After a stark plunge Thursday that wiped out $100 billion in market value, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is back near all-time highs Tuesday as corporations like Visa and PayPal join other institutional players in expanding their crypto offerings.
As of 4 p.m. EDT, the price of bitcoin has climbed 2% over the past 24 hours, pushing its market capitalization up to $1.1 trillion–about $40 billion shy from an all-time high on March 13 and pushing gains to roughly $144 billion since a sharp correction on Thursday, according to crypto-data website CoinMarketCap.
‘Analysts are pinning the resurgence to still-booming institutional adoption, including PayPal’s new cryptocurrency checkout service, which launched Tuesday and allows the company’s more than 375 million customers to shop using cryptocurrency at millions of online merchants (PayPal didn’t specify an exact figure, but says the program will expand in the coming months).
Qanda Senior Market Analyst Edward Moya calls the move “another massive cryptocurrency endorsement from Wall Street” and “further proof of mainstream acceptance” just one day after Visa said it will start settling transactions with cryptocurrency partners using a token built on the Ethereum blockchain, which underpins the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, ether.
Moya notes that bitcoin, which is priced at about $59,080, could struggle to push past $60,000 again but says the recent developments “should be enough to keep the bullish trend going strong.”
Nigel Green, the CEO of $12 billion wealth advisory deVere Group, said in an email Tuesday that growing corporate investments from the likes of Tesla and billionaire Jack Dorsey’s Square are signs that institutions are employing the “buy the dip” mantra popularized by retail investors—meaning they’re loading up on bitcoin when prices plunge.
What To Watch For
Regulation. Though Wall Street is warming up to bitcoin, legendary hedge fund manager Ray Dalio warned last week that he thinks there’s a “good probability” bitcoin could be banned by the U.S. government, similar to how it banned gold nearly a century ago. The Securities and Exchange Commission has been slow to issue regulation for cryptocurrencies.
In an interview with Forbes, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said Gary Gensler, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head up the agency, would likely be “sympathetic to the call for regulatory clarity.” When nations like South Korea started cracking down on cryptocurrency three years ago, prices crashed as much as 80% over the course of one year, though it’s unclear how such a development could affect markets today.
Key Background
Bitcoin prices have skyrocketed over the past year amid booming institutional adoption and inflation fears sparked by unprecedented government spending to combat the pandemic. Last week, billionaire Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla would start accepting bitcoin for vehicle purchases and retaining the cryptocurrency tendered, as opposed to converting it to U.S. dollars. Also this month, Fidelity Investments filed an application for its first bitcoin exchange-traded fund, and banking powerhouse Morgan Stanley said it would open up bitcoin exposure to its wealthy clients, though it’s limiting such funds to investors with “an aggressive risk tolerance.”
Surprising Fact
Bitcoin has surged nearly 800% over the past year. Its return of about 96% this year is more than any sector tracked by the S&P 500.
I’m a reporter at Forbes focusing on markets and finance. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I double-majored in business journalism and economics while working for UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School as a marketing and communications assistant. Before Forbes, I spent a summer reporting on the L.A. private sector for Los Angeles Business Journal and wrote about publicly traded North Carolina companies for NC Business News Wire. Reach out at jponciano@forbes.com
Chamath Palihapitiya says he sees bitcoin going to $200K down the road, and what he discusses what he believes to be the future for Virgin Galactic. I really believe in the business, he says, it’s an incredible team. Subscribe to CNBC PRO for access to investor and analyst insights on bitcoin and more: https://cnb.cx/2BT2E7y
Bitcoin smashed through $40,000 to hit a new record high on Thursday helping to lift the total value of the entire cryptocurrency market above $1 trillion for the first time. The digital coin hit an all-time high of $40,367 at around 1:17 p.m. ET, just a few hours after blowing past the $39,000 level, according to data from Coin Metrics.
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At the height of the cryptocurrency boom, the manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) , Agustín Carstens , warned about the dangers of investing in them. The former finance secretary warned that Bitcoin is increasingly vulnerable and could completely collapse .
Yesterday, January 27, during the policy seminar of the Hoover Institution , the Mexican economist said that Bitcoin is a speculative asset, not money .
“Investors should be aware that Bitcoin can completely crash. Scarcity and crypto alone are not enough to guarantee exchange, “ explained Carstens , adding that ” Bitcoin is increasingly vulnerable .
The also former governor of Banco de México , affirms that central banks must control the issuance and management of digital money . Consider that they have the financial structure to guarantee the stability of the cryptocurrencies .
“For digital money to exist, the central bank must play a fundamental role, guaranteeing the stability of the value, ensuring the elasticity of the aggregate supply of said money and overseeing the general security of the system. Such a system must not fail and cannot tolerate serious errors , ”Carstens said
The BIS manager said that other private stablecoin projects, such as Facebook’s , are more credible than Bitcoin , but need to be regulated.
“In general, private stablecoins cannot serve as the foundation for a sound monetary system ,” he said. “But to remain credible, they must be strictly regulated and supervised. They must build on the foundations and confidence that the existing central banks give them and, therefore, be part of the existing financial system .
For now, many countries are targeting Central Bank digital currencies (CBDC) . In fact, 86% of major central banks are actively exploring CBDCs , according to a recent BIS survey.
Carstens indicated that national CBDCs would be used in various ways, such as the transmission of monetary policy and the management of interest rates. He explained that they should be complementary to the existing cash system , as completely replacing all bank accounts and cash with digital money is “undesirable” and “unrealistic .”
00:00 Intro 00:28 Halving and Support explained 03:34 Analysis of the previous Bull run 05:31 Analysis of this Bull run 06:42 How to counter Pullbacks 09:00 Conclusion 10:15 Outro Bitcoin is now worth more than 41k and it just keeps on climbing. But is this growth sustainable? Is a pullback, correction or crash in front of our door? Unfortunately timing the market is impossible but we can look at historical data and trends to get a general idea of the possibilities. In this video we’re going to do a technical analysis and look at previous trends.
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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.
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After a more than 100% surge over the past month, the cryptocurrency market is taking a massive hit Monday as regulators and other experts sound the alarm on bitcoin’s booming rally, but not everyone’s convinced the bearishness is warranted.
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.
“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 Timesshed 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
The cryptocurrency market’s massive rally has been fueled in large part by inflation concerns and institutional adoption. Investors have been eyeing regulatory approval of a bitcoin exchange-traded fund, but JPMorgan warned Friday that such a development may actually hurt bitcoin prices in the short term as investors cash out of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, an SEC-approved bitcoin price-tracking fund that many have turned to in lieu of an ETF.
I’m a reporter at Forbes focusing on markets and finance. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I double-majored in business journalism and economics while working for UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School as a marketing and communications assistant. Before Forbes, I spent a summer reporting on the L.A. private sector for Los Angeles Business Journal and wrote about publicly traded North Carolina companies for NC Business News Wire. Reach out at jponciano@forbes.com
After a more than 100% surge over the past month, the cryptocurrency market is taking a massive hit Monday as regulators and other experts sound the alarm on bitcoin’s booming rally, but not everyone’s convinced the bearishness is warranted.”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.”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. Before crashing 80% by the end of 2018, the price of bitcoin, which first launched in January 2009, climbed 15-fold in 2017 amid a flood of heightened attention and surging mainstream adoption, as retail trading became easier through pioneering bitcoin platforms like brokerage Coinbase.
The cryptocurrency market’s massive rally has been fueled in large part by inflation concerns and institutional adoption. Investors have been eyeing regulatory approval of a bitcoin exchange-traded fund, but JPMorgan warned Friday that such a development may actually hurt bitcoin prices in the short term as investors cash out of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, an SEC-approved bitcoin price-tracking fund that investors have turned to in lieu of an ETF. As Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple’s XRP And Litecoin Lose Billions, Watchdog Issues Stark Crypto Price Warning (Forbes)SEC Charges Ripple With Selling $1.3 Billion In Unregistered Securities, XRP Loses $2 Billion In Market Value (Forbes) All data is taken from the source: http://forbes.com Article Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathan…#bitcoin#newsheadlines#cnnnewstoday#newstodaylocal#newstodayabc#newstodaybbc #
Everyone loves Bitcoin. Personally, I can’t get enough of it. Though I just sold all of my XRP, as an aside, because I learned it was being delisted from Coinbase next week, Bitcoin, on the other hand, I am keeping for the moonshot.
Now that Grayscale has its Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund, the market cap for Bitcoin has hit a trillion dollars. It is approaching $40,000 per coin.
We know the role central banks are playing in BTC’s rise: debasement of currency via money printing. But what about China?
This is the most curious one for me, especially following what appears to be the self-exile of Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of Alibaba BABA+4.1%. Ma got into some trouble with Beijing regulators following the postponed listing of his fintech company Ant Financial, owners of AliPay, which is ubiquitous in China (you can also find it at your local CVS for some reason). Now there is talk of breaking up the Jack Ma tech empire, something akin to what anti-Big Tech advocates here in the U.S. have been asking be done of Google and Facebook.
One can almost see Chinese billionaires buying up Bitcoin, just in case Beijing comes for their wealth. Lord knows the dollar is in decline, and they probably already own a ton of stocks.
The Chinese currency, out of all the G10 currencies, has the strongest statistical correlation to BTC over the last 12 months, at around 84%. That means that as the RMB gets stronger against the dollar, so does Bitcoin, 84% of the time, says Vladimir Signorelli, head of Bretton Woods Research in Long Valley, New Jersey.
“When Bitcoin rises, the RMB is rising right along with it,” he says, adding that the euro has a 74% to 75% correlation with Bitcoin. The Russian ruble has a 25% correlation.
And then there is the Jack Ma effect. He’s the “canary in the coal mine” says Signorelli. “There could also be an internal dynamic in China keeping Bitcoin bullish,” he says. “You have Jack Ma’s total disappearance since October. Was it a canary in the coal mine for every millionaire and billionaire in China that you need to have a Plan B? There is a real risk of outright confiscation of your wealth. They see it clearly now.”
China’s crypto market has a massive user base. Singapore-based ZB.com Exchange is one of the top four exchanges that are popular among Chinese users. “Our in-app community is very active with Chinese users right now,” says Oman Chen, ZB’s CEO. The seven-year-old company runs digital asset trading platforms ZBM, ZBX and Bithi, cryptocurrency wallets like BitBank, and has a venture capital and research arm. “Most of these traders are very optimistic about the price of Bitcoin,” Chen says.
QCash, a stable coin trading pair supported on ZB.com, which is anchored to the Chinese yuan, is seeing strong trading volumes, according to ZB data. QC is the most liquid yuan-based stable coin.
China’s Digital Yuan Experiment
Last month, China gave its digital yuan a test drive in Suzhou. The experiment lasted roughly 10 days, but stands as a testament to China’s interest in crypto beyond the Bitcoin phenomenon.
Xinhua newswire reported on one resident surnamed Lu who had bought some snacks at a store in the Tianhong Shopping Mall using digital yuan. She transferred 66.6 yuan (about $10.21) from her digital wallet to the vendor’s account with no need for a cell tower connection.
Lu was one of the 100,000 residents of Suzhou who were given 200 digital yuan in the pilot program and could spend it at designated brick-and-mortar stores as well as online at JD.com between Dec. 12 to 27. Noted: not Alibaba.
This doesn’t mean the Chinese government loves Bitcoin, of course. Just that its population is more accustomed to the concept of cryptocurrency than the average American. Go ahead, ask your dad if he knows what Bitcoin is.
“The Chinese government considers Bitcoin a commodity, not a currency,” says Aries Wanlin Wang, a Chinese cryptocurrency investor.
The digital RMB (DCEP) program in Suzhou has adopted some blockchain functionalities but it is not the fully decentralized kind that true Bitcoin lovers want.
“The Chinese government wants to promote the digital yuan before anyone else,” says Wang. “They see the potential of a new payment and clearance system in the digital currency era. It may substitute the current Swift system,” he says, which tracks interbank transactions and is led by the U.S.
Crypto For Poor Countries
Last month, Venezuela’s government said it was giving up on its currency and would switch slowly to a digital system. Their Bolivar is worth less than seashells found on Margarita Island so it makes sense.
Argentina should be next. All of this will drive continued enthusiasm for Bitcoin, no matter the price. At the start of 2020, Ripio, one of Argentina’s largest crypto exchanges, had around 400,000 users and then ended the year with over a million.
Argentina’s tight control over dollars (no one wants pesos there), coupled with a new 35% tax, plus limits as to how many dollars you can buy (just $200), means the Argentines have discovered Bitcoin in a big way, too.
China’s currency, unlike those two basket case currencies of South America, is strong and getting stronger. Moreover, its central bank has been moving on a digital form of its currency for at least three years. They lead on this within the big and medium-sized emerging markets. Indeed, the only country ever talking about Bitcoin is Venezuela, run by the mightily corrupt Socialists United party.
“Even though Beijing has a strong resistance to cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin, they have taken the part of blockchain technology that is beneficial to their country’s development,” says Chen from Singapore.
“The central bank’s digital currency can not only give the country a higher level of control over the fiat currency but also snatch back some Chinese users from third-party digital payment platforms such as Alipay and WeChat,” Chen says. Since central bank digital currency is issued at the national level, like fiat currencies, the state endorsement is more powerful to skeptics and it accelerates demonetization in favor of crypto.
Bitcoin, in China at the moment, is rising with the fortunes of a stronger yuan and the digital yuan experiments.
Rich Chinese nationals may be thinking, ‘you know what, I rather have something that is loaded and convertible and beyond the reach of Beijing and perhaps the reach of the PBoC’ — that’s the central bank of China.
In this way, they don’t have to worry about currency devaluation and Bitcoin becomes a tax hedge. The top income tax rate in China is around 45%.
People might not remember, but this time last year gold was at $1515 an ounce; it’s now around $1850. The dollar on a gold basis has lost 20% or more of its value, notes Signorelli, searching for reasons why Bitcoin has doubled in less than four weeks.
“If you put your currency and inflation hedges into BTC instead of gold, man…you’re doing fantastic,” Signorelli says. “My suspicion is that as Chinese wealth increases, it is going to be increasingly difficult for Beijing to prevent their nationals from seeking ways to preserve their capital outside of the RMB. If they can’t buy U.S. real estate or stocks, and U.S. and European bonds pay little, they’ll take some more risk with Bitcoin, I think.”
I’ve spent 20 years as a reporter for the best in the business, including as a Brazil-based staffer for WSJ. Since 2011, I focus on business and investing in the big emerging markets exclusively for Forbes. My work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Nation, Salon and USA Today. Occasional BBC guest. Former holder of the FINRA Series 7 and 66. Doesn’t follow the herd.