Crypto market overview – Bitcoin, Ethereum go down; Goldman predicts more pain

Crypto market overview - Bitcoin, Ethereum go down; Goldman predicts more pain

Crypto market overview – Bitcoin, Ethereum go down; Goldman predicts more pain

All major cryptocurrencies lost positions in recent 24 hours.
Goldman experts believe that the upside was temporary.

Cryptocurrency market continued sliding from recent highs. All major coins finished Monday in a red zone, while the total cryptocurrency market value slipped to $290B against $296.9B this time on Monday. EOS proved to be the worst-perfomer out of top-10 (the coin has lost over 9%), while Bitcoin went down 2.5% .

Bitcoin, the digital currency No.1, is changing hands at $8,100, the coin has lost 0.7% in recent 24 hours and touched $7,850 during Monday trading

Ethereum, the second largest digital coin with current market value $45.8B, broke below critical $460 to trade at $452 at press time, down 2.5% on a daily basis. ETH touched $516 high on July 18 and lost nearly 10% since that time.

EOS is the worst performing cryptocurrency out of top-10. The coin has lost over 7% to trade at $7.65 amid a combination of a technical and fundamental factors. Thus a sustainable movement below $8.00 handle increased the bearish pressure and triggered new selling orders.

Meanwhile, institutional bankers came up with gloomy forecasts. Thus, Goldman Sachs experts believe that the recent upside of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies will be short-lived.

“We expect further declines in the future given our view that these cryptocurrencies do not fulfill any of the three traditional roles of a currency: they are neither a medium of exchange, nor a unit of measurement, nor a store of value,” Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani from bank’s Investment Strategy Group wrote.

Tanya Abrosimova Tanya Abrosimova

FXStreet

David

3 THINGS PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT BITCOIN, ACCORDING TO AN EARLY INVESTOR

Famous Bitcoin early investor Jeffrey Wernick — who also got into Uber and Airbnb as an angel investor — recently told Business Insider that people get a lot of things wrong about the first and foremost cryptocurrency. Here’s some of what he had to say.

When asked by Business Insider‘s Sara Silverstein what “most people get wrong about bitcoin or cryptocurrency,” the successful financial expert had a lot to say on the matter.

‘IT’S A PEOPLE’S MONEY’

Firstly, Wernick claims most people today have either neglected to recall or totally forgotten the philosophical purpose which underlined Bitcoin’s creation — namely, that it would be an alternative currency outside the reach of governments and traditional financial institutions. He explained:

People who have got into it now talk more about blockchain than bitcoin, because they’re just looking for an alternative model to make money and they don’t care about — they’re agnostic to the initial philosophical framework that drove people to adopt bitcoin to begin with and kept it alive from 2009 through 2013 or ’14, when all of a sudden, adoption started to grow. There was a small universe of people that actively worked to keep it alive by continuing to mine and continuing to buy and they were doing it because of the concept that they believed in, and that it’s a people’s money.

Indeed, one doesn’t have to look very far to see that every traditional financial institution under the sun is looking to utilize blockchain technology for their own purposes — none of which align with Bitcoin’s ethos.

IT ONLY FACES HEADWINDS’

And while the eyes of the market focus firmly on the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s pending exchange-traded fund decisions, it might be worth examining what such derivatives have done to another ‘people’s money,’ silver. Also, is Bitcoin meant to be a speculative investment or a currency that undermines an unfair and unjust global financial system, which itself aims to destroy Bitcoin?

Wernick explained:

Since bitcoin has been created in 2009, it’s outperformed every currency, even with governments hostile to it, and a regulatory regime that’s an uncertain regime and the governments have been designing, have been managing it in a way so people cannot know what to expect. So it’s amazing the valuation it has today given the fact that it only faces, it only faces headwinds, no tailwinds. Every government throughout the world is trying to figure out how to stop and kill bitcoin.

THE ‘ONLY ANSWER’

Investing in Bitcoin, according to Wernick, should be seen as a form of protest against the government and its financial policies — and it’ll probably be a profitable investment at that. He explained:

I think over five years, you’re going to accumulate a lot more wealth than you would in any other alternative investment, but again, you don’t want to buy more than you can afford to lose, because I could be wrong, and you’d be making a statement to the government that says, “What you’re doing is completely unacceptable.” Because if you think about how the financial system works, the financial system punishes the saver and benefits the borrower, but only benefits a small classification of borrowers.

Then the question is, is what, what for a typical middle class person — how do they accumulate wealth? And I think their only answer is to put a certain percentage in crypto.

ADAM JAMES · @SHASDAM | JUL 27, 2018 | 20:00

David

Bitcoin Sparks PE Fund to Back Wind Farm on Manhattan-Sized Plot

Brookstone Partners is planning a 900 megawatt wind farm in southern Morocco to power a data center and Bitcoin mining operation

as assets attractive to fund managers is breathing life into a spit of land the size of Manhattan located on the southern coast of Morocco.

New York’s Brookstone Partners, a private equity company with $150 million in assets, says it’s raising cash to develop the first phase of a 900-megawatt wind farm near Dakhla, Morocco. The remote location, wedged between the Sahara Desert and Atlantic Ocean some 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) south of Marrakesh, has gained in value for its potential to mine cryptocurrencies and manage data using clean energy.

“We have exclusive rights to the area for a wind farm, but the issue was there’s no real place to put” the electricity, said Michael Toporek, managing general partner at Brookstone, “These days, what you can do with stranded power is set up a computing center, develop this as an off-grid project.”

Renewables have become the preferred means of mining digital currencies like Bitcoin after the cost of electricity surged last year, forcing the industry to spend more money on computing power. While traditional fuels like coal remain staples for many utility grids, some of the biggest miners have tapped into cheap renewable power from Canada to Iceland and Georgia as a way to lure investors worried about the industry’s carbon footprint.

Brookstone founded Soluna earlier this year to develop the wind farm after acquiring rights to the property from Germany’s Altus AG. It plans to raise $100 million this year in an initial coin offering to build the first 36 megawatts of turbines. Those will feed crypto-mining and data centers processing blockchain transactions, which run on 18 megawatts of power, according to itswhite paper. Completing the entire project could cost as much as $3 billion.

A challenge common to data center operators that Soluna may struggle to overcome is the issue of intermittency. Even when the wind doesn’t blow, all the company’s machines processing currencies and data will still need power to function.

“The power from the wind farm is intermittent and will probably reduce the utilization factor of the data center as long as it is off-grid,” according to Itamar Orlandi, head of frontier power analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “Their revenue from the mining operation will be unpredictable and possibly volatile. It’s not clear to me how they make a 20- to 30-year infrastructure investment backed against that kind of revenue stream.”

Soluna is part of a trend led by technology giants including Facebook Inc. and Google to power operations solely with renewables. Tech giants have as contracted more 9 gigawatts of clean electricity to date, signing purchase agreements with solar and wind farm developers worldwide.

“When we say we’re matching our energy, we mean that for every terrawatt of power that we consume at Alphabet, we’re matching that by a physical terrawatt-hour that’s being generated somewhere else,” said Neha Palmer, head of energy at Google’s parent company. “We are looking at ways on how to match our actual consumption.”

Soluna says it wants to combine its data processing even more tightly with renewables by co-locating wind generation next to their servers.

“Our power cost will be among the lowest in the world,” said John Belizaire, Soluna’s chief executive officer. “That gives us benefits and allows us to keep participating in the ecosystem while others might not be able to sustain their businesses.”

With the price of Bitcoin down more than 60 percent down from its peak in December, the power price that miners pay to mint new currency is becoming more important.

The increasingly difficult computations for creating new blockchains — the encrypted digital ledgers that underpin cryptocurrencies — require ever-more powerful computers. And many of the big server farms need air conditioning to keep from overheating.

The industry’s electricity use has increased exponentially over the last year and can consume as much as 60 percent of mining revenues, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates.

“All of those machines are consuming at least as much as Ireland and probably a lot more, especially by the end of the year,” said Alex de Vries, the PwC consultant who founded Digiconomist, a website that calculates the energy consumed by bitcoin. “It could be as much as the whole of Austria in terms of energy consumption.”

By Anna Hirtenstein

27 July 2018, 05:00 BST

David

âAny number of catalysts could send bitcoin exploding higher,’ says blockchain venture capitalist

âAny number of catalysts could send bitcoin exploding higher,' says blockchain venture capitalist

‘Any number of catalysts could send bitcoin exploding higher,' says blockchain venture capitalist

Bitcoin trading at about $8,200 as of the earlier hours of Thursday.
Blockchain venture capitalist Spencer Bogart says many things could cause the coin to gain value — or fall — rapidly.
"Bitcoin is kind of a tinderbox right now, waiting for reasons to go higher," he says.

Bitcoin has seen strong gains over the last week — trading at about $8,200 as of the earlier hours of Thursday.

But the largest digital currency by market cap still isn't close to its December, 2017 high of $19,783.21. Now, market watchers are waiting in anticipation for the next jump — or decline.

"Any number of catalysts could send bitcoin exploding higher," Spencer Bogart, a partner at Blockchain Capital, told CNBC on "Fast Money" Wednesday.

Those catalysts include global trade tensions, the possibility of a bitcoin ETF, rising currency rates and Mastercard's recent announcement of a new patent that could allow bitcoin transactions on credit cards.

"Bitcoin is kind of a tinderbox right now, waiting for reasons to go higher," said the venture capitalist.

In May, even as bitcoin continued to fall, Bogart said it was the only digital coin worth buying, as more banks and large institutions were beginning to accept the coin, and urged long-term investors to get on board.

Other cryptocurrencies, he said, were "over-promising and under-delivering. Meanwhile you have a few that are kind of excelling at their use cases. Bitcoin being one of them." He said bitcoin, which was priced around $7,400 at the time, would likely go lower before hitting at least $10,000 by the end of 2018. The coin fell below $6,000 the following month.

On Wednesday, Bogart said bitcoin may have hit its bottom for the year, but that he was "definitely expecting to see new highs" and told investors to expect more regulatory approval of the space in the coming year.

"The cat’s already out of the bag," Bogart said, adding that "innovation is going elsewhere if the SEC doesn’t get on board soon."

Author Kellie Ell |

David

Bitcoin Elliott Wave Analysis – Close to Ending 5 Waves

Bitcoin Elliott Wave Analysis - Close to Ending 5 Waves

Bitcoin Elliott Wave Analysis – Close to Ending 5 Waves

Bitcoin Ticker symbol: $BTCUSD short-term Elliott wave analysis suggests that the decline to $6072 low ended Minor wave 2 pullback. The internals of that pullback unfolded as Elliott wave Flatcorrection where Minute wave ((a)) ended in 3 swing at $6445.31 low. Minute wave ((b)) bounce ended in 3 swing at $6820 high and Minute wave ((c)) ended in 5 waves structure at $6072 low.

Above from there, the Bitcoin’s rally to $7696.88 high ended Minor wave 3. The internals of that rally higher unfolded as Elliott wave impulse structure where Minute wave ((i)) ended in 5 waves at $6337.25, Minute wave ((ii)) ended at $6121.01, Minute wave ((iii)) ended in 5 waves at $7599.98, Minute wave ((iv)) ended at $7338.91 and Minute wave ((v)) of 3 ended at $7696.88 high.Down from there, the pullback to 7253.21 low ended Minor wave 4.

The rally higher in Minor wave 5 is nesting higher as impulse structure looking to extend higher 1 more time approximately towards $8678.62 0.764% Fibonacci extension area of Minor 1+3 to end the Minor wave 5. The move higher should also complete cycle from 6/29 low in intermediate wave (A) of a possible Zigzag structure. Afterward, the instrument is expected to do a pullback in intermediate wave (B) in 3, 7 or 11 swings to correct cycle from 6/29 low before another extension higher in intermediate wave (C) is seen. We don’t like selling it.

David

BITCOIN BEARISH TREND MAY BE OVER VERY SOON

Trends tend to be reversed. The year of 2018 has seen Bitcoin (BTC) demonstrate both its volatility and bearish nature. However, the second half of 2017 the crypto community witnessed the exact opposite. What does the remainder for 2018 have in store?

BITCOIN LAST WEEK

Bitcoin’s price $6287.77 +0.18% bounced around due to FUD regarding a hack on Binance and positive news about Coinbase’s announcement of Coinbase Custody. Launching the service was great for the crypto-community because institutional capital will now have an easier route to enter the market.

This will not only bring more legitimacy to the market, but it also helps boost prices through increased demand. Unfortunately, right after Coinbase’s positive announcement, FUD came out of every corner of the crypto-communities reporting channels of a hack on Binance. While there was an unethical trading strategy going on with the SYS token, it was not an actually a hack and funds were ‘safu.’

Binance came out of the FUD unscathed as they were not at fault as they handled the situation as proactively as could be expected. Even so, whenever there is wide-spread news of a hack on a large exchange, the public sentiment rapidly plummets along with the price of Bitcoin.

That is where Bitcoin started this week. While the trend analysis tools leaned towards the bearish market ending, it may, unfortunately, be deciding to stay bearish until early August.

THIS WEEK

The cryptocurrency market had lost twenty-two billion USD in valuation (across all cryptocurrencies) as Bitcoin dropped to under $6,400. Frequently, when such a bear market trend begins to show, a corrective rally comes stampeding through the market. However, this was not the case this week.

Over the last 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market has not shown any positive momentum that would foreshadow such a corrective rally. On July 10, Ethereum $437.501 +0.38% had an exceptionally large drop, dropping more than five percent of its value against the US dollar.

While most cryptocurrencies, both large and small hard caps, tend to follow Bitcoin’s current trend, the current drop in the value of ETH may not be correlated to Bitcoin as ETH has other issues going on. (MyEtherWallet (MEW) and the Bancor scandal).

While this negative news pertained more to Ethereum than it did to Bitcoin, the mainstream public tends to look at the entire crypto-market as one. When one large crypto has negative news, it impacts the entire industry.

AN OPTIMISTIC FUTURE

Blockchain technology is continuing to show an increasing amount of societal applications and more countries are continuing to adapt to this evolving technological world we are living in today. Positive events and news continue to emerge discussing the regulatory infrastructure surrounding cryptocurrencies in leading markets and countries like South Korea, Japan, and many more. Recently, South Korea acknowledged that both cryptocurrencies and blockchain companies are legitimate industries.

Major exchanges in the United States, such as Coinbase, have established solutions to allow institutional investors a smoother way of entering the crypto-market. Coinbase has over twenty billion dollars in cryptocurrencies on its exchange and a user base of over twenty million on its platform. After seeing the profits in the market, these giants likely to join the market and pump their financial resources into the crypto-industry.

As Conbase’s Custody service just launched last week, the vast amounts of institutional money have not had the time to enter the market yet, and therefore, the market has not shown a reaction from a massive flow of incoming capital.

However, the most important date in the upcoming three months for the entire crypto space is pegged for the SEC hearing on Bitcoin ETFs scheduled for mid-August.

The CBOE applied to allow ETFs entrance into purchasing BTC directly (this is vastly different than future contracts). When the CBOE received approval to begin trading futures contracts of BTC last year BTC ended its bear market and rallied from under $2,000 to $20,000.

The SEC has denied every application for ETF market entrants for the prior 8 years. If they approve the CBOE (which should be expected given the CBOE has met the stringent requirements set forth by the SEC), it is likely the same trend from last year occurs.

The SEC has denied prior ETF applicants due to their lack of insurance and lack of infrastructure, the CBOE has met both these requirements. If the SEC were to approve a party to begin ETF purchasing of crypto, whom better than the CBOE? The bear market should begin to rebound due to ETFs entering the crypto market, along with hundreds of billions of dollars in institutional money.

While the crypto-community wants to see a rebound and there are many reasons to be optimistic, the market is still showing a strong bearish trend. The continued positive global awareness and acceptance will lead to more successful projects and decentralized applications stemming from the blockchain community, which will result in a rising Bitcoin value.

As more and more cryptos prove to be secure, transparent and successful, there will likely be a rally in the next few months. Experts predict that this rally will not happen until the fourth quarter of 2018 unless the SEC does approve ETF entrance into the crypto space (which if I were a betting man, I’d say the CBOE meets the stringent SEC requirements).

JAKETHECRYPTOKING · @JBTHECRYPTOKING | JUL 14, 2018 | 17:00

David

ZCASH Mining 400% More Profitable Than Bitcoin (BTC)

ZCASH Mining 400% More Mrofitable Than Bitcoin (BTC)

Zcash (ZEC) is currently the most profitable cryptocurrency for those into crypto mining, with a Return of Investment that far outperforms any other token in the market, including those cryptos with the largest market cap such as BTC, ETH or BCH.

Miners to turn off equipment in Crypto HourAccording to data provided by Anything Crypto, Zcash miners using an Antminer Z9 Mini can expect a return on investment of almost 100% even in the most skeptical scenarios.

To put the calculations in perspective, the second most profitable crypto is Ether. Mining it with an Antminer E3 would yield a return of $1212 in one year, which represents a 151 ROI given that the miner has a cost of $800. The Z9 Mini which costs USD 2k would generate USD 6881, resulting in a 344% profit. Such figures depict the most optimistic scenarios.

The calculations made by anything crypto provide 3 different situation

A current scenario: In which there is absolutely no change. It is taken for reference purposes
An optimistic scenario: 15% difficulty increase monthly and a 10% price increase monthly
A pessimistic scenario: 40% difficulty increase monthly8% price increase monthly

Zcash: A Nice Opportunity

The mining of cryptocurrencies began as a hobby for enthusiasts, however, after the exponential increase in its use, it became increasingly lucrative to the point of becoming one of the business par excellence in the world of cryptocurrencies, competing directly with trading.

The PoW coin mining business has specific particularities that must be taken into account when investing in an ASIC or Mining Rig. The first of these is the mining difficulty.

The difficulty makes it possible to establish certain stability in the cryptocurrency avoiding an excessive number of block validations to decrease the value of the tokens or a lack of validation, which is equally damaging.

When the speed of validtions increases, the blockchain algorithm increases its difficulty, making it necessary to work harder to “mine” a block. The same is right in the opposite case.

This is the reason for the different scenarios put forward by Everything Crypto. But in all of them – at least for now – Zcash is the winner regarding profits.

For those who have a preference for BTC, the most profitable ASIC is the GMO B2 while for ETH it is worth buying an Antminer E3. Interestingly, the Antminer S9, Bitmain ranks 8 flagship team while its improved version, the S9i is ranked 6th.

By Jose Antonio Lanz Last updated Jul 14, 2018

David

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Analysis: Range-Bound Action?

Bitcoin is consolidating at the middle of its range in what seems to be a continuation signal.

BITCOIN PRICE ANALYSIS

Bitcoin has found support at the $5,800 handle and resistance at $6,800 but is currently sitting right at the middle. Price seems to be stuck in a bearish flag, which is often considered a continuation signal.

In that case, bitcoin could tumble back to the bottom of its range to test support before buyers return. The 100 SMA is below the longer-term 200 SMA after all, so the path of least resistance might be to the downside. In addition, both moving averages appear to have held as dynamic resistance levels.

However, the gap between the moving averages has narrowed to signal weakening bearish pressure and a potential upward crossover. In that case, bullish momentum could return and push bitcoin price back to the resistance.

Pic

In that case, the inverse head and shoulders could be completed and a break past the range resistance or neckline could spur an even longer-term rally.

RSI reached oversold levels and has started to pull up, also hinting at a return in bullish momentum. Stochastic just made its way to oversold territory and has yet to turn higher.

Bitcoin is on the back foot once more, erasing almost half the gains posted in the previous week on negative commentary and overall risk aversion. Trade tensions are worsening, boosting demand for the safe-haven dollar even as retaliatory measures could hurt its economy.

Hawkish commentary from Fed official Evans also helped shore up demand for the dollar as he expressed support for two more hikes this year, after previously dissenting the December 2017 hike. This also supported investor confidence that the US economy can weather any uncertainties from trade troubles as Evans acknowledged the strong support from fiscal policy.

Traders are now holding out for further catalysts, whether it be more negative remarks that push it back down or positive developments in the industry.

By Rachel Lee On Jul 12, 2018

David

Bitcoin is the best bet for cryptocurrency investors, says Wall Street trader

Bitcoin, with its established use cases, is still the best bet for investors, says Bart Smith of Susquehanna International Group.
The Wall Street crypto trader says bitcoin is the currency of the internet.

Bitcoin is still the best bet for crypto investors as people are "functionally using" it, Bart Smith told CNBC.

"If you want to own the asset that you can actually use today and that people are functionally using, it’s bitcoin," Smith, head of digital asset at trading giant Susquehanna International Group, said on "Fast Money" Tuesday.

"The use case for bitcoin is valid today, which is the currency of the internet," he added.

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has been just one of many digital coins in the crypto universe that has been under increased scrutiny in recent months as regulators try to determine how cryptocurrency should be used.

But the fact that bitcoin has established use cases is what gives it the competitive advantage over other cryptocurrencies, Smith said.

Last fall, when bitcoin futures were announced, "people got very excited about bitcoin," he said. "They got really excited about all these other tokens and use cases. And all of the sudden you saw all of these smaller tokens, as people got excited about them, massively outperform. We got way ahead of ourselves."

"If you’re looking at these other use cases, smart contracts, or lightning network or these different technological advancements, I think people are coming to realize, those things are very difficult and aren’t coming anytime soon," Smith said.

He pointed out that a lot of people work in one country and send money back to a different country — a situation that is very bitcoin-friendly.

"They use Western Union, traditional banks; It is slow and it is expensive," he said. "And there are people that can stop you from sending that money, whether that's good or bad. With bitcoin, I can send money. It's fast. It's cheap. And frankly, no one can stop me."

Bitcoin was priced around $6,300 Tuesday evening, 5:30 p.m. ET. Bitcoin fell below $6,000 in June — a 60 percent loss for 2018. At its high, in December 2017, it was priced around $19,500.

Author Kellie Ell

David

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Watch – Ascending Channel Below Major Support

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights

Bitcoin price has formed higher lows and found resistance at the $6,785 level to create an ascending triangle.
Price is testing the pattern’s resistance, which lines up with the broken long-term support visible on the 4-hour chart.
Technical indicators are suggesting that the ceiling could hold for now.

Bitcoin price is testing the top of its ascending triangle pattern, but technical indicators suggest resistance might hold.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is still below the longer-term 200 SMA to indicate that the path of least resistance is to the downside. This means that the selloff is more likely to resume than to reverse or that resistance is more likely to hold than to break. With that, bitcoin price might need to revisit the triangle support before attempting another break.

Then again, it’s worth noting that bitcoin price is already trading above the moving averages, which reflects a pickup in bullish pressure. The gap between the moving averages is narrowing so selling pressure is slowing. A break past the triangle top could lead to a move of around $1,000 or the same height as the chart pattern.

RSI is turning lower to indicate a return in selling pressure, possibly enough to take bitcoin back down for a test of the short-term floor, which is also near the 100 SMA dynamic inflection point. Stochastic is also pointing back down without even hitting overbought conditions, which could also mean that bears are eager to return.

Market Factors

Bitcoin price has had quite a good run in the earlier week, which reflects a pickup in industry optimism. However, it could all hinge on whether or not the mood is sustained this week, likely by a set of positive updates or no negative headlines.

Meanwhile, the dollar could take its cue from the US CPI report and the usual set of trade war updates. A positive performance in stock markets, however, could also draw traders back to traditional markets and away from bitcoin.

SARAH JENN | JULY 9, 2018 | 5:00 AM

David