What Bitcoin Watchers Are Saying After the Surge Past $10,000

Inside The La Maison du Bitcoin Bank As Cryptocurrency Emerges As Zimbabwe's Crisis Currency

What Bitcoin Watchers Are Saying After the Surge Past $10,000

Bitcoin entered uncharted territory on Wednesday after breaching $10,000 for the first time, leaving investors to wonder how long the rally will go — and whether it will end in tears.
 

The digital currency climbed as much as 4.4 percent to a record $10,379.53 during Asia trading hours, capping a more than 10-fold increase this year. Its market value has surpassed $176 billion, according to Coinmarketap.com.
 

Here’s what bitcoin watchers are saying about the dizzying rally.

 

Arthur Hayes at BitMEX

“They said it was a bubble at $1,000, they said it was a bubble at $5,000 and they said it was a bubble at $10,000,” said Hayes, chief executive officer and co-founder of Hong Kong-based BitMEX, a cryptocurrency derivatives venue. “Shorting anything is a very dangerous game, especially if you’re shorting into a transformational monetary system. These transformational experiences happen once every few hundred years and are extremely chaotic.”

What Bitcoin Watchers Are Saying After the Surge Past $10,000

Hayes, who was speaking on the phone from New York after attending the Consensus: Invest cryptocurrency conference, said he saw more people wearing suits than jeans and hoodies — a sign of growing interest on Wall Street.

“The fear of missing out is becoming stronger and stronger,” he said. “The traditional asset manager or investor, banker who has probably poo-pooed bitcoin the past few years is now paying upwards of thousands of dollars to hear about how they can get involved in this new industry.”

Hayes said bitcoin may reach $50,000 by the end of 2018.

 

Stephen Innes at Oanda
 

“I’d be a little bit worried on a falling knife scenario,” said Innes, head of trading for Asia-Pacific at Oanda Corp. in Singapore. “Are current investors prepared for this? No, of course not.”

Longer term, cryptocurrencies will gain more credibility as CME Group Inc. starts selling bitcoin futures and other mainstream institutions get involved, Innes said. For now, he sees a short-term pullback of 3 percent to 6 percent as investors take stock of how much they’ve gained.

“When we’re starting to get into these crazy numbers, I’m a little bit fearful that retail traders are jumping in under the false guise of this will run on forever,” he said. “We know things never go in a straight line.”
 

Jehan Chu at Kenetic Capital
 

“If you look at the kind of trajectory not just of the currency and the price, but really of the mind share among influencers, among governments, among central banks, among enterprises — that’s actually where I see the real guideposts of where the price will go,” said Chu, managing partner at cryptocurrency fund Kenetic Capital in Hong Kong, who first bought bitcoin at about $1,100 in 2013.

“One of the main factors is the settling down of the civil wars that have been raging on,” Chu said, referring to intense debate within the industry over technology upgrades that resulted in the formation of a rival coin called bitcoin cash. “There’s much less drama at the moment at least. One side has disarmed and that has really provided a clear path ahead to show that the ecosystem can grow in a more predictable manner.”

Chu sees some risk of a correction, but not a major one, and said that high prices will ironically serve to draw more institutional interest.
 

Dave Chapman at Octagon Strategy
 

“Now, you’re getting an enormous amount of legitimacy and credibility in the bitcoin protocol,” said Chapman of cryptocurrency trading firm Octagon Strategy in Hong Kong. “Admittedly, there is an element of FOMO (fear of missing out). That’s not entirely healthy for the current market. There is a sizable amount of people investing in bitcoin purely on speculation.”

Chapman sees a correction coming, but is unsure how large it will be.

“I see possibly a correction but then also an immediate bounce-back just owing to the size of the market. People will double down and see it as a buying opportunity.”
 

Gavin Yeung at Cryptomover

“Owning a whole bitcoin is now a status symbol,” said Yeung, CEO of Hong Kong-based investment company Cryptomover. “We are coming to see that bitcoin itself is a Veblen good. The higher the price, the more desirable the product is to the general public.”
 

Lewis Fellas at Bletchley Park Asset Management
 

“The principal driver has been the proposed CME futures contract, which has really woken up Wall Street,” said Fellas, chief investment officer at Bletchley Park Asset Management, which invests in cryptocurrencies. “The secondary driver is media coverage. It’s fueling a fear-of-missing-out as we set successive new highs, luring people in for a quick profit ahead of the futures contract.”

The risk of a near-term retreat is real as regulators could still block or delay the proposed futures, Fellas said. “A delay or ‘no’ could easily trigger a 30 to 40 percent correction.”

Authors: Eric Lam and Justina Lee 29 November 2017, 04:42 GMT
With assistance by Andrea Tan

 

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Bitcoin price – Cryptocurrency plummets $1000 ahead of bitcoin gold split

Bitcoin price - Cryptocurrency plummets $1000 ahead of bitcoin gold split

Bitcoin price – Cryptocurrency plummets $1000 ahead of bitcoin gold split

BITCOIN prices took a blow today, falling below £5,328.46 ($7,000) just days before a planned software update will release bitcoin gold.

Bictoin prices fell by £761.21 ($1,000) in just over 48 hours after strong performance at the start of the week.

The crypto token opened today at £5,440.19 ($7,146.78), according to CoinDesk, before peaking at £5,579.71 ($7,330.06).

On Wednesday, the popular digital currency flared to an unprecedented price of more than £5,937.43 ($7,800) in the wake of the cancelled Segwit2x update.

The plummeting price comes on top of a hard fork that took place a few weeks ago, and will now come into effect with a new token known as bitcoin gold (BTG).

BTG aims to keep most properties of the bitcoin protocol, but will disallow the use of specialised chipsets in the mining process.

Bitcoin gold is now scheduled to arrive at 7pm GMT on Sunday November 12 – not November 1, as it was originally planned.

The token's backers said in a statement: "We are extremely grateful for the community around the world who have been contributing hash power to our testnets; besides patiently testing their own mining process, they allow exchanges, pools, wallet developers, and all other service operators to implement and test their support of BTG so that the bitcoin gold community can have a full suite of services at launch time."

In a similar split to bitcoin cash earlier in August, all current users of the cryptocurrency will be credited with a number of BTG tokens equal to their bitcoin stash.

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Bitcoin price: The crypto token plummeted after a week of strong performance

In the few months that is has been alive, bitcoin cash has already managed to amount a market cap volume of £10,546,618,870.19 ($13,855,093,020).

But the creators of bitcoin gold have faced criticism, mostly for choosing to withhold one per cent of the currency's volume.

Unlike bitcoin, the new token was created in advance of being open-sourced to the public.

BTG's creators have argued that this move simply aims to pay the development team for their work.

Users will be able to redeem their coins after the cryptocurrency is launched.

Some have also criticised the need for a bitcoin derivative in market already over-saturated by crypto tokens.

 

Sol Lederer, blockchain director at Loomia, said in an statement: "These forks are very bad for bitcoin.

"Saturating the market with different versions of bitcoin is confusing to users, and discredits the claim that there are a limited number of bitcoins — since you can always fork it and double the supply."

There are currently more than 1,200 different tokens in existence according to CoinMarketCap. Most of them do not even reach a tenth of a dollar in price.
 

Author: SEBASTIAN KETTLEY
PUBLISHED: 18:03, Fri, Nov 10, 2017 | UPDATED: 18:13, Fri, Nov 10, 2017

 

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Bitcoin’s price bubble will burst under government pressure

Bitcoin's price bubble will burst under government pressure

Bitcoin's price bubble will burst under government pressure

Is the cryptocurrency bitcoin the biggest bubble in the world today, or a great investment bet on the cutting edge of new-age financial technology? My best guess is that in the long run, the technology will thrive, but that the price of bitcoin will collapse.

If you haven’t been following the bitcoin story, its price is up 600% over the past 12 months, and 1,600% in the past 24 months. At over $4,200 (as of 5 October), a single unit of the virtual currency is now worth more than three times an ounce of gold. Some bitcoin evangelists see it going far higher in the next few years.

What happens from here will depend a lot on how governments react. Will they tolerate anonymous payment systems that facilitate tax evasion and crime? Will they create digital currencies of their own? Another key question is how successfully bitcoin’s numerous “alt-coin” competitors can penetrate the market.
 

Warnings grow louder over cryptocurrency as valuations soar

In principle, it is supremely easy to clone or improve on bitcoin’s technology. What is not so easy is to duplicate bitcoin’s established lead in credibility and the large ecosystem of applications that have built up around it.

For now, the regulatory environment remains a free-for-all. China’s government, concerned about the use of bitcoin in capital flight and tax evasion, has recently banned bitcoin exchanges. Japan, on the other hand, has enshrined bitcoin as legal tender, in an apparent bid to become the global centre of fintech.

Bitcoin's price bubble will burst under government pressure

The United States is taking tentative steps to follow Japan in regulating fintech, though the endgame is far from clear. Importantly, bitcoin does not need to win every battle to justify a sky-high price. Japan, the world’s third largest economy, has an extraordinarily high currency-to-income ratio (roughly 20%), so bitcoin’s success there is a major triumph.

In Silicon Valley, drooling executives are both investing in bitcoin and pouring money into competitors. After bitcoin, the most important is Ethereum. The sweeping, Amazon-like ambition of Ethereum is to allow its users to employ the same general technology to negotiate and write “smart contracts” for just about anything.

As of early October, Ethereum’s market capitalisation stood at $28bn, versus $72bn for bitcoin. Ripple, a platform championed by the banking sector to slash transaction costs for interbank and overseas transfers, is a distant third at $9bn. Behind the top three are dozens of fledgling competitors.

Most experts agree that the ingenious technology behind virtual currencies may have broad applications for cybersecurity, which currently poses one of the biggest challenges to the stability of the global financial system. For many developers, the goal of achieving a cheaper, more secure payments mechanism has supplanted bitcoin’s ambition of replacing dollars.

But it is folly to think that bitcoin will ever be allowed to supplant central-bank-issued money. It is one thing for governments to allow small anonymous transactions with virtual currencies; indeed, this would be desirable. But it is an entirely different matter for governments to allow large-scale anonymous payments, which would make it extremely difficult to collect taxes or counter criminal activity. Of course, as I note in my recent book on past, present, and future currencies, governments that issue large-denomination bills also risk aiding tax evasion and crime. But cash at least has bulk, unlike virtual currency.

It will be interesting to see how the Japanese experiment evolves. The government has indicated that it will force bitcoin exchanges to be on the lookout for criminal activity and to collect information on deposit holders. Still, one can be sure that global tax evaders will seek ways to acquire bitcoin anonymously abroad and then launder their money through Japanese accounts. Carrying paper currency in and out of a country is a major cost for tax evaders and criminals; by embracing virtual currencies, Japan risks becoming a Switzerland-like tax haven – with the bank secrecy laws baked into the technology.

Were bitcoin stripped of its near-anonymity, it would be hard to justify its current price. Perhaps bitcoin speculators are betting that there will always be a consortium of rogue states allowing anonymous bitcoin usage, or even state actors such as North Korea that will exploit it.

Would the price of bitcoin drop to zero if governments could perfectly observe transactions? Perhaps not. Even though bitcoin transactions require an exorbitant amount of electricity, with some improvements, bitcoin might still beat the 2% fees the big banks charge on credit and debit cards.

Finally, it is hard to see what would stop central banks from creating their own digital currencies and using regulation to tilt the playing field until they win. The long history of currency tells us that what the private sector innovates, the state eventually regulates and appropriates. I have no idea where bitcoin’s price will go over the next couple years, but there is no reason to expect virtual currency to avoid a similar fate.
 

Author: Kenneth Rogoff

 

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Early bitcoin investor Palihapitiya declares ‘nobody can stop it’

Early bitcoin investor Palihapitiya declares 'nobody can stop it'

Early bitcoin investor Palihapitiya declares 'nobody can stop it'

  • Social Capital's Chamath Palihapitiya was early in both Facebook and bitcoin and continues to back both.
  • "The idea that the government can put curbs on this is actually pretty specious," he said in response to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's criticism of bitcoin.

Investors who followed Social Capital's Chamath Palihapitiya into the early stages of two investments he advocated would have made an awful lot of money.

Palihapitiya was early in both Facebook, the ubiquitous social network, and bitcoin, the disruptive crypotcurrency that has sharply divided investors who continue to argue over its legitimacy.

Even with the major gains both have made, Palihapitiya remains hot on tech stocks in general, and bitcoin in particular. The digital currency, despite some volatile times, has soared nearly 300 percent this year.

That has come even though JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has called it a fraud that is doomed to fail.

"Nobody can stop it because nobody can control it," Palihapitiya said in an exclusive CNBC PRO interview at the Delivering Alpha conference on Sept. 12. "The idea that the government can put curbs on this is actually pretty specious."

Rather than debate its status as a currency or its use for nefarious purposes, he said there should be a broader discussion about how to put it to better use.

"As far as I'm concerned, the genie is out of the bottle," he said. "Now the real question is how can we productively use it to solve some of society's issues around the financial services infrastructure."

 

Jeff Cox | @JeffCoxCNBCcom

 

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Bitcoin Price Analysis – A perfect storm

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Bitcoin Price Analysis – A perfect storm

Bitcoin has dropped ~USD$400 in the past 24 hours, contributing to a ~USD$1450 drop in the past seven days. The leading cryptocurrency is down ~US$1150 Since the recent high of ~US$4950 on Sept 2nd, or nearly 30%. The lackluster performance can be attributed to both technical and fundamental factors.

On September 4th, China announced an outright ban of all ICOs, suggested refunding any collected funds in any ongoing crowd sales, and hinted at the shuttering of exchanges trading ICOs.

Earlier today, the oldest Bitcoin exchange in China, BTCC, announced it would end trading on September 30th. Competitors OKcoin and Huobi have yet to make announcements but they may also close their doors.

Needless to say, the market has reacted. Today marked the highest volume for a daily candle since Chinese exchange regulation in January, according to the BLX.

Not making a single clear statement, and therefore adding to fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a classic move from the Chinese government and has occurred multiple times in the past.

The crackdown in China occurs in the context of an already overbought market. These conditions are almost identical to those in January, when the Chinese government reigned in Bitcoin exchange trading.

One high volume Bitcoin trader, who likes to protect their identity, had this to say about the situation. “I see regulations as a means of protecting the investor. During the 1920’s the United States stock markets were cesspools of corrupt insider trading, front running and taking advantage of the general population. The Securities Act of 1933 put an end to most of that, although many now a days would say otherwise, ending the so called ‘wild west of the stock markets’. Cryptocurrency, still in its infancy in my opinion, is just this; markets untamed a wild west ruled by non professional pundits and early adopters. I expect regulation will potentially be a good thing at first. However, coming into larger global adoption – I fear that cryptocurrencies as a whole will become just as easily manipulated, if not more, by the J.P. Morgans and Goldman Sachs’ of the world, as has been demonstrated during the tumultuous events of the past seven days.”

When fundamentals and technicals are united, the price move and reaction becomes amplified. So no, CEO of J.P Morgan Jamie Dimon’s comments this week didn’t crash Bitcoin. The market was due for a large correction after spending only eight days in the 3000 range.

Exchange traded volume has been led by USD. Tether (USDT) is pegged to the dollar, and has also seen a significant bump in volume. This suggests that traders are using USDT as a safe haven from the pullback.

CNY volume accounts for <18% of exchange traded volume globally, but it’s clear that Chinese regulators have rattled the markets. Bitcoin has been selling for a significant discount in Yuan (CNY) markets, compared to other pairs, suggesting an influx of CNY traders selling bitcoin. CNY traders buying bitcoin had been paying a premium as recently as June.

In light of the China exchange bans, pending or otherwise, we can expect OTC volume to increase significantly, just as it did following the increased regulatory focus from the Chinese government in January.

On a geopolitically related note, North Korea appears to be itching for attention on the world stage, having fired another missile over Japan. Should an offensive campaign, police action, or outright war arise in the region, we can expect a reaction from Bitcoin in some fashion.

There has also been a great deal of press around the potential large scale bitcoin acquisition by North Korea, including: bitcoin mining based on an uptick of internet activity in the region, hackers targeting cryptocurrency exchanges, and their involvement with the WannaCry virus. Despite all the press, it is difficult to prove the extent at which this is occurring without significant and in depth investigations on several fronts.

However, Japanese Yen (JPY) and South Korean Won (KRW) constitute 28% of global bitcoin trading. Should Bitcoin be seen as a safe haven asset in those regions, we can expect a bullish spike in price, lead by bitcoin trading for a premium in those markets.

Technical Analysis

On weeks like this one, with intense selling, it’s important to understand why the selling is occurring from a technical perspective.

On the weekly timeframe, there was building volume and RSI bearish divergence, which was confirmed last week. This meant that as price is rising, it is doing so on less volume and less momentum that it had previously. It was losing steam.

Divergences are considered lagging indicators and are difficult to trade off in isolation. Much like this divergence however, traders will watch the momentum fade and take action when they are certain of the direction.

Bearish Divergences on the weekly chart have historically had significant pullbacks. Note that RSI divergences should be seen from the body of the candle, not the wick, because RSI is calculated at the close of the candle.

There have also been several hidden bullish divergences on the weekly chart, signaling weakening bearish sentiment. A hidden bullish divergence occurs when price makes a higher low on increased momentum. This means that in spite of increased momentum, price was unable to make a lower low.

This pattern has occurred several times on the weekly chart, and was a signal for strong bullish trend continuation. Should selling continue over the next week, there is the potential for another hidden bullish divergence.

When looking for strong high probability support, look no further than the Ichimoku Cloud. The Kijun (red) represents complete mean reversion of the historic prices over the past 30 periods. This zone is currently holding as support at the time of this article. Additionally, there is an incredibly small, but existing hidden bullish divergence should this zone hold.

Another indicator to use when looking for support is the Pitchfork (PF). They provide diagonals that can be thought of as a potential reversal zones or support/resistance lines. The upper diagonal zones being ‘most overbought,’ or the top bounds of the trend, and the lower diagonal zones being ‘most oversold,’ or the bottom bounds of the trend.
 

Based on the longstanding PF, beginning in 2015, there is potential for increased selling down to the median line, ~USD$2800. This zone also represents support from the previous ATH made earlier this year.

There is another noteworthy pattern developing on a shorter timeframe, the fifteen minute chart, a bullish three drives pattern with a growing volume and RSI bullish divergence.

Lastly, we are approaching a rollover date on the OKcoin quarterly futures. Although the alternating top/bottom price pattern between quarterly futures contracts began to get much looser on the most recent rally to ~USD$5000, volatility surrounding the contract dates is not unusual. With a potential touch of the 200EMA on the daily chart, this may very well represent an interim bottom until December, when another bull run may occur.

Conclusion

A perfect storm of technical weakness and Chinese regulatory belt tightening, neither of which was fully priced in until at least today. Once regulations are finalized and FUD is abated, we can expect a strong rally, similar to that in January of this year. Technicals are already showing signs of bearish momentum weakening, with support targets holding on the daily close. Interestingly, this drop has been timed almost perfectly with the open of a new quarterly futures contract on OKcoin. Although the volume on the daily candle is the highest it’s been all year, we’ve yet to see a strong capitulation wick, signaling the end of the pullback.

 

Author Josh Olszewicz , 15 Sep 2017 – Bitcoin Price Analysis, Opinion, Technical

 

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Bankers’ mistrust of bitcoin is still the greatest argument for it

Bankers' mistrust of bitcoin is still the greatest argument for it

Bankers’ mistrust of bitcoin is still the greatest argument for it

Earlier on Tuesday, at different conferences around New York, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon took aim at bitcoin, calling the cryptocurrency “a fraud” and “worse than tulip bulbs.”

This skepticism by one of Wall Street’s titans, and its reflection in many offices and hallways in top financial services companies, is perhaps one of the strongest cases for bitcoin’s lasting importance.

Let’s be clear, Dimon’s firm is one of the chief architects of the global financial crisis that led to the interest in a somewhat arcane cryptocurrency in the first place. There would be no bitcoin without Jamie Dimon — and in some ways he’s right to fear its rise.

As a Vanity Fair piece revealed last week, JPMorgan Chase paid out $13 billion (with a “b”) to the U.S. government because of its role in the financial crisis and the mortgage security fiasco that almost destroyed the U.S. economy.

The story quotes an unfiled complaint that was sealed as part of the settlement with the Department of Justice.

“By this action,” the draft complaint begins, “the United States seeks to recover civil penalties” against JPMorgan Chase and its investment banking arm “for a fraudulent and deceptive scheme to package and sell residential mortgage-backed securities” that the bank “knew contained a material amount of materially defective loans.” As the unfiled complaint continued, “JPMorgan knowingly securitized and sold billions of dollars of mortgage loans that were originated in material violation of underwriting guidelines and law.” (When reached for comments and responses to the various allegations in Wagner’s unfiled brief, a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase told me, “These allegations have been addressed, resolved, or refuted years ago.”)

Whatever irrational exuberance may be attributed to bitcoin’s current froth, it’s hardly a fraud. What it does is get rid of the need for potentially unscrupulous middlemen who thrive and profit on asymmetric information.

Bitcoin does away with this by presenting an immutable ledger. The value of things are recorded, agreed upon, and irrefutable. Which means that shenanigans of the kind that brought down the housing bubble are less likely to occur.

Perhaps bitcoin itself is overvalued, but it’s not the house of cards that Dimon’s employees blew over in 2008.

While the near sacramental disputes in the cryptocurrency community over bitcoin and bitcoin cash or ethereum vs. ethereum classic do the entire industry no favors, they’re the arguments of individuals who want to untether financial services from the chicanery of misanthropic sociopaths who thrive on their ability to cheat systems.

The favorite refrain of Wall St. may be “it’s only illegal if I get caught”… and while cryptocurrencies are unregulated, they are — for the most part — transparent.
 

Again, the Vanity Fair report is illustrative.

At Dimon’s “insistence,” the unfiled complaint asserts, “JPMorgan formulated an exit strategy to divest itself” of the riskiest pieces of mortgage-backed securities that had been accumulating on its balance sheet. But, Wagner writes in the draft complaint, “despite knowledge at the highest levels that underwriting had deteriorated across the industry and early payment defaults were spiking, JPMorgan continued to purchase and securitize subprime loans without addressing the known breakdown of its due diligence practices and without disclosing its knowledge to investors.” This is pretty much the exact same thing that Goldman Sachs did leading up to the financial crisis, a practice for which the bank was roundly criticized.

Dimon may say that he’s not advising anyone to ‘go short’ on bitcoin, but if Wall Street keeps up its criticism, my advice may be to go long.

 

Author: Jonathan Shieber (@jshieber

 

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