Cryptocurrency Prices

Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Price Chart May Show $30,000 as Floor

Bitcoin has been grinding lower in a trading range just above $30,000, prompting cryptocurrency insiders to flag the round number as a potential floor for the virtual coin.

Crypto prognostication is fraught with risk, not least because Bitcoin’s price has roughly halved from a record high three months ago. Even so, some in the industry are coalescing around $30,000 as a support point, citing clues from options activity and recent trading habits.

In options, $30,000 is the most-sold downside strike price for July and August, signaling confidence among such traders that the level will hold, according to Delta Exchange, a crypto derivatives exchange. It “should provide a strong support to the market,” Chief Executive Officer Pankaj Balani said.

Traders are also trying to take advantage of price ranges, including buying between $30,000 and $32,000 and selling in the $34,000 to $36,000 zone, Todd Morakis, co-founder of digital-finance product and service provider JST Capital, said in emailed comments, adding that “the market at the moment seems to paying attention more to bad news than good.”

Bitcoin has been hit by many setbacks of late, including China’s regulatory crackdown — partly over concerns about high energy consumption by crypto miners — and progress in central bank digital-currency projects that could squeeze private coins. The creator of meme-token Dogecoin recently lambasted crypto as basically a sham, and the appetite for speculation is generally in retreat.

Bitcoin traded around $31,600 as of 9:26 a.m. in London and is down about 6% so far this week. It’s still up more than 200% over the past 12 months, despite a rout in calendar 2021.

Konstantin Richter, chief executive officer and founder of Blockdaemon, a blockchain infrastructure provider, holds out hope for institutional demand, arguing Bitcoin would have to drop below $20,000 before institutions start questioning “the validity of the space.”

“If it goes down fast, it can go up fast,” he said in an interview. “That’s just what crypto is.”

— With assistance by Akshay Chinchalkar

Source: Bitcoin (BTC USD) Cryptocurrency Price Chart May Show $30,000 as Floor – Bloomberg

Critics:

The dramatic pullback in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies comes as a flurry of negative headlines and catalysts, from Tesla CEO Elon Musk to a new round of regulations by the Chinese government, have hit an asset sector that has been characterized by extreme volatility since it was created.

The flagship cryptocurrency fell to more than three-month lows on Wednesday, dropping to about $30,000 at one point for a pullback of more than 30% and continuing a week of selling in the crypto space. Ether, the main coin for the Ethereum blockchain network, was also down sharply and broke below $2,000 at one point, a more than 40% drop in less than 24 hours.

Part of the reason for bitcoin’s weakness seems to be at least a temporary reversal in the theory of broader acceptance for cryptocurrency.

Earlier this year, Musk announced he was buying more than $1 billion of it for his automaker’s balance sheet. Several payments firms announced they were upgrading their capabilities for more crypto actions, and major Wall Street banks began working on crypto trading teams for their clients. Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange company, went public through a direct listing in mid-April.

The weakness is not isolated in crypto, suggesting that the moves could be part of a larger rotation by investors away from more speculative trades.

Tech and growth stocks, many of which outperformed the broader market dramatically during the coronavirus pandemic, have also struggled in recent weeks.

Crypto Price Mayhem: Data Reveals Bitcoin Is Braced For A ‘Short Squeeze’

Cryptocurrency News, Cryptocurrency Prices, cryptocurrency strategy

Bitcoin traders and investors are still reeling from a steep sell-off that’s wiped around $1 trillion from the combined cryptocurrency market.

The bitcoin price has crashed from almost $65,000 per bitcoin to under $40,000 despite a flood of positive bitcoin news in recent weeks—including Twitter TWTR +0.2% chief executive Jack Dorsey teasing a bitcoin payments plan.

Now, analysis of bitcoin trading data has suggested the bitcoin price could be hit by a so-called “short squeeze”—when the price of an asset increases rapidly due to an excess of bets against it.

“Given bitcoin’s past market performance, when traders use excessive leverage to short the market during a horizontal price adjustment, there will often be a short squeeze phenomenon,” Flex Yang, the chief executive of Hong Kong-based crypto lender and asset manager Babel Finance, wrote in analysis seen by this reporter and pointing to market data that shows recent capital inflows are “from short-sellers and that leverage has greatly increased.”

Since the bitcoin and crypto market crashed in mid-April, the volume of bitcoin perpetual holdings on the crypto exchange Binance have increased by 110%, with the ratio of long to short traders reaching a new low of 0.89—pushing funding rates into the negative.

According to Yang, the reasons behind such excessive shorts include “many people are anticipating a bear market; bitcoin “holders are building hedges,” or “those who bought at high prices are locked in.”

Historical bitcoin price data between February and April 2018 and then again from June to late July 2020, suggests an increase in short-selling is often followed by a bitcoin price surge.

“In November 2020, there was a temporary sharp increase in the number of short-selling positions at a high price,” wrote Yang. “Afterwards, the price of bitcoin continued to rise, continuing its bull market position. No matter if the market outlook is trending downwards after rebounding or if bitcoin maintains its bull market status, short traders have always suffered the consequence of being squeezed out and liquidated.”

The early 2021 bitcoin price bull run was brought to a sharp halt in April when fears over a crypto crackdown in China and mounting concerns over bitcoin’s soaring energy demands sparked panic among investors.

Tesla TSLA +1.1% billionaire Elon Musk sent shockwaves through the bitcoin market when he announced Tesla would suspend its use of bitcoin for payments until the bitcoin network increased its use of renewable energy.

The bitcoin price has failed to recover its lost ground despite continued reports that Wall Street banking giants are increasingly offering bitcoin investment and trading services and the Central America country El Salvador revealed plans to adopt bitcoin as legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar.

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Billy Bambrough

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported on how technology is changing business, political trends, and the latest culture and lifestyle. I have covered the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012 and have charted its emergence as a niche technology into the greatest threat to the established financial system the world has ever seen and the most important new technology since the internet itself. I have worked and written for CityAM, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman, amongst others. Follow me on Twitter @billybambrough or email me on billyATbillybambrough.com. Disclosure: I occasionally hold some small amount of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Source: Crypto Price Mayhem: Data Reveals Bitcoin Is Braced For A ‘Short Squeeze’

Critics:

Predictions of a collapse of a speculative bubble in cryptocurrencies have been made by numerous experts in economics and financial markets. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been identified as speculative bubbles by several laureates of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, central bankers, and investors.

From January to February 2018, the price of Bitcoin fell 65 percent. By September 2018, the MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index had lost 80 percent of its value, making the decline of the cryptocurrency market, in percentage terms, greater than the bursting of the Dot-com bubble in 2002.

In November 2018, the total market capitalization for Bitcoin fell below $100 billion for the first time since October 2017, and the price of Bitcoin fell below $4,000, representing an 80 percent decline from its peak the previous January. Bitcoin reached a low of around $3,100 in December 2018.From 8 March to 12 March 2020, the price of Bitcoin fell by 30 percent from $8,901 to $6,206.By October 2020, Bitcoin was worth approximately $13,200.

Bitcoin has been characterized as a speculative bubble by eight winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences: Paul Krugman, Robert J. Shiller, Joseph Stiglitz, Richard Thaler, James Heckman, Thomas Sargent, Angus Deaton, and Oliver Hart; and by central bank officials including Alan Greenspan, Agustín Carstens, Vítor Constâncio, and Nout Wellink.

The investors Warren Buffett and George Soros have respectively characterized it as a “mirage”and a “bubble”; while the business executives Jack Ma and Jamie Dimon have called it a “bubble” and a “fraud”, respectively. J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said later he regrets calling Bitcoin a fraud.

Crypto’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

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It started even before Elon Musk took the stage on Saturday Night Live. The May 8-14 issue of The Economist arrived in the mailbox, delivering a quiet, existential blow to cryptocurrency as we’ve known it for the last decade or so. The publication’s cover package offered a vision of “govcoins,” digital currencies backed by central banks:

Government e-currencies would score highly, since they are state-guaranteed and use a cheap, central payments hub. As a result, govcoins could cut the operating expenses of the global financial industry, which amount to over $350 a year for every person on Earth.

Although the motivation for these “govcoins” is not to push existing cryptocurrencies to the margins, that would be the likely effect. Then, as Musk appeared on SNL, the price of Dogecoin plummeted. Although news stories attributed Dogecoin’s tumble to a Weekend Update skit that labeled the joke-coin a “hustle,” the selloff started at least half an hour before that. It felt more like a classic “buy the rumor, sell the news” dynamic.

But Musk reserved his true market-moving power for midweek, when he tweeted that Tesla will stop accepting Bitcoin as payment for cars. The reason, Musk said, was “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.” In a later tweet, Musk called the amount of electricity used to produce Bitcoin recently “insane.” Critics pointed out that Musk and Tesla could easily have known about Bitcoin’s energy suck when they embraced the currency months ago; nonetheless, the price of Bitcoin sank by as much as 15% that day.

Musk’s pronouncements put the spotlight on cryptocurrencies that claim to require less electricity to produce. All of a sudden, everyone is touting cryptocurrencies that operate on a more efficient standard than Bitcoin’s “proof of work” standard. The flurry recalls the hype around sustainable aviation fuel or ‘70s-oil-crisis car advertising, in which the sole marketing criterion was which vehicle got the most miles per gallon.

The recently launched Chia Network, for example, plays up its “proof of space and time” standard as more energy efficient. Other cryptocurrencies, like Nano and Cardano, took to Twitter to boast about their supposed energy efficiency. On The Defiant podcast, crypto coder Preston Van Loon insisted that Ethereum—a versatile cryptocurrency that’s still valued about 400% higher than on January 1—is “about six months from proof-of-stake.”

Of course, the dramatic dropoff in Bitcoin and Dogecoin prices is both predictable and relative; the idea that Dogecoin is still trading at over 50 cents a coin is ludicrously mind-blowing. Nonetheless, the Musk-Tesla decision around Bitcoin feels like a watershed moment. Cryptocurrency mining’s energy use has gone from a fringe concern to front and center in a matter of weeks. As FIN noted last week, some state legislatures are beginning to discuss limits on crypto mining. It’s going to get harder for crypto enthusiasts to avoid this issue.

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Fintech Meets Healthcare

One of the most powerful fintech applications imaginable is in American healthcare space. The United States spends trillions of dollars a year on health care, and yet the outcomes are consistently below those of other developed countries. There are dozens of reasons for that, but one that seems ripe for solving is how payments work.

The system of private health insurance is tremendously inefficient, to the point where it actively interferes with patient care. Americans almost never know what a given procedure is going to cost, how much their insurance will or won’t cover, or even when they will be billed. Surveys indicate that more Americans stress out over medical bills more than over their actual care. This chart shows why half of all Americans have been late to pay a medical bill:

For their part, doctors and other medical providers feel swamped with paperwork and antiquated billing systems. One company that’s trying to fix this broken mess is Waystar, a Chicago-based healthcare technologies that offers a cloud-based billing system to help rationalize payments. Waystar claims to currently handle about one out of every four healthcare transactions in the US.

In an interview with FIN, Waystar CEO Matthew Hawkins acknowledged that while the American health care system has for decades been slow to digitize, recent legislative changes—such as 2009’s “meaningful use” law—have spurred positive changes. Moreover, the shift to telehealth services brought on by the COVID pandemic should make the system more efficient. Hawkins said his company’s ultimate goal is “paving the way toward price transparency.”

He laments that “we’ve all gotten comfortable behaviorally with going to a provider, receiving health services, and then not really knowing the cost of those services.” Imagine an app that would tell you in advance what a surgical procedure was going to cost you, and even gave you the option to set up a payment program before you see the doctor!

Robinhood’s Customer Service Glitches Explained

Sheelah Kolhatkar is one of the most talented business writers in the world. And given the connection that former officials of S.A.C. have to the Robinhood story (Kolhatkar wrote the book on S.A.C.), she’s by far the best person to write about Robinhood for The New Yorker. Unfortunately for her and the publication, Robinhood has been so heavily covered since January that a lot of her current piece feel overly familiar.

But the one thing she really nails is Robinhood’s terrible customer service. According to her story, Robinhood outsourced its customer service in 2016 to a company called Voxpro, located in Ireland. Voxpro’s poorly paid employees didn’t have the licensing or certification to deal with investors’ problems. In 2017, Robinhood made the conscious decision to eliminate the option for its users to call and speak to anyone. The company later restored an option for an investor to get a callback, but these years of customer-service neglect explain a lot.

FINvestments

🦈Number of the Week: In the April 11 issue, FIN predicted that Better.com would go public this year. Sure enough, that is happening, via SPAC. The company, which made its fortune selling mortgages but clearly plans to expand into a broader range of financial services, will be valued at $7.7 billion.

🦈PayPal’s march to become an overall e-commerce hub continues; this week it bought Happy Returns, a Santa Monica-based company that makes it easy for people to return in person items that they’ve bought online.

By: James Ledbetter

Source: Crypto’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week – James Ledbetter’s FIN

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Former BlackRock executive says Wall Street’s green investing is ‘PR spin’

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In 2013 The Man Accidentally Threw His Hard Drive In The Trash That Had 7,500 Bitcoins

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An inhabitant of the British city of Newport has approached the local authorities, with the aim of conducting an important search for a hard drive that he accidentally threw in 2013 in a municipal landfill, said device had bitcoins, whose current value is it would approximate 210 million pounds, that is, an average of 288 million dollars.

How did this tragic situation happen?

The 35-year-old computer engineer, James Howells, in 2013 carried out the cleaning of his home, later he realized that he had thrown his hard drive with 7,500 bitcoins in the trash instead of another that was empty.

After his previous application was rejected, Howells makes an offer of 25 percent, or $ 72 million , to the council in the event that he recovers his losses.

“I would like the opportunity to sit down with the decision makers and present an action plan to them,” Howells told South Wales Argus, indicating that he is supported by a hedge fund, prepared to provide funding for the initiative.

What would be the programmer’s strategy to recover his hard drive?

The computer scientist assures that in 2013 a garbage container obtained a serial number when it was filled, this before being transferred to a grave and buried. Also, a grid reference was required.

“So I could access the landfill log, identify the week I dumped the hard drive, identify the container’s serial number, and then the grid landmark,” the developer said, according to the source.

Despite eight years since the incident, Howells remains optimistic about recovering the information within the device. “The box could be rusty, but it is possible that the disk inside where the data is stored still works,” said the engineer.

It is worth mentioning that, with the passage of time, this possibility decreases, according to the programmer, who gave the suggestion that in case his search had a successful end, the funds would be transferred in the form of help to patients with coronavirus of his city.

However, the Newport City Council has indicated that digging, storing and treating all the waste could cost millions of pounds, and there is no solid guarantee that the hard drive will be found or will continue to serve.

Likewise, the institution emphasizes that, in the event of extraction, the activity is impossible due to the requirements of the current licenses and that carrying out this could lead to a serious and negative environmental impact of the place, the same reasons for which they do not guarantee assistance.

In case you are interested: “Reactivate without risking”, the new plan launched by CDMX

By: Entrepreneur en Español Entrepreneur Staff

BBC News

Subscribe to BBC News http://www.youtube.com/bbcnews If someone told you you just threw away over $6 million worth of bitcoins, well you wouldn’t be too happy. You can imagine how James Howells from Wales felt when he discovered that he had thrown away his hardrive containing over 7,000 bitcoins. The value of Bitcoins has reached an all time high so now Mr Howells is frantically searching his local tip in the hope of retrieving his fortune Subscribe http://www.youtube.com/bbcnews Check out our website: http://www.bbc.com/news Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bbcworldnews Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bbcworld Instagram: http://instagram.com/bbcnews

Crypto Market Erases $200 Billion In Market Value In 24 Hours; Regulator Warns Investors Could ‘Lose All Their Money’

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Key Facts

As of 10:30 a.m. EST, the value of the cryptocurrency market has tanked to about $900 billion from a high of $1.1 trillion early Sunday morning, according to crypto data firm CoinMarketCap.

The world’s first and largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin, is behind much of the decline, falling 17% over the past 24 hours—wiping out about $125 billion in market value.

Other top tokens are also plunging, with ether, XRP and litecoin down 21%, 16% and 25%, respectively.

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“As with all high-risk, speculative investments, consumers should make sure they understand what they’re investing in,” the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates financials in the country, said Monday, also issuing a stark warning: “If consumers invest in these types of product, they should be prepared to lose all their money.”

The price plunge started Sunday after a report by the United Kingdom’s Sunday Times shed light on the enforcement measures banks, including HSBC, are taking to bar transfers from cryptocurrency exchanges in the country.

Venture capitalist and longtime bitcoin supporter Tim Draper railed against the measures, tweeting early Monday that “banks don’t like bitcoin because it makes them less relevant” before issuing a bullish forecast that bitcoin prices will hit $250,000 by early 2023; bitcoin is currently trading at around $32,750.

Crucial Quote

“Bitcoin often exhibits large upside swings that tend to be followed by corrections—this is normal behavior for a new technology in the early stage of its adoption curve,” Anatoly Crachilov, the cofounder and CEO of crypto investment manager Nickel Digital, said Monday, adding that the market is positioned for expansion as institutional adoption soars. “Only professional investors with a long-term view on the underlying technology should have exposure to this asset class. They also need high-risk tolerance levels and, importantly, to never lose sight of the forest for the trees.”

Chief Critic

Bank of America Securities Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett warned that bitcoin looks like “the mother of all bubbles,” on Friday, noting that its roughly 1,000% surge since the beginning of 2019 has been fueled by “violent” inflation, akin to the short-lived surges of gold prices in the late 1970s and tech stocks in the late 1990s.

Surprising Fact

Before crashing 80% by the end of 2018, the price of bitcoin, which first launched in January 2009, climbed fifteenfold in 2017 amid a flood of heightened attention and surging mainstream adoption, as retail trading became easier through pioneering bitcoin platforms like brokerage Coinbase.

Key Background

Bitcoin Market Falls Sharply As Litecoin Suddenly Crashes

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Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market watchers were on high alert today as the eagerly-anticipated Bakkt crypto platform went live.

The bitcoin price failed to perform, however, with bitcoin losing around 2% of its value since Bakkt began trading its “physically” settled bitcoin futures contracts, with some $8 billion wiped from the wider cryptocurrency market today.

Meanwhile, litecoin, the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market value, has suddenly gone into free fall, losing almost 10% of its value in a matter of minutes.

The reason for litecoin’s sudden sell-off was not immediately clear, however litecoin is down some 50% since June, thought to be a response to the gains litecoin made earlier in the year as traders cashed out of their positions.

Today In: Money

Litecoin, which has been called the silver to bitcoin’s gold, surged in the first half of 2019 as traders bet an August so-called halvening of the cryptocurrency, where miner rewards for finding blocks are cut, putting a squeeze on supply, would spark a crypto bull market.

Bitcoin is itself due to undergo a halvening event in May next year and many have suggested this will be the catalyst for the next major bitcoin leap higher.

However, many had also expected bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market to get a boost when the Bakkt platform began operating today.

bitcoin, bitcoin price, litecoin, litecoin price, chart — It wasn’t clear what had sparked litecoin’s sudden downturn, though bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency market have disappointed traders and investors today.

Coindesk

Bakkt, an Intercontinental Exchange-backed bitcoin and crypto platform, was unveiled last year and boasted computing giant Microsoft and coffee chain Starbucks among its partners–promising to open up bitcoin to institutional investors and bring crypto spending to the high street.

Trading of Bakkt’s hyped “physical” bitcoin futures, meaning that traders and investors are not able to sell more bitcoin than they actually have, have been muted today, however.

There were just five bitcoin futures contracts traded via the platform after the first hour, rising to 28 ten hours after launch.

Traders and bitcoin industry executives were quick to play down Bakkt’s slow start.

“Bakkt will be likely first a trickle and then a flood,” Su Zhu, chief executive of Singapore-based hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, said via Twitter.

“The reality is that most regulated futures contracts get low adoption on day one simply because not all futures brokers are ready to clear it, many people want to wait and see, the tickers are not even populated on risk systems.”

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Billy Bambrough

Source: Bitcoin Market Falls Sharply As Litecoin Suddenly Crashes

Crypto Dost

4.96K subscribers

The cryptocurrency market has fallen sharply over the past couple of days and is currently at $241 billion market capitalization at the time of recording. While the Bithumb hacking and Japanese regulators’ strict outlook towards cryptocurrency exchanges are being cited as reasons for the sharp decline, the likely cause is that we are still stuck in a long-term bearish cycle. We have still not discovered the bottom of the market, and chances are that the market will continue to be in a state of decline for some time. EOS has taken the biggest hit after a stop-start mainnet launch and controversies surround centralization and constitution. We strongly recommend cryptocurrency investors to take a mid-to-long term approach towards investing and hodl strongly. We believe that mainstream adoption and regulation will brining institutional investors and the next set of retail investors to the market driving prices up in the ling run. References: Correction Deepens as Coin Values Approach 2018 Lows: https://hacked.com/cryptocurrency-mar… Cryptocurrency Market Drops to $241 Billion, EOS Takes a Huge Beating: https://www.ccn.com/cryptocurrency-ma… Bitcoin Price Hits 2018-Low at $5,825, Where Will it Bottom Out?: https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-price-hit… Follow Crypto Dost on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCryptoDost For enquiries, write to thecryptodost@gmail.com Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I have made this channel to share my experiences in the cryptocurrency market. I am not a professional financial advisor and the information provided is solely for educational purposes. Consult your own financial advisors and do your own research before investing in cryptocurrencies. Investing in cryptocurrencies is inherently risky and you can also lose all the amount you invested. Only invest the amount you can afford to lose. The channel shall not be liable to the viewer for any damages, claims, expenses or losses of any kind (whether direct or indirect) suffered by the viewer from or in connection with the information obtained on this channel.

Here’s The Case For A $100,000 Bitcoin Price By The End Of 2021

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The Bitcoin price has been on a tremendous run in 2019, roughly tripling its price in U.S. dollars since the start of the year. That said, Morgan Creek Digital co-founder

Anthony Pompliano thinks the party is just getting started.Pompliano has predicted that the Bitcoin price will reach $100,000 by the end of 2021, and he was recently asked to explain his point of view during an interview with CNN’s Julia Chatterley.

Digital Gold and Loose Monetary Policy

In the past, Pompliano has described the trend towards loose monetary policy combined with Bitcoin’s upcoming halving event as the “perfect storm” for the rise of the digital asset. Pompliano explained this theory during his CNN interview.

“Whenever we get to a recessive period or kind of slowing growth, central banks have kind of two tools: They can cut interest rates, which they did yesterday, and they can print money (quantitative easing). And so, when they do both of those things, it usually takes anywhere between 6 to 18 months to feel the effect of those tools, and what it’s going to do is it’s going to coincide with the Bitcoin halving,” said Pompliano.

A halving event in Bitcoin is when the amount of Bitcoin that are generated by miners every ten minutes is cut in half. Bitcoin’s monetary policy was “set in stone” when the network went live back in 2009, and the scheduled issuance of new Bitcoin is halved roughly every four years.

Originally, 50 Bitcoin were created every ten minutes. Next year, the number of new Bitcoin created in each new block will drop from 12.5 to 6.25.

While gold has historically been viewed as a safe haven asset in times of monetary easing, Pompliano covered a couple of the benefits of Bitcoin over gold during his CNN interview.

“The difference is, between Bitcoin and gold, with Bitcoin, we know exactly how many is getting created, so 1,800 Bitcoin are going to be created today. The second thing is we know the total supply available, which is 21 million. So, it’s not: Hey I wonder how much is in the ground. We know exactly how much it is, and we can actually go and audit or verify the software code of the system,” said Pompliano.

Pompliano is Not Alone

It should be noted that, back in 2017, Pompliano also predicted a $100,000 Bitcoin price by 2019. However, he’s not exactly alone with his latest forecast for 2021.

Pantera CEO Dan Morehead has said there’s a “good shot” the Bitcoin price will hit $42,000 by the end of 2019, and the data used as the basis for his prediction is even more bullish than Pompliano’s $100,000 price point.

Additionally, Tetras Capital’s Brendan Bernstein gave an in-depth presentation on the macroeconomic factors that could lead to a higher Bitcoin price in the coming years at the Bitcoin 2019 conference, and just last week, digital asset research firm Delphi Digital released a report covering Bitcoin’s utility as “digital gold” in the context of more dovish monetary policies from central banks and the possibility of an upcoming recission.

In addition to the macroeconomic trends that could help Bitcoin thrive, some members of the Bitcoin industry have pointed out that Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project could benefit Bitcoin in a roundabout way. President Trump has also inadvertently illustrated the utility of a permissionless, apolitical money like Bitcoin.

On top of all that, members of Congress are realizing they wouldn’t be able to ban Bitcoin in a situation where they wanted to implement such a policy.

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Kyle Torpey

I’m a writer who has been following Bitcoin since 2011. I’ve worked all over the Bitcoin media space — from being editor-in-chief at Inside Bitcoins to contributing to Bitcoin Magazine on a regular basis. My work has also been featured in Business Insider, VICE Motherboard, and many other financial and tech media outlets. I’m mostly interested in the use of Bitcoin for transactions that would be censored by the traditional financial system (think darknet markets and ransomware) in addition to the use of bitcoin as an unseizable, digital store of value. Altcoins, appcoins, and ICOs don’t make much sense to me. Find all of my work at kyletorpey.com. Disclosure: I hold some bitcoin.

Source: Here’s The Case For A $100,000 Bitcoin Price By The End Of 2021

Can Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Power Payments in a Japanese Bar?

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A bar in Japan is teaming up with a locally-based lightning startup to let customers pay for sparkling wine and soft drinks using the experimental payments network.

For the month of June, the Japan-based lightning startup Nayuta will be partnering with Awabar Fukouka to trial the payment system in what they’re calling a “field test.”

The Lightning Network is seen by its supporters as the best way to scale bitcoin so that more people can use the payment system at once, but the technology is still rather experimental and even risky to use. To that end, Nayuta sees this project as an way to further analyze how the technology works in the real world and to find out what still needs to be done to make it easier to use.

Though Awabar said their role is “small,” as the bar did not design the technology (Nayuta did), they’re “delighted” to participate, offering a place for the experimental technology to be tested in a brick-and-mortar context.

The company said in a statement:

“We hope it helps familiarize the community with the lightning network payment system.”

The following video shows how the point of sale app (created by Nayuta and run on the open source payment processor BTCPay) will look for customers purchasing their drinks:

Nayuta is known for helping to draw up specifications for the lightning network and recently launched its own implementation of the budding payment layer geared specifically for connected devices or the Internet of Things (IoT).

The idea is that as the tech components grow less expensive, more devices such as refrigerators and TVs will connect to the internet for data collection.

Source: Pivot – Blockchain Community

Why You Should Store Your Recovery Phrase and Private Keys With CRYPTOTAG

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In 2018 alone more than $1 Billion of crypto was stolen. Most people’s funds were stolen in hacks and scams. Others could not reach their crypto, because they lost their private keys or recovery phrases.

One thing all the cases have in common is poor private key management.

What are private keys and recovery phrases? And how should you protect yourself from losing your funds? Bear with us while we try to explain it in a simple way.

What Is a Private Key?

A private key is the most important information in crypto. Without your private key, you cannot access your crypto. You can compare it with the PIN of your debit card.

If you have forgotten your PIN or if you have lost your bank card, you can call your bank. Then they will send you a new PIN or a new bank card, and you will regain access to your money.

The big difference in the crypto world is that there is no bank or other central organization that can help you recover your funds.

So if you lose your private key, there is no one that can help you to regain access to your funds. If you lose your private key, you cannot call anyone for help, and you will lose your coins forever.

What Is a Recovery Phrase or Recovery Seed?

A recovery phrase is used by crypto wallets like Ledger Nano and Trezor. These phrases or seeds usually contain between 12-24 words.

Compared to a private key a recovery phrase is easier to read for humans. But more importantly, is that the use of recovery phrases enables crypto wallets to store multiple private keys with one recovery phrase.

For example, you have a Ledger Wallet with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum on it. Each coin has its own private key. You do not have to save all those private keys because by making a backup of your Ledger Wallet, you make a backup of all private keys on the Ledger Wallet.

Ways to store your crypto:

Exchanges

This is the riskiest way to store your crypto because your funds are in the hands of a third party. The exchange or custodian is holding your crypto in their wallets. So they control your private keys or recovery phrases of these wallets.

There are countless stories about exchanges being hacked and losing funds of their clients. It is ok to have some of your funds on an exchange for trading purposes. Longtime holdings should never be stored on an exchange because you are not the owner of your keys.

Software Wallets

These wallets like Jaxx, Electrum, and Exodus can be downloaded for free. They enable their users to receive, send and store different types of cryptocurrencies.

Software wallets generate private keys. And you can easily make a backup of a software wallet by saving the recovery phrase offline. This means that with a software wallet you are the owner of your (private) keys.

A software wallet does have the risk that malware or viruses can cause your software wallet to be hacked.

Hardware Wallets

The risks associated with software wallets are solved by hardware wallets like the Trezor and Ledger. The big advantage is that these wallets are secure stand-alone devices that are not connected to the internet.

Recovery phrases are used to back up the private keys stored on the devices. Owning a hardware wallet is a great step in securing your crypto because you are storing your private keys offline. The big risk here is the loss of the recovery phase.

So you did all the right things. You went online, did your research, ordered a hardware wallet, and you are ready to set it up. After a while, you are done, and you are left with a surprise.

You realize that the device itself is not the most important thing. No! The most important thing right now is the piece of paper with your recovery phrase written on it.

All this effort and eventually your early retirement is dependent on a piece of paper? No way!

The CRYPTOTAG

CRYPTOTAG closes the last line of defense with its premium backup system that enables people around the world to truly be their own bank by immortalizing their recovery phrases in titanium.

The CRYPTOTAG handles extreme circumstances like no other. Temperatures up to 3050 °F / 1.668 °C, corrosion and extreme pressure are no problem. Extreme tests have been carried out on the product, and the 6mm thick Titanium is literally bulletproof.

The Amsterdam based team has been testing different engraving methods and have developed a full backup system. During the development, they have been influenced by goldsmiths, metal workers, the aviation industry and old engraving techniques.

These influences are visible in the components included such as the hammer, punching letters, anvil and the use of titanium.

Source: Why You Should Store Your Recovery Phrase and Private Keys With CRYPTOTAG

Bank of England: Cryptoassets Still ‘Too Volatile,’ Not a Good Store of Value By Omar Faridi

Cryptocurrency Company, Cryptocurrency News, Cryptocurrency Prices, cryptocurrency strategy

David Ramsden, the Deputy Governor of Markets and Banking at the Bank of England (BoE), has argued that cryptocurrencies are “too volatile” to be considered a reliable store-of-value (SoV).

In a brief interview with CNBC on April 30th, 2019, Ramsden said that BoE’s officials have been keeping track of the “emerging developments and then thinking about what they mean” or how they’re relevant to our current economic system.

The Deputy Governor noted that “just over a year ago, the financial policy committee looked at cryptoassets in some detail” – as “supported by” and within the context of the latest developments in FinTech and modern banking services. He confirmed that England’s central bank still believes blockchain-based digital assets are highly volatile, based on their recent price movements.

Cryptoassets Not An Effective SoV Or MoE

Cryptoassets are also not a reliable medium-of-exchange (MoE) because the “cost of transactions” remains quite high, Ramsden claims. Because of these issues, the BoE’s management thinks cryptocurrencies don’t satisfy the basic “principles of being a currency.”

Ramsden also pointed out that “this is why” the BoE considers them to be cryptoassets, and not cryptocurrencies. Ramsden further noted that cryptoassets “did not pose a risk” to the overall stability of the much larger traditional financial system. This, as the current market capitalization of the crypto market, which presently stands at over $174 billion, is relatively small compared to the multi-trillion dollar global financial market.

BoE Continues To Monitor Crypto Markets

Despite not being able to negatively affect the traditional financial system, Ramsden said that the BoE continues to monitor cryptoassets. He revealed that the UK’s Treasury Department, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and the Cryptoassets Task Force carefully examined the crypto industry.

According to the regulators, cryptoassets that “fall within” the current regulatory framework must comply with the European nation’s existing financial policies. However, Ramsden said that UK’s financial regulators “also had to be very mindful of [digital] assets and exchanges that [may be operating] in or outside” the UK’s regulatory guidelines.

“Very Positive” About DLT

Ramsden added that the BoE and other regulatory bodies in the UK “remained very vigilant about cryptoassets.” He continued to note that the BoE is “very positive” about the distributed ledger technology (DLT) that “underlies” cryptoassets. He also noted that part of his role “in embracing FinTech across the BoE” involves looking closely at the potential benefits of blockchain tech.

He also mentioned:

We are looking at the potential of DLT … for example, in the payments space, we’re making sure that our real-time gross settlement system can interface and be interoperable with blockchain/DLT technology.

Source: CryptoGlobe

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Key Facts

Crucial Quote

Chief Critic

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Key Background

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Category

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What Is a Private Key?

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Ways to store your crypto:

Exchanges

Software Wallets

Hardware Wallets

The CRYPTOTAG

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Cryptoassets Not An Effective SoV Or MoE

BoE Continues To Monitor Crypto Markets

“Very Positive” About DLT

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