Bitcoin update – BTC is ready to finish the first green month in more than half a year

• Bitcoin is still rangebound, though the monthly momentum is positive.

• In the long run, we need to see a move above $5,000 to claim that the bear trend is over.

 

February proved to be the most successful month in the recent six months. The digital asset No.1 has been losing ground since August 2018, which is the most prolonged period of consecutive red months in the history of the asset. However, now BTC is 7% higher than at the beginning of February. While it is still too early to claim the reversal, this development might be interpreted as a positive signal and may eventually translate into a sustainable recovery above $4,000 in the coming weeks.

 

At the time of writing, BTC/USD is changing hands at $3,780, mostly unchanged on a day-over-day basis. Considering a large number of strong technical indicators clustered between the current price and $3,900 handle, the bulls will have a hard time making their way towards the above-said $4,000 resistance. However, once it is cleared, $5,000 will be back in focus.

 

According to Justin Sun, the founder of the 9th largest cryptocurrency TRON, Bitcoin will hardly be able to surpass this level in 2019. However, should it succeed, the upside momentum will gain traction, signaling that the year-long bear trend may be behind us.

 

On the downside, $3,600-$3,650 is the local support zone that will stop the sell-off for the time being. A push lower might increase the selling pressure with the next Ain at $3,300 and the lowest level of 2018 at $3,127.

 

BTC/USD, 1D chart

 

 

Tanya Abrosimova

FXStreet

David

Bitcoin outdoes Paypal’s transaction volume second year in a row

• Bitcoin managed a $1.3 Trillion annual transactional volume in 2018 while PayPal did $578.65 billion.

• This was the second year in a row that Bitcoin outdid Paypal’s transaction volume.

For the second year in a row, Bitcoin managed to surpass PayPal’s in annual transactional volume. Within the given timeframe, PayPal recorded $578.65 billion worth of payment transactions, while Bitcoin did a staggering $1.3 Trillion. In 2017, Bitcoin had posted $543.52 billion more transactional volume than PayPal.
 

PayPal is expected to record higher transactional volume in the upcoming year after the World Bank estimated the remittance market to grow 3.7% to $715 billion in 2019. Bitcoin is also expected to enjoy a healthy 2019 after coming out of a year-long bear run. With the launch of regulated bitcoin derivate platforms like Bakkt and the SEC hopefully approving the first bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund (ETF), things look very positive.

 

Rajarshi Mitra Rajarshi Mitra

FXStreet

David

 

Bitcoin Market Analysis: 24th February 2019

Today’s attempt by buyers to break through the price range of USD 4240-USD 4320 ended with big aggression on the part of sellers.

At hourly time frame, it is clearly visible that buyers did not make any effort to break through this price zone. Only as buyers approached this price zone – the volumes immediately decreased:

Now the price has stopped in the price zone of USD 3850- USD 3920. Looking at the length of the day candle, we think that the fall can continue up to USD 3500. In this case, it will be a final confirmation that the price is traded in the triangle from 15 December 2018. Buyers did not expect such an aggressive fall. However, buyers start to close their marginal positions during the growth:

Interestingly, during the fall, sellers close their positions as well, so they do not believe in the global continuation of the fall:

Therefore, at this moment, we do not expect the market to have a strong trend until the price goes beyond the triangle. The lower limit of the triangle is USD 3500, the upper limit is the price zone of USD 4240-USD 4320.

If we analyse the volumes on which the growth occurred then the local chart shows that they are enlarged. Though, if you do not take into account the consolidation volumes which were before growth and compare them with the volumes when the price was falling, then we can conclude that the volumes are significantly smaller:

If we analyze the structure of the waves, one can observe that each directed wave, up or down, consists of three smaller waves. According to the wave analysis, this only confirms the fact that the corrective wave continues to form ahead of the future impulse:

Therefore, with a high probability, sellers will test USD 3500. And if buyers find the strength to keep this price – the chance to continue the growth will remain high.

An interesting situation with an index of fear/greed. Before today’s fall, its value was 69. This is the highest figure for the whole year, starting from February 2018:

 

 

By Peter Posted on 25/02/2019 5 min read

David

 

Crypto Frenzy Overloads Binance, Tom Lee’s 2019 Bitcoin Forecast, and Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin on Ripple and XRP

Binance Overload
 

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says a sudden burst in trading volume on Sunday triggered delays on Binance.

According to Zhao, the leading crypto exchange hit an all-time high in system load as the price of Bitcoin dropped below $4,000. The exchange is still working to effectively scale during periods of intense trading.

Fundstrat co-founder and head of research Tom Lee is offering his take on where Bitcoin will land at the end of 2019.

Lee told Crypto Market News he believes the price of BTC will recover and be “much higher” than $3,900 by the end of the year.

“I think that several things are going to support the price this year. The first is what we call macro factors – the fact that global markets are actually rising. Global stock markets are bullish for Bitcoin in the same way that last year’s global stock markets fell and Bitcoin fell. The dollar isn’t soaring like it was last year so that dollar being weaker is a real tailwind for Bitcoin.

The technicals are much more attractive. Bitcoin is bouncing along its 200-week moving average. That’s really been an important support in traditional markets, and I think it’s going to support Bitcoin’s price here.

And finally, I think there’s true improved credibility of Bitcoin. The JP Morgan Coin is really proving the use case of digital currencies. Bakkt is going to launch this year and that’s a really good regulated way for institutions to trade crypto.”

Vitalik Buterin on Ripple and XRP

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin is poking fun at Ripple’s stream of partnership announcements on Twitter. Buterin responded to a tongue-in-cheek tweet from the founder of Bitcoin Advisory Pierre Rochard, who pointed out that one Bitcoin has always been worth one Bitcoin.

Meanwhile, an extensive article on Ripple and XRP written by Buterin has surfaced. Buterin wrote the article for Bitcoin Magazine, which he co-founded, back in 2013.

Buterin calls Ripple “decentralized cryptocurrency’s new kid on the block.”

 

Daily Hodl Staff

February 24, 2019

David

Bitcoin – fundamentals stronger than they were during 2014-15 crypto-winter, says Pantera Capital

A year ago, the market cap for the entire cryptocurrency industry was over $800 billion and it has since, fallen by over 80 percent to its current valuation of $135 billion. This period came to be known as the “crypto-winter.”

Pantera Capital, a blockchain investment fund based in San Francisco, released a study that charted the price of Bitcoin in 2013 and compared it to 2017, based on the real-time and projected valuations. The report suggested that top cryptocurrencies, despite a decline in the prices, saw their fundamentals remain resolute.

In 2013, Bitcoin first shot up above the $1,000 mark and then closed the following year just above the $300 mark, with many referring to this period as the first crypto-winter. Dan Morehead, the CEO of Pantera, stated that he had, “more of a worry,” during the first winter as that was Blockchain’s first test. The technology survived and the currency it powered only surged over the following years.

With respect to the current bearish market, he said,

“Today, the underlying fundamentals are much, much stronger than they were in the 2014–15 crypto winter.”

According to Morehead, the stronger fundamentals in the current bear market is due to the rise of institutional interest. The digital assets trading platform Bakkt, backed by NYSE and ICE, is set to launch this year, Fidelity has launched a crypto-custody solution division and more recently, JP Morgan introduced a US dollar-backed cryptocurrency called “JPM Coin.”

He added,

“People have been talking for years about the impending institutional wave of money coming into the markets and I think we now actually have the required conditions for that to happen.”

When asked if retail investors drove the cryptocurrency market and when institutional investors would begin to flock in, Morehead stated that institutions were risk-averse and they preferred a more conservative approach, especially with something as volatile as cryptocurrency.

He added that several custody giants would join the likes of Fidelity and State Street to provide solutions to the cryptocurrency industry, looking at the wider institutional interest. However, the prices need to rise for this to happen. Morehead stated,

“I think that’s been the gating factor: that large institutions want a more institutional custodian like Bakkt or Fidelity. And once those come in, people will start buying and that’ll start the price moving up. But the massive amount of investment probably won’t occur until the prices have already really gotten going.”

Commenting on the ongoing blockchain scaling debate, Morehead stated that it would take a few years for the impact of scaling success to manifest as a success. Morehead compared the lack of scalability of major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin [BTC] to streaming Netflix on a mobile device in the 90s, advising these proponents to be patient. He added,

“These protocols will scale. Even if it takes years for it to happen, you shouldn’t discount that eventuality out of the price today.”

Pantera had recently secured over $125 million out of its $175 million venture fund, which is the company’s third cryptocurrency venture fund. Their maiden fund back in 2013, when the first crypto-winter stormed through, was just $13 million, following which the second rose to $25 million.

In light of their whopping $175 million target, Pantera stated in August 2018, that this was a “function of how fast the space is moving, the talent coming in, the opportunities, and the sizing of rounds.”

 

Published

1 min ago on February 24, 2019 By Aakash Athawasya

David

Bitcoin – Do or die for the bulls

• BTC at the cusp of a major resistance, break must.

• U-turn from here would be deadly and chaotic.

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, is sitting on the cusp of a breakout on the med-term charts, a break of which is a must if the bulls have to continue being relevant in their journey to the north.

BTC/USD is down three cents of a percent on day at $3,929 and trading in less than one percent range for the day. On the 480-minute chart of this largest crypto, it is sitting exactly at the resistance area of the trend line, formed after last year's sell-off and the bounces thereafter.

Given, nearly overbought RSI and sentiment around the crypto world still at their weakest of the times, chances of a breakout on the upside are very slim. But if it indeed breaks out, then next major resistance comes after nearly 35 percent more rally from here – at $5,500 that is. Whereas if bulls are unable to cross past this one, then a U-turn would take prices all the way towards $3,700 first major support and then $3,300. So indeed a do or die situation for the bulls to prove their relevance.

BTC/USD 480-minute chart:

 

Manoj B Rawal

FXStreet

David

 

Bitcoin – Bears Fail to Take a Bite, as Bitcoin Holds onto $4,000

Bitcoin holds onto $4,000 levels through the early hours. The bulls will be targetting $4,200 levels, but resistance will be high at $4,100.

Bitcoin fell by 1.14% on Thursday. Reversing a 1.63% gain from Wednesday, Bitcoin ended the day at $4,008.8.

Following a relatively range-bound early part of the day, Bitcoin struck a mid-morning intraday high $4,145 before hitting reverse.

Breaking through the first major resistance level at $4,095.67 and second major resistance level at $4,136.33, Bitcoin broke through to $4,100 levels for the first time since 10th January.

The reversal saw Bitcoin slide to a late morning intraday low $3,918.5 before finding support. The sell-off saw Bitcoin fall through the first major support level at $3,988.67 before recovering.

A range-bound 2nd half of the day saw Bitcoin find plenty of support at sub-$4,000 to close out the day at $4,000 levels.

Elsewhere

Across the top 10 cryptos, it was a sea of red on the day. Leading the way down were Stellar’s Lumen and Litecoin. The pair fell by 5.36% and by 5.07% respectively.

While Bitcoin saw the most modest losses on the day, Tron’s TRX and Ethereum also fared relatively well under the selling pressure. Tron’s TRX ended the day with a 1.34% loss, while Ethereum dropped by 2%.

In spite of the day’s losses seen across the majors, it’s been a solid week. Leading the way is EOS, which has surged by 32.4%.

Other notable moves through the week include Binance, Bitcoin Cash ABC and Litecoin. The trio managed to see double-digit gains through to the end of Thursday.

For Bitcoin Cash, the market appears to have made up its mind. Bitcoin Cash SV fell back to the number 11 spot by market cap. With just a 2.39% rise for the current week, there may be more trouble ahead.

The news wires have been relatively quiet. Barring the odd bullish call from the likes of Elon Musk, a lack of negative news has supported the upward trend through February.

For the Bitcoin bulls, hopes of the SEC approving 3 Bitcoin ETF applications come off the back of some optimistic comments from VanEck in the week. The decision will be announced on the 3 applications within the next 45-days.

The timing of the SEC’s decision, assuming it’s a favorable outcome, could work out well for the Bitcoin bulls. The current market momentum will need to be maintained to support more significant inflows. Bitcoin is up by 14.4% in February. A number of daily rallies delivered the much-needed boost to reverse January’s losses.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.38% to $4,024.2. A relatively range bound start to the day saw Bitcoin rise from a morning low $4,005.9 to a morning high $4,037.5 before easing back. The day’s major support and resistance levels were left untested through the early hours.

 

For the day ahead

A hold onto $4,020 levels through the morning would support a move through the morning high to bring $4,100 levels into play before any pullback. A breakthrough to $4,100 levels would bring the first major resistance level at $4,129.7 into play before any pullback. We would expect Bitcoin to fall short of $4,200 levels on the day. Thursday’s high $4,145 and the day’s first major resistance level will likely peg Bitcoin back from a breakout from $4,100 levels.

Failure to hold onto $4,020 levels could see Bitcoin hit reverse later in the day. A fall through the morning low to sub-$4,000 levels could see Bitcoin call on support at the first major support level at $3,903.2 before any recovery.

We would expect Bitcoin to steer clear of sub-$3,900 support levels on the day.

 

Bob Mason

1 hour ago (Feb 22, 2019 4:27 AM GMT)

David

Bitcoin and BTC Futures Analysis – January 2019 CryptoCompare Exchange Review

 

The January Exchange Review focuses on analyses that relate to exchange volumes, and includes an analysis of the highest volume producing jurisdictions, as well as market segmentation by exchange fee model.

We also evaluate how spot volumes vs futures volumes have developed historically to date, including both crypto exchange (BitMEX and BitflyerFX) and traditional exchange (CBOE and CME) futures volumes. Finally, we conduct an analysis of bitcoin trading into various fiats and stablecoins, as well as an overview of how exchange web traffic has changed over the previous few months.

Country Analysis

Maltese-registered exchanges represented the majority of trading volume, followed by those legally registered in Hong Kong and Samoa. Monthly trading volume from Maltese-registered exchanges dropped 17% since December, while that of Hong Kong and Samoa-registered exchanges decreased by 5.5% and increased by 9% respectively.

Predominant Fee Type

Exchanges that charge taker fees represented 84% of total exchange volume in January, while those that implement trans-fee mining (TFM) represent 15%. Fee-charging exchanges traded a total of 141 billion USD in January, while those that implement TFM traded 25 billion USD. The remaining volume represented trading by exchanges that charge no trading fees, totalling 2.8 billion USD.

Futures Trading

The proportion of futures trading volume decreased from 28% in December to 24% in January. bitFlyerFX traded the highest amount of BTC futures volume in January with a daily average transactional value of 1.13 billion USD (down 23% since December), followed by BitMEX perpetual futures at 665 million USD (down 41% since December). Futures products from traditional regulated exchanges (CME and CBOE) represented 11.7% of the Bitcoin to USD futures market in January, up from 6.36% in December.

Fiat Capabilities

Monthly trading volume from exchanges that offer fiat pairs decreased by 26.5% in January to 37.5 billion USD, while crypto-to-crypto exchange volume decreased by 7.2% to 132 billion USD. Following this large decline in volume from exchanges that offer fiat trading pairs, in January they represented 22% of total spot volume, down from 26% in December.

Web Traffic

Total exchange web traffic continues its downward trend along with spot volumes, each dropping 13.5% and 12.4% respectively in January. According to calculations based on Alexa data, total monthly unique visitors across CryptoCompare exchanges decreased from 12 million in December to 10.4 million in January.

 

Bitcoin to Fiat Volumes

In January, 48% of Bitcoin trading into fiat was made up of the US Dollar (1.47 million BTC), down from 57% in December. BTC trading into JPY decreased less (-24%) than that traded into USD (-49%) and EUR (-37%) since December. The USD, JPY and EUR made up 90% of total trading from Bitcoin into fiat in the previous month and maintained dominance in January at 89% of BTC to fiat volume.

 

Bitcoin to Stablecoin Volumes

Bitcoin trading into USDT represented 65% of trading into stablecoins and fiat coins in January, up from the 63.7% seen in December. USDT, PAX, USDC and GUSD represent the most popular stablecoins in terms of Bitcoin trading volume. BTC trading into PAX increased 66% in January at 114,000 BTC in total; however, USDT still represents that majority at 5.9 million BTC.

Exchange Volumes

Top Exchange Volumes – ZB was the top exchange by total volume in January, followed by Binance and OKEX. The total volume for ZB in January was 19.6 billion USD, a 6.2% increase from December. The total volumes for Binance and OKEX fell 15% and 19.4% respectively in January.

Trans-Fee Mining Exchanges – CoinBene was the largest TFM exchange in January, followed by ZBG and EXX. CoinBene traded 10 billion USD in total volume in January, down 3.2% since December. ZBG traded 6 billion USD and EXX traded 5.5 billion USD, up 18 and 20% since December respectively.

Decentralised Exchanges – Ethermium was the largest DEX in January, followed by WavesDEX and OpenLedger. DEXs continue to represent only a small fraction of global spot exchange volume (0.19%), trading a monthly total of 385 million USD.

 

HODLX February 20, 2019

David

Bitcoin gets delayed boost from JPMorgan’s embrace of crypto

Bitcoin is approaching $4,000 for the first time since the start of the year, as the largest cryptocurrency gets a delayed boost from the announcement last week that JPMorgan has developed a prototype digital coin that it plans to use to speed up payments between corporate customers.

“What some people have pointed to is that because they’re using distributed ledger technology and they’re calling it a cryptocurrency, that could have a positive effect on the industry,” said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro in Tel Aviv.

Greenspan credited a jump in Ethereum over the weekend tied to the production of coins for helping to create an optimistic environment that pushed most crypto prices higher. Ether rose 17 percent Monday, and was up 3.6 percent to around $146 as of 10:30 a.m. in New York. Bitcoin climbed as much as 3.1 percent Tuesday to $3,970.

At least one measure followed by technical analysts suggests Bitcoin has more room to run, with the digital token in a solid buy trend for the first time since mid-December.

In addition, the VERA Convergence Divergence indicator turned positive today for the first time in over two months, indicating this rally may take Bitcoin over the heavily resisted $4,000 level.

The last time Bitcoin triggered a buy signal it gained $1,100 over the next 10 days.

 

Bloomberg 20 February 2019

David

Markets Hit Six Week High as Altcoin Rally Adds Another $10 Billion

Yesterday’s crypto market rally has continued for a second day adding a further $10 billion to total market capitalization.

The push has driven markets over $134 billion which is the highest they have been since the big dump on January 10, almost six weeks ago. Around ten days ago crypto markets were depressed at $111 billion, since then they have recovered around 20% to current levels. The big question is can this rally turn into a longer term uptrend or is another mega dump imminent.

Ethereum initiated the run yesterday when it pumped 12%, outperforming most of the top altcoins, and Bitcoin itself. Today’s big performer is EOS which has jumped 24% to $3.60 at the time of writing. EOS hit a high of $3.79 a few hours ago which is its best price since late-November’s big market purge. Daily volume has surged to over $2.3 billion pushing EOS market cap to $3.25 billion taking fourth place back from Litecoin. There does not appear to be anything specific driving EOS at the moment aside from fear of missing out (fomo) so a pullback is expected.

Bitcoin Cash has had another solid day’s performance as it gains 13% taking it to $147, chasing down LTC just above it with a climb of 7% to $47.50. Ethereum has also made a further 7% on the day taking its price up to $147 and pushing it over $2 billion clear of XRP in terms of market cap.

Bitcoin is approaching heavy resistance at $4,000 but it is still climbing at the moment with a 5% gain on the day to a high of $3,970 a few hours ago. BTC has since pulled back to $3,920 where it is holding for now.

Other top performers are altcoins which have been hit the hardest in recent weeks namely Cardano, IOTA, Dash, and Ethereum Classic, all climbing 6 to 8 percent on the day. At the moment it is the altcoins which are enjoying the biggest gains over the past 48 hours. Some analysts have predicted the beginning of the “altseason” by looking at total market cap for them without Bitcoin. It has just broken the yearlong trend line and Bitcoin dominance is falling back towards 50%.

At the moment things are looking positive for the majority of altcoins and for once Bitcoin is playing catch-up. It is a pattern repeated countless times though and big brother BTC will have its day sooner or later.

 

Luke Thompson February 19, 2019

 

David