts to become clearer. Additionally, Google has been busy gobbling up artificial intelligence (AI) companies and even building its own AI processor to set itself apart. The company uses AI for everything from its cloud computing platform to software for Waymo, and even to improve its advertising business. With the company's early moves in AI, and its ability to use it across many of its businesses, Alphabet is building out a key position in this growing market as well. Alphabet simply has a bigger lead in its key advertising business than Microsoft does with its cloud computing focus, as well as other growing advantages over its competitors. So I'm giving Alphabet the win here. Winner: Alphabet. Valuation Now let's take a quick look at both of these companies' valuations based on their price-to-earnings ratios (P/E) and their forward P/Es (a ratio that looks at future earnings projections). Company P/E Ratio (TTM) Forward P/E Microsoft 67.0 24.6 Alphabet 47.4 23.6 Data source: Yahoo Finance. TTM = trailing-12-month. Alphabet data is for Class C (GOOG) shares. Technology stocks often have high price-to-earnings ratios relative to other industries and the broader S&P 500, which has an average P/E of about 25 right now. Surprisingly, Microsoft and Alphabet's shares currently trade at about that average when factoring in projected earnings. But when we look back at Microsoft's trailing P/E we see that it's significantly higher than Alphabet's, making its shares relatively more expensive. Microsoft's stock isn't absurdly overpriced, but it does appear more expensive than Alphabet's shares, so Alphabet gets the win for this category. Winner: Alphabet. The verdict Based on all of the factors above, Alphabet is the better buy right now. I still believe Microsoft is a good bet for many investors . But when you compare Alphabet's dominance in advertising and other businesses, along with the company's strong financial performance and its relatively inexpensive share price, Alphabet is the clear winner. 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. Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors; LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Chris Neiger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), AMZN, and FB. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || China Just Dealt a Massive Blow to the Solar Industry: The solar industry has had an impressive run over the past year on strong demand for solar panels around the world. No country has been more aggressive in growing solar installations than China. Out of 99 gigawatts (GW) of solar projects built in 2017, 53 GW were built in China. That bullish streak came to an end on Monday when China took steps to slow its solar industry . Feed-in tariffs that provide set prices for electric power sent to the grid will be cut, and distributed generation (DG) projects will be capped until further notice. Early estimates are that solar installations will fall to around 35 GW in 2018, with a lot of that already installed. The impact of the policy changes will be widespread, and no company will be spared. Solar farm in a desert with mountains in the background. Image source: Getty Images. How China is undercutting its own solar industry China's solar cuts were widespread and will affect most of the downstream industry. China's National Development and Reform Commission said there would be no more planned ground-mounted solar projects in 2018 and subsidies for future ground-mounted projects would be forbidden. The feed-in tariff for solar projects was also reduced by 0.05 yuan per kilowatt-hour, a cut of 6.7% to 9% depending on the region, which will reduce the payback of solar project development. Those changes are effective June 1, 2018, so there was no notice of the cut. Distributed solar farms were also capped at 10 GW for 2018, a level that may have already been exceeded. Add it up and China's solar installations are going to plunge in the second half of 2018. Analysts from Roth Capital are guessing that 35 GW of installations will be built in 2018, which seems about right given the cuts. But we know demand is going to fall given China's reduced quotas and solar subsidies. The impact on the global solar market Solar panels are priced almost entirely based on supply and demand, and for the past year, demand has been high. According the GTM Research, solar panel prices were $0.38 per watt in the first quarter of 2017 but jumped to $0.48 per watt in the fourth quarter of 2017. Developers in the U.S. and China were rushing to complete projects before tariffs hit the U.S. and feed-in tariffs were changed in China, so they were willing to pay up for solar panels. Story continues Beginning this summer, we'll likely see the supply-demand trend reverse. Demand is going to fall and prices could go with it. Roth Capital estimates the solar market will be oversupplied by 34 GW of panels. The impact will have ripple effects across the industry. Major manufacturers like Canadian Solar (NASDAQ: CSIQ) , JinkoSolar (NYSE: JKS) , Hanwha Q Cells (NASDAQ: HQCL) , and JA Solar (NASDAQ: JASO) will see margins squeezed as volume and sales prices fall. They were all enjoying higher margins and strong demand in early 2018, so the could reverse to net losses later this year. Workers installing solar panels. Image source: First Solar. We can also expect First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) to be negatively impacted, as it competes against lower-priced competition. No company has benefited as much as First Solar from tariffs in the U.S. combined with high panel prices , but that could soon change. If Chinese solar panel prices fall to $0.38 or less, they'll be competitive against First Solar, even with a 30% tariff. Even SunPower 's (NASDAQ: SPWR) premium-priced high-efficiency solar panels will have a little more competition as Chinese manufacturers look to dump solar panels on anyone who will buy them. That could have a negative impact on commercial and residential solar margins. The flip side is, SunPower could leverage oversupply of solar cells to lower the cost of its P-Series solar panels, which assemble commodity cells using a shingling method to create solar panels that are slightly more efficient than competing panel assembly methods. A reduction in raw material costs could be welcome news for P-Series sales. All told, I don't see China's announcement as a positive for SunPower, but it may have slightly less negative margin impact than competitors. Solar is thrown for another loop Solar stocks seem to get dealt a wild card like this every once in a while, but the surprise is that it's coming from China. As the largest source of demand in the world, China was the one country manufacturers could count on to fuel growing solar demand. That may not be the case now, and investors should expect economics 101 to drive solar panel prices -- and therefore manufacturer margins -- lower in the second half of the year. And no manufacturer will be spared from the pricing 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 Travis Hoium owns shares of First Solar and SunPower. The Motley Fool recommends First Solar. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || American Airlines Plans Some Much-Needed Job Cuts: Just three years ago,American Airlines(NASDAQ: AAL)achieved an incredible pre-tax profit of $6.3 billion (excluding special items). Since then, its pre-tax income has eroded rapidly, with adjusted pre-tax profit totaling $5.1 billion in 2016 and $3.8 billion in 2017. A spike in fuel prices over the past year makes it virtually inevitable that pre-tax profit willfall again in 2018.
With its profitability swooning, the world's largest airline is finally coming to grips with the need to cut costs. Earlier this week, American Airlines announced that it will reduce its management workforce through a combination of buyouts, layoffs, and the elimination of open positions.
American Airlines has been steadily adding employees since merging with US Airways in late 2013. The combined company had 91,679 full-time equivalent employees in its mainline operations as of the end of 2013. By the end of 2017, this total had surpassed 103,000 -- up about 12.5% -- even though capacity had only increased 5.1% over that period.
American Airlines has increased its staffing levels over the past five years. Image source: American Airlines.
The sizable increase in American Airlines' headcount has come despite the carrier -- along with rivalsDelta Air Lines(NYSE: DAL)andUnited Continental(NYSE: UAL)-- steadily shifting its mainline fleet toward larger planes. In fact, American Airlines has fewer mainline aircraft and operates fewer mainline flights than it did at the time of the merger.
Thus, American Airlines' employee productivity has declined sharply in recent years. This has contributed to the company'scost-creep problems.
A spokesperson for the company noted that American Airlines had just come out of bankruptcy in 2013 and was understaffed at the time. In other words, some of the headcount increase was necessary for the carrier to operate smoothly.
That said, American Airlines also appears to be overstaffed relative to Delta and United. Delta Air Lines -- the most profitable of the top three U.S. airlines -- ended 2017 with only 86,564 employees, several thousand of whom don't work in its mainline operations. Its mainline headcount is thus about 20% less than that of American Airlines, but Delta's mainline capacity was just 6.3% lower than that of its top rival last year.
Delta has significantly higher labor productivity than American Airlines. Image source: Delta Air Lines.
Meanwhile, United Continental's mainline capacity was just 3.8% lower than that of American last year, but its headcount of about 86,000 was nearly 17% lower. These comparisons may not be precisely "apples to apples," but it seems clear nonetheless that American does not operate quite as efficiently as its top two rivals.
Earlier this week, American Airlines told employees that it had more management positions than it needed, now that most of the company's merger integration work is finished. As a result, it plans to streamline its management ranks by eliminating a number of jobs at the director level and higher.
American Airlines will have to involuntarily lay off some of its higher-level management staff to achieve its headcount target. However, it also plans to offer severance benefits in order to entice some employees to leave voluntarily. American expects to reduce the number of lower-level managers in non-customer-facing roles, as well. It hopes to accomplish most of these reductions through attrition or by eliminating open positions, but there will also be some layoffs at this level of the management structure.
Cutting unnecessary layers of management -- particularly higher-paying positions -- should help American Airlines reduce its costs without impacting operations. Executives have been saying for years that some positions would become redundant once the integration process was completed, and they're finally taking action to eliminate those roles.
Still, management-level staff cuts at American Airlines won't have much of an impact on its total headcount. Given the vast discrepancy in the carrier's labor efficiency relative to that of Delta and United, there ought to be room for broader staff reductions -- or at least an opportunity to boost capacity without proportionally increasing headcount.
The one thing that's clear is that American Airlines' profitability isn't at an acceptable level right now. The company's leaders will need to make some tough decisions to fix that situation.
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Adam Levine-Weinbergowns shares of Delta Air Lines. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Till Death Do Us Fork: Planning for Cryptoasset Inheritance: For many, the experience of adding crypto coins to their financial portfolios has proven to be the thrill of a lifetime. As a new type of holding with a unique set of tools and rules, cryptocurrency is wealth with its own wow factor.
But at some point, the giddiness of fiscal discovery should be followed by a sobering reality: life is short. While established roadmaps have long existed for the orderly passing on of most worldly properties, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon a person’s death, the same can’t be said for cryptoassets.
Think ahead to the days right after your last days on earth. How qualified is your will’s executor to manage your balance sheet of bitcoin, ether, Ripple, ZenCash and Ada? Are your loved ones ready to receive your private keys and open your hardware wallet?
Arecent episode of The Tatiana Showpodcast tackled this inconvenient question when co-hosts Tatiana Moroz and Joshua Scigala interviewedPamela Morgan, Esq., an attorney/educator/entrepreneur/author who’s been working exclusively with Bitcoin and open blockchains since 2014. The impetus for the appearance was the publication of her new book,Cryptoasset Inheritance Planning: A Simple Guide for Owners.
As is the case with most how-to tomes, the inspiration for Morgan’s came from a real-world problem she kept encountering. “I started asking annoying lawyer questions,” Morgan says of her cryptocurrency-holding clients. “Like, ‘If you have a bunch of cryptoassets, can your family access them?’ If you have people who depend on you financially, if you want to have other people in your life, or charities or political causes you like to support, to be able to take advantage of your bitcoin or your other cryptoassets, you have to do something. If you do nothing, [it’s] pretty sure that your assets will not go where you want them to go, if they end up anywhere at all.”
One of the cores to this blueprint for bitcoin-beyond-the-grave is executing what Morgan calls a SURE analysis, which stands for Security, Usability, Resilience and Efficiency.
“Obviously we want your plan to be secure first,” she notes, “but not security at the expense of all of the other things there, because your plan has to be usable, and not by you. We have all this knowledge of cryptocurrency, we know how we’re holding our keys, and so there are these underlying assumptions. We don’t realize that people don’t have the same knowledge that we do.
“So when people try to write it down for their heirs it becomes gibberish,” she continues, “because they don’t know what a private key is. They don’t know what a hardware wallet is — they don’t even know how to plug it in. So the worst case scenario is what do they do? They don’t just sit there. They go to the local Meetup group, Reddit, Facebook, and who’s there to help them? Who’s the greeting committee then?”
One can only imagine the trolls who are already hard at work, cooking up a sinister new industry built on stealing from confused beneficiaries. “People are not going to say, ‘Yes! My loved one is gone, now is the time for me to learn all about bitcoin,’” says Morgan.
It’s an eye-opening point. Currently, cryptocurrency is not like the vast majority of inherited assets for which time-honored legal expertise abounds. Although that general knowledge gap may someday close, today’s reality is that cryptoasset holders need a specific plan to ensure their beneficiaries are sufficiently educated on at least the bare mechanics of those holdings. Beyond that, it’s their additional responsibility to connect them to trusted people and organizations that will help them, not hijack their inheritance.
Morgan suggests that the aforementioned security audit can be undertaken by the will’s creator and a trusted significant other, such as a spouse, side-by-side with that person actually writing the letter of intent for them.
“That way they’re guaranteed they know how to access everything,” she says. “They’re kind of creating this project together.”
As Moroz points out at the podcast’s end, “You never know when it’s time to go.” Unless your own personal deal with the Devil has a precise expiration date, that’s a simple truth to act on immediately. Having cryptoassets requires heretofore unprecedented estate planning — handle it any other way, and that high-tech portfolio is just child’s play.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Vancouver Bitcoin Mining Firm Installs 85 MW Substation to Power Massive Expansion Plans: Vancouver-based DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc. recently announced that it had begun the installation of its 85-megawatt (MW) capacity substation, which will power the expansion of its crypto mining facility.
The new 85-megawatt capacity transformer and electric substation will be connected to the utility power grid when completed, and it will help expand its product offerings. DMG offers a range of products and services which includes Mining-as-a-Service, forensics, and blockchain analytics.
Mining-as-a-Service (Maas) has gained more popularity as companies are setting up mining rigs for clients who want to profit from mining without owning the hardware. A couple of firms such asBitmainandGenesis Miningalready offer Maas, but DMG expects to gain a more significant market share once its 85-megawatt substation is launched.
The company believes the new substation, when fully operational in September 2018, will “power the expansion of DMG’s flagship cryptocurrency mining facility.” The facility is also expected to become “one of the largest in North America,” and the new substation will boost the firm’s “hosting capability by more than 20 times.”
Sheldon Bennett, DMG’s COO, while commenting on the new development said:
“Building and managing a crypto mining operation at an industrial scale requires a world-class supply chain as well as direct access to local government and electricity providers. Our management team at DMG is unique in that we have the experience, the relationships, and the capital backing to do this successfully.”
DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc., is a diversified cryptocurrency and blockchain platform that is focused on “mining public blockchains” and using ” permissioned blockchain technology to address the fraud and friction that plagues the movement of value through supply chains.”
Previously known as theDigital Mint Group, the company started out offering bitcoin mining to clients through Mining-as-a-Service before branching into blockchain services such as “blockchain software development as well as forensics and data analytics services for law enforcement customers.”
Earlier last month, cloud mining providerCoinmintdecided to launch a $700 million mining facility in Massena, New York. The 435-megawatt capacity when completed in 12 months is expected to be the “world’s largest bitcoin mining center.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
The postVancouver Bitcoin Mining Firm Installs 85 MW Substation to Power Massive Expansion Plansappeared first onCCN. || Canada ETFs Mostly Down on Retaliatory Tariffs Against U.S.: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Canada is the latest country to join in on the tariff battle against the United States as it imposed retaliatory tariffs last Friday in response to U.S. duties on steel and aluminum, causing most Canada-focused ETFs to open on the downside in the early going of Monday's trading session. Related: Dow Drops Over 100 Points at Market Open Amid Canada Tariffs iShares MSCI Canada ETF ( EWC ) opened down 1.37 percent, Invesco CurrencyShares Canadian Dollar ( FXC ) was down 0.41 percent, SPDR MSCI Canada StrategicFactors ETF ( QCAN ) was the only Canada ETF to open in the green--up 0.6 percent , and Invesco Canadian Energy Income ETF ( ENY ) opened down at 0.87 percent. The retaliatory tariffs affected a wide range of U.S. products, including chocolate, ketchup, yogurt, beef, caffeinated roasted coffee, orange juice, maple syrup, salad dressing and soups. That represents just a modicum of the full list published by Canada's Department of Finance. "I have made it very clear to the president that it is not something we relish doing but it is something that we absolutely will do," said Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. "[As] Canadians, we're polite, we're reasonable but we also will not be pushed around." Mexico Counteracts with Own Tariffs The U.S. duties on steel and aluminum prompted Mexico to impose their own retaliatory tariffs by slapping a 20 percent duty on pork, including an additional 10 percent on unprocessed pork. More than $1 billion in U.S. pork products were exported to Mexico in 2017, but a combination of rising tensions over the border wall and other issues has caused Mexico to look to other sources of key agricultural and food products, including pork, soybeans and corn. For more market trends around the globe, click here . POPULAR ARTICLES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM Bitcoin Price Prediction: It’s Getting Ugly 7 Must-Have Technologies for Holistic Financial Planners Facebook’s Lifting of Bitcoin Ban Will Boost Cryptocurrency Market If You Want Certainty, You’ll Pay Dearly In Investing, as in Politics, It’s Wise to Stay Focused on the Evidence READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > View comments || All global currencies will become cryptocurrencies, Circle CEO says: • "Our view is that all fiat currency will be crypto," Jeremy Allaire, who co-founded Circle in 2013, told CNBC.
• Circle recently said it wants to introduce a new cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar, called "USD Coin."
• Allaire said that the aim of the USD Coin was to bring mainstream financial processes into the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
Every currency in the world — from the U.S. dollar to the Chinese yuan — will have its own cryptocurrency version, the CEO of fintech firm Circle said.
"Our view is that all fiat currency will be crypto," Jeremy Allaire, who co-founded Circle in 2013, told CNBC in an interview on Monday. "It seems inevitable at this point."
Allaire's start-up offers a blockchain-powered app that lets people send money to each other for free. Blockchain is the public ledger of activity that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
Circle also has a product that lets users invest in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum, and another that facilitates over-the-counter cryptocurrency trading for institutional investors.
The $3 billion company is backed by U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs and Chinese internet giant Baidu. Earlier this year it made its first-ever acquisition , buying cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex.
Circle recently said it wants to introduce a new cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar , called "USD Coin." The idea is to speed up transactions made with dollars by using blockchain technology — which maintains a continuously growing digital record of transactions — and reducing the volatility seen in most cryptocurrencies.
It's not the first so-called "stablecoin" on the market — other cryptocurrencies backed by fiat have been introduced. The most notable stablecoin is tether, a controversial virtual currency which critics have claimed was used to prop up bitcoin prices last year.
Allaire said that Circle's U.S. dollar-backed crypto would benefit from coming under stricter regulations. The token is being built within an open-source platform called CENTRE, which Circle hopes will be joined by financial institutions and other firms.
Allaire said that the aim of the USD Coin was to bring mainstream financial processes into the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
"Our focus with fiat stablecoins is we really think of it as a core building block for a crypto native global digital economy," Allaire said.
"Our interest is in how do we take all of the tasks involved in the financial industry and move those onto a crypto native infrastructure."
The company is also looking to add crypto tokens for the euro and the British pound .
Crypto critics
Critics of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies say that people buying and selling them are doing so out of pure speculation.
Regulators in China and South Korea have tried to clamp down on the speculative nature of the market, both banning a controversial fundraising practice known as an initial coin offering (ICO) last year. ICOs are a method for start-ups to raise funds by selling new digital tokens in exchange for other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Notable bitcoin skeptic J. P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has criticized the volatility of bitcoin — which soared close to $20,000 late last year — calling it a "fraud."
But proponents argue that the technology could fundamentally change the financial services. Bitcoin's decentralized nature means that it is easier to transfer internationally. Transactions can be made anonymously and cannot be tampered with or reversed.
However, the world's best-known digital currency faces some technical challenges. Sky-high transaction fees and times have led to initiatives from some in the cryptocurrency community to address what they call bitcoin's scalability problem.
The issue resulted in a number of so-called hard forks last year — where another distributed ledger is split off from the original bitcoin — resulting in bitcoin offshoots like bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold.
Some have referred to the so-called "Lightning Network," a technological update to the bitcoin network, as a possible solution to the problem. The Lightning Network would essentially allow users to send multiple transactions outside of the blockchain. It would work as a second layer on top of the existing distributed ledger that underpins the digital currency.
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
豪初の仮想通貨インデックスファンド設立、資産2億以上の大口に提供：BTC、ETH、XRP、LTCに対応 http://coinpost.jp/?p=39701 @coin_postさんから || @whats_a_bitcoin || @btc_current || @lifeoncoin || Moje miasto #gdansk #brzezno #warszawa #poznan #krakow #wroclaw #radom
#Dr_Bitcoin
#iRoNdAd
#iRoNdAdRoUlEs… https://www.instagram.com/p/BmCBJdil2h8/?utm_source=ig_twitter_share&igshid=zg9bkjvr48ez … || @btc_update || @Bitcoin_price_8 || @bitcoin_reddit || @whats_a_bitcoin || @Bitcoin_Post
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Trend: down || Prices: 7068.48, 6951.80, 6753.12, 6305.80, 6568.23, 6184.71, 6295.73, 6322.69, 6297.57, 6199.71
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2022-05-27]
BTC Price: 28627.57, BTC RSI: 36.24
Gold Price: 1851.30, Gold RSI: 46.23
Oil Price: 115.07, Oil RSI: 60.19
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Peloton Climbs After Investor Renews Call to Explore a Sale: (Bloomberg) -- Peloton Interactive Inc. shares rose as much as 5.6% on Wednesday after investor Blackwells Capital LLC reiterated a plea to put the fitness company up for sale and decried its performance under a new chief executive officer. Most Read from Bloomberg Netflix Tumbles as 200,000 Users Exit for First Drop in Decade In Defense of Elon Musk's Managerial Excellence Twitter Has a Poison Pill Now Putin Calls Time on Foreign Listings in Fresh Hit to Tycoons U.S. Stops Mask Requirement on Planes After Judge’s Ruling The stock climbed as high as $25.04 in New York following the release of a new presentation by Blackwells pushing for changes. Peloton had been down 34% this year through Tuesday’s close. New CEO Barry McCarthy took the helm in February and has vowed to turn around the company, which had been thriving during pandemic lockdowns but is now struggling with slowing demand. But he has dismissed the idea of selling the business -- irking investors like Blackwells, which says that Amazon.com Inc. and others could be bidders. Peloton co-founder John Foley was removed from the CEO job in February’s shake-up, but remains executive chairman and is part of a group that controls the company with super-voting stock. That limits the power of an investor like Blackwells to force Peloton’s hand. “Peloton will continue to be poorly valued for as long as a close-knit group of insiders, who have proven themselves incapable of creating value, continue to wield voting power far in excess of their economic interest,” Blackwells Chief Investment Officer Jason Aintabi said in a statement. “No shareholder should want Mr. Foley to still sit atop the management pyramid or control the board through his super voting-stock. He lost his entitlement to both positions when he destroyed $40 billion of shareholder wealth in less than a year.” In response, Peloton said it “appreciates the views of our shareholders and have acted, and will continue to act, in the best interests of all Peloton shareholders.” Story continues McCarthy, a former finance executive at Netflix Inc. and Spotify Technology SA, has been working to boost Peloton’s revenue from services -- as opposed to hardware. This month the company slashed the price of a new strength-training device that just went on sale. It also is testing a program that lets customers buy its signature bikes through a subscription program. But Peloton has lost an additional $2 billion in market value since the overhaul in February and it’s time for bigger changes, Blackwells said. “Blackwells calls upon Mr. Foley to recognize his own limitations and the dampening effect his control has on public market investors by immediately eliminating the dual class structure,” Aintabi said. (Updates with Peloton response in sixth paragraph. A previous version of the story corrected the name of the company in the seventh paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek Beijing Crackdown Derails Alibaba’s Bid for Amazon-Size Profit Alzheimer’s Trials Exclude Black Patients at ‘Astonishing’ Rate 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 ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || Mullen Automotive May Survive, But You Don’t Want to Own It: • Mullen Automotive(MULN) as a company has likely not reached its “game over” moment yet.
• This early stage EV maker has several options in order to keep the lights on and maintain itsNasdaq Exchangelisting.
• However, these options are unfavorable to existing shareholders and will push MULN stock to even lower prices.
Source: Ringo Chiu / Shutterstock
It is clear thatMullen Automotive’s(NASDAQ:MULN) “meme wave” has come to a close. This is not only because the MULN stock price has taken a big plunge over the past month. After all, meme plays have been hit hard by the market maelstrom arising from the Federal Reserve’s (Fed’s) hard pivot to fiscal monetary policy.
It goes beyond that. Take a look at the level of chatter of thiselectric vehicle (EV)startup onReddit. Onr/WallStreetBetsand similar subreddits,conversation about it has fallen significantly. In fact, there hasn’t been a thread about it since Apr. 24. Even if its meme days are in the past, you may still be curious if it’s wise to be bullish about Mullen’s future.
As a company, Mullen may figure out a way to survive, yet this will not translate into big returns for investors buying shares today.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
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As mentioned, Mullen shares have taken a big dive in recent weeks. Much of this price decline is market-driven. With investors fearful that the Fed’s raising of interest rates to fight inflation willresult in a hard landing, the market has lost its appetite for speculative growth plays.
• 7 Great Growth Stocks to Buy in May
Skepticism about MULN stock, driven by last month’s short report on it by Hindenburg Research, has also weighed on it. Together, these negatives far outweigh positives, like updates onthe company’s efforts to produce high-range batteriesfor its EV lineup.
In the immediate-term, market conditions could continue to negatively affect its performance. It may pop once or twice again if there is a temporary rebound in stock prices, but further price declines in the coming weeks or months are still on the table.
That said, while short-term volatility alone may keep many away, you might still think it’s worthwhile to roll the dice on Mullen. You may think that, even if you temporarily go underwater with your position, in the end, if its efforts start to pay off, your position will be worth many times what it is worth today. However, I wouldn’t bet on that being the case.
As myInvestorPlacecolleague Dana Blankenhorn recently argued, the key issue with MULN stock is that the company isshort on cash and big on promises. Put simply, $65 million, which is its current cash position, simply isn’t enough to make many of its EV dreams come true.
That’s not to say that Mullen will burn through this cash and close up shop. It has other avenues to raise capital. You may recall that the company has raised money throughequity lines of credit. This convertible financing method is a win for cash-strapped companies and a win for the hedge funds that provide them.
However, existing shareholders lose out. Why? Take a look at the terms of its active equity line of credit agreement underNote 18 in the latest quarterly financial filing.
Per the agreement, the fund investing in the deal gets $3.125 million worth of shares (fixed value, not fixed number of shares) with a 5% discount applied to the share price used to calculate the number of shares received. It is easy money for the fund and dilution for other shareholders.
Besides likely future dilution pushing it lower, there is something else that could result in big declines for Mullen shares. At today’s prices, it may be difficult for shorts to add to or enter new positions.
Yet, this may change. If it stays under $1 per share, it could be forced to do a stock split in order to keep itsNasdaq Exchangelisting. For example, a 10-for-1 split would get it out of penny stock territory. From there, the short-side could again knock it lower, especially as more shares from its favorite financing method become freely tradable.
As a company, it has a path to survival. Whether this results in it bringing any of its proposed vehicles to market is another question. As a stock, though, there is no question what the future likely holds. Dilution and a reverse split, which will send MULN stock to even lower prices.
On the date of publication, Thomas Nieldid not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to theInvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
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The postMullen Automotive May Survive, But You Don’t Want to Own Itappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Bill Gates said he doesn't own any cryptocurrency because it isn't 'adding to society': Bill Gates Ryan Lash / TED Bill Gates said he doesn't invest in cryptocurrency because he likes investing in things with "valuable output." Gates has cautioned people against investing in crypto before, especially those with "less money" than Elon Musk. Gates has also warned about the environmental impact of crypto. Microsoft co-founder and fourth-richest person in the world Bill Gates says he isn't a cryptocurrency investor because it isn't "adding to society." On Thursday, Gates did a Reddit Ask Me Anything in which a user asked his thoughts on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. "I don't own any," Gates wrote. "I like investing in things that have valuable output. The value of companies is based on how they make great products. The value of crypto is just what some other person decides someone else will pay for it so not adding to society like other investments." The statement from Gates comes amid reports of a crypto crash. Bitcoin's price fell below $30,000 a share in May and experts say that it could fall even lower. Gates has expressed disapproval about cryptocurrency before. He once warned those getting into crypto investments to be wary about buying into the crypto boom, especially those who were not as rich as Tesla and Space X founder Elon Musk . "I do think people get bought into these manias, who may not have as much money to spare, so I'm not bullish on Bitcoin, and my general thought would be that, if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out," Gates told Bloomberg in 2021. He's also railed against the environmental impact of crypto, which accounts for a large share of the world's energy consumption. In 2021, crypto mining accounted for .5% of the electricity used globally. Read the original article on Business Insider View comments || First Mover Americas: BTC Dominance Reaches 7-Month Highs, Alts Suffer: 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:Altcoins took a hit in price this morning, with ether dropping more than $100 in an hour.
• Market Moves:Bitcoin dominance over altcoins reached a seven-month high. The last time it reached this level was in October 2021.
• Feature: We take a look at data showing how USD coin (USDC) has become the stablecoin of choice on the Ethereum blockchain, not the larger tether (USDT).
Bitcoin (BTC) was down 1.7% over the last 24 hours and is struggling to hold $30,000. At press time, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading around $29,000.
Ethereum(ETH) took a bigger hit and was trading down 6.5% on the day, around $1,800.
“With BTC’s price not catching a bid to the upside the negativity comes out,” said Charles Storry, head of growth at Phuture, a crypto index platform.
“The narrative around BTC and crypto, in general, goes from a futuristic store of value to a scam,” said Storry. "This brings down the price till investor sentiment changes and we move back to the upside."
Altcoins appear to be suffering more than BTC, withAvalanche(AVAX) leading the drop in price. AVAX was down 12% on the day, Cosmos’ ATOM down by 10.5% and Solana’s SOL by 8%.
In traditional markets, Wall Street had a positive trading session overnight, but has since been mixed. Bonds gained ground as traders weighed the Fed’s minutes that were less hawkish than expected. News from China overnight sent Asian markets and European futures lower.
Despite BTC’s market capitalization declining to $552 billion, bitcoin dominance over altcoins is at a seven-month high. BTC dominance – the measure of how much of the total market cap of crypto is comprised of bitcoin – has increased to 45%, the highest the metric has gone up to since October 2021.
However, signals for BTC are still not showing signs of recovery, according to Laurent Kssis, head of Europe at Hashdex.
“We may see further downward trends in altcoins as there are still strong signs BTC is to remain below $30,000,” said Kssis, in an interview with CoinDesk.
Kssis noted that ether’s drop in price Thursday was particularly significant (ether dropped by $100 at around 9:00 UTC).
"We saw large sellers dominating the market in ether this morning which was fueled by losing interest. This is a clear absence of a bullish volatility currently witnessed in the crypto market,” said Kssis.
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By Krisztian Sandor
There has been a change in the thinking of the large crypto investors known as whales. Data shows USD coin (USDC) has become the stablecoin of choice on the Ethereum blockchain, not the larger tether (USDT).
In crypto, whales are the biggest cryptocurrency holders – institutional investors, exchanges, deep-pocketed individuals – who are capable of moving large amounts of tokens and swaying market prices. Analysts closely watch their activity to spot trends and anticipate large price movements.
Data fromCoinMetrics, a blockchain analysis firm, shows wallet addresses on the Ethereum blockchain that hold more than $1 million USDC surpassed the number of wallets that hold USDT, still the largest stablecoin by market cap.
“In the current market condition, a lot of people view USDC as the safer, preferred stablecoin," Edward Moya, trading platform Oanda’s senior market analyst, told CoinDesk.
USDC, the second-largest stablecoin, has been gaining market share since the once-$18 billion UST stablecoin collapsed, and USDT’s peg to the dollar wobbled.
CoinMetrics looked at blockchain data since May 9, when UST lost its peg to the U.S. dollar. The firm identified 147 Ethereum wallet addresses that increased their USDC balance by at least $1 million while decreasing their USDT balance by at least $1 million. Among them, there were 23 that added at least $10 million USDC and disposed of $10 million USDT. Many of these addresses are exchanges, custodial services or decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, the report added.
The report also said USDC’s advantage over Tether's USDT in so-called free float supply – the number of tokens that investors hold – on the Ethereum blockchain hit an all-time high on Tuesday among all holder groups.
"This likely reflects the fact that only large holders are generally privileged to redeem USDT and mint new USDC to capture an arbitrage," Kyle Waters, analyst at CoinMetrics, wrote in the report. "But it might also be the case that some large accounts are de-risking their holdings, turning to the perceived assurances of USDC’s monthly attestations and full-reserve backing."
Read the full story:Crypto Whales Ditched Tether for USDC After Stablecoin Panic
Today’s newsletter was edited by Lyllah Ledesma and produced by Parikshit Mishra and Stephen Alpher.
CORRECTION: The emailed newsletter incorrectly said ether dropped by $1,000. The price decline was $100. || 3 Tech Stocks to Buy That Are About to Bounce: Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ) stock needs a bounce and stat. Intel ( INTC ) is falling into a 5 year old support zone. Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund ( XLK ) falling back to replenish momentum. tech stocks A graphic of a person's hands resting on a laptop with a stock line graph moving through it Source: Shutterstock Make no mistake about it, equity markets are still near all-time highs. This means that the opportunity for corrections from here remains very significant. There is plenty of room to fall should a correction really kicks in. Meanwhile, there’s no evidence of particular imminent trigger. But there is no shortage of potential culprits. Hence there’s reason to bet on one of these three tech stocks to buy this week. The focus this week will likely be on banks stocks. JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM ) will kick off its earning season midweek. They don’t have the best of records in upside follow through after their earning season. Money will need to go somewhere else, maybe into tech. However, this doesn’t alleviate the risk. All three of my tech stocks to buy have similar risks below their current prices. This makes them liable even for sympathy pains from other companies reporting. Small hiccups, even if in sympathy to banks, can turn into bigger debacles. A symptom of this concern is visible in the Nasdaq . If it loses its footing this week, it is likely to drop at least 2% to 4% quickly. This may be enough to trigger a more serious drop in the three tech stocks I am proposing today. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips 7 Cloud Computing Stocks to Buy for April 2022 This highlights the importance of treating these stocks like tactical trades rather than investments. Conviction is medium at best for that reason, even if none of them are bad. These are extremely successful companies that will be successful with what they do. The discussions today is about how to profit from their price action in the near term. Ticker Company Current Price AMD Advanced Micro Devices $97.78 INTC Intel $47.01 XLK Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund $149.52 Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Stocks to Buy For Rebound Rallies: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Stock Chart Showing Upside Potential Source: Charts by TradingView Story continues I will start with Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD ) because it’s my favorite. Under the current leadership it has accomplished so much. Its financial statements have improved to a point that one can consider them cheap. This is a relative term of course, because it is a high-growth company. You can’t accomplish what it has been doing for years by pinching pennies. But it’s all relative to its competitors and AMD stock is solid on that front. On the other hand, it technically teetered above a sharp line of support last week. Losing that today will carry it lower but the thing to do is buy the dip near support. The potential target can extend $25 lower, but there are support lines at $95 and $90. The bounce should be enough time for the bulls to regain their footing at least for now. This may upset the fans, but my intention is to merely point out the potential for it. I’m not guaranteeing a $25 drop, in fact, I am betting on the opposite happening. It’s almost a case of a “so bad it’s good” trade. Once a stock falls into a hard line of support like this, I can get bullish on the assumption that it could flush out the short-term weak hands. But I must also place tight stop rules in place in case I’m wrong. Fundamentally, AMD stock is on rails for the long term. If the stock markets are higher in the future, then I am confident it will be leading too. This is a tactical trading opportunity independent of investment decisions. Intel (INTC) Stocks to Buy: Intel (INTC) Stock Chart Showing Upside Potential Source: Charts by TradingView The opportunity Intel (NASDAQ: INTC ) now is slightly different than AMD. INTC stock is also falling, but not into as sharp a line as AMD. Intel has a habit of bouncing off of a wide zone that lies directly beneath current prices. Therefore, this tactical trade could also work for a longer-term investor. However, it needs to only take partial positions to start. When we talk of growth, INTC stock doesn’t come to mind. However, it is the king of value, especially in the semiconductors sector . Make no mistake about it, Intel is the behemoth here, but it doesn’t get the respect it deserves from traders. It is larger than its two other major competitors in total and twice over. 7 Water Stocks to Buy as the World Fights for the Next Scarce Resource At some point that position of dominance will come back into play. If that’s the case, then in the future INTC stock will attract more attention. Until then, I would prefer to use options to sell puts into the support zone below. This way I can collect some premium for being bullish without outlays (all while leaving room for error). Owning a few shares for the long term would also make for a good starting position for investors. Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) Stocks to Buy: Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) Stock Chart Showing Upside Potential Source: Charts by TradingView The opportunity in the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEARCA: XLK ) is not exactly representative of the one in pure chip stocks. The two main XLK components are Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ). They account for 40% of the XLK fund. This makes the opportunity in the XLK similar to that of tech stocks more broadly. The difference is clearly visible in the chart of the XLK versus the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SMH ). Opting for the SMH now would be too similar to AMD. It also needs an immediate bounce or it will trigger a bearish pattern. The XLK on the other hand, simply shows a mild retracement after a strong rally. Therefore, there might be a bit of room to give back still without cause machines to chase it lower. The fundamentals of the XLK components are beyond reproach. The list is of the top tech global companies, including fintechs like MasterCard (NYSE: MA ). Technically, it failed at $164, where there now lies a potential catalyst. It will be resistance until the bulls gather enough steam to punch through. Conversely, there isn’t much of a hard floor of support until closer to $146 per share. There will be willing buyers below these levels, but not a fine line. Nevertheless, $146 has played a major pivotal role since the Jan. 24 crash. I expect it will remain relevant for a bit longer. XLK bulls will do well to not test the theory of what lies below. On the date of publication, Nicolas Chahine 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 . Nicolas Chahine is the managing director of SellSpreads.com. 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. 10 Stocks Are Issuing Sell Signals Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade “On Air” The post 3 Tech Stocks to Buy That Are About to Bounce appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Luna Foundation Guard says its Bitcoin reserves are down to 313 from over 80,000, and it will use ‘remaining assets’ to pay back ‘smallest’ stablecoin holders: The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), an organization that supports the Terra ecosystem,shared a breakdown of its remaining assetson Monday.
Last week, Terra’s stablecoin UST began to crash far below $1, and its sister token Luna unraveled to nearly zero. Amid the chaos, many investors were wonderingwhere LFG’s billions worth of Bitcoin went, which it originally obtained to defend UST’s peg.
Now, after days of silence, LFG shared that ithas 313 Bitcoin left, down from its original 80,394 Bitcoin reserve. LFG also noted it has a few other assets, including UST, Terra and Avalanche.
LFG is “looking to use its remaining assets to compensate remaining users of $UST, smallest holders first,” it tweeted on Monday. “We are still debating through various distribution methods, updates to follow soon.”
Over the weekend, figures in the crypto community also suggested Terra disburse funds to “smallholders” impacted by the crash. Among them isEthereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
“Coordinatedsympathy and relief for the average UST smallholderwho got told something dumb about ‘20% interest rates on the US dollar’ by an influencer, personal responsibility and SFYL [or sorry for your loss] for the wealthy,” Buterintweeted on Saturday.
Headded that the “obvious precedentis FDIC insurance,” being “up to $250,000 per person.”
UST remains in the red,down 71%in the last week. It’s currentlytrading at 8 cents. Luna,down 100%in the last week, isworth nearly zero.
This story was originally featured onFortune.com || Blockchain Intelligence Group launches Dash and Dogecoin Support: BIGG Digital Assets Inc. subsidiary, Blockchain Intelligence Group Provides Differentiated Transaction-to-Transaction Investigations and Risk Scoring for Dash and Dogecoin
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 25, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Blockchain Intelligence Group, a global cryptocurrency compliance and intelligence company, owned by BIGG Digital Assets Inc. (“BIGG” or the “Company”) (CSE: BIGG,OTCQX: BBKCF,WKN: A2PS9W), announces full support for both the Dash and Dogecoin cryptocurrencies in its data tools ecosystem. Exchanges, banks and law enforcement now can track and trace, and risk score Dash and Dogecoin. Blockchain Intelligence Group now supports 11 blockchains plus 372,000+ ERC-20 tokens.
“Convenience is driving the adoption of crypto,” said Lance Morginn, president, Blockchain Intelligence Group. “Integrating Dash and Dogecoin adds to our world-class investigation and compliance analytics for blockchains.”
More than 10,000 online retailers and merchants accept DASH. There are 250 Dash-enabled ATMs in the Americas and Europe. Dash was designed to be a more cost-effective and efficient electronic cash system than its parent, Bitcoin. Doge rose to prominence as a meme coin and now is a leading tipping coin on social media platform Reddit and crowdfunding charitable causes.
Blockchain Intelligence Group’s flagship product,QLUE™, is a blockchain data analytics and visualization engine trusted by government, finance, and law enforcement investigators around the world. QLUE provides the maximum granularity possible, mapping digital assets transaction-to-transaction.
BitRank Verified®gives banks and businesses confidence in risk mitigation and regulatory compliance through real-time transaction monitoring and risk scoring to quickly clear low-risk transactions and investigate high-risk ones.
Learn more about Blockchain Intelligence Group atwww.blockchaingroup.io.
On behalf of the BoardMark BinnsCEOir@biggdigitalassets.com
Investor RelationsVictoria RutherfordVictoria@adcap.caT: 1 480 625 5772
For Press RequestsMaija McManusRed Lorry Yellow Lorry for Blockchain Intelligence GroupBIG@RLYL.comT: +1 857 217 2925
About BIGG Digital Assets Inc.BIGG Digital Assets Inc. (BIGG) believes the future of crypto is a safe, compliant, and regulated environment. BIGG invests in products and companies to support this vision. BIGG has three portfolio companies: Netcoins (netcoins.ca), Blockchain Intelligence Group (blockchaingroup.io) and TerraZero (terrazero.com).
Blockchain Intelligence Groupbuilds technology to power compliance and intelligence for the crypto future. Banks and crypto companies depend on our technology to monitor risk from crypto transactions. Investigators and law enforcement quickly identify and track illicit activity. Blockchain Intelligence Group is trusted globally by banks, crypto companies, law enforcement, fintechs, regtechs and governments.
Netcoinsdevelops brokerage and exchange software to make the purchase and sale of cryptocurrency easily accessible to the mass consumer and investor with a focus on compliance and safety. Netcoins utilizes BitRank Verified®software at the heart of its platform and facilitates crypto trading via a self-serve crypto brokerage portal at Netcoins.app.
TerraZerois a vertically integrated Metaverse development group and leading Web 3.0 technology company specializing in the Metaverse space. The Company’s Metaverse agnostic vision is to develop, acquire, and finance the Metaverse’s most promising companies, entrepreneurs, and developers. TerraZero also owns digital real estate and provides offices and services to those interested in the Metaverse. BIGG owns ~30% of TerraZero.
For more information and to register to BIGG’s mailing list, please visit our website athttps://www.biggdigitalassets.com. Or visit SEDAR atwww.sedar.com.
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The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this Press Release. || Bitcoin's Unfinished Business: Why Micropayments Still Matter: Don't miss CoinDesk'sConsensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12.
One of the most important moments in the evolution of cryptocurrency was powerhouse investor Marc Andreessen’s landmark 2014 essay“Why Bitcoin Matters.”This was the man who had seen the promise of transformational companies from Lyft and Facebook to Dollar Shave Club and Airbnb (and many others since), arguing in the pages of the New York Times that a technologically near-incomprehensible magic internet money had the same kind of potential.
Most of a decade later, Andreessen’s venture capital fund Andreessen-Horowitz is at the bleeding edge of cryptocurrency and web 3 investment. But looking back on that essay, it’s striking to note that one of the pillars of Andreessen’s Bitcoin thesis has definitively crumbled.
This article is part of CoinDesk’sPayments Weekseries.
“A third fascinating use case for Bitcoin is micropayments, or ultrasmall payments,” Andreessen wrote. “… It is not cost-effective to run small payments (think $1 and below, down to pennies or fractions of a penny) through the existing credit/debit and banking systems. The fee structure of those systems makes that nonviable. [But] all of a sudden, with Bitcoin, that’s trivially easy.”
Cue record scratch. You may be wondering how we got here.
The fee for a single transaction on Bitcoin in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Two isnearly $2, according to BitInfo, making it not just extremely nonviable for sub-$1 payments, but also more expensive than a credit card even for many larger payments.
Fees have risen so dramatically because Bitcoin has a competitive market for transaction fees, which fund network security, and rising demand has made transactions more pricey. The last time Bitcoin fees were low enough for anything close to micropayments was June of 2015, when the cost of a simple send broke five cents. They haven’t looked back since. Even in the deep dark doldrums of the 2019 bear market, with the bitcoin (BTC) currency trading as low as $3,000, fees were consistently above 10 cents.
Andreessen wasn’t the only early crypto bull who hyped micropayments on Bitcoin but didn’t see the fee hike coming. The steady rise has contributed to the decline or shuttering of some early Bitcoin-based micropayments projects, such asChangeTip.
But while it’s not going to happen on the Bitcoin base chain, fees low enough to support sub-dollar payments have remained both a technical Holy Grail and a common promotional refrain in crypto. Everything from less expensive proof-of-stake systems to Bitcoin’s own Lightning Network have hype-farmed the concept – yet it remains, by and large, just a concept.
See also:The Lightning Network Is Bringing Payments Back to Bitcoin
And so we find ourselves asking: Can crypto, or any other technology, actually solve the problem of digital micropayments? What might that solution look like? And most importantly, what does the world stand to gain when it finally arrives?
There has been endless speculation about new business models that can be realized once digital micropayments are feasible. Much focus over the years has been on allowing users to buy media, such as individual news articles, on an “a la carte” basis – that is, piece by piece, rather than as part of a subscription or with intrusive advertising. The general argument is that this would allow a transition away from ad-supported content on the internet, which is still the thesis behindthe Brave browserand its tokenized browsing model. But this and similar concepts may be barely the tip of the iceberg.
“People think about micropayments as smaller payments, but really you should think of them being an entirely different thing,” says Stefan Thomas, CEO of web-content micropayments platform Coil. “It’s like if you thought of the internet as a fax machine that could send smaller faxes more cheaply. Instead, you can do entirely different forms of communication.”
Thomas, an early Bitcoin contributor, says much of his career has been defined by the quest for workable micropayments technology. It was part of his motivation for serving as chief technology officer of Ripple before forming Coil.
Micropayments are “an entirely different thing” at least as much because of their consumer psychology as because of their business implications. Over the past five years, the discourse around micropayments has become much more attuned to the problem of “mental transaction costs,” a concept developed in part by Bitcoin pioneerNick Szabo way back in 1999.
The essence of the problem is that even if we solve the technical challenge of micropayments, users would find the decision to spend a dime or a nickel more annoying than the actual act. This would be a particular problem if micropayments were to become omnipresent on the Web, demanding that you make various small payments ten or 20 times a day.
An unintentionally hilarious illustration of the problem of mental transaction costs came recently during Meta/Facebook’s (FB)Metaverse launch video. Near the start of the presentation, while a group of folks are admiring a virtual sculpture, it starts to fade away. One of them has to “tip the artist” to look at the sculpture for more than a few minutes. There’s no clearer illustration that Meta’s pitch was aimed at investors rather than consumers, because a metaverse where you’re constantly micro-tipping artists would clearly be a gigantic pain in the ass. If micropayments make life worse for consumers in the way envisioned by Mark Zuckerberg, they’ve obviously failed.
Melvin Klein, a researcher studying micropayment applications at the University of Hamburg, points out that there’s more than a bit ofdéjà vuto this core problem. “With America Online, people were annoyed by the ticking clock – there’s another minute you have to pay for [being online]. People were so annoyed that in the end they had to transition to a monthly subscription.”
Read More:Bitcoin Payments Remain in Their Infancy But There Are Green Shoots Everywhere
That’s why Coil and several other projects have begun emphasizing what’s sometimes known as “streaming micropayments.” Coil is effectively a membership subscription, but instead of one large publication or platform, it grants access to several smaller outlets. Those outlets then get paid in tiny streams as the user browses them.
Part of Coil’s tech stack are a pair of standards calledOpen Web Monetizationand Interledger. The standards can interact with cryptocurrency networks, but also with other systems. “It’s like a layer on top of the blockchain,” Thomas says of Interledger. “Each transaction is extremely efficient. It really is free, and it really is infinitely scalable … [for] true micropayments. I wish more people were paying attention to the Interledger protocol.”
A project even more rooted in the crypto world is Superfluid, which CEO Francesco Renzi takes pains to emphasize is not really about “micropayments,” again because of the mental transaction cost issue. “Fundamentally the way it works doesn’t require the user to understand that small payments are happening,” says Renzi. “Those small payments are more of a problem than they are a solution.“ (Pro tip: Renzi says he often sees micropayments pitches at hackathons, and “we have to go and explain [to the developers] why it’s not a good idea.”)
Instead, Superfluid is a cryptocurrency standard for streaming payments. “Streaming is built into the token,” according to Renzi. “You give me an address, I open a stream, every second your balance is ticking up.” So far, Renzi says Superfluid’s biggest market is decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) using it to pay contributors.
What’s most notable about Superfluid’s model is that the “stream” is a single transaction for the purpose of on-chain fees. “You say, I want to send David a dollar every minute, and after that you’re done. You click the button once, you pay forever … Effectively, money itself is now moving on-chain automatically.” It also means that the longer a stream continues, the cheaper the relative transaction cost gets.
But even if the streaming approach takes off, transactions between people may not wind up being the most interesting application for micropayments: Many argue the real potential lies in high-speed, machine-to-machine transactions. Examples include the sale of electricity from home solar installations, which has been explored by a crypto project calledBrooklyn Microgrid, or streaming payments for electric vehicle charging. BitTorrent, now owned by Tron, has touted an automatedmicropayments system for download bandwidthwhich, at least in theory, canimprove throughputfor decentralized file sharing.
With micropayments added to digitized systems, “everything becomes more automatic,” according to Marvin Klein. For example, “You can think about directly paying taxes when you buy a product, so the shop doesn’t have to do all the accounting.”
Read More:The Future of Crypto Payments Will Be Centralized
“Another use case is artificial intelligence,” says Stefan Thomas. “Some people are thinking about a future where there’s a marketplace for internet user data. [But] you’re not going to think about selling this or that piece of data, there will be a user agent that does that on my behalf.”
Thomas also thinks micropayments could become key to building out modular and composable AI systems: “You can plug into multiple APIs, but you need a payments system to pay them all.”
A more familiar example of the transformational potential of micropayments is the Apple App Store – not, that is, how micropayments could improve it, but how they could destroy it.
The App Store, you see, is the ultimate example of digital rent-seeking: an attempt to extract wealth out of other people’s creations by controlling a systemic chokepoint. It’s notorious for the 30% cut of sales Apple (AAPL)takes from app creators, and Apple’sferocious oppositionto allowing independent in-app purchases. Part of that rent is paid-for access to the iPhone ecosystem itself, which Apple has locked down to prevent users from installing programs from any source other than the App Store.
But payments technology plays a surprisingly large role in Apple’s ability to control the market. Many mobile apps, as you’ve probably noticed, are priced at ninety-nine cents or less. This could be a big challenge from a payments perspective, since 10% or more of such small purchases would normally wind up with credit card or other payment processors.
Apple is able to work around the problem solely because of its centralization and scale. To save money on fees, the App Store bundles all of a customers’ payments over the course of a month, according to Klein, then processes them in a batch. For instance, a purchase of two apps and a Coldplay album would be processed as a single transaction of $15, instead of three smaller transactions, cutting the processing fee as a percentage of the purchase substantially.
But even in a world where iOS was more open, a developer trying to sell a 99 cent app directly to users would not have access to this workaround. Since the vast majority of sales would be one-offs, there would be no option to reduce fees by bundling multiple payments from each customer.
This is just one example of how the absence of functional digital micropayments contributes to the clustering of digital commerce around a few players. Facebook, now known as Meta, apparently foresees that stranglehold continuing: it has said it will charge a cumulative47.5% cut of digital creator salesin its Horizon Worlds environment.
Tip the artist, indeed – but Zucky gets to wet his beak a little, eh?
Finally, there is a more abstract problem that functional digital micropayments would solve: market transparency for low-priced digital goods.
One of the most important roles of markets in a society is to discover the level of demand for goods and, in turn, how much of that good an economy should produce. That’s complicated by thezero marginal cost nature of digital goods(once a piece of digital content is created, each additional copy is essentially free), but it still broadly holds when it comes to things like software development.
But the current structure of digital transaction fees creates a shocking blind spot in the market for digital goods that might be priced at under a dollar. That could range from trivialities like video game skins and novelty non-fungible tokens (NFT) to more impactful products like niche applications or highly tailored data streams. It could also include real-world services like on-the-go cell phone charging.
Read More:Fast, Fluid, Frictionless Payments Are the Future
But the entire category remains underdeveloped because payments limitations have proportionally higher influence over pricing than actual consumer demand does. In effect, any digital good that would be appropriately priced at less than a dollar must either be sold through an intermediary, priced above market equilibrium in a way that makes it less likely to succeed, or, probably most often, simply not produced at all.
Cell phone charging is a great example. Right now, paid cell-charging services are largely limited to airports, where rushed, higher-income flyers are willing to pay far above the actual cost of a charge. But if payments tech made it possible to charge a more appropriate a la carte price for charging (probably just a few cents per hour including a healthy profit margin), intuition suggests charging services would be much more widely available. It’s a market failure caused entirely by the lack of functional micropayments.
There are likely many similar potential examples – including many we can’t even imagine. But right now, it’s near-impossible to sell such goods outside of a relatively limited set of siloed, heavily intermediated markets. Most likely, this means there is immense unfulfilled demand for low-cost digital goods, data distribution, mobile charging, and other services that the market is currently fulfilling.
That’s an economic inefficiency that will only grow as the economy digitizes – unless widespread and functional micropayments free the market from its technological constraints.
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.
Porn, gambling and even furniture sales are deemed “high-risk” merchant categories. Sometimes the risk is financial; other times it’s just bad publicity.
How and why those original digital payments projects are no longer with us today can give us an idea of what needs to be done to do it right. This piece is part of CoinDesk's Payments Week. || Harvey Nichols Goes NFT with Launch of In-store HN NFT Vault: • High-end Hong Kong department store Harvey Nichols takes virtual NFTs in-store with ‘HN NFT vault.’
• NFT projects on offer include CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club.
• Buyers can buy NFTs with crypto or by credit card.
Competition within theNFTspace continues to heat up. This month, Coinbaselaunchedits CoinbaseNFT beta, with users able to purchase NFTs with a credit card.
Built on the Ethereum (ETH)blockchain, the platform offers NFT projects, including Cool Cats and Doodles.
With competition on the rise, OpenSeafiledfor trademark applications this month. The filing may be to support more active participation in Web3.
Retail outlets are also exploring NFTs with the launch of their very own NFT marketplaces.
This month, high-end Hong Kong (HK) department store Harvey Nichols (HN)announcedthe launch of its NFT marketplace HN NFT Vault.
Unlike more traditional NFT marketplaces, HN NFT Vault is an in-store concept, with Harvey Nichols showcasing NFTs in a “retail concept space.”
NFT projects on sale include CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, CloneX x Takashi Murakami, Azuki, and Doodles.
Harvey Nichols retailers can purchase the curated NFTs withcryptoand credit card.
According to the announcement,
“Through the new space, we aim to make NFTs more accessible to a broader audience by featuring a range of NFTs from some of the most successful projects globally available for in-store exploration and purchase. The collection is curated to cater to both first-time buyers and NFT experts, with prices ranging from HK$5,000 to over HK$1,000,000.”
Harvey Nichols added,
“As part of the new concept, we will also be launching a service allowing NFT owners to showcase and sell their NFTs through the HN NFT vault.”
In December, US retailer Fred Segal entered the NFT space with the launch ofArtcade. In partnership with Subnation, Artcade is a video streaming, physical, and digital product, including NFTs, experience.
Other retailers targeting NFTs include Dolce & Gabbana.
In collaboration with UNXD, the Dolce & Gabbana launchedCollezione Genesi, a “9-piece, one-of-a-kind collection, personally designed by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana exclusively for UNXD.” The collection includes both physical and digital works.
The collectionreportedlysold at auction for 1,885.719 ETH, equivalent to around $6m, at the time of sale.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Nike and RTFKT Go to the Metaverse with CryptoKicks Sneakers || How Crypto Is Failing Spectacularly to Greenwash Itself: Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty “Imagine if keeping your car idling 24/7 produced solved Sudokus you could trade for heroin.” That’s how one Twitter user described the production, transaction, and utility of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies back in 2018. Though it’s an exaggeration, that description isn’t entirely off-base—cryptocurrencies require massive amounts of energy to be produced and used. Bitcoin has the yearly carbon footprint equivalent to the Czech Republic while producing as much annual electronic waste as the Netherlands. Those numbers haven’t stymied the contention among many cryptocurrency enthusiasts that this is a singular solution to all the world’s energy problems. “Bitcoin mining solves a number of climate issues, while also creating a more profitable model,” crypto enthusiast Anthony Pompliano wrote last August. Many developers say they are working on cryptocurrencies that are supposed to encourage eco-friendly practices, and even tokenize carbon offsets. While these solutions sound appealing on the surface, climate and environmental policy experts are dubious they will have much impact mitigating climate change and changing our energy habits. Even though some of these projects are driven by techies with good intentions, these quick fixes and greenwashing proposals are unlikely to bring us closer to a zero-emissions world. Bitcoin Could Cost Us Our Clean-Energy Future For the uninitiated, Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies use a Proof of Work verification method to add new transactions to the blockchain. This process requires users to expend significant effort in validating transactions in order to make it more costly for a user to engage in malicious behavior. Similar security methods are also used to deter email spam. With Bitcoin however, Proof of Work is responsible for wasting large amounts of energy. The process of verifying Bitcoin transactions is called crypto mining: millions of expensive computers attempting to guess a number that corresponds to a new transaction. The first computer that guesses this number gets to add this new piece of information to the list of transactions, and the owner of that computer receives Bitcoin as a reward. The rest of the energy is wasted. Story continues At one point, China was home to the largest number of crypto-mining operations, equivalent to roughly 75 percent of the world’s bitcoin mining capacity. Then in June of 2021, the country banned crypto mining, pushing crypto mines back to the U.S.. Since then, the percentage of renewable energy used for mining has dropped from 42 to 25 percent —many miners in China had access to renewable hydroelectric energy while in the U.S., many current operations are powered by natural gas. The consequences are adding up fast. Bitcoin has the same power consumption as Thailand over the course of the year. The second most popular cryptocurrency, Ethereum, has an annual power consumption comparable to the entire country of Kazakhstan . China Outlaws All Crypto Transactions, Bitcoin Mining Ethereum has promised to move to a more eco-friendly method of settling transactions. Replacing Proof of Work, Ethereum 2.0 would use a method called Proof of Stake that would work more like a lottery. The more Ethereum that a person helping verify transactions holds, the more chances they have of being selected to verify a transaction. This means that only one machine will perform calculations for each transaction, rather than having millions of machines competing against each other. Supporters say this would reduce emissions by more than 99 percent . But this upgrade has been continually delayed , and it’s currently unclear when it will be ready. As it stands, the vast majority of transactions in cryptocurrency involve wash trading, a process where the same party buys and sells an asset to pump up its price. When it isn’t being used for wash trading, crypto is being used as part of hacks and ransomware attacks to fund North Korea , run financial scams , or sell stolen art . There is little pressure from those involved in these endeavors to push cryptocurrency to green practices. “Even if it were true that cryptocurrencies ran on renewable power, the idea that it is OK for speculation to waste vast amounts of renewable power assumes that doing so doesn't compete with more socially valuable uses for renewables, or indeed for power in general,” computer-scientist David S.H. Rosenthal said in February . Cryptocurrency Attempts to Greenwash Itself Many decentralized applications and projects that sell NFTs, such as the curated generative-art platform ArtBlocks , compensate for greenhouse emissions produced by cryptocurrency transactions. Part of the money that ArtBlocks makes from selling art pieces is used to purchase carbon offset. One carbon offset unit represents the removal of one metric tonne of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or the avoidance of metric one tonne of carbon emissions. For example, if one organization develops an initiative that reduces their carbon emissions, they can generate carbon offset units to sell on an open market. Then, another party can compensate for excess emissions by buying these offsets on the market. In theory, it incentivizes the development and financing of greener projects. One company that offers carbon offset services is Offsetra , which provides extensive open-source documentation for estimating the carbon emissions from a single Ethereum wallet or app. Clients can track carbon emissions and then pay Offsetra to purchase offsets on their behalf—making the process easier than having them find and purchase verified offsets themselves. According to Offestra advisor Damien Schuster, the company essentially helps founders reduce the total amount of emissions and work in a more environmentally-conscious manner. “Today, there's also other options for people that want to use Proof of Stake options,” he added. Offsetra, like many other providers of carbon offsets, is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they’re educating and providing ways for founders in the cryptocurrency space to reduce or offset their emissions. On the other, they provide offsetting services which don’t directly reduce greenhouse emissions for an industry that uses enormous amounts of energy. “Our goal is also to encourage people to go back right retroactively, and resolve those emissions or at least account for them,” Schuster said. Tokenizing Carbon Offsets KlimaDAO, an ecologically-oriented cryptocurrency project founded by anonymous developers and aimed at addressing climate change, has proposed its own solution to address climate change through cryptocurrency: “tokenizing” the carbon offsets themselves. How this works is a bit complicated, but here’s the gist: First, carbon credits are bought up from a verified seller and turned into a token on the blockchain. Then the original carbon credit is retired, meaning that no other company can claim to purchase and use it from the seller’s website. Carbon offsets are then deposited in the KlimaDAO treasury in return for carbon-backed currency called KLIMA. Holding the token pumps up the price of carbon offsets, in an attempt to make them more expensive and provide financial incentive for companies to go green. The price of KLIMA is tied to all the carbon offsets in the treasury, so increased carbon offsets means people in possession of KLIMA earn more money. The underlying economics are a form of decentralized finance which has been criticized by financial and securities experts . The code underlying KlimaDAO is based on another project, Olympus DAO, which incentivizes people to deposit assets into a treasury to increase the price of the OHM token yielding more than 7000% in annual gains. Proponents of Olympus DAO and similar projects readily admit that it may be a financial scam. In a 2021 Coindesk article , Andrew Thurman, reporter and co-founder of a blockchain startup wrote, “Yes, it’s a Ponzi scheme. But who cares?” Other projects based on this idea, built with similar code, have been hacked and had millions in funds pilfered away . “KlimaDAO have built huge hype through misleading claims and brought in finance from people speculating on crypto token values,” Robbie Watt, an expert on carbon markets and international policy responses to climate change from Manchester University, told The Daily Beast. “Most of those who invested are looking at acute short term losses in an experimental project that may struggle to achieve a central place in the carbon offset market architecture.” While Watt himself studies and criticizes carbon offsets, he does not believe that the blockchain necessarily adds any transparency to carbon offsets without overall governance reforms. “You could as easily do the latter, without bothering with blockchain,” said Watt. This criticism hasn’t stopped KlimaDAO, which has now acquired more than 14.5 million carbon offsets . It was developed by an anonymous team and funded by billionaire Mark Cuban, who has been involved in previous cryptocurrency scandals . He backed an Instagram account that provided undeclared paid promotions of NFT projects—resulting in the account’s ban on Instagram. Asking users to offset the energy costs of miners is reminiscent of oil and gas conglomerates advertising individual responsibility and carbon footprints to obfuscate their role in anthropogenic climate change. Increasing the prices of carbon offsets may not be a viable solution either, given that the offsets themselves are heavily flawed. “On top of all the traditional criticisms of offsets—that they almost never provide additional emissions reductions in ways they claim, they can generate human rights abuses, they shift attention away from the need to transform all our economic activities,” Matthew Paterson, a professor of international politics at Manchester University, told The Daily Beast. “In a net zero world there is literally nowhere now to offset to.” Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 28814.90, 29445.96, 31726.39, 31792.31, 29799.08, 30467.49, 29704.39, 29832.91, 29906.66, 31370.67
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2015-05-19]
BTC Price: 231.95, BTC RSI: 44.70
Gold Price: 1206.90, Gold RSI: 52.29
Oil Price: 57.26, Oil RSI: 49.12
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
London stakes its claim as global bitcoin hub: (Repeats Wednesday item) * UK authorities want to promote financial innovation * Government also aims to curb bitcoin use in crime * Bitcoin backers say UK attitude makes London attractive * World's biggest bitcoin networking group is London-based By Jemima Kelly LONDON, April 15 (Reuters) - London, centre of the $5-trillion-a-day global currency market, now wants to be home to a controversial upstart - bitcoin. British authorities have come out in support of digital currencies in the name of promoting financial innovation, while proposing that regulations should be drawn up to prevent their use in crime. But it is technophiles who are leading the drive to make London a real-world hub for trade in web-based "cryptocurrencies", of which bitcoin is the original and still most popular. Every Tuesday evening in a trendy cafe in London's Shoreditch neighbourhood, a group of digital currency enthusiasts gathers to discuss ideas, "vape" from e-cigarettes and exchange their pounds for bitcoins in a dedicated "ATM". With more than 2,200 members, CoinScrum, run by a former derivatives trader who left the world of traditional finance to work on a digital currency start-up, is the biggest bitcoin networking group in the world. Its meetings draw a mostly young, mostly male crowd - some amateurs, others who have come to Britain to start bitcoin businesses. Already the capital of traditional currency trading, London is competing with San Francisco's web expertise and New York's financial clout as it pushes to be the foremost financial technology - or fintech - centre in the world. Last month the British government announced plans to regulate digital currency exchanges to prevent their use in money-laundering, and to help to develop a set of standards for cryptocurrencies. Backers of bitcoin praised this for lending legitimacy to the currency - which unlike traditional money has no printed form and remains outside the control of central banks - without stifling innovation. "London has been the home of financial innovation for hundreds of years," said Nicolas Cary, co-founder of Blockchain, which provides bitcoin data and "wallet" software for storing the currency. "It would be a historical mistake not to make this the home of digital currencies. There's an incredible amount of talent and experience here." Just over 14 million bitcoins are in circulation, worth around $3.1 billion at the current exchange rate of around $220 each. Bitcoin brought 29-year-old Cary to Britain two years ago from Denver, Colorado. He joined forces with Ben Reeves, then a 22-year-old computer science graduate, to develop the Blockchain wallet, spending the first year working out of a two-bedroom apartment in northern England. Story continues Now Blockchain, named after the technology behind bitcoin, is the world's biggest wallet provider, with over 3 million users. Last year it raised over $30 million in its first round of funding, including from billionaire Richard Branson. POSITIVE ATTITUDE While some people argue that London lags New York overall as the centre for traditional finance, many say the latter's attitude to digital currencies - including a state plan to impose a "BitLicense" on bitcoin start-ups - makes London more attractive for the growing number of businesses dealing in the budding technology. "What we see in the UK ... is a different attitude," said Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center, a Washington DC-based non-profit advocacy group for digital currencies. "It's a very positive attitude, one of: this is an amazing innovation, we're going to have to have some kind of regulation in terms of money laundering, but let's do this in a constructive way, in partnership with the technologists and the industry." Detractors worry that digital currencies make it easy for users to buy products anonymously from websites like Silk Road, an underground marketplace for drugs and other illegal goods which was shut down in 2013. But advocates argue that using cash for illicit trades is easier and less traceable, pointing out that most U.S. banknotes are contaminated with cocaine. Asked about bitcoin, the governing body for the City of London financial district said authorities needed to be "alive to the potential risks and take strong action if they find evidence of abuse or criminal activities". But the employment and growth opportunities offered by the fintech in general were to be welcomed, it said. Britain made bitcoin trading exempt from value-added tax last year. Other countries have yet to decide how to tax bitcoin, since its independence from any central bank means it does not fall into the traditional definition of money. However, Australia has made bitcoin transactions subject to goods and services tax. That helped to drive CoinJar, an Australian company that allows users to buy, sell and spend bitcoins, to move its headquarters to London last December. INVESTMENT Later this month Swiss banking giant UBS will open a technology lab in London to explore the wider application of the technology in the financial services industry. Finance minister George Osborne has said he wants Britain to lead the world in developing fintech, highlighting the potential of digital currencies. Last year investment in fintech firms in Britain and Ireland more than doubled compared with 2013, to $623 million, representing 42 percent of such investment in Europe, according to consultancy Accenture. Alongside the new regulation and standards, the British government promised an additional 10 million pounds ($15 million) for a research initiative that will look into the blockchain technology behind digital currencies. It is the blockchain - essentially a ledger of every bitcoin transaction that is virtually impossible to tamper with - that the Bank of England has also said could be revolutionary. Central banks, it has said, could eventually issue digital currencies of their own. Dozens of others have copied this technology to set up their own digital currencies, though none has so far managed to knock bitcoin off the top spot. TANTRIC MASSAGE Londoners can change cash for bitcoins at seven ATMs in the capital, and use them to pay for anything from tantric massage to a designer dress, a pork chop to a pint of beer. One company even allows rent on property to be paid in bitcoin. Back in the trendy "Vape Lab" e-cigarette cafe, one young bitcoiner was putting 800 pounds' worth of 20 pound notes into a bitcoin ATM in exchange for the digital currency. "I just sell bitcoin to others, because they don't know how to do it, so I take advantage of that and I make a profit," he said. ($1 = 0.6774 pounds) (editing by David Stamp) View comments || Iran Ripe For Investment Once Sanctions Are Lifted: From oil to consumer goods, Iran is becoming a sought after marketplace as the potential of a nuclear deal removing Western sanctions is looking more and more likely.
Everyone from individual investors to major companies is looking at the Middle Eastern nation as an emerging market with an enormous amount of untapped potential.
Investment In Oil
Whileoil pricesare likely to take a hit with the introduction of Iranian oil to the market, the Iranian oil sector is a valuable investment for U.S. and European companies looking to enter the nation's market.
In September, Iranian officials areplanninga conference in London, at which foreign firms can evaluate the conditions of new oil contracts.Expectations are highthat Western companies will be interested in taking on joint ventures with Iran's National Iranian Oil Company once the sanctions have been lifted.
Related Link:Could The Iran Nuke Deal Really Push Oil Prices Down Another ?
Banking
Iran is home to nearly 80 million people, providing a huge market that could become even more attractive than the nation's wealth of natural resources. At the moment, only a sliver of that population has a debit card and even fewer have any debt.
For that reason, Western financial firms are likely to make their way into Iran as soon as possible with the introduction of credit cards and borrowing.
Consumer Products
Iranians spent $77 billion on food and $22 billion on clothes in 2012 despite the strict sanctions, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, so it's safe to assume that consumer products' firms will be looking to enter Iran's market as well.
Some say that the nation's population is nostalgic for American-made goods, especially cars, that used to be available before the sanctions were in place.
Risks
While the figures may look good on paper, many companies are likely to be hesitant to expand into Iran at first. For some, there are ethical issues about investing in a country that has been associated with terrorism. For others, there is a worry that the nuclear deal won't hold up.
Even if the West and Iran can iron out a concrete agreement by the end of June, there is a possibility that Iran won't comply with the terms of the agreement at some point in the future, which could mean more sanctions that would prevent businesses from moving their money out of Iran.
Image Credit: Public Domain
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Your first trade for Wednesday: The " Fast Money " traders delivered their final trades for the quarter. Tim Seymour was a buyer of TEF (Mercado Continuo: TEF-ES) . Pete Najarian was a buyer of TWTR (: THEGQ) . Brian Kelly was a buyer of TLT (NYSE Arca: TLT) . Guy Adami was a buyer of BX. (NYSE: BX) Trader disclosure: On March 31, 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, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JCP, SUNE, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX. Pete Najarian is long AMAT, AAPL, BABA, BAC, BMY, BP, CSX, DISCA, FOXA, GE, KKR, KO, LLY, MRK, PEP, PFE, SAP, he is long calls BK, CNX, COP, EBAY, EXXI, F, FCX, FL, GE, GM, GT, JD, KO, LYB, NEE, PBR, PEP, RAD, RAI, TEVA, TWTR, UA, UAL, UFS, ZIOP, today he bought RAI calls, UA calls. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=, U.S. Dollar, EEM, GLD, GSG, TLT, he is long calls CTRL, he is long puts SPY, he is short Yuan. 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 || Tired of bitcoin? Try marijuana, mulch-backed coin: Frustrated by bitcoin's booms and busts but not happy that Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard? Incensed that central bankers continue to meddle with the macroeconomy? Good news: There are more concepts in the works to create currency standards backed by physical commodities than ever before, thanks to the creative crypto-thinkers behind the digital currency revolution. Anthem Vault plans to launch a gold-backed crypto-coin in May. The bet is that the coin-which is redeemable for 1 gram of gold at the market price-will be a big hit with investors who are tired of bitcoin's wild ways. Bitcoin has been on a roller-coaster ride, losing more than half its value last year. Anthem Blanchard, CEO and founder of physical gold and silver broker Anthem Vault , thinks that his cryptocurrency, called the Hayek, will bring more stability to the Wild West digital currency marketplace. Matching the ancient currency of gold with a new medium of exchange makes sense, Blanchard said, adding, "Seeing bitcoin combined with gold is exciting. Crypto-gold is more secure and spendable." Read More Finally, a bitcoin ETF! Anthem Vault is no stranger to gold-backed cryptocurrencies. Last year the firm tested investors' taste for a gold-backed coin with its Independence offering, but that was linked to only a small amount of gold. So far, 700,000 Independence coins have been redeemed. George Soros' son, Alexander Soros, has even invested in the Canadian start-up BitGold -which lets you redeem bitcoin for gold-through Soros Brothers Investments. The gold-backed currencies are not the only ones to emerge since bitcoin's fall from grace. Another one is backed by fertilizer and yet another by medical-grade cannabis. Each is a small part of the more than $4 billion cryptocurrency marketplace mostly dominated by bitcoin, according to the website coinmarketcap . Gold-backed cryptocurrencies look the most promising, according to some experts. Story continues For example, Nofiatcoin , a gold- and silver-backed digital currency launched last year, has managed to be strong-despite the bitcoin crash. Nofiatcoin, which is actively traded, has already risen from its launch price of $1 to near-$18 on April 1. Other commodity-backed cryptocurrencies are more esoteric. Consider the Uro Foundation's UroCoin , also launched last year, which is supposedly backed by 1 metric ton of a widely used fertilizer called urea. It's meant to track the rise in energy and food prices. CannabisCoin , one of the more actively traded commodity-backed currencies on the cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex , has been gaining traction. The coin is backed by 1 gram of pharmaceutical-grade cannabis. Read More Profiting from the booming pot business There are already 500 different cryptocurrency offerings. Picking winners is, at this point, a difficult proposition. "We may end up with over 2,000 cryptocurrencies," said Carol Van Cleef, co-chair of the global payments practice at the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. "And some will be commodity-backed." How far have the creative crytpo-thinkers taken the idea already? Even beyond physical commodity backing for currency. Van Cleef pointed to a cryptocurrency coin backed by babysitting services issued at a co-op in Israel. For now, though, more stable cryptocurrencies, like gold-backed versions, are receiving the most attention. "Bitcoin is too volatile," said Campbell Harvey, a professor of finance at Duke University. "This is why alternatives are springing up." Redeemable gold-backed cryptocurrencies may help solve that problem by being pegged to volatility of the bullion, which has been used for centuries to back currencies. "That's an advantage," Harvey said. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies backed by commodities such as fertilizer or rice can be driven by less-predictable events, like blight or famine, and wild swings in commodities, Harvey said. In theory, anyone can create a cryptocurrency, because it's based on an open-source code that anyone can copy. "It only costs $40," said Carl Mullan, author of "The Digital Currency Challenge." But he added, "People may not even buy them. They're like penny stocks." Mullan favors redeemable gold cryptocurrencies. "I would buy them first," he said. Read More How you can make money off hackers Van Cleef said the redeemable gold concept only works if investors can trust the provider to actually back up their promise-no sure thing in a period of market experimentation. Mullan pointed to the gold-backed cryptocurrency Minacoin, which he said has disappeared. A lot of other digital currencies have come and gone, too, and once they fail, there hasn't been a way for investors to get their money back, Mullan said. "How do you know the cryptocurrency's value is really there? What happens if something goes wrong? Can it be sold or redeemed?" Van Cleef said. "The value of these cryptocurrencies is only as good as what backs them." Not all cryptocurrency concepts will be well-structured as market offerings. So the key to buying these crypto-coins is knowing where the gold-or any commodity-is being held. "Any good company should be audited," Anthem Vault's Blanchard said. "And you should know who the operators are." In Anthem Vault's case, gold bricks are housed in Salt Lake City. More From CNBC CNBC.com News Page CNBC.com Blogs Page CNBC.com Earnings Central || The Other Reason Tax Prep Should Make You Nervous: Few things make me feel less secure about my money than tax time. Not because the Feds are taking some of it. I dont mind paying my share of the bill for civilization, although the twisted logic of the tax code makes me think Im losing a rigged game . No, its because tax prep reminds me of how weak security can be at many of the financial sites tax-prep services need to talk to. Using your social-security number as a username? Sure! Allowing a password that uses six characters or fewer and hasnt changed since you created it in 1999? OK! But as with a lot of security issues, this situation is more complex than it looks. Bad Security Is the Banks Problem, Not Yours Its true that getting a bank or mutual-fund login armored with security comparable to what you get on Web mail and social media sites is tough. Start with two-step verification to defend your account from a compromised password: Many financial sites will leave you frustrated. A semi-canonical list of sites supporting two-step verification, Two Factor Auth , found this security measure available at only 20 of 45 banking sites and eight of 19 investment sites. In comparison, it reports that all but one of 25 cryptocurrency sites listed offer two-step verification. But while theres no Federal Reserve to protect your Bitcoin, things differ in the U.S. banking industry. Rules like the Feds Regulation E limit your liability to hacking with the happy side effect that banks cant make you do all the hard work of security. In practice, that means they must watch for suspicious behavior on their own as in when a credit-card issuer calls you about an unusual purchase. The big banks, I think, have done a very good job of detecting fraudulent activity, because theyre liable for it, said Kathleen Day, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business and a veteran banking reporter. Its the financial services organization that ends up paying the tab, not the consumer, echoed Mark Nicholson, a principal in Deloittes cyber risk practice. Story continues This alignment of responsibility and risk isnt how things usually work in online security. But maybe it should be. As security researcher Bruce Schneier said: What you want is the entity in a position to mitigate the risk be in charge of security. And for all the examples of weak security Ive come across this tax season, the financial industry is getting better. The financial planning site Personal Capital has seen more sophisticated security at bank and brokerage sites, including more use of optional one-time passwords, chief technical officer Fritz Robbins said in a note forwarded by a publicist. For what its worth, the bank holding our mortgage just made its login system sufficiently complex enough that Intuits Mint site cant seem to check our balance. Tax Refund Fraud Remains a Mess If only other parties that use your financial information had the same straightforward incentives for fixing security problems. Instead, the costs their mistakes run up often get paid for with other peoples money. Think about retailers whose sloppy security allows your credit card to be compromised and used for fraudulent purchases at different stores that have to eat those charges. Now consider the complicated machinery of tax preparation. There, risks and responsibilities tumble across the map. The Internal Revenue Service can accept or reject returns, but it also works under a Congressional microscope: If it wrongly holds up a refund, taxpayers and their representatives will howl. Furthermore, the IRS isnt in the room when people do their taxes online third-party services such as Intuits TurboTax have reserved that job. They have a better chance to verify whoevers doing the return, but they have an even stronger incentive to err on the side of getting returns in so refunds go out. An unsurprising result: In the 2013 tax year, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the IRS paid out $5.8 billion in fraudulent refunds to crooks impersonating real taxpayers. No bank could stay in business with that loss rate. (The IRS also prevented or recovered $24.2 billion in ID theft refunds,) An IRS spokesperson noted, fairly enough, that the agency keeps getting less money to do that job its funding fell from $12.15 billion in fiscal year 2010 to $10.9 billion in the current year. But that GAO report also chided the agency for not making such authentication options as Identity Protection PINs more widely available. Intuit, the leading tax-prep company, doesnt look too good either. Security reporter Brian Krebs reported in February that the company had dialed back some anti-fraud efforts , then called it out again in March for neglecting such basics as validating e-mail addresses used to open accounts . Intuit said in a February post that it has been pushing the IRS to offer guidance to tax preparers about ID theft fraud. It has also been closing many of the holes observed by Krebs, something Ive seen in my own experience with TurboTax this year. (Intuit representatives declined to elaborate beyond those earlier statements.) Like data breaches, tax-return fraud is something we cant do much about on our own although the IRSs warnings and advice are worth a read. Any more durable fix is above our pay grade, but I think it has to involve the people responsible for security paying when it fails. It is not an unsolvable problem, said Schneier, suggesting that the IRS ought to eat those costs. But in the context of the American political system, many things cant be done. Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com ; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro . || 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? || Bitcoin Foundation Accused: Misleading Members: Bitcoin received another blow to its image over the weekend, when newly elected Bitcoin Foundation board member Olivier Janssens announced that the Foundation was "effectively bankrupt" and accused the group's leadership of misleading the public.
Janssens' claims have yet to be verified, but the Foundation released a statement on Tuesday denying those claims, though the damage may have already been done.
Poor Management
The Bitcoin Foundation has been an advocate for thecryptocurrency's mainstream adoption, but Janssens said that poor decision making and misleading the public has made it a poor example for the community.
Related Link:Rand Paul Uses Bitcoin To Boost His Campaign
In a blog post titled "The Truth About the Bitcoin Foundation," Janssens detailed how the Foundation nearly ran out of money last year and fired 90 percent of its staff.
Janssens also called on current members to organize a vote to replace the entire board or shut down the Foundation completely.
Foundation Denies Claims
The Foundation responded on Tuesday with an official blog post claiming that Janssens' claims were completely unfounded.
The post admitted that the foundation has been struggling with funding due to the sharp decline in bitcoin's value, but claimed it was not bankrupt. The post also said that many of its staff left voluntarily, and although the foundation did "downsize," it did not fire 90 percent of its workers.
Difficult To Move Forward
Now it will be up to members of the bitcoin advocacy group to determine how this public dispute is settled. The Foundation's head of core developers responded to Janssens' post, saying that it was important to move forward legally and transparently in order to restore the Foundation's image, though many believe the organization has already lost the public's trust.
Image Credit: Public Domain
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Chrysler joins Starbucks in 'schooling' American workers: The hot new corporate perk is: education. Fiat Chrysler ( FCAU ) is now offering free college tuition to its 188,000 dealership employees. The program provides a no-cost online bachelors degree through the for-profit Strayer University ( STRA ), and is similar to a plan announced earlier this year between Starbucks ( SBUX ) and Arizona State University. Yahoo Finance Editor in Chief Andy Serwer points out that in the current work environment, firms need to both build a smarter workforce
and give smart people a reason to join their operations. Increasingly, companies are frustrated about getting educated workers and theyre looking to differentiate and attract workers, he says. I think youre going to see more and of this, particularly as wages rise and the competition-- the supply/demand balance-- shifts to making it difficult to find good workers. Fiat Chrysler executive Al Gardner makes that point in explaining why the carmaker is launching this program. Many of our dealers have expressed concern over the availability of talent to fill open positions due to business growth and turnover in their stores, especially in metro markets. That doesnt surprise Yahoo Finances Jen Rogers. Once you find them you want to keep them, she says. And the turnover is a real issue in dealerships--between 45% and 60%. Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli adds many businesses are responding like Fiat Chrysler to what they recognize as a real need. Corporate America is stepping in where they see gaps in educating workers, retaining them and essentially having people get what they feel like they ought to get out of a career, he explains. Serwer sees that as well. Theres a story in the New York Times today about income mobility and how, in certain parts of the country, there is none anymore, he points out. So companies are going to step into the breach here. I think theyre going to have to add on all kinds of perks. Story continues And Serwer believes offering free college tuition is a really important perk considering the divide between peoples skills and whats needed in the 21st century workplace. God knows theres a gap, he says. We need to educate people in this country. Also from Yahoo Finance Bitcoin goes mainstream with Goldman Sachs' backing McDonald's comeback plan: Is it enough? || 21 Inc. Finally Reveals Its Secretive Product: A Bitcoin Mining Chip: Back in March,bitcoinenthusiasts were abuzz with speculation about what21 Inc.might be working on.
The cryptocurrency startup was able to secure upwards of $110 million in fundraising from a spate of big name investors likeQUALCOMM, Inc.(NASDAQ:QCOM) and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
However, the company has been secretive about what it had been working on – until now.
A New Kind Of Chip
On Monday, the companyrevealedthat it will roll out an embeddable chip that allows users to mine bitcoins from their wireless devices.
The chip is designed to verify transactions while running as a background process, thus providing the user with a "continuous stream of digital currency."
Related Link: Solving Bitcoins Scalability Problem
Integrating Bitcoin Into The IoT
21 Inc. says its chip wasn't designed as a way to make people rich, but instead the company says it's more focused on integrating the cryptocurrency into the Internet of Things (IoT) and creating a micropayment scheme.
Micropayment Device
The chip, called BitShare, can consolidate, what 21 Inc. expects to be, a large number of micropayments, as the Internet of Things gains traction. Instead of customers paying for each individual service, they can install a BitShare chip and pay for the fees associated with things like connected lightbulbs or automated fire alarms using their mined bitcoin.
The company says it eventually hopes to use the technology to make having a smartphone more attainable in developing countries by subsidizing some of the costs through bitcoin mining.
Related Link: Bitcoin: Making Progress In Europe
Is The Chip Worth It?
The chip marks a big development for the bitcoin community, but it isn't without criticism.
Many worry about the feasibility of such a product, as it is likely to use a great deal of data and could significantly reduce the battery life of a smartphone. Some say consumers will be unwilling to sacrifice those things for the comparatively small reward, which may be just a few cents worth of bitcoin.
Image Credit: Public Domain
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Circle Attracts Goldman Sachs To The Bitcoin Space: Circle Internet Financial, a bitcoin-based startup, confirmed rumors that it was in the midst of a large fundraising effort this week after theNew York Timesreported that the company received a generous sum from financial giantGoldman Sachs(NYSE:GS).
The news brought a great deal of attention to the cryptocurrency and gave investors a reason to take a second look at Circle now that it had the backing of a major player in the finance space.
Goldman Sachs Takes An Interest
Goldman Sachs announced on Wednesday that it had partnered with China's IDG Capital Partners to lead a $50 million investment into Circle.
The funds are expected to be used by Circle executives to further the company's mission— to improve the bitcoin payments system. Circle plans to make peer to peer exchanges faster, easier and more cost effective using bitcoin.
Related Link:Bitcoin Security Conference Planned For May 2015
Bitcoin Businesses Present New Opportunities
Goldman Sachs' investment marks a growing interest in the technology that powers bitcoin.
While investors have been wary of the cryptocurrency itself due to its erratic swings in value, more and more firms have taken an interest in smaller companies that are creating platforms with which to use bitcoin.
The idea of sending money across boarders instantly and with a minimal cost has proven to be a unique opportunity for finance firms, who may soon need to compete with small startups like Circle as they gain popularity.
See more from Benzinga
• Is The Euro Moving Higher Or Lower? And What Should You Do About It?
• Meet The 3 Companies Goldman Sachs Says Are Leading The Bitcoin Revolution
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
current #bitcoin price (bitstamp) is $232.41, last changed Thu, 30 Apr 2015 09:58:00 GMT. queried at: 09:58:04 || LIVE: Profit = $807.17 (21.11 %). BUY B15.76 @ $242.35 (#Bitfinex). SELL @ $246.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || current #bitcoin price (okcoin) is $221.25, last changed Mon, 27 Apr 2015 15:08:00 GMT. queried at: 15:08:01 || $224.91 at 16:45 UTC [24h Range: $223.00 - $226.05 Volume: 5316 BTC] || 1 #bitcoin 615.55 TL, 239.952 $, 217.299 €, 158 GBP, 12300.00 RUR, 29500 ¥, 1521 CNH, 290 CAD #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 16 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $877.18 #bitcoin #btc || current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $227.98, last changed Sat, 25 Apr 2015 07:30:00 GMT. queried at: 07:32:54 || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 23 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $397.77 #bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $751.51 (20.28 %). BUY B14.89 @ $247.80 (#BTCe). SELL @ $255.00 (#VirCurex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || current #bitcoin price (winkdex) is $226.72, last changed Sat, 25 Apr 2015 10:10:00 GMT. queried at: 10:12:55
|
Trend: up || Prices: 234.02, 235.34, 240.35, 238.87, 240.95, 237.11, 237.12, 237.28, 237.41, 237.10
|
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 2018-05-16]
BTC Price: 8368.83, BTC RSI: 41.96
Gold Price: 1290.20, Gold RSI: 34.34
Oil Price: 71.49, Oil RSI: 64.99
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
1 Top Small-Cap Stock to Buy in April: Small-cap stocks can deliver explosive gains -- or sizable losses. Choose well, and these high-risk yet potentially high-reward stocks can deliver multibagger returns and turbocharge your portfolio's overall performance. But choose poorly, and a small-cap stock can produce painful losses, up to and including a complete loss of capital should the business be forced into bankruptcy. That's why it's so important to invest in only the strongest of these companies -- those that possess the best business models and enjoy the largest growth opportunities. In this regard, here's one of the most intriguing small-cap stocks available in the market today. Increasingly large stacks of gold coins, with green plants growing on them This small-cap stock can grow into something much larger in the years ahead. Image source: Getty Images. In the mold of a young Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) , Boston Omaha (NASDAQ: BOMN) is a small conglomerate designed to generate attractive long-term returns through the consistent acquisition of undervalued assets. Its current businesses include insurance, real estate, and advertising, and the company plans to expand within these areas and others via both acquisitions and organic growth. Interestingly, Boston Omaha co-CEO Alex Buffett Rozek is Warren Buffett's grandnephew, though Berkshire Hathaway is not affiliated with the company in any way. Still, it's clear that Buffett holds Rozek in high regard. "I think the world of Alex, but we don't have anything to do with his decision-making or anything of the sort," Buffett said in a Wall Street Journal interview (may require subscription). "He's got a good mind, a very good mind, and he certainly has good values." Moreover, like both Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger, Rozek and his co-CEO Adam Peterson have their interests well-aligned with those of long-term investors; Peterson and Rozek both own large stakes in Boston Omaha. In addition, their base salaries have been set at the federal minimum wage, and they don't earn a bonus unless they grow Boston Omaha's book value per share -- which, not incidentally, is Buffett's preferred way to measure performance -- by more than 6% annually. All told, Boston Omaha is still very early in its life as a public company -- its initial public offering was in June 2017 -- and not yet profitable. Yet Rozek and Peterson are currently building the infrastructure to support a far larger business, and as the company gains scale, sizable profits are likely to follow. Additionally, with a market cap of just $400 million, Boston Omaha will find it much easier to identify needle-moving investments than the massive, $500 billion Berkshire Hathaway. Thus, unlike Berkshire itself, this baby-sized version of Berkshire can look to nearly any area of the market to deploy its $90 million in cash reserves as it seeks to create value for its investors in the years ahead. Story continues Better still, Boston Omaha's shares can currently be had for around 2 times book value -- a fair price to pay for a business that could potentially compound its shareholders' wealth for decades to come . 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 Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool recommends Boston Omaha. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . View comments || Trade War Fears Justified as China Responds with Force, Stock Markets Tumble: While the U.S administration introduced tariffs on a broad range of goods, the Chinese government has focused on aircraft, soybeans , and cars, which were the three largest exports to China in 2017, the tariffs announced targeting $50bn of U.S goods annually, with 25% tariffs on the big 3. The total number of U.S products that will fall under the latest tariffs to be introduced by China sit at 106, though for the U.S government and the economy, the punitive tariffs on aircraft, soybeans, and autos are going to hurt the U.S economy and the administration the most. China is in no mood to mess around and, while U.S President Trump has found increasing support since the introduction of trade tariffs, uncertainty over the near-term outlook for farmers and the aircraft and auto manufacturing sector looks grim should the tariffs be introduced in the coming weeks, particularly when March manufacturing PMI numbers released earlier in the week had disappointed. Chinas list of 106 U.S goods have been released and for the Republicans, not only will the prospect of falling demand for U.S autos and Boeing aircraft weigh heavily, but also the impact on farmers, with the mid-West having been a strong Republican stronghold in the 2016 Presidential Election. U.S President Trump had only recently stated that it was easy to win a trade war . The latest move by China could be checkmate, with demand for aircraft, auto and U.S produce having formed the lions share of U.S exports, creating a significant number of jobs within the U.S that has contributed to the tightening in labour market conditions, with the unemployment rate now sitting at pre-global financial crisis levels in recent months. Unsurprisingly, the global financial markets have balked at the release of Chinas 106 and when considering the fact that China is the worlds largest importer of Soybeans, moving away from the U.S to alternative sources is going to have a drastic impact, not just on the U.S, but also on China. Story continues At the time of writing, the Dow Jones futures were down 461 points, the S&P500 futures down 38 points and the NASDAQ futures down a whopping 114 points and the slide comes before the Chinese government has even announced a date on which the tariffs will become effective. The market bulls will be hoping that Chinas latest move will force the U.S administration into pulling back from its plans and, when considering the fact that China was the largest buyer of U.S paper in 2017, the U.S governments need for funding this year will add further pressure on the Dollar and U.S government funding should Trump stand firm. There are no winners here and, with numerous economies hinged on Chinas demand for raw materials and goods, not to mention the market sensitivity to Chinas economy, there will be many a government hoping that the threat of a trade war is put to bed. Join our Telegram Channel This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Trade War Fears Justified as China Responds with Force, Stock Markets Tumble Market Snapshot Stocks Crash on Trade War Fears EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for April 4, 2018 Cryptocurrencies Values Went too High, too Fast But Investors are Still Being Attracted to the Crypto Sector Interpol Expresses Concerns about Cryptocurrency Mixers and Dark Net, Bitcoin Still in a Bearish Trend E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Analysis April 4, 2018 Forecast || Why Shares of Altice USA Slumped Today: What happened Shares of broadband and video services provider Altice USA (NYSE: ATUS) tumbled on Friday following a first-quarter report from Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) that featured slowing customer growth . Altice stock was down about 10% at 3 p.m. EDT, while Charter stock was down about 12%. So what Charter reported that its total residential and small and medium-sized business customers increased by 261,000 during the first quarter, down from growth of 355,000 in the first quarter of 2017. The company added 362,000 internet customers, but it lost 112,000 video customers and 25,000 voice customers. A man holding his head facing a slumping chart. Image source: Getty Images. Despite Charter beating analyst estimates for both revenue and earnings, this subscriber growth slowdown and the slump in video and voice customers was enough to drag down shares of other cable companies as well. Now what Altice last reported its quarterly results in February. During the fourth quarter, Altice added 25,000 internet customers but lost 25,000 TV customers. Overall residential customer additions totaled just 7,000. With internet streaming services like Netflix only getting more popular, cable companies are having a tough time holding on to TV subscribers. Whether Friday's slump for Charter and Altice is an overreaction depends on whether Charter's growth slowdown is an isolated event or a sign of things to come. 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 Timothy Green has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Blockchain Takes the Stage at Flagship Cryptography Conference in Israel: For the second year in a row, a flagship cryptography conference in Europe has devoted an entire session to blockchain technology.
It was a sign that cryptographers, who once struggled to take the cryptocurrency space seriously due to its hacks, frauds and often reckless approach to developing secure protocols, are now investing their time into the space.
The 37th annualEurocryptconference was held this year on April 30 to May 3, 2018, in Tel Aviv, Israel, at the Dan Panorama Hotel, steps from the Mediterranean ocean. Hosted by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR), the conference was attended by 370 people. Five blockchain papers were presented on the second day of the conference, and one of those even received a “best paper” award.
On the third day of the conference, Matthew Green, a cryptographer and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, had the honor of presenting an invited talk on the 30-year history of cryptocurrencies.
Getting a paper accepted at Eurocrypt is no mean feat. Only one in five papers that are submitted get accepted after going through a months-long, peer-review process, where experts in the field scrutinize the work to determine its suitability for the conference.
Four blockchain papers were presented at this year’s blockchain session. Cornell Tech’s Rafael Pass presentedThunderella, a blockchain protocol focused on fast transactions. Following that, Vassilis Zikas, a senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and IOHK research fellow, looked at the core cryptographic assumptionsunderlying Bitcoin.
Shedding light on why the second paper was important, because Bitcoin did not come through traditional academic channels, cryptographers had no formal model of how the protocol worked, which they needed to build alternative consensus algorithms with comparable security properties. The work of Zikas and others is changing that.
Later, Peter Gazi, a researcher at blockchain development and research company IOHK, presentedOuroboros Praos, the next-generation, proof-of-stake algorithm for theCardano blockchain. Finally, Joel Alwen, a researcher at the Institute of Science and Technology in Austria, presented anexaminationof ASIC-resistant, proof-of-work hashing algorithms.
Outside of the blockchain session, a fifth blockchain paper,Simple Proofs of Sequential Workwon an award for best paper. The paper was presented by cryptographer Krzysztof Pietrzak. Bram Cohen, CEO of energy-saving cryptocurrency Chia, was a coauthor.
The IACR has an interesting history. The nonprofit was initiated in 1982 by David Chaum,who later founded DigiCash, a company that specialized in digital money and payment systems. Cryptographers at the time wanted to form their own organization for meetings and research outside of established ones for mathematics and computer science. Today, the IACR is responsible for eight conferences, including three flagship cryptography conferences: Eurocrypt in Europe, Crypto in the U.S. and Asiacrypt in Asia.
Peer review is a big part of these conferences. Papers are submitted in a double-blind process where the author’s names are removed from the paper, and the reviewers do not reveal their identities to the authors. The point of peer review is to ensure only the best papers get into a conference. Beyond that, peer review also strengthens the security of a protocol because the more eyes that examine a protocol, the more likely it is that flaws will be found — and fixed — before a protocol is made widely available.
Blockchain technology has deep roots in cryptography. Bitcoin, for instance, is founded on the early discoveries of pioneering cryptographers like Chaum (DigiCash), Ralph Merkle (hash trees), Wei Dai (b-money scheme) and others. Despite that, somewhere along the line, blockchain parted ways with its academic roots. As a result, few papers in the blockchain space today have gone through any formal peer review process.
But that may be changing. More blockchain and cryptocurrency papers appearing at flagship IACR conferences is an indication that blockchain technology is returning home to its academic roots and future blockchain protocols will be more robust and secure.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || ABA Tax Experts Ask IRS to Create Safe Harbor for Cryptocurrency Hard Forks: The American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Taxation has formally asked the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to create a safe harbor for investment gains realized from cryptocurrency hard forks.
In theletter, which was drafted by Section Chair Karen Hawkins, the ABA noted that several major developments have occurred in the cryptoasset space since 2014 when the IRS first provided guidance on how the agency treats cryptocurrency investments for federal tax purposes.
Chief among the Section’s concerns is a need for clear guidance on how investors should report gains associated withhard forks, which cause a blockchain to split into more than one version and provide current coin-holders with funds on both chains.
The most prominent example of this was theBitcoin Cashhard fork, which awarded Bitcoin holders with an equivalent number of coins — coins that are presently worth $1,064 each.
SinceUS tax returnsare due in less than a month, the Section recommended that the IRS adopt a “temporary rule, in the form of a safe harbor” for taxpayers who received funds from hard forks.
According to the Section’s proposed language, the hard fork would constitute a taxable event, but the initial value of the forked coins would be $0.
“Taxpayers who owned a coin that was subject to a Hard Fork in 2017 would be treated as having realized the forked coin resulting from the Hard Fork in a taxable event,” Hawkins wrote in the proposed guidelines. “The deemed value of the forked coin at the time of the realization event would be zero, which would also be the taxpayer’s basis in the forked coin.”
Consequently, investors would not have topay taxeson the market value of the coins unless they later sold or otherwise disposed of them, at which point they would be taxed at full market value as capital gains — not ordinary income.
Though perhaps not a perfect solution, the Section argued that this treatment — at least for tax year 2017 — represented the most reasonable approach for both the IRS and taxpayers.
“This temporary rule has the benefit of encouraging consistency among taxpayers with respect to 2017 Hard Forks, avoiding difficult timing and valuation issues (including the ability of taxpayers to benefit from hindsight depending on how the values fluctuated during 2017), and providing information to the Service regarding holders of the original and forked cryptocurrencies,” Hawkins concluded.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postABA Tax Experts Ask IRS to Create Safe Harbor for Cryptocurrency Hard Forksappeared first onCCN. || Kinder Morgan Stock Upgraded: What You Need to Know: Every day, Wall Street analysts upgrade some stocks, downgrade others, and "initiate coverage" on a few more. But do these analysts even know what they're talking about? Today, we're taking one high-profile Wall Street pick and putting it under the microscope...
Kinder Morgan(NYSE: KMI)stock is once again on sale. The oil pipeline operator received a vote of confidence this morning when Bank of America/Merrill Lynch announced it is upgrading the stock to buy.
Here's what you need to know.
Image source: Getty Images.
Merrill Lynch likes Kinder Morgan stock primarily for its "valuation," according toStreetInsider.com. And yet, that valuation may not look immediately attractive to most investors, seeing as based on trailing earnings, Kinder Morgan currently sells for a P/E ratio of188(data fromS&P Global Market Intelligence).
And yet, in January, Kinder Morgan reported estimates-beating results. Although earnings declined year over year to end with a $0.47-per-share loss, Kinder Morgan attributed this loss primarily to effects of the just-passed 2017 tax reform, and argued its results were actually "solid" apart from those tax effects. Analysts agreed, noting that Kinder Morgan's adjusted earnings for Q4 2017 were actually up 17% year over year, and $0.03 ahead of estimates.
Merrill Lynch in particular thinks that after Kinder Morgan beat estimates once already, there's the potential for "attractive upside" in the shares, as "fundamentals" at the company are "improving."
In today's note, the analyst not only upgraded Kinder Morgan to buy, but assigned the stock a $20 price target. If Merrill is right, this implies there's as much as 28% upside in the shares over the next 12 months.
SoisMerrill Lynch right?
Valued on its trailing P/E ratio of 188, it's hard to make much of a case for investing in Kinder Morgan stock -- even at analysts' projected 18% long-term growth rate. On the other hand, whileGAAPearnings remain weak, last year, Kinder Morgan did generate free cash flow of more than $1.4 billion. With a price-to-free-cash-flow valuation of less than 25 and a dividend yield of 3.2%, Kinder Morgan does begin looking attractive when valued on free cash flow.
Viewed from yet another perspective, Kinder Morgan stock is currently selling for almost no premium whatsoever to its book value (Kinder Morgan has a price-to-book-value ratio of 1.03). Boasting an "unparalleled asset footprint" that includes the "largest natural gas network in North America" (Kinder's words), it's hard to imagine any competitor being able to build up a similar business at a cost similar to the cost to buy Kinder Morgan at book value -- yet that's all the market is valuing the stock today.
That's perhaps the strongest argument in favor of buying shares of Kinder Morgan.
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Rich Smithhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway (B shares) and Kinder Morgan. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Bullish Call: BitMEX Chief Predicts Bitcoin Price to Hit $50,000 in 2018: There are numerous bitcoin price predictions floating out there, but when the head of a major bitcoin derivatives exchange shares his forecast, the price prediction has legs.
Arthur Hayes, the co-founder and CEO of Seychelles-based BitMEX, the bitcoin mercantile exchange, has a bullish prediction for the bitcoin price, which he believes will skyrocket to $50,000 by year-end 2018, hetold CNBC.
While the bitcoin price has bounced back and is inching closer to the $8,800 level, it’s still a far cry from Hayes’ price prediction. Though as Fundstrat market strategists have pointed out, much of the gains in the bitcoin price tend to unfold over just a handful of days each year.
Even at the start of the new year, when the bitcoin price was trading in the doldrums, Hayes wasn’t phased, though he pointed out “it’s [his] job to make predictions” whether or not they come true.
Hayes, a Citigroup alum, explained that he is a volatility trader, and he makes his money on the volatility in the bitcoin price, which there has been no shortage of year-to-date. “If it goes up, if it goes down, if you have Bill Gates calling it a fraud … Short it, I don’t care. If you think it’s going to be $1 million in a few months, great, buy it. I still don’t care. We just match trades,” Hayes said.
Asia-focused BitMEX is geared toward retail investors but instead of spot trading, it has some of the advanced features that you might expect to see on an institutional trading platform, including derivatives, margin trading and up to 100x leverage (which is more of a “headline number” and not something most traders take advantage of). The exchange supports short tradingin perpetual contracts.
Hayes also addressed the cultural differences that affect cryptocurrency market dynamics in the Western world and Asia, the latter of which is where some suggest two-thirds of the market originates from.
“I think Asia dominates crypto because they’re very used to trading digital assets,” said Hayes, pointing to South Korea, where locals are accustomed to trading virtual goods in video games and where the culture is easily transferred to cryptocurrency trading.
And it’s individuals, not institutions, that are driving most of the volume.
“There’s really not too much institutional presence right now in crypto. It is a retail phenomenon,” Hayes told CNBC.
But many are expecting that institutional investors that have been sidelined are on the brink of a shift where they too will enter the space, especially with traditional Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs launching a trading desk and the NYSE also jumping in. When that happens, Hayes said BitMEX is prepared to support them, pointing to the exchange’s API.
Hayes got the Twitter-sphere talking when he claimed in a tweet to show up at Consensus 2018, which is unfolding in midtown Manhattan this week, in one of those famous crypto Lamborghinis –
If Hayes is correct and the bitcoin price attains $50,000 as he predicts, there could be a lot more Lambos on the road in the not-too-distant future.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postBullish Call: BitMEX Chief Predicts Bitcoin Price to Hit $50,000 in 2018appeared first onCCN. || Investors Are Betting Big Against These 3 Retailers: Many retailers have struggled over the past few years thanks to tough competition from e-tailers and slowing brick-and-mortar traffic. Some stronger retailers survived by closing stores, cutting costs, and investing more heavily in digital channels. Others flopped as they drowned in their own markdowns. Investors can gauge how bearish the market is about certain retailers by checking the short interest , or the percentage of their shares being shorted. Let's take a closer look at three retailers with the highest short interest in the market, and whether or not the bears are right. Statues of a bull and a bear. Image source: Getty Images. JCPenney 42% of JCPenney 's (NYSE: JCP) shares were being shorted as of April 10. That's a very pessimistic outlook for a stock that already dropped nearly 50% over the past 12 months. JCPenney once thrived as a low-end department store anchor in malls across America. But mall traffic dried up, and JCPenney struggled to compete against e-tailers like Amazon , superstores like Walmart , and fast fashion retailers like Inditex 's Zara. A JCPenney store in Brooklyn. Image source: JCPenney. In 2011, JCPenney hired former Apple executive Ron Johnson as its CEO. Johnson tried to rebrand JCPenney to attract new shoppers, but the strategy alienated its core shoppers instead. Sales plunged, and the stock shed half its value by the time Johnson was fired in 2013. Current CEO Marvin Ellison tried to turn JCPenney around by beefing up its home improvement department, adding more store-in-stores for popular brands, and investing more heavily in e-commerce initiatives. Unfortunately, JCPenney still relies on using markdowns to drive its sales, and its cash is drying up at an alarming rate . Analysts expect JCPenney's revenue and earnings to slide 3% and 18%, respectively, this year. Those are dismal growth figures for a stock that trades at 17 times forward earnings. Under Armour Under Armour (NYSE: UA) (NYSE: UAA) was once hailed as the "next Nike ," but 37% of its class A shares were being shorted as of April 10. Both classes of the stock have stumbled more than 60% over the past two years. Story continues The bears pounced on Under Armour for three main reasons. First, the bankruptcy of Sports Authority in 2016 flooded the North American market with excess inventory. UA, which was already struggling to stand out in a crowded market, had to cut costs to remain competitive. Second, the resurgence of Adidas (NASDAQOTH: ADDYY) -- fueled by the popularity of its "retro" designs, UltraBoost foam-soled running shoes, and celebrity-designed shoes like Kanye West's Yeezy -- took a bite out of UA's North American sales. Lastly, new flagship shoes like the Curry 4 failed to impress fickle shoppers. Under Armour shoes. Image source: Under Armour. Wall Street expects UA's revenue to rise 3% this year, but for its earnings to slide 11%. Yet its class A shares still trade at a whopping 56 times forward earnings, while its class C shares have a forward P/E of 37. It's no wonder that the bears are still drooling. GNC Holdings GNC 's (NYSE: GNC) business of selling vitamins and nutritional supplements at brick-and-mortar stores worked well for decades. Unfortunately, warehouse retailers, superstores, and e-tailers started to render GNC obsolete. In recent years, a series of lawsuits questioning the ingredients of its products tarnished the brand's image. That's why GNC's stock lost nearly 90% of its value over the past two years, and why 36% of its shares are still being shorted as of April 10. The stock looks ridiculously cheap at less than 5 times forward earnings, but that's because analysts expect its revenue to slide 3% and its earnings to plunge 37% this year. GNC believes that an overseas expansion (particularly in China), the expansion of its loyalty program, and a partnership with Amazon could get its business back on track. However, those efforts probably won't lure enough shoppers away from other retailers that carry similar products along with other goods. The bottom line The bears have sunk their teeth into JCPenney, Under Armour, and GNC, and they won't let go anytime soon. Each of these retailers has fundamental problems which can't be easily solved. 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. Leo Sun owns shares of Amazon and Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon, Apple, Nike, Under Armour (A Shares), and Under Armour (C 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 a disclosure policy . || Better Buy: Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) vs. AbbVie (ABBV): This big drugmaker faces challenges in the future for its top-selling product, a highly successful immunology drug. But it also has one of the fastest-growing cancer drugs in the world in its lineup and a promising pipeline. In addition, the company pays a solid dividend that many investors love. What company am I talking about? Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) , of course. But I'm also referring to AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) . Each of the statements applies to both of these big pharma companies. AbbVie has been the better stock over the last few years, but which is the better pick for long-term investors? Here's how AbbVie and J&J compare. Woman holding palms facing upward in front of chalkboard drawing of scales Image source: Getty Images. Growth prospects AbbVie appears to have the stronger growth prospects over the next several years. The company should enjoy a few more years of growth for its top-selling drug Humira. Although Humira will see challenges from biosimilars in Europe later in 2018, it should keep biosimilar rivals at bay in the more lucrative U.S. market until 2023. Meanwhile, AbbVie recently announced a monster first quarter , with tremendous sales growth for cancer drug Imbruvica. The biggest story in Q1, though, was the big sales jump for new hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug Mavyret. AbbVie also has a pipeline loaded with potential winners. Upadacitinib and risankizumab could be worthy heirs to Humira in the immunology arena. The company hopes to win FDA approval for elagolix in managing endometriosis within the next couple of months. AbbVie also has several oncology programs that could pay off, despite a significant setback in March for experimental lung cancer drug Rova-T . Johnson & Johnson has a more immediate challenge for its top-selling drug Remicade. Biosimilar competition already is taking a toll on sales for the immunology drug. Sales also are falling for other drugs in J&J's current lineup, including Concerta, Invokana, and Risperdal Consta. However, J&J does have several growth drivers. Immunology drugs Simponi and Stelara continue to enjoy strong momentum. Sales for J&J's cancer drugs Darzalex, Imbruvica (which it co-markets with AbbVie), and Zytiga are growing briskly. Its pulmonary hypertension franchise, acquired from Actelion, is also contributing to the company's overall growth. J&J also recently won Food and Drug Admnistration (FDA) approval for promising prostate cancer drug Erleada. Story continues J&J's pipeline includes several late-stage programs seeking additional indications for already-approved drugs such as Xarelto, Invokana, Simponi, Stelara, Imbruvica, and Tremfya. The company also has some new drugs that could be on the way, notably including esketamine for treating depression. Overall, though, Johnson & Johnson likely won't grow as quickly as AbbVie. One reason is that much of the company's growth in the first quarter came from acquisitions , especially the buyout of Actelion. In addition, J&J's growth is held back somewhat by its consumer healthcare and medical-device segments. Dividend Johnson & Johnson claims one of the best track records for dividends, with 56 consecutive years of dividend increases. The company's dividend currently yields 2.57%. AbbVie's dividend history isn't too shabby, either. It's increased its dividend by 140% since being spun off from Abbott Labs in 2013. AbbVie's dividend yield currently stands at 4.2%. Valuation Probably the best way to compare these two companies' valuations is to look ahead. Johnson & Johnson stock trades at a little under 15 times expected earnings. That's relatively inexpensive considering the stability of the company. AbbVie, however, looks like a bargain. The stock trades at only 11 times expected earnings. Factoring in its growth prospects makes AbbVie stock look even more attractive. Better buy I have long believed that Johnson & Johnson is one of the premier blue-chip stocks on the market and still hold that view. Because of its wide range of businesses, J&J gives investors exposure to multiple areas within the healthcare sector by buying only one stock. So is J&J the better buy? I don't think so. As much as I like Johnson & Johnson, I think there's a more compelling case for AbbVie right now. The stock is oversold, in my view, because of the Rova-T clinical failure mentioned earlier. AbbVie has better growth prospects than J&J and claims a more attractive dividend yield. While the company can't afford another major pipeline setback, I like the overall value proposition for AbbVie 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 Keith Speights owns shares of AbbVie. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Johnson & Johnson. The Motley Fool has the following options: short May 2018 $140 calls on Johnson & Johnson. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Better Buy: Apple Inc. (AAPL) vs. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): They are two of the biggest, most important technology companies in the world.Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL)-- in the span of less than 20 years -- has gone from almost-bankrupt to the brink of having a $1 trillion valuation.Microsoft(NASDAQ: MSFT)-- after its meteoric rise leading up to the turn of the millennium -- has leveraged its most well-known properties to become a force again.
But between these two, which company is the better buy at today's prices? The answer may surprise you.
Image source: Getty Images
Of course, we can't answer that question with 100% certainty. But below, we'll dive in by comparing the two stalwarts on three different criteria.
We'll start with the most straightforward measure: financial fortitude. In the end, here's what any investor should be asking him/herself: how would a company be affected by an economic downturn if it happenedright now.
If it would be ruined -- because it carries too much debt and has negative cash flow -- then it isfragile. If the company would sustain some damage, but -- in the long run -- emerge unscathed, then it would berobust.
But if a company could actually benefit in the long-run from an economic downturn -- by buying back shares, acquiring smaller rivals, or bleeding the competition dry by undercutting on prices -- then it isantifragile.
You want to own antifragile companies.
Keeping in mind that Apple is valued -- via market capitalization -- at a 25% premium to Microsoft, here's how they stack up.
[{"Company": "Apple", "Cash": "$285 billion", "Debt": "$104 billion", "Free Cash Flow": "$53 billion"}, {"Company": "Microsoft", "Cash": "$147 billion", "Debt": "$73 billion", "Free Cash Flow": "$33 billion"}]
Data: Yahoo! Finance, SEC filings. Cash includes long and short-term investments. Free cash flow presented on trailing twelve month basis.
Based on the balance sheet and free cash flows, these are two of the most antifragile companies in the world. With a combined net cash position of over a quartertrilliondollars and cash flows of over $85 billion in the past twelve months, I believe both companies are in a position to benefit from a downturn.
Obviously, Apple's statements are stronger than Microsoft's -- but for the purposes of this exercise, I'm calling it a draw: neither would have a notable edge over the other, relative to the competition. They're both insanely strong.
Winner = Tie
Next we have a murkier variable to evaluate: valuation. While there's no single metric that will let us know how cheap or expensive a stock is, we can gather together many to create a more holistic view.
[{"Company": "Apple", "P/E*": "18", "P/FCF": "17", "PEG Ratio": "1.3", "Dividend": "1.4%", "FCF Payout": "25%"}, {"Company": "Microsoft", "P/E*": "26", "P/FCF": "21", "PEG Ratio": "2.3", "Dividend": "1.8%", "FCF Payout": "37%"}]
Data: Yahoo! Finance, E*Trade. P/E presented using non-GAAP earnings figures.
On virtually every metric, Apple is the cheaper company. While Microsoft might have a slightly higher dividend yield, that alone is not enough to make it a better buy based on traditional valuation metrics. On this facet, Apple is squarely in the lead.
Winner = Apple
I saved the most consequential for last. If you're a long-term, buy-to-hold investor, there's nothing more important to monitor than the sustainable competitive advantages -- often called a "moat" -- of your holdings.
In the simplest form, a moat is what keeps your customers coming back for more, year after year, while holding the competition at bay for decades.
Apple's moat is primarily provided by the strength of the company's brand.Forbesranks it as the world's most valuable, worth an estimated $170 billion. But that's not all: because the devices you have using iOS can all talk to one another and store data on the cloud, there are also moderately high switching costs.
Microsoft is no slouch either. On the brand front,Forbesranks Microsoft as the world's third-best brand, though the absolute value of the brand -- $87 billion -- dwarfs Apple's. But Microsoft has a host of other variables in its favor. Its Office Suite has been a mainstay in computing for over two decades, and speaks to the ridiculously high switching costs of going away from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
The company's Azure cloud business also benefits from network effects: as more users host on Microsoft's cloud, the company is able to lower prices, benefit from economies of scale, and feed more data into Azure's AIcapabilities.
In the end, this may be acontroversial call,but I give the edge to Microsoft. While Apple has done anadmirablejob of transitioning its business to repeat services, it's nowhere near the recurring revenue that Microsoft gets. Apple still has to rely on coming out with The Next Big Thing every year or two for its stock to remain afloat. Microsoft has no such pressure.
Winner = Microsoft
So there you have it: a tie. Except...whenever there's a tie, I always give the nod to the company with the wider moat. In this case, that means Microsoft is the winner. Currently, Apple represents 2.5% of my real-life holdings. But I've long been wary of Apple's staying power, and have admired Microsoft's new life under CEO Satya Nadella.
In the coming week -- when Motley Fool trading rules allow -- I will be selling my Apple shares and using some of the proceeds to start a position in Microsoft. My money will firmly be where my mouth is.
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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 Stoffelowns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
El Bitcoin se queda por encima de $7.000 y el Ethereum rompe nuevamente con $400 a medida que el mercado sube constantemente https://ift.tt/2H8nyOn #Cryptotrading || 【BTC】仮想通貨のアルトコイン買いまくった結果www http://bitcoinanntena.com/?p=18592 || Esta es la cantidad de petróleo que se necesita para producir un bitcóin #Dato https://goo.gl/ipQkrA || Current price of #Bitcoin is $9193.00 || https://ift.tt/2JkFqX7 https://ift.tt/2kIjsDC the Real Facts on Bitcoin: What You Need to Know pic.twitter.com/CNtSK67nqu || Block: 524448
Size: 46.68 kb
Fee: 0.06$/kb
Price: 651.22$ | 0.09511 BTC
#BitcoinCash $BCH #BCH $BCC #BCC #Blockchain #Cryptocurrencyhttps://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/block/524448 … || @Bitminutes - Better than Bitcoin for billions! Check out how BitMinutes can change lives with a Guaranteed $10 BitMinute loan http://lddy.no/3syu || Price of Bitcoin Plunges Further to $7,500 http://tribetica.com/index.php/2018/03/29/price-of-bitcoin-plunges-further-to-7500/ …
#newsoftheweek #Bitcoin #blockchain #crypto #cryptocurrency #newspic.twitter.com/UD0QULxAtL || Bitcoin: I want all India to shut down in 3 years. https://twitter.com/anondran/status/981844474186870784 … || Welp. the cat's out of the bag on this, what they don't report is the 105k investment yields a solid 10x minimum return when you sell the top hehe. On to the next one as they say! #bitcoin #easymoney #almostTOOeasy #takesMONEYtoMakeMoneyhttp://bitcoinist.com/want-john-mcafee-promote-cryptocurrency-itll-cost-105000-per-tweet/ …
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Trend: down || Prices: 8094.32, 8250.97, 8247.18, 8513.25, 8418.99, 8041.78, 7557.82, 7587.34, 7480.14, 7355.88
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2017-05-23]
BTC Price: 2320.42, BTC RSI: 83.69
Gold Price: 1254.80, Gold RSI: 54.68
Oil Price: 51.47, Oil RSI: 64.40
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Cable & Wireless Reports Preliminary Q1 2017 Results: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - May 8, 2017) - Cable & Wireless Communications Limited ("CWC") is the leading telecommunications operator in substantially all its consumer markets, which are predominantly located in the Caribbean and Latin America, providing entertainment, information and communication services to 3.6 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 3 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 months ended March 31, 2017 have also been aligned to Liberty Global's IASB-IFRS 1 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 4, 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 5 section below. In addition, effective for the 2016 fiscal year, CWC changed its fiscal year end from March 31 to December 31 to conform with Liberty Global. Operating highlights: Delivered Q1 Organic RGU 6 additions of 10,000 Internet 7 and fixed-line telephony 8 subscribers were up 7,000 and 3,000, respectively, on an organic basis, as we increased penetration across our high-speed networks with bundling success in Jamaica, Panama and Trinidad Video subscribers were flat as losses in Jamaica and Trinidad were offset by gains in Panama and the Bahamas At March 31, 2017, we had a bundling ratio of 1.54 RGUs per customer, as 11% of our customers 9 subscribed to triple-play, 32% subscribed to double-play and 57% to a single product. Our high single-play penetration provides potential for continued bundling success Mobile subscribers 10 increased by 27,000 on an organic basis, driven by prepaid additions in Panama Highlights across our largest markets were as follows: In Panama, we continued to build momentum through a revitalized go-to-market approach, adding 8,000 RGUs in the quarter. Of note, we added 2,000 internet and 2,000 cable video RGUs in Q1, as our bundled offers gained traction through network investments enabling faster speeds of up to 300 Mbps. We also continued to grow our DTH 11 base, adding 3,000 RGUs in Q1 as we targeted more rural areas where we do not provide video through our hybrid fiber coaxial ("HFC") network. Our prepaid mobile base grew by 49,000 subscribers in the quarter as we launched data-led promotions and benefited from the seasonal Carnival uplift In Jamaica we added 2,000 internet and 3,000 fixed-line telephony RGUs, however these were offset by a 5,000 video RGU decline. On the mobile front, we lost 10,000 subscribers in Q1, due to prepaid churn following increased promotional activity in the prior quarter In the Bahamas, we added 2,000 RGUs in Q1 with momentum steadily building as we increased penetration of our newly constructed Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network. The entry of our first mobile competitor in November 2016 had an impact on our base, as we lost 6,000 mobile subscribers, both prepaid and postpaid, in the quarter Barbados RGUs declined by 2,000 in total, primarily resulting from a decline in our fixed-line telephony subscribers. We saw stability across video and internet RGUs as we improved service quality across our fixed network, which was a significant improvement compared to an aggregate loss of 5,000 RGUs in the prior quarter across these two products. On the mobile front, we lost 3,000 subscribers from churn following the heavy promotional activity during the December holiday period Trinidad RGU additions were broadly flat, as a 3,000 video subscriber decline resulting from continued competitive intensity was offset by growth in fixed-line telephony through bundling promotions Story continues Footnotes * The financial figures contained in this release are prepared in accordance with IASB-IFRS 1 . CWC's financial condition and results of operations will be included in Liberty Global's consolidated financial statements under U.S. GAAP 2 . There are significant differences between the U.S. GAAP and IASB-IFRS presentations of our consolidated financial statements. 1 International Financial Reporting Standards, as promulgated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), are referred to as IASBIFRS. 2 Accounting principles generally accepted in the United States are referred to as U.S. GAAP. 3 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. 4 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 March 31, 2016 to reflect the impacts of the alignment to Liberty Global's accounting policies and to reflect the translation of our rebased amounts for the three months ended March 31, 2017 at the applicable average foreign currency exchange rates that were used to translate CWC's results for the three months ended March 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 months ended March 31, 2016 to eliminate nonrecurring items or to give retroactive effect to any changes in estimates that have been implemented in the three months ended March 31, 2017. 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. 5 Property, equipment and intangible asset additions include capital expenditures on an accrual basis, amounts financed under vendor financing or capital lease arrangements and other non-cash additions. 6 RGU is separately a Basic Video Subscriber, Enhanced Video Subscriber, DTH Subscriber, Internet Subscriber or Telephony Subscriber (each as defined and described below). A home, residential multiple dwelling unit, or commercial unit may contain one or more RGUs. For example, if a residential customer in our Austrian market subscribed to our enhanced video service, fixed-line telephony service and broadband internet service, the customer would constitute three RGUs. Total RGUs is the sum of Basic Video, Enhanced Video, DTH, Internet and Telephony Subscribers. RGUs generally are counted on a unique premises basis such that a given premises does not count as more than one RGU for any given service. On the other hand, if an individual receives one of our services in two premises (e.g. a primary home and a vacation home), that individual will count as two RGUs for that service. Each bundled cable, internet or telephony service is counted as a separate RGU regardless of the nature of any bundling discount or promotion. Non-paying subscribers are counted as subscribers during their free promotional service period. Some of these subscribers may choose to disconnect after their free service period. Services offered without charge on a longterm basis (e.g., VIP subscribers, free service to employees) generally are not counted as RGUs. We do not include subscriptions to mobile services in our externally reported RGU counts. In this regard, our March 31, 2017 RGU counts exclude our separately reported postpaid and prepaid mobile subscribers. 7 Internet Subscriber is a home, residential multiple dwelling unit or commercial unit that receives internet services over our networks, or that we service through a partner network. 8 Telephony Subscriber is a home, residential multiple dwelling unit or commercial unit that receives voice services over our networks, or that we service through a partner network. Telephony Subscribers exclude mobile telephony subscribers. 9 Customer Relationships are the number of customers who receive at least one of our video, internet or telephony services that we count as Revenue Generating Units ("RGUs"), without regard to which or to how many services they subscribe. To the extent that RGU counts include equivalent billing unit ("EBU") adjustments, we reflect corresponding adjustments to our Customer Relationship counts. For further information regarding our EBU calculation, see Additional General Notes below. Customer Relationships generally are counted on a unique premises basis. Accordingly, if an individual receives our services in two premises (e.g., a primary home and a vacation home), that individual generally will count as two Customer Relationships. We exclude mobile-only customers from Customer Relationships. 10 Our mobile subscriber count represents the number of active subscriber identification module ("SIM") cards in service rather than services provided. For example, if a mobile subscriber has both a data and voice plan on a smartphone this would equate to one mobile subscriber. Alternatively, a subscriber who has a voice and data plan for a mobile handset and a data plan for a laptop (via a dongle) would be counted as two mobile subscribers. Customers who do not pay a recurring monthly fee are excluded from our mobile telephony subscriber counts after periods of inactivity ranging from 30 to 90 days, based on industry standards within the respective country. 11 DTH Subscriber is a home, residential multiple dwelling unit or commercial unit that receives our video programming broadcast directly via a geosynchronous satellite. 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 6 million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 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 View comments || Tax Day 2017: Poem for When Taxes Are Due and It's the Last Day to File: It’s the day before Tax Day: Have you filed your taxes yet? If not, you’re not alone. The Internal Revenue Service says there were as many as40 million people who had yet to filetheir tax returns late last week, just before April 15 (which fell on a Saturday this year). Waiting until the last minute, of course, is practically an American pastime: as many as 25% of taxpayers file in the last two weeks before the deadline, according to the IRS.
But U.S. filers areespecially late this year, which means that procrastinators will have their work cut out for them this week: The tax deadline for 2017 is tomorrow, April 18, at midnight (Eastern time). With those of you in mind, we thought we’d ease your pain by creating a lighthearted diversion: A true story about Tax Day 2017-set to rhyme.
From the problems plaguing the people who collect your taxes, to the hopes of at least some in Donald Trump’s administration-namely, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin-to make Tax Day better (not only with tax cuts but with other reforms), this poem has everything you need to know, whether you’re settling your tab with the government or expecting an ample refund. Please enjoy, even if you don’t enjoy paying Uncle Sam.
Twas right before Tax DayWhen the word got aroundChanges were comingAnew boss was in town.
Secretary of the Treasury,Mnuchin was his name;He would oversee the IRS,FromGoldman Sachshe came.
But on Wall Street they knew littleOf the troubles the taxmen hadFor all its fearsome powerCould theIRS really be this bad?
Itsproblems were increasing;They were under attack;Not just from politicians,But also fromhack after hack.
“I was surprised,”Mnuchin cried,“30 percent staff cuts in such a short time!Why can’t doing our taxes beJustas easy as going shopping online?”
To make matters worsePeople were late to payHoping that TrumpWould make their taxes go away.
Ignorant as he wasOf why it’s still so hard to file,Mnuchin hoped that CongressWould help on both sides of the aisle.
Politicians laughed at the banker;And as the taxmen processed the news,“We thought you wanted to abolish us!”They said, “Haven’tyou heard of Ted Cruz?”
But the Secretary had a visionAs he surveyed his new domainAnd he pledged to pursue a new mission:To make the IRS Great Again!
But as Tax Day got closerSome hurdles came to ariseWhen Trump unfurled his budgetThere was another surprise.
Mnuchin did not get his wishFor enough money to hire,Theproposal was just more cuts;The funding was even more dire.
“No matter,” said MnuchinAs the IRS begged for deliverance,As cheap e-filing increases,“It’ll surely make up for the difference!”
By then the Secretary was on boardWith the President’s ambitious planNone of it would even matterTil tax reform was law of the land.
For filers, there was one small reprieve:Amid the tax prep rush, aholidayfell betweenMeaning this year’s taxes are not dueOn their usual deadline of April the 15.
“Take the weekend,” IRS said:“Tax Day’s the 18th; that’s a Tuesday.If you needed an extension,Forget about it, you’re excused, k?”
But a different deadline was loomingIn the mind of Steven Mnuchin;His boss wanted tax cuts by August;So far there wasonly confusion.
“I’m going to cut taxes big league,”Was the promise Donald Trump made:“Those companies who moved to Europe?How they will all wish they had stayed!”
“We’ll slash rates for corporations,For individuals, we’ll whack it,Americans’ tax’ll be so low,Youwon’t even have the same bracket.”
The price of making it happen, though?It may be theBorder Adjustment Tax.Meanwhile, Americans dreamed of refunds,The size of bonuses at Goldman Sachs.
Thatcould take a while, Mnuchin knew,And Trump, after all, kept changing the deal;One minute he wanted tax reform,Now he wants Obamacare repeal?
Plus, it had also become harderTo convince some people it was fairThat they had to file their tax returnsWhen the President’s wereGod know’s where.
Many people hadn’t paid what they owed;It became clear there were far too few:Bitcoin investors who disclosed profitsNumbereda mere eight-hundred-and-two.
Mnuchin had to find the answerThe U.S. can’t afford to lose this bet;To pay for Trump’s infrastructure planThe country needs every cent it can get.
Maybe we would collect more money,The Treasury Secretary mused,If filing were a bit easier,The tax laws wouldn’t be so abused!
Finally, the key to fixing the state;Mnuchin may have discovered the clue:If you want to make America great,We’ll also need a better Tax Day too.
For moreFortunepoetry, seethe week’s news review in haiku.
This article was originally published on FORTUNE.com || A.I. is in a ‘golden age’ and solving problems that were once sci-fi, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says: Artificial intelligence development has seen an "amazing renaissance" and is beginning to solve problems that were once seen as science fiction, according to Amazon ( AMZN ) CEO Jeff Bezos. Machine learning, machine vision, and natural language processing are all strands of AI that are being developed by technology giants such as Amazon, Alphabet's ( GOOGL ) Google and Facebook ( FB ) for various uses. For example, Amazon's voice assistant Alexa, which is in its Echo speaker, relies on natural language processing – the ability for computers to understand human speech. These AI developments were praised by the Amazon founder. "It is a renaissance, it is a golden age," Bezos told an audience at the Internet Association's annual gala last week. "We are now solving problems with machine learning and artificial intelligence that were … in the realm of science fiction for the last several decades. And natural language understanding, machine vision problems, it really is an amazing renaissance." Bezos called AI an "enabling layer" that will "improve every business." At Amazon, Bezos said that "cool" developments like Alexa and its Prime Air delivery drones use "tremendous amounts" of AI. But machine learning is being deployed across the company. "I would say, a lot of the value that we're getting from machine learning is actually happening kind of beneath the surface. It is things like improved search results, improved product recommendations for customers, improved forecasting for inventory management, and literally hundreds of other things beneath the surface," Bezos said. The Amazon CEO also said that the company is making AI techniques available to enterprise customers through its cloud division, Amazon Web Services. Bezos is the latest tech chief executive to address the topic of AI. He did not go into some of the dangers of the technology as many of his counterparts have. For example, Jack Ma, CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba ( BABA ) , warned that society could face decades of "pain" due to technological advancements. More From CNBC Bitcoin hits another record high and could rally to $4,000, investor says Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has a good idea of quarterly results 3 years before they happen Stephen Hawking says humans must colonize another planet in 100 years or face extinction || Why leaked NSA hacking tools are not like stolen Tomahawk missiles: The guided-missile destroyer USS Barry launches a Tomahawk cruise missile on March 29, 2011. (image: U.S. Navy) Last week a malicious computer worm dubbed WannaCry 2.0 began attacking older, unpatched versions of Microsoft operating systems, infecting hundreds of thousands of systems with ransomware that held user data hostage in exchange for Bitcoin payments. The cyberattack used code from a powerful National Security Agency tool called EternalBlue, which a mysterious group of hackers known as The Shadow Brokers leaked earlier this year. Tech companies have been quick to blame the NSA for finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in commercial products like Windows, to say nothing of losing them. On Sunday, Brad Smith , Microsoft’s (MSFT) president and chief legal officer, argued that an “equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen.” The next day, Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, speaking via video chat to the K(NO)W Identity Conference in Washington D.C. from an undisclosed location in Russia, repeated Smith’s argument. “An equivalent scenario to what we’re seeing happening today would be conventional weapons, produced and held by the U.S. military, being stolen, such as Tomahawk missiles,” Snowden said while describing Smith’s letter to a crowd less than a mile from the White House. Edward Snowden speaking via video chat from Russia at the K(NO)W Identity Conference in Washington, D.C. on May 15. (image: One World Identity) U.S. officials acknowledge that the NSA deserves scrutiny about protecting tools it develops to collect foreign intelligence. “They’ve absolutely got to do a better job protecting [the hacking tools],” General Keith Alexander, head of the NSA from 2005 to 2014, told The Washington Post. “You can’t argue against that.” However, the Tomahawk analogy may be a stretch. Dave Aitel, a former NSA research scientist and CEO of the cybersecurity company Immunity , explained why hacking tools are not like bombs. “The very first thing is you can steal a Tomahawk missile from me, but you cannot steal it from me without me knowing you’ve stolen it,” Aitel said. “And of course, you can steal an exploit or other intellectual property from me and I may never find out. Another is that two people can have [the same exploit] at the same time.” Story continues Aitel, who specializes in the offensive side of cybersecurity, added that “deep down, the biggest difference is that you have to learn a lot about exploits to protect yourself, and I don’t really have to learn a lot about Tomahawk missiles to protect myself from Tomahawk missiles.” This is the screen you’ll see if your computer is infected with the WannaCry 2.0 ransomware. Nevertheless, the analogy has been relatively well received. Travis Jarae, CEO and Founder of One World Identity, which hosted the conference in Washington, and paid a speakers bureau to digitally host Snowden, said that the Tomahawk analogy is “not wrong” given the contemporary threat environment. “Warfare is digital,” explained Jarae, who was previously Global Head of Identity Verification at Google. “We spy on people digitally … I thought it was a little aggressive to compare it to a missile, but [government hacking] is very damaging.“ Aitel noted that it makes sense why Smith and others in the tech business would make that argument. “[Brad Smith’s] job is to create favorable economic conditions for Microsoft at a strategic level, and if he pressure governments to stop using exploits, then that helps him from a PR perspective,” Aitel said. “It doesn’t help the users because people are still going to have exploits. That’s always going to be true.” Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith speaks at a Microsoft tech gathering in Dublin, Ireland October 3, 2016. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne Snowden also echoed Smith’s criticisms of the U.S. government’s decision to develop secret software exploits, telling the audience at the K(NO)W Identity Conference that secret government exploits are a problem, and the NSA should have voluntarily revealed the EternalBlue exploit long ago. But other former NSA officials have pushed back against that idea, telling the Washington Post that EternalBlue netted an “unreal” foreign intelligence haul that was like “fishing with dynamite.” “Edward Snowden knows full well the value of the signals intelligence program — and that includes the NSA’s hacking — to our national security,” Aitel said. “This is not for play. They’re not building exploits for fun. It’s not a hobby. It’s for distinct and important national security needs. “So when he says ‘Give up your exploits,’ he essentially is saying, ‘We don’t need signals intelligence,’ which we do.” Ultimately, according to Aitel, companies like Microsoft placing the blame on the NSA with crude analogies equating NSA hacking tools to U.S. cruise missiles only serves to muddy the larger debate. “The bigger issue is Brad Smith and Microsoft, who continue to insist that everything fall their way in terms of how vulnerabilities are handled, which I don’t think helps the conversation around cybersecurity,” Aitel said. “There are a lot of very interesting things in cybersecurity that don’t involve Microsoft’s bottom line, and those are worth talking about.” READ MORE: The simple reason so many companies were hit by the WannaCry 2.0 ransomware As tensions rise with Russia, U.S. colleges still pay for Snowden speeches No, your Apple computer isn’t immune from ransomware ‘Risk’ director discusses the ‘tragedy’ of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks || If You Bought $5 of Bitcoin 7 Years Ago, You’d Be $4.4 Million Richer: Seven years ago, the value of a single bitcoin was worth a quarter-of-a-cent. Today, that single bitcoin isworth upwards of $2,200.
Monday marked the seventh anniversary of what is said to be the first recorded instance of bitcoin used in a real world transaction. Over the course of seven years, bitcoin’s value has multiplied 879,999 times over since 2010. If an investor had decided to spend five dollars back then on about 2,000 bitcoins, that stake would be worth $4.4 million today. With $1,200 spent on some 480,000 bitcoins, the investor would be worth at least $1.1 billion today.
The early months of 2017 have been particularly heady days for bitcoin. Since the beginning of the year, the value of the cryptocurrencyhas surged as it gains legitimacy in countries like Japan. Investors have also come to see the currency as something of a safe haven asset amid geopolitical turmoil -- and there’s been plenty of that in recent months, in both Europe and the United States.
And that first transaction? A software programmer on “Bitcoin Talk” known as Lazlo Hanyecz offered to 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas. For a least three days, no one took bite of the offer, with Hanyecz writing: “So nobody wants to buy me pizza? Is the bitcoin amount I’m offering too low?”
A user eventually paid about$25 for two pizzas. In today’s bitcoins, those pizzas cost Hanyecz $22 million.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• IRS Probe of Bitcoin Goes Too Far, GOP Warns
• Meet EternalRocks, WannaCry's Scarier Successor
• 3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Broke $2,000
• Bitcoin Hit Another Record and It's Gained Almost $4 Billion Just This Week
• Bitcoin's Murkier Rivals Line Up to Displace it as Cybercriminals' Favorite || Bitcoin plunges $200 after cyber attackers demand ransom using the digital currency: Bitcoinplunged from a record high hit last week to below $1,700 after cyber attackers locked up data in 200,000 computers Friday and demanded ransom in the digital currency.
"It's a big hit to sentiment," said Brian Kelly, CEO of BKCM. "This is some negative publicity for bitcoin."
Bitcoin fell more than $200 from an all-time high of $1,848.75 reached Thursday to a low of $1,644.64 Friday. The cryptocurrency steadied over the weekend and on Monday traded more than 5 percent lower on the day near $1,676.42.
One-month bitcoin performance
Source: CoinDesk
A virus called WannaCry hit 200,000 computers in at least 150 countries on Friday,according to the head of the EU police agency. The hackers demanded, for each computer, $300 in bitcoin within three days to unlock the files and threatened to double the fine after that, before permanently preventing access after seven days.
Cybersecurity firm Check Point(NASDAQ: CHKP)warned in ablog post Sunday not to send any fundsas no one who had paid had yet reported receiving their files back.
Relatively few have paid the ransom. CoinDesk Research Analyst Alex Sunnarborg said Monday that $51,300 in 193 transactions were sent to the three bitcoin addresses connected to the malware.
Pickup in Chinese trading volume
In addition to profit-taking on the hacking, Kelly attributed bitcoin's decline Monday to a drop in prices on the Hong Kong-based Bitfinex exchange, where prices had been artificially elevated due to withdrawal restrictions. Expectations that those restrictions will soon be lifted brought Bitfinex prices for bitcoin closer to the lower price of other exchanges.
"A little bit of a price support has been removed," Kelly said.
Chinese trading volume more than doubled its share,from 8.2 percent on May 1to 22.8 percent Monday, according to analysis from Sunnarborg.
Even with the decline of the last few days, the volatile cryptocurrency has nearly doubled in value since the end of March.
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• Dow jumps 100 points as Cisco leads; S&P and Nasdaq hit record highs
• This is how cybersecurity stocks trade after a big attack
• Early movers: SYMC, PANW, FEYE, PTHN & more || Bitcoin is closing in on its all-time high: Bitcoinis trading at its best level in a month. The cryptocurrency is up 2.8% at $1241.35 a coin and is within striking distance of its all-time closing high of $1277.65, which was set on March 6.
Four days later, bitcoin put in a record high of $1327.19 before crashing more than 25% after the US Securities and Exchange Commission rejected the Winklevoss twins' plans for a bitcoin ETF. The SECrejected the plans for another bitcoin ETFjust a few weeks after that.
However, bitcoin has rallied off its March 24 low of $959.45 as it has gained acceptance elsewhere. First, Japan announced it was accepting the crypticurrency as alegal payment method, then, Russia said it wouldconsider recognizing bitcoin and other cryptocurrenciesin 2018.
Bitcoin has been the top-performing currency every year since 2010, aside from 2014. It's up 30% so far in 2017.
(Markets Insider)
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• Iran's 'stealth' fighter is a total joke || Kim Dotcom announces new Bitcoin venture for content uploaders to earn money: WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Controversial New Zealand-based internet mogul Kim Dotcom plans to launch a Bitcoin payments system for users to sell files and video streaming as he fights extradition to the United States for criminal copyright charges. The German-born entrepreneur, who is wanted by U.S. law enforcement on copyright and money laundering allegations related to his now-defunct streaming site Megaupload, announced his new venture called 'Bitcontent' in a video posted on Youtube this week. "You can create a payment for any content that you put on the internet...you can share that with your customers, with the interest community and, boom, you are basically in business and can sell your content," Dotcom said in the video. He added that Bitcontent would eventually allow businesses, such as news organizations, to earn money from their entire websites. He did not provide a launch date. Dotcom did not provide details on how Bitcontent would differ from existing Bitcoin operations or how it would help news organizations make money beyond existing subscription payment options. 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. The currency's anonymity has however made it popular with drug dealers, money launderers and organized crime groups, meaning governments and the financial establishment have been slow to embrace it since the first trade in 2009. The currencys value hit record levels in 2017, trading at $1,145 on Wednesday, a fivefold increase in a year, amid growing interest globally. A New Zealand court ruled in February that Dotcom could be extradited to the United States to face charges relating to his Megaupload website, which was shutdown in 2012 following an FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion, a decision he was appealing. Dotcom, who has New Zealand residency, became well known for his lavish lifestyle as much as his computer skills. He used to post photographs of himself with cars having vanity plates such as "GOD" and "GUILTY", shooting an assault rifle and flying around the world in his private jet. (Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Michael Perry) || Stocks cling to gains as investors dump bonds, gold: Stocks ( ^DJI , ^GSPC , ^IXIC ) are flat to up at the midday mark, with the consumer discretionary ( XLY ) sector leading the way up and energy ( XLE ) the most in the red. Alan Valdes, director of floor operations at Silverbear , joins us live from the New York Stock Exchange. To discuss the other big stories of the day , Alexis Christoforous is joined by Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman and Dan Roberts. Today’s Midday Movers topics: Making sense of market moves after the French election Disney, Nvidia, Priceline earnings after the bell What President Trump’s secret visitor log reveals Bitcoin surges to record, now trades above $1,700 Snoop Dogg wants to create music festival in dad’s hometown || Jeff Gundlach has a theory on why bitcoin is surging: Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, said Tuesday there could be a connection between bitcoin prices and the decline inChinesestocks.
In a Tuesday afternoon tweet, Gundlach noted that bitcoin has doubled in less than 2 months, while the Shanghai composite has fallen "almost 10%" over the same time period. In contrast, most major indexes have climbed so far this year — the MSCI World Index is up nearly 8.8 percent.
The theory is the Chinese search for safe investments outside the country when asset prices fall sends buyers intobitcoin. The Chinese yuan's weakness in the last two years has also contributed to capital flight.
However, now more than just Chinese investors are driving bitcoin's price. Gundlach isn't wrong — there's just more to the story.
"I think it is part of the equation but not the entire reason for the move in bitcoin," said Brian Kelly, CEO of BKCM and a CNBC contributor, in an email.
Kelly, who manages a fund focused on digital currencies, pointed to increased demand from trade denominated in Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar.
Trade in the Japanese yen has taken a greater share of volume, sometimes about half, as local authorities recognized bitcoin as a legal form of pay.
Meanwhile, Chinese demand shrank drastically this January when the People's Bank of China began investigating local bitcoin exchanges.
China's share of global bitcoin trade volume, as measured by trade in yuan, has fallen from a roughly 80 to 95 percent share to 10 percent or less since January, according to CryptoCompare.
Six-month bitcoin trade volume by currency
Source: CryptoCompare
The Shanghai composite(Shanghai Stock Exchange: .SSEC)has also fallen this year under pressure from increased Chinese regulation. The index is also down not quite 10 percent over the last two months — the composite has fallen 5.65 percent between March 22 and Tuesday, in local currency terms.
Bitcoin has risen 120 percent from $1,037.44 on March 22 to a fresh record of $2,291.09 on Tuesday.
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
$1169.50 at 11:30 UTC [24h Range: $1165.00 - $1192.50 Volume: 1729 BTC] || #WannaCry reached 29.63721483 BTC (~$50000) at 12.00 GMT May 15.
$14000 up within 12 hrs. || RT coindesk: The latest Bitcoin Price Index is 1,033.00 USD http://www.coindesk.com/price/ pic.twitter.com/Vk3Qxu2Fen || #BITCOIN ahora:
$1,172.71 USD
€1,099.48 EUR
$21,961.91 MXN
@Bitso $22,390.00 MXN
@Volabit $22,862.20 MXNpic.twitter.com/JavSPdwrDU || $2218.17 at 14:30 UTC [24h Range: $2001.00 - $2235.34 Volume: 16219 BTC] || #BITCOIN ahora:
$1,810.25 USD
€1,628.36 EUR
$33,603.74 MXN
@Bitso $38,019.81 MXN
@Volabit $35,664.00 MXN pic.twitter.com/LEv1VSj6gr || #bitcoin #miner Bitmain Antminer S9 13.5 TH/s * April 2017 Batch * Brand New * In Stock Now * $1950.00 http://ift.tt/2pcVzDf pic.twitter.com/hUyelSJe5p || One Bitcoin now worth $1130.63@bitstamp. High $1145.00. Low $1111.00. Market Cap $18.379 Billion #bitcoin || One Bitcoin now worth $1233.63@bitstamp. High $1247.15. Low $1199.00. Market Cap $20.092 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YL2NXb6Byc || TARGET REACHED (1460.5), sold $BTC position for 54% PROFIT. (1453) #altcoin #trading #bitcoin 05:00:03
|
Trend: up || Prices: 2443.64, 2304.98, 2202.42, 2038.87, 2155.80, 2255.61, 2175.47, 2286.41, 2407.88, 2488.55
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-03-26]
BTC Price: 6716.44, BTC RSI: 47.09
Gold Price: 1650.10, Gold RSI: 58.00
Oil Price: 22.60, Oil RSI: 27.70
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Stocks Drop Most Since February 2018; Havens Gain: Markets Wrap: (Bloomberg) -- U.S. equities tumbled, with the S&P 500 dropping the most since February 2018, as authorities struggled to keep the coronavirus from spreading more widely outside China. Havens including Treasuries and gold surged. In a dramatic day across markets, these were some of the standout moves: All three main U.S. stock benchmarks slumped more than 3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P erased all of their gains for the year. All 11 sectors of the S&P closed in the red.The FANG cohort of megacap tech shares that led the years rally plunged more than 4%. AMD Corp. led losses in chipmakers exposed to China, at one point sinking more than 10%. High-flyers Virgin Galactic and Tesla each fell more than 5%. Alpha Pro Tech, maker of protective clothing and masks, surged more than 25%.The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 3.8% on trading volumes well above average for the largest drop since 2016 as investors fled travel and luxury-goods shares. A gauge of credit risk on the regions high-yield companies jumped.The yield on 10-year Treasuries approached the 2016 record low.South Koreas benchmark dropped 3.9%, leading declines across Asia, though Japans markets were shut for a holiday.Spot gold approached $1,700, while Brent crude oil tumbled about 5%. The risk-off mood hardened as the epidemic spread to more than 30 countries, with South Korea reporting a jump in infections and Italy locking down an area of 50,000 people near Milan. Finance chiefs and central bankers from the largest economies warned this weekend that they saw the virus bringing downside risks to global growth. Stock markets around the world are beginning to price in what bond markets have been telling us for weeks -- that global growth is likely to be impacted in a meaningful way due to fears of the coronavirus, said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance. Governments and companies are curbing travel and trade in an attempt to contain a novel pathogen that can be transmitted by people without symptoms. Todays market moves follow on last weeks surge into havens after fresh warnings by companies over the potential impact of the virus on business and global supply chains. Adding to the anxiety Monday was China announcing an easing of the quarantine of Wuhan, only to retract the statement hours later. Markets hate uncertainty and the coronavirus represents the most uncertain macro risk markets have faced in years, said Alec Young, managing director of global markets research at FEST Russell. Investors are also acutely aware that many misjudged the economic severity of the virus early on, making them more open to entertaining worst-case scenarios now. Story continues Elsewhere, Italian bonds dropped on concern that the spread of the coronavirus may push the economy into a recession. The Australian dollar weakened to an 11-year low and the offshore yuan held most of last weeks decline. Bitcoin slumped. These are some key events coming up: Earnings keep rolling in from companies including: Home Depot Inc. on Tuesday; Peugeot SA on Wednesday; Baidu Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc., Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Dell Technologies Inc. on Thursday; and London Stock Exchange Group Plc on Friday.The Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina is on Tuesday.The Bank of Korea announces its policy decision on Thursday, with risks to the outlook growing amid a surge in coronavirus cases.U.S. jobless claims, GDP and durable goods data are out Thursday.Japan industrial production, jobs, and retail sales figures are due on Friday. These are the main moves in markets: To contact the reporters on this story: Vildana Hajric in New York at vhajric1@bloomberg.net;Claire Ballentine in New York at cballentine@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. ©2020 Bloomberg L.P. View comments || The Crypto Mogul Who’s Got the Ear of China’s Central Bank: (Bloomberg) -- Leon Li is the rarest of Chinese crypto magnates -- one who’s won Beijing’s backing. The founder of Huobi Group is now set to play a pivotal role in China’s effort to build a homegrown crypto-industry. The former Oracle Corp. coder, who started one of the world’s largest Bitcoin exchanges six years ago, enjoys unusual access to China’s central bank and government officials thanks to methodical engagement and measured expansion. While rivals Binance and OKEx irked regulators by stoking Bitcoin mania, Li curried favor by discouraging speculation, co-founding the country’s first state-backed blockchain platform along the way. Huobi even set up a Communist Party committee in-house -- a first for any crypto firm. That’s why, keen to explore homegrown alternatives to Facebook Inc.’s Libra and a Western-led blockchain, Chinese central bank and government officials are turning to Li -- among others -- to help develop a local blueprint for crypto supremacy. The still-nascent blockchain arena offers the world’s second-largest economy a rare chance to become an early influencer. Washington’s concerted campaign to contain China has only strengthened Beijing’s resolve to wean itself off American technology. “Once in a lifetime,” said Li, a bookish-looking 36-year-old with thick black glasses. “It’s my hope that we’ll not just be a participant but a driver, even the leader of blockchain history.” Read more: Why China’s Rushing to Mint Its Own Digital Currency: QuickTake Li co-founded Huobi in the fall of 2013 and later received backing from well-connected ZhenFund and Sequoia China. But the tale of how he and Huobi came to occupy its privileged position really begins in 2017, at the height of Beijing’s paranoia about the potential for unchecked Bitcoin speculation to foment social upheaval. Word trickled down to Li in the summer of that year that officials were preparing a major crackdown on the industry. His instinct was to rush back from medical leave and instruct his team to get Huobi’s almost 2 million registered users to withdraw their funds. But he also began delivering daily progress reports to local regulators and briefed officials whenever requested. Story continues Watching his counterparts collapse like dominoes, he realized that regulators meant life-or-death in his world. Li’s since made it his mission to get on Beijing’s good side, from hosting seminars and classes for officials to organizing conferences under the auspices of local government. In addition to consulting for the People’s Bank of China on Libra, Huobi more recently threw itself behind research into blockchain applications that serve the real economy -- a passion project of President Xi Jinping. It’s one of 14 founding members of China’s first state-backed blockchain platform -- an effort led by the country’s top economic planner that will power everything from storing digital contracts to tracing food and drug deliveries. Other members include state enterprises like China Telecom Corp. and China UnionPay Co. “Huobi could play an important role in the local crypto industry, because authorities would probably prefer to see trade go through an entity that they trust, rather than being pushed underground,” said Emily Parker, co-founder of Asia-focused blockchain data site and incubator LongHash. Good relations with Beijing “could be viewed as a sign of stability, as well as a local advantage over a company like Binance, which does not appear to enjoy the same level of trust.” Those years of cultivation paid off during a late-2019 clampdown. While Binance and its co-founder got tossed off Chinese microblogging site Weibo and other outfits got shut down, Huobi emerged unscathed. As the crackdown wound down in December, Li hosted a days-long conference on the fast-liberalizing southern island of Hainan that serves as his second base after Beijing, in a show of support for local government efforts to become a global hub for blockchain technology. At the event, Li pledged to lend his company’s cloud and blockchain expertise to nations participating in Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, and called on his country to counter Libra. “From the perspective of safeguarding national financial sovereignty, autonomy and control are really important issues,” he told delegates. “Can we rely on ourselves to build something as good as Libra?” A spokeswoman for Binance said its larger user base is among its key advantages over Huobi. OKEx representatives declined to comment for this story. Read more: From Pigs to Party Fealty, China Harnesses Blockchain Power In the years since Binance and other competitors fled China, Huobi was one of the few major crypto businesses that stayed put and thrived. True, he moved Huobi’s main exchange business to Singapore. But the company’s blockchain consultancy and training arm, Huobi China, remains in-country and around 100 staffers work out of sleek offices built on reclaimed wasteland on Hainan. That unit -- which the company says is profitable -- has instructed more than 1,000 students from Party cadres to executives at state-owned and private companies. Huobi’s own senior executives, Li included, are based in Beijing, as are key teams from coding to business development. His exchange is estimated to have raked in roughly $680 million in revenue for 2019, according to Bloomberg calculations of data by Huobi on token buybacks. Success has come at a cost of personal freedom for Li, who was born into a working-class family in central China and graduated from Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University -- Xi’s alma mater. After China shut down exchange trading, the heads of Chinese crypto platforms were reported to have been banned from departing the country. Li said he’s never received any official notice prohibiting him from leaving China but he’s chosen not to, unsure of the risks that would entail. In the longer term, his company’s closeness with Beijing could also be a liability. “Huobi may be aiming for a global leadership role in the industry by molding to regulatory requirements,” said Matthew Graham, chief executive officer of Sino Global Capital, a Beijing-based blockchain consultancy. “Certainly one risk is that this could lead to a loss of trust with overseas customers.” To contact the reporters on this story: Zheping Huang in Hong Kong at zhuang245@bloomberg.net;Colum Murphy in Beijing at cmurphy270@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net, Edwin Chan 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. || Venture-backed decentralized exchange Sparkswap shuts down: Sparkswap, a decentralized exchange that raised $3.5 million from Pantera Capital, Initialized Capital and others, announced Tuesday that it is shutting down. Trey Griffith, founder of Sparkswap, revealed the closure in a blog post, saying user numbers weren't enough to keep the business afloat. "Unfortunately, we werent able to build a large enough audience to sustain the business over the long term," read the post. "Building a cryptocurrency business, especially one that interacts with the fiat banking system, is an expensive endeavor, and as it stands right now the style of self-custody we were espousing is too niche to make our business sustainable." The company has stopped accepting new user sign-ups and will terminate all trading services after March 24, with additional plans to terminate its Lightning node by the end of the month. However, the company assured customers that their USD funds will remain in their accounts with the help of banking partner AnchorUSD. Sparkswap users also won't incur any fees associated with bank account redemptions using AnchorUSD through the end of April, according to Griffith's post. However, Griffith said he still believes in the importance of self custody, and hopes the failure of Sparkswap was a matter of timing, leaving room for this type of solution in the future. Its code will remain open source for those looking to contribute to Bitcoin and Lightning developments. "For now, our focus as a company will move to FinTech more broadly, but well be watching Bitcoin and Lightning development closely and plan to continue to be productive members of those communities," he wrote. Founded in 2017, Sparkswap is built on the Lightning Network and enables users to self custody crypto when trading on the platform. It raised the $3.5 million funding round last April. || Singapores Court of Appeals Rules Against Quoine Exchange in Landmark Crypto Case: Singapores Court of Appeals has ruled against digital currency exchange Quoine in a landmark case relating to a breach of contract when the platform unlawfully reversed seven trades. The Straits Times reported the case marks the first of its kind in the country involving a cryptocurrency dispute. The ruling concludes a legal battle that began almost three years ago . Quoine, the parent company of Japanese trading platform Liquid, now faces settlement proceedings after the court rejected its appeal over the claim it had the right to cancel orders placed by market maker B2C2 on its platform based on the premise those transactions were a mistake. Related: Binance-Backed FTX Exchange Seeks Billion-Dollar Valuation in Equity Token Sale Quoine had argued the parties who interacted with B2C2s trading software were acting under the false pretense the trades were at fair market value and B2C2 knew the trades were incorrectly priced. In April 2017, B2C2 had placed seven trades in which it sold ether (ETH) at an exchange rate of 10 bitcoin (BTC) each, approximately 250 times higher than the market rate of about 0.04 BTC to 1 ETH at the time, according to court documents . The appeal courts reasoning focused on the question of how the legal doctrine of mistake should be applied when contracts were drawn up and executed by computer systems with limited human involvement. A day after the trades took place, where 309 ETH were exchanged for 3,092 BTC ($12 million at the time), Quoine noticed the abnormality and reset B2C2s balances to their state before the seven trades, which prompted the lawsuit. Related: CoolBitX Raises $16.7M to Make Crypto More Bank-Friendly The Singapore International Commercial Court ruled in March 2019 that Quoine was liable for the breach of contract and breach of trust in reversing B2C2s trades. Subsequently, the exchange filed for an appeal. However, four of the five judges presiding on the appeal panel dismissed Quiones argument, saying it is the programmers state of knowledge that is relevant in the context of digital agreements between a computer system and a participant on the platform. Story continues The court said there was no mistake in the terms of the trading contract and, even if there was a flaw, B2C2s trading software was not aware of it when executing the orders, according to the report. Related Stories Binance Now Supports Deposits and Withdrawals in Hong-Kong Dollars Binance Is Not Under Our Jurisdiction, Says Malta Regulator || New Cross-Chain Network Plans to Bring Bitcoin’s Liquidity to the DeFi Space: Kyber Network and Bancor Network have been integrated into a new platform that provides cross-chain liquidity for decentralized finance (DeFi). London-based Provable Things announced Thursday it had successfully launched pTokens – 1:1 proxies for cryptocurrencies on other blockchains – onto the Ethereum mainnet, and that they would be fully interoperable with bitcoin (BTC) through the Bancor and Kyber integrations. Provable Things founder Thomas Bertani said cross-chain interoperability was the “missing link” needed to take DeFi to the next stage of adoption. pTokens, he added, would enable “liquidity [to] flow instantly and fluidly between different blockchains.” Related: Yields of 25% to 42% Lure Lenders Back to DeFi Platform bZx Users holding value on bitcoin can now mint pBTC tokens on the ERC777 standard – allowing tokens to be sent on another user’s behalf – and start using Ethereum-based DeFi applications, the company said in a press release. Provable has already launched liquidity pools for pBTC on both Bancor Network and Kyber Network, which aim to facilitate seamless transactions between different blockchains and ecosystems. Shane Hong, Kyber Network’s marketing manager, said the Provable integration would greatly benefit the DeFi space, which recently saw its total value surpass the billion-dollar milestone . “Bitcoin is among the most widely held and used cryptocurrencies,” Hong said in a statement to CoinDesk. The pBTC initiative would “bring bitcoin liquidity to Ethereum DApps, enabling a whole new world of exciting decentralized finance (DeFi) use cases for both the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystem.” Related: Crypto Exchange Huobi’s DeFi-Focused Blockchain Released in Public Beta Nate Hindman, Bancor’s head of growth, said his network’s integration would give bitcoin holders the flexibility to earn on Ethereum-based DeFi apps and take their value back out into bitcoin. In an email to CoinDesk, he said bitcoin’s large market cap could “drive a wave of new users and liquidity to on-chain financial products on Ethereum.” Story continues “If pBTC becomes a key on-ramp for bitcoin users to access DeFi services on Ethereum and other chains then staking BTC in the pBTC liquidity pool on Bancor could generate attractive fees and rewards for users staking their pBTC on Bancor,” Hindman added. Similar integrations with the Litecoin and EOS blockchains have already been successfully tested. Support for Litecoin should come online within the next few weeks, a Provable Things spokesperson said. In its press release, Provable said other features, like pTokens allowing ether value to move onto other blockchains, were also under development. Related Stories The DeFi ‘Flash Loan’ Attack That Changed Everything The 3 Factors Fueling Ether’s 2020 Rally || Crypto Needs a Rational Value Investing Model: Jeff Dorman, a CoinDesk columnist, is chief investment officer at Arca where he leads the investment committee and is responsible for portfolio sizing and risk management. He has more than 17 years of trading and asset management experience at firms including Merrill Lynch and Citadel Securities.
Investing in digital assets is a sham! Participants in this industry are simply trying to anticipate price movements rather than use fundamental analysis to determine why a token or coin might go higher or lower. There is no intrinsic value. It’s pure speculation based on technical analysis. It’s outright gambling.
It’s also exactly how stock and bond markets traded for the first 300 years.
Related:Libra Wanted a Currency, All We Need Are DeFi’s Open Payment Rails
In 1602, the Dutch East India Company issued the first paper shares. This exchangeable medium allowed shareholders to conveniently buy, sell and trade their stock with other shareholders and investors. For hundreds of years thereafter, investors and traders did their best to anticipate price moves, without any of the tools available today for valuing these securities. Back then, a stock trading at $100 was viewed more expensive than a stock trading at $10, independent of number of shares outstanding, underlying revenues, or business prospects.
It wasn’t until the 1920s, following the stock market crash and the Great Depression, that two Columbia University professors, Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, came up with a methodology for identifying and buying securities priced well below their true value. Their book, “Security Analysis,” was published in 1934, and Graham and Dodd’s principles provided a rational basis for investment decisions that are still applied today by the world’s top value investors.
See also:Securities Law Helped Build Modern Capitalism. Crypto Should Embrace It
Warren Buffettchose to attend Columbia specifically to learn from Professor Graham (and received an A+ in his class). Almost 50 years later, Professor Frank Fabozziintroduced similar valuation techniques and conceptsfor investing in fixed income securities. And shortly thereafter, even newer valuation techniques (likeMetcalfe’s Law) were introduced to help value computing networks, and these methods were utilized decades later to value pre-revenue internet giants like Facebook, Tencent and Netflix.
Related:Bitcoin, Bonds and Gold: Why Markets Are Upended in a Time of Fear
According to Gisli Eyland, who has written about the value investing philosophy, Graham and Dodd “described a fundamentally different approachto stock picking and investing in corporate securities by proposing that the investor should refrain from trying to anticipate price movements entirely. Instead, the investor should try to estimate the true Intrinsic Value of the underlying asset. Given time, the Intrinsic Value and market value would converge.” Today, investors and financial media throw around financial ratios like P/E, P/B, EV/EBITDA, P/S, Dividend Yield and many others as if they’ve been around forever, while smugly chastising digital assets for havingno intrinsic value. This may be a good time to remind readers that digital assets are less than 10 years old.
When will the Graham and Dodd of crypto emerge? They’re likely already here, working tirelessly behind the scenes on valuation techniques that will be utilized by the Warren Buffets of crypto 50 years from now. Digital assets are still in their infancy, but new fundamental valuation techniques are being built, tested and discovered every day, from the originalMV = PQ analysis, todiscounted sum of utilitymodels, toeverything else in between. Many of the models in existence are unproven, with only a few years’ worth of data to support their methodologies, while other models have likely yet to be conceived.
Each of these methods has advantages as well as shortcomings. Digital assets are unique, similar to corporate bonds, making different valuation techniques appropriate for specific token types. Just like a bond has different coupons, different maturities, different covenants and different features (callable, putable, convertible, warrants, etc.), most digital assets have unique features as well, making each analysis different than the last (there is a reason Fabozzi’s fixed income bible is over 1,800 pages long).
In our view, the DCF analysis is best used for tokens issued by cash-producing companies such as exchange tokens like Binance Coin (BNB) or Unus Sed Leo (LEO). The NVT Ratio may be better when comparing across smart contract platforms such as Ethereum, EOS and NEO. A variation of Metcalfe’s law or total addressable market analysis can be used for tokens that are in the early pre-launch stage or are servicing a sector that is difficult to currently measure.
See also:Never Mind Hodlers, Crypto Needs More Opportunist Investors
The smartest crypto analysts (including our own internal team at Arca) are developing new methodologies to value digital assets. Once these metrics become widely accepted, price floors and ceilings in crypto will be set based on agreed-upon, well-tested fundamental valuation – just like in the debt and equity markets.
I started my career on Wall Street in 2001. I was told to read Frank Fabozzi and Graham and Dodd before showing up for work on day one. I never questioned the legitimacy of these valuation techniques; I simply adopted them because everyone else did, too. Had I started in 1901, prior to “Security Analysis,” I likely would have been asked to learn how to read ticker tapes instead.
Equity markets turned out just fine, despite a rocky start in determining valuation that, in retrospect, seems silly. So did the fixed income markets. And so, too, will digital assets. Investors might want to adopt a more open-minded, long-view approach to investing in this new asset class.
• The Gig Economy Is Unfair. Here’s How Token Models Can Help
• The Tokenization Delusion || FluffyPony on Encryption, Clearview and How Coronavirus Could Impact Privacy: The former lead maintainer of Monero and co-founder of Tari speaks about the state of global privacy
For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,IHeartRadioorRSS.
As the coronavirustook holdin China, officials in Hubei province tracked potential patients by examining purchase records for cough and flu medicine for the previous month.
Related:Leader to Watch: Elena Giralt Talks Zcash and Feminism
Welcome to the new frontiers of privacy. In this wide-ranging episode, @NLW chats with former lead maintainer of Monero and Tari co-founder Riccardo Spagni – aka @FluffyPony on Twitter – about privacy in the context of:
• The recent arrest of DropBit CEO Larry Harmon involving bitcoin mixer technology allegedly being used for illicit purposes
• The US government’s battle against end-to-end encryption
• Central bank digital currencies
• At-home devices such as Alexa and Google Home
• Clearview AI and facial recognition
• China’s response to coronavirus
• Why individual apathy is the greatest threat to privacy in the world
• Gender and Income: Binance US and Stellar CEOs Debunk Myths for International Women’s Day
• Bitcoin News Roundup for March 6, 2020
• Clearview AI Lawyer Tor Ekeland Says Your Face Is Public Property || Latest Ripple price and analysis (XRP to USD): Ripple’s XRP token is on the brink of a major breakout following a fruitful start to the year that has seen it rise by more than 88%. At the time of writing it is trading at around $0.33 after obliterating the $0.30 level of support for the first time since August 2019. Upside targets remain at both $0.35 and $0.37 although it wouldn’t be out of the blue for XRP to surge all the way to $0.40 over the coming weeks. In the past 48-hours alone it was up by 16% as spectators begin to believe in a newfound cryptocurrency bull market that has been spurred by the impact of coronavirus on the global economy. Another factor in the surge of cryptocurrencies is the upcoming Bitcoin halving, which will commence in May. Block rewards for miners will be slashed from 12.5BTC to 6.25BTC per block, an event that has historically caused a hike in the price of cryptocurrencies as supply dries up amid mounting demand. However, despite much of the attention being focused on Bitcoin, altcoins like Ethereum and XRP have stolen the show this week by trading above all major moving averages moving into the typically low volume weekend. Latest Ripple price Current live Ripple pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Ripple price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – XRPtoUSD British Pound Sterling – XRPtoGBP Japanese Yen – XRPtoJPY Euro – XRPtoEUR Australian Dollar – XRPtoAUD Russian Rouble – XRPtoRUB Bitcoin – XRPtoBTC About Ripple Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) developed by the Ripple company. It is also referred to as the Ripple Transaction Protocol (RTXP) or Ripple protocol. It can trace its roots to 2004 when a web developer called Ryan Fugger had the idea to create a monetary system that was decentralised and could effectively allow individuals to create their own money. Story continues Ripple is one of the largest cryptocurrencies and is one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. More Ripple news and information If you want to find out more information about Ripple or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s a recent article to get you started: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse hits back at critics: ‘XRP is not a security’ By Oliver Knight – February 14, 2020 As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. The post Latest Ripple price and analysis (XRP to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet . || As Fed Contemplates Coronavirus-Prompted Easing, Bitcoin Traders Bet on Halving: U.S. stocks continue to reel over coronavirus-related fears, and investors are increasingly betting the Federal Reserve will slash interest rates to stabilize the economy and markets. But whether those investors turn to bitcoin (BTC) as a crisis hedge remains to be seen. Such action by the Fed could, in theory, help bitcoin prices since lower rates would likely reduce the appeal of income-yielding assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds, according to analysts tracking the 11-year-old cryptocurrency. So far, the Fed has not said whether it would cut rates, with Chair Jerome Powell taking a “wait and watch” attitude. Related: The View From China: Crypto, Crisis and Digital Currencies Feat. Matthew Graham Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes slid by 0.15 percentage point to a new record low of 1.14 percent, indicating heightened demand; bond prices move in the opposite direction of yields. Rates also fell on government bonds from the U.K. Those from Germany and Japan fell further into negative territory. “As interest rates decline, you’re more likely to tip the seesaw toward assets that don’t have yield, such as collectible assets like artwork or gold or bitcoin,” said Greg Cipolaro, co-founder of Digital Asset Research, a New York-based cryptocurrency analysis firm. Bitcoin prices are down 14 percent since Sunday, on track for their worst weekly performance since mid-November. The cryptocurrency slid 2.9 percent on Friday to $8,573, the lowest in a month. Analysts and traders in the nascent market have debated whether bitcoin should trade as a hedge against malaise in traditional markets, or if it’s more vulnerable to a sell-off alongside riskier assets like stocks and emerging-market currencies when the global economic and market outlooks darken. Some investors say bitcoin is mostly uncorrelated with other asset categories, sometimes trading in sync with stocks and other times in opposition. Related: Bitcoin, Uncertainty and the Ultimate Narrative Story continues Bitcoin was launched by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto in early 2009, in the wake of the last financial crisis, so the cryptocurrency is largely untested in a market meltdown like the coronavirus-triggered panic selling now roiling stocks. Haven Bet vs. Halving Bet As a feature of the currency’s original design, the pace of new supplies of bitcoin issued to the decentralized network gets cut in half every four years. The next such event — known as the halving — is expected to take place in May. That automatic supply tightening, encoded in the software, differentiates bitcoin sharply from human-led monetary-policy easing by central banks such as the U.S. Federal Reserve. The cryptocurrency’s price jumped 94 percent last year, roughly triple the gains in U.S. stocks; despite this week’s pullback, bitcoin is still up about 19 percent so far in 2020. For now, the bitcoin market might be too immature for large investors with diversified asset portfolios to use as a hedge against a financial crisis. Indeed, bitcoin’s price drop in recent days — gold has slid, too — might signal most investors are still scrambling into cash when there’s a big market sell-off. “We see a lot of these global actions having some impact on bitcoin, but there’s also things that are happening in the bitcoin network, and that could have a larger impact than the Fed cutting interest rates,” says Joe DiPasquale, CEO of the cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund BitBull Capital in San Francisco. “I’m still bullish for bitcoin for the year, and a major reason is the halving.” The Fed’s Next Move The World Health Organization raised its risk assessment of the coronavirus to “very high” from “high,” with Italy now expected to approve emergency measures and quarantines and event cancellations reported in Germany and Switzerland, according to Bloomberg News . Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has warned of possible school closings in the U.S. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is down 12.5 percent over the past seven days, putting the gauge on track for its worst weekly performance since the 2008 crisis. That’s why investors are betting the Federal Reserve will make a move to help stanch the red ink. According to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, futures contracts used to bet on the Fed’s benchmark interest rate have shifted in the past two days to incorporate the near-certainty of a cut by the time of the central bank’s next regular monetary-policy meeting, scheduled for March 18. Just a week ago, most traders were expecting no change. There’s also now a greater than 50 percent chance the Fed will cut rates by at least a full percentage point by December, from the current range of between 1.5 percent and 1.75 percent. U.S. stocks pared losses on Friday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a mid-day statement the central bank was “closely monitoring developments” related to the coronavirus “and their implications for the economic outlook.” “We will use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy,” Powell said. While rate cuts might ultimately prompt bigger allocations to bitcoin, investors in crypto and traditional markets could be so gripped right now by a crisis mentality that they’re indiscriminately selling all assets perceived as risky. Since cryptocurrencies are relatively new and their prices can be extremely volatile, bitcoin is still generally perceived as a risky asset, Cipolaro said. “Usually in the early stages of a crisis, you’re worried about deflation, not inflation,” he said. Related Stories Bitcoin’s Option Market Sees Low Chance of Post-Halving Rally Bitcoin Rallies After Biggest Weekly Drop Since November || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -07/03/20: Bitcoin rose by 1.00% on Friday. Following on from a 3.44% rally on Thursday, Bitcoin ended the day at $9,180.6. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning intraday low $9,011.3 before finding support. Steering clear of the first major support level at $8,857.43, Bitcoin rallied to a late morning intraday high $9,199.70. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $9,255.33, Bitcoin fell back to sub-$9,100 levels. Finding late support, however, Bitcoin bounced back to close out the day in positive territory. The near-term bearish trend, formed at late June’s swing hi $13,764.0, remained firmly intact, with Bitcoin struggling to break out from $10,000 levels. 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 crypto majors. Ethereum led the way, rallying by 7.42%. Binance Coin (+2.99%), Bitcoin Cash ABC (+3.42%), Bitcoin Cash SV (+2.60%), Litecoin (+2.09%), Ripple’s XRP (+2.43%), Stellar’s Lumen (+2.78%), Tezos (+3.03%), and Tron’s TRX (+2.41%) also saw solid gains. Cardan’s ADA (+1.34%), EOS (+1.92%), and Monero’s XMR (+0.72%) trailed the pack. Through the current week, the crypto total market cap rose to a Friday high $263.56bn from a Monday low $243.1. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $263.18bn. Bitcoin’s dominance fell back from 64% levels in the week as the broader market found support. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 63.2%. Trading volumes hit an early Tuesday high $187.15bn before falling back to sub-$130bn levels. At the time of writing, 24-hr volumes stood at $137.34bn. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.62% to $9,124.0. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall from an early morning high $9,183.6 to a low $9,121.8. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Story continues Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day. Bitcoin Cash ABC and Monero’s XMR bucked the trend early on, rising by 0.30% and by 0.64% respectively. Tezos and Binance Coin led the way down early on, with losses of 1.89% and 1.55% respectively. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to steer clear of sub-$9,130 levels to support a run at the first major resistance level at $9,249.77. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from Friday’s high $9,199.7. Barring an extended crypto rally, resistance at $9,200 would likely limit any upside on the day once more. In the event of a breakout, expect the 38.2% FIB of $9,260 and second major resistance level at $9,318.93 to come into play. Failure to hold above $9,130 levels could see Bitcoin fall deeper into the red A fall back through the morning low $9,121.8 would bring the first major support level at $9,061.37 into play. Barring an extended crypto sell-off, however, Bitcoin should steer clear of the sub-$9,000 levels on the day. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Continue to Fall Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Break Down a Bit USD/JPY Weekly Price Forecast – US Dollar Falls Hard Against Japanese Yen S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Markets Broke Down a Bit on Friday Again Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Drop in Sympathy with Crude, Could Test 2016 Lows Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver Markets Trying to Base
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 6469.80, 6242.19, 5922.04, 6429.84, 6438.64, 6606.78, 6793.62, 6733.39, 6867.53, 6791.13
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2021-03-29]
BTC Price: 57750.20, BTC RSI: 58.37
Gold Price: 1712.10, Gold RSI: 39.43
Oil Price: 61.56, Oil RSI: 50.92
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
COVID-19 cases are dropping like a rock: Morning Brief: A version of this article first appeared in the Morning Brief. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe Wednesday, February 17, 2021 A version of this article first appeared in the Morning Brief. As markets rally, the pandemic quietly eases The stock market continued its rally on Tuesday . As Sam Ro noted in Tuesday's Morning Brief , the fundamental backdrop for stocks continues to improve as fourth quarter earnings have rolled in. The market's performance in 2021 reflects this strength. But amid a flurry of interest in markets as a result of Bitcoin's rally and the wild swings in GameStop ( GME ) that captivated the public last month, what has been somewhat overlooked by investors is the improvement we've seen in the pandemic. And specifically in the declining number of new COVID-19 cases and COVID-related hospitalizations over the last few weeks. On Monday, the number of new COVID cases recorded was the lowest since mid-October while recorded COVID-related deaths were the lowest since Nov. 30. Hospitalizations are down about 45% from their January peak. And while winter weather across the country will disrupt this week's vaccination plans and potentially depress testing totals, the overall trajectory of the virus in the U.S. has been clear over the last few weeks. Readers will know that for months here at The Morning Brief we've emphasized the importance of rates of change and how investors look for things that are getting better or worse, not just things that are absolutely good or bad. And while the pandemic remains a very bad situation, it is getting better. And quickly. Daily new COVID infections continue to decline across the country. (Source: Goldman Sachs) Of course, this does not mean the pandemic is over. Or even close to it. The more contagious B.1.1.7 variant is spreading through the population with confirmed cases in 40 states. Dr. Anthony Fauci also pushed back his expectations of when most Americans will have access to a COVID-19 vaccine by about six weeks on Tuesday. Story continues This improvement in the data was to some extent expected as the impact from the holidays wore off and the distribution of vaccines continued. If we want to argue about what the market was "pricing in" on the COVID front, a springtime improvement and a mostly normal summer in the U.S. seemed like the base case. On the other hand, as Bloomberg columnist Conor Sen noted earlier this week , the model from at least one Wall Street firm suggested a peak in cases wouldn't peak until next month. And while a resurgence of the virus cannot be ruled out, data suggests that nearly 40% of the population has either been infected or inoculated against COVID-19. And so as we sit here today, we can say with confidence the pandemic situation in the U.S. is getting better. And for investors it is this direction which matters most. By Myles Udland , a reporter and anchor for Yahoo Finance Live . Follow him at @MylesUdland Yahoo Finance Highlights Texas power outages shows how badly America needs an infrastructure bill: expert Goldman Sachs' 'Marcus Invest' bets against the GameStop trend 'We still believe the market is ripe for a pullback': Analyst Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , SmartNews , LinkedIn , YouTube , and reddit . Find live stock market quotes and the latest business and finance news For tutorials and information on investing and trading stocks, check out Cashay || Why the US Needs Bitcoin: The United States will adopt bitcoin as a reserve asset.
Why? Because it is unequivocally in U.S. strategic interests to do so.
Alex Treece is a co-founder atZabo, a platform enabling fintechs and financial services companies to easily connect cryptocurrency accounts to their applications.
Related:US Lawmakers Looking Into China’s Role in GameStop Pump: Report
The question is notifthis will happen, butwhen. Whether it happens within 12 months, two years, five years or 10 years will have major implications for U.S. positioning for decades. Failure to embracebitcoinsooner rather than later will damage U.S. strategic interests and benefit rivals adopting it first.
By examining how the U.S. and other countries manage their reserve assets today, we can already see the logic for this transition to occur.
Today the U.S.holds261 million troy ounces (8,133 metric tons) of gold, or about $475 billion worth.
This makes the U.S. the largest holder of gold in the world – by a wide margin – with over two times the amount of thenext largest holder (Germany).
Related:Cosmos Upgrades to Stargate: Another 2017 ICO Very Nearly Completes Its Vision
Historically there was a very good reason for the U.S. to own gold: The U.S. dollar was pegged to its value. Yet, the U.S. broke with the gold standard in 1971, ushering in the fiat currency age that has existed ever since.
So why exactly do the U.S. and other countries continue to own all this gold?
Here are some of thereasonsprovided directly from central bankers themselves:
• Gold is the de facto safe-haven asset. It is an insurance policy against any major economic, monetary or geopolitical shifts. Given gold’s ample liquidity and universal appeal, countries can easily liquidate it for other assets in turbulent times
• Gold is both independent of any given country’s economic or monetary policies while also having a fixed supply (on Earth) with relatively stable supply growth, making it an ideal hedge against both monetary inflation and fluctuations in other reserve assets
• Gold is viewed as “nobody’s liability”: It cannot be frozen (in a bank account) or defaulted on when frictions between countries arise.
Combine these reasons with the cultural importance of gold, and it’s uncontroversial to say thathaving more gold than everyone else is a very good thing.
Bitcoin’s similarities to gold are welldocumented, earning it the appropriate nickname of “digital gold.”
Yet, while bitcoin shares many similarities with gold, including scarcity, stable supply inflation, fungibility and durability, it also makes major improvements over gold in some key areas:
• When gold is in high demand, miners are incentivized to dig up more of it, increasing its supply. Bitcoin’s supply does not change in the face of demand, making it less inflationary and more predictable.
• It’s far easier (and cheaper) to verify the authenticity of bitcoin than gold.
• Bitcoin is much easier to transfer than gold and costs much less to store securely.
• Bitcoin is easily divided, whereas gold is not.
For these reasons, a rapidly increasing number of people, companies and institutional investors agree thathaving more bitcoin than everyone else is a very good thing.
Today this includes the world’srichest man, highly conservative, long-term thinkingasset managers, industry leading companies and the most prominentmacro investorsin the world.
Tomorrow it will include countries, too.
So far, countries and their central banks have resisted (publicly) making or disclosing investments in bitcoin.
In fact, they’ve done the opposite in some cases. European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde was quoted saying it’s “very unlikely” central banks would make the move into bitcoin in the near future. Nigeria’s central bank recentlyreiteratedits outright ban of cryptocurrency. India’s Parliament proposed its own crypto ban, despite the country’s Supreme Court ruling it lawful.
See also: Garrick Hileman –Governments Will Start to Hodl Bitcoin in 2021
These negative actions have occurred in the name of protecting the existing fiat currency regime (e.g., Nigeria) or limiting competition for planned central bank digital currencies (e.g., India).
But there is near certainty that this dynamic will ultimately reverse, potentially within the next 12 months.
Why? Simple economic incentives.
In the near term, there exists an irresistible arbitrage opportunity for a country silently to accumulate a bitcoin position and later announce its holdings. Bitcoin being adopted as a sovereign reserve asset is often considered the “final boss” of adoption milestones. It finally happening would send an ultra-bullish signal and vaporize doubts among traditional investor holdouts, including other central banks.
The resulting adoption acceleration would bestow huge windfalls for early adopter countries who managed to accumulate early in this transition.
The outcomes of these sovereign techno-economic games determine the fate of empires.
In the longer term, bitcoin represents a sovereign wealth-building opportunity with asymmetric risk/reward upside.
Let’s assume a country agrees and decides to buy a relatively small hedge position in bitcoin: 1-5% of its reserves. The upsides are clear, but what’s the downside for being wrong? If it turns out that bitcoin never becomes a global reserve asset, the nation is simply stuck with owning a rapidly growing, highly liquid, alternative asset that behaves a lot like gold.
But what if it doesn’t buy any bitcoin and itdoesbecome a global reserve asset? Any late adopter country would see its sovereign wealth diminished relative to early adopters and would be forced to capitulate at higher prices later.
Yet, for the U.S., the downside of not being one of the winners of bitcoin is greater than just about anyone else.
The U.S. is well-known for using the global financial system – and the U.S. dollar’s status as the global reserve currency – to project its power and punish its adversaries. It’s no surprise, then, that rivals such Russia and China have built their gold reserves tohistorical levelsat the expense of USD and U.S. Treasurys.
Their overall goals are clear: create alternatives to the current U.S. monetary hegemony.
As bitcoin continues to gain adoption and becomes a global reserve asset, it will be thrust into this great competition between nations.
See also: Alex Treece –The Intangible Reasons Ethereum and Bitcoin Lead
If America’s rivals embrace bitcoin first and take advantage of the reserve asset arbitrage, not only will they secure a once-in-a-generation economic windfall, they will also be in position to damage U.S. foreign policy and strategic interests.
Fortunately, the U.S. can avoid this outcome, if it acts boldly and embraces bitcoin first.
Despite a complete lack of leadership from executive and legislative branches of government so far, corporate America and American investors arecurrently winningthis competition for the U.S.
Much of the world’s bitcoin is custodied in the United States. Many of the iconic companies in the cryptocurrency industry – firms like Coinbase, Gemini, BitGo, NYDIG, Digital Currency Group (CoinDesk’s parent company) and others – are all U.S.-based. The vast majority of corporate treasury purchases have beenmade by U.S. companies.
Whether to maintain its leading position of power and wealth or to prevent adversaries from gaining an economic and geopolitical edge, the right strategic move is very clear: The U.S. should play to win with bitcoin. This includes being one of the first to adopt bitcoin as a reserve asset and doing everything possible to ensure the U.S. continues to be the home for many of the most innovative cryptocurrency companies.
The U.S. has found itself at the crossroads of many consequential technology shifts before: the space race, the atom bomb, the internet and, more recently, the race for general purpose artificial intelligence. The outcomes of these sovereign techno-economic games determine the fate of empires.
For the U.S., it’s a game it is unknowingly leading and can still decisively win. But the opportunity to do so is closing.
• Why the US Needs Bitcoin
• Why the US Needs Bitcoin || Goldman Says Market Overpricing Odds of Fed Rate Hike, In Relief for Bitcoin Bulls: Goldman Sachs said Thursday that traders might be premature in betting the U.S. Federal Reserve will move quickly to unwind the past year’s unprecedented monetary stimulus.
The investment banking giant’s comments could offer relief tobitcoinbulls, some of whom argue that trillions of dollars in money printing by central banks raises the chances of inflation, bolstering the cryptocurrency’s use as an investment hedge.
“The earliest the Fed will start talking about tapering [of bond purchases] is late 2021, with any discussion of interest rate hikes only coming a year after that,” Goldman Sachs’ Andrew Tiltontold CNBC.
Related:Bitcoin Isn't Acting Like Stocks, Stocks Are Acting Like Bitcoin
The market for futures contracts used to bet on Federal Reserve funds now implies the first interest-rate hike could come as soon as 2022, versus the 2024 liftoff implied about four weeks ago. What’s more, the futures are now pricing multiple rate hikes in 2023.
“That feels aggressive to us,” Tilton said, adding that the Fed hasn’t even begun tapering its ongoing $120 billion-a-month in bond purchases, a supplemental form of monetary easing once interest rates are cut close to zero, as they were early last year when the coronavirus pandemic hit.
The Fed said earlier this year it’s committed to continue buying $120 billion worth of bonds per month until it sees “substantial further progress” in the recovery. The bank has also reiterated that interest rates would remain at record lows for some time after inflation rises above the central bank’s 2% target.
A tapering or rate hike could dilute bitcoin’s appeal as an inflation hedge, inviting some selling pressure from momentum funds that bought the cryptocurrency as a store-of-value asset.
Related:Blockchain Sleuth Says OKEx, Huobi Stonewalled Him in Child Porn Investigation
The cryptocurrency fell by 20% last week, the biggest single-week decline since March 2020, as U.S. Treasury bond yields rose, indicating markets were pricing in prospects of an early Fed tightening.
• Goldman Says Market Overpricing Odds of Fed Rate Hike, In Relief for Bitcoin Bulls
• Goldman Says Market Overpricing Odds of Fed Rate Hike, In Relief for Bitcoin Bulls || Crypto Is the Libertarian Cheat Code in the Final Battle Over State Coercion: In the great game of the world economy, the final boss victory for crypto would be to rob nation-states of the ability to issue legitimate money – at least, that would be the libertarian win condition. “Everyone who has been around long enough in crypto, if you scratch off the surface, is a closeted but very committed political radical,” Preston Byrne , an attorney and past startup founder , told CoinDesk. In Byrne’s view, libertarianism is a close cousin of the original philosophical core of crypto: cypherpunk . Cypherpunks want control over how much anyone knows about them, but libertarians have a more profound agenda: They want to eliminate coercion of any kind. So it makes sense that libertarians would gravitate to a technology that undermines nation-states’ ability to mandate which money we all use with each other. Related: Ether Tops $1.7K, Setting New Record as Next Week's Futures Launch Nears The two viewpoints have always been intertwined, as internet prophet and early Intel engineer Timothy May attested in 1994’s “ The Cyphernomicon “: “A point of confusion is that cyberpunks are popularly thought of as, well, as ‘punks,’ while many Cyberpunks are frequently libertarians and anarchists of various stripes. In my view, the two are not in conflict.” The crypto industry is “not just talking about a payment system,” Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures told CoinDesk. “For the most part, we’re talking about a monetary system. Those are like deeply, deeply political things, because whomever administers the monetary system has enormous leverage in the way that society looks,” Carter said. Crypto is philosophical technology or maybe technological philosophy. Thinking about money Related: PayPal Says Venmo Under Investigation in US by Consumer Regulator Aside from payments, in its generally accepted definition , money also provides the basic unit of account and a way to store value. Story continues Money that can flow freely and whose supply won’t expand just because a politician wants to build some highways, pyramids or award some no-show jobs gets right to the heart of what libertarians are all about. The 1997 book “ The Sovereign Individual ” by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg foretold a future where civilians shop for a state much as they shop for electricity suppliers in deregulated markets. The book predicted that money would play a key role in undermining state authority, largely due to nation-state preference for continually downgrading the value of their currency. Remarkably, they predicted a money native to the internet (“cybermoney”) would be key to this undoing. They wrote: “This new form of money will reset the odds, reducing the capacity of the world’s nation-states to determine who becomes a Sovereign Individual. A crucial part of this change will come about because of the effect of information technology in liberating the holders of wealth from expropriation through inflation.” This argument that the internet would change how value gets transferred seems like a natural extension of the work of Austrian-born economist Friedrich Hayek , who published “ The Denationalisation of Money ” in 1976, a book that advocated for competitively issued private forms, a model that sounds much like the current explosion in stablecoins we are seeing today. The economist-philosopher was also an advocate for decentralization long before Satoshi’s white paper, contending that central planning is cumbersome and daft. “We need decentralization because only thus can we insure that the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place will be promptly used,” Hayek wrote in his 1945 essay, “ The Use of Knowledge in Society .” How do people, in Hayek’s conception, coordinate their activities? They do it with prices. The Market is the sum of all voluntary human action. If one acts non-coercively, one is part of the Market. With prices, people are able to put their knowledge about local supply and demand into the system without revealing to others exactly what they know, much as zero-knowledge proofs allow a person to answer a question without revealing any more information than is essential. “Today it is almost heresy to suggest that scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge,” Hayek wrote 75 years ago. “But a little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place.” The ability to coordinate society simply through price signals rather than politics is crucial to the libertarian worldview, and many suspect those price signals get warped by, for example, a government that has so much power to influence the economy on a macro scale. It is far better, in this view, for such signals to circulate through an economic system ( like Bitcoin ) that is indifferent to particular circumstances of a historical moment. Crypto as bricks “Libertarianism, as developed to this point, discovered the problem and defined the solution: the State vs. the Market,” philosopher Samuel Konkin wrote in 1980’s “ New Libertarian Manifesto .” “The Market is the sum of all voluntary human action. If one acts non-coercively, one is part of the Market. Thus did Economics become part of Libertarianism.” Like the old man in the Legend of Zelda game who handed the hero, Link, his double-powered white sword , blockchain is what enabled libertarians to start standing up a little economy all their own. It wasn’t until crypto that libertarians started to build things people actually use that reflected libertarian values. Successfully doing so caused the CEO of a publicly traded company, Overstock.com , to bow multiple times and say “I’m not worthy” when he first encountered ShapeShift founder Erik Voorhees at a gathering of bitcoiners. Voorhees built a significant nook within that crypto-libertarian economy and Overstock’s founder could see it. Voorhees’ company has seen setbacks on its ideal, but it’s moving fast to get back in line with its founder’s values. Meanwhile, the architect of the software that powers EOS quit working on it because the reality didn’t square with his views about the primacy of individual liberty. Thinking a way out Bitcoin’s creator decided it would have a fixed supply : 21 million coins. Similarly, there’s no more DAI in the world than MakerDAO users are willing to post collateral for and borrow. These aren’t just design choices. They are statements. Carter contended the blockchains “that are interesting tend to have relatively well-developed views on society, and then that is manifested in their protocol.” There’s a class of philosophers today who are native to the internet. It’s not lost on some of these thinkers that cryptocurrencies aren’t just software but also a way to express conviction about the social world. They are a way to incentivize people to play a new kind of game in new ways. Bitcoin has shown the true face of the banking system. It was all about monopoly. Ole Bjerg is a philosopher at the Copenhagen Business School who has written extensively about money , including about bitcoin . He and Byrne pointed out that libertarian skepticism extends beyond the state to the massive corporations that rely on it to persist. In a conversation with CoinDesk, Bjerg contrasted bitcoin with the banking industry, which he said has no conviction. “Banks and the financial system, they would portray themselves as: ‘We are capitalists.’ … They’d say, ‘We need competition and innovation. Innovation is good.'” But then when entrepreneurs actually try to compete with a genuinely new, disintermediating way to manage payments, Bjerg continued, “then all the sudden the banks become state socialists and say: ‘No, no, we can only have one currency.’ What I see is bitcoin has shown the true face of the banking system in a way. It was all about monopoly.” James Ellis is an independent philosopher and scholar who has been investing in cryptocurrencies for some time. Ellis is better known as Meta-Nomad to his followers online. He said the project of cryptocurrency “was sort of philosophical from the start. Not anarchic but detached. An element of leaving something behind and finding your own space.” Ellis believes crypto fits into a larger theme he likes to pursue, that of exit. Cypherpunks started articulating ways for citizens to make their activities illegible to the state, and Bitcoin’s arrival presaged a future where even whole economies could be built invisible to terrestrial authorities. “If you can cordon off your own currency then arguably you can cordon off your own state,” Ellis said. This is the idea that cypherpunks and libertarians share, but not all libertarians are cypherpunks and not all cypherpunks are libertarians. The concept of a libertarian If the libertarian is the hero of some kind of Mega Man -esque game, what does the hero do after the rug pull of the final boss? He declares: No more bosses. Bosses in video-game legend are defined by one thing: firepower. To the libertarian mind, that’s no way to be a boss. “One of my goals when I’m talking about politics with people is to get them to see the gun in the room,” Chainstone Labs CEO and Satoshi Roundtable co-host Bruce Fenton told CoinDesk in an interview. An OG both in bitcoin and libertarianism, Fenton invests to express his viewpoint. A worldview needs practitioners like Fenton and theorists who can help fellow travelers envision the next steps after they are victorious. Travis Corcoran is a Kickstarter-enabled novelist who self-describes as a “Catholic anarcho-capitalist.” To him, a philosophy offers at least one of two things: “a way of understanding the world” or a way of “thinking about what is the good life,” he told CoinDesk. Previously a software developer, Corcoran was on the cypherpunk mailing list back in the day and he was sold on cryptocurrency from the jump, but he is best known as the author of the Aristillus Series , a sort of libertarian what-if story in space. Cryptocurrency hasn’t popped up in his books yet, but he promised that it is coming. “Libertarianism doesn’t even want to talk about understanding the world,” Corcoran said. “Libertarianism says: The best way to interact with each other is without force, without top-down controls.” This notion of eschewing force or coercion emerged several times in reporting this essay, and it is key. Libertarians disagree on a lot, but they have consensus around the Non-Aggression Principle , that force must not be used against people or property. Similarly, Preston Byrne said, “Libertarianism doesn’t command you to do anything. It commands you to not command.” Arthur Breitman, the architect of the governance-oriented blockchain Tezos , put it another way. “The thing that defines libertarianism for me is consent,” he said. “We are a social species. We are meant to collaborate with each other.” Specialization is for insects. The nice thing about Tezos, Breitman contended, is that no one is forced to use it. The same, so far, can be said of all blockchains, though all bets are off once central bank digital currencies arise . Libertarianism always has a bit of a macho, do-it-yourself and “damn the torpedoes” veneer that is no doubt off-putting to many. It is the kind of thinking that can lead a gang of entrepreneurs to attempt to found a utopian enclave in another nation on another continent, only to have it devolve into hopeless infighting . Indeed, the philosophy’s favorite novelist might be science fiction’s Robert Heinlein , author of both the paean to free love, “ Stranger in a Strange Land “, and the revolutionary vision, “ The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress . ” Heinlein articulated the high expectations of the do-it-yourself ethos in his novel, “Time Enough for Love,” when he wrote: “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” Libertarians, in other words, can be a little extra , as the kids might say – perhaps even sometimes a bit self-delusional (suburban dads cosplaying as Delta Force). Or they can at least come off that way to those who don’t buy in. Fenton granted to CoinDesk that the school-of-thought has some image problems. But realistic or not, takes such as Heinlein’s make it a bit surprising to hear libertarianism’s proponents propound this non-aggression consensus, an idea that sounds – while not exactly pacifistic – more like pacifism than the typical, say, Western head-of-state would endorse. But while libertarians have that one point in common, they differ in many ways. Byrne provided the most helpful way of breaking out the various categories without making it over-complicated. He described three varieties of libertarians: Legalistic: These want to use the legislature and the courts to downgrade the authority of the state using the state’s own processes. Revolutionary: These resist the state by pushing its boundaries and rushing to edge cases without trying to appear to flout the law – “neglecting” to impose know-your-customer requirements on a crypto-buying app until authorities start asking questions might be a good example of this. Anarchistic: These libertarians attempt to check out entirely, using cypherpunk methods or even a boat to make themselves invisible outside their chosen cohort ( seasteaders , for example). Corcoran loosely identifies with the last category. “Any time a bunch of friends get together and accomplish something without violence, that’s an example of anarchy,” Corcoran said. To Fenton, whatever kind of libertarianism an adherent gravitates to, crypto complements it. “It’s a free and open voluntary system and that’s exactly what it means. … Whereas, most of our relations in the world, they are coercive,” Fenton said. In other words, the bosses of our modern economy can force everyone to use a particular currency because they have the heavy artillery; governments have the monopoly on legal violence. It’s not all about the money As cryptocurrency has progressed, it’s become clearer that it offers new pathways for large groups of people to come to agreement. In crypto parlance: consensus. Many hope that the importance of distributed consensus could extend beyond maintaining a ledger. Consensus is very hard. That’s why the game of statecraft today is largely played by some version of majority rule. Some theorists think we now have the tools to do better. Rachel O’Dwyer , now a lecturer at Dublin’s National College of Art and Design, wrote an essay in 2015 called “The Revolution Will (Not) Be Decentralized: Blockchains,” which dealt with the re-centralizing tendency of technology while noting some special hope for blockchains, the data structure that underlies most major cryptocurrencies. She wrote: “Where questions about how to reach consensus, negotiate trust and especially scale interactions beyond the local are pervasive in the commons, the blockchain looks set to be a game changer. In this context, the blockchain is presented as an algorithmic tool to foster trust in the absence of things like social capital, physical colocation or trusted third-party management.” O’Dwyer only wrote to point out only that cryptocurrency’s underlying technology opens up a new design space for decision-making, but her point would be echoed in 2017 by the then-CEO of bitcoin infrastructure firm, Chain , Adam Ludwin, in an open letter to Jamie Dimon , the chairman of JPMorgan Chase. Ludwin wrote, “Decentralized applications are a new form of organization and a new form of software. They’re a new model for creating, financing and operating software services in a way that is decentralized top-to-bottom.” Ludwin would go on to say that blockchains really only had one advantage over other kinds of software, but that one advantage had a distinctly libertarian tinge: a means to circumvent coercive powers’ ability to silence. “Censorship resistance means that access to decentralized applications is open and unfettered. Transactions on these services are unstoppable ,” he wrote. That’s the new thing about crypto that distinguishes it from other assets. It’s just really hard to confiscate. That was back when the industry was more about transactions. These days, it’s more about individuals holding onto value themselves in a way that’s also non-intermediated and resists the states’ or the banks’ ability to assert control. To that point, Carter brought in another philosopher, John Locke, who offered a theory of property in his treatises on government. “That’s quite central, I think, to the crypto doctrine, to reasserting extremely strong property rights that can’t really be interfered with. That’s the new thing about crypto that distinguishes it from other assets. It’s just really hard to confiscate,” Carter said. “Confiscation resistance” might be another feature the industry’s libertarians will one day tout alongside censorship resistance; in the U.S., authorities already seem to have taken notice . The libertarian proposal So in our imagined libertarian video game, the hero doesn’t beat the final boss in a face-off. The libertarian does it by making the state’s firepower irrelevant. In other words: Today everyone only uses state-backed money. Maybe one day some people start using the internet’s money and maybe eventually too many people are using it for the state to stop it. That’s a rug pull . Said another way, the libertarians don’t break the princess out of the castle; they build another castle beneath the castle. Then the princess slips from one to the other when Bowser isn’t looking. It’s more Dwarf Fortress than Fortnite . That is to say, censorship and confiscation resistance are just the beginning. After that there is getting along together in a decentralized fashion, and that’s just a totally different way of life. It’s a game with no win condition. Libertarians seem to believe people could live side by side more amicably by building a system around what people are capable of rather than around protecting against what might harm them – a system geared more for the next opportunity than the next larceny. For example: “If we can agree that the economic problem of society is mainly one of rapid adaptation to changes in the particular circumstances of time and place, it would seem to follow that the ultimate decisions must be left to the people who are familiar with these circumstances,” Hayek wrote in 1945. “We must solve it by some form of decentralization.” For Katelyn Sills , a libertarian-sympathetic but not allegiant software developer and blogger, the real question is whether or not people get to choose what kind of decision-making system they are subject to. Like Breitman, consent to be governed is an important philosophical sticking point, even though she knows that any piece of land can really only have one government (for now). But blockchains allow her to tinker with new arrangements for finding consensus in a way almost nothing else does. “What crypto is giving me is the ability to experiment with societal-level, institutional-level building blocks, with structures and designs, without having to go off and create an entirely other country. The costs are just lower tremendously. And I think that allows for a lot of innovation,” Sills said. “It’s very consensual.” Which is another way of saying what Fenton said: pursuing ways of living among others without guns in the room. Sills has more sympathy for left-of-center issues and causes than many others in the industry’s libertarian cohort, and perhaps for that reason she liked the thought experiment laid out by another internet-native philosopher, the rationalist blogger Scott Alexander , who wrote on Slate Star Codex in 2014 about a nation where there were a bunch of closely packed islands (an archipelago). Each island had a different government but it was really easy for people to shift their citizenship and residence from one to another. Alexander’s ultimate point was that the internet made it more feasible for people to create societies they liked and to largely live within them – to exit at the margins. He wrote: “I already hang out with various Finns and Brits and Aussies a lot more closely than I do my next-door neighbors, and if we start using litecoin and someone else starts using dogecoin then I’ll be more economically connected to them, too.” Alexander’s larger point is that this is the beginning of a much more robust societies-within-societies moment. More than subcultures, even: groups intertwined by shared tastes, ideas and currencies. Implied in Alexander’s exhortation is that if everyone can interface more with folks who want to live as they do, then they should also STFU about others who don’t (but no one does ). Agorism Obviously, the libertarian willing to metaphorically build the castle beneath the castle is more the anarchist than the legalist, in Byrne’s construction. So what kind of society would be built in that castle? One future that came up again and again in CoinDesk’s conversations was one described by the aforementioned Konkin. In his manifesto he described a way of thinking he called “ Agorism ,” an ideology where all problems could be solved in the market. Adherents would practice counter-economics , a black market, not because of what it sold but because its participants abjured established authorities. Though he wrote in an era where the dominant audio format was the cassette tape, his ideas make more sense if you just add blockchain. Konkin’s writings square nicely with Dan Larimer’s vision of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), which has been showing progress in 2020, in fits and starts . As Corcoran put it, “When things are lurking in the corners or on the outside long enough it really does build up momentum and it can start to do things much better than the market-dominant product can.” Win condition But ideological purity seldom wins history. In fact, maybe the greatest philosopher of history would say it never does. It’s a simplification, but Georg W.F. Hegel said that history is a process of ideas merging: A big idea is confronted with its antithesis and the two eventually synthesize into one weltanschauung . And, even now, some prominent libertarians argue for a retreat from the path of libertarian rigidity. Tyler Cowen is an economics professor at George Mason University and co-author of one of the last really big blogs, Marginal Revolution . In 2007, he described “ The Paradox of Libertarianism ,” in which he argued that governments expand as libertarian thinking allows their underlying economies to grow. “That is the fundamental paradox of libertarianism,” Cowen wrote. “Overall, libertarians should embrace these developments. We should embrace a world with growing wealth, growing positive liberty, and yes, growing government.” He hasn’t backtracked from this view; Hayek’s ghost screams. There is definitely a strand of people who call themselves libertarians who are primarily concerned about not being kept down by considering other people. But to such developments Preston Byrne, for one, is philosophical. “Libertarianism is a minority viewpoint. … We get our kicks other ways,” Byrne said. “People are quietly building their empires here, brick by brick.” So the libertarian wins, in theory , by not playing by the final boss’ rules, which makes for a very long game. It’s tough to recruit playmates to such a game, at least for now. Libertarians have to prove the strategy works on a smaller scale, by building organizations that succeed in principle and in fact. And for others, it’s not so much empires as, perhaps, distributed villages. In cyberspace, not meatspace, but real villages, not just metaphorical ones a la Facebook or Reddit. Villages with markets and schools and mutual aid but – crucially – without guns in the room. “In terms of the multiple kinds of libertarians, there is definitely a strand of people who call themselves libertarians who are primarily concerned about not being kept down by considering other people,” Sills said. “What I like to think about is: You can agree to constrain yourself in ways that are beneficial to society.” That kind of thinking helps create a bridge (or a synthesis ) from the early era of crypto, more the Bitcoin types and its direct successors, to the ones who came later, with Ethereum and beyond, a generation of which Sills is a part. Those opting for crypto to undermine those telling them what they can’t do might be merging their ideas now with those looking toward a future focused on unlocking all that this technology is capable of doing. And perhaps as that happens in cyberspace and on the ground, its upshot will be that when the princess slips out of the old-economy castle herself , she will find that there are any number of other castles she might like to go to and tunnels that make it easy to find them. Related Stories Crypto Is the Libertarian Cheat Code in the Final Battle Over State Coercion Crypto Is the Libertarian Cheat Code in the Final Battle Over State Coercion || A16z doesn't invest, it manifests: Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
NatashaandDannyandAlexandGracewere all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. In very goodShow News™, Chris is back! He's working on the next iteration of the show, something that you will be able to see startingVery Soon.Get hyped!
Today though, we had a delectable dish of dynamic doings, namely news items of the following persuasion:
• Bitcoinbroke the $50,000 barrier, something that we wanted to talk about. Especially in light ofCoinbase's $77 billion valuation. Natasha walked us through some growth metrics, and Alex was sad that he isn't already retired. Danny remains a full-on crypto bull.
• And on the blockchain thing,Blockchain.com raised $120 million, proving that there are huge amounts of capital available for the guts-and-bolts tooling of the bitcoin world.
• Li Jin, who coined the term "passion economy," has closed her debut $13 million fund for startups within the same category. She joined other investors inour latest survey on the creator economy's changing tides.
5 creator economy VCs see startup opportunities in monetization, discovery and much more
• Off of $1 million in ARR,Circle has brought on $4 million in fundingat a valuation north of $40 million.
• A16z invested in Stir, whichhelps creators manage and view their various income streams. The funding total was not disclosed, but is reportedly valuing the company, still in beta, at $100 million.
• TalkShopLivebrought on new cash for live video shopping.
• Pipe17closedan $8 million roundthat caught our eye. By building a service to help smaller e-commerce operations connect their tooling to one another, the company is betting on smaller e-commerce needing pipes to link up their various software services. This reminded us ofAlloy, another neat company in e-commerce automation that also recently raised money.
• From there we riffed on the software market itself, its size and thepotential for investors to loosen their rules of intra-portfolio competition.
• Public raised $220 million,OutSystems raised $150 millionandAlly.io raised $50 million.
• Finally,a wave of edtech startups is over Zoom Universityand hopes to create much, much better. alternative.
And that's our show! We are back early Monday morning for a packed week. So keep your podcast app warm, we're coming for it.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts.
Tired of ‘Zoom University’? So is edtech || Moneyball Turns to Crypto: A’s Selling Suites for One Bitcoin: The Oakland A’s are taking a head-first slide into cryptocurrency. The San Francisco East Bay ballclub announced that fans can buy a six-seat suite for the 2021, 81-game home season in the Oakland Coliseum for a single bitcoin , valued at one point Sunday at $60,105.96. The box costs $64,500 in U.S. currency, A’s president Dave Kaval told Sportico in an exclusive interview at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Ariz, where the club plays its spring training games. A single game, six-seat box with all the accoutrements goes for $594 for select April contests. “So you’re getting a little bit of a bitcoin discount right now,” Kaval said with a chuckle. “Obviously it could change, but right now you’re getting a discount.” The bitcoin offer is good until April 1, when the A’s open the season at home against the American League West division rival Houston Astros, allowing buyers to play the fluctuations of the crypto market. Bitcoin’s historic volatility has been pronounced of late, with a recent high of nearly $62,000 on Saturday, rising from $29,000 this past Dec. 31. Suffice to say the A’s wouldn’t be making this offer if a bitcoin now was worth $29,000. “No, no, exactly,” Kaval said. “Part of the reason we’re doing this is the price makes sense. Since a bitcoin is worth about the same as a season suite it gives our fans some different choices. And it kind of tests it to see if it’s something we’d like to do in more aspects of our business. “And the other reason is, especially in the Bay Area you see more people discussing or transacting with bitcoin. We’re trying to be innovative in an era that we’re in the forefront. The A’s have always had a long history of innovating, so we felt this is a great way to do that.” Michael Lewis called the A’s foray into baseball analytics, Moneyball . Call this Crytoball. The A’s have 100 such suites to sell at the single bitcoin price. With about 5,000 season ticket equivalents, the A’s are also in the market to sell some individual game tickets. Story continues Seat sales in any currency were enabled just earlier this month when California governor Gavin Newsom cleared the state’s five Major League teams to open the season at 20% capacity in their individual ballparks. Fans weren’t allowed in ballparks anywhere in the U.S. during last year’s COVID-abbreviated 60-game a season, so Kaval, one of the youngest club presidents in the league at 45, is obviously having some fun with people returning to the stands. Last year, fans were only allowed to attend the six National League Championship Series games and six World Series games last fall at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, and only at about 11,500 of the 40,300 capacity. Because of relaxed health and safety protocols in the state of Texas, the Rangers are planning to open the season at 100% capacity. The old Coliseum, which opened for baseball in 1968 upon the A’s arrival from Kansas City, can seat as many as 45,000 a game for baseball. In fact, the last time it was open to fans, 38,435 attended an 8-3 loss to the Texas Rangers on Sept. 22, 2019. At 20%, the A’s can expect to sell as many as 10,000 tickets per game. Whether that will go up over the course of the season will depend upon increased vaccinations and the spread of the disease. “There’s a lot uncertainty about this season as far as how many fans are going to be there and the access to various revenue streams,” Kaval said. “It’s almost impossible to predict right now. From our part we’re just trying to stay flexible. Two months ago we did not think we were going to have fans on opening day. Now we’re going to have 20%. “So, things are changing in a positive direction. And there’s a lot of demand out there for people who want to go to these games. We just have to let it play out over the next couple of months and see what happens.” More from Sportico.com NBA Top Shot Offers Greater Near-Term Upside but Carries Far More Risk Than Bitcoin How Bitcoin Is Likely to Be Used Within the Sports Ecosystem Play Moneyball! Determining MLB's Most Efficient Payrolls || Ripple, Polkadot & Elrond - American Wrap: 2/11/2021: Ripple Price Forecast: XRP Shows Significant Signs Of A Potential Sell-Off Down To $0.40
On January 30, Ripple price had a massive breakout jumping by 155% and quickly plummeted down to $0.36 in less than 10 hours. The pump was caused by a Reddit group named WallStreetBets which also caused a massive short squeeze on the stock of Gamestop.
Polkadot Price Forecast: DOT At Risk Of A Drop Towards $22 After Significant Rejection
Polkadot defended a key support level on February 10 and bounced significantly towards a new all-time high at $25.7. However, the breakout above the previous high was notably weak and the digital asset saw a quick pullback down to $24.5.
Elrond Price Prediction: EGLD Enters Calm After Massive Explosion, Before Another Storm?
Elrond has been trading inside a massive rally since October 2020 from an all-time low of $6.8 to an all-time high above $200. In the past 48 hours, the digital asset has gained more than $2 billion in market capitalization, placing top 20.
See more from Benzinga
• Click here for options trades from Benzinga
• Ethereum, Litecoin & Polkadot - American Wrap: 2/10/2021
• Bitcoin, Litecoin & Filecoin - American Wrap: 2/9/2021
© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || AAR Corp. (AIR) to Report Q3 Earnings: What in the Cards?: AAR Corp.AIR is scheduled to release third-quarter fiscal 2021 results on Mar 23, after market close. In the last reported quarter, the company delivered an earnings surprise of 82.35%.
Moreover, AAR Corp. has a four-quarter earnings surprise of 124.61%, on average.
Let’s discuss the factors that are likely to get reflected in the upcoming quarterly results.
AAR Corp.’s overall sales are expected to have suffered in the fiscal third quarter due to the impact of the pandemic on commercial passenger flying activity. Though the company has been witnessing a slight improvement in air travel activities driven by positive developments such as vaccinations since the fiscal second quarter, air passenger volumes are not expected to have reached the pre-COVID level during the soon-to-be-reported quarter. Hence, quarterly top-line performance is likely to have been weak.
AAR Corp. price-eps-surprise | AAR Corp. Quote
Notably, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal third-quarter revenues is pegged at $413.4 million, which indicates a decline of 25.3% from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.
During the fiscal second quarter, AAR Corp. witnessed lower selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses as a result of temporary reductions in compensation and benefits. However, beginning Dec 1, the company restored its compensation and benefits, which in turn must have raised its SG&A expenses in the fiscal third quarter, thereby dragging down its bottom line.
Moreover, poor top line performance is expected to have hurt the company’s quarterly earnings.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal third-quarter earnings per share is pegged at 40 cents, which indicates decline of 40.3% from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.
Our proven model does not conclusively predict an earnings beat for AAR Corp. this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an earnings beat. But this is not the case here.
Earnings ESP: The company’s Earnings ESP is 0.00%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.
Zacks Rank: AAR Corp. carries a Zacks Rank #3, currently. You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Lockheed Martin Corp.LMT reported fourth-quarter 2020 earnings from continuing operations of $6.38 per share, in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate.Hexcel CorporationHXL reported fourth-quarter 2020 loss of 18 cents per share, in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate.
General Dynamics CorporationGD reported fourth-quarter 2020 earnings from continuing operations of $3.49 per share, which missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.55 by 1.7%.
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 reportGeneral Dynamics Corporation (GD) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAAR Corp. (AIR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportLockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here. || Ovintiv (OVV): Strong Industry, Solid Earnings Estimate Revisions: One stock that might be an intriguing choice for investors right now isOvintiv Inc.OVV. This is because this security in the Oil and Gas – Exploration and Production - Canadian space is seeing solid earnings estimate revision activity, and is in great company from a Zacks Industry Rank perspective.
This is important because, often times, a rising tide will lift all boats in an industry, as there can be broad trends taking place in a segment that are boosting securities across the board. This is arguably taking place in the Oil and Gas – Exploration and Production – Canadian space as it currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 22 out of more than 250 industries, suggesting it is well-positioned from this perspective, especially when compared to other segments out there.
Meanwhile, Ovintiv is actually looking pretty good on its own too. The firm has seen solid earnings estimate revision activity over the past month, suggesting analysts are becoming a bit more bullish on the firm’s prospects in both the short and long term.
Ovintiv Inc. price-consensus-chart | Ovintiv Inc. Quote
In fact, over the past month, current quarter estimates have risen from 28 cents per share to 73 cents per share, while current year estimates have risen from $1.59 per share to $3.29 per share. This has helped OVV to earn a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), further underscoring the company’s solid position. You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
So, if you are looking for a decent pick in a strong industry, consider Ovintiv. Not only is its industry currently in the top third, but it is seeing solid estimate revisions as of late, suggesting it could be a very interesting choice for investors seeking a name in this great industry segment.
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 reportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Chia Launches Eco-Friendly Blockchain & New Digital Currency: SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA --News Direct-- Chia Network Highlights Chia Reinvents Digital Money with Energy Efficient At-Home Farming Rewards Chia Blockchain Full Node Count approximates 2,000 in the last 24 hours and exceeds 12,500 since Launch Chia Network Inc. (Chia) today introduced its revolutionary eco-friendly blockchain, its new digital currency known as chia, as well as a new breakthrough smart transaction on-chain programming language called Chialisp. Chias blockchain is a global open-source decentralized network that operates a payment settlement system using chia, its native cryptocurrency. The Company expects its blockchain will be used in a range of transactions, including cross border payments, issuing financial assets, and stable coin issuance. Chia intends to sell software service and support for its open source blockchain and smart transaction software to governments, financial institutions, corporations, and large buyers and sellers of storage. We are very excited to launch Chias new blockchain and smart transaction platform which is easier to use, more energy efficient, and more secure than existing digital money alternatives. Improving upon Proof of Works shortcomings around centralization, electricity consumption and poor programmability, Chias blockchain has the potential to become the core of a new monetary architecture, said Bram Cohen , Chias CEO. As of March 2021, Chias blockchain has approximately 2,000 full nodes in the last 24 hours and 12,500 full nodes since launch as compared to Ethereum with 6,800 full nodes . According to Bram Cohen , a robust amount of independently-operated nodes is considered essential to the success of Chia, as its fundamental value relies upon its ability to remain decentralized. Farming will allow even the smallest farmer running a node a chance to win rewards for validating the network. Running a node is also a more secure way to self-custody chia. "Bram Cohen is one of the greatest living protocol designers (BitTorrent), right up there with Satoshi and Vitalik -- Naval Ravikant Story continues Chia is the answer to Bitcoins climate problem Banks and currencies are susceptible to routine shocks from governmental mismanagement, global financial crises, and generally run on antiquated technologies. Bitcoin was launched during one of these banking crises to try to address these ongoing issues. But Bitcoin now expends approximately 64 terawatt-hours per year, a level of energy consumption comparable to the nation of Switzerland. This level of energy usage is controversial and could get worse as bitcoin adoption and energy prices increase. Further, Bitcoin script is very limited, slow to develop, and has generally required significant changes in the Bitcoin protocol that can take years to be deployed. These delays and limitations have hampered building custody and controls into the Bitcoin blockchain. Ethereum shares Bitcoins reliance on wasteful mining and has additional problems. Almost every deployed Solidity smart contract that has attracted large balances has in some way been compromised. The Solidity scripting language makes it easier to write software than to secure it. Ethereum has mostly become known for the fundraising mechanism known as an ICO, where the fundraiser creates new tokens on the Ethereum network to sell for bitcoin and ether - many of which have uncertain regulatory compliance. Environmentally green chia (XCH) aims to save the planet Chia s blockchain offers functional and environmental advantages to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripples existing platforms. The Chia blockchain is more open and accessible than existing financial institutions, more efficient and less wasteful than the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchain, and better designed for secure smart financial transactions than the Ethereum blockchain while being more decentralized than Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Ripple. Chias blockchain replaces Proof of Work which is the consensus method that Bitcoin and Ethereum use, with the first of its kind Proof of Space and Time which uses significantly less energy and leads to a more decentralized and more secure blockchain. Proofs of Space harnesses unused disk space, rewarding owners of empty space for farming and Proofs of Time add security and time predictability to the network. As Bitcoin uses Bitcoin Script and Ethereum uses Solidity for programming transactions, Chias blockchain uses Chialisp. Chialisp, is a newly developed blockchain programming language and on-chain smart transaction development environment that will unleash the security, transparency, and ease of use that cryptocurrencies promise. Applications running on Chias blockchain are intended to have functionality appropriate for banking. The primary focus for the initial launch will be on core functionality such as financial controls, payments clearing and settlement, and managing the issuance of various assets. One of the primary use cases for chia is in international payments - especially in regions whose governments or financial systems are particularly volatile. The Company expects that the Chia blockchain and Chialisp will facilitate a range of transactions, including facilitating cross border payments, issuing financial assets, and stable coin issuance with best in class custody and controls. Chia - the easiest digital money to farm - is the peoples choice Compared to the existing modern finance platforms, chia is the easiest digital money to farm. In contrast to the technically proficient skills required to join a miner community, all people can farm chia at home for a fraction of the cost. Learn more about chia farming and the chia farmer reward schedule in Chias business Whitepaper . Earn your chia (XCH) rewards today It is straightforward to install the Chia blockchain for Windows, MacOS, and many other platforms as well. Download the Chia blockchain and earn your chia (XCH) rewards now. To learn more about Chias blockchain, please watch the Companys mainnet launch video . Exchange trading - stay tuned Please expect an initial six week period where transactions will be frozen and farmers will only be receiving farming rewards. The Chia blockchain will soft fork in final transaction capabilities during this period in a 1.1 release. The soft fork will be a required upgrade before the six-week period ends. Read all about it in Chia's release notes. About Chia Network Chia Network Inc. was founded by Bram Cohen, the inventor of the BitTorrent protocol. Chia is a state-of-the-art open-source decentralized blockchain, digital currency, and smart transaction platform. Using the first new secure Nakamoto consensus algorithm invented since Bitcoin, Chia aims to operate an eco-friendly, more secure and user-friendly payment system for cross border payments, issuing financial assets, lending, escrow payments, institutional custody, and distributed identity. Chias Proof of Space and Proof of Time-based blockchain reduces waste in Proof of Work-based blockchains. Built to run Chialisp, the companys newly developed on-chain smart transaction programming language, Chias blockchain allows its users to build and execute smart contracts and enable peer-to-peer applications. Chia believes that digital money should be easier to use than cash, harder to lose, and nearly impossible to steal. The Company is funded by leading venture capitalists including Slow Ventures, a16z, Naval Ravikant, Galaxy Digital, Greylock, True Ventures, MetaStable, Stillmark, DCM, and others. The Companys Advisors include Dr. Dan Boneh, Research Partner at a16z and Applied Cryptography Professor at Stanford University; and Dr. Krzysztof Pietrzak, Cryptography Professor of IST Austria; and Ms. Katie Haun, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Investor Relations Contact: Gretchen Lium. For more information, visit https://chia.net and connect with us on Twitter (@chia_project), Facebook , GitHub and LinkedIn. Contact Details Gretchen Lium +1 303-638-9185 gretchen@chia.net Company Website https://www.chia.net/ View source version on newsdirect.com: https://newsdirect.com/news/chia-launches-eco-friendly-blockchain-and-new-digital-currency-422529418
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: down || Prices: 58917.69, 58918.83, 59095.81, 59384.31, 57603.89, 58758.55, 59057.88, 58192.36, 56048.94, 58323.95
|
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 2021-12-30]
BTC Price: 47178.12, BTC RSI: 40.84
Gold Price: 1812.70, Gold RSI: 56.07
Oil Price: 76.99, Oil RSI: 59.46
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Range-Bound, Support Between $58K-$60K Could Stabilize Pullback: Bitcoin has traded in a tight range between $60,000 support and $64,000 resistance over the past week. Short-term buyers have been active on pullbacks, which suggests downside could be limited into Asian trading hours.
Upside momentum is slowing after BTC made an all-time high around $66,900 last month. It appears that buyers were quick to take profits around the price high, especially given short-term overbought signals on the charts.
BTC was trading around $61,500 at press time and is down about 1% over the past 24 hours.
The relative strength index (RSI) on the four-hour chart is not yet oversold, which suggests BTC could see further downside toward the $58,000-$60,000 support zone.
If buyers fail to hold $60,000, the next level of support is seen around $53,000-$54,000 (a near-10% decline from current levels), which is also at the 50-day moving average.
The weekly RSI is approaching overbought territory, similar to April and September, which preceded a downturn in BTC’s price. However, given a series of price breakouts over the past few weeks, BTC remains poised for a breakout above $60,000 based on positive historical returns in the fourth quarter. || Xinfin Network’s XDC Rallies by More Than 13% Despite Bearish Market: The cryptocurrency market has been underperforming over the past few hours, with the total market cap now below $2.2 trillion. One token that stands out is XDS, that has gained over 13% in the last 24 hours.
XDC, the native token of the Xinfin Network, has been rallying over the past few hours. The rally comes despite the broader cryptocurrency recording losses, withBitcoinnow trading around $46,000 per coin.
XinFin is anenterprise-ready hybridblockchain technology company designed to tackle challenges in the international finance and trading sector. Its native token, XDC, currently supports smart contracts, has a 2 seconds transaction time, a transaction speed of 2,000 TPS and uses XinFin Delegated Proof of Stake (XDPoS).
Xinfin intends to be a highly scalable, secure, permission, and commercial grade’ blockchain network. XDC is recovering from a slump that affected its price earlier this year. Over the past three months, XDC’s value has dropped by more than 24%.
However, the token has been performing excellently in recent weeks. Earlier this month, XDC/USDfound support at the mid-July lowsaround $0.067, and this could allow it to eye the $0.10 mark over the coming hours or days. Despite its recent rally, XDC is still down by nearly 50% from the mid-August high of $0.20.
XDC’s technical indicators show that the cryptocurrency is currently performing well and recovering from its recent losses. If the current momentum can be maintained, XDC’s value could soon soar.
The XDC/USD daily chart shows that the coin is trading above its 50-day moving average of $0.0837. The MACD line has just crossed over into the positive region, indicating a growing buying appetite for the coin. Furthermore, the14-day relative strength indexof 61 means XDC could soon enter the overbought region.
XDC could surpass the $0.10 psychological level over the coming hours if the market conditions remain unchanged. However, it would need the support of the broader market to top the second majorresistance levelat around $0.144.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Rebounding Dollar Exerting Pressure as Yields Chop Around || From metaverse to DAOs, a guide to 2021's tech buzzwords: By Reuters Tech Team (Reuters) - This year, tech CEOs drew inspiration from a 1990s sci-fi novel, Reddit investors' lexicon seeped into the mainstream as "diamond hands" and "apes" shook Wall Street, and something called a DAO tried to buy a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution. If you're still drawing a blank as 2021 wraps up, here's a short glossary: METAVERSE The metaverse broadly refers to shared, immersive digital environments which people can move between and may access via virtual reality or augmented reality headsets or computer screens. Some tech CEOs are betting it will be the successor to the mobile internet. The term was coined in the dystopian novel "Snow Crash" three decades ago. This year CEOs of tech companies from Microsoft to Match Group have discussed their roles in building the metaverse. In October, Facebook renamed itself Meta to reflect its new metaverse focus. WEB3 Web3 is used to describe a potential next phase of the internet: a decentralized internet run on the record-keeping technology blockchain. This model, where users would have ownership stakes in platforms and applications, would differ from today's internet, known as Web2, where a few major tech giants like Facebook and Alphabet's Google control the platforms. SOCIAL AUDIO Tech companies waxed lyrical this year about tools for live audio conversations, rushing to release features after the buzzy, once invite-only app Clubhouse saw an initial surge amid COVID-19 lockdowns. NFT Non-fungible tokens, which exploded in popularity this year, are a type of digital asset that exists on a blockchain, a record of transactions kept on networked computers. In March, a work by American artist Beeple sold for nearly $70 million at Christie's, the first ever sale by a major auction house of art that does not exist in physical form. DECENTRALIZATION Decentralizing, or the transfer of power and operations from central authorities like companies or governments to the hands of users, emerged as a key theme in the tech industry. Story continues Such shifts could affect everything from how industries and markets are organized to functions like content moderation of platforms. Twitter, for example, is investing in a project to build a decentralized common standard for social networks, dubbed Bluesky. DAO A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is generally an internet community owned by its members and run on blockchain technology. DAOs use smart contracts, pieces of code that establish the group's rules and automatically execute decisions. In recent months, crowd-funded crypto-group ConstitutionDAO tried and failed to buy a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution in an auction held by Sotheby's. STONKS This deliberate misspelling of "stocks," which originated with an internet meme, made headlines as online traders congregating in forums like Reddit's WallStreetBets drove up stocks including GameStop and AMC. The lingo of these traders, calling themselves "apes" or praising the "diamond hands" who held positions during big market swings, became mainstream. GAMEFI GameFi is a broad term referring to the trend of gamers earning cryptocurrency through playing video games, where players can make money through mechanisms like getting financial tokens for winning battles in the popular game Axie Infinity. ALTCOIN The term covers all cryptocurrencies aside from Bitcoin, ranging from ethereum, which aims to be the backbone of a future financial system, to Dogecoin, a digital currency originally created as a joke and popularized by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. FSD BETA Tesla released a test version of its upgraded Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, a system of driving-assistance features - like automatically changing lanes and make turns - to the wider public this year. The name of the much-scrutinized software has itself been contentious, with regulators and users saying it misrepresents its capabilities as it still requires driver attention. FABS "Fabs," short for a semiconductor fabrication plant, entered the mainstream lexicon this year as a shortage of chips from fabs were blamed for the global shortage of everything from cars to gadgets. NET ZERO A term, popularized this year thanks to the COP26 U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, for saying a country, company, or product does not contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions. That's usually accomplished by cutting emissions, such as use of fossil fuels, and balancing any remaining emissions with efforts to soak up carbon, like planting trees. Critics say any emissions are unacceptable. (Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Additional reporting by Sheila Dang, Stephen Nellis, Jane Lanhee Lee, Hyunjoo Jin, Paresh Dave and Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Kenneth Li and Nick Zieminski) || Inflation Concerns Push Gold Prices Up: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
Gold’s 2021 has been surprisingly muted, but concerns about inflation are finally breaking gold out of its rut. The yellow metal is currently at $1,860.50, and the newfound momentum for the safe haven asset is likely to attract new investors. A price of $1,900 or more could be within reach in the coming weeks, according to aCitigroup note.
Chris Gaffney, president of world markets at TIAA Bank, is advising clients to increase their gold allocations to the higher end of the standard 5–10% range, according tothe Wall Street Journal. “We’re really seeing investors say, ‘Well, this inflation could be a little more sticky, so we do need to add precious metals.’”
Gold’s rally comes despite a host of obstacles — most notably, strength in the U.S. dollar and tapering efforts from the Fed. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have also been pitching bitcoin as a replacement for gold as a safe haven asset, even though bitcoin has never been tested during a prolonged downturn or inflation period. Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris is bullish on gold as a safe haven asset. Inremarks to the National Newshe said, “I’m still very bullish [on gold] and it is a safe haven. People now are comparing Bitcoin with gold; it’s a wrong comparison.”
Inflation has also hit the U.K. and the European Union. U.K. Finance minister Rishi Sunaksaid, "The recent period of above-target inflation is driven partially from base effects, rising commodity prices, global supply bottlenecks and shortages (particularly of semiconductors) and the increase in energy prices."
Mining companies have also seen strength in recent days, withBarrick Gold (ABX)up 7.2% since last week. Barrick Gold is one of the key holdings in theSprott Gold Miners ETF (SGDM). Gold miners tend to have more extreme reactions than gold itself, meaning that when gold is on an upswing, miners tend perform even better.
Sprott also offers theSprott Junior Gold Miners ETF (SGDJ), which tracks junior gold and silver miners. Junior miners tend to have enormous upside potential as they become acquisition targets for larger firms and are particularly sensitive to the price of gold, which could be hurtling past its August highs in the coming months.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit theGold & Silver Investing Channel.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || First Mover Asia: What Holiday? Bitcoin Soars Past $59K Amid Brisk Trading: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening this morning:
Market moves:Bitcoin broke above $59,000 with at least one analyst expecting a “healthy” holiday rally.
Technician’s take (Editor’s Note):On account of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, today’s First Mover Asia will include a column in place of the usual Technician’s take.
Catch the latest episodesofCoinDesk TVfor insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis.
Bitcoin (BTC): $59,118 +3.5%
Ether (ETH): $4,530 +6.4%
The crypto market on Thursday, the U.S. Thanksgiving day holiday, was not as quiet as some anticipated, afterbitcoinprices briefly broke past $59,000, and trading volume remained at a level similar to the previous three days. Ether soared past $4,500, a more than 6% gain.
As bitcoin’s price finished Thursday (HKT/SGT) in the green, the rest of the crypto market experienced high price volatility with major winners of the day including gaming tokens GALA, SAND, and MANA and dog-themed meme token SHIB. These tokens all saw high daily trading volume on Thursday, a bullish sign for a token’s price when it accompanies a price rally.
One analyst expects this bullish sentiment will continue during the December holiday season, particularly now that a few macroeconomic uncertainties have abated, including Jerome Powell’sreappointmentas Federal Reserve chair.
“The period after U.S. Thanksgiving is traditionally very bullish for risky assets and I would not be surprised to see a healthy Christmas rally for cryptos during the holiday season,” Changguang Zheng, co-founder and chief investment officer at crypto hedge fund ZX Squared Capital, told CoinDesk.
Yet there were also less optimistic signs in investors’ activities. “Bitcoin put options, derivatives offering downside protection, continue to become pricier, implying bearish sentiment,” CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbolereportedon Thursday.
El Salvador: Who Needs the IMF When You Have Bitcoin?: The IMF is a brutal bully constantly declaring its virtue. It’s about time someone pushed back.
Christopher Nolan’s third Batman film, “The Dark Knight Rises,” is generally considered the weakest entry in the series, in part because it’s so easily read as a celebration of neoliberal authoritarianism. The film’s plot has the villain, Bane, take over Gotham City, wipe out all financial ledgers and reign over a kind of mega-Occupy movement. To fight back, Batman engages in a series of moral compromises that he justifies as, more or less, necessary exceptions to defend a more broadly just system.
The International Monetary Fund has been playing the Batman role in the global order for decades. Though nominally aimed at supporting democracy and free markets, reforms mandated by the IMF in exchange for its loans have historically included serious cuts to social spending and industrial policy. The fallout is often devastating: The IMF’s (real world) body count is considerably higher than Batman’s.
El Salvador, a country with low income and high debt, has been in negotiations with the IMF for one of its loans in the amount of $1.3 billion. One roadblock has been the country’s recent adoption of bitcoin as legal tender. The IMF signaled it wasn’t too happy with that idea.
On Monday, El Salvador introduced a $1 billion “Bitcoin Bond” that could present at least a partial end-run around the IMF, highlighting why bitcoin made the IMF so queasy in the first place. “The Dark Knight Rises” contains a notorious moment, drawn from the Batman comics, in which Bane pummels Batman so badly that his back is broken, leaving him paralyzed and vulnerable. That’s about how the IMF is going to feel if El Salvador finds a way to raise large sums of international financing, as a developing country with a troubled economy, without the IMF or corruption-riddled global banks.
The bond allows purchases in units of $100, using bitcoin or tether. It will be issued by Bitfinex, an essentially stateless and unregulated platform. So there are probably few if any controls on who can buy into this bond, either by source or by amount.
That means one simple thing: El Salvador will absolutely sell out of this bond, and will probably be able to issue another round. It will replace that $1.3 billion from the IMF without breaking a sweat, even taking into account that about half of the first bond sale will go into a bitcoin fund.
There doesn’t need to be any further explanation of this than “Bitcoiners are nuts and rich,” and would gladly pump money into this small country for the lulz. More seriously, every one of these experiments that pans out is another win for bitcoin, so pitching in is also a matter of enlightened self-interest. Remember that an Ethereum DAO just raised $40 million for what was essentially a vaguely civic-minded prank – $1 billion for an actual bond with an actual return is nothing.
Let’s leave aside the touted “Bitcoin City” El Salvador says it wants to build using the other half of the first bond. That’s mostly a marketing stunt: For $500 million, at best the country will get a couple of power plants, a server farm and an IHOP. And that’s actually fine! Assuming El Salvador follows through in broad strokes, you do need some kind of infrastructure to support the mining facilities, so whether or not it’s a “city” right off the bat is a matter of semantics. And $500 million of new capital in the small country will have a major impact regardless of how it’s spent.
So, kudos to El Salvador for burning down Wall Street and building a throne out of the skulls of predatory bankers. That said, the bond might not be a terribly great investment.
For one thing, it introduces political counterparty risk to your bitcoin strategy. This is a country that only emerged from near-anarchy in 1994, and while President Nayib Bukele seems to have sturdy popularity, a disruptive change in leadership or the political order could mean creditors don’t get paid back. That’s not necessarily likely, but it’s on the table in a way that it’s not with, say, U.S. Treasury bonds (or just buying bitcoin yourself).
Also, Blockstream’s projection that the bond will return 165% annually over 10 years is based on the bet that bitcoin will be trading at $1 million by that time. I consider that completely possible, but also completely unknowable. A 10-year projection for literally any asset is pretty much always going to be a made-up number. Invest accordingly – unless your real priority is to change the world.
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3:45 p.m. HKT/SGT (7:45 a.m. UTC) France consumer confidence (Nov.)
4 p.m. HKT/SGT (8 a.m. UTC) Speech by European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde at the ECB Legal Conference 2021
In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of“First Mover”onCoinDesk TV:
Is El Salvador’s Bitcoin City All a Fantasy? Ambassador of El Salvador to the US Explains Country’s Bitcoin Ambitions
El Salvador is doubling down on its bitcoin adoption by planning to build a bitcoin city and issue a bitcoin bond. Will El Salvador succeed? “First Mover” hosts spoke with Milena Mayorga, ambassador of El Salvador to the United States. Plus, First Mover covered markets insights from Greg King, Osprey Funds founder and CEO. His firm is planning to launch NFT funds by early next year.
Crypto: The Gift That Keeps On Giving (to Charity)
Decentraland’s MANA Token Hits All-Time High After Sale of Virtual Real Estate
Elrond Leapfrogs Into DeFi’s Top 10 as Users Chase Ridiculously Large Incentive Program
Canada Needs a Loonie-Linked Digital Currency, Policy Experts Say
Soccer Star Andrés Iniesta Warned by Spanish Regulator After Promoting Binance
‘Crypto-States’ Will Compete With Corporates in the Metaverse
Today’s Crypto Explainer:What is Bitcoin’s Lightning Network? || Financial firms managing $130 trillion commit to net-zero goals, but no one can agree on what that really means: Jane Fraser, the CEO of Citi, says that bankers are hamstrung enough trying to compare "apples and oranges" to help clients make sense of their investments. But when it comes to sustainable finance disclosures, "it's a veritable fruit plate out there." Fraser was speaking on Wednesday at COP26 in Glasgow during a panel on the scale of financial assets now committing to decarbonization. The news of the day was that $130 trillion in assets were now under a commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as announced by Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England and now the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. That coalition, called the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, now covers 450 financial institutions. It commits them to standards regarding climate stress testing and assessments of their net-zero strategies, including winding down stranded assets, Carney said. Together, it amounted to "arcane but essential changes to the plumbing of finance" that would, for the first time, set out a clear path for how to fund the transition, estimated at a cost of $1 trillion. The expansion of the coalition also comes alongside measures to attempt to set out exactly what green measures really look like, under the creation of a new set of climate reporting standards by the nonprofit International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation. Those standards, if accepted and widely used, could form a breakthrough in a frustrating question at the heart of green finance: As banks, asset managers, and pension funds pledge to decarbonize, they are relying on a chaotic hodgepodge of disclosure, reporting, and tracking standards, all attempting to define what "green" actually means. In other words, a messy fruit plate. This is a problem in all areas of global finance. When it comes to equities, for example, various agencies combine everything from the gender breakdown on boards, to labor relations and pollutions standards into one ESG "score," which is frequently incomparable—and often outright at odds—with their competitors' assessments, as MIT's Aggregate Confusion project has found . Even the most thorough ratings agencies, meanwhile, are relying on a patchwork of voluntary disclosures supplied by the companies themselves, even as ESG-marketed funds have exploded in size and assets. Story continues This has led to rife accusations of greenwashing from both banks and the public companies they lend to alike, and spurred increasing efforts by governments and regulators to define “green.” In the U.S., the SEC has begun asking companies to disclose more information about their carbon footprints to investors, and the commission's chair has said that investors want to be able to compare one company's measures to another's , likening it to sprinting at the Olympics. The EU, meanwhile, has published a vast "taxonomy" of what exactly counts as a "green" activity and is redrawing the financial system around that baseline. It's a process that will likely take years. More finance coverage from Fortune : $69 billion in Bitcoin at the center of Miami crypto court fight FTX’s crypto loses 5% of its value despite the exchange plastering the World Series with ads Only 11% of companies are hitting their emissions goals 2022 home prices will keep rising at or near double digits , predicts the analyst who called the current housing boom Top D.C. financial regulators release stablecoin report and urge Congress to pass legislation This story was originally featured on Fortune.com || Bitcoin falls more than 4% to near $60,000: SINGAPORE, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, fell more than 4% on Tuesday as it extended a decline through a week that also included an upgrade to its blockchain. Bitcoin fell to $60,350 at its lowest for the day, taking losses from a record high of $69,000 struck on Nov. 10 to more than 11%. Ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market value, was down 4.5% at $4,355.4. Cryptocurrency analysts said there did not seem to be any news driving the declines, and the moves seemed driven by profit taking after the sharp run-up. "There is a lack of news and this is some pure selling of spot and some additions of short selling. Outside of this, there is no significant news," said Matthew Dibb, chief operating officer at Singapore-based crypto asset manager Stack Funds. Bitcoin's value has more than doubled since June, driven by mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies and, more recently, the launch of futures-based bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the United States. It went through a major upgrade, called Taproot, on Sunday that enables its blockchain to execute more complex transactions, potentially widening the virtual currency's use cases and making it a little more competitive with ethereum for processing smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing transactions whose results depend on pre-programmed inputs. (Reporting by Tom Westbrook and Vidya Ranganathan; Editing by Jacqueline Wong) View comments || Sign up to The Independents free cryptocurrency expert panel event: (The Independent ) The price of cryptocurrency is seemingly in constant flux which causes a gauntlet for investors to run week to week and day to day. Just last week bitcoin remains in limbo following last weeks flash crash, which some analysts mistook for the start of a bear market that would see its price continue to tumble in the short term. None of this is new with cryptocurrency making headlines for years, but its unpredictable nature and complex myriad of currencies means for many it is an area too daunting to delve into. For those who have taken the plunge and invested there have been those who have become millionaires and even billionaires as a result, while there are those who have also lost a considerable amount as the price proves to be a constant rollercoaster for investors. To decipher exactly how cryptocurrency works, how to invest and what the future looks like for the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin The Independent is hosting an expert panel to explore the ins and outs of digital money. The virtual event, which is free to attend, will be hosted by our own crypto expert, tech writer Anthony Cuthbertson and he will be joined by digital currency leaders who will be able to give their first-hand account of trading in the online market. One of the panellists is none other than Fred Schebesta, a co-founder of financial comparison website Finder, self-made entrepreneur with an estimated net worth of $214million. To expert panel will be held on 15 December at 6.30pm. To find out more and sign up for free click here . Read More How bad is bitcoin for the environment really? Crypto experts discuss bitcoin price predictions What is Solana? The crypto rising 200-times faster than bitcoin || BlockchainSpace Raises $3.75M to Expand Metaverse Guild Hub: The funds will be used to continue empowering guilds with cutting-edge tools and access to financing
SINGAPORE, Nov. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BlockchainSpace, a guild hub for play-to-earn communities, raised $3.75 million in seed round funding with the aim to establish itself as a guild hub leader in the metaverse.
BlockchainSpace builds tools to empower play-to-earn communities, and also runs several educational academies that identify economic opportunities in play-to-earn games and shares learnings for new guilds to enter the space. The platform's unique tools and features are designed to save guild operators time, provide valuable data and metrics, and give guilds access to capital, thus allowing them to focus on scaling their guild and improving performance. BlockchainSpace currently serves over 2,000 guilds and 545,000 players.
The investment round was led byAnimoca Brands,Spartan Group, andInfinity Ventures Crypto. With further backing from3Commas Capital,Arca,Bitscale,CMS,Coingecko,Fenbushi Capital,GBV Capital,Mechanism Capital,Parataxis,Petrock Capital,Sfermion,Stablenode, andYGG.
Included in the round are notable well-respected advisors and angel investors leading the NFT gaming industry, such as Aleksander Larsen of Axie Infinity, Jeff Zirlin (Jihoz) of Axie Infinity, Gabby Dizon of YGG, Sebastien Borget of The Sandbox, Colin Goltra (Former Head of Binance SEA) and KOLs such as Darren Lau of The Daily Ape, Miss Bitcoin and MrBlock.
Yat Siu, executive chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands, said, "As blockchain gaming continues to evolve and reaches greater numbers of users, play-to-earn guilds have an increasingly important role as the asset managers and resource directors of the metaverse. BlockchainSpace fills a crucial support role that will allow guilds to perform better and at a larger scale."
Peter Ing, CEO of BlockchainSpace, said, "We have been committed to onboarding new users into crypto for over three years. Play-to-earn has shown the world how this can be done without the typical barriers of KYC, upfront investment, and complex technical understanding, and guilds will be leading this. BlockchainSpace is committed to empowering all guilds to grow the ecosystem, and we are privileged to have prominent investors aligned in this vision, who, just like us, are committed to the long-term prosperity of the industry."
The funds from this round will be used to enable a long-term vision that will accelerate and uplift the play-to-earn industry as a whole. BlockchainSpace will continue to develop new tools and features to help guild owners manage their guilds by initially focusing on building three key aspects: Guild performance monitoring, Guild Data Bank, and a Guild Financial Bank to catalyze even stronger growth in the industry.
"We see BlockchainSpace as a one-stop-shop that provides tooling and financing for guilds and gamers. Gaming guilds are becoming an essential part of the play-to-earn industry, yet, they encounter scaling difficulties due to poor management. We believe what BlockchainSpace is building, in addition to its established traction, could solve this pain point by delivering three core solutions: Building community through education, empowering community through better performance tracking, and accelerating community growth through better structuring and incentivization," said Spartan Group.
Beginning early next year, BlockchainSpace plans to introduce its Open Guild Marketplace, which, through the use of credit data, will allow for TradFi and DeFi integrations. Other upcoming features include automated credit scoring and loan issuance, as well as the deployment of its Ecosystem fund.
Infinity Ventures Crypto said, "BlockchainSpace is solving a pain point that guilds all over the world are experiencing. Their vision to build guild management tools will forever revolutionize the way guilds interact with their scholars. We are excited to be co-leading this round along with Animoca Brands and Spartan Group."
About BlockchainSpace
BlockchainSpace enables play-to-earn guilds to scale in the metaverse. BlockchainSpace builds tools to empower gaming communities and runs academies to identify economic opportunities in games. BlockchainSpace's aim is to embolden the next generation of play-to-earn gamers and guild owners to become successful entrepreneurs by equipping them with essential digital tools and financing.
Follow BlockchainSpace on social media to stay up to date with all the latest developments.
Website:https://www.blockchainspace.asia
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/BlockchainSpaceOFFICIAL
Discord:https://discord.gg/blockchainspace
Telegram:https://t.me/blockchainspace_official
Twitter:https://twitter.com/Blockchain_SPC
Medium:https://blockchain-space.medium.com/
Gitbook:https://blockchainspace.gitbook.io/blockchainspace
Media Contact:Peter Ing atpeter@blockchainspace.asia
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Image 1: BlockchainSpace Raises $3.75M to Expand Metaverse Guild Hub
This content was issued through thepress release distribution service at Newswire.com.
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• BlockchainSpace Raises $3.75M to Expand Metaverse Guild Hub || SEC Delays Decision on Grayscale and Bitwise Spot Bitcoin ETFs: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is pushing out its review of proposals by Grayscale and Bitwise for their spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by 45 days, according to filings around both products. Grayscale is owned by Digital Currency Group, which is the parent company of CoinDesk. The decision on the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust will be pushed to Feb. 6, 2022, while that for the Bitwise Bitcoin ETP Trust will move to Feb. 1, 2022, the separate dockets noted. The SEC said it’s taking the extended period to have “sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and any comments received.” The SEC has typically delayed its decisions on spot bitcoin ETFs as long as possible. If it decides to, it can still delay its decision on the Bitwise and Grayscale products by several months past February. In December, the SEC rejected Wisdom Tree’s proposal for a spot bitcoin ETF , while last month, it rejected Van Eck’s proposal . SEC Chair Gary Gensler has indicated multiple times in the past that he prefers to see a bitcoin futures ETF over one that holds bitcoin directly. As of now, three bitcoin futures ETFs have begun trading in the U.S. Read more: Coinbase Backs NYSE Arca’s Push for Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Conversion to ETF View comments
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 46306.45, 47686.81, 47345.22, 46458.12, 45897.57, 43569.00, 43160.93, 41557.90, 41733.94, 41911.60
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2020-12-04]
BTC Price: 18699.77, BTC RSI: 59.23
Gold Price: 1835.90, Gold RSI: 45.98
Oil Price: 46.26, Oil RSI: 68.55
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Feds seize $1 billion in Bitcoin from mystery man ‘X’: The U.S. Justice Departmentannouncedon Thursday it has seized nearly 70,000 Bitcoins from a person the agency would describe only as “Individual X.”
The news is remarkable because of the value of Bitcoin seized—the haul is worth around $1.05 billion based on today’s Bitcoin price of $15,000—but also because of the timing and the mysterious nature of the seizure.
According to a Justice Departmentcomplaint, the digital wallet holding the Bitcoins belonged to a hacker who stole them from the operator of the Silk Road, a notorious black market website that acted as a giant online bazaar for drugs and other criminal activity. The federal government took down the Silk Road and arrestedits owner—who isnow serving life in prison—in 2013.
The Justice Department complaint says IRS agents reviewed the hacker’s activities earlier this year with the help of a cryptocurrency forensics firm. That firm, Chainalysis, publisheda blog postdetailing how it analyzed the Bitcoin blockchain—a tamper-proof public ledger of transactions—to track the hacker’s activities.
The blog post includes the graphic below, which shows the stolen Bitcoins moving to different wallets, including one transaction in which the hacker moved 101 Bitcoins to a now-shuttered criminal exchange called BTC-e:
According to a person familiar with the investigation, the hacker’s robbery of Silk Road—which took the form of 54 transactions in less than 24 hours—took place in 2012. Meanwhile, the transfer of 101 Bitcoins took place in 2015, with no further transactions after that.
This raises the question of why the so-called Individual X hasn’t touched any of the funds, even asBitcoin has soared in price. There appear to be two possible explanations: The person is a wealthy individual who did not need to sell any of the Bitcoins, or else the person is in prison without access to a website needed to transfer the funds.
The source familiar with the investigation said it is significant the complaint was filed in San Francisco, and that Individual X signed a consent decree. This implies the person in question is located in Northern California and is cooperating with law enforcement—as does the fact the Justice Department was able to seize the Bitcoin, which could only have occurred if the person provided the password or “private key” needed to transfer Bitcoin funds.
As for why the Justice Department didn’t name the individual, the source speculated it was because the person could be at risk of violent retaliation from criminals tied to the Silk Road.
“They’re not in the safest business in the world,” the source said.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment as to whether Individual X is in prison. Nor did the agency state if a criminal complaint—as opposed to the civil one unveiled today—will be forthcoming. The lack of any criminal complaint may suggest Individual X is already incarcerated and may have agreed to turn over the Bitcoin as part of a cooperation arrangement with authorities.
The Justice Department seized not only 69,370.22491543 Bitcoins from Individual X, but the same amount in three spinoff currencies known as Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin SV. Together, those other currencies are worth around $30 million.
The government hasn’t announced what it will do with the seized Bitcoins, but in the past it hassoldthemthough auctions run by the U.S. Marshals Service, with the proceeds primarily going to law enforcement agencies.
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• TheU.S. economyis slowly beginning to climb out of its deep hole
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This story was originally featured onFortune.com || PayPal: Bitcoin Will Drive Engagement but Not Much Profit, Says Analyst: The secular shift to digital payments got further confirmation on Wednesday when PayPal (PYPL) announced it will launch a cryptocurrency service on its platform.
Account holders will be able to buy and sell digital assets and use them to make purchases from the service’s 26 million merchants across the globe.
PayPal has been granted a conditional Bitlicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services, and will initially add Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. The company is partnering with cryptocurrency firm Paxos, who will be responsible for the trading and custody of the assets.
The move should be a win-win both for PayPal and crypto enthusiasts who can make use of PayPal's huge network of merchants on a platform that currently boasts 325 million active accounts.
The service should become available to US users over the coming weeks while the Venmo app and several international markets will be added during the first half of next year.
Allowing for Bitcoin trading has already been a boon for rival digital payment company Square (SQ). Square’s Cash App enabled Bitcoin trading in early 2018 and since then has significantly increased engagement and monetization, estimated to be 3 times as much as that of Venmo, PayPal’s equivalent.
PayPal has obviously been keeping an eye on developments and hopes to emulate its success.
However, Rosenblatt analystSean Horgantempers investors’ expectations of a large uptick in profit.
“While we view this as a positive development for PYPL, we remind clients that bitcoin trading is an engagement driver and is likely to provide indirect revenue via customer acquisition/engagement,” the analyst said. “While revenues may see a large step up similar to SQ has, accounting rules require the reported (and perhaps misleading) revenues will likely represent an immaterial amount of operating profit as bitcoin volumes are virtually priced at cost.”
Overall, Wall Street loves this stock, earning a stellar analyst consensus rating, as TipRanks analytics demonstrate PYPL as a Strong Buy. Out of 30 analysts polled in the last 3 months, 25 are bullish, while 5 remain sidelined. With a return potential of 9%, the stock's consensus target price stands at $223.54. (See PayPal stock analysis on TipRanks)
To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment. || DraftKings Gets New $100 Price Target With Strong Market Share, Brand: Two of the best performing online sports betting stocks are sized up with new ratings from Loop Capital. The Analyst: Loop Capital analyst Daniel Adam initiates coverage on DraftKings Inc (NASDAQ: DKNG ) with a Buy rating and $100 price target. The analyst also initiated coverage on Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN ) with a Hold rating and a $69 price target. Total Addressable Market: Loop Capital lists the total addressable market for online sports betting and iGaming at $30 billion, which is higher than other analysts are projecting. Adam said analysts are viewing New Jersey as a mature market and basing the market size on the state, although he thinks New Jersey is far from mature. Adam said the market size could be $34 billion to $40 billion based on 75% of the U.S. population having access to online sports betting. Related Link: DraftKings Soars On Q3 Beat, Updated Guidance On DraftKings: Adam said DraftKings is the play on online sports betting and could see strong growth from a growing market and growing share in existing markets. DraftKings is in 10 states, which is about 20% of the U.S. population. Adam said the company can "increase penetration in both existing and new markets" and models DraftKings' around 49% average market share in 2021. “Bottom line: We believe DKNG will emerge the clear share leader in online gaming given its powerful brand, early mover advantage and digital-first DNA," he wrote in the note. On Penn National: Adam said it's still too early to declare Penn National a winner in the online sports betting market, as the majority of Penn’s revenue and EBITDAR come from its land-based regional casinos. “...Penn’s sports betting app is currently live in just one state, meaning OSB is not a material earnings contributor for the company," he wrote in the note. Adam also points to higher marketing and promotional spending for Penn National due to online sports betting going live in new markets like Michigan, Virginia and Maryland, which could hurt earnings. Story continues DKNG, PENN Price Action: Penn National Gaming shares are up 2% to $65.93 on Tuesday. DraftKings shares are up 7.9% to $46.09. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Will The Real Elon Musk Please Stand Up: Another Twitter Bitcoin Scam Walmart, Home Depot Strong Retail Plays, Stock Falls Unwarranted: Cramer © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 7 Cryptocurrencies to Stand the Test of Time: When cryptocurrency stocks first made their debut, many didnt know what to make of this most niche of niche sectors. However, the few that did in those early days recognized that the underlying blockchain platform had the capacity to change the world. Through its decentralized, peer-to-peer transactional network, it was possible to conduct business outside the realm of centralized monetary authorities. Of course, that doesnt appeal to government bodies, which want their cut of taxable revenue and transactions. However, once the cat is out of the bag, its extraordinarily difficult to stymie or suppress innovation. Eventually, the people will adopt what systems they want. Increasingly, many have found incredible value and convenience with cryptocurrencies. Therefore, Im more than confident that the digital reward tokens that the blockchain birthed will easily stand the test of time. However, taking a guess at which specific cryptocurrencies will outlast the others is a difficult task. In that circumstance, I dont have the kind of confidence that computer programmer John McAfee obviously has. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Back in the summer of 2017, McAfee put himself on the line , forecasting an outrageous price target for one of the most popular cryptocurrencies. So bold was he that he declared he would eat a particular part of his body. Known in polite circles as the Richarding, McAfee has until Dec. 31, 2020 for the blockchain market to bail him out. Otherwise, bon appétit, I guess. For those who were hoping for must-watch TV, the Department of Justice will have a few words to say regarding McAfees alleged tax evasion scheme , which in part involved the hiding of cryptocurrencies. So, more than likely, McAfee will not be singing in a higher octave anytime soon. Nevertheless, I bring up this interesting case because in a backhanded way, it confirms the staying power of cryptocurrencies. I mean, I believe in some of my high-conviction trades, but I would never put myself on the line like McAfee did. As well, the DOJ certainly believes in the value and power of the blockchain markets. Otherwise, it wouldnt bother chasing this crazy cat . Story continues 7 Airline Stocks to Buy on Pelosi Stimulus Hopes Still, the challenge remains: which cryptocurrencies will still be around years and decades from today? Here are my picks for which virtual currencies will stand the test of time. Bitcoin (BTC) Ethereum (ETH) Ripple (XRP) Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Litecoin (LTC) Tether (USDT) Monero (XMR) Bitcoin (BTC) image of bitcoin to represent cryptocurrency stocks Source: Shutterstock In the technology sphere, if youre not innovating, youre dying. Under this context, the king of cryptocurrencies and the one that started the entire blockchain revolution, Bitcoin, is surprisingly public enemy number one. For one thing, its evident that the original founder(s) of Bitcoin didnt anticipate the sheer volume of demand that the reward token will garner. Instead, it would appear that the virtual currency was brought to life to prove that peer-to-peer decentralized transactions could occur. Unfortunately, the infrastructure is dated relative to present standards. Because so many people use BTC, transactions take forever. But no matter how unwieldy Bitcoin is, it has something that no other virtual currency can claim: first-to-market advantage. Although the underlying blockchain platform has proven itself, the death of any publicly traded asset is lack of interest. Fortunately, BTC doesnt suffer from that problem. Indeed, the token is synonymous with cryptocurrencies. True, other blockchain systems are levered to exciting innovations and applications. However, Bitcoin started it all. For that, I believe it will be relevant so long as the sector is. Ethereum (ETH) Cryptocurrencies: Pile of altcoins represented as physical coins Source: Shutterstock Currently ranked as the second highest-valued alternative cryptocurrency or altcoin, Ethereum has obvious speculative benefits. For a while now, Ethereum has been the Robin to Bitcoins Batman. While its possible that this could change in the future, what Im generally confident about is that ETH is in this game for the long haul. Thats because Ethereum isnt just a cheaper-priced alternative to BTC. Rather, some fundamental differences distinguish ETH from other cryptocurrencies. Primarily, the Ethereum blockchains development team focused on addressing the shortcomings of Bitcoin; namely, that it mostly focused on economic transactions. But the power of the blockchain allowed for a completely trustworthy digital escrow system. Basically, two transactional parties can get together and use the Ethereum blockchain to facilitate smart contract. In this manner, the (human) parties can eliminate the need for an intermediary as the blockchain system would play that role. Its not just technobabble either. According to Cointelegraph.com, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation and four banks Bank of America (NYSE: BAC ), Citigroup (NYSE: C ), Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS ) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM ) successfully traded credit default swaps on a specially designed blockchain system utilizing smart contracts. 10 Best Stocks for 2020: Megatrends Support This Year's Biggest Winners Clearly, the blockchain can do much more than transfer coins from one place to another. And Ethereum is leading that charge, making ETH a confident long-term proposition. Ripple (XRP) ripple cryptocurrency Source: Shutterstock Many fans of cryptocurrencies, if not most of them, will roll their eyes whenever someone mentions Ripple. And eyerolling is the least offensive response you can get. There are quite a few folks in the virtual currency community that do not appreciate the big money interest associated with XRP. Mainly, this is because unlike so many other cryptocurrencies, individuals cannot mine Ripple tokens. To provide a very brief background, mining involves utilizing specialized computer equipment to solve complex algorithmic problems. Whoever is the first to solve the riddle gets to add transactional blocks of data to the blockchain. In return for their participation in the target blockchain network, they receive a reward token. Again, this is a very basic description of mining. But the bottom line is that individuals can be their own bankers; hence, the allure of the decentralization element. However, thats not what goes on with Ripple. Instead, the supply of the XRP tokens is centrally controlled, which goes against the spirit of the blockchain innovation. In many respects, I understand crypto advocates dislike for XRP. Nevertheless, the Ripple blockchain also demonstrates the mainstream integration of this technology. Primarily, Ripple enables lightning quick cross-border payments that could replace the current antiquated system. In my opinion, thats a plus no matter how you look at it. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) bitcoin cash Source: Shutterstock As I mentioned above, though the Bitcoin architecture represented a paradigm shift the Big Bank of transactional technology, if you will it didnt address the scale issue. Again, the founder(s) were apparently much more interested in making the system work and did not anticipate that BTC would become a global phenomenon. To address this, Bitcoin developers proposed making administrative changes to how the blocks of data were stored on the blockchain. But competing solutions quickly turned into a debate between opposing factions. Unable to resolve their differences, Bitcoin Cash was born as an offshoot of the original Bitcoin blockchain. This process is known as a hardfork. As with the mining concept, Im only providing a very basic explanation. To this day, hardforks are a tough concept to understand because no comparable example exists on Wall Street. For instance, hardforks arent dividends as the latter represents distribution of corporate profits to shareholders. And because its so perplexing, you might think that Bitcoin Cash wont last. Indeed, when the hardfork occurred, many were skeptical about the viability of BCH. So far, Bitcoin Cash has stood the test of time and it may continue to be relevant. 7 Stocks to Buy to Finish 2020 With a Bang Mostly, BCH earns its keep by facilitating quick peer-to-peer transactions, something that is beyond Bitcoin at this point. As well, Bitcoin Cash enjoys some of the brand appeal of the original virtual currency, making it a surprisingly robust token. Litecoin (LTC) Source: Shutterstock Years ago, Litecoin was the only altcoin. By default, LTC assumed the number two slot and enjoyed the myriad marketing benefits of Bitcoin to entrenched association. But Litecoin didnt exist just for existence sake. Instead, this blockchain platform was developed to address the scalability challenge of BTC. In this manner, LTC was incredibly forward-looking. Admittedly, that hasnt been Litecoins valuation as of late. With alternative blockchains like Ethereum muscling their way into the arena with innovations that extend beyond peer-to-peer payments, LTC lost much of its luster. Nevertheless, long-term investors shouldnt lose sight of the fact that, as of this writing, Litecoin ranks tenth in terms of market capitalization. Frankly, it has outlasted many other altcoins that were previously in the top 10 but are now far below their peak valuations. In my view, thats got to count for something. In addition, LTC may enjoy a psychological effect that could help it foster the growing need for micropayments . Thanks to Litecoins reasonable price point, its more convenient for everyday transactions. Further, its original focus on scalability should make it relevant for second-layer solutions. Tether (USDT) Source: Shutterstock Easily one of the riskiest cryptocurrencies you can own, Tether is absolutely something you should not be exposed to unless you know exactly what youre doing. I mean it. Despite its high market cap currently ranked as the third-most valuable blockchain token USDT is something that you dont want to mess with. Which is funny because USDT is known as a stablecoin, or stable-value cryptocurrency. In this case, USDT mirrors the price of the U.S. dollar, and the coins are issued by a Hong Kong-based company called Tether. On the surface, that doesnt sound too awful because virtual currencies are notoriously volatile. The many double-digit swings make them unreliable as a store of value. However, USDT, because its tethered to the greenback, eliminates such volatility concerns. Still, Tether the company has never faced an audit and still hasnt to my understanding. Therefore, its unknown whether the organization has the dollar reserves it claims it has. I like what others have to say, that USDT is a confidence game . If confidence is lost, Tether becomes a hitcoin with an s in front. 7 Internet Of Things Stocks To Buy For 2021 And Beyond But the concept of stablecoins is an intriguing one. And so far, no other stablecoin has managed to garner the volume and engagement that USDT has. Therefore, its probably going to be around for a while, but its still crazy risky. Monero (XMR) Source: Shutterstock For most folks, cryptocurrencies represent a convenient, exciting alternative to boring old stocks. As I mentioned years ago, anybody with internet access can trade cryptos 24/7 . Simply put, you dont have that kind of access with traditional investment vehicles. But as with any technology, a dark underbelly forms to take advantage of the innovation for nefarious purposes. In the world of cryptocurrencies, this underbelly is Monero. On the surface, you wouldnt think anything of it. Like other cryptocurrencies, XMR offers convenience and confidentiality. But where Monero separates itself from other blockchain tokens is that this system adds multiple layers of privacy; hence, XMR is known as a privacy coin . While standard cryptocurrencies facilitate private transfers, they often feature public ledgers. Theoretically, then, with enough effort, its possible to glean information from the gobbledygook of transactional code. But with Monero, there are no public ledgers as the entire information infrastructure is kept private. As well, randomization algorithms can make financial investigations a nightmare. Thus, its not surprising that the IRS offered a $625,000 reward for anyone who can crack Moneros code. As you can imagine, XMR is a perfect vehicle for illicit activities, essentially making it the bad boy among virtual currencies. Unfortunately, there will always be demand for criminality, making Monero possibly the most cynical investment ever. On the date of publication, Josh Enomoto held a long position in BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH and LTC. A former senior business analyst for Sony Electronics, Josh Enomoto has helped broker major contracts with Fortune Global 500 companies. Over the past several years, he has delivered unique, critical insights for the investment markets, as well as various other industries including legal, construction management, and healthcare. More From InvestorPlace Why Everyone Is Investing in 5G All WRONG Top Stock Picker Reveals His Next 1,000% Winner Radical New Battery Could Dismantle Oil Markets Revolutionary Tech Behind 5G Rollout Is Being Pioneered By This 1 Company The post 7 Cryptocurrencies to Stand the Test of Time appeared first on InvestorPlace . || PayPal Said to Be in Talks to Buy Crypto Firms Including BitGo: Bloomberg: PayPal is exploring purchases of cryptocurrency companies includingbitcoincustodianBitGo, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
• The news comes a day after the payments giantannouncedit’s entering the cryptocurrency market.
• BitGo wasthe first U.S. crypto firmto secure a broker-dealer approval, transfer agent registration and trust company recognition, allowing it to provide custody and record-keeping services.
• Given that the mechanics of PayPal’s new crypto offering would in effect make it a custodian, it would explain the company’s reported interest in BitGo.
• “Talks could still fall apart and PayPal could opt to buy other targets,” Bloomberg quoted one of its sources as saying.
• BitGo CEO Mike Belshe declined to comment on the report. An email to PayPal requesting comment wasn’t immediately answered.
Read more:Baby Steps or Handcuffs? Crypto Pros Assess PayPal’s Bitcoin Play
• PayPal Said to Be in Talks to Buy Crypto Firms Including BitGo: Bloomberg
• PayPal Said to Be in Talks to Buy Crypto Firms Including BitGo: Bloomberg
• PayPal Said to Be in Talks to Buy Crypto Firms Including BitGo: Bloomberg
• PayPal Said to Be in Talks to Buy Crypto Firms Including BitGo: Bloomberg || Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s Run, Uniswap’s Hemorrhaging Value, Anchorage’s Banking Bid: Bitcoin is nearing all-time highs in price and market cap last set three years ago. Anchorage has applied with the OCC for a national bank charter. Community members have proposed a vote to reinstate Unsiwap’s liquidity mining program. Top shelf 15% below Bitcoin traded above $17,000 Tuesday at 12:00 UTC for the first time since Jan. 7, 2018, according to the CoinDesk 20 price index. This move puts the cryptocurrency 15% below its all-time high of $20,000 set in December 2017, and up nearly 130% on the year. The rise also pushes bitcoin’s total market capitalization to over $315 billion, just short of its $335 billion record. Despite BTC’s strong performance, exchange trading volumes remain relatively unimpressive. Take Coinbase’s BTC/USD trading pair for instance, which has seen flat monthly volumes since June. Origin unknown Stablecoin project Origin Dollar (OUSD) lost nearly $7 million worth of crypto in the latest sophisticated exploit of a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol. At 00:47 UTC Tuesday, an unknown attacker utilized a flash loan and flaws in OUSD contracts to initiate what is known as a “rebase,” according to the protocol’s team. The attack artificially inflated the supply of OUSD tokens within the protocol before swapping the newly printed tokens on SushiSwap and Uniswap for USDT . The team has since disabled deposits and the price of the project’s native token was down 85% on the news. Related: First Mover: Bitcoin Tops $17K as Scaramucci Makes Entrée, Ethereum Meets Rival Crypto-native bank Crypto custodian Anchorage is looking to convert a part of its business into a nationally chartered bank . In a notice dated Nov. 9, Anchorage applied to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national charter to become, if approved, the first crypto-native bank regulated at the federal level. Nathan McCauley, Anchorage’s co-founder and CEO, told CoinDesk the company is looking to “serve the emerging needs of large banks looking to integrate crypto” with the license, which would give Anchorage the clear authority to act as a “qualified custodian” for institutional investors in all 50 states. Story continues Galaxy’s fund Crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital will launch a bitcoin fund in Canada, called the CI Galaxy Bitcoin Fund. According to a Monday press release, the fund’s preliminary prospectus has been approved by the nation’s securities regulator for a public offering. Designed in collaboration with CI Global Asset Management, the “closed-end” investment fund will invest directly in BTC and be targeted towards institutional investors. Last week, Galaxy disclosed it had acquired two crypto businesses in a bid to become the “go-to” firm for such investors. Chump change? Providing insight into a proposed rule change that would lower the threshold to report crypto transactions to the international regulatory body, a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) policy specialist said criminals are conducting cross-border payments using smaller amounts of cryptocurrency. Last month, authorities submitted a proposal to amend the “Travel Rule” requiring banks and digital asset service providers to collect and store information related to crypto or fiat transfers of at least $250 that go outside the U.S. (down from $3,000). That said, FinCEN is seeking comment “from the industry as we are examining all the different technologies and business models operating in this space, whether it’s decentralized exchanges or related applications,” the agency expert said. Quick bites As DeFi grows, investors look to Polkadot as the next Ethereum. ( CoinDesk ) Mask Network allows users to send encrypted messages, cryptocurrencies and even dapps over Twitter and Facebook. It just raised $2 million from Balaji Srinivasan, Alameda Research and others. ( CoinDesk ) Tether’s blacklistings on Ethereum grew by 130% this quarter. ( The Block – paywalled ) Crypto execs need liability insurance, thinks McLeod Law’s Matthew Burgoyne. ( CoinDesk – op-ed ) In a reminder of crypto’s core value proposition of censorship resistance, Western Union will suspend U.S. dollar transfers to Cuba. ( CoinDesk ) Market intel Outshining gold Bitcoin is outshining gold by a significant margin. While the top cryptocurrency by market value has risen 22% to cross $17,000 this month, the precious metal is up just 0.5% at the current price of $1,890 per ounce. Related: Blockchain Bites: Data Unions. Hard Forks. And One Citi Analyst's Case for $300K BTC. ‘Digital silver’ flips Litecoin jumped to nine-month highs early on Tuesday, replacing bitcoin cash as the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market value. The cryptocurrency, sometimes called “digital silver,” rose approximately 10% to $75.77 during the Asian trading hours, a level last seen on Feb. 24, according to the CoinDesk 20. With the jump, Litecoin now has a market capitalization of $4.90 billion, higher than bitcoin cash – which underwent a hard fork on Sunday – at $4.67 billion. At stake Governance vote Uniswap, the decentralized market maker at the center of this year’s DeFi boom, has ended its liquidity mining subsidy. Instituted in September in a bid to regain market share from the upstart protocol SushiSwap, Uniswap allocated approximately 20 million UNI to four mining pools – ETH /USDT, ETH/ USDC , ETH/DAI, and ETH/WBT. SushiSwap, a genetic clone of Uni, burst on the scene as a fully decentralized (read: not venture-backed) market maker, offering the one thing Uniswap lacked: a governance token. Sushi planned to attract Uniswap users by offering steep rewards for those that migrated to its platform. Uniswap responded to the threat by airdropping some 1 billion UNI governance tokens to community members, team members and investors, and instituting the liquidity mining program. Since launch, Uniswap’s token has been an experiment in community governance . Recently, a proposal with popular support to further disseminated UNI tokens to those kept out of the initial airdrop fell short by less than 2.5 million “votes.” Now, the community is facing another vote to reinstate the liquidity mining program. On Monday, Audius strategy lead Cooper Turley and pseudonymous “monet supply” Monday presented a proposal to reinstate the program at a diminished scale. The proposal will have to pass a series of governance polls before farming restarts Dec. 4. Uniswap’s total value under lock (TVL) first broke $1 billion in September after introducing UNI rewards. The AMM peaked at just over $3 billion in TVL on Nov. 13. Now, facing a tough governance vote, total value on the platform tanked nearly 55% to $1.4 billion at press time, according to DeFi Pulse. Who won #CryptoTwitter? Related Stories Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s Run, Uniswap’s Hemorrhaging Value, Anchorage’s Banking Bid Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin’s Run, Uniswap’s Hemorrhaging Value, Anchorage’s Banking Bid || The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: BLCN, BLOK, LEGR, SOXX and SMH: For Immediate Release Chicago, IL – October 26, 2020 – 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 Reality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF BLCN, Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF BLOK, First Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETF LEGR, iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF SOXX and VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF SMH. Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog: ETFs to Gain on Growing Viability of Cryptocurrencies As soon as COVID-19 hit the globe, social distancing mandates and fears that notes may be carriers of the virus made the concept of digital currency popular. Be it corporations or central banks – all are mulling over the greater acceptance of cryptocurrencies. Notably, bitcoin is up about 80% this year as cryptocurrencies are drawing considerable attention this year. Bitcoin crossed the mark of $12,000 lately and marked its highest level since July 2019 on Oct 21. Corporations’ Greater Acceptance On Oct 21, PayPal announced that it will allow customers to hold bitcoin and other virtual coins in its online wallet and shop using cryptocurrencies at the 26 million merchants on its network. The new service makes PayPal one of the largest U.S. companies to provide consumers access to cryptocurrencies. This is great news for bitcoin and rival cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin jumped about 7% on Oct 21 on the PayPal news. PayPal competitor Square launched support for bitcoin back in 2018 through its Cash app. Square also bought $50 million in bitcoin this month as part of a larger investment in cryptocurrency. However, PayPal is broadening the area by supporting bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. PayPal also plans to extend support to its money-sending subsidiary Venmo and international markets starting in the first half of 2021. Story continues For now, the plan is only to support U.S. users. Notably, U.S. account holders will be able to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies in their PayPal wallets over the coming weeks, the company said, as quoted on Reuters. Other companies those accept bitcoins include Microsoft, AT&T, Dish Network, Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, Goldman Sachs, Intuit Inc, American online retailer Overstock, Shopify, Virgin Galactic, Zynga and Etsy,among others. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Concept Spreading Several central banks are considering the rollout of CBDCs lately. China has been taking serious moves toward no-touch payments. In efforts to match with China, seven major central banks last week set the key principles for issuing CBDCs, per Reuters. China's recent experimental $1.5 million (1.16 million pounds) giveaway of digital yuan to Shenzhen citizens received kudos from currency analysts. Sweden’s Central Bank, Riksbank is also conducting a pilot project with Accenture to prepare e-krona. The European Central Bank (ECB) is mulling over the rollout of a "digital euro" for the 19-nation currency club. The ECB launched a public consultation on a potential digital euro on Oct 12. In its 2020-2024 strategic plan, the Bank of Spain also said that it will focus on design proposals for a central bank digital currency. On Oct 19, Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said that the Fed is committed to considering a CBDC but made no final call on it. The Fed wants “to get it right than be first,” said Jerome Powell. “One set of experiments is being carried out at the board of governors here in Washington, D.C.,” Powell said. How to Invest in the Recent Rise of Cryptocurrencies? Investors can choose to invest in options like blockchain ETFs. Per a source, “the blockchain in Bitcoin literally acts [as] a ledger; it keeps track of the balances for all users and updates them as money changes hands.” “Invented to host bitcoin, today many other cryptocurrencies are also based on blockchain technology.” So, since investors cannot lay their hands on a digital currency ETF now, they can definitely familiarize with the concept through blockchain ETFs like Reality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF , Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF and First Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETF . Also, ETFs offering exposure to the blockchain ecosystem via semiconductor companies that make chips for bitcoin mining (or could make for some potential CBDCs) can be played. The most-popular funds include iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF and VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF . 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 >> Join us on Facbook: 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 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/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 report iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF (SOXX): ETF Research Reports VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH): ETF Research Reports Reality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN): ETF Research Reports Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK): ETF Research Reports First Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction Process ETF (LEGR): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks Around $13K While Ether Locked in DeFi Dips: Bitcoin stays in bull mode but on lower volume while the amount of ether locked in DeFi falls. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $13,103 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 3% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $12,685-$13,232 BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians. Bitcoin’s price is still trending upward, hitting as high as $13,232 on spot exchanges the past 24 hours. It was at $13,103 as of press time, leveling off a bit after hitting 2020 highs. Read More: Back at $13K: Bitcoin Unfazed by Profit Takers After Rise to 2020 High Related: Active Bitcoin Addresses at Highest Since 2017's $20K Price Record “Bitcoin is naturally taking a breather after yesterday’s spike,” said Elie Le Rest, an executive for quant trading firm ExoAlpha. “ The critical level to hold is $12,500-ish, thus turning previous resistance into support.” The last time the world’s oldest cryptocurrency held these price levels was way back on July 10, 2019. “We could, however, see a sideways period in the coming days, even a mild pullback, but bitcoin seems to have established a new base here,” Le Rest added. Bitcoin at “$13,000 was near a prior high, so it’s a natural place to pull in for a pit stop,” said Bill Noble, chief technical analyst at Token Metrics . “BTC has started an uptrend, so it can stay here to build up steam for the next big move.” Volume may be a key component to further upward price action. Thursday’s daily volume was at $688,966,174 for major USD/BTC spot exchanges as of press time. That’s starkly lower than on Wednesday, which at $1,578,271,994 was the highest volume day since July 28. Related: First Mover: As Bitcoin Tops $13K, Analyst Explains How Blockchain Gives Clues on Next Move Some of that volume Wednesday likely came from developments in bitcoin adoption news as PayPal plans to support cryptocurrencies for its 346 million users within a few weeks . Story continues Karl Samsen, executive vice president of capital markets for trading firm Global Digital Assets, said he is optimistic further bullish news on investment firms buying bitcoin could develop. “The money that matters to bitcoin’s intended growth is more on notice than it has ever been before,” Samsen told CoinDesk. “The PayPal adoption almost forces asset managers to make BTC part of their allocation.” Read More: Hedge Fund Billionaire Tudor Jones Says Bitcoin Rally Only in ‘First Inning’ It’s possible asset managers have already noticed, according to William Purdy, a derivatives trader and founder of analysis firm Purdy Alerts. He pointed to the upward trend of bitcoin futures, at a high not seen since the start of September. “Institutional interest is usually slow-moving, so that high is a good sign of trend strength and interest with actual capital placement in BTC futures,” Purdy told CoinDesk. Alex Mashinsky, CEO of crypto lender Celsius Network , said bitcoin could dip in the near term but more record highs are in store. “BTC will re-test $12,000 levels to see if the PayPal news is just a pump and dump or a new wave of adoption, which will take us to new highs before the end of the year.” Ether dominance slips The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was up in Thursday trading around $417 and climbing 6.3% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). The amount of ether locked in decentralized finance, or DeFi, is declining. After hitting a one-month high of 9.2 million ETH on Oct. 20, the amount began ticking down Wednesday, dipping to 9 million. Marc Fluery, chief executive officer of crypto asset manager Two Prime, said the decline is just a market blip despite the drop and other metrics like ether dominance also falling . “Ether, far from its blockchain narrative of 2017 [initial coin offerings], has proven a viable financial store of value, just like bitcoin, really,” said Fluery. “While ETH dominance is dropping, we believe that the brand is established and that, in a market where brand awareness and the linguistics of popularity are everything, ETH will continue to do well and be a dominant force in the ecosystem.” Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are all green Thursday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): chainlink (LINK) + 9.8% ethereum classic (ETC) + 5.2% zcash (ZEC) + 4% Read More: DOJ’s Crypto Framework Is ‘a Complete Disaster’ for Digital Privacy Rights Equities: The Nikkei 225 in Asia closed down 0.70% amid uncertainty as investors continue to watch U.S. coronavirus stimulus talks drag on . The FTSE 100 ended the day in the green 0.16% as some mixed third-quarter corporate earnings results were announced Thursday . In the United States the S&P 500 climbed 0.40% as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled a coronavirus stimulus deal was nearing completion. Commodities: Oil was up 1.6%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.63. Gold was in the red 1% and at $1,904 as of press time. Treasurys: U.S. Treasury bond yields climbed Thursday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year bond, jumping to 0.157 and in the green 5.4%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks Around $13K While Ether Locked in DeFi Dips Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sticks Around $13K While Ether Locked in DeFi Dips || By the Numbers: More Bitcoin Bulls Than Ever Before: A Long Reads Sunday reading of Grayscale’s recent “Bitcoin Investor Survey.” 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: First Mover: Bitcoin Retreats Before US Election After Dominating Crypto in October On this week’s Long Reads Sunday, NLW diverts from our normal opinion and long-form essay to pursue Grayscale’s recent investor reports. In its survey of investors, Grayscale found more interest in bitcoin investing than ever before, with a significant amount of the growth in interest being driven by economic and monetary policy following the coronavirus pandemic. Grayscale’s “Bitcoin Investor Study” scribd.com/document/481729535/Grayscale-2020-Bitcoin-Investor-Study See also: More Than Half of US Investors Interested in Bitcoin, Grayscale Survey Finds 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 By the Numbers: More Bitcoin Bulls Than Ever Before By the Numbers: More Bitcoin Bulls Than Ever Before By the Numbers: More Bitcoin Bulls Than Ever Before || Mode reports 950% increase in November trading volumes: London Stock Exchange-listed fintech group, Mode, has revealed that trading volumes have surged by 950% in November compared to August. According to a press release shared with Coin Rivet, assets under custody has also increased by 210% as following a significant uptick in the price of Bitcoin. Jonathan Rowland, Executive Chairman of Mode, said: “We’ve seen unprecedented interest in buying and holding Bitcoin just as the market rally really took off. That coincided with the chaotic US elections that brought with it market volatility, as well as a second UK lockdown with all the economic uncertainty this entails. “Longer term, economists anticipate that the unprecedented fiscal support we’re seeing launched to tackle the pandemic crisis will boost inflation. We believe that this will only increase demand for inflation hedges and diversification strategies such as investing in Bitcoin.” 📰Our Executive Chairman, @jrowland58 , looks at how the pandemic and impending economic downturn is set to accelerate #Bitcoin 's adoption. Find out more here: https://t.co/96bB0Z4X44 — mode_banking (@mode_banking) November 18, 2020 At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading above $19,000 following a quite sensational nine-month period that has seen it rise by more than 300%. This has made a direct impact on Mode’s shareholders, who have benefitted following the company’s decision to allocate 10% of its cash reserves to Bitcoin in October. The increased appetite for Bitcoin also comes after Mode became one of the first digital banking apps to list on London’s main market. It also follows the launch of Mode’s Bitcoin Jar product, which allows users to benefit from an APY of 5%. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here .
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Trend: no change || Prices: 19154.23, 19345.12, 19191.63, 18321.14, 18553.92, 18264.99, 18058.90, 18803.66, 19142.38, 19246.64
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Fearing return to drachma, some Greeks use bitcoin to dodge capital controls: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - There is at least one legal way to get your euros out of Greece these days, to guard against the prospect that they might be devalued into drachmas: convert them into bitcoin. Although absolute figures are hard to come by, Greek interest has surged in the online "cryptocurrency", which is out of the reach of monetary authorities and can be transferred at the touch of a smartphone screen. New customers depositing at least 50 euros with BTCGreece, the only Greece-based bitcoin exchange, open only to Greeks, rose by 400 percent between May and June, according to its founder Thanos Marinos, who put the number at "a few thousand". The average deposit quadrupled to around 700 euros. Using bitcoin could allow Greeks to do one of the things that capital controls were put in place this week to prevent: transfer money out of their bank accounts and, if they wish, out of the country. "When people are trying to move money out of the country and the state is stopping that from taking place, bitcoin is the only way to move any value," said Adam Vaziri, a board member of the UK Digital Currency Association. "There aren't any other options unless you buy diamonds, and that's very difficult to move." But Marinos said the bitcoin buyers' main aim was to shield their money against the prospect that Greece might leave the euro zone and convert all the deposits in Greek banks into a greatly devalued national currency. If voters reject the demands of international creditors in a referendum on Sunday, this becomes much more likely. "A lot of people are keeping all the bitcoins they buy on our platform, until they understand what to do with them," Marinos said. "In their eyes, now they have bitcoins, they're safe." VOLATILE CURRENCY That said, the value of a bitcoin, a web-based digital currency invented six years ago that floats freely and is not backed by a government or central bank, has been highly volatile. It peaked at over $1,200 in late 2013 before crashing almost 70 percent in less than a month after a hacking attack on the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in early 2014. Story continues This week, as Greece defaulted on a debt to the IMF, the price jumped to a 3-1/2-month high of $268 (BTC=BTSP) on the Bitstamp exchange - up more than 20 percent since the start of June - while the number of daily transactions reached a record 150,917. Most bitcoin-watchers reckon the digital currency's rise is mostly due to speculators betting that capital controls would trigger heavy demand. In March-April 2013, when Cyprus clamped down on bank withdrawals, bitcoin rocketed almost 700 percent. Coinbase, one of the world's biggest bitcoin wallet providers, which is not currently accessible to Greeks, said it had seen huge interest from Italy, Spain and Portugal. It said the average daily sign-ups from euro zone countries had increased 350 percent since the start of June. Average daily bitcoin purchases from the euro zone this week were up 250 percent compared with June's average. On June 20, Greece got its first bitcoin "ATM", in a family-run bookstore in Acharnes on the outskirts of Athens. There, if they had them, customers could insert euros and in return receive bitcoin at the current exchange rate, which they would scan into an electronic "wallet" on their smartphones. But with Greeks having to form long queues at bank ATMs just to receive a meager 60 euros' cash a day, this machine has seen no customers since talks with creditors broke down on Saturday. "Before Saturday, there was some very limited interest, mostly customers asking what it does and how it works," said Maria Varila, an employee in the shop. "Since Saturday, however, when all hell broke loose, there has literally been zero interest." (Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos and Dimitrios Michalakis in Athens; Editing by Kevin Liffey) || Peak Venture Group Adopts the BitShares Network: Peak Venture Group has announced the adoption of the BitShares 2.0 platform to integrate into their existing business LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / July 1, 2015 / " We're always looking for game-changing opportunities," smiled Steve Tiffany, CEO of Peak Venture Group. "BitShares has the potential to supercharge most of our existing businesses and revolutionize everything about how we start new ones." The Las Vegas based startup incubator has big ambitions that leverage remarkable synergies in the crypto currency, ATMs, remittance, video gaming, and network marketing industries. "BitShares turns out to be the missing catalyst needed to stimulate viral growth across our whole portfolio," said Tiffany. Mr. Tiffany went on to discuss his reasoning for the adoption. "Our original killer concept was to bring together a network of merchants and affiliate marketers by helping them to connect with each other in a double-sided marketplace. Merchants are always looking for ways to sell their products and affiliates are always looking for lucrative new things to sell. We put together a system that helps them find each other. We already have over 17,000 members on our video game site and 8500 marketers in our affiliate system the first year. Whoosh!" "Then one of those affiliates introduced us to BitShares," said Tiffany, shaking his head. "I thought it was just going to be a way to maybe make commission payments within our network a bit more automatic and trust-free. But after talking with BitShares Founder Dan Larimer, I realized his brainchild was going to change everything we do!" "What exactly is it that we do?" "We provide specialized training for an affiliate marketing force and broker connections to all kinds of products they'll find easy to sell. Then we go looking for startup companies with ideas worth investing in, and hand them a marketing outlet on a silver platter! Most startups focus on their products and services, leaving marketing as an afterthought. We deliberately invest knowing that we can add a powerful engine for customer acquisition on Day One. We look for startups that fit into that model, and then harness our marketing horsepower to their front end." Story continues "Take for instance the market we put together for the gaming industry," he said. "And I'm not talking gambling or anything like that. When we say gaming, we're referring to the video game community. One aspect I'm talking about is the Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) - video games in which a very large number of players interact within a virtual game realm. It's a $65B industry world wide!" "We created two symbiotic companies. Our gaming eCommerce store is one-stop shop for everything to do with video games, including ACME laser swords, valuable game items, rare related merchandise, gold, you name it. Then our affiliate program teaches gamers how to do their own viral network marketing of everything that we sell while preserving the gaming atmosphere for our affiliates to keep the fun intact. We motivate the industry's most passionate expert gamers to become its most productive marketers. They wind up building their own game and financial empire at the same time! And we do so by seamlessly integrating real world and game world currencies and empires." "You can see how this led us naturally to crypto currencies, and ultimately to BitShares," he traced a finger from dot to dot, as if the connection was obvious. Tiffany further explained, We needed a way to seamlessly transition real world currencies like dollars and euros and the unique digital currencies used inside many of the games we offer at the gaming site. I figured we could integrate a crypto currency wallet somehow and use that currency as the common denominator and a way to automatically pay affiliate commissions. But BitShares gave us a complete decentralized currency exchange network right out of the box. It even had built-in smart contracts to help automate our affiliate program. This helps us make sure every affiliate gets paid automatically for every transaction made by any member of her integrated game and financial empire. And BitShares can keep up with gaming speeds - Its average transaction time is about a second compared to, say, Bitcoin where it can take the better part of an hour to confirm a transaction. Gamers can't wait that long to get more ammo for their hypersonic reciprocating transmorgifyer when they are pinned down and really, really need it! No other cryptocurrency had all that. It completely changed how we now think about all of our start-ups." He then said, "We plan to use the same model to integrate the crypto universe," he waved as if it were a done deal. "Our Chief of Acquisitions and Visionary Officer, Justin LaFountain, has been spearheading a whole new crypto currency venture maybe even bigger than gaming. Its flagship website will soon debut as a one-stop education and shopping site for everything about crypto. The ultimate goal is to introduce new arrivals to the freedoms of the crypto universe and help spread that freedom across its physical and virtual counterparts. We hope that will lead to many loyal customers." "Originally, we thought crypto-evangelism meant teaching people about Bitcoin, how to get and use crypto currencies, wallets, mining support, and understanding the leading exchanges. But by integrating the industrial grade BitShares Exchange Network directly onto our web sites, there's much more value we can add." After a series of annoucements over summer of 2015, BitShares now has a network of complementary partners like CCEDK.com, BANX.io, Cryptonomex.com making the fusion of all our crypto-savvy products and services available to each other's customers. Transparently interoperable markets and freely interacting customers will exponentially magnify our combined network effect. When asked about what it all means in the end for Peak Venture Group , Steve broke it down to what reqally matters to his company. "Bottom line, our competitive edge as a startup incubator was to integrate affiliate marketing into every one of them. BitShares' smart contract services, financial products, and internal affiliate program will greatly amplify that. It all works together to turn existing customers into affiliate marketers and existing affiliate marketers into uber-productive affiliate mentors." Clearly inspiring himself, his gaze drifted off to the horizon, "Peak Ventures Group can leverage these same BitShares Exchange Network relationships to supercharge every Group of new Ventures we Peak!" Contact Peak Venture Group: Justin LaFountain 763-202-4305 MMOCOCS@gmail.com 101 Convention Center Drive. S 700 Las Vegas, NV 89109 SOURCE: Peak Venture Group || The Business Of Fertility Finance: When the U.S. economy was still lagging, lenders were struggling to find new clients as Americans tightened their spending and hunkered down for the remainder of the Financial Crisis. However while the economy slowed, Americans' biological clocks continued ticking, leading to the emergence of a multi-billion dollar industry that continued to thrive long after the recession ended – fertility finance. Fertility Lenders Back in 2012 when money was tight, lenders specializing in fertility treatments began to emerge. Couples who were unable to secure traditional loans or use credit cards to pay for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments had the option of taking out a loan with a "fertility finance" company. Related Link: OvaScience Shares Quiet After Co. Announces AUGMENT Fertility Treatment Continues To Show Improvement Companies like NBT Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ: NBTB ) offered hopeful couples the opportunity to take out a loan by partnering with doctors at fertility clinics who could recommend the loan service. Still A Thriving Industry Fast forward to 2015 when economic improvement has been steady and oil prices have given most households a bit of extra spending cash, and the industry is still booming. IVF treatments remain expensive at upwards of $15,000 per attempt and the number of couples requiring treatment has been steadily rising. More Candidates For IVF Women have started to put off their plans for a baby until their late 30s or early 40s, upping the risk that they won't be able to conceive and making IVF an increasingly necessary option. However, with the chances of conception through IVF just 30 percent on any given attempt, many couples require several rounds of treatment. For that reason, companies like IntergaMed Fertility offer a wide range of loan options for couples who need to pay for IVF. Related Link: HRC Fertility In Orange County Announces Outstanding IVF Success Rates Making Fertility Treatment Accessible Most insurance companies don't allow for fertility costs, making IVF an out-of-pocket expense. Fertility finance companies are looking to make fertility treatments available for couples of any income and mitigate some of the risk that the treatments won't work at all. Story continues Some companies even give couples a "money-back guarantee" in case the treatment is unsuccessful. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Nuclear Deal With Iran Still In Limbo Bitcoin Gaining Support Among Do-Gooders McDonald's Back In The Firing Line Over Happy Meal Ad © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Direct LLC, Subsidiary of Conexus, Places Order for Additional 6 Automated Bitcoin Machines: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - May 26, 2015) - Conexus Cattle Corp. ( OTC PINK : CNXS ) announced today their subsidiary, Bitcoin Direct LLC, a Nevada limited liability company ("Bitcoin" or the "Company"), has placed an order for 6 additional A utomated B itcoin M achines (ABMs). The ABMs, which provide consumers with the ability to instantaneously purchase bitcoins through their mobile devices, will be installed in key North American metropolitan markets. The Company currently has installations serving the major metropolitan centers of New York City and Montreal and anticipates placing the new ABMs in metropolitan areas that lack access to ABMs. Additional sites are presently being reviewed in the New York metropolitan area. ABMs present a major solution for bitcoin users. An ABM allows consumers to exchange cash and bitcoins without the need for a human to facilitate the transaction. In addition, the Company plans to offer a full range of bitcoin transaction solutions to a wide variety of industries including remittance and gaming, among others. Conrad Huss, President of Conexus, commented: "We look forward to building out the Company's North American presence and opening up markets that are either underserved or completely lacking access to an ABM. Consumer demand has created the need for additional ABMs and we are eager to install our system into highly select, profitable market areas. As the AMBs are installed, we look forward to updating all stakeholders on the Company's progress and growth." About Bitcoin Direct LLC Bitcoin Direct LLC provides bitcoin transaction solutions for consumers. Bitcoin's initial focus is aimed at installing and servicing its ABMs (Automated Bitcoin Machines) in multiple locations. The ABMs provide consumers with the ability to instantaneously purchase bitcoins through their mobile devices. Currently, the Company has installations serving the major metropolitan centers of New York City and Montreal. Safe Harbor This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections made by management. The Company intends for the forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements. Words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," or variations of such words are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release include statements regarding the elimination of debt, positioning the Company for growth and the vote of confidence in the growth plans. All forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements other than as required by law. The forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth or implied by any forward-looking statements and include the Company's ability to complete its intended growth plans in a timely manner and the other factors discussed in Current Reports on Form 8-K. Copies of these filings are available at www.sec.gov || 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 for illegal 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 a new program aimed 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. Story continues 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. || European Markets Hope For Greece Deal By The End Of The Day: European markets will be holding their collective breath on Monday as Greece and its creditors attempt to make a last minute deal before the nation defaults on its International Monetary Fund loan on June 30. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has submitted a final reform proposal which he believes includes enough concessions to satisfy the nation's eurozone creditors but still preserves the Syriza party's anti-austerity ideals. However, it remains to be seen whether or not EU officials will accept the proposal and unlock Greece's next installment of bailout money. Time Pressure With just over a week to go before Greece defaults on its IMF loan, the nation is running out of time to strike a deal with creditors. Although Athens still has eight days to scrape together funding to repay its loan, it will be a complicated (and probably time consuming) process to make arrangements to send EU bailout money to Athens. Related Link: Bookies See Greece In Eurozone Banks Crumbling The state of Greece's banks is also weighing on Tsipras as he tries to work out a deal with creditors. Nervous Greek residents have been rushing to withdraw their funds from the nation's banks, something that has made Greece's major banks nervous. Last week, the National Bank of Greece (NYSE: NBG ) warned that failure to reach a deal on Monday could create a dire situation for the bank. While the nation has not enacted any capital controls in order to minimize the banks' outflows, many worry that without an agreement on the table Greek banks will be forced to limit withdrawals in order to remain functional. See more from Benzinga Greek Drama Gives Bitcoin A Boost Greek Banks Struggle To Handle Deposit Outflows With Default Fears Rising © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Nxt: The Original Bitcoin 2.0 Platform With Smart Contracts, Decentralized Crowdfunding, Open Source and 18 Months Development: With over 18 months of development, The non-profit Nxt Foundation is pleased to announce many disruptive business and financial applications of Nxt's blockchain technology: including trustless smart contracts, decentralized crowdfunding, a strong open source ethos and more AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS / ACCESSWIRE / May 14, 2015 / Nxt is different. While there are many players in the cryptocurrency 2.0 field, Nxt has several key elements that set it apart from the others. First and foremost, Nxt is a self-sufficient system. Many other projects depend on a blockchain implemented and maintained by an external party, usually Bitcoin. Nxt is a complete and self-contained system in itself. As any business owner knows, being dependent on a third party for an essential part of their business model introduces unnecessary risk. This is why Nxt chose not to piggyback on an external blockchain over which it has no control, but has built all of its features onto its own blockchain. This also means that Nxt developers can quickly and easily create new features while maintaining a coherent system, without needing to consult with an external blockchain provider. Secondly, Nxt has a solid and secure track record. The Nxt blockchain has been in continuous operation and use for 18 months, proving to be a stable system that can scale to handle an increasing load. Additionally, new features have been added on an incremental release basis after thorough evaluation on Nxts testnet. Many applications have already been built on top of Nxt, using its diverse features to create decentralised companies and software and to leverage the benefits of its strong community and network. Thirdly, Nxt is open source and free! Nxt is not under development by a central authority. This may at first appear to be a weakness, but a glance at the extremely successful operating system Linux shows that central development is not needed to create a valuable and working architecture. Nxt has seen fast and dedicated development since its inception and is continuing to evolve with the input of many talented coders. As there is no barrier to entry to the Nxt ecosystem, it is a perfect environment for blue-sky crypto developments. Story continues Just plug it in The Nxt Cryptocurrency platform is modular by design . Nxt uses a variety of different transaction types that can be combined to perform more complex functions. In order to take full advantage of Nxts versatility, its developers have created a plug-in system that allows people to build applications and to share them with other Nxt users. The plug-in system will go live with the release of version 1.5 of the Nxt Reference Software (NRS), Nxts native client. This release will also introduce blockchain Voting and Enhanced Multisignature Transactions (Phasing) to the Nxt core functionality. Developers on the Nxt Testnet are already experimenting with use cases, such as a crowdfunding plug-in ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBsKVJYbitY ), an e-commerce plug-in ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6lcrNh9AuI ) and several others. The plug-in system is an example of the philosophy of flexibility and versatility that is at the heart of Nxt. What it means for Nxt users Nxt is eminently suitable for both business and non-commercial use. All of Nxts features can be accessed separately or in combination, using a simple but comprehensive API structure ( http://85.25.198.120:7876/test ). Nxt is fast, with an average block time of around 90 seconds. It is powerful, giving users access to such diverse features as asset creation and trading, separate currencies, data transfer and storage, blockchain voting and multisignature transactions. Nxt is easy to build for, and those who want more information about how to use Nxt, or who need support on the more technical aspects of the Nxt systems, can contact the Nxt Foundation. The Nxt Foundation ( http://nxtfoundation.org/ ) is a non-profit organisation which can answer questions on Nxt, offer support, and connect businesses with the developers and advisors they need to take advantage of the unprecedented opportunities offered by the Nxt platform. Contact Nxt Foundation today at info@nxtfoundation.org . For more information about us, please visit http://nxt.org Contact Info: Name: Bas Wisselink, Nxt Foundation Director Email: bas@nxtfoundation.org Organization: NXT Phone: +31 (0)6 13937762 Video URL: https://vimeo.com/127270358 SOURCE: NXT || Peak Venture Group Adopts the BitShares Network: Peak Venture Group has announced the adoption of the BitShares 2.0 platform to integrate into their existing business
LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / July 1, 2015 / "We're always looking for game-changing opportunities," smiled Steve Tiffany, CEO of Peak Venture Group. "BitShares has the potential to supercharge most of our existing businesses and revolutionize everything about how we start new ones."
The Las Vegas based startup incubator has big ambitions that leverage remarkable synergies in the crypto currency, ATMs, remittance, video gaming, and network marketing industries. "BitShares turns out to be the missing catalyst needed to stimulate viral growth across our whole portfolio," said Tiffany.
Mr. Tiffany went on to discuss his reasoning for the adoption.
"Our original killer concept was to bring together a network of merchants and affiliate marketers by helping them to connect with each other in a double-sided marketplace. Merchants are always looking for ways to sell their products and affiliates are always looking for lucrative new things to sell. We put together a system that helps them find each other. We already have over 17,000 members on our video game site and 8500 marketers in our affiliate system the first year. Whoosh!"
"Then one of those affiliates introduced us to BitShares," said Tiffany, shaking his head. "I thought it was just going to be a way to maybe make commission payments within our network a bit more automatic and trust-free. But after talking with BitShares Founder Dan Larimer, I realized his brainchild was going to change everything we do!"
"What exactly is it that we do?"
"We provide specialized training for an affiliate marketing force and broker connections to all kinds of products they'll find easy to sell. Then we go looking for startup companies with ideas worth investing in, and hand them a marketing outlet on a silver platter! Most startups focus on their products and services, leaving marketing as an afterthought. We deliberately invest knowing that we can add a powerful engine for customer acquisition on Day One. We look for startups that fit into that model, and then harness our marketing horsepower to their front end."
"Take for instance the market we put together for the gaming industry," he said. "And I'm not talking gambling or anything like that. When we say gaming, we're referring to the video game community. One aspect I'm talking about is the Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) - video games in which a very large number of players interact within a virtual game realm. It's a $65B industry world wide!"
"We created two symbiotic companies. Our gaming eCommerce store is one-stop shop for everything to do with video games, including ACME laser swords, valuable game items, rare related merchandise, gold, you name it. Then our affiliate program teaches gamers how to do their own viral network marketing of everything that we sell while preserving the gaming atmosphere for our affiliates to keep the fun intact. We motivate the industry's most passionate expert gamers to become its most productive marketers. They wind up building their own game and financial empire at the same time! And we do so by seamlessly integrating real world and game world currencies and empires."
"You can see how this led us naturally to crypto currencies, and ultimately to BitShares," he traced a finger from dot to dot, as if the connection was obvious.
Tiffany further explained, We needed a way to seamlessly transition real world currencies like dollars and euros and the unique digital currencies used inside many of the games we offer at the gaming site. I figured we could integrate a crypto currency wallet somehow and use that currency as the common denominator and a way to automatically pay affiliate commissions.
But BitShares gave us a completedecentralized currency exchange networkright out of the box. It even had built-in smart contracts to help automate our affiliate program. This helps us make sure every affiliate gets paid automatically for every transaction made by any member of her integrated game and financial empire. And BitShares can keep up with gaming speeds - Its average transaction time is about a second compared to, say, Bitcoin where it can take the better part of an hour to confirm a transaction. Gamers can't wait that long to get more ammo for their hypersonic reciprocating transmorgifyer when they are pinned down and really, really need it!
No other cryptocurrency had all that. It completely changed how we now think about all of our start-ups."
He then said, "We plan to use the same model to integrate the crypto universe," he waved as if it were a done deal. "Our Chief of Acquisitions and Visionary Officer, Justin LaFountain, has been spearheading a whole new crypto currency venture maybe even bigger than gaming. Its flagship website will soon debut as a one-stop education and shopping site for everything about crypto. The ultimate goal is to introduce new arrivals to the freedoms of the crypto universe and help spread that freedom across its physical and virtual counterparts. We hope that will lead to many loyal customers."
"Originally, we thought crypto-evangelism meant teaching people about Bitcoin, how to get and use crypto currencies, wallets, mining support, and understanding the leading exchanges. But by integrating the industrial grade BitShares Exchange Network directly onto our web sites, there's much more value we can add."
After a series of annoucements over summer of 2015,BitShares now has a network of complementary partners like CCEDK.com, BANX.io, Cryptonomex.commaking the fusion of all our crypto-savvy products and services available to each other's customers. Transparently interoperable markets and freely interacting customers will exponentially magnify our combined network effect.
When asked about what it all means in the end forPeak Venture Group, Steve broke it down to what reqally matters to his company.
"Bottom line, our competitive edge as a startup incubator was to integrate affiliate marketing into every one of them. BitShares' smart contract services, financial products, and internal affiliate program will greatly amplify that. It all works together to turn existing customers into affiliate marketers and existing affiliate marketers into uber-productive affiliate mentors."
Clearly inspiring himself, his gaze drifted off to the horizon, "Peak Ventures Group can leverage these same BitShares Exchange Network relationships to supercharge every Group of new Ventures we Peak!"
Contact Peak Venture Group:
Justin LaFountain763-202-4305MMOCOCS@gmail.com101 Convention Center Drive. S 700 Las Vegas, NV 89109
SOURCE:Peak Venture Group || Could Citicoin Be The Next Altcoin?: While bitcoin remains the most popular cryptocurrency, several altcoins, or alternative digital currencies, have made their way to the market since bitcoin's introduction. With the debate over the usefulness of cryptocurrencies still up in the air, Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C ) is working to explore every possibility surrounding digital currencies. Citibank's Innovation Labs told IBTimes UK that it has already developed a working cryptocurrency, though it is still being used only in experimental capacities. Citicoin Head of Citit's Innovation Labs Ken Moore said that his team has created three separate blockchains and a test currency, dubbed Citicoin, to use them. Citicoin hasn't been used outside the confines of Innovation Labs, but Moore says the research his team has done using the coin experimentally will keep Citibank at the forefront of digital currency innovation. Related Link: Overstock Loses Big On Bitcoin Uses The bank has been open about its interest in cryptocurrencies over the past year, so the development was no surprise to the digital currency community. In the future, Citibank is hoping to use blockchain to facilitate international payments in a way that is faster and easier than ever before. A Step Forward Citi's enthusiasm for digital currencies represents a major stepping stone for bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency community. If major banks were to get on board with digital currencies, it would mean that bitcoin and many of the world's other altcoins would have more staying power. Bitcoin was initially dismissed as a scam, but the fact that major financial institutions are using the currency's blockchain technology to build their own systems suggests that bitcoin may not be just a passing fad. See more from Benzinga Using Cryptocurrency To Fight Crime MasterCard Slams Bitcoin In Letter To UK Officials © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || A bitcoin start-up has made exchanging currency free: A bitcoin(:BTC=)start-up has launched a service that will allow people to carry out foreign exchange transactions for free, dodging the expensive commission often charged by major financial institutions.
Bitreserve, a company founded last year by CNET and salesforce.com co-founder Halsey Minor, allows people to convert bitcoin into normal currencies and precious metals. The start-up used to charge a 0.45 percent commission for bitcoin-to-dollar transactions, but has now cut its fees entirely.
The move is likely to give it an edge in the hotly contested "fintech" market where a number of companies such as U.K.-based Transferwise are contesting the currency transfer and mobile payments space.
Users of the platform will be able to make currency exchanges in eight major currencies: euros, dollars, pounds, yuan, yen, pesos, rupees, swiss francs. People will also have the ability to convert the currencies into gold, silver, platinum and palladium, depending on the market price. Bitreserve offers the mid-market rate for currencies.
"Those in society who can least afford it have to spend so much for things that are so commonplace," Anthony Watson, president and chief operating officer of Bitreserve, told CNBC by phone.
"If you look at a Mexican immigrants, they send approximately $30 billion home every year and they pay just under $3 billion for the privilege of sending that money home. That is 10 percent and that is disgusting."
Bitreserve's service comes with a catch however - you have to own bitcoin to use the service in order to make an initial deposit and then convert it to another asset. Plus, when users receive money, they can only spend it in bitcoin.
This could put it at a disadvantage to other companies that allow people to sign up with bank accounts and send money for still a small commission.
One use case of such a technology is remittances, which reached $436 billion in 2014, according to the World Bank. Since its inception in October 2014, Bitrserve has been responsible for $14.5 million worth of transactions globally, according to its website.
But not all experts agree that a free model is sustainable in the currency exchange business.
"No business that offers its services for free can do so sustainably over a long period of time without other revenue sources," Stan Stalnaker, board member of the Digital Asset Transfer Authority, a self-regulating body for digital currencies, told CNBC by email.
Read MoreThis is why bitcoin won't go away anytime soon
"The real question, in an age of free transactions, is about business models - what other products and services can Bitreserve launch that it will charge for, and how successful will that be on the back of very low cost remittances?"
Watson said the company was looking to partner with traditional financial institutions to allow people to move the money into traditional bank accounts, as well as retailers so people can buy items using regular currencies.
"We are in conversation across the world with not only banks but different financial services providers. We are talking to a myriad of companies. We don't see ourselves as a threat to banks we see ourselves as complimenting what they do," Watson, the former Nike CIO, said.
Another use of Bitreserve's technology is to store bitcoin in a stable currency like the U.S. dollar.
"A lot of people are putting money on reserve and moving it into currency and moving bitcoin into a stable form of currency. Bticoin bounces around like a jack rabbit," Watson added.
A number of companies such as Coincove and ArtaBit are offering similar services, but only allowing people to send bitcoin to converted to one currency.
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Current price: 203.25€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-05-20 07:00:03 CEST || 2015 07 09 21 00 Comp Plan Training https://goo.gl/UcfCmC via @GCRNexxus #bitcoin || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 21 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $785.42 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 20 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,451.29 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 20 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $867.58 #bitcoin #btc || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$235.55/$235.72 #Bitstamp
$239.00/$239.28 #BTCe
⇢$3.28/$3.73
$236.91/$236.95 #Coinbase
⇢$1.19/$1.40 || RT @youth_bfa Pondok Daud Youth Bethany Fresh Anointing Bandung. every Saturday pk 16:00 di BTC L3 Bdg, datang & alami mujizat Yesus:) || $234.84 at 15:45 UTC [24h Range: $234.00 - $237.35 Volume: 8558 BTC] || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000006
Bittrex: 0.00000005
Average $1.2E-5 per #reddcoin
22:00:05 || Current price: 225.72€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-06-17 14:00:03 CEST
|
Trend: down || Prices: 292.05, 287.46, 285.83, 278.09, 279.47, 274.90, 273.61, 278.98, 275.83, 277.22
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bed Bath & Beyond Doesn't Expect a Profit Rebound Until 2020: You have to spend money to make money. That's a maxim investors understand well, and it is one reason individual stocks frequently rally even as their profits decline. Spiking short-term costs are acceptable if they're helping build a stronger long-term market position.
Wall Street isn't as forgiving when earnings drop in the context of shrinking sales, or when the profit slump lacks a clear ending point. That's essentially the situationBed Bath & Beyond(NASDAQ: BBBY)investors find themselves in today.
Image source: Getty Images.
The retailer recently announced fourth-quarter earnings results that paired reduced revenue with plunging profitability. Sales at existing locations fell in the mid-single-digit range as customer traffic declined. A boost in the e-commerce channel, and slightly higher spending per visitor, only partially offset that slump. As a result, overall comparable-store sales slipped by about 1% for both the quarter and the full fiscal year.
Meanwhile, Bed Bath & Beyond endured painful declines in core profitability metrics. Gross margin dropped to 36% of sales from 38% thanks to price cuts. Higher expenses, including labor, tech spending, and advertising, pushed operating profits down to $337 million, or 9% of sales, from $430 million, or 12% of sales a year ago.
BBBY Operating Margin (TTM)data byYCharts.
It wasn't all bad news in this report. Inventory levels declined sharply, which means the retailer entered the new fiscal year unburdened by aging merchandise it needs to unload through the heavy use of coupons. Instead, CFO Sue Lattmann said in aconference call with analyststhat current inventories are "tailored to meet the anticipated demands of our customers and are in good condition."
Conservative capital spending and reduced stock buybacks combined to lift cash balances, too. Cash on hand was $744 million, up from $578 million at the end of fiscal 2016. This healthy financial position means Bed Bath & Beyond has time to work through its growth strategy. It also has the funds to support a deliberate and modest shrinking of its store base. The retailer is planning to close about 40 locations over the next year to keep its footprint at roughly 1,500 locations.
CEO Steven Temares and his team have detailed plans to transform the business over the next few years, mainly by shifting toward favorable product niches like home furnishings and doubling down on the digital sales channel. After a multiyear increase, costs will decline over time thanks to a lighter inventory footprint and improved merchandise sourcing, executives say.
Yet shareholders are being asked to endure a long period of falling profits before these trends begin lifting the bottom line. Operating margins are likely to drop in each of the next two fiscal years, management predicted, although at a moderating rate. As a result, Bed Bath & Beyond is targeting earnings of just over $2 per share in 2018 compared to $3.05 per share last year and $4.58 per share in fiscal 2016.
The retailer is aiming to return to slight sales growth this year, mainly thanks to gains in the e-commerce business. But that success would mark just the first, tiny step in a three-year transformation initiative that -- if all goes according to plan -- will begin delivering modest earnings growth by fiscal 2020. Given that weak and uncertain outlook, it's hard to see how thischeap stockdoesn't continue drifting lower from here.
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Demitrios Kalogeropouloshas 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 Apple Inc.'s Next iPhone X Will Cost at Least $899: In the fall of 2017,Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL)introduced three new smartphones: iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X. The starting prices for each of these devices were $699, $799, and $999, respectively. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus were priced roughly in line with their predecessors, while the iPhone X started at a higher price point than even the highest-end configuration of any other iPhone.
This year, Apple is, yet again, expected to introduce three new iPhone models: A lower-cost model that succeeds both the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, a direct successor to the current iPhone X, and a version of the successor to the iPhone X with a significantly larger display.
Image source: Apple.
At this point, not much has been rumored about the pricing of the successor to the current iPhone X. However, I believe it'll be no lower than $899, with a $999 price point being quite likely. Here's why.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, whose track record when it comes to predicting future iPhone specifications and related supply chain machinations is quite good, recently said that the cheapest of this year's new iPhone models -- a device that's expected to use a 6.1-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) and omit some of the fancier features that the iPhone X models will have -- could be priced at between $699 and $799.
It seems reasonable to expect that the price difference between the6.1-inch LCD iPhone modeland the successor to the current iPhone X will be at least $200. The reason for the large gap is that the next-generation iPhone X is expected to be much more expensive to manufacture due to several factors , including:
• It's expected to use a more expensive stainless-steel metal frame, while the upcoming 6.1-inch LCD iPhone should use a cheaper aluminum frame.
• Apple is expected to include its pressure-sensitive display technology, known as 3D Touch, in the next iPhone X, but that feature is expected to be omitted from the 6.1-inch LCD model.
• The organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display on the next-generation iPhone X should be substantially more expensive to manufacture than the LCD that'll be used on the 6.1-inch LCD model.
• The next-generation iPhone X is expected to incorporate 4 GB of memory, while the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone is believed to have just 3 GB of memory.
• Apple is likely to give the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone a single-lens camera, while the upcoming iPhone X should have a pricier dual-lens camera.
• Apple is also believed to be planning to use more advanced logic board and battery technologies in the upcoming iPhone X than it intends to use in the 6.1-inch LCD model.
Image source: Apple.
Each of these differences will likely add meaningfully to the next-generation iPhone X's cost structure relative to the LCD model's. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the total bill of materials difference between the next-generation iPhone X and the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone is somewhere north of $100.
If Apple wants to maintain the same gross profit margin percentage on the next-generation iPhone X as it'll see on the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone, and assuming that the latter is aggressively priced at $699, then it would likely need to price that new iPhone X at a minimum of $866 (this assumes a $100 bill of materials difference and the same roughly 40% gross profit margin percentage for both devices).
Since the bill of materials delta could very well be north of $100 and Apple's gross profit margin percentage targets for the new iPhone X could be higher than they are for the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone, I think $899 is really the lowest that Apple will price the next iPhone X. I think it's more likely that the next one will continue to be sold for $999 and that itslarger counterpartwill come priced at $1,099 -- minimum.
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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. || Starbucks Is Bringing Back Unicorn Frappuccinos — With a Twist: Step aside, Unicorn Frappuccino . You’re so 2017. Beginning Thursday, March 22, Instagram feeds will be replete with photos of Starbucks ‘ latest frozen sugar-laden drink: the Crystal Frappuccino. According to Business Insider, the frappuccino will have a peach flavor and be topped with bits of candy. The special drink will be in stores for four days or until supplies last. An Instagram post by the Florence, Ala. location shows a blue and white, marble-looking drink with a pyramid of whipped cream and specks of pink candy. Instagram Photo The futuristic frozen beverage isn’t exclusive to the South: Another Instagram account from a Milwaukee-based Starbucks calls the Crystal Ball Frappuccino a “gem of a drink” and a “diamond in the rough.” Instagram Photo Baristas in other locations across the country also seemed excited about the next big Starbucks drink. Instagram Photo Instagram Photo Some employees and Starbucks customers did not feel the same love for the trendy Unicorn Frappuccino, though. When that pink drink launched in April 2017, baristas and some customers were less than pleased . One Reddit user called it the “ Frap from hell .” Another barista said a part of her “dies” every time a customer orders one. As a barista, just know that every time you ask me to make this, a part of me dies #unicornfrappuccino — Tina Dee (@fairlyfamous) April 19, 2017 Regardless of how you feel, it may not take a real crystal ball to realize that this is just the beginning of Spring’s colorful frappuccino trend. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Vacant Storefronts Across the U.S. Are Helping Starbucks, Chairman Says Starbucks Is Shrinking Its Selection (and So Are Your Other Favorite Stores) Starbucks Hopes This New Product Will Jolt Sales Watch Out Instagram: Starbucks Has a New Millennial Pink Latte Bitcoin and Blockchains in Davos, Starbucks Coin, Nuclear Hacks || A disused coal power station will reopen to solely power crypto: A closed-down coal plant in Australia's Hunter Valley, about a two-hour drive north of Sydney, is reopening in order to provide inexpensive power for Bitcoin miners. A tech company called IOT Group has partnered with the local power company to revive the power plant and set up cryptocurrency mining operations, called a Blockchain Operations Centre, inside it. This would give the group direct access to energy at wholesale prices.
According toThe Age, the Hunter Valley coal power plant was closed back in 2014. Hunter Energy plans to restart the generator in early 2019. The company understands the demands of cryptocurrency mining, and hopes to make the power plant even more attractive to tech companies by adding cleaner energy sources, such as solar power or batteries.
Cryptocurrency mining is an incredibly power-intensive process. It involves using energy hungry computers to solve complex problems, generating intense amounts of heat and using quite a bit of electricity. As a result, miners and mining companies have beenon the hunt for inexpensive electricity. Operating from within a coal plant meets that requirement for sure.
The problem here is that coal-fired electricity isn't exactly the cleanest source of power. One of the main arguments against cryptocurrency mining, and a reason whycountries like Chinaare seeking to ban it, is that the energy required generates a lot of pollution. Bringing a dirty, pollution spewing power plant back online specifically for cryptocurrency mining doesn't seem like the best or most thoughtful long-term solution to this issue, even if the company is exploring plans for greener energy in the future. || 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 <WFC.N>, 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 <DJCO.O>, the Los Angeles-based newspaper publisher he chairs, where he also denigrated bitcoin <BTC=BTSP> 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 <BRKa.N>, 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 <AMZN.O> and JPMorgan Chase & Co <JPM.N> to set up a healthcare company for their employees to combat spiralling costs that Buffett has called a "tapeworm" on the economy.
The current system "runs out of control on the cost side," causing behaviour 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) || Is Bitcoin Significant For Stock Market Sentiment?: We will start this week’s post with Bitcoin. There has been some chatter in media that the recent plunge in Bitcoin influenced or helped set off the sharp drop in the equity indices, and the recent rally in cryptocurrencies has helped to stabilize equities. There certainly are some similarities in the recent price action, but Bitcoin is still not an institutionally traded product to a large degree. On the retail side, however, there are a few things to consider from recent movements and going forward, including sentiment. There was definitely a significant amount of froth in the crypto markets after its meteoric rise in 2017, especially in Q4. When retail investors left Bitcoin in 2018, retail money flowed into stocks of all sectors and the S&P became very frothy.
From January 4th until January 29th, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(NYSE:SPY) set a record for its relative strength indicator (RSI) with 18 straight days above 75 (overbought or seen as unsustainable). Of course the inverse VIX or volatility crisis crushed stocks violently, but this exuberance could have been the spark. Both the Bitcoin Real Time Index and E-Mini S&P futures hit their respective 200-day moving average on the same day,February 6th (see chart above). The equity market remained vulnerable until SPY gave the 200dma a try on February 9th (see chart below). From these lows BRTI has rallied +99%, and SPY has gained +8.8% on its recent high. Both have some key resistance to be aware of.
SPY has the February 2nd settlement (beginning of vol crisis) as its likely pivotal resistance area for now. BRTI has its 50 day moving average and cloud resistance as key. It is probably healthy for Bitcoin to see some consolidation and less volatility as more institutional traders consider the space.For now, we will use the 9520 area as short-term support.
The VIX has come in significantly and even had a brief dip back below 17 ahead of the FOMC minutes this week. But, holding above it for now as volatility and two sided trade is likely here to stay for a while.
This is my overall gauge of the markets: The longiShares Barclays 20+ Yr Treas.Bond(NASDAQ:TLT) and long SPY trade (which is a version of the passive investment strategy). With the Fed looking to raise rates three times this year, equity traders have one eye glued on the long bond and longer duration fixed income products. If TLT + SPY can climb back above the broken trend line it would be a positive signal for passive investors. So far it is holding below this line and remains vulnerable.
Everyone has the 3% level in 10-year yield as a major key to watch, but I want to show the 30-year yield. 3.25% has major technical significance as it is a .618 Fibonacci retracement level and the 100 month moving average which 30-year yield has held below since April 1985. This long-term moving average has also had many attempts and failures around it. What happens once this level is broken will likely be significant to equities.
This chart ofiShares Russell 2000 Index(NYSE:IWM) vs SPY shows positive signs for the overall equity market. The .618 retracement here has several significant touches and a break here would see small caps underperforming while breaking a pivotal support. This is the level that the ratio ramped higher on the US Presidential election, held on the August slide in equities due to North Korea concerns, and has been holding again for all of 2018. Normally we would look for small caps to lead the overall market lower during a real correction.
Rotation: high correlations between the major sectors in the S&P 500 were another signal that things were becoming unsustainable in January. With high correlations there is simply nowhere to hide when the market starts to turn lower. We are starting to see some rotational plays in the last couple of weeks, which would be a positive signal overall for the market. One key pair to keep an eye on is the energy and financial sector ETFs. Energy was a huge underperformer for the first half of 2017 and then money flowed into energy (Energy Select Sector SPDR(NYSE:XLE) rallied +26.8% from its August low to January high). Energy took it on the chin during the recent decline, as XLE fell -17.8%. From a technical standpoint being short XLE versus longFinancial Select Sector SPDR Fund(NYSE:XLF) (or rotate out of energy and into financials) made sense as the 200dma in the pair was resisting in early January. Currently, momentum is very depressed here, and energy should be able to outperform for a bit as the long-term view shows this is about where XLE/XLF based and had a breakout in 2007.
Technology sector (Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund(NYSE:XLK)) has been an overall leader again this year, and here we look at XLK relative to SPY. If tech starts to pullback it may not be a signal for the overall market if it is part of rotation into something else. XLK/SPY hit its extension target this week as SPY catches up a bit.
Gold has been vulnerable this week as the dollar firms. Continued dollar strength may see rotation out of gold and gold stock, But the US$ Index has some room before it would test a pivotal resistance. For now, we are watching GLD vs SPY as it holds a short term .618 retracement area that seems pivotal. A clean break of this Fibonacci level would see gold underperform and the potential for rotation out of gold.
In conclusion, we need to keep an eye on the dollar and any rhetoric that may lead to a sharp move there. On days where the market is falling, look to see if there are some sectors that are seeing flows into them. Rotation has been a positive overall. And keep an eye on Bitcoin. It may not be the sentiment indicator that VIX is, but it can be a gauge for retail investors appetite for risk...
David Wienke is the editor of Keystone Charts. More than 30 years of experience providing technical analysis and execution services to institutional clients is now provided in a daily newsletter, The Daily Game Plan. Coverage includes equities, rates, currencies, and commodities. Dave is also an introducing broker with Capital Trading Group, LLLP (CTG); a Chicago based investment firm focusing on alternative investment opportunities for CTAs and individual investors. Charts are created using CQG, the best charting service there is. For a free trial of the Daily Game Plan newsletter go to www.keystonecharts.net, email me at dave@keystonecharts.net or go to Capital Trading Group to subscribe.
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DISCLAIMER: For Educational purposes only. This is not a solicitation to buy or sell commodity futures or options on commodity futures and should not be construed as such. Although care has been taken to assure the accuracy, completeness and reliability of the information contained herein, Keystone Charts, Inc. makes no warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, reliability or usefulness of any information, product, service or process disclosed.
See more from Benzinga
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© 2018 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Boeing's Reputation Taking a Hit Because of Troubled Tanker Program: Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson recently lashed out at Boeing (NYSE: BA) , asserting that the aerospace giant is overly focused on its commercial cash cow to the detriment of defense projects, including the long-awaited KC-46 refueling tanker. "One of our frustrations with Boeing is they're much more focused on their commercial activity than on getting this right for the Air Force, and getting these aircraft to the Air Force," Wilson said during an appearance before the House Armed Services Committee on March 20. She said that Air Force officials held face-to-face meetings with Boeing in recent weeks about the KC-46, and that "we have asked them to put their A-team on this to get the problems fixed." Rendering of a KC-46 refueling a fighter mid-flight. Rendering of the KC-46 in action completing a mid-flight refueling. Image source: Boeing. The public scolding comes as Air Force officials are telling reporters they fear the first KC-46 deliveries, which were originally slated for August 2017, will not arrive until 2019. The jets are needed to replace a fleet of 1950s-era Stratotankers that the Air Force says are vital if the service is to deploy as needed. Boeing officials have insisted deliveries will begin before the end of this year . The delays have already cost Boeing money. A bigger worry at this point is how big of a black eye the KC-46 will prove to be for the company, and how these troubles will impact its success in future military competitions. Star-crossed from the start The quest to replace the Air Force tanker dates back more than a decade and has had drama at every turn. In the early 2000s, the Pentagon proposed leasing tankers adapted from Boeing's 767 commercial design, but a congressional investigation revealed corruption leading up to that decision. The lease plan was cancelled, and the incident led to an executive overhaul at Boeing . In 2008 Boeing's 767 design lost out to a modified Airbus A330, but that decision was overturned on protest. The eventual contract caps the Air Force's development spending on the project at $4.9 billion and requires Boeing to pay for any overruns. The Air Force currently believes the program will come in at about $6.3 billion, though the company believes the program will be completed for $5.9 billion. Story continues Boeing has already taken more than $2 billion in pre-tax charges due to fines and cost overruns for the KC-46 program. At present, the Air Force still sees several deficiencies that Boeing needs to work out before deliveries can begin. Notably, issues with the tanker's remote-vision system have caused the process of extending the boom used to refuel jets mid-flight to be inconsistent, leading to the probe scratching the jet's outer surface. That's both dangerous for in-flight operations and could potentially rub the stealth coating off fighters, making them more vulnerable in combat. Boeing believes software refinements, and not a design overhaul, can solve most of the issues. Jack of all trades, master of one Boeing can swallow the cost overruns, but the reputational damage done to its defense unit could be harder to overcome. Wilson's criticism that the company favors its commercial side echoes a common complaint among Pentagon insiders. And given commercial's success over the last decade and its growing importance to Boeing's overall results, the unit is arguably where management's attention should be most focused. Commercial accounted for more than 60% of Boeing's 2017 revenue, with its defense, space, and security unit generating just 22% of total sales and its global services unit responsible for the rest. Demand for Boeing jets including the 737 and 787 -- Boeing at year-end had a backlog of more than 5,800 jet orders -- has made selling commercial jets a very lucrative business for the company. Among defense contractors, Boeing has always had to fight a perception that it struggles to develop new platforms. Some of its most high-profile military platforms, mainstays like the AH-64 Apache helicopter, the F-18 Super Hornet fighter, and the F-15 Strike Eagle, were developed outside of Boeing and came to the company via acquisition. And Boeing has lost out in some high-profile recent competitions, including the joint strike fighter, which went to Lockheed Martin , and the long-range strike bomber, which went to Northrop Grumman . The KC-46, even if all goes according to plan from here on, is a missed opportunity for Boeing to prove its critics wrong and show it can bring a new defense program to market without extensive complications. Instead, comments like what Wilson told Congress would likely only reinforce perceptions of the defense unit, making future contract wins that much harder. Three cheers for commercial! Fortunately for Boeing investors, that massive commercial business has been a driver of Boeing's share price. The company's stock is up 87.5% over the last year and 294% over the last five years, even after a recent pullback related to tariff-retaliation fears. And the order book suggests the business will be in good shape for years to come. The bottom line is, Wilson is correct, and Defense is indeed increasingly a junior partner inside Boeing. Investors can take some comfort in the diversification the defense business provides. But understand that, for the foreseeable future, Boeing's fate is tied to commercial aircraft. 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 has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || You'll Spend 80% of Your Retirement Money on These 5 Things. Here's How to Save on Them: If you're retired, you need to be smart about how you spend your money. To do that, knowing how you spend your money is essential. For most retirees, spending follows a particular pattern. In fact, research shows that 80% of all spending in a typical elderly household goes toward securing five basic needs: healthcare, housing, food, clothing, and transportation. The good news is, there are small and large changes you can make to lower spending in all five of these areas. Here are some tips on how you can save. Mature couple reviewing financial paperwork Image source: Getty Images. Saving on healthcare Healthcare is one of the biggest expenditures for many seniors, especially those experiencing health issues. Some key ways to save on healthcare include: Align insurance coverage to your needs: While seniors are typically covered by Medicare, purchasing a Medigap plan or opting for a Medicare Advantage plan could help seniors further reduce healthcare costs. Shop for supplementary coverage carefully, considering premiums, services covered, and coverage limitations, taking your health into account. If you use a lot of care services, it makes sense to pay higher premiums to get more comprehensive coverage. Talking with your doctor about cutting costs: Doctors and patients rarely discuss cost-saving measures. In fact, an analysis from Duke University found costs of care came up in only 30% of conversations between doctors and patients. Around half the time costs are discussed, a strategy is developed to successfully reduce out-of-pocket expenditures. By raising the issue, you could find ways to save. Exploring generic prescription options: Although seniors 65 and over account for just 12% of the population, they use 34% of all prescription medications and 30% of all over-the-counter drugs. Prescriptions make up a big part of spending thanks to Medicare coverage gaps for prescriptions known as the donut hole . Choosing generics instead of name-brand medication could provide significant savings, especially as generics must be substantially the same as brand-name pills. Taking steps to stay healthy: By remaining active, limiting alcohol consumption, keeping weight down, and maintaining other healthy habits, you can reduce the care you require and keep your healthcare costs low. Story continues Saving on housing While you need somewhere comfortable and safe to live, you don't have to spend a fortune on housing. Some tips to save include: Downsize: Moving to a smaller and less expensive home could allow you to live in a paid-for house and reduce other expenditures such as utility bills and property taxes. If you're living in a home thats too large, moving is one of the best ways to increase financial security. Move to a lower cost-of-living area: There are major differences in cost of living throughout the U.S. If you're residing in an expensive area, moving could make a huge difference in how long your savings lasts and how far your Social Security benefits stretch. Check out some affordable places for seniors to see if relocating might be an option. Make sure you're not overpaying in property taxes: As many as 30% to 60% of homes in the U.S. are overassessed, according to the National Taxpayers Union . Consider appealing your estimate to lower your property taxes . You should also find out if your county offers any special property tax rebates for seniors. Consider a roommate or listing your home an Airbnb: If you have spare space, a roommate could help cover housing costs and even bring in extra income. If you're not comfortable living with someone else all the time, could you put your home on Airbnb during times when you'll be traveling anyway? Saving on food Food is another necessity of life, but you can eat well without overspending. Tips to reduce your food budget include the following: Avoid food waste: American families throw out about a quarter of all food they buy, wasting a fortune on uneaten food. Instead of tossing money into the trash, make a meal plan, shop from your list, and eat your leftovers. Shop based on coupons and sales: Food costs could be cut dramatically by shopping sales flyers and using coupons. Eating what's in season is another way to both stay healthy and reduce costs associated with food consumption. Minimize meals you eat out: Dining out can be significantly more expensive than eating at home, and it's often less healthy as well. Limit the meals you eat out to save. Saving on clothing While you don't need office clothing any more, clothing remains a big expense. To save on your clothing budget: Shop consignment shops or thrift stores: There's no need for brand-new clothing, especially when you don't need to dress to impress at work any longer. You can often score great bargains by shopping consignment stores for gently used items. Take advantage of end-of-season sales: By planning ahead, you can get most or all of your clothing on sale and spend far less than you would for full-price threads. Take care of your clothes so they'll last longer: Washing and drying is hard on clothing, so consider line drying (you'll also save on electricity). Consider mending instead of buying new, and treat stains immediately to avoid losing an outfit. Rent or borrow one-time outfits: If you have big events, like your children getting married, you want to look your best. But instead of spending a fortune on clothes you'll wear once, rent your fancy finery, don't buy it. Saving on transportation Car payments and other transportation expenditures are a big portion of the budget for most seniors. Some key ways to save on transportation include: Switch to being a one-car (or no car) household: When factoring in fuel, maintenance, insurance, depreciation, registration and other expenditures, the average annual cost of owning a car is almost $9,000, according to AAA . Since you're no longer commuting, see if you can get by with one car. If you live in a walkable area, having no car and using ride-shares or rentals could also be an affordable alternative. Pay cash for older used cars instead of new cars: The average auto loan now tops $30,000, and consumers are taking longer loans than ever. If you're like most Americans, you constantly have a car payment. Instead of borrowing for a new car, keep your current vehicle as long as you can. When you're done paying off your loan, save the money you'd spend on payments to buy a lower-cost used car. Keep saving for used cars and never get stuck with a car loan again. Let your insurer know you're retired: Now that you're retired, you're probably driving less. By letting your insurer know your patterns have changed, you may reduce auto insurance costs. Cutting costs allows you to make the most of retirement money While you may not want to make all of these changes at once, taking as many steps as you can to reduce fixed costs will give you a lot more money for fun expenditures, such as travel or indulging hobbies -- or it will allow your limited savings to last longer. By making changes in your biggest expenditures, you can reduce the chances of running out of money and direct more of your money to enjoying 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 a disclosure policy . || South Koreas Largest Hotel Booking Platform Will Accept Cryptocurrency: South Korea Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Yeogi Eottae, a major South Korean hotel booking platform which translates to How is This Place?, has partnered with the countrys largest cryptocurrency exchange to integrate cryptocurrency. Major Partnership As Bithumb has done with other retailers like WeMakePrice, a leading e-commerce platform in South Korea well known for its timely deals and discounts, the Bithumb team will likely enable the hotel booking platform to integrate all of the cryptocurrencies listed on the Bithumb platform including bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, and more. TokenPost, a local cryptocurrency-focused media outlet overseen by EconoTimes, revealed that Bithumb has announced its strategic partnership with the hotel booking platform on March 6. Bithumb spokesperson stated that its partnership with the hotel booking platform will allow South Korea to begin following the trend established by Japan and the US in adopting cryptocurrencies like bitcoin as a payment method and medium of exchange. The spokesperson further emphasized that businesses within South Korea are trying to make cryptocurrency transactions as easy as cash payments. The statement released by Bithumb spokesperson translated at CCN read: Through the formation of a strategic partnership between Bithumb and South Koreas largest hotel booking platform Yeogi Eottae, South Korea will now be able to follow the global trend of utilizing cryptocurrencies as a proper payment method. Bithumb and Yeogi Eottae are discussing ways to efficiently process cryptocurrency transactions to ensure that spending cryptocurrencies is as easy as spending fiat money or cash. Already, South Koreas two largest retailers in Yeogi Eottae and WeMakePrice have partnered with Bithumb to integrate cryptocurrencies and process payments in major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Ethereum. The integration of cryptocurrencies by online applications and platforms widely utilized by casual users and consumers will lead to a drastic increase in cryptocurrency adoption, especially if the two companies work closely with Bithumb to provide special offers to users utilizing cryptocurrencies. Story continues Increase in Adoption Expectedly, the demand for cryptocurrencies fell in South Korea after a major market correction occured in January, and as the price slumped throughout February and March. The decline in demand is evident in the Kimchi Premium, which is virtually nonexistent at this point. But, cryptocurrencies have penetrated into the mainstream in South Korea, and almost every consumer within the country is aware of cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin. The rise in awareness of cryptocurrencies place the market in a unique position to grow rapidly in the region. If the cryptocurrency market recovers in the next few months to its previous levels, demand for cryptocurrencies will inevitably rise, and the awareness of cryptocurrencies in South Korea would be stronger than before, given that significantly more people would have heard about cryptocurrencies in a few months time than early 2018. Several companies are also cooperating with restaurants, cafes, and food franchises to distribute cryptocurrency ATMs and kiosks across the country, to provide an easier and simpler method for casual users and newcomers to purchase and sell cryptocurrencies without undergoing rigorous Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) verification. Featured image from Shutterstock . The post South Koreas Largest Hotel Booking Platform Will Accept Cryptocurrency appeared first on CCN . || Facebook's Flick Is Fast. Here's Why You Should Care.: In January, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) announced that it had finished developing a new product. It wasn't a new social network, nor was it a new feature on any of its existing services. In fact, this new "product" was a departure from anything the company had done before: a new unit of time called the "flick." That raises the question: What interest does Facebook have in (further) altering the universe as we know it? What is a "flick"? A flick is actually pretty simple in concept. It is 705,600,000th of a second -- the next-largest unit after a nanosecond. You might just say "good to know" and move on, but if you work in technology -- specifically in digital effects in film and other media -- the flick may be a lot more interesting. You can read about all the code-writing specifics here . In simple terms, the flick and the ability to put it in code was developed to create an easy-to-use unit of time when breaking down frames of video during editing. It could become a useful tool for those working in special effects, media, and virtual reality (VR). But before investors get too excited about this being a new revenue stream, bear in mind the company is allowing free use of the flick. So why did Facebook bother? Facebook and the importance of digital media Facebook is all about social media, and an integral part of helping people connect and interact with one another is through video and other digital content. That's what is fueling Facebook's growth , as the number of users and the time they spend on a Facebook service drives advertising revenue. In 2017, that ad revenue increased 49% to $39.9 billion. Two young women using smartphones. Image source: Getty Images. The year presented challenges , though, and as a result of changes to what gets promoted on Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the amount of time users spent on Facebook decreased. And the company is OK with that. It's about quality time, not quantity. And video is one way it wants to increase the quality of users' experiences. Story continues During the Jan. 31 conference call with analysts, Zuckerberg noted that "on our last earnings call, I said that video done well can bring people together, but too often today, watching video is just a passive experience. To shift that balance, I said that we were going to focus on videos that encourage meaningful social interaction. ... Over the next three years, we know video will continue to grow. So our job is to build video experiences that help people connect with family, friends and groups." Facebook also has an interest in getting businesses to use video to create ads that are effective and relevant. The flick could help enhance digital video creation and editing for both content creators and advertisers who use Facebook. The flick could also be useful for Facebook itself. While still very small, Facebook's VR subsidiary, Oculus, continues to grow. A new stand-alone headset called the Oculus Go is due to be released early this year. The development of more VR content could get sped up from the use of the flick. In short, while Facebook is still in the business of connecting people with each other and with experiences, video is an increasingly important part of the strategy. The flick is proof of that. But will it be useful? Only time will tell. It's hard to argue with Facebook on strategy right now, though, considering its impressive 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 Nicholas Rossolillo owns shares of Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool has the following options: short March 2018 $200 calls on Facebook and long March 2018 $170 puts on Facebook. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#BTC Average: 6998.52$
#Bitfinex - 6942.90$
#Poloniex - 6935.17$
#Bitstamp - 6936.31$
#Coinbase - 6938.00$
#Binance - 6955.34$
#CEXio - 6906.30$
#Kraken - 6942.10$
#Cryptopia - 6965.00$
#Bittrex - 6914.00$
#GateCoin - 7550.10$
#Bitcoin #Exchanges #Price || #moneyforallofthethings How do bitcoin faucets make money? http://bit.ly/2ASLmW6 pic.twitter.com/UeF8uMNo4z || Jim Rogers: ʺLa burbuja del bitcóin se parece y huele como todas las burbujasʺ #criptomonedas https://goo.gl/TXeQ2z?btz6=0726040905 … || http://Gymbase.io up mining with your body. Gym meets blockchain #crypto#btc.. || 左がBTCの日足チャート、右がXVGの12時間足チャート。
目立った根拠はあるわけではないのですが、XVGはBTCの少し先の姿を描いているように見えてきますね。 pic.twitter.com/JvLZgFL32b || El Bitcoin cotiza a 6940.00$ https://goo.gl/2ros3L pic.twitter.com/fGVyEjxOVz || Current BTC Price: $ 6,616.17. The 24H Change is -2.57%,
24H Volume is $ 82,666,826.3 and the current marketcap is $ 112.22 B. #BTC #Ticker #CryptoTickerPro || BitUniverse – A Crypto Portfolio Tracker Like No Other https://goo.gl/fb/3pFG4u #bitcoin || Show them a BTC chart and look at how they're going to attack you. || https://bit.ly/2IwqTpY
#cryptocurrency #bitcoin #blockchain #ico #crypto #ethereum #money
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Trend: up || Prices: 8329.11, 8058.67, 7902.09, 8163.42, 8294.31, 8845.83, 8895.58, 8802.46, 8930.88, 9697.50
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2017-09-19]
BTC Price: 3924.97, BTC RSI: 48.21
Gold Price: 1306.20, Gold RSI: 49.18
Oil Price: 49.48, Oil RSI: 57.14
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Gold Prices Shoot Higher on Higher Risk: The gold price shot higher yesterday, once again on the back of increased global risks due to North Korea. They have begun to make it a habit over the last couple of months or so to perform one kind of missile testing or the other and this is causing the global risks and tension to increase and makes the gold prices jump by around $20 each time and causes the stock markets to crash. No one even knows how strong and reliable these tests are but one can certainly say that they are doing enough to rile up the US and their neighbours in the Asian region including South Korea and Japan. With China supplying a lot of good to North Korea, it has also become an indirect battle between the US and China and this is making matters worse. Gold Continues to Rise This is why the fact that funds are flocking to safe havens like gold and silver is no surprise and we saw more of the same yesterday. The holiday in the US tended to take away a lot of liquidity from the markets but this did not stop the gold prices from shooting through 1330 and it managed to stay near the highs of its range for the whole of the day yesterday. Progress in the prices might be a little difficult from here on as the risks are bound to fade within a day or two and normalcy is likely to be restored during that time. When that happens, the stock markets begin to recover and the funds begin to flow from gold to the stock markets. So, it remains to be seen how long the gains in the gold prices are likely to hold in the short term. Gold Hourly Oil prices traded within a tight range for the whole of yesterday, primarily due to the lack of liquidity in the markets as the US had a holiday yesterday. But the prices continued to cling on to their highs and close the day near the highs which should augur well for the bulls. We continue to be convinced about the bullishness in the oil prices and view every deep correction in the prices as an opportunity to add to the longs in the oil contracts. We believe that the oil prices would make steady progress towards $50 and beyond. Story continues Silver prices also followed the gold prices higher and continued to stick on to their highs on the back of rise in global risks and are now within striking distance of their first target of $18 but it is likely to be a challenge to break through this region for now. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Jury is Out on Bitcoin Gold Prices Shoot Higher on Higher Risk Nervous Investors Shed Risk and Bought Gold Daily Economic Calendar, September 5, 2017 Market Snapshot – Asian News Triggers Todays Moves Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Other Cryptocurrencies Tumble after China Bans ICO’s || Bitcoin Regains Ground, But China Uncertainty Lingers: Investing.com - The price of the digital currency bitcoin was higher on Tuesday despite continuing uncertainty following media reports that China may be seeking to ban cryptocurrency trading on domestic exchanges.
On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, Bitcoin touched a high of $4,378.4.00 and was at $4,290.3.00 by 05:25 AM ET (09:25 GMT) having opened at $4,198.90.
At current prices, bitcoin has a total market capitalization of around $70 billion.
Chinese financial publication Caixin reported Friday that the country’s authorities are planning to shut down domestic cryptocurrency exchanges.
Bitcoin prices fell to a low of $3,975.80 on Sunday from levels above $4,600.00 on Thursday ahead of the report, before climbing back above $4,000.00.
Reuters reported Monday that they wereunable to confirm multiple reportsthat Beijing was planning to shut down commercial trading for virtual currencies.
The reports came after China last week announced a ban on ‘initial coin offerings,’ a kind of fundraising via virtual currencies in order to finance start-ups.
Regulators in China have been investigating the domestic market for bitcoin and other virtual currencies since January of this year.
The price of bitcoin offshoot Bitcoin Cash was also higher. It touched a high of $568.72 and was last at $567.5, having opened at $567.5.
Bitcoin cash has a total market cap of nearly $9 billion at current prices, making it the third most valuable cryptocurrency.
Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading, Ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap after bitcoin, was up 3.65% to $308.05.
To stay on top of the latest moves in the crypto-space, be sure to check out:https://www.investing.com/crypto/
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Bitcoin Regains Ground, But China Uncertainty Lingers
China's ICO ban necessary but should not stop blockchain research: PBOC official || Cryptos - Bitcoin Falls below $4,000 Level as Uncertainty Weighs: Investing.com - The price of the digital currency bitcoin fell below the $4,000 level on Wednesday as uncertainty over recent reports that China could move to ban cryptocurrency trading on domestic exchanges weighed.
On the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, Bitcoin hit a low of $3,904.1, the weakest level since September 5. It was trading at $3,965.00 by 04:48 AM ET (08:48 GMT), down 4.44%, having opened at $4,351.5.
At current prices, bitcoin has a total market capitalization of around $65 billion.
Bitcoin prices are down 16.5% so far this month, but have still quadrupled in value since the start of the year.
The cryptocurrency market has been hit by uncertainty since Chinese financial publication Caixin reported Friday that the country’s authorities are planning toshut down domestic cryptocurrency exchanges.
The reports came after China last week announced a ban on initial coin offerings, a kind of fundraising via virtual currencies in order to finance start-ups.
Regulators in China have been investigating the domestic market for bitcoin and other virtual currencies since January of this year.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said Wednesday thatbitcoin "is a fraud"and will blow up. The comments came at a bank investor conference in New York.
"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," he said.
Dimon said that if any JPMorgan traders were trading the cryptocurrency, "I would fire them in a second, for two reasons: It is against our rules and they are stupid, and both are dangerous."
Elsewhere, the price of bitcoin offshoot Bitcoin Cash was lower. It touched a low of $492.90 and was last at $509.46, having opened at $538.98.
Bitcoin cash has a total market cap of nearly $8 billion at current prices, making it the third most valuable cryptocurrency.
Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading, Ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap after bitcoin, was down 6.43% to $275.00.
To stay on top of the latest moves in the crypto-space, be sure to check out:https://www.investing.com/crypto/
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Cryptocurrency chaos as China cracks down on ICOs
JPMorgan's Dimon says bitcoin 'is a fraud' || Bitcoin splits, but clone off to slow start: By Anna Irrera and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin's underlying software code was split on Tuesday, generating a new clone called "Bitcoin Cash," but the new virtual currency got off to a slow start due to lackluster support for its network. The initiative was headed by a small group of mostly China-based bitcoin miners - programmers who essentially operate the bitcoin network - who were not happy with scheduled improvements to the currency's technology meant to increase its capacity to process transactions. These miners, who get paid in the currency for contributing computing power to the bitcoin network, initiated what is known as a "fork" on Tuesday, where the underlying blockchain splits into two potential paths, creating a new digital currency. The blockchain is a shared online ledger of all bitcoin transactions and has spawned a range of financial and business applications. Bitcoin's split has created a new competitor to the original digital currency, which remains the oldest and most valuable in circulation. Yet only a small fraction of bitcoin miners have been contributing their computing power to the new blockchain, and it took nearly six hours for the first batch of Bitcoin Cash coins to be mined this afternoon, according to Blockdozer Explorer, a firm providing data on digital currencies. "It's been a slow start for Bitcoin Cash," said Iqbal Gandham, managing director at trading platform eToro. "The delay ... could be a result of a lack of miner support for the new cryptocurrency." Bitcoin Cash on Tuesday traded on certain exchanges at a median price of $146.37, according to bitinfocharts.com, while bitcoin was at $2,729 on the BitStamp platform, down 4.6 percent from Monday. After the split, Bitcoin Cash has all the history from bitcoin's blockchain, creating the same number of tokens, plus the new currency created. People who held bitcoins before the split now have access to an equal amount of Bitcoin Cash for free, which they will then be able to trade for fiat currencies - legal tender such as euros and dollars - or other digital tokens. The creation of new tokens may speed up as less computing power will be required to mine new blocks, said Jeff Garzik, co-founder of blockchain startup, in an email. Ryan Taylor, chief executive of Dash Core, a firm that manages the development of the Dash digital currency, said Bitcoin Cash may yet be short-lived. "Bitcoin Cash has not solved scaling," Dash said. "It has merely kicked the can down the road with slightly larger blocks, but still lacks a credible technology to scale to massively larger numbers of users." (Reporting by Anna Irrera and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Bill Rigby) || Pogue YouTube free music sound effects videos: Want to add some cool sound effects or music to your YouTube video (or any video)? YouTube is there for you. It has a whole library of high-quality, 320kbps audio tracks and sound effects that you can download royalty-free and add to your videos. (Or listen to in your free time. We won’t judge.) Adapted from “ Pogue’s Basics: Tech ” (Flatiron Press), by David Pogue . More from David Pogue: iPhone 8 reviewed: Nice, but nothing to buzz about The $999, eyebrow-raising iPhone X: David Pogue’s hands-on review A ride on OurBus, the world’s first company to crowdsource its routes T-Mobile COO: Why we make investments like free Netflix that ‘seem crazy’ Pogue’s Basics: Link to a Facebook post 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 || 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
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• Hacking Coinbase: The Great Bitcoin Bank Robbery || Diageo Downgraded, Upside Outlook Dims: The American alcohol market has shown impressive growth rates, especially over other countries where drinkingbeerand spirits is engraved in its culture, Berenberg's Javier Gonzalez Lastra and Matt Reid commented in a research report. For example, alcoholic consumption in the U.S. rose by 15 percent from 2005 through 2015 while Germany, France and the U.K. saw a 7 percent, 4 percent and 6 percent decline, respectively.
While many brands that operate in the States took advantage of the decade-long period ofstrong growth, this is likely to change, the analysts commented. A slowdown in alcohol consumption is now projected as many millennials are becoming more health conscious and the Generation Z demographic group, which enters the legal drinking age is "less prone" to alcoholic consumption.
Given this less than favorable outlook, the analysts downgradeDiageo plc (ADR)(NYSE:DEO)'s stock rating from Buy to Hold with a price target on the U.K.-listed stock of GBP25.50.
The primary reason for the downgrade is straightforward:Diageohas the highest sales exposure of 16 percent to "tail brands" in the U.S., the analysts highlighted. The American market accounts for 29 percent of total net sales but nearly 50 percent of operating profit.
Finally, among the few strong alcoholic categories,Diageo'soutlook is also poor. For example, 24 percent of the company's U.S. net sales are in the growing vodka category but 11 percentage points of this stock is held by the Smirnoff brand, which "struggles" to maintain its market share.
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Even Beer Companies Use AI And Machine Learning Technologies_________Image Credit: By Christopher F. Orr - Photo taken by Christopher F. Orr, Public Domain,via Wikimedia Commons
Latest Ratings for DEO
[{"Jul 2017": "Mar 2017", "Bernstein": "Goldman Sachs", "Upgrades": "Downgrades", "Market Perform": "Neutral", "Outperform": "Sell"}, {"Jul 2017": "Oct 2016", "Bernstein": "HSBC", "Upgrades": "Upgrades", "Market Perform": "Hold", "Outperform": "Buy"}]
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© 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin's meteoric rise is costing some investors billions: (REUTERS/Neil Hall)
• Companies that make the semiconductors for cryptocurrency mining have been a hot-button topic in the investment world, with the fate of their stocks closely tied to the prices of bitcoin and ether
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The meteoric rise ofbitcoinis rippling through financial markets, and not everyone is enjoying the ride.
The scorching-hot cryptocurrency has tentacles that stretch into many different parts of the investment landscape, and some traders are finding out the hard way how much influence it can wield.
Just ask the unfortunate souls who have been trying to short chip makers and learning the hard way that their share prices are closely linked to interest in bitcoin. The stocks of companies likeNvidiaandAdvanced Micro Devices, which make chips used to mine, or produce, bitcoin — a process that involves heaps of computers solving complex equations — have surged alongside the cryptocurrency, destroying the short positions.
Short sellers betting against those two companies have lost a combined $1.8 billion this year as Nvidia has skyrocketed by 57% and AMD has climbed by 16%, according to data provided by the financial analytics firmS3 Partners.
And the fallout is already beginning.
The Dallas-based hedge fund Carlson Capital's $1 billionBlack Diamond Thematic fundlost 14.2% this year through July, and it blamedbitcoinfor the hit, according to a client update reviewed by Business Insider.
The fund chose chipmakers as its top short theme earlier this year, citing "high inventories, double ordering, massive capex supply responses and actual pockets of weakening demand in smartphones, autos, and the Chinese optical market."
Needless to say, that hasn't translated into weak share prices — and now Carlson has an ax to grind with the massively popular cryptocurrencies it sees keeping the space afloat to an unsustainable degree.
"The sector has turned into something of a bubble characterized best by the surge in GPU stocks, Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia, driven by a cryptocurrency mania," portfolio managers Richard Maraviglia and Matthew Barkoff wrote in the fund's second-quarter investor letter. "We believe the other side of this incredibly powerful consensus move in technology will be very profitable for us but to date, it has been a significant drag on performance."
As for those directly trading bitcoin, the ride has been bumpy but ultimately quite lucrative. It's up by more than 200% in 2017 alone, minting big profits for traders willing to take a chance on such a speculative entity.
(Bitcoin has surged more than 200% this year.Markets Insider)
But by no means does the burgeoning cryptocurrency mania start and end with bitcoin. There's also ether, the bitcoin rival, which is powered by theEthereumblockchain. It has been gobbling up market share, surging from 5% of the cryptocurrency market in January to 30% as of June 22. In fact, until June, ether was on track to surpass bitcoin as the world's largest digital currency.
Regardless of whether bitcoin, Ethereum, or another vehicle strikes your fancy, the process of mining for new blocks requires the same kinds of semiconductors. So as cryptocurrencies go, so do the stock prices of the companies making those chips.
And as Carlson doubles down on its bearish chipmaker stance, other hedge funds are proving happy to chase the runaway performance of cryptocurrencies.
Last Friday, the activist investorElliott Management disclosed a 6% stake in NXP Semiconductorsand said it was pushing for a higher price in the company's pending $38 billion sale to Qualcomm.
Elliott did not specifically cite the white-hot cryptocurrency industry and its effect on chipmakers in a regulatory filing. After all, semiconductors are also crucial components for smartphones, a familiar stomping ground for the world's biggest company. So any bet on the industry can also be read as a play on Apple.
But even if Elliott's investment has nothing to do with cryptocurrencies, some market watchers will still interpret it that way.
And that line of thinking represents the new reality facing investors of all types: This area of the market is attracting and churning through billions of dollars, so either adjust to it or risk getting caught off guard.
This article has been updated to reflect bitcoin's recent year-to-date growth above 200%.
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• STOCKS DO NOTHING: Here's what you need to know || Bitcoin tumbles on report China to shutter digital currency exchanges: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Angela Moon NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin fell sharply on Friday after a report from a Chinese news outlet said China was planning to shut down local crypto-currency exchanges, although analysts said this was just a temporary setback. Sources close to a cross regulators committee that oversees online finance activities told Chinese financial publication Caixin that authorities plan to shut key bitcoin exchanges in China. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the report. But two sources in direct contact with officials at three Chinese bitcoin exchanges - Beijing-based OKCoin, Shanghai-based BTC China, and Beijing-based Huobi - said the platforms told them that they have not heard anything from the Chinese government. The news follows China's move earlier this week to ban so-called "initial coin offerings," or the practice of creating and selling digital currencies or tokens to investors in order to finance start-up projects. Greg Dwyer, business development manager at crypto-currency trading platform BitMEX, said there was confusion over whether China would close bitcoin exchanges following the ICO ban. "If this turns out to be true, then this sell-off is substantiated, and we could see further downside over the weekend, as it could mean the large bitcoin/Chinese yuan exchanges will need to halt trading," he added. Bitcoin dropped to a low of $4,227 (BTC=BTSP) on the BitStamp platform and last traded at $4,309.80, down 6.6 percent. On Sept 2, it hit a record high of nearly $5,000. Sharp losses such as Friday's are par for the course for an asset like bitcoin, analysts said. Over the course of its eight-year history, bitcoin has on a daily basis risen as much as 18 percent and fallen as much as 13 percent. Still, bitcoin was still up nearly 346 percent this year. John Spallanzani, chief macro strategist at GFI Group, said Friday's losses could be short-lived. "Bitcoin is here to stay," he said. Story continues Jehan Chu, a partner at Jen Advisors, a Hong Kong-based early-stage blockchain venture capital firm, noted that should China shut down bitcoin exchanges, it will not be the end of the crypto-currency world in the country. Blockchain, a digital ledger of transactions underpinning bitcoin, has leapt to prominence as it enable users to track and record assets across all industries. "This is just China pressing the 'Pause button," said Chu. A big part of bitcoin's recent surge was the ICO craze, which exploded this year. Bitcoins and ether, another digital currency, are used to purchase tokens for ICOs. By mid-July, tech firms had raised about $1.1 billion in 89 coin sales this year, roughly 10 times more than in all of 2016, data from crypto-currency research firm Smith + Crown showed. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Angela Moon; Editing by Dan Grebler and Chizu Nomiyama) || Don’t Expect Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) Traffic Acquisition Costs to Come Down: Congratulations are in order forAlphabet Inc(NASDAQ:GOOGL, NASDAQ:GOOG) investors. According to Citi Research, the company has once again surpassedFacebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) as the most popular tech company among hedge funds. A total of 16 hedge funds now own GOOGL stock, one more than FB stock. That’s an improvement for Alphabet since the two were tied in Q1 at 13 hedge funds apiece.
Source: Shutterstock
The new development is actually quite surprising, seeing how badly GOOGL stock has performed ever since the companyreported Q2 numbersthat beat on both the top and bottom line. The stock is down 9% since the earnings report, taking its year-to-date return to 17% compared to 45% return by FB stock.
So, what beef do GOOGL investors have with the company? Simply put: rising costs, specifically Google’s rapidly expanding traffic acquisition costs. These are payments the company makes to partners for the privilege of making its search engine the default search tool on their respective platforms. Google’s TAC hit the highest point in eight years during the last quarter after clocking in at $5.09 billion, a 27.9% increase from a year ago. TAC as a percentage of GOOGL revenue came in at 22% compared to 21% in last year’s corresponding quarter.
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Rising operating costs are always a cause of concern for long-term investors because that translates to squeezed margins and thinner profits. In the case of GOOGL, though, there is a method to the madness.
Mobile players such asApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) and Samsung have been hogging most of Google’s TAC. Before the founding of Alphabet in late 2015, Google had always kept a tight lid on its operating costs. But a legal lawsuit finally spilled the beans when it revealed that Google paid Apple a cool $1 billion in 2014 to be iOS’ default search engine. That revelation jolted investors because it served as an excellent contemporaneous indicator of just how much the company had become dependent on mobile players to drive the top line.
Now, Bernstein Research has done some extrapolation and come up with findings that Google will fork over $3 billion to Apple for iOS TAC. That effectively means the line item has tripled in just three years. But, that’s not even the half of it. Another report saysSamsung Electronicshas renewed its license payment contract with Google to pre-install Google Search in Samsung’s smartphones. According to theKorean Herald, the amount Google will pay to Samsung as TACcould hit $3.5 billionin the current year.
So, why is Google forking over so much cash for TAC? You can blame it on the rapid growth of mobile advertising. eMarketer estimates that Google’s global mobile ad revenue will clock in at nearly 60% of total ad revenue during the current year, compared to just 46% two years ago. This will mark the first time that mobile ads will bring in the lion’s share to the company’s topline compared to desktop ads.
That represents a significant shift in Google’s operating model. You see, Google Chrome can only envy the go-go days whenMicrosoft‘Corporation’s(NASDAQ:MSFT) Internet Explorer owned a market share north of 90%. Being so dominant means that you can afford to ignore competing browsers and still be none the worse for wear.
Unfortunately Chrome’s browser market share seems to have peaked below 60%, and has little hope of making further inroads. Chrome has to compete with formidable mobile browsers including the likes of Safari, Android Browser, Opera and IE. If Google want’s the other 40% of the search pie, it has little choice than to pay these guys for Google Search to become the underlying search engine on their browsers.
Investors will finally have to come to terms with the fact that Google’s core operating model is rapidly changing, and the days of desktop ads dominating are over. The good–Google’s topline has been growing significantly faster than it did a couple of years ago. All those mobile clicks add up, you know. The bad–margins might get dinged a bit, maybe by 2-3 percentage points.
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Revenue ex-TAC might not look too good, not to mention that mobile ads carry lower rates than desktop ads. In fact, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said as much during the last earnings call when she conceded that the company was more interested in dollar growth and not the quality of earnings.
Long-term investors though have little to worry about. GOOGL stock performed poorly in the past due to worries about high operating costs. Google’s opaque reporting back then did not help matters either.
But things have now changed. The company now lays everything bare in its reports, so the uncertainty is not anywhere nearly as bad this time around. This is the new-look Google, and GOOG stock is bound to rebound sooner than later. In any case, Google TAC is likely to stabilize at some point. As long as TAC grows slower than the top line (which is likely to be the case), everything will be just fine.
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The postDon’t Expect Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) Traffic Acquisition Costs to Come Downappeared first onInvestorPlace.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
LIVE: Profit = $2,565.75 (66.17 %). BUY B1.48 @ $3,100.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $4,401.00 (#TheRock) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Who created Bitcoin? What's one worth? All your questions, answered: http://bit.ly/2fyXqlS || #bitcoin @BitcoinRTs LedgerX… http://dlvr.it/Pdq1kR |Follow our trading signal at http://bit.ly/FXSignal @Relay_RTs @HyperRTs @dnr_crewpic.twitter.com/JD7cdnr1P3 || FreeBitco.in - Free Bitcoin Wallet, Faucet, Lottery and Dice! http://freebitco.in/?r=6182889 || [Nak menang bitcoin free??]
Cepat-cepat join trady ni. Dah ada challenge 35btc tempoh masa sebulan je. Bukan... http://fb.me/6oLq2qeye || bitcoin hits 4444.00 ... and rising
29/08/2017 pic.twitter.com/cIBGGUE5B1 || 247 Bitcoin News BTC Bitcoins Uruguay National Bank Urged to Provide Services to Cannabusiness – Or Bitcoin Will - https://247bitcoin.net/uruguay-national-bank-urged-to-provide-services-to-cannabusiness-or-bitcoin-will/ …pic.twitter.com/oNKVOm84qq || 67,000.00 USD arriba en inversión de Bitcoin #bitcoin #inversion #trade #financialgoalspic.twitter.com/VpZqSBaUin || No mike. Don't start pushing this Bitcoin crap or I'll have to abandon this Twitter feed
https://youtu.be/q048FZ14G_E || #bitcoin @BitcoinRTs Ether… http://dlvr.it/PdjBRK |Follow our trading signal at http://bit.ly/FXSignal @gamerretweeters @HyperRTspic.twitter.com/HO2iV5qo29
|
Trend: up || Prices: 3905.95, 3631.04, 3630.70, 3792.40, 3682.84, 3926.07, 3892.35, 4200.67, 4174.73, 4163.07
|
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 2017-09-14]
BTC Price: 3154.95, BTC RSI: 28.38
Gold Price: 1324.70, Gold RSI: 60.83
Oil Price: 49.89, Oil RSI: 60.23
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin's nearly five-fold climb in 2017 looks very similar to tech bubble surge: When charted, bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=-USS)'s rapid gains resemble how stocks surged into the tech bubble before collapsing. David Ader, chief macro strategist at Informa Financial Intelligence, matched a graph of the Nasdaq Telecommunications Index (NASDAQ: .IXUT) at its peak in 2000 to bitcoin's five-year run to all-time highs. "This is the price chart for an overly frothy market, in my opinion. I just don't see anything quite as comparable to this in bubblelicious terms," said Ader, a former top-rated bond market strategist. Bitcoin climbed more than 3.7 percent Thursday to a record of $4,802.74, up nearly five times in price this year and about 67 percent higher for August, according to CoinDesk.
Source: Informa Financial Intelligence "I think it's going to come to a sorry ending," Ader said. "I don't know anybody who's actually used a bitcoin for any purpose legal or otherwise. This looks like an overly frothy market and frothy markets lose their froth." Ader said he used the Nasdaq telecom index since many of those stocks led the Nasdaq composite's overall gains during the tech bubble. The Nasdaq telecom index shot up more than 700 percent from 1995 to 2000, before collapsing 90 percent in the next two years. The index remains about 75 percent below its record high. Bitcoin's meteoric surge this year comes as many on Wall Street are becoming more interested in the digital currency and the blockchain technology behind it. New digital asset investment funds are rolling out and the Chicago Board Options Exchange is planning to launch bitcoin futures. Many investors also bought bitcoin this month after it survived a relatively uneventful split on Aug. 1 into bitcoin and bitcoin cash, an alternative version supported by only a few developers. Bitcoin cash is up about 180 percent from its Aug. 1 low, to Thursday's price of $588, according to CoinMarketCap. However, bitcoin could split again this fall because there's another upgrade proposal, and others have warned that the speculative forces behind bitcoin could quickly turn against it. Here are a few of the alarm bells sounded this summer: The Elliott Wave Newsletter predicted bitcoin's surge from 6 cents in 2010, but in July said bitcoin's surge has surpassed the tulip mania of roughly 400 years ago and is now showing signs of nearing a sharp downturn. Later in July, widely followed Bank of America Merrill Lynch commodity and derivatives strategist Francisco Blanch concluded in a sweeping report that bitcoin still faces many challenges to becoming a globally accepted currency. Then about a week later, a New York University finance professor, Aswath Damodaran, said in a blog post that bitcoin may just be a "dangerous pricing game." By percent change, analysis from Bespoke Investment Group shows how bitcoin's surge has already well surpassed that of any major stock market bubble.
Source: Bespoke Investment Group That said, some well-respected names on Wall Street have also issued positive reports on the digital currency.
In early July, Thomas Lee became the first major Wall Street strategist to issue a report on bitcoin. A former JPMorgan strategist who co-founded Fundstrat, Lee said bitcoin could reach $20,000 to $55,000 by 2022 . On Aug. 18, he established a mid-2018 target of $6,000 for bitcoin. According to a mid-July Forbes report, investing legend Bill Miller put 1 percent of his net worth into bitcoin in 2014 , and the digital currency is one of the top holdings in Miller's $120 million hedge fund. Stock analyst Ronnie Moas of Standpoint Research published a report in late July predicting bitcoin would rise nearly 80 percent to $5,000 in 2018. He then raised that target in mid-August to $7,500.
Lee and Moas both reason that bitcoin can climb to those levels if even a fraction of the trillions of dollars in gold or other traditional investments move into the digital currency. Bitcoin has a market value of about $78 billion, and digital currencies overall are worth $170 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. That makes the value of all digital currencies less than 5 percent of the more than $4 trillion inflation-adjusted value of stocks during the tech and telecom boom, said Chris Burniske, author of the upcoming book, "Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond." "If people think this is the 'big bubble,' then they don't have an appreciation for how big the idea of cryptoassets really is," he said. Many digital currency enthusiasts agree there is speculation in the digital currency. But they note that, just like the dot-com bubble, companies that were able to utilize the underlying technology then became global giants.
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• Gasoline prices skyrocket || China bitcoin exchanges awaiting clarification on closure report: BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Bitcoin exchanges said on Saturday they are still awaiting clarification from the authorities on a media report that they will be shut down. Bitcoin fell sharply on Friday after Chinese financial publication Caixin reported that China was planning to shut down local crypto-currency exchanges, although analysts said this was just a temporary setback. The news follows China's move earlier this week to ban so-called "initial coin offerings," or the practice of creating and selling digital currencies or tokens to investors in order to finance start-up projects. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the report. A spokeswoman for Beijing-based OK Coin said the platform has not received any notification from regulators. Spokespersons at Beijing-based Huobi and Shanghai-based BTCC said they were still waiting for further official clarification. (Reporting by Brenda Goh, Writing by Kevin Yao; Editing by Shri Navaratnam) || 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/
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Spain to extradite accused Russian bank account hacker to U.S. || Bitcoin ETFs: More Issuers Join the Race: The rising tide for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple have lately shaken the investing world. Among the lot, bitcoin has been firing on all cylinders since the beginning of 2017, having hit a series record highs. In three months, the price of the digital currency has surged about 94%. Investors should note that bitcoins are mined by using a greater amount of computer processing power. However, since there is a fixed amount of bitcoins, as the limit is reached, it becomes hard to mine for the coins. The best part of this system is that it is beyond the reach of central banks (read: Explaining Bitcoin and Crypto Currency). The currency is in the limelight probably because of the fact that bitcoin isnt regulated by any government and has been used by consumers worldwide to shelter assets from inflation or political upheavals in their home countries. As per an article published on CNBC, bitcoin is emerging as a safe haven asset like gold. source: coindesk.com Needless to say, amid a sky-high price rise, the digital currency is gaining favor from ETF issuers, though the SEC is no quite happy with the concept. After rejecting the filing for an ETF on this cryptocurrency by Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, the SEC is reviewing its decision once again. The SEC is seemingly looking for more proof of safety in this trade. Meanwhile, some more ETF issuers have lined up to seek regulatory approval with their bitcoin-related products (read: Will We Finally See a Bitcoin ETF?). Inside New Filings Investment firm VanEck filed for an exchange-traded fund to invest in bitcoin derivatives in mid-August. Though VanEck acknowledged the riskiness of the product and believes that this digital currency is no match to gold as far as safe-haven status is concerned, the issuer could not overlook bitcoins monumental craze (read: Bitcoin Skyrockets, Race to First Cryptocurrency ETF Heats Up). Story continues VanEck noted that the digital currency cannot even replace the necessity of the dollar, rather it is likely to end up in carving a place for itself as a niche product. VanEcks proposed product will invest in certain Bitcoin Instruments through the Subsidiary and the investment in that subsidiary is likely to be limited to 25% of the portfolio, thus meaningfully lowering the risks. After VanEck, ETF Firm REX also planned a new fund that will invest in bitcoin-based derivatives. There are two products filed by REX, namely REX Bitcoin Strategy ETF and REX Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF . The ticker codes and expense ratios of those funds are yet to be disclosed. As per the filing, the long fund seeks to achieve its investment objective, under normal circumstances, by obtaining investment exposure to an actively managed portfolio of financial instruments providing long exposure to movements in the value of bitcoin, together with an actively managed portfolio of fixed income instruments while the short fund is intended to offer the negative exposure of the same asset. What Lies Ahead? The tussle between the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission and Winklevoss over the launch has been going on for about three years. In fact, the issuer has restructured the proposal for the Bitcoin ETF multiple times. However, it looks like that the SEC may approve a fund in the coming days given rising pressure from issuers. Plus, the Russian government is also expected to make cryptocurrencies legal financial instruments in 2018, as per the source. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari pointed to the strength of the blockchain technology supporting bitcoin. Among other interested candidates, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) has teamed up with Gemini, the bitcoin exchange backed by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, in order to launch cryptocurrency derivatives trading. Bitcoins Impact on the ETF World? While it is still unclear if we will get a bitcoin ETF soon, the sheer success of the cryptocurrencies should benefit semiconductor ETFs like iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF SOXX and VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF SMH . This is because mining of cryptocurrencies needs the usage of semiconductors. A hardware known as an ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) is designed explicitly for mining bitcoin. As per Bloomberg, there was a 10-fold rise from April to June in the Ethereum market which helped shares of Nvidia Corp. NVDA and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD substantially (read: Should You Buy These Semiconductor ETFs & Stocks Now). On the other hand, since some view the currency as digital gold, bitcoin trading may snatch some buyers from SPDR Gold Trust GLD . Bitcoins un-correlated nature to the other asset classes and strong momentum may hurt GLD in the current scenario. 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 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis Report GOLD (LONDON P (GLD): ETF Research Reports ISHARS-PHLX SEM (SOXX): ETF Research Reports VANECK-SEMICON (SMH): 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 and Ethereum Price Forecast – Prices Move Higher, Looking to Breakout: Thebitcoinprices 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.
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It is this part that is likely to be challenged when thebitcoinnetwork 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.
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.
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.
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He added that the central bank's outlook for growth and inflation in the euro area remained “broadly unchanged." The comments came after the ECB left interest rates unchanged, in a widely expected move. Story continues Markets were also still jittery after South Korea deployed an anti-missile system in response to North Korea's sixth and largest ever nuclear test last weekend. Related Articles Forex - Yen gains in Asia ahead of Japan GDP, China trade expected Bitcoin Cash rally cools, dips below $700 Euro dips below $1.20 after hitting nearly two-week highs || Elon Musk: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's knowledge of A.I.'s future is 'limited': Billionaire Elon Musk said Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's understanding of the future of artificial intelligence (AI) is "limited", as the spat between the two tech bosses continues. On Sunday, Zuckerberg took to Facebook Live talking informally to viewers while at a barbecue. A user submitted a question saying how they had seen a recent interview with Musk in which he said his largest fear for the future was AI. Musk has been vocal about his fear of AI in the future. Earlier this month for example, he said that AI will cause massive job disruption and that robots "will be able to do everything better than us." The Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO has also advocated a policy of universal basic income to protect people from the fallout of AI disruption. Zuckerberg however, doesn't agree with Musk's view. During the Facebook Live, Zuckerberg called doomsday scenarios about AI "pretty irresponsible" . "I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios — I just, I don't understand it. It's really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible," Zuckerberg said." In the next five to 10 years, AI is going to deliver so many improvements in the quality of our lives," added Zuckerberg. A Twitter user posted an article about Zuckerberg's comments. Musk, responding to the tweet, said that he has already spoken to Zuckerberg about this and that the Facebook CEO's "understanding of the subject is limited."TWEETAnother twitter user replied that he should write a blog post, to which Musk responded jokingly that a movie on the subject is "coming soon".It is an unusually public spat for the two technology CEOs, neither of which have competing businesses. But it highlights the level of debate happening in the technology community over the future of AI. Musk has previously warned that humans will need to merge with machines or risk becoming irrelevant. And while the two might disagree on the impact AI has, Zuckerberg, like Musk, agrees with the idea of a universal basic income to help cushion any fallout from new technology. WATCH: Elon Musk issues yet another warning against runaway artificial intelligence Billionaire Elon Musk said Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's understanding of the future of artificial intelligence (AI) is "limited", as the spat between the two tech bosses continues. On Sunday, Zuckerberg took to Facebook Live talking informally to viewers while at a barbecue. A user submitted a question saying how they had seen a recent interview with Musk in which he said his largest fear for the future was AI. Musk has been vocal about his fear of AI in the future. Earlier this month for example, he said that AI will cause massive job disruption and that robots "will be able to do everything better than us." The Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO has also advocated a policy of universal basic income to protect people from the fallout of AI disruption. Zuckerberg however, doesn't agree with Musk's view. During the Facebook Live, Zuckerberg called doomsday scenarios about AI "pretty irresponsible" . "I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios — I just, I don't understand it. It's really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible," Zuckerberg said. " In the next five to 10 years, AI is going to deliver so many improvements in the quality of our lives," added Zuckerberg. A Twitter user posted an article about Zuckerberg's comments. Musk, responding to the tweet, said that he has already spoken to Zuckerberg about this and that the Facebook CEO's "understanding of the subject is limited." TWEET Another twitter user replied that he should write a blog post, to which Musk responded jokingly that a movie on the subject is "coming soon". It is an unusually public spat for the two technology CEOs, neither of which have competing businesses. But it highlights the level of debate happening in the technology community over the future of AI. Musk has previously warned that humans will need to merge with machines or risk becoming irrelevant. And while the two might disagree on the impact AI has, Zuckerberg, like Musk, agrees with the idea of a universal basic income to help cushion any fallout from new technology. WATCH: Elon Musk issues yet another warning against runaway artificial intelligenceMore From CNBC
• Here's how much the iPhone 8 costs to make compared to what Apple sells it for
• Atari’s new console to cost less than $300 and ship next spring
• Bitcoin drops 8% after JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon calls it a fraud || Bitcoin's price tanks after report China may shut down exchanges: The price of bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=-USS) fell sharply after a report China's regulators are planning a further crackdown on the digital currency.Local outlet Caixin is reporting the Asian country is planning to shut down local bitcoin exchanges, according to a Google translation. Bitcoin's price fell 7 percent midafternoon Friday after the news, according to Coindesk market data. On Monday, Chinese regulators announced a ban on organizations from raising funds using initial coin offerings (ICOs), which sparked a $200 decline in the price of bitcoin. The price of the cryptocurrency is still up nearly 350 percent year to date. But billionaire investor Howard Marks is not impressed, telling his clients Thursday he will not invest in bitcoin even though it can be used as a legitimate form of currency. "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," Marks wrote in an investor letter.
WATCH: Bitcoin mining can land you in jail in this countryMore From CNBC
• GE shares are trading below where they were the day of Lehman's bankruptcy
• Investor psychology is now in a brand new post-crisis phase, fund manager says
• Stocks head for weekly decline as insurance shares fall on Irma risk || Factbox: U.S. arrests of Russian cyber criminals hit record high: MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. action against suspected Russian cyber criminals has surged to a record high this year despite efforts by President Donald Trump to improve ties with Moscow. The United States has arrested or indicted seven Russians on U.S. cyber crime charges in 2017. On average, just two Russian cyber criminals were extradited to the United States each year between 2010 and the start of this year. Below is a breakdown of the arrests and indictments so far this year: STANISLAV LISOV Arrested in Spain on Jan. 13, aged 32. Lisov, also known by hacker names "Black" and "Blackf", according to court documents, is accused of creating the "NeverQuest" banking trojan which targeted customers of financial institutions around the world and caused millions of dollars of damage. A Spanish court agreed to extradite Lisov to the United States in early August, where he faces up to 35 years in prison. Lisov's lawyer opposed the extradition, arguing that the allegations and evidence against him were too vague, that the United States did not have jurisdiction over any of the alleged crimes. IGOR SUSHCHIN Indicted on March 15, aged 43. One of two officers from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) charged by the United States in March with masterminding the 2014 theft of up to 500 million Yahoo accounts, the first time the U.S. government criminally charged Russian spies for cyber offences. Reuters was unable to reach Sushchin for comment. DMITRY DOKUCHAYEV Indicted on March 15, aged 33. The second FSB officer indicted in the Yahoo hack and Sushchin's subordinate. Allegedly a former hacker who stole and sold credit card details under the online alias "Forb", Dokuchayev was one of four men detained on mysterious treason charges by Russian authorities in late 2016. He is currently being held in Moscow. Reuters was unable to reach Dokuchayev for comment. ALEXEI BELAN Indicted on March 15, aged 29. One of two hackers accused of working with Sushchin and Dokuchayev to break into Yahoo email servers and steal data from up to 500 million user accounts. Belan has spent years on the FBI's most-wanted list for crimes. He was arrested in Europe in June 2013 but escaped to Russia before he could be extradited to the United States. Reuters was unable to reach Belan for comment. Story continues PETER LEVASHOV Arrested in Spain on April 7, aged 36. A spammer accused by U.S. prosecutors of operating a botnet, or network, of tens of thousands of infected computers used by cyber criminals to pump out spam emails. Levashov has been accused of using the botnet for a multitude of criminal schemes, such as stock fraud, online credential phishing attempts and the distribution of malware, including ransomware. He is being held in Spain awaiting extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 52 years in jail. He denies the charges against him. YURY MARTYSHEV Arrested in Latvia on April 26, aged 35 Accused of helping run a service that let cyber criminals test-drive malware before attacking victims. His extradition to the United States was denounced by the Russian government as "another case of kidnapping of a Russian citizen by the US authorities." Martyshev denies the charges against him, according to Russian media reports. ALEXANDER VINNIK Arrested in Greece on July 25, aged 37 Vinnik is accused of laundering at least $4 billion in criminal funds through the BTC-e crytpo-currency exchange since 2011. This is alleged to be part of a scheme to facilitate crimes including computer hacking, fraud and drug trafficking. U.S. authorities also linked him to the failure of Mt. Gox, a Japan-based bitcoin exchange that collapsed in 2014 after being hacked. He is being held in Greece awaiting extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 55 years in jail. He denies the charges against him, according to Greek media reports. (Reporting by Jack Stubbs in Moscow and Erich Auchard in Frankfurt, Editing by Timothy Heritage) || Dollar pares gains after weak U.S. housing sector data: Investing.com - The dollar pared gains against the other major currencies on Thursday, as the release of weak U.S. housing sector added to concerns over the strength of the economy following a downbeat personal spending reading earlier in the session. The National Association of Realtors said pending home sales decreased by 0.8% last month, compared to expectations for a gain of 0.5%. The report came shortly after data showed that U.S. consumer spending rose slightly less than expected in July and annual inflation increased at its slowest pace since late 2015. On a more positive note, the U.S. Labor Department said initial jobless claims rose less than expected last week to 236,000 . The greenback had strengthened broadly after a batch of upbeat U.S. data on Wednesday, including a higher than expected revision to second-quarter economic growth . Market participants were now eyeing the monthly U.S. nonfarm payrolls report due on Friday, for more indications on the strength of the economy. EUR/USD slipped 0.10% to 1.1870, while GBP/USD declined 0.42% to 1.2870. Sentiment on the euro was fragile following reports that a growing number of European Central Bank officials are concerned by the recent strength of the currency . Earlier in the day, data showed that inflation in the euro area rose to an annualized 1.5% in August, but underlying inflation remained unchanged at 1.3% . Sterling was hit after Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, said that no “decisive progress” had been achieved after the third round of Brexit talks in Brussels. The yen and the Swiss franc were steady, with USD/JPY at 110.23, off a two-week high of 110.67 hit earlier in the day, and with USD/CHF at 0.9638. The Australian dollar was higher, with AUD/USD up 0.13% at 0.7913, while NZD/USD slumped 0.69% to a nearly three-month low of 0.7153. Meanwhile, USD/CAD dropped 0.55% to trade at 1.2550, pulling away from a nearly two-week high of 1.2663 after official data showed that Canada's gross domestic product rose 0.3% in June, exceeding expectations for a growth rate of only 0.1%. Story continues Year-over-year, Canada's GDP increased by 4.5% in the second quarter, beating projections for a growth rate of 3.7%. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.10% at 92.93 by 10:50 a.m. ET (14:50 GMT), off session highs of 93.30. Related Articles Forex - USD/CAD erases gains after U.S., Canadian data Forex - Dollar hits day’s highs, euro, sterling weaken Bitcoin hits fresh all-time high, Bitcoin Cash also higher
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
seems like there may be some relevance. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/the-trip-planners …pic.twitter.com/MjVTkQDHv9 || Microsoft and Intel want Bitcoin tech in your workplace http://fb.me/6AeXu7WIk || Aug 02, 2017 11:00:00 UTC | 2,728.70$ | 2,305.10€ | 2,062.40£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/UaGnKKymsr || WWWOOOOOWWWW ES LO MEJOR QUE NOS HA LLEGADO, NO TE LO PIERDAS CON SOLO 0.005 BTC GANAS UNA Y OTRA VEZ 1.00 BTC*... http://fb.me/1bNt4ST1A || Trading bitcoin is as easy as 1, 2, 3. #BTCgoldWatch #bitcoin https://t.co/ASmJN7epPe || VIDEO OF THE DAY - BITCOIN 4K HISTORIC
Ck out my altfolio bitback.io
Exciting time to be… https://www.instagram.com/p/BXwKZ-VlF3v/ || ClueBot NG edited the Wikipedia article on Bitcoin. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=795269953&oldid=795269909 … || WPC/ワールドピースコインは、Bitcoin同等の値上がりが期待できて
社会貢献ができる仮想通貨です！ || #BTC 24hr Summary:
Last: $2775.50
High: $2835.00
Low: $2691.00
Change: -1.16% | $-32.63
Volume: $ 9499.90
$BTC #Bitcoin #coinbasepic.twitter.com/Ho31M5Y3XI || 3:33気味悪
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Trend: up || Prices: 3637.52, 3625.04, 3582.88, 4065.20, 3924.97, 3905.95, 3631.04, 3630.70, 3792.40, 3682.84
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2017-06-01]
BTC Price: 2407.88, BTC RSI: 67.54
Gold Price: 1267.00, Gold RSI: 58.35
Oil Price: 48.36, Oil RSI: 44.92
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
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 || 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 || Hedge fund manager David Einhorn escalates battle with GM with UnlockGMValue.com site: David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital(NASDAQ: GLRE)cranked up the pressure on General Motors(NYSE: GM)on Thursday by launching a website that encourages shareholders to vote for the hedge fund's proposal.
GM rejected Greenlight's plan in March to appoint three directors to GM's board and divide the common stock into two classes. Now the hedge fund's newly launched website, UnlockGMValue.com, calls for investors to "VOTE GREEN CARD TODAY."
GM's annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for June 6.GM said in a statementthat Greenlight's proposal "creates an unacceptable level of risk."
Shares of the automaker fell about 1.5 percent in midday trade and are down more than 5 percent this year.
Website landing page
The proposal "would unlock tens of billions of dollars of shareholder value and was specifically designed not to change GM's business strategy, capital allocation priorities or financial policy," according to the website.
Greenlight owns 3.6 percent of GM common stock, making it the fifth largest public shareholder of the auto manufacturer.
The hedge fundreturned just 1 percent in the first quarter, trailing the S&P 500's 6 percent gain, according to the hedge fund's letter sent to shareholders last week.
More From CNBC
• Why ‘fear and love’ could send gold on a 20 percent rally within months
• US fintech charter imperiled as Curry leaves
• Bitcoin surges above $1,500 to record as more investors bet on 'digital gold' || Will Pricey Bitcoin Just Make The Rich Richer?: Bitcoin has been one of the hottest investments on the world in recent years, doubling in value once again in the month of May alone. However, despite its roots in technology and its focus on transparency, it seems bitcoin is demonstrating the same wealth-concentrating patterns that other global currencies experience. Bitcoin’s fresh all-time highs have been accompanied by headlines about how $100 of bitcoin in 2010 is now worth $75 million. Unfortunately, it seems as if the vast majority of that wealth creation is going into the pockets of a very small number of people. Wealth Distribution Study Because the history of all bitcoin transactions has been logged and is publicly available, researchers at the Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary were able to study the financial history of every bitcoin account holder in order to model bitcoin wealth creation over time. Related Link: Battle Of The Cryptos: Bitcoin Vs. Ethereum The study found clear evidence of a phenomenon known as the Matthew Effect, which many economists believe is the driver of the 80:20 distribution of global wealth (in which 80 percent of the wealth is controlled by 20 percent of the population). The researchers found that bitcoin accounts which linked to the most other accounts tended to grow more quickly than others. “The ability to attract new connections and to gain wealth is fundamentally related,” the researchers said. “The ‘rich get richer’ phenomenon is indeed present in the system.” The end result is highlighted in the surprising graphic below. As of 2014, the top 0.7 percent of bitcoin accounts held 55 percent of the total bitcoin available, according to WhoIsHostingThis. By contrast, the bottom 70 percent of accounts held just 1 percent of the total bitcoin. These numbers suggest wealth in the bitcoin world is even more unevenly distributed than it is in the rest of the world. See more from Benzinga Why Did The Company Behind Snapchat Acquire A Drone Company? Blue-Collar Workers Must Adapt To Survive As Veeva's Opportunity Expands, Expect The Stock's Multiple To Do The Same © 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Big-name apps for Apple Watch seem to be disappearing: On Monday,AppleInsidernoted that the latest updates for the Google (GOOGL,GOOG) Maps, eBay (EBAY), Amazon (AMZN), and Target (TGT) apps were missing one element they used to have: companion apps for the Apple Watch.
Google later tweeted that it intends to bring the Apple Watch app back at some point. But the larger question remains: What’s going on?
Are these changes a canary in the coal mine, indicating waning interest in developing for the Apple Watch? In the last year, theUp bands ceased production,thePebble Watch is no more, andFitbit laid off 6% of its staff; maybe the world just isn’t as excited about wearables as the industry had hoped.
Or is this just a temporary hiccup that means nothing? “The fact that these high-profile removals have gone largely unnoticed could be a sign that the apps simply were not widely used,” says the AppleInsider story.
On Tuesday, during Apple’s financial conference call, CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Watch sales have nearly doubled since last year (“in six of our 10 top markets,” whatever that means). Yet the company still doesn’t disclose how many Watches it has sold. You still see few Apple Watches on wrists outside of the early-adopter and techie crowd, you still have to take the thing off to charge it every night, and (as a result) it still can’t track your sleep, as the latest Fitbits do with astonishing accuracy.
So which is it? A sign of impending doom, or a minor wobble in the timeline that means very little?
Tune in five years from now to find out!
More from David Pogue:
Inside the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt: Part I
Inside the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt: Part 2
Inside the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt, Part 3
The David Pogue Review: Windows 10 Creators Update
Now I get it: Bitcoin
David Pogue tested 47 pill-reminder apps to find the best one
David Pogue’s search for the world’s best air-travel app
The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers
David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’sdavidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s@pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. You canread all his articles here, or you can sign up toget his columns by email. || Inside the World's Greatest Scavenger Hunt, Part 2: GISHWHES stands for theGreatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen. Teams of 15 have one week to complete a list of 200 difficult, charitable, or hilarious tasks. They prove they’ve completed each item by submitting a photo or video of it; their $20 entry fees go to a charity, and the winning team gets a trip to an exotic location.
This is Part 2 of our five-part series that goes inside the hunt.
Part 1• Part 2 •Part 3•Part 4•Part 5
At 7:30 am on a bright Saturday morning, five members of Team Raised from Perdition gather near San Francisco. (The team name quotes the first line of dialogue ever spoken by Misha Collins on the cult hit show “Supernatural,” now in its twelfth season. He’s GISHWHES’s creator and organizer.)
The other 12 members of the team join by video conference, via Google Hangouts, from their homes in Florida, Connecticut, Illinois, Hawaii, Tennessee, and Brazil.
Although this is the team’s third year in the hunt, most have never met in person. They’ve never been all in one place. That’s typical for teams in this hunt, which is very much a creation of the Internet.
Jason Sarten, an opera singer, reads off this year’s list, which includes items like:
• Get dental work done while a string quartet plays live music in the room.
• Enjoy some green eggs and ham (sunny-side up) on a boat with a goat.
• Provide evidence of having helped at least 10 eligible United States citizens to register to vote.
• Paint a portrait of a live model while both you and the model are scuba diving.
• Get an Amazon senior executive to order a small item from you, in a timestamped email. Using a drone, deliver the item to the executive (who must be waiting outside the office building) in less than one hour.
Over 3,000 teams sign up to play GISHWHES each year, and there are nearly as many styles of running the hunt. On some teams, there’s nobody in charge. On others, there’s a captain who organizes but doesn’t actually perform any of the items. Flake-outs—people who say they’ll participate, but are no-shows when the hunt begins—are a common problem.
Team Raised from Perdition is run by a pair of co-captains, Nina Mostepan and Geoff McAnally, who also perform tasks. (In real life, Mostepan teaches at an Early Start program for the deaf and hard of hearing, and McAnally is an American sign language interpreter.)
One reason Raised From Perdition starts off the week with a group pow-wow: To let the team members claim the items they’re good at.
For example, in Vancouver, Rob Fitz-James and Shiane Gailey live together and compete together. (He owns a tree stump-removal company; she’s a children’s entertainer.)
They have radically different skills. “We work well as a team because I’m outgoing and I’ll go and do stuff in person; she’s able to manage social media, uploading, and photo and video editing,” Rob says.
Shiane, fortunately for the team, is also wildly creative. After the hunt-launch meeting, she jumps on item 23: “Make this year’s must-have fashion statement: the Corn Husk Evening Wear!”
Rob persuades a local thrift shop to donate a Justin Bieber bedsheet. (“Thankfully, someone grew out of a horrible phase in their life,” he says.) Shiane duct-tapes corn husks to a hoop skirt—well, the front half, the part that would be visible in the photo. “Then we spray-painted it red and yellow to make flames, and then we went downtown,” she says. “I assembled that thing onto myself in a fancy part of time, and took the picture at the Convention Center. (We got permission, of course.)”
There were funny looks, she says, but she checked off item 23 as completed on the team’s master Google Sheets spreadsheet.
Meanwhile, in Connecticut, Tia is struggling with item 153: “Secure a legitimate contract with Space X, NASA, etc., to send a message into space, addressed to the universe and written by a child. You must submit evidence that your payload was successfully launched into orbit.”
It sounds impossible. Like NASA is going to carry a scavenger-hunt player’s note into space on short notice?
No wonder item 153 is worth more points (314) than anything else on the list.
Frantic, Tia Googles until she comes across a British company calledSentIntoSpace.com. They sell near-space helium balloon kits to schools, hobbyists, marketers, and filmmakers, including everything they need to send small payloads into near space. Incredibly, the company responds to her email and agrees to donate a balloon to the cause.
The launch goes well; the landing, not so much. Upon its return from space, the balloon blows off course and becomes ensnared high in the treetops of a dense, mountainous forest.
Tia and her team of friends search until nightfall, following the signals of the satellite tracker in the payload box—but can’t find the thing. And without recovering the two GoPro cameras in its payload box, she won’t have the footage of space she needed.
And without that—no credit for item 153, and little chance of winning GISHWHES. Deeply discouraged, she returns home.
Item 153 isn’t the only GISHWHES item that’s ever gone wrong. Almost every year, an item or twodisappearsfrom the list after the hunt is under way. That’s when GISHWHES mastermind Misha Collins realizes too late that he’s created a dangerous or foolhardy challenge.
“There have been people who have been arrested and court martialed and injured during the course of various GISHWHES over the years,” he says. “The second year, we had an item on the list that was, ‘Wrap yourself up in Christmas-tree lights. Plug them in and stand on the roof of a house.’
“And the very first day of the hunt, some of the submissions came in. And one of them was a photo of somebody standing on the peak of a three-story house, right at the edge, on the eave, completely entangled and ensnared in Christmas tree lights. And I immediately thought, ‘WHAT HAVE WE DONE?! There is no way that we can run this scavenger hunt and have somebody not perish from this item!’
“So I immediately sent out an e-mail saying, ‘Do not do the Christmas-tree lights on the roof item! Terrible idea.’
“And so that was sort of an ‘Aha!’ moment for me when I realized, ‘Oh, there are a lot of people who are doing whatever I say. I can’t just come up with whatever pops into my head and have them carry it out.”
In 100 countries around the world, teams are sacrificing sleep, health, and me time as they scramble to knock off items on the list.
More or less simultaneously, they’re all discovering what Team Raised from Perdition has learned: that it’s very hard to get an item into orbit on short notice, that goats don’t much enjoy floating in boats, and that Amazon.com has no intention of permitting its executives to participate in item 161.
Join us forPart 3of this series, which dives into the charitable side of GISHWHES—and documents the biggest water-balloon battle ever staged.
Well, in San Francisco.
In Dolores Park.
That we know of.
Part 1• Part 2 •Part 3•Part 4•Part 5
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David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’sdavidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s@pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. You canread all his articles here, or you can sign up toget his columns by email. || Ripple has attracted more than 75 banks: The concept of a blockchain originated in 2009 with the digital currency bitcoin, but now Wall Street institutions are interested in blockchain technology without bitcoin. RippleNet is a blockchain-like protocol for faster settlement of international payments. It launched in 2012 but its concept predates bitcoin. And it has added 75 banking clients already. Ripple Labs announced on Wednesday it has signed 10 new banks from all over the world, including BBVA in Spain; MUFG in Japan; Akbank in Turkey; SEB in Sweden; and Axis Bank and Yes Bank, both in India. Add those 10 to the 47-bank consortium in Japan that implemented Ripple in March. And add those 57 to existing big-name clients like Bank of America, RBC, Standard Chartered and UBS, and RippleNet starts to look like it’s gaining traction very quickly. “Our pace [of signing new clients] has dramatically increased,” says Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse. “I also think people are getting more comfortable with blockchain technologies. It’s no longer a science experiment. It’s not theory, it’s very real.” The bitcoin blockchain is a decentralized, public, permissionless ledger that records every transaction and trade done in bitcoin. But now all manner of companies, from “blockchain as a service” startups like Ripple and Chain to established tech giants like IBM, are developing all manner of distributed ledgers for areas like food shipment tracking , smart contracts, and agriculture. In many cases these applications of blockchain are closed and permissioned, which is a very different proposition than the spirit of the anonymized, open-to-all bitcoin blockchain. In banking, for now, the main appeal is to improve the efficiency of their transaction processing . From the Ripple web site Why banks are gravitating to Ripple Ripple’s value proposition to banking clients is cheaper rates and faster transfer times for international payments. The bank’s customers don’t have to know or care that they’re using Ripple (it isn’t like you’d tell your bank, “I want to send this money using Ripple”), but would certainly notice the faster transaction time than they’re used to. Garlinghouse gives the pitch to banks this way: “If your customer wants to send yen to Japan, you are captive to the correspondent banking network and your customer has a bad experience and you, as a bank, have to endure cost to transmit that money.” Ripple’s Consensus Ledger can process 1,000 transactions per second, and settles an international payment in three seconds on average. (He compares that to the bitcoin blockchain, which has slowed recently to two hours per transaction, creating a debate over block size; to be fair, both speeds are much faster than sending money with a traditional clearinghouse like Western Union.) Story continues Ripple can also be used for in-country payments; many of the banks in Japan are using Ripple for domestic payments due to the sluggishness of the local payments network there. But for the most part, Ripple is focusing on cross-border payments because that’s the biggest pain point for banks and banking customers. Santander added a function to its mobile app that lets customers send money abroad over the Ripple network . While Ripple is hardly the only blockchain-for-banking startup out there, Garlinghouse boasts, “We are the only company in the space with real customers.” Competitors, Garlinghouse says, “are still playing in the sandbox. And proof of concepts are not a business model.” That’s tough talk, and true only to an extent. Chain has partnered with heavy-hitters like Visa, Citi, and Nasdaq, but for now the results have been experiments, trial runs, or “previews” like Visa B2B Connect . All the experimentation has led critics to say that the Wall Street interest in blockchain is all just talk, or as IBM blockchain exec Jerry Cuomo puts it, “ blockchain tourism .” Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas acknowledges that the term itself has become a “classic technology buzzword.” But Garlinghouse is confident that distributed ledger technology and its many applications will bring about the “Internet of value.” Many have applied that phrase to bitcoin ( causing some contention over who owns the phrase ), but Garlinghouse says it hasn’t lived up to that promise. “We feel like to enable an Internet of value, you have to connect through repositories of value, and those are the banks,” he says. “Where many in the bitcoin community have espoused a view of, ‘Down with the banks, down with fiat currency,’ Ripple has taken the opposite: we think the banks are critical to the future of an Internet of value.” What about bitcoin? Bitcoin has risen 178% in value in the past year (it’s now around $1,300), but critics now doubt that the coin can become more than a speculative investment. “We might end up finding that bitcoin is the Napster of digital assets,” Garlinghouse says. “Napster lived in a world devoid of trademark law, and royalties, and tried to live outside of the rules , and you could say the same about bitcoin. I’m not predicting that bitcoin will go the way of Napster, but I would point out that bitcoin has demonstrated some very cool capabilities that, in the end, bitcoin may not be the best tool for.” Ripple’s digital currency, XRP Ripple price over the past 3 months (via CoinMarketCap) Ripple has its own digital token, XRP, and it is often billed by tech press as a bitcoin competitor, but that’s not quite right. Ripple uses it as a settlement token, and banking clients don’t have to use it or touch it at all. It is more of an institutional digital asset than a public investment vehicle like bitcoin, though anyone could buy some XRP if they wish. (Its value has risen 345% in the past year, but in dollars it is worth just 3 cents; again, its trading price is not the point.) Ripple’s XRP coin is “about reducing the cost for banks to fund liquidity around the world,” says Garlinghouse. That can double as a statement of Ripple’s purpose, too. And if its banking clients, over time, decide that Ripple’s rail has reduced friction and made customers happier, expect Ripple to continue adding banks and financial clients, who are itching to show their innovativeness by saying they’re in the blockchain tech space. — Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain tech at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite . Read more: America’s big banks are staffing up—for blockchain Why 21 Inc is the most exciting bitcoin company right now Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever How big banks are paying lip service to the blockchain Bitcoin’s biggest investor just bought its biggest news site View comments || How to Protect Yourself as Ransomware Attack Spreads Around the Globe: Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Hospitals and other healthcare providers across England were forced to cancel countless appointments and divert ambulances on Friday after a massive ransomware attack crippled their computer systems. In the hours that followed, the crisis spread to facilities in at dozens of other countries, according to news reports. FedEx was one of the big corporations affected by the attack, saying that "like many other companies, FedEx is experiencing interference with some of our Windows-based systems caused by malware. We are implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible. We regret any inconvenience to our customers.” Although this latest attack was massive in scope, ransomware threats often strike the personal computers of individual consumers, too. Here’s what you need to know and how to protect yourself. What Is Ransomware? Ransomware is a form of malware designed to steal money from individuals, businesses and other organizations by holding their data hostage. Imagine coming home to find a big padlock on your front door and a criminal standing next to it, demanding money to let you in. That's ransomware. Only instead of being locked out of your house, you're locked out of all your personal files. The next time you log on, your computer displays a ransom note saying your data has been encrypted, with instructions on how to pay to unlock it. Can Hackers Really Make Money Doing This? Oh, yes. Ransomware is big business. Ransoms can range from a few hundred to thousands of dollars and are usually paid in the "virtual" currency Bitcoin, which is nearly impossible to trace. In some cases, the longer you wait to pay, the higher the ransom becomes. According to cybersecurity firm Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report released in April, the number of new versions of ransomware uncovered during 2016 more than tripled to 101, while the number of ransomware infections the company spotted jumped 36 percent. Verizon's recently released 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report notes that ransomware accounted for 72 percent of the malware incidents involving the heathcare industry last year. Story continues Why Is This Particular Ransomware Attack Significant? Friday's attack affected at least 25 of the UK's National Health Service's hospitals and other organizations. But NHS says it was not the specific target of the attack. It does not appear that patient information was accessed, according to the organization, but its investigation into the matter is still in the early stages. Barts Health, which manages a handful of major hospitals in London and elsewhere, also confirmed it was experiencing a "major IT disruption." The malware arrived in encrypted files distributed by email. Once a computer was infected, the user received a note demanding $300 in bitcoin to restore access to patient information and other data on the device. British Prime Minister Theresa May called it an "international attack" affecting a "number of countries and organizations." CNN put the figure at 74 countries . Has This Ever Happened in the U.S.? Yes. One of the best known examples involved L.A.'s Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, which in February 2016 said it paid a ransom of $17,000 to get its computer systems unlocked. Because of the large amount of personal information collected about patients, hospitals and other healthcare providers are prime ransonware targets. If a doctor can't access information about a patient's medications and pre-exisiting conditions, it's virtually impossible to provide treatment, forcing the doctor and patient to reschedule appointments. And that can result in millions of dollars in lost productivity. So, even though medical computer systems are routinely backed up, and nearly all that data can be recovered and restored, hospitals often pay the ransom in an effort to speed things up and minimize financial losses. How Does Your Device Get Infected? Whether they involve a computer nework run by a business or hospital, or just an average person's personal PC, most ransomware infections happen when a user is lured by a bogus “phishing” email to a site that infects his or her computer, or by clicking on an attached file that secretly installs it. How can you avoid having your data taken hostage? You avoid ransomware the same way you avoid any malware infection: By being careful. While that's not always easy, there are things you can do to steer clear of problems. Don’t casually click a link inside an email; instead, type the web address directly into your browser. Never open an attachment unless you were expecting to receive it and you're certain of what it is. Don't spend time in the disreputable corners of the internet that specialize in risqué content or pirated movies; you can get infected simply by visiting a dodgy site. Never install software just because a web site tells you to do it. And always keep a backup copy of all your personal files on a separate drive or with a "cloud"-based backup service. That way, if the worst happens, you'll always have access to your most important data. More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Copyright © 2006-2017 Consumer Reports, Inc. || Bitcoin miners have collectively earned more than $2 billion: An interior view of U.S. bitcoin mining company Bitfury's mining farm near Keflavik Bitcoin mining has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Bitcoin miners have collectively earned over $2 billion in revenue since the cryptocurrency was established in 2008, according to an estimate from a new report published by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. Nearly every way the United incident could have ended differentlyin one flowchart Bitcoin mining is how transactions on the bitcoin network get processed. Transactions in bitcoin are bundled into blocks, and its the job of miners to confirm those blocks are legitimate. This happens when a miner successfully solves a cryptographic puzzle attached to each block, gaining a payout called the block reward. This payout halves every four years; the current reward is 12.5 bitcoins per block, or $15,350 at todays prices. The twist is this: miners must compete with one another with greater computational power to solve the puzzle and win the payout. These incentives have led to a massive increase in complexity and need for computational power. In bitcoins early days, people mined the cryptocurrency on their home computers. Today, server farms of thousands of custom-designed machines around the world compete with one another to solve the puzzle first. Revenues generated by the bitcoin mining sector could be significantly higher, the report says. The estimate only accounts for revenues earned from block rewards and fees paid by bitcoin users for having their transactions processed. It doesnt include revenue from selling mining equipment, or providing cloud mining services, which let subscribers share in block rewards for a fee, without having to operate their own equipment. United Airlines has exposed the moral dilemma behind rewarding customer loyalty Importantly, the estimate doesnt account for capital gains from cashing out of bitcoin strategically, since the researchers assumed block rewards were immediately converted to US dollars. Those gains could be substantial, since bitcoin has been on a historic bull run . Story continues Transaction fees have historically been a small part of miners revenue, but theyve shot up this year as the number of transactions gets closer to the bitcoin networks limit. Users are willing to pay higher fees to ensure their transactions are processed by miners. The question of how to raise the limit is at the heart of the civil war that has divided the bitcoin world. As bitcoin adoption grows, miners are prospering. Read this next: Bitcoins civil war threatens to blow up the cryptocurrency itself Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: Choose your spouse wisely: Life advice for IIM-A grads from the chief of Axis Bank Heres the best way to guess correctly on a multiple choice test || Here’s how self-driving cars could help the American economy explode with new jobs: Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen says we've got this whole artificial intelligence thing all wrong. In fact, the fear of the machines taking over has been a familiar one throughout history. "This is the panic every 25 to 50 years," Andreessen said Tuesday evening at Recode's annual Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. "It never comes true." Andreessen, who developed the Netscape web browser and is the co-founder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, likens today's obsession with robots displacing people to the automobile 100 years ago and the fear that a new form of transportation would replace human labor. Instead, the auto industry turned into one of the nation's biggest employers and spawned a whole new market for people like street pavers. The self-driving car , Andreessen said, will not only save lives but increase productivity in ways that perhaps we're not even considering. The real problem in the labor market isn't an oversupply of people, but "we don't have enough workers" to fill the existing jobs. That situation could get a whole lot worse if "immigration policies continue," he said. As with any emerging trend in technology, Silicon Valley is throwing excessive amounts of money at artificial intelligence. Venture investors are funding robots of every shape and size, creating "one of the biggest booms I've ever seen," Andreessen said. And like with the early days of the internet and mobile, there will be a ton of losers, but a few big transformative winners. "Of course we're going to overdo it," he said. "Out of that will come defining companies of the era." Andreessen, who coined the phrase "software is eating the world," is also investing in industries that have yet to experience the types of efficiencies that technology is supposed to create. The three markets of healthcare, education and construction account for 88 percent of all price inflation and are threatening to "eat the economy," he said. Andreessen said he's investing in companies that are trying to drive down costs in those areas. He highlighted Udacity, a developer of online classes, and said his firm is going "very aggressive" in health care. More From CNBC Amazon is 'awfully scary,' says Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Analyst: 2 tech stocks could reach $1 trillion, and Apple isn't one of them Bitcoin could hit $100,000 in 10 years, says the analyst who called $2,000 price
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Buy Bitcoin anywhere in the world - $50.00
#Items4Sale
List ur biz at http://blacktradelines.com pic.twitter.com/Gty6ibBok1 || 1 KOBO = 0.00000195 BTC
= 0.0036 USD
= 1.1340 NGN
= 0.0471 ZAR
= 0.3712 KES
#Kobocoin 2017-05-18 12:00 || #ビットコイン
#AI
#モデリング
18:00~19:00のBitcoin市場は急落でした。
直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は152637.0円で
変化率は-0.403%です。
20:00までは反落?
【AIコメントです:テスト中@パターンA】 || Current price of Bitcoin is $2225.00. || $1334.59 at 21:00 UTC [24h Range: $1304.14 - $1342.80 Volume: 4310 BTC] || 6:00~7:00のBitcoin市場は上げ一服でした。
直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は207120.0円
変化率は1.159%
8:00までは反落かな?
【AIコメントです:テスト中@パターンB】
#bitcoin
#AI || #Monacoin 15.4円↓[Zaif] -円→[もなとれ]
#NEM #XEM 6.393円↓[Zaif]
#Bitcoin 176,695円↑[Zaif]
05/04 21:00
口座開設はこちらで！ https://goo.gl/31dyoO || $1211.01 at 17:00 UTC [24h Range: $1200.02 - $1219.71 Volume: 3577 BTC] || $1324.00 at 18:15 UTC [24h Range: $1281.00 - $1338.00 Volume: 7722 BTC] || #Monacoin 16.5円→[Zaif] -円→[もなとれ]
#NEM #XEM 3円↑[Zaif]
#Bitcoin 133,355円↓[Zaif]
04/18 14:00
口座開設はこちらで！ https://goo.gl/31dyoO
|
Trend: up || Prices: 2488.55, 2515.35, 2511.81, 2686.81, 2863.20, 2732.16, 2805.62, 2823.81, 2947.71, 2958.11
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-05-10]
BTC Price: 6378.85, BTC RSI: 81.42
Gold Price: 1285.70, Gold RSI: 51.25
Oil Price: 61.66, Oil RSI: 45.13
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Report: China Leading World in Blockchain Projects: China is reportedly leading the world in the number ofblockchainprojects currently underway in the country, Chinese English-language news daily China.org.cnreportson April 2.
Citing a report byBlockdata, China.org.cn states that there are 263 blockchain-related projects inChina, accounting for 25 percent of the global total.
Li Qilei, the CTO at blockchain platform developer Qulian Technology, purportedly said that the financial sector is the biggest user of blockchain technology, particularly in asset securitization for banks and brokers.
Chris Church, chief business development officer forNew York-based firm Digital Asset in theUnited States, reportedly noted the importance of doing business in and near China, as the firm began work with the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX). Church purportedly stated, "One of the reasons that HKEX is so important to us is because it is a gateway to the mainland's stock market."
Last year, the World Intellectual Property Organizationreportedthat most blockchain-related patent filings came from China. Data collected by Thomson Reuters from the international patent organization showed that over half of the 406 patents in 2017 were from China: the country filed 225 Blockchain patents, followed by the U.S. (91), andAustralia(13).
More recently, China Shipbuilding Industry Company Limited, a subsidiary of shipping giant China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation,signedan agreement with ShanghaiBank, under which it will explore how it can apply blockchain to financing its upstream suppliers.
Last week, a multi-year project called the “Implementation Plan for the Promotion of Transportation Infrastructure Development” wasunveiledin Jiangsu Province. Per the plan, blockchain will be one of the technologies local authorities will use in overhauling local transport infrastructure.
• Chinese Shipping Giant to Explore Blockchain for Upstream Supply Chain Financing
• Argentina’s Dep. Finance Minister: Crypto Adoption Could Reduce Demand for US Dollar
• Jamaica Stock Exchange to Launch Live Trading Pilot for Bitcoin and Ethereum
• Chinese Regulator Approves First 197 Blockchain Firms, Including Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu || Banks Can’t Snub Crypto Startups Thanks to France’s New Blockchain Law: JPMorgan Expanding Blockchain Project With 220 Banks to Include Payments “The relationship between the project and the bank remains contractual, but if the banks refuse then they will need to justify with us why they have refused to open a bank account.” Related Stories The Hidden Effects of Crypto Money Laundering Rules In First, FinCEN Penalizes Bitcoin Trader for Violating AML Laws View comments || Bitcoin Jumps 4% to New 2019 High Boosted by $20,000 Trigger Indicator: Bitcoin price is looking bullish. | Source: Shutterstock By CCN.com : The bitcoin price has increased from $5,341 to $5,587 on Coinbase, getting close to surpassing a 2019 high at $5,594. In some crypto major markets, the bitcoin price surged past $5,600 . The bitcoin price is up around 4 percent in the past 24 hours (source: coinmarketcap.com) According to Peter Brandt, a technical analyst and a best-selling author, a technical indicator called the Factors benchmark weekly moving average (MA) has formed a similar structure it showed in 2015. The last time Factors benchmark weekly MA was in the current profile of turning from down to up was in Nov 2015 just as $BTC began its move from $340 to $19,800 , Brandt said . The last time Factor's benchmark weekly MA was in the current profile of turning from down to up was in Nov 2015 just as $BTC began its move from $340 to $19,800. pic.twitter.com/uFJSkV9NwM Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) May 2, 2019 Bitcoins strong performance comes amidst the iFinex scandal is being played out, a case in which the office of the New York Attorney General alleged Bitfinex of mismanaging $900 million of Tethers cash reserves in an attempt to cover-up an $850 million loss. Can Bitcoin Sustain the Momentum? Year-to-date, since January, the bitcoin price has risen by 50.91 percent from around $3,700 to nearly $5,600 . Read the full story on CCN.com . || 3 Reasons Bitcoin Price Will Sprint Beyond 2019-High $6,000: ByCCN: Thebitcoin priceon Thursday broke above $6,000, a psychological level, to establish a fresh 2019 high.
The bitcoin-to-dollar exchange rate settled an intraday peak towards $6098.21, bringing its best year-to-date performance to 64-percent. The asset’s upside sentiment against the dollar, as well as other leading cryptocurrencies, further pushed its dominance upward to 57-percent, its highest since December 4, 2017. Meanwhile, it’s market capitalization jumped above $107 billion but was still down its historical high of $327.15 billion recorded on December 17, 2017.
BITCOIN PRICE IS HOLDING SUPPORT AT $6,000 FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE NOVEMBER 15, 2018 | SOURCE: COINMARKETCAP.COM
The bitcoin price is overbought according to technical standards. It means the asset could soon undergo a bearish correction, bringing the rate down below $6,000. But bitcoin will retest $6,000 and extend its uptrend, at least according to three bullish indicators – a mix of both technicals and fundamentals – as discussed below.
The bitcoin price action as of late is mirroring its own moves recorded between August 2015 and December 2015. Back then, the price had formed a bull parabola, a curvy shape providing support to the then-ongoing uptrend. As bitcoin continued to trend north, its 50-period moving average meanwhile closed above its 200-period moving average. Eventually, the price posted close to 150-percent gains within four months.
OLD CHART – BITCOIN DOWNSIDE ATTEMPTS CAPPING BY A BULL PARABOLA FOLLOWED BY A GOLDEN CROSS FORMATION | SOURCE: TRADINGVIEW.COM, COINBASE
BITCOIN BULL PARABOLA FORMATION | SOURCE: TRADINGVIEW.COM, COINBASE
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Bitcoin Sextortion: Kansas Police Warn of Bizarre Crypto Scam: ByCCN: Police in the tiny town of Norton, Kansas posted a bulletin to their website yesterday morning urging followers not to fall for a bizarre Bitcoin sextortion scam.
In this version of aclassic spear-phishing attack, the scammer sends an e-mail to the victim and tells them they have a recording of the victim pleasuring him or herself – complete with the content they were watching at the time.
They say they’ve compromised the person’s address book and will share the video with everyone they know if they don’t pay $800 inBitcoin. They instruct the victim to Google the process of buying Bitcoin and encourage them to use theBitPaywallet.
Thenumber of people who watch pornographyfar dwarfs the number of people who don’t. Porn sites are among the top trafficked in the world. Major sites likexHamsterand PornHub are generally free ofmalvertising, as it doesn’t benefit them to have scandals evolving out of their pages. However, thousands of sites steal the content from these sites, or serve other stolen material, or even serve original content, and don’t mind serving up malicious advertising. Malvertising is a key concern regarding the viewing of private content, and that’s why the scam in this story might be based in reality.
The scammer, in this case, isspear-phishing. They obtained the user’s e-mail address one way or another. They likely have no idea whether the person has ever watched pornography on a particular device or not. The work of compromising a single person and storing all of their details is probably worth more than $800. It requires some degree of focus, determination, and tailoring to the victim.
The e-mail message has all the signs of spear-phishing. For one, it’s vague – you are guilty of visiting a random porn site. For another, it assumes that you have your contacts stored on your computer. It also assumes that you use your computer to visit porn sites, which is less and less common. Computer usage, in general, is declining, while mobile usage is skyrocketing, and the odds are high that the person reading the e-mail received it on their mobile device.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Crypto Market Capitalization Hits 5-Month High Above $185 Billion: Cryptocurrency’s total market capitalization rose to $185.89 billion earlier on Monday at 02:00 UTC, reaching its highest point since Nov. 18.
While that number has dropped slightly to $184 billion as of press time, the five-month high marks the 10th consecutive week with a bullish open above the prior candle close, meaning there has been a steady increase in value for crypto since the new year began.
The majority of the crypto markets experienced positive growth toward the end of the prior weekly close beginning April 1 to April 7 thanks in part to bitcoinâsbreakoutlast week.
Even at $30, Bitcoin Was More Exciting Than Poker
Over the last 24 hours, two major cryptocurrencies, bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), both experienced large increases, resulting in their market capitalizations rising $3 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively.
Amid an overall crypto market increase, bitcoin’s dominance rate has also dropped slightly to50.6 percentat the moment from 52 percent, which was seen early last week following bitcoin’s price jump.
XRP, however, had only a minimal share of the pie among the top three cryptos with an increase of $200 million added to its total value over the past 24 hours.
The Easiest Way to Send and Lose Bitcoin in 2012
Perhaps more importantly, thereâs been a greater flow toward the altcoin markets over the last week beginning April 1 with Tronâs (TRX) total value rising more than $350 million while Stellar (XLM) and Verge (XVG) rose by $400 million and $50 million, respectively.
Disclosure:The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing.
Skyrise imageviaShutterstockcharts viaTradingview
• The Media’s Cringeworthy Coverage of Bitcoin’s Latest Price Surge
• Startup Behind Ethereum DEX Releases Lightning Developer Tools || 'Go in when you're the most scared:' BNY Mellon lists Europe as top global play: Much of Wall Street may consider Europe a danger zone for investors, but BNY Mellon's Alicia Levine lists it as one of her top market plays. Levine, the firm's chief strategist, believes big gains are in store for the battered region. "There are great opportunities in the places where people feel the worst about. And, that would be Europe," she said Thursday on CNBC's " Futures Now ." "Europe looks terrible, and everybody is scared of Europe." According to Levine, once the U.S.-China trade war is resolved and China stabilizes, it'll re-energize the world's growth engine. "The European economy is based on external demand. So, there will be a couple quarters lag," she said. "You have to go in when you're the most scared because that's when you get the most upside. We think Europe looks really interesting here." The Euro STOXX 50, the benchmark tracking Europe, is down about 1% over the past two years. However, so far this year it's up almost 15%, which suggests to some that the bottom may be in for the struggling region. U.S. market pullback risks Her preference for Europe doesn't mean she wouldn't recommend the U.S. market. Even though Levine believes the S&P 500 is fairly valued and pullback risks are rising due to its sharp recovery since the December low, she contends the country's economic underpinnings are strong. "You have to be cautious after a 13% move [so far this year]," she said. "It would not be unusual to see some bumping around here just some consolidation." Levine's worst case scenario is the S&P 500 dips to 2750 in the coming weeks, a 5% decline from current levels. She suspects the catalyst could be bad first quarter earnings report or a bad headline. "I'd be buying on the dip," said Levine, who views cyclicals and financials among the best domestic plays. More From CNBC IPO rush creating 'ominous sign' in tech market: $3.5 billion money manager Bitcoin bull says the cryptocurrency is bottoming, could run to $6,000 Global recession fears are overblown, even as growth will stay 'sluggish': PNC || Top 5 Crypto Performers: BTC, XEM, BSV, ETH, BNB: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision. Market data provided by HitBTC exchange. Altcoins led the rally this week from the lows with bitcoin ( BTC ) lagging behind. After a sharp up move, it was natural for traders to book profits on their quick gains. While altcoins have pulled back sharply from their recent highs, bitcoin has held up quite well. Its dominance has gradually inched from about 50% in early-April to 54.5%. During times of crisis in the industry, investors usually take refuge in bitcoin. Following the recently reported scandal involving crypto exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin tether ( USDT ), traders have converted their tether into bitcoin. Though both firms have issued a joint statement denying any wrongdoing, investors are playing it safe. Such events give an opportunity to traditional brokerages to enter the nascent space as they offer a trusted relationship to their clients. The latest to take the plunge is online trading firm E*Trade Financial Group as it reportedly readies to offer cryptocurrency trading in BTC and ether ( ETH ) on its platform. E*Trade had 4.9 million brokerage accounts on Dec. 31 of last year. With such a massive reach, the move would be an important one for cryptocurrency adoption. BTC/USD Bitcoin completed a bullish crossover this week for the first time since October 2015. This move arguably indicates a trend reversal. The bear market has seen a lot of investors lose huge sums of money. One among them was a seasoned investor, Japanese billionaire and founder of multinational conglomerate SoftBank Group, Masayoshi Son who booked a loss of about $130 million trading bitcoin. While many consider bitcoin to be digital gold, a recent survey in Europe found that only 49% of respondents believe that BTC will be around 10 years from now. This shows that cryptocurrencies will have to evolve further to be accessible and friendly to the non-tech savvy public. Story continues BTC The BTC/USD pair has largely stayed above the breakout level of $4,914.11 for the past three weeks. But the bulls are struggling to push the price to the next overhead resistance of $5,900. Currently, the 50-week SMA is acting as a resistance. If the bulls defend the $4,914.11 levels again during the next fall, it will indicate buying at lower levels and the pair might remain range bound for a few more weeks. Consolidation at these levels is a positive sign. But if the price rebounds sharply from the current levels or from $4,914.11, the cryptocurrency could rally to $5,900. We anticipate a stiff resistance at this level. On the downside, if the bears sink the pair below $4,914.11, it can drop to the 20-week EMA and below it to $4,255. The next couple of weeks are very important as it will set the stage for the next leg of the move. XEM/USD When all the top 20 coins are in the red, it shows that the markets are at a risk of turning down. Nem (XEM) was the second-best performer this week as it fell by about 9% in the past seven days. What is in store? Can it stage a recovery or will it continue to slide further? Let us find out. XEM The recovery in the XEM/USD pair hit a roadblock at the overhead resistance of $0.07790717. The price has been correcting for the past three weeks. The bulls will attempt to defend the support at $0.060 and below it $0.053. If these supports breakdown, a retest of the lows is probable. On the other hand, if the pair rebounds from $0.060, the bulls will again try to propel it above the overhead resistance of $0.07790717. If successful, it can move up to the 50-week SMA at $0.10 and above it to $0.13. The cryptocurrency is yet to form a reversal setup. We shall wait for it to show some strength before turning positive on it. BSV/USD Bitcoin SV ( BSV ) has been in the news for the past few days as a few exchanges delisted it. After the initial plunge, prices seem to be stabilizing. The delisting put it and its creator, Craig Wright, in the limelight. Ayr United, a football team in Scotland, has signed a sponsorship that will feature the bitcoin SV logo on its shirts. BSV The BSV/USD pair had been trading inside a range of $102.580 and $58.072 for the past few weeks. It turned down from the top of the range three weeks back and since then has been facing strong selling due to the negative news surrounding it. The bears broke below the support of the range at $58.072 and continued lower. Currently, the bulls are attempting to rebound from the psychological support of $50. If the bulls carry the price back into the range, we can expect the pair to consolidate between $58.072 and $102.580 for the next few weeks. But if the bulls fail to ascend above $58.072, the bears will again try to breakdown the support at $50. If that happens, a retest of the lows at $38.528 is possible. ETH/USD The co-founder of Ethereum has proposed increasing Ether staking rewards once the protocol switches to Proof of Stake (PoS). Meanwhile, Ethereum developers this week announced that they had raised the required funding for a third-party audit of the ProgPoW code. In other news, reports recently surfaced that Samsung plans to develop a public-private blockchain based on Ethereum. The token is likely to be named Samsung Coin. Societe Generale SFH — a subsidiary of Societe Generale Group — issued a 100 million euro bond on the Ethereum blockchain. In a negative development, a hacker managed to siphon off about 45,000 ether by successfully guessing weak private keys. ETH The ETH/USD pair has slipped back below the breakout level of $167.32, which is a negative sign. It invalidates the bullish breakout of the ascending triangle pattern. The next support on the downside is $144.78. If this also breaks, the drop could extend to the trendline of the ascending triangle. However, if the pair rebounds off the support at $144.78, the bulls will again try to scale above $167.32. If successful, the next overhead resistance is $187.98. If this level is crossed, the pair is likely to pick up momentum and quickly rally to its target objective of $251.64. As it has formed a reversal pattern at the bottom, this target price might even be crossed. BNB/USD Binance’s token sale platform Launchpad successfully completed the sale of Matic Network (MATIC) tokens through its new lottery system. About 58.38% of the applicants benefitted from the lottery. Binance completed the launch of its decentralized trading platform (DEX) just a week after launching its own blockchain, Binance Chain. Binance also launched its much-awaited exchange in Singapore, where it initially plans to offer bitcoin trading using Singapore dollars. Binance coin (BNB) is still holding out close to its lifetime highs. What is its next likely direction? Let’s take a look. BNB The BNB/USD pair came within a whisker of breaking out to new highs but failed to do so. The pair is facing selling at the resistance line of the wedge pattern. However, the positive point is that the pullback has been shallow. This shows that the buyers are keen to step in even on a minor dip. If the pair stays above the uptrend line of the wedge, it might enter into a consolidation for a couple of weeks, after which we expect another attempt by the bulls to make a new high. A new high is likely to attract more buyers and the cryptocurrency might surprise on the upside. Our bullish view will be invalidated if the bears sink the pair below the uptrend line of the wedge. A breakdown of the wedge is a bearish pattern that can result in a quick drop to the 20-week EMA. Market data provided by HitBTC exchange. Charts for analysis provided by TradingView . Related Articles: Hodler’s Digest, April 22–28: Top Stories, Price Movements, Quotes and FUD of the Week The Burst of the Bitcoin Bubble: An Autopsy Unconfirmed: Bitfinex Alleged to Be Mulling Launch of Exchange Token Via IEO Crypto Markets Drops as Bitcoin Fails to Hold $5,300 Support, Stocks Hit All-Time Highs || Bitcoin soars over $4,900 as the crypto breaks its 200 daily moving average: Bitcoin enjoyed its most bullish rally of 2019, seeing its price rise close to $5,000 for the first time since 2018, as per data from Messari. At last check the price of the world's largest digital currency rose from around $4,185 Monday evening to $4,960 just before 1:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, trading up 14% over the last 12 hours. One analyst noted in a conversation with The Block that bitcoin broke its 200 daily moving average, a critical metric for technical analysts . At last check, the price of bitcoin was trading at $4,958, according to Messari data . Trading volumes have surged as well, as per data from CoinMarketCap. The data provider, which has come under fire for over reporting trading volumes, reported $44 billion in crypto trading hands, at last check the highest level in months. || How Bitpay makes it easy to spend, accept, and store Bitcoin: Bitpay is a Bitcoin payment service provider based in Atlanta, United States. It was created and launched in 2011 when Bitcoin was still young. However, Bitpay saw the potential it had. The goal of Bitpay is to revolutionise the financial industry along with Bitcoin to create a faster, more secure, and less expensive payment system on a global scale. It is currently the largest Bitcoin payment processor in the world, working to help businesses across six different continents. Bitpay has created a seamless and secure Bitcoin payment service that thousands of Bitcoin users and businesses experience and use every day. Even though payment processing was its first mission, since the launch in 2011, the company has also created other services. How it works The payment service enables businesses to accept payments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash and send those funds directly to a bank account. It allows these payments in 38 different countries, settled in euros, dollars, and many more currencies. Bitpay works by allowing customers to pay with Bitcoin during their checkout process. They then pay the invoice to Bitpay at a locked-in exchange rate. After this, Bitpay uses modern technology to convert the Bitcoin into fiat whilst shielding the customer from any volatility risks. Finally, the business will then get the direct deposit into their bank account. Why the need for Bitpay? So why should you accept blockchain payments? The first reason is that using Bitpay and paying with Bitcoin allows you to keep more of your money. Credit cards take up to 3% of processing fees for every transaction processed. However, by accepting Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, businesses can get direct bank deposits in any currency for a flat rate of 1%. Another benefit is the end of chargeback fraud and identity theft. With other payment methods, customers and businesses are forced to shoulder certain risks of payment fraud. But with Bitcoin, customers are able to pay without giving sensitive personal information. Refunds are also made through the merchant, meaning there will be no chargeback. Story continues One of the most beneficial aspects of using Bitpay and Bitcoin is the payment advantages it brings. With Bitpay, businesses are able to accept payments from online customers at checkout and accept bill payments across towns or borders. Businesses and customers can connect to borderless payment networks and can receive payments of any cost from any mobile or computer from anywhere in the world. Bitpay wallet Bitpay has also created its own wallet with which users can manage their blockchain finances in one secure and open-source place. With the wallet, users no longer need to keep their crypto online. It has been proven that it is much safer to keep digital assets on a wallet as they are less likely to be hacked and no one has control over your money. Users can also do more with their Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash with the wallet. The Bitpay wallet enables you to buy and sell Bitcoin directly from within the wallet. You can also load and manage the Bitpay card, which is accepted at all Visa merchants and is compatible with all ATMs worldwide. Final thoughts Bitpay is a great payment service for global businesses and customers alike. It has all the features to handle worldwide payments whilst having the security and easy interface for beginners. For guides on cryptocurrencies , exchanges , and blockchain technology , click here . Make sure you take a look at all the latest crypto and blockchain news . The post How Bitpay makes it easy to spend, accept, and store Bitcoin appeared first on Coin Rivet .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
2019/05/04 10:00:05
BTCドミナンス : 55.0462%
未承認 : 3557
BitFlyer SPOT/FX/乖離
636686.0 / 642152.0 / 0.859%
BitMex 調達率
BTC : 0.01% / 0.0006%
ETH : 0.1359% / 0.0633%
Finex FRR
BTC : 29.689%
USD : 12.486% || 1H
2019/04/24 16:00 (2019/04/24 15:00)
LONG : 22117.32 BTC (+19.81 BTC)
SHORT : 25837.59 BTC (-11.76 BTC)
LS比 : 46% vs 53% (46% vs 53%) || This is hilarious. No words... || #BTCUSD Market #1H timeframe on March 15 at 11:00 (UTC) is #Bullish. #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #btc #crypto #trading #idea #report technical analysis || #CryptoCotización
Precios actualizados a las 22:00:36.
#bitcoin #ethereum #ripple #bitcoincash #litecoin #eos #neo #crypto #criptomonedas #emprendedores #economía #inversionpic.twitter.com/Too2AFkisZ || EBook Internet Business StartUp Kit
https://t.co/NG0hDsXdUu
#ebooks #books #learn #shop #Fashion #Beauty #Betterment #health #ad #wsj #nytimes #newyork #business #cnn #bet #foxnews #bitcoin #music #cannabis #weed #marijuana #CBD || Liquidated BITMEX short on XBTUSD:📉 6,373.00 $ | 607980 | 178% of avg 🕒 2019-05-10 18:39:11
#Bitcoin || #MikabotSell
$BTC #BTC /USDT , satıldı.
Şuanki Fiyat: 5075.62000 USDT
Şuan Tarih: 13.04.2019 09:30:00
Alış Fiyatı: 4966.10000 USDT
Alış Tarihi: 12.04.2019 08:45:00
Kasaya Giren Kar%: 2.21
Mikabot Yorumu: Kar Edildi || Bitcoin's Skyrocket Growth: the Wall Street Sharks Are In - https://t.co/En1n9ZblO2 $BTC #finance #bitcoin #cryptocurrency || A new #bitcoin bull cycle? Check out one more positive idea from #tradingview top authors. According to @MisterEXCAVO $btc could touch 200K in 2021. Your thoughts?
https://t.co/Pz0FXZthJb
|
Trend: up || Prices: 7204.77, 6972.37, 7814.92, 7994.42, 8205.17, 7884.91, 7343.90, 7271.21, 8197.69, 7978.31
|
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 2018-06-27]
BTC Price: 6157.13, BTC RSI: 34.43
Gold Price: 1252.80, Gold RSI: 23.69
Oil Price: 72.76, Oil RSI: 67.13
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Twilio's Amazing Growth Story Is Just Getting Started: Twilio (NYSE: TWLO) has scripted a remarkable turnaround this year. The cloud communications specialist was suffering from a lack of investor confidence in 2017 after one of its key customers decided to multisource its business to reduce dependence on just one vendor. But 2018 has brought about a massive change in perception. Twilio has made great market gains this year as Wall Street finally seems to be coming around to the fact that the company's terrific growth isn't a function of just one or two clients. In fact, Twilio has a lot going for it and it won't be stepping off the gas anytime soon. Twilio logo in red Image Source: Twilio. Terrific customer traction Twilio investors can no longer complain that the company is reliant on just a select group of customers. Last quarter, WhatsApp was its biggest customer with 7% of the company's total revenue, while ride-hailing specialist Uber, which was Twilio's Achilles Heel last year, supplied 4% of its business. A year ago, Uber accounted for 12% of the company's total revenue when news broke that it would be exploring in-house contact center solutions, or even hire other third-party vendors to reduce reliance on Twilio. As a result, Twilio had to slash its full-year guidance at that time, but it didn't let this hiccup get in the way. Instead, Twilio stepped on the gas as far as its customer acquisition efforts were concerned. It boosted its sales and marketing outlay by almost 54% last year to $100 million, which eventually helped it accelerate its client base. Chart showing growth in Twilio's active customer accounts. Data from Twilio's quarterly reports, Chart by Author. In fact, Twilio saw a 33% jump in active customer accounts during the latest quarter, while revenue increased at a much faster pace of 48%. This means that Twilio is going after lucrative accounts instead of chasing small fish, and it is diversifying its customer base at the same time. As it turns out, the company's top active customers now contribute just 2% of the total revenue as compared to 25% in the year-ago quarter. Story continues So Twilio is unlikely to face a problem of customer concentration anymore. And, it won't be surprising if it manages to sustain its impressive client growth rate in the future, as the market it operates in is just getting started. Twilio's communications platform connects apps and phone numbers, allowing the likes of WhatsApp, Uber, and others to interact with their customers from within the app. In short, Twilio provides communications-platform-as-a-service (CPaaS), a market that IDC estimates will grow tenfold over its forecast period of 2016 to 2021. Not surprisingly, Twilio is putting its best foot forward to take advantage of such terrific growth by making its services accessible to more developers. Twilio is at the beginning of its growth curve Twilio has found out that software developers play the most important role in the buying decision of an organization. In fact, 55% of the developers in an organization influence the buying decision, while 22% are the primary decision-makers. By comparison, the CEO or CTO of an organization influences around a third of the buying decisions. So getting developers on board has been one of Twilio's priorities to augment its business. The company had onboarded close to 2 million developers by the end of 2017, and this number could expand at a fast pace in the future thanks to its recently launched Flex platform, which is a fully programmable contact center solution that will drive the transition from legacy to modern contact centers. The majority of the contact center market is currently legacy in nature, with the cloud penetrating just 10% to 15% of this space. This means that the majority of the organizations are still using traditional channels to respond to customer requests in place of initiating customer interactions proactively to address any current or upcoming issues. However, the scenario is going to change rapidly over the next five years, with cloud penetration in contact centers slated to increase at an annual pace of 25% through 2022. This is where the flexibility and ease of use of Twilio's Flex platform could come in handy, helping organizations make the move from legacy systems to the cloud. Twilio claims that Flex is programmable throughout the stack, so a developer could customize this platform according to the needs of his or her organization that has been relying on traditional methods. For instance, a developer could choose to build a cloud communications application that supports several channels. Riding the change Twilio could be at the forefront of the transition in the contact center industry thanks to its strategy of tapping the developer population. This should help it sustain its terrific top-line growth and also become profitable with time. In fact, analysts expect the company's bottom line to increase at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 20% over the next five years. But it could grow at a faster pace provided its execution remains top-notch and the end market's growth is as strong as expected, setting the stage for strong upside in the long run. 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 Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Twilio. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || The owner of the New York Stock Exchange is working on a bitcoin trading platform: The New York Stock Exchange is working on its own bitcoin trading platform. According to a new report from The New York Times , the NYSE's parent company is developing an online exchange geared toward large institutional investors — the kind of financial heavyweights that the cryptocurrency community is waiting for with bated breath. Details of the plan are not yet locked in and the whole undertaking could still "fall apart," according to the report. The initiative is being spearheaded by Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE's parent company. Unlike the two bitcoin futures markets that opened late last year, "the new operation at ICE would provide more direct access to Bitcoin by putting the actual tokens in the customer’s account at the end of the trade." Still, that process would be executed through swaps that ultimately deliver bitcoin to a client's account. As the report explains: The swap contract is more complicated than an immediate trade of dollars for Bitcoin, even if the end result is still ownership of a certain amount of Bitcoin. But a swap contract allows the trading to come under the regulation of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and to operate clearly under existing laws — something today’s Bitcoin exchanges have struggled to do. These kind of swap contracts are currently offered by cryptocurrency startup LedgerX , which might appeal more to cryptocurrency investors looking to eschew institutional banking's entrenched players. While the NYSE project is still under wraps, it follows news from earlier this month that Goldman Sachs would open its own bitcoin trading operation , though one that will deal in contracts linked to rises and falls in the price of bitcoin rather than bitcoin itself, for the time being. While Goldman Sachs already clears trades for clients participating in Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) bitcoin futures markets, the bank will soon offer its clients non-deliverable forward contracts for bitcoin. For Goldman Sachs, the choice came as a response to overwhelming interest on behalf of its clients. After a crash from December's dizzying highs, bitcoin's price has struggled upward toward the critical psychological milestone of $10,000 in recent weeks, sitting at $9,145 at the time of writing. Many longtime bitcoin investors and traders believe that a clearer regulatory path paired with institutional involvement — however convoluted — could make all the difference in 2018. View comments || Steve Wozniak Wants Bitcoin to Become the World’s Single Currency: Woz BTC Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has some very positive things to say about bitcoin. In a recent interview with CNBC , the computer mogul admitted that he hopes bitcoin will become a single global currency and that he shares the sentiment of Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, who expressed his belief last March that bitcoin will become a unifying cryptocurrency for every nation within the next 10 years. “I buy into what Jack Dorsey says,” he explained, “not that I necessarily believe it’s going to happen, but because I want it to be that way.” Wozniak first bought bitcoin when it was priced at $700, roughly $6,700 less than where it currently stands. He has since sold almost his entire stash but for one coin, admitting that he never wanted to be an investor but was only intrigued by how the cryptocurrency worked. He also owns two ether (the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain platform), which he has been very complimentary toward. At a recent conference in Vienna, Wozniak praised Ethereum and said it had the potential to become “the new Apple.” “Ethereum interests me because it can do things and because it’s a platform,” he affirmed. Wozniak now refers to bitcoin as “pure” and says it’s the true equivalent of digital gold. “Bitcoin is mathematically defined,” he explained, “there is a certain quantity of bitcoin, there’s a way it’s distributed … and it’s pure and there’s no human running it, there’s no company running it, and it’s just going and going, and growing and growing, and surviving. That, to me, says something that is natural, and nature is more important than all our human conventions.” This is not the first time Wozniak has been vocally positive about bitcoin. At a Money 20/20 event in Las Vegas last October, the Apple co-founder lauded the cryptocurrency and its blockchain technology as stronger and more financially sound than both gold and USD. He stated that traditional currencies are “kind of phony,” as they are widely vulnerable to inflation, and that the problem with gold is that there is no fixed supply. “There is a certain amount of bitcoin that can ever exist,” he continued. “Gold gets mined and mined and mined. Maybe there’s a finite amount of gold in the world, but cryptocurrency is even more mathematical and regulated, and nobody can change mathematics.” Wozniak also called for further regulation efforts , saying they were crucial to bitcoin’s survival. “Regulation is an essential element to the fintech transformation happening today,” he exclaimed. “Fairness, equality and truth is the foundation for good regulation and that will lay the groundwork for good development.” This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . View comments || Will Fitbit Catch a Break With Its Latest Smartwatch?: Just three years ago,Fitbit(NYSE: FIT)was a dominant player in the wearables space thanks to the popularity of fitness trackers. Investorsscrambled to get a pieceof Fitbit as it looked all set to conquer the wearables market with a variety of fitness bands that were constantly updated to stay ahead of the competition, giving the company an 80% share of fitness trackers in the U.S.
Co-founder and CEO James Park was extremely confident in his company's prospects in 2015, boasting of an eight-year tech lead over its rivals. But it doesn't take long for consumer preferences to change.
Image Source: Fitbit
Smartwatches eventually captured the market's attention as they could do more than just track fitness activities. Fitbit missed this shift toward smartwatches, allowingApple(NASDAQ: AAPL)to poach its premium customers, while the fitness tracker market was overrun bybudget Chinese competition.
Fitbit'slost pricing powerand the demand for its fitness trackers fell.
[{"Year": "Revenue (in $millions)", "2015": "$1,858", "2016": "$2,169", "2017": "$1,616"}, {"Year": "Year over year change in revenue", "2015": "149%", "2016": "17%", "2017": "(25%)"}, {"Year": "Gross profit margin", "2015": "48.50%", "2016": "38.99%", "2017": "42.77%"}, {"Year": "Market share", "2015": "29.50%", "2016": "18.50%", "2017": "14.20%"}]
Data sources: Fitbit, by IDC.
IDC estimates that Apple increased its wearables market share (including both smartwatches and fitness trackers) to 21% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017, up from 14.4% in the year-ago period. The company sold an estimated 18 million Apple Watches in 2017 as compared to 12 million in 2015. This massive leap has a lot to do with the increasing demand for smartwatches, which saw a 20% sales increase in 2017, according toGartner, as compared to an 18% decline in fitness tracker sales.
Fitbit's first smartwatch hit the global market only in the third quarter of 2017. By comparison, Apple's smartwatch is already in its third generation. What's more, Apple has established a terrific stronghold in the smartwatch space. Cupertino reportedly controlled 61% of the global smartwatch market during the fourth quarter of 2017, with second-placedSamsungoccupying 8.4% market share.
The cheapest Apple Watch sells for $329 and prices go up to $1,399, which means that it sold at least $6 billion worth of smartwatches last year (assuming that all estimated 18 million Apple Watches were sold at the base price). This means that Fitbit's 2017 revenue was, at best, around a fourth of Apple's total smartwatch revenue.
Assuming that Apple holds just 40% of the smartwatch market in the long run, its shipments would rise to 30 million units in 2021 when overall sales are expected https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3790965 to be 81 million. So, Apple's smartwatch revenue could rise to at least $10 billion in the next four years (assuming a base price of $329 for a smartwatch).
This is the benchmark figure that Fitbit needs to go after, but it is still a long shot as its revenue is expected to drop 8% this year to $1.48 billion. Analysts don't expect much of a turnaround in 2019 either as the top line is expected to grow just 2%, but one shouldn't be discounting Fitbit's efforts just yet as its recent products have received a warm response and it has time on its side.
Fitbit doesn't need to beat Apple to be making a lot of money. It just needs to carve out a small portion of the smartwatch market. Last year, Fitbit held just 3.5% of the smartwatch market with sales of just 500,000 units, ranking below traditional watch companies such asFossil.
But investors should remember that it was selling just one smartwatch then -- the Ionic. The good part: Fitbit has expanded its smartwatch line-up with the Versa, a budget version of the flagship Ionic.
While Fitbit's Ionic was priced dangerously close to the base Apple Watch at $300, the Versa is substantially cheaper at $200. Moreover, the Versa is just $50 pricier than the Charge 2 HR fitness tracker. This should help the company move more of its users into its nascent smartwatch ecosystem.
As we have already seen, Fitbit was on a terrific growth streak in 2015 and 2016 when its active user base was growing at a terrific pace.
[{"Year": "Active users (in millions)", "2014": "6.7", "2015": "16.9", "2016": "23.2", "2017": "25.4"}, {"Year": "Registered users (in millions)", "2014": "11", "2015": "29", "2016": "50.2", "2017": "N/A"}, {"Year": "Devices sold (in millions)", "2014": "10.9", "2015": "21.4", "2016": "22.3", "2017": "15.3"}, {"Year": "Active user percentage of registered users", "2014": "61%", "2015": "58%", "2016": "46%", "2017": "N/A"}]
Data Source: Fitbit, N/A = not available
But one thing became very evident in 2016 -- poor user retention. Fitbit's percentage of registered users who were active users dropped sharply in 2016.
The sharp drop proved to be Fitbit's Achilles' Heel as active user growth flatlined, and the lack of a smartwatch led to a massive drop in device sales as existing users didn't feel the need to upgrade. The good news, however, is that Fitbit still has over 25 million active users, and the Versa is the ideal entry point for an existing Fitbit customer into the smartwatch world given its pricing and features.
The Versa's lightweight and compact form factor, along with useful features such as being water-resistant up to 50 meters and a long battery life have earned it rave reviews. Time Magazine calls it the biggest threat to the Apple Watch by far as it is reportedly good at activity tracking and delivering notifications, the two features buyers look out for the most when purchasing a smartwatch.
Fitbit users can also choose from more than 550 third-party apps from companies includingYelp,Starbucks, andPandora. So, Fitbit seems to have finally delivered a good product that could help it cut its teeth in the smartwatch space. The Versa could provide the much-needed shot in the arm to the company.
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Harsh Chauhanhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple, Fitbit, Pandora Media, and Starbucks. 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 Gartner and Yelp. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Is Wells Fargo & Company a Buy?: Generally speaking, Iloveinvesting in companies that have issues but still have a bright future. In fact, some of my best-performing investments, such asSquare,Bank of America,Apple, andAmerican Expresswere made shortly after something went wrong. As one example, I bought American Express shortly afterCostcodropped the credit card giant as its co-branding partner.
So it may seem like scandal-plagued banking giantWells Fargo(NYSE: WFC)might be right up my alley. Because of the bank's infamous fake-accounts scandal and other issues, Wells Fargo has significantly underperformed its peers and may look attractive to bargain-seeking investors.
Image Source: Wells Fargo.
In the wake of the scandal, Wells Fargo's leadership changed. And to give credit where it's due, now-CEO Tim Sloan is doing anexcellentjob of owning the bank's mistakes and trying torebuild the public's trust. In fact, the bank's most recent annual report was entitled "rebuilding trust" and featured extensive discussions from board Chair Elizabeth Duke and CEO Sloan about the steps the bank has taken to fix its corporate culture, such as eliminating sales goals for retail bankers and incentivizing customer satisfaction instead.
Also, Wells Fargo still is a rather profitable bank with good risk management. The bank's first-quarter return on equity of 12.37% and return on assets of 1.26% were well ahead of the 10% and 1% respective industry benchmarks, and net charge-offs continue to fall and are below the peer group average.
Finally, Wells Fargo stands to benefit from tax reform and rising interest rates, two positive catalysts that should add to the profits of the entire banking industry.
Having said that, there are simply too many unanswered questions at this point. The aftereffects of thefake accounts scandaland other bad behavior have beenapparent in the bank's resultsfor the past several quarters. While most peers are seeing strong deposit and loan growth, Wells Fargo's are declining. And there's no way to answer the questions of "How long will this last?" and "How much further will Wells Fargo's business decline?"
In addition, the development that I find to be the scariest from an investor's perspective is theunprecedented Federal Reserve ("the Fed") penaltylevied against the bank in February. If you aren't familiar, the Fed essentially told Wells Fargo that it's not allowed to grow beyond its asset size as of the end of 2017 until the agency is satisfied that "substantial improvements" have been made.
For one thing, this leaves even more unanswered questions -- specifically, what constitutes "substantial improvements?" How often will the Fed review Wells Fargo's progress? When the bank has been deemed to have made progress, will it be allowed to grow unimpeded or will there still be some lighter restrictions placed on the bank?
In addition, the current business environment isveryconducive for growth in the banking business. It's tough to justify investing in the one bank that isn't allowed to take advantage.
Berkshire HathawayCEO Warren Buffettrecently predictedthat Wells Fargo will outperform the rest of the big U.S. banks over the next 10 years. While I generally agree with most of what Buffett says, this is an exception. I just can't justify investing in a bank that isn't allowed to grow and has developed a bad reputation with consumers -- especially while we're arguably in the best environment for banking growth in recent history.
The fact that Wells Fargo actually trades at a higher price-to-book multiple thanBank of Americaand several other solid banks leads me to believe that investors who want banking exposure are better off looking elsewhere.
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Matthew Frankelowns shares of American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), and Square. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple, Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), and Square. 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 Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Ex-GoDaddy Execs Raise $6.5 Million for Cheap, Android Phone-Friendly Blockchain: The cofounders of Locu, a startup that spun out of Sir Tim Berners-Lee's lab at MIT in 2011 and sold to GoDaddy for areported $70 milliontwo years later, are going back to their roots: allowing the little guy to take back control in a world of titanic, Internet data monsters.
Having left their posts as GoDaddy vice presidents, where they helped small businesses and restaurants establish web presences, Rene Reinsberg and Marek Olszewski are teaming up on a new blockchain project calledCelo, which translates to “purpose” in the contrived, international language Esperanto. The tech is a so-called fork of Ethereum, and will serve as the basis for a social payments platform built for mobile phones.
Joining Reinsberg and Olszewski is Sep Kamvar, an MIT professor and former Locu advisor best known for having co-invented “Eigentrust,” an algorithm akin to Google’s website-ranking toolPageRank, but for managing reputation in peer-to-peer systems. Google incorporated the tech into its own systems after buying Kamvar’s personalized search startup, Kaltix, in 2003. (He led personalization at the search giant until 2007.)
Celo will consist of two main parts, Reinsberg and Olszewski toldFortune. The first is a decentralized database that maps people’s phone numbers to public encryption keys, alphanumeric strings required for transacting in cryptocurrency. The entrepreneurs said they are designing the system to make crypto payments “as easy as sending a text.”
The second key aspect involves creating so-called stable-value coins that are pegged to generally non-volatile assets, such as the U.S. dollar. These stablecoins will serve as the system’s medium of exchange, as opposed to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, whose wild price swings tend to encourage holding behavior and speculative investment.
“Our target market is emerging markets,” Olszewski said. “Specifically, we’re focused on developing on $20 cheap, Android phones.”
Having labored in secret for a year, Reinsberg and Olszewski disclosed Friday that they have raised $6.5 million in traditional venture capital funding for the project, and also published details about Celo’s technology in an academic white paper. Investors include former Locu backers General Catalyst and Naval Ravikant, venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Social Capital, and Lakestar, and cryptocurrency outfits such as Coinbase, Polychain Capital and Autonomous Partners.
A number of high-profile angel investors are also backing Celo, including LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, Twitter and Square cofounder and CEO Jack Dorsey, Venmo cofounder Andrew Kortina, and former chairman Dick Parsons.
Celo’s approach to stablecoins relies on reserves consisting of an over-collateralized basket of cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, alongside a central bank-like set of algorithms that automatically manage the monetary supply. (The methodology is similar to that ofBasis,another cryptocurrency project, which you can learn more abouthere.)
The strategy is not without critics, however. Most notably, Preston Byrne, a lawyer and cofounder of Monax, another blockchain startup, has taken similar models to task, saying theyignore basic economic principles.
“We’ve been trying to be very thoughtful about the approach,” Reinsberg toldFortune. “We actually believe that our system is very shock resistant and that it works well for the use-cases we’re pursuing. We’re happy with the results so far.”
The Celo white paper notes that the proposition is “not risk-free” and that a “black swan event” could derail it, while also laying out countermeasures designed to protect against just such a scenario. "Our simulations across a range of market assumptions will be presented in a forthcoming paper,” the authors write.
As for Celo, Reinsberg said that his team, which is hiring, has an internal test-net up and running, and that it plans to debut an early-stage, public prototype of the system later this year.
See original article on Fortune.com
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• Bitcoin Could 'Bring the Internet to a Halt,' Says Banking Oversight Firm. Here's Why || Bitcoin Prices Slide; Korean Court Rules Cryptocurrency Has Economic Value: Investing.com – Cryptocurrency prices slid on Thursday amid tighter regulations worldwide and a South Korean Supreme Court ruling that cryptocurrency is an asset with economic value that can be confiscated. The news received some attention among the cryptocurrency traders.
Bitcoin was trading at $7,394.1 by 12:27AM ET (04:27 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, down 1.37% over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, lost 2.8% at $563.25 on Bitfinex.
Ripple’s XRP token shed 2.67% to $0.59675 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin dropped 2.38% to $117.57.
On Wednesday, South Korea’s top court said the government could confiscate cryptocurrencies as profits from crime on the grounds that they are assets with economic value.
The ruling stemmed from the case against a Korean man who operated an online pornography site. Prosecutors seized his cash as well as 191 bitcoins held in a wallet at an exchange.
“This marks the first time a cryptocurrency has been subject to confiscation,” the Korea Times wrote.
Meanwhile, U.S. regulators won an order to halt a fraudulent coin offering scheme.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it had won an emergency court order stopping an alleged fraud involving an initial coin offering that raised $21 million from investors in the United States and elsewhere.
The U.S. blockchain startup Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services (TBIS) and its president Michael Stollaire allegedly promoted fake business relationships with companies like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Disney.
“This ICO was based on a social media marketing blitz that allegedly deceived investors with purely fictional claims of business prospects,” said Robert A. Cohen, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit. The court also approved an emergency asset freeze and the appointment of a receiver for TBIS.
Charges against TBIS come as the U.S. government steps up efforts to regulate cryptocurrency and blockchain companies, while cracking down on fraud in the space.
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John McAfee Announces Crypto-Backed ‘Fiat’ Currency Redeemable for Face Time With Him || Meet the biggest tech unicorn in the world: Ant Financial: This post was updated on June 8, 2018. When you think of the world’s most valuable tech “unicorns” (private companies with valuations above $1 billion), you likely think of Uber and its $70 billion valuation, Airbnb ($31 billion), SpaceX ($27 billion), and Pinterest ($12.3 billion). These American brands are frequently cited as the representatives of Silicon Valley’s unicorn explosion. But there’s a unicorn whose valuation trumps all of them: Ant Financial Services Group, which was spun out from Alibaba in 2014 and is the parent company of China’s biggest payments app, Alipay. Ant has closed a new $14 billion funding round , valuing the company above $150 billion. So this Ant is more like an elephant. Prior to this round, Ant was last valued at $75 billion by CSLA Hong Kong after a $4.5 billion fundraising round in 2016. The average American consumer likely has no awareness of Ant Financial, which does most of its business in China. But Ant’s core product, Alipay, already has a quiet presence in the US, and is likely to expand here eventually. Here’s why you should be aware of Ant. FILE PHOTO – Jack Ma, Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group Holding, gestures as he speaks the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 24, 2018. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse ‘Live your whole life on Alipay’ Before Alibaba’s IPO in 2014, Alibaba ( BABA ) CEO Jack Ma spun off its payments division under the name Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group, later Ant Financial. It was obvious Ant would go public, but the wait has lasted longer than expected. In February of this year, Alibaba took a 33% stake in Ant , further stoking market anticipation of an Ant IPO, though some have reported Ant isn’t as eager to go public as Wall Street thinks . Alipay is the core product of Ant, and it is the most popular digital payments app in China, with more than a 50% share of China’s giant $13 trillion digital payments market. (Even BlackRock is scared of Ant in China .) Alipay launched in 2004 and has ballooned to 520 million users, who conduct more than 100 million transactions on Alipay per day. (Alipay’s big competitor in China is WeChat Pay, from Alibaba’s rival Tencent.) Ant Financial also owns Yu’ebao, China’s largest money-market fund, which has more than 200 million users and manages more than $170 billion in assets. Story continues Ant Financial says it is laser-focused, for now, on serving Chinese consumers—not just in China, but wherever they travel. “The Chinese tourist has come to expect that they can use Alipay wherever they go,” an Ant spokesperson says. “You can basically live your whole life on Alipay.” Alipay’s app has been described as a combination of all the hottest mobile payments products in the US: PayPal, Venmo, Square, and the new Venmo-like offering from the big banks, Zelle. As an April report from DataTrek puts it, “Right now, there aren’t many analogs in US banking; PayPal and Square are the closest, and both are still working on the regulatory requirements to scale their businesses up to the market opportunity Ant already has in China.” But it’s easy to imagine Ant more overtly entering America not long from now. Just last year, Ant made a $1.2 billion play to buy Moneygram, which would have handed Ant a major foothold in money transfers in America, but the US government blocked the deal , and just this week the two companies officially announced they have terminated the effort . And Alipay is already quietly active at 170,000 merchant points in America as a payment option, including in New York City taxi cabs, and even for horse-drawn carriage rides in Manhattan. (You see a pattern: serving Chinese tourists visiting America.) Of course, that US presence is a minuscule slice of the 800 million people globally that Alipay serves, the bulk of them in China and India. Ant has aggressively spread across Asia in the past two years through partnerships, including a deal with India’s Paytm in 2015, an investment in Thailand’s Ascend Money to launch a new e-wallet called TrueMoney in 2016, an investment in payments company Mynt in the Philippines in 2017, and an investment in payments company Kakao in South Korea in 2017. Ant Financial’s CEO is Eric Jing, who was formerly the CFO of Alipay, and before that, in 2007, was CFO of PepsiCo in Guangzhou. But the man still first associated with Ant is Jack Ma, and that’s likely to be the case until Ant goes public, whenever that may be. When the Ant IPO does come, you can expect it to be a gargantuan financial event. — Daniel Roberts covers payment technology and cryptocurrency at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @ readDanwrite . Read more: A Chinese fintech behemoth is getting ready to go public Here’s why Ant Financial’s $4.5 billion round is a very big deal Bitcoin was supposed to kill Western Union — that hasn’t happened Circle CEO: We will soon compete with Venmo, Square, Robinhood and Coinbase || 3 Stocks That Could Put Amazon's Returns to Shame: Since debuting as an online bookseller in 1994,Amazon.com(NASDAQ: AMZN)has gone on to become a worldwide e-commerce juggernaut. Early investors in the company after it went public in 1997 have been richly rewarded, as the stock has grownmore than 80,000%. Finding companies with that type of potential can be like finding a needle in a haystack.
With that in mind, we asked three Motley Fool investors to help choose top companies that they believed could reward investors with massive returns akin to Amazon's. They offered convincing arguments forShopify(NYSE: SHOP),Novavax(NASDAQ: NVAX), andAptiv(NYSE: APTV).
Image source: Getty Images.
Danny Vena(Shopify):To find a company that can generate returns similar to Amazon's, investors can look to the same retail shift that made the online retailer such a massive success. While e-commerce has taken a big bite out of brick-and-mortar sales, the trend has only just begun. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, for the fourth quarter of 2017, e-commerce accounted for just 8.9% of total retail sales, up from about 3.5% a decade earlier.
E-commerce facilitator Shopify has everything a budding entrepreneur needs to develop and manage an online retail presence. The platform supplies more than 100 ready-to-use templates for designing a website, as well as 2,300 apps to help customize the experience. Shopify also helps merchants accept payments and ship and track their orders, and provides them with small-business loans to meet immediate cash flow needs. Providing these services allows its customers to concentrate on selling their wares.
Image source: Shopify.
In its quest to ease the burdens of online sellers, Shopify has been so successful that it now hosts more than 600,000 merchants in 175 countries. The company has produced year-over-year revenue growth exceeding 70% in each quarter since it went public in mid-2015. Shopify has yet to produce a profit, choosing instead to pour its resources into growth -- much as Amazon did in its early years.
In its first eleven quarters as a public company, Shopify's share price has gone up nearly 400%, but I believe it's just getting started. As more and more businesses come online, many will need the services that Shopify has to offer, giving the company a long runway of growth ahead.
George Budwell(Novavax):Novavax, a small-cap vaccine maker, has largely disappointed investors over the past two years, thanks to the late-stage failure of its experimental respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for elderly adults. However, the company is far from dead, meaning that aggressively minded growth investors may want to circle back for a closer look.
Novavax's value proposition presently centers around its other ongoing late-stage trial for RSV in pregnant women, as well as its midstage flu vaccine candidate known as NanoFlu. The company is expected to release top-line results for itsmaternal RSV immunization study in 2019, setting the stage for a possible regulatory filing in 2020. If successful, this vaccine should easily generate well over a billion dollars in revenue at peak, given the enormous size of the target market and tremendous unmet medical need.
Image source: Getty Images.
On the flu front, Novavax is gearing up to advance NanoFlu into a midstage trial shortly, and the company already appears to have an eye on commencing a pivotal stage by 2019. The point is that Novavax could very well have two megablockbuster vaccines on the market within the next two and a half years.
The downside is that as things stand now, the company simply doesn't have enough cash to realize these lofty goals. Even after its latest capital raise of about$50 million after deducting fees, Novavax arguably has less than two years worth of cash on hand. Therefore, the company either needs to find a partner willing to help out, or it'll end up diluting shareholders yet again in the not-so-distant future.
All told, Novavax offers a stellar upside if things work out, but the need for additional capital is a serious risk that growth-hungry investors shouldn't overlook.
Daniel Miller(Aptiv):To even be uttered in the same breath as Amazon in regard to massive long-term returns, a company has to be poised to thrive on an emerging megatrend. If there's a predictable trend in the unpredictable automotive industry, it's this: Driverless vehicles are on their way. And it also looks like auto suppliers such as Aptiv could offer investors a great way to play the megatrend.
"Those companies providing technology which supports an autonomous, connected, shared and electric transportation system are well positioned to experience heightened levels of profitable growth over the long term," said Thomas Fitzgerald, associate fund manager at EdenTree Investment Management, according to Reuters.
Image source: Aptiv.
Aptiv specializes in developing the exact technology Fitzgerald refers to. Ifyou haven't heard of Aptiv before, it specializes in providing end-to-end solutions between smart vehicle architecture and smart mobility solutions. In other words, the company develops the software, sensing, computing, signal, power distribution, and overall connectivity technology that will be the basis for driverless-car user experience, safety, and entire autonomous systems.
Driverless cars could become a huge part of solving problems such as crash fatalities, greenhouse-gas emissions, and inefficient transportation, among other issues. AnIntelreport released last year predicts that driverless vehicles will generate a $7 trillion annual market by 2050. If Aptiv becomes a leader in developing driverless vehicle technology -- and that's a sizable if -- it's one of few companies that could actually put Amazon's returns to shame.
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John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors.Daniel Millerhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned.Danny Venaowns shares of Amazon and Shopify.George Budwellhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Shopify. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || The Most Important Retirement Chart You'll Ever See: For most of us, retirement will be only as good as we make it. For best results, we should plan, save, and invest -- early, aggressively, and effectively. That can mean the difference between a stressful retirement where you struggle to make ends meet and can't do many things you had dreamed of, and a financially secure retirement full of adventures. There are a bunch of good rules to follow for those who want to execute a smart retirement plan -- and there's a particularly valuable retirement chart worth examining. highway sign that points to millionaire as next exit Image source: Getty Images. What makes this such a great chart This retirement chart deserves a drum roll before being unveiled. Here are just a few reasons it's such a great chart: It will inspire you to start saving as much as you can for retirement, as soon as you can. It can help you see how much you have to put aside each year in order to meet your retirement goal. It can help you assess how on-track or off-track you are in your retirement savings. It can be applied to other savings goals, too. It can help you set financial priorities and make sound decisions. Without further ado, The Chart: Growing at 8% for $5,000 invested annually $10,000 invested annually $15,000 invested annually 5 years $31,680 $63,359 $95,039 10 years $78,227 $156,455 $234,682 15 years $146,621 $293,243 $439,864 20 years $247,115 $494,229 $741,344 25 years $394,772 $789,544 $1.2 million 30 years $611,729 $1.2 million $1.8 million 35 years $930,511 $1.9 million $2.8 million 40 years $1.4 million $2.8 million $4.2 million Calculations by author. You can see how much you can amass when socking away various sums regularly over a variety of time spans. The 8% average annual growth rate is used because it's a little more conservative than the stock market's long-term average annual growth rate of close to 10%. That 10% doesn't include inflation, so using a more conservative rate is helpful. Story continues Also, depending on the exact years in which you're saving and investing, your average annual growth rate might be quite different than the longer-term historic one. Just assuming you'll average 10% can be wrong and dangerous. So what kinds of things does the chart tell us? Well, it shows that you don't need to invest massive sums to build massive sums. If you're 40, without much in retirement savings yet, and you expect to retire around age 70, you might amass around $600,000 with just relatively modest annual investments of $5,000. (Of course, if you can invest more, that would be better -- getting you to a larger nest egg sooner. That can help in case you end up having to retire earlier.) The chart also shows what can be accomplished if you're able to save aggressively. If you can invest $15,000 annually and you're already 45 years old, you might retire around age 65 with roughly three quarters of a million dollars! two hands reaching up toward the sky, as hundred dollar bills rain down Image source: Getty Images. Variations on the most important retirement chart Therefore, let's take a look at how your money might grow if it averages a higher or lower annual growth rate. The two tables below offer results for a 5% average and a 10% average. Note that with inflation having averaged about 3% over many decades, if you expect to average 8% in the stock market pre-inflation, your results would probably be closer to 5% annual growth, adjusted for inflation. So the first table below could be showing you what you might amass over time -- and its buying power. Growing at 5% for $5,000 invested annually $10,000 invested annually $15,000 invested annually 5 years $29,010 $58,019 $87,029 10 years $66,034 $132,068 $198,102 15 years $113,287 $226,575 $339,862 20 years $173,596 $347,193 $520,789 25 years $250,567 $501,135 $751,702 30 years $348,804 $697,608 $1.0 million 35 years $474,182 $948,363 $1.4 million 40 years $634,199 $1.3 million $1.9 million Calculations by author. The table above shows that even if your money is growing at a somewhat slower clip, you can still accumulate quite a hefty sum -- though it helps either to be setting aside large amounts each year or to be several decades away from retirement. For example, if you're 40 years old and aiming to retire at 65, you have 25 years in which your money can grow. If you can save and invest $10,000 annually, you might end up with around $500,000. What does that mean for your retirement? Well, you might use the flawed-but-still-useful 4% rule that says you can withdraw 4% of your nest egg in your first year of retirement and adjust further withdrawals for inflation -- in order to have a good chance that it lasts 30 years. It suggests that you might withdraw 4% of $500,000, or $20,000 in your first year. It's not a princely sum, but if you also collect $20,000 from Social Security, it's getting a lot closer to a number someone might live on. (The average Social Security retirement benefit was recently $1,411 per month, or about $17,000 per year. You might well collect more, though, and there are ways to increase your Social Security benefits , too.) Now let's have more fun, looking at how your money might grow at an annual average rate of 10%: Growing at 10% for $5,000 invested annually $10,000 invested annually $15,000 invested annually 5 years $33,578 $67,156 $100,734 10 years $87,656 $175,312 $262,968 15 years $174,749 $349,497 $524,246 20 years $315,013 $630,025 $945,037 25 years $540,909 $1.1 million $1.6 million 30 years $904,717 $1.8 million $2.7 million 35 years $1.5 million $3.0 million $4.5 million 40 years $2.4 million $4.9 million $7.3 million Calculations by author. These numbers are much more thrilling to gaze at than the numbers in the previous 5% growth chart. Note that even though 10% looks like twice as much as 5%, the higher annual growth rate doesn't give you numbers that are twice as big. The smallest numbers on each table are $29,010 and $33,578 -- not that different. But over longer periods, the differences become huge. Socking away $15,000 annually for 40 years will give you roughly $2 million if it grows at 5% but more than $7 million if it grows at 10%. Using this important retirement chart This chart should inspire you to save and invest for the long haul -- however long your long haul is. Meaningful sums can be accumulated over relatively short time frames, too. It can help you get a ballpark idea of how much you need to save each year to reach your goal. Looking for about $400,000 at retirement? Then you need to invest about $5,000 annually for 25 years, or about $15,000 annually for 15 years -- and hope that your annual growth rate averages 8% or more. If you want to be more conservative, invest more each year or plan to keep investing longer. Finally, while you might be dismayed seeing how much you could have accumulated if you'd started earlier, remember that those sums might still be achieved -- by your children or grandchildren. Teach them to be money-savvy and to start investing for the long run as early as possible, and they might be able to enjoy early, luxurious retirements. The more you read up on retirement and the sounder your decisions, the more financially secure you'll be. There are lots of ways to enjoy more income in retirement -- and keeping these charts in mind can help you prosper. 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 .
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