Gemini to Roll Out Bitcoin and Ether Block Trading

Gemini to Roll Out Bitcoin and Ether Block Trading

Gemini to Roll Out Bitcoin and Ether Block Trading

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini said Monday that it will roll out block trading for bitcoin and ether starting later this week.

The feature – which will allow customers to make high-volume trades that won't appear in the exchange's order book until they've been filled – will go live at 9:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, Gemini explained in a blog post. There's a minimum threshold of 10 bitcoin or 100 ether for the block trades, meaning that smaller traders won't be able to use the feature.

Gemini has positioned the block trading addition as a way to create "an additional mechanism to source liquidity when trading in greater size."

Block trading allows large traders such as hedge funds to buy or sell large quantities without having large immediate effects on the price. The alternative is to place over-the-counter trades, which happen outside of exchanges, or to split trades up into smaller chunks in order to minimize the impact to supply and demand.

Market takers – who place the orders – specify whether the trade is a buy or sell; the minimum quantity; and a price limit. This information, called an indication of interest, is broadcast to all market makers simultaneously.

"In accordance with our commitment to an equitable, transparent, and rules-based marketplace, block orders will be electronically broadcast to participating market makers simultaneously, ensuring best execution and price discovery for those participating in the program," the exchange explained in its blog post.

Gemini, founded by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, had indicated last month that the exchange may move to add additional cryptocurrencies for trading in the future. Potential selections include bitcoin cash and litecoin, as reported at the time.

 

Author David Floyd Updated Apr 10, 2018 at 02:14 UTC

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

David

Cryptocurrency Markets Move Back Into Green After Substantial Selloff

Cryptocurrency Markets Move Back Into Green After Substantial Selloff

Cryptocurrency Markets Move Back Into Green After Substantial Selloff

Cryptocurrency markets are rebounding today, Feb. 3, following yesterday’s multi-month low in Bitcoin's price. Most of the top 50 coins are in green, with 24 hour gains over 20 percent.

In part due to pressure from misleading reporting on regulations in India, the overall cryptocurrency market took a massive nosedive starting Thursday, Feb.1, shedding more than $100 billion in market cap in the 24 hours following the news.

However, after the substantial selloff, the market has spent today bouncing back, with Bitcoin rising back above the $9,000 level. At press time, Bitcoin was trading at an average of $9,095, up 3.54 percent on the day.

Following Bitcoin’s lead, other coins have also rallied substantially. With the except of three coins, every top 50 cryptocurrency has seen gains, with Litecoin (LTC) and Cardano (ADA), and Verge (XVG) leading the pack with gains between 15 and 20 percent.

A quick glance at the Coin360 market snapshot indicates a clear positive turn after the substantial negatives of the week.

Despite the market lows this week, figures such as Litecoin founder Charlie Lee and CNBC’s Cryptotrader host Ran Neuner have made bullish statements recently about Bitcoin. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Lee in particular offered some level-headed perspective on volatility in crypto markets, often lacking in a market crowded with fearful newcomers.

News of the first Canadian Blockchain ETF approval may well have played into today’s rally.

Bitcoin hit a record high of 20,000 in late December, only to crash, along with the rest of the market, just a few days later, Dec. 22, when Bitcoin and altcoins lost 20-30 percent.

Since then, the leading cryptocurrency has yet to fully recover, hovering roughly between $10-$15,000 per coin, until this yesterday’s multi-month lows under $8000.

The entire month of January saw a market sell off, in part due to increased regulatory news from South Korea – and misleading reporting on it – that left many investors fearful.

 

Author Jon Buck

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

David

Bitcoin, Ripple, And Litecoin Sell-off – What’s Different This Time Around

Bitcoin, Ripple, And Litecoin Sell-off - What's Different This Time Around

Bitcoin, Ripple, And Litecoin Sell-off – What's Different This Time Around

The current sell-off in Bitcoin, Ripple, Litecoin, and other cryptocurrencies may have a long way to go before it’s over. For a “technical” reason: it’s broad, extending from major currencies to the smaller ones.

When Bitcoin dropped close to 40% back in the middle of December, Ripple rallied, quadrupling in value in just a few days. The rally quickly spread to Ethereum, Litecoin, NEM, Siacoin and Bytecoin, and other cryptocurrencies.

Then, as Ripple and other cryptocurrencies sold off a couple of weeks later, Bitcoin rallied.

There’s a good explanation behind the rotation among cryptocurrencies. Some cryptocurrency exchanges require Bitcoins to pay for coin transactions. So investors who already owned Bitcoins had to sell them to pay for those transactions.

Rotation from one coin to another isn’t new to investing. It has been applied on Wall Street for years, where investors rotate funds between “defensive” and “cyclical stocks,” at times when interest rates, i.e. the “opportunity cost” of money, remain low.

That’s bullish for stocks, because it confirms that money is staying within this asset class rather than moving back into money market investments.

And that was a bullish sign for cryptocurrencies back then, too.

But that’s not what is happening this time around. With the exception of Ethereum, all major cryptocurrencies are down simultaneously. In the last seven days, Bitcoin is down 10.10%, Ripple is down 17.23%, and Litecoin is down 10.40%; and all are 50% or more below their all-time high back in December.

Table 1


Seven-Day Price Change For Major Cryptocurrencies

Source:Coinmarketcap.com 1/31/18 at 1.30pm

Worse, the sell-off has been extending across the entire cryptocurrency list—see table.

 

Table 2


Source: Coinmarketcap.com1/31/18 at 1.30pm

This means that money getting out of major cryptocurrencies isn’t being plowed back into other cryptocurrencies. It is leaving the entire asset class.

That’s bearish for all cryptocurrencies.

And that’s what’s different with the sell-off in major cryptocurrencies this time around.

 

Panos Mourdoukoutas , CONTRIBUTOR

David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

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Bitcoin drops below $15,000 as regulation, demand concerns linger

Bitcoin drops below $15,000 as regulation, demand concerns linger

Bitcoin drops below $15,000 as regulation, demand concerns linger

Bitcoin slumped, dragging down smaller rivals such as ether and litecoin, as concerns that regulators will tighten their grip on the market weigh on the world's largest cryptocurrency.

Regulators in China and South Korea are increasing oversight on cryptocurrency trading and mining, while the US Securities and Exchange Commission late last year started cracking down on some digital token sales, known as ICOs. Coinmarketcap.com's decision to exclude Korean pricing data for coins helped create the appearance of a large drop in prices, which some traders attributed as playing a part in the selloff.

"News on the regulatory front is dragging down cryptos," said Gabor Gurbacs, director of digital-asset strategy at VanEck Associates Corp. "South Korea and China tightening is weighing on bitcoin and in the ICO market, things started slowing down, with the SEC cracking down on illegal offerings."

Bitcoin slumped as much as 17 per cent to $14,820, the most in more than two weeks. The rout in bitcoin is part of a broader selloff in the cryptocurrency realm, with all of the top 10 by market cap falling, and most tumbling by at least 10 per cent, according to Coinmarketcap.com. Cardano fell 16 per cent, while litecoin slumped as much as 16 per cent to as low as $230. Bitcoin is little changed this year after surging about 1,400 per cent in 2017.

China plans to limit power use by some bitcoin miners, people familiar with the matter said last week, a potential challenge to an industry whose energy-intensive computer networks enable transactions in the cryptocurrency. The People's Bank of China outlined the plan Jan. 3 at a closed-door meeting, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because it wasn't public. They didn't detail how authorities plan to enact the curbs.

South Korea began inspections at six banks including Industrial Bank of Korea, that provide virtual accounts to companies related to cryptocurrency trading, to clamp down on potential money laundering. The nation last month said it will restrictively allow cryptocurrency trading on only qualified exchanges and review a possible capital gains tax on crypto trading as a way to restrain the nation's frenzied speculation.

Demand for cryptocurrencies in Korea is large enough to cause distortion on some prices. Ripple surged to almost $4 on some Korean exchanges, while it trades at around $2.50 elsewhere. Coinmarketcap.com is excluding Korean exchanges from its pricing, which helped cause ripple to tumble as much as 31 per cent today.

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at TF Global Markets in London, said the increased regulatory oversight will weigh on prices in the short term, but should be positive in the longer term.

"We need regulators to look into the space more closely, the Korean exchanges have become crazy in terms of price differences so these regulatory actions would help the price stability," Aslam said. "As for the mining operations, China is making the process more difficult for miners, but opportunist have started to focus on Canada which is more regulatory friendly and cheap on the energy front."

Author : Camila Russo

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur.
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

 

David

Ethereum and Bitcoin Price Decline Again – Major Factors For Mid-Term Recovery

Ethereum and Bitcoin Price Decline Again - Major Factors For Mid-Term Recovery

Ethereum and Bitcoin Price Decline Again – Major Factors For Mid-Term Recovery

The price of Ethereum and bitcoin have declined in the past two days, with the bitcoin price struggling to rebound beyond the $5,700 mark and the price of Ether dipping below the $300 region again.

Although the price of bitcoin has increased since plunging to $5,300 prior to the Bitcoin Gold hard fork, over the past 24 hours, the price of bitcoin declined from $5,767 to $5,680.

Like bitcoin after the disappointing release of Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum was expected to sustain its upward momentum in the mid-term subsequent to the Byzantium hard fork. But, primarily affected by a series of minor corrections of the cryptocurrency market, the price of Ether has struggled to surpass the $300 mark in the past week.


Factors For Recovery: BItcoin

It has been evident over the past week by the trend of the bitcoin price that the Bitcoin Gold hard fork has had a direct impact on the short-term price trend of bitcoin. Experts including highly regarded bitcoin developer Jimmy Song noted that prior to the Bitcoin Gold hard fork, a relatively large portion of users migrated their funds from bitcoin wallets and exchanges to alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) to avoid the Bitcoin Gold hard fork.

The majority of investors and traders were seeking to avoid the Bitcoin Gold hard fork because it had lacked strong replay protection before the fork, which is necessary for bitcoin wallets and exchanges to credit users with Bitcoin Gold on a 1:1 ratio with bitcoin. But, even after the fork, the Bitcoin Gold development team has failed to deliver on their promise and have not implemented any sort of replay protection.

Consequently, wallets like Trezor and Blockchain have not been able to provide support for Bitcoin Gold deposits, withdrawals,and trading.

More to that, at this phase of development, it is difficult to justify whether Bitcoin Gold is an actual cryptocurrency, because it lacks hash power, wallets, miners, and a client.

Analysts such as Bitfinexed, a popular cryptocurrency blogger, stated:

As the bitcoin market recovers and restructures from the controversial Bitcoin Gold hard fork, it is likely that the price of bitcoin will be able to rebound in the upcoming days, at least until the SegWit2x hard fork scheduled for November 16. Several investors like Tuur Demeester emphasized that a similar trend as Bitcoin Gold is expected around mid-November, as bitcoin investors could potentially migrate to other altcoins to avoid the fork.
 

Ethereum Price Remains Below $300

Since early September, prior to the initial coin offering (ICO) and cryptocurrency trading ban by the Chinese government, the price of Ether has struggled to remain in the $300 region, despite significant optimism surrounding developer activity and solutions on Ethereum such as the Byzantium hard fork and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s scalability solution Plasma.

As demonstrated in the two price charts above, the price trend of Ether is often correlated with the short-term performance of bitcoin. Hence, during certain periods in which the price of bitcoin corrects itself, the price of Ether is likely to fall by a similar margin.

But, adoption of Ethereum is an important indicator for the mid and long-term price trend of Ether. Earlier this week, Blockchain, the second most popular bitcoin wallet behind Coinbase, announced the integration of Ethereum into its mobile wallet, the most widely utilized bitcoin mobile wallet in the market.

 

Author: Joseph Young on 28/10/2017

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

David

Bitcoin Price Storms to $5,955 as Bitcoin Gold Fizzles

Bitcoin Price Storms to $5,955 as Bitcoin Gold Fizzles

Bitcoin Price Storms to $5,955 as Bitcoin Gold Fizzles

The crypto markets experienced a moderate recovery on Thursday, as the bitcoin price began to recover from the dip that it entered following the Bitcoin Gold hard fork. Many altcoins achieved slight price bumps as well, enabling the total cryptocurrency market cap to rise above the $172 billion mark.


Chart from CoinMarketCap

Early in the day, it appeared that the markets were heading south, continuing their movement from the previous day. However, they began to tick up on Wednesday afternoon, and the crypto market cap currently sits at $172.5 billion, which represents a 24-hour increase of $5.1 billion.


Chart from CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin Price Recovers Near $6,000

The recovery was fueled by a 7.5% bitcoin price rise. After beginning the day in decline, the bitcoin price consolidated support at the $5,485 mark and reversed its trajectory leading into Thursday morning. At present, the bitcoin price is trading at $5,955, which translates into a $99.1 billion market cap.


Bitcoin Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

It is not immediately clear what is fueling this march back toward $6,000, but many analysts believe it is an early phase of bitcoin’s eventual transformation into a mainstream asset. Standpoint Research’s Ronnie Moas, for instance, recently predicted that the bitcoin price will reach $50,000 over the course of the next decade.

 

Ethereum Price Stuck Below $300

The ethereum price made a minor gain on Thursday, advancing about seven-tenths of one percent to increase to a present value of $299. Nevertheless, it was unable to pierce the $300 mark or break out of that threshold’s gravitational pull. Ethereum maintains a market cap of about $28.5 billion.

Ethereum Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Cash’ Rises as ‘Gold’ Fizzles

The bitcoin cash price outperformed the majority of top-tier cryptocurrencies on Thursday, rising as high as $347, although it has since tapered to $340. This is likely due to the dismal performance of Bitcoin Gold — another altcoin created from a Bitcoin fork — during its first few days on the exchanges.


Bitcoin Cash Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Unlike Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold has virtually no community and institutional support, and that has been reflected in its declining price. After debuting near $500, the bitcoin gold price has plunged to $131 — even amid buy pressure from margin traders who needed to purchase it to pay back lenders — and this may worsen when the network officially launches and traders are able to begin making deposits on exchanges.


Bitcoin Gold Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

This bodes well for bitcoin cash, because industry observers theorize that subsequent forks of bitcoin will have diminishing returns and that the forked coins may cannibalize one another. Though it is still early, it appears that bitcoin cash will emerge the victor in this contest with bitcoin gold.

 

Altcoins Post Minor Gains

Altcoins — led by bitcoin cash — generally made gains on Thursday, although a few top 10 cryptocurrencies did not participate in the advance.


Chart from CoinMarketCap

The ripple price rose about one-half of one percent, but this was not enough to push XRP’s market cap back across the $8 billion threshold. The litecoin price increased 3%, while dash and NEM sat the rally out. Bitconnect led top 10 cryptocurrencies, posting a 12% increase that raised its price to $219, but the NEO price dropped below the $30 mark after a 4% pullback. Tenth-ranked monero achieved a minor gain, but its price continues to trade below $90.

 

Author Josiah Wilmoth on 26/10/2017

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

David

Managing Enormous Risk – Bitcoin and Altcoin Investment Strategies

Managing Enormous Risk - Bitcoin and Altcoin Investment Strategies

Managing Enormous Risk – Bitcoin and Altcoin Investment Strategies

While some have made millions investing in digital currencies, others would call it degenerate gambling. If you’re reading this, then you know how exciting and unpredictable the crypto world is. Fortunes are built and demolished in seconds, new and exciting technology pops up every day, and controversy rules the land. It’s pretty much the Wild West of finance.

The unprecedented growth of cryptocurrencies has attracted investors from all walks of life, many of whom have been enticed by the staggering returns made by early investors. If this sounds like you, then keep reading. Unfortunately, we're not going to teach you how to get rich in a few days; in fact, we're going to try and deter you from that objective.

Not that we don’t want you to be super-rich, don’t get us wrong. But we prefer to have more grounded goals and we want you to do the same. Investment is a tricky game and the patient person usually wins. Avoiding “fear of missing out” (FOMO) is essential, especially in crypto, where disinformation, fake news and drama are commonplace.

So what exactly is the point of this article, you may wonder? Well, today, we want to give new players in the cryptosphere some ideas on how they can begin to navigate the tricky world of investment. We feel this is important due to the growing amount of scams and low quality projects out there.

We’re not saying that the strategies we discuss are foolproof or even profitable. They are not based on any mathematical formula nor were they devised by any experienced investment professional. These are simple ideas that are popular among entrants and old school digital currency investors alike.

It’s important to note that this article is not to be taken as investment advice and that you should always remember the golden rule of investment: Never invest more than what you can afford to lose.

Diversify and play it safe

This is a simple one. If your portfolio only has one coin on it, you’re doing it wrong. Now, we know some people will say Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency you should own, but at this point it’s safe to say that this is an absurd statement founded on feelings and ideals, rather than actual facts.

Bitcoin is thriving because it is the first and most popular cryptocurrency out there. It has the first mover advantage and it is also backed by an extensive network of miners who keep it safe. In terms of technology or features, however, Bitcoin falls short of its peers. We’re not saying you shouldn’t have Bitcoin, but you should also acknowledge other cryptocurrencies out there.

It may be a good idea to play it safe, however, and to “bet” on the most popular coins only, such as the top 10 by market capitalization. At present, those are: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Dash, NEM, NEO, BitConnect and Monero.
 

Bet on the idea, not the project

The world of Blockchain technology has evolved to a point where currency is just one of the many functions a cryptocurrency can have. There are smart contract platforms like Ethereum, NEO and Qtum, there are decentralized storage networks like Storj, Sia Coin and Filecoin and there are decentralized exchange platforms like Waves, Bitshares and others.

Our suggestion is, instead of buying one cryptocurrency in each category, you should spread your investment throughout multiple options inside each category. This will allow you to reduce the risk of investing in one single currency. In the world of crypto, a technical difficulty or even a grievance within one of the teams can lead to an rapid crash in the price, regardless of how promising the project and tech are. Just look at what happened with Tezos.
 

Hedging

Again, diversification is the name of the game. If you’re in crypto, then you are probably aware of how risky it all is. The cryptocurrency movement could end in days if some major security flaw was discovered or if all governments decided to ban them. The same can happen if some new and improved alternative to Blockchain technology comes along. These are, of course, worse case scenarios that are unlikely but possible nonetheless.

So, if you’re not one to have all your eggs in the same basket, you may want to extend your investment strategy to instruments outside of crypto. Precious metals, stocks, and other traditional investment vehicles may be a great addition to your portfolio and will allow you to reduce the risk you would take by investing in cryptocurrencies only.

Some companies, for example, manage cryptocurrency investment funds that combine cryptocurrency investments with investments in other sectors, like real estate. We talked to Kirill Bensonoff, CEO and founder of Caviar, about the importance of heeding your investment in the cryptocurrency space with traditional instruments.

He stated:

“We found a couple of major issues with crypto-asset investing, namely, it’s difficult and time consuming, and all assets are highly correlated. There is no ‘safety’ asset that also produces an income. We also see a movement towards having crypto be backed by traditional assets, such as gold, real estate and others, and we are addressing this head on.”

Liquidity, liquidity, liquidity

This is something that many new players forget about. You may find yourself investing in a cryptocurrency, having it increase in value several times over, only to realise that you can’t really sell it. If you try to sell large amounts at once, you’ll crash the price. Why? Because there is no liquidity. If a coin has no trading volume, significant price swings are bound to happen.

You can play it safe and avoid low volume coins all together but if you don’t want to, the least you can do is to know the risk you’re taking. CryptoCompare has a portfolio tool that allows you to analyse several risk factors in your portfolio, including volatility, exposure and, of course, liquidity. Their tool allows you to get an estimate of how long it would take to sell a certain coin based on the current volume. We asked Charles Hayter, CEO of CryptoCompare, why this tool is important for entrant users. He stated:

“We want to make it easy for users to track how well they're doing. Crypto is risky in the extreme and we want to help people understand where these risks lie and how to quantify them.”

Room to grow

Remember what we just told you about liquidity? Well, this strategy is somewhat contradictory, but it’s important to note that not all of these strategies are compatible with one another. Also, some involve more risk than others, and this one is risky. So, what do we mean with “room to grow”?

Small market cap cryptocurrencies have more growth potential than the ones at the top. Of course, other factors will determine if the price will rise or not but the idea is that, if you invest in cryptocurrencies before they are big, you may get to see your investment grow several times over.

Now, before you go to the nearest exchange and start stacking up on useless meme coins, have a think about what you want to buy. Then, perform your due diligence, check the roadmap, check the team, read the whitepaper, learn about the technology. Do everything in your power to ensure that your investment is justified. This will also make it easier for you to stick to your strategy, knowing that you are invested in something you believe in.

Technical analysis

Yes, chart wizardry. To be honest, I have no idea how it works and I admire anyone that does. All those numbers and lines give me headaches. Nevertheless, if you have it in you, learning T.A. can do wonders for your investment strategy even if you only touch the surface! We asked Jonathan Hobbs, CFA and author of the Stop Saving Start Investing: Ten Simple Rules for Effectively Investing in Funds investment book how technical analysis can be useful even for a newbie investor. He stated:

“Any good investment strategy needs rules. Technical Analysis (or “TA”) uses rules to look for price and volume patterns in charts to try and predict what’s going to happen next. It helps investors choose when to buy or sell. One example of TA is the Simple Moving Average (or “SMA”). The 50-day SMA, for instance, is the average price over the last 50 days, which changes or ‘moves’ each day. When an investment starts trading above its SMA, this is could be a bullish sign. Since TA can also protect the downside, it’s a good risk management tool for volatile investments like cryptocurrencies.”

Proof of Stake interest

A lot of people would love to invest in cryptocurrency mining, but at this point, you either go big or go home. Mining has become an industrialized practice reserved only for those with large financial backing, high tech equipment and access to low energy prices. Although there are several alternatives to traditional mining, Proof of Stake is the most relevant one for the subject at hand.

To put it simply, Proof of Stake allows users to “mine” coins without mining equipment. In this system, the amount of coins a user holds will determine how many coins he mines. Although most PoS cryptocurrencies will require you to leave your wallet running, some implementations of PoS like Waves and Lisk allow you to earn interest by leasing or delegating your stake.

Do note that you shouldn’t go out and buy every PoS coin out there. You should, however, check your holdings for these types of coins and, if you have them, mine them! In the worst case scenario, you’ll need to leave the wallet running which can be done with any laptop or even a Raspberry Pi device.

 

Author: Frisco d'Anconia

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

David

Bitcoin breaks above $6,000, and $100 billion in value for the first time in its history

Bitcoin breaks above $6,000, and $100 billion in value for the first time in its history

Bitcoin breaks above $6,000, and $100 billion in value for the first time in its history

The world’s most prominent digital currency was on track to mark a fresh milestone on Friday, with bitcoin rallying and putting the cyber currency in position to hit a total market value of around $100 billion.

Such a valuation would place the No. 1 cryptographic currency above or on par with blue-chip companies on the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.71% like United Technologies Corp UTX, +1.21% with a market value at $96 billion, American Express Co. AXP, +0.21% at $82 billion, Caterpillar Inc. CAT, +0.45% at $77 billion and Travelers Cos. Inc. TRV, +0.11% at $36 billion.

To be sure, it is questionable to draw value parallels between the asset and more traditional companies, but it highlights the stratospheric rise of bitcoin BTCUSD, +3.00% which didn’t exist a decade ago:

Bitcoin surges on Friday to near a $100 billion valuation.

A single bitcoin also broke above a milestone of $6,000, reaching an intraday high of $6,064.14 Friday afternoon, according to research and data site CoinDesk.com. Bitcoin also boasted a market value of roughly $100.81 billion at its peak on the day, according to data site Coinmarketcap.com. The move comes just as the Dow cleared its own psychologically important level of 23,000 on Wednesday.

The Dow has enjoyed an impressive run-up of 17% year to date, the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.51% has climbed nearly 15% so far this year, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.36% has charged up more than 23% thus far in 2017.

However, those paper gains pale in comparison with bitcoin’s run-up. The cyber unit has surged a mind-numbing 520% over the past nine months from $968.23 on Dec. 31, 2016.

Iqbal Gandham, U.K managing director at eToro, a trading platform, said continued buying in bitcoin ahead of a hard fork later in October that will create another version of bitcoin is helping to stimulate investment. So-called Bitcoin Gold, designed to address challenges mining for bitcoin using computers to solve complex problems, will be launched on Oct. 25.

Then on Nov. 18, bitcoin will face a second version of Segregation Witness, or SegWit2x.

Both so-called hard forks are expected to create alternative versions of bitcoin, with owners of the core currency being granted the newer versions on a one-for-one basis.

Diminished expectations that China will ban cryptocurrency exchanges also has helped boost bitcoin’s value. Beijing is expected to require a license to operate bitcoin platforms rather than banning them outright, as had been feared earlier, according to recent reports.

“It’s the flow of positive news clarifying earlier rumors which is moving the price up,” Gandham said.

Jason English, vice president of protocol marketing at Sweetbridge, a blockchain related company, chalked recent moves higher to growing enthusiasm around bitcoin and other cyber units.

“It’s an exciting time to be in cryptocurrencies today,” he said. “More and more individuals and businesses are viewing bitcoin as a store of value that they should be exposed to”

Of course, there are no dearth of critics who see the rapid ascent of digital currencies as a bubble.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM, +1.43% CEO Jamie Dimon has been one of the more vocal critics of the currency as a store of value.

“If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay the price someday,” he said during a panel discussion last week. Meanwhile BlackRock’s head Larry Fink has described bitcoin as “an index to launder money.”

The No. 2 most prominent cryptocurrency, Ether tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, meanwhile, were also higher. One Ether token was recently valued at $307.
 

Author MARK DECAMBRE

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

David

Bitcoin Price Bounces Back, Crypto Markets Recover to $170 Billion

Bitcoin Price Bounces Back, Crypto Markets Recover to $170 Billion

Bitcoin Price Bounces Back, Crypto Markets Recover to $170 Billion

The crypto markets bounced back on Thursday following a significant contraction the previous day. The bitcoin price led the charge, rising more than 6% to put the $5,700 barrier within its sights, while the ethereum price ticked up 3% to $309. Unfortunately, the recovery was not comprehensive, and some cryptocurrencies — including ripple — continued to decline.


Chart from CoinMarketCap

The downturn forced the total cryptocurrency market cap as far down as $156.5 million, which represented a one-week low. However, the markets began to recover Wednesday afternoon and quickly rose above $160 billion. They continued to climb leading into Thursday morning and have since risen to a present value of $169.7 billion.

Chart from CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin Price Bounces Back

Wednesday’s bitcoin price decline caught many investors by surprise, and it was difficult to ascertain what caused it, other than that traders were taking profits following last week’s rally. The pullback put severe downward pressure on the bitcoin price, which fell as low as $5,151. However, bitcoin held firm at this level, and support gradually began to return, enabling the flagship cryptocurrency to mount a successful recovery. Ultimately, the bitcoin price posted a single-day return of 6%, bringing it to a present value of $5,679, which translates into a $94.5 billion market cap.

Bitcoin Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Ethereum Price Holds Above $300

The ethereum price experienced a single-day recovery as well, although its performance was not quite as impressive as that of bitcoin. After dipping as low as $291, the ethereum price managed to fight its way back across the $300 threshold. Ethereum is currently trading at $309, which represents a 24-hour recovery of about 3%. Ethereum now has a market cap of $29.4 billion.

Ethereum Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Altcoins Eye Generally Recovery

Altcoins lost ground to bitcoin on Thursday, which saw its dominant market share rise about 1% to 55.7%. However, the majority of altcoins experienced recoveries against the value of USD, adding about $2 billion to their combined market cap.

Altcoin Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

But there were some significant outliers. In fact, three of the top 10 cryptocurrencies posted negative movement for the day, and the worst performance belonged to ripple. XRP holders had expected Ripple to make a major announcement during “Swell”, a conference hosted by the fintech startup. However, nothing materialized — at least not of the caliber they were expecting — causing the ripple price to add to its losses from yesterday. At present, the ripple price is $0.212, which represents a 24-hour decline of 7%.

Ripple Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

Fourth-ranked bitcoin cash also posted a minor decline, causing it to tick down to about $334. Several major bitcoin cash proponents — including Roger Ver and Calvin Ayre — intend to start a campaign to assert that “bitcoin cash is bitcoin”, so it will be interesting to see if this has any lasting effects on the trajectory of BCH.

Litecoin Price Chart from CoinMarketCap

The litecoin price, on the other hand, rose by 8%. This advance pushed it back over the $60 threshold, and litecoin is currently priced at $61. This translates into a market cap of $3.2 billion.

Dash added 3%, but it was unable to climb past the $300 mark, while NEM surged by just under 10%. NEO declined 3% after weathering the Wednesday downturn quite respectably, and bitconnect rose by 8% to $201. Monero rounds out the top 10 with a 1% increase, which was just enough to inch above the $90 barrier.

Author: Josiah Wilmoth on 19/10/2017

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

 

David

Why Silicon Valley is going gaga for Bitcoin

Why Silicon Valley is going gaga for Bitcoin

Why Silicon Valley is going gaga for Bitcoin

Cryptocurrencies are on a historic tear right now. And Silicon Valley’s infatuation with the industry explains a lot about itself.

Should I buy bitcoin? As a technology reporter, the questions I receive from random people at birthday parties, say, or seatmates on a plane, are usually emblematic of what is going on in the digital world. (And, increasingly, the real one, too, for that matter.) Not too long ago, the predominant question was Should I buy the new iPhone? Then it became Do I need to be on Twitter? or Do I need to be on Facebook? or Do I need to be on Snapchat? (That question has since come full circle to Should I quit Twitter and Facebook?) These days, the question I hear the most—well, besides whether Twitter should ban Trump—is Should I buy bitcoin?

I usually respond with the story of Laszlo Hanyecz. If you’ve come within 500 feet of bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency, over the past few years, the name alone will make you cringe. Back in 2010, when the currency was in its infancy, Hanyecz went “mining” for bitcoins for a few months and collected 10,000 of them; he subsequently traded them, in what would be the first cryptocurrency transaction in history, to a guy who bought him two Papa John’s pizzas with a couple sides of that tasty, buttery garlic sauce. Back then, Hanyecz’s bitcoins had no value, and the $30 value of two pies and an accoutrement made his individual bitcoin units worth 0.003 cents apiece. Today, at their current market valuation, bitcoin units are worth around $5,800 each, which means Hanyecz’s 10,000 bitcoins would be worth around $58 million. “It wasn’t like bitcoins had any value back then, so the idea of trading them for a pizza was incredibly cool,” Hanyecz told me in 2013, when bitcoin was already valued at $1,242 each. “No one knew it was going to get so big.”

For a lot of people on the periphery of this technology, the extraordinary rise in bitcoin’s value has become cause for alarm. The Web is littered with news articles, blog posts, and white papers warning that bitcoin and its sibling currencies are worth nothing, and the rise and fall of the currencies’ worth, which can fluctuate by billions of dollars a minute, certainly backs that up. But while Jamie Dimon and other bankers might scoff at these digital currencies, Silicon Valley is extremely bullish. There’s a reason, too: if Dimon had invested in bitcoin when he first called it a joke, in 2015, he would have received a tenfold return on his investment.

There are a number of reasons why bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are doing so well right now. One of the more plausible scenarios was outlined this week in a very clever post written by Adam Ludwin, an investor and co-founder of Chain.com, a bitcoin developer platform, which argues that bitcoin is an entirely new asset class, similar to equities and bonds, and that “bitcoin is capitalism, distilled.” The “capitalism” part of the sentence helps explain why some in Silicon Valley are so specifically exuberant about it right now. “In the short-run, there will be extreme volatility as FOMO competes with FUD, confusion competes with understanding, and greed competes with fear (on both the buyer side and the issuer side),” Ludwin wrote. “Most people buying into crypto assets have checked their judgement at the door.”

This gets someone like me a bit nervous about what cryptocurrencies could end up doing to society in the long run. Silicon Valley culture is largely fueled by people who love to decimate industries that don’t work, often without any thought of how the disruption could lead to other negative results happening in society (see the recent social-media debacle around the election ). In typical Valley fantasy, people are seeing only the positive potential with bitcoin, not the potentially ugly outcomes when humans molest it for their own interests.

One of the many factors currently fueling the ascent of bitcoin is the rise of initial coin offerings, or I.C.O.s, where some lucky investors are reaping astounding returns. You can think of these like a traditional initial public offering, or I.P.O., but without the layers upon layers of regulation and government bureaucracy that come with a company going public. With an I.C.O., a start-up raises money for a new venture by selling “coins” that are very similar to shares of a public company. The coins then rise and fall as the company’s value oscillates. In 2014, when the founding of a new cryptocurrency called Ethereum was announced, it raised $18 million by selling a new digital coin called “Ether” for 40 cents per coin. Today, Ethereum has a market cap of around $30 billion. So if you had spent $100 on Ether during the I.C.O., you would have made $74,900 in profit. As Nathaniel Popper detailed in The New York Times earlier this summer, I.C.O.s have been generating billions of dollars in returns for some—and a lot of scams, too.

The lack of regulation in the cryptocurrency world, after all, means that there is a lot of fraud, extreme volatility, and coin values can jump up or down in mere seconds. Someone I recently spoke with who works with, and monitors, the crypto I.C.O. markets pointed out that some of these I.C.O.s feel awfully similar to the Dot Com public offerings of the late 90s, where the public was buying into nothing and ended up with exactly that when the entire market came crashing down and trillions of dollars were wiped off the stock market. In China, I.C.O.s became so troubling that they were banned earlier this year. In September, the People’s Bank of China issued a blunt statement saying that this practice was “illegal and disruptive to economic and financial stability.” I.C.O.s in China were occurring at an astounding rate, with one report claiming that more than $750 million was raised in I.C.O.s in July and August alone. A lot of people think the ban by China is temporary, slowing the dizzying speed of these offerings.

As a result of all the movement in the cryptocurrency market over the past couple of years, there are a lot of options out there for people who want to try their hand in crypto-investing. There’s bitcoin, the first and most well known of all the currencies, which currently oscillates in value at around $5,000 a coin. I’ve heard predictions all over the map, from bitcoins one day being worth as much as $500,000 each to units being worth absolutely nothing if a better coin comes along. (My personal prediction is that they will continue to rise for at least the next couple of years.) Ether had remained relatively flat until earlier this year when it spiked in value to over $350 apiece. (It’s since fallen to $300 each.) The current coin du jour is called Litecoin, which is getting a lot of attention because it’s still priced relatively low, at around $55 each, and is expected to rise considerably over the next year or so on account of new features that will be added to enable more privacy options. Then there are a slew of other coins to explore, including Monero, which is an open-source currency that was developed in April 2014, but which spiked this year after the illegal drug market AlphaBay was taken down. Monero, unlike other currencies, is truly anonymous, making it the perfect currency with which to buy and sell drugs, guns, and other illegal contraband on the Dark Web. If you look at the World Coin Index Web site, you can see a long list of other coins and their values over time, including Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Qtum, NEO, Nav Coin, NEM, and a number of other coins.

For Silicon Valley, betting on one of these early can mean profiting beyond all imagination, exceeding even the famed 1,000x start-up returns from companies like Facebook and Uber. Earlier this summer, I interviewed Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the twins who co-founded The Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, and they are now obsessively investing in cryptocurrencies. In a settlement with Facebook, the two brothers were awarded $60 million, but to hear them talk about it, it appears their investments in bitcoin and other currencies are going to reap a far bigger return over time. I’ve spoken with countless other people about the current state of bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and I’ve heard two truths that seems consistent. No one—and I mean no one—knows exactly which digital currency will be successful in the future. It could be bitcoin, it could be Litecoin, it could be something that hasn’t even been created yet. But, the other resounding feeling is that these currencies are here to stay in one form or another and there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. Which brings me back to that question that I’m often asked these days: “should I buy bitcoin?”

There’s an old saying in real estate that “you shouldn’t wait to buy, but rather you should buy and then wait.” That’s the way I feel about these cryptocurrencies. If you’re looking for a quick and dramatic financial boost, realize that you could probably get similar odds by buying a plane ticket to Las Vegas, walking into the first casino you see, and putting all your money on black or red. But, if you’re willing to wait it out, there’s a chance that your investment in a cryptocurrency could make for an impressive return over time. Just be prepared to go it the long haul. Or at least until the price spikes tomorrow.

Author Nick Bilton – special correspondent for Vanity Fair.

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

 

David