Trade in bitcoins at your own risk, finance ministry warns users

The recent Bitcoin surge has triggered a ponzi scheme fear,in India, forcing the finance ministry to flag it on Friday.

"VCs (virtual currencies) such as bitcoins don't have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets. The price of bitcoin and other VCs therefore is entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in their prices," the ministry said in a statement.

The government is currently in a huddle to find out how to create safeguards against such a risk.

Flagging the risk, the ministry said there is "a real and heightened risk of investment bubble of the type seen in ponzi schemes which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard-earned money".

Consumers need to be alert, the ministry warned, adding that currencies stored in digital/electronic format are vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack etc. that may also result in permanent loss of money.

There is a suspicion that some so-called cryptocurrencies and bitcoin investments may actually have nothing to do with any blockchain-developed virtual currency and are just new ways devised by scamsters to ride the wave and what they may be offering could be 'e-ponzi' schemes.

The ministry, along with the RBI and Sebi, is in the process of creating a framework to safeguard gullible investors and to clamp down on the fraudsters who may try to manipulate the regulatory gaps.

The users, holders and traders of VCs have already been cautioned three times, in December, 2013, February, 2017 and December, 2017, by Reserve Bank of India about the potential financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related risks that they are exposing themselves to by investing in Bitcoin and/ or other VCs.

The Income Tax Department had recently conducted survey operations at major Bitcoin exchanges across the country on suspicion of alleged tax evasion. They said various teams of the sleuths of the department, under the command of the Bengaluru investigation wing, visited the premises of nine such exchanges in the country including in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi and Gurugram.

Source: ET Online|Dec 29, 2017, 11.26 AM IST

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Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis for 12/27/2017 â Rebound Underway?

Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis for 12/27/2017 – Rebound Underway?

Bitcoin price is slowly starting to trend higher once more, possibly rebounding from the slide in the previous week.

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights

Bitcoin price appears to be recovering from its pre-Christmas slump, forming higher highs and higher lows again.

Price is trading inside an ascending channel pattern and is currently testing the resistance.

A pullback to support could be due and using the Fib retracement tool shows the potential inflection points.

Bitcoin price is slowly starting to trend higher once more, possibly rebounding from the slide in the previous week.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is still below the longer-term 200 SMA on this time frame, so the path of least resistance is to the downside. This means that the selloff is more likely to resume than reverse.

However, the gap is narrowing to signal weakening bearish momentum. If an upward crossover materializes, bullish pressure could kick into high gear and allow the uptrend to continue.

Stochastic is also on the move down, though, so buyers might be taking it easy. This could allow bitcoin price to retreat to the channel support at $14,000 near the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. A shallow pullback could find a floor at the 38.2% Fib closer to $15,000 and the mid-channel area of interest.

RSI has plenty of room to head south, so bitcoin price might follow suit until both oscillators hit oversold levels and turn back up.

Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis for 12/27/2017 â Rebound Underway?

Market Factors

Analysts are attributing the recent climb to improved access to buying cryptocurrencies. However, Coinbase suffered a backlog of outgoing transactions earlier on and the issue remains unresolved.

“Due to high volume, we are experiencing a backlog of outgoing transactions for BTC and ETH. … Outgoing transactions of BTC and ETH may be delayed by several hours.”

Event risks involve additional network upgrades or “hard forks” but rising investor interest appears to have been enough to keep bitcoin price supported. After all, bitcoin futures on the CBOE and CME have allowed access to more institutional and retail investors

Still, the dollar could prove to be a worthy opponent as the signing of the tax bill into law would be very positive for the US economy.

Author Sarah Jenn 4:53 am December 27, 2017

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Bitcoin could hit $60,000 in 2018 but another crash is coming, says startup exec

Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Julian Hosp sees a "very, very healthy" chance to buy while the price is lower
No "crypto winter" is coming right now, Hosp predicts, but the market should see consolidation in coins in a year or two out

Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Julian Hosp says bitcoin's rapid rise isn't over yet. But there's a catch.

"I think we're going to see bitcoin hitting the $60,000 dollar mark, but I also think we're going to see bitcoin hitting the $5,000 dollar mark," said Hosp, co-founder and president of TenX, a firm that wants to make it easier for people to spend virtual currencies.

"The question is though, 'Which one is it going to hit first?'" he said.

Numerous high-profile critics and several national governments have warned of the dangers of investing in cryptocurrencies, which they say are likely to crash because nothing underpins their value.

Hosp's forecast would represent a $45,000 rally from the current price of bitcoin — or a $10,000 collapse, underscoring the volatility of the world's largest cryptocurrency.

An extremely volatile asset

After rallying to a record high above $19,800 midway through December, bitcoin prices collapsed last Friday. The digital currency lost a third of its value in a single day, briefly sinking below $11,000 before regaining some of the ground it lost.

Bitcoin traded at $15,185 on Tuesday, according to Coinbase.

"For experts that have been in the market, this was actually a welcome dip," Hosp told CNBC's "Squawk Box".

He said industry insiders had expected the price of bitcoin to fall, given the "dangerous" elevation of value that it has seen over the past few months.

"This dip for us was very, very healthy, and some of us have used it to buy a little bit more because suddenly we had 40-45 percent discount to all-time highs," he added.

Hosp said he's certain that bitcoin will fall again.

"Definitely," he said. "I don't think right now, but I think in the long run, we will always see a little bit of an up move, and then a dip down."

'Winter' is coming — eventually

Hosp likened the current interest in bitcoin to the dotcom bubble that started about 20 years ago, and warned that a consolidation of digital coins is likely to take place in the future.

"I don't think crypto winter is going to come in the next couple of months, but I think if we look down one to two years, there is definitely going to be a big compression in the market," he said.

"I don't think it's going to be a bubble that's just going to burst and everyone is going to lose their money, but I think it's going to be that all the coins and all the assets with very little use or value are going to get sorted out," he said.

"The money is going to flow into those assets in this cryptocurrency space that really deliver value, have new technology, and are being used by people," he added.

TenX charges fees for a wallet and card that are designed to make digital currencies more usable for transactions.

Hosp didn't share his thoughts on which cryptocurrency has the most longevity, but he did say that compression of the market will reduce their numbers.

"I see bitcoin more as digital gold," he said, "rather than a currency that is going to be used on a daily basis."

Author Dan Murphy Correspondent, CNBC

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What Comes After the Futures – The Next Chapter for Bitcoin

What Comes After the Futures - The Next Chapter for Bitcoin

What Comes After the Futures – The Next Chapter for Bitcoin

A Coindesk 2017 Review

On the ninth anniversary of Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper, one of the world's most respected derivatives providers, the CME Group, announced it would launch a regulated bitcoin futures market.

Not to be understated, this was a pivotal moment in bitcoin's history, and quite simply, the future has never been brighter.

It's safe to say that 2017 has been a remarkable year. Almost every single metric of adoption has shown signs of exponential growth: exchange users, wallet downloads, social media chatter, Google search trends, trading volumes, transactions per day, etc.

The price has moved hand-in-hand with these metrics, and bitcoin has reached more people than ever before.

Yet, many of the existing trading platforms have been struggling to stay online 24/7. (Even the CBOE website went down as it launched its bitcoin futures market.) In the majority of cases, these outages are not due to denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks, but the sheer volume of organic traffic.

And with this interest, the futures markets are effectively embedding bitcoin into the traditional regulated markets, adding legitimacy for those that doubted its longevity or who still believe it is a fraud (See: Jamie Dimon). Nevertheless, some bitcoin advocates take issue with the seal of approval from Wall Street.

Author Andreas Antonopoulos has said:

"I am uniquely allergic to the word 'legitimacy,' it makes me want to vomit when warmongering, war profiteering bankers use it to describe bitcoin. That takes a lot of audacity."

And it does seem there's reason to suggest Wall Street isn't directly behind this year's growth.

On March 10th, the Bats BZX exchange had its bitcoin ETF application denied by the SEC due to the unregulated and illiquid nature of bitcoin markets. The decision marked the end of a three-year journey for investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who had long sought to bring such a product to market.

Bitcoin has faced many regulatory challenges in its history, most at the hands of regulators: the LedgerX ETF denial, Chinese regulators halting zero-fee trading and ultimately closing all exchanges.

However, the market capitalization of bitcoin has risen from $20 billion to well over $300 billion in the nine months since those developments.

Fueling the fire

That's not to say that Wall Street isn't bringing new interest to the market – far from it.

The futures markets have shown that investors want to gain exposure to bitcoin in a regulated manner without having to store the underlying asset. For the average investor, there's a lot of risk is involved with holding bitcoin and this is represented by the significant premiums.

But, aside from the pushing up the price and generating media coverage, the futures market will have profound effects on bitcoin.

Increasing demand will likely lead to more futures markets and creating greater volumes over time. There are currently over 15 applications pending for new ETFs, the volume is coming and to quote Antonopoulos again, there is a long way to go:

"When you watch a trader eat a sandwich while he presses enter on a $10 billion trade, you realize how small this game is. We are going to have a lot of volume and that's not bad, in fact that is the first step to reducing volatility."

The 2017 bull run combined with scaling tension has led to a sustained increase in bitcoin volatility over 2017, breaking the five-year down trend.

The regulated futures markets and potential ETFs may be the antidote; deepening liquidity, closing the spreads and reducing the volatility, all of which will contribute to greater market efficiency, price discovery and ultimately ensure bitcoin will be a better store of value and medium of exchange.

Knowledge is Power

But regardless of the tempting volatility, no sophisticated traders will jump into bitcoin without arming themselves with knowledge. It takes a time and breadth of disciplines to understand bitcoin and its many intricacies – as well as a little bit of faith.

To that end, the "education" phase is well underway, in fact the CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission) launched an online information portal days prior to the bitcoin futures launch. Its aim is to educate the public on digital commodities.

This period of research and analysis will have many positive externalities ranging from more effective regulation to greater capital allocation efficiency within the crypto economy. So far, investing within the bitcoin ecosystem has largely been haphazard. Almost every single bitcoin company has underperformed against bitcoin itself.

A greater understanding of bitcoin will foster an ecosystem that allocates capital with greater efficacy, creating the value feedback loop more prevalent in cryptocurrencies such as ethereum.

Every healthy futures market needs a mixture of speculators and hedgers that hold the underlying assets. Typically for markets run by CME, this may be farmers looking to lock in the price of their harvests by short selling contracts of wheat, corn, etc.

Today, the bitcoin futures market is mostly comprised of speculators, and there is a lack of natural sellers as most traders would have to naked short (short without holding bitcoin). At Interactive Brokers, precautions are so great you need five times the collateral to make a trade. For a contract of $100,000, a trader would need $500,000 as margin.

To quote Richard Heart:

"The history of bitcoin is shorts getting rekt, constantly."

Revving up

Still, the ability to hedge the price of bitcoin alters the risk profile of other parts of the industry, particularly mining.

Expect more risk-averse companies to venture into mining industry. After announcing they would start mining the top 10 cryptocurrencies Digital Power Corp. saw a stock appreciation of 750 percent. Digital Power are not alone and numerous tech companies are jumping aboard the mining bandwagon.

With the ability to short sell bitcoin to "lock in" mining profits, these companies can do so with drastically reduced risk. For companies like Digital Power, instruments that provide shorting on indices will be invaluable. If this trend continues, Western mining corporations could start to chip away at the currently centralized mining hash power, with 80 percent of it residing in China.

But, it will take time for volumes to build and spreads to close as only a limited number of sophisticated investors are currently capable of carrying out the risky cash and carry arbitrage. No doubt that uncertainties surrounding forking, scaling and regulation will make bitcoin’s journey to an efficient market bumpy.

The most interesting part of bitcoin's rise to the regulated economy is that it took eight years of clamor, belief and HODLing.

To be sure, though, there's more hard work ahead.

Author Charles Hayter Dec 23, 2017 at 23:00 UTC

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Bitcoin slump sees trades suspended on certain exchanges

Bitcoin plunged on Friday, extending a fall that saw the crypto-currency lose almost a third of its value from a record of nearly $20,000 (£15,000).

The crypto-currency's price dipped below $11,000 on Friday, according to the Coindesk exchange website, before recovering to above $13,000.

Amid the swings, three Bitcoin-related exchanges suspended certain trades.

Bitcoin has had a blistering trip over the past 12 months. Its price at the start of the year was about $1,000.

It has skyrocketed since – more than doubling in value since November – drawing interest from major firms as well as private investors.

But since Sunday Bitcoin has been on a losing streak, falling back to where it was at the start of December.

Analysts said investors should be prepared for such rapid changes, which have characterised the asset from its start.

"This is exactly how this asset trades and has done since the beginning," said Nick Colas, co-founder of New York-based DataTrek Research. "It has a lot of volatility and it will for the foreseeable future."

What happened on Friday?

This week's plunge led to a flood of trades that swamped one of Bitcoin's major exchanges, Coinbase, on Friday. A technical slowdown prompted the firm to halt buying and selling twice.

The CME and CBOE exchanges in the US also temporarily suspended trading of certain Bitcoin futures contracts, which allow investors to bet on where they expect the price of Bitcoin to be at certain points in the future.

The exchanges have automatic brakes that apply once a commodity or asset has moved by a certain amount – as happened in this case.

What sparked the slump?

The market remains driven by sentiment, according to Charles Hayter, founder and chief executive of industry website Cryptocompare.

"A manic upward swing led by the herd will be followed by a downturn as the emotional sentiment changes," he said.

Some traders would have been cashing in on the spectacular gains made over the year, he added.

Concerns about the infrastructure behind crypto-assets may also be spooking investors, said Nick Colas, himself a Bitcoin trader.

In recent weeks, markets have been rattled by hacks and allegations of insider trading.

He attributes some of this week's slump to the launch of a new crypto-asset that came earlier than planned. The surprise temporary shutdown of Coinbase on Friday was the kind of thing that could erode investor confidence, he argued.

"It is not OK to just take trading offline randomly through the day," he said. "The robustness of that system is just as important to their confidence… as the price of crypto-currencies themselves."

A spokesman for Coinbase said the firm was working around the clock to ensure smooth trading. Friday's suspensions lasted for about two hours in total.

"We're doing everything within our power," the spokesman said.

What exactly is Bitcoin?

A digital asset, Bitcoin is not backed by any governments. It is created through a complex process known as "mining", and then monitored by a network of computers across the world.

There is a steady stream of about 3,600 new Bitcoins a day, with more than 16.5 million now in circulation. Supply is expected to peak at about 21 million.

Every single transaction is recorded in a public list called the blockchain.

This makes it possible to trace the history of Bitcoins to stop people from spending coins they do not own, making copies or undoing transactions.

What are authorities saying about Bitcoin?

Regulators around the world have stepped up their warnings about its provenance as an investment.

One of this week's most striking comments came from Denmark's central bank governor, who called it a "deadly" gamble.

Earlier this month, the head of one of the UK's leading financial regulators warned people to be ready to "lose all their money" if they invested in Bitcoin.

Andrew Bailey, head of the Financial Conduct Authority, told the BBC that neither central banks nor the government stood behind the "currency" and therefore it was not a secure investment.

Despite the risk to individuals, US authorities have said they do not think it is a big enough part of financial markets to be a threat to broader economic stability.

Source BBC News

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Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis for 12/22/2017 â Bears Settling In

Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis for 12/22/2017 – Bears Settling In

Bitcoin price is trending lower on its 1-hour time frame and might be due for a pullback to the area of interest at $16,000.

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights

Bitcoin price continues to trend lower and has just dipped below the $13,500 mark.
Price seems to be drawing some support from this area, though, probably making its way up for a correction.
Applying the Fib retracement tool shows the nearby inflection points that might serve as resistance.
Bitcoin price is trending lower on its 1-hour time frame and might be due for a pullback to the area of interest at $16,000.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is below the longer-term 200 SMA to confirm that the path of least resistance is to the downside. This means that the selloff is more likely to resume than to reverse.

The 61.8% Fib is closest to the falling trend line resistance that’s been holding for the past few days. It also coincides with the broken support at the $16,000 longer-term area of interest.

The 38.2% Fib is near the $15,000 psychological level which might also contain plenty of sell orders. The 50% Fib is located at $15,285.

Stochastic is pulling up from oversold territory to reflect a pickup in buying pressure that could allow the correction to stay in play for a while. RSI is also pulling up so bitcoin price might follow suit.

Market Factors

The persistent slide in bitcoin price has probably been leading traders to liquidate their positions before the year comes to a close. The euphoria over the launch of bitcoin futures has faded after all, and there are no major catalysts that could spring another rally.

Then again, there are a few network upgrades scheduled all the way until March next year and this would still likely leave bitcoin stronger than ever. However, issues pertaining to bitcoin trading manipulation have eroded confidence in the cryptocurrency somewhat.

Meanwhile, the dollar remains strongly supported by tax reform progress as the government is on track towards implementing corporate tax cuts soon. This would be very positive for businesses and consumers, thereby upping the chances of seeing more Fed rate hikes next year.

Author Sarah Jenn 5:31 am December 22, 2017

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Bitcoin’s Smaller Cousins Are Leading the Crypto Rally

Bitcoin's Smaller Cousins Are Leading the Crypto Rally

Bitcoin’s Smaller Cousins Are Leading the Crypto Rally

Bitcoin’s smaller cousins are outpacing the largest cryptocurrency’s gains since major U.S. exchanges started offering futures.

The biggest gainers among digital assets with at least $1 billion of market capitalization in the past seven days are so-called alternative coins Verge, Tron, Qtum and Cardano, soaring at least 300 percent. Despite some wild price swings, bitcoin’s price is mostly flat since Cboe Group Markets Inc. and CME Group Inc. made the derivatives available in the past two weeks.

“People were really excited about the futures coming in and bitcoin really rallied leading up to that,” Joe Van Hecke, managing partner at Chicago-based Grace Hall Trading LLC, said in a telephone interview from Charlotte, North Carolina. “Bitcoin’s been on a massive rally and the other coins are just now catching up as it takes a breather. Additionally some positive press around some of them added to the rally. ”

Smaller Coins Have Bigger Gains

Bitcoin's smaller rivals are outpacing the largest cryptocurrency

smaller coins have bigger gains

Here’s a primer on these lesser known digital tokens. Most of them try to improve on the very things some see as positive in bitcoin; for those who don’t like to broadcast their transactions on a public blockchain, some platforms are offering untraceable transfers. And if you’re uneasy with the fact that bitcoin can’t be easily regulated, there’s a coin to fix that too. There’s even a blockchain-less cryptocurrency that tries to eliminate fees.

Verge

Verge aims to provide individuals and businesses with fast, efficient and decentralized transactions, which was bitcoin’s original purpose, but wants to improve on bitcoin by maintaining personal privacy, using anonymity-centric networks such as Tor, obfuscating IP addressees and making transactions "completely untraceable," according to its website. Verge, with a market cap of $1.07 billion, is up more than 1,000 percent in the past week.

Tron

Tron, operated by the Singapore-based Tron Foundation, wants to build a “worldwide free content entertainment system” based on the blockchain, according to its website. The protocol allows users to freely publish, store and own data, enabling them to decide how the content gets distributed and at what cost. Payments would be made in cryptocurrencies including tron’s coin. Tron, with a market cap of $3.1 billion, is up 340 percent in the past week.

Qtum

Qtum wants to be the public ledger for business. The open-source blockchain project wants to combine the reliability of bitcoin’s blockchain with the flexibility of smart contracts of the ethereum network, according to its website. That combination will allow it to provide stability for business applications. Qtum Foundation, which develops the project, is based in Singapore. Qtum has a market cap of $5.1 billion and is up 262 percent in the past week.

Cardano

Cardano, backed by the Zug, Switzerland-based Cardano Foundation, is a decentralized public blockchain that aims to protect user privacy, while also allowing for regulation. Cardano is a multi-layer protocol; the settlement layer will have a unit of account, while the control layer will run smart contracts and will be programmed to recognize identity, assisting compliance, according to its website. The system is designed to be upgraded so that it can evolve quickly. Cardano has a market cap of $14 billion, and is up 348 percent in the past week.

Other cryptocurrencies making waves because of their longer-term price moves and new developments:

Monero

Monero is a decentralized cryptocurrency that focuses on privacy, hiding the origins, amounts, and destinations of all transactions. Monero on Dec. 5 announced that more than 35 artists, including Mariah Carey, Lana del Rey and Marilyn Manson, will start accepting the cryptocurrency on their online stores. Monero’s price has more than quadrupled to over $420 in the past two months.

Iota

Iota is a cryptocurrency backed by a distributed ledger that’s not on a blockchain. Instead the network is called a "tangle" and aims to eliminate fees by creating a decentralized peer-to-peer system. Iota’s tokens have been on a rollercoaster, rallying on a statement on its blog that seemed to imply a partnership with Microsoft Corp., and then plunging after the platform clarified it’s not in a formal agreement with the tech giant. Iota’s price has soared from less than a dollar a month ago to more than $5, climbing to become the sixth biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, right after litecoin.

Author Camila Russo 20 December 2017, 15:37 GMT

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Bitcoin Cash makes waves as it becomes available on Coinbase â and then halts trading

Bitcoin Cash makes waves as it becomes available on Coinbase – and then halts trading

Bitcoin Cash, a fork of the more popular cryptocurrency that was created in August, is now fully supported on Coinbase’s exchange, so you can buy and sell the currency there – just not immediately.

Abbreviated as BCH, the currency showed Cash prices at roughly $8,500, or nearly three times higher than the value it commands on other exchanges (Coinmarketcap has it at $3,381 at the time of writing).

TechCrunch noted that the price surge was likely the result of a glitch, as no other exchange reflected a similar increase in value. Coinbase’s US-based sister exchange GDAX noted that it’s clearing BCH markets until 9AM PST on December 20. As such, Coinbase has halted BCH trading on its platform as well – though sends and receives are still possible.

The company noted that you should be able to buy and sell BCH again tomorrow, but didn’t say whether it determined what might have caused the hiccup.

Update: GDAX explained that it paused BCH trading owing to high volatility, and that order books will reopen on December 20 at 9AM PST.

Author ABHIMANYU GHOSHAL

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Watch out for a correction in bitcoin after a parabolic rise

Cryptocurrencies are suitable for short-term trading
Bitcoin futures have limits on expiry
The bitcoin trend shows room for a 50% correction

Bitcoin trading, and the capital allocated to it, remains a very small part of the multi-trillion dollar equity markets. It is an even smaller part of the much, much larger derivatives market.

The key problem with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is that they are fiat currencies in the true sense of the word. A fiat currency relies on investors confidence for its value. A fiat currency is not backed in gold or some other asset. Most world currencies are fiat currencies, but they are backed by sovereign states. It is rare for a sovereigns States to default on debt which in turn leads to currency collapse.

Cryptocurrencies are the currency of choice for money laundering, hackers, terrorists and criminals. Governments will not stand by and allow these cryptocurrencies to evade the regulations around these activities. There is a high risk that sovereign executive action will destroy the value of these bitcoins.

Legitimacy

Cryptocurrencies do not have the support of sovereign states. In fact some sovereign states – China – refuse to recognize these as legitimate currencies.

This is the most significant risk in cryptocurrency trading. At any time a sovereign state like the United States may ban or prohibit cryptocurrency use and trading and thus render all contracts immediately worthless. This makes the cryptocurrencies suitable for short-term trading with exceptionally good risk management.

The listing of bitcoin contracts on Chicago futures exchanges does not legitimize Bitcoin. These contracts can only be cash settled in U.S. dollars. The contract cannot be converted to bitcoins on expiry. This gives an indication of the level of confidence in the currency. Creating a bitcoin futures contract legitimizes and regulates the trading activity, but it does not legitimize bitcoin as a currency.

CME, the world's largest futures exchange, launched its bitcoin futures contract this week under the ticker "BTC." The front-month contact opened above $20,000. The previous week the Chicago Board Options Exchange launched it own futures contract with the front-month topping $18,000.

Cryptocurrencies are also tracked on CoinDesk, which monitors prices from digital currency exchanges Bitstamp, Coinbase, itBit and Bitfinex.

The trend

This trend is a parabolic curve. The trend is best described using a segment of an ellipse, mistakenly called a parabolic curve

Once the three anchor points are set, the position of the curve does not change. The trend starts off slowly then accelerates very rapidly until the activity on the price chart is almost vertical.

Prices will soon move inevitably to the right of the curve. This usually signals a rapid retracement of 50% or more.

History

Alexandre Dumas wrote a book, The Black Tulip, which should be read by any person thinking about trading bitcoins. If anything, the situation is worse now that Dumas describes in his day when tulip futures were actively traded on the Amsterdam stock exchange.

Bitcoins will not impact the stock market other than to remove some speculative capital from the equity market. However the amounts are small when compared with overall market activity.

Author Daryl Guppy CNBC

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Analyst who predicted bitcoin’s rise now sees it hitting $300,000-$400,000

Analyst who predicted bitcoins rise now sees it hitting $300,000-$400,000

Analyst who predicted bitcoin's rise now sees it hitting $300,000-$400,000

Ronnie Moas in July put a $5,000 price target on bitcoin when it was at $2,600
The founder of Standpoint Research now sees the cryptocurrency rising by another 500 percent

Bitcoin will surge past $20,000 and continue its meteoric march into six figures, according to independent research analyst Ronnie Moas.

"Bitcoin is already up 500 percent since I recommended it in the beginning of July, and I'm looking for another 500 percent move from here," said Moas, the founder of Standpoint Research, a self-described "one-man operation" based in Miami.

Over the summer, Moas put a $5,000 price target on bitcoin for 2018. At the time, the digital currency was trading at just $2,600. Since then, it has surged to $18,168 as of Monday, according to prices tracked on Coinbase.

"The end-game on bitcoin is that it will hit $300,000 to $400,000 in my opinion, and it will be the most valuable currency in the world," Moas told CNBC's "The Rundown."

"I don't know how much gold there is in the ground, but I know how much bitcoin there is, and in two years there will be 300 million people in the world trying to get their hands on a few million bitcoin."
-Ronnie Moas, founder, Standpoint Research

The analyst's comments came as the CME, the world's largest futures exchange, launched its own bitcoin futures contract. The Cboe did the same earlier this month.

His aggressively bullish call — a near-$380,000 dollar appreciation on today's prices — is based on the idea that since only 21 million bitcoin can ever exist. Increasing demand for the digital currency will naturally drive its price up, he said.

Not everyone agrees

Moas said he believes his price target is a conservative call, but others disagree.

"We think that it's risky," Vasu Menon, vice president of Wealth Management at Singapore-based bank OCBC, told CNBC.

"I don't see strong fundamental drivers for this bitcoin rally," he said.

But Moas says the party is just getting started.

"I look at bitcoin the same way I look at Amazon," he said. "The way to play Amazon for the last 15 years was to buy it, hold it, and add on the dips. That's exactly the way I think people should be playing bitcoin."

Author Dan Murphy Correspondent, CNBC

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