China Plans to Introduce New Crypto to Rival Bitcoin, Say’s Analyst

An influential officer of the PBoC at the meeting of China finance 40 groups had declared China’s intention to introduce a sovereign crypto asset. The declaration of this proposed introduction is unexpected at this time due to the ongoing currency war and trade dispute with the U.S.

China’s Progressive Crypto Route

Mu Changchun, the deputy director in the payment and settlement division at the PBoC had declared during the meeting with bankers that the prototype for the unspecified project is ready to be adopted. This declaration was reported by the local news media of Shangai securities during the weekend. The deputy director further discussed the digital asset intricacies. He added that blockchain features are noticeable in its product but not developed around decentralized ledgers because the retailers and banks use high-bandwidth and speed in China. As it is, the use of a reserve model by the PBoC similar to Circles USDC or a digital fiat model is not certain.

As for the cryptocurrency, it is intended to function in two ways. The upper layer will be operated by PBoC and the lower level will be operated by the retail banks. Changchun had explained that the operational splitting into two segments is to make the project function positively in a complex and massive economy in China.

How this will function was not explained, however, the assumption is that the split structure will function similar to the present double segment structure like that of the present division among Central banks and banks. To further make clear, the PBoC releases the currency and manages high-level payments while the retail banks operate on the adoption and utilization of the cryptos.

As of now, the deputy director Changchun asserts that the crypto is best utilized for “smaller-unit retail high-frequency trade dealings”.

China Crypto May Pose a Challenge to Bitcoin

As a result of the introduction of Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) coming into the space of international finance, discussions centered on the scenario mostly from analysts and economists are dominating the news in the crypto sphere.

A new york University Professor and economist knew for his negative bias towards Bitcoin recently declared in his publication late last year, titled Column for Project Syndicate that the introduction of CBDC’s to the digital sphere will “shut the avenue for Crypto-scammers”.

Probably, most digital payments systems may be changed by the “CBDCs”. Roubini stated by making clear that different to traditional retail banks and websites like Paypal, having high transaction fees, failed transactions and high resistance to free use, the Central banks offer a cost-effective and efficient approach at intermediating and lending money.

Roubini explained that giving access to any person to make payments using the central bank’s platforms, “CBDCs process will automate the structure, easing the requests for money, default banking accounts, and also a digital form of money services”.

In this scenario, the conclusion reached by the economist was declared as having CBDCs replace cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin included, as offering an alternative to low-cost security and decentralized coins by the simplicity of central banking application.

David

EU Antitrust Regulators Scrutinise Facebook’s âCryptocurrencyâ Project

EU Antitrust Regulators Scrutinise Facebook’s “Cryptocurrency” Project

Facebook’s Libra project has been questioned by European Union anti-trust regulators. They are concerned about the project, popularly referred to as a cryptocurrency, restricting competition.

Libra has been subject to immense scrutiny already from global policy and law makers. In fact, the company recently admitted that the regulatory pressure might force it to postpone or even cancel the project altogether.

Facebook’s “Cryptocurrency” Ambitions Draw Yet More Regulatory Attention

Almost as soon as the social networking giant Facebook announced its plans to move into the cryptocurrency space with Libra, the idea was met with hostility from global regulators.

Policy makers from France, the EU, the US, and elsewhere cited a hefty list of concerns about the cryptocurrency-like project. Even United States President Donald Trump weighed in on the subject, stating that the company would have to apply for licences if it wanted to offer banking services, just like any other financial institution does. He also stated that Libra would never pose a challenge to the might of the US dollar:

According to a report today in Bloomberg Law, the list of regulators with doubts about the firm’s cryptocurrency ambitions continues to grow. It states that antitrust regulators in the EU are concerned that the digital currency may stifle competition. The report cites a “document seen by Bloomberg” as evidence.

The document appears to be a questionnaire that has been sent to groups associated with Libra at this early stage of its development. Such a document is a standard part of enquiries made by the European Commission.

The questionnaire seeks to measure how the Libra cryptocurrency-like system may shutout rivals. The European Commission antitrust regulators believe that the integration of the digital currency with applications such as WhatsApp and Messenger could make it all but impossible for competing systems to find traction in the market.

The ever-growing list of regulatory concerns against Libra could well jeopardise the project’s proposed 2020 launch date. In fact, in a document submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company admitted that the scrutiny might force the California-based social media company to discard the cryptocurrency-like project altogether.

Despite the fact that Libra is being touted as a cryptocurrency, most Bitcoin proponents do not see it as competition. Libra will not be priced by market forces like Bitcoin is. Rather, it will be backed by a basket of national currencies. It therefore does not represent the same robust monetary policy that has made BTC a favourite of economists from the Austrian school of thought.

Rick D.

David

The hidden costs of Bitcoin mining

Since 2009, Bitcoin mining has grown into a massive operation involving data centres packed with computer processors and racking up massive electric bills

Argo Blockchain – The hidden costs of Bitcoin mining

Bitcoin mining uses powerful computer processors

Mining Bitcoin is an expensive business, mainly due to the extremely large electricity bill the process can ramp up and the pricey hardware involved.

Bitcoin mining works by using powerful computers (known as nodes) to validate transactions by solving complex mathematical puzzles to find a solution that matches a specific number provided by a grouping, or ‘block’, of transactions which are then linked with other solved blocks to form a block-chain.

However, this isn’t as easy as it sounds as the number can be anything between 0 and 4,294,967,296 and cannot be predicted, so computers must keep guessing at random until they get lucky; the more processing power a node has, the luckier it will be against its competitors.

Once a node guesses the correct number, it is rewarded with 12.5 Bitcoins, currently worth around US$133,425, although this reward halves every four years or so.

While the rewards for mining Bitcoin can be great, the demand for computing power has led to the rise of massive mining nodes made up of dozens of processors that perform trillions of calculations to try to mine as much as possible.

All of this has led to a dramatic spike in the global power supply used to mine Bitcoin, which as of 19 August was estimated at a minimum of around 44 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year, according to tech trends site Digiconomist.

That’s more than the entire annual 2018 power consumption of New Zealand being dedicated to creating a currency that doesn’t physically exist.

Ballooning processor costs

Aside from the massive electricity bill, serious Bitcoin miners also have to contend with the costs of computer processors required to perform the required calculations.

When Bitcoin first appeared on the scene back in 2009, mining the crypto-currency was relatively simple due to the small pool of users who knew about it and were using their PC CPUs (essentially the computer’s brain) to perform the calculations necessary.

However, as Bitcoin’s popularity grew, more powerful processors were needed to compete with the influx of new users, and mining progressed to the use of graphics processing units (GPUs), which were equivalent to the power of around 30 CPUs, before then moving to FPGAs, essentially a GPU that runs three to 100 times faster, and finally application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), pieces of hardware designed solely to mine Bitcoin.

ASICs are now the standard for Bitcoin miners and their costs reflect it, with an Antminer S17, the flagship ASIC from Bitmain, the world’s leading Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer, retailing at around US$2,700 a pop.

For comparison purposes, a top of the range CPU will usually set you back around US$50-US$300.

Case study

On a corporate level, it is possible to extrapolate many of the costs of running a large Bitcoin mining operation by looking at Argo Blockchain PLC (LON:ARB), an-enterprise scale crypto miner listed on the main board of the LSE.

As of 4 July, Argo currently operates 7,025 Bitcoin mining machines from a data centre in the Canadian province of Quebec.

Assuming these machines are all Antminer S17’s, Argo’s existing operation is worth around US$19mln, while also consuming around US$29,741 a day in electricity costs based on Quebec’s electricity prices.

If the operation runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, that’s US$10.8mln a year in power costs alone.

This is only set to increase further, with Argo expecting another 7,000 mining machines to be installed and in production by the end of 2019.

Big Tech needs big power

The seemingly endless hunger of Bitcoin miners for electricity sounds like it would make any environmentalist recoil in terror, and they may have reason to as there are competing reports as to how much carbon dioxide is produced by the global Bitcoin machine despite assertions that most of the power used comes from renewable sources.

A report in May 2019 from cryptocurrency asset manager CoinShares estimated that the global Bitcoin mining network drew around 74% of its power from renewable sources, although a contrasting report in June from journal Joule estimated the network contributed around 22mln tonnes of CO2 each year, around the same amount as Morocco.

However, despite Bitcoin’s massive appetite for electricity, it isn’t the only big tech enterprise straining the world’s energy grid.

Search engine giant Google, owned by parent Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), consumed 8 TWh in 2017 alone, while fellow tech behemoth Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) consumed 3.4 TWh in 2017.

That’s around a quarter of Bitcoin’s annual energy consumption used by only two companies, with other computing heavyweights such as Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft Inc (NASDAQ:MSFT) likely to push the total for 'Big Tech' up even further as the move toward remote, ‘cloud-based’ data centres and huge server farms become a bigger part of modern computing.

If data centres full of social media photos and cat videos begin sapping the electricity grids, Bitcoin mining will probably be the least of the world’s problems.

This in my opinion is call for thuoght. Technology could start to be blamed for Global Warning,

what do you think ? Please comment below

David

Daily confluence detector shows med-strong resistance levels till $10,750

BTC/USD has had a bullish start to the day as the price has gone up to $10,365.

Price is supported by a strong support level at $10,070.

BTC/USD is on the verge of having three bullish days in a row. Unlike the rest of the crypto market, Bitcoin seems to be creeping along in a bullish trajectory, probably buoyed by the news of the Bakkt announcement. The hourly price chart shows that the price fell to $9,885, where it found support and went up to $10,470. That was when it met resistance and then dropped to $10,365.

BTC/USD daily confluence detector

The two resistance levels of note are at $10,550 and $10,670. $10,550 has the 4-hour previous high, 200-day simple moving average (SMA 200) and 1-day previous high. $10,670 has the 1-month Fibonacci 38.2% retracement level.

On the downside, there are two support levels at 10,275 and $10,070. $10,275 has the 1-week Fibonacci 38.2% retracement level and 4-hour previous low. The strongest support level is at $10,070, which has the 1-day Fibonacci 61.8% retracement level and 1-month Fibonacci 23.6% retracement level.

David

Bitcoin Drops the Key $11,000 Level

The sellers are starting to pile back into Bitcoin as the key $11,000 level has fallen away.

The news out today is that major bank Barlclay’s has dumped its relationship with Coinbase, a leading crypto exchange.

For some background here, the major banks are not all that keen to work with crypto exchanges etc. The relationship with Barclay’s, a major London player, was clearly a positive one in terms of market sentiment. The fact that the relationship has soured is now starting to weigh on price.

BTC has today dropped the key $11,000 level and it looks like the slide is starting to gain some more steam.

Technically speaking, we’ve seen price fail a number of times at the $12,000 level. In fact, I suggested that if price couldn’t retest $12,000 then it would have been a lower high, which was spelling rouble. Sure enough, price has slid way from that point after it only made it as high as $11,500 on the first bounce.

There were also numerous attempts at $12,000 and price simply couldn’t breakthrough. So now the door is open for more downside.

The obvious level is now $10,000. That is a big round number level and a big psychological one at that. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a fall through that level and a tag of either $9,500 or even as far as $9,000.

While this news is not earth-shattering, the technicals are the one that is pointing to the selling for me. The fact that price couldn’t break higher, means the bears remain in control and really we just haven’t got a fresh catalyst to see this one push higher just at the moment.

There was some safe-haven appeal last week and that has worn off a bit in the last 24 hours in other assets like GOLD so we should expect more downside here today.

Posted Wednesday, August 14, 2019 by Rowan Crosby

David

Bitcoin Mining Industry Remains on Strong Footing

When the crypto winter struck the market in 2018, analysts predicted that crypto mining would also see a downturn. Some miners did hang their boots in the aftermath of the Bitcoin crash. However, one year down the line, Bitcoin mining is growing stronger than ever

Bitcoin mining- the industry most ignore

Bitcoin mining is becoming more profitable, thanks to the recent rise in prices and the rise of Bitcoin mining pools. In the early days of the coin, mining could be done by an individual using their CPU, but now, large Bitcoin mining pools are using advanced ASICs designed for mining to maximize profits. Back in December 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto commented that he would want the community members to stop the GPU arms race and said, “It’s nice how anyone with just a CPU can compete fairly equally right now.” Fast forward 10 years and the Bitcoin hashrate is now dominated by large mining pools.

Currently, the biggest chunk of Bitcoin mining is attributed to BTC.com, which controls over 20.1% of the mining power. F2Pool controls 14% hashrate, Antpool controls 11.1% and Poolin controls 10.9%. SlushPool is another dominant pool with 8.7% hashrate with ViaBTC, BTC.TOP, BitFury, etc. contributing the rest.

In the case of Bitcoin Cash, the hashrate is distributed much less evenly with BTC.com dominating 26.7%, Pooling and AntPool controlling 8.5% each and Bitcoin.com controlling 6.6%.

How do miners stay profitable?

In December 2018, after Bitcoin prices suffered constant downturns, only five mining rigs were profitable. The reason behind their success could be lower electricity costs (the biggest expense for miners), at 13 cents per kWh. As of August 2019, over 40 mining devices were profitable at the same electricity prices. The top performer was Microbt Whatsminer, followed by three models by the largest Bitcoin mining company Bitmain. The Whatsminer is profiting by $10.49, and Bitmain’s three new Antminer S17 series miners can easily go to $9 per day.

However, Bitmain still remains the top mining firm followed by Canaan, Ebang, Innosilicon, Strongu, and Microbt. Bitmain is now considering a public listing on a US stock exchange owing to the massive profits that its business generates. Thanks to mining, the semiconductor industry is also getting a heads up. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors and the 7 nanometers (7nm) node design is now a reality. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) recently received an order for 30,000 7nm chipsets from Bitmain which further confirms that Bitcoin mining isn’t slowing anytime soon.

Viraj Shah by Viraj Shah August 12, 2019

David

BTC/USD fails to extend bounce from 11,100/115 rest-area

BTC/USD remains below 1-month old resistance-line.
11,100/115 offers immediate support ahead of 21-DMA level around 10,650.

Despite bouncing off three-week-old horizontal-support, the BTC/USD pair fails to clear near-term trend-line resistance as it makes the rounds to 11,425 during early Monday.

The leading crypto pair has been under pressure recently as price rally in other altcoins joins speculations of increased Bitcoin mining. Adding to the market fears is the on-going US-China trade war and the global ire against Facebook’s Libra that has weighed on the cryptocurrencies alike.

Though, not all market participants have the same view as far as the negative impact of the trade war is concerned. Nigel Green, Chief Executive and Founder of deVere Group, says that the devaluation of China’s currency, currently rattling global financial markets, shows that Bitcoin is now becoming a safe haven asset.

Further to note is the Cointelegraph news that quotes People’s Bank of China (PBoC) Deputy Director Mu Changchun while saying that a prototype that adopts blockchain architecture has been successfully developed after five years of research.

Technical Analysis

The quote needs to overcome a month-old falling trend-line, at 12,170 now, in order to aim for month’s high near 12,345 and July month top close to 13,200. On the downside break of 14,100, 21-day moving average (DMA) near 10,650 can lure sellers.

Anil Panchal

FXStreet

David

How easy is it to make friends here in Markethive?

Fact or fiction, most members in Markethive do not post to the newsfeed? I think we can agree that most members join Markethive and aside from loading a picture and adding brief information to their profile page, may rarely if ever post to the Newsfeed.

What does this mean for the Marekthive members who are active? It means when an announcement appears in the Newsfeed, it may be your one unique chance to request a friend from that person, and you may not get another chance.

Of course, you get paid a small amount of Markethive coin for each friend that you invite. You need to login to Markethive every day in order to make friends on a regular basis. This activity alone will probably keep you at least as a DO BEE. If you add commenting on a regular basis, you my easily achive the level of WORKER BEE. If you write posts on a regular basis, you may achieve the BUSINESS BEE level. Depending on the frequency of all of these activities you may actually propel yourself into the ROYAL BEE catagory where there will likely be some substantial rewards.

I know well the value of the size of any social network. With effort over a 3 year period, I have managed to accumulate over 13,000 1st level connections on LinkedIn. Most of the members I have brought to Markethive have come from my LinkedIn connections. These new members in Markethive has brought me several hundred thousand Markethive coins. Remember, every new member you bring into Markethive rewards you with 500 Markethive coins as an entrepreneur.

I am not very active on LinkedIn anymore. My activities have taken me in another direction, but I am still gaining 1st level connections on a daily basis due to the size of my LinkedIn netowork alone. I state the number of connections I have on my profile title, and many people want to connect to me for that reason. My LinkedIn network is expanding now on it's own. I only have to accept connection requests with a click of the mouse on a weekly basis which only takes minutes.

LinkedIn limits the size of your network to 30,000 1st level connections, so I am less than halfway to maxing out my number of connections on LinkedIn.

Facebook limits you to 5,000 friends. I am close to that limit now.

Twitter limits your followers depending on number of people who follow you. There is a certain ratio there. I do not know exactly what that ratio is.

Instagram will not allow any account to follow more than 7500 users. Once you reach that limit, you will not be able to follow anyone else.

Tumblr will not let you follow more than 5,000 blogs. After that you will have to delete a blog if you want to follow another.

Most social networks impose restrictions on the number of people you can connect with. I do not understand this at all.

How about Markethive? There are no system restrictions to the number of friends or associates you can have. That fact alone should be enough to make you want to participate here in Markethive

This is one more example of how Markethive is the social network for entrepreneurs.

I hope this fact inspires you to be active here on Markethive. Remember, in addition, Markethive is the only social network that pays you for every one of your efforts on the network. In time, these small accumulated efforts alone will be worth a small fortune.

Best of success to you in all your endeavors!

John Lombaerde

Founding member of Markethive

http://markethive.com/jonlomb/page/jonlomb

David

Cryptocurrencies Are Booming in Smaller Countries

Cryptocurrencies Are Booming in Smaller Countries

Cryptocurrencies are earning their due, and we can thank most of the world’s smaller nations for this.

Cryptocurrencies Are Growing in Stature

Many developed countries, such as the United States, see cryptocurrencies primarily as speculative tools; something to invest in for the sake of becoming rich five, ten or 20 years down the line. Other countries, however, see cryptocurrencies for what they really are – forms of payment. It’s always been the goals of most major cryptocurrencies to be utilized for purchasing goods and services. However, their volatility and consistent price swings have made this very difficult. Many companies do not wish to allow cryptocurrencies as means of payment due to the potential of losing money in the future. Think about this: you use $50 worth of bitcoin to make a purchase, but then the next day, the price goes down and that $50 turns into $30. You still walk off with all your merchandise, but the company has lost $20 in the process. Fair? Hardly, but it seems to be how crypto operates.

For this reason, many countries have sought to either reject or ban the notion of crypto being used to pay for everyday needs, but in some areas, crypto is the only hope for citizens. In third-world or developing nations, for example, where corruption runs rampant within the financial systems or where most people don’t have access to solid credit options like they would with standard institutions, crypto can solve a lot of problems. It moves quickly, for one thing. People can deposit or send money faster than it takes to send or receive fiat.

Prospects like these are beginning to garner notice in regions like Belarus of eastern Europe. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met with cryptocurrency entrepreneur Viktor Prokopenya roughly two years ago to discuss regulating cryptocurrency activity within the nation’s borders. Belarus has since become one of the first nations on the planet to fully legalize and regulate cryptocurrency trades. Citizens are now able to sell, trade and receive cryptocurrencies through a digital exchange managed by Prokopenya. In a recent interview, the entrepreneur

stated:

The idea was to create everything from scratch. To make sure that it is free in some of the aspects it needs to be free, and very stringent in other aspects.

Since then, other regions – such as Malta and Bahrain – have studied Belarus’ ways of monitoring crypto and implemented similar systems. The idea among these nations (and others) is to create their own specific rulebooks and avoid general legislation that other countries have tried so hard (and failed) to implement.

Be Lenient and Tough at the Same Time

Jesse Overall, a crypto lawyer at Clifford Chance in New York,

states:

There are jurisdictions in the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil camp. On the other end, there is the U.S., U.K. and the EU. In the middle, that’s the juicy part of the spectrum.

Article Produced By
Nick Marinoff

https://www.livebitcoinnews.com/cryptocurrencies-are-booming-in-smaller-countries/

David

Adding Video Content to Your Social Media Strategy

The impact of social media has altered all kinds of industries.

The value of having a presence online has never been greater. Word-of-mouth marketing that once occurred in small social circles or at the office now takes place online?—?a much larger platform for communication. That value is steadily increasing as time goes on. Now more than ever, brands are able to reach larger audiences with recommendations, partnerships, and ambassadors on social media.

The projected figure for social media users this year will land somewhere around 2.62 billion. Social media now attracts users of all ages. Unfortunately, some brands still underestimate the power of social media. Even though brands may have opted out of creating an online presence due to their demographic in the past, now even once a large following has been established, some accounts may not take full advantage of the potential they have.

What do users like?

Different types of content are gaining traction online, including video content and live streaming. While these may seem new, foreign, and maybe even intimidating to certain brands, it is hard to ignore that this is the content users are beginning to prefer. In fact, according to Cisco, online videos will make up more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic (85% in the US) by 2020. Understanding how to engage an audience with video content and live streaming is vital to increase and properly utilize a company’s online presence. Fortunately, these types of content are also excellent for driving site traffic.

How can companies utilize video on social media?

In order to increase engagement and clicks, create an introduction video or demo a new product. Companies can record and package a short and sweet video or conduct a live stream to engage social media users in a live conversation with brand experts, developers, or ambassadors. Another great piece of content to create for your social media platforms are how-to videos. These can be formatted in jump-cut style steps and are great for highlighting how a product can be used in creative ways. You may recall on your personal social media feed viewing some very satisfying cooking how-to videos. They are always very brief and cleanly executed (for some great examples, take a peek at Tasty Presents). This is the type of content that users are beginning to prefer.

Event coverage is also a great way to grow your brand reputation online. Again, this can be through an edited piece of footage, or through a live stream. Live streams are great for events because they allow users who could not attend to feel like they get to be a part of the experience. They also allow your customers to ask questions on the spot which can create greater company transparency and customer loyalty.

Create, learn and start again.

As with any online activity that a company may conduct, it is important to gather data garnered from video content or live streaming. How many views did your content receive? How many users watched the entire piece of content or stream? How many users dropped off after a certain point? How many users asked questions, left comments, or shared your content? How did your company’s site traffic change once the content was released? How did site traffic and online content impact sales?

Although video content requires a certain level of planning, production, and execution that may surpass what your brand has accomplished in the past with simply photo content alone?—?it is undeniable the potential benefits that video content can have. In order to fully reap the benefits of digital video content creation, data must be recorded and analyzed.

Business Insider reported on a finding by Zenith, predicting that global online video consumption will grow by an average of nine minutes per day each year until 2020. These findings support the idea that the digital video audience is becoming more engaged?—?something all companies with an online presence, seeking to increase site traffic, engagement, and sales, should be aware of.

Article Produced By

Megan Gonzales

Revenue-generating, brand-building marketer. PNW explorer. Yogi. Animal enthusiast. Marketing Manager.

https://medium.com/@megangonzales/adding-video-content-to-your-social-media-strategy-70263056c712

David